#how did you see this person go on and on about her hatred of butches and our connection to masculinity

[dropintomanga]

This Manga Is For Anyone Who Struggles So Hard With Dating

I got to read Meiko Hiranishi’s The Girl That Can’t Get a Girlfriend and I will say that this was one of the validating manga I’ve ever read and one of the very few manga works that really describes the various emotions that comes with being in love. While this is a story about queer romance at its core, the themes are relatable to everyone. 

The manga is an autobiographical memoir of the mangaka’s experience with her first love. Meiko describes herself as a butch lesbian otaku with a crippling lack of self-worth. The manga goes through Meiko’s struggles to find a girlfriend until one summer in her college years, she goes to Japan and meets a love interest named Ash. They begin to date much to Meiko’s happiness. However, their relationship lasted only a month due to a misunderstanding over their potential long-term future together. Meiko goes through 4 years of depression over Ash and the manga chronicles all the pain she felt during that time in hilarious and depressing fashion.

Meiko talks about how Ash validated her despite the two being very different (i.e. Ash was more femme than butch). She found that refreshing as no one really paid attention to her until Ash came along. I can’t help but think about the 1st person I ever really loved. The two of us spent so much together for years as friends, but the way we acted was more than just friends at times. When Meiko said that she wanted to treasure her time with Ash, I felt the same with the person I crushed on. There’s a part where Meiko sees that Ash was too special and that she felt that no one else would compare and I just cried because I felt the same with my first love.

When that relationship ended, I was trying hard to move on, but it was difficult. I talked about this in length and how we made up. But I never opened up my feelings about her. I eventually did confess and well, they weren’t returned.

Meiko desperately tries to get Ash back into her life, only to find out that she got herself a new partner. Meiko then thinks back with a lot of hatred over things that Ash said and did with a smiling face. She couldn’t fathom that the Ash that moved on completely was the same Ash that told her that she loved her. Right now, I’m processing over what my old friend/love said to me in the past. She was very flirty at the time and even implied something more than just flirting. There was also a time when she told me that she wished we were neighbors, so that we could hang out forever. I felt that she was leading me on. And like Meiko, I wondered why would someone do that if their intention was never to get in a romantic relationship with me in the 1st place. I do think that my love was a bit too one-sided though and Meiko saw that too in her desire to be with Ash.

What’s scary was seeing Meiko try to do her best in life in order to impress Ash again when the time comes. However, all of that was for naught when Meiko notices Ash was single again and tries to hit her up to no response. Meiko tries dating men in order to find a replacement, but nothing serious ever materializes. She says that once you have a taste of love, you try hard to get it because of how good it feels. Such truer words have never been spoken. Of course, as Meiko would explain, being stuck on your ex gets in the way. I think it’s easier to feel miserable at times with regards to love because when you only know instability in your life, it becomes all too comfortable. 

The end of the manga is pretty good as Meiko discovers self-compassion after going through a serious health issue. She becomes more likable, finds healthy relationships, takes care of herself better and is realizing her dream of being a manga artist. Meiko doesn’t have a girlfriend and her current life now probably has no room for one, but it’s okay. I think if you’re going to get something out of Meiko’s experiences - it’s that self-compassion really helps wonders. Even though I’m still processing a lot years later, I remember that when I was with the person I loved, I hated myself so much. The separation helped me grow up quite a bit and I don’t get so hard on myself compared to back then. As of right now, I’m giving myself permission to like someone new (if the right person comes along) because I believe I do matter.

Dating does suck. But as Meiko will probably tell you, just because you can’t get a girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband doesn’t mean that you can’t live a life filled with other relationships that make it worth living for yourself.

#The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend #manga #memoir #mental health #relationships #dating #anxiety #Meiko Hiranishi

[lostandfem]

Do you seriously think trans people all are gender conforming? Lol gnc trans people exist lmao. I know a transfem who is a butch bisexual who I'm happily married to. She has short hair, loves wearing long sleeved plaid shirts and some jeans. You transmisogynists love talking about trans women as men in dresses without considering how people can also be GNC. Being transgender is also not innate. I'm a genderfluid bisexual person who often identify as a cis woman but sometimes I identify as a binary man. To say transgender is innate erases the identity of multigender people, who falls under the nonbinary umbrella, which also falls under the trans umbrella. Lol even as an AFAB identifying as a man, I sometimes wear skirts cause I'm GNC. Trans people I know also acknowledge GNC cis people. I know lots of GNC cis women who identify as woman and don't like skirts or dresses and even know some women who take part in masculine activities like boxing, basketball and etc. I don't know much about GNC cis men but I have a friend who is a GNC cis man. He loves to cosplay as his favorite anime characters. He cosplays as anime characters who are not only men but women and still identify as a man. See? Trans people acknowledge that GNC cis people exists too. Do better in discussing trans people and our ideologies, you radfems. Also, as a trans person of color, it's funny how you radfems love JK Rowling, the woman who is transphobic, racist, antisemitic and orientalistic when writing Harry Potter. Oh and JK Rowling also associates herself with conservatives. Associating yourselves with such a bigoted woman, how are you going to use that to explain your feminism that is supposed to liberate marginalized people?

Never said gnc trans people dont exist, I was trans long enough to know that and considered myself one of those because I wasn’t particularly masculine but rather androgynous (in clothing anyway). My post questioned the application of the label ‘trans’. What I did say was that for males it seems to be an opt-in scenario. Option 2 in the post I assume you saw mentions the “take my word for it” self-id, which includes trans women who in no way look feminine/conforming to female gender roles. It’s up to them to tell you how they feel about their gender. Even your friend can dress up femininely in cosplay and not be accused of being trans. However, I’ve noticed the opposite for women. If you’re a gender noncomforming ‘cis’ woman, you are questioned if you’re actually a woman at all. The label of “trans” is seems opt-in for males but not for females.

The incompatibility I mentioned was about incompatible philosophies on gender. No where did I say there was a hatred for them or you couldn’t be friends with them.

What on earth does JK Rowling have to do with this conversation? You assume I worship her or something. JKR isn’t the founder of radical feminism, and I personally feel pretty neutrally about her, and I do feel kinda weird about some of the aspects of her writing. It’s like how nonbinary people have been like “man i hate that I’m in the same category as ezra miller”— you can be in the same group as someone but still not really be associated with them personally or even like them. But it feels to me like you needed to let off steam so I hope you got it all off your chest.

#asks

[musashi]

not related to the topic but I also hate the weird fixation with buff mean masculine lesbians in here? Feels less like theyre actually interested in them as people and more like theyre part of a fantasy in where someone is mean to everyone EXCEPT you because you're special and can fix them? It feel especially hipocritical because of the hatred this site has for masculinity. Like yeah we love them but only if they're nontreatening and secretely sweet? idk but actual mean butches deserve to be loved for everything they are and to not be declawed for a fetish

hmmm i think we are kinda adjacent but not entirely the same thing. its not about masculinity where i see it, just any woman who is strong and confident in herself in any way. i see it with butches, goth girls, fem-dommy types, and even just like. confident business ladies. all traits that apply to me personally so major salt in the wound dfghfdg

it's just any woman who is self-assured, confident, and takes charge, but there is an occasional focus on 1. muscles and/or 2. meanness/sharpness. look at the tumblr sexywoman bracket, for instance--almost ALL of them are "fierce" women, where fierce can mean a multitude of different but semi-related things.

(hilariously, i am kin with NINE of the women on there. wow.)

i don't really mind the... "mean to everyone except me" fantasy because that is also relevant to my experience. my first love was a female friend. we were only eleven when i confessed to her. she told me, matter of factly, that she knew. and when i asked her why, she said, "when someone yells at everyone, but doesn't yell at you, it's easy to figure out you're special."

to this day that's kind of my favourite part of falling in love. when i notice myself going soft. it's exhilarating and scary and lovely. i love that there is one beautiful girl who can completely undo my abrasive edge, and she does it by loving the shape of it. i do not NEED to soften myself around her, but because she doesn't care, i feel safe enough to. it's the same reason i let her take care of me when i'd be prickly and upset if most others tried. it's special, and i love that she gets that side of me.

that fantasy doesn't irritate me, although you're right, sharp women "going soft" for their one special person shouldn't be a requirement of them being loved. but that's not really what i get angry about.

what i'm angry about is, like i said... the women who thirst over "omg queen step on me" types would literally not even talk to us irl. they would not date us. i am a mean woman, and i know mean women, and we all seem to have this similar experience where girls are too intimidated by us or think we are out of their league or wouldn't be interested, when half of us WANT to date a soft normie and listen to her talk about her bulbasaur plushie collection or some shit. but they wouldn't actually love us, or talk to us, half of them are twitterbrained and think we're abusive!!! no joke, i was literally talking to someone who was thirsting after franziska von karma and claiming that "being prone to anger makes you abusive" IN THE SAME TWEET THREAD.

it's just all so disheartening. angry women can be some of the most loving, most romantic, most wonderful souls. but we're not destined to be loved as much as we are destined to be conceptualized and thirsted after and it just, hurts man.

the sexywoman poll especially felt so goddamn cruel to watch happen. i resemble more than half of those women, or related to them now and/or growing up. hundreds of thousands of notes. people don't even call me pretty, let alone want to date me. every day i feel so lucky i was able to score the babe that i did. before her i might as well have been invisible to other wlw--they did not want me, no matter how much i put myself out there.

#wendy answers #Anonymous

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

What are your thoughts on Easton Weston, the supposedly psychic eldest Weston son, & Flynn Walker, the Phandom's rewrite of Hartmen's Flynn Fenton, Ghost Zone hermit, & the lost son of Danny's aunt, Alicia Walker?

For that matter, what do you think of the idea of the au where Warden Walker turns out to be Maddie Fenton's father?

i'm down with whatever. just in general though i find the fact that we're collectively making an extended universe for danny phantom beyond canon. that we just agree on these things enough to establish fandom characters, it's FASINATING. it's just so interesting that we as a collective, a group of people who don't personally know eachother, thousands of people, decided to just adopt wes weston as a character to the point where people coming into this fandom are confused when they see him, because they don't remember his characters.

and then we did it again. i was there for the formation of easton and kyle. it was purely a hey these background characters look like they could be related to wes. and a seperate post was like 'what if we had a charcter who just didn't believe in ghosts despite living in amity. and it was decided lets make him wes's brother. and everyone was like Yeah! and now it's a thing. easton came along after and i don't remember the specifics right now but i'm pretty sure the post is on our blog somewhere. and it was essentially, wouldn't it be funny if the third brother, misunderstood wes's ghost obsession and was actively hiding being part ghost/ psychic from his brother. especially when wes gets accused of being phantom. just a whole narrative sprang up and i love it so much. i love that we as a community are down to yes and each other

flynn was a similar collective thing. where butch initially introduced the character. and we all collectively went "i see your idea but seeing as that's stupid, we're going to do it ourselves and better. like the fenton's losing a son to the first portal and just continuing to build it and never mentioning said son again. jazz and danny never bringing their presumed dead bother up through all the various trauma and presented opportunities to talk about it. bad writing. bad character writing too because it makes everyone involved look like monsters. a cousin, the child of a character that's already established as existing and someone we aren't likely to know or hear about, getting sucked into a natural portal. better.

the drama and intrigue of flynn as a character is so much better if he isn't their brother. the family implications for alicia who got divorced from her husband, presumably partially because her kid went missing and that kind of thing is rough on a family. the implication that ghosts stole a family member being why the fenton parents have it out for ghosts, because they were their through that greif even though it wasn't their kid. the protectiveness we sometimes see when it comes to protecting their kids from ghosts. excellent. the fact that flynn is a human living in the ghost zone. the only human and the loneliness on top of survival skills he would need to develop to make it through that situation. fascinating. i want more of that. giving that human a way back to the real world through danny and just all the potential drama that would bring. yesssss. hell yes. danny and him having a philosophical parallel of not really belonging in either world. the talks of being to ghost to be human, but to human to be ghosts. flynn just having a breadth of knowledge on ghosts and the zone and survival but having no idea how to use money or a computer. the reuniting of him and his mother. the talks of ecto-contamination and the questions of how human flynn is after living in the zone for so long. the implications that might have for danny watching people react to flynn. flynn also being a possible mentor and older brother figure for danny, but his bad habits and hatred of ghosts leaking through and causing issues.

just ahhh i love stories and story telling and all these characters are great for that.

as for maddie and alecia being related to walker. weird coincidence but i'm down with that too because it's interesting to see where that goes. do they recognize their father? does he recognize them. is walker a more distant relative. i'm here for drama, y'all - Hestia

#dpjl #danny phantom #flynn walker #easton weston #wes weston #kyle weston

[danasmonster]

Comparing the SKAM Remakes: ISAK (Part V)

Robbe (wtFOCK/SKAM Belgium)

The Differences:

OK let me start off by saying this is the most turbulent Isak/Even relationship yet. They lie to each other (Sander & Robbe), they yell at each other (Robbe), and they call each other homophobic slurs (Robbe). They also say “I love you” a lot more . . . 

Instead of pawning the weed off on someone else, Robbe had the weed pawned off on him

Unlike Isak, Robbe is still going through the process of finding a place to live. His mom has just been hospitalized and his dad lives really far away from his school, plus they don’t get along. 

Also, instead of Zoe (the Noora character) being in London, it’s Lisa (Linn) who is studying abroad, thus making the room available. It was a bit like the writers thought “meh, this character is just window dressing” and replaced her with Zoe, and it was nice to see more of Zoe's interactions with all the characters since she is more central to the series. Honestly both Zoe and Milan seem to really look after and take care of Robbe, more so than the other incarnations of Eskild and Noora. 

Milan is way more in your face about making out with men in front of Robbe than Eskild was. 

Both Robbe and Sander are in relationships with girls when they meet, however neither has been long term. Sander’s relationship with Britt has only been going on for six months, as opposed to four years with Even and Sonja. I think this is pretty significant because you could feel a lot of history between Even and Sonja and that is missing here with Sander and Britt. 

Robbe never lied to his friends in order to spend time with Sander, which was nice

But then he also totally freaked the fuck out after they kissed in the pool and went on the offensive with Sander, calling him a faggot and pushing him away . . . yeeek. I liked that Isak never took the hate for himself out on Even, never pushed him away. That Robbe did it here was understandable yes but I think I still prefer the orig. I mean Sanders face goddamn

Robbe broke up with Noor in person instead of just avoiding her/generally treating her like shit until they just fell apart 

I also liked that while yes the boys were creeping on the dancing girls like in the orig, in wtFOCK they were actually invited to be there as part of an actual audience. It didn’t feel as gross here.

Robbe and Sander didn’t just ditch the girls before the bike/pool scene - the girls went off on their own earlier and requested to be alone. It felt a little less dickish this way.

And OH MY GOD THE VIOLENCE! There is very explicit homophobia in the form of slurs and an actual physical attack on Robbe and Sander. No other incarnation has experienced such blatant hatred from other people. 

And what the fuck, Sander??? Sander flat out lied to Robbe when he told him he had broken up with Britt. 

There is also definitely some homophobia on the part of Moyo/Madhi and Aaron/Magnus. I mean, they actually call being bisexual gross and say they would be creeped out to be around a gay guy because he “might be into them.” That’s more than just ignorance, it’s intolerance, something that wasn’t present in Madhi and Magnus. Moyo in particular is way more of a dick. 

The scene where Sander has a bipolar episode is a little different because Robbe never tries to contact Britt, but somehow she is still there? Also her opinions on whether or not Sander’s feeling for Robbe are real hold a lot less weight considering they were only together six months as opposed to four years. Then instead of Sander’s friends and family taking care of him, he admits himself to a mental health facility. Then Jana/Eva encourages Robbe to just give up on Sander. Eeesh. 

Instead of Aaron/Magnus having a bipolar mother helping Sander understand it better, it’s Moyo/Madhi. Moyo also gives the minute by minute advice to him instead of Britt/Sonja. 

My Favorite Parts: 

I love the street art/graffiti subplot. I’ve always loved this type of art (when it is art). That first scene where Noor took Robbe to spray paint was so atmospheric, another song added to my playlist (

Fall

by The Bugg & Ina Copeland)Honestly any scene with Zoe and Milan was fantastic I liked when Milan readily admitted to going through everyone’s stuff when they weren’t home. I love the way Zoe is taking care of Robbe by making him food and just generally making him feel welcome when he moves in to the apartment with her and Milan. She was also really sweet when she made sure his wounds were disinfected after he was beaten up and making sure they were bandaged. Milan snuggling up to a sleeping Senna was great. I also really enjoyed the little taste of couple life from Zoe when she complained about Senna’s snoring. Zoe’s line was definitely on point. I don’t know how her relationship will end for her but this ideology is paramount to having a healthy relationship, period. 

“We’re a couple now but we also have our own lives”

It was really great and amusing foreshadowing when Noor replied to the boy’s saying all the chicks that go to the art school are hot with “

You haven’t seen the boys yet.

” Enter Sander.  

When Robbe meets Sander and they go around the store riding the grocery cart. It’s so carefree and happy and while I miss the pure absurdity of watching Even take all of the paper towels this scene was absolutely wonderful

The Halloween party was fucking epic.

Trick R Treat

by Josh A and Iamjakehill, added to playlistThe conversation between Milan and Robbe about Milan’s gaydar was really good, with the beginning of his response definitely tailored toward Robbe, and the look he gives him is so telling it’s uncomfortable. He was basically like, “I know you’re gay, bro.” Milan describes his gaydar as picking up on subtle signals, 

A certain look in their eyes. Or . . . It’s a bit like there is something in them that is desperately trying to get out. 

The conversation between Jens and Robbe about how sex isn’t everything was a prime example of how to be a good bro and healthy masculinity and I fucking loved it

The conversation between Milan and Robbe where Robbe admits to having feelings for another boy was super sweet. I feel like Milan was kind of taking on an Eskild/school nurse hybrid role here because he was mostly just encouraging Robbe not to keep everything inside and to be himself. His relationship with Robbe seems a bit more paternal and I love it for this version.

The scene where Robbe is actually open and honest with Sander about his conflicting emotions about his sexuality was much appreciated

The scene when Milan was describing a very butch guy on the bus becoming all soft like when he looked at him was great. Everyone melts for you, Milan 💋

Have I said how much I love Zoe and Milan??? Also I can’t wait to see Zoe and Senna’s story when I go through all the Nooras, Senna definitely seems like the best William so far. I know they break up in the last episode of Robbe’s season but I have hopes they will get back together.

It was absolutely amazing to watch Milan put Mojo in his place

The scene where Zoe and Robbe go Christmas shopping is terrific. I just love watching their friendship 

The scene of everyone opening their Christmas presents together was also adorable 

Things I Missed:

The funny, quirky little moments like the metal leg conversation between Even and Isak right before their almost first kiss or the absurdity of the paper towel scene when they first meet

The scene where the whole boy squad is together and giving Isak relationship advice. In this one is was just Jens and I felt let down that Aaron and Moyo couldn’t be there as well. 

And a shout out for Noor, who gets my vote for best Emma

Noor (Emma) kissed Robbe after he complimented her, not after he insulted her. 

Robbe also seems to have more of an actual relationship with Noor than Isak had with Emma. 

Noor is definitely the coolest version of Emma so far, both in personality and appearance. I mean not only does she look fucking great but she was so sweet about how Robbe couldn’t get it up when they tried to have sex. 

I really love the development of their relationship in this and how much more complex it is than in the original.

I also love that she and Robbe seem to have repaired their relationship and can be friends by the end of Robbe’s story

GO NOOR!!

#wtfock #skam belgium #skam #robbexsander #isakxeven #gay #lgbt #homophobia #hate crimes #internalized homophobia #violence #bipolar #mental health

[bubbebruja]

On the Death of Sirius Black and Literary Gay Bashing in Harry Potter

In 2003, I was ten, straight, and positively obsessed with Hermione Granger.

If those last two things sound a little contradictory, it’s because they were. I do not mean I was “obsessed” in the sense that I wanted to dress up like her for Halloween, I mean “obsessed” in the sense that I literally blushed anytime my mom read her name aloud to my sister and I.

Queer. I was queer. I just didn’t know it yet.

Thus, I didn’t notice the Sirius/Remus romantic subtext as a child, drinking hot chocolate propped against my sister’s knees and listening enraptured as my mom read to us from the most recently released Harry Potter book. When Order of the Phoenix came out, I was far more interested in Angsty Harry™ and the evils of Delores Umbridge, and when Sirius died, I was not even all that upset. I didn’t really like him all that much, knew even at that age that he embodied too many of the stereotypically “masculine” traits I had already grown to hate with his pride and brooding and emotional immaturity. I didn’t much care, much less recognize that JK Rowling had done something rather unforgiveable.

But others did.

Seventeen years later, I get it.

By 2003, many older, wiser readers had long since clocked the queer subtext between Sirius and Remus. And, when I picked up the books earlier this year to re-read them for the first time since they were read to me as a child, I saw it too. (Notably, this was prior to JKR’s most recent round of blazing transphobia, after which I stopped reading.) And, okay, yes, I am the type of queer who reads queerness into many things. But y’all, I really didn’t have to try all that hard this time. If I were reading these books for the first time in the context of 2020, I would assume Remus and Sirius were canonically a couple, and JKR just wasn’t bashing us over the head with clear evidence of it. She doesn’t do that most of the time anyway. By Order of the Phoenix, in my opinion, the evidence (as movie Dumbledore says so awkwardly) is incontrovertible. The living together? The joint Christmas present? The “Sirius, sit down” scene early in the book? The confirmed HIV/AIDS metaphor, IN THE 90S?? THEY’RE FUCKING GAY TOGETHER.

And here’s the thing, (and I have no proof of this, so you’re just going to have to roll with it): I think it’s pretty clear that JKR became more conservative as time progressed. Money tends to do that to people, conveniently. What started as a series about the power young people hold to defeat evil and fight injustice eventually devolved into a flaccid epilogue where heterosexual nuclear families abounded and there were (still) no visibly queer characters in sight.

By the time the final book came out, I was a full-fledged teenager, and I, too, had abandoned fantasies of fighting evil and injustice for fantasies of settling down with “my perfect man” (L. O. L.) So, I get it. I get that priorities change for young people. But for adults, especially those recently drunk on the power of infinite amounts of money and fame? Nah. JKR knew what she was doing. JKR laid all the groundwork for a possible relationship between Remus and Sirius and then changed her mind. Or was told to change her mind. Or was forced to change her mind.

I have A Lot Of Feelings™ about Tonks and Remus’s relationship (most of which are about the way their canonical relationship plays into a lot of really awful tropes about disabled people which, no matter how you read him, Remus is). And I have a lot of feelings about Sirius Black as a character. I have a lot of feelings about Dumbledore, some related to his posthumous outing and some not. And, like most of us now, I have a lot of feelings about the entire franchise as a whole. But here’s what I know: It doesn’t actually matter, because JKR didn’t just change the explicit relationship dynamics between Sirius and Remus, she quite literally killed any chances of queer romance.

And she didn’t just kill Sirius. She killed Remus, too. And Tonks (who is a genderqueer butch and I will die on that hill). And Dumbledore. And the cute, squeaky house elf with a love for clothes and an obsession with Harry. And the young Gryffindor boy who followed Harry around, constantly asking for photos and autographs. And – you know what? Fuck it. – the person who lived INSIDE ANOTHER MAN’S BODY before returning to his bodily form, during which time he relied heavily on his male servant who cut off a literal body part to restore his master.

Am I reading too much queer subtext into each of these characters? Maybe. But, as this lovely article states, “close reading is queer culture, always has been.” And I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of the characters JKR didn’t kill off are, well, pretty fucking straight. (Drarry shippers, feel free to come at me. I’m sure there’s plenty of queer subtext there, too). They’re, for the most part, characters with a clear canonical history of heterosexual romance, as if only those with a possible future of a heterosexual, nuclear family are worthy of survival.

And I just don’t think this was an accident. I think it was the intentional plan of someone who started to feel like the world of inclusion she’d created was being read as far too inclusive.

To call this “literary gay bashing” is a pretty serious accusation with a pretty serious use of a very loaded term. But the thing is, I think we too often let people like JKR off the hook without recognizing what her words – both literary and non-literary – have done and can do. We too often dismiss it with statements like, “she’s entitled to her opinion”. Gay bashing is the intentional abuse or assault of someone perceived to be a member of the LGBTQIA2+ community, physically or verbally, that often results in lasting harm or death. And I use this term to describe JKR’s work particularly because it is sensationalizing, because it calls violence what it is: violence. Because, sure, she’s as entitled to her opinion as anyone else. But the second you create a world where anyone, especially children, are going to see themselves, going to feel safe, your “opinion” better do as little violence as possible.

When I saw the first Harry Potter movie, back in 2001, I refused to discuss it for months. I was furious. At the time, I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but I now realize that I was heartbroken that Hermione Granger didn’t look like me. When JKR described a girl with wild, brown curly hair, I saw me. I saw my hair. And so, as children tend to do, I saw the rest of me, too. I saw tanned skin and dark brown eyes and full lips and high cheekbones (the ones people always told me made me look “Indian”, which I only partially am). I saw the quiet confidence that develops when you’re the brownest kid in your school, ready to strike but only when provoked. The pale, arrogant, racially unambiguous Hermione Granger I saw on the screen made me feel dirty, cast off, unworthy of representation. The self-hatred I felt when White Hermione Granger entered the film alongside White Harry Potter and White Ron Weasley and White Everyone Else was a kind of violence.

And when JKR killed off all of her queer-read characters, she took that violence to another level. Because they were there, we saw them, we did not imagine the romantic undertones between Remus and Sirius, or the way that a shape-shifting young woman with short, spiky hair reads an awful lot like a person uninterested in traditional gender. We saw ourselves in the most beloved franchise of all time. And then, she took away those possibilities, and she took away those characters.

And you know what? People die because they can’t see themselves in media. People die because that’s what they’ve watched everyone like them do on screen and in books. It’s not harmless, and it’s not victimless, and it’s violent.

There’s only one solution to literary gay bashing: To Bash Back. We can and do write ourselves into the stories, into the world, and refuse to settle for explanations that gaslight us into thinking we imagined things that were never there, or ask us to settle for tiny crumbs of useless representation.

I intended to finish my most recent story, “Come Healing”, with an ambiguous ending that left the possibility of Sirius’s death open to reader interpretation. But then, JKR kept going, and talking, and kept creating violence, and I got mad. And so, like so many queers before me, I rewrote the story and changed the ending, and created love and security and peace and life where the canonical author had created hopelessness and death. And in the world we live in right now, that is radical. It is bashing back.

It’s tiny, but it’s something. Every time we write a happy ending for a queer character, we create the possibilities of happy endings for queer people everywhere. And no one – no matter how hard she may try – can take that away.

[jaskiersbard]

The Fantastic Beasts Franchise and JK Rowling

Alright, so...hi everyone.

I don’t know how many people follow this blog anymore because my main blog of operation is now @alwaysahiccupandastrid - I still try to keep this blog relatively active though, just because it was my original blog, I’ve had it since I was 13, and I have so many memories attached to it.

I’m aware that a lot of the people who follow me, especially since late 2016, do so because a) I was a loud and proud Fantastic Beasts fan, b) I wrote some Newtina and Jakweenie fic, and c)...I don’t know. I literally don’t know why people bother following me anywhere because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. But, anyway, many people probably follow me due to Fantastic Beasts and my posts/fanfics within the fandom.

Those who follow my active blog will already know my feelings and thoughts, but because of the fact many things about this blog - me, the posts for the last four-ish years, the url itself - are Beasts related, I felt it was necessary to come and write an actual post here instead of just reblogging things and calling it a day. I’ve always been very outspoken online, but I’ve been avoiding a certain topic of conversation on this blog for years now, and I’m finally in a place where we can discuss it.

I am, of course, talking about the hot topic that is JK Rowling.

Back in the days between FBAWTFT and FBTCOG, I was a very outspoken defender of JK Rowling and her decision to defend Johnny Depp’s inclusion in the films. Now, this is something I still stand by to this day, and due to the evidence that has since come out, I’m even more steadfast in the opinion that keeping Depp was a great decision. I am fully in support of him and the way he’s currently battling against his abuser. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now. As I was saying, back in the day, I was outspoken about the opinion that “we don’t know the full story” etc., and as a result I received very colourful anon messages. Now, to my knowledge, none of these were about JKR being a TERF/transphone, but I think it’s important to mention that at the time I scoffed at the idea she could be one. I openly admit that I didn’t listen to what other people - including actual trans individuals - were saying about JKR and her transphobia because I frankly didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that the person who wrote something that saved my life could be so hateful and a bad person - that, and at the time I passed it all off as “wokeness out of control”.

It is now 2020. Up until last Saturday night, I was still in support of JK Rowling - I didn’t agree with some of the stuff she had said, but I was trying to be positive and have hope by telling myself that she didn’t mean to be transphobic, that she just didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise (I.e. her liking transphobic / radfem tweets). I said to my followers on my Beasts page that instead of cancelling people outright, we should be attempting to educate them instead, and if they choose not to learn then fine. And, being 100% obvious, I didn’t want to admit it because I frankly already was feeling annoyed at two different Beasts cast members for different reasons: Ezra Miller (for choking a girl) and Dan Fogler (for his tweet about BLM - admittedly that was probably him being well intentioned but not saying it right). So yeah, I didn’t want to cancel another member of the Beasts “family”.

I had JKR’s tweets on notifications, and for the most part over the last few weeks, it was all about the Ickabog. However, on Saturday night I noticed that she had suddenly tweeted something completely different, and I looked at it. Given that I had adamantly defended her and said “freedom of speech” for so long, it’s telling that my first thought upon seeing her tweet was literally “for fuck sake, Jo, why”.

I won’t post her tweets here but to sum that first tweet up, it was her being annoyed over the term “people who menstruate” being used in an article instead of “woman”, and mockingly saying “there used to be a word for that” before pretending she didn’t know the word. She knew that tweeting it would start arguments and anger, and yet she still made the decision to do so. Her follow up tweets frankly dug the hole deeper; she tried to defend herself by saying, to sum it up, “I have a butch lesbian friend who agrees with me” “I just care about women’s rights!” And “IF trans people were marginalised I’d march with you!” (“If”, of course, being the real kicker here because what do you mean IF. They ARE. Every DAY.)

Since then, JKR has written an essay on her website defending herself and her opinions, and yes, I read it. I read it a few times, in fact. At first, I felt my anger simmer and felt I had been too hasty to make anti JKR jokes, that I was wrong...but then I read it again properly and realised that what she had written was a piece that turned herself into the victim, and that despite putting on the appearance of her saying she supports trans people, including the phrases “I support trans people” and “of course trans women are real women”, she still spewed much transphobic vitriol and hate. She cited no sources for any of her proclamations or statements about statistics, implied that trans men transition to escape their “womanhood”, that trans women are men in dresses, that trans women are dangerous to “real” women (aka cis women) and shouldn’t be allowed into women’s changing rooms or toilets. There was also the autism comment, and the implication of autistic girls somehow not being able to make decisions or whatever.

I’m going to get straight to the point: I don’t support JK Rowling or her radical feminism.

As someone who is a proud feminist (libfem?), I can honestly say that never have I felt threatened or like I was being silenced by the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces or conversation. Never. In my second year at sixth form, I was in charge of the LGBTQ+ club until a new leader with better leadership skills could step in, and - put simply - that year, the club was made almost entirely of first year transgender students. Even though I had called myself a trans ally for years, I realised there was a lot I didn’t know, and I learnt quite a lot from these students. I continue to still learn today. They were some of the nicest and most intelligent people I got the chance to meet, and I can truly say that at no point was I ever worried to be in a room alone with a trans woman, nor was I concerned about which bathroom they went in - bathrooms are bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms...when I was at uni during a particularly tense rehearsal a few weeks before our final show last year, a guy in our group made me cry and I ran to the women’s bathroom to escape. Not only did the other girls come to comfort me, but you know what? The guy came in and apologised profusely to me. Did any of us girls give a shit about having a guy in our toilet? Absolutely not. It’s a fucking toilet. And, on that note, I was never worried about a trans woman or even a cis man attacking me in the toilets. You know who DID attack me in the toilets regularly? Other cisgender women.

As a feminist, I fully support trans women and am not threatened by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces or in women’s rights discussions. While I agree that cis women and trans women inevitably go through different struggles, at the end of the day, we all identify as women and are women. I think that if your feminism is so threatened by the existence of trans women - TERFs, RadFems, JKR, looking at you - then your feminism is flimsy and not feminism at all.

As a woman, I find it highly offensive that JKR and many RadFems focus so much of womanhood and feminism on an involuntary biological function that, frankly, many of us would rather do without. Yeah, I’m talking about periods - no matter how proud I am to be a woman, I still fucking hate periods and would get rid of mine if I could without erasing my chance of having kids someday. I can hear the RadFems accusing me of “internalised woman hatred” for saying I hate my periods, but you know what, they suck and they hurt and fuck them. The fact that JKR (also the the radfem movement) reduced “women” to just people who menstruate and can have children, and vice versa, is incredibly offensive and misogynistic. For a start, trans men menstruate, intersex people can, non binary can etc. Next, not even ALL cis women have periods - women who are menopausal, young women who haven’t started puberty yet (some do start very late), some women don’t have regular cycles, some women have medical problems that affect their cycle, some women are on birth control that can stop their cycles. So the idea of women being defined as “those who menstruate” is offensive not only to trans/intersex/non binary individuals but also to cis ones too.

As I write this, I’m a 22 year old woman who is still learning and changing every day, and one of the things that I’ve found myself thinking about recently - especially since we’re in lockdown and we have nothing BUT time to think - is about myself and my identity as a woman. What prompted this was when I saw Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved book, “Little Women”, which I’ve since read, for my birthday back in January, and I left the cinema feeling exalted and powerful with my own identity as a woman. (I’ll be returning to LW in a bit)

After some thinking, I’ve realised some things. For me, my identity as a woman is not just because once a month my uterus decides to shed; I do not identify as a woman just because I have certain physical features. I am not a particularly feminine person either, and I’m what some may call a “tomboy” (a phrase I actually don’t mind but I know a lot of people do for understandable reasons since it’s a phrase designed to differentiate people who don’t conform to society’s expectations etc) because I prefer video games and more geeky stuff to shopping or dressing up or make up.

For me, there is no one way a person has to be or appear in order to identify as a woman. Women are beautiful, complex human beings; we are not defined by our genitalia, by an involuntary biological process. Women are strong, intelligent, and interesting people - no two are the same. For example, some decide to raise families, some choose to pursue a career, some do both - all of these are valid and none are more “feminist” or “womanly” than the others, because it’s our as women. I guarantee that if you lined up every single woman in the world - cis AND trans - no two would be the exact same.

I mentioned “Little Women” earlier, and as I was pondering over what makes me identify as a “woman”, I thought a lot about a certain quote from the 2019 film that has stayed with me since it was first said in the release of the trailer. It’s spoken by Jo March to her mother, and I’ve started to understand what for me makes me a woman.

For me, being a woman is all of this: having minds, hearts, souls, ambition, talent, and being beautiful each in our own ways. Women are capable of love and empathy, capable of desire, capable of the most complex and human feelings and emotions, and coming out the stronger for it.

Sex is one thing; gender identity is another.

I won’t dissect every single thing JKR wrote in her essay, but I will just say this: her comments regarding autistic girls are extremely tone deaf and she does not speak for those with autism. I’m going to be honest and admit something here I haven’t before: I have not been diagnosed with autism or aspergers but I AM currently on the waiting list to see someone who COULD diagnose me. Apparently I show signs of a potential diagnosis, so...we’ll have to see. But I have friends who are autistic, and they’re disgusted by JKR trying to use them to support her TERF arguments. Autistic and other neurodivergent people are absolutely capable of making decisions and are NOT people who need to be babied or have their hands held, to be told who they are. It’s incredibly ableist of JK Rowling frankly.

I would also like to point out... I’ve seen people saying “but she doesn’t hate autistic people, Newt is autistic!!!” - yes, but JKR didn’t write him as autistic. Eddie Redmayne chose to play Newt as autistic - JK Rowling didn’t do shit.

It’s also time that I acknowledge that both Potter and Beasts inevitably hold JKR’s problematic views, and that by denying her ownership of her work, we’re not holding her accountable for the horrible things she’s done. This includes - but is not limited to -:

Anti-Semitic stereotypes in the goblins

Lycanthropy being used as a metaphor for AIDS - an illness that is heavily associated to the gay community, and also there was the panic of the AIDs crisis in the 90s where much misinformation and homophobia was generated and spread because of it.

Adding further to the lycanthropy point, one of the infected individuals - Greyback - is stated to have a sick preference for infecting children. Not only are werewolves tied to harmful gay/AIDs stereotypes, but also to the disgusting and frankly wrong notion that gay people are pedophiles.

The only Asian character is called Cho Chang. Cho Chang. That’s two steps away from outright just calling her “Ching Chong”. It’s not a name an actual Asian person would have.

The Goldstein sisters are probably distantly related to Anthony Goldstein, who JKR confirmed (on Twitter of course) is Jewish, meaning that Tina and Queenie are most likely Jewish too (and Goldstein is a Jewish surname). However, despite the fact that the first FBaWTFT is set DURING Hanukkah in 1926, there’s zero signs of them celebrating or observing it. Maybe that’s more on set design than anything else, but come on - if I, a fanfic writer, can do some research, JK/the crew of a major movie can too!

Adding on from that, gotta love how one of the JEWISH main characters then decides to join the Wizarding world equivalent of Hitler. I already had problems with Queenie’s characterisation in CoG, but that’s the icing on the cake.

POC/Black characters - in both series but since I’m a Beasts blog... Seraphina Picquery, a Black female president serving a term during a MAJOR wizarding world crisis, is severely reduced to have only 3 lines in CoG. Nagini’s only purpose is to be the only friend of Credence, a white man, before he joins Wizard Hitler and abandons her; she’s also an Asian character who we know one day permanently becomes a SNAKE, and who goes on to actually have a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside of her?? And some do see her as his slave, though you could argue that she’s actually the only being that he holds any love or respect for. Leta Lestrange is a half-black woman who is killed/literally sacrifices herself for TWO WHITE MEN, and who’s death was literally confirmed to have been added in last minute.

Also, the whole Lestrange storyline was fucking nasty: white Lestrange Sr imperius-ed a black woman (Yusuf Kama’s mother), raped her, and she then died in childbirth. I’m sorry, what the fuck??

In Harry Potter, Seamus is a terrible stereotype of an Irish person - he likes to blow things up. Look up the IRA and their bombings. Fucking Irish stereotype. As someone with Irish grandparents and who is proud of their Irish heritage, this really pisses me off.

Let’s not forget the whole Native American cultural appropriation. That truly speaks for itself.

So here is where I speak candidly to everyone who follows me and/or sees this post. While Beasts is no longer my No. 1 fandom these days, it and Potter still hold a huge piece of my heart. I have 5 wizarding world tattoos, so much merchandise, and I can safely say that being a fan of both series has shaped me as a person. Both of those series helped me get through the darkest days of my life, including bullying at school, my Nan passing away, and my mental health struggles.

This is why what’s happened has impacted me so much and broken my heart. For me, it feels like it’s tainted now because of Jo and her views. I know that we should separate the art from the artist, but when her views are so clearly woven into the very fabric of the Wizarding world, it’s a huge problem.

Here’s another part of the dilemma - I do not wish for the Beasts films to be cancelled. I’m well aware that the *cough* people who dislike me will say I’m trying to be negative, trying to boycott the series blah blah blah, but that’s truly the last thing I want. I still love the story, the characters, the soundtrack, and I want to know how it ends, if only for my own piece of mind. It’s also important to add that by boycotting Beasts, it’s also harming the hard working thousands of others who worked on the films: the cast, the crew, the extras, the musicians, etc., not to mention the fans who actually are invested in the series and have taken solace in it. It’s not fair for them to all suffer over the actions of one TERF.

This is one of my biggest worries, however: the Fantastic Beasts films do NOT have a good reputation as it is. The second film was boycotted by some due to Depp, and now there’s talk of people boycotting number 3 because of JK Rowling. Lots of people already talk hatred about it, and this will only fire that hatred up even more.

There’s also talk of Eddie Redmayne potentially being kicked from the franchise due to a “leak” that he doesn’t want to work with JKR anymore, but this could be sensationalist news reporting. But if it came down to it, I can honestly say that I would rather continue to have Eddie play Newt than keep JKR as a writer. Eddie has done more for Newt than even JKR has, and if he goes, then that will be the last straw for me within the fandom. That will be when I take a sharp exit out, sell my FB merch and have my tattoos covered.

To add, the Fantastic Beasts scripts are...not great. Or, at least, what we saw on-screen wasn’t. Maybe that’s David Yates being the literal worst (fuck you, Yates, you suck) and cutting all the parts with strong female characters, but I honestly don’t think that JKR can write screenplays well at all. I think she’s clearly better at writing books, and that’s fine - books obviously allow for more time to explore characters and story/plot arcs etc, and film scripts offer way less of those chances. I don’t think screenplays allow her to write what she needs to in order to tell the story she wants to, hence why CoG was kind of a hot mess. So maybe it’s just that she’s not suited for screenplays and should stick to books.

Honestly, I kind of just wish that WB would hire another person to finish writing the Fantastic Beasts movies - obviously they’d have to keep JKR on board to tell them the actual plot, but get someone who can actually write screenplays and not be problematic to write them.

By now I’ve gone on long enough that I’ve forgotten my original intent while writing this, so I’ll try to sum up and end now. In short, I am extremely disappointed in JK Rowling and do not support her or her views any longer.

I don’t know how any of you guys are feeling but I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts, especially other Fantastic Beasts fans. I want to also add that, as always, my DMs and inbox are always open - if not here, then always at @alwaysahiccupandastrid where I’m more active nowadays.

Finally, you guys don’t need me - a white cis woman - to tell you this but you’re all valid and magical and fuck JK Rowling. Her characters would all be ashamed of her, and the characters we grew up with would not stand for the bigotry and vile hatred she spreads under the guise of ““protecting women””. Several of the amazing actors from Potter and Beasts have spoken out against her and her tweets: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, Chris Rankin, Eddie Redmayne. Some have been...less inspiring (Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, looking at you two 👀)

I’m sending love to everyone right now. I wish I could say something more useful but I’ve spoken enough - I’ve made my opinion clear. I love you all, please stay safe.

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #fantastic beasts: the crimes of grindelwald #jk rowling #harry potter

[vashti-lives]

TL;DR: don’t be JKR say fuck you to Calvinism and hold on to the good of humanity in your heart.

As a tiny awkward queer kid who spent her adolescence in rural America Harry Potter was my first defense when it came to filtering out homophobes. Before I even had the words to understand I was queer I knew Harry Potter was a good tool to judge the safety of adults around me and a good way to say fuck you to the adults who thought it [read: me] was evil, without drawing too much attention to myself. I cannot possibly be the only queer person who did this.

In light of that JKR’s violent transmisogyny is exceptionally hurtful, but, in hindsight not surprising. People have talked a lot about various hateful things present in her books: antisemitism, fat hatred, practically every form of racism, people who like cats… etc. I actually think the most accurate thing you could argue is that these books are deeply misanthropic about nearly everyone. Yeah she hates all the obvious groups but she also hates not just cat lovers but animal lovers in general. The books are deeply contemptuous of Hagrid for example. The good loving people in Harry’s life are nearly universally inept at helping him. She seems to believe that kindness and stupidity are only ever found together.

I’m not defending her in any way— she’s an absolute shit head— but it matters because while I’m sure she was transphobic when she wrote those books I’m also sure she’s a lot more actively transphobic now. The internet has radicalized her to a pretty extreme degree. There’s a really good article about how terfs in the UK are basically a cult [HERE] and I think part of the reason she was vulnerable to this specific cult and it’s reasoning was because she fundamentally already had a really negative opinion about most people. In the end it wasn’t hard for UK terfs to laser focus her general distain for everyone into extreme hatred for one particular group. 

JKR thinks she’s doing the right thing, she really thinks she’s not being transphobic. She’s protecting all the children from all those evil transfolk who wanna destroy butch lesbians, or whatever, because essentially she thinks most people are awful and therefore this is a logical thing for a person to do. Which, as Lindsay Ellis points out in her really excellent video essay [HERE], probably means she’s never going to change her mind.

And that’s why I’m writing this really fucking long post. Not just to navel gaze about why JKR is the way she is but because of the specific way her weaknesses were targeted. Right now, particularly if you live in the US you are seeing the worst of people every day. Most people in the US are trying their best, wearing masks when they have to go out and staying home otherwise, but that just means that the absolute worst 25% or so are probably the people most of us, especially in service industries and essential jobs, are interacting with right now. Its really easy when all you see everyday is the absolute buttcrack of humanity to start to think that’s what humanity is just generally like.  And that’s dangerous. 

Its easy to start thinking that people in red states deserve what’s happening to them because they voted in Trump. Easy to say well let all the old people die because they’re responsible for this anyway. Easy to shrug and decide that America’s coronavirus issue is just karma. But its very dangerous to start generalizing over groups of people who didn’t choose to be in the group* they’re in. I think we’re all feeling kinda pessimistic about people in general right now in general anyway which makes this all the more tempting. 

Don’t fall for that temptation, its a trap. Assholes will take advantage of it in ways it’ll be hard to fight if that general hatred of humanity goes too deep. Say fuck you to Calvinism and hold on to the good of humanity in your heart so if you fall afoul of a cult it’ll just be a weird one and not an incredibly hateful and destructive one**. 

And here’s a link to the UK charity Mermaids [HERE] because fuck JKR.

*IE—ACAB for life, but you shouldn’t over generalize what people in “red” states are like because people don’t choose where they’re born and moving is prohibitively expensive if you’re poor.

**look nobody is immune to cults— anybody can end up in one if they find you in the right moment.

[adarlingwrites]

Absolution

Summary:

noun: formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment

The Capital Wasteland lauded the Lone Wanderer as a hero, a Messiah, a savior who’s willing to give her life for the Good Fight. Beyond the legends, the propaganda, and the mythification that surrounded her legacy, there is only one person who knew her bare soul. She gave him his absolution, and now he will fight for hers.

XXVI

January 12, 2278.

Good question.

Of all the operatives I was trained with, Vanth was the one who took to the program best. Our proctors will ask her to jump, and she’ll jump. If a contract holder asks her to beat a civilian up, she’ll do it without blinking. If a corrupt old pervert asks her to ride her fellow operative so he can get off, she’ll do it without remorse.

It didn’t happen just once, either.

Vanth’s just one of the many people I would’ve loved to put shotgun shells in, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget her cruelty.

Even before the first incident happened, Vanth had always been ruthless. Mag would scold me for calling her a bitch. She said that Vanth is just a product of her upbringing, made worse by the program. And yet, Mag isn’t capable of that kind of shit. Fuck, that’s the damn reason why she was designated as the medic. She’d rather keep us alive than shoot at anyone.

Vanth was different. 

If there’s anything worse than Vanth’s complacency, it was her enthusiasm in inflicting all that hurt on other people. Her cruelty comes from the hatred those responsible for the indoctrination instilled in us: hatred for the insubordinate, hatred for the Reds, hatred for anyone who doesn’t bow to the will of the United States of America and its thirteen commonwealths, and hatred for anyone different. She took all that crap and fucking internalized it.

She hated the protestors for making a mockery of the government. She hated her fellow operatives for failing where she succeeded. She hated Mag. She hated me.

That snake-eyed blonde bitch enjoyed hurting us.

Sometimes, I imagine what life would have been like if I had been as complacent and obedient as Vanth was, if Magwayen didn’t plant ideas that contradict our conditioning in my head, and if Percy didn’t come 200 years later to help me break free from the contract.

I imagine what kind of man, if I can call myself that, I would be if I didn’t have remorse, or if I didn’t have my moral code that I kept to myself, until this woman crawled out of her hole in the ground and appealed to my better nature.

I decided that I do not like that version of me.

All this time, Percy was waiting for my answer patiently, her hands folded under her chin, while she lies on top of me. I can feel her warmth and softness of her body, then I remember Ahzrukhal’s threat to her. I remember the Talon Merc’s orders.

Something dark stirs my decrepit brain.

If they had given me the order, and I had been that man who has no remorse, I would have been like Vanth.

I would have been like Stevie.

A rapist.

Percy’s rapist.

Fucking hell. That’s just sick.

Gently, I push my partner off me and sit up. I turn away from her, ashamed of the thoughts I’ve had. Her words in the hotel room in Rivet City echoes back. The fact that these thoughts disturb me and I feel disgusted at the thought of forcing myself on anyone should reassure me.

I should feel reassured that I am not like Vanth.

But I still feel like shit.

Percy wouldn’t push me to answer if I didn’t want to, I know, but given the circumstances, with Eulogy Jones exposing my past, Percy learning about my fellow operatives, and now me blurting my rapist’s name in my sleep because of a nightmare… I’m willing to pick at the scabs and the leftover bandages off of the goddamn wound.

Maybe this time, it’ll have a chance to heal properly.

“Vanth to me is what Stevie was to you.”

My throat felt dry as I confessed that. Percy seemed stunned. She didn’t say a word or move an inch, probably waiting for me to continue talking, or just taken aback by my admission.

“May 5, 2077. It was my eighteenth birthday… and our contract holder then thought that a nice fuck from my teammate would be a great birthday gift. I couldn’t get any enjoyment out of it even if my body did. I didn’t want it. But I couldn’t say no.”

“I’m sorry,” Percy whispers.

“It was centuries ago. She’s just one of many.”

“That doesn’t make it any right.”

“I know. I was afraid I’d turn out like her.”

I can hear Percy gasp in realization. “So that explains your reaction in the hotel… and how you managed to resist the Talon Merc’s orders. I’m sorry Charon. Had I known where you were coming from when we had that talk, I shouldn’t have made it all about myself.”

“Don’t apologize. I wasn’t ready to talk about it then, anyway. If you didn’t talk to me about what happened to you that night, I wouldn’t be anywhere near confronting my own problems now.”

“Okay. You were also saying my name, while you were dreaming. Big guy, what did you dream of?”

I inhaled deeply.

“I dreamed that she killed you, just as she killed Mag on the day the bombs fell, and I was underneath her again. You… you get the picture.”

Silence.

Gingerly, her fingers pressed against my sides, and she leans over, the contact feeling like a request for permission and a comforting touch at the same time. I held her hands and wrapped her arms around my chest, or at least, what their length permits. Her soft cheek against the side of my neck, the muscles and veins underneath exposed, she whispered where my ear would’ve been.

“Do you want to continue talking, or should I just hold you?”

Heartbeat hammering, my hand wanders to hers, dwarfing it, and I give it a squeeze.

“Hold me.”

“Let’s get to bed so I can do that properly, then.”

She leads me by the hand up to our bedroom, where I lie on our bed, still facing the door out of habit. Percy presses the back of my head against her chest, and she rubs little circles on my shoulder. This won’t go away overnight, but at that moment, I felt safe.

“You’re an angel, you know that?” I tell her.

“Pfft. If you were someone else, I’d have pushed you off the bed for calling me that.”

Percy drapes her arm over me, and I fall asleep listening to her heartbeat.

I didn’t have any more nightmares.

When I woke up hours later, she wasn’t beside me anymore.

Percy’s voice was muffled as she spoke to someone downstairs. I threw on proper clothes, and went down the steps.

“Percy, next time, I’d appreciate a heads up when y’all are plotting something in this town.”

“Are we in trouble, sheriff?” Percy asks.

“Let’s discuss that when you get to the saloon. See you there.”

Lucas Simms  was outside our doorstep, tipping his hat at her. Percy nods at him and closes the door.

“What did the sheriff say?”

“He needs to speak to us in the saloon. Something about the town’s security. This must be about what the slavers did to Doc Church while we were gone… Jesus what have I done?”

“Is the old man alive?”

“He is, thank God. But he’s not fine. Sheriff Simms said that it would be better if I see for myself.”

I nodded grimly. It must be bad.

“Let’s get ready. I need to pick up Dogmeat and get more winter clothes from Moira after that, too.”

Percy threw on a black shirt, then her Vault suit, followed by her jacket. She put on the cap she wore on the day I met her, grabbed her scarf on the way out, and I followed her out the house.

The tenseness came back to her shoulders. I squeezed her hand to reassure her, and she didn’t let it go.

The door to Gob’s Saloon swung open, and Dogmeat ran over to lick Percy’s face, Gob running after him. DeLoria was also there, with a few people from the Abolitionists, and Paladin Cross. Then, we were met by the townsfolk, whooping and cheering.

What the hell?

“I got you good!” Sheriff Simms exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Y'all really think we wouldn’t celebrate when a citizen of Megaton was responsible for bringing down Paradise Falls? The day you went through the gates, I knew I had a good feeling about you, girl!”

Percy’s standing stiff as a pole, eyes wide. “B-but Doc Church, and the slavers coming here and-”

“They can’t put me down that easily.” Doc Church’s voice. The old man comes into view, in crutches, one of his legs in bandages.

Percy gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. “God, Doc what have they done to your leg?”

“They mangled the hell out of my leg but the Sheriff managed to chase ‘em off before they could do anything else. Oh, don’t cry you big baby, I knew the risk when I decided to help you.”

The tenseness in Percy’s shoulders were replaced by shudders from her sobbing.

“I figured the town could use more vigilance ever since that Burke character turned up planning to blow us up. He might’ve ended up killing me if you weren’t a fast shot, too. Now, don’t you cry Percy, dear girl, you’ve done us some good again,” Simms reassures her, patting her back like a father comforting a child.

Nova comes over and pulls Percy to a corner, where she sits with Moira. Butch saunters over and before I can watch the awkwardness that followed, Simms walks over to me.

“And I suppose I owe you my thanks, too,” Simms said, extending his hand. “You’ve been a good friend to Percy. And any friend of hers is a friend of this town. Consider yourself a Megaton citizen too, Charon.”

I gave it a firm and quick shake. The sheriff didn’t recoil in disgust, and just tipped his hat afterwards.

“You kids have some fun. I can’t abandon my duties as sheriff, now.”

“Oh, c’mon Simms! Just one drink!” one of the patrons yell.

I can’t say that I feel overwhelmed by the crowd; I’ve been a bouncer in the Ninth Circle after all. I knew how rowdy people can get when they’re shitfaced. I’ve stopped brawls before. I’ve endured the obnoxious laughter and yelling.

But as I watched my partner surrounded by her friends and being celebrated by strangers from my corner, the gravity of our differences finally sank in.

Usually, when people see me, their first instinct is to stay clear, and regard me with fear or disgust. Sometimes both. When people see Percy, unless they’re raiders or slavers, they greet her, run to her for help, or check her out. Damn, I think that Bittercup kid from Big Town managed to do it all in that order.

Percy really is doing her best to do good. Half of the time, I don’t even know where she can find the motivation to stay that way in this shitsack of a world. Me? I’m just a broken old ghoul who had committed crimes that would send me straight to hell.

She told me that she’s just about to turn twenty the next month. Still so damn young to be shouldering this much responsibility, and yet here she was, organizing people to target slaver rings and doing her part in bringing clean water to the wasteland. On the other hand, I’m past two hundred, and I’m not sure how long I have before I become one of the mindless ferals.

My partner is burning bright, while my fire is slowly dying out.

The worst part is, I want her more than ever.

I shouldn’t be with her. She should be with pretty young smoothskins too.

Looks like I might have to turn her down, if she finally decides to stop waiting.

Percy has no future with me.

My train of thought was interrupted by Gob.

“Hey! Hey, everyone shut up for a moment. The news is on!”

He turned the radio’s volume up, and Three Dog’s voice flooded the room. Everyone went silent.

“News time, children!

Those scumbag Slavers way over in Paradise Falls had one big ole bee on their bonnet, and this baby knew how to sting. Gasp! But what's this? There’s not just one bee, but an entire goddamn colony, and their queen looked suspiciously like a certain kid, from a certain vault. You heard it here first, faithful listeners. The Wanderer showed up with a small army at slaver central and bad guys started dropping left and right. Reports say that among the people present are the Abolitionists Miss 101 herself assisted a few months back, a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, and of course, her trusty Ghoul Reaper. And to top it all off, they gave us one hell of a pyrotechnics show when they fucking blew that place up to smithereens. Holy shit! Slavers of the Capital Wasteland, consider this the big ‘fuck you’ you've had coming since starting this scurrilous skin trade. What an amazing way to start the year!

What’s next? Is the Wasteland Avenger gonna give the Wasteland clean, fresh water too? Oh wait, she’s already working on that! Good job, kid! Just don’t burn yourself out, for chrissake. Keep fighting the Good Fight! The Wasteland is rootin’ for ya!

This is Galaxy News Radio and-”

“Hey! They didn’t mention me!” DeLoria cuts in, and laughter breaks out.

“If he starts calling me ‘Queen Bee’, I’m knocking his door down and stealing his headwrap. I’ve got enough embarrassing epithets already,” Percy sighs, downing a shot of scotch. Then, she turns, eyes searching, and her eyes land on me.

“Big guy! C’mon, sit next to me,” she calls out, and I obliged. Gob slides me a beer.

“It’s on the house. Consider it as thanks for getting back at those scumbag slavers for us.”

I nod and down half the bottle in a gulp.

Yeah, damn it all, I’ll celebrate, why the fuck not.

“Oh, it’s great that I finally caught you two here in Megaton!” Moira exclaims, striding towards us with a box in her hands. Goddamn. And I thought I was going to have a good night. This is the weirdo that made Percy drink atom bomb water.

“Now, I know you probably experienced it before,” she said, motioning to me after setting the box on the table. “But this is Percy’s first winter out here in the Wasteland! Here, as a show of my appreciation for getting rid of those mean slavers, I got you two some warm clothes!”

“Wow, it’s like you read my mind! Thank you so much for these, Moira.”

“No problem! Maybe we could work on a winter survival guide next?”

Panicked, I shake my head and Percy laughs.

“I think I’m going to take a break from experiments for now, Moira.”

“Oh? What’re you up to?”

“We’re gonna bring clean water to the Wasteland.”

#cw uncomfortable themes #tw: recollection of past non-con #lone wanderer #female lone wanderer #charon #fallout charon #charon fallout #fallout 3 charon #charon fallout 3 #oc: percy zhou #butch deloria #lucas simms #fanfic: absolution #series: through river acheron #fallout 3 #fallout #fallout fanfic #writers on tumblr

[lavendulaconminatio]

Years ago I ran a blog on ace discourse: @asleepingwindow As a lesbian raised in the Catholic Church, where you can be gay just don’t act on it, I knew asexual activism had nothing to do with being gay. I know an asexual gay person is the church’s fucking wet dream. I always insisted I don’t care whether people identify that way but stop trying to say you suffer as I do as a lesbian. Stop fucking invading lgbt spaces too and making them unsafe for us! But that was a losing battle. I wonder how this time period will be seen 20-30 years from an lgbt history perspective.

Anyway, besides knowing asexual gay people are the kind of gay people straight people want, I also hated this idea that seemed to be gaining popularity about people being more oppressed simply because they weren’t seen as valid. Validity didn’t mean laws meant to protect their population, or having police see your body as human and worthy of life; they merely meant existing in popular media so people see them. There was never anything deeper than that to so called asexual oppression, which I will never think is a thing. I mean asexuality is a thing but people don’t actively hate you for not having sex, that’s a fact of fucking life. My people died by the thousands in the 80s, sometimes with only lesbians to give a shit, and some straight person says their totes oppressed because they don’t want to fuck? Yeah ok. Or if there was a basis in oppression, it was often just blatant sexism and homophobia. All men say you’re a prude for not having sex, this is nothing special, Jan.

Now years later after arguing my heart out, making a master post and closing up shop, I find myself with another side blog to combat an issue that I once again feel harms lesbians and women. Instead of being more concerned about the men that berate, beat, and kill trans women, activists are literally attacking women, especially lesbians, for not validating trans people. The level of vitriol leveled at a woman for talking about her vagina is so above and beyond any hatred for the men who have murdered trans women.

Then in some perveted irony, those same deaths are propped up as reasons to shut down women talking about sexism. Meanwhile, more women than anyone can count die every day because they are female. We don’t get the luxury of our deaths being marked a hate crime. Instead it’s domestic violence, or maybe FGM gone wrong amoung the countless other things that needlessly and horrifically kill women. And I haven’t even talked about rape.

I knew the ridiculous activism of the asexual movement would have lasting consequences but I honestly never thought the concept of validity would be taken and warped so far to try and pretend biological sex doesn’t exist and that women aren’t female just to make trans women feel better about their dysphoria. I feel immense compassion for anyone with dysphoria, I have it and struggled for a long time to figure out if I was trans or a butch lesbian. There is such an immense disconnect here about the importance of validity and what real oppression looks like. Especially when you refuse to even discuss detrans people for fear it will make you seem less valid. So their struggles don’t exist to make you feel better. Once again, all about erasing females to stroke the egos of males.

This is not the biggest issue on my plate, but it’s a recent small example of tangible consequences to prejudice. The other day I was trying to refill an opioid I have a legal prescription for but the pharmacist refused because they couldn’t find it. Despite having going through this before this woman refused to look where I suggested, and I suffered in pain for 3 days before my doctor’s office was able to tell them they had it for sure. I mean this isn’t about sexism and more about ableism (though women’s pain is often discounted more, black pain even more) In that moment, I didn’t want to be validated. I didn’t want the pharmacist to know who I am, my identity, my disabilities, I wanted her to stop judging pain patients as a whole and give me my fucking legal prescription. Every single legislation and guideline that limits opioid prescriptions are born of a prejudice against addicts and a indifference to people in pain. That pharmacist didn’t give a shit about my pain, to bother even looking, because the rules made her right and I was probably an addict anyway. That is a real tangible feeling of oppression, and like I said it’s nothing compared to other examples I just didn’t want to dig up anything more upsetting.

That is how I feel about oppression. Validity matters, representation matters, but it is not the nitty gritty of what oppression is. It’s screaming at the walls, throwing your phone, because someone with the power to judge and fuck up your life, did exactly that. And worse they feel righteous for what they did because to them you’re just a “insert slur here”. And that’s just a small nonviolent and nonlethal example.

Now unlike asexuality, I know to be trans is to be oppressed and to suffer. But you cannot lift yourself up by putting others down, you will be on a tower of dominos that can fall the moment some other group does it to you. I always said trans people obviously belonged with LGB groups because obviously bigots didn’t care if a couple was two gay men or a man and non-passing trans woman. To me it spoke to a shared history and understanding. But maybe I was wrong, maybe that doesn’t exist. I think at least the one major difference now that I can definitely see is it’s ridiculous to infer female privilege by calling us cis. One thing is for sure, LGB and trans history are not as simple as I had ignorantly assumed in the past.

I don’t want to dictate what trans life is like, I don’t want deny any adult the right to transition, I don’t have any interest in misgendering, I believe there is a difference between sex and gender. But by fucking god I will not let anyone trample on my rights, call me bitch, cunt, terf, cum dumpster, deny my oppression as a female, deny my suffering, deny my reality as a female, just so You can feel better about your body. I will not sacrifice my body at the alter of your perceptions of your body.

Society loves to say otherwise, but women don’t exist to make you feel better. We don’t exist to make men feel more like a man or for trans women to feel more like a woman. We exist for our fucking selves, leave us alone! I’m not sorry if it makes you feel less of a woman because you need to address the misogyny you have been socialized into as a male. You all reek of sexism and think being trans means you magically cannot be affected by male socialization. That is some first class Bullshit. I’m a poor disabled lesbian, and none of that erases the racial bias I was taught and raised in as a white person. I always need to be willing to confront that, and it’s no different with males. Trans or cis, all of you were raised to hate women. Own it so we can fucking get past it.

Furthermore, our society only does better when we foster discourse. Disagreeing can be enraging but it’s how you learn if your own beliefs are worth keeping or discarding. It’s how you grow. Only insecure bullies feel the need to demand loyalty, stamp out dissent, and mock their opponents than actually argue. Don’t give into this intellectual dishonesty that might be easy, feel good, gain you a moment of praise, but ultimately throws women’s liberation and equality under the bus and into a raging inferno. How dare you think your right to feel valid is more important than my right to live freely and without shame as a female.

I’m very much open to good faith discourse on this topic, but do not mistake me. I have suffered for being born with a vagina, and no male will ever get to shut me up. So the next time you want to say choke on a dick, choke on your own.

#misogyny #sexism #feminism #trans activism #radical feminism #gender critical

[tiaalyscha2021]

alemdi

Fanfic of the story of xeno and butch

Record 1 

January 23, 2079…

 Mission report .. 

Archive part 1 of the project, almeida, 

I was working on my only hope. My machine is almost ready, I don't know how much time I still have, but I have to finish it as soon as possible. Sweat dripped from my forehead, my hands covered with bandages, a fast heartbeat, everything depends on it, I can't stop. Not if I want to lose my only sunshine. My little Alico. Just thinking about losing it will not happen. Not while I have time. This machine can send it to another universe, but the machine is a one-way ticket, that is, it will only sendbody Alico's to another universe, and it is programmed for only one person. I know I can't go with her, for love, I will save her.

The world you were born in is not worthy of your brilliance, but there will always be hope, but in this place, my actions, my mistakes, my sins, from all over here, are blinded by hatred, evil, greed and power who have now sealed their own end. And even if you're only 1, you're my light, just like your mom was. I can hear the “monsters” approach, more and more, go my Alico, and shine.  

The machine quickly sent the girl to another universe. Even though she was very young, she was not afraid, but she could feel the sudden change around her. The gentle breeze swaying the branches of the trees gently, in a small village, one of the residents of the human village, calvin, a 60-year-old man, owner of a small farm, a little distant from the other houses, was plowing the land to make a new plantation. When he heard the barking of his dog Bolty.

The farmer went to his dog and released it, to show what he had detected. At the very moment when you released the dog, he ran to the barn, and the farmer followed, but to this day I believe he did not expect to see. Upon arriving at the saddlery your dog is smelling a small baby, he seemed to be 1 year old or less. This was certainly not possible, as he had been there before the dog barked, and there was no way anyone could have entered, because it made a lot of noise to move the barn doors, since they were very old. But he did not continue with his thoughts, because they were broken with the girl's laughter, he turned to look at her, and gently placed her on his lap. 

He was confused, what to do with her, would he take her up for adoption? Would he give it to another? Would they think something bad for me? He just didn't know what to do, but when he felt the small hand tighten on his shirt, he felt something, something he had never felt in years. At that moment he understood that he had to take care of her, that she had a new opportunity to feel loved again.

As time passed, Calvin did not regret his decision, she baptized her Ana, he did everything to raise her the best possible, and everyone in his village loved her too, she was a golden child, she was well-known to all, her kindness had no limits, her intelligence was envious, as she could read an entire book in less than an hour. Which helped to learn several languages, even languages ​​of other creatures. She had an excellent physique, she got on well with everything she did and was literally very valuable to everyone. Well until his 18th birthday, his father was quite old, but he was still safe. The gift he gave her was something he had done with his own hands, and he had never been able to give it to his wife, but he gave it to his daughter, it was a glue with a heart of stone painted red, even being a very simple gift she loved right away. And on the back it was written, never fail to shine.                   

[kendrixtermina]

Now here's an all new theory for where the procrastination comes from

Like the uni councilors thought of like generic selfhate insecurity or like spineless ppl pleasing (nope an anime cured me of that when I was 13 - thst sounded more like what that ladys own problems might be), fear or failure & wanting to spite my father, eveb that getting ahead through "talent" was an unfair advantage bad tainted and evil, or that "talent" meant being beholden and controlled by others (definitely somewhat right - we worked on that, it helped, the second guy was defs much much more helpful & compatible cause he focussed a lot more on strategies than wannabe-maternal pep talks) but there was always something else there that wasnt getting touched

In tje end I dont think I have talent and in any case what really matters is attitude toward "living the examined life" for example whst you do. What you notice.

Now I did notice that things get harder to do precisely because I actually want them(whereas a lot of ppl get distracted from stuff because they dont really want it) - at the same time I can totally function or pick up new habits in day to day life its not like I have some "hardware problem" like, say, ADHD or the like.

Like of course its some emotional knot it couldnt be anything else but I feel they didnt identify what kind of knot? Certainly not that first lady. If im trying to get clarity and you give me reassuring pep talks you just freak me out more for the love of god tell me whats happening. Nothing worse when a Doctor says "it will be over soon" rather than explain the procedure

Fear of/ distraction from wanting itself never really occured to me thats not a common stereotypical fear that ppl talk about.

Let me get this straight I never thought I was better than anyone I knew very well that I'm not. I thought of both those things as ways not to get bullied, maybe get somewhere where I feel that im in the right place.

If I look back at really breaking experiences it was times I really really wanted something and then I couldnt do it or some outside party stepped on my fingers. That Tori Amos Music Video where she escapes from a psycho killer's trunk and then the passerby's dont help her? That was my most favorite music video in the world for years maybe still is.

Like I was told I could maybe skip third grade and I poured all my energy and passion and strenght into that everything I had to do well, make friends with the new class i was so highly motivated I aced all the exams I felt so happy & fulfilled just being in thst flow state all the time... i wanted this more than anything. Maybe it was the first time I really wanted something beyond vague dreams or base desires. But the homeroom teacher hated my guts and put the kibosh on that; Probably because I was unwittingly repeating some of the artogant classist shit my father spouts without realizing how hurtful it is. my parents thought it wasnt worth going to the higher ups for that but having to essentially redo 4th grade in a crap school in the different town we moved to was one of the worst times of my life. Also I didnt find out that the teacher had hated me/acted in a petty way until years after I thought I just failed. That there was a possible place I could have belonged but turns out I really belong nowhere after all.

All my effort was for nothing. It was such a joy - i mean these days even getting code to work or solving math problems has that same joy - but all that effort and joy and wanting did was that... im tearing up and searching for the words to even process this tbh. I think I denied that joy, told myself that I was just a stupud kid thinking I was a special snowflake. It didnt even matter.

Rather than insist on staying up late to make sure my homework was done I just stopped caring and hardly did another piece of homework in my life just faking it on the spot or coasting through. It could have gone another way maybe if it werent for the bullies and my father the chief bully or if only I was more determined but it was like "okay I dont care anymore I just dont care" and I think thats stayed my default response to dissapointment to this day.

This TV show didnt turn out like I wanted? I dont care its just a tv show.

My father treated be with hatred all my life? Its okay I dont care about him and I dont want his love anyway.

Like there were other times when I thought I could be happy.

Like I really wanted to go to this boarding school for gifted kids. Again I thought maybe incorrectly that this would be a place where I can belong and not be bullied it was never about being better than anyone.

Again I wanted it I clamored and cried and made noise nonstop. Maybe I still hadnt wholly lost contact with willpower back then. I still thought of myself as strong willed.

And my father made me regret it. It was around the same time that mom briefly considered divorce maybe I was just the stress valve. Or he took it personally as wanting to get away from him. Duh he abused me of course I wanted away from him. He was such a suffocating control freak! Mom said yes first then he spoke to her and suddenly she followed everything he said. Thats when I really realized how emotionally manipulative was how abusive... i mean one of my first conscious memories of him is thinking "oh crap I will be just like cinderella" but he really laid it on so thick so transparently even a 10 year old could tell its manipulation. If you do this you dont love your mom. If you do this you dont love your siblings. If you dont obey me your mom will kill herself. No she wont you jerk even my 2 year old self could tell youre abusive.

The most cruel thing he did was briefly say yes. Again I got so happy. So invested. Just bending all I was towards that even though he bombarded me with abuse and mental torture.

And then on the day we were supposed to leave he said no youre not going.

Maybe I actually did say I didnt want to go because of one time he was doing this constant scientology type torture on me

That same reaction: "I dont want it I dont want anything so please please let me be"

Ppl think of bad childhoods as a game that you win if yoz turn 18 -or 28 maybe - without killing yourself. But its not. Every year you live it can take away from your potential. Every day less than you have to live it

He sure didnt let me have sucess with his overcontrol and abuse. Anything I was proud of he rules. When I graduated from school with a fairly good but not perfevt final score he humiliated me. When I turned 18 he humiliated me. Everything I did was a burden even just feeding and washing me. Hed give me unwanted white elephant gifts then bitch about how giving them to me ruined his life cause he had to work so muxh "Ingrate Ingrate Ingrate" Butch I never asked for anything I want nothing!

But as I had to eat I did in fact have to ask things of him and I hated it so much.

No wonder that I turned out afraid of wanting things eh?

Hed seen some poster when we went to see tje school I wanted to go to - not by the school by an individual student - about the history of abortion portrayed in a positive way or at least that was his official reason why I couldnt go. Again I had wanted something badly with all my being and again all my being availed nothing. Irrelevant like I didnt exist. All my screaming gone unheard.

And this is so silly cause im not a child anymore I have control and if I were to stop procrastinating I could have money and gave even more control.

I havent even spoken to him in years now hes no longer relevant. Its not about him its about thus bad pattern I picked up.

I like how this books handles it with the idea that certain experiences dont create the type but that it nakes you uniquely suceotible to certain kinds of hurt or certain misunderstandings.

Because with all this discourse about bad message free media ive really come to think that while it can and should be minimized its not possible to eradicate cause human mibds are so quicl so fallible to extract overgeneralizations and make it mean something abput themselves

Like an immature statistical learning model easily overtrained by noisy data.

Another time I was nearly happy was when I started looking for work, doing my thesis...

Same pattern I was engaged, happy to be engaged talking to ppl at both work and in the uni work group loving it all so much...

my life had started to feel meaningful again. And it had gotten to that point in part because of my ex-fiance. Yes the councelling heloed taking up meditation helped, getting high on morning glory that one time helped a whole lot got more self esteem from that than I ever got from my father.

But that all started because of my ex fiance.

He was an i tellectual type and he had a sense of purpose about him like hes a legendary character and everyone around him became legendary too. And he found me useful! Others had called me "walking dictionary" with mockery and scorn he called me his google and it meant love and admiration. Maybe I got a bit of an ego trip off of tjat but I also really stupidly dumbtastically loved him I bragged of him to anyobe who listened everything he did seemed fascinating abd interesting and meaningful, but also I just loved the sweet gentle warmth of being next to him in the morning. Once again I was happy and everything was joyful even when it was hard, I felt strong and meaningful and useful and I let myself openly want things.

And then it all blew up. Worse yet i was so mistaken abozt him it really shook my confidence in my own judgement or any sense of clarity. I was si confused during the fucking breakup like I hadnt been since I left my father's house.

Google hah! More like his personal Alexa! It turns out he didnt respect or like me at all.

I couldnt even be sad or angry cause it was all my mistake. The one feeling I allowed - and even that took me weeks to identify - is dissapointment. Heavy leaden dissapointment i didnt even kniw that was a feeling you could feel so strongly. I didnt even do anything wrong you have to open yourself to have love. He could habe choosen to love me he just simply didnt. He probably thought he did but he wouldnt evebn do something as simple as not make fun of my voice or clean when I am sick.

Once he started putting me in the "wife" role he just became unable to see me. His loss really cause I think he wanted to keep me from all those annoying texts and email he had the nerve to write.

By all means I was right to trust but also right to leave later but still my sense of certainty and purpose and meaning was totally shaken. He did the sort of romantic stuff I didnt think was real. I knew I loved him when we had this conversation about water on mars. He got me the perfect books for my birthday! He said I was pretty and a genius and looked just like an actress. He got me this titanic esque heart pendant with stars. We were stuck at midnight in a train station that one time and he pulled out a picnic rug two plastic glasses and a shampain bottle. It never worked out but he said he might take me to see the LHC! I really thought we would be buried in the same hole folks!. He had read that same steven Hawkings book that I loved. One of the rather few books he actually read as I would find. Sigh.

And I fell right back into that same old pattern. Dont care about anything dont want anything it would be stuoid unrealistic and silly to want.

When I first came to uni I also had this feeling of hapiness and belongingness and wanting, I was putting in an effort, talking to ppl more.. and when things went wrong the slightest bit I pulled by hand back from that like from an open flame.

And here I am years later most the sucess or contact I get is comments on my fanfictions.

I thought I was doing that, or drawing, because its Stakes/Evaluation-free (going by the fear of failure theory) or because at least with the ffs gratification/payoff for effort is immediate compared to original stuff or uni work. Its a nice little niche at least.

I mean I do care about it its not "just" distraction but maybe ive been profaning it in that way... and so etimes I dont even do that and go for full unadulterated undebatable distraction; Line to 7 I guess. Tje only reason I spoke face to face to anyone else than the delivery guy this week is that I had some doctors appointments.

But not its distraction from stuff Im too lazy to do or even from pressure like I always thought. But from wanting things.

So the original fiction went great while it was a distraction from school not so much when its one of the things I most want and actually have the time to do it.

Even thought thats the most practiced skill I have that I never stopped working on since I was 10. 🤦‍♀️

I mean they already explained that its basically like meditation. Or weeds. Or popup ads. Youve got to click them away as they pop up.

I always told myself thst I didnt have to be happy... and thats not even untrue actually but it would sure be neat to be happy again one of these days.

#enneagram #enneagram type 5 #feelings #enneagram 5w4 #5w4

[percyscourt]

percy jackson godly parent swap

(those who aren't mentioned in a different cabin stay the same)

PERCY:

son of aphrodite

sally jackson falling for aphrodite in a male form, skin tan and hair jet black, with eyes everchanging between gold, blue and green. sally confused when aphrodite visited her in her usual female form, but realized she loved her just the same

percy asking his mom about his dad, who his mom calls "the most beautiful person she'd ever met"

percy growing up and using charmspeak without even realizing it; "Nancy, just shut up." and Nancy immediately shutting her mouth close, as if she was a robot of some kind. percy brushing this off as the fact that nancy just didn't want to get in trouble

grover and his mom telling percy that they didn't really know who his dad was, but grover had suspicions based on the aura he radiates

his fight with the minotaur still staying the same, except at one point he had to will himself to get up using charmspeak

aphrodite's symbol popped above his head as soon as he was conscious after his fight with the minotaur and percy was sure it was a mistake; how could the goddess of beauty be his father? it wasn't even the fact that she was a god!dess!, it was the fact that percy didn't really see him good enough to be an aphrodite kid, not handsome or stylish enough

percy's siblings annoyed by how little he cares about his looks at first, then helping him find his right style- which they describe as new york skater junkie

aphrodite constantly sending him gifts; letters with love advice, new clothes, all that. and percy secretly reading the love letters but throwing away everything else. (hey he's a confused teenage boy, can you blame him?)

aphrodite constantly voicing her approval of annabeth, and begging percy to just ask her out

percy being absolutely crushed about silena, whom he was closest with, and him and clarisse shutting down anybody who called her a traitor or the enemy

percy being the cabin counselor due to a note silena left behind, just in case, and him stopping all of drew's dumb ideas (the ugly shoes, which were actually percy's shoes he showed up to camp with)

percy arriving at camp jupiter after training at the wolf house and fighting off the gorgons with hazel and frank, only to have people look down at him for being a son of aphrodite

percy trying to impress everybody so much, always trying to show he's so much more than such a pretty face

percy always trying to show everybody he is strong, smart, and a valid addition to the prophecy

percy and his mom fighting against gaea, and them kicking ass at it too

percy learning that being an aphrodite demigod is about loving yourself and caring for yourself, and how that doesn't make you weak, but rather stronger.

ANNABETH:

daughter of ares

annabeth meeting thalia and luke, being quick in words and with her knife, nearly cutting luke's throat

them traveling to camp and annabeth having the natural battle instinct, dodging and slicing at monsters with uncertainty, yes, but also with a little ease and reflex

annabeth being claimed her first night at the dining pavilion, going to sit down with only about six campers, all glaring daggers at her. annabeth not feeling intimidated, but weirdly at home. more peaceful here than at her dad's, anyway.

annabeth and luke swordfighting, and annbeth slowly yet surely becoming one of the camp's best, though she prefers daggers any day.

annabeth getting named camp counselor despite being eleven, because of her seniority in years of being there

her first act as counselor is to redo the exterior of the cabin, because honestly, it's horrendous. she still keeps the theme of war and everything, just minus the bloody boar, because annabeth gets creeped out by it's following eyes

her second action is stopping the "camp initiation" of dunking kids' heads in toilet bowls

annabeth's battle strategies being the best of camp, and her cabin and the athena one always going head to head in capture the flag.

her being one of her dad's favorites and always trying to please him, always pushing herself to be the best

her fatal flaw still being hubris, and she wants to tear down this world for a new one

her having the strongest Odikinesis at camp. her walking into a room and suddenly people remember that thing their friend did to them months ago, then everybody's fighting

annabeth getting the blessing of ares, and oh my her muscles. she's so fit and muscular and built even before the blessing, but after it's like just. wow. percy gets a lot of shit from it "wow you're girlfriend is more jacked than you" but percy thinks she looks great.

annabeth becoming so lost and distraught after percy goes missing that any time somebody mentions him, her grey eyes go black, and an aura of fear falls over that person. of course, annabeth hates that.

annabeth proving to people that ares demigods aren't just dumb, hot-headed jocks, but also smart, strategic heroes.

JASON:

son of invidia/nemesis

jason arriving at camp jupiter as the first and only invidia demigod, determined to join the fifth cohort and turn it around, to avenge those in the cohort who were mistreated and to bring honor back to their name

reyna choosing him as a leader because 1) his strong sense of justice 2) his refusal to let anyone bully other people of a lower ranking 3) while also giving out fair punishments

reyna, along with having her two dogs in her meetings, but also jason as he can sense when people are lookin for revenge/trouble

him getting his memory wiped, waking up in the bus, feeling a strong sense of missing, something he needed to do

seeing that guy hit on and flirt with piper, and jason hating it. he didn't know much- but he knew that he hated people that thought they were everything, people with big egos

jason and his friends getting picked up by this butch guy and annabeth girl, and jason noticing that annabeth was radiating this very vengeful aura. he was so intimidated he almost didn't get on the pegasus, but he didn't think he'd be better off here

jason arriving at camp and getting claimed almost immediately, a glowing scale hovering over his head.

jason walking into the cabin, on one wall seeing a picture of who must be his sister thalia with annabeth and another dude, and on another seeing a bunkbed pushed against the wall. with somebody on the bottom bunk.

jason meeting damien white, his half-brother, and learning about ethan nakamura. at first, jason was completely appalled by how traitorous his brother had been. then, hearing more about ethan and becoming sad, wishing to have met him.

jason even more sad learning that his brother didn't get a cabin while he was alive, and jason vowing to make it up to him by making sure all the gods' kids got their own cabins

jason and the seven fighting against gaea, and jason almost passing out by all the energy people were putting out. wirh every swipe of somebody's sword, it was as if they were basically yelling, "you! this is what you deserve!" and while jason did not see his mother at the fight, he felt her presence near him, giving him extra power

jason dying, begging piper to fulfill his promise of building the minor cabins, because all jason wanted was to keep his promise.

PIPER:

daughter of hermes

tristan mclean falling for hermes in female form, running into her on the beach. like, actually running. tristan running away from the waves after an early morning surf, and hermes literally going for a run on the beach

hermes and tristan going on dates, spending time with each other 24/7, hermes getting pregnant. then hermes leaving, days after piper had been born, unable to tell tristan the truth about gods.

piper growing up wondering how her mom could flake, and how her dad could still be so in love?? with somebody seemingly so normal?? he was tristan mclean after all.

piper growing up, being able to influence people very easily with her persuasive words alone. and when that didn't work, her talent of stealing and lock-picking came in handy

piper finding out about how all her memories with jason were a trick of the mist and her immediate reaction being to hate the gods, and to hate her mother, whoever she was, because why would she let them do that?

piper arriving at camp, nobody sure where to place her. piper walking into the hermes' cabin, instantly feeling at home. but hermes couldn't be her mother. piper was sure.

piper being claimed in front of the whole camp at the campfire, hermes himself showing up to deliever her a special package equipped with top of the line tennis shoes, a winter jacket, and a demand request for her to be apart of the new quest

piper being insanely annoyed with hermes and how he just waltzed back into her life. and how it seemed like he could read right through her

piper hearing about luke and understanding how he could feel hatred towards their dad (or in piper's case, mother), then immediately feeling horrible for feeling this after meeting the stoll brothers

who by the way, became super protective over piper as soon as they met, and who also told her of their prank rivalry with katie gardner in hopes of her joining them. and she did. of course.

piper growing to sort of like hermes, whoch made her feel horrible about betraying the gods in order to get her dad back. piper telling hermes before her friends, to let him know she wasn't a traitor. piper afraid of hermes grouping her with luke. hermes forgiving her, and recognizing her as the hero she is

hermes and piper fighting side by side against the giants, working together as if it was routine

piper beginning to understand how her dad fell for hermes

LEO:

son of athena

athena falling for all of esperanza: her brains as much as her beauty, her strength as much as her character

leo being born with all of esperanza's exterior; curly hair, dark freckles, long legs, and naturally tan/ethnic skin. this making athena love him one hundred times more, seeing him embody the woman she fell in love with, knowing he was going to be unique. knowing he was going to be that much special when he grew up

leo never forgetting anything, especially not years of torment from tia callida. and especially not his mother's death, how everybody blamed him, the words of gaea, everything. wishing he could forget everything, but having a perfect memory. of everything.

this keeping him up all night through every foster home, forcing him to run from each one, guilt dragging him down every step

leo being top of the class at every school he goes to, without even trying. even with his reading dyslexia. leo carrying these grades to the wilderness school, with all the troubled kids who don't care about their grades, just for everyone to bully ask him to tutor them

leo finding out about his friendship with jason being a trick of the mist, and beating himself up about it. constantly. how could he not see it? how could he, the top of every class, the school's pride and jewel, be that dumb?

leo getting claimed as soon as they landed, and being assigned will to give him a tour. leo arriving at the cabin, immediately feeling out of place in the sea of blonde hair and gray eyes

his half-siblings more or less annoyed with his jokes, but nontheless giving him a chance, and them forgetting how they even got along in life without him

him becoming the backbone of the cabin and, soon enough, getting named camp counselor by malcolm pace, who, quickly became one of leo's bestfriends

leo and malcolm making fun of all the couples, and malcolm spilling about the time he accidentally walked in on percy and annabeth hugging, and it quickly becoming one of leo's favorite stories- which he uses to make fun of both parties

leo arriving on ogyia, calculating ways and distances he'd have to travel to get off the island as soon as he landed. thinking the island was something he could solve, and getting extremely annoyed when calypso pointed out it was just magic

leo flying above his mother during the giant war on his invention, festus, which he built with the help of the hephaestus cabin, throwing off his calculated and mathematically composed weapons.

leo waking up after taking the Physician's Cure, finally able to sort of appreciate magic over logic. sort of.

HAZEL:

daughter of hekate/hecate

marie falling in love with the mystery and magic of hekate, and hekate falling in love with marie for the magic she saw in her

hekate granting marie's wish but warning her of its trouble and refusing to stick around long enough to see her and hazel hurt

marie's wish turning into hazel's curse, hazel touching jewels and treasures and them instantly becoming tainted with unfortunes of marie's selfishness

hazel growing up with things happening to her: her wishing something and it coming true, but marie telling her it was just marie's power of fortune telling and whatnot

hazel's eyes and lips trained to read and speak roman, as most of hekate's enchanments are spoken in roman

hazel's little white lies turning into a mist trick, if she lied and said she had an apple, right after marie saw that apple. it was little things, but not too little to go unnoticeable by marie

marie moving hazel to alaska despite hekate's pleads, and hazel feeling as if some part of her was dialed down, as if moving to alaska had diminished this "light" of hers that her mother loved

gaea choosing hazel to manipulate because of her powerful aura

hazel using her Umbrakinesis to shroud gaea in darkness, then caving the world in around her, taking hazel down with her

hazel and marie getting to the underworld and hazel trying to hold on to her life as much as possible, who knows how much time passing, then being tapped on the shoulder by this scrawny boy

this boy, nico, claiming to be hazel's half-sibling, here to bring her back from the open doors of death, with a tip from their mother

hazel arriving at camp jupiter, the first daughter of hekate, hazel being able to manipulate mist and the shadows, even learning how to shadow travel through nico

basically hazel being a badass all throughout the war alongside nico and their mom

hazel's friends helping her realize that her powers are not a curse, but a blessing that she can use to help others.

FRANK:

son of apollo

apollo meeting emily zhang during war, where lots of his kids were

emily thinking he was an egotistical airhead, yet falling for him all the same. emily falling for his never wavering bravery and risk-taking, and apollo falling for emily's safeness yet strength.

frank growing up wondering how anybody could leave his mom, his great mom. frank growing up not missing his dad. frank growing up hoping his dad was at least a good person, and if he wasn't that he didn't pass that on to frank.

frank being a horrible singer, stumbling over his words, yet still being able to heal with his voice, strength pouring from his words to people's ears, telling them to keep going, you got this. like this warm ball of light and comfort was radiating off of him

apollo visiting frank after his mother's death, in the form of a demigod, giving frank his second bow and arrow

frank getting claimed two days after arriving at camp. frank at first sort of hating his dad, this self-absorbed, annoying dude.

people giving him one glance, unable to believe he was a son of apollo. despite his archery skills, he was shy, in the worst cohort, and had none of that "pizzazz." people usually laughed in his face.

frank being ashamed to be in the fifth cobort, when his father was so used to being in the spotlight, so used to being loved and adored, frank being so scared that his father might think he was less

frank getting a blessing from apollo, making him tall with movie star good looks and seemingly glowing skin. frank begging him to dial it down a bit. apollo demanding his son go on the quest, or else

frank's dad constantly popping in during the quest in forms of some homeless man or another, which frank strangely appreciated

frank growing to like him, as he went through the quest, seeing why his mother liked him. seeing a little of himself in apollo, even

frank having the perfect shot, with anything. frank being able to sense the perfect places to put arrows into monsters' chests, being able to sense which place would kill them the fastest

frank meeting will and the apollo cabin, who, unlike camp jupiter, immediately accepted frank and made him feel at home. who never doubted for a second frank's worth, shy, chubby kid or not

apollo constantly voicing how special frank is, how proud he is that frank can be such a geniune hero without all the bravado that apollo himself used.

REYNA:

daughter of pluto

reyna's dad, Julian Ramírez-Arellano, falling for pluto as a pale woman, jet black hair with purple-ish eyes. reyna's dad coming back from war, scarred, becoming more scarred by learning who pluto really was after reyna had been born, and being disgusted by himself and pluto.

julian shoving this disgust on his daughters, screaming, yelling. julian never being the same afterwards. julian always thinking people are out to get him, ideas of war and pluto always haunting him.

julian reduced to a ghost, but appearing to reyna and hylla as a still alive, solid person. reyna driving an imperial good dagger through him, evaporating him forever.

reyna and hylla meeting Circe, and her telling them who their mother was. her promising them a grand future, one where they could get away and above abusive, crazy men, like their father.

then percy jackson and annabeth chase coming, turning reyna's world upside down. reyna going to camp jupiter, hylla to the amazons

reyna's first time shadow travelling being an accident. reyna and hylla being cornered by the pirates at night, reyna just wanting to hide in the shadows of the forest. and then they did. reyna and hylla appearing just five minutes away from circe's spa, both drained from their joint effort but most of all reyna

reyna arriving at camp and almost instantly earning her title of praetor

reyna being able to cast this feeling of fear over people with a single gaze, leaving people frightened days later still

reyna leading her legions into battle practice, hearing the voices of the dead who once held the same weapons in their hand

nico bringing hazel to reyna, asking for her to let the other girl into camp. reyna sensing almost at once that hazel had just came back to life.

percy coming to camp, reminding reyna of the life she could have had. reyna reading his feelings, reyna knowing his past too inckuded death of close ones, maybe even recently. reyna deciding to give him a chance

reyna meeting annabeth and seeing what she saw in percy in her eyes alone, times ten

reyna touching statues of war gods, and being overwhelmed by waves of dead soldiers pleading, begging for help. reyna being able to communicate with some of them, but most of them just mumbled incoherently

reyna going to find the Argo II only for scipio to later get injured, reyna having to put him out of his misery, but reyna still being able to feel his presence as a ghost

reyna shadow traveling the Athena Parthenos alongside nico and coach hedge all the way to camp, nico helping with his powers as a son of hecate

them stopping for breaks at all these historic places, the dead screaming at reyna, begging to be raised

reyna finally raising them at the battle at camp half blood, hundreds of dead demigods rising, tightly gripping their weapons, ready to win back their honor

NICO:

son of hecate

maria falling for hecate's mysterious yet caring, nature and hecate falling in love with maria's soft spoken and kind words paired with her dark hair spilling over her shoulders

zeus trying to strike down the di Angelo kids but hecate tricking him with the mist, though later it backfires as zeus strikes down maria

hecate, furious and devastated, begging hades to help erase their memories, and later place the kids in the Lotus Casino

Nico and Bianca almost breaking out of the daze of the Casino, and having to be served several flowers just to get them to play games; their mom's magic trying to break through and protect them

the di Angelo kids getting out, going to Westover Hall, and hecate paying all the fees

nico falling in love with this game all about magic, studying the plays and spells, learning them. realizing that if he worded them right, he could do some of the minor stuff; levitating, starting little fires, even being able to hide in the shadows sometimes. bianca convincing him that it was all his imagination

percy, annabeth, and thalia showing up and helping the di angelos escape, bianca becoming so scarce and quiet that she turned invisible. everybody thinking it to be a trick of the light

nico being the opposite, drawing attention to himself, all his questions loud, the sound of the forest and nature suddenly shushed, cut off

nico getting to camp and feeling out of place, as no hecate cabin was built, not being claimed. bianca leaving, percy promising, then bianca dying. percy bringing back a hecate figurine, but it being too late; nico slipping into the shadows

nico slowly teaching himself shadow travel and mist control but having to stop days after a simple trick

nico arriving in the maze, using what he could of the mist to distract and confuse monsters

percy and them finding nico, who casts a black stone wall (a trick of the mist) to stop kronos from coming after them, revealing his godly parent

nico having a little bit of necromancy powers, but only for fellow hecate demigods. nico using this in his advantage in the titan war

nico leaving camp after the titan war, only showing up when percy went missing to help look for him. nico finally having his own cabin

nico's mom tipping him off about hazel, and hades and hecate's agreement to let nico pass through the doors of death safely

nico traveling with reyna and coach hedge, helping reyna shadow travel and healing with spells

nico teaching will stronger and faster healing spells to use on the campers

nico learning slowly how to embrace his powers, despite remarks he got over the years of people calling him a freak. nico not feeling so left out and alone

WILL:

son of iris

naomi solace falling for iris' kind eyes and smile that stretches to her eyes, iris falling for naomi's shining eyes, as if the sun lived there

will getting to camp and staying in the hermes cabin until after the titan war, where he was claimed the minute the iris cabin was finished being built

will being able to pull light out of nowhere, in the darkness of nights, like a beacon

will seeing being a healer as art, fixing what's broken and putting it right again

will using his mom's communication skills to calm people down in time for him to heal them, occasionally with the help of nico

will helping the aphrodite cabin with educating people about acceptance and accepting their selves and others

will being chosen to help apollo after he was turned human because of his kind nature and patience

will overall being a ray of sunshine whenever people need him, whatever the circumstances

BONUSES:

clarisse as a nike demigod, and being almost intolerable with her competitve behavior

meg mccaffrey as a dionysus demigod

alex fierro as a hermes demigod

magnus chase as an apollo demigod

mallory keen as a dionysus demigod

halfborn gunderson as an ares demigod

tj as a nike demigod

blitzen as an aphrodite demigod

hearthstone as a hecate demigod

you're welcome

#pjo #hoo #au #pjoau #hooau #percyjackon #annabethchase #jason grace #piper mclean #leo valdez #hazel levesque #frank zhang #reyna avila ramirez arellano #nico di angelo #will solace #clarisse la rue

[thewritingstar]

the ships ask for butch and buttercup, 1,2,4,5, and 23

OOO love me some Greens!!!! Thank you for the ask love!

-I imagine that thye are either married or been dating for years for this. 

Ship ask if you wanna ask me. 

1) How do they fall asleep? Wake up? Any daily rituals?

- If Buttercup has gotten home from kicking another monsters ass, shes usually dead tired. Butch will come into the living room and see her on the ground practically passed out and carry her to bed, usually throwing her unromantically and just jumping beside her before she curls up next to him. No matter if they are coming from work or it was a day off, and no matter the mood, they always fall asleep next to each other. 

When the wake up its usually throwing the other person off of them. Butch tends to roll and lay on top of her but she doesn't mind cause hes kinda like a weighted blanket. The wake up is probably early in the morning for a 5 am jog and warm up with a punching bag. Daily Rituals would be them working out or having coffee together in silence.

2. How’s their team work? Do they share well? 

-They work really well together when its serious and they need to kick ass. Of course Butch will always try to tease her when ever he gets the chance. No they do not share well. They like to joke about taking orders from the Reds but over all, they are team players and they most loyal people you will meet. 

Food is a danger zone they unless they ask, you don’t just reach over and take the others food. When it comes to other people, Butch is a man who takes pride in his girl and doesn’t like anyone looking at her in any way. he doesn’t say anything or do anything because BC usually beats him too it but BC is the same way. They are protective and selfish when it come to one another and thats why they work well together.  

4) First impression of each other? Was it love at first sight?

-hahah NO. In fact the first impression was Butch literally trying to kill Buttercup. It was more like hatred at first sight and after she blasted him to pieces and humiliated him in front of his brothers, they spent the next few years hating each other. Over time the boys grew out of listening to their dads and did their own thing. Sooner or later they became friends and she doesn’t know when her feelings of hate towards him turned into love. 

5) Nicknames? Pet names? Any in-jokes?

-There are so many but his favorite are BC, Babe, Butters, Sweet Thang, Babesicle, literally anything dumb and cheesy that can go with her name. For her its Babe. They also are the couple to call each other Bitch, Asshole, Motherfucker, and literally every other cuss word in the dictionary. Her favorite jokes are when she says “cat got your tongue” referencing her making him bite his tongue when they were little or bringing up any thing will snails. For him any time she wore a dress or did anything more girly. They just tease each other but its cute. 

How do they hug? Kiss? Tease? Flirt? Comfort?

-When they first started dating, they really didn’t hug. It was more of a side hug or his arm slinged over her shoulders. Even as they got older, their hugs are more reserved for comforting times. If he ever sees her crying or vis versa, its a big bear hug that is filled with warmth and love. But usually in the morning he hugs her from behind while she makes coffee. Kissing is their favorite thing. From dating to married life, you could easily catch them sucking face at any given moment, they tried to be secretive but when you have super hearing its hard to miss. They ar also the rough couple and dont mind a little bite or blood, very rarely is it a soft and slow kiss but when it is, its probably their fav. 

Flirting. Butch is the biggest flirt and even when they get married, he still does it. Its alot of wolf whistles and “damn who is that hottie?”. His entire goal is to make her blush at any given moment she loves that about him. For her its more of side comments that he gets like 5 mins later or she will just give him the look. She has no problem getting him hot and bothered in the worst times and she prides herself on that. After all they are a perfect pair. 

To comfort one another it could be many ways. sometimes its letting them yell and scream before they pull them into a tight hug and let them cry. Sometimes its silent as they hold each other while whispering how much they love the other. Butch’s fav way to cheer her up is to tell her how much he loves her and how badass. BC just boosts his ego until hes back up and ready and kisses his softly. 

--

hope you liked these answers!!! Thanks for asking!

[erinptah]

Super Drags review (tl;dr Show Good)

The post where I do my best to spread the Good News, that there exists a saucy gay drag-queen magical-girl animated comedy and everyone should watch it.

Okay, not everyone -- I'll give some caveats at the end -- but definitely a heck of a lot more people than Netflix has bothered to advertise it to.

Look at this! Why did nobody tell me about this??

What is Super Drags?

Fast facts:

It's a 1-season, 5-episode adult animated comedy series, released in November 2018

Here's the official page, with a free-to-view trailer

It packs more explicit, unashamed queerness into those 5 episodes than any other cartoon I can think of

The only possible competitor would be if you took the whole 5000-episode run of Steven Universe and pared it down to a supercut of Just The Gay Parts

This in spite of being produced in Brazil, which (in my broad understanding, as a total non-authority on the subject) is more oppressively, dangerously homophobic than the US

The original is in Portuguese

There is an English dub, fabulously voiced by contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race

It's wrapped in "for adults only!" warnings, not because the content is any less child-friendly than (say) your Bojacks Horsemen or your Ricks and Mortys, but because Brazilian authorities tried to get it shut down on the grounds of this much gay being Harmful For Children

It was (heartbreakingly) not renewed for a second season

Here's a promo video, in which the main characters (Portuguese, with subtitles) play Drag Race judges for Shangela, who ends up voicing Scarlet in English.

And here's a beautiful flashy music video of the big musical number! (Also Portuguese, no subtitles, but the melody and the visuals stand on their own.)

Plot and worldbuilding stuff!

The elevator pitch is "What if Charlie's Angels, but also drag queens, with superpowers, because magical-girl transformations?"

In this universe, all LGBTQ people have magical energy. The Big Bad is an evil magical-drag-queen nemesis who tries to drain our energy for her own purposes. It's like if Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a first-season Sailor Moon villain.

...sidenote, in case you were worried, the representation isn't "cis gay men and nobody else." There's a butch lesbian in the recurring cast, a genderfluid person (in that specific word!) as a one-off love interest, and all the ensemble scenes are wonderful collages of different races, body types, and gender presentations.

Our heroes also fight non-magical everyday homophobes, who get written with scathing realism.

The moment I knew the show wasn't pulling any punches was in the first episode, where a newscaster complains about being Silenced by the Law of Political Correctness, then chirps "however, we have a special guest who is thankfully above the law!"

According to the reviews I've found from Brazilian viewers, it's also pitch-perfect when it comes to local queer culture, community dynamics, slang and speech patterns, even memes. All of which flies right over my head, so here's a post (with no-context spoilers) about one viewer's favorite details.

The handful of reaction posts on Tumblr have a dramatic split between "Brazilian viewers fiercely defending the show as culturally-accurate, uplifting, and brave in a terrifying political moment" and "American viewers complaining that the show is problematic because it's a comedy about drag queens with no perfect role models and lots of sex jokes."

As the Super Drags tell their nemesis (and this is also in the first episode): "How dare you try to turn the LGBTQXYZ community against each other? We do enough of that on our own!"

In between missions, our girls work sitcom retail jobs and deal with other everyday problems. All of which are written in amazingly nuanced and thoughtful ways for a show that also features "defeating an orgy monster with a lip-sync battle."

Detailed character stuff!

Our heroes are Color Coded For Your Convenience!

The Super Drags themselves go by "she" in-uniform, and a lot of the time when out of it. Like the Sailor Starlights, only more so. I'll roll with that.

In blue: Safira Cyan, or Ralph by day, an excitable college-age kid who's built like a football player and squees like a fangirl. (She's an anime fan in the original, and for some reason all the otaku references were replaced in the dub, but you can see them in the subtitles.)

Ralph lives with her younger sister (they play video games together!) and their dad, comes out to them mid-series, and is very shippable with another young guy who starts out reciting the homophobic beliefs he was raised with but whose heart clearly isn't in it.

Safira's weapon is a classic magical-girl wand that casts protective force-fields. Which are shaped like condoms. Because of course.

In yellow: Lemon Chiffon, aka Patrick, the oldest of the group and generally the smartest/most strategic. In most cases, the other two treat her as the de facto team leader -- unless she pushes it too far.

By day she's a single guy with thick thighs and thinning hair, who has some body-image insecurities on the dating scene. And this show has Things To Say about unrealistic beauty standards within the community...not to mention, about masc guys who look down on anyone too flaming or femme because straight people disapprove.

Lemon's weapon is a fluffy boa that can be used as a whip or a lasso, especially when there's a bondage joke to be made.

In red: Scarlet Carmesim, also Donizete, the loudest and most aggressive teammate with the most cutting insults, who refuses to suppress that attitude in an attempt to appease racists. (But will give it a shot when trying not to get fired.)

Donny still lives in her religious/homophobic mom's apartment, and I'm pretty sure it's because neither of them can afford to move out. Her rock-solid sense of fierce self-confidence is the reason it doesn't bring her down.

Scarlet's weapon is a fan that she uses to throw shade. Yeah, you knew that was coming.

The Charlie to these angels is Champagne, who runs operations from a cool magitech compound and breaks the fourth wall at the end to petition for viewers' support in getting a second season.

...we let her down, folks :(

So here's a thing. The show never draws a sharp line between "people who become drag queens because it's a way they're driven to express themselves as gay men" and "people who become drag queens because they were trans women all along." That's consistent with how South American LGBT+ culture works. (Again: best of my knowledge, not personally an authority on this, etc etc.)

Many of the characters, including Champagne, never describe themselves in ways that translate to one of our sharply-defined Anglo-USian identity categories. And I'm not going to try to impose any English labels on them here.

But I can say (in contrast to Safira, Lemon, and Scarlet), Champagne never switches out of her "drag" name/voice/presentation, not even in the most candid off-duty scenes, and still has the same bustline when naked in the tub. Make of that what you will.

You Should Watch This Show

If you have a Netflix subscription, watch Super Drags!

If you ever do a Netflix free trial month in the future, make a note to yourself to watch Super Drags!

It's one of their original productions, so there's no risk of missing your chance because the license expired. But it's absolutely not getting the promotion it deserves. Which means potentially interested viewers won't find it, which means Netflix will think there's no interest, which means they'll keep not promoting it...etc etc etc.

No idea if there's any chance of getting it un-canceled, but maybe we can at least convince them to release it on DVD.

And the sheer gutsiness it took for a group of Brazilian creators to produce this show in the first place -- that deserves to be rewarded with your attention.

In spite of various anti-discrimination laws that sound good on paper, the country has serious problems with homophobia, transphobia, and anti-LGBT violence (warning, article has a violent image which is only partly blurred).

Maybe the creators could've gotten a second season if they made this one softer, less sexually-explicit, more restrained...but honestly? I bet that wouldn't have helped.

Consider Danger & Eggs, an Amazon original cartoon. It was made in the US, thoroughly child-friendly, and restricts its LGBT+ representation to things like "characters go to a Pride celebration...where nobody ever names or describes the quality they're proud of."

And it didn't get renewed past the first season either.

(Note: it had a trans woman showrunner and a queer-heavy creative staff, so I blame all that restraint on executive meddling, not the creators themselves. The showrunner even liked the tweet of my review that complains about it.)

So there's something very satisfying about how Super Drags went all-out, balls-to-the-wall (sometimes literally), all the rep explicit and unapologetic, packing every 25-minute episode with all kinds of queer content that would be censored or muted elsewhere -- but here it's exaggerated and celebrated and just keeps coming.

(...as do jokes like that, and I'm not sorry.)

Okay, there are a few legitimate reasons to not watch this show

Some caveats.

None of these things are Objectively Bad Problems that the show itself should be shamed for...but maybe they're genuinely not your cup of tea.

It does have actual Adult Content beyond "the existence of gay people." This show loves to swing barely-clothed cartoon genitalia in your face. There is, as mentioned, an orgy monster. If that kind of humor is going to bother you too much to appreciate the rest of the show, give it a pass.

I wasn't kidding about how realistic the homophobes are. Opening of the first episode has a guy trying to murder a busload of people while shouting slurs at them. If that level of hatred on-screen is gonna crush your soul, even in a show about sparkly queens flying to the rescue with dick-shaped magical weapons, don't push yourself.

Any fiction with this much crossdressing and gender-transgressing is going to hit some trans viewers in a bad way. Because trans people are such a broad group, with so many different experiences, that Every Possible Trope Involved pushes somebody's buttons. (See also: "some trans readers complain about a storyline that turns out to be drawn from a trans writer's actual life experience".) If this show goes does gender things that turn out to be personally distressing for you...or even just distressing for this specific time in your life...don't feel obligated to keep watching.

It has aggressively-sassy queer characters making jokes and calling each other things that are affectionate in-context, but would not be okay coming from straight/cis people. If you can't wrap your head around that, go watch something else.

Other Than That, Go Watch This Show

For all its big heart, big ambitions, and big gay energy, Super Drags is tiny enough that I've binged the whole show 2 times in the past 2 weeks. Thankfully, it's highly re-watchable -- lots of fun background gags and subtle foreshadowing that you don't catch on the first round.

(Pausing one last time to appreciate that a show with elements like "the high-tech robot assistant is called D.I.L.D.O." can be subtle at all, let alone be this good at it.)

I've also paged through all the fanart on Tumblr and Deviantart, looked up the single fanfic on the AO3, and started brainstorming plans to request it in Yuletide next year. Someone, please, come join me in (the English-language side of) the itty-bitty fandom for this ridiculous, glittery, over-the-top, fabulous series.

#Super Drags #lgbtq #recommendations #recs

[vegannaise]

boys deserve love

i started realizing around 16 that i wasn’t cis. i flipflopped back and forth between different nonbinary identities, occasionally wondering (in private) if i was just simply a boy. i was already out as gay, and people already regarded me as a “tomboy”, so that helped alleviate some of my teenage discomfort.

I didn’t date a lot in highschool, partially because i was incredibly intimated by girls, partially because boys didnt pay too much romantic attention to me, and probably a little bit because i had 0 interest in sex all throughout my teenage years.

when i was 17 i had my first “serious” relationship. it was with a boy that coerced me into hooking up with him while i was nearly black out drunk (wow,, what a catch right???!!! thats a whole different story). as sad as this is, i finally felt like my existence was valid. i felt like i had finally achieved this unspoken goal of having someone love me in a romantic way, having someone find me desirable. i was happy for the first time in years.

of course, i was still trans and in the closet during all of this. one night, i was completely swallowed by my dysphoria. i was either on the floor or in front of the mirror crying because of how my body looked. i even ended up giving myself a stick n poke to avoid self harming. Mason (boy in question) was texting me throughout this, i think i had told him i wasn’t feeling good, but i didn’t want to tell him why. he eventually pressured me into telling him what was wrong, and i told him “i dont like my body. i want my body to be a different body. i want to have a BOYS body”.

for just a second, i pictured myself years in the future with a flat chest and stubble and a deep voice, my arms around Mason, who still loved me even though he was “straight” and i had transitioned.

sadly, this fantasy was violently ripped away as soon as i came back to reality. Mason had responded with clear discomfort, saying he wasn’t gay. i told him i knew he wasn’t gay, but wouldn’t he still love me for me??? i would still be the same person, so wouldn’t he still love me????? to which he prompty responded, firmly and bluntly, that if i were to transition and call myself a boy, he would break up with me.

this experience made me go back into the closet for 2 years.

fast forward to when i was 19, i was in a relationship with a transguy. since i grew up in a tiny homophobic town i was never able to date another trans person, and most likely put this person (lets call them...... Pickle) on a big ol’ pedestal because of that. Pickle had been out as trans for almost 5 years, and had been on T almost just as long. they were the first person to tell me that nonbinary people can be trans. they were the first person to actually make me feel seen and valid as not only a trans person, but as a boy.

i ended up coming out to them, in tears, as a transguy. i still felt really confused, i was a boy but didnt really feel connecting to masculinity. i wanted nothing more than to be a pretty boy but recoiled at seeing myself as a Man™. even though that relationship was incredibly toxic, Pickle supported me unconditionally through getting on hormones, they even bought me a new binder. they were the support i had desperately needed.

we had been dating for 8 months when i left town for a few days. something seemed off when i would text them, it felt like something was wrong, but they werent telling me what. Pickle was staying with me at the time, so i saw them as soon as i came back. they said they had something to tell me.

they told me that while i was out of town, they had had a major identity crisis, and realized that she was actually a butch lesbian. of course, i gave her a giant hug, i told her i loved her and that i was so happy she had figured this out about herself. thats when she started talking about us.

she told me that since she was a lesbian and i was a boy, we had to break up; as if this shouldve been obvious to me...... it wasn’t. as she sat there telling me things like “i still love you” and “and i wish things could be different” we both cried. a lot. i still couldnt wrap my head around what was happening. here she was, telling me she wishes things were different so we can be together, why couldnt we just be together as is??? if you want to be with someone, why does it matter if they’re a boy or a girl??? especially when you’ve already been together for 8 months??? it felt like it had a lot more to do with other peoples perceptions of us, it wasn’t because i was a boy, it was because she didnt think she’d be seen as a lesbian dating a genderqueer boy.

the next day i confronted her about this. i was so confused, i had given myself a headache and multiple panic attacks trying to figure out what the fuck i was feeling. she told me that she felt like we should break up anyway, that her realizing shes a lesbian was just “the final nail in the coffin”. i found myself even more hurt and confused than before. id told Pickle all about Mason, how i went back in the closet because i was scared of him leaving me. i told her about all the shame i had accumulated over the course of my relationship with Mason. despite her knowing all this, she still decided to scapegoat our own identities, rather than just own up to the fact that our relationship was falling apart already.

this experience made me question my entire identity, the identity i had JUST started feeling valid in. this experience made me eventually stop taking hormones. this experience made me feel more invaild and undesirable than ever before.

during this time, i started to also ID myself as a (nonbinary) lesbian. i had felt my attraction to men dwindle, and i was grappling with my attraction to women. but more than anything else, i convinced myself that being a boy = being hated. looking “like a boy” = being ugly and undesirable. not only did this feed into terf rhetoric, but its a result of being told my whole life that my worth is directly tied to my level of attractiveness, and that no one would find me attractive if i looked the way i wanted to.

it felt so much easier to stay how i was. all i wanted was to be seen as queer, and since people already read me as a lesbian, i might as well just settle for that, right? at least people would get it. at least people would see me.

i’m 22 now, and ive really only just started to deconstruct these things and unlearn my internalized transphobia and self hatred. about 6 months ago i started calling myself a boy and using he/him pronouns again, and for once i actually feel safe. for once i actually have a good support network. for once i actually feel seen. for once i actually feel loved.

to anyone who actually bothered to read this all the way through: healing is not linear and our identities sure as shit arent. if you’re in the closet right now, or if you’re questioning your gender/sexuality for the first or fifth or tenth time: i see you. i love you. you are so valid in your fear and confusion. the world still actively hates LGBT people, and that internalized fear is so real and deserves to be acknowledged, but please believe me when i say that there ARE people out there who hold the deepest love, appreciation, and camaraderie for you, even if you dont know them yet. your existence as an LGBT person in this world is inherently radical, please don’t ever forget that.

#oh GOD it took me almost 3 hours to write this kill me #vent #soapbox #long post