#weren’t even being transphobic in the first place!

[gatorbites-imagines]

Can you write jason todd with ftm reader where he defends him from transphobia in public? I need my big beefy boyfriend to beat up transphobes for me pls. Thanks and happy pride ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Jason Todd x FTM reader

Headcanons

idc what anyone says, gotham knights Jason is beautiful to me

Hallo zusammen. Happy pride. My teacher decided last second to change everything about my next exam, so ive been stressing. So to make myself feel better, here’s some Jason going to pride with his BF.

As much as Gotham is a shithole filled to the gills with crime, its got a large demographic of LGBT. Even the heroes and villains are somewhere on that spectrum, which also means none of them target the local pride parades.

But like any pride parade, there are bigots at the sidelines. Now, Gothamites don’t do stupid well, so most are sent packing before they can even start up with their usual theatrics. Are you gonna yell homophobic slurs at poison ivy? Or when Killer Croc is walking by wearing rainbow streamers?

That doesn’t mean there aren’t stupid that sticks around. They are rarely locals, since even the most hateful locals know not to be dumb enough to cause a ruckus the one place the villains and vigilantes get along and have the same goal.

Not every hero was suited up though, seeing as you and Jason were walking side by side along with everyone else. Jason was wearing a less flashy outfit, mainly because he doesn’t do bright colors too much, but your sexuality and gender were more out in the open.

At least obvious enough for some hateful person to spot that you’re trans. And since you look like an easy target, amongst Gothamites at least, they decide to focus on you with their hateful rhetoric.

Insults weren’t anything new slung around Gotham, a city where you would get called a bad nickname more than your actual name. but it was never focused on something like your gender, your sexuality, or your race. It would be something like the fact that you wore ugly shoes, or that you ate weird.

which was why it catching the attention of more than just your boyfriend when the transphobic slurs get thrown at you. Apparently, you freezing up at the slurs seem like a win to these people, as they start yelling and jeering at you even more.

 Surprisingly it isn’t Jason that throws the first punch. Its some random chick wearing a lesbian flag over her shoulders and purple ladder laced boots. Her punch seems to unleash what everyone had been holding in, not wanting to give these bigots any attention.

Jason gets his own punches in of course, specifically targeting the people that had been yelling slurs at you. And as much as you hate this city sometimes, seeing people from all across the board come together to beat up bigots seems like its as unified as Gotham is ever gonna get.

Some other people wearing pride flags or colors come to check up on you, but you are honestly too busy watching Jason throw a guy with an offensive sign across the pavement.

The other people nod approvingly at your boyfriend. Fun to think Jason, the most Gotham guy you know, gets the approval from the Gotham gays.

When Jason comes back, he’s still jittery, his blood clearly rushing from the confrontation, but a couple of kisses and thank you gets him to settle down for the most part. He ends up more colorful than he would like, being given flower crowns and different lanyards and sashes. But hearing you laugh is enough to make him put up with it.

And if you’re wondering where the heroes were? Well, they just happen to have been busy with something else, even if Red Robin had been sitting on the ledge of a building, wearing his own pride flag the entire time.

You and Jason can both tell he won’t hear the end of this when you guys get home later. At the end of the day, the hateful speech doesn’t weigh too much on you, knowing that not just Jason, but Gotham as a whole, would chew up and spit anyone out who tried it.

[hana-no-seiiki]

how they act around reader! you know the usual, how horny they get and how the reader is potentially uncomfortable because not even they can handle the harems hormones.

MIDNIGHT DARLING HEAD-CANNONS (Unang Yugto / First Part)

YANDERE COLLEGE BASED OCS x READER

Hoo boy we have a lot of characters to go through and I haven’t even named all of them so *cracks knuckles* Let’s go with my favorite children for now.

warnings: dead dove do not eat territory here. yandere themes (lotsa violence). please don’t read this if you have a wild imagination like me oh god im aboutta faint at darling’s section. cannibalism. knife play. necrophillia. a transphobic society.

[previous ask for more context]

[next part] - yandere! faculty

Let’s start with our boy Justin Del Rosario [Yan Jock]

He’s incredibly sweet and caring. At least when you two were dating. The type to always check in on you. Always makes sure you’re hydrated and keeping up with your self-care routines.

As if popular! reader isn’t completely meticulous when it comes to their image.

Looks like a bad boy but is an actual sweetheart. Your relationship started off as a transaction of sorts. Being the softie he is though he developed feelings. Quick. The masochist.

Is a whole ass push-over when it comes to you.

Now post break-up Justin is a bit of a freak.

Like I said in my previous post of his experience as your boyfriend, he has gone through shit.

Suddenly his grades are perfect. People are actually tolerating if not appreciating his presence.

He’s becoming a threat to your place as the ruler of the campus.

But unlike you his fans aren’t declined atrocious yet.

How does Popular! Reader feel about him? Not much really. Their whole relationship was a transaction to them. I can’t emphasize how much of an apathetic bitch I wrote reader to be ya’ll I’m sorry. But in order for their harem to thrive they gotta turn a blind eye.

In terms of Horni Levels it’s uh - not so bad. Once he lost his virginity to you (yes you took his virginity) he found it to be the best stress relief and got addicted. But he’s also super respectful of your boundaries.

That was when you were originally dating though. He’d probably pound you to oblivion if you ever got back together. Pent up horni does that.

Actually, that event might not even need them getting back together. I won’t be surprised if current Justin just takes you even with his relationship with Darling.

For your favorite, Darling De Leon [yan good girl] . . .

⚠️THIS IS THE PART WHERE IT’S DEFINITELY DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT.

Hella shy around you. You almost didn’t know she existed if it weren’t for her consistent placement as second. At least before Isabel came and Justin’s grades shot up.

She has a pretty shit past.

Has always been a little scared of you.

Extremely possessive. She had always been overshadowed by her siblings, and her time abroad without you had really shattered her self confidence. Although she’s deathly afraid her past actions would be revealed, she’s more scared of losing you to someone else.

She thought that by agreeing to date Justin, you’d think of him as disgusting for moving on so fast.

Definitely enjoyed her time on your lap a little too much.

Which brings me to Horni Levels.

If you think Justin is bad. Darling is just the worst out of all the yanderes. She’s the kinkiest one too. She has been saving herself for you, waiting for the time you corrupt her. Hoping that by that time, every obstacle has been removed.

The type to have you fuck her atop the corpses of her rivals kind of kinky. The type to fantasize about you using a knife and inserting in every way possible inside her type of kinky. The type of kinky to fuck your dead body or eat any and every part of you to fully make you two as one.

She’ll own you, dead or alive, one way or another.

How popular! reader feels about her is again, indifference. Maybe a little horni for her soft aesthetic and cute demeanor. Definitely plans to gobble her up once Justin is done playing pretend.

A character that hasn’t been mentioned yet is Isabel Labrador [yan! nerd]

Isabel used to go by the name Isaiah. She used to be pretty alright with being assigned male at birth until popular! reader suddenly announced one day that she’s more horni towards women.

She got disowned for transitioning, and like Darling, disappeared from your life for quite a bit that you forgot about her.

Similar to many of the harem members, she’s very pliant to your whims. She does many of the assignments and projects that aren’t worth your time or would lead to you lacking sleep.

Not like the professors assign you much.

A bit of a whiny brat. Used to be hella spoiled when she was younger so she’s a lot more outspoken when it comes to your sexual escapades. This leads to you beating her up the most out of everyone in the harem.

Popular! Reader is the only one who knows she’s a trans and is surprisingly very respectful about that part about her.

The two of you are mostly amicable.

Horni Levels: Pretty normal for a young adult. Loves to tease you by showing more skin sometimes. Though she always covers up when anyone else is in the picture.

Her hella religious upbringing made her pretty conservative about sex and all that but it’s often balls to the wall when they see you. Literally. Never knew she was into pegging til you took her one day.

How popular! reader feels about her? Mostly a means to an end. She’s the least careful when it comes to her simpery. It gets tiring having to discipline her every time but the angry sex makes up for it.

This one will be short since I plan on him and the rest to be minor characters. Nobody knows how Ricardo Peralta [yan! president] became the President with how much he hates your ass.

People who voted for him were probably like. ‘If a person who doesn’t even want [Y/N] became president. We won’t have a threat.’

Jokes on them he has more notes on you than the entire student body combined.

Boy is the Candace to your Phineas/Ferb. His entire mission is to bust your ass. (and for you to bust a nut in his-)

…

You don’t even know he exists.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST LET’S TALK ABOUT YOU.

It was almost as if you were made to be the apple of everyone’s eye. Not one person in campus could remember a time where they didn’t know you.

No, it was more like they didn’t want to. Why imagine a terrible era such as that?

A lot of the students from the college are spoiled brats that absolutely adored how cut throat you were. How you weren’t afraid to put them in their place unlike those push-overs they usually meet. Some were just drawn to your charisma and confidence.

Or well, just general fuckability.

People think you’re also rich but you just get a lot of stuff from the students with money.

Your birthday is a bloodbath and a half. You started celebrating it alone so that people wouldn’t see your reactions to the gifts. Both because you wanted to keep them guessing and ‘cause the person whose gift is liked will probably get murdered.

You have to routinely check for cameras or tracking devices.

It takes you every bit of your self control not to just twerk in front of the camera if not give it the finger by fucking someone who you know is innocent right in front of it. They don’t even get to see you properly in the angle.

You strategically use pussy as both a punishment and incentive.

It’s super effective!

It’s super effective.

You often use pussy to discipline or incentivize your harem. It’s super effective. At least, considering you haven’t been kidnapped and/or killed yet.

You’re a bit of a sadist.

Yeah you’re a bit of a sadist.

Popular! Reader uses pussy a lot to keep everyone in check. You’re used to giving your body away to get what you want that you’ve become numb to it.

No one is normal in this College. Not even you.

You don’t even know he exists.

[ev3rgreenxtrees]

hiii could you do a nick x trans!reader where they’re out on a date in public and a fan comes up to nick for a photo and says something transphobic to the reader?

Not A Fan

-N.S

Summary; Nick and his boyfriend are on a date, when Nick gets noticed by a fan. The fan asks to take a picture, but says something vile to Nick’s boyfriend.

Pairing: Nick Sturniolo X Trans!Reader (he/him.)

Warnings: Use of the t-slur, transphobia, cussing & foul language, arguing.

“C’mon, slow poke!” You giggle, tugging at Nick’s arm, attempting to lead him into the restaurant, that Nick had a reservation for.

You two had been dating for a long time, but out of respect, Nick hadn’t taken you out to many very public places. As a trans guy, you were worried that one of Nicks’ fans would be transphobic to you, or even just anyone walking past.

Today, however, was your one-year anniversary, and you agreed to let Nick take you somewhere ‘fancy’. He had picked a well-known restaurant, one that you had been wanting to go to for a while.

“Excuse me..?” You hear a voice call out from behind you. You and Nick both turn your heads, and you were met with a girl, who seemed to be around eighteen. She smiled brightly at Nick, but completely ignored your presence. You didn’t mind much, since most of the triplets fans didn’t really acknowledge you.

“Yeah?” Nick asks, looking down at the shorter girl. Her friend stood behind her, minding her own business. She must not watch them.

“I’m a huge fan, could I get a picture..?” She asked shyly, and Nick smiled. Nick was always sweet and gentle when it came to his fans. Without them, he knows he wouldn’t be where he was today, so he was always appreciative.

“Of course. Do you mind if my boyfriend is in it?” He asks sweetly, and the girl glares at you. Her demeanor almost immediately changed.

“Yeah, I do mind, actually. I don’t want her in the picture. I don’t wanna get contaminated.” The girl rolls her eyes, handing her friend her phone. You immediately felt tears prick at your eyes. This is exactly why you hate being in public with Nick.

“What the fuck?” Nick growls, stepping away from the girl. “You fucking disgust me.” He snaps, and the girls eyes widen.

“What-? Why?” The girl asks, as if she had no clue what she did wrong. “Because I don’t want your tranny girlfriend in the picture? I’m a fan of you, not her.” The girl scoffs. Nick’s eyes widen.

“You better watch your fuckin’ mouth, you dumb bitch. Don’t think that just because you’re eighteen doesn’t mean I wont beat your ass. You are not a fan. You disgust me.” Nick growls, immediately grabbing your hand.

“What— whatever. You’re right. I’m not a fan after this shit.” She rills her eyes and turns around to walk away.

“Thank fuck. Trust me, you weren’t a fan in the first place, you stupid cunt.” Nick snarls. You stood there, in complete awe.

Obviously you felt bad for possibly ruining your date, but you felt safe with Nick.

“I’m sorry, my love,” He coos, gently rubbing your cheek. He places a small kiss to your lips.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Nick. That was fucking amazing. Thank you.” You gape, pulling him into a hug.

“Of course. You’re my man, i’d do anything for you, baby.” Nick reassures, taking your hand in his once again, pulling you into the restaurant.

“God, I love you.” You mumble to him.

“I love you too.” He says back.

『 ↳✧･ﾟ Finn yaps❕ ;

Im so sorry this took so long and its so short, but i really hope you like it🤍

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱ I do NOT give permission for my work to be published on any other site, nor to be claimed as your own . However , reblogs , likes , and comments are much appreciated ! 🤍

ੈ✩‧₊˚ @bernardenjoyer @lovely-calypso @junnniiieee07 @tillies33ssss @imwetforyourmom @slut4mattsturn @thenickgirl

[yaut-jaknowit]

If it's okay, can you have a trans male reader who needs help with changing the bandages after top surgery? And/or needing help. Since you can't lift you're arms up, or you'll rip out stitches

Its fine if you don't wanna do this request, I just thought it'd be wholesome in stuff

Coarse Hands Morph to Soft

Pairing: Mai'tuiudh (male Yautja) x FTM!Reader

Word Count: 2145

Summary: After your surgery, your movements are restricted. Even putting on a shirt is more difficult than it should be. Mai'tuiudh is here, at your side, to be your arms. He's there for you, through thick and thin.

Author Note: I want to state that Mai isn’t being transphobic or anything of the sort. I hope that I nudged towards his thought process enough. He just doesn’t understand. His mind works on the prey/predator/hunter lifestyle. A wound weakens you, makes you stick out and easy food. So he doesn’t understand why purposely hurt yourself to become more like prey. I do like to make my art semi-realistic.

Masterlist

Ao3

At first after the surgery, your mate was both confused and concerned about the whole ordeal. Mai’tuiudh didn’t know how to think about the fact you willingly changed your body. It puzzled him and his hunter brain. Why alter your body, putting yourself at risk for injury and infection? This made you look weak, something a predator would take advantage of.

Altering your body in this extent wasn’t part of his culture or society. When you had told them what type of surgery was happening, he freaked out and fretted over you. But you had sat him down and explained everything completely to him. He knew you preferred to be called by masculine pronouns. It only took him a couple of days to rewire his brain to do that. He still loved you nevertheless.

His concern wasn’t the fact you weren’t wanting to look feminine anymore. But now you’ve come home, weak, shaking, seeming drunk on Cn’tlip. Your friend leaving you to his caring hands for however long it’ll take for you to recover.

That first day, you slept off the drugs lingering in your system. You awoke to find Mai sitting on the end of the bed. A tablet in his hands, back bent at what had to an uncomfortable position. He thumbed the screen, scrolling through the words appearing.

You raised a fist to rub at your eyes but immediately hissed at the pain stinging. A reminder of what you did yesterday. Despite the pain, you smiled, eyes closed with content. It finally had been done.

It taken years of fighting, arguing, and dismissals to find the right doctor who ask if you wanted to this once. Then boom, a date was scheduled, and the surgery was completed.

The bed groaned under the shift of weight. Mai moved to sit at your side, hands cupping your cheeks. “Are you okay?” he questioned. Your eyes slowly peeled open to find your mate hovering over you. His burnt orange eyes were sealed on your face. They flicker between your own orbs. You laughed softly and lifted a palm to hold his lower mandible.

Yet, he sat to far up to reach. Unfortunately. Oh, how would you ever survive without him. “Yes, Mai. I’m alright. Not used to my limited motion now,” you explained and turned your head enough to lay a kiss on his palm. The Yautja’s shoulders sagged. He leaned down to pressed his forehead against yours.

Mai’tuiudh stayed there much longer than necessary but neither of you were complaining. His warmth left once he sat back up. You go to make the same move, albert slower and less delicate. A massive hand was place on your upper sternum. “Stay. I be back,” Mai demanded firmly before slipping off of the bed.

Amused about this new, different side you’ve never seen from Mai, you waited under the sheet for the Yautja to return. His years as hunter silenced his steps despite weight twice your own. He moved about the apartment, just showing up when he passed the open bedroom door. Just a flash of his navy blue skin.

In a reasonable time, Mai returned, arms full of supplies. Stuff that hadn’t been in your apartment before. An accusing look was thrown at the bad blood but he brushed it off.

The items were set at the foot of the bed. He shuffled through them. A water bottle was set on the nightstand next to you. “I’ve been up night, scanning information about… this. You need rest. No moving arms. Can’t shower. Bandages must stay clean. Nausea is possible. Have fizzle… drank and dry, crunchy squares. Those help,” he spewed out and motioned to everything he’s gathered while you slept.

Even though you knew he stole these things, your heart warmed at his determination. Your eyes sparkled while looking up at him. “Mai, I, I can’t say thank you enough.” His acceptance despite not understanding everything mentally was soul-stirring. Your eyes began to water. He stayed up to research the care needed after your surgery. He wanted to help you, protect you.

A grunt sounded from the blue Yautja. His head shook side to side. “No thanks. My mate needs me, I be there for him.” Your arms moved within their limited space towards him. Mai understood what was asked of him and crowded your space.

His weight was minded as he straddled your waist and didn’t dare put any other parts on you. This allowed your arms to reach for his sides. Just enough to give him a half hug. The Yautja purred thickly in his chest and tapped his forehead to yours.

The moment didn’t stay long. Mai untangled from you and stood back at the side of the bed. “Rest. Eat. Stay here,” Mai gave you his three conditions and pointed a firm finger tipped with a black claw at you. You couldn’t wipe the smile off of your face.

“Okay.” Not any arguments from you. He was your caretaker. He won’t let you lift a finger. Not while he was around.

His gaze stayed on you, knowing how you liked to sometimes defy him. This time, you stayed. He grunted and slowly walked backwards out of the room. Those orange orbs of his never leaving you until the wall physically blocked it.

You laid in bed at his order, unable to untense the corners of your mouth. Maybe the recovery won’t be so bad while you had your lover around.

.

After the first two weeks passed, moving became a little easier. For you, lifting your arms higher than your shoulders was still forbidden. Mai was right there for you. He rarely left your side if it could be helped. And when he had to leave the confines of the apartment, it was only to go on supply runs. Then, Mai’tuiudh would be back within arms reach to ensure you healed quickly. His hunter’s mind fretting over how much you looked like prey now. More than usual.

The surgeon had given the go ahead on changing the bandages yourself. This would be your first time. Said doctor specified to have someone here to help you change them. It required you to lift your arms a hair higher than what you’re comfortable with.

Mai didn’t mind. He preferred it to be him. As his years as a bad blood have gained him many, many wounds, he was well equipped to simply change your bandages.

With your butt on the counter, you gazed gingerly at the hardened, navy blue face of Mai’tuiudh. A shirt still hung off of your shoulders, too big for your body. The perfect size. His massive hands were gripping on your thighs while the Yautja peered into your eyes as well.

You leaned up carefully and placed a chaste kiss on the bottom mandible closest to you. The counter offered only an extra couple of inches to reach him. “I can’t thank you enough for your help, Mai.” He chittered quietly, mandibles clicking to each other after the kiss. He rubbed his forehead to yours, eyes closing almost all the way.

His fingers drifted up to graze against the hem of your shirt. A silent ask. You reached down yourself, an action you wanted to do. Your eyes clenched shut, thoughts on the verge of running wild when you felt a hand cup yours. No, you didn’t want to deal with this by your lonesome. There was someone here willing to do anything for your comfort alone.

Together, in tandem, the two of you began to peel the shirt up to reveal skin to the cool bathroom. Once you reached the limited range of your arms, you halted, grasp falling away. But you gazed up into Mai’s burnt orange eyes and quirked the corners of your mouth up. The tiniest of nods given to him.

He finished the rest of the way for you. The shirt carefully pulled off to reveal what you’ve done to your body. This wasn’t the first time he’s seen the bandages but this moment… it felt different. You were going to go further than before after the surgery with him.

His blue form pulled away, his warmth being stolen away. You released a whine and looked at him with doe eyes. He chuckled and rested those large hands of his on your hips. “Can touch wounds now?” he questioned patiently. Mai waited for you.

The lump in your throat was swallowed down. “Yeah,” you barely whispered above your breath to allow him. All of this was just soft, ginger movements and words combined into one. Not even the creaky bathroom fan could disturb the moment growing between the two of you.

After his release, Mai stayed where he was for an extra few seconds. His hands left your hips to cup at your ribcage. He didn’t move when you flinched, lungs seizing up. It was an uphill battle to take another breath afterwards. But, during this whole time, Mai didn’t move. He let you control the pace, being the one in control. Your heart swelled.

Your head dipped. Mai let a hand start to pick at the corner of the tape. It peeled up after the third try. In its bony cage, your heart thundered like a storm in your eardrums. Sharp talons pinched the tape and began to pull it off of your body.

Goosebumps prickled along your skin in reaction. The peeling didn’t hurt, not the way you would’ve thought with a bandage. Instead, it felt strange. That’s what you attempted to focus on instead of what was hidden now underneath. You knew it would take time to learn that the scars would be okay. Only a reminder of what you were once before. This was for the better.

More tape on the same side was removed in the same fashion. Mai took his time with each strip. A hunter knew patience. If they didn’t, they no longer breathe. It was a virtue. A necessary skill to be engraved into each Yautja that comes to life.

Once that side was completed, the tap and soiled bandages in the garbage, Mai’tuiudh stopped. His now free hand returning to its place to cup at your sides.

Slowly, you grasped at his other limb and rested it upon the last bandage to be removed. Mai took the silent permission to continue his pathing.

After the last tape fell away with covering, you shutter at the new cool air brushing against the sensitive skin. “You okay?” he rumbled and placed his foreheat to yours once more. It was a position he found himself in a lot. Not that he was complaining. Just a sign he truly cared about you.

“Yeah,” you hummed, eyes closed. Thankfully, he had you sitting on the counter, back to the mirror that hung off of the off white walls. Your throat bobbed with a heavy swallow. “Does…” your voice died off but Mai waited for you. “Does it look bad?” You don’t know why you wanted his reassurance. This had been something you’ve been fighting for for years. A change, a huge change like this was hard to come to terms with immediately. Like getting a new dog after your last one passed.

One of his thumbs glided across the skin underneath one of the open wounds. “The scars will show your survival,” is his answer. Right. Scars. His culture loved scars. Not that you minded his scars. Though, some did worry you. How did he survive if it looked like his guts were spilled.

“I don’t think I’ll ever accept the scars,” you spoke truthfully to your mate. Said Yautja tensed before making a chuffing noise.

His warmth was stolen away as the hunter stood up to his full height. He towered over you. Predator and prey. “Was this battle?” he asked, voice hardened the best it could with his alien accent.

It took a moment to release what he was getting at. You whispered a ‘yeah’ to him. “Your scars show battle has been won. You won this fight. You survived. Be proud. Wear scars proudly!” Despite being a bad blood, the Yautja still followed some of the codes grounded into his mind as a child. Some morals and thought process like when it came to scars.

If your mate accepted and fought for you, that’s all you needed in life. He didn’t understand a lot of things, like the need to change your looks in this sense. But guess what, he accepted you. He asked questions and went on his way. You smiled up at him with adoration shining brightly in your eyes.

“Okay,” you agreed. Mai’tuiudh leaned down and licked your cheeks, hands grasping at the sides of your head. Everything would be okay. You had your mate at your side, a place he deserved to be.

[redux-iterum]

From someone who saw a lot of it- it mostly seemed to be character assassination lmao. Not just the worldbuilding with some cats not being allowed in the nursery, but also the -flower suffix aaaand the traditional naming system.

Idk as a trans guy the worldbuilding never affected me too horribly cause… they’re cats. And the system won’t be perfect sometimes in worldbuilding. Is having a nice super inclusive world fun? Yeah it absolutely can be (and escapism Y’know?). But I’m also not the speaker for all trans men (or people) so eh.

But overall I think the biggest issue was someone didn’t like the writing, found something in it that upset them and spoke about it, and it went down the line down the line down the line until “did you know the Redux writer is transphobic? And hates anything fun??”

Now was there issues in the previous version? Yeaaaaahhh some decisions weren’t the greatest in my opinion (Sandstorm death and Raven’s planned death), but it’s also a fictional retelling of a story. I think people just forget they can… just not look at the story sometimes and read canon or make their own. It wasn’t like you were profiting off of the story then, you were just a fan of the canon and wanted to take your own spin on it.

Idk I could say more, but that’s just my two cents atm.

I'm glad you remember the events and had a more neutral opinion on it. I feel like it didn't help that, at the risk of sounding conceited, I was one of the earliest rewriters on the scene and inspired a lot of people to do the same. There's a pressure and crowd-type that comes with that level of popularity and influence that you absolutely did not want if you were writing during that era of Tumblr. It really bummed me out that a gathering of followers I didn't even really want in the first place had me hooked down in place.

Though, in an odd way, leaving the Redux behind did eventually work out for me and for the Redux itself. I'm a much better writer now than I was before, and I feel like I can do this story more justice and make it a better version of itself than it was when I was a twentyteen and hyperfocused on subversion above everything else (which led to the more problematic and stupid parts of the original fic). I have a second voice to point out problems and betas to make sure everything's okay, which I find essential for my personal growth as a creator.

[gifted-loser]

My Son Absolutely Destroyed a Relative’s Transphobic Tirade

And it was the most eloquent yet brutal flaming I’ve ever seen.

Imagine you had a relative you weren’t close to who’d never met your children before. Now, imagine this relative had formed a negative opinion about one of your children based on their own bigotry and skewed world view — and then actually had the nerve to confront your child the very first time they were introduced.

Oh, I know. The audacity.

Now imagine right before you interjected to put this relative in their place, your child countered their hate speech in such an eloquent, adult, and factual manner as to leave that person so thoroughly outmatched, they collapsed into a fit of childish rage. Reduced to a shrieking harpy, red faced and howling.

I lived this reality a couple years ago when my trans son was just 14 years old.

Ihave a first cousin who’s well known as a religious zealot, saving her brutal judgements for everyone save her own self. We’ve never been close as we lived in different states and are different ages, but I saw her during some holidays growing up and our interactions have always been cordial.

At this particular time, I hadn’t seen nor spoken to her since her sister’s wedding a decade earlier. So, I was surprised when she sent me a message via Facebook and asked for my number. I was even more surprised when she Facetimed me immediately after I sent it to her. What fresh Hell is this? was my first instinct.

I should have listened to it.

We made small talk and she blabbed about her life for a while before approaching the topic she really had called me for in the first place. She noticed my oldest kid going by his new name, Ollie, on Facebook recently and saw a picture I’d posted of the two of us. She wanted to know how I’m “dealing with all that.” Oh, brother.

Before I could answer she launched into the explanation that the oldest of her eight children had come out as trans as well, and that their family was not having it. They would not acknowledge her oldest as anything but the female she was assigned at birth, and their oldest child’s girlfriend was not anything more than a “friend.”

I would’ve loved to just nope out of the conversation and hang up, but I felt so bad for her oldest baby. I thought, maybe she does want advice and I can help her see things in another light.

Before I could get in a word between her blabbing, however, my son stuck his head in my bedroom door to say goodnight. Before he could duck back out, my cousin demanded, “Is that your oldest? Turn the phone around and let me see!”

I knew how this was going to go, and I kind of even willed it to happen. So, I turned the phone around and introduced them. Ollie greeted her and said, “I love your red hair!” commenting sweetly on my cousin’s natural orange-red curly mop of hair. To which my cousin thanked him and said, “You’re so pretty.”

Ollie took the comment with grace and thanked her politely. Then my cousin took it there.

“Yep, so very pretty. Definitely a girl. A beautiful girl. Why would you ever want to be anything else when you’re so gorgeous?”

Ollie’s polite affect dropped like a stage play curtain after the final act. He saw what game was being played, and he could play too.

He flatly replied, “It has nothing to do with wanting to be anything. I am who I am.”

I wanted to pipe in, but I knew he had this covered. I’d had many conversations with him about people like this, and was confident he could handle this conversation with more integrity than I could. I waited.

My cousin let out a sarcastic laugh before commenting, “Oh, I know, everyone just wants us to accept it but no one wants to talk about it.”

“Oh, no. If you want to talk about it, let’s talk about it.” Ollie looked up at me and without a word I knew this was him asking for permission to speak freely. His eyes said she wants to go there, am I free to drop her off at school?

I smiled and nodded, and he continued.

“What would you like to talk about?” he asked her in the same sweetly sarcastic tone she’d been using.

“Well first of all, you know there are only two genders. I can tell you’re smart. You are either born a boy or a girl. You can play pretend all day, but that will never make it true. I can pretend to be a duck all day and quack, but at the end of the day, I’m not a duck!” was her well thought out point. I cringed inside.

Ollie didn’t miss a beat. “Gender and sex are two different things, but let's set that aside for right now. You say there are only boys and girls. I would point out that’s scientifically not true. What about intersex people?”

“That’s such a rare occurrence. It’s not relevant because the percentage of truly intersex people is so small,” she shot back, unprepared for the slam dunk he’d set himself up for. “It’s too rare to even count.”

“Actually, it’s about as rare as being naturally red headed like you. The percentage of intersex people and red-headed people are right around the same. One you can see and the other you can’t, which is why you don’t realize how common it is.”

And BOOM goes the dynamite. I could’ve screamed. She was so taken aback by this 14-year-old that had just made her sound like she didn’t know what she was talking about. She was starting to anger, and her next point had no relevance to the conversation that she wanted to have in the first place. Her voice went up a couple of octaves.

“See — all you kids these days know about is “’science’ and ‘facts!’” she said, as if that were a bad thing. “I bet you can’t even name the first ten books of the Bible, though, can you? That’s the real problem.”

Now, I could not list the first ten books of the Bible if you held a gun to my head, but my kids went to church with my in-laws for years. I let them go to make up their own minds on what they believed, and to do that you need to hear all the sides of the argument. When they did not want to attend any longer, I didn’t make them go. Because my cousin knows I’m not a religious person, she believed I’d indoctrinated my children to my own beliefs — or lack thereof — because that is what she did. She thought this was a sure “win” for her.

Not just irrelevant, though it was that. Also, wrong.

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians”, Ollie replied with a smile, while counting them off on his fingers. “Would you like the first 5 of the Old Testament while we’re at it? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Though, I’m not sure why or how that is relevant in any way.”

Oh. My. God.

Excuse the expression, but that was a flawless victory if I’d ever seen one. I stifled back my laughter. Someone, however, did not find it as amusing as Ollie and I did.

“You think you’re so smart!,” my cousin shrieked in rage. Her face was fully red, and she looked like her pointy little head was about to explode. “You’re just a smart-ass kid. I’m an adult! You don’t know anything about life yet! You know I’m right!”

This is when I stepped in, turning the phone back to me.

“Oh, no, sweetie. What we’re not going to do is all that disrespectful screaming and rudeness,” I said, curtly. “Just because you’ve been outmatched by my teenager doesn’t mean you get to call me after a decade and scream at my child who you don’t know — and will never have the pleasure of knowing.”

“I understand you’re having hard time coming to term with reality pertaining to your oldest child, but I’m pretty sure you’re projecting your problems with him onto me and my child. That seems like something you should really reflect upon, honestly. In private.”

I could hear her shrieking intelligibly as I pressed the button that ended the call. I looked up at my kid and smiled. He smiled back.

Me n My Minnie Me <3

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Stand-up show I watched this week: Monty Python – Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)

It’s weird that I’d never seen this before, as I grew up with Flying Circus and the Monty Python movies. In 2015, I went to the cinema with my parents to see the Monty Python reunion live. When I was a teenager and went to England for two weeks, I saw Spamalot live and loved it. I think I tend to gloss over Flying Circus when remembering the British TV shows I watched over and over as a kid, but that was definitely in there, as were Holy Grail and Life of Brian and Now for Something Completely Different. My dad wouldn’t let me watch The Meaning of Life because it was too sexual, so I watched I on my own when I was 19 and was surprised that this got banned, given the other shit my dad let me watch. I’m pretty sure it was the Every Sperm is Sacred song that made me dad not let me see it as a young kid, which I guess is reasonable, or would be if there weren’t dick jokes in at least every couple of Flying Circus sketches as well.

I re-watched Flying Circus and the four movies in 2020, and it struck me that as a kid, I remembered and repeated and recited the best bits. I hadn’t realized before that there is quite a lot of filler in Flying Circus, definitely not every sketch was funny. And there was a fair bit of “funny for the time” humour. Not even because of the stuff being offensive (I mean, there was some of that, but let’s not get into that right now), but because it was a much simpler form of humour that’s been taking so much farther and in so many other directions since then. Stuff that was funny because it hadn’t been done before in the early seventies. There are a few Flying Circus sketches that I’m pretty sure would bomb my local open mic nights. But there are also a lot that were still absolutely hilarious today.

I tried, while I was watching their Hollywood Bowl recording for the first time, to imagine what it would be like if someone did one of those sketches at a new act competition somewhere in 2023. Would the judges instantly recognize it as the greatest work of genius in a generation and be shocked that some ordinary person could do something so funny? Or would it place, like, third? Or would it do badly – not because comedy has gotten better since then, but because the type of comedy that’s in fashion has changed, so it’s not unfunny but it’s just not what judges (or fans) look for these days.

Obviously this hypothetical scenario would have to exist in a world where Monty Python never happened (because otherwise all the judges would just say “You’ve plagiarized this”). But I don’t know if we can imagine how that would go, because if Monty Python never happened, maybe large parts of the comedy industry as a whole would have developed differently, and Python-esque stuff that seems overdone would actually seem fresh in that hypothetical 2023, because all those Python influencees wouldn’t have made that stuff over and over again in the intervening years. Or maybe that’s buying way too much into the Python mythos, the idea that no one on Earth except for these six absolute geniuses could possibly have ever worked out that men in frumpy dresses look funny (again, let’s not get into whether the Pepper Pots are misogynistic and/or transphobic right now).

Anyway, all that aside, whether they’re good because they influenced a generation or whether they could also objectively hold up today even without the mythos and nostalgia (personally, I think lots of what they’ve made holds up great… but definitely not every single sketch holds up), I do have nostalgia from growing up on Python and I enjoyed nostalgically reliving some of that. From childhood hours spent memorizing all the cheeses in the cheese shop so I could recite that whole sketch, to the time I took a philosophy course in university would sing the drunk Philosopher’s Song to myself and giggle during exams.

Incidentally, I recall thinking, when I was a kid, that the fact that they make lowbrow jokes about highbrow things like philosophy means they’re geniuses who are great intellectuals as well as comedians. Now, I see their sketches about philosophers the same way I see Bo Burnham’s poetry about William Shakespeare. It sounds like students learned some basic stuff in English class and then wrote a thing to make fun of it. The Pythons probably know exactly as much about ancient philosophers as I knew from that one university course I took that one time. But it’s still funny. Writing silly songs to puncture the importance of the highbrow stuff you’re taught in school is always funny.

During the Hollywood Bowl show, Graham Champman kept saying “skit”, which I found funny, because surely American audience members who have gone to a Monty Python show know what a sketch is. Or at least could work it out from context.

It’s especially funny because they picked that as the only British thing to translate into American for their audience, and that’s definitely not their most opaquely British thing. They did the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, which requires understanding of what regional accents means. When I was a kid, watching the Four Yorkshiremen sketch was actually the first time I learned about the concept of British regional accents. I remember watching it with my dad and he asked me if I noticed their voices were different, which of course I didn’t, because I didn’t learn to recognize Northern English accents until 2021. But my dad told me they were putting on accents from the North of England, and it’s funny because people from the North of England are more likely to be poor, so then when they grow up, they may talk about how poor they were, but exaggerate the extent of it. And from thence the humour arose.

(Let’s also not get into whether there’s something classist in a group of extremely successful people writing a sketch about how weird it is that all those Northerners reminisce about difficult childhoods, rather than reminiscing about growing up in private school and Oxbridge the way normal people do. But fun fact: The Four Yorkshireman sketch was inspired by a short story by Canadian writer Stephen Leacock. So I guess it isn’t entirely a British story that Americans cannot understand, because socioeconomic inequality exists everywhere, and exaggeration that escalates into absurdity is funny. Fun fact: My dad went to a school called Stephen Leacock Institute when he was a kid.)

It's also interesting to see Monty Python with a live audience, which I’d rarely seen before. A bit weird and at times annoying, the frequency with which they’d whoop and cheer. But I also find that interesting, just as a bit of history. Seeing how wild American crowds went for Monty Python in 1982. It’s interesting to see that Python was so big they transcended the rule that music fans want to hear the old stuff when they go to gigs, but comedy fans want to hear the new stuff. Monty Python wasn’t making new stuff at the time, but if they were, and had done it instead of their classics, I’m pretty sure this crowd would not have liked that. They were very happy to see the classics.

Oh! Here’s another thing I realized while watching it. I have seen that argument sketch so many times, it was one of my favourites when I was young. As kids, my brother and I used to recite it to each other. We’d get into real arguments that would devolve into quoting those characters. But in all that time, I never realized until today that the customer was right. This has nothing to do with comedy analysis or whatever, I’d just missed that part of the sketch before. I’d thought it was a story where a customer tries to get extra time for which he didn’t pay, when John Cleese says his time is up and he argues that it hasn’t been five minutes. But I realized on this watch that it hadn’t. I don’t think the whole sketch lasts five minutes, the argument certainly doesn’t. John Cleese is, in fact, scamming the customer by saying it’s been five minutes and he has to pay again.

So that's my main takeaway from that show. Americans in 1982 went really wild for Monty Python, and John Cleese was scamming the customer in the argument sketch. I've downloaded their 1998 live show too, I'll probably watch that soon and I'll let you all know if I learn anything else important.

[littlemissidontcare]

Can someone tell me about the Ellie drama? I’m quite new here😂 // Ellie is Will’s wife Alissa’s childhood best friend. W&A set her up with Seb sometime closer to the summer of 2018. It was going relatively good and pretty lowkey (tho her friends were trying to expose them left and right) and she wasn’t really hated (a lot of people actually really seemed to like her, especially on twitter) until a week before he was supposed to be at the comic con in Brazil. Someone claimed to have been friends with one of Ellie’s close aussie friends and stated that they have access to that friend’s phone and screenshots of their private messages and facebook comments which shine an extremely bad light on Ellie, exposing her as racist, cultural appropriating and downright mean person. Nobody believed that shit at the time, so the person sent a screenshot of a private convo between Ellie and that aussie friend to one of the most active Seb gossip blogs at the time as a proof of their words. In that message Ellie’s friend said that she and her bf are coming to NYC in a few days and asked Ellie if they could all hang out, to which Ellie responded that she can’t because she’ll be flying to Brazil with Sebastian. Again, at the time nobody believed that screenshot and thought it was a fake convo. So that person decided to just leak everything online using ig account made for that purpose. They leaked Ellie’s private Facebook pics in which she was seen appropriating Indian and Asian cultures, leaked her facebook comments in which she used the N-word and told someone to kill themselves. They also leaked ig dms between Ellie and that aussie friend in which Ellie made fun of a little child laughing and calling that child “ugly”. And they leaked that convo about going to Brazil as well. At the time many thought it was all fake and even tried to stop this private info from spreading. It was thought of as being fake up until Ellie did show up in Brazil with Sebastian. And all hell broke loose. But even then some people weren’t convinced that all those racist and rude comments were real and thought that it was all made up by that same gossip blog that received that info in the first place. But then it was actually discovered that the person who leaked those screenshots was in fact that aussie friend. She forgot to cover her profile pic and nobody in the fandom knew that person prior to that discovery so no one would’ve been able to even fake something like that using that friend’s private pic from her private ig and facebook accounts. Not to mention that that convo about Brazil trip contained private names that no one knew but once all was discovered turned out to be true. So Ellie got doxxed by her own friend for reasons unknown. Or perhaps that anon person was telling the truth about being friends with that friend and getting access to her private accounts. Who knows now. To this day there are some people who doubt those screenshots were real but there’s just no way they aren’t. Ellie spent the whole first night in Brazil deleting stuff from her FB account, deleting comments calling her out off of her ig and even called up Alissa and a few other of her friends because those quickly closed their FB accounts and also deleted a bunch of things. Her aussie crew was something else... racist, transphobic, fat shaming, slut shaming, making fun of diseases, using slurs - you name it. Even Alissa’s sister that still kept going despite being called out multiple times. Anyhow, Ellie seemed to have gone back to Oz the next day while Seb was at the actual convention. There were rumors that he and Ellie had a fight late at night and someone claimed to have seen him helping her get her bags to the car and then later seeing him with red eyes like he had been crying. All rumors tho, nothing that could be confirmed 100%. But after that, he was never seen with Ellie again, didn’t visit her in Oz, spent the holidays in the states with his friends etc. that’s the Ellie drama summary. Sorry if it’s a long read 😬

[dragongirlsnout]

Alright, let's apply some critical analysis to this:

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community.

It did negatively affect Tumblr's LGBTQ+ community, but the particular group most affected were trans women, and to simply use the umbrella term LGBTQ+ and not mention trans women specifcally detracts from the reality of the situation.

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

So, what was the actual reason then? After being incorrectly marked as an adult blog several weeks ago and having her profile picture removed, Avery contacted staff, was told the flagging had been done in error, and had her blog status returned to normal. So evidently, her blog was reviewed by staff and determined not to have broken TOS for having NSFW content. And if the post mentioned was also not the deciding factor, then that was?

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension.

Again, not the correct language to use here; the community in particular should be specified to be trans women, and this description is again erasing the reality of the situation at hand.

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

It's obvious that transition timelines are not against community guidelines, it's the fact that trans women's selfies have been repeatedly wrongly assigned Mature community labels that is being brought to light here.

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Here's the thing.

Obviously, we all know reporting blogs for anything other than sexual content just doesn't do anything. This is a fault of the system (myself and others have experienced numerous just even trying to submit reports in the first place), a fault of the site's content policies (transphobic, racist, antisemitic, and other inflammatory bloggers are protected so soundly by the site's freedom of speech policies that anything they say short of doxxing people is immediately brushed off by moderation staff), and a fault of the people behind the desks (as seen from inequitable moderation and extremely long response times experienced by people trying to clear improperly flagged posts or blogs).

However, reporting blogs en masse for sexual content seems to work very well, so much so that any time a trans woman speaks up on Tumblr a wave of transmisogynists can just spam a deluge of false reports for sexual content and have her disappear overnight.

So, the real question here, is even if a new amazing anti-harassment feature is rolled out, will anything be done to fix the ways in which the existing reporting system is used to target trans bloggers?

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

First of all, the tag in question that is at the forefront of this discussion is #tgirl. #tboy isn't blocked, #trans isn't blocked, #tgirl is. This is specifically about trans women.

While this response is marginally better than silence,

It isn't a proper apology, and it isn't any amount of transparency for how trans people and trans women in particular are treated on Tumblr. If anything, this stands to only showcase how trans rights are put on a podium at the forefront of a display of progressive imagery while the actual people on the site are swept under the rug.

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic:

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension. Matt does not speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ people who help run Tumblr or Automattic, and we were not consulted in the construction of a response to these events.

Last year, the "mature" and "sexual themes" community labels were erroneously applied to some users' posts. An outside team of contractors tasked with applying community labels to posts were responsible for this larger trend of mislabeling trans-related content. When our Trust & Safety team discovered this issue (thanks largely to reports from the community), we removed the contracted team’s ability to apply community labels and added more oversight to ensure it does not happen again. In the Staff post about this, LGBTQ+ staff pushed to be more transparent but were overruled by leadership. The termination of a contractor mentioned in the original ask response was for an unrelated incident which was incorrectly attributed to this case. We regret that the mislabeling ever happened, and the negative impact it has had on the trans community on Tumblr. 

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

When it comes to the experience of trans folks on Tumblr encountering transphobic content, and interacting with bigoted users, we understand and share your frustrations. Tumblr’s policies, and Automattic’s policies, are written to ensure freedom of speech and expression. We prohibit harassment as defined in our Community Guidelines, but we know that this policy falls short of protecting users from the wider scope of harmful speech often used against LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.

Going forward, Tumblr is taking the following actions:

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Building more internal tooling for us as Staff to proactively identify and mitigate instances of harassment.

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

— This statement was authored by multiple trans employees of Tumblr and Automattic.

[oddeyevibes]

girl this is not "putting blatant transphobia under the rug by claiming russia was behind it". the organisation that started this entire claim of imane being "biologically male" is literally sponsored by gazprom.

It is literally trying to wipe the hands of fascists like R*wling by presenting it as if people were “tricked” with false info from Russians.

Yt ppl took one look at Imane and claimed she was trans because she didn’t look like a stereotypical yt woman. This isn’t new behavior at all.

They didn’t need that article to do so, ppl like that always had racist and sexist views about what they want all women to look like. That article was merely used as confirmation bias to say “see? We were right after all!” and many transphobes weren’t even siting that article in the first place. These ppl were being transphobic perfectly fine without an article.

WP knows exactly what they’re doing by saying “Russian-linked” in an era where Americans call every form of political criticism “Russian bots”. Why acknowledge how commonplace white supremacist beliefs are in the West when you can just blame Russia??

[problemeule]

honestly between tunglr and twt neither is better than the other but at least my timeline/dash here is free of ‘leftie’ transphobes telling (predominantly) trans femme ppl to stop being so aggressive in criticizing them for equating trans femme ppl with predators.....

[darkbackalley]

Dazai Osamu x Ftm reader - Yosano the Helper

Warning: mentioned transphobia, mentioned homophobia, deadnaming, female- bodied reader (ftm) <- that means female to male (transgender) FEM- ALIGNED AND AGELESS BLOGS DNI! (As well as homophobes and transphobes, but that goes without saying) Starts out angsty, but ends with fluff. Reader comes out to Dazai as trans. D/n is (deadname)

“I have no such tastes in men”

Those words haunt you.

FIC UNDER THE CUT

You had dated Dazai for 3 years. You had known that you weren’t a girl for the most previous one, however, considering the words that he uttered upon Atsushi’s “initiation” to the armed detective agency, you kept your mouth shut. You valued your relationship with Dazai, but you were certain that this would change it. Whether that be in a positive or negative way, you didn’t know. “Hey (d/n)! How’s it going! I found a lovely little flower shop on the way over here! How about we go look around later?” Dazai said chipperly. You stared out the window down at the street below and nodded. Dazai’s smile faltered before he scooped you up and swung you around the office-turned dance floor. Dazai hummed out a tune in the most horrendous way possible, every note having a pitch and rhythm different than the last. You smiled while being swung around. You forgot how much fun this could be. “There she is! There’s my happy little (d/n)! Your smile fell immediately, not even bothering to hide it. “Excuse me Dazai.” You said as you pushed by him and walked out the door. You sat on a bench outside and called Yosano, the only person you had entrusted your gender identity to. “Hello? Y/n? Are you alright? You sound like you’ve been crying? What happened? Who do I need to kill?” She barraged you with questions after you sniffled a greeting into the phone. “ Yosano, I can’t keep living like this. I’ll either go insane, or worse! But I don’t want to lose him! What the hell should I even do? I don’t know how to tell him or anything! I haven’t even the foggiest idea of what to say!” You were bawling at this point, receiving weird looks from those who passed. “Y/n. You just need to be honest. If he leaves you over something like this, that means that he was never worth it in the first place. You deserve someone who loves you for you, no matter who you are!” You looked at your phone incredulously. “Yeah, but that still doesn’t answer how the hell I’m going to tell Dazai-“ “what are you going to tell me?” A voice comes from behind you. You freeze on the spot, scared for whatever is to come. Yosano, of course is oblivious to everything that’s going on at the other end. “Y/n? Y/n? You there?” You slowly turned to face Dazai. “Um… I don’t know how I should go about this without maybe pissing you off or making you hate me. And of course, after I say this, you can hate me all you want, and you never have to talk to me again. Just hear me out-“ “you aren’t leaving me, are you?” Dazai asked, his voice laced with suspicion. “No! No, I wouldn’t ever dream of it… but if after what I say, you want to leave me, I’ll completely understand.” Dazai deadpanned. “Well then, get on with it.” You felt the tears begin streaming down your face as you tried to find your voice. “I-l’m… I’m trans. I’m not a girl. I’ve felt like a guy for a long time, but in the last year it’s been confirmed. I know you don’t like guys and if you don’t wanna date me anymore that’s okay, I’ll completely respe-“ your rambling was completely cut off by Dazai kissing you. “That’s fine. It’s okay! I love you, and I wouldn’t ever think of leaving you. We can get you stuff for transitioning and whatever, I’ll do research! I don’t care that you’re a guy, i mean, obviously I care, but either way I love you and that’s that. But… two questions…” you looked at him, expecting a bizarre request “What’s your preferred name and pronouns?” You smiled and kissed him. That’s when you heard cheering. Looking down at your hand, you noticed that your phone was still on, and Yosano had heard the entire thing. “Good job y/n!!!” She screamed into the speaker.

Extra:

Dazai burst down the office door and waltzed inside, you attached to his arm. “Everyone! I need your attention! When the workers came away from their desks, Dazai even requested Atsushi to go find Fukuzawa. When everyone was rounded up in the office space, Dazai announced in a booming voice “This is my boyfriend, y/n! I love him and I’ll fight anyone who even fucking looks at him funny!” The workers and members of the agency came up to you and congratulated you on coming out. Ranpo just smiled down to himself and muttered under his breath “about time.”

[dunmertitty]

i think it’s also important to point out that one of the first gender clinics opened in 1919 (the institute of sexual research in berlin by magnus hirshfeld) and not in the 1960s, however i have not read the full text so the author may be referring to a specific place/country or a specific type of gender clinic. other than that, everything said in that text is correct!

but i find its very important to point out that so many later clinics seem to have such a restrictive and regressive view on gender and sexuality because the institute of sexual research was raided, staff and residents beaten and jailed and some killed, books and research destroyed and burned, and eventually the building burned as well, it set back the research two decades.

magnus and the institute weren’t perfect but they were much more progressive than many clinics open even today. over 100 years later. there were job placement and housing programs. you could receive transitional (and general health!) care without having to strive to be A Good Heterosexual or prove that you could live as a Properly Behaving member of the sex you were transitioning to.

he coined/popularized the word transsexual to differentiate between people who crossdress for fun/work and people who seek to actively live as a different sex full time.

magnus hirshfeld, a gay jewish man, was exiled from germany before the institute was raided and continued his activism in other countries but mainly focusing on women’s voting rights and equality in heterosexual couples, while having to hide his opinions on queer sexuality gender in public for fear of safety

i think it’s important to talk about how one of the first gender clinicians was so progressive because he was a gay jewish man. and how he saw that the struggles of transvestites and transsexuals (now under the general transgender umbrella) and gay people and women’s rights were all connected. because it’s common among left leaning transphobes to say that trans people are taking away their rights. “stealing” gender nonconforming people. trying to “turn” or “correct” gay people. that trans women are “corrupting womanhood” or “setting back women’s rights”. and look to things like homophobic gender clinics that force us to conform to gender conformity and heterosexuality if we want to get the healthcare that we need as if the system that we are reliant and dependent on speaks for our actual thoughts and feelings and political views. transphobes let the cisgender heterosexual and largely male healthcare system speak for us instead of allowing us to speak for ourselves

obviously magnus was a cis male and had that male bias (mentioned in the paper above), but many of the sexologists after him (in the 60s as the paper mentioned) were heterosexual. magnus being a gay man (and a drag queen) and a jewish man which both gave him insights that helped him empathize with the transsexual experience. he knew that the “correct” way to be a certain gender didn’t have to include heterosexuality. he knew that jewish people were often labeled as deviants and had double standards associated with being seen as a ‘real’ man or a ‘real’ woman by the majority culture. he listened to trans people. he was in community with trans people.

the institute was burned and two decades of research was lost, but clinics have taken over a century to recover to something even resembling what magnus was doing because his research, which allowed for queer transness, was destroyed. and so the allowance for queer transness was destroyed and replaced with a hetero-centric system that TOLD trans people what we were instead of asking us what we need.

[odinsblog]

Don’t fool yourselves, tankies, Putin and the Russian government are every bit as terrible as anything you hate about America. Homophobic, transphobic, pro-Trump, and racist af. And every bit as capitalistic. Putin and his cronies are all billionaires.

The video below shows Russian state tv (their nationalized Fox News) and how very much they are like conservatives and Republicans. It’s a little over three minutes long, but please watch it:

Pandering to theocracy and Christofascists, invoking a “holy war” against Ukraine, likening Putin to a Godlike figure (authoritarianism much?), the whole “traditional” “Christian” “family values” rhetoric, homophobia, demonizing and dehumanizing their enemies into subhuman things that aren’t worthy of life, denigrating Ukrainian culture and history, and sO much worse…

Look, I’m Black. I remember seeing those videos of how shitty those Ukrainian and Polish border guards were treating Black students who were fleeing war. That was wrong and inexcusable. Period. But you know where those Black students weren’t fleeing to? They were not fleeing to the “safety” of Russia. And they didn’t go to Russia to complete their studies in the first place. Why?? I mean, if Russia is so pure and if Putin is so good, why tf didn’t they go to Russia in the first place?? Why would they have gone to Ukraine if it was full of Nazis?? Why didn’t they run to Putin to (lol) “save” them from the Nazis???

And JFC don’t even get me started on what they’re doing to Brittney Griner, a Black, openly lesbian woman. For cannabis oil! Just like American conservatives & neoliberals would treat her here at home, if given half a chance.

And, when Putin invaded them, Crimea wasn’t in NATO, and Ukraine wasn’t in NATO. Putin started these wars. Not NATO and not Ukraine. If you believe that invading and going to war with another country is okay because you’re afraid of what they might do, then you’re every bit as imperialistic and jingoistic as Benjamin Netanyahu or any American President.

And, if you believe that ALL Ukrainians are Nazis, then congratulations—you’re stupid af and very easily manipulated. I’m going to need you to please explain to me how the allll of the Jewish residents currently being bombed in Odesa are Nazis.

Putin’s army is mass bombing innocent civilians, raping people, and committing horrific war crimes. Because what? Because Putin was allegedly “afraid” they were all Nazis? Or, because Putin didn’t like that sovereign nations were talking to countries he didn’t like?? It’s straight up imperialism. It’s naked colonialism.

Anyway, this was something that came up recently, and I just wanted to take a moment to say I’m old, and Russia hasn’t been a “communist” country since almost before I was born, and to tell tankies to fuck all the way off.

[gonzo-rella]

What I Am and What You Are | The Captain

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Relationship(s): The Captain x gn!queer!ghost!reader (platonic), Alison Cooper x gn!queer!ghost!reader (platonic)

Summary: When you realise that you’re not as confident in your identity as you’d have yourself and everyone else believe, you’re surprised when the Captain is the one you end up confiding in.

Warnings: Brief mentions of a depressing-ass death involving a TBI (but I tried not to be overly graphic), mentions queerphobia and queerphobic parents, brief suicide ‘joke’/comment (but hopefully it’s not considered to be in bad taste). Basically, this is a mixture of angsty and fluffy. (Let me know if I need to add any)

Word count: 2.8k

(A/N: This is a self-indulgent comfort fic I’ve been working on over the past God knows how long. Being a closeted agender teen sucks, especially with the amount of transphobes and general queerphobes I’m around, which isn’t too many but I’d say one’s enough for me, thanks. Anyway, I’m sorry if this isn’t the kind of thing that you’re interested in reading.)

It had been a stormy evening in October 2010 when you broke into Button House. 

Normally, you didn’t mind walking in the rain because you knew there would always be some form of shelter awaiting you, but tonight was different. Your usual shelter, your home, was not an option. 

Not anymore.

Perhaps it was naïve of you to assume that just because the house was conveniently vacant that you’d get away with this. 

Well, you did kind of did get away with it, but you didn’t leave the house unscathed.

In fact, you didn’t leave the house at all that night. 

However, your body was hauled out the following morning, and your consciousness was forever confined to the grounds of Button House.

They’d all watched it unfold. They all bared witness as (while you dried off your hair and face with a towel you’d found) slipped over on your discarded raincoat on the floor and hit the back of your head on the corner of a small, wooden table. They (especially Pat) panicked as you just lay there, clearly losing consciousness and blood. 

As a result of your injury, you’d forgotten many things about the night of your death, but of course you remembered why you’d been in the storm in the first place, why you hadn’t just gone home. You remembered everything they had said- the confusion, mockery and belittlement. 

Somehow, it took dying for you to feel accepted for who you were, and who would have thought that a group of ghosts, some of whom being centuries-old, would be so accepting about (or at least surprisingly respectful yet unbothered by) who you were?

Quite quickly, you had become a member of their strange family.

You all had your place in this family. Fanny was the matriarch, Pat and the Captain were quite fatherly (at least from your perspective), Julian was the drunken uncle.

Despite having only known you for around a decade, they all knew you well enough to determine when you were okay and when you weren’t, but it would’ve been obvious to anyone that you weren’t feeling great when the 10th anniversary of your death approached.

You’d distanced yourself from the ghosts and Alison for the past several days, but luckily none of them had caught on. That was until Alison found you solemnly gazing out of one of Button House’s many windows in a room away from all the ghosts. 

She noticed you through the doorway while she was walking past, did a double-take and stopped. Wordlessly, she examined you for a moment with knitted brows.

“Y/N? Are you alright?” she asked, taking a couple steps so that she was in the doorway.

“Y/N’s here?” Mike questioned, sounding surprisingly enthusiastic, if not a little unnerved, as he whipped his head around like an excitable child at a funfair. Startled, Alison flinched and placed a hand on her chest, breathing deeply.

She peered around the doorway at Mike, who was settled in a chair and scrolling through a webpage she couldn’t quite make out from where she was standing.

You turned your head and looked between the couple.

“Oh, sorry.” Mike apologised. “Anyway, what’s Y/N doing in here?”

“I don’t know. They haven’t told me yet.” Alison sighed, folding her arms. She diverted her attention back to you. “As I was saying, are you alright, Y/N?”

“I’m fine.” you muttered, hurriedly averting your gaze back out the window.

“That doesn’t sound very fine.” Alison said as she slowly stepped towards you, a weak smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “You can talk to me if you want, you know. Mike won’t mind clearing off.”

You swallowed thickly before glancing up at her, feigning an appreciative smile. “I don’t really fancy talking about it, if that’s okay.”

“Yep, that’s fine.” Alison answered. “If you feel like it later, though, come and find me, alright?”

“Yeah, alright.” you responded.

“Well, the others are watching the telly if you’re up for that?” she tried.

“I’d rather be alone, thanks.” you said, your smile fading.

“Okay, then. Do you want me to kick Mike out?” Alison asked.

“Hey, what’s wrong with me?” Mike questioned defensively.

“Nah, he can stay.” you responded, glancing over at him. “It’s not like he’s bothering me. The way he types is a bit annoying. Might as well be on a typewriter. But, I suppose it’s nice background noise.”

A smile still on her face, she looked over at Mike, who was still looking at her as he awaited a confirmation as to what you wanted him to do. “They said you can stay.”

“Aw, nice. Thanks, Y/N.” Mike said, looking around with his eyes fixed upwards, which he tended to do when addressing the various ghosts of Button House. It elicited a faint chuckle from you, but the brief relief from your sadness was rather short-lived.

Alison giggled and, as she turned to leave, cast a final glance over her shoulder at you. Now that you were no longer looking at her, but instead out the window again, she could allow her smile to finally drop a little.

Instead of continuing on the path she had taken before her brief detour, she went back the way she came, striding back to the living room, where the other ghosts were all huddled around the TV. 

“Do any of you know what’s wrong with Y/N?” Alison asked, throwing a thumb over her shoulder as she gestured to where she’d just been.

Pat and the Captain, seated on wooden chairs beside the sofa, looked up at Alison. They stood up and walked over to her. Fanny (who was standing stiffly behind the sofa with an upturned nose) pursed her lips and knitted her brows as she cast a quick glance over to Alison, but turned her attention back to the TV and cringed at what the screen displayed. Meanwhile, the others were completely transfixed by the advert for Domino’s.

“October’s the time of year that Y/N...passed away.” Pat said in a hushed voice, most likely in an attempt to not disrupt the others. “Perhaps that’s what’s the matter.”

“They didn’t seem too bothered last year, though.” Alison replied. “At least not this much.”

“Yes, Alison, I have to agree with you there.” the Captain said. “In the decade Y/N has been here, they’ve hardly expressed any sadness around the date of their death.”

“Maybe they’ve been bottling it up for all of this time.” Pat suggested. “If I died under the circumstances that Y/N died, I’d be upset if I was reminded of it. And, if anyone’s capable of bottling all of that up for 10 whole years, it’d be them.”

“Well, whatever the matter is, I’m sure I can get to the bottom of it.” the Captain stated confidently as he adjusted his sleeves.

“Um...they said they wanted to be left alone, Captain.” Alison said with hesitance.

“Now, now, Alison, I can handle this. You’re clearly concerned about their wellbeing, and, with all due respect, I’m better equipped to handle this kind of situation. I’ve gotten the truth out of a number of-”

“They’re not a war criminal, for heaven’s sake!” Pat protested. “I say, if they want to be left alone, we leave them alone. We can try to find out what’s wrong and help them when they reach out to us themself.”

An almost-defeated puff of air escaped the Captain’s nostrils.

“I suppose you’re right, Patrick. However, if they don’t come forward within a few days, I will be forced to take matters into my own hands.” the Captain replied.

“Forced? Forced by what?” Pat questioned with narrowed eyes.

“Forced by my duty as ranking officer.” the Captain answered, tone filled with pride.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake...” Pat muttered.

The Captain kept his word. While you spent the next few days brooding beside a window, he never once approached you with questions of what was bothering you, nor did anyone else. Of course, Kitty had begged you to go and play with her, and Fanny had poked her head through the doorway to make sure you weren’t ‘getting up to anything’, and Mike had sat in that same chair on his laptop for hours on end with no idea that you were there. Other than that, though, you were (thankfully) left alone.

However, the very afternoon that your allocated few days were up, the Captain came strutting into the room you’d spent the past week moping in.

“Y/N.” he greeted with a nod.

“What?” you sighed, shooting him an unimpressed glare.

He didn’t respond, obviously not quite expecting you to address him in such a manner. If you hadn’t looked so dejected, he probably would have scolded you for it.

Before an awkward silence was allowed to take place, the sound of Mike’s rapid, noisy typing (accompanied by some muttering) resounded through the room. A subtle look of alarm flashed onto the Captain’s face. He craned his neck and peered over his shoulder, before looking back at you.

“Excuse me for a moment.” he stated, before turning on his heels. You furrowed your brows as you eyed him curiously. He took a few steps towards Mike, who was blissfully unaware of both of you.

“Off you go now, Michael. This is a confidential matter.”

Mike (as expected) didn't respond, but the Captain was never one to give up.

“Time to go now, Michael. We can’t be discussing such matters with you around.”

“I don’t think he can quite hear you, Captain.” you said dryly. “Maybe try speaking up.”

He turned back to you and cleared his throat.

“Well, as Michael shows no sign of leaving, we’ll have to find another location to-”

“I can’t be bothered to move,” you stated, “so you can either say what you want to say in here or piss off.”

The Captain straightened up and clenched his jaw irritably.

“Might I suggest that you watch your tone and language?” the Captain tried.

“Might I suggest that you leave me alone?” you retorted, folding your arms tightly and slouching a bit as you averted your gaze and chewed on your tongue. “Or at least hurry up.”

“Very well.” the Captain said, managing to keep himself composed despite your attitude. “Alison informed me that she’s concerned about you. Despite her and Patrick advising against it, I believed it best to check up on you- to ensure that everything’s alright.”

“What does it matter if I’m not okay?” you scoffed. “Sure, if I were alive, you’d be risking letting me jump out the window or something by not checking up on me, but it’s not like...Oh, you get what I mean.”

The Captain swallowed, not knowing quite how to respond. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

“Are we done now? You wanted to know if everything was alright, and now you know how not alright I am, and you probably knew that I wasn’t alright before you walked in, so you’ve just wasted your time.” you rambled, an exasperated huff following shortly after.

“We won’t be done until you tell me what is bothering you. I promised Alison and Patrick that I would find out what’s the matter with you.” the Captain replied.

You turned your head to look directly at him and sent him an irritated glare. You rose to your feet.

“Haven’t I made it clear that I’m not in the mood to talk about it?” you said loudly, almost shouting. Your words were accompanied by animated gesturing as you paced around a little. “What else can I possibly say? Do you need me to whack you in the head with a cricket bat that has ‘I don’t want to talk about this’ written on the front? God! Why can’t someone understand me for once?”

You expected to be met with a stern response, but all you got was silence. You turned to look at him once again, and he was looking right back at you with an unreadable expression. He didn’t look angry, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking at that moment. Perhaps he was judging you. Perhaps he was perturbed. 

“So, you’re unhappy because you feel misunderstood?” the Captain asked.

“No. Well, yeah, but-” You cut yourself off with a deep breath. “Look, with it being October, all I can think about is-is...about how I died...and...how I’ll never get closure.”

“Closure with what?” the Captain questioned.

“Closure...with my parents.” you responded, averting your gaze as you gripped onto your sleeves. The Captain was silent, prompting you to elaborate. “I usually don’t think about it. Even if I do, I can just brush it off, most of the time at least. But...it’s hard sometimes, knowing I’ll never be accepted by them.

“And-and...it just feels like no one here really...gets it either, or gets me and what I am, even if they accept it, or at least act like they do. Most of you weren’t around when people like me became more normal. I like that it isn’t a big deal, but...God, it’s isolating feeling like no one really gets you.” you finished. You couldn’t bear to look at him, cheeks burning with a blaze of embarrassment.

Confessing your sorrows like this to the Captain made you feel like a moody teenager opening up to their repressed father, who would rather be subjected to Medieval torture than have this heart-to-heart.

The silence was both painfully awkward and blissful, but it was soon interrupted by the Captain (once again) clearing his throat.

“Y/N, I can assure you that...someone in this house understands you.” he stated, tugging at his collar for a moment.

You glanced over at him; he had looked away from you.

“I guess, yeah, maybe Alison does. Most people are more understanding nowadays, but-”

“No. You needn’t worry about not being understood by anyone in this house because...” the Captain paused, causing you to furrow your brows curiously. “I understand you...and what you are, and how it feels to not quite fit what everyone else is.”

“Thanks, Captain, but you don’t have to pretend that you know...” you trailed off, as the realisation hit you like a slap in the face. “Oh…right.”

Another wave of silence crashed over the both of you, and the Captain shifted uncomfortably on his feet again. He glanced at you as you absently stared off elsewhere, but looked away when you finally looked back at him.

“Have you told anyone else?” you asked.

“No,” the Captain replied. He lifted his chin a little as he scratched his neck. “I can’t say I’m as brazen as you.”

Your eyes narrowed in confusion. 

“Uh...was that an insult?” you questioned.

“Not in this context, no.” the Captain answered after a pause. “Don’t get me wrong, sometimes your boldness borders on frustrating insolence. However, I must admit that it can be one of your admirable qualities. I can’t say I’m as capable of being as open as you are when it comes to being who and what you are.”

You were quiet for a moment, allowing his words to turn over in your mind before you offered up a reply. 

“Well,” you said. “the idea of being rejected by people you barely know feels easier when your own parents reject you. Easier than having to spend any more time hiding who you are, anyway. 

“But, I guess I’ve been lucky with how everyone’s treated me. You wouldn’t expect a stuck-up Edwardian woman, a God-fearing 17th century peasant and a beheaded Tudor nobleman to be so tolerant of it. Maybe a Regency era poet and a sleazy Tory, I suppose, but not the others.”

Neither of you spoke for a moment, the Captain sensing you had more to say.

“It’s nice having them be okay with me, but that kind of makes it worse, in a way.” you continued. “If they can accept me, why couldn’t my own parents accept me? My own family?”

The Captain cleared his throat.

“Perhaps they’re not worthy of being your family.” he suggested. “And, I suppose we’re sort of your family now. Well, we’re at least the closest thing.”

You froze in that moment, your eyes welling up with tears. Somehow, the years of mental strain had been alleviated to a degree. You weren’t alone, and this was a feeling you hadn’t really felt even when you were a living and breathing person. An overwhelming feeling surged through you and you couldn’t help but engulf the Captain in a hug you assumed he didn’t want. He awkwardly manoeuvred his arms around you with the rigidness of a mannequin.

“Thank you, Captain.” you whispered, your voice muffled by his shoulder.

“Oh, er, it’s quite alright, Y/N.”

[i-am-an-atomic-bomb]

honestly ? yeah that’s true but think about why people didn’t see this side of jkr

harry potter is a children’s book and even though many hp adults exist now (unfortunately), this was and is the main demographic

my story with the hp fandom is similar to many others and it boils down to not being able to see that stuff when we were that demographic. me saying that now might sound a little like white guilt i suppose, but unfortunately i can assure you that the kids praising these books weren’t reading the critical articles

i should have identified that stuff (especially the antisemitism because of where i live, blame it on the polish education system i guess), but i didn’t. at least when i first read the book and joined the fandom at like 9 or 10 - but it did show on a re-read i did a few years later, even though i’m pretty sure some of the stuff got lost in translation, like rita skeeter’s transphobic description (don’t quote me on that but i remember it not being as bad as in the original) or the fact that most if not all of the articles describing the problematic aspects were in english which i barely understood back then. and this was true for a lot of young fans who weren’t english native speakers.

this coupled with the insane circle-jerk happening in the fandom in the 2000s and 2010s created a monster i think. i can only speak on the polish side of the fandom on forums and facebook at that time but basically - there was a whole weird culture of kids and later teens thinking that they were oh so much smarter than others because they read books, because of course a children’s/YA fantasy series is the pinacle of fine literature comparable with the classics or some shit and of course we so much better than kids who wasted time watching tv or youtube or god forbid playing video games. and yeah we were supported by the adults in the fandom who i really can’t defend.

so basically we were a little brainwashed and it was unthinkable to criticize rowling in this toxic fandom. maybe later on (i left the fandom in mid 2010s), but overall the insiders didn’t care. because we were like 10 or 15 and didn’t know shit about politics and were spoon-fed the whole jkr being liberal queen (because she donated a bunch of money and created gay gandalf and mr shitty werewolf aids metaphor) by fans twice our age and we didn’t question it cause none of us had friends in school and being in that group made us feel special or some shit.

but also we should’ve been taught earlier why these offensive stereotypes were bad so we could identify them. or that they even existed - pretty easy to overlook a black guy named kingsley shacklebolt when you’re white and don’t know what all these words mean cause your english vocabulary is limited to names of vegetables, i am you are he is she is, and asking which way is x street.

that is precisely why people who were formely super into the fandom saying that harry potter was never good to actually is dumbing down the issue because we were in toxic love with harry potter. i’m not trying to justify it cause both the books and the fandom were and are,,,,,,not great but let’s understand why we liked it what’s wrong with the books. cause i can still admit the characters, the world and some quotes were pretty memorable. does that justify her terfdom ? fuck no. but for it to even exist in the first place the fandom had to exist and like the books as well so like. it’s stupid to lie about being a former fan to save your face.

yes the content was always bad but let’s admit we didn’t think that it was and it’s well past the time to own that fact and point out the issues.

I've been a little confused by the revisionist history of people saying Dave Chappelle was never funny. Maybe not everyone dug him, but he has been on quite a few GOAT lists for stand up. During his peak in the 2000s it was not uncommon for folks to consider him the best performing stand up since Carlin and Pryor. I was among those people. Perhaps the people saying he was never funny were too young to appreciate him during that time. I don't know.

But I don't think we need to pretend like he always sucked. His fall from grace is an important thing to acknowledge. With people like him and JK Rowling, we are collectively trying to figure out how to deal with artists we love letting us down. It's a good conversation to have. If we just say "well, they always sucked" I think we are avoiding dealing with it.