#this post was made exclusively for 12 years old me

[hollowmoon-art]

favorite books from my childhood

(From left to right: Percy, Hiccup, Katniss, Eragon and Saphira, Will and Leif)

[royboyfanpage]

Okay, let's talk about Ollie's experience with fatherhood.

I'm an Oliver Queen apologist forever, but I think that there's a tendency in fandom to go one of two ways- "absolutely perfect dad, no flaws whatsoever" or "evil abuser who shouldn't be within six miles of a child". This isn't an Ollie exclusive phenomenon, a lot of characters and topics do fall into that black-and-white mindset. But the thing is- Ollie doesn't have to be either extreme. Particularly with Roy, who most of the debate centres around, Ollie wasn't perfect! I think there's such a rich discussion point in terms of young Roy's relationship with Ollie, so much more than just That Panel. Because, in my interpretation, Ollie absolutely cared about him, absolutely saw him as a son, but also the idea of being a father is something that deeply terrified him. The idea that this literal child being dependent on him made it feel more real, if that makes sense. Coming to terms with the fact that he was responsible for another person's life was difficult for him, and so he put up this wall- hero and sidekick. A conceptual dynamic, one that's not based in reality. He can keep that distance between himself and Roy and decide what that means, he doesn't have to be a father because that word has so many strong connotations, but he can still express that he cares about Roy, in his own way. That's why he always calls Roy 'Speedy' even out of costume, that's why his first thought is that Roy's undercover in Snowbirds. He can focus on being a good mentor to Speedy, which will have a trickle-down effect to being a good guardian to Roy, right?

Unfortunately, kids' brains don't work like that! Especially not a kid who's already lost two fathers. Roy needed a stability in his teenage years that Ollie just wasn't able to give at that time. He didn't see "Ollie's nice to me as Speedy because he loves me and doesn't know how to show it", he saw "Ollie's nice to me as Speedy, which means I'm only good as Speedy". This, at least in my opinion, is a major factor in Roy’s later self-esteem issues. Roy’s constantly underestimating himself as a hero, constantly comparing himself to Dick, and pushing himself 24/7 to improve because he internalised the idea that if he’s good, if he’s the perfect hero, then he’ll be loveable. He can’t be bad, he can’t fail, he can’t back down because if he does, he’s nothing.

It’s absolutely not Roy’s fault, but also this doesn’t mean that Ollie’s an evil neglecting abuser, either. Even the best parents fuck up, and Ollie was by no means the best parent. He took in Roy as a sidekick, as a buddy, and then never really found a way to combine the ideas of sidekick and son. He assumed that Roy would be able to interpret meanings behind gestures, which is something that Roy seems to struggle with even into adulthood. I’ve talked about it a fair bit, Roy’s absolutely someone who relies on the explicit, but he’s also not someone who’ll ask for clarification, which has caused conflict in his relationships time and time again. And while it's something he has gotten better at as he's gotten older, a 12-18 year old Roy would absolutely not be able to read Ollie's motives.

And Ollie's fear of fatherhood isn't something exclusive to Roy, either. Sure, he'd gotten better at it by the time Connor and Mia entered the picture (speaking as an oldest child myself, we are the guinea pigs of parenting, I was my mum's sibling), he absolutely still expresses this with them. I mean, just look at his face when he finds out Connor's his son.

That's the face of a man who's just had the crushing weight of parenthood slammed down onto him again, the moment Connor stopped being an ally and started being his responsibility. He's scared, because Ollie absolutely does not see himself as a good father for someone to have. This was very much present during Roy's teenage years, but particularly since this is post-Snowbirds. Both in terms of Roy developing a drug addiction and in terms of Ollie's own initial reaction to it, he immediately spirals. And, since we've already established he does not know how to process things, he lashes out at Connor.

And as for Mia, he's definitely matured significantly by the time she comes into the picture, and compared to with Roy he's a lot more open with his feelings. However!

He still won't explicitly accept the responsibility of fatherhood! Despite acting like a father to Mia in every way through his actions, he still won't use his words! Even though in the issue following, he expresses a paternal protectiveness over her.

And I think Mia's HIV diagnosis is maybe one of the biggest examples of his distancing himself and hiding his feelings, particularly when Connor asks him how he's feeling about it.

He's so fine, so totally fine, trust him when he says he's fine, totally not freaking out. He's absolutely not terrified for his not-daughter, no way.

Ollie has this fear that if he gets too attached to his kids, he's gonna end up failing them. If he keeps a distance from them, then he can't blame himself when they get hurt. Is this good parenting? No! Absolutely not! But this is also the man who dresses up as Robin Hood and who chose to die rather than lose his arm. This is not a healthy man.

But he tries, he tries so hard, even if it's in his own way. And he recognises when he fucks up! And he tries his best to mend it later on!

He's not the best at showing his kids that he loves them, but he's so proud of Roy when he becomes Red Arrow. He comes back to life to save Connor. He stands by Mia's side when she gets diagnosed and becomes Speedy. He's not a great dad, but goddamnit he's trying to be.

In conclusion, no, Ollie is not the perfect father. He's deeply flawed, and his own emotional incompetency has been and always will be a point of conflict between him and his kids. But he's not some uncaring abuser, either. He's trying.

[tinfoil-jones]

Gravity Falls: For Your Own Good, Ch. 12

Summary: A few years after moving to Gravity Falls and having his lab built, Stanford Pines happens upon his estranged twin brother, Stanley. He mentally prepared himself to be suffocated by his brothers neediness all over again - what he wasn't prepared for was Stanley walking right past him like he didn't even notice him.

Rating: M for language, violence, and adult implications

Preface: Dialogue only, but some actions will be annotated for clarity. Cross-Posted on AO3 Here

First - Prev - Next

CH.12 

“Are you working on another one of your ‘conceptual’ death ray schematics, Fiddleford?”

“I didn’t have the easiest time with Psych as a subject because of its abstract nature, I thought that if I could connect it to something more tangible maybe I could understand it better.”

“So you made a psychology gun?”

“Conceptually, think of it more as a memory gun. Most of our memories are stored in our hippocampus and temporal lobe - if I could create a device that interacted exclusively with those structures, and only for memories…”

“You could restore them?”

“Right now I’m focusing on the opposite - destruction.”

“What, Fiddleford, we’re-.”

“Don’t blow a gasket. I’m not intending to erase any more of your brother's memories. This is reverse-engineering, in a way. If I can understand how memories can be suppressed in the first place, I could perhaps understand how to bring them back.”

“Okay…”

“I know, in your own emotionally constipated way, you’re just worried about him. I’d be worried about my family too if any of them up and forgot everything. But I promise you, I’m not trying to harm either of ya’ll.”

“I trust you.”

“I’m glad to hear that, I know it ain’t easy for you.”

“Any breakthroughs during your sessions?”

“I can only possibly isolate an event happening about a year ago, but he can’t specify what type of event it was. He may have been suffocating in some way? All he could say was that he couldn’t breathe.”

“...”

“Stanford, do not go into your own head about this. What happened- whatever happened, it wasn't your fault.”

“Yes… I suppose you are right, old friend.”

“In fact, I had a question about y'all's upbringing.”

“What about it?”

“Did you two share a room growing up?”

“Yes, our home was very small because our family was low income. We shared a room until he was- until he left. Why?”

“I checked your security feed and noticed something peculiar about his sleeping pattern.”

“Were you really watching my brother sl-.”

“Don’t you start now. I sped the footage up. You spend an awful lot of time down there, right?”

“Of course, it is my laboratory after all.”

“And he sleeps a bit, you’ve noticed? Quite soundly?”

“It is not that different from when we were younger.”

“Here’s the interesting bit. The other times he sleeps - when you aren’t in the lab, he doesn’t get high quality or quantity of sleep.”

“What do you mean?”

“I expected this - he’s been in unsafe, unstable environments for the past decade. He has difficulty falling and staying asleep; he wakes up frequently throughout the night, and when he is asleep he looks like he has nightmares, because he tosses and turns, and panics himself awake sometimes.”

“I didn’t know that…”

“Of course you wouldn’t. If he falls asleep while you happen to be in the lab, it doesn’t happen. At first, I wondered if being alone put him out of ease. But one night I was down there running a few tests, and he was still waking up hyperventilating every other hour.”

“I do not understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

“Stanford, what I find most interesting about this; he does not sugarcoat that you abducted him. He has stated multiple times that he believes you are out of your mind, and that your ‘real twin’ is dead and you can’t accept that. But in spite of these things that he says, in spite of all of that; in his most vulnerable, inoffensive state, he subconsciously associates you with safety. Stan says you’re just a stranger to him, but he feels completely safe and at ease with you.”

“...”

“It may seem like we’re hitting a lot of brick walls with him, because ya’ll are just as stubborn as each other. But he remembers you, just not with his waking mind.”

“...I need to write this down in my journal.”

“I know you’re just burying your face into that thing to hide your tears.”

“I have gotten ink in my eyes.”

“O’ course you did.”

To be continued…

[southernsolarpunk]

Hey check this out

I was making a zine (solarpunk ofc) and decided to use a bunch of old National Geographic magazines to cut up and use in a scrappy diy scrapbook fashion and of course I started reading them. This one in particular:

It caught my eye because it’s from September 1980 & talks about the Middle East. My brain wonders if they mention Palestine and they do! I copied the text for accessibility, but I put pictures at the end of the original pages.

“Jerusalem: reunited or occupied? The question has divided the city's 400,000 Jews and 100,000 Arabs since Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967.

BEIRUT, JANUARY 1975. Armed soldiers lead me through labyrinthine back streets, up a dark stairway to a midnight rendez-vous. Only a bare bulb lights the temporary command post; Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, seldom dares spend two days in the same place. “Our argument is not with the Jews” He tells me. "We are both Semites. They have lived with us for centuries. Our enemies are the Zionist colonizers and their backers who insist Palestine belongs to them exclusively.

We Arabs claim deep roots there too."

Two decades ago Palestinians were to be found in United Nations Relief Agency camps at places like Gaza and Jericho, in a forlorn and pitiable state. While Palestinian spokesmen pressed their case in world cap-itals, the loudest voice the world heard was that of terrorists, with whom the word Palestinian came to be associated. Jordan fought a war to curb them. The disintegration of Lebanon was due in part to the thousands of refugees within its borders.

Prospects for peace brightened, however, when President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, most powerful of the Arab countries, made his historic trip to Israel in November 1977. A year later Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David accords, a framework for the return of the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

The former enemies established diplomatic relations and opened mail, telephone, and airline communications.

The Camp David accords also addressed the all-important Palestinian question but left it vague. Sadat insists that any lasting peace depends on an eventual Palestinian homeland in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel agrees to limited autonomy for those regions, but, fearful of a new and hostile Palestinian state suddenly planted on its borders, insists that Israeli troops must maintain security there.

Crowded Rashidiyah refugee camp, set among orange groves south of the ancient Phoenician port of Tyre in Lebanon, lies on the front lines. Frequent pounding by Israeli military jets and warships seeking PLO targets has war-hardened its population, some 13,700 Palestinians.

At the schoolyard I watched a solemn flag raising. Uniformed ashbal, or lion cubs, stood rigid as color guards briskly ran up the green-white-and-black Palestinian flag.

Ranging in age from 8 to 12, they might have been Cub Scouts— except for the loaded rifles they held at present arms. Behind them stood two rows of girls, zaharat, or little flowers. Same age, same weapons.

Over lunch of flat bread, hummus, yo-gurt, and chicken I commented to my hosts, a group of combat-ready fedayeen, that 30 years of bitter war had settled nothing nor gained the Palestinians one inch of their homeland. Was there no peaceful way to press their cause?

"Yes, and we are doing it. Finally, after 30 years, most countries in the United Nations recognize that we too have rights in Palestine. But we feel that until your country stops its unconditional aid to Israel, we have two choices: to fight, or to face an unmarked grave in exile."

AFTER CROSSING the Allenby Bridge from Amman, I drove across the fertile Jordan Valley through Arab Jericho and past some of the controversial new Jewish settlements: Mitzpe Jericho, Tomer, Maale Adumim, Shilat. Then as I climbed through the steep stony hills to Jerusalem, I saw that it too had changed. A ring of high-rise apartments and offices was growing inexorably around the occupied Arab side of the walled town. Within the wall, too, scores of Arab houses had been leveled during extensive reconstruction.

"Already 64 settlements have been built on the West Bank," said a Christian Palestinian agriculturist working for an American church group in Jerusalem. "And another 10 are planned," he said. Unfolding a copy of the master plan prepared in 1978 by the World Zionist Organization, he read: "Real-izing our right to Eretz-Israel... with or without peace, we will have to learn to live with the minorities...

The Israeli Government has reaffirmed the policy. In Prime Minister Menachem Begin's words: "Settlement is an inherent and inalienable right. It is an integral part of our national security."

"Security" is a word deeply etched into the Israeli psyche. The country has lived for 30 years as an armed camp, always on guard against PLO raids and terrorist bombings.

Whenever such incidents occur, the response is quick: even greater retaliation.

In Jerusalem I met with David Eppel, an English-language broadcaster for the Voice of Israel. "We must continue to build this country. Israel is our lawful home, our des-tiny. We have the determination, and an immense pool of talent, to see it through." His cosmopolitan friends a city plan-ner, a psychology professor, an author gathered for coffee and conversation at David's modern apartment on Jerusalem's Leib Yaffe Road.

Amia Lieblich's book, Tin Soldiers on Jerusalem Beach, studies the debilitating effects almost constant war has had on life in the Jewish state, a nation still surrounded by enemies. As she and her husband kindly drove me to my hotel in Arab Jerusalem afterward, some of that national apprehension surfaced in the writer herself.

"We don't often come over to this part of town," she said. "Especially at night."

I DROVE OUT of the Old City in the dark of morning and arrived a few hours later at the nearly finished Israeli frontier post, whence a shuttle bus bounced me through no-man's-land to the Egyptian ter-minal. As a result of the Egyptian-Israeli treaty, it was possible for the first time since 1948 to travel overland from Jerusalem to Cairo. An Egyptian customs man opened my bags on a card table set up in the sand. I took a battered taxi into nearby El Arish, to a sleepy bank that took 45 minutes to convert dollars into Egyptian pounds, Then 1 hired a Mercedes for the

200-mile run across the northern Sinai des-ert, the Suez Canal, and the Nile Delta. By sundown Cairo was mine.

Despite official government optimism, I found many in Cairo worried that President Sadat's bold diplomatic gestures might fail.

The city was noticeably tense as Israel officially opened its new embassy on Mohi el-Din Abu el-Ez Street in Cairo's Dukki quarter. Black-uniformed Egyptian troops guarded the chancery and nearby intersections as the Star of David flew for the first time in an Arab capital. Across town, police with fixed bayonets were posted every ten feet around the American Embassy. Others were posted at the TV station and the larger hotels. Protests were scattered, mostly peaceful. None disturbed the cadence of the city.

Welcoming ever larger delegations of tourists and businessmen from Europe and the U.S., Cairo was busier than ever-and more crowded. Despite a building boom, many Egyptians migrating from the countryside, perhaps 10,000 a month, still find housing only by squatting among tombs at the City of the Dead, the huge old cemetery on the southeast side of the capital.

Even with the new elevated highway and wider bridge across the Nile, half-hour traffic standstills are common. Commuters arrive at Ramses Station riding even the roofs of trains, then cram buses until axles break.

Cairo smog, a corrosive blend of diesel fumes and hot dust from surrounding des-erts, rivals tear gas.

Despite the rampant blessings of prog-ress, Cairo can still charm. In the medieval Khan el-Khalili bazaar near Cairo's thousand-year-old Al-Azhar University, I sought out Ahmad Saadullah's sidewalk café. I found that 30 piasters (45 cents) still brings hot tea, a tall water pipe primed with tobacco and glowing charcoal, and the latest gossip. The turbaned gentleman on the carpeted bench opposite was unusually talk-ative; we dispensed with weather and the high cost of living and got right to politics:

"Of course I am behind President Sadat, but he is taking a great risk. The Israelis have not fully responded. If Sadat fails, no other Arab leader will dare try for peace again for a generation."

Across town at the weekly Akhbar El-Yom newspaper, one of the largest and most widely read in the Middle East, chief editor Abdel-Hamid Abdel-Ghani drove home that same point.

"What worries me most is that President Sadat's agreement with Israel has isolated Egypt from our brother nations," he told me. "When Saudi Arabia broke with us, it was a heavy loss. The Saudis are our close neighbors. Now they have canceled pledges for hundreds of millions in development aid to Egypt. Some 200,000 Egyptians-teach-ers, doctors, engineers live and work in the kingdom.

"And Saudi Arabia, guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, remains for Muslim Egypt a spiritual homeland."

This magazine was published before my mom was born, and yet the sentiments have basically unchanged. An interesting look at the past, and more proof this didn’t start October 7th. (But imagine my followers already knew that)

[weathertheraine]

I haven't seen dunmeshi yet so I'm going off tumblr osmosis exclusively: Marcille/Falin and Senshi/Chilchuck

Falin/Marcille:

They’re basically canon to me for all the reasons everyone else ships them i think !! Average lesbian date you sort through dragon insides to reassemble my skeleton piece by piece and bring me back to life with forbidden magic and then we take a bath together yippeee… in all seriousness their relationship is really interesting and i kinda wish we got to see more of falin’s side of it… but articulate ppl on here have made great posts about it, especially the areas in which it isn’t totally healthy and I think they both need to do some growing separately before they can really be together in a way that is good for both of them, but the love is there <3

Chilchuck/Senshi:

Not for me partly because of how senshi spends a lot of canon believing chilchuck is a little kid (not against it developing as ofc he learns, that’s just my personal taste!) partly bc it just doesn’t catch my attention much in canon - HOWEVER i fucking loveeee all the fan content im seeing. You guys draw senshi so beautiful and i am so happy you are in love with those old men being in love and you are creating such beautiful things <3

In terms of my ‘canon’ i think it’s really fucking funny if chilchuck, known inter-party romance hater who is against his daughters Thing For Dwarves, has a brief and embarassing workplace crush on his hot dwarf coworker who mistakenly thinks he is 12 years old. Cause he might just spontaneously combust from the horror of that. Talk about a bi ‘crisis’.

[horizon-verizon]

Im not sure if you watched ep. 3, but I feel like they’re utterly destroying Rhaenys’ character. Season 1 Rhaenys I liked, but this season she is already feeling so oddly out of character. The fact they made her defend Alicent to Rhaenyra is crazy to me.

Also Rhaenyra begging Alicent for peace?? What’s that about?

And Ulf being Baelon’s son pissed me off so bad. They could’ve chosen any other of Jaeherys’ children.

This episode is why I’m boycotting the rest of this show.

Haven't watched. And I don't have the desire to, either. Wrote about Rhaenys in these posts when others talked abt her recently: #1, #2, #3. Pointed out some in-HotD character inconsistencies, I believe, in the first linked post.

Answer to your rhetorical question: It's sexism:

Male Gaze and HotD -- xenonwitch

Essentialism in Pacifist Women v Violent Men - rhaenyragendereuphoria

Alicent, rhaenicent, Fascism, and Sansa Stans -- rhaenyragendereuphoria

Why Rhaenicent is so Popular -- me/rhaenyragendereuphoria

Excuse me anon, I'm taking this opp to rant again.

I mean, yeah, this is really just the show's MO and has been from the beginning, I just think people didn't really think about the implications of some of the changes they made and what they meant about how these writers saw the project they were creating so now they're caught by surprise at the stuff here. It's kinda understandable bc you just want to enjoy stupid drama sometimes. But I felt that it would inevitably travel towards interpreting the actual book/orig story itself bc people kept using the "two canons" and "F&B is a historical document w/biased/sexist writers" even when they did read the book....which shows how they didn't actually read the book or understand what the purpose of the unreliable narrators & how they are there to get readers to try to read between the lines as best they can and not take some things (not ALL things!) at face value. The book is presenting the reader with the opp to see how susceptible they are to propaganda and we are supposed to work through a process of battling the cognitive dissonance it creates and/or see our own biases while arguing how Rhaenyra DID NOT deserve her fate (Doylistically/exegetically). How greedy and violent men have over generations assured the demise of themselves in their exclusion of women. Sounds trite to those who don't understand the implications.

Which is parse out the truth as best you can, recognize patterns or deviations/inconsistencies (& think abt why those are there) from such to do so, understand the cultural and character context to understand the likelihood of that what Septon Eustace/Mushroom/Munkun/others all tell the version of an event the way they do. And, with any literary text, look to syntax, vocabulary, the use of some figurative language, tone, the mood the language sets and for what reason? That Rhaenyra likely sat the Iron Throne when she took back KL, that can't be denied. That she was bleeding bc she was "cursed" & "rejected", bc she was so "obviously" not worthy of the throne? That's what Septon Eustace wanted you to believe, just as he wanted people to not criticize Aegon for being with a 12 year old girl by saying "she was of good status to be a paramour".

Back to how people use this fallacious argument abt 2 canons and unreliability--I felt that people would use this to then argue that HotD was actually "revealing" mysteries and hidden truths of F&B/AWoIaF, and that was proven by how people think of the 3 eggs Dreamfyre laid that became Dany's dragons. Now you got people believing that they are Syrax's depsite how F&B makes it so damn clear they aren't. And so now you got people arguing for Baelon cheating on Alyssa the same way some were arguing for Rhaenyra to not be the person GRRM wrote her to be...karma keeps receipts.

This show is a money-making, marketing project that seeks to deny the sort of sexism-commentary F&B was actually doing or willfully misunderstands it and most lore in order to make bucks off a rich world. Because people in real life do not take sexism seriously, thus they do not know or care to understand the basic "woman=human" "idea". People even take pains to deny it at the same level or close to racism. It is the oldest form of discrimination...except maybe ableism?

The sooner people realize and internalize all that, the sooner they will not be disappointed by this show and be more interrogative of it.

Me, I chitter over the slowly accruing hatred for it on Twitter.

[seeds-of-life-daily]

Day 19

SEELE!Rei AU notes I wrote on the bus

If you've seen this account's post, you're probably aware of the SEELE!Rei AU that's been circulating in my brain. To those who are curious and like the concept, here are some tidbits and notes I've made about it under the read more !!! BRIEF EXPLANATION: This is an AU idea of what if Rei was raised by SEELE alongside Kaworu instead of by Gendo/NERV?

Having Rei and Kaworu as siblings would be pretty good for the both of them. Rei would have someone to relate to and be comfortable around. Kaworu would experience similar stuff too, and wouldn't be exclusively Shinji-centric, making them have a possibly healthier dynamic/relationship. Rei could also be a tad more self-expressive, since being raised by SEELE would rid her of all the conditioning* and restrictions* (by Gendo, at least) she went through in nge canon. That doesn't rid them of all their problems, though. As we know SEELE has a dummy system as well, meaning Rei would still view herself as expendable and question her identity and self (possibly even more, with now having much more information to go off of to analyze.) Poor Rei'll have to deal with another organization's instrumentality planning deal again :( Kaworu would still have to choose between Lilin and the Angels. He is still a (unnatural) progeny of Adam, after all. I don't think he would suffer any less dread and anxiety from that in this AU. Having Rei around would probably lean him more towards his decision of saving the Lilin, though. What fun to constantly have to battle your nature of returning to your angelmom/soul's body, amiright? Yeah. Having Rei in the custody of SEELE makes me think that it would be best that she wasn't a Yui clone. No more weird ulterior Yui motives!! That would pose the question of how did they come to exist then? Since the Katsuragi crew were the ones to be near Adam in Antarctica, what if another division was with Lilith a year or so later? This time they made another contact experiment with a vessel they manufactured specifically for this one. Just so happens that the one to be in charge of the design and name was our old pal Gendo... Bro can't let go of his dead wife obsession even in this AU :/ Yui's still totally dead btw. Right after Rei's "birth" too! She was still batshit insane and put her soul in Eva unit-01, but at least now Rei wasn't anywhere near NERV/GEHIRN. Rei gets unrestricted internet access. They share a room with their "twin" and have a cheap, creaky, bunk bed until they're 8, when both of them decide to split the room in half and bicker when Kaworu finds Rei's trash on his side of the room. This doesn't last too long, though, since when they turn 12, Rei gets sent for training at NERV, while Kaworu's goes two years later. ^^^^ I think about this moment a lot in the AU. Gendo basically just takes Rei to go pilot the Eva just because they look similar to Yui and had to leave her twin brother alone to deal with SEELE bullshit without anyone else to really talk to about it for 2 years.

Rei's design differs when not in school, having a light blue long skirt and a simple dress shirt with her school uniform's red ribbon. They also sport some bandaids, even before piloting! Mainly from clumsiness and accidents back when she was a small kid.

Kaworu's design is virtually the same, save for his orange belt, his black shoes with orange bottoms, and bandages on his arms. Having already been with SEELE in nge canon, I didn't want his design to differ too much.

So far that's all I've written down for now, but if I ever get close to done with this AU and have made it even slightly comprehensive then I'll probably post a huge lore-post about it. Thank you for reading !! :D

[goodluckclove]

Songbird Blog Takeover II: Scott Skylark Kaufner Intro

Hello, everyone!

First off, I should say that this isn't Scott. I'm his sister Tenzin, stepping in to craft a bit of an intro post on his behalf. Katy suggested that we just explain the concept well enough for him to do this himself, but I kind of shot myself in the foot fifteen years ago by making the internet out to be a singular entity that already knows about him. It was the only way I could get him to go online without someone else in the room, but I can't exactly back track and finally explain the whole concept of all of you being individuals with your own lives.

it would either fascinate him or push him into a massive existential crisis. He's agreed to use my old iPhone to post today (I showed him speech to text since touchscreen keyboards are hard for him), and that alone is such a push in the right direction that I don't want to rock his world too hard beyond that.

Anyway, here's what you need to know!

My Brother: The Basics

Scott is 30, Greek-Romanian, and an intersex man (Klinefelter's syndrome). He's an alloromantic asexual - I think sex-repulsed, but I haven't asked him directly for obvious reasons - and could be considered gender nonconforming.

He is also Traditionalist Birthright, and up until the age of 12 was raised entirely without gender.

Because of this, and as he lived exclusively in a witch town until his late twenties, he has nearly zero experience with most forms of bigotry. He does not think his upbringing was unique and does find his form of gender expression to be at all remarkable.

He definitely knows about ignorance though. He's not stupid. Once we were in a gay bar in Portland and a woman who was flirting with me made a sort of fetish-y remark about me being Nigerian and Scott heard and lectured her for ten minutes about the importance of broadening your horizons so you don't make "foolish fucking comments to nice people you've just met".

Scott doesn't know that much about birthright culture. Believe it or not, being a Traditionalist actually means he refuses to learn anything about his own history, instead choosing to see himself as a little creature being cared for by a loving and bountiful earth.

There's a whole thing with birthrights surrounding their middle name. It's considered a special rite of intimacy reserved for loved ones and the most trusted individuals in their lives. His first name is Scott, but considering that he thinks you are all one being he's known since childhood, I'm pretty sure you could call him Skylark if you want.

Scott is very passionate about Greek Mythology, music (He's been playing the piano since the age of two), breakfast foods, gardening, being outside, cats, bugs, food service, libraries, medicine, and uplifting movies about animals. He has seen The Adventures of Milo and Otis twenty-one times. I know this because I have also seen The Adventures of Milo and Otis twenty-one times.

That's all I can think to say. Scott is not at all technology or internet-savy beyond what he's needed to know for work and what he watched me do from over my shoulder. I'm kindly asking that, in turn, you dial back the chronically online high-octane absurdo-nihilism and just be nice to him. He's frankly excessive in terms of allyship, somehow being both sex-repulsed and deeply sex and kink positive (please don't ask why I know this). Katy him what he thought of the furry subculture and he nodded very seriously and said that he found them all very impressive. I don't know what that means. He refused to elaborate.

Scott just told me that he's taking the phone and going out to "show the internet his day". He seems excited.

Please, please be nice to my brother.

This is a Songbird Elegies blog takeover! Find out more about what that means by going here!

[cinamun]

TAGGED by @simmerstellar ! Thanks friend!

Come get to know me y'all!

1. What’s your favorite sims death? I haven't had a sim die from anything other than old age in a HOT minute but I saw a LP and the murphy bed death seems so unecessarily violent lmfao.

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? BOTH! I consider my style Maxis Mix. We love a nice combo of both.

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? Not anymore but at one point I had to. Let me explain: I don't know if it was a glitch but like after every meal with grannie's cookbook, Indya would gain weight instantly. Didn't happen with anyone else (although everyone else are athletes of some sort). She's always and forever thick but something was definitely up with the food mods I was using. Anyway, we're good now since I'm not playing her HH exclusively anymore.

4. Do you use move objects? Absolutely. Its too restrictive! Gotta play test when I do though because routing errors make me irrationally angry.

5. Favorite mod? Wickedwhims. I don't care! If I want my sims to get freak-nasty I have a blog for that and WW never fumbles. If I want them to do cute little intimate things, WW is there. If you don't like the smut, I feel bad for you son.

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? I've gotten pretty much ever iteration of this game except for almost all of the kits and the star wars pack.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? ALIVE. I don't understand the other one honestly lol. We're going LIVE as soon as I press play so....

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Obvs Indya Drake!

9. Have you made a simself? Yes! But she needs help lol I'm not good at that at all so there's a resemblance but she doesn't really look like me. When I do gameplay with her I say she's my "sorta-kinda self sim" lol

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? gloomy, neat, loner, romantic

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? Black but like BLACK Black, not the BLUE Black lol.

12. Favorite EA hair? All of the afro textured ones.

13. Favorite life stage? Young adults.

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? Gameplay mostly stories but I love to decorate!

15. Are you a CC creator? I will recolor the shit out of something! That's about it lol

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? All my mutuals and anyone who reads my story! #Squad

17. What’s your favorite game? The Sims 4 is the only game I play. Don't @ me.

18. Do you have any sims merch? Nope.

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? Nope, but I have been asked to make a channel and got that far at least. No videos lol.

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? If anything, less alpha and more maxis match.

21. What’s your Origin ID? [redacted]

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? All of the ones that do it for FREE and for the love of the game. I donate too because I understand its not easy, but also not worth a month long paywall or conveniently forgetting to publicly release something.

23. How long have you had a simblr? 2015 are my earliest posts I think.

24. How do you edit your pictures? Gshade and Photoshop Elements 2020

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? Cottage Living is the goat IMO even though I don't play it much anymore. I do very much enjoy Island Living and Growing Together will round out a nice top 3.

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? I haven't really thought about it. I just figure the sims 4 is nearing the end of its era and we're gonna start hearing about project rene more and more.

oh! tagging @shesthespinstersimmer @bridgeportbritt @iplaysims4 @beebeesiims @thegloomiestwhim @hazelminesims @therichantsim @omgkayplays @softerhaze @crsentfairy

please ignore if you don't do these or already did this!

[calamitycontrolled]

The Story So Far...

hey there,

I want to write down everything that's contributed to my journey so far in the interest of memory and sharing. So here's my story from the start until now!

I was assigned male at birth, and currently identify as non-binary. I am 22 years old and have been questioning my gender for a long time. Thoughts about gender have been becoming more frequent and painful in the past 2-3 years.

(TW: Sexuality) This post will describe my very personal feelings and detail some parts of my journey that may be uncomfortable to read. I will discuss sexuality, masturbation, and dysphoria.

My earliest memory regarding gender dysphoria or feeling like something wasn't quite right was when I was very young, maybe 5-6? I remember feeling excitement or euphoria when I put on one of my sister's princess dresses. I tried a few on and felt amazing. I didn't understand it at the time, but I guess that was euphoria. It felt almost like I was aroused. That's a can of worms for the TERF/ autogynephilia crowd, but understand that there's no way I was sexually aroused at the age of five from wearing feminine clothing. I would try on my mom's and sister's heels and take their clothing also. I forgot about that stuff for the most part, but still felt like something was off. For as long as I can remember, I've been disinterested in traditional masculine activities and gender norms. I have always hated playing/watching sports, fishing, and stuff like that. I thought I was just a stick in the mud or anti-social, but I never really wanted to do any of those things. When I was younger, I showed a bit of interest in basketball and baseball but that was extremely short lived. I spent most of my time playing video games, playing star wars, and skating. One could argue that these are masculine activities, though. I really hate anything to do with physical strength and competition. I've always been sorta delicate I guess.

Although I desired to crossdress since an early age, I suppressed those feelings to the point where I didn't act on them anymore, but I still felt them. When I turned 12-13 and reached middle school, things took a big turn. I feel like I've been depressed ever since I hit puberty and I can't explain why. Self-esteem and insecurity issues hit me like a truck. I don't feel like a man, but what else is there? I didn't know I had a choice. I desired to be friends with girls. More so I desired to be one of the girls- but I didn't really understand it at the time. I've always been attracted to women, but I don't know if I want them or want to be them. Probably both. I am pansexual, and have always felt strange around the other boys. I never felt like I fit in with the majority of the masculine crowd. I went to a Catholic elementary and middle school, and my two best friends in middle school both turned out to be gay. I wonder if people perceived me as gay sometimes because I recently found a note in my yearbook from a friend calling me his first love? I've always fantasized about being with girls and boys, but didn't figure that out until high school. At that time, I remember desiring to be more feminine, but being extremely scared. It wasn't a choice I could make. I felt so ashamed and out of place. My confusion only made me more depressed and angry at myself. Why would I even think that I was trans? I guess deep down I always sorta knew, but again I suppressed that part of me out of guilt, sadness, and shame. I felt like I would be disappointing my family and causing problems. I still feel like that honestly. Internalized transphobia is real. It's just rage towards my identity that manifests and destroys my confidence and self esteem. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to be an ugly woman, which is often the only thing holding me back.

I've largely only dated lesbian or bisexual women. A few of them have turned out to be lesbians exclusively after we dated. Almost all of my partners have identified as part of the LGBT community. That's just one thing I find interesting.

I've been buying my own feminine clothes since I was 17, and recently have been buying a lot more. I love to wear skirts, crop tops, and high socks. Now I feel so dysphoric when I'm wearing men's clothing. I am in such a battle with my body right now. I am constantly fighting body hair, my penis, and my broad shoulders. I absolutely hate to see that I have male genitals in my pants, especially when other people can see it. I really only want to buy women's clothing now. My egg cracked on Christmas Eve 2021, when I was drunk texting my then-girlfriend and told her that I think I'm trans. I lurked on r/egg_irl for a while, and did a lot of research on being trans. I remember lying on the couch after everyone had gone to sleep crying. Again, I suppressed it. I keep trying to "go straight" and embrace masculinity, but I fail every time. I cannot for the life of me be the traditional man.

So, if you expect me to boymode because that's my AGAB then fuck you! I realized that I'm living MY LIFE, and other people need to mind their business or support me. Everything else doesn't matter. They're not me, and I'm not them. At the end of the day I have to live with myself, and I'm going to make sure I love who I am.

Let's talk about my friends and family. I am out to my friends and have made steps in dropping people who are homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise won't accept me for who I am. My friends are a tremendous source of love and support, and I am so grateful for them. My family, on the other hand, is a different story. I've only talked to my mom about gender dysphoria, and while she's supportive, she is definitely confused and almost taken aback by it. She says that I didn't show any signs in childhood, and that crossdressing is something all little kids do. I think she expected me to be gay. She told me she expected one of her kids to be gay because my Uncle is gay, but not one being transgender. She keeps asking me if I like boys. I want to tell my sister but she seems disinterested in the fact that we're even related. I just want the support of my family. I'm tired of being doubted, because I do enough of that to myself. My mom is willing to accept me as a woman, but she said it will take some time. She wants to mourn her son. I want to tell her that she has two daughters now, but it's too early for all that. I even have my new name picked out, but I'm scared to take that next step. It's Siobhan by the way (Shi-vawn). I wanted to choose another Irish name that starts with S.

Sexual Dysphoria: It feels odd to share this information but I think it's important to acknowledge. Ever since puberty, I've primarily tried to penetrate myself and feel pleasure that way. I don't know why I did it, it felt instinctual. But I've never really had romantic feelings for men (not until recently), so I can't be gay, right? I was, and still am, so confused. When I first had sex, I really didn't enjoy it. This feeling that something was wrong persisted, but I didn't know why. I love women, but why can't I enjoy the sex we have? I dread having to be the "man" or top. So I started thinking I was gay. When I had sex with men, I didn't really feel attracted to them, but enjoyed being the bottom much more. It felt better. But I can't see myself dating or being intimate with most men. So I would leave those encounters feeling like shit, confused, and degraded. Now I am in a great relationship with a beautiful woman and she understands how I'm feeling. Sex is an important part of a relationship, but I feel like I can't uphold my end. My libido has been destroyed from anti-depressants in addition to the distress that I feel when "on top." Sex is still pleasurable, but I can't reach an orgasm and sometimes have to almost dissociate to cope with the fact that I have a penis. When I wear feminine clothing, research transitioning, do my makeup, or shop for feminine things, I get the same arousal feeling that I described when I crossdressed for the first time. It's not sexual, but I feel excited. My research shows that this is normal and it will calm down once this part of me is no longer repressed. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a pervert that gets a thrill from dressing as a woman.

I desire to start HRT and begin my social transition, but there's a lack of doctors/endocrinologists in my area and I'm waiting to keep talking with my mom about it. She seems worried that I'm going to transition. I know that there's never going to be a more convenient or better time, so part of me wants to say fuck it and just do it. It's obvious to me that these feelings aren't going away, I'm not getting any younger, and every step I take I love. If you are reading this, I hope you can understand me a bit better now.

Lots of love,

Siobhan.

[pharawee]

tag game ✨

I was tagged ages ago (sorryyy! 🙏) by the lovely @markpakin. Thank you so much! 💜

1. why did you choose your url?

Way back when I got back into giffing after a year of lurking in the BL fandom I needed a new url. I don't like using urls that are too obviously fandom-related (I don't mind them on other blogs at all!) but I did like Pha from Gen Y so I saw an opportunity and took it. This is before they killed Pha off due to some stupid fandom vote and ruined p much every couple in the series. 🤡

AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN GET HIS NAME RIGHT ON THE FAKE GRAVESTONE!!

Anyway I still really like the name so I'm probably never going to change it (I say all of this as I sit on @winnertanatat).

2. any sideblogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

I have archived sideblogs/fansites for old fandoms but other than that...

Oh wait, I have @dancingwithmyphone now where I reblog all the pretty things that I no longer reblog on here because it's mostly about Thai BL now. Does that make @pharawee the sideblog? 🤣

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

Uh, since 2011, I think?

4. do you have a queue tag?

I used to use my queue for aesthetic posts (that now go on @dancingwithmyphone) but now I exclusively use it for posts that tag me. I named the tag ♥ because ♥

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

Because livejournal went under (I'm aging as I write this) and none of its clones seemed like a good alternative.

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I had to (and also I really like YourMOOD):

7. why did you choose your header?

I made a header for every new HYBS mv. That was before they divorced called it quits and now I'm actually a bit sad every time I look at my header. I should really make a new one. :(((

8. what is your post with the most notes?

I'm super happy to say that it's about Thai marriage equality.

9. how many mutuals do you have?

Uh. Is there a way to find out?

10. how many followers do you have?

I recently reached 6k followers, half of which followed me after I started posting about BL. I honestly don't even know what to think of a number this big lmao hi!!

11. how many people do you follow?

The sidebar says 298.

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

No, only shit posts.🥁

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

Several times... but not as often as I used to because I have some serious hobby burnout right now. :(

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

No, never. I'd cry.

15. how do you feel about 'you need to reblog this' posts?

I don't reblog them. Which is probably a bit petty, sry. 🙏

16. do you like tag games?

I love them so much but I just don't have the time to do them very often and I feel so bad about it. I even have them all saved for when I find the time but then I never do. :((((((

Of course then I also feel bad when I no longer get tagged in things due to not doing tag games. I am the architect of my own destruction.

17. do you like ask games?

I do! And I love sending people asks for ask games because hopefully it brightens their day a bit. 💜

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

You're all tumblr famous to me. 🥰

No, really, when I first got into BL tumblr I felt a bit like

Negl I still do. Idk what the arrows are. Weird fandom takes on twitter and mdl, I guess.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

Don't tell @cytharat but I've been crushing on her for ages. ❤️

20. tags?

@cytharat because I like her shoelaces 😘

[drawnaghht]

@trufflemacandcheese

About the ship tags poll... Ah, sorry for not specifying ^^; I did post that the poll was about Yuichi x Rise!Leo specifically.

I actually want to do a separate one for Leosagi, but this one was specifially just for Leoichi/Leochi! (or, me using mostly my own made-up tag, YuiNardo)

TL;DR - Leosagi and Leoichi/Yuinardo are separate ships :D technically we don't have this problem with other fandoms with newer versions of characters, or even with other ships like Donsagi, but since Yuichi Usagi is a separate character from his ancestor, Miyamoto Usagi, it would make sense to have separate ship tags as well. Especially since the tags already exist anyway, so why not use them per ship? It is also more respectful to both older and newer Leosagi fans and fans of both Usagi characters. I am all of these myself, so hah, this is all silly fanstuff, but I'd just prefer the separation bc the ships are too different to share a tag + it's easier to sort and find fanart/fic later if there are separate tags. So Leosagi poll will go up later!

Longer explain: there was discussion around it a year or more ago, + posts here and there on tumblr mostly, about how technically Yuichi Usagi x Leo is a whole new ship bc Yuichi Usagi is a whole new character from the Samurai Rabbit show... and how maybe it's good to use just the one tag for it? So the oldest unique name/tag for them seems to be Leochi/Leoichi. Since Miyamoto Usagi x Leonardo is an older ship that's been around for 19 years since the '03 turtles show and Leosagi has been the tag/ship name that stuck with that, it's a separate ship. So are the tags associated with it, such as Katanashipping and older tags (which I haven't seen people use anymore.) But people saw the similiarities of the two Usagi's (family after all, lol, but I wonder if there's something else simmering under there), and started tagging the newer ship as Leosagi too, almost as an umbrella term, since we'd briefly had 12!Leosagi as a ship, and people just like the dynamic that the 03 show introduced, but people liked the new TMNT cartoon too.

ROTTMNT didn't have any Usagi eps tho, so - some Rise fans had started making their own Rise versions of Miyamoto Usagi as well, well before the Samurai Rabbit show. And this new ship clashed with that a bit, because people were either taking the character of Usagi from the show and just giving him book/2003 Usagi's personality (so continuing what Rise!Leosagi shippers were already doing, but confusing the pool of thoughts there bc it's a new character w a new name). So the fans who use tumblr and draw/write for the ship got upset that this new ship was taking over the tags and clogging the tags with just Yuichi x Leo content. There’s also the distinction that og Leosagi in 2004 is a ship where they’ve interacted in canon - Usagi exists next to the TMNT in the cartoon, and I consider 03 Usagi a whole separate version of him because they seemed to have changed his backstory a bit + made him younger to match the turtles. There’s also history of the characters interacting in the comics, because their creators Peter Laird and Stan Sakai were friends and Leo is Stan Sakai’s favourite character of the TMNT. Yuichi x Leo is a crossover ship however. so the new ship was a surprise.

Perhaps at first, it was kinda fun to see new art or fic, but then I guess people started getting annoyed for how many fans were using multiple tags and including Leosagi in their posts too, even when Miyamoto Usagi is not there.  A lot of people treated the two ships as the same or made the name an umbrella  tag, which I sorta did too at first bc what, it’s not like there’s guidelines pinned to the start of a tag page on tumblr, are there? So imo, it’ll just sort itself out eventually the more people start using the unique tags exclusively vs the old tag. Sliderbunny was the Miyamoto Usagi x Rise!Leo tag for a while, but that's also become mainly used for the newer ship. I’m not sure if tumblr shows the contents of tags from over a year ago anymore, but there are most likely blogs still active which jave those older posts with tagging prior to Samurai Rabbit coming out on Netflix.

I'm more annoyed personally that people also mis-tag the characters and the book/show. They are not interchangeable! So yeah, it's been a whole many-posts-long discussion over this ^^;;

I also made longer posts thinking abt these myself but I'm not gonna link them here cuz these are just general polls of curiosity. But you can find them under "ship tags" tag on my blog if you get curious. RABNerd28 on youtube made a very succinct (imo) video about this topic as well, which summarizes many of the issues the older shippers find when going online to see content for their favourite ship.

I actually have no idea where Leoichi or Leochi came from as ship tags or why there are two spellings of it (almost like "two pronunciations" lol), but so far, it's a pretty popular tag. So there seems to be no need to double-tag it with Leosagi, when it's 2 different ships. I find it also that whatever the fan content for 2003 Leosagi or just Leosagi is in general, it would be nice to just respect fans who made the ship popular at first, when TMNT03 aired their Usagi eps in 2004. I actually shipped this too back in the day and still do, so for me personally, it's nice to have separate tags just so I can find things better on my blog + so if people who don't like one ship, they can always block the tag and not see those posts from me. Or just general consideration ^^ I think we don't have this discussion around the other usagi ship tags bc well, there are a lot less posts about these other ships both on tumblr and elsewhere, maybe the fans don't have the energy to argue about this?

Another result of earlier discussions and the general tag-clogging, lots of people also dislike the show and the character of Yuichi Usagi. I as a fan of both show and comic, really don't like that, so that's one more reason why using separate tags is better - so at the least: Leosagi and Leoichi separately.

i still prefer my own made-up tag bc it's more unique + sounds fun. also reasons why I made my own unique ship tag: fans make Yuichi really OOC in their art/fic, or they haven't seen the show or the flat-out hate the show.... which is all fine, ordinary stuff even, as far as bigger fandoms and fanworks go. folks make Rise Leo OOC often too, but no one bats an eye. But hey, it's just other fans having fun with concepts and ideas. That's what fanworks are. Transformative fiction. People can change anything they want. But I personally like the show and character, and I like the Usagi Yojimbo books too. So reading/watching and making theories and in-character or just plain meme/funny stuff is how I have fun.

whatever the reasons for the tag names, for this poll I just piled all the reasonable ship tags I could find for it (i.e. used in at least 2 posts) just to see what people use the most. seems that Leoichi is winning so far, which makes sense as it is easier to pronounce.

[thursdayinspace]

twenty questions for fanfic writers

I was tagged by the amazing @oohnotvery, thank you!! <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

10, but I orphaned my old account several years ago when I left fandom for a bit. I don't know how many I had back then, over 100 for sure.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

37.724

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The X-Files. There's most likely going to be some Star Trek in there eventually, and I ventured into other realms in the past, but right now, exclusively The X-Files.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

under construction (Torchwood)

wild side (The X-Files)

in conclusion (The X-Files)

the ghost circle (Torchwood)

the physics of being alive (Torchwood)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes. If I ever forget, I'm sorry! I love every comment and it's important to me to say thank you.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

held safely in the dark (Torchwood). It's not even all that angsty by that fandom's standards, I suppose.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Good question. I rarely ever write unhappy endings. Fanfic is my happy place. But I think the one I most enjoyed writing because there was NO angst at all was in conclusion (The X-Files).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Ohhhh my god one time in a different fandom on my old AO3, somebody left a scathing, vitriolic comment on one of my fics, but obviously meant to do it anonymously -- only they forgot to log out first. By the time I read it they had deleted their entire account. That made the whole thing actually funny in context.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, I do. What kind? Hmm. Mostly pretty plain and boring. It's all about the feeeeeelings.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I used to. Back in the good old livejournal days I loved a good crossover. I wrote a Stargate Atlantis/Firefly crossover once, that might have been the craziest.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I'm...not sure? I think so? But that would have been like 15 years ago, I'm not sure anymore whether that actually happened or not.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes!! And it's so much fun. I've had a few co-writers over the years. Once life is less crazy, I might be tempted to give it another shot.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Mulder and Scully. There's a reason my tag for them is "the ship of all time."

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

None, currently. ...I'm. Hold on. That can't be true. But I truly can't think of a single one. I can't remember the last time that happened. This doesn't happen. But no, not one.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. Because it's fun, and through years and years of practice. One of my first betas drilled "show, don't tell" into my head to the point where I feel it's permanently tattooed onto the backs of my eyelids and I see it every time I blink when I'm writing. And in my very specific case, that meant learning to make people use their words. BUT it has helped me getting rid of unnecessary exposition, which at the same time made me get a lot of practice with dialogue instead. (Let's ignore the fact that I literally just posted a fic that has almost no dialogue at all...)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action. I can't do it, I'm sorry. Whose hand goes where when? Does this guy need three arms to do what I just told him to? Wait, you were just over there, how did you get here suddenly? Anyone who can write action scenes has powerful magic and I envy you and please teach me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm bilingual, so I could do that, I suppose? The need for it has never come up. Sounds fun though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Stargate Atlantis!! I still miss that fandom. Ahh the livejournal nostalgia is strong tonight...

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It's usually always the last one I posted, but I'm gonna say in conclusion. I'm very fond of that one.

Tagging...I don't know who has done this and who hasn't! @mr-iskender if you want to?

[horizon-verizon]

I just thought of something else about HotD. *EDITED POST*

One explanation for having the Velaryons be uniquely black (as in throughout their house, there are only black members and they are the only exclusively black Westerosi house shown in HotD thus far) was to make it so that Rhaenyra's first three kids were so "obviously" not Laenor's.

And one justification that I think Ryan Condal and some green stans who have read the book would use to explain the switch up from:

Rhaenyra was the one to wear a dress that silently announced her new self-determination against a harassing opponent

-> the Alicent doing the same but in green

is because it is "obvious" how Rhaenyra's faction got to be called the "blacks". Since the Targ colors are black and red, and she came out, in the book, in black and red at the marriage anniversary tourney held for Alicent and Viserys. (The same one where Daemon entered via circling dragon from the Stepstones.)

Ironically Condal though it more worthwhile to show how Rhaenyra's kids aren't Laenors over how and why the blacksa came to be called the "blacks".

There is this peculiar pattern of apparentness of features used as the justification for superficial and bigoted changes concerning character identification and development that troubles me, which also concerns the casting of the Velaryons.

Why is it so important to "make it obvious" that Rhaenyra's sons are not Laenor's in the show, why even cite that as a good reason to make the Velaryons black? Why not just say that we want inclusive casting and center black actors more in fantasy media?

So it's unimportant that we see Rhaenyra assert herself, but:

it is important that Alicent (the woman with the internalized misogyny and the usurper against another woman having power) assert herself?

it is important it's made "obvious" that Rhaenyra's 1st 3 kids are not Laenor's?

The math aint mathing.

A) There is already the absurd narrative trope of the "test" of white female infidelity through the color of the baby's skin in Western media. Such a trope reveals and affirms white male anxiety over the control over white female bodies and perceived competition with black men AND bestialization of the same black men. Cheating is wrong, (and I define cheating as when the partners got into an exclusive relationship and one/both/all look for others) but the fixation on the color of the skin and using that to "catch" infidelity centers the white man's need for control more than anything.

With the Velaryons and their own family not really displayed as a family, with all its love and care, devotion, and conflicts already (what did Laena feel when she discovered her parents wanted to marry her off at 12 to a 30-year-old? Corlys and Laenor's interactions, before and after Laenor revealed his sexuality? Him and Laena and Rhaenys listening to Corlys' adventures and how they met? Rhaenys, how do she and Corlys rule Driftmark and Hight Tide together or separately? How did Laenor meet Joffrey or better, how did the 'rents take this, what did that look like? We know Laenor loved his sister and mourned her so much as to stand in the sea, but can we see happier moments between them?) It reduces the Velaryons (esp Corlys) further as their own unit and makes Corlys, now black, look closer to this stern black dad who is only interested in his kids selfishly with no softness or concern for their well-being.

Where and who are the Velaryons a little apart from Corlys' political plotting and goals?

Simultaneously, it also makes the Velaryons' political interest in the Targs seem...superficial isn't the right word, more like it comes out of nowhere maybe?

This all while grouped with and related to the misogynoir (lagosbratzdoll).

B)

It makes it as if the most important thing or the primary thing is that Rhaenyra's adultery was unique or something to point out as wrong. That she flagrantly causes her own doom instead of her doom presaged by Jaehaerys I's misogyny (ozymalek's youtube video), again, his misogyny (my post), Alicent's ambition, and Andal patriarchy. I wrote how even Viserys is the actual origin of her plight HERE.

Rhaenyra's black/red dress moment wasn't just about her declaring for her house. It was also about her own self-determination against the harassment implied in the original canon. Here is what mononijikayu to had to say in a reblog:

equally so, the removal of important aspects of rhaenyra's vindication against alicent like the dress reveal scene was also something that can be questionable. because that serves an important purpose of showing us that she just didnt sit there and take the beating. she developed a desire to stand up for herself and not let herself dive down to surrender. that was the establishment of her will to lead her faction against alicent's greens. and yet somehow that seems less important or that was not feminist enough. that rhaenyra stood up for herself and survived that toxic environment. that she was ready to assert her stance against it.

The book does enough of the "it's obvious that Rhaenyra's kids are not Laenor's", which we were supposed to take as misogynist propaganda means to twist us against Rhaenyra and see her having children out of wedlock as the "true" issue anyway:

The features the Velaryon boys had is also meant to subtly insert the idea of them still Laenor's, as his mother, Rhaenys, had dark hair and "violet" eyes. Taking the teased ambiguity out of the parentage and then flattening it to "obviousness through race" (at least when it's promoted as a good reason --primary or not -- to hire black actors) further tries to make the audience feel that rhaenyra had more control over the lineage/house and others than she really did, instead of making do a lot.

It normalizes the unfairness of women being discouraged from thinking of their own needs or happiness or autonomy in favor of the status quo's compulsion for them to sexually reserve their bodies for their husband's (despite that not being reciprocated at all) instead of encouraging the audience to really feel she's owed more, that the rules she's compelled to follow follow are absurdly impractical AND unfair towards her and any woman. Very anti-feminist.

And that idea of legitimacy = cradle-bonding stuff needs to stop.

Conclusion

If you needed (as you do) to introduce black characters and put them into higher positions of power, wealth, and prestige (as the Velaryons had in canon), do not under any circumstance make the troubling aspect of racial paternity "tests" a good thing. I admit that audiences would be bringing this up and using it as a gotcha moment against Rhaenyra, saying that it was "obvious" those kids weren't hers. My point is that it didn't matter, the show bts made it matter more on the producers and marketing end, and the show steers away from misogyny as the central issue, not adultery.

Not only does the show wrongly identify the source of wrongdoing through that green dress moment, but the show also exposes its antipathy and disfavor for a side where white/EU patriarchal mores against female autonomy, leadership, and centrism go to die. Or get as choked out as Rhaenyra was by Daemon in episode 10.

*Yes, the first picture is there for jokes and to mark this post as unique on my activity page.*

[alderwoodbooks]

alrighty y’all.

I’ve been a bit afraid to write up my final thoughts on Red Rising by Pierce Brown because this book series has a cult following, and I’d love to sit here and tell you I understand why, but I truly can’t. A reminder before I get torn to threads that taste is subjective and I’m not telling you that you can’t enjoy these books! I’m just saying, I very much did not. <3

This book felt like a dumpster fire from start to finish. I posted earlier, when I was less than a quarter through the book with some of my issues with the book (the lack of originality, the insufferable main character, the clunky dialogue and overall just poor writing in general, and the way that all women are portrayed in the book as less than) and unfortunately for me, it did not get better. I read a review from someone else that said this book felt like if an angry 12 year old boy rewrote the hunger games and it made me laugh because I couldn’t agree more. There are so many elements of the story that remind me of other stories and it just makes the whole story fall very flat and feel very unoriginal, and very try hard. Despite the brutality in the story, it very much reads like a bad young adult dystopian novel, and good lord have I read my fair share of those.

One of the biggest issues I had with this book was the extreme misogyny. All of the female characters are constantly treated as less than, they are never seen as strong leaders, and if they are, they are quickly defeated by you guessed it, the strong macho men. The women are seen as prizes to be won in the games of war, the amount of extreme violence against them was astonishing. To me- it didn’t fit within the world of the book. These women are literally genetically modified to be the best humans in the world/universe, and so why are they seen as weaker and smaller and frailer than the men, and then dealing with all of this violence against them? Maybe it was supposed to be a “lord of the flies” type of moment, but if so, it was not written clearly enough, and instead just reads as misogyny coming from pierce brown himself? I’m not sure, but it didn’t feel right, and it was also painful to read. I was told that there was a reason behind it and that it gets explained at the end of the book, and maybe I’m just missing something, but I didn’t catch it, and also, I don’t want to have to sit through an entire book of misogynistic and at times, extremely homophobic (the pixies comments throughout the book feel a little ick to me personally, I dont love it.) bullshit for no real reason.

I’ve read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy this year, in fact, I’ve read almost exclusively sci-fi and fantasy, and Red Rising was probably one of the worst books I’ve read this year, but, it’s so loved by many, and I was encouraged to finish it because “it gets better!” I am still debating on reading the second book because again, I’ve heard it gets better, but I’ve also got three other sci-fi books on my tbr list that I know for a fact are going to be good (the second murderbot diary’s book, the new edition of the bone season which I’m so excited to dive into as soon as I finish my current read, which is the traitor of baru cormorant, which is such a nice pallet cleanser, and then I’ve got two neil shusterman books I want to dive into) and so I’m not so sure I want to devote the time or energy into it.

All in all, I went into this book not expecting much, just knowing that I heard many mixed reviews. I wanted to like the story, I really did, but it felt like a poor rendition of a bunch of other, better written, better executed, dystopian stories, mixed with some white boy misogyny, homophobia and rage. I ended up giving it a 1.5 stars out of 5 and I still feel like that’s being generous.

[druckkugelschreiber]

Writer's Asks

I got tagged by the wonderful @goldheartedsky and am way too excited to do it!!!

1) how many works do you have on AO3?

26 and not counting very fast because posting things is exhausting

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

517,732 which considering the amount of stories I have posted tells you a lot about the length of them lol

3) What fandoms do you write for?

Anything and everything I hyperfocus on. The Old Guard has the most words, but I also have Marvel, The Walking dead, Dragon Age, Snow White and the Huntsman, Fast & Furious, Alien Series and School for good and evil on there

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The evil queen and her huntress, Arena, My white Knight, Flower Dances (only cause of the Kudos bug back then though) and Safe & Sound

5) Do you respond to comments?

hell yeah!

6) What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Cottage just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

7) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uhhh, I almost exclusively write happy endings, so I don't know which is the happiest. Though I think either the upcoming ending for Freedom or Three times Loghain (almost) broke up with Caliane and the one time he didn't, Callie and Loghain also have a very happy ending together with a baby daughter even

8) Do you get hate on fics?

Not so far, but I don't post a lot of my more 'problematic' stuff

9) Do you write smut?

I do, but not very much, not all that interesting for me to write most days

10) Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I love writing crossovers, my go to are my marvel crossovers for anything (not many posted though), but the craziest is probably my Hobbit/ TWD crossover which can be found in Jojo's Negan x OFC oneshots

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know

12) have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13) have you ever cowritten a fic before?

not written, but I used to have like verbal stories with my friend back in middle school. I don't think it would work nowadays with my writing style anymore

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

SkyeWard, but I don't write about the character ships, for writing, I only write xOCs ships which would then be Andy x OFC naturally

15) What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

"At arm's length" but it has runneth dry, I'd also love to finish "Layers" which I kind of hope I will get to at some point, also "Best mistake I ever made" I really want to finish it but I do doubt that'll ever happen

16) What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and I think writing action or at least I enjoy it

17) what are your writing weaknesses?

description of surroundings, setting scenes, that sort of thing, I'm continously working on improving describing the very specific images in my head

18) thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I think it's cool but if not provided with translation it frustrates me and pulls me out of fics. Also if it's a language I know, it should be gramatically correct but I know how hard that is to get done in fanfic at least for myself so I usually just put everything in italics and call it a day.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

Warrior Cats, still write for it occassionally, I wrote WaCa fanfics before I knew what fanfics were lol

20) Favorite fic you’ve written?

My Spirit of Vengeance series holds a very special place in my heart. It was the first series of longfics I ever finished and just a lot of long projects in a row I finished in years. A lot of firsts happened with that series an it's my baby.

no pressure tagging @mxanigel @ex0rin @winterbonesthings @poetikat at anyone else who I forgot regularly writes fics, I'm terrible at remembering that and @ziskandra has abandoned tumblr after all D: