#but even so!!! if I've told you I'm nonbinary it's not that fucking hard

[spaceyqueer]

the thing that really grinds my goat is when people who haven't known you that long decided your gender & pronouns without asking, and then when you correct them they're like "oh it's so difficult for me :(" you haven't known me for five minutes how are you having difficulty? would you say the same thing if I said "actually everyone calls me [nickname]" I bet you wouldn't but because you assigned me a gender you are apparently incapable of erasing that from your head?

[saintjosie]

As a performer, and someone who regularly has good things to say, how have you dealt with your singing voice? I'm nonbinary, and sometimes hate how deep my voice is because it's one of the predominant reasons people misgender me. It keeps me from singing sometimes as well, even privately to songs I've loved forever (I did perform "Under the Bridge" by RHCP at a public karaoke event last year, but I can't bring myself to watch the recording of it even though everyone applauded) I guess it's a specific kind of dysphoria?

I know when it comes to voice training you've been very vocal (pun intended) about it being a choice. And I've had some voice training but as an enby I prefer my speaking voice to be either neutral or natural. But talking and singing are kinda different, so I'm just curious to get your take on feeling more confident and less bothered singing as a trans person?

when i was a kid my dad told me i sucked at singing. he was a singer and a guitar player and i looked up to him so i internalized that deeply. but i didn’t stop singing because i just loved it. it felt good to sing. i would sing along to all the disney movies. i would sing songs at church. i was that little kid who was always humming something everywhere i went because i loved music and i loved making music. i didn’t think anyone would care to hear me sing because i had been told that my singing didn’t sound good but nothing in the world was gonna stop me from enjoying it for myself.

eventually as i got older people started telling me that i actually was pretty good at it. i didn’t necessarily believe them but i at least heard it from someone else. and then i tried recording myself singing into the shitty microphone that laptops had back in 2007. and wow, it sucked. like it reaaaaally sucked. it sucked to hear myself cause i had never heard myself recorded before. it sucked to hate what i hear and feel like maybe my dad was right the whole time. and i closed the laptop and cried and went to bed.

but then the next time i opened my laptop, the recording was still there. and i realized that i had listened through about 1/4th of it before i had lost hope and on a whim, i decided to grit my teeth and listen through the whole thing. and almost all of it still sucked. BUT. for one brief moment, for only a line or two, i heard what i wanted to hear: a voice that sounded good to my ears, recorded through the shitty microphone, played through the shitty speakers.

and from that moment on, i knew that i was going to learn to sing because nothing in my life so far had compared to how i felt hearing myself for the first time sing in the way that i wanted to.

it’s been 17 years since that happened and i haven’t stopped singing because i just fuckin love it. there’s music in my soul and it’s gonna come out whether or not i want it to and whether or not it sounds good.

“but josie, this is about your love for music not about gender” no it’s about both.

when you realized that you could express your gender in the way that you already knew you felt inside, you knew it was right and you decided you were gonna fucking do it, damn whatever people say.

and that’s the thing about dysphoria and why people have such a hard time describing it to each other. dysphoria comes from when you feel like the way your gender is perceived doesn’t line up with how you want to be perceived. when i have dysphoria, it’s not because i don’t look like a woman to the people who look at me, it’s because of how i see myself.

present your gender however you want and do it for yourself. and sing your goddamn heart out because you want to. damn whatever people say.

[robotslenderman]

It really just bugs me that gender, nowadays, is often just repackaged conservatism.

A tomboy or a butch aren't any less female because they don't believe in gender roles. It's just another way of expressing femininity. Same with cis dudes who like to shave their legs or paint their nails or wear dresses. You can wear a beard and a dress and still be as much of a man as that dude in the Yank Tank with testosterone poisoning and a shitton of misogynistic tattoos.

I get misgendered as nonbinary all the time. I have no idea how - the gender stereotype of enbies is androgyny, which I know is not true, but many people do and yet despite my lowkey and sometimes highkey femme appearance many people use "they" as my pronouns despite being told otherwise. The majority of my friends are trans not because they're my people, but because my cis+ ass is more comfortable around people who play with gender than those who don't. I am a gender expat; I am a guest in their space, but I will never be a native, and yet I'm more comfortable around them than the cis because the cis are so fucking obsessed with the binary and gender roles.

It doesn't help that when I changed my name I changed it to a gender neutral one. One of my friends pointedly made a remark that they were happy that I "get to experience gender euphoria in that way." When I told my psychiatrist about my name change he immediately jumped on the "closeted enby in denial" train that has been following me ever since; he made a long speech about gender fluidity and how I shouldn't take it personally that my family may struggle to adapt to the change. When I told him I was cis, he just smiled. My therapist still uses they/them pronouns for me despite being explicitly told not to. Never mind that I've been questioning my gender for well over a decade; it's hard not to when you're a gender expat and surrounded by people who question their gender all the time. never mind that the answer always is, and always shall remain, "still cis."

I'm not saying my poor widdle cis ass suffers the same oppression as trans folk. If that's what you take away from this you're not paying attention.

The truth is that my femininity is understated. Anonymous. It's never been a loud and in-your-face hot pink and barbie flavoured experience. Just because cis female is a single category doesn't mean that cis female is so rigidly defined. It's loud and in-your-face hot pink. It's Barbie. It's also oil and grime and cars, and loud and opinionated and argumentative, as much as soft and delicate and compliant. It's pink and frilly, but it's also blue and dirty. It's cis men in drag and cis women who have never worn a skirt in their life, and everything in between. It seems like I run into a lot of people for whom gender isn't an experience or lens or point of view, it's interest and fashion sense. Or someone's name. I'm seen as less of a woman for my chosen name and people tell me that's okay, not everyone is female! I just say, it's not okay because of that, it's okay because it's okay not to be your idea of what a woman is.

I met a man called Harriet* once. He wasn't any less a man. His wit was acerbic, and he always fronted comments on his name with sarcasm and "yeah, laugh now, get it out of your system." And yet he never changed it. He wasn't less a man for having a traditionally female name. I'm not any less a woman for having a nonbinary one. Just because male and female are opposites doesn't mean they should never touch for the cis.

I don't fit into the '50s box of "you're female, therefore you should wear a dress." Neither do I fit into the '20s box of "you wear a dress, so you must be female." The truth is that gender roles and expectations are just as baffling for people who are nonconforming as for people who are, and that we'll never be truly free of the gender binary as long as we adhere to it. And the truth is that even if you think you don't adhere to that binary, it's so ingrained in your subconscious and our society you almost certainly do. My friends who not-so-secretly think I'm a closeted enby in denial are as much adhering to it as some idiot who thinks my vagina means I should wear a dress and poo out babies.

Being nonbinary is a spectrum. But so is being male or female. You'll never break out of a black or white binary until you realise that it doesn't exist - not even for cis people. We can't truly break out of the binary until we realise that it doesn't exist for ANYONE.

You either believe in the gender binary or you don't. And if you believe that cis people have certain experiences or present in certain ways, if you believe that binary trans people adhere to those same standards, you believe in the gender binary. No matter what you say. You can claim until you're blue in the face that you don't believe in the binary, but if you're shoving other people in the box of what binary means, you are lying.

(* Not his real name - he's a patient and I'm adhering to patient privacy laws. But he definitely had a "female" name that isn't even ambiguously gender neutral. I'm not even talking Meredith or Tracy, names which used to be gender neutral but are female. I've never once in my life met another male "Harriet" despite meeting dozens of strangers every day.)

[polyamorouspunk]

So I (24, nonbinary) have been casually seeing this guy (38) that I've know for quite some time; I lost my virginity to him and it was fun and easy and honestly things had been great.

And then I was a little bit too high and confessed that I love him and he was super sweet in the moment and just held me and told me he's not comfortable saying the same because he's not sure

That was a couple weeks ago, the last time I spent the weekend. A few days ago I asked if he wanted to hang out again soon, but he didn't respond until today. He had a lot going on and also had to put his thoughts in coherent order, which I can respect. But reading his texts this morning has fucked up my whole day.

He's been really gentle in trying to let me down easy, I know he's still fucked up over his last relationship, and he's got two kids (both under 16) to think about; not to mention that I know he's worried about the age gap (he mentioned that I have so many possibilities ahead of me and I wanted to throw my phone).

I've got issues so I'm taking it really hard. Like this is definitely something I expected and yet I'm still super hurt. I don't really have anyone I'm comfortable talking about this with, and I'm sorry for dumping it all on you but I saw your little sleepover post and I could honestly use a hug and some positive vibes right now.

Okay okay okay so I know you know this is a LOT to unpack.

Mkay so I am 24 also (hi) some form of not cis (hi) and do have a crush on someone a fair bit older than me (33, not 38 though).

I love the idea of being with older men. The last guy I was seeing was 2 years older than me so like 26 now. Loved it. Love when older guys are interested in me. He was also going through a divorce and his son had just been born. It was a lot. I liveblogged the whole thing on here.

Dating older men comes with issues like that. And I have bpd so as soon as I FP someone yeah I’m instantly in love with them.

Dating older men can be hard when they say things about your future and shit like that- and I GET it, like it IS good advice even if you don’t want to hear it. I mean, when WE were under 16 how many people gave US good advice we didn’t want to hear at the time.

It sucks when you fuck up a good thing you had by confessing that you’re in love with someone who is not mutually in love with you. It reeeeally fucking sucks. Because either you hold that inside of you and you push it down and push it down and push it down, or you finally release it, let it go, and it fucks everything up.

There is no reason for you not to be hurt/upset about it even if you did expect it. Grieve. Let yourself grieve. Come into my inbox and dump all of this on me. Let people around you help you heal. Let me send you some love. I am holding your hand. I am telling you to some degree I have been there. To some degree I am there. And I know it gets better. Some day you’ll be like me, and you’ll be driving to work, and you’ll put on a new Fall Out Boy album that just came out, and you’ll cry, and you’ll realize through all the bad things, through all the shit and the hurt, this is why you stayed alive. You lived to be 23 so that you can hear Fall Out Boy put out new music.

And then you’ll be 24 and you’ll meet someone and they’ll change your world. And you think about how amazing it is that someone like this touched your life in some way, and that you can touch yours back. And you’ll meet up with old friends and make new ones.

And we’re so young, we’re SO young. It’s fucking wild to imagine this year (or next year) we’ll be half way to 50. That’s batshit insane. But like oh my god. The healing process that I’m going through is beautiful. Sure, there is a lot of stress. I’m failing the last class I need to graduate. My job stress is through the roof. I’m chronically ill. But outside of that I truly am continuing to live my best life every day.

I don’t know if you plan to try and keep on seeing him casually or if this really is the end for you. Either way this is just a bump in the road. 38 is so young too. We’re going to be okay. It’s a bad day. It’s gonna be a bad week. It might even be a bad month. Hell it might even be a bad year. But goddamn it if they don’t mean it when they say it’s not a bad life. It’s supposed to be almost 70 later today. I’m going to go work outside in the sun. My heartbreaks can’t stop me from creating art that I love. I saw a butterfly yesterday. Life is beautiful. Love is beautiful. Emotions are messy. They are disgusting. I hate them. But they’re poetic too.

Hell maybe this is all some Kumbaya bullshit I’m spouting. Idk. But I believe it. I really do. It takes work to believe in this shit. But it feels so much better when you do. Probably why cults work so well. Anyway!

It’s amazing that you got a chance to be with someone who is 38! I hope you look back on it fondly in a few years. And if you don’t then you’ll look back on yourself with kind eyes and think that at least in that moment you were happy and felt like it was what was best for you.

[rjalker]

I'm not even going to bring up the fact that I've spent over a week now fighting not to be misgendered on what was my favorite fucking website because that isn't even relevant to the fact that every single post about it/its has at least a dozen nonits repeating the exact same fucking exorsexist bullshit about how it's soo difficult to use it/its pronouns and why are you being so mean to people who are learning English for the first time?????

Zyg, literally fucking no one who uses it/its pronouns, and no one who is making positivity posts for it/its pronouns, is getting mad at people who are learning English for not speaking it fluently yet. Literally no one.

Coming onto a positivity post for it/its pronouns to pretend that we are getting pissed off at people for trying to learn a new language and not knowing the rules yet and getting mixed up is literally just further demonizing us when we are literally already demonized by everyone else in society including other trans people.

If you wouldn't make the comment you're planning to make about it/its pronouns on a post about she/her or he/him pronouns, instead of commenting, shut the fuck up and learn to actually respect it/its users for real instead of just doing it performatively.

Leaving comments on positivity for it/its users about how hard and uncomfortable our pronouns are to use and how icky they make you feel and demand that no one ever ever ever use them for someone who doesn't ask you to, you are being exorsexist. You are demonizing us. You need to shut the fuck up and actually support us. Literally no one on this fucking Earth thinkgs calling someone who does not use it/its pronouns is okay. The reasons bigots do that is because they know, specifically, that it's not okay.

Stop fucking swarming onto every post by someone who uses it/its to go, "Oh!!! but make sure you never ever ever call someone this if they don't ask you to or I'll set you on fire and chop your legs off!!!!!"

No one would fucking think it's okay to swam trans men or trans women's posts with comments like "Oh but if someone called me she/her I'd kill them and then myself" or "He/him pronouns are valid but you can never ever ever use them for someone who hasn't told you it's okay!!! They make me want to throw up!!!"

But because we're talking about a majority nonbinary people, and especially a majority of fucking nonhumans, well now all of a sudden, being a horrible fucking person and ruining every speck of positivity we create for ourselves is fair game!!! It's totally fine!!! Why should we get to have any posts that just genuinely support us, anyways? Don't you know nonits opinions on our pronouns are more important than showing us the most basic respect???

[mazyb0i]

Other RnM fans?

Rick n Morty fan creator/artist here, trying to make friend brohs with ppl who are also obsessed with the show. I have a hard time reaching out due to my anxiety. (proshippers DNI)

tldr; you're also a neurodivergent queer artist nutjob that makes crackpipe art an shitposts, heavily kins a character at one point or another, and we should be friends because we can be insane together LMFAO

Fav show ships: BP x Rick all day, (I love flesh curtains, and their dynamic is just so yes... I...) Morty x Alaska (i named the vat of acid gf Alaska because the Alaska trip..) Summer x that one girl... Morticia X Jessica, Rickcest/ Rick selfcest is aight, I obsess over Miamicop. I think selfcest in cloning / multiuniverse theory is harmless, but don't come at me with any of that proshipper/inc3st/rickorty shit. I will block you, report you, and put you on a DNI beware list; this is a threat & a warning. That shit is never EVER ok.

if we become friends/wanna know about;

I'm diagnosed Audhd, I'm a transmasc demiboy, I like to be referred to as nonbinary and a transgender male with He/They pronouns. Panromantic Demisexual.

I'm a rick kinnie, just means I identify with rick, in another universe I could be him XD, I relate to him, we share the same personality literally (ENTP 7w8); he's my self identifying comfort character. But my big interest with this show/comic is probably due to some kind of autistic hyper fixation and imprintation.

Hobbies: Crafting, Digital illustration, Fursuit /Costume making, Youtube, 3D designing, Making silly video skits, Writing, Character design, Shit posting, Creating ai voice bots for fun n fandom purposes (will make le memes), Trying to be a youtuber like Imbrandonfarris and Britany Broski, collecting stuff, VRchat, Collecting fluffy soft shit like stuffies, pillows, blankets, and hoodies. I SLEEP IN A NEST OF ALL OF THESE

Personality?: Chaotic, Unhinged, Tired and fed up with this shit, All the Energy AND NO ENERGY, I'm so tired please god help me, i'm an enigma. Ambiverted. If ur looking for a cool crazy cat dude broh who draws weird ass digital art and is always tired but jacked on coffe, adderall, and Naproxen i'm your guy.... :'}

I do alot of art and have alot of burnouts due to my adhd- I've been told I'm  innovative, clever, and expressive. I can jury-rig your glasses easily with a paperclip if you're screw comes out and loose frames causes the lens to pop. I'm very detail and idea-oriented, i come up with thousands of ideas, questions, and theories. Because of this, I tend to come up with one idea after another without actually going forward with plans and actions because i get so overwhelmed with my massive brain XD

Even tho I'm socially awkward, I love people, I want to make friends. I like being alone a lot but I hate feeling lonely. :C When I get to know you I'm very very chatty; as long as I'm not too tired or piled with heaps of assignments. I would say I'm pretty laid-back and easy to get along with, I get so stuck up in my personal world up in my head that I lose sight of important things around me, I blame the adhd. I'm an observer, I like to watch and see how things happen, I am a very hands on person.

I'm constantly learning, i love science with a passion. I got hyperfixated on evolution of different animal clades a while back. I am immensely curious and focused on understanding how the world operates and functions. I'm looking for mental and intellectual stimulation, lettuce skip casual conversation about wheather- whats your favorite dinosaur? (fuck ignore my dyslexia) and before you say a pterodactyl let me stop you right there- they aren't dinosaurs. if you like understanding the world through learning various things about science, technology, or culture, I'm your guy. but I'm also just a silly hoo hoo aah smart ass.

god this is finally done... I've been writing this for an hour......

[just-your-average-tangerine]

The theater professor I've been working with has always told me that since I want to play male roles I should always audition with male roles and do male roles for class assignments.

The professor I've got this semester says I should only use roles I could conceivably play right now today. So no male roles. But no female roles either. I don't pass either way. I can only do nonbinary roles.

Do you know how hard it is to find 5 good monologues from nonbinary characters that are from officially published plays that have been produced by a professional company? (Those are her criteria for everyone) and that's looking at contemporary plays, what the fuck am I supposed to do when I have to find 5 monologues from English classic plays?

And I cant do transfem characters because I'm a trans man. (But I can do nonbinary characters even though I'm not nonbinary?)

I told her I'm trans every minute of every day of my life, I don't want to be trans on stage too but apparently that doesn't matter

[chainslobber]

I’m sorry this might not be a good place to vent.

I just hate living with my family sometimes, I feel like nobody cares because all I hear from them are “there are people with bigger problems than you” or “you’re so sensitive” or “even blank can do better than you.”

I want to cry but I can’t, I really want to tell them how I feel but I know they don’t care they’ll always play it off as a joke and saying I’m overreacting.

Worst of all are my brothers whom I feel I’ve made a mistaken in telling them I was question my identity and told them I don’t want to hear the labels, “girl” “lady” “woman” directed at me. When I’m with them I tell them to label me with they/them.

however they’ve been doing nothing but ganging on me, berating every little thing I do. I’ve asked them “why are you doing this to me?” My youngest brother who is only 10 said “it’s because we’re boys and you’re a girl.” Maybe I can forgive that being 10 is considered quite young right? But worst is my brother who I can’t excuse who’s 16 AGREED WITH HIM.

I can’t take it anymore

Hello, OP, feel free to vent!

As a fellow nonbinary who's AFAB in a household of men, I understand how annoying and frustrating it can be. When I moved back home, my dad just gave me a big old grin and went 'finally, a woman's back in the house, it's gonna be so clean now!" Even now, almost three years later, my dad is convinced it's a woman's duty to keep the house clean, and if ANYTHING needs to be done, he'll only ask me--not my brother or my husband or even offer to do it himself. That's all I'm meant to do.

My own brother looked at my asexual flag once and went 'you got raped so you can't be asexual, right? How're you ever going to make a man happy if you don't want sex?" And my father can't fathom why I don't shave my legs because 'it's disgusting for a woman to be hairy."

I'm 32 and I wish I could say it gets better, OP, but it doesn't. Some people just really don't give a shit about you, even your own flesh and blood, but there are people who DO care. Make your own family and friends, and whenever you get the chance to move out, MOVE. Don't fucking look back. I've had to move back home a few times because I'm a failure and every time I convince myself 'it's been a few years, it'll be different this time' and then have my dad call me a cripple or the hard R slur because I messed something up.

You're always welcome to vent here because I know how frustrating it can be to want to be yourself and comfortable in your own skin and your own flesh and blood considering you to be lesser. You're not. If you're questioning your pronouns, question them! If you're AFAB but feel happier as a tomboy or boyish or NB, then that's okay! Life's WEIRD and it's too short to be unhappy. You'll never convince your family of your identity because they don't care about you--they've made that pretty obvious.

But other people want you to be safe and happy. Follow those people, follow those good feelings--you deserve happiness in any capacity.

[blazefire2012]

Ranting a bit into the universe, feel free to chime in if you'd like, I may still delete this. I just need to put my thoughts down.

So I just discovered the term bigender the other day and it feels like I found a puzzle piece to a puzzle I've had for a long ass time. There are so many instances of me trying to explain to people, and reciting it to myself, that I don't care what I am, I don't care what pronouns people use for me, I'm just Beth, I look good with tits, sometimes I adore skirts and sometimes I won't touch them with a 10 foot pole and I want to dress like a tomboy.

Hell, even the other day, months before I found out what bigender was, someone commented on my art on reddit and said something like "wow this is amazing, you're a super talented ghoul/ghoulette!" And I replied "thank you, I appreciate the compliment! Also if you want to know I'm a ghoulette but I don't mind what you call me!" And when I told me husband about that comment chain, he looked at me weird and asked if I really didn't mind what I get called. To be honest, I really don't. I don't like gender to the extent that if someone seen my last name and first initial on a paper and then seem my gender, they would automatically assume ANYTHING about me without even knowing me.

The first time I went to the OBGYN and she was explaining way to much to 15 year old me, I started bawling. When she and my mom tried to calm me down and ask what I was upset about while they were describing IUDs and fucking grain of rice looking injection under my skin, I just sobbed that I didn't like this, I didn't like that this was my only option because I lost the birth lottery and was a "woman". I nearly threw up I cried so hard. My doctor told me mom respectfully to get out to explain some things to me one on one and for her to wait in the waiting room. When she shut the door, she went to a locked cabinet and pulled out pamphlets on what being transgender was, what body disphoria was, and a third one I don't remember. In a soft and not overwhelming voice, she asked me if I wanted to read any of these or take them home so I can find out what my feelings were. I turned her down because of course my family would probably disown me, but I didn't feel like I wanted to transition, I was okay being a girl and i even liked it sometimes, I just didn't want the labels and the expectations that came with it all.

And in the end, I honestly don't care what I am, I just want to be me. That's all. I don't think nonbinary is something for me, because like I said before, I LIKE being a woman sometimes. And I wouldn't necessarily say I would use the gender of male, I just don't care or get offended if someone slips up on an assumption.

[yellowjacketslesbian]

hi jo! i saw someone shit on the idea of van as a nonbinary butch today and as one myself it made me upset. I love your fics and how you write van so I was wondering if you had any headcanons about van being gnc / nonbinary?

hey! first off, I'm really sorry you saw someone reacting negatively to the idea of nonbinary butch Van. I know it can be really frustrating and upsetting to see someone getting offended at the idea of a fictional character possibly having a similar identity as you. it's like "what's wrong with my identity that makes you deny this character I love and relate to could also be a nonbinary butch lesbian?" (spoiler alert: nothing is wrong with being a nonbinary butch lesbian, some people are just very loud and very wrong)

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! it truly means a lot to know that people like what I write. I'm especially glad that the fics I've written dealing with Van's gender have been well received, and that people could feel seen by them!

I could write multiple essays on Van's gender and why I personally believe they're nonbinary (and why they're already canonically butch), but I'll confine this to just my top nonbinary Van hcs lol

if they had lost states and never gotten on the plane, Van would've gotten a scholarship to NYU and double majored in film and women's & gender studies. They would've become aware of Gender Trouble and Stone Butch Blues through their major, and they also would've met more gnc people in NYC. This would've led to their realization that there are other people like them who share similar experiences. I personally think it would've taken them a year or two to talk to Taissa about it because they didn't want to "burden her with it" (typical Van), but Tai would've been really accepting and went out of her way to read about gender identity and try really hard to understand Van's experiences once they told her. I don't think Van would've been out as nonbinary to anyone besides Tai and close friends until like the early 00s though.

in "canon" where the crash happens, I think it would've taken Van a lot longer to realize they even could be nonbinary. like they had so much trauma to work through, and just surviving was probably a struggle for them. I can really see them spending at least a decade just ignoring any dysphoria they had. they probably also didn't have the same exposure to information about being nonbinary back in the late 90s / early 00s, especially if they weren't living in a very queer area or around academia. I think one of the queer college kids who helped out around their store eventually came out to them as nonbinary in the late 00s. then Van researched being nonbinary so they could be there for them, and that's how Van finally realized they're actually nonbinary.

I think Van would've spent some time exploring what pronouns felt right for them after realizing they're nonbinary, but they would eventually use they/them or they/she by the present day.

I think Van had top surgery in the late 00s in the no crash universe and in the mid-2010s in the "canon" universe

I think that Van's dysphoria is mostly social dysphoria, but I do think they have top dysphoria. I personally read Van's boob jokes in S1 as using humor to deflect from some dysphoria they may have been experiencing at the time. (as a nonbinary lesbian, it reminded me a lot of how I personally dealt with my own dysphoria when I was about Van's age and hadn't yet realized it was dysphoria)

Lastly

important note: all of this is purely my own hcs and opinions, and I am not claiming to know what they will or won't explore canonically on the show. that being said, I am a nonbinary butch lesbian and personally see a lot of myself and my own experiences in Van, and many other nonbinary lesbians also see themselves in Van. we all have every right to hc Van as nonbinary. if you don't like it, you can politely fuck off

[dogfags]

i think my life would be better if I didn't mind they/them being used on me but it quite honestly feels like an insult sometimes when people assume those are my pronouns or they think I look weird and androgynous so they default to those. I know I am weird and androgynous but it's just annoying to have to be like no I'm just.. a man. when I have put so much effort into passing and going stealth. and for sure even tho I'm just a man I have some weird nonbinary feelings as well. bc I'm trans and being "binary trans" doesn't mean u don't have a complicated relationship with gender or experience a bit of gender queerness. I mean I identified and lived as a lesbian for several years of my life so ofc a part of that is ingrained in me. idk, I kind of wish more people would look at gender as something you do rather than something you innately are. I don't think I innately am anything. I think I used to live as a girl and now I live as a man. maybe that makes me nonbinary or maybe that just makes me a normal person. idk. a lot of the trans narratives that have been popularized by the media are just so unrelatable to me I almost don't consider myself the same thing as them. I don't think I transitioned bc I was a boy born into a girl's body I think I transitioned bc I'd just rather live as a man and so I am. of course I also have debilitating dysphoria but yk. I don't think I was "born this way" and I didn't show any signs as a child or even give my gender a second thought until I was older. I got a taste of female puberty and was like nah I'd rather opt out of this whole woman thing. so I did. and now I'm a man. it's that simple to me idk.

but yeah if I liked he/they I think it would make my life better bc then I wouldn't be like. dysphoric and offended when ppl would default to they for me simply bc I have green hair. I don't even dress femininely almost ever it's just the hair I think lmao. or bc my name is gender neutral. I guess I am androgynous in the face also. I do not have a chiseled jawline although I do have a mustache and it is pretty dark now. idkkkkk man

I've lived so many lives already in just this one that idk how to classify myself anymore. I've been every letter of the LGBT and dated/fucked someone of every gender and sexuality lmao. but I still think it's kinda annoying when ppl deny my masculinity or maleness upon seeing me and default to they/them when I Try So Hard to pass. obviously it's not their fault, they've been told it's rude to assume anyone's pronouns and I am fully self aware of the way I look and come off. I almost feel like I can't even correct people when they call me they bc I know they're just trying to be.. nice or something. like how would I even go about correcting that, "thanks for the consideration but I am in fact just a man" ???

I think in terms of gender identity I can get behind the vibes of he/they being used for me in theory, but in practice it makes me feel like a freak. it's like a glaring neon sign that's like, you look WEIRD and idk what you are bc you're WEIRD. I know this shit wouldn't happen if I was cis and presented exactly the same as I do now. I feel extremely vulnerable and almost outed when people call me they. like it tells everyone in the room that I'm Different. and despite the fact I dye my hair crazy colors and have 7 facial piercings and stretched ears I actually do not want to stick out. I just love the alternative look. but I don't want attention drawn to me. I don't want people to look at or talk to me. it's a struggle I've had my entire life. id much rather blend in than stand out but literally everybody knows who I am and my name bc I just have an appearance that is so jarring. ugh.

I even had my instructor for some reason "correct" himself on my pronouns, he literally got it right the first time then went "er, they-" like ??? come on man. when have I ever told anyone I want to go by they here??? is the mustache not enough?? do I have to grow out my patchy ass stubble as well??? for a split second sometimes I think about going by he/they and then I am called they in real life and cringe so hard. rahhh.

[jflashandclash]

Is it limiting to write TFMO after already posting TOO, is there any struggle to build the characters up to how they were in the beginning of The Whispers of a Snake?

I've been loving the younger Pax brothers and newer characters like Lou Ellen and Mercedes. It's also cool to see small differences like Pax playing more with gender which wasn't as present in TOO.

(Hi btw, glad to see you back after so long.)

HI JACE! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE ASKS! you have no idea how much they mean to me and how much they encourage me to keep at this!

*rolls up my sleeves*

*puts on my nonprescription glasses for effect*

Let's fucking GO--

Yes.

Yes there is.

Because of this-->

stoic piece of--

(I know. this is an old picture. He should have a combo of dreads, braids, and quarter shave in the old school version. And WAY less facial scars. I told myself to make drawings. one d a y.)

In my main series, you might notice that Axel....

Can be comically useless. Don't get me wrong. He's meant to be a bad ass and have so much complicated turmoil to work through. But, keep a counter on how many times he gets taken out of a final fight before he actually gets to fight. Or gets his ass kicked.

Book 1: Aphrodite kneecaps him. On a sinking ship he didn't want shipped.

Book 2: Brothers being Brothers, blasting Axel's bluster with a bullet

Book 3: he gets to fight. But. Almost dies by praetor. Almost drowns by human fire hose.

Book 4: Almost dies by childhood fear of water puppy. Almost dies by half-brother's mom's parental skills.

Most of Riordon's plots revolve around a Hero's Journey, often times. His characters are normally rising bad asses. Axel already had his hero's journey when you meet him in Traitors of Olympus. It is well established and agreed upon by the other characters that Axel is a bad ass, even though you rarely see him win a fight outright. I get a certain amount of pleasure from the "oooOoooo, he's a bad asssss, when he's fighting oversized pidgeonnnnns with a frying pannnnn--"

My secret with Axel is he spends more time In Need of Rescuing than doing the rescuing. This works (oh gods--it does work? Right? Right guys? He seems cool--please--) because he has the presence, both in how he acts and how others react, of someone who is used to being in command and can command well. People respect him because of past heroics, even if you're not seeing him kick ass here. (How many of his fights has he won against Reyna, hrm?) Otherwise, I spend four books emotionally had physically kicking the cho out of him.

..... then comes the prequel

"Oh, fuck, I need to make Axel ACTUALLY cool--"

Axel is meant to be many things. In the first four books, he was meant to be

I wanted to take figure that looked like he would embody everything of toxic Hispanic Machismo, and then make them a hyper-feminist, social justice warrior that super supports their nonbinary little siblings, someone to fight a nasty stereotype from when I was growing up

Worthy of Reyna. Yes. Axel was made for Reyna, and they STILL SCREWED IT UP--GSDI REYEL, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO--

But in the prequel, he's meant to be the parallel to the Greek's Percy and Rome's Jason. Lord knows (hail Kronos) that Riordan didn't set Luke up well for that. (I can do a different deep dive into this.) That means, not only does Axel need to progress, but he needs to rise above those around him. And he's surrounded by titans, mythical monsters, and serial killers like Jack and Flynn that can alter people's wills and health with words and songs. I'm going to end up truncating Axel's character development more than I want to, but, by all rights, he should have his own series-worth of adventures, and I believe he does.

It's just freaking HARD to go from humiliating and crushing someone for four books and then be like, "oh.... you need to... win here..."

Otherwise, Pax is relatively easy. Oh, except the Lamia thing. I might be, um, skipping over the Lamia thing. That is the one thing I just can't fit (we'll see) but the Trauma from--ehem, I mean the Massacre of Mount Othrys is more important to his character development. He has more pivot points, whereas Axel has long progression.

Jack was always meant to be a sweetie church boy that's got just a smidge of serial killer problem. Just a lil.

I'm SO freaking happy you like Mercedes and Lou Ellen. Mercedes is one of my favorite characters in Tales From Mount Othrys. <3 Her dialogue and scenes are tricky to write, but she's SO much fun to bring to life!

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ASKS!

[whoa-its-dani]

Some quick life-updates from yours truly:

Realized I was, in fact, nonbinary. Being honest with myself and being away from the internet really helped me figure that one out. I'm still largely in the closet, but I'm planning on where I go from here. I know I'm going to get top surgery or at least a reduction eventually, but that's a Future Leigh thing.

I developed a shellfish allergy which is a thing that can happen. Your body can just... decide it's allergic to shit. I know it's an immune system overreaction but wtf wtf wtf we've eaten shrimp and clams and crab our whole life wtf wtf wtf There's the slight possibility it was a spice or the ramen I was eating them with but like. It's more than likely the fucking shellfish.

I'm currently outside of the US right now and FAR away from home. I'm not immigrating, I'm just helping a friend with some housework and also getting my first vacay in like a decade. Also I dealt with quite a bit of ableism and assumed misogyny (bc still in closet) with immigration to the point they had to bring two different women officers to deal with my sitch. Like I don't wanna spread the stereotype of men being insensitive and women being "more compassionate" or w/e but yikes. I'm struggling so hard right now not to let that asshole taint all men. I'm beating that sexism back with a fucking bat.

My cynophobia is in severe decline, at least with smaller and some medium sized dogs! Anything bigger than like a corgi still triggers me (shaking, crying, panicking, etc.) but smaller dogs are so fucking cute and fun and snuggly!!! I love when they curl up in your lap and when they roll over for tummy rubs!!! I really miss my mom's dogs right now 😭 but I have a cat here so it's kind of ok

Had some True Crime shit happen to my family. My aunt (who's always been in poor health) passed away in her sleep. Her husband had her cremated asap, threw out all of her stuff, repainted the room she slept in, and then waited a week to tell the rest of the family... by text. Originally it looked like she had died in her sleep while he was at work, but then he admitted to his daughter (who then told the fam) that he had been home all day, that he lied to police about being at work, and that he was glad she was dead. So it's looking more and more like he killed her, or at least let her die. Like... he's always been an asshole. It's totally believable he killed her, but I hope (for everyone's sake) that he didn't and he's just being a selfish jackass who doesn't understand how sus he sounds.

My mental health has been the best it's been in years. I still have bad days (esp right now bc of the shit that happened with the border officer) but I'm kind of in awe that I'm like. Alive? Like I'm entering my late twenties. My first suicide attempt was when I was 11. I never imagined I would make it past 21. Bitch I'm still here!!! Life is not my problem, I am LIFE'S problem!

I learned how to make stroganoff and became mildly addicted to it for like a month.

Lived to see cicadas in the summer! Saw SO many!!! I think about them when winter makes me sad. They're my light at the end of the tunnel.

I ALSO SAW A BABY (ok more like a young) POSSUM!!! My dad discovered him in a box of apples we had outside. He was havin a FEAST lemme tell you. Boy went through like four apples that were about half his body size. Hell yeah.

I've currently been trying to exercise and strength train because I tried to climb a tree to get a cicada shell and yeah. I didn't even make it off the ground. Spaghetti ass arms. Right now I'm too sore from the travel (& stress & panic attack due to border issue) to see if my strength has improved, but I can definitely tell there are muscles in my arms and not just mush. Human bodies are so fucking weird and cool and shit.

I still remain uneducated and unemployed, but I actually checked out the GED study guide from the library earlier last year. I had a panic attack and ended up returning it, but... it's progress! A few years ago, I would've just passed it by. I actually opened it and looked in it and shit! Give me some more time and I'll actually be able to USE it and then get my GED and then bitche!!!! :D I've also decided I'm going to try to become a mortician. I doubt I have the patience to become a medical examiner, but I'd still like to work with the dead (not in a creepy way, I'm just better with dead folks) AND I got some family in the business back home (here's hoping I can use nepotism to my advantage teehee) so it's a good idea. I'm not saying it'll work out, but it's a plan.

I beat Pokemon Diamond again, and Skyrim. I made like four new characters but only ended up completing one (and they became a sneak archer because of course.)

I've done a little more sewing! I'm still kinda sucky at it and my brain can not figure out how the hell a back stitch works but I'm having a lot of fun!

Ok that's all I can think of right now but yeah. I'm surprised I haven't completely lost my mind yet but hey. There's still time 😌

I'll hopefully be more active on here in the upcoming days (bc I've missed my sweet little garbage trash site and all my gay little mutuals), but right now I'm just trying to exist in as little pain as I can. Very fatigued but also incredibly sore (shoulders, back, and legs).

I'm so grateful to all the kind messages and asks you guys have sent me while I was gone, and I hope your lives have been going well. Things are tough right now for everyone, and I hope you find the strength and support you need to go on. Fucking love you guys.

[animentality]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or that they must be doing it for amoral reasons?

Isn't that just ragging on feminism too?

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

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

A woman is whatever you want it to be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don't know every single trans person.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's horrible.

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

All people are different, you pathetic shrivelling worm.

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

And that change starts from the ground up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A minority which started the whole fucking LGBT movement.

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

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

The right pronouns.

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

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

And even if I fucking didn't understand that.

You'll never turn me as cruel as you.

You fucking terf rats.

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

[astranite]

vent post because I am a mess and i've just got to stick it all somewhere. I don't even know what or why I'm putting it here. Just there is way too much inside my head.

(trying to stick all of my intensely personal bullshit under a cut)

Just a whole pile of stuff. (this isnt even the half of it). A whole bunch of things I thought i was okay about but maybe I'm really not. And that maybe my whole scale of okayness is kinda fucked up. And i seem to randomly swing from telling myself this is fine to no wait its all pretty fucked up. Basically that meme of the dog in the on fire house going this is fine. Welcome to everything is on fire but we're not freaking out about it because we're past that point. But sometimes it feels honestly okay and then something else hits.

Nothing in my life is even that bad. I'm getting my shit together. Its probably better than it has been in a while (or maybe its not, i dont know). I'm making positive progress towards the future. I drafted a job application. I'm trying to unfuck my tertiary studies. I literally keep telling myself I'm an adult, even though I feel like a fuck up kid still.

I just want to move the hell out. So I'm making steps towards it. Not because its bad, bad. More conflicting access needs I guess. And I feel trapped here and on guard and responsible for everything. Or Im just a problem or have problems because clearly everyone else is fine but that's probably not a great way to think.

Not sure what I'm feeling right now. Actually mostly just numb and vaguely ill. Yay for crushing down all your emotions until you can't feel them any more. Because, yeah, I can't be upset about things. It scares and worries people and I'm already way too intense.

And when I do it, i seem calm and fine to people, and hey neither crying nor panicking has be a good thing. Except I'm blank when I know I'm upset or would be, and its not fine. Honestly probably a bit messed up. Huh.

(I know its not good for me. I am so very aware of this) (i know hiding stuff is literally one of my biggest 'things are getting bad' red flags)

I'd probably be way more okay if I was crying and yelling and getting mad about stuff. Instead of just quietly, calmly imploding. Or walking around and smiling and acting normal. (its only sometimes, not all the time. And just happens to be right now)

Also past shit keeps metaphorically walking up to me, and maybe I didn't process it great. because its evidently still bothering me even though its years ago.

(Yes, realising some of this stuff was a That moment when you're writing and you realise that wow character has a whole bunch of issues. Then that was at least 50-70% me.)

I do keep picking myself up from the floor over and over because I'm too stubborn not to.

Also: I'm so sick of being misgendered by family. Like they do support me and are trying with different pronouns. But getting it right barely any of the time. And if I call them out on it to correct them, then they get upset. So I just have to put up with it silently, and yeah, she's trying, so I feel like I can't be upset about it but it still hurts, and maybe its not good enough. And I don't even know whether I could change my name, at least not without upsetting peopl, I've been told "please don't change you name, I like your name" but I don't even know if it feels like me. It's like people are supportive, but being nonbinary or trans or anything isn't actually a valid option. They/them isn't that hard if you practice it and even if it is it's still very much important to me. And none of them think of me as such which is maybe the problem. Except my friends, who actually do get it right which is nice.

I guess I'm struggling. And also all my friends and family have way too much of their own stuff going on.

So stupid vent post yelling into the void, it is then. Maybe I'm just being dramatic about it all.

I'd say I'm okay and don't worry (if anyone's even fucking reading this) but that would probably be more concerning. But I'll survive this like I survived every other fucking thing the universe has thrown at me.

(and I will and have asked for help, so stuff is at least sort of getting sorted, because this is not my first mental health rodeo.)

[aquanthis]

wheres the aquanthis infodump 🤨🎤

them's fighting words brother i have more aquanthis infodump material than you can handle

you aren't even READY for this critter, baby

alright let's go

(CW: childhood abuse, neglect , transphobia, severe eye injury)

Archdruid Aquanthis Stormrage: Vengeance Incarnate; Nahlen'do, Master of the Fang; The Beautiful One

alternatively known as the guy with too many fucking titles. god help me. the basics are: he's a balance druid, an archdruid, wields the scythe of elune, bisexual, transmasc nonbinary, and has the reborn soul of an ancient wild god. in no particular order. lol

now you may be wondering: stormrage? well let me tell you about the fucked up son of tyrande and malfurion. (sorry in advance to any tyrande likers who may be reading this for some reason but i'm about to character assassinate her so hard lol <3)

aquanthis was born about three thousand years ago. you may be wondering, "wait, wasn't malfurion asleep?" and my very easy answer is "mostly, but he did notably wake up a few times and i've thought about this and i choose not to elaborate". however! he was not told about aquanthis until he woke up the most recent time, during cataclysm. so, aquanthis grew up without a father, raised by tyrande.

during his childhood, tyrande often forced him to try to fit roles he didn't take to, mainly trying to get him to become a priestess of elune. she wanted a daughter to follow in her footsteps, and he couldn't even do that right. druidism came naturally to him, like breathing, while priesthood was like pulling teeth, and his mother did not like that. not one bit.

he was very close to shandris, his adopted older sister, and she was the person he felt safest with. that is, until one day when he was still a child, he ran to her after tyrande hit him and begged her help, and shandris brushed him off, in denial that her mother would do something like that to her own child. aquanthis still clung to shandris after that, but this happened over and over for years, to the point where he stopped running to her and kept it to himself instead.

when tyrande finally gave up on trying to get him to be a priestess, when he was a young teenager, he was allowed to study druidism in earnest. he was unmatched by any of the other students ("of course he would be, since he was the son of azeroth's first mortal druid," the other students whispered behind his back), and drew their ire for it. largely, he kept to himself and to the fae, which had been drawn to him since his birth. he had one friend his age, thelesae (izzy's oc!), though he rarely let her into his little world, because he didn't know how to, more than anything.

truthfully, aquanthis's closest friend was a faerie dragon that he hatched from an egg and raised, named morning glory. when morning glory was large enough to ride, the pair of them would go out flying at night, and aquanthis fell in love with the sky, and the dream of leaving home and never coming back.

and, about 10 years ago in the canon timeline, he did just that. as soon as he mastered flight form, he took wing and left teldrassil, with no set destination and nowhere to go but away. he was injured in darkshore and was rescued by brighton, my worgen who was wandering with his daughter. he traveled with brighton for a few days before he started to feel unsafe with teldrassil still looming over him, and disappeared in the night (he has a bad habit of this, can you tell yet?), though vowing to repay brighton someday if they met again.

he traveled across kalimdor, and then got caught up in a storm over the great sea, and was thrown into the waves.

he woke up on the shore of the jade forest, before the mists were lifted, and was taken in by the pandaren. he began studying under a jewelcrafting master, siu nightgarden, and built a friendship/sibling relationship with siu's daughter, shaeiu. he discovered a love for jewelcrafting and developed the design for the jeweled onyx panther based on siu's designs of the other panthers. :) <- really attached to this tidbit

he also spent time with the order of the cloud serpent, since he had experience raising faerie dragons! but that's a story for another time.

when the mists were lifted and the horde and alliance arrived on the shores of pandaria, aquanthis panicked, fearing being brought back home, and left the jade forest without any goodbyes.

(he still feels bad about it)

during his journey out of the jade forest, he ran into a young prince anduin who'd been separated from his bodyguard (aemara! you know him you love him!). anduin had been alone for a couple days and was starving, so aquanthis hunted something for him and built him a little fire and took care of him for a night. and once the prince had fallen asleep, aquanthis took wing and left, hoping his help had been enough to save the boy. and it was!

so, anyway, continuing the tradition of aquanthis getting into bad situations, he got attacked on his way into the valley of the four winds, and limped into halfhill one rainy night, beaten half to death and hardly lucid. there, he met the owner of the farm, selrine (seb's oc) who took care of him and nursed him back to health. he sees her as kind of the only mother figure he's ever had. he adores her so so much. funnily enough, she's the mother of aquanthis's uncle-in-law too LOL so she's part of the family even though neither of them knew.

anyway, he spent some time recuperating in halfhill with selrine, and then went back out wandering for a while. things were largely uneventful from then until legion, when everything went to shit! lol!

he heard about varian's death, and found out that anduin had become king. and because aquanthis had met anduin that day, he thought that maybe, just maybe, stormwind might be somewhere safe that he could go where he wouldn't be sent home. so he found his way there and set up in a tree near the keep, trying to work up the courage to go speak to anduin himself. but, um, the SI:7 did not like some random druid hanging out near the keep and assumed he was spying, so they caught his ass and hauled him into the keep before the king, and anduin's like. what are you doing let him go what the fuck lol because anduin remembered him! and still intended to repay the debt he felt like he owed him. so aquanthis was allowed to stay in stormwind.

but it was pretty short-lived before he got dragged into helping the druids in the broken isles. :(

if the fae ask him for help, it's over lol he can't say no. he loves them too much.

so he ends up getting dragged before his father, who he'd never spoken to in his life and who he hated on principle, and told he was going to become an archdruid. against his will pretty much. so aquanthis has a good ol meltdown and has to fight himself not to run away again, and only doesn't because of another archdruid (searchlight! august's oc! i love her so much!) who helps him, as well as brighton who ALSO ends up there. druid convention. we're having a great (see: BAD) time. tyrande's there too, to make everything worse, lol! aquanthis has a bad day at the beginning of legion sorry guys

tyrande recommends him to collect and wield the scythe of elune. she knows full well that that thing has a history of possessing and killing those who wield it, and she has every intention and belief that aquanthis will be no different. (she really wants to get rid of him, because he's a giant stain on her perfect lovely record, but she won't buck up and kill him herself.) however! he IS different. he can keep the balance. he doesn't listen to its whispers. so he shows back up with this corrupting scythe like it's a smoothie and everyone's shocked and impressed and tyrande is fucking fuming. <3

so now that he has the scythe, he helps with val'sharah and emerald nightmare (despite hating every second he had to spend with malfurion) and spends a lot of time moping and hiding in the dreamgrove. UNTIL! *drum roll*

suramar, baby. where everything gets wild. one of my favorite parts.

(it took so long to get here. this is like, the halfway point. how long is this now? i'm losing my sense of self)

okay so SURAMAR. where he gains the vengeance incarnate title (i still love it for him even if it's totally unnecessary. rule of cool. whatever). he gets roped into helping once again, but upon actually interacting with thalyssra and the other nightfallen, he feels for them desperately, like he can't help but understand. the loneliness, the fear, the corruption and loss of a place that should've felt like home. they were starving, and he could help them. and for the first time in his life, he felt like doing everything he could to save them.

it wasn't like he wasn't kind or caring before, but everything was self-defense before. his goal was to survive and be free, not involve himself in something huge like this. but this time was different. he wanted them to be able to survive and be free, too. he took on their fight as his own.

so, he does the suramar campaign. in the process, he falls in love with a nightfallen man (erestrois, seb's oc who i adore so sososososoososososooso much) and doesn't know what to do with it because he's never fallen in love before and this is a situation that is so precarious and neither of them are safe and he tries so hard to push it down. god there was a line i wrote once that makes me wail

do you get it. do you see. he wants to help all the nightfallen but more than anything, he doesn't even care if he gets anything out of it, he just wants erestrois to live a better life, even if that life doesn't include aquanthis (and of course it does include him but aquanthis doesn't even care!!! he just loves him that much!!!!!)

anyway. anyway. okay so aquanthis leads the offensive into the nighthold and everything, yadda yadda, you know how the raid goes. EXCEPT. during the gul'dan fight. smile.

it's going well, right. everything has gone smoothly. they've done what they meant to. and then gul'dan kinda just starts wiping the floor with them. he kills brighton in pretty gruesome fashion in front of the whole gathered party and aquanthis has a meltdown and full-on moves the moon to resurrect him (i'm picky about rezzes in my stories lol it's gotta be Really Big). they keep fighting and they eventually, yknow, get illidan's soul back into his body so he can kill gul'dan for realsies.

and here's where that eye injury comes in LOL.

yknow how the crystal they had illidan's body in was made of his felblood? and yknow how the crystal shatters and throws shards everywhere? well, one big chunk hit aquanthis in the right eye. and in the commotion after illidan is freed and everything's over and everyone's recovering and getting to their feet, no one notices aquanthis curled up on the floor holding his face for a little too long. finally he starts screaming and they find the crystal lodged in his eye, fel tearing through his face and his eye and, if left unchecked, probably killing him.

thalyssra and khadgar have to try to contain the fel with sigils and stuff but tyrande, bless her heart, tries to talk them into leaving him to die :) "ohhh nooooo he'll be just like illidan he'll become fel infused it's a fate worse than deaaaath!" and then illidan tells her to fuck off in the most aggro way possible and she fucks off.

but yeah they save him though his eye is permanently fucked and his face is scarred Badly but gul'dan is dead and the nightborne are saved and it's over. it's over. and everyone came out alive! traumatized but alive!

for uhhhhh the rest of legion aquanthis is recovering from his eye injury and helping out with resettling suramar and trying really hard not to be super gay about erestrois because erestrois doesn't really have time for them to work out their feelings and stuff YET. however they DO get to that point in bfa :) because aquanthis basically just takes the expansion off to rest because the eye thing really fucked him up and also the nightborne need help and they see him as a leader (thus the title! they see him as the instrument of their vengeance. lol). so bfa is a rest period AND THEN *drum roll*

MY OTHER FAVORITE PART! shadowlands. controversial favorite part but hear me out okay.

so, the other title there you may have noticed: "the beautiful one". the fae have been calling him that since he was a child, and he thought it was just like, them flattering him or trying to cheer him up or something. but when he goes to the shadowlands as a champion, brought in to deal with ardenweald, every single fae calls him that, INCLUDING the winter queen. and he's like, what the fuck? why do you call me that? can i finally ask this?

and that's when he finds out that his spirit is the reincarnated soul of The Beautiful One, an ancient, otherwise nameless "wild god" (though it wouldn't have been called that before) that took the form of a moth. it was the parent of the fae, having been elune's original lover/mate/whatever you want to call it. and its soul was tended for ages and ages and ages in ardenweald, before it was finally reborn. and, to the fae, its soul is like a torch, blazing and brilliant and bright, and they know it immediately, are even drawn to it. which is why the fae have always been drawn to aquanthis like moths (haha get it) to a flame.

so, uh, that's a thing he has to suddenly grapple with. it's like, he's spent his whole life thinking he's Nothing, he's just being favored because of his parents. and then he finds out he's got the Soul Of A God. and it's like, he doesn't have all of its power or anything, just its soul, but it's still like. another thing that he was Born With that he did not ask for that makes people or things treat him differently, even if they treat him better because of it. he wants to just be Him, not whatever else.

however, during his time in ardenweald, he gets soulbound to dreamweaver, and kind of has a therapy arc where he learns to accept the things he can't control and he finally finds, in ardenweald, a place where he feels like he belongs. which he's never had before, really, even in suramar or the dreamgrove. it's like everything just kind of makes sense, clicks into place, and by the end of it he's so much calmer and just happier in general, finally owning that he can't control the stuff about himself that he was born with, and just has to learn to live with it. he changes so much over shadowlands, it's crazy. i wrote a thing with him and aemara once that took place in shadowlands and he's so much more confident and calm that aemara notices it, and aemara never pays attention to hardly anyone.

so anyway, as of dragonflight, aquanthis now has a gaggle of moths and fae critters, and he's sort of treated like an emissary between azeroth, ardenweald, and the emerald dream, as the only mortal druid who can traverse all three still (he's inherently tied to ardenweald forever now basically. oops).

OH, A THING I FORGOT TO MENTION EARLIER. malfurion and tyrande get a divorce pre-shadowlands and aquanthis makes up with malfurion finally. he is no longer part of the i-hate-my-dad club. he's still in the i-hate-my-mom and i-hate-my-sister clubs though. he does finally get to tell tyrande to fuck off in ardenweald and it makes me soooooo happy. the catharsis of it all. i need to reread that scene, i wrote it at one point.

a thing i've been thinking about recently has been him and the niffen, because i initially wasn't gonna really involve him in dragonflight but then got obsessed w/ the niffen and wanted him to deal with them, so now he basically gets asked by anduin to come bodyguard him while he's following wrathion around like a lost puppy, and goes with him for the zaralek caverns stuff. aquanthis is so obsessed with elder honeypelt. this is entirely because i wanted this, there is no lore reason for this.

and now he's doing emerald dream stuff. he hates fyrakk sooooo much, doubly because he hurt the niffen and is destroying the emerald dream lol. also the fact that they canonized tyrande attacking shandris and elune having to step in made me feel SO fucking vindicated holy shit. i wanted to write a scene where shandris goes to apologize to aquanthis for never believing him and aquanthis is like "oh, so you didn't believe your little baby brother, and it takes your own pain for you to believe it? fuck you, fuck off" but i haven't gotten around to finishing it yet.

anyway i'm having fun with him now because he's no longer fucking miserable. For Now. i hope that doesn't change. he makes me so sad but now he also makes me feel so :] <3 i love my quanthy

so um. yeah. that's a not-so-short summary of aquanthis's storyline.

my sweetie darling <3 sorry for how long this is i'm not even bothering to edit it i'll be honest. if anyone reads this i love you i love you i love you mwah