#some more trans stuff yay!!!!

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Stones Stay Silent

high fantasy

an aroace trans man and his amnesiac smoke-demon friend travel across the land to find a place where he can be himself (and maybe become a baker)

plus the friends they meet on the way

world with absent gods, strict gender roles, and a deadly plague

[astrxealis]

bacc from skool

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

will you please give us examples of resources to look at if we want to learn more about the concept of gender and maybe even transness in Medieval Europe? thanks!

whooooo boy right, there's a lot! I wanna start this by saying that I am very much not an expert, and I only have access to stuff I can find for free and the handful of books I can afford to buy second hand. Most of my research has been around gender as it relates to transness and GNC people. I am absolutely missing stuff, or have forgotten stuff, or simply lack the know-how to find stuff.

There's a few bits I've got on a TBR but haven't read yet - some I've included and some I haven't, depending on the source and how established it is.

Also: this is medieval Europe. The way pronouns are used to describe people don't really align with modern views of sex and gender. Also be aware of old-fashioned language use (for example, some texts talk about "hermaphrodites"). Remember that the way we talk about gender and trans identities is far different to how we even spoke about it 20 years ago.

So with that out of the way... I am chucking this under a read more, because it's long:

---

GENDER

Medieval ideas around gender were different to how we now think about it. The Hippocratic view of gender saw gender as a sort of wet/dry, cold/hot spectrum upon which men were at one end and women the other (and in the middle were intersex people). The male body was seen as hot and dry, and the female as cold and wet. The cold, wetness is what made women try to seek out heat from guys. A lot comes down to humors rather than genitals - if you're hot and dry, that innately means you grow a penis, because the heat sorta forces it out. So the marker is that penis = man, but you only have that penis in the first place because of your hot, dry humor.

Some people believed the vagina was an inverted penis - as in, the penis turned outside in. Some schools of thought believed that both men and women produced "seed", and that both were needed for conception. These thoughts and ideas shifted around a lot.

The Hippocratic view shifted towards Aristotelian ideas around the 12th Century, where the male/female divide was a lot stronger. There were also surgeons throughout all these periods who sought to "correct" intersex genitalia with surgery (how little things change).

This podcast (I've linked to a transcript, because I have more time to read than listen to things) with Dr Eleanor Janega is super interesting. In fact, I'd recommend reading her whole blog, which is fascinating. She also has a book out (but I've not read it so I can't give a yay or nay on that one)

The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages by Joan Cadden seems to be a good source on this, but I've not read it so I can't vouch for it 100%.

I've listed below some real people who could fit into our modern interpretation of transness, and the fact that all of these people were only "outed" when arrested or at their death makes me think that there were probably a lot more people at the time who would also fit into this category. It does feel (to me, a layman) that you could rock up in a new town and go "hello I'm Jeff the Man" and people would just accept that.

It's also important to note that the majority of sources I've found are about people we could define as trans men (FTM). I've only found one person who could be described as a trans woman. If anyone out there has more sources for trans women, I'd love to hear them - specifically in medieval Europe/England.

There's also a big discussion to be had around the idea of women dressing as men to achieve a goal. People love getting into arguments about it. My general rule is that if someone lived as X gender, and was forcibly outed against their will or at death, then I feel we can more safely assume that their experience maps more closely onto a trans narrative than it does one of a woman taking on the "disguise" of a man.

---

TRANS & GNC ACADEMIA

Here's some of the sources I've been using that examine medievalism through a trans or trans-adjacent lens.

Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, Alicia Spencer-Hall & Blake Gutt - a deep dive/collection of essays about medieval religious figures/saints through a trans lens, specifically about cross-dressing figures. Really fascinating, and available on open access.

How to be a Man, Though Female: Changing Sex in Medieval Romance, Angela Jane Weisl - goes into detail about medieval texts in which characters change their sex.

Transgender Genealogy in Tristan de Nanteuil, Blake Gutt - trans theory in the story Tristan de Nanteuil.

Trans Historical: Gender Plurality before the Modern, edited by Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov & Anna Kłosowska - A great big examination into trans history/gender. I desperately want this book.

Clothes Make the Man, Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe, Valerie R. Hotchkiss (book, no online source available) - Another look into women dressing as men and gender inversion.

The Shape of Sex, Leah DeVun (book) - A history of nonbinary sex, 200 - 1400BC. Not read this one yet but it's on my TBR.

In fact, I'd recommend all of Leah DeVun's work, which I'm currently making my way through. I'm currently reading Mapping the Borders of Sex.

The Third Gender and Aelfric's Lives of Saints, Rhonda L. McDaniel - An examination into the idea of a "third gender" in monastic life based around chastity and spiritualism

Erecting Sex: Hermaphrodites and the Medieval Science of Surgery, Leah DeVun - an essay about "corrective" surgery on intersex individuals in the 13th/14th centuries. (I've not fully read this one yet but the topic is relevant)

----

TRANS FIGURES

Joseph/Hildegund (died 1188) - A monk who, upon his death, was discovered to have a vagina/breasts.

Eleanor Rykener (1394) - A (likely) trans sex worker arrested in 1394 (and another source that isn't wiki)

Katherina Hetzeldorfer (killed 1477) - An early record of a "woman" being executed for female sodomy. Katherina dressed and presented as a man, and some scholars read them as a trans man.

Marinos/Marina the Monk (5th Cent) - A monk who was born a woman and lived as a man in a monastery. Marinos was accused of getting a local innkeeper's daughter pregnant. Their "true sex" was discovered upon their death.

-----

ROMANCES* & GENDER

If you're interested in the idea of gender presentation and trans-adjacent stories, I very much recommend taking a look at some contemporary sources. I've tried to take a sort of neutral approach to pronouns for these descriptions, but it's hard to marry the medieval and modern ideas of sex and gender! The titles are all links.

*Romances here means Chivalric Romances: prose/verse narratives about chivalry, often with fantastic elements. Not, like, falling in love Romances.

Le Roman de Silence (13th Cent) - in order to ensure inheritance, a couple raise their daughter as a boy. The baby is called Silence/Silentius/Silentia. The poem features the forces of Nature and Nurture, who argue about Silence's "true" gender - Nature claims they're a girl, and Nurture claims they're a boy. Silence has a variety of adventures, largely referred to in the text as a man with he/him pronouns, and at the end their "true gender" is discovered and, as a woman, they marry the king.

Yde et Olive (15th Cent) - to avoid being married to their own father, Yde, a woman, disguises themselves as a man and becomes a knight. They end up in Rome, where the king marries them to their daughter, Olive. After a couple of weeks, Yde tells Olive about their "true gender", but the conversation is overheard. The King demands Yde bathe with him to prove they are a man. An angel intervenes and transforms Yde's body into that of a man.

Iphis and Ianthe (Greek/Roman myth, but also in Ovid's Metamorphois, which first came to England in the 15th Cent) - Telethusa is due to give birth, but her husband tells her that if the baby is a girl he'll have it killed. When she gives birth to a girl, she disguises the baby as a boy. Eventually, Iphis is engaged to Ianthe. (Incidentally, this is also a really early example of same-sex romance, as Iphis struggles with their love for Ianthe "as a woman"). Before the wedding, Iphis and Telethusa pray at the temple of Isis, who transforms Iphis into a man.

Tristan de Nanteuil (11th/12th Cent) - from the Chanson de geste, after his alleged death, Tristan's wife, Blanchandin/e, disguises themselves as a Knight. Clarinde, a sultan's daughter, falls in love with them. Blanchandin manages to hide their "true sex", but when Clarinde demands they bathe with her to prove they are a man they flee into the woods. There, they meet an angel who asks if they want to be transformed into a man. Blanchandin accepts and he is turned into a man for the rest of the poem. (Incidentally the angel gives him a giant cock. Yes, the text specifies this).

Le Livre de la mutation de fortune (1403) - written in the first person by Christine de Pizan, the poem describes how the narrator is transformed by Fortune into a man after the death of their husband during a storm at sea. They maintain that 13 years after the event, they are still living as a man. (They also mention Tiresias, a Greek mythological figure who was a man transformed into a woman for seven years).

Okay, for now - that's about all I can think of. Happy reading!

[llilyrose]

llilyrose spends her time analyzing aroace stuff. yay.

isat spoilers afoot

what i especially like about the way adrienne wrote mira's orientation is the lack of room for interpretation. yes they snuck aroace talk into fantasy france, but just stop and think for a minute. what would happen if mira just said "i'm aroace" or "i don't feel love the same way" instead of all the nuance we got to her character in the friend quest convo?

we know she's sex repulsed, we know she's romance repulsed. we know she loves fiction that has those things in it, loves interpreting fictional characters that way, but can't bare to see herself in that situation. it makes a lot of sense with regards to her location (vaugarde, a very sex-positive and romance-adamant country) and also with regards to herself (the way she feels about her environment). Of course she wouldn't blame other folk around her for engaging with their religion the "correct" way, of course she'd internalize all her feelings of being outcast and turn it back on herself.

The fandom respects this! Nobody ships her romantically, or sexually, because we know she's not into that. We know she would never and i know a bunch of people who would punch you for even thinking it!

Now what if Adrienne hadn't put this in the game? What if they had just said on their tumblr one day, "mira's aroace," or something. where would we be now? aspec shipping discourse would definitely take the reins. we'd have people shipping her in all kinds of different ways, bending the aroace character to the best of their ability because they could still be into sex, or romance, or whatever. this is TRUE, it's POSSIBLE, but there's no nuance. We wouldn't know the way Mira really feels about these things unless Adrienne told us, so a lot of people would either ignore/"work around" her identity or just wouldn't even know about it to begin with!

Introducing mira's orientation in the way adrienne did leaves no room for discourse. we know if she's sex-positive, sex-negative, how she reacted to finding out she was, etc. It provides so much more representation than a simple "I'm aroace" ever could. It's such a wide label, so finally having CONCRETE information about a canonical aroace's experiences with their orientation is so, so freeing and honestly quite refreshing. and it's worked into the story seamlessly!!!

She's not an emotionless carcass with no capacity for love, she's not outwardly detesting sex or romance at every possible moment, she's simply a well-rounded character who happens to be aroace. You have time to warm up to her before ever even finding out about her orientation! Or having any clue at all (barring maybe the suspicious sketches)!!!!! Aroace people are real!!! We're so real!!!!

Speaking of the suspicious sketches! We know siffrin's alloace (from, like, one line of dialogue), but we don't know if he's sex-repulsed. Adrienne's gone on record to say "aces can still have sex" in reference to siffrin, so I'm inclined to believe he has at least some sort of libido.

When looking at the sketches, both him and mira have a repulsed reaction. I think there are three possible reasons for Siffrin here!

Siffrin is sex-repulsed and has a visceral reaction to them because he thinks it's gross.

Siffrin has no libido because the stress overrides everything in his system. That combined with his ace identity would probably lead to a distaste for the papers.

Some people would NOT GET THE MEMO from the act 3 friendquest. Sometimes when you're writing you have to account for the gamers being really really dense. Some people didn't even understand the Isa friendquest was him coming out as trans basically. Since Ace characters are hard to "prove" unless they explicitly state they dislike sex, this line of dialogue might've just been there to drill it in that Siffrin is ace because the only other place we see that implication is one line in the friendquest. It could even have no tie to his relationship with sex, who knows?

one of these options is not like the others! /silly

I couldn't tell you which one of those it is, but i think at least one of them had to have hit the mark. It's a lot harder to decode siffrin's sexuality when we only get like 5 lines of dialogue total that vaguely even reference it

With this we come back to the issue from earlier: He could be demi, he could be ace, he could be sex-repulsed, he could not! Most people write them sex-repulsed and I'm personally on that bandwagon, but interpreting them a different way isn't any less correct unless you completely ignore the fact they're ace in the first place.

Even sex-positive aces have complicated relationships with sex. Some do it for the gratification, some simply have higher libido and can't think of a different way to get it out, and others only do it to please their partner.

I think writing an ace character as sex-positive should be seen as a character study instead of an excuse to ship two characters together. Is this character the type to even enjoy it in the first place? How often? How do they interact with it? Etc. Which I think is what Adrienne was talking about when she said "aces can still have sex." We don't know about siffrin's identity, we don't have a grasp on the nuance, but we do know he's ace and that he experiences love differently from the way mirabelle does, and the way isabeau does, and the way odile does, and what have you.

I love love love the representation we get in isat. An aroace, an alloace, and someone that a lot of fans headcanon as aroallo though it's unconfirmed. Even if Odile's not aro, we still get that line of dialogue about not finding romance suitable for her at the moment, which speaks true to a different experience altogether. No two characters experience love, experience life the same in isat. That's why i get to make a tumblr text post that's a bit too long exploring the different avenues adrienne took when writing the characters lol :')

[saisaixchan]

Re: the One Piece poll

Guys OP has a s literal army of trans characters, it's actually a plot point, there's literally so fucking many trans and NB and genderfluid people in OP its kind of fucking insane

There's Bon Clay/Bentham from as early as Alabasta in March of 2000, 3 years after the initial publication of OP

Bon's powers let him transform into other people, and he's the only member of a bad guy group with male/female partners who doesn't have a female partner bc he's both the male AND female partner in his rank

He doesn't need one bc he's both

Bon is also consistently one of the best characters who helps Luffy, and who deeply respects the bonds of friendship, and he deeply admires Ivankov (next in the list)

Plus, Bon Clay is only one of two in the villain group to become good guys and befriends the main characters

There's fucking Ivankov, Queen of Kammabakka Kingdom an island full of drag queens and trans people, with his hormone powers that lets him trans all the genders for himself and everyone around him (aka the Newkama in Impel Down- a literal army of trans people who help Luffy break out of prison so he can save his brother)

AND he's the second in command of the Revolutionary Army, a group actively against the World Government that controls the entire globe, and is fighting against it's corrupt politics and ideals, such as allowing slavery for the higher classes, fighting the racism against Fishman it's held up for centuries, and all that stuff

Ivankov is one of the most important characters in the series in regards to the world politics and the fight for freedom against the oppression of the WG, and he works with what are unambiguously the Good Guys in the world, who are headed by Luffy's father

There's Okiku in Wano, who its 100% trans and even gets the horny Sanji treatment

(which is kinda important bc there was some Bad Trans/Queer rep earlier in the series involving Sanji running from drag queens who were harassing him and for a while Sanji was pretty transphobic and it was a whole thing, but Oda seems to have learned or educated himself by this point, so yay)

Plus Okiku is a super strong samurai, fucking powerful girl go off, and everyone treats her as one of the girls and she's the best tbh she deserves the world

She's so sweet and kind and strong af and is just as much a warrior as the rest of her group

Plus there's Yamato

Who, to be very clear, is not CONFIRMED as trans, but has a lot of gender fuckery going on that he belongs on this list imo, come to your own conclusions ig

Yamato is 100% confirmed as the biological daughter of Kaido, which is backed up in several other sources and even a colorspread with only biological women, but everyone in the story itself refers to him as he/him, Including Luffy who calls him by Yama-guy/Yamao

(something Luffy only does for men- he calls Ivankov and other more genderfluid or femme leaning queer folks by -chan)

and Yamato calls himself the Son of Kaido multiple times

Yamato saw someone be so awesome that he wanted to emulate that person and become them-

but as an apparently separate decision, he decided he also wanted to be a man, too! Not just because of Kozuki Oden, but because holy fuck look at that gender, I want that for myself!!!

His identity as Kozuki Oden and his identity as Son of Kaido seem to be separate things, bc Kaido, Kaido's forces, Luffy (our main character who helps us understand how to treat situations), and everyone else around him at least acknowledges that Yamato, is, in fact, the SON of Kaido, and everyone, regardless of which side they're on in the war, respects that and treats it as fact

Meanwhile, absolutely no one treats Yamato like he's actually Kozuki Oden

And there's no sign of Yamato being forced to become a man because Kaido wanted a son- 1), he was called Oni Princess fairly consistently as a child by Kaido's forces, and 2) he only became known as Son of Kaido after Yamato himself decided he wanted to become a man

Yamato has refused everything forced on him by his father, and has run away, hid, and fought back at every moment he could, and his gender and pronouns were the only real decision of his own that have been respected as all his other freedoms were taken from him

(Which doesn't say much about his horrible father- Kaido was guided by an incredibly strong female pirate at a young age, and he has plenty of strong women among his crew. Kaido doesn't care about what gender his kid is, or gender at all)

So yeah while Yamato is not confirmed in the text as trans like many other characters are in much more obvious ways, and several sources confirm that he's biologically female, he still goes by Son and he/him by the other characters and by his own choice, so make of that what you will

Please enjoy this spread of Yamato in the Men's bath (he refused to join the women's bc no mixed bathing), and Okiku in the women's

Anyway yeah op has tons of trans, genderqueer, and genderfluid representation in it, it might not look it but it's been there since basically March of 2000 when Bon Clay was first introduced and it hasn't stopped since

[magpod-confessions]

as a trans dude, i feel like theres an uncomfortable relationship of babying martin and trans martin hcs. i might be looking too much into it but i feel like people hc martin as trans because of the soft front he puts up, and then baby him in fanon because they see him as trans. once again i might be looking too much into it, but people that i know in real life are like scared of all cis men (or even just people with penises in general) sexually assaulting them or something but no matter what they're not scared of me and no matter what they say the reason is because i wasnt born with a penis (i dont think that people should be scared of everyone or that people's s/a trauma isnt valid, everyone can do bad things but people shouldn't think that everyone will do the bad things they're capable of and if they do think that then i think they should get the chance to talk about it and work through it) and i feel like its the same for martin (though to a lesser extent). as i said, i feel that some people see him as trans due to the personality he puts up as more of a front, and then baby him because they see him as trans. (AGAIN i could be thinking too much about this and just too wary of possible minor transphobia) 🗣

as a trans person , i do agree this may be a possibility for some trans-martin headcanons , but definitely not always . some people just like seeing their favourite characters be trans . martin is a beautiful bear to me , okay ? yay . but seriously the way the fandom babys martin is so weird and i dislike it a lot ; he doesn't like being babied , he literally said this when he was burning statements , but the fandom treats him as poor martin waaa waaa he can't help himself !! it's so annoying . :::: | - deceit

I was eepy so this is why this is late anyways agree with deceit. I definitely see where youre coming from and agree to some extent. Personally Idm transmasc martin, I do think a lot of ppl hcing him as tmasc are trans themselves and projecting lol, but I get where youre coming from. Personally I have a preference for trans jon bc. Projection reasons, but yea. I do think its good to be wary of stuff but I also feel a majority of ppl arent doing that. Also yea the babying is rly annoying jesus christ - Rosette

[ofmdrecaps]

08/03-04/2024 Weekend OFMD Recap

TLDR; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Samba Schutte; Ruibo Qian; Rachel House Dominic Burgess; Nathan Foad; Articles; Fan Spotlight; OFMD Colouring Pages; Our Flag Means Fanfiction; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika

Okay yall, I ended up being up all night for days with a grumpy kiddo so I am yet again behind, I'm really sorry. Here's the weekend recap. Aug 5 will go out tonight if I have to chug espresso for the next 4 hours!

== David Jenkins ==

Source: David Jenkins Twitter

== Rhys Darby ==

Our Captain is out in Edinburgh Scotland! Doing his Live Cryptid Factor show with Dan Scheiber and Buttons!

Lots of short videos on his Instagram Stories:

The Cryptid Factor Live - Edinburgh - Buttons CraftTime

The Cryptid Factor Live in Edinburgh - Dan's Book

The Cryptid Factor Live In Edinburgh - The Crypid Factor

The Cryptid Factor Live In Edinburgh - The Caves

Source: Rhys Darby's Instagram

Source: petrichorpond On Twitter (per @mon-ster-chen's Post)

= Astras TV Awards Nominee =

Rhys has been Nominated for BEST ACTOR in a Streaming Comedy Series in the Astra TV Awards! The TV Awards ill be held on Aug 18th so keep your eyes peeled around then!

Source: Hollywood Creative Alliance Instagram

== Taika Waititi ==

Happy Wedding Anniversary to Taika and Rita! (Aug 4th 2022). They were caught smooching out in London recently <3

Source: Instagram

== Samba Schutte ==

No context, but Samba called it "Man in the Mirror"

Source: Samba Schutte's Instagram

== Nathan Foad ==

Nathan's weekly Saturday Celebration

Source: Nathan Foad's Instagram Stories

= Ruibo Qian =

Just some stills from the Ms. Holmes/Ms. Watson BTS I wanted to include cause they're adorable.

Source: OldGlobe's BTS Video

= Rachel House =

So these are a week old but I found them via a more recent post from someone else there, so putting them in today! Rachel out with friends <3

Source: Instagram

= Dominic Burgess =

Dominic sending us goodnight cat pictures. What a guy <3

Source: Dominic Burgess' Twitter

== Articles ==

Thank you to @adoptourcrew for highlighting this article!

https://telltaletv.com/2024/03/20-iconic-queer-and-trans-characters-of-color-on-tv/

Source: Adopt Our Crew Twitter

https://screenrant.com/tv-shows-always-recommend-good-regardless-genre/

Source: Adopt Our Crew Twitter

== Fan Spotlight ==

= OFMD Colouring Pages =

Another set of colouring pages from our fab friend @patchworkpiratebear - I love that we're getting multiple versions each time now! These are super cool!

Source: PatchworkPirateBears Tumblr: Teacups / Flag

= Our Flag Means Fanfiction =

Another episode of the Omegaverse! This time hosted by Tessa! Check them out on your favorite listening platforms here!

Source: Our Flag Means Fanfiction Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Hey Lovelies!!! Found this really adorable artist this weekend and I thought I'd share them with you because they really express a lot of things that I tend to think--- like how much I love you all, seriously, did you know you're fucking FANTASTIC?? and fucking BRILLIANT AND AMAZING AND TALENTED!?

Whenever I'm stuck doing work, or other family/life stuff, I always come back to thinking about this awesome fandom, and how much I miss talking too you all and how much I love all the crazy stuff you all get up to every day! I haven't been interacting as much because it's really hard for me to focus with so much going on (yay neurodivergence!)-- but please know I'm watching and laughing, and crying and smiling, and wishing you all the best and cheering you on! Hope the end of the weekend and beginning of the week is treating you wonderfully <3 Take care lovelies!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James (@sunlightafterdark)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James (@sunlightafterdark)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James (@sunlightafterdark)

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Just needing some of the Cinnamon Sugar, Salt and Pepper boys smiling together for this one <3 Gifs courtesy of more of our gif-masters @eddie-redcliffe and @thunderwingdoomslayer!

[alpaca-clouds]

The Lies We Are Taught In School

Talking about science this week, let me talk about the thing that irks me more than anything: The fact that we get taught so many lies in school. Both in regards to science, and in regards to stuff like history. Like, holy fuck. Why do we get taught that much garbage?

If you google "Lies we got taught in school", you will find an endless amount of listicles going over a variety of lies.

A lot of people in America will of course know that the version of American history they get taught in school is very "clean". Be it their version of how Thanksgiving came to be ("And then the indigenous people and settlers got along just fine"), how the entire story of Matoaka/Pocahontas happened ("And then everyone just got along and no 12yo girls got raped"), or how the Civil War went ("And then slavery was ended and everyone had equal rights, yay").

Another thing that school keeps telling us is the thing I mentioned yesterday: IQ. IQ is not real. At least not as any measure of intelligence. All IQ tests will test is, how good you are at taking IQ tests.

Or one that I found in so many listicles: The food pyramid. The food pyramid is a great example of a thing that a lot of people believe, that is not based on science, but fully on propaganda by an industry. And yet... It is very common in the US - and almost as common in Europe. At least I learned about it in primary school, and never learned a correction of it until I entered university.

Or getting back to history: A lot of history classes teach so much bullshit when it comes to medieval history and how people in medieval times lived. They will act as if the medieval world was just one thing, rather than many things. Oh, and a lot of schools place the witch burnings into the middle ages - even though they all happened AFTER the middle ages.

Or something quite relevant to trans folks: Schools very much teach that there are only two genders and sexes, and that those usually are based on the chromosomes. Even though intersex people exist and might be a lot more common than we actually realize, given that most people are never tested for intersex conditions. And since we know that other than what was long assumed (the supposed fact that almost all intersex people were infertile) is wrong... Yeah, some scientist argue that intersex is a lot more common than assumed. So even from the very biological aspect - without going into gender - it is quite wrong.

The list really could go on and on.

And mind you, some of those myths (especially in regards to history) are so prevailant, that folks who even go to universities and study ajacent stuff will still be believed. I still remember: Two years ago I talked in a historical podcast about the witch hunts, how they happened after the medieval period, how they looked different in different countries, how they did not happen everywhere in Europe, and how they not always were going for women. Mind you, we linked the historical sources under the podcast... And yet, someone I know, who studied history (though with their main focus on Victorian England) went on a long rant how that was all wrong. Was she able to come up with counter sources for her claims? No, obviously not. But she kept insisting even months later.

In general the entirety of all those lies taught in school usually go back to one of three reasons for those lies.

Propaganda. There are quite a few lies in school - especially in regards to history - that are propaganda. Especially when it comes to the sanitizing colonial history. Stuff like how settlers and indigenous people got along fine. How Lincoln ended slavery. Or for us in Germany, how we totally never really were ever involved in any colonialism whatsoever. That is all propaganda. Even stuff like the medieval prejudices are based on the propaganda that history only ever moves forward. The food pyramid also belongs to this.

Ancient material. This is probably the most common reason. See, a lot of material in school is just outdated by decades. At times because the curriculi have not been updated in decades - at times because the people updating them are actually not professionals in those fields, hence basing their ideas mostly on what they learned in school 40 years ago.

Simplification because kids "won't understand it otherwise". A lot of stuff in school gets dumbed down in comparison what you learn in university, because a) not everyone needs to know it (they say), and b) kids cannot understand it (they say). This is true for a lot of stuff in the science classes. Stuff like "only two sexes", "only five senses", "only three states of matter" is mostly based on this.

But honestly... While the first two reasons are bad either way (propaganda does not belong in schools, and schools should work with modern material), some people might think the last reason is somewhat understandable. But honestly... It is not. Because kids are actually not stupid.

It is one thing to not teach everything and leave out stuff. Otherwise we would not need universities. But... Lying to kids? Yeah, that is not good. It is not a good thing to begin with. And really, why do we keep doing that?

[yes-17-15]

Hargreeves sexuality and gender headcanons cuz I’m bored.

Luther-

I 100% believe he is CisHet but he is absolutely an ally. He probably didn’t understand everything at first but Viktor and Klaus helped explain and he got the gist of it. He also maybe uses He/They pronouns? He thinks They/Them just sounds nice.

Diego-

I know a lot of people think that Diego is a trans man and I think that would be cool (as a trans man myself) but I just don’t really see it. I kind of understand it but I don’t really agree. I definitely do think he’s Bi though, female leaning. Definitely He/Him.

Allison-

I also see lots of people thinking she’s a trans woman, and I think that’s a great headcanon imo but I again do not agree. I absolutely don’t see her as anything but Cisgender Heterosexual. And I honestly like it that way. I don’t think all of the Hargreeves siblings have to be LGBTQ+, I think some of them should be straight too. I think Allison might have messed around with girls but she just didn’t really feel a click like she does with males. She/Her.

Klaus-

I think most of us agree Klaus is not Cis or Straight. There is no way. I would probably say he is Non-Binary or Gender-fluid. He never heard those terms until they were a bit older, probably after Five disappeared, and the first time he heard it was someone shit-talking it, and they wanted to look more into it. So occasionally Viktor and Grace would be allowed to go to the library because Viktor usually didn’t have much else to do so Klaus asked him if next time he goes if he could look up those words for him and Viktor obviously said sure. He came back and told Klaus about it and Klaus was like, “yep, that’s me.” They were happy there was a word for it. I also think Klaus is Pansexual, but he also isn’t very fond of labels anyway. They honestly just think everyone’s hot (EXCEPT CHILDREN NOT CHILDREN). Any pronouns but mainly He/They.

Five-

I think Five’s above gender and stuff like that. When they were kids Viktor had a crush on Five and Five just found it disgusting. Partially because they’re like siblings but also because Five does not want a relationship or anyone to have a crush on him. Five also never liked gender roles and was confused why there were differences in the uniforms depending on gender. Five saw Viktor and Klaus wearing each others uniforms and was a little confused why Reggie wouldn’t just let Klaus wear what he wanted but also was kind of confused why Klaus even wanted to wear skirts. Five never really thought about gender much though because he thought it was incredibly stupid and useless. Five always thought that way. But especially whenever Five was in the apocalypse, he had absolutely no use for it. Five wishes that they didn’t live in a gendered society but he we are. If he has to use terms for himself, he’d say he’s Agender and AroAce (Yay AAA battery). Five doesn’t like using pronouns and prefers his name but if it’s mandatory Five uses He/Him pronouns but Klaus uses They/them for him cause he knows Five likes it.

Ben-

I don’t know enough about Ben to give a really detailed answer but I have a simple bit to say. I would like to think he’s Bisexual, but I don’t really think he is. I like the headcanon but again we don’t know enough about him. I think he’s Cis too but maybe DemiBoy? I’d probably say He/Him but maybe some neos?? I’m not experienced in them though so I don’t really know any he might use (I’m also talking more about Brellie Ben than Sparrow Ben).

Viktor-

I absolutely adore Viktor. I know lots of people thought he was a Lesbian before season three but no, that’s not the case. He actually liked Leonard/Harold. Before he found out about all the things Leonard did he actually liked him. And when he was younger it’s confirmed (I’m pretty sure??) that Viktor had a crush on Five. Viktor doesn’t only like females, he actually does like guys. I absolutely think Viktor is Bisexual, possibly Pan. I think he could also be on the Aspectrum maybe? But he definitely doesn’t only like women. I also thought he might have been Non-Binary before he transitioned but now I absolutely like him as just a trans man. He/Him maybe He/They and possibly neos?? Again I don’t know much about neos so.

[olderthannetfic]

Recently we had a friend over — older cousin of my rommate, very kind, gentle women, in her early 40s, with phd in humanitarian studies. We had a nice chat about politics and she asked me where she can read more about all this trans stuff I talk, since she want's to be educated and trust my opinions. I told her that I have only my twitter, and she was eager to follow immideatly, at which point I was like "listen, I mostly write there not about politics, but like... other... stuff... so there's a thing called fanfiction — you should know, you had students, right?" and she was confused for a moment and then light up and asked "ohhh so you post yaoi, that's what you mean? I was soo into yaoi when I still was a student! I probably have some cd's with yaoi arts from that time somewhere! Ah what a nice times it were...". It made me crack up it was such a dissonanse with a so nice sweet professor going "yay boys kissing! Good stuff, I remember this!" (also last week she's very nicely asked me about how puberty blockers work so she can "smash down some assholes at her meeting", I'm proud to be a trusted source)

--

Ohoho! Hulksmash the idiots at the meeting!

(TBH, early 40s is exactly the age to have been to early YaoiCons and consuming all the BL that was suddenly available around then.)

[ruthytwoshakes]

oh good evnening my homos,, my swagggalishis peepol, my lovely little guys . idk. I drew some gi. rrrrrls !!! Some fem fort!! Wahhooooo!!! Yippepeeee!! oh oh and big thank you to everybody who voted in the poll I set up! Once winter break hits I’ll be able to work on the projects full time, until then I’ll just be putting out little wips because school is more important :]

I’ve always wanted to make a gender swap au of some sort but I really had no good ideas until now,,. . They’re all clones of the red team that Engineer and Pauling worked on!! But like kinda. really crazy and blood-thirsty.

Pauling was requested to make a better Blu team because they sucked so bad,, ,so instead of hiring new people she got lazy and asked Engineer for help to mess with the respawn machine and create these new guys. They’re also like a fourth bigger than the original mercs. They’re very scary and violent and not r,eally good at being people yet. to be fair they were born like yesterday sorta. And I think I’d be a little evil too if I was born with the memories and mannerisms and scars of a life that I had not lived. ? ,,,,oh well sucks 2 suck. They hate the other team with a burning passion because they were programmed that way I guess. Idk I just came up with it tonight so it kidna isn’t all that coherent but we bal l . If I have the time I’ll draw them all beating up the boys or just like tormenting them. heheghjshh. pyro is a bear because the original pyro is a butch,, and spy is trans masc cus the original spy is trans fem. c ool

oh if anybody has any ideas for names I’d love to hear them! I’m shit ass at names so help is appreciated B))))) )

oh. welell hello thehrer,, here is more deisntns

these are for fun and would not actually work in the au,, teehhe. Man I don’t know what the fuck happened with saxton but he just looks the exact same. he’s growing out his hair. happened with saxton rhymes kindaa also Bidwell yay! Made her look more like Ma because I think she and scout are sisters booyahhh woah. Reddy with the butch realness hell yeah ,, love her. Mister Pauling wooooooow don’t have much 2 say. Twink Pauling little scary. Administrator though fucking killed me ,,I turned a bad bitch into an old man I’m losing my minddd. Kept the earrings cus they slayy cunty cunt cunt? Idk I don’t say that stuff

PYRO FACE JUMPSCARE !!! I know I committed sin and removed a masked character’s mask buut,idk fuck it I wanted to. Got some gnarly burn scares there and a rat tail cowaaabunga. Don’t know if you can tell but Blu has a half a beard.

JUMPSACREE JUMPSCARE I ADDED MY OCS MUHAHHA it’s gliderrrs yay. Red and Blu glider are two different. guys,, uhh they’re both twins!! Fraternal I think. Red is very flamboyant and extroverted and talks with her hands while Blu kinda stares at you,, you can’t really tell if she’s angry or not? Not happy with you that’s for sure. I can’t info dump about them on this post because I have to get back to work but one day in the near future. perhaps. perchance. mayhaps. what

[sleepnowmychild]

Request for the Hypnos devotees:

My family is planning on going to Italy around this time next year, we’re Italians living in Australia so this is a long overdue trip back to the motherland. While I am definitely exited, I just know my sleep is going to be absolutely butchered over the weeks I’m there. Time zones, sleeping in hotel beds, early starts and late bedtimes to travel from city to city. Also my relationship with that side of the family is a little rocky (because trans yay) so it’ll be an exhausting trip.

So I’m going to be absolutely leaning heavily on Hypnos the whole time for some half decent sleep and protection. And that got me thinking, given Hypnos was also present in Ancient Rome as Somnus, I’m wondering if there’s anywhere in Italy he has history in from Roman times. I’ll do some looking into it, but if anyone knows, please do tell. I’m much more educated on the Ancient Greek side of things, but I know he was quite present in Rome too, there’s several texts proving that. I’m not liking my chances of finding any little statuettes of him or anything while I’m there, from what I’ve heard it’s mainly the Olympians that show up in museum souvenir shops and stuff, but if I do find something I’ll literally scream.

[picnokinesis]

My friend is running a text-based rpg campaign, and I'm absolutely in love with it, so I decided to draw a 'cover' for each day in the story. We'll see if I can do one for each day, but I'm SO proud of how these turned out so far - all of them are inked in my notebook first, and then coloured digitally. If anyone's interested in the story, I've explained more about it all under the cut!

OKAY. So the game is called City of Mists, and basically it's...kinda hard to explain, but I'd call it 'cyberpunk noir', but with a 90s technological aesthetic. Kinda like when you read Issac Asimov's books and they're using computers but it's all cassettes and film-based technology. Anyway, it's awesome. Every character has a normal life in the city - their 'logos' - but there are some characters who are called Rifts, who have something mythological manifest within them - their 'mythos'. Now, the mythos can kinda be anything, but the point is that it's a legend or story that manifests within the character, and thus gives them new abilities. And every Rift has to balance their logos and their mythos - because to delve too much into your mythos means you forget your normal life and become entirely consumed by the mythos...but to focus too much on your logos means to lose, and forget, your mythos entirely. The 'mist' of the city obscures mythological and supernatural things from those who haven't 'awakened' yet - but Rifts can see through the mist.

So, my little guy is - sighs. Okay. Y'all are gonna laugh. Please be aware that I know, okay? I know. It's fine. This is a choice I've made. But he's called Nakis Sandhu, and he's an investigative journalist (NOT with amnesia) who, when he was a kid, was involved in a train accident that killed his parents, but him and his twin sister miraculously survived. He's trans, and he has a van - he doesn't live in it, thank goodness, but it is important because his mythos is Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (this is why he looks like Sacha Dhawan, because like....Sacha Dhawan should play Captain Nemo and I'll die on that hill). And so Nakis, when his mythos awakened, turned his van into the Nautilus - Captain Nemo's submarine - and so it now works underwater too, and can travel undetected. He also becomes like, a technological genius and can invent stuff on the fly, but he never studied engineering or anything - it just comes to him in flashes of inspiration.

Nakis' main thing is that he's trying to figure out what happened in the train crash when he was a kid. He saw something different to everyone else, because he saw through the mist - what everyone else thought was an accident was actually two Rifts duking it out (I think). One of these Rifts was a blue bull that is apparently called 'the Bull of Thunder', and the other was a man with fire based abilities - called 'The Burning Man'. On Day 2, Nakis discovered a metal case that had belonged to the Burning Man, that had been hidden for twenty years - since the day of the accident - and was full of clues, including some photographic film that needed developing. Unfortunately, seems that there's a strange filter on the photos, so it's impossible to tell what's on them...luckily, my guy made friends with a photographer on Day 1 (who I believe is another player character) whilst investigating something else, and as a result he's now passed the film on to him, in the hopes that he'll be able to clear them up.

One funny thing: Day 0 was supposed to be a 'chill' day to figure out how the game mechanics worked, and figure out what your character would do on a normal day. Nakis immediately went to investigate something and then nearly ended up drowning RIP. On Day 1, when continuing to investigate the thing from Day 0, he...got shot in the shoulder HAHAHAH but he's fine, he's doing great, he didn't bleed out in his apartment which is always a win. He also bumped into another player character by doing this - so yay!

[talonbite4596]

This took over 20 hours to make I'm deceased... I'm glad it's done I need a break lol

Close ups on the pins under the cut!! (And some extra little notes for fun)

The formatting and graphic design could be better but, again, I just want to be done 😭 so ummm oops sorry !!

Yay yum yayaya art woooo yes !!!

More notes for fun !!

- when I say "loves animals (... not many, but still)" it means he can, has, and WILL burn squirrels alive for free entertainment, as well as shooting animals for fun... but he would also cry and feel awful if he stepped on a dog's foot... he's got favorites, basically, and does NOT hide it

- sun freckles, because why not

- kinda a dirty kid... literally the definition of "boys will be boys 🤪" where he's just always getting into the weirdest shit. You take your eyes off him for 1 second and he returns with mud all over himself and probably has a cat or something and just has the dumbest smile on his face !!! Idiot kid love him tho

- I added a gir pin because I love gir and for fun, doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense.... just roll with it !!

- made him Trans bc psychonauts as a whole is a trans allegory in my mind so, it made sense !! And because he's... 10 he hasn't done anything medical yet, just socially transitioned !! (Adding this point because some people see that and think the wrong things, like those ppl who think 4 year Olds are getting surgery and forcefully getting hormones jabbed into them. NO that's not happening)

- if he was a 2000s kid he'd like a lot of different things, like Mario and sonic games, and certain TV shows and movies (like invader zim, pokemon shows/movies, Disney stuff etc. Just general kids stuff yk?)

- sasha gave him coffee once.... he then proceeded to ramble about random things for hours while he tried to help work on things. So, he was able to focus better but won't shut UP (I'm projecting)

- he enjoys media that reminds him of himself, which is the "odd man out" type stuff, it helps him feel better about feeling like he doesn't belong bc he knows he isn't alone. It's sad but it helps him idk!!

OKAY IM DONE (for now) but yippee wow isn't that cool !!! I'm curious what yall think so lmk if u wanna !! I love hearing what Y'all think of my stuff, and I might post more headcanon type stuff later on if that's something ur interested in, honestly just send me an ask if u wanna know my hc for specific characters!!

OKAY goodbye drink water 💖

[decepti-thots]

1, 8 and 12

"the character everyone gets wrong"

moving over to exRiD for this one. arcee is imo subject to this a lot, despite fannish sentiment around her being overall very positive. i suspect a part of this is that the segments of idw1 fandom i hang out in either haven't read much or all of exRiD and/or do not read it as often as other series like MTMTE, so she tends to be subject to a lot of 'flattening' into her most iconic, meme-y characteristics. fun murder lady who likes murder! yay! but the thing is that the popular perception of arcee in a lot of circles is perpetually stuck in what she started as, not where she was ultimately taken. arcee's arc in the latter parts of idw1 are about the ways she grows out of and beyond the original concept of her as Scary Violent Lady TM, and about finding personhood for herself beyond that. by the time you're a dozen or so issues into phase two, that entire concept of her is being questioned and developed by the comic! it would perhaps bother me less if that entire original presentation of her wasn't so heavily rooted in phase one's (trans)misogynistic portrayal that we're ostensibly all on the same page about being bad, and the later stuff that is largely ignored wasn't a direct attempt to work with and rectify. (this has gotten better in the past 3-4 years, though.) i don't think anyone is deliberately leaning into that, it's just a side effect of most folks in the places i hang out not being overfamiliar with the actual canon stuff. but. well. it does make me a little sad. she's got such a compelling arc! i would like to have more enthusiasm for it, as opposed to making fun jokes about her stabbing people. (on the plus side, discussing this before has persuaded at least three people i know of to read exRiD and they told me they loved her in it, so!)

"common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about"

anyone who thinks exRiD is light on character work, as per the above, is wrong. sorry. it has great character work! the division of 'MTMTE is for character stuff, exRiD is Plot TM only for dudebro nerds' is incorrect, and unfortunately remains a common sentiment. barber did not do it the same way that roberts did, but exRiD is intensely interested in its characters and barber has spoken at length about how interested he was in digging into character dynamics. if anything is barber's signature, it's his extensive use of internal character monologue, even! yes, he also really likes doing convoluted plots- and it's fair that is simply a turn off for people- but the perception he doesn't care about characters or interpersonal relationships is very unfair. this man did not do All That with thundercracker for people to write that off.

"the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them"

i did this question previously for aileron but also! also!! more people need to give some love to idw needlenose. as with aileron, it's not that people DISLIKE him, it's that he is great and i want more people to understand this. he's got a complicated cross-faction sibling relationship with tracks! he's a gay widower and it's really sad!! he's a hardcore True Believer in the decepticon cause and imo a wayyy better exploration of what a generic non-high-command decepticon is struggling with in the aftermath of the war ending as a real believer in the cause than stuff like the scavengers that gets more play in fandom. but he gets way less attention as idw exploring that, unfortunately. i love him so much, please join me in the needlenose stan corner.

[cursedvibes]

I need to protect Uraume from the greater JJK community. People see a character with slightly prominent eyelashes and go “ah yes, a woman” as if there aren’t hundreds of feminine male and GNC characters in animanga media.

Pretty = woman

Ugly = man (or an it)

I got this gender stuff down, it's so easy! Also Gojo is a woman confirmed, I guess. (more trans rep yay) Why is everyone using he/him for her? I thought we were ignoring canon over here.

It's very telling that when people say Uraume is a woman, their only real argument for that is "I just feel like that's what she is" or "she is pretty". Look at those thin wrists, the womanly long flowing robes(?). Obviously a woman, doesn't matter that it's at this point pretty clear that they aren't gendered on purpose. If it was important, we would have at least heard Sukuna address them differently, but that hasn't been the case so far. Nobody has even assumed their gender, only Juzo once said he can't tell and that's all. Considering the official English translator we have, I'm not surprised tho. Well, maybe Enby Whisperer Hakari will have them spell it out for the audience.

Same with people calling Tengen a man, despite her objecting to that in canon and stating their understand of her gender very clearly. People only started respecting that when it got revealed that she was young and pretty at some point. Suddenly they can read again. God forbid we have a gender non-conforming woman* who also ages. "omg she fell off, why does she look like that??" I'm sure these people wouldn't have any hair left in 500 years either and definitely wouldn't rock a suit. They're actually doing really well for herself.