#i forget sometimes that cis men are short too

[ftm-qui-gon-jinn]

unrelated to my writing: trying to figure out how tall Harry is during Order of the Phoenix and discovering Daniel Radcliffe is short.  such gender.  I’m taller than Harry Potter.  wow

#i forget sometimes that cis men are short too #i forget bc all the cis men im surrounded by are over 6ft #while im just 5'7" #im tiny compared to them #also i recently found out mark hamill is only two inches taller than me #im nearly as tall as luke skywalker #idk man my gender euphoria works in weird ways #okay back to work lmao

[alwida10]

Sexism is sexism.

Misogyny, Misandry - makes no difference. The degree is irrelevant. Definitions blurred (especially with genderfluid characters). If I have to pay for strong female representation on-screen with the bashing of genderfluid people or men, I’d rather not watch at all.

TW for Loki show negativity

I have now seen people claim frequently that „if you didn’t enjoy the Loki series it might be due to (internalized or subconscious) misogyny.”

You see, if you get discriminated against for a long time, ‘equality’ and ‘getting revenge’ suddenly can get hard to separate. And since Loki might be a little bit too close for many of us to stay objective I would like to tell you about the He-man reboot, that just came out. Well, a series about a guy called ‘He-Man’ sounds as it should be about a Man, right? But instead the production crew decided to kill the titular character and make the show about his female side kick, enraging the fans who thought they’d get content about he-man. Similarly, some people praise the approach as progressive. Being completely uninvolved in that franchise I must say that it reminds me of the Loki show, especially the false advertising in the name of feminism, which might be in truth rather be (possibly subconscious) misandry/genderfluidphobia.

The question if it’s rather misandry or genderfluidphobia/enbyphobia depends if you see Loki as a cis man or genderfluid. I see him as genderfluid, but the show painted him mostly as male-presenting and I could hardly find any indication of him being genderfluid beside that line of text in the opening sequence, so I assume most casual viewers will perceive him as a cis man. That’s why I decided on using “misandry”, but it’s just as much genderfluidphobia.

Until today, the film industry is dominated by men, which shows in the gender ratio before and behind the camera as well as wage gaps and many more points that stand in the way of equality. And make no mistakes, these points still need to be addressed!

But we must not forget that men are people, too! They can also be targeted by sexism, discriminated and even assaulted because of their gender. Sometimes this even happens under the pretense of „equality“, as if a new wrong could make an old wrong right.

Movies are a powerful tool for discrimination since subtle messages get absorbed and influence the audience subconsciously. In fact, the influence of those sexist narratives is higher when we don’t notice them, and the methods are many. Here is a short selection of frequently used methods.

1. Women are reduced to sex objects. Additionally, sexual assault is not be recognized by the narrative and never addressed outside of its immediate plot purpose. This adds to the normalization of assault on women. It is shockingly prevalent in older movies.

2. A lack of agency and powers: Kunsey (2018) compared the 5 highest-grossing films with male & female directors. He found that female directors told stories focused on women, and vice versa. Also, while historically women on screen were often sexualized, some female directors focus on romance from a woman’s perspective.

Additionally, he found women lacked both agency and superpowers in comparison to the male characters when the movies were directed by men. Female directors ensured women had more impact on the plot and even subverted classical male story types.

3. Flat, stereotypic characterization that shows women as incompetent: As this gets more and more called out, it’s not as obvious in recent movies. But historically the pretty, yet utterly brainless women who served only to highlight the man’s skills and appeal, were widespread. Some examples are Mary Goodnight from “The Man With The Golden Gun” (1974) or Kissy Suzuki from “You Only Live Twice” (1967).

4. Other tropes, such as the “damsel in distress”, are still to be found nowadays. This would include women who can have a three-dimensional characterization, even including some strengths, but still need to be rescued so the male hero can shine.

From one perspective it is great that the Loki series was directed by a woman. Not only is it a step toward balanced gender ratios behind the camera, but also female directors enable other women to join the casts and can impact our society by presenting stories of women.

However, the Loki series made extensive use of methods used in the past to discriminate against women, applied to men. In comparison to his female counterpart, Loki has little agency, is sexualized, the assault on him is normalized, and he is a stereotypical damsel in distress. Right in the first episode, Loki is stripped of his clothes, paving the way for excessive sexualization (point 1) by the audience. Similar to movies that downplayed the sexual assault of women, this scene never gets addressed again. The assault is not painted as unjust. In fact, the head writer referred to it as the “hottest Loki content ever seen” after it appeared first in a trailer. It’s supposed to equal bikini-spotting Bond girls, even though it’s clearly non-consensual in-universe.

Just like women, men can be victims of sexual assault. However, unlike women, men are not as easily believed when they speak out about being sexually assaulted. The shame of admitting being a victim paired with the poor chances for justice discourages men from filing charges, leading to a high number of unknown cases. I can only speculate if the wide spread denial of sexual assaults on men facilitates that so many people see the scene as “hot”. In-universe, the assault is not sexually motivated, but that makes the fact that the showrunners use an assault for sexualization is not less disturbing.

One scene of this sort could have been but an unfortunate accident that would not indicate an overarching theme. Sadly, it isn’t the only scene of this sort. In episode 4, Sif repeatedly kicks Loki in his groin. Loki repeatedly going down, wincing in pain, is supposed to be funny.

Neither the soundtrack nor the framing indicates an assault. Sif’s actions are justified by the show with the note that he cut her hair of. Natalie Holt’s additional information on preceding intercourse serve the same purpose: The attacker is justified. The victim deserved it.

Next: A lack of agency. From the first moments of the show Loki is either prisoner of the TVA or threatened by the environment, leaving him almost no agency, resulting in him having almost no impact on the plot. His discovery of Sylvie’s hiding places comes too late to avert her attack on the TVA. Since Sylvie can’t use magic in the TVA, her initial plan would have likely led to her capture. Loki’s attack and use of the TemPad led them to Lamentis, but in the end, both end up where they would have been without his interference, anyway: being prisoners of the TVA.

Even in the void at the end of all times, Loki fails to stir the plot. It is Mobius’ words that inspire Classic Loki to help them.

Loki subscribes to Sylvie’s goal of enchanting Alioth. Only in the finale does he oppose her – and gets promptly removed from the scene so he still does not influence the plot.

But the lack of agency isn’t all. While Loki shows a lot of powers during the series (illusions such as fireworks, drying his clothes, telekinesis, conjuring, arguably teleportation) they lack the power to chance anything. It’s Sylvie’s enchantment which is the key to breaking the TVA’s mind control of the variants. His part in this job is reduced to delaying her information that all employees of the TVA are variants to Mobius who takes it to Hunter B15.

Also, take a look how Sylvie and Loki are shown in the battle against Alioth.

Yet Loki’s lack of power doesn’t stop with the supernatural. In Avengers 1, Loki holds up well against Captain America who is physically enhanced by the serum. In the show, he is overpowered by normal humans, such as Hunter B15 and struggles to hold up against the time keeper’s guards.

Let’s proceed to point 3 - characterized as imcompetent: Similar to the women mentioned in the beginning, Loki is frequently depicted as unreflecting, foolish and shallow. Threatened with the disintegration of his clothes he argues for “fine Asgardian leather”. Everyone should be aware that this bears no meaning for a robot. Additionally, it depicts his priorities as short-sighted. Later on, Loki fails to notice the importance of a time travel device during an ongoing apocalypse that leads promptly to the destruction of the device. His plans generally don’t work. Neither does the disguise as a train guard nor the persuasion of the old woman on Lamentis 1. His plot to stall the minutemen in episode 2 is immediately uncovered by Mobius (who, btw, is shown similarly inconsequential and inferior to his female counterpart Ravona Renslayer. Again, this hints that the series might generally be biased against men).

Loki’s lack of intelligence paves the way for the sexist trophy ‘damsel in distress’. Loki must be saved at several points of the series: The trial (ep.1), in the train (ep.3) when he fails to lay low and summons the wrong illusion, from Lamentis and from Alioth (ep.5).

As mentioned at the beginning, it happens again and again that people label primitive acts of retaliation against men for former discrimination against women as “feminism”. Often those acts of retaliation aim at individuals who did not commit discrimination against women.

Those acts cast a poor light on feminism and only add to the injustice. Far too often people confuse the desire for justice with the desire to be the one holding the whip. As a true feminist, this actions need to be judged as hard as sexism against women! Only that can be called equality.

A positive example of feminism was Black Panter. Not only was this the only male-directed movie from Kunsey’s analysis that could compete with the female-directed movies in terms of women behind the camera, strong female characters, female agency, and the Bechdel test but also it showed that the male protagonist could both be the butt of some jokes (“[He froze] like an antelope in headlights!”) and also get recognition with badass action scenes. Of course, men can also be ridiculed and display foolishness. But jokes on the expanse of characters have to be balanced and done with the care to keep it tasteful. As soon the portrayal goes too far into one direction there might be a bias in the production team. This is especially important if more than one representative of a social group gets targeted!

And of course both the stories of women and men need to be told. To achieve this the ratio of women amongst the directors needs to increase. There is no way arguing that. And even though I cannot bring myself to like Sylvie, Kate Harron put a lot of effort into telling her story. Both the plot and the framing aim to make her the center of the plot and urge the audience to connect with her. She inspired many fans with this depiction of a strong female character. People praise the Loki show as progressive because of it.

But why did she had to pair this with the bashing of a man/genderfluid person? Can’t a woman not be strong without degrading another person? For me – a woman – such a portrayal is weakened if it is on someone’s expense. In fact, I realized one of the main points that sours her characterization for me is that harsh contrast between her and our Loki. She is competent where he is lacking, her pain validated where his is dismissed, her goal gets achieved while he fails.

Black Panther proved that a director and his team can produce an awesome story that provides decent representation for black people! But as Kunsey pointed out it did generally a wonderful job with representation, including those of women! They made an effort for equally behind the scenes. Okoye’s and Nakia’s characterizations show objective strength; they do not depend on bashing of males. In contrast, the Loki show proves female directors might not be the best choice when it comes to telling the story of a man or - as in this case - a predominantly male-presenting genderfluid person. Kate Herron was granted a rare opportunity that called for consideration.

The Loki show is named after the character Tom Hiddleston plays ever since Thor 1 (2011). Making his show about a female variant of Loki is fraudulent labeling. Using trailers where Sylvie is digitally removed is false advertising.

Perhaps Herron’s actions won’t cast poor light on other female directors. But it is undeniable that Loki has an enormous fandom and the show was watched by millions of people. Kate’s normalization of assaults against men might still contribute to abuse and aggression.

With great power comes great responsibility!

If you are given a chance like Herron was, you have the responsibility to use it wisely. And that excludes bashing of others because of their genders.

Our aim has to be equality and respect.

#Loki meta #Loki series negativity #feminism #anti kate harron

[bisexualwannabewriter]

Hi! Would you do Cassidy and #1 of your trope list? With a trans male reader if you're comfortable with that.

Hi anon ! This is very new to me, so I hope you'll like what I wrote. I apologize in advance if anything feels inaccurate or ... weird ? I really tried my best ! I love this character so much, so it was lovely to be able to put Cassidy in a story of mine.

Hope you'll enjoy anon ! :)

Proinsias Cassidy (Preacher) x trans male reader

1. I was a dead man before I met you, y/n. I couldn’t remember what being alive felt like. Now I do

tw : mentions of transitioning, Cassidy's self-loathing and bloody past, God, swearing, but overall fluffy wholesome shit with our favorite vampire !

Check out this post if you'd like me to write other stories with a specific character and trope ! :D

You had changed a lot over the last couple of months. You were a new person, and at the same time, not really. The world felt like it was different too. But you were you, you were exactly who you were supposed to be now. And you felt like everything around you was falling into place. And then there was him.

Being a trans man was fucking complicated sometimes. People were talking about it more, and it was nice to see people finally opening the conversation; but sometimes, you felt like trans men were a bit left out. You knew the world had such an intense obsession with feminine beauty. Those were things you were a little afraid to talk about. So much came with your transition, and it was important for you to have someone to check on you. You needed support, and Cass gave that to you. He let you go on lengthy rants about this, but also about anything else, really. He had this soft little smile on his face, as he let you externalize everything you had been scared to even mention to anyone else before, out loud.

That man was surprising, in the best ways possible, if you just let him. If you just believed in him. He didn't know why, but you did. He had been underestimated his entire life. He loved people who didn't love him back, who took him from granted. You didn't. You were so grateful for him. You had endless conversations about what it meant to be a man, to the both of you. You both challenged the idea of the perfect cis straight man, and took immense pride in that. He was unapologetically himself, and you loved him even more for that. You didn't think he really understood how much he meant to you. But you also talked about crazy conspiracy theories together, controversial opinions, God, people...

He harbored such a deep hatred for himself sometimes, it broke your heart. But all you saw in him was beauty. Sure, he had his flaws. Flaws that might be difficult to overlook for other people. Not for you. He was who he was, and you were who you were, and you accepted each other with an open heart. Cassidy thought you were the most wonderful person he had ever met in his life. He admired and respected you. He lived a long life, so that meant the world to you. He saw something special in you, in your soul, in your heart. He felt like he was broken beyond repear, and somehow you came into his life, shining light on the darkest parts of his story, his memories. You had a gift to see the good in the bad, and that saved his life.

Talking about certain parts of his past was difficult to him, you knew it was. Between his vampirism, what he did to his son Denis, his criminal record, his involvement as a freedom fighter for the Irish Republic, his brief affiliation with "Les Enfants du Sang"... It was a lot. It was especially difficult to talk about this couple he had met, a couple of years before everything. He was friends with them; Jesse Custer and Tulip O'Hare. He was his bestfriend, and she was - what he thought was - the love of his life. They went through a lot together, but eventually parted ways. He would never forget them, you knew that for sure. But you made things better. He was in a very dark place, before you met him. Saving someone was not on your list of things to accomplish at the time. You had to put yourself first. But being with him just made perfect sense. It worked. You didn't know how, but it worked.

One night, after a long debate on The Big Lebowski (he fucking hated that movie with a passion), he just layed there, in your arms, thinking. Cassidy talked a lot. A LOT. And yet you still knew that sometimes, he kept things to himself. His mind was in a constant turmoil, and you hoped your presence calmed it down. It did. Cass felt good. He loved being the little spoon. And then, he turned around, looked at you with his beautiful loving eyes, and told you something you would remember for the rest of your life, no matter how long or short it would be : "You'll never know how much I love you, y/n. You saved me without even trying to. You didn't have to. You just had to be... you. Honest to God... I tried, and I did crazy fucked up things, and I fell in love but... I was a dead man before I met you, y/n. I couldn’t remember what being alive felt like. Now I do. You make me feel more alive than I've ever felt before. I know why I'm still here. It was all worth it somehow, love. I'm finally where I need to be. I'm not too much, or not enough. I'm... here, with you."

You felt so much warmth inside your entire body. It almost felt like the warmth extended around you, and it trapped the both of you into a bubble that no one could ever burst. It was you and him, him and you. The world didn't have to understand. You two were all that mattered, and you were thankful for what he gave you. For what you gave him. For the rare treasure you were both sharing. You would never hurt him, as you knew he would never hurt you. You held him closer, simply telling him that you loved him, and that was enough for Cass.

He had everything he ever wanted right here, right now.

#request #anon request #oneshot #proinsias cassidy #preacher amc #trans pride #transition #trans male reader #joe gilgun #joseph gilgun #preacher #the big lebowski #little spoon #this blog is a safe space #requests are open #vampire #trans male x cassidy #y/n #fanfic

[saphinc]

write  more  plus  size  muses  challenge  (  from  a  writer  with  two  chins  &  counting  )  !!  tw  ;  eating  disorder  ,  body  image  ,  fatphobia  mention.

there  are  a  million  reasons  someone  is  overweight.  some  of  us  don’t  know  ,  or  care.  we  don’t  have  to  explain  it  or  justify  it.  neither  does  your  character.

but  they  can.  and  sometimes  it’s  really  important.  i  have  struggled  with  my  size  my  whole  life  ,  but  i  attribute  most  of  it  to  an  eating  disorder.  but  that’s  for  me  ,  not  you.

we  don’t  need  to  eat  double  the  portion  size  to  feel  satisfied  ,  nor  do  we  need  to  eat  more  often.  our  hunger  works  like  yours  does.

stop  writing  fat  characters  who  are  constantly  snacking  or  asking  every  other  character  for  their  leftovers.  it’s  fucking  rude.  we  don’t  do  that.

if  anything  ,  i  am  more  likely  to  eat  less  or  avoid  eating  altogether  when  around  others.

also  stop  writing  fat  characters  that  are  constantly  dieting.  stop  writing  fat  characters  who  lose  weight  to  be  liked  (  or  for  any  other  reason  for  themselves  ).  we  don’t  have  to  change  ourselves  ,  just  the  people  around  us.

plus  size  bodies  are  unique  and  beautiful.  we  can  be  tall  or  short  or  hairy  or  lanky.  

our  weight  isn’t  all  in  the  hips  and  ass.  mine’s  in  my  torso.  it  can  be  in  your  chest  ,  your  face  ,  stomach,  legs,  thighs.  most  of  the  time  ,  it’s  everywhere  ,  spread  out.

i  have  stretch  marks,  but  those  only  showed  up  when  i  rapidly  gained  weight  .  most  of  my  life  i  didn’t  have  them  despite  being  fat  from  a  young  age.

my  thighs  and  upper  arms  jiggle.  a  lot.

we  don’t  all  hate  our  bodies  &  we’re  not  all  bullied  for  them.  we  make  fun  of  ourselves  too.  i  love  my  jiggly  arms.

that  being  said  ,  we  are  treated  differently.  all  the  time.  sometimes  i  think  people  are  scared  i’ll  crush  them  by  just  standing  there  &  talking  ?  or  they  think  i’ll  breathe  the  fat  plague  in  their  space  ?

shopping  is  really  hard.  most  stores  don’t  cater  to  fat  bodies  at  all  ,  especially  in  women’s.  i  mostly  shop  in  the  men’s  section  or  in  exclusively  plus  size  stores.  our  options  are  super  limited.  that’s  not  our  fault.

the  word  fat  isn’t  offensive.  but  don’t  call  me  it  or  describe  me  as  it.  we  do  use  it  to  describe  ourselves.  and  not  in  a  negative  way  !

speaking  of  ?  did  i  mention  we  don’t  all  hate  our  bodies  and  want  to  change  them?  

edit  your  language.  eradicate  the  idea  that  skinny  is  beautiful.  every  size  is  beautiful  ,  asshole.  i’m  really  cute.  being  fat  and  being  beautiful  are  not  mutually  exclusive.

don’t  say  “you’re  not  fat”  to  a  fat  person  like  it’s  a  compliment.  i  am  fat  and  that’s  okay.  stop  treating  fatness  like  a  character  flaw.

we  fall  in  love  just  like  you.  we  don’t  have  to  settle  for  an  individual  who  makes  us  feel  like  crap  just  to  not  be  lonely.  i  know  it’s  hard  to  believe  but  there  are  actually  people  out  there  who  don’t  judge  character  by  weight.

it’s  not  cute  to  have  fat  as  your  “type”  because  not  one  of  us  is  the  same,  our  bodies  are  so  different  and  our  only  similarity  ,  really  ,  is  we’re  bigger  than  average.  we’re  not  a  fetish.

there’s  no  fat  clique.  i  have  friends  who  are  plus  size  and  ones  that  are  skinny.  i  knew  really  popular  assholes  in  high  school  who  were  fat.  i  knew  soft-spoken  ones  and  edgy  ones  and  stoners.  we’re  not  all  friends.  not  all  of  our  friends  share  our  size.

same  with  our  families.  stop  assuming  we  come  from  fat  families.  being  overweight  can  be  /  is  genetic  as  well  as  due  to  lifestyle  choices.  both  of  my  brothers  are  skinny.  my  mom  is  bigger  than  me  ,  my  dad  is  average.  my  grandparents  are  small  ,  my  cousin  is  a  little  smaller  than  me  &  my  aunt  used  to  be  big  but  ended  up  losing  a  lot  of  weight  due  to  a  physical  illness.

boobs  sag.  gravity  pulls  them  down  before  anything  else.  mine  bounce  ,  fall  ,  pop  out  of  my  shirt  ,  whatever  the  fuck  they  want.  they  crush  each  other  when  i  lie  on  my  side  and  spread  in  big  blobs  when  i’m  on  my  back.  they’re  super  annoying  and  i  love  them.

it  is  possible  to  balance  items  on  our  chests.  it’s  very  useful.  sometimes  i’ll  prop  my  boob  up  to  have  a  bigger  table  when  i’m  carrying  something.  sometimes  i’ll  rest  my  container  of  applesauce  on  it  while  i’m  lying  down.  my  dog  likes  to  use  them  for  pillows.

i  can’t  see  through  them.  it  takes  some  work.  i  can’t  lay  flat  with  a  bra  on  and  watch  tv  at  the  same  time.  i  can’t  see  through  my  stomach  when  i’m  looking  down  either.  

that  doesn’t  mean  it’s  harder  for  us  or  takes  longer  for  us  to  use  the  bathroom  or  shower.  we  just  have  to  learn  to  do  some  of  it  blindly  or  move  faster  (  because  yes  ,  of  course  we  wash  under  our  fat??  )

i  do  not  sleep  with  a  bra  on.  i  was  told  at  a  young  age  that  i  should  though.  i  don’t  know  if  there’s  any  merit  to  that  tip  or  if  it  was  invented  to  make  skinny  people  at  sleepovers  more  comfortable.  

we  can  (  and  do  )  wear  sports  bras.  same  with  spandex,  tights,  and  crop  tops.  we  can  wear  whatever  we  want  just  like  you.  it’s  just  not  as  easy  for  us  to  find  these  items  in  our  size  ,  in  stores.

being  fat  isn’t  a  disability.  

we  don’t  get  special  treatment  in  gym  class  or  different  expectations  ,  because  guess  what  ?  we’re  not  unhealthy.  stop  babying  us  when  it  comes  to  physical  activity.  we  know  our  own  limits  and  we’ll  tell  you  if  we’re  close  to  them.

we  can  run.  we  can  do  yoga  and  stretch  without  cracking  or  breaking  something.  we  can  &  and  do  have  sex.  we’re  not  always  in  pain  either  ,  for  the  love  of  god!!

there  are  things  we  can’t  do.  the  most  obvious  place  for  me  is  at  carnivals  ?  i  still  go  to  them,  but  i  don’t  go  on  rides.  most  don’t  support  fat  people.  same  with  clothes.  most  of  them  don’t  come  in  our  size.  our  options  are  limited.

we  don’t  sweat  more  than  the  average  person?  weight  isn’t  an  indicator  of  how  much  you  perspire.  

on  that  note  ,  i  don’t  give  a  damn  what  health  blogs  and  magazines  tell  you.  those  are  written  by  skinny  people  who  hate  us  and  think  we’re  gross.  we  are  each  individually  responsible  for  a  so  called  obesity  epidemic  ,  according  to  them.  they’ll  do  whatever  to  convince  you  of  this.

i’m  not  “glorifying  obesity”  either.  i’m  telling  you  that  i  exist  and  i’m  not  disgusting  because  my  body  looks  like  this.

don’t  forget  to  be  intersectional  when  considering  writing  plus  size  characters.  familiarize  yourself  with  harmful  stereotypes  and  misconceptions.  i’m  a  cis  white  woman.  i  have  it  a  lot  easier  than  plus  size  poc,  and  plus  size  trans  ppl.

#rph #my guide. #plus size muses. #i thought abt putting this under a read more but #if i'm fat irl why not be fat #on ur dash #feel free to add on if u know the feel ! #mine.

[silenceofthecookies]

One piece matchup for @basilisa-scorpii / @some-piece​ 

I’m 25 cis woman. Bisexual, however, I tend to lean more towards men or more “masculine” women, when it comes to physical attraction. I’m a tall gal (180cm/5’11) and on the chubby side of the scale, especially when it comes to boobs (I’m outranking OP girls, I’m afraid, rip my back xD), apple body shape, long legs. Dark, almost black, wavy hair, dark eyes, olive-ish complexion. Pierced girl here: 3 in left ear, one in right and a labret; totally planning more as well as tattoos. Rather tomboyish with a huge love for punk style, I like wearing black clothes and “break” them with something warm and vivid, like yellow or red.

ISTJ and Capricorn. Extremely introverted. Shy and reserved towards “stranger danger”, but I like people in general and I like company, as long as I’m having a safe distance and the “people time” is balanced with solitude. I have a huge tendency to be gloomy, can come across as rude and insensitive to people who don’t know me well, since I don’t really care about social boundaries, I’m sarcastic and have quite a morbid sense of humor. I am horribly hot-headed, but I do my best to tame it, so I rarely explode… But when I do, then it is indeed an explosion. Around the right people, I tend to get softer (aka the face people usually see on my blogs, doing my best to not be a bitch lmao) and more chaotic. Once I become close to someone, I am loyal to death and kind of overprotective. I’m not really affectionate and can’t express emotions well, my love language is an act of service. Biggest flaws: stubborn af, clumsy, oblivious, over-cautious, control freak, workaholic.

I love reading (sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, crime stories, magical realism, comics), travelling, history and archeology (ancient and medieval Europe), ornithology, stargazing and astrophysics, mythologies and folklore, cooking, writing, Greek history, language and culture. 

I also like: wandering around early in the morning/at night, reading on a windowsill, visiting random places in my city and around, rainy summer days and storms, birds, cloudless nights, dark chocolate, when someone plays with my hair, freedom of choice, meditating, good hot tea, hiking, sitting in water (hooot baths!), tattoos, piercing and body art, liquor, atmospheric bars with good music, good beer and good, small company.

I hate: crowd, clingy and noisy people, being told what to do and when, covering my neck and chest, being touched without asking for permission first, hot and sunny weather, losing control over situations or myself, cruelty against animals, kids and weaker people; bigotry, judgemental people, injustice, symmetrism, sterility, overly spicy food.

Any additional info you would like to share, fun facts, etc.

I’m neurodivergent (autistic and I suspect I might have ADHD in addition, though it both can go together and shares some similarities so who knows).

Used to be very sport oriented (trained basketball and for short time fencing) but because of health issues I can’t do that anymore. I do like being active whenever my mental and physical states allow me to (I just love yoga cause I can flex how flexible I am lmao)... But I need to be watched cause die hard or do nothing and I end in even worse condition, so yeah, someone with one more brain cell than me is needed around xD

I have a very high tolerance for toxic substances, such as alcohol, drugs, lots of meds… And luckily very good pain tolerance, cause most painkillers don’t work on me and whoa boy.

(No wonder I hate dentists with passion.)

I get along better with people who are straightforward and honest, even if sometimes they might tell me something I do not wish to hear. I will sniff bullshit out on a mile and if someone lies to me once, it’s over. And on top of that, I just don’t get hints, implications, allusions. Also, since I absorb emotions like a sponge, people who act too dramatically quickly overwhelm me, either it’s negative or positive emotions. 

I’d be the definition of a slowborn protagonist… Because it’d take me ages to realize someone has a crush on me and even longer to open enough to accept them lmao I’m a horrible, hopeless case.

I match you with... 

Trafalgar Law!

Bas. I kid you not. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if your match should’ve been Law or Zoro. Went down my list as usual, ended up with those two anyway. And here I wanted to surprise you ☹ Anyway, here’s why I picked Law:

Law is very calm, levelheaded and in general, not noisy at all. He’s a balanced person who generally won’t overwhelm you with his own feelings and emotions. He’s straightforward with his words and actions, because who has time (or energy) for beating around the bush? When Law says something, he means it. What also makes him a good match for you is that he is very calm, even in emotional situations, so he can step in before you explode.

A relationship with Law is very much drama-free. He’s a doctor, a captain and an insomniac gremlin, he doesn’t have the time nor energy for fights. You’re both adults, and problems will be handled as adults, by talking. Law won’t raise his voice unless you do so first and even then, it’ll take a while. In the rare case a fight escalates, he'll just walk away and wait for the situation to cool down.

Law is very patient with you. He’s not a person who will quickly get attached. Once he falls in love with someone, it’s unconditional. If you’re in disbelief he’ll show you through his words and actions that he’s serious. If you can’t accept it, he’ll wait until you can. He’ll give you all the time and space you need. Be prepared for some teasing about that way later in the relationship when you’re both comfortable with it though.

Law shares in your dislike of crowds, so dates will usually be something away from them, or something where you can easily get away from should it be overwhelming. Much like you, he too has times where he needs to recharge from social interactions by having some alone time, and he will never judge you or guilt you for needing some time for yourself.

Let’s not forget Law is a doctor. He understands your health, both physical and even to a degree mental, and will help you where needed, mostly by telling you not to push yourself and stopping you when you’re doing so anyway. He’s concerned about you but not in an overbearing way, trusting you to know what your limits are. Be prepared for a little nagging when you do know better but do things anyway.

Law’s love languages are quality time and acts of service, preferring to show this feelings for you through actions rather than through words or physical affection. He's happy you're not too clingy either, though that doesn't mean some affection isn't needed from time to time.

In general, Law will always respect your independence and even encourage you to do things with people beside him. He knows he's very busy and sometimes won't have enough time for you, so he wants you to have other people as well that you can enjoy yourself with. He doesn't easily get jealous either, though he is curious about your friends, wanting to meet them at least once, if only so he knows who you're talking about when you tell him about your day.

#matchmaker cookie #matchup #one piece matchup #basilisa-scorpii #some-piece #one piece #cookie writes #600 followers event #scheduled post

[nothorses]

im 5'1 and a trans guy and the fact that i will literally never fully pass because of something i can never change is enough to make me want to throw myself off a bridge. i can daydream about getting top surgery to alleviate that dysphoria, but ill never ever be able to surgerically fix the one thing about me that makes me most dysphoric. its not about being attractive, it's like, im not even a normal height for cis women to be, no one can ever see me as an actual man, ever. forget about stealth. it's something cis people can't imagine, and it sucks.

As some other folks in my inbox have said (and I will post the Many asks I got in a minute here!) there are definitely cis men who are that short. It’s uncommon and I feel you there- people give you weird looks and make weird comments about it, and when it’s a thing you’re already dysphoric about, that’s genuinely a horrible experience.

But as far as passing/stealth goes, like... aside from those being really amorphous goals, ultimately, that rely on a lot of ever-changing and hyper-specific factors, being under a certain height alone isn’t really a guarantee that someone Can Never Pass.

(Mia Mulder actually has a great video on passing and how subjective it is as a concept. One great point she makes is that the more aware cis people are of trans folks and what we look like, the harder passing becomes. It’s not really one unchanging metric.)

Dysphoria likes to tell us some awful shit, and it sometimes helps to look at that with a critical eye and ask if it’s coming from objective, material reality, or if it’s coming from a dysphoric distortion of our material reality.

That said, you’re extremely right in that height dysphoria is a genuine nightmare, and it sucks that it’s one thing none of us can really change. I’m sorry man, I feel it too.

#dysphoria tw #I hope this isnt coming off as condescension and im sorry if it does #it just seems like this is an emotions issue and I wanna meet that with emotions advice #Anonymous

[eushiloh]

⟨ SYDNEY SWEENEY. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ⟩ though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, SHILOH MONROE is actually a descendent of H Y P N O S. it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY-THREE year old DANCE MAJOR from COPENHAGEN, DENMARK has taken after their godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite EMPATHIC & INDECISIVE.

howdy howdy howdy, i’m h and lemme just start by saying how excited i am to be here and bring this sweet little baby to life. i’m gonna keep this little section short and sweet because there’s HELLA info below (if you read it all, bless u sweet angels) so without further ado, let’s get into it, shall we?

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME shiloh josefine monroe NICKNAME(S) shi, sj OCCUPATION cashier at eonia theater/dance major SEXUALITY: bisexual AGE 23 DATE OF BIRTH march 3rd NATIONALITY danish RELIGION spiritual THREAT LEVEL 3/10

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

FACE CLAIM sydney sweeney HEIGHT 5′4 EYE COLOR blue HAIR COLOUR + STYLE dirty blonde, typically in messy/loose waves DOMINANT HAND left DISTINGUISHING FEATURES big, sleepy eyes, full lips, wide smile, strong dancer legs ACCENT + INTENSITY danish accent (here is a video for reference of how it sounds) TATTOO(S) she has three tattoos, they are all fairly small and dainty. one is a pair of pink ballet slippers on her ankle, then a cresent moon with clouds on the inside of her right wrist, and lastly (her biggest one) is a dream catcher along her left side of her ribs. SCAR(S) one along her right knee from when she fell off a bike as a child and cut her leg open PIERCING(S) five in each ear, she has a nose hoop but forgets about it all the time, and her belly button.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

HOMETOWN copenhagen, denmark CURRENT RESIDENCE athens, greece LANGUAGE(S) Danish/English SOCIAL CLASS middle BASIC EDUCATION high school COLLEGE EDUCATION currently a junior in college DEGREE(S) N/A PARENT #1 sofia monroe PARENT #2 n/a PET(S) white cat named cloud RAP SHEET? squeaky clean PRISON TIME? yeah right

VICES + HABITS

SMOKES? yes DRINKS? yes DRUGS? only weed VIOLENT? no ADDICTION(S)? sleeping? maybe? SELF-DESTRUCTIVE? sometimes HABIT(S) humming to herself, bouncing her leg, rubbing her lips together, not making eye contact when she speaks, cracking her knuckles HOBBIES dancing, sleeping, binge watching shows in her bed, yoga LIKES native american flute music, the color blue, soft lighting, dance clothes, sleeping in, and reality television DISLIKES loud noises, violence, people staring for too long, and heavy metal music. OBSESSION(S) dancing and sleeping, once again COMPULSION(S) leaving events early to be alone?? does that count?

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION

HOUSE hypnos ZODIAC pisces ELEMENT water ANIMAL panda

P O W E R S

when it comes to her powers, the strongest that shiloh has come to obtain would be hypnokinesis , though she tries not to take advantage of it too much. trying be the key word there, because there’s something so entrancing about living in somewhat of a dream like world, which is usually what she likes to use the power for. it first started out with delving into a fantasy land, a place for her to escape to and get lost in, and slowly she found herself falling deeper and deeper into her own rabbit hole. even as a young lady, she’d always heard people refer to her as their “dream girl” and once she realized she had the ability to somewhat make some dreams come true, she couldn’t help but sink into her title. once she got the hang of it, she couldn’t help but use it to her advantage here and there, if she had a crush on somebody she would appear in their dreams more and more. a sucker for romance, it was basically how she swayed her suitors, although sometimes it was for nothing whenever she realized it was all fantasy and never reality. still, living in dream worlds was too delicious not to become wrapped up in, that it became something she mastered perfectly. whether it was astral projecting herself into other settings while she was sleeping, or into other dreams, it seemed shiloh was entirely infatuated with living in her own little dream worlds. although, something that came hand in hand with dreams were nightmares, an area that shiloh hated getting stuck in.

something that she is wanting to dip her toes into more, would be her shapeshifting abilities. the blonde has only been able to do such in a limited ability, only recently being able to do so whenever she is fully awake. it’s uncomfortable, sure, but there’s something so mesmerizing about taking on the form of something else….or better yet someone else. often there’s many eyes on her, so being able to blend into a background and garner less attention is a rush of relief for her.

the girl has also always excelled in the levitation ability aspect of her life, shiloh has always been rather light on her feet, it was almost as if she was always floating. almost a picture of grace, it brought her face to face with something she adored at a rather early age: dancing. enrolled in classes from the age of 8, shiloh practically could float across a dance floor with elegance, something she now contributes to her levitation aspect of her powers.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

with wide eyes and a soft smile, shiloh had always been rather quiet yet somehow still garnered the attention in a room. she wasn’t the type of girl to command it though, often keeping to herself, there was something magnetic and glowy about her that made her fall into the social hierarchy without really trying to. the blonde had always prided herself on being a good friend to those around her, even if they never gave her the same respect back, and soon realized that she was becoming a doormat to those around her. she kept everyone’s secrets, harboring them inside her like a vessel and remembering the little things others might have even forgotten they’d told her. soon enough, shiloh had realized she had enough dirt and ammo on those around her that if they ever did cross her, she’d use against them if need be. but luckily, thus far, the girl never had to shoot her shot to the heart just yet. a part of her always wondered if she had the guts to do it anyways, to cross those who she’d held nearest and dearest, or if she’d end up chickening out from the fear of hurting them too much. a never ending battle of right and wrong within her, she often finds herself torn and defeated by the end of the day. it makes her almost come off as flaky and aloof, although her intentions are typically anything but pure, her own overthinking tends to be her downfall. never letting anyone close enough to pick her brain, she is a beautiful mystery with expectations that had always been built upon her back. to be perfect, to be a vision of grace and poise, but sometimes she just wants to let loose and say fuck it to everything that had ever been expected of her and prove that she’s anything but a delicate flower. she has thorns that she’s never shown, and she fears if anyone gets to close, she’ll draw blood without warning.

EXTRA THINGS LOL

shiloh is on the dance team, obviously, the girl lives for dancing and when she’s not dancing....she’s probably napping. 

also she has a job at the eonia theater as a cashier, so you’ll see her little sleepy self behind the counter and sometimes sneaking into the show to sleep in the back.

her mother was the type to live vicariously through her, always putting pressure on her to be “perfect” and put together. there was even a time in her younger years whenever her mother would put her into pageants, which shiloh absolutely hated, it was too much energy towards something she hated which ultimately left her feeling even more drained than normal. in fact, any pictures remaining of that time in her life are privately stored away and she refuses to revisit that memory which she even went lengths to alter from people’s brains whenever she figured out she had that ability.

the only good thing that she found from pageants was her love of dance, something that shiloh has passionately pursued all her life. she was enrolled in ballet mostly but soon fell in love with contemporary dance, and it was something that satisfied her mother, a win-win.

even though she was accepted as someone that was a part of the “in-crowd” in high school, celeste suffers from social anxiety, instead of hanging out at parties she often finds herself slipping away and disappearing. she’s much more of a homebody than someone who enjoys going out, being peer pressured is something she often falls victim to because she’s afraid of coming off as flaky, although she tends to do so anyways due to her disappearing acts.

the relationship she has with her mother is strained, because while she loves her mom, the constant pressure to “perform” and the way her mother sort of pushed her and talked so highly of her has her nervous to disappoint those around her. she constantly feels as if she has to be some sort of social butterfly, when the idea of getting close to people terrifies her, leaving her in a never-ending cycle of what she SHOULD be and what she WANTS to be.

speaking of relationships, most of celeste’s tend to fizzle out quickly once her partners discover she’s not all that they dreamt her up to be. it could be her fault, inserting herself into people’s dreams to learn more about them, that most of her relationships die out after the honeymoon phase...making her fear commitment all together.

she’s a pisces, because....well, obviously.

shiloh is bisexual, although she is a little nervous about dating women seeing as her mother wouldn’t quite understand, most of her public relationships have been exclusively with men due to her fear of disappointing her mother.

#euintro #( **intro** )

[andreycoded]

I’m gonna write a messy, short essay here about the spn finale. I know we’re all enjoying analysing and ripping it apart because, oh god, if you just look at all the pieces, all of us could’ve written so much better, and they all deserved so much better, and it hurts. but all in all i haven’t had that hard of a time forgetting about the finale, and the reason is that the minute that episode started I went. fuck. they really made a nostalgia episode for the last one.

i’ve got a really complicated relationship with nostalgia. i get high on nostalgia, like everyone else, that’s why all of us distanced spn fans went off the rails on november 5th. generally, i keep getting stuck on things that were good in the past and i love reliving those things by remembering. but not thinking about personal experience, i hate nostalgia. hate itttt. it ties so much into bad things these days and there’s two aspects in which it is relevant to the finale: firstly, how nostalgia is monetized, second, how white (cis? straight? i don’t know who specifically had a hand in writing the finale and i’m not gonna look it up for this, feel free to argue) males especially think of nostalgia. for example, disney owns our brains in the most crucial developmental phase, so the way they’re capitalizing on that childhood nostalgia is a good example of the bigger picture going on with it. right now, it’s really easy for all companies that have to do with entertainment to go the route of just evoking those sweet sweet memories. nostalgia has to do with emotion, emotion is a really easy way to persuade people to buy things, because invoking those familiar feelings is a way to instantly make you care. so if you think about ending your series (or beginning a sequel, looking at you the force awakens, actually probably the whole trilogy, whatever) what do you think is the surefire way to get that emotional punch out of people? now, we know that that surefire way is to do the work required, do a little original thinking and pick up the pieces of the narrative that still need completing. but if you were someone not privy to this understanding, if you were feeling lazy or if you possibly were someone thinking about things from a commercial point of view, you would most likely think oh! all the classic supernatural things, that’s what’ll make the people happy. and that probably did make a section of the fans happy! some people are happy with the endless churning out of remakes, as long as the industry is willing to do it (looking at you winx remake). i find it hard to blame them, especially when the future is sometimes looking really grim. but it’s also making me feel desperate, because we need to get out of the past to get original things, we need new stories, and the industry isn’t funding them because original ideas monetarily are a risk, a gamble. (now i’m rambling) so all of the things about the finale rang to me like remember this thing? remember this thing? remember this thing? the sympathies and narrative positions of the writers would factor into this and figuring out what they were thinking with all of this, like whether the last hunt or dean filling out a job form was supposed to feel (soul-crushingly) sad so that the death felt sad - idk, as i said i haven’t really looked into it and i don’t know the writers that well. now obviously, it’s hurting so much to think that in the end dean was that daddy’s blunt instrument, what with going on a hunt taken from john’s diary. but if you didn’t have a brain and were writing that, wouldn’t you maybe think that this is where it all started, it’s so emotional to remind everybody of that. bring back the hunt, the diary, the brother dynamic, that one vampire lady nobody remembers but it’s still a callback? i can’t remember what else there was but the ”plot” in the start of that ep was trying so hard to be season 1. and the pie. that’s nostalgic, that’s emotional. right? riiight. all of these cheap emotional cues left no room for actually dealing with anything that had been going on. (i don’t need to say that but i said it anyway: 101 of writing, there’s action and then there’s reaction, rinse and repeat.) not paying attention to the possible versions of the finale that there may have been before covid, even the decision to start everything as it started makes sense from this point of view, thinking about all the things from the earlier seasons that you could reference. oh my god, remember how sam wanted this in the beginning, always wanted to get out? and how dean said this is how he would go? how fitting! god this is way too long. ok so idk, i faintly remember that some of the writers have stated that they wrote the story for themselves. it might be a different writer than those who wrote the finale (i don’t know, sue me) but there’s definitely a pattern of white male writers lapsing into this nostalgia narrative. and supernatural was meant to be relatable to young white men, right? this time it’s not that kind of ”remember when everything was better” narrative that it usually is in politics, but definitely related to the question of ownership and entitlement. i think that personally a white man writing this (or star wars, or other things) might think of it like this is what was important to me. this is how it started, so many years ago and it’s so meaningful to me and reminds me of those years and feelings. this is my story and i want to end it on that emotional nostalgia that i feel. so to wrap this up somehow, i find it really hard to take the finale seriously when i think of the bigger picture. this is not to say that i don’t acutely feel everything about how dirty the characters were done, and i cherish and relate to every single post analysing that episode. I love to talk about it and debate it, but when it comes to being a finale denialist, it’s easy. after the primary reactions of laughing and then feeling angry when i thought about it, it just makes me feel flat. that was somebody elses personal version of a finale. that was a symptomatic, sad consequence of the larger theme going on, of men claming ownership to stories and/by taking into account only their own subjective experiences of it. and the fact that largely the entertainment industry is counting on everyone else doing the same right now. it was just a sad shortcoming that is entirely removed from the overarching story and plot (both pretty damn original and emotional) some of them were committed to doing. btw there’s a good article about how “originality is always traded for nostalgia” by writer khadejah jones. even though i’m high on that s1 rewatch nostalgia right now, let’s also remember to look for new things. i know a lot of you are going to be the ones creating those things and i’m looking forward to them, so let’s try to nudge the industry that way while we wait.

#spn #supernatural #spn finale #15x20 #supernatural finale #finale #idk just spamming tags #jensen ackles #dean winchester #finale denialists rise #i KNOW i didn't say anything new ok but whatever!!!! just putting this out there anyway #and i KNOW we're on slutty mountain man and questionably spread misha scandal high rn but #my post

[bi-dazai]

honestly i think i have a weird anger or cultural confusion where other gay and trans ppl are like much happier and comfortable to come out and shit and be open, but I've always had an extremely complicated relationship with it because it's always made me feel so isolated and lonely, even with other gay ppl around. and younger ppl especially will like go around coming out so frequently and meanwhile if I'm going to even tell you that I'm attracted to women I have to trust you 110% and that isn't something that comes easy.

I'm terrified of like. Wearing even rainbow goddamn socks because I'm scared shitless of getting bullied, or harassed, or even assaulted. Which is ironic considering I try to be quite fashionable in public but with being openly bi (let alone being openly TRANS) it's a complete no-no.

Like I think as much as I love being bi and nb at the same time I still despise it, I still think it's ruined my life. I have gender dysphoria about my chest whereas if I was cis I would be so happy with how feminine my body is. My first ever relationship with another girl at the moment being cut short by abusive homophobia fucked me up in innumerous ways, leading me to like...severe issues with the way i feel about sex and emotional attachment and touch.

And ofc there's the homophobia, like at this moment I'm probably leaning towards getting a fuckbuddy or smth over tinder but like a romantic relationship with another person is terrifying, like I'm insanely private w relationships even w men, I won't let us hold hands if I think too many people might see bc i have this stupid complex

There's more and more but my relationship with being Out is one where it's something that I simultaneously desire and despise, being Out is one of the most terrifying concepts I can think of and to me having someone refer to me as "they" and not as a woman is simply not as important as being safe, as not living in even more fear of assault.

And then all around me ppl my age (although usually younger) are all coming out to anyone and everyone like it's just casual, saying their pronouns like it's nothing. And first it's disbelief and shock because holy fuck, has everyone gone fucking mad?? Are we all so fucking stupid that we just forget the everloving fear homophobia strikes into you?? And then it's the jealousy, that these people have this comfortable relationship with their own gay/transness and enough trust to actually open up and tell a room full of strangers "please call me they not she". It's disappointment and anger in myself that almost 7 years after forcing myself to whisper "I'm bisexual" to the bathroom mirror in the middle of the night and then cry my eyes out because it felt like I'd been cursed, and probably over a decade since I'd started having sexual feelings about all genders, and an entire lifetime of having feelings for men women and others, after so long I'm still just a coward who sits and hates it all, who fears it all.

But then recently I've come to the realisation that the way I realised I was gay was a way that's kind of...dying out. That being the mostly offline way.

Don't take this the wrong way but I've found a lot of people go online and find this overwhelming amount of support and representation for gay and trans identity. You can argue validly this statement, but the context I use this in is comparing it to like. 2013. People were way less online. Being an online celebrity was a novelty.

At school there were dyke, faggot, tranny, etc, thrown around as if they were confetti. Jokes about "lesbos" and "lesbihonest" humiliated any girl who was too close to another girl. I grew up not just in Brisbane Queensland but in a town that was connected to the mainland only by two bridges - a landbridge and a humanmade bridge. The school was overwhelmingly anglo. Overwhelmingly right wing.

I realised I was bi with minimal help from Tumblr. I realised I was bi because I fell, hard, for my best friend. And then she liked me back, and our relationship was amazing. But the school found out. We held hands under the table, we found a quiet moment to kiss and everyone pointed and stared. We made out in the shadow of a building and turned to find twenty people watching gawkeyed, pointing, fascinated.

The entire time her mum was abusive, and massively homophobic. She blamed me for turning her daughter gay. She forced us multiple times to break up at the threat of violence. Eventually we did. We never talked about it. Our friendship never returned like it used to. It was awkward, tinged with sadness, regret, yearning and young love cut short.

It was traumatic, to say the least.

Tumblr in 2014, despite the cringe screenshots, wasn't actually mostly about LGBT positivity or whatever. I first saw the term bisexual on, if you can believe me, a quotev story in 2011 about a cheerleader and an emo girl who get together in a secret relationship. You were either gay or straight, or you had an exception. Bisexual felt right, though, for me, felt accurate, was accurate.

It was years of confusion and secrecy and guilt, peeks at other girls in the changing room that I couldn't help and I didn't understand why. Then it was months and months of anger and frustration at myself that I was feeling this way and confused about myself, and then when I said those words it felt like I was being torn apart. It felt like my life had fallen apart. I cried every goddamn night, I felt awful all the time.

At school the kids noticed. They noticed before I started dating my friend, they noticed the way I looked at her and they interrogated me about it. I'd claim up and down I had a crush on another boy - true perhaps, but it was a passing interest - and then they said they told him and analysed how I reacted. And then the interrogations continued for months because the gay girl was entertainment for them. Around me, as I walked between classes, had lunch, walked home, dyke dyke dyke faggot hahaha.

And then the relationship happened and then leelah alcorn happened and I learned what a trans person is. And sometime when I was fifteen I saw nonbinary begin to pop up, terms like genderfluid and nonbinary and they rang true like bisexual did, but the last time I went down a rabbit hole like that it ended in trauma, and another person got hurt. I didn't throw homophobia at her, but I felt and still feel responsible for it. I didn't turn her gay, but I made it obvious. I don't quite know how to say it.

I knew I was nonbinary, deep down. One day I decided to add that to my tumblr bio. Nobody gave a shit, just like nobody gave a shit when I said I was bi. But that was because I wasn't open about it even online. I couldn't talk about that stuff or I'd curse myself.

Time went on, I got more comfortable, collected fresh new traumas. My brother came out as trans. Around me, friends came out as gay and trans. But they kept coming out. They didn't stop at close friends and trusted family, they told teachers, their entire class. I didn't understand. Why the fuck would you put yourself at risk like that?? And I still don't. I said it was jealousy and anger at myself before, and maybe it is still a little bit, but now, it's just concern.

As I said, the way I realised I was gay is the rather old fashioned way - offline, through trauma, and almost entirely unenjoyable and traumatic. A lot of kids still go through that for sure. But the ones I see telling everyone over that they're gay or trans are, in my experience, not those ones. As the internet began to become more of a general use thing and less of a "only recluse weirdos" space, the online LGBT safe space began to expand into an audience bigger than before. Online, you were safe. Nobody knew your name, you were behind a screen. Homophobia was veiled, you could just delete a hateful anon, could just log off. You could put up your pronouns and people would use them because, well, ppl didn't really have any other identifier someone might use for your gender. So this positive uplifting atmosphere spawned for the most part. And instead of learning through confusion and rare chance encounters with random words and crying into the sink every night that you're gay, you much easier come across this content that tells you indepth what this is and that it's okay. And you think, well wow, that's me, and then...you know, I guess. Not denying there's some of the classic self hatred etc but...you have this safe space online to fall back on, and I cannot emphasise how much that has pushed the acceptance and widespread knowledge of lgbt people in the past 5 years. I didn't exactly have that space, and my realisation was through mostly real life channels, which were swamped at all sides by homophobia, at worst, abusive, at kindest, it would treat you like a sideshow attraction.

Being someone who arguably isn't old enough to brush this difference away with being an "older gay" but still having had a gay experience quite different to the majority in my generation (applying this to area as well) I have to say I'm confronted with this comfortableness other days have a lot and it's always jarring. I think also that while it's important and I'm happy that "younger" gays and transes have at least one good support network/space to fall back onto online, I do think it creates this kind of...dangerous other side, especially for those who go to schools that are LGBT positive and have families who are also friendly to that sort of stuff. I find that young gay teens are totally unprepared and unhardened for the fact that most people you run into in real life despise your guts for existing as who you are. And while we can make as many soppy gay narratives as possible about being honest about who you are and losing shame, we need to face the fact and teach young lgbt kids that being Out isn't just something you do as a ritual in being gay or trans, it's a brave thing and it's completely optional. And furthermore, most importantly, it's insanely dangerous.

I don't think that teenage, raw fear of the consequences of even the very concept of being Out has ever left me. Perhaps I have to thank the homophobic 14 yr olds who swamped me in slurs and trauma, because it's given me a survival sense that's kept me closeted so far you'd never get in.

But occasionally I'm tempted, particularly with my transness which I am only out to perhaps 3 people about, to venture into the world of telling people about yourself. I started a new uni semester and in a tutorial, the teacher handed out cards. We were to use it as a placard to write our names on it so the teacher would learn our names over the next few classes. And, if we chose...our pronouns.

I stared at that card for what felt like a million years. This has always been an ordeal. People don't know how to pronounce my name, even though it's a rather simple one. But pronouns? I'd never really told anyone those. Online, yes, and once when I was asked by a friend i was brave enough to say "any will do" but this - this wasn't the curated safe online space, this wasn't a one-time phrase to a friend. This was an open, permanent thing that would sit below me every class, declaring me to 18 other people. I wrote down "NATALYA", then beneath "she/". And then I stared some more. I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was the biggest fool, because before I could stop myself I wrote "she/they". No "he", not yet. But...it was there.

At the end of the class the teacher collected the placards. I wanted to run back screaming, wanted to ask her for a new card so I could be safe again. But I didn't because I would look like a freak and a coward.

I still think it's stupid. I still think I've put some petty gesture that no one will ever respect (if they can call you she they won't ever call you they) above my own safety. The thing that really struck me was that it didn't feel good. The reason I wrote it like that, I believe in hindsight, is that I was curious what those other kids feel like, because it must feel good to declare that you're a tr*nny d*ke in front of the entire class, good enough to beat the stomach-lurching dread that precedes such an action. But it didn't. It just felt like an unnecessary risk. And it made me feel worse, like there was a target on the back of my head.

I think I could talk about this forever, about how so many kids believe coming out is this thing you're required to do to be a good gay, but it's not. It's stupid stupid reckless, and in my case it ends with you getting fucked over.

But Ive written for ages and gotten prosaic halfway through so I'm gonna shut up. Basically why the fuck do you guys come out to everyone like please stay safe instead of this it isn't worth it.

#tw d slur #tw f slur #tw homophobia #personal #i didnt hear much transphobia in my grade until towards the end of highschool #because nobody back then rly knew what a trans person was #also #long post #like REALLY long #t slur

[venusmages]

Cyberpunk 2077 non-spoiler review

Anyways here’s my writeup about my least favorite parts of 2077 for people who are interested in seeing if it’s for them. Both going to talk about content as well as gameplay. This is for PC version, too, because I know last gen consoles are suffering terribly rn and I wouldn’t recommend the game if you’re not going to be playing on PC. At least not until it’s on sale or the issues have been resolved. It really, really shouldn’t have been released on last gen consoles at all in my opinion - or at least should’ve been released on consoles LATER.

If you like Saints Row, GTA, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, or the Cyberpunk genre in general - I definitely think this is something you might want to take a peek at! I wasn’t anticipating the game until about a month or two before release - so maybe that’s why I’m having a blast - but It’s one of my favorite stories from the past decade as far as sci-fi goes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and It’s really impressed me. I can’t even go into detail about all the things I LOVE because I really want folks to experience it themselves. Just know there’s a very intricately detailed world, all the characters are memorable and insanely well realized and complex, and the story is great fun. Also made me cry like 5 times. It’s become one of my FAVORITE games very quickly.

I’d also recommend Neon Arcade if you want someone who’s been covering the game for quite a while, including the technical and game industry aspect. He does well to go into some detail and even though he’s a fan, I’ve found him to be largely unbiased. I’m not going to go into industry politics here because I feel that’s up for everyone to decide on their own terms.

No spoilers, things to keep in mind, content warnings, etc. below!

CONTENT WARNINGS and issues with plot/story

this setting is dark. very dark. if you struggle stomaching things like dystopian landscapes, body horror, physical, mental and sexual abuse, corporate and gang violence, abuse of children, harsh language, and concepts that mess with the perception of reality - this game might not be for you. It’s a very mature setting, and I don’t mean that in the Adult Swim kind of way. I mean it in the ‘oh shit, it went there’ way. In my opinion I haven’t run across anything in it that was handled distastefully when it dipped into the depressing, but dark and gritty isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I wanted to give a disclaimer.

The game’s universe in advertising and working for the lower class also exploits sex/sex work quite a bit. This is part of the lore itself because in this universe everyone’s become desensitized to sex and violence to the point that marketing embraces it and makes it ridiculous. I feel it’s very obvious that it doesn’t condone this message and is instead a commentary on consumerism - but people still might be uncomfortable seeing a lot of suggestive stuff all over the place regardless. 

Women in game are naked more often than men - even though there is nudity for both. This is likely a mix of appealing to the Gamer Boy demographic (even though the story does NOT actually), or the fact that media is way more cool with seeing naked women than seeing full frontal nudity on men. They probably had to tone some of it down to avoid going above an M rating. 

The story is amazing, but sometimes it dumps a lot onto you at once. It’s one of those sci-fi stories that you have to really be following the names, faces, and concepts continually to get it all down. There’s a lot of betrayal, background players, etc. I think by the mid-way point I’d mostly had it, but It’s pretty dense. However it’s still amazing. You might just need two playthroughs before every tiny detail clicks - because there’s a LOT of details. 

Honestly I think it would help to read up on the lore first so you’re not going ‘what’ constantly. But people have seemed to manage fine without that also! Neon Arcade has a really nice series of videos (like 2 or 3) that get you up to speed with the universe. It also helps you decide if the tone is right for you. 

I think the main story should’ve been longer, also. I don’t mind a 20 hr story, especially in a massive RPG, but It feels like they really struggled to cram as much into that time frame as possible. It skirts the edge of being nice and concise, snappy, and tight - and needing just a few more moments to take a breath and wait a second. This is helped if you do a lot of side quests.

The straight male romance option, River, is INCREDIBLY well written but he doesn’t tie into the main plot in any way whatsoever. It’s very strange and feels like they either ran out of time with him, or slapped together a romance with him at the last second. All the other romances at least know what’s going on with V’s story - meanwhile River has no idea, and you can never tell him. He’s an amazing guy though and I highly recommend his questline. He appears in ACT 2.

In general I’d say not to bother with the romances. There are only 4 total, and while the romancible characters on their own are really well written, the romances themselves are just kinda meh. One romance you don’t even meet until act 3. I don’t think they should’ve been included in the game at all, because they definitely don’t feel as fleshed out as everything else. 

CDPR also sometimes forget that women players or gay men exist. Panam and Judy have a lot more content than River and Kerry for example. I don’t think this is intentional, they just have a large fanbase of dudebros. It only shows in the romance content and the nudity thing though.

Johnny, Takemura, and Claire should’ve been romances and I will fight to the death on that. 

There are gay and trans characters in the game and their stories don’t revolve around their sexualities. It’s very Fallout: New Vegas in it’s approach to characters: IE. you’re going to love them. All of them. 

V’s gender isn’t locked to their body type or their genitals- but to to their voice. I don’t think it’s the best solution they could’ve used but given how the game is heavily voice acted I assume that was what they had to work with. 

Some of the romances are locked to both cis voices AND body types (not genitals if I recall but body shapes). That’s disappointing but I assume it was because of scripted scene issues and/or ignorance on the dev’s part considering the LGBT NPCS are so AMAZINGLY done. There’s no homophobic or transphobic language in the game - though there are gendered curse words and insults if that bothers you. 

Some characters MAY suffer from ‘bilingual people don’t talk like that’ syndrome. But it can be hard to say for sure given that translators exist in this universe and the way they operate aren’t fully described. It’s only momentarily distracting, not enough to take away from how charming the NPCs are.

The endings are really good don’t get me wrong but I want fix it fic :(. All of the endings out of like 6 (?) in the game are bittersweet. 

Both gender V’s are very good but female V’s voice acting is out of this world. If you don’t know what voice to go with/are neutral I’d highly recommend female V. Male V is charming and good but he feels much more monotone compared to female V. 

V has their own personality. To some this won’t be a detractor - but a lot of people thought they’d be making absolutely everything from the ground up. V is more of a commander shepard or geralt than a skyrim or d&d pc, if that makes sense. You can customize and influence them to a HUGE degree, some aspects of V will always be the same.

Streetkid is the most boring background - at least for it’s introduction/prologue.

GAMEPLAY/TECHNICAL

If you can run your game on ultra, don’t. It actually looks best with a mix of high and medium settings. Unless you have a beast that has ray-tracing - then by all means use ray tracing and see how absolutely insanely good it looks.

There are color blind modes for the UI, but not for some of the AI/Netrunning segments in cutscenes. Idk how much this will effect folks with colorblindness but those segments are thankfully short. 

There was an issue with braindances being an epilepsy trigger because for some reason they decided to mirror the flashing pattern after real epilepsy tests - probably because it ‘looks cool’. I don’t have epilepsy but it even hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Massive oversight and really goddamn weird. Thankfully this was fixed.

There is no driving AI. Like at all. If you leave your car in the street the traffic is just going to pile up behind it. It’s one of the very few immersion breaking things I’ve encountered.

Sometimes when an NPC is driving with you in the car, they’ll drive on the curb and/or run into people. It’s kind of funny but can occasionally result in something weird. Feels very GTA  - but nothing excruciating. 

The camera angle feels a little too low in first person mode when driving on cars. You get used to it though. 

The police in this game feel slapped on and I hope they improve it. Right now if you commit a crime, you can never tell what will actually trigger it. And if you just run away a few blocks the police forget about it. 

Bikes are just way more fun to ride than the cars are. 

You CANNOT respec your character after you make them. Ever. it sucks. Go in with an idea ahead of time what you wanna do - it’s better than being a jack of all trades.

as of now you also CANNOT change their appearance after you exit the character creator. This, also, sucks. Make sure you REALLY like your V or you’re gonna be replaying the openings over and over like I did. 

Photomode on PC is the N key. Had to look it up. The mode itself is great though

Shooting and Mele fighting feel pretty standard. I don’t have a lot of shooter experience besides Bethesda games so anything feels better than that to me. So far I’ve enjoyed stealth and mele the best, but that’s just my own taste! The combat and driving aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but they’re still very fun. I look forward to running at people with swords or mantis blades, and zipping around the city on a motorcycle to see the sights. The story, lore, and interesting quests and characters are the real draw here.

I haven’t encountered any game breaking bugs in 80-ish hours of play time. One or two T-poses, a few overlays not loading or floating objects - but nothing terrible. Again, my experience is with Bethesda games. This is all usually fixed by either opening your inventory and closing it again, or exiting out and reloading your save. 

The C button is mapped for crouching AND skipping dialogue by default. That’s terrible. Change it in the settings to be HOLDING C skips dialogue and you’ll be gucci.

There’s apparently a crafting system. I have never been inclined to touch it. But I also play on easy like a pleb so IDK how it all scales otherwise.

The mirror reflections can be a little bit weird, at least on my end. They always end up a teeny bit grainy despite my computer being able to run everything on Ultra Max. You can still get good screens out of it though!

So many people text me to sell me cars and I want them to stop. Please. also the texting menu is abysmal. The rest is ok tho

It’s pretty clear when you’re going to go into a ‘cutscene’. all cutscenes are rendered in-engine BUT you often will be talking to other characters at a specific angle or setting. The game locks you into this usually by having you sit down. It works for me - after all we do a lot of sitting- but it IS very obvious that it’s a way for the game to get you in the frame it wants to display.

That’s all I can think of rn! If you’re interested but wanted to get a slightly better idea of whats going on, I hope this helps. I’m really enjoying it and despite my issues it’s exceeding my expectations. I’m going to be thinking about and replaying this game for quite a while. 

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 review #2077 review #cp2077 #rosetxt #txt

[prehistoricalcats]

I'm really interested in your Cats universe! It seems like you have them living like humans but humans also exist? Can you describe your universe a bit more, if you'd like to? :)

I'd love to!

I must warn you though, this is a very in-depth universe, and even focusing on specific points and trying to simplify things as much as I could, I still managed to make to this about a mile long. Damn I wish Tumblr mobile let me do a read more cut

First of all, yes the Cats are anthropomorphic, and yes humans also exist in this universe. Anthro Dogs, Rats, and Mice all definitely also exist, and I'm considering a few other anthro races like Hyenas and maybe like Rabbits and some others, but haven't put too much thought to that yet.

Just for reference, if it's capitalized (Dog, Cat, etc) it's the anthro race, if it's lower case (dog, cat, etc) it's the fourlegger

Some Basic Terminology:

Non-human beings/non-human people - collective term for all anthro races

NHP - non-human person(s)

Furfolk - common English slang for non-human beings, not politically correct but still pretty widely used. There is also a version of this word for each specific race, Catfolk, Ratfolk, etc. (Note: Mice and Rats often are collectively refered to as Rodents or Rodentfolk)

Fourlegger - regular dogs, cats, etc. Used mostly by NHPs to differentiate between them and NHPs

Bald-bodies - humans. Used by NHPs, considered derogatory by most (nearly everyone uses it anyway)

Kit - kid, child, teenager (for Cats). Short for kitten

Tom - you know this one, an adult or teenage male Cat

Mot - an adult or teenage female Cat, an alternative word for "queen"

License Name - once called the "family name" back when it was still quite common for Cats to work for a human family in a residential household. Essentially this is the name that humans assign to Cats because Particular Names are often "too hard" for humans to remember/pronounce. It's their "official" name that appears on most legal documents, including their "license" which is essentially a registration card and number that all Cats are required to have. Most Cats have a license, and a license name, by age three, some get theirs as infants. Sometimes the parents have a say in what the license name will be, sometimes not. Sometimes a Cat will prefer their license name, some prefer their Particular Name, others don't care and will respond to either.

The Junkyard - a slum, mostly populated by Cats, on the outskirts of the metropolitan area of an unnamed imaginary British city, comprised partly of makeshift shelters scattered throughout an actual dump/landfill/junkyard, and partly of several large shantytowns built on the unused land surrounding the dump

Some biology stuff:

Okay brief anatomy lesson before we begin

(For real though, please at least glance over that link before continuing, it is fairly brief and it makes what I'm about to try to explain a lot less complicated)

I've had to do some fantasy science to work out how Cats can have retractable claws without becoming less dextrous than humans (because I need them to be able to play instruments made for human hands). What I've essentially gone with so far is that Cats have extra bones in their hands/feet, which would make them unlike any other known tetrapod either living or in the fossil record, so the science side of me rebels at this, but the art side of me says it's a story about bipedal talking felines with mystical powers it's already science fiction they could have duckbills if I wanted them to (I don't), and so I think this is a decent compromise. I can go into further detail about the way the claws work later on if you like, but this post is already going to be pretty long so for now I'll just say that you can describe the claw as an extra joint attached to the end of the distal phalange.

Cats are super bendy, for the same reason that (fourlegger) cats are bendy. They have extra bones/joints in their spines. Cats have 7 cervical, 13 thoracic, 7 lumbar, 5 sacral, and 19-23 caudal. They have more sacral bones than fourleggers because they're bipedal.

Cats are habitual bipeds, like humans. But unlike humans, they are perfectly comfortable wandering around on their hands and knees. Though the bipedal stance is more comfortable and usually perfered by adults especially, most non-elderly Cats are still perfectly fine crawling on the ground on their hands and knees. You're generally more likely to see kits and young adults doing this, but older adults do it to. If they want to move fast or run, they use a bipedal stance. Beyond that it's just whatever feels right for the situation.

Some culture stuff

Cats and other NHPs (except Rats) don't need clothing to cover their privates. I'm not going to go into the anatomy of how that works. For now let's just imagine it's the fur that's hiding it. They do wear clothes, especially in winter, but it's not so much for modesty as it is for functionality and fashion. Basically clothes for Cats are for three purposes: to protect from the elements (cold, rain, sun, etc), to shut the outraged humans up, and to look good. It's pretty common in the summer to see Cats wearing nothing but some arm/leg warmers or other fashion accessory, and a belt/rope around their waist to store things on in the absence of pockets,(even if they also have a bag)

If you've ever owned or seen or been around a male rat you probably know why I say "except Rats" and I'm not going to get into it here, just know Rat men always where pants/trousers

Cats exist globally and have a variety of different cultures, often greatly influenced by the human culture of that region, but one of the most universal elements of Cat culture is the idea that "It's considerably dishonorable for a Cat to use anything but their own claws (and teeth in many cultures) in combat against another unarmed Cat." Translation: Cats generally frown on using weapons, though many recognize the need to know how to use them, because humans use weapons, and a claws against a machete or a cattle prod or a gun isn't fair. By the same line many modern Cats consider it okay to use weapons against a (dishonorable) Cat that pulled a weapon on you first, though many elders still frown upon this.

The relationship between Cats (and other NHPs) and humans isn't very good, and the relationship between different types of NHPs isn't much better. There's a social hierarchy that puts humans (especially white straight cis male humans) at the top. The hierarchy goes humans > Dogs > Cats > Rodents

About the Jellicles

The Jellicles are the name of a specific tribe that once was primarily a religious tribe. Back a really fuck long time ago when Deuteronomy was still a kitten, the Jellicles lived off the land and practiced their religion (still working out the details of that sorry but I do have a few things)

The Jellicle Choice is a real thing, though I haven't decided if it started with Deuteronomy or if he was the next in a line sorta kinda but not exactly like the Avatar. The Jellicle Ball is held every year and people used to come from all over hoping to be picked. The humans didn't like this mass gathering, and the space they had in their own territory couldn't quite handle it anyway, so the Jellicles had to start keeping the Ball's location a secret until the day of, to keep the attendance numbers down somewhat. A Choice isn't made every year, though there's always a chance one will be made, and they've had a dry spell for the past 20 or 30 or so years before Grizabella. They don't have to keep the locale a secret anymore, most people don't bother coming and some even think the Jellicle Choice is just a myth. Few people remember when the Jellicles were primarily religious

Deut was trained as a shaman from early childhood, and groomed to be the next leader since he was ten, but he's always been a performer at heart. At some point after taking over as lead, he met (a very very young) Gus and invited him into the tribe. With Gus's help he organized plays and small musical performances, slowly and gradually getting other members in on it as well, until putting on plays every now and then was just a part of Jellicle life. And it was a good thing too, because by this point the tribe had been forced to give up their land and had to move to an industrial slum in the nearest city. No longer able to live off the land, they turned to performance to make a living. This was all well before Skimble/Jenny/Jelly/Spara (Jr)/Griz were born. These days the Jellicles are known primarily as a tribe of performers. Every current member that was born into the tribe except Deut was brought up as a performer

The play we see is an actual play being put on by the Jellicles as a dramatization of the events of That One Particular Jellice Ball™ which happened three years prior to the current timeline.

I think that covers the basic rundown. You can also see this jumbled mess for my first attempt at explaining all this crap lol.

Oh yeah and before I forget, I haven't decided yet if "Peke" and especially "Pollicle" refer to a certain culture of Dog, a certain body type, or two specific gangs ("packs") that just happen to be mostly comprised of a certain culture and/or body type of Dog. But they do exist in this universe. At the very least they are fictional gangs made up for the Rumpus Cat comics (yeah he's a comic book hero in this), or else real gangs or cultures/types of Dog written into Munk's Rumpus Cat fanwork play.

There's also a very important event that I really need to go over at some point but it's a really heavy topic and this isn't the best time like politically to post it right now, or even for me emotionally to write it out. But I do need to get this out at some point...

#sorry this took ages to answer #i literally have several documents saved titled #worldbuilding take 2 #take 3 #etc #as i tried to organized and simplify everything into something mostly coherant #worldbuilding #my hcs #please don't eat this Tumblr please God

[holdvns]

hi friends ! i’m farah nd im coming at u live frm the pst timezone to bring u a new muse of mine. so excuse me as i ramble abt holden under the cut. like this post and i will come bother u for plots?? that or u can im me on here or on my discord (farah#1263), whatever works rlly! anyways, super stoked to be here and to get to write with u all!!!!

(TOBY WALLACE, CIS MALE) - Have you seen HOLDEN DONAHUE? HOLDEN is in HIS JUNIOR year. The PHILOSOPHY MAJOR is 21 years old & is a TAURUS. People say HE is QUICK-WITTED, DARING, IRREVERENT and DETACHED. Rumors say they’re a member of CALLOWAY SOCIETY. I heard from the gossip blog that HIS FATHER PAID OFF THE SCHOOL TO CHANGE HIS GRADES AFTER HE FAILED FOUR CLASSES LAST SEMESTER FROM NEVER SHOWING UP.  (FARAH. 22. PST. SHE/HER.)

pinterest board / tag

holden grew up between upstate new york and manhattan in an extremely wealthy family. from the outside, his family had the appearance of perfection, but underneath that facade lay years of shocking and hidden family secrets that one way or another got out into society, even if his family tried to put them down as merely rumors.

his father is a highly respected but also deeply feared business man/media magnate known for his cutthroat attitude in his business dealings and personal relationships. he had an extremely difficult childhood, having been orphaned at a young age and passed from relative to relative around europe, many of whom were not very kind to him. still, he was incredibly intelligent and wanted to make something of himself, having this belief in the american dream and wanting to move there if he ever got the chance. after attending college on a scholarship, he was able to use his connections and move to new york, where he founded his own start-up that eventually led to him building his own personal fortune.

his mother was very much a hustler. she grew up poor in new york and at an early age, learned how to use her good looks to manipulate men for the finer things in life. she had a short stint as a model before she met holden’s father, charming him enough to call it quits with his first wife. underneath her obvious beauty, however, was a fiery temper and substance abuse problem. the thing about her was that she really wasn’t made to be a wife and mother. holden’s father thought he could turn her into this perfect socialite/housewife (marrying her and then proceeding to have his older brother, cal, and holden in a very short span of time), but the task proved impossible. she was always only looking out for herself and didn’t enjoy being tied down, certainly not with kids to take care of despite the nannies his father provided. they fought constantly, and their home life was extremely unstable. it was a normal occurrence for holden to see his mother being dragged off to an institution by his father’s security guards or for his mother to use him and his brother as bait to get his father to give her money for drugs, to leave him, or sometimes just to try and get back with him.

eventually, she finally did leave, having told holden and his brother the three of them were moving to los angeles, but leaving without them and dying of a drug overdose shortly after. holden was about six at the time and thinks he has successfully hidden this entire episode from his memory, but it’s definitely something that affects him whether he likes it or not.

although his family claims this was merely just a rumor, it was often said that there was some foul play behind her death and that his father had some involvement, not wanting her to ever leave him and move on with her life. while holden deep down may admit that this could be the case, it’s never something he would really say.

at this point, his father rarely talks about his mother and when he has, he has poisoned her memory so much, holden feels like he never really had one. when he was younger, he’d often make up stories about her in his head, which were far different than who she actually was. it helped at the time, but after a while it was easier to just forget her altogether.

while his father cares deeply for his children and has provided them a life of ease and luxury, he’s certainly not innocent in all of this mess. he’s extremely manipulative and often psychologically traumatizing to them as well. he often finds his children to be lazy and ungrateful and resents the way they’ve been raised (even though it was his own doing), while he suffered from poverty and abuse in his own childhood. he often pits the two of them against each other, always trying to see who’s the stronger, smartest, who will do whatever it takes to be the best, especially because there’s always talk about who’s going to be the one to be the one who’s going to take over when he retires. it is usually said to be his older brother, because it’s no secret that he’s his father’s favorite.

because of this, holden and his brother never really got along. or so it seems. they did when they were younger, but their hatred runs so deep that the even thought of that feels like a distant reality. they’re only two years apart, but they couldn’t be more different. while his brother is a complete perfectionist and will do just about anything to please his father, holden gave up on that idea along time ago. it didn’t matter what he did, he never seemed to be able to measure up against his brother. maybe it was because he was younger, maybe it was because he was more sensitive and seemed to feel things at a deeper level, maybe it was because he wasn’t as competitive, or maybe there was no explanation why his father simply liked cal better. holden’s never seemed to figure out. he’s always felt like the screwup of the family, so eventually that’s what he became.

he started drinking and using drugs at an early age, basically trying anything to mask his pain and trauma. while his brother excelled academically and in sports in high school, holden never applied himself. he fell in with the wrong crowd and gave up his spot on the football team to run around the streets of new york and engage in all kinds of debauchery. it was common for him to disappear for days on end, spending his father’s money and racking up drug and gambling debts. obviously his father wasn’t happy about this and would constantly remind him of that, but he didn’t exactly do anything to stop him either. if this was a cry for help or attention, it didn’t exactly have the desired effect and only left holden feeling empty. 

he started dating this older hippie girl who was in college while he was a senior in high school who influenced him to want to detach from his family and money and the crowd he was running in. he kind of... took it to the extreme and started talking like timothee chalamet in lady bird lmao, even though he reeked of privilege. honestly, it was just another way to annoy his father and brother, which was always his goal at the time. they ended up breaking up because he cheated on her, but he kept some of her ideas and mindset afterwards.

after high school, he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do. so he ran off to europe for a year and didn’t talk to anyone from home. just traveled around by himself with little money and getting into all kinds of trouble. he probably would’ve stayed longer, but one morning he came across an american newspaper while he was in greece reporting on how his father had suffered a heart attack. he rushed back to the states and luckily his father has survived, but in that moment of weakness he manipulated him into attending college. his father pulled some strings and got him into yates, and while it isn’t exactly his idea of fun, he’s taking it day by day and looking it as another way to push back actually having to enter the real world.

~ personality wise ~

acts like he hates his family, new york, and everything that comes attached with money and privilege, but completely reaps the benefits of all these things when he can. claims everything having to do with high society is vapid and that he wants more out of life.

a bit of a compulsive liar. will make up fake identities and pretend to be other people or tell people he doesn’t know some sob story about growing up poor. rlly just gets off on stuff like that and doesn’t tell the truth. like ever.

doesn’t always like people knowing how rich he is or who his father is. for those that do know, he doesn’t like to talk much about his family. probably won’t ever say a word about his mother.

has no real ambitions in life or any sort-of life plan. has switched his major at least 10 times and never goes to his classes.

very much a hedonist. likes to party and hates being alone. hooks up with too many people and finds it very difficult to be in any sort of real relationship. he’s just not reliable or faithful enough.

also goes through phases where feels like he doesn’t connect with people? or that he hates everyone?

always attracts chaos of some kind. black eyes from a fight over kissing someone’s girlfriend or owing his drug dealer money.

lives life day by day. doesn’t plan for the future. usually always drunk or high.

kind of... morally ambiguous. with the way he was raised, he doesn’t see life as black or white. it’s sort of grey. usually doesn’t do the right thing, usually doesn’t feel bad about it... but there is a heart there somewhere. he just doesn’t usually care enough to use it.

rlly tries to avoid feelings as much as possible. he’s actually quite a sensitive person, but after being constantly told that makes him weak by his father and having a robot of a brother he’s always felt ashamed by that. so he uses his vices to try and not feel things.

wanted plots

hook ups, fwbs, exes, someone he cheated on, friends, enemies, someone he owes money to, someone who knew him grew up and knows his family, someone he actually rlly cares about (romantic or platonic)...i’ll add more to this when i think of more things!

#yatesintro #death tw #addiction tw #drugs tw

[the-light-followed]

EQUAL RITES (1987) [DISC. #3; WITCHES #1]

“‘Where does it say it?’ said Granny triumphantly.  ‘Where does it say women can’t be wizards?’  

The following thoughts sped through Cutangle’s mind:

…It doesn’t say it anywhere, it says it everywhere.  

…But young Simon seemed to say that everywhere is so much like nowhere that you can’t really tell the difference.  

…Do I want to be remembered as the first Archchancellor to allow women into the University?  Still…I’d be remembered, that’s for sure.”

Rating: 6/10

Standalone Okay: Yes

Read First: Yeah, if you like magic and bad puns, you’ll be fine.

Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]

* * * * * * * * * *

Equal Rites does not mess around.  It’s early Discworld, so you’ve still got a little bit of that High Fantasy vibe to it, where sometimes Pratchett just spews fantastical-sounding terms and concepts so that the reader can’t forget that This is Fantasy, We Are Not in Kansas Anymore, Folks!  And to be perfectly honest, a lot of the plot, especially the early stuff, is kind of forgettable.  There’s a lot of people talking to people about doing stuff before the actual doing gets done, if you know what I mean.

But that doesn’t really matter, because Equal Rites has important shit to say and, by god, Pratchett is going to say it. And in case you didn’t bother to read the book itself, you can tell just by looking at the title that a) it’s about gender inequality in the magical community, and b) there’s going to be puns. So many puns.  Sir Terry, please, take pity on me.  I just don’t have the time to go around explaining to every person I meet on the street why this kind of thing makes me absolutely batshit feral for the Discworld.  

I love it so much.

Anyway.  Equal Rites is the story of Eskarina Smith, or Esk, the first ever female to be born a wizard.  The whole concept of ‘the eighth son of an eighth son is chosen by the magical staff of a dying wizard to become a new wizard’ brings up a lot of questions for me—a lot of questions that will never be answered—but if I ignore that and just accept that it’s true, then by Discworld tradition Esk is undeniably a wizard. She is the eighth, uh, child of an eighth son, chosen at birth by the magical staff of a wizard who promptly dies and decides to be reincarnated as a weirdly randy tree and then, later, as an ant.

…Cool, I guess.

More importantly, and also by Discworld tradition, Esk undeniably cannot be a wizard, because she’s born female.  Honestly, Pratchett might as well have named this Sit Down and Shut Up While I Talk About Gender Roles and Gender Inequality, You All Are Going to Listen to Me Because I’m Going to Make Bad Puns While I Do It.

Over the course of the book, Pratchett does some deep dives into what it means to be a witch, what it means to be a wizard, how they’re the same, how they’re different—and why none of that actually matters.  For something published over thirty years ago, I think Equal Rites holds up incredibly well as a conversation on gender and society, and it’s still just as relevant as ever.  It just goes to show that a) writing with thought, kindness, and care makes for a timeless product, and b) society really hasn’t made that much progress since 1987, has it?  It’s a little sad that the issues Pratchett wants us to think about here are still just as recognizable and just as common in the world as they were thirty-three years ago.

(Kind of as a side note, there are definitely things I don’t think Pratchett considered about the basic premise he’s set up, namely that just because Esk was born with a certain set of genitals, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about her gender.  I’ve seen a lot of discussion, especially on the internet, about trans Esk, and trans wizards and witches, and what that would mean for the Discworld universe—really interesting stuff, things people should definitely look into, but not what I’m going to focus on here.  I would highly recommend that people think about it, especially cis people like me. It would be wrong to go through Equal Rites without even bringing it up, even if I read the text as more as a discussion of gender roles rather than gender identity. Since Pratchett was a cishet man writing this in the 80s, I’m also willing to bet it’s what he was intending. But it’s still an important conversation to have.)

Anyway, let’s jump in and look at the dichotomy that Pratchett is setting up for us!

What is a witch?  What is a wizard?  How are they the same, and how are they different?  Why does that split matter?

I did the messy work of going through my copy of the book and highlighting every instance where definitions are provided for ‘witches’ and ‘wizards,’ specifically so that I could run a compare-contrast, and I want to point out right off the bat that basically all of the details on so-called ‘defining’ features of these two schools of magic are provided through characters and their POV—direct dialogue and thoughts—not by word-of-god narration or omniscient POV.  So, obviously, we have to run all this through the internal bias filter; this stuff is all what people believe about wizards, witches, and magic, not necessarily how things are.

What makes a witch, according to Equal Rites:

Magic out of the ground

Dress in black to look the part

Witches bow. They’ve got to be different from everyone else; it’s “part of the secret” (headology)

Cunning, old (or they try to look it)

Suspicious, homely, and organic magic

Appearance of magic can do more work than actual magic (headology)

“Leaving the world as it was and changing the people”

They can “Borrow” and work gently

“Fighting her [Granny] was like swatting a fly on your own nose”: if you don’t struggle and make waves, you can do a lot with less outright power

Do the messy, practical stuff, not just the flash

Always, “without exception, women”

What makes a wizard:

Magic out of the sky

Over-the-top ways of dressing up to look the part, often with robes and sequins

“Books and stars and jommetry.”  (Granny absolutely does not know what geometry is, or what it is for.)

“Talked too much and pinned spells down in books like butterflies,” and looked at “numbers and angles and edges and what the stars are doing”

Wise, old

Powerful, complex, and mysterious magics

Magic is condensed out of the air and into the staff, and used by the wizard

“Magic changed the world in some way, wizards thought there was no other use for it”

Can’t “Borrow,” only take/seize control

Too busy with the “infinite” and “never noticing the definite”

 Always, “without exception, men”

Witches “normally work with what actually exists in the world,” while a wizard can give thoughts shape, “put flesh on his imagination.” Witches learn to walk softly and move over and around an obstacle, while wizards puff up and fight to go straight through it.

Witches “need a head.”  Wizards “need…a heart.”

In short, witches are self-taught, intuitive, grounded in reality, and fluid in their magic use—when they actually use it at all.  They work with what they feel and what they know about the world.  Wizards are academics and learn from set rules and their books, and their magic is often over-complex, overpowered, and difficult to control.  Wizards are more rigid and structured in their magic use—ritualistic, even—but less connected to reality or grounded in the real world.

And, of course, both groups wear fabulous outfits and dramatic pointed hats!

Just look at ‘em.  Such wonderful weirdos.

The more I look at the ‘definitions’ like this, all laid out and proper, the more I start to think that the witches who do things we would consider ‘bad’ witchcraft are just correctly using elements of wizardry. For example, think about Mrs. Earwig, with her books and rituals, her special tools and fancy dress code; even though she doesn’t focus on the world around her or the people in it, the way a ‘good’ witch would, she’s good at what she does, and so certain in herself that she can stare down the glamor of the Queen of the Elves without flinching in The Shepherd’s Crown.  On the other hand, we have our classic ‘bad’ wizard, Rincewind, who demonstrates some exceptionally witchy tendencies—he’s excellent at headology even if actual magic isn’t really in his wheelhouse, as Interesting Times makes pretty obvious.  And despite the fact that he’s a coward-sprinter who’d really rather avoid danger if at all possible, when it comes down to it, he’s still the man who’ll put himself between the world and a great evil with nothing but trembling knees, a spine reluctantly turned from water to iron, and a half-brick in a sock.  As Granny would say, he walks the line.

So, really, what does gender actually have to do with it? Why is there a distinction at all? Is it actually important?

And to make a long novel short, what Pratchett is saying in Equal Rites is that it’s not.  There’s no difference between witchcraft and wizardry that actually makes for a good reason for a gendered split.  Men aren’t inherently better at math and academia, or as Granny says, “jommetry;” women aren’t inherently more practical, emotional, or intuitive.  That’s a social construct, not a biological one.

And beyond that, even, there’s no real reason for the two ‘types’ of magic to be split up at all.  They might be different ways of operating, but it’s all magic.  Anyone could do either.  Or neither.  Or both.

There’s an early conversation between Death and the wizard whose mix-up with his staff marked Esk as a wizard—just after the man has died, when he’s realized that he’s passed his magic along to a female and, in his mind, made a terrible mistake.  “I was foolish,” he says, “I assumed the magic would know what it was doing.”  But instead of agreeing, Death tells him, “PERHAPS IT DOES.”

It all comes down to what Esk calls magic beyond magic—the reality of the thing beyond the concepts we’ve created to define and confine it.  If we’ve invented these distinctions between ‘types’ of magic, between ‘types’ of gender and the self, then what remains once we’ve removed them?  What happens when we peel them away and see what’s left behind? Why do we cling to our invented categories, the things that limit both sides and create conflict?

I really like that Equal Rites never puts Esk into a specific category.  She doesn’t end the book as a ‘true’ wizard or a ‘true’ witch, but she also doesn’t fully reject either.  As sad as I am that Pratchett never goes much deeper into Esk (her brief appearance in I Shall Wear Midnight doesn’t actually explain much), I’m fine with not having a concrete answer.  One, the other, both, neither—it’s not the point.  Magic is magic.  People are people.  Gender is, honestly, irrelevant.  Beyond the academic divides we’ve made for ourselves, it’s all the same stuff given different names.  Esk does magic, and she is herself, and in the end, she’s not bound by the limitations that witches and wizards put on their reality.

Infinite possibilities!

It’s something the other wizards and witches never get to have.  They’re so locked into what they believe magic to be, what they believe themselves to be, that they never really look outside those boxes.

It’s wild to me that the concept Pratchett is introducing here—specifically about wizards and witches and gender—basically disappears as long as Esk does.  Esk is a really cool character; the idea of female wizards and male witches is fascinating. I want more of all this.  So, I’m genuinely sad that Esk doesn’t reappear again until the Tiffany Aching books, specifically I Shall Wear Midnight—in 2010, more than twenty years after Equal Rites was published.  And we don’t get another wizard or witch or magic-user in general working outside their typical gender alignment until Geoffrey appears in 2015 in The Shepherd’s Crown and asks to become a witch, and even then, the witches take to calling him a ‘calm-weaver’ instead.

I like that the idea eventually comes full circle.  I don’t like that the circle takes thirty years, and goes basically unacknowledged in the meantime.

But the point Pratchett is making is still there in the Discworld, and it never really goes away.  Remember how I said earlier that this stuff—all this ‘witches do and are x, wizards do and are y, that’s how it has to be’ nonsense—it’s all what people believe about magic and such, not how things are?  Pratchett and Discworld are huge on belief.  Belief shapes reality, belief becomes real, and we see that over and over again.  But part of what Pratchett is saying here is that even if we all believe in something, then it doesn’t mean that it’s right.  Just because something is doesn’t mean it should be.

More importantly, though, it also doesn’t mean we’ve locked ourselves in place.  Esk proves that much.  We learn. We grow.  We change our understanding of our reality and ourselves, and we believe something different.  And then the world changes, too.

* * * * * * * * * *

Side Notes:

We get to see Granny Weatherwax for the first time!  She’s absolutely fabulous and I love this sharp-tongued bitter old lady so much.  In later books starring the witches we will focus in a lot more on Granny herself as a witch and a person, rather than just as a teacher.

Granny Weatherwax is said to live in the village of Bad Ass in Equal Rites.  In future books, she will live in Lancre.

There actually aren’t that many footnotes in this one.  Since I kind of just…expect footnotes to appear in every book Terry Pratchett touches, despite the fact that they’re super rare everywhere else, it’s almost weirder to not see a footnote every page and a half.

Esk does some magical nonsense—mainly by not realizing the magic she’s doing should be impossible—that ends up “changing the Discworld in thousands of tiny ways.”  This is probably part of Pratchett’s attempt to slowly shift what he started establishing in The Colour of Magic to what we’ll see in later Discworld books, moving from High Fantasy to more of a, I don’t know, steampunk-y magical surrealism?  What even is the Discworld, I ask you?  It’s impossible to describe.  But what Esk does to it here is described as follows: “the wavefront of probability struck the edge of Reality and rebounded like the slosh off the side of the pond which, meeting the laggard ripples coming the other way, caused small but important whirlpools in the very fabric of existence.  You can have whirlpools in the fabric of existence, because it is a very strange fabric.”

We get our first mention of sourcerers here in Equal Rites, but they’re not very well defined. We’re just told that they’re now extinct.  They’ll turn up in a lot more detail in a couple books, of course, once we get to Sourcery.

Favorite Quotes:

“I know what I mean, she told herself.  Magic’s easy, you just find the place where everything is balanced and push.  Anyone could do it.  There’s nothing magical about it.  All the funny words and waving the hands is just…it’s only for…  She stopped, surprised at herself.  She knew what she meant.  The idea was right up there in the front of her mind.  But she didn’t know how to say it in words, even to herself.”

“‘But,’ he said, ‘if it’s wizard magic she’s got, learning witchery won’t be any good, will it?  You said they’re different.’  ‘They’re both magic.  If you can’t learn to ride an elephant, you can at least ride a horse.’”

“The old witch yanked the staff out of its shadow and waved it vaguely at Esk.  ‘Here.  It’s yours. Take it.  I just hope this is the right thing to do.’  In fact the presentation of a staff to an apprentice wizard is usually a very impressive ceremony, especially if the staff has been inherited from an elder mage; by ancient lore there is a long and frightening ordeal involving masks and hoods and swords and fearful oaths about people’s tongues being cut out and their entrails torn by wild birds and their ashes scattered to the eight winds and so on.  After some hours of this sort of thing the apprentice can be admitted to the brotherhood of the Wise and Enlightened.  There is also a long speech.  By sheer coincidence Granny got the essence of it in a nutshell.”

“‘Never mind what I said, or common sense or anything.  Sometimes you just have to go the way things take you, and I reckon you’re going to wizard school one way or the other.’  Esk considered this.  ‘You mean it’s my destiny?’ she said at last.  Granny shrugged.  ‘Something like that.  Probably. Who knows?’”

“Animal minds are simple, and therefore sharp.  Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed.  The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.”

“‘Why are you holding that broomstick?’ he said.  Esk looked at it as though she had never seen it before.  ‘Everything’s got to be somewhere,’ she said.”

“Why was it that, when she heard Granny ramble on about witchcraft she longed for the cutting magic of wizardry, but whenever she heard Treatle speak in his high-pitched voice she would fight to the death for witchcraft?  She’d be both, or none at all.  And the more they intended to stop her, the more she wanted it.  She’d be a witch and a wizard too.  And she would show them.”

“‘Million-to-one chances,’ she said, ‘crop up nine times out of ten.’”

“For a moment he nursed the strangely consoling feeling that his life was totally beyond his control and whatever happened no one could blame him.”

#discworld #equal rites #witches #esk #granny weatherwax

[ubcs-dump]

Hell yes, tell us abt Mikhail. I bet you have a lot to say!

Short answer:

Long answer:

Okay so I will get real with all you guys on this one. I’ll start with a bit of a backstory with this because there is a reason why I love Mikhail so much.

!!!TRIGGER WARNING!!! MENTAL ILLNESSES AND SU*C*DAL THOUGHTS MENTIONED!!!

It was about 10 years ago. Imagine a 14 year old me, sitting alone in my dark room. My depression and various other mental illnesses are geting worse every day, they have been dragging me down for years now. I am living with abusive people who love to push me down even further, mocking me and bullying me even though they are considered my family. I was broken. I was in pain. The word ‘s//ui//ci//de’ has been clouding my mind for years now.I just picked up on Resident Evil through parodies of it on youtube. I watched someone play Resident Evil 3 Nemesis online because I remember that we owned that game but I was terrified of Nemesis on the box so I didn’t play it myself.Then I saw Mikhail, how he lay on the seats of the cable car. I could tell he was in pain and I felt deeply sorry for him. But it wasn’t a special feeling because I felt sorry for all the characters in the game. The person who played the game even mocked Mikhail for his looks. At first I laughed along but then there came a specific cutscene.And then Mikhail said something.Just one sentence.One line of dialoge.

It may just be a line of dialoge for most people. Some tiny bit of character developement sprinkled in for good meassure.But boy.I felt that.Suddenly I felt a deeper connection. It felt like I could see myself in Mikhail. He’s been through hell. He watched his men die in front of him. He is bleeding like crazy. He is in pain. Both mentally and physically. He’s expressing survivors guilt and it’s eating him up on the inside. When he said that line I literally teared up.I felt understood.And when he sacrificed himself to save Carlos and Jill, I cried. Hard. I cried because I was touched by his bravery. I cried because he deserved to live. I cried. Because I looked up to him. Without even realizing it, he became my role model. Mikhail is a kind soul, he is brave, determined, always trying his best, righteous, proud, a real team player and a wonderful leader. He is the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be.He quickly became my favorite character. I still watch all of the cutscenes with him every now and again when I need to hear his voice. I also sometimes browse his REwiki page just because I feel like it. When playing the Mercenaries minigame I always pick him.After meeting him I decided to keep going too. I can’t stop, no matter how broken and in pain I am. These wounds can’t stop me from fighting. I’ll keep fighting because I believe that I can get better if I just keep going. Fighting those demons off. Ignoring everyone who tells me otherwise. After all, I can’t stop just because I’m wounded.Also he is probably my biggest fictional crush ever lol. It’s been almost 10 years and I still can’t forget him and I still love him as much as I did on day 1.

Ever since then Mikhail has been a sort of voice of reason. When I’m feeling lost I ask myself what he would do in my situation. When I notice I haven’t eaten all day again, I’d imagine him trying to give me a pep talk. He became a coping mechanism and comfort character. I’ve been looking up to him for almost 10 years now, which is pretty rare when you know that I have tons of favorite characters that come and go, but he has always been my favorite Resident Evil character ever since that day.

I love everything about him. His backstory is tragic and herioc. He used to be an excellent soldier in the Russian SFSR before the Soviet Union collapsed. His wife was part of a minority who he fought for, causing him to be concidered a terrorist in the Russian Federation. After getting arrested he was approached by Umbrella. He agreed to join them but only if Umbrella does everything they can to ensure amnesty for his men.This just shows how much he cares for his comerades and loved ones. Mikhail joined a guerrilla organization to fight for the independence of the minority group his wife was a part of. He joined Umbrella, not because he himself wanted to be free, but because his men would be free.

I also really really like his relationship with Jill in the game. I could perfectly imagine them as very good friends. The way they talk with each other and how Jill tries to calm Mikhail down and helps and encourages him while also perfectly understanding the state he is in and the feelings and worries that are clouding his mind. I just love it and I demand fanart and fanfiction of a cute platonic relationship between these two. They are cute and precious.I sadly can’t say a lot about his relationships between him and the other members of the Operation-Jackal-Trio.Mikhail and Nikolai don’t interact at all. Which is bullsh*t because Capcom actually wanted them to be brothers and interact. That would have been an amazing addition. I want it back. My fav AU, hands down.Carlos mentions Mikhails name a few times (and by a few I mean two times). Once when explaining what happened and once when Mikhail got attacked in the cable car. I’m a bit sad we didn’t see more of them together. Carlos is certainly worried about Mikhails safety but I really wish they had expanded on that a little. I just wanted to see more interaction in general.

Mikhail also influenced my art. My nickname/pen name is Uby Victor. The ‘Uby’ part comes from the way you say the first two letters of the UBCS. And Victor isn’t hard to guess haha. Some people call me Victor too and I love it!! :3I also own an olive green beret in addition to my UBCS uniform. It’s just a prop and I guess just something I’ve always wanted to own haha. Now I just need to find a way to get the patch.I tried drawing him a few times but I’m an idiot and get flustered when I do so I usually stop before it’s even finished. I will probably never be able to draw him well haha. At least not with that attitude.

He’s also the reason I realized I have a soft spot for Russian accents. Even though Ben Campbell isn’t Russian, his accent is okay and I like his performance.

!!HORRIBLY HIGH LEVEL OF HONESTY AHEAD!!

I could probably rant even more about how much I love Mikhails personality. And his looks.

Have you seen those eyes??? That is one awesome dark shade of blue. Unrealistic I know but damn. I love them. And his golden hair. I wanna run my hand through it. And those arms. Mmmh. He could throw me across a football field with those and I’d say “Thanks, daddy, please do it again!”. He looks like he gives great hugs too. He’s like a big teddy bear, hence why I call him Mischka all the time haha. Also he is top notch soft daddy material. I’m not the only one with this opinion. Also his crotch. The bulge is big. Just take my word for it. Or take a look for yourself. His full body picture is at the top of this post. You have been warned.

!!HORRIBLY HIGH LEVEL OF HONESTY OVER!!

All of this is also why I do not like his R3MAKE version at all. The original RE3: Nemesis Mikhail means so so so much to me. I associate him with recovery. I look up to him and I basically owe him my life. So seeing him be changed that drastically in the R3MAKE just broke my heart. I will stick with the original because that’s the one I like the most.

I could tell more but this is already very long lmao

EDITED tl;dr: Thank you, Mikhail. You’ve helped me more than any living human being ever did. I owe you so much. You’re an angel and I love you.

~ Mod Uby

#UBCS #Resident Evil #ubyspeaks #mikhail victor #long post

[esquissers]

                                  ◟ believe   it   or   not   ,   i   am   indeed   a   mess   &   unfortunately   ,   you   are   being   introduce   to   me   sFKSDFJ   .   in   all   seriousness   ,   i'm   cc   ,   nineteen   from   the   cst   tz   with   she   /   her   preferred   pronouns   .   this   is   a   new   muse   that   i've   pulled   a   little   bit   of   inspo   from   other   muses   ,   but   i'm   trying   :)   something   :)   (   not   )   new   !   pip   is   a   cute   lil   nickname   but   she's   ...   not   cool   ,   to   say   the   least   .   pls   LIKE   this   if   you'd   like   to   plot   &   i'll   come   to   you   ,   or   ,   lmk   if   you   prefer   plotting   on   d*scord   !

                                           stats  /  wanted  connections  /  pinterest

━━ (   jung   jinsoul   +   cis   female   +   twenty-one   )   oi   ,   have   you   seen   philippa   ‘pip’   bae   around   ?   she   lives   in   flat   17   in   bedroom   4   ?   i   was   meant   to   meet   them   this   morning   at   bean   me   up   before   our   lecture   but   she   didn’t   show   .   no   ?   well   ,   shit   .   if   you   do   see   them   ,   can   you   tell   them   i’m   looking   for   them   ?   they’re   a   3rd   year   architecture   student   from   nafplio   ,   greece   &   you’ll   know   it’s   them   because   they   might   just   remind   you   of   gold   framed   glasses   left   in   the   library   ,   playing   the   sims   on   your   laptop   during   lectures   ,   a   wall   full   of   half-finished   pencil   sketches   ,   lemon   water   ,   climbing   onto   rooftops   &   the   dream   of   building   something   better   if   that   helps   at   all.just   be   careful   ,   she   can   be   a   little   machiavellan   ,   hubristic   &   arriviste   sometimes   .   —-   oh   don’t   look   like   that   ,   they’re   usually   erudite   ,   habile   &   tactical   most   of   the   time   .

𝓲.     𝕒𝕓𝕣𝕚𝕕𝕘𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥   .

full   name   :   philippa  bae  /  bae  soo  ah  nickname(s) :   pip  ,  suah  ,  pippa age   :  twenty  -  one gender   /   pronouns  :  cis  gendered   female   /   she  /  her  /  hers sexuality   :  bisexual  /  biromantic hometown   : nafplio   ,   greece major   :   architecture inspo  :  annabeth  chase  ,  regina  george  ,  macey  mchenry faceclaim :  jung  jinsoul

fun facts : doesn’t   talk   about   her   dad   but   will   mention   every   chance   she   gets   that   he’s   ex   mi6   ,   can   speak   almost   six   languages   but   doesn’t   speak   any   of   them   ...   u   know   ?   ,   major   abandonment   issues   &   for   what   ,   can   whistle   for   hours   without   stopping   ,   carries   around   multiple   sketchbooks   on   her  person   at   all  times   ,   is   mean  :(   takes   out   unresolved   anger   on   everyone  around   her  ,   got   kicked   out   of   the   library   her   first   year   for   starting   a   fight   with   a   librarian   ,   loud   opinions   ;   mean   words   ,   is   really   good   at   drawing   /   painting   but   only   Sketches   because   painting   is   reserved   for   ‘   pure   inspiration   ’   ,   should   be   an   art   major  but   doesn’t   think   she   needs   a   degree  in   drawing

aesthetic :  drowning   just   below   the   surface   of   an   ice   cold   river   ,   being   unable   to   hear   the   birds   chirping   in   the   morning   due   to   the   irrevocable   anger   ,   breaking   pencils   because   you’re   pressing   down   too   hard   ,   wind   so   cold   it   feels   like   it’s   cutting   into   skin   ,   a   lone   glacier   wandering   the   abandoned   waters   ,   a   forgotten   lighthouse   in   the   wreckage   of   ships   it   failed   to   protect   &   friends   are   family   despite   the   way   you   treat   them   .

𝓲𝓲.     𝕔𝕙𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕝𝕖   .

mom   doesn’t   get   much   of   an   explanation   ,   why   her   lover   swerves   in   &   out   of   her   life   so   jarringly   .   instead   ,   she’s   given   a   child   ,   someone   that   looks   a   lot   like   the   suave   man   who   visits   every   few   months   from   business   &   tells   her   that   she   loves   her   .   he’s   the   first   one   to   call   philippa   ‘   pip   ’   &   it   only   sticks   because   she   lets   it   ,   even   if   she   hates   the   name   almost   as   much   as   she   hates   him   .

pip   loves   her   dad   ,   maybe   a   bit   more   than   the   upset   mom   who   always   watches   over   her   &   ruins   her   fun   .   dad   ,   he   teaches   her   different   languages   &   how   to   find   a   killer   on   the   big   ,   intricate   maps   he   brings   homes   .   he’s   the   one   to   gift   her   a   sketchbook   &   a   box   of   special   pencils   ,   the   one   to   encourage   her   to   build   a   world   made   of   lead   &   her   imagination   .

he   doesn’t   stay   for   too   long   ever   ,   but   he   always   returns   &   she   always   waits   for   him   dutifully   .   mom   knows   now   ,   but   she   won’t   tell   pip   anything   .   all   she   does   is   make   sure   pip   knows   how   to   fight   dirty   &   how   to   make   sure   her   underhand   stings   .   ‘   women   fight   differently   ,   soo   ah   ,   ’   she   tells   pip   .   ‘   your   dad   –   you’re   different   from   him   .   you   have   to   learn   things   differently   .   ’

there’s   only   so   much   mom   can   put   up   with   .   pip   wakes   up   one   day   to   find   a   note   from   her   mom   (   written   in   korean   ,   the   one   language   she   struggles   with   learning   despite   her   ancestry   )   that   reads   that   she’s   gone   .   she’s   done   &   that   her   dad   brings   too   much   into   her   life   that   she   can’t   deal   with   .   he’s   not   the   man   she   thought   she   loved   ;   &   apparently   ,   neither   was   pip   .   she   wasn’t   enough   for   her   mom   .

pip   learns   quickly   she’s   not   enough   for   her   dad   ,   either   .   thirteen   years   old   ,   multi-lingual   &   left   in   the   world   on   her   own   .   dad   sends   money   &   he   sends   letters   ,   mostly   though   ,   he   sends   empty   promises   .   ‘   i   promise   you’ll   understand   one   day   .   i   promise   i’ll   explain   .   i   promise   i   love   you   .   ’   but   he   doesn’t   show   up   &   he   doesn’t   come   to   collect   .   he   sends   her   a   passport   &   tells   her   to   live   the   way   she   wants   .

online   ,   she   finds   a   good   enough   school   that’ll   get   her   where   she   wants   to   go   in   the   future   .   she   completes   courses   while   running   from   a   past   she   doesn’t   know   anything   about   .   strangers   ask   her   where   her   parents   are   ,   she   learns   how   to   lie   .   men   ask   her   how   old   she   is   ,   she   learns   how   to   con   them   into   working   for   her   .   women   ask   her   why   she   isn’t   love   ,   she   learns   how   to   wage   wars   &   win   .

seventeen   ,   pip   has   spent   time   all   around   europe   on   her   own   .   her   dad   still   sends   money   ,   but   he   doesn’t   send   letters   anymore   .   she   stopped   replying   a   while   ago   ,   but   he   still   signs   the   bank   statements   with   a   heart   .   on   her   ‘   graduation   ’   day   ,   she   gets   a   gift   in   the   mail   –   a   sketchbook   ,   a   box   of   special   pencils   &   a   letter   –   explaining   everything   .  

dad’s   a   spy   ,   he’s   dangerous   &   lethal   &   he   has   enemies   that   don’t   know   of   her   existence   .   mom   was   paranoid   &   abandoned   ,   left   to   her   own   devices   so   she   left   .   he   tells   her   everything   except   why   he   never   came   to   get   her   ,   why   his   life   was   more   important   than   hers   &   why   he   didn’t   love   her   enough   .   she   burns   the   letter   ,   along   with   her   sketch   of   him   .

she   forgets   what   he   looks   like   ,   she   forgets   what   mom   looks   like   &   she   rids   her   mind   of   them   .   eighteen   &   in   paris   ,   accepting   her   dad’s   gracious   checks   (   which   ,   shouldn’t   be   made   on   a   spy’s   salary   ,   but   she   won’t   complain   )   when   she   decides   it’s   time   to   go   back   .   one   year   wasted   ,   she’s   spent   in   paris   drinking   wine   &   bedding   lovers   .  

small   town   ,   obscure   location   &   a   good   reputation   .   larnswick   university   welcomes   her   in   with   open   arms   &   there’s   her   fresh   start   ,   even   if   her   past   will   never   get   away   from   her   .

𝓲𝓲𝓲.     𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟   .

exterior   .   she’s   ruthless   ,   a   wolf   loved   by   a   silent   god   of   war   that   watches   her   fight   battles   .   raised   by   a   silent   war   ,   she   knows   that   in   order   to   get   things   done   ,   she   has   to   make   the   first   move   .   outgoing   ,   courageous   &   always   prepared   ,   pip’s   nothing   short   of   a   monstrous   war   general   ,   comparable   to   hurricanes   that   rip   land   apart   because   it’s   in   the   way   .   blunt   ,   sharp   &   cutting   ,   she’s   no   stranger   to   fighting   dirty   &   hurting   with   words   .   any   words   can   be   used   to   describe   her   ,   except   maybe   civil   ,   or   kind   ,   or   gentle   .

interior   .   lonely   &   a   little   bit   scared   of   an   earth   that   never   wanted   her   .   when   is   it   going   to   open   up   ,   take   her   away   because   she   doesn’t   really   belong   ?   always   the   one   to   end   things   so   she   doesn’t   get   hurt   ,   she’s   never   vulnerable   because   that’ll   end   badly   .   non   committal   ,   it’s   surprising   she’s   stayed   in   this   place   for   too   long   –   she’s   spent   five   years   of   her   teenagehood   running   from   place   to   place   .   selfish   &   cunning   ,   pip   comes   first   ,   because   that’s   what   she’s   learned   to   do   to   survive   .

midway   .   talented   ,   tactical   &   intelligent   .   there’s   a   lot   of   talent   in   her   fingers   ,   the   ability   to   mimic   life   with   a   few   pencil   strokes   .   she   possesses   a   need   to   build   something   permanent   ,   something   better   than   the   life   she’s   lived   &   she   doesn’t   know   why   ,   she   doesn’t   know   if   it’ll   bring   her   joy   –   perhaps   just   buying   a   cottage   by   the   sea   will   fulfill   her   life   .   pip   is   talented   ,   gifted   by   apollo   &   cursed   by   ares   .

𝓲𝓿.     𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕔𝕝𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟   .

                                 ◟ uwu   ,   tysm   for   reading   this   my   favorite   people   !   all   my   wc   are   on   the   page   linked   above   ,   but   if   nothing   strikes   u   we   love   brainstorming   in   this   house   !   love   u   all   &   can't   wait   to   write   /   plot   w   u   !

#theflats:intro #・ 。 ◟ 𝒑𝒊𝒑 ┊ development . #OKAY THIS IS REALLY LONG OKAY #also ::: this might be dif. to view on the theme & if it is add /mobile to the end of the url !

[smallhatlogan]

There’s this annoying thing where if I step outside the zone deemed “completely gender neutral” (Which apparently is just wearing men’s clothes+ having short hair+ having a baby face) I get misgendered.  Stepping out of the zone usually happens because I did something out of convenience, necessity, laziness, and/or the occasional motivation to dress in something different.  So like, sometimes I’m lazy about clipping my hair and I let it get too long.  I end up needing a hair clip when I’m working or driving. Often I just grab the first one I find  which sometimes has a bow or something (Because I lose the plain ones constantly and also the ones with bows are pretty cute IMO).  I’ve recently started carry a big ol’ purse (a knock-off tokidoki with a print of hell on it) because it can fit my sketchbook, my other nicer sketchbook, my pencil bag, and various necessities without being too inconvenient. And sometimes goddammit, I’m going to wear something with flowers on it.

And every time I do at least one of those things every cis person, even the ones who are usually so good at my pronouns, suddenly ~forgets~.

#sometimes i get misgendered the other way too but tbh that doesn't feel quite as bad? #doesn't feel great but still