#which is so fucking bizarre bc like. what the fuck it's my gender why are YOU being offended???

[magentagalaxies]

having a moment about my gender rn and i'm just like ugggggh @ my brain do we have to. like can we just not

#i need to go to bed soon bc i have a 10am class tomorrow but shoutout to the identity crisis i've been having since at least feb 6th #idk if identity crisis is even the right word. bc like one thing about me is that i have a very solid sense of self #like i know who i am and what i want and how i move through the world and what it feels like to be me #but in terms of how i label and explain that to others? that's where the identity crisis comes in #but no one else gets to experience me in first person POV so the descriptors i use and they ways i present myself are reality to them #and tbh? as i think about how some of the descriptors i use for myself don't accurately describe me some people are getting mad??? #which is so fucking bizarre bc like. what the fuck it's my gender why are YOU being offended??? #but it's also making me low key be like ''wait am i a bad person now????'' #even tho i don't believe morality works like that. idk it's just been an exhausting month and a half #if anyone wants to hear more in depth thoughts on all this i would love to vent about it #(but not rn bc i will be going to bed as soon as i get this all out) #but like what i will say now is even tho this past month and a half has been ROUGH (for several reasons especially gender) #and people might expect that me spending so much time with scott in february made it more exhausting #which is understandable we love scott but touring in general is tiring and also i am the most opinionated person i've ever met but so is he #and also like. if you've heard scott talk about gender it's very obvious we disagree on a lot of things and he doesn't shy away from that #but the thing is. i'd actually say spending so much time with scott (even when we talk about gender. even when we *argue* about gender) #was actually such a good thing for me throughout all of this bc even when we disagree on semantics of labels #scott actually sees me beyond that rather than reducing my identity to what i call myself #which is how a lot of well-meaning allys tend to treat me. like i'm just one thing. #so when i'm with scott i never really have to think about my gender #bc he doesn't treat me like i'm (insert whatever gender people treat me like). he just treats me like i'm jessamine #and i'm tired of having to explain myself into smaller pieces so people can pretend to get it #but i feel like there's no way not to do that in our society rn especially at my ''progressive'' liberal arts college

[decepti-thots]

for so long I have felt like a weirdo for thinking that the jro pregnancy stuff is deeply unhorny. but I am going to say it now: it's only horny in the way that the alien franchise is horny: there are definitely people who are horny about it, but it's primarily about the non-sexy aspects of pregnancy. i get that it's a funny joke but a non-insignificant people genuinely act like it's "the writer's barely disguised fetish". birth is weird and scary and fascinating, even more so in robots. im probably more defensive about this than I should be but it's kind of upsetting to me that this is where the discussion always ends

I'll put this under a cut so as not to spam anyone's dash bc yeah I went off on this ask haha (positive).

I actually felt so insane about this very topic I ran a damn poll on my NSFW sideblog and the thing is: the majority of folks voting agreed no, it's not inherently, textually horny. (I would know; I know horny when I see it, ffs!) Which vindicated me! Because I agree it's so ridiculous a thing to unironically, sincerely insist is super horny, given the text, lmao.

Like, it's extremely obsessed with pregnancy, but this is not the same as 'a fetish', and tbqh I think the 'fetish' joke just shields any actually interesting discussion of what it's doing. I think the Alien comparison here is actually really telling; it's absolutely a visceral thing, a thing concerned with the body and how it functions, sometimes against our will. And it's not unconnected to sexuality or eroticism in how those things are discussed more broadly, in the sense it's talking about a thing that intersects with those elements in the abstract, but it's not. Like. It's not a "fetish" thing, and if the characters it involved weren't referred to as 'he' in text I think less people would be calling it that, and actually it kinda sucks that every time I bring it up I have to block people who see 'pregnancy mentioned' on my completely sfw posts as an excuse to go off on their personal fetishes in detail, or their desire to speculate on the imagined fetishes of the writer in equally graphic detail. (BTW, it's genuinely uncomfortable seeing people obsessively speculate on the imagined fetishes of a creator, I think. We should all do that a little less in public.)

I mean not to be a total killjoy or anything but like... treating pregnancy in itself, even in the most abstract way, as inherently fetishistic and inappropriate (the people reblogging my innocuous posts about pregnancy metaphors with fucking trigger warnings! 'mpreg trigger warning' being a normalized way to tag pictures that are just Trans Dude Who Is Pregnant!) is uh. I mean we live in a world where pregnant people are often massively marginalized by society period, and seen as somehow inappropriate for public life, and especially anyone who is remotely GNC. Like the idea that something is inherently obscene about a pregnant person is, shall we say, not apolitical. It is in fact a thing that people actually have to fight against in real life. I mean. Fandom doing this to a text that in fact is most notable for treating pregnancy weirdly neutrally in these terms is... frustrating! I think we all lose out when we refuse to engage with weird, funny texts that have things to say about these topics that fall outside our expected frameworks, like, say, 'this is A Fetish TM'. That's limiting! If we want to talk about what IDW1 phase two does with gender, we cannot do that properly if every time we talk about MTMTE we get weird about it doing sexless genderfree pregnancy metaphors, and instead make them funny mpreg jokes, tbh! IDK! Seems counter intuitive! And I genuinely think MTMTE/LL's bizarre approach to the thing is so interesting precisely because it's so odd and offputting. What if we actually examined it. I think we can find some good stuff in there, frankly.

And truly the especially frustrating thing is that the comic itself, for all it is objectively weird and hilarious and 'why the fuck is this even HERE' about it... is just never that. Like. I posted those excerpts because it IS weird and it IS wild and it IS quite funny in its way! It's alien robot body horror in a kids' cartoon franchise turned to an unexpected end! But you know what it actually manages, somehow, to never be? One: weird and misogynist about pregnancy. Two: weird and transphobic about it involving vaguely, ostensibly 'male' characters. Make all the mpreg jokes you want I guess, but MTMTE is many bizarre things but it never gives one single shit about the gender binary, and tbh I think it's genuinely kind of embarrassing the fandom saw a comic that did insane robot body horror pregnancy shit and was like. Okay well. But the mpreg tho.

Like. I've joked for years that I want to do a transmasc read of the pregnancy stuff Roberts did in TF seriously, same as I think a transmasc read of how Alien presents fears around "male pregnancy" in a trans context would be great. And for all my jokes, I genuinely would, actually. I think it's legit very interesting how Roberts manages to divorce the presentation of horror of pregnancy from gender in a way that mitigates the gendered subtext somewhat and gets at the loss of autonomy in a broader sense.

anyway it truly sucks that fandom is so fucking shitty about this. to give a little extra context, i talk about a particular transmasc humanformer AU sometimes that involves pregnancy and. i have had to Delete Some Fucking Asks about that thing, which. well that happens in normal regular real life and people talk about it like a fanfic trope (derogatory). so. i am a little sensitive to people getting Like This about the topic, aha.

sorry i went off on one anon, can you tell. i also find this frustrating. i relate. i am totally with you. god it would be so much less interesting to read it as horny so like, why is this the ONLY MODE we seem to have tbh

[branches-in-a-flood]

🙃 I am having such a good time this weekend 🙃

"You're just wasting your degree." From the least educated member of my family, with no degree.

"Do you even have a dentist? Your teeth have gotten really displaced and we spent so much on braces for you."

"Well someone has to carry on the family name, and your dogs won't live that long." What a bizarre way of saying you, what, wish I would have kids? How odd. Thanks for telling me my pets are going to die, though.

"You have such nice legs again now that you're skinny again." (Which I'm like. Mid-size at "best??" It's fine it's all fine I don't at all have complex feelings about the fact that I used to have an eating disorder, gained a bunch of weight, then spontaneously lost 40 lbs over the past few months (but am still considering contacting a doctor about like semaglutide or something because hahaaaaaa guess that body dysmorphia never fucking left))

An actual yelling match between my father and I about not renewing a license I no longer use and is no longer of any relevance to my job.

I might legitimately have a gender crisis once I get back to my own safe home. Because all of this is. Absolutely not it.

Not to mention the questions about partner one and why he has yet to come visit for family functions and whether we'll get married and I'm going to fucking throw up on the next human being who speaks to me.

The actual event hasn't even happened yet. This is just dealing with my immediate family.

Tried venting a little to partner one (bc partner two is camping and has no service) and I just got a sad face emoji. No words. No anything. Just 😞. Gonna have a long chat once I get back home.

Before I left a had a chat with an old coworker about partner one and she was so hurt on my behalf about things that I didn't even register as like. Things to be hurt by anymore. Like the saying he'll go to concerts with me but then flaking, which turned into not wanting to go at all, even when I offered to buy tickets to see his favorite band (which we did as like our third date years and years ago.) And him backing out of the Sleep Token at Red Rocks trip. And the three vacations I had planned for us to go on that he decided he didn't want to do. And the having sex once in two years (which to be fair, a lot was on me because maybe ace maybe traumatized maybe just have a really weird relationship with intimacy) but like. I want to again. We talked about it. I expressed how much I wanted to have regular sex again. We did once. In November. I've asked since then. Reminded him he can ask. He said he wants to. It hasn't happened.

I am losing my mind right now holy shit

#screaming into the void #cw: mental health #cw: weight #*theyre* not that bad but *it* is that bad #cw: sex mention

[yunwooz]

Damn, saw that apparently Sakura also talked about watching the show 😭 I'm not surprised considering its popularity. People are shocked, because she's a woman, while it can feel more bizarre it's definitely not uncommon for women to enjoy dark media. Take all the women who love problematic shojo with toxic leads and uncomfortable age gaps. I was also taken aback by my female uni friend calling the series interesting and engaging, but we have to remember that women can be problematic too or at least have questionable tastes and interests. This is not the time for misogyny though. Bg stans need to understand this isn't a gotcha moment, and gg stans got a reality check, because guess what "that's why you should stan women not men" isn't the gag they think it is. The truth is TONS of people read/watched that shit, famous people, people we know, so acting superior is just dumb as fuck 🤡

yeah atp now that i know the popularity of the show, i wouldn't be surprised if tons more have also watched it and are just being intelligent and somewhat doing the right thing in not talking about it to their impressionable fanbases. i'm surprised that people are shocked tbh bc like you said it's very common for women to enjoy darker media, which is why problematic shojo is so incredibly popular. i keep going all sorts of different ways in trying to find a firm opinion on it but as i'm learning more and reading more from people who both disliked the show heavily and people who enjoyed the show, it seems to me like a good chunk of those who critically engaged with the show were disturbed by it. not all, but many (if not all) of the people i read posts and such from who found issue with the show are ones who were critically engaged with it. those that seemed to sort of just watch it for the sake of watching something and not to really think about it beyond it being a dark fantasy adventure did not seem to find issue in it.

i agree, this certainly isn't a gatcha moment and it's not about trying to conduct a witch hunt to find the next idol who said something about the show, and gender shouldn't even be part of the conversation because that only serves to push the conversation further away from what's important which is the conversation about the blind consumption of dark media and where a line needs to be drawn for it

#luna.answers #mia discussion

[animentality]

Yeah gender is fake. I am glad people are starting to realize.

Now please start connecting the dots and see that gender is a set of rules made to keep women and girls small and subservient. Please work w radfems to tear it down. No child should ever be told they are playing with a “girl/boy” toy again

I don't get terfs though. I don't.

I know you probably are one, bc you've been stalking my blog for weeks.

How could you claim to be a feminist then uphold this idea that biology matters more than anything else?

Insist that men trying to be women are demeaning themselves in the process?

Or that they must be doing it for amoral reasons?

Isn't that just ragging on feminism too?

Biology is not destiny. Feminism broken down to its roots should destroy the idea that sex and gender are so fundamental to who we are.

You should be able to break that boundary. It's so bizarre how terfs have embraced this patriarchal idea of gender to enforce this idea that women are women and men are men.

A woman is whatever you want it to be.

A tomboy, a butch lesbian, a high femme, a she/they enby, a trans woman.

Femininity is a construct that can be remade however we see fit.

Why the fuck is it so hard for terfs to be accepting?

Why the fuck is it so wrong for a "man" to want to be a woman or a "woman" to want to be a man?

Why isn't that fluidity allowed?? What is your problem with it???

I can't imagine why a terf would think any trans woman is somehow evil without them just being a fucking bigot.

You don't know every single trans person.

You also don't know every single "man" either.

Too many of them think trans women are just men trying to steal their experiences or are predators in the making.

Those man hating ideas are precisely why you're a fucking laughing stock.

You really want to kill all men because they're all rapists and dogs that need controlling?

Please. Congrats on not understanding how the world works. And never meeting another human fucking being.

And upholding yet another sexist idea that men are just violent lustful sinners who don't want anything else in the world but to fuck you.

That's horrible.

Misogyny is horrible too of course. But it's a snake eating itself, trying to go the opposite way and say well all men-

All people are different, you pathetic shrivelling worm.

All people live by social systems we taught each other, but they could be changed if we wanted.

And that change starts from the ground up.

You fucking terfs have been ragging on me for weeks and sending me angry anons.

First off ive been here for 9 years, almost 10.

You don't scare or upset me. I'm used to anon hate.

Secondly, I'm not a fucking freak like you. I'm perpetually online but unlike you, I choose to give people the benefit of the doubt.

My mom raised me to try and feel compassion for everyone, even people who are different than me. To try and understand the suffering of others. To live in another person's shoes and appreciate a pain other than my own.

You are never going to convince me to hate any group of people based entirely on stereotypes and fiery rhetoric constructed by fucking fascists.

You'll never convince me to hurt a minority with a high suicide rate and the likehood to never make it past 30.

A minority which started the whole fucking LGBT movement.

I identify as nonbinary but I feel a kindred spirit with trans people because I've spent my whole life uncomfortable with certain pronouns too.

It was such a relief finding friends willing to call me by the right name.

The right pronouns.

I know what it's like to feel just a little of that disconnect. That discomfort.

Feeling like your insides don't match your outsides and that society is calling you the wrong thing, every day. And wishing it were different. Kinder. More accepting.

And even if I fucking didn't understand that.

You'll never turn me as cruel as you.

You fucking terf rats.

I've rambled too long so I'll just leave you the most essential message of this ramble, eloquently put, by Hozier.

#transgender

[fbfh]

I think you've horribly misread the situation [shitty roommate pt 2] - leo x reader

wc: 2.3k

genre: contemporary drama, you're definitly going to get second hand embarrassment, cozy fluff

pairing: leo x reader, attempted isabella x leo

reader: gender neutral, they/them

requested: hell yeah

warnings: mild swearing, roommate tries to steal your man once again, mentions of various mainstream vampire media (twilight, the vampire diaries etc.), brief mention of castlevania (even though i haven't seen it yet lol), breif mention of videogames and assassins creed, very mild delusion (roommate is secretly convinced leo is a vampire that's in love with her), attempted age gap relationship (she's 17 and leo's 19, he shuts that down real fast), very bad poetry

summary: You and Leo are both looking foward to spending a long weekend together, and Leo is determined not to let anything interrupt it, even if it means turning down your roommate's attempts to seduce him in the kitchen.

a/n: absolutley no hate or shade or judgement to anyone who has the same or similar traits as isabella!!!!!! at her core she's annoying because she's the antagonist, not bc of any isolated trait or traits

also she's shitty cause she keeps trying to steal your boyfriend?????

Edit: I forgot to mention before, but this is a college au where you're both still demigods, so you went to camp and on quests and stuff together

This weekend is going to be all about recharging. Recharging from the ridiculous back to back closing and opening shifts at work, recharging from having to redo that stupid project twice because your professor couldn’t decide on a clear way to define the criteria, and recharging from Isabella having her townie friend Regan over almost non stop to “completely shake up her look” as she put it.

Between the constant presence of someone you’d barely consider an acquaintance and Big Time Rush’s self titled album blasting on repeat out of her giant airpod shaped speaker, it’s been harder than usual to get in some effective self care. You have no idea how many more times you can hear the phrase “I’m going for Jade West meets Elena Gilbert, with just a little Buffy Summers” before you lose your fucking mind.

Thankfully, the hard part is almost over. There’s some minor holiday tomorrow on friday, so you and Leo both have a three day weekend ahead of you, which you intend to spend entirely together. You planned ahead, frontloading homework, chores, errands, and everything you could think of to remove anything that isn’t cuddling or playing video games and watching netflix together from your horizon.

This includes going straight from work to the grocery store to stock the fridge and get any snacks you and Leo want. You had texted him a while ago asking for anything he was craving, and head into the store with a concrete list. After a while, you circle around some aisles, avoiding the check out.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” you muse, knowing it’s untrue, but hoping to trigger a memory anyway. You can’t put it off any longer, finally checking out and heading back to your apartment. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t avoiding Isabella just a little.

You know bringing in all these groceries would be way easier with Isabella and possibly Regan’s help, but you just don’t have the social energy to talk to anyone, much less her, right now. By some miracle, you bring everything in yourself, and hope to get it put away before you see Isabella.

You turn to the freezer, putting away the ice cream. When you turn back around, you’re suddenly met face to face with Isabella, who has opened one of the boxes and is picking at a pastry.

“Hey girlie,” she says, elongating the hey.

“Hey,” you reply lethargically, putting the last of the groceries away. She looks at the pastry in her hand like she’s just noticing it.

“Sorry, I can’t help it, I’m italian.” She smiles, endeared by her own behavior. You have no idea what being italian has to do with asking before you open a box of your roommate’s food, but this really isn’t out of character for her. She brings up the fact that she’s half italian more than Lele Pons blames her behavior on being latina.

She’s wearing sweatpants that say chaser on the leg in red and gold varsity font, and a tight tee shirt that says “it’s okay to love them both” with silhouettes of the male love interests from one of the vampire shows she always watches. You collect the plastic bags to put in recycling, and see a piece of paper on the counter.

It reads as follows:

Drowning in my mind

No one hears me cry

Who was I before society

Before society put me in a pink dress

And handed me blonde hair dye

And told me to lose ten pounds or be labeled a freak?

The happiest people cry the most

Let the lyrics be your story

But I’m not like the other skinny blonde pretty girls

I’m

Different

-b.g. xox

You hold back a sigh.

“I think this is yours.” you say, handing it to her.

“Oh, it’s just some of my poetry I left lying around, that’s so embarrassing.”

I know, you think, you do that all the time.

“Did you read it?” She asks, hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Thank god, that would have been so embarrassing. My poetry is something really… deep, and personal to me.”

“Uh huh. Hey, I’m going to be doing a lot of self care this weekend, so-”

“Oh!” she interjects, eerily similar to Phoebe Buffay - you guess she’s been watching friends again - “I wanted to ask… is Leo coming over later?” Her voice is riddled with subtext, the expression on her face a little too invested in your answer.

“Uh, yeah. I told you the other day we’re spending the weekend together…”

She cuts you off again, a sudden, intense look on her face.

“When will he be here?”

You check your phone, scrolling through your recent texts.

“By 7 at the latest.” It’s around 6:40 now.

“Oh my god, I have to change,” she rushes back to her room, presumably digging through her recent additions to her closet.

You’re frozen for a minute after the interaction, left with a furrowed brow and the beginnings of a headache. You blink, then choose to reschedule processing why she feels the need to change for your boyfriend to a more convenient time. That’s enough of that for today. You don’t care what else happens, you’re not talking to anyone besides Leo for at least the rest of the day. You retreat to your room to finally shower and change into something comfy. As you pass by Isabella’s room, you hear her talking to Regan.

“...There’s something almost… supernatural about him.”

You bite back a laugh.

“Do you think he’s a…” Regan begins, ending the sentence with something too quiet to hear, but you’d bet almost any organ she said vampire.

So close. So, so close, and yet… here you are.

Not much later, Leo texts you to let you know he’s here. You read his text, and run out to hug him in the living room before even typing a reply. He picks you up, and spins you around. The embrace is warm and fulfilling and familiar, and you wish it would last forever.

“Hi, Sparky.” you murmur into his neck.

“Estrella…” he says, rocking you back and forth gently and pressing a kiss into your jawline, “I missed you so much.” He punctuates the sentence with another kiss, this one to your lips, and you smile more genuinely than you have all day. You’re about to agree when you remember the good news you’ve been saving to tell him in person.

“Guess what I got on sale for like, half off,” you start, excitedly, continuing at his invested expression, “the Assassin’s Creed bundle I showed you!”

“No way,” he starts, and you nod.

“I’ll go get everything set up, drinks are in the kitchen!” He watches you retreat into your room, disbelieving how he could possibly get someone as perfect as you to fall for him. He’s not going to question his luck. He grabs a couple caffeinated sparkling ices, and meets you in your room, setting down his bag and grabbing some comfy clothes to change into.

As you both get settled in, you fill each other in on all the ridiculous shit you’ve been through this week. You finally conclude the bizarre - yet somehow standard - Isabella escapades.

“So I will be avoiding all contact as much as possible,” you laugh.

“Yeah, no shit,” he agrees, “Consider me your human buffer.” You thank him, hugging him again and pressing a kiss to his lips.

The next couple hours are spent cuddling and finishing season 4 of Castlevania. Both reeling from the season finale, you agree this is a good place to take a break, get some food, and decide what game you should start with. It’s already 10pm, which most people would consider too late for dinner, but you have all weekend to fuck up your sleep schedules.

“Let’s review,” Isabella says, holding up two red lipsticks. She turns to Regan. “Which one?”

“That one,” Regan says, pointing to the one on the left, then turns to her list, and continues. “Here’s what we know; we’ve never seen him eat, and he never seems tired. He’s really smart-”

“Almost too smart,” Isabella adds, selecting black rose dangle earrings from her jewelry. Regan agrees, and continues.

“He’s almost hypnotically attractive, and his smile is a little too dazzling.”

“There’s something… supernatural about him. Like he’s not… all human.”

Regan writes this down.

“Plus he’s always wearing black and red, and those flowy button up shirts? It’s all adding up, Ree. That dream that someone was outside my window, the ring, everything…” She says, referencing the black and red cocktail ring she’d found with her stuff when she’d first moved, “I’m not saying it’s definite, just that… there’s a chance.”

“What about…” Regan says hesitantly, nodding toward your room.

“Please,” she scoffs, “he’s only with them to get close to me, like Damon and Caroline. Edward couldn’t have just approached Bella out of the blue, he had to infiltrate her friend group first, to seem less suspicious. Not to sound mean or anything, but they really don’t seem like the type someone… like him… would choose.” her voice gets dreamy when she mentions him.

In spite of having seen most mainstream vampire media almost as many times as Isabella, Regan still considers her the expert on these things, and decides not to point out that Edward didn’t infiltrate Bella’s friend group. Maybe it comes up in one of the retellings she hasn’t read yet.

“So, what now?”

Isabella sets down her lipstick, and turns to her friend.

“I tell him.”

Regan’s eyes widen.

“You’re going to tell him you know?”

“No… not yet. It’s too soon, we don’t have enough evidence. I’m going to tell him I know he’s in love with me, then once he’s secure in our relationship... we’ll see where it goes.”

She stands up, assessing herself in the mirror. She chose her outfit carefully; short red dress with black roses and black mesh collar, black rose bracelet to match her earrings, snug faux leather jacket, and black stiletto ankle booties with a very skinny heel, the zipper on the outside gold, not silver. She fluffs her wavy hair and turns towards the door. She looks back one more time, holding onto the doorway.

“Wish me luck.”

Leo enters the kitchen, seeing Isabella already there, leaning against the counter seductively. She’s wearing an outfit and jewelry this late at night that makes Leo wonder if she’s going to an emo tea party. He puts the takeout in the microwave. She’s still staring at him.

“Uh… hey.”

She lets out a dainty giggle, looking him up and down.

“... Hi.”

At a loss for words, and really wanting the awkward silence to be over, he continues, “Did you need something?”

“What I need,” she walks closer to him, tracing her finger over his collar, “is you.”

What the fuck?

His brain seems to stall for a moment, and she uses this opportunity to continue.

“I know why you’re here. I know that you’re only using them to get closer to me. I know-”

“Woah-”

“That you’re in love with me.”

Okay, double what the fuck.

She takes his stunned silence as shyness, and steps closer, putting her arms around his shoulders.

“You don’t need to play so coy, I-”

This time she’s the one that gets cut off. He grabs her arms and gently steps away, trying to make it abundantly clear that he’s not into this.

“Woah, okay, slow down. First of all, you’re 17 and I’m turning 20 in a couple months, so that’s a hard no. Second, I don’t know where you got this idea, but I am not dating them to get closer to you. We’ve known each other since we were like, 15, and have been through everything together. I’ve only known you for a couple months. I love them. Probably more than I’ve loved anything ever. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

He doesn’t want to be mean, he really doesn’t, but he can tell from the look on her face that she still thinks this is all part of some game.

“So why don’t I ever see you eat? Why are you so smart, and always up at night? I know what you are.”

He has to physically hold back a laugh. He takes a step back, and places his hands on the counter.

“Isabella, I have adhd. And I’m literally an engineering student. Why wouldn’t I be smart and have a shitty sleep schedule?”

She starts to protest, and he pulls out the reheated take out from the microwave.

“And for the record, I do eat.”

Exiting the kitchen quickly and retreating back to your room, he hands you your food.

“I got the game set up!” you say excitedly.

“Nice!”

You take one look at his face and can tell something happened. He sees this, and continues.

“I just had a very… interesting interaction with Isabella,” before he finishes the sentence, your head is already in your hands. You let out a groan.

“What did she do?” you mutter from behind your hands.

He pulls you into his lap, rubbing your back.

“I’m not totally sure,” you laugh, “but I think she thinks I’m secretly in love with her…” you’re both laughing before he can even finish the sentence.

“No…” you laugh, “no fucking way…”

“Believe me, I put an end to that as soon as it started.”

“Oh, I do.”

He runs his hand over your back, and you’re quiet for a moment.

“You know,” he continues, “I think getting our own place has definitely moved up the priority list.”

You couldn’t agree more.

#leo valdez x reader #leo x reader #leo valdez #leo valdez imagine #heroes of olympus #heroes of olympus x reader

[kuronekonerochan]

Random rant about Court Lady (ps: if you like the drama just don’t read it pls, or if you do, don’t @ me)

Disclaimer: I personally hate this drama and I almost never post about dramas negatively, just for the ones I like and ignore the ones I dislike. This one annoys me and I am aware that my criticism is probably only partially objectively valid and also partially nitpicks that irked me but are not “wrong” per se.

Also,just bc I don’t like it, if others like it, I have nothing to say about it except that liking it is as valid as my opinion and If you’re enjoying it, I’m glad and in no way judging bc in the end it’s just fiction and to each its own :)

I started watching this and dropped it at about ep8 bc I didn’t really enjoy it, despite the fact that I did find the production and technical aspects of the drama good and a bit different from the usual (including costume choices, etc). I even liked some of the characters like the Lu Daughter, the Pirate and the Princess (the one who hooks up with the ml’s brother). Mostly I liked Xu Kai, even as a bratty dude. Still, not enough stuff to keep my interest. After that I saw a random ep and realized the leads barely show up (and not even together) and that the screentime was dedicated to way too many  secondary characters, none of them the least interesting or likable.

But then I got bored and watched the latest eps of court lady,and tho pirate, princess and enemy daughter all show up, it's still boring and although it has  tons of characters, 99% of them are entitled psychopaths, and not even interesting psycho types at that, or masterminds that are enjoyable to watch. Nope they are all just annoying bullies and horrible ppl, men and women alike and what enjoyment can I get from this drama where the leads are almost never on scene together, there is a million subplots and characters yet almost no characters are likable and worth rooting for?

(Also, on nitpicking stuff, even tho they are probably historically accurate, I  ended up really disliking those stupid male hats and that terrible female wig style updo that looks terrible on almost every actress, while also making most of them impossible to tell apart. Besides, I changed my mind about the costume design...it ended up being a mess (not bc I don't like it personally) but bc you have scholars, penniless retired pirates, nobleman and royalty all wearing the exact same type of clothes with no difference in fabric, or embellishments or accessories to tell apart their hierarchic rank. Truly, one of the royals was addressed as your majesty and I'm like "dude, your clothes seem cheaper than the extras and servants around you".)

I ended up watching one of the latest ep where the leads finally have decent screentime...and omg it's not only the 1000 side characters who are unlikable, the leads are awful too...why would anyone do a drama with just terrible people? I kind of wish them all the equivalent of period White truck of Doom ending (maybe a collective corpse bridge like 2ha or TGCF?).

And for final exit rant on the latest eps:

Idk what I was thinking checking this drama out  again...seriously all the chars in this are either plain bullies, or that plus rapists (both genders, really...dudes all try to force themselves on the women and all the women take advantage of the men being drunk/poisoned, etc to sleep with them without them being able to give conscientious consent)...this might be the worse char ensemble drama I've ever seen. not a single relatable/likable char on sight, and they give us a million of them too.

 This is truly bizarre... this type of behavior dramas usually give to their villains, so you know, of those actions they're showing are morally bad. In this one all the characters are bad doing shitty things but the drama itself is so blase about it it kind of treats all of this stuff as normal and okay?! 

It's not as if I'm usually an sjw on fiction...I enjoy my bastard characters, but the whole vibe of this drama is...off, like completely disconnected from regular human behavior, as if they all got their moral compass set to fucking awful, so fucking awful became the new normal. It's very weird bc it's almost as they don't care if there isn't anyone worth rooting for.

 And it's not just the actions of the characters...on some (much better) dramas/novels, the "heroes" are also just as morally grey as the villains and the only reason we root for them is because we're on their side (e.g. Joy of Life, Qi Ye, WoH, The Advisers’ Alliance, Ever Night S1), but usually on those dramas the characters have their own personal reasons for "ends justify the means" and from their perspective, whether doing bad or good stuff they don't think of themselves as villains, and likewise the “true” villains in those dramas also have their own narrative and reasoning which makes them somewhat relatable even if we disagree or hate them. In this ppl act shitty, fully aware that they are shitty and without remorse, for very weak reasons and honestly most of those actions are more bc they can than to serve a purpose. They are all amoral idiots. I'm weirdly fascinated by this drama's mindset.

Basically they are all that dude friend from To Rule in a Turbulent World on the first chapter beating Sanado to death just bc, but instead of giving him a context and character depth showing different sides to him (and I ended up really liking that character), the ppl in this drama just have their characters doing that shit again and again and never try to give any sort of dimension to them.

I am the Ryan Reynolds "but...why?" meme watching this.

PS: I am very aware of how repetitive and unfocused and messy this rant is, but this is a compilation of my watching experience at various stages blended into this one post and honestly this drama does not deserve me wasting my time to make this text any more cohesive, so rambly barely comprehensive mess it is.

#court lady #cdrama #cnovel #to rule in a turbulent world #qi ye #the advisers' alliance #joy of life #word of honor #word of honour #ever night #it's been a while since I made a ranty rant #cdrama rant #cdrama rambles #it just annoys me when I see a drama with a great production value wasted on a bad story plot and script #especially when the acting isn't bad either...the direction is super weird and the editing is sort of awkward but I don't dislike the actors #also this is based on a novel so i'm probably offending both novel and drama fans with this #the thing is sometimes a novel can get away with elements like this bc of how it's written and gives context and reasoning through #inner monologues to the actions of its characters #i never read the novel this is based on so it might just be a case of it translating poorly to live action #but that's on the show's adaptation and script to fix #for example I liked both the novel and the drama for Faraway Wanderers #but it did have some elements that could have translated badly to the live action #and I think the changes they did to the script while some being required bc censorship #others were helpful towards making the story better and with a bigger emotional impact for a live action format

[svtskneecaps]

Rules: answer questions and tag blogs you are contractually obligated to know better!

so @kwonthefire tagged me thank u for giving me an excuse to talk about myself you KNOW i will jump on that shit with absolutely no hesitation you’re incredible

Name/nickname: vic

Gender: woman babey

Star sign: cancer

Height : HAHA TALLER THAN MY OLDER SIBLING S H O R T  L M A O

Time: 5:50 am don’t tell my friends i’m going to bed when i post this i swear

Birthday: july

Favourite bands: seventeen, and i vibe to like, panic!, twice, does the cast of newsies count as a band?

Favourite soloists: listen i’ll vibe to anybody with solid lyrics or a good melody so like, halsey, carrie underwood, taylor swift has been a big one recently, anna nalik, miranda lambert, yknow. all the shit i listened to like six years ago has returned to my playlist cause i’m Stressed tm (ngl the house that built me came on and i actually started crying in the middle of making enchiladas w my entire family like i went straight from DOUBLE BUBBLE DISCO QUEEN to sobbing in the sauce)

i mean not actually the sauce you know what i mean

Last movie: ah shit probably like. pollyanna or something. NO WAIT IT WAS THAT FUCKIN SECOND BORN ROYALS MOVIE ON DISNEY+ THAT MY FAMILY WATCHED WHILE SORTING ALL THE OLD CLOTHES WE DON’T FIT ANYMORE

Last show: shit uhh i think it was like. the three caballeros yknow that animated series with donald duck it’s on disney+. unless we count my mom’s episodes of criminal minds that she watches in the room next to me

Song stuck in my head: an absolutely bizarre combination of that “she’s a wh*re” song clip from tik tok, “the world will know” from newsies, the rock violin cover of the phantom of the opera from the umbrella academy, and like. the twelve days of christmas as sung by straight no chaser, specifically the section where they start doing africa. i don’t know what’s going on either.

When I created this blog: idk a while ago. like three years? four years?

Last thing I googled: ah shit. probably something for premiere pro, adobe software sucks it’s the least intuitive shit i have ever used literally the program i used to write in java worked easier than fucking premiere pro

Other blogs: @ismyreadinglistgoodenoughforyou and i have a couple more but those are classified by order of [redacted]. i can reblog onto @tctwriters but that’s not technically mine it’s OURS anyway follow tctwriters

Do I get asks: nah dude which sux cause my favorite thing to talk about is me l m a o

Why I chose my url: dude i don’t remember i wanted to rebrand from the god awful ‘ismycapsloudenoughforyou’ so i think we went, ok, so seventeen. svt. and my discord status was probably “stop bullying jeonghan’s knee >:(” so they were like, ok knees. and i went ah SHIT, KNEECAPS and then i just. did that.

Following : my guy do you think i know

Followers : like a graduating class worth

Lucky numbers: idk like 12 and 7 and maybe 32

Avg hours of sleep: o jesus well uh. anywhere between 4 and 12 it depends on if i have something to do the next day

Instruments: i can play viola and some flute, i’ve briefly dabbled in piano, ukulele, harmonica, and accordion

What I’m wearing right now: haha state football merch and socks that clash very drastically bc it’s goddamn cold in my house fuck

Dream trip: honestly any trip is my dream trip as long as a couple specific people come. like literally a trip to the grocery store could be my dream trip as long as these specific people are there yknow. people make the trip more than the actual places, for me

Favourite food: o i forgot to answer this one uhhh dr pepper isn’t a food but i don’t eat and my veins run with the stuff

Nationality: american ahaha

Favourite song: ah shit dude it depends on my mood i can’t answer this rn i literally just got “WILL WE LET EM STUFF THIS CROCK O’ GARBAGE DOWN OUR THROATS” stuck in my head and now i can’t actually remember any other songs anyway it’s Home Run stream Home Run by Seventeen guys stream Home Run it’s a fucking bop and the music video is absolute quality i literally didn’t listen to another song for a week and a half after it dropped and i’m not kidding in the slightest stream Home Run by Seventeen guys.

Top three Fictional Universe: it has been so long since i’ve experienced anything that’s original fiction i mean like, jowling kowling rowling is a fucking terf and we hate her LMAO so the only harry potter universe i can vibe with is one that’s thoroughly headcanoned to squeeze all the bullshit out of it, but i vibe with those kinds (i’ve written those kinds, or tried anyway lmao).

also i couldn’t actually read the Lord of the Rings series bc Tolkien’s prose was just way too dense for me to enjoy without it feeling like i was reading a textbook, but i read the Hobbit and i talk to my dad about it sometimes cause he listens to a podcast where they analyze it, and literally the absolute care and time he put into making every section of that world feel alive is absolutely buck fuckin wild to me i mean fuck it up Tolkien that’s fucking incredible. that is batshit insane you incredible man, godspeed.

and doctor who is lit as fuck, tbh i vibe hard with the rtd era shit, they kind of lost me at eleven and also took that shit off amazon prime before i was done watching shitheads but like you have to admit that’s a giant fictional universe and it feels Alive as hell and i vibe with that hard like i vibed so hard i fuckin started writing my own goddamn season just bc i wanted to play around in that lovely lovely sandbox so kudos to them i guess

not in that order

anyway idk who to tag so if you’re seeing this from tctwriters and actually have notifs on for that blog, you’re up dummy i love you. i’d say anyone who wants to take it but nobody ever does so this is for the tctwriters i’m calling you out SPECIFICALLY.

#shut up vic #no seriously shut up vic what the hell #thank u for tagging me i enjoyed talking about nothing for far too long #my favorite pastime tbh L M A O #love u <3

[ancient-bruises-ancient-moon]

ok SO I got an anon I wasn’t gunna respond to but I'm enjoying a vegan chocolate banana cookie dough thc/cbd infused smoothie I invented so fuck it, let’s do this

this isn’t gunna be eloquent at all and I hope what im intending to say comes off correctly. may not, my brain is mush- but here we go!

so last night/technically this morning I reblogged a lot from this brilliant intersexism blog. (highly recommend giving a follow!) which led to...a bizarre ass anon this morning (I'll make another post linking to her blog so ya’ll can follow. she doesn’t need to deal w/ this post after everything else she deals w/ on here- unless u want to ofc!! hi ur cool! ANYWAY...)

I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something like “so ud rather have sex w intersex ppl over trans ppl??”

ummm. I literally never said shit about sex w/ intersex ppl?? like, ever.

was that supposed to be some huge “gotcha!!” ??

‘cause it didn’t work, at all.

1. my body is not a democracy

2. why r ya’ll obsessed w sex as validation

3. ur rly gunna ask me, essentially, if I'd rather be intimate w a deranged narcissistic reality denying manic OR a person with an intersex disorder...and u rly think I'm gunna be like OH NO I’D RATHER HAVE SEX W A MANIAC???

like...it’s rly not ab sex at all but did u RLY think that was gunna work in ur favor somehow?? and if u did, why did u think so? could it be bc u use intersex ppl as pawns for ur arguments but then don’t actually consider them ppl that can be in loving and intimate relationships? do u rly think this is activism? do you feel no shame?? you should be fucking embarrassed. this is so embarrassing for you. 

something ya’ll don’t realize: I worked at a center that offered therapeutic services, std testing, & peer activity groups for lgbtiapqbdsmnlmnop folxxxx

I know how ya’ll speak to your therapists, to your peers when you think no one is listening, I watch ya’ll take credit for things u did NOTHING for, I've watched your violence against anyone who disagrees with you (INCLUDING about tv show characters...like, come on..) Adult trans women using fake IDs to try to get into youth events...and then get MAD AT ME when I have to kick A WHOLE ASS HALF DRESSED MAN GRINDING ON THE FLOOR out of an event for CHILDREN... this is beyond just Tumblr. you’re also like this irl. and often, somehow, even fucking worse.

I had far less intersex clients BUT ya know who wasn’t throwing tantrums, being violent, trying to take credit for things they didn’t do, starting fights, sneaking into events to get near minors?? my intersex clients! NOT ONCE. AND  let’s be real...my intersex clients had good fucking reason to be furious and there were absolutely times that I would not have blamed them in the slightest for slapping tf out of someone...but they didn’t. not once. (ngl tho if they did I would have “not seen” what happened tbh bc I am a very responsible adult lmao- I can say this now bc I left the field so it matters not at all for my career)

ya know who would stay after hours, silently crying in rage bc of the shit trans clients said to them? my intersex clients (the big one was trans ppl telling them they’re lucky they get to ~~choose~~ their sex)

ya know who took the time to use open activist hour to build presentations to teach the LARGELY ENTIRELY INEPT staff (myself included, more below) about intersex issues so the people who come after them can get better help than they were able to receive?? I'll give you one guess. 

I left academia and working in the field w/ ppl bc of my experiences at this place & the direction this tender gender trender shit is taking academia. Intersex people deserve so much fucking better than even having to HEAR this bullshit. I would only go back into the field to work with women & intersex individuals. Probably as a volunteer though, but I digress

I worked there when all these new words were coming out too like demisexual android identified diaper baby or whatever the fuck lmao and the trans clients would be FURIOUS when anyone didn’t know wtf it meant

and in contrast our intersex clients were constantly explaining shit to staff/interns/volunteers about their conditions that they should never have had to explain TO THE PROFESSIONALS WHO WERE THERE TO HELP THEM. and I can’t even lie and pretend I fucking knew much, I didn’t. I was hired without even knowing i’d be working w intersex clients- I just needed to show I knew some trans buzzwords. but I put in the time to learn, I read every book any client recommended, any article they emailed me- but honestly that STILL ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!!!! I should NOT have been hired!!! MY BOSS should not have been hired!!! Actually, the only staff members that actually deserved their job was an gay intersex man. OT but he was so cool and smart and hilarious and like FUN ANGRY like idk how to explain that better lol he was good at getting u pumped up ab shit & good at getting ppl worked up enough to DO something. The only other staff member who actually cared and knew anything was a lesbian woman (of course) but she had recently had a baby and became so afraid for the welfare of her wife and daughter that she went along w trans shit that she KNEW was delusional and unhealthy bc we SAW these trans clients being violent on the Regular. we were legally obligated to call the cops several times. she wasn’t wrong to be afraid but I do think she should have tried to work elsewhere if she could no longer do her job with integrity but that’s a conversation for another day.

agh im just gunna end this post now bc I can rly go on and on but I'll leave the post with this question that I'd very much like an answer to:

how can we as activists be of better service to our intersex sisters? this issue is becoming more and more pressing and I can’t sit back and do nothing for them anymore. does anyone know of intersex only orgs that need volunteers or have suggestions?? PLS LET ME KNOW. I won’t go back to where I was but there’s GOTTA be SOMETHING I can do for the intersex community. let’s figure it out <3 this issue very seriously needs the attention of radical feminists tbh so...let’s do something.

[transrightsjimin]

i also guess i dont rly get pronoun discourse as much bc in a one-on-one conversation it doesnt do much for me. like i dont know many terms for grammar in neither emglish nor dutch but it was still rly bizarre that whenever i did tell one or a few ppl in confidence that im trans / nonbinary / not a girl, their first question was 'oh wat zijn je pronouns?' which always was a bit weird to hear as it rly shows the conversation starts off w smth stemming from discourses in english. and i stammered a bit at this question each time bc i couldnt just give a short answer, like yeah it's ze / haar, but also, the person is talking directly to me so why would they need to talk about me to others? and i do address that i'm not really out of the closet or openly trans so them using e.g. 'neutral' or 'masculine' pronouns to others when describing me would make even less sense. so i explained i use 'female' pronouns in dutch and am not really out but just wanted to confide in them and let them know i'm not a girl so they could stop calling me that.

and that's okay and all and then 5 minutes later they call me a girl or other female word again or include me when describing girls. this happened in groups such as the dutch lolita community and the same happened a lot w my mom, like, they know i personally have something to do w gender and try to talk to me abt it (including very uncomfortable nd wrong discussions such as the shit they learned from tv or research about how "many" people decide to detransition in europe, talking to me abt this like it's fun facts), and know i'm related to transness but at the same time show, often very briefly after, that they include me in 'girls' or 'women'. it's just so baffling and uncomfortable.

i rly think there's an issue in how anglophonic and by extent, western discussions about and by (white) trans people focus so much on pronouns and name-changes. i get that you need to respect the way people want to be called, and you do! but what is the use of asking for pronouns when you're only going to talk about transness in confidence with the person, where they don't mention you to another person? are you open to acknowledging when the person doesn't change pronouns or names from the ones provided at birth? will you consider that people are still their gender when the answers they gave are associated with their agab?? do you try to pay attention to answers that are longer than two words instead of nod and soon continue to misgender someone after they didn't give a clear-cut answer? because gender isn't clear-cut and if you don't follow the conversation at all or know you will forget what i told you and will continue to fuck up or still think i'm a girl, just tell me so i don't mistakenly think i confided in someone.

#i guess this is also an issue i had w the lolita community #the only 2 ppl in it who know im nonbinary are that themselves too nd they were both newer to it #i didnt like one of the two though nd the other was the only leftist i knew in the comm but i never attended the same events as her #it just sucks bc i dont think i could ever be close to anyone w/o them knowing im nonbinary but my attempts in the comm failed #so i could never be rly comfirtable though that was also bc i just didnt have the same energy level or liberal feminist mindset lol #rambles

[harryseyebrows]

what’s also fucking hilarious to me is that, at least from what i see via my dash, most of the ~het content is actually like...really respectful and integrates the new stuff we get in like..interesting ways. after the fishnet stuff came out i saw a few things floating around and it was mostly girls (who i do not know the sexual orientations of but they could be straight and *shocked gasps* they COULD BE BI, bc u know...they exist. twitter take notes) talking about wanting to give him the strap??? or little blurb things about taking off his makeup and generally being super into this shoot and him doing ~traditionally femme stuff (beginning to hate that term, thanks u absolutely reductive fucks). and there seems to be this misconception that “het fic” is inherently bad and somehow offensive - which....if the argument for why your bottom harry fic where he gets fucked by anyone in his general vicinity and begs for cum is that you think that harry himself would be personally less offended by it because your understanding of him is that he’s gay and ready to get fucked at any given opportunity and doesn’t even know what a woman is.....i have some news....rpf is inherently weird and murky and anyone who writes rpf has this little worry in the back of their mind that it’s...morally Weird, so therefore ANY fic, whether it be m/m f/m or f/f or any other gendered pairing, at its core, is writing about real people who you don’t know!!! and you don’t know how they’d feel about ANY CONTENT!!!! the moral gatekeeping, as if bottom harry fic is somehow more pure than any other type of fic is fucking bizarre. like im sorry that there ARE shitty people on twitter who say transphobic stuff but this lumping of entire groups of people who personally have different interests than you is fucking annoying, mostly because it puts people’s desires and sexual expression in a box, namely young women, AND it often ignores the existence of bi girls????? anyway. act better, twitter

[dwindlingashesburnt]

My mother bothers me immensely about the weather.

For one thing, she acts as though the weather decides what we do. "It's sunny, so you HAVE to be outside, not cooped up inside, and if you don't go outside for most of the day or even vaguely suggest you'd prefer to play boardgames inside for a bit, I am going to get angry." And, partially, I get it - you can't practically go to the park when it's pouring rain, so if you want to go to the park, go when it's sunny. But that's the thing - she seems to have missed that sunny days are an OPPORTUNITY to go outside, not that you must go outside. I have no problem with going to the park or something when it's sunny, that's nice. But when she tries to force us to go outside when we really don't want to? When it's the middle of the summer, and has been sunny everyday for a month, and she's started an argument every day of that month that we've tried to say we don't want to go on a walk or to the park that day? Then it gets rather unreasonable.

She also repeatedly tries to dictate clothing based on season rather than weather, which is stupid and miserable - it is not fun to have a jumper and coat on in preparation for the rain and wind, then be ordered to take them off because "It's summer!" Look lady, it may be summer but a thunderstorm also broke, and it is pouring rain and freezing cold - I am NOT going out in shorts and a T-shirt! Alternatively, it's autum but an abnormally hot day, so I am in a T-shirt, and I get told to layer up - no. It's fucking bizarre that it's so hot today, but I refuse to make myself overheat by layering up on this boiling autumn day, alright?

She also tries to make my clothing choices based on frequency - I rarely if ever wear dresses or skirts (bc gender dysphoria sucks!! And also I plain don't like them) so she frequently hassles me saying I should wear dresses, she never sees me in dresses, I would look beautiful, why won't I just wear a damn dress for one day. And it's like...Okay, mother, I can't tell you it's because I'm not a girl, but I CAN tell you it's that I don't like wearing dresses or skirts, and I don't have any that fit me anyway, and probably couldn't find many that would fit me that I'd like if I tried. But still those reasons aren't good enough??

She also, far more rarely but also in a ruder manner when she does it, makes rather nasty comments about my hoodies, my T shirts, sometimes even my trousers or shorts - guess why? Because I wear them too often! Like oh my god, I wear them frequently because a) they're some of the few clothes that fit me, b) I really like them and feel both comfortable and safe in them, and c) I think I look not entirely horrible in them. Okay?

Frankly I don't think she should be able to decide what I can, cannot or must wear in any case, but...So fucking frustrating

Sorry, bit of a rant there, just...urghhh

#mother #abusive mother #rant #personal #vent #controlling #I guess #weather #urghhh

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

#momestuck

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

had a bizarre dream last night, it isn’t entirely linear now i recall it late at night

basically, a group of random people my age down to late teens perhaps (or maybe i was younger, definitely more attractive) were banded together

we went into a giant red, metallic building tht was clearly some sort of artist design concept, almost shaped like a lightning bolt with an elevator (internal), and green gardens with generic sandstone paths

my team, was team blue. this could be due to the fact its a fave colour.

we were a random collection of people, my group was sent to the Blue Group room. there were lockers, our colour. we had outfits in them, they didn’t seem practical, and yet we put them on. everyone had this wrist bracelet, pastel coloured, blue/pink/white was our team’s colour scheme

really odd, didn’t seem to have the weapons at this point. someone had a baby that kept shifting between real and a doll, not sure what the fuck was up with that? but that’s important to now for later. Everyone carried the child around at some point, bc that’s how the group worked.

well, after getting ready we went into what felt like the inside of a massive victorian house, very colour-coded colour schemes and polished wood banisters/chairs. The bit i recall most was a massive room that seemed to, for some reason, feel like the internal portion of overwatch’s Eichenwalde map, the big castle section?

but victorian era styled furniture, etc. but, also, modern items. like the bracelets to monitor us, and there were people on phones and using music devices.

i was sitting in a row near the entrance (a red corridor and doors for some reason, sort of muted, almost bordering on orange with the sunlight hitting it, it clashed with the decor). some of my team were there, others of different colour-coded teams were talking to me, sitting with us. mostly friendly.

there were some people down the line being rude, or at least, trash-talking me specifically. I was casually ambivalent to them, and occasionally roasted them back. it probs wasn’t even great, but i know it shut the dude up for a minute.

then there was a signal or something.

i can’t recall the next section but the segment of dream directly after that was being in the big room, by ourselves or maybe a few random members of other teams; and there were creatures, monsters, huge and hard to describe. Some were flying, some crawled over the walls, some were just large. we were fighting with various things trying to take them out, because they weren’t supposed to be there? 

i think i intercepted the the baby like a football at one point, and carried (her?) around the battle for a bit, there were people everywhere. then someone else in less danger presented to take her, so baby was away and we could once again kick some serious ass. 

We won, eventually, I believe. That part of the dream isn’t overtly clear, now. 

The next bit i recall it was like the monster bit hadn’t really happened, and everyone was sent to their locker areas (all colours on different floors, unclear the distance between that and the big green room thingo we fought in)

Everyone seemed fine, unscathed or at least able to move around really. Forgot about the infant until someone was like “Hey, here’s (she?) is!” and I think the mum had her. Someone had a sling thing to make carrying easier; which was important, because at this point we all got weapons.

Some were like paintballs, some were paint knives or some shit, someone had a paintball fucking machine gun, and there were other bizarre weapons as well.

So we’re battling, sneaking around like you would in a real paintball or lasertag style battle. there’s a surprising amount of buildings outside the place, somehow, lots of green gardens to hide in. the kind of minigardens with wooden frames stacked around them, if that makes sense.

The bit i recall was in fragments: im pretty sure i got the smug ass from team orange who was being a wanker earlier. Pretty sure the weapon i was given was some sort of general paintball gun, blue pellets and all. But I think was was out or it jammed or something, and i was holding the infant, who was a doll again at this point for bizarre reasons... 

And one of the taunting buggers from team pink comes around the corner of a building and right into the attached garden, wherein my team and i (the members we could find, tactical, covert and cohesive we were not, outside of monster-fighting) were hiding. and by ‘hiding’ i mean a bunch of grown ass people in black and notably blue outfits, crouching amongst like three (3) leafy green plants like a shitty where’s waldo ripoff

he comes around the corner, the rest of the team is picked off by several other colours, yellow, orange, maybe a green or red not sure (couldn’t give you an adequate number of team members really. not sure why, pretty sure there was at least five/six of us, mixed genders). but there’s the pink guy, average white dude, holding what looked like a kids’ shovel, the plastic kind you’d make sandcastles with...

at this point, i know im doomed. so i was like, “fuck it” and waited to be Pink’d. but he kind of gestured, then splatted the doll baby thing and coated it in pink paint; then smacked me with the fucking thing. and i was like, “???????? get back here smartass” and somehow managed to shoot him in the arse with my blue pellets. beautiful revenge.

weird thing: rather than using the elevator, we were like, catapulted to our floors post-battle? it was so weird. “which floor?” ‘Orange’. “Righty-ho” *pulls the lever, launches them unto oblivion*

then we’re inside, showering maybe, but the next bit we’re clean and in the locker area. i know there was talking, teams intermingling. 

can’t recall the next bit, think i woke up or something.

>it was fascinating, really.

#dreams #what the fuck

[agentdammers]

“Cyberwoman”

its the big one........... the Infamous....................... torchwood 1x04.....

let’s do this nasty thing

- How do i even begin to describe this episode? theres A Lot to unpack here. like. a lot

- the opening scene with everyone being RRRRRRROWDY and playing basketball in a confined space is cute but also, feels misplaced? random lmao, bizarre,

- ah! this episode!!!!! this episode that has haunted me since it’s original airing, in 2006!!!!!!!! this episode, irremovably burned into my skull, until the day that i finally die, and know peace!!!!! this Accursed fucking episode!!!!

- where do i begin, to try and word my feelings? lets begin with the cyberwoman herself: What In The Good Godded Fuck someone involved in this show, at some point, decided that this cyberman needed to be sexy. like that definitely happened, and theres nothing we can do about it. like that happened, for real. so they put this character, this half converted cyberman, in to a Metal Bikini because, yknow!!!!! why WOULDN’T the cybermen’s internal design involve some kind of protruding tittied Pussy Out look? and this was done with 100% sincerity, this was intended to be taken seriously. truly incredible. bad to look at.

- if you can suspend your belief for just a sec to get past the fact there’s a fullblown actual canon Sexified Cyberman running round with her puss out in this ep, baffling yet even further is the fact that ianto Apparently managed to smuggle not only a cyberman into the hub, but also, all that fucking equipment???? like the entire cyber conversion unit????? this is crrrrrazy!!!! The fact this stuff was in the hub alone and no one seemed to ever, at any point, have gone “hey.... whats down there?” or otherwise actually fucking looked around their entire Secret Base (which implies that Anything could have been in there and theyre too dumb to ever have known) is mindblowing but like, the sheer SCALE of the stuff thats down there!!!! its a full conversion unit!!!!!!!!!! oh my god!!!!!!

- returning to the metal bikini just one more time: the only sense i can make of this design is that if, canonically, all cybermen regardless of their original gender, are all wearing metallic bikinis under their outer casings. which would be Rad as hell actually

- i love that this episode really just goes 0-100 with ianto out of the blue, before now he’s done and said p much Fuck All and suddenly he’s right in the middle of this absurdly dark storyline simultaneously Begging for death while trying to save someone who is Absolutely set on killing fucking everyone else

- saying that i actually really LIKE just how chaotically dark this episode is and its one of the aspects of this (aside from the Bad Shit like metal bikini and the secret in the basement nonsense) that has made it perhaps the most Memorable ep of the entire show for me????

- return of the fantastically bad BBC cgi!!!! our tv licence pennies have Not gone to the parts of the programming that i would have liked lmao

- ianto is a really aggressively ugly crier. bad to look at part deux

- i hate the owen/gwen kiss lmao. like on his part, i understand but girl!!!!!! u have a bf waiting at home!!!!!!! who loves you!!!! youre gonna kiss this pasty little asshole in the dark, for why??? Shame On You!!!!!!

- “I was on top of you i could feel your hard on” That’s His Packer Babe ! trans owen 2k18

- after all this, the ending is just, so fucking brutal???? like the entire team fucking lines up like a firing squad and lets rip on lisa, u couldve taken her out in like a headshot guys!!! they just keep shooting and shooting her!!!!!! after feeding her to myfanwy, no less!!!!!! FUCKING RUTHLESS

- on the subject of which, i like that ianto calls jack out in the episode and calls him the monster. bc it seems that like, aside from gwen who is new and not used to the way they do things, the way the rest of the team reacts to things is so fucking shocking lmao. “oh we’ll just plant a body and fake this alien victims death” its so flippant, its good to see another member of the team actually go Maybe Yall Are Fucked Up instead of just shrugging off the way that they are

- anyway thats it!!!! episode done, and so sets the ball rolling of ianto just being absolutely fucking ready to die(tm), you poor poor welsh son of a bitch

#ive had such Beef w this episode since 2006 so im letting rip im sorry!!!!!!!!!! #in fairness this is more of a review than just pointing out shit i found funny #grand torchwood rewatch 2018