#trans misery. actually

[apollodreams]

God I can't believe I Saw The TV Glow is a real movie that shit's crazy I keep on watching it and then, through tears, going "why the fuck would I do that to myself"

[asherenjoysbeingtransparent]

“Life” (Album Cover) - Yuno Kashiki

[anaalnathrakhs]

i swear one of these days i'm gonna go live on a farm upstate and you're all going to be introduced to my secret twin brother you've never heard about so far

[wild-at-mind]

I get why people like the whole queer existence is resistance thing. I don't personally, because I think it puts a tonne of intracommunity pressure to exist in the 'right' way, I.e. the way that is 'radical' to the person currently scrutinising you. As a person with OCD that manifests in self scrutiny that I have to constantly concentrate on to avoid it becoming self hatred, I'm never going to be a fan of that. I kind of feel this way about any kind of assimilation conversation with regards to queerness really. I think it's an important conversation within irl communities who already care for each other- who shows up for others outside of their own interests and who doesn't, etc. But the internet makes things so impersonal and cold. It encourages people to make very serious snap judgements about others who they don't even know, and to encourage others to believe that about them. None of these people are in community together in any meaningful sense, or they wouldn't treat each other so ungenerously.

Anyway I had a bit of a realisation earlier- I think we have to tell ourselves our existence is inherently radical all the time because we're always getting the subtle message from our community and the wider activism community that having a good time or enjoying yourself is somehow bad, or insulting to people in dire straits. But instead of challenging that idea we say no it's OK because I'm doing activism simply by being here. I think it's fine to feel that way and in many ways existing as a marginalised person really is radical. I just want to make sure we aren't internalising the idea that we can't ever be happy or having a fun frivolous time without justifying it, and passing that idea along to others without meaning to.

[soup-mother]

It's actually vital we tell "men" that they don't have to like men and they can be a lesbian. we can save so many trans girls from a horrid cycle of misery, we can save them from convincing themselves they're just gay men because that's what they think wanting to be a woman means. we can save them. i know we can.

[doctorcurdlejr]

This is from a longer post I wrote about I saw the tv glow but just posting this bit on its own bc of the conversation around the movie I guess:

The point is that this movie is one big glaring trans allegory about how it sucks dog shit to live in the suburbs, and even at our most repressed we find these little snow globes of actualization in the glow of a tv screen that isn't afraid to show you the world you see. I've seen some people say that, like, in this context accepting or coming into your transness is this monumental death of self, which I get, but I feel there lacks a nuance in that because either way Owen is dying. Unlike Maddy who buries herself alive only to come out renewed, Owen doesn't kill himself upon facing the reality that the world is constructed to keep him miserable and the only way out is to take back what it is that the world wants to keep scooped out of him. Instead he just passively lets it drag him to a much more permanent death. This lack of suicide sucks in the kind of way that forces you to sit in your car on the midnight drive home and think to yourself am I letting myself suffocate because at some point knowing the misery became less scary than admitting I've been capable of doing something about it the whole time?

Maddy is an out lesbian who left town to escape the misery and found it strapped to her ankles. She slinks out, an animal pressed against the gymnasium floor, and says "I'm not telling you anything you don't already know." Owen looks into the camera and narrates. He cuts himself open with a box cutter, fully acknowledges what's there, and the movie ends with his suffocating apology parade for the unremarkable inconvenience of his excruciating suffering. You can be gay and trans, you can know it and you can stop repressing it, but you're not going to stop suffocating until you can find a way to destroy the part of you that truly deeply does want to die, reaching for the comforting euthanasia of normalcy. Stop visiting the dream of the life you want and make it into your reality with the same kind of unrepentant conviction seen in some underfunded but wildly ambitious teen television series. In other words: you must try to survive the ego death of being weird. A weirdo, who doesn't fit in and doesn't want to fit in.

[imstillalexcomic]

Eeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Folks, it’s time…

…time for the NFL DRAFT!

Ok so, I know, sports, I get it.  Tumblr doesn’t seem to be too big on sports.  When sports has been mentioned with the trans folks I’ve befriended, the term “sportsball” gets tossed around, much like a ball in actual sports.

But guys, gals, and enbies… I love sports.

Now, primarily I’m just a New York Jets fan, something which has led to much sports related misery as we’re the team that has the longest playoff drought across the four major US sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL)… our last playoff game was a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game (one game away from the Superbowl) on January 23rd, 2011.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE.

But today, today is the day where that starts to change, for today is the NFL DRAFT.  Today kicks off a three day selection festival where teams will pick incoming collegiate players, filling needs, drafting best player available, or reaching hopelessly for prospects that look good in shorts but otherwise have questionable ability.

It’s basically Christmas for NFL fans; we get to open up new presents for our teams.

Something I used to do back in my Corpse Run Comics days as the Annual Corpse Run Mock Draft.  For the uninitiated, a mock draft is where someone makes predictions on who will be picked and where, and to what teams.

Now, Corpse Run isn’t running anymore, but hey, now there’s I’m Still Alex!

So without further ado, here’s the FIRST ANNUAL I’M STILL ALEX MOCK DRAFT!!

Almost assuredly guaranteed to be wildly incorrect!

Tennessee Titans – Cameron Ward – QB -  Miami

Cleveland Browns – Travis Hunter – CB/WR – Colorado

New York Giants – Abdul Carter – OLB – Penn State

New England Patriots – Armand Membou – OT – Missouri

Jacksonville Jaguars – Mason Graham – DT – Michigan

Las Vegas Raiders – Will Campbell – OT – LSU

New York Jets – Kelvin Banks – OT/G - Texas

Carolina Panthers – Jalon Walker – OLB – Georgia

New Orleans Saints – Tetaiora McMillan – WR – Arizona

Chicago Bears – Ashton Jeanty – RB – Boise State

San Francisco 49ers – Kenneth Grant – DT – Michigan

Dallas Cowboys – Matthew Golden – WR – Texas

Miami Dolphins – Grey Zabel – OT/G – North Dakota State

Indianapolis Colts – Tyler Warren – TE – Penn State

Atlanta Falcons – Shemar Stewart – DE – Texas A&M

Arizona Cardinals – Will Johnson – CB – Michigan

Cincinnati Bengals – Malaki Starks – S – Georgia

Seattle Seahawks – Colston Loveland – TE – Michigan

Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Jahdae Barron – CB – Texas

Denver Broncos – Omarion Hampton – RB – North Carolina

Pittsburgh Steelers – Derrick Harmon – DT – Oregon

Los Angeles Chargers – Emeka Egbuka – WR – Ohio State

Green Bay Packers – Walter Nolen – DT – Ole Miss

Minnesota Vikings – Nick Emmanwori – S – South Carolina

Houston Texans – Josh Simmons – OT – Ohio State

Los Angeles Rams – Mason Taylor – TE – LSU

Baltimore Ravens – Shavon Revel Jr. – CB – East Carolina

Detroit Lions – Donovan Jackson – OG – Ohio State

Washington Commanders – Donovan Ezeiruaklu – EDGE – Boston College

Buffalo Bills – Trey Amos – CB – Ole Miss

Kansas City Chiefs – Josh Conerly Jr. – OT – Oregon

TRADE – Philadelphia Eagles trade pick to New Orleans Saints - Jackson Dart – QB – Ole Miss

[genderqueerdykes]

My MtF friend and I got on the topic of TME/TMA bullshit the other day and she pointed out something I wanted to share (with her permission) "The whole concept of TME/TMA can even result in trans women never wanting to come out to avoid being associated with such shitty believes. If my first interactions in the trans community was someone who believed in it I would probably never admit to myself that I was trans cuz I don't want to associate with a group whose entire personality seems to be victimizing the trauma olympics I-Am-The-Main-Character all in one. Hell they would've probably told me I wasn't actually a trans woman just because my egg cracked late and exclude me anyway."

thank you so much for taking the time to send this, i really appreciate it, because your friend said it better than i ever could've.

I don't want to associate with a group whose entire personality seems to be victimizing the trauma olympics I-Am-The-Main-Character all in one.

this is something i've been wanting to flat out say for a while, so thank you very much for this. it literally is very VERY petty behavior at this point and i'm not humoring it anymore. we have to call things for what they are and admit that a lot of transfems are using this as an opportunity to wallow in their misery so they can control others to make themselves feel better because they feel powerless in cisheteronormative patriarchy. it's not fun or quirky or progressive.

i am very much over making queerness about who is the most oppressed or who is the biggest victim. i feel like a lot of people forgot what a victim complex is for the sake of mining pats on the back from strangers. so many transfeminine people right now are replacing their personalities with being a victim and it needs to come to an end. womanhood is not about being a victim, no matter how hard that woman has it. a lot of transfems genuinely do have this "I Am The Main Character" behavior. a lot of transfems genuinely do believe they are the protagonists of the queer community due to how bad they have it. we have to call it for what it is at this point. it's not an attack to say it.

i've been trying to point this out for quite a while: the TME/TMA binary and man/masc hating in general hurts trans women who are questioning, just now learning about transness, stealth, need to stay in the closet, are never transition, who struggle to pass, who don't want to pass, who are butch, who are gender non conforming, and those who are also men. but this especially hurts questioning and newly introduced trans women because nobody wants to be told that they're shitty for being a man one day, and then babied and patted on the back for being a woman the next. the whiplash from that would be damaging alone

your friend brings up a good point too because what about the trans women whose eggs crack later in life? what about those who don't realize they're a woman until they're in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s...? what about trans women who only interact with or present their womanhood sometimes? what about trans women who are content being seen as a man in society, but still identify as a woman inside? what about the trans women who don't ever want to tell another soul but are still women despite that?

this behavior hurts genderfluid and butch transfems a lot. this behavior harms masculine trans women so badly. there are transfeminine butches that want to present butch and i don't care if you read them as a "Cishet man" that's a trans butch and they're not obligated to be less masculine for anyone to accept them. trans butches face so much bullshit for how they dress, appear and act. i'm sorry not everyone's womanhood is feminine, but transfeminine butches deserve to present however the hell they want to and not have anyone call their identity into question.

it really affects trans women who don't pass, don't try to or don't want to.

it really affects trans women of color.

this behavior hurts so many people and i really want everyone to understand a lot of those people... are trans women. please be more considerate of those around you. thanks for taking the time to send this anon, i really appreciate it. you can let your friend know that was deeply insightful & exactly a point i've been trying to make for months. thank you both. have a great week, stay safe

[langernameohnebedeutung]

there's a lot of valid takes on why Gen Z is becoming radicalised at the rate they are - all that misinformation, tiktok, red pill, the pandemic - all have good points. But I think another factor is that even politically, their sense of normalcy is entirely different to the one of prior generations. The spiral of the last 15 years, the way the Overton window has moved, the change of style and tone in political discourse, the normalisation of anti-democratic ideas, the obsession with people's private lives, the topics that are front and centre during elections these days, the changing concept of the respect and dignity expected in a public office (god I sound like a boomer) - all of that was shocking to us.

the three generations of my family, all born and raised in VERY different time periods from one another, we've all just been equally shocked and horrified again and again these last 15 years - not just by what is happening but how it is happening and by what is possible and how easy it is to make a total mockery of the democracy and the rule of law. For all of us, that was a feeling of realising that something we implicitly trusted in to the point that it didn't need talking about ... just falling away. Or proving to always have been an illusion to begin with. To someone who grows up right now, this safety and security has NEVER existed.

But for these kids - the window of their life where they start becoming politically and culturally aware basically coincides with this downward spiral and I think that makes many of them blind or numb to it. I think for many of them, that's just their understanding of how things naturally progress and politics works. That the way previous generations evaluate the current situation - this framework of intentional manipulation and misinformation and radicalisation - is just fair and acceptable behaviour and that of course politicians manipulate the discourse to get what they want and of course it is normal to tell brazen lies and spread panic if that gets you what you want and if you're loyal to the party, you parrot those lines whether you really believe in them or not. (And let's be honest with ourselves - the seed to that has always been there)

And others, who I imagine intellectually know that things are going downhill, are really stuck in this extremely mind-numbing fatalist mindset (climate change is gonna kill us all anyway, haha) which makes you hopeless and desperate. And being hopeless and desperate also makes you vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation and radicalisation - because the offer you a perspective. Or meaning.

If you think about the trad-wife and redpill stuff or generally christian nationalism but also any movement that instrumentalises history with ideological narratives, you notice that their narratives place periods of stability way back in time in periods that match aspects of their idelogy e.g. their fetishisation of the 1950s. Then they come up with some horrible bad evil enemy that destroyed that paradise and created the 'degenerate' misery we live in now. Authoritarians and ideologues and cults have always done this. It's part of constructing the mutual enemy.

Beause this way, they can create their illusion of this kind of mythical, unreachable utopia (the past) that fascists love and attach all kinds of conditions to reaching that - with no pressure for them to ever actually deliver: women staying at home, racial segregation, christian hegemony, eugenics, absolute exclusion of gay and trans identities etc. This doesn't just have the benefit of pushing their politics on a confused youth (though that's a big benefit) - it also helps them hide from young people that these last 15 years, they literally created the chaos that these kids are living in. They sowed this situation and right now, with the radicalisation of the youth, they are reaping the rewards.

And the thing is, we can blame the Tiktok or whatever but I also think it is important that we let younger people know and feel that what's happening right now - is just not normal and not sustainable.

And yes, we need to let go of the naive illusion that "the kid are going to save the world". We should never have had that. But I also don't think a radical heel-turn vilifying all of Gen Z is going to help anyone or do justice to the situation.

[sandraharissa]

How did they accidentally intimately understand the experiences of mentally ill ppl in s1??? How??? It’s gotta be cos the writers changed right

Ok bcos like, it’s not like Jinx in s1 was a good portrayal of mental illnesses in the sense that it was realistic. I’d actually argue that part of her appeal and what made her work so well is bcos she was undiagnosable. She showed many symptoms of what could be many different issues and so many ppl could relate to her on a basis of one symptom. But what they did with Jinx that made her work so well is that they seemingly understood the emotions and psychology that are shared by ppl with all types of different issues. They didn’t need to understand all the technicalities in terms of, like I said, a realistic portrayal of a specific issue. What mattered was that she felt like a really mentally ill person cos her arc dealt with the struggles of mentally ill ppl. She was portrayed to feel isolated, struggling to communicate/socialize, feeling like she was fundamentally wrong/different, like she inherently didn’t belong anywhere, frustrated with her own symptoms, having internalized guilt, a desire to be loved/accepted, feeling unlovable, trying to hide her issues/symptoms, futilely trying to fit/change her behavior to fit/pass, feeling like a failure etc.

The main betrayal of s2 when it comes to Jinx and her arc was violating that connection that ppl build with Jinx in s1. S2 Jinx is an extremely unrealistic, unrelatable and sanitized portrayal of mental issues.

99% of her symptoms disappeared after she experienced smth that would drastically exacerbate them. Are you pranking me? Is that what I’m supposed to relate to? Quick fixes were applied, like giving her Isha to fix her loneliness but 1)that’s not how raising a child while mentally ill would look like, it would make her struggles worse 2) they cease to portray crucial experiences of mental illness like feeling like you don’t belong cos your behavior is always off, these things don’t just disappear, even when ppl get better there’ll still be these moments, and that’s in a best case scenario. Like trans ppl after finishing treatment saying they got rid of 99% of their dysphoria, but never a 100%. look at how they expertly managed to portray Silco and Jinx having a close loving bond and simultaneously highlight her loneliness and isolation. So she has a kid now bcos single mothers are not famously lonely and isolated ppl right? It was a common point of criticism of Silco that Jinx not having friends amongst her peers is a really bad sign but now she still has no friends but now 1) it stopped being an issue 2) she’s also a single mother now.

The focus was switched from her being portrayed as likely born neurodivergent + traumatized to depression but specifically suicidality. it’s not like in s1 she wasn’t portrayed as depressed/suicidal and you’d think she’d become more so after s1 but that wasn’t the sole focus, but curiously it becomes so in s2. But despite this switch in focus that you’d think would stem from the writers wanting to write about their own experiences or smth that interests them that they think is important it couldn’t be clearer that the writers had zero empathy for the issues they were writing about cos it’s misery porn, a pitfall that many stories that center suicide fall into, glamorizing and romanticizing it. In s1 her worst symptoms like hallucinations were very dramatic and cool-looking visually but it was connected to this fundamental empathy, the understanding of mentally ill ppl as ppl with emotions and what those are. In s2 they drastically switch the portrayal of her issues to fit what they wanted to do with her in s2, and then proceeded to use it solely for cool and dramatic imagery/scenarios. It is completely disconnected from ppl’s real life experiences. The relatability was sacrificed for the sake of following tropes like 'death as redemption' that are supposed to be more dramatic or smth. Having her ping-pong from having no issues to having all the issues throughout the narrative.

Act1: She’s ‘dead inside’, she seems somewhat motivated at some point only for it to be revealed she was planning suicide – alright season, nice, what’s next. Act2: she’s just completely alright now from the get go, her hallucinations show up only when she first finds out Isha’s in danger. why? who knows. It’s like the writers understood that for them that would be a particularly stressful situation so they use the imagery of her illness to communicate she’s super distressed in this moment. So they used the imagery of mental illness not to convey mental illness and how it interacts with her life but as a dramatic-looking shortcut to convey a strong emotion, one that any other character would feel in this situation. Otherwise she’s doing better than she ever was, even in s1a1, and then Isha dies. Act3: so now she 100% ’wants to die’ again and it’s super depresso but then she has one conversation with Ekko and she’s again doing super good and then she dies by semi-suicide but she’s happy doing it and it’s like. beautiful? ok.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

thinking about transfem metal sonic again bc she’s like. the most transfem character in fiction whos not in any way actually transfem or coded transfem like it’s entirely unintentional and that’s what makes it so interesting to me. bc like her entire Thing is identity issues she was built to emulate, surpass, and be a superior version of sonic which like. we can talk about eggman hating sonic so much he literally made a better version of him as his own child another time but besides that metal's entire life has been being forced to fill the expectations placed on her to Be someone she can never be. and this is something that causes her a great deal of anguish! she literally has a mental breakdown over it it’s something that’s clearly traumatic and distressing to her bc she can’t do it! defeating and proving herself superior to sonic is something inexorably linked to her, and both cause her nothing but misery and are both very literally dehumanising towards her. she clings to them, bc she has nothing else and it’s the only path that she’s been allowed to even consider, but they don’t make her Happy. she wouldn’t be so fucking angry all the time if she was happy! but it’s what she’s literally been programmed to believe she wants even though chasing that ambition provides her no joy or relief.

and in sonic heroes, the pressure makes her snap. if she Has to fill the mould she’s forced into, then it’s the outside world saying she’s doing it wrong that’s the problem, because she Has to be perfect, right? metal sonic is the golden child out of all of her “siblings”, and while that means she’s not outright going to be destroyed by her father and faces much less verbal abuse and marginally more affection, it also means she’s forced to uphold the perfect image her father sees her as, else she fail and face the same treatment she’s seen her fellow badniks go through. and that image she’s always tried so, so hard to force herself to fit is that of her father's magnum opus, his masterpiece, a superior version of his enemy. and to be superior to sonic she has to Be sonic and so if everyone says she’s Not they have to be the ones in the wrong and not Her she has to be the real true superior sonic and she has to Prove it.

but the thing is, not only is she forcing herself into performing the perfect role set on her- one that’s specifically masculine- she also reinvents Herself. this is something in heroes a lot of people miss, but neo metal sonic isn’t an upgrade From Eggman to her (and also came After her breakdown, she did it Because she felt she couldn’t Beat Sonic And Therefore Be Him if she stayed the same) her neo form is entirely self designed, and it was done all by her own hands. neo metal sonic is probably the closest we can get to how metal actually wants to present herself to the world, that’s Literally just named to be the New Her, and. ma’am this is a goth girl.

like. not only is she Literally Wearing A Skirt, not only does she Literally Have Eyeliner, she's also designed in such a way it looks like she’s wearing clothes, which feels silly to bring up until you remember sonic anthro characters almost universally only wear clothes if they’re female. and neo metal sonic straight up has hatsune miku sleeves a belt with a flowy skirt and leg warmers but with spikes. like it’s already fem as shit (in a emo edgy fourteen year olds oc way) but like i'm pretty sure by mobian standards this is about as feminine as a murderous robot can reasonably get. and while obviously that doesn’t = gender, metal specifically presenting as feminine in her idealised form she designed herself, while having a meltdown because she’s unable to Be A Specific Boy and is having an identity crisis bc she’s miserable trying to chase that is… like, that’s just a closeted trans girl innit. like this is Very Obviously not the intended read but like… it’s an extremely obvious and resonant one?

metal is, canonically, a scared teenager. as in, she herself says that she was scared Before her transformation. she’s mentally like 15 afraid of failure with an abusive and neglectful father figure suffering from psychotic episodes brought about by golden child burnout. like that’s not how it’s phrased in a 2003 game rated 3 and up but that is like, objectively what’s happening in sonic heroes she’s very open about her motives that’s just canon. which doesn’t make her Trying To Burn A Toddler Alive in any way not absolutely horrible like people forget how excited she was to murder a group that included Multiple small children in it brutally she’s fucked up. but her issues with her identity are more tragic than anything. her being dehumanised and treated only as A Superior Sonic broke her. and when she finally is able to express herself in any way, she's able to present as, well, a very edgy teenage goth girl but in robot form! she’s a fucked up and evil person but she’s also unable to be her true self and she’s scared and frightened and alone. and she’s not incapable of good! she Did sacrifice her life for shadow in rivals 2 like she can care for people she’s not inherently evil she’s a Person just one that steals your IP address. but what Makes her evil is sticking to a path and presentation that makes her evil.

tl;dr: canonically transitioning would have saved her (this was not an intentional story decision they just accidentally made her ideal form goth girl hatsune miku before hatsune miku was even an idea)

[animentality]

trans women understand that there is joy in being a woman.

it's such a shame that terfs spend all their time acting like being a woman is a burden and a shame and a suffering. like it's something to be endured.

yeah misogyny and sexism are bad, yeah yeah yeah, but when you act like being a woman is something inflicted upon someone, instead of something that can be joyous and wonderful and special, well.

what, you wanna tell every baby girl everywhere from birth that they've been cursed to 60-80 years of pure suffering?

we already do that.

that's called misogyny and sexism. and it's baffling how terfs will define a woman by pain and misery and bad things that happen to them, and not see how that just contributes to those two aforementioned things.

like girl, come on.

unless you have a plan to turn the entire population male, and we reproduce asexually, which could actually be kinda fun....

maybe stop telling women that they were meant to suffer and suffering is what comprises the majority of womanhood.

it's so fucking weird.

stop defining femaleness by one's collection of misery.

[soup-mother]

what is it with discussions of diy hrt (especially T) that turns trans people into Abigail Shrier? like you get the people who feel the need to loudly tell everyone you need to be super super careful and probably shouldn't go on diy or it'll fuck your body up, and the people who go full irreversible damage and start accusing you of telling vulnerable ppl to change their bodies with hormones.

like i know there's the spectre of transmedicalism ever looming over us but it's mindboggling just how hostile some trans ppl are about the idea of diy it's creepy. OR the incredibly unhelpful 3 page lecture on how "actually op I'm disabled so this doesn't apply to me" as if that's relevant? like cool? why do you need to tell everyone that?

it feels like everyone just gets mad at diy to justify their own misery and confirm to themselves they're "never going to transition" because it's too scary and complicated and involves needles. like i swear the people who insist it's impossible aren't even in situations that stop them, they just want to be mad at everything. idk I'm just annoyed at people on reddit who act like you're trying to pressure them into doing illegal drugs or something for just sharing information.

[drowsycreation]

They’re done!! This took sooo long but I’m quite happy with most of them (Heket will always be subject to change because I can’t consistently draw her. Toads are so goofy) Now I get to rant about them all 👹 For starters, in our AUs, Vaedra and/or Shamura all found the other bishops as infant gods and raised them. (I’ll make something in the near future on how our gods age). Keep this in mind :] I’ll try to break this up so it’s not jambled nonsense.

Leshy:

He’s the youngest of his siblings and was a gift to Vaedra from Shamura, Shamura found him “acting strange” and believed he wouldn’t survive on his own (which was correct).

Leshy is somewhat of a high functioning autistic.

A hybrid between a Centipede and a Dagger moth, which ended up the reason he never turned into a moth/butterfly. While sharing characteristics of both in the beginning, through godhood the result was . . . His own thing.

He often acts oblivious to things, especially when it comes to what is wrong with the family.

His connection with Vaedra is deeper than his other siblings, given Vaedra is his favorite person (and essentially his “mother”)

Mortality

Rather then the Yellow Cat scenario (I’m sorry Yellow Cat x Leshy fans) he ends up with a Gecko named Tabee.

He does a majority of the farm work due to his deep connections with plants.

He showed up violent and scared. One of the least problematic injury wise.

Heket

She was caught in a dried up stream after a storm and found as a tadpole. She ended up the most independent of the group, often hanging out with Narinder (they were partners in crime)

Species is an American Red Toad.

Definitely a Lesbian.

Almost always high. 😫

Her injuries ended up resulting in her being almost fully mute.

Mortality

She’s usually a chef, but if requested will help in the lumber yards since she’s strong as hell.

Ended up dating a small deaf frog named Lilo.

Showed up dying and choking on her own blood. She ended up bed bound for a long time.

Narinder

Narinder was found in a rotting mortal cult as an infant, his powers came in the soonest as he basically radiated with death. This meant Shamura had to raise him alone (Vaedra was once a mortal turned disciple), therefore had the closest bond with him.

His species is a Jaguar, since I didn’t like that he was a basic house cat in the games, and he is the biggest of the bishops.

While his actions were out of greed and misery (He was often left out in things, and lacked any sort of real following) he later regrets his actions. He’d never admit it though.

Mortality

He became a disciple for the lamb after growing quite close to them, so much so he was one of the first of his siblings to have children of his own.

He stays away from his siblings, for the most part.

He showed up to the cult dying, since he had injuries from his imprisonment. . And the lambs beating.

Kallamar

Now this one I can go on and on about. Kallamar was found beached after getting caught in a bad current too close to the surface. They were in rough shape, so Vaedra nursed him back to health.

Kallamar is trans masc. He was born a female, and while this man basically acts like a drag queen, he felt the most comfortable transitioning.

Species is just a squid. I never got into what kind of squid, I always had Giant Squids in mind, but it was never really a set thing.

He actually does have a beak! Since his mouth was so weird, I figured he’d have room for a double mouth situation, almost like eels.

After the incident with Narinder, Kallamar was seen more as selfish by his siblings, and overall neglected and forgotten. He was the least harmed physically, but the most harmed mentally. It resulted in many scars, and going into near permanent hiding.

Mortality

Works in the refinery and helps at the medic den, but he’d rather not work at all.

Marries two sharks, Jaha and Samoa. They helped build his self esteem back after it was at its lowest.

Like the game he showed up to the cult sickly. But he also had balance issues, headaches, future swimmers ear issues, and his body got updated to the newest model 💀💀

Shamura

Shamura was raised by the “Angels” (mystic sellers) to be a warrior, and that he was. However it was cut short when he met Vaedra. (More on this in the future, in fact Melonnnistic is doing comics on it 😉)

A Purple Pinktoe Tarantula. Shamura was born female but chose They/Them & He/Him pronouns.

Sugar cookie addict. :| You’ll always find a cookie jar somewhere in his living space.

He knew of their downfall, for a long time. It was his guilt for a while, knowing so much and unable to share it without causing mass panic. When Narinders incident did finally happen, they fell into a depressed spiral. What they became was a selfish hollow of their sweet, nervous, and thoughtful self.

Shamura’s plan was always that Narinder would get a lamb vessel, and would put them all to “rest”. It always was. They knew killing the lambs would speed up the process, and only ever put a fight for their siblings cause, not their own.

Mortality

Their injuries became significantly worse, leaving them bound to a single room in the medic for a long time. When they weren’t stuck in bed, they were depressive, aggressive, or confused. Nothing was left of them for a long time, not until the lamb healed them.

Sweet and old, usually with a cane.

An elder, so he doesn’t usually work. But he will make clothes on occasion.

Lost his centaur body :[ much like Kallamar. It’s impractical for followers.

OKAY OKAY I’M DONE I don’t want to rant too much, cause there’s so so much for the #sanctioncotlau. It also changes pretty drastically for our modern au, that we’ll get into another day. I want to leave a lot of information out for room for comics, doodles, and questions. Always, me and my gf @melonnnistic share our aus, so feel free to check them out! They’re making comics for Vaedra and Shamura currently, that’ll HOPEFULLY see the light of day. Feel free to ask any questions! I know all the info is kinda bland. 😫😫

[after-witch]

Surrounded by Hunger [Yandere Mahito x Reader]

Title: Surrounded by Hunger [Yandere Mahito x Reader]

Synopsis: You're an artist, with no muse. Until Mahito shows up on your back porch.

Word count: 3500ish

notes: yandere, mild body horror, reader is a trans male

“I want you to paint me,” Mahito says, with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. No smile, no leer today. Just a somber frown as he appears from nowhere--as he often does--and sits himself in front of you. 

The cool summer evening air would smell as clean as the breeze, but for the cigarette lazily perched in the ashtray on the edge of the porch. 

Smoking.  Your one vice. Or is it your eighth? You don’t keep much track of your vices, these days. If you did, you might actually try to quit them. But smoking is one of two current addictions that you can’t fathom letting go of right now.

The other one is sitting next to you.

"Like one of my French girls?” you murmur, lips quirking up. 

Mahito tilts his head towards you, still frowning. You wonder, idly, if he has an actual brain inside his skull. Do curses have brains? You’re not sure about the technicalities of how they function, but it’s not something you’d really like to ask Mahito, either.

But it’s like you can see his brain working from the minute movements of his body language. The body is one thing you’re usually good at reading, and you ought to be, considering your career. No one wanted paintings from someone who didn’t understand the basics of body movement.

“Ah,” he says, finally, with a small smile. “Titanic. Directed by James Cameron. 1997.” His smile gets a little perkier. On anyone else, that smile might look deranged. But it suits Mahito, you think.

“I liked the sinking part the best. The way they…” He flicks his fingers in the air, and makes an eerily accurate sound reminiscent of bodies banging against metal parts. “And the frozen baby!” He closes his eyes almost all the way, leaving just enough room for you to see his gaze slide over to you. “Humans do love representing their own misery, don’t they?”

Something squeezes in your chest. It might have been a barb about you and your work; and it might not have been. One of the trickiest things about Mahito was that you could never be sure when he was trying to hurt you, and when he wasn’t. 

The worst part was, you knew that it didn’t matter either way. It wasn’t like you’d ever ask him to leave. He knew that, too. Maybe that was the actual worst part.

He doesn’t elaborate on his statement. Instead, he leans his head back, looking at the darkening sky; the deep blue of the evening oozing away to make room for the blacker part of the night. His profile like this is fascinating--the way his hair seems to almost shimmer in the fading light, falling back against the side of his neck. 

“Well?” He asks.

You couldn’t say no. You were already imagining ways to capture him, like this. In profile, staring up at the sky with eyes that were anything but human. With a brain that was perhaps not a real brain. With a body he could change at will. 

Despite all that, here he is, sitting on your porch, breathing in your cigarette smoke and staring up at the ordinary evening sky.

What does he see that you don’t? That no human does? Why does he even come around you, when he could be off trying to--your brain fumbles for snatches of what he’s told you--battling sorcerers? 

Maybe you can capture something of the answer in your painting. 

“Okay,” you say, lightly, even though the answer is anything but. “But we have to go inside for the sketch. There’s not enough light out here this late.”

Mahito smiles. In profile, you see only the half of it, the edge of his lips curling, a glimpse of his teeth. 

You’ll be up all night sketching, trying to capture this expression. 

--

Your first finished painting of Mahito isn’t all that great. The evening skyline was done from memory because the next few days had been cloudy and they stole the sky’s normal colors away. And no amount of mixing could quite give you the right shade for his hair; you put something new on order, a type of shimmer pigment. That might help for future pieces.

The expression, though. There was something in that. Something not quite human that you managed to capture, although if you had to do it over, you’d reconsider taking your drawing from sketch to painting. The sketch had something raw to it, like Mahito might just turn his head and wink at you. 

As an artist, you knew that such a subject was rare. It was not always easy to find inspiration that kept you working almost relentlessly, eager and passionate rather than staring at an empty canvas and willing the world to send something to you.

Mahito was a gift, wasn’t he? To an artist. To someone like you, who needed something to make your work stand out. And it does, here. Mahito looks unusual--striking, beautiful, but with something unpleasant itching to get out from underneath his skin. 

But still. It’s flawed. 

And that’s not the standard artist humble-brag designed to avoid a reputation of pompous pride. Your paintings, as a whole, just aren’t good enough. 

It’s why the galleries rejected you. Why what few connections you had with other painters tended to fade away, becoming more and more untethered as they were invited to galas, as they held openings, as their works went to auction, and you…

You sat on your porch smoking and waiting, heart pacing, for a curse to show up on your door.

--

Mahito stands in front of the revealed piece, quietly observing it. His fingers reach out and skim the canvas, bumping along a few rough areas of paint. His mouth parts a few times, then closes. 

You expect him to be blunt with some kind of critique. He’s never been shy with honesty, no matter how hurtful. It was something you hated and loved all with one confusing, awful sameness.

Instead, his gaze flits over every square of the canvas enough times that sweat begins to bead down the back of your neck. Does he hate it? Is he about to tell you that you’d be better off doing something else, something more ordinary, something more mundane? 

No.

What he does is turn his head towards you, slowly, something that is not quite a smile on his face. An expression that makes you think of the back porch, sunsets and cigarette smoke. 

“Now do it again.”

--

You should hate this, really. Someone who sticks around and more or less demands that they be your muse. Most artists purge these types of people from their lives, unwanted flypaper hangers-on who pout and demand to be painted. 

But Mahito is your muse, and you don’t hate it, and you don’t think he’s clingy or desperate like others who have found themselves on your back porch before. 

He’s your muse simply because he exists. You could not fathom knowing Mahito and not committing him to the canvas. The only shock is that it was his idea, not yours; and maybe, deep down, you were too afraid to ever ask him. In case he said no.

So you draw him, and paint him. He drapes himself over your couch wearing nothing, spreads himself on your bed with winter clothes in the summer heat; perches on the end of the kitchen stool and watches gnats circle a bowl of bananas. 

The ideas are his, mostly. 

And the pieces are interesting. “Intriguing,” your regular art gallery said, when you submitted the one of Mahito sprawled out in a fuzzy scarf and hat and puffy winter coat while sweat clung to his forehead from the summer afternoon sun.

Interesting, intriguing, a striking model… and yet. They’re still not enough--not enough to get paid. Not enough to get noticed. 

Not enough to get you out of bed some days, when all you want to do is smoke lying down and hope the smoke alarm in your bedroom still has low batteries. 

This is how Mahito finds you this morning. Half-resting on sore elbows while smoke wafts up to your  ceiling, imperceptibly adding to the layers of brown and yellow build up. 

“Hey.”

He pokes your nose. You blink, slowly turn your gaze towards him. Then close your eyes and let out another puff of smoke.

“You’re being mopey,” he says, flatly. Not teasing or whining, certainly not with sympathy. Just a matter-of-fact. 

The options weigh heavy on your shoulders. It’s not like you two don’t talk about serious things. But God, with Mahito, the roles are reversed between artist and muse. You’re the clingy one, the one desperate to keep him around; afraid that the wrong word or gesture might make him blip out of your life as quickly as he came into it.

Who were you, if you didn’t have Mahito? Just another failing artist who could barely afford their cigarette addiction. 

But you trust him. Because he’s here. Because he hasn’t left yet. Because when you’re drawing him and you ask him to lift his arm up, he somehow knows the exact angle you mean, every time. So you lick your lips and look up at him with tired, reddened eyes.

“They’re not enough.” A pause. “The paintings, I mean. No one will buy them.” You drop the rest of your cigarette in the ashtray on your night stand. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

You do know, though. Your paintings aren’t interesting enough anymore. What little buzz you’d generated in your first break onto the scene from your fantastical horror work had long since faded, as had your inspiration for such pieces. 

It wasn’t enough to play with color and light, to perfectly capture the sun through an opaque curtain playing on Mahito’s hair while black flies buzzed onto overripe fruit. Of course not. People wanted more. You just weren’t more, now. If you were ever that. 

Mahito crawls onto your bed, languid; it’s not the first time he’s been so close, so intimate, but it gives you goosebumps nonetheless. He curls himself behind your back and runs a finger down your arm. 

“They like your older work,” he muses. You’ve ranted about this, and he apparently listened, which makes you feel at least a little least sour. “So why don’t you paint like that again?”

So much for feeling a little less sour. You curl inwards, eyes fixated on the dimming red glow of your cigarette in its tray. 

Mahito pokes your shoulder. Impatience. You can feel it building in him, in the way his arm muscles tense, just a little. When he gets bored, he sometimes leaves. 

You don’t want him to leave, so you force the words out, although you’d rather keep them private. Your mouth feels sticky when you talk, but you press on. 

“My old stuff was before…” You know he knows, but you’ve never pinned down a single way to explain it to him. “Before I figured myself out. Before a lot of things, I guess.” Mahito’s hand wraps itself around your stomach, and you reach out to intertwine your fingers. To keep him with you, if such a thing were possible.

“I haven’t had the same type of inspiration in a long time,” you admit. “So I don’t know how to just…” Flashes of your old canvases come to mind. Demons and ghosts and landscapes of terrible beauty. “Get back into that head space.”

There is a stretch of silence that begins to worry you. Maybe you are too boring, maybe you’re whining, maybe whatever this is has run its course and he’ll leave and you’ll have nothing to your name but this empty apartment and your empty life.

But then Mahito grips your shoulder and pushes you firmly, swiftly, onto your back. There’s a dull ache where he touches you and you stare up into his eyes, wide and bright even in the darkness. He’s grinning. He’s grinning, and it’s beautiful and ugly--

And on his side, arms sprout out; some with mouths sporting their own grins. Behind him, arms upon arms,  hands upon hands. A grotesque vision come to life in your dim apartment bedroom. You can see it now, on canvas. A creature with greedy hands outstretched to the world, taking what it wants, when it wants. 

You can see Mahito, posting, while you furiously work at the easel. You know you’ll work until your hands cramp, desperate enough to capture every microexpression in pencil before it fades. 

Mahito, the muse, painted again and again. Until your hands cramp, until your eyes are red and burning. 

“Does this inspire you?” he says, a bright giddiness in his tone fading into something lower and warmer as he leans down to capture your lips.

You’re not certain which of you tastes the most of ashes.

--

The paintings are perfectly grotesque. Inspirational. Disturbing.

“And yet,” the director continues, tapping his pen against his chin, “so life-like. You can hardly tell where the real model ends and your imagination begins.” 

Because, of course, humans cannot sprout extra limbs from their sides. Humans cannot stretch their tongues to wrap around their body like a rope. Humans cannot pull open the flesh of their stomachs to reveal what’s inside.

Not without dying, anyway. 

You’d almost asked Mahito if that was what curses looked like on the inside--if they had organs, like stomachs and lungs--but thought better of it. Knowing would be worse than pretending. 

When you pretend, you can ignore the growing sickness in your stomach as the paintings become worse--and better. As Mahito pushes you farther and farther, and you’re not sure if you want to turn back. 

When you pretend, life with Mahito doesn’t seem very fucked up at all. 

“Keep it up,” the director tells you, thumbing through the wad of ghastly cash he hands over for your latest piece. It’s enough to pay off your rent and bills and cover cigarettes and booze and some new books for Mahito, though you’re sure he just steals them when he’s not with you. 

And you do--keep it up.

Because Mahito wants to, and because despite all the disturbing dreams you begin to have after sessions of drawing and painting, your new works really are better. More visceral and alive; galleries want them. 

They want you.

You feel seen, finally, for who you are and what your hands can do--

How could you turn that away?

--

“I don’t know,” you say, slowly, watching the thing Mahito brought with him writhe on the table. 

It was soft and gelatinous, like a blob of moving goo. At first, that’s what you thought it was: something he scooped out of a container at a toy store that sold novelty slimes. 

But this wasn’t some gob of bright orange or neon blue with a telltale sticky sheen that told parents that yes, mom and dad, this was going to wind up sticking to the carpet by the end of the day.

This was light beige, with two big black spots that looked a bit like eyes. It was larger than you think a toy slime would have been and it--well it moved. Really moved. Not just from a slight breeze drifting in through the window or due to its own gelatinous nature.

It was--whatever it was--alive. 

It had eyes, and perhaps that bit of discolored beige was hair, and that was it. Two eyes, slick, shiny skin, and no mouth at all. 

“It’s a statement piece,” Mahito says simply, even happily, as he adjusts the blob to his liking on the table. He tries out a series of poses that you direct with hesitation--looking down at it with his chin resting in his elbow, holding it in his arms like some sort of stuffed bear, endless, restless poses, all punctuated by the strange writhing of the thing.

The two of you finally settle for Mahito looking one way, and the blob--were those its eyes?--facing another. A contrast between colors and shapes and Mahito’s lithe form and the writhing blob. But while there is a dim satisfaction in putting Mahito onto the canvas, a sense of self-worth and pride that grows with every stroke, you put off working on the blob until the last possible minute. Your body seems to know why, even if your mind doesn’t. 

At the end of the night, you start to ask a question that’s been on your mind the entire evening--

“Mahito?” 

But when he turns, a small smile on his face, blob in hand, the words die in your throat.

You say nothing as he leaves. You work a little more on the painting, avoiding half the canvas, not wanting to think about what it was that Mahito brought and why he brought it.

That night, you dream about a garden of squirming, writhing blobs.

--

Today, Mahito has no mouth. 

And today, you’ve decided, that this will be your last Mahito piece. No more. Not a single one. The singular lack of a mouth is not even as horrific as some of the other ways Mahito has posed for you, but somehow, it’s the one that terrifies you the most. 

Mahito has no mouth, and you can’t even ask him why.

Mahito has no mouth--

Mahito has no mouth, and he wants you to paint him.

He tells you this, in gestures. Maybe if he was over the top about it--if he was wildly waving his hands, if he made a game of it--then it wouldn’t make you feel so wrong. But he’s slow, methodical. Serious.

It makes your stomach clench on nothing but whisky and overcooked eggs. 

But you let him bring out one of your mirrors and set it up in front of a stool so you can paint him, looking at himself in the glass. There’s nothing else you can do but this, you realize; that’s what your life has come to. You are mingling with a curse and he could kill you in a moment if he wanted to--but right now, he wants you to draw him and paint him and put something monumentally distressing on the canvas. And you want to do these things--because he wants you to? Because you know the gallery owner is going to take one look at this last piece and ask you to open your own show? Love or ego or something awful and in-between?

You sketch quickly. It’s the final layers of painting that will take days, you think, if you want this to turn out right. Right now you’re worried about two things: capturing the tones while the light is just right, and how Mahito will react when you tell him you’re done after this.

It’s not like you can tell him now. He can’t even talk. 

What is it like, without a mouth? You bring cigarettes to your lips and wonder if he feels jealous of it. Would he get mad, if you told him you needed a drink? A snack? Eating and drinking--curses can do these things, and you’ve seen Mahito do them, but you don’t know how much of it is a want or a need. It’s hard enough to tell the difference with a human. 

If you had no mouth, what would you be? Your thoughts flit, briefly and then away again, to the blob. To its eyes. To the way it couldn’t stop moving and Mahito held it like a toy. 

You don’t want to think about that. 

It would feel wrong to talk while you work on this piece, you decide. Better to save it for when it’s finished. A few days, at most, with Mahito holed up in your bedroom--and no mouth at all. 

In these few days, you want to kiss him more than ever. Want to capture the memory of his lips, because surely, he’ll want to leave if you’re done painting him. Done being entertaining. 

The thought of kissing the awful, empty space where his mouth should be keeps you from even thinking about it.

--

It’s your masterpiece. You know this from the moment the last stroke is complete. You’ll never top this work, and some prideful part of you demands that you try, anyway. 

Mahito still has no mouth. Even as you pull the drape off the canvas, as he gets close to inspect it. 

“Mahito,” you say, suddenly. He doesn’t look at you. That’s better, you think. Makes it easier to stomach what will come next; the inevitable moment where Mahito drops you like an old toy. Usually it’s the other way around, an artist getting bored of its muse and flinging them aside. 

But you’re not bored of Mahito. You’re afraid of him. You want him here--but you don’t. It’s a big jumbled mess and maybe it would have been easier if he never showed up on your back porch, if you never saw him at all, if he hadn’t opened up some wound inside you that only he can stitch up. 

“Mahito,” you repeat. “I don’t think I can paint you anymore.” Stupid, weasel words. You cringe. “I mean. I don’t want to paint you anymore--after this one.”

Mahito tilts his head, and finally turns his eyes towards you--but still, there’s no mouth, no mouth, no mouth.

After a moment, you continue, mouth dry and sticking. “Did you hear me, I said I--”

Mahito’s hand slaps against your own, hushing you.

“Have you been wondering what it feels like?” It takes a few blearly, confusing moments for you to realize that Mahito is talking not with lips on his face, but on the hand that’s pressed over yours. “To be unable to speak?”

The awful thought hits you. Is your mouth even still there, under Mahito’s hand? 

Mahito leans in, and pulls his hand away. Slowly, like he’s revealing a prize .

“I want to paint you now,” he murmurs. He might even be cooing, eyes alight at what he sees as he lifts his hand. 

You want to answer him--you want to scream.

But you can’t say a word. 

[lesbianchemicalplant]

LGBT christians have the biggest fucking chips on their shoulders toward other LGBT people. they blame us for their low status in the miserable churches and communities that they choose to keep clinging to. they can't take out their frustrations on their coreligionists who treat them like dogs, so they take it out on LGBT people who don't elect to join them in that misery, or have already taken great pains to escape it, or are currently trapped but don't want to be

christian trans women mostly direct this toward other trans women. they can't stand that we won't suffer through their religious choices with them

this includes "socialist" and even Marxist-Leninist christian trans women I've unfortunately encountered—who were actually even worse if anything, because they would also hawk their shitty little liberation theology at us