#trans self-expression is like the most important thing in the world to me and so i took a long time to word this as best i could

[mournwatch]

Hi again. Long post incoming and I apologize. It's just because I have a lot of thoughts about this, as a trans guy coming at this issue from another perspective. I'm not trying to fight but sort of... sing in reprisal if that makes sense lol. I think that this data could really use the context of how many AO3 authors writing sexual content about transmasc/trans man people are part of our community themselves. Knowing who is invested in writing this content is a crucial part of understanding what these statistics mean. (It's my hypothesis that the majority are trans, but this is not something I have checked.) And if it is majority trans people, I believe what we are seeing is not the sexualization of trans men by chasers or fetishists, but people exploring their own sexuality through a safe outlet in a community where they feel comfortable to do so.

I understand that the actual concern is that regardless of who is writing this content, there is a worry about harm being done by fic perpetuating trans men being burdened with feminizing/ fetishizing stereotypes. We did talk about this before and I remember. I think the perception of this harm is complicated considering that fandom spaces are by nature subcultural, and in mainstream (progressive/liberal) culture lives the inverse stereotype of trans men being held to standards of traditional masculinity. Between these two stereotypes, we are all just trying to find comfort and authenticity and somewhere to see ourselves reflected back.

I struggle to find any representation of gay trans men at all in most mainstream media content, and that is also sparse and tends to focus on adolescents anyway. Like Annie Marks' trans son Ben in the TV series Good Girls. I think the only nonhet romance with a transmasc character that I can think of in a widely viewed TV series was Jim and Oluwande in Our Flag Means Death. It's a vastly underrepresented category when you consider fiction as a whole (which does matter when talking about fandom since these source materials are the primary motivator for fan fiction to exist to begin with.) And that makes me also feel like there's plenty of space for people to fill that void with their own creations and experiences. Especially original content! Something I absolutely love to see.

With this in mind, this is just speculation based on my own experiences, but I don't think this stereotype would be so prevalent if it didn't resonate with people on a deeper level. There is an allure to being irrefutably trans in every way, but still a valued and active player in the fields of romance and sex. And to simultaneously break down the way people need men in society to be but still be seen and respected as a man/transmasc regardless of how many of these signifiers get eroded away. Because in fiction, you can do that, and having that escape is powerful. But yeah, it's worth asking these authors directly about their own thoughts on it. I personally completely understand the demand for this, because the kind of characters that I would make to represent myself and my sexuality almost never make it to TV, film, or games.

It truly is a stressful position to be in to hear about how the very thing that helped me be more comfortable with myself, my body, and my sexuality is the site of pain for other people in the community that I love. And I think a lot of others dont mean to be a source of anguish either. I'm speaking up partially even because I want to soothe some anxieties that might exist about the intentions of the people who write this sort of content who are similar to myself, and put a friendly face to it in a way. I don't know if any of this helped because I know big walls of text are intimidating, but I hope something here was meaningful. Thank you for looking into this data in the first place.

AO3 statistics for trans men

I looked at three main categories of ao3 stats: number of explicit fics, ratio of M/M to M/F fics, and different types of sex listed under "additional tags" (vaginal, oral, etc). There are definitely more things that could be looked at but these are what I focused on.

Explicit rating

At the time I collected these numbers (they've likely already changed, fic authors publish stuff fast) there were 14,221,609 total fics on ao3. Of those, 2,569,913 fics were rated "explicit," or 18.1% of fics. There were 91,487 fics tagged "trans male character," and of those, 43,845 were rated "explicit." That's 47.9% of fics tagged "trans male character."

Nearly half of all fics featuring trans men are explicit, compared to about a fifth of fics overall. This indicates that trans men are heavily sexualized in fandom spaces.

M/M vs M/F fics

For fics in general, there were about 2.0 times as many M/M fics as M/F fics (6,822,062 and 3,439,600, respectively). For fics tagged "trans male character," there were about 6.0 times as many M/M fics as M/F (68,507 and 11,359, respectively).

When filtering for fics rated "explicit," the difference in ratios is even more significant. Explicit fics in general had about 2.2 times as many M/M fics as M/F (1,616,555 and 743,455), while explicit fics tagged "trans male character" had 8.6 times as many M/M fics as M/F (38,490 and 4,489).

Fandoms in general tend to lean more towards M/M relationships than M/F relationships, but this discrepency is much stronger when it comes to trans men, and I'm not sure what the reason for that is. Trans men are more likely to be non-heterosexual than heterosexual, but not necessarily more likely to be attracted to men than women (a lot of trans men are bisexual, pansexual, queer, etc).

Trans male characters are more commonly shipped with men than women, to a greater extent than the overall fandom preference for M/M ships over M/F, and I'm not really sure why, but it's definitely interesting.

Additional tags

For explicit fics tagged as "trans male character," the most popular additional tag by far is "vaginal sex" at 13,685 fics (31.2% of explicit fics tagged "trans male character"). Since this tag doesn't necessarily refer to the trans male character (it could refer to a cis woman being vaginally penetrated by a trans male partner, for example), I filtered for fics tagged as M/M. That resulted in 12,504 fics tagged "vaginal sex," or 32.5% of explicit M/M fics tagged "trans male character."

Overall, for explicit fics tagged as "trans male character," the most common additional tags referring to different types of sex were:

Vaginal sex, at 13,685 fics

Vaginal fingering, at 9,908 fics

Oral sex, at 9,147 fics

Cunnilingus, at 7,712 fics

Anal sex, at 4,590 fics

There definitely are trans men out there who enjoy vaginal penetration/fingering or receiving cunnilingus, and many of the fics tagged as such might be reflective of that fairly common* experience for trans men. That being said, there is a really heavy emphasis on vaginas and vulvas in explicit fics about trans men, and I find that uncomfortable.**

*I think? Unsure how common it actually is

**BEFORE PEOPLE START MISINTERPRETING ME: I'm not saying I'm uncomfortable with trans men who enjoy using their vaginas/vulvas for sex, or the existence of that kind of fic. I'm saying that fandoms in general tend to focus on trans men having vaginas to an extent that I'm uncomfortable with.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David Tennant interview at the British LGBT Awards, June 2024 (x)

Int: You being an ally to the community isn't something new. You've been doing it, but recently you've obviously really stepped up for trans and non-binary people in a time that's so, so needed. What made you do that?

David: I don't know that I feel like I've done anything that I wouldn't just sort of be normally doing. I mean, it's for me it's just common sense that there's there should be any suggestion that people aren't allowed to live the life they want to live and and to be who they want to be with and to express themselves wholeheartedly. I mean, as long as you aren't hurting anybody else, everybody else just needs to fucking butt out. I don't really understand why...

Int: ...it's controversial.

David: Yeah, there is and the thing... the thing, if there's something that's particularly sobering and depressing, it's that certain debates are being weaponized by certain elements of the political class, often for no... it seems it's not ideological so much as opportunistic. And I just think that's pretty disgusting, really.

Int: I couldn't agree more. What message would you like to send out to trans youth?

David: Please don't feel like you're not loved and that you're not accepted and that you're not... you know, most people in the world are good and kind and just want you to be able to be who you are. Most people in the world don't really care. I mean... you know what I mean?

Int: We're all narcissistic.

David: Exactly. Everyone's so self obsessed that really, the sort of noise that comes from a certain area of the press and of the political class is... it's a minority. It really is. And please don't let that make you feel diminished or dissuaded or discouraged, because, you know, you just... you have to be allowed to be yourself, and you are, and you are yourself and you must thrive and flourish, and we're all here for it.

Int: Amazing. I think, yeah, it's so important .I think sometimes it feels like there's so many people, but it is a minority. It's such a minority.

David: It's a tiny bunch of little whinging fuckers that are on the wrong side of history and they'll all go away soon.

Int: Like what happened with gay people 20 years ago.

David: When I was a kid, when I was a kid, exactly. You know, I was at school when Clause 28 came in and it all felt like being gay was something to be terrified of. And gay men in particular were demonised as paedophiles and now that just feels historic and ludicrous and, I mean, I don't see all those... all those battles aren't won, but we're in a very, very different place. And I feel like.I feel like history is on a progressive trajectory and it might get knocked sideways now and again by people for all sorts of reasons, which are often quite selfish and quite, as I say, not coming from a place of any sort of genuine belief system, but other than a place of opportunism. And that's something that we... I hope that in 20 years time, we're talking about, you know, these culture wars as something of the past.

Int: I believe we will. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, so.

David: Oh, good, me too!

Int: You are my Doctor.

David: Oh, thank you very much.

Int: But recently, obviously, you came back for the 60th anniversary and you got to work with Yasmin Finney.

David: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Int: What was it like working with her?

David: Oh, she's brilliant. She's fantastic. Yeah. And she's in the show again now, she's back in it, so that's fantastic to see. She's lovely, talented, cool as a cucumber, articulate, brilliant. I learned a lot from her as an actor and also as someone who, you know, who's become a sort of de facto activist just because of who she is and where she is, and she becomes a sort of symbol of hope, and she's wonderful.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hey, I know this isn't your normal content so feel free to not respond, but what's your opinion on the "socialization" issue (as in trans men are socialized as woman and trans woman are socialized as men before transitioning and it effects their personality) ? Recently I've seen a bunch of posts saying it's a bad thing to acknowledge. Like trans men and woman saying people who bring it up are trans misogynists. But personally, as a trans man with many trans fem friends I feel it's an important thing to see. In my view of things it's a larger part of sexism and what children are taught. By saying a trans woman was "socialized" as a man when she was a child I don't mean she was raised with a bunch of privileges. I'm often referring to what could be very traumatic and is a brand of trauma I probably can't relate to. Most trans woman I know where forcibly excluded from learning how to cook or clean even if they wanted to because those aren't "manly chores" and where not taught how to keep themselves safe the same way cis woman are. Or in the experience of my friends even beaten for wanting to do feminine things, not just by parents but also by peers. Where as most of the trans men I know can cook and clean like no ones business but no one taught them how to fix a sink or their car or how basic financing worked and they got hit for asking about it because "that's not a woman's place". And although I fully believe all children should be taught how to do all these things so they can take care of themselves, I am also aware that's not the society we currently live in and most trans men need help learning how to navigate things like not talking over woman (they're so used to having to scream to be heard) and how to fix a financial or household issue while alot of trans woman need their girlfriends to explain to them that they can't walk down a dimly lit street with their headphones covering both their ears. Idk maybe I'm just misunderstanding the whole thing but I think acknowledging socialization Is simply a step in learning how to take care of yourself and keep yourself safe in a world that didn't think you needed that info

I think there's some value as a way to understand the way that each gender was raised and the way gender roles are reinforced, but even so you can say I was 'socialized as a man' as I am a Trans Woman, but at the same time, I never really acted much like a man because the more I was socialized to act like a man, the more I gravitated towards feminine things that didn't cause me dysphoria.

I have a completely different lived experience growing up compared to a Cis man, even when I wasn't aware I was Trans.

I did have to do a lot of unlearning toxic masculine things and needing to learn essential feminine things as I came out and started living for myself and my gender expression, but a lot of the things that people say I was socialized as a man to, I just never did because they made me extremely uncomfortable. Its because I was never a man.

You can try to socialize a Trans person to act against their gender identity but a lot of the time, those gender roles just do not get enforced, because they're so toxic to your sense of self.

[velvetvexations]

I got this comment on my antigonism explainer and I asked for permission to address in it's own post because I think it's good feedback:

I appreciate your support of transmasc and transnull people more than you can ever know. I, however, think coming up with a phrase that distincts “transmasc friendly transfems” is deeply divisive- and will further the divide and discourse between transfems and transmascs We don’t need a speciality phrase to denote people who are friendly towards us since those that are AGAINST us are the loud minority- the majority of real world trans people (transfems especially) are in unity with transmascs I think that this may just worsen the divides that are already starting to exist, and will further perpetuate discourse where it isn’t needed. Transfems can just say they support transmascs and transNB people, you guys don’t have to come up with a special title. I mean this all with the upmost love and sincerity. Transfems who support transmascs are the majority of transfems, yes there is an issue with TIRFism online But that is not the majority of transfems on the internet- and especially in real life. We should be focusing on greater unity and talking about what makes us similar- not dividing ourselves even more into subcategories to be policed or pointed to. From a transnull who is just as deep in this discourse

I'm thankful for your perspective and that you've given thought to the issue, and wanted to share your thoughts in a way that I feel is really sweet, which as someone with NPD I appreciate a lot. This is something that's been expressed to me about the idea previously.

I disagree, though. Are transfems who support transmascs and other non-transfems the majority? Yes, absolutely! But when the vocal minority is as loud as it is, they need to be loudly shutdown. That kinna thing takes megaphones. They're going to go away on their own and I want there to be a way to take an active stance that throws oneself out there as someone opposed to that shit.

Already it's just taken as a given that transfems are all TRFs.* If we don't go further, we're letting the vocal nature of the minority take up more and more space and become more and more accepted. Because like, they are super aggressive about it. These things get spread around on posts with thousands of notes every day. TRFs do nothing but bitch about non-transfem trans, intersex, and GNC people, and in doing so make spaces an increasingly less safe place for them.

And the signaling is a really important issue too. A lot of the responses to antigonism from transmascs in particular have been saying that it makes them feel safer. I've gotten messages from people who feel really bad about the paranoia trans radical feminism has caused them to feel around transfems they don't know, and that sucks! I'm so not interested in dismissing that as people who need to be less online or something, especially since I've heard a lot of stories of IRL spaces being hostile to any expression of masculinity as well. These are people who are, at best, facing a massive bullying issue, and at worst being driven out of the trans community entirely. It's cruel and I'm not going to shame them for having this expectation hammered into them, especially because I've also constantly been let down over and over and over when I see a post about transmisogyny or the transfem experience that I really like, only to be gravely disappointed when I see they're a TRF. It constantly happens. It sucks. It sucks so unbelievably much.

Hell, a lot of TRFs are self-identified TMEs, and in fact, most of them are! Every time they do one of their polls trying to prove some dumbass point, it's overwhelmingly "TMEs" who respond. It's like, a relatively small number of transfems kicking around a little cult of sycophants, many of whom are weird as fuck in their own ways but also many who are just trying to be good allies. They should also be signaled to that, hey, when I tell them they actually didn't need to drop a headcanon of a character that gave them joy because a transfem said so, I'm not the freak anomaly I get painted as. Like, I've responded to things asking if something so not an issue was transmisogynistic, or what the problem with TMA/TME was, only to immediately have multiple TRFs zoom into the replies like "don't listen to velvetvexations, she alone has those opinions because she hates all other transfems."

And what about transfems who also need to have it made clear TRFs aren't normal, too? Who need to be gently caught before they get indoctrinated into this shit?

When you see a trans woman saying she thinks it's bad to call non-binary people slurs, identifying as an antigonist gives the messages she's not a random confused baby bird brainwashed by Big Transmisogyny to hate her sisters. She is just one of many who feel that way.

And like, is making it a "faction" like that divisive? I don't think so because holy hell, this discourse is already divisive and toxic as fuck. The intense vitriol that gets thrown at one side from another is already radioactive. What's going to make things worse than it is now? TRFs will have to put up with seeing that other transfems are enthusiastic about disagreeing with them? Those other transfems will feel an us vs. them mentality regarding radical feminists?

A friend of mine put it really well last night:

it isn’t enough to just be ‘normal’ about transmascs and intersex people, actually you do need to be actively working against the now baked in harmful ideologies that have gained traction

I don't want to be normal about these things, I want to be actively anti-transandrophobic, actively anti-intersexist, etc. in a way that sends a clear message to everyone. Being normal about these issues is only normal until it isn't. And even if it forever remained a minority with no threat of growing larger than it is today, TRFs should still have the door slammed in their face until they learn to play nice. If transfems who are Normal really are "normal", then make TRFs feel like pariahs rather than having the unmitigated gall to declare that transmascs invented the transmisogynistic concept of transandrophobia because "2024 is the year transfems united under the banner of transfeminism."

Should we let them have that, and just say oh, well, it's obviously intuitive we're the normal ones and they're the weirdos, we can just quietly continue to consider ourselves the default model of transfem while radical feminism continues to cause more and more division entirely on it's own?

*not that they use that language

anyone may reblog this!

[gatoraid]

Shelley Parker-Chan for Locus Magazine

Locus Magazine's March 2024 issue had a long interview with Shelley Parker-Chan! They talk about their inspirations, the writing process of The Radiant Emperor duology, exploring gender in their books and how writing fanfic has shaped their writing (among a lot of other things). I was finally able to get my hands on the magazine and wanted to share some favorite quotes.

Check out more quotes and how to buy the magazine to read the full interview: Shelley Parker-Chan: All the Others

On their origins with scifi/fantasy

My mother was such a stereotypical Chinese tiger parent: 'You have to study really hard, get great grades. But then she also loved Star Trek. So we’d spend a lot of time watching that together at home. That was a formative part of my childhood, to the point where I wanted to be an astrophysicist when I grew up. I was obsessed with the stars.

A lot of the themes in science fiction/fantasy really spoke to me. Robots! I love an awkward robot - Murderbot by Martha Wells is one of my favorites. As a slightly awkward, possibly on-the-spectrum child, I really identified with robots, and the Spocks of the world.

On writing and fanfiction

Action/adventure plus relationships has always really interested me. Obviously, back in the day, nothing was really queer, so in my teens I gravitated towards Japanese manga and anime, which had more queer themes. Especially in the online spaces, people were writing fanfic, so I started writing it, too.

I never did any formal writing classes outside of fandom and fanfic - that was where I learned to write. I think the number one Most Important Thing was that fanfic was a place where you could write and find acceptance and enthusiasm. […] You could express very upsetting desires, and really explore aspects of sexuality, personality, and problematic relationships in a way that other people would read with an open mind and greet very enthusiastically without judging. No one said, 'Well, this is not the correct moral lesson that we want in fiction!’ Which is a response that has increasingly popped up in traditional publishing.

On exploring themes of gender in The Radiant Emperor Duology

There’s a lot of trans issues and gender exploration in the books, but I didn't want to make it too close to contemporary life because then it’s not fun for me. I like exploring those issues from a step removed, allowing for people with many different identities, for instance, to project themselves onto a certain character. Like, a eunuch - no one has a eunuch identity these days. But any kind of gender nonconforming, nonbinary, trans person - I've had many trans women write to me and say they enjoyed reading a character like that. If I had written an actual trans man character in the book, that would have narrowed it down a bit.

I always think that my main goal as a writer is to explore characters. But I don't start with the characters. I start with a theme, and the theme was gender and being oneself in a system where a rigid gender binary is enforced. It’s about the performance of femininity and masculinity. Not that I put it in so many words- ‘I want to write a book about gender!’ Its about people exploring, expanding that, confronting that, battling the binary in their own ways. What does it mean to be yourself when that self is in opposition to what people say you should be?

About the characters of TRE

All of the characters are either queer or they are really engaged with the concept of how to be themselves when the world is pressing afainst that. I do have a straight female character, Madam Zhang, based on a famous nineteenth-century female pirate in Southern China, who ran rhis mercantile empire. […] It was said that her background was a courtesan. So I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll take that character – a woman in a very male world who uses femininity as a weapon. But, knowing she can never rule herself, she has to work through men.’ That’s one character who bounces off of gender in an interesting way, and then I could have her in dialogue with other characters.

There’s a genderfluid character, my main protagonist Zhu, who used the performance of gender kind of like a superpower. She can move in and out of identities and doesn’t feel particularly wedded to any of them.

Then we have a nongender-conforming – but straight, I guess – man, Wang Baoxiang, who does not conform to society’s standards of what it is to be a man, and that impacts his identity in a certain way. His self-esteem is very damaged, and he often feels like, ‘I was born in the wrong time. If I had been born in a different time, my version of masculinity would be recognized.’ Through that character, I was thinking fo the way in which Chinese traditional performance of masculinity, for instance, is not recognized here in Australia as masculine - it's seen as feminine. In Australia. we have a certain white, sports-playing, particular idea of masculinity - It looks like Chris Hemsworth. If you do not look like Hemsworth, it you're a little Asian guy, your’e inherently seen as feminine, no matter now masculine you feel.

I have a eunuch character, someone whose gender has literally been ripped away from them, and that kind of reflects a trans experience – someone who feels they are intensely masculine on the inside, but the entire world sees them in a different way. Then you feel the need to perform, in order to seen to be the way that you feel you are. But this character, in trying to be the most manly he can possibly be , starts to adopt all these toxic masculine traits, and, in a sense, kills a lot of his own honest desires in pursuit of performing this ideal of masculinity.

About their next book and future aspirations as an author

I'm going to write a secondary-world fantasy. I've never built a world from scratch before […] It will feel pre-industrial, historical. It will be very kinky and - what are the comps? So far l've been saying, 'It's Foucault's Discipline and Punish meets Simone Weil's Gravity & Grace with a side of of Kushiel’s Dart. There's a lot of kinky BDSM in a world like that. One of the joys of fan fiction was people were not afraid to create these worlds where society is completely based around kink concepts, so I'm building a world around kink concepts here, and that’ll be fun.

I'm a frustrated romance author, so I really want to write some romances in the future - straight up. None of that politics stuff. none of the adventure, only the relationships! I'm not fast enough to write category romance, though, that's for sure. I'll have to stick with fantasy romance so I can do one every two years.

[tamas-and-the-clowns-sol-left]

Hello, you've made it. You reached the Rubyverse.

What is the Rubyverse, you may ask??

the Rubyverse is an alternate universe for Aiden Thomas' The Sunbearer Duology that I, Tamas, have been creating since August 6th, 2024.

This is going to be more detailed after my small info bit, boundaries, and trigger warnings.

What is the point of this project??

This is my place to add as I wish and have content to my desires. From character pages, headcannons (that are subsequently cannon for this universe), or being my indecisive self, I am using this to express my creative freedom in hopes of finding some audience who cares enough about it

What are the boundaries??

My boundaries aren't designed to be difficult, but if you find them in such way than we are not for eachother's interaction.

I will not tolerate anything NSFW about myself, my characters, my ideas, or my posts in all. I am an asexual guy and my comfortability isn't with that stuff about me or my creations. Every creation of mine has some of me in them.

Feel free to ask questions, but think before you speak. I'll respond as much as I can and when I can, but I am a human, I'm going to be treated as such. Creating and sharing my creations doesn't lessen or add to my humanity and that's something I see many people struggle with.

No discrimination against me or my characters. this includes use of: Slurs, homophobic/transphobic comments, racism, ableism. If you are grown up enough to be on the Internet you should be grown up enough to not discriminate and keep your inside thoughts inside.

Use tone tags for sarcasm and jokes at minimum. I struggle with tone often and take everything at face value especially the less there is for me to analyze. I speak at face value, I don't use jokes or sarcasm without clarification that it is such so others can know. /j means joke and /sar means sarcasm.

What can you expect from this series??

You can expect characters that are more than just beauty standards and stereotypes. I may fall into some tropes or pairing types(such as loser boyfriend x absolutely stunning girlfriend) but my characters all have some sort of difference. They're not all perfect beings.

You can expect many, many spoilers for both The Sunbearer Trials and Celestial Monsters, aka the whole Sunbearer Duology.

You can expect changes to the trials and to the world building. Fear not, I haven't wrecked too much chaos upon this world's setup.

You can expect even more queer and trans characters, as well as some more disabled characters!! Not only do they have a soft spot in my heart, and I find representation largely important, I myself am a disabled queer trans person and love having characters like me.

Be prepared for some art style inconsistency and some writing that will *hopefully* get better over time. I'm not the most beginner of all beginners but I'm definitely not what I'd call a very seasoned artist and writer. (I also use a few different mediums for art, I stick to pencil to paper, watercolor, and digital art more often than not but I still like trying new things and having fun.)

Be prepared to read tags as this gets posted onto Ao3(And ONLY will I post on Ao3) and be prepared to read the trigger/content warnings for any thing I post here, especially writing.

Many things are based off of my own experience!! They may not be your experience, they may never be your experience, quite a few I truly hope aren't amongst anything anyone must experience. However on the flip side of the token coin I have put forth research to make anything and everything that is not written with my own experience is going to be as authentic as I can make it.

What are some trigger and content warnings I can give right off the bat??

For the sake of separation, each one is a bullet list instead of a paragraph, and I added everything planned that is something I think could risk triggering anyone.

Spoilers for all of The Sunbearer Duology!!

Major character death

"Human"(semidiós) sacrifice

Injuries

A character with hypermobility that experiences real struggles (aka not dumbed down to "oh I'm super flexible!!")

depersonalization/dissociation

self put pressure

Symbolization of needing accommodations for a disability and how society will reject or even mock thoes needs and overall will refuse to accommodate without harassment

Forced Assimilation (forcing a culture to rid their culture in order to fit into the other culture)

bullying/discrimination

abuse(parental)(physical and possible mental/emotional)

war and past war of high significance

manipulation/deception

this gets religious seeming as all main characters are dióses and semidióses (gods and demigods) however it is not a place to spread religious beliefs, no matter how good or ill intentioned

unsafe binding

Past self harm/self harm scars/non graphic current self harm

Struggles with eating (Arfid sensory type in specific)

I MUST EMPHASIZE. IF ANY OF THESE MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR YOU, KNOW YOURSELF. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED BY ME NOW, YOU WILL BE WARNED EVERY TIME ANY TRIGGER WARNING IS APPLICABLE. If you choose to skip triggering chapters or sections that's up to you, if you're looking at this and going "oh this may be not for me" feel free to keep scrolling because your health is more important than one more reader will ever be to me.

Welcome to the Rubyverse

In the world there are three godly races, The Golds, the Jades, and the Obsidians.

The Obsidians and their monsters are trapped in the stars, Jade and Golds now are the only Dióses in Rino De Sol. Right??

What if I told you there's one more set of Dióses??

Ruby red blood, the "weakest" of Sol and Tierra's godly children.

Follow eight dióses and their semidios children through their rediscovery, their "grand reveal" to all of humankind.

[rainbowdaisy13]

To be fair, Miss Americana and the Lover Era happened during a time when she thought she's never gonna become more famous than she was at that point. Now she's on top of the world and she's using the same strategy that got her the most fame originally. Bearding heavily and the squad. Karlie's just not part of it anymore for whatever reason. In her career, when she had the most success, she wasn't that vocal about social issues or political matters. When she saw her star rising again with Folkmore and Midnights, she stayed silent on Roe vs. Wade or trans rights being taken away. She wanted to keep as much fans on board as possible and it worked because now she's here. She's in a perfect in between. Half her fanbase can think she's for Trump through those she associate herself with in the present and half thinks she's for Kamala because of her 2019-2020 Era of being an activist. She doesn't find it useful anymore to get involved in political or social matters. It'll harm, not hurt her status. Karlie might have a different moral compass, where it's important for her to adovcate for some things, regardless of criticism. Her post about abortion rights got so much hate though. That's what Taylor would risk as well if she spoke up about it. Or maybe she's pro life. Patrick is against Trump. His mom and wife Brittany are pro Trump. They can still be a happy family. Why compromise her image like that, when she still has shows remaining or people could boo her at football games? She has nothing to gain anymore from being an activist. This is a different Era for her. Billionaires will never do things out of the goodness of their heart. There's always a secondary goal there.

With Gaylors and Hetlors, it can be fun for her I suppose, to switch back and forth. Flag queer and then go back to your self place with the stunts. She probably doesn't care about Gaylors getting hate cause she thinks it's their fault for expressing their opinions so loudly. Everytime queer talk has gotten too loud, she does something that pushes Hetlors to see Gaylors as conspiracy theorists and to pile enough hate on, to shut them up. It's obvious to me she's not comfortable with queer talk about her becoming that loud. Tik Tok gaylors amplified that discourse as well. I think she enjoys to have queer themese and flagging because she's part of the community, but maybe she believes flagging should be a secret language within the community. I really don't think she enjoyed being blasted like that for her flagging and that's why she got Chely Wright to support the CNN article shaming Gaylors for being so loud about her queer themes and planted the idea that speculation is disgusting. She used to like posts about her not being comfortable with speculation back in 2014-2017 too.

Right now this NFL deal gives her PR and makes her ton of money. People have never idolized a partner of hers like they do Travis. It would be counter intuitive for her to separate from him and cut ties with the NFL. It's addictive being this famous and having so much power and she probably wants to enjoy it as much as possible without shaking the boat.

PS. This isn't to defend her in any way. They're just my thoughts on why she's continuing on with this strategy. ♥️🤍🩶💙🩵🤍🧡❤️

Good points thanks for sharing ✊🏼

[sigynpenniman]

SIGYN’S TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2024: #5 - Queen I - the 2024 remaster

The 2024 remaster of Queen’s self-titled debut album, here renamed from just “Queen” to “Queen I” to acknowledge the existence of follow up album Queen II, sits at the bottom of my list exclusively by virtue of being a remaster/re-release and not an all new album. The original master of Queen I is plagued horribly by production and audio quality best charitably described as Crunchy, in a way no lossless vinyl transfer FLAC can remedy. While I don’t always find remasters to be especially useful when they’re of recent-ish albums which sounded fine to begin with, if there was ever an album that needed a proper modern remaster to clean it up it’s this one. Unlike some remasters the audio quality difference here is IMMEDIATELY noticeable especially on some of the crunchiest original tracks - “Liar” probably comes out the best here, basically sounding like you’re finally hearing it the way it was actually meant to be heard. In addition to finally uncrunching the original masters Queen I bundles a whole bunch of bonus content, mostly demos, alternate takes and parts of the Live At The Rainbow live album. These are interesting enough if you like Queen enough to be interested in the minute variances and different expressive takes of the songs, but beyond the cleaned up original masters the best thing here are the backing track development & demo tracks, most of which include some - or a lot - of ancillary spoken vocal, spoken timings, commentary on the recording process, or just adorable artistic frustration. The absolute best thing here is My Fairy King (Trident Backing Track In Development) which is a 6-minute audio recording of Freddie & the guys trying to lay down the backing track for My Fairy King and growing increasingly, adorably frustrated trying to master the song’s light speed piano intro. Freddie talks and complains and curses, all with warm laugher in his sweet voice, always so high and gentle. The assorted legendaria of Queen has always been that outside of his larger than life crowd-mastering stage personas Freddie was actually an incredibly quiet, sweet, gently mannered person, it’s so abundantly clear here. Being a metaphorical fly on the wall to the unspeakably intimate, casual moments as the greatest band in history play, talk, and tune their instruments is so overwhelming that playing this for the first time had me sobbing in my car, imagining a world where Freddie is still here with us. Because make no mistake - this is the greatest band in history, and that’s an opinion I will take no rebuttals on. The Beatles can have spot number 2. Without Queen there would be almost none of what I love so much that came after, across so many genres. I can think of few bands or artists I love that don’t have at least a little bit to owe to Queen, from Rhapsody of Fire and Trans Siberian Orchestra to a particular well loved emo rock quartet whose legacy, aesthetic, and general thing is so tightly intertwined with Queen’s that they’ve been being mentioned in the same breath for as long as the latter existed; you can almost map the members’ personalities onto each other 1-for-1. Because it’s important to remember that the early 2000s emo-rock explosion, and most especially the hyper-theatrical trinity at its center, are the inheritors of this legacy. Without Queen, there is no Panic at the Disco (a fact which becomes painfully obvious listening to some of shameless hollow retreads on Viva Las Vengence), there is no Fall Out Boy, and without Freddie, Brian, Roger and John, there is very certainly no Frank, Mikey, Ray and Gerard.

There are times where the foundational and codifying texts of a genre become somewhat comparatively boring over time, easy to appreciate and respect for their importance but feeling sort of primitive and uninteresting compared to the dozens of things which evolved and expanded improved on their work in the years or decades after. This is very much not so with Queen. Queen are, I think, one of those bands who somehow remain under-appreciated despite being one of the most famous and loved bands of all time, I think there are few people alive on earth who don’t know Bohemian Rhapsody by heart but far fewer who’ve dug into the deep cuts on things like Hot Space and Jazz. If you’ve ever liked Queen at all, at any point, go pull the Queen I remaster up and give it a listen - it will remind you, if you ever forgot, why Queen are in fact the band of all time.

[fierceawakening]

Picking up Sister Outsider again, and here are a few quotes that make me think that Black feminists (or at least, Audre Lorde) doesn't see the liberation of oppressed men and the liberation of oppressed women as separate spheres:

From Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response:

Sisters:

Ten years as an interracial couple has taught us both the dangers of an oversimplified approach to the nature and solutions of any oppression, as well as the danger inherent in an incomplete vision.

Our thirteen-year-old son represents as much hope for our future world as does our fifteen-year-old daughter, and we are not willing to abandon him to the killing streets of New York City while we journey west to help form a Lesbian-Feminist vision of the future world in which we can all survive and flourish. I hope we can continue this dialogue in the near future, as I feel it is important to our vision and our survival. (pp. 77-78)

This is the main bit that leads me to think that Black feminists were not using intersectionality to say that oppressed men matter less than oppressed women, and therefore why I don't understand the reasoning behind the claim that they would say transmisogyny (prejudice against trans women) is a thing but transmisandry (prejudice against trans men) is not.

What was I not reading closely here? This is Lorde expressing concern for a man who is oppressed on one axis she's oppressed on (being Black) but not on another (being a woman.) She says nothing here about how ONLY being oppressed for being black should make him matter less or how he has it easy. She doesn’t want to leave him exposed to “the killing streets!”

More quotes:

And our sons must become men--such men as we hope our daughters, born and unborn, will be pleased to live among. Our sons will not grow into women. Their way is more difficult than that of our daughters, for they must move away from us, without us. (p. 73)

Raising Black children--female and male--in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. (74)

I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine. I wish to raise a Black man who will recognize that the legitimate objects of his hostility are not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs him to fear and despise women as well as his own Black skin. (74)

The question of separatism is by no means simple. I was thankful that one of my children is male, since that helps to keep me honest. Every line I write shrieks that there are no easy solutions. (78)

Both Beth and Jonathan need to know what they can share and what they cannot, how they are joined and how they are not. And Frances and I, as grown women and lesbians coming more and more into our power, need to relearn the experience that difference does not have to be threatening. (78)

Most likely there will always be women who move with men, women who live with men, men who choose men. I work for a time when women with women, women with men, men with men, all share the work of a world that does not barter bread or self for obedience, nor beauty, nor love. And in that world we will raise our children free too choose how best to fulfill themselves. For we are jointly responsible for the care and raising of the young, since that they be raised is a function, ultimately, of the species. (78-79)

So... yeah. The idea that Black feminist theory supports an understanding of intersectionality that says "ignore oppressed men because they use silly words that don't mean anything" just doesn't make sense to me.

Which Black feminist theorist ever said anything like that?

[shmothman]

ooh x for the nsfw alphabet? I know you have a whole post about it but I really love your ideas and I wanna hear you talk about it more!!!!!

SFW/NSFW Alphabet Prompts

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

nsfw below the cut, in case you couldn’t guess 🤣

As you can tell by my fics, I’m fond of swapping out his genitals (as millionsvash said, “like legos”) based on little more than “what I feel like writing that day.” This post goes into my main “flowery” version: external petals, internal structures that resemble a cock and cunt, which takes inspiration from different flowers—and also slugs, because gastropod sex gets pretty wild and love darts are a thing that exist, for real, in the world. (As always, I lament the fact that I’m a much better writer than I am artist—but I tried my best.) Some additional details to this that I didn’t touch on much in that post include: because these structures are internal most of the time, they’re self-lubricating—and well lubricated at that. He’s very wet and drippy when he’s turned on, and his slick is similar in viscosity to like… aloe. (No, I didn’t buy aloe drinks at the store to see if the texture was what I expected, and then find out that the drinks are basically just sugar water with chunks of aloe in them. And no I haven’t been buying aloe everything as my own personal inside joke. [lying.]) Plus, he’s sweet! Because it’s my fictional boyfriend and I can say his cum tastes good. And I haven’t touched on this at all, but I picture that his slick is… kind of difficult to wash off. It dries very sticky and hydrophobic. You’re gonna be sticky and slick for the rest of forever, good luck!

As you can also probably tell by my fics, I am a fan of tentacles too—so in a case where I’m still giving him something analogous to a cock, but I don’t feel like writing the detail required to describe All Of That, I picture him with something long and tapered, that unsheathes itself from a slit between his legs—not really connected to either the stampede flower imagery or the 98/max wing imagery, but hey. I’m just having fun with my alien boyfriend’s junk here. I like a man whose genitals I can write as writhing, whether that means fleshy petals and tendrils or drippy everting tentacles.

Other times, though, I want to write him as more specifically trans—more of a classic plantussy vibe. Because alien pussies are just as fun as alien dicks and deserve just as much love. How I’ve written that so far is still in the context of petals—basically like my flowery design, just minus the internal petals that twist together to form the cock, and with the addition of a wiggly clit, more like the stamen of a flower (…mixed with a tentacle. Again). No matter what I’m giving him, though, I tend to picture him as externally closer to looking like he has a cunt. (Hello, I’m trans, it’s what I do.) Also, now that I’m reading max, I want to try writing a more feather-inspired design: I’ve seen a lot of really wonderful art that’s all been mixed together in my brain, and I’m picturing something more pussy-adjacent, surrounded by a sort of downy fluff, with a—again I’ll use the word writhing—clit that sort of… swells a bit.

Really, the important thing for me is to do something fun with it. I’m always looking for novel ways of expressing the idea of pleasure, and I have fun coming up with structures that could experience pleasure in strange ways—like the petals of his cock being able to open up and reveal even more sensitive areas, or the tendrils and their hormone secretions. The nice thing is that there’s no shortage of inspiration to be found in my line of work; invertebrates have some absolutely wild reproductive structures (or structures that have no reproductive function that I can look at and say “yeah, I can make a weird dick out of that”). I have a lot more ideas on how I can Make Him Weirder, from shit like “literal sex pollen” to a bit of a knotting fic that I’m working on currently. I’m just going where the vibes take me!

As for what’s going on beneath the rest of his clothes, I’m always using 98/max Vash’s body/scars as my reference! (And I only give him one nipple lol)

(Vash’s canon grey sweatpants my fucking beloved.)

[librarycards]

hello ! i’m looking for books/media that talk about being an artist in terms of being part of one’s identity and was wondering if you had any recommendations… i’ve been struggling how to word what i’m specifically looking for so idk if this’ll make sense! if u even have places to look or some search terms i could use it’d be much appreciated!

basically like . creators talking about using art as self expression/reflection, how being a creator informs how one moves in the world, capitalism’s effect on how creators view themselves, exploring art & madness… broad but if you think of anything related i’d love to check it out :) thank you!!!

yes, I do have some!

Here are some books on the relationship between one's art (writing, film, documentary, visual arts, etc.) and (often Mad) life - i'm not delineating between fiction and nf here because most are a mix:

Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill

Poupeh Missaghi, trans(re)lating house one

Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats.

Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev

Eileen Myles, Inferno

Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

Johanna Hedva, Minerva A Miscarriage of the Brain

Akwaeke Emezi, Dear Senthuran

T Fleischmann, Time is the Thing A Body Moves Through

I curated a folio of Mad creativity / craft in 2021:

Part One

Part Two

And I recently wrote a quasi-craft/bodymind essay, which you can read here.

And here are a two important-to-me craft essays I happen to have bookmarked that feel relevant:

Daydreaming With Leslie Jamison

Brain Fog: An Essay

Hope this helps!

[thegrowngirlguide]

Pride - A journey of discovery and Acknowledgement

Today is the fifth day of Pride Month, which means we're in the very beginning of a very colorful month.

I come from a country that only started to actually recognize June as the month of Pride and making big and beautiful parades/ marches to defend the communities rights and spread awareness to our struggles. Yet, I must admit I am a very privileged person in this amazing community and I must recognize it.

But, I feel like it makes more sense to explain why from the very beginning...

Discovering my bisexuality was quite the journey, to say the least. It all started during a conversation with my new friend group in Sophomore year - or Freshman year for me, but that's beside the point. We delved into the topic of sexuality, which was a bit of a taboo for me at the time. I had been questioning my own sexuality for a while, so when my friend popped the question, "Are you bi?" I was at a loss for words.

The most amusing part - feel free to chuckle along with me - was that I didn't even realize sexuality was a spectrum. In my mind, it was either straight or gay, no in-between. That's when my journey of self-discovery truly began.

As I delved deeper, a whole new world opened up before me. From bisexuality to non-binary, pansexuals, gender fluid, and trans individuals, I was exposed to a myriad of identities. Initially, I felt like I was being dishonest about my feelings, almost as if I was playing the victim without cause. But then it hit me - everyone is unique, which is why the LGBTQIA+ community encompasses such a diverse spectrum. There are no set rules when it comes to our feelings or identities.

Speaking of which…

To all those who constantly face put-downs and misgendering, even after clearly stating your preferred pronouns, don't let those individuals bring you down. It's not uncommon to find some content creators crying their eyes out over these people, but life presents much larger battles than dealing with stubborn people who can't treat others with decency.

Instead, find humor in it. Let them know they wish they were as remarkable as you! Project confidence and pride in yourself until it becomes second nature! Because once their teasing no longer bothers you, they will cease their behavior. I apologize for sounding like my mother, but it's the truth! Honestly, one only realizes this when they put it into practice, and that's when people start to truly listen to you.

It can be quite amusing when trying to explain certain concepts in the community to our relatives, especially when it comes to terms that are still unfamiliar or not widely known where we live. I had a funny experience explaining the difference between non-binary and drag queen to my mom, as she still believed they were the same thing. Well, to be fair, we do have someone like Morphine Love Dion, who is both a non-binary lip sync assassin and a drag queen, so it can get a bit confusing. However, it's important to remember that this isn't always the case.

Another interesting situation arises when explaining these concepts to a young boy who has a keen interest in makeup and makeup artists. He would eagerly come over to my place and proudly show me the videos he discovered, completely engrossed in his newfound passion. Unfortunately, his parents disapprove of his behavior, believing that because he is a boy, he shouldn't be interested in makeup. Thankfully, his parents are usually at work, allowing him to experiment with cousin Jo's makeup and learn the art of being an incredible makeup artist. I must say, this kid can blend eyeshadow like a pro, even better than me!

It feels unjust to prevent children from exploring and enjoying this world of self-expression and experiencing new things. If they have an interest and find joy in it, why not let them embrace it? Makeup can be an incredibly fun and creative outlet, and everyone should have the opportunity to explore it without judgment or restrictions. So, let's encourage these young minds to express themselves and discover their passions, even if it means challenging societal norms. After all, who knows what amazing talents and passions they may uncover along the way?

To each and every one of us, Pride holds different meanings, but at its core, it should always represent a sense of pride. So, step out into the world and confidently showcase your true self! Embrace who you are and empower others to do the same. Let us treat one another with utmost respect and kindness, while also standing up for and understanding those who may not have a voice to defend themselves. Remember, each and every one of you has the potential to be extraordinary and selfless in your own unique way.

Now, I want to address the straight allies directly. Show the world that you are true allies by utilizing your privileges to support and protect the LGBTQ+ community. Take the time to learn and appreciate the individuality of every person, treating them with the same respect that you desire in return. If possible, remain vigilant and help put an end to violence and aggression against not only the queer community but also other marginalized communities.

Kindness doesn't require any monetary value, respect doesn't cause harm, and being human means treating others with decency. We all have the ability to embody these qualities and make a positive impact.

[ostermad-blog]

📖, 💡?

Two excellent questions. We'll take 'em in order!

📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game.

It's funny, this question. I'm someone who prefers to run games rather than play in them, so I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about classes/playbooks unless I'm designing a game (my current project has had me doing a lot of reading over different playbooks for inspiration). So I'm going to cheat and give you two answers.

The first answer is the Ghelf from TheOriginalCockatrice's game Troupe. The Gelf is a preening pissant, someone petty and small and full of self-importance with a flair for the dramatic. They are hard and bitter but believe themselves to be loving and sweet. They are in so much agonizing denial that my heart hurts to think about it. I think TheOriginalCockatrice did a phenomenal job expressing the ghelf's wretchedness, their vulnerability, and their allure.

The real answer is the one I am embarrassed about, the one I knew was my answer as soon as I read the question, the one class that has stuck with me since I read it as a middle schooler in the Complete Warrior book for dnd 3.5. I feel like an indie ttrpg poser that my favorite class is one from dnd, but let me talk to you about the Warshaper and maybe you'll see why it has been in my bones since I was 13.

The Warshaper is a prestige class, something that doesn't exist in dnd 5e (thank goodness). Prestige classes had to be built into, you had to multiclass in just the right way, do the right in-game things to qualify, take the right character customization options. And some of them were utter garbage and some of them were incredibly powerful. Like many things in 3.x, there was a kernel of a good idea somewhere in there, but the implementation was horrible.

The Warshaper's most onerous requirement was that you had to be able to change your shape, to transform from one body to another. A wizard's polymorph would do, as would a druid's wildshape. As would being a werecreature, as well. And the central premise of the Warshaper class was: what if you could change your body better? Now, this was dnd, so the implementation was all about combat - you can grow more natural weapons, they do more damage, you can rearrange your organs and muscles to make you immune to critical hits, your limbs can extend up to 10ft away from you. But the idea behind the class was immediately compelling, and as a deeply, deeply closeted trans teenager, as soon as I read this class I knew I wanted to be it, in a powerful and personal way. I also, being a deeply, deeply closeted trans teenager, never attempted to build a character that could take the class. I thought about dnd a lot more than I played it, and I made dozens of characters. And I was never brave enough to make someone who could transcend their body-of-birth and take this class, at least not until many years later, in college, when I played my first female character. Playing her was probably the closest I came to realizing I was trans until my egg actually did crack.

So, yeah, the answer I like to that question is the Ghelf. My real answer is the Warshaper.

💡 A game that inspired my own design or creative practice

Here I have many equally true answers. Honorable mention to dnd 3.5 for being so poorly designed that I had to start designing for it to patch up the gaps and salvage something good from it.

The actual answer, well, one of them, is Kazumi Chin's Rogue 2e, which is a love letter to the OSR and storygame ttrpg genres. Rogue 2e is an elegant game. It uses as few rules and mechanics as possible to communicate worlds of potential. Chin's game really opened my eyes to indie ttrpgs more broadly and proved that the adventuring ttrpg experiences I had grown up on could be built in so many more ways than I had thought possible.

Another answer, and the last I'll give for now, is Alexis Smolensk's D&D. Smolensk is a phenomenal writer and his blog (tao-dnd.blogspot.com) is an invaluable resource to anyone looking to run, play in, or design adventure ttrpgs. He has been building his world and expanding his rules for decades with the care and artistry of an expert craftsman. He showed me what adventure games could be, that the skills involved in running them could be deeper than I had ever imagined. I will spend the rest of my life trying to meet his skill level, and I hope that one day people playing in my setting can have half the fun I had playing in his.

[wild-at-mind]

cn mental health talk, queer community discourse

I don’t have depressive episodes in the sense that some people describe them- they seem to be heavily associated with loss of the ability to take care of yourself physically in today’s discourse about mental health. E.g. not being able to get out of bed, wash and eat. I have experienced that before in my life but the most common kind of depressive episodes I get are periods of extensive self loathing connected to online politics and how I fit into them. During these times my emotions become uncontrollable and very painful to have. I often have conversations with loved ones during these times that could be considered ‘begging for value’. Or maybe begging to be seen as a worthwhile person. I feel like leftist, queer, radical circles filter through my mind in this endless, sick swirl, where you must form your individual identity into the most impressive and perfect it can be. Sometimes it seems like the most radical thing is to not participate in society and to be outside of it (maybe in a trans separatist commune of some kind). Sometimes it seems like the pain and suffering someone has gone through is the most important, with the suffering of oppressed groups almost fetishised in a rather religious way, while those who are in privileged groups must reveal their traumatic experiences to show their experiences of suffering. Sometimes it seems like the most radical is to pick a section of the LGBTQ community to turn on and be cruel to, sometimes ignoring the historical context of sections of that community’s history (sections of the community with longer and more documented historys are at a disadvantage here). Sometimes it seems like your personal sex life is the site of radicalness- whether the sex you have is kinky enough to upset normative society with your queerness, whether you have enough partners (increasing your personal value with more partners= a v radical idea), and the amount you feel comfortable sharing about it will be seen as reflective on your stance on purity politics. In case you can’t tell, absolutely none of that is real. This is just what is going through my mind in a constant loop when I’m having an episode. These episodes can be waited out, and they all end in time, but during them every minute feels like agony. Sometimes I want to crawl out of my skin. But the truth is, it may not be real what my brain does with the input I get, but also these ideas are being hinted at and gestured at often on online radical queer leftist spaces. Sometimes as responses to something else, sometimes just as an idea someone had. Many people are unbothered by any of this, but some are affected. I have seen it said that in today’s world of the internet being the supposed front line of activism (it isn’t, but it can seem like that a lot), people are fighting really hard to be accepted in online communities that may be extremely judgemental and have very harsh social penalties for even slight disagreement. These places aren’t a substitute for close connection with real people who you know, care about and befriend. (IRL is my preference but you can meet people you know like this online too, in a more individual connection.) Becoming a member of a small, local LGBTQ community meetup group in my town has been so good for me, and has changed my life for the better. They accept me, and that’s not something I’ve felt very often (longterm social difficulties going back to childhood, yaay). But just a few minutes in the wrong place online, I start mentally stressing out about whether these people who I care about are radical and disruptive enough to the ‘system’ or whatever, and my carefully built up mental resources fall down and then I’m spiralling. tldr I guess: maybe radical leftist queer people should focus less time on carefully policing each other’s radicalness, both inherent and expressed. It’s cruel and it does hurt people

[limpfisted]

TWO. THE BLADE AND THE FIST. Or, WHY LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH, THE UNWANTED CHILD & THE DEVIL.

I don’t believe Ulder is a bad person. I don’t even think he was a particularly bad Father, not the whole time, at least.. He loved Wyll, desperately so. He never hit him, and only really yelled after Wyll’s Mother died when he was ten. He loved his son’s imagination, the softness in him. Hell, my Wyll is trans and Ulder didn’t give a damn, he just wanted him to be strong and brave and smart and everything he is but—oh. Not like THAT.

Ulder had a curious distaste for magic. While he loved that Wyll was imaginative and so very loving and curious-he hated when Wyll expressed any desire for himself that did nit include governmental work or The Flaming Fist—or something equally as important, and Good.

It is difficult to explain how much of a Cop Ulder is. He grew up poor, but now he serves nobility faithfully and is the most powerful person in Baldur’s Gate—but only because he protects the interests of nobles, who still look down on him for being an upstart.

Ulder worked his way up through military ranks. And while he encouraged imagination in his child—to a point. He also encouraged the DnD morality system. Goblins evil. Authority Good. Law Good. Adventure good—but first and always, Protect Baldur’s Gate, do everything for the ideals of Baldur’s gate, be a hero in the image of a generic fantasy hero who, as we all know, was a deeply twisted and uncaring person who was simply mythologized because Balduran makes a good story to tell children to get them to behave and respect Baldur’s gate, “right” from”wrong”—while you actually do shady backroom dealings with people like Stelmane and Florrick.

Don’t get me wrong. Ulder is the kind of person who IS idealistic. He sees what Baldur’s Gate can be. What it represents. People like him getting to lead it and represent the best in it. Truth, justice, etc. But didn’t Enver just want what was “best for Baldur’s Gate?” The Duke’s idea of what good was was a fairy tale he told his child, that he actually believed in even though he had to be a complex adult who acted in ways counter to that.

But Wyll never saw that side of him, even when presented with it. He describes Stelmane as beautiful, and actually had a crush on her. (She was evil as hell.) He never doubts anything his Father has ever said and recites it as gospel, not just in his personal quest, but all the time, like, randomly, lol. His Father was an icon and a hero as much as Balduran, a fairy tale, perfection in Wyll’s eyes, who could do no wrong.

The problem was…. the Duke did Some Things wrong, even before he kicked Wyll out. In essence, he tried to scare Wyll away from magic, not in a mean way, to protect him, certainly, but Wyll always had a… flirtation with the infernal, especially as he got older. (Coincidentally, after his Mother died, his Father got gruffer, meaner and more distant.) The kind of thing where a parent says in a way that scares the child- “DON’T TOUCH THAT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” in a way that scares them, makes them cry, and berates them for it afterwards. A normal human thing fora parent to do. What is Ulder supposed to do? LET Wll hang around fae and go hunting monsters at fourteen? No!!

But Wyll was always a sensitive kid, and a bit neurotic at that. He put his Father in such high esteem—made his Father his whole world, because he was in essence a lonely kid with very few friends because none of the nobles really wanted to hang out with him, nor did the Flaming Fist, and when they DID he never had the time because his Father had him studying and training near CONSTANTLY.

He never wanted to disappoint him. Not for a second.

This, paired with how The Duke could go from “nothing” and too busy to spend time with his son in their precious few shared free moments—to heaping poetic praise upon praise upon his son just for breathing, to being angry at him for being his naturally curious and magically inclineid self—

It was just a lot of emotional instability and stress at home.

Wyll saw the “opportunity” to become “The Blade.” But most of the Blade’s morals are based on that of his Father and Balduran, the black and white thinking, the way his Father taught him to hunt animals. (Wyll, not tgat he’d say this out loud, has morals that are a little more flexible.)

Still, he loved his Father, need him, his Father was his hero, his Father knew everything . Even when he turned Wyll away—Wyll didn’t blame him. Wyll made his choice.

Wyll is said to have bitter dreams of his Father in his origin, When Florrick asks him to save his Father—he inly says yes as “of course i will. he is my flesh and blood.” but not that he loves him. he needs him, hes his flesh and blood. but at a certain point, his father’s expectations became an obligation. and his father kicking him out to,d him in no uncertain terms that he could never reach them, even if he sold his own soul for balduran and his father’s ideals.

Oftentimes being kicked out of the house can lead us into an abuser’s hands. Mizora knew this, of course. The devil will always take an u wanted child.

Of course, being rejected by his Father only increased his loneliness, which increased his need for external approval. He found this approval in being the Blade—which as said previously, let him give into all kinds of magic as a hero, a sense of purpose, and external satisfaction. He couldn’t study law anymore-but while you were going to therapy to deal with your trauma? Wyll just kept studying THE BLADE!!

[homosexuhauls]

Hi, this is the anon who asked about TRA's views. Thanks for your reply, I completely forgot about their identity >>> reality approach when I wrote my ask. I got what you said, dw! I have another question: is there any way to get your TRA but not trans-identified themselves friends to think a bit more critically? I usually pretend idk anything about trans issues but I really don't know how to react. They'll tell me 'Did u know they want to stop trans kids from socially transitioning 😡' and I ofc can't say that I don't think trans kids exist the way they seem to think. I usually react with only very mild interest or try to say something feminist or sth positive about gendernonconformity instead but it's almost like they don't even register my words. I feel like I have almost a duty to get them to think more, but maybe it's useless idk.

I just answered another ask that added another perspective I hadn't fully explored, so check that out!

As for your question about TRA friends, well that's the million dollar question isn't it? If we knew the answer, we'd all have no problems 😅

For me, I tend to "grey rock" the concept of gender identity - pronoun discussions, social or physical transition, trans celebs, dysphoria, the issue of conflicting rights and needs etc. Unless someone has already expressed doubts or discomfort with the mainstream trans narrative, there's no point in trying to lead them to conclusions they aren't looking for. My friends aren't there for me to proselytise to!

What I do try to do is initiate a lot of discussions about mob mentality, black and white thinking, smear campaigns and media bias, all that sort of stuff. Usually using a TV show or something celebrity related as a starting point, but tbh me and my friends are all very opinionated people so it doesn't necessarily even take that!

And I talk a lot about women's rights and feminism, without making any kind of "and trans women" disclaimer unless someone else specifically brings them up. Basically I'll spout all the usual radfem talking points, be it separatism or single sex spaces or male and female socialisation etc, just without using any radfem specific terminology. My friends don't always agree with my takes on things, but removing the radfem label from my arguments means they're at least amenable to hearing them.

Some of these may or may not work for you. I think the most important thing though is that you shouldn't have any kind of agenda when you're talking to your friends. People know when you're being insincere or talking down to them. And people obviously react to being told they have no critically thinking skills, or even just the implication that this is the case! Ultimately you can't set out to change your friends, and nor should you want to. You can only widen the window through which they might view the world, by being your own intellectually curious and questioning self.