#welcoming thoughts and opinions on any of these.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi Miss Raven!! Idk if u have done this already but I've just seen the Masquerade event (I'm sorta a new player and it seemed interesting) and I would really like to hear ur opinion and analysis on Rollo!!

Welcome to the Twst rabbit hole, new player~!

asfkafdivfeetog8qetapafs YOU'VE AWOKEN THE BEAST NOW... I WILL NEVER SHUT UP aBoUT GLORIOSU MASQUERADE AND ROLLO mY BELOVED... 🤡

So first of all, I think it's important to bring up that when this event was first announced in JP, there was outcry from English speaking Twst fans. Numerous fans, primarily concentrated in the west, claimed it was problematic for Twst to "twinkify" Frollo, a villain that is not fantastical at all, but is sinisterly close to real life bigots that use religion to justify said bigotry. People fear mongered and made claims that Twst would try to sanitize Rollo or would present him in a way that was offensive to the crimes his Disney inspiration committed. And, might I add, all of this was before ANY of the event story was released--this was just upon the announcement. (If you want to read more about the controversy, I explained it in detail + shared my own thoughts about it in this post.) Today, you'll rarely find such claims floating around because the event story came out and spoke for itself. Glorious Masquerade is widely regarded as the BEST written event Twisted Wonderland has ever put out, even including 5 years' worth of content out on the JP server. No other event story has topped it in quality--and that's a sentiment that I personally agree with. I honestly don't know if Twst ever will top GloMasq. That's how strong the writing is.

As for my opinion on Rollo! I consider him one of my favorite characters due to his complex character writing and internal conflict (and honestly, I gotta appreciate his grind as a hater). To repeat what I've said in an older post: [I love how unpleasant and dedicated to his goals he is.] He stands out from the crowd thanks to his very blatant disdain for Malleus and acts in some of the most unhinged, overdramatic ways I can fathom (LIKE THAT STUPID TRAP DOOR PART… OR WHEN HE TRIED TO GO “SIKE” ON MALLEUS AND STRIKE HIM WHEN HIS GUARD IS DOWN). It’s the perfect balance of serious villain while also being so serious he almost comes off as desperate and pathetic. I also relate to his neurotic behavior. and conservative manner of dress. I talk more at length about my thoughts on Rollo here, though even that post doesn't fully encapsulate all I could discuss about him. I could go on and on about the dark implications of his unique magic, or how Rollo and Idia are mirrors of each other and sobering reminder of what can happen to someone that turns their grief into fuel to blame the world for his sorrow, or how the consequences Rollo faced at the end of the event were so fitting for his particular character, or the validation I feel that someone finally calls out Malleus for his potential to be a monster. IN FACT, I HAVE. And I have also gushed about his SSR here!! There's just so much interesting stuff to explore with him and his fucked up psyche.

[meyhew]

are we on trial? | a glimpse into the night before andrew testifies

Nausea squeezes his stomach like a noose and Aaron wills the tequila to slide down his throat instead of coming back out. Katelyn’s fingertips scratching soft patterns along his scalp is the only reason he succeeds. 

“You sure you don’t want to sleep?” 

She has asked this too many times now—first when Dan and Matt were still here, then when they left and Aaron picked a movie without looking from Matt’s endless collection, and again when he got up from the couch for more of Matt’s alcohol. On any other night Aaron would tell her to quit it, but tonight he can’t. Tonight the sound of her voice is the one thing keeping him tethered to some semblance of sanity, even if it is to ask the same question again and again. 

Aaron shakes his head in a silent no. He knows what sleep will bring. Red hands and scarred wrists, his brother sitting in a pool of blood, Aaron’s-reflection-Andrew trapped in a mirror touching his temple, the sound of Andrew’s maniacal laughter chasing him out of his own head until he thrashes awake in his bed. He’d rather spend the night wide awake putting poison in his body.

As though sensing where his thoughts have drifted to, Katelyn says, “Have you told him I won’t be there tomorrow?” 

“Not yet. He’s been in a foul mood.” 

They all have, which surprised him. He knows his teammates well enough by now to have expected their indignant anger, but he wasn’t expecting their sadness. Dan’s lack of focus or Allison’s bitchiness toned down���it has all left Aaron a little dazed. Even Neil has curbed his antagonism, though that shouldn’t be a shock considering his very loud opinion about the uselessness of the trial. It doesn’t do much to earn him Aaron’s respect, but for once at least their resentment isn’t directed at each other. Their glum faces are an unexpected balm, though Aaron would sooner slit his throat than admit it to them.  

Katelyn pries the bottle of tequila from his hand and puts it a safe distance away. She turns the TV off and the remote disappears somewhere in the now-dark room. 

“Any more, and you’ll be throwing up all morning,” she says, not unkindly. 

Aaron sighs. He knows she’s right; he bulldozed past his safe limits an hour ago. The couch they’re on is small, but making it to the bed right now seems impossible. He turns his face towards her and Katelyn welcomes his weight. There are moments when disbelief takes over rational thought, this being among them. How is this real for him? How does he get to have her? It feels to good to be true, like one of these days she’s going to realize how fucked up he is, how fucked up his life is, and she’s going to walk away from him like she should have months ago. Instead, she’s there everyday, an unwavering presence by his side. 

He kisses her exposed collarbone and Katelyn presses a hand to the back of his head, holding him close to her. Not that she needs to. Not that he wants to be anywhere but here. 

“I can come by the courthouse at the end,” Katelyn murmurs. “If you want me to, obviously. Go somewhere.” 

As tempting as the idea is, he knows it’s a bad one. Maria and Luther will be there. That cop from Oakland will be there. Andrew’s would-be mother will be there, the one Aaron shut the door on. The ghost of his own mother lingering in different bodies. He doesn’t want Katelyn to have to see them, not until she must. 

Are you protecting her or Andrew? 

“I’ll find you afterwards.” 

She doesn’t take offense to his rejection and Aaron loves her more than he did a moment ago. “Do you want to talk to him?” 

him him him him him

“He’s probably asleep.” Even as he says it, he knows it’s not true. And, really, what’s there to say? 

“You won’t know unless you try.” She fishes around for something and a moment later offers him his phone. 

Aaron shakes his head. 

Katelyn gently pushes him back. “Well, go. I’ll be right here.” 

For a moment that stretches out indefinitely, they gaze at each other with something unsaid hovering in the air between them. Then Aaron leans in for a kiss, a tether, and Katelyn opens her mouth to him without hesitation. Her hand is warm on his cheek when she shoves him lightly. 

“Baby, go.” 

Aaron’s legs feel leaden as he trudges out of his room and towards his brother’s. He bypasses the lock for the keys in his pocket. Andrew didn’t want Aaron to have a spare and Neil didn’t see the point, but Aaron had insisted. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words that had been clawing at his insides. Sometimes he still gets stuck in his useless body in that house in Columbia, locked out of a room his brother was bleeding in, laughing at his own pain. He knows it won’t happen again—it can’t happen again—yet the disconnect between his heart and his brain is unbearable. The words died within him, but it didn’t matter. Andrew understood his silent plea demand and dropped a key on his open textbook one afternoon. 

They have never talked about it and Aaron has never used the key. 

Now he pushes the door open to find Andrew sitting in the window. It’s such a familiar sight it draws Aaron up short. 

Andrew has to testify tomorrow—today—and he’s sitting cross-legged in the window with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He doesn’t turn at the sound of the door opening, doesn’t give any indication he even noticed it, and Aaron doesn’t need him to. He stands there without saying anything and Andrew keeps smoking. 

Is that how miserable I look right now? Aaron wonders. 

Andrew looks the same as he always does, or so it seems; the line of his spine is rigid, a light trembling to his hands Aaron can spot even from the doorway. His brother is not a person who shakes. 

“Stay or go,” comes Andrew’s voice. 

Aaron closes the door behind him and crosses his old room towards the window. He hops up to squeeze on the sill across from Andrew. 

“Where’s Neil?” 

Andrew doesn’t look his way. “Sleeping.” 

“So why aren’t you?” 

Eyes the same as Aaron’s slide his way. The fear, the rage, the irritation that’s been bubbling up underneath Aaron’s skin is nowhere to be seen in Andrew’s bored gaze. Aaron ignores his silent why aren’t you? and grabs the pack of cigarettes at Andrew’s knees. He waits for a warning, a hand to snatch it back from him, but nothing comes. Andrew lets him have his way and Aaron pushes a stick between his lips. 

Almost-reflections. Like looking at himself in clear lake water: a distorted, blurry, almost-image of himself. Where Aaron is wearing a white Palmetto crewneck, Andrew is in his signature all black getup, arm bands and all. Even now, even here. Not that Aaron wants to see the mangled skin on his twin’s arms. Every time he remembers it, he thinks, that could’ve been me. He saved me from ending up like him. 

He wonders if Andrew gets them, too. The bad dreams. It seems unlikely for his shield of a brother to be haunted in his dreams, but they are too alike. Case in point: sitting here speeding up their death instead of preparing for the reckoning tomorrow. Aaron really should stop smoking. It’s not a good look for him, but it’s an easy crutch. And it’s the only way he can sit with Andrew. 

“Katelyn’s not going to be there tomorrow,” he says. 

Andrew cuts him a vicious look. “She is not doing me a kindness. I do not need it.”  

“Jesus, Andrew. Who, then, if not you?” 

“The intricacies of her psyche are not my problem.”

“You could say thank you.” 

“Fuck you.” 

They don’t thank each other. Why should they? His blood is his blood is his blood. Sometimes Aaron wonders if they were put together in the hospital, the way many twins are paired up for skin to skin. Because they’re not used to being alone. Because they naturally reach out for each other. Because being pressed up chest to chest releases oxytocin. Did he and Andrew have that? Or were they separated before they even got to know each other’s smell? He wonders if that’s why there’s sometimes this empty pocket inside of him where nothing else seems to fit. 

He wants to ask what Andrew will say tomorrow. So many versions of the truth and only one that will matter to people: Aaron killed a man. Wouldn’t matter to them that his brother was lying on a bed with his pants at his ankles, blood streaming from his face. Wouldn’t matter to them that Andrew never asked for any of it. He was Andrew Minyard and they already knew the kind of man he was. Of course his brother would be the same. Of course they’re both the same. 

Aaron doesn’t ask. They don’t speak at all. But it helps Aaron to know that Andrew can’t sleep either. 

[trashhicon]

ES + TAOO au ideas + doodles

Been thinking about TAAO and earthspark lately and parts I wish they could’ve explored about starbee and the Combaticons. I really wish we had swindle and brawl interact, I want to know how his relationship with the Combaticons are!!! And what starscreams leadership was like, or bee taking the terrans on missions. Especially the bot brawl episode…i really wish i could know how swindle felt about brawl being half dead. And the aftermath of when bee and the terrans got home. Starscreams entire time in and out of jail!!! Did he ever visit hashtag????

I’ve been thinking I’ll write an au or fic after season 4 drops but I don’t really have anything set in stone. ANY IDEAS OR DISCUSSIONS ON THIS ARE WELCOME!!! I’d love to see thoughts and opinions especially since I’m not very far a long with it.

Anyway here’s goofy doodles of my OC Earthspark vortex/j and starbee

[hollow-lime-green]

hi, anon from "t/b discourse is dumb" ask here 👋 this conversation actually is really interesting and i wanna add a little more if thats okay. (how long is the average anon ask? im not new to fandom but i am relatively new to tumblr and its etiquette... so sorry if this is too long. ive done my best to condense it 😭 there's just too much to say and im a rambler)

i hope i didn't come off as blaming anybody for their response to harassment and such, i don't want to contribute to that. my ire is only pointed toward people who make it their business to hurt others over innocuous fandom happenings, those people who leave dickish comments on fics and send anonhate and mass qrt on twitter. but like i said, expecting those kinds of people to go away any time soon is not really something i have hope for at this point. you put it well: people get so emotionally invested --- and i too Love getting emotionally invested when it comes to fiction --- that logic stops being a factor. people all over the internet also tend to struggle with simply disliking something and leaving it there. you're allowed to dislike/disagree with something without turning it into a moral failure when it's all down to preference and the characters involved are not Real

i just wish more people saw the value in Healthy™ discourse. hell, even if someone's opinion ticks you off, that doesn't mean you can't engage in an open minded discussion with them, if you want to. but people can't do that even outside of niche online fanbases.

i would love to share my own opinions on t/b dynamics for satosugu and to learn why others may feel differently. actually, stsg is the first yaoi ship ive been this invested in, though it's been a while now, and reading fics for them has opened up a Lot of doors of thought for me that i wanna talk to someone about. but there's such hostility around the topic that opening that discussion up to the general fandom public hardly feels worth the risk, as much as i want to. that kinda leaves one floating out at sea here. so i have these conversations where i can, but i'll also block people over simple things. not because i think they're evil or their opinions are invalid, but because i really do just want to have fun, and previous fandom experiences have exhausted me with how much of the same repetitive venom i can personally handle at once

welcome back anon, and feel free to ramble away. honestly this has been a nice side quest for me during the thesis-ing, believe it or not.

if you want to have discussions/share takes on stsg (or fandom meta), then feel free to keep sending them anon, and i am happy to host that discussion in our friendly little corner. i haven't gotten anything nasty in my inbox, and i think everyone commenting and engaging with the posts on my blog is pretty friendly and level headed :)

i think it's possible that some people could get offended by your previous ask? but it's very obvious, to me, anyway, that what you are saying with "t/b discourse is dumb" is "this drama is dumb why are we doing this why can't we just have fun". you can twist the words, but that's the clear sentiment that I think 99% of us are trying to get across here.

and that also does not conflict with empathizing with and supporting people who have been targeted by this harassment. in fact, i would say out of anyone, they are probably most securely in the camp of "this drama is dumb please let's stop".

as @fushiglow pointed out, part of the reason fandom can get so vicious is due to depersonalization. none of these people would be acting so fuckin foolish in person. but across the screen, it is a lot safer and easier to be an absolute asshole than when you have to look someone in the face as you tell them that they are literal scum for your opinions on dick in ass, or something.

over the past few months i have been struggling with this in reverse, actually. one of my gaming group members almost definitely voted for trump (white women... we need to talk). i get so worked up when i think about it, because i hate her for it, especially her reasons for it (she is antichoice). and yet, when I see her in person, when we hang out, it is so easy to remember that she is my friend and she held my hair back when I was puking after my other gamer friends gave me too many free beers (blue moon isn't worth it guys).

one other thing i would like to add, and part of why i'm so happy to post this ask, is that conversations are not sentences. you get to clarify. you get to add. you get to change your mind. real 'discourse' (note: this word has lost all meaning in the year of our lord 2025) or debate is an exchange of ideas, whether it's about dick in ass or how we react socially in the situation of being attacked for dick in ass. keeping the conversation going to clarify these things, like your intent with the last ask, is important and necessary! it's what keeps us from being xitter/bluesky. we don't need to live as zingers and soundbytes on a text-based forum. we have the space to express ourselves fully, as many times as that takes. and i think that helps build back the empathy that is lost with the lack of face-to-face, voice-to-voice communication in online spaces.

so in the words of the great philosophers re: t/b discourse:

any hole's a goal

[eurydicees]

current thoughts on nanowrimo while i only vaguely do work from home (<- dont tell my employers but i don't think i should have to work when i could be writing).

***i will not be using the website due to the pedophilia and lack of moderation issues. i don't want to involve myself in anything even remotely related to that. however imo the challenge of nanowrimo is bigger than the website, and so i'll still be attempting it.

current potential project ideas!

go back to the iwaoisuga atla au. i've got a lot of snippets but nothing substantial, so i would feel fine starting over and just working on that through the month. bonus is that i get to finish my rewatch.

do a prompt/request/event speedrun again. i have a lot of projects i committed to that i need to complete but haven't been looking at recently and i could just work on all those miscellaneous pieces. i actually have around 25 requests that've been waiting for attention so tbh writing a ~2k word one shot per day, give or take, could be great pacing for this challenge. unfortunately i'm probably incapable of keeping a oneshot to 2k. but this could also be an exercise in pacing myself. maybe.

write something original for the first time in so so so long. idk what it would be but i've been wanting to work on original writing again for a while now and this could be the opportunity.....i just don't have any plot ideas. which makes this idea hard. for obvious reasons.

re: original writing. i could do original short stories. this could be fun. it would involve coming up with a new idea roughly every day or every few days. which would be hard. but i've done it before and while i'm out of practice with original writing, surely i can do it again? idk it could be a fun exercise. i do love writing fucked up life altering short stories.

return to my roots and finish the poetry collection. i want to finally complete this. i've been chipping away at it for a while but i want to commit to it. but also i don't think i could get to 50k words with just poetry.....so maybe not this month. maybe save for april 2025 with a lower word count goal? idk. much to think abt with this one. or honestly maybe i can make it 50k. like if i try REALLY hard. very hard maybe on this one.

attempt the iwaoi soulmate + MCD au. i've been tossing this idea around for a while but it's looking like a huge undertaking so i haven't really worked on it. maybe this is my chance? but also it's probably the project idea i'm least passionate about so maybe not this one. i need to choose something i'm crazy abt lol.

finally finish the transforming of the skts mental illness study fic to original writing. this was a project i started AGES ago and then never completed. i actually just remembered it exists while scrolling through old drafts lol. it was a neat project to work on for a while but i got a little burnt out on it, which could bode badly for nanowrimo, which is such a passion-and-stamina-necessary challenge lol. but also maybe the commitment and accountability that's also so necessary for nano would inspire me? kind of a toss up.

thoughts on my november goals!

goal is 50k words in 30 days. go big or go home hit it till it breaks etc etc. i am going to work so fucking hard. i am pouring everything into this. i'm not manifesting, i'm DOING.

i'm 26,266 words away from 1mill words written for nanowrimo (all time, incl april/july camps). this could be such a fun milestone. i will get there. i WILL get there.

i'm also 54,800 words exactly away from 1mill published on ao3, which is also a super exciting milestone.....so maybe i do really want to just write a long ass fic for this.

i'm currently at 12 nanowrimo wins to 11 losses all time, and 6 wins to 5 losses in the november 50k challenge specifically. i am on cusp of something great.

i am also at a streak of 4 november wins in a row. i am DETERMINED to keep it up. like there are literally no consequences for not doing this. i know that. i promise i know that. but still. i am DETERMINED.

[spicyraeman]

Okaaaay.. I'm kinda struggling to pin down Wyll's outfit for the western!au, so it's poll time!

I'm going for a semi-flamboyant bountyhunter vibe but in not sure which one of these fits the bill better (or if either of them do at all lol)

[if-you-heart]

A small ramble on Canon vs Fanon, alternatively titled; Hey! You’re part of the “Fanon”! Now what?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as of recent, I just haven’t had the time to properly jot my thoughts down. I like to put a generous distance between myself and the fanbase that comes with basically any piece of media I get into, and this also goes for the fandom that’s been built around CCCC and the rest of Chonny Jash’s albums. Don’t get me wrong, there are some lovely people here from whom I’ve interacted with (and from how far I’ve been willing to stick my head out of my own little crevice in this place), but I’ve noticed that, unfortunately, this album isn’t free from what’s been happening in more “recent” fandoms.

This isn’t me stoning anyone specifically. This is purely a generalized observation I’ve made during the (checks calendar) 8 or so months I’ve been floating around this space. same goes for every other fandom I check in on.

One of the biggest things l've come to notice the most is how the line between "canon" and "fanon" seems to be blurring more and more each day. Especially here. CCCC is first and foremost an album covering another album. Things are not explicitly narrated like a storyline you'd see in a movie or something. That doesn't mean there isn't a story to be told, but a lot of it is more up the air than most media out there right now. To my knowledge, certain events/incidents that appear to be a staple in many interpretations that I’ve seen (including my own!) only exist because of how the fanbase perceived the narration inside the songs. Which in of itself isn’t a bad thing at all— I’ve seen some really creative stuff from artists who connect to the album purely for how it describes the struggles of mental health and simply being in a bad place.

HOWEVER. There comes a point where I think it’s necessary that a line be drawn..! I’m mostly talking about the ridiculous amount of gore and torture I’ve seen in the depths here.

I have absolutely nothing against gore by itself. I’m a Resident Evil fan of all things. it does not bother me. However, there is one crucial thing to keep in mind when indulging in media of varying… maturity ratings. And that is that there is a TIME and a PLACE where such content should be the main focus in fanmade work. For example, there is a lot of fanart and writing surrounding the topic of absolutely horrific levels of torture here. Which is very disconcerting to me! Because there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING whatsoever in any of these songs that even imply the idea of, say, soul beating heart and mind with a long sock filled with quarters (pretend that example is some jigsaw level torture scenario or something because I ain’t typing allat). There’s already a lot of dark themes in the album. Why we stackin em now? Are we listening to the same album??

And I’m not talking about this just because I went “oh���that’s gore of my comfort character.” a couple dozen times now. I sincerely think that a lot of people sort of forgot that this album is a vent album. Made by a real guy. Venting about his own poor mental health. It’s great that people can connect to the characters in CCCC because they may feel the same way that they do, but I don’t think anyone would appreciate seeing the characters they constructed to express the nuance of mental health and coming to accept every part of themselves absolutely mauling each other like bloodlusted gorillas. It kinda takes away from the point of self acceptance at the end of the album if you ask me.

This does not mean every single part of the fandom is bad. not at all. There just happens to be a lot of bizarre shit here. however, just because you may not agree with these more violent interpretations does not mean you aren’t a part of the “fanon”. I think a lot of people try to vehemently deny that they fall under the fanon category (and denounce it altogether) because of the negativity surrounding the term fanon now. But truth be told, if you’ve made your own fan interpretation/au with a storyline based off of the songs, with creative liberties taken, you are part of the fanon group. This is not always a bad thing! In fact it’s better to embrace this so newer fans who are getting into CCCC and such don’t immediately think certain fanmade events/headcanons are real things that occur in the album. Because it eventually turns into a game of telephone for those who do not communicate that these aren’t canon, and then we’re back at square one.

I’m by no means the headcanon police. Do whatever the hell you want. Just be courteous and mindful about what you’re putting out there maybe.

Moral of the story, maybe listen to the album all the way through a couple more times. And please, do NOT trust genius lyric annotations, I am BEGGING you.

[my313]

who in txt is merman coded

[demodraws0606]

Me looking at Tumblr : Transfems and Transmascs at each other's throats and being vile to one another.

Me an AFAB nonbinary person who doesn't plan to transition who would be eradicated if I spoke my opinion :

[eldritch-nightmare]

here he is btw he's a wip but!! now u can judge me

[drifloonz]

steven/mocha is canon

[notwhatyoucameherefor]

Girl HELP me my homestuck ass got into yugioh dm and because I am the way I am I obviously keep looking at the characters with gamer demons possessing their bodies and going "lol that's kinda cherubcore." Except I accidentally ran with that too much and it's not a joke anymore I accidentally made like a whole stupid au where everyone's a homestuck alien. Yugioh but it's earth c ig. God save me.

[fair-lead]

ok i think. im gonna read either. left hand of darkness or infinite jest next. or maaaaaybe fahrenheit 451

[coraxaviary]

ok so like does anyone else have the rational fear that

someone's gonna come along and mention/post/recommend/rant about their fic on tiktok or some other social media? Mostly tiktok, but I suppose there are other possibilities.

Like, I don't want random people from tiktok coming to read my stuff. I certainly don't want to ever get the attention of anyone associated with the production of these shows -- especially the actors, God forbid.

Like, oh my gosh the prospect of "blowing up" for fanart is so appealing -- like, my eyes *light up* you know what I mean -- but the thought of someone mentioning my fanfic on any other website gives me a cold sweat and heart palpitations

[buriedunderdaffodils]

thinking a lot today about like... listen i don't wanna say gender is entirely fake because it IS a concept that matters to many people, regardless of their queerness or lack thereof. but definitions of gender are humanmade, and the european colonialist patriarchal gender binary i live under serves the purpose of power and subjugation, far more than it provides any insight to what it means to FEEL like a woman or a man or what else have you. it demands that we define our genders based on specific anatomical features - which not all people even fit cleanly into - and that we obediently take up the roles associated with those features. it demands that our sexes and genders and gendered expression and sexualities all cleanly "match". that's not even to mention the way things like race and culture and class impact the expectations and demands placed on us. gender and sexual assignment, in the society and time i live in, are primarily methods of maintaining power and enforcing control.

so... why can i confidently say i'm both a man and a woman? what inside me is leading to that conclusion? what does it mean to feel like, to be, either one? if i think gender is all subjective and largely restrictive, why do i still insist on clutching the gendered descriptors i use for myself? yes, i am a woman, and yes, i am a man, but fucking why?

i think in some ways it comes down to living my life under the imposed male/female binary. these are the easiest for me to conceptualize, despite being vague and unclear, because they're the most familiar. i have SOME kind of blueprint for what the majority consider "masculine" or "feminine", even if that blueprint is inconsistent horseshit, and it's easiest to conceptualize my gender in a way the majority will understand.

but, simultaneously, i think that by cisbinary standards, i am neither man nor woman, because those are "supposed" to be exclusive from each other. i am not a proper man, because i'm too much of a woman. i am not a proper woman, because i'm too much of a man.

if we try out defining "man" as "someone who benefits from patriarchy" and "woman" as "someone who is oppressed by patriarchy" (which i think is a bit too simple but i will get to that) - i am either a man or a woman depending on the way i am perceived by others. and that varies WILDLY, thanks to a combination of my body, what clothes i wear on any given day, how i move, how i speak, which of my government documents another person has access to, how i interact with my peers, what assumptions people make about my relationships. on perceiving me, people generally are not in agreement about where exactly i stand within the patriarchy.

this hypothetical definition, though, is flawed. trans women AND trans men, regardless of how binary they may consider their genders, are BOTH considered viable targets for misogyny. even the binary cis straight white men who should benefit most from the patriarchy are at times harmed by it, even if they generally are helped by it. therefore, i cannot define my gender on the basis of my experiences with misogyny, because it does very little to ACTUALLY differentiate me from the people around me who are ALSO affected by misogyny. if anything, my experiences with misogyny are BECAUSE of my gender, and because my gender and presentation and day to day activities vary, my experiences with misogyny also vary.

okay, so that's one potential definition introduced and shot down. maybe it has more to do with what i want my anatomy to look like? after all, my transition goal is to combine sex characteristics that are seen as either male or female on their own. i want a penis and testes, and it makes me sad that i'll probably never be able to impregnate someone. i want a vagina as well, which i have, but i do not want a uterus. i want smaller breasts that can pass as flat under a loose shirt but still fill up cute little bras. i'd love to have a prostate if i had the choice. surely these represent the different "halves" of my gender, surely my aspirations for my body reflect my mix of womanhood and manhood.

and... in some ways, they do, but not as cleanly as some might assume. i do not conceptualize my ideal body as being made up of "male parts" and "female parts". i want to be a woman with small tits just as much as i want to be a man with small tits. post-phalloplasty i will be both a man with a dick and a woman with a dick. it's less that the specifics about my anatomy are meant to combine maleness and femaleness, and more that, sexually speaking, this is the anatomy i would have the most fun with. i enjoy the feeling of being penetrated vaginally, and i want to feel what it feels like to penetrate someone with my own flesh. small breasts are just the most appealing option for me. i've heard prostate orgasms get spectacular reviews on yelp. it's convenient that these goals can also serve to make my anatomy more androgynous by cisbinary standards, but that's not WHY they're my goals. they're my goals mostly because i'm a horny switch vers.

and when you factor in how many trans people are happy with their anatomy without needing to medically transition "fully" (another humanmade concept) or at all, the argument becomes threadbare. sure, SOME trans people may connect their transness to their desires for different anatomy, and my own transition goals may happen to combine what is generally assumed to be separately male and female - but that doesn't mean that's how i define my transness or conceptualize my body.

there is also, as with all aspects of "my" self, the wee little wrench in the gears of plurality. i've been speaking mostly from my own perspective, combining it where useful with the collective experiences of my system, but there are a FUCKLOAD of us and we all seem to conceptualize our own genders differently. i'm a bigender femme woman+man. 🪫 is, most days, a butch woman+man, sometimes leaning more femme. 🌊 presents very masculinely but chooses not to label himself very much beyond that. 🧭 generally hates being gendered and does not have a particular gender label. i don't even know what 🪻 is doing, nor does he seem very pressed about it anyway, but it's certainly a whole lotta something. a small handful of us are binary men, but even those folks don't tend to fully relate to that label because of our collective experiences with being nonbinary - they do not consider themselves women, but share a body with many women, which affects how they conceptualize their own manhood. it's all interconnected for our system.

so, perhaps my question should be reframed as, how does ANYONE in my system have the ability to confidently declare any gender at all? and why does it vary so much between headmates? why don't we all have the same gender if we're in the same body, the same brain, the same nervous system, with (generally) the same transition desires? is it related to our specific roles within the system, in ways we don't even understand? is it our brain's way of expressing different sides of some collective gender? or is it completely fucking random and arbitrary? what can this tell us about singlets' genders?

i don't have a solid conclusion. i cannot fucking explain HOW or WHY i am both a woman and a man, it's simply the most correct answer i can think to give. again, maybe that's just the result of living in such a binary society. maybe i'm just using the best language i was given for my existence. maybe i'm simultaneously a man and a woman and nothing and something else. idk. lol.

[not-mary-sue]

Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:

1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.

2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.

3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.

4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.

We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!