#themself first

[northern-passage]

Genuine thought as a fellow trans dude, I’ve seen a lot of (obviously non-serious) questions on other blogs about characters’ genitals such as “how does it look like?” and similar, and I think we all know & understand that such questions are extremely inappropriate to ask and (I hope) no one would actually go around asking these questions irl. Idk, I think we should treat trans characters just like cis ones, without any special “precautions”, so to normalise them and not make cis people treat them like fragile boxes, a thing which happens to a lot of us irl. Hope this doesn’t come off as an attack or anything lol.

no worries, i didn't take this as an attack at all. i actually agree with you, that's why i mentioned feeling conflicted about it and also mentioned that i've changed my stance on how i felt about handling Noel and Clementine in game and in explicit intimate scenes.

however, for me the problem comes from the fact that people... don't ask these kinds of questions about cis characters? i suppose people do get cheeky "who is the biggest 🤪" asks but i would hardly compare the two. to be a bit crude, no one is going to be asking if a cis character has a dick or not, or "what does it look like". of course it's natural for people to be curious, and i honestly encourage the open discussion and am happy to see trans bodies being talked about more in a positive way, but not everyone is going to be comfortable with it due to the inescapable transphobia online and in the community. sending me that kind of ask is like sending out an invitation for a debate or a discussion that i don't necessarily want to have. i also just don't think people should default to asking a random IF author on tumblr dot com to describe what bottom growth looks like.

and with most of these asks typically coming from someone who is anonymous, i have no way of truly knowing what the tone is, what their intentions are or why this is being asked - is it another trans person? or maybe someone who is just genuinely curious? or, more likely in my experience, is it someone who is going to immediately follow up this message with something transphobic after i answer? do i want to roll the dice and find out?

so while i agree with what you're saying, it's important to consider the context and the reality we live in. the IF community is not kind to trans people or trans characters. and as a trans person, my first priority is protecting myself and my mental health. so what i mean when i say "precautions," is that those precautions are for me, because i've had to deal with transphobic harassment here for years now, and i try to mitigate it as much as i can. it's also for my personal comfort - again, to be blunt, i'm simply just not comfortable discussing a trans character's genitals with anonymous strangers on the internet. it makes me feel vulnerable.

also i do want to say i didn't mean for any of that to come across as a dig at other authors - if you're comfortable answering those kinds of questions, that's really only something you can decide for yourself. like i said, this is just coming from my own experiences in IF and for my own personal comfort - i have previously talked a lot about trans stuff and gender and sexuality here, when i'm feeling up to it, but it is something that is very draining for me and can also be very upsetting.

basically: i do agree that it's important not to other trans characters or treat them any differently than cis characters, but i also think there are ways to do it that don't require me answering invasive questions or questions that i don't feel comfortable with as a real life trans person, you know what i mean?

[thronealigned]

no it's fine this mind flayer is totally my friend and 100% honest with me all the time it's ok it likes me everything's so normal

[insecateur]

Does it matter?

[shyhandart]

wanted to show you my rainbowglider kid so far! just a WIP ☺️

Holy crap! Alternate universe siblings!!

This is Caustic Phantom, but everyone they know calls them tommy :3

[flowercrowngods]

they tell you about school and they tell you about work and they tell you about taxes and responsibilities and ideals you have to reach. they don’t tell you about baking chocolate cookies from scratch at the ungodly hours of 11 at night and sitting on your kitchen floor while watching a home decor competition show while you get to munch on a cookie that tastes like the hot chocolate you used to make when you needed a reason to live as a teenager. they don’t tell you about getting to eat another cookie while you think about capturing this moment in a mason jar and shipping it through time to your younger self who gets scared so easily by school and work and taxes and responsibilities and ideals. your younger self who wonders if there’s still comfort, still good things, and if you get to claim them for yourself at some point or if comfort is always a question of dependence. they don’t tell you about that, when for years we do nothing but dream about moments like these

[cacaocheri]

i love it when my posts reach the self-shipping community. now thats what im talking about

[were-changing-cake-vaults]

Look. Gem can’t build the ship from dredge without me imagining her as eldritch horror. She can’t start building the lighthouse without me going Ok So She’s Going All In. I see pirate gem. I see fish gem. All good. However please play or watch someone Dredge and understand that she is cosplaying at least The Fisherman or in my dreams The Collector. Gem should be the horror. As a treat.

[missingexaltation]

If we've learnt anything from that scene in the upside down, Eddie isn't shy about talking about his emotions (guess I was a little jealous, Steve).

So I could totally see him being up front about how 'Stevie I have THE biggest crush on you but don't worry, I know you're not into dudes so I'll get over it soon enough...hope we can still be friends in the meantime'. And Steve's like 'well, you know what, I appreciate the honesty' and is cool with it.

But the problem is, Steve actually likes how sweet Eddie is to him. Giving him dumb little compliments, the last cold beer in the pack, supplying weed for free, looking at Steve like he's hung the moon etc. He doesn't want it to end, nobody's ever really loved him like that before...so Steve starts flirting back and Eddie's delighted.

Steve starts wondering what it's like to kiss him, confessing to Robin that he's admired Eddie's self confidence since high school, that back then he'd wanted to be himself like Eddie was, and how now he just wants to be around Eddie all the damn time, can't stop thinking about him etc.

Robin is useless, teases that it sounds like Steve has a crush, but can they please get back to how Vickie touched her arm that afternoon, and they do.

On one of their solo, semi-platonic dates he cuts Eddie off mid geeky-ramble to tell HIM all of this ('you know what man, you were honest with me so, you know, here's the thing...', and just asks him outright to be his boyfriend. And Eddie's like 'uh...YES', expecting it not to last longer than a month...but it does.

And they're surprisingly, weirdly good together.

[purpleleavesday]

It's so in character to me when fics from Edgeworth's perspective still refer to him as Edgeworth. Yes this man is not on a first name basis with himself what about it

[wildflowercryptid]

some doodles of tris and their two favorite babygirls

[zomboycity]

would you still fuck with me if i made overly serious aot and madoka crossover shit.

[uncanny-tranny]

If you want a weird piece of advice on how to treat trans men and transmasc people you know... I think my piece of advice is to hold off on calling us things like "cute", "twink", or anything adjacent to these if it hasn't been made clear that a person is okay with being described in that way. I promise, it's better to ask than to assume we're all the same, because it genuinely sucks when people make the assumption without even caring.

[vimbry]

it's sad how many reviews and stuff around tmbg seem to centre linnell as the sole dark and creepy writer of the band, never really crediting flansburgh too. do "hide away folk family," "dirt bike," "rabid child," "black ops," "cloisonné" mean nothing to them, smh.

[blueskittlesart]

do u have any navi thoughts from your oot replay

i've been waiting to answer this until I actually beat the game in my current playthrough because navi is another one of those characters that i think of in like a "set" with several other characters who serve relatively the same thematic purpose; in this case that purpose being the "mother" character, and i wanted to have all the characters in that set fresh in my mind. it's notable that while oot shows us very clear and consistent instances of the ways in which the adults of hyrule fail to protect their children, there ARE several adults who DO go out of their way to both oppose ganondorf and protect and nurture the children under their care. All of these characters are adult women, and all of them explicitly help the children out of some sort of parental responsibility or sense of duty towards them. in this group I include link's late mother, impa, nabooru, and navi.

all 4 mother characters, despite being adults or adult-coded, reject the inaction mentality which characterizes other adults in the game. they become either direct supports or shields to their children from the conflict the world has to offer them, and they are always explicitly punished for their interference--link's mother is killed trying to protect her son, impa's village is burned, nabooru is brainwashed. The mother's fatal flaw is that she will protect her child above all else, even in a world in which children cannot truly be protected. however, with the exception of link's mother, these characters manage to persist even in the face of her punishment, and this is where I think navi becomes the exemplary character.

Navi, after a lifetime of being link's only support system, the only adult in his life he could truly, consistently count on, receives her punishment at the hands of ganondorf--in the final battle, she is pushed out. she is unable to reach her child. she cannot protect him. However, BECAUSE link has grown up with her at his side, he is strong enough to take ganondorf down. and when ganon rises again, navi is there to support link, promising not to leave his side, and the intuitive targeting of that battle (a mechanic which navi is inherently tied to!!) makes it a cinch to win. Navi, and the other mothers we meet, are a reminder to the player that the world doesn't HAVE to be the way it is. Their persistence when punished, their insistence that their children ought to be protected, is a reminder that good adults do exist, and that good adults raise good children. link and zelda are able to win in spite of the adults who refused to help them, but also BECAUSE of the adults who DID. It's a reinforcement of the core theme of oot--that childlike idea that the world SHOULD be good and fair and if it isn't, it should be changed until it is. The mothers of oot are examples of what the world COULD be, reminders that it is possible to grow up without losing hope or growing bitter, and they are examples of the next step for the children they've raised to change the word--to continue fighting even in the face of punishment, to refuse inaction, and to foster that same hope and persistence in the generations to come.

[flashdoesahundredyarddash]

Me sharing this first on Twitter and then walking over to Tumblr to post.......

POV...your friend who you're in love with gets a star sapphire ring after saving you...

literally....literally swooning. Hal, he LITERALLY swept you off your feet in battle...

[nyaskitten]

I can imagine a scenario during the war where Wu, Acronix, and the previous EM of Ice are all meant to be the seers of the Elemental Alliance, and they're all huddled around a bunch of Spirit Smoke, trying to trigger any possible future outcomes/visions.