#trans women would get extra btw

[ambrosiadreamer]

every transgender person ever should be given lots of free money just bc they're transgender

[sexhaver]

Howdy friend! I feel like that meme with doctor eggman that just walked in on rouge and shadow having a spirited discussion on something I have no pretext about. But it sounds important and I do wanna educate myself if there's a lacking somewhere, genuinely. From what I understood from scrolling down to a screenshot poll and other screens, it's trying to figure out if people are automatically taking frat boys (the classic stereotype kind, btw, genuinely players) in good faith by queer-ifying them because they have been fortunately unfortunate enough to not have the life experience of being used by this type of person that will take their good faith and hurt them?

Because I do think that there *could* be a cishet aro man out there, if it's defined very explicitly as: a man (born with a penis and identifies as he/him) and likes women (including trans women) and is aromantic. Face value wise, that is.

Because the question wasn't if the hypothetical man was superstraight (and don't count trans people at all) or just pussy-seeking (i.e. looking to have sex with ciswomen and trans men who haven't had bottom surgery, is explicitly Not transphobic). Or if this hypothetical man wasn't also, say, a "friend" met at a party/tinder/hookup/through mutuals/etc that is really just an acquaintance with little of substance genuinely known...or if this man was actually what one would consider a genuine friend. Or if this hypothetical man was poly (and/or if you were poly honestly, this feels like this is being framed in a mono mindset, which is okay! But poly adds extra details to account for). Also if he was out as aro.

The point is, I am aware of cheating. I am aware of using terms to get around cheating. Or trying to justify it. But aromantizim by itself isn't cheating. Poly by itself isn't cheating. FwB by itself, or hooking up by itself, or sex work by itself, isn't cheating- if there is informed consent on both sides with all affected parties, which includes all other partners. Wanting to sleep around isn't a crime, regardless of who or where or what gender.

I know there's plenty of men that aren't allies, that are homophobic or transphobic or sexist, but that wasn't the question. You aren't making that distinction or posing a scenario, just a screenshot without any added distinction other that the consent (after it was asked for by voters). It's taking the assumption that practicing genuine safe sex ( not that bullshit abstinence thing schools and "god fearing Christians" teach), is limited to only cishetero men... And not something to practice with everyone.

It shouldn't matter my gender or background or beliefs or sexuality, since these are simply opinions and all opinions come with grains of salt, but I know if I don't add context of me being the one giving these opinions, I'll be discredited.

I'm a cis-women (so very petrifiyingly aware of that Fear/wariness of being approached at night by strangers, or followed. I don't like ANYONE strange coming up to me, regardless of gender, a woman can stab me as much as a man can rape me, but I feel like I know the mindset extreme examples being presented here so there were go).

I'm demi-omnisexualromantic. Everyone's free game once I get to know them on a genuine emotional level. We HAVE to be besties (or we have to never ever see each other again if I'm gonna sleep with you and you're not a friend, oh gOD WHAT IF I FART OR THEY'RE A SERIAL KILLER OH GOD).

I'm poly. The first thing is with my girlfriend and our paramour, since we are the "oringal polycule" is had a sit down discussion about what we agreed upon what being in a relationship is like (we happen to be romantically and sexually attracted to each other btw). It was Poly from the start and Open from the start. We are all okay and open to each other going out to bdsm clubs or kink parties or sleeping around, or if asking out cute people..... BUT we have to ask permission/inform the other partners in our polycule. There's nothing to hide and they consent. They can say no, and that's okay!! Because then!! We can have an open and honest discussion as to why (lonely, conflicting plans, insecurity, safety worries, etc). Also also, anyone new that's meant to become a fwb or a pet needs to know about and meet our polycule, and it's a one-no situation here. If *anyone* is uncomfortable, nothing goes forward.

Sex is nice, sex is great if you're a freak like me and into that sorta thing; and sexual safety awareness and stranger danger awareness and informed consent awareness is MAJORLY IMPORTANT AND CRITICAL AND EVERYONE SHOULD BE TAUGHT THIS IN SCHOOL OH GOD but in my humble opinion the execution has spiraled into something messy with rampant misunderstanding and accidental invalidation of aro-spec men, poly people, and our allies,,, as well as anyone trying to be open-minded even if they dont understand.

Telling people that they're naive and ignorant isn't going to teach them a lesson you appear to feel strongly that they need to learn, it only shames and makes them not likely to actually follow the good advice (?) that's being presented in a not-clear format.

And it also earns you a buncha people getting angry because they don't understand the question actually being asked because the context wasn't clarified or what the actual answer is in a no patronizing manner/delivery,, and I'm sure you're feeling very much harassed and exhausted for answers that have little to nothing to do with your actual question, and I'm really sorry for that because I've been there and I hate this for you because it's exhausting and dispiriting to find people who never got taught how to keep themselves safe... But I'm also happy that they haven't had to learn it the hard way *yet* and that I can still help, or even that the people I was so stressed over not having the lesson... Actually DO know the answer but just misunderstood the question or that I just asked it confusingly!!

Anyway, sorry for the extremely long ask, double sorry if I misunderstood anything you were trying to say or explained anything that you already know. But if you could clarify in your own words and time, I would be very grateful! If not, that's still okay and I hope you take care of yourself out there, friend! Also, I'm on anon less because I'm ashamed of my opinion, and more because I don't want anyone else randomly messaging me back because they don't like me for my views online and I happen to really like this account dghjfedhjfdsjk

oh my god i thought there was a character limit on anons. what am i even being asked here? i literally just woke up and opened my inbox and made this face

[weirdmageddon]

hey have any trans men / transmascs tried clascoterone (winlevi) for their acne?

they just came out with this new topical medication and i think it’s a MASSIVE w for trans guys. it was recently approved by the FDA in august 2020 and just became available last year. it’s different from other anti-acne medication in that it specifically targets hormone receptors. hormonal acne does not always respond to antibiotics, which many trans men have probably experienced firsthand.

(https://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/skincare/what-is-winlevi)

androgens, specifically DHT (which is derived from testosterone), cause sebaceous glands to produce a shitton of sebum and oil which causes hormonal acne. transgender men on hrt are getting big doses of T to masculinze themselves but at the cost of that extra testosterone in their system being converted to DHT, they get hormonal acne breakouts and may be self-conscious about it.

as i said, hormonal acne doesn’t always respond to antibiotics because the cause is inherently hormonal (spike in sebaceous gland activity). treatments for hormonal acne are birth control pill or spironolactone, the latter of which is counterproductive to the masculinizing aspect of transmascs taking testosterone. (in fact spironolactone is actually often used as part of trans women’s feminizing hormone therapy). but note that both are systemic, they work on the entire body at once.

here’s how clascoterone works:

(https://nextstepsinderm.com/derm-topics/clascoterone-cream-therapeutic-cheat-sheet/)

“Clascoterone 1% cream or cortexolone 17a-propionate is an androgen inhibitor that works by competing with dihydrotestosterone (DHT) for binding to androgen receptors in sebocytes. Decreased gene transcription results in reduced sebum production as well as proinflammatory cytokine production. Androgen receptors are targeted at the site of application therefore systemic activity is limited.”

that last sentence is HUGE because that means it’s safe for trans men and won’t affect the masculinizing effects of their body-wide testosterone treatment. it’s topical, it does not go into the bloodstream, it is entirely local and targets the site of application. it just blocks the side effects of DHT in individual sebum cells.

this idea came to me because i was prescribed this by my dermatologist for my own hormonal acne (which it did help clear up on me btw) like a month ago and today i saw my transmasc friend self-conscious about his acne and not wanting to share pics of himself because of it and i was like.. i just had a brain blast. i swear this isn’t me shilling a medication or anything i just get excited about cool technology because many people probably don’t know it exists and it could be really helpful and beneficial for trans mens’ self-confidence with the acne that taking T can cause. if you’re on testosterone and have hormonal acne you should talk to your dermatologist about winlevi :]

oh and the best part is i figured this based on my knowledge of biology (i’ve taken an endocrinology class as well too) and doctors confirmed my speculation that it would be effective for transmascs so YAY YIPPIE:

“This new therapy is especially important for male patients who are undergoing gender-affirming care. The field of dermatology is increasingly being recognized for its critical role in providing nondiscriminatory, gender-affirming care for transgender patients. Nearly 9 out of 10 female-to-male transgender patients (transgender men) will develop acne within 4 to 6 months of testosterone administration. Hormonal acne therapy with spironolactone is not appropriate for transgender men who are on gender-affirming hormonal therapy because it could potentially negate the desired masculinizing effects of testosterone therapy. “Topical clascoterone does not enter into the systemic circulation and is therefore safe for use in men as well. It is also an option for male transgender patients for whom systemic antiandrogens are counterproductive,” Baldwin noted.

(https://www.dermatologytimes.com/view/meeting-the-challenges-of-acne-in-adults)

EDIT: i forgot to add that since winlevi is so new it’s incredibly expensive and insurance may not cover it. BUT there are local specialty/compounding pharmacies that your dermatologist may put it through. my dermatologist put it through westside pharmacy in florida and it took a normally $500 tube down to only $50. in my case i didn’t need to ask about the specialty pharmacy, they just included it when they prescribed it to me in the sample package. the free samples they gave me actually cleared up my hormonal acne before even needing to open up the real prescription i got. those sample tubes are small but i’m still not done with them because the medication is so effective. so imo you’re getting a REALLY good amount that can last a long time for $50 with the full prescription.

[zukotheartist]

I finished Succession and Shiv's role was so interesting to me because of course, on one side it's so sad to see how she never stood a fucking chance because she's a woman and you have to change the system, not fight for a seat at the table (where, if you do get it, you'll go on to opress other women and minorities), so she just ends up staying with Tom, supporting him and having his kid because she'll have more power that way than if she lets Kendall be CEO.

(Maybe it's just extra sad to me because i'm sapphic and tho i do like men, id prefer marrying a woman exactly for the social aspect of it - i wont be expected to give birth, be a stay at home wife/mom, etc while Shiv's literally become like her mother and Marcia and all the other women her father's messed with).

BUT on the other hand...

it's such a nice fuck you to her because time and time again, she's chosen the opressor's side. She's a white "feminist" through and through. She only cared about important issues either on a surface level to appear morally good and superior to her family (Roman being the only honest one of the siblings, calling out how they're all terrible people but the others just try to hide it because they like being seen as a good person more than they like actually being a good person) or when they got so concerning that they could have even affected Her (abortion, Roman points out that she won't have a problem since she's rich and he's right to some extent but if abortion is criminalised, you're gonna have to be careful about getting it even if you have the money for an illegal one because rich people are always being paparazzied and "a source close to the family has shared this" and that and Shiv was most likely already pregnant when she was making the abortion argument when deciding who to back as President of the United States). She picked herself, her own interests and the opressive messed up system over and over again, thinking that with her power and privilege she'd be the exception if she fought hard enough, only to finally fucking realise that she was never going to win because the system that she constantly supported never cared about supporting her or people like her.

The only difference between her and Kendall (who also loved to play the feminist card when it was favourable but it was only for show, to get approval and treated his female workers like shit, mansplaining to his lawyer Lisa and to his assistant Jess, who are also both specifically black and would be even more affected by Mecken as President) is that Kendall's a guy so he can't play the woman card and instead has to go for the White Knight Saviour complex card. Shiv, being a woman, can act exactly like Kendall but then turn around and play the "oh but you're only angry with me because I'm a woman" card (btw, I DO think they were all sexist to her and that's not justifiable and she IS allowed to call out the sexism that she deals with personally, but she doesn't get to use the feminist/sexism card overall and then just ditch it when it's convenient).

Btw this same argument goes for their queerphobia, they were completely alright with it at moments and then at others, mainly when used against them, (like Kendall saying Lukas was being homophobic by calling Kendall's numbers gay) they would call it out "hey dad, that's homophobic/transphobic". So, which is it? Are the queer-trans jokes funny and alright or are they messed up?

These are ALL terrible characters and i love and hate them so much and the writers of this show are fucking amazing, holy shit, what a ride!

[firespirited]

It'd been a while since I'd done a r-dblr purge (mark red and block if they are actively cruel to trans people within the first page of their blog. You'd think feminist issues would be the bulk of posting, it's r-dical feminism after all and all the issues are ongoing. BTW I don't block people for hating men, they have a right to vent and it takes time to understand the systems at play that do allow for decent men even if you're not ready to to partner with any cishet ones) I probably marked and blocked 150 today, many 18-24 years old, lots of them lonely.

Doing the scan of a blog to make sure I'm not marking someone who didn't get the dogwhistles in a bigoted post means you see a lot of the content they're angry about.

I too hate porn unless it's safe sane and enthusiastically consensual.

That means performers who know exactly what they are getting into, who have alternatives if they want a different job and can set boundaries without being pushed or blacklisted for it. The majority of porn doesn't fit but the advent of amateur, onlyfans and ethical studios gives people options to view porn where no-one is hurt.

I also believe that all viewers need to know that pron is sex stunts and some things will not work for them, cause chafing or stds, cause injury if perfomed for real. That should be part of the viewing, a little PSA 'don't try this at home we're actors, we rehearsed the hair pulling so no-one's scalp got torn and switched condoms and edited it out'. Honestly I find most of the porno tropes misogynistic, macho and racist even though we've mostly left gonzo behind.

Straight Male performers aren't allowed to be shown as into their partner... when behind the scenes they get quite tender, briefly besotted with their partner when it's not an ego driven star.

I also have hard boundaries about what kind of porn a partner would watch. I pay extra for no slavery in my chocolate and expect a partner diligent enough to get their porn from people not getting boundaries violated or work injuries.

But there's no nuance to rdfm anti porn stances. They're going off trafficking victims and Linda Lovelace's speeches when sex work like marriage is a whole spectrum from a heinous crime to chosen job. And we have the ability to hear from all of these women. What they really want from their industry, from activists, from society at large. The in person full contact sex workers I've known were doing it so they could be present during the day for their children or get a higher education without their study time consumed by a low wage job. Another was seeking validation and briefly being loved, her rl relationships kept imploding because it was never enough or she'd push them to see if they'd love her anyway. That wasn't exactly sane. But you can't force anyone into getting meds and therapy if they're not ready.

There were articles about how marriage hurts women who must leave their family and join the husbands and instead of talking about the part of the research that showed that women who got men to move in with them were able to negotiate better work and pay equality, it was just desist and kill all men.

Funnily enough it's my "not really feminist", "don't like the term" , mum who originally sent me the study with a quote from Moses in genesis explaining Gd's guidelines "Therefore a man must leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife". Funny how many abramic religious marriages ignore that you can't be momma's boy and a husband and definitely not move your wife in with your folks.

Anyway that's this month's observations, those who actually did have 2nd wave posts on top of hating on transness are very young and are often starting out with the non black non queer reading from 30 years ago after a superficial lib fem alignment with zero reading. Often in college or just out of college having been 'peaked' against what they perceive to be mainstream feminism after seeing crime and inequality statistics. If you're interested in reducing terfs, a good place to start is outreach and local online bookclub where you can get the word of intersectionality and sisterhood out before the gcs groom them.

There is an initial curiosity, there is still that spark but it is being answered with unnuanced conclusions with simple explanations and "solutions" that shut down futher investigation.

There were also a couple of detrans afabs who will probably choose to be gnc or non binary or retransition when they're more comfortable with how they can be men. This is a systematic problem with trans medicalism that wants to stick people into binary boxes and insist they perform masc men and femme women. That's not a patient based approach and it's part of the conservative restrictions on the way gender care is allowed to exist at the fringes of healthcare.

[moe-broey]

Also thank you various tumblr users for un-synonymizing femme = Girl and masc = Man. Finally drilling that into my skull and I think I'm so fuckinh cool for being a femme transguy and actually feeling comfortable SAYING femme transguy now. Cause like. Yeaheyahyeah I've described myself as gender non-conforming.

But like....

Idk it's like my punk jacket where I bought this black varsity style jacket at the very beginning of me making changes and the black varsity was So Masculine to me. Surely it will make me More Masculine and pass better and I can hide in its masculinity (never worked btw).

Somewhere along the way I put patches on it. Patch of my name with the trans flag. Patch of my pronouns. Patch of bisexuality. Added more patches and pins.

Added zippers to the pockets so I could actually Use Them. The zippers are pink, taken from an old backpack that I don't use anymore but I liked too much to get rid of. That bag had these adorable little holographic wings on it. I took the wings too. I fashioned them with soda tabs and hex nuts. The tabs were to accent the piece, but the bolts were to ensure the wings would be able to endure a lot of jostling around.

It really is just all about keeping what you like and leaving what you don't. And transforming what you do like into something new. Something that actually feels like You.

And it's just this constant work in progress like. Taking these glow in the dark stars from another old backpack that I couldn't get rid of bc I liked it so much. Upsizing the jacket to better fit me when I button it up. Extra pockets. Heart garter belt on the arm. Spikes, more nuts and bolts, more soda tabs.

It's also like. Just. Having a mullet. Preferring to have long hair As A Man. Short, more "masculine" leaning hairstyles have never done as much for me as the mullet has. It feels like me. I also love pulling the long ends into twin ponytails. Like babygirl I'm inventing brand new fucked up genders.

Idk idk something about being inherently masculine because I am truly Just Some Guy but also being femme and purposely doing it wrong. Because I AM Some Guy. Considering myself masc only because it aligns with my gender identity but beyond that I'm not actually masc at all. There are butch women who are way more masc than me and I love them. Conventional masculinity actually not fitting me, honestly being just as stifling as the other side of things. But if you try to correlate that and my feminity into "being a girl" I'm gonna look at you like you're fucking stupid. Like I Know I don't pass even when I've tried to but it is SO baffling to me to this day. Like. I am just some guy. A femme guy. What's not clicking

[archiephd]

trying to explain that gender essentialist thinking is harmful just on principal of upholding the concept in society while also acknowledging how like. trans men have noticed more confidence and physicality once they went on testosterone without undermining the point.

[guessimwritingficsagain]

To be seen, part Three (Frankie Morales x Reader)

Summary : The birthday party comes and goes. You're pining but get a grim reminder that Frankie has a daughter (and a spouse ?). You want to take a step back from that blooming relationship but things don't go according to plan. You want to surprise Jessie with a nice present.

Author’s note : I rewrote this thing like 4 times but here we are. Just so we are clear, we are NOT about to have a lot triangle between OFC, Frankie, and random new character James. I just want OFC to have some wholesome relationships and to be her own person besides her new relationship with Frankie and the boys (which, btw, a writer, a friend of mine actually, told me "sometimes you write about what you can't have" and boy didn't that hurt because I'm currently in the process of grieving a friendship that could have been so good if not for the fact that we have very different ways of seeing friendship ... so I guess that James comes from that, a little). The former version had Frankie being more forward but I do like a slooooow burn and also it felt OOC.

Anyway,

the song Sweet is by Porridge Radio.

The song Canción sin Miedo is by Vivir Quintana.

The French radio that only plays women, trans and NB people is a real thing : it's called Radio Tempête and I like it very much. Give it a try !

There had been questions. Linda had grilled you hard and actually told you to go for it. It felt nice, all of it, up until you’d asked Linda why she was here. She'd grown sheepish.

« I need a new start. A change of pace. And I- I miss you, not, you know, like that, but I miss my friend, and I figured a new start with an old friend, that could be nice. »

You’d nodded, wondering if there was something she was not telling you, but figuring she’d get to it in her own time. In the meantime, she was here. And it was nice. She got along immediately with both Jessie and Anna and could make Phil laugh like no one else. Still, there were things that you couldn’t bring yourself to tell her. You two had a history, just like you had with Jessie and Anna, but not the same kind and five years was a long time not to see each other.

That’s why you waited until Linda was playing with Clara to tell Jessie, quietly :

« That fifth guy who used to hang out with the boys ? »

Jessie looked surprised. She was usually the one fishing for information. You knew why you were telling her that : to share the epiphany you had, to remind her, and yourself, that these men were real people. And maybe, just maybe, to remind her in a way that there was a real world out there.

« He’s dead. »

The air grew quiet at that. You looked at her face. She nodded, juste the once. And then, never brought the boys up the way she used to. She asked for news, once in a while, but never again in the giddy way she used to do it.

———

Right. So maybe, maybe, you’d gone a little overboard with that birthday party, but the kid had lost her father a year ago and she deserved nice things.

Right ?

They didn’t have to know the bar didn’t actually own fancy, festive plates and an army of balloons. Besides, everybody had pitched in. And Phil had made an extra nice menu. It’d been a team effort, really. Except that when Linda came in to grab a coffee after work - she was working at the local bookstore and that made your heart clench a little - she raised her eyebrows and said :

« You said seventeen, right ? Because I think you’re going for seven, here. »

So. You were a bit nervous, which, what the hell ?? They weren’t your friends. They were paying consumers. Except you were fooling yourself there because you were pretty sure that paying consumers didn’t quite cover it.

But when Santi came in with her, the girl swallowed by a huge scarf to protect her from November’s chilly air, you saw the smile on her face, you knew it’d been worth it. Santi actually came and hugged you and whispered « thank you, Starbuck » before giving Anna a high-five.

Yeah, the Starbuck thing had stuck. And you might have started calling Santiago Santi.

You were introduced to the birthday girl -Sarah- who was lovely and perhaps, you realized quickly, a tiny bit smitten with Anna, in a when-I-grow-up-I-wanna-be-her kind of way. Anna, of course, was completely oblivious. They sat down at the counter first, waiting for their friends to get here, her with a coke, him with a beer, and you were content to just let them be. It was a moment you felt was too private for your tentative relationship.

Sarah hugged Frankie as he came in and you did not let your mind wonder what it would feel like. Beers to serve. Mind out of the gutter. But he came to find you, and he looked at you with those soft eyes and he leaned in a bit and you couldn’t help but smile. And he smiled back, elbows on the counter, so close.

« You didn’t have to do all that. »

His voice was barely a whisper, and you answered the same way :

« I know. »

He was looking at you like he was seeing you and you got that warm feeling again, at the center of your belly. There was nothing, for a few seconds, except his brown eyes, until Anna cleared her throat and you were reminded you were at work. You turned back to get a beer for Frankie, but were interrupted again by a hand on your arm. Anna was looking at you and asked, as quietly as possible :

« What was that ? »

Her eyes were kind, there was no teasing in her voice but you shrugged the question off anyway. You didn’t know what that was. And it wasn’t the time nor the place.

———

The birthday party had been a success, and the night would have been perfect if not for Phil’s pragmatism. He knew you, he could tell, and your little admission a while back, when under the fire of Linda’s questioning that maybe you had a tiny little crush hadn’t fooled him.

Oh, the mortifying ordeal of being known.

He’d came up to you when you’d been cleaning the coffee machine and he’d said :

« He has a kid, you know that. »

He’d left it at that, knowing it was enough.

And that was just the thing, right : you knew. And with kids usually came a spouse. He probably had a lovely one, someone pretty and smart and funny and soft just like he was. So you’d decided to take some emotional distance, just to keep it professional. Paying costumers, after all.

Of course you were fooling yourself, you were protecting yourself from something that had the possibility to break you heart. And that, that was the worst part, the scary part, because you remembered vividly not thinking about Linda that way and then she’d said I like you, I really like you, you know, in a way that makes me want to make out with you. And you’d realized you liked her in a way that made you want to make out with her too. Back then the closet had been a thing, a hard one to get out of, even though your parents loved you unconditionally, no matter how many tattoos they disapproved of covered your body, no matter who you dated. You just hadn’t realized what you’d felt for her until she’d spelled it out for you. It’d been beautiful and simple and safe.

Here, though, you were thirsting on a man a tiny bit older than you, who had a daughter, who was probably married. And you’d been avoiding thinking about that, and he never mentioned anyone. But you knew you needed to get a grip on those spiraling feelings.

You needed to refocus, and in doing so, you realized something that filled you with shame and guilt : you’d overlooked Jessie entirely. The Christmas Holidays were coming up and you hadn’t made any plans with her. You’d been so caught up in your world that, for the first time in years, you forgot about her. The fact she worked day shifts and you night shifts now meant that you saw less of each other. And since Linda got here, and the boys were around more, and you didn’t need to babysit Clara as much, you’d seen even less of her.

But you had a plan.

———

The plan showed up on your doorstep a few days later, greeting you when you opened the door with :

« I hope you finally threw away that ugly couch and that the new one is comfortable. »

Here he stood, in all of his stupid glory : James. Their parents probably had a weird sense of humor to call their first born Jessie and their second one James. Or maybe you had a weird sense of humor for noticing it.

Here’s a bit of a backstory : James was your age, and you’d actually been friends since you were ten. Attached-to-the-hip kind of friends. I-don’t-care-about-anyone-else kind of friends. He used to be your only friend, back then, because he was just enough. Jessie, being five years older, had no real interest in you whatsoever so you only befriended her later, when her ass of an ex-husband skipped town and you got a panicked call from James one morning asking if you could help his sister to find a job because she used to be a stay-at-home mom and now she really needed the cash. James couldn’t come home to help her, so you’d had to help Jessie. Not that it’d been a problem.

And James, James was spectacular in the way he never settled for anything. He’d left home to go to Harvard and then became a bloody CIA agent because why not. Except he hadn’t liked that so he’d quit the bloody CIA and opened a restaurant in Washington. The President of the United States of America ate there, on a regular basis.

(Sometimes, when life got too hard and you got too caught up in your own mind, and you felt you weren’t enough, you wondered why a man like that bothered to skype you twice a month, and one time, drunk and alone on your birthday, you’d left him a voicemail asking him that very thing and he’d given you so much shit for that you never asked again. You were his girl, forever and always.)

So you’d called him, explained the whole Jessie thing, and the guilt that came with it.

Now there he was, ready to hide in your apartment while you got everything set to give your girl Jessie the surprise she deserved. You let Phil and Anna in on the secret that was James, just so he could come to the bar when he wanted and no one would tell Jessie about it.

That’s how you found yourself jumping slightly at the abrupt change of a song, one night at the bar, and you declared, knowing who it was :

« Costumers don’t get to change the music. »

The only answer you got was a laugh. You turned around to see James, bending over the counter to get to the computer, all crinkled eyes and white teeth.

« Don’t tell me you don’t like hearing Sweet. » He quipped.

« I like that song », you explained as you secretly rejoiced in hearing the familiar notes. « But that doesn’t mean you get to play anything you want. I know you, you get too comfortable. »

He sat down at the bar, a bit away from the boys who were joking and laughing at the counter. Benny had won his fight and got a girl’s number so it was a good night for him, the kind of night you didn’t want to intrude on. Except you wished you could, and that, that was a red flag in itself because usually, when James was around, there was nobody else in the world but you still thought about Frankie, about how you wished you were sitting on the other side of the counter, pressed against him, laughing at whatever it was that had been said. Paying consumers, right ?

You’d been serving beers left and right, only stopping a moment to get another round to the boys when you heard :

« Where the fuck is that French radio playlist ? You know, radio that only plays songs by women, trans and non-binary people ? I know you have one, can’t seem to find it. »

« James. »

You turned around. He was standing behind the counter.

« How on earth did you get there ? »

« I jumped. You were busy, didn’t see it. Anyway. That playlist ? There’s some good shit on that. Though we might want to avoid the songs too obviously sexual, right ? »

You let out the biggest sigh. Of course he'd jumped. Of course he’d find that absolutely normal. You waived him away and got to find the playlist.

« I wanna hear Canción sin Miedo. » He added, all but propped up on the counter.

« Get down. Also your accent is shit. » You hissed. You complied, though.

As the Mexican song started playing, Will gave you a look.

« That’s Jessie’s brother. » You explained, your voice still a touch exasperated.

« But that’s a secret. » James added, still very much sitting on the counter. He smiled and said : « Hi, I’m James. Like Bond. James Bond. Nobody ever saw the two of us in the same room, by the way. »

He winked and you ugly snorted.

———

The noise was overwhelming and the place reeked of beer and sweat but Anna was steering you gently through the crowd and Linda’s hand was grounding, on your shoulder. MMA fights were not your scene but Benny had asked and Anna had said yes before you could get a word in. You’d called Linda in a panic, muttering you know how I get in crowded spaces and she’d offered to come.

You still didn’t know how Anna managed to get your boss to give you both the day off for that but you were glad.

You heard Benny come in more than you saw him, and Anna guided you to the place where Santi, Frankie and Will were. Santi made a jab at Linda, who laughed it off and introduced herself at the others. She was blending in with ease, as always. You, though, felt lost, until you sensed someone right next to you. Lifting your head, you saw Frankie hand you a drink, before his hand came and gently grabbed your arm, guiding you to a sit right next to him.

« You okay ? » he asked in your ear, close enough that you could feel his breath, his hand still on your arm.

You explained right in his own ear :

« Crowed spaces. »

You felt his hand give a squeeze and, without thinking, tapped his thigh in a way you hoped would convey your thanks. Then, you held onto your drink for dear life, as Benny started beating the shit out of the other guy.

———

Benny was breaking down his fight, as the other men pitched in with a comment, once in a while. You hadn't exactly enjoyed the fight, but Frankie's presence and explanations had made the whole thing better. You drew the line, though, at debriefing, so you turned to Linda :

« So, how was your date ? »

« Nice. »

« Nice ? Just nice ? But she was bloody gorgeous. You showed me pictures ! »

You weren’t as quiet as you thought you were because next think you knew, Anna was leaning in, wiggling eyebrows, and the rest of the table grew awfully quiet. You turned to see all the eyes on you.

« Who was bloody gorgeous ? » Santi inquired.

« My date. »

Everybody was listening, now. You motioned her to go ahead.

« Well, her yoga lessons came in handy, if you know what I mean but … yeah … yoga. Pilates. Rabbit food. »

« Well, you still got her to do some yoga » you replied with a wink.

That got Anna to spit her drink.

« She was plenty good at that, but, yeah. »

She shrugged and too a sip of her beer.

« Wait, she ?»

So yeah, Santi hadn’t caught on the Linda’s a lesbian train yet. Though to be fair, he’d seen her once, twice counting tonight.

« Got a problem with that ? » Linda asked.

You felt the tension roll off of her and you couldn’t blame her. You never really knew how people were going to take your coming out, no matter how well you knew the person. And she didn’t know Santi at all.

He hurriedly shook his head.

« No, I just didn’t expect it, is all. »

He lit up, then, and you could almost see the bad idea that came to his mind.

(Maybe you were starting to know him after all.)

« I could be your wingman, and you my wingwoman. »

« No fucking way, Santiago. »

You laughed as you listened to Linda give a few more details, sweet Anna beaming in awe as the discussion went to Linda’s great adventures in dating.

« So, you’re a serial dater. » the younger woman exclaimed.

« She was never good at settling » you confirmed.

Linda turned to you and, with mock outrage, asked :

« Never good at settling ? Do those two years with you mean nothing ? »

You laughed and she laughed and Anna laughed and Benny all but shrieked :

« You two dated ??? »

That only made your belly clench even more, the laughter an unstoppable force, Linda warm by your side, Anna crying from laughter, Santi and his existential crisis because he’d hit on a lesbian and suddenly everything made sense because nobody said no to Santiago - at least that was what your were feeling he was thinking. And Benny, just confused, said :

« I didn’t know you swung that way. »

The sentence was meant for you, you knew that, but before you could calm down, another voice, one you’d recognize anywhere, anytime, answered for you :

« Oh, she swings every fucking way, right, baby ? »

You turned around sharply and there he was, again, James. Right on time. He settled right next to you, his warmth a comforting presence. You swallowed the anxiety down. Everything would be alright.

And everything was.

Because fifteen minutes later, Jessie was coming in, Clara in her arms, wondering what the emergency Phil called about was. You would forever remember the look on her face when she saw her brother sitting right there. The blinding smile, the way James took Clara in his arms and cooed.

It was going to be a good night (again).

———

« That was real nice of you », Frankie mumbled. « What you did back there, with Jessie and her bother. »

You’d stepped out to have a smoke and he’d joined you, hands in pockets, just standing there, not close enough to touch you but close enough that you could feel him.

« You two seem close », he stated after a bit.

That wasn’t jealousy. That you could tell.

« He’s my best friend, I guess. »

« He seems nice », Frankie stated. « A bit over the top but then again, I’m friends with Pope so … »

You had a flashback, then, of your first encounter with Benny, and asked :

« What’s with the nicknames anyway ? »

« We served … » Frankie started. You cut him off.

« Yeah, I know, but. What does it mean ? »

Frankie just smiled, then, took a step closer to you, shoulders brushing. You felt hot, all of a sudden.

« A callsign is trust » he explained and then quietly added :

« Starbuck »

You managed to keep it together. You kept it together because paying consumers. You kept it together because that man had a daughter and was probably married and what he’d just said was said out of friendliness.

[lgbtqwriting]

Hey! I've heard before that when writing trans chars, you should avoid describing parts of their body that don't align with their gender identity (like boobs on a guy), because it can be seen as trying to "other" them/point out how they don't fit in? But on the other hand, it seems odd to not describe their body, esp if the char has not transitioned and it will be noticed by some people in society that they have a different body shape. Couldn’t not describing the char’s body be seen as (pt 1)

downplaying trans people’s struggles, by pretending that the char can just fit in and have no issues when in real life trans ppl (I know not all) do struggle with their body not matching? I don’t want to accidentally “other” this char, but it’s also impossible for their body not to have some role in their experiences, so I was wondering if you had any tips. This is a fantasy setting, btw! (pt 2)

Hello! Two of the mods worked together to answer your question, and our response got a bit long-winded, so we’ve decided to put it under a cut in order to accommodate our followers who don’t want to scroll for ages. Please continue reading to see our input!

There’s nothing wrong with mentioning a trans character’s GNC (gender non-conforming) physical features in passing, so long as you are respectful of said character’s gender, pronouns, and dysphoria/euphoria or lack thereof. Unfortunately, cisgender writers frequently do not depict their trans characters in a respectful fashion, especially regarding bodily descriptions and/or dysphoria. If a writer is trans, there’s not really a “wrong” way for them to write a trans character (but if said writer is transmasculine and their character is transfeminine, they should do extensive research on harmful tropes that impact transfems before designing their character, and vice versa).

The best way to approach writing a non-passing (read: strangers notice they’re trans or at least GNC immediately on sight/by the sound of their voice) trans character as a cis writer is to remove your own biases and curiosities from any and all physical descriptions. 

Let’s use a common dilemma that the majority of transmasculine people (and characters) often face: deciding whether or not to bind their chest. 

In a [historical] fantasy setting, chest binding can be accomplished in a variety of ways, from the usage of magic (e.g. glamours that make it look/feel like they have a flat chest), to bandages and/or specially fitted armor (though if the method they use is rare, you may want to establish how your character came across it and was lucky enough to use it.)

Some transmascs bind in order to alleviate their dysphoria and/or feel euphoria, while others simply don’t want to deal with the hassle of getting funny looks from strangers for presenting very masculine but having breasts. And for others, binding is a purely practical, tactical choice that makes their movements less labored, as well as makes it easier for them to squeeze into tight spaces if they have to hide in or escape a tight space quickly. 

A fair number of transmascs, however do not bind. Perhaps they don’t have dysphoria, don’t care very much what strangers on the street think of them, or the thought to bind crosses their mind, but they find it uncomfortable (if bras get hot and sweaty easily, imagine how quickly an extra and most likely weighted compression layer underneath their everyday clothes do), and/or don’t want to for personal reasons. Or maybe they’re in the closet and think their family would disapprove. (One very real issue that our transmasc AND unaligned AFAB--assigned female at birth--nonbinary mod have is: being unable to afford a binder. This may be relevant if your trans character is an orphan or comes from a poor family.)

Ultimately, it’s up to you whether or not your character decides to bind their chest, but several of these hypothetical situations may help you see your character in a new light, should you change your mind about how they want to present. 

Advice from a transmasc mod: “If you give a transmasc character breasts and decide not to have them bind, make sure you treat them with dignity. Try not to use feminizing terminology (implying breasts ‘make women women’, since that would also alienate women who don’t have breasts, e.g. due to a battle with breast cancer.), and don’t have your character spiral into self-loathing every time you describe their frame.” 

Advice from a nonbinary AFAB mod: “I’d say the only thing you really need to be careful about is any scenarios where your character has/wants to act seductive. While some AFAB trans people aren’t afraid to wear shirts or dresses that show off their cleavage, it’s a bad idea to treat their breasts as ‘essential’ to sexually/romantically attracting someone. As long as you don’t linger on the physical description of their chest and/or how they feel about it for several paragraphs, you’ll be able to avoid coming off as fetishistic in describing their appearance.”

Please let us know if you have any further questions on this or other subject matter, we’ll do our best to help you out!

[pochapal]

rank every year of the 2010s from best to worst i want some pochapal lore

[warning for discussion of my fucked up mental health and my myriad traumas. we’re really opening the pandora’s box here gang]

ok time for me to overshare on the internet again! super long post because i can’t shut up and you asked for it. anyway, by objective ranking: 

#1: 2012 - halcyon era, my personal peak. spent the whole year writing hunger games oc fics with my deviantart fanfiction besties whom i still think about all the time and always hope are having the best possible day. if you were here for this era understand i still hold you so closely and dearly in my heart <3. 

#2: 2013 - god i was such a good example of a human being back then. was the year my writing like actually took off and i had a healthy balance between creative stuff and a social life (said social life consisting of spending lunchtimes at school breaking into classrooms and discussing fandom shit with five other people. reading homestuck updates in the music room on one person’s really shaky mobile data...legendary). highlight of the year and maybe my life was in the april of 2013 when i got out of failing to submit a hard deadline essay by telling my english teacher i wrote a whole novel over the two week break and then producing said novel. god i wish i had that level of like. fucking confidence back me back then knew what i wanted and how to get it. 

#3: 2010 - the last year of childhood. i was 12 and played pokemon all the time with my friends and went places and had a moderately successful youtube channel and it didn’t matter that i was bullied so badly at school because i was basically high off life. summer of 2010 was so good specifically. i’d used to get the bus with a friend and go see movies and break into historical sites and get into normal childhood mayhem and maxed out my pokewalkers twice a month and i was buzzed because i had two (2) whole friendship groups to choose from and that was such a huge deal to me the terminal social outcast. it was so simple and carefree and even though everything and everyone involved in this era grew up to suck except for one specific person i kinda really miss it.

#4: 2018 - this was the first year i wasn’t depressed to the point of nonfunctioning. it was 20gayteen, i was on antidepressants, i was as close to thriving as i got at uni (going into town with people once a week, attending art and culture events, getting good grades across the board), i started to write for fun again, i got my cat whom i love dearly, i was exhibited in my uni’s city’s literature festival, GOD i actually nearly attended a pride event that year can you imagine. this year was basically my life’s second peak. miss getting the 8am train and daintily sipping on a cherry coke to keep me from passing out. wish this time could have lasted longer.

#5: 2019 - kinda absolute middle of the road year not for lack of anything happening but because the overwhelming amount of good and bad things cancelled each other out. so like there’s the fact that i was at the top of my uni game this year, was basically making the first steps into a professional writing career (covid i will never forgive you for killing all that dead </3), finally saved up enough to buy myself a gaming pc, and the summer after the homestuck epilogues, but equally 2019 was the start of the Pochapal Gender Fiasco which is by far the most horrible thing i am still currently undergoing and i burnt myself out mentally about halfway through the year (being stuck overnight in a hospital for a panic attack absolutely horrible horrible irredeemable) and then got like super death plague flu that i was sick with for three months (literally recovered less than a month before rona hit. god’s cruel karma.). so like...it kind of averaged out? the good shit was good but not as great as other years and the bad shit was awful but nowhere near as terrible as it could have been. gotta give a shoutout to 90% of my current mutual cohort for following me in 2019...omelette route gang make some noise !!

#6: 2014 - oof. this year essentially marked the start of a four year long downward mental health spiral because everything fell into awful alignment. i’d just turned 16, finished secondary school, had all my friends up and ditch me at once, was home alone for a whole summer, and was hit with Sudden Intense Body Image Issues that i couldn’t explain until uh. after very recent developments lmao. this one goes out to the me of july 2014 who did nothing but lay in bed and listen to the same two marina albums on a loop because fuck i’m attracted to men and also my facial and body hair are really starting to come in and if i think about this for too long i will literally kill myself because oh god i can’t handle getting older which is clearly and definitely the issue going on here. my brain fucking broke super hardcore and it’s a miracle that an overeating disorder was like the worst thing i walked away with. 

#7: 2015 - downward spiral year two!! i was so volatile this year it was such a mess. i was totally socially isolated after a brief stint of falling in with a group of people at the start of my first year of sixth form until january where in quick succession a) it turned out every single one of these people was friends with the person who sexually assaulted me whom i obviously had a lot of complicated feelings towards and b) baby’s first crush came out as bisexual but in the “women and also trans women” kind of way which tore me up so terribly in ways i couldn’t begin to understand. no words for the experience of seeing a girl kiss a boy and crying so hard at night you threw up because you could never be her no matter how much you wanted it. actually kinda get the sense what was going on there was bigger than just some crush lmao. then after that i was so mentally ill i basically attended school less than half the time and it was the only year in my life i failed my exams. i ended up having to resit my entire set of first year a level exams because jesus christ was i in such a bad way it was a miracle i even showed up to them. all i did was either have anxiety attacks or enter bedbound depressive slumps for weeks at a time. but it’s okay because it gets worse.

#8: 2016 - downward spiral act iii: the spiralling. prefacing this by saying that i actually had two whole good months (april - may) in that i was functioning enough to do my exams and finish school with decent grades. the rest was super extra mega terrible. my school attendance for year 13 dipped below 65% and literally the only thing that kept me from being kicked out was the fact that i was naturally smart at the subjects i took and also because the school would have a lot to answer for after letting me get to that state despite having a hefty file on how damaged i was. keep in mind every single part of this was fully untreated btw - i was just floundering around and letting it all fester. i spent three solid weeks going to school but locking myself in the bathroom all day every day and having mental health episodes then going home like nothing else happened only to continue the breakdown that night. then things got kicked into fucked up overdrive when i moved out to uni and was cut off from what little support structures i did have. it was so bad all i did was cry all the time and never went anywhere to the point where three separate sources recommended me to the wellbeing and crisis counselling service that i stopped going to after two sessions because i was fucked up in ways cbt techniques could not even touch. at least i tried to make an effort for the first two months of uni which like. good for me?

#9: 2017 - what lieth at the base of the spiral. helltrench year. i was at literal rock bottom. i stopped going to class, i didn’t hand in a single piece of work. i lied to my parents and would book trains each day only to go back to my student flat and sit there and contemplate suicide. like i would just slump on the floor in a catatonic state and vividly contemplate one of four or so ways i could end my own life. i only didn’t because i wanted to wait until the summer to collect my last student loan and transfer it to my parents as an apology for my death which obviously didn’t end up happening. honestly i can’t remember much of the first half of 2017 that’s how bad it was. i remember taking a gender studies class and the teacher made it Weird that i was the Only Male Student in the room and then she sent me a scolding email after i walked out halfway through a class and never returned. apparently i got into a lot of online discourse in this year but i don’t remember anything other than being put on a blocklist by the milkfic author over ace discourse which is funny if you have the context. mostly i just baited terfs and weirdo freaks to get them to say horrible things to me as what i guess amounts to some kind of digital self harm. anyway breaking point came in late august when i got kicked out of university and then nobody could ignore it any more so there was no choice left but for me to seek out help and recover enough to function which luckily i did. i really Do Not remember 2017. you could tell me anything about that year and i’d probably believe you.

#10: 2011 - extra circle of hell for this little fucked up gem of a year. on the surface it wasn’t actually that terrible, until the Summer 2011 Domino Effect Of Bad Shit. up until like may/june it was a pretty all right year! i was 13 and had a surprisingly successful youtube channel uploading pokemon soundfont remixes to an audience of i think ~350-400 subscribers at my peak? anyway then i got hit with the early summer triple combo of childhood friends moving away, cute and quirky sexual assault at the hands of a person in my friend group, and then having some Really Great and Super Appropriate interactions with adults on deviantart. like obviously there’s the actual ptsd-inducing event which totally disrupted and killed the person i was right up until that moment and reshaped every facet of my life for better or worse (there’s an alternate timeline where that didn’t happen and i got into electronic music and/or coding instead) but really it’s the events that followed in its wake which were kind of more fucked up. so like all of a sudden i was super aware of my body and me growing my hair out and being mistaken for a girl in class suddenly became this Less Innocent thing and i ended up spending hours overnight going to transgender questioning forums and looking up hrt timeline videos and having the wikipedia article on tracheal shaving saved because it was a life raft to me whose voice was imminently gonna deepen and i was simultaneously reeling with constant trauma flashbacks and the whole thing was so so fucked up. then i was on deviantart and i don’t remember exactly how but a small group of furry guys ten to fifteen years older than me started messaging me and encouraging and requesting me to produce nonsexual fetish stuff for them and talking to me about stuff like if i’d ever thought about growing up to be gay and i didn’t think anything of it for a long while because they called me a very talented writer and it felt so good to have someone be nice to me after being so alone and isolated for months on end. anyway the only reason i got out of that before it got bad was because they invited me to one of the big furry sites and i was weirded out because i thought it was a porn site and thinking about sexual stuff was a huge trauma trigger so i just ended up blocking them all and pretending like it didn’t happen. at the time half this shit didn’t bother me but in retrospect holy fuck 2011 was such a damaging year. to think if like three events didn’t happen i wouldn’t be the fucked up mess you see before you today.

god fuck this turned out super long but i’m not apologising because this was a therapeutic exercise for me and also constitutes as one of the biggest pochapal lore dumps of all time. come get your food or whatever.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Story Ideas I posted on Soompi for K-dramas.

Posted November 14, 2020. I worked on these with some other Korean adoptees. Posting here to document it. Triple back up is not a bad idea when you do this type of thing. Elevator Pitch:

- Alt Joseon History Reverse Drama Harem set after the Imjin War, Women-centric (I suggested it last round, but I'm making it more attractive)

- Heart-warming adoptee tale set with Jaebeol family as the birth family.

Reverse Alt Joseon history Harem (I left historical research notes in for you to further research too).

After the Imjin War, Prince Gwanghae declared an "Honorable Women's list", which made the Queen Dowager upset with him and the crown prince (In real history he used the excuse of less arable land because of Japanese invasion to give land from widows to men, so they could get royal titles. In Nepal, in the mountains, less land has also meant that for some peoples there, the women marry a group of brothers who rotate time with the wife, guaranteeing land to her and them). So, she deposed him and installed the daughter of the Royal Consort Ui to the throne of Joseon. Joseon has been a Matriarchy ever since then with women ruling the throne and a harem to match. All of the key positions have been ruled by women. Men have to get permission to divorce, they cannot own land, and they are put on cycles per month rotation to favor their wife, who have all the power. Since then, the merit-based system has somewhat fallen apart with men severely devalued. Men are considered weaker than women in every aspect-- not as smart, frivolous, fixated on material possessions (like hair, clothes, make up, etc and landing a good woman with money), unable to learn anything other than etiquette on how to properly serve women, unable to do military affairs, unable to do magic (Based on harnessing spirits and Mugyo) [I suppose one could have a male-based magic system too that more subtle maybe based on Buddhism? since men imported Buddhism to Korea], can't do ancestor rituals but must provide the food, widows are expected to die (because who will take care of the men and provide for them if their breadwinner is gone?), and much physically weaker. They are devalued if they can't marry by the time they are 30 because they are viewed as much less virile. They are there to lead women astray from their husbands in the minds of society, and they are the ones punished for faults. If they rape or are accused of rape, they are met with death. They are considered peacocks for decoration and fill the brothels and red districts. They are allowed dance and to do street dramas, but this is considered a lesser art form compared to the lavish palace versions. Queen of Joseon, considered the most beautiful such that all the women want to imitate her... with her curly hair and freckles, is on the throne and has amassed a large portion of the men, leaving many of the Noble women unmarried. Her harem has grown huge with mostly pretty boys she's selected. She has lavish palace dances every day with pretty boys from her harem to entertain her. She also has them perform plays [Can reference previous dramas and do anachronistic references] for her more lavish than the next. The Prime Minister, has been supporting her habits to distract her from her duties while controlling the throne. The Prime Minister, while she has one husband and one concubine has been neglecting her husband and spending all her time with her concubine. There is a rebellion swelling against them... *** Extended version: In the midst of this, there are Portuguese traders that have come to shore with black men who are slaves, come to do trade (this really happened in Korean history). One of the slaves comes to the court to help refine the map of Africa (Gangnido was done in 1402 and Portuguese contact with Japan happened in 1543, so it's not that far fetched according to history). While helping the Minister of Arts, they fall in love with each other. She teaches him Korean, and he teaches her about his part of Africa. He comes from West Africa. (Hausa [Queen Amina died in 1610], maybe and maybe give him a Korean name later?) There, both men and women can be tribal leaders and share responsibilities. He comes to teach her that both men and women can be equal. The court grants him his freedom for his services, and he stays and marries this woman, despite objections, who, then becomes a part of the resistance against the Queen.

The Heads of the resistance is none other than the Prime Minister's concubine, not the Prime Minister's husband, who has been loyal this entire time. (Delaying this discovery is a good idea) Tired of having to service the Prime Minister every night, and entertain her, he has been leading a double life. He wants men in control again. The other conspirator is the Queen's top consort, who looks like a bumbling fool with his love of jokes (especially dry humor), stupid puns, food (though not fat, just fancy food), and has tried to look as useless and tolerant of the system as possible. But he loves his Queen deeply, which is why he wants to end the system and ask for equality. They have been meeting and arguing at an eating establishment since Royals aren't let into Red Districts, where a widowed lovable Halmeoni (You can get her to sell Subway sandwiches to camera, etc for laughs. Subway and Quiznos have a sense of humor... so why not ask if they are willing? Since it's alt history--make winks to the audience that you know it's not accurate.) has been slowly learning all of the court secrets... which is how the Queen learns of their dirty plots. The person who wanted this scenario fleshed out also wants the Queen to be... "Queen can’t be too flaky- forgetful to a fault, yea. Clumsy . Cold, a bit snarky, always on edge and with quite an appetite.  Forgiving of the wrong folks. Always looking for good in them but not trusting. Independent and she has to drive a black carriage!"

How this concludes, with equality, crushing the rebellion, or with men, again, taking power and thus making everyone question what was better is up to you, if you choose this idea. Five Act or 기승전결 is up to you. (Or mix them).

Suggested issues to include (and why you might want to write this) and errata:

Can challenge current Korean issues of spousal abuse, feminism, gender issues (Such as nonbinary people), trans (Such as transmen), Make Mugyo a state religion since it was supported a lot by women during Joseon (also supported LGBTQIA, past and present. Baksu~~) And also challenge our understanding of history by adding in people like Lady Jang Gye Hyang (1598-1680), who would be against the current government and for rule by men, mention mention Heo Nanseorheon (Pre-Imjin war... she needs a drama done about her because she's always overshadowed by her brothers and made into a brat, rather than a full character and an intelligent woman, which she was). ImYunjidang (1721-1793) and Kang Chonggildang (1772-1832) for example... also aren't often mentioned figures. There were historical figures in real life that were for and against the new Joseon order of Neo Confucianism, though many of the women that spoke out had their papers burned by the patriarchy. Inserting those figures historically sageuk have been resistant to insert because it goes against the ideas of Joseon being an idealistic patriarchy might add spice to the drama. One can also challenge the idea that "traditional" values are male dominated by pointing out that widows in Joseon pre-Imjin war could own land and pass it to their daughters unchallenged, that LGBTQIA was more widely accepted, and that there were great Queens before that like Seondeok by upholding them as the rule, rather than the exception as reasons why the Matriarchy is "superior" to the previous Patriarchy.

One of the women who helped with this premise likes Lee Min Ho a lot....  lol She'd probably request that the Prime Minister's Concubine be Lee Min Ho. (He hasn't done a Joseon historical drama in a while and I think he could play both sides well--warm and sweet and then cold and callous...).

Probably needs a woman to write this one versed in feminism and history or a woman and man team. I hope it passes the Bechdel test (Two women talk about something other than men, preferably more than one time), the Mako Mori Test (Women have a motivation other than romance or the man and doesn't degrade over time). and the Sexy Lamp test (The women have agency to make decisions, face consequences and rescue themselves)... there is no fridging--i.e. killing characters without knowing them solely to motivate the main characters to do something,  and makes us think deeper about gender issues, feminism, etc. I suppose if the writer hits really hard on social issues, it would be probably JTBC material (who haven't done a Historical drama in a while). Tonally, I was hoping for a mixture of laughs and thinking about the issues more deeply, and some tight action to keep us guessing. If you want to argue marketability: I saw Romance of the Tiger and Rose (China) and Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga. And a friend of mine (also Korean) wanted a drama with her and her (drama) harem of guys, so... we want a Korean commentary on feminism done this way, but with sharper feminism and more imagination attached. Covering modern feminist issues is fine since it's fantasy. Be transgressive.

BTW, for sponsorship: (since the costumes might cost extra, etc) easy... cosmetics advertised by men, done anachronistically to camera, on purpose. Other plugs can be done this way too... which would sell the product, but also make people question gender roles at the same time. Or you can also do plugs this way and suddenly gender them, making people question how this item is "male" or "female". Like a brush, or a wall, drink, sandwich (lol Quiznos and Subway), etc. can be called "Masculine" or "feminine" and be sold to camera, if the sponsors cooperate. (Sold by Pretty Boy actors to the audience... there's a good chance.) This should get you to at most episode 6, if it's paced well and you plotted the rest of the angles. If it's action-filled with lots of twists then the basic scenario will get you through to episode 4. The twists can come later.

And the other one was invented between me and another Korean adoptee...

Elevator Pitch: Heart-warming adoptee tale set with Jaebeol family as the birth family.

Twenty-five years ago, there were identical twins born to the same mother, but because her petition to get a paternity test failed from a Jaebeol family, she was forced by her lover's family to give them up for adoption, despite her best efforts to get into the single mother's homes (the adoption agency ones are pretty terrible because they try to wear down the women into giving up their children and seats are very few at the government ones). A woman had been stalking her while pregnant in order to give up her children for a kickback from the adoption agencies and from the family itself (There were KBS and MBC reports about it in the early 2000's), so with major heartbreak, she decided to give them up. However, her lover never knew this was a case.

The children were split up. One went to the United States, was adopted to a white family, and the other was adopted to Korean family, but never told they were adopted.

In the current time, the US adoptee, has been working for a year and a half to get her dual citizenship. She has a degree in Business accounting and is a very warm person. Despite her talents, she is teaching English in Suwon. She has an allergy to allium (Garlic, onions, etc), which makes it hard on her to eat Korean food. Every time she eats it, she gets gas and a tummy ache. She is constantly mocked by the ajumma in restaurants over it. She does not speak very fluent Korean and only knows Kindergarten Korean. She also often has delusions from Korean dramas as being real. Intelligent, smart, but has a hard time proving it to the Koreans around her because of her lack of language skills. People keep commenting on how she's single, but she finds it hard to date anyone once they find out she is adopted, so thinks she has no roots. Her records were sealed by the military. (US Military adoption is like that) So she takes a trip to Daegu's police station to get a DNA test. Meanwhile...

Meanwhile her twin has grown up in a steady Korean family, but there are things that never quite matched about her story and the family she's lived with. Their profession aspirations are totally different from hers, everyone else has a baby picture, but she doesn't. That feeling of "Jeong" sometimes feels like it's missing. The neighbors talk behind their hands when she passes them. This is when she accidentally discovers the truth talking to a neighborhood recycling Halmeoni. Unlike her twin, she has no allergy to allium and loves it. She mainly works at PC Bang and menial jobs and never really aspired to much because she's always felt like she didn't really truly belong.

*** Extended Pitch At the same time, their father has become the head of the company and a major CEO of a conglomerate. He is unaware of the twins' existence... so there are lots of passing shots between the family members as we get to know them. The company politics have become tricky because the father's seat was never really guaranteed. He still thinks about his lover from time to time, but his seat has become more and more unsure as he's opted adamantly out of marriage. The twin's mother is working at a small time job, and is forced to keep silent about the time she's tried very hard to forget. People shame her if they find out she had children.

When the twins finally get to remeet because of DNA, this shakes up their father's position and his company. The family secrets come out and the mystery of who sent the mysterious woman to stalk their mother starts to unfold, not only the secrets of the company, but of their father and mother's relationship, and of the family relations. But in the middle of this is that feeling of "Jeong" or instant belonging. (I don't think the love of the adoptive family should be diminished or it should be written like if you have more family, you have less love... but that there are things that connect people in different ways and the drama explores those ways of connection and disconnection.)

Issues that can be covered: Single Motherhood, Paternity testing (There was a recent Korean case on this and also another case about 10 years ago, where an adoptee found out they (male) were the son of a Jaebeol person, but the family refused any contact, etc--should be in Korean as well.), Economic differences, what Pres. Kim Dae Jeong called Adoption as the "brain drain" of South Korea (He said it on film, too, just before the reforms <3 Still my favorite president), Prejudices against foreigners, adoptees, and addressing the fact that finding family is difficult because of the shame around adoption and it's not instant. A person can start at 13, and still go through a ton of work and hoops to try to get any info. (The Korean agencies can also be mean/overworked with one person working all of the cases, like for HOLT and ESWS it's this way.) Also can address problems like how cousins can want to find each other, but get blocked because of adoption (You can't marry up to Second Cousins, but if you're adopted, you can't find your extended family members, even if you had connection to them in the past and they know you exist and they aren't allowed to search for you either because the agencies and law block them). Agencies lying that children are either dead, or that they never got communication, when they have. There is a story I know where a mother inquired every year about her child and wrote letters and then the agencies told her they got nothing, and then the matching adoptee wrote every year too, hoping to find their mother and equally got nothing. The agency lied to both of them. Also the old proxy system before it got outlawed where women would stalk pregnant single women to get records. (It's updated to the lawyer proxy system where lawyers stalk single women).

Warmth, not makjang, emphasis on Jeong and nunchi... and Warm and Fuzzy in the end at least... with spurts of humor interspersed would be nice.

Personally, I think if MBC or KBS is willing to help with the footage from the Proxy system report in the early 2000's where women were stalked by other women, those are the networks to pitch it to. It's up their ally. If not... cable. (I love SBS, too, no lies, but they didn't do a report back in the day.) Oh and make it 16 episodes-ish. Not family drama. We don't watch family dramas for length reasons...

[silenthillmutual]

alright let’s do this. let’s talk about why dankovsky is definitely trans.

i’m on day 6 now so i guess i’ll add some shit to the pile as it goes along

of course i could make a ton of jokes that are vague gestures like “i, too, am 5′2 and have my bachelor’s degree, so as a gay trans man i of course know one when i see one”. and i can! i do! i can confirm that at 27 we are just Like That. i think there’s also something to be said about him getting called ‘dandy’ and ‘fop’ by people (which, btw, have been used as slang terms for gay men) - something my friends and i all noticed after starting HRT is that we now care way more about our appearances - but that’s more of the same, more on the fun side of personal interpretation.

but since my bachelor’s degree is in being Deeply Disrespectful*, i might as well go over what i consider to be text-based evidence in favor of this interpretation. because this is the kind of thing i do in my spare time, for fun.

at the moment my working memory only gives me three big things to go on:

first, the carouser who suggests that the mara / shabnak-adyr / steppe creature is actually daniil. all of the steppe creatures mentioned in the game thus far, to my knowledge, take on the guise of women. beyond the obvious (daniil being read as a woman, or effeminate in appearance - something i’ll mention in the next point as well), there’s the fact that all of these steppe creatures appear as something that they aren’t. this could work on several levels; by day 6, people are starting to turn on daniil. because he’s become more or less a glorified errand boy and political chess piece, it would be easy to take a step back and see how he’s being scapegoated now. he’s been set up, as an outsider, as an easy target for disdain - all three of the healers have been, which really comes to a head for him & clara specifically in day 6 (artemiy has been getting it from the first day but by day 6 has disappeared). and although this rumor about daniil comes from talking to the carouser, talking to the teenage boy and the tot will reveal that other NPCs are starting to see him as a failure, too; the tot specifically says “we are so, so afraid of you”. daniil gets called a Harbinger of Death. but this takes on an extra layer of meaning if daniil is in danger of being read as lying about who he is, in terms of gender (which i’ll talk about in point 3).

second, and this isn’t specifically about daniil being trans - but i think he’s almost definitely meant to be read as queer, but maybe with the exact label being open to interpretation. he gets called a fop and a dandy, both of which refer to foolish and vain men who spend too much time focused on their appearance (so it’s kind of funny that he can comment on the wealthy man npc and ask him about the “mad tailor” who came up with his outfit. is daniil insulting it, or is he looking to buy it?) - but those are also both terms that have been used as slang to describe gay men. i’ve seen it mentioned before that although this game doesn’t have dating sim elements in it that daniil can flirt with maria and eva...but honestly? he has flirtatious dialogue with pretty much everyone within his age range. i mean, good god, in artemiy’s route, the his first interaction with daniil includes daniil referencing plato’s description of soulmates to describe them. and artemiy can sleep in his bed. and, actually, with that in mind - rats and dogs aren’t the only ones who take the blame for carrying and spreading disease outbreaks: trans and gay people get thrown under the bus here all the time, too...and daniil is sometimes implied and other times outright accused of being the source of the plague or of its spread. plenty of video games are sloppy, and i could easily handwave something like that...but pathologic is hardly sloppy, so i couldn’t shrug it away here. 

last: daniil’s entire route seems to keep circling back to misogyny. in the context of psychological horror, part of what makes the genre its own distinction is bringing the central character’s most secret fears to fruition. this is a staple of the silent hill series; all of alessa’s terrors come to life in silent hill as relentlessly hunted by her mother (while harry, who adores his daughter, has to search to try and find her the whole game, only to fail no matter how well you did), james and angela and eddie are all forced to come to terms with the murders they committed and what that means about them as people, and one of heather’s underlying fears is the terror of sexual assault and pregnancy that leads up to the reveal of how exactly she’s going to give birth to god. and daniil’s route is about uncovering the truth - but the townsfolk’s ideas of uncovering the truth is in brutalizing women, frequently with comments as to how well they perform gender. despite aspity projecting her internalized misogyny on daniil, he has plenty of snarky and furious comments to make about the way women in the town are treated. and here’s what would make this extra horrifying for daniil: they are already starting to turn on him, so what exactly would they do to the doctor they now see as an agent of chaos if he’s outed as afab? the entire context surrounding the townsfolks’ desire to expose women as monsters pulling tricks reeks of transphobia. the steppe creatures do really exist - or at least, one of them does, should you do sticky’s sidequest for day 6 - and you could definitely attribute parts of daniil’s route to be a conflict of old world vs new world, city vs. country, and class oppression - as i think you’re meant to. but the misogyny keeps cropping up the sidelines like veins in an arm. it’s easy to see why mysticism vs. science is a big part of daniil’s journey in the game, and i think it’s (sadly) refreshing to see misogyny shown as an evil, and i get why these things are linked to daniil’s cynical ideas about the nature of humanity and how that’s at war with his being a doctor and the desire to “cure” death or at least extend longevity (it must be hard to want to see a world succeed that wants to see you fail). but what role does misogyny specifically and explicitly play in the horror aspect of his story? (please keep in mind that the realities of how transphobia and [misaimed] misogyny affect trans men needs a lot of nuance; if you are not a trans man yourself, please be open minded to the discussion.)

anyway. that’s what i got so far on my thoughts about the topic... i’m sure i’ll think of more stuff later but it’s like two in the morning and my hyperfix brain should go sleep, lol.

[didntwantanaccount]

I had this strange dream last night of an au of Miraculous that didn’t have anything to do with the show. Marinette was totally normal and Adrien was a celebrity(the only constant between show and dream), and Marinette worked in a meat department in a grocery store and made a dumb joke to him(he’s in disguise with fucking sunglasses and an ugly scarf) about fucking the meat bc she’s a sexually frustrated virgin(she’s like 21 in this btw) and he laughs awkwardly and walks away with his fucking BOLOGNA. Anyway Marinette is just getting off shift so she quickly chases after him to apologize and tell him it was a joke and she didn’t fuck the meat, and he’s like “It’s okay, I got that it was a joke.” And she’s so relieved but she offers to buy him a coffee for his troubles, and he accepts, secretly just wanting to talk to someone who isn’t celeb worshiping him. As they’re drinking coffee, he asks her name and she gives it, and she asks his and he just gives his first initial. She seems bothered by this, wanting to know his full name, so he offers that every time she sees him, he’ll give her another letter. Of course he never assumes he’ll see her again so he thinks this is a good failsafe for if she is actually a fangirl and hasn’t mentioned anything about it(why would she randomly bring up Adrien Agreste right?)

Anyway then my dream cut scene to Marinette’s room where she talked to Alya on the phone about this guy she met at the market and how he was so kind and cute but she fucked up her chances by saying something dumb about meat. Alya laughs and says she really has to get herself together around cute boys if she wants to get a guy to stick around. Marinette says Alya had it easy bc she’s known Nino since they were 10. Alya claims it wasn’t that easy because Nino was a bit of a dick back then and was scared of her transition(yes this is a trans!alya dream, idk why). Marinette accepts that argument, having not known Nino at this age and not hearing the story before of how they got together beyond the abridged “it was messy but it worked out it the end. He accepts and loves me for me, and I’ve gotten over the roadbumps.”

The dream then transitioned into a story about how Alya and Nino met(in fucking CHURCH of all places), how they hung out as boys for a little while until Alya finally came out as a girl at 12, then he, along with the church started shunning her. Her and her parents were finally disallowed from the church when she came to church in a dress instead of the usual nice slacks and progressively girlier button ups. Alya didn’t see Nino again until she was approaching 16 and decided to revisit the church as Alya, having transitioned enough to pass as female. He was kind to her this time, not seeming to know who she was, and over the run of a few months(turning her 16), he gets increasingly weirder, bouncing back and forth between kindness and slightly uncomfortable compliments as if he has no idea what he’s saying(he doesn’t, he thinks his flirting is great). It gets even weirder when she ends up in his class at school and someone recognizes her from childhood, absently calling her “Alain”. Of course her backwater principal finds out about this and enforced that she use the men’s restrooms in some dumb fear that she’ll harass the women. It instead turns into the guys harassing her whenever she HAS to use the men’s changeroom for gym and hides out in a shower. People sneakily turn the water on as she’s getting changed, hide her clothes so she’s stuck in gym clothes until she finds it and is late for the next class, make comments about her body, even though they never see it(she starts the hold the curtain closes just in case someone’s been peeking). Overall it’s not a fun time. Nino, who’s in her gym class just lets this happen for a while, casually trying to change the topic at times, sometimes taking his time to change so that he can sneakily put her clothes back in her reach without anyone noticing it. For some reason, the locker room bullying(and sometimes homeroom or lunchroom bullying in which the harassment is mostly verbal) causes him to realize how big of a jerk he was to Alya years ago and his guilt causes him to feel the need to defend her more and more. One day after a harsh lunch of insults from the guys, and a homeroom of rumours from the girls(not all of the guys and girls now, the others are just shitty bc they don’t defend her), it comes to a boiling point in the locker rooms when the guys take her clothes as usual, but instead of hiding them, they put them in the toilet. To make things worse on Alya, she had actually chosen to shower today, so all of her clothes minus her underwear and a towel had been in that pile. Nino doesn’t notice what’s happening in his own world of music and getting ready until he hears a feminine scream and then the laughter of multiple men. He quickly removes his headphones and turns around, walking to the other side of the shower room to ask what’s going on. He sees Alya wrapped in a towel, standing in front of the toilet stall, staring at something, and the usual worst subjects laughing at her. It takes a second for him to realize what happened and he finally defends her outright, stepping in front of the view of her and facing the guys, saying something about how that’s not cool and too far, that she’s going to have to miss class to get extra clothes and she might get suspended for walking the hall in a towel. The guys seem to think that’s even funnier, having not thought of the long run at all, and one says it’s good to see her get what she deserves. Nino boils over and punches that guy in the face, saying he was glad to see him get what he deserves too. The other guys seem upset by this, asking him why he punched Freddy and it was only a joke. Don’t get so bent up, and the one who got punched asks if she’s his “boyfriend?”, rectifying his decision to have punched him, but also making him backtrack a little out of old habits. He defends himself, saying he’d never be interested in a girl like her, using a few very insulting words, which the guys seem to accept, despite the fact he still goes on to defend her by saying she still doesn’t deserve all the harassment because she has...

[cantdance]

carlycrays replied to your photo “marvel writers and editors trying to decide what to do with loki in an...”

Oh, sweet summer child, you clearly don't know how this works. Loki literally can't stay dead. That's a canon rule. Also, while Marvel hasn't had the best track record with the transgender community, when have they made transphobic jokes at Loki's expense?

nothing has ever made me jump out of bed and race to my computer faster than seeing this message. what is it this weekend that makes people feel like they need to answer my joke posts with a novel telling me how dumb i am?

first of all, allow me to allay your fears. at this point i have read over 400 issues of the original 1966 thor series, and i am still working my way through the rest. ive also read several of the modern retellings of the old comics, journey into mystery (2011) with kid loki and all the tie-ins, loki: agent of asgard, both of the angela series, vote loki, jane fosters entire run as the mighty thor, loki: sorcerer supreme, infinity wars (2018), the current thor series, and now war of the realms. ive also read a little thing called the mythology, as well as a few other modern adaptations. so, to recap, thats easily around 500 issues of asgardian comics, as well as the originating material, and assorted other sources. i know what the fuck im talking about, and i am not your sweet summer child, you condescending ass.

beside that, i am a real human being deserving of basic respect, and if this were actually a case of me not knowing something, you could easily communicate that without being so patronizing. people do it all the time! there are tons of things that i dont know about. unfortunately for you, this is the one thing i know a LOT about.

as for when loki has been subjected to transphobic jokes, well, thanks for giving me an excuse to make a post that ive been meaning to make for a while now. let me start off by saying: loki is genderfluid, and i am genderfluid myself. this list contains things that i personally found to be insulting or uncomfortable. not every trans person may agree with me, but that doesnt mean it doesnt need further examination. this list may also not be exhaustive because im not going to spend hours trawling through comics at 10:30 in the morning no matter how badly i want to prove you wrong.

we all know that loki was officially recognized as transgender and bi/pansexual (depending on your preference i guess, i like them as pan) in loki: agent of asgard (2014). however, never once does anyone in the series use any of the actual WORDS to communicate this. never does anyone say “genderfluid” or “transgender” or “bi” or “pan” or “queer” or even “lgbt”. odin calls them “my child who is both a son and a daughter” which is very binary and not a great take on genderfluidity, but hey, odin right? this isnt part of the list, i just think its something that people need to talk about more.

anyway, after that is when the bullshit starts. i mean, ignoring how making loki a queer-coded villain from the beginning was scuzzy, ignoring the almost 50 years time where they did play that role, and ignoring the whole lady loki thing where they were pretty much portrayed as a man pretending to be a woman. heres the list:

vote loki (2016) issue 1 by christopher hastings and langdon foss

loki “turns into a woman” because it might do better in the polls. the reporter whose name i dont care to look up points this out because thats a totally acceptable thing to do when you see a trans person. after these few pages it never comes up again. lokis genderfluidity is being used for a cheap joke here. dont even get me started on how female-presenting loki is portrayed as being more clean and feminine than male-presenting loki, which is in and of itself a form of transphobia: that transgender women have to be ultra feminine to be accepted as the gender they are.

the mighty thor (2015) issue 3 by jason aaron and russell dauterman

loki summons a bunch of other versions of themselves for seemingly no reason, and of course all of them are presenting in a masculine way because lokis genderfluidity is only acknowledged when convenient. lady loki from dark reign pops up and says that since shes the only REAL female loki, its her job to fight jane as thor. now, im not going to sit here and unpack all of that for you, so please fire up your critical thinking skills and try to decide why exactly this is bad.

infinity wars (2018) issue 5 by gerry duggan and mike deodato jr

i went and scanned my physical copy of this just for you. here we see loki leading their team to talk to the child version of gamora who lives inside the soul stone. once they get there, emma says that she and ms marvel will go in alone because it “calls for a womans touch” and loki would just get them killed. in case youre missing the subtext, emma is saying here that loki cant do this, but a woman can, which means she is calling loki a fake woman, or at best, shes completely ignoring their gender and calling them a man.

these are just the three examples that stick out the most in my mind. its worth mentioning that the only time loki has “become a woman” (i hate using this phrase btw) is in those couple pages in vote loki, and the only time that loki has been actively called genderfluid was in squirrel girl (2015) issue 27. yknow, squirrel girl. the series that no one takes seriously and will insist isnt canon even though it is?

there is a very insidious form of quiet transphobia simply in the fact that no one at marvel will acknowledge lokis identity, much less say it out loud or use the correct terminology. in fact, ever since agent of asgard (the series that cemented lokis trans and pan-ness) ended, many writers including jason aaron and gerry duggan have all but ignored that it happened, erasing the progress that loki made as a person as well as their newly gained autonomy and, indirectly, the fact that they were ever confirmed as genderfluid and pansexual.

one last thing that i want to say is that while it may be a rule that loki never stays dead, subjecting a trans and gay character to repeated deaths for the sake of furthering plot is NOT a good thing. having the gay come back does not erase the fact that you buried them in the first place. being that loki is amab, this is extra sketchily tied to violence against trans women, which is a point that we all need to consider.

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

Soulless Riffing: Brainless Ch. 2

I got a supernatural action/romance book series as a gift that’s just riddled with stuff that I hate….and as a steampunk Victorian London action romance story filled with werewolves and vampies…it’s yeah gonna be easy to poke fun at.

I just want to say, it’s totally cool if you like this story or ones like it!  It’s certainly a better caliber than a lot of what I make fun of….however…I can’t help but want to make fun of it.

Over here for the 1st chapter

SO FUCK IT HERE GOES!

Chapter 2

An Unexpected invitation FOR ME TO RANT ABOUT EXPOSITION!

Before I get into the meat of this chapter, allow me a bit of ranting time about some exposition we get in both chapter 1 and 2 here.

Even though Alexia was told she’s a rare and super cool SOULLESS when she was 6 years old. NOBODY IN HER FAMILY knows she’s Soulless. And I’m sitting here like…

????????????????????????????????????

There’s no fucking way any 6 year old can keep the secret that they have cool powers for longer than 10 minutes.  Especially if they weren’t told it was something to keep quiet about, and especially, ESPECIALLY if you’re telling a girl who grows up to be an out-going woman who’s confident about defending herself.

It’s as if there is some dramatic reveal on the horizon where her family finds out and is mean to her for being born BADLY.

SPEAKING OF BEING BORN BADLY this bit of characterization burns my biscuits a big one.

Alexia is considered unfuckable for a few reasons.

1.)    Big Nose, face isn’t considered traditionally pretty. – Okay that’s a good addition

2.)    She’s too STRONG-WILLED – Okay sure

3.)    She’s half Italian.

Woah hold up there…

Sorry, not sorry, but I hate this cowardly, cynically pandering horseshit.

Can that make sense in this pseudo-bullshit historical setting? Sure.  But we also have fucking werewolves and vampires.  The fact that they chose for her ~lower status~ to be tied to the fact that she’s A DIFFERENT KIND OF CAUCASIAN is deliberate and pathetic. They author wants to pander to women who feel like they’re…

“NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS” but at the same time don’t want to risk the book not selling if HEAVEN FUCKING FORBID there was a BLACK AND/OR FAT AND/OR TRANS AND/OR LIVES WITH A DISABILITY woman on the cover.  It’s just pandering to that extra shitty part of white people that’s like, “I’M A SECOND CLASS AMERICAN CITIZEN BECAUSE MY HERITAGE IS IRISH AND A LONG TIME AGO THE IRISH WERE TREATED SHITTY!”

Were the Irish and the Italians treated shitty in historical contexts?

Oh absolutely!  

Problem is this woman published a Victorian styled book that’s full of steam punk, yiffable supernatural vampires, in 2009. When you write it in the modern era and it’s full of fantasy bullshit and you want to make commentary about discrimination and prejudice? Don’t try to jam that in with a leading woman who’s an upperclass, straight, able-bodied, neruotypical, white, skinny, cis-woman but like THE BAD KIND OF WHITE!

Is it a book written from a problematic perspective? Not necessarily, but it’s fucking cowardly and you can get the hell out of my face with that gutless trite.

I have a feeling this is going to be an on-going theme too. People being discriminated against EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE COOL!  This chapter already implies that Vampires, Werewolves, Scottish People and YES even Scientists (for reasons) are discriminated against even though ALL OF THE ABOVE are well represented in the upper echelons of high society.

Can you be rich and respected but still be discriminated against? Yes, of course, but…it’s very hard for me to picture any of these groups as hugely oppressed when they’re dripping in money and good social standing. I’m so dreading the scene where somebody says something blatantly and maliciously racist about her powerful, wealthy werewolf boyfriend and Alexia stands up and GIVES THEM WHAT FOR cause she TOO knows what racism feels like cause a dude she asked out once was like, “Eww ur half-Italian no way lawl.”

I’m white, but Jesus Christ, fucking white people.

So with a page of me bitching about exposition out of the way….Alexia, her mother, her 2 half-sisters, and her step-father are all gossiping it up at the breakfast table. And boy howdy is it apparent what the author and by extension, what she thinks her audience would find shitty.

YES YOU GUESSED IT! Her younger half-sisters are

PRETTY BLONDE GIRLS!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HOW COULD THEY!?!?!??!?!?

But they do have the negative trait of being SHALLOW!

Yes Alexia stand in judgment of those women who care about how they look.  Let’s ignore how every outfit you don, is lovingly described in detail, and that there were at least 3 separate situations last chapter where you fussed about how you looked.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the author happily describing elaborate, Victorian outfits, or a woman fussing over her looks. I’m saying it’s bullshit that she snidely calls them shallow and insipid from atop her ~NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS~ throne while engaging in the same fucking behavior.

GO TO HELL ALEXIA!

So,

There’s an article in the paper about the dead vampire but there is no mention of Alexia in it. When asked if she knew anything about it she derails into huffing about how she wished she said more mean shit to Lord Macaron. When like…I’m sorry? You both said some sassy stuff, but HONESTLY? You violently killed a man at a ball, and got out of that REALLY FUCKING EASY, and while Alexia insulted Macaron to his face the worst he said to her was she was as covert as a sledgehammer and immediately apologized for it. (BTW, he said this in response to her DEMANDING to be given a job that doesn’t exist but she will get one like it in t-minus 5 chapters.)

Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know…a bit more concerned that a mysterious man attacked you last night, and there could be more like him out there RIGHT NOW rather than you didn’t have enough witty one-liners on hand? Get over yourself Alexia.

So let’s settle a bit.

She goes out huffing on a walk with her Bff Ivy Hisselpenny to calm herself down.

Even if Ivy is also an outcast due to voluntarily wearing SILLY HATS!  I’m calling it now she is a cinnamon roll that must be protected from Alexia’s “I’m best girl” narrative.  May I say I find it a gross misuse of time to use a paragraph to explain the difference in French/English Fashion by their introduction but spend 2 words, “Hideous bonnet” on describing the silly hat? FOR SHAME!

Thankfully Alexia doesn’t’ incessantly tease poor Ivy…yet.  On their walk they are stopped by Mable Dair who tells Alexia her Vampire Matriarch, Countess Nadasdy, wishes to see her.  

Everything about that situation screams bad fucking news for her.  Again, thankfully, Alexia has enough brains to try to determine HOW BAD that situation could be.

So she sees token gay and vampire friend Lord Akeldama.  The author makes no qualms about characterizing him as the floucniest priss that ever ponced a sissy.  Now, I’ll confess, I have a guilty pleasure for fictional gay stereotypes that bleed into problematic territory. 

EH-HEM!                        

Yet Lord Akeldama is not doing it for me.  It might be the fact that since this is kinda Young Adult territory that you can’t be subtle. But I can’t help but feel condescended to with the tons of IMPLIED nods to how gay he is. I’d almost rather she just come out and say, “THIS MAN IS SOOOOOOOOOOOO GAY…HE IS A DICK WITHIN A COCK WITHIN A PENIS! HE’S LIKE A TURDUKEN BUT IT’S A DICK-COCK-IS!” Instead I’m tapping my fingers going, “Oh this new line of dialog now makes it the 67th new cutsey flower-based nickname he’s calling Alexia by! Thanks cause, I missed all the previous 66 of them!”

To be honest, I might be being a bit too judgmental here.  Like with all things I love a lot, I can be a bitter opinionated bitch about what I consider good and bad versions of it.  So anyway Akeldama doesn’t have much to add besides

“Create more sexual tension with that Hunky werewolf wiener”

BOY HOWDY AM I LOOKING FORWARD TO MORE SEXY AND ROMANTIC DIALOG LIKE…

“UR A BIG STINKY FART-FACE!”

“I KNOW WHAT YOUA RE BUT WHAT AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII? NEH!”

Say something Nice Faps:

Lord Akeldama being interested in Alexia makes some sense due to her soulless ability. The author makes a point about how he likes holding her hand and feeling human. So even if Alexia is insufferable or nothing special otherwise it makes sense that this vampire would enjoy her company for that at least.

They describe Mable as both chubby and very good looking. CAUSE TURNS OUT YOU CAN BE BOTH!

As I said, Alexia at least has enough brains to get some info before driving straight into the fire here.

[thetransmedtruscum]

(1) So sometimes I doubt my "transness" and it's because of the same reasons that fucking terfs say. Like, I wanna be a game dev, and there aren't many women in that field (I'm sure there are good ones obviously, but the ones that I saw are more on the SJW side so..) so sometimes I think "what if I'm faking being trans just because I think everything would be easier as a man?", which, it wouldn't, it's a hard journey and I'm pretty sure nobody gives a shit about your gender. And other stupid

(2) reasons like I'm doing it for oppressed points even though the only people that I want them to know that I'm trans are my very close friends (3), my parents when I come out and eventually my girlfriend if I get one. So even though I know the reasons make no sense I still doubt myself a lot, anyone else goes through this? I feel awful. Btw it's gonna be a couple months till I get to start therapy so that isn't an option for now, thanks for reading

I had similar feelings in the past because my dysphoria got really bad when I was at military school. In a lot of ways, it was because I was basically surrounded by people who had the body and the life experience I wanted, and I was a “female” with different physical fitness standards and a uniform shirt with extra seams to accommodate curves. I had hoped I would be able to blend in with the others there, but instead I ended up being distanced and it depressed me a lot. I was also sorta convinced into thinking that my feelings of being depressed and wrong in my body were tied to my wanting to be accepted by my peers as a male, rather than an internal issue that was exacerbated by being in such a setting.

I think that doubt is a natural part of the process of coming to terms with it all. Even if you’re 100% sure that you are dysphoric, being trans is hard and scary. It’s not a particularly fun, easy life, and it does take a long time to accept; it’s natural to doubt yourself in the meantime. Take your time, and try to start to make peace with it as best you can.

-twshitlord