#because for them it’s not REALLY about the women themselves it’s about a woman having the audacity to leave them

[barbiedreams-posts]

My headcanons for EVERY (I think) Mortal Kombat 1 character

— Liu Kang is a big fan of Chinese food, because well, in the previous timelines he was Chinese, so he constantly goes to Madam Bo's restaurant to eat.

— Johnny Cage is a great dramatic actor, but unfortunately, Hollywood studios always cast him as comedic characters or male characters who are himbos, wasting his potential as a dramatic actor.

— Kenshi met Suchin after saving her from being attacked by thugs in Tokyo, and the two's connection was almost instantaneous, with Suchin agreeing to run away with him after Kenshi left the Yakuza.

— Raiden has a huge crush on Kitana, and constantly draws pictures of the two of them kissing (he's a cartoonist btw)

— Kung Lao loves Chinese and South Korean comedy dramas, his favorite South Korean comedy drama is "True Beauty".

— Kuai Liang is extremely protective of Harumi, like, if Harumi gets a scar, he won't rest until the person who did it pays dearly. When he was dating Cyrax, he was also quite protective of her as well (He's not a sexist who thinks women are too defenseless to protect themselves, he just wants to keep Harumi safe because he loves her so much).

— Bi-Han trusts women more than men, thanks to the complicated relationship he had with his father and the loving relationship he had with his mother (thanks to his daddy issues, he doesn't trust masculine nature very much, even though he is also a man).

— Shang Tsung is not a "victim of Liu Kang's intrigues", this guy is a sociopath to the core!

— Tanya is not Mileena's first lover, she had a girlfriend as a teenager, the daughter of an archduke, but was forced to end the relationship because the archduke's daughter had to marry a man, breaking Mileena's heart.

— Kitana is a voracious reader, she loves books, especially about the history of the Earthrealm and Seido, her favorite historical figure of Earthrealm is Queen Mary Stuart, a queen of Scotland, reflecting the thinking of some outworlders who think that she should be empress in place of Mileena, just as some 16th-century English Catholics wanted Mary to be Queen of England in place of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

— I don't usually do SMUT headcanons, but I like to think that Sindel and Jerrod had an active sex life, and she never married any man after Jerrod because she only liked to have sex with him, she herself was impressed that she only had the twins and not like, three more children!

— The souls within Ermac have been in the living forest for so long that over time they have become one big family.

— Quan Chi was a thief when he was young and was sentenced to work in the gold mines as a way of paying for his crimes, which is why he hates Sindel so much.

— Tanya was not given to the Umgadi when she was a child, she was actually stolen from her mother's arms like several other Umgadi (a bit cruel, but I wanted to make it similar to Marvel's black widows).

— Li Mei has always been in love with Sindel, but she never had the courage to express her feelings.

— Takeda is destined to meet and fall in love with Jacqui, even though in this timeline she is not Jax's daughter.

— Sektor is a lesbian and has a fraternal relationship with Bi-Han.

— Cyrax can speak several African languages, including Zulu and Arabic.

— I'm going to join @rasta-bot AU that Nitara is also a lesbian, there's a 19th century irish lesbian book called "Carmilla" that I really like, it's about a sapphic vampire, just like Nitara.

— Reiko was a mommy's boy, just like Bi-Han.

— Shao suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.

— Syzoth and Ashrah's love language is physical caresses, such as kisses on the forehead and cheek.

— Ashrah is pansexual (yes, another wlw woman, it's "Mortal sapphic Kombat" for me) she has always felt lonely, so she would like any romantic companionship, no matter the gender.

— Baraka prays to Delia every day that a cure for Tarkat will be discovered (this is actually canon btw).

— Slavery is (unfortunately) legal in Seido, and Havik was enslaved (also canon), so he is an anarchist.

— Tomas is a polyglot, he can speak Czech, Chinese, English and Japanese.

[cityofmeliora]

notes / thoughts on the Papas' (lack of) involvement in the songwriting process and their connections to the concepts / themes of their albums

thanks for the kind words and thanks for the ask! these were great questions and really enjoyed writing this response. your questions really made me think! (and when i start thinking i always think too hard and take forever to answer– sorry this took so long!)

i'm putting these questions together because i feel they are closely related. this is a topic i've recently been thinking about a lot, actually.

A Ghoul Writer was first mentioned in that 2010 interview with Primo. the Ghoul Writer is Special Ghoul, the Nameless Ghoul character who gave interviews in Eras 2 and 3. in interviews with him, either he himself or the interviewers would usually mention he's the Writer. i'm not linking anything specific here because you can find this happening in pretty much any Era 2 / 3 interview. (though there's one Era 2 Nameless Ghoul interview that refers to the Writer as a separate character.)

the only Papa who wrote his own music was Nihil. the music video for The Future Is A Foreign Land shows that he and his Nameless Ghouls wrote the song together, and he's credited as a writer on Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic. (pic: back of the SIOSP record)

after Nihil, none of the Papas were involved in the songwriting process. everything after Nihil was written by A Ghoul Writer.

PITCHFORK: On the new album, the songs/lyrics are credited to "A Ghoul Writer." Are you this "Ghoul Writer"? If so, what inspired the words? PAPA EMERITUS: I am not the Ghoul Writer. Pitchfork (April 2013)

Does Papa contribute to the composing process? NAMELESS GHOUL: No, Papa doesn’t contribute to the song-writing. Metal Paths (August 2015)

so the later Papas were interpreters of the music, not writers.

as for the question of whether the Papas embody the sins of society or criticize the sins of society by parodying them, i think it's a bit of both– and i think it depends on which perspective we're looking from.

obviously from a real-world perspective, Ghost as a whole is meant to criticize and parody the issues the music is about, and the personality and characterization of each Papa is closely tied to the themes of his album.

from an in-universe lore perspective, as interpreters of the music, each Papa has his own relationship with the themes of his album. i think the Ghoul Writer writes each album for / about the Papa who's going to perform it. however, this is not necessarily a positive gesture.

here are my notes / thoughts on how each Papa relates to the themes of his album:

(trigger warning for mentions of misogynistic violence / rape / forced pregnancy)

Opus Eponymous and Primo: Primo refuses to comment on his interpretation of Opus Eponymous, but it's pretty clear what he thinks. Primo is a misanthrope who believes humans are “vermin” that have doomed themselves due to their “intellectual decline”. in his eyes, humanity is unworthy of life and will eventually be destroyed. Opus Eponymous has been described as an "orthodox devil-worshipping" album, and it is a very violent album, which is great for Primo because he's an orthodox devil worshiper and he loves violence and murder and wants everyone to die. 'Elizabeth' celebrates an alleged serial killer who is said to have killed hundreds of women / girls. 'Stand By Him' is about a woman being raped by a priest, who then accuses her of witchcraft and has her burned at the stake in order to cover up the assault. and the overall narrative of Opus Eponymous is about a woman being raped and forced to carry + birth the Antichrist, which will eventually kill her. this is something Primo thinks is good and anticipates happening because he believes in the cult very literally and agrees with its message / mission of human extinction. Primo is definitely a villain.

Infestissumam and Secondo: interestingly, there is actually an instance of Papa telling us about his interpretation of this album. in Secondo's own words, "the new album is about the presence of the Devil. The title, Infestissumam, means 'the biggest threat' and refers literally to the arrival of the Antichrist, but what it is also is about is what man has traditionally regarded as diabolical presence– namely female form and swagger." Infestissumam is about how humanity can connect to the presence of the Devil, both physically and spiritually. i think this theme really shows through Secondo. to him, all the things traditionally regarded as sin –especially sexuality– are good things. to him, Satan is the way to freedom and enlightenment. on the flipside, all the things promoted by christianity –holiness and virtue and repression– are stupid and stifling. Secondo is a jerk and he loves to have sex and party and he just doesn't care. Secondo, more than any other Papa, is dedicated to indulging in sin and saying "fuck you" to christianity.

Meliora and Terzo: it's complicated. i don't want to give a detailed explanation right now because i already have a separate post in my drafts about my analysis of Terzo's relationship with the themes of Meliora (it will be long). for now, this is what i'll say: Meliora is about the absence of god, and it's described as futuristic and "pre-apocalyptic." the title "Meliora" means "for the pursuit of better", but it's meant to be ironic. it's about the mistakes people make / the bad things people do in pursuit of better. so as your ask states, it criticizes ambition, greed, and abuse of power. i think Terzo wants to criticize those sins. but i think that he also embodies them, to a certain extent, and i think Meliora is also criticizing him.

Prequelle and Cardinal Copia: we don't really have any canon material that indicates Cardi's personal opinions on the album, but there is certainly a connection between the character and the concept / themes of the album. Prequelle is described as a "positive" album about the plague. it's an album about society falling apart during the apocalypse. it's also an album about celebration and survival in spite of being faced with the inevitability of death. i think Cardi certainly embodies this. Cardi is surrounded by death. Prequelle Era begins with Papas I, II, and III being murdered in order to promote Cardi's success, and it ends with Papa Nihil dying, which allows Cardi to ascend and become Papa IV. in a way, Cardi is both a plague rat and a survivor. it's not his fault they died. he didn't ask for them to be killed, and he was not their killer. but he is the herald and the carrier of the true killer, the actual driving force behind everything (Sister Imperator). through all this, Cardi is having a good time! he's dancing the night away! he's glad everyone standing in his way has dropped dead! he is a rising star and he feels invincible! and he is certain he will survive this.

IMPERA and Papa Emeritus IV: the main themes of IMPERA are "spiritual annihilation", reactionary sentiment, and regression. it's about how people who fear progress are afraid of losing their sense of meaning / purpose and their place in the world, so they turn to misogyny, violence, religious dogma, and fascism. they cling to the idea of having a cause to fight for. i think Cardi is certainly criticizing these issues. he doesn't agree with any of this at all. however, there's still a connection between the narrative of IMPERA and Cardi's character arc in this Era. narratively, IMPERA is a concentrated / condensed version of the apocalyptic narrative that plays out through the first 4 albums. it's about the cyclical nature of the rise and fall of empires. IMPERA Era begins with Cardi ascending to the title of Papa. but after the feeling of triumph wore off, Cardi became very aware of and very fearful of his own inevitable end. he knew that no matter how great his achievements were, he would be forced to step down so his successor could take his place, just like his predecessors had for him. Rite Here Rite Now is about Cardi struggling to make peace with this idea. as a side note: i really like the irony of the fact that Cardi was never actually the leader of his own empire– he was a puppet emperor who got his marching orders from his mother. it connects to IMPERA's theme of political manipulation.

[menlove]

do you have any girl!mclennon hcs? like how they'd do their hair, how they'd dress, their relationship etc etc

LESBIAN MCLENNON I LOVE YOUUUUU. have a dump. i think about them constantly.

in my mind (at least when they're younger), paul would look like shauna shipman (the character not the actress bc the actress is blonde w blue eyes lmfao) while john i could see being played by rachel sennott

i think i've mentioned this before but paul's first name is definitely mary. pauline is probably her middle name and she just goes by paul. john's harder i've given this thought before but never landed on one, but she still goes by john bc i say so

paul before meeting john is definitely trying to fit into the mold of nice 50s teenage girl- hoop skirts, ponytails, cardigans. when she starts getting more into rock she WANTS to dress differently but doesn't until john talks her into it and then it's leather jackets and drainies still. john just never conformed she wouldn't give a fuck about it

they'd both be in really interesting situations! because paul here is the Oldest Girl after her mom died. so moreso than in real life, the brunt of expectation & household management would get shoved on her, especially with jim out gambling and drinking. similarly, mimi would be driven to insanity with john because she's nowhere NEAR how she thinks she should be and she also sort of sees her as julia 2.0 and she's petrified for her

i think they're probably a lot more physically affectionate bc how casual homophobia between women manifests vs w men is very different, so they're allowed to sort of hang off each other as long as it doesn't Get Weird. and it does certainly get weird with them, they get called dykes more than a few times

i think paul would more readily accept being asked to wear makeup and dress proper again by brian (who is a semi-out lesbian here i can't take away the beautiful homoeroticism of brian & john's relationship) whereas john is gnashing her teeth and throwing the world's biggest fit about it. sometimes paul does her makeup for her though and that's alright.

they start to loosen up with it in '66 and get more androgynous and by pepper's era they're both THRIVING being able to dress androgynously. paul starts getting funky with her makeup around that era too and john just stops wearing it completely

john cuts her hair shorter around revolver era and paul follows suit because they're Mirrors. paul has a twiggy thing going on.

paul also grows her hair out again in the worst most untamed Mess you've ever seen around get back era.

i've had this thought that they've fooled around a bit and john's out in an open industry secret sort of way like. girls would still throw themselves at the girl!beatles i feel this in my soul and i think george and john would be out getting pussy while paul WANTS to be out getting pussy but is holding herself back. but john will Not fuck her like she fucks other girls because this would tip whatever they're doing into Romantic territory like she KNOWS it would be different with paul and this pisses paul off to no end.

of course they DO end up fucking at some point and this makes things worse for everyone involved

paul has a boyfriend who she keeps getting on and off again engaged to (peter asher maybe lmfaoooo in which case... she is lowkey also still fucking jane on the side) and john hates him so so so so bad she wants that man dead and she makes it obvious

yoko is still a woman and her and john do political lesbianism (yoko's straight, john isn't, this is as much as a disaster as anyone would expect it to be) and paul is climbing the fucking WALLS out of how mad the whole thing makes her because it's not HER that john's being openly gay with. not that she'd want to be! but it's the fact that SHE was never ASKED!

linda is also still a woman and this also makes john madder than anyone's ever been because what do you mean paul has been into women romantically this entire time and now she's having a not-so-secret affair with an american photographer and moving to fucking scotland with her? she's losing it.

[dazeddoodles]

Hey! Looks like the Annons are back at it again😓. It sucks that you keep having to deal with this nonsene. If I’m allowed to be honest; I too don’t really like this whole Eda x Stan thing (especially when our lord and savior Raine Rizzpers is right there), but I just ignore it in favor of your Raeda goodness. Hope you are doing ok☺️. Keep being an awesome artist.

Thank you.

I'm not dumb, I'm aware that there's an entire genre of art that depicts Luz falling in love with some male character (wether it's Hunter, Edric, Marco from Star vs of all people, or some OC) while Amity cries or kills herself (this is not an exaggeration) in the background, usually with a sexual undertone (or overtone) to it.

I know their intentions are being homophobic. I've made my distain for those shippers known. That kind of homophobic "art" was never my intention.

The Stan x Eda stuff has always been a joke to me. A joke about how desirable Eda and Raine are.

Eda being so desirable that she robbed a man and to this day he's still madly in love with her, and out of the many women he's been with, Eda's "the one that got away".

And Raine being so desirable that the woman who could con any man into loving her is helplessly in love with them and only them. There's irony that Eda's experiencing the heartbreak she caused to someone else to feel.

If anything Stan's the butt of the joke when I post stuff like this

Before Raine I did kinda liked the idea of Stan x Eda because both creators were dating at the time and I thought it was a fun way to connect both shows.

Especially when at the time (and still to this day) people were claiming Owl House was a ripoff of Gravity Falls just because Eda is similar to Stan.

What's funnier than said "ripoff" canonly being married to the character she "copied"?

Plus the creators themselves don't take it too seriously. There was a Owl House and Amphibia crossover that the creators and voice actors did. In it Eda was flirting with HOP POP to steal his wallet. And Dana found it HILARIOUS because it was a joke.

Meanwhile at a Owl House panel this year Alex Hirsch randomly had voice acted Stan processing his love to Eda. (Which I did an animatic of).

And not only was everyone laughing because it was a joke. RAINE'S voice actor put their hand over their heart as if to act heart broken.

None of this was with bad intention.

[wyrmguardsecrets]

Worst race in WoW rp? Human males.

I now go out of my way to avoid any rp with human males (or worgen males who rp in human form), especially if they're played by white cis men. They are the most problematic group in the game bar none.

They consistently fuck up any rp they get involved in because their character is just an egotistical projection to compensate for their personal male inadequacies. Their roleplay is either some DEUS VULT holy warrior bullshit where they godmod their racism all over any non-human characters, or they try hard as fuck to be Tommy Shelby when really they're just Tommy Wiseau with a "u wot m8" accent. OR they're a "wise old sorcerer" who exerts their intellectualism onto any young woman standing alone in the Lamb. Oh, and let's not forget the assholes who want to be as close to the rank of king as lore-abidingly possible–all adult toddlers with a raging case of megalomania.

The ego cis men imbue their characters with has singlehandedly dismantled so many public rp hubs and guilds because they HAVE to be the big man on campus. I've seen it happen time and time again, where one or more will show up uninvited to a brawl or dispute of any kind across SW because they metagamed learning about it. They HAVE to be the strongest, smartest, funniest, most vicious, most aloof, most politically savvy, and most connected, which just translates to blowhard attitudes and unnecessary conflict as they try to assert their dominance over everyone else. Women? Holes to fuck. Men who love their wives? Spineless cucks. Non-humans? Inferior or a device to be used (i.e. having a draenei as a meat shield). Everyone is an NPC and just a means to an end for their rp. Oh, and their ERP? So much attention to detail when it comes to their muscles and dick veins that it ironically borders on homoerotica.

And if you sit in vc or chat with these guys, it's the biggest stroke fest. They oocly rip on whoever confronts them, make dumb jokes about other OCs, and fellate themselves for writing 10 bAdAsS paragraphs every emote. Nevermind the unapologetic sexism, racism, and trans/homophobia that runs rampant in their discords and guild chats. And if you call them out on their toxic behavior or piss them off, they will gang up on you and gaslight you into a coma until you no longer feel safe on your own character.

Now, because I know their egos are so fragile that I expect some ragey responses and attempts to insult me or say #notallhumanmales, but tbh they can all fuck right off. I've been here 12 years and every single person I've ever known on MG has a horror story involving a human male OC. They're sexual predators–Andrew Tate wannabes–and deserve to be ostracized and ignored.

.

[good-to-drive]

Not to start shit but there's no non-misogynistic explanation for hating Pattie or Jane

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Of my 2% capacity to be attracted to anyone, my type is like 90% women, 5% pretty men and 5% men you would swear are super fucking manly, and never questioned being straight and cis, but are now suddenly *stressed* that they can't figure out why their attraction to me [fully socially interpreted as a woman and labelled that way up until relatively recently] feels incredibly fucking gay

[sapphicautistic]

My gf was listening to "White Blank Page" by Mumford and Sons and I once again told her that song is SO much better if it's gay.

She doesn't listen to the lyrics of songs but she's extremely good at literary analysis and this time she actually looked up the lyrics and has now come to the following conclusion: "It makes no sense if it's not gay."

My (objectively best) reading is this:

The narrator was in love with a guy who strung him along, never willing to be in a committed (or public) relationship with him and maybe insisting that it's extremely heterosexual "helping a bro out" sex, except in more intimate moments. Finally out of nowhere guy is suddenly committed to a woman and when Narrator confronted him, guy spat out homophobic vitriol and claimed he's not gay like the Narrator.

(For extra flavor imagine them as closeted, straight passing Midwestern flannel wearing, love-bonfires-and-camping guys who sat next to each other at church and elbowed and annoyed each other like best friends do and were each other's go-to source of emotional support! And then to suddenly shut Narrator out for the first time ever, by abruptly marrying a woman and insisting that he's always been straight and their relationship meant nothing...)

Here are the lyrics:

Can you lie next to her And give her your heart, your heart As well as your body? And can you lie next to her And confess your love, your love As well as your folly? And can you kneel before the king And say, "I'm clean! I'm clean!" ? But tell me now, where was my fault In loving you with my whole heart? Oh, tell me now, where was my fault In loving you with my whole heart? A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage You did not think When you sent me to the brink, to the brink You desired my attention But denied my affections, my affections So tell me now, where was my fault In loving you with my whole heart? Oh, tell me now, where was my fault In loving you with my whole heart? Lead me to the truth and I Will follow you with my whole life Oh, lead me to the truth and I Will follow you with my whole life

Why call multiple people "you" in a totally unclear way? Why would you claim that your female ex's new man can't love her AT ALL (not just as much as you did, AT ALL)? And invoking the judgment of God is so fucking tedious if you're just shaming your female ex for moving on or even cheating/getting with your friend. Also you look like a creepy asshole if you think a girl broke up with you for "loving her too much".

This song is tepid, badly written, and makes the narrator look like an asshole if it's NOT gay.

The gay reading is the ONLY compelling one.

[cuteniaarts]

@katkastrofa: *writes a single throwaway line in one chapter of Lost and Found that is never referenced again*

Me, completely randomly and with no prompting: Alright, bet–

[lovelyrotter]

yknow i think a lot of the really far-gone transfemme vs transmasc people who still play by the 6th grade milquetoast "trans women are targeted way more than trans men cause femininity is bad and masculinity is good In Our Society, so trans men get free acceptability passes" feminism forget that trans men/transmascs started life. as. little girls. we were mistaken, from birth, for baby girls. and we were raised by our parents to believe that we were little girls.

a lot of trans men and transmascs then grew up to be teenaged girls

a lot of trans men and transmascs were adult women too

and for a while we *believed* we were girls and women. some of us even WISHED we were girls and women (points at myself). and much more importantly, we were continually seen as girls and women. a lot of the time, we are STILL seen as girls and women, even with full fuckin beards and baritone voices. especially if we need to go to any kind of medical professional. this is what our free acceptability pass looks like?

its just so much more nuanced than these 'boys vs girls' people ever seem to care to think about. even binary trans folks dont have the same sense of cisgendered binary that cis people do. we literally cross from one fake end of the fake-binary to the other. thats where the trans in transgender comes from. i dont know how some other trans folks seem to forget that?? i don't know how, somewhere along the line, we forgot that trans men and transmascs also directly suffer under misogyny?

[tariah23]

He apparently has 2 kids with 2 different women and doesn't take care of either of them

Women, I will protect you-

[fideidefenswhore]

[Henry] had asked Lady Shelton whether Mary [was] persisting in her obstinancy. Hearing that she was, Henry became certain that she was being encouraged by secret communication from Katharine. Lady Shelton thought the only possible messenger was Mary's chamber woman. In this she was correct. The maid had been smuggling letters in and out. She was dismissed, as was Mary's confessor, to be replaced by one whom Chapuys characterised as 'Lutheran'.

The King’s Pearl: Henry VIII & His Daughter Mary, Melita Thomas

[cruelsister-moved2]

i think its actually very significant how straight men are obsessed with lesbians vs bi women. the male gaze when it comes to sexuality between women is generally obsessed with feeling like its taking something that women didn’t want it to have. at the same time as they constantly try to push men on lesbians, they erase bi women’s autonomy in choosing to have sex with men. if it was just about wanting to have sex with two women, there are bi women who would enjoy sharing that experience with them as equals, but instead they’re obsessed with trying to ‘lure’ in lesbians, or at least trick a bi woman who thought she was hooking up with just a woman. porn where the actresses are both bi and are choosing to create entertainment for a male audience becomes fly-on-the-wall ‘lesbian porn’. men will talk about an experience with a bi woman who has always openly liked men as if they ‘turned a lesbian’. their bi partners are ‘lesbians with an exception’. if she’s someone who usually prefers women it’s a trophy and not just her enjoying multiple things. it’s all about trying to remove women’s autonomy from desire. 👍

[gor3sigil]

Before starting T, when I socially transitionned, I was surrounded by radical feminists who saw masculinity as gross and inherently evil, something to avoid, something to make fun of, something to destroy. The other transmascs in my friend group, sometimes, told me that they didn’t knew if they really were non-binary or if they just were scared shitless of saying “I am a man”. Because they saw this as a betrayal to their younger self who had been SAd and abused.

I saw many of my masc friends and trans men around me hate themselves, not outing themselves as men because it would imply so so much, it was like opening the Pandora Box. Even when we were just together, talking about our masculinity was always coated with bits like “I know we’re the privileged ones but…”, “I don’t want to sound like I have it bad but…”, “Women obviously have it worse, but last time…” and we were talking about terrible traumas we experienced while taking all the precautions in the world in the case the walls were a crowd of people in disguise waiting to get us if we didn’t downplay the violence we faced, or like crying and being upset and being traumatized and afraid and scared and to say it out loud would make us throw up the needles we were forced to swallow every second of every day living in our skin.

Most of us weren’t on T yet, some of us were catcalled every day and harassed in the streets or in abusive relationships nobody seemed to care to help them get out of because they were “strong enough” to do it by themselves.

I was using the gender swap face app and cried for ours when I saw my father looking back at me through the screen. The idea of transforming, of shedding into a body that would deprive me of love, tenderness, and safety, was absolutely terrifying. I knew I couldn’t stay in this body any longer because it wasn’t mine, but I also knew that if I was going to look like my dad, my brother, my abusers, it would be so much worse.

5 years later and I’m almost 2 years on T, and almost 2 months post top surgery.

I ditched my previous group of friends. I was bullied out of my local trans community. But let me tell you how free I am.

I was scared that T would break my singing voice: it made it sound more alive than ever.

I was scared that T would make me less attractive: it made me find myself hot for the first time in my life.

I was scared that T would make me gain weight: it did. But the weight I put on is not the weight I used to put on by binging and eating my body until I forgot that it even existed. It’s the weight of my body belonging to me, little by little. The wolf hunger for life.

I won’t tell you the same story I see everywhere, the one that goes “I started going to the gym 8 times a week, I put on some muscles, I started a diet and now I look like an action film actor”, in fact if you took pictures of me from 5 years ago vs now I’d just have more acne, I’d have longer hair and still look like I don’t know what to do with myself when I take selfies.

But the sparkle in my eyes, my smile, tell the whole story way better than this long ass stream of words could ever.

I want to say some things that I wish someone told me before starting medically transitionning.

It’s okay to take your time. It’s your body, it’s your journey, if you don’t feel comfortable taking full doses and want to go slow, the only voice you need to listen to is your own. Do what feels right.

If you feel overwhelmed, it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to ask for support.

Trans people are holy. Everyone is. You didn’t lose your angel wings when you came out because you want to be masculine. You are not excluded from the joy of existence, from being proud of yourself, from being sad, from being scared, from being angry. The emotions and feelings you allowed yourself to feel while processing what you experienced when you grew up as a girl and was seen as a woman are still as valid as before. Nobody can take that from you. If someone tries to, don’t let them.

It’s perfectly normal to grieve some things you were and had before you started to transition, like your high soprano voice or even your chest. Hatching is painful. You can find comfort in things that don’t feel right, so making the decision to change can be incredibly scary and weird and you deserve to be heard and supported through this. Wanting top surgery doesn’t make the surgery less intense, less terrifying, less painful to recover from. When it becomes too much you have the right to take a break and take some deep breaths before going on.

You don’t have to have a radical, 180° change for your transition to be acceptable or valid or worthy of praise. Look at how far you’ve come already. It doesn’t have to show, you’re not made to be a spectacle, you’re human and it is your journey.

Oh, and last thing, you know when some people say “Oh this trans person has to grow out of the cringy phase where you think that you can write essays about being trans or transitionning or just their experience because it’s weird” ? If you ever hear this or see this online, remember all the people whose writing you read and, even if they were not professional writers, helped you more than any theorists did ? If you want to write, do it. It won’t be a waste. It can help people. Or it won’t, and even then, if it helped you, that’s enough.

Love every of my trans siblings, take care of yourselves. You deserve the world.

[manicpixiedckgirl]

one thing you have to get ready for as a trans woman who's about to come out is certain cis people are going want nothing to do with you afterwards. we all know this, we all talk about this. transphobes going transphobe

but what i dont think we talk about enough is you need to be prepared for a second wave of this. it will come later. it's not tied to anything body change or surgery or whatever.

trans women are treated so poorly by society that we inevitably shrink. we learn how to exist in the spaces that will have us, even if that means cramming ourselves into boxes that don't really fit, being treated in ways we often don't like, doing things we often don't like doing, often even fucking people we don't want to fuck.

at some point, you're going to learn to stand up for yourself. i don't say this to scare you into thinking you'll become a 'mean trans girl' or whatever. but just like transitioning in the first place, it's change or die. you found the first safe harbor and fashioned your anchor to it but you can't go on living with people who don't respect you, working a job you're too smart for, living a life you don't really love.

and when you do, there will be cis people in your life who only liked that meek, quiet girl who would do as she's told. some of these people were malicious, doing it on purpose because they've known enough trans women to know who's vulnerable. some are doing it unintentionally, believing themselves to be a good ally, you've just gotten angry and bitter (this one hurts the most). and some just plain won't like the person you really are, having only known the people pleaser they got to know.

but it's change or die. if you're not you, you're not living. there are so many better people just waiting to love you, but you won't find them chasing after cis approval. and girl, i promise you, you deserve so much more than what you're getting right now. be strong. you've been strong before. i love you.

[sidsinning]

Apothecary Diaries is pog as fuck bc serious political issues and dynamics from a woman's POV are rarely depicted in ANY form of media

It's always a man's world where women's issues surround him. Even if we get a female perspective once in awhile- it all comes back to how it facilitates his game in the end. She's a footnote in the overarching scheme of things. Misogyny exists. Back to the real plot.

Apothecary Diaries is strictly from a female perspective and how each class of woman has to act, what limits they have, what rights they have and don't have between each class, etc. These women have to behave a certain way under a patriarchy, which you would think makes it a man's story, but it never is. The women are THE focus of this show, their struggles are THE plot. The focus is about how the patriarch effects them.

Take the concubines for example. The show dives into how bearing a child affects their rank, how traumatizing it is to lose that child, the consequences of that, etc. We have barely seen the emperor who sired all these kids because this is not about him.

Jinshi's personal plot is secondary to Mao Mao's journey- he is mostly there to provide new cases for Mao Mao to solve and to learn more about the shortcomings of his class when taking care of citizens like Mao Mao.

Jinshi is not a bad person, but by virtue of his position in the higher classes, he cannot understand how harsh life as a poor WOMAN is specifically- he can only catch glimpses of it from what Mao Mao tells him and feel outrage but powerless in his wealth and luxury

Mao Mao is a fortunate commoner woman for what privileges someone in her class should and shouldn't have. She happened to be adopted by a knowledgeable man. She is allowed to read, write, learn, and has enough skill to be a poison tester and have a job EXTREMELY out of her class limit as an apothecary, also a job not traditionally meant for women

Mao Mao is not a "noT lIkE oThER gIrLs" protagonist, she is FOR THE GIRLIES. She only wants to help the women around her, and women are whom she has the closest relationships to. She sees a woman being harassed and can't let it stand. She sees a frail, traumatized woman dying from the recklessness of those who should be caring for her and spends day and night nursing her back to health, while also punishing the people who were so careless with her needs.

My girl has STUDIED UP on THE BODY to TEACH these upper class ladies on how to really HEAT things up in the BEDROOM

Sex depicted in Apothecary Diaries is both something women are not shamed to be enjoying, while at the same time being acknowledged as an unfortunately huge economic necessity to market themselves.

Like shit is just so real in this series???

Listen, I can go on and on about how GOATED the series and especially Mao Mao is but you get the picture