#i only used the slurs to make it more realistic

[kitchen-box]

Choises - a study

Harry didn't exactly know when it happened.

It could be in the Chamber or in the graveyard. Or probably both. Yeah, definitely both...

The chalenge that Harry was dealing with this time was worse that the dragon, the basilisk and the dementors combined. Harry didn't think he was exaggerating. Not this time.

He knew he wasn't the most... moral individual out there.

From 'killing and eating the intestines of a rat when he was 6 because he couldn't open the, at that time new, locks, and he hasn't ate in at least 5 days, and he so conveniently found a rat near the playground on the last day of school and fucking Jenna Baker was braging that she got a mouse for her birthday and surely it must be okay that Harry got one as well, as long as aunt Tuney doesn't find out it must be alright. It must!' incident alone you get that he wasn't that great in the morals departament. But in his defence he did fell bad for the rat's death. But he was also hungry and desparate. And the combination of both won over his morals.

At least most of them. He wasn't going to murder a human being. No matter what they did.

Not even him. The reason of his questioning morality, the reason he lived and still lives with the Dursley's over the summer, the fucking murderer of his parents and the guy who killed Cedric, entered him in a deadly tournement and tried to murder and probably will succeed in murdering him in the probably near future and... his current crush.

Oh, and current Dark Lord who is fighting for the death of anyone who isn't a pureblood and at least 50 years his senior. Oh, did Harry forgot to mention that? Opsie!

Which againt brings Harry back to his current dillemma.

'How the fuck did I get here?'

He got a wet dream where Voldemort fucked his guts out. That's how he got here.

And it wasn't even a dream where hot 16 year old Voldemort was fucking his brain out. No - no - no! Harry's couln't be that easy. He got snake head - no nose - red eyes - paper skin fucking Voldemort. That Voldemort was worse.

He knew he was bent, that wasn't really a surprise for Harry, he had plenty of dreams about guys like Oliver and Cedric, but he also had dreams about Cho and even one about Parvati, so he knew he wasn't a real fag, just bent. So a dream about 16 year old Tom wouldn't have been a problem.

But it was a dream about Voldemort, so it was a problem.

He couldn't tell anyone about this. Not Ron, not Hermione and certainly not Sirius.

So 14, soon to be 15, year old Harry Potter chose to ignore his crush.

Like 11 year old Harry Potter chose to ignore every quality that may have had him sorted in anything other that Gryffindor.

Like 12 year old Harry Potter chose to ignore the hatred he had for Ginny for being so stupid to be manipulated by a motherfucking book. His anger at the stupidity of the adults for not realising, at least, what the monster from the Chamber was.

Like 13 year old Harry Potter chose to ignore that his godfather and his teacher nearly killed a man and harmed Harry and his bestfriends.

Like 14 year old Harry Potter chose to ignore his bestfriend's betrayal.

Like 15 year old Harry Potter will chose to ignore that Snape has been a victim all his life. His sudden urge, at Voldemort cowardly departure from Dumbledore, to run after the darkest wizard of the time and beg him to take Harry with him to tell him that Harry loves him .

Like 16 year old Harry Potter will chose to ignore that part of him still hates Ginny, the same part that only wants Ginny for Tom.

Like 17 year old Harry Potter will chose to ignore his bestfriend's second betrayel. His knees colapsing under him and bursting into tears at the sight of his soulmate's body, not for the deaths of his friends and of children like everyone else assumed. No, he wept at the sight of the love of his life, a man he loved as much as he hated, lifeless on the ground. Because of him...

Because of Harry Potter.

The-Man-Who-Chose.

A Tragedy in the form of a Martyr Hero.

Harry Potter turned the Elder Wand, a Legend in form of a Wand, to himself and for the first and last time cast the Killing Curse succesfully.

A Saving in the form of a Punishment.

But that will be later.

Right now Harry is going to stay awake and try not to weep at the thought of loving a man he hated.

[restlesspazzi04]

here are scraps from chapter 6 + explanations on why they were scrapped!

Scene 1

This was a deleted section from the conversation with Paige and Michael:

Michael just nods in response, letting Paige continue. “I think I’m in love with Azzi.” The verbalization shocks both of them as the words slip out of Paige’s mouth. “And I don’t think she loves me back,” Paige slurs out, hugging her knees for comfort. 

“What makes you think that?” Michael asks a little quieter this time. 

“I just don’t think she sees me like that. I can’t really explain it.” 

Michael hums lowly, continuing to listen. 

“I’m not good enough for her,” Paige pauses for a moment before continuing, “And I don’t think I ever will be.” 

“I think you’re being harsh on yourself.” Michael chimes in finally, “You should talk to Azzi about this. I think you would be surprised at what she has to say.”

“And ruin my relationship with my best friend? No way.” Paige scoffs, “Plus, I can’t give Azzi what she wants… or what she deserves. It wouldn’t be a good idea to tell her.” 

“But are you happy with what you are to her? Are you happy seeing her with other people?”

The question made Paige stop and think. Was she happy? When Azzi had told her about the girl she had hooked up with, Paige had gone on a mini-rampage, finding random girls to sleep with every chance she had. She had chalked it up to being in college and an unlimited population of girls who wanted her (which was true still), but she would be lying if she said Azzi hooking up with someone else didn’t influence her choices. It had hurt her more than she anticipated and that hurt terrified her. 

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I can’t lose her. If I told her right now then we would have to date. And if we dated that means we would break up. And if we broke up, well- well then our friendship would be over and I don’t know if I can handle that.” 

“Why would you have to break up? You’re dooming a relationship before it even starts. What’s the point of that?” 

Paige shakes her head, “I’m not dooming anything, I’m just being realistic.”

“Or you’re projecting your commitment issues.” Michael cuts in quickly, causing Paige to have a mildly offended look on her face. 

“I do not have commitment issues!” Paige exclaims. 

-

Explanation:

I didn't want Paige's first verbalization of loving azzi to be in this chapter (aka want it to be a bigger moment)

I thought the outward mention of her commitment issues was too cliche and scrapped that

just not well written and flowed awkwardly to me idk

Scene 2

This scene jumped from multiple places such as the beginning on the basketball court and the bathroom scene at the party:

“We would get to spend three years playing together, that’s one.” Paige says, counting off her fingers, “We would get to hang out at any time, go to bars together, and just have more freedom. I mean I love Katie and Tim, and my parents are good about letting us sleep over, but let’s be honest we always have to end shit early, and that’s just two. I got like three more.”

Paige takes a step closer to Azzi, in her face now. 

“Three, we would be teammates and you know how well we worked together in Team USA. We are like Curry and Thompson. See? I even used an NBA player you knew. That’s just how well I know you.” Paige says with a shit-eating grin on her face, warranting a tiny shove from the brunette. 

“Four, I want you to meet my friends. I just know you would get along with everyone. Why would I not want the best team for you? And you would love Geno. He’s a tough coach and I know you like that.” Paige just smiles, resting both her arms on Azzi’s shoulders. 

“And five?” Azzi asks a bit quieter when Paige doesn’t respond for a moment, just staring at the younger girl with a flirty smile.

“We could be as loud as we want,” Paige says while maintaining eye contact, only breaking it once to glance down at Azzi’s lips. 

“Oh yeah? Is that why you want me to come? I didn’t realize my Mom telling us to quiet down while playing Fortnite was so annoying. I’ll ask her to back off.” Azzi says while feigning innocence, not wanting to play whatever game Paige was playing.

“Yeah, it gets really annoying when our hangouts get interrupted. I mean we’re just two girls tryna have fun, what crime are we committing by laughing too hard?” Paige says, playing along with Azzi. 

“I guess I just have to come so we can laugh into the night together,” Azzi says while leaning in for a kiss. 

Explanation:

it lowkey killed me to take this out because i liked the way i wrote it but i just didn't have a use for it

kinda forward and i wanted paige's reasons for wanting azzi to come to uconn to be less superficial? if that makes sense

her actual list will be revealed later in the fic

Scene 3

This was the original ending to the fic, i just didn't like it that much:

“Do you remember that party we went to before you committed when I asked you to narrow down to two schools?”

Azzi looks at her, confused, “What does that have to do anything?” “Just trust me. Do you remember that night?” Paige says, still unsure of where she is going herself. 

“Yes, you were being an asshole… what does that have to do with anything?” 

“I made of list of every single reason I wanted you to come to UCONN, but I never told you because I was too scared to tell you how I felt.” 

Azzi looks back curiously now, wanting to know more.

“And I thought about sending you that list every single day leading up to your commitment because it was driving me insane"  

“But I realize now, that I can’t do this anymore with you. I can’t sit and hold back every single time we talk about something serious because it’s been years of this back-and-forth and it’s driving me insane.” Paige pauses for a moment before continuing, “I’m not going to tell you what to do because that’s up to you to decide. But if you're genuinely asking me if I think you should get married to Ben, I'm going to say no."

Explanation:

I initially wrote this with the intention of this being the moment Paige tells Azzi she shouldn't get married, but it felt way to premature and i just didn't like the level of impact it would've had to the plot

I didn't like most of the wording

too much blatant flashbacking, felt unnatural

this is a slow burn and this would simply be too much progression when it hasn't even been a full 24 hours of them being resolved friends again (aka wtf was i thinking)

And that is the totality of the deleted scenes i will be sharing thank you for reading :)

also if you've made it to the end, i have a one shot coming out soon on tumblr so watch out for that !

[prongsfish]

it took very little encouragement to convince me so as described in this post here is the fake aita post i wrote from barty's pov while writing call me fate, call me karma... this was all written in jest, i do not use reddit nor care at all to try make this realistic to anything ever <3 don't take anything too seriously.

tw // transphobic & homophobic slurs used by a hostile commenter who faces immediate backlash/punishment. slurs are both censored and target identities to which i as the author belong to.

WIBTA for questioning my GF's distant behaviour when she clearly doesn't want to talk about it? ESH, 1 Update, [THIS POST HAS BEEN LOCKED]

I (18M) have been with my girlfriend (18F) for over 3 years now, and we'd been close friends for 4 years before that. We go to a boarding school, and due to the girls in our house and year being shitty, she moved into the boy's dorm with our friend and I before we even got together, and we're in our last year of school now before we graduate. We practically spend all our time together and our relationship is very strong, we've avoided talking too much about plans after graduation because we both come from very restrictive families (Without going into too much detail, we both face very specific expectations for what our adult lives will look like) and our relationship is a secret from everyone but our close friends, but I can see myself spending the rest of my life with her. She's everything to me and I've always gotten the idea that she feels the same about me, and honestly, whatever she wants to do after we graduate, I'd follow her. I don't really care where I go/what I do as long as it means I'm with her. I can't imagine life without her.

Lately, she's been acting really strangely. I guess it started during exams, but that's normal for her. We're both pretty academic people but she especially devotes everything into her schoolwork, so it wasn't a surprise when she was distant in the lead-up to and in the midst of our final exams. She didn't talk much, and spent practically all of her waking time studying. (Side note, she did amazing on the exams. I'm super proud of her.)

After, though, she was still distant. She started receiving letters at breakfast which she'd quickly hide, and never read in front of anyone. Sometimes she'd excuse herself entirely from breakfast, assumedly to read them, and wouldn't eat at all. She's been antsy and visibly stressed more often than not. Like I mentioned before, she has a difficult family life, and I'm not surprised that she's nervous in the time leading up to graduation, but usually she'd talk to me at least a little about that sort of thing. Plus, I know what letters from her family look like, and these letters look nothing like anything she'd ever received before. She's been less physically affectionate than usual, and sometimes she shows up after disappearing randomly looking like she's just been crying. I'm really worried about her, but I know that if she wanted to talk to me about it, she would, and she's been insistently ignoring any indication of concern from our friends or I. Even the slightest questioning look, she completely shuts it down. I don't want to upset her by bringing it up, because that's not really the way we function as a couple, but I'm starting to feel hopeless. We don't really talk about our issues, and when we do "communicate" it's only ever when we argue about things. I'm also really worried that I've done something wrong, or that she doesn't want to stay with me. I don't want to admit it because it scares me too much, but I can't help the nagging fear in the back of my mind.

Basically, I'm trying to ask if I should mention it, or if I should wait for her to say something on her own? Something has to happen eventually, because we've both known at least with graduation that we do need to decide on what we're going to do with that, so maybe I should just wait for it all to come up. There's only a few more weeks until we're set to go home, so I could probably just hold on. It's just really worrying me and I don't know how much longer I can handle the uncertainty, and I don't want her to be struggling alone. Would I be TA for bringing it up?

(122 DOWN)

Sounds like you guys need to learn how to communicate, holy shit. (467 UP)

If you're just gonna be a dick I don't want to hear it. This is just how we function and we've been fine for years. (531 DOWN)

I don't think you'd be TA for bringing it up, but in general it sounds like your relationship is somewhat codependent. Your entire life shouldn't be reliant on what she wants to do, bro. Sounds like you need therapy. (271 UP)

Look, I just want to be with her, okay? I've never cared about what I do. I don't see the issue, you're all overreacting. (113 DOWN)

It sounds to me like she's cheating on you, dude. (364 UP)

Fuck you. You don't fucking know her. She wouldn't do that, and I don't like you suggesting that she would. I'd beat the shit out of you if I knew who you really were. (210 DOWN)

Looking through these replies, you're being super defensive. Maybe she has a perfectly innocent explanation, but the main theme here is that you both have some issues that you need to work through. This isn't a healthy way for either of you to live, I recommend individual and/or couples therapy for both if possible. (545 UP)

Whatever, man. Not the god damn point of this point. If I knew Reddit would be so useless I wouldn't have bothered posting here in the first place. (478 DOWN)

Update

Hahaaaaa!! Fuck you guys. Reddit is fucking useless, but I'm here because I want to shove it in the face of everyone who told me I was being cheated on. Fuck you!! You don't know shit about my relationship!! I don't need therapy, assholes!! Me and my boyfriend are perfectly okay the way we are!!! Yeah, that's right, boyfriend! He's just trans!! He realised it during exams and freaked out because he was worried about losing me but he didn't lose me because I don't give a fuck if he's a girl or a boy I wanna spend the rest of my life with him!! The letters were between him and his estranged brother (19M), who'd ran away a few years ago because he hated their family, but he's gay, and my boyfriend didn't know who else to reach out to. And he'd been crying all the time because he was dealing with fixing his relationship with his brother and he was scared of what would happen after he came out. I didn't even need to bring it up, he finally told me! He finally told his brother a few days ago after exchanging letters for a few weeks, and told me after getting a letter back from his brother accepting him. His parents wouldn't accept him, so we're discussing fucking off away from our families and moving in together. Like I told you guys, I'd do whatever as long as I could stay with him, so that's what we're doing! We might be moving in with his brother for a bit while we find somewhere to live, which will be interesting, because he doesn't know we're together, and he hates me, and i kinda hate him too still for abandoning my boyfriend, but I'm willing to give him another shot if my boyfriend is. Anyways we're doing better than ever and I gave him a haircut and he looks amazing, I love him so much.

(73 UP)

Happy for you and him both but that doesn't negate the fact that you both still need therapy. Especially if he has to cut his parents off because they wouldn't accept him. You didn't give many details, but if his brother ran away (assumedly as a minor) because of their parents, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was an abusive environment. Even if not, therapy is still good. (175 UP)

Why would he need therapy if he's literally cutting them off lol. They're gone now it doesn't even matter anymore. (313 DOWN)

I truly am glad that it worked out well between you guys but it's so crazy reading these and all your comments. I mean this in the best way possible, you are both mentally ill. Therapy is a good thing. Just try it. (231 UP)

Jfccc you guys worry too much. I shouldn't have even bothered with this update. (282 DOWN)

Got invested just to find out she's a delusional tr***y and you're a f****t, wow. (278 DOWN)

192.158.1.38, Mr. John Doe. 123 Maple Street. Anytown, PA 17101 (263 UP)

Thanks OP for doing the hard part of the work for me, a swat team is currently on route to his house. (182 UP)

Thanks, mate. I knew there had to be some decent people on this website. (101 UP)

[pluralasking]

#One-Hundred-Eight

[pt: #One-Hundred-Eight]

Beneath is a long screenshot (with transscript) asking about rules within Systems, as well as a Google Forms link for people to submit their answers anonymously! You can of course also post your answers publicly, but considering the topic at hand - an anonymous option seems fitting.

Talking about System rules can be a personal subject, so only share what you feel comfortable sharing! Responses will only be posted if you want them to be posted.

Please make sure to read the screenshot (or it's transscript provided by @plain-text-provider) before answering!

Have fun and stay safe!

You can click here to be send to the google forms document once you are ready!

Responses will be posted soon!

[Transscript:

i'm not sure how to go about asking this but what types of system rules do people use? currently setting up a list of rules or guidelines and i've heard about it being a good idea but i can't find many examples.

of course i'm not going to completely copy someone else's rules since what one system needs is different than what another system needs, but some inspiration or ideas or something would be nice to have, in the same way that a discord mod might view other rule lists as inspiration for thinking about what their own community needs.

this might be good to get anonymous answers in which case a small survey-type thing could be used, since some people (including us) might have members and symptoms that are "problematic" in some way and don't want to publicly reveal something for fear of being judged? (for example we have a rule about not saying offensive things, such as slurs, unless in a safe enviroment, because saying an offensive stim/tic/whatever we have when alone where nobody can hear is more realistic than not saying it ever. but if we said this in public reply people would probably cancel us for having our coprolalia-adjacent symptoms, just as an example.)

idk i'm just wondering what types of rules people use for their system rules/guidelines, because not all plurals have these, but some do, and some of the more dysfunctional ones like ours would like to have rules. We would like to see either some public answers or anonymous answers with examples as we structure things better and i think there are many other plurals who would benefit from seeing examples.

/end of the transscript]

[pumpkinsy0]

Papercut kiss hcs your honor,,, papercut being soft w each other hcs,,, papercut being sleepy and snuggly and giving each other tired little kisses.,,,,,,,,… do you feel me 😞

i get u anon,,,,lets do this,,,

•i am telling u rn curly WILL randomly kiss the guy, they could b talking and he randomly does it, pony will never get used to that, its like he physically stops when it happens and curly will always tease him for it

•its like, so rare for pony to actually go for it, partially bc hes scared he’ll look stupid

•lets not sit here and pretend that curly wouldnt go to kiss pony then purposely swerve out the way to make pony look dumb and laugh at him

•when they kiss its damn near always a lil rough, thats just how

•if u think they HAVENT kissed in a movie theater while it was dark, i dont wanna hear ANYTHING u say, and id say this is one of the times where ponys like, at ease, but only if theyre in the wayyyyyy back back and not in the dead middle

•they accidentally bump heads numerous times and have gotten bumps on their lips from going in to kiss too hard, and they both make fun of each other for it

•when i say theyre both yappers i mean it, they kiss and talk in between, or more realistically they TALK w kisses in between, like yea,,,keep talking about this thing i do not understand bc i like how passionate ur getting over this it make u look fantastic, king, this especially happens when theyre sleepy, but instead its just slurred speech and more kissing lmao

•i said sometimes pony would wear chapstick for his dry ass lips and im telling yall, curly WILL lick his lips after kissing pony to taste the damn flavor of it, what an odd ball, that or he rubs his lips to just, fix his own chapped ass lips

•curly asks for a kiss or just straight up kisses pony before he goes into a fight, he says its the equivalence of a princess doing “that sword shit to the knights shoulders” and it gives him good luck

•OK LOOK, before curly thought it was stupid to ask someone if they can kiss em, but pony did it to him a few times and curly would never admit it, but that was like, top 5 gayest moments of HIM bc of how he acted to it, he tries to play it cool and tease pony for asking that, but he rlly wasnt like that inside, on the inside he was a mess, for a moment curly felt valued???? or whatever?????he felt more than how he was usually treated

[romanarose]

About a Girl: Chapter 3

Beautiful header by my beloved @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

Joel Miller x Trans!Fem!Reader (Nickname, Blue)

Summary: Blue surprises Joel by rebuffing everyone advances in favor of him.

Warnings for whole fic, not chapter by chapter: 18+ ONLY!! I cannot warn against everything, but these are major themes. Joel is a lil ignorant but not out of hate. He just doesn't know. He's trying his best. There will be smut. Penetrative sex, all of the anal play, oral. There will be transphobia from other people. Addiction and alcoholism. QUICK child neglect not by Joel but I promise, Sarah is fine and is having a great time in life. Fetishization of women attracted to women by a shitty guy. Will update as needed. Again, this is adult content. Expect adult content.

Immersivity: Reader is transgender, AMAB female, reader has had gotten bottom surgery, not top, and is on hormones. reader has visible hair and a blue streak in hair, but not described. Could be braids, could be natural hair, whatever. Header is for aesthetics only. Reader is about Joel and Tommy's height. Let me know if i miss anything!

AN: FIRST DAY OF PRIDE EVENT!!!

A note on langauge. This is a 90's au, different langauge was used than we know know, words we find offensive now. While no one uses slurs theres langauge used that may not be comfortable. Just remember in the 90s there wasnt such a unified community all over, especially in the south. Blue isn't going to talk the same as say, a new york queer today. I want to remain as most "time period realistic" as i can.

TRANS LIVES MATTER! TRANS YOUTH MATTER! TRANS ELDERLY MATTER! TRANS WOMEN MATTER! TRANS MEN MATTER! NON BINARY TRANS MATTER!

Tommy woke up hungover, just as Tess, Talia, Max and you probably were. 

Joel only had one, but he was up early packing things for Sarah. Jessica didn’t have much as far as clothes and other stuff for a 5 year old, so Joel wanted to make sure she was prepared. It was supposed to rain and she definitely didn’t have rain boots or coat, not enough kids stuff to entertain Sarah inside all weekend. He made sure to pack her barbies, etch-a-scetch, and a few cassette tapes. Sarah wasn’t even up yet when Kayla knocked. 

“Hey Kayla.” Joel tried to be nice and welcomed her into the home they used to share together. 

She smiled at him, said hi to him and Tommy. She must’ve calmed down after last night, as she usually does after a spiral. “Sarah up?”

Joel shook his head, getting a few granola bars Sarah could eat for breakfast. “Naw, I let her stay up a little later with Jessica, you can wake her if you’d like, or you can hang out.” He nodded to the coffee pot. “All yours.”

“Does she know I’m coming?”

“No, she was fast asleep when I got home.”

Kayla grinned. “Great, she’ll love the surprise.” and dashed upstairs.

“She’ll love the surprise.”  Joel muttered to Tommy, not looking away from his task. “But she’d love regular visits she could count on more.” 

Tommy patted his back. “You’re a good man, Joel. I don’t think I’d put up with all that you did.”

But Joel just shook just head. “It’s for Sarah.”

“Most things are.” He looked up from his coffee. “Hey! I’m meeting everyone for brunch, Sex and the City style. Since Sarah’s gonna leave, why don’t you come with us?” Tommy teased Joel with a nudge. “Blue’s gonna be there.”

Joel harshly shushed Tommy, wide-eyed. He looked down the hall to check for Kayla, but heard Sarah squealing mommy up in her room. “C’mon, man, you know how she gets.”

Tommy laughed, “I know, I know!”

But he didn’t really know. Tommy didn’t know about the screaming, the threats to hurt herself, the way she smacked his chest and arms… it wasn’t hard, he was a big guy. He could handle it. It wasn’t abusive, no. He could stop her if he wanted to because he was so much stronger. It was his fault he let it happen so he can’t really complain, can he?

Kayla reappeared with Sarah. “Daddy look! Mommy’s here!”

“I see baby!” Joel feigned enthusiasm. “Mommy’s gonna take you for the weekend, gonna stay the night, isn’t that exciting?”

Sarah was beyond excited. 

Setting her down, Kayla told Sarah to go put on her shoes. To her credit, she’d gotten her dressed already. She spoke to Joel quietly. “Hey, Joel, could I borrow some cash maybe? My um… my tank is almost empty, you know how prices are right now. Fucking Clinton, right?” She chuckled nervously.

Joel wanted to sigh. He saw Tommy looking at him from over his coffee mug. But… he didn’t. Instead, he opened his wallet. And grabbed a $20. “You got food there?”

She shrugged. “Enough.” Joel grabbed another bill and handed the $40 to her. “Thanks, Joel.” She turned to Sarah who had walked up with her shoes on the wrong feet. “You ready, baby?”

Joel said goodbye, hugging and kissing tight. “Be good for mama, okay princess?”

Next, Sarah ran to her uncle, who whispered loudly. ”Be bad, okay squirt?” Joel glared at him, making him carry out the bags for Sarah’s things to the car. 

*

He spent way too long trying to find a nice shirt. In the end, he settled on a green shirt. And his only pair of jeans without holes.

When Joel saw you ride up on a motorcycle, he knew it was all over for him. The way you lit up when your eyes connected with his… fuckign hell. He remembered your eyes when you were on your knees, his cock stretching your mouth… fuck he needed to sit down before he got a hard on.

“Joel!” You run up to hug him, taking him by surprise but he hugs you anyway. Joel likes the way you are very clear about what you want. Joel didn’t have to guess or walk on eggshells. He could want you and know you wanted him too. You took his hand to the table that Talia and Tess are at, not letting go when you both slide into the both.

Everything was going great. Tommy ordered unlimited mimosas, and Joel took one single look at the prices and ordered 2 eggs and toast. And you… Joel learned more and more about you, eating up every bite.

You were a school teacher, elementary english. You loved grunge, the color blue, and horror movies, Halloween being a favorite. Right now, you were horrifying him with a scene from Candyman.

“And then he opens his shirt,” You mimic the actions minus the undress. “And his chest is just like, a cavern of bees! And he kisses her with his mouth full of bees!!”

“Bees?” Joel grimaces, and you laugh, asking if it was too much. Joel loves laughs along; with you, when you laughed, it didn’t feel like it was at him. “Well,” He chuckles. “Maybe a little graphic for brunch.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” You continue with a smirk. “Should we maybe talk about sex, like Sex and the City? Maybe you’d like to fill us in on your latest sexcapades, Miller?”

Joel coughs, choking on his coffee and you pat his back as memories of last night once again popped in.

“I’m-” Cough cough. “I think I’m good there.”

Tommy spoke up, “WELL, since you asked-” Joel told him to shut up, not to talk to a lady like that.

“You let me talk like that around Tess!”

Tess leaned over, her tone teasing. “Joel doesn’t think of me as a lady.”

This led to Joel scrambling to defend himself, which he does, actually! Joel left out the part that if he didn’t see her as a lady he wouldn’t have slept with her all those years ago. Tess is different. Tess is family.

The conversation went on, and Joel noticed how closely you sat next to him while eating your food, your jeans pressed up against his. 

“Frank finally scheduled his knee surgery.” Tess mumbles with a mouth full of waffles. “After harvest, so plenty of time to rest.”

“Why not during harvest?” Talia asks. “You said he doesn’t do farm work.”

Tess stumbled on her words a moment, glancing at Joel before mumbling something about Bill needing to take care of him, even though it was pretty minor.

Joel cut her off. “She's tryna let me save face because I can’t afford a babysitter. Frank has watched Sarah every harvest and planting season since she was born, except the first plant.”

Not meaning to pry but unknowingly waltzing into sensitive territory, you ask why not the first. Joel swallows hard but Tommy answers.

“Because his bitch of an ex was still around.”

“Tommy!” Joel chastises, but Tommy looks bewildered.

“What?! She is, and you know it. She’s-”

But Joel cuts him off. “What she is is none of your business and not the point. I told you we don’t talk like that about women.”

Putting down his silverware, Tommy stared Joel down. Joel knew how Tommy felt about Kayla. “Joel, she was nuts, she turned you into someone I didn’t recognize and she left my niece alone to get f-”

“Enough!” Joel was louder than he meant to be, noticing people around them turning. Heat crept up his neck in embarrassment and shame. He didn’t like snapping at Tommy, but he especially didn’t like raising his voice in front of you. Joel wondered if he scared you, if he lost your trust and ruined everything- He felt your hand on his knee, and when he turned to look at you, he didn’t see fear, just gentle compassion. He spoke quieter now. “I understand how you feel… but that is the mother of my child, and I ask you treat her with respect.”

Tommy opened his mouth to say more, but Tess whispered to knock it off. There was silence for a while as Tommy stewed, eating his giant plate of food, stewing. Tommy’s anger problems were nothing new to Joel, but this stressed reaction Joel was having to it was. Why did his chest feel so tight?

You noticed, because of course you did, and took his hand. “Wanna step outside?” You whispered, but Joel shook his head.

“”M Alright, thanks.”

From across the booth, Tess, Talia and Tommy all talked while you and him sat on your own side. As you chatted, it felt like you were in your own world. You had a tendency to help him forget everything else. 

“I think it’s so neat y’all know an older gay couple, ya know?”

He didn’t. “Howdya mean?”

You took a bite of toast. “Well, you don’t see that much. We’re just now starting to get to a point people can really come out. Then the AIDS crisis took so many…” You shake your head. “I just think when I was a gay teen, how much it would have meant to me to see a future that wasn’t about hate crimes and death, you know?”

Oh. Gay? Were you a lesbian? No, no had blown him, quite enthusiastically… Maybe you were just trying something new? Was that offensive to think? Goddammit, Joel, what is wrong with you? “Oh, are you…” He trailed off.

You laugh a little. Joel hadn’t realized the three others had gone silent, watching what was happening unfold. “Gay? Well, I guess not anymore.”

Joel was confused. “Did it… go away?” He’d been told some people grew out of it, like a phase, or that some people went to therapy to change…

You laugh again, but slightly nervous. “No… I just mean, like, I transitioned so… now I’m a woman, so it’s not gay to be attracted to men…”

Joel blinked. Transitioned? What did that mean… 

You turn to Tommy. “I thought you’d told him?”

“Told me what?”

Tommy shook his head. “Hey I may be stupid, but I know not to out someone.”

Tess confirmed she hadn’t said anything and Talia looked intensely uncomfortable, asking you if you wanted to go.

“Joel… you do know I used to be a man, right?”

A flash of warmth covered his skin, eyes burning and chest tighter. He had, of course, heard of people like that… but he didn’t know the first thing about it. Did that mean you were a guy doing dress up? Was this drag? Or transvestite, is that the term? Most of all, he was confused, because he liked you. Was he gay?

“Joel?” Your voice breaking him out of his spiral. It was small, meek. Unlike anything he’d heard from you before. “Can we talk outside?”

*

You stood a few feet away from him, wringing your hands. He hated how you were shaking.

“Can you just…” He sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I'm gonna be real honest Blue, I don’t really know what you’re talk’n about. Can you just… Tell me? Is this like a transexual thing?”

Despite the tension, you give a small laugh. “I guess people used to call it that. Or transvestite. I don’t really know if there's a difference… I think people call a lot of thing under the same umbrella, like cross dressing…”

“Is that…” He swallows. “That's what you’re do’n? You a man that likes women’s clothes?”

You shake your head vigorously. “No, no that’s not it… at least to me, I guess. Some people say that’s all I am but… I don’t think so.”

“”Please.” Joel begs, a slight huff of a laugh. “I’m just an old farmer, I ain’t never left this town, no college, no life experience. I practically raise Tommy and when he was finally grown, I had my daughter so I just…” He sighs, heavily. He’s very confused, but he doesn’t want you to think he’s disgusted or hateful. “Please just explain it so I can understand.”

You nod, looking a little hopeful. “I was born a boy, but I never felt like one. My whole life, it just felt… wrong. I can’t really explain it, but it's just this… this knowledge inside myself that my body was wrong, a gut feeling…”

A slight breeze rustled his shirt, blowing your hair around and drawing his eyes to the blue.

“So… you’re a woman?”

Once again, you nod, crossing your arms over your chest. Joel didn’t know if that was from nerves or the fall beginning to settle in. “I am. Yeah.” You take a deep breath, and exhale in a ramble of words as your eyes plead to him. “Joel I’m really sorry! I thought, I thought you knew! I met Tommy a few times with Talia and it came up so I just assumed he told you! I know you probably don’t wanna be with me but I swear, I wasn’t trying to trick you!” Your voice cracks at the end.

Concerned, Joel frowned. He didn’t know why you were shaking. He stepped forward, wanting to hold you. “Hey now, darl’n, don’t cry” But he froze when you scrambled backwards, fear in your eyes. “Whoa there… I ain’t gonna hurtcha…”

You didn’t look like you believed him, eyeing his movements. “You won’t?”

“No, oh my god no. Why would I do that? Wait, that’s stupid, I know how people are but… I ain’t like that, I promise.”

Shoulders relaxing, you appear to be calming down. “Some men… well, they get really violent if they find out the person they… they did anything with was a man…”

“That aint me, I swear it, Blue.” He shuffles his feet. “I can’t say I really understand all this but… I ain’t like that.”

He could sense your dejection from where he stood. “I understand. I won’t bug you. Again, I’m really-” You turn to leave.

His eyes went wide. “Hey, hey, hey wait-” Joel grabs your hand, but not tight. You could pull away if you want to.  “Do you… do you still wanna be with me?”

You giggle softly, still looking sad. “Of course I do… Joel, I barely know you but… of course I do. But you don’t wanna be with me.”

“I didn’t say that, Blue…”

You look at him curiously. “Joel, you just found out what being trans was 2 minutes ago, are you sure you wanna be with a trans woman?”

Joel let go of your hand to rub the back of his neck, smiling. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really know if I’m ready to date at all. I got my kid,” He thumbs back to the restaurant, chuckling. “I got Tommy. It’s a lot right now. And honestly? I don’t know if this makes me gay or not but… I’d like to try to be with you… if you’re cool taking it slow.”

Looking directly at him, you smile. “I would absolutely be okay taking it slow. And, listen.” Reaching you, you take both of his hands in yours. “Would it help if we just got together and I let you just… ask whatever you wanted? Like, having a little learning session.”

“Yeah.” Breathed out a laugh. “Yeah that would be great, asking.”

*

It was 3 am when Tommy came stumbling home. Normally, Joel wouldn’t notice but he heard a loud crash, running downstairs with a gun to find the coffee table nocked over and Tommy trying to bake pizza bagels. After some back and forth shouting at him, it clicked.

“Jesus, Tommy, are you on coke?” He gawked in disbelief. 

Tommy just laughed. “You said I couldn’t use when Sarah was around!”

“That’s not an excuse to to hard drugs the second she’s out the door! You’ve been gone since 6, what if she came home early?”

Tommy waved Joel away, putting pizza bagels in a cold oven. “She’d be fine.”

His blase attitude was pissing Joel off even more. “I don’t want you high around my daughter!”

Standing up and apparently thinking the oven was on, Tommy glared at Joel. “Relax, Joel. She ain’t here!”

Joel fisted his hand into Tommy’s shirt, voice bellowing in the kitchen. “I don’t give a shit Tommy! Don’t you ever come into my home coked up again, you understand?!” He le go and shoved Tommy away.

Half an hour later, Joel came downstairs to find Tommy crashed out on the couch. Joel took off his shoes, pulled a blanket over him and placed water by his side. He cleaned up the messed up coffee table, turned off the oven that was now on and burned bagels and locked the door again.

*

Blue’s POV

You were nervous, to say the least. Sure, you liked to play it cool but really, Joel scared you half to death. He was so fucking… perfect. Tess had thought you’d like him. She told you so much of his personality, you’d assumed he was ugly: hardworking, good father, responsible, loving, kind, protective… When you saw him you were dumbstruck. How is a man that good of a person and that fucking hot?

You’d just wished Tess had told him you were trans, since  she was trying to set you up. Still, you understood she didn’t want to out you. Not a lot of people here knew, and you needed to keep it that way. As far as the parents and faculty at your school knew, you had been born with two tits and a vagina… okay maybe not tits but you passed a just flat chested. If anyone found out, technically they could still fire you. 

Still, Joel was kind and had taken the information in stride. You didn’t think it was going to work out between you… you’d figured Joel wouldn’t but up for dating you, especially if he wanted more kids... But you suppose today would tell.

Joel looks genuinely happy to see you. “Hey, come on in.”

You’re impressed to find the house is still clean. There’s things on counters and a little mud on the floor but you like it looks lived in. Still, he obviously takes care of his house.

“I really hate to do this,” He starts and your stomach drops. “Sarah’s mom called, wanting to bring her back early, like in a few hours.”

You understood. Bringing everyone over on Friday was one thing, but bringing a women over (that wasn’t Tess) around Sarah might confuse her, and he wanted to be careful. “I totally understand.”

“You eat yet?”

You watch, smiling as Joel cooks you breakfast. “Where’s Tommy.”

Joel grunted, a slight tonal change. “Upstairs sleeping off a binge. He’s a dumbass.”

Ah, so the tension hasn’t subsided.

After eating, you and Joel sit down on the couch.

He looks as nervous as you are. “Just… stop me if I saw anything offensive.”

You shake your head. “Nothings off the table today, you can ask whatever, I just wanna be straight forward. In fact, I’m gonna go ahead and answer the question I know you have. No, I don’t have a dick.”

Joel coughed, choking a bit. “I wasn’t going to ask that!” He begins to laugh, and so do you.

“Yeah, because you’re polite, so I just said it. I got bottom surgery a few years ago.”

“What’s that?”

“They turn my dick into a vagina.”

He nods. “I’ll be honest, that is a positive.” His eyes go wide in that way you noticed he does when he thinks he’s said something wrong. “Not that- well I wouldn’t- I could… umm..”

You reassure him. “I understand, Joel. You’d have been working with whole knew equipment. I promise, this is probably what you’re used to working with. Maybe if you get lucky, one of these days you’ll get to go for a test run.” He turns bright pink, but smiles. “Your turn, go ahead.”

He took a deep breath. “Does this make me gay? I ain’t got nothing against be’n gay, I mean, Tess is my best friend and I work for two of ‘em” the phrasing there almost made you laugh. He was so clunky sometimes, but he was trying. “It’s just, I didn’t think I was.”

You shake your head. “No. I mean, some people think that but, no. I don’t think I’m a man. Do you think of me as a man?”

“Not one bit.” He was earnest. 

“Then you’re not gay, Miller.”

For the next hour, he asked a lot of questions. Some were more in depth, like what transitioning looked like, or what you felt like as a child.You told him you were on E and he had lots of questions about that. You explained you hadn’t gotten top surgery, and his eyes only flicked to your chest once. Respectful cowboy. He asked if you wanted “uuhhh, you know…” breasts, and you said you honestly didn’t feel the desire for it. You liked yourself as you were right now. Some were a bit fun, like how you chose your new name or if you stopped growing facial hair.

What you loved about him was he came from a place of genuine curiosity. He wasn’t judging you, he was trying to learn. You check the clock.

“I think Sarah will be coming soon. Did you have any other questions?”

Joel thinks for a bit. You imagine he probably had a lot about between your legs, but he was too polite to ask and honestly, details of surgeries, although you were comfortable, were a lot for someone you just met, even if it felt like you knew him already. 

“I don’t think so. This has been nice, actually, so… thank you.”

He walks you to the door and as you bend over to put your shoes on, you look up at him. “I’m gonna give you some time to sit on that information… if you wanna go on a date, I’d love to. If not-”

“What about friday?” He hurries out, hands in his pockets. “If I can find a sitter, I mean.”

You stand up straight, unable to stop the beaming. You feel giddy. “I’d love to. We can even go later in the evening, like after dinner so you can spend time with Sarah.”

His face falters just a bit. “I um… I should be honest. I usually don’t have this much free time. I can’t really afford a regular sitter and Kayla isn’t really around with Sarah much… so I guess I don’t really know how well this will work…”

You kiss his patchy beard cheek. “Let’s just take it one day at a time then, okay?”

Joel smiled at that. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

PRIDE EVENT TIME!!!!

love yall

i know thi doesnt get much notes but somewhere out there is a trans woman seeing this... is going to feel so fucking seen and thats what matters to me.

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[epic-sorcerer]

How gay people were actually precived in medival times

Ok so even after years of obsessive research, it sitll took me until recently to finally grasp a medival point of view on homosexuality. I’m assuming I’m not alone in my not understanding of it so I figured I might as well break it down for my fellow Merlin fans.

So basically, there was no consept of heterosexuality and homosexuality. There was only “female attraction” or “male attraction.” If a man possessed the same sexual attraction as a woman would, he would have a female attribute.

For this reason, they were considered “hermaphrodites.”

Unfortunately I’m going to have to keep saying this word, because modern ones jsut don’t make sense here. But please know that it is widely considered a slur among intersex people and originates from a Greek myth where hermaphrodite gets his body murjed with a woman who wants to rape him. So. Don’t call people that, please.

Anyways. Hermaphrodites were considered a medical condition and had to pick a gender to be, as they couldn’t simply exist as a third gender. This of course carried a lot of shame amongst the people who were concidered hermaphrodites. The gender was often chosen based on what sex characteristics were most prominent.

So, assuming the only “female traits” a male has is his homosexuality, they would likely stay as a man unless they really did not want to be. And even then, they would have to do it in secret because any deviation from their strict idea of gender was considered a threat to society. Witch is why hermaphrodites had to live as one male *or* female in the first place

I think this puts in to a lot of perspective on how I write Arthur especially. I originally would write Arthur as feeling very emasculated by being queer from a perspective of toxic masculinity.

But looking at it now, is that not gender dysphoria? Of course he doesn’t want to have female sex characteristics. When I’m a guy, I don’t either!

I’ve done lots of research and sighlent lurking on intersex spaces for a while now just because. But I think now I’ll start using that knolage to my advantage to my writing because it’s more realistic. I think murjing my experience as a queer person and intersex people’s experiences would make the sotry make a whole lot more sense.

I would recommend anyone to simply just follow the #intersex tag. But yk….if you’re not intersex you should probably stay silent unless you have a question or something. They get talked over a lot.

I am thankful that I have a direct tie from my hyoerfixation to intersex because while I have done my own research without it, it’s still difficult to do just about anything if it’s not about Merlin. Perhaps some other people reading this struggle in the same way.

I hoped this helped you guys, here’s my main source that really helped me. And you can ask me questions if you’d like.

[olderthannetfic]

One of the things I've seen people who support End OTW Racism talk about is wanting to make sure only people who should reclaim slurs use them in their work. This raises a lot of questions to me, such as 1. how are you going to determine who gets to reclaim a slur 2. how are you going to determine that an individual is in the group you've decided should be allowed to once you figure out the answer to point 1, and 3. how are you going to deal with the fact that sometimes, a word is a slur in one language or one region of the world and not the rest? A lot of people I know in the United States only found out what the slur is for Pakistani people when a YouTuber from the UK (who is black, not Pakistani himself) got heat for saying it, for instance. If someone accidentally uses it as an abbreviation, not knowing it's a slur in the UK, then how is the moderation team supposed to handle that?

I like the idea of having more moderators who can review instances of harassment and racism, but I feel that some of these proposed ideas are not practical or realistic to implement online in large-scale on a site as big as AO3. I hate that anyone who asks these questions is being framed as being "pro-racism". Of course I'm anti-racist, I'm not white and I've experienced it in fandom, but having been in fandom for this long, I'm aware that it's a big space. It seems to me to be an impossible task to check that every single person using a slur is someone you've decided should be allowed to do so for every single instance of it being used in every story on the entire archive. My main fandom alone is half a million works. It would take an astounding amount of volunteers to look through that.

Also, though... people lie. People lie about their race a lot online. I have caught out many, many people in the act of lying when they claim to be Afghani because, as a mixed black/Pashtun person myself, I know enough about the region to ask them things like what language their parents speak or what part of the country they're from, etc., and people haven't put in enough effort to read up on the thing they're pretending to be, so they say something so incorrect it's readily apparent. But there are a lot of Afghani-Americans with very little knowledge of the country, too, as a result of generational trauma. Even I have sometimes found myself going, "Is this a lie, or is this someone who's just disconnected from their roots?" So how are volunteers on AO3 supposed to know if someone is or isn't the race they say they are? Even BIPOC can misidentify someone as a liar or believe someone who is actually lying if the liar in question put in a lot of work into their grift.

And that's without getting into the obvious fact that people are assholes who will lie about authors and forge evidence against them to try to convince the mods so-and-so is lying about being black so they shouldn't be allowed to use the word 'colored' in their historical fandom set in the 1890's. You know people would do that to each other, it's fandom. Fandom has always had toxic people in it.

A lot of people who back End OTW Racism keep saying, "we're just holding AO3 to it's promise back in 2020" but don't seem to have thought through their suggestions on how AO3 does that. I really want to be onboard here, but these ideas were not well thought-out. Even disregarding how many people it'd take to moderate a site this big, the flaw baked into this and many other proposals is that it falls into asking the moderators to make personal judgments and assessments of sensitive matters and situations where they don't have all the information they'd need to make that judgment call.

Honestly I think before calling for action, they should've had a list of actionable ideas for what AO3 do that are not so obviously rife with flaws and room for abuse by bad-faith actors.

--

There really doesn't seem to be a lot of willingness to deal with the reality of both racefakers and POC getting harassed for doing their own identities "wrong".

Frankly, I'd rather have lots of questionable works than one instance of demanding some hapless minority teenager prove their identity because they ~don't sound authentic~.

How much must that fuck a person up, especially if they're young? Especially, especially if they're some kind of diaspora, quite possibly displaced for unpleasant reasons.

I frankly think people massively overestimate any "harm" from some crappy fic a person refused to click back on and massively underestimate this other kind of harm.

[spyroz]

i dont reblog those posts about how hard it is to have moralizing ocd in online spaces, even though i deeply resonate with them. ironically, i can only talk to 2 people about my ocd, because one of my obsessions is that other people will assume im using my mental health as a shield against criticism if i talk about it. therefore, if i talk about my ocd in any circumstance, my brain believes that i'm already doing something immoral

basically, most of my obsessions resolve around people assuming bad faith of me or that i'm somehow secretly an irredeemably bad person, no matter how hard i try to be good. i am a bad person if i dont reblog posts about serious topics, spend every waking moment thinking about extremely serious topics, or make any social mistakes whatsoever (which is scary because i'm also autistic). i believe that i am irredeemable if i make a small mistake, and i often think all my friends are waiting for me to make a mistake so that they can attack me, and that my life will be ruined if i fuck up. im constantly scanning all my interests (and people i know) for the tiniest imperfections (far beyond healthy amounts of criticism in your interests) out of fear that liking anything or anyone makes me a horrible person. if you dont take a side on this lgbt label discourse, then youre a bigot! im ALWAYS mentally preparing responses and apologies to totally theoretical situations of people being upset with me. i have intrusive thoughts about doing the immoral things that scare me most.

the problem is, *talking about* any of these thoughts invites people who will actually bad faith me. "if youre so worried about this stuff, then you must have something to hide! you just want to avoid accountability!" they make your obsession a reality by accusing you of the exact thing you fear most. none of these thoughts are reasonable or realistic, and i know that. i know that i'm mentally ill. i know logically that i'm as good a person as anyone else. when i actually do make a mistake, i stay level-headed and apologize, acknowledge what i did wrong, and change my behavior

but there is a large part of me that does not want to heal from my ocd, because i believe constant self-monitoring and self-critique is the only thing preventing me from becoming a horrible person

there is nothing i want more in this world than to be a good altruistic human being who is capable of growth, but spending weeks trapped in thought loops analyzing all my behaviors for the smallest signs of a mistake will not help me be a better person. it makes me a worse friend. it drains my energy so that i dont have the mental capacity to actually spend time being kind to others. i reread this post many times while writing it to make sure i didnt accidentally write 6 different slurs. but i can't figure out how to heal. what the fuck do i do about this

this is incredibly hard for me to write about. i'm fighting the urge to delete this post as you read it. i cant stress how debilitating this is for me, it is the biggest hurdle in my life and it sucks away days worth of my time and energy. i will become trapped in thought-loops THE SECOND im not kept sufficiently busy and stimulated by tv/music/my bf/being out of the house somewhere/etc. so much of my life is wasted wanting to be good, that i dont get a chance to actually live the life of a good person

i really hope this post resonates with someone. ive only met a few other people who have this particular kind of ocd, and its extremely isolating. but i want to try to heal from it, and i know the first step to healing is talking about it

[ranticore]

i ended up not drawing the fursonias beyond sketches but here's the #canon scoop on the characters' archetypes and what furry subculture they'd be into

Bowman: his fursona would be a cool dog (mutt) who wears boardshorts and Sun's Out Guns Out tank tops with the stupid big arm holes. The art style would be Baracore and the character's name would just be Dog. He would be at every room party at every convention doing kegstands and he's not too good at drawing but gives it a shot anyway. Every character he draws has dreamworks face. Inexplicably popular until the multiple cheating scandals make the rounds on twitter. 6700 followers

Islin: one of those guys who only cares about hyper realistic art of dragons with every scale rendered up and the super elaborate ref sheets. Art style is early 2010s Realistic Anthro Dragon, character name is something like Ryvraxys. Never draws characters wearing clothes or doing modern day things. He never made it out of deviantart. Used to rp a lot but kept getting banned for god moding. His art & designs suggest an incredibly active After Dark twitter account but there exists no evidence at all on the internet that one exists

Félix: it's a twinky red fox obviously. The design is painfully generic but the lore is insanely detailed, more than you'd expect from a character who's mostly drawn in suggestive poses. Character name is his name and the art style is Lion King core. Consistently gets into the most insane gay drama at cons but somehow he never seems to be the one at fault despite always being at the devil's sacrament too. Bad at drawing but the writing is good. 436 followers after he got cancelled for saying a slur at an unmasked illegal covid party (he shared the video himself)

Jean: fursonya is a violet starling with back wings who's always dressed in a steampunk getup, with top hat. The name would be something like Faraday. Art style is realistic coloured pencils, rarely digital. He always calls them "anthros" and refuses to associate with "furries". Has a €10k realistic resin-based partial suit with hydraulic wings, is openly catty about people in "cheap" suits. 12988 followers, mostly from ppl who like the suit.

Léa: fursoney is a sexy snow leopard with a ludicrously complex spot pattern, art style is Guy Who Says Fwolf Core. The character would be called like Esmeralda or something. She writes callout posts which are always a little too gleeful in tone. 1256 followers, she's got a high turnover rate because people follow her for good art but then she fills their dashes with vague posts like "some people really need to learn that doing kegstands isn't a substitute for growing a personality 😘💅"

Senca: her fursona is a hare which is always drawn feral and with a highly symbolic art style, lots of staring eyes and illustrated thorns and moon phases. She makes merch (read: dropshipping plastic waste) and sells at artist alley frequently. Not particularly interested in suits or anything. She's blacklisted from one really popular con and nobody knows why. 630 followers.

Olivier: yeencore bark bark bark bite monster wolf type character which is like a wolf but with spikes on the tail and horns.

[toshidou]

I'm sure he'd realistically be the quiet kind of drunk guy but can you imagine ghost being all lovey dovey when he's drunk?? clinging to you (who stayed sober to witness him like this) and kissing you through the mask, probably forgetting he has it on. I still think he'd keep his monotonous tone and blank slate expression because he's got a reputation to uphold!!! but his actions are very all over you. That's all

oh my god anon EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS!!

Simon is without a shadow of a doubt a quiet drunk, but I also know that his inhibitions are going to be so much lower than usual. So much more than his usual subtle brushes of his fingers against yours when he's sure no one's watching. Soap and Gaz would be sat at the other end of the bar staring at Ghost like he's grown two heads as he wraps his hands around you from behind and nuzzles (fucking nuzzles?!) his masked face into the top of your head.

But also YES!! His clinginess would absolutely be the only way you could tell he'd had too much to drink. He wouldn't slur a word, could play darts in the dingy corner of the bar and still get a bullseye with every throw (cocky motherfucker knows it too, i just know he'd make eye contact with you every time the tip of the dart sinks into the red fibre of the dart board, watching for your open approval at his skill). So until you came around, the team didn't even know if he could get drunk. They just assumed he had a tolerance of pure fucking steel.

And the kissing with the mask on shut UP. Him humming confusedly as you just laugh at his expense, him trying to figure out why the fuck your lips felt fuzzy instead of the soft skin he's used to kissing. It'd take him entirely too long to realise that the skull balaclava was still very much in place, mumbling profanities under his breath at the sheer audacity of the black material to be in his way in the first place.

I like to think Johnny goes to tease him about the way he's playing with your fingers in his gloved grasp, about how weirdly, adorably innocent it makes this 6'4 absolute killing machine look, but then he gets the signature Ghost Glare™ and realises that you're very much the only one he will ever be soft for, sober or drunk.

GOD ANON, I have so many thoughts about Simon, but drunk affectionate Simon is a whole new ball game and I am very much suffering, so thank you for this <33

[bruciemilf]

My favorite Damian headcanons (as a POC myself) are the ones where he does POC things that're incredibly niche but also very widespread POC experiences

Commenting on how horror movies have no realistic people of color because otherwise they'd last less than ten minutes.

Responding with "is it because I'm not white" to every single criticism.

Bruce tries to get him to wear a suit and he's like "😐 I can't believe you're erasing my culture like this".

Jason calls him a demon and he tells Bruce Jason called him a slur because of where he comes from.

Refusing to try anything American he doesn't like because "I was raised with actual class".

Assuming it's a lie when Bruce says he can be whatever he wants in the future because come on now. He isn't a fool.

Saying American food is bland because he's used to food that scorches his tastebuds

Not believing in God but using religious phrases, calling his siblings faithless/godless when they annoy him, and rejecting atheism thoroughly because religion is a huge part of POC culture.

Saying "I would've been sent back to the Motherland for that behavior" whenever his siblings act out of line. It's not even necessarily true, but it's genuinely just a reflex

Joking about being beaten as a child because it's a POC bonding experience and backtracking when people freak out because no he wasn't actually hit (only a rap on the knuckles every now and then and the usual POC mother verbal abuse), it's a joke, he was joking.

Doing something dumb like sneaking out and halfway through realizing "oh my God this is white person behavior. I'm being whitewashed" and getting himself back in line

Automatically responding with "aren't you mixed?" to "yeah, but not mixed with stupid like you are"

Being awed and slightly disturbed on how much people just get away with in predominantly white homes

Being the "well behaved child" even with his bad temper because yes, he's spoiled, but he's also fully aware that he won't get away with half the shit he does if he was with his mother and enjoys his still-new freedom

^ And these are some of the general POC experiences, not to speak of the Arab-specific ones! People need to give this boy more POC trauma!

I LOVE THESE!! am not a POC so I don't have much to add; I do, however, love making fun of white people, and I'm passing that off to Damian. He sees Steph eat like, greek yogurt, and is like "i had no idea you liked spicy food. Getting adventurous, are we?"

[cienie-isengardu]

I like to imagine most Outworlders don't speak English if we were being realistic with workdbuilding. The royal family and their advisors would probably interact with Earthrealm officials during visits but regular Outwrolders probably wouldn't.

The only reason they speak English is for our convenience but realistically most probably shouldn't and it'd be funny if the language barrier popped up at times.

Like I imagine Quan Chi didn't speak English initially so he didn't register Titan Shang was talking to him when he was doing his job in the mines. Like Titan Shang thinks Quan Chi is ignoring him...when in reality Quan Chi simply doesn't register he's talking to him at all.

That is exactly my thought - worldbuilding wise, common Outworlders shouldn’t speak English or any other Earthrealm’s dialects, as they do not have a constant contact with totally foreign cultures from Liu Kang’s realm. I don’t think we ever heard of any vital trade between Earthrealm and Outworld and the portal between realms isn’t that easily accessible for people to just snuck in, and it is not just about Outworlders being wary of Earthrealmers but also Liu Kang decided to keep existence of other realms in secret from majority of his people. So the contact is limited and let’s not forget that the same as Earthrealm, Outworld is not culturally homogeneous realm either, as there is many different cultures coexisting there, like Edenians, Shokan, Centaurians, Saurian, Osh-Tekk to name few. So learning additional Earthrealm's dialects may be more difficult to some of those people than to others.

It makes sense for the Royal Family, their palace guard (Umgadi), advisors and for some military officers like General Shao and Reiko to learn English and possibly other earthrealm dialects, as such knowledge is vital to diplomacy and state security. 

It is understandable that the games use English as common language for simplicity, however 

It really is sad how the cultural/language barriers are not exploited as it has such a great potential (the closest things are: Johnny’s references to Alien that Kung Lao misunderstand as Cage calling Tanya a slur and was both offended and confused by the whole thing and Mileena thinking that drone is some kind of magic)

I don’t like the implication in Liu Kang’s timeline that Great Britain again influenced the whole world to the point English is the commonly used language because with that implication comes the question: did some Earthrealmers again suffer under the regime of other countries, be it under colonization or losing their country's independence. I mean, it is Liu Kang’s timeline, why Royal Family don’t speak in his native language as they had the longest contact with the Fire Lord and English is not, logically thinking, Raiden’s native language either?

Let’s just agree I’m very picky about this issue and I would love all the shenanigans coming from characters speaking in different languages and sometimes failing - or on purpose making it difficult to communicate well. Or, as the Lin Kuei faction has the number of native-speakers from different cultures (China, Czech, Botswana), they could utilize other languages as their “secret dialect”. Like Lin Kuei brothers waiting for Liu Kang, instead of speaking English between themselves, they could talk in Tomas’ native language because the chance Kung Lao, Raiden or Liu Kang’s servants would understand Czech is slimmer than them understanding English. 

I’m seriously crying over the untapped language potential Mortal Kombat has for years. 

As for Titan Shang Tsung, I’m gonna trust he was smarter than using English, when Quan Chi was born in mines and spent his whole life there. The mortal Shang Tsung consuming souls for ages most likely knew and could fluently use a vast number of dialects, so I imagine Titan Shang Tsung would figure out pretty quickly that no one in mines used earthrealm language and talked to Quan Chi in a way he could perfectly understand him, especially since “Damashi” needed Quan Chi’s trust to process the great plan of his.

[megafaunatic]

Sooo, how do feel about When the Angels Left the Old Country then? I was going to check it out, but I'd love more thoughts on it.

I LOVE WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY

READ WHEN THE ANGELS LEFT THE OLD COUNTRY BY SACHA LAMB

i just finished reading it for the third time and it came out in: october 2022

it's written in the tone of a classic yiddish folktale in a way that's really refreshing and fun, especially if you're used to reading books that don't have a ton going on stylistically - it's technically YA, but definitely doing something different from most other YA in terms of sheer style while remaining a very fun coming of age story for both the human and angelic characters. on a craft level it's excellent!

all the characters are super fun and interesting and well imagined - there's a pretty small core group with a larger ensemble cast, and all of the core characters are REALLY well developed - and even the minor ensemble cast each get moments of narrative insight into their lives and emotional landscapes in a really fun way. AS u May Know i am constantly writing fanned fictioneds but i actually don't really feel the need to write any for angels even tho i love it so much, simply bc i mostly just don't have anything to add!

my commentary earlier re: angels containing textual homophobia & antisemitism refers to those as intentional threats in the story, NOT like . "ohh angels is homophobic" JUST TO CLARIFY LOL!!!! it is a deeply queer and jewish book and those elements are there on purpose as part of the story being told

to try to elaborate while not totally spoiling, EYE personally really love the way in which the homophobia is present in the story - i DON'T generally want to read characters being called slurs or being violently assaulted - but i Also don't particularly like or appreciate books where homophobia just like magically isn't part of the world, esp with books like angels where it's set essentially in our universe... like, the idea of someone trying to write abt queer characters navigating the pale of settlement and ellis island and early 20th c nyc Without feeling the threat of homophobia in addition to the antisemitism and ableism and racism that are intrinsic features of those settings... would be repugnant lol

like, there's really only a couple moments where "the idea of homophobia" is specifically invoked, but its reality is BAKED into the ways the characters interact with the world and each other in a really realistic and subtle way. i think lamb does a really good job of like... making it clear what the characters have words for and what they don't. they all know exactly what antisemitism is and how it looks and functions, bc a core part of jewish tradition and celebration is literally just talking about all th times gentiles have tried to destroy jewish people. but the characters DON'T really have words and structures for how they're affected by ableism and homophobia or even really straight up misogyny - the reader is expected to do that work of identification themself in a way i really love

anyway. to anon and to anyone else who has been thinking abt reading when the angels left the old country: you should read when the angels left the old country 🫡

[ipso-faculty]

Today's rabbithole: the origins of "dyadic" as opposite of intersex/h-word

TLDR: "dyadic" seems to come from 1970s radical feminism and seems to have entered intersex vocabulary via gender studies. This implies it is NOT a term coined from within the intersex community.

I've been reading Cripping Intersex since it's this month's pick for @intersexbookclub (and it's not too late for you to pick it up yourself! 💜). One thing that caught my attention is Orr spends a bunch of time presenting the origins of "endosex" and "perisex" as disputed for whether these terms were coined by intersex people or not.

Orr does this because they clearly prefer "dyadic" and are trying to justify why they're talking about "compulsory dyadism" rather than "compulsory endonormativity/perinormativity" etc. 🤨

Interestingly enough, Orr makes absolutely zero attempt in the book to find an origin for the word "dyadic". 🧐 Orr also never questions whether the term "dyadic" actually came from the intersex community. 🧐 So..... rabbit hole time!

Before I get into what I found on dyadic, I wanna quickly fact check Orr on the origin of endosex. Best as I can tell, the term was first used in German in 2000 by Heike Bödeker. Bödeker is controversial for supporting autogynephilia 😬, but I've never seen anybody doubt Bödeker having mixed gonadal dysgenesis. If anybody knows of an older use of endosex, please send it my way! But as far as I can tell, "endosex" was coined by an intersex person.

Okay, onto the origin of dyadic. Orr presents this word as though its only detractors come from its implication there is a sex binary, even though as @intersex-ionality discusses here there are other reasons people don't like it. One reason is that the term is considered to originate from outside the intersex community.

Orr never questions the origins of dyadic. But intersex-ionality's post got me wondering if I could track down an textual origin.

So I went to Google Scholar, searched for "dyad" or "dyadic" plus "intersex" or the h-word and kept changing the time period increasingly far back in time. (Initially I just used intersex until I remembered the h-word slur would be more common in older articles 😬.)

I went into this thinking maybe dyadic would be related to how in early intersex studies literature like Critical Intersex (2009) you can see authors trying out terms like "dimorphic" and "dimorphous" that reference sexual dimorphism. (Neither "dyadic" nor "endosex" show up in the book.)

But the earliest works by intersex scholars that invoke dyadic tend to use it in a way that implies to me it has its own origin - e.g. Malatino (2010) talks about "at one pole, the dyad of the dimorphic heterosexual couple and, at the other, the hermaphroditic body" and "the heteronormative promised land of proper dyadic, dimorphic sex" which gives me the impression dyadic has a more sociological origin rather than the biology origin of dimorphic.

This 2010 gender studies article by Mandy Merck that talks about the intersex rights movement was my first solid lead. Merck draws a direct connection between the intersex rights movement and the 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone. 😯

In the book, Firestone explicitly talks about the "male-female dyad". This book had a fairly big impact when it came out. Firestone was a big-name second-wave radical feminist. And as Merck puts it: "[Firestone's] aim is to release women and men from the culturally gendered[5] dyad of the “subjective, intuitive, introverted, wishful, dreamy or fantastic” and the “objective, logical, extroverted, realistic”[6] into a society undivided by genital differences. This she calls “integration.”" (emphasis mine)

Pushing the search terms to before the 00s, I found I there were some 1980s botanists kinda using "dyad" as an opposite to "hermaphrodite" (example). I don't know how standard this was though, and with Google Scholar it is important to remember that digitization becomes less common the further back you go. 🤷‍♀️

Judith Butler used "dyadic" in a 1985 article about Foucault's Herculine Barbin.

The Butler article got me searching for more generally - "dyad" or "dyadic" plus "sex-roles male female". I found lots of results using dyadic to talk about female/male sex roles from the 1970s.... and a rather sudden paucity of such articles in the 1960s. 🤔

When I restricted the search to anything before 1970, I get results from symbolic interactionist sociology. I.e. the sociology use of "dyadic" (i.e. any social interaction happening between a pair of individuals).

So looks like dyadic as a sex role thing entered the academic lexicon in the early 70s. Which lines up pretty damn well with The Dialectic of Sex coming out in 1970. 👍️ And indeed, many of the 70s uses of "dyadic" explicitly cite Firestone.

I'm guessing Firestone was probably influenced by the interactionist term. Lots of sociologists were talking about dyadic relationships and/or interactions such as teacher-student, parent-child, husband-wife, etc. In this context, it's not surprising that Firestone would pick dyad as a term to talk about male-female sex roles and interactions.

Other than the 1980s botany articles I didn't actually find much from the pre-2000 biology world, and no leads from the medical literature. This doesn't mean "dyadic" wasn't being used by physicans, just that it isn't showing up in my searches on Google Scholar.

I'm coming out of this with the impression that Merck's got it right to be connecting the intersex-related use of dyadic as originating from the writing of Shulamith Firestone. If anybody knows of competing evidence for an origin, *please* do send it my way as I'd be super interested. But in the absence of other evidence, I'd tentatively say that the term dyadic came out of second wave radical feminism and *not* the intersex community.

[running-with-the-feels]

Okay, so, two things:

Y'all know my Ainu Hanzo headcanon? Well I've finally started organizing the list of sources that I'm using for it and am steadily working my way through thoroughly reading them all and over the course of doing that, I've realized that at least a couple of the posts I've made about it (and some things I've included in fics) Are really inaccurate, namely the posts about naming conventions, but the inaccuracies have bled over into a few others as well. So, I'm going to be starting over, if that makes sense? Now that I've got a more varied and extensive set of sources, I want to rewrite the headcanon to be more accurate and realistic, because a) If I'm going to post about this headcanon I have a responsibility to not knowingly spread misinformation and to correct mistakes that I make and b) accuracy is respectful. I'm not sure if I should delete my previous posts about the headcanon, that feels a bit too much like hiding my mistakes, or if I should re-tag/edit them to indicate that there are inaccuracies. If you have any thoughts on that, please let me know.

One of the sources I just got access to is Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, which is a book written by several authors, some Ainu, some Japanese, others British and American, that looks at how the culture has developed of the centuries. It was written in 1999 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Smithsonian of the same name. I am only thirteen pages into the book so far but it is absolutely Stunning (though it is from 1999 so they have called the Inuit and Aleut peoples the e-slur as a collective term). The book is available to read for free here (https://archive.org/details/ainuspiritofnort00wash/page/12/mode/2up) and for purchase here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ainu-Spirit-Northern-Chisato-Dubreuil/dp/0295979127) If you are going to read it, please consider purchasing it if you can, or if you cannot, request that your local library orders the book for their collection. That way, the authors who worked hard to create this book are rewarded for their efforts, and provides proof of the book's success, which encourages others to research similar topics as well as making such endeavours seem viable to funders which makes them more amenable to funding the research