#not necessarily here but irl

[jackawful]

like my overall working theory of transphobia that has yet to steer me wrong so far is that all transphobia is misogyny & it's just the virgin/whore dichotomy repackaged.

if you really really look at how cis people treat trans women, and transmisogynist cultural narratives that anyone can engage in, trans women aren't treated like Dangerous Men like so many transphobes claim - the spectre of the Dangerous Man is used to justify treating trans women as sexually dangerous women in a way most similar to the "whore" side of the virgin/whore dichotomy. Trans women are fetishized and hypersexualized in a way that is culturally leveraged to justify violence against them.

If you look at how cis people treat trans men, however, it's much more about cloystering and "protecting" and perpetually infantilizing us. Trans men can't make our own decisions about our bodies, we must be kept sexually pure so we can reproduce and any interference with our reproductive capacity is a crime against humanity, we're condescended to specifically in a way intended to strip us of bodily autonomy. Our oppressors favor coercion over direct violence, though sexual violence especially is justified as a last resort if it keeps us In Our Place (as docile future tradwives). It's most similar to anti-abortion and anti-birth-control narratives and especially evangelical purity culture - the "virgin" side of the virgin/whore dichotomy.

This is why I also don't really consider transandrophobia (or transmisandry before it) good or accurate terminology for the oppression transmascs face - we're not targeted For Our Masculinity, imo, we're targeted for our refusal to stay in a specific bioessentialist gender box. It's a specific subtype of transphobia for sure, but it's too related to existing misogyny for me to be comfortable with terms reframing it as misandry - because transphobes don't see us as men, they see us as failed women. And they don't see transfems as Dangerous Men either - they see them sometimes as faggots, but often as failed women who can never succeed at womanhood by virtue of bioessentialist bullshit. And it's in ways roughly similar to how they see cis women who are sex workers or who have been sterilized or who use birth control or are too masculine or whatever else as failed women. It's misogyny all the way down.

[elalalune]

In the Buggy in Wonderland AU, If Doflamingo met Buggy when he was younger, does that also mean that Rosinante also met Buggy when he was younger? If so, does he have any positive thoughts about Buggy? What about Rosinante's thoughts on Shanks feelings/actions toward Buggy? Is he okay with it or does he think that something is a little off?

Yeah all four of them played some flamingo croquet together when they were younger (rip Rosi tho. The flamingo mallets kept acting up whenever he's around)

He's fairly neutral towards Buggy but doesn't think much abt him since he tries not to be seen associating too much with Shanks and antthing related to him because he doesn't want to risk Doffy figuring things out

He does find Shanks' obssession a little,, strange but he understands. Shanks agreed to Rosi's plans just so he could have more power and people to create a way to reach Buggy's world because he wants to meet Buggy again. He's still a much better option than Doffy though— atleast Shanks is fairly amicable and would be good at ruling while Doffy is more likely to get Wonderland destroyed

Rosi's reasonings here are flawed though since one of his main reasons not to let Doffy become queen is that his brother won't have the citizens best interest in mind and would only prioritize himself and their "family"

And this AU's Shanks is essentially the same in that he only cares for trying to find Buggy and cares about a select few (Uta, Luffy, Beckman, etc) but atleast he tries to be a good ruler ?

[pirate-banana]

Shoutout to The One They Call the Witch. Gotta be one of the soundtrack songs of all time

[lord-squiggletits]

Part of why I hate this fandom's take on Autobots vs Decepticons is ppl (mainly 'con fans honestly) who can't have any nuance of the situation whatsoever and love to write plots like "oh the humans are racist and abusive towards Cybertronians so this is how Megatron is right" no actually I don't think colonialism/imperialism and racism are justified so long as you can point the finger and say "they were the aggressors first" or "their hands are no cleaner than ours bc their society sucks too" sorry. Please come up with better sociopolitical narratives in your war story.

[pasta5284]

i def dont miss the like insane big brother-esque type of following & drama culture this place used to have but iwl i do miss when it was a bit more social. when ppl sent asks, submissions, & replies more frequently

[eruherdiriel]

URL Moodboard

Tagged by @patritxi. Thank you!

so my URL is something my friend got for me from a LotR name generator (ages ago), and I've always thought it sounds elvish. When I think about the elves, the first thing I see is the land they inhabit, and relationship to land is a theme with all the species in Middle Earth, which is why this basically turned into a nature moodboard, lol.

Tagging @bypatia @captainscifi22 @lavalais76 and @justhereforfandomandfriends if you would like to (no pressure).

[wouldvecouldveshouldve]

Assumption: you're as lovely irl as you are on here!

anon, just know you own my heart

[chaoticgouda]

[scarletv0id]

One part of me yearns to redo my blog and make it more TF2 themed.

While the other likes the distance from gender and personhood that the current set up has. Abe is not so obviously Abe in the comic panel I use, and the background is a creature from Del Toro's Pinocchio.

It does not bind me to gender. It just is.

I both do and don't want to be seen in that light.

I just want to be.

Kind, well meaning, and hoping to help if I can.

I'm here to distance myself from the person I am in the flesh.

So, idk, gender and identity is weird.

God damn me if I ever try to figure out what that means for me irl though.

That is a different person than on here. A person who is stuck between family expectations and how others view me.

It's not like that on here though, and I'd prefer to keep it that way.

[thedreadvampy]

I had a really good meeting with a 19 year old client at one of our services to hear about her experiences and we just say in a back room and shot the shit for like an hour while she explained what had been fucked up in her life and how the service was helping. normal stuff I love doing this it's the best part of my job bc you get to fast track with total strangers to the sorts of deep sharing and mutual understanding usually reserved for 3am on a rooftop. she was lovely she was so sweet and it was like looking back a decade into me and my friends as Trauma Youths

however

I swear to goddamn Christ when this child said unironically "I was planning to unalive myself" it knocked me out COLD

I was like fuck damn kid not to sound like an old person but you sure are from the TikTok Generation huh? when I was your age we said 'I was going to top myself' and WE LIKED IT.

[sundial-girl]

Hi! Would you like to explain how my portrayal of vsynths contrasts with Heron? I personally can’t figure out what makes it so interesting, since when I make Heron interact with other vsynths I rarely have a good idea of how they’ll work in mind, and just wing it.

hihi! i'd been meaning to get to this, so sure thing! for now i'll only focus on a few main ones that came to mind (i don't have a lot of brainpower atm 😔✌️) but i hope this is alright

mild disclaimer that some of this is based off information in older posts so i am aware that those prior details contained in them may no longer be canon. also again this just how i thought of/interpreted certain things, i'm obv not the og creator (you) so ultimately feel free to take this w/ a grain of salt since this might've not been the og intention.

also this is all under this cut here b/c it ended up being rly fckin long, sorry in advance if my explanations aren't very good 😭

so lets start w/ fukase; some of his character traits in your portrayal of him do seem to line up with some popular interpretations of him: silly guy/wisecracker who makes a lot of jokes, sometimes at the expense of others. also a he's a bit overdramatic ahdksjg. despite his sorta skewed goals, though, and behind that sassy attitude, he does really seem to care about people important to him. they're both very expressive characters (well in general everyone is depicted as very expressive in your art but thats an aside) but i think the way that is conveyed makes for an interesting contrast. fukase seems to show a lot more of his personality through his speech, while heron's personality is shown more through some of his actions. that's not to say heron is completely silent, but he does seem to save his words for more important occasions (or if he just really really feels like speaking his mind); whether that's because he's still a bit shy and/or just a quiet person in general, i'm not sure, but a lot more things with him seem to be conveyed through thoughts or external third-person commentary rather than him outright saying it. its definitely the opposite of fukase, who seems way more chatty and social. visually too there's a pretty neat contrast between them: aside from the height difference that sets them apart, both have limited color palettes that combine some neutral colors (fukase's off-white, black, and brown, heron's greys, muted teal, and tans) with a brighter color to pop out (fukase's bright red, heron's aqua seen on his collar + headphones).

flower and heron's relationship has previously been described as somewhat sibling-like, and it does definitely come off that way: there might be disagreements and rivalry but there's some calm nice/silly moments and genuine care & concern. they share a lot of similarities, but one could note how their relationship parallels that of heron & makarov's - flower occasionally takes on the more cheery and bubbly role in comparison to heron sometimes being the more serious and quiet one, which is seen reversed with the brothers. in spite of quarreling over small, petty little things sometimes, heron and flower seem to make up much easier and not hold any long-lasting resentment towards each other. i ofc know the heron & makarov situation is more complicated and it would make sense for it to be more strained given all that's happened, even in spite of heron forgiving his brother. but i do also wonder if it's been difficult for flower to try and calm heron down on certain occasions, seeing how he's also prone to spirals of his own thoughts that are hard to pull him out of, in a way very similar to his own brother. something sorta ironic there maybe

piko's interesting, pretty much the wild card here. his characterization does seem to vary quite a bit: he can be very playful and cutesy but also kind of a downer, as well as an angry little guy and a bit more ominous/spooky at times. there was a noteworthy point mentioned in this post though regarding how piko sees heron: heron reminds him of his younger self and wants to spare him of the pain that comes with getting your naive dreams of fame and popularity crushed. they're both very similar to each other, from the moodiness to being drawn—sometimes together—in a lot of pieces w/ similar subject matter (both have a fair share of lighthearted doodles as well as darker ones, more so in specific comparison with other characters), and taking the previously mentioned piko thoughts on heron, makes things a little bit sadder... maybe piko's current passive-aggressive and somewhat angry attitude is a mask he's developed over the years to protect himself from getting hurt more, though you can get to his nicer side if he trusts you enough. heron sometimes seems like a slight, cruel opposite of this: being nice and trusting others a bit too easily, but then breaking down emotionally in realizing his choices and impulsive actions, which might scare some people away. i want them to be happy kajhskj but i do wonder if, in spite of how much heron might look up to him, piko really feels the same way. i'm sure he does care about him, but... feelings is complicated. also i wasn't gonna touch on too much of this since i'm aware its not canon, but there's also the whole tall piko thing and how that version of piko specifically interacts with heron. that relationship in particular seems to represent an idealization: some sort of true happiness that'll come once there's an acceptance of the self, and a real willingness to accept help and be vulnerable to allow oneself to be healed... but again that's not canon and might not ever happen so, rip

and of course... there's len. i touched upon this in that original headcanon post but i did still wanna bring it up a little here. something i thought was interesting in looking back at a lot of your art was that most times, len is depicted in group settings; he's rarely seen alone and almost always interacting with someone else in some way. and generally he seems quite concerned, even more so in his interactions w/ heron. aside from the obvious fear of getting mauled to death probably lmao, he also seems to genuinely care about heron and worries about him. i think its worth noting that len is the first person heron sees after "waking up" here, and how he's the only one actually putting a hand on heron there in second-to-last panel. but again, even if len does have good intentions it is clear heron doesn't seem to be on the best terms with him. this piece has always been particularly intriguing to me, pairing what we see happening with the title. makes me think heron's blaming len for what happened to him, that it's len's fault somehow he ended up like this. a big thing also that's part of the len getting mauled thing is... len getting dismembered and eaten. i'm not gonna say too too much b/c i'm sure nobody wants to hear my cannibalism rambling but symbolically... "you are what you eat" yk? as mentioned with piko, heron seems to look up to a lot of the well-known vsynths and wants to achieve a status like them. and ofc len's arguably one of the most popular vocaloids with lot of fame and recognition. heron's design itself is said to take some inspo from len's outfit, and in general (like i mentioned in the original hc post), just wanting to be so much like someone, wanting what they have but not getting it, that might understandably drive someone to rage, and the mauling/dismembering/eating is the violent culmination of those feelings of envy. one last bonus point in terms of visuals too: yellow is the complimentary color to blue (ok ik heron's blues lean more towards blue-grey or aqua but shhhh), the literal opposite of it on the color wheel.

overall i feel heron honestly fits right in with the memesquad; everyone's personalities sort of compliment and mesh well with each other, which creates a fun dynamic that's really sweet to see. i think its really cool how you managed to make him fit in so well and how a lot of his interactions with the others make a lot of sense and are interesting to see, in happy moments as well as more serious/sad ones. sometimes i do really forget he's not a vsynth [yet?] so its surreal. ur doing a really good job tho, keep heronposting we love to see it

[aroace-poly-show]

explodes

[aeide-thea]

god i forgot abt this but seeing hands of the emperor fic on my dash just now reminded me of like. learning abt māori pepeha and how you pronounce whānau and having the sudden realization 'oh you just fully appropriated that for your book, didn't you'

[captain-lovelace]

My fave japanese bl author is a terf and vaguely homophobic but I’m deeply perplexed because it seemed like her books were against transphobia, and homophobia in ways that I don’t even think are subtle. now the wheels are turning painfully in my head, I’m rereading her work to find malice but I can’t!! . Her text even explicitly supports gay marriage. The reason i even looked for her sm in the first place is that I thought she was trans positive, I’m literally just so massively disappointed. No idea why I am, but I am and I can’t shake it off , it’s weird… I want to move on, but I keep going back to her twitter and reading hateful stuff, like a weird ritual.On the other hand, I literally hate imposing my views on other woc, so I just decided to mind my business, esp because I’m not trans. But it slaps me in the face every-time i even open my kindle so i just deleted the book permanently (I didn’t return it, but i can never access it again). I just wonder how many more “bl” authors are this way??? Considering “bl”was the thing that made engage with lgbtq topics in my deeply conservative country. It just shocks me? Are they just writing to make money? What gives? Like she literally adverises her bl books in the midst of her transphobia ???? Help??!💀💀💀

Anon I’m going to be real, I don’t actually know very much about BL or the state of the genre/industry, so I’m not sure how much I can help here. What I can say is that it’s probably not particularly good for you to be hatereading her Twitter or wondering endlessly about her motivations. People can be bigoted, and contradictory, and weird. It sucks, but it happens. Take your confusion as a sign that you’re not like her and let go.

[skxrbrand]

300+ hours in Warhammer (600+ total between all 3 games), and 80% of that time is just me ogling the models

[noxtivagus]

🥺🫶🏼 can i just say i really love my friends sm