#there r a lot of animals that can just change their sex at will and godzilla is 1 of them. if ur like me and consider every peice

[sanchoyo]

godzilla is an asexual genderfluid icon 🤟

[renardtrickster]

Also because bringing up "I watched Hazbin Hotel" and only talking about discourse is a Bad Look, here's my thoughts on the pilot and the four episodes thus far released.

I've seen some people say the animation in the show is less fluid in the pilot, but I think I like the show's animation more? It's a lot more consistent, the characters are shaded so they stand out from the background more (and kind of "pop"), but honestly a passing vibe I got in the pilot now and then was that it was "too fluid", like it moved too fast at places or like it had a lot of "flourishes" that felt off. I can't accurately explain it, but point is, I like the show's vibes more.

I also like the redesigns. I didn't notice anything too drastic with say Dust, Alastor, or Charlie, but Vaggie's was an upgrade. The red shirt breaks up the white, and she's looking much more Moth (the more Moth your characters look the better).

I don't really have anything to say about the voices, my attention was divided elsewhere. I will be committing seppuku later for not being able to have a strong, belligerent opinion on this matter.

Speaking of Vaggie, now that I've seen more of her character, I've grown to appreciate her more. There's a sort of 4-section graph where Charlie and Vaggie believe in the Hotel's success, with Charlie being much more personally emotionally invested in it while Vaggie's more cynical and seems to be doing it more for Charlie's sake. Meanwhile Angel Dust and Alastor don't believe the Hotel can succeed, but Alastor still helps while Angel Dust just blows things off.

Also everyone who did the "she's an Angry Latina stereotype" thing can eat shit now. She was angry in the pilot because Angel Dust publicly embarrassed her girlfriend, tarnished any credibility the Hotel had, and then insulted her to her face while being unrepentant the entire time. Now that we've seen more from her, she's just grumpy and more willing to put her foot down (as opposed to Charlie who is bubbly and more accommodating). I knew this specific accusation was bad faith from day 1.

I genuinely don't think the show is edgy. It "appears" edgy, but Charlie's a disney princess who walked onto the wrong set and is shifting the genre through her presence. The fact that her goal is to show that people in Hell can change and become better people isn't just portrayed as earnest (instead of naive) but it is in fact achievable (as shown by Pentious and the others over time) adds onto this. The show is a fundamentally hopeful and positive one and I respect it for that.

In line with that, I appreciate the musical numbers. They bop, I didn't need to tell you this, but they also fall into the category of "endearing through earnesty". Like Charlie singing to Pentious about how change begins with an apology is the corniest shit on earth, but I couldn't help but smile about it.

I do like the speed of the plot, both the "redeeming people" plot and the "expedited extermination" one. I cynically expected Pentious' redemption to be a red herring, but the fact that he stuck around and is turning over is something I approve of. It is a bit fast at times though, I do know that this is because there's only 8 episodes, but I choose to blame the studio/streaming platform over the writers on this one. Also, we should throw bricks through the window of every streaming service headquarters.

I did like Adam's portrayal. The original Adam and Eve myths, whether or not Lilith is there, do lend themselves to misogyny, both in terms of reading and "what influenced some doctrine". Between Lilith being cast out for not wanting to be subservient to a man/wanting to top and then having sex with animals and demons or something, and Eve getting duped by the snake and now humanity's been cursed with original sin because femoids are dumb and bad and men should make the decisions, etc. etc. Adam being depicted as a misogynistic frat bro-type who is obsessed with his dick and brags about his conquests to random people reads to me more as "a clever take/commentary on christian mythology and culture" instead of "gratuitous edginess".

Honest to god, I think they're better at using swear words now. My principle criticism of Helluva Boss (which I like) is that they sometimes use "fuck" like it's punctuation, and it can get grating or become "noise" that doesn't register, which is Bad when it's your funny dialogue. Cursing is still casual, but I feel like characters only turn on the capslock and start screaming FUCKING SHITASS when they're emotionally compromised or intentionally meant to come across as crude and unlikeable. If they took notes and course-corrected on this, I will never wear a hat because it's going to be off to them forever.

Angel Dusts' voice direction in episode 4 was really good. He usually speaks in a somewhat high-pitched, New York ("new yoike") accent, but when he was yelling at Charlie to leave I noticed that it seemed to get a bit deeper and he lost the accent, as though he was so upset he couldn't keep up the affect anymore. I got chills.

TL;DR Hazbin Hotel is good, actually.

Maybe people should take more breaks from using the internet, for their mental health.

[chaifootsteps]

Saw the trailer while I'm part hype more disapointment.

Alastor when he grows treatening is amazing!

Vaggie looking at hell and her creepy face!!

Disapointments:

They kinda spoiled that the hotel won't change angels mind and hell will have to fight.

Againt too much swearing. I hate Charlie swearing, she's supposed to be different from other demons. You could subtly show it by having her not swearing aside some moments. Like what does it feel that i too your pen BITCH. Showing she is not above swearing.

Disney does generic Oscar bait inspiring songs. Don't fall to her their level, but they just did. Inside every demon is inspiring, but its composed different.

Angel readung a poor script by Charlie showing she has no understand of crime and sinner-funny.

The same joke done again in a porno-nope.

Alsooo we know viv made a lot of sex jokes that don't deliver it, like Charlie looking at the Window.

Because sex is for adults and this is an adult animation/s

Exeeeeept you already have a character that jokes about sex and has potencial for to be actually funny. Harder daddy and I can suck your dick (though it's actually Alastor reaction that's funny), or calling him a strawberry pimp.

Sex and swearing is not needed for it to be an adult animation.

Showing the extreme violence in hell, talking about the abuse a sex worker suffer with pimps already are thing are already adult themes.

That's because HH, like HB, isn't a show for adults. It's an R-rated show for children and adults who behave like they still are.

[earlgraytay]

why death note isn't copaganda

Since y'all seem to like my Death Note Metaposting, here's another nugget for you to chew on: I don't think Death Note is copaganda. Either in intent or execution.

I think that Death Note is a story from a very specific time and place, with a very specific target audience. It is a Japanese story from the 2000s, and it's aimed at edgy thirteen-year-old boys.

Japan does not, technically, have a rating system for TV. But most media outlets do choose to self-censor. (To give you an idea of how that looks in practice, I turned to Eirin- the Japanese film ratings board. Eirin splits movies into G, PG-12, R-15, and R-18. Most anime movies are somewhere between PG-12 and R-15. Drug use and abstract supernatural horror tends to get treated much less harshly by Eirin than by the MPAA, but graphic violence, criminal behaviour, and nudity/sex get a much harsher penalty in Japan than they do in the USA.)

A Japanese show for preteen boys in 2005 could not portray the cops as being fundamentally corrupt and violent, any more than an American show for preteen boys could have. So... assuming the writers of Death Note had Some Things To Say about the police, they had to make some choices. They had to figure out how to convey what they wanted to convey- "having the power to kill fucks you up, and cops have that power"- without pissing off their publisher or their TV company.

The easiest way- and the laziest- would have been to make one cop, perhaps Light's Dad, into the Designated Corrupt Punching Bag that the Good Cops have to defeat to catch their criminal. Maybe the Corrupt Punching Bag cop would use a lot of bureaucratic red tape that the Good Guys have to punch through to get their man, or slow down the justice process by insisting on Correct Procedure at all points.

That writing decision positions the failures of the police department as the failure of one man. That writing decision implies that forcing cops to follow the rules that are designed to keep people safe from them actually puts people in danger. I think you could definitely call that writing decision copaganda= and too many shows, on both sides of the ocean, choose it.

But that is not what Death Note chooses to do.

Another way Death Note could have handled the problem is to just... sidestep it. Completely take the focus off of the police, throw in a line about how they're baffled, and let our Genius Detective Hero-Antagonists handle the case completely. In this version of Death Note, we'd have no Aizawa or Matsuda, Soichiro would just be Light's father, and L/Mello/Near would be the only ones pursuing the investigation.

This writing decision positions the police as irrelevant in a way that means you don't have to think about them. The Police Are Baffled, and that's all you need to know; they've handed the case off, and the story goes into the realm of The Outsider Boy Detective Story. This isn't copaganda, per se; it acknowledges that the police are a flawed force that can need outside help... but it's not engaging with the social issues that make the police genuinely flawed. It's veering into pure fantasy. And that can be a valid decision...

But that is not what Death Note chooses to do.

Death Note chooses to actively present the police as being good, but deeply flawed people... who, because of the system they operate in, have no choice but to become bad people. The cops we get to know are kind, funny, ordinary people. But for one reason or another, they don't notice the monster in their midst, until it's too late. And Light's influence corrupts them- or forces them out.

I'll admit that I'm going off my interpretation of the anime here, which does make some significant changes from the manga, but considering that the big change to the ending that the anime makes from the manga is continued into every future adaptation? I feel comfortable including it in my analysis.

[oh, and, uh, spoilers for the end of Death Note, obvs.]

Soichiro refuses to believe that his son could be a criminal. He knows Light's a smart cookie, and he trusts Light's sense of justice. He comes to treat Light as something of a superior officer, even though Light is his teenage son. ...And Light repays him by sending him off on a suicide mission. I mentioned this on a reblog of the original post, but when Soichiro gets his hands on the Death Note? He dehumanizes the criminals he's been sent to kill, the other members of his squad, and ultimately, himself. He treats everyone like they're an expendable cog in a big machine. No one is a person; everything is something to be used in pursuit of Justice. And unlike Light, Soichiro includes himself in that. Soichiro falls into the ultimate trap of being a Good Cop. If you fight for justice as a cop, you wind up utterly expendable. If you're a Good Cop, you die, on command, and take as many people with you as your overlords see fit.

Matsuda also looks up to Light, though for slightly better reasons; they did more or less join the force around the same time, if you count Light joining the Kira Investigation as Light becoming a cop. Matsuda implicitly trusts Light, especially by the start of Season 2. He sees himself as naiive, weak, careless, and stupid- even though he's actually really good at his job. Matsuda is sympathetic to Kira, but thinks he's going about things the wrong way, and that surely there's got to be a better way to make a better world? ....And then Matsuda discovers that everything he thought he knew was wrong. That Light is Kira, and always was. That Kira wasn't a good guy doing things the wrong way, that he was callously manipulating the entire task force this entire time, and that Matsuda has been his patsy. And Matsuda goes out swinging. Matsuda shoots Kira. And hits. More than once. If Ryuk hadn't decided to put Light out of his misery, it would be Matsuda's fault that Light died without real justice being done. If Soichiro is what happens to you when you're a Good Cop, then Matsuda shows how a Good Cop can become a Bad Cop. A moment of anger at the wrong time, a realization that you've been living a lie, or a criminal the cop cannot see as a person anymore? He uses the power of life and death. The power that the viewer has just been told is murder. Only instead of coming from the inkwell of a pen, it's from the barrel of a gun.

Aizawa is... interesting. I'll admit, I remembered him as being The Cop Who Leaves, and that coloured my interpretation until I went back to check the wiki. It turns out he left and came back- what I remembered as "Aizawa working as a private investigator" was Aizawa working well within the bounds of the Kira investigation, but going behind Light's back to talk to Near. But I do think it's significant that Aizawa, more than anyone else in the Kira investigation, is the one who's able to leave. When the Kira investigation gets defunded by the Japanese government, it's Aizawa who can walk- who feels like he has the duty to walk, because he has something to live for that's more important than Justice. Catching Kira is less important than making sure his wife and kid don't starve, after all. He moves to a different part of the police force, and considers leaving the force altogether. And even after he's come back to the Kira investigation, he's detached enough from it that he can see Light's transparent bullshit for what it is. Aizawa is the Good Cop. He follows procedure when he can; when he can't- because the investigation is too corrupt, mostly- he still tries to do what would make the world a better place for everyone. He isn't violent; he isn't cruel; he isn't into justice as retribution. FFS, Aizawa tries to hold back Matsuda from shooting Light. The writers have said that if more people were like Aizawa, the world would be a better place.... And Aizawa is the guy who can leave. Who does leave. Whose loyalty is to his family and his own morals, not to the police as an agency, not to his comrades on the force, not to the thin blue line.

A couple of people have pointed out to me that in Death Note How To Read 13, the writers have said that they didn't have a theme they were going for. And honestly, that'd explain some of the hiccups with the writing.

But I can't help but feel like, even if it's unintentional, the way that the major cop characters' arcs play out is a very well structured critique of some common copaganda tropes.

I think that Death Note is only copaganda if you define "copaganda" as "there is a cop character who is sympathetic" without interrogating what the show is saying with its cops beyond that. And considering that Death Note is a show written for tweens, in a country where respect for authority is paramount? I think that the show's done as much as you can reasonably expect it to to subvert Being Copaganda.

(If anyone wants to say that the Autistic Detective Crew is somehow copaganda, a) I have another essay locked and loaded, do not test me, the short version of which is b) there are two genres of detective fiction, and the one that L/Mello/Near are part of is not part of the tradition that gave us copaganda, it's the other one.)

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Some Mouse House news today. One story is true, the other *might* be true.

Today, Sean Bailey steps down as head of Walt Disney Pictures. The studio of Disney's massive film division that does all the live-action movies, and in some cases, animated tech demos that look like real-life simulations. Ya know, THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) and THE LION KING (2019)?

He singlehandedly ushered in the whole remake craze (on top of saying some very weird and obtuse things about the animated classics they are largely based on), whilst trying to launch new franchises out of over-budgeted risky movies, and suffice to say? I'm more than happy that his replacement is Searchlight Pictures' David Greenbaum.

Greenbaum will now lead a combined Disney Live-Action/20th Century Studios effort, while Matthew Greenfield continues to lead Searchlight. This is a very smart move I feel, as Searchlight were usually quite good with budgets. They greenlit several outre and unique movies. Most recently Yorgos Lanthimos' POOR THINGS, which I loved. In the weirdest sense, and you'll probably think I've lost the plot in saying this, but... The $35m hard R-rated sci-fi black comedy with plenty of sex scenes felt more in the spirit of "Disney" - creative, game-changing, and bold - than a lot of the titanic-budgeted seemingly-noted-to-death movies released under the mainline "Disney" name in the recent years... That's quite something!

(Maybe it's just something of a shock to see a movie simply made by a FILMMAKER come out Disney. After all, when Walt Disney saw TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in 1962, he was floored by the film and lamented... He wish his studio could make a picture like that.)

So yeah, as you can tell, I'm thrilled with this move. I feel that the output of the "Live-Action" end of Disney hasn't really been for me for a long time, creatively, and maybe Greenbaum will course-correct. Take a chance on different filmmakers, let them come in and make a really cool movie that isn't buckled under notes and mandates that attempt to make the proceedings "more Disney" - whatever that means. Less things like ARTEMIS FOWL and LION KING and this TRON-in-name-only sequel with Jared Leto, more stuff like the first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and assorted smaller movies. These things don't have to be $150m+ behemoths, either.

This move has been a long-time coming, I feel, especially after the film division lost money on HAUNTED MANSION and live-action LITTLE MERMAID, in addition to seeing diminishing returns elsewhere.

(And hey, on the off chance... Maybe we can see another Muppets movie get off the ground, haha.)

Sooo... As for the other piece of news...

Apparently Pixar is working on a movie called DUCKS.

And it's a full-blown musical, too... A first for Pixar...

Right now, this is all coming out of the rumor mills and I feel it should be taken with a grain of salt. Much like that soccer movie set in Barcelona that they were supposedly developing around 2018.

What's interesting is that a locked Facebook account and a locked Twitter account have been made for a "Pixar Ducks" thing. So maybe... Yeah... Maybe DUCKS is a movie in the works at Pixar. Or it's a short.

Some have pointed out that this news arrives a little after the release of Universal/Illumination's animated duck romp MIGRATION, which brings up the pairs of yore: A BUG'S LIFE and ANTZ, FINDING NEMO and SHARK TALE, RATATOUILLE and FLUSHED AWAY, the ill-fated NEWT and RIO... But really, sometimes great minds think alike. Remember how we had three animated movies about Sasquatches/yetis from September 2018 to September 2019? SMALLFOOT, MISSING LINK, and ABOMINABLE?

Sometimes it just happens...

I've also noticed people saying "Wait a minute, what about COCO? Wasn't that a musical?"

COCO, when it was coming out, was carefully described as a movie that was about music, not so much a "musical". I don't see COCO as a "musical", myself.

You see, I feel musicals inhabit a heightened reality of their own. Typically, in musical movies, when characters start singing, everything else around them is engaged. Like the whole block or the whole neighborhood or the whole area was prepared for this moment, and are going along with it. For some people, that's weird. "Why are they all singing? Imagine doing THAT in real life!" That's the point of musicals, I feel. The singing is the characters' feelings, their world, their point of view. These movies don't follow a literal reality, and that's what has always made them and their theatre counterparts so special for so many years.

COCO, by contrast, is about musicians. They pick up a guitar or instrument, and when they play music and sing, it's not of a heightened reality. Everybody else goes about their business, the whole block isn't singing- You get where I'm going with this, right? There's a clear difference between COCO and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Some 30 years ago, when Pixar was working on TOY STORY... Their first ever feature film, they specifically didn't want to do a musical or something with an "I Want" song. A little list of rules, so that they wouldn't make something similar to what Disney was doing post-OLIVER & COMPANY. Many of the other animation studios were mimicking that formula as well, as evidenced by all the SWAN PRINCESS and FERGULLY types that were being released all throughout the '90s... It's understandable that Pixar and their tight-knit culture wanted to avoid that at first...

But we're in 2024 now, and Disney Animation has long balanced out musicals with non-musicals (BIG HERO 6, ZOOTOPIA, RAYA, etc.), while other studios have tried other kinds of musicals that don't try to recreate what Howard Ashman and Alan Menken perfected circa 1989. Like the SING movies, those are jukebox musicals, the TROLLS movies are more like pop musicals than they are Broadway...

So, some three decades after the release of TOY STORY (assuming that this film comes out in 2026 at the earliest), yeah! Pixar making a musical isn't so far-fetched. What this studio brings to that genre remains to be seen, but I'm interested nonetheless. They could possibly re-invent it in a very cool, fun way. I just find the title to be curious... Ducks... Talking animals... It seems very basic, but there's a lot we don't know, so I'll wait til I hear more. It could be about, say, duckpin bowling for all I know.

My other question is... Who is directing it? I know that the following filmmakers have pitched or are working on films at Pixar:

Brian Fee (director of CARS 3)

Enrico Casarosa (director of LUCA)

Domee Shi (director of TURNING RED)

Dan Scanlon (director on ONWARD and MONSTERS UNIVERSITY)

Kristen Lester (director of Sparkshort PURL)

Rosana Sullivan (director of Sparkshort KITBULL)

Aphton Corbin (director of Sparkshort TWENTY-SOMETHING)

Daniel Chong (creator of WE BEAR BEARS, storyboard artist on CARS 2 and INSIDE OUT)

Their schedule currently looks like this:

6/14/2024: INSIDE OUT 2

06/13/2025: ELIO

03/06/2026: Unknown

06/19/2026: Unknown

TBD 2026: TOY STORY 5 (likely summer)

So, logically, this could be their spring 2026 original movie while TOY STORY 5 expectedly takes the prime summer slot. Maybe! Perhaps it swaps spots with something else, I don't know.

We do have a D23 Expo coming up this year, so maybe we'll learn what Pixar's post-ELIO films are that aren't sequels. If DUCKS is real and it's moving along quite nicely, then that should be the one. We shall see...

[bluepoodle7]

#HouseImagesIFoundInteresting #WeirdHouses #HouseWithChimneyPlush #WeirdHouseRealtorIdeas #InfectedRealtorAu #MyThoughts

Just looking up weird houses and found a house plush I want.

I always I find weird or ugly houses interesting and the interior being a little off.

I wonder what the lure body will look like.

If I finally draw all my infected realtor house oc's these might be new ones.

My lure body guesses.

The monster house just a person with a lot of hair but is like a normal human or just has a beard while looking wolfman like with a cartoon house with chimney fungmammal.

(Monster House)

And the instrument shaped house looking like a famous composer and has a music note Stingray fungmammal.

Looks like a bootleg I.M Meen CDI like character in both look and movement.

(Instrument House)

The curved house being like the crooked man in design wise and has a stoplight fungmammal that changes into the base form.

If the instrument house had a theme be like.

I image the lurebody playing on a piano while the house flesh body tries to capture the buyer.

Music not mine.

Attack of the Killer Queen (Unused Version) - Deltarune (youtube.com)

(Curved House)

I can imagine the shoe house lure realtor being a shoe maker on the side and kicking other Realtors in the shin if they get close to a buyer they want.

Shoemaker elves would be this Realtor's fungmammal shape.

(Shoemaker House)

The airplane house lure would be female looking with disheveled clothes like this Realtors lure was in a crashed plane.

The parasite fungmammal is a Silky anteater and doesn't want to be a parasite one but is a glitched mutualism one.

He used to be a Falseperson but after being fired and angry changed into a parasite one then gave up being humanoid.

When she gets a buyer in the crashed plane house body will make the plane body move like it is flying but is in place then act like the plane is nose diving by the gases from the house.

Thinking about making a infected Realtor based of bear and have him be the main singer of the Nosy Neighbors band with Jack Black as the voice canon.

This infected Realtor having a thicc male body type Realtor that is nice and doesn't eat people.

-------------------------------

Thinking about fleshing out these weird houses in the images into Infected Realtors.

Maybe making them be in a band called the Nosy Neighbors.

Also my sitcom of Infected Realtors is getting huge dude.

Basically this.

Scott pilgrim vs the world, WE ARE!! Sex Bob-omb!! 1 2 3 4!!! (youtube.com)

My oc Fable in Zable's vessel body trying to get in the non accessible areas of a REALTORs house body be like.

Images and video not mine but link is there.

Fairly Odd Parents- Timmy's Dad's View of Privacy - YouTube

Images and video not mine but links are there.

Happy Home Mascot, A Fully Customizable Plush House for Your Promotion | Best Plush, Inc

Artist transforms parents' home into the ultimate monster house | Halloween haunted houses, Halloween house, Halloween home decor (pinterest.com)

Most Unusual Houses in the World (mcintyreproperty.com.au)

Weirdest Houses In The US (onlyinyourstate.com)

MyBestPlace - The Haines Shoe House, The Man Who Lived in a Shoe

I UGLY HOUSES. - HomeVestors of America, Inc. Trademark Registration (uspto.report)

Ugly Houses | Unusual Homes Around the World | HouseLogic

When threatened, the silky anteater, like other anteaters, defends itself by standing on its hind legs and holding its fore feet close to its face so it can strike any animal that tries to get close with its sharp claws. | Photo by Brian Wilcox : r/Awwducational (reddit.com)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Frederick R. Prete

Published: Mar 1, 2024

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece that appeared on the Substack, Reality’s Last Stand. My intent was to compliment and complement Dr. Wright’s critique of Ian Copeland’s (erroneous) claim that biological sex (which is different from “gender”) is non-binary. Copeland’s somewhat tired arguments were based on a misunderstanding of genetic aneuploidies (errors in chromosome number), and poorly reasoned analogies to the fact that some fish change sex over the course of their lives. I’d like to revisit and expand a few of my points here.

As usual, Wright’s analysis was thoughtful and accurate. However, I wondered out loud how much of this long-suffering debate is shorn up by repeated attempts to engage in it with evermore biologically detailed counter arguments — a thankless task in which I, too, have participated. Although I have the utmost respect for those with the patience to remain in the argumentative fray, I don’t think reason will ever change what is, in effect, an ideological point of view. But, again, I admire those who try.

As I said in the piece, we need to recognize that some arguments are just wrong. So wrong, in fact, that a reasoned rebuttal is not only futile but beside the point. In those instances, we should be honest. I know from decades of teaching that sometimes I have to say to a student — always in a kind and respectful way — that while I appreciate their point of view, it is simply mistaken… It doesn’t jibe with anything that I know about the natural world. In such instances, this is the most honest and effective response, and it allows the discussion to be reset on a more reasonable foundation.

To be clear, even very smart, well-meaning people come up with far-fetched ideas born out of fundamental misunderstandings, or ignorance about a particular topic. (That would be the case, for instance, if I tried to diagnose what’s wrong with your car, a topic about which I know absolutely nothing.) In these instances, it makes little sense to debate the erroneous argument and then rebut the person’s attempts to support their misconceptions with additional unfounded speculations (often ad infinitum). So, if I claim that an animal’s sex is determined by radio waves beamed down from the planet Zenon by unicorns, it would be a waste of your time to explain to me that unicorns couldn’t make radio transmitters with their little hoofs, or that Zenon (wherever it is) is too far away to communicate with us earthlings. If you did offer up this rebuttal, I’d simply come up with some counter argument about unicorn dexterity or the superior strength of unicorn radio technology. That would be a total waste of our time. At some level, I suppose, it’s also disingenuous to pretend that the unicorn argument merits a reasoned response. I think it would be more honest (and effective) just to dismiss the unicorn theory out of hand rather than fueling — and thereby giving credence to — an unending back-and-forth.

That’s how I feel about the recurring claims that disorders of sexual development (DSDs), or genetic aneuploidies represent unique sexes. Frankly, these claims are so discordant with the realities of biology that they will never be refuted successfully by logic, reason, or data. To argue that biological anomalies represent unique sex categories makes no more sense than claiming a syndrome such as CDC (which can result in penile duplication) gives rise to ‘new types’ of men. These arguments are simply wrong. End of conversation.

And, please, just ignore those ridiculous — but supposedly instructive — analogies to animals. Let’s be honest. Animals do a lot of weird things. They enslave other animals, eat their offspring, cannibalize their lovers, kill their newborn twin sisters, and devour their siblings in the womb. Does anyone want to justify slavery or sibling cannibalism because animals do it?

And, how about those strange animal mating behaviors? Consider the male argonaut (a genus of octopus). He grows a sperm carrying third left arm in a pouch under his eye which — when he’s ready for love — explodes out of its sheath, detaches from his face, swims away all by itself, latches onto a female, and then wriggles its way into her mantle cavity to drop off a packet of sperm. Do you think we humans should invent a face-mounted, free-flying phallus to enhance our love-life? After all, it works for the argonaut. (By the way, I don’t think you should add that suggestion to your online dating profile.)

Well, If a free-flying phallus doesn’t seem like a good idea, why would anyone think that the sexual behaviors of other aquatic animals — like sex-changing clown fish — reveal some profound philosophical insights into the human condition?

Even more exasperating is the fact that the people who keep harping on sex-changing fish never get the story straight. The truth is that the sex changes that occur in about 20 families and seven orders of fish are the result of neuro-physiological and hormonal events triggered — depending upon the species — by ultimate body size, perceived social status, or (in the monogamous clown fish, Amphiprioninae) after the big breeding female has disappeared. In addition, the large, dominant, newly-minted female is viciously aggressive to any fish outside of her immediate family. So, if we’re taking our cues from clown fish, let’s not be hypocrites. Let’s go all the way: Only really large, domineering, hyper-monogamous humans who are particularly xenophobic should consider changing sex, but only after all the females in the neighborhood disappear. Does that even make sense? (You know I’m being facetious, right?) It’s a silly analogy. Is it worth debating?

In the previous essay, I also brought up an obvious (but consistently ignored) point of fact: Fish live in the water. People live on land. This makes all the difference in the world when it comes to sex. If you live in water, you can spray your eggs and sperm (gametes) into the liquid environment and let them drift around until they hook up. That’s because, in water, they won’t dry out and die. And, neither will the resulting embryos because they’ll be in the water, too. That’s why some fish can produce eggs or sperm at different times in their lives. It doesn’t take any special external body parts to squirt gametes into water. All you need is a gonad to make the gametes and an orifice to let them out.

However, if you’re a terrestrial mammal (living on dry land), you have a problem. You can’t squirt your gametes on the ground and hope for the best. They’ll shrivel up and die. So, male terrestrial animals evolved special external body parts with which to insert sperm directly into females (where it’s warm and moist), and females evolved body parts designed to accept that protuberance. In addition, female mammals (except for a few monotremes) evolved a chamber in which to hold the developing embryo until it’s ready to face a potentially desiccating life on land. Equally important, both males and females evolved complementary behavioral patterns that allow them to court and mate successfully. Frankly, it doesn’t make any difference if you’ve got the external body parts but you don’t know how to use them. (Get my drift?)

That’s why terrestrial mammals can’t change sex like fish. Doing so would require females to magically sprout some kind of tube to deliver sperm internally, and males would have to spontaneously develop a complementary orifice. In addition — and more importantly — males and females would have to develop all the necessary internal ‘plumbing’ and mating behaviors necessary to operate their new equipment. So, a mammalian sex change requires more than altering the external structures. That’s the easy part. It can be done surgically, even on your pets.

Becoming a male terrestrial animal would require developing a complex duct system linking the gonads to that new, external tube, and internal glands to secrete a carrying fluid and nutrients for the sperm (i.e., the Wolffian duct system, prostate, and bulbourethral glands). Becoming a female would require developing some kind of internal tube that would catch the eggs when they’re released into the abdominal cavity, hold them until they meet some sperm, and house the developing embryo (i.e., the derivatives of the Müllerian duct system).

Obviously, none of this could happen. When it comes to mammals, the die is cast prenatally. In other words, whatever fish do is their business. It has no grand implications for terrestrial mammals. So, let’s drop the clown fish and Asian sheepshead wrasse analogies. Anybody who brings them up simply doesn’t understand evolutionary or developmental biology. It’s not worth the debate unless, of course, you’re one of those people who thinks that because some animals are parthenogenic, we should simply stop having sex altogether and hope for the best.

I also want to clear up two more points. The first is sort of minor. It has to do with the large gamete/small gamete dichotomy between male and female animals: Females produce large gametes; males produce small gametes. This is frequently cited as evidence that there are just two sexes, easily differentiated by gamete size. Although generally true, I want to point out (yet again) that there are always exceptions in biology. Unfortunately, those exceptions are often the fuel that ignites these recalcitrant debates about sex when someone ‘discovers’ the exception and then claims it to be a new, profound revelation upending all prior knowledge. The odd exception to which I’m referring here is the colossal size of the fruit fly sperm. You probably didn’t know — few people do — that the tiny fruit fly, Drosophila bifurca, produces sperm that are 58 mm (~2.25 inches) long. That’s about 20 times longer than its entire body and over 300 times longer than a female’s egg is wide. In fact, these sperm are thought to be the longest sperm of any animal on the planet. So, I’m sure that at some point, someone will use this fact to argue against the large gamete/small gamete dichotomy between the sexes. It will be a silly argument, of course. I just want you to be forewarned.

The second point has to do with reptile sex determination. I have heard this phenomenon described inaccurately by people on both sides of the sex binary debate. It comes up almost as frequently as the clown fish analogy. Frankly, it’s a bit misleading to the lay reader to say that turtle (or alligator) sex is ‘determined’ by temperature. Although this is the common way it’s phrased in the biological literature, it should be made clear that sexual development in reptiles and amphibians is a product of the same types of genetic and physiological processes that operate in other animals. Saying that reptile sex is ‘determined’ by temperature makes it sound like the whole process is much more capricious than it is. While “a narrow range of incubation temperatures during a thermosensitive period of embryonic development” can affect the underlying genetic, physiological, and biochemical processes in ways that alter the sex ratios (i.e., the relative numbers of males and females) in a cohort, the most proximate causes leading to a turtle or alligator being male or female are physiological. In the end, it’s all genes, hormones, and molecules just like it is in other animals. And, the ultimate developmental outcome is binary.

The take-home message

So, here’s the upshot: You should just be you… and I’ll just be Frederick. We don’t need to ask flies, fish, or turtles for permission to be what we are, or what we hope to be… they’ve got their own problems to deal with. Capisci?

Epilogue

As I said in the previous essay, I have a deep understanding of, and great compassion for those people — which includes me — who don’t match the accepted stereotypes of any particular category or group. Over the years, I have been the target of what seemed to be an unrelenting stream of criticism for the fact that I was never (and still am not) perceived as representative of the norm (whatever that is). Consequently, I grew up defending those who were similarly targeted, and I believe that each of us should be continually mindful and accepting of the rich diversity of the human condition. Each of us should actively and consciously strive to be as compassionate, accepting, supportive and inclusive as we can. Denigrating, harassing or bullying anyone for any reason is reprehensible and unacceptable as far as I am concerned.

However, being open, kind, and accepting does not necessitate abandoning reason, turning our backs on biology, or unhinging ourselves from reality. Nor does it require us to entertain the arguments of those who do.

[hungry-skeleton]

hey question how do i get into red vs blue because im genuinely curious about it and want to watch it👀👀👀

Honestly the best way to do it is just watch it! Despite its length (currently 18 seasons with the last season on its way) it probably won't take you long to finish. The episodes themselves aren't really that long and you can finish a whole season in about an hour or two

Here's the official playlist of the whole series!!

Some things to note if you really wanna commit your life to rvb

The r slur is used a handful of times in the early seasons, surprisingly not as often as you might think for a series made by old gamers. They eventually stop using it though. Keep in mind this show started in 2003 which is older then quite a lot of people on this site so I think they can get a little slack for the early episodes having some out of touch humor (doesn't make it right of course but yknow, what can you do)

Series starts kind of slow but starts ramping up pretty quick, if you feel a bit bored to start don't give up right away! I recommend getting through seasons 1-2 first which should only take like 2 hours

The entirety of season 14 is a half-canon anthology series. I recommend not skipping it though, it's very enjoyable

There's a bunch of mini series that take place in random places in the timeline on the playlist too, DW about watching them in order they aren't even required but they're fun!

Everything after season 13 might not be canon actually we aren't 100% sure on that but it's also like... Kind of canon too.... We'll cross that bridge when we get to it

The series does have a fall out later on because of changing writers but it never really gets BAD just.. Not as good

Except season 16. Fuck season 16. All my homies hate season 16. And you gotta watch it for context in season 17 I'm so sorry it's so bad it's sooo bad

EDIT: I changed my mind skip 16-18 entirely they're gonna be non canon anyway and I swear to you there is literally no entertainment value in any of them don't fucking watch them they're so horribly bad <-is watching them

Now a lot of this stuff might sound discouraging but if anyone is actually willing to give this series a try I REALLY do recommend it! It's probably one of the best examples of adult comedy. Adult comedy shows (especially animation) sometimes fall into the trap of needing to be excessively violent and sexual and mean in order to be mature but that inadvertently makes the series feel very immature. Red vs Blue DOES make sex jokes and it is violent sometimes but it's never in an overbearing and childish way (except season 16 that's literally all that season is I'm so sorry) it executes its humor great, it relies a lot on just how insane the MCs are in a relatively normal world and it's so entertaining whenever we leave the bubble of the main cast and realize "oh these guys are just fucked up"

It has great characters and a story that really hooks you when you don't expect it to. If you're still willing to try it PLEASE do! It's an icon of pop culture for a reason!

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Do you give recs? I'm looking for some woke-free medias to consume (books particularly, but it can be anything)

It's hard to give recs without knowing your taste, but I'll try. Necessarily, many of these will be older things, so sorry if that bothers you

Books:

The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell (sci-fi)

The Nightside series by Simon R Green (urban fantasy/detective noir)

The Deathstalker series by Simon R Green (there are gay side characters in a few of the books, but the books themselves aren't woke. Just good sci-fi/space opera)

Any Conan the Barbarian story written by Robert Howard or Robert Jordan (fantasy)

The Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson (disclaimer I'm only up to book 4 out of 15 and the last book was published in 2020 so it may have gotten woke or started to suck later on, but right now it's pretty good and pretty pro-American. Alternate history action sci-fi)

The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy)

Any Dune book by Frank Herbert or Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert (sci-fi)

The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (only read the first three out of nine so same disclaimer as Destroyermen. Alternate history fantasy. Napoleonic Wars with dragons)

The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell (also the excellent film adaptations of the books with Sean Bean if you can find them. Historical fiction. You follow Richard Sharpe through the ranks of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars)

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (the grandfather of modern fantasy)

The collected works of HP Lovecraft (definitely not PC or woke. His cat makes an appearance in one of his stories. Horror)

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker (horror. Hellraiser was based on this novella. tentative rec because it's good, but there's a lot of mentioned sex and very liberal attitudes towards sex so I don't know if you'd consider that woke or not. The sex obsessed characters are the bad guys though)

Any of the pre-Disney "canon" Star Wars expanded universe books.

Any of the Star Trek books written by William Shatner (they're all a connected series though so read them in order)

If non-woke is your main criteria, I'd suggest giving the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski a try. I personally hated the little bit of the first one I read, and I hate the Witcher series in general, but no one can argue that the Witcher is in any way woke, lol

Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (fantasy)

Phantoms by Dean Koontz (also recommend the movie with a very young Ben Affleck, but if you rent it on Prime use headphones. Audio is all fucked up through a surround sound system. At least it was when I rented it a few years back. horror)

The Legend of Drizzt series (and the associated sub-series) by RA Salvatore (fantasy. I stopped reading at the Transitions series--books 20-22--because I personally didn't like them and the way they changed the characters and the setting, but YMMV. I'd highly recommend books 1-19 though. Great fantasy series in my favorite D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms)

The Giver by Lois Lowry (young adult book, but has a great message of individuality and anti-government)

Since you wanted books mostly I'll just breeze through movies, shows, comics and games with a few of my favorites:

Movies - Equilibrium, Lord of the Rings, pre-Disney Star Wars, Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, Hellraiser 1 + 2, Friday the 13th series, Halloween series, The Patriot, In the Mouth of Madness, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 + 2

Shows - Jericho, X-Files, Star Trek (OS, TNG and DS9 especially. Anything nu-Trek is easily skippable), Chernobyl, Avatar The Last Airbender, Lost (it's not confusing if you just pay attention!)

Anime - Fullmetal Alchemist (both series are good but Brotherhood follows the manga more closely), Death Note, Bungo Stray Dogs, Yowamushi Pedal, Ace of Diamond, Yuri on Ice (super gay but funny and heartwarming and not woke beyond the two male leads being stupidly in love with each other even if it's never mentioned explicitly), Street Fighter II V. Honestly most anime isn't woke at all, so just look around for things that seem interesting to you and you're probably good there

Comics - Batman: No Man's Land, Batman: Knightfall, Batman: Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive, Batman: The Killing Joke, any Marvel Masterwork collection, any Dark Horse Alien or Predator or Alien vs Predator comic, Spawn. Special mention: Isom and the Rippaverse. The Rippaverse is a new shared comic universe created by Eric July, self-described anarcho-capitalist and contributor to The Blaze that's specifically designed from the ground up to not be woke and offer a customer first mentality. They promise that the various books they're planning on releasing will focus on story and characters, not politics or social justice crap. So far, only Isom #1 has come out, and I haven't gotten my copy yet, but most people who've read it seem to love it, and that one comic alone has already sold over 43,000 copies and made $3.7 million so early adopting is probably a safe bet.

Games - Metal Gear Solid series, Batman: Arkham series, Halo 1-3, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Greedfall, Dishonored series, Edge of Eternity, Metro series, Mafia 1+2, Elden Ring. Pretty much any game before the mid-2010s is a safe bet for non-woke, so like anime, you should just look at older games you think you might like, or their remasters, and go from there.

So that's my list. It's by no means complete, and there's no real order to the recs, so just look them up and see what, if anything, appeals to you. If you, or anyone else, want more specific recommendations or an opinion on a certain title or series that I mentioned or even ones I didn't, feel free to ask. I'll help if I can. Mostly what I read and watch are sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and things like that. I don't really read typical bestsellers or westerns or comedies. So I might be much help with those genres.

[in-christalone]

Who are your top ten blorbos?

Alright! I finally have time to answer this! Girl I have had so many blorbos in my life, I’m gonna start from current and work my way along. (Current blorbo is subject to change so number #2 is truly #1)

1. 𝒯𝒶𝓃𝒿𝒾𝓇𝑜 (current) I’ve been holding off on making him my blorbo but let’s face it, I couldn’t anymore, just look at him. Kindness radiates off him, he loves and cares for everyone, it just swept up my heart along with it.

2. §ðrå and ℜ𝔬𝔵𝔞𝔰 (do you see what I did there? ¬‿¬) listen, KH1 came out when I was in 2nd grade, I immediately fell for Sora, I remember this one fic on quizilla I read of him, wish I could find it and re read it. §ðrå is a carefree, quirky, silly lil guy who gets way over his head but loves his friends dearly. ℜ𝔬𝔵𝔞𝔰 likewise when KH2 came out when I was in 5th grade I was smitten, he was a broody lil guy, awkward at times but determination written all over his character. He desired to be his own person. I think it’s their blue eyes that initially made me swoon lol

3. ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕠𝕣 Let me tell you something, I bought his game (Detroit Become Human) AND a ps4, just because he was my blorbo and I needed more content of him. Ended up spending $300, playing the game once, then donating them to a friend

4. 𝑅𝑒𝓃𝑔❀𝓀𝓊 𝒦𝓎❀𝒿𝓊𝓇o (his kindness drew me in, he was also full of a lot of gusto, I liked his voice and his sword skills, but then my co-worker expressed she was simping too and I respectfully backed down, weird right? Why would I I mean he’s not even real anyways. If you asked if I still like him I kinda do but his character design is too loud for me now

5. 𝙰𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚜𝚑𝚒 𝙽𝚊𝚔𝚊𝚓𝚒𝚖𝚊 (he’s an older blorbo but he checks out) I mcfrickin was so in love with this dude when I was like 23, from Bungou Stray Dogs, his kindness and eyes won me over

6. ꪊꪀᛕꪀꪮ᭙ꪀ (Mystic Messenger) I almost feel like this one was almost a Stockholm syndrome situation, the writing in this game I thought was just so good. I was definitely the type to stay up till 4am to experience all the chats. Unknown himself was a deeply misunderstood character and I even saw myself in him sometimes

7. 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔲𝔠 oh my beloved Dral, why did they have to put such a charming and funny character in an anime with bewb jokes every episode, really such a pity. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t watch the ‘vampire dies in no time’ ,he is the only redeeming quality of the show. Funny, charming, ditzy, and not to mention, he fits my Victorian aesthetic but seriously if you struggle with lust don’t watch this show there’s no sex scenes or anything but there is nudity

8. 𝔻𝕠𝕦𝕞𝕒. listen, he’s got a pretty design and I was weak for it. Captivating, it was like a siren call that I couldn’t resist. Additionally he’s got the Dazai Osamu personality (AND THE SUB VA) cmon what do you expect? Anyway, I basically got over him by finally simping Tanjiro. (Why’d I have to get over him? well, he’s a demon. The worst one at that

9. ░S░u░g░a░w░a░r░a░ (Fun fact! Suga and I are the same age, only 9 days apart!) another sunshine boy, oh boy. I was never into those sports animes but I gave a haikyuu a chance and I was glad I pushed past the first few episodes, Suga cares for his friends and his goal is to be the biggest supporter he can be, even if it means he’s on the sidelines, a selfless guy, melted right into that pot.

10. JɄ₦₭ɆⱤ QɄɆɆ₦ do you want honesty? cause I’ll give you honesty. I’m not proud of this one but I’m also not afraid to show my flaws. When I watched her cinema trailer for the first time, I tried to pretend I didn’t feel anything but I’m gonna be real, I totally did. I read fan fics, attempted to draw her a few times, played her.. A LOT. But I’ve repented of it. Again, I’m putting it here for honesty’s sake. She was a blorbo, I haven’t played overwatch in like a month as part of my repentance

Well, that’s my 10 most memorable blorbos! Thank you for such an interesting question!

[unfilteredflare]

I was just reminded of how much I love Chobits

Chobits the manga and anime were so fucking formative for me as a person

And I highly recommend it

It starts out really fucking sus. Cuz the series, I'm almost certain, was written as a response to those gross ecchi animes and mangas

U know the ones. Harem animes with lots of boob and panty shots. And mediocre plot to explain why the girls r all magical and bound to the main guy

So Chobits starts out like that. They really want to establish early on that the MC is a pervert. And Chi is a robot that he owns and looks human. So obligatory ogling of Chi naked and pointing out her boobs and shit.

But like. Chobits was written by CLAMP. And if u don't know, CLAMP was a really big and popular group of mangaka. They made a lot of old classic series. Including Cardcaptor Sakura, xxxHolic, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and many many more

So like, an all female group of mangaka writing Chobits. The series does not go the way u expect it too

It's very good. It's really slow and charming romance shoujo. I would also HIGHLY recommend it for asexuals specifically. Like, this series was so important to me, as an asexual person. For....... spoiler reasons..... about the ending

End of series major spoiler under the cut if u really want to know. But just take my word for it. Watch it or read it

So the robot girl, Chi, forms her own personality and feelings. The series is about her becoming essentially human. And of course she ends up falling in love with the MC

The reason the series was so formative for me was because of the way the ending was tackled

Chi, as a robot, was designed with her reset/on/off switch as part of her vagina. Like, first episode he has to turn her on by literally groping her. Which is why the series starts really sus

Point tho is, MC falls in love with her thru the series. And at the end, he is given a choice

Because of the placement of her switch, he is never allowed to have sex with her. He loves her and wants to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. But he will never be allowed to have sex with her or she will be reset. Her personality and all her memories, gone. Everything he loves about her gone.

Chi's creators, referred to as her parents, tell him that if he can't handle that, they will reset her and he won't get to be with her

His choices r to give up on Chi and maybe move on 1 day and fall in love with a regular human girl

Or stay with Chi but never be able to have sex with the girl he's in love with

He is very clearly not asexual. He very much wants and enjoys sex. But by the end, he loves her so much that he is willing to give up sex altogether so they can spend the rest of their lives together

And like, that ending fucking changed me as a person

When I first read the series, I didn't yet know that I was asexual. But the ending has never left me. When I did figure it out, Chobits gave me hope that, as a sex-repulsed asexual, maybe 1 day I could have a romantic relationship where the other person loves me enough to respect my boundaries and be ok with that

And the ending was published way back in fucking 2002. The anime aired in 2002. Talk about being way ahead of it's fucking time

[arikad0]

FF7 Content Warnings

people wanted me to remake this since the old one got nuked so here we are! this game is 26 years old and most of the visual stuff isn't very graphic cause the character models look like legos but I'm still gonna mention them. also I won't reveal exactly what happens to avoid spoilers but just let me know if you want more context!

the main cast of characters are terrorists. they commit terrorism at the very beginning of the game by blowing up a power plant

there's a part early on in the game where Cloud cross dresses in order to save Tifa from a perverted mob boss. it is not hidden at all that this guy sexually abuses women on a daily basis. during this point of the game you are also able to go into a love hotel and there's a fair bit of sexual content (Remake keeps this but the love hotel is turned into a strip club that Cloud has to dance at and it has a sweet message about expressing yourself and not being restricted by old fashioned gender norms. it's nice! 10/10 change!)

the mob boss character returns in a sidequest later in the game and starts going after Yuffie. Yuffie is 16.

a character calls another character a r*tard in an optional scene (you can skip this by choosing to barge through the front entrance of the Shinra Building instead of taking the stairs)

one of the heads of Shinra (Hojo) suggests forcing Aerith to have sex with Red XIII in order to save their bloodlines. doesn't help that Red XIII is a cat. (Remake once again tweaks this. Hojo instead suggests having one of the military soldiers r*pe Aerith which definitely isn't much better. but the other villains he suggests this to are uncomfortable with the idea (minus the president) so it is acknowledged as being extremely fucked up)

there is. a lot of abuse in this game. physical, mental, verbal, child, domestic, ect.. one of the abusers is actually one of the party members, but he gets better by the end of the game

Aerith has been stalked by the government since she was a little kid

some characters are just straight up tortured

multiple characters are shot. two are permanently injured, one is killed and another one is killed but experimented on and made immortal

two main characters are captured by the government and are set to be executed via a gas chamber on live television. they escape but one of them is put in the gas chamber for a bit

a character commits suicide by jumping off a cliff

people are stabbed a lot. a villain is stabbed to death in his office early in the game, a main character is stabbed to death at the end of the first disc and another main character is stabbed in the chest in a flashback. all of these stabbings are committed by Sephiroth

there's a section of the game where Cloud is able to go on a date with Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie or Barret. the Yuffie one is a little uncomfortable since she's 16 and Cloud is 21, though it is mostly played off for laughs and Cloud is annoyed the whole time. the Barret one is also played off for laughs but there is also a weird part where Barret is convinced Cloud has a crush on Marlene (Marlene is 4). again it's mostly played off for laughs but it is still weird

two characters are implied to have sex before the final battle with Sephiroth

there is a bit of body horror! the most extreme example is with the character Jenova. a detailed image of her headless body is shown for a brief second and while it's not too graphic, her body is covered in veins, she has an eyeball where one of her nipples should be and there's a hole in her stomach with a giant tube coming out of it

Cloud is shown to have multiple PTSD induced flashbacks! they aren't frequent and aren't very heavy but they're there (Remake makes them a lot more frequent and realistic)

Sephiroth commits genocide and burns down a village in a flashback. this event is brought up and shown multiple times

one of the upper sections of Midgar falls onto the section below it, crushing thousands of people

strong language

drugs and alcohol

gore

there is some animal death. one of the biggest examples is when Sephiroth impales a giant snake monster on a tree. the image you see of the aftermath is actually kinda gross ngl

there's a scene where Cloud beats up one of the other party members (he can't control himself during this though)

a main character is hospitalized and wheelchair bound and it's revealed he has a medical condition known as Mako Poisoning

there is quite a bit of human and animal experimentation. some of these experiments are conducted on main characters

there is a lot of talk about the afterlife and what happens after you die. this is unavoidable and is a major part of the story

lots of military and government propaganda. the main characters don't fall for it and know the government is extremely fucked up, but it is in the background

there's an identity crisis

there's also a few moments of unreality

I think that's it??? I'll add more later if anything comes to mind. hopefully this one doesn't get lost again lmao

[rwby-redux]

Okay here's kind of a idea / question in regards to faunus. With how the one animal trait works with these people shouldn't be possible for a Faunus to be born with the animal trait to literally change their biological sex since that is a legit ability that exists in the animal kingdom? I also couldn't help but think how the faunus could be a potential source of medical miracles and that some expert literally studied the hypothetical person I mentioned and made a means to make sex change easy.

Oh, man, this is such a good ask. I’ve often wondered the same myself, in regards to Faunus traits, and whether or not some of those traits could be the source of medical breakthroughs. Let me start by addressing each question separately, since there’s a lot to unpack here; not just in regards to lore/worldbuilding, but from a meta/production perspective, too.

With how the one animal trait works with these people shouldn’t be possible for a Faunus to be born with the animal trait to literally change their biological sex since that is a legit ability that exists in the animal kingdom?

Sequential and simultaneous hermaphroditism are certainly plausible under the parameters that CRWBY established for the Faunus. Sequential hermaphroditism (changing from one sex to another) occurs primarily in teleost fish, like wrasses and groupers. Simultaneous hermaphroditism (producing two types of gametes at the same time) is fairly commonplace in terrestrial and marine gastropods, like sea slugs and land snails. We know that neither is beyond the realm of possibility, as Faunus with caudal fins exist in Menagerie. And while I’m not sure about the canonicity of the Justice League crossover comics, there is, technically, a snail Faunus with eyestalks.

Now that I’m thinking about it, there are plenty of other traits that wouldn’t be off-limits besides biological sex. There are lots of novel adaptations in the animal kingdom that RWBY’s Faunus could have under this framework:

A reticulorumen for digesting cellulose-dense food, like grasses, which humans can’t normally eat.

Antifreeze proteins which either prevent your body fluids from freezing, or allow your body to survive them freezing over.

Magnetoreception like that seen in birds, potentially due to a cryptochrome protein found in their eyes, which helps them navigate and form internal regional maps.

All of this begs a very important question—if these are all theoretically possible for Faunus to have, then why don’t we see them in the canon?

And I think the answer to that might be twofold.

Notice that all of the traits I listed aren’t overtly visible. Now, I have no proof of this beyond a shrewd suspicion, but I think the reason why RWBY gravitates toward traits like horns, tails, and the like is because they’re more “phenotypical,” so to speak. RWBY is a visual media. Huge chunks of its story are told through action. It makes sense that the writers would want their Faunus to have “flashier” traits which visibly stand out, and that can be used in a combat setting. As cool as it would be to have a Faunus based on a shorthorn sculpin with freeze-resistant properties, I doubt the show would ever implement it. More’s the pity, because I think the idea of “invisible” Faunus traits—in addition to being really fucking cool—could be used to talk about passing.

Which brings me to the second reason why RWBY might’ve omitted Faunus with non-phenotypic traits (including sex-changing): The Discourse™.

There’s no getting around the fact that Faunus with sex-changing abilities or multi-sex characteristics would be inherently coded as trans or intersex.

In media, depicting non-endosex and non-cisgender people as inhuman has been a staple for decades. It’s a well-established trope that otherizes two vulnerable marginalized communities, by representing them through the lens of something alien or robotic or monstrous. I could be here for hours deconstructing the lasting harm those tropes have caused.

On the other hand:

Reclaiming slurs and traditionally-offensive depictions of minorities is practically a pastime for us. It’s a way to take back power from an oppressor. Damn right I’m a monster, and don’t you forget it, because I bite.

RWBY has never once shied away from the fact that Faunus aren’t humans. Granted, we don’t know if they’re two different species, or if Faunus are a distinct race, or if Faunus traits represent a handful of dominant genes that can be inherited by any hominid, as demonstrated by the fact that both groups can reproduce and have fertile offspring.

(Hell, maybe Faunus aren’t some distinct entity. Maybe the gene for retractable claws is just a stigmatized trait that got arbitrarily lumped in with other stigmatized traits, and humans in this universe are individuals which don’t have those genes. Or maybe they carry a recessive genetic mutation that masks “Faunus traits.” It could be that in this setting, humans are the derivative outliers, not the Faunus.)

Speculation aside, this presents us with a dilemma: Do we risk coding Faunus (a canonically non-human group) as trans or intersex, and further reinforce the damage done by those tropes? Or do we have Faunus that can switch between sperm and ova production, or Faunus with two sets of genitalia, and reclaim those depictions on our own terms?

In an ideal world, you would do both. You would have human characters that are intersex or trans, alongside Faunus with non-endosex traits. You could even go a step further and have a Faunus whose trait is wings who also happens to be trans.

But here’s the kicker: The show has a precedent of mishandling real-world issues, like racism and disability. Even though plenty of the VAs and animators are queer (like Josh Grelle and Kdin Jenzen), the writing has been primarily handled by a pair of cishet white guys.

Given Rooster Teeth’s track record, I wouldn’t want them going anywhere near this topic.

So, is it possible that we could see a Faunus trait pertaining to their biological sex? Absolutely. But given the format of the show, and the history of the people writing the show, I doubt we ever will.

I also couldn't help but think how the faunus could be a potential source of medical miracles and that some expert literally studied the hypothetical person I mentioned and made a means to make sex change easy.

I would extend this question to not just biological sex, but other Faunus traits, too.

Maybe a Faunus with antifreeze proteins could hold the potential to improving cryosurgery, or lengthening the shelf life of perishable goods. Maybe a Faunus with venom (like the Gila monster) mimics hormones that could be used in treating diabetes. Maybe a Faunus with crocodilian-like white blood cells could lead to an entirely new class of infection-fighting drugs.

Of course, that means discussing the downside to this revelation: the medical exploitation of Faunus.

In 1951, cervical cancer cells were taken from thirty-one-year-old Henrietta Lacks, a black woman admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the time, it was routine for doctors to take tissue samples without their patient’s consent. The hospital was the only one in the Baltimore area where POC could receive free healthcare. This created a scenario in which non-white patients could be turned into research subjects without their permission.

The cells that were extracted from Henrietta Lacks were cultured into the first immortal cell line, known today as HeLa, which has since been sold to labs for virology, cancer research, genetics research, and space microbiology.

Given the fairly obvious parallels between Faunus and other minority groups (particularly in the United States), it stands to reason that a lack of regulatory oversight—combined with systematic racism and profit-motivated labs—could lead to near-identical scenarios.

If RWBY’s worldbuilding wanted to explore these ideas, it would have an obligation to talk about the intersectionality of racism, autonomy and consent, and medical exploitation.

“Medical miracles,” as you put, could certainly exist in this setting. But they wouldn’t come without a price.

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

375 of 2023

Your surname begins with M. You’re engaged. Your significant other’s name begins with A. You have children. Your birthday is in August. You only wear make-up on special occasions. You’re often told that you’re attractive. You’re always there for your friends, no matter what. You have 3 brothers. Your favourite colour is pink. Your surname begins with R. You dye your hair a lot. You dislike your natural hair colour. You have freckles. Your eyes are hazel. You can be very loud at times. You have 2 sisters. You hate your ex. You live by yourself. You’ve proposed to someone with a gummy ring before. Your surname begins with B. You’re still with your first love. Your significant other’s name begins with P. You have an older sister. You used to be shy, but aren’t so much now. Your parents are divorced. You don’t go on Facebook very often. You’re forgetful. You try to be nice to everyone. You love Oreos. Your middle name begins with E. You don’t plan on getting married or having children. You have green eyes. You’re quite pale. You like to hug people a lot. You can come across as being quite random and crazy. You wear a lot of black. You live with your significant other. You like baking. Your parents are still married. You have a double-barrelled surname. (no, but my last name has tussenvoegsel, does it count?) You’ve been in your current relationship for over 2 years. You love cats. You can be quite accident-prone. Your brother’s name begins with P. Your sister’s name begins with M. You love dresses. You enjoy helping others. You like to wear red lipstick. You’ve suffered the loss of someone very close to you. Your surname begins with G. You’ve been single for quite a while now… But that doesn’t bother you. You get along well with the opposite sex. You’re really picky with food. You’re a Taurus. You don’t talk about your personal life a lot. Your musical taste changes often. You prefer Pepsi to Coke. You’re good at cheering people up. You have short hair. You wear glasses. You’re very close to your mother. Your birthday is in July. Your best friend is of the opposite sex. You suffer from migraines. You’d like to be in a relationship … But you want to finish college/university first. You prefer dogs to cats. You’re short. Your middle name begins with N. Your birthday is in November. You have several tattoos. You stand up for what you believe in. You’re an only child. You can be quite stubborn. You never talk about others behind their back. Your favourite genre of music is dance. Your middle name begins with J. (no my first name) You’re friends with some of your exes. (just one) You don’t like pizza. You’re anaemic. You’re not shy at all. You straighten your hair. Your sister’s name begins with L. You have/had a crush on someone older than yourself. Your favourite animals are giraffes. You think about others before yourself. You look younger than your actual age. You love boy bands You’re easily amused … And you laugh at inappropriate times. You’ve done some voluntary work. You cry easily. You never wear make-up. Your birthday is in September. You’re the youngest sibling. You don’t worry about what others think of you. Your birthday is in May. Your favourite colour is green. You love Family Guy. You don’t really eat sweets or chocolate. You’re good at standing up for yourself. You’re a good swimmer. You use hair gel. You’ve been in several plays. Your significant other’s name beings with J. Your birthday is in March. You feel that you’re misunderstood a lot of the time. You smile often. You’re very interested in history. You read a lot. You spend a lot of time by yourself. You have/had a black cat. You sometimes lose your temper easily. You don’t have a good relationship with your father. You struggle to open up to people. Your middle name begins with M. You have curly hair. Your eyes are blue. You have a crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. Your nails are usually painted. You love pasta. You overthink everything. You enjoy singing.

[voxiiferous]

Extra! Extra! Exclusive Interview with Overlord Vox!

If anyone else wants to fill this out for their muse, go for it! It's also far and away The Longest sort of these I have ever done for any muse. Hence the read more.

G E N E R A L

[ name ]: Vox... though in life it was Vincent Price.

[ nicknames ]: In life it was Vince.

[ birthday ]: January 19th

[ birthplace ]: Pennsylvania.

[ age ]: Counting since death? 108. If only until, then 40.

[ eye color ]: Red.

[ height ]: 7'0"

[ weight ]: Synthetic parts don't weigh the same as flesh.

[ nationality ]: American... though America doesn't exist in Hell, so... Pride?.

[ astrological sign ]: Capricorn/Aquarius cusp.

[ location ]: My living room.

[ siblings ]: No.

[ pets ]: Just Vark.

[ in the morning i’m ]: Awake? At work?

[ all i need is ]: A vacation would be nice.

[ love is ]: real? Dia and Hellaina are certainly in love.

[ i’m afraid of ]: Failure, mostly. People finding out my secrets.

[ i dream about ]: Work. My life.

H A V E . Y O U . E V E R ?

[ pictured your crush naked? ]: yeah of course. Who hasn’t?

[ used someone? ]: You don’t get to where I am without it.

[ been used? ]: most people have the good sense not to, but yes.

[ been cheated on? ]: It's not cheating if you're broken up. It's not cheating if it's an open relationship.

[ considered cheating? ]: same rules apply.

[ been kissed? ]: I’ve been in a relationship for 50 years. What do you think?

[ done something you regret? ]: ... ("You have to answer the question, Vox.") Yes.

F A V O R I T E

[ food? ]: I haven’t been able to eat in seventy years, at this point, anything.

[ fruit? ]: I probably had more cherries than anything, but that’s just because they were everywhere.

[ candy? ]: I make candy, so V&Vs. (“You’ve never even tried them.”) Irrelevant.

[ color? ]: Blue

[ number? ]: Who’s got a favourite number? (“You’re being paid to answer the question.”) π (“An actual number.”) I don’t even know? 5?

[ animal? ]: Sharks

[ drink? ]: Old Fashioned

[ soda? ]: I haven’t had a soda in a long time.

[ book? ]: Anything other than my engineering textbooks.

[ room? ]: probably my living room?

[ movie? ]: The Old Dark House from 1932-- the original one.

D O . Y O U ?

[ have a boyfriend/girlfriend? ]: Yeah— Valentino for the last 50 years. (“He’s a rat bastard.”) Hellaina doesn’t like him as you can tell.

[ like cleaning? ]: why the fuck would I when I can pay people to do that for me?

[ have a tattoo? ]: nope

[ have any piercings? ]: Also no.

[ cheat on tests/homework? ]: I was the kid people wanted to cheat off of.

[ drink/smoke? ]: do? No, not for lack of desire, just lack of ability.

[ swear a lot? ]: take a wild fucking guess.

[ like watching sunrises or sunset? ]: Eh? Hell’s aren’t really that aesthetically pleasing. Just sort of red and darker red.

[ pray? ]: I thought the whole thing was ridiculous when I was eight, that’s not changed.

[ go to church? ]: not a lot of churches in Hell.

[ have secrets? ]: Consider who I am and the answer is real clear.

[ have a best friend? ]: Yeah of course. Vel’s a delight. (“Seriously? I’m right here.”) And also Hellaina.

[ like your own handwriting? ]: I haven’t had to hand write anything in decades— I wouldn’t even know.

A R E . Y O U ?

[ obsessive? ]: In some things.

[ excited? ]: Not really.

[ bored? ]: Constantly.

[ happy? ]: ... let's not answer that one.

[ missing someone? ]: No one to miss babes.

[ confused? ]: No.

[ tired? ]: At this point I think 'perpetually exhausted' is just a state of being.

[ mad? ]: ("As a hatter,") No, in fact.

[ sleepy? ]: Tired yes, sleepy no.

D O . Y O U . E V E R ?

[ wait around just to talk to someone? ]: People wait to talk to me.

[ write about those ‘special’ moments? ]: What do I look like? A sentimental fool who needs a diary? ("Voxtagram?") Like that's the same.

[ wish you were a member of the opposite sex? ]: Not something I want to bring on myself.

W H O . W A S . T H E . L A S T . P E R S O N . W H O ?

[ you talked to? ]: Hellaina.

[ you hugged? ]: ...does Vark count?

[ you kissed? ]: Val.

[ sent you a letter? ]: An actual letter? Hells... my mother before I died? Email's easier, that's one of the architects.

[ you sent a letter to? ]: If I go email, then the same architect, if I go actual letter, I don't know, someone in life.

[ you laughed with? ]: Hellaina.

[ slept in your bed? ]: Me.

[ you shared a drink with? ]: If I need to drink for it to count, with a couple of people in 1955, if not, probably Val.

[ you went to the movies with? ]: It was a premier, so Hellaina and what sometimes seems like half my staff.

[ yelled at you? ]: An unhappy client.

[ you called? ]: Katie Killjoy.

[ you kicked? ]: Uh... ("Was it that guy from the last hostile takeover?") Yeah, I think. So nameless goon whatever.

[ you saw? ]: ("I'm still right here.")

W H O . I S ?

[ the most handsome person you know? ]: Val probably won't read this, right? Because it's not him, it's Angel Dust.

[ the weirdest person you know? ]: Velvette.

[ the funniest person you know? ]: Also probably Vel.

[ the loudest person you know? ]: That one harpy actress, she's awful.

[ the quietest person you know? ]: I don't know a lot of 'quiet' people, but maybe Adelard.

[ the sweetest person you know? ]: Adelard. Not a lot of sweet people left down here.

[ the most serious person you know? ]: ("It's you.") Nah, it's... not Alastor. Shit, is it me?

[ your best friend? ]: We covered this.

[ the person you hate the most? ]: Alastor. ("Are you certain there?") ...no, you're right, he's too fun to mess with. My former co-worker and producer for the few people old enough to know that reference.

[ the person you see most? ]: To Val's chagrin, Hellaina.

[ your soul-mate? ]: There is nothing but laughter heard for several minutes from both Vox and Hellaina.

W H A T . I S ?

[ the first thing you thought of when you woke up? ]: It's too early for this nonsense.

[ the song that best describes you? ]: [Nothing but a shit-eating grin as he presses his phone and Video Killed the Radio Star starts to play].

[ your best feature? ]: If you say smile I'll demote you. ("No you won't".) My sense of style.

[ your most treasured memory? ]: .........uh. Hellaina's wedding.

I N . T H E . F U T U R E

[ what is the age you hope to get married? ]: It hasn't happened yet so sometime after 100.

[ number and names of kids? ]: Not much of an option down here.

[ where do you see yourself at age twenty? ]: Fucking hell, that was a long time ago.

[ describe your dream wedding? ]: I don't know. To someone I love?

[ when and how do you want to die? ]: Not the way I did, I can say that for certain.

[ what are your career plans? ]: ("Ruler of Hell.") Don't be ridiculous, just... what isn't a heretical answer? I've already gotten as far as I pictured.

[ some place you’d like to visit? ]: Is 'not on Pride when the Exterminators come' a viable option?

L A S T . T I M E

[ last time you went out of state? ]: 1955 when I fell down here, because even counting Pride, I've never left.

[ last time you were outside? ]: Uh... three days? Most things just require going up and down the building.

[ last time you had a snowball fight? ]: I don't even know. Some time before I moved to New York.

[ last time you were listening to music? ]: [Pans back to the song still playing].

O T H E R

[ how many people would you say are good friends of yours? ]: "Four," ("Three,") Yes, thank you Hellaina, I do know your opinion on Val.

[ what hurts the most, physical or emotional pain? ]: What idiot says physical? That can be great in the right circumstance. ("Is the right circumstance after winning a fight with the Radio Demon?") Oh yeah, for sure.

[ have you felt this recently? ]: Of course not. Believe me.

[ what do you wear to bed? ]: Sweatpants.

[ when’s the last time you slept with a stuffed animal? ]: Oh fuck that was a long time ago. I was… 7 maybe? 8?

 have you ever used a ouija board? ]: Once in university.

[ how many rings before you pick up the phone? ]: That is entirely dependent on who is calling. Velvette I tend to pick up quickly, unhappy directors go to voicemail.

[kicking-mushrooms]

I’m going to casually scream into the void, for old time’s sake.

There has been a lot that has happened since I last journaled in here. I’ll try to do a quick summation over the past 5 years, to the best of my ability. Nobody fucking reads my posts, so this is mostly to have a place I can write about without worrying about it being lost because my computer crashed and so my hard drive has to be been wiped. I could post this on a google doc, but that feels weird for some reason. I guess I like the idea of potential comradely? I’m not entirely sure….

I remember being mostly active here during high school, so this is everything that happened since graduating.

Trigger warnings: mentions of Ab*se and R*pe

I had a singular close friend, and ruined that relationship because of mental health issues I didn’t understand.

Turns out I have ADHD and Autism, and I struggle with mood regulation. I won’t start anti depressants until a year or two later, which help stabilize my mood IMMENSELY. Starting them made a lot of my anger slip away. However, it won’t be until around 2020-ish that I even find out about emotional dysregualtion or executive dysfunction. I won’t be able to get an ADHD assessment until 2022

Ahhhh. I deeply regret the way I acted. I think about it a lot. I hope she’s doing well in life

I was…. Very lonely, and angry for a while.

The timeline for this part is very foggy…. I know I was extremely depressed. I resented my friends for being more successful than me, and I also felt trapped. I didn’t have a driver’s license, or a parent who helped me at all. Everyone else was supported, and had a future. I felt so…. Trapped

I know I stayed with my mom in a little room above someone’s garage….. and I some point I was homeless and staying at a friends place…. But I cant recall where that lies chronologically

my mom started dating someone and basically abandoned me for him. She dumped me off at her uncle’s and aunt’s place.

BOY HOWDEY were they are SUPER toxic, and casually made jokes about how they emotionally abused their kids. They were also chain smokers, and being around them was hard on my health. There was never any food in the house because they lost their apatite from smoking. I lived entirely on a singular lunabar a day :) They also didn’t drive (much) because they were both disabled and retired. This was a problem all on its own because I still didn’t have a license, and they couldn’t teach me. For context: They live in a trailer in the middle of boonfuck nowhere. There weren’t even any buses in that area.

They also talked about sex a lot, which made me uncomfortable because they’re grandparents??? And hearing your granddad talk about “getting fucked in the ass” as a joke is really weird. It could just be compounded since I was also sex repulsed, so it made me extremely uncomfortable.

My mom was visiting them, when suddenly the new dog my gruncle took in attacks me.

The dog was apparently an abused rescue that my Gruncle wanted to rehabilitate. The dog had already bitten him twice at this point…. I still can’t believe that it took a large ass Saint Bernard ripping chunks from my arm before my mom did anything…..

I dressed up as John Egbert at a Halloween dance, and made a friend

I have since lost contact with them, because I am too socially inept to send a message 😭 Anyways, she invited me to go to an anime convention at that time, which I accepted because I had absolutely no friends around me. At the convention, I met some other people that I became friends with! I hit it off with two of them particularly well. I’ve loss contact with both at this point, for different reasons. One of them started dating an emotionally abusive bigot, and started changing for the worse ….I think about them a lot

At some point, I saved up enough money and bought myself my own god damn driver’s ed

I will never not be bitter that I had to do this. Family did provide a car…. Which was because mother’s husband had a great uncle who died, and so they gave me his old car.

My friend asked for my help to move into Austin

My mom’s boyfriend reaction to this was to have his own kid move into the room I was staying in :)

Guess I live in Austin now

My friend let me co-sign, and we started dating…. This was the first person I ever dated seriously! And was it HELL. They turned out to be EMOTIONALLY ABUSIVE AF. On the bright side, I was able to deal with a lot of body dysphoria I have, and also my sex repulsion. I still hate the sound of kissing, and anything like it, but that turns out to be a weird ADHD thing so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what can you do

Also learned what an Empath is from him!

I started working at CVS, which was right down the road from where I lived

If you are thinking about working there… don’t!

I was there for a year, I think?

When the lease was up, I had no friends and nowhere to go. I had to resort to Craigslist. Oh! And my credit card info got stolen! The paycheck I had just gotten the day before was GONE. All I had to eat was a couple of saltine crackers to last me for two weeks until my next paycheck

My mom gets married (June 9th, 2016 at least according to the photos on my phone)

This is the anxious man my mom abandoned me for, and he also basically forces her to drop me for him. Mmmm I foresee an unhappy marriage Spoilers: it is

….Chanthony

So, I found a place! And it was a hell all its own. He was/is a fucking NIGHtMARE to deal with. I’m pretty sure he has undiagnosed Autism, but he definitely has untreated depression and anxiety. To get a good idea of what he is like - when he was looking for a roommate, he wasn’t ACTUALLY looking for a roommate. He was looking for a manic pixie dream girl to fix him. He thought that would help, instead of actually taking medication.

Right off the bat, his apartment was infested with fleas. I diligently took care of it myself, and ended up investing a decent amount of money and a whole LOT of time. I had to shave my cat, Jada! He would go into these depressive states and wouldn’t clean…. Anything. The sink and counters would be overflowing with moldy pans and plates. There were soda cans everywhere, full of cigarettes. Absolute ton of laundry everywhere. The worst was actually his dog. His dog was greasy and PUNGENT. I fucking cleaned the SHIT out of that apartment, and even invested in an IQair purifier. That bitch EXPENSIVE, but BOY was it worth it! The smell was gone after a few days of it running. It also helped prevent my migraines from him smoking weed inside, despite him saying he wouldn’t. Asshole never even recognized my hard work. He insisted I did it for myself. Like, yeah, to a degree? But if it was for just me, I wouldn’t have deep cleaned and organized the whole apartment. I figured that a clean environment would help with his depression, if only a little. Ironically, I was trying to help him like he romanticized but he was to self sabotaging to see it

If it was just mess, I could deal with that no problem. I would help deep clean this semi-retired lady who would walk to my work. I also did this for a “friend” of mine (Tangent: That friend would FREQUENTLY bail on me while we were hanging out for Tinder dates. Then got pissy and avoided me for months when I stayed with a friend after I was in between places because my lease ended? ?? That still baffles me to this day) I’ve got depression, I get how it be sometimes. What bother’s me is his attitude. He would vacillate from putting me on a pedestal and go on about all that I do for him, to complaining about how I wasn’t doing enough.

He was very much a “Nice Guy” who thought that being someone’s friend meant that they were courting, and that by not dating I was leading him on. Things like going to the grocery store together were dates to him. He would give me things I didn’t even ask for, and expect shit from me afterwards. He even asked for Christmas gifts back after I moved out. He would manipulate what I said into his favor. He also kept making the ultimatum that if I didn’t date him, then “All this goes away” and we had to stop being friends. Which, considering that I am his roommate and he sleeps in the living room, it felt like blackmail!

Arguing with him was so frustrating. He would try to manipulate what I said into his favor, or made blanket statements to discount anything I said. He mocked my opinions, and disregarded my boundaries - which the arguments were usually about. His most common response for not stopping something after I say no, or more likely repeatedly saying no/stop, was because I was smiling…. Even though I worked retail, and I frequently smile when I am pissed because of this. He ignored my gender identity. He even used my it to try to make sexual advances? “Oh, you don’t believe in gender? That it’s fine if I come in there and change my clothes with you” Just because I recognize our gender biases based on our society, doesn’t mean that they’re no longer there. He made me so DEEPLY uncomfortable, that I would just crawl in through the window when I got home to avoid him. I have never hated going home as much as when I stayed with him. It wasn’t just me, either. Jada even tried running out the door when I came home once. She hid a lot while she was there. Unless I was around, then she would hide under the blanket, behind my legs.

It’s been 5 years, and he STILL stalks me on social media and harasses my mom to try to talk to me. I think he has messaged me on almost every platform at this point, including PINTEREST. FUCKING PINTEREST. He also will make new accounts just to message me, because I keep blocking him.

On the bright side, I got to see firsthand some of my own toxic traits reflected back at me. I have a feeling I acted a lot like Chanthony did towards my mom, and I can understand not wanting to sacrifice your own mental health for someone else. You are not a therapist, and no matter what you do, it won’t help. They have to recognize it, and want to change.

I think I got a sublet after a Chanthony (Sept-??? 2017)

I was only there for a few months. It smelled like cat piss. I cleaned it, and the original tenant I was leasing under apologized and sent a care basket :)

I didn’t have a car during this time, so i had to take the bus…. Which is all well and good, except that the closest stop was over an hour walk away

I got a girlfriend! (Dec-ish 2017 to ???)

It was…. Interesting! It was nice while it lasted… There was an age gap. I think I was 22, and she was 19. It was only a few years, but I could feel the age difference. If that makes sense? She just seemed young. Not in the youthful sense, but in the “ah, you still have some mental development to do :| “ She had a lot of trauma that she didn’t get into, and was very cryptic about. She also had an emotionally abusive mom that she idolized, which is very unfortunate. For many reasons. One of the things she imitated was from her mom was quick to cut you off, or ignore you at the least, when she was upset.

She caused a lot of damage to me emotionally, because she was my only friend at the time and she just…. dumped me, and completely cut off contact. It wasn’t even that long until she asked to date again. Maybe a month or so? but it wasn’t the same. Abandonment is a big issue of mine, so I was pretty broken after all was said an done. I couldn’t even get closure the first time. I tried asking, and got berated by her on-and-off again friend.

I think about her sometimes… mostly out of curiosity. Both because she was a great opera singer, and because I hope she realizes how toxic her mom is and grows to be her own person instead of what her mom wants her to be

Another new place

My roommates and I didn’t really get along….. Specifically the homeowner, who lived in one of the rooms. She was HELLA privileged. The house she lived in was a gift from her family, and she worked maybe 5 hours a day. That, alone, isn’t why I didn’t like her. Sure, I was envious, but I’m not gonna dislike someone because of that. She just was ignorant about anyone outside of herself. It was obvious she wanted to live alone. She was so bothered by everything everyone did, and was so blind to her own mess. She would get upset that I wouldn’t sweep, despite me cleaning her messy ass kitchen when I would get home from work. I doesn’t help that I also just… can’t see dirt on the floor very, thanks astigmatism. Though, the times I did, it turned out to mostly be her own dog’s hair, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Even so, I was struggling with taking care of myself at the time. I was suffering from SEVERE depression because I had been dumped, my godmother got diagnosed with cancer (and I got a vague message from her about giving up, and I thought she was going to kill herself, and freaked TF right on out), and I had lost my car. So cleaning the kitchen when I made meal prepped was the most I could do….

Even if that wasn’t the case, she was just hard me to be around. Very passive aggressive, and a lot anxiety.

On the bright side, this was the first time I could really decorate my own space. There were a lot of nice thrifstores around that I could get cheap decor. Despite everything, this was the first time I had ever felt “at home” in my space. I also got Tobi, my GIANT stuffed fox. I love him very much. I am so glad I got him ….sigh, I need to restuff him and throughly wash him. He’s gotten pretty grungy :(

Tangent: I never wanted to do physical harm to a pair of shoes as much as I did with hers. I wanted to burn her fucking crocks SO BAD. THEY WERE SO LOUD AS SHE CLOMPED UP THE STAIRS. She woke me up on more than one occasion, and I am not even a light sleeper

According to my phone, I got into my first major car accident on Feb 18th, 2018

I hydroplaned off an overpass onto another, DIFFERENT, overpass. Real GTA shit right there

???

At some point, I got a new car…..? It was a pain in the ass to get because I couldn’t get co-signer, even though I needed one because I don’t have credit . It was a ‘08 Toyota Prius that I named Eiffel. I also wrecked that car when a pickup took the front end off while I was turning on a protected left turn.

I think I moved back with my mom for a while? I remember I took some time off of work as well. God, I was so burnout…

My best friend of 10 years at the time said she was looking into moving out of her parents house into an apartment, so I went out on a limb and moved states

Fall or maybe winter of 2018? I know I was there over Christmas. I spent it dressed up as an elf at work! Just cause it made me happy. I also got cheap decorations, and decorated the place. I was there by myself, so I didn’t have to worry abut anyone else

Since there wasn’t a place ready, I stayed with my Alcoholic brother and his Narcissist, alcoholic Dad. The Dad hated me because I was my mom’s kid, and flat out told me that. He said my mom was a filthy whore, and went into EXPLICIT DETAIL about supposed things she had done. At some point, I told him to please stop, and he got irrationally irate about that, which escalated to him wanting to kick me out….. even though I was paying for cable, cooking their meals, and cleaning their house. He was also pissed that I wasn’t psychically looking for apartments, even though they are online. And even if I did look at them, I needed the input from the person who I was gonna room with.

I got the best car I could with all the savings I had, which was only $1,000. Because of that, I had to work a few months before I could afford a down payment on an apartment. I thing I had it for 2 months before the timing belt went out, and destroyed the engine.

Also, during this time, I had gotten r*ped by my brother while he was shitfaced one night. So, even if it wasn’t for his dad, I would still have left

I got a new car from a very kind coworker

And I am so glad they did, because I lived in that car, quite literally. I had a queen mattress topper already that I folded and used as a bed in the back seat, so it wasn’t actually half bad! If I were to do it again, there are a few things I woulda done a few things differently. One would be purchasing those window insulated covers for cars. I would still have stayed in the Walmart parking lot at night, but I should have parked on the LEFT side because apparently there is an OUTDOOR OUTLET over there that I didn’t discover until LATER. And, finally, I should have caved and got the $20 gym membership

Also, my friend decided to stay with her grandparents. I haven’t talked to her since, and I am still very bitter

This gets me to about the Spring of 2019, when I move into an actual place

I will get into this in part II cause I am kinda tired of talking……