#would tag this for trans stuff too but I'm hoping this doesn't end up in tags for anything

[mootmuse]

the downside of subscribing to a substack telling me about US trans news: i now know about US trans news

[calmasyoghurt]

Back for day 2 of joker out pride project. Before this chapter begins I want to do an extra disclaimer. I’m writing Kris as trans (ftm) in this fic. But Kris doesn’t know that yet. Kris won’t know until day 7 or something. I’m not ftm, so if I write something that would not happen, then please let me know how I can change it.

Anyways, chapter 2 below and on my ao3.

June 2nd, promt 4. Queer people exist?

Kris is not like the other girls in her class. Kris wears shorts instead of skirts in the summer. She plays football and tag instead of family and restaurant during recess. She plays guitar instead of clarinet, flute, or piano. Kris doesn't want to be like the other girls. One time she asked her mum if she could cut her hair short like a boy. When she arrived at school the next day, the other girls started calling her a boy, and secretly it made her happy. She's always liked being called a boy. Not that she is one, of course she isn't.

But one of those people that thinks she's a boy stands out. Kris is 13, and is doing everything to hide the fact that her breasts started growing last year. When she enters her guitar teachers classroom, there's a boy sitting in one of the chairs with a guitar in his lap. Kris looks at the clock on the wall. She is five minutes early, but the class before hers should have ended ten minutes ago. So who is this boy, and what is he doing here? As if on queue, the boy starts speaking.

“Hey, I'm Jan. Apparently I'm here because we would sound good playing together or something”.

The teacher enters the room just as this Jan guy finishes his sentence. He, their teacher, says he would like to hear them play together just this once. When they do, it sounds amazing, and it's decided they'll have joint lessons from now on.

When the lesson is done Jan tries to start a conversation.

“Kris, huh? Is that short for anything? Let me guess, Kristoffer?”

Kris is sure he's joking because sure, she hasn't said that much during the lesson, but he must have heard she doesn't have a guy's voice.

“Uhm, no. It’s short for, well, Kristina” Kris answers.

“Huh. You sure?” Jan says and the confusion must be visible on Kris' face because then he says “Never mind. My bus doesn't leave for another hour, I'll buy you tea at the café”.

When, 15 minutes later, they're sitting at a café table with a mug each, Kris can't help to wonder if Jan has thought this as some kind of date. She hopes he hasn’t. But, once again, it's as if Jan can read Kris' mind, because not even a minute later, he starts speaking again.

“This isn't a date or anything, right? Like, we're just hanging out? As friends?” and Kris can see a bit of relief in Jan's face when she agrees with him. ”Good. To be honest, I did think you were a bit cute, but then you said you're a girl, and well… I'm gay, so that wouldn't have worked”. It takes Kris a moment to really hear what he's said. But then she starts blurting things out.

“Wait, you're gay? Wow, I would have never guessed. I mean, it's not really something you can tell, is it? But like… Okay, yeah, cool”. Kris can feel her cheeks heating up but luckily Jan only chuckles a bit.

“How… how did you know?” Kris then asks nervously.

“I don't know. Had a crush on my best friend. Did not have a crush on the prettiest girl in the school. Stuff like that”, Jan answers. Kris needs wants to know one more thing.

“But like, what if I had a crush on my friend, who's a guy, and then a while later, I maybe have a crush on the prettiest girl too? What does that mean?”. It's the first time Kris admits that her feelings towards Anja last year were anything but friendly.

“Maybe you're bi, dude. It means you like both”, Jan answers.

When Kris gets home a while later, there is so much to think about. That casual ‘dude’ that Jan had used, bisexuality, and the existence of young gay people. It's going to take a while to get used to things.

[hms-no-fun]

I hope this ask doesn't come off as rude at all-- and I apologize if it does!-- but as an aspiring writer, I'm honestly really confused by some of the early choices in Godfeels, and I'm curious if I'm just not "getting it". I saw some posts about it pop up in the tag (and they WERE very shitty and rude about it :/), but I'd love to hear your explanation/take on June's big character change immediately post-realization, and especially the... "Trickster Arc", I guess it could be called? The former I get to some extent, but I'm really curious about the choice to do all THAT so early in the story with the trickster candy.

Seriously love your work, your narration is honestly a big inspiration to me in terms of how meta it gets and how close it gets to communicating directly with both the main character AND the audience!

no rudeness detected at all! this is a great question, in fact it’s one i’ve been kinda hoping someone would ask because i’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot these last few months. but i get the sense that you’re at least a little new here, so uh, yeah, hello, when people ask me interesting questions i tend to answer at great length. so strap in for that after the break lmao. also as a note, there will be some spoilers for all of godfeels here but please don’t let that scare you away, they’re all contextless and, if anything, might honestly make the rest of the story *more* enjoyable as a result.

as far as "getting it" goes, i've talked at length about the how & why of the violence in godfeels in multiple places so i'll try to avoid rehashing that too much here. but one thing i want to emphasize right off the bat is that i never intended godfeels to be an ongoing thing. you talk about the trickster arc happening “so early in the story” but when i wrote godfeels 1 i didn’t plan on writing more. i didn’t even plan on making john trans! my idea of what the sum total of godfeels 2 would be when i started writing it wound up being completely different from the finished work. i didn’t plan to make this thing so long. i didn’t plan for june to accidentally on purpose kill her friends while drunk and then retcon it. i didn’t plan on turning the whole thing into a space opera. it all just happened to me, man. i kept writing because i kept finding more interesting things to say. and it’s important to specify that when i started gf1 i hadn’t written fiction in years. i think if you jumped ahead to godfeels 3 part 1 chapter 8, no matter how you feel about the content we’d at least be able to agree that in the years since 2019 i’ve become a much much better writer. if you want more insight into how my process has evolved, i’ve written so so so much about it, too much maybe even, in the #sarahposts tag.

anyway, now i want to talk about june's "big character change." the extent to which her trickster arc makes sense or feels in character seems to vary wildly from person to person. what always bugs me about "ooc" as a criticism is that godfeels starts six years and change after the end of homestuck. let's remember that the protagonists of homestuck were sixteen when the comic ended. now i want you to ask yourself if you as you were at 16 would think that you as you are now was "in character." or vice versa! probably not, right? it doesn’t even have to have been six years. i was STILL sixteen when i started to get embarrassed of who i was at sixteen!

that should be all i need to say, but it isn’t. and it doesn't really get to the core of the issue anyway. i am not nor have i ever been interested in writing "a sequel to homestuck,” even though it has kind of just become that anyway. godfeels has always been about the meaty existential drama you can tease out through the complicated character dynamics of these fucked up traumatized gods. godfeels has always been my way of analyzing the themes and ideas of homestuck, the existential ramifications of the mechanics of SBURB and the classpects and retcon (let’s remember that i wrote godfeels around the same time that i took over hosting duties on the perfectly generic podcast). godfeels has also always been about me and my trauma. i even used to joke that june was my self-insert character, though i've seen that line repeated unironically by enough people who haven't read godfeels that i've stopped saying it. because it's not true! june is very, very different from me... i just happen to see my life reflected in her eyes.

to immediately rehash what i said i wouldn't, june eg8ert arose out of my frustration with most versions of the june egbert headcanon particularly in the summer of 2019. let's call her "hairclips june." hairclips june is always smiling, usually with smiling friends, she's wearing hairclips and has nonzero tit and is A Woman Now. as i said in my video, while i don't begrudge anyone their comfort food, this simply was not my experience with coming out as a trans woman. and of all the characters, i’d always identified most with john. also i thought, you know, these kids are SERIOUSLY messed up, every single one of them has died multiple times, they've seen things and done things no one should ever have to. and retcon! god, what a mindfuck retcon is.

those are the primal ingredients of godfeels. what if june came out and everyone wasn't chill about it? some folks say that's out of character and, idk, i guess that's arguably true. but i had friends who were very vocal trans allies who’d been in queer relationships who still stopped talking to me after i came out. let me tell you i spent a lot of time fucked up in the head over how "out of character" that was for them, to the extent that i blamed myself for their reaction because surely they couldn't be so out of character. to which one might respond, well, why do this as a homestuck fic then? why not just do my own original thing instead?

and i guess the answer is that i didn't want to and i still don't, really. it's not just about the characters for me. i like the rules of the homestuck universe. i find it interesting how it mechanically reflects being a fictional narrative. and, you know, maybe it's easier for me to process violent intrusive thoughts through a character who is capable of acting on those thoughts and then immediately undoing them consequence-free. retcon is, in fact, sort of the perfect mechanism for exploring violent intrusive thoughts because it lets us play out the fantasy without lasting diegetic harm, such that we can just focus on the existential and moral questions of the phenomenon itself. and like, yeah, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. but isn’t it still just as valid a topic to explore in fiction as anything else?

like em or not, people have intrusive thoughts. people have violent impulses. sometimes they even act on them. the unpleasantness of a phenomenon shouldn’t dictate whether it is acceptable to depict in fiction-- if anything, we ought to take our instinctive desire to look away as an urgent invitation to look closer instead. as i’ve been wont to say for years and years now, “problematic” implies a problem to be solved. that which is human is inherently complicated. to pretend it’s all good or bad excises humanity from the equation, or at least flattens the range of acceptable humanity. all of which is my extremely soapboxy way of saying (as i’ve said a million times by now), yes, godfeels june is problematic. that is in fact what godfeels is about.

there's an extent to which i think this can be blamed on how rooted we are IN june's perspective in gf1 and 2. i don't think people really appreciate the fact that godfeels 1 is john threatening to commit suicide and almost going through with it. that's the context in which her friends react poorly to her coming out; i mean, she's literally sleeping on rose's couch because everyone's so worried about her! i think that, by being completely within june's perspective for all of these events, we don't really get a good sense of the interpersonal dynamics at play (probably because i didn't even really understand them myself until later). instead we just see people who should know better acting like dicks.

i think whether or not june’s trickster arc is canonically palatable to you depends very much on whether or not you've had a dear friend disappoint you so much that you're no longer on speaking terms.

but if we want to reel this back from the abstract philosophical, maybe it’s enough to say that we just have different interpretations of these characters? they’re not monoliths, you know. different people see different things in different characters. some folks get a lot out of hairclips june and that’s okay. maybe i was a bitch about other people’s headcanons back in 2019 when redditors were calling me and my friends abusive pedophiles for liking vriska, but i gave up that fight when the redditors got what they wanted (to harass a group of queer creators offline and out of their jobs). if someone wants to woobify gamzee, whatever man, go right ahead. that ain’t my cup of tea and i personally don’t think that’s very in character either, but that’s why i don’t read it. it ain’t for me and that’s fine. i like homestuck BECAUSE these characters can mean so many things to so many people. is this variability not precisely the thing that makes the postcanon era so interesting?

i have my idea of who these characters are based on who they were in the comic and i work very hard to keep them in character, but i also don't want them to be trapped in amber. i want them to grow and change and become different people, because homestuck itself is obsessed with inescapable absolute archetypes (ie the ultimate self, or the captchalogue system) and i enjoy troubling that. i enjoy swimming in a sea of weird problematic dilemmas. that’s what’s fun about fiction for me, you can think about and write about all the most difficult and even fucked up things you like, and it definitionally cannot cause real material nonconsensual harm to another human being. and yet we get so tied up in the question of harm anyway! maybe that makes sense when talking about marvel movies, but this is fanfiction we’re talking about. this is HOMESTUCK fanfiction. if i were to go on twitter right now and post “homestuck is good” i’d end the day with at least five comments saying “lol no it’s not.” SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL HAVE HOMESTUCK AVATARS. there are few things as cringe as liking homestuck even among people who like homestuck, so who cares? i like homestuck, i like the epilogues, i like hs2, and i think a pretty gargantuan majority of this fandom are subliterate babies. that’s why i don’t engage with them or make much of an attempt to bridge the gap. i think godfeels and its cool little fandom is all the better for how much work it requires of the reader to “get it” as it were. i wish more people would give it a chance, or at the very least not immediately throw me and a lot of my friends under the bus at every possible opportunity, but what can you do? i just write. people will react how they will react. what matters to me is that it stays true to itself as a work, and that it grows with me and my audience and my collaborators. trying to backpedal or soften the edges would just ruin the whole thing, likely alienate my current readers and inevitably invite even more bad faith readings. no thanks!

some folks stop reading godfeels after june's trickster arc, and i can respect that. if you get to that part of the story and don't like it, chances are you're not gonna like the rest of it! and in that sense, i guess you could say i “chose” to have june’s trickster arc happen so “early on” as a litmus test for the reader. as annoying as it can be feeling like i’m constantly having to address this exact issue, i vastly prefer it to a bunch of people hate-reading something that wasn’t made for them. but again, i didn’t know this was “early on” when i wrote it, because i didn’t plan it to happen. i didn’t intend for june to go on a killing spree, she just did it and i as writer decided, you know what? this is way more interesting than what i had planned. and then dirk became the antagonist because, oops, june coming out fucked up all the schemes he has that play out in the homestuck epilogues. and i guess in THAT sense, the palatability of godfeels depends on whether or not you liked and/or tolerated the homestuck epilogues and homestuck^2. these, too, are not for everyone. but godfeels is not a replacement for them, as some folks like to claim (god bless them). i’m not interested in rewriting homestuck or fixing its sequels. ok well that’s not entirely true, i think the epilogues did jake REAL dirty and that’s become a big focus of mine going forward. but even then, i don’t pretend the epilogues didn’t happen. in fact if you’ve read all of 3.1, you know just how cosmically important they end up being.

but this is, i guess, kind of the crux of the issue for me. june’s trickster arc happens very early on in the story, yes, and that’s deliberately challenging on a lot of levels. june spends a great deal of time being challenged by it herself! but folks who stop there (if they even make it that far) often act like the whole story is grimdark wish-fulfillment violence or me airing out my irrational hatred of Boys (????), and that's just not true. i don’t give a shit about that. we get to june's trickster arc at around the 25,000 word mark, out of the current grand total of over 400,000 words. her violence is functionally the prologue, and she spends the entire rest of this story suffering the consequences of those actions. so if i am frustrated with this line of questioning, a lot of it comes down to the fact that if you just read the rest of the story you’d see that i have in fact had all of the same thoughts you’ve likely had. i know people who think i did dirk dirty in gf2, and i actually kind of agree! which is why dirk comes back and has a difficult, complicated relationship with his past self. people complain about certain characters being ooc, which i can certainly understand because when i started godfeels i really did not have a great grasp on them! but also, if you kept reading godfeels you’d know that the tension of whether or not someone is cosmically “in character” is a huge running theme of this story. june’s friends react poorly to her coming out in part because it seems out of character for her! hell, phenomenologically how *could* june be in character after coming out when she barely even knows who she is yet? her whole thing in gf1 is that she doesn’t know who she is anymore! just realizing that you’re trans changes you, changes how you see the world, how you relate to other people. or it did for me, anyway. risk, dare, X, angel dirk, and silverbark are all sorts of caught up in this question. and if you’ve gotten to the end of 3.1 you’ll know about the concept of denexustic radiation:

and that’s just the tip of the metaphysical iceberg. all of which is to say that this is a feature, not a bug. so it’s always very funny to me when people drop out so early on only to complain about the very same problematics that i’ve spent three years and 400,000 words exploring.

BUT. but. yeah godfeels 1 and 2 are messy. the gf3 prologue is very messy. it’s a serial narrative that has changed shape multiple times over the years, and barring a bit of polish on gf1 around when i started writing gf3 i generally refuse to go back and rewrite things. there’s a lot i would do differently today, but if i had done it differently then the story as it is today would not exist. and i love this story! i might look back on gf2 and feel like it’s rushed and messy, but i know that it was the best i could do at the time. it’s a reflection of who i was as a writer then. i live with the ramifications of that for the same reason i don’t delete the old videos on my channel from before i came out/learned what communism was: because i don’t like to pretend that the present was always present. i’m a different person now, a different writer. i made mistakes, i learned, and i changed. i will continue this process for the rest of my natural life, as will you.

ultimately i guess my answer here is that godfeels is a flawed work written by a flawed person, and the extent to which readers relate to it seems to have a lot to do with how much their flaws overlap with mine. i get lots of people telling me my characters are in character. i get people telling me they’re more in character than some canon! and it’s not that i weigh those comments as more valuable, i just see it as an indication of who my audience is. i’m not writing for people who want more hiveswap, and i’m certainly not writing for people who dismissed hs^2 out of hand. i’m just writing for myself and my friends, and it just so happens that some people seem to get a lot out of it.

i’m gonna close out here by actually finally directly addressing your question with what i think you were ultimately hoping for: some writing advice.

the rules don’t exist. there are things that can make some art better or some art worse but they are not universal. the rules are fake and if you hold every story you touch to those rules, you’re gonna have a bad time. a story is not static and it is never truly yours. you discover it. sometimes you can expand it or alter it in ways but, at least in my experience, doing so more often than not just kills the whole thing-- or at least demands a complete reconceptualization. all of which takes time, and we live in a world where taking time to get in touch with and hone your craft is considered sort of a bad economic decision. but art is what it is and it does what it does and we can either play with it or we can put it in a cage.

what i like about making art is that i am not entirely in control. i have my plans, my schemes, my ideas, but the fun of writing is just putting a bunch of characters in a room together and seeing what they do. quite often they do things i would never expect, that are far truer to their character than i anticipated. my experience has always been that the more you outline a story before you write it, the harder it is to actually write that story. when i know everything that’s gonna happen on a moment to moment level, the whole thing falls dead on the page. but obviously you need to know SOME things! and i’ll say that from the inception of gf3 back in december 2019 to now, very very few of the broad strokes of my plans have changed. if you’ve read all of 3.1 you know there’s a very specific timeline at play in the backstory of a group of characters we’ll be spending a lot of time with in 3.2. there are no questions or mysteries or whatever else i’ve introduced to this story that i did not have at least the sense of an explanation for. but these are simply bullet points that dictate the endpoint of a path and suggest something of the moral/philosophical/emotional arc that needs to occur in order to get there. the real meat of it comes out in the act of writing itself, and that’s what i’m here for. it’s a gamble that doesn’t always pay off, and it does mean that i have almost 80,000 words of material i ended up rewriting or cutting sitting in a doc somewhere, but that’s worth it for me.

if art is to be relevant, it must have the capacity to make an audience uncomfortable. if art is to be essential, it must have the capacity to demand a strong reaction (positive or negative) from everyone who sees it. if art is to be true, it must have the capacity to reflect the disquiet contradictions of simple existence that we desperately wish to ignore in our daily lives. that doesn’t mean everyone has to or should read difficult art, or like it, or make it. but it has always existed and it will always exist, and i think it is essential for writers and critics alike to learn to stop themselves from mistaking a common storytelling method for THE storytelling method. and frankly, most of the art i love most in this world is art that i didn’t particularly like the first time we crossed paths.

and lastly, never forget the inarguable truth that the audience bears quite a lot of responsibility in this equation. you are never, as a writer, inflicting anything on your reader, because your reader can always opt out at any moment they wish. if something doesn’t work, yeah, that’s a problem you can fix. art is a conversation in that way, or at least ought to be. but at the same time, art has no obligation to be perfect, or smooth, or easy to consume. the rules are fake. they exist to be broken. the pursuit of perfection is a dead end. just make shit

okay this one has gone on QUITE long enough lmao i hope there’s something useful in there for you somewhere and uhhhh i hope you enjoy the rest of godfeels if you haven’t already read it!

[directactionforhope]

Go Here for Instructions on How to Submit Posts!

And go here for an example.

Submissions limit of 5 posts per person each week, please!

Otherwise, unfortunately, I'll get too overwhelmed by the submissions volume to post anything. Thank you for your understanding!

Me and the Basics

Call me Cactus! They/them, late twenties.

I'm the person who runs the Reasons for Hope tumblr.

This is a sideblog-to-a-sideblog for Reasons for Hope, because I want to promote actions and spread awareness for things that don't always fit on a good news blog specifically

For context: Queer, trans, disabled, white, USian, for context.

Let me know if I post something offensive, I promise I have practice fixing things when I mess up instead of lashing out at the person who told me. I don't want to post hurtful things, so I genuinely want to always learn more about how to not do that, even when it's uncomfortable.

This is all very long because I'm still incapable of being concise.

About This Blog

Made this blog because I keep wanting to reblog or post about actions people can take, but didn't want to put them on Reasons for Hope unless they were actually mostly good news.

As a person who's Been There with spiraling, I really get the need to have access to a space that you know will contain good news and ONLY good news, in this day and age.

Also made it because I have Opinions and want to talk about Issues and activism and I'm committed to not doing that on my good news blog unless it involves, again, actual good news.

So, follow if you want! I definitely invite people to send in actions (links to campaigns/petitions/major protests/letter writing campaigns/etc.) specifically as submissions. I'll put up a how-to and link it here at some point, bc I've learned from Reasons for Hope that if they're in ask format I won't usually have the time/energy to reformat that/make it into a post.

(Sorry to people who've sent asks in on there, you're great. I'll switch to a submissions-based attempted system there too once I get the chance. May be a minute, I'm about to start a new job(!!).

My Editorial Standards

My usual editorial standards from Reasons for Hope apply, modified for this sort of blog:

Any donation-related posts/submissions need to be from some kind of established organization. It can be super grassroots etc. but I need to be able to verify that it's not a scam.

For that reason, no personal fundraisers/gofundmes. I'm genuinely sorry about this because I know a lot of people need the help but like I say on Reasons for Hope, there's no way to truly vet the vast majority of those posts, and I really don't have the time to try.

I'll come up with some sort of tag to put on all the particularly upsetting/fucked content so people can filter it and just see the action posts. Preferably something unique so it doesn't screen out other people's posts if you want to filter

More below:

I'll also have a tag for any particularly upsetting/fucked informational/educational things I post, because I do want to help spread awareness about a number of things, some of which will be pretty upsetting.

That said, I'll try to keep those informational posts only to things that are solutions-focused and/or have an element of good news or hopeful updates, where possible.

I'll also keep most of those posts behind a read-more where possible.

For more info about why I'm including that stuff, see the bottom of this post.

I will not post any campaigns or actions for reelecting Joe Biden until either the genocide in Gaza ends, or until September 1, 2024 (the month early voting starts).

Why do I have that policy? Because Joe Biden is absolutely committing war crimes, but Donald Trump would still, in fact be worse, for the US in general, for BIPOC in the US in particular, and for Palestinians/Gaza. I made a post about this with more details that I'll link here at some point.

Everything is going to be labeled with the link's source, the organization running it, the date posted (if identifiable), and the dates of the campaign/campaign deadline.

Re: Posting bad news here

I've been thinking about starting this sideblog-to-a-sideblog for a while now, because there are a lot of actions/campaigns/etc. that I really wanted to help promote, but did not want to put on Reasons for Hope, because I'm trying really hard to keep that limited to actual, you know, reasons for hope.

That said, I will be including upsetting stuff here. It will have its own tag for people to filter if they only want to see the links to actions. But I am committed to including it.

More below the read more, because this got longwinded and a bit personal:

That's partly because there are a lot of issues that very people know about, and I believe a lot in the power of spreading knowledge/awareness.

It's also because of the reason I finally stopped pondering and decided to start this blog: I just found out tonight that my grandfather died young because of toxic radiation from a nuclear meltdown at a super dangerous and experimental nuclear reactor, which the US government covered up completely and continued operating for decades. Right next to Los Angeles. btw.

If you live in or near Simi Valley, Chatsworth, or the West San Fernando Valley, or your parents did, get high-risk-level-appropriate cancer screenings. And if you're in Simi or within like 5 miles of it...probably don't drink the tap water. Also maybe try to move. (Consulting with a public health scientist/activist friend about this, will report back.)

I was already anti-nuclear, including anti-nuclear power, because of the absolute devastation it's done, especially to Indigenous communities and Japanese civilians. I didn't want to get into it on Reasons for Hope because of the whole "urgency of climate change" thing. But suffice to say that being anti-nuclear just shot very far up my "activism priorities" list.

None of this, or any other horrific things I may post about, conflict with or ruin my faith in humanity. I've definitely been incredibly pessimistic and misanthropic in my life.

But I believe that, for all the bad and evil things humans do, there is equal or greater potential for good. I believe it's like they say: "Hurt people hurt people." That's not the case always, but it is very often. Now, for the first time in history, we have the physical ability to end starvation and scarcity and a lot of death and suffering. We're still getting there, though we still have a long way to go.

I believe in a future where we can all hurt each other (and the other life around us) far less. I believe in a future where we have beaten and reserved at climate change.

I want to live to see that future, and I want all of you to get the chance to see it with me.

[lo-fi-charming]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

got tagged by @milkteamoon! ^^

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? // 176!

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? // 866,977

3. What fandoms do you write for? // Mainly TMA the last few years; previously, I wrote a lot of OPM fic. I'd say those are easily my two 'biggest' fandoms in terms of being actively involved and writing fic for them. I'll also write fic of other things I enjoy though, so I have a lot of one-shots and short series for other things too!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? // Sticking with TMA fic for this one, so:

What Lies Beyond the Frame (rated G, jmart) — A minor AU where I give Jon a new Beholding power, letting him see through his glasses when he's not wearing them. One of my earliest works for the fandom! I'm actually surprised to find it at the top of this list.

off-the-clock assistance (rated E, jmart) — An AOB fic taking place during the iconic Martin Living In The Archives era. I wrote this after realizing that other TMA smut fics had taught me I actually DO enjoy fisting as a concept, lol.

The Kissing Game (rated T, jmart) — A lighthearted, Christmas-y fic where Jon, Tim, and Sasha get into a competitive little holiday game of trying to catch Martin under the mistletoe. This one was very fun to write and I quite like how I ultimately wrapped it up.

A Friendly Favor (rated E, martim) — An AU where Tim and Martin are friends with benefits! I used to be very into martim when I first got into the fandom... I do still enjoy them, but we all know where my main focus/energy ultimately started going hehe. This one ended up developing into a tiny series of fics in the same setting.

Sizing Up (rated E, jmart) — Wherein Jon discovers that Martin is a size queen. This one was based off a stupid little comic I drew and is probably the closes I've gotten to writing a 'crack fic', though I wouldn't call it that - it's more in terms of the Energy I brought to writing it? Just doing something with a very silly base concept but taking it (mostly) seriously.

5. Do you respond to comments? // I do sometimes, if I feel like I have anything worth saying! Sometimes I'll respond with a simple 'thank you' or variation thereof if someone says something particularly nice though ;w;

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? // Kind of a difficult question honestly... I don't really write 'angsty' endings to my fic, even if they do have a darker tone or a lot of angst in the middle somewhere; I'm not really a hurt-no-comfort guy. I also think it's hard to say whether an ending is angsty because it can kinda depend on the perspective of the character(s) and I'd say generally, when I'm doing things as I intended, even if the ending is a bit dark, that doesn't ring as angsty to me?

If I HAD to choose one... maybe when the dream ends, a very old, Sans-centric Undertale fic I wrote where he experiences disorienting dissociation and deja vu of other timelines post-pacifist ending. It has a hopeful conclusion, but still leans heavily on his feelings of detachment, vague depression, and anxiety from feeling like everything around him is impermanent and repetitive.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? // Hm, approaching this in terms of fic where the happiness of the end feels earned, that'd probably go to The Taste of Midnight, my witch!Jon AU fic where he has to save his town from a disastrous force (with Martin's help). The final chapter, once the plot is resolved, is very idyllic and fluffy - a nice, pleasant conclusion for all the dramatic stuff that happened!

8. Do you get hate on fics? // I've gotten hate on a fic ONCE, as far as I can remember! It was for Deep V (rated E), a fic where Jon is trans and has dysphoric feelings about his chest, but decides he wants to try improving his relationship to it via kink. I made the mistake of openly asking for feedback on it when I posted it, and one of the more well-known assholes in the fandom (which I would learn after the fact), left a very nasty comment on it basically scolding me for even having written/shared it in the first place. Luckily I got a lot of useful advice and more friendly feedback/encouragement from much cooler people in the fandom, which was very nice and helped keep my feelings towards the fic largely positive! A harrowing but imo good learning experience in the end.

9. Do you write smut? // Yup! I have for a long time. It's generally my favorite kind of fic to read as well as write, though my tastes have been refining the last couple of years. I could write a whole big thing on my feelings about smut fic but I'll refrain this time!

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? // I don't think I've ever written a crossover fic! Right now, the closest I've gotten is vaguely contributing too (and loudly supporting the creation of) a Murderbot/Among Us fic my roomie started a year or two ago. Which I need to continue yelling at them to publish... hehe.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? // Boy I sure hope not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? // Yes, actually! Someone asked for permission to translate my OPM fic The Apron (rated E) into Russian! This is wild to me.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? // Yes, I'm actually co-writing one now with my friend V! It's an edited version of a long-going Jondaisy RP called Open Door (rated E). It's been a fun (if slow-going) project; it's an interesting challenge to go through an RP where we're each playing one character's part and try to edit it into a state that makes it more natural to read for others.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? // Jon/Daisy!!!! You might want to call recency bias, but they are simply Everything To Me that I've ever needed in a ship, actually, it's kind of insane how much of a hold they've taken over me. I look back on my older ships and I enjoy them all very much, but nothing hits the way jaisy does. I fear nothing else ever will... they're my true OTP...

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? // I have quite a few... A lot that I really want to go back to... Probably my most ambitious and least likely would be And Only Space Stood Between Them, which is an unfinished Oban Star Racers fic that would've involved interplanetary space travel, worldbuilding for a planet and alien species that was only VERY lightly explored in the anime, two protagonists/alternating POVs, a huge cast of supporting characters, an overarching plot amidst a star-racing competition, and a developing friendship/romance(?) between Eva and Aikka. I had SUPER big aspirations for it, and only got to the 4th chapter, when Eva first leaves Earth to head for his home planet. In a perfect world I would write this space epic..... It is my dear wish that... maybe someday...................

16. What are your writing strengths? // I've been told I'm good at writing in-character, which I greatly appreciate as feedback and dearly hope is true. I personally think I'm actually pretty decent at naturalistic dialogue, which I often hear is a difficult aspect of writing for folks. I think I'm generally good at pacing too, and I'd like to say that descriptive imagery is a solid strength of mine, though that's an element of writing often subject to taste...

17. What are your writing weaknesses? // I have no idea if it's a real weakness but I often get self-conscious about my writing being boring or repetitive or trite or something, despite people telling me this isn't the case when I've asked. I think it's just a case of, despite how long I've been writing, I'm still relatively young and have a lot to learn; I'm still finding my confidence in my unique voice and what I'm good at.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? // At the moment I only feel comfortable dabbling with the inclusion of Spanish, and only because I've been actively trying to learn it for a year. Even then, I basically only use it if I'm writing something with canonically Spanish-speaking characters. As a reader, it's something I really like to encounter when done well! Especially as a way to explore a diverse headcanon for a character.

19. First fandom you wrote for? // Pokemon!

20. Favorite First fic you’ve written? // (I actually misread this question, then decided to keep my first answer, because I'm so bad at picking a favorite fic! Honestly!)

Anyways, in terms of my first fic: it was a Pokemon fic with no main title. It's about a girl named Kim with a Charmander starter. She visits a pokemon center after adopting an abandoned and injured Growlithe, only to realize the center has been infiltrated by Team Rocket, who attempt to steal the Pokemon being healed there. I have an original, printed version of this fic in my stuff somewhere! I've daydreamed about making a comic out of it while keeping all the original narration/dialogue.

Okay, now I tag my dear friends. Obvs only do this if you want to~

@temporalreplicsimile , @callmearcturus, @zykaben, @ostentenacity

[tartrazeen]

I have finally seen Across the Spiderverse!

tl;dr - amazing movie, folks here need to be more normal about Miguel

The longer version:

1. I'm so happy you people put that "Gwen is trans" theory in my head.

I got to watch the whole beginning of the movie like, "Omg, her dad is so supportive of her!"

And then I got to watch that part where Miles tells her, "We're the same. Uh - I mean, in the important ways, we're same," and be like "(⁠☞ﾟ⁠∀ﾟ⁠)⁠☞ Solid recovery, man."

And then I got to watch the part where Gwen comes back home, and when her dad asks her where she's been, appreciate the metaphor that'd be in, "I was off murdering all my best friends." Like - oof. I would not have caught the added meaning in a trans girl telling that to her father without this theory. A bit of "I guess he's not that supportive" followed by "Oh thank God, he's going to try harder through the power of movie magic and love and acceptance."

And that really hammered home the "Spider-man is a metaphor for coming out" with Miles, because he can't exactly pull a Misha Collins and come out as straight. As bi, though? As part of a big, interconnected web of LGBTQ2I+? Yeeeesssss.

Separately from that, I hope he and Gwen get together, really building off the "I'm gonna do my own thing" arc he's going through, paired with the "It doesn't end well" bit about Gwen falling for a Spider-man.

2. Loved how quickly they set up Spot.

I get him, I get the story, but they kept the pacing perfectly focused on the Spiderverse stuff. Spot's in the background but also developed well in the background. It's a perfect case of 'not too little' but especially - more importantly! - not too much.

3. Hobie is a fucking bro.

He showed up to help everyone - like one of the first things out of his mouth was, "Hey Miles, you can do better with your powers, here's some help." Loved him. And the fucking COMMON SENSE this guy had? I loved his little "haha anarchy" jokes, but this guy was on the Spiderverse's side completely - right up until he realized, "Nope, this shit has crossed a line" and immediately fought back against them. He didn't just help Miles and then quit. He helped Miles, quit, probably left assuming that Miguel wasn't gonna go completely batshit, and despite that assumption, still had the presence of mind to pass on his not-a-watch to Gwen.

And I think someone else wrote that he ran away? I disagree with characterization. He didn't panic and leave, and he didn't even abandon anybody. He disagreed, withdrew his support, and then left the others to come around at their own speed. I mean, Miguel hurried that speed up a lot, but that just speaks to how fast Hobie moved from "I agree with the Spiderverse" to "You guys are fucking facists." And the second he was tagged to help - after realizing how correct he was about the 'facist' thing - he was immediately back to actively fighting alongside Gwen. There was no passiveness on his side whatsoever. What a bro. And he even gave Gwen a place to stay when she needed it, which was such an extra point of community. 💖

4. Uhhhhhh can everyone please be more normal about Miguel...?

Because I watched that movie. I know like 5% of who this guy is. They gave us the Cliff notes of Sad Backstory and a glimpse - a glimpse! - into how he probably felt, but it was all from behind an iron mask. We haven't gotten into any of the real him yet, just the anger and outrage and fury.

So... people taking running with an obviously incomplete character? That's normal, fine, sure.

People taking that and running with it to slot him in as an uwu Top for Peter B.? Did you only go in looking for a ship, and did you have to be so weird about making it be the guy whose only defining traits are "Big" when his other and MORE IMPORTANT defining trait is "PoC whose race has been historically and actively fetishized for being violent sex objects"? 'Cause it's like everyone just scrubbed that 5% of what we know away to put him into this predefined "Big Dom Top" role with zero self-reflection, and handwaved how that once again perpetuates every racist stereotype this relates to. All to woobify the white guy some more.

I'm all for shipping, but you people literally don't know him. His story's pretty clearly being saved for the next movie, comic book sales show so many of you don't read those and definitely didn't before this (likely just stopping at what Wikipedia says), and went off of ~v i b e s~

And just happened to not notice how creepy and fetishizing it is that those were the vibes you were left with.

5. I teared up when Miles' story started. Yes, right after the opening title.

I wasn't expecting it, but as soon as the music started and that atmosphere was set, I just got hit with such a wave of, "This is unapologetically black." I heard the Puerto Rican vibes coming in later and both of them perfectly throughout the movie, but the centering of his blackness through the music alone. It was a 'great opening for a sequel' before that point. At that point? It was 'a brand-new story.' 💖💖💖💖 Representation bbyyyyy

[spoiledleaff]

@x-aki-tsuki-x hello again! :D it's just me, haha! the comment character limit drives me crazy as well, so i hope it's alright that i chose to just respond to you in an extra post! :) i just know that i'd be sending you way too many little responses in your comment section, haha! so, i hope you don't mind, but i ended up making a separate post! :D

oh! yeah, i can certainly see where the concern would be, especially considering that i see much the same thing, haha! i'm a little biased, though, as i am a smut writer, hehe. although, i think i mentioned this before when touching on your fetishization concerns in the tags? but, porn/smut is actually super popular on ao3, as well! i mean, in just the ghost fandom tag alone, the explicit fics alone are over double the amounts of mature fics! let alone any of the other ratings! of course, not all of these works are porn! some are merely heavy topics safely tagged, but a good portion is still... well, uh, spicy stuff! haha! again, i definitely can't speak for all trans smut writers, but for me at least, i write trans smut as a means to project and cope. :) i mentioned this earlier, but some of the reasons why i love writing and reading porn that focuses on trans characters is mostly for the interactions and relationships between trans characters and their respective partners! it's just kind of comforting to know that there are people, even if they are fictional, that can love and accept trans bodies for how they are :) it's comforting! and, i mean, hey, it's kinda fun too, haha!

absolutely! i mean, to me, that's the whole fun about fanfiction! :D especially with such a vague universe like ghost! i personally love writing the ghouls as a genderfluid species in general! so, honestly, it just depends on how they're feeling! or, in this case of content creation, what kind of body type or identity or dynamics i may be itching to write about or draw! personally, it's not just dew or copia! i love writing and drawing nonbinary zephyr, trans mountain, intersex mist, and even trans sunshine and genderqueer cirrus! :D i mean, that's the whole fun behind this sort of thing! and, hey, if you prefer to think of dewdrop as a cis man with a cock? that's totally fine! :D i certainly don't mind if an author or artists depicts him as either or, or even as intersex! there's always some fun for some gender-fuckery, haha! mhm, respectfully, i don't quite agree with you on the trans community in the ghost fandom demanding that he's only ever trans. but, perhaps i'm a little biased and i just don't see it :0 although, unrelated perhaps, but i do believe it's important, especially in terms of published fanfiction, for respective pronouns and anatomical terminology to be acknowledged and addressed before reading :) i know that trans porn isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea, so i always try to acknowledge these sorts of things in summaries or author's notes :0 i don't think this sort of preference is transphobia? i think this is really just... well, having a preference! i think a lot of people tend to gravitate towards content that can relate to and vibe with! i know that i'm certainly not writing content for cishet people, so, to be honest, i don't expect a lot of cishet people to be included in my audience :) nothing against them! that's just not who my content is for, and i understand that :)

i agree :) maybe this is the people-pleaser side of me? haha! but i don't think there should be any arguing about a character's gender identity, haha! i mean, to me that's just such a silly thing to argue over! i mean, if you vibe and relate better to cisgendered ghouls? that's totally fine! i'll just be over here transgendering all the ghouls eight ways 'till sunday, haha! our preferences don't quite match? but that's okay! :) doesn't mean we can't be civil about our preferences, you know? :) oh! i also saw one of your comments bringing up the subject of why it's always copia or dew being represented as trans characters? i don't have, like, a definite answer for you! but, i think that one of the main-ish reasons is that both characters already seem to have pretty prominent identity crises? whether it be canon or fanon, i think those sort of conflicts really resonate with a lot of people! trans people especially, hehe :) but! trust me my friend, when i say i'm working on trans-ing the genders of everyone? ohoho, i'm working on it! >:)

oh, that's amazing, haha! my regards to your friend! :D he sounds like a riot, haha! i actually just wanted to take some time to address a couple of your previous comments on dew's mannerisms towards the crowd? as well as the connection of genitalia towards identity! :) i know a good amount of women, both cis and trans women, haha! who use that sort of wanking off gesture! whether it's a joke or an insult, it seems to be a favorite among some people i know, haha! additionally, there are plenty of ways for modern society to help people feel more comfortable with their bodies! there's ways to pack to help achieve a desired look and feeling! golly, there's so many options for packing or even for tucking, wow! so, again respectfully, i do have to disagree on that point! :) oh! another kinda personal thing, haha! i personally don't experience bottom dysphoria! :D or, at least, not enough to look into getting bottom surgery :) for now, at least, i'm totally content with living the rest of my life with only having completed top surgery, and still living my life with a vagina/traditionally female reproductive system :) however! i know that there are plenty of people who are very much interested in bottom surgery as part of their transition goals! but, damn, my friend!! that shit's expensive, haha!! :'D so, again, i do have to respectfully disagree with you on those fronts :) gender identity is so expansive and inclusive nowadays! :D it's amazing, haha! people can feel more comfortable with who they are, and there's so many different options for people to feel more comfortable in their bodies! :D when i was younger, i know that reading generalized trans fanfiction where men were still dealing with periods, or maybe just take a moment to have a bit of confidence in how their tits looks in that one shirt? haha! those sorts of fics really helped me out in some darker times, as silly as that might sound! but, again, i understand that that sort of subject matter isn't exactly relatable for everyone. ahh, i'm rambling again, haha! my point is that, personally, i plan to live my life as a man with a vagina! but, i don't think that makes me any less of a man :) just as trans women who can't afford to or simply don't wish to have bottom surgery are still beautiful and amazing women in their own right! :D everyone's ideal transition is different :) again, i'm kinda bringing back the reality vs fiction idea! we have a lot to thank the actors for who help bring the inspiration for the ghost fandom to light! but, as with all headcanons, who's to say really, haha! everyone can be cis until proven otherwise, or, in my case! everyone is trans until proven otherwise, haha! i think this case would be very much different if there was fanfiction about per or tobias or any other members of the cast being portrayed as trans or something similar along those lines? now, to me, that kind of 'inclusivity' or 'representation' or whatever you wish to call it is a bit icky... but, you are very right in that there isn't very much representation in a lot of forms of media :') but, that's why fanfiction exists, haha! we make our own representation where we find comfort and a sense of inclusivity in it :D

oh, no worries! :D i know the character count on those tumblr replies are ridiculous, haha! and, well, i had a bit of a feeling i'd be sending another essay, ahhhh... :'D haha! again, i hope this doesn't read like i'm attacking you or anything like that? i mean, you have your preferences and i have mine! they just happen to not quite match up :) and that's okay! as i've started before, everyone's different :D whether it's our gender identities, the kind of fanfiction we want to read or the kinds of characters we want to see portrayed! everyone has their different tastes :) again, i apologize for the massive essays i keep sending your way, haha! but, also again, i do hope this may provide a bit of insight on this subject :) although, this is also just the opinion of one little trans smut writer, haha! i highly recommend giving a listen to other genderqueer authors or content creators who may have their own sides to the story, so to speak, haha! i'm definitely a bit more... lenient? i think? with my own gender identity? as well as things like anatomical terminology! so, for instance, i use terminology like 'breasts', 'clitoris', 'vagina' (albeit, in much more... uhh, smuttier terms, haha!) when describing smut scenes? but, i also use terms like 'cock' or 'dick' when transmasc characters are referring to themselves. again! everyone's super different, and this is just how i write and communicate the gender identities of my personal trans characters :) but, again, and i can't stress this enough! everyone's journeys with their gender identity is so different! and i'm just one little lad in a garden of trans/genderqueer fanfic writers! :D

[lucaawrites]

ron weasley with a trans slytherin boyfriend

masterlist

requests are open!

pronouns: he/they

warnings: romantic relationship, mention of dysphoria, period (if i missed something please let me know!)

request: Hi! I recently found your blog by high key stalking the Ron Weasley x male reader tag and was wondering if you’d be up for/willing to do a fic/head cannons or anything for a Ron Weasley x trans (FtM, He/him he/they pronoun) Slytherin reader? Ron brings joy in my life and even more when I’m feeling dysphoric myself and I can never find any good trans reader stories I fully understand if you can’t or don’t want to though☺️

note: thank you so much for requesting! it means a lot <3 I hc ron as trans but we are going to pretend he is cis for this one, but this inspired me so I probably will be doing a trans ftm ron x trans ftm reader very soon, I hope you enjoy! I put a warning before the period stuff, in case you don't want to ready it :) im sorry it took so long. feedback is always very appreciated!

here ron knows how to knit

i'm sure he would make sweaters that say "trans rights are human rights"

he would even make trans flags

or just things with the trans flag colours in general

when you came out to him he had so many questions

he wanted to make sure to never hurt or misgender you

and even called you “boyfriend” in every chance he got

“hello, love. how is my handsome boyfriend on this beautiful day?”

he is the biggest trans ally

he is just the sweetest, if you want to transition he would stay up late searching in books potions or spells that may help you with your dysphoria

if you bind he totally would say that only the manliest of men bind, "because it's like you have to keep all your masculinity inside, like it's too much for the world, you know?"

on really ugly dysphoria days he would lay next to you and without crossing your boundaries be with you, if you want physical touch he would hold you and whisper sweet things on your ear

“you are my boyfriend, the best person I have ever met, your body doesn't dictate what you are, and what you are, is a boy, my pretty boy”

even he would mark and say little things about you that “are masculine”

“and your eyes? that shade of e/c is super masculine”

he would make you feel as safe as he could at any moment

and if someone misgendered you on purpose? that man would throw hands, he is ready for everything, a punch would fly before they could end their sentence

you don't like him fighting or violence? he would respect you and not do it, but they would not misgender you ever again

you prefer to do it yourself? he would support you 100%

“pretty boy” definitely would be an every-day pet name

“hey, pretty boy” “hello, pretty boy” “what are you doing, pretty boy?”

he is the most supportive boyfriend

you have a special interest? he would ask you all about it

he would never get tired of listening to you rant about something you like or you are passionate about

and he would definitely rant about his special interest too, his eyes would shine and he would move so much his hands while talking that he probably would throw something accidentally

if you get very concentrated in something and you lost track of time he would bring you water and some snacks, and if its cold he would bring a blanket or he would be the blanket

he would make you stand up and sit on his lap (if you are comfortable with it), he basically would be your chair and blanket at the same time

for your birthdays he would give you a handmade gift, even if you don't celebrate, he would definitely make you gifts on random days too, even flowers that he saw on the hogwarts grounds and made him think of you, he would learn a charm that keeps flowers alive after all the plants/flowers he gave you keep dying

ron enters your dorm with an extended blanket on his hands “I have brought you a gift” he said giggling a little behind the blanket, “its a blanket, nothing more, but if you turn it this way” he then turned the blanket the other side, revealing in the other side that instead of being just the same color it had a draw knitted in it, it was you two like stick figures holding hands with a heart in the middle, then he would pop his head above of the blanket “do you like it?”

he would not be able to hide how much he loves you (not that he wanted to tbh)

when you two started dating he would ask you if you let him introduce you, when you confused say yes he would go “and they are y/n, my boyfriend” with the biggest smile you've ever seen

he is a proud boyfriend, not matter what you do

if you have a plant he would totally talk to it, he even would put a name on it (if it already didn't had one) and call it "our child"

"have you watered our child today, sweetheart?"

he would totally leave little notes on your books/beside your bed with smalls "hello, beautiful ;)", "I love you :)", "have a good day <3", "drink water pls" "im proud of you"

he would have a picture of you on his wallet/pocket, prove me wrong

if someone asks if he has a partner? oh, god.

“yes! I mean, yes, I do, do you want to see him?” and without letting the other person respond he would take the picture he carries always with him and show it to who asked “they are my boyfriend, his name is y/n, he uses he/they pronouns, they are a slytherin-” and he would go on with things about you (and how handsome you are) until someone stops him

TW: PERIOD MENTION

this man is surprisingly good at taking emotional hints

if you are in your period he knows

but he would not mention it until you do because he would not want to make you feel weird

he does things for you before that tho

he would give you blankets, "the weather is being weird, you have to be ready"

don't get me wrong, he does that normally, but this blanket is specially weighted and is really warm, perfect for cramps

he would make sure you eat all your meals and drink all the water you need

"oh, love! I casually have more water with me than the amount that I want, do you fancy some?" it was not casual

"oh! look! some of your favorite snacks! aren't you lucky?"

he would leave you snacks beside your bed with post-it notes that just have a <3 on them

one day you were looking for him and you find him talking quietly with ginny on the common room

and as you get closer you hear him going “so what should I do for him? like what do I get them? what do you use? what’s helpful? is there anything he definitely needs-”

he is just so cute I love him so much

the first time you get your period and you are dating he is extra soft

and specially that cycle was not being easy

he had helped you on your period before, but that day he just went to you, held your hands with one hand lightly and put the other on your cheek and you're like huh???? but then you see the expression on his face and holy shit

the softest smile is on his face. and you can't help but smile back at him.

the two of you stare at each other for a bit, smiling. then he breaks the air.

"why don't we stay on the dorm today?"

you didn't feel great that day but you know by the way his thumbs were lightly caressing your cheeks you knew that everything was going to be okay

[voidistooshortforausername]

Dear Void,

I'm 99% sure that that post about someone wishing you something on women's day is a joke, but my anxiety wants me to speak up just in case...

Please don't... This sounds dumb, but I really love you and your blog. Like, I love seeing your posts and smiling because of them. I've come to really look forward to seeing your posts cause they're like an instant serotonin boost. And I know that sounds really selfish, that me asking you not to do the sewerslide is because you make me smile... But I can't help it. I dunno, I've always had this fear of seeing something like that on a blog that I really enjoy and care about, only for them to never post or be active again.

Of course you have other reasons not to sewerslide. It may not seem like it but you are loved! And things'll get better. It doesn't seem like it, but it does. Even if it's only in small ways. And if none of that works, give yourself a reason. Like, I set random little "milestones" for myself. My current one is "I can't sewerslide until I do a full cosplay." It helps to do that for some reason. And once I finish that, I make a new, small little goal like that. Something that can be done within a month or less, cause otherwise it's too daunting and I feel worse about it.

I got off topic, I'm sorry. Just... please don't hurt yourself? You have a lot to live for.

And if it was a joke, I'm sorry for kinda... ruining it... I just want you to know that we care.

Your Friend,

Arson 🔥💙

P.S. I know the letter form is weird, especially for an ask, but I thought it'd be fun... 🤷😅

hello arson,

i am not sure how to react.  it’s mostly a joke but also not really? i will give you a little tl;dr before i actually start talking and you know how much i love just ranting.

i emotionally feel really bad due to (some of) my friends not understanding the fact that i’m trans. i should have made it more clear in the post itself/the tags that i wasn’t being entirely serious. i am sorry for causing you anxiety.

i’m not sure how to explain but i will try.

my friends are p much kinda shitty about this. not all of them, i would even say most of them aren’t, but there are some people that i have to interact with because i work with them/go to uni with them who-- know about this stuff but choose to ignore it. and no matter how much i explain this to them, they still do this shit bc “well show me some documents that prove that you aren’t a girl and i will stop calling you a girl” (it’s not a direct quote but a friend literally told me that he won’t refer to me by the nickname i use as my name - my deadname is as feminine as they get - until i get it changed/physically transition while also telling me that i should be happy with my body bc no one will want me if i transition). and it makes my dysphoria skyrocket; i’m usually way more physically dysphoric than socially dysphoric but this shit? it just makes me want to die. it makes me feel so alone despite the fact that i know that most of my friends aren’t like this. i don’t know why, i just can’t stop feeling this way; it’s probably because the people who act like this towards me are the people i have to interact with the most. but hey - i will probably graduate in a few month, i will move out, i won’t have to interact with them anymore. maybe it will get better, at least when it comes to this. 

i hope this kinda-- explains why i said what i said in that post?

(also i don’t know why i’m typing this out, okay?)

when it comes to the “giving yourself a reason” thing-- would you believe if i told you that i did it years ago and set the goal for “staying alive until supernatural ends”? i was that cringe child who would do that but now-- i have cosplays to finish too, and i should really work on my thesis - i have experiments to do and stuff. 

and when it comes to me not hurting myself - i’m working on it. it doesn’t seem possible and i spend a lot of time thinking about relapsing bc sometimes i miss just setting my sleeves on fire and bleeding through shirts at school. but i’m also really trying not to do that, but all i can tell you is “shit’s fucked” to be honest. i’m about-- i was always bad at keeping track, 3 days clean?

i almost forgot - i’m really glad you enjoy my bullshit since pretty much all i do is playing games/screaming about games, being gay for fictional milves, loving my partner, and being uninteresting. 

thank you so much for-- i am not sure how to say it. i really appreciate your concern. thank you so much for messaging me.

your friend,

void

p.s. i really like the letter form, don’t worry :)))

[7-oh-ta1]

Soz i came off agressive. I read the tags but i guess it didn't register properly. The first time i wrote the ask i said that "to me" this is what pan and bi is, and i should've kept that. I also originally wrote more stuff, but i thought i didn't want to send an essay and cut it down and ended up soundin like an asshole oof

As for the biphobic roots of panphobia, yeah, it probably is, but i also don't think it's as clear cut as that. As far as i'm aware, the tension between the communities comes from fundamentally misunderstanding the definition of each, while also not aknowledging that the definitions are flexible and change from person to person, resulting in both biphobia and panphobia. Do think about how your definition of your bisexuality, while completely valid, isn't universal. Mine isn't either. The definition of a pansexuality also can change from person to person.

There are more terms than bi and pan, you probably already know this. Polysexuality, omnisexuality, doesn't it all feel like how there are many many identities under the 'nonbinary' umbrella? The differences may be small or subjective, but it matters to people. At the end of the day it's just what feels right for you. Or maybe what flag you liked best.

Idk if i m makin sense man it's 1 am. Sorry for the essay in ur askbox 😔 idk if i made it clear but i'm bi. Also demi, which i think cements the idea that definitions change from person to person, cuz we re like, sorta the same, but think of our orientations differently.

It's okay, thank you for clarifying for me. ^^ I'm sorry for being aggressive as well. People can be really quick to make claims about others without actually knowing what the person is asking on this hellsite so I got aggressive thinking it was that situation and I apologize for that.

I understand what you're saying, in that I 100% agree that the definitions of sexualities are flexible and vary from person to person even within one label, like the two of us. My ignorance is that I don't understand the core idea of pansexuality... for example lesbianism is experienced in many different ways but I have a basic understanding of it as primarily women but also nonbinary people who are attracted to both cis & trans women. But with pansexuality I don't understand the basic idea which is what confuses me and it's never been explained to me in a way I can grasp. It's not anyone's responsibility to educate me in that, but that also means I still don't have a clear understanding.

I definitely should clarify again that I absolutely think that being pan is valid and that the label deserves as much respect as any. Just because I don't have a grasp on what it means doesn't mean that it's any less important and deserving of respect, and I agree too that at the end of the day, all that matters is what makes that person comfortable. I would never ever claim to be in a position where I had the right to tell people what identity they can or can't have. I like to and it makes me happy to understand, but I don't have to understand for it to be a label that I respect. I was only expressing my confusion with it, but it wasn't my intent to slander pansexuality or invalidate it.

I saw the post on a bi pos blog (it was actually just the top post which I felt iffy about but I looked through the notes and the third person added some insight that made me scratch my head and got me reflecting on own experiences) and I wanted to express those thoughts and confusions, especially considering the history of both labels.

Also you're totally making sense don't worry, I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me even though it's so late. I hope you get some good rest. 😌