#they made it so the women are all catgirls and the men are all more elven which is. something?????

[ajdrawshq]

i finished 7th dragon a lil while ago n some of the worldbuilding is so funny i cant stop thinking abt it. why is the lost city of atlantis populated by catgirls

[triptychgardener]

Hello sorry if this is a bother but I am asking in good faith where is the reading for transmasc nepeta. I’m asking this cuz of your last ask (the June one) and I see aradia Dirk and Jane. Thoes all I have seen post and analysis about. But I have not really seen anything about nepeta.

Okay so first thing you gotta understand is that gender in Homestuck, for lack of a better way to say it, can be understood in how characters reflect and relate to each other. That being said to understand Nepeta's gender, we gotta understand the gender of at the very least one other person.

Dave.

And more specifically.

Davepeta, Homestuck's very own first(ish) trans character.

Davepeta is noted to be a sort of platonic ideal of existence for both Dave and Nepeta. Somehow, through a strange series of cosmic coincidences, these two end up making an odd sort of parallel. Both having a strange relationship to a man who loves him some goddamn horses. The whole Akwete Purrmusk thing. I mean, Dave canonically engaged in semi-nonironic furry roleplay with Nepeta offscreen, and given what we know about what becoming a furry in Homestuck means, it's not a leap to describe this as their ideal form.

But, although we don't see a lot of Nepeta's character arc, we do see a lot of Dave's. He struggles his whole life under an incredibly oppressive masculine force (both of Bro and, indirectly, Lord English), and once the game is over ends up deconstructing and largely rejecting that.

So when Davesprite, who's also probably been thinking about this for even longer, bereft of purpose or identity, finds a kindred soul in a spunky catgirl... well the rest is Davepeta.

And similarly, there are points in the story where Nepeta acts kind of uncomfortable with how others see her as exclusively something to be protected. The whole "Dear, sweet, precious Nepeta" grates on her early on, as Equius uses it as an excuse to control her actions. The whole of moiraillegience as it is originally explained (i.e. one party helps to calm down an especially brutal and violent person from outbursts of anger, and in turn that person will protect the more docile, even-tempered soul from external harm) even kind of FEELS like the way heterosexual relationships are portrayed in a lot of conservative spaces, where women are nuturers and caretakers while men are protectors. And Nepeta is supposed to, in this situation, be the person who helps Equius manage his emotions, which she feels some consternation at!

Now, over the course of Hivebent, their relationship appears to evolve and get a bit more balanced, but it still carries these overtones of "I will protect you, and you will handle my outbursts." Notably, when Equius goes to seek the Highb100d, and leaves Nepeta behind.

And of course not after roleplaying as each other.

Which. I mean come on.

But notably, Nepeta doesn't just stay put! She doesn't really want to be protected all the time! And when push comes to shove, she leaps out to defend, or at the very least avenge, her best friend.

And then, we don't really see Nepeta for a while!

Until we get to the end of the comic.

During their whole "date", Nepeta seems a little uncomfortable with Jasprose's affections. She may be a bit flattered, but Jasprose also fully admits later that she was frankly looking for any girl she could fall in love with after the tragic death of her girlfriend and possible more tragic untimely resurrection.

But then the pivotal handshake happens, and we get to see who is perhaps the most happy being in all of Homestuck.

Then we get into some of the only actual discussion of gender in Homestuck. We don't get much besides that, for both of their lives, Dave and Nepeta both felt something was missing. Something felt wrong that they couldn't quite place that made them both miserable. I don't think it's a massive stretch to say this could be gender dysphoria.

And when they combine, they feel the fullness of the gendered experience they were missing, melded together like a two-piece puzzle.

Now while the abovementioned "strong identities as a boy and a girl" might throw you off, I would point to what Victoria Lacroix said about this passage: note the lack of the word "respectively." I rest my case.

Now full disclosure, my personal headcanon for Nepeta is genderfluid transmasc. The whole affinity for roleplaying lends itself to a more shifting identity and I just think Nepeta, given more time, would love exploring the little nooks and crannies of gender.

This isn't going into the more complicated shit with Gender when it comes to Equius and Dirk and all that other stuff. Here's a quick summary so you can see exactly how my brain is broken.

Anyways, thanks for the question! I hope I answered my thoughts on the topic adequately! If other people have more to say about this, please feel free to add on!

[enaspaces]

my shuri headcanons 𓃠

a dump of my thoughts because i love her and she’s taken over my mind

• on the trans/nonbinary spectrum. more specifically a demigirl and doesn’t care what pronouns you use on him. owns a binder for specific days that she wants her chest to look flat.

• very lesbian. her heart is for women and non-men 🏳️‍🌈

• i view her as a stud or a stem. it depends on how i’m feeling atm.

• she’s not just a nerd in the science sense she’s a huge fandom geek and has a stan twitter account to talk about her interests.

• also has fan edits of her favorite characters and interests saved on her phone. probably makes her own edits too.

• average minecraft enjoyer (she’s obsessed)

• reads a lot of wlw comics, novels, and other media bc they’re a gay ass.

• has AuDHD, argue with ur mama.

• is almost always seen wearing noise cancelling headphones or earbuds because she gets overstimulated at times. when she visits riri in chicago for the first time, the constant loud city noise is something he’s not used to. he had forgot to pack the headphones he made for himself so riri makes him a custom made pair to help him relax. they end up using riri’s more than their own. (riri indulgently put small cat ears on the top of them and shuri almost cried at the sight).

• catgirl energy. riri may make her look tall but that’s still a 5’5 girl twink that stopped growing at age 13. she’s small and likes to sit on counters, lab tables, the floor and any other weird place that’s not meant to be sat on. she curls up in a ball when she sleeps alone, and if she’s in the bed with someone else her limbs are all over their body. has cute sounding sneezes that m’baku makes fun of her for. one of the lab workers once found her asleep in a random corner of the room. naturally very light-footed and basically has human toe beans, making it very easy to sneak up on people without them hearing.

• has quite a few fidget toys to help her focus on work in the lab and ease her anxiety. a rubik’s cube, fidget spinners, stress ball, pop its, etc.

• she stims. so much. especially after she successfully completes a task or experiment and she’ll do a dance or do the lil hand flapping thing. her vocal stims are always random song lyrics or tiktok meme audios lol.

• has a sweet tooth. when okoye was a dora she’d occasionally bring candy or other sweets for her to snack on. riri goes to the store and buys him all the popular american snacks for him to try. nakia always has a mini stash prepared for when they visit her and toussaint in haiti.

• favorite color is purple. it just suits her.

• a GAMER™. she plays all genres but her favs are probably minecraft, puzzle, or rhythm games. did i mention minecraft? she loves it. riri loves rpgs and pvp games the most and has her play smash bros ultimate pretty often. they’re super competitive with each other and both sore losers lmao. shuri got her to play minecraft once and riri kept getting blown up by creepers.

• ↑ she becomes super close with mj, ned, and vivian through riri. they’re always on discord vc together playing games and doing many other things and it’s the most chaotic shit you’ve ever seen.

• if the word ticklish was personified. simply elbowing her in the stomach on accident would get a giggle outta her. every ticklish spot she has is extremely sensitive and you could have her curled up cackling in tears with ease.

• funny as hell for no reason. life of the party fr. she takes her jokester persona very seriously but sometimes she’s hilarious without even trying. the first time she ever smoked weed was with riri in her dorm and riri never laughed so hard in her life that day. shuri was literally all over the place. she’s definitely a lightweight too, just as goofy, giggly, and clingy in her drunken state.

• definitely likes kpop girl groups. I can’t prove it but they love loona you just have to trust me.

• also loves vocaloid and has a hatsune miku figure in her room somewhere. trust me on that.

• has a list of favorite black american artists. riri definitely put her on some r&b classics and less mainstream artists. has a massive celebrity crush on black women rappers.

• music taste is very versatile. her playlist has almost everything. she just can’t listen to one genre only, she’s too open minded and exploratory for that.

• he’s not one to fall in love easily, but when he does he falls hard. riri was the first person he ever fell for and it changed the trajectory of his life, poor thing had no idea what to do with that information.

• a romantic, lovesick loser. cannot flirt to save his life. flustering him is so fucking easy lmao. riri once called him shawty and he malfunctioned for 5 minutes. whenever he’s on the phone with riri his crush is genuinely so obvious to everyone around him. he be giggling and cheesing real hard 😭. kicking his feet squealing on the bed when he’s alone thinking about the cute nickname riri called him.

• her love language is acts of service and gift giving. she’s not always good with words or emotions so she expresses her appreciation towards her loved ones by distributing her wealth in many ways. buying riri things she might need for college, fixing stuff that breaks in nakia’s home. things like that.

• has trouble being vulnerable with those close to her. she’s lost so much, so opening up to new people is always a scary, big step. it took a while for her to let mj, ned, and viv into her heart because the closer she becomes with them, the more it’ll hurt if she loses them. they take her in with open arms regardless, because having a support system with people her age is something she needs. they take her seriously in ways that the elders don’t. they see her for who she is outside of being a royal figure to her country and allows her to be her full, authentic, geeky self. she’s able to grasp onto the youth that she almost lost when her family was taken away.

• very talkative. can infodump about an interest for hours and completely lose track of time if you let them. they cannot stay still when excited, nor can they keep eye contact, pacing around the room and darting their eyes everywhere while rambling about the history of vibrainium or something.

• maladaptive daydreaming. will lose herself in a song and start imagining scenarios in her head. t’challa once caught her in the act and refused to delete the video footage. sometimes, she pulls up the video her brother recorded just to hear his laughter in the background.

[favouritefi]

I love your Terror catboy AU, it’s a funky combination of adorable drawings and Victorianesque pseudoscientific hierarchies. However, it made me wonder about catgirls/doggirls; if you’re happy to answer, how do you see the intersection of gender and hybridity playing out in this universe?

I LOVE THIS QUESTION THANK YOU FOR THIS QUESTION i have a lot of thots on this bc the whole "angel in the house" image of the ideal (middle class) victorian woman is such a fun concept to play with more under cut

ok so what im about to say rn really only applies to middle class and upper class women in this au as those are the main characters in the terror if we get into the lower classes its a more complicated and nuanced story.

anyway in victorian times women were expected to be chaperoned everywhere by an older woman such as a female relative or female servant lest she be corrupted by the ills of the world and by men etc. this is where cat/doggirls come in. its expected that if you have a daughter then you goooootta adopt a companion or two for her both to show off your status and to ensure that your daughter has a friend / chaperone / mentor / moral compass for life. so in cat/dogpeople households the cat/dogboys usually go off to whatever institution their bloodline is associated with and cat/doggirls usually become companions for the wives and daughters of the men employed by those institutions. its very different from human family structures because the expectation here is that your child will not stay with your household, youre making children knowing that they will likely not belong to you regardless of whether they are male or female and that you might never see them again once theyre adopted and they need to be adopted or else its a failure on you and your bloodline. (grim i know) this system is also why each generation of cat/dogpeople tends to be fairly large, little and hodgson and irving all have an overabundance of siblings and cousins many of whom theyve never met in their life.

interestingly, cat/doggirls are actually more valued amongst these families than cat/dogboys because cat/dogboys can only be sent off to the institution the bloodline is associated with whereas cat/doggirls can be sent off to any upper/middle class household regardless of association and it would still be considered respectable AND it creates new relationships between human families that the human owners might find beneficial (kind of like how marriage was historically the exchange of women to strengthen political ties between families). this means that excess cat/dogboy sons are often disappointing to the parents - edward little is one of these. all 3 of his elder brothers had already left for the navy so he grew up playing w his sisters and getting dolled up in their dresses and being told that oh he'd make such a pretty girl and pretty bride oh if only he'd been born a girl etc. totally doesnt fuck him up.

speaking of fucked up theres hickey and his whole situation w sophia. having a catboy as a companion for an upper class girl is a big no-no and only happened because [insert hickey backstory here that is too long and really should have its own post]. no body approves of this but sophia loves him so very much and they were inseparable up until they were separated when sophia went to tasmania with the franklins and hickey was abandoned to the streets against both his and sophias will. sophia refused to adopt a new more appropriate companion in tasmania and after the franklins returned to england she tried to find him but couldnt and assumed he died. then when it seems like the ships are lost and jane starts campaigning for a rescue mission suddenly hickey shows up and for a few blissful years they are together again. he is older and quieter and has scars he wont explain, but hes still hickey and sophia still loves him. and then sir john comes back and fucks all of that up again.

sorry this was meant to be about gender dynamics in my deranged catboy au but i got distracted by hickey (as per usual)

[zephyrine-tale-archived]

Thank you for showing me the project sekai facts but sincerely what the juice

It's a really good game teehee :3 let me try and provide context for the ones i understand

-a character can see ghosts. this is never elaborated on (fuck i dont remember lmao. is it mafuyu?? maybe. oh well i cant elaborate on this lol)

-all main characters can teleport to a separate dimension based on their psyches and also hatsune miku is in there (this is the plot of the game! :3)

-a girl imagines her female friend kissing her and gets so flustered those around her are concerned (she rizzes her up good. also she saves her from dying. they also get married canonically sort of <3)

-a song very explicitly about having sex with men, originally sung by all women, is covered by all men (ifuudoudou akty/fantasista squad cover <3 lmao)

-actually correct me if I'm wrong I can't think of a single love song that is covered by an m/f pairing (WRONG akian gimme x gimme)

-a character causes explosions at school near daily (this guy is an inventor and he's Very Silly)

-a character is sad her friends don't go to the same school as her so her solution is to sprint across the entire city and break into their school to hang out. she does this frequently (EMU OTORI!! shes very hyper and yeah her green haired gamer gf questions it and her orange haired world future star ⭐️ bf also sometimes question it but the previous silly guy she is also dating and they cause chaos together)

-a group gets stranded on a deserted island (canon event, the character in the previous one happens to be a part of a family that owns a theme park! she does ambassadorial shows for said theme park and on the way to one their yacht crashed on a deserted island)

-hatsune miku stops a suicide attempt (this girl who lost herself due to severe emotional abuse and manipulation from her mother tried to strand herself in one of the previously mentioned worlds created from psyches, but miku saves her)

-a highschooler makes a borderline if not outright sapient robotic replica of his childhood friend. nobody considers this a particularly world shattering achievement of ai (this is the guy who blows stuff up)

-the robot was created to help with social anxiety/stage fright (the girl is very social anxiety!! she is an INCREDIBLE singer but due to failing in the past, she cant sing in front of others so she uses the doll)

-the robot has rocket launchers (what can i say the guy who made it is very silly)

-the robot has a job as a theme park performer and gets a salary (yeah)

-a characters family member is dead and it takes her three years to find out (light up the fire... eughh.... not much context honestly it is what it is)

-a character has a body guard dressed in a full mascot costume at all times follow her around (she's the girl whose family owns the theme park! she must be protecc lol)

-a character got into fights with professional wrestlers on tv as a middle schooler/high schooler (not sure the exact age) (i actually have no fucking idea who this is lol)

-there's official sonic collaboration costumes (yep, theyre called Sonic Style)

-fuck is said three times and it's all by members of the theme park troupe that performs for children (indeed! law-evading rock twice and ego rock)

-catgirl hatsune miku almost impales a man without realizing it (they do a magic show in which the man went into a box which was supposed to be stabbed with three swords. but uh oh oopsies miku accidentally uses all five)

-sometimes miku is a catgirl (this is true. one of the mikus has raccoon ear things)

original list by @/lagomoz

somehow i feel like this only made more questions for you but oh well <3

[writingwithcolor]

Goblin Tailors

@huffeling asked:

I am writing a fantasy world where there are no real world religions, but there is the world’s own kind of religions. So no Muslims, Jews, and Christians etc. But I would lend characteristics from one religion (like covering ones hair or some church rites) and put them to one of my own religions. There will be several religions, skin colors and creatures. Is that appropriating ones religion and customs?

I read your answer about goblins. But I am still terrified of writing goblins in my story even if I don’t associate them with money. There is a group of goblins as a really handy seamstresses who can make gorgeous armors and clothes. (They are really appreciated, high-demanded, and well-paid and FREE to walk away if they want). I am worried that is read as a anti-semitic. I mean, there is back story why this particular group works as seamstresses, and world has more goblins who won’t work for people.

“Is that appropriating ones religion and customs?“ 

I think it would only feel like appropriation to me if you took details specifically characteristic of a very marginalized IRL religion and assigned them to a group of people in your book who are white, thin, small-nosed, and otherwise bear resemblance to IRL privileged cultures. For example, when we read "the bible” in temple (physically, which mine hasn’t done in nearly a year) we are often reading off a literal Torah scroll that’s made of sheepskin and stays rolled up when not in use, and it would be weird to me if an otherwise Protestant-American or Northern European flavored culture read their texts that way. However, something like covering one’s hair is not exclusive to Judaism and Islam, so if you wanted to have the Fake English people or whatever cover their hair that’s fine with me. In other words, it would depend on how specific the detail was, respective of the IRL culture it’s from. 

As far as the goblins. Yes, there’s a (positive/neutral) trope about Jewish tailors, the garment district, etc. Here’s an article about the history of Jewish immigrants working in the clothing industry a hundred years ago in New York City:

Jewish Immigrants in the Garment Industry

And I quote: 

“By 1910 the city was producing 70 percent of the nation’s women’s clothing and 40 percent of its men’s clothing, creating jobs for newly arriving Jews. Even if we discount their exaggerations (only 10 percent of Eastern European immigrant labor force were actually trained tailors), these Jews brought with them from the old countries significant skills in garment work, one of the few occupations open to Jews in 19th-century Europe." 

The article goes on to explain that German Jews often owned the factories and hired all the Eastern European Jewish immigrants (who had less money) as they entered the US. So, while this might not be the first stereotype anyone today goes to, which might be something more along the lines of lawyers (or doctors), this is still awkward enough that it would make me question the author’s motivations.

Question. Can you make these seamstress goblins some other mythical creature? Some examples that come to mind include: fauns/satyrs (top half of a human, but with goat legs), elves (either smallish ones like in Christmas cards or tall and ethereal like in Tolkien), fairies, or make up your own anthropomorphic animal people like a catgirl. There’s just something that doesn’t sit right with me about them being literal goblins because of the way goblins are usually depicted as, well, distasteful. And a group of small, distasteful beings who are humanoid but not quite human, all working in the garment industry makes me have "what year is it?” vibes.

–Shira

[themarkofoxin]

People literally supplied you with screencaps of contra being racist and shit, are you intentionally ignoring it to scream at anons cuz you know you can't disprove it or what

i actually wasn’t going to respond because when that reblog happened i was crying in the bathroom at work so like. just straight up did not have time.

but for realsies, i literally cannot see how any of the screenshots in that reblog prove that she is Undeniably Antisemitic, Racist, and Transphobic. i think they’re insensitive and brash, but i don’t think natalie is A Racist because she pointed out that it’s weird an old racist statement was trending.

in none of my posts am i saying that this ^ stuff isn’t uncomfortable or insensitive. i take issue with so many people’s need to permanently vilify someone for stuff that she probably thought about for maybe 30 seconds before tweeting two years ago. also, she’s not being racist here? a native person responded to her tweet, but nowhere in natalie’s original tweet does she say (or even imply) anything about race. at all?

next:

if you were to actually watch her videos and listen to what she has to say now, not in june of 2018 when this tweet was sent, she acknowledges that she held this perspective at one point and she regrets it. she talks about this in two of the videos in my original reblog AND in her one titled “beauty.” yes, she thought like this at one point. she recognizes it was harmful now, and has apologized. even if she hadn’t apologized in “canceling,” if she had just shown her change in perspective through her actions, would i hate her to the extent that so many people on the internet do?

no. because it’s just not that deep.

when i first realized i might be nonbinary, i was fucking terrified. i had a million different tmed arguments swirling around in my head, and i spent months arguing with myself about it because of it. i’m absolutely positive some of my fears came through in my conversations with people, and i definitely said damaging, tmed-adjacent things because i was scared to be One of Those Nonbinary People. the only difference is my conversations were verbal and impermanent, and a year later no one was combing through all my social media posts to find evidence to damn me for it.

okay, lastly. the lizard people thing.

1) she’s stopped using the lizard people characters since the growth in power of far right movements in the US

2) originally, she used them as kind of a joke about capitalism, and later learned their antisemitic origin and aftet that clarified every time she used those characters that she does not condone antisemitism and that she knows about the dogwhistle and is not, and would never, use it to that end.

3) i know tons of people irl who have no idea the “lizard people control the world” conspiracy is linked to antisemitism, so it’s not that hard for me to believe natalie didn’t when she started youtube either. the important part is that she has acknowledged their implications and, believe it or not, she was actually the first person who taught me that conspiracy was antisemitic.

conclusion -

in “cringe,” natalie made a lot of really interesting points that had me thinking for months. specifically, she analyzed trans man kalvin garrah’s visible hatred of “transtrenders” and compared it to her own difficulty accepting catgirl trans women. note that here she was admitting to a bias she’s aware of within herself and outwardly working to improve it.

she basically talked about how the feeling of intense “cringe” that leads to the kind of content garrah makes comes from a fear that the people you’re cringing at are similar to you. have you ever not told someone you have a tumblr, or loudly lambasted cringey tumblr blogs because you don’t want them to think you’re one of those tumblr users? it’s kind of the same deal, but on a more damaging scale. garrah sees gnc trans men as making him look bad because he’s a Real Man; natalie cringes at catgirl trans women because she feels like they infantilize themselves. she acknowledges in the video that this is unfounded and wrong, but she was using self-analysis to create discussion. 

i bring this up for two reasons - one, to point out that natalie is a self-reflective person who admits to her own faults and grows; and two, because i think the cringey thing is part of the reason the hate for natalie is so intense, and why i see it mostly coming from trans women, rather than nonbinary people, jewish people, or poc. 

TL;DR

do i think the screenshots above mean she’s antisemitic, racist, and transphobic? no. it’s not that deep. there are so many better things you could be putting your energy towards, so many more worthy people you could hate, than sending anonymous messages to a dan and phil blog about an educational leftist youtuber.

[noisytenant]

dont rb and dont screenshot this postnlike “lol people are so sensitive” “this is such a reach xD” or whatever im not that mad its just vaguely annoying but frequent enough that i want to complain on my personal blog

“cis people are getting too comfortable about generalizing jokes made by trans people for trans people”

Yes but also consider that these jokes are obnoxious for some trans people too... a lot of the “all lgbt people like x” jokes are alienating

[[MORE]]

When i was questioning if I id’d as bi i felt really alienated by all the jokes about bisexuality as being primarily about attraction to women with very few men. ultimately i dont feel bi fits me regardless of the jokes, but it did make me feel like “if i were bi, i don’t know who i’d hang out with, because all the loudest people are nothing like me and don’t seem to want me around.” ive seen and heard other bi people or bi-questioning people feel similarly

especially when theres jokes about nb people liking ~weird~ ~moody~ ~quirky~ things 100 gecs and having ~wacky~ names, or trans women being weirdly hypersexualized in this animesque way (thigh high programmer catgirl), or trans men being bland and uncreative men-lite with all the same name, it’s not an entirely neutral joke because it sometimes reinforces stereotypes and often cements lgbtq identities in primarily white-dominated spaces and interests. (how often do these posts reference white artists whose style is inextricable from the work of poc? an artist of color whose work is whitewashed by viewers? compare to the amt of artists who Are poc and artists who are explicit about race/race and lgbtq intersection in their work. i’m also white here so i don’t want to claim the final word on this, but i’m echoing what i’ve seen from others and what i feel as someone who’s trying to cultivate taste beyond the white gaze)

and for what reason? i love making jokes about being gay, and about my friends being gay. i love making jokes about being trans. i just think this particular brand is annoying. like they’re only capable of building this insular community of people with vaguely similar interests to you. if that’s what you really want, that’s okay, but i feel like it’s a tiny drop in the broader trend of lgbtq teens forming these loose “friendships” that amount to nothing and fall apart super easily because they want to tie themselves down to some tangible thing that just... doesn’t exist. idk. have fun and live your life im just a curmudgeon

[cornflowercanine]

assorted kill six 8illion demon thoughts HUGE HUGE spoiler warning and also despite how much i love this comic and think its good as shit dont read it if u arent comfy w moder8 gore heavy 8lood (there are other cws o8vs 8ut thats the main one) 8ut if ur ok with that i highly highly highly hiiiiiiiiiighly reccommend reading it first cuz there are lots of wowie zowie surprise moments that are 8etter when u dont know a8t them <3

i think allison a les8ian for several reasons; the entire start of the comic interaction, her worrying a8t zaid(?) always s33ms to 8e more a8out status, its never 'i miss and love this man who is also my 8oyfriend' its 'i have to find my 8oyfriend:tm: 8ecause... i just have to!', only mentions or displays of her in a rel8ionship with or 8eing attracted to men is zaid which she is very o8viously not attracted to, emotionally invested in women way more than men (which might 8e 8c the main cast is all girls, 8ut) AND! 8ecuz i am a les8ian and when i think of these things this way i rel8 to her and it makes me happy and comforta8le and just :3 nice :3

i cannot think of white chain for longer than a minute without tearing up xoxo <3

dont think i can overst8 just how much i love most of the girl chars 8ut holy fucking shit they 8low my mind

gog agog. makes me f33l <3< cuz i think shes attractive 8ut she is also very literally made of worms and wormy 8ugs are literally THE reason i have trypopho8ia and possi8ly [8ug]pho8ia. i really really like 'ah little tyrant no man is soverign from MAN your law of kings is no more su8stantial than a fart in time it too shall dissolve into a spectacle the mass REMEM8ERS the mass is IMMORTAL and most of all the mass ALWAYS wins.' 8UT ALSO OOGUHOGUHHHH 8UG GROSSYYYYYYYYYY

ALLISONS FRIENDS FUCKING SUCK ASS EVEN IF U HAD 833N FRIENDS SINCE U WERE AWKWARD EARLY T33NS YOUR FIRST RESPONSE TO THEM COMING 8ACK SHOULD 8E PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING 8UT 'DID YOU LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY OR NOT' IT MAKES ME SO MADDDDDDDDDD

i can write down every moment that made me go HOLY FUCKING SHIT 8ut in short; holy fucking shit

i think zoss(?) going 'may8e choosing you was a mistake after all' IMPLYING CHOOSING ALLISON WASNT A MISTAKE AND ZAID ISNT MEANT TO 8E THE NEW KING 8LOWS MY FUCKING SOCKS OFF and also uhhhh [that one qu33n 6 letters name starts with m i get her and the giant dino mixed up a lot] going 'i killed my hus8and 8uried him and slept for 3 days and when i woke up i heard him asking for more wives' is hands down one of the most unsettling moments in the comic its so good

'had i known heaven was so real and so choked with evil i never would have prayed in my life' and;

alongside gog agog quote is also like, holy shit lol

I WANT ZAID TO DIE SOSO 8AD I LITEALLY DO NOT CARE IF 8EING TRANSPORTED TO ANOTHER UNIVERSE+EVERYTHING ELSE HAS CHANGED HIS LIFE I WANT HIM TO DIE 8C OF THE THING HE SAID A8T ALLISON LOOKING SCARED AT THE START OF THE COMIC <3

aspected chaos.... hummina hummina.... why am i not an 18 foot tall sapphic polycule woman with hooves huh. Huh

i love maya so much its unreal i love her cut things and i love her 8ackstory and i love her chin and i love her (in spirit) milfing and i love her saying with a completely peaceful expression 'god will never forgive me for the h8 i f33l for that man' and i love every time she appears and i looooooveloveovlolovelovloeloev her

my fave char is Prolly princess jack moonshine 8c i think shes so hot it is Literally un8elieva8le and thats consistant 8ut otherwise my fave char cycles through any of the female chars at any moment

HOLY FUCKING SHIT LUCKY FELICIA I. CATGIRLS I LOVE YOU NEPETA-ALIGNED CHARS I LOVE YOU EVERYTHING ELSE LUCKY FELICIA DOES I LOVE HER 8UT HOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT THAT PAGE WITH HER IS THE ONLY INSTANCE I CAN RECALL IN WHICH DRAWN 8LOOD ALONE HAS FREAKED ME OUT XOXO <3 ITS A REALLY REALLY GOOD PAGE AND HASHTAG FEMININISM MOMENTS 8UT ALSO HOLY SHIT LOL

regardless she deserved all the money she stole and i hope her and nyave kill oscar together <3 if lucky felicia doesnt show up for the rest of the comic im gonna 8e sooooo sad for real

IM ALSO SO FUCKING GLAD MAYA AND NYAVE ARE REOCURRING CHARACTERS 8C I LOVE EVERYTHING A8T THEM 8UT THEIR FIRST INTERACTIONS KINDA... COME ACROSS AS LIKE JUST A REALLY COOL 8G CHAR? WHICH HAPPENS A LOT CUZ THERES LOOOOTS OF COOL 8G CHARS

i read the entire comic over 2 days and just as i started reading on the 2nd day i felt like. u know when ur eating smth and its so so so fucking good you wanna get seconds AS youre eating it, 8efore youre even finished. thats how ks8d made me f33l and i still f33l that way more women please please :open_hands: a88adon please women girls yes?? :innocent::open_hands::open_hands: please thank you please girls

anyway ks8d is good 8eyond good, if i wasnt a les8ian 8efore i am now after reading it, and if u can stomach it i cannot recommend it enough

[kideternity]

For the ask game: Helena Bertinelli, Selina Kyle, Cassandra Cain, Harper Row, Dinah Lance, Diana Prince & Stephanie Brown

Oh god oh yea okay hold on op this will get long (under read more)

Helena Bertinelli

How I feel about this character: I adore her 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜 literally my wife my muse my love

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Dinah, Karen, Renee

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Helena and Eel, John Henry and Zauriel ^_^ also think she and Vic Sage should have “LETS GO LESBIANS LETS GO!” Energy together

My unpopular opinion about this character: I love Barbara dont get me wrong but shes an AWWFUUUUUULL friend to Helena 😭😭😭 like I LITERALLY CANNOT GET OVER HOW BABS CANONICALLY BEFRIENDED HELENA SOLELY TO MANIPULATE HER ORIGINALLY... not to mention all of that unnecessary beef over dick and like OTHER PEOPLE calling Helena batgirl.....

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish she stayed with the justice league for more time so much 😭😭😭 I have a soft spot for JLA (1997) always its my fav critically examined run but MAN helena getting fired when the first run was ending pissed me off!!!!

my OTP: Probably right now Dinahelena? Tie between Reneehelena and that one

my cross over ship: I don’t have a ton of non dc media I like but Liz sherman from hellboy maybe

a headcanon fact: She has a wine cooler in her car at all times for people to grab a drink from if needed, the only rule she has is to try not to spill it everywhere because it’s a bitch to get out of her leather seats

Selina Kyle

How I feel about this character: Admittedly idk a ton about Selina I need to haul ass on reading catwoman solos 😭 I've had a complicated relationship with her but as of right now I like her! I think she’s cool

All the people I ship romantically with this character: All i'm turning up is Zatanna bc my friend writes really good zee/selina fics wjwjajajwua stan randy!!!!!

My non-romantic OTP for this character: I am like OBSESSED w the small little friendship tidbits Helena B and Selina have....... its not suer amazing or anything but huntress year old Selina insta best friending helena made me 🥺

My unpopular opinion about this character: IM NOT REALLY SURE WHY SELINA IS CONSIDERED A GOTHAM CITY SIREN NGL.... like its most likely definitely me knowing nothing Abt popular characters but its just always struck me as kinda weird/the only thing ivy harley and selina have in common is like. The most well known bad women in gotham

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I WISH WE GOT TO SEE MORE OF HER MENTORING KITRINA FALCONE...... FUCKING CATGIRL..... LIKE SHE JUST FUCKING SHIPS HER OFF TO A BOARDING HOUSE AND THEN WE NEVER SEE KITRINA AGAIN LIKE I GET WHY BUT MAN MISSED OPPORTUNITY!!!!

my OTP: idk sry !

my cross over ship: Felicia hardy purely because its just really fucking funny to me

a headcanon fact: Selina fucking hates Gnort more then anything imaginable

Cassandra Cain

How I feel about this character: I like her!!!!! Definitely my second favourite batkid after Duke ^_^

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Steph

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Duke! Ultimate siblings. Also just like the idea of Lonnie and Cass getting along bc they tell old men they suck

My unpopular opinion about this character: Cass should not be able to beat everybody. She should not be able to beat people of unimaginable power such as Dr Fate. Like I think she could defeat normal fighters, or maybe enhanced fighters, but actual metas and magic casters etc I don’t think she would be able to, especially since iirc she almost fucking died fighting metahuman assassins??? So

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I know we all say it but let cass be batman v_v but also let her be batman and let carrie Kelly be her batwoman so that they can absolutely hate each other I wanna see that play out

my OTP: Stephcass im basic

my cross over ship: n/a

a headcanon fact: Duke introduced her to heavy metal now she cant get enough of it

Stephanie Brown

How I feel about this character: I like her! I still need to continue reading her batgirl solo and more but I like her! Good character!

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Cass

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Lonnie ^_^ Rebirth lonnie is literally so OOC and nasty I don’t wanna hear any bs abt how its ‘better’ but I did like the idea of Steph and Lonnie being friends and I think it'd work still with Lonnie’s good characterisation

My unpopular opinion about this character: Timsteph is a bad ship its objectively bad and I hate it a lot also Steph kissing Tim knowing he was dating Arianna was shitty writing/a dick move on her part i just hate all of it its comp het the ship

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: OKAY I NEED TO READ MORE STEPH COMICS FIRST but I am perpetually haunted by my idea of steph in the future becoming huntress.... I Ponder It

my OTP: Stephcass lol

my cross over ship: Gwen Stacy and Steph could be fun :O

a headcanon fact: She doesn’t like condiments unless it’s say, syrup for waffles

Harper Row

How I feel about this character: I used to be like obseeeeeeessed with harper used to think abt her 24/7 but ive mellowed down a lot.... havent read her comics in like literally ages...... still love her a lot tho

All the people I ship romantically with this character: nobody 😔

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Steph and Cass being Harper’s friends was always cute to me also I like when I think both or just Steph was Harper’s roommate it was fun

My unpopular opinion about this character: Mostly nobody seems to fucking care about her 🙄 you guys cry for gay batkids 24/7 but you wont even acknowledge harper existed........ smh

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: that she stuck around more : ( i liked how her brother cullen sorta became this like oracle esque figure so I like the idea of her being a vigilante in some place like bludhaven maybe w Cullen giving tech support

my OTP: n/a :/

my cross over ship: not really a ship but maybe Miles and Harper teaming up one time?

a headcanon fact: Would really like to own a pet snake

Dinah Lance

How I feel about this character: I love women.... I love this woman.......

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Ollie, Helena

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Babs :] best friends 4ever !

My unpopular opinion about this character: Dinahs done a lot of fucked up things and like i dont even mean like in a “its bad writing way” i mean just like consistently dinah is not perfect and she shouldnt be regarded as such and i dont like when people do

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Wish she stayed with the JSA longer :[ I really liked her with the JSA it was fun!!!!

my OTP: Dinahelena 💜🖤🤍💛

my cross over ship: n/a

a headcanon fact: She's really bad at cooking most dishes

Diana Prince

How I feel about this character: I LOVE HER a very interesting character with a lot of interesting lore

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Zatanna, Natasha Teranova

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Clark and Bruce ^_^ they are her close friends and teammates and I want absolutely nothing to go on between them. Ever.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Not abt diana specifically But damn yall when the fuck you guys gonna actually.... talk about diana.... like when are you going to make metaposts about her and hot takes and so on as much as you do for ppl like bruce

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: She and Natasha should have gotten married whilst in space together period it was homophobia to have Natasha just go back to russia and never show up ever again

my OTP: Wondermagics

my cross over ship: not a ship again but LET HELLBOY TEAM UP W DIANA

a headcanon fact: She's really good at pottery! Especially during the sculpting stage

[powerbottomblake]

How well do you think RWBY handles its race metaphors and well its characters of color? I seen a lot of people upset at the Faunus subplot and the lack of good characters of color. Like a series can have good (white) female and/or LGBT rep but fail POC. That’s white feminism in a nutshell. RWBY has its stumbles with some colorism here and there but with Maria I think CRWBY is improving. Thank you in advance.

I think CRWBY are extremely hit and miss when it comes to handling race.

Undercut because it got long.

So first: Faunus as an allusion to every kind of racial systemic oppression confounded is kind of iffy since it lumps all people of color together and assumes that all of them face the same kind of oppression, which is…utterly simplistic to say the least. Plus when you take actual race away…from a racial storyline and attribute it to a whole other species, you kind of dilute the message considerably. The point will fly over people’s heads 9 times out of 10. People will sooner empathize with catgirls than black or brown people and this has been proved time and again.

But seeing how the story is being helmed now by two white men who seem (and iirc have outright said) that they’re out of their depth when it comes to race, it’s probably preferable to have a blanket statement rather than go for actual racial storylines since the risk of a misstep gets higher. 

And the thing is, when CRWBY miss their mark they really Miss The Mark. The two very clear missteps I think of that denote a certain tone-deafness/ignorance on their part were:

At the end of V1, we never get an apology from Weiss. What’s worse is that Blake is somehow framed as the only one who has to come clean and justify herself which is so…wrong after Weiss’ vicious, racist insults. Yes the White Fang are Bad now and are extremists but Weiss literally started the whole thing about Sun, who had no known affiliation to the White Fang, calling him a degenerate just because he was a Faunus like?? She made it clear she distrusted any Faunus?? And somehow the whole arc was framed to get Blake to realize that White Fang had lost its soul, which yes! She should! And it’s part of her storyline! But we never get to actually see Weiss going back on what she said. We never see her apologize for the racial prejudice she hurled at both Blake and Sun? And at the end it’s just. brushed off. The whole thing is very clunky and awkward and overall, I’d say tactless.

In V5 when Blake states “Humans didn’t do this…We did this” as she points to her house on fire and it’s. ok so it makes sense in context bc this is about Blake reclaiming the White Fang movement from Adam which is fair. But the thing is, the phrasing is very. This is dangerously close to making the oppressed class shoulder the full responsibility for the clashes occuring…because of the systemic oppression they’re being put under. That was very close to a “black on black crime” rhetoric. That scene, that particular quote left an incredibly bad aftertaste bc somehow the Faunus are taking full responsibility for smth that was primarily born out of the humans’ oppression of them. Incidentally this is the exact bone I had to pick with Black Panther too. Both Erik and Adam are products of what the oppressing class has done, yet the full responsibility for taking them out falls on the oppressed somehow. Humans might not have lit that house on fire but we wouldn’t even be on that island, Adam wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the SDC apparently using Faunus slaves for their mines. I know this is more a result of short-sightedness than actual malice but yeah…again it still ends up being tone-deaf.

Now beyond that I think that likewise when CRWBY hit they do Hit the Spot. The White Fang storyline especially asks some incredibly important questions when it comes to activism and fighting for your rights as an oppressed people: How far can political correctness carry you in the face of people who are out to rob of your most basic rights? When is retaliation righteous and what kind? What is justice and what is spite? How can you walk the fine line between meekness and violence? All of these questions are especially relevant today and make for a compelling storyline, especially since we get to see one of our main characters (Blake) navigate them. We’re shown that Ghira’s position, while foregoing violence, recoiled too much from conflict and ended with a deal mostly disadvantageous to his people. We’re shown that Sienna’s guerilla warfare ultimately devolves into Adam’s White Fang: bloodshed that only really perpetuates the cycle of violence and forgets its initial cause along the way. Now Blake has rejected both paths; the next logical step, and one that would neatly wrap up both a great leadership arc for her and a great political storyline all around would be for her to witness the full scale of horrors in Mantle and establish the threshold at which fighting back isn’t just necessary, it’s righteous and a duty. There’s a balance to be found and Blake is the one geared to find it. Question is: will CRWBY take the storyline there as it should (my guess is YES otherwise we wouldn’t have had need of Adam being literally branded by the SDC, adding up to Ilia’s backstory)? More importantly will they do it justice? Jury’s out on that one tbh. I think it’s fair to be wary considering the past offenses but the White Fang subplot has been surprisingly and really good mostly so. Wait and see I guess.

Despite all of its flaws I think calling RWBY white feminism is deeply incorrect? White feminism is about propping up white female characters’ storylines at the expense of POC characters, while disregarding any type of specific oppression non white characters and non white women especially have to face, which is not what’s happening here. Beyond the Faunus allegory, Blake is literally not meant to read as white and has very apparent asian coding. Ilia, who’s both very clearly POC and LGBT, has a story that is given weight and proper development and gets the redemption arc from within the White Fang. Bumbleby is literally meant to be read as an interracial couple, and while yes I’ve had qualms about Blake’s skin tone being incredibly inconsistent between volumes and especially washed out in V6, I do believe it stems more from a lack of foresight/animation and lighting wonkiness than outright malice or disregard, which I hope gets resolved in the later volumes. 

[zwei-the-penguin-with-a-pen]

‘Blake Has Wares, If You Have Coin’

Exhausted from her journey, Yang Xiao Long decided to take the night off and find herself an inn in town. All the ones she had tried so far had no vacancy, or so they had all told her. Maybe some of them actually were full, but she figured others just wouldn't sell a room to a Dragon. She didn't even have any scales showing, but it seemed humans could tell the difference anyhow.

Was there at least a tavern in this dingy little settlement that would throw her a drink? Even if they threw it in her face, she would no longer be thirsty. She went to tie back her enormous mane of golden hair, but her tie snapped apart. She huffed and almost cried. Nothing was going her way lately.

"Aye, Dragon Lady! Shall Blake sell you a trinket?" She heard from behind her. She spun around and laid her eyes on a Khajiit saleswoman. She had never seen a lady Khajiit, and her face probably said as much. Her eyes almost turned to stars at the sight of the sales cat.

"Wait... You sell to Dragonfolk?" Yang asked 'Blake' apparently. The Khajiit nodded, her long black hair bouncing and blowing in the faint breeze. Her large black cat ears wiggled. Yang was taken in by the hairpin curve of the cat woman's lips.

"Is there any Khajiit who will turn down a sale?" Blake asked. Yang nodded sadly.

"Every man cat I run into seems all too happy to sell to me, but they turn me away when I start trying to bargain. 'Khajiit does not sell to greedy Dragons!' is their usual excuse." Blake scoffed at the idea. Her eyes were bright gold, Yang noticed. Her own purple eyes could not help but gaze at this feline seller.

"Khajiit men sell to no one they think will outsmart them. Their gardens are overgrown and their cucumbers are soft, you might say..." Blake responded, eyeing Yang almost as hard as Yang eyed her. "Blake does not discriminate. Gold is gold, no matter whose hand it touches. In short, Khajiit has wares, if you have coin!"

"Wow, that's wonderful to know. Wait, don't Khajiit have fur all over?" Yang asked curiously as she eyed the catgirl's face and arms and saw soft skin instead of fur. Blake only smirked.

"Don't Dragons normally have scales and wings?" Blake clapped back.

"That's fair. So... how much for a date?"

"One thousand apologies, for Blake does not sell fruit."

"No, not a fruit date! A 'drinks after work' date. Me, you, a stiff ale... What do you say?" Yang winked at her, her scales glowing under her clothes. Blake seemed taken aback by her words. Her gold eyes widened and her ears folded forward.

"I've never dated a Dragon before..." Blake finally responded, her accent and speech patterns different. Yang grinned.

"Whoa, your voice is different!"

"Yes, the 'Khajiit has wares' bit is a sales pitch. Some of us do speak that way, but not all of us. Just like some of us look more human than others. I'm only part Khajiit. My dad had a thing for human women," Blake confessed, blushing brightly and tucking her hands away.

"Hey, my dad was the same way! Or rather, my mom had a thing for Dragons!" Yang replied, grinning at Blake. Blake smiled.

"So what's your name, Dragon?"

"I'm Yang, Kitty Cat! Yang Xiao Long!" Yang announced proudly, flexing an arm for good measure. Blake's eyes turned to hearts at the sight of Yang's golden scales and bulging muscles.

"A sunny little dragon. Interesting. I'm Blake Belladonna." Blake replied once her reaction to Yang's muscles subsided.

"A black poison. Sounds lovely. So, where's a tavern that will serve mixers like us?" Blake laughed at Yang.

"I haven't agreed yet!" She snapped. That seemed to kill Yang's enthusiasm. "You asked for a price, yes?" She pulled a purple ribbon out of a box and showed it to Yang. Yang reached out and touched the ribbon. It was made of very fine fabric but would still be strong enough for a hair tie. "I saw you having hair troubles. Buy this from me and I'll take you to a spot that serves everyone."

"How much?"

"A kiss for Khajiit..." Blake answered, putting her accent back on. Yang's eyes turned to hearts at the idea. "Just joking, Dragon." She continued in her regular voice. Yang scoffed. "Twenty gold, and a kiss if you don't mind."

Yang slapped twenty gold onto the table and her lips onto the cat woman's lips. Blake kissed back, surprising Yang. She pulled Blake closer with one hand, sliding the hand from Blake's shoulder down the length of her back. Blake stopped Yang's hand from proceeding further.

"Calm down, Yang. I might still have customers..." She told the golden Dragon. Yang pulled away with a smile. "Meet me under the street lamp at sunset, and we'll go to the tavern. It's a seedy place, but they'll serve anyone. I once saw a criminal get a drink there." Blake grinned. Yang nodded, looking up to see the street lamp in question. She waved at Blake and walked away.

They met under the light post after Blake tucked her makeshift shop away, and the two of them took off toward a tavern on the sketchy side of town. As Blake said, Xiong would serve anyone with gold, and the two of them had plenty between them.

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

So I heard it was Bumbleby Week and I finally got a drip of free time. I guess this would be for AU day, but idk. Fantasy AU where Blake is part Khajiit and Yang is part Dragon. 

[jessica-problems]

I have this theory that the reason My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic had such a weird fandom is because it accidentally convergently evolved into a bunch of surface level similarities to a slice of life harem and/or moe anime, for completely different reasons, and then it got a reputation on 4chan and spread from there.

---

overlap 1a.) there’s a huge cast of female ponies with relatively few male ones. This is done to show little girls all the different equally valid ways to be a woman.

overlap 1b.) in harem anime, women vastly outnumber men because the point is to cram in as much sex appeal for straight men as possible.

---

overlap 2a.) the ponies have ambiguous ages, and their maturity fluctuates based on the episode. This was done to allow the writers to tell all sorts of different stories, with either childish or more mature situations.

overlap 2b.) harem anime often have characters with ambiguous ages for entirely skeevier reasons, either hypersexualized teens or infantilized adults.

---

overlap 3a.) MLP has lots of non-action focused plots, because they wanted to show non-violent conflict and teach kids other ways to solve problems and such.

overlap 3b.) slice of life harem anime revolves around, as they say ‘cute girls doing cute things’, just watching the characters go about their lives in charming ways.

---

overlap 4a.) MLP has a main cast full of female characters that each have a broad personality archetype they fit into(nerd, fashionista, farmer, party girl, tomboy, doormat, etc)

overlap 4b.) harem anime often pull from a standard list of personality archetypes(tsundere, genki, yandere, kuudere, etc), leading to a similar situation where each character is strongly typecast so as little as their hair style can sometimes tell you what their personality is going to be.

---

overlap 4a.) the ponies are, well, ponies, and not humans, so they occasionally do animal stuff like eating hay or neighing. They also sometimes need more creative solutions for tasks a human would find trivial, like opening a door. 

overlap 4b.) the Moe subgenre heavily features small, childish and incompetent characters that need help with basic things so that even an unremarkable viewer feels like they could actually contribute to the character’s life in some way if they were in a relationship. Non-human characters(catgirls, robots, elves, etc) are also common, but idk if that’s relevant.

---

And then, there’s all the standard stuff, like, any well made kid’s show will attract a few adult fans, and MLP:FiM is quite well made, and it’s just cute and heartwarming and all that.

[itsclydebitches]

Do you think Monty made a mostly female cast simply because he liked women? Look at deaf Fantasy. Mostly all women probably because Monty preferred to animate all the hot women he grew up with in games. RWBY is just his own OC's, but the same principle. Why have a team of guys when you can literally have a cute catgirl? Monty never seemed like someone who specifically set out to create a diverse show. Just was a big otaku who liked anime girls so he made more anime girls.

I honestly have no clue what Monty’s intentions were. It’s a combination of me having little interest in researching that---through interviews and the like---as well as the fact that a) authors don’t always admit their intentions (especially in regards to something like this) and b) they may not always be fully aware of their intentions. An author might be making decisions in part because they’re a guy who prefers to animate primarily hot, very young women (and we can delve into the reasoning behind that), but that doesn’t mean they’ve consciously acknowledged it. Especially when you have cultures like anime where that is so normalized. 

Ultimately though I don’t think it matters much. Authorial intent is important, but not the only aspect we care about. Whether Monty intended to create a diverse show or not... he kind of did. In that he took a genre dominated by men and gave us an all woman team, notably one undercutting a lot of assumptions about what women-led teams look like. (Example: the girls get badass hammers and sniper rifles instead of glittery transformations). The audience is almost always interacting only with what the text gives us. Which in this case was a text that marketed and presented itself as a story about these four women, first and foremost. So when that changes, the audience is likely to take notice. We’re not mind readers. Even if Monty were alive we can’t dive into his head and pick out some justification like, “I only ever wanted to animate hot people” or even “I always intended to change the focus of the show somewhat, that’s been in the works since Volume One.” All we can do is take note of the changes we see and theorize about their existence. For me personally, aspects like gender, audience preference, common tropes, what’s going to make them money, etc. will always play a part in that kind of theorizing. They’re just too prevalent not to consider. 

[nascentflash]

never-ending survey: j’lihmu

RULES: Repost, do not reblog. Tag 10 blogs! 

tagged by:@violet-warder​ (thank you so much!)

tagging: honestly? anyone that wants to do it! (i don’t know who actually got tagged already) you are more than welcomed to tag me :>

BASICS.

FULL  NAME :  J’lihmu Rhatni

NICKNAME : Crimson, Li

AGE :  25

BIRTHDAY :   19th Sun of the Third Astral Moon (5/19)

ETHNIC  GROUP : Miqo’te (Seeker of the Sun)/ Elezen (Wildwood)

NATIONALITY : Ul’Dahn

LANGUAGE / S : Common, a hit of Hingan/Doman (broken)

SEXUAL  ORIENTATION : Demisexual

ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION : Panromantic

RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :  Taken (Single in some AUs)

HOME  TOWN / AREA :  Abalathia’s Spine/Sky Frost

CURRENT  HOME :  The Lavender Beds — a small home she bought herself.

PROFESSION : Hunter, mercenary, the good ol’ Warrior of Light resume being handed out.

PHYSICAL.

HAIR : Naturally red with orange highlights.

EYES : A bright green.

FACE : Resting bitch face syndrome, always /annoyed, slightly round.

LIPS :Full, tinted with the same color as her eye paint.

COMPLEXION : Slightly tanned.

BLEMISHES :None.

SCARS : Littered across her body, reminder of the victories — or losses — she always came out alive.

TATTOOS :  Tattoos litter her form, it is part of her tribe back home. Her arms are covered, legs, and back.

HEIGHT :  5′2″.

WEIGHT : 143lbs.

BUILD : Athletic.

FEATURES :  Large, somewhat almond shaped eyes, small, slightly refined nose, both ears pierced and longer than the normal miqo’te.

ALLERGIES :  None.

USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  When long — messy, unkempt until told otherwise. A large braid would encompass a portion of her hair, and the other wild and free. Sometimes in a large, messy bun when she’s working, or doing anything out of battle. Short — has now a tendency to keep it up to date with oils and minerals, making sure her hair is looking better than before. She would not have it in a braid, with the exception of one on her side or most of her hair swept away from her face.

USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  Thick painted eye-makeup, whether blue (for her tribe) or red (for herself), lips tinted red. Besides that, she has no other make up on her whatsoever. It is rare to see her without her tribal paint unless she’s at home, relaxing.

USUAL  CLOTHING :   Leather, furs/coats, jewelry made from bones of bears long dead from her home. However, she adapts and changes depending where she is. Example; in Kugane, she is seen wearing more of their traditional outfits in some instances, but will always opt for the good ol’ tank top and shorts if she can get away with it. Yes, even under the kimono.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S : Failure (more so towards her WoL than anything else), falling to her Inner Beast, death— in a sense.

ASPIRATION / S :  To achieve greatness and be worthy of remembrance outside the confines of her tribe. To eventually help lead a line of new, young warriors from her tribe.

POSITIVE  TRAITS : Confident, resourceful, passionate, outspoken.

NEGATIVE  TRAITS : Short-tempered, impatient, competitive, ruthless.

MBTI : ESTP-A/ESTP-T

ZODIAC : Azeyma (?T-Taurus?)

TEMPERAMENT :  Choleric.

SOUL  TYPE / S :   Warrior.

ANIMALS :  Bear.

VICE HABIT / S :   Isolation, punching the wall a couple of times until her knuckles bleed in anger, running head on in battle and not tending to her wounds.

FAITH : Questionable, leaning on no beliefs.

GHOSTS ? : Yes.

AFTERLIFE ? : Believer.

REINCARNATION ? :  Believer.

ALIENS ? :  ????

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT : The only time she gave a shit is when things started going down in Ishgard, just to be spiteful to Ul’Dah later honestly. Would care for her tribes political shenanigans, but thats about it.

EDUCATION  LEVEL :  Home-schooled in a sense. Her father and the elders of the village taught her all she knows to a point.

FAMILY.

FATHER : Close.

MOTHERS :  Estranged, trying her best tm.

SIBLINGS : ...Complicated (Half-siblings are a handful)

EXTENDED  FAMILY : Many, but she does not know her mother’s side, only her father’s.

NAME MEANING / S : Her name has no meaning, but, if you asked her father—J’zahlu would say it reminded him of the sun.

HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? : No..?

FAVORITES.

BOOK :  Intricate pages describing worlds she will never know.

DEITY : Azeyma.

HOLIDAY :  Starlight Celebration.

MONTH : October.

SEASON :  Autumn.

PLACE : Mountaintops with caves, deep within, a system of caves that lead you to the deepest part of home.

WEATHER : Sunny and cloudy days.

SOUND / S: The sound of metal clashing unto one another, the sound of rain hitting the earth.

SCENT / S :  Damp caverns, burnt fur, perfumes.

TASTE / S :  Sweets, orange, blood.

FEEL / S : Fur, cold floor, rough skin, broken wood.

ANIMAL / S :  Bears, hunting hawks, paissa — who is now her son, don’t @ me 

NUMBER : 18.

COLORS : Vermilion, black, gold, aquamarine, orange.

EXTRA.

TALENTS : Existing, hunting, beating people at bars, talking shit about powerful people because she knows she can’t be killed, headbutting is her specialty.

BAD  AT :  Loss, dancing, drinking — she will fall asleep or drunk fight, who knows.

TURN  ONS : Men — large hands, broad build, scars, messy hair, independent. Women — someone who can kick ass, makes her laugh, independent.

TURN  OFFS : Attention-seekers, arrogance, stupidity, carelessness — basically what she does what else is new.

HOBBIES :Hunting, people watching, trying to be a good blacksmith, mining — it’s therapeutic.

TROPES : Green-Eyed Redhead, Fiery Redhead, An Axe to Grind [idk a lot im baby]

QUOTES : “If one more noble attempts to be snotty with me, he’s about to get his ass ripped open by my axe.”

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 :  If you could write your character your way in their own movie,  what would it be called,  what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?          

—The Lost Crucible, it would be filmed like a documentary, so to speak, switching from third POV [narrator] to first POV [dumb catgirl] that would be finding out about her tribe, and the trial young warriors go through. 

Q2 :  What would their soundtrack/score sound like?          

— Songs that remind you of a time when you’re one in nature; drums that give you that itch to move and dance to the beat, to appease the old and new gods, whatever you believe in. It would be of her home — where the village barely touches the heavens itself.

Q3 :  Why did you start writing this character?          

— I did it in a way to sort of make a new oc from an old oc, so to speak. The OG version, as you could call it, is vastly different and I kept making lots of jokes with her when I name changed and eventually she just started to slowly build up.

Q4 :   What first attracted you to this character?          

— It’s a mixture of self insert, so finding a way to incorporate stuff into my own character is what sort of ... made her my lovable daughter. She’s not all self-insert, her attitude, her anger, her sorrow, her accomplishments and failures and imagines on how she would deal with X and Y is just absolutely fascinating for me and having a fierce miqo’te hailing from the snowy mountain tops of Abalathia’s Spine who’s tiny with a big axe is my aesthetic okay.

Q5 :  Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

— Her desire to keep things quiet until the last second—mostly when it’s about her. Anything related to her life, her health, her problems, she’d rather deal with them alone. Even if there’s been major character improvement, there are some things she does not feel comfortable sharing, or letting people in. Her desire for more power so she can finally be at peace.

Q6 :  What do you have in common with your muse?          

— We are both stubborn bitches. However, she deals with things far better than I ever could, as I am baby. Similar in arrogance, and in anger — to a point.

Q7 :   How does  your muse feel about  you?          

— She’d fucking kick my ass. I think she would appreciate me, and not be as bully as with others — not because I am her mun, but more so as I think we’d clash a lot but get along quite well, too.

Q8 :  What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with ?        

— I, unfortunately haven’t had a lot of interactions with Li trying to be nice, or fight somebody but— people like her, who are broken yet continue on. Who carry a mantle too big to carry and they do it anyways. Fighters that only know how to fight, when she eventually wants peace, but that will never leave her soul. People so nice that it makes her want to protect them; to view the world the way they see it. Warriors, even if they are not from the same village, are all brethren to one another and the desire to meet and see how they live out their lives — just a handful of stuff in my head I’d like to see.

That and a bar fight, she really is the one who would start a bar fight drunk or angry okay. Also nobles. She sort of hates them cause of her mom but then eventually doesn’t and it’s awkward asf.

Q9 :  What gives  you inspiration  to write  your muse ?        

—Vikings, Game of Thrones aesthetics of the Dothraki tribe, anything tribal honestly. The existential dread that is Nier: Automata, some Fire Emblem aesthetics, a lot of stuff honestly.

Q10 : How long did this take you to complete ?          

— I STARTED YESTERDAY. I finished late today cause my last two braincells hate everything

[queernuck]

Becoming-Catgirl: Trans-Species Pidgins and Transgender Lives

In discussing the concept of a trans-species pidgin, a language or lack-thereof that defines communication, interaction between species in semiotic reflection, the means by which creation of and understanding of the “animal” as well as the treatment, both proper and improper, given to the animal is in assemblage with the structures of encounter and understanding, the process of mirroring of becoming-woman that is becoming-transsexual, becoming-transgender, then the resultant kind of becoming-animal that one alludes to in becoming-catgirl, one finds frameworks for differentiated, alterior understandings of the construction of subjectivity, of aesthetic affectations that have been incorporated into popular discourses of trans performativity, appearance, and the fashioning of a displayed transgender subjectivity. 

The late-capitalist character of the catgirl, her origins in the Y2K Aesthetics of anime and manga as received and developed by a millennial audience and created as a field for the subsequent “Generation Z” marked within certain marketing vocabularies, first the initial-consumption and the later repetition of that act of consumption seen in the marketing and consumption-production of a sort of American Otaku culture, the structure of manga and anime as part of a wider hyperreal aesthetic vocabulary called upon in American media, popular culture, and other means of expression, the way in which series such as Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon and later Naruto, Bleach, even more recently My Hero Academia, have engaged with certain structures of importance and affinity in a vital fashion. Dragonball and Naruto in particular enjoy a great popularity in Black American pop culture, as well as enormous popularity in Mexico as well as Mexican-American culture. Both the original consumption-production of media and the further consumption of this process by a largely white audience that passes into producing-production of a certain aesthetic sensibility located alongside the means to realize, produce, express it leads to a comprehensive and rhizomal knot of influence within otherwise arborescent structures of culture-production. Of course, this also is influenced by the means by which cyberpunk aesthetics integrated and echoed a kind of unsure process of looking toward Japan, a kind of codification of Orientalist disparities within aesthetic directionalities, lead to the understanding of manga as a space of the avant-garde, and in turn allowed for a certain sort of producing-production of interplay between artists globally who have been influenced by anime and are taking a new, schizoanalytic approach to the way in which anime aesthetics can be deployed. These languages of development can be seen in the overarching presence of anime in “net art” and various projects of contemporary design, echoing a kind of transition process out of childhood as represented by the animated, and into the supposed-maturity of anime, the characterization of anime as of-the-Other in a way that allows it to capture a certain sort of space of transition, as well as the way that it was often associated with vital ages of transition, the infamous “weeaboo phase” often occurring around the end of middle school and associated with numerous sorts of subjectivities (from those of queer theory to those of reactionary ideology, frequently found in direct opposition on sites such as twitter) providing a framework of development that is later important to the exact sort of realization, description of self, asserting and understanding of the body and its becomings, the molecularity of the body, the realization of subjectivity as linked to a greater-than-human, what Kohn evokes when describing the “all-too-human” and how this relates to the animal structure of experience within transness. 

The means by which animality, monstrosity, and their measure from one another is part of a larger development within net cultures and their development, and in turn, what could be called a multispecies pidgin of catgirls is part of a certain kind of contemporary development of schizophrenic potentialities that radiates out from this. The multispecies is, of course, on display in a literal sense, the means by which the catgirl is a measure of a certain anthropomorphic tendency, between the simple aestheticization of the womanly body as catlike and the development of the cat body as human, as developed out of the human. Kohn’s description of selfhood, of the body, entails in part discussing the means by which one sees-as-another, sees as the predator does, how one enters into a kind of state wherein one becomes-animal not permanently, but certainly in a kind of transformative series of actions creating a phenomenology of the animal. In turn, this is paired with a process of learning the language of the animal, learning how one interprets the animal as dreaming, as interacting with other “selves” in certain arrangements and assemblages, which structure larger understandings of how the animal and human correspond. 

A sort of cultural importance of catgirl aesthetics is in part influenced by the way in which it creates the unobtainable, a kind of body that is expressed with a dual sense of selfhood that arises from the articulatory properties of the cat pair with the human, the means by which human acts of nonverbal communication are read onto and in turn repeated in an anthropomorphic turn when creating the catgirl. Fundamentally, through the catgirl, we assume and create a human phenomenology of the cat, a cat that thinks, understands, "knows" as we do, in the same fashion, as part of a discursive potentiality contained in part by cat-like-ness as a quality of identification and possibility. From here, the development of a catgirl, a human that retains the “cat-like” or a cat who can develop the self of the human, that mimics the human in a fashion that eventually itself becomes human-appearing, a becoming-imperceptible that connotes entry into the human, one understands greatly the appeal for a woman who has experienced a certain heightened sense of the violence of the masculine, of ideology of the masculine and its maintenance, the means by which masculine languages of the body are imposed upon trans women in their own presence, are made targets without even being understood as such, a kind of ironic privileging that is derided for representing a unique closeness to maleness, an intimate knowledge that leads to a point where a certain experience of misogynist violence is held uniquely among those who have been accepted as masculine or masculine-enough: the conditional acceptance of a woman who mirrors the becoming of a man enough to register as a certain sort of subject, the butch woman, the trans woman, the Frat Girl echo as subjects that reflect back the subjectivity of masculinity such that they will not critique the violence of misogyny they are presented with, knowingly or unknowingly. This leads to a status where certain women are pressured toward accepting a violent, dual inscription upon their bodies that recognizes them not as men, but as not-women, as impossible subjects for womanhood. The further addition of colonial demarcations of race as creating standards of acceptable embodiment and presence within communities (often born out of working class communities of color) such as these leads to a status where the cyborg-like development of the body is seen as the best means for reversing the disparities felt in everyday interrelation. For these women, specifically because of the violent demarcation of gendered subjectivity, they are denied the possibility of identification as a means of expressing the phenomenal, of describing a certain transcendent empiricism, a frame of semiotic relations that finds itself in the creation of assemblages of becoming and mirrored-becoming, a concerted similarity in regards to the structures of womanhood and a marked difference in their embodiment. Trans women, particularly, are denied this leads to the means by which an idealized body is crafted beyond simply the standard, but into an evocation of a beautiful monstrousness, a kind of mysticism of embodiment often inspired by the quasi-mythic, the imagined, late capitalist forms of folklore in commodity. The defiance, the means by which a certain critique of femininity is not allowed for trans woman, the trans feminine realized in differance from the feminine and a similar sort of transfeminine, one finds a kind of ironic acceptance of reality regarding the transgressive potentiality of never, of ontology: the outward structuring of the catgirl is specifically informed by aesthetics that are being ironically evoked in an intentional fashion, they are what the cat dressed in drag. This results in a knowing, intentional course of action wherein the aesthetic catgirl accepts impossibility, accepts an incongruity with one body of womanhood and a different realization of another, a Virtual body that happens to have cat ears and a tail. That so much of this involves acts of curation as consumption-production, a certain sort of producing-production that is a foundational aspect of understanding how characters and characteristics, affects of the catgirl, are structured from certain readings of catgirl characters involves looking both at the characters and their larger understanding in a kind of turn that acknowledges the status of the “trap” and the violence of transness as a kind of positionality when signified as such leads to a structure of reapporopriation that is on full display at many places within anime fandom. These acts of resignification, reterritorialization, are overwhelmingly similar in aesthetic affect to ones found within the gay signification found in the Furry fandom, where in place of the reading of the gay body, gay subject, that takes place there is a similarly enacted reading of the trans body. The counterpart in furry fandom, the use of homoerotic signifiers that are mapped onto an animal body in order to create a sort of hybridization, a purer realization of the homoerotic that goes beyond human, a very meaningfully cyborg-esque evocation of potentiality regarding the body and imagined bodies, extends even into acts like fursuiting, where an object takes on the subjectivity of such a body. Similarly, some trans women take on aesthetics of the unknowing, of the notion of the so-called “trap” deployed in conceiving of trans women or possible-trans-women, in order to express themselves. For this, the use of “traps” as examples of trans women, that is, the use of characters given maleness (such as in Re: Fate or Fate: Zero) and resignified as trans women is part of how trans womanhood is realized in relation both to these media accounts and more general structures of transness. Often, there is a sort of “reveal” at one point or another where the character is presented as-male, counted-as-male, and this is intended as a restructuring of the character within maleness. However, a refusal of this, a new means of realizing catgirls as contained within structures of desire and flows of desiring built around trans embodiment and the violence visited upon the body in order to enforce it, leads to the acceptance of catgirls as a kind of symbolic stand-in within trans subjectivity.  Catgirls are a lesbian phallus figure, born of a repressing-desire realized and resignified out of the pornographic while retaining the singularities of pornographic acts, of the possible-pornographic, where one finds the origin of a certain acceptance among trans women of their status and potential for identification. Certainly, most invocations of the catgirl are in an exchange of desire that specifically mirrors and is realized alongside lesbian desire, considering how many trans women specifically realize themselves as lesbians specifically because of how sexual expression is only a small fragment of lesbian experience and moreover is bolstered by the means in which the phallic structure of desire, the psychoanalytic account of lesbian subjectivity, is formed by a continual vanishing of the phallic center, a lack of culmination in the sort of phallogocentric ideation of the relations-of-relationship, a differentiated and occasionally resignified presence of dynamics of top and bottom standing in as approximations of flows of phallogocentric desire, but only understood as such in relaying the potential-sexual, as a means of expressing not-uncommon relationships in an all-too-common heteronormative, phallogocentric vocabulary.

The all-too, the all-too-human of Haraway, the all-too-common collapsing of the languages of difference alluded to by Kohn in his effort to expand the anthropological beyond the human, to study the linguistics of what he describes as the trans-species pidgin, leads to the sorts of points at which the construction of a body that is marked from birth by the Virtual, by a specific sort of capitalist eternity, the late capitalist acts of identification and deprivation that define the differentiations of the first and third worlds, the marking of gendered sexes and the sexing of gender as a kind of Western hegemony and the ensuing “enlightenment” of accepting an expression within hegemony leads to a complicated series of attempted expressions of desire which manifest in unpredictable fashions under schizophrenic structures of identity-formation given by late capitalism. The creation of the individual, of exactly what makes the individual-qua-individual possible, the creation of an individual as an artifact of class, is vital to the kinds of violent collapses of identity that take place around trans women, and the joyful restructuring of them in the image of the catgirl.