#I think they might have been more understanding and sympathetic if I were trans but I'm not and being nonbinary is somehow too difficult for

[annie-thyme]

and once again I am suddenly overwhelmed with an intense feeling of not really fitting into a gender

[a-luran]

Oooh trans Arthur lover here. Any and all info I’ll take. I adore how you portray and Alasdair and his reaction (or lack there of) does Arthur have much support elsewhere. I’ve always though as Arthur as this kinda pale lanky being no matter what’s in his trousers and thus able to pass very well.

sorry pal! I was away but I'm home and delighted to come back to this ask.

My Arthur headcanons all depend on the AU I'm thinking about but i do feel like there is a general baseline so I'll answer based on that/ give a take on something approximating canon (or the canon that lives in my head rent free).

Like you say, Arthur is probably able to 'pass' from a young age playing on the biases of the people around him. He unassuming, lanky, fails to execute idealised masculinity in a way that makes him stick out as historically queer but not necessarily trans. (I wrote a bit more about my thoughts on Arthur, vanity, and historical masculinities here.

I think that growing so isolated, Arthur was in for a harrowing realisation when he (still very young) comes to live amongst settled humans and discovers that gender and sex matter to them in a way that it never mattered to Scot/Wales/Ireland (other nations coming across him would not have been able to tell, would never have gotten close enough. In my headcanon not even Francis knows, necessarily, for a good while. This is both a blessing and a curse). I think this makes Arthur zealous, isolates him further, and makes him defensive to the point of cruelty in the long run. He knows what people are capable of and going stealth is a defence mechanism at first, and later on just a commonality. This robs him of support and community, however necessary, and robs him of broader, more fluid perspectives on gender. I do mean it when I think that Arthur's greatest tragedy is of his own doing. In this case there are obviously a lot of other things in play-- his physical safety and the parameters of his social and economic conditions throughout history, his personal relationships and what others expect of him, etc.-- but there comes a point where the people and nations who love him would welcome him and he just won't have it. I think it leaves him angry and aching and with a skewed perception of intimacy.

I think he starts dabbling with cross dressing to explore aspects of femininity he admires but doesn't truly lean into it into the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. I had a couple of scenes in my drafts of a '5+1 times Arthur wears a dress (starting from the early middle ages to the present)' exploring this desire to explore gender as a trans guy but life happened and sadly I never got around to finishing it. My main takeaways from writing it though were his innermost thoughts about gender and beauty. This is also where a lot of my Alasdair-reacting-to-Arthur headcanons began to take shape. I think the Isles grew up relatively isolated and wrapped up in each other, in a lot of ways, which definitely affected Alasdair as well. He has never questioned his gender himself, or Sean's, and Wales', and so it never occurs to him to question Arthur's; it is just who he is. The only person he might question gender around if probably Francis (which is funny to me, and a little endearing. I think of Francis finally putting two and two together and figuring that Arthur is trans a lot, and the scenario usually involves Alasdair's fat mouth and his clumsy musings about gender).

Sean is similar to him in this sense, albeit probably a little more inquisitive about gender and sex and all things human (inquisitive but unwilling to chase down Arthur to clear any questions he may have; Sean's experience with transness comes from experiencing other people, and then turning to look at Arthur with a realisation of 'ah, I see you in others, and see them in you too. I understand you a little better now, and it makes it even more difficult to hate you.')

Wales has always been sympathetic and probably would have been the first to try and address gender around Arthur... only to get immediately shot down. I think that he is also he only person who truly knows the things that Arthur saw and experienced that so harshly made him into the man he is, and so despite how much he wants to talk about it, help Arthur, be the safe space he needs in the world, he understands he needs to let it happen on Arthur's terms.

Francis pushes where Wales doesn't, and insists on Arthur's wellbeing and talking things out in a way that a lot of the time ends up pushing Arthur further away too. It would never be Arthur's first choice to run to Francis, even if he might do it subconsciously. As the most gender-literate of the whole bunch, Francis would probably also get frustrated, which would make matters a million times worse. If anyone could cut Arthur deep it would be Francis, and it probably has been. Theirs is a complicated relationship despite Francis' best intentions.

I think that Arthur turns to Alasdair for all of these reasons. It's his gruff acceptance, the wordless kind of understanding he offers, and the fact that he lets Arthur decide for himself. Unlike Francis he isn't offering him words to describe what he is; he is just a constant presence by his side. It isn't all roses, I do think that Arthur needs the questioning and the pushback he gets from others to an extent, and Alasdair can be blunt and crude and insensitive. Part of Arthur might resent how at ease Alasdair is with his own body and the fact that he has never had to question his gendered role in the world (this assessment is also unfair, and Arthur knows that, but he wouldn't be able to help it. Envy isn't rational). Even with all that, Alasdair is a shield, a sword, and a castle wall. They all would be, if Arthur let them.

[itsclydebitches]

On the topic of the Curious Cat: As an enby, I don't know how to feel about the fact that the first major characters in RWBY who were canonically enby were a) animals from a whole different world b) killed off in the same volume that introduced them.

Actually, no, I do know how I feel about that.

Little: A mouse who has, by their own admission, no purpose in life and thus swears to help the group on their quest... except they don't. No time is spent developing Little or demonstrating how they're beneficial as an ally. They're squashed to death by the villain during a pseudo-suicide scene and then magically reappear as a totally different person, which is presented as a good thing. They're left behind by the story, presumably never to be seen again.

Curious: A cat who is first presented as an annoyance that the group doesn't want to deal with, then as an outright villain who has been manipulating them this whole time. The story refuses to engage with the ways in which their situation is both relatable and sympathetic, instead having them suddenly gain the power of possession/physical transformation for a lackluster fight scene. They're torn apart by the illusion of another villain that only existed for one episode and, for obvious reasons, will likely never be seen again.

Yeah. I wonder why fans, particularly enby fans, would be unhappy with this representation...

You know, I've brought this up before but I think it's really important to keep in mind that RWBY is an ongoing series. Any representation that's introduced to the canon is, for a significant length of time, the only representation we have and that severely colors our feelings towards the show as a whole. Lately there have been some angry posts about people calling Blake/Yang queerbaiting and they're right, by definition it can't possibly be queerbaiting because they were made canon... but we thought it might be for several years. That's the criticism. The later you're introduced to RWBY and the more you have to binge watch, the less likely you are to understand the issue with these portrayals—especially with a fandom that will talk up what you have to look forward to if you just keep watching to X Volume. Why would I be upset with a stalker, villain lesbian when Saphron and Terra are so cute and just around the corner? Why would I think trans rep is an issue when Mae is arriving in Volume 7? How can anyone possibly claim that the queer rep is bad when the flagship, main character couple kissed on screen and I've already seen the beautiful, romantic GIFs of the moment? Putting aside other issues here (how long queer characters last, the lack of rep for men, etc.) fans ignore the staggeringly long time we were not only waiting for rep, but then waiting for what many would consider positive rep. For years all we had was a lesbian who wanted to kill the parents of the woman who didn't return her affections (notably with the implication that Blake was might be straight...) and a super duper minor character who isn't actually gay because they wanted to kill him off. For years all we had was Coco leering at women behind her sunglasses in the novels, or the hint of gay side-characters in other teams, while Blake and Yang continued a multi-Volume will-they-won't-they dance. For years we've had queer character appear for a few episodes only—the cute couple, the trans activist—before disappearing from the story because they're not important enough to make a core part of the tale. The fact that we have Blake/Yang now doesn't erase those feelings leading up to their canonization.

Now here we are again. "How can you be unhappy with the nonbinary rep?" someone might ask in a few years time, if RWBY continues and we've gotten another cute, minor, short-lived character who uses they/them pronouns. Well, it's because in 2023 everyone was waiting to see if the show would even return and in that uncertainty all we had for rep were two literal animals who were horrifically killed by the story and then left behind, one a full-fledged villain whose death we're meant to celebrate. I'm all for a diversity of representation—I'm by no means saying all your queer characters have to be heroes, or even decent people. I love me a queer villain—but when that's all you've currently got in a show that's struggled both with its rep on screen and its treatment of queer employees... it doesn't feel great.

[sophia-sol]

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix, by Anna-Marie McLemore

Look, there's another queer Great Gatsby novel, obviously I had to give it a try! This one's premise is: what if Nick and Gatsby were trans men and also explicitly textually into each other, plus Nick and Daisy are Latinx. And like, yeah, sure, I'm in!

Unfortunately, though I think the book is successful at what it's doing, it turned out to not work for me personally on several different levels. It's a good, readable, thoughtful, queer book with coherent themes and sympathetic yet imperfect characters doing their best, which should be my jam. And just about every criticism I'm able to come up with, there are reasonable reasons the choices were made, and I can understand and sometimes even appreciate those choices! And yet as a whole I was left dissatisfied.

Okay, so, like the original, Self-Made Boys is told from the first person pov of Nick, but this version is much more interested in Nick's interiority and Nick's life. We get to hear about his family, his job, his worries, his attraction to Gatsby, his feelings about his identity, his relationship with his cousin Daisy, and so on. He's also more willing and interested in sharing what he understands of the feelings and motivations of the people around him.

Overall the effect of this is to show the reader a bunch of people (Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan) who are much nicer and more sympathetic and more earnest than their analogues in the original, which....I have mixed feelings about. Yes it's more pleasant to read about people like this, but they all feel like fundamentally different people than the characters in Gatsby. Which, idk, maybe is fine and the point? I think I'm affected here by my understanding from fandom of the ~correct~ approach to fanfic, which is that even when writing an AU the goal is to write the characters to be recognizably the same characters, with the only alterations being due to the choices of the specific points of departure, and all other changes must emanate logically from those points. But when I think about it, it IS perfectly reasonable to say "I want to write a story with the same general shape as the original canon, but with different people in the roles of the characters, and see how the story plays out differently with these other characters. I will give my original characters the same names as the roles they're taking, for simplicity in following the story." I'm just not used to this approach and it feels weird to me!!!!

Anyway. One of the choices made in this remix was to cast much younger characters in each of the main roles. All of Gatsby & Nick & Daisy & Jordan are still in their teens. This really threw me at first. I was all, "teen gatsby why????"  But by the end I did get it. It actually fits in well with a theme in Gatsby of all these people acting in the roles they feel they need to, instead of being their authentic selves, whatever their authentic self may happen to be. These teens are playacting at being adults as well, another layer of distance between semblance and reality, and Daisy's efforts to be white-passing add yet another layer to the dance. Even so, though, Gatsby the 19 year old war veteran and wildly successful businessman is a bit much.

One of the things that threw me in the reading of the book is...well, something I have no good solution for. The author says in their note at the end that they very deliberately chose to avoid using any racial slurs in the book that might have been used in the era, which I am definitely on board with; and the terms Latina/e/o/x are all too new to use (Latino/a dates from the 40's). But the chosen replacement term still feels far too jarringly modern to my ears. Nick refers to himself regularly as "brown" as his main form of racial identity throughout, which from my understanding is a relatively modern way of using the term, so every time I read it, it distanced me a little from the notion that this is a book that takes place in the 1920's. But I might not have all the information here, so if you have further details on the use of "brown" as a racial identifier historically, please do let me know!

But what jarred me even more is that Nick kept referring to himself and Gatsby as "boys" throughout the whole book. This also felt weirdly modern! Idk I haven't done, like, specific research into social perceptions of adulthood over the last century or so but I have a real sense that there being a definite transition between childhood and adulthood is something that's been lost in western culture over that time. Nick is living an adult life! Pretty sure he would -- or at least would WANT TO -- think of himself as a man! And him looking at Gatsby, even more so, as Gatsby is older than him and has all the trappings of success and independence to boot.

These identity words were the thing that stood out to me most as not fitting into the time period the book is set in, but honestly, the book as a whole did not feel to me like it did a good job of really embedding itself in its context. It felt to me like the time and the place were set-dressing for the story Self-Made Boys was telling, instead of being intrinsic to the point like it was in Gatsby. And again....that's a choice that's reasonable for a narrative to make? But it makes me, at least, like the book less, both as a stand-alone novel and as a remix of Gatsby.

Another complaint from me about this book is that I am too ace and thus Daisy being in love with Jordan felt like it came completely out of nowhere, to me! After the reveal, the narrative mentions several of the clues from earlier that Nick feels stupid for having not picked up on, and then I got to feel silly too :P. Like, Daisy has a whole speech to Nick early in the book about how she's just not into men like that, and what I had taken from the speech was that she's ace, not that she's lesbian! Anyway that made the reveal of the Daisy/Jordan relationship feel like a Surprise Twist Ending shoved in instead of being actually integrated into the story, because the clues were not at all visible to me as clues, and so I was just irritated by the reveal instead of being pleased about it!

My final complaint is that the prose felt occasionally a little too try-hard for me, and in places its efforts to be beautiful or dreamy or evocative or descriptive just felt flat to me. But I know taste in prose is wildly subjective.

So like. As I said. My issues with this book are me problems, and I can imagine a different reader experiencing this as a five-star book, where for me it's solidly 3 stars and not a bit more.

So I'm nil out of 2 so far on queer Gatsby retellings that work for me. But if/when I hear about another one, though, I will return, ever-hopeful that maybe the next one will be the one that works for me!

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

how does thinking that it’s bad to insult other people’s bodies make me uptight lol. stede obviously needs to be more open with ed but it shouldn’t be his responsibility to unload all of his trauma just so his friend doesn’t let this random guy insult him. i’m not saying ed needed to cause a scene, because a “hey man maybe don’t” would have sufficed, rather than putting the responsibility on stede to be gracious about being insulted for something he literally cannot change.

Ok girl... I'm gonna start with the picture this time.

If "hey man maybe don't" would have sufficed for you than why didn't it? He told him to stop. Ed did what you're asking him to do. Why isn't "Would you fucking stop?" good enough for you?

also *clears throat, taps mic*

JACK'S NOT JUST "SOME RANDOM GUY" HE'S ED'S BUDDY

Insults have context. The thing I think makes you uptight is the part where you can't seem to understand how Ed might perceive who's the big gal as innocuous. It's the part where you don't seem to understand that if Jack had said a similar thing to Ed Ed would have insulted him right back and they would have laughed about it and so that's where Ed's brain is at. Not all insults are that deep. Jack probably means it in a mean way, because he's coming into this already not liking Stede because of the circumstances, and Stede takes it in a mean way because he's been bullied, but Ed who doesn't know either of those things assumes he means it in the same way he calls Ed a bastard, which by the way is also something Ed can't control if its true and not something to even be ashamed of if its false, so idk why being called a bastard is so much less bad than being called 'big'. So no I don't think you're uptight because you think it's bad to insult someone's appearance I think you're uptight because you can't seem to imagine a situation in which an insult (yes even one about the dreaded appearance, sacred though I know you think it is) could be playful. Because playful is how Ed is clearly reading the situation. He's wrong, but he has reasons to read it that way that are understandable but you want to take him to task for it because you clearly think that being mean should be off limits. I disagree, I think it depends on the context, but that's because I clearly run in different circles from you.

Now, I wouldn't insult someone's size personally, because I'm skinny and I've never had to navigate situations like a physician telling me to loose weight when I come in for an unrelated reason and denying me health care, or everyone looking down on me and treating me like I'm grotesque (at least not because of my size, I've had that because I am genuinely grotesque <3/j trans and gnc and autistic), and I certainly wouldn't want to pile on more things for a fat person to deal with. But I have insulted by friend's appearances in other ways and they've insulted me right back and we've laughed about it. And maybe once or twice I've done it to a friend of a friend because me and my friend were already in that mode and I was trying to invite them in. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but you know, it's relevant because I'm pretty sure that's what Ed thinks is happening.

Ed could have probably done a better job preparing Jack and Stede to meet each other if he had known Jack was coming. he could have told Jack "hey Stede's a little sensitive tone it down." and he could have told Stede "Jack's a little rowdy and a bit crass I've told him to tone it down but maybe you could also try not to take it too seriously." and if Jack had been there under other circumstances they might have met in the middle and actually gotten along.

I am absolutely sympathetic to Stede, I think that Stede and Ed should talk about it actually, but this isn't an example of Ed being a huge douche bag it's an example of a simple miscommunication, but you're treating it as if Ed is in the wrong, no one is in the wrong here except maybe Jack. Hope this helps.

[vampish-glamour]

The ask about radfems being right made me want to rant. The sheer vitriol against TERFs (including graphic rape threats which automatically makes them look sympathetic) made people forget some important points

1) radfems, and people who believe in radical ideologies, are very good at presenting the milder points of their philosophy. No radfem is dumb enough to go to someone like "men should be castrated before puberty for the safety of women", they'd start with something much milder like "I hate how teen boys get sex ed from porn at a young age" or something like that

2) the same line can have different meanings depending on the person. "We must protect vulnerable ethnicities at risk of genocide": a normal person might mean, I don't know, indigenous people being erased, and you might agree. But what if it's a white supremacist saying that, and he meant white people being replaced by mixed race people and immigrants? Very different context. Radfems employ similar strategies: "a dress doesn't make you a woman" can mean "gender is not tied to gender expression" or "trans women aren't women"

3) a broken clock is right twice a day. Just because a radfem says that the sky is blue, doesn't mean it's actually green. Just because she denounces Jessica Yaniv (because no one else does), doesn't mean you have to defend that person. Just because she says that the number of AFAB enbies who say "I'm nonbinary because I hate common women experiences like pregnancies" is worrying and might hint at internalized misogyny, doesn't mean she isn't right about that. Again, it's the entire context that makes radfeminism repugnant, but you can agree on some points for very different reasons.

And besides, we all know the woke left loves almost every radfeminist points except "trans bad" and "queer is a slur", so they don't get to complain :V

Mad agree (also I want to clarify that the ask wasn’t about radfems being right—it was about their base level claims often being right and easy to agree with, as well as easy to understand where those claims come from. And that’s how people go down the road of getting into the radical stuff, and ending up being batshit crazy radical feminists/terfs).

Your point about starting with milder takes is exactly what I was trying to get at with my response to the ask—and you gave a great example. On the surface, the take “I hate that teen boys get sex ed from porn” is an overall agreeable one. Porn is a terrible place to get sex education, in the same way medical shows are terrible places to learn what it’s like to be a surgeon, and cop shows are terrible places to learn what it’s like to be a cop. It’s all incredibly unrealistic.

So arguably, radfems are right when they make that surface basic claim, as it’s not a radical feminist exclusive claim. But then they manage to twist “teen boys are getting sex ed from porn and that’s bad” into “we should just castrate teen boys because men are inherently rapists and porn makes you a rapist”. And I would hope most rational people would go “holy shit wtf” to that claim.

And with the flexibility of lines, I see that a lot. I mean… it even happens with far right vs far left. Remember that post that said “white people shouldn’t adopt non white kids”, and a bunch of far leftists were agreeing because they believed white people adopting non white kids was racist… and it turned out the post had actually been made by a far right white supremacist, who believed that non whites were inferior to whites.

Terfs definitely take that into consideration. To myself, “a dress doesn’t make you a woman” means that dresses aren’t necessary to womanhood, and the lack of dresses isn’t necessary to manhood. To a terf, “a dress doesn’t make you a woman” means “trans women are men in dresses”.

And yes, thank you for pointing out the broken clock thing. Because obviously a radfem can say something sensical. Not everything that comes out of a radfem is necessarily radfem beliefs… so trying to act like anything a radfem ever says must be terf rhetoric is ridiculous. It’s just that most of the stuff radfems are “right” about are those surface level claims (again, like “a dress doesn’t make you a woman”) that aren’t actually radfem belief. It’s when you put that statement into the context they see it in, when it becomes radfem belief. That still doesn’t make the base claim wrong or radfem, though. Just the context radical feminism gives it.

Even “queer is a slur”… that’s not radfem belief. Do a lot of radfems believe queer is a slur? Yes. But something tells me that’s less about them being radfems, and more about many radfems being wlw (or at least claim to be wlw). The ones who aren’t claim to be allies (despite likely supporting political lesbianism). So is it really that surprising that a group largely filled with wlw, people who think they’re wlw, and people who think they support wlw, is against a homophobic slur being treated as if it’s not a homophobic slur???

I also agree that terfs are able to rack up a lot of sympathy from the constant hatred thrown their way. I know we all dislike terfs. But aggressively hating them is exactly what they want!!! Because then they can say things like “they’re silencing us because they don’t want to hear the truth”, or claim victimhood because clearly everyone hates them because something something patriarchy misogyny sexism. I’ve seen so many terfs take pride in the hatred they get, and it only solidifies their beliefs and turns others towards them. So no, constant “fuck terfs” posts don’t do any good. They just fuel the fire of the radfem oppression complex.

And it’s completely true that a lot of progressives actually would agree with radfem beliefs in full context, as long as it didn’t have “radfem/terf” attached onto it. And as long as it had nothing to do with trans people. Mainly anything talking about how evil men are.

Anyways, great points!!

[alines7777]

An Abolitionist-Hopeful’s Critique of Conventional Transgender and Gender-Critical Philosophy

[ game sprite for the “devout” / “seer” class from “final fantasy iii” recolored to resemble a hero of blood from homestuck ]

hello, dear friends. before i begin my critiques i’d like to say that, yes, i am an MtF transsexual, and i have strong and growing sympathies for radical feminism in general, and not just intersectional feminism. i am also still deeply sympathetic to the needs and wishes of the trans community. however, in both cases, we must not take sympathy for likemindedness. this is a critique, after all.

before anything else, i am a COMMUNIST, and i’ve been a communist for many years now, since before i even knew i was trans.

and here i’m basically using the exact same kind of analytical method of inquiry in this critique for which communists have always been famed :

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

( or historical materialism )

it’s come to my attention that some radical feminists are considering themselves gender-critical on the basis of what they call materialism while calling themselves marxists.

my dear sisters, hardline marxists would be having a field day on you, and they hold your philosophy as an insult to their method of inquiry. it’s not as if primary sex characteristics were the ONLY identifiers of one’s sex status throughout human history, you know this. i could take this further and caricaturize your beliefs as being those that hold primary sex characteristics as all there would be to materialism, so yea it is an insult dialectical materialism.

my fellow trans people, our existence is not quite as revolutionary or ground-breaking as many of you seem to think it is, and as i’m going to spell out, contemporary trans philosophy is actively hampering whatever progressive potential the existence of trans people might have, beyond that which it’s already exerted.

Part One:

Critique of Conventional Transgender Philosophy

i’d like to start this by saying that it truly pains me as a member of the trans community to write this.

i am neither ashamed of the community i’m a part of, nor do i hold the community to blame for mishaps that represent me or my existence as shameful. like any other, i believe that trans people are deserving of dignity, respect, and affirmative recognition to their existence.

being that many trans people within our community consider themselves to be gender abolitionists, this is merely a critique of what i consider to be a dire vulnerability in the logic of our conventional philosophy, nothing more, nothing less.

the trans community, much unlike their detractors believe that the male/female markers on identifying documents are the assignment of a of a legal and social gender without consent given by the individual being identified.

the trans community understands that this is on the basis of their genitals being identified as part of a male or female pattern, but that although the shape of one’s genitals are a scientific fact and a medical record, the trans community believes that this is insufficient as a basis for determining their overall social and legal sex status, there are many different sets of characteristics that are biologically determined along the same physiological phenotype as the gonads and genitals, and that each set may vary independently from the others, so many say that by this reasoning that is supported by science it is unfair and even dogmatic to assign an overall sex status to an individual on the basis of but one sex characteristics to identify them for the rest of their lives from birth without their express consent.

trans people also believe that the psychosexual phenomenon known within medicine as “gender identity” is one of these aforementioned characteristics, and that it is physiologically determined but doesn’t change during or after puberty, and they also believe that one’s internal identity forms the basis for how an individual presents themself and interacts with others, as well as their social needs and vulnerabilities, whereas the genitals are not to be socially observed, but referenced by record.

so for the average trans person, it stands to reason that their gender identity would be a more valid characteristic for determining one’s social sex status, to which consent would always naturally be given, whether an individual identifying as female has female primary sex characteristics or not.

so the saying goes, “trans women are women, and trans men are men!”

but therein lies my critique. the conclusion is logically inconsistent with part of their reasoning.

remember that one of the arguments was that social sex status is determined by one set of sex characteristics, the genitals, whereas trans people argue that gender identity is a more legitimate characteristic for determining sex status, but gender identity is also but one set of sex characteristics.

the only thing fundamentally different between their logic and anyone else’s is which one set of characteristics should be central to determining an overall sex status, not whether more sets of characteristics ought to considered during an ongoing and additive process of determination, or something of the like.

the stance of gender abolition is incompatible with the idea that social justice can be implemented with a redistribution of sex status by definitions according only to one set of characteristics over another.

that conclusion is a betrayal to the spirit of arguing the recognition of variety of distributions of sex characteristics between many individuals, namely intersex people, yet another marginalized group under the doctrine of traditional sex.

the reason why is quite obvious, it’s because they are selling legal recognition under the sex status consistent with their gender identity alone, but i should think based on many other arguments made by the trans community that social treatment by others within their social groups in ways that are consistent with their gender identities seems to be given a lot more weight than a single designation on a legal document, which leads me to wonder why they aren’t advocating for an abolition of the practice of designating sex status on legal documents instead. either way they’d be more likely to receive their desired treatment their loved ones and friends, and often from strangers, it would still eliminate barriers to hormone replacement therapy, and it would also eliminate non-consensual assignment of legal sex status.

after all, the argument most supportive to the recognition of trans people is that other sets of sex characteristics are to be given their due of recognition for the sake of one’s medical needs, as they note the rightful claim by detractors for reproductive health by primary sex characteristics and as trans people rightfully claim for gender-affirming healthcare by gender identity. secondary sex characteristics also beget legitimate medical needs to the same extent as any other set of sex characteristics, from endocrinology to mammography, irrespective of one’s genitals or gender identity.

i think based on the most crucial point of reasoning given by the trans community, either all sets in one’s distribution of varying characteristics are equally entitled to legal recognition for accurately defining a more complete picture of one’s true sex status, or they should believe there should be no legal, binary, overall binary sex status at all.

because the existence and experiences of other so-called “sex-variant” people such as intersex and cis-androgynous individuals are just as marginalized and are no less deserving of affirmative recognition, it therefore follows that just as primary sex characteristics are insufficient identifiers, so too is gender identity on its own.

to some, this may strike as reminiscent of some of the writing by andrea dworkin in her 1973 book “woman hating” as her exact meaning by her words that humans “are clearly a multi-sexed species”.

i have seen that quote being used in advocacy for trans inclusion against talking points made by gender-critical feminists, but gender-critical feminists are really perceptive to point out that this is a cheap point to sell the affirmation of trans people and to shoot down criticism from gender-critical feminists without engaging their critical reasoning, or even dworkin’s supportive reasoning for that matter, because it isn’t meant just for trans people, and it certainly isn’t for designating sex status just by gender identity versus genitals, and some people have sadly made it seem like they think it is.

if i could condense my critique of trans philosophy down into one sentence, it would be that although some trans people say they would like to see the abolition of gender, many of them behave as though there is no conspicuous reason why they or anyone else would ever want it, and i’m hoping that this might change sometime in the near future.

Part Two:

Critique of Gender-Critical Philosophy

the stance of the gender-critical feminist is typically set as the belief that the genital characteristics of an individual are the basis on which one is identified by sex. we must then generously assume that they also believe that these material identifiers of sex then become historical identifiers of gender, still one and the same as a synonymizing link between male and man, and females and woman, which then becomes the basis of a sex-based hierarchy throughout civilization. this is what they call gender. they also hold that there are historically two sex statuses throughout civilization.

so far, nothing controversial.

what becomes controversial is their embrace of institutional interpretations of the sex sciences to justify it.

when faced with the challenges presented by androgyny they will claim a litany of different defining characteristics as the attribution of man and woman as sexes, that i could be forgiven for thinking will change in importance depending on the time of day.

as one core byspell, we will consider how they deem they are to classify an individual born with Estrogen Insensitivity Syndrome ( EIS ). starting with their first go-to argument, they will say that it is a condition that only affects individuals with the female sex karyotype, so they are essentially female, even though they are born with unambiguously male genitalia and later grow to have a male identity, and are socially recognized as men, so they may also go undiagnosed. if the critical feminist accepts this as a problem with this argument, others may say that the individual’s sex is determined by the structure and physiology of the gonads and genitals around the function producing sex gametes, sperm and egg cells, the gonads and genitals of our friend with EIS are unambiguously testis and a penis respectively, physiologically formed to produce and transmit sperm, even though our friend is likely to go through hardship in doing so, and despite the female karyotype, the gonads and genitals would be classified as essentially male if that’s the one argument we must accept.

in this matter, gender-critical feminists seem blind to the fact that to accept the institutional interpretation brought before them on these scientific observations means that they accept the notion that androgyny is to be viewed socially as a pathology, in other words, they carry the logic not born from their own movement to keep it inherent to their analysis that cross-sex distributions of sex characteristics and ambiguous sex characteristics are a disease to what the institutional model would conservatively affirm as the two inescapable sex statuses socially published and renamed as gender, half-aware that the essential characteristics are the classical social identifiers of gender as such.

in hindsight, i should have recognized this long ago, but with words like “syndrome”, “disorder”, “condition” and “symptoms” still being used to describe intersexuality and androgyny, AS DISEASES, how could they not have accepted the exact same language and descriptions before regurgitating it practically verbatim as their own reasoning?

none of this bodes well for gender abolition or even the fair treatment of intersex people in a civilization that still holds fast to the historical constructs of gender by the hands of liberals and conservatives.

the stance of gender abolition is incompatible with the idea that androgyny is to be classified as an abnormal pathology to the condition that manhood and womanhood are otherwise inescapable. this is a defeatist attitude in disguise.

how do we suppose intersex people are still having their rights completely denied, their genitals butchered as infants to conform to a normalized sex status in the first place, and then to have society try and enforce a social gender identity on them under the theories promoted by john money?

and speaking of john money …

we must now come to the assertion of gender-critical feminists that supporters of ‘transgender ideology’ are proponents of john money’s particular theory of gender identity and their converse assertion that expression and conformance with gender identity are conditioned through socialization. the fact of matter is that money’s entire method as applied to intersex children and david reimer suggests that the opposite is true:

“John Money came to believe that gender was susceptible to change, and that upbringing played a significant role in developing a female or male identity.” ( PBS, “Sex: Unknown”, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2813gender.html )

what do these people think money’s method even was? to surgically and hormonally alter a child’s physiology and pray they’d identify with the opposite sex without intervention by upbringing? if that were the case, then it would be sound for them to suggest on the basis that he was wrong that socialization is the main factor of behavioral sex presentation and not biological factors, but sadly for them, that is not the case. john money’s entire argument was that socialization was the main factor, and his method was designed to prove it, but that was not the outcome of his model.

“It wasn't long before the local psychiatrist looking after Brenda [ David Reimer ] wrote to John Money about the concerns she had with Brenda's [ David’s ] development. She [ He ] was showing signs of being deeply disturbed.

Now on estrogen, Brenda [ David ] began overeating in an effort to conceal her [ his ] growing breasts. She [ He ] even began dressing like a boy. Problems at school escalated to a point where Brenda [ David ], in fear of her [ his ] own safety, finally had to leave.” ( PBS, “Sex: Unknown”, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2813gender.html )

and money’s theory was not even developed with the the interests of trans people in mind, how could it have been? according to his theory of determining gender identity through rearing, it would instead have otherwise been useful for attempts to intervene in the mishap that a child may be identified by parents as having a greater likelihood of growing to identify as trans. but that was wasn’t necessarily the intent of money’s theory either. he developed the theory of his gender-of-rearing model with the hopes of socially normalizing children born with ambiguous genitalia. the whole purpose of his model was NORMALIZATION [ that is to surgically, medically and psychologically assimilate so-called sex-variant bodies and minds to the currently accepted sex stereotype ]. advocating normalization to pathologize androgyny and moreover reinforce social gender norms onto intersex youth through psychosocial socialization after performing surgery and prescribing hormone treatment. he hoped that david reimer would turn out to be the twin-based control experiment to prove his theory correct — HE WAS TRYING TO PROVE TO THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY THAT HIS MODEL OF TREATMENT WAS APPROPRIATE FOR INTERSEX YOUTH — and again, that didn’t happen — his theory of socialization did not work when it was implemented, not in reimer’s case, nor in the cases of literally thousands of intersex people.

the overall line held by gender-critical feminists that trans philosophy follows john money’s theory is a gross mischaracterization between john money’s beliefs and the beliefs of the trans community, that on basis of there being a belief in such a thing as of gender identity in the first place do they conflate the two sets of doctrines as the same, but when we look further, gender-critical feminists also rightfully stipulate that trans theorists believe at least to some extent that gender identity is innate, but then fail to remind themselves that money did not. so which is it? are trans ideologists followers of john money’s exact theories, or are they followers of the idea that gender identity is innate? we can’t have it both ways, that is logically impossible.

but i do not mean to discredit the idea outright that there is no truth at all to the belief, as particularly held by gender-critical feminists that socialization should be seen as relevant to an accurate understanding of gender. socialization definitely sets customary mandates and limits to the behavior and fashion of sex presentation, historically in ways that were often injurious to women globally, such as in the ancient chinese practice of foot-binding, and in the still modern belief among conservatives for women to be kept as stay-at-home mothers.

while i understand that none of this is proof positive that gender identity materially exists or that it’s physiologically determined, it’s actually BECAUSE john money’s theory on gender identity was wrong that makes it seem like their stance on socialization seem like it isn’t very credible.

and it’s similarly BECAUSE a primary sex phenotype can come at odds against a sex karyotype that their stance on what they seem the rightful method for determination of sex status isn’t airtight.

and there’s no denying the historical fact that the determination of a social sex status wholesale is the underlying observation and justification of reinforcing socially constructed gender. while it may within this worldview be contrary to the phenomenon of gender identity, upholding the practice of determining and publish sex status on a primary sex phenotype IS to uphold gender, no less so than trying to determine sex status on the basis of gender identity.

why do you think conservatives are so supportive of their reasoning?

on top of their selective and uncritical reception of the sex sciences such that they too are pathologizing androgyny and intersexuality, gender-critical feminists in this stance are also showing signs of logical inconsistency that would make gender abolition seem likely to be impossible if they were absolutely right, and we should start counting ourselves blessed that they aren’t.

Part Three:

Non-Affiliates in Error

as we may soon begin learning, many among the broader public throughout whatever civilization, across whatever spectra of philosophical and political beliefs, subconsciously keep another traditional and flawed bias for identifying one’s sex status rigidly under a particular set of sex characteristics, not the primary sex characteristics, as all individuals are under social mandate to be clothed, nor gender identity, as under any umbestanding, that particular characteristic alone is even more immensely difficult to observe.

the set of sex characteristics held as part of the social mark of one’s sex status, if not the gender marker on one’s birth certificate, would be their secondary sex characteristics, breadth of hips and shoulders, breasts, girth of the chest and gut, etc.

these individuals neither willing to observe primary sex characteristics ( should i hope ), nor able to observe sex identity without it being communicated, would often resort to observing these characteristics to identify one’s sex status.

this method also has its logical limitations, as one’s secondary sex characteristics does not always correlate to one’s primary sex characteristics or gender identity.

let me be clear on this if it wasn’t already, these are all characteristics that may be distributed within an individual independently of the others; one may have male primary sex characteristics, an androgynous distribution of male and female secondary sex characteristics, and also a male gender identity, or really any other permutation of these sets of characteristics as historically defined as being male or female. this is why i stress importance to the phrase “distribution of characteristics”.

this is a fact that i believe all parties discussed often struggle with accepting because it is disruptive to all respective narratives they’ve embraced, that is to say the different narratives held by each that would often differ only according to which particular of set out of an array of many others they consider to be that set of characteristics which they feel are most important to identifying another’s overall social sex status.

it also bears mentioning that the observation of one’s secondary sex characteristics are often currently and historically observed as colloquial identifiers of sex, those characteristics, particularly those seen as female, may also be seen both as weapons and as objects of patriarchal oppression, especially toward women, from the male sexual fixation on breasts, to lingerie, and even to customs that are placed injuriously on women, such as corsets to exaggerate contrast between the breadth of waist and hips, the aforementioned practice of foot-binding, and plastic surgery to augment breasts and lips to conform to male fantasies of how women must look and behave.

there are also other factors indicating that an androgynous distribution of male and female sex characteristics among those medically and legally identified as male may make them liable to become targets of male violence, whether they identify as transgender or not. francis lapointe, also known as “frank wolf” is quite a famous and tragic example. lapointe was a male canadian model and youtuber whose body expressed particularly androgynous characteristics and he enjoyed modeling in clothing designed for women.

not long after, he was systematically harassed and abused by other users of the internet who sent him threats to murder and rape him on this basis till he took his own life.

i personally have also been the target of comments suggesting that i should be raped, and i am also a survivor of rape.

women’s reproductive characteristics are definitely a core factor of their historical oppression, with forced pregnancy as an especially traumatic example.

but this brings into consideration that their secondary characteristics are also targeted, not just as pressures to conformity, but also as objects of male fantasy, and also as distinct targets of male violence in their own right.

there are definitely differing internal and external material realities interacting with one another in this dialectical process that we call history in the formations of the social constructs of gender and in women’s historical oppression, and the pathologization and persecution of intersex, androgynous and trans people. that is the fundamental importance of holding not just materialism, but DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM, that is if anyone here still wishes to call themself a marxist.

as shown above, it is certainly possible for anyone of whatever sex or gender identity to have whatever secondary sex characteristics, and despite what trans people or gender-critical feminists argue, it is the set of secondary sex characteristics that is more likely to be the first and only social factor of identifying sex status among a public that cares not enough to investigate much further, and that has similarly proven unreliable.

Part Four:

Our Faults and Our Scars

this is kind of a last-minute chain of thoughts that suddenly crossed my mind lately. i feel that this discovery lies at the root of all these issues we’ve been bespeaking this far.

i am speaking of the history of the sex sciences, and the history of gender.

starting with the current designations of sex, “male” and “female”. these are the accepted termini to the definitions of “man” and “woman” respectively, hence “adult human female”.

suppose for the sake of argument that we have never understood the meaning of the word “female” and we are eager to learn.

first we shall turn to the dictionary, who tells us:

well shit, half of that description describes characteristics that will not be readily available for us to observe, and another half is describing characteristics that may apply to some transsexuals, but hold on a minute, that last part of our definitions seems to be calling back to the word “woman”.

let’s see what other sources that might be able to help us:

now we have something to work with, a picture of the two classical genders, man and woman.

wait, really?

yes, really, after all, that is how we got the words “male” and “female”

these are words that have always had gendered connotations, and even gendered meaning.

this has a few problems in its own right.

as noted by gender-critical feminists, your sex is determined by your class of gametes, sperm and ova, as male or female respectively.

ascribing complete patterns within the human phenotype to a single cell, and to other species that look nothing like us.

no wonder everyone’s so confused.

and with two normative patterns of characteristics setting our social expectations of individuals’ bodies, now we see that the sciences have established a concrete basis for pathologizing patterns of characteristics that do not conform to those normal patterns, hence why the intersex community are designated as “disorders” and “syndromes”, and if we ignore the physiological basis of trans identity…

… we can just call them a mental illness, the same way different orientations were labeled as mental illnesses. we know what the intent is, to deny any material basis of characteristics that we refuse to acknowledge, and to call it a mental illness, or a disorder, to stigmatize the “abnormality” and to reinforce the norm. if we want to say that gender identity isn’t real, and that there is an inherent danger to positively affirming it by means chosen by the individual, then that leaves a frightening question for conservatives to ask us — about orientation.

yes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and variations of sex development are different things, but they are widely known by science to be determined along the same physiological continua as gamete production.

so where does that leave us about SCIENTIFICALLY giving non-gendered and socially unchanging designations based on gametes?

i don’t know, go ahead and simply call me a “spermatogen” for all i care. it does not change according to any of my other characteristics or any social designations granted to me, and it doesn’t have any gendered connotations, so i have no objections.

but let me guess,

THAT’S THE PROBLEM FOR YOU, ISN’T IT?

finally, we have to observe the phenomenon responsible for our species’ gendered stereotyping, sexual dimorphism.

sexual dimorphism is a physiological set of visually distinct stereotypes of characteristics that differ between the sexes, in the case of mammals especially, greater muscle and bone density, horns and antlers, greater fangs, morphological characteristics adapted to augment the male’s capacity for violence. a greater capacity for violence will diminish the risk of injury and death in a fight from the use of violence, so too is the male’s will to use violence also increased. the phenomenon of sexual dimorphism is known to be begotten by male violence in all dimorphic mammals.

these sets of characteristics become commonplace through males applying the use of violence toward the exercise of dominance over mating privileges and mating selection. in such circumstances, only the characteristics of males who are most violent will be selected by social mechanisms enforced through their own violence.

so we see that the historical institutions of male violence enforce patterns conforming to the stereotype of dimorphic males, and the dimorphic male pattern facilitates male institutions of violence. such institutions include sexism, body shaming, and heterosexuality.

this includes heterosexuality because to be socially deemed truly heterosexual, by other heterosexuals as the norm, a woman, for example, must be attracted to a bigger, stronger male, rather than just any old male, heaven forbid a male such as francis lapointe.

sexual dimorphism isn’t a thing that happens by accident, male supremacy isn’t a thing that happens by accident, these men and all their governing and cultural institutions of gender and sexuality, THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING.

Part Five:

Conclusion

if we are to establish a radical front to the abolition of gender, then i should think that one of the metrics for that goal is that it would behoove us to reconsider the most is not just how we determine sex status, or on what basis of which characteristics it ought to be determined, but when we are still doing that and how the determination of sex status may be core function that inevitably promotes constructing or reconstructing gender, and why we felt that we must make any determination by whatever basis at all.

more importantly, we ought to consider what kind of understanding we can adopt that would put us on the right path to getting to a progressive worldview that is consistent with all these facts that i’ve drawn and many more, but that must first start with understanding our philosophical errors, and i came to this understanding by looking into multiple different factors and the history, and by cross-referencing them together, to separate the accurate from the true, and the true from the false. i think some people might want to look into trying this epistemic approach for once

for how unusually long this particular post is, i feel almost like i don’t want to post it just yet, like i could be missing something. but i believe i’ve written just about all the arguments i felt i’ve needed to.

i welcome friendly and respectful engagement to help build a more comprehensive analysis

[blogsanscontext]

A Closer Look at: Momoe Sawaki’s character arc; by a nonbinary (trans) viewer.

CW: Major spoilers for Wonder Egg Priority + mentions and discussion of sexual assault, transphobia, lesbophobia, self-harm; please proceed with caution.

Wonder Egg Priority came as a relatively pleasant surprise for me; I heard about it some time after the first few episodes aired, but I never actively went out of my way to ever try to watch it myself until, that is, a few days ago. I must say, I’m glad to have taken the initiative to experience such anime on my own.

With a stunning animation to accompany the heavy subjects this work touches on, I quickly fell in love with it; all the characters feel very grounded in reality, with their struggles (even someone like Neiru’s, who is a literal genius and CEO of her own company) feeling relatable in one way or another. Episode 7 became my favorite due to this very thing, Rika’s problems were things that not only have I seen in other works before, but that I know exist because of the stories told in the news every so often. It only helped, in my opinion, that they gave a character with her background such a hopeful ending.

That being said, Wonder Egg is not a perfect anime, and though I didn’t expect it to be in the first place, I do think talking about why some of the ways it handles a specific character of the main cast are problematic are worth the time. When I mentioned that “all the characters feel very grounded in reality”, I actually only meant three of them, a.k.a.: Ai, Rika and Neiru. The reason Momoe is not included in this group is what I will be discussing in the next paragraphs.

This anime lets you know, right off the bat, that it will not stray away from heavy subjects throughout the duration of its runtime; the show deals with suicidal idealization (and actual suicide as well as its aftermath; in fact, “female suicide” is at the very core of the show and is what essentially moves it forward), self-harm, sexual assault, same-sex relationships, transphobia, and being a gender noncomforming person in a society that punishes you for not adhering to the roles it has imposed on you since childhood. The last points are the ones I took issue with, however, and though they are mostly the show’s fault, they also took it upon themselves to make Momoe be at the center of all three.

See, when we are first introduced to Momoe, we can guess by context that she is a girl, however, the other characters aren’t aware of this fact yet, and so they seemingly go out of their way to call her a boy, which makes her deeply uncomfortable, and this (ie. her reaction to be treated or perceived as a boy) is a running theme throughout her arc. This, in itself, isn’t really the worst creative direction to take with a character, it’s a story that has been told time and time again, but there is a problem with the way Wonder Egg Priority specifically deals with it: Momoe is cisgender, and so far, there hasn’t been a sign of this changing whatsoever, so she will most likely remain cis until the show ends. Normally, a story about a gender noncomforming cis person wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the extraordinary, as I’ve mentioned before, but it seems that they wanted to… “innovate”, so to say, with her character. And it’s this innovation, in my opinion, that which makes Momoe’s struggles miss the mark for me.

Momoe is perceived, almost ridiculously so, as a boy by whoever even so much as stumbles upon her; her followers on Instagram most likely worship her because they’re under the impression that she’s a bishounen, and yet the show goes out of its way to deal with just how uncomfortable this makes her. This is the issue I take with her and her arc: the show has a keen awareness of AFAB people’s issues, and treats them with the respect they deserve (which is not to say some jokes at their expense aren’t made, but in general this tone is kept throughout the duration of the story), and yet the tone-deaf manner in which they deal with her issues feels… disappointing, to say the least.

Momoe’s struggles, though they are valid on their own, are not a societal issue, no matter how one may look at them; if she were a trans person (either a trans girl, boy, or nonbinary), the strong emphasis on her discomfort at being misgendered would have made so much more sense. The reason why ‘switching around’ the stereotype of a tomboy falls flat on its face is that there is no real pressure from society to present feminine, it’s what they want you to, or more accurately, force you to do if you’re perceived as being assigned female at birth; however, this is not where my issues with Momoe’s arc and character end.

At first, I imagined a variety of (albeit vague, still reasonable) reasons as to why this show couldn’t have just made Momoe be trans, and semi-understanding of this decision; that was, of course, until I watched the actual episode mostly focused on her struggles, and that’s when I got slightly mad. Being honest, I still think it was a good episode, and it definitely made Momoe seem way more sympathetic than any of her past appearances, but it also perfectly highlighted my problem with her, and subsequently, the show itself: using queer people’s actual, realistic, problems in order to push her, a cisgender character, forward.

The thing with Wonder Egg Priority is that I love how, despite all these girls literally risking their lives to save a specific person, they still seem to have conflicting feelings about them (ie. Rika’s mocking of Chiemi, Ai’s frustration towards Koito, etc.) but I also take issue with this when it comes to Momoe specifically; Haruka is very much intended to be seen as gay, yet when push comes to shove, we are supposed to be taking Momoe’s side in this conflict. We, the audience, see these events from her point of view, and are therefore made to feel, in one way or another, uncomfortable with Haruka’s attraction for her. Yes, Momoe has worked hard to bring her back to life, but the fact that she’s cis and heterosexual stands; this isn’t just exclusive to Haruka, however, but every egg she’s had to save in order to get her friend back. All of them express a clear attraction for Momoe, “despite her being a girl”, and it’s just very easy to read these attitudes as wlw-phobic, extremely so.

My biggest issue though lies within the very existence of Kaoru’s character, the trans boy she has to protect in the episode mainly focused on her; while he is an endearing and sympathetic character, and I like that despite him presenting ‘majorly female’, Momoe never misgenders him. The thing is: he’s made out to be almost a “parallel” of her own gender-related issues, and this is just a very tone-deaf statement to make; trans people fighting not to be misgendered, fighting to be called their chosen name (something Momoe, while being cis, can just freely enjoy) - trans people’s pain is very much real, which the show is aware of, but Momoe’s is very much an individual’s problem rather than the way society actually works, which Wonder Egg is seemingly unaware of, for whatever reason.

Before I arrive at my last point on why this comparison doesn’t work, I would like to quickly point out the fact that most, if not all, the eggs the girls have had to save until this point were specifically meant to be girls, in one way or another. Therefore, taking this into account, Kaoru makes me feel… a lot of things, the more time I spend thinking about it; the show acknowledges he’s a boy, though not cis of course, but still very much a boy, yet also places him in this very much ‘female’ space; no matter how I looked at it, I could find explanations both for an opinion in favor of this decision (the way a lot of trans men’s problems are defined by our patriarchal society seeing them as women) as well as some for an opinion against this decision (the fact that it could be read as the show ultimately deciding he’s ‘female-aligned’, etc.) and though I won’t be discussing this decision in-depth, I still possess that it’s an event worth examining from different lenses.

Now, onto the actual element that got me heated about Kaoru serving as a parallel to Momoe’s struggles: Kaoru was not only sexually assaulted by a man who’s always thought of him as a ‘pretty, delicate girl’, his death directly relates to the fact that he was abused and then impregnated by this man for not living up to his gross ideal of what a man and a woman are; contrast this to Momoe, who pretty much gets the treatment Kaoru would love to have: she’s pretty much right off the bat seen as a guy, she’s fawned over by women because of this fact as well, they literally call her ‘Momotaro’, etc. Taking all of this into account, it’s simply impossible for me to be okay with a comparison that ultimately decides a cisgender person’s discomfort is, in any sort of way, on equal grounds as a (might I remind you, dead) trans person’s basic human rights.

All in all, though her episode made me take a bigger liking to her character, it also served to almost perfectly highlight the very problem of her existence, as well as the “struggles” she’s intended to represent; I don’t hate Momoe in any sort of way, and though I know there must be someone somewhere who relates to her, I also think that they could’ve done something way more meaningful with her had they just made some changes that made her more realistic (as in, make her at least be LGBT rather than just cis and heterosexual); I will be patiently waiting for the finale, and who knows? Maybe something does change about her in the end, that would be even more of a pleasant surprise.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

Uhh nefore further reading, I apologise if this ask is triggering to the trans mods. I understand if they don’t want to look at it or answer. Having said that, here goes the question:

How common do you think is to be jealous of other queer identities? For context, I am bisexual and I currently identify as nonbinary (trans misogyny exempt) and for the past months I’ve been feeling jealous of trans men and other transmasculine people who’d rather be seen as men than as women in society. I can’t help thinking “of course they do. Anything is better than being a woman. I wish I could escape too” and, logically, i know that’s really unfair because being or passing as a man doesn’t mean your life is automatically easier. Men (and especially trans men) have different struggles that are as real as women’s, but for some reason I can’t get my brain to really believe it. I am jealous because they don’t get catcalled or forced to shave their legs or perfom “feminine rituals” once they transition, and can walk at night safer than if they were a woman, among other things. I don’t think transitioning would be the answer for me, because unfortunately i like this weaker body better ;-; i feel like there’s no solution for me. Sorry for long ask

because of your trigger warning for the trans mods I'm gonna answer this as the only cis person on this blog but of course Wes, Max or Tiger might want to add something from their perspective - and tbh I hope they do because I can, by virtue of beign cis, only speak about this from an outside perspective.

First of all, I might be uneducated here but what exactly does "trans misogyny exempt" mean? To my understanding anyone can be/say/do transmisogynistic things, even trans women themselves can internalise it and direct it at themselves or other trans women. You know, like bi people can also be biphobic. So, forgive me if I'm misunderstanding something here but as far as I know there is no identity that makes someone inherently exempt from transmisogyny?

I've recently learned that "gender envy" is a thing that trans and non-binary people sometimes experience which is when they see someone who presents a certain way and they wish they would also have that gender expression. I'm not sure if I can relate to that experience since being cis I hardly ever even think about my gender consciously. Maybe any trans people reading this could let me know if I understood the concept of "gender envy" correctly. Anyway, maybe that's something that plays a part in what you're feeling.

I assume from your ask that you have been assigned female at birth which makes me think that some of what you're struggling with could also be internalised misogyny. Yes, you're non-binary but that doesn't mean years of living as an afab person have had no impact on you. Especially the part where you're talking about a "weaker" body makes me think that and this strong association of womanhood = performance of gender expectations and being in constant danger of being assaulted.

And then.... I think you have some serious internalised transphobia or enbyphobia. That "jealousy" that you describe is loaded with a lot of assumptions about trans men that I don't think are all holding up. For example saying that trans men "don’t get catcalled or forced to shave their legs or perfom “feminine rituals” once they transition" is a very simplified understanding of transition. It's not like going on T makes a trans man pass as cis over night (if he even wants to pass) and a lot of trans people are actually expected to overperform the gender they transition to which is also pretty fucked up. It's not like trans men aren't also the target of transphobia or unhealthy gender stereotypes, or that a trans man is automatically safe from being assaulted. Corrective rape is a thing and if a transphobe doesn't even think of a trans man as a man then any "privilege" or safety he might have had is gone, worst case it puts him at greater risk of being assaulted (compared to cis men for sure and depending on the situation maybe also compared to cis women).

Furthermore trans men are not "escaping womanhood". That is a very transphobic thing to say and smells of TERF rhetoric (TERFs like to think that trans men are "confused butch lesbians" who are "forced to escape womanhood by patriarchy"). Trans men are men, whether they medically transition or not. And they do not do it to escape womanhood or have it easier to walk down the street at night. They transition because they are men and they want to live their true gender identity.

I don't know what advice to give you here other than that you probably still have a lot of self-reflection to do about your own gender and that you should educate yourself on what it means to be a trans man so you can unlearn those misconceptions about them. And also don't assume that anything about your identity exempts you from holding transphobic misconceptions and beliefs. As sympathetic as I am to anyone who has some such internalised issues, it is your responsibility to work through this - both for yourself and for the trans community. It's gonna take time and effort but I feel like in the end you might also be much more at peace with your own gender identity and be able to more clearly understand what this "jealousy" really is and how to deal with it.

Maddie

[ma-lark-ey]

DnDads fandom, here’s some food for thought for you. 

You keep telling Anthony you want representation, that you want more diversity, you want characters confirmed as fandom wide headcanons, whatever. You tell him you want more. 

But, these same blogs that say these things reblog posts on the “men writing women” memes and rant on cis people writing trans characters and white people writing POC and whatever else, so let me off you this. 

If you were a content creator, and your fans were asking you for representation, while on the same note saying how people who aren’t [people group] can never get [people group] right, what would possess you to take that step to provide that? I want you to genuinely think about that, because as a content creator who prides themself on putting in the kinds of characters I’ve heard people cry for in my stories, seeing those kinds of things is very discouraging. Because, I, as a white person know my portrayal of a POC is never going to be as good as POC want it to be, but all I can do is try  my very best and listen to them on their critiques and turn around what I did wrong. 

I’m not saying Anthony is justified in the lack of diversity in NPCs, but you guys need to understand that when you tell him to provide diversity then also complain that [majority group] never portray [minority group] right is not helping your case. All you’re gonna do is discourage him from providing that. 

If you need evidence, here’s an actual Talking Dads quote form Anthony on Trans Nick and other fandom wide headcanons  ( I did not transcribe this scene, i thank my Discord friend for sending me this. I don’t know your Tumblr but if you see this just drop a say so in the notes) 

“Anthony: Oh wow. There are a lot of ones I like that are almost exclusively about gender and orientations and stuff like that. Of like, oh yeah maybe Nick is trans or or or any of those kinds of things. Cause those, it’s always like, not not that I would ever take those because uh, uh, and, make them part of the main canon just because I feel like that might- I don’t trust myself to not make that appropriative and weird. But I love that people from marginalized communities are taking those characters and being like “he’s ours now!”

Beth: Yeah. 

Anthony: ‘Nick, he’s- he’s black and he’s a trans man and Glenn loves him and it’s not a big deal.’ And like, all that kind of stuff.”

I’m sympathetic to sentiments like this, because this was my writing until this very year. My thought process was “I won’t write POC because I, as a white person, might fuck it up” and that thought process is only made so much stronger when if you do fuck up, no matter how minor or how severe, you’re met with nothing but inbox spam and threats and hostility. If you want response; use your words politely. When you attack them, nothing will change. Attacking does nothing but make them fear their own fans, and that’s genuinely not what we want. I know that’s not what we want. This callout/cancel culture people have created in this little fandom is so toxic, to both us and the dads. 

If you’re gonna ask something of the dads, do it nicely. Don’t come for their throats. If you, YOU personally, have sent them the same message multiple times and have no response after a couple weeks; then you get rights to get more aggressive. Not when you’re posting one call out on their Twitter.com and do nothing but yell and accuse. That’s not accomplishing anything. 

If I, a fifteen year old, find myself using more tact in these posts than grown ass adults, there’s definitely a problem here. And it’s not the dads. 

You wanna know that dads aren’t giving representation? Because they’re scared of fucking it up, they’re scared you ADULTS are going to come for their throats at the smallest mistake and continue to turn their fanbase into a warzone. Don’t make it a warzone. 

You know how you fix that? Approach them. Message them on some platform. Just say; Hey, I know your fans want [character] to be [minority group] and if you wanted help in learning how to confirm that, I am [minority group] and I’d be willing to help you.

It’s that easy! Wow! 

Because, honestly, even a sensitivity director can’t be perfectly knowledgeable on every single minority group. 

If you want your kind of minority group represented in DnDads, god dammit reach out to the cast and offer your input. Not you may not be an authority on your minority group, or some kind of genius on it, but one of those people reaching out and offering advice based on their own experiences is often much better than nothing. 

Like, the other day on twitter someone said, “Hey, Jenna and Anthony! I noticed you called Ratticus Finch ‘agendered’ and that’s not a perfect term for all nonbinary people, so I would suggest putting in some more research on terms before the next episode.” And THAT’S how you approach topics at first, not screaming and yelling. That’s how you put in advice. That’s how you provide criticism. 

I said when I first started talking about discourse that the adults are the problem, and i still stand by that. Because I am yet to see anyone under the age of 25 acting like this. Anyone younger I’ve seen on this has been tactful, and polite. Which really shows the difference in generations. It’s sad. 

I hold hope in the hosts, because they’ve made steps to change in the past. And they’re only gonna take the issues one hurdle at a time, you can’t expect everything to be managed all at once, they have to pace themselves or else they’re going to get burned out and that’s worse. 

And if this podcast at the moment is not up to your standards? That’s fine. Walk. Away Come check back in in a few months if you still hold interest and see if it’s what you want to associate yourself with. Just stop attacking the hosts, criticize and construct them instead. 

You get nothing out of tearing others down, only more destruction. 

[bronte-deserves-better]

So this has probably been done before but imagine Sophie coming out as agender to Bronte

So i may have gotten a little carried away and written a whole short fic about this-

ahem. anyways. I wrote this late at night and didn’t edit at all, so if you see a grammar error no you don’t <3. Also I might put it on AO3 if I figure out what to call it but I’m way too tired for fic titles so fuck that.

(Tw for swearing and mentions of transphobia.)

"Miss Foster, are you paying attention?"

Sophie's head snapped up from where they had been studying the table, worrying about what Grady and Edaline were going to say if they ever came out. Logically, they knew their parents were supportive and kind, but...none of the elves they had met had ever mentioned trans people. Let alone agender people like Sophie. 

"Miss Foster?" Bronte asked again.

This time, it was harder to contain their flinch. "Oh, uh, yeah, sorry, I was just thinking. About stuff."

"Alright, well I do understand you have a lot to worry about, but try to stay focused, please."

"Okay," Sophie muttered. The word came out rougher than they intended, more tired, and Biana shot them a concerned glance across the table. Which they proceeded to ignore. "What were we going over again?"

"The importance of building good relations with other species in our fight against the Neverseen, but I think we might as well stop there for the day." Bronte's gaze was piercing. "It's been a long day for all of us. Good job, you five, we can keep talking about this at next week's meeting." 

That was all it really took for Team Valiant to leap to their feet and start packing up their stuff. Like Bronte had said, it had been a very long day. And a whole lecture from him about interspecial relations hadn't helped much, although Sophie guessed it was probably good for them to be learning about all the things Bronte had been teaching them. Relations with the trolls, ancient rules and tricks of elven combat, more info on the Prime Sources, some parts of elven history that weren't taught at Foxfire, how to dress formally while still being able to move freely, the proper greetings for every rank of elves and every foreign leader...the list went on.

"Miss Foster, do you mind staying after the meeting for a bit?"

Sophie internally groaned. "Sure, Bronte."

Biana cast them a sympathetic look as she left. "See you in bit, Soph!"

Bronte waited until everyone had left before he spoke again. "Right. Sorry to keep you longer than necessary, but I noticed you seemed off today, and I wanted to check in."

"I mean, thanks for looking out for me, I guess." Sophie stared at the floor. "I guess I've just got...a lot on my mind."

"Hmm. I know the feeling. Does any of what's on your mind have to do with the term 'Miss Foster'?"

Sophie couldn't help but flinch a little, again. "Maybe."

"If you have a problem with it, I can stop calling you that."

"That would be great, actually. It's just...really...formal. Yeah."

"Is just Sophie an appropriate level of formality?" Bronte looked startlingly uncertain. "I must admit to still struggling with knowing when to address people more casually."

"Sophie is great."

He nodded. "Sophie it is, then. Any other reasons why you dislike that name?"

“No,” they said, too quickly.

"Hmm. Alright." Bronte didn't say they could go yet, taking a breath as if steeling himself for something. "I won't pry any further, but...I hope you know that you're always welcome to talk to me about anything, provided that 'anything' only involves mildly illegal activity. I- well. I suppose you should know I struggled with the term 'Miss Pyren' myself in my youth. Not that a lot of people addressed me with respect," he added dryly.

“You're trans?" Sophie blurted, and then instantly regretted it.

"Yes, I am. I'm not very open about it due to...past experiences, but yes."

"Do I need to go after some transphobes?"

Bronte cracked a small smile. "There are far too many for you to take on alone, mi- Sophie."

"Fuck that, I might as well try." They hesitated. "Do the elves have a concept of nonbinary?" To Sophie's surprise, the word for that was right there in the Enlightened Language. They didn't even have to use English.

"Yes, they do, and have for years. Why?"

Sophie took a deep breath. "I'm nonbinary- agender, specifically. I just recently figured it out, and I've been worrying about people's reactions ever since."

They caught a flash of deep, long-held sorrow in Bronte's ancient eyes. "I understand far too well, but I promise you're safe with me. What are your pronouns?"

"They/them."

"And are you changing your name? I know some of us do and some don't."

Of us. Their community. Bronte's community. "Nope, I like the name Sophie."

"Alright, then." Bronte offered another faint smile. "Would you like me to use she/her around people you aren't out to for now? I can use Sophie over Miss or Mx. Foster regardless."

"Yes, please." Sophie fiddled with their sleeves. "Thank you for being so nice and accepting about this, and- and outing yourself to me so I'd feel safe to be out."

"Of course. I was lucky enough to have someone to do that for me when I was your age, a mentor who taught me the word trans and what elixirs trans elves used back then and how to navigate the system. And I've known too many elves who weren't that lucky. I would hate for you to face all of this alone.”

Just by the enduring pain behind those words, Sophie believed him. "Still, thank you. You're the first adult I've come out to, actually, which is like, a really big thing."

"Oh. Well, I'm glad you felt safe to. Does the rest of Team Valiant know?"

"Yeah."

"So I'll use your proper pronouns around them."

"Yeah, thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Bronte muttered. "I still haven't made this world safe enough for kids like you."

"You can't blame yourself for everyone who's shitty," Sophie told him. "Plus, you made the world feel a little safer for me just now, so that's something."

"That’s something." His voice was a little rough, eyes misty as Sophie made to pick up their stuff. "Maybe not enough, but something."

"A really good thing. Do you- do you need a hug?"

Bronte looked like he was starting to shake his head, and then nodded, hesitantly.

They threw their arms around him carefully, feeling him tense for a moment before relaxing into the hug. 

"Thank you, Sophie."

"Anytime, Councillor Grumpypants."

"Hey!"

Sophie giggled as they pulled back and picked up their bag. "I'll see you next week, I guess. Thank you for all the support, and the lessons are interesting too."

"Oh, I'm glad. They're important things to learn."

"They seem like it. Now I'm going to go get some dinner!"

[quellgame]

Prolegomena 1 - Nietzsche's Legacy

a. Cringe Culture as Philistinism

In his book Anti-Nietzsche, Malcolm Bull provides a thorough critique of Nietzschean aesthetic thought. “Philistine,” Bull claims, is the insult of contemporary times. A philistine is somebody who refuses to appreciate high culture, or fine art; one who denies aesthetic value. Yet, for all the vitriol, nobody seems to have taken on the mantle of philistinism. If there are no philistines, what explains the endless accusations?

If philistines were to have a theory, argues Bull, it must take shape as the transience of all values. We know from Nietzsche that nihilism approaches the devaluation of all value - but that this very devaluation requires a re-evaluation. For Nietzsche, evaluation ultimately takes the form of aesthetic valuation. It is easy to deny specific values, but it is not so easy to be rid of value altogether. Nietzsche argues that it is impossible to completely remove valuation. Once all other values have been removed, nothing is left but pure preference. This is the role of the superman: as taste-maker - the creator of value. But if there is no base on which value rests, why not re-evaluate these newly created values?

Thus, although value may be ineradicable, it may also be fragile, and its existence in any one area a contingent historical fact dependent on local conditions. [...] With this in mind, it is worth asking whether the fact that philistinism is a form of negation that is universally condemned but nowhere visible may be [...] a historically significant indication of the nature and location of positive value in contemporary society. (Bull, 6)

Nowhere can a challenge to aesthetic norms be seen more clearly in contemporary culture than in the based/cringe debate. “Based” refers to content that is aesthetically appealing in some undefined but culturally understood sense, while “cringe” refers to content that makes one “cringe” - is unappealing both aesthetically and morally. If Bull’s method is correct, it would do us well to take a look at based culture in an attempt to understand where its values lie. We’ll argue that based culture is oppressive. As based culture’s aesthetic opposite, we have a moral imperative to examine cringe culture so as to discover and replicate its value framework.

Bull’s genius lies in his method of deconstructing Nietzche: instead of reading Nietzsche as intended - on the side of the oppressor, or against the oppressor - Bull decides to read Nietzsche like a loser - as the one to whom all the fiery rhetoric is spoken. In this way, Bull discovers Nietzsche as a groomer, and positions himself as a rejected candidate. He examines Nietzsche’s rhetoric and theoretical framework to understand how and why Nietzsche is so capable of pulling in an audience and making them believe him. I’ll argue that Nietzsche’s abusive rhetoric is directly mirrored in both fascism and in based culture.

b. Nietzsche as Groomer

Nietzsche intends his books to be read for victory. He calls to an audience like himself, those who “belong to a time that has not yet come to pass;” in other words, people who might transcend the “idiotic,” “subhuman,” “slave-like” nature of contemporary society. Clearly, this is cruelty, but it is

[n]o wonder Nitezsche can so confidently identify his readers with the Supermen. It is not just flattery. If Nietzsche’s readers have mastered his text, they have demonstrated just those qualities of ruthlessness and ambition that qualify them to be ‘masters of the earth’. (Bull, 35)

One might recognize this as the first step in any grooming process: flatter your target, make them feel safe and loved. Fulfil for them a need: in this case, the need for power. Once the indoctrination has begun, those in power can begin to ostracize and criminalize the group they have othered. In Nietzsche’s case, few are left unscathed: only those powerful enough to say “yes” to the void will find within themselves the power to create value - and only they can survive the onslaught of nihilism. The rest will perish - and to Nietzsche, that is a good thing.

This is clearly mirrored in grooming tactics used by white supremacists and pedophiles. I will use my own experience as an example.

// CW: pedophilia, white supremacy //

As a child I spent a lot of time on a forum dedicated to the Super Mario Bros. franchise. The forum was not age-appropriate - several members talked openly about their time on 4chan; about pornography and subculture. Naturally I was curious. I wanted to consider myself grown, so I could talk about my interests. So I emulated the adults’ behavior. Eventually I started consuming pornography and visiting 4chan’s /b/ board. That’s where I was first exposed to Nazism and to child pornography. I recall having conversations about loli and shota when I was fairly young. I thought this was all quite normal - or at the very least, that I was strong enough to overcome whatever may happen to me as long as I could satisfy the need to see bodies like mine in a sexual context. In many cases, child pornography would be packaged alongside pornography featuring trans actors, as both were considered equally “alternative.” This is how I first discovered trans women - and this is not an uncommon narrative.

I was made comfortable: welcomed into a community where I could talk about my interests to a sympathetic audience. I was told I was special. I found myself trusting this community more than my local culture - they gave me an outlet to explore my queer identity from a young age. Then they showed me content that was actively harmful to my psyche - and I was threatened with jail time and social ostracization should I be caught. This is the grooming pattern.

Nietzsche makes his audience comfortable: he fulfils the need to obtain power through his writing style. He tells his audience they are special - literally superhuman. Then he launches abuse at every opportunity. He creates his sense of power through relating to the master race, the blonde beast; by actively deriding others and openly calling for the extermination of all “slave-like races.” And he says: we are unlike the others, you and I; and should you tell them this, you will be ostracized. So stay with me. Let’s conquer the world together.

This is directly echoed in the fascist grooming pipeline. Gamergate is an exceptional example: gamers were made to feel oppressed; they were made to be othered, then used the rage at their so-called oppression to be swayed into fascist beliefs. And should they leave, they too would be exterminated. You must be based. Kill the cringe. We see now the slogan “6MWE.” We see open genocide and warmongering in the American government (which, frankly, is nothing new). America has become a proudly fascist state - and much of this is with Nietzsche’s influence.

// CW //

If Nietzsche’s core project is abusive, how do we overcome it? Bull’s method is to reject the core hermeneutic: instead of reading for victory, we’ll read like losers. Whenever Nietzsche fires abuse at some subhuman thing, we will take the position of the abused. “Rather than reading for victory with Nietzsche, or even reading for victory against Nietzsche by identifying with the slave morality, we read for victory against ourselves, making ourselves the victims of the text. [...] Reading like losers will make us feel powerless and vulnerable” (Bull, 37). We can see this displayed quite clearly in cringe culture - it is an entire aesthetic created from the feeling of being worthless and small; of being less-than, plentiful, disposable - and embracing it. What does it mean to be one of these herd-creatures, so deprived of power? What could our values be?

c. Levelling

To understand what the losers of the nihilistic future believe in, we need to take a quick look at the history of Nietzsche’s interpreters, and how our understanding of the history of nihilism has developed over the years. This is the same history as the history of Being, the history of Nothingness. Bull spends much of the text discussing this, and it is well worth the read, but we’ll have to suffice for a brief synopsis here.

Bull brings us from the superman down to the lowest form, travelling from subhuman to animal to inanimate. He does so by continuing to read like a loser: examining Nietzsche himself, then Heidegger, then contemporary scholars Vatimo, Nancy, and Agamben. In each of these scholars Bull finds a target: for Nietzsche, the subhuman; for Heidegger, the animal; and for our contemporary scholars, the inanimate. In each case we must consider ourselves the loser of the exchange - we must consider ourselves as one with the subhuman, the animal, and the inanimate. We must become a mirror, reflecting on mu - absolute nothingness.

In essence: We must bring ourselves down to the lowest level of the un-valued if we are to escape the extremities of prejudice which Nietzsche’s lessons, so embedded in our culture, have taught us. This is levelling. Its essence is radical empathy. Nietzsche’s earlier works were focused on overcoming nihilism; he later gave up and decided that he must himself be a nihilist, one who destroys. Yet, in declaring himself a nihilist I think he was grasping at a concept that Hegel explains best: non-nihilating contradiction. To overcome nihilism is the same as to become a nihilist: to become dynamite - self-nihilating. If we are to reevaluate all values, we must obliterate ourselves. We must re-evaluate the concept of self, the concept of reality.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Statement of ideology re: abortion (for what it’s worth):

Hard core pro-choice here.

Abortions should be legal, free, and unstigmatized, and they should happen however often they happen. Minors should not need parental permission of any sort. (Like…it’s generally a good idea for teens to talk to their parents, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to force teens to tell their parents.) No waiting periods, no late term abortion bans, no mandatory vaginal ultrasounds, none of that.

Contraception should be free, and available without a prescription. A wide variety of forms of contraception should be available, including specifically more penis-haver focused contraception. Information about contraception should be widely available and easy to understand. (And taught in schools ffs.)

Talking about sex should be normalized. Differences in sexual preferences should be normalized — in particular the idea that a woman who’s interested in any sexual contact with a man is interested in PIV sex with him needs to die in a fire.

Something something consent culture environment supportive of sexual assault/abuse survivors something something.

And, on the flip side, women and girls who want to keep the pregnancy — or who want to get pregnant on purpose — should be able to and should get all the support they need for that to be a viable option, period. (Yeah, not exactly where we are now.) And no stigma against those who become mothers really young. (Hang on, that was really gender essentialist, I also mean trans folks with uteruses. People with uteruses. Parents.) Sometimes people want to be a parent at disconcertingly young ages, or would rather do that than get an abortion, and that’s a bodily autonomy issue too. And “shit, me and my baby will be homeless if I don’t get an abortion” is just as much coercion as not being allowed to get an abortion. “Teenage pregnancy” is only a problem to the extent the teenager sees it as a problem.

(Abortion is usually not “an option” so much as “the only viable option, in practice”, which means most of the time “pro choice” is pro abortion — true reproductive freedom means abortion is a viable choice and having a child is a viable choice.)

(Sure, adoption is an option, it’s also a stunningly unpopular option. There’s something about going through pregnancy and childbirth and not having a child afterwards to mitigate the unpleasantness, that is just phenomenally unappealing to most people. Shocking, I know.) (But yeah, sure, that should be an option too, and open adoption on the birth parent’s terms should be an option for all those that want that.)

(And…I’m generally not very sympathetic to the MRA “financial abortion” (men shouldn’t have to pay child support if rye don’t wanna) concept just because, like objections to tipping, not doing that while keeping everything else the same means someone’s going to get screwed over badly. But ideally? Yeah, biological parentage should not automatically mean financial responsibility for a child, ideally; ideally this is a community support situation not an “each family for themselves” one.)

Likewise: trans people need to get their gender recognized without having to get sterilized; disabled people who want to be parents have as much a right as non-disabled people; and this thing where some women can’t get a hysterectomy that they want while others get sterilized against their will is …there aren’t words.

Anyways, we’re not going to be there any time soon, but in the meantime: an egg isn’t a chicken, an acorn isn’t an oak tree, and a fetus isn’t a child. Abortion is fine. There is morally nothing wrong with it. It’s just miscarriage on purpose. That’s all.

The moral issue comes with denying people the right of what to do with their own bodies and lives. (And since most people who get pregnant are women, and since there’s a fuckton of ways an unwanted pregnancy can fuck your life up, this is hella a feminist issue.)

And that’s not at all incompatible with understanding that when a person with a wanted pregnancy loses the pregnancy, that can be an unspeakable tragedy. Pregnancy has different meanings in different contexts; sometimes it’s a heart’s true desire and sometimes it’s a worst nightmare.

There is a thing about the issue of abortion that brings out the liar in so many people. Some truths: there doesn’t have to be a clear line at either conception or birth, the change between not-person and person can be a gradual thing with no unambiguous “this is a heap” point. Truth: a lot (maybe most? Don’t have the numbers offhand) of abortions are sought by women who are already mothers. It’s not some “irresponsible” young woman only thing. Truth: you can get pregnant from rape. Truth: late term abortion is fundamentally not the same thing as first trimester abortion; first trimester (normal) abortion is usually about not wanting a full pregnancy/child; late term abortion is usually when the pregnancy was wanted but something went horribly wrong and there is not going to be a living child at the end of the process no matter what. (Also: “partial birth abortion” isn’t a medical term and the ban didn’t stop abortions it just changed how they happened and interfered with parents’ ability to mourn a wanted but dead child. Sorry. But I think it’s important to point this out.) Truth: most pregnancies aren’t viable and miscarriage due to severe health shit happens all the time. (This might not seem like it is related to abortion, but to my way of thinking abortion can only be “murder” if miscarriage is the loss of a child, and realistically most miscarriages are not responded to that way, and many aren’t even noticed.)

Truth: laws are a sledgehammer and many people who think abortion should be illegal in general do actually get abortions themselves or help a loved one get abortion for the exact same reasons as everyone else, like “I’m too young and it would derail my life plans.” Not everyone who’s against abortion I’m sure. But also, not everyone who’s personally against abortion thinks it should be illegal. Truth: thinking something is bad and thinking it should be illegal are different things. I don’t really expect that to be compelling to someone who thinks abortion is bad, since I’ve already said I don’t think it is. But it’s an internally consistent position many people have.

Truth: abortion sometimes saves lives. Truth: abortion sometimes saves lives when determining there was a threat to life would have been incredibly difficult or unlikely. Truth: you can get pregnant from rape, and an abortion ban with a rape exception is either going to get a ton of people lying about being raped when they weren’t, or a ton of people who were raped but can’t get an abortion because they can’t prove it, or both. Truth: there are people who go to an abortion clinic who haven’t been to a doctor for any other reason in years and won’t go again for years.

Truth: some people who get an abortion regret it, and many others feel mostly relief or not much of anything.

Truth: from a health perspective, carrying a child to term even under the best of circumstances is far more risky than getting an abortion.

Truth: you can be a moral person and also get an abortion.

(Opinion: for people with uteruses who date people who could get them pregnant, especially who date cishet guys: you have to be on the same page about abortion on a personal level. If you’re not sure which way you’d go that means you need to only be (in a relationship with) people who think it’s your call and they will back you no matter what. Guys who have the capacity to get someone pregnant and who don’t believe in abortion ethically need to wait for sex until they and their partner are ready to have a child. That’s the only ethically consistent stance. A dude who says he’s against abortion but wants sex right away is the worst kind of shitbag and completely unfuckable.)

Anyways. Be well.

If I could talk to my teenage self, I would say: you will think about it, you will decide abortion is morally neutral, and you will be really pissed off that you were surrounded by “pro-choice” people who never just sat down and told you how they came to the conclusion that abortion was morally OK. I would say: most adults don’t actually care that much about what children are told, they think they’re too busy to worry about that, so there are vitally important things about the world that no one has told you for political reasons, because there are vicious hateful people who will fight like vipers to keep you from being told those things and the adults who would have told you weren’t willing to have that fight. This is not fair or right. But it doesn’t mean there was nothing to say. It just means there are vipers.

And yeah, you’ll still be pissed at the idea that if you’d gotten pregnant as a teen or young adult, you wouldn’t have actually gotten a choice. Fucking hypocrites.

There’s more than one way to deny people their reproductive rights.

[abigailnussbaum]

The Boys 5x06, “The Bloody Doors Off”

I’m generally quite positive about this episode, but before I get to that, this really needs to be said: the trope of “doors open at the asylum, murder and mayhem ensue” is really poisonous to the mentally ill, and should have been discarded a long time ago. It’s particularly common in superhero stories, which are, after all, very fond of the setting of a superhero asylum. Off the top of my head, both The Gifted and Batwoman have employed it in the last two years. Which means that even as it’s patting itself on the back for skewering the tropes of superhero stories, The Boys is indulging in a particularly vile one. And while we’re on the subject of things this episode should have been above: that joke about transgender strippers. It’s not as bad as it could have been, because the gag isn’t “she’s got a penis!” (and MM’s response is immediately “I don’t care for strippers regardless of their genitalia”). But it’s still fetishizing the trans body - which, I suppose, is hardly surprising given the show’s generally judgmental attitude towards kink.

That being said, this is probably the best episode of the season, largely because it plays to the show’s strengths: tight thematic and plot coherence (finally justifying the decision to move the show to a weekly format after weeks of shapeless installments), strong characterization, and a willingness to complicate seemingly black and white situations that belies the show’s reputation as an outrage machine. So yes, this is an episode that features Homelander crushing a man’s skull while in the throes of passion (apparently we need to have at least one of those per season), not to mention a man with a giant, prehensile penis. But it’s also an episode that deepens our understanding of Frenchie, introduces us to a new character who is almost instantly compelling (while also complicating that reaction significantly), and forces us to reexamine our feelings towards Maeve without telling us anything new about her.

The common theme running through the episode is the things you’ll do for the people you love, how you live with the consequences of those choices, and what they make of you. We finally get to meet Lamplighter, the boogeyman whose murder of Mallory’s grandchildren broke the Boys apart years ago and has hung over Frenchie in particular. And we find out why that is - Frenchie was supposed to be keeping an eye on Lamplighter, whom Mallory had just recruited to her investigation of Homelander, and left his post to tend to a friend who was ODing.

Shawn Ashmore is inspired casting for Lamplighter. He’s got the sort of look that can just as easily convey sympathetic concern as selfish entitlement, and slide between the two with ease. Which makes Lamplighter both less hatable than we might have expected, given what we know of him, but also hard to trust. (To be fair, I’m reading a lot of Johnny Jaqobis into the performance, and that was Aaron, not Shawn; but honestly, those two are surprisingly similar for how solid both of their careers have turned out.) But the episode really belongs to Frenchie, who not only takes on Lamplighter’s admission that he didn’t know Mallory’s grandchildren were in the room he set on fire, but finds enough common ground with the man to confess his own part in that night’s disaster. When Lamplighter asks “did [your friend] live?”, it’s a moment of human connection that we don’t often see between the Boys and their quarry (and leads to Frenchie’s heartbreaking revelation that Jay lived, only to die of another overdose shortly after). The episode ends with Frenchie begging for Lamplighter’s life from Mallory (and also trying to make peace with Kimiko, who is otherwise sorely underused).

At the same time, the episode doesn’t encourage us to feel uncomplicated sympathy towards Lamplighter. As MM points out “I meant to murder an innocent woman, not her grandchildren” is hardly a defense. And even more disturbing is Lamplighter’s repeated refrain to Frenchie, “why didn’t you stop me?” Whereas Frenchie doesn’t want to be let off the hook even though he had a good reason for abandoning his assignment, Lamplighter is looking for someone else to blame for his own actions, even to the perverse extreme of blaming an opponent for not fighting back. And, as we see in the present, he’s still killing innocents, burning experiment subjects who don’t pan out or refuse to play along, while claiming that he’s being forced.

Which ties into Maeve, who for the first time is called to account for her part in the plane crash last season. Maeve sees the video of the crash as indicting Homelander, which is also how we’ve been trained to think about it. But when Elena watches it, she sees a woman she’s been taught to think of as heroic abandoning others to save her own life, begging fruitlessly for mercy but finally just saving her own skin. Like Lamplighter - and more importantly, like Annie earlier in this season, when she was about to kill Hughie at Homelander’s command - Maeve might reasonably say that she didn’t have a choice. But she still did those things, and hid them. Her final line to Elena - “why are you looking at me that way?” - sums up the episode’s core message.

It’s a message that is also echoed in the Annie-Billy-Hughie storyline, though it’s a bit more wobbly in that context. The idea of having Annie and Billy bond over their shared love of Hughie is a solid storytelling beat, but I’m not quite sure what to make of Annie’s “he’s too good for either of us”. Annie kills the driver to save Hughie, and the show doesn’t let her off the hook for that (her long look at the baby seat in the car once she gets in). But it’s still a choice she made in order to save someone. Hughie killed Translucent for no reason at all - or really, because he wanted to feel strong and powerful after weeks of stewing in grief and rage over Robin’s death (and Annie, though she knows the Boys were responsible for Translucent’s death, still doesn’t know that Hughie is the one who pushed the button). I’m not sure he’s too good for anyone. 

(Meanwhile, the fact that Annie was on the verge of killing Hughie to save her own life just a few episode ago seems to have been memory-holed, even though it would have been a really obvious thing for Billy to throw in her face during their fight early in the episode.)

The other big thing that happens in this episode is that we find out Stormfront’s background, and between what she says to Homelander and what Lamplighter reveals to the Boys, it seems clear that her plan is to create a superpowered neo-Nazi army and use it to take over the world. It’s good to finally have some answers (and I admit that this is a more interesting turn of plot than the one I anticipated last week, a false flag terrorist attack). But I also feel that the show is in danger of outthinking itself. Having Vought be a company with roots in Nazi Germany was a clever touch earlier this season, but making Stormfront a German Nazi herself - and making the entire genesis of superheroes a Nazi project - undercuts a lot of what the show has been saying about American racism and how much its superheroes are rooted in it. Suddenly we’re back to that familiar trope, invasion by an army of foreign and foreign-inspired Nazis. It’s not unlike the way that Winter Soldier whiffed its central revelation, choosing to focus on a fifth column of hidden traitors instead of admitting the more terrifying truth, that after seventy years there’s really no way to disentangle “good” SHIELD from “evil” Hydra, because the former has been hopelessly corrupted by the latter.

When I wrote about last week’s episode, I praised it for skewering rainbow capitalism in its depiction of Vought’s plans to “sell” Maeve’s queerness and her relationship with Elena. Since then, several people have pointed out that The Boys was speeding well ahead of the actual industry it’s lampooning - in a blockbuster market dominated by superhero movies, there are currently no queer superhero characters (though there are several on TV). Which means that the show’s satire can end up missing its mark - instead of pointing out how capitalism squeezes everything good into an easily-digested, marketable form, one can easily read this subplot as saying that a gay superhero would be bad, full stop. 

I think a similar dynamic is at play when it comes to Stormfront’s secret plot. An army of superpowered neo-Nazis is scary, but is it really scarier than the President of the United States not only refusing to condemn white supremacists on stage at a national debate, but addressing them directly in terms that can only be taken as an instruction to riot if he loses the election? Is it scarier than videos of police that repeatedly show their sympathy towards white supremacist, to the point of standing by when one of them fires into a crowd of people? It doesn’t take superpowers for fascism to take hold - it didn’t in Nazi Germany, and it doesn’t today. By pretending otherwise, The Boys is neutering its social commentary exactly where it should be most trenchant.

[its-pronounced-quoassoint]

Power Rangers AU-Chapter 8

Pairings: romantic Logicality, Prinxiety, Demus, Remile

This Chapter features: Logan centric, trans!Logan

This Chapter Warnings: talks of past violence, brief mention of PTSD, description of scraped hands, mention of past ‘possession’, talks of manipulation, some cursing, sympathetic Deceit and Remus

Credit for this AU goes to @when-day-met-the-knight (specifically this post).

If you would like to be added to the taglist for this fic please let me know in reply!

First Previous Next

Chapter 8-Renette

Logan still thought they should have brought Patton to a medical proffessional. Thomas had practice with typical medical proceedures from his own time as a Ranger, but Patton's collapse should have been treated more carefully. However, he also knew that taking him to see a real doctor could potentially reveal his and their identities. Logan complied with Thomas's instructions and allowed Patton to be taken back to Thomas's home. The team was frantic. Remus and Dee weren't speaking to anyone but each other and it was starting to get on Logan's and Roman's nerves. Yes, they may be good friends, or friends-with-benefits, or whatever they were, but they had to confide in the others. The risk they had taken of talking to Virgilius like that was too great to not at least ask Thomas about. Then when their plan-well it didn't fail, to be honest Logan didn't know what had happened-but the two's plan didn't have the outcome they wanted and now they were shutting everyone else out.

Finally they reached Thomas's house. Emile discreetly hurried them in through the back. Remus set Patton down on the couch carefully and the rest of the Rangers, plus Emile sat around the table. They all deactivted thier Ranger armor and looked around. Emile came over to Logan and sat down next to him, pulling up a first aid kit and silently asking for Logan's cooperation. Logan hadn't even realized how badly his hands hurt. He looked at his palms to see them scrapped and raw, bleeding slightly in a few areas. When had that happened? He asked himself.

Logan allowed Emile to begin the disinfecting. It didn't hurt as badly as he had anticipated.

"I'm sorry." Thomas croaked out. "There's been quite a few attacks since Roman and Remus became Rangers, but I didn't expect she'd-she'd do . . . that so soon."

"Thomas it's okay." Roman gave a weak smile. "Really, you couldn't have known."

"Yeah, but I could have given you a warning."

"Even with such a warning, we likely wouldn't have known the extent of her ability, and I'm assuming that was barely scratching the surface of what she can do." Logan winced a little as Emile pressed the cotton harder into his palm.

"What even was that?" Dee asked. Oh so he hasn't totally forgotten us? Logan rolled his eyes to himself.

"Joan and Talyn called it possession-"

"Any ghost can do that in less than one lesson." Logan heard Roman whisper. That must be some Broadway reference I have yet to learn, he thought.

"The Dragon witch, sometimes she would possess the Generals that attacked us. When we came too close to actually stopping them. She'd take over their body and that black cloud would leave us almost defenseless." Thomas continued.

"Did she ever do, ya know, that?" Roman grunted, likely referencing the Dragon Witch's verbal maltreatment towards them.

"Only a couple times. She never really took possession of her generals, and when she did she was never that mad. She acted impressed, almost proud. It was so unnerving. Like she wanted her generals to fail against us. We didn't know why." Thomas sagged back into his chair. "She's never really said any of those things before."

"So we should expect her to do it again?" Roman asked incredulously.

"If you keep trying to make Virgilius turn to our side, I'd say so." Thomas sighed.

Logan, Roman, and Thomas turned to Reus and Dee, they held somewhat guilty expressions, but weren't backing down.

"What the hell you two?" Roman finally broke the silence. "Why didn't you tell us you were going to do that?"

"You didn't seem too keen on the idea when I asked you the first time, Roman!" Remus crossed his arms and huffed.

"What?" Logan looked to Roman. "When did you talk to Roman-"

"Saturday. Dee read up to the second to last chapter at that point and we came up with the plan." Reus stated.

"Remus talked to Roman about it later that day but apparently he said Virgilius wasn't gonna be convinced and we were just wasting time." Dee growled. "Figured if that's what Roman thought you two would be even less inclined to do it."

"But you did it anyway! And look at what happened!" Roman gestured to Patton on the couch.

"How could we have known that was gonna happen!" Dee refuted. "We just figured if we talked to him long enough he might see our side. We could help him!"

"And if he didn't then we'd know not to hold back." Remus lowered himself further in his chair.

"Not hold back?!" Roman stood. "What so when we fight him you're just holding back!"

"Roman you don't get it. That's not him." Dee's voice simmered.

"You don't know him!" Roman harshly put it.

"Patton and the two of us are the only ones that have gotten this close to him. He just gives off this feeling it's-"

"Unnatural." Patton's soft voice said from the couch. "Pink Ranger deactivate."

The Rangers and Emile rushed over to him frantically. Logan felt the weight on his chest that he hadn't realized was there, get lifted off of him. Patton smiled a little, but his eyes showed a  protectiveness Logan was familiar with.

"Patton what-" Roman started.

"Dee and Remus are right. Virgilius, he's-well-I don't know what he is, but being so close to him, it just felt wrong. Unnatural. It doesn't feel right. He's just like what Dee said; a pawn in her game. She's using him and if he hasn't seen it already then he's going to real soon." Patton explained.

"Patton-"

"I think he needs our help." Patton looked to Logan, desperately trying to get him to understand.

"I think he's been using Downright as a message. I mean why else would he attack after each chapter is posted, he wanted us to read it for a reason." Dee said quiety. "Then the last chapter was posted and it was all about Richie and Eddie leaving Derry, it was such a strange choice, but after talking to Dee we realized there were two ways you could look at it. We didn't really know for sure if he wanted to leave the Dragon Witch or not, but asking him what he thought was the perfect way to really figure it out."

"If he thought what the writer did made snese, then we could be even more sure that he's coming to our side." Remus finished. "Then his explination, it just made everything click! He wants to leave just like Richie and Eddie left Derry! I mean come on it just makes so much sense."

"We were getting through to him! Thomas said she only possessed the Generals when they were about to lose, we didn't even start fighting!" Dee went on. "We were making sense to him and it scared her."

"Before she possessed him, he seemed so tired." Patton said. "His emotions were just so strong I could feel it! He was so tired of the fighting! I'm not making this up. I know what I felt."

"How?" Roman asked. "Pat you're so sure this was how he felt, but you don't know him."

"I could feel what he was feeling!" Patton tried.

"Patton has always been better at sensing people's emotions, and knowing how to help them in times of distress." Logan nodded

"Megan calls it my sixth sense. It's not a super power but I'm almost never wrong. I know what I felt, it-it came from him." Patton stated firmly.

"If you're so sure that's how he feels, then what do we do about it?" Thomas asked. "Knowing the Dragon Witch, she's just going to make him hate us more now that she knows you two tried to help him. He's not going to be as easy to sway."

It was quiet. Logan looked to Patton and sat next to him, allowing Patton to intertwine his pinky with Logan's. Patton moved to fully hold his hand, but Logan felt the sting of his scrapes and pulled away. Patton looked at Logan curiously, to which he showed Patton his palms.

"I hate her." Patton whispered for just Logan to hear. "You know I don't say that lightly, but it's how I feel. She shouldn't have said those things to you. I didn't like her before, but when she sa-said that, gosh it made me snap."

"Patton-"

There was a knock at the door, interrupting Logan. Everyone was still.

"I'll get it." Emile said calmly.

"Wait Emile!" Patton whisper-yelled after him.

Emile only waved off Patton's concern and strode to the door.

"Renette!" He exclaimed giddily, jumping into the person's arms.

"Hey Sugar." The person responded.

Emile was set down and he dragged the person into the room for everyone to see. A tall, built woman follwed him. Her dark skin and even darker hair complimented the rose gold color of her suit, and her boxbraids were up in a bun. Her overall look was proffessional and Logan admired it greatly.

"Renette." Thomas sighed, relieved.

"Sorry you had to wait so long Thomas. Every time I planned on arriving something got in the way. Luckily, I was here for this one, so less work on my part had to be done. I came over here as quickly as I could." She stated.

Logan then recognized her, she was a pedestrian that he had helped in the square.

"Sorry, but, who are you?" Dee asked.

"Right, oh this is long overdue." She adressed the rest of the room. "My name is Renette Rademeyer-"

"That's awesome." Remus remarked.

"Thanks I picked it myself." Renette chuckled. "And I'm going to be working with you all on behalf of the federal government."

"You work with the FBI?" Roman asked.

"With your part of the FBI." She clarified. "I'll be handling a lot of things for you boys like foreign affairs, and other aid you can provide, I'm a go between, and a form of mentor. Thomas has been doing good, but you boys need to get some real training in."

"Foreign affairs?" Logan asked.

"You've been doing a great job fighting Virgilius and whatnot, but that's not the only thing you can help with. Other places around the world need you."

"Like the Avengers. They didn't just defeat aliens, they stopped terrorists and stuff." Patton said.

"We have to fight terrorists?" Roman asked.

"Oh, no no. Fighting terrorists is far too complicated to send you boys in." Renette stopped him. "Mainly outreach. Helping people in other countries get food, supplies, help during natural disasters, that sort of thing."

They nodded.

"And of course there are other things that I have to speak with you all about. This may take a while, so please get comfy." Renette waited.

Roman the sat next to Logan, then Dee, then Remus. Thomas sat in a chair, and Emile on the ground, looking up to Renette happily.

"To start, there's the matter of none of you except Thomas have summoned your Zords yet, so we'll be working on that." She began. "And because of this, we aren't going to be asking for any outreach, but know that once you can consistantly summon them, your participation in world helping efforts will be madatory."

Logan and the others felt a twinge of guilt at that. The zords were a vital part of the Power Rangers and to deafeat the Dragon Witch they would definitely, need them. Thomas said it had taken a long time for any of the last Power Rangers to summon them, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Then there's the matter of publicity. Currently as I'd hope you know, mattel is coming out with a new line of Power Rangers action figures and other companies plan to make products in your images. Then there's movies, music, and other forms of entertainment about you. Since, technically the Power Rangers have been copyrighted, you will all be compensated. However, you will not be actually receiving any compensation until after you've become a legal adult and college fees are paid."

"I've been wondering about college." Logan piped up. "I don't plan to stay in Florida for college and if the Dragon Witch is still attacking-"

"I guess I should get into that now." Renette sighed. "While there's no demand for you all to go to college here, I would hope by the time you leave you'll be able to summon your Zords and arrive to the sight of the attack quickly. If not, other arrangements will have to be made. Whichever college you attend shouldn't be a problem."

"So um, what was that about money?" Remus asked.

"And movies?" Roman piped up.

"Yeah that too, but mostly the money."

"Well, the compensation you all will be receiving for items being made about you, will go into a fund for each of you to attend a college that you are accepted into. When the time comes to go to college, that money will be paying for all of it, and if it doesn't cover wherever you would like to go the government will handle the rest." Renette explained. "Also any explaination to your parents will be provided, so don't worry about that. Any questions so far?

"No? Good. Next we have to talk about any invites you as Rangers may receive. Movie screenings, parades, celebrity parties, lunches, news station interviews, possibly even public addresses." Renette went on. "You'll obviosly have to go as a Ranger so your identity isn't revealed. You will be briefed later about how to speak to the public, but really it'll depend on the situation."

"Are we gonna be invited to see Broadway shows?" Roman asked expectantly.

"I would assume so. Thomas, I believe you and Emile saw Hamilton in Chicago upon invitation, correct?"

"And Dear Evan Hansen in New York." Emile nodded.

"So yeah, I would expect that." Renette shrugged and smiled at Roman's happier expression. "As for celebrity parties, well, you're not encouraged to go to all of them obviously. If you are able to attend a party that you've been invited to, you have to run it by me first and get my approval. There will of course be consequences if these rules aren't followed. When it comes to the news, like with public addresses, we'll brief you on what to say beforehand."

There was a beeping from inside her suit jacket that Logan recognized as the same text tone he set for his own phone. Renette pulled her phone out and scrolled up, likely unlocking it. Logan noticed the case looked much like his own, but rather than black, hers was yellow and clear.

"My son needs me." Renette grunted as she looked at the screen. "I-I'm sorry boys this was supposed to be a longer talk, but I've got to leave. One more thing though! On friday, I need all of you here after school. We'll be taking you to meet with your therapists."

"Therapists?" Dee asked.

"Of course, you think we expect kids to fight aliens every week and not have some kind of PTSD? You're all mandatorily meeting with seperate therapists. You can figure out schedules with them when you all meet." Renette stooped down to give Emile a hug, pulling the boy up into the air and squeezing before setting him back down. "And so you know Sugar, Remy says 'hello', but in that caffeine pumped voice he gets."

"Aww!" Emile folded his fingers. "How's he doing?"

"Better. Renae and Roland are being way over protective of him, just so you know."

"Well, tell him I said hi and that the cappuccino machine in Mr. Richard's room doesn't work anymore." Emile replied. "It was good to see you Renette."

"Always a pleasure Sugar." She smiled and left for the door. "You too Thomas. We'll talk again soon boys!"

With that she was out the door.

"Who's Remy?" Patton asked, there was a tone to his voice that suggested he was subtly trying to say something else, but Logan didn't know what.

"Renette's son." Emile said happily.

"That was so weird." Dee remarked. "I mean she just walked in here, said she was our FBI agent and left."

"Why didn't you tell us we were gonna have to see therapists?" Roman asked Thomas.

"Well, they were still trying to find some for you all, and frankly it wasn't the right time."

"It feels like no one's talking in this team anymore." Roman pouted.

"Renette tends to just show up and leave a lot Dee, you get used to it." Emile shrugged.

Behind him Thomas mouthed 'No you dont'.

"I liked her." Logan decided to say, not quite intending for anyone to hear.

"Agreed." Patton said back, softly though so only Logan would get the response.

Logan smiled at Patton and looked back down. His own phone suddenly alerted him of a text message.

Nora Montgomery:

Mama's home.

We told her you were in bed already. Come in through the back, Lauren's ready to let you in whenever.

"Shit!" Logan stood suddenly. "I have to go!"

"What why?" Patton followed, standing as well.

"Lo, what's going on?"

"Roman, my mom's home." Logan breathed out.

"Shit." Roman agreed.

Taglist:

@tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors @maddarc @pheonix-inside-reblogs @thisismysanderssidesblog @almost-all-my-ships-are-gay @mostpeopleannoyme @the-smol-est @i-sexually-identify-as-a-mistake @nadja-chamack16@too-bi-too-function @rainbowbowtie @mistypelt1234 @tricksterangel25 @authorized-trash @echocw @stripestar128128 @coffee-mugz @slitherynchicken

[qobiin]

when i fill them, they’ll shine forever | ch 6

pairing: todobakudeku (bakugou x midoriya x todoroki) 

genre: fluff, angst | abo au, canon-compliant 

warnings: swearing, trans male character, mild canon-typical violence, mentioned child abuse, implied non-con, misgendering, endeavor 

word count: 4118

summary: Katsuki being an omega from birth changes a few things. 

chapter six of when i fill them, they’ll shine forever 

"If you're here to give me some sympathetic speech or some shit, I will kill you, Pinkie," Katsuki spits over his shoulder.

"Eh?" Pinkie startles, scrambling to compose herself as Katsuki turns to look at her. "I have no idea what you mean."

Katsuki narrows his eyes at the way she nervously scratches the back of her head, her smile much too wide to be genuine. Pinkie scuffs the toe of her shoe against the floor, her arms dropping to her sides so she can play with the ends of her school jacket. Her scent is as sweet as any other omega’s but there is a sour aftertaste to it that makes Katsuki wrinkle his nose in distaste.

"What the fuck do you want? I have places to be," Katsuki says as he crosses his arms over his chest.

He doesn’t know anything past a few of his classmates’ quirks, much too busy with bettering himself and challenging his mates to give a shit about anyone else. Shitty Hair and Pikachu are showing some potential since they have enough of a backbone to socialize normally with him instead of fearfully or putting him on a pedestal. Most of the others will be unimportant to his story in the long run and Katsuki isn’t usually the type to write people off so soon, but Pinkie herself hasn’t impressed him in the least. 

“I just um-” Pinkie flushes, fingers twining together nervously. “All the girls wanted to thank you.”

Katsuki frowns, suddenly confused. As far as he knows, none of the girls want to be within two feet of him. He has no idea why they would want to thank him for something.

The only thing he can think of that would be spoken about is the Perverted Grape incident that happened earlier that day. Katsuki is waiting for Deku to finish talking to Glasses, Todoroki already having left a few minutes before. He wants to go to Deku’s and gorge himself on Auntie Inko’s cooking while he avoids going home where his mom will scream for blood and his dad will flutter nervously around him for the rest of the weekend. He already had Glasses, Hundred Arms, and Shitty Hair try to comfort him in their own shitty ways about Perverted Grape, he doesn’t need any more of this crap today.

“What the fuck is this about?” Katsuki asks, glaring down at Pinkie. “You have five seconds to speak or I’m walking away. One.”

“Thankyouforgettingridofmineta!” Pinkie shouts, bowing at the waist once before she runs away.

Katsuki scoffs as he watches her leave. “As if I did it for any of you.”

“Did what, Kacchan?” Deku’s voice pipes up behind him.

“Nothing, you shit nerd. Let’s go already,” Katsuki grumbles, barely even reacting to Deku’s sudden appearance.

His alpha’s scent is more familiar to him than his own so if Deku really wants to startle him, he is going to have to work harder than that.

Katsuki takes Deku’s hand and leads the way towards the train station, already imagining all the dishes his Auntie Inko will prepare. Deku follows behind him quietly, not having to say a word for Katsuki to understand his alpha will always support him.

The sports festival is turning out to be fucking boring.

Katsuki delivered his "speech" before the first challenge began, which was really just him pointing out a fact by stating that he and his mates were going to mop the floor with all of them. No need for everyone to get their fucking panties in a twist at the truth.

They had taken one look at the mouth of the tunnel before both his mates grabbed hold of Katsuki’s arms and held on tight as he shot them over the other students piling up beneath them. Many yells and shouts had followed them but Deku only whooped as they came out of the other side and got their first glimpse of the obstacle course prepared for them. 

The zero pointers from the entrance exam rose up to greet them but Todoroki froze one and Katsuki blew up the one beside it at Deku’s request. Deku had grabbed a stray piece of the now broken robot as they flew over it while Todoroki directed ice back at the other students to cut their competition in half. At the pit, Todoroki made more ice to make them a path straight across and Katsuki used more of his blasts to ski them over the pit in no time at all. 

By that point Katsuki and Todoroki had practically ruined the obstacle course as they held Deku between them, all three of them keeping first place easily. Then Deku had pulled himself away from them at the third obstacle, dropping onto his knees to dig at the edges of the landmine before Katsuki got the memo. Together, they dug up the explosives and put them in a pile together.

Todoroki had just enough time to grab Deku's shirt and Katsuki climbed onto his alpha's back as Deku held up the piece of the robot that he had nabbed earlier. His alpha then slammed it into the explosives and all three of them were thrown into the air, sliding past the finish line easily and more importantly, together.

The second challenge hasn't been that big of a challenge either actually. Katsuki grudgingly allows Round Face to join their team after Deku brings up his plan and when the countdown begins, Todoroki makes ice appear in a circle around them while Round Face slaps her hands on the backs of Katsuki’s mates before pressing her fingertips together with a determined look in her eyes. Katsuki settles Deku on his shoulders and waits until Todoroki and Uraraka have grabbed hold of his alpha’s arms to shoot them up in the sky. More yells and shouting follows them but Katsuki ignores it. He knows they are not breaking the rules through anything but a technicality and while last year, he would be enraged about using such a cheap tactic to win, now he only cares to shield his mates from any harm that may befall them. 

Despite the lack of a real fight, their team is doing exceptionally well by staying out of other students’ grasps. The only time anyone gets near enough to almost ripping the headband worth a million points off Deku's head, Todoroki's left side erupts with the barest lick of flames before his ice overcomes some random girl’s vines. Katsuki felt the almost unbearable heat of Todoroki’s fire tease the back of his hand as he prepared himself to power off an explosion and can't help the sharp intake of breath that he takes through his teeth at that moment.

Which is why he is only slightly surprised when Todoroki asks him and Deku for a word in private during the lunch break. Once the break is over, all the stupid extras will then ready themselves for the games UA's staff has prepared for the losers who didn't make it to the final round so technically, they have a longer break than most. Katsuki exchanges a not-so-subtle glance with his alpha before he nods and allows Todoroki to lead the way.

As soon as they are alone, Todoroki tells them his life story. 

All of it. 

The quirk marriage. The forced mate bond. The breeding. The training he began at age four. His mother losing her grip on sanity. The isolation from his siblings and peers alike. The abuse he has withstood ever since then. The resentment and anger Todoroki has carried for countless years. The determination to never use the quirk he inherited from his father.

Every single, excruciating detail has Katsuki's blood boiling and his hackles rising. His body calls for blood, the need to defend and fight and tear limbs apart almost overcomes him.

He doesn’t understand how a parent can look at the life they helped bring into this world and not want to protect them with all their power. Deku has an idea if his claim of not being All Might’s secret love child can be believed, but Katsuki has never faced that misfortune. Not even his coming out impacted the relationship he had with his parents much - not in the way that most would expect anyway. Katsuki does not understand and he never will but he does understand that what both his mates’ fathers have done and are doing now is wrong.

Wrong and awful and horrible. Downright evil in Todoroki’s case. That is more than enough to warrant Katsuki’s bloodlust. He’s sure his parents would understand why he murdered the Number Two Hero anyway. Auntie Inko most definitely would. Hell, probably Yagi-san too, especially considering the way he dotes on Deku. 

Regardless, Katsuki has already made up his mind.

"I am going to fucking kill him," Katsuki spits out between clenched teeth, his hands smoking and curled into tight fists at his sides. "No, no. I am going to destroy him! I'm gonna rip off his balls and feed them to him! I'm gonna hold my hands over his skin and see how well he likes getting burned!"

Katsuki continues, his methods of torture growing more grotesque and painful as he does, all while ignoring the surprised and somewhat wary look on Todoroki's face. Deku is silent beside him, but his scent tells Katsuki enough.

Their alpha is angry. 

Deku is trembling, his eyes flashing gold and hands curled into fists as well. The air around them reeks of ozone and Katsuki feels the ridiculous urge to sneeze. Todoroki’s gaze keeps flickering between the two of them, unsure of who needs his attention more: his alpha who is rapidly losing his grip on his control or his omega who is ranting about every which way he will harm his father.

"Aren't you going to tell me that killing is bad and I don't know what other fucking nonsense you preach and shit?" Katsuki asks when Deku's scent sours enough to bother him. "I'm gonna murder the Number Two Hero, you fucking nerd. Shouldn't you stop me?"

Say something, Katsuki doesn’t plead aloud. Say you agree. Say you’re with us, no matter what.

Deku tenses all at once then sighs, his body going lax as he closes his eyes and leans his head back on the wall behind him. "If it was anybody else, literally anybody else, I would say yes."

Katsuki smirks, the edges of it sharp enough to cut. "But?"

"Not in this case," Deku finally says, his scent still angry and now frustrated.

"I am fully capable of killing that bastard, you know," Katsuki continues, eyes flickering between both of his mates. "I could go and murder him right now and I would be glad to be thrown into jail for it. My parents would probably throw a fucking party."

Todoroki looks at him like he's insane, but Katsuki ignores him. He focuses on Deku instead, watching the corners of his mouth twitch with a smile, the sour anger in his scent slowly starting to bleed away.

"I know, Kacchan," Deku agrees, opening his eyes which have now returned to their normal color and leaving Katsuki horrified as they start to water.

Katsuki bites his lip, looking back at Todoroki again who is staring open-mouthed at Deku in shock. "Do you want me to?"

He means it as a question for them both but it is Deku who answers. "Yes, but you shouldn't. People would paint you as a villain and that's not who you are, Kacchan.”

“Shut the fuck up, Deku,” Katsuki bites back but there is a smile on his face and no heat in his words.

“Okay,” Deku replies with a tired smile.

Katsuki pivots to stare at Todoroki, pinning his beta with his gaze alone. “And you, you bastard, come here!”

“Are you going to kill me?” Todoroki asks as he stands up straight, his spine probably in pain due to how quickly he came to attention.

Katsuki's grin turns sharp once more. “If you Order me again, then yes, but just get your ass over here already! ”

“Wait, you Ordered Kacchan?” Deku asks, head swiveling between them both in confusion.

"Twice, the fucking shithead!” Katsuki admits.

Deku's eyes turn flinty before they soften once more. "You must have a death wish, Todoroki-kun. Please, don't ever do that again."

Katsuki huffs, crossing his arms over his chest as he glares at his alpha. "I don't need you to defend me, fucking Deku!"

"I know," Deku murmurs, "but sometimes, you want me to and I don't really appreciate the fact that someone would Order you, even if he's our mate, Kacchan. Todoroki-kun, seriously, don't do that again."

"Shut up, Deku," Katsuki spits out at the same time that Todoroki says, "I won't Order you again, Bakugou-kun."

"Good," Deku huffs as Katsuki moves closer until he can sling an arm over his alpha and tuck him into his side. "Now get over here. We're going to scent you so your father knows he'll have plenty of things to explain the next time I smell him on you."

Katsuki nods sagely. "Deku will destroy him."

"Why would he do that?" Todoroki looks at Deku like he can't imagine the alpha going toe-to-toe with his dipshit of a dad, but Katsuki knows better. And Todoroki should know better too after what happened the week before in the locker room's bathroom.

"Because you're our mate, you fucking bastard," Katsuki growls, reaching out and grabbing hold of Todoroki's arm before he drags him closer. "We'll end anyone who fucking hurts you. You're mine now and I don't like it when people touch my things. I beat the shit out of anybody who dared to lay a hand on my alpha and I'll beat the shit out of anyone who hurts my beta too."

Deku smiles at Todoroki from underneath his arm, his scent calmer and steady like before. "Don't worry about it, Todoroki-kun. Kacchan is just really overprotective. You'll grow used to it."

Todoroki is stiff underneath Katsuki's hand, but, slowly, he starts to relax as well. He leans into Katsuki's side and lays his two-toned head against Katsuki's shoulder. On his other side, Deku does the same, mirroring their mate. They stand there for a moment, huddled up in each other's warmth as they allow their scents to slide across one another, mingling and intermixing. Katsuki is certain that no one is going to speak for some time yet, so he's slightly surprised when Deku does.

“Your quirk is your own, Todoroki-kun.”

“Hm?” Todoroki hums in response, his head shifting against Katsuki’s shoulder.

Deku leans forward until even Katsuki is having difficulties keeping his eyes on them. “Your fire is your own. Everyone else here is using a hundred percent of what they’ve got to make it. It would be wrong of you to do this with only half.”

Todoroki stills in Katsuki’s embrace, expression shifting until his face is blank once more. Katsuki can physically see all the walls Todoroki is putting up again and he cannot have that.

“We can talk about that later, you little shits,” Katsuki cuts in. “Deku, seriously not the fucking time.”

His beta’s scent pulses for one short breath before it calms, Deku oblivious to it all as he starts to say, “Todoroki-kun should work with a hundred percent of what he has too, Kacchan! Otherwise-”

"Shouto."

"Huh?" Deku asks, like a fucking idiot as if Todoroki's intentions aren't clear enough.

Todoroki only blinks at him though, his scent still remaining calm and focused. "You can both call me Shouto."

Deku brightens considerably, his smile like the sun breaking through a heavy layer of overcast while he pushes the quirk issue off to the side for now. "Ah, well you can call me Izuku and Kacchan Katsuki!"

"No, he can't," Katsuki scowls.

"Yes, he can," Deku replies instantly, his smile never faltering. "Go sulk another time, this is loving and supporting our mate hours right now!"

Katsuki can't help the startled laughter that escapes him, but he lets it run its course when Deku only brightens even further at the sound and Todoroki relaxes against him again. "Shut the fuck up, Deku. That meme is as old as balls."

Deku's grin only grows bigger, the edges curving dangerously but he says nothing and wraps his arms around Katsuki's waist. Todoroki too settles further into their warmth, his scent now laced with a dash of content.

From the corner of his eye, Katsuki can see the hint of a smile on his beta's face. The sight alone does weird things to his heart that he promptly ignores in favor of enjoying the company of his mates.

Deku and he run into Endeavor before starting their second fight in the third challenge and Katsuki wonders how the Flaming Piece of Shit got out of there alive.

Considering that All Might was also present, Katsuki is doubly confused about how Endeavor is still breathing.

“Come on,” Katsuki spits as he drags Deku out the door. “Fuck everything else and focus on this stupid match. If you let your quirk break you again, dipshit, I’m taking our beta in the divorce.”

Katsuki isn’t happy at all about the team matches but considering that there are many mated students in the sixteen contestants left for the third challenge, he supposed that it made some lick of sense. Not that he’s going to admit that out loud anyway.

Deku laughs, following behind Katsuki willingly, but his smile dies as they round the corner and run into the last person either of them wanted to see.

They have seen the Number Two Hero plenty of times on television and social media. Katsuki thought he was pretty average looking when he was younger but at that moment he is ugly beyond belief. His facial hair is made up completely of fire and spare bits of it run through his hair. He is tall and in his hero suit but there is nothing about him that shows he is a hero in Katsuki’s eyes.

Instead of the mild admiration Katsuki used to feel for this man, all he can focus on is the hate and rage that’s building up quickly within him.

“So you’re the alpha who’s staked a claim on my son,” Endeavor says like he never expected anybody to try and interfere with the plans he had forced upon his child’s shoulders.

Katsuki bares his teeth at him, forcing himself to stay silent. Endeavor’s eyes linger on Deku’s arm where he is grabbing hold of his alpha. His gaze flickers to Katsuki briefly, looking him up and down as if he is a piece of meat being put on display at the market before he focuses back on Deku. Katsuki can’t help the cold disgust that rolls down his spine when the Flaming Piece of Shit’s eyes are no longer on him. Deku shifts beside him in response, subtly putting himself in front of Katsuki to shield him from view.

“And you’re Shouto’s father,” Deku points out, the anger in his voice plain for anyone to hear.

Endeavor’s brows raise up for a moment before his face settles back into its usual scowl. “Your omega. She’ll do fine but if you don’t prove you are the best alpha around, neither of you get to have him.”

Deku growls and the overbearing scent of ozone fills up the hallway. Katsuki holds onto his alpha tighter while allowing his lips to curl back and make his snarl look more aggressive.

“You don’t decide that for him,” Deku snaps. “And don’t refer to Kacchan as a girl. He will rip out your tongue for such disrespect.”

Endeavor’s gaze flicks back towards Katsuki at this and Katsuki snaps his teeth at him, wanting nothing more than to do just that.

Shouto had told them about all the awful crap his father had done but this - what he just said - takes the fucking cake. Katsuki wants to let go of his alpha and watch him tear into this arrogant beta until there is nothing recognizable left. He doesn’t though because he isn’t stupid and the only person allowed to go to jail is him, but the idea itself is still very tempting.

Fortunately, Yagi-san’s smell rises up behind them announcing his presence. Katsuki doesn’t look back to see his arrival, not trusting Endeavor enough to take his eyes off him but he does smell it when Yagi-san realizes what is going on. It would have been difficult not to, considering Deku is sending out angry and agitated alpha pheromones for everyone in the entire building to smell. Even the lowliest beta with the worst sense of smell would be able to tell that Katsuki’s alpha is in distress.

Within two seconds, Katsuki is facing the broad back of the Number One Hero. All Might is in the shifted form he uses for public appearances and has his arms extended by his sides in a way that appears natural but effectively blocks them both. The fact he did this in a way that did not draw any attention to them at all is only another reason why Katsuki immediately begins to calm down when All Might appeared.

“Endeavor, what are you doing to my students?” All Might rumbles, acting as if he had not stumbled over the end of his question.

Katsuki can no longer see the expression on Endeavor’s face but he can hazard a guess about it well enough. “Wishing them luck.”

All Might’s stance doesn’t relax in the least. “Then you may go now. These two are due for their match soon.”

Endeavor merely huffs and walks away then. All Might doesn’t move from his stance until the other man is no longer nearby. He turns and smiles at them, dropping a hand on both their shoulders when the coast is clear. Katsuki allows it, his anger still pulsing dangerously within him even if he knew they are safe with All Might now present but it is dying down nevertheless.

“What happened?” All Might asks, his blue eyes glinting dangerously under the hallway halogens.

Katsuki tells him. He keeps quiet about what their mate had told them earlier that day because it isn’t any of his business to share until his beta is ready to get help, but he holds nothing back about the conversation they just had with the Flaming Piece of Shit. All Might’s eyes turn almost black with the force of his anger, more ozone joining the air around them.

(And Deku had seriously thought Katsuki wasn’t going to assume that Yagi-san was his dad?)

“He won’t bother you again. You have my word,” All Might vows. “Now run along. Your match is starting within the next three minutes.”

They both nod and are rewarded with pats to their heads. Yagi-san then steps to the side so he is no longer blocking the path and Katsuki drags his alpha away before Deku can add more fire to the fuel.

Katsuki and Shouto share first place, Deku taking second and Emo Birdbrain taking third.

He would consider it a loss any other time, but considering all the crap Shouto has been put through and shared with them today, Katsuki just rolls with it.

(And no, he does not miss the fact that All Might hugs his alpha just a little too long to be normal after he drapes their medals over their heads during the awards ceremony. Going by Shouto’s thoughtful hum beside him, their beta doesn’t miss it either. That conversation should be fun.)

Later, he still takes pleasure in burning and blowing up all of his and Deku's Endeavor merchandise.

He takes greater pleasure in watching Shouto try and keep a straight face as Katsuki blatantly flirts with him when they get ice cream the next day. Deku's flirting is a lot more subtle but they both relish at the sight of Shouto's flushing, blank face over a banana split.

Of course, not all good things last. Katsuki had learned this fact early on in life.

He knows it isn't true when people say that the only way is up. Life isn't that easy and it has never been especially kind to Katsuki of all people. He doesn't mind that fact. He understands that is just how things work and that it is the way of life no matter how much he may wish it not to be. It's just how things are and he gets that.

He just didn't expect the rug to be pulled out from under his feet so soon is all.

a/n: sorry for the wait! i hope that you all liked this though (: thanks for reading!