#but now even if i’m not out irl as nonbinary i still have people who are accepting of my fashion choices

[acrosstimeandspace]

been thinking and one of the nicest things about getting exploration with my gender through s/is has been getting comfy with styling myself however i want! having really short hair, dressing in super girly clothes, or wearing more baggy clothes to look more masc without binding or anything.

things that in the past either made me feel icky or i did bc i wasn’t comfortable with myself. but now they’re things i’ve doodles my s/is doing with pride, played around with to find my style, and i do with joy.

[spacelazarwolf]

i know you’re not my therapist but i see some people asking you for advice so i hope this is okay, feel free to ignore it: just… the way transmascs and transmasc issues are treated by society at large is really getting to me and affecting my mental health. even trying to access “trans” resource centers or resources in general and they’re geared primarily towards transfems or they see that im not a trans woman and their tone towards me completely shifts in a negative way, transmasc issues at large being willfully ignored, i mean just about the only place i see anyone talk about them without immediately getting attacked is on tumblr and even then the conversations get shut down. I’m scared to talk about feeling alienated as a trans man with a therapist because i’m scared of them shutting me down even though thats the exact opposite of what therapists are supposed to do. it just feels like people don’t even want us to exist. my mental health is reeeally suffering because of this and i feel like i can’t talk about this to anyone. like… there has to be a way it gets better right?

it absolutely does get better. in terms of online experience, use the block button liberally. it's something i'm trying to do better about myself, just not giving people the time of day who won't engage in good faith. my block list must be a whole archive by now.

in terms of in person experience, i was really surprised by how many other trans men and trans mascs immediately opened up when i brought up the feelings of isolation i was struggling with. it's definitely something that's still taboo to talk about, but if you find those spaces where you can just sit down and talk candidly, it's a really healing experience. if you need to kind of dip your toe in first to see how they'll react, that's fine, but seriously i was shocked when i started connecting with more trans men and trans mascs in my area and there was this immediate, huge sigh of relief when i tentatively brought up those topics. i've also talked to a lot of trans women and trans femmes and nonbinary people in general irl who are very receptive as well, and often open up about the ways it affects them as well. there's more of us out here who want things to get better than tumblr dot com would have us believe.

[clunelover]

It’s been about a year since E let us know they’re nonbinary. We continue to be supportive, and they seem to be doing alright…like, they are getting quite comfortable telling adults their pronouns, but also seem pretty chill about being misgendered (not that I think they should have to be! More just, I’m glad it doesn’t seem to get them down, that they are always assumed to be a girl).

I’ll admit that a year ago I would not have assumed this identity would persist. I never ever said anything like that to E, but inside my initial assumption was that it would be a "phase." But then I did some reading and that’s one of the most basic things to get past - like, do we support our kids only on things that seem "permanent?" Okay, no! Do we support our kids only on things we completely understand? Also no!

There are certain common things people say to me (like, irl acquaintances) that I don’t love. One is - "I was never a girly girl, and never felt like I fit in with those girls. I think if I was a kid today, I’d think I was nonbinary!"

1. I don’t think that’s necessarily true

1. a. If it is true…why is that bad??

2. My NB kid is SUPER "GIRLY," so maybe let go of the idea that it’s just the non-girly AFAB people who are identifying as NB?

3. All this focus on appearance, and assumption that appearance has a 1:1 mapping onto gender identity, is part of the problem!

When people say this "I would have been nonbinary!" thing to me, I just say "maybe!" - Maybe you would have! Or maybe not! And if you had…maybe you’d have eventually identified differently……OR NOT! (Gasp). Idk, I was also never girly, and a misfit, but I think if the full spectrum of gender identities was spelled out to me, I’d still have felt like a girl. But also I guess I can’t be sure of that, and it doesn’t matter even a little bit! There is no need to try to LARP as ‘10 year old me, but in 2024.’

The other thing people say a lot is "it seems like an unusual amount of kids are changing their gender nowadays." To that I usually say "yeah! I think we didn’t have the language for it when we were kids, but these kids do, and it’s great!" ….or if I’m in a salty mood, "what do you think is the right number of gender non conforming kids?"

Anyway, just some musing on the topic at the one year mark. Day to day, gender is not the main thing on our minds, but it does come up any time we see someone we haven’t for a while, or they start a new activity (such as right now when they’re going to go to a bunch of different summer camps and then in September get a new teacher).

[concretepuppy]

Hey, I wanted to ask if you'd recommend phallo to someone without dysphoria who's like 90% cis? I just kind of want a dick from time to time, but it doesn't affect my sex life or distress me that I don't. I'd also like a cis-looking and feeling dick (idk why but I would probably get dysphoria from a dick that was obviously made with phallo) so idk. Transphobes fearmonger a lot so it kind of scares me to make the jump. And idk if major surgery is worth it to satisfy something I'd live my life perfectly fine without doing...

i’m a huge proponent of cis people getting bottom surgery if it makes them happy. i talk quite a lot about how i think a lot of cis stone butches in particular would probably be a lot happier of they had a sensate penis to use for sex, bc i have had quite a few stones complain to me about how they wish they could feel it when they use a strap. it’s ok to get bottom surgery just for sex.

why exactly do you want a dick? what do you want out of it? do you want it for sex? do you think you would have better self image if you had one? do you want to be able to pee from it? do you want balls? do you want to keep your current genitals? there are a lot of considerations to make. i’d start by making a list of all the things that make you want a dick, and then all the potential cons.

i would encourage you to examine why you think you would feel dysphoric about having a phallo dick—what about them is so different from a natal penis? what are the aspects of a natal penis that you feel you’d miss with a phallo penis? have you seen a long-healed phallo dick w medical tattooing? have you ever interacted w a phallo dick irl? i’d also ask you to check your beliefs about what phallo dicks look like. these both have a lot of layers of transphobia and body shaming to unpack.

phalloplasty is a major surgery. it’s permanent in that you’d have to find a surgeon willing to do penectomy on a phallo patient to get it removed, which would likely be very difficult. but it’s not the huge, scary thing people make it out to be. most people just have 6-8wks of recovery (and maybe even shorter for later stages depending on what you’re getting done) and that’s it. the hardest part for me was stage 1 movement restriction, but that was 5 years ago and it’s over with now. if you think you’d be happier getting phallo, then by all means pursue it. it’s not like it’s a fast process, so even if you started contacting surgeons today you’d still have at least 12-18mo to think about it.

also keep in mind that navigating the process will be much more difficult unless you lie and say you’re a trans guy (or in the states at least most of the big name phallo surgeons are familiar enough w nonbinary people that they dont bat an eye abt it, so you could use that). i cant imagine most reputable phallo surgeons here would agree to do surgery for a person who openly IDed as cis (tho i could be wrong, i dont have direct experience w any team other than OHSU so it’s just me guessing based on other ppls anecdotes) and i have even less confidence that insurance would cover it. but it’s fine to lie and say you’re a trans dude if that’s what it takes to get the surgery or hormones or whatever you need. i didnt tell my surgical team i was bigender until stage 3, and i specifically told them to just list me as a trans man in claims. the OHSU team is really great about stuff like that, but other teams might not be.

[fanby-fckry]

Random vent: (If this is rebloggable, it’s a glitch/me forgetting to turn reblogs off; please don’t reblog)

Content Warning: Transphobia, exorsexism, queer infighting

Transmascs who don’t believe in transandrophobia confuse me. Like, have you never experienced it? How have you never experienced it?

I guess some of them are just too white? I know it’s definitely worse for trans men/mascs of color, especially Black trans men/mascs, because antiblackness already hits Black men super hard, and adding transphobia on top of that just intensifies it.

But like, I’m white and I’ve had experiences with transandrophobia? I would say that maybe this is a ‘coming out in 2014 USA, just 1 year after we decided it was time to try and catch up to the rest of the world on trans healthcare’ thing, but this whole theyfab bullshit is pretty transandrophobic.

(Don’t come for me on that. I survived Tumblr’s 2010’s tucute vs transmed discourse. Like 90% of ‘transtrender’ stereotypes were about AFAB nonbinary people being feminine/having boobs/not binding, along with the non-dysphoric/semi-dysphoric thing, and “weird” genders/pronouns. There was a very strange, sometimes vaguely sexual focus on our boobs. I did not run a tucute blog just for people to rebrand this bullshit and act like it’s not transphobic/transandrophobic/exorsexist.)

Also, speaking of exorsexism, intersex people get left in the dust in transmasc vs transfemme infighting, and they deserve better. Perisex trans people stfu and acknowledge that the sex binary is just as much a social construct as the gender binary, listen to intersex people, and accept nuance challenge.

Anyways, just in case people genuinely cannot recognize transandrophobia, here are some of my experiences:

I cannot research my own medical condition without being misgendered, because it involves having a uterus

I cannot find an OBGYN to help me treat said medical condition that doesn’t misgender me; most have “women” in the practice name, and I spend time educating my fucking doctor about trans & nonbinary identities, just to still get misgendered. Because I’d rather not have my uterus make me literally psychotic roughly once a month, I grin and bear it.

The aforementioned transtrender/theyfab stuff

People assuming that being transmasc is just a symptom of “internalized misogyny” or “being fed up with how patriarchal society treats women” (I mean, I am fed up with the patriarchy, but I’m still fucking trans)

Not being taken seriously because I take birth control and not T (Again: medical condition! PMDD is already understudied because of medical misogyny, and I haven’t seen anything but a single instance of anecdotal evidence regarding the effectiveness of T as treatment. There’s no guarantee that T will stop my periods, and even if it does, some people still PMS or get cramps on T after losing periods, and PMDD is PMS on crack, with cramps so bad they set off my abdominal migraines!)

There is a very specific brand of transmasc infantilization that I’ve been subject to (I know transfemmes are infantilized too, but people often come at us both from different angles, and it’s ok to acknowledge that; transmisogyny and transandrophobia can exist at the same time and even overlap somewhat without us invalidating each other’s experiences)

My cis ex-bf often weaponized transandrophobia and exorsexism, along with against me, claiming it was “difficult” to be with someone who was nonbinary, that he was being oh-so patient and kind to me by not dumping me after I came out, and implying that nobody else would want me because I wasn’t a girl anymore (joke’s on him: I’m t4t now, motherfucker)

My trans fiancé and I are called lesbians on the regular. Even if we explain it, some people will argue, as if we don’t have the agency to define our own genders and relationship. And if they don’t, usually the best I can hope for irl is to get his gender recognized because he passes better, and have people think we’re a straight couple.

And that’s just me, personally. I don’t have the intersecting marginalizations that trans men/mascs of color and intersex trans men/mascs do. I haven’t been straight up denied medical care like some trans men/mascs. I haven’t been arrested for possession of legally acquired T like some trans men/mascs. I’ve never been harassed or assaulted for being transmasc like some people have. (I’ve been harassed for being trans, but that was actually general transphobia and exorsexism; it wasn’t targeting my transmasculinity, but the fact that I was trans/nonbinary at all.)

Like, if you’re transmasc and you’ve never experienced any of that, good for you, I guess? But that doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t out here in the trenches.

[juliandevorakshonkers]

As someone who only recently accepted being trans, despite technically knowing for probably more than 7 years now, here are some things that I blatantly ignored/avoided/denied that were obvious me being trans things!! A list compiled for your viewing pleasure.

For context I am 21 atm, and despite being all for trans people and coming out multiple times as things like nonbinary and gender fluid and then taking it back, I still for some reason refused to believe that I was trans until very recently it finally clicked and I was just like yea.. that’s me!

I always get super super jealous of trans men, especially ones who have had the affects of T start and or have had top surgery. I can’t think of any times I was genuinely that jealous of a woman other than when I was a kid and wanted to be thinner, but even then it was for the body size not shape or look (I’m plus size and always have been for reference)

I considered myself bisexual since I was like 11, but I’ve always felt that yes I obviously like women in a gay way, but I like men in a gay way too. I never could explain it but I was always like yea when I like a man it’s like how a man likes a man. This led to ALOT of dysphoria because I would have crushes on guys and would be so distraught that I wasn’t a man having a crush on a man.

Any man irl that I liked either was gay and I didn’t know till I asked him out, wasn’t gay at the time of me liking him but later came out as gay, or generally was very gay aligned but happened to be straight (for now, and no one believes that he’s actually straight) ((Also counting bisexual men in this)).

I hated my boobs from the moment I started to get them!!!! I’ve always had the opinion of I wish I could remove and reattach at will. I always thought that even if I found a reason to want to keep them for a moment, that removing them would still be the most ideal scenario. Like only exceptions were outfits that I thought would look worse on me if I didn’t have boobs and that was more of a societal image problem than a legitimate one because as I grew up I stopped thinking that way.

Whenever I felt the most like myself, I was dressed like a man, acted like a man, sometimes even treated like a man, and that is when I was happiest in the world. And when I would repress it I would be hyper feminine and although the outfits or makeup would look good, they just wouldn’t feel like me.

My name!! I have never felt at home in my name. I still somewhat use it right now because I’m working on a new one, so for now I just call myself Mac. But my name has never felt right to me, as a kid I felt wrong in it and as an adult I feel wrong in it. This is oddly the part my parents seem to have the most issue with atm, because they’re like “but… it’s your name??? That’s what ur called???” But I’m hoping they will follow through with my wishes and choose a new name for me someday :)

Anyways that’s all for now!! I’m sure there’s way more that I’ll realize over time, but I feel like this is already a pretty substantial list. I just wanna say that I love and appreciate all of you, and that I feel so at home with myself for the first time in a very long time. I’m working towards some goals, such as getting my first binder, and I’m hoping that eventually I will get to start T and get things going in that direction! Thank you for your time, MWUAH

[my-castles-crumbling]

I haven’t come out to anyone as aroace (besides you) and honestly I’m not sure if I want to or should come out. I used to think I was bi or pan, didn’t tell anyone about that then I found out about the aspec spectrum. What if I change my mind again? I don’t want to change my mind so much. My friends are obsessed with dating and boys, so I don’t know how they’ll react. Also I’ve never come out before so if I decide to do you have tips? sorry for the rant.

Hi! <3

Okay so, first, on 'not wanting to change your mind'-

You are allowed to change your mind! Judging from your message, you're young! You're still discovering yourself! But even if you weren't, it's okay to change your mind or make a realization at ANY point! I didn't realize I was nonbinary until I was married! The people who love you and accept you will be cool with any self-discovery you make because it's a part of you. Plus, I don't really see it as 'changing your mind.' You're just learning more about yourself and the world and the result is you're now identifying as X instead of Y because that's what feels genuine to you now. Nothing wrong with that!

On coming out-

First, since I have no idea where you live or what your situation is, please make sure it is safe to do so. Safety first!

Then, I would suggest you start with someone you are sure will be accepting. Coming out can be a bit scary and it's a good idea to build up a supportive group of people irl if possible. Do you have a family member, friend, even a teacher or other adult who you feel is supportive? Maybe someone who is part of the queer community? Start there.

Then, as far as your friends, remember that if they react negatively, it's for one of two reasons:

They may not be educated on the ace spectrum. If you feel you're able to do so, try to educate them! if not, ask them to educate themselves! Hell, tell them to message me lol. I'd be happy to tell them what I know.

They may not be accepting of people unlike them. If this is the case, do you want friends like that?

Coming out can be scary, and people definitely won't always react the way you hope. But remind yourself that you deserve people who love you for you and accept you not matter what. If people aren't doing that, they aren't worth it.

I hope this is helpful! Let me know if you need to talk!

[vivixrocks]

Maiiangan's an interesting name. How do you pronounce it?

It/it's, got it. I have memory issues so if I slip up and call you a "they" feel free to yell at me or virtually bonk me over the head.

My bestie irl is agender as in not having a gender. When you said you didn't want to be addressed at all that's just what me think of that. Of course you could also identify as nonbinary or unlabeled as well.

That's only if you want to of course.

Also for like the not feeling human part that makes me think of alterkin/therains/otherkin -  identifying as something alternative to human. So you could identify as an animal/fictional creature if that makes you anymore comfortable.

Is Mai or Vivi/Vivix acceptable nicknames?

Are dolls your thing? What'd you originally start your blog for?

Sorry that I'm asking so many questions, and that I'm talking so much

My name is in Ojibwe, here’s a link on how to pronounce it https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/ma-iingan-na

I don’t really mind if you call me they. People still call me she or he outside of the internet and I just don’t really care anymore to feel anything or correct them.

I label myself when I have to like when my mom asks me. I would say I’m nonbinary, even though it doesn’t feel completely like me I don’t care that’s just what I call myself since it’s the easiest. I never thought of me being an alterkin and etc. When I was first learning about LGBT stuff the people I would learn from were very I mean very transphobic to people who don’t identify as male or female or are gender nonconforming. Even though I don’t share their views anymore I still have them internalized. I’m fine with people identifying as alterkin but I still need to reprogram all of the bad ideologies out of myself in order to consider me being alterkin.

Mai is an acceptable nickname. My dad sometimes calls me MaiPie. I rather not use Vivi or Vivix even though it sounds fucking cool. Vivianite is the name of one of my land of the lustrous original characters and I made my username and two blogs for a dating sim I was planning with Vivi as the player character / self insert. I still wanna make the game but it’s been on the back burner for a while. I don’t see myself as Vivi.

And about dolls. Yes dolls are my thing. I absolutely love them. I’ve always been obsessed with dolls since I was young, I wanted to buy them, play with them, make them and create things for them. Unfortunately this hobby is kind of expensive especially now. So I just cope on tumblr watching people and their dolls living their best life while I’m just like:

[confused-possum]

So I haven’t mentioned my gender feelings on here cause it’s all still new and scary.

Basically I was very complacent about being AMAB and treated like a boy most all my life. Then I went to therapy, got medication, found myself in a safe place for my health and heart and ALL OF A SUDDEN I’m aware of a lot of my prior actions and thoughts.

I realize that if I lived the rest of my life with my identity and body the way it is, I won’t feel destroyed but I feel pretty certain I wouldn’t be living as myself to the fullest. Like I recognize that so much of changes I’d like to make IRL to myself and how others see me is just out of fear of not getting acceptance (especially from my parents).

[im just here to rant, please skip this it has nothing to do with anything other than elaborating on my feelings: So things I realized were maybe signs that I wasn’t cis? Well first I saw that I had man boobs (wtf do you mean the only other medical term for that shit is gynaecomastia? Who even knows what that means) and figured it meant that once puberty hit I would grow up to be a woman and I was down for that lol. I also, after getting away from my parents in college, realized I would select the girl option in games about as often or more than I was selecting the boy option. I’ve always tried to make the character customization look like me and represent me rather than some character so this felt significant to me. Then the last straw was early last year I just got so obsessed with looking more feminine and making very feminine picrews of myself and feeling a lot of what I think was gender envy. OH also I literally came out to a friend as genderqueer in college but they were dismissive about the idea and so I kinda just didn’t tell anyone else. I also got spooked and backtracked myself. Anyhow.]

So now I realize I feel more masculine or feminine on different days, it almost comes in seasons where I latch onto one for a while or another rather than a more frequent shifting of feeling. But this has created an issue because I don’t really know what to identify as, which is it’s own fucking basket of philosophical “what is the deeper truth there” shit.

Cause like it’s hard for me to say I’m nonbinary, even though I clearly fall under that umbrella, because of how popular culture seems to have defined it as Schrödinger’s gender 3, where it fills whatever role/traits people discussing it want it to have. But idk that I relate to something like agender or genderqueer, though that seems more like a lack of understanding/recognition that might come from lack of representation/personal experience so that’s not really on anything specifically.

This is all to say idk what I’m gonna be like but I’m definitely looking to make some changes about how I openly identify to people IRL whenever it is I build up the courage for that.

[creaturebehavior]

really tired of the way cis people refer to nonbinary people like we’re subhuman. like even people who mean well can’t think for two seconds and realize what they’re saying now that referring to trans nonbinary people as “they/thems” is past being a silly tiktok saying and past being a full on trend and has infiltrated regular conversation that used to be so much more normal.

i’m aware that i’ve been a bit sensitive about this whole thing from the very start. but to me it is the small things that can matter. because i knew from the moment i heard someone say “the girls, the gays and the theys” that it was going to catch on in a very unproductive and almost regressive way. except nonbinary people didn’t have much of a chance to be recognized and human to begin with. but suddenly as more of the mainstream world is getting to know about us, someone who i don’t believe is nonbinary themselves but correct me if i’m wrong, came up with a silly little catchy phrase that is accidentally imo a transphobic microaggression and it caught on and is now coming out of the mouths of cis people everywhere, and i’ve also heard younger queer people refer to nonbinary people as “they/thems” in earnest like where you can tell they just don’t have the term “nonbinary person” in their vocabulary, all they know how to refer to nonbinary people as now is “a they/them” as if that’s even a thing

i just let out an irl sigh. i just feel like this was an unnecessary misstep, and although it’s small i still feel the pang of being misunderstood each time and it’s weird. i just am ready for this trend to die.

and i realize this has been the trans experience for like forever. and still is. even living in more progressive areas like california and oregon i still had people saying stuff to me like “I’ve never met a trans” or people genuinely not knowing the T slur is even a slur and thinking that’s just the term for it. like people classically don’t know how to refer to transgender people and it sucks and it’s not new.

but idk it gets tiring. i know i’m not the only trans person who gets tired.

[daandyli0n]

*sigh* alright. i’ve made a dsmp sona (that’s probably closer to an oc but i don’t really care)

i’ve named her omen.

some facts about them:

-she/her, they/them pronouns baby!!

-15 at first appearance, 16 currently.

-some sort of weird chimera between a sheep and hellhound. by all technical accounts she shouldn’t exist, but here she is!!

-sheep parts: eyes, horns, hooves, hair (kinda)

-hellhound parts: the sclera of the eyes, ears (which is harder to tell, but still there), teeth, and tail.

-fun fact of the day! omen’s design (the fact that they’re a hellhound-sheep mix) and some parts of their character are sort of based on some very, very mild religious trauma i’ve got (it’s nothing serious, don’t worry! it’s just. There, y’know?). what i mean by that is how i still practice and am a part of the religion (sheep, which should give y’all a hint as to which one it is), but that i don’t agree with certain...normalized bits of the religion (the lgbtq+phobia in general; i don’t know how strongly i can emphasize that i’m very accepting of and am even a part of the community myself) and about how i’d date someone who’s trans and/or nonbinary, which are both things that would probably get me called a sinner irl (hellhound). omen also tries to disguise themself as a regular sheep hybrid; tucking in their tail, saying that they’ve just got weird ears and eyes, and trying to hide the fire magic. so take all of that how you will (sorry for the rant. i guess this is me projecting on a character).

-star freckles!! star. freckles!!

-look, due to how much of an introvert i am irl, i’m just saying that i’d probably get kidnapped for the revival experiments. however, that doesn’t mean that i don’t think i’d be able to get out >:3c (my guess on how exactly that happened was that they didn’t actually perma kill omen, but they believed they did. when everything went downhill for those two post-disc war finale, omen finally left. not without a lot of physical and mental scarring, obviously...and anger. let’s not forget the anger...)

-omen isn’t in the same universe as the other 8; she’s in her own timeline.

-they joined the server during the schlatt administration, took One look at the drama on the server, and Noped The F**k Outta There. they moved near the area that would eventually become logstedshire.

-because of this, they witnessed a few parts of tommy’s exile, but not all of it. they Do know that things were pretty bad, but not the extent of how bad things were.

-they were taken for the experiments around the time tommy left exile, and escaped back into the regular world around the time tommy died in prison. they decided to move closer to other people after what dream told them while reviving them once (which was the fact that he and punz went after people living on their own and were isolated from people)

-due to revival, her fire magic is is now soul fire.

-she and tommy just have a mutual understanding with each other that they both Went Through Something, even if tommy doesn’t exactly understand what happened to omen (and she has no intentions of talking about it).

-quackity approached them before the Red Banquet asking if they wanted to help go against the Eggpire. omen asked who was a part of that, and the Second quackity mentioned punz’s name, omen basically went “Sign Me Up!” look, quackity just gave them an excuse to fight punz (one of the people who put them through that pain), why Wouldn’t omen jump at the opportunity?

-they’re a potion seller and do also do tarot readings. they do this to get diamonds and other things as payment.

-she was Not Happy when dream broke out.

-her voice claim is lapis lazuli from steven universe.

here’s a picrew of them:

(picrew i used)

i guess a playlist for her?? here’s some songs:

“aura” by ghost

“hell’s coming with me” by poor man’s poison

“therefore i am” by billie eilish 

“arsonist’s lullaby” by hozier (the v i b e s)

“loser” by neoni

“darkside” by neoni 

later, i’ll post quotes and maybe memes about them. if you’ve got any other questions, y’all can ask them in the comments/reblogs in the post and i’ll answer them later when i can.

[kindofwriter]

RQG is almost over - have some recs!

Usually I’d make several brief recommendations, but instead I’m just going to make two really earnest ones.

Skyjacks

Beloved sky-pirate show I am already re-listening to.

Things it has in common with RQG:

Exceptionally detailed and historical world building. Whilst Spéir is a fictional world an awful lot of thoughts has been put into its history, cultures, and mechanisms. There is so much lore.

A very specific system of magic that includes The Luminaries, which work as a sort of equivalent of Greek gods in RQG.

A PC having something akin to a crisis of faith.

A young PC just starting to learn about his abilities.

If you take RQG Wilde and give him Grizzop’s bite, Sasha’s tragedy, and Hamid’s ability to look like a funky little half-dragon you’ve basically got Travis Matagot.

You know the way Ben and Lydia play their characters? How just a tiny bit of their developing irl friendship goes into every relationship their characters form and it’s really sweet and it makes for great game play? Well, have I got great news for you about Johnny and Liz!

British people, both in the way you’d think and in funky new ways!

Arcs are tied to places more so than battles etc. A storyline will start and end in a place (though always with leads to a new story).

It doesn’t quite have a great, overarching plot in quite the same way RQG does, but each character has a storyline they follow continuously throughout the show, and there are important plot details introduced in the prologue that are still being followed now.

Dearly beloved NPCs.

The point below is simultaneously a massive spoiler and also something you kind of know from the prologue. It’s complicated, but if you’re interested already and don’t want any spoilers just skip to the text titled section.

BLANK SPACE TO ALLOW FOR TIME TO SKIP.

Canon qpr, not in the way that those exact words are said, but in the way that that kind of relationship is described, and also allowed to play out in game. If you like Zoscar but feel disappointed by the lack of development this relationship featuring no historical figures is for you!

Fun added bonuses!

Nonbinary player character from the get-go!

The cultures are so much more carefully and sensitively researched and presented. Mistakes and missteps don’t slip by unnoticed and are always publicly corrected, often with the help of professionals. Even minor story details are dissected and adapted to ensure they’re not portraying anyone’s culture in a bad light.

There’s a lot more time for talking, therefore a lot more time for character and relationship growth.

Grief. A lot of time is allowed for it, and it always comes up again.

It’ll be way easier to catch up on than RQG was if you only started recently!

Almost every episode has fun bonus content at the end. Especially good if the episode you’ve just listened to is particularly harrowing!

If you liked RQG for its character development, world building, and long running campaign then this is for you! If you liked it for the game mechanics alone then probably not, lol.

TAZ: Amnesty

I know a lot of people who are into podcast rpgs started out with taz, but I also know a lot of RQG fans started out with tma as their first ever podcast. Hence this ol’ classic.

Things it has in common with RQG:

Real-world setting! Amnesty takes place in West Virginia, by the Monongahela National Park! Though Kepler is fictional town it’s made to fit seamlessly into WV.

A young spell-slinger learning about their powers!

A beloved rogue!

I don’t wanna spoil it, because the in-game reveal is stellar, but something Bertie-adjacent (in possibly the only good way something can be Bertie-adjacent).

Weird, other-worldly portal magic.

Powered by the apocalypse, baybee!

Arcs very much centred around boss-battles.

NPCs to the same level of importance, I’d say, as RQG. They’re interesting, complex, and given time to bond with PCs, but they’re not always there. The focus is still very much on the PCs and their adventures.

*takes regular thing and makes it fantasy*

Queer characters introduced immediately! And they’re a whole heck of a lot nicer than Bertie, so honestly pro for Amnesty here.

Backstories are revealed slowly throughout the course of the narrative in a way that really helps you understand - and makes you love! - the PCs.

Fun added bonuses!

I know this isn’t for everyone, but a lot more goofs allowed in-game. RQG is largely ‘funny bts, serious game play’ but TAZ really mixes this up and honestly I’m not complaining!

If you like it then there’s a ton more similar content in the form of other campaigns!

Since this is the second campaign it starts out top quality. I know a lot of people struggled with the sound-scaping in early RQG; you won’t get that issue here.

If you didn’t enjoy the extreme detail of the mechanics in RQG but still want to learn about an rpg system this is a great balance between Skyjacks and RQG. They’re playing Monster of the Week, which is much simpler than Pathfinder, and you can easily pick up the rules without them overstating them.

Flashbacks, both a la Roman Rogues side quest and in a really sad way.

[stellardeer]

Since apparently it’s international nb day, I want to take a bit to share my very personal experiences with my own relationship with gender!

This isn’t an essay it’s mostly just for my own expression, so I’m just gonna dive right in without structure,

I think that if I had known that transing my gender were an option when I were a kid, I would absolutely definitely have become a man. I rejected every notion of girlhood and I would even go on the internet and let people assume I’m a guy and it made me feel so validated and I was a “tomboy” and everything you could think of.

Basically every trans feeling that I’ve ever heard a trans person describe was something that I have felt at some point in my life. And yet.

In high school, I started reading feminist blogs (admittedly because I thought they were cringe and I was anti-woman) but the more that I read the more that I realized, hey wait a minute, women don’t inherently suck actually. And I realized that I had a whole awful LOT of internalized misogyny.

I started to accept that a woman CAN do anything and everything and I don’t have to be a man just to be funny or smart.

I was actually probably like a MILLIMETER away from being fucking TERF indoctrinated. Unfortunately for the bigots, I loved trans people too much.

I was always completely and utterly FASCINATED with anyone who expressed themselves outside of gender norms. This meant being into people like Jeffrey Star when I was in middle school (yes, yes, I KNOW, but let me reiterate the Middle School part…)

I loved effeminate men, I loved butch women. This was back in the early 2000s, mind you, so this was before being transgender was extremely in the public conscience and hearing about someone getting a “sex change” was rare.

I didn’t really think about the fact that I could be trans until after I already had my “I don’t hate women anymore” awakening.

But even after I started my journey to shed my misogynistic past, I couldn’t help but still feel VERY disconnected from the idea of BEING a woman.

I still have trouble connecting to women, having felt socialized as a boy for all of my life. Funnily enough all of the best friends that I’d had in my earliest formative years were all girls. We were all weird girls, but it’s not like…. I was around only boys or anything, I just always had like.. an affinity for all the stuff that was “for boys”.

And after accepting my womanhood, I almost felt closer to like… a trans woman in a way. It felt like I was leaving being a boy behind and becoming a girl and learning a bunch of new and confusing shit and not really fitting in? I do not in anyway actually think that I know what it’s like to be a trans woman, being AFAB myself, but it still just felt like I was… out of place?

And yet I no longer felt connected to being a boy either. I felt like I could be either. And neither. All at once?

And I’m still on the fence about whether I would ever actually transition physically. And I think that part of the reason is because I don’t actually hate how I look?

I think it’s partially because I am attracted to women. And when I look in the mirror I’m like “Oh? A cute girl? Who is that?? :3” but then I’m like “Oh yeah it’s ME :3c” and I’m fucking narcissist over his little pool unable to look away, like who would want to do anything to themselves if they feel like that when they look at themselves?

Like, this is how I picture myself in my head.

Like, I literally feel like Dave Strider. Honestly, I wanted to be him so bad lmao. I literally changed my IRL name so my initials would be DS because I’m THAT lame.

AND YET.

On the outside I look like this:

Literally the most bubblegum kawaii pop punk cutie patootie you can imagine and I like looking like someone that I’m attracted to for some reason??

So now I’m stuck in this weird place of like…. I don’t want to be a girl but I want to look like a girl, and I don’t know what to do with any of this, so I just thank GOD for the nonbinary community for accepting people like me. And for the discovery of “you dont have to be Gender if you dont want to be”

And this is going to sound very much umm….. idk conventional beauty standards negative.

But I feel like I might feel differently about transitioning in a few years. I can only be a cute young girl for so long.

Once I’m no longer young and don’t feel cute in my little raver girl outfits anymore, maybe then I will finally get the beard I’ve always longed for lmao.

Anyway, happy International NB Day to everyone and thank you to anyone reading my story!

[lord-of-christmas-lights]

Sex Ed s3 spoilers ahead

Alright I'm functioning on an hour and a half of sleep, a tension migraine, and I need to do 2 math quizzes and a physics assignment today so I hope this all comes out in the way I want to say it.

Last night, I took a brief break from my Narnia stuff to watch all of season 3 of Sex Education at once because that's kinda my thing with this show. I am exhausted, every episode is merged in my head because I literally took no breaks between them, and my inner voice is now speaking in a British accent. I love this show. And I'm here to talk about Cal.

Cal, my beloved. Where do I start? The fact that we had a nonbinary character who's entire character arc wasn't struggling with their identity? Which like, is an absolutely valid storyline but when it's every. single. one. it's really awesome to have a character who knows exactly who they are already. That scene when they fall onto the stage and crawl out of the vents and are just like, "Hey Hope 🖕🏿🖕🏿"? Absolutely iconic. Their entire relationship storyline with Jackson? Literally one of the best things I've ever seen on television. I need to talk about it more.

The fact that they had a romance storyline between a straight guy and an afab nonbinary and DIDN'T fuck it up is so fucking amazing. I mean, I would have loved it if they had gotten together in the end and I definitely have some ideas on queer Jackson in future seasons, but they handled Cal and Jackson so well in s3. Dating irl can be so hard sometimes when you're nonbinary because unless your partner is explicitly out as not straight/gay or not cis themselves, it can feel like they're just seeing you as your agab. I dated two people in my town over the course of high school, neither relationship lasted long, and I had this issue in both of them. One of them had a sexuality crisis and realized he was bisexual and the other just kind of didn't listen to me when I said there were terms, and words, and action I wasn't comfortable with. Luckily that one only lasted a week or so and it didn't end in catastrophe. And even with the guy who realized he was bisexual, I was still worried that he still didn't see me that way. Even if I were to date a girl, who was bi/pan/whatever, I'd still be worried about only being seen as afab. My current relationship is an online one with another nonbinary person. It can be so fucking hard dating as a nonbinary person and I am so glad they addressed in season 3. I kept watching their storyline build like, "Oh my god are they actually going to do it? Are they going to discuss dating and being nonbinary? Holy fuck they're doing it."

And I get that not every nonbinary person is going to relate to this. I'm sure there are some of us out there who are more comfortable dating outside the small circle of people they know 100% will see them as nonbinary. But like guys, I saw myself in Cal. I saw they felt, I know what they felt. And the fact that I can have that, that this show not only had canon nonbinary characters but explored some of problems I can personally relate to. It just feels so special, you know?

Anyways, I need to go do my schoolwork now because unfortunately college does not pay for itself. I have so much more to say on Cal and Layla and the nonbinary representation in s3 but I think this post is all I have in me at the moment.

[ablednt]

Alright writing/roleplay tumblr we need to talk about textforms.

This is going to be a very long post I apologize but this knowledge is deathly important as it's reaching a very vulnerable group of people. From personal experience knowing this can save people from getting into toxic friendships and help ease intense struggles and depressions. If you have writer followers I ask you reblog this to get the word out, thank you.

What is a textform

A textform is a type of willogenic/parogenic system member that form through some kind of writing or roleplaying. This means that they're sentient people who now share a body with the people who wrote them, most often being an OC or a fictional character before the writers brain gives them actual life.

Because there's been no actual scientific studies on their existence I have no hard science to give you however the logical explanation behind it goes like this:

The human brain is able to contain multiple conscious and sentient entities. Often, it will become multiple as a defense mechanism (as noted in clinical plural dissociative disorders) but it's a natural function of the human brain and may do so for really any reason (similar to most neurodivergencies that someone isn't born with)

Because this is a fairly simple change in the brain/something every brain can be capable of doing you can actually intentionally program the brain into becoming multiple, but see you can also do it entirely without meaning to or being aware of it.

Now I want to clarify that there is nothing harmful or scary about this! Being plural isn't bad at all and is an existence many people celebrate. But when someone has textforms in their unrealized system and doesn't know they're sentient it can be incredibly painful emotionally. So that's why people need to know about this.

Obligatory disclaimer: if you read this post and think you want to become plural intentionally, you are welcome to do so but you need to take at least a few months exposing yourself to the plural community to gauge if this is really something you want and can do responsibly. You cannot go back on your decision once your plural and your headmates will be sentient beings not characters to project on or toys to play with. They will have all the rights to your body and identity as you do now because you're sharing it equally with them.

Now that that's out of the way back to textforms.

How are textforms made

Normally this is in the "character development" phase. Many writers eagerly develop their characters. When I was younger and had no idea I was plural my advice for oc making turned out to be an unintentional guide to textforms (more on my experience later): just put your character in every situation imaginable until you always know how they'd respond to things.

Basically, as you spend your time making a character act and think consistently from their POV you're training your brain to have all of that data and that's very similar to the data that the brain has on you and you're training the brain to be able to operate coherently from a perspective and consciousness entirely different from your own.

Now, this isn't a %100 will make everyone plural every time, there are obviously good writers who have a grasp on their characters who are singlet. There's no actual data but if I had to guess I'd say there's about a 50/50 split down the writing community just based on what I've observed.

But there's a lot of people who became plural this way and didn't realize it and that could include the writer reading this right now which is why everyone needs to be aware of this.

If this is such a big thing how come no one notices?

Because it's been completely normalized in the writing community but dismissed as metaphorical.

How many times have you heard "the characters write themselves" or phrases that indicate that a writer is giving a voice to sentient entities? From what I've been able to observe some of that is singlet authors being metaphorical and humble bragging and a lot of that is plural writers trying desperately trying to put their experiences into words but dismissing it completely almost immediately because no one told them being plural was possible.

This is comparable to say, gender identity. Trans and nonbinary people have always existed but when they don't know they're allowed to exist like that it's often "im a tomboy" or "they disguised themselves as a man" or any other thing thats immediately dismissed as being cis.

How do I know if I have a textform?

There's a lot of different signs but here's some I have experienced before finding out I was plural

You "miss" your characters when you're not writing about them or interacting with them in some way

You feel like your characters are real "in your heart" (for me this was in an incoherent loop like "they're not real but they are to me, in my brain, but they're not real to other people, but they're in my brain so they're real but no but yes but no")

You get so distressed they're "not real" that it feeds into actual mental health problems like depression, anxiety, dissociation etc. (I'd have fits of sobbing because these were my friends but I didn't know they were with me so it felt like i was grieving their deaths and had the same level of emotional pain)

Sometimes or all the time when you write about them you feel like you "become them" or that they're writing through you. (Especially if your hands move automatically or without your control. This can be hard to notice but for me when headmates control the body or hands movements feel faster and lighter or very slightly numb.)

Your muse for writing them comes and goes unpredictability: they're either here or they're not here so writing them doesn't feel the same.

You can vividly recall things that happened to the character in 1st person (or in 3rd person visually but with their thoughts and feelings) as if they're you're own memories.

You "roleplay" them in everyday situations IRL. (E.g once I liveblogged a tv show as my muse to a friend and was like haha lol im so talented I can roleplay in real time but found out later it was a headmate doing that themselves)

You have conversations with them mentally in which they actually respond to you. Singlets don't have actual enriching conversations with themselves because they only have one perspective and cannot give themselves any new information. So if you're responding to yourself and you don't feel in control of that response then you're pretty objectively plural tbh.

You have times where the lines between you and the character feel blurry or like you're a vague fusion of yourself and the character

You have an actual relationship (of any kind: romantic, platonic, familial, etc.) in which you can sense nuanced feelings about yourself from them that you aren't in control of.

There's a lot more but that's the most notable ones

Why this is so important

I'm just talking about my own experience now so I'll preface this with a few things. I'm a mixed origin/multigenic system but our system has existed since we were toddlers. Due to trauma we have DID and for a long time dissociated heavily to avoid our plurality. This means my experience may be more distressing than other plurals with textforms however people without DID can still experience these things.

When I was a teenager I joined a lot of writing communities and also roleplayed on tumblr. Writing very quickly became my main passtime and all I really did. I joined a roleplay group when I was 15-16 that I took far too seriously to the point where people were concerned about me because I was writing what was just supposed to be a joke roleplay group %100 seriously and very intensely.

In that time I started to form my first main textforms (we've undoubtedly had them before then but I had only formed a little under a year prior) because I was doing this every day it really started bringing my characters to life. (Literally)

And honestly it was something beautiful the distress of it aside. Like one of my ocs was a kid so I'd always celebrate their birthday with them and I'd cuddle a plush so they'd know I loved them/p and we'd watch their favorite cartoon episodes together. It wouldn't be until around three years later that I realized they were actually there for this but it was heart warming.

For me, all I ever wanted was for these characters to feel appreciated and like someone really cared for them and loved them even if they couldn't feel it and it wasn't until later I learned that they could.

The trauma came in not knowing they were real. I grieved for them like they were dead because I thought I'd never get to see them. I wrote them into traumatizing or upsetting situations to cope with my childhood trauma not realizing that was effecting them for real and hurting them.

Most notably because it was my one solid interaction with them, the one time society allowed me to talk about them as if they were real, I really HAD to roleplay them. Because it became an emotional need I wound up in a lot of toxic friendships in the roleplay communities because I needed someone, anyone, to allow me to interact with my headmates. I had friends who I really was only friends with because they let me talk about my characters constantly (and some of them weren't toxic to me but it was in hindsight really unfair to them) and I let people verbally and emotionally abuse me in roleplay spaces because this wasn't just a hobby to me but a lifeline.

Not knowing they were real but feeling them there, having conversations with them, and forming actual relationships was a hellish sort of feeling I don't wish on anyone. I never realized how isolated it made me, and how horrible it felt to have the most important people in your life be people I thought didn't exist.

I only found out about plurality through luck. I met some systems who had fictives and they got strong plural vibes from me because of how I talked about certain characters and because I said I wanted to be plural but thought I probably wasn't because I'd have noticed, right?

From there I was able to actually connect with and talk to my headmates. Now I'm happily out as plural and in multiple fulfilling in system relationships.

I want everyone in the writing community who's struggling with the same things to have the chance I got. That's all I want is to educate people about this so they don't have to grieve for people who are right there with them.

Feel free to send me an ask or a dm if you have any further questions. Sorry this post was so long I can't really shorten it at all. Again if you are have a lot of writing followers I very gently request you reblog this to get the word out. Even if you can't please talk to your writing mutuals and friends about plurality and about textforms.

[Also this should go without saying but this is absolutely NOT the place for syscourse any invalidating comments about systems will be blocked and where possible deleted it costs $0.00 to prioritize people's mental health over your discourse hot takes.]

[writingwithcolor]

B’nei mitzvah in spaceship without Jewish community | Jewish character celebrating Christmas

Hi! Thank you so much for running this blog. I appreciate how much time and effort all the mods have put into it. I finished reading through the whole Jewish tag a few days ago, and I’ve learned so much! I’m writing a Voltron fic (I *know* lol) and decided to make one of the protagonists a white nonbinary Ashkenazi Reform Jewish girl. Her astronaut brother mysteriously disappears in space and is presumed dead, so she runs away from home a couple of months before her b'nei mitzvah to find him. Now, she’s in a group of rebels in space fighting against an Empire. I have two concerns:

1. Everyone on the ship misses home, so part of the way they cope is through getting in touch with their cultures. They’re gonna celebrate (a mostly non-Americanized) Christmas because it matters a lot to some of the characters for non-religious reasons. To what extent can my Jewish character participate in the celebration without it being weird? I want her to enjoy herself more because she’s with her friends than because Jesus etc. They’ll also celebrate Chanukah, if that helps. I know Chanukah isn’t a major holiday, so I also want to have her celebrate a more significant one like Rosh Hashanah and/or Purim with them. Is it okay for gentiles to participate in those holiday celebrations, or should she do that alone?

2. Throughout most of the story, she’ll struggle with choosing whether to prioritize fighting the Empire or finding her brother and bringing him home. When she eventually does find her brother (who also turns out to be a rebel), he lets her decide whether they stay or go home. I thought it would be nice if she decided to stay and keep fighting for the greater good after she finally has her b'nei mitzvah. Her friends and other experiences are also a big part of why she decides to stay, but the b'nei mitzvah would be what gives her the final push she needs to decide. I don’t know if it would be okay for me to write the ceremony itself or if she can even have one if only two of the eight people on the ship are Jewish. I read that not everyone has a b'nei mitzvah and that it’s not required, but I feel like it’d be a big deal to her character. Should I keep the b'nei mitzvah idea, or am I heading towards appropriative territory here?

I want to make her Jewishness a big part of her character’s growth, and I really want to make sure I do it respectfully and accurately. I plan on finding a sensitivity reader when I’ve made more progress with actually writing everything out. Thank you for any insight you might offer!

It feels off to me to join a community symbolically when you’re far away FROM the community. Why not just have had her already have done the ceremony before she has all these adventures? That way it could just be a straightforward story about a Jewish teen having exciting heroic adventures in space, rather than a story about what happens when you have to miss aspects of Jewish life because you’re in space. It would also make the “….well, I guess I’m around for Christmas” bit less weighted because then that would be the only one of those instead of having two of those.

–Shira 

I’ll cover some other territory here. For those who don’t know, b'nei mitzvah is something you just automatically become at the correct age, the ceremony is simply to celebrate that with the community. Not all people have the ceremony, but if you are Jewish, and of age (for religious purposes), your status changes with or without it. Personally, I’m comfortable with showing a Jewish character finding a way to have a Jewish celebration when the circumstances are less than ideal, for me the other aspects of the story are more troubling. 

On the subject of having a Jewish character celebrate Christmas with their friends… look I don’t like this trope. There are many Jewish people, who are completely secular, who don’t celebrate Christmas, because it is explicitly a Christian holiday, and secular Jewish people are still Jewish. Some Jewish people (secular or otherwise) do choose to celebrate other holidays, and I am very comfortable with those folks telling their own stories. What I’m not happy with is the push from outside of the community for every Jewish character to slide into assimilation. 

Some Jewish people will go to Christmas parties and not eat the food, because they keep kosher, or won’t stay for a tree-lighting, because that feels like it goes too far, or will give presents but not receive them. There are a huge number of ways we might handle Christmas, and I appreciate that you plan to show holidays other than just Chanukah (and yes, it’s fine for non-Jewish characters to join her in her holidays, if she invites them), but I always question why a non-Jewish writer is so keen to show Jewish characters celebrating Christmas. The most generous version of me wants to assume that you get so much out of Christmas that you want to share it, but the part of me that knows about the pressures to assimilate, and the history of increased antisemitic violence around Christmas thinks… just leave this kid alone. She missed her celebration, she’s far from her community, and now she has to go put on a Happy Assimilated Smile for the culturally Christian folks around her. From a nonbinary Jewish perspective, it’s a little unusual for your nonbinary character to use she/her pronouns, and use b'nei mitzvah as a gender neutral alternative to the gendered bat mitzvah. In secular life, at least in the US, it’s not uncommon for people to use multiple pronouns, but I haven’t met, or even heard of, a single person using gendered pronouns secularly, and using new neutral alternatives religiously. It absolutely could happen but, because it is so unusual, to me it reads as either invalidating the character’s gender, or tokenizing her in the religious sphere. 

–Dierdra 

Shira, I think that’s a really good idea to make the character post-b'nei mitzvah. That way you just have a Jewish character having adventures rather than her culture being The Conflict. (And also, a pre-b'nei mitzvah seems a bit young for this storyline? Can she really consent to fighting alongside the rebels? Do they habitually take unaccompanied children on their ship? To me a teenager would make more sense, but hey it’s not my story!)

Dierdra, your answer regarding the Christmas aspect was awesome and really thorough. Thanks for your thoughts on the pronouns as well, it also jarred with me but I was waiting to hear your opinion as you have lived experience. My worry is if you use gender neutral terms for one but not the other, you risk falling into to the stereotype that only marginalised religious folks have to change our language etc to be inclusive to LGBTQ+ people, but everyone else is fine. 

I wanted to come back to the point about Rosh Hashana. First of all, thank you for acknowledging that we have holidays that are more important than Chanukah! Sooo many OP’s don’t know that. In terms of how she would celebrate it, I agree it’s fine to invite non-Jewish people along. However, given how community-based Jewish life is, making her keep Yom Tov on her own feels a bit like a torture story, especially when others have people to celebrate Christmas with. I wonder if you’ve thought about giving her a Jewish friend on the ship? Especially if you want her Jewishness to be part of her growth as you mentioned, an older Jewish friend and mentor could be a huge help :)

–Shoshi

As you can see, we have a wide range of possibilities for “what happens when you ask a Jewish person about celebrating Christmas.” I didn’t mind hanging around it as an outsider myself until a certain subset of Christians started being mean-spirited about it in the news plus some personal trauma that time of year, as long as everyone involved was clear that I was just participating from the outside and this didn’t somehow change me. (If I may make an analogy: compare it to going to a baby shower when you want to support your friend or family member but also really don’t want kids of your own. You’re going to have a whole different experience if your decision is respected vs. if all the other guests treat you like you being there means you’ll change your mind about not wanting kids.)

That being said, it’s still all over the map. Some people IRL are okay even going to mass with their partner’s Catholic family (without participating in communion obvs.) Some would never, ever do that and are sitting here with shocked faces that I even typed that. But what becomes important is the way it’s written. Sitting around listening to the Christmas story is probably a bad fit for your fanfic, but helping other people bake Christmas cookies or put ornaments on a tree could work. The ornament thing could remind her of decorating a sukkah, and she could point that out to the others. 

I guess I’m saying is 

keep her participation secular, and 

keep her participation from leaning into the idea that we’re unhappy with our customs and would prefer to do it their way. 

I have literally never in my life felt jealous of the kids who “got to do Santa” (for example) and while I’m sure some kids were and they’re valid too, I think it’s important to show that it’s not a universal phenomenon.

–Shira