#it’s so hard to find nonbinary musicians that people actually know

[expiredfairydust]

best friends ~ bubblegum rock/kazuleon || ft. nb gay! kaz || pt. 2

//tw: self hatred, kinda internalised homophobia, uncensored F slur bcoz the author can reclaim it//

a loud gasp forced the two to pull away from their kiss quickly, both of them quickly moving to look in the direction of where the noise had come from.

kazuichi went red due to embarrassment, noticing the unmistakable blonde hair of miss sonia darting away.

she had poked her head around the door to souda’s room - they never locked it in case leon wanted to come and cuddle - meaning to ask the pinkette if they’d been given any homework as she had been in first aid for most of the day before, unaware of what was happening between the mechanic and their crush.

and now she was running off, trying to give the pair privacy. souda, panicking because their illusion of heterosexuality was likely being broken, ran after her, calling “miss s-sonia! wait!! i-i swear it’s not what it looks like i’m s-sorry miss sonia you’re the only one i love i swear!!” they were crying for real now at the realisation that they had just ruined the one thing that was theirs.

the blonde suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned back to kazuichi. her face had an odd expression that kazuichi couldn’t read.

she put a hand over the mechanic’s mouth. “you do not understand souda, i do not care about you and kuwata’s relationship! in fact, i am glad because now you can leave me and miss fukawa to our relationship in peace - i was and still am rather disgusted at your lack of knowledge on personal boundaries but now i do not have to worry about that because you have no reason to!” she spoke slightly forcefully without meaning to. when she was done, she took her hand away and started walking off again.

“miss sonia!! i-i-i-“ kazuichi couldn’t gather their words, thousands of thoughts racing through their head. “we’re not dating... it was.. it was only a kiss....” they would mumble, more tears streaming down their face with every word. “i-it was all my fault anyways... i-i.. i was.. i was the one who kissed him and it was so so stupid of me because he’s the only person i have left and now he probably hates me for- for-“

their voice cracked and they couldn’t go on speaking, their legs giving way underneath them. “for being such a disgusting fucking faggot!! and-and-and i don’t blame him because i hate myself too!!” they were practically shouting now. “but dammit i love him so fucking much! so much, it hurts! god it feels like my heart is being ripped apart and i can’t fix it and i don’t know what to do and i hate that! and even if i could ever tell him properly i just know he’d hate me because who could ever like such a pathetic little FAG”

they didn’t know why they were telling all of this to miss sonia, maybe it was because they didn’t want her to think leon’s standards were so low as to date them. maybe they just needed to let everything out, needed to rant. because the moment they opened their mouth the words seemed to vomit out.

and once they were done ranting they ran off to the loos so they could actually vomit, as they often did out of distress. they ran to the far away disabled loos, on the opposite end of campus - they were the only public gender neutral loos on campus - so they wouldn’t have to face leon again, who they assumed was still in their room.

key word: assumed.

because leon had actually heard every word, only a few paces behind kazuichi during their confession. he had ran to try and take the mechanic in his arms, to say that it was okay because he loved them that way back. he had ran, just as kazuichi ran off.

meanwhile the princess was just happily beaming to herself, knowing that leon heard every word. she had successfully wingwomanned for the creep and the punk! it was a double win, as leon tended to flirt with touko as well as kazuichi’s horrible attempts to look straight by chasing after miss sonia herself. she made her way to her girlfriend’s dorm to tell her all about what she did.

leon’s thoughts were racing, as he tried to figure out what was even happening. kaz was in love with him... kazzy loved him back... but they thought that kiss was all their fault? as if leon hadn’t chosen to kiss them too? and now they thought he hated them? why? why would he kiss them if he hated them? god kazuichi was a dumb bitch at the best of times...

leon couldn’t help but smile through his tears, which he hadn’t noticed either.

kazuichi really loved him back..!

him!

but they thought leon felt the opposite...

right...

well, leon would just have to change that, he decided as he started looking for his best friend. he knew the mechanic got physically unwell when they were unwell, so he’d just have to check all the loos until he found the right one!

except kazuichi was nonbinary and relatively androgynous, so the baseball star had no clue which loos they’d be in, and he couldn’t exactly barge into the women’s loos checking to find his friend.

so, that meant he’d have to find ibuki, who had joined his band, and ask nya to check the girls’ loos while he checked the men’s and disabled loos. nya was also non binary, but at least she passed as a girl enough to enter the women’s loos.

it wasn’t hard, seeing as the noise they made made all over on the other side of the campus-

(conveniently close to one of the only gender neutral loos on campus)

-was loud enough to be heard in another country. leon was regretting leaving his ear plugs in kaz’s dorm, as he plugged his ears with his fingers and ran towards the sound.

“IBUKI!!!!” he yelled once he was in the practice room mioda was in.

“WHAT?!?”

“WHAT???”

“WHAT?!”

this was going to be tedious, leon thought, as he moved towards where everything was plugged in and unplugged the speakers.

ah, silence,,, at least it would’ve been if mioda wasn’t screeching at leon for what he did. “jesus christ calm down ibuki! i need you for something important” leon hissed, ibuki going completely quiet at the word “important” - void loved being helpful!

the bubbly musician sped off to search once leon explained what he needed. knowing nya, she’d probably check all the men’s loos too, void didn’t seem to get what made people so iffy about not sharing a bathroom with different genders.

but with that, leon got to looking too. and it wasn’t long before he heard the sound of sobbing in the disabled loos, accompanied by the sound of vomiting. well, there’s kaz...

he knocked on the door “kazzy?” he tentatively spoke. there was the click of the door being unlocked for leon to enter. he soon dropped to the floor, next to the pinkette, pulling them into his lap and holding them tightly. “shshshhh... i’m here kazzy...” the ginger would whisper sweetly into souda’s ear.

he held the younger student’s hair back as they puked again. “now how about you tell me what’s going on in that mind of yours?” he whispered, despite knowing already. he wanted kazuichi to say it again. to him, not to miss sonia.

but kaz didn’t want to talk. “it’s stupid” they said, snuggling against leon.

“if it’s stupid why don’t you say it?”

“coz you’ll hate me even more than you do for kissing you” their words were hard to understand through their tears.

“what makes you think i hate you? if i hated you, would i be here with you now? c’mon how about you wash your mouth out? all that puking must have left a horrible taste” leon spoke with a gentle tone, which was unlike him but comforting to the sobbing boy in his lap.

once almost all traces of puke had been ridden from the mechanic’s mouth, leon sat them on his lap again, holding them tightly. “how about you tell me what’s wrong now, eh kazzy?” he said sweetly, wiping his best friend’s tear stained cheeks with his sleeve.

“promise you won’t hate me?”

“pinky promise”

the pinkette drew a deep breath, getting ready to speak. then shook their head. “i-i can’t”

a realisation dawned upon leon then. this was his chance to reveal his own secret! “i’ll tell you something about me that i’ve been hiding if that would make you feel any better” a slow nod gave him the ok to speak.

“i’m intersex. when i was born the doctors told my mom and dad and they were.. well, i don’t know how they felt but i was forced into an opporation to make me “fully” male as a baby and all my life i’ve had to take medication to keep my hormones at a “normal male” level, which is odd coz i was never actually told that’s what it was for until recently” the ginger spoke, resting his head on kazuichi’s shoulder

“but, i want to stop taking my meds, i don’t want to be 100% a boy, and that decision kinda scares me in case people won’t accept it. in case you don’t accept it” he added after hesitating. “now do you wanna talk about your problem?” he wanted to change the subject.

kaz had gone quiet. then, after a few seconds they said. “it sounds silly now that you’ve told me how serious yours is... but- but-“ they paused to figure out the words they wanted to say. “i-i- i’m so sorry for kissing you! i had no right to do it and i-i- i didn’t even take the time to ask you if you wanted a kiss and- and- and- i’m so sorry i know you hate me for it and i don’t blame you because i totally deserve it” the words seemed to fall out quicker than kazuichi could think of them

“and i know you probably never want to see me again but if you could ever forgive me i’d really appreciate it because you’re the only friend i’ve got and i love you dude!” as those words came out, the pink haired mechanic started tearing up again. “i-i love you... i love you so much it hurts and i don’t know what i’d ever do without you but i totally understand if you hate me because how could you ever love someone who’s such a disgusting f-“

their words were cut off by leon kissing the shorter mechanic. it was a brief kiss, even shorter than their first, but the pure, raw emotion behind it was clear. love. reciprocated love.

“if i thought you were disgusting, why would i choose to kiss you twice? because now you know it sure as hell weren’t just you who wanted that first kiss” leon said simply, wiping the shorter guy’s tears away. “but i don’t still want to be friends,” he said, suddenly going cold, making the pinkette’s face drop. “i want to be boyfriends!” he said, making kazuichi start laughing with relief.

just as they were about to share another kiss, in barged mioda, yelling about how nya had found the pink haired mechanic, then once void noticed the ginger sat next to them and started yelling about how unfair it was that she had been looking all over for kazuichi for leon when the ginger was probably with them the whole time.

the couple smiled and sheepishly promised to make it up to the ultimate musician. the end.

#bubblegum rock #kazuleon #soudawata #kazuichi souda #leon kuwata #leon x kazuichi #kazuichi x leon #fanfic #dr fic #dr fanfiction #gay #nb gay #fag life fag life

[transstudiesarchive]

Madi Lou (and trans+ artists, too!)

Playing off the idea of "T4T" (trans seeking trans, typically associated with the terms found on the app Grindr) I wanted to compile a playlist of trans/nonbinary/gender non-conforming artists that are present in a variety of genres and gender expressions/presentations/labels.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/52OZ896qRkAM2oqUwbtd5P?si=OQpd8kqSRnGGKcWe6XLcSw

"Maker - Acoustic�� by Anjimile

Anjimile is a “queer and trans songmaker/lover boy with a heart of gold” based in Boston, MA

"Emasculate" by Dorian Electra

Dorian Electra is a gender-fluid pop musician who likes to become a “genderless clown” in their extravagant makeup and campy aesthetics.

"800 db cloud" by 100 gecs (Laura Les)

Laura Les, part of the duo 100 gecs, is a trans woman previously known under her project Osno1 (I felt it personally prevalent to include her song “How to Dress as Human” but could only find the link through Youtube)

"Heartbreaker" by Ah-Mer-Ah-Su

In her 2018 album STAR, Ah-Mer-Ah-Su wanted to tell the story of her black trans identity--a story typically connected to struggle and coping with extreme opposition from society at large. “For me, this album simply means that I’m a black girl with something to say. I have a story, and I’ll tell it through my music.” (billboard, August 2018)

"HRT" by Girls Rituals

Devi McCallion has worked in a number of projects centered under her label blacksquares. Her trans identity is touched on in such projects as Cats Millionaire/Mom, blackdresses, and Girls Rituals.

"Trans Femme Bonding" by Tami T

Originally starting her glittery electronica sound under the name Tami Tamaki, Tami T describes many aspects around the love for/between trans femmes // “So fucking brave, so fucking femme”

"Nonbinary" by Arca

Alejandra Ghersi, better known by her stagename Arca, came out as nonbinary and goes by she/her and it/its pronouns. 

"Bitch Pudding" by KC Ortiz

Rising in the Chicago hip-hop scene, KC Ortiz wants to be known that she is no different than any other rapper. “I cringe when headlines say ‘Trans Rapper.’ That ain’t me...The only times that even crosses my mind really is when I think about because I’m trans I gotta be dope.” (Art Music Fashion Life, June 2020)

"Faceshopping" by SOPHIE

Sophie Xeon made her breakthrough in Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, becoming a known name after producing for artists like Charli XCX. She is very reclusive and has a smaller public image, contrary to her Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2020 appearance. (I have also discussed her imagery/lyricism of this song in 5th Avenue’s podcast--you should give it a listen to hear about other great queer artists!)

"Unkillable" by Katie Dey

“I was born inside this body and I’m stuck there/I’m a storm inside a rotting false construction” (Transition from “solipsisting” into “stuck” on Katie Dey’s debut album Asdfasdf)

"I'm Not 'Supposed' to Be Anything" by She/Her/hers

Emma Grrrl (and the occasional appearance of her friends) describes herself as sad grrrl pop-punk. “When I hear that a trans teenager shared one of my songs with their parents and it helped them to understand their experience, I just can’t imagine anything more validating or fulfilling than that.” (arena, June 2018)

"Gotta Gimme Your Love" by Sateen

Sateen is the band formally made up of the lesbian power couple Miss Sateen and Exquisite. Originally famous and sensationalized as a “hetero drag couple,” Exquisite came out as a trans woman and shifted the projection of their music and relationship into making disco for a new generation.

"TRANSylvania" by Kim Petras

Known famously on German television for medically transitioning in her teens, Kim Petras’ assertation in her identity as a trans woman gave her much of the internet presence and platform to successfully kick off a music career. “I hate the idea of using my identity as a tool...It made me the person I am and that’s a big part of me, but I think music is about your feelings and your fantasies and it goes deeper than your gender or your sexuality.” (billboard, 2018)

"Breakdown" by Torraine Futurum

Making waves in the fashion industry before walking in New York Fashion Week, Torraine Futurum says she aims to “do whatever the fuck I want to do on this Earth -- and it’s going to be excellent.” (them., 2018)

"I Am America" by Shea Diamond

“I knew at a very young age I loved to sing. My voice was effeminate and I remember feeling afraid to sing in the church choir...Desperate to find the financial means to transition to my true gender, I committed a crime in 1999 and was sentenced to 10 years in a men’s prison. I was afraid that I could possibly die in a prison system designed to ensure correctional jobs over human lives...I began writing ‘I Am Her’ as a statement to a world that said I shouldn’t exist.” (TEDxKC, 2018)

"Body and Soul" by teddy<3

Teddy Geiger has known many lives in popular culture from teen idol, romantic lead, to sought after producer. “I didn’t know anyone who was trans...I had very little connection to that, so it wasn’t really until maybe three years ago I started actually painting my nails and going out. Nobody cared if I was femme.” (Rolling Stone, 2018)

"Genderqueer Love Song" by Schmekel

“Schmekel means little penis is Yiddish, and is a play on the fact that all four members were born female but ow identify themselves on the masculine side of the gender spectrum. It’s an appropriate name for a band that started as a laugh.” (New York Times, 2011)

"Queer Kidz" by Ashby and the Occeanns

Ashlynn Barker is a trans/nonbinary musician based out of Chicago. They write songs about trans issues, queer identity, mental health, and video games.

"Cis Girls" by Dyke Drama

Sadie Switchblade of the band G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit) came out with this “transparent” side project. “It’s pretty transparent...The songs are either about trans girl problems or dykey lesbionic friendships.” (Pitchfork, 2016)

"Femme Bitch Top" by Tribe 8

“When the trans-dyke neofeminist rabble-rousers known as Tribe 8 make music, not even heaven is safe.” (SF Gate, 2006) The San Francisco LGBT Film Festival entry “Rise Above” is a rock-documentary anomaly I highly recommend taking the time to watch.

"They / Them / Theirs" by Worriers

“You’ve got a word for one, So there’s a word for all. // The smallest things have become Which side are you on? // What if I don’t want something that applies to me? // What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything, anything?” The trio of gender-neutral pronouns

"Gender Nightmare" by Art Projects

“That’s not my face on the license picture // You call my name as it is on paper // As it will still be // When they write me up a eulopy” (Genius Lyrics analysis you want to click in on)

"Male Gynecology" by Shoplifting

A revival of riot-grrrl manifestas, the album Body Stories “brims over with precisely the kind of heartfelt, politically-charged fervor that’s far more likely to save rock. (Pop Matters, 2006)

"Third Gender" by Good Asian Drivers

“Sometimes my gender is chilling out inbetween, but most of the time my gender is FUCK YOU mind your own business!” → Please please please listen to the lyrics of this song, this is a wonderfully politically charged bop carried with heart and bass and punk spit.

"True Trans Soul Rebel" by Against Me!

Laura Les came out with her release of the album Transgender Dysphoria Blues and furthered this message in Against Me!’s album Shape Shift with Me. She was one of the first trans people I saw openly continue to pursue a passion despite previously having works “pre-transition” out in the world.

"If I Were You" by Claud

“Sometimes it’s more important to write from a perspective different from your own in order to touch on important things. People always tell me that I’m brutally honest and I think it’s because I don’t hold back on anything...it’s refreshing to hear something said that you want to say yourself, but just couldn’t.” (Popsugar., 2019)

"If You Knew This Was About You, You'd Deny It" by Wargo

A trans woman solo-acoustic based out of Virginia, Wargo’s sound is directly influenced by the punk scene of the east coast. She likes to call her style “Appalachian Power Pop.”

"I DONT TRUST U ANYMORE" by Left at London

Coming to a place of internet recognition through such vines as “hahaha I do that” Nat Puff’s indie pop project Left at Londed (shorted as /@/) dives into the heart of “what it means to navigate the current political world as a queer person, while still remaining accessible to the general public.” (“About” on /@/ website)

"Body Was Made" by Ezra Furman

“My body was made this particular way // There’s really nothing any old patrician can say // You social police can just get out of my face // My body was made” (Body Was Made music video is a quirky and fun stylistic retelling of these lyrics) Ezra Furman identifies as trans and bisexual and uses he/him and she/her pronouns.

"Complicated" by The Cliks

Lucas Silveira shared that the band’s name derived from two ideas; using The like iconic bands The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and Cliks as a portmanteau of the slang terms clit and dicks. (In The Life interview, 2009)

"Upper West Side" by King Princess

“Although [Mikaela Mullaney Straus] identifies as a genderqueer lesbian, King Princess doesn’t necessarily want her music to be placed in the ‘queer pop’ box.” (MTV, 2019) Who isn’t bored of the heteronormative narrative?

"Make Me Feel" by Janelle Monáe

“I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker. I want young girls, young boys, non-binary, gay, straight, queer, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you.” (NewNowNext, February 2020)

"body cast" by Dua Saleh

A Sudanese refugee, Dua Saleh nurtured their love for poetry in the beginnings of their Minneapolis music career. They came out as nonbinary while in their second year at Augsburg University but have said “I always been on gay shit.” (them., May 2020)

"Mercury" by CJ Run

“With a deep understanding of pop sensibility, and enough hooks to last a lifetime, CJ Run’s music is the inner monologue of a black queer 20 something in the 21st century.” (Propelr)

"Dancing With Stranger" by Sam Smith

“When I saw the word non-binary, genderqueer, and I read into it, and I heard these people speaking, I was like, ‘Fuck, that is me.’” (Vanity Fair, March 2019)

"SkindeepSkyhighHeartwide" by Lawrence Rothman

Lawrence Rothman is a gender fluid artist, musician, and producer. Looking into their Google Image results yields the visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refers to as “alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use.” (NPR, November 2018)

"Extended Vacation" by Ryan Cassata

Ryan Cassata is the first openly transgender musician to perform at Warped, winning the Ernie Ball Battle of The Bands contest twice (both in 2013 and 2015*). He has spoken out about American Idol attempting to exploit openly transgender people to pander to a broader audience banking on new forms of media “diversity”. *I saw him in Mountain View, California in 2015 and you have no idea how happy a newly out genderqueer 16 year old was to stand on stage behind a proud trans man singing on a bumping stage.

"Let My Baby Stay" by Amandla Stenberg

This entire article is great in explaining why Amandla’s openness on their pronouns outside of this website might have harmed them for the future of their career.

"Dolla in My Titty (Part 1)" by Peppermint

Best known as the 2017 runner up on the ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Peppermint made her musical debut in Head Over Heels becoming Broadway’s first out trans woman to play a lead roll.

"Gender Bronoun" by Human Kitten

“What is unstable And what is real // This is a question that i ask myself on a daily basis // Are my emotions genuine Or are they just the result of my neural passages sending my chemicals back and forth” → “Caught i’m between two completely separate identites Who Can’t agree on anything // And i can’t even decide on which one’s me”

"Wow in the Now" by Honeybird

Honeybird is a musician and composer based in Bologna, Italy. Their mission is to listen to intersectional LGBTQ+ community voices and transform the daily struggle into songs.

"I Don't Love You Anymore" by ANHONI

“My closest friends and family use feminine pronouns for me. I have mot mandated the press do one thing or another...I think words are important. To call a person by their chosen gender is to honor their spirit, their life and contributions. ‘He’ is an invisible pronoun for me, it negates me.’” (Flavorwire, November 2014)

"Robert Frost" by Mal Blum

“Now I’m looking at the ground because I don’t want you to leave // I know it’s co-dependent But I think it’s kind of sweet // Out of every person in this city I could ever meet // Leaving feels like losing But I’m learning what I need”

"Dysphoria" by Saint Wellesley

“Binding my chest and biting my tongue Wearing boxers never fixed anyone” → “And this is the last time I’ll allow my ribs to be swollen // And I’ll grow out my hair And pretend I don’t care And maybe my ribs are broken” → “Dysphoria’s a bitch I wanna kick her in a ditch // It’s not fair to wanna itch All of the places that don’t fit”

[cherrincity]

Cherrin City Soundbytes Casting Call

Hi all! I’m making a new podcast and I’d love to get some voice actors in it! Tag a friend you think would be interested!

Cherrin City Soundbytes is an anthology series about the lives of people living in the world's most prominent city of superheroes. Ranging from annoyingly mundane to cosmically fantastic, these stories try to capture the reality of this world's average. What get to be mundane when a bug alien from outer space saves your life? What is moral when a laid off employee tries to drown only the financial district? Most people are just trying to get by, and this is what we get to hear. As the name implies, these episodes will mostly be short. The show focuses on the humanity of people, despite their fantastical environment. The episodes will tend to be kind of... somber, but not devoid of hope.

Cherrin City Soundbytes is a Piece of Cake Podcasting Network Production! As such, we highly encourage Black, Indigenous and Mixed voice actors, as well as other actors of colour to audition, though others may do so as long as they respect the listed identities of the characters. Again to reiterate: please audition for parts that reflect your identity. For example, if you are not South Asian, do not audition for the specifically South Asian roles. If you are not nonbinary, please do not audition for the specifically nonbinary roles. Alternatively, if a role has its gender listed as open, that means any person of any gender may audition for that role. There are 17 different roles, so please stick to the ones that fit you or can accommodate you! In addition to this, please be 18 years of age or older to audition.

For each audition, you may do up to three takes of each line. Please compile them all into a single .mp3 or .wav file. If you are accepted for this podcast, we will be doing remote recordings with mandatory synchronous table reads. Please audition with the recording space you will use if hired. These roles will be paid $40 CAD over paypal.

Content warnings for this year of production include: violence, foul language, body horror, death, kidnapping, manipulation, body dysphoria and large insects. Not all warnings apply for every role; please feel free to send an email to [email protected] for more information or for any other questions you may have. Auditions will be open until October 31st, 2020.

Please note that all auditions must be sent through the google form link below. Any auditions sent to the email will be invalid.  Feel free to audition for as many roles as you are able to fulfill, but please submit a new form and audio file for each role you

In summary:

17 roles open for auditions

Only audition for roles that fit your identity or can accommodate you

Be 18 years of age or older

Send us up to 3 takes per each line, all in one file

This podcast will be remotely recorded

These roles will be paid $40 CAD over paypal

Auditions open until October 31st, 2020

Please only send auditions through this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2kVXIFTY9IOiNvRSQWvIrB8LiIrI46xFOeFtuq2sb6xBlVA/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0&gxids=7628

Roles

The Cherrin University Radio Host

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: South Asian

Age: Late teens, early twenties

Description: The Cherrin university radio host is an anonymous young woman who feels passionately for under discussed causes. Whether or not she does anything for them outside of ranting on a late night radio show is a bit of a sore spot, but no matter the issue she takes it seriously.

Lines:

It is 2:55 am, which means that it is technically the Cherrin City day of Super Powered Individuals Remembrance. Created by the city about 4 years ago, on paper the day exists to remember every super powered individual who has died. In action, the city uses it to lionize the dead members of their private task force and coerce more people into joining it.

The problem with being perceivable is that people look at you. And when people look at you, and they keep looking at you, you start to get recognized. (long pause) That has not always been a pleasant thing, in my experience.

Solla

Gender: Written as an alien who identifies as Female, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Black

Age: several thousand years old, but doesn't really show it

Description: Solla is a dedicated member to the Cherrin City Starlight Watchers Squad, and is accustomed to working with her team both in bringing down extra terrestrial villains and tackling the enthusiastic and seemingly-ceaseless questions of the Cherrin City press. Polite, patient to a fault and kind of the mom of her group.

Lines:

Yes, I am Solla of the Cherrin City Starlight Watchers Squad. Yes I am an alien, and yes I know English, among several other languages. I appreciate all nice comments, but if you'd like to say something more in depth, you can email the city.

I am so sorry, but I have to go.

Henry Austin Bolte

Gender: Written as a cis man, but trans and nonbinary people comfortable with he/him pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Mid twenties

Description: A gay, recently graduated costume designer trying to make it in Cherrin in the early 2000s. Also recently dumped, and kinda lonely. Very good at what he does, but uncomfortable with discussions of money.

Lines:

(sighs) Look, Vee, I don't care if this is some sex thing or whatever, I just need to know how you intend to use the suit so I can make it appropriately. You don't want some combo of kevlar and body armour if you're trying to fuck someone, right?

You did it. You're the one who did it. Oh my god.

V

Gender: Nonbinary (using he/they pronouns)

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Mid twenties

Description: An ambitious young person, also recently graduated. He's got big plans for his future and is not above manipulating other people to get what he wants. Hates being called desperate. Out of all the morally gray characters in this casting call, this person is the most 'super villain' out of all of them.

Lines:

I am not desperate. I am not a lucky, hapless fool. I am deliberate and calculating, and clever!

If you do anything to lose that respect... well. I know where to express my concerns.

Devon Milligan

Gender: Written as a cis man, but trans and nonbinary people comfortable with he/him pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Black

Age: Mid teens to early twenties

Description: Devon is a loyal young man part of the Cherrin City East End Exemplars. He has difficulty reacting decisively to surprises and can be slightly stubborn. But he appreciates honesty.

Lines:

How does getting up at 5am help out your scheme?

So you're all about making life better for yourself and no one else?

I-SPI

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Black

Age: late teens to mid twenties. Older than Devon

Description: Less a supervillain and more a regular criminal or henchwoman who happens to have very passive super powers. Skilled and clever, she only feels like opening up when she is most desperate. Extremely cynical.

Lines:

C'mon. You're a superhero, aren't you? Shouldn't you stay in top physical form in case another supervillain wants to fall into your lap?

If that's what it has to be; if that's the only choice I'm offered, then I sure as hell'll take it. Who else is gonna care for me? You?

Bernard North

Gender: Written as a cis man, but trans and nonbinary people comfortable with he/him pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Early thirties

Description: Has had a small taste of power and now refuses to give it up. Has stopped caring about the feelings of others. Please note that this character has only one line.

Line:

Feel free to exhaust yourself, I-SPI. You've already proven yourself incorrigible. But it doesn't matter, now that I have you in my possession. You and I are going to go very far together.

Hannah Nathan

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Late thirties

Description: The host of Musicity, a tv show about local musicians in Cherrin City, Hannah has worked very hard to be in this position. While she carries herself as having seen it all, she still cares about the comfort and state of her guests.

Lines:

Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of Musiciscity! I'm your host, Hannah Nathan, and today, we here in the studio are joined by Cherrin City's very own, Alta Reyes!

Oh my god, Alta! Alta, are you alright? Can we get a doctor on set?

Alta Reyes

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Latina

Age: Early twenties

Description: The lead singer of Raise The Population, she currently finds herself in the wrong body, and in the wrong world. Despite these strange circumstances, she's doing her best to get her group back home.

Lines:

Me and my band mates, we were just working at getting known and getting better at making music. We crawled our way up from being nobodies begging for views on our music video to finally, actually getting a hit song!

The further I get away from the life I knew, the harder I cling to the things I do know, even as they keep changing. This place honestly feels the closest to home so far.

Brandi

Gender: Trans woman

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Open

Description: The host of Public! This! Closure!, a new radio show about people hashing out their interpersonal problems on the airwaves. She is always very composed and attempts to be impartial. (She also really wants this show to be a success and is always on the lookout for more people to have on it.)

Lines:

Wait, you kissed her?

And it looks like that's all the show we have time for today, folks! Join us again next time, here on Cherrin City's very own c98.7 for more Public! This! Closure!

Virginia 'Gina' Jones

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Mid twenties, early thirties

Description: She went on a lovely date with Josephine, and decided to go on, Public! This! Closure! the new radio show about people hashing out their interpersonal problems on the airwaves. She hopes this show will be able to reconnect her with Josephine and that she can find out why Josephine ghosted her after their date.

Lines:

...So you could remember the show you were watching, but not the woman you went out with?

Well, I hope you do. I mean, I don't know much about you, but even despite that, I... I want to see you again.

Josephine Georges

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Black

Age: Mid twenties, early thirties

Description: Went on a nice date with Gina, but almost immediately afterward, had her whole world upended. Is currently distracted with other pressing matters, but is absolutely willing to continue dating Gina.

Lines:

I've listened to the show before. (sighs) So, who else has beef with me?

And I didn't think I would be meeting a lot of potential Sparker dates on an alien planet!

TE

Gender: Nonbinary (any pronouns, but initially presents as male)

Ethnicity: Open

Age: 15

Description: An orphaned young person looking for his place in the world. Goes on a very emotional journey, but has extremely villanous tendencies. Is very good at using his super power. Kinda lonely.

Lines:

You steal. That's what you do, isn't it? I mean, the only way anyone gets easy money is by stealing it.

I said, are you fucking kidding me? We literally live in a world where people get to call themselves whatever the hell they want, stupid shit like Resolute and Nightlight and SuperStar and you draw the line at The End?

Isabella

Gender: Written as a cis woman, but trans and nonbinary people who are comfortable with she/her pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Open

Age: 19

Description: An orphan who lived in the same group home as TE but aged out of it. Had a good relationship with TE, sees him as a younger sibling. Is struggling to find satisfaction with her own life, in terms of her (illegal) career, her (nonexistent) love life, and her (nonexistent) social life. Also has a superpower, but it's rather weak.

Lines:

Well, it can get a little more hostile than that, but never more complicated. And you seem pretty capable with your power. We could use someone as capable as you.

Look, I've been tolerating a lot of your... you-ness because I got it, sort of. We lived together, we had the same traumatic experiences... and I care about you, I really do.

Guiltmaster

Gender: Written as a cis man, but trans and nonbinary people comfortable with he/him pronouns may audition

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Late twenties

Description: He's a villain with the power to make people feel extreme amounts of guilt and perhaps other things as well. An intelligent man who has lost interest in trying to make it in life through legal methods, but someone who never lost his deep sense of empathy for others.

Lines:

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to help him at all. So we waited, hoping for someone to find us. But, by the time they finally found us, there was no more us.

What you feel is what you feel. It's real and worthy and you cannot make it stop by assuming that because worse things have happened, what happened to you is not valid.

Pat

Gender: Open

Ethnicity: East Asian

Age: Open

Description: Someone who is going to therapy and trying to get over their guilt. Uncomfortable opening up to others, but is also unwilling to deny strangers' questions.

Lines:

Yeah? Did you ever kill your entire family?

All of them died, because I thought they didn't care about what I cared about.

The Interviewer

Gender: Open

Ethnicity: Open

Age: Open

Description: Despite the fact that filming is all but banned in Cherrin City, this interviewer is an out-of-towner attempting to make a documentary about super powered individuals. They're hoping that a certain real estate agent will be able to provide juicy and shocking details about her super powered clientele.

Lines:

Sounds horrific.

Oh my god, Larry you would not believe the waste of time I just had.

#voiceactor #voice acting #podcasts #audio fiction #audio drama #superheroes #cherrin city #cherrin city soundbytes

[dotzines]

Artist Spotlights!

🎤 Sigil★Eyed 🥁 spookyfanny 🎷 Spoopypluto

🎺 Stephanie Giovinco 🎸 Tian Masaki 🎻 Tyangerine

Interview below the cut!

Introduce yourself

🎤 Hello~ I'm Erin! A lazy but friendly artist who loves bright colors~ https://sigileyed.tumblr.com/ 🥁 i’m a nonbinary comic artist/illustrator and a stay at home parent to a toddler. i am working on my first webcomic, foxgloves, a lesbian horror mystery, which will begin next year. you can find my portfolio, commission information, and social links at http://spookyfanny.carrd.co 🎷 Hello I'm Spoopypluto! I am your average digital/traditional anime artist and I like to play video games and drawing from time to time. I love magical girls and pokemon! If you want to find me you can check Instagram and Tumblr @Spoopypluto ♡ 🎺 I am a narrative illustrator from New York, NY. I work in both traditional and digital media specializing in a very old technique called egg tempera where I make my own paints and gesso to use on panel. I have a deep love for storytelling and that is the basis for all of my work, whether it be traditional or digital. You can find me on Instagram @StephanieGiovinco and on Twitter @StephGiovinco 🎸 Hello! My name is Tian and I’m a freelance illustrator / graphic designer. I am quite shy when it comes to meeting new people, so be patient with me…! Q u Q I love video games, art, photography, basically anything that involves the arts. I do mostly traditional art and occasionally digital art. You can find my work at www.artstation.com/tianmasaki. Most of my work involves colorful and detailed abstract background as I strive to bring a smile to your face upon seeing my work. I want to express a certain feeling from me to you. Overall, nice to meet you and I hope you enjoy my work! 🎻 Hello! My name is Ty! I'm an artist and an animator. This is my first time getting into a zine, and i'm very excited. I'm a big fan of Pokemon and Touhou, and i even have a few original stories. My work can be found here Insta: https://www.instagram.com/tyangerine/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mintdeagon?s=03 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/poptropica893 DA: https://www.deviantart.com/tyangerine Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mintdeagon

Do you do commissions post? Where can we find the info?

🎷 https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=167xlfPH1QszkjbYlG0craV5CQly_htgC

🎻 https://twitter.com/mintdeagon/status/1131347796399992833

Do you listen to music (or tv shows/films/anything else) when drawing?

🎤 yup! usually music~ mostly pop 🥁 usually, i am either listening to music or rewatching my favorite tv shows while i work. 🎷 I listen to music or watch videos while I draw, usually for background noises but when it comes to music I like it to listen to certain genres and themes to keep my mind at a creative mode. 🎺 I'm big into music, I believe that it can influence how and what I come up with. A lot of the times I will have a specific playlist for a piece just so I can keep a consistent mood through out a piece. If I want to have a neutral setting while I work, I usually just throw on a murder mystery documentary and get to it. 🎸 All the time! It helps me focus and relax at the same time. Sometimes a song can inspire me to draw through art block as well. My genre of music can go from pop to hardcore rock, then back to instrumental and indie, in many different languages as well. 🎻 I do! It's helpful background noise.

What’s your favorite music artist/band? If you could ask your favorite band/music artist one question, what would it be?

🎤 A Crow is White has been a favorite for a while now~ i really love their whispery vocal style~ 🥁 i would simply ask stevie nicks for her best witch tips. 🎺 This may be unbelievable, but I don't have one particular absolute favorite artist/band. I love so many different types of music it is so hard to pick one favorite. I guess if I really had to pick *one* I would pick Ella Fitzgerald. I would love to ask her what it was like to be a woman of color making a living as a jazz artist in the era that she lived. 🎸 I have too many to list, but if I could ask one question to my favorite musician, then I would want to know what inspired them to make a song. 🎻 Yoko Shimomura! I wonder how she always seems to make dynamic music

Do you play an instrument? If not would you like to play one? Which one?

🎤 nope but i've been interested in picking up bass~   🥁 i have been teaching myself the ukulele the last couple years! my favorite songs to play are “f*ck was i” by jenny owens young and “us” by regina spektor. 🎷 I don't play any sadly haha 🎺 Sadly, I am not able to play any instrument. I just completely skipped that in school. I think I would really love to play the guitar or banjo. The guitar because it is an instrument thats sound really excites me in music. And the banjo because it is notoriously hard to play, so it would be cool to say I could. Maybe even a hurry-gurdy. Who knows. 🎸 I used to play the electric piano back when I was young, but not anymore. If I wanted to learn an instrument again, I would like to play an electric guitar because of guitar hero. [LOL] 🎻 I actually played multiple instruments in middle school. They were all percussion instruments!

Which song(s) are you going to draw?

🎤 i'll be illustrating Hi-speed Muteppou by A Crow is White 🥁 “i wish i was the moon” by neko case 🎷 I will be doing Dream Dream Dream by Madeon 🎺 I am going to be illustrating Past Lives by BORNS 🎸 Lollipop - Mika Battle Symphony - Linkin Park and probably more if time permit. 🎻 Katte Ni Kaizou Shite Mo Ii Ze - Kenji Ohtsuki

What do you expect from this zine?

🎤 i'm really curious to see the variety of music~ Maybe i'll find a new favorite band! 🥁 i expect to hear a lot of cool music that i have never heard before! and also push myself to work outside of my comfort zone. 🎷 The wonderful pieces everyone will be making with the songs they have chosen and even listening to some of the songs they had picked! 🎺 Just to have a whole lot of fun and discover some new music. Maybe even make some new friends in the art world. 🎸 I am excited to see how everyone interprets their favorite songs through their own means. I also thank you for letting me be a part of it as well. I can’t wait to see the zine in full blossom! <3 🎻 I expect to have a fun time with it! I can't wait to see the finished product

Anything else you want to add?

🥁 so excited to be a part of this zine and seeing people’s interpretations of their favorite songs 🖤 🎷 Thank you for making this zine, this is my first time working in a zine and I hope I do well for this project! ♡ 🎻 Thank you, Dot Zines for accepting me!

#Sigil★Eyed #spookyfanny #Spoopypluto #Stephanie Giovinco #Tian Masaki #Tyangerine #artist spotlight #loop #loop artists

[sanguinarius-archive]

Hey! Could I get to know some of your headcanons about dickfigures/your designs for them? :D

ya ya sure!!!!

i already have my designs for them up if you havent seen, here they are!

as for headcanons idk how long this post will be so ill just add a read more for anyone who might not wanna scroll thru it all lol

red!!!!!

his real name is rowan bc i thought it was cute, also it means “little red one” which is eVEN BETTER

he’s nonbinary masc and bisexual! the self projection is REAL

he has adhd

most of my headcanons kinda flow into my own version of dick figures because i’m not very Satisfied with canon NJSJDNSKM so like. for example red doesn’t just kill people or whatever. he gets into fights and has scars and wears bandaids a lot bc of them

he graduated college with blue, he got a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (honestly idk how college works bc im a grade 10 baby so if thats like totally wrong just let me know also im. canadian so idk how american school system works LOL)

red got suspended a lot in high school but never expelled. mostly bc he got in fights that were mainly him protecting stacey from shitty people (he sees her as his sister so he was rlly protective) and the school wasnt really sure what else to do so they just. you know. suspended him a bunch of times hoping itd do something but it didnt

he hates his dad! reason being is bc when he was born, his dad was actually an alien able to disguise himself as human, so he wanted to take red back to his home planet cuz red turned out to be more powerful than anything his dad had ever seen. but red’s mom was like Nope, so she snuck out with him and his plush cat (kitty amazing) and they were never found. red is very close with his mom and is scared of his dad coming back someday

we know he canonically likes rlly loud music so im just gonna project here and say he’s a metalhead. at least, some form of it. he likes the alt scene music and industrial rock. examples being deftones, nine inch nails, skinny puppy, rage against the machine, kittie and others. it keeps him focused and calm

bLUE!!!

we know blue was bullied as a kid but i dont wanna say red also bullied him bc i feel like thats just wrong to me? MAYBE ITS NOT ACTUALLY but it just makes me sad so like. lets say red, being as protective as he is, stood up for blue a lot cuz he was like “oh this kid cant fight” so he knew what to do

blue dated pink for awhile but they mutually agreed to break up after blue realized this wasnt what he wanted (he came to the conclusion that he was gay, well, he knew for awhile but it was Internalized Homophobia)

he grew up in a very conservative family so to see the world completely differently by meeting red, ems (lt), pink and stacey was a very good thing for him. unfortunately even tho his family did love him, it was conditional so they stopped talking to him after he came out. thankfully he’d already graduated high school by that point

despite being emotional blue isn’t very good at understanding how he’s an emotional person. he’s able to distinct one feeling from another and analyze them, but it’s just... hard for him to kind of. process WHY he feels a certain way? which is what’s led to a lot of his struggles in getting closer with ppl

he loooves reading and writing we already know this but i mean come on. he also got a bachelor’s degree in english/ela. so he’s able to become a teacher ig but he doesn’t really want to? at least not for awhile yet

blue was ems’ first friend. at first he couldn’t understand why they had tics but decided he shouldn’t get into someone else’s business. he didn’t find it weird, just cool!

he and red would always pair up for projects if they had classes together!!!!!! blue would do the writing/research and red would do the illustrations. they always turned out really good even if it ended with red cramming it at the last minute

surprisingly hates broseph more than red. well i mean its not surprising, because broseph was always a huge DICK to him

blue’s real name is wyatt!!!!! i forget the meaning but i felt the sound of it and the meaning fit him well

piiiiink!!!!!!!!!!

she’s still in college, getting her doctorate to be an astrophysicist!

pink is very very smart and will help anyone who’s struggling with something in school. she was basically the genius who always got in the honor roll every year. but, she actually was really anxious especially with exams

pink encourages stacey to go back to school, and sometimes stacey does, but she always ends up leaving again. it’s a little stressful but pink has hope for her

she’s never drank one sip of alcohol in her entire life. she smoked weed once, but it felt weird so she didn’t do it again

ever since she and blue broke up she’s been very supportive of him bc she herself is bisexual!!! so she sees nothing weird about it. in fact, about almost a year later she started dating stacey

pink’s real name is lily. when she became friends with blue she met red through him and she was like “can i join your nickname thing” and they said “sure” so they called her pink. stacey sometimes calls her pinky or just pink but mostly lily

pink helped red with academics. even tho he was sometimes insufferable to work with (/j thats a Joke i promise she’s a very patient person) she didn’t give up on him!!!! in return he helped her out with some fitness stuff cuz pink was always insecure about gym, and later when she graduated she actually got into exercising bc of red!

she loves travelling and going for walks. she owns a lot of houseplants and she’s given them all names and takes very good care of them! she also owns an albino ball python named Velvet

STACEYYY!!!!!!!

stacey is nOT actually all about sex this time ok. i don’t like that. i mean she did have some personality in canon but it wasn’t much? anyways she just really likes to express herself thru tight/”risque” clothing like fishnets and leather and pleated skirts and thigh-highs and platform boots, all of that. basically she’s a goth girl but doesn’t really “act” like one

she’s really intelligent when it comes to animals and insects and will tell you anything you need to know. when she goes back to college she gets a degree in environmental science

stacey can play the electric and bass guitars!!!! she was in a band back in high school but it never really went anywhere beyond performances at parties in someone’s garage. not that she didn’t like it, looking back on it makes her feel happy, but she wished it continued. probably why she has a hard time going back to college bc she’s not sure what she really wants

stacey is a trans woman btw!!!!! unfortunately it was a little difficult in high school to be who she was bc some kids were jerks, but there were a lot of others who supported her which is good

she views red as her brother as well and they still hang out a lot

i haven’t really had time to focus on stacey and make headcanons and stuff for her so i don’t have a lot but... let’s say, secretly, she’s a scifi nerd. and for the sake of debate, let’s say she’s a marvel fan. if you count being a fan of deadpool as being a fan of marvel

LOVES GIRLS.... loves pink!!!

has very similar music taste to red’s!!!!!

emssss!!!!!!! (lt)

instead of being a stereotype of ppl with tourette’s syndrome, it’s just a normal thing that isn’t focused on a whole lot. it doesn’t make ems swear but if they get really really frustrated they’ll curse while doing one of their tics

ems is agender, i’d say they’re also ageless but i don’t really want to make them too “nonhuman” because i feel like that’s dehumanizing to people with tourette’s. so let’s just say most laws of existence don’t apply to them

they’re very friendly!

they’re an aspiring musician, just like in canon

ems is also big into horror movies believe it or not. they’re pretty critical of them though like most horror movie fans, and only like specific ones (i’m not a horror movie fan myself so i can’t say what Specific Ones they like ajsdhbjn just imagine they have good taste okay)

they r very artsy too and like doing crafts cause it gives them something to focus on. it’s just a hobby though it’s not something they’re Professional at

they love nature and flowers and trees and all kinds of plants and animals!!! they like to document what they see when they travel thru nature and stuff so they bring a camera with them (and their phone, but, you know whatever)

ems was never really affected by things people said to them regarding their syndrome. to them it was something they were born with, so they couldn’t bother to feel bad about themselves. in certain situations theyre able to control it but 90% of the time they don’t care about what ppl think

aaaand there u go!!! as for minor characters like raccoon, jason/trollz0r, broseph, dingleberry, they all exist (raccoon isnt a racist stereotype tho), i just dont focus on them a whole lot. most of my hcs for stacey and ems here were thought up on the spot since i havent had time to lay out all my ideas for them but i hope what i have here is good !!!!

also, red and blue ARE dating, and pink and stacey ARE ALSO dating. gay rights

#asks #dick figures #Anonymous

[goth-giraffe]

Not-so-quick guide to my OCs that I sometimes talk about here! xD So... Echo and Meredith, really. Plus a bonus one! Plus new art! :D

Warning, this is gonna be long so I put it under a cut :)

Anyway, because he’s the one that will definitely be mentioned most here, let’s start with..

Echo~

(I didn’t say anything about the quality of the new art xD)

Echo is my persona/self insert character..... he’s really just an alternate version of me (I like to think he’s my Alola form :3)

And like me he’s lonely so he has imaginary friends to keep him going, his current one being Loki ‘cause my current obsession is Loki

Echo is kinda hard to explain because everything about him fluctuates depending on my mood.. there are different versions of him and he doesn’t exactly have a set story or universe.. (For instance I didn’t create him specifically to hang out with Loki, but when I needed a friend I gave him Loki as an imaginary one)

Anyway! Some basic facts! He’s ace/aro, and agenderfluid (questioning?), with he/him pronouns (they/them is safe too though)

Kinda short, 5′2″ ish

Around my age, 17-20, but the mental age of anywhere from 8-17 ish.... he’s always kind of childish but how extreme varies from moment to moment

He’s AFAB but I usually draw him flat-chested because I use him as a way to combat dysphoria so, should anyone else want to draw him, best to draw him flat-chested

Loves trying on clothes! (Mainly because I like a lot of clothes but pretty much exclusively wear pajamas so... yeah I use my OCs as models)

Quiet, non-verbal in some versions (in which case he’ll write in a notepad to communicate), very shy

Sometimes makes clicking noises to calm himself

Daydreams a lot, also sleeps a lot

Gets upset over dumb things... and he’s scared of everything

Doesn’t really like being touched but sometimes snuggles Loki when he’s upset

He’s probably autistic

Probably also has borderline personality disorder.. but I’m unsure about giving him the disorders I think I have, because I don’t actually have a diagnosis (scared of doctors).. nonetheless, a lot of the symptoms that come with those disorders, he has

Likes to draw and his muse is Loki

Likes bugs, especially butterflies

Collects rocks

Eats goldfish crackers

Has really bad posture

Okay at this point I’m just adding random facts about me which is probably weird idk xD I don’t know what more to say about him soo yeah... this is my weird persona

aand next up-

Meredith~

(I liked how this art turned out tbh and I might repost it on my other blog..)

Meredith is an OC insert specifically for Marvel Cinematic Universe

She’s dating Loki, and you’ll find a lot more about her and Loki at @cuddly-loki​! (It’s my blog specifically for them! :D)

Buuuut I do mention her here occasionally because I love her (and there are definitely traces of her from when this blog was cuddly-loki), so I’m including her in this :3

She’s not really into labels but she is kinda gendermeh, I think of her as a nonbinary woman (...or soft butch, but I call her that mostly when Loki happens to swap genders), but she just uses she/her pronouns

Again, meh about labels but she has dated both feminine and masculine people, and she doesn’t really experience physical attraction the same as most people

Kinda goth, dresses mostly in greyscale colours and in kind of goth/punk clothes I guess (also, she prefers androgynous clothes)

Really affectionate with people close to her, close friends and her boyfriend of course :3 (mild PDA does not make her uncomfortable but it sure does irritate Loki)

Quiet, but not shy- she’ll talk to anyone probably but she’d rather watch them until it makes them uncomfortable xD

Once you get past the being weird or goth to creep you out though, she’s very soft and pretty nice (even if still a little dark)

She’s an aspiring musician.. sorta. She plays violin and loves music.. but also has a weird relationship with music, we’ll just leave it at that for now

Works night shift as a bartender

Likes horror movies

Favourite food is pizza

Loves birds

Doesn’t like technology very much

She has a lineup of mental disorders too I’m sure, she’s an ex junkie for one and likes to feel numb to things.. 

Also has persistent insomnia, either related to her depression or depression meds, who knows

Lives in her apartment with a couple plants and Loki, who is still adjusting to Earth life

Like mentioned above you can find more of Meredith at my blog @cuddly-loki​ and if you ask questions about her or her and Loki I will probably be very happy :)

Side note: Meredith is not meant to be a self insert but we do have things in common, and I’d probably get along with her. She’s pretty chill and gets along with most people though haha

A little bonus one, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned her here before but just in case

Gwyneth~

(Okay this turned out a little messy but ehh. It was kind of just from memory, I might have still had references for her but I lost them when my jumpdrive quit so meh)

She’s a dead character that I don’t use anymore and won’t be using anymore but on the off chance I’ve mentioned her or do mention her, I’ll go ahead and add her to this as a little bonus

I created her when I first started obsessing over Loki, and she was a self insert I used to selfship romantically with him... it was okay for a brief time but in the end I hated it. It’s hard to explain, kind of personal.. but for one thing, I’m pretty sure I’m aromantic. I love soft romance stuff but I don’t really want to be part of it.

...And that’s why I killed Gwyneth and created Meredith ehehe

I’m gonna talk about her a little anyway, for one, she was an artist/painter

She liked to take pictures of strangers to paint them and I’m pretty sure that’s how she met Loki (AKA the weirdo on the sidewalk in the all black suit)

I honestly don’t remember what her actual income came from, maybe she was on disability, Idk

Anyway she was a mess. Severely depressed. Couldn’t really keep herself together.

She hid behind jokes and sarcasm though, so no one really knew how bad she was (even Loki, for a time)

She would climb trees which annoyed Loki a little bit, turns out trickster gods don’t enjoy having to climb trees just to talk to their girlfriends

Wore a trench coat as kind of a comfort item (because that’s what I did at that time)

Often got lost in daydreams...

Scared of most things...

Yeah you’ll notice she’s a lot like Echo (even the hair- pbbt). I’ve had a lot of self inserts over the years, killed off when my anxiety convinced me I was being cringey or when they didn’t feel like me anymore.. with Gwyneth it was maybe a tiny bit those things but also other stuff, like being aromantic questioning. Creating Echo was a new start for me because it was more of an exploration of where I’m comfy gender-wise... and, unlike most of my other self inserts, I don’t really age him up. But most importantly... he’s very emotionally messy but he doesn’t hide it (or else he doesn’t hide it well) because one of my things is I need to at least pretend that people would still love me if they knew how sad and broken I am. So.. yes, Echo is a sensitive character, he upsets easily and he’s usually pretty sad.. but that’s kind of the point, because he’s still loved. 

.....Anyway sorry for going back to Echo. I don’t have a lot more to say about Gwyneth - she’s dead and not coming back - but she was a stepping stone to where I’m currently comfortable so, RIP Gwyneth I suppose :)

On the page I drew them on it’s kinda funny because it looks like Meredith and Echo are very uncomfortable that Gwyneth is there (which was only semi-intentional ehehe) 

Echo looks cautiously curious but Meredith looks very awkward like “Oh.. so you’re back...” ..she’s hiding something... And Gwyneth’s like “So... how’s Loki been?” xD

All these characters are obviously kinda similar which is part of why I put them all here (....clearly I have an obsession with blue hair but shhh), also their connections to Loki, haha.... Meredith is definitely the most connected, Echo’s Loki isn’t real and Gwyneth is dead, so... yeah.

Anyway hopefully this was a little helpful. I might make better guides for Meredith and Echo sometime but for now this works. Also, always feel free to ask questions about them!! :)

#I had to keep adding stuff for echo to make up for the fact that I CANNOT stop myself from rambling about meredith xD #oh you wanna hear about echo? LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MEREDITH #pffft #but seeing as how echo will be on this blog a lot more I tried to give him the longest description thing #also I think I'll make a proper profile/reference thing for meredith sometime so I'm not gonna worry about putting this on cuddly-loki #...maybe the meredith drawing though :3 #giraffe rambles #long post #my ocs #echo #meredith #gwyneth

[thatsadorbsyo]

Heads up: This post is me journaling some thoughts, not an attempt to start a Discourse-style conversation. I’m beyond disinterested in discoursing with roleplay tumblr about the nuanced subject of performing masculinity.

I saw the start of a conversation today about gay male characters “piloted by fujoshi girls who just want to fulfill a boylove fetish” and my soul sorta exited my body for a moment, but it also brought up some Stuff that’s been simmering under the surface for me ever since I made the return to playing male characters.

I put a lot of hard work into authenticity when it comes to writing my characters, whoever they happen to be, and it doesn’t always come easy for me. Masculinity is a particularly finnicky subject for me, when it comes to how I like to portray it, how I like to see it portrayed, and what makes me want to roleplay with a male character. Part of that is because, like a lot of people, I’ve been severely harmed by the real world consequences of how my culture frames masculinity. Part of that is because, as a nonbinary person, I struggle to reconcile the parts of me that I want to connect with masculinity, the ways I want to connect with it, and the harmful things about it that I’ve picked up through cultural osmosis.

Authenticity can mean a lot of things, and picking out what that means to me in a roleplaying context can be extremely ill-defined and arbitrary. I know a male character that “feels” authentic to me when I see one. Sometimes they’re written by people who aren’t men. Sometimes male characters written by men feel extremely inauthentic too, but that’s usually because they’re relying too heavily on tropes and aesthetic to drive their roleplay and less on making a character with real and dynamic motivations and behavior, but whatever, whatever.

I will say that a lot of people miss the mark for me, going both ways (women who write male characters, and men who write female characters), but so fucking what? Not everybody has to meet my arbitrary standards of what makes a believable character. Not everybody has to play by my rules of fun.

While it’s true that there’s a lot to be said about how gay men are fetishized by straight women and how gay women are fetishized by straight men, I find it hard to care too much when I see it happening in RP, because I’ve lived long enough and I’ve been roleplaying long enough to realize that a pretty large percentage of the people playing across gender are Figuring Out Some Gender Shit, whether they realize it yet or not. And while, yeah, there’s still gonna be a chunk of people who just wanna objectify something and get off to it, I wanna leave space for people to figure themselves out, whether I think they’re doing it well or not.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about IC/OOC separation, but there’s a lot of me in all of my characters. Even if that separation veneer is necessary for me to enjoy the experience of RP, most of my characters still wear massive shards of me in them, my personality quirks, my fears, my desires, things that I struggle with, things that I want to be (or things that I specifically don’t want to be). I think that’s true for most of us. So how I construct masculinity in my characters is often pretty deeply tied to my own fucking hangups. 

(This next part gets personal. If you’d rather not know the ways that my characters reflect me, the real puppeteer, skip it.)

It’s personally important to me to reflect a lot of real-world authenticity of how masculinity is constructed in my characters, but what it means to be “authentically” masculine, specifically queer masculine, is heavily informed by so many variables like social and political culture, geographic region, religion, sexuality, race, socioeconomic status, etc. etc. that it can feel impossible to know where to start. I have my own experiences with it. I draw on the experiences of queer guys that I’ve known, I draw on media created by queer male creators (movies, musicians, writers, poets). I try to draw less from stuff like TV shows because those tend to be written by an ensemble that may or may not contain anyone who knows what they’re doing and are almost definitely pandering to a lower common denominator than, say, a musician who is branding themselves and their personal experiences. I draw on what feels right in my heart, a pastiche of all of the above.

Most of the things I draw on are things that have specifically spoken to me, as a nonbinary person, as types of masculinity that I want to embody, or that I feel like I can relate to personally. Things I struggle with myself.

Makoto has a very specific idea of what a guy is supposed to be--an idea that is informed by his profession, his place in the world, the people who help shaped him as a person while growing up--and it’s sometimes at odds with how his gut wants to react to things. Makoto is comfortable with his sexuality as someone who is attracted to both men and women, but not always comfortable with how he wants to express it, or what his specific sexual desires are, because they go against some of the ways he thinks he’s supposed to act and carry himself. When he meets someone who doesn’t adhere to his idea of what a guy is supposed to be like, or when he feels a desire for something he thinks he isn’t supposed to want, that rocks him, and it’s evident. He’s working through some shit. A lot of it is conveniently shit that I, the player, need to work through myself.

The performance aspect of machismo is very front and center when I play him, because that’s what feels authentic to me. If machismo is a performance, what’s underneath? I think that’s the crux of why I find Makoto interesting to play. Makoto is a colossal fuckup who coasts on the performance he’s been taught, and what happens in private RP when that performance cracks has been the most compelling stuff about him that I’ve written.

As a person who often struggles with wanting to be seen as more masculine than they often are, these are things I think about a lot! The performance, how you come off to others as a signalling method vs what you actually feel and want. I work to carry myself differently in public, to make people question what they think they know about me. Does this actually make me a different person? Does it really matter? Fuck, dude, I don’t know! I don’t know!! Is it authentic? What’s that even mean? I’m sure there are a lot of more well-informed people who have talked about all of this shit ad nauseum but it would probably be inaccessible to me anyway, and this is my fucking blog so whatever.

Above everything else, I look for nuance. If I see a portrayal that has nuance, I’m likely to be drawn to that character and maybe also their player. It doesn’t matter what you’re playing, it doesn’t matter who you are in the ~real world~, if I think your character has shades of grey to how they perform their gender and what their gender means to them (consciously or not, not every character actually thinks about that stuff, but it can still come off in the portrayal), how it has shaped the way they navigate the world, if I can clearly see the thought that went into that, I don’t fucking care who you are or what you get off to.

Sorry about the word dump. I just needed to sort my thoughts on some of this stuff, and journaling is the most effective way for me to do that. I, uh, would prefer not to see reblogs of this? (See above re: not a Discourse) but if you want to talk to me about anything I’ve said, I’m open to it.

#personal post

[synchronysymphony]

Make the post. Jean Prouvaire had a gun, Jean Prouvaire fired it, Jean prouvaire died fighting,, intrepid,, just as fierce as Enjolras,,, Jean Prouvaire was shredded

this is all the inspiration I need >:D

[ okay so obviously don’t read this if you like Jean Prouvaire or if you are into the UwU Baby trope, but ,, ]

So, I used to like Prouvaire, I mean he’s canonically pretty cool, with his guns and his death scene and his Romanticism, but then I saw more and more of him in the fandom, and I began to dislike him Intensely. I’m not shaming anybody, because of course, he’s a fictional character, and you’re allowed to write him in any way you want! Bear in mind that the following is only my opinion, and I am in no way attacking anyone, or trying to start drama. Maybe I’m wrong; it could be the case. And maybe I’m being overly mean. I don’t want to offend anyone over a literal book character, so if you want to send me anon hate (which I welcome; I still get a little jolt of excitement every time I get one), please consider that I really mean no harm. 

But the dude really gets on my nerves. He comes across as a whiny, immature, infantilized, one-dimensional, idolized baby– someone I would definitely avoid if I met him in real life. People are afraid to dig deeper into his character and really explore who he is, so he becomes really flat and vapid.

For example, people love to go on about how Enjolras is rich and privileged (which, yeah, he is, and it’s good to explore that), but they conveniently ignore the fact that Jehan is also canonically a rich only son. He’s just as privileged as Enjolras is, and would therefore probably have some problematic views, but I’ve never seen that addressed. Instead, he’s put on a pedestal as some flawless paragon of perfection, who’s soft and sweet and timid and cute and would never hurt a fly. Hugo wanted us to like the amis, but I find it very hard to feel anything but negatively about this guy, just because he’s so lauded as a mythic being who can do no wrong. He’s the one who calls people out (gently, of course; he’s so shy and kindhearted), because unlike his friends (usually Enjolras >://), he knows what’s Actually Right and Good. And then, often enough, his Mean Bad Friends misunderstand him and make him into a victim, because he’s so darling and quirky and misunderstood, and then his actually-soft-and-somehow-not-a-murderer-anymore boyfriend has to come and soothe his soul with words of love. [I used to love JehanParnasse, like I thought their dynamic was really cool and interesting, and I thought it would be really fascinating to explore that. But both of them have been so sanitized that they don’t even resemble their canonical characters anymore, and so the interesting dynamic goes away. Now, they could be any other rom-com couple.]

And it’s really frustrating, because canon Prouvaire is really cool! He’s quirky, yes, but fleshed-out– a dynamic, vivacious character, flaws and all. He learns several languages just so he can read his few favorite poets– who does that? And he’s a musician, and a botanist, and he purposefully wears unfashionable clothes, even though he was definitely brought up with a fancy wardrobe (maybe as an act of protest against his rich heritage?) and yes, he’s shy, but he’s also brave. We can see this when he prepares at the barricade with everyone else, knowing he’s going to have to kill people, but not shying away from it. And we can especially see this in his death scene, when he leaves the world in a blaze of glory with revolution on his lips until his breath gives out. He’s so much more than just a cutesy little quirkily-dressed flower-garlanded forest fawn. He’s complex, and brave, and noble, and really cool. 

I think this is why I hate so much that he’s so often portrayed as the Token Nonbinary Character. People like me don’t get much representation in general, so it’s frustrating that the only person who’s commonly written as such is so infantilized and stripped of all complexity. It doesn’t feel good to know that nonbinary people are seen in such a light. Of course, it’s the thin, conventionally attractive, waifish white boy who gets to be nb, and of course he can’t have any flaws or real personality. Are we stereotypes? Are we only palatable when we’re squeaky-clean and childish? It’s upsetting. Until this trope is done away with, I will never be comfortable seeing him portrayed as such. 

Finally, there’s the fact (petty though it is) that he’s everywhere. I don’t like reading fic with him in it, because he’s so annoying, but he’s in all of them, because he’s everyone’s favorite. And honest-to-goodness, I don’t understand why. Maybe if he were his canon self, I would understand. But he’s not.

[Wow that feels so nice to finally talk about! I feel much better now. Anyway, if you made it all the way through, you’re a champ. Have a good day!!]

#ask #adrian #bless u for giving me the platform to talk about this omg #les mis #flower child #i have so many stories i'm writing/will write where he's evil #they're so cathartic and nice to write #of course i will never publish them anywhere #but boi i like them

[aion-rsa]

Donuts & Demons: Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars

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Shizuka Satomi, a violin teacher known as the Queen of Hell, owes one more soul to demons due to an infernal bargain she struck. Young violinist Katrina Nguyen needs to escape her homelife, where her transness is rejected by her family, and to start anew, hopefully making videos with her music. And Lan Tran and her crew are striving to build a stargate—before the Galactic Empire falls to the Endplauge—while selling donuts at Starrgate Donuts in Los Angeles. Light from Uncommon Stars is the story of how these three women’s lives intersect, and is a novel filled to the brim with music so beautifully described, readers can almost hear it in the narrative.

Katrina opens the novel with her flight and her passion for music; Shizuka comes in quickly after with her soul-contract deadline and her desire to find one last musician to condemn to hell. When readers first encounter Lan and her alien crew, they may wonder how author Ryka Aoki can pull off a story that is at once soul-bargaining-with-demons and refugee-aliens-building-a-stargate. But as the story progresses, the themes and characters dovetail together so beautifully that readers will wonder how they ever doubted. 

Aoki explores what it means to be human, the nature of souls, and the importance of hope and love even in the face of what may seem hopeless, filling the novel with both good humor and acknowledgment of suffering. There is pain, and yet a sense that better things are to come. The love and care with which the characters imbue parts of their lives—whether it’s the music they play, the instruments they shape, or the food they create—gains a greater meaning by virtue of that love. The result is an incredibly powerful story of hope and redemption, of small voices shouting into dissonance and being heard. Ahead of the novel’s September 28th release, Den of Geek had the chance to pick Aoki’s brain about how this novel came together, and insights into her inspiration…

Den of Geek: First, what brought together the two very different speculative fiction tropes—soul-bargaining and stargates—together into the same story for you? How did you create a universe in your head where both things worked without contradicting each other?

Ryka Aoki: I respect both science fiction and fantasy, but I had honest intentions and reasons to mix them in Light from Uncommon Stars. I was a little bit worried about how people would accept this—or not. But I’ve been thrilled with how readers have embraced and accepted this book.

I think this book might resonate with readers because we all hold seeming contradictions. In the book, Shizuka Satomi mentions how great pieces of music contain such different-sounding sections and movements. And, as music reflects the soul, doesn’t that say something about us, and our own shifting arrays of motifs and counterpoints?

In my case, being of Japanese descent, and being queer, and being trans, means that I play a lot of different things to a lot of different worlds. Yet working toward true acceptance and love of self can be like composing your own sonata—you’re striving to express and share your entire music. The person who I am with my family lives in a different world than the person who teaches English and Critical Thinking. And that person seems very different from the writer, or the martial artist.

And yet, I don’t feel fragmented. I feel pretty whole.

And so, when I wrote Light from Uncommon Stars, I always had faith that it would work out, somehow—because I worked out, somehow.

(At least I’d like to think so…) 

Demon Tremon Philippe and Shizuka’s relationship may bring to mind more of Mephistopheles and Faust than the devil at the crossroads. But there is a long tradition of musicians trading souls for greatness, brought into American folklore via blues musicians, who may have drawn on tales of Papa Legba rather than the European devil-bargaining stories. In the novel, you’ve brought many cultural traditions into play—where did you start from in the soul-selling elements? What did you borrow from earlier tales, and what did you invent whole cloth?

Thank you for asking this question because it lets me talk about another tradition. The early days of Internet message boards were the first time ever that trans people could speak freely yet relatively anonymously with people like them around the world. In fact, one of my dearest friends had such a board and they live in Iceland. We needed each other. We helped each other go through some horrible times… But there were also some goofy and fun times come as well—it was the first time that we realized that we’re all a bunch of science fiction and fantasy geeks. I mean, anywhere we can dream, right?

And I remember at the time being struck by how many trans women had created their own creation myths, to explain how their soul was placed in this other body. Many religions ignore trans people. Yet to know where one came from—and why—is a necessary question for many human beings.

In these stories, and the discussion surrounding them, there was much talk about having the soul of a woman, or the soul of a man if one were a trans man. “Do you have a female soul?” was a very relevant question to those with trans binary identities. (Discussions of nonbinary identities and gender fluidity were happening as well—entire vocabularies were being invented. Those were some exciting times.)

I think that even now many trans women, perhaps when first trying to make sense of who they are, still ask themselves this question.

And so, the cursed Shizuka Satomi, precisely because she is so focused on acquiring souls that she finds bodies irrelevant—offers Katrina the space and place to find her answers.

The descriptions and understanding of music and violins—and violin competitions—in the story are tangible. What is your music background?

I love writing music. I used to play in a band, and when I do my spoken word pieces, I compose all my own soundtracks. My main instrument is the piano, but I also play guitar, and some flute, and harmonica. For the most part, I am self-taught. However, I’ve been taking lessons for the past couple of years with a wonderful piano teacher—the irony is because I’m promoting this book, I’m on a brief hiatus from that.

However, I had no idea how to play the violin. I remember the first time I went into a violin shop. There were violins, but violins of different sizes, and cellos and violas and basses, and I was laughing to myself that I have no idea how to make music with any of this. I couldn’t put a tune together with one of these instruments to save my own life.

I did manage to teach myself some violin. And I really love the instrument. I have an acoustic violin from eBay, and I also have an electric violin now. This Christmas season, I am looking forward to jamming to some holiday music. We may never be ready for a committed relationship, but the violin and I have become good friends.

So, although I didn’t grow up in violin culture, as I researched violin culture, I found many parallels with a culture that I was familiar with—martial arts. Like many communities with overachieving children and parents with unrequited dreams, I found that in violin competitions, it was sometimes difficult to tell which was more important, the violin or the competition. This was so much like what I had seen as an annoying little martial arts kid. And so, those were the experiences upon which I drew.  

The posturing, the pressure, the mind games…the nausea in the bathroom…so different, but not so different at all.

In addition to being a writer, you are a teacher. Are any of your own feelings about teaching reflected in Shizuka’s feelings about mentoring?

*giggle* ALL of them…the good, the bad, the obsessive, the self-serving, and the hopeful.

This novel felt, in many ways, like a pandemic novel–in a situation that should be full of hopelessness (the Endplague, a coming soul-deadline), there’s still this tonal quality, even in the early pages, that things will turn out right, even if we have no idea how that will happen. Was any part of the novel written during the pandemic? Do you see it differently now that it’s coming out as we’re still dealing with the coronavirus?

During the first few months of pandemic, most of the novel had already been written, and we were deep in edits. I was pushing so hard to get my story just right that the first part of the lockdown went by unnoticed. Plot hole here, inconsistency there…even without a lockdown, I don’t think I would have gone out, anyway.

These days, I’m feeling the pandemic more, especially because this is when I was to tour, sign books, and meet people in person. And, as I engage with the lockdown more actively, I do notice how the pandemic does seem to echo the themes of the Endplague. Although Covid-19 did not inspire the Endplague, I based the Endplague on how civilizations can often fall, not from outside cataclysms themselves, but from the conflicts and fissures they cause their populace…and a collective loss of hope.

In the book, without going into too many spoilers, Lan and her family come from a very advanced civilization that has conquered many diseases and social ills, but is still battling with divisions, suspicions, and fatalism.

Looking around at world today, the parallels are hard to escape.

Late in the novel, you use Bartók as a way of framing and understanding transness in a beautiful way. Could you talk about the theme of Katrina finding her voice through the violin, and about how music and self-intertwine in the novel?

Provided the instrument is well-maintained, when you play the piano, you’ll automatically play in tune. A violin can be perfectly in tune, but that is far from enough—you need to be in tune with yourself.  

Furthermore, when I actually played the violin, I learned that certain notes resonate very well with other strings. In fact, sympathetic resonance is one way that a student can know if she’s in tune. If we listen for the resonances, we can feel the entire violin glow. There’s no better way to say it—it seems like the instrument glows.

This is very important to Katrina’s development, for human voices—and human souls—don’t have keys, or even frets, either. And when you’re playing in tune with yourself and others, you do get this internal glow. I think feeling this is very important to Katrina. It gives her security, weaves her into the songs of others.

But we are not always in harmony, nor should we be. Sometimes, our true songs are dissonant, or expressed in notes between notes. At that point, for all the rest of the world knows, your composition is wrong, or your intonation sucks. So, when your own music is so insistent, yet so at odds with what people expect—what do you do? Well, there goes Bartók.

There is a difference between playing with people in harmony and speaking to them in melody, after all. What does this mean for Katrina?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

I think I’ll just leave it there.

Starrgate Donuts cannot fulfil online orders for their delicious donuts, unfortunately, as it is fictional, and videos of Shizuka Satomi’s performances are still not available to watch, due to interference from demonic forces, but Light from Uncommon Stars is available at bookstores everywhere on September 28, 2021. Find out more here.

The post Donuts & Demons: Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[arconn]

I remember how much I used to do these in high school/my early 20s, I wish I could do an old one and compare responses. Here's one for today, 06/21/21

1) Sexuality? Pansexual, meaning I don't have a preference of what you're working with and I don't exclude those who identify as nonbinary/agender.

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Russel Crowe

3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. with a stock of white, forearms tattooed in black Borean ink- the black dragon that marks him as an outsider. - Witches of America by Alex Mar

4) What do you think about most? That people want to be good and be happy but also very much have the opportunity to cause the opposite

5) What does your latest text message from someone else say? Hope you have today off...

6) Do you sleep with or without clothes on? Usually with but it depends on what time of year it is

7) What’s your strangest talent? Being able to guess poeple's zodiac signs pretty accurately.

8) Girls…. (finish the sentence); Boys…. (finish the sentence) should be treated the same

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you? Yes

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar? I don't even remember honestly.

11) Do you have any strange phobias? Preying mantasis, they absolutely terrify me and are bore deep into my psyche

12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? Yes

13) What’s your religion? I identify as an omniest, meaning I find truth and beauty in all religions and also as a pagan witch- a woman who loves and respects the earth, her elements and the way it effects us. I read tarot and look for divine guidance primarily from a central collective consciousness/energy and divinity that is in us all.

14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Hooping, going on a walk

15) Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? Like a whole band with instruments and multiple musicians? Either Born of Osiris of August Burns Red

17) What was the last lie you told? That I was okay when I wasn't

18) Do you believe in karma? Absofreakinglutely

19) What does your URL mean? That I'm one tough bitch ;)

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? My quickness to trust someone and be vulnerable and shutting myself off or down when I realize I shouldn't have. And loving other people and things, when I'm at my best I aspire to emulate loving goddess energy and make others feel safe and seen.

21) Who is your celebrity crush? I honestly am not a big fan of most celebrities

22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping? Honestly, no.

23) How do you vent your anger? Usually to a friend or through hooping

24) Do you have a collection of anything? Crystals, metaphysical books, tarot decks.

25) Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Through messenger

26) Are you happy with the person you’ve become? Yes, though there is a lot I am still working hard on.

27) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? The sound of people chewing or brushing their teeth and I love the sound of deep low frequency bass and my bunny Winston "purring"

28) What’s your biggest “what if”? What if a certain relationship worked out and I hadn't left and we stayed together

29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? I believe in the possibility of everything but also that anything can be debunked. I say yes to both.

30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. Left- my phone, right-a bag of cashews :)

31) Smell the air. What do you smell? A candle burning nearby.

32) What’s the worst place you have ever been to? Probably the part of Bahrain we got dumped in while waiting for our ship. Of course, at the time I had never been to or lived in Philly or Baltimore, but it was a lot and was absolutely not safe.

33) Choose East Coast or West Coast? East coast, but I haven't been to the west coast yet.

34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? Anderson Paak *heart eyes* thats my BAYBEEEEE

35) To you, what is the meaning of life? See #13

36) Define Art. Expression

37) Do you believe in luck? I believe in divine blessing

38) What’s the weather like right now? Absolutely beautiful and 70 something outside

39) What time is it? 2:51

40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? Yes, though I don't have a car right now. And no I haven't, only been rear ended once.

41) What was the last book you read? Been reading Witches of America by Alex Mar lately as well as some study astrology material.

42) Do you like the smell of gasoline? Love it.

43) Do you have any nicknames? Mana

44) What was the last movie you saw? The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It... it was absolutely amazing

45) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? Dislocating my knee, it went all the way to the backside of my leg!!

46) Have you ever caught a butterfly? Oh yes

47) Do you have any obsessions right now? Learning my job and getting better at it, smoking weed, getting these next couple milestones together that are coming up.

48) What’s your sexual orientation? Pansexual, see #1 for an explanation

49) Ever had a rumor spread about you? Oh yes

50) Do you believe in magic? Definitely

51) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? Nah, I wish I could sometimes, but I'm actually pretty bad at it, to my own demise.

52) What is your astrological sign? Aquarius sun, Scorpio moon, Capricorn rising

53) Do you save money or spend it? Spend it. UGH.

54) What’s the last thing you purchased? A smoothie

55) Love or lust? Love

56) In a relationship? Not currently, no.

57) How many relationships have you had? I don't even know anymore... that would be a lot to count out.

58) Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Yes

59) Where were you yesterday? Work and then home and in my bed sleeping for almost 13 hours.

60) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? Yes, a hula hoop

61) Are you wearing socks right now? Nope

62) What’s your favorite animal? Rabbits and octopus

63) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Look at them very intently with my eyes and show genuine care/focus on them

64) Where is your best friend? I don't really have a best friend right now, my closest is in Maryland right now, but I haven't seen her in over a year.

65) Spit or swallow?(; Always swallow

66) What is your heritage? Irish/Scottish

67) What were you doing last night at 12 AM? DEAD ASLEEP

68) What do you think is Satan’s last name? Gon'getcha

69) Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? What kinda question is this? Duh. Society is so weird about sexuality it's kind of gross. *shudders*

70) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Yeah!

71) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Yell for help, save the dog. Take pictures once the rescue is a success and try and explain it to my boss, if they let me go, they let me go.

72) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? I tell everyone I care about, yes. I would spend the rest of my time with my family and saying goodbye to certain friends. I'd try to fit in as much live music as humanly possible as well and maybe take a few days trip abroad, probably somewhere where I could be on the beach.

73) You can only have one of these things; trust or love. Love, because if it's true, you get both

74) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Touch by Hybrid Minds

75) What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? 1***

76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Trust, over communication, taking time for the cute and little things

77) How can I win your heart? ^

78) Can insanity bring on more creativity? Absolutely

79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Letting things go in order to gain

80) What size shoes do you wear? 8 1/2 or 9

81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY! C'MON! -WILL FERREL

82) What is your favorite word? Fuck

83) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Swell

84) What is a saying you say a lot? "The road to suffering is paved with expectations" -The Buddha

85) What’s the last song you listened to? Loan Shark by Commodo

86) Basic question; what’s your favorite color/colors? Lavendar, royal blue, deep purple, light magenta, neon red, burnt orange

87) What is your current desktop picture? $uicideboy$

88) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? Oh boy, I don't think I'd want that to happen to anyone because they could be with other people like their family and shit. That would be so horrible.

89) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? Haven't found one yet.

90) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? Slowly look around and see if I can find a weapon, then quickly get to it and make a quick exit, defending myself from the mummies if need be.

91) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? It's a tie between teleporation and being able to heal others/myself.

92) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? My wedding day.

93) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Early memories in the barracks at Fort Meade

94) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? Al Ross or $crim

95) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? India

96) Do you have any relatives in jail? Not that I know of

97) Have you ever thrown up in the car? Yup, but it was into a bag every time

98) Ever been on a plane? Many times

99) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY, c'MON!

[morphogenetic]

Ask meme: 1-3, 17-27

anon you’re killin me here [but i want to procrastinate on this essay so here we go]1. describe your idea of a perfect dateuhhhhhhh hm. probably just a low key hanging out type of thing? nothing extravagant, maybe just like. sitting and hanging out and playing video games. something low key.2. whats your “type”fuck if i know. femme-ish guys but Also buff guys. femme buff guys? Holy Shit. i wish i even knew with nb people it’s essentially ‘vaguely masc and also not femme-aligned but otherwise ???’ ….actually my aesthetic taste in guys can adequately be represented by a combination of carlos ze and ling yao so. make of that what you will i guess3. do you want kids?fuck no, i’d be a terrible parent i dont want to subject anyone to that (that and i like kids but like…not That much)17. night club gay or cafe gay?can i choose neither? literally stay inside my house all day gay?18. who is one person you would “go straight” fori mean. cant be straight. kinda hard when nonbinary. but assuming this means ‘if i was attracted to women’ uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hm. this is hard. and also i cant think of any butch women off the top of my head even though i know they exist.sorry anon i got no idea here.19. video game gay, book gay, or movie gay?bizarre fusion of video game, movie, and also anime gay. i know anime gay wasn’t an option but im making it one now, fuck you20. favourite gay ship (canon or not)why would you make me choose like this. [its not a hard choice. carpei. junpei is bi and polyam i dont make the rules]21. favourite gay youtuberi dont really watch youtubers much now but…..okay he’s trans and some variety of not straight so im gonna go with chase ro.ss just bc his videos are enjoyable to watch?? idk dude i mostly just watch vine compilations these days(actually he’s not really Officially out but he’s basically outright stated he’s bi without stating it so.....this is embarrassing a b i t but. dan howe.ll. im so sorry to be a disappointment to you all i just. ive watched him since i was 13? please dont judge me im sorry)22. have you ever unknowingly asked out a straight person?i thought i was 100% aroace until january and the reason that i realized isn’t straight either so….nope.23. have you ever been in love?yeah. not elaborating there24. have you ever been heartbroken?having a grand total of 0 relationships makes that quite hard, so no25. how do you determine if you want to be them or be with someoneuntil recently it was exclusively wanting to be them, and this was not helped by the trans thing, but. idk. im ar.oac.espec and have literally fallen for one person ever so i assume wanting to be them until otherwise given that’s the case 99% of the time26. favourite lgb musician/bandsufjannnnnnn [stevens]. the xx are a close second but i dont really listen to them much, so…27. what is a piece of advice you have for young / baby gaysfind one person you can be gay around; i dont necessarily mean in a dating way, though that’s great too, but seriously having friends who i can just go “i’m so gay” to and have them say “same” back is. nice.gay ask game woohoo

#long post /// #Anonymous #ask games #asks

[elaristalselin]

D&D Character Asks: Elaris Edition

I wanna do all of them because they’re all so good and I love my boy and Sara said to do all the odd ones anyway so....

1) A story for every scar. Do any of their wounds have interesting origins?

He doesn’t have many visible scars, actually! There is a stab wound on the right side of his back, that he sustained almost three years when he was still a naive, young adventurer newly out on his own. (For fellow party members, this is apocryphal and not part of his primary backstory) He met a drow woman known simply as “Darling” who recruited his help in a simple enough burglary job. Get in. Get out. Split the loot 60/40 and go their separate ways. They snuck in and out of a wealthy merchant’s manor while the family was out on holiday and made off with close to 2,000gp. He thought he’d be set for awhile, but when it came to part ways, Darling turned on him and took everything, leaving Elaris in the gutter with a dagger in the back. Luckily, in her haste she missed any vital organs or blood vessels and he recovered in time.

other than that, he’s made it through most of his life relatively unmaimed.

2) Three  five songs that show their character progression.

Ok so I have a playlist for this very reason! But it’s 37 songs long. If I had to narrow it down:

1. Beautiful Boys- CocoRosie

2. Bird Set Free- Sia

3. Dance Little Liar-Arctic Monkeys

4. Stars- fun.

5. All These Things That I’ve Done- The Killers

3) If they were a god which god would they be? (to quote my last post:)

Joanne the Scammer; next question please!

Seriously, though? I think The Traveler, among the Dark Six of Eberron is most like Elaris. His domains include chaos, charm, liberation, travel, and trickery, which is just about as close as I can find to what Elaris deified would be. Maybe add in a tiny bit of St. Anthony,the patron saint of the impoverished and oppressed. Elaris may not be a “good” person, but he empathizes and cares deeply for orphans, slaves, and minority races of Cartowitt. Other than those demographics, he’s always ready to charm and cheat his way into people’s wallets so I can’t really see him being even a chaotic good deity.

4) What was their favourite subject at school?

Elaris hated school as a child,but he found joy in music. It was something he was good at, and he loved weaving magic into each note of his compositions. He also enjoyed reading the ballads of the bards of old, and aspired to become one of them.

5) What does their voice sound like?

Elaris’ voice is a sultry tenor, with a vague, unplaceable but sophisticated-sounding accent. As a whole, he sounds a bit like a pretentious, highly educated asshole with a masters in Snobbery™

6) Animal, vegetable, mineral: what one thing symbolises them the most?

He’s got a small shell with mysterious carved runes on it that he has yet to decipher. The mystery of the shell is reminiscent of the secrecy he uses as a defense mechanism. 

If not, possibly his small pet mouse, Basil. He sees a lot of himself in Basil, from the petty theft to the insignificance of his role in the world, and would do anything to protect this old, fat mouse.

7) If they could control one of the four elements what would it be?

Probably Earth. I can Imagine him terraforming in a remote area trying to magically mine diamonds and other riches with the least amount of effort or sharing possible.

8) What would their favourite tv show be?

Probably some really ridiculous reality tv show, like Millionaire Matchmaker or one of the Real Housewives dramas. He takes joy in seeing the petty inconveniences of the rich and stupid, though deep down, his dream is probably to be a very wealthy and powerful sugar baby.

9) Would they ever use magic to gain love?

He uses magic to charm and manipulate others as part of his JOB. It’s what he was trained to do as a bard, really. He’s definitely used it to charm money out of people, but he wouldn’t ever like...sleep with anyone who didn’t approach him first or was too charmed to actually consent. 

He’s never truly fallen in love with someone, but if he did he wouldn’t want to magically ruin the integrity of their feelings. Being able to genuinely feel such things towards him is a huge step that he doesn’t think anyone would ever reach that point with him. By taking away that choice from them, he would be toying with them the same as any of the people he’s scammed and cheated.

10) What do they think of themself?

Elaris is confident in his skills as a bard, but he (justifiably) sees himself as a pretty shitty person. He likes himself just fine, but is afraid that others would turn on him if they knew who he really is. That’s part of the reason he works so hard on his facades; he doesn’t want people to really see the filth beneath his pristine mask.

11) Gender and sexuality?

Boring I know, but Elaris identifies as just a plain ol cis guy. He’s not afraid of femininity-- if anything he uses it to his advantage and keep people off guard. The way he explores fashion and gender expression as a whole leans towards androgyny, but his identity is still masculine.

12) Do they have a type?

Rich and stupid. If he can get a lot of cash out of them easily, he’ll go for anyone,really. 

If he were to get into an actual relationship, he’s attracted primarily to men and nonbinary folks. Regardless of appearance though, deep down he just wants someone he can match wits with that wouldn’t judge his past or skewed moral compass.

13) Playing video games, would they be a completionist, a speed runner, how would they play?

While WIlhelm would be a modder, Elaris wouldn’t mess with much beyond the occasional console command. He wouldn’t be a completionist per se, but he’d spend the vast majority of game time looking for workarounds to the conventional methods of playing. Will certain dialogue options affect ones later in the game? If you jump backwards 5 times after leaving the game on for three days, can you access a secret room that makes finding a rare item that much easier? He’d want to know

14) If they could solve one problem, what would they solve?

He’d really like to abolish slavery and diminish the roles and obsession surrounding the suits, sure, but most likely he’d want to set up plenty of soup kitchens, food banks, and homeless shelters to prevent children from ever dying from starvation and the effects of destitution.

15) What horoscope stereotype fits them the most?

He’s technically a Virgo, but he fits with the charming, diplomatic qualities of Sagittarius much better. 

16) Favourite terrain?

While not actual “terrain,” he loves the city and within the halls of the homes and manors within. Regal balls and social events have always fascinated him more than any wilderness, always dreaming of the danger and delight of court intrigue.

17) How do they dress?

His clothes range from masc to femme of center, but he cares more about the quality of materials used and the way they make him look. Rich furs, heavy velvets, and luxurious silks are his favorite materials to work with, especially if intricate details, such as embroidery or woven patterns are included. His favorite color is ultramarine, so often his outershirt will be similar hues. 

Please give this boy a reason to dress fancy. He loves fancy more than he loves himself

18) What would their ideal home be like?

It would be rich and luxurious, with fine furniture and fine trophies stolen throughout his escapades. However, it wouldn’t be too large. He may love the finer things in life, but also reviles absurd amounts of excess and the people associated with such extravagance. Fine and tasteful, rather than gaudy to the point of tackiness. To make it an actual home, he’d love to share it with the few friends he does have, along with those he had lost along the way. However, there’d always be a single extra guest room, intentionally left empty.

19) What would they like their mark in history to be? (to quote my last answer)

His whole schtick involves aliases and disguise to prevent infamy. If he were to gain a reputation as a conman, the gig would be up. In an ideal world, he would want to be portrayed as a young, famous musician or maybe even a charismatic diplomat who worked hard and built himself up from the ashes of his childhood to go on to live a fulfilling, preferably wealthy life. Maybe he’d have a beautiful, happy spouse and a life that’s normal and not too far beyond ordinary. Of course given his current circumstance and his outlook on the future, that’d never happen.

In this life, he’d be happy to fade into obscurity, living off the riches he’s swindled out of rich people through unnoticeable skimming and other forms of fraud.

20) If they could be a dragon, would they be a dragon?

To be or not to be, blah blah Hamlet is my favorite edgelord manbaby.

Really though, I don’t think he would be a dragon. Sure, he’ be powerful and rich beyond his wildest dreams, but brute force and intimidation aren’t his forte. He enjoys seduction and subterfuge too much to be a big lump of muscle, stomping around angrily to get his way.

#Elaris #elaris asks

[vinylbay777]

Women’s History Month: Female Artists Making Waves in Music Today

From the early years of rock and roll to today’s up-and-coming crop of young artists, there have been so many amazing and talented women in music. Especially nowadays, there are so many women taking the reins of their music careers and finding success.

March is Women’s History Month and to celebrate, Vinyl Bay777, Long Island’s music outlet, is taking a look at some of the female artists dominating music right now. Here are seven of today’s most important voices you should be listening to.

1.       Courtney Barnett: Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has a no-nonsense wit about her when it comes to writing music. Her lyrics are honest and direct, often holding more weight than the actual melodies themselves. One of her most recent singles, “Nameless, Faceless,” explores the dichotomy between how women view the world verses how men do.

2.       Janelle Monàe: Janelle Monàe has been turning heads ever since the release of her 2007 EP ‘Metropolis.’ But it wasn’t until last year’s ‘Dirty Computer’ that people really started to take notice of the singer’s creativity, earning her a Grammy nod for ‘Album of the Year.’ Whether its in her music or the film roles she takes on, Monàe has also been an advocate for women’s, black and LGBTQ rights, saying during an interview with Rolling Stone last year, “I want young girls, young boys, nonbinary, gay, straight, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you.”

3.       St. Vincent: A free-spirited pop artist, St. Vincent (real name Annie Clark) has perfected the art of the eclectic and brought it to the mainstream. Her 2017 album ‘Masseduction’ became her first top 10 release and earned her two Grammy Awards. She has never rested on her laurels though, continuing to evolve her sound and style at every turn.

4.       Beyoncé: A classic at this point, Beyoncé is not just one of the most important female artists of our time, but one of the most influential artists ever, period. From her beginnings in Destiny’s Child to her current solo work and multi-million dollar empire, she dominates the field. Her music is incredibly powerful as well, penning female empowerment anthems like “Independent Woman,” “Single Ladies” and “Girls (Who Run The World).”

5.       Alicia Keys: Like Beyoncé, Alicia Keys has been one of the most powerful female voices of our generation. Her music speaks to the spirit and essence of who we are as people. Songs like “Girl on Fire” and her latest single “Raise a Man” deliver a message of love and action with power and grace. Her star only grows brighter as she continues to prove herself to be not just a singer or piano player, but an artist.

6.       Lady Gaga: Over her decade as “mother monster,” Lady Gaga’s influence has proven more powerful than her music. Pioneering her “Born This Way” philosophy, she has helped millions of young girls and those questioning their identities find themselves and to be comfortable in their own skin.

7.       Lzzy Hale: Frontwoman for metal band Halestorm, Lzzy Hale has been one of the most influential rockers in metal in recent history. More than two decades after forming, the band is at the top of its game and continuing to rise. Like her female rock role models, Hale proves that women can rock hard and be role models for others who want to do the same.

There are a lot of powerful women in the music today challenging what it means to be a female artist in a male-dominated industry. Between pop’s heavy hitters, rockers and avant-garde artists who change their style with every new idea, there is so much creative energy and power coming from this generation of female artists. The artists above, as well as many others, are proof that women are influencing the future of music and culture.

                                                              ---

Find music from powerful female musicians new and old at Vinyl Bay 777, Long Island’s top new independent record shop. We have thousands of titles to choose from in a variety of genres to satisfy most music fans. Browse our wide selection of new and used vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, music DVDs, memorabilia and more in store at our Plainview location or online at vinylbay777.com. With more titles being added to our selection all the time, you never know what you might find at Vinyl Bay 777.

#women #women in music #artists #musicians

[tantoknives]

hey how about 1-30 from that one ask thing

if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?-first off i sent this to myself. second, i would link them to my soundcloud and spotify and shit like that. if i had to chose a single band i’d have to go with cherub, they’re my favorite band of all time and i get teary thinking about how jordan kelly gave me a hug. uh anyway also watch princess mononoke and kiki’s delivery service because theyre my fave and i heavily relate to kiki. i guess for reading read my childhood faves like redwall, warriors, guardians of ga’hoole, and everlost trilogy. i don’t do as much recreational reading these days. 

have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?-not?? really in particular. i modeled my early writing more after my childhood favorites (see above lmao) so my writing wasn’t terribly complex. i think i model my writing a bit closer to stephen king’s; he has a very good way of conveying situations/emotions in an extremely subtle way

list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.-wow this list has gotten small. the only fandom i actually really interact with is the transformers fandom nowadays. i relate to knockout because i love breakdown. other stuff i used to vibe with is steven universe, and i really related to rose quartz. 

do you like your name?  is there another name you think would fit you better?-now that i’ve figured out that i’m nonbinary, i’d prefer a more... gender neutral name. megan is such...... a generic name. i’m fine with meg, but i don’t even respond to megan anymore lmao. i’m fond of mac, like mac demarco. maybe to be unique™️ i should be called demarco.

do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do?-what the fuck kind of question is this it sounds like a question from a job application. and yeah i guess?? i mean i call myself a writer and an artist and a depressed fuck because that’s what i do

are you religious/spiritual?-no. i had some bad experiences in the church and it effectively drove me away from christianity in particular. i enjoy other houses of religion, tho. i find it very interesting to be an observer. 

do you care about your ethnicity?-kinda?? it’s something that i think about a lot because i could have had a lot more culture from my dad’s side except my family on his side was whitewashed as a side effect of rampant racism in the 50s and 60s. i’m ‘hispanic’ but i’m not even sure what that means nowadays?? like am i just white?? i don’t know and it bugs me. like, i’m not trying to reach to be a poc but i’m also not sure if i’m white or not. most of the time i just kind of ignore it. 

what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?-florence and the machine was the first artist that i really, really connected with after i heard ‘dog days are over’ during a movie preview on the tv. her lungs album was the first i ever bought, and she was the first artist i ever followed religiously. a little while after her i got really into woodkid. now i’m deeply invested in the band cherub, theyve gotten me through a lot of hard times, all of them. for awhile i was very much into linkin park’s ‘a thousand suns’ album, so chester’s death has touched me in some small way. 

are you an artist?-yeah, i would definitely say so. it’s definitely been a hugely defining part of my identity for the entirety of my life, if that says anything. 

do you have a creed?-not?? particularly?? like for me my creed is to let people do their own thing and stay in my lane unless theyre hurting somebody. like i don’t really care what people do unless it becomes my business. 

describe your ideal day.-ohh getting up at 10am with good hair, doing my makeup and putting on a cute outfit. getting my nails done with a good friend, having a light but tasty lunch then going to get bubble tea after. going to the mall for a couple of hours, then going to a nice place for dinner and a movie. after that, going for a nice swim at night with some friends, good music, and a bit of booze. more movies after that if we’re awake enough. 

dog person or cat person?-i think i answered this already but fundamentally i’m a cat person because i’m too low energy to be a dog person

inside or outdoors?-i’m too delicate of a creature for these earthly elements, so indoors i shall stay. it’s too fucking hot outside. 

are you a musician?-actually, i used to be. i played the piano for nearly ten years and played the french horn/mellophone for another five. i wish that i still played an instrument but i barely have the will to get out of bed, much less the dedication to devote myself to an instrument

five most influential books over your lifetime.-the lovely bones by alice sebold-the green mile by stephen king-the redwall series by brian jacques-the everlost trilogy by neal shushterman-call of the wild by jack londongod......... i need to read more books

if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?-i mean, yeah?? that’s basic psychology, tbh. 

would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?-mmaybe?? i don’t really talk that much on here (aside from these ridiculously long ask memes godd) but i’m fairly frank and i typically say what i would irl. i’m a pretty frank person. 

what’s your patronus?-already answered, but i’m changing my answer to Macho Man Randy Savage™️

which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle?-i don’t care enough about this question to answer this

would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?-all of the above listed universes sound like shit except magic is maybe cool. pokemon is the ultimate alternate reality

do you love easily?-i used to, but i’m a bit more anxious and wary of my relationships these days

list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.-sleeping (this summer i average like, 12 hours lmao)-browsing tunglr, sadly-this summer?? breath of the wild-staring at sketchbooks, pencil hovering over the page-eat

how often would you want to see your family every year?-my mom and dad?? once a month sounds good, if not twice. my sister?? fucking never

have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?-me and my SO are ridiculously close to the point where he knew i was starting my period before i even did

could you live as a hermit?-i already do

how would you describe your gender/sexuality?-i am nonbinary and pansexual. so yeah and yeah

do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”?-this is something i’ve been working on actually and it’s sorta difficult because i have some clothes that i feel do and a lot that don’t because i have a lot of ultra-femme clothes that i don’t feel as comfy in anymore. i mean, depending on my mood. also my hair is so fucking shaggy i look like a goddamn muppet. 

on a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?-it takes a lot, because i mean people make mistakes and do/say shit that they didn’t think about. that’s for friends. other people can and will bug the fuck out of me with ease. 

three songs that you connect with right now.-monogamy by cherub-hallelujah money by gorillaz (iconic)-marijuana by chrome sparks

pick one of your favorite quotes.-uhh hmoh actually i do think i know- “i am become death, destroyer of worlds” from the bhagavad gita i know it’s generic but it’s very iconic, and i especially like hearing it in oppenheimer’s post-atomic bomb speech

#magtalk #about me #i'll probably reblog this again later when it's not 4:30 in the morning #Anonymous

[understandingpoli-blog]

culminating paper

As a maturing teenager, I was always the type to be very adventurous and I tend to explore everything before establishing what I like and what fits me and all that. This exploring nature may be because I am still trying to search for myself and am still trying to discover who I actually am. I was never completely comfortable with how I present myself because I haven’t fully grasped it yet. Taking this course, Understanding the Self, has helped me dive deeper into the understanding of my own self, as the name itself suggests.

INTRODUCTORY TOPICS

Bioecological Theory

As these were the first few topics discussed in the course, I was very confused as to why everything was so complicated. I expected a simple course that will help me discover myself by discussing my hobbies and whatnot, but turns out it’s full of technicalities; the self is more complicated than I expected. Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory introduced me to the subsystems that I interact with dynamically and the self produced within different contexts. The PPCT Model was also able to summarize the model; it’s meaning being Process-Person-Context-Time. 

I was able to apply the proximal process of my interactions with others to the identification of myself. Take for example my High School friends who I’ve interacted with regularly for an extended period of time; they were able to help shape who I am today. I was also able to see how others may perceive me and my personality because of the Demand, Resource, and Force characteristics I have. My most prominent demand characteristic would probably be that I am a Filipina. I could place myself in different contexts now as well and see that there is a bigger picture as to the behavior of the people around me and its effects on me, like in the exosystem and macrosystem. The culture I was bred in resulted in me using slang such as ‘deins’ and ‘pare’, and it was interesting to know that some of the things my close loved ones experience may also affect me. Time, though, was very easy to understand knowing time really is an important aspect in the growth of a person.

The Self in the Globalizing World

The Hybrid Identities activity helped me understand myself with regards to this topic. I was able to visualize and differentiate the different global and local characteristics that make up Sophie Policarpio. Though she is a pure Filipino, she is highly influenced by external entities. It really is hard to pinpoint one exact identity, and I was also flustered to see that who I thought I was was actually a hybrid of many, but in the end I accepted that it is a product of my development and the conditions I was raised in. The fact that I am writing this essay in English already gives me a hybrid identity.

MODULE 1

The Thinking Self

The existence of a System 1 and System 2 working in my brain during my thought process was a new concept to me. Their dynamic of how one works faster than the other is fascinating and I guess one is more important than the other depending on the context. One is fast and automatic while one is slow and deliberate. Meanwhile, the cognitive biases are the ones I find very accurate. Now that I think about it, I am actually more victim to the Anchoring and Adjusting one. For example, I am thinking about eating this last bag of chips that was reserved for my sister, but then I get a reference point and say, "Oh it's okay, minsan lang naman eh," when in fact the actual deed is not right at all and I only tried to justify it.

The Feeling Self

I was so glad to know that what I learned in the children's movie Inside Out would actually be helpful in class. The discussion of basic emotions was easy because of this. My biggest takeaway from this, though, would have to be that your emotional condition does not only affect your head, but the entire body as well. This is why I feel too incompetent and too indulgent at times, because I tend to accommodate my lazy and greedy needs as a result of the hormones that are released depending on my mood. Another takeaway would be discovering how we react to a stimulus and identifying what to feel because of it. The emotional experience was presented as a process to understand this with having an ABC acronym: A for activating event which is the stimuli, B for beliefs which is what affects our assessments, and C for consequence of an emotion felt as a result of the evaluation.

MODULE 2

Psychodynamic Theory

Freud’s Psychosexual Theory of Development was the hardest for me to take in, since I personally am disturbed by the fact that this is a theory we are required to study. It does not apply to me at all, especially the oedipus complex and things like electra complex. I am sure about not being attracted to my parents at all, and I have never felt inferior to the male genitalia. I still am not sure as to why and how Freud has come up with this concept, but what I do understand is presence of the Id, Ego, and Superego. I do have internal conflicts and discussions in my head, and I know that this happens when these components are conflicting in my head whenever I try to make decisions. I also find myself relating to the fixations and defense mechanisms as mentioned in this theory. I smoke now and stress eat as well, which is a fixation that may have been fostered ever since the very early oral stage. As for my defense mechanisms, I relate most to sublimation in the form of music and compensation to try and distract myself from my problems. I rely on music and start writing songs to express myself and I always try to look for things to do or keep myself busy so I can avoid my problems.

Psychosocial Theory

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory, on the other hand, is what I feel is the most realistic. Furthermore, this covers all the stages in life until old age. I was really able to analyze my past and present experiences to each stage that I have already gone through. To cite an example, I consider myself very ambitious so I was able to relate to the Industry vs Inferiority Stage and looking for a sense of accomplishment under the pressures of the industry. I believe my being ambitious has helped me grow into the abilities and hobbies I hone now. I believe, too, that as I grow up, I will be able to look back on these stages and apply them to myself in the future.

MODULE 3

Family

I’ve always had issues with my parents that until today have never been resolved. This is why I relate so much to the Individuation aspect of this topic, specifically the separation and self-assertion components. I do try the mutuality and permeability components and try to understand them but the issue is that they don’t try to understand my side. They always force their ideals on me, then I saw that this behavior falls under psychological control and I never felt so validated. I have always been invalidated for going against my parents but it turns out I was just fighting against their psychological control. I understand that they are the ones who raised me and they have put me where I am today and I am so privileged, but this aspect discussed in class has really given attention to my repressed feelings about them.

Peers

Now that I am in college, I noticed that I tend to spend more time with friends and I find myself trying to create a bigger network of friends; I have met my boyfriend through this as well. I believe that since I spend so much more time with my friends I tend to adapt their mannerisms and this becomes a part of my identity. This is when I am able to apply the crowds as caricature, channel, context. I am now able to identify with others crowds, and one of them would be the musicians. I am always around the AMP Bench with my orgmates, and I am more than happy to be called a musician like them. Although being around crowds also implies not only good influences, but bad ones as well. I turn to vices now at times because of their influence. My Twitter biography says conformity is losing but I guess I lost since I conformed to what was “cool”. 

Sex and Gender

I currently have a transgender (female-to-male) boyfriend, and my relationship with him has helped me understand more about the SOGIE community. Being his girlfriend, I would have to be the one to study about the community to understand him more and so I would know how to treat him with respect, so this topic was nothing new to me; even sparked up a debate with Sir Galvez about transgenders being straight or gay… I eventually understood his point though. I, myself, am a pansexual cisgendered woman, and my sexuality is often accused of regarding the transgenders as a third gender, thus the need to differentiate pansexuals from bisexuals. To rebut this misconception, we do consider transgenders as part of the binary; transmen are men and transwomen are women. The need to call ourselves pansexual as differentiated from bisexual is because we are also attracted to the genderfluid and nonbinary people, who do not consider themselves part of the binary: male or female.

It was fun to discuss this topic in class because I did not expect for Ateneo to be "woke" enough to consider actually including this in the lesson plans in a required course. This topic hits close to home and I felt as if I was in a safe space because I knew we wouldn't be oppressed in this type of environment. The discussion of this topic, if it hasn’t already, will eventually open up discussions between those who are LGBT and those who are not. 

MODULE 4

Habitus

Since habitus is inculcated, structured, durable, and generative and transposable, then my habitus must be something I acquired in childhood that reflects the society I acquired it from, and I must have accumulated a number of practices that have stayed with me until now. To name a few, my habitus would probably be how I pray before eating, how I turn on the aircon every night before I sleep, how I always have a water jug or bottle around me, etc. 

Discovering my habitus by way of identifying my capital and field, has enabled me to place my self in the structures of society as well. I know that how I turn on my aircon every night is something not everyone can do. This is because I have the capital of money that can buy me an aircon and afford to pay for it being turned on every night. This is done inside my house, the field wherein my father is at the top of the hierarchy as he is the one who provides the capital as well. This leads me to recognize my privilege, and connect this topic to the next one—inequality.

Inequality

In this world of injustice, the Five Tenets of Social Inequality is very much prevalent in our governments and work places. This makes the upper class so exclusive and so privileged and if these tenets exists, the richer will only get richer, and the poorer would be even poorer. The oppressed will only remain oppressed because these tenets promote these bad mentalities as something necessary and normal, when in fact humans are capable of understanding and humans can choose not to go down that path of inequality. To attain true social justice, we all must be equally participating as a citizen of society.

Intersectionality

Intersectionalities exist as a product of being a part of multiple social groups. I would be part of the Asian race who are women, both of which being a minority group. I am also a part of the middle working class which is at the border of the matrix of oppression. This helps me understand myself within the context of societal structures. Though these characteristics do not define me, I am still enlightened by knowing my place in society because the way others treat me may depend on this intersectionality that I have.

All in all I know that each and every topic has impacted my way of thinking, and I am now at a much better place in my journey to finding myself. I can now paint a bigger picture of my place in society and I can see how my place in society affects not only myself but others as well. The multiple influences that shape who I am today are easily pinpointed now, too. There are so many things to consider before I can actually identify myself, but I can tell that this course has helped me grow as an individual because of how the topics were actually applicable in everyday life. I am thankful to see how comfortable I am now knowing about myself. The journey is far from done, but I can confidently say that I have moved forward, and these topics, I know, I can and will use for further improvement of myself.

#byesocsci11 #thankyousirgalvez #culminatingpaper

[spiderjars]

ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OKAY HERE WE GO!

1. describe your idea of a perfect date

Tbh, I’ve been too scared to date but I’d love to and I think my personal ideal date would be going out for pizza with someone, specifically in a restaurant that’s on the side of the moat in Utrecht. If it’s with a person that doesn’t mind I find it hard to make conversation that would be (lmao I’m boring sorry XD)

2. whats your “type”

Tbh I can’t say I have a particular type when it comes to personality beyond “please just treat me nicely, please don’t yell at me, and respect my boundaries”, I know that’s basically just asking for regular human decency but it’s rare here. As for physical traits I really like bigger men with full beards tbqh, girls and other nb people are all just so beautiful ;v;

3. do you want kids?

I don’t think I’d be a responsible parent, and I don’t like being around kids so no.

4. if you do, will you adopt or use some other form of child birth?

If I change my mind sometime, probably adoption because nothing beyond romantic stuff is happening with me.

5. describe the cutest date you’ve ever been on

I’m sorry, I don’t have any cute dates I can think back on without feeling really bad because that gut turned out to be an asshole in the end ^^’

6. describe your experience having sex for the first time (were you nervous? or was it easy peasy?)

Hmmmmm, I’m not going into this, bad memory. (I guess it did help me figure out I was ace so that helps)

7. are you a morning time gay or night time gay?

Night time because I’m a nightmare in the morning.

8. opinion on nap dates?

YES!!! GIMME A NAP DATE KNOCK ME TF OUT, but yeah, I think that would be really cute c:

9. opinion on brown eyes?

I actually prefer dark eyes and brown eyes are so stunningly beautiful.

10. dog gay or cat gay?

I like both equally but I’m gonna go with dog because I gotta root for my dog ;v;

11. would you ever date someone who owned rodents or reptiles?

As long as they take proper care of them it’s no problem at all.

12. whats a turn off you look for before you start officially dating someone

Bad vibes tbh and if they’re like, nice to me but nasty to other people, there’s also a few interests I have bad associations with which make me less likely to want to date someone.

13. what is a misconception you had about lgb people before you realized you were one?

Tbh I thought you had to be either be a boy or a girl and that if you were trans you could only be the “opposite” gender and then I found out that’s not true at all, and that the label agender fit me way better, everything used to be super on a binary.

14. what is a piece of advice you would give to your younger self

“Don’t date that gangly boy in homework help class, he ruined you, also honey you look great with short hair and I promise you everything will be fine.”

15. (if attracted to more than one gender) do you have different “types” for different genders?

Girls are perfect in whatever shape or size as long as they’re kind to others, which is generally my rule of thumb. With guys it’s bigger softer boys that give great hugs and for nonbinary people, they’re all perfect to me too.

16. who is an ex you regret?

Well, my last ex, but tbh I’m still kind of afraid to speak his name to this day so yeah, he fucked me up quite disastrously

17. night club gay or cafe gay?

Cafes and especially those cute small ones.

18. who is one person you would “go straight” for

Lmao, I’m panromantic and agender so it’s gonna be gay either way. Fall in love with me? Congratulations you’re gay friend now let’s hang out.

19. video game gay, book gay, or movie gay?

Movie!

20. favourite gay ship (canon or not)

Tbh I am not prone to shipping for shows but I think the first thing I shipped was Lelouch/Suzaku and I’m still fond of it, my personal favorite to be a little vain, is anyone + Aren (it fuels my love starved heart)

21. favourite gay youtuber

I don’t know any gay youtubers tbh ^^’

22. have you ever unknowingly asked out a straight person?

Yeaaah

23. have you ever been in love?

That too but anything after that was just infatuation, I’d love to be in love again.

24. have you ever been heartbroken?

YEP

25. how do you determine if you want to be them or be with someone

Lately I mostly determine by thinking about what I like about said person and usually if it’s a physical trait I want to be them.

26. favourite lgb musician/band

Hmm, I’m not certain either who I listen to who’s gay :o

27. what is a piece of advice you have for young / baby gays

Self preservation isn’t shameful and being in the closet doesn’t change who you are, things will be better, and hold on.

28. are you out? if so how did you come out

I’m technically out to my parents but it wasn’t super bombastic, more that I just said “yeah, I’m pan, deal with it”, and they just had to accept that. I only tell people outside my family that I’m pan when the subject comes up and my classmates are generally chill so far. Otherwise, it’s more a whole with a foot out of the closet deal and I try to be as proud of myself as I can be in online spaces.

29. what is the most uncomfortable / strange coming out experience you have

Anything personal I have to tell my parents is uncomfortable

30. what is a piece of advice for people who may not be in a safe place to express their sexuality

Again, it’s okay if you want to put your safety first but just hold out because there will be people who are like you that you can trust with such an integral part of yourself, it sounds cheesy but it will happen.

#ask meme #asks #stareyedraccoon #thank you darling Tori <3 #these were fun to answer! #I'll put it under a readmore later #am on phone #long post