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londonhalcyon · 11 months

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OC Doublespeak

Passed the onion peeler (?) by @dumpsterhipster. Thank you! I was gonna do this with Lily, but since y’all have endured well over 200K words of her intimate thoughts and occasionally contradictory actions, I’m going to throw two of my lesser known OCs under the bus: Ivy Vindex, my reluctant Khajiit Dragonborn from my forever WIP Skyrim fic, and Ros Markey, my aggressive queer scientist/pole dancer (long story) from my other forever WIP Fallout 4 fic. I adore these ladies.

1. What do they say they want? (i.e., what are the desires they put into the world and have no trouble admitting)

Ivy: To live a happy peaceful life with her family. She loves her two dads a lot and doesn’t want to stray too far from them.

Ros: To be left alone (not counting her robotic horse). Most people either shoot at her, get shot, try to steal Winnie, or all of the above, so no point getting attached. She’s content to do her science, take the odd job here or there, and move on.

2. What do they think they want? (i.e., what are the desires they keep hidden and only admit to their closest loved ones)

Ivy: To know who she is and where she comes from. She’s a Khajiit who was born in the Colovian Highlands and raised by an Imperial couple in the West Weald of Cyrodiil. All clues about her origins point not south to Elsweyr, but north to Skyrim. And it’s rather hard to learn more about herself when she’s been on the same farm all her life.

Ros: No, really, she wants to be left alone. It’s not like she’s lonely or anything. Right? After all, she can’t want to get close to anyone who’s going to die on her. That would be idiotic.

3. What do they actually want? (i.e., what is something they subconsciously need, but either do not realize or cannot admit it)

Ivy: To feel like she truly belongs. She’s in a constant state of cultural identity crisis where everyone seems to have a better idea of who and what she is (and who and what she isn’t) than she does. She just wants to be, and be with the people who love and accept her.

Ros: Okay, she’s really really lonely. She wants to be part of a family again. More than anything she wants the family she lost back, which isn’t possible. Fortunately, she has found the next best thing. Or, rather, they’ve found her.

#the found family trope is strong with these #to no one's surprise #tag game #skyrim fanfic #fallout 4 fanfic #rosemary reaper

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defectivegembrain · 2 years

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It's just quite satisfying that like, the Elder Scrolls is widely known for "Skyrim belongs to the nords" type gamer dude bullshit and yet ESO is like filled with queer characters and social justice themed storylines and very sentimental emotional stuff with characters. Like. The Thieves Guild is all about found family. Even Dark Brotherhood members are explicitly against slavery. They won an award for their representation of a trans woman. I'd never claim it's perfect, but it's enough that I've seen some stereotypical gamer guys being like "the sjws are taking over" and to my mind that's a very good thing. Let them stew over it while we have actual fun

#eso #gamer culture

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ineverhadmyinternetphase · 6 years

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Pride

AO3 Link

Genre: Oneshot. Fluff, minimal angst, QPR verse

Summary: Fiction. It’s Manchester Pride, and Dan is feeling a little insecure. Part of @phandomficfests Pride flash fest

Warnings: Discussions of sexuality/queerplatonic relationships

Word Count: 2000

A/N: As ever, thank you to the wonderful @charlottekath for being the best QPP ever and reading this over for me ^_^

Reminder that I don’t know Dan or Phil at all and I’m not suggesting this in any way reflects reality. This is a work of fiction

…

Pride.

Dan stood on the balcony and looked out over Manchester, biting his lip. He had his arms folded over the railing, his eyes downcast to the city that was decked out in rainbows. Bunting hung across the streets, stalls already in place with people setting up floats and food and celebratory gifts. The march would be coming through there later, just below Dan’s feet.

Dan bit his lip and retreated back inside.

Pride. The word itself warred its way within him, battling against his feelings. It’s weird, it’s different, it isn’t normal and you’re not normal for identifying with it. Dan grappled against the inner voice telling him those things, telling himself that it was wrong. He was slowly coming to terms with his own queerness – he shuddered internally at the word – but it was difficult to ignore when he was in a relationship with another man.

The people in his dorms hadn’t had a problem with it, apart from one guy who wouldn’t stop staring at Dan when Dan let it slip in the crowd that he had Phil, and then he’d got up and quietly left in the middle of watching a film.

Dan had never seen him again.

But still, Dan was coming to terms with it. He could hold hands with Phil in the street now and fight down the shot of terror that accompanied it, could talk to his mum about how Phil and he had to get rid of a wasp from their shared bedroom and not listen to the part of him that said she’d be disappointed. The people around him had made it clear that he was still Dan, that it didn’t matter to them who he was in a relationship with as long as he was happy.

And Dan was happy – blindingly, deliriously happy – but he couldn’t help but wonder whether people’s opinions would change if they knew exactly what his relationship with Phil entailed.

QPR. He’d finally found a word for it that he was happy with, after months and months of internet searches and googling and reading other people’s experiences to know that he wasn’t alone. He knew now that he wasn’t alone, that there was a word for what he and Phil were, but he also knew that he couldn’t drop into casual conversation that he had a queerplatonic partner and expect other people to understand.

That’s because it’s weird and wrong, that small voice inside Dan whispered.

He did his best not to listen to it.

Dan turned around and went to curl up on his beanbag, the one that Phil laughed at and said looked like the most uncomfortable thing ever. Dan liked it, though. He liked to curl his long limbs up and feel small for a little while, like he didn’t have the weight of worry and fear and life hanging down around him. He could lose himself in a game for a while, maybe Skyrim, maybe something else – something fantasy, where he wouldn’t have to think about today and all it meant.

Pride.

Manchester Pride was a big event. They got pop singers and famous dancers and people who all came out to celebrate, big and bold and adventurous and everything Dan felt like he couldn’t be.

Would he even be welcome there?

Dan bit his lip, curling up further and hearing the balls inside the beanbag shifting against him. A hard knot of worry lay curled in his stomach, had been there since he’d woken up. Thankfully he’d been able to roll over and press himself up against Phil’s side, wind his way under Phil’s arm and let him cuddle it away for a while. But then Phil had had to go to the shops because they’d both forgotten to buy milk yesterday and Phil needed his coffee before he could properly start his day.

Dan was left alone for a little while, and it was enough time for the doubt to creep in.

Pride. Part of Dan wanted to race out there and join them, leave this enormous tower block of a flat building and head out onto the streets. To celebrate with the others like him. To finally reach out and be proud of who he was, to feel deep within him that he was right, that he belonged. Part of Dan wanted to rush out there and never look back.

He frowned and pushed that part down, tucking it away somewhere deep behind his heart where he wouldn’t need to think about it for a while.

Besides, even if he did – even if he did go out there and join the others in celebration, they’d still be celebrating something he wasn’t. And the thought of all the sexual humour, the over-the-top costumes, made something deep within him gag. He didn’t like the thought of sex, or anything remotely to do with it, and so much of Pride was so highly sexualised that he knew he’d never feel comfortable there.

Maybe they weren’t really his people. He was asexual, he knew that now, had found the word online and felt his chest loosen up. There were others like him, other people who didn’t quite fit anywhere. He’d seen the talk online that aces didn’t belong in the queer community, didn’t have a right to that word. It didn’t help the warring within Dan’s heart.

Maybe he didn’t fit anywhere. Maybe he was too weird.

The front door slammed shut somewhere behind Dan, making him jump. And shortly after he could hear Phil cheerily talking as he toed his shoes off in the corridor and wandered down into the lounge where Dan was still curled up on the bean bag.

“It’s busy out today, you’ll never guess who I saw in the shop,” Phil said, heading straight for the kitchen to put the milk in the fridge.

“Who?” Dan asked, hitting pause on his game. When Phil came home he got all of Dan’s attention, seeing as Dan was still getting used to the fact that they lived together now. That whenever he wanted Phil, he could usually just turn around and Phil would be there, and even if he wasn’t, they’d both be going to the same home at the end of each and every day.

It was a comfort.

“This guy dressed in a gimp suit,” Phil laughed. “Bright pink. Reminded me of your old video, which is still really weird, by the way.”

Dan squirmed a bit in his seat. “You should have stopped me.”

“It wasn’t up to me what went on your channel,” Phil shrugged, coming over to the lounge with the smirky smile on his face that Dan loved. “You’re responsible for all the atrocities. Hi, my name is—”

“Don’t you even,” Dan threatened, wriggling around on the bean bag to give Phil the full effect of his worst death glare.

Phil, much to Dan’s chagrin, simply laughed in his face. “Sorry. Not helping you with that one.”

“It’ll be for Pride, anyway,” Dan huffed, folding his arms and turning his face away. “Nothing to do with me.”

“Oh.” There was quiet for a moment, in which Dan refused to look at Phil and Phil sat in confused silence. Dan bit his lip, squirming internally. He didn’t need to let Phil in on his worries anymore, much as he knew Phil would listen. But a large part of Dan still believed that he didn’t deserve Phil’s attention, especially not on matters like this.

An even bigger part of Dan was afraid that Phil would confirm his fears, or simply wouldn’t understand him at all.

“Oh,” Phil said again, quieter, and then a hand was touching Dan’s elbow. “Did you want to go?”

Dan froze.

Out of everything, he hadn’t expected those words to come out of Phil’s mouth. The quiet parts of Dan fighting each other inside him got slightly louder, the raucous invading.

He swallowed it down and asked, “Really?”

Phil nodded, and when Dan braved looking over at him, he was giving Dan a long, gentle look. One of the ones that stopped Dan’s heart, that made him feel like everything was going to be ok despite the constant battles inside his head.

“If you want to,” Phil said, his voice going soft in the way that he only reserved for Dan. “We don’t have to, I just thought I’d let you know the option is there.”

Dan bit his lip, glancing away again. “Do you think we’d even be allowed?”

At that, Phil gave a short laugh. “It isn’t a contest, Dan. People go who feel comfortable going, who want to celebrate. If you want to do that, then we can go.”

Did Dan want to do that? He wasn’t even sure himself. Part of him did – part of him wanted to be loudly happy, to show off the miracle of a relationship he’d found with Phil, the person who made him feel like everything was right even if the inside of his head felt wrong. Dan wanted to show that off, to show the world how lucky he was, how Phil was his and nobody else’s.

“What about the people on YouTube?” Dan asked, his voice turning a little bitter without him meaning it to. “If someone sees you know they’re going to assume we’re gay.”

“Well, we’re not straight,” Phil said with a small smile, a slight twinkle in his eye that made Dan want to melt.

“I know, it’s just,” Dan sighed, flopping backwards in the beanbag, Phil’s hand falling off his shoulder. Dan missed the contact, reached out to grab his hand himself. “We’re not… like that, either.”

People were going to assume they were having sex. That they were a normal couple. But we’re not, Dan’s mind told him, We’re not normal.

His mouth tasted a little sour.

“Dan.” Phil shuffled closer, sliding along the floor until he could see Dan’s face. He intertwined their fingers. “We don’t have to go, or we can go, and the only people that matters to is us.”

“But what if other people tell us we can’t be there?” Dan mumbled, wriggling. “We’re just – it feels like we’re so invisible, and part of me really wants to go out there and prove that we can exist – but then the other part of me…”

Dan cut himself off before he could say is afraid. The other part of me is petrified.

There was silence for a few moments, and then Phil shuffled closer still, until he could get an arm around Dan and turn to face the television with him. He handed Dan his games console. “Then we’ll stay here. We have nothing to prove to anyone, Dan, not unless we want to.”

Dan bit his lip, those words humming in his brain. The war inside him calmed down slightly. Not unless we want to. He didn’t have to have anything to prove. Maybe he and Phil couldn’t just simply… be.

For now, that was enough.

Dan scooped up his games controller and handed Phil the second one, switching games. “Alright. I’m going to beat your arse at Mario Kart.”

Phil groaned loudly, but he still took the other controller. It was moments like that when Dan realised just how much he loved Phil.

---

Later that evening, photos from Manchester Pride came out, and Dan, being the slight masochist that he was, looked them up. And among the shots of ecstatic people with rainbows painted on their faces, he found a pleasant surprise.

A purple flag. People wearing purple shirts, purple face paint, purple hair dye. The word Asexuality printed out on signs for everyone to see.

Visible.

Dan bit his lip, nudged Phil in bed next to him.

Phil, half-asleep, blinked blearily at the screen. “’M’not wearing my glasses.”

“It’s ok,” Dan murmured, his heart full. “It’ll keep ‘til morning.”

He saved the tab in his bookmarks before going back to his browsing, the war within him calmed, at least for a little while.

#phanfiction #phan fluff #phanfic #iwritephanthings #QPR phan

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bookclub4m · 2 years

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Episode 145 - Anthropology Non-Fiction

This episode we’re talking about Anthropology Non-Fiction! We discuss culture, society, linguistics, and more! Plus: Teeth, teeth, teeth!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo by Mary Douglas

Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind, vol. 1 by Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen, and Daniel Casanave

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

Other Media We Mentioned

The History of Eastern Europe for Beginners by Paul Beck, Edward Mast, and Perry Tapper

Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca

Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulić

The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky by Ellen Meloy

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Wikipedia)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Wikipedia)

Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

Evolution's Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins by Peter Ungar

Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff

Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo by Mary Douglas

Links, Articles, and Things

Four-field approach (Wikipedia)

“known jocularly to students as "stones", "tones", "bones" and "thrones"”

Anthropologie (Wikipedia)

Lidar (Wikipedia)

Episode 144 - What is a Book?

I read all 337 books in Skyrim so you don't have to | Unraveled

Franz Boas (Wikipedia)

Data dredging (Wikipedia)

Ella Cara Deloria (Wikipedia)

15 Anthropology Books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures by Christian Allaire

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

Dakota Texts by Ella Cara Deloria

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran by Niloofar Haeri

Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston

Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts by Margaret Kovach

Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana by Kwame Edwin Otu

Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities by Paul Seesequasis

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

On the Margins of Urban South Korea: Core Location as Method and Praxis edited by Jesook Song and Laam Hae

Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science by Kim TallBear

Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity by Stanley Thangaraj

From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i by Haunani-Kay Trask

Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson

Give us feedback!

Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Then on Tuesday, March 15th we’ll be talking about Bookish Food & Drink (Mixing Food, Drinks, and Books)!

Join us again on Tuesday, April 5th when we’ll be discussing the genre of Contemporary Fantasy!

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ratajota · 4 years

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since watching kids cartoon analyisis on youtube induces a state of verborrhage, im gonna say a few things about nelyn that ive slightly tought about and just dont sound right to me anymore:

- there are many, MANY things that nelyn does that make absolutely no sense that were basically driven by my own teenage libido, which is, the endless gay longing of sweating while thinking about holding hands. a way late teens and adults dont normally behave. nelyn, im so sorry. in which:

1 - joining the telvanni and succeeding was one of those things. partly inspired because i just wanted my friends oc to be his friend and develop them together. it gave me a bullshit excuse in how in earth would nelyn manage to become a real hortator while having the charm and charisma of a rat in dunmeri political terms, and how in earth could nelyn become so magically powerful. i made it so nelyn magically succeeded despite everything just pointing to this not working. hell, he would make a better redoran.

there was this whole arc (which i would not discard) where he got an apprenticeship at port telvannis, since he needed Mage Papers to get a shot at being a proper telvanni, worked his ass off to be independent and sustain himself, while receiving all sorts of academic mistreatment and backlash. basically, rigurous magic methods versus the purely intuitive unmethodic magic of nelyn, and also, he can´t read. the sheer discrimination of it all. he learned much more and grew more as a person by doing labor in the island than in academy, then went back to vvardenfel. originally, he did become an Alternative Alteration Smart Master Wizord, but this is just out of character. at most, he is a crazy philosopher greatly influenced by other crazy boethians

2 - those brief times with teldryn and julan that were continuously scrapped and rewritten because guess what.... didnt make sense because they all strongly clash personality wise. with teldryn, theres this great naivety of liking the first person that treats you more or less okay, with julan, which i constantly had to stop writing and twist things because they would get REALLY heated up and hated each other forever because they are both determined hot headed little shits and really had no reason to travel together (nelyn would Never give him the pleasure of letting him believe he was the neverbrain). also, this reeks a lot like transmasculine fear

i will not talk about hassim. thats too embarrassing. but consider that whole ordeal also another mistake

notice how nelyn has no acquaitances or FRIENDS and only guys that he has weird homo tension or unrequited/failed relationships with? this is called the author was a queer 16 years old with very little life experience and a lot of idealization.

3 - the weird themes around masculinity. Nelyn obviously goes from being curious, sensible/sensitive, negociating, perceptive and wary of the world and spirits, being very connected to them, to completely brazen and colluding with everything in his path, twisting everything to fit his destiny and reshaping his narrative. it makes a bit of sense if you understand that he came from a place where everything went more or less swimmingly for him, that he was doing great, was loved and everything he did was fantastic, and he harbored a quiet resentment for the very few things that were not allowed for him (ethnic belonging, a bloodline, normality as in not being a witch, the empire seeping in windhelm). it is public knowledge that morrowind simply treats anybody like shit, and boy was nelyn greatly offended. Nelyn never really acts or approaches the spiritual matters of morrowind with genuine respect and love as he treated those of skyrim, he did it with great interest, yes, but there was this very strong intention of FIXING THINGS HIS WAY, instead of feeling he was talking and negociating with a force of nature. again, aedric vs daedric stuff

there´s this thing where nelyn goes from being a very disorientated tourist having constant meltdowns (which always end in some sort of “fuck these people” realization that drives him forward - he is simply unable to sink and give up, its something hardwired in him for some reason) to a hortator, with all that word means. i took the mantling stuff into the story as well, nelyn becomes as golden as nerevar and doesnt really return to his senses until the main events are over and allows himself to suffer.. this all is casually happening as he transitions. theres this clear narrative where he stops being a victim and becomes the one holding the reins, or maybe the whip. metaphysical demonization of transmasculinity trope?

nelyn is also greatly overpowered, but for a long time, it´s absolutely useless and more of an obstacle to basic normal function. being almost unable to battle despite knowing how to use axe due to the overwhelming sensations of either the dagoth corruption or daedric energies. again, in a point of the story, he goes from passively perceiving things and communicating with them (often going very wrongly for him), and learns to materialize his will and force reality to do what he wanted, no longer listens to the world around him.

this all by itself is neutral, it does not have a relationship with gender, but at some point i just made nelyn trans just because, with little thought. i dont know if i can freely talk about this since people get their jimmies rustled, but i dont think anyones gonna care in this dying platform. it all casually ties with the hortator and conqueror themes. many times after 2017 i came across nelyn and wondered how does a person that looks, feels, and thinks like two different people at the same time can be the same person. the obvious answer is yes, these two are contained by the other one at the same time, there´s always a presence of this mystical nelyn in the more emotional matters, and theres always a hortator nelyn coming to the rescue in his earliest moments, driving him forward.

4 - nelyns transition doesnt make sense, and so doesnt the lore i constructed around it. flesh magic, good, ok, we get it, totally lore friendly. but theres no real reason why would someone with little to no problems with their physical appearance, who didnt think that an operation that is not life-saving exists, or that someone very androgynous would jump right into such drastic things just because a wizard told them they could do it. i have a lot of conflicting views of him, his image and his presentation, but his hypermasculinization, when we dont really know what it means and is necessary to be a man in morrowind, and supposedly there is gender equality in skyrim is like... wherever is this sudden short hair and stern manliness coming from? i know, PROJECTION

5- there have been a Lot of arcs that were thought about after the end of the main quest, telvanni mage nelyn, oblivion playthrough, just descent into madness, and most recently, a return to skyrim with an eventual return to morrowind. for some reason, they all meet this dead point where nelyn just breaks and cannot deal with it all anymore, with no more willpower or knowing what he wants to do, when his character for a lot of time was based on that. someday i will know the reason for this

6- i dont even remember how much i twisted the mq into something of a huge scale but definitely unrealistic

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