#idk idk. its all nuanced because of course it is

[saintadeline]

other thing about adella vs alfred is that alfred goes out of his way to find annalise - annalise was trapped by logarius until the player hunter came around. meanwhile adella was physically stuck inside the same room as arianna, and couldn't leave because *gestures at the state of yharnam*. and that still doesn't make it okay, of course, but i think alfred's action is more clearly premeditated while adella's is borne of stress and feeling trapped and threatened (and she was trapped and under actual threat of death like 5 minutes earlier).

why did the name of every single character in that start with the letter a.

(also sorry for the notification i accidentally unfollowed you and had to refollow)

Yeah, generally i understand why people compare alfred and adella, and it CAN be a very good comparison to make because the root of the problem is the same, but I kind of disagree on a lot of the ways people raise these parallels. Im obviously biased but I'm still nowhere near being a complete adella apologist, she was coerced both literally and contextually but that doesnt absolve her of any blame and certainly does not make her a good person, i just think it's important to talk about what brought her to this point rather than portraying her with the most misogynistic shit possible. I dont super like talking about alfred in details because for obvious reasons i do not have for him the sympathy i can have for adella and i do not want to get too into The Bases Of Fascism type shit but generally like... Alfred ended up the way he did because of constant propaganda for someone hed never met but was taught to idolize. He was completely free in his endeavors and everything about him revolves around chasing a ghost and becoming a martyr through continuing the work logarius started. Which in itself is a conflicting statement, because it's made clear what logarius did was a success, vilebloods are no more and from what we know iirc, annalise is KNOWN to be undying, no matter what alfred did there would be no "finishing" a job already done, logarius sitting as the seal to the throne was the very last measure. Alfred's act comes from being completely overzealous and needing to find a meaning for himself in a world where he will never be as great as his predecessor. Adella on the other hand was influenced by propaganda as well, but her fall into it was precipitated by the fact she was treated like shit by everyone around her, and that's something you'll find in a lot of other types of yharnam "bigotry" (without getting into the extremes of it obviously... You know what i'm trying to say), because theyre all so constantly living in fear and hatred fueled by the church, how could they assume a stranger to have good intentions they themselves have never felt? Adella is about her conflict between her personal feelings and what she was made to be, as well as being quite literally influenced by something beyond her control and finding herself in increasingly stressful and life threatening situations. I dont think she ever WANTED this to happen, but as she says herself she just "cant help [her]self". Alfred actively pursued his goal, she was shoved towards it.

[ninyard]

how do you think jean would be post tsc duology with his sexuality with jeremy like i feel like he’s been put into this submissive role at the nest but idk if that was something he enjoyed

Oh you’ve opened a can of worms anon. Here’s a not so short but typically messy, as per usual, look into Jean’s sexuality.

Firstly, I think there are a million different nuances and anomaly’s and sides to Jean’s sexuality. Jean Moreau: whose first girlfriend was a plane ticket to the United States. We don’t know much about his childhood, but we can only imagine it wasn’t pleasant; If he’s anything like Neil, did he date at all as a kid/young teen?

So - let’s picture it. We’re a little while into Jean’s time with the Trojans, we're a little while into Jean and Jeremy figuring each other out, and the sex conversations comes up.

Now, personally, I don't believe that Jean's response to his trauma is anything like Andrew's - we've seen he doesn't seem to have an issue being touched, and nor does he seem to have an issue with sexuality in general. But things that I believe he does have a problem with?

His sexuality, and knowing what he wants vs what he believes is expected of him.

I think Jean has an incredible amount of shame around his interest in men. Most of it having been beaten into him, instilled by Riko into him. I think his gut response to pull away and reject advances and pretend his interest in men doesn't exist comes mostly from that, or from hearing Kevin say to him that it was far too difficult a life to be the child of a legacy and interested in men. How the public would react, how professional exy teams and the media would respond; it's always easier to be heterosexual. It always has been.

The first hurdle Jean has to jump over is that; allowing himself to desire men, to feel like that is okay, to feel like he deserves the way that Jeremy looks at him. The Trojans help, far more than they even know. Cat and Laila help. All of the queer couples and out-and-proud folks on the team help. Immeasurably. It normalises it for him, and he sees how safe they are, how unpunished they are, and whether its subconscious or not, being around them all really helps destroy his bone-deep shame. But he gets past it. At some stage he admits that his sexuality is unimportant to him, as it truly is, but he feels comfortable enough say well, yes, his attraction does also extend to men. It will never be more important that Exy. But it exists. It just eventually becomes a far smaller deal to him that it had originally been.

Skip some time, some awkward and painful conversations, and Jean and Jeremy are together. How that happens, I don't know - do they hook up first? Do they date for a while before they get there? But, when they get there, there comes this point a handful of times in where Jeremy realises he has been leading their encounters a whole lot more than Jean is. In fact, when he thinks about it, as comfortable as Jean insists that he is, he is not in control at all. He follows Jeremy's lead. Jeremy thinks about Kevin's awkward comment the day he was asked to sign Jean.

"Tell me what you want." Jeremy says, having thought too much about it, having wondered if he was imagining things.

"You," Jean responds, maybe. "That is all."

Jeremy sits back and he looks at him, and Jean looks back with that gorgeous and confused look draped across his pale complexion. Somehow they talk for a little while, and find themselves at the point:

Is this how you actually want to have sex, or is it just how you think I want you to have sex?

And Jean doesn't know. It's the question that sends him spiralling, because he hasn't even realised it. He hasn't noticed how he is simply complacent, uninvested in his own desires and pleasure in order to keep Jeremy happy. It's not that he doesn't get pleasure from it, of course he does, but he will not take a step out of line if Jeremy is happy. I think he might have to stop for a while, stepping back from sex while he tries to understand his relationship with sex itself. He's too used to being used and having expectations put on him that he knows no different. He doesn't know what he likes. He doesn't know if he prefers to top or bottom, to be submissive or dominant, or any other thing like that; it's a no-mans land that he's spent far too long people-pleasing in that he's forgotten that he's allowed to enjoy it as well. So I think that takes a lot of time and unlearning to see his own pleasure as something worthy of investigating.

Jeremy is patient, of course, and while he sees how much of a "step back" Jean has taken in terms of being okay with sex, it's worth it; sure, Jean never much had a problem with it, and maybe bringing it up caused a problem, but it sparks that thought in Jean's brain. That curiosity about whether or not the role that he plays during sex has been built by the nest, or if it's what he genuinely likes to do. As I say, it takes a lot of unlearning for Jean. A lot of unpacking of what happened to him, and a lot of really, really hard conversations.

His body is his own, and he knows that now. It does not belong to Jeremy. Again, not that Jeremy thinks so either, to be very clear. He knows Jeremy doesn't think so. Not one bit. But he has to understand that himself. He doesn't have to read Jeremy's micro expressions to figure out what he wants him to do, he doesn't have to just keep him happy. Intimacy can only exist in an environment where it is reciprocated. And while he cares deeply for Jeremy, if he is ignoring his own desires in order to maintain peace, he is not being genuine. He is simply submitting because that's the only option he's known. That's the only choice he's ever had.

I think Jean loves sex - I think Jean really, really enjoys having sex with Jeremy. I just think it's also evident quite quickly that he isn't even thinking about how he affords Jeremy all of the control in every scenario. Jean is submissive because that's all he knows. And I feel like it takes a while and a lot of talking for him to leave that habit behind and freely, unashamedly, fuck without expectation for him to be a certain way or act a certain way. That doesn't mean he has to be a top or a bottom. It does mean that he has to stop himself from studying every twitch and tell on Jeremy's face to try understand completely what the Captain expects of him.

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[daftmooncretin]

rip to rian johnson but star wars sequels would be way better if ben solo was just kinda cowardly and han solo coded so he defected from the jedi and went to be a fun swashbuckling anarchist space cowboy instead

and finn and poe have to find him and try to convince him to come back to the rebellion but hes afraid who he is and what he could become

also instead of luke trying to kill his nephew for NO REASON (so insanely out of character it boils my blood) he just realises after ben dips thats hes not cut out for teaching. and is living on a mandalorian colony as rebellion liason/ambassador with chewie and sometimes lando i guess (din djarin is there) he aids the rebellion (because of course he would fuck that plotline) but he wont stay on the rebel base because he doesnt like all the chosen one clout and mandalorians are very chill and mind their own business

han and leia are still together and play active parts in the rebellion because fuck that plotline too although they do disagree about the ben situation (leia is annoyed and han is understanding) poe and ben childhood friends and for what.

in this au, rey is raised in the empire and is a sith lord but she has doubts and isnt as abjectly disgusting as kylo ren because of course not. (appears slightly too interested in the rebellion when poe is captured and maybe??? possibly lets finn and poe escape but thats up for debate.) rey gets more evil over course of movies before turning to light for plot drama and a satisfying zuko arc.

force awakens timeline

prophecy that a new jedi will rise and take down the dark side. rey and sith lord (dk who but fuck snoke im writing him out) assume it is the missing ben solo (its finn and rey tho fr) and are intent on finding him. movie opens on rey being evil probably and capturing poe. also finn as a character actully needs no real changes hes great. and then next scene space pirate ben solo doing his thing (but without identity revealed so we dont know who he is yet he may go by kylo because funny)

instead of luke poe has a lead on missing almost-jedi before he dipped ben solo and is searching for him on leias orders.(rebellion also believe the prophecy is about him. but nuh uh) torture scene and escape scene doesnt need to change but show reys nuances and how lost she is.

in the interest of narrative poe and finn still crash on tatooine but finn manages to pull poe out of the crash. (finn still gets the jacket at some point because i say so) poe is too injured to fly so they seek out help and and meet ben solo who saves them from pirates or something idk. (but neither know who the other is)

finn and poe convince ben solo to be their pilot still thinking hes a random smuggler named kylo. they get along very well, especially finn and ben. rey by this point is tracking their whereabouts

they end up on that lightsaber planet and ben gets the weird darth vader nightmare and freaks out, (hes afraid of being evil or something idk) poe is getting suspicious now also finn feels the force and takes up the lightsaber. rey comes and finn trys to hold her off. finn get hurt and drops lightsaber. ben is forced to take it up and his identity is revealed as rebel reeforcements led by han and leia arrive and they see him fighting. rey and ben have a weird charged moment (yes i guess i am still making reylo a thing but its reyben now and its woke so shh) and in a dramatic desperate effort he manages to knock her lightsaber away with the force. poe crawls into a plane at somepoint and blows up reys ship. the rebels destroy the stormtroopers but rey captures finn and escapes in a stolen ship.

ben has a oh-shit-i-said-id-never-use-the-force-again related existential crisis which makes him freak out and leaves. a distraught finn-less poe calls him a coward. poe picks up the discarded lightsaber and the jackettm and sadly packs them up. leia tells him about the starkiller and poe volunteers to go on the starkiller and save finn. han and leia have a sweet moment and han decides to go with poe on the suicide mission, chewie goes too.(chewie arrived at somepoint i guess)

mid hostage situation finn blocks reys force attempt and shes shook up. he sees something in her (finn is a beautiful sweetheart) and he trys to appeal to her. she force chokes him and books it out of there. but it is clear she fears him a little. he escapes with mind tricks and runs into han poe and chewie on the deck. finnpoe moment fr. poe gives him his jacket back in order to get the keep it it looks good on you line.

meanwhile ben is back on his ship(i guess its the falcon?) and he thinks about finn and his mom and luke or something.. a dream maybe?? idk something emotional and motivational for his arc. and he goes to a box under the floor in his ship and pulls out a green lightsaber. he turns the ship around.

on the ship poe finn han and chewie are planting the bombs and escaping when they get stopped by stormtroopers ordered by rey. poe is about to be shot by a big droid thing when it is cut in half by ben wow big reveal hes here oooo ah. rey is shot in the shoulder by chewie and angrily orders more stormtroopers. they cant take them all. han sacrifices himself by blowing up the bridge. he tells finn and poe to find luke in the mandolorian colony ben is distraught him and han have an emotional goodbye he tells him to tell leia he’s sorry and that he loves him and he proud of him then he makes chewy get ben out of there and he blows himself up. leia senses it v sad rip man but he had to die to intensify plot drama

rey chases them onto the ice planet and another weird charged moment. mind link established??? this time ben is too angry and grieving though so its not a good match and she wounds him real bad all over hes v scarred now. poe shoots at rey and throws lightsaber at finn. he gets ben onto the ship and finn and rey have the big force awakens show down. finn uses the force v powerful all that jazz the good guys get away. on the ship finn mentions how he felt a connection with rey to poe and claims he sees good in her

movie ends with meeting luke on mandolore. ben is very traumatised wont really speak to finn or poe and avoiding luke. finn returns lukes lightsaber and rey has doubts movie over. movies ends with ominous rey ben mind link

final notes (on first movie and overarching rewrite plans)

finn

finn is the protagonist of this movie so it would be much more character heavy on him them the original. more in depth on his stormtrooper trauma, how he always chooses the people he loves over the cause and his reluctance to join the rebellion. his friendship with poe and the han/leia parallel’s especially. relationships with han and ben important for his character exposition and he plays a key role in supporting both rey and bens character progression. possesses the strong sense of mercy and kindness at the heart of the star wars franchise.

rey

rey is raised in the first empire and does not know anything different. when she meets finn who was able to rebel and escape from the same system she is trapped in she becomes plagued by doubts and projects all of her hatred and resentment onto finn to compensate, but it is clear she fears him. to escape from her doubts she fixates on finding and capturing ben solo imagining him to be a frightening and terrible adversary. however when she meets him they see eachothers minds, and she sees how plagued by doubt and fear he is, how he runs from everything and he sees her too. they connect and develop a strange mutual fascination/understanding. this is put askew by finns appearance at the end of the movie in defence of ben. reys fear of finn increases when she sees the true extent of his power. she fears and hates equally finns strength of character and easy goodness and by extension hates ben for his alliance with finn. she blames finn for “taking” ben from her.

ben solo

kylo ren is a disgusting blight on the star wars names so ben solo is being completely reclaimed by me into a different character because i fucking hate that stupid pretentious eboy. instead ben solo is an incredibly han solo coded character with a heart of gold and deep love and loyalty to his friends and family. his main weakness as a character in this rewrite is his fear and lack of self belief. ben is terrified of being a jedi and of his own power. he fears his own nature and was so afraid he would become his grandfather that he ran from the jedi altogether. ben solo is a runner that wont face his problems, he runs from the jedi and from his parents to avoid failing or becoming something terrible. finn and ben recognise the need to run in eachother (although important distinction finn runs because he doesn’t want to fight for a cause. and ben runs because hes afraid he will be the reason the cause fails) and ultimately encourage eachother to break the cycle and stand their ground (well finn motivated ben in this movie, finns not fixed yet.) Bens arc in these movies is about learning to live with his own nature and fighting for what he believes in despite his fear. also dealing with mommy issues (ben is kind of jealous of poe and leias relationship the son she wanted or something blah blah blah etc) and being a malewife to his murder girlfriend. his job is kind of to support and fight with finn and later rey and help them save the world

finnpoe (will be a gay couple)

their friendship will be front and centre in these movies because they represent duty vs personal loyalty. poe puts the cause above all else and values his own life and personal relationships little. finn on the other hand is disillusioned with establishment cause of stormtrooper trauma and wants to protect himself and others from it. poe is the first person that finn truly bonds with and loves. he puts poe above everything, including being a jedi and the rebellion. this leads to a lot of fighting and discord between finn and poe as finn doesn’t understand how important the rebellion is to poe and poe doesnt get why finn is trying to protect him from it. ultimately though poe teaches finn faith and belief and finn teaches poe to accept love and value himself. (also many hanleia parallels) the two of them are the harbingers of a new age. poe as future leader of the new republic and finn as the jedi messiah or whatever. in terms of romance, im thinking slowburn. baity first movie, kiss at the end of the second and established relationship by the halfway mark of the third.

also when rey eventually joins the light in the beginning she refuses to talk to ben (cause of romantic drama i havent thought of yet but centres around some sort or betrayal in the second movie) or finn (because hes her narrative foil and slow burn best friend forever) so her first friend is poe and she kind of follows him around in her first few months before she eventually bonds with finn 4eva. her poe shadowing has lots of cute friend moments where they fly together and he tries to talk her down about finn and the ben drama but also more importantly it foreshadows her leadership ability and tactical mind as she gives him advice and aids him with the rebellion behind the scenes (also leads to leia taking rey under her wing probably because poe is her surrogate son and mirror) which will eventually lead to her and poe leading the republic together because in my mind rey is a jedi but actively a member of republic government because ben can’t do politics and finn won’t but shes great at it so she’d be a perfect jedi liason and vice president to poe. meanwhile finn and ben lead the jedi. finn as a knight travelling across the galaxy and ben as a teacher. (luke is happy in retirement rn on mandalore but leia is still probably an advisor in the republic because retirement is definitely not for her) and everyone is happy the end. force ghost han solo is clapping.

[moonyasnow]

Just some Octatrio thoughts, about another post

Ok I don't usually do this but this one take about the Octatrio I scrolled past on my dash the other day has invaded my brain like a parasite and latched on and absolutely refuses to let go, so I just need to get it out of my system or it's gonna drive me crazy

I don't remember the OP's name, but if I remember correctly the post was basically about how, apparently(apologies in advance if I got something wrong or misrepresented the OP's words):

People who have soft, fluffy headcanons for Azul, Jade and Floyd are kids who had the jokes the characters were based on, such as:

Jade likes mountains apparently not because he just thinks nature is fascinating but it's supposed to be a joke for mountains being good places to dump bodies

The Leeches are implied to be a literal fish mafia

The Octatrio are dressed like American prohibition-era mobsters

Jade and Floyd want to eat Azul

fly over their heads.

And I just—

The only word I can think of to explain what I feel every time I remember it is 'baffled'. I mean absolutely 0 disrespect in any way, shape or form to the OP, but I am genuinely fascinated by how they could have come to those conclusions.

My first thought was 'no actually I'm pretty sure people get it' And there are people over the age of 18 who have fluffy headcanons about them too, you know?

My second is 'why can't it be both?' Like, why can't Jade genuinely find mountains and nature fascinating while having it on a more meta level also be a small joke about how mountains are good places for dumping bodies?

Why can't Floyd like Takoyaki while also NOT wanting to eat his best friend?

Why can't the Leeches be a mafia family while still having Jade and Floyd, who are literally still teenagers, be multidimensional characters who have priorities and like other things than just 'haha murder'?

Sure, those jokes and influences are there, but they are not the end-all-be-all of the characters? This just feels like a very one-dimensional way of looking at these characters.

And isn't TWST's entire thing that appearances can be deceiving? In a way I feel like Jade's love of mountains being viewed as 'oh he dumps bodies there because he's a scary ocean monster and has thus probably killed people before so of course that's why' is a very surface-level reading and understanding of him as a character— it just sounds like something some random student who has only seen him from afar and doesn't actually know him as a person would think.

And it's a similar thing with the Takoyaki. The surface-level reading would be 'if he likes eating Takoyaki, which has octopus in it, that must mean he wants to eat Azul too! Because Floyd is big and scary and has probably killed people before' To me it also sounds like something Ace or Grim might think before Book 3.

And, while I'm not gonna deny the Tweels have almost certainly murdered (or at least gotten close to it) people before, in a way it just feels kinda...idk, mean-spirited? To say, for example, that Jade can't just have nature be a thing he enjoys for its own merits, that he's not allowed to have that as just a thing he genuinely likes and there has to be some deeper, meta reason for why. Or that Floyd can't just enjoy Takoyaki and probably tease Azul with it but also not actually want to eat him because he likes him and wants him around. To me that kinda feels like sucking all the joy and interesting nuance out of a character, in a way.

And implying that the people who don't ascribe to the same view as you are kids also feels somewhat infantilizing? Like, it just comes off as saying that the people who disagree haven't thought about it hard enough or just aren't smart enough to get it, and I just feel like that's not a great stance to take in any kind of discussion. Quite a flimsy way of trying to discredit the opinions of those who disagree, too.

I am NOT trying to start any kind of 'drama' or 'attack OP' or anything like that; I'm genuinely very confused— I just feel like one of us, either OP or me, is misunderstanding something here

[prettyboykatsuki]

how do you reconcile with writing smut about characters who are canonically minors? i’m not trying to attack you or try to change your mind or anything, so sorry if my question reads that way. i’m just genuinely curious 😭

no worries!! this is asked respectfully so i dont mind answering even tho i usually just delete stuff abt this now

idk really know how to answer your question i have not reiterated many times. but like. i want you to really consider your own way of asking this to me critically. like what would i have to "reconcile" with exactly? them being minors in canon?

for me personally there's nothing to reconcile with. i feel no guilt or shame or remorse about aging up characters. or just like wanting to fuck them. or really anything i write in fiction at all, point blank - should i choose to explore it. like there's not crime i've committed other than being horny about some shit i made up, upon the basis some shit another guy made up.

partially this is bc characters in fictions are concepts. they're objects, thoughts, ideas. no matter how brainrotted i am about them, they don't live in material reality. im not harming them because they don't exist. outside of my phone and computer they are not real. harrowing myself with guilt over something that does not even exist is kind of insane. this applies to everything.

you can feel personal discomfort over aging up for yourself, but the reality is no actual minors are harmed in the process of me writing porn about anime characters. bakugou is lines on paper. i am allowed to cut him out like a barbie doll and play with him however i like. he doesn't get a say in that because he is fake lol.

there's like idk. all sorts of nuance to this and if you are respectfully curious im happy to talk to you about it. but they're just not real. no one is hurt in me writing this. so it doesn't matter to me at all. i would never hurt another person because of what im interested in fictionally, either. i have spent too many years becoming a decent human being to wonder about that

nothing i do in the fictional space is of any relevance to who i am, except for what things might cause genuine harm to another living breathing person. i write a lot of dark content in my smut also but

a lot of my content also while being dark, does not specifically deal with sensitive social issues so no one is hurt in that way either. i have enough confidence in my critical understanding of the world to write what i do understand to my ability. i mostly write about noncon and dubcon and yandere, all of which are personal violations and not social ones (OVERSIMPLIFYING THERE A LOT). i sometimes do write about social taboos of course but not whats outside of my ability

all in all its like. i dont know what i'd feel guilty over. no one is hurt and i have no intent to harm. nothing matters outside of that

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

… I can’t imagine that we actually watched the same show. Like I REALLY AISNSOSNWKMEJDND

hold on I’m gonna need to calm down.

Let me just make a list of why I disagree and at least organize my anger. Long post incoming.

Vander was friends and had a deal with Grayson. The sheriff. Idk what else to even add to that

Caitlyn is more than a cop and Arcane isn’t copaganda. Genuinely don’t know what kind of progress some of these people are looking for. Real allies are a necessity for real progress.

SILCO IS A CLASS TRAITOR. HE FUNNELLED DRUGS INTO THE UNDERCITY AND PUT POOR KIDS IN FACTORIES FOR THAT DRUG FOR PROFIT!!! HE PAID THE ENFORCERS TO LET HIM DO IT WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE

Vi is not as much as an activist as you would like to believe

WHY IS EKKO NEVER EVER BROUGHT UP IN THESE CONVERSATIONS????

Silco was not good for the Undercity

Silco was not a great guy. Ekko had to build an entire separate hidden community for the people he hurt and stepped on for his own benefit

Caitlyn is ignorant and naive. That’s ok. That’s what character development is for.

Loving imperfect characters like Silco and Jinx then hating characters like Vi and Caitlyn is peak media illiteracy to me

FOR THE LAST TIME: VI DIDNT ABANDON POWDER!!!!! Silco literally wanted Vi DEAD for trying to stop him from killing Vander??? How could you possibly say silco was there for jinx when Vi refused to be???? SHE WAS IN PRISON BECAUSE OF HIM???

Silco’s manipulation is working wonders on y’all

Embracing all the outrage without at all looking out for the people harmed by bigotry is not activism

SILCO IS A CLASS TRAITOR x929282929394

Caitlyn was the first person in years to show Vi kindness and care. She listened and stuck by her and took care of her after Vi was locked up for years and beat up by cops (i wonder what led her to be thrown in there?). Cait being a cop stopped being a point of contention once Vi recognized her naivety and genuineness.

NUANCE NUANCE NUANCE. ITS NEVER EVER BLACK AND WHITE

The only way I can see Vi touching ‘class traitor’ in season one was the shimmer raid. Guess who the hell put those kids in there in the first place.

Just hanging out with Caitlyn isn’t being a class traitor if Vander’s allowed to be friends with Grayson.

Critical thinking is very necessary for watching shows like Arcane

What the hell did Silco really do for the Undercity???? What changed over the 7(ish) years he was basically in power of the place? All I’ve heard was he made the air cleaner, which would be great except for, you know, shimmer and the child factory workers

Jinx is unwell and feeding into it like this in a fully serious manor would not help Arcane as a show at all

What do you want Arcane’s message as a full show to be? ‘Screw cops’? That’s a little boring and unproductive isn’t it?

CAN WE TALK ABOUT EKKO AND HIS IMPACT PLEASE???? x9382728283

Caitlyn is trying to make Piltover and Zaun a better place. Is that not allowed? Am I missing something?

Caitlyn and Vi’s arcs have only just started. Season one is basically fully set up except for characters like silco and Jinx. This is far from the end.

Genuinely think Vander would appreciate Vi for being friends (using this term loosely because they are in love) with Caitlyn considering he was the one who was opposed to war and Vi wasn’t.

Silco should NOT be your idea of Undercity independence and respect. He oppressed the Undercity the same way the Council and the Enforcers did. He helped no one but himself, his team (barely) and Jinx.

You’re allowed to like and dislike any character you want but pretending like Silco is better for the Undercity than others is just so ridiculous to me. Everyone is of course completely allowed to like Silco, but we can’t pretend like he’s this stand up guy. If you have to pretend like he was, maybe you don’t like him as much as you think.

“Because Cait’s pretty” is also incredibly incorrect. Go check point #14.

Vi never stopped loving and caring for Powder. Powder’s mental health issues were amplified and utilized by Silco because he couldn’t even heal himself.

If all of your opinions of Caitlyn and Vi start and end with “cops suck” and “class traitor” then you genuinely don’t respect Arcane as a show enough to show you nuance.

The misinterpretation of characters is just so … it’s like you go out of your way to love and/or hate characters no matter how much they show you who you are.

Your closed mindedness is clouding your judgement and making you out to seem like you don’t actually want the Undercity’s triumph, you want Silco and Jinx’s, even if it means ruining the Undercity. And that would be fine because father/daughter evil duo but trying to say you’re all for this duo because you want what’s better for the Undercity when they continue to hurt it is simply not correct and very harmful (to fictional characters in a fictional universe 😭)

Only being able to understand how Silco and Jinx were oppressed and therefore should be able to not just destroy Piltover but also Zaun is not the eat you think it is

Why is Viktor never called a class traitor? I think he's great (I also think Silco and Jinx are wonderfully written) but we hardly saw him in the Undercity/ interact with people from the Undercity plus he killed someone (Sky) from there (accidentally)

EDIT TO ADD ANOTHER POINT: Caitlyn has shown little to NO malicious intent and has no real negative impacts other than Jinx’s attachment issues and insecurities being amplified by her mere existence. Again, this is her story and development. Throughout the season she is exposed to reality and recognizes her and her peers/ families wrongs. I have no idea what you want from this character. Should Piltover just be gotten rid of in the story? Then what? Should Caitlyn have just never gotten involved and continued to embrace her privilege? Should she have left Vi in prison and stay ignorant?

[zmediaoutlet]

Re: Jess/Sam. I remember this great meta post that goes through Dean and Jess meeting in the pilot, and how Dean is really just assessing a threat and then asserting his dominance in his relationship to Sam. Immediately Jess serves as something "getting in the way" of Dean and his family/mission. Its really interesting to think about this in terms of fic where Sam gets married. I also wish something could have been played with more in the Djinn ep dealing with jealousy or expectations.

I think I vaguely remember the post you're talking about -- that Dean is initially just kinda jokey with Sam, and then when Jess comes into the room and interrupts he goes into ultra prickly defense mode. "Asserting dominance" always puts my 'why are we over-applying psych terms to nuanced fictional characters' hackles up, lol. But it's true that Dean does that ott aggro flirting (partly, I think, just to be rude to Sam, who has still very much hurt Dean's feelings and they haven't talked about that in any kind of substantive way), and pushes Jess away so that he and Sam can be oriented inside the circle of The Secret which she's outside of. She does get in the way and Dean needs to move forward and this is his instinctive move.

More interesting to me, though, is that it doesn't work, or not exactly. Sam takes the obvious insult and goes and stands next to The Other Woman, and tells Dean that, no, she is not outside the circle -- that she and I have formed our own circle, with you outside it. And Dean goes, oh, really? Well, let's test that -- and it's Sam who understands that oh shit wait this really is about The Secret, and it's Sam who tells Jess to leave.

idk about any 'dominance' being asserted, but it's endlessly wild to me that Sam continually says that he wants (or wants to want) this good 'normal' committed life away from all that stuff, but he's not actually committing to the relationship with The Other Woman. In the pilot at least, Dean isn't really representing himself as-Sam's-brother (not least because Sam has clearly indicated that he's not interested in Dean as his brother, given that they haven't talked in two years) -- he's the call to action, he's the wild weird horror of hunting itself, he's the Not-Normal -- and Sam turns toward it almost instantly! Of course he has a sense of duty toward the family and toward making sure innocents aren't hurt, even if he's been trying to smother it with a pillow for four years -- but Sam leaps at the hunt, he's good at it, he's running away from a car with Dean and literally making a leap of faith off a bridge and lying to cops and driving cars through walls and having the best time ever. He goes back to the apartment because he's committed to the life he's told himself he should have, but he'd being lying to himself (and viewers would be lying to themselves, too) if that whole adventure were interpreted as some horrible thing Sam had to do. He had fun. He is a hunter. (And it honestly doesn't matter why -- whether he's naturally attracted to danger, whether it was all nurture, if you want to be one of those tedious familyhorror people and say he was stockholmed into it, whatever. This is who he is, and it's interesting to look at his behavior on that level.)

So like -- if Sam actually stayed? If he and Jess actually got married? Oof. That door got opened and it would never stay shut. I don't believe in taking deleted scenes as canon, but there is that deleted dialogue about how Sam looked up hunts when he was in college. And we see Mary doing the exact same thing, when Dean was a baby and she was ostensibly "out" of hunting. It's entirely believable that he'd not be able to fully stay out -- and, in the sense that hunting itself is represented by Dean, that he would also 'cheat' on Jess with his brother -- or want to, which is as close to the same thing as would make no difference.

You know, that line Constance has in the pilot? Sam says, I've never been unfaithful, and she says, you will be. Eager wincesties want to take that as a direct brofuckin' meaning, but that's an overreading, and honestly you don't need to take it that far to make it meaningful. Sam made a commitment, if not out loud then at least internally, that he was going to stay away -- at Stanford, in normalcy, with Jessica. I guess, in a terrible way, he's lucky that fate & circumstance tore him away from that life and forced him into infidelity, before he had the chance to be unfaithful of his own volition. It was coming. One way or another.

[zibus]

Alright, so it looks like Usopp is going to have pretty light-toned skin in the remake. Of course this is all concept art so it could change (I hope it changes) but my hopes are not high. Because this seems to be the "official" direction across everything except the la. He is bone pale in Toei Egghead now as well.

This sucks, for lots of reasons. Anime often has issues with racists or at least unflattering depictions of black people reflecting larger issues with race in Japan ( not unique to them, obv.). One Piece has historically avoided a lot if these criticisms (that I've seen) because most named black or black-coded characters are allowed to be cool and/or have interesting characterization. Mr. One, Blackbeard, Kuma, and King come to mind (Blackbeard and Kuma being some of Oda's best characters!) not to mention all Fishmen to some degree. These characters all have varying levels of complexity and avoid the worst stereotypes of African Americans and other black people.

However, black people are still few and far between in the world of OP and they do often end up pigeon holed into certain roles. Of the list above only Kuma is heroic and only Blackbeard is a leader. The "Zoro is a racist" jokes come from somewhere. While many black characters have great designs, there are several examples of really awful caricatures.

Hopefully I dont have to explain that this guy on Buggy's crew is.... not great.

And so if Usopp no longer has dark skin, but is merely black-coded (and some of that coding is borrowed from minstrel shows as well), then a massive hole opens up in One Piece's black representation. The most* nuanced, compelling, and relatable Strawhat is no longer black, and the lense on the rest of Oda's track record for black characters starts to deserve harder scrutiny.

Thing is, this isn't the animators going rogue. This appears to be how Oda imagines Usopp. Consistently from his first appearance to today, Oda colors Usopp with basically the same skin-tone as the other characters.

In fact, all of the characters Toei gave a darker skin tone have much lighter ones on volume covers or in the colored version.

The lighter Usopp, then, can (and you can bet your ass will be) defended as being closer to Oda's original vision. But that doesn't make it better or even good. This is a case where I think Oda's vision/interpretation is wrong. These characters are black-coded and should be drawn in ways that make it obvious and clear that black people of all shades exist in OP and anime in general. Leaving dark skinned characters out entirely betrays a shortcoming on Oda's part.

So... what does this mean? Idk. As a white fan, I'm upset and disappointed. It puts a stain on a series that has spent so much time discussing race and racism in a nuanced and generally helpful way. Its another reminder that you can always have deep biases and internalized bs, even decades into writing a series at least partial about breaking oppressive and racists regimes. But the people this hurts the most are black fans of the series and anime who are having a role-model and wonderfully nuanced and sympathetic black character erased.

I hope Oda changes his mind, or maybe someone at Wit or Toei can speak up and bring this issue to light. Maybe fan complaints will help? Idk. Im just bracing myself, I guess. And yes, I'm sure I'll "get over it" eventually and enjoy the remake, but I won't be able to forget.

*your millage on Usopp may vary, of course, but Water 7 is Peak One Piece for a reason and a lot of that reason is Usopp.

[pastadoughie]

Read over what was going on with anon asks and your posts, and tbh, if you are 16 and you are reaching this kind of critical thinking and actively trying to better yourself through meaningful debates and convos, you are doing god's fucking work from early. I couldn't even begin to form the kind of arguments you are articulating at your age in your posts, so fucking kudos.

I have a similar opinion of sexism being bad no matter the form it takes, patriarchy affects everyone because it imposes roles on everyone, not only women. Breaking those roles on all sides and genders should be the ultimate goal, not try to benefit from the system to become the oppressor.

In any case dude, good luck with the unavoidable influx of people who will misinterpret your posts. Also, your art is hella cool!

i think that alot of ppl just have a rlly hard time like, getting over the gut response to defend themselves when they recieve some kind of serious critisism, like, i think ppl understand on some level that sexism as a concept is stupid, but it can be hard to fully see all the nuances it takes and like, actually recognize it when its subtler

sexism is bad and when i point out that alot of you guys believe ideas that are like, really sexist then thats like, im assuming none of you are like "YEAA SEXISM RUELZZZ!!!! I HATE PEOPLE BASED ON THIER GENDOR" and u rlly rlly dont wanna be lumped into that group

its rlly normal to not wanna be mischaracterized and if you dont self identify as sexist then when someone points out sexist retoric it feels like an unfair and reductive veiw of u

and its like, you really really really need to work past that, im talking abt this stuff because i want ppl to change and be better and if you want that for yourself u have to like rlly chew on these kinds of things

i think what alot of people have issues with is like, relatability in artwork, like "of course im gonna like art with queer women in it more and find it more valueble if im a queer woman" but i think that this points to a really rigid and uphelpful veiw of gender

ive discussed before that, because the mind numbing ammount of biological differences people have theres no actual objective definition of sex or gender, its socially constructed and entirely arbitrary and subjective

i think that labels for sexuality and gender are useful shorthand in our current society though ideally we wouldnt need them, but you need to remember that these things arent rigid

butch lesbian is not a definable group, gay man is not a definable group, they are arbitrary words that mean something different for literally every different person

likewise acting like those meaningless labels somehow make some artwork more or less valueble just points to a bias against people with a certain label

like, the labels dont mean anything they shouldnt change your veiw of a work, if you resonate with a peice of work why does it matter what label is put on it? why does that affect your veiw on the peice?

and yes you are objectively going to relate to some experiences more then others, but i dont think relatability should effect how you value the work, infact id argue seeing perspectives different then your own is incredibly incredibly valueble and, if your disregarding (even subconciously) certain things because theyre made by men then that not only hurts men but it hurts you, it isolates you

maybe i didnt word that perfectly im not always the most articulate but like, i think most of the issues people are having with this are coming from me articulating things maybe not as intuatively as i could or from people refusing to properly engadge with what i have to say

idk, regarding the people accusing me of transmysogeny i just wanna say that like, I AM NOT ALLERGIC TO TALKING TO YOU ABT THIS!! i want to be better and i dont want to be mysogenistic! and if you do see concerning behavior in me i want to be told of it, you keeping these kinds of things to yourself or refusing to engadge with me when i actively am trying to be like, thourough and nuanced about things is just kinda, not productive

[orkbutch]

sound like terf talking points ngl. just say you don’t think trans women are women and go :/

I'm assuming this ask is referring to this post, otherwise idk what it'd be about That post was made in response to me first noticing trans men talking about "transmisandry". An element of whats being called transmisandry is the exact experience I described in that post, and I was giving my opinion on that change in gender perception and how battling against that is pretty futile. As I said in the post, this wariness toward masculinity and cis men - I'm just going to call this 'Man Wariness' for short - is also something the vast majority of trans women have internalised. (I only say "vast majority" because I guess there could be The Exception? but really I just think All women have that wariness lmao.)

I became aware of this discussion because trans women that I follow on twitter have been pushing back on the misogyny and transmisogyny that's been expressed by the people championing the existence of transmisandry the hardest. I've been witnessing a lot of conversations trans women are having about the trans/misogyny they've experienced specifically from trans men. They (accurately imo) identify this as a threat to the integrity of feminism, particularly within transgender thought/politics, because misandry is not a real oppressive framework that exists. Pro-transmisandrists have been arguing that misandry is real and harms trans women as well, because The Man Wariness - non-men having learned to be guarded and fearful of masculinity & (what their brain associates subconsciously with) cis men - can also be directed at trans women, and results in transphobia toward those women.

The trans women disagreeing resent the framing of this as a 'misandry' issue because, of course, trans women are women. The people that hate trans women, even the ones that call them men to abuse them, don't actually see them as Men. In the eye of the transphobe, terf or GC, trans women are something else entirely, an inherently deviant third thing. Pushing back against "misandry", a supposed systemic oppressive hatred of manhood and men, does absolutely nothing to protect women from oppression. Trans women are oppressed, attacked, assaulted and abused mostly viciously and routinely by cis men. Labelling a description and discussion of Man Wariness as "TERF talking points" is just... deeply, deeply unhelpful imo. Man Wariness is just real. Thats just how a LOT of people operate in the world, trans women included. Obviously this learned wariness ends up impacting how many trans women are viewed and treated, and I understand being skeptical of me defending Man Wariness because of that. I was talking about it in the context of trans men/mascs' experiences specifically. Honestly... I don't really have helpful, thorough thoughts on how Man Wariness impacts trans women/fems and how that should be tackled. Its a bit of a wicked problem, I'm not trans fem and I haven't seen much discussion about this specifically. I assume because its a touchy subject thats kind of avoided. On the one hand, I believe deeply that trans women shouldn't need to perform/achieve a certain level of femininity in order to be safe, happy and acknowledged by society as women. On the other hand, Man Wariness is an uncontrollable response that is very deeply internalised, often directly connected to traumatic experiences, and I don't think its something that can be explored and addressed unless we can talk about it openly and frankly. Your response to this is very counter-productive imo. It just shuts down any possibility of a nuanced, open discussion. Maybe it'd be helpful if I was a terf, but I'm not lol. Which is obvious if you've known me or followed my work for any significant amount of time. Its the kind of response that shames someone for having Man Wariness, and feeling shame about an uncontrollable emotional response is toxic. Thats going to make that person feel they're irredeemably transphobic in some deeply embedded way that makes them reluctant to interact with trans women. And if theres anything that I think would break down someone's Man Wariness reaction to trans women, it would be having more familiarity with trans women because they'd pretty quickly internalise that trans women are not a threat and are women. OR of course that shame makes them feel rejected and alienated from trans friendly sphears, and they then turn toward TERF & GC sphears where they can be reassured their Man Wariness is fine, and are then vulnerable to being radicalised. But you know in my opinion no matter where that discussion went, no matter how immovable Man Wariness could be proven to be, that will NEVER invalidate that trans people have a right to safety, health, happiness and acceptance within society as the gender we know we are. That's actually just fact. These discussions are simply figuring out How that should come to be, and what our vision of a better, trans accepting society might look like.

[sheareling]

lol like. yes kristen and cassandra are both fictional characters. their actions and treatment are not real its FICTION its not real. no you cannot hold fictional characters accountable that means nothing because they arent real. if what you meant is that you wish brennan or the PCs would have been harder on kristen then idk what to tell you. its a comedy show and a coming of age story. a story about growing into a better person cant happen if all the characters started as perfect angels. its also very weird to see people acting like kids should be put in jail or something for uhhhh... not being good at communicating? again. i dont know what to say. very un-nuanced, unempathetic, un-understanding way of viewing interpersonal relationships that i frankly dont want to touch with a 10-foot pole. BUT ALSO, beyond ALL of that, cassandra is a god and not a person. iirc from season 1, in the lore, gods are supposed to be physical manifestations of their followers' faith and religious belief. of course the ex-catholic dyke has an unhealthy relationship with every god she has ever had, her relationship with faith as a whole is deeply damaged. its a metaphor and a narrative tool. and its deeply disappointing to see that people are just writing off ally and their decisions as "problematic" instead of meaningfully engaging with the story as it exists, and what it is that the players are trying to say. much of the time, the players WANT you to dislike choiced their characters make! theyre not idiots! thats the whole point! so you can have a bigger and better payoff when they finally make better choices! that is /literally/ the whole point of a story. and yet some of you still could not miss the point more completely.

[thyandrawrites]

idk if you can answer this but do you know if the bllk characters are as crazy and rude with their dialogue in the original japanese manga too like with the fan translation? sorry for any english mistake. hope you have a good week :)

your english is fine, don't worry!

good question, by the way. Thank you for sending it my way because it gave me the opportunity to skim a few chapters in japanese, and I got a good chuckle from some of the things I found.

So. About the reply. Are they still crazy? yes. What about rude then? this one is more fun to answer. As a general rule of thumb, japanese dialogue often has a lot less curse-words and random insults thrown around, just because japanese as a language relies on other things to be rude. Mainly, socially inadequate registers, directness, and lack of honorifics. For the most part this holds true for blue lock as well. Some of the times you see the character cussing out, in japanese there are no swear words, but just more direct or otherwise less polite lines. See: in the last chapter, Karasu's "dumdums" isn't there in japanese. I know. I'm heartbroken about that too.

BUT. I guess blue lock breaks from the norm even in this respect. A lot of its most... colorful language, even in translation, is true to the original lines, actually. Lemme just bring up three of my favourite examples.

yep. he says all that. he literally calls him "mountain of vomit and shit big brother" saljkfjankfsja Rin, you sure have a way with words. A true poet of our time.

Then there's Yukki.

Oh, Yukki.

In japanese this line is "お前カイザーと同類のマウント糞野郎だわ" (omae kaizaa to dourui no maunto kusoyarou da wa) which cracks me up because he's almost echoing Rin above. What's phrased as "self-serving shithead" here, if translated literally, is even more colorful in japanese. Kusoyarou means piece of shit, while maunto is "mountain" (the same word that got translated as "pile" in Rin's line). So Yukki is more or less not just calling Isagi a piece of shit, but a whole mountain of shit. Talk about extra. "Shithead" is a good workaround to make the line more natural in english but I feel like it isn't quite as funny as the original, lmao

And then, of course. Isagi's response.

snalfkna I kid you not this is an almost word by word translation of what he's saying. The only thing that isn't there in japanese is the "narcissist" part (he just says "fucker" but the rest is there. Yep. Even that.

So yes, the boys are still rude assholes in the original japanese manga as well, haha

With one caveat: from what I've seen, the official translation is much more accurate to the og phrasing than any of the fan scanlations. The former tends to maintain as much of the nuance as possible, while fan scans sometimes miss some details. The latter also tend to add more swears or downright mistranslate bits at times

[owlbelly]

not to trans-post like it's the mid-2010s again but. thinking about how impossible it still is to have a real conversation about varying forms of social pressure as they relate to medical transition, due to the entire concept being poisoned by cis scaremongering & gatekeeping of access to trans healthcare. trans people can barely even have nuanced conversations among ourselves because someone might still use them as evidence that

a) trans people don't actually need or deserve access to HRT & surgery - which we know is bullshit but it doesn't even matter who "needs" it, wanting should be enough, bodily autonomy is a human right

b) trans people as a demographic have enough social power to exert pressure (on "vulnerable young people" mostly) on a societal scale re: medical transition - i don't even need to dignify this with a refutation right? this is nonsense

c) if literally anyone has ever felt pressured to go on HRT or get surgery & ended up regretting it even a little, that means trans healthcare on the whole should be shut down

so of course there are people falling through the cracks & unable or unwilling to talk about it. you can't tell me there's no pressure at all anywhere to medically transition. transmedicalism is a real thing that's still going strong (though these days i mostly see dogwhistles) & its very existence creates pressure on folks who can't or don't want to transition that way - not on a societal scale! literally nothing any trans people can do will ever match the cis societal mandate to just Not Be Trans - but it's a real issue within specific trans communities or friend groups or social spaces

there's also a kind of pressure created by the lack of access to medical transition - if the financial/bureaucratic stars have to align & you only get one shot at something rather than it being freely available anytime, that's gonna make you more likely to just go for it when you get the chance even if you have doubts. then there's pressure to medically transition for safety reasons - needing to pass or come closer to passing, regardless of how you personally feel about your body!

idk where i'm going with this exactly i'm just kind of fucked up over the idea that to a not-insignificant portion of people, non-medically-transitioning folks are still "trans lite" or "not actually trans" & also these days that we're somehow "preferred" by cis mainstream culture - which again, really just wants you to Not Be Trans! but if you have to be trans you should be ignorable. that might mean presenting totally as your assignment or it might mean passing perfectly, but if you're trans & visible in any way you are a problem.

what i want is for anyone & everyone to be able to access HRT/surgery, & for it not to mean anything beyond feeling good in your own body. it shouldn't mark you as a gender, it shouldn't even have to mark you as trans! let people just fucking live

[variousqueerthings]

I have seen otherwise queer-positive blogs get really angry when asexuality is used as a lens through which to look at historical figures, as if aceness negates being gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans or stands in contradiction to those terms somehow. and I think it's a shame, because there are so many interesting nuances in asexuality that aren't really considered, I think, that is for example that asexuality can walk hand in hand with kink, with sex, with same-gender attraction, with being flirtatious, and for that matter can be a temporal thing, can be related to trauma, or to repression, or to some other outside force (is it a hot take that celibacy and asexuality overlap idk, but i think celibacy has been used to describe many an experience of which asexuality is definitely a major one), and yes, some figures appear to never have had an interest in sex at all and been fine with that, while either still having close romantically read relationships or perhaps arguably being aromantic as well (or indeed, the other way around).

it comes back around I think to the idea that some queer people have that asexuality is a bit.. boring really. a bit less cool and groundbreaking than other ways of challenging the status quo, and (let's be real) a bit less queer. all of which is false of course, and a symptom of ones own internalised queerphobia and policing of acceptable queer behaviours, but I do get a bit sad having followed history nerds in queer spaces, at seeing that unchallenged reaction again and again. it's recreating the need for boxes, as if a. history was ever clear cut enough for modern concepts around the labels we have (if they even used those labels to being with) and b. we're not that clear cut and that's part of the point

let asexuality into your heart and learn its philosophies, the same as any other chapter of queer philosophy enriches our understanding of ourselves and histories

[tjerra14]

I just had a thought.. what if Ikrie had joined Aloy, Ourea and Aratak on their expedition into Thunder's Drum/Firebreak? Mostly pondering this Blue Orb because it would mean that she'd get to see the origins of at least some part of the Derangement.

Ohhhhhhh yes, that's an excellent idea, I would've LOVED that! Just imagine the potential for all that added nuance--of course, we get two Banuk perspectives for the quest(s) as it is, but Ourea is (understandably) focused entirely on CYAN (who is a friend, but also a spirit, so placed rather high within the Banuk belief system), Aratak is preoccupied with keeping his sister alive and safe (which is very interesting in itself, considering the balance the Chieftain/Shaman system evidently offers for a werak--as Burgrend suggests, the shamans focus on spiritual matters, and in doing so, protecting the scarce resources around them, while the chieftains see to the physical needs of their people, making sure that both the werak and the environment that sustains it will survive in the long term. They're both prime examples of that, with a personal spin), and Aloy is along for the ride out of curiosity, wanting to see what makes these machines different from their counterparts. Now Ikrie isn't anything like that. She's not there to save a friend, or protect a sibling, or satisfy a thirst for knowledge that respects no tradition or bounds. She might've put her spear beside Aloy's for this quest, or followed a Daemonic Scorcher that has been killing hunters on their way to Snowchants back towards the Cauldron, and ended up meeting Ourea, Aratak and Aloy in the power plant/idk what that Behemoth chamber with all the geothermal stuff and the Incident Report data point is actually called anymore this is terrible and offered her assistance. no, I haven't thought about this in a potential AU context at all And well. She might not agree with Banuk culture and beliefs on everything, but from what she says during her quest and beyond, there's nothing to suggest that she doesn't believe, in some capacity, that the machines have a place in the world, their own lives and needs that have to be respected, and quite possibly, in the Blue Light as well (in one manner or another). So I feel her seeing that those daemonic machines that have been causing so much trouble for her tribe have been deliberately twisted, crazed, altered to attack and fight no matter the consequences, would be absolutely horrifying for her to witness. CYAN's imprisonment, but on a simultaneously smaller and larger scale. The stories and songs of her tribe that she knows well enough to easily recite them to a stranger, proven to be somewhat true: there is a blue light, a harmonious spirit, but its influence is fading, and worse, there is an entity responsible for it. (So that technically makes HEPH the Big Bad of Banuk culture??)

An entity, at that, Aloy attempts to control but fails, meaning it escapes to wreak havoc somewhere else. Which would be prime motivation to chase HEPH down together with her, into the Forbidden West if need be, to slow down or even stop the Derangement that's harming machines/their spirits and her people alike. (And well. You know I'm very fond of that particular idea.)

Idk. Really love this idea, and all the potential it holds. Thank you so much for sharing!