#unfortunately not finding a lot about the person of doubtful gender but finding lots of interesting things like this

[t4tstarrailing]

afab, amab, fem, and masc: basic terminology 101

hi! are you wanting to be more inclusive towards trans audience members and are an x-reader writer? well, this is the guide for you!

my name is jules and i'm a trans x-reader writer. i focus mostly on true gn!readers, trans!m!readers, and cis!m!readers. i also like to read x-reader fics. unfortunately, i struggle to find x-reader fics to read, because i don't want to risk having my gender dysphoria triggered. and i am hoping that this guide will help you be more accessible to trans readers.

and you may have seen this guide before and yes, that was also me. i lost the post, am too lazy to go and look for it, and i am also a certified yapper and would like to add some additional things.

so in this guide, i am going to be over the terms afab, amab, fem, and masc; explaining how i see people using them incorrectly and what they actually mean; explaining what words you should be using in what scenarios; how to be even more inclusive towards trans readers; and emphasizing why trans isn't a dirty word.

if you are trans yourself, please feel free to add any additional notes or experiences that you have personally had, especially in fandom spaces. and if you aren't trans yourself and want to double-check yourself, see if any of your trans mutuals are willing to chat about it! sometimes they aren't, sometimes they are, but don't be afraid to ask.

so what do the terms afab and amab mean, and where do they come from?

simply put, afab means "assigned female at birth" and amab means "assigned male at birth". it means the doctor looked at you at birth and designated your gender based off your genital presentation.

the terms were never intended to describe someone's present sexual anatomy. in fact, they come from the intersex community and how doctors designate intersex individuals at birth, either surgically or sometimes taking a guess. the terms, however, have been adopted by the wider community, sometimes successfully but many times unsuccessfully.

i see a lot of people using these terms to designate what sexual anatomy the reader has, which is wildly incorrect. not every afab person has a pussy. some afab people have dicks. not every amab person has a dick. some amab people have pussies. not every afab person with a pussy refers to their anatomy as a pussy. sometimes they call it a front hole or just a hole. not every amab person with a dick calls it a dick. sometimes they call it a strap, or they call their own hole a pussy.

afab and amab should also not be used in sfw settings. you're more than likely looking for a different term, such as masc!reader or fem!reader, or just f!reader or m!reader.

what terms are frequently used by the trans community to refer to their anatomy?

bro, there are so many. off the top of my head, for trans men and trans masc, there's front hole, mancunt, boybox, boypussy. for trans women and trans fems, the only ones i can think of off the top of my head is girlcock, girldick, and strap.

when in doubt, go the gender-neutral route and say "hole" or "chest" if you're referring to the chest/breast area.

with that being said, there's nothing wrong with trans men calling their anatomy a pussy or trans women calling their anatomy a dick. in fact, many do.

however, there does come a point where it becomes a tad bit uncomfortable seeing non-trans men/mascs people insistent on using pussy/cunt for trans men and mascs, or non-trans women/fems insistent on using dick/cock for trans women and fems. especially if people flatout refuse to entertain the idea of using other words that trans folks may find more comfort in, or force the character to conform to characteristics stereotypically associated with the anatomy (eg. usually assertive guy in canon is depicted as being submissive and needy [example: dr. ratio in honkai star rail, childe in genshin impact, kabru in dungeon meshi], only difference being he's being written with a pussy. usually quiet girl in canon is depicted as being a dommy mommy [example: hanya in honkai star rail, ayaka in genshin impact, falin in dungeon meshi], with the only difference being she's being written with a dick)

so what do fem and masc mean?

fem and masc just refer to gender presentation. it doesn't have anything to do with gender or assigned gender at birth. fem =/= female, masc =/= male. fem cis gay guys exist, masc cis women exist.

so if i go into a fanfic and it's labeled fem!reader, i'd expect a fem reader with a slightly more feminine gender presentation. words like perfume, clothes like skirts or dresses, etc. if i go into a fanfic and it's labeled masc!reader, i'd expect a reader with a slightly more masculine gender presentation. words like cologne, clothes like suits and ties, etc.

nuance: yes, this is a very basic breakdown of gender and gender presentation. mascs wear skirts and fems wear suits, i am well aware of that fact. but this is fandom, and this is what i have personally noticed in fandom spaces. i'm not trying to teach gender studies 101. i just want to read fanfics.

how are these terms being misused? again, it is improperly designating the reader's sexual anatomy. fem does not automatically mean pussy. some fems have dicks. masc also does not automatically mean dick. some mascs have pussies. these terms also do not have anything to do with sexual preferences. some fems like to top and/or dom, some mascs like to bottom and/or sub.

if you're wanting to designate a female reader, the most common usage i see is f!reader. same with male reader using m!reader. if you're wanting to specify that you're writing a cis reader, you can always write cis!f!reader or cis!m!reader.

is your reader truly gender neutral?

there's been a few times where i'll go into a fic that's labelled as gender neutral and be slapped with gendered terms. most of the time it's a one and done thing, but other times it'll be throughout the fic and i'll need to exit out of it. and, to be honest, a lot of the time i just chalk it up to people not editting.

my advice is just comb through your work very carefully. look for any instances of gendered terms, like pronouns or pet names or descriptions of clothing. if someone is willing, find a beta reader to go over it and maybe pick up on something you've missed. learning to degender your thinking is difficult given how heavily a gendered world we live in, and people are bound to slip up every once in a while. hell, i do it as well and find myself having to correct myself in my writing sometimes.

gender neutral does not mean non binary!

this isn't as common as other instances, but i do see it every once in a while. not every non-binary person uses they/them pronouns and may, in fact, use neopronouns or he/him or she/her. or use multiple pronouns! so gender neutral fics aren't inherently non-binary fics.

trans is not a dirty word!

this is honestly kind of inspired by a recent uptick in people describing male characters as afab!male character, and seemingly refusing to use the word trans in any of their content. and to be completely honest, when it's coming from non-trans people, it's kinda weird and an auto block for me at this point. because like, you're wanting to write about fucking men with pussies or fucking women with dicks, but it reads like you're scared of using the word trans like it's a bad word. it also sounds like you're centering the fact that this male character has a pussy, or this female character has a dick, and making it like a "ohhhh look at this!!! this is so unique!!!". and fandoms are notorious for fetishizing trans people, so it feels a bit borderline fetishy, especially when it comes from non-trans folks.

side note: i am a single trans person. i do not speak for the hundreds of thousands of trans people in existence. please do not harass people that do this, i am just stating my own personal opinion. as said at the beginning, i am a yapper with opinions.

this is also about non-trans men/mascs writing afab!male characters or non-trans women/fems writing amab!female characters, i am not talking about trans men/mascs writing trans men/mascs or trans women/fems writing trans women/fems.

but men with pussies exist in real life! women with dicks exist in real life! trans people exist in real life! trans is not a dirty word! just say trans and explicitly state the anatomy terms and pronouns you're using! it's so much easier to communicate to your readers what to expect!

so what formatting would you recommend to communicate well with my readers?

honestly, it's gonna sound weird, but just lay everything out so the reader can make a choice on whether or not they want to read your content. some examples that i've used in the past as well as a few others i can think of atm.

this is for specific characters i write bc i got tired of writing reader over and over again lmao.

blade is depicted as trans masc and uses he/they pronouns. he is non-op for both top and bottom surgery. his chest is referred to as his chest with descriptions of him wearing a compression top, and his anatomy is referred to as tdick and tcock. his strap is referred to as his dick.

jing yuan is depicted as a trans man and uses he/him pronouns. he is described as having top surgery scars and a fully healed phalloplasty. his anatomy is referred to as dick and hole. his partner calls him "prince" and "handsome" throughout the series.

pantalone is depicted as a trans masc and uses he/him pronouns. he is described as having top surgery scars, silver bar nipple piercings, but no bottom surgery. his anatomy is referred to as chest and tdick/tcock. his partner calls him "sir".

reader is gender neutral and uses they/them pronouns. they are described as having a chest, and their anatomy is referred to as hole. there are references to wetness, but it can be interpreted as spit, natural lubricant, or artificial lubricant. their partner does not use pet names with them.

sampo is depicted as crossdressing in this fic, but continues to use he/him pronouns. he is described as wearing a dress and heavy make-up. his chest is referred to as breasts, while his anatomy referred to as dick and hole.

luocha is depicted as a trans woman and uses she/her pronouns. she is described as having breast growth but no bottom surgery. her chest is referred to as breasts while her anatomy is referred to as clit and pussy. her partner uses the terms "princess" when talking to her.

ningguang is depicted as a trans fem and uses she/her pronouns. she is described as having breast growth but no bottom surgery. her chest is referred to as breasts while her anatomy is referred to as her strap.

if it sounds weird me using the word "anatomy" for a person's sexual anatomy, it's bc i'm trying to avoid any possible moderation lmao.

anywho. i'm done yapping for now. if you've got any well-intended questions, please feel free to shoot me an ask and i'll try to get to it in a timely manner. i'm also happy to discuss how trans people are frequently fetishized in fandoms, or anything else that people may be curious about.

but please do remember that i am one single trans person, i am not the end all be all of trans opinions. i just yap a lot.

[yanderes-galore]

If you're comfortable, could I request a romantic concept for Endeavor (MHA)?

I have mixed feelings about him because I know he's going to horrid to Darling... but at the same time he'd probably try to redeem himself later- This doesn't have much of a plot but it takes place after Rei. The original draft I was doing took place where you replace Rei but I scrapped it for now. Take this as an AU that doesn't really connect to canon.

Yandere! Enji Todoroki (Endeavor) Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling (A section mentions female anatomy, however. This section is in pink), Obsession, Age gap, Possessive behavior, Manipulation, Abuse of power, Lucid yandere, Stalking, Marriage, Mentions of wanting/having children/baby trapping, Isolation, Dubious (forced) relationship.

In an alternate timeline where Enji decides to start anew from his old family, I can see him hesitate for once when he finds a new obsession.

After all, it's clear he's been horrible with relationships in the past.

He's only ruined his kids lives, same thing for his wife.

He probably doesn't even think he'll love again.

Then you come into his life, just about as annoying as Hawks, yet make him feel funny.

It's a familiar warmth... and he dreads it.

You're a new pro hero which means he's going to be dealing with you a lot.

This leaves him conflicted as now he'll have a harder time to suppress the burning warmth in him when he looks at you.

You're younger than him, at least half his age if not a bit older, he knows it would be unprofessional to do anything.

The good news, after his original family and the retirement of All-Might, he's much better than he was.

Unfortunately, if you ever got too close, old habits may make themselves known.

There's times you're so bratty... yet he knows it's just because you're young.

You're overconfident, yet you have a decently strong quirk.

Enji wants to be better, part of him even wants another chance at love, but doing it here would be poor choice.

You look up to him, something he both enjoys yet pities.

Which is why he'd probably stay quiet about his newest obsession for a long time.

He doesn't want to ruin your life.

You have promise, you don't need him to ruin everything.

At the same time... He worries he won't be able to hold back the longer you're around him.

To talk about Enji in general, he's a possessive yandere.

Even when he leaves his old family behind to make them happy, he'd still be bad with you.

Enji no doubt eventually would want to marry his obsession just to be able to show everyone you're his.

He knows marriage didn't go well for him before... but when he looks at you, he can't help but want others to know you're his.

That he's picked you.

To add onto that, if you have a womb... Enji would no doubt try to put a child in it.

I personally believe this man has a thing for strong successors.

Based on past behavior, that is.

So, if you were capable of having kids, Enji would eventually want that.

At first he'd be against it, knowing how his last four kids went, but the thought of giving you his kid...

It just makes him think it's another way to show you're his.

Even after losing his original family he's still possessive.

Old habits die hard, too bad you are on the receiving end.

Enji no doubt tries to be better.

He doesn't want a repeat of Rei.

He doesn't want to hurt this second chance, maybe he's just lonely but...

He wants to make you happy if you're involved with him, it's not like All-Might is in the picture anymore.

Enji may not even suggest a Quirk marriage in this case, perhaps this one he'll take his time with.

But your quirk is an added bonus as a fellow pro hero.

Enji tries his best to stay away and help you from afar.

He shouldn't have you, he doesn't deserve you, he can't ruin another...

Yet you grow close to him and he's trying to put a wildfire out.

I feel most pro heros would take a subtle manipulative approach towards their obsessions.

Things like coaxing their obsession into being involved with them.

Enji would try to stay away from it more due to past experiences.

But you just know he'll snap and start being closer with you.

It's no doubt an abuse of power due to his seniority.

Which is what makes it so manipulative.

You're both skilled heroes and you may even find dating the Endeavor flattering.

At first you think there's nothing wrong.

Completely unaware that being around Enji can get you burned.

Enji doesn't want to keep things hidden when he manages to date you.

He wants other heroes to know he's dating you.

That way no one else can sabotage him.

He wants people to know you for dating him.

When dating you he tries his best to be more amicable.

He doesn't try to hurt you, he's learned.

He's possessive and easily irritated when people bring you up... but never blames you.

He probably buys you what you want, even if you have the money as a hero.

He remembers certain aspects about you, even does it before you're dating.

Enji tries to hold himself back from marriage, but he may use it as another way to show you're his.

It's like a flex to him to say you're engaged. (even if you're not... but that's okay, he can change that.)

Plus, when he eventually gets you to marry him, it feels euphoric to slip on that ring.

He's admittedly nervous to ruin his second chance... which means he does his best to tend to you, even when he has work.

He wants to make things better.

If he notices you're falling out of love with him, or if you notice his more toxic behavior... he distracts you.

Others pity the relationship you two have, even if you are well cared for.

Most of his old family pity you, while Dabi finds it laughable Enji found someone else to torment.

Enji doesn't seem to care about the backlash.

As long as you love him, as long as he has that chance, as long as you're his...

Everyone else can burn.

Speaking of burns, early Enji may have used burns to mark his darling.

This time he refrains from that... but the thought is tempting.

Although... anything to show his mark on you couldn't be that bad, right?

He may not kidnap, but he'd definitely manipulate you into staying with him.

By the time the rose tinted glasses are off, you're in too deep.

If you can have children, you may even already be with child before you realize this... might've been a trap.

Enji likes to show ownership over his obsession.

While he may be caring with you, he's still controlling.

You're no longer your own person, perhaps even forced to give up being a hero.

You're his partner, you'll be known as his partner...

Enji doesn't plan on letting you leave, he'll use whatever means he deems necessary to keep you with him.

He'll lock you away, he'll bribe you, he'll baby trap you... anything.

Enji isn't going to mess this up again...

You're going to be his...

No matter what it takes.

[worriedvision]

tighnari x reader where the reader cries a lot, over small things and over small sad stuff. (not quite crybaby but emotional) one day reader is going to like the tavern place in sumeru (yk the place where everyone was in alhaitham's demo?) and hears tighnari complaining and talking bad about reader and a time where they cried over something small with his friends (like cyno, kaveh, haitham) and then the reader well (cries over that, and just avoids him for a while) BUT its gonna be a fluffy ending where he apologizes and everything he said after the reader tell him the stuff they heard. you recently did one of my requests, i was very pleased with it, so, thank you very much, lovely!

As someone who cries a lot over small stuff, this is so me lol! Gender neutral reader, sad ending unfortunately. I was going to make it a happy one, but it felt right to make it a sad ending lol

--

There were times that you didn't know how you managed to get with Tighnari of all people. He was the one who didn't try much, in fact at the beginning of your working life with him he couldn't stand your weeping over small problems. Any minor problem that you caused, anything that could be easily fixed, anything that someone else was going through? You'd cry at the drop of a hat, there were times that you'd be embarrassed after thinking about. He was the one who asked you out, and you landed up crying before saying yes as if it was a damn proposal.

You'd try to get better with grounding yourself a bit, distancing yourself mentally from things that would make you cry, but you'd still cry at small things. You suppose that was your 'superpower' that was actually a pretty pathetic power.

Your most recent crying episode was from some idiot who had consumed a mushroom that caused them to hallucinate - the hallucinations being scary. You couldn't help but cry when seeing them distressed, which was what alerted your boyfriend to find the poor person quicker. When you apologised for crying yet again, your boyfriend brushes it off and states that it's just part of who you are.

You thought he was past the point of being angry whenever you showed these emotions, so you decide to meet up with your friends for drinks. As you get to the bar early, you decide to wait outside for your friends. Kaveh happened to go in, waving and giving a cheery hello as he nips in to hang out with friends. Shortly after, a friend shows up and you both enter.

Upstairs, you can hear your boyfriend huffing to himself.

"What's wrong?" Cyno asks, Tighnari instantly ready to reply.

"I'll tell you what's wrong, my partners a crybaby!" Tighnari tuts, Kaveh clearing his throat as he knows you're no doubt hearing this.

"You knew about that part of them long before you were dating." Alhaitham states, crossing his arms at the same time that you get up to leave.

"Well, I thought they would calm down with their feelings by having a partner, and I am attracted to them physically." As he finishes the statement, you've left the bar with tears in your eyes.

--

The next week, you don't give Tighnari any affection. It was clear to you that he didn't like one of the most obvious things about you - how overly empathetic you are. He didn't have the time to think too hard on this, which gave you more time to reflect on the state of your relationship.

It becomes increasingly clear that you just were not right for him. You were lucky to get some time with him as a partner, but you had the impression that he saw you as someone he had to babysit whenever you started to cry. It didn't matter that he was physically attracted to you, he wished you weren't so emotional about everything.

With him also being the boss, you knew you would need to find work elsewhere as soon as you could. As much as it hurts you, you two were like chalk and cheese.

He deserved someone he didn't need to be on eggshells around, and you deserved a partner that cherished the fact you could put yourself in the position of others and really feel how they felt.

--

When your boyfriend asked you to meet him at the bar, you were ready to tell him you were breaking up with him, and you had been mentally preparing yourself to not cry.

"I hope you are well, I'm afraid I have some bad news." Tighnari states, pushing a paper and a pen towards you. "You are fired. I am also breaking up with you - your empathy is something I cannot work with as an employer, as well as a boyfriend."

It was like a slap to the face, you were ready to just cry a little bit at the conversation.

But instead of being sad, you're angry. Grabbing the pen, you feel several sets of eyes on you as everyone around you is seeing and hearing everything. Signing the paper aggressively, you slam the pen down as you make direct eye contact with your now ex-boss and ex-boyfriend.

"You did this to embarrass me. You did this to emphasise something I already know - I cry too much." You spit out, not a single tear leaving you as you got straight to anger.

"Fuck you, Master Tighnari. I hope I never see you again."

[magidoggie]

A LOOK INTO SHI/HIR PRONOUNS AND THEIR ORIGINS

So I’ve seen people claim that shi/hir pronouns are intersex exclusive (mostly intersex people), and others say they aren’t (mostly non-intersex people)

As an intersex person, I've been confused about this for a while, so I decided to look into it

THIS POST WILL CONTAIN NSFW TOPICS, FURRIES, TALKS OF FETISHIZATION OF INTERSEX BODIES, AND INTERSEX SLURS!

Most of the users of these pronouns seem to be non-intersex people, but there are also intersex people who use them.

I've seen a decent amount of intersex people say that shi/hir pronouns are only ours to use, as they were used against us (like a shortened version of he-she). This would make them basically slurs that only we can reclaim.

I've even seen some claims that Geoffrey Chaucer himself coined these words?? (The chaucer thing, I haven't been able to find a source for. Even so, it is most likely just an old spelling of "she/her")

I’ve seen people say it originated on 4chan. It'd be hard to verify, as 4chan is known for not keeping threads up for long. There are 4chan archives, but I've tried my hardest to look for any combinations of things like "shi" and different terms that could work with it like "intersex" "freak" or "hermaphrodite" . I don't doubt it's been used on 4chan, but I can't find much, and archival sites don't go back far enough.

Regardless, the pronouns seem quite old. One thing I did find under the search of ""4chan" shi hir" on Google, was a.. descriptive post on a furry porn website called e621.net

Okay, 13 years ago, that's a start. It certainly contains the word "herm" (short for hermaphrodite), and the word intersex used with this pronoun.

Godspeed TheShadowfox42 I hope you found the image.

Using Google's "Before:(date)" feature, I searched "shi herm before:2010", and unsurprisingly, I found a lot of furry porn.

Stories on sofurry.com, a furry website that looks to be from at least 2007, if not older. I'll spare you the details, but indeed, there, they use shi/hir pronouns for their "herm" characters. Did these pronouns originate from.. furries?? I put that though aside for now, to look further into other uses.

As it turns out, the journey does not end at 2007. Urban dictionary has an entry from 2003

No slurs here, it looks like a neutral usage. Again, going back to Google. Now, search terms "hir "gender neutral" before:2004"

Many results show up now, now articles rather than furries. American.edu (seems to be a university), Swarthmore.edu (this is a college), both from 2001. jstor.org with a journal article from 1999. Unfortunately I can't read that one, as I have to pay a whole $63 to purchase it. I even found a PDF file from 1994 by core.ac.uk

But, what I've realized now is this is not usage of shi/hir pronouns. All of these use Ze/hir pronouns. I don't know if there is any link, but the last pronoun looking the same must've obscured the results.

From the american.edu article on these pronouns. You can see the usage of "hir" alongside "ze", and below it, the usage of ze/zir pronouns, which seem to be used more today.

Shit.. Doing the search all over again with the pronoun "shi" yields.. very few results apart from people talking about Chinese words.

Wait what about those furries from earlier? The tvtropes.org article does include this:

Chakona space? Chakats? Pronouns he came up with? Admittedly I kept seeing these centaur feline hybrid characters come up quite consistently during this dive, but I had to look into it further.

Oh buddy what did I get myself into. This is from 2001 best I can tell, so we're getting quite old here. I scroll down on the page.

And lower down.

Now this is all very interesting speculative biology, but what I'm focusing on is again, the usage of "hermaphrodite" together with the pronouns "shi/hir". Did a furry artist named Bernard Doove come up with these pronouns.

It gets yet older.. New search, "chakats "shi" before:2001"

Again, Bernard Doove's art from 2000, 1999, 1998,

I find a website called yerf.metafur.org It has furry art, dating all the way back to the mid 1990's, but here, on December 23 1998, is the first appearance of these pronouns on that site.

This Bernard Doove person has been at this project, with these pronouns for a while.

From what I can tell, many of his art pieces, they seem to be quite sexual beings. Quite fetishistic of hermaphroditism at times. (or intersexuality, take your pick)

The other thing I found with my search was a website, furry.org.au/bosshoss/

My search says it's from September 14 1998.

That's certainly some information, but it might come in handy. So Chakat Goldfur provided this website? Who is that? Looking into it, that seems to be a character created by Bernard Doove, that acts as an alter ego. Further down, the person running this website lists some other websites they enjoy. One being "Proxima Centauri", which seems to be another furry artist.

"I met this one at ConFURence 8. Very interesting. (Did I mention shi is a hermaphrodite uni-centaur?)"

(For context, ConFURence is a furry convention held in 1997)

Again, the usage of hermaphrodite, and the pronoun shi. At this point, the website being linked to is long gone, but the wayback machine provides help. The website, http://www.spots.ab.ca/~unicorn/main.htm has been captured all the way back to October 8th 1997.

At this time, the website was under construction. No images are willing to load and haven't been archived, but the description is intact.

So this person uses shi/hir pronouns for their hermaphroditic character all the way back in 1997. There are links to other places where this person used to host their works, but they are all down and haven't been archived. The thread is running thin..

Back to Bernard Doove, the Chakat creator. There must be something more to this. Turns out, there was. On the "yerf" website, I actually found several art pieces that were not picked up by Google.

Febuary 22 1997. Getting yet older. In some art pieces, Bernard references "Forest Tale" and "forest tales", so I went looking for whatever that was.

1995?? you've got to be kidding. It's an adult story involving these "chakat" beings, and sure enough, down the page

Shi/hir pronouns used over and over again.

With the use of hermaphrodite.

But.. This is kind of where it ends. I couldn't seem to find anything older, and I'm not going to contact Bernard Doove over this. Even something as old as 29 years is impressive to me. Bernard Doove states his characters were inspired by other furry artists' creatures of the time, but since it's 1995, there isn't much left for me to find here. Anything before that time is probably lost.

With all the information I have been able to gather, it looks to shi/hir pronouns were created by Bernard Doove who is a furry author and artist. Shi/hir were made to be a midway between "she" and "him" in some way, to be a gender neutral word for hermaphroditic genetically modified beings called "chakats" in his stories. As an intersex person myself, I don't enjoy the use of "hermaphrodite" in such a way, as it's a slur for us. But these types of characters also seem to be very old, and we, and our struggles, were completely unknown to the vast majority of people, even moreso than nowadays.

If you use those pronouns for an intersex person who doesn't use them, it is indeed intersexist, as you are implying we are hermaphrodites.

But as for whether only intersex people can use them? I'm not sure. The original intent doesn't seem be directly linked to intersex people. You could argue that these hermaphroditic characters are fetishized versions of how many people see us, and have seen us for a long time. Afterall, hermaphrodite was, and still is, a common slur for us.

I don't doubt some people have used these pronouns as slurs against us as well, but I also haven't found anything specifically that supports that. It always seemed to be for specific fictional characters that COULD be based off specific intersex attributes

I'm not going to argue one way or the other. This was just me trying to find what I could about these pronouns and their history. Just be mindful of how you use these pronouns, and the connections they have to fetishes revolving around the common misinterpretation of intersex bodies (as in, "having both parts")

Thank you for reading.

I hope you learned something. I know I did, and I now have a headache.

[animeyanderelover]

Tw: Yandere themes, possessive relationship, obsession, delusional mindset, clinginess, manipulation, strictness, threats, blackmailing

S/o is like Power from Csm

Fujioka Haruhi

👑​Haruhi differs from the rest of the Host Club, not only because she is the only biologically female host but also because she didn't grow up in a wealthy environment. She's far more down to earth and honest which is why she is able to show the most leniency to her darling. Her concern for your hygiene and overall behavior stems less from her expectation how a woman should behave and act in school and more from how she believes everyone regardless of gender should act. She doesn't want you to shower with the finest soap and dress up in the most expensive clothes as she didn't dress up properly either when she initially entered the school due to her circumstances but Haruhi still thinks that there should be a minimum that you should at least fulfill and she won't ask of you to go beyond that. She is very blunt though with this small request of hers as she doesn't tiptoe her way around this conversation with you. Responsible and practical as she is she will showcase a lot of patience as she tries to help as well as teach you on how to behave at least a bit more respectful in public as well as teach you how to take better care of your hygiene.

Suoh Tamaki

🌹​Tamaki is crying tears because of you more than just once. He is used to the refined ladies swooning over him an using his princely charm to persuade every woman's heart yet all of his advances fly straight over your head as you couldn't care less, something that hurts his pride. His expectations and wishes for an overall betterment of your life and behavior are higher than those of Haruhi though he wouldn't want you to change your entire personality as he finds some characteristics of yours weirdly charming. Unfortunately his father happens to be the chairman of Ouran Academy and so he knows of the many complaints other parents and students submit to him due to your intolerable behavior and he doubts that his father would allow him to take you as his partner. So as the passionate and stubborn man that he is he decides to teach you himself all with the excuse that it will benefit you greatly. In reality his main motive is that he needs you to fit in better so that no one will have great complaints about him loving you, proving that he is also on a more egotistical side just as you are. Tamaki is clingy and confrontational about it all, at times almost as selfish and self-motivated as you are.

Ootori Kyouya

💴​Kyouya normally claims that he only helps people if it benefits him yet there are no material advantages to be gained as he dedicates his forced help to you as his main motivation is his expectant obsession. He has the highest expectations from all hosts and is partially almost repulsed that from all ladies it is you who caught his eyes. His father would never allow him to marry you and Kyouya himself can't sit still as long as you are as vulgar and gross in appearance as well as behavior. He's diligent and calculating, has an entire schedule for you where he plans to teach you on how to be a better person. He constantly makes notes on your behavior and methods how to have you behave in a more lady-like manner and uses your self-motivated behavior against you to bribe you to tag along with his ideas and wishes even if this doesn't work all of the time. It is quite hard to blackmail you and find an efficient way to have you listen more and whilst it is probably quite tasteless to others Kyouya knows that this is one of the best methods to keep you in line as you are mainly driven by your own desire and emotions. He'll give you more freedom once you stop behaving like a savage.

Haninozuka Mitsukuni

🍯​His childish appearance normally results in the women in the Host Club babying him and gushing over his cuteness yet none of that works on you as you rudely tell him off or ignore him and Honey has actually broken down in tears a couple of times due to it as he is a sensitive soul. He's very carefully tried to see if he could guilt-trip you with his tears one time only to arrive at the conclusion that you are not a very sentimental soul when you ignored him. All of his approachs that would usually work on women don't work on you and he spends a good day pouting about it, deeply upset as he stuffs cake in his face to deal with the frustration. Despite his dimwitted looks at times Honey isn't naive though so when he realises that you are driven by greed he tries a different approach by enticing you with all the cakes that he consumes and he isn't surprised to see that it works well with you devouring all the sweets he offers you. Now that he has managed to find a way to keep you by his side he struggles though to get further with you as you are childish without any trace of maturity that he possesses and don't respond to his advices, your words only hurting him even if he tries to remain optimistic.

Morinozuka Takashi

💪​Mori may not be the most talkative individual but that doesn't take away from his concern in regards to you. He has spent a lot of time simply observing you as you are commonly refered to as the black skeep of this academy who puts shame on their traditions and values and as much as he feels protective of you and adores you he can't defend you in this regard. You lack the bare minimum of politeness and do whatever you want without any regard to anyone else and constantly lie to bring yourself out of troubles and he has been the biggest victim of it. Mori often accompanies you in hopes of preventing you from breaking things or disrespecting and angering others and whenever you got in troubles you always pushed all the blame on him without even giving it any thought. You're lucky that Mori is as patient as he is as probably no one else would have been able to deal with you for as long as he did. He's not only extremely patient but also very persistent in his constant attempts to teach you how to behave better. Sometimes though he does get a tad bit more intimidating and uses his strong body built against you to scare you off if you manage to push him around a bit too much.

Hitachiin Hikaru

🩵​Hikaru proves to be one who perhaps finds himself struggling the most with his darling. Having grown up being co-dependent on his twin brother he often finds himself struggling with others and this is especially bad due to behavior. You end up hurting Hikaru's feelings more than once as you pay zero attention to him or simply ignore his attempts to get closer to you, your attention fickle as you show interest in other things even when he is trying to have a conversation with you. This often ends with Hikaru angrily stormig away, unable to deal with the pain you inflicted on him by acting as if a mere object is more interesting than he is. As someone who tends to be jealous as it is this only increases this tendency of his as it not only is limited to people anymore but also to objects that fascinate you and catch your attention. Alongside with this increase of jealousy his nervousness also spikes up a good bit as he starts feeling terrified to approach you again, afraid to be hurt once more which is slowly but surely taking a toll on his own self-confidence. In an attempt to get through you though he starts indulging you in your superficiality by buying you all sorts of useless trinkets.

Hitachiin Kaoru

🧡​Kaoru may keep up the mischievous and playful charade when him and Hikaru are together yet despite being the younger twin he is far more level-headed than his older brother is. This doesn't mean that he can expertly handle you but at least he shows a degree of self-control unlike his older brother and doesn't run away when it gets too much. It's still very difficult to deal with you, especially since you are the opposite of what Ouran Academy expects of its female students and whilst Kaoru also doesn't expect nor want you to be the lady of all ladies it would be nice to see you behaving a bit more properly since sometimes you do gross him out with your behavior as well as lack of body hygiene. He doesn't try to be as shallow as his older brother though and attempts to gain your attention and at least a fraction of your obedience by indulging you in your greedy and selfish superficiality but instead attempts to do it the harder way by convincing you to try to be a bit more proper. He is no idealistic fool though. As soon as Kaoru realises that mere nice words don't seem to work on you he will resort to other methods to get you to force listening to his advices a bit more.

[shakespearean-snape]

I’m rereading OOTP right now and I find that scene between Severus and Sirius in the kitchen to be highly relevant in the context of Severus as a feminine-coded character (and Sirius as a representation of toxic masculinity). Sirius is very outwardly aggressive in this scene in a conventionally masculine way, while Severus weaponizes his sarcasm and wit in a way that could be thought of as a more “feminine” form of defence. While Harry describes Sirius’s voice as getting progressively louder and angrier, he describes Severus’s voice as “soft” in contrast (as he usually does, which is also interesting in the context of Severus as a feminine man/GNC character). Sirius gets up and tries to intimidate Severus physically, and Severus grips his wand inside his pocket in a way that reminded me of a victim of domestic violence preparing to defend herself against her abuser.

I’m not sure how much of this was intentional considering how rigid JKR’s views on gender have unfortunately turned out to be, but I can’t help but read Severus as a feminine character, especially since he’s meant to act as a stand in for Lily in the same way as Sirius acts as a stand in for James. It’s very easy to read Sev as gender non conforming and/or LGBTQ, although given JKR’s own views it’s doubtful she meant for us to read him that way (but fuck her, she’s a massive transphobe, the characters are ours now, we can do what we like with them).

Note to self, start checking your inbox regularly. These changes to Tumblr are killing me because the notifications when I get messages or asks are hit-or-miss at best.

Anyways, this is such a great observation! I'm only just learning about coding and that that is even the term for it from reading about it from other Snape bloggers like @idealistic-realism00, @raptured-night, and @professormcguire since I only took the required English courses both my undergraduate years and beyond that my major was in sociology.

So, I'm not really any kind of expert but I do have a lot of personal experience from being biracial and queer myself just with learning to read between the lines and find representation for myself where I can and I think that is the case for a lot of people from less represented, marginalized backgrounds. We have a certain instinct for these things so even without any kind of formal study we sort of know the "codes" (for better or worse depending on what the author's intent is and if it's a negative dog-whistle or something more positive to get around censorships of the time) if that makes any kind of sense.

For me, I always saw Sirius and Snape as two sides of a coin. There were some very obvious parallels and contrasts between them and this really goes to that in a lot of ways for me. Both Sirius and Snape are two men who made pivotal choices in their youths that very much define them and have led to a great deal of internalized guilt and impacted their behaviors as adults. Both Sirius and Snape find themselves confined to their childhood homes at different points, Sirius at Grimmauld Place with Kreacher and Snape at Spinner's End with Peter Pettigrew (both Kreacher and Peter are characters that also are known for betraying Harry and costing him someone he loves at different points and making a turn around in regards to Harry because of kindness or mercy he showed to them).

Where Sirius made the choice to make Peter the Secret Keeper with only James, Lily, and Peter knowing and it ultimately led to the death of the Potters and him being sentenced to twelve years in Azkaban, Snape also unwittingly delivered part of the fated prophecy that led to Voldemort targeting the Potters. Most interesting for me is that Snape's friendship with Lily and Sirius's friendship with James could be read as either platonic or a case of unrequited romantic feelings. There is the observation in SWM made by Harry that while Sirius was clearly a looker who attracted the attention of girls, his attention was fully on James and not on those admiring glances. So, when looking at Sirius's relationship with James through a comparative lens to Snape's with Lily they could be platonic friends or both Sirius and Snape could have had romantic feelings for their best friends while, ironically enough, Sirius had to watch James fall for and succeed in winning over Lily just as Snape had to do the same.

In the case of Snape and Sirius there is also a degree of regression and arrested development stemming from trauma (and both men at different points make the clear mistake of seeing Harry as a stand-in for James as a result of said trauma). Where Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban able to hold onto his sanity against the Dementors in part because he knew he was innocent and the truth of what happened was a deeply unhappy thing for him, Snape spent decades in Dumbledore's service at Hogwarts (a place with its own unhappy associations for him having found it was not a refuge from life at Spinner's End with Tobias as he had hoped but another place where he would be bullied relentlessly, overlooked by his Head of House and housemates for being a poor half-blood with no status, subject to institutional failures resulting from yet more adult authority figures in his life not protecting him, groomed by Voldemort's followers and responsible for alienating his closest friend as a result) teaching children when clearly he does not have the temperament and, courtesy of his role as a spy, concealing his own truths and intentionally not allowing people to know the best of him. In a sense, both men had a negative public image that ran counter to the full truth about them and both of them died without being able to see those misconceptions vindicated (Sirius died still presumed by the Ministry and general public to have been the traitor who turned his friends over to Voldemort and murdered innocent people and Snape died knowing he had delivered information to Harry that would lead to his death and unsure of the outcome of the war with everyone thinking him a coward and murderer).

There's just, a LOT of parallels there between the two when you start to unpack them as characters. Even the fact that they both came from domestic dysfunction and unhappy home lives. It makes their mutual antagonism all the more of a tragedy because if not for Sirius's prejudice (which is arguably more understandable given his family and their long tradition of being sorted into Slytherin) against Slytherins and antagonism of young Snape on the train and the years of bullying and bad blood that followed, these two men had the most potential to understand each other. Alas, they do not, but it is their likenesses that makes their differences in how they clash all the more interesting because, as you noted, there are stark differences there. Sirius is all overt masculine energy; hot-headed and physically imposing while Snape is more strained, the ice to his fire.

Most striking to me was always the difference in how little respect Sirius showed to Snape's body while he was unconscious (further demonstrating how little Sirius has changed from the teenage boy who once stood with James and exposed Snape to laughing schoolmates) versus how Snape conjured a stretcher while still under the impression he was the one responsible for betraying the Potters (and the death of Lily). In that way, we get to see how Snape has developed as a person away from his past choices and learned from them. He may still regress, as he does quite plainly when forced to return to the Shrieking Shack and is confronted by Sirius and Remus there, but he isn't quite in the full state of arrested development as Sirius (but given his circumstances in Azkaban that isn't entirely surprising either; there is a tragedy to Sirius's character for all that there is as much of a darkness as there was in Snape during his time as a Death Eater and the fact so many Marauder apologists who double as "Snaters" refuse to acknowledge that outside of romanticizing the angst of it all while vilifying Snape is quite possibly an even greater tragedy, imo) which is why Sirius's death came in part due to his inability to move beyond his past and find it within himself to treat Kreacher with a modicum of understanding or empathy (in addition to his desire to be part of the action again and recapture his lost youth when it was him and James in the Order together) while Snape's death came only after he had to reconcile with the fact his original raison d'être for becoming a spy (to protect Harry for Lily as penance) ran counter to what was needed to defeat Voldemort for good and he still chose to stay the course instead of pursue his own agenda and act on his own self-interests.

In short, Sirius's death was partly due to the fact he couldn't move beyond the past. While Snape's death came as a result of the fact he had grown enough as a character to set aside his past motivations and see things through because he had become someone who conjured stretchers even for hated enemies and risked his life to save all those who he could save (including Sirius and Remus).

Thanks for the ask and I'm so sorry it took so long to respond but it gave me even more to think about. The masculine vs. feminine coding just adds an extra element to Snape and Sirius's dynamic when it was already interesting to me and I've always had a lot of thoughts about how those two were written with so many parallels and points of contrast. Love this ask!

[overandundertarot]

How can you release this anger?

Recently, I've come to the realisation that I hold quite a lot of pent up anger without even knowing how to release it. I think this reading could be helpful to people who may be in a similar position, or just experiencing pent up emotions and are unsure how they could release this or start that process of transforming those emotions, if they want to.

Piles 1-4(left to right)

Pile 1

Cards; 6 of wands, Knight of swords.

Believe in yourself pile one! There is self doubt here, and pride brought about by trying to conceal insecurity. Act on your thoughts. A lot of this anger is towards yourself. I feel like you are perfectionists, and you dont like when you are not perfect according to your standards. Well, there's nothing you can do about that. You either have to develop yourself till you feel you're perfect enough( which will take quite a while and you may never reach your lofty aspirations for yourself) or take action now on whatever it is you want to do. I'm getting that it's not even related to the material world, but your personality or creative interests. You may feel like you are not the person that you should be, but instead of practicing any self development activities, you just spend alot of time having self deprecating thoughts. You may not be where you want to be, but that does not mean that you can never get there. Appreciate yourself for what you have and what you can do and allow yourself to indulge in your hobbies/ interests with less judgement.

Pile 2

Cards; The Sun, 2 of Swords, Page of Pentacles.

In any case pile 2, youre not supposed to be making a decison right now. Good things and opportunities are coming to you now but its overwhelming. I think that is where this anger is coming from, because you can't allow yourself to fully enjoy the present moment and be connected to your spirituality. So you are angered because you have a lot but it is still not enough. You have to force yourself to enjoy what you have right now pile 2, because all of the planning and deciding and moving forward is being used as a distraction. Of course, take this with a grain of salt and don't put your life on hold to try and attempt this. Start small, think about things in your daily life and what use they provide for you, do you appreciate them enough? Be in the present moment and appreciate what you have worked for. Some of you are also angered by the fact that you might not be able to find a direction in life. It will come in time; try to be connected with your desires and intentions so when the opportunity arises, you can make a decision that will trully make you happy.

Pile 3

Cards; The Emperor reversed, King of cups.

Your anger may stem from the fact that you may have never fit into society, particularly that you may have been too sensitive for other peoples tastes. Some of you may be a part of the lgbtq community as well. The way you express yourself garnered much criticism and you may care about issues that society doesn't like to face such as animal rights, environmentalism and child abuse. Emotional issues, childhood trauma. A lot of the people in this pile have heavily feminine energy, regardless of their gender. The way for pile 3 to release their anger would be to develop ways of managing their emotions. Unfortunately, the world is unlikely to change but we can find ways to regulate our emotions and work through our traumas so that we can be less affected by the harshness of society. Also, try to channel your anger and pain into creative pursuits such as writing, and even consuming more media concerning these issues that affect you. It may help you feel seen and understood.

Pile 4

Cards; The Tower reversed, Justice.

Pile 4 you have been resisting change for a while. By not allowing it to crumble, you have become a prisoner of the tower. Your anger is brought about by you not allowing yourself to feel your emotions fully. You're not letting go of something that happened in the past, or you're trying to keep a steady hold on your life right now, but it's failing. You can't control everything. To release this anger, accept what happened and move on. Take responsibility for your actions, what happened was a result of past actions and you can't change those. You either accept what happened, move on and try to create a better future for yourself, or stay in that tower and torment yourself forever. That sounded a bit dramatic but the messages coming through are quite firm, whatever happened you have to accept it and move on.

***

Thank you for participating in this Pick a Card reading!

I hope it gave you some insight for your situation. Please dont hesistate to give any feedback you may have regarding this reading!

[twstbookclub]

Petals of Poison

TW: Blood and major character death/s

Summary: Hanahaki Disease. Taking innocent, unrequited love and crushing the life of the unfortunate. This is not a happy story. Don't expect a good ending. POV: 2nd Pronouns: Gender neutral Admin/Writer: Kai⚔️ Tags: Epel Felmier, hanahaki disease, star tear disease, heavy angst Word count: 2,958

Being 100% truthful... I cried writing this, and I got super depressed after lol. I've never done Hanahaki disease as a trope but I've read about it. I've only heard about Star Tear disease and it's very rare to use, but it's a sister trope to Hanahaki.

The person afflicted with Star Tear will cry stars, and slowly become blind, but it isn't like Hanahaki where the affected goes back to normal. No. The person keeps the damage.

I hope you all enjoy this Epel angst and trust me, this is still pretty light, even with a character death. This one didn't take me too long but it took a lot of planning and adding, truly one of my proudest works.

Petals of red carnations and aster spilled onto Epel’s hand on such a bright morning, the sun shining through his windows and lighting up his room beautifully. His face looked shocked and panicked, but he wasn’t in an urge to figure out what was wrong. He dropped the petals out of his hand and saw a small splatter of blood in his palm, but once again, no immediate reaction. He only sighed and got ready for his morning.

It was never like this, but not uncommon to one’s knowledge, either. In this world, magic and myth were big things, and the Isle of Sages was no stranger. Recently, the town had been talking about cases of victims who had recently passed away due to unnatural causes. Unnatural, being that their lungs were filled with roots and flowers, marking their deaths as undetermined in autopsy reports. 

Rumors had been circulating that these victims were in love with others, but never received the love back, then were found dead just days later with the same scenes as the others. The Isle began to find death as common as finding a penny on the ground, but still as tragic as ever for these young lives. Epel could be the next.

He did have someone he loved, but being in the same year as you meant nothing. You barely looked at him, only hung out together when he was invited, and you were completely out of his league. Not even close.

This had started months ago. Epel had met you at the mirror chamber on orientation day, and he became pretty curious. You weren’t from this world, yet you looked like you fit right in, too. You were quiet and confused, which he found interesting, but he would only see you from afar for now.

He was finally able to get close to you, but his attention was easily taken when Deuce started calling him a girl. At that moment, he heard your laugh. It was a beautiful sound that he had no idea would bless his ears the way it did.

One day, you came into the Pomefiore dorm, catching them teaching him about proper tea etiquette and rules. When Rook corrected him, he quickly grew embarrassed and stuttered slightly before fixing himself, hoping that you hadn’t seen him mess up. He didn’t need you to not find him able. He wanted you to like him.

Coming back from winter break, Epel hadn’t stopped thinking about you for any moment of the day. He began to doubt if you liked him, especially after seeing him mess up during classes and after-school clubs. As soon as he arrived back, he was met with more flight training and prim etiquette.

He was running through campus while trying to run away from his housewarden and vice-housewarden, not exactly caring where he was running. Suddenly, Epel felt a hard chest and fell over with a loud wham to the ground. He could only sniffle and rub his head from the pain. When Epel looked up, he saw your eyes on him in concern, and he felt himself become frozen, frustrated with himself about the situation before him. 

Deuce offered to help him, but Epel looked away and mumbled “dagnabit” under his breath. The other first-year grew confused and repeated what Epel had said, but Felmier felt embarrassed for looking so pathetic in front of you. Before Deuce knew it, Epel ran off and disappeared just as quickly as he appeared.  You were left with confusion and questions but didn’t pay much attention to it once he was gone. 

Once he was gone and in a place where one could see him, he felt a slight clog in his throat and coughed, surprised to see a few petals of aster and white carnations fall onto the ground at his feet. “Flowers? What in the…” He whispered with a confused tone, and he didn’t know where this had even come from. 

Soon, he was singing to practice for the Song and Dance Championship behind some bushes, but he coughed and sighed when he couldn’t reach enough, causing some small petals to spill onto the grass. When he heard the voices of others, he perked up and turned around, his eyes landing on you. 

Did you hear that? Oh, for the love of the Seven, please tell me you didn’t hear that.

You only stared at him as he interacted with your friends, but the thought of you finding him in such a pathetic scene lingered in his mind. He didn’t need you to look at him and laugh, especially not after everyone else found him cute and small. After witnessing how his housewarden kicked the asses of the other first years, Epel took a glance at you before being dragged away into more practice.

As soon as he entered the door to Pomefiore, he covered his mouth and coughed up more petals, the sound grabbing the attention of Vil and a few others who were in the lounge. Aster and… Red carnations. This one was new, but his heart did ache. It ached with a pain that poked in his chest, yet the bright red mixed with the purple and pink petals of aster felt comforting.

He felt something for you. He knew you probably wouldn’t like someone as pathetic and hard-driven as he was, not with this small body and cute face. He couldn’t get his hopes up.

Epel had caught himself coughing these petals now and then, but on rare occasions, a few of them had blood spots, nothing too concerning. At the same time, more and more cases of citizens being found dead, surrounded by flowers and roots, were becoming big online. Everyone made this phenomenon have a name, Hanahaki Disease, and it was spreading like wildfire. 

No one could figure out its symptoms. Other’s tried, but would get shut down about their theories. One person, at least every week, was in the headlines about this. Police thought it was a serial killer laying down his victims in a beautiful way, and citizens thought it was karma towards the person who died.

Epel’s symptoms only got worse the more you were around him and looked at him. You spoke to him in such a kind way, treating him as your friend. He noticed that your uniform and face had different sizes and colors of stars. He found it cute and it suited you, at least in his eyes.

Right. Only a friend.

He kept his feelings hidden, and it was only right. Epel knew the situation, and he was okay with it. You didn’t belong in this world in the first place, nothing wrong there. He had a life and family waiting for him in his hometown. He had to get over this.

But the world gave him no time.

Crowley had summoned everyone to the mirror chamber to bid you farewell. You were leaving. No warning. No time. Something felt wrong, and Epel ran to be able to hug you first. Everyone surrounded you two after that. 

Epel heard a twinkling sound, so he looked at you and noticed how small stars were on your cheeks. He was confused, what was even happening? He noticed these stars before, but they came from your eyes this time? He couldn’t ask, not before Crowley had to break it up before the portal closed.

As you looked at everyone one more time, “Come back here soon!” Epel screamed, making everyone slowly begin to agree with him. Then, you left. That was it. Your presence was there, but not your body or soul.

It was a moment of sorrows and grief, which only equaled to Epel coughing up blood-spattered petals of marigolds and purple hyacinth flowers into a napkin. He could tell that this was getting worse, but what in the world could he even do?

Epel spent that night trying to distract himself by researching everything he could about this Hanahaki Disease, coughing up occasional petals. He had found a few stories of victims who survived the disease, reading about how the symptoms stopped after they got together with the person that they loved. 

Reading more about how it got worse if one believed that the other didn’t like them back, but after a certain point, even thinking about the person they loved made the symptoms dire. There was no natural cure, at least not from what was written, but Epel did find something.

Surgery.

Getting surgery to make it go away. 

No.

That’s all Epel needed to read. He wanted nothing else about that subject to come up. It was absurd, even for the most desperate of people. Brain surgery to make the symptoms go away, but you’d forget about all the feelings you felt for the person. He could never, not when it was about you. 

Suddenly, he became curious. The scene from earlier crossed his mind.

Why does someone cry stars?

He searched it up, but… Nothing. Unknown. Sites to just people boasting about how their tears have the sparkle of stars, but it wasn’t the same. You had the shape of stars coming out of your eyes, and they were beautiful.

Epel sighed and shut his phone off. He didn’t need to see anything else for the rest of the night.

For a few weeks, the campus was in an awkward atmosphere due to your leaving, but soon enough, everyone began going back to normal. Not Epel, though. He missed you the most when he sat on his bed after school. He constantly thought about how you could be doing and wondered if you were ever thinking of him. 

He began to smile while thinking about you, remembering every moment he did get to save with you. His birthday, campus traditions, especially being there to watch him perform for the Song and Dance Championship. Thinking about everything made him suddenly gag and the next thing he knew, a pool of blood and different petals were at his feet.

His eyes were wide, but he vomited more blood, less petals. The puddle was red but cluttered with red and white carnations, mixes of purple and pink aster, yellow daffodils, and violet-blue salvia. This was the worst that his condition had gotten. Epel fell back and clutched his chest, trying to breathe silently but with enough force to get himself back on track. It was a silent night after that.

Time would come to take their youth, and before any of the first years knew it, it was graduation day. The day was bright and looking pretty on a day like that, and it kind of made the day better.

The ceremony had gone well, with old students coming back to congratulate and celebrate with the other students, and professors even admitting that they’d miss some students.

After all celebrations were over though, Epel stayed on the campus grounds, standing at the well that caused him the most time with you. He simply stared down the well, letting the sunset almost blind his vision. One memory of you caused a loud cough and blood to spill from his mouth, petals following after. 

It hurt. The pain grew worse than ever before. He’d rather suffer than forget the love he felt for you. His body was falling, faltering to keep itself up, and he landed on his back against the ground.

“The love I feel for you… Is so beautiful, but—” He whispered, petals of sweet peas falling from the sides of his mouth now as his coughs got shorter and harsher. “I can’t breathe.”

Epel could only clutch his chest as he tried to find the proper breathing pattern. He looked up at the sky and wiped the excess blood from his mouth. He smiled. Like he always did when he thought of you.

Epel could cry. He could feel it. You were so close. Just a little farther.

The sounds of struggling became quieter, and a bed of flowers grew. Cyclamens, sweet peas, heliotropes, white carnations, crimson roses, forget-me-nots, and black roses all grew from the ground. Its roots and vines surrounded the body of a recently graduated boy, who simply loved someone that he knew he couldn't have.

Epel looked like a charming prince with how peaceful he looked.

The world was cruel. Too cruel even.

Those young adults, now grown up, were gathered in a reserved restaurant. They all stood up when they heard the door, Silver bringing you in.

You carried a white cane and carefully moved it around, your eyes staring forward with occasional blinks. Everyone knew the situation, but there was still a tension that you could feel by just sensing it.

Your irises were close to white but had a faint hue of your original eye color. You were blind. You had explained to everyone before that you had “Star Tear Disease”, which explained why you cried stars when you left the world of Twisted Wonderland that day.

It was rare. Only a few had it, and you were the unlucky one that did. You could feel everyone's eyes on you, but you smiled nonetheless. It had been years since you had last been with the boys, and you were quite excited to meet them again.

“I'm fine, guys. It's just a little impairment, but I'm still me.”

The room stayed quiet, and slowly, one by one, they all came up to let you touch their faces and reintroduce themselves. Ace tried making you laugh by contorting his face, but you hit his shoulder. “Hey! Quit that. I'll pull your ear if you keep doing it.”

Goofball as always.

Once everyone had a turn, you felt weird. Someone was missing, and you slowly made your way around the table. An empty chair.

“Who's missing?” You asked, clutching the arm of the chair.

Silence once again. No one wanted to tell you, so you remembered everyone to figure it out.

Your body froze as you realized it, but you could feel your heart drop. “Epel.”

Tension grew in the room again and you could hear a sigh, then followed by Leona. “He's dead.”

Whispers with the others calling out Leona for saying it, but he simply grew irritated with their lack of sense. “Oi, what the hell are we supposed to do, eh? Keep it from them? They're blind for Seven's sake!”

“You didn't have to say it so bluntly—” Followed Lilia, not wanting everything to become a problem.

“All of you, shut up!” You yelled, the starry tears forming in your eyes as you clutched the chair harder, digging your nails into the wood.

Everyone went mute. You couldn't even believe it. 

“How...” You whispered, the sound of twinkling from your tears filling the eerily quiet room. “How did he die and when?”

Deuce stood from his chair this time. “On our graduation day. He died of some… illness called Hanahaki Disease.” 

Your world was crumbling. Hanahaki Disease. You heard of it in your world. It was made of fiction, but who knew it'd be turned into reality. The same could be said for Star Tear Disease, but you developed it here, and it followed you into your world.

You let out a few tears as you kept thinking, your arms practically wrapped around the chair. “Who was the cause? One of you knows.”

Vil spoke as he moved closer, trying to be careful with you. “That part isn’t necessary for you to know—”

“It was you. Vil told us all after he died.” The gruff voice from Malleus filled the room with those three words, and they somehow sounded painstakingly beautiful. Vil’s breathing pattern changed once the truth was revealed. You knew those words were true.

“... Take me to his grave.” You asked after a short moment of silence, sounding like you were pleading, so they took you.

Standing in front of it now, you gently touched the tomb, then the texture of the cement, until your hands touched the lettering.

“E P E L   F E L M I E R”

It had his dates, a small obituary, and designs of apple trees. It all felt cool to the touch. You could only imagine it, but then you remembered that you brought something.

A flower bouquet. Baby's breaths, blue salvia, lavender roses, and cyclamens were composed neatly, you could feel it. Anything for him, especially since he meant so much.

“Hey Epel…” You whispered, kneeling down in front of the tomb. You took a breath and it was already hard, the disease making your eyes sting. “You know, you're the only one I didn't get to touch today.”

“I'm sure you look the same. You never changed.” You said with a smile, gently feeling the cold cement under your fingers. You heard his laugh in your ears, imagined his smile, and you felt a warmth on your hand. His warmth. You knew it.

At that moment, you began to cough really hard, blood spilling onto your hand and petals came out of your mouth. You were unfazed. You knew what this was. 

You set down the bouquet and moved to sit on top of his grave, leaning back against the tombstone as you felt a sharp pain around your ankles.

“Why didn't you tell me? I loved you too. That's unfair…” You whispered softly, feeling your eyes close as your breath struggled slightly.

“We could've survived together.” You said with a faint voice, your body becoming lifeless as your hands and ankles were tied down with vines.

Red roses, carnations, and aster grew on the vines. The twinkling of your tears filled the soundless cemetery, stopping with a drop of a star on your clothes.

[popawritter12]

Hello! I read your yandere Smoke story, and I liked it a lot! You're a great writer and I'd love to see more Mortal Kombat stuff :)

If it's okay with you, would you be willing to do a headcanons list for yandere Rain (MK1, preferably male reader, if that's okay)? Thank you so much in advance! Feel free to take as much time as you need. I love your work so far! I'll have to check it out some more!

Author's note: It took a little longer because I'm making a new way of making headcanons, after completing all the orders this week I will upload the "first prototype" of this second way of making headcanons <3

By the way, anon, I actually feel comfortable writing any type of gender! It's just that sometimes I think I'm a bit ambiguous when I change the gender of the reader, but if you like it, then I'll just try to improve on that aspect!

Yandere! Rain x Male! Reader

First impressions

He met you when he was trained by Sindel; you were a healer whose skills were nationally recognized for the exceptionality of him; you could cure deadly diseases with inhuman ease.

You were also trained by Sindel, but there was something very different about you, something that caught everyone's attention.

Your pacifism.

Even in the most stressful situations, or with aggression involved, you never raised your voice, much less your hands.

You always preached peace, helping everyone who needed it.

At first, he had a lot of admiration for you. He tried to imitate your techniques sometimes, and he felt that you would be a great guide in his life.

Seeing his enthusiasm for learning, you approached him to accompany him in his training and give him all the information about the use of his type of magic.

Fall in love

He believed it was simple admiration, and in fact you did too, but there was something deep in your soul that doubted; When he followed you like a puppy follows its owner, you assumed it was out of admiration, but that thought that he was looking for something more was always there.

You looked for answers to that question; If you were religious, you went to your God to answer your questions, but if you were not, you looked for the answers in your teachers, in Sindel or in your teachers before her. But unfortunately for you, all of them doubted that Rain could wish any harm on you or those around you.

If he finds out, he would doubt it; Did he really look that scary in your eyes? No! He couldn't let someone like you be afraid of him!

He becomes visibly more intense, everyone notices it and especially you; He is kinder to everyone, but especially to you. He seems more desperate to try to please you, so much so that he even scares you, but he doesn't notice how scary he looks trying to please you.

Beginning of “Yanderism”

His desperation begins to consume him, do you know what is the worst thing that can happen to a man in love? That the person he adores so much is afraid of him.

And do you know what is worse for a man in that situation? Exact! May his despair over your approval cause him to start distrusting people; everyone except Sindel or anyone from the royal family was suspicious of your fear of him.

He thinks anyone could want to wash your head, your best friend? your family? or even unknown?

Any one of them could try to put fear into you, and he ends up hurting a lot of people trying to figure out the root of that fear.

Whenever he saw you he had the feeling that you were perfect in his eyes; You were always so kind, so gentle with all people, with an affinity for magic so miraculous and unique that… it seemed as if you had been born as a God.

But you were weaker than an average human; not only because of your soft personality, but also because the lack of physical training punished you with little possibility of defending yourself against an attack.

But it was okay… After all, they lived in a peaceful world, right?

Relationship or kidnapping

He is manipulated by Shang Tsung, made to believe that “his God” needed protection, that Sindel limited him so that both he and you remain under her command, that if he released all his power, he could defend you, he could keep you safe, protect you. and show you that you don't need to fear him.

It was easy for him to manipulate him, to make him believe that he just needed to work harder to be able to have you in his hands, and take care of you properly.

When Liu Kang himself announces the betrayal on the part of Shang Tsung and Rain, a part of you knew that it was inevitable that sooner or later he would seek more power through other means.

Late you realized that the perception that made you distrust Rain was due to his search for more power, you knew that it was going to be a matter of time before he sought to get out of the limit that Sindel established for him, to seek to break that limit and be able to have a lot of power. more strength than before.

And yet, when he broke in so he could talk to you, you tried to reason with him peacefully.

When you mentioned his mistake, he reacted badly; He tried to justify his decisions for you, mentioning that he did it for you, because he needed you, because he longed for you to understand him, but that wasn't the case.

When he tried to convince you, he went so far as to stand in front of you, on his knees, holding your hands and talking over and over again about how much he admired you, how much he needed you, how divine you were in his eyes, how much he loved you. I needed your presence in your life.

But you rejected it.

“When you make a decision, you must notice the consequences, and if you don't accept them, then you are not willing to mature” That's what you said.

You accepted that he chose a side, but as a consequence he lost you.

And the mere idea that you were going to leave his side ends up driving him crazy, and he ends up making that decision.

In case of kidnapping, where would he take you?

Currently I don't remember the name, but let's say it's where he hides with Shang Tsung temporarily.

And in the end, if we assume that he manages to take you to a secluded place between both worlds, managing to hide you from all the annoying crowds that dare to take you away from him.

Coexistence

He tends to be somewhat annoying, he usually insists on being on your lap or that you hug him, so much so that there comes a point where he stops insisting and just… does things without asking you.

And yes, he loves you to heal his wounds, so much so that he often hurts himself on purpose with knives or weapons that he doesn't know how to handle very well, he only knows that they hurt.

And obviously, because even with all the hurt he did to you, you loved him like a friend, you healed him.

Who knows? Maybe you'll end up being a great dad to… well.

Marriage and family.

He doesn't take marriage very seriously, but he would like it in a sense, in fact he thinks about it sometimes, but then he just forgets, later thinking that it's just a silly idea.

And your family… Well, he doesn't care, in fact he doesn't care almost at all about what your family wants for you; You are one of the best healers —not to mention the best he has ever seen and will see in his entire life— that he knows. It is obvious that you can make decisions for yourself! Of course, as long as he can keep you safe and avoid any “harmful” decisions for you.

In this case, would he adopt?

Yeah, especially if it's some mysteriously orphaned kid who needs two father figures who are also like them. I mean, with your knowledge of healing, and his knowledge of magic... I could be a great idea! He loves the idea that both of you offspring when it grows up will protect you from the same thing he does! Although he also wish they had their own life, you know… Yanderes stuff.

Bad ending

Worst case scenario, they find you; Mileena or others find your location, and try not to come to violence with him.

But Rain can't stand it, why are they doing this? Separate him from the love of his life? Of the only man who always treated him with all the respect in the world? Was this his fault for not protecting him well? Or for not being strong enough to protect you?

He gets carried away, and let's just say he ends up killing those who were actively seeking to "separate" him from his beloved healer.

He hopes that you will heal his wounds, so that he can take you away, to a place where you both can go and have your long-awaited happy ending, where you can both be happy without depending on any other being that feels the need to separate you.

But you refused, you shouted no, and you refused to treat his wounds. The main reason was obvious; he had chosen the most extreme and bloody path ever known to you or others.

He didn't take it well at all. Almost immediately, he uses his magic on you; he hurts you, hurts your skin and tears your clothes, threatening and screaming about what he was going to do to you and all your loved ones.

He threatens to end your life, to make you suffer if you don't cooperate with him.

In his mind, he thought that he had finally eradicated those who tried so hard to separate the two of them and keep him from his only source of happiness, and you were crying because you didn't understand that your happiness was worth a price, and that price was blood and life of others, and it was one that he was willing to pay thousands of times over to hold you in his arms, worship you and hold your face in his hands, so he could tell you how miraculous you are.

And it is after that threat that he releases you, abruptly releasing your body to the ground, almost compressing your bones; An extremely painful sensation ran through your body, one such that it only made you sob due to the pain. Even if you had never cried in your life, that strong, suffocating feeling had made your fear for him increase like never before.

Obviously after that you healed him, and told him you would never leave him.

After all, if he had damaged your bones like this just by letting go of you, what could he do if he really wanted to see you suffer?

Reasons to be Yandere:

-This greedy son of a bitch doesn't usually fall in love easily; Since he was too busy pursuing power, he thought he wouldn't have time to fall in love.

-He sees you as a great magician, a person whose abilities are so divine that you must be protected, you NEED his protection, he is not interested in what you tell him about that.

-When you are "playing" a powerful but physically weak character, it is inevitable that someone like Rain will feel intrigued by someone so powerful but at the same time so vulnerable to any attack.

Extra data:

-He doesn't think he's in love, you're just someone he admires a lot, I mean..., who wouldn't kill for someone that admires?

-He knows that his power is devastating, that's why he does everything possible to get along with you, but when he doesn't succeed… he gets frustrated, he gets so frustrated that he even thinks about it for several nights.

-I feel like he is someone who needs someone to tell him when to stop, and you are that someone, that someone who just drives his energy to an almost inhuman point, but it only focuses on loving you, pampering you and giving you everything you want.

-He usually has certain flashes of anger when Shang Tsung refers to you as an object to fulfill his dream, more than once he wanted to kick his ass, but there were more important things, at least for now.

-He usually comes to you when he needs advice or instructions on what to do with his life; After understanding that his quest for power was meaningless, he felt quite disoriented on how to love you correctly, on how to serve you as you wish.

[butcharondir]

the artful dodger meta dump

So I’ve been making a lot of Artful Dodger gifs and recommending it to people, etc, so I feel like now’s a good time to get down some thoughts about what I liked about the writing and what I wish they’d done better. I’m not intimately familiar with Oliver Twist the novel, so this won’t be an analysis of how the show succeeds as an adaptation or sequel. Rather, I’m assessing the show on its own terms and examining specific characterizations as they relate to gender and race.

warning: spoilers for the entire series

lady belle fox

The most divisive character in The Artful Dodger is without a doubt the female main character, Lady Belle Fox. Belle is a deeply intelligent and ambitious young white woman. She’s also the daughter of the colonial governor, existing in the highest strata of privilege her society can offer — excepting being a man. She’s very forward, bossy, egotistical, often self-serving and occasionally mean. She is, as the kids say, “unlikeable.”

So, is this the dreaded girlbossification in action? I don’t personally find the term “girlboss” to be a useful descriptor for analyzing female characterization, but if you find it useful, go right ahead. However, I do take issue with the accusations of “lazy girlboss writing” because I think the extremes of Belle’s characterization are pretty clearly a feature and not a bug.

The writing gives extensive in-story explanations for why Belle is Like This. She was raised by a wickedly smart mother, Lady Jane, whose marriage to Belle's fuddy-duddy father is a transparent front for her own personal ambitions. She essentially administers the colony herself while her husband works in the garden. Lady Jane recognizes these same qualities in her daughter and actively encourages them, steering Belle in the direction of similarly weak-willed young men who Belle might be able to manipulate into letting her lead the life she wants: one of medical study and practice. This is essentially how she approaches her relationship with Jack from the get-go. She sees him as a man she can manipulate and domineer for her own ends. The problem is, Jack isn’t actually a patsy. He’s a true match, and one of unfortunately unmarriageable quality.

The focus of Belle’s ambition is also not random. She’s has a chronic degenerative heart condition, one which she’s had to research and diagnose for herself, because the doctors around her have failed to give her useful information. It makes sense that her formidable intelligence would end up hyperfixating on medicine and surgery as a means of addressing her own illness.

Due to these factors — the matriarchal power structure of her family in combination with the patriarchal privilege of her culture — Belle can get away with almost anything. She throws her weight around the colony without consequence, invoking her father’s name at will without any of her father’s retribution. The writing certainly takes some liberties with anachronism, but this isn’t just a case of placing a modern woman in a period setting. They've made intentional characterization choices to back it up.

The writing is also very aware of Belle’s flaws and the tension they create with other characters. Belle’s privileged position makes it difficult for her to see the world from the same perspective as Jack. This is most notable in episode 6, when Belle tries to defend her father’s “law and order” crackdown as a necessary measure to control crime, and Jack has to explain to her the concept of structural violence. She’s also called out by Red, the outlaw who’s life Belle saves by means of an emergency surgery. Although Belle lies to protect her, Red doesn’t excuse Belle for her role in colonial project: “Your family are the biggest thieves in Port Victory.”

I was impressed with how this particular subplot was executed with regards to Belle’s arc. It doesn't feel like a “turn to the camera" teaching moment. It feels instead like the inevitable consequence of the tension that arises when people develop relationships across class and life experience. (“If you can’t see what’s happening here, Belle, then you and I have big problems. This puts a wall between us.”) It also doesn't feel like a misogynistic hit designed to take Belle down a peg. Her ego is healthy enough to get through unscathed.

However, there are some aspects of Belle’s specific brand of white feminism that aren’t as well executed. Most notable is her relationship with Hetty. Hetty is a hard-working nurse and Catholic woman of color who works in the hospital. She is increasingly sidelined both in her professional role and her role in Jack’s life by Belle’s self-empowering self-insertion into the surgical room. There’s clear tension between them, and understandable disapproval from Hetty towards Belle and Jack’s indulgence of Belle’s ego. However, this tension is never fully explored. By the end of the series, Hetty and Belle appear to be friends, or at least allies, with no discernible explanation. Is Hetty just that much bigger of a person? Does she think a rising tide will lift all ships? We don’t know, because her motivations are never examined. The closest we get is an introspective moment that implies Hetty’s unrequited feelings for Jack, which does little to explain her acceptance of Belle’s role in the hospital. It’s end up being unsatisfying, a disservice to Hetty’s quite interesting potential as a character.

jack’s gang

However, I think where the writing suffers most is in its failure to examine Jack’s whiteness and privilege. Jack identifies strongly as a have-not, despite having gained some power and privilege as a doctor, and over the course of the story, he ends up surrounded by a crew of other have-nots, most of whom are men of color. His closest friend before Fagin returns is an aboriginal man named Tim, an engineer (and partner to the outlaw Red) who makes prosthetic arms and legs for amputees. There’s potential here, but this relationship is never really examined. We don’t learn how they met or what drew them together, besides apparently working in the same building.

The only tension between them comes when Jack tries to guilt Tim into doing him a favor based on Jack’s previous generosity, and Tim hits back from an equal position: “Pricey, isn’t it? Your loyalty?” But just as with Hetty, this tension is dropped, and Tim’s and Jack’s goals are essentially aligned for the rest of the story. The other members of Jack and Fagin’s gang get even less exploration. On the one hand, it’s a gang of thieves getting up to silly hijinks — they’re not each going to have a fleshed out character arc. On the other hand, the characterization choices uphold some harmful colonial optics, where a diverse crew of characters answer to two white men as the explicit brains of the operation.

red

The best treatment for a character of color is almost certainly Frances ‘Red’ Scrubbs, a sharp-shooting aboriginal woman and a crafty outlaw (partner to Tim). This is definitely because Miranda Tapsell, the actress who portrays Red, was tapped as a consulting writer. (!!!!!). Red’s not a member of Fagin’s gang but a leader of her own crew, and she serves as a sort of playful nemesis to Fagin for the first few episodes, often outfoxing him or beating him to a steal. She also gets a subplot arc of her own, and is the source of the show’s most effective anti-colonial messaging. She embodies an ethos of unapologetic indigenous resistance. Her occasional solidarity with Fagin and Jack is always conditional on her own right to survive and thrive. Her distrust of the colonial medical system she must rely on to escape the noose is the closest the show gets to exploring medical trauma as structural violence (it’s still a very light dive.) The story ends with her taking revenge on the hateful lawman who targeted her and returning to the bush to live with her daughter.

If anything, the show could have benefited from more Red, a deeper exploration of her world and her gang outside of her interactions with Fagin and Jack. But one can understand how that might have been outside the scope of the showrunners' intentions.

At the end of the day, The Artful Dodger is a white-centric narrative. The focus of the story is the relationship between Jack and Fagin and the relationship between Jack and Belle, and both of these dynamics are excellently written. If it’s renewed for a Season Two, I hope they can extend the scope to give space for more complex narratives like Red's.

[ari-kari]

hey. gnarly gender stuff below. wouldn’t recommend reading if you are triggered by gender doubt, detransition, sexuality, negative body talk, and surgical malfeasance. oh and also light gore. sorry it’s going to get kind of weird

so I’ve been quietly stepping away from id’ing as trans for a while now. which is a subject that probably needs its own post, all things considered. but there’s one aspect of my (de)transition that is causing an enormous amount of stress in my life, and I’m genuinely not sure how to handle it. so I figured blabbing about it here might help me get some clarity.

anyways. let’s talk titties.

my first top surgery in 2022 was botched. dog ears, massive janky nipples, bizarre incision site choices - it was a whole deal. I got a revision last year (from the same surgeon lmao) that fixed a lot of things, but unfortunately it made other problems significantly worse. So while aesthetically things are much better than they used to be, I still consider myself to be botched. I haven’t taken my top off in public since it happened, and I don’t see myself doing so any time soon.

For a long time, I assumed that this was my only problem; some asshole small town doctor had messed up my results, and now I felt uncomfortable in my body. But it slowly began to dawn on me that things were more complicated than that. Because when I imagined myself being intimate with someone with perfect, stellar top surgery results…I still felt horrible. To the point where, even with nipple prosthetics, I haven’t felt comfortable enough to have sex since my revision 9 months ago.

So now we get into the crux of the problem. Which is this - I do not feel desireable without breasts. Not to myself, and not to others. And to be honest, I knew this would be a problem even before I got the surgery, but I went through with it anyways. Because desireability is small potatoes when it comes to the horrors of gender dysphoria, right? In my mind, I was being vain to put my intimacy concerns over the pursuit of my “true self”. Everyone with dysphoria had to “fix” it eventually - I couldn’t just not get top surgery.

But like…fuck, dude. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten top surgery.

I prefer my body without breasts. It feels much more “me”, especially when I’m alone. But I don’t feel hot. I don’t feel fuckable, or beautiful, or attractive. And I’ve been trying to chip away at it in therapy, but I haven’t really put much of a dent in it, and it’s bringing up some really hard questions that I no longer feel capable of ignoring.

Honestly? My confidence in my sexuality is a big fucking deal to me. I’m someone for whom intimacy of all kinds is really important. And even though I know that there are PLENTY of people who find flat chests attractive, I personally do not. And it’s seriously starting to fuck with my head.

Idk man. Insurance is able to cover reconstruction for me due to a federal loophole, but there’s no way in hell they’re going to fix my jacked-up nipples on their own. And I’m seriously beginning to question if a little gender dysphoria might be worth the relief of finally feeling confident in my own skin again. I have a consultation appointment in June, in either case. So in the mean time, I just have to…figure this out. No biggie.

Anyways, that’s my spiel. I’ve been wearing prosthetics for a while now and tolerating them fairly well, but I recognize that having something physically attached to you is a whole other ball game. So we’re just gonna keep on trucking and see what happens 🫠🫠🫠 either way I have a funny feeling that the “perfect” answer I’ve been seeking to this problem does not exist.

[gin-juice-tonic]

Hey Gin this might be a silly thing to ask, but how did you realize you were trans? Cause ever since I saw your trans Stan and Ford I think I had some sort of relivation, it started with just really enjoying the art you drew to me feeling some sort of envy. Either that I want to dress more masculine or that I actually want to be a man, cause honestly when I look at your trans stans I just feel so much gender envy (jealousy?) And on my last period I had a whole crying fit over it starting, which has never happened before. I just don't know if this is actually what I'm feeling or if it isn't. I've had thoughts of telling my mom and fearing the consequence. This is just all so new and I'm honestly scared. I figured I'd ask you since I look up to you and from what I've seen you are quite wise. I don't really know why I have so much self doubt and constantly flip flop over things. It's frustrating, I just wish I could be certain about something for once. Sorry about this, I'm a mess really.

It’s not silly to ask. My answer is unfortunately a little silly, because I’m a goober. I also typed A LOT so its all going under a read more

So, I was 16 and on tumblr even more than I am now, and I was (still am) friends with a trans woman who reblogged a post that was like “Just trans girl things: eating dark chocolate because it has substances similar to estrogen” and I went “Haha i guess I should stop eating it.” followed by “…why do I feel that way” and THAT was followed by quite the crisis.

Trans men weren’t as well known about back then, so I was like “Well, it means nothing, since only women can be trans”. And then I found out men could be trans too and that pushed my crisis further along. And I started to think. About how I liked when people defaulted to male pronouns for me on the internet, or how when i was a kid I would use a crazy amount of shampoo to make my hair look short and flatten my chest in front of the mirror and look at it. Things like that. And I got upset because “no i can’t be trans that’s impossible”. I would google things like “how do you know if you’re trans”, “quiz to see if you’re trans”, ect.

But the idea of being seen as a man was exciting. It was tantalizingly exciting. And I knew it could be possibility for me someday, and I knew that made a part of me happy and I couldn’t un-know it.

Final straw was a nonbinary person I had been following made a post about how they were going to start taking testosterone. And instead of feeling happy for them I just got mad and started sobbing to myself. Because I was so extremely jealous. So jealousy absolutely has its place in figuring things out.

You should think. Think about attaining the things you’re envious about. Does this make you happy? It’s okay if it’s upsetting or scary at the same time. Change often is. But if it makes you happy, excites you, gives you hope for the future, it’s worth thinking more about.

-

You don’t have to jump into telling your mom right away (and I wouldn’t really recommend it till you’re a little more sure of yourself). You can go at whatever pace you want to. I didn’t tell my mom (or anyone in my real life at all) till I was like, 20. And I’d known for 4 years at that point. You’ve sent me a tumblr message, so I’m assuming you’ve got an account here. I’d say asking your friends on this website to address you as male would be a good way to ease into things. And you can see if you like that or not.

For how you dress, again, you can ease into it. Personally it made me happy to dress in athletic clothing (especially tank tops- to show off my non existent guns), or to dress like a greaser (Though I preferred a black t shirt to a white one), or a golfer. None of those things particularly scream ‘man’ but they were man enough to me. You can find things man enough for you. If you want to try out a binder and think you can get one without anyone noticing, my first ever one was a Tri-top from Underworks. They’re like $30 or so. I was able to get away with buying it because I was a cosplay nerd so I just said it was for that.

If you’re the type of person who owns makeup- you could try to find some time alone just to have an experiment of mimicking drag king makeup, or makeup for cosplayers doing male characters. I did that once early on, and while it looked admittedly goofy, it made me ecstatic at the time.

-

Er sorry for things getting so long. But I just want to say lastly that self doubt is both normal and okay. And thinking far in the future (ie- things like coming out to people or hormones or anything like that) might scare you. But you can take things one step at a time if you want to. Play with just looking at clothes, making outfits on pinterest or whatever, imagining scenarios where people address you as male, thinking of names you might like. See what makes you happy, and expand on the things that do from there.

And regardless of what you discover, in the end you will have learned more about yourself. And that's always a good thing.

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

The thing that surprised me when I first got into the fandom side of Shameless is that Fiona and Debbie will very rarely receive a nuanced reception for their actions (thinking about the things they do that are wrong and thinking about intent) whereas Lip's actions will always be handwaved away, even when he's 100% in the wrong. I still love Lip but it's led to me sometimes eye rolling at some of his scenes. Really the one's where he's screaming at someone about how wrong they are.

yeah… i love shameless and i love the fandom but they are both incredibly misogynistic, unfortunately.

*cue the man by taylor swift*

lip’s actions will always be defended because people think that he’s cool. debbie and fiona’s actions won’t, because people think that they’re bitches.

and there are so many pieces of evidence that the reason people (men) love lip and hate debbie and fiona is because of gender.

debbie or fiona could (and have) do the same fucked up thing that lip did and people react so differently.

for example:

lip trying to convince karen to keep her baby, wanting desperately to parent the child despite the fact that fiona warns him it’s a shitty decision because they can’t afford it, and for that, he’s stepping up. he’s mature. he’s brave.

debbie lies about being on birth control to purposefully have a kid and refuses to abort it despite fiona’s pleas because they can’t afford it, and she actually raises the kid all on her own, for that, she’s dumb. she’s a brat. she’s a bitch.

both of them were wrong. lip was wrong for telling karen what to do with her body and risking everything for his family for a child he wasn’t even 100% was his. debbie was wrong for lying to have a baby at fifteen (she was not wrong for not aborting franny, though. a lot of people think that she was, but i’m a firm believer in my body my choice, so it’s her absolute right to not abort her child).

debbie drops franny because of sleep deprivation and she’s suddenly the worst. fiona’s a drunk and suddenly she’s a bad character and a shitty person (she is a shitty person, but they all are). lip dropped his kid and is an alcoholic but he’s given the benefit of the doubt.

lip treats the women in his life like shit. probably because of monica. debbie and fiona get screamed at by him for honest mistakes (mostly fiona), mandy, amanda, sierra, and tami all got treated like shit by him when they were dating (tami doesn’t put up with it as much, though). and i’m not even necessarily saying he’s a misogynist, but he generally treats men better than women. and people are a little too okay with that.

all of lip’s actions are defended by how hard he had it, fiona and debbie’s aren’t. people will get really deep with lip, and explain how his every move is okay because his childhood was shitty. debbie and fiona are so complex also, and they literally had the same parents as lip, but people don’t like to get as deep and explain their every move with them (i do tho😉). every shameless character is complex. even the characters that aren’t as big. they all are complex and they have layers and if you look into them you can find a lot. people will do that with characters like lip, but with debbie and fiona they just kind of shrug it off. personally i find debbie much more interesting than lip but that’s just me.

if you’re going to defend lip because of how he was raised, you should defend all of the siblings. they literally grew up together.

and i love lip. i’m not trying to say i hate him, but if people are going to shit on fiona and debbie, then people should shit on lip, too.

i’ve said this before, but all of the characters resemble a role. they all have trauma and they all have different trauma responses. but just because they deal with it differently doesn’t mean that they aren’t traumatized.

i’m getting off topic as always lol.

but i wish that lip would get held accountable more. and i wish that people would go easier on fiona and debbie.

the show is called shameless. all of the characters are massive pieces of shit. to call any character except for like, liam, a good person is stupid because that’s missing the entire point. just because you like a character doesn’t mean that they’re an angel. one of my favorite characters is debbie and she’s a piece of shit. like she sucks ass but i also love her.

i’m unhappy with this post i might just redo it😭

[system-of-a-feather]

this probably isn't what you meant when you said people could ask you about late stage recovery stuff, but i really have no idea where/who else to ask, so i hope this is okay

so i relate a lot to how people describe their own experiences with functional multiplicity (and to some degree final fusion as well, but to a lesser degree), but i've never been in any kind of actual treatment for anything. i'm not sure if i could have DID or another dissociative disorder at all (they aren't really seen as real by psych professionals in my country, so can't be assessed), but i know i experience myselves as more than one and people i've discussed it with irl don't really understand it at all.

so i was wondering if maybe you had any thoughts to what that could be..? i doubt it could be DID since no treatment and if i even have ptsd it's very mild, but i also know my experiences aren't normal and i haven't seen anyone but late stage recovery DID systems describe anything similar

i hope it is ok to ask, you seem knowledgeable and i have no idea where else to ask. thank you for reading

I might be saying a bit of an unpopular opinion to the online community here and might get shot in the foot for it (unfortunately, but I don't care really) but I don't think you have to pathologize it if you don't find benefit to it.

What I mean is largely just that it doesn't have to inherently be DID or a dissociative disorder to experience yourself as more than one and if you aren't experiencing distress from it, there is no real need to put a medical label on it. There is a lot of rhetoric about complex dissociative disorders being the only real way to experience one's self as more than one because DID is almost exclusively seen as a result of trauma - but that's just not true if SOLELY on the fact that the experience of being one or many in a largely subjective experience and a way of how one likes to look at themselves.

There is no real valid way to accurately measure "perception of multiple selves" because biological approaches ignore the actual and practical reports of individuals and self reports ignore the real biological underpinnings of things like DID and all. And thats a lot of jargon to say "No real study can properly examine the whole breath of human experiences across cultures and biological backgrounds through all research perspectives" and just that you really shouldn't sweat people saying XYZ is unscientific cause BOTH sides will say that and BOTH sides are equally right and wrong depending on your research perspective.

That said, if it is causing you distress or posing you problems, I do strongly recommend talking about it with a therapist. Yeah some can be a bit rough around the edges and the overall mental health system still kinda sucks, but really any therapist you can develop a good rapport with should be able to help you navigate it all from the place you currently are.

Either way, (and I apologize if this is a bit disorganized, I'm in the car and my fiance is sometimes talking to me as I type so it breaks my train of thought) my personal opinion and thought on the matter is that unless its causing you distress, I don't think you really need to stress about what exactly the "not normal" experience is cause "not normal"...

1) Doesn't exist cause "normal" doesn't really exist and the concept of normality, in my opinion, does little other than promote conformity and shame. (Plus in America its used to push white colonizer perspective and ideas on more subjective things like gender, experiences of self etc; experiencing yourself as more than one is actually not entirely abnormal in some cultures and I'd argue that as a Buddhist, experiencing yourself as more than one is an uncommon but absolutely normal experience)

2) Your experiences aren't defined by the labels and research of other people. Your experiences are defined inherently by how you experience them and labels are there to serve to describe you experiences, not the other way around. Same thing goes for research. Research exists to explain odd phenomenon, not to tell people that their experiences are wrong. Research should adapt to include things that don't fit in, not demands that said outliers change to fit the model / theory.

3) As long as there is held respect that your experiences of being more than one might not be the same as someone whose experiences of being more than one comes from complex trauma and/or a complex dissociative disorder, then I see little harm in just, ya know, existing as you naturally do.

I am hesitant to say "endogenic / plurality community might help you find similar people and navigate finding a label if that is important to you" cause I don't actually interact too much with the community myself and I have heard about some toxicity from there (don't touch sophie or cambrian), but I think it could be helpful with some caution.

Anyways, I am having trouble organizing my thoughts cause Im in the car and all so I'll leave it here. Feel free to ask away if you want to add anything or need clarification on my thoughts on this or whatever.

[avatarskywalker78]

How are your OCs' relationships with their mothers?

Oho, this is a good question because it varies from OC to OC - so I'll group similar ones together (and I'm putting them under the cut because I have a lot of OCs)

Several do not have great relationships with their mothers - Nicky's parents left her behind with relatives when she was six and she's very bitter about this, and still doesn't entirely believe that her aunt won't one day do the same. Sophie Sloan (Diagnosis Murder OC) was abandoned by her mother when she was two years old - she doesn't remember enough to miss her, but part of her can't help but feel it was a judgement on her. My X-Men OCs Alex, Rosa, and Kate left their respective homes because of their mothers' anti-mutant sentiments and there's no reconciliation on the horizon because unfortunately, that hasn't changed in the years since. Marie Douglas (The Professionals) and Brianna Louise Wilson (NCIS) left home at thirteen and eighteen respectively because they were unwanted compared to thier siblings and damn well knew it.

Steph Taylor and Brianna Thawne get along with their mothers but it is somewhat distant - Steph's worked a lot during her childhood and while she doesn't exactly begrudge her that there's still a little bit of resentment there, and they only tend to talk on holidays and birthdays. Brianna's loves her, but unintentionally put pressure on her by talking about the high achieving relatives, which made Brianna push herself and push herself until she burnt out, and then she left home at seventeen to find herself (and became a Blue Flame Wielder), and has hardly talked to her since. Risa Redlark (Superman Returns) talks to her mother but struggles to connect with her as she doesn't understand why Risa wants to be a journalist. Áine (The Witcher) doesn't see her mother much because she travels a lot, but still tries to make time to see her when she can.

Some of them had positive relationships with their mothers but are missing them for one reason or another. Meri Solo, Isla Tinero-Antilles and Ashley Tanner (my Krypton OC) loved their mothers, but lost them at a young age - out of the three, Ashley has more memories as she was ten (compared to Isla at 4 and Meri at 5), but sometimes suffers doubt about whether her mother would've accepted her gender identity had she lived, and that unanswered question colours things a bit.

Eliana's mother Lana Lang is presumed dead - nothing's ever been confirmed, as there's no way to contact her Earth, but Eliana is mostly convinced that she's dead, because there's no way that her mother wouldn't have been helping more metas and aliens get off-world and she would be killed if caught, and Eliana misses her so much but hardly allows herself to think of any possibility she might be alive because it's too painful (but nonetheless, a small part of her hopes.) Nellith does think her mother is dead because of the severed Force Bond and this devastates her and she struggles to talk about it with anyone - even Meri, the person who ends up looking after her for the next fourteen years.

Emile Brooke has been mostly raised by her grandparents and doesn't see her mother often - as of the start of the story it's been two years since she last saw her - but she doesn't doubt that she loves her, even with the complicated circumstances. Lissa Blackwood has not contacted her mother in fifteen years and although she feels so very guilty about this, is nonetheless convinced it is for the best.

The rest have pretty solid relationships with their mothers. The Barnes children all adore Leah, and look up to her a lot, Gemma Laura McKinney still regularly visits both her parents, and James Connors thinks Nicky is the best mom ever and he's so happy to have been adopted by her. Maia Curry only knows the one parent but that's enough for her and she's never felt unloved or been bothered by the lack of a father. Sophia Reynolds has been raised only by her mom for the last eleven years (because they had to flee their home planet and have no way of contacting Mal Reynolds to let him know they're alright), and is very protective of her mom.

Theo Thawne loves his mom Laura to pieces and even started studying to become a social worker like her. Sarah Thompson got along very well with her mother, and Alex always tried to find a way to talk to her mom when she could, unless she was on an undercover mission - even though there was still some disagreement over Alex joining SHIELD in the first place. Hannah Edwards is happy to be Jane's kid, and though she has a desire to find her birth father, she is not so bothered about finding out about her birth mother (she does eventually get to meet Bobbi, but it takes some time for the relationship to become cordial). Caitlin Sherwood (Buffyverse) speaks to her mother once a week and sees her when she can and gets along with her well, she's just often very busy. Niamh (OUAT) lives with both parents and is the light of their lives, Joanna (Uncharted) was mostly raised by her mother and maternal aunt and considers them as the most important people in the life, and Mel Hathaway (Star Trek) has a somewhat strained but mostly loving mother (she just disagreed with Mel joining Starfleet after she was nearly killed while on a routine trip to Vulcan).

As for the others I just haven't got that far.

Tagging (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @shrinkthisviolet @starstruckpurpledragon @vexic929 @negative-speedforce @lady-of-the-spirit

@fezwearingjellybananas @daughter-of-melpomene @forchrissy

[hotpinkboots]

HIIIII GIRL, before i request I just wanna say I adore ur writing so muchhhhhh its so cuteee hhh 💖 💖 💖

anyway some rouxls x gender neutral reader fluff for me and my my content deprived brothers?

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~𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖝𝖑𝖘 𝕶𝖆𝖆𝖗𝖉 x Reader Fluff Headcanons~

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DARLING DID YOU READ MY MIND I WAS GOING TO WRITE SOME ROUXLS TODAY AND NOW I HAVE THE PERFECT EXCUSE TO DO SO BECAUSE IT WAS REQUESTED OF ME :D

Thank you so much, I always get all giggly when people compliment my writing 😭 THANK YOUUUU

Rouxls is criminally underrated. I'm madly in love with him 😩

~Enjoy~

★★★★

𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖝𝖑𝖘 𝕶𝖆𝖆𝖗𝖉

★★★★

~First things first, I HIGHLY doubt he has that annoying voice that some people headcanon him to have....I definitely think his voice is far more deep and charming.

~He is such a FLIRT, though he would get very flustered and splutter if you flirted back.

~But when he gets over it, his ego is boosted even more because of what you said.

~He prefers you to not touch his hair...but sometimes he'll let you. And he might find he enjoys it! But he's still not going to let you touch it unless you throw a fit about it >:)

~His hair is the softest thing on the PLANET it's smooth and silkyyyyy 💜💜💜

~He has so many ridiculous nicknames for you.

~"Ah-ha! Mine own flower! How nice it is to seeth thee! How gorgeous thou art!"

~I don't translate Shakespeare I just write it >;))) MWAHAHA

~He'll call you his butterfly, his beloved, his sweetest of all the peas, and of course he'll call you a worm if you decide to "bug" him.

~Has a ton of monologues memorized to tell you how much he loves you.

~He likes to write poems for you!! In his glorious fancy calligraphy, of course. They're always so heartfelt and romantic.

~Rouxls is so fun to annoy, too. You've been chased out of his shop multiple times.

~He secretly finds it so endearing. You keep him on his toes.

~Keep in mind that he and Lancer are a two in one package! You'll get to entertain Lancer- actually, he entertains you, is more like it. Lancer's a funny little pumpkin with lots of tricks up his sleeve.

~Rouxls is going to force you to dance with him, by the by.

~He's a stupid pretty boy and is quite clumsy, so you're constantly trying to help him make better puzzles (then he takes credit for what you did)

~He IS taller than you. This man is 9 feet tall, an absolute unit. So, unfortunately, you could be the tallest person ever and he would still see you as short.

~So, along with all those funny endearing nicknames he has for you, he also calls you:

~an ant

~And he sometimes feels like being ornery, so he'll lean down so he can "hear you speak" and look at you.

~"Doest this offendeth thee? How humiliating for thee, yond thou art so small I cannot heareth thy voice upon mine own ears speaking to me. Ant! Thou art an ant to me. Speaketh up, ant, so i can heareth thy w'rds!"

~He won't shut up about you being an ant, now.

~Rouxls likes to kiss your hand! And would quite possibly curl up and die on the spot if you kissed his.

~He's a gentleman when he's not teasing you.

~You can always get back at him for teasing you, since he's pretty easy to tease, as well.

~Speaking in terrible Shakespeare to make fun of him or using your finger to boing that extra piece of skin that attaches his lips will offend the HELL out of him.

~Hollers at you and smacks you with a broom.

~"Why, thoust bite-sized monster- GAH! BEGONE, ANT!"

~You both are absolute menaces to society and it's the best relationship that's ever existed

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I LOVE HIM SO MUCH OH MY GODJDIFKSJDJKWN

Also, thank you for telling me the gender preference thingy, people don't really tell me so I just have to guess LOL. Much appreciated, ant!

Fangamer make a Rouxls plush please

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Rouxls/Masterlist (Scroll Down For The Masterlist)!

see what I did there

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Join my Chat/Roleplay Server! Here, you'll get updates on my videogame/fanfiction, make friends, and meet new roleplay buddies!:

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~Love, PinkBoots