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illegiblewords · 1 month

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I want to take a second to talk about Mary Sues as I understand them. And by Mary Sues, I mean all variants unbound by gender or style.

People used to discuss Mary Sues a lot back in the early 2000's. There were litmus tests all over defined by superficial qualities like hair/eye color, number of love interests, whether a tragic backstory existed, etc. Readers would run up to strangers with hate reviews if an OC didn't meet their standards. It was common to accuse disliked canon characters of being Mary Sues too. There were lists of works that were considered guilty of Mary Sue creation assembled for mockery. The whole thing became a form of public bullying and I think it scared a lot of creators into not trying anymore. I suspect it's a huge part of why we keep getting y/n and other open self-insert fics these days.

At some point, the public shifted. People attempted to defend Mary Sues by equating them with all power or romance fantasies then claiming the only reason such characters would be vilified is sexism toward a female default archetype. By doing this, most people stopped examining the phenomenon altogether--not only in understanding what the actual common factor in Mary Sues is, but why Mary Sues are alienating to readers.

That answer was a cop out. I promise that Mary Sues are just as off-putting with characters of any gender, demographic, orientation, whatever. And frankly it doesn't matter if your character is the most generically designed, unassuming, non-tragic shlub of all time--they are still capable of being a Mary Sue if the structural issues remain.

Mary Sues are normal among developing writers. I've certainly made Mary Sues before. They were cringe af and occasionally I discuss them behind closed doors if I want to make someone laugh. Created them in dead earnest as a teen and holy fuck it was parody level. Everything I talk about is as someone who is 0% free from sin lmao.

Before I give my definition of what a Mary Sue is, I need to explain something about characterization that is often overlooked.

There is micro, individual characterization and there is macro, population characterization. Worldbuilding requires characterization too. You need to look at a group's motives, influences, psychology, resources, etc. the same way you would for individual characters while allowing room for varied experiences. You need to know the cause/effect of societal development. It isn't something you can just wave away as 'because I said so' because that dehumanizes the entire population, which makes the world less believable/immersive. A less believable world in-turn strips individual characters of experiences and perspectives that shape who they are. This has a flattening effect and makes characters less believable and relatable too. Tradition, style, and genre def shape how much detail is needed but some degree of macro-characterization is necessary.

With that said, I'd argue that Mary Sues are characters who (rather than having behavior believably shaped by experiences or operating within the parameters of the world they inhabit) define themselves for how they are exempt. It doesn't matter if the exception to cause/effect is positive or negative. Mary Sues are also prone to being the most at what they do. Most ordinary/boring counts. Mary Sues will warp the experiences, perspectives, and desires of other cast members around themselves like black holes without it being acknowledged as abnormal by the other cast members or the narrative. Cause and effect in relationship building through behavior/choices does not apply, a Mary Sue does not start from zero like a regular person. Lore and stories revolve around Mary Sues exclusively even when it doesn't make any sense for that to be the case. Every significant thought or experience of other cast members ties back to Mary Sues too. Positive or negative, Mary Sues are likely the only and most meaningful relationship characters will have. Design elements (when present) tie to exceptionalism and lack of cause/effect.

Being a chosen one or someone with unrivaled power/influence in a particular arena isn't enough to make a character a Mary Sue if it is cohesive within the world. These things also tie heavily to characterization in response to situations as well as the dynamics with others/characterization of others. The existence of Mary Sue tends to preclude any alternate meaningful relationships or experiences for other cast members, and again--Mary Sue is specifically not shaped by experiences in credible ways. They don't experience meaningful internal change. They're pretty much always right or always wrong. And having an exceptional or rare experience (ex. someone did an experiment with odd results on a character) isn't enough to cause a Mary Sue either if that experience or exception remains consistent within the overall worldbuilding/macro-characterization. So ex. if there were similar experiments being conducted on or by others, that would go a long way to addressing exceptionalism. Isekai characters who come from one world to another are not inherent Mary Sues, because the isekai character still carries and is shaped by both their previous life experiences and the life experiences of their new environment. The source world is still part of the overall setting that shapes them. In-universe reality warpers also don't count as Mary Sues because reactions to reality warping tend to be organic and not normalized by the narrative.

There are degrees in how much a character is or isn't a Mary Sue, but lack of cause/effect, absolutism, and exceptionalism are big. The reason Mary Sues are bad storytelling is because they are not credibly human (figurative), diminish the humanity of other cast members, and diminish the humanity/construction of the entire world simultaneously. They lack believable consequences for any choices made--be they positive or negative. Stakes/tension are skewed as a result. Mary Sues tend to be static and they not only break immersion, they alienate readers because it's a form of destroying a world and cast the audience is invested in. There is no reason for random strangers to love Mary Sues. Mary Sues don't come across as authentically alive in any capacity, but more as poorly done caricatures of life.

And the thing is, they often don't work for wish-fulfillment fiction either. Wish-fulfillment (when the reader imagines experiencing the story in the role of protagonist) gets passes on certain technical elements necessary in empathy-based storytelling (when the reader forms opinions of cast members as distinct people) or intellect-based storytelling (the reader is exploring a philosophical or medium-based concept).

In wish-fulfillment, it is very important that the writer creates a main character who many audience members can project themselves onto. Usually such characters are left somewhat underdeveloped to facilitate this. Whether it's a power fantasy (reader imagines having luxury/influence), a romance fantasy (reader obtains an ideal partner), or even revenge fantasy (reader has an outlet for anger without consequences)--in wish-fulfillment it's important that not only the author but a wide range of readers can share in the fantasy. While it's possible to get limited success with some Mary Sues here, I think the extreme, specific, hyper exceptional nature of Mary Sues often distracts. Again, wish-fulfillment finds strength in how well it shares fantasies with audiences. If the audience is so caught up that they can't effectively project themselves onto the Mary Sue (being hyper aware of the Mary Sue's artificiality), that isn't going to work. If the fantasy doesn't resonate with audiences, it won't go as far either.

Imagine taking James Bond and giving him natural purple eyes and hair in a world where no one else has that. He'd never lose a single fight or struggle to escape peril, never wreck one of the fancy cars he's given, never have a single advance rejected. Bond is a power and romance fantasy character no doubt, but his limits are significant in keeping him from being a Mary Sue. There are plots and relationships that have nothing to do with him beyond details in the mission he was assigned and those keep things immersive.

All this said. If you're telling a story for yourself, and only yourself--doesn't matter if your character is a Mary Sue. Once you bring other people in, you have to think about what you're trying to achieve as a storyteller in terms of interpersonal communication. That includes whether the experiences you're crafting for readers are effectively realized.

Mary Sues are a normal part of learning. They aren't immoral or unforgivable. Mostly they invoke a self-centered mindset supposing the entire world/everyone in it revolves around you in some way. Again, I've made 'em lol--think immaturity is a big part of the practice. But in a story where everything revolves around you, that doesn't necessarily share well with readers who aren't you who are still the heroes of their own stories.

Making Mary Sues is a craftsmanship issue. It's like trying to build a chair only for one leg to come out wobbly. It can be your favorite chair sure, but that doesn't make it well-crafted. Certainly no one owes you money or praise for it. Hell, they wouldn't owe those things if it was a perfectly crafted chair but not the chair they were after.

Part of what motivated me to write this is because I've seen certain creators with wobbly chairs. They've slapped on carvings, stains, and all kinds of features--but the chair still wobbles like a motherfucker. These creators don't understand why more people aren't buying their chair. They think people must hate them personally or the material their chair is made from then fly into rages accusing audiences of moral deficiency. It's hit a level of bullying in its own right.

To people like that I say:

Your chair wobbles. It'll do way better if it doesn't wobble. The wobble is fixable. Strangers are not obligated to fawn over your wobbly chair. There isn't something wrong with them for not wanting a wobbly chair. Wobbly chairs haven't done well historically either. You're not an exception, just one in a very long line of wobbly chair makers. Some of those chairs were made of the same material you're using. Some were different. It isn't about the material or your staining, your carvings, any of that. It isn't about you either. Your chair can't support itself--let alone someone trying to sit in it. Even if your prospective customers couldn't make a better chair themselves, they can tell when shit's unsteady and they don't want that. Of course you're making wobbly chairs before you make sturdy ones because you're still figuring chair construction out. This is just a part of the process you haven't mastered yet. It takes attention and practice. If you spent half the energy you use yelling at other people honing your craft instead, you'd probably have better sales.

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deafmangoes · 8 months

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The Ferengi: Misogyny, Sexuality and Internalised Homophobia

A two-parter! In this essay I'd like to explore and discuss two specific headcanons, and how they are reflected in the display of Ferengi culture throughout DS9:

That Quark is gay

That Rom is genderfluid/non-binary

... and that neither of them have the tools or language to express it.

Part I: Quark is Gay

One element of Star Trek I love is the alien cultures, and the way that through many writers and several decades of work they get built up into complex snapshots of life different to our own, even if they can still be a little Planet of Hats.

Before DS9 the Ferengi were a barely seen race brought up a couple of times in TNG, and always characterised as hyper-capitalist, greedy goblinesque figures. I imagine they were thought up as a direct foil to the Federation: they valued everything the Federation had left behind.

But! Then the DS9 writing team made the decision to bring in Quark, and through him we see so much more of the Ferengi and their culture over DS9's run.

Now obviously the "Quark is gay" theories are hardly new (I mean the show pretty much spells it out with the way he looks at Odo) but I wanted to try and tackle, arguing in-universe, why Quark is closeted even to himself. Firstly, Ferengi culture forbids women from having any place in society except as objects, even more strictly than any real-life culture has ever been. Despite being a spacefaring people, Ferengi women (stated to make up near 53% of their species) are forbidden to own property, run a business, wear clothes in public or exist as individuals divided from their male owners (and they are owned - Quark and Rom discuss Rom's former marriage in one episode, and it's clear that Ferengi marriages are a contract between the father/male 'guardian' and the new husband where the bride is purchased specifically for the role of bearing children).

The only Ferengi women we see in DS9 are - as a necessary consequence - challenging these societal norms. Quark's mother, Ishka, is present in a number of episodes and flouts expectations by wearing her own clothes in public, openly advising on business matters, and later leading the first Ferengi feminist movement! The gif above is taken from S2E07 "Rules of Acquisition" where Quark has to do business with Pel: a female Ferengi masquerading as a male (specifically here using false ears - Ferengi are sexually dimorphic and males have larger ears. One episode indicates they 'shed' them as they grow, meaning it might be a specific male puberty thing).

Quark is a traditionalist. He is, in fact, deeply religious: the Ferengi faith results around the acqusition of wealth so that you can reincarnate into a better life. In essence, it's dharma but with material goods. He resents his mother for her 'failings' (in his eyes) and is horrified by Pel's existence and activities... once he knows she's a woman! He views women as sexual objects for his gratification, and more than once attempts to extort his employees for sexual favours.

But you may argue that Quark isn't gay, because he's only ever shown affection (and overt sexual interest) towards women. He flirts with Jadzia, he flirts with Kira, with Ezri, with all of his female staff and more. But it becomes a little less clear when you get into it.

In S2E07 Pel, still presenting male, kisses Quark in a moment of passion and his reaction is... complicated. He protests, but struggles with it. His discomfort seems less to do with Pel being 'male' and rather his internalised reaction to that. Later still he denies it ever happened! Once confronted with Pel's actual gender he flounders: he realises he has (had?) feelings for her, wants her gone from his life, but also worries about the repercussions if anyone from Ferenginar found out about their business together. Pel leaves at the end of the episode, reconciled to him, and Jadzia comforts the obviously heartbroken Quark. So, was Quark attracted to Pel the male or Pel the female? I would argue he fell for Pel's presentation, and I think there are several more examples of this.

His flirting/borderline/actual sexual harassment of Jadzia and Kira are played off as him being lecherous but... notice something here. These are two women who are very confident, outgoing, public, good at management and business, strong-minded and strong-willed... all traits Feregi culture assigns solely to men. Due to character development his relationship with Ezri unfolds differently (Ezri's definitely enby but that's a different essay...), but his attraction to her lies primarily in his memories of Dax through Jadzia.

To restate the point: he is not attracted to women. He is attracted to women who, in his eyes, act like men.

Then there's the whole... thing with Odo.

This gif, taken from S3E25 "Facets", kinda highlights the whole thing. Odo - merged with the... 'spirit'(?) of Curzon, and containing the personalities and desires of both, grabs Quark by the external erogenous zones and kisses him. Quark and Odo's feelings for one another are very, very gay, although both dress it up in this constant cat-and-mouse game they play. When Odo falls in love with Kira, Quark's the one complaining to Jake Sisko about all the "lonely nights" he "comforted" him. At the end of the series, as Quark puts it:

"Can't you see? That man loves me. It's written all over his back."

Odo, then, is the exception to the above examples: Quark shows a clear affection for Odo, complicated as it may be by their 'professional relationship', but Odo very much presents male.

Well. Sort of. Odo uses he/him pronouns but his actual relationship to gender is left unspoken. I think this is what gives Quark the excuse to open the closet door a little where Odo's concerned.

So why can't Quark just admit he's gay? As I stated above, Quark is a deeply religious, conservative and traditionalist Ferengi (or at least he tries to be... and I think there's something in that, too). There is no discussion of queer identities in Ferengi society, but based on what little of that society we see, I believe that queerness (at least in males) would be strongly discouraged and penalised. Much like real-life homophobia, it would be seen as 'womanly', 'feminine', and therefore undermine what it meant to be a Ferengi (because remember... women aren't Ferengi. A Ferengi with no wealth is no Ferengi at all).

Quark, therefore, cannot be gay, because it would be contradictory to his very sense of self. He's like the gay son of a homophobic evangelical pastor: so deeply conditioned to bury it that he has to act the 'proper' Ferengi despite the fact that he clearly struggles with it. Quark's not as greedy as his peers. He's not as callous or cruel. He has moments of great compassion and kindness, even generosity (which is almost a sin), and, perhaps the strongest piece of evidence to me...

He runs a dinky bar, in a run-down Cardassian space station that until recently was a one-horse town. And he LOVES it. He refuses to give up that bar. He fights for it. When he franchises it at the end of the series, does he move on up to better locations? Nope. He's right there with the dodgy replicators and aging holosuites.

Quark's Bar is his expression of queerness. It's an eccentricity that any 'good' Ferengi would have dumped long ago. Several characters comment on it, and Quark waves them off.

He loves that bar, he loves Odo, and frankly he loves romanticism. Quark is a hopeless gay romantic that, if he ever tried his hand at poetry, would make galaxies weep.

And we love him for it.

#deafmangoes #ds9 quark #star trek ds9 #deep space nine #star trek deep space nine #ds9 #wow this ended up much longer than I expected #I am apparently passionate about defending queer readings of nineties aliens

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spacelazarwolf · 1 year

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at the risk of sounding gatekeepy/transmed-y (which i assure i’m not, and it’s not my intention to be), as a queer older-teen who has been out in some capacity since i was about 10 years old, it can be… really really frustrating that almost all of the queer people that i’ve met at my school (and lots that i’ve met online, too) are people who 1 realized they were queer during the pandemic full stop, but also 2 realized they were queer during the pandemic and have only ever been out in a relatively sheltered, accepting environment (and i find the latter is extremely common).

and while i’m very glad and all that being queer is safer for lots of young people nowadays, it can feel very alienating when it’s so obvious that these other baby queers, though we are the same age, have so much less experience engaging with queerness itself in a thoughtful way & engaging with other queer people in a thoughtful way. they’re very flippant with their use of slurs despite having never been called them, they ask others about their sexuality/gender without thinking how that might be extremely anxiety inducing and invasive and uncomfortable for closeted people—even in a “safe space.” like, i still feel sick and anxious when i hear queer topics being talked about casually irl! sure, i’m recovering, slowly, but the violence i faced for being queer is still traumatizing- it doesn’t matter how safe the space is! and they just can’t comprehend that.

idk. while i’m happy that some people live in more accepting places than i did, it’s just so fucking frustrating that i can’t connect with anyone i know irl (with the exception of like… one person lol) over the collective trauma of growing up openly or closet-ly queer in a shitty middle school, because it isn’t something that’s commonly shared anymore, i guess. it’s getting harder and harder for me to find queer people in my age group who have actually been the target of queerphobic violence, whether that’s physical or emotional. and i can’t help but resent them for it.

anyway. this turned into a rant oops but i initially was sending this ask in response to the conversation about gen Z queers who are really into slurcourse and identity discourse and such, and like. i fully believe a big reason behind that is because since they don’t have real life experiences of oppression to look back on, it’s harder for them to see the bigger picture of queerphobia and how fucking dumb identity discourse is, because they’ve never directly experienced oppression that Actually Matters. like i think once you’ve been assaulted for being queer, you realize that discourse does not fucking matter. it’s a maturity and experience gap i think, regardless of age. so that’s my 2 cents as a gen Zer queer who grew up in the shitty midwest lol

yeah a lot of the people who are really into specifically online discourse like slur discourse and identity discourse usually haven't had much to deal with in their real lives. which like. i'm glad bc maybe that means shit's getting better even though it's scary now. but it's also frustrating as someone who has experienced a lot of irl discrimination.

#ask avishai

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the-meat-machine · 10 months

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how do you think caliborn would react to trans people? like, i could see him going either way, although i think the idea of someone being mtf would absolutely fucking baffle him. but, like, otherwise im pretty torn on him.

(Content warning for transphobia, misogyny, and binarism.)

So, just to address this right off the bat - I don't think Caliborn would be a bioessentialist. He has less than zero understanding of human anatomy. The idea that gender is in any way connected to what someone has in their pants would be bizarre and alien to him.

That doesn't mean Caliborn wouldn't have incredibly shitty attitudes towards trans people. They'd just be shitty in really weird ways.

The good(?) news is that I think he would approve of trans men. (Whether we want his approval is a different story, however.) Trans men have made the only correct choice with regards to gender and he hopes they get strong and grow lots of manly muscles.

Meanwhile, learning that trans men exist accomplishes the heretofore-thought-impossible task of making Caliborn respect women even less than he already did. You mean all along they could have chosen to be men but instead they decided to keep being women?? SO dumb.

And yeah, he'd be awful about trans women. They were strong badass males and gave it all up to become girls??????????? A literally inconceivable choice. It wouldn't occur to him to disbelieve that they're women, but frankly that only makes his contempt for them all the greater.

He has no idea what to think about anything outside of the binary. He feels that opting out of the system should be against the rules, and it is confusing and frustrating that apparently it isn't. He grudgingly respects that at least they had enough sense not to be women. Except, they could have chosen to be men like the trans men did, right? So what gives. Why didn't they do that. Stupid.

So yeah, that's my interpretation. Basically Caliborn is awful. Sorry.

#transphobia cw #misogyny cw #binarism cw #this question sparked me writing up a whole bunch of thoughts on cherub sex and gender #but i cut it all out of this post because it was getting way too off-topic #gonna have to make it into a separate post i guess #also! obviously all of this is just my interpretation. i can imagine other takes on this that would work just as well #like maybe caliborn respects the decision to take control of your own destiny #even if the destiny you want is really stupid and makes no sense #(p.s. caliborn is sooooo fucking trans. he just doesn't realize it because he understands jack shit about both cherubs AND humans)#(i will elaborate further at some point. no one could shut me up about this subject if they tried.)

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poisonflowercorvidae · 1 year

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Hey, while searching through ao3 I came around "My Other Half " and I just loved it (and I kind of finished really fast). Do you have some kadewave hc?

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I never really expected anyone to pay much attention to that fic with such an out-there premise, but it means a lot to me that people did/do.

Sorry for the late response, but this got looooong.

My thoughts and headcanons for Kadewave are kind of all over the place because I've shipped these two practically since I first started watching Rescue Bots, and their dynamic changes so much over the course of the series that I think a lot of the specifics of how they get together and what their relationship is like depends on when it all happens in relation to the series and how canon compliant things are

Some headcanons I tend to hold regardless of all that:

Kade and Heatwave are monogamous. I think the idea of polyamory being normalized in Cybertronian society is pretty neat, but it's still not for everyone, and these two just strike me as the kind that would stand by one partner at a time

Heatwave is the jealous type. This is just canon, I think. (Blades: "Kinda scary, but I'm rethinking the whole Kade partner option." Heatwave: "Rethink again.") He's pretty good at reigning it in except for a snappish comment here or there, so Kade mostly finds it funny

Kade has more experience with relationships. It's not necessarily good experience--he messes up a lot in his relationships and/or falls for the wrong people--but he has dated more. While Heatwave has lived longer, even after accounting for stasis, he's kind of the "married to the job" type and spent too much time playing leader and eldest-brother-figure to the rest of Sigma 17 to really do all that much dating

Heatwave can still be a tease, though, especially after they get together, because it’s fun to rile Kade up

We know, from when Cody and Frankie time traveled, that Griffin Rock is more progressive with regards to racial issues than much of America has been, so I tend to think GR also has less of a homophobia/transphobia problem, so Kade doesn’t have to struggle so much with the gender/sexuality aspect of being attracted to Heatwave. The “He’s a giant alien robot” part still took some work, even after they start respecting each other more as firefighting partners

Most of the resistance on both sides to their feelings was still more about how stubborn/hotheaded the other one is

Heatwave does worry over Kade a lot. Like, it’s one thing if Kade stubs his toe or gets a paper cut because of his own stubborn carelessness; Heatwave will just roll his optics or huff some kind of, “Why do you always do that?” But if it’s even the littlest bit more than that--if Kade catches a cold or gets a burn on the job or something--Heatwave will obsess over it and what he could have done to prevent that

Usually, I think there isn’t so much a first to confess or realize their feelings; they just sort of gravitate towards each other over time. The exact timeline or AU could change that, and I can see either one of them spitting it out in a fit of passion after a tense scene, but especially in more canon compliant timeline, it’s just something they kind of...fall into, whether or not they actually talk about it

Neither of them are good at talking about their feelings in either universe. They eventually get better, but they rarely if ever say they love each other around other people/bots, even in timelines where they don’t go through massive misunderstandings before getting together. They’re excellent at showing each other they care, though

Their relationship isn’t 100% an Everyone Can See It situation--some people definitely assume they’re just Buds--but a few people can pick it out. Usually the rest of the extended family, but some faster than others: Cody, because he’s perceptive; Chief Burns, because he’s a Wise Dad; Dani, because she’s a romantic but also because she knows the difference between her own sisterly mocking of Kade versus Heatwave’s metaphorical pigtail pulling; Blades, because he and Dani love to gossip; and Blurr, because whether they mean to or not, Kade and Heatwave trying to train his recklessness out of him definitely results in them dad-ing him

Like I said, a lot of this plays out differently on timeline/universe points. For most of these, I’m going to either assume Kade and Hayley break up or ignore that they got together in the first place, though the polyamory or Kade cheating on Hayley angles are still valid for other people who want to explore them. It’s just for me personally, I really only see Kadewave happening if Kade isn’t with Hayley.

The most canon-compliant version is also probably the most laid back and chill version of them getting together. It wouldn’t happen until late in season 4 or after, because Kade is still dating Hayley through most/all of that season in canon, but by that point in the series, Kade and Heatwave have really mellowed out. Listen to them talking about Blurr at the beginning of “Need for Speed” (Heatwave: “He’s as stubborn as you are.” Kade: “And as hot-headed as you.”); just the way they say it, Heatwave’s done with Blurr’s shit but Kade shoots back all amused and kind of fond. They bicker and trade barbs, but it’s in that “Close enough to argue” (or, if you prefer, Old Married Couple) kind of way where how much they like each other still bleeds through, and by this point in the series, they aren’t arguing about important things like how to do their job any more. It’s smooth going. So, Hayley and Kade split, and after a little while, Heatwave and Kade move from, “Hey, actually, I like this guy,” to, “Oh, hey, I like this guy,” and that’s that.

My Other Half/The Parts of Me I Hide mostly follows that track but with the complications of 1) being set in an AU where sparklings can happen (and interspecies sparklings, specifically, can happen) and 2) Kade getting horribly, terribly broken-bones-and-blood hurt. It turns what could be a simple slide into a relationship into a dramatic mess via bumping against all their issues of not talking about their feelings and Heatwave reacting to Kade getting hurt etc etc.

If we go way back to the first season up through season 2′s “Changes,” this is where Kade and Heatwave are in full tsun4tsun mode. Neither of them wants to admit even to themselves that they like each other, even after they get over the initial friction of their introduction. This is deffo in the zone of, “If they get together, it’s probably after some kind of blow-up fight,” and even then it’s not likely because they’re both too busy going No, absolutely not, I do not find this aggravating creature attractive no matter how many dangerous situations we face down together. “Changes” definitely marks a shift in their relationship because Kade has to acknowledge that Heatwave does actually like him as much as the reverse (”Heatwave cherishes your partnership,” anyone?). It might still take him a while to process what exactly he feels and whether or not Heatwave cares about him in the same way, but it’s definitely the crack in the damn that makes him stop lying to himself that he doesn’t like Heatwave somehow.

Season 3 is the awkward middle ground where they know their own feelings, they have to know that the other likes them to some degree, and while they aren’t really pretending about it anymore, they aren’t ready to say anything about it, either. It’s this dance around it, and all it would take is one little slip to tumble head first into a relationship and--oh hey, new recruits! Let’s deal with getting them integrated into life here rather than deal with whatever we’ve got going on

Some My Other Half/The Parts of Me I Hide specific headcanons:

Heatwave is mad at himself for the first class of recruits hurting Kade because he thinks he should have been there to step in sooner. It might or might not have actually affected the outcome, but he blames himself a bit all the same

This was an exchange I had in mind for the fic that got cut, but Heatwave and Kade definitely had an argument about The Incident that included an exchange along the lines of “What if you’d lost a leg or an arm?” “I’d say I’d be the first amputee fire fighter, but someone already beat me to it. Guess I’d have to settle for the first in Milford.”

Their second sparkling is a daughter named Spitfire

“So, if we’re dealing with a universe without sparklings, where DID Kade go?” Yeah, I’m still working my headcanon for that one out myself.

#headcanons meta and discussions #maccadam #kadewave #transformers

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munku-collar · 2 years

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I’ve seen multiple people recommend reading your post about the bi erasure in the cats fandom but I can’t find it, do you have an approximate date so I know how far to scroll or any other help finding it cause I want to read it 😔😔

I'm flattered so many people are recommending my posts omg 💀 You're not finding any posts though because they're less coherent PSAs and more me flinging out words in anger and justified rage randomly, so they're incredibly difficult to find. I'll try to sum them up here, as well as a few connecting issues. Extremely long post!

Fandoms in general, and this fandom is no exception, have a misogyny and biphobia issue and the two are definitely intertwined. Male characters always get more attention, more development, more love and fanart and content than female characters, even from the canon creators. The queens are constantly overlooked or flat out removed from the narrative to make more room and give more attention to the toms. I test this theory a lot and I've found that a cast photo of a tom will absolutely get more notes than a photo of a queen, and even in group photos, if there is a queen in the photo it will get less notes than a photo with just toms in it.

Regularly I find queens removed from narratives or having their established dynamics with another character, especially a tom, eradicated or extremely downplayed and relegated to loose friendship in favor of shipping that tom with another tom. I've seen this happen with Munkustrap and Demeter, Rum Tum Tugger and Bombalurina, Plato and Victoria, as well as with Demeter and Macavity, among others. Repeatedly the female romantic interest is pushed aside so the man can be shipped with another man. No one denies certain toms having chemistry, but the women get pushed out of the picture entirely or become props for the new ship, and that's really disheartening.

And many claim to headcanon several toms, like Munk and Tugger, as bisexual. But here's the thing: their female love interests get ignored. It's like 'yes they're allowed to be bisexual, but only be in same sex relationships.' People completely erase their established attraction to women, and spoiler alert: being bisexual means being interested in more than one gender. Yes Rum Tum Tugger is a bi icon!! But he's only allowed to be in love with Misto. He doesn't love Bomba. Yes Munkustrap is bisexual! But he's only allowed to be in love with Misto, or Alonzo, or Mungojerrie, even though he and Demeter clearly have something going on.

It's this constant pushing away of female characters that's frustrating. Because a lot of bi people enjoy poly content, and we'd love to have poly ships for our favorite characters, but instead the women are always pushed aside and ignored, and as a woman myself it's very frustrating. It feels alienating and unwelcoming. It's like women don't have a place in the fandom, and neither do bisexuals.

There's a major problem in society when it comes to bisexuals in general. You're always pressured to "choose a side." Either you're gay or you're straight. Everyone wants to ignore the fact that you're both. That's the whole fucking point. And you're alienated from both communities. You're not gay enough, you're not straight enough, you're just stuck in the middle by yourself. So seeing that choice forced upon people in fandom content too, and always in favor of the gay side and basically shaming the straight side is really hurtful. Intentionally or not it makes people feel bad about themselves and about the content they enjoy, as well as how they fall in love with people in real life.

And on the off chance the women are mentioned at all in dynamics or narratives, their personalities are often skewed to an unrecognizable degree. In times past Bombalurina has been portrayed as a petty, jealous bitch in order to justify Tugger choosing Misto instead. Oftentimes Demeter gets portrayed as wimpy, frumpy and self conscious, when she's quite confident in her sexuality and is very brave despite her anxiety. Why aren't female characters allowed to exist as they are? This problem honestly applies to male characters too, especially when they get put in ships. Not only do they frequently have their bisexuality erased but their fundamental personalities get skewed too. This happens to Misto frequently, and the same can be said for Macavity. Fundamental character elements get stripped away for the sake of mlm ships. This is not an opinion, this is a fact, and nowhere is double standard more clear than when it comes to the fandom's treatment of Macavity.

He is either made such a dark, irredeemable monster that no one should ever speak to him, or he is made to be a good guy who enjoys family and kittensitting and having a good time. Neither are accurate, and both treatments are applied in order to create gay ships. The first, naturally, to create wump and dark ship content, and the second to create unrealistic fluffy scenarios where he's the perfect lover. That's acceptable in itself, if acknowledged as an AU, but here's the issue: Neither of these options are ALLOWED when the ship in question is Macavity/Demeter, aka his only canon love interest.

Demecavity content gets swept under the rug or sometimes outright disdained. My second week in the fandom I made a post about a passing thought of the last time the two were together romantically, and how conflicting it must have been for Demeter. I got an angry ask in my inbox accusing me of having r*pe fantasies and supporting toxic relationships and that I was fucked in the head. My realistic interpretation of a toxic relationship where one partner knows they love the other, but must leave for their own well-being, a concept that is frequently encountered in real life situations and indeed in my own life, is deemed 'fucked up' and unenjoyable simply because one of the love interests in question is a woman. Because NO ONE ever makes these arguments against the myriad of mlm ships for Macavity. Gay Mac ships get applauded and frequently reblogged and fawned over. My Demecavity posts get around 10 notes AT MOST. It's the double standard for me. Mac is allowed to be romantic and adored and shipped as long as it's a tom he's shipped with. If he's shipped with Demeter, it's toxic, it's taboo, and it shouldn't be spoken about. That's messed up! It's incredibly messed up and a source of frustration for me daily. What is even the point? What are people trying to say? That women can only be victims and aren't capable of having complicated attractions? It's dehumanizing.

And unsurprisingly it isn't just male characters getting their bisexuality stripped away. WLW ships are rare in the fandom, especially if you're searching for fan content, but even in that sub community biphobia runs rampant. Say Demeter and Bombalurina get shipped together. It immediately becomes "look at these sexy man-hating lesbians they're so cool." Or Victoria. "Look at this gorgeous little lesbian she would never be with someone like Plato." Once again the subconscious (or honestly, BLATANT) idea that being gay is better than being straight or bisexual is propagated. These are all characters that have sweet, fun and interesting dynamics with male love interests. WHY are they not allowed to be attracted to men and women at the same time? Why is it always immediately one or the other? Why is it so hard to work with a character's established canon instead of ripping it away and putting something else on them? Acknowledging that Demeter finds Munkustrap kind and charming and that she has a place for him in her heart would absolutely NOT interfere with her being in a loving relationship with Bombalurina. Rum Tum Tugger getting heart eyes and butterflies whenever he sees Bombalurina would NOT make him unable to have a loving committed relationship with Misto.

There seems to be this underlying, almost fanatical insistence upon monogamy, specifically gay monogamy, beyond the normal definition. A character is only allowed to EVER be interested in one other character their entire life. They are not allowed to find anyone else attractive or have a crush on them ever, especially if they're of the opposite gender. Which ties in the hatred of polygamy aforementioned.

Claiming to headcanon so many characters as bisexual should mean that poly ships are way more popular than they are. Cats is the perfect vehicle for something like this! Just watch the damn show! Within the first 15 minutes you see Munkustrap have a tender moment with Demeter, and an equally tender moment with Alonzo. Munkustrap jumps to protect Demeter from Mac, and Alonzo jumps in to protect both of them. Why is it such an insane concept to think that the three of them could be interested in each other? And especially with the tribe being portrayed as very communal, even when it comes to taking care of the kittens, it honestly makes sense that there would be poly partnerships.

Even beyond strictly romantic relationships, I can imagine quite a bit of co-parenting or queer-platonic relationships in the tribe. But all of that gets ignored in favor of a myriad of mlm ships that may or may not eradicate a character's bisexuality. Non-ship content is difficult to find in the fandom as well, and is often overlooked. I've seen some incredible fanfics or drabbles written about characters like Gus, or plenty of fanart simply portraying a character that isn't easily shipped or is less favorably shipped (like the older queens for example) get ignored or significantly less notes than a gay ship piece will.

I'm not saying this out of hatred; this is a fact. Search the new posts in the Tuggoffelees tag and compare the note count of several posts there to the note count for new posts in the Demestrap tag. There is a MAJOR disparity, despite Demestrap being the canon other big relationship in the show. And if you make a post just about Demeter, or even, I've noticed, depending on the type of ship post you make, you're liable to get less notes. If I make a Demestrap post that is about Demeter fawning over Munk, it gets more notes than if I make a post about Munkustrap fawning over Demeter. There is just this inherent disdain for female characters! I don't understand it!

And once again, just a post about a female character in herself (or just a male character alone) and discussions about their characterizations or headcanons about THEM and not a relationship they're in get less attention. It really gives the tone of "a character is only good for shipping," which is not how it should be, especially when that shipping erases their canon attraction preferences and personalities.

Bisexuality is not the enemy. You can put a bisexual character in a same sex relationship WITHOUT completely erasing their canon ties. I promise it's possible, and people need to start doing so more often. People need to examine how they approach shipping and characters in general, and take a good hard look at their content, and decide how to move forward more inclusively. Because as a bisexual woman of color, I'm getting really, really tired of feeling left out or lesser in every community I step into.

There's probably more to say, but this is all I can think of for the moment. I hope whoever reads gains a bit of insight from this. This is not meant to demonize mlm ships, this is to bring to attention the problematic approach people have towards them, and the mistreatment of all characters in the fandom. Everyone is allowed their fun, but if that fun repeatedly injures others, conscious effort should be put to rectify that. That way we can ALL have fun together. Because at the end of the day, creating and consuming fanwork is meant to be fun, and if you're constantly having your connections to your favorite characters, such as bisexualty, stripped away or intentionally or unintentionally being deigned inferior, it's not fun for anyone anymore.

No one says you need to ship a certain ship either. We all have our preferences. I certainly have mine. Just be more conscious about how you treat other ships, or characters around your favorites. A character you might not think much of could mean the world to someone else. Just treat it all with respect.

I will not be entertaining arguments or opposite opinions. I am a marginalized person and I refuse to have my experiences invalidated or spoken over. Don't agree, simply keep moving.

#and no this will not go under a cut actually #people need to read it #asks #cats the musical #cats 1998 #my shit

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andrews-word-pile · 1 year

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The Existence of Aromanticism

This was a speech I wrote around 2021, where I was, and still am, aromantic-questioning. This is unedited from when I had presented this to my English Class, with the exception of me censoring my birth name with my preferred name. I know it isn’t the best example of my writing but do wait and watch for future posts of essays and speeches I made for presentations ^^

I will start my speech off with a question: Have you ever been in love? Not with a fictional character or a celebrity, rather, with someone you know and like? Well, if you haven’t, then you’re in luck. Today, I will be talking about:

The Existence of Aromanticism

Today is a new era, a more accepting one. Everyone has their own color and sexuality, and some even lack it. In modern media, almost everyone has their own form of representation.

As I said, almost everyone. We all know about being asexual, or ace for short, from representation from shows like Bojack Horseman, and others. Aside from being asexual, we have aromantic people, or aro people for short.

Now, what exactly does it mean to be aro and ace?

My name is Andrew P. Weiner, and I am here to represent the aromantic people, as a lithromantic person myself. And for context, lithromantic is somewhere on the aromantic spectrum and being lithromantic means I like people without the desire to be liked back. In other words, attraction fades when reciprocated.

Now, before I begin, not all ace people are aro, and not all aro people are ace. Sexuality, gender and romantic orientation are all a spectrum, and we need to acknowledge that there are people out there who are aro and ace. We should not invalidate others due to our ignorance.

Being asexual means you rather not partake in sexual activities, or dislike it altogether. Aromanticism is similar, but it’s the lack of romantic attraction.

Being these two doesn’t necessarily mean you cannot feel love, people like us feel love in other forms, such as platonic or filial love. We are definitely not loveless.

When you are somewhere in the aromantic spectrum such as me, there is an abundance of people saying certain things that can come off as annoying. Things such as “maybe you haven’t found the right person yet” or “i’ll fix you” are always being tossed around towards me. If you were in my position, you’d eventually get used to it despite the fact you probably shouldn’t.

I am not “different” nor am I “special” since I myself am just another human being you can interact with. However, most forms of media tend to alienate aromantic people. It isn’t new that the media erases the sexual and romantic orientation of characters who identify as LGBTQIA+, but sometimes this erasure is taken too far.

A good example of this is Jughead from the original Archie Comics, he was originally aro-ace. In the Netflix show Riverdale, they erased not only his aromanticism, but also erased how he was asexual.

Erasures like that make people less aware of aro-ace people. Representation matters, and we need to know that people like us exist. I know for a fact that there are aro-ace people who end up getting into abusive relationships because they want to be considered “normal” in the eyes of other people. That shouldn’t be the case, and we need to be able to take care of ourselves and not get hurt all because we didn’t know that simple words and habits exist.

We should be aware of at least some terminology and we shouldn’t invalidate the experience of others, because we all have our own color and some may lack it, but they are human as well.

There are many forms of aromanticism and being asexual, it’s an umbrella term to describe those who don’t really want relationships in general. People are so much more than what meets the eye, so we should not judge others like us. Just because we cannot experience what you experience doesn’t mean you can leave us out. We were born like this, even if we ourselves do not like it.

And with that, I conclude my speech. I hope that I have blessed you with awareness.

#spilled ink #essay #speech #lgbtqia+#aromanticism #aromantic #lithromantic #writing #writers of tumblr

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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SW Suddenly-Omegaverse AU: Surrogacy, Worldbuilding, Obi-Mom

Truly the main irony of all this is that everyone considers Obi-Wan the Better Omega but Anakin is the one who's actually 👀👀👀 about pregnancy

Obi-Wan: I have the deepest respect for those who do it, but the idea of growing another person inside of me is weird and gross, no, thank you.

Meanwhile Anakin is like. Immediate baby fever. Someone actually approaches him like "hey... there are forms you can fill out to request an exception for pregnancy, and like... regulations" because he's that obvious about it.

I assume that if they've got safety nets for accidental pregnancies, then they're probably aware that there are people who want to do it on purpose? I feel like in an omegaverse where 'biological imperative to procreate' can be so much more intense, then maybe there's old precedent that stuck around even after suppressants got most of those hormones under better control.

Bit torn. Just know I want Anakin to Make Baby.

"Anakin, what are you--" "Do you think offering to be someone's surrogate would be acceptable to the council as a way to be pregnant without getting attached." "...what." "They'd probably accept that as a way to practice not getting attached, right?" "N...no, that's not... what?"

Anakin approaching Bail and Breha and being like “Do you... still want a kid? I would provide a kid. Do you want one here*?”

* in this dimension

Great way to give up the baby as a parent because he'd still be able to see them once in a while but also like... it's not HIS kid, technically. He can be a cool uncle who happened to give birth, which is distant enough to not be 'attached,' but close enough that his Tatooine-raised 'must ensure family is safe whenever possible' background doesn't flip out. It helps that 'Core World Royalty' is like... a top-tier family to be raised in.

(It would have to be post-war because he probably shouldn’t be risking his life while very pregnant. He needs to be reminded of that sometimes.)

Bail/Breha is an alpha/alpha relationship and while a pregnancy is still possible,* it’s a whole lot more difficult, and that's on top of Breha's canon medical issues that resulted in her heart and lungs getting replaced.

* AFAB alphas can get pregnant, and AMAB omegas can inseminate, but the success rate on that angle is much lower than the 'traditional' alpha/omega roles, as is any attempt at reproduction outside rut/heat. They're low-fertility overall for the non-dominant aspect of their reproductive system, which... ha, Anakin and Obi-Wan try to get explanations for why the senary system works the way it does, but it's a very longform history lesson that comes down to 'idk this got cemented so long ago that nobody really knows why anymore.'

AKA "why do you title these roles male omega and female alpha instead of intersex omega and intersex alpha since both parties have both genitals."

ANYWAY

Anakin: I want to make babies. But I don't want to get kicked out of the order. But I don't want to give up my own babies for adoption. But I can't keep my own babies if I want to stay a Jedi. So basically I want to have someone else's babies? Anakin: ...wait shit that's just surrogacy.

Anakin, calling up Obi-Wan: Hey are the Organas still struggling to have a kid? Obi-Wan: ...not really your business. Anakin: You're friends with Bail again though, right? Obi-Wan: I am, but-- Anakin: Do you think they'd want me to be a surrogate? Obi-Wan: What.

I can't decide if it's funnier for the Order to be like "I mean... technically there's no rules against this?" or if this is a precedent set by at least three omegas every generation because that's just how a/b/o manifested for omegas in a biological and cultural sense.

Bail: Wait, your former apprentice is... volunteering... to be our surrogate. Obi-Wan, exhausted: Yes. Bail: He barely knows us. Obi-Wan: He respects you and you're the closest people he knows that want a child and would be good parents. Bail: And he's just... volunteering? Obi-Wan: Yes. Also, you did say your primary worry was that a surrogate might be targeted for assassination and you couldn't ask someone to risk that, right? Anakin is very much able to avoid assassins, and would be staying primarily in the Temple anyway. Very safe, and not particularly scared of assassins in the first place. Bail: Your words say you approve, but your tone says otherwise. Obi-Wan: Anakin considers me his father. I'm not old enough to be a grandparent. Bail: Ah.

Anakin is a surrogate and enjoys it and everything is fine and then like a year later he's accidentally pregnant with his own and Rex's kid, and nobody knows how to ask if it's actually an accident.

A suggestion from @gelpenss:

OH MAN i.... have to drive home. But I just had a thought about like. I always want to poke at Betas in A/B/O like are they “normal” or different from our standard or.... but ANYWAY assuming they have a pheromonal thing I just think it would be neat if betas had the ability to be the Bucket of Cold Water. Like if caught early enough, and with the caveat it’s not permanent, a beta could arrest a rut or heat in its tracks until a more ideal time. Like. They aren’t birth control. But they are the remind me later button.

Okay done driving I am Returned to bring up why I brought up betas and it’s this: well okay 1. It plays nice with a popular but inaccurate dog breeding urban legend that female dogs will like, delay heat cycles? so that the bitches above them in pack hierarchy have first choice of mate selection. And I think in omegaverse it would be cool if that was a Bio Fact, and also historically enforced by the third designation. 2. It gives me an excuse to have betas have the Most Sensitive sense of smell because it’s their “job” to pick up on things before they go too far to be put on pause. 3. I’m just thinkin ‘bout a beta clone [...] just hovering around Obi-Wan because they found out how much stress his heat cycle causes and they’re like “okay cool I will help make sure it does Not”

I want to like a/b/o verses but betas niggle at me. I want to give them a hat and a Function that woulda helped before modern medicine.

I'm not sure how I feel about betas being able to delay heats, but I do like the idea of them having a more sensitive sense of pheromone smell than most. Most aliens assume it's omegas with the best sense of smell, and betas with the worst, but it's more complicated than that because they all specialize: Alphas are actually less attuned to pheromone smells, but more attuned to things that were useful back when humans were still a hunter-gatherer species. Omegas tend to be heightened towards danger smells like fire or aggression, and pheromones relating to children/care. Betas, as suggested above, are very sensitive to pheromone changes relating to mood and behavior of the community around them.

I like the idea that betas were historically the ones that ended up taking care children, unmated omegas, and so on during people's heats and ruts, because they kept their heads about themselves long enough to do things like cook and clean while someone was reeking of hormones. The checks and balances work out that betas may have lower fertility, but it makes them better able to support the network around them.

It works in with humanity's general collective history of thriving the most when working as a community.

Given that I decided that this is Jangobi, the clones might all subconsciously view Obi-Wan as Mom. Not intentionally, but, you know... Obi-Wan the not-evil stepmother. He doesn't know how he got into this situation, but he sure is here, and he sure as hell doesn't know how to get out.

Obi-Wan "I don't need to get pregnant, I have three million stepchildren" Kenobi

I definitely love "clones all want to make Obi-Wan's heats less stressful" but like in a different way from Whatever The Fuck Anakin's Got Going On.

Obi-Wan using the force to dull the pain in a Shiny's broken leg while the medic works on it and the Shiny just mumbles "Thanks mom" and everyone gets very embarrassed and pretends it didn't happen.

But then it happens again. And again.

Obi-Wan asks for an explanation from Cody and gets a halting response that, since Jango is technically their father, and his scent has been all over Obi-Wan recently... and Obi-Wan puts in a lot of effort to take care of them all.......

Anakin overhears the clones calling Obi-Wan "mom" and just. The most judgmental eyebrow raise.... Mostly in the sense of "You never let me call you dad" "Thought you said you weren't anyone's parent." "Hey, hey, Obi-Wan. What the fuck."

BOBA. BOBA ABSOLUTELY CALLS OBI-WAN MOM WHENEVER POSSIBLE. IT'S DEEPLY FRUSTRATING.

Obi-Wan eventually manages to admit that he's uncomfortable with it at minimum because of the gendering the word has for him, can they at least use the neutral 'buir' instead?

Word spreads like fire, takes like two days max for everyone to switch.

(Anakin demands cuddles as compensation for not getting to call Obi-Wan any true parental term for years.)

#Anakin Skywalker #Obi Wan Kenobi #Bail Organa #Rexwalker #Jangobi #Captain Rex #Commander Cody #Boba Fett #star wars #the clone wars #omegaverse #SW Suddenly Omegaverse #mpreg tw #phoenix posts

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vhenanshiral · 3 years

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On the Topic of Seiya Kou.

This is a Sailor Moon post rather than a Dragon Age post. Shocker, I know, but Sailor Moon is another one of my loves. This will focus on the 90s anime adaptation of the manga. So do not come at me with “but in the manga,” because the 90s adaptation and the manga were incredibly different in multiple ways. Seiya will be referred to as she/her because the male form was a disguise. That being said, any interpretation of Seiya’s gender is valid and I love them all! Anyway. I see a lot of shit talking about Seiya and it’s honestly ... super tiring. So many of the “negative” points against Seiya are misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misrepresented for the sake of making her look like a dumpster fire. 1. “Seiya is creepy towards Usagi and stalks her.” Except ... she doesn’t. They meet by accident numerous times, and in fact Usagi even seeks Seiya out. They develop a friendship, and it’s normal and natural for friends to seek each other out. Usagi and the girls actually, literally stalk the Three Lights more than once during the season. 2. “Seiya thinks Usagi is weak because she told Mamoru to take care of her when they left.” This honestly makes no sense to me. It is repeatedly shown that Seiya admires Usagi’s strength, both as Usagi and as Sailor Moon. It is natural to want the people you love to be protected, and that does not mean that you think they’re weak and incapable of protecting themselves. Seiya knew Usagi was capable and strong because she had seen her demonstrate these traits multiple times. Throughout the season, Seiya repeatedly lifts Usagi up with her confidence in her capabilities. This is even before she knows she is Sailor Moon. Let’s not forget that when Galaxia kills all of the Inners, they ask the Starlights to protect Sailor Moon, so saying that Seiya telling Mamoru to take care of her means she thinks she is weak ... that must mean everyone else thinks she is too, right? It’s absurd. 3. “Seiya can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, always hits on her, and is constantly pressuring her into a relationship.” It is true that Seiya repeatedly quips about “having a chance” with Usagi. It’s also true that Usagi repeatedly reminds Seiya that she has a boyfriend. But it isn’t true that Seiya repeatedly attempts to coerce her into a relationship. It also isn’t true that she does it all the time. While she shouldn’t have done it even more than once (when she was unaware of Usagi’s relationship status,) it’s obvious from the context that she isn’t being serious. Seiya repeatedly making quips is an issue, and while those kinds of situations can and often do mean someone is being a “Nice Guy,” a predator, an abuser, etc., we know from everything that we see that it is not the case with Seiya. Let’s take the “date,” for an example: Seiya throws it out there (literally, just time and place and walks off) and Usagi willingly shows up the next day and is even irritated that Seiya is late. Usagi is not forced or coerced into the date; she retains all of the power regarding whether or not she shows up. She would not have gone if she didn’t want to. Actually, let’s look at these instances of Seiya hitting/making a move on Usagi. - In the “date” episode, Usagi thinks that Seiya is going to make a move on her. Some suggest that Usagi thinks she is going to kiss her, but the language, Usagi’s expressions, and her reaction to the truth seem to imply that she thinks Seiya is suggesting something more intimate. - In the episode with the beach monster when Chibi Chibi opens up the door and pushes Seiya over on to Usagi, Usagi is the one who, again, assumes Seiya is up to No Good, despite it being a complete accident and innocent on Seiya’s part. - In the episode where Seiya spends the night at Usagi’s because she’s alone and Seiya very nearly confesses who she is to Usagi while they’re in her bedroom, it is Usagi who believes that Seiya is going to confess to having a crush on her. - Later in that same episode, when they are hiding in the cabinet and Seiya again thinks about confessing her true identity to her, it is Usagi who thinks Seiya is about to suggest something intimate. In fact, throughout the season, it is everyone from Usagi, to the other girls, to single-episode characters, to even Luna who think that Seiya is going to suggest or attempt illicit activities with Usagi, and not Seiya. It is all but explicitly stated that Usagi is attracted to Seiya. Not just because of the implications of her assumptions, but also because she is scolded over it. In fact, Rei tells her that she needs to sort her feelings out. Haruka and Michiru forbid her from seeing Seiya because she has Mamoru. She may not love Seiya the same way, but she is attracted to her and she does love her (and Usagi being attracted to other people is not a new thing.) Let’s look at the softball episode, because it’s ... pretty problematic and people often point to it as being one of the episodes that paint Seiya as some creepy stalker who can’t just take a hint and tells everyone that Usagi is her girlfriend. It is Rei who thinks that Seiya training Usagi in softball is inappropriate (let’s remember that it is Ami who thinks that something illicit is going on with Seiya and Usagi in the bodyguard episode...) because Mamoru is Usagi’s boyfriend, not Seiya. It is Sonoko who insists that Seiya’s “relationship” with Usagi isn’t acceptable, and it is her that places the bet that if Seiya’s team loses, she’s not to associate with Usagi anymore. Seiya agrees because she’s competitive, hates to lose, has confidence in herself and Usagi, and knows that Sonoko is wrong. When Usagi tries to interject about the actual nature of their relationship (that they’re not dating,) it’s the girls who shush her because they’re expecting Seiya’s team to lose and that will give them the opportunity to make Seiya feel better. I want to touch on the “Seiya knows Sonoko is wrong” part. I think what a lot of people don’t think about is that when Sonoko placed this bet and openly stated her disapproval of Seiya spending time with Usagi, Sonoko was attacking Usagi’s worth as a person. She was openly saying that Usagi wasn’t good enough to be hanging out with Seiya in any capacity. Seiya took issue with this because she obviously believes and knows differently. She values Usagi as a person. Who is Sonoko to decide who is and isn’t good enough to spend time with her? Seiya is not approaching the situation with entirely selfish motives, unlike the girls who fed into the Seiya/Usagi romance for the hopeful eventuality of them being able to comfort Seiya after a loss when she’ll be forced to stop hanging out with Usagi. She uses this situation to help bolster Usagi’s confidence in herself. That doesn’t change the fact that the bet is stupid to begin with, but it is what it is. Oh, additionally ... Seiya doesn’t tell the school that she and Usagi are dating. Them dating is an assumption that Seiya simply doesn’t correct. It’s worth noting that if she did correct that assumption, it would feed into Sonoko’s declaration that Usagi isn’t good enough to be with Seiya. 4. “Seiya tried to make the rooftop scene about herself and used it as a way to try to take Mamoru’s place in Usagi’s life.” This whole entire scene is consistently misinterpreted and has all of the context ripped from it, because that is not what that scene is. No, it 100% was not the best time for Seiya to ask that question (and no, it is not “can I take his place?” that she says,) but people tend to forget that Usagi is not the only vulnerable person in this scene and it isn’t just about her. It is Seiya who triggers Usagi’s emotional breakdown on accident, and in these moments she is watching the person she loves crumble into pieces. The rooftop scene is about both of them and the context makes that clear. Up until this point, the only person who knew that Mamoru wasn’t keeping in contact with Usagi was Seiya. None of the girls knew, none of them. Imagine the amount of trust Usagi had to have in Seiya in order to share that incredibly sensitive information with her and with no one else, not even her closest friends. Usagi had told Seiya a whole 13 episodes before this one, and since finding out Seiya tried her best to make Usagi happy and to keep her mind busy. It isn’t until a few episodes after this that everyone including Seiya finds out that Mamoru is dead. So Seiya spends all of this time believing that Mamoru ditched Usagi when he moved overseas and that he’s a horrible boyfriend who obviously doesn’t care about Usagi. This is naturally hurtful to Seiya, who grows to genuinely like and love Usagi through the season. She cares for her and doesn’t want to see her in pain, which is why she does her best to help Usagi feel less alone. There is no point in the season where Seiya’s intentions are to maliciously shove herself into Mamoru’s place in Usagi’s life. She has no idea who Tuxedo Mask is. She had no idea that throwing the red rose - her own personal trademark - was going to trigger such an emotional response from Usagi. So here they both are on this rooftop in the middle of the pouring rain. Usagi’s breaking down over how alone she feels, and Seiya’s suddenly faced with the realization that not only did she cause this breakdown, everything she had been trying to do to help her wasn’t working and she failed again. She couldn’t save her system/planets, 99.9% of her people are literally dead because she wasn’t strong enough to save them, and she and the other two members of her team had no idea where their princess was or even if she was okay until the episode before this one. Immediately after the destruction of everything they knew, the Starlights had to flee to an alien planet with alien people, disguise themselves, and pander to a bunch of complete strangers that salivated over, stalked, and harassed them, all while searching for their princess and fighting the minions of the person who ctrl+a ctrl+x’ed their home system. She had no time to process any of the unimaginable loss and failure she had suffered through. When people talk about the rooftop scene and about how Seiya “makes it about herself,” this is everything they’re forgetting. When Seiya is asking Usagi if she isn’t good enough, it isn’t Seiya trying to weasel her way in, it’s Seiya both coping with her own numerous losses and trying to remind Usagi that she’s there for her. In the end, Seiya is the one that Usagi credits with being able to get herself through everything she was dealing with.

#sailor moon #sailor star fighter #eternal sailor moon #seiya x usagi #seiya/usagi #seiusa #bssm #bishoujo senshi sailor moon #90s sailor moon #pretty soldier sailor moon #usagi tsukino #tsukino usagi #seiya kou #kou seiya #sailor stars #sailor starlights

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So You Want To Play A Fairest

(Portrait of Erin Peters by cantankerousAquarius. The character originally appeared in Night Horrors: Grim Fears, published by White Wolf; catch my take on her in New Avalon)

Previous Articles: So You Want To Play A Beast, So You Want To Play A Wizened, So You Want To Play An Elemental, So You Want To Play An Ogre, & So You Want To Play A Darkling

You ever wonder, flipping through a Monster Manual for D&D, or a Bestiary for Pathfinder, why nymphs and hags are both always, always, women? It’s older than you know. Dig into the sordid history of tabletops and you’ll find sylphs that Gary Gygax wrote, Chaotic charmers who use mind control to reproduce with non-sylph men; you’ll find the legacy of the matriarchal drow, who follow a mad goddess, and you’ll find the medusae, whose sexual dimorphism is so complete that their men are beautiful and can turn stone into people.

Dredge deeper and you’ll find the tales that Gygax and his wretched ilk based such creatures off of.

You ever wonder why we assign such powerful Gender to creatures of beauty and horror?

Fairest don’t. They know, every time they wake up from a nightmare that is also a wet dream. They know, every time they get hit on at the bar and have to decide how they’re playing this. They know, every time they look in a mirror and see not their own face, but the ten thousand horrors that made it beautiful.

If you are very patient, and lucky, and kind, they might tell you why.

If you aren’t, they may show you.

This article draws primarily on Changeling: the Lost and Winter Masques, as well as Swords at Dawn and Night Horrors: Grim Fears. Other sources, when used, will be cited. It requires Content Warnings for sexual violence, sexual slavery, abuse, gaslighting, addiction, substance abuse, self-harm, self-image problems, mentions of fascists & fascist ideology, and just, so very much incel bullshit.

Bonus Material Part Two: The Seeming Part

The end of this article, just past the customary Sample Fairest, will include some additional material intended to help you select a Seeming for your character and otherwise build them up as one of the Lost, much as So You Want To Run A Spring Court included material for Courts as a topic.

Take Me To Wonderland - Fairest Overview

Fairest is the fourth Seeming presented in Changeling: the Lost and possibly the most confused about its own identity. Its sections in Winter Masques present depths and nuance that are completely absent in core, essentially making Winter Masques required reading for Fairest players in a way that no other book is - especially since Fairest keep getting written in a particular way alluded to in the Ogre article, which I will expand on later in this article. Fairest is numerically well-represented in canon and popular in the fanbase, home to many memorable character concepts, but its bones with folklore and tradition are weaker than it fronts as.

Ogres and Darklings claim an innate relationship to physical violence; so too do the Fairest claim a relationship to violence. The violence of Perception and its dark twin, Judgement; of Rumor and its mad dog, Prejudice, the violence of Lies and their merciless master, Truth. Fairest, alone among the Lost, have casual access to the resources of a society that refuses to service or acknowledge Changelings, and with access to that society comes both opportunity and temptation. To be Fairest is to wield power that many other Lost cannot, but the opportunity that power offers is a lie; a Fairest can smile until her face breaks like a mirror, but she’ll never be “sane” enough for the masses to see her as anything but a useful pet.

Life’s Lush Lips - Homecoming As A Fairest

Fairest can make the dubious claim of having the least clear memories of Arcadia amongst all the Lost, with Darklings and Beasts jockeying for second place. This isn’t to say that the experiences Fairest have are necessarily more intense or more inherently traumatic than that of other Lost, but rather that the abuse Fairest suffer is so emotional, so targeted at their perception of their selves and their situations and their self-image, that the memories which do form are inevitably colored by those emotions, coloring the dreams they have of Arcadia with both the emotional resonances they had at the time and with their later attempts to grapple with their own trauma and transformation. For many Fairest, who cannot trust even their strongest memory dreams, attempts to understand their own Durance must rely either on the word of their Keepers (and Faeries lie, oh, how they lie), or on reverse-engineering their own behavior to try and conceive of a trauma that could cause it.

Inevitably, however, some things are seared into their minds. For almost all Fairest, their Keeper is high on the list of things they remember with absolute clarity. Other facts, shattered and scattered, vary more widely. Erin Peters remembers stretched years kept in a cold, dark room lit only by her own hatred; every detail of her cell is scorched onto the back of her eyes, but the otherworldly balls her Keeper took her to blur together like food coloring in syrup. The slaves of the Candle Countess have terrible nightmares of the choices they were confronted with, the decision, offered over and over again, to become complicit in the Countess’s cruelty or to be victimized by it. Metallic Flowering from the Shining City struggle not to use drugs to mimic the rush of pleasure they’ve grown used to receiving for performing their jobs well; they also scream in terror if people touch them. A Draconic and a Shadowsoul both remember being used for the sexual pleasure of alien horrors; the one dreams of coiled scales and terrible teeth, the other a lifetime of lurking in an alien maze, tasked to perform the duties of a living trap for the “wicked” and “unwary” who had not yet shed the last vestiges of kindness.

There are no “wild” Fairest. For worse and worse still, to be Fairest is to have been defined by the inescapable and all-consuming attentions of your abuser, and it is this more than anything that other Lost so often fail to understand about the Fairest. Their Keepers heap them with reward and punishment, manipulating the Fairest with honeyed praise, godly wrath, gaslighting, neglect, withholding food, wondrous rewards, drugs from beyond the realms of earthly pleasure, and other hooks and crooks designed to make the Fairest dependent upon their abuser. It is hideously effective, and the first obstacle, maybe even the mightiest, that a Fairest faces to their escape is the simple horror and joy of being alone again. Their masters will try other tricks to keep them in place - tempting them with pleasures, horrific punishments, oh-so-sincere apologies - but before a Fairest can escape into the Hedge she must face, in her mind’s eye, the lonely flight back to the Iron Lands.

The memories that draw Fairest home often have parallels to their experiences in Arcadia. A slave in the Shining City bites into an otherworldly pastry and recalls her grandmother’s pie in its place; the bride of the Demon Lover, curled up under the sheets, thinks about the broken smile of the boyfriend she left behind at home. A Dancer remembers the roller rink where he fell in love with skating, while across the endless tides of the Fairest of Lands, a Shadowsoul holds on like grim death to years of work at haunted houses, scaring kids for fun and for Halloween. Fairest, so famous for their skill at words, struggle to articulate to other Lost why this should be so. Darklings assume it’s because these memories are less intense than Arcadia, and that the Fairest are fleeing to safety. Beasts get it a bit more right by thinking that these memories taste like home. The truth of the matter is that those memories have an intrinsic and nameless meaning; the highs and lows of Arcadia are divine, flawless, absolute, and therefore worthless. They are the proclamations of merciless gods. What draws the Fairest home, more than pain and pleasure they can have on their own terms, is the understanding that those gestures - for weal or for woe or for anything else besides - were made because someone cared about them, personally. Once they fully internalize that their abuser views them as disposable, the Fairest comes home to someone who won’t.

Three Kiths And Flowering Is One And A Half Of Them - Fairest Kiths

Yeah we’re about to be like that about it.

All Fairest can excel in the social arena; their Blessing can be used to flare almost every social roll in the game, and Fairest can never be caught off-guard in a social context (they suffer no untrained penalties to social rolls). With the sole exception of Empathy (usually rolled with Wits) and sometimes Streetwise, there’s no time a Fairest can’t fall back on their words and expect to win through or at least buy time. This is, as you might imagine, a godsend when it comes to attempts to pass in mortal society; Fairest can usually front, charm, bluff, or Manners(tm) their way through things like renting an apartment, nailing a job interview, asking their roommate to do the FUCKING DISHES, or getting stopped by a cop, but both the books and the fanbase miss something here. While Fairest are superb at active social events, they’re no better at keeping a lid on themselves (Composure-based rolls) than mortals are - and given both the nature of their trauma and the fact that they are, you know, Lost, Fairest have a lot more to keep a lid on day-to-day than the human society they’re trying to blend into. Thankfully, Fairest are pretty good at being able to politely leave a situation and go somewhere else to scream, shout, cry, or have a psychotic break, as appropriate.

Of course, Fairest can’t make something from nothing. As discussed in So You Want To Play An Ogre, you can’t win a social game someone else refuses to sit down to, and social rolls shouldn’t be mind control. All the Glamour in the world can’t make your roommate do the FUCKING DISHES if they’re deep in the throes of executive dysfunction, nor can it make the cashier at Walgreens fail to card you for wine when their computer literally won’t advance without an ID. People who are keyed up about honeyed words or whose own trauma came at the hands of manipulators and abusers might refuse to play that game on the terms the Fairest is setting, which makes it hard to, as it were, turn this problem into a nail. Lurking down this path as well is the specter of becoming like the masters who made you this way; if you get used to saying what will get people to listen to you, eventually you start seeing people as enrichment puzzles that dispense the things you want. Madness waits down that road, and it waits for Fairest with a giant spiked bat, thanks to their Seeming Curse.

There’s no pretty way to say this so I won’t: Fairest are always on the verge of losing their minds. Their curse hits them with a flat penalty to all rolls against losing Clarity, which means that Fairest lose Clarity faster than other Lost and they do so more consistently. This necessitates a balancing act with avoiding becoming heartless manipulators; Fairest must engage in control-seeking behavior in order to stay mentally well, must be able to trust and rely on people close to them, structure their lives, and anticipate important changes or they end up on the fast way down. Other Lost often don’t understand this need or the Fairest curse to begin with, and so Fairest end up in unofficial support groups for one another, similar to those run by Darklings except no one will admit it’s a support group even at gunpoint. Woe fucking betide the friend or life partner who gets between a Fairest and her “book club”, “girls’ night”, “D&D campaign”, or other excuse for this vital community support.

Fairest Kiths are...bad. They’re bad. This is the part of the article where I’m supposed to talk about thematics and symbolism and metaphor, and I cannot do that here, because they are bad. Fairest has three viable Kiths that are actual Fairest Kiths, one that’s a Beast Kith who got lost and wound up here by fucking mistake, and a pile of garbage bigger than my self-esteem problems. I’m almost tempted to only talk about those four Kiths and save myself the time but I suppose I should show the work like I’ve done for all the other Seemings, so here we fuckin’ go I guess.

Flowering - This is it. This is the Fairest Kith. If you want to roll any other kind of Fairest you must first pass the trial of justifying why you’re not playing Flowering. In theory, Flowering draws its mythic heritage from nymphs and dryads, charming flower sprites, Knights of Flowers, and the like, but in practice Flowering’s only mechanical effect is 9-again on Persuasion, Socialize, and Subterfuge with no qualification or requirement, which doesn’t just make you better at everything Fairest is good at, it makes you better when you spend Glamour to flare it too. Want to represent a biobahn sith’s hypnotic dance? Flowering works. Want to create a vampiric Fairest with a sultry voice? Here comes Flowering. The siren at the bar who smells like sea air and gunpowder? Flowering. Everything is Flowering. Even the things that aren’t Flowering are Flowering because all Fairest Kiths have a social focus, which is Flowering’s undisputed arena of mastery.

Bright One - In theory, Bright Ones represent beings of light in the vein of Victorian fey (which...ugh...Victorians), but their Goblin Illumination is, how you say, useless, only becoming vaguely useful for a total of 2 Glamour as a passive defense that took you 2 turns to set up. Anything you want to represent here can be found in Flowering and with Elements or Communion (Light).

Dancer - You know how Flowering gives you bonuses on all social rolls? Would you like those same bonuses but on 1 less skill and only on rolls that “involve physical grace”? No? Run Flowering here and give your character a Dance specialty in one or more skills.

Draconic - One of the game’s premier melee options and a Beast Kith who took a wrong turn and ended up getting a free makeover intended for someone else. Draconic in theory represents Fairest as dragons, monster girls, demons, and in general at their most physical, but that idea sorta...falls down a bit? Draconic’s bonuses are all about Brawl and all the sample Draconics are swordsmen, which might suggest to the discerning reader that someone in the office wasn’t reading their own fucking game. Draconic Fairest don’t make bad melee boys if you invest in Lethal Mien, but honestly this is Dual Kith bait; slap it on your Hunterheart or your Razorhand and go apeshit.

Muse - Close but no cigar. In theory Muses are, well, muses; figures of inspiration, mentorship, teaching, creative fire. Their Kith Blessing is strong but requires access to mortals, which is complicated and roundabout on the best of days. If you have an idea that you think is Muse-shaped, use Playmate instead.

Flamesiren - Behold, we enter the realm of Okay(tm). Flamesirens are what Bright Ones wanted to be, and their hypnotic aura is actually a pretty neat tool; with cunning you can make it a one-sided penalty, and even if you don’t it’s an interesting method of de-escalating a social or combat situation by subjecting everyone to the tar pit that is your presence. If your concept involves light and color and you’re resistant to Flowering, Flamesiren will do more than nothing.

Polychromatic - Polychromatics don’t have a lot of roots in mythology; their modern inspirations are, well, Manic Pixie Dream Girls. But they get a shout-out here for being the only Fairest Kith who can muster up decent emotional defenses; not only can they magically boost their Composure rolls (and non-Composure rolls to resist magical and mundane emotional attacks for that matter), but others get a flat penalty to Empathy rolls against them, which makes them talented dissemblers. You’re still probably better off with Flowering - in a world of passive Kith Blessings, Polychromatic’s is extra passive - but I can see this Kith passing muster, and even being worth the two dots to Dual Kith in-house.

Shadowsoul - This one’s insane. Ostensibly Fairest Does Darkling, Shadowsouls get their Wyrd to Intimidate rolls which could be the whole Kith on its own and still be worth the slot, but in addition to that they get 9-again on Subterfuge (matching Flowering and Darklings there) and access to Contracts of Darkness, one of the most powerful in the game line, as an Affinity Contract. Is your Fairest spooky? Would you like them to be spooky? Here’s your one-stop shop.

Telluric - This is a Kith made of ribbon bonuses. In theory related to stars and celestial light, Telluric’s bonuses to rolls “with precise timing” isn’t...really worth considering. Run ‘em as Flamesiren and move on.

Treasured - In theory also able to muster emotional defenses, Treasured are Fairest who are literally made into works of art. They’re Okay(tm) but in their niche are beaten out by Polychromatic with a better effect for less resources.

Playmate - The last Real Fairest Kith(tm), Playmate appears in Night Horrors: Grim Fears where White Wolf tries to sell it as Peter Pan, but its powerful team-oriented bonuses mean that Playmates are useful anywhere Muse is wanted and more places besides. The front woman of an indie rock band could be a Playmate; so too could be an idealized baseball captain, the director at your local theater, the middle manager of a sinister conspiracy, or the night shift lead at a research lab. Do people do a thing in teams? Playmate does that thing.

And She Had Huge Titties, I Mean Massive Badondadonks, Absolutely Enormous Bazoggahoggas - Lost’s Canon Fairest

Remember when I said we had to get back to this after So You Want To Play An Ogre? Now we’re getting back to this. I’m not gonna re-state my caveats from that article and I’m not really gonna go back over the bit about So White Wolf Was Run By Fucking Nazis because, in all honesty, I do not have the fucking time to restate all of that in new words. Give thanks that OPP got out alive and let’s get right down to it.

Fairest have a very consistent characterization in canon that is only really challenged in Winter Masques; the narrative put forth in Lost is that Fairest, being attractive, have an uncomplicated power which privileges their lives. Which is a rather bloodless way to describe how White Wolf kept writing and publishing Fairest as heartless abusers and manipulators getting their jollies and emotional needs met by casually destroying their fellow survivors, manipulating them through sex appeal, outright lies, cattiness, cruelty, and betrayal. Much as simply queering Ogre does not help Ogre in and of itself, queering Fairest only takes you from incel and Nazi propaganda about women into...incel and Nazi propaganda about twinks, femmes, & in general anyone with the temerity to be found attractive by straight white people.

I’m not bitter, you’re bitter.

So what do you do at your table, with your Fairest concept? Lemme open up by saying that like, Fairest qua Fairest is perfectly solid, and if it wasn’t there wouldn’t be an article here; Fairest has a lot to say for itself about feminized violence, about your personhood being reduced to a product for the consumption of others, about emotional abuse & neglect, gaslighting, and sexual assault, but the conclusion White Wolf arrives at (”Fairest have unalloyed power over mortal and Lost society and they abuse that power”) is super fucking obtuse and betrays a serious lack of concern for what the Fairest undergo. It ignores the way a Fairest’s ordeals will force her to confront her relationship to her own gender and alter her willingness and ability to be consumed, disconnect her from her former society while also isolating her from her new one, and these questions are important for you if you’re looking to play a ‘classic’ Fairest.

But that leaves some hanging questions. Male Fairest face the almost inescapable fate of “failing” maleness on patriarchal terms; even the most strapping, broad-chested, athletic Adonis of a Fairest has become a man of layered words and reflexive empathy, whose Manly Stoicism(tm) is a cracking facade at best and entirely abandoned in a more typical circumstance. Men who become Fairest thus face a second journey after their escape from Arcadia; confronting what being men means to them and building their gender identity back up from the rubble it’s become. The temptation to accept success on society’s terms is always going to be present, and it’s always going to be offered like it’s possible, but it’s a losing game for these Fairest; they simply cannot be the men that other men demand they become.

Now, the discerning and loyal reader is surely about to ask, hey Vox, where’s the butch Fairest I was promised back in the Ogre article, to which I respond WE’RE GETTING THERE but I gotta use this as a bridge to talk about something that cuts across Fairest of all genders, be they cis or trans. Lost 1e makes a lot of hay out of the idea that Fairest “are rarely conventionally attractive”, and core even provides some interesting written concepts for that...which make it into exactly none of the art. Every published Fairest is conventionally attractive for various definitions of conventional, be it as a supermodel or a waif, but that leaves the question of Fairest who genuinely are not - and, tragically, Fairest who were not, and were then made into someone more easily consumed by their Durance. You know what I’m about to say, and I know you know I’m about to say it, but I’m gonna say it anyway: all bodies are beautiful, but Fairest know well that beauty and attraction aren’t the same, and neither are beauty and happiness. All Fairest, from the roundest bear to the most wide-eyed waif, are the products of Keepers who valued their bodies in that state, and that idea is going to haunt them day in and day out for the rest of their extended lives. There is no such thing as a Fairest with an uncomplicated relationship to their body, and that White Wolf seems to think that an uncomplicated relationship is their default state is...disgusting, frankly.

Which brings us, at long last, to butch Fairest (also bear Fairest but I’m gonna stick with the one set of terms or I’m going to go mad and this will never be published), who have a complicated journey ahead of them. On the one hand, the assertion of control and ownership over their own bodies, their own identities, cannot be overstated. On the other hand, elements of those bodies are going to be completely out of their control; a nascent butch Fairest may well hit the gym to get swole only to discover that she literally, physically cannot, that she has been Assigned Dex Build At Durance. Hauling your corpse out of Arcadia with an extremely feminine appearance shaped by your Keeper might complicate attempts to present in a more masculine manner or even just to appear androgynous, and those complications can be discouraging. For those that stick to it, this journey will take them two places; one is the bared-teeth, bloody-knuckled assertion that this life is theirs and you can have it if you can fucking take it, and the other is into the ranks of the Freehold’s retained warriors, usually in Summer or Autumn, though a vibrant representation of Spring knights will make it seem as if Spring has more butch Fairest than it actually does. These Fairest are aware, or will become aware, of how much of their job involves de-escalating or pre-empting violence; a focus on Physical stats or skills is not necessarily common, but hyper-specialization therein likely is. A butch Fairest is a lot more likely to have, say, Brawl 4 (Multiple Opponents) and no other Physical skills than she is to have Brawl, Weaponry, Athletics, and Stealth, in part or in whole because her first weapon of choice is going to be an Intimidate roll.

At every turn you’re able to, challenge White Wolf’s narrative about Fairest by asking yourself what your Fairest wants, why they’re this way, what they’re frightened of, and how the way they behave relates back to these. They’re not products; they’re people, just as hurt and Lost as the rest of their peers.

Princesses And Pastries - Fairest In The Courts

Fairest have a complex relationship to the society of their fellow Lost. On the one hand, they have the same need for community, support, companionship, understanding, honesty, and material aid as all Lost; a Fairest is not magically proof against being homeless, against starving, against the dangers of existing in the modern world without things like a photo ID or car insurance, and Freeholds provide all of these things. On the other hand, the thing most Fairest fear most, even if they can’t articulate that fear, is their own power - social influence, emotional trust and betrayal, status, political power, and authority. Fairest are all too aware that being good at this game does not make them immune to it - after all, that’s the lesson they learned at the hands of their Keepers.

What follows from this is a complex dance of interactions that each Fairest in some ways has to feel like she’s managing on her own, even if she’s not (and she rarely is; those support groups exist for a reason). If you give a Fairest a doughnut in a social setting, she will lick that doughnut even if she doesn’t intend to eat it right away, solely to hear someone else say something along the lines of “well it’s yours now”. As Fairest filter into Freehold society and take up social roles at all levels of power - officers, messengers, ‘ambassadors’ to mortal society, secretaries, pledge-smiths, teachers, monarchs - their responsibilities and rewards become their doughnut. That Fairest make a big deal out of both their job and the benefits that come with it is rarely, as other Lost sometimes think, about aggrandizement or reveling in power for its own sake; it’s about the sheer relief and assurance of hearing someone say, to the Fairest’s face, that this is her doughnut and no one is going to take it from her.

Younger Fairest tend to flit between two or three Courts; their initial selection may be based entirely on friendships, Vibes, or a gut-check decision based on an initial pitch by that Court, and Fairest can go quite far even in a Court that doesn’t quite actually fit their needs. Eventually, though, those Fairest who survive their youth will gravitate towards a Court whose ideals speak to them, even if its current social order isn’t living up to those ideals. If they’re going to be condemned to live as exiles in the world of their birth, the Fairest can at least be the person she wants to be, god damn it. Fairest aren’t any more or less vulnerable to a toxic Court environment than other Lost, but they’re good at detecting it beforehand. Unfortunately they’re also good at telling themselves they can change it.

Spring - Though early Spring joiners are of course rare in general, Fairest are among those Lost who more commonly choose Spring as a first Court. Spring’s highly social focus and chaotic internal organization is almost tailor-made for the skill set of your average Fairest, but therein too lies a sense of threat; for many Fairest, Spring can remind them of their Durance, and their joining of the Court is as much motivated by fear of a powerful cultural body as it is by any genuine Desire, maybe even more so. Many such Fairest end up caught in Spring’s middle-road trap, spinning their wheels without recovering or worsening more or less until they finally die, but when Autumn can sniff out the fearful ones it puts a lot of work into cooperating with Spring to get them out and where they can be helped.

Summer - More Fairest dabble with Summer for dreams of glory, or because they want to believe in Summer’s apolitical sales pitch, than ultimately stick with Summer. Those that do stay often serve as officers, as the Sun’s Tongue or the Arrayer of Distant Thunder, and as Court sorcerers. Fairest skilled in Contracts of Separation can make for surprising Jaegers, hounding their prey down more like a private investigator or a serial killer than a traditional hunter, but while striking this is fairly rare. Fairest who stick with Summer are those who are looking for its high ideals and are often among those rare Summer Courtiers who can competently articulate both those ideals and their pitfalls without falling prey to cynicism and bitterness.

Autumn - For those Fairest who hurt others to feel safe, Autumn is waiting. The Leaden Mirror can be attractive to young Fairest because it’s easy to perceive Autumn as atomized, defined by personal relationships rather than webs of political influence, but when the Fairest discovers those webs the existence of Option Two: Resort To Violence as an acceptable tool to the Ashen Court is perversely reassuring rather than threatening. The image of the Fairest as a witch, tempting and threatening, clings to them in Autumn but it’s honestly not their most common role; Autumn employs its Fairest as rumor-mongers, the Other Woman who seems a little too familiar with your husband, therapists & counselors, oneiromancers, and ambassadors to Hedge communities. The work Autumn does is harsh on Clarity, and Fairest are especially vulnerable to that harshness, but if the Court invests the time in helping its Fairest members, the self-awareness and self-confidence it offers can be a godsend that no other Court can give them.

Winter - As the Court which is actually selling what Fairest think Autumn has - to wit, the ability to simply say “no” to all social interactions with no justification required - Winter has a strong undercurrent of Fairest membership at all tiers of its power. Fairest often end up directly involved in Winter’s money-making enterprises, and flourish as Squires and Armigers with their fingers on the pulse of the Court’s morale. Winter’s hands-off approach displays a tremendous amount of trust in its Fairest from their perspective, and the demeanor of the Coldest Court - Winter’s indifferent equality - has a potent, merciless appeal. The trap of drowning in Sorrow sucks more than a few Fairest under, but if their peers can be there for them there’s always a way back out.

This Is Not A Pipe - Fairest And Lost’s Themes

My many thanks to Izzie M for her extensive help on this section. I’m not sure I’d have been able to grapple it down, emotionally or intellectually, otherwise.

Fairest go through some intense shit, and the shit they go through can never fully be addressed, never fully be recovered from. It’s no mistake that Fairest, like Wizened, are among those Lost likely to never fully gain resolution with or from their Keeper, and this is because they embody the dark truth that no matter how much progress you make, how much you heal, your trauma has changed who you are as a person and you will be dealing with it until you die. But, as alluded to extensively above in the discussion of Fairest and gender, Fairest also embody the way in which society will attempt to stamp you, mold you, turn you into a product to be consumed or an archetype to be placed into its churning machine, and its attempts to reshape who and what you are and can be are, in themselves, a form of trauma and abuse.

Fairest deal a lot in expectations. They’re expected to be perfect victims, they’re expected to be happy (because they’re beautiful and attractive, because they can front as Doing Okay, because they have a form of access to ‘normal’ society), they’re expected to want romance and sex (since everyone else wants those things out of them), to perform emotional labor, to be available, intimate, understanding, to keep up appearances. Fairest escape the chains of their Keeper only to be clapped in the chains that extend into the eyes and minds of their peers, and they cannot move without hearing the clink of them.

Fairest are primed to represent victims of ongoing emotional abuse and neglect; sex slaves and victims of child abuse might find themselves in Fairest, as might husbands or wives of abusive partners (and boy, re-living my bullshit there was a bonus prize I didn’t want to receive for writing this article), children pushed to over-achieve (here overlapping with Elemental) until they break, pastor’s daughters and cult kids (here overlapping with Beast), and others. However, Fairest also hit their thematic stride when talking about trauma from a society that will not give you an exit. A trans person is first punished by society for “failing” to perform their assigned gender, then made to perform their new one to expectations that they cannot set, do not control, and do not consent to; such a person might easily be Fairest, as might a man breaking under the expectations of Maleness, a college student losing their mind in finals week with no one to help, or even more ‘ordinary’ sex workers expected to perform emotional and physical labor for a society that rewards their work with violence and dehumanization.

Fairest are people with complex internal worlds and they damn well know it, but the temptations to let others define them are numerous; society promises all manner of rewards for being who and what it wants you to be, for wanting the things it tells you to want, for being the kind of person who wants and does those things. To be Fairest is to know at any time you can start faking it and receive those rewards insofar as they’re actually on the table, but it is also to know, every second of every day that you’re performing that role, that it is fake. If you can’t find a community with which you can be genuine...well. You can always get more hurt, and in this way Fairest also bring another theme of Lost into focus: that the Lost owe compassion and understanding to their fellow victims, because failure to care can only hurt both them and everyone in their blast zone.

Feet Pics For Legos - Coping As A Fairest

Fairest are among those Lost who are most concerned with their day-to-day social interactions and safety rather than their immediate, very physical environmental safety. They are perhaps the Seeming most likely to live in a group setting (in an apartment with roommates or romantic partners, in a house shared between multiple households, splitting the bills in a condo, with their parents), and are definitely the Seeming most comfortable with the idea of living with mortals who aren’t ensorcelled. Indeed, Fairest don’t tend to do well living alone; even a Fairest who wants or needs a private place to be, choosing to keep a home in which others cannot lay a claim, will likely crash at friends’ places, sleep over at the Freehold commons on some pretext or another, stay the night with a lover, or otherwise have a place to flop down while surrounded by other people. Having other people - their greatest reality check - around the place helps keep the Fairest centered in the real reality, better able to pick apart the mortal from the Wyrd from their own unrelated hallucinations, and a Fairest who is isolated - or who is permitted to isolate herself - quickly begins to dissociate and may soon be incapable of caring for herself until someone can get her back into the present.

Those invited over as guests to a Fairest’s home may note a lot of concern for those she lives with. She likely schedules the event well in advance, is clear about the boundaries of those she lives with (”That’s Brenda’s room, the door stays shut.”) and in general treats her communal home with a lot of respect and love. Respecting these boundaries and in turn having her own respected is very validating for the Fairest and is vital to be able to feel safe and at ease in her own home, and impressing their importance on guests further reinforces that this is, as it were, her doughnut. While not dismissive of their own literal physical safety per se, a Fairest’s anxieties rarely center around her body being violently attacked by strangers. For those that do have such anxieties, they may choose to solve that problem by simple expedient of rooming or living with someone large and scary.

Another detail of note which is touched on in Winter Masques is that Fairest tend to seek out life’s little pleasures. Though they are not necessarily wealthier than other Lost, how a Fairest chooses to spend her money tends to follow particular patterns. Rare is the Fairest who doesn’t have clothing they like, a phone that works, a wallet or purse that can actually hold all of their stuff, and in this regard most Fairest without a special interest in fashion as a hobby in and of itself will have an aesthetic that is self-expressive but serviceable and hard-wearing, but any place the Fairest haunts, frequents, or lives in will get little touches everywhere. Fairest spend the little bits of extra money for good toilet paper, soft soaps that won’t hurt the skin, good shower supplies, high-quality razors, boots that won’t wear through - and they spend their serious money on their hobbies and preferences. A Fairest with a passion for cooking scrimps and saves to get a fully-stocked kitchen; a Fairest who likes building and connecting invests in Legos or Hot Wheels and creates elaborate environments for them. A gamer Fairest has headphones that can vibrate your constipation away and a fiber optic connection to ensure that lag will not stand between her and your doom. The reasons for this are manifold, and Lost’s canon writing suggests that Fairest seek pleasure to alleviate a desire to return to Arcadia. This is, to put it mildly, a stupid assertion; rather, the Fairest provides her own pleasures in part because it is one of the most emotionally clear ways to lick the doughnut, and in part because it reminds her that she can be happy under her own power, can seek pleasure, stimulation, engagement, without placing herself at another’s mercy - ironically making it easier to go out every day and do exactly that as a member of her various societies.

As a Fairest settles in she tends to look for “her” people, and quite often they’re good at compartmentalizing this, wearing different hats and having different feelings about those hats without feeling fake or distressed about the bare fact of that. She’ll have her personal friends and family, like her housemates, her girlfriend, maybe her mortal family, her neighbors, and then folks like her Motley (which are like her personal friends and family, but In The Know), her fellow Fairest and the Freehold broadly, her work friends and fellow hobbyists. A Fairest who does, say, sex work, thinks of herself as a Sex Worker and understands herself in the context of that broader social group. It can be a lot! Many Lost barely have a handle on being a member of both the Freehold and a Court, and the way Fairest flit to and fro between many communities, slipping seamlessly from one role to another, can be exhausting to watch - but by doing so the Fairest also builds bonds between those communities, highlights their common needs and interests, draws them together over their similarities and strengths. Darklings and Wizened get a lot of the work on the ground done, but it’s often a Fairest in the role of whistleblower, figurehead, and champion all at once.

After all, this, too, is her doughnut.

Example Fairest - Clara Belltower, Spring Playmate

Clara Belltower is a mime.

Well, no, not exactly. Clara Belltower is a self-employed porn actress, erotic script writer, and director, whose primary thing is mimes, clowns, and more broadly circuses and performance venues. She came back from Arcadia eight years back fleeing life as her Keeper’s Stepford Wife, and ran face-first into the money issues that haunt the Lost in general. What started out as a practical choice in new career - and an attempt to find and express an identity not created for her by her abuser - became a creative passion that has stayed strong with Clara and propelled her to status in the Spring Court, which retains her keen eye for decoration, direction, and theatricality in service to its high rituals and revels. Clara’s livestreams and online presence are also a convenient avenue for the Freehold to launder its less legal revenue streams, which has endeared Spring’s “silent siren” to the Winter Court and cemented her as a mover and shaker.

Clara’s ambitions reach beyond erotic miming, as talented as she is at both creating and purveying such. She has her eyes on four different strip clubs in Freehold territory alone whose owners and operators need to fucking go, and she wants Winter’s help making it happen; further, she wants the Freehold to take over operation of those establishments for the benefit of the workers. Clara’s vision is popular in Spring and has its supporters in Summer too, but the Declining Seasons have been cool on the concept, citing a need to maintain subtlety and avoid entanglements with the mortal world that might invite the eye of, say, the IRS - or mire the Freehold in a protracted war with local police departments. Clara’s passion burns with a righteous simplicity, envisioning a Freehold that is active in improving the city around it - if the cops want to throw down, bring it on! Her influence over Winter means the Coldest Court cannot simply dismiss her desires, but neither is it willing to go to war. Something is going to have to give, soon.

This concludes the Fairest portion of the article. Some additional thoughts on Seeming follow.

Bombing Your Own Position - Choosing Your Seeming

So it’s been six articles and I’ve talked about the ways various Seemings can represent responses to the things which traumatize us; neurodivergences for which society abuses us, the machinery of capitalism, violence, prison, and more. But how do you go about choosing your character’s Seeming? The obvious choice is to make a character that puts a lot of yourself at the table; to seek out a Seeming that reflects your own traumas, your own issues, your own anxieties and struggles, and then grapple with them in this fictional context. But RPGs can be an emotionally challenging medium, and you may well not want to deal with your own bullshit during your magic trauma fairy game. That’s valid!

Now, the second obvious piece of advice is to think about your proposed character’s themes and traumas and then select a Seeming from there, but this can get complicated. Many Lost players feel as if they need two Seemings, and to those players I say: no the fuck you do not. But it is true that people are messy and do not fully resolve, that the broad spectrum of the world of sorrow and loss is not easy to fit into 6 discrete categories whose creation was often managed by, not to keep repeating this point, fucking Nazis. I have found in my experience that it can be helpful, when you’re torn between two Seemings or you have a character you’re sure is this Seeming even though they look like or could be that one, to ask yourself why the character is not the other option. Why is this alluring and sensual Darkling not a Fairest, what makes this brutal and violent Wizened not an Ogre? This question naturally leads to others about their abuse and their reaction to it, and can start your momentum for writing your concept out.

As an addition, while I’ve spoken of various Seemings as being well-equipped to represent specific traumas, they don’t own those traumas. Elementals are metaphorically autistic, but there’s nothing stopping you from running an autistic Fairest or an autistic Beast instead. Rather, those Seemings outlined as being “for” or “about” certain traumas are those whose selection will make those traumas thematically central, cause you to return to them as a topic over and over by virtue of being who and what they are. Real people have complicated problems which intersect with one another, spawning new problems that are more strange than the sum of their parts, and it’s both valid and interesting to write your Lost that way - just keep in mind that it’ll still be complicated at the table too.

Van Helsing Hate Crimes - Seeming Politics

White Wolf spent a lot of time waffling back and forth on whether or not Seemings represent distinct cultural and political identities in a given Freehold, drifting towards ‘yes’ when the writers thought about the way Blessings and Curses create consistent, measurable differences between Lost of various Seemings, and towards ‘no’ generally whenever they were asked to actually outline a Lost society such as a sample Freehold or Entitlement. Some Entitlements are locked to specific Seemings, often times with little thought as to why, while other times Seeming-based power blocs are alluded to as worldbuilding elements (such as in Lords of Summer) without much in the way of supporting detail. Why should these things happen, when, how, what does the buildup of this violent fracture in a Freehold society look like?

On the whole, I have taken the stance in these articles and in my own worldbuilding that some amount of fantastical prejudice exists amongst the Lost, but that the systems of oppression have not taken root. Maybe it’s idealistic of me to view the Lost as unwilling or unable to produce internally racist power structures that create an underclass for the benefit of an appointed elite, but in general I feel as if Freeholds are too small, each individual member too precious by simple dint of being a living being in a physical body, for this kind of evil to flourish. That said, you may have also noticed that I identified two Seemings - Darklings and Fairest - as explicitly self-uniting and in some senses self-governing on the basis of common traumas that they often cannot fully explain to outsiders, and indeed community with people that understand your bullshit without you having to say it aloud - that is, those who share a Seeming with you - can be invaluable to all Lost. Ultimately, however, I want to advise against looking at Seemings the way that, say, Vampire: the Requiem looks at Clans, and instead to treat them as reactions to trauma rather than a kind of alternate racial identity.

Next up: So You Need To Write A Fetch

#Changeling: The Lost #rpg #fairest #trauma #abuse #seemings #violence

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herpronuonsarefemslash · 3 years

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Satisfaction Brought it Back - TEASER

The one where Lena ghosted Kara rather than going villain, Kara went into reporting on human rights abuses in warzones and Lena started a project to take medical information for aliens and their anatomy to help human hospitals.

And then volunteer Subject 99 walks in for a full exam and Lena wonders if she can pretend she's doing anything other than "playing doctor" while learning about Kara's unique body. But her traitor heart just wants to play house. SEE THE REST HERE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/56078508 ===== Alana helps the gray-scaled Jorviunan gentleperson down from the exam table. Five genders on a three-pole gradient, the species file says. Subject 98 uses he/him according to the survey. But it's not right. She's gotten enough peripheral glances of herself in a ballroom's mirror, gritting her teeth and using the identity of least resistance when one of Lillian's friends slid a hand around her back. Lena's been in both the human medicine and xenobiology games long enough to know when a word tastes bad in someone's mouth. Or fangs. Or pincers. Or feelers. Or bioelectrically charged water-filtering membranes. Subject 73 was a Vyllnat who rolled in the other day who looked like she belonged on a Wikipedia article about the Dykes on Bikes movement with the zinger being that her partner was checking in for the session in the next bay during the same time slot. Mating for them involves snuggling close and sharing body heat until their physiologies sync up enough to allow genetic material to simply seep through softened skin. What Lena thought was a rather plain leather riding jacket was, in fact, skin that just looked like supple black leather. Membranous flaps that adults use to seal each other's bodies in an airtight embrace during one of these sessions. A mutually embarrassing moment involving Lena stumbling and nearly wiping out with a tray of sharps and some accidentally-spit acid revealed the tight jeans were really fifteen feet of muscular tail as thick as Lena's waist trailing behind 73 in a holographic concealment field. Lena even weaseled her into letting her take 3D scans of all five sets of interlocking fangs and slicing teeth and a venom sample.

Late that night, Lena might have put a few minutes of Clash of the Titans on loop while she got herself off. Sue her. The idea of reproduction by snuggling is even gayer than a race of medusa-ish beings who come in three flavors of what could only really be called female in a human framework.

"Next subject?" Lena asks, looking up at Alana who is tapping some commands to the repurposed attack drone of Lex's they use to burn any biohazards off the equipment.

"iPad," Alana replies, her eyes sparkling a bit too much as she directs three streams of particle-dissolving energy. Lena sometimes gets a distinct whiff of Kate McKinnon's character in Ghostbusters, except that not only is Alana weird and unapologetic and intense, she's also a first-generation immigrant. She tears through American pop culture like Kara tears through potstickers, so Lena's never 100% sure if Alana's showing up in an outfit that looks like business-safe cosplay on purpose or not. Some city in Nigeria is missing their resident mad genius, to National City's benefit. ===== "Uh, hi."

Rude, is all Lena can think at first. She had heard through the 'DEO to Alex to Kelly to the group texts of doctors who deal with aliens' pipeline that Supergirl had gone from on-patrol to emergency use only around the time that blogs gushed about one of CatCo's human passing journalists coming out as alien and then leaving the company. She was trying very hard not to stalk Kara's Instagram at the time so she didn't follow up. Something something independent reporter in the field somewhere somewhere bringing attention to the plight of someone someone.

Lena only avoided full-on alcoholism over the last year by screening out all reminders of Kara's existence, which let her pretend. Which didn't make it hurt any less when Jess came into her office a few months ago and said that Kara Danvers had come by to ask if Lena had gotten a new cell phone. Kara's first thought wasn't Lena being a cruel, overdramatic mess of gay thirst and Luthor trauma. She trusted Lena's good nature, so her first thought was clerical error.

Kara seems to have taken being ghosted in stride because she spent the last six months getting somehow even hotter than she already was, which probably violates some United Nations Convention on placing dangerous pressure on the human body or something.

Her hair is the same length, but it's tied in a hasty ponytail that's tied off with a scrunchy made of honest-to-god paracord the same crimson as her cape. She's let the curl come back in--how did she straighten it, anyway?--so it doesn't look like Supergirl's sheets of gold more suited for a damsel in diaphanous silk than the halo of an avenging angel. What it evokes is a stallion's mane, glossy in the harsh light and waving as the beast moves.

The dresses that never suited her are gone, and the button ups are back but now they're a thick flannel or something worn half-unbuttoned over a burgundy tee shirt that clings tight and reveals the corners of the suit's breastplate underneath. She could trace the glyph through it, which means if Lena could only get her out of the damn suit, it would revea--FOCUS, she reminds herself--and rather than CatCo-required chinos Kara is in black denim that hangs loose at rest but molds to her muscles when she walks over to put her coat across the 'patient clothing' rack. Each flex and tense tells Lena way too much about how powerful her thighs are and also not nearly enough about what it would feel to have the--FOCUS, Lena--and Jesus take the wheel Kara's even wearing combat boots covered in a fresh coat of pale dust that could just as easily be from a hiking trail north of town or a warzone in Somalia.

"It's funny. On the plane, back from Kasnia? I almost told you."

When she couldn't stop fidgeting with her glasses. Her hair was a mess when she escaped from the Eve clones. She had her glasses off and her hair down and she was going to show me... Lena realizes.

She makes a sound she doesn't even recognize and suddenly she's in Kara's arms, her knees sting from hitting the floor before Kara knelt with her. She's slapping ineffectively against the protective firmness around her and watching her own tears fall like it's happening to someone else.

Kara shushes her and rocks her back and forth and doesn't ask before kissing her forehead. Lena doubts she thought about it consciously. Maybe when she is released, she can complain about lack of consent or maybe she'll demand another kiss to make it all better.

=====

"Lena, I really can't do this. Not like this, not with you."

Reality slams down around Lena like the doors in a haunted house closing.

"Of course. I can schedule you with Alana or per-"

Kara molds her hands to Lena's hipbones and pulls her into her arms. She takes her with force, cupping Lena's head and holding her fast. She nips at Lena's lip and uses the moan as a chance to lick into Lena's mouth. Hot and wet and impatient, her tongue seasoned with ginger and orange and grease, cut with the waiting room mints. She kisses like she eats, greedily and curiously and bottomless. Kara hums and holds and presses and licks and nips and sucks. She brings one hand up to Lena's neck and curls around her pulse, rubbing her thumb along Lena's windpipe. She doesn't seem to notice or care that Lena can't do this forever because Kara wants to do this forever and fuck human failings like a need for oxygen. Lena has to bite her tongue to get her to retreat. It would've drawn blood on a human but Kara just moans and pulls back.

"Christ, Kara."

Kara licks her lips lazily. The chilly blue that reminds Lena of ice caps and winter skies is darkened and her pupils are swollen and fucking hell Lena can even see little white crackles in the depths of them, rising towards the surface like caged lightning.

#supercorp #soft butch #kara danvers #lena luthor #alien fun bits #supergirl

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lesbinewren · 3 years

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hey friend, i've been following your blog for a while now and i absolutely think you should go on a rant about modern sw canon being homophobic! i agree with you and i'd love to hear your points (especially re: anything having to do with tarkin, as im not as familiar with that) (:

ill try to not turn this into like a full six page essay lmao

so basically there are at this point a fair amount of gay/bi characters in sw canon atm... just none appearing on-screen (or at least not being explicitly gay on-screen) except for those two women that kissed for like half a second in tros. so thats point one i guess- all but completely restricting even acknowledgements of gayness to books/comics that dont get nearly as much recognition as the screen media does.

point two is that theres a pattern of the main characters they choose to make explicitly gay as being... considerably less moral than others sometimes. and im not saying that every single gay character needs to be completely flawless with the sun shining out of their ass at all times, but why cant we get more lead, unquestionably heroic characters to be confirmed gay or bi? we have gay villains (tarkin being sorta confirmed gay in facpov, moff mors who deserves an entire post of her own), and then characters that are more like anti-heroes, or at least heros with darker pasts/tendencies (aphra, sinjir, arguably characters like sana, chass and yrica but those three to a much lesser degree).

and i dont... dislike those characters. i actually LOVE aphra, shes probably one of my faves, and i loved sinjir and conder in aftermath. i dont really have any problems with their stories at all, it’s just that they’re part of a pattern of characters with sometimes questionable morality (aphra working with vader and happily siccing her droids to torture and murder people etc & sinjir being a torturer for the empire who then joins the rebellion and tortures sometimes for that cause too). like again, my problem isnt that gay characters arent paragons of virtue, its that most characters they happen to make gay also happen to be the morally gray ones. im not really asking for less dubiously good cay characters, just also more solidly heroic gay characters to balance it a bit.

and they are getting better, there are more solidly heroic main gay characters... its just for every wyl lark or kaedan larte you have a gay imperial officer and an offhandedly mentioned dead pair of husbands. and i also dont think id mind as much if there wasnt a history in film especially where even implying gayness was prohibited unless it was condemned or shown to be immoral. i dont think its intentional, but its hard not to get that vibe when they make their biggest canon lesbian character blow up cute tooka cats for fun lmao (as much as i adore aphra)

and my third and probably final point for now is the deliberate vagueness of things, and the way that they sometimes confirm characters. i think they’re especially egregious about this with bi/pan characters. i dont have the direct quote, but when confirming lando to be lgbt during solo promotion, they essentially said he’s pan because he... has sex with droids and aliens? no mention of you know... being a man attracted to other men, that might be too controversial ig. also i think it was donald glover who specifically said something like “how couldn’t you be pansexual in space, there’s so many things to have sex with” as if thats what being bi/pan is which just... yeah.

and then also in the leia book (a book i really like), the “confirmation” of holdo being bi is when leia says something about sticking to “humanoid males” and holdo tells her “thats limiting” or whatever which a) its a personal pet peeve of mine as a lesbian when people say things like that, even tho its said to a straight person, its just insulting and acts like sexuality is a choice and bi/pan people are more enlightened by choosing not to “limit themselves” and b) in context they’re talking about a like... bug alien or something like that, its been a minute since i read the book but it wasnt just like a humanoid alien woman or anything. so again... being just vague enough to get woke points for your character being lgbt without actually having them express same gender attraction AND equating being bi to just being willing to screw whatever i guess.

and for the record i dont think that this all means star wars is being unforgivably homophobic. i DO think characters like aphra, sinjir and others are good representation, i just dont want characters like that to be our only representation, because thats when things start to get more questionable for me. but like, i think its AWESOME that aphra has her own comic line and audiobook where she’s very explicitly gay, and the fact that she’s probably the most popular modern star wars comic-originated character while being a lesbian seriously makes me happier than i know how to express. i think the fact that the alphabet squadron trilogy made two of its female leads explicitly bi and one of their male leads end up in a relationship with another man is amazing. i love sinjir and conder’s romance being a primary feature of the aftermath trilogy. i think its incredible cool of them to have the bravery to make an iconic character from the original trilogy pan, even if im not a huge fan of the phrasing they used (and would like them to be more explicit about it in future content). like, i dont want to be all negative because i think there is a lot of good rep there. i just know it can be better, and being allowed to criticize it makes me feel better about it, and hopefully will start more conversations that lead to them being more mindful in the future.

#ask #anon #i can elaborate on any specific points these are just my general thoughts

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“…The common work of American pioneer children has become an essential story of frontier life. Less well known or acknowledged is that gender boundaries were often disregarded in the course of this experience. Daniel worked not only at tasks with his father but also at those normally seen as women’s work. To help his mother, he dyed cloth, carried water from the spring, helped to nurse the younger children, and cooked. His work was indeed diverse as he did what was needed with little complaint—or so he remembered years later when writing his memoir. Then at fifteen, he was separated from all of it—from his physical labor and from his pious parents (his mother’s favorite word was “wicked”). She was hardly indulgent of him, either in the work he was required to do or in the virtues he was expected to display while doing them.

Many boys did female work. Henry Clarke Wright, who became an outspoken educator and a radical abolitionist, spent his childhood helping his stepmother by babysitting, and much more. “He cleaned, he cooked, he washed.” In upstate New York, where his family lived in the early nineteenth century, he also did more masculine work “riding the horses, yoking and driving the oxen, bringing in the cows, harnessing and all the rest of the hard labor of the frontier farmer.” After his farming experience, Wright was left to become an apprentice in April 1814. Lonely, “home-sick” and with a “feeling of wretched- ness,” Wright learned to grow up fast. He also learned his own mind and how later to defend his extremely independent and unpopular views.

The American boys of the early republic grew early into independence. They were neither indulged nor coddled. They were given some say in the objects of their labor and, when possible, free time to play. But the children were also seen as “little citizens”—persons with capacity as well as potential. Some visitors were shocked by the results, but others were impressed. One Englishwoman observed, “You will see a little being that has not seen the sun make one circle of seasons, lay hold on a toy, not to cram it in his mouth and look stupidly at it, but to turn it curiously over, open it if he can, and peep in with a look as wise as that of a raven peeping into a marrow bone. One mark of early observation and comprehension never failed to excite my wonder. Little creatures feed themselves very early, and are trusted with cups of glass and china, which they grasp firmly, and carry about the rooms carefully, and deposit unbroken.”

There is, perhaps, a degree of exaggeration in such observations, finding the precocious engineer within the child not yet a year old. But in light of current findings by cognitive psychologists about the “scientist in the crib,” perhaps it is less a matter of exaggeration than a willingness to see even young children as more fully capable of independent thought and action than most Americans are accustomed to today. Americans at this time assumed that children needed less supervision and direction. This was true for girls as well as boys. By the time she was six years of age, Caroline Stickney (later Creevey), who grew up to be a nature writer, was expected to go to the doctor alone after she had fallen and severely injured her arm. It turned out to be broken.

“Mother was too busy to accompany me and there was nobody else. Besides children were taught to stand upon their own feet in these days.” Caroline’s regular tasks included bringing the cow to pasture in the morning and retrieving her at night, and, like Ulysses Grant, she was able from an early age to roam freely in the woodland that this future botanical enthusiast loved to explore and whose trees she climbed regardless of risk. At ten, she was allowed to ride the family horse; when she asked her father for directions to find a certain path, he made clear to her that she could find her own way.

Anna Howard Shaw had a more extreme experience, as her father sent his young family from Lawrence, Massachusetts, to which the family had migrated from England after Thomas Shaw’s bankruptcy, to the north woods of Michigan. There the children and their mother were left alone to establish her father’s claim to the 360 acres he had acquired, while he remained East to settle his affairs. Shaw’s mother, overwhelmed by grief and disbelief at the raw and trying circumstances, collapsed emotionally and was “practically an invalid.” This left the enterprise entirely to the five children. Barely twenty years old, Shaw’s oldest brother, James, was in charge. Anna was recruited to lay floorboards on the earth and frame windows and doors.

When even James left because he needed an operation that took him back to Massachusetts, the young children were left to fend for themselves, through a variety of “nerve-wracking” conditions and winters that “offered few diversions and many hardships.” Anna eventually took advantage of opportunities for schooling that led to her unflinching grasp at independence as a professional woman. In later life, Shaw was a crusader for women’s suffrage, and managed to become both a medical doctor and a minister. This kind of brutal induction into resourcefulness and independence, while not representative, was also not uncommon.

Girls and boys matured early, and Tocqueville, for one, believed that American children did not have or need an adolescence. The very young child, given the right to handle glassware or crockery, is a child invested with the capacity to act responsibly. Dr. Spock would note more than a century later that such confidence acknowledged that a child is eager to do “grown up things,” like feeding herself in the same way as the adults around her. And early work laid the basis for later habits. Anna Shaw noted that work had “always been my favorite form of recreation.”

The English commentator who saw precocious infant explorers poking around their toys was observing a different model of child development, one that was becoming as alien to middle- and upper-class Europeans of the nineteenth century as it is to us today. While European children of the middle classes were being treated as precious objects of solicitude, needing careful protection, American children who later became presidents, doctors, writers, and reformers were exposed to adult work and responsibility. And they were far less supervised. It was not only that class was more fluid in the United States in this period but that the specific expectations about children remained more fluid than in Europe.

Later in the nineteenth century, middle-class Americans, too, would begin to separate children from adult activities and treat them, as we usually do today, as fragile beings who needed special toys and risk-proof furnishings. But during this initial period when American society was being formed and the culture was laying down historical tracks, children were much more integrated into adult activities and given both more responsibility and more freedom. Most Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century viewed their children’s early maturity as natural, an expression of both the helping qualities they required in the young and beliefs about children’s abilities to be useful from an early age. It was a widespread phe- nomenon in many parts of the new country and remained an active part of the culture up to the end of the century, while elsewhere in the Western world, children were sentimentalized.

It was true for girls as well as for boys, observed in the eastern United States as well as the West, common among rural folk especially but in cities as well. Rachel Buttz’s father, Tunis Quick, was raised in the Shenandoah Valley in the early nineteenth century. His father was a well-meaning “generous, kindhearted man,” but his decision to back a neighbor’s loan impoverished the family, and soon after his mother’s death young Tunis was “hired to a neighbor who required him to do almost as much work as a full-grown man.” Just past ten years of age, Tunis quickly became responsible in other ways as well. Tunis objected to the slavery that was a feature of the area in which they lived, so at fifteen he urged his father to move the family to the North.

They stopped first in Ohio “where [he] was variously employed in farming, hauling goods and keeping a ferry on the Scioto River.” Having worked hard and impressed his employer, young Tunis obtained the means to buy a home in Indiana where the family finally settled. Tunis Quick learned early to assist his family as they struggled, and his sense of responsibility also gave him the ability to think independently and to have his views heard and respected. By what we would consider his mid-adolescence, he had not only directed his family’s migration north, but he was buying property for them. Tunis’s desire to leave a section dominated by slavery is also noteworthy, since it was the South, where slave ownership defined the society, that was the major exception to the developing democracy within families.

To some extent, the independence given to children grew from the ideals and values expressed in the Revolution since Americans believed that future generations had to acquire the characteristics that would maintain the principles enunciated in that event. But more than ideology was involved. No simple commitment to an idea can completely explain the behaviors so widely observed and the general willingness to heed children’s independent judgment. Ideology will not necessarily loosen a father’s grip over his sons when he had always expected to be obeyed and to have his commands met, even when he is committed to republican ideals. In the Southern United States, of course, this loosening of paternal power never happened, since slavery reinforced its grip.

And even in other parts of the United States, some observed the loosening of parental reins with concern and attempted to inhibit the young through new institutions of supervision, such as schools, as they recognized how much mischief could be loosed in a world guided by revolutionary principles. Not all Americans took kindly to the idea of children acting on their own. But a widespread independence among the young continued nevertheless. American life in the first half of the nineteenth century was defined by conditions that made such views about children necessary while the restless temperament of Americans made them ready for change and improvement. Together, these conditions provided children with the leeway to become more independent as they became more useful. Utility as well as ideology needs to be taken into account if we are to understand the families that produced a Grant, Drake, Quick, Shaw, or Wright.

The changing circumstances of the early republic resulted from both material conditions and political institutions. Together, these were widely understood as fundamental to the difference between Americans and Europeans. A shrewd, early observer of the difference, the Reverend Enos Hitchcock, sought to sustain the new revolutionary ideology through appropriate childrearing and education. “The systems of education written in Europe, are too local to be transferred to America; they are generally designed for a style of life, different from that, which is necessary for the inhabitants of the United States to adopt: they do not reach our circumstances, and are not suited to the genius of our government.”

To understand the American regime of domestic relations, we need to grasp just how unsettled, raw, and unpredictable the American land and the developing economy were during the important first half of the nineteenth century, since the experiences of American children and their parents were an expression of that reality. This dynamic new economy revised expectations about youth and what it could achieve. So did the laws governing inheritance and generational relations. The changes in American domestic life also transformed power relations between men and women, husbands and wives, and this, too, affected generational relationships in important ways.”

- Paula S. Fass, “Childhood and Parenting in the New Republic Sowing the Seeds of Independence, 1800–1860.” in The End of American Childhood: A History of Parenting from Life on the Frontier to the Managed Child

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