#i could write an essay on his sexuality tbh

[toolazytodecide]

Goldfinch status update: Theo just got back to NYC.

I feel like Popper is definitely a metaphor and I’m trying to figure out the details. Something about Theo taking care of him on the bus but also wishing he was a tougher looking dog. Like maybe it’s a metaphor for Theo himself?

Do you have (non spoilery) thoughts on this?

Don't get me started on the dog metaphor. May I remind you what Theo's mom called him? PUPPY!!! Theo is the dog, the dog is Theo. There's something later on that ties Theo to a dog even more. I should google symbolism of dogs... all I can think of is loyalty.

As for Theo calling Popper gay.... Popper wasn't the one admitting he's in love with his best friend in the last chapter.

[rebornrosess]

i think there is something to be said about queer subtext in glass animals songs almost always being likened to obscurity and murkiness throughout zaba vs explicit queer text being likened to the sun in helium as in…literally coming out into the light.

[drinkthemlock]

almost funny to me that pop culture poses alvares as an enfant terrible type who slept with prostitutes and just generally engaged in many such depravities because every single non-fictional work of his (his school essays, personal letters, etc.) pose exactly the contrary. this was a boy who criticized the fashion choices of women at balls and got angry that the emperor didn’t thank him for his pot of jam. he didn’t die a virgin but spiritually he did

[stitched-mouth-vs-the-world]

Just For Research

Pairing: Professor! Rick Sanchez x College Student! GN! Reader.

Summary: When Rick discovers his top student is a virgin, he knows he must change that so she can write her paper on human pheromones.

Warnings: Smut, Intercourse (P in ?), Virginity Loss, Teacher x Student relationship, Age Gap, Virgin! Reader.

Writing Time: 30 minutes.

Word Count: 652.

Format: Kinktober Fic, Day 7.

A/N:

Woke up in the middle of the night and decided to just write this. Sorry for any mistakes, this is not proofread. I'm just really trying to make sure everything is written before October arrives so the quality is some fics might be lacking a little, this might be one of them. This is probably my shortest fic so far. Oh well.I also have completely forgotten what it was like in college. I did about 3 months of Combined Science in the UK before I dropped out for an apprenticeship instead and I don't remember anything about those 3 months. So this could be all completely wrong but tbh I really don't care.I tried really hard to keep it GN, which is getting harder and harder for me due to the lack of gender neutral terms in the English language but I'll keep managing.Hope you enjoy, I've been eager to write something for Rick for ages now.

Here is the masterlist for all my Kinktober works.

---///---

Thoughts were swarming your head, making it almost impossible to think about what was currently happening.

'How did this happen?' You thought, 'This couldn't of been an accident, but how then did it happen?'

You let out a torn scream, but Rick was fast to cover your mouth and silence it.

"Shut up little Whore, or the whole building will hear you." He huffed.

Just a second ago you and Rick was discussing your college assignment. Your assignment was to write an essay about the human and animal pheromones that tell them to breed and compare the two. Something fairly basic for a Combined Science class and as the class's top student, Rick expected this assignment to be a breeze for you.

But he had been wrong. For a top student with a bright future in Science, you had no idea about pheromones. Especially the sexual kind. It was the one thing you hadn't studied yourself in your own time nor had you experienced it.

You had come to Rick after class to hopefully explain the subject better for you or give you good resources to look up but once Rick found out you was a virgin, what you got instead was a private lessons on pheromones that included an experimental or practical that would give you the experience.

So now you were bent over his desk taking all of him like the good little one you was.

"Please..." You whimpered, tired and stretched out to the max. It had only been a few minutes but this was completely new to a virgin.

"Please what, Whore?" Rick glared down at you, still thrusting in and out of you at an ungodly pace.

Rick didn't think this was exactly the best way to show someone who had never experienced sexual feelings what they were like, but to be honest, he didn't care. He was just looking for a reason to fuck you. His prettiest most innocent and intelligent little Princess/Prince who always sat in the front row, listening to him with wide ears.

But this had been a good lesson for you. Your sexual desire and need for Professor Sanchez now more than alive, it was insatiable.

"Please more Sir!" You cried.

Rick was a little shocked, but more than happy to oblige. And quickly increased his speed, you looked down and moaned into the once clean desk.

"Yeah? You like this cock? You want more of it, my little cocksleeve?" Rick groaned into your ears.

"Yes!" You nodded eagerly.

Obviously, you came first. You did so with a scream and giant smile. Rick came not too long after you onto your back, with just a few loud grunt.

You was pretty confident now you was gonna Ace this assignment.

[possiblylando]

I kinda wanna write about sexuality in chainsaw man and how it plays into the stories and characters without ever being "explicit" about any given characters sexuality but it would also probably mean rereading all of csm which I do not want to do right now ! Instead heres a tierlist and brief thoughts and we can see how much of this changes by the time I get around to the full thing.

-Anyone showing interest in Makima (outside of denji) won't be counted towards their sexuality because pretty much all of them were being controlled by her to find her sexually attractive. -Bi Aki is totally fair, however he never seems to show interest in women outside of Makima. Despite Himeno's active romantic advances he never take her up on it. Angel is his only somewhat romantic relationship. -Pochita is the one who conjured up that image of Angel in lingerie. no further comment. -I've seen pretty decent arguments for Denji's misandry being used to cover up homoerotic feelings + the fact beam touching him makes him very uncomfortable most of the time. It might be explored, It might not be. Who knows. -I could probably write an entire fucking essay on whatever the fuck is wrong with Makima because there is way too much to unpack there. Does her manipulation of others into them feeling love for her stem from lust or just lack of emotional closeness? It's probably the latter but with the way she has them act it could be the former aswell. It could be that she can't even comprehend true platonic love due to having been raised without it and so her only way to see love is sexual (would be a near possible parallel to denji). It's a fucking lot I'm not touching with a ten foot poll cause this is supposed to be short. -Power and the Doll Devil are definitively have sexualities but I'm not sure what they are. lmk if you have thoughts (supporting evidence would be nice but vibes are fine tbh)

[stitched-mouth]

Just For Research

Pairing: Professor! Rick Sanchez x College Student! GN! Reader.

Summary: When Rick discovers his top student is a virgin, he knows he must change that so she can write her paper on human pheromones.

Warnings: Smut, Intercourse (P in ?), Teacher x Student relationship, Age Gap, Virgin! Reader

Writing Time: 30 minutes.

Word Count: 650.

Format: Kinktober Fic, Day 7.

A/N:

Woke up in the middle of the night and decided to just write this. Sorry for any mistakes, this is not proofread. I’m just really trying to make sure everything is written before October arrives so the quality is some fics might be lacking a little, this might be one of them. This is probably my shortest fic so far. Oh well.

I also have completely forgotten what it was like in college. I did about 3 months of Combined Science in the UK before I dropped out for an apprenticeship instead and I don’t remember anything about those 3 months. So this could be all completely wrong but tbh I really don’t care.

I tried really hard to keep it GN, which is getting harder and harder for me due to the lack of gender neutral terms in the English language but I’ll keep managing.

Hope you enjoy, I’ve been eager to write something for Rick for ages now.

Thoughts were swarming your head, making it almost impossible to think about what was currently happening.

‘How did this happen?’ You thought, ‘This couldn’t of been an accident, but how then did it happen?’

You let out a torn scream, but Rick was fast to cover your mouth and silence it.

“Shut up little Whore, or the whole building will hear you.” He huffed.

Just a second ago you and Rick was discussing your college assignment. Your assignment was to write an essay about the human and animal pheromones that tell them to breed and compare the two. Something fairly basic for a Combined Science class and as the class’s top student, Rick expected this assignment to be a breeze for you.

But he had been wrong. For a top student with a bright future in Science, you had no idea about pheromones. Especially the sexual kind. It was the one thing you hadn’t studied yourself in your own time nor had you experienced it.

You had come to Rick after class to hopefully explain the subject better for you or give you good resources to look up but once Rick found out you was a virgin, what you got instead was a private lessons on pheromones that included an experimental or practical that would give you the experience.

So now you were bent over his desk taking all of him like the good little one you was.

“Please…” You whimpered, tired and stretched out to the max. It had only been a few minutes but this was completely new to a virgin.

“Please what, Whore?” Rick glared down at you, still thrusting in and out of you at an ungodly pace.

Rick didn’t think this was exactly the best way to show someone who had never experienced sexual feelings what they were like, but to be honest, he didn’t care. He was just looking for a reason to fuck you. His prettiest most innocent and intelligent little Princess/Prince who always sat in the front row, listening to him with wide ears.

But this had been a good lesson for you. Your sexual desire and need for Professor Sanchez now more than alive, it was insatiable.

“Please more Sir!” You cried.

Rick was a little shocked, but more than happy to oblige. And quickly increased his speed, you looked down and moaned into the once clean desk.

“Yeah? You like this cock? You want more of it, my little cocksleeve?” Rick groaned into your ears.

“Yes!” You nodded eagerly.

Obviously, you came first. You did so with a scream and giant smile. Rick came not too long after you onto your back, with just a few loud grunt.

You was pretty confident now you was gonna Ace this assignment.

[spicybylerpolls]

I mean... people act differently in the bedroom. Just point blank, if you look at your friend and go "she would never do that nah." Its possible, she could be a closet freak. No one acts like themselves in the bedroom. So nothing is really out of character unless there is canon material for how they act in such situations.

i just found this on a reddit thread that complains about smut being out of character in fandom in general and it seems like these debates we have re: byler (esp top and bottom, sub and dom) happen everywhere, and tbh, that fact alone speaks volumes? the above argument has been used for byler on this very blog! while it is technically true, it also seems to me to be a bit too obvious and a crutch/excuse for bad writing. for example, the duffers could have said 'mike has never been in a mall before s3, who knows how he'll react?' and then he's opening s3 just twerking on the mall fountain while waving his top around cos he's so excited about all the new shops and the free cinema trips and ice cream. i mean, technically its possible, but is that really mike?

thats a very infantile example because sexuality is complex. but my point is: I KNOW people do act differently in the bedroom, because it brings out another side of people, but the point stands about what 'out of character' actually means, and in writing you need a set of rules decreeing the boundaries of a fictional character - a personality outline - because otherwise their edges blur and they become everyone and no one. and i think this is the problem with lots of smut, as this user wrote:

It's sex scenes where characters stop being themselves and just start being people who are having sex. The sex scenes that feel very could-be-in-any-fandom. Like, for example, when people stop talking like themselves, and not because it's dirty talk or kink or whatever.

THIS! the amount of smut i've read where mike and will could suddenly be interchangeable with any character from any story anywhere, because theyre just two bodies doing sex acts. there are carbon copy phrases and buzzwords (apparently there's even a famous essay on this, says one user: 'you may enjoy ariaste's one finger/two fingers/three fingers/cock rant...')

this is what i mean when i say bad writing. someone on the thread explained that 'A lot of fanfiction is wish-fulfillment, and many of us want to believe the characters we're attracted to are sex gods, even if there's no canonical evidence of it.' the idea of mike and will being sex gods made me laugh and i think very few people who discuss byler seriously here believe they would be, but the operative phrase here is 'characters we are attracted to.' i think this is an unspoken part of fandom, and what divides fans who create fanworks, and original creators. the argument 'the duffers aren't creeps for writing teen sex so why are we?' does hold much water, not because writing smutfic makes you a creep, but because fans are infatuated with characters in a way that original creators usually aren't.

but why not? i dont think it's weird or bad to fall in love with a character. but this still doesnt answer the question of why many writers choose to lean towards this tried-and-typical smut style rather than aiming to emulate the characterisation or writing style of the original creators. so....

why do people think this might be? here are some of my suggestions, and i would love if some of the people who respond are also people who have written/thought about writing their own smut and answer honestly about their thought processes! choose the best that applies to you. thanks to all who partake!

A) the only access to erotic literature i've had in general is via fanfiction, so i can't see any other way of writing it.

B) i've read published erotic fiction and i end up emulating that rather than fanfiction, so i dont think my work is tropey or fanfic-typical.

C) i've read published novels that include sex written in a way i like, so i try to take inspiration from that instead.

D) i write sex the way I have sex/think about sex i've had in real life.

E) i write sex the way I imagine/want to have sex in real life, and this is mostly influenced by porn/fanfiction fantasies.

F) i write sex the way i imagine/want to have it in real life, and this is mostly influenced by my own individual imagination/life experience rather than porn/fanfiction.

G) i prefer the writing style in much of smut fanfiction (e.g. tropes and well-used phrases) because i find them genuinely realistic to character.

H) i prefer the writing style in much of smut fanfiction (e.g. tropes and well-used phrases) because i find them hottest and i typically prioritise this over realistic characterisation.

I) i worry that if my smut is too personal or doesnt read as familiar, people won't like it and i typically (but not always) prioritise audience response over artistic expression or experimentation. i want to add to the canon of byler smut in a familiar way.

J) i try to prioritise what i genuinely think the characters would do during sex rather than my own fantasies/projections/aspirations for either the characters or for myself.

K) i don't usually think this hard about smut.

L) i believe that smut fanfiction, including tropes and well-used buzzwords, does make genuinely compelling and wonderful reading, and i'm happy with the state of smut in general.

Please note that the purpose of this blog is not to be creepy or to make anyone uncomfortable. That's why I created the #spicy byler tag (I will tag all polls with this). If you don't want to see this blog or anything related to it on your feed, please block that tag. Not everyone is comfortable with this sorta stuff, and that's okay.

[kitspindles]

anyway time for a hot take that's probably been discussed a million times already but. essay time!!

I don't think that Will was meant to be Rick's solution for Nico's trauma-- the main solution as in, "Oh, he has a boyfriend now. Everything is all better, no more trauma, he's cured!" I don't think it's like that, though I can definitely understand how some people might see it that way. Putting aside the issue of whether or not their relationship was rushed for the moment... When someone is trying to heal from and process their trauma it sometimes helps to just have another person around to be there, to talk to, to have a friend in.

For a character like Nico, who spent seven books since his introduction (subsequentially four years) pushing away everyone, never opening up about himself, and feeling like he had nowhere to go, having a friend, a real friend, to fall back on is an integral step in overcoming his trauma. We saw this in his friendships with Jason and Reyna, where he was able to share important aspects of himself to them and come away feeling like a bit of the burden had been lifted, even for a moment-- or at the very least like he could speak to another person without scaring them away (tbh, Rick did Nico dirty with the way the majority of the Seven treated him, but that's a discussion for another time). Having someone close to confide in is something that Nico desperately needed but wouldn't allow himself to have-- something he hasn't really had since Bianca died. (Yes, Hazel came along eventually, but even then Nico kept quite a bit from her).

That's where Will is important. Again, yes, maybe Rick didn't need to push them together as boyfriends right off the bat (though they were arguably barely bfs in The Hidden Oracle, still in that "new relationship" phase, and by this point it had been about 6 months since they officially met in The Blood of Olympus, so I like to believe that they were friends first during that little time-skip between series), but regardless of the status of their relationship, Will is still immensely important to Nico taking that step in the right direction. He's one of Nico's first true best friends. They clearly care for each other and help one another.

Anyone who's read the Trials of Apollo fully knows that Nico's trauma is not gone just because he has a boyfriend. I mean, the poor guy has to sit near Mr. D, Dionysus, the god of madness, just to keep it together most days. It's literally stated that he has PTSD and waking dreams. Not even Will can make these problems go away, and he says as much himself. It hurts Will that he and Nico's other friends can't help him more, but that's just the reality of trauma and healing. Having someone to lean on certainly helps, but it isn't a magical cure, and I think Rick knows at least that much.

On that note, I have faith that the Solangelo book will tie up the loose ends of the relationship and answer the fandom's lingering questions and concerns-- how did they start dating, how are they actively working to help each other, more about Will's character and his own trauma (and gods know this boy has to have some), etc., etc. I think we're in for a good wrap-up since the book is co-written by Mark, who knows how to write about trauma and sexuality, and was brought in to help because Rick knew he couldn't do it on his own.

Anyway, all of this just to say: Will is the friend that Nico always needed, and regardless of the status of their relationship (friend or boyfriends), that's an important role for Nico's character to have in his life and a necessary step in healing from... everything.

[zhouxiangs]

Thank you for not only humoring me but also responding to my angry rants in a measured and thoughtful manner! It's post ep-12 now and tbh I've managed to eliminate most of the full-on Way hate from my feed via judicial use of the blocking tool! Which means I can't tell if the small swell of sympathy I've seen since the most recent ep is because, by using Pete as a conduit, the show is inviting us (and Babe) to, if not outright forgive, at least acknowledge the coercion and abuse that has informed Way's actions, or if general opinion has not in fact changed, but my extensive blocking has merely succeeded in shutting out the angry mob!

It is curious, though, the complete disconnect some ppl seem to be experiencing vis a vis what the show itself - not just us crazy apologists! - is trying to tell us about Way and his motivations and psychology, vs the funhouse mirror version they see: a toxic incel who can only be redeemed by death. And yes, the hypocrisy of those who write essays pleading for Kenta's salvation whilst simultaneously wishing the worst for Way...I don't get it. Well, actually I do have some thoughts as to why.

I think some ppl can't see past - and will never be able to, and I won't judge them for that - the attempted sexual assault, but, more than that, they haven't contextualised it (ugh I know how that sounds but bear with me!). They still see it in terms of Way trying to rape Babe cos he thinks his ten years of pining mean he's entitled to him. They still see his actions as motivated primarily by a twisted version of possession and obsession masquerading as unrequited love. And if that was the case I would be right there with them, baying for blood! But for reasons both of us have discussed in length already, I see it very differently (and I'm fairly confident this is also how the show intends us to see it): I see someone who has been manipulated, abused and groomed for years, who is being held at metaphorical gunpoint, feeling he has no choice but to do this abhorrent thing because otherwise everyone he loves will suffer an even worse fate (insert usual disclaimer here about how this doesn't excuse or justify said actions). We've talked about how Way had TEN YEARS to use his power to assault Babe should he want to, and yet it's only when the walls are closing in, Tony's piling on the pressure, and Way's true identity has been revealed that he finally feels there's no going back and now he has no other choice but to go through with it. I do think maybe the show hasn't been explicit enough in spelling out that this was Tony's plan for Way the whole time - not sure if it's a subs thing, or an attempt not to lean too heavily into the mpreg thing, but they could have been clearer about that (I will be forever bitter that out of all of Tony's 'kids', we didn't get flashbacks of Way's background or his time as a child in Tony's house. I get why, to keep the reveal as a surprise, Way was kept as a bit of a mystery up to that point, but now it's out in the open it would be really useful and illuminating to see how he came to be there, how Tony planted the seed in his mind, how he met Babe, if he'd ever met any of the others, etc. I think show dropped the ball in general a tad after the big reveal - Way's screentime was reduced to drunkenly moping around in bars, which doesn't necessarily engender much sympathy! We could have had more about the meds, seen more of the real life ramifications for him if he's no longer of any use to Tony, etc.).

Other reasons I think ppl are quicker to forgive Kenta than Way: Kenta's abuse and subjugation have been shown much more regularly and explicitly - Way appears to be out and about living life freely, has his own place, his own income, his own friendship group, etc. whereas Kenta is more literally trapped/constrained/manhandled. And although we were told by Tony himself that Way is still effectively a prisoner, it's the ol' show vs tell thing again - that's still nowhere near as powerful as seeing Kenta's very continual and visual degredation. I also don't think it helps that the one scene where we are both told and shown the truth about Way's situation and his treatment at Tony's hands comes immediately after the attempted assault, when most viewers, understandably, aren't exactly in the mood to feel sorry for him!

I also think another possible explanation is that Way's actions specifically hurt Babe, our main POV character, and in a very personal way, whereas Kenta's actions a) had a more indirect impact (well, the trafficked children might disagree but they're only hypothetical so we don't really care about them as much!) and b) weren't personal - he didn't betray anyone's trust or friendship or love - so viewers find it easier to accept mitigating factors.

At the end of the day, I mostly just feel sorry for those viewers who either can't see past their own bias (obviously does not include anyone who for personal reasons may have been triggered)/admit they were wrong, or who lack the necessary media literacy to fully engage with the characterisation the show is offering us (hahahah says the self-proclaimed hater of all things Charlie/Babe!!!), since it's an infinitely more interesting and powerful and tragic story if you see Way, and Way's relationship with Babe, through open, receptive and, most importantly, sympathetic eyes.

my pleasure! i'm happy i have someone to talk with way about; the friends i usually theorise and cry about blorbos with are still way behind so i can't tell them anything bc i don't want to spoil them, and i've been venting to another friend (more like talking her ear off) but she's not watching or really interested so it's not really the same even when she has something to say lol

and yeah, at the end of the day we're responsible for curating our fandom experience, inasmuch as people don't tag hate etc. i haven't blocked anyone bc for some reason i feel bad blocking people which i know is stupid (edit: never fucking mind i am blocking now), but i do follow very selectively bc i get easily overwhelmed by my dash, so everything i've seen was either in the tag or by people i no longer follow. this means i have wonderful moots who provide me with plenty of blorbo feels and are not assholes about other characters <3 (fun? fact: my top blorbos are literally way > kenta > pete which is i think i'm no too bothered by the shipping side of things? as in it's not affecting me as it does sometimes the fact that some people are looking at all of this solely through their shipping goggles or whatever... but idk. i don't deal well with hate generally and after some thought i think that's what's bothering me about the whole way situation, bc the character/media you're hating on won't know bc it doesn't exists but their fans will.)

i totally agree, the fact we saw that scene with tony (even if it's clear how terrified way is in his presence earlier) right after the attempted SA didn't help. i wish we'd seen more of his past, maybe a flashback when he was at the bar… because as you said, once again the not showing/telling/letting people infer things isn't helping. specially when people aren't interested in the first place. idk i just like to understand characters independently of if i like them or not so this is! baffling to me! and yeah exactly, the fact that it was personal to babe plays a big part too, never mind how babe himself feels about way since we're already sympathising with him as our main character so…

as my friend (the one that isn't watching but is patting my back in these difficult times) tells me, sometimes people just let their prestablished idea of a character blind them to what the story is telling them. and honestly, their loss. skill issue if you ask me /j

anyway, the ep is about to start. let's hold hands.

[drdemonprince]

hi devon! i recently binged all your medium articles, your writing hits so close to home and has opened so many doors of self-reflection for me, thank you. one of your latest ones was about porn and autism, i have some differing opinions on porn itself, but i enjoyed your perspective on it.

i would love to hear your thoughts on autism and hypersexuality in a broader sense. i’m someone that’s recently realised how much my premature exposure to sexuality and porn in childhood made me hypersexual in a way that really stunted my personal growth and had me traumatising myself with my own compulsive sexual behavior. as an undiagnosed autistic adhd kid i was just grasping after any form of stimulating and self-soothing behavior, but also looking after ways to make myself more interesting and appealing to peers and most importantly boys (because interest from men = value as a human i learned early on). i think i could’ve figured out gender and sexuality stuff a little earlier and avoided my comphet phase had it not been for how obsessed i was with sexualising and objectifying myself in my tweens and early teens tbh. i hope to see more people talking about autism and sexuality. my heart breaks thinking about how so many demonise kids with problematic sexualised behavior when they’re literal children trying to figure out this having a body thing and there’s usually grown-ups around them standing idly by doing nothing effective to help.

Hi there! I love hearing from people who don't share my perspective completely but can still get a lot out of my work.

I alluded to this yesterday, but I don't believe hypersexuality or hyposexuality are a thing. Where do we draw the line where it becomes pathological, and why? Clearly humans have varied in how much they desire and think about sex since the beginning of time, and while we still have not figured out a respectful, appropriate way to cope with the fact of it, children also sometimes have an interest in sex and masturbation and a curiosity about it that is completely value neutral. It's just a thing that happens because children are living human beings.

Unfortunately we inhabit a paradigm where this is supposed to be either ignored or punished and discouraged, and anyone who does bring it up is viewed as having some ulterior motive beyond the liberation of children from abuse. And so if a child is curious about sex or driven to explore it in some way, they only means they have of pursuing that interest is by consuming adult material, which a lot of people look back on having done with a variety of different feelings. It sounds like you saw a lot of porn from a young age that really gave you unhelpful expectations for yourself and others and that it really hurt you, and I'm really sorry to hear that.

I consumed a lot of adult content as a child and a teen, not just porn but also real life gore and jump scare videos and elaborate, violent sexual stories, and of all those experiences, the only one that seemed to scar me was the jump scare videos. Seriously, newgrounds fucked me up, and not because I was playing games like Orgasm Angel. It was shit like kikia that fucked me up. The potential that my most beloved friend, the computer, could start screaming at me and showing me dead babies at any moment meant I was on edge and obsessively read all the comments on every video I ever viewed for like... seven or eight years. Even if a friend or classmate wanted to show me a youtube video, I forced them to read through all the comments and convince me it wasn't a jumpscare video first. For like years.

It might be that the only reason I was able to watch and read and play a lot of porn online as a kid without any real adverse effects was because I had a really specific fetish, and so most of the content I was able to view was of an obviously fictional and fantastical variety or was made directly by the people who starred in it. As I wrote in my essay, I'm glad that I started watching brainwashing gifs on weird websites and masturbating to them as a kid. It helped me feel less alone in my fetish and it didn't scar me, and provided a sexual outlet that was actually pretty safe and private and didn't put me in contact with any adults. It was a really nice pressure valve, a way to stim and zone out and regulate my breathing and get off, and finding content like that helped me to realize there was a whole big wide world out there where freaks like me could be okay.

THAT said, I can understand your experience! Porn didn't fuck me up as a kid, but I did learn some really pernicious sexual norms as a teen, because I had abstinence only education at school and I obsessively read Dan Savage's advice column Savage Love as a replacement for having any kind of credible sex ed. I used to worship Dan Savage. I met him for pancakes once, you can read about my whole complex relationship to him and his work in a very old piece I wrote pre transition here:

Dan Savage's work was really influential on me and on a lot of people of my generation. From his stuff, I learned that I should be good, giving, and game for just about anything a partner wanted -- which meant I pressured myself to do things I didn't always want to do. He normalized a kind of casual, unarticulated nonmonogamy among people of my age group including everyone I dated -- and so being open without really discussing what that meant was the norm for me from age 19 until about age 23.

Dan Savage wrote that blowjobs come standard and that any model who is not equipped with them should be returned to the lot -- thats really how he described women who didn't do oral. As broken cars. Dan Savage said that asexuals should only date other asexuals and probably werent real anyway. He said vaginas looked like canned hams dropped from great heights. He said a gay trans guy who couldnt take T for health reasons was 'delusional' for wanting to date fellow gay men. Reading Dan Savage fucked me up, and it's not even his fault -- he was just an outspoken faggot with an advice column that was always clear in reflecting his biases and agendas, and I was just a horny confused kid with no sex education and no where else to learn about sex other than porn and the back of the local alternative mag.

So, this is all a very long and meandering way of saying that I'm sorry you also got attached very young to untrustworthy sources of sexual information and that they also scarred you and left you pressured to be something you were not. I was there. I think many of my generation were and some still are. and not just the Autistics. I know so many people who got swept up in the messages that conventional porn and writers like dan savage had to peddle -- straight people, queer people, poly people, disabled people, everyone. The sad part is that Dan Savage for all his faults was still a lot more progressive than where many of my peers turned, which was sites like efukt or the predecessors to the chan sites and shit. It was brutal out there.

It's also the case that many of us Autistic people are prone to intense fixation and rumination and obsession, by neurotypical standards, sometimes to our detriment, sometimes in a completely neutral way that would cause us zero harm if it weren't for all the societal stigma and judgement. and that can mean that, especially when we are lonely and closeted teens, that we retreat into a lot of damaging digital messages and imagery, and I think a lot of bad, sexist straight porn unfortunately played that role in a lot of people's lives. My version of that was instead compulsively reading pro ana livejournals (as a teen) and then later terf detransition blogs (in my 20s). So again I don't think it's necessarily a phemoneon of porn per se, but obviously there is a lot of really toxic shit out there that has warped a lot of people's viewpoints around sex and relationships, I can't deny that.

I wish I knew what the solution was to help prevent future generations of kids from going through the kinds of damage you and I went through, but I think we are so far from being prepared as a culture to have this conversation that most attempts to broach it end up making things worse for kids in all kinds of scary new ways -- parents heavily monitoring and controlling their kids browsing habits for example. That sure as hell isn't going to help a closeted queer kid who is exploring themselves in most cases. Instead of building a world that is more liberatory and supportive to kids, we just keep trying to control them more and more, and impose more and more strict standards on them, which always hurts the weirdest and queerest among us the worse. It fucking sucks. Shit. i really am going to have to write about about child liberation one day wont i

[roguish-gallery]

What are your gender and orientation headcanons for the Rogues you write for (keeping in mind that anyone can request stuff etc)? Just curious because I always like your takes, thank you!!

Oh for sure!! Thank you for the kind words!

This is just my personal opinion, but honestly... I kinda picture all of them to be bi/pan to varying degrees, but nothing specific. In other words, I envision everyone to have a nebulous relationship with their sexuality, if that makes sense. for their gender, It just varies. I'll try to elaborate more for everyone down below:

Bane: For him, I think he's casually bi/pan, but he doesn't use any labels for himself. He likes who he likes, and he doesn't see any need to fret over it. I mostly see him as cis because I prefer sticking to his canonical origin story, which hinges on him being AMAB (In Santa Priscan law, only AMAB children can be incarcerated for the charges of their father). But! Transmasc Bane is fucking great and I love seeing people's take on it!

Catwoman: Selina is canonically bi/pan, which I think suits her lol! I use she-her pronouns whenever I write for her.

Clayface: I base my take on him from the Harley Quinn Show! He's fluid in every sense of the word and doesn't take sexuality or gender seriously. Uses he/him pronouns bc it's easier but kinda fucks around with they/them

Harley Quinn: Again, canonically bi/pan! Uses she/her pronouns and I LOOOOVE transfemme Harley!

Joker: He's like... Bugs Bunny. He's queer and does whatever he wants.

Killer Croc: Cisgender, and is mostly interested in women!

Mad Hatter: I actually... view Jervis as ace (but he doesn't use that label, he would just tell you that he doesn't care). He isn't interested in sex, and prefers different types of intimacy. Mostly cis, but he can get goofy with his gender every now and then. As a treat.

Mr. Freeze: Straight BUT him and Nora are T4T

Penguin: I think he has a preference for ppl who are femme-presenting, but he can warm up to anyone if they pique his interest. Definitely suffered from comphet until he started rubbing shoulders with the other Rogues and realized that he needed to unpack some emotional baggage. I equally like him as cis or transmasc.

Poison Ivy: Canonically bi/pan, and uses she/her

Riddler: HE IS A TRANS MAN. HE IS TRANSGENDER. Also bi/pan but that's canon lmao.

Scarecrow: YALLLLLL I COULD WRITE AN ESSAY ON THIS MAN. Definitely aro, and definitely repressed bc of religious trauma. Never even thought about his identity as a child (raised comphet), and was too busy as a grad student/professor to unpack any of it. As an adult he doesn't really know how to handle attraction to anyone and tries his best to avoid growing attached to people in that way. Jonathan uses he/him but the Scarecrow is a hard he/they/it. He doesn't use labels for himself

Two Face: 100% fruity and tbh it's kinda insulting that Detective Comics Comics still has him in the closet like this. He has two hands let him goof around with men and women! Like Oswald, I'm equally open to cis or transmasc interpretations

[nibwhipdragon]

Alright, Joseph for the character ask I wanna read an essay

You all really know who to ask for these character ask games don't you. Thank you I have. Written a lot. I apologise in advance if my writing seems to be discombobulated at times or if it feels like I'm going in circles, my brain has been like mush lately I cannot essay properly rn

Tagging @pey-no-attention-to-me as you asked for this too :3

It's all under the cut because I wrote SO MUCH.

Sexuality headcanon: Bisexual fr ❗️❗️❗️ Though I did see something abt Joseph being aro on here ages ago and it's been rattling around in my head ever since...him being aro/aroace actually kinda gives a reason as to why he's Like That imo, I like to dabble in it. Also it's really funny

Gender headcanon: Genderfluid 💥💥💥 It just fits, yknow? Though I am also open to other gender headcanons, I like to dabble in trans man and trans woman Joseph sometimes (I actually did do a screenshot edit with transfem Joseph once, and oh my god I hate hair so much) <3

A ship I have with said character: Caejose is my main ship with him, as you can probably tell. I also love joseq, they're such a sweet little couple, it's so wholesome (we ignore the cheating, though Joseph does have his selfish and bad traits he would NOT cheat, I hate Araki making him cheat just to get another Joestar for the plot). Hmm actually I should write some joseq I haven't written much and when I do it's sidelined by caejose...

A BROTP I have with said character: JOSEPH AND SMOKEY FR!!!!! WE SHOULD'VE GOTTEN MORE OF THEM AND THEIR SHENANIGANS!!!!! THEY WERE SUCH A GOOD DUO SMOKEY WAS THE FIRST FRIEND JOSEPH MADE HAUGHHHHH ARAKI WHY DO YOU DO THIS ALL THE TIME (I need to actually work on my full rewrite of jjba tbh)

Also I think there's probably something that can be said about Joseph having no proper friends before Smokey. Idk man but the way he always gets so aggressive over the littlest things, but it feels almost defensive in a sort of way to me? Like with the way he immediately demanded to know what was up with the Squid Ink Spaghetti, and the way he was really tentative with starting to eat it once he was told what it was. Yeah that could be chalked down to him just being wary of it as he's not used to the food and he won't know if he'll like it, but with him having no friends and also being arrested 3 times before hitting 20, I have a feeling something else is at play. Joseph was likely bullied in school, if I'm completely honest. That guy 100% did not have a good childhood I can guarantee you that.

And with that likely being the case, his first friend being Smokey kinda has a lot more meaning if you get what I mean. Like they first met because Smokey stole his wallet and ended up being attacked by the police for it. Of course yeah Joseph's not a racist so of course he wouldn't stand for that (ONCE AGAIN, WE IGNORE PART 3 BECAUSE ARAKI LITERALLY CANNOT KEEP HIS OWN CHARACTERS CONSISTENT. GOD.), but the whole arresting thing you'd assume he'd be fine with. And oddly enough he's not, he doesn't want Smokey to get arrested in the first place. You'd think he'd tell them to chill tf out with the racist stuff and leave it at that, but the first thing he tells the cops is that he gave Smokey the wallet – meaning there was no crime committed at all. And the police also only start doing stuff to Joseph after he tried to get Smokey off it scot-free (I feel that this change is more emphasised in the manga, where they straight up ask Joseph why he cares about Smokey as he's white and Smokey is black, I feel like they sorta bring Joseph down to Smokey's level in their minds after Joseph still stays on Smokey's side), so he definitely doesn't do this for his sake as it'd be better for him if he just left it. And with this being Joseph, with his selfish streak, that's quite notable. Personally I think that Joseph could recognise that Smokey wasn't in a good spot if he was stealing in broad daylight like that, he must've been desperate to do that. And once he saw how the police were treating him that just made him wanna make sure Smokey didn't get arrested more. I feel that if he really was bullied in childhood he'd understand the othering going on here (sure he can't understand completely bc getting othered by bullying and getting othered by racism is different. But the similarities ARE there) by the police to Smokey and that's what does cause him to have that REALLY violent outburst towards them (it was deserved, yes, but it didn't need to go that far to get the job done, ykwim). Actually the violent outburst is actually quite notable, seeing that kids that have been abused a lot – because bullying IS abuse – do usually tend to become aggressive and have behavioural and emotional regulation problems later in life as a result of it, sorta like a defence mechanism (and also because being bullied is not a good place to grow up in they also probably didn't have a chance to learn how to regulate emotions, especially if they were being teased and mocked for their feelings and that) and oh my god I'm going off on a major tangent I'll stop now

They also seem to have a sort of brotherly bond with each other, and I love that. They're just really awesome and cool and god I wish Araki had more screen time of them. Part 2 suffers from a lot of pacing issues actually now that I think about it. I'm Normal as you can tell

A NOTP I have with said character: Literally anything incestuous. There's so much incestuous stuff I come across it all the time it's so bad. I hate how Araki goes about writing jjba as he goes along if not for that we wouldn't have had the whole Lisa Lisa bath scene while also being his mother, which I think a lot of the incest stuff comes from. It's just...ew. You can't even get any interesting takes on the narrative with it the majority of the time. Just. 🤢

Also Josekars. Like I can see AUs where Kars ends up turning good and becomes friends or whatnot, Kars is a very interesting character for plots like that, but I simply do not like the ship for em both, it's just not my cup of tea.

A random headcanon: Whenever he had a nightmare as a child, he'd go and sleep in the same bed as Erina, as it'd bring him comfort. However, he still did this even when he was older, until he finally moved out with Suzi. Erina never minded, she'd do anything to make him feel better. (WAAAAHHHHH JOSEPH AND ERINA'S RELATIONSHIP...)

General opinion of said character: do i even need to say.

Well. I think he's very interesting due to his personality and morals being very gray in a way the other Joestars aren't, the other Joestars mainly have their negative traits be in what they do (steal, be a delinquent, etc.) and not their actual personality traits like selfishness and that. He's terribly underused by Araki and also mischaracterised in later parts because it's Araki of course that's gonna happen. I think about him every day for hours at a time he's at the forefront of my mind constantly I'm Normal about him and he's one of the main things keeping my mind tethered to jjba as Sonic's kinda dragging me away from it, hence why Sonic and Joseph are fistfighting in my mind, they both want all my autism RAM so bad you have no idea. Nobody gets him like I do. OK maybe not nobody else, Seaweed and Kirsten get him. Other jjba mutuals don't Josephpost enough/I don't know irl so I can't make a proper judgement on it. He makes me sick I hope he dies. Taking him out for ice cream. Kissing him sloppy (platonically). Detaching his penis so he can never have sex again. Joseph Joestar

[armed-saphire]

NOW ITS UR TURN WHO ARE YOUR MGS FAVS AND WHY!1!1?1!1?1!1?11!1! ٩( 'ω' )و

EHEHEEEE OK SO I'll say my fav from each game

Mgs1 is def Liquid he. He's so overdramatic it's really funny. He did so many backflips while explaining his tragic backstory 🥰 and then he just fucking died and turned into an arm which is the real tragedy (I have so many random HCs for him it's insane... I also rewrote his backstory a little...the recessive thing is so dumb)

Mgs2 I think it's a split between Raiden and Fortune. Raiden I really enjoyed playing as a character who is just... idk how to put it I just like that he's flawed and not some morally perfect charismatic guy. It feels like he's set up to be that way and then he whines about everything and is very dismissive at some points. It feels like he's a real person and not perfectly crafted to be the ultimate stereotypical good guy protagonist who can stay cool and collected in every situation. He has his moments where he lets emotion get the better of him and I like it a lot.

Fortune I have less to say about her but it doesn't mean I like her less. I think she's a really tragic character backstory wise but I also like how she sort of "plays into it" I guess? Ocelot points it out himself near the end of the game ("you couldn't get enough of the drama"). I thought the ending where she found out she could've died any time and she didn't have some magic ability was sad too and I lowkey wish she didn't die and was like redeemed somehow (imagine she comes back in mgs4 and has to go against Vamp or something that would've been so cool)..anyway I guess I didn't actually have less to say I like Fortune a lot blehhh😋

mgs3 AGH.. EVA ILY she is such a well written character and I love her so much I could write an essay on her if I wanted but I'll keep it more brief here. She's like a perfect subversion of the typical sexualized woman in video game thing...it's what she's doing as a spy for the mission and the best part is it doesn't even really work lol nice job snake. The game itself even adheres to whether Eva is in her Eva persona or her Tatyana one. It's....aghhhhghhh so great. (I have so many thoughts about her and Liquid btw)

Mgs4...difficult but probably Screaming Mantis. For real this time not a lot to say about her but I do like her a lot more since playing the game she went from my least fav B&B unit member to my fav one. She was really fun to watch in all her cutscenes and her boss fight was one of the best MGS boss fights I've ever done tbh. The callbacks and references to the first game were so good I won't lie I was giggling kicking my feet a lil bit. Screaming Mantis ily I have so many thoughts <333

Peace Walker ermmm Kaz and Paz equal I can't decide..also maybe Amanda. Yeah I like everyone a lot 😭 and Cécile....not Snake tho sorry lol. I haven't finished the game so I haven't gotten the full character arcs of everyone so it's hard to pinpoint exact explanations but you know I love Kaz forever and ever mwah mwah (I'm also a transfem Kaz truther and I'm RIGHT!!!). Amanda has a lot of really cool tapes explaining a lot of...not really exposition but it gives a lot of great context to her character. And her voice acting especially in cutscenes is some of the best voice acting I've seen in an mgs game so it adds a lot. Paz I need to learn more about her. I know basic plot points but not the inbetween stuff that really lets you get to know her. I do feel really sad for her though, Kojima decided he wanted shock value instead of a female character having a nice ending 🤷‍♀️ Sucks.

Mgsv QUIET!!!! QUIET ILY!!! she's soooooo OUGH. I'm glad a lot of the fandom has fixed her from her extremely flawed portrayal in the game because it shows what really could've been and I think I latch more onto that than the version of her in the game just a little. The foundation they were working with was still really good. The way they show her and venom building such a strong bond despite never having a single conversation is really well done and I like it a lot. Quiet ily my favourite creaturething killgirl my favourite ear biter offer...

[fictofaggot]

i want to see you make a gender ( /maybe sexuality's ) post about the homestucks' sprites like that cool deathbycatgirl did. do it do it do it

i actually made a list for myself right after i saw @deathbycatgirl's original post (haii!) but o didnr make it an image because im soso tireds here you go^_^:

john is a trans girl but wont figure it out until shes like 40 despite being surrounded by transsexuals all the time. also extremely aroacespec to me

rose is cis but like in a really really butch boy way so like cis but not cis she's a trans girl but still a cis girl but literally not cis at all tbh she's like cistrans. also lesboy

jade is a trans girl who can never feel attached to any prns so she just goes with she/it/paw. shes very genderful but even more gender fuckery ensues after grimbark. aroacespec aplatonicspec fuck you

dave is cisgender. trans girl dave has a special place in my heart though. ace

dirk

roxy is a trans catgirl + lovess neoprns + dyke as fuck

jake is 100% aroace and i don't care enough about him to think about his gender sorry

jane my wonderful gal mwaaah mwah mwah she's got that trans girl swagalicious swag i hate cis jane sorry not sorry. mspec lesbian realness

karkat is . . . karkat is certainly something? he's an utter mystery to me i won't lie he's like if emo was a cisgender

aradia is beyond my comprehension in terms of gender. unfortunate type gal. transhet + straightbian + dykefag

tavros TRANS GIRL FUCK YOUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!EXPLOSION SOUND EFFECTS AND KILLING also i definitely think she wants to use neos but is so so afraids

sollux is transfem bigender. but like infinin because he's every boy gender but also every girl gender so hes infinite genders but not like every gender. ljterally just the definition of infinin. bisexual het lesbo fag KABLOOM

nepeta is a crazy transfem cat girl thing fucking beast fucking ravenous animal of a gal. not an ounce of boyness in her except when its funny and/or convenient. uses it/its and every neopronoun paw can get mews claws on and like she/her for a bit of girly fun on the side but not Primarily she/her? he/him too when it's funny. ummm. unlabeled for sexuality only cause i think it'd change so often that labeling would be entirely impossible

kanaya is my wonderful romantic goth vampire trans girl (but like only in terms of gender not actually presentation wise do you understand. her normal outfits are just Too). i think she'd use like 1 set of neos vamp/vamps maybe? and she's a pan lesbian because fuck every thang

terezi is a freak of a girl. every girlfreak girlbeast type gender in existence she can be infinin too for funsies. ummm any prns + a futch dyke who loves boys also

vriska is the most trans girl in the whole entire world. i hate transmasc vriska. also shes too busy being kind of miserable to think about he4 gender but i think if she really sat down and considered she'd be not as binary as she thinks. bi lesbo.

equius trans girl SHUR HTE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!DIE DIE DIE KILLING YOU WITH MY FISTS.shes femme too because i said so. girlfag also. aroacespec as fuck. aplatonic

gamzee non binery any pronounse ok? ok. unlabeled because specifics are too much but mspec queer for sures. aro

eridan trans girl with a bit of nonbinary freakism thrown in for spice and silliness. like vriska in the sense that she thinks she's more binary than she actually is but eridan would figure it out sooner. also a girlfag but likw a boydyke too ok. aroacespec

i understand feferi in a way no one else can anr the only wau i can describe it is genderqueer cis girl but its so much more than that. i could write an essay on it. i think she'd be unlabeled or like heteroflex but im not sure in which direction the hetero occurs

kankri is cis but his fminine and twinkish demeanor confuses the masses constantly much to his chagrin and rage. also he's mistaken for being trans constantly because of his vast knowledge on every discourse ever. canonically aroacespec

damara TRANS GIRL FUCK YOI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK OFF FUCK EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also ummm lesbo or bi or both i think but like in a loveless aroace caused by trauma way

rufioh is cis but also girlish to me i really don't know what to tells you . aroace. also no Pronouns this is the one thing im sure of with any of the dancestors

mituna is entirely unlabeled i couldn't explain it to you if i tried

meulin is an aroacespec trans gay man but in a distinctly and extremely girlfag type of way. . . do u understand . . . do you get me . . .

porrim is so transsexual and such an aroacespec bi dyke i wish j could elaborate on the dancestors more but they're So

latula is a trans girl but like in a way that is so latula core. do you get it. yeah

aranea is really interesting to me in the way that she's cis but also definitely a trans girl but also i don't care at all and it's a mystery to me. she's just so beforus

horuss TRANS TRANS GIRL GO CRAZY GO RAGGGAGHHAHHHHH GAHHHHHHHHHHHsysfluid and horsegender and aroace aplatonic fag with 5000000 neopronouns that no one ever uses including her

i honestly do not care about kurloz at all ummm. bigender boygirl girlboy in a type of way

meenah sucks and i don't like her. ummm cis

also for some other guys i like:

midnight crew and felt are mostly unlabeled and/or cis by nature of their societu and also they just don't feel particularly gender special to me

die is really special to me tho he's my malewife girlhusband but like you wouldnt get it hes only gender in very very specific situations

the exiles are ALL nonbinary fuck you

all the sprites are bigender (i don't care about davepeta at all sorry) (arquius and fefeta are like if bigender was two of the same gender so like gender²)

hal is nothing. like out of sillyness they just refuse

cherubs are both trans in opposite directions but i won't clarify who's which way or why. they're both homo in opposite directions also

[todayisafridaynight]

Throwing in fun (not fun) facts to contribute esp bc I was tagged in the essay: (Sorry in advance this is literally my career and special interest AND I just got back from a training conference about this SO obv I am going to talk too much. Disclosure: These statistics are from peer-reviewed sources AND the National Children's Alliance. The NCA IS an American association, though, so take this all with a grain of salt bc we're applying it to someone whose bg is not American lmao. This is an essay for funsies. CW: discussion of and stats about CSA, Child Abuse) Relevant to the Jo stuff is also that victims of one/any kind of abuse are statistically much more likely to subsequently face overlapping abuse, so knowing he comes from a home where abuse and potential neglect was actively occurring sets Jo-boy up for some sad statistics. I am looking for my notes on the stats for that but it's something stupid high, I wanna say over 30 or 40%.

Additionally, 47%~ of CSA victims are revictimized. Abysmal statistic but mostly just an interesting note if this IS the case/if we choose to interpret Jo this way bc of the other things mentioned in Masu's ask, specifically if we're viewing his unhealthy and ultimately traumatic relationship with Ikumi as a potential example of that revictimization (similarly, coming from a like background, it may have been revictimizing for Ikumi if she had ever experienced something like CSA, as well. It's one of those cases where they both got hurt even if neither of them were at fault for "playing house" as Jo calls it).

Seconding/Adding on to Masu's thoughts about Jo's behavior being as self-destructive as it is because of the compounded trauma of his life, victims of adolescent abuse "engage in health-risk behaviors such as substance use, physical fighting, and risky sexual activity," in far higher numbers than non-victims. We know for facts that adolescent Jo checks at least 2 of those 3 boxes, and that he still puts himself in unnecessary danger as a full grown adult (the Heian Tower fight, and Hoshino's Office fight): An interesting and well-written cycle of trauma and abuse on RGGs part, tbh, but also so narratively telling about how he saw/sees/continues to see himself as more an object than a person. (Love your notes on that btw, it rings very true. I could write an essay on that alone tbh.)

Another weird little thing I notice from both a Doyalist AND Watsonian perspective: Jo's disclosure of his father's abuse would classify as what we call an "accidental disclosure" in the field even though it's clearly intentional that he shares it with Ichi - it's offhanded and markedly unimportant in the story he's telling. He says it passively in a literary sense, as well: "The only thing waiting for me at home was my father's fists." Like homie, that's the most roundabout way you could have said "My dad beat me." Interestingly, up to 50% of [specifically CSA] victims do not state outright that abuse occurs, but disclose it accidentally/offhandedly; and in general, accidental disclosure is more common among people who have also delayed disclosure. Up to 66% of admissions from victims of child abuse come delayed if they come at all.

I think it's a very in-character remark of him to make, but statistically, it lines up with other victims of abuse as a whole. I think it's also just cool that from the Doyalist perspective, writing his lines in this way was intentional. It's part of the whole "Everything Jo says sounds like it could mean more than one thing" thing. He speaks poetically - it's intentional not just for the character but for the writer.

Okay, I'm done for now I'm sorry I just wanted to throw some added stuff into the convo bc I love applying my everyday usage of adolescent-focused trauma care and pysch shit to blorbos and seeing what sticks. Anyway, I also have a shit ton of thoughts on Masumi Arakawa as an abuse survivor but THATS another essay I won't dig into now. If I am still in your good graces after this long ass spiel I will consider it not only amazing but perhaps even cool as hell.

[ continuity of this ask ]

[zhongscara]

For that character ask you know I have to:

~Alhaitham~

@alhaithams-big-naturals (< saw a different anon do this and wanted to try >.<)

alhaitham

Sexuality Headcanon: TBH IM NOT SO SURE... maybe a cop out but i think hes unlabelled. in the words of 2010s fujioshi hes p much cynosexual (JK LOL) Gender Headcanon: another guy i hit with the "he can be a cis or trans guy whenever i like beam" A ship I have with said character: CYHAINO like they will always be perfect... the enemies to lovers... finding trust in each other in a world thats rapidly changing... their deep respect for each other while also being awkward with their feelings... UGHHHHHHHH A BROTP I have with said character: i think him and dehya are a great duo. obsessed w how she thinks hes a bit crazy and he just genuinely admires her work ethic. A NOTP I have with said character: haikaveh/kavetham whatever ppl wanna call them A random headcanon: i think alhaitham would become invested in collei learning how to read. imagine alhaitham copying down storybooks his grandmother kept to give to her. alhaitham going around writing down stories from the desert when cyno mentions that he wishes he could give collei stories from the desert to read. i just think alhaitham would admire collei's genuine dedication to learning. he'd let her read some of his simpler books and teach her about writing essays tell tighnari that collei's going to be making scholars cry in a few years and tighnaris like "Please dont teach her how to write scathing rebuttals." General Opinion over said character: hes my darling... im an alhaitham lover... whenever he speaks i giggle and kick my feet and twirl my hair around my finger like "omg and what next? you're so smart btw <3"