#it is genuinely not our fault as trans people that YOU are having a hard time looking at the community as a whole-

[genderqueerdykes]

opinion on twinks ? i feel like they are ONLY used to joke abt and then throw under the bus and it makes me extremely upset as someone who identifies as one . i feel like im the only one who cares

opinion on twinks: wonderful, radiant, a gift to our society, desired, loved, needed, appreciated

i agree with you, actually- i used to be friends with some transfeminine people who genuinely thought it was funny to say they were "twinkphobic" and meant it- they genuinely would go on and on about how they hated twinks because i guess? people would confuse them for twinks, which is not the twinks' faults, but rather transmisogynistic society's fault. i don't get the hatred, i really don't, and even as a bear i felt so uncomfortable around these women when they'd go on these rants, as a gay man. i'm transfeminine, but the gay community is my community, and i'm not okay with people throwing any gays under the bus, for any reason.

there's nothing wrong with being a thin effeminate queer person, people really just love to show they asses especially when it comes to straight up being homophobic. people will love to clamor and say they love gay men but then instantly throw twinks under the bus and then go on to say that bears are gross and hunks aren't gay. people love to be homophobic and pretend like they arent; like gays can't win, even among other queers, people find ways to bully and mock us, make us feel bad for expressing ourselves and berate gays for how they choose to dress, look and act. it's not cute, it's not funny, it's literal homophobia.

also every person who gives thin and/or pre-T transmascs & trans men shit for being twinks deserves to get smacked at least 150 times. if you are claiming that you dislike twinks because of transmascs, i need you to think long and hard about why the hell you're so transandrophobic and how you can afford to take a long walk far, far away from queer spaces until you sort that shit out. there are just as many if not more cis twinks than transmasc twinks, knock that shit right the hell off, also don't call trans men twinks in order to emasculate them, because it's not even an insult in the first place.

most thin people don't choose to be thin, why the hell are we body shaming people? even if someone is choosing to be thin, oh well? that's how they want their body to look? they may also be struggling with an ED, which deserves compassion? or maybe feel guilty about their body in a fatphobic society, which also deservse compassion? oh you hate men/mascs/people who meticulously groom and care about their presentation? that's literally what cishet men rag on gays for. can we talk about this?

i've heard some people say they hate twinks because twinks are the "socially acceptable gays"- that's not even true, what the hell does that even mean? cishet society still hates twinks, just because occasionally an effeminate skinny white cis gay man becomes successful doesn't mean that twinks are accepted by cishet society- they're not. it's not okay to bully and abuse twinks just because they have a marginally smaller chance of being hate crimed

so basically what i'm saying is this shit makes me angry and i'm with you, i care, and i don't think it's funny to throw any type of queer under the bus, it's literally just punching down on other queers and it's not helping. great to know some people still have internalized queerphobias and have zero intention of getting past them, but that's not where i'm at. i'm not here for creating hostile and violent spaces

[libbee]

Self development series: trust your perception. No matter what.

For inner planets in 7th, 8th, 12th house, water signs placements, water risings.

Those of us who have not been on the good side of fate keep thinking what is wrong with us. The "other people" appear to be socializing, relaxed and living it out. But you stare from a distance, comparing your life to them, wondering why you are surrounded by malicious people and most importantly, how to change your pattern?

You must trust your perception. Cognitive Dissonance is when contradictory perceptions, beliefs, actions, feelings, ideas, values and things are told to you by somebody else. You are unable to trust your own perception. You are confused about your reality. For example, a man who cheats on his partner but says that he loves her still. Again cheats but says he is wired like that, men are men, he is polyamorous, it is his biological instinct, in past kings used to keep 100 wives. Of course, you are confused. Or someone who does something problematic but says "you are jealous of me, you are insecure, I dont care what you say, I am not wrong at all - you are wrong". This causes mental confusion to you. The other person is straight up lying, making it up, manipulating, but to you it is confusion.

People are not "oh so complicated" like that. People are actually easy to understand if you observe the patterns. The same patterns repeat all their lives. They can pretend to be somebody else for a day or two but the facade ultimately falls. Trust your judgment. We cannot guarantee to make the best decisions all the time but learning to trust your judgment will make you assertive, confident and secure in yourself.

It is especially for those who are trauma survivors, they are vulnerable and impressionable. Abusive people abuse then confuse. They might justify or rationalize their behaviour because religion/science/mythology/history says so, they will devalue you one minute then claim to love you the next minute - say it is for your benefit/it is your fault/they did not mean it. Do not be fooled by the words, trust the patterns.

We are humans, of course we will connect with language and words. Whatever language you speak, you connect with others. I am writing in English, you know English, you understand what I write, it aligns with your judgment so you trust what I say. I have to hold this trust by not lying, misleading, manipulating otherwise I will become an abuser.

It will help to read on sociopath v/s narcissist on internet. Do not underestimate the number of toxic people around you. Of course we cannot diagnose mental illness in others but we can identify their symptoms and draw our boundaries. Not all narcissists are sociopath, but all sociopaths are narcissists. Trust the patterns. Not all narcissists are alpha overt type, not all narcissists will financially exploit others. You decide where you draw the boundary. Especially if you are guilty of emotional investment and intense reactions before and want to change the scene in your life.

So, the next time you see someone flattering or love bombing you and you know their pattern beforehand, trust that they are not sincere this time as well.

Why do people become abusers? Destiny, perhaps. Do abusers know they are abusive? It depends. Some of them do not know they are emotionally abusive, some know but still do it. Patterns are hard to identify and change for the abuser. They are so intertwined in their reality that they dont even know what they are doing. You can see a narcissist doing their "dance" from a distance but he/she will not know it. It takes immense will power to change your patterns in your 20s, 30, 40s. Then it is even harder beyond that. What is a spiritual event that can change an abuser? Anything that forces them to enter intense emotional distress. Rock bottom, social outcast, divorce, ultimate failure in life etc. This is why you see some toxic people are genuinely transformed, they go to rehab or therapy or do inner work on their own. There is no genuine transformation without emotional turmoil. Those who feel deeply also transform.

For those who do not change? Forgive them. Distance yourself. Know that if they knew what they were doing, if they genuinely had the insight, they would be blown by shock and remorse. Leave them in their reality. There are plenty of decent people living their lives, looking for friends like you.

[shrimpmandan]

I honestly can’t tell if the modern definition of transmedicalism (or just the community around it) has changed, or if MY own opinions have changed. It’s a surreal experience seeing people talk about transmedicalism like from the 2016-2018 era, but then in my own groups I don’t see any of that associated behavior hardly at all (or the people who do show that behavior are treated as clowns).

I already put a biiiig thing clarifying my stances in my Carrd, but I figured I’d also plop it here since I don’t want anyone to assume what I believe in just because they see the funny buzzword discourse label.

So:

- You DON'T need to medically transition to be trans. Or “do” anything to be trans. There’s no real barrier for entry; it’s just whatever helps you to feel more comfortable with yourself. The only “barrier” is the presence of dysphoria, which is what that discomfort is-- feeling like something is missing, feeling like you’d be happier as the opposite sex, wanting to be treated as another gender. That’s all dysphoria!

- People who genuinely fake being trans are a minority of a minority, and nothing good will come out of restricting trans healthcare further.

- I'm antsy about research (especially neurological research) into the brains of nonbinary people and may reblog things both in support and against the identity, but I respect them regardless. Consider me to generally lean pro.

- The psychological community does not understand trans people and conflates the concept of gender nonconformity with being trans, under the label of “gender expansive”. I (and many others) find this conflation to be inaccurate and offensive, and it also bleeds into public understandings of what a trans person is.

- MOGAI kids and nonbinary people are not responsible for our oppression and to say so is fucking stupid. My reasons for being anti-MOGAI have more to do with the creator and the fact that I don't view gender as being solely a social construct.

- Dysphoria does not mean suffering, nor does it mean hating your body. Go here if you wanna see the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria.

- TransID is ableist and racist. I shouldn't have to explain why.

It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. By all means I don’t agree with the sentiment of “you don’t need dysphoria, gender isn’t real, go nuts”, because it feels like it stems from misinformation about what gender dysphoria means and also disregards the biological components of gender that DO exist. But I also can’t fucking stand the flop/cringe crowd that scrutinizes everything a trans person says. I’ve definitely been on the receiving end of “oh you have DYSMORPHIA, not DYSPHORIA” before and it was extremely irritating, not to mention a blatant misunderstanding of what body dysmorphia is. It also shoves “actual trans people” back into the closet because imposter syndrome is a bitch and while insisting people to know absolutely 100% for certain that they’re trans is advice given out of a good place, it ultimately ends up not being helpful for those who have fluctuating dysphoria, imposter syndrome, OCD, or any amount of other conditions that can make them go back and forth on it a lot.

I wish there was more of a middle ground between the two extremes instead of it feeling like you just have to dig around for the transmeds who aren’t exceedingly insecure and/or malignant. And you STILL get kicked out of most trans communities anyways because they’ve (understandably) built their walls up so high that it goes really far in the direction of accommodating one type of trans person, while utterly alienating another, which is how we get transmed spaces (and echo chambers) to begin with. 

I think my opinions will always lean transmed because I’m someone who puts a lot of stock into psychology and neuroscience-- those are my special interests, moreso the former than the latter. I feel like psychologists and doctors in general have failed trans people on a lot of fronts, but is that the fault of kids with atypical identities? No, not at all, for as much as I find the whole “meowgender” business to be dumb. But also going out and starting debates or god forbid harassing random teenagers and young adults because you think you’re entitled to know every little thing about their identity is JUST as dumb, not to mention pathetic. The transmeds who don’t think that way are the ones I agree with. The ones that do are just as bad as the ‘tucutes’ they criticize, and both contribute to dividing the trans community further. And yes, BOTH. This whole discourse was started by a tucute cis girl pretending to be a trans girl, lest we forget. Transmeds aren’t evil and neither are tucutes. Tumblr discourse just makes an ass out of everyone.

[vitruvianmanbara]

I have so many thoughts on what it has been like to exclusively be with women for years & then start to be with men as well but they are sooo hard to articulate. at the same time I desperately want to share them though lol. talking about it irl is complicated for reasons I won't get into but it also feels like people online tend to react to these kinds of stories with a level of skepticism, disgust, & hostility that I find hard to stomach, even if I know it's coming from a place of insecurity & immaturity

lately it feels like articulating it is more important to me because I find my thoughts & feelings around eroticism, sexuality qua sexuality, the sexual self, gender qua gender, the gendered self, identity vocabulary, etc. have been shifted significantly by the experience of having sex with more types of people. being with with cis women & men, trans women & men, queer women, queer men, & nonbinary people of all sorts has left me more dissatisfied with our culturally accepted language of sexuality than I ever have been because I regularly struggle more to make myself intelligible to others through it. making the minutiae of my feelings understood to others isn't what I'm interested in, but I find it frustrating to struggle to achieve a baseline understanding with others, and even more frustrating to not always be able to place my finger on the theoretical fault lines that are behind that.

it's not that like, nobody is talking about this or has ever talked about it (reading older print publications where bi women who used to ID as lesbians talk about these exact things has been invaluable) but it just feels harder to find people who speak openly about this stuff now. like I don't necessarily want to have 1-on-1 conversations about it with people, I more-so want to see the ideas out there in the ether you know, and I want to hear perspectives from bi women & trans people specifically. but I understand why they're not, given the aforementioned hostility directed towards bi women and people's general reluctance to talk frankly about sex or take a genuinely critical approach to language these days. so it goes 🤷🏻‍♀️

[alexilulu]

I don't have a thesis here yet because these are 11pm bedtime thoughts about novels I'm reading/have read recently but

There's something interesting that I've realized I'm seeing in a few works of fantasy/science fiction where they posit secondary gender binaries/socialized gender constructs.

The first one for me was Gideon the Ninth, where the cavalier-necromancer binary is extremely present as its ersatz stand in for gender. Your gender doesn't make you who you are, your capacity for thanergetic manipulation does. This is fairly explicit, intentional and, as revealed later on, pretty clearly engineered by Jod both to form his ideal society in his image (mirroring his bond with Alecto/Earth) and create a tractable society for his use.

The second, which I'm reading now, is The Lowest Healer and the Highest Mage, a modern magical story in which the binary is Mages, who have the capacity for magic, and Healers who have the capacity to diffuse the dangerous buildup of tension inherent to the use of magic that can drive mages insane or cripple them. Again (though I'm not finished with it yet, and do quite like the world building it's placing to scaffold that basic concept) a gender binary that stands apart from socialized gender but clearly serves as the main designator of your social role and where you fit in; skilled Healers are hounded by Mages for their hands in bonding as a pair for life, which leads to a great many of what would be gendered dynamics in our world that operate as sexism would IRL.

(There is one funny line which tickled me where it explicitly states that the bond between healers and mages is not possible between close blood tied individuals, as well as between people raised as siblings/close family. It's a little brain poisoned in a way only explicable to The Online but I understand the impulse, I'm not faulting them for it)

Both of these are also scaffolded by the recognition that because of the specific ways in which these dynamics are extremely contextual, difficult and frankly hard to work into normal society, that people outside these binaries exist to keep society at large functioning (the average house member in GtN probably, subliminal mages/healers in LHHM).

Both of these books are billed as lesbian romance, and it seems relatively obvious why they would desire to remove gender, so to speak, from the equation (to set aside our own perceptions of 'the man' in a lesbian relationship, it's just more palatable to write novels about stories that don't involve gendered bigotry, as a general rule). And yet...

This is also how omegaverse works. (Not a bad thing!)

I just don't know what to do with that information. I don't know that it means anything. I'm just sitting up in bed writing this as I think about it. I genuinely can't tell if I'm just a 33 year old trans dyke who is too Poisoned by Knowledge of Gender as what it is and I'm reading shadows. But...yeah.

[fortyfive-forty]

nobody has any obligation to read this i just need to rant. not directed just general feelings that i'm feeling.

genuinely one of the most disheartening things is to constantly realize how few cis people are really aware of the pervasiveness of transphobia. like i live in one of the furthest left lgbtq+ cities in america and i go about my day assuming everyone i meet is transphobic until proven otherwise. and some of that is definitely paranoid but a lot of it is from my own experiences with coworkers, fellow students, roommates, friends, healthcare providers etc..

and i think there's also this genuine air about a lot of cis people where, they're okay with trans people as long as we stay in our corner and don't get too close. i think all the time, if you are cis and you call yourself an ally...how would you feel if your sibling came out? your parent? your best friend? how would you feel if you had a kid and your kid came out to you as trans? would that be hard for you?

because in truth i think there are a lot of cis people who don't acknowledge how uncomfortable they are with transness, and i can support this with my own experiences because i've had multiple people who i've come out to tell me later that they weren't really on board with my transness at first, they didn't like it, felt uncomfortable, etc., but over time they grew to be accepting. meanwhile, when i came out to them they called themselves allies and claimed to be fully accepting and supported.

so idk, i'm sitting here like, is it really that surprising that these sportspeople are transphobic? and how is it that so few people were aware? i mean i remember saville literally retweeted something transphobic like two months ago (and then deleted it) and it seemed to go totally under the radar even though it was all over my twitter feed.

and i understand a lot of it may just be the algorithm, because as a trans person i will get more trans news. but it still sucks because i feel like trans people are so often left to fight our own battles, and then cis people come in and are like 'omg this sucks! i can believe this is happening to you! this is so surprising to me, i'm so disappointed!' like where have you been? why is it surprising? why is it disappointing? have you seen the atmosphere around trans people in the world right now? it's been like this the whole time and it's getting worse.

and again i don't blame people for not knowing but i guess it just sucks to hear over and over again that people find it surprising. so much casual transphobia goes unchecked, i've just come to expect it as a part of day to day life. it's only natural that it permeates sports, especially with how aggressive the transmisogyny is getting. and so many cis people just have no concept of it. i get that it's just the nature of it, it's not necessarily anybody's fault. but again, it just sucks to realize that something that affects trans people so much so often is just not on a lot of cis people's radar 90% of the time.

[gec2unow]

also like. i need any detransitioners interacting with me to understand that we are not that different and yet we are. i identified as detrans for a bit. i have complicated feelings abt my own transition. i went off hormones. however, i decided that even though i technically could ID as detrans it felt yucky bc trans people have always, always been there for me and detrans people fucking uhhh. insulted me the entire time i tried to post in their groups?

i am sorry you have regret. i am sorry you are living in a world where navigating gender stuff is so hard. i believe one day it will be better.

however i do not want to associate with anyone who actively considers themself detrans ever again. in my experience 98% of you are so fucking nasty once you get involved in the groups and community and stuff. "im a trans ally still!!!" yeah then why are you trying to ban minors from transitioning ever? why are you claiming surgery for some trans people is not genuinely life saving?

im not here for it. i have so much sympathy for people in similar positions to me i GET some of those complicated feelings but you need to get a fucking grip and stop treating trans people so poorly/weirdly bc it's not our fucking fault you regret your transition. im sorry you made choices you regret and maybe had doctors who rushed things or whatever but sometimes people regret things. sometimes people regret tattoos and plastic surgery and giving birth.

advocate for more comprehensive mental health care during the transition process or something. you don't need to be a fucking freak posting about half baked bigoted studies. you don't need to vilify trans people further. you're no better than any other bigot out there just because you used to ID as trans.

[abitmischievious]

I seriously think religious private schools shouldn't exist, specifically high school and below. I've really always thought this but after yesterday I just cannot stop thinking about it.

I was going to a play with my sister-in-law at her high school and when we entered the building it was so overwhelmingly non threatening. I don't really know how to explain that but one of the first things I noticed in the school was posters with pride flags on them!! And I shit you not they were everywhere which made me so happy. But anyway, we took our seats and looked at the little cast list paper. There were a ton of trans kids in the play but what stood out the most to me was that one of the nonbinary kid's preferred name was literally Knife and the school still printed it out and put it on the little paper out of respect for this person's identity. This made me sad and even somewhat envious, because at the school I'm forced to go to, and probably at several other private religious schools, young people are told that their only identity is being religious. I am not even kidding when I say that one time my principal told the school "We're all a slave to something; so we might as well be a slave to god." And this could just be seen as an argument against certain interpretations of religion (and it is) but I think the private school aspect makes it so much worse. Because the majority of private schools consist of similar people with similar mindsets, families, backgrounds, and beliefs. And although I know there are religious private schools that teach kind and helpful beliefs, they still usually deny the student of any other perspectives. When I saw that many public school kids, they were like a kaleidoscope of different ideas and backgrounds and religions. Only the background thing is SOMETIMES different for kids at religious private schools. I also think it's terrible that many of them don't teach about, don't teach about correctly, or even condemn other cultures. It's so sad that similarity is the only thing so many students are taught, because they genuinely do not know a thing when they meet different people later in life, and a lot of times will judge them for their differences. Another thing about religious private schools is that they can be fucking insane and teach the weirdest shit as long as they follow certain school standards. There are so many things said regularly by professors at my school that a public school teacher would get fired for teaching. These are things that people in college and in the workforce will actually think you're a terrible person for saying. And it's not even entirely the school's fault. It's the government that should make sure every school is safe for everyone, not just physically safe. And it's a parent's fault for keeping a child in a small, like-minded bubble that can teach the most unhelpful and hateful things. The reason I said that this mainly applies to high school and below is that literal children are being taught that there is only one correct way to act, talk and view the world. And while kids are smart, it's hard to have a different opinion from everyone and everything you've ever known. I think that collegians have enough life experience to feel free to form their own opinions, and the huge difference about college is that the students can choose where they want to go. While I think private religious high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools could be improved upon instead of entirely eradicated, there are simply too many aspects to improve.

[genderqueerdykes]

augh i hate that i have what i can only assume is a form of OCD abt whether or not i truly 'count' as being transmasc bc all i want to have done is to go on T indefinitely. i have no strong urge to bind, have any surgeries or pack and i always feel bad bc my brain tells me that this means i MUST be a cis woman, which is untrue (and complicating the matter is that i'm genderfluid.) the worst part tho is that these feelings usually crop up when my friends and loved ones come to me expressing their own euphoria with these things and i never want to make them feel like MY insecurity is THEIR fault, because it isn't, and i do want to be able to hear their joy without it spiraling off in my head! i have no idea how to express this to them without hurting their feelings or making them feel like they should avoid sharing moments of gender euphoria and genuine happiness with me, bc i DO love to see them happy and feel privileged they trust me enough to share those things with me. do you have any advice for what i should do?

i am sorry that you are dealing with OCD thought loops about those kinds of things, that can be very stressful- i know OCD is very hard for a lot of people who deal with it, and it's not your fault if your mental illness is working against you. i'm sorry at times it hones in on this particular part of yourself

i guess the cool thing about being transmasculine is there's no requirements. i started binding in middle school. then stopped after i graduated high school. I started T in 2015. got a binder and tried binding again. stopped right away. now it's 2023, i haven't bound my chest since 2015 and i haven't gotten any surgeries yet! i'm on a wait list for top surgery due to just wanting rid of my chest, but that will take a while

it's okay if only certain parts of the transmasculine experience apply to you. they're not like tick boxes that are requirements, but rather a broad variety of experiences that folks like you may or may not have, and activities they may or may not do. i know a lot of trans guys and transmasculine people who don't bind for health reasons, poverty, or because they just don't wanna. some transmasculine folks really love having breasts!

if you're able to, try to see each individual part of the transmasculine experience as optional, but possible. your transmasculine experience is yours, and you're allowed to define it as you please. each and every one of us write the experience, we're the experts. you don' thave to try to conform to some rigid standard if it doesn't fit you, that's not the point of queerness, don't worry.

take care, i hope you're able to feel a bit better about things soon. i know how mental illness can get in the way of rational thought and it's alright, we just have to do our best to navigate what we're given. good luck, stay safe, let us know if you need anything else

[kidkintsugi]

another epic transmasculinity moment in combination with everything that went to shit recently.

tw for below cut: dysphoria, slight n/s/f/t topics

aye so this week was absolute bullcrap?

i started hating my flatmate with a burning passion. i tried to excuse his laziness multiple times but ive given up on him. hes just an ass and a useless one at that.

i usually dont talk about other people like this because it makes ME feel bad because im being "mean" or whatever but with him? holy COW hes crossed multiple lines. very little to no remorse on this one.

he does not clean his shit and makes me buy things that are shared, like soap for example. i bought a new container of soap once i noticed that were running low, not ONCE did he make the effort to get some soap himself. its like this with other things as well.

his only humour is making a fool out of me (which i can handle. its just annoying) or sexual shit (also mostly involving me) and since im running a 2 person household on my own essentially i had some type of meltdown/breakdown this last weekend. developed a nervous tic because of it too which gets worse the more tired/frustrated i am. i also seem to have some stomach problems whenever im out of it nowadays and its gotten to the point that people asked me if im hungry because its just. that loud. REALLY uncomfortable especially in class.

today he overslept, which happens multiple times, but today was also the first day he actually had some consequences due to it which i like! but THEN he has the audacity to ask if i "tried to wake him up" which, to me, implies that he thinks im obligated to. almost yelled at him right then and there i had to leave the fucking room.

its also kind of my fault i guess? i could just communicate my problems with him more openly, directly order him to clean/buy/whatever but then i remember.

this guy is as old as i am.

i am NOT his fucking dad or something he should be doing these things UNPROMPTED when living together with someone he barely knows!!

on another note, the guy that realized that im trans is spending more time with me recently and i genuinely enjoy spending time with him as well, hes one of the very few people that doesnt get on my nerves. he plays my favorite videogames with me which are my special interest :)

this comes with a problem however: were both mlm and openly mlm at that, so people began "shipping" us (eugh. hate to use this word in this context).

usually i would find it funny, he finds it funny too because we both know that its not gonna happen but this comes with a certain problem.

people begin putting you in boxes, whether conciously or unconciously. especially with gay relationships, a lot of people seem to be fascinated by the idea that same sex couples still somehow have to fit into heteronormative "standards" (stuff like "who wears the pants" "whos the woman" "who takes it up the ass")

obviously im in a bad position. next to my friend, i am smaller. have wider hips, the face of a twelve year old and when i get nervous my voice goes higher in pitch.

if we WERE in a relationship, i would be percieved as "the woman".

that is so, so painful. no matter how hard i try, unless i end up with a super feminine twink bf (lol purposefully exaggerated im sorry), im gonna be the more feminine one and that is extremely shitty when it comes to passing in public.

had it happen today: i go out to grab boba with my friend.

this might just be my paranoia, but i have a feeling that for mlm couples, due to the way that society is, we dont really look like couples to the average heterosexual because unless we were to make out right in front of them homosexuality just isnt a possibility that comes to mind.

so we go up to the counter to place our order and the guy asks if "my friend is paying for me". nothing unusual BUT my language uses the same word for friend platonic and boyfriend/girlfriend romantic in some cases, meaning that it was very, very ambiguous, but to us it sounded like he meant it romantically.

my friend of course just laughs it off and i would like to be able to laugh too, but the truth is that HE was the one referred to as my "boyfriend". what does that make me in the eyes of a heteronormative society? with wide hips, a high voice and a babyface?

exactly. the girlfriend. checkmate.

dysphoria has been bad in general this week and in combination with all the other shitty feelings i couldnt shower. lower body dysphoria reached its peak too.

people joke about me being the bottom, stereotypically the more feminine one in the relationship and its beginning to hurt because they dont even KNOW. i just kinda wish i could talk about it, say that it makes me uncomfortable but that would make me suspicious and everyone in my class is already suspicious enough.

theres nothing i can do. i will have to live like this forever probably. i think i need to readjust my personality again just so i dont come across as androgynous or whatever. i also really need to get rid of my customer service voice, as i like to call it.

[rantingcrocodile]

So I've been lurking around radfem spaces to gain some education and have been very much into bi-radfem spaces since I am bi myself. I've only found you the past couple days, but your response to the 'trans/bi movement being the same' person was so raw, and honestly made me tear up. You fight so hard, and I love you for that! Thank you! <3

Thank you, but it's genuinely nothing.

I am so angry that we have all of this knowledge at our disposal and there is not one single academic feminist who has properly explored bisexuality.

I am so angry that we have all of the studies and resources at our fingertips and there is not one single academic feminist who has joined the obvious dots to discuss the reality and impact of biphobia.

I am so angry that it's come down to myself and a small number of others, completely ordinary bisexual women, who have come to what I've realised are such basic and common sense understandings of bisexuality and biphobia that no one else is talking about.

It's all right there. It hasn't been hidden under lock and key. It takes the most cursory glance and thought to put these most simple puzzle pieces together.

If you're getting into radfem spaces online as a bisexual woman? Do me a favour and don't.

This is the fucking state of promoted feminism today:

Kathleen Stock, darling of the feminist community for speaking out against TRAs and being bullied at Sussex University, doesn't blame straight people for appropriating bisexuality, she blames bisexuals instead.

To Kathleen Stock, bisexuals only matter if we exist to support lesbians and gay men.

Biphobia doesn't matter. The realities of biphobic oppression don't matter. She didn't even stop to think about the basic, "Wait, if bisexuals don't have any issues aside from being in same-sex relationships, then why aren't bisexuals in opposite-sex relationships normalised? Why aren't bisexuals in opposite-sex relationships all out and secure? Why do bisexuals have such a hard time coming to terms with their bisexuality? Why do the studies into bisexuality show that bisexuals, particularly bisexual women, tend to be worse off than even lesbians in different cases?" because if she did, then she'd have to stop and accept that the world can't be erased as merely "straight vs gay" without actively harming bisexuals. But she doesn't do that, because she and other "feminists" like her don't fucking care about us.

No. Instead, we only matter to serve other people's purposes, and we're only objects that either matter or don't matter depending on the humanity of our partners, whether we can be accepted as "gay" or dismissed and derided as "straight."

If you were part of TRA spaces and woke up about biphobia there, then if you come to radfem spaces, then all you're going to do is internalise a different kind of biphobia.

Radical feminism as a political ideology, going to its roots, examining it in a way that supports women and tells the truth about the world, is genuinely good.

The "radical feminism" that has stayed stuck in its biphobic past and has only evolved into "wait, we have to fight against trans activists attacking women's rights and when they attack lesbians" is still completely useless for us.

If you've over 18 and wanting to actually get into a kind of radical feminism that makes sense and discusses our issues as bisexual women, then please join the discord. Save yourself the heartache of thinking that radfems give a shit about you, because those generally out there in the world today just don't. Everything to them boils down to being the fault of bisexual women to the point that they excuse oppressors, just the same way that Kathleen Stock is happy to do.

And her "unpopular opinion" isn't unpopular. It's the standard belief of radfems across this space and other radfem spaces, including numerous bisexuals with internalised biphobia. Seriously. Do not do it to yourself, because it rips your heart out, spits on it, then tells you that you deserve it, when we deserve so much better.

[antiterf]

So I’m posting my genuine thought process here so that way people get a good context. If it sucks then I have ADHD and you’re going to have to deal with it.

Me, watching a new wave of transandrophobia discourse come up: Why are people saying that trans men don't oppress trans women? (Genuine)

"The experiences are too different to compare"

But trans men oppress trans women on the basis of being men and women. Why would that be disagreed with? Gender is odd with us, and shouldn’t be taken as black and white, but I don’t think it’s this odd. It’s probably because if you’re specifying an oppressed group of men (bi men, disabled men, etc) as holding privilege over another gender, it comes as a different form from that specific group.

So how did we reach this point where trans men are holding a specific form of transmisogyny where others are saying it? Does it exist? If it does then how and where did it come from? Why does transmisogyny keep getting a red underline it’s a word damn it WAIT I CAN ADD IT TO DICTIONARY SUCK IT WINDOWS.

And why do trans men and other trans masc people have an adverse reaction to being told this? I found myself checking recently if these calls for unity are ever coming from trans women, and I’m sure some agree with them, but it always seems to stem from other trans mascs. It reminds me of when other white people are rallying to me saying that we should set race aside. It sounds fine on the surface, racial differences shouldn’t make anyone feel less welcome in a space, but what was really happening was ignoring the issues of an oppressed group and silencing them for speaking out. While my fellow trans men may not intend to do that, or be doing the same exact thing, I’m still very wary.

Maybe it’s just another instance of people not knowing how privilege and oppression works. That not everyone experiences the same exact thing but that there is a pattern of one group treated better than the other when it’s averaged across the population.

Trans mascs are using transandrophobia, and I have definitely seen instances of some saying that trans women are the ones who are silencing us over our own experiences. Thats not the case from what I’ve seen. Trans women have an issue when we say to “stop focusing so much on them!” and try to act as if people cannot care about more than one thing. It’s like we think there’s one spotlight and we need to push the other group out to get into it, but that’s not how it works. Trans women have hypervisibility and saying that they hold power over our invisibility with it is incredibly harmful. I can understand that it’s frustrating when we look up anything regarding transgender rights or media and it’s mostly if not all trans women because we are looking for something that relates to us, but that is not the intent or fault of trans women.

And when it comes to us talking about our experiences without that and someone says that it’s taking attention away from trans women, yeah, that’s probably wrong, but we need to be able to differentiate that.

Overall when trans men and women separate to talk about our experiences, it does not end well and we commonly end up complaining about one another. This is not beneficial to either of us but we do it because it’s much easier to do that than to acknowledge the transphobic society we live in. Being trans will make you distrust a lot more people, because someone can become your enemy the second you mention your gender identity when they were your friend a second ago.

There is without a doubt transmisogyny within transmasc circles and as a trans man I still find myself there because I want to have a sense of community. It’s hard to tell that when there is critique if the intention is pure or not.

I’ve had plenty of experience being told that I can’t reclaim the t slur even though I’ve been called it for being trans since it’s only used against trans women, and I see myself reclaiming it anyway because before it was used in self-hatred and reclaiming it has improved my internalized transphobia and mental health. I’ve been told to delete my anti terf blog because I don’t experience transmisogyny and that terfs don’t target me, when that’s a lie. So maybe when people say that trans masc people have privilege over trans fems, that’s what we think of. We think of our experiences where people forget that transmisogyny will always include transphobia, and that transphobia effects all of us regardless of gender identity or agab. And instead of continuing to fight the outside transphobia, the oppression we are facing in the first place, we end up arguing who is truly facing that.

The fact that many people treat transmisogyny as just “transphobia towards trans women” is not helping either.

So trans men do oppress trans women, but on the basis that men oppress women. Trans men have an issue with transmisogyny but there is still the issue where trans men have their experiences with transphobia down played.

---- End Process ----

And I don’t like spending my time on this because after interacting with terfs A Lot I know that this benefits them more than anything. I know that they will say that us trans men are being abused by trans women and held hostage because of our agab and other bullshit. But maybe this long fucking mess of a post will get critique or others to expand their way of thinking a bit.

[nxrthmizu]

Hey please can i request daichi with an insecure s/o? Just a cute drabble or anything you want just need some soft Daichi in my life🥺

| Reasons to Love You | Sawamura Daichi 

»»——⍟——««

prompt | Reasons to love you’ (You didn’t chose a prompt so I just picked one)

pairing | Sawamura Daichi x Reader

words | 1.7k

author’s note | Thank you for the requests baby! Hope you enjoy :) And everyone needs soft Daichi in their lives uwuuu

»»——⍟——««

You stared at the floor-length mirror in your bedroom, poking at the rolls of fat around your stomach. It was just so unfair. You tried to love yourself as much as possible, but the world just had to constantly taunt you and bring you down when you were starting to feel better about yourself. 

It was just so unfair. 

You had put hours of work into your job, working overtime till you were on the brink of collapsing of exhaustion. And yet, your hard work was all pushed aside due to your rounder figure. Instead of you, another woman who had curves in the right places had been chosen to represent the company. Someone who was more ideal for society’s mold of ‘beautiful’. 

Of course, you couldn’t deny that she had worked hard, too, but you had seen the report she had handed up and you knew without a doubt you had poured more effort into yours. 

Every part of you knew that the world was unfair, and that was just how things worked on this planet. That didn’t mean you felt any less frustrated, felt any less upset from the let-down. You had worked so hard, dammit! And in the very end, your hard work was disregarded because of your appearance. 

They were lying when they said: ‘It’s what’s inside that matters.’. No matter how kind your smile is, no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you care, first appearance will always triumph over everything else. It didn’t matter if you looked neat, professional, and hard-working- So long as you weren’t society’s ideal image of ‘beautiful’, you were disqualified instantly. 

“Y/N?” You heard Daichi’s voice as the front door clicked open and shut. Hastily, you tugged down your shirt and stepped away from the mirror, trying to busy yourself with other things. “Hey.” He stepped into your bedroom, a soft smile on his face. “How did it go?” 

You tried not to show how upset you were. “I wasn’t chosen,” You told him truthfully. “[The other person] was chosen. She worked really hard too, she deserves it.” 

Both of you could hear your voice catch in your throat, and you knew that Daichi could sense how upset you were, really.

“Well,” He started, trying to figure out what to say as he clasped your hands in between his, leading you onto your bed. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” He said gently, his eyes meeting yours, showing you that no matter what, he wouldn’t judge, and that he would listen. 

The room fell into silence, the background hum of the ceiling fan sounding deafening. “No.” You lied quietly. 

“... Okay.” Daichi said at last, knowing full well that you were lying. “You know what, I have something really important to tell you.” He tugged you along with him, both of you settling down on the middle of the bed, you tucked in between his arms, right in the middle of his warmth. 

You waited patiently for him to speak, and after a minute or two of silence, he spoke up. 

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now,” He begin, his voice sounding like the gentle patter of rain. “I wanted to list out all the reasons that I love you, so let me talk, okay?” 

You nodded, burrowing yourself deeper into his embrace. 

“1,” He pressed a soft kiss onto your forehead. “You’re always so kind to everyone, no matter what. Like the time you ran out into the rain because you heard a cat outside. And then you climbed up a tree to get the cat down and you were fully soaked by the time you got back inside.” 

You laughed, remembering how much he had scolded you for running out recklessly like that. Barely two minutes in his embrace and you were starting to feel slightly better. 

“2. You’re always so considerate.” He continued to talk, his fingers finding a place in your hair and brushing through them affectionately. “Whenever I have a bad day at work, you give me extra cuddles and kisses until I feel better, and that’s the best feeling in the world.” 

“3.” You were about the mention that he was cuddling you just as you did when he felt upset, but he quickly cut you off with a peck on your lips. “You always sing in the shower when you think I can’t hear you and you have the prettiest voice ever.” He grinned when you squeaked in surprise, not having realised that your bathroom was not sound-proof. “I have a few recordings of you singing on my phone and when I have a bad day at work, I always play them on my phone.” 

“Daichi!” You whined. “You never told me you could hear me.” 

He chuckled and raised his hands in defence. “In my defence, if I told you, you’d stop singing and I won’t be able to hear your beautiful voice anymore.” 

You pouted childishly, whacking his arm playfully. 

“Okay let me continue.” He cleared his throat. “4, I adore how you look at me in the morning, when your hair is messy in a sexy way and your eyes are still sleepy. I adore how you look at me before you go to sleep, when the lights are off and I can just faintly see how your eyes sparkle in the dark.” His voice softened. “I love how you look at me like I’m the only person in the world.” 

At this point, you were speechless, but he kept going. 

“5, I love how you laugh. I love when you burst into full laughter and bend over because you laughed too hard and your stomach hurts.” He smiled, putting over a finger over lips as you started to say something. “For some reason, you always think that laugh is ugly, but I can assure you, it’s the cutest thing ever.” Daichi’s voice lowered. “Plus, I know that when you laugh like that, its’ genuine.” 

For the next thirty minutes, your boyfriend continued to list the reasons as to why he loved you. 

6. I love how you always fuss over me when I get injured, even when it’s the tiniest wound ever. 

7. I love how when I’m with you, time goes by so fast, and when I’m without you, time drags on so slowly. 

8. I love how you smile at the littlest things, like a dandelion growing in between the cracks on a sidewalk (It’s not just a weed, you said, it grants wishes). 

9. I love how you can be so childish and let loose when most other adults would be afraid to be childish. 

10. I love how you always work hard despite everything else. 

11. I love how you love the team and my family even though they’re crazy. And they love you so, so much. Just like I do. 

12. I love how you insist on feeding me porridge when I’m sick. And how you always insist that I’m not allowed to get up from the bed when I literally only have a cold. 

13. I love how you snuggle into my side when we’re sharing an umbrella and it’s raining. 

14. I love how you leave sticky-notes with sweet messages on my lunchbox. 

15. I love how you always manage to plan things for us to do despite how busy the both of us are. I’ll always have time for you. 

16. I love how you’re always so patient with me, even when I forget about our date and didn’t text you because I was busy at work. You deserve so much more. 

17. I love how you’re always willing to be the bigger person, saying sorry even when it isn’t your fault. 

18. I love how you never get angry at me no matter how many times I forget to do the laundry. 

19. I love how you always swap out the wet towels for dry ones when I’m bathing after you. 

20. I love how you leave food in the microwave for me to eat when I get home late from work. 

21. I love how you just somehow know that I don’t want to talk and just want to be with you. Everything will be fine when you let me lie in your lap and cuddle. 

22. I love how you stroke my hair at night when you think I’m asleep. 

23. I love how you always whisper ‘I love you’ when you think I’m asleep. Some nights, I lie down and pretend to be asleep just to hear you tell me you love me. 

24. I love that you give me space and let me go out to have fun with my friends. And whenever I get home, you never complain about having been lonely (Although you probably were), and instead you ask me if I had fun with a smile; you tell me that you’ve already made dinner; you’re just waiting for me to bath. 

25. I love that you always make an effort to be nice to my friends and family, because you know how much they mean to me even though they can be troublesome sometimes. 

26. I love how you always sit down to talk to my parents when we visit them. I love how they love you. I love how you love them. 

27. I love how you always press yourself closer to me when it’s raining or snowing outside because you’re cold. 

28. I love how you always pull the blanket over the both of us and make sure that it covers my legs because you know my feet get cold. 

29. I love how you always remember to fix the socks that I tell you have holes in them even though they probably stink even after going through the washer twice. 

30. I love how you put up with all my bad habits and that you’re always patient with me and tell me for the thousandth time to throw my dirty clothes in the hamper and not on the bed. 

“There are so many more reasons I love you.” He whispered, slightly breathless after his thirtieth reason. “Remember that, okay?” 

You smiled, your stomach rolls forgotten. “Thank you. I needed that.” You replied softly, reaching up to press a kiss on his jawline. “I love you too, Daichi.” 

Everything was going to be okay, because no matter how unfair the world was, out of all the girls in the world, Daichi had chose you, and that meant more than anything else to you. 

»»——⍟——««

JSJSKJSK I SPENT AN HOUR COMING UP WITH THE 30 REASONS. I LEGIT GOOGLED ‘REASONS TO LOVE SOMEONE’. 

For everyone out there (Including men, trans people, and basically everyone) who thinks they’re rounder than the general population, or for anyone out there who’s (like me) basically parallel lines with no curves at all, you are beautiful, amazing, and perfect. I also want everyone out there to know that despite me being a literal ‘bamboo’ (As I have zero curves whatsoever), I have stomach rolls too. Athletes and fit people have stomach rolls too. And that’s okay, because it means you’re eating well and you’re taking care of your body :) 

Despite everything we do to our body, our body loves us. Anyone studying biology will tell you that our body does a million things to keep us living and breathing with each passing second. Your body loves you, so love your body. 

- Cady 

»»——⍟——««

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Total Eclipsa the Moon and Butterfly Trap (Tomtrsopective Interlude)

Hello you beautiful people, and welcome back to the tomtrospective... minus Tom, since as i’ve mentioned a LOT in recent parts of this tribute to eveyrone’s faviorite demon voiced by shawn from boy meets world, realized I hadn’t mentioned that in a while, I”m also covering the metora arc from the second half of season 3, as Tom plays a pretty sizeable roll in it’s climax , the season 3 two part finale Divide and Conquer, and if i’m going to cover what’s essentially an hour long episode i’m going to do it right. It’s why i’m also doing the della arc alongside the Lena arc next month, the latter of which is fully paid for: because Shadow War pays that off too. Even if it makes way more work for me, if i’m going to review something, i’m gonna do it right. So we come to this pair of episodes.  First question a lot of you might be having... 

To which I say.. I ? We’ll see. The second is that “Why aren’t you covering the bog beast of boggabah?”. Well.. honestly it’s for time constraints. I have a LOT of episodes to cover, my own fault I know but again if you do a job you do it right, and cutting the one that while part of the plot isn’t nearly as essential to anything and ultimately only sticks for one episode character development wise. It’s not bad, almost nothing with Alan Tudyk in it is bad. That’s a fact, that’s a Disney fact. 

Point is while I like covering EVERYTHING I can, I do have to draw a line and since this retrospective is about TOM, i’d rather not pile on more episodes that don’t involve him than absolutley necessary. Bog Beast just dosen’t feel NEARLY as much of a necessary detour as these two coming up or Skooled and Tough Love down the line.  So with all that out of the way, join me under the cut for a discussion of Eclipsa’s character up to these episodes and the episodes themselves. 

Our detour DOES take us right into my OTHER faviorite character in the series, tied with tom and the other character that makes watching the series post battle of mewni, worthwhile: Eclipsa. We’ve mentioned her before obviously but this is the first episode she actually shows up in that i’m covered, and i’m delighted to finally tackle her head on. And the other faviorite thing isn’t an exageration: She’s equal to tom in my heart. She’s just as compelling, just as well acted, and unlike Tom actually gets a decent resolution to her character arc. In fact she’s one of the ONLY characters to get a decent resolution.  It’s also at this point her character undergoes a shift. While she dosen’t change as a person that much, before this it was left purposfully vauge if Eclipsa was really.. evil, and possibly the big bad of the season. On the one hand her magic is unquestionably dark and evil even if she isn’t, and while Star wasn’t at all effected by her chapter, Marco went all 

For a second before Glossaryck fixed it off screen, and using her “Darkest Spell” left both her and moon with blackened goop on their arms for the rest of their lives. Not only that but she pushed Star into morally dubious actions: Teling her Marco could be her squire simply because she said so, and being the one that encouraged her to explore her butterfly form. 

But we also saw her GENUINELY bond with Star, the two relating both on seeing monsters as people, and dating them, and on being reckless, powerful and often looked down upon by Moon for unfair reasons. Something I hadn’t realized but shoudl’ve before this is, for Season 3 at least.. Eclipsa is the mentor star never properly had. Glossaryck, while he did do a decent job from time to time, is just too damn neutral to be a proper mentor, not really carring what happens to mewni or if he even lives or dies, a neglectful attitude that honestly caused a good chunk of Mewni’s problems, never remotely trying to invervene in his protege Solaria’s genocidal campaign against monsters, his children’s growing fantatical racisim, or well.. anything. He just dosen’t care.  Moon TRIED to be one, and can be a good mother on occasion.. but the two are exact opposites: Moon is controlled in every aspect of her life and compartmentalizes and structures everything, while Star is pure chaos and impulse. It’s why River has an easier time parenting her, as she got a LOT more of his personality than her mothers, and thus can actually relate to her. Bog Beast shows this off well: He teaches her a lesson Moon probably has tried to a thousand times, to be patient.. but does so on her level with an old family ritual and using a metaphor, rather than trying to drill it into her head. It’s why when he did actually teach her Glossayrck used the same: Star is just not a traditional learner, moon is. And there in lies the problem.. Moon just cannot accept for most of the series that her daughter isn’t like her despite her best efforts or try to see it on her level, and Star dosen’t really try to see it from Moon’s perspective either, though being you know the Child and not the parent, it’s a bit more understandable. Moon has a real hard time seeing other people’s perspectives, and really changing.. and given Star has gone from being a proud racist to realising how horrible her attiude to monsters were in under a year, really is why the two clash so much. It’s something I sadly relate to: While my own dad is not racist, he is a staunch republican, is one of those morons who belives the “Well if trans people can use the bathroom they want then rapists will put on women’s clothing just to enter a bathroom!” bullshit fully, and while he supports gay people myself included did NOT support gay marraige and when I was a teen would often say “Wellt hat’s as valid as me marrying bob” Bob.. is my dad’s cat who hates me for understandable reasons as I was not great with cats when he got him. So yeah I get your parent being an impenetrable brick wall on important issues. 

The point is Eclipsa...actually listens to star, agrees to her views and instead of trying to FORCE star to go the way she wants simply guides her, giving her advice and being gentle with her. The two are similar enough that Eclipsa’s advice, good or bad, tends to stick, and that Eclipsa actually cares what Star thinks which Moon does not. But it was hard to gage if she GENUINELY cared or was just playing star. But these episodes shred that ambiguity to pieces, showing that while eclipsa is not without faults.. she’s not evil... and the people who called her that very much ARE. So without further adeu....

Total Eclipsa The Moon:

In the previous episode, Star burst into Moon’s room giving her the revelations of the night. Moon.. did not take it well, both unaware and furious her daughter had a party at the monster temple, refusing to believe her and taking umbrage at Star’s VERY understandable accusation that she sent Rhombulus after them, since he had her royal guards with him, levitating her daughter out of the office. 

But what is suprising is that, as this episode opens after brooding a bit and TRYING to get back to work.. Moon clealry can’t get the idea out of her head. You can see the wheels turning: Sure star is impulsive and did falsely accuse her.. but she’s not a liar. While Star hides stuff on occasion.. when she lost the book she came right to her parents to confess, something Moon genuinely appricated. Why would she TRANSPARENTLY make something up? While the trial is close, Star would at least, if sloppily and ucnovncingly try and fake evidence if that was her goal. And while the party isn’t something Moon is happy about it is VERY suspcious Rhombulus didn’t tell her about police action on her terriotry using her own guards involving her daughter, several monsters, and the heirs to every kingdom in the land.  So she takes the Royal Lineage book and goes to see Eclipsa.. who made a guitar out of bones because she’s awesome and that’s what you do when you have a lot of itme on your hands and nothing else to do. 

She’s casual with Moon, who just assumes she’ll get the answer she wants l,  asks her to identify her daughter.. though Eclipsa is taken aback by this. She’s willing to.. she just hasn’t seen her face in thosands of years let alone as a grown woman and assumes she’s dead by now. It’s a very good, very small moment.. and it’s made more striking both by what we learned last episode.. and the fact she has no idea who Festivia is, and knows who her one and only Daughter was: Meteora. And while Moon does bring up that her name just could’ve been changed... Eclipsa shoots that down.. Meteora had clover cheeks and “The cutest little tail”. Moon asks how this even makes sense and Eclipsa’s response is absolutely wonderful “When a queen and a monster love each other very much...”. Before we can get to the sexy details Moon then clarifies that she’s confused how she didn’t know about this and wants answers, though she still keeps Metora still being alive a secret for now.. but it’s understndable as Moon still dosen’t trust Eclipsa, and dosen’t want to risk her trying to escape to find her right before the trial. Eclipsa tells her there is one place they could get a solid answer, the archives, which are in the commission building, though Moon apparently doesn’t have access..despite being queen. You think she would’ve questioned that by now given the name.

But Moon plans to go, and refuses to take Eclipsa along.. but is swayed when Eclipsa genuinely not only accepts it.. but sadly and without any hint of manipultion and with pure honesty asks her to tell her what happened to her daughter. And for the first time... Moon sees Eclipsa as not the boogeyman history wrote her as.. but just another mother desperatley looking for her child and finding out history covered her up and she may never know what happened to her.  So we next cut to the magical high comission building, where we see Shawn, the security guard, deer man and bumbling doofus, who ends up not scanning moon when the magic detector, basicallyu a metal detctor, goes read because she terrifies him out of it. And yeah.. good point she is on the comission he really shoudn’t have to do that. Though I like the sublte hints with this and the archives that the comission have slowly creeped up in thier authority: while the queen is still granted a seat at the table.. she’s not given ALL the toys in the box despite that not really being fair given how much sway the comission has in mewni politics.  But naturally Moon has snuck eclipsa in and even more naturally is nearly having a panic attack over breaking the rules. But she dosen’t have time for that and asks Eclipsa where the archives are. 

She’s not tricking moon or anything though: It’s been thousands of years and the comission building has changed vastly, when she was around the archives were just a stone hut off to the side. That gives Moon an idea and they find a stone wall in the storage room, which Eclipsa activates in her own weird and endearing way.  This also shows off the one trait that seperates Eclipsa from star: Star usually just does random things because. While Eclipsa isn’t IMUNE to this usually when she does something weird it’s specifically to acomplish something, she’s just using her own unique methods. LIke here she rubs her back against the stones and what not.. ut it gets the door open. Unfortuntely our heroines then run into Shawn who being a natural narc, runs off ot tattle before Moon cuts him off. Eclipsa insists they zap his memory and only hasn’t for a crucial reason: she can’t do magic without a wand. It’s an intresting and understandable reveal: like star she just relied on the wand for it and never learned how to do her spells without it as she never really needed to.. and even now she dosen’t. While her magic COULD help her escape.. she has no intrest in escaping since it’d only hurt star and even a sham trial will still make her a martyr for mosnter kind and prove Star’s point she’s not a bad person. Even if she looses she wins. So she simply had no reason to relearn it and likely figured correctly doing so might just rouse further suspicon or get her locked in chains or other nonsense and given she can, if unbenownst to moon, wander the castle freely via the secret passages.. she’s really not bothered by house arrest.  Moon of course dosen’t want to.. but in a great gag ends up doing so by mockingly saying “Memory eraser gun” and making a gun gesture with her hand.. and ends up actually doing that as a result. They put the comotose magic outside. And this scene is a great character bit to me for both characters: It shows off a bit flaw for each character: For moon it’s that she lacks the ablity to improvise. She can and has created magic but is so orderly and regimented it has to be percise and she dosen’t grasp just HOW easily a spell can be created simply by imagining it. She lacks the pure raw creativity and talent of her daughter and supposed ancestor.... but makes up for it in what she calls eclipsa out on: restraint. While Moon has ENTIRELY too much, serioulsy the stick is so far up her ass she can see it when she talks, it’s not itself a bad thing, and using it recklessly and irresponsibly, as the suplmental big boook of spells shows, without thought or without proper preperation can have devistating consequences. Skywinn, one of the past queens and the first in the book, destroyed an entire dimension simply by letting loose far too much, while Rhina, Moon’s great great grandmother, acccidently kileld her abusive husband because her heartbreak spell was a bit too literal. Power is fine and all. but you have to control it. It’s why Xavier’s School Existed before he decided to take all the kids to an island because humanity suck so much: you need to learn to use your pwoer responsibly and eclipsa never did. She can contorl it perfectly as we’ll see.. but she also dosen’t think of the implications of what she does with it, she just does and to hell with the consequences. And that’s really her whole problem: She acts mostly on impulse without thinking, and it’s had bad consequences.. though ironically her fleeing with Globgor, as said book wonderfuly outlined.. was NOT a rash or impulse decision but a VERY hard one where she was stuck between keeping the crown and pleasing eveyrone.. or fleeing with her lover, being happy and taking care of a serious threat to the kingdom as a whole WITH him, but knowing it might not end well.. and sadly it did not.  Eclipsa does show her skill though once agian, having made up a silly song to rmemeber where to go and since the archives haven’t been touched and are about the same, easily leads them in. Though once they reach the door they can’t open it, but Eclipsa has a solution: A rat hole. “It’s so gross in here” she says delighted. Moon isn’t happy about it but agrees to it.. but her ass gets stuck.. and that’s not me being crude or making a joke her ass literally gets stuck and Eclipsa has to go for help but takes an hour, long enough for a spider to hypnotize moon and steal her crown and for moon to question trusting her.. before Eclipsa returns.  And this is what cements what I was getting at: Before there was clear ambiguity in “Is eclipsa the villian or not”. Here.. it’s gone. She has shady powers and her morals are flexable.. but she’s still a kind, loveably weird woman and it’s obvious by this point her reputation as evil was horribly exagerated, and primarily brought on by racisim. And moon’s realizing it too. They find the archives, which is a cool concept: magitek hands that record everything that happens to a royal, even showing some of what’s going on right then in the other plot. Moon quips that this actually really would’ve helped with the trial, but apologizes for it showing that she’s slowly realized what Star knew from minute one and what I just mentioned: Eclipsa is not a bad person. She’s flawed, but she’s not evil or some nightmarish destroyer of worlds.. she’s just a batty 40-50 something woman who dosne’t think through her actions. 

Eclipsa does explain it probably wouldn’t of done moon good, as it’s near impossible to find anything unless you know where to look.. which makes perfect sense. The scroll records every queen’s every actoin every minute of every day. Even summarized that’s like trying to sift through footage of eveyr minute of your life. Even sped up, it’d take weeks or months or even years to find something without knowing where exactly to look. Thankfully Eclipsa does.. but finds the Scroll has been offered as the “Daughter of queen eclipsa nd king shatacan” is sewn in there as festivia.. literally.. like part of the scroll was ripped out. And as close friend, endless resource and tom expert bar none @jess-the-vampire​ pointed out to me when I asked for her imput on these ones, that makes no sense as the two never had a daugther and I feel they just didn’t think that through. Plot hole aside.. it’s VERY clear someone has tampred with the archives and if Moon wasn’t already questinoing if Eclipsa was really bad this clinches it: Someone ERASED one of her family from history and hid the truth even from them. And Moon’s going ot get answers.. after our heroes run from the security system, get the crown back and BARELY escape with the scroll before the comission catches them. 

Back at the castle Eclipsa is disgraught over her daughter and Moon clinches their new bond by revealing she might still be alive... Moon might not KNOW if Star was telling or even knew the whole truth.. but she knwos something is going on and she’s going to find out. And whiel she may not know everything.. she has a damn good idea who did this.. .and says so just as star comes in from her adventure, having learned patience. Cue the credits.  Final Thoughts: This was a fun one, with Moon and Eclipsa having a delightful odd couple dynamic, the regminted overly serious and overly stuffy moon with the wild and reckless and charmingly weird eclipsa is just a great dynamic and endlessly entertaining and I wish the show had done more with it before what’s about to happen but what we got was great and minor plot hole mentioned aside, the reveal only deepens the intrigue for what’s next.. so speaking of which...

Butterfly Trap: Here. We. Go. One of the series best episodes, if not it’s BEST. Oh me mow i’m excited. 

We open with the long set up trial of Eclipsa Butterfly.. and as you’d expect by a trial by a jury of her enimies, the comission mostly sees this as a formality outside of Moon. Sean is excited though, he gets to bring out the typey thingy. Usually Rhombluus just crystalises them. 

Yeahhh... the show never properly deals with Rhombulus’ tendency to imprison first ask questions never or gets any of his victims, i.e. the ones he probably had less reason to crystal up not ones who were eating universes or whatever , free. But this is the LEAST of the dropped threads from this one. Point is this isn’t a remotely fair trial.. as hammermed in by the fact Hekapoo is upset and confused that Star is here too. Moon wants her to see eclipsa got a fair trial. Also Rhomblus wants her DEAD, but the others shot him down on this. HIs reasoning , for him, is suprisingly good: crystalising her didn’t work last time and implicilty given star likes her star could just order her freed when she’s queen. But I get their reasoning: Killing her would only make her a martyr to monsterkind, and to Star who probably woudln’t listen to or respect them EVER again. And Moon still wanted that when she started the trial.  So while clearly a sham this does crystalize, pun unitended, how corrupt the comissoin is. Their holding a trial with no jury, no witnesses, not that most are alive but some are, and with everyone CLEARLY thinking she’s guilty before it starts... and no one questioned it. This is even unusual as they rarely have an actual trial. And it’s about to be revealed to be a WHOLE lot worse. 

So the trial begins and Moon brings out the evidence, which is oddly disorganized given how much work she was putting in before, and ismostly secondhand accounts and interviews and their going to have to just sit there and sort through it all, which NONE OF THEM, especially rhomblus are happy about “THIS SOUNDS LIKE MATH!”

But Eclipsa has a simplier, if much more risky suggestion: Trial by Box. While Moon points out this isn’t great for her as the box is merciless and will not take lies, but Eclipsa counters rightly that she has nothing to hide. ANd honestly again given the commission are clearly out for her blood.. this is the only way she gets anything resembling a fair trial. Resembling being the key word. This is the most clearly rigged trial i’ve seen since that time Batman’s villians kidnapped him and put him on trial with joker as the judge.. good episode though.. and THAT was even a more fair trial as they actually gave him a lawyer and let him go when she made a convincing enough case. 

So the box is brought out, and it turns out to be the truth or punishment cube from season 2. Which Moon insists isn’t a party game.. despite the fact a bunch of teenage girls easily got one and it has a setting for that when moon grabs it. Along with, in a really great bit, settings for Bachelorette (All right ladies!) and Intervention. Know someone who could use that honestly. 

So the Comission ask their questions. We start with Rhombluus who asks if she wrote the “Evil Chapter” in the book of spells. Eclipsa dosen’t deny it but ponits out THEY labeled it that, Star rightly points out none of htem have actually read it moon included, and Eclipsa.. shoves her foot in her mouth by pointing out she’s made FAR WORSE spells that didnt make the cut. “Writing is rewriting you know”.  Love this woman. 

So next up is Hekapoo who asks if she abandoned her husband to run off with Globgor. Well they dont’ use his name because end of season plot twist but still. Eclipsa not only firmly doesen’t deny it but fondly caressses the projection of him “Hello sweetie”. Hekapoo marks her down with evil for this which... Jeff if you would?

Thank you. Not only is this racist bs that star perfectly destroyed earlier in the season, as the comission themselves are monsters in all but category, but the spellbook makes this so much worse. As I said for once Eclipsa .. wasn’t being impulsive. She was torn between duty and love and choose love, and even then partially did so to prevent the septarians from wiping out both the rest of monster kind AND mewmans. And Shastacan, was a massive dick, who took her not being in love with him like he was with her as a sign to throw her monster child away as we’’ll see and rightfully got eaten for it. I know this is all obvious stuff but it’s hard not to yell about it.  Next it Rhombluus.. who asks if she ate those babies. Again that was Bubipsa as Hekapoo understandably yells at him for but no backsies, and she sgets another evil mark on H-Poo’s good or evil tally because she’s that bitch. Finally Moon asks if she’s sorry for what she’s done.. and given the most they genuinely have are that she wrote spells that while dark and evil, were not only not the worst she could do but were clearly not used on any innocents, had an interracial marraige, and did not eat babies.. yeah, she’s not. So the comissoin prepare to cast judgement on the woman whose only “crime” is interacial dating, in a sham trial. 

Thankfully.. Eclipsa turns the tables. Before they can hastily refreeze her... Eclipsa points out she has a question.. and Moon points out as a former queen of mewni she’s entitled to a comission seat and thus TECHNICALLY a member. A loose rule and one you’d think Moon wouldn’t enforce.. but she does, a large hint at something i’ll get to in a moment as the reveal’s just too good to spend already. Naturally she has but one question for them:

No, obviously it’s “What did you do with my daughter”. Even more obviously they deny it.. but as we saw last time the cube came out, even lying to YOURSELF isn’t something the cube accepts so outright lying to save your fucking hides is even worse and it begins to crush them all. And after spending most of the runtime putting up with their racist and clearly biaserd bollocks it’s SO fucking cathartic to see them desperatly scramble and fail to avoid the box, with Hekapoo screaming “We didn’t do anything!”. 

Eventually Star calls them out on it pointing out they enforce the rules for everyone ELSE, and Hekapoo in paticular called Star and Moon on keeping the book being stolen a secret and Marco on Star’s butterfly form fiasco, so yeah, their glass house is in shards.. and Rhombluus FINNALLY ends this charade and confesses. Hekapoo naturally is mad at him for this.. despite the fact that if he hadn’t they’d all be dead and none of this would matter. 

Also Eclipsa is just badass during the entire sequence. While Moon and Star are panicking and the comission are covering for themselves, though the former two are probably doing it more just to keep up appearances but we’ll get to that in just a moment. Eclipsa, SHe just has this expression the whole time, as I put at the top for good reason. 

Just a look of pure SCORN, of a mother’s rage at having her daughter hidden from her and wiped from history, of having her husband imprisoned for rightfully getting vengance for it, for having HERSELF imiprosned and made out to be some kind of ghoul for the crime of marrying who she loved and saving her damn kingdom. She’s politely put up with this shit for as long as she had to to get to this moment.. but now as her tormentors despretly try to avoid the consequences of their actions and the truth.. she can only look on with pure, justified hatred at EVEYRTHING they’ve done and just how cowardly it is they refuse to admit it. 

So with the pepretraotrs in the cover up explosed, Rhomblus explains he was tired of lying. This COULD have been a good turn for the character, showing he had some remorse and have him get a redepmption arc... any of them could’ve.. but instead thier just 2 dimensonal asssholes after this because “racists be like that’ which they do, but it dosen’t mena you couldn’t of used them as big bads for the final season instead of wasting them.  But yeah back on point Rhombluus prods omni to tell them via his projection thing and he does: After Eclipsa was imprisoned, Shastacan got rid of meteora, and we of course know where she went and soon we’ll find out just what happened to her there, but more ont hat another time, and the comission covered things up by taking a pesant girl, though unlike the graphic above we later found out she was left behind by her family and taken in by the comission, who are shown to also have raised her by the book of spells. They gave her the wand, putting magic in her veins.. how ..

Look me and Jess discussed this: magic being given by the wand is terribly inconsistent and while I might go into it in a seperate article some other day, now is not the time or place for it. 

It is however the time and place for the reveal as Moon’s reaction to all of this? “We suspected as much”

Yup, as our heroines explain and Shawn freaks the fuck out in one of the series best gags, and mirrors the audience’s reactions, we find out this was all a setup: and as I alluded too one cleverly set up the whole episode, pun unintended: Moon is suddenly dour and ready to to through with the trial despite last episodes revelations, she brings in evidence that’s entirely unsorted despite being a control freak who was previously working on gathering and sorting said evidence, and she backs up eclipsa despite it clearly givng her an advantage. All little hints that something wasn’t right there. Whlie Hekapoo, being again that bitch, is naturally furious, Moon is undaunted and explains why they did this.. and Star was in on it too, which shows that even if her patience lesson from bog beast dosen’t stick entirely, sigh, it does stick for this one episode as she not only waited through this sham trial.. but played her part well, arguging with moon at times to make it seem like nothing had changed. Everything was a careful and constructed plan to get the commission into a position where they COULDN’T lie. Even if Rhombulus hadn’t cracked one of them might of when theyw ere close and while it was a huge risk they all knew going in... it paid off. The truth is laid bare. If only Lekmet’s bi ass were here .. so he could aslo get raked over teh coals for htis. Also yes bi, he had the bi flag colors on the flowers on ihs portrait they left where his seat used to be. 

So with the cards all on the table, the Cube passes judgment; Eclipsa is guilty.. but so are her judges minus Moon, so he tells them to think about that, which they do, while he leaves so they can sort out their issues. Star reads the assholes the riot act.. until she stumbles on realizing something: Eclipsa, her supportive, loving, and wonderful grandma whose actually like her.. isn’t her grandma. Eclipsa responds with an “I’m sorry sweetie’ making two things clear by her tone: She’s just as devistated by this reveal as star, she just has more pressing things in her head right now, and that even if their not bound by blood.. sh’es still star’s grandma and always will be.  What hits harder is the realization sh’es not a princess and her life is a lie. Granted she is TECHNICALLY a princess , since her dad is still a king by blood and could take the johnason throne if he wanted, but tha’ts being pednatinc: the real point is that the legacy that put so  much pressure on her all her life is a lie, and she isn’t who she thought she was.  “We’re nothing mom, we’re nothing. “ 

So star runs off as both of her moms try and comfort her. And as we close out this episode god damn is Eden Sher good in this. Just her acting in this scene is so damn heartbreaking and powerful, going from indignant and calling out the cocmisison.. to heartbreaking, slowly and quitely falling apart as she realizes what happened. So what’s this anguish star’s going through amount to?

Oh sure the ending of season 3 wouldn’t happen without this reveal.. but Star being devistated by it goes NOWHERE. There’s no character arc of her dealing with the fact she’s no longer a princess or once she gives teh wand to eclipsa, even heir to the throne probably. No angst, no deep reflection not even an offhand joke. We find out who the commoners Festivia descended from were.. but that’s IT. Star just kinda ignores this like her confession to marco last season only that at least got a payoff. I will bitch about that payoff soon but it’s you know A PAYOFF. This is a WASTE of an utterly amazing plot twist, one that turns the show on it’s head and star’s entire rebelious princess character around. because they just didn’t care to actually let her change as a character after this season. She learns nothing from this point, dosen’t really grow, and ends in a really terrible and ghastly place. This episodes excellent and while it’s after effects would be felt.. it left SO much more on the table they never bothered to pick up and use. 

Final Thoughts: As I said full of wasted potetinal.. but one of the series best episodes still. Hampered a bit by said waste of potetial but on it’s own it’s gripping, has a well set up swereve, and some great acting and animation all around. 

So that does it for this review: Next Time: Star and Tom’s relationship progresses as Tom is forced to see what his privlage has insulated him from, while it then hits a massive road block as we get.. to Booth Buddies. And yes i’m doing Skooled second, Booth Buddies is TECHNICALLY seasonly approraite for valentine’s way.. just like herpes. Until then follow this blog for more reviews, my comissions are open shoot me an ask for details and until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure. 

[autumnblogs]

Aside Glance: The Palpable Absence of the Dubiously Canonical

So you might have noticed throughout my writings that I have at the same time avoided directly talking about any of the expanded universe material while also occasionally alluding to it just enough to make it noticeable. At least, probably.

So to nobody’s surprise, let me say;

I don’t like the Homestuck Epilogues.

Before I dig into why, I wanna dig out what I think I actually do like about the Homestuck Epilogues. CW: for mentions of suicide, sexual violence, fascism, genocide, etc. Spoiler Warning for the Homestuck Epilogues, although if you haven’t read them by now, good; don’t. Keep reading for my thoughts on the Epilogues.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues say quite loudly and clearly that Fascism Is Terrible, and that Neo-Liberals are often Discount Fascists at best in terms of the material effects they have on the world that we have to share with them. They can often end up being interchangeable, and events can cause someone with a temperament predisposed toward Neo-liberalism down the path of bloody reactionary sentiment the way it did with Jane.

Homestuck has always been a pretty soundly anti-authoritarian work, and pretty aggressively contemporary work, so it makes sense that Homestuck^2 would reflect an internet culture rabidly obsessing about the politics of the Trump-Era United States, cast its villains as parallels to the Trump Administration, the grody religious movements it catered to, and the hyper-rich dingalings who benefited from it.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues develop the theme of criticizing the author and continues to call attention to its narrators, this time by explicitly casting them as villainous, and morally ambiguous/incomprehensible respectively. A central idea in Homestuck is the relationship between Author, Audience, and Characters, and the blending of the lines between them.

I like that it calls attention not just to the idea that a story’s narrator is an agent themselves, but also to the reality that the narrator may not have the best interests of either their readers, or their characters in mind. I like that the authorial powers of these characters are represented as overtly dangerous and evil when they are addressed at all.

I also like that the Homestuck Epilogues are rather brutally honest about the fact that sometimes, the people that you grew up with - your close friends - grow apart from you, and turn into kind of bad people. I’ve watched that happen in real time, and have had to stop hanging out with people because they just kind of... turned evil. That’s something that needs to be discussed more in fiction, and more honestly than the usual way. When the most visible example of like, someone you knew and loved turning into a bad person is like, Anakin Skywalker, maybe the world needs more stories about that.

So good, that’s what we’ve got for things I think were good to say. Well done.

What don’t I like about the Homestuck Epilogues?

In a word, I think, they are cruel. Relentlessly cruel. Even actively malicious.

Homestuck has, of course, always been rather mean-spirited and adversarial, pretty much since page one. And really, so has Andrew’s writing in general, since the days when he ran the site Team Special Olympics. His humor walks a fine line between and outrageous and genuinely offensive, as he dares you to say, “That’s fucked up!” so he can respond “it was just a joke, where’s your sense of humor?”

But the Epilogues transcend the usual sardonic envelope-pushing we can usually count on Andrew for, and instead opt to sink their teeth into the readers in an assault on the senses, and on the sensibilities. Reading the Epilogues is a brutal experience to endure emotionally, and in a lot of places, morally offensive.

And they are this way practically from the first page; our very first impression of the Homestuck Epilogues is a content warning that presents itself in such a way as to be almost unmistakably parodic. The stylization as an AO3 work, particularly in the context of Homestuck, where these sorts of overzealous content warning pages are associated with preachy jerks like Kankri, it comes across as a direct challenge to the viewer, and by a challenge, I really mean an attack. It is a mean-spirited joke at the expense of people who have a desire to curate their media experience - and then the authors have the gall to say that the one of the goals of the Epilogues is to challenge people to curate their media more.

Every time a character could conceivably make a bad decision, or become a more ill-conceived version of themselves, they somehow manage it, which becomes all the more unbearable because of the identification of character and audience that has been the case throughout all of Homestuck. If Homestuck introduces us to this entire cast and says, this is you, the Epilogues seem to follow up with and there is nothing good about you. Jade Harley somehow transforms into a grotesque caricature of a trans-woman, a girl who is sexually incontinent and predatory in a way that is directly tied to her having a dog penis - a state of being which the text variously slut-shames her for in Meat, or alternatively uses to blame her for ruining Dave and Karkat’s relationship in Candy.

John Egbert is severely depressed and dysfunctional, and this leads him either to go off and kill Lord English to chase the thrill of adventure and his own sense of purpose (in direct opposition to the all-but-explicitly-stated takeaway from Homestuck which Dave gives us, that the better option is to just leave the story alone altogether - explicitly the worst decision he could make according to the rules of Homestuck) or descend into decades of nihilistic solipsism while the world disintegrates around him.

Dirk’s worst natures take over him and transform him into a person who can only conceivably be satisfied either by becoming an arch-villain, or by murdering himself.

The Epilogues are aggressively cruel to Jake English, choosing to double down on the lack of emotional resolution he suffered from at the end of Homestuck, and squarely placing the blame for his own misery on his own shoulders, in a way which is pretty hard to read around, which is part and parcel of the general malice which Homestuck has historically treated mentally ill characters with. Nearly all the kids in Homestuck have suffered incomprehensible levels of mental and physical abuse, and the text expects them to simply overcome it sheerly by force of will. Sure, Jake is miserable but it’s his own fault, the text seems to say; if he’d just get his act together, like Dave, maybe he could get on with his life without being mind-broken by Dirk, or raped and whipped by Jane.

This isn’t even to delve into the flagship reveal of Homestuck 2, that Rose and Jade in the Candy Timeline have not only had a daughter of their own (without telling Kanaya), but that furthermore they have replicated their own trauma in her. Rose and Jade’s daughter has grown up completely emotionally alone, in the care of her Moms’ archenemy.

The point in all of this is not that the Epilogues have made everyone behave out of character or anything like that - I think it’s clear after a re-read especially that all of this is a conceivable direction that these characters could have taken. Rather, the Epilogues reliably choose to believe the worst of the characters of Homestuck in terms of their writing decisions. Everyone always makes the worst decision that they could make, or at the very least, nearly the worst. And because of the identification of reader and character, we can’t help but take away from that a sense that this is what the authors think of us as well.

And in case it wasn’t stated explicitly enough, a running theme throughout the Epilogues is that all this conflict and badness taking place is, to some extent or another, because we the audience are looking at it. As Andrew stated in relation to the Epilogues, there’s a kind of Happily Ever After possibility bubble around the characters that intrinsically collapses into conflict the moment we observe the events again - in other words, by participating in a story, we the audience members are somehow complicit in the characters’ suffering. Yet not all stories must be driven by conflict - and who triumphs and who fails in that conflict says a lot about what a story has to say about real life.

The Epilogues engage in a kind of voyeuristic cruelty, a kind of pessimism and cynicism, a kind of relentless ugliness that I have seldom seen, and to what end? The whole thing seems to me an attack on the audience.

Aside from general, abstracted claims toward authorial intent (which I think is there), I also want to say that, I can’t emotionally engage with the Epilogues, for a personal reason; as somebody who has struggled with almost daily suicidal ideation for most of my adult life, the way that the Epilogues deal with that subject goes from troubling to malicious and hostile in its treatment of Dirk’s suicide.

And staying personal, while I haven’t had to deal with some of the other sensitive topics that the Epilogues handle recklessly, handle them recklessly they do - Jake is serially raped by Jane, and in a way that he serves as a vehicle to move the plot forward, rather than with any kind of compassion for Jake’s condition. The possibility that Tavros Crocker might be being molested by Gamzee is brought up flippantly in one scene and played off as a joke.

The Homestuck Epilogues play at maturity through handling dark themes and sensitive topics, and reveal a profound immaturity in their authors because of the ways in which they are cruelly, insensitively handled over and over again.

I guess I’ll close with the least egregious thing. The Homestuck Epilogues just aren’t funny. Even at its bleakest, Homestuck has always been funny. In their relentless pursuit of cruelty, and the shared misery of their audience and characters, the Homestuck Epilogues forgo even this most basic element of Homestuck, which Andrew has always described as being basically a comedy.

Anyway; I will not be doing a thorough analysis of the Epilogues. I hate them too much and they suck.