#whew wrote this one all in one sitting!! *pat self on back*

[9w1ft]

*peers around* everyone back? did everyone take a water break? we all good? okay? okay. whew! i’m back too! come october we got midnights in all its glorious optics.. here is how we rounded off the year!!

OCTOBER

★ kimby started off october by posting in front of infinity mirrors and saying eye spy

★ taylornation posted a photo of taylor doing the hands over her face around her eyes pose, captioned “share your reaction when you discovered Karma is real”

★ taylor posted at the beginning of the consecutive midnights mayhem night with a post using the wink emoji 😜

★ karlie referred to self care in a video moment of her eye 😌

★ karlie had some eye framing gems made for her roblox fashion line

- 😆 i wrote a silly fanfiction around the idea of what if that niceboy ed song was penned by joe in 2018 after he first figured out the eye theory for himself

★ in paris again, karlie hung out with ashley, who sported huge gold eye schiaparelli earrings

★ the midnights visuals video was dropped and we got excited by the little heart gem by taylor’s eye

★ Midnights dropped (wooohooo!!) and i made quick work of pointing out every damn time she uses the word eye on the album (x, x, x, x, x)

★ the mastermind spotify video felt a little sus

☆ we realized that karlie posting something in july 2021 with the caption i spy with my little eye…matched up with the lyrics from sweet nothing!

★ taylor showed off her bedazzled eye in the vigilante shit short clip on tiktok

★★★ the Anti Hero music video dropped, and eye theory truthers around the globe all passed out in the opening seconds of the video when taylor cut into the right side sunny side up egg of her face shaped breakfast!!! sunny side up! come the heck on!!

★ the lyric videos had several visual eye moments! in particular, the anti hero lyric video felt like a step by step homage to the eye theory

☆ it was revealed that in the hand-over-eye mahogany edition image, she was wearing a sweater backwards, in sync with the potential idea that the right side eye is a flipped image

★ and taking a look at the CD! the album insert images that do not have her right side eye showing included lyric captions that all felt on theme

★ taylor released midnights merch, which included a hoodie with a graphic of taylor’s right side eye highlighted in gold and it was so similar to a throwback photoshoot post that karlie had recently posted out of the blue

★★★ the bejeweled music video (the love letter to her fans, the one with the ‘psychotic amount of easter eggs’ 😌) was released and i am prepared to freeze on the hill that there are just tons of hidden eyes in this video. bear with me:

in the wood grain at the very beginning of the mv

at the bottoms of the cupid statues

above the penthouse floor of the elevator building

the design of the stained glass above the castle balcony doorway

you can make the word eye twice using the typography of the title side and i love it to pieces

the two olives held by taylor and dita

within the headdresses of taylor and her dancers

other things noticed but i never got around to posting were… the tear to the left in the couch she is sitting on in the opener, as a pattern on one of the fans that the stepsisters hold, a diamondy ring next to the lovers eye ring, she gestures her hand over half her face when singing diamond in my eyes, one martini cup is sun themed and the other is heart frame themed and taylor and dita are mirror images of one another… among other things i probably haven’t noticed 🥴

from amid these treasures two extra significant instances imo were:

★ the custom made bedazzled waist garments of the dancers look like the rep era evil eye ring taylor (and perhaps karlie) own

★ one of the rings worn by laura dern in the opening scene. it’s a lover’s eye ring made by cathy waterman that we SPECIFICALLY discussed in the past when talking about lovers eye jewelry in relation to the eye theory

★ pat mcgrath, who we have mentioned in the past, and who did the makeup for the bejeweled mv, posted to her socials about the makeup looks and the video had a glitchy eye vibe about it

☆ while i kinda consider this beyond the statute of limitations in terms of potential intentionality, i was compelled to inform taylor that the music playing in the background of the clip from the 2013 victoria’s secret fashion show backstage footage of taylor and karlie flirting is the song FU by miley cyrus, which includes the lyric “you’re my right eye” 😆 can you believe??

☆ there was an amazing tiktok catch about how the glitch line “fastening myself to you with a stitch” feels photoshoppy 😆😆

NOVEMBER

★ in taylor’s eras tour announcement she says she’s excited to look everyone in the eye and thank you for everything 🫠

★ taylor held a device over her eye while promoting the # TSAntiHeroChallenge for youtube shorts

☆ after all this time i finally noticed that in the end game mv in the tokyo scenes there are two couches that have fabric with an eyelike patter going on 😭

★ karlie posted a pic of sarah jessica parker captioned with looking the weekend right in the eye when the weekend was kaylor holiday weekend oh and also for some reason presently sjp’s profile pic is a pic of her eye

★ taylornation tweeted that they were looking the sun and the mirror right in the eye 🙈🙈🙈 istg

★ karlie posted wearing the gold evil eye necklace AGAIN! three times!!

- taylor wore a signet ring that was shaped in such a way that if pressed into wax would surely make me yelp

★ we got new photos of karlie blocking an eye for carolina herrera

★ i identified a ring that taylor wore in her spotify wrapped video and this damn ring, from the jeweler’s “heliopolis” (the greek name for the ancient egyptian land of the sun) collection, just kept getting funnier and funnier

DECEMBER

★ …and soon enough karlie was posting in front of ancient egyptian paintings with the eyes chipped off of some of the figures 🥴 . karlie briefly captioned this photo of herself at the met with the caption “eyes on the prize” 🥴

★ karlie remained artsy as she blocked an eye in a bathroom selfie during art basel miami

☆ i was sent a tiktok which i super love that pointed out how the painting on the cover of the great gatsby includes the figure of a woman inside each eye! so so cool!

- there were apparently more than several eye theory tiktoks this year! here is another example. it was pretty wild to watch the eye theory get so many views/likes/comments on the platform (same with twitter actually!!) and honestly it was so humbling and it made me so happy to see and hear from so so many people out there beyond tumblr enjoying themselves. this year honestly get like one big party 🥳

☆ this might be somewhere in the OP but in case it’s not, here’s a post pointing out that there’s something that looks like an eye in taylor’s “is this the end of all the endings” painting

★ karlie wore her gold evil eye necklace again! and again!! aaaand again!!! that makes 6 times!!

★ lily aldridge always the jokester posted a birthday photo of taylor wherein she added in a sticker and placed it over the right side eye of the Cars car they were riding in at disney world 🙈🙈

★ karlie visited kyoto and went to the arashiyama monkey park. the ticket to the park says “do not stare the monkeys in the eye” 🙈🙈🙈

***

so there you have it fam! what did you think?? i’ll tell you what i think… i always get bashful and end up procrastinating putting it together lest it come off as an illegal amount of fawning but by god if i don’t ever finish the thing without feeling like a million bucks.

what an honor. what an honor and a privilege to have been entrusted with this gem of a theory and to have been able to share such a cascade of wonderfully silly feelings with all of you, and to have you all give back to it and grow it together. truly, the gift they keep giving and giving… and giving and giving… like and advent calendar that has your favorite sweets behind it every single time.

the eye theory is the friends we made along the way, but it’s also very literally the gifts that the girls share.. and this year had it all: karlie’s posing and jewelry, taylor’s visuals, new lyrics in canon, but this time felt even the more inspired because of the public interaction… from all of you!! and from renowned publications!! what the heck!!!

thank you all for your continued support of this endeavor, for helping collect and share every last drop of this lovely and abundant fruit, one which i truly believe, hands down, from the references in taylor and karlie’s visual permanent mediums to their social media videos, from the lyrics to the their social media captions. from their jewelry choices to their clothing choices to each and every little thing in between, separate and in aggregate, is the most robust happenstance on the market today ❤︎

🍾 three cheers to another year!!

alright all that’s left now is to hit post and

*record scratch*

oh wait, what? whats that? i can't reblog with more content on the main post? it’s technically too big?!

oh well well well then okay. hey :leans in close: did i… ever crash your app with the op post? i wanted to apologize for that. truly sorry. the truth is, the original post also crashes my app! wild! yes, well, as big of a fan of push media as i am i’m going to have to break away from the original post to get the job done this year but if you’re new here and don’t know about the eye theory please for the love of god click the below link to read through the original. it’s required reading.

(click for the op)

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yes ok. welcome back! did i make you dizzy? jeepers my eyes do hurt, just after putting together this update! but i come bearing gifts…! frankincense, myrrh, gold, and a *plump* 2021 eye theory update for the remaining bakers dozen or so of us left hanging in this manger… because apparently that’s just the way things will be 😘 again, i’m far past proving this thing and more into sharing, yeah, sharing the fun memories over the past year living with this theory so that’s what i’ll do. and this requires more than the ten picture limit so in lieu of that i will be updating only once but with links to each finding. my demarcation is the same as last year:

so without further ado, here comes our…

2021 year in review

JANUARY

★ kimby posting the eye mirror thing at the beginning of the year (which i posted about at the end of the last update)

★karlie liked a tweet (a rarity at the time) from henry hall promoting his new album… that had an eye and the number 13 on the album cover.

-we found another great photo match example

☆ we noticed something up with a new carolina herrera ad that ended up showing up again later in the year

☆ we noticed taylor covering her eye during rep tour while singing even in my worst lies you saw the truth in me

-we noticed an oft forgotten appearance of the evil eye ring in the rep promo material, photos of her on the beach

FEBRUARY

☆ we found a potential easter egg in the end game mv

★ one of the lyric videos for fearless TV had a fun synching moment ..that taylor then put in her instagram stories

★ taylor posted a bleachella era pic of her and the haim sisters that had the sisters covering eyes with their hoodies, and then honest to god this is just one of those thing i can’t quite conscionably explain but there are two boxes of pizzas being held and the cheese only pizza looks like the “blank” of the two pizzas and it’s to the right of the picture

★ kayda and kai did some eye funny business

MARCH

★ the grammys… so, taylor’s performance included choreography that covers her right side eye along with the line “guess i should have known from the look on your face” and i know this is one of the things people particularly do not like but i’m such a sucker for prop comedy: i think the shape of the lean-to cabin itself is the shape of an eye and also the belted waist part of her dress looks like an eye, i said what i said

-and this can’t help but feel like chance, but, we got this red carpet press photo of her grammy covering her eye

-something also feeling serendipitous, karlie got papped by some eye graffiti

APRIL

-The Vault reveal left me wanting to get my eyes checked 😂

☆ we realized one could make the argument that there’s a eye isolated by the mask on her male counterpart in willow, and that the mask has a drooping daisy embroidered on it

-i got the chance to talk a little bit more about my thoughts on the editing that went on with the mert and marcus rep photoshoot photos, and my thoughts on computer graphic manipulation as it relates to other things, in particular lead time

★ taylor seemed to have more fun with synching up the fearless tv clip to music 🙈

★ taylor’s mother’s day merch included a postcard with a daisy and the lyric “i love you for giving me your eyes”

MAY

-not for nothing, austin posted a picture of him at the Oculus building in NYC (oculus being a word that means eye, austin being someone who rarely updates his instagram these days)

★ karlie got back in the saddle with posting an eye out of frame

★ some preview photos of karlie’s green adidas collection were released, and they included this amazing shot

and wouldnt ya know it she made it her profile pic after the collection release

JUNE

★ more kayda funny business (i feel like there were a lot more of these but i wasn’t able to keep track)

★ karlie got papped wearing a prada jacket with a print of a one eyed beach babe

-taylor mixed up her words during a thank you speech while accepting an award and said “she helped me to edit my eyes” which i mean i don’t think it was intentional but it certainly made my year 🙈

★ karlie wore this versace blazer that inexplicably has a hole cut out of it to the right?? which was made even more meaningful given the fact that i had been spiraling over the tie with the hole in it in the lwymmd video a few months prior idk 😆

★ the how long do you think it’s gonna last album was announced with an… eye collage… 🙈🙈 and kept the promo coming into july with eye cutout moments like this

JULY

★ then the Renegade music video was released and it was just chock a block with eye manipulation! singled out eyes, taylor covering her right side eye with her hands, with her hair, the eyes on her face cut out and zoomed in on. like, i’m sorry, it’s 2021 and we are really doing this ladies???

-and i came up with a funny (/emotional)

-karlie met with schiaparelli in paris, who had just come out with a collection full of gilded eyes among other body parts

★ karlie blocked an eye for estée lauder —a true pastime— and thus began the formalization of the tradition of me waking up to karlie having posted something ocular to instagram

AUGUST

☆ adam rippon posted a little ode to karlie’s “looking camp right in the eye 👁 ” moment, which normally id just chalk up to it having become a meme but at the same time, bobby berk liked the post and they were both in the yntcd mv, so it’s sorta amusing

★ karlie posts “filed under baking inspo” moodboard which included a pic of a face made of food with one eye 🥴🥴🥴 like i’m sorry, is this not proof of acknowledgement 😆

★ karlie posts a photoset of her in workout clothes and she’s covering the left side eye in a lot of the pics

★ karlie wore some eye-like rain and sunshine earrings from two jewelers that also make custom lover’s eye jewelry

SEPTEMBER

★ taylor covered an eye on the tiktok

-i noticed that each of karlie’s adidas collections had their own moments

-also like this is simply an act of god but somehow taylor and karlie got a photo taken at the 2014 met gala where karlie is standing to the right next to a woman with an eye purse…?

☆we noticed two things about the UPS commercial she did during rep era

★ karlie hid an eye while getting ready for the met gala which was the start to a crazy crazy day here on kaylor tumblr

☆ someone kindly pointed out to me that birch feat. taylor swift just as names of trees goes is also sus 🥴

-we listed up some of the possibly eye theory -aligned taymoji

★ karlie posted a promo clip of her designing her met dress at carolina herrera and it had an eye moment

-taylor has sort of established winks as a Taylor’s Version easter egg gesture so i don’t really count things like this in the grand scheme of things but i can’t help but feel this wink was exaggerated in post which would mean the eye could have been edited, and for that i’ll mention it

-this is just an it’s a small world moment having to do with researching the band of outsiders brand

★ taylor using an eye covered pic of shania twain on her tiktok

★ karlie blocking eyes again in a photoshoot make that two

OCTOBER

✦★✶ karlie went to mert alas’ gin release party in paris I REPEAT she went to the party being held by the guy who took the rep album photoshoot photos aka the guy who took the actual eye theory photo and not only did she get a pic with him, she drank out of the gin glasses that had an eye like pattern cut into them???

★ karlie woke me up again and chose violence

-i forget how i ran into this but it’s this old photoshoot of karlie in a daisy full body suit with her arms and head in the shape of an eye idk lol

★ karlie posted a photoset with some eye blocking moments going on

NOVEMBER

-in a moment of meta, karlie got the chance to post a pic of bert and ernie to her instagram stories as she was also a part of the WSJ innovators issue

☆ taylor’s grammy dresses went on display and the waist fabric looked even more like an eye so sue me!

★ karlie really made it christmas morning every morning 🥴

★ RED TV lyric videos also got a moment

★ the IBYTAM video had us all reeling for plenty of reasons but i made sure to have my fun …kinda cool how it fits though 😂 this stood out to a lot of us and this too

-it’s the little things

-blame it on the vault crest and red dresses but i allowed myself to lean in to the crazy a bit more than usual and tbh i had the best time with it

☆ i had a thought about So It Goes as it relates to rep tour

-The Missing Eye Puzzle Piece it turned out that the missing capital one red bundle puzzle piece was simply missing, and it has been found, **but** i had an amazing couple of weeks imagining the ARG possibilities. oh and i still love that the right side eye is the 11th puzzle piece across, 8 rows down (karlie numbers)

DECEMBER

★ karlie posted again blockin an eye 😂

★ shes so good at finding an opportunity

★ karlie wearing a sweatshirt with an eye on it because why not i guess 🙈

-surely coincidental but i did laugh at where her music choice in this post led me

★ and it turned out the eye glassware at the mert alas gin release party ended up being used in the promo photos for the stuff

★karlie did a ‘comeback’ -esque spread for WSJ and she delivered

-add this to the list of potential cross-media tie in opportunities that surely weren’t intentional but i would point to in terms of what she could potentially do should she want to bring back this level of easter egging for reputation TV

★ waking up again to some uncanny carolina herrera hijinks

★ karlie blocking an eye again 🙈

-i talked a little bit about the evil eye ring making it’s appearances with the angel wing ring

★ like i said, this karlie post waiting for me when i woke up thing, it became a morning ritual

-there was a red tv album print mishap… istg the way i moved (is this what the kids say)

★ taylor blocked an eye in her new years reel

so there you have it, folks! 2021, a kaylor year that had me throwing my hands up and deciding to bend with the wind and roll with the punches… paid dividends?! i included the ephemera (the winks and out of frames) just because i see them as a sustainable avenue for the dreary new parent, but all these aside it still blows my mind how many distinctly significant things happened in conjunction with the theory this year and i hope very very deeply and earnestly that each and every one of you may have had the chance to crack a smile or two as well 😌

its weird… seeing karlie and mert photographed gave me this lavish sense of… coming full circle! but 🥰 who knows what next year will bring. what can i say, as if it was my greco-roman destiny, i know i will always beat the drum for this theory if they will have me. eye can’t help myself!

have a happy new year🥳

[scriptlgbt]

Meaning of LGBTQ+ labels in an extremely accepting world with magical transition

Question

Hey, I’m currently working in a fantasy world where that is accepting, and I’m thinking that even if transitioning via magic is widely available, would some trans people still not want to  - I’m not sure how to put this sorry if it comes out wrong - transition to exactly what their body would be had they been cis? And what might be some of their reasoning for this? I looked through your magical transition tag and the biggest problem seemed to be that transitioning via magic leaves out a pretty big chunk of experiences that would be valuable to trans readers today, and yeah, I’m not sure how to avoid that, considering in this world 1) wouldn’t be prejudiced - so I can’t do what, for example, Dreadnought by April Daniels does showing the parts of being trans outside of transitions (nor do I think I should, really, since I’m cis and it’s not up to me) and 2) the magic system I’ve made would definitely be able to help trans people transition so I’m not quite sure what to do with that.

Currently, I’m thinking that, since bodies wouldn’t really be gendered, most would alter(would that be a good word? It’s the best I currently thought of but it doesn’t sound right?) parts of their body that causes them dysphoria but otherwise just live their lives. There’s also this bit about me being unsure as to how to define ‘gay’ if nonbinary people are normalised but and also if people stopped defining gender by genitals, what childhood would look like in that world but. I do wonder if I’ve cast the concept a bit too far and if I should just rein it in a bit and have it maybe a bit less, for lack of a better word, ‘like that’? I guess my biggest question is how a world like that would look like and function, and since I’m cis I thought it’d be better if I asked some trans people their thoughts?

Also there’s two parts that didn’t quite fit about first same sex political marriages and a bit about how trans people tend to be better at medical magic, since something that makes practitioners of medical magic more effective is being able to mentally separate the concept of the body from the concept of the person and I wonder your thoughts on it.

Sorry that this turned out really rambly or sounds kind of half baked lol. I started this out just wanting to ask about magical transitions but then the fact that I’m sending an ask made my socially anxious self question parts of my logic, haha. So uh- yeah-

Answer

So, I’m going to try and segment this one out, in order of what’s easiest for me to answer. I realize you’ve looked through our blog a bit, so I apologize for the things I inevitably repeat, but I do feel they are important to address.

How to define gay with trans people (esp nonbinary people) normalized

Being gay is not currently defined by genitalia, contrary to what T*RFs seem to believe. To get to what it actually is, I’ll explain how orientation labels tend to be used in the trans community. To me, being gay means that I am interested in people who identify similarly to me in some way in terms of queerness. For some people, it’s trans lesbians who date women regardless of them being cis or trans. Whether nonbinary people are automatically part of that depends on the individuals. I’ve dated lesbians before (who were trans - I would not feel comf dating a cis lesbian) who used the older definition of it that means what we use the word “sapphic” to mean today. I also know people who use the term gay as shorthand for “I’m a man who is generally attracted to people in the vicinity of manhood” or even masculinity (even though masculinity and manhood are different - it’s complicated, people are complicated).

The point of labels is that they are a shorthand to communicate complex topics. They aren’t meant to replace those longer explanations, they are only to make communication referring to those complex identities easier. Labels are descriptive and not prescriptive, and every gay person has slightly different feelings.

I’m not going to tap into this too much because it only gets more complicated, but there’s also people who may feel differently about their orientation based on if they are attracted to androgynous people who may identify as the same gender to them, vs agender people who may not. I have to be honest that I haven’t actually heard anyone take this all too seriously or account that into the labels they ultimately choose to give, but it’s something sometimes that people talk about. I don’t think you need to go into it in your story, or even that you should per se, I just would feel remiss to not mention it as a thing people think about. I would generally say this is more of the binary variant folks who tend to wonder about it though, I don’t think cis people who date us worry about it. It’s not something that has a conclusion or universal answer. It’s just something people question the technicalities of sometimes in extended conversations.

My assumption for the future is that people will probably be taking to account community culture and history when using labels. This is already kind of a thing and it’s why a lot more people tend to identify with bi than pan, in part. There are a lot of people who identify as transsexual these days also because of the specific history of the community and what that means in relation to how they see themselves. This isn’t a flawless thing and there’s always a lot of intra-community discourse about the validity of weighing this vs your actual felt experience, and whether there is a prescription experience for every label that people using it should meet. (Again, this is So Dicey, I am not doing justice to the immensity of how much has been said about it. But it’s a thing people talk about in-community sometimes.)

Would trans people all want to look cis if they could? Why/why not?

I absolutely do not want to look cis. Being trans is an integral part of who I am, and people cannot know who I am without knowing that I am trans. I’d say that the majority of trans people who stay community-involved/connected to other trans people skew towards preferring to be visibly trans in some way. At least in a way that other trans people recognize us. But I also know a lot of trans people who love their bodies and don’t want to change anything. And no one does need to change anything to be a different gender than they were assigned. That’s all being trans means. (Add nuance for cultures outside of the colonial one I’m speaking from, who may have different ways of doing gender stuff.)

I think a lot of people with marginalized bodies, regardless of transness, can probably relate to being more concerned with how other people view our bodies than how we do. I’m perfectly content to let myself be fat and cozy and stim in the comfort of my own home, but I do feel like I have to put my guard up in public to get respect. I’m put in a position where I basically have to assume people expect me to apologize for my body. (Especially as a person who uses a rollator, and constantly needs accommodations from the public to open doors, move aside, etc.)

That isn’t to say that none of us would want to change a thing if we all had the equal chance and freedom to do so. But it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, and we would have more freedom to pick and choose the stuff we want. It is not that I want to be any particular gender, it is that I want to be myself, I want to make my body something I’m comfortable with. There’s some explaination of what dysphoria is here which might help parse out the particulars. (For the love of all that is good: please do not use the DSM to tell you what gender dysphoria is. That’s not what it is to the community, and the DSM should not have transness in it to begin with.)

But in an ideal world I would also have a lot of retractable body parts. And to be frank, I think there are cis people who would also probably find utility in such a thing. I’m going out on a limb here but I bet there are cis perisex women who would probably like to be able to retract their breasts while running down the stairs. And there are probably cis perisex men who would want to turn off boners at will too. There already are cis people who take HRT for a variety of reasons and who get surgeries of all kind. Trans people are not all that unique in any way besides our oppression in this particular regard. The main thing that defines us is that we identify outside how we were assigned, gender-wise.

Ethics of magical transition in your specific world

Note: This section has been tweaked a bit since original posting thanks to helpful comments in the notes! Thanks @kalu-chan for the added perspective. I rec folks read those replies as well since editing in nuance is not the same as reading it directly from who you learned it from. I want you to investigate your purpose for your story. Do you want representation or do you just want to write a whimsical story?

I generally give advice on writing good representation, including in a fantasy context. I feel that it nullifies representation when the audience of that demographic is… well… not represented.

Transitioning via magic would not just leave out “a chunk” of trans experiences today - they would literally leave all of us out. We don’t have magic to transition. BUT there are trans people who would want to see that anyway, and for whom magical insta-transition doesn’t compromise how they feel represented. But if you do this, I would strongly advise finding more ways to make the character relatable to a trans audience. This isn’t a good trope to apply to a periphery or throwaway character, because you won’t get to actually make them substantial enough to be good representation regardless. And if you do a one-and-done magical transition, you absolutely need to be aware of the fact that magical transition where a binary trans person goes from being called “female bodied” to “male bodied” and vice-versa is overrepresented as things are, and usually done with stereotypes of what cis people think trans people want. (I’m specifically thinking of the example explained in this post.)

There are aspects of the way transition can be written in a magical context to replicate real-world hormones and procedures, and that’s generally what I recommend to people. You can even enhance it and make it so that you can customize the formula for what you want. (Like having something that changes height, etc.) I don’t think you need to have a character taking any of these potions forever for it to be relatable. (I think some past askers have maybe assumed these potions should be taken forever? Which is fine, but not necessary.) A lot of trans people who take hormones go off hormones or lower the dose once they have the desired effect. (I’m to the impression this is the minority, but still a sizeable chunk do this.) Surgeries generally have a set number of procedures expected.

Another option you could do is to make a one-and-done magical transition something with a lot more involved with it. Like with some big magic chrysalis they meditate in for a very long time and then they… idk, hatch?? Out how they want. Or maybe there’s some kind of specific ceremony that involves herbs to be burned in a certain order and tea made with water from a waterfall collected on a full moon. It doesn’t need to be something difficult like that or anything, I’m just giving some options.

Just: please don’t use insta-transition as a means of compromising on writing a trans character as trans. We need to see ourselves in trans characters, and there’s more to that than simply transition.

Trans people being better at medical magic because of better ability to separate concept of body + person

I don’t personally like this because the idea of us not being our body is a narrative used to take away our bodily autonomy. Here’s an article I wrote about it in 2018 and here’s some stuff we’ve written before going into the issues with the “born in the wrong body” narrative. It isn’t our body as the fundamental difference here. My body is mine, tits or not. There are definitely trans people who resonate with this, but it’s more complicated.

You could also probably talk about this lens when it comes to disabled people. As a disabled person, my worth is often seen as what kind of labour I can put forth in order to give somebody else a profit. My worth is seen as limited, because my body is limited. That’s ridiculous.

But I think it’s reasonable that a person who is disabled would be better at medical magic because we’re more likely to know how different parts of the body work in order to problem-solve when possible. I’ve learned WAY more about how pain is experienced, what different bones, joints are, how collagen and cartilage works, different tests to figure out where an endocrine tumour is and what the risks associated are, etc etc from disabled people, than I have ever learned from a doctor or even a first aid course. I’ve also learned a lot about how to adjust and make accommodations for specific contexts and ways my body doesn’t work, and what kinds of help I need for that. That might be something to work with instead of trans people specifically.

I would honestly just try and frame it away from the person vs body thing. I think you could definitely write it in a way that works, but I think there’s a lot of work that would be needed to do it properly. You would need to understand the level of subhumanization implied when it comes to separating people from their bodies. You need to be able to acknowledge that even if we may be separate from our bodies in some regard, like if we have souls or whatever, we still have ownership of our bodies, some kind of tethered bond, at least as long as we are alive.

What this world would look like, if written well

I hope I’ve gotten to most of what you were wondering about, feel free to send a message when we can open the ask box again if there’s something I’ve left out. (Or reply, etc.)

I’d say that ultimately it’s okay if your story is not wholly utopian, and I think even if you go for that (at least in terms of Acceptance), it probably isn’t a good idea to label it that way because there might be more to the situation.

There are also ways to acknowledge trans experience in a world where questioning is totally normal. I mean, we already question who we are in so many other regards as people when we grow up. And for the rest of our lives even. Existing in a living body is an act of constant creation and regeneration until we die, and even then, we decay into an earth which grows things.

Have characters who are still figuring it our or who aren’t sure. Or who are, and change their presentation or transition-related stuff more often than those who aren’t, because fluidity is part of their nature. (I go on and off testosterone all the time! That’s totally fine and normal and doesn’t mean I am insecure about what I want at any given time.) (I don’t even identify as genderfluid, sometimes I like estrogen more than testosterone and vice versa. Though my gender has evolved a bit over time.)

I think there’s a lot of different and cool possibilities for what the future may hold and what fantasy can hold when it comes to trans people. I would also say that you don’t need to go in depth with this stuff, it’s just extremely helpful to know as much as you can. It makes it easier to write and to know where to step for representation that truly makes us feel seen, or like kin to a character.

It’s important to keep in mind that even if your story is super accepting, your audience is still living in a world that isn’t exactly that. How a character in a very accepting world may feel about magical transition, is obviously going to be different than how it lands with your audience. The trick to good representation is writing a world that reaches enough out to us to pull us in, and makes us want to keep reading. Seeing fully 3 dimensional trans characters is part of that. Even if we can’t see ourselves as a 1:1 parallel, it is nice to see data points that we might relate to our see our community members in.

This may not be for your story, but I also want to put it out there that it’s okay to have minor characters having their own problems and conflicts and not addressing that onscreen. A lot of cis people are understandably steering away from making huge complicated coming-out-went-awry (as the main focus) stories about trans people. But that doesn’t mean you should only ever represent trans people who were always completely accepted. Tbh, even trans people who are now accepted may have had roadbumps in that or lost a friend or several. It’s not always 100% good or 100% bad. And you absolutely Do Not need to make that part of the plot in order to write trans people who have been through that kind of thing. It can be in the past or offscreen, it can be just something that shows in your trans character’s decisions about who to trust or whatever. Not every obstacle we’ve been through is death, and not every acceptance we’ve had was easy or unfought for. Our lives are complicated and nuanced and there is room along the gradients. Develop your characters’ internal and external lives far beyond what goes on in the scenes you write, and your audience will recognize the difference.

- mod nat

[sunflower-swan]

Wolfstar chapter 6

A/N: Here’s what you need to know: I created this story for Writer’s Month 2020. Every day is a new prompt, and therefore a new chapter. This is an AU Wolfstar where Remus is a tattoo artist next door to Sirius who manages a flower shop. James and Lily are alive in this universe and own a coffee shop across the street. And to make parts of the story work with the prompts, Remus is about 10 years older than Sirius. It also takes place more or less in present time, minus Covid-19.

This is chapter 6 of a multi-chapter work. If you’d like to start from the beginning, here is chapter 1.

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. I just like to play with them.

Day 6 Prompt: Ocean

Rating: General

Word Count: 1992

Tags: original character, pining

Chapter 6

Remus

Monica, “For You I Will”

I will cross the ocean for you

I will go and bring you the moon

I will be your hero, your strength, anything you need

Remus and Sirius sat at their favorite corner booth at the Potter’s Wheel Cafe for their morning coffee ritual. Sirius was having his usual black coffee with cream and no sugar. While Remus preferred a sweeter mocha cappuccino.

“So Silas is in America then?” Remus asked. While waiting for Sirius, James and Lily had filled him in on the finer points of what transpired after the ‘You’re a wizard?!’ incident.

Sirius nodded with a small frown. “Took a long-distance portkey to New York early this morning.” He exhaled a sigh so heavy it flipped the hair that had fallen into his face. “Six...bloody...months.” He punctuated each word with a knock of his knuckles on the tabletop.

Remus felt bad for his friend. It was obvious he hadn’t gotten much sleep since they had last seen each other. His charcoal eyes usually glowed with a fire that burned through Remus' soul. Today they were a shadowy reflection rimmed in red, all spark gone out. And that was when they were open long enough for Remus to see them. Throughout most of their brief rendezvous this morning, his eyelids became heavier and heavier over his sunken eyes. 

“Maybe you should take the day off. Catch up on some sleep?” Remus suggested after Sirius’ head nodded forward for the third time.

“Hmm?”

Remus threw a couple Muggle bills down on the table. “Come on, Sirius.” He went around to the opposite side of the table and helped Sirius to his feet. “We’re going to get you home.”

Sirius acquiesced to Remus' touch, and the latter led them to the alley apparition point. Once there, Sirius attempted to shake loose of the grasp Remus had around his waist.

“I can manage, Remus,” he mumbled.

“No! No, no. You are in no state to apparate anywhere on your own. I’m impressed you didn’t splinch yourself getting here.” Remus tucked his arm into Sirius’. “Hold on to me.”

“Mmm, ok.” Sirius relaxed into his body.

Remus’ spine straightened and his breath caught at the warmth of Sirius’ body perfectly fitted against his. Restraining all his instincts, he pushed aside the inconvenient feelings, and turned with a POP.

They landed in a secluded area outside Sirius’ flat, and Remus helped him inside. He half-carried Sirius into the bedroom, walking past a faded leather jacket thrown over a chair in the corner, and unceremoniously dumped him into bed.

As he turned to leave, a photo on the nightstand caught his eye. He picked it up. It was a picture of himself with Sirius, James, Lily, and Harry, standing outside the Tattoo Lounge, about a month after he had opened.

James was holding little Harry in one arm and holding Lily’s hand with the other. Remus had his hands tucked into his pockets, and Sirius had an arm around his shoulders. Photo Remus was grinning broadly and kept casting covert looks at Sirius, whose hair was blowing around in his face.

The four of them almost immediately accepted him into their circle. Which, looking back, was a little funny considering they had thought Remus was a Muggle.

He chuckled softly to himself and set the picture back down. He had reached the doorway when he heard Sirius rustle behind him.

“Remus?”

He paused, placed a hand on the door jam and turned his head. “Yes?” 

“Did you know you smell like old books and chocolate?”

This declaration startled him. He swung around to question about this revelation, but found Sirius had started to snore.

~~~~~

Remus stopped by the Loft before returning to the Lounge to inform Sirius’ employees that he wouldn’t be in today. They seemed unaffected by the news that Sirius was ‘ill’. He didn’t see that they needed to know any details further than that.

Once he returned to the secluded solitude of his own shop, he attempted to look over his appointment schedule for the day. Despite his best efforts to focus on the task at hand, he found his mind was in another place. A very Sirius-centric place.

Old books and chocolate? Sirius said Remus smelled like old books...and chocolate. What did that mean? He had been almost asleep when he had made the statement. Did that matter?

Sirius smelled like fresh coffee and leather. Remus would be lying to himself if he said it hadn’t percolated into his subconscious over the last year and a half. Being in Sirius’ bedroom where his scent was everywhere had caused Remus’ insides to squirm.

Not that any of that mattered. Not really. Sirius was with Silas, and Sirius was his friend...nothing more.

Around mid-day, a middle-aged man wandered into the shop. The bell over the door dinged, and Remus glanced up from the magazine article he was reading.

Remus studied the man with interest. He was wearing black converse, cuffed light wash slim fit jeans, and a black tee. Remus couldn’t help but notice how well his toned body filled out the tee. The man looked around the place like he was surprised to find himself there.

“Can I help you?” Remus offered.

The man jumped. “Whoa! Didn’t see you there! Sorry!” He chuckled, placing one hand to his chest while the other ran through his salt and pepper crew cut. “Whew! Old ticker’s still working,” he added with a jovial smile, and a pat to his chest.

Remus grinned in spite of himself, and stood. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He apologized and held out his right hand. “I’m Remus, and I don’t usually make a habit of scaring my customers to death.” 

The stranger’s whiskey colored eyes sparkled. He grasped Remus’ hand in his rough and calloused one. “I’m Logan.”

A bolt of electricity shot through Remus at the handshake, and he cleared his throat. “Ahem. So, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“This is a tattoo parlor, right? I thought the answer to that question would be self-explanatory.” Logan ran a hand across his five o’clock shadow with a mischievous grin.

Oh, brother. Someone thinks they’re a comedian. He forgot to roll his eyes because he was lost in Logan’ sparkling, sepia-flecked ones. “Did you have anything in mind?” You tall drink of probably straight water, he added in his head.

“No,” Logan said with a shrug and a smile that showcased his gleaming straight white teeth.

Right… “Ok. Well, I have a book here of some of the pieces I’ve done.” Remus pulled the book out and laid it open on the table. “You can look through here and tell me if anything jumps out at you.”

Logan leaned over and pulled the book toward him. “You did all these?” he asked in an impressed tone. He eyed Remus up and down before turning back to flip through the pictures.

Remus felt his face flush. He felt very exposed after the ‘check-out’ Logan just gave him. Maybe not so straight after all. He attempted an air of coolness and leaned one hand on the desk to peer through the pictures with Logan. “Yep. All me.”

“Very impressive.” Logan nodded his head.

Remus grabbed his sketch book and a pencil, and hopped up to sit on the desk. “Tell me about yourself,” he said, flipping to a blank page.

Logan's eyes widened only for a moment before he straightened up and leaned his hip against the desk. “Buy a man a drink first,” he said with a sly smile.

Godric, give me strength, said one part of his brain. While the other said, A little harmless flirting never hurt anyone! Instead, he waved the sketch book and said, “I’m going to sketch you a design.”

“Buy me a drink anyway,” Logan said, and took a step closer to Remus.

His sandalwood musk, which Remus had noticed the moment he stepped through the door, was now in sharp relief and threatening to overpower his other senses. At that exact moment, someone else, who smelled like fresh coffee and leather, burst through the door.

“Remus!” yelled the new man.

Logan jumped back the distance from which he had traveled moments before. Eyes and mouth wide in shock at the interruption.

“Remus?”

Remus looked between the confused look on Sirius’ face and the startled one on Logan’s, knowing exactly what this looked like.

“Sirius.” Remus attempted nonchalance. As if a ridiculously good-looking and age-appropriate man, practically breathing down his neck, was an everyday occurrence.

Logan sighed in defeat and stole the sketchbook and pencil out of Remus’ hands. Before Remus could protest the theft, he wrote something in it, closed it, and handed it back to him. “Call me,” he said with a wink and strode out of the tattoo shop, giving Sirius a curt nod.

Remus clasped his hands together in his lap, and lifted a questioning eyebrow at Sirius.

“Is that your attempt to look innocent?” Sirius asked, joining Remus sitting on the desk.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” Remus replied.

“Huh, right.” Sirius picked up the sketchbook and flipped through the pages. “And ‘no idea what I’m talking about’ just happened to leave you his number?”

Remus ripped the sketchbook out of his grasp and stood up. Sirius was grinning like the cat who caught the canary.

“Quit grinning like that,” he said. “What did you want anyway before you disrupted...nothing?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sirius fluttered the paper he was clutching in his hand. “Got a letter from Silas!” He looked down at the letter. “He says he made it to America fine. And he said he gets a personal day tomorrow, and he had a really cool idea.” Sirius' eyes sparkled. “At noon tomorrow, I go to Land’s End in Sennen, Penzance. At the same time, he goes to Montauk Lighthouse in New York. Then we can wave at each other across the ocean. Isn’t that sweet?”

As Sirius finished explaining The Plan, Remus could only nod in disbelief. “If it’s noon here, isn’t that like, 7:00 A.M. in New York?”

“Well, yeah. Anyway, want to come with me?”

“Come with you?”

“Yeah. To Land’s End tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

Sirius' face split in a grin from ear to ear. He rushed forward and clutched Remus in a rib-splitting hug. “Thank you so much! I couldn’t stand to go alone. I have to go arrange a portkey.” He released Remus and started for the door. “See you around eleven o’clock tomorrow?”

“Sounds good.” Remus waved as Sirius ran out the door. 

Why… Remus sat back down in his office chair and rubbed his hands over his face. He put his elbows on the desk. Closing his eyes, he rested his chin in his palms while his fingertips massaged his temples. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Remus contemplated why Sirius had asked him. Why not James? Why did Remus agree so quickly and easily to accompany him?

After some time had passed, Remus stood to look for something constructive to do. The scent of coffee and leather lingered long after Sirius had left, and it made his stomach ache as he paced around the shop. He picked up items only to deposit them somewhere else a moment later. Eventually, he picked up the sketchpad. He looked down on it a long time, before slowly flipping open to the page where Logan had left his number.

Remus hadn’t noticed at the time, but the smell of sandalwood that Logan brought into the shop had disappeared the moment Sirius had appeared. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Logan was really cute. Impossibly really cute. And age appropriate. Maybe he should call him. Maybe...

Remus slammed the book shut and threw it on the desk. Then he sank to the floor and rested his head on his arms between his bent knees. Who was he kidding? He doesn’t date. He can’t date. Not in his condition. And not handsome Muggles.

Next Chapter: Chapter 7