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fandomsandfeminism · 2 years

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So, this is going to be a little meandering and all over the place. But I'm trying to express this...web of thoughts I've been having lately around this issue of queer, and labels, and the way we talk about our history and the way the community conceptualized itself in this very digital age. And it's still kind of half formed, so...let's see.

So. OK.

One thing I see a lot online, especially with people who are just now coming out, is a sort of...overfixation on increasingly niche labels. Im not saying that having a very specific or newer label is bad, to be clear. Labels are rhetorical tools, use what is useful. They help with visibility and discussing specific issues. No issues there.

But watching people quibble over bi vs pan vs omni vs abro or non-binary vs genderqueer vs demigender vs genderfluid vs agender vs xenogender vs bigender vs gnc. Asexual or gray ace or demisexual or queerplatonic. And whether they are a biromantic lesbian demigirl or bisexual greyaromantic genderuid. And it's always just a little exhausting, ya know? Again, if those labels are meaningful and useful, that's great, but I see people *agonizing* over which they "really" are. Like if they pick the wrong word to describe themselves, they are coming out the wrong way, like they are wrong about themselves if they can't find the exact correct word on an FAQ list of lgbt vocabulary.

And how I think that relates to the way people talk about our CURRENT labels as though these labels have always been there and like the people described by these labels now have no common experiences with other labels. Like lesbians and bisexual women have absolutely nothing in common. Like butches and trans men have no shared history. As though trans women and drag queens have always been completely separate and unconnected groups. As though ace folks and nonbinary folks are somehow new to the scene, and not community members who were always here and just didn't have a separate label until more recently.

I *remember* watching the community make the switch from transvestite and transsexual, to differentiating between transsexuals and transgender, to basically just using transgender/trans. Those labels are not stagnant. None of our labels are some ingrained biological unchanging objective truth. Labels are rhetorical shortcuts to summarize this facet of our identity and lives and experiences- but they are just words.

And maybe this connects to the way people get really...weird about historical figures too. Like whether Sappho was a lesbian or bisexual, as though either of those words would have had any meaning to her. About whether Shakespeare was gay or bi, like he would have conceptualized his own identity that way. About what modern label Dr. James Barry would have used for himself if anyone could travel back in time and ask him.

And then I think about why queer feels so much more affirming, so much more a place of strength, than LGBT+. Not that LGBT as a label is bad, and I honestly probably prefer it for allies and outsiders to use. But as a community label- Queer, to me, says that all our experiences are queer experiences. Queer can be many things, but they are all queer. Regardless of how many genders or which specific genders you like, whether you have a romantic and or sexual attraction to whatever collection of genders, whatever thing your gender is doing today- all of it, ALL of it, once you step outside that cis, straight mainstream sexuality and gender norm- is queer. Equally queer.

Lgbt+ feels like we are still keeping all those labels separate, little boxes all lined up next to each other- different but a coalition. And while that isn't bad, I also think it isn't totally true.

[A caveat here, that there are times when more specific labels are very helpful. We don't want any specific kind of queer experience to be overshadowed or erased, and having more specific labels facilitates those discussions. Again, I'm not saying that we should eliminate or erase our more specific labels.]

But I think imagining our community as a collection of wholly separate groups that are just allied together, instead of one group that we are all equally in, can make it far too easy for exclusionists to sneak up and say "well ___ isn't REALLY lgbt. THEY aren't REALLY one of us. ___ dont belong."

If we take all the labels off all the crayons- red and pink and purple and blue and teal and green are not hard and fast divisions. They are artificial distinctions we have made- all of them are light, all of them the rainbow.

Anyway. I just think that, while everyone should use whatever labels bring them joy and are useful for them, we might be better off if more folks were ok with ALSO accepting the vast ambiguity of being queer.

#queer thoughts #queer rambling #maybe Im off here or missing some nuance #but Im bi AND queer #Im bi and genderqueer AND queer #and I think theres strength and beauty in seeing our diverse experience and saying YEAH all of us are in this together

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yourlakebed · 6 months

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ok, I'm back with a fresh episode of "Queerbaiting Continues" (subscribe and follow for more)

so, to clear up that i get it right - what we're getting from Loki2 so far is this: creators are actively setting up Loki and Mobius (while still not confirming them to be canon) and not even trying to actually set up Loki with Sylvie (and not addressing the kiss even once throughout all four episodes).

okay then, I'm having some thoughts.

so i see everyone in the fandom analysing how well Loki understands Mobius' coping mechanisms earlier in the season that he decides to offer him some pie after Mobius had been in lots of stress. and that it's exactly what Mobius wants to do now, before Sylvie guts him and walks away with Loki following her.

but what i don't see enough (maybe it's just me idk) is the analysis of the "pie land" dialogue between Loki and Sylvie in ep.4

so right away Loki starts defending Mobius explaining that just because he's not acting insane like Sylvie does (like Loki did in the past) that doesn't mean he doesn't care. and he also points out that Sylvie is here not because she shares Loki's beliefs, but only because her plan failed.

but after that.. this is where the scene goes INSANE in my humble opinion: Loki turns the moral of the whole first "Thor" movie and "the main hero's journey to become the best versoin of himself" into huge metaphor of his own growth. growth that he achieved through the first season and continues on going that path. so what was that then, the thing that helped Thor to change so much? the thing that turned him from insufferable, angry, revengeful, arrogant child whose first impulse is to destroy anything that causes some kind of inconvenience?

love.

it was falling in love with Jane that made Thor revalue his morals and his behavior. and now Loki is standing before Sylvie telling her that not long time ago he mocked his brother for his "softness" thinking it to be a weakness. but now Loki understands Thor. so what is he saying with this? who was this person for Loki, that made him change and understand his brother? understand that the lack of desire to destroy is actually not a weakness. who was that?

Mobius.

it was Mobius that made him better as a person.

so, at this point, friends, i actually don't know what to think. because it's not even a classic example of queerbaiting anymore. that one was hidden very deeply under the surface and was caused by the state of the industry, which simply did not have the niche for the queer media and was profoundly scared to lose it's homophobic audience because they thought that it was practically not possible to make money on queer audience. this is not the case now. it looks a lot like creators do know what they're doing writing scenes like this one, which honestly makes it even worse than if they were simply oblivious.

#am i actually being queerbaited in the year 2023???#queerbaiting continues #loki #lokius #mobius #loki 2

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celestemagnoliathewriter · 2 months

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Ok ok ok so this is something I have pondered for a bit now that I have re-entered the Remadora fandom again for the first time for probably almost 15 years. As you seem to be the de facto keeper of some of the deepest headcanons of this niche topic, I am curious what your take is.

Question: How many people do you think know, at least initially/when it happened, knew Remus left?

Hear me out here. Ok so the book isn’t remotely clear how long he was gone because we only get an update in like Feb/March when Ron returns but the Pottermore bio that he was actually gone for like 3 days, which is still absolutely a dick move, but significantly different than being gone for *months.*

Now, most fics I’ve read at any point have included him *saying* in some form that he’s leaving, either in the form of a letter of sorts, or I do really like TauraNorma’s whole scene in Flying Colours in which it’s an in-person conversation, but beyond dissociated from reality on his part.

But, if I were in her position, I don’t know how much I’d divulge to others? It would certainly be a difficult position. If she did stay with her parents for that period, or after, (I do love Remus saying she’d safe at her parents’ house as if they didn’t literally just get tortured. Bro. Really?) she *does* have some plausible deniability of “he had to go to some Order business” to them to have some shield for her own embarrassment.

Maybe to Molly and Arthur as a “hey if my husband lands at your house or something, wanna shoot me a message?” but past that I’m not 100% sure how I land with others knowing. It seems very possible to me that when Ron is with Billy and Fleur, Ron, while listening to Potterwatch or something, offhandedly asks them if he ever went back to Tonks and them being like sorry wat. And Ron having the unfortunate task of regaling what happened at Grimmauld Place in August. I could definitely see it spreading from there and more of their acquaintances finding out from that discussion but obviously Tonks is like 8 months pregnant and they’ve been living together seemingly the entire time.

Ok I’m sorry this ended up shockingly long. I may not have been entirely sober when furiously typing it out the first time.

Ahhhh what a compelling ask, @millennihilism!

I'm honored you consider me the de facto keeper of the HCs on this, but I'll also be the first to say that there are a LOT of differing opinions on this one because of the lack of canon data.

You're correct that Pottermore says that Remus was only gone about 3 days. We have no idea what circumstances he left Tonks in. Letter? In person? Dashing away in the night without a word? Who knows.

From a close reading of DH, there's no indication of how long Remus was gone. You could say 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, 8 months ... technically all canon compliant if you're not using Pottermore as a source.

That being said, my personal HC is no more than a week, and again, I know that many people would disagree with this assessment of Remus's absence, but I believe it's a shorter absence for many reasons, including an answer to your question of how many people knew that he left her.

Remus is a dick, but he's not *THAT* much of a dick. He's a coward, but he's not *THAT* much of a coward. Remus does have a good bit of kindness in him, and he's brave enough to do the right thing when push comes to shove. Harry literally shoved him. I think that put Remus squarely in his place and shamed him enough to return to Tonks.

Remus's support system is down to almost nothing. He presumably has the following people outside of Tonks: Molly and Arthur, Bill and Fleur. That's it. He thought he had the trio, but that wasn't true, given Harry rebuking him.

We know from Remus that he's been tailed by a Death Eater for three days before he came to Grimmauld Place. If he's been tailed by a Death Eater, where could he have been? Certainly not the Burrow, where they'd find him. Certainly not Shell Cottage, as it's under the Fidelius Charm, presumably. So that gives us an idea that if he was tailed by a Death Eater for three days (curiously, the amount of time Pottermore tells us he was gone for), and just now got to GP to talk to the trio, he's been on the go for three days by the time he gets to the trio.

Because there is nowhere to go for Remus, that puts him in an awkward position. I don't think that anyone outside the Tonkses knew he left her. I think that Remus left, and Tonks vacillated between being sure he was coming back and being really terrified and scared that something would happen to him. Oh, and anger. Lots of righteous anger. I can imagine she told her parents by way of explaining that she was living with them now. It's possible she told him he was on a mission, but they didn't believe her.

Because of the 3 day ordeal of being tailed by a Death Eater, this is why I do NOT think that Remus went to the Burrow or Shell Cottage before he came to GP, or after, for that matter. While we know that Remus knows about Shell Cottage - when he announces Teddy's birth in the spring - we don't know when that information was given to him. I don't think Lupin could've been gone for months and months because we do know that Ron was at Shell Cottage, and he didn't mention Lupin being there. It's possible Lupin went to Shell Cottage for a few weeks, but I'm also not buying that for other reasons.

Bill is the most lenient and understanding of the brothers, but there's a huge difference to me between Ron leaving his friends when times got tough and Lupin leaving his pregnant wife in the middle of a war. Plus, think of Fleur. Do you really think Fleur would be okay with Lupin crashing at her house to avoid his responsibilities? She gushes about how brave her husband is in the hospital wing scene. She'd look at Lupin like the tiniest and most miserable snail in the world if he dared use her home as a hiding place from his wife.

I also don't think that Bill and Fleur would be on Remus's side over Tonks. Bill was two years ahead of Tonks in school. Bill might have kinship with Remus after being attacked by Fenrir Greenback, but that kinship, IMO, is not going to be enough to defend Lupin's actions on leaving his wife. I also believe Lupin knew this, which is why I staunchly believe that Lupin NEVER went to Shell Cottage in his time away from Tonks.

So at the end of the day, who knew that Lupin left Tonks? Initially, likely only the trio and the Tonkses. Remus returns fairly quickly. I can imagine Ron sharing Lupin's arrival at GP to Bill and Fleur, who probably had shock and disappointment at Lupin's actions. But by then Lupin's back home so it's in the past. I assume Molly and Arthur would've been told through the grapevine, possibly Kingsley too, and everyone just keeps it under wraps because it's Remus having a moment of panic.

And for how long was Remus gone? I take the 3 day to a week position because Lupin had no viable places to stay without endangering other people, which seems to be his number one fear. I also take that timeline because he's being tailed and he knows it. He returns to the safest place, his home with Tonks and her parents, where they can be in hiding (forever furious Ted couldn't have stayed with them?? why did he die??? it makes no earthly sense except to give Teddy Lupin his name and have another orphan raised by his grandmother??)

At the end of the day, I will never ever ever ever buy the idea that Remus was gone for a long time. He does the right thing when push comes to shove, and he was shoved by Harry. He is a coward, but when the time is right, he does the brave thing. He also loves Tonks, and Tonks is forgiving and kind. That's why they work.

I hope this answers your questions!!

#remadora #remus lupin #nymphadora tonks #asks #remus x tonks #send asks #tonks x lupin #remus x nymphadora #lupin x tonks #tonks

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chaifootsteps · 3 months

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feels like in a lot of Viv's responses that she's treating people criticizing the portrayal of SA in Hazbin = people criticizing Raph for the art made on a personal acc.

but it's not the same thing. some will take issue with Raph's art, sure, (and so what if they do?) but ultimately the bigger problem is how it is portrayed in the show. calling it a 'preference' or 'not illegal' or 'none of anyone's business' or w/e is not the point - the point is, did Viv approve a sequence that blatantly objectifies Angel Dust when he's being assaulted?

it's so odd to see people defend this like they would fanfiction - 'it's OK to explore dark themes!', 'don't censor art!' etc. Fanfiction is made for a niche audience and sometimes as an expression of the creator working through a thing. Creators obviously should still have the ability to express themselves through art -sometimes the best art is partly autobiographical - but at the mainstream level you have to take more care with what you're doing because more people will see it! There's a world of difference between someone's clumsily written fic on A03 working through their trauma with a couple hundred kudos and a show on Amazon's streaming platform. not to mention there is a tagging system on a03 so the buyer can beware - if there's truly no CW on Hazbin then it means they're taking less care with triggering material than a literal not for profit fanfiction website

It's not like mainstream media that had indie roots should be exempt from this - all kinds of media are subject to thinkpieces about how they portray SA and survivors of SA, because how you represent it matters. there are so many pernicious myths around SA and survivors, creators who have the power of a platform also have the responsibility to think about what they're doing (same with any sufficiently big indie project, tbh, look at the sheer number of bad takes surrounding why Blitzo and not Stolas is totally in the wrong in the whole Stol/tz mess HB has become)

and at the very least, showrunners need the ability to understand criticism will come if people feel like they fumbled it. anyone should understand there will be a diversity of opinions on this; if a showrunner's only objective is 'be praised at all times' or 'never be criticized' then they should probably stay away from contentious topics all together?

the only fair thing I think Viv has said here is that the whole scene hasn't come out yet and to reserve judgement for then - but I think it's totally understandable why people think early indications are Not Good. the second thing is I think she mentioned no one should have to disclose whether they've been SA'd or not before working on a scene like Poision. Which is fair - but Raph did disclose that info, and voluntarily (and instead of saying it was no one's business, Viv either lied on their behalf or outed them to score a point. Is it bad to force people to disclose whether they've been SA'd or not, Viv, given you're apparently OK doing it to your staff?).

idk, I just think there should maybe be some oversight through due diligence on a sensitive subject, even for survivors of SA when working on scenes like this? or at least there should be if you're going to claim you care about the topic and are trying to push boundaries with your art. if you don't care, say as much.

It wouldn't be much better to see Viv admit she just wanted edgy dark stuff in her show, but man, it would at least be honest

It's all a mess, on Viv's side and the fandom's. Viv keeps saying that the scene will make everything clear and speak for itself, but if that were true, why couldn't she just let it do that?

The answer, of course, is because she's Viv. The slightest bit of criticism and she loses it.

#Anonymous #viv stuff #actual blog post

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bruggle · 3 months

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Ok so I'm going to go on a rant about a niche megaman character so if you're not here for that, plz skip followers/mutuals :)

Sooooo the general consensus of Omega is that he's a bloodthirsty monster with little to no agency of his own. I don't necessarily disagree with that given... well... as far as character development goes, we have little to none. Like... the most we get is him calling himself a messiah before fighting. But I don't know... feels a little flat to me. So allow me to go on an unhinged analysis that is most likely 90-99% wrong :•D

So we know that Wile created him as a way to control all reploids because he made the argument that people would get complacent, and eventually, the Mother Elf's miracle cure would no longer work. (Not necessarily wrong, very plausible. But unfortunately, you became the very thing you hate Wile) He instilled Omega with a savior complex, most likely as a way to control him from deviating from the path Wile wanted. Wouldn't do to have your world saving solution to the problem you created go awol, now would it? And I fully believe that he has at least a form of the Maverick virus.

Not the same kind we're used to seeing, tho. I'd argue it's within the same kind of Maverick virus we see within Copy X. Rather than a hatred aimed at humanity, it's a hatred aimed at other Reploids. I mean, the Maverick viruses we saw in X 1-8 were fully aimed at hating humanity. All reploid casualties were unintentional for the most part. But... we see a Copy X that is on a witch hunt against a vast majority of reploids just because he wants what he feels is best for humanity in Zero 1. If Wile is the progenitor of a Maverick virus that does something similar to that as a means of controlling his weapon, it'd make sense that something like that is still floating around.

"But he's called the God of Destruction!" I hear you say. "He's the devil reploid!" Ah but dear reader, are these titles Omega claims himself, or are they given to him by others? It wouldn't suprise me if people called him that after the destruction the Elf Wars caused. I mean, what else would you call something that did that much damage? Regardless of whether it was on the orders of someone else or not. Once he was put in the Omega Armor (or whatever that thing is called), he lost any and all agency. He's literally just a tool for Wile at that point. I just... I don't know. I don't think he hates humans as much as most fics portray him as doing so. Wile 100% hates all that is left of humanity because his own sh*tty actions had some sh*tty consequences, but I don't know how much I would put that onto Omega.

I mean, getting sent to space for 100 years probably wasn't fun; but if he had time to process it, would he understand and just view it as children rebelling against what is best for them? He would still view Wile's methods as what is best for humanity because, again, a little bit of brainwashing savior complex is still there, even if he is unaware of Wile's motives doing a complete 180.

Idk, I am unhinged and have too many thoughts. Hopefully I made it clear enough, but if you were interested enough to read and have questions I'll try to elaborate

#be quiet bruggle #unhinged rants about minor characters wheeeeee #mmz omega #omega zero #why do i do this #plz ignore if you have 0 interest #what have i done #i am not the best at putting my brain into words #mmz #megaman zero

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serialkirah · 15 days

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i'd like to tell a story that not a lot of people in my life know about

it's about how the anti-trans movement and a family business ruined my relationship with my grandparents.

so, i'll start at the beginning, and i'll try to make it brief, but it's all kind of important.

my grandfather started a business when i was born, in 1997. it took quite a few years until it took off. it was a lot of hard work. i won't say exactly what it is, because then this post loses it's anonymous touch, but it's a farm that sells something unique (not weed, ok).

when i was growing up, i begged my grandfather to work there. i wanted to make money, and i wanted to spend the summers at my grandparent's house. they finally let me work there when i was 12.

back then, i was a little girl in a workplace dominated by men. there were porn calendars in the lunch room, even. i fell behind a lot, as most of the men working there were tanks, but i liked doing my part as there were really only four of us back then. i worked every summer.

i liked spending time with my grandparents. my grandfather even back when i was a kid always had white hair - the stress of running this farm sucked all the pigment out of his hair. he has a dark skinned tone, a gruff look about him, and he's fairly short (as the rest of his family, myself included). he's the type of guy who loves being outdoors; clearing the land, hunting, fishing, tapping maples, landscaping - that kind of thing.

my grandmother has always had dark brown hair, and even now looks fairly young for a grandmother. she keeps her hair shoulder length, usually tucked into a ponytail, wears the same black tshirt and capri pants or blue jeans almost everyday, and she's always been into interior design, decorating, flower arrangement, crafting and gardening.

i loved doing things together with them. i could be outside all day burning grass with my grandfather, then spend the evening painting furniture with my grandmother.

my manager at the farm was my uncle, my grandparents son. he was my favourite person, and he was such a great boss. he was this tall, big guy who always wore a leather vest, black t-shirt, and ripped cut off blue jeans and these huge black boots. he was a metalhead, so intelligent, and effortlessly funny and charming. i grew up without my dad in my life, and at some points during my childhood, my mom and him lived in the same building and shared a car, so he's always been someone i was close to. in 2007, he had a baby, and at some point, since my baby cousin and i were always together, i had begun calling him "dad" - i even called my own mom "auntie" a lot! not all the time, just when i talked to my cousin. he's sort of a sibling, more than a cousin.

as the years went by, my uncle relied on me even more. i became his assistant and began helping him with the business side of the farm. my grandfather sat me down when i was about 16 and asked if i'd like to take over the farm. his son didn't want to take it over, and i seemed competent and interested. i decided to go to college for this very niche industry, and to do that i had to go away to the only college in my country which had a program dedicated to it.

the year i left for college, my uncle died from a heart attack. my whole family was devastated, my cousin was left without a father, and my grandparents never really got over it. he was their golden boy, the guy they relied on to run the complicated side of their business, and it took a toll on their personal lives as well as their business. my grandparents took custody of my cousin.

it was difficult to overcome the deep depression i experienced after his death, and i even neglected my studies that year. it was like losing a parent to me. if it wasn't for the friends i made in college, i probably would have had a much harder time. but i obtained a graduate certificate in 2019, in the end.

around this time, i also came out to my grandparents as transgender. i was starting my transition from female to male, and i wanted them to be aware it was happening. i've been out to them since 2017, and to my other friends and immediate family i've been out since 2014. they took it like the average grandparent would, confused and uneducated, but they managed to swallow their opinions and accepted that it was going to happen. it did involve me striking for a few months, but they eventually needed my help when the pandemic started, and they asked me to come back to the farm. i assumed the position of manager. i moved into company housing, just down the road from work, and began working full time.

it was a difficult adjustment to become assistant manager to a manager that had passed away and didn't leave instructions. even though i had gone to school for this specific industry, i hadn't gone to school for business administration, so i was essentially taking over business duties with no training. i had to teach myself a lot, or learn from other colleagues. my grandfather was a knowledgeable man in business and farming practices, for sure, but when it came to technology, accounting, traceability, compliance, human resources, auditing, inventory, resource management; he needed help. even though i became his right hand man during this time, running the business alone for a few years took a severe toll on his health and in the beginning of 2020, he was diagnosed with cancer.

he had to take an extended break while he was receiving treatment. and i was there to take over his duties. even before he took a break, i was doing everything from audit prep to inventory tracking, environmental data collection to representing the company at conferences, media appearances to health and safety training, guided tours to project management. now, i was also in charge of all daily operations, scheduling, communication, and a team of eleven people. on top of that, i joined a board of directors for an association related to my farm. the very business that turned my grandfather's hair white in just a few short years was now turning my own hair white at 23.

that's all to say - i think i was doing very well. my coworkers and i got along very well, and everything always moved smoothly. but enough was never enough for my grandparents, and i was constantly berated for everything i did.

i think the stress of losing their son with the addition of the cancer diagnosis caused a negative change in my grandparents. over the course of three years, the same people who i loved spending every summer with became aggressive, argumentative, sarcastic, mean-spirited. i started spending more time at my own place rather than eating supper with them almost every night. i skipped afternoon coffee and long talks with my grandmother, because i couldn't stand listening to her increasingly manic religious rants about how nobody has morals these days, they just do whatever they want. i stopped talking about anything other than work with my grandfather, because he started becoming increasingly aggressive and indignant whenever he wasn't caught up on daily activities at the farm, and especially so when i had everything handled correctly. he was able to overcome his cancer, and was declared cancer free. he decided to rebuild his house, so he still took time off, but would still come to the farm to get angry about this or that.

i was becoming so stressed that i would call my mother every other day to seek advice. i started to wonder if my grandfather was ever going to retire and let me run the business without his constant surveillance and micromanaging. i was so stressed that i started psychotherapy to attempt to balance both my emotions and career.

then, i fell in love with the girl that worked at my local coffee shop. i had asked her to hang out as friends at first, but she was the one who kissed me first. we began dating in january of 2023, and she changed everything. she was there to help me understand that getting screamed at everyday for unimportant things wasn't normal. that working 7 days a week for three years with no days off wasn't healthy. that forbidding me to take time off to see my friends, do anything fun, or even spend my free time making art was incredibly fucked up.

finally, in the spring of 2023, my grandfather dropped a bomb on me one day. i had mentioned to him that i was doing really well with the mutual aid program i created for trans youth, and how i'm working with a lgbt youth group in town, and like a man possessed, he began spouting off about transgender people. yeah, i just don't like those transgender people. those men are always cheating by winning women's sports. and they beat women up did you know that? if women don't let them into the bathroom they beat those women up. they go in there and rape women and kids.

i was shell shocked by this outburst. i had never heard this opinion from him, and it was as if he had this whole rant locked and loaded, ready to spring up when given the opportunity. where did this come from? i asked. it's all over the news, i've seen videos on youtube, it's all true. there was no convincing him. even when i tried to appeal to common sense, or share an empathetic viewpoint. but you know, i'm transgender. obviously, not all trans people are the same. i don't do any of those things, and of all the trans people i know, none of them do that either. i think what you're watching is propaganda. but he insisted that this was real life, and ended up walking away grumbling about it.

i cried to my girlfriend that night. i was reaching a limit that i couldn't exceed. she held me and suggested that maybe i should walk away. i should save up my money, and i could go back to school, and i could do something i enjoyed. i was comforted, i agreed, and i began to plan my escape.

not even two weeks later, my grandfather burst into my office again, and asked, what's all this he/they shit? at first, i was a bit confused about what he meant, but then i realized, ah, you mean my personal pronouns that i use?

he looked so angry, and he had this crazed, unrecognizable look in his eyes - the type of look he would give to people who hurt his family. it terrified me. yeah, whatever, it's in your emails, take that shit off of there, it doesn't belong in business emails. i could feel my anger rising, and my throat felt tight, but i still managed to say it's my email signature, so that when people call me or address me, it's the way i want them to, just like my first name. it's not a big deal, everyone does it. you don't have to have one with your email signature, but i include mine because it's important for communication.

i don't give a shit. you're a she, your name is -----, you do that on your own time, but you need to be professional. take it off your emails. i stared back, shocked and honestly frightened. i could say yes, i'll take my pronouns off my emails, then i could apologize and continue working there. but something in myself would die.

no, i said.

no? he repeated.

no, and this conversation is over. i closed my laptop and brushed past him. he sputtered and screamed at me to take it off my emails, but i ignored him and went home.

i discussed it with my therapist, my girlfriend, my mother, and my sister. i decided to suggest therapy to them. three days later, i sat both my grandparents and my mother down. we were outside, sitting on a patio set facing each other.

i tried to talk about what happened, and after hearing the way they ranted about transgender people, how they were bad people, how they were sinning, how they didn't want pronouns in their business, how i was ruining their business by doing so, how i was using them in order to gain more support for my mutual aid that helps trans youth, and how i'm not respecting them, i suggested family therapy. they rejected the idea, and became even more indignant.

i stressed that forbidding me to use my proper pronouns and my correct name (which was a legal name), was against the law, and they said they didn't give a shit about the law. what are you going to do, sue your own grandparents? my grandmother scoffed at me. no, but if i was anybody else that you were doing this to, they could sue you, and they would win. at this, she got up from her seat and began ranting about how disrespectful i was being to my grandparents. she grabbed my wrist and yanked me around while she yelled, and raised her hand to smack me.

now, i want to pause here and explain something. obviously, this is an extreme reaction. it's also a common reaction from my grandparents during arguments. i know some may baulk at the idea of your grandparents or parents using corporal punishment, but it was a common thing, and sadly, it is part of a larger issue - intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools. i don't think i've mentioned it yet, but my family and i are native.

much of my family grew up in the residential school system, a schooling system ran by the catholic church and the canadian government for indigenous children. this system was mandatory, and parents who tried to hide their children were punished by the law. it's main purpose was cultural genocide, and the nuns and priests that ran the school physically, sexually and emotionally abused native children. many kids died from experimentation, neglect, malnutrition, unsuitable living spaces and were also murdered. the rate of death at these schools were so high that they had cemeteries on site, and many children were buried in unmarked graves. in that environment, my great grandparents survived those schools with many wounds, and had their own children sent to these schools. this is also where my grandparents went to school. they didn't need to send their own children there as they moved away to the city in the late 70s. but even some of my mother's friends had gone to residential school. in that regard, my grandparents have been deeply damaged by the system and by their upbringing. they're emotionally stunted, they resort to screaming instead of communicating, and their last resort is to lash out, sometimes physically. it's not right, by any means, but i just want you to understand that there is more under the surface.

back to my grandmother. she's ready to strike me, she's got my wrist, and i've just had enough of this. the way they've responded so far is beyond unreasonable, and any call to common sense is lost on them.

i slowly slackened my arm away from her personal space and into mine, opened my palms in a relaxed way, and pulled them behind my head softly until she let go, then put my hands in my lap and softened my face, and said, hey, let's stay in our seats. she knew that i was attempting to de-escalate the situation, felt insulted, and lashed out verbally instead. she jabbed a finger in my direction and spat, you trans people are all the same.

with that last sentence in mind, i turned to my mother, who had sat silently in tears the entire time. i don't think this is going to work, i said to her.

then why don't you quit! my grandmother yelled from her seat.

my grandfather said, fine, _____ either you do what i told you to do or quit.

i turned to my grandfather. so as your manager, if i don't let you break the law and violate the conditions of your 3rd party certification, i have to quit?

my grandmother's voice was hoarse, and she was repeatedly screaming in the background, so they don't you quit! why don't you quit! quit then! we don't need you!

i maintained eye contact with my grandfather. are those your feelings as well? not just her feelings?

he was struggling to look at me. that's the way i feel, too.

i stared at him for a few seconds while my grandmother continued to scream and rant. finally, i said, okay. this is my two week notice. but you only have two weeks to change your mind - after that, i'm gone.

i wish i could say that he thought long and hard over the next two weeks, and decided that he had been too much. i wish they decided to reel in their opinions for the greater good of their relationship with their family. but their business (and their religious views i suppose) was ultimately more important to them. in two weeks, i set up another manager with all my tasks - properly, the way i should have been - and left.

my grandfather urged me to move out of the company housing within those two weeks in not so many words. my grandmother suggested i move far away, and told me not to tell anyone what happened. it was seconded by my mother, who believed telling everyone would be unprofessional. i was scared and uncertain, i decided to lie to everyone and tell them i quit because i wanted to go back to school, or to change my career. i had to move in with my mother, two hours away from my girlfriend, and i had to sell my truck to afford my car payments. it was very difficult to overcome the rift in confidence the whole thing caused me, but eventually with the help of therapy, my girlfriend and my family, i slowly gained that confidence back.

now, i'm slowly opening up to more people about what happened. eventually, i will tell everyone, but not as a way to bring my grandparents down. i don't want to be like them in that way. i want to tell people when i feel okay again, when i feel confident, and when i have more stability in my life again.

i've been able to move into a house that i rent with my girlfriend, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend. we're creating a fun and colourful space to live in, a place where we feel good. my sister is going back to school and my girlfriend and i are looking into it too. after a long break, i'm also resuming activities with my mutual aid program. i've also joined the board of directors at my city's pride activity planning non-profit organization. lots of exciting stuff.

i'm going to be 27 in about a month. i spent 14 years working for my grandfather, and although somedays it feels like a huge waste of time, i still have a bunch of skills that i otherwise wouldn't have ever learned. i only wish it translated to a better paying job in the city, haha.

when i think about what my grandmother said, you trans people are all the same, it doesn't fill me with as much hurt as it did that day. cuz now i think about all the wonderful trans people i've met in my life and i think to myself - yeah, that's okay. if trans people are all the same, let me have the same kindness, the same humility, the same bravery, and the same forgiveness. because at the end of the day, i value those things far more than i would ever value money or ego.

i hope this story wasn't too boring. i know i'm just one of thousands, maybe millions of trans people that go through the same stuff everyday. but i appreciate being listened to, so thank you. if you want to be friends, follow me! i'm trying to use tumblr more often.

see ya! :]

#transgender #trans joy #trans #lgbt #2slgbtqia+

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turbobyakuren · 1 month

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@cerastes oh no worries!! i'm actually OK to answer this because maybe the key is that i'm doing something wrong and knowing how to fix it might make it enjoyable for me again.

More of a "circumstances" cause than what i was expressing in the post, but right now is more a problem of space and time. I live with my parents and I have a problem with the volume of my voice and since i tend to prefer streaming late at night i find it impossible to be comfortable unless i'm guaranteed to be home alone. I could have streamed more when I was in my apartment in Paris, but it is what it is. So, if i ever change my mind, it would be after i solve this problem!

Maintaining a schedule is a difficult, especially since i tend to be more of a "fuck around and decide what to do on instant T". I could be more of a "guerilla streamer" where I don't stick to a schedule (like i did in the past) and stream whatever i want, whenever i want.

I don't really know if I can bring a community and it impacts my self esteem to not really know how to draw people in because (continued in next point)

Overall, I do not consider myself to be an interesting person to watch. I have a bit of an "identity crisis" where I try to perform but also want to be myself and I overall feel very uncomfortable. I know my bit is my Antagonizing Relationship With Chat (which i do love and appreciate because, despite having a bit of paradoxical issues with "joke trashtalking", i am conscious that this is The Bit like pro wrestling. i actually love it haha), but I also feel there's eyes watching my every action and that if i don't do something Funny, people will lose interest. And the paradox is that this fear just manifests in me... not speaking, being confused, having trouble finding my words and thinking "god, i'm making a fool out of myself" and just thinking of excuses i can make to end the stream to stop embarrassing myself. My last streaming experiences last year was just that all the time. I really wish I could fix this.

Maybe the problem is that I haven't found my niche as a streamer, since it takes time and effort + trial and error, and that i need to actually find out what i like.

And there's also the fact that, in the end, video games are a hobby for me and streaming them brings a totally different experience. There's good and bad aspects of this. The Super Castlevania IV streams were my ultimate favourite experience because everyone made it so fun, whereas i ended up disliking streaming a certain game i used to like a lot because i kept getting backseated. I don't know how to express it, maybe "i don't like the pressure of monetizing my hobby" (without the monetizing aspect and more of the "dedicate to the bit" aspect of it). But that's a non-problem in the end because the pros outweighs the cons, so Perish the Thought.

Writing all that down was actually a good idea, because i externalized the struggle i felt about streaming (whenever i feel like i want to stream something i always kill the thought thinking "you're not interesting. don't do that. remember your last streams?"). I actually wrote this vent post after someone asked me enthusiastically if i'd be streaming the new Pizza Tower update, which made me kind of bummed because i would love to do it if there wasn't all this struggle i just listed (+ the time constraint because "you have to stream the hot new game NOW" although i have made it clear in the past that i do not vibe with that school of thought), and in that i feel like i've let down the few people who do appreciate me streaming...

So in the end, it's all that. But writing this made me a bit more hopeful I can enjoy this again...! If i make the effort, I can do this!

#cerastes #replies

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therummesoccupied · 3 months

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FANG THE HUNTER: ISSUE #1 - THOUGHTS

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Figured since folks seemed to enjoy my StH #68 post so much, I should share my thoughts on Fang's first issue as well.

It'll be a shorter one, since I really don't have as much to say about it.

To put it short... I liked it! I really love Ian Flynn writing these Classic stories. It seems that when IDW Sonic began, Ian Flynn really squeezed himself into the niche of Plot Guy. Even after Evan Stanley took over as Head Writer, it seemed like Ian would jump back in for the big, heavy, climactic events like Issue #50. It's a really nice change of pace to see him writing these more light-hearted, lower-stakes stories, they give him a great opportunity to display the fantastic understanding of the series' character dynamics that made him a prominent figure in the series.

One particular bit of character work I'm fond of here: Sonic being just a little bit of a jerk!

I'm not the first to bring this up, but nowadays, Sonic has lost a bit of that edge that made him special in the early days. Not Edge in the same sense of, like, Shadow, but the stuff that made Sonic the inventor of the Mascot With Attitude. Nowadays, he's just kind of a smart-talking hero a lot of the time, so I really love stuff like the OK KO crossover taking the opportunity to dial that 90s Attitude up to 11.

Bean gets some solid gags here, too. This was the issue that made me realize how heavily his character writing is inspired by Classic Daffy Duck.

Mauro Fonseca is also doing a fantastic job with art. Their art has been catching my attention lately, they're really good at keeping things on model, but squash-and-stretching those models when needed. I think they're a perfect fit for a Classic miniseries.

The story follows Fang the Hunter, one of the series minor antagonists, and his colleagues Bean the Dynamite and Bark the Polar Bear, as they hunt a mysterious eighth Chaos Emerald.

Right away, it seems to me that this is a reference to Sonic Championship (formerly Sonic the Fighters), Bean and Bark's introductory game, which featured eight Emeralds. This left the game in something of a weird position, because Bean and Bark reappearing in later material made Championship canon, but ever since Sonic Adventure, the series' lore has always made it clear that there are only seven Chaos Emeralds. This is a neat little way of addressing that inconsistency!

The comic's setup takes an opportunity smooth over a few other cracks as well.

In early Sonic games, lore concerning the Chaos Emeralds was kind of all over the place. Some stuff made it seem like each of the different islands the games took place on had their own set of Chaos Emeralds, some had Emeralds with different colors than others, it was clear that they didn't really think to lock down the Chaos Emerald lore until later down the line.

Here, that's attributed to the legendary status of the Chaos Emeralds and their mythological nature.

To me, this is the job of these comics. Telling stories set in the world of the games provides a perfect opportunity to expand upon that world and tell us how the bits of worldbuilding we get in the games all fit together. I will always love when they use the comics to dig into a game concept and give us a better understanding of how it fits in the games' world.

Once again, I'm a big fan of the environments here. The Classic stories always lean into the fantastical element to their settings, with Seasons of Chaos having a full-blown Zone lineup! What we get here is nothing out of the ordinary in that regard, but it's still nice to see the characters run around areas that actually look like places from the games!

That's about all I got! It sets up a sort of B-Plot mystery early on and I was kind of intrigued about where it was gonna go, but the later issue covers have already spoiled it for me so...

I'm excited for more, I really like having a story that centers around a plucky little group of rogues instead of Sonic and his Assigned Pal For This Arc. It's a pretty good start, but nothing enormous and status quo shifting. You know, a Classic Story! It's fun and I'm having fun with it!

#sonic the hedgehog #sega #idw sonic #fang the hunter #fang the hunter issue 1 #sonic #chaos emeralds #idw publishing #ian flynn #comics

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potatoesandsunshine · 7 days

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wait anna can i send u another one. put it all on the table and let it ride is so crazy to me and i wanna know more

ok so this one is very.... niche is the best way to describe it i guess? it's a Fire Emblem Three Houses Leverage AU because i just think there should be more leverage aus in the world it works so well for so many things and it's so fun to think about!! i don't have a ton written out for this yet but it is special to me <3

“He’s following,” Annette says. “Camera three, camera four, I see you. Take a little extra time, let him catch up.” “Have trouble with the keys, Felix,” Sylvain murmurs. “Fumble, but don’t drop them—you’re nervous. Good.” “You can’t see me,” Felix snaps. “I know you did it,” Sylvain grumbles back, and Byleth clears her throat. The chatter ceases. “He’s in position, behind the third pillar.” Annette’s voice has gone serious. “Charge blows in three, two, one—” The car Felix just got into explodes with a deafening blast, sending shrapnel flying through the underground parking structure. Sylvain, lounging against one of the concrete supports, grins like a wolf.

what if i took everyone out of their context but at heart they were the same!! isn't that a fun au!!! i have to figure out if i want to structure this around One Main Heist or kind of do it scrapbook-style with bits of lots of different jobs, right now i'm leaning towards scrapbook and making it more about the Relationships than the story of one con

title is from corsican mastiff stride because 1) great song and 2) dog metaphor for one of the characters and 3) oh yeah they're close to the dropoff on a long slide

#abby ur literally allowed to send me as many as you want i will talk about any of these. ty!!#answering asks #anna's fic notes

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coratorium · 6 months

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wrt last reblog its actually so funny to me how overwatch kind of fucked themselves by trying to have their cake and eat it too and in the process made the characters into like, tools to be wielded instead of classes that fill roles.

like to try and elaborate on this (and this is why im making this my own post instead of going off on a tangent on someone elses post), overwatch has hero switching. as of [current date] there are somewhere between 20 and 200 heroes in the game and any time you are in your spawn room you can swap to any of them within your role that your team doesn't already have.

so this means that when dps hero A is hard countered by hero B, who is countered by hero C, one team is going to play hero A until a B appears on the enemy team, at which point the A player is going to swap to C, and then the B player will die and swap to whatever counters C, etc.

the maps are compact, the respawn timers are short, mobility is high. you have time to respawn on the counterpick and get back in the fight and make a difference. so, if you want to get past a certain rank of play, you have to learn how to hero switch- onetricking a single hero stops being viable. you need to know how to play not just one dps character, but all the dps characters, or at least the ones that are relevant counters to the things that check your preferred hero.

this is in contrast to something like a MOBA, which overwatch obviously borrowed a lot of design ideas from. in a moba you're (usually) stuck on the same character for the entire match. hero B being added to the game has no effect on a match where they're not one of the 10 characters picked. in contrast in overwatch hero B existing can prevent hero A from being used at all, just because the hero A player knows that the second they try to do anything they'll just get countered. and in that way the heroes can affect the way a match is played without ever even making an appearance.

then of course we've got tf2 which made so little of an attempt at balancing for 6v6 play that without player imposed restrictions most 6v6 matches would just be like, 2 medics and 4 demomen.

i'm exaggerating a bit- maybe it wouldn't be that bad- but the design philosophy is just completely different. 6s maps tend to be pretty big. respawn timers are way longer. not every class in tf2 is relevant for 6s. a lot of them are EXTREMELY niche. you're not going to see a 6s team swapping to heavy unless they're desperate to defend a choke in a relatively close quarters environment. if you try to run a heavy for the entire match, you're just going to get flattened- he gets counterpicked out of general relevance the same way overwatch hero A does.

tf2's response to this was not to try and make spy have the same level of impact on the game as the scout and soldier, but to just design an alternate competitive mode where each team has 1 of each class, and then those classes have to find ways to try and make themselves as useful as possible instead of competing to get playtime. the spy immediately becomes more useful in highlander than he does in 6s because the enemy team is guaranteed to have an engineer and a sniper for him to fuck with. the pyro in turn is also more useful, because they have an engineer to protect, an enemy spy to check for, etc. the classes get to exist in a mode where they are interacting with every class on their own team and on the enemy team in every match.

i don't think the differences in design philosophy are inherently good or bad or anything, to be clear. i just think it's interesting.

ok, overwatch hero pool bloat is maybe a little inherently bad, and the most fun i ever had in that game was in the modes where you were locked to one team comp and had to play around that fact. but still.

#hello yes i have autism #i didnt even touch on the fact that tf2 competitive modes are community designed #and overwatch modes are designed by the developers very intentionally #this has a huge effect on how both games are played ofc #edited a bit bc i realized this mostly comes off as 'overwatch bad tf2 good' and im really not trying to say that #tf2 has its own downsides. if you really like heavy then you basically dont get to be relevant to the entire 6s gamemode forever #ive heard a lot of sentiment that some classes in highlander have way more fun and get to do a lot more than others #everythings got tradeoffs. i just think its neat

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eruditetyro · 3 months

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@iowadream tagged me to post my top 5 songs lately. "lately" is a term i am taking to mean "in this moment" so these aren't what i've necessarily been listening to nonstop but it's what i'm thinking about today. i'm also going to do a tap dance called repping at least somewhat niche bands without doxxing myself. i've seen all of these groups live. i could go nicher but then it's all people i actually know personally and then you'll be able to tell where i live and my favorite local brewery and my favorite small town to go buy sandwiches in, and that's too much, you don't need all that. ok ready? ok!

youtube

i've actually seen them twice in two different venues. excellent performances, i can't overstate how hard this group goes. tank's a spectacular vocalist.

contra dance band for spice. east coast contra dancers where are we at! (on the east coast i guess)

a band i know opened for her once. i think she's fun. i don't listen to this type of pop often but i like it when it's a live show. sydney was engaging and her music is a fun type of gritty sad girl thing. there were 3 bands that night and i really didn't like the middle one and she was the headliner so i felt kind of relieved when she started singing and i was like oh ok i can vibe with this.

youtube

i put like three different groups in this spot before i decided on Indigo. who doesn't like indigo. de souza!

i got my neighbors one of the special edition clear vinyls of this album. they were so impressed. B). my favorite song on this album is The Giver.

i tag @unloneliest @yarrow-heather-and-hollyhock @joculine @adhdnarut0 @premiumgelato B)

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lordwisteria · 1 year

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Going off that “Jason Todd should be Catholic” post I reblogged....this is so ridiculously niche lol but I need to get it off my chest....Jason Todd is so Ronan Lynch coded

Traumatic reaction to violence that unexpectedly changed them forever, into darker and harder versions of themselves

Molten eyes and a smile made for war!!!

How do you live if you think you were maybe supposed to be dead?

How do you kill yourself again and again, even if it keeps you alive?

Just to get it out of the way yes Gansey died and came back but Jason and Gansey are like the least alike of anyone

Complicated relationship with a parent they once adored

Inexplicable magic that is difficult to explain and makes their lives harder (Like everything about Ronan/Jason coming back to life and the Pit)

General asshole who actually does care a lot

Cared the MOST about one person (Gansey) and slowly came to care about everyone else; fighting and clawing their way back into their own families

It is about RAGE and REGRET. FEAR and FORGIVENESS. It is BEING THE MONSTER AND ASKING FOR LOVE ANYWAY

Ok but. But but. Are there any other parallels? You could go the Lynch brothers route (Dick as Declan, Tim or Damian as Matthew, Bruce as a complicated and dead Niall whose obsessions killed him without considering what it would leave behind for his sons). But I think this really only considers the characters relationships with Jason, not who they are as a person. IF we are looking at who they are instead of their relationships (so yes this does not consider romantic/platonic/blahblah):

It would be easy to say Dick is Gansey. They have the same name, are ~leaders~, and are canonically the prettiest princess in any room. I get it and maybe in the Titans you'd be right, but here, Bruce is Gansey. He is the one with the quest! He is the one driving things forwards and bringing the others along. He's the one with the family name and the family wealth and the family home. He went through something traumatic as a child that irrevocably changed him, fueled his intense guilt and obsession. He brought the group together, and yet feels left behind by them. Someone who cares deeply about the people immediately around him, and yet will not stop pursuing his other goals even if it's hurting them or himself. Obsessed, I think, with proving that he deserves to be here.

Which means that Dick...is Adam Parrish. Like. The constant search for independence. The perfectionism. The bad relationship with his father that forced him to need to be his own man. (Sorry real Bruce but you sucked in batman #416) Loving someone so much and yet always thinking the worst of them. Refusing to be a burden and yet accepting any yoke that comes his way. The intensity of the performance, of pretending to be who you wish you were for the people you care about. Taking on responsibilities because there is literally no other choice, nothing else you could do. Picking the best of your options and knowing that none for them are to rest easy. Valuing freedom so much and giving up your literal body for the quest.

PLUS (less perfect but): Cass as Henry Cheng (and not just bc they are both asian do not look at me like that) Narrative outsider who was watching from afar and put themselves in the narrative. Was molded by shady parent's shady business practices. Was put in a situation as a child they should not have had to endure, which challenged their beliefs and shaped them anew. And maybe like, later Tim as Noah, a bright, fun, young kid on a skateboard who gets himself involved in something too big for him and is undeniably damaged by it. Tim isn't betrayed by someone the way Noah is, but he's kind of...betrayed by the narrative, in a way? Betrayed by the adventure that he thought he was getting. Too clever for his own good, but sometimes naive about people. Lowkey a mirror that lets people see whatever they want to see lol

(I don't see super clear parallels for anyone else lol but I did have a fun time with the thought of Damian as Blue (short/down to fight/has another family/environmentalist/kind of feels fundamentally alienated as someone who is not like everyone else/wears green))

#batfam #the raven cycle #this is so silly and i feel like these parallels are so based on my exact experience and yet also i feel them deep in my bones #meta #i guess if i did do this comparison with the titans #dick would be gansey #which would make jason helen LOL which is kinda of excellent by itself #but idk i just feel there could be something really interesting in an AU like this #it would need to be a same age AU lol but #maybe Dick is in a bad orphanage type thing like in robin annual #but without grown up bruce theres no one to get him out #bruce still saves him by being his friend though #dick and jason both have relationships with bruce and are suspicious of each other #but end up being super close by the end #I also feel Jason would throw Tim out a window which would be funny #dick grayson #jason todd #bruce wayne #tim drake #cass cain

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flustered-victorian-gentleman · 4 months

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complaining about the state of modern book covers

In other news, I made a very sad personal discovery about a very niche and stupid topic and need to yell about it

(readmore because shit gets LONG)

I was a HUGE fan of Canadian sci fi trilogy The Quintaglio Ascension back in school. I remember specifically picking up the first book while browsing the school library and being immediately captivated by the cover art.

This shit goes fucking hard. In addition to going hard it's also a useful reference for what the sapient dinosaurs actually look like, since there's no illustrations of them within the book. Obviously the characters describe each other but like, they're all the same species so no one is walking around like "this is my friend Tim he looks like a T.rex with human hands and thumbs and has fingernails instead of claws," so this helps. Here's the other two covers just for our personal entertainment.

Anyway, about last week I remembered the series again out of the blue and wanted to pick it up again because I haven't read them in so long and the cover art is so fire. Enter the tragedy I discovered on my local library website:

What in the hot crispy kentucky fried FUCK is that. HUH????

I am by no means educated in marketing or design but this just seem like...anti-marketing?? This just looks like the most generic sci fi shit I've ever seen. Tells you jack shit about the extremely unique setting, which is kind of the whole fucking HOOK of the series. Is the publishing house EMBARRASSED that the book is about talking space dinosaurs?? Also very misleading considering nobody goes to space at all in this book. Everything is on the ground on one planet.

ALSO CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH BUT THIS COVER IS A FUCKING **SPOILER** FOR A VERY IMPORTANT TWIST LATE IN THE BOOK

So, understandably I was a little miffed. I thought to myself, why don't I just check Amazon instead. I could just purchase the full series with the good cover and keep it forever.

AND IT GOT WORSE ON AMAZON

ok, I'll admit this is better than the library cover. there is at least a Mesozoic reptile here, although we still seem to be coyly hiding the fact that all of our protagonists are dinosaurs for some stupid reason. So this gets a very small pass on account of it's not objectively bad but is still quite lazy and underwhelming compared to the original cover. But this cover in particular isn't why I made this post. Don't worry, the other two covers by this artist (I'm assuming it's the same person?) get steadily worse.

first of all, these silhouettes slapped onto this background looks like shit. on first glance they look decently well integrated into the background, but have a look at the bottom dinosaur. it's just kind of...floating...on the rocks. I would give it a little pass if it was obvious the dinosaurs weren't intended to be part of the environment, but the way they've just slapped silhouetted bargain bin Leaping Laelaps onto the bottom half of the cover makes it seem like they were just hoping you wouldn't look to hard and realize there was no effort made to make them look like they're part of the environment.

For reference, here is Leaping Laelaps, painted by Charles R Knight in 1897. If I were in a kinder mood I'd call the cover a callback or reference to famous paleoart. But the laziness, silhouetting, and weird proportions compared to the Quintaglios in the books makes me feel like they didn't want to come up with an interesting dinosaur pose and just a slapped together a worse-posed version of an existing famous panting with as little detail as possible so they could claim they were doing a reference. I would give them a lot more good faith benefit of the doubt if it was anything other than a silhouette. Don't get me wrong, silhouettes can look very good and add unique visuals to cover art, but it seems very clear to me that that's not what's happening here.

And now for possibly tonight's worst offender.

My first impression was that this shit was just goofy as shit. The clouds hurt to look at (no seriously, take a good look at those clouds) and the pose is so stiff.

Wait.

Hey.

That pose.

I've seen that somewhere before.

And so, like a normal and well-adjusted adult, I rushed to my extensive collection of dinosaur figurines.

Enter the 2005 Papo Tyrannosaurs Rex (Brown).

(taking these pictures off an ebay listing because my figure is waaaay at the back of the Virgin Loser Dinosaur Toys Display Case and moving him would require moving like 30 other figurines)

hey.

HEY.

H E Y WHAT THE FUCK

of course, I can't prove anything in court. i don't have any plans to *do anything* about this. It's just...sad, to me, that thirty years ago we were getting beautiful, detailed, original paintings for book covers. even for niche Canadian space dinosaurs sci fi. and now what. you can't tell me people don't make art anymore, that artists no longer need jobs. I guess we've just decided we don't give a shit anymore. Why not just trace an image of a fucking children's toy instead of drawing a fucking dinosaur. Who cares.

#quintaglio ascension #<- not that this series has an online fandom or anything but you never know #long post #pinning this because I want at least a few people to read this. it's important to me

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katnissgirlsmakedo · 10 months

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tlh characters as pixie hollow fairies:

cordelia- TINKER BELL. her savior complex is insane… girls who are constantly getting into Situations… however in terms of aesthetics she is sooooo fira to me. dude just trust me idk

alastair- vidia core!!!! cunt realness…. could soooo do vidia in the great fairy rescue.

lucie- do y’all know my buddy prilla. anyway literally lucie is so prilla… she’s also very silvermist in a way if you want a more well known fairy

james- kinda terrence core in the sense that he’s like. ken coded. nobody fucks with ken. james is superfluous to the appeal of the last hours. etc. sorry he’s literally a main character i’m being a bit mean but like. be serious who is reading tlh and going wow james is so interesting he’s the best character here! like no one is doing that we are here for cordelia… also he’s kind of fawn core

christopher- he is sooo bobble. guy with his silly little inventions and stupid glasses…

anna- incredibly rosetta to me in the sense that she is getting sooo many bitches. rosetta obviously is like the token girly girl though which is. the opposite of anna. but just trust me that they’re like. they’re very cuntslay in the same direction

thomas- he’s giving lily… he could sooo do lily and the pesky plant. or periwinkle or iridessa maybe. idk. i’m sticking with lily!

matthew- could do do zerina of the pirate fairy fame. don’t even need to explain myself here it’s so clear so obvious so true and real

ari- rani swag!!!!! remember when she cut off her wings so she could swim with the mermaids and get that. hair comb? whatever she was getting from the mermaids that they needed to save mother dove. anyway when rani did that…. ari soooo has that swag. just trust me!!!!!

grace- vidia swag!! again. she also gives a bit of periwinkle in an aesthetic sense. and also because EYE love her…. oh what about the cunty little winter fairy debby ryan voiced… spike! yeah that’s grace

jesse- hm. somewhat fawn core. maybe a little queen clarion realness. basically he is the embodiment of calm and patience under pressure. slay!

ok hope everyone enjoyed this incredibly niche post for an audience of just myself 🫶

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starrypawz · 1 year

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❝ have you ever had something…missing? like something just doesn’t feel right inside you but you don’t know what it is. ❞ for Johnny and Lucas? :eyes:

Prompts AO3 @the-passenger-if

Happy Passenger Game Eve, it's been a fun journey following this game since 2019 and Pime thanks for letting me run amock with your creation as I make my own very niche content from it and hopefully there's much more to come 💜

The voice of the budget Sagan has trailed into silence followed shortly by the sound of the projector winding down. The sparsely populated theatre had been quickly vacated leaving them bathed in silence, alone and the only light the dull glow of the exit sign and the dull lights on the stairs.

Lucas leans into Jonny’s shoulder.

“I don’t think they’ve changed that show since I was in 6th grade,” Jonny mumbles and Lucas gives a faint snort.

“Was that the last time you saw it?”

“No,” Jonny pauses, “Last time I… wasn’t really paying attention to it,”

“Are you trying to tell me I’m not the first person you’ve taken here to take advantage of the fact it’s a dark room,” Jonny snorts, “No… I uh was you know-” “Oh” “Yeah,” Jonny clears his throat and Lucas gives a knowing chuckle, “Mostly stared at the colours,” squeezes Lucas’s shoulder gently as he pulls him in closer.

It’s little effort for Lucas to climb over the arm of the seat into Jonny’s lap and Jonny pulls Lucas in for a kiss and sighs into it as his hands settle into that sweet spot on Lucas’s hips.

Lucas kisses back, but Jonny finds it… lacking. He’s well aware by this point of the various ways Lucas enjoys teasing but… this doesn’t quite feel like it.

“Lucas?”

“Yeah darlin?”

“You…” He sighs a few potential sentences bubble up and then pop immediately before he settles on, “Ok? I mean are you ok?”

“I’m,” Lucas pauses as also for him a few potential sentences bubble up and then pop immediately, “I don’t know,”

Jonny tenses up

“I just… I feel kind of weird,”

“Weird?” Jonny catches his lip, “Like sick or?”

Lucas shakes his head, “Just… weird,”

Weird is probably the understatement of the century. But the word both seems to encompass everything and explain nothing.

“Do…. Should we get out of here?” Jonny swallows, “Like… need some air?”

Lucas mumbles a no, shifts position so he’s tucked under Jonny’s chin and sighs softly as he feels Jonny’s fingers slip under the back of his shirt and start running circles on the small of his back.

Lucas doesn’t even know where to start. His mind is seldom quiet at the best of times (Even on the best days he’s aware of that spot right at the base of hisnothecaket’s skull where the spine comes out and he’s got a grip right there, most of the time it feels like fingers, on a bad day it feels like he’s got the casket’s skull in his maw and then he just needs to bite down and he’ll puncture through and sever everything like in that documentary on lions in a highschool biology class. Right now his thoughts feel tangled, like that time when the thecasketnohe was five and the Christmas lights had come out and they were tangled up all weird and somehow he’d sat there with Livvy and mom having to untangle them.

(And Lucas had actually been pretty good at it, and they’d said that “Dad” has been pretty good at it and implied maybe he’d got it from them and Lucas hadn’t known if he wanted to revel in smugness at their ignorance or feel guilty about this whole situation)

The show had started, a ten minute express tour of the seeming known universe (If only they knew) and as it progressed Lucas had found himself increasingly becoming unmoored whilst watching the cosmos roll on by reminding him of how he’s barely fits into these bones and it makes them ache and how everything here is small, so small not even a tiny dot within the eyes of what he actually is and how by the the time one of those four eyes blinks all of this would’ve been birthed and died and he wouldn’t have even noticed and how everything he feels is dulled but also too much at the same time and…

“You…” Lucas begins as he grabs onto a stay thought like a lifeline, “You ever feel like something’s missing?”

“I…” Jonny pauses, “Is this… a trans thing?”

“No… kind of… not ugh,” Lucas catches his lip as he tries to pull something useful out of his tangled Christmas lights thoughts, “It’s… about everything,”

“About everything huh?” Jonny huffs.

“Yeah,” Lucas sighs, “Everything just… feels weird sometimes? I guess, I don’t know, like… inside something feels wrong and you can’t quite work out what it is”

“I… I get it,” Jonny offers up with a sigh.

You don’t A part of Lucas says You really really don’t

The projector whirs back to life and the film grain overlain starfield reappears with a burst of music where someone’s gone a little too heavy on the synthesiser and the budget Sagan begins its narration of the vastness of the universe and the smallness of this planet he’s ended up on all over again and Lucas clings tighter onto Jonny and Jonny presses a kiss to the top of Lucas’ head.

“It feels less like it when I’m around you,” Lucas mumbles and Jonny holds him closer.

Homesick, the word comes to him some time later.

Homesick.

#the passenger game #the passenger #passenger lucas newman #starry writes stuff

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