Hey there! Completely forgot to post about this here, but - charity project for trans kids!!
POINTY THINGS, a folk horror collection written by me, illustrated by @ehlihr, and edited by @nimagine is now available for purchase online through Pride 2024. All revenue raised during the upcoming year will go to LGBT+ mutual aid orgs defending trans youth! In this collection you'll find:
55 pages & 22k+ words of story
unsettling megafauna
a trans take on red riding hood
fun facts about 16th-century beheading practices!
deeply unsexy vampirism
haunting-as-dysphoria
3/5 stories brought to life in spooky, atmospheric detail by elisar's illustrations!
The charities we'll be donating proceeds to include Equality Texas and the Transgender Education Network, but I'm also keeping an eye out for other mutual aid orgs defending the rights of trans youth in the American Southwest.
🩸PURCHASE HERE (GUMROAD) 🩸
🩸 OR HERE (KO-FI)🩸
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btw this might be me swinging a bat at a hornets nest but like. absolutely none of my disappointment from the tl finale comes from ship baiting or any relationships that didn’t happen (though to be clear, i think the tedbecca fake outs were meanspirited and served no narrative purpose - in noted contrast to the season's earlier jamiekeeley fakeouts, for example, which were explicitly there to demonstrate jamie's growth + maturity)
tedpendant is a really fun concept for me, and i LOVE the characterisation + thematic potential there!
but as someone who personally resonated with a lot of ted’s struggles, the idea that ted could leave richmond so… seamlessly, for lack of a better word, really doesn’t sit right with me. the thesis of the shows entire first season - assuming it can be said to have only one - was about how everyone needs the love and support of a community, whether that comes in the flavour of someone who hypes u tf up or someone who will relentlessly call u on ur shit (or, as happened quite frequently, both!).
rebecca, roy, jamie are the clearest examples as the characters with the most screentime: they were all deeply isolated and disconnected from the people around them, and that was making them miserable. the connections they made with the team, the vulnerability they finally allowed themselves to express (the ghost banishing ceremony comes to mind!), and them going on to want *more* out of their life are what made their arcs about *progression* rather than *regression*. without that clear theme of compassion + community inspiring positive growth in everyone who encounters it, there is, frankly, no season one.
my personal favourite scene from season one comes right after michelle walks away from ted, when they’ve agreed to get divorced. ted sits down on the bench looking gutted, and a little shell shocked - and beard sits down with him. hands him the drink, and they sit there together. silent, but together. to me, that scene is an implicit promise from the episode, to the audience: ‘it’ll be okay. it’s going to be hard, but ted isn’t alone, and his friends won’t leave him behind.’
it also makes it clear to the audience that ted isn’t the saintly-giver-of-grace who needs nothing in return, as one might assume on first brush, but rather that he’s Also struggling with his own shit (as is everyone, always, in real life!) and he has something he needs from the people around him too.
and looking at the text of s3, and the conclusion to his arc in the finale, i just don’t believe that he got it. he wasn’t just sad that he was leaving (which would be understandable!), he was completely closed off. unresponsive to the people around him reaching out, borderline confused as to why they were trying so hard!
(side note, while i completely respect the read of ted and trents last interaction being rather rude + ooc on ted’s part, i personally read a different motive into it. for me, it was more like… he didn’t understand where trents enthusiasm was coming from? like, he read that as trent being too invested in what other people think of him, and responded in a way that he hoped would emphasise that ted doesn’t *need* to laugh at everything trent wrote, bc trent Already Knows that he’s done something really cool and kickass, and he shouldn’t value anyone else’s reactions above that. basically, based on his demeanour in the episode, i genuinely don’t think it would’ve even occurred to him that trent was more invested in HIS reaction than he would’ve been with anyone else.)
again, looking purely at the text, the show had already established that ted has really strong depressive + avoidant tendencies, as well as panic attacks (largely triggered by his fear of not being ‘good enough’ in various roles, ie: a father). we saw one area he was able to calm HIMSELF abt these fears (worry for henry, which is a Hell of a choice considering the ending…), but in literally every other heightened moment, he had to rely on his support system to help him make the choices that he WANTED to make, rather than ones inspired by avoidance and fear (ie: confronting michelle abt jake, talking to his mum abt why she was visiting + his dads death).
and to be clear, this is a GOOD THING! we’re not supposed to go through life alone, no matter how bad OR well we’re doing. rebecca and keeleys friendship isn’t worth less for all the scenes where they’re both in good places. if anything, the opposite is true - it’s lovely that they both have someone who want to celebrate the achievements in their life!
and fuck it, we’re sure as hell not supposed to go through life with exactly one (1) person whom we expect to fulfill ALL of our emotional needs at all times either! like, im sure i don’t need to labour my point here, but tying everything to one (1) person in ur life doesn’t make u any less isolated than if u were going it completely alone, whether it’s a family member, a friend, or a partner. i won’t pretend to know the first thing abt what it’s like to be a parent, but i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that no parent would be at their best if they had absolutely no support/camaraderie/general love provided to them from Anyone other than their child.
so when ted is SPECIFICALLY shown to be in a bad place, over and over again (did he come to terms w his fear to be close to henry overnight???????), and then removed from his community? of COURSE the audience is left feeling unsettled, and like the rug has been pulled out from under them. there was no time in this finale dedicated to how ted would still be in contact with anyone from richmond. no promises of visits, or phone calls - fuck, nothing about emails!! according to the text, we might as well assume this is a clean break (and the maybe-dream-sequence does Fuck All to assure us otherwise. if ted doesn’t go to beards wedding, what WOULD he go to????). and since the show has ALSO completely failed to give us even an IMPLICATION of who/what ted’s support system would be in kansas, there’s… a reasonable argument to be made that this is It for ted. that, after two seasons doing NOTHING but attesting otherwise, the audience is supposed to suddenly believe that ted can (and SHOULD!) pull himself up by his bootstraps, and cope entirely on his own.
that, to me, is a betrayal of the show’s premise. we were promised a show about how, no matter how dark things may get, none of the characters would be left to struggle alone. and then they ended the show with ted alone.
i don’t know. i guess if i had to give this post a tldr; if anyone has any gen fic/meta/Literally Anything in the pipeline, i would absolutely love to be tagged/directed towards it. i’ll be endeavouring to write something myself, as well, but it might take a while before i can return to my WIP, lol.
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sketch bc sometimes thinking about dee's relationship with her mother, motherhood itself, and her surrogacy drives me crazy..
here are my Thoughts (rambles) on dee and motherhood by the way
on one hand she was never meant to be a mother. she doesnt have the instincts. she despises motherhood as a concept ("moms are stupid!"). on the other? she has a baby brother. which, okay, sounds funny as a twin but the less loved child was definitely less coddled. she was likely parentified as a child. look at the way barbara seems to resent dee and see her as her competition, and compared dee to every other woman (degradingly). barbara probably saw dee as a failed woman—neither graceful nor popular nor beautiful enough. imposing in dee the need to be validated and seen as a Good Woman from a young age (see entering beauty competitions at a young age; wanting to be an actress; tell me i'm good (tell me i'm as good as an idealized woman)) and at the same time instilling in her the feeling that she will never be one. i'm going off on a tangent.
remember how dennis said barbara was warm and loving? dennis was probably always cared for more by barbara (and frank was probably never around.) and so that was just the status quo in the household to treat him with care. and so dee inadvertently took on that instinct. that dennis is cared for and she isn't. that she is sacrificed for his comfort or satisfaction. she feels an obligation or a compulsion stemming from this—to take dennis' hand even though she can't say "i love you," to let him cry on her shoulder while she has to stand a little firmer even though she is also distressed, etc. but at the same time she resents it. she hates offering comfort where it is never given to her (she's trying to care for her brother in some type of way and shes learned it from her mother who never cared for her a fraction as much as she cared for her brother.) and thus she resents motherhood—which is all about selflessness—both because it is such a parallel experience to this and because she never feels she could've been a mother. not a loving one. another failure as a woman.
the baby represents everything she could've been—loving where she is unfeeling, a dee who has moved past her mother's influence to become a mother that isn't cruel, at the same time finally winning at being what a woman supposedly should be like. but she isn't any of those things. yet she's still wholly loved by the child the few minutes she gets to hold him, and i think dimly deep down, through the echoes of her mom's criticisms, dee knows the child would only grow to resent her if she was really to mother him. another failure. dee's mother was kind of right about her—if only because she doomed her to be a failure at (their notion of) womanhood and all the warmth and beauty and instincts associated with it.
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how to rest (in a war)
Hyperspace is smeared white with the light of a million stars, a million planets and suns and moons and people. Hearts of kyber and fleshier things. Flares of life. Bugs on a windshield.
His spine aches and the ache pulls like the fingers of a grubby street child, like a grasping weed, draws his mouth into a thin line. Immeasurable.
The smears don’t blink out as they come out of hyperspace and that confirms his suspicions. He’s going to pass out. Maybe already has passed out and is surfacing, head above water, before the waves submerge him again. Maybe it’s worse than that. He doesn’t think so; he’s grown remarkably good at knowing the limits of his body and feels certain that he’ll die without bacta and bone stabilizers but not immediately. That’ll have to be enough. Internal bleeding aside, his body is not riddled with shrapnel or tattooed with the burning ink of an explosion.
The Death Star fired on its own base and its only Bodhi that got them out. Imperial pilot. Defector.
Cassian doesn’t allow himself to think the word friend.
The grating beneath him shutters, pitches, and he hears distantly K-2’s steady back and forth with Alliance flight control. It’s out of order. An echo. K is dead. K is a square of data in his quarters. K is stuttering into the comms—stuttering—shouting Goodbye into an ever darkening vault. Bodhi is stuttering. Bodhi is alive. K is dead.
A hand bunches into his tattered shirt and presses down into his chest just beneath his collarbone. A shadow leans over him but the stars of hyperspace remain, dashed across the bridge of her nose, her eyes, her mouth. It’s Jyn, he thinks. She was next to him when they took off and Chirrut is a half-dead slump that Baze hovers over. Or was. Maybe now he is an all-dead slump.
This is the first time quiet has sung so loud.
“Cassian. S-stay.” It is Jyn. “You need to stay awake.”
He knows that. The majority of his career has been solo missions, regardless of the presence of assets, and though he’s never really had to call upon it much, he knows basic first aid. Knows how to bandage a blaster shot, a vibroblade wound. Knows that falling asleep with a concussion could mean never waking up.
He knows it but the stars are getting brighter and she’s fading to light.
The stars, suns, moons, the shades of hyperdrive are burned into his eyelids but he still turns his head towards her voice and reaches for her arm, desperate. When he finds it, he slides his palm down her sleeve until he hits exposed forearm and lingers. Presses two fingers to her pulse point. Lingers. Only for a moment. Even as her other hand comes to rest on his wrist, he slides further down to her hand that holds tightly to the clunky weight of the plans. She presses his hand.
“I’ve got them. We got them. Stay awake.”
Can’t, he thinks as his eyelids slip shut. The stars are here. In the dark, and burning bright.
He turns his hand, feels the data drive fall away, and all that’s left is Jyn’s skin.
It’s odd how hungry he is for the touch. More than for the plans even. He remembers touching her hip where they originally hung as soon as he and Jyn were dragged bodily by Baze on board, not even out of atmo yet. Not safe, no promise of escape. Touched and gripped and thought it’s done, though really it isn’t. And still, more than all of that, he wants to touch Jyn Erso and feel that she is alive.
“Cassian, stay awake.”
Maybe he is delirious from the concussion. It’s nonsensical.
He’s never felt an urge to hold a person without motive or prompting.
Cassian. Stay awake.
He won’t and he knows it but the corners of his mouth tighten with an effort.
Cassian.
He’s more Cassian than he’s ever been.
She gives that to him. No aliases, no lies.
Cassian.
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