#and i just. do not understand social interaction the way most people do | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ddollfface · 2 days

Text

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐒𝐢𝐜𝐤!𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐀 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐒/𝐎?

𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗦𝗶𝗰𝗸!𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘅 𝗙𝗲𝗺!𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

Summary; How do LoveSick!Characters react to having a s/o who's very extroverted, has a "sunshine" personality, and attracts others? (Thank you so much for 300 followers!!!! I'm sorry for the lack of activities, and I'm so grateful that everyone is my inbox is being patient... I promise more content is coming!! Love you guys!!!)

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙎𝙞𝙘𝙠!𝘼𝙩𝙝𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚

Honestly, I think LoveSick!Athlete mixes very well with most people, so having an introverted or extroverted s/o doesn't matter too much for him, as long as their sweet. But if you're more energetic and attract attention from others, then I feel that he'd be kinda proud?

I'm not too sure if that's the correct word, but he likes seeing you interact with other people because you're just so cute! The way you giggle and flash a cheeky smile just makes him chuckle. You're far too sweet, so it's enjoyable seeing you be yourself. Not only that, but it also helps his "popular guy" persona he has going on, so having a hot babe who's funny really boosts his social points.

Though, don't get it twisted, he doesn't just see you as a social credit, far from it, but he can't deny the pride he feels when you flaunt yourself. LoveSick!Athlete has never been the jealous type (which I talk about here), so seeing you look hot and getting attention doesn't bother him. It just makes his chest warm, knowing that he bagged such a cool girl.

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙎𝙞𝙘𝙠!𝙋𝙤𝙚𝙩

Nope, nope, nope, he'll actually die. Don't get LoveSick!Poet wrong, he's oh so grateful that he has you, and he honestly has no idea how he bagged such a baddie, but that doesn't mean he can handle so much attention.

You have to understand, LoveSick!Poet has never been one to draw attention. And if he did, it was never positive. He's always been a loner, someone who's admired others from afar, jotting down his thoughts in some notebook. That's how he's always been, so imagine his surprise at the sudden attention he's getting by proxy of dating you.

By nature, you are radiating an energy that others can't deny. For some reason, you just attract people, both their attention and admiration, and that's what originally drew LoveSick!Poet to you. He couldn't deny that his eyes drifted to your form more than once.

He thinks of you as a goddess, someone who's out of his reach, and only to watch from afar. But now that he's dating you, he can't help but pinch himself, only to make sure that it's not a dream. LoveSick!Poet is convinced that you're an angel, so he really can't complain that others notice how amazing you are.

LoveSick!Poet is partially filled with pride, seeing as others are acknowledging your amazing personality/looks. But, at the same time, he gets far too nervous to deal with all the eyes that are constantly peering into your relationship. He can't help but feel a little insecure, especially when he hears the whispers throughout the apartment complex. It's neverending, really.

But he brushes them off, deciding not to listen to others, and only focus on you, you, you. You're his idol, his goddess, his partner; why should he focus on others when he has you? Why would he ever doubt your decisions when you're oh-so-perfect? Don't you understand? You are everything.

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙎𝙞𝙘𝙠!𝘽𝙞𝙢𝙗𝙤

I'm not going to lie, it's a 50/50 with LoveSick!Bimbo. On some days, she's so proud of her baby girl. After all, you're so, so, so popular and so cute! She loves that you're extroverted and friendly, and your personality is one of the reasons she fell for you. You're just oh-so pure.

She likes that everyone is envious of both of you, most can't choose whether they want to be you or her, and it makes her giddy. LoveSick!Bimbo loves attention, but the moment she notices the way men seem to undress you with their eyes, focusing far too much on your breasts and ass. Some even go as far as to reach out and try to grab.

Let's just say that they're not going to class anymore. And the moment you express any discomfort with how others sexualize you and seem to focus on all the wrong things, is the moment she snaps, realizing that she in fact doesn't like the attention.

Of course, she doesn't mind getting sexualized, if anything it gives her power, but the moment anyone looks at you the wrong way, it fills her with rage. LoveSick!Bimbo is jealous, something she's not accustomed to. She doesn't like others paying so much attention to you. She should be the only one looking at you, touching you, kissing you.

No, no, no, who do these men think they are? Can't they see that you're a lesbian? Ugh!! It makes her cheeks puff up and her eyes sharpen. They better be ready for hell 'cause nobody looks at her baby like that!

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙎𝙞𝙘𝙠!𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙

She for sure gets along better with a s/o who's extroverted, it balances out her introverted nature. LoveSick!Friend likes to think of you as the yang to her yin. You're the sweet one in the friendship; the one who holds her back when she gets too heated; the one to drag her to parties; the one to introduce her to new people; the one who carries conversations.

Yeah... you're definitely the louder one in the friendship relationship but she prefers it that way. She likes the way you can't sit still, always having to be talking, moving, or giggling.

And, as an observer, LoveSick!Friend enjoys just watching you, you, you. The way you go about your way of life is so different from her that she can't look away, it's impossible. You're irresistible and too perfect for her. The way you cling to her, always wanting to hold hands, loop your arms together, and hug each other; makes her heart all warm, causing her cheeks to heat up.

You're not afraid of initiating anything, which catches LoveSick!Friend off guard, seeing as she's never been courted in such a way. There's always been the straightforward men who can't tell a lesbian from a girl who isn't interested, but you're just a little ball of sunshine. You're something she can't understand, something that is so outside her worldview that she just had to befriend you, and now she can't get enough of you, you, you.

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙎𝙞𝙘𝙠!𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩

I'm just going to say it straight up, you lucked out. Out of all the LoveSick!Characters, I'd say that Lovesick!Artist is probably the worst to have, especially if you're a very extroverted person who relies on social interaction to thrive.

LovesIck!Artist wants you to focus on him, him, him. Why don't you understand? You're only for his eyes, no one else. He doesn't want you chatting it up with the barista, or complimenting that girl's outfit, oh, and don't even think about smiling at that idiot frat boy.

He acts as if you're under witness protection, removing you from any conversations you get stuck in, scaring off anyone who even looks at you, and talking over you constantly. He speaks for you, acting as if you're mute, not wanting you to draw out the conversation with the cashier.

But it seems like no matter how hard LoveSick!Artist tries, you always seem to find a way to speak to others. It's as if you're magnetic and everyone else is metal. You're irresistible, stunning, and God damn pretty. He'll pull you to the side, arm wrapped around your shoulder, and lips pressed against your ear. I know you want to chat it up with the waiter, but Lovie, we really should hurry it up...

You're his main source of inspiration. If only you knew how many drawings, paintings, and sketches he has of you. LoveSick!Artist is never out of ideas when he's around you, always thinking of a new perspective, expression, positon-

And it fills him with undeniable rage when he realizes that others are likely thinking the same. How dare these men think of you, his light, his life, in such a way? Every time you walk outside, go out into the world, and talk with others, LoveSick!Artist is that much closer to tying you to his bed and leaving you with his aisle.

152 notes · View notes

spanishskulduggery · 5 hours

Note

I don't understand why I struggle with this hard.

I want to be involved with the Spanish-speaking world online. I don't even know where to start. The best I've got right now is that sometimes I happen upon another Spanish-speaking individual on tumblr and I just follow them and read everything they post in Spanish.

But sometimes they use English primarily. So it kind of defeats the purpose and makes the Spanish posts harder to find.

Idk I think I'm going about this the wrong way but I genuinely don't know how else to do this. It feels to me as if the entire Spanish-speaking world uses some secret social media that no one else knows about. And I would say I'm on the outside looking in, but I can't even find them.

If this makes sense.

Thanks in advance i love you

No, it's that many Spanish-speakers use or learn English on social media because it tends to get the most interaction

Especially for artists or in fandoms, English tends to dominate a lot of them - which in a way makes some sense if the fandoms came from English-speaking media or Hollywood things, but I know what you mean it can be frustrating trying to find people to interact/practice with that way

You usually have to find Twitter or Spanish-speaking groups like sometimes on Facebook or Spanish-speaking Discords. This is if you want something more like conversations or posts. Spanish-speaking Instagram and Tiktok are easier to find if you start liking things in Spanish, the algorithm will start sending you things like that - but you become more of a commenter relation to the creator, rather than finding people to actually talk to; it's sort of like Youtube in that way

...

If you're looking for specifically Spanish-speaking things you would have the most luck on forums or Spanish Facebook pages, or finding a Spanish-speaker on Tumblr/Twitter and talking to them in Spanish or commenting in Spanish

Otherwise, I'd say maybe WordReference but that's more of a grammar/vocabulary-related thing - they do have people responding to questions or topics in Spanish and some Spanish forums there where Spanish speakers from all over talk

If you're more advanced, you can wade into the WordReference forums where Spanish-speakers will ask about English phrases or how best to translate certain idioms... I've found that to be the place for learning specifically

#asks #followers?

24 notes · View notes

le-velo-pour-dru · 4 months

Text

Okay you know what. I'll admit it. I probably don't have autism of any kind XD But I do feel a kinship with those who do in some ways <3

#dru speaks #so maybe i don't have autism #but there's definitely something a little weird about the way my brain works XD #i like when there are certain steps and methods in doing things. i think that's why i like math so much #cause it has Procedures and Formulas that are always the same #and i just. do not understand social interaction the way most people do #when i'm around normal people i always feel like i'm doing something wrong #NOT TO MENTION HOW LONG I'VE BEEN DEEPLY OBSESSED WITH IDKHOW XD ❤️#that's certainly not normal #so yeah. probably don't have autism. but i'm certainly Weird in some way or another XD 🩷

7 notes · View notes

commanderfreddy · 1 month

Text

people are discoursing about the laios and shiro fight bc that was always going to happen but i do hope that wave crests quickly and we can all come to see it as what it is: literally one of the best written fights between two people who are both entirely justified in their actions and acting without any malice or cruelty of all time

#theres a tendency - especially in action and faction based media (which a lot of fantasy is or is in dialogue with) - to depict fights only #as happening between someone who Is Right and someone who Is Wrong #and getting to see a full on beatdown between two dudes who are both acting in an entirely understandible way and who both dont actually #want to hurt the other at all - to the extent where their desire to maintain a positive relationship with each other is the SOURCE of their #conflict in the first place - is just so cathartic to see #like unpopular opinion but sometimes you do just need to Fight someone to work through issues youre having #like irl i would not recommend that extent of Force obviously #but if you're two people in a situation where neither has active power over the other sometimes the healthiest option involves expressing #and receiving genuine anger that is not filtered through a social buffer #like sometimes you just need to yell that someone is pissing you off by how much they invade ur time and space and sometimes you need to #yell that someone is sabotaging your ability to interact with them by not expressing any discomfort with your behaviour ever #AND MOST IMPORTANTLY SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO BE YELLED AT #BECAUSE it sucks. it sucks to experience and until you can both share that space of feeling awful with each other youre not gonna get past #it and you're not gonna understand each other's pain #i think they're both wonderfully well written characters and its a testament to their depth as people that i can so easily understand why #and how both of them are behaving the way they do #im still only like halfway through the manga but it is like my favourite character interaction scene so far #fred says a thing #dunmeshi

40 notes · View notes

licorishh · 2 months

Text

Hey as a super introverted but not shy person I'd just like to say the jokes about extroverts "adopting" introverts to "get them out of their shell" are actually completely unfunny and it just goes to show how little respect a lot of y'all have for the fact that we genuinely don't want excessive social interaction and that y'all are forcing us to do something that brings us extreme physical and mental discomfort because you perceive our introversion as a failing rather than as purely a difference in personality.

We don't need your "help" to socialize. We're not children. We're simply not interested in spending every waking second of our lives talking to people and being talked at in return.

#again i scream from the rooftops that there is a monumental chasm between being shy and actually being an introvert #a shy person is someone who's afraid of social interaction. an extrovert can be naturally shy.#a shy person can WANT lots of social interaction but simply have not learned to feel comfortable in social situations.#people who are just very introverted simply have little desire or capacity for excessive human interaction.#we're not “afraid” of it. we just don't enjoy it and it wears us out.#you don't need to swoop in and save us because we can't handle ourselves. we're perfectly fine thank you #extroverts are constantly demanding that we get out of our comfort zones but few of you are willing to make the alternative more comfortabl #if you're a very extroverted person please do not take it upon yourself to jokingly “adopt” introverts you meet.#it's not funny and it's not helpful. it's irritating that you perceive our quietness and low social battery as something that needs “fixing #we won't miraculously learn to love and be comfortable with excessive human interaction. that's not how we're wired and that's OKAY #i'm honestly getting so sick of the “the lonely introvert and the extrovert who adopted them” memes #i can guarantee you that if you are an extrovert who operates this way then your introvert “friend” is actually probably very uncomfortable #and just don't want to say anything because they think it would be rude to bring up the fact that they don't want what you want from them #this does NOT mean extroverts and introverts cannot be friends nor am i saying all extroverts are annoying or that they all do this #i'm simply saying that if you are very extroverted and you have a friend who's very introverted #then it's on you to be aware of your introvert friend's limited social battery and STOP pressuring them to just “put up with it”#don't spend every second with them constantly talking. be willing to spend some time just in the quiet.#be willing to let them bow out of something if they're exhausted and are low on social energy.#don't expect them to want to come to every meeting or party or get-together because it WILL drain them completely.#be willing to let them spend time alone when they need to to recharge.#letting an introvert cool off and recharge when they need to is ALWAYS going to make social situations less stressful for them.#PLEAAAAASE take their feelings into account and understand that they do NOT perceive social interactions the way you do.#most very introverted people do not find socialization relaxing or invigorating. they don't do it to unwind #they have to unwind AFTER lots of social interaction #that's about it. thank you and good night

5 notes · View notes

starpros-sunshine · 6 months

Text

Also I have to confess when Eichi does the the "I've heard usually people do this and this" or anything in that vein as a statement it's so real to me

#speaking as someone who learned most of their way of existing from tv and movies ans audio books and audio dramas.#I wasn't confined to a hospital bed I was just very enamored with movies and TV shows and audio dramas #and never really interested in interacting with other kids #and I'm an only child #and my social life began around this winter when people started celebrating their birthdays and inviting me and hanging out and inviting me #before that I never did anything with my friend acquaintances #We're too close to be acquaintances but i don't like labeling people as friends it puts an obligation on the relationship #there's one of them i genuinely consider a friend but we mostly talk about our interests and that's where it stops #she's the only one I talk with outside of the shared WhatsApp chat and ever since her number one friend found another number one friend #We've started talking more because what else am I supposed to do #it's nice. I'm a tea drinker now.#somewhat #in movies they always have bigger friend groups but i cant manage that many relationships at once #so it's better if I reserve the term friend for people who I actually talk to outside of certain contexts #but yeah it's so interesting when life imitates art #teenagers are supposed to get drunk right recently I accidentally got drunk enough to deliver the finishing blow to an already weak glass #never doing that again imagine the things I could've revealed about myself #but it's a fascinating experience because now I can look at that in fiction and understand!!#and I've been told I'm a bit cartoonish in the way I carry myself #which is a little funny to me because I as a person am pretty apathetic to a Lot of things #few things that make me happy a lot of things that annoy me and the rest is jusg kind of in the soup #but it's fine rhats just what being normal is like i guess #i should sleep it's lateeeeee and I need to get up early tomorrow.#regrettably #enjoy the tags while you still can because those things will be going down with this post in a few hours when I'm awake again and #less uncomfortable with sharing any kind of personal information

5 notes · View notes

drchucktingle · 5 months

Text

my masks

hey there buckaroos. due to all of the attention the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION situation has gotten i am going to take a minute to talk about my personal way as an autistic buckaroo. im going to tell you about my masks.

im doing this for a few reasons, some are good FUN reasons full of love and some are not so great.

lets start with the GOOD STUFF. first of all, i am talking about this because speaking on my way can help other buckaroo feel more comfortable speaking on there own way, ESPECIALLY if they are good at ‘passing’ for neurotypical like chuck is.

unfortunately the NOT SO GREAT reasons im talking about all this dang stuff are two fold. reason one: i have been put into a position of having to explain and justify my needs and boundaries by the TXLA. this is not something that i WANT to be taking up all of my time, but when large organizations do not make space for those who they have pledged to support, it puts us smaller buckaroos into position where were have to defend our existence. it is not plesent but it is necessary.

the second NOT SO GREAT reason is that ‘passing’ bisexual and autistic people like myself are ALWAYS just seconds from being gatekept from folks both outside and inside these communities. there will probably be a day on chucks deathbed where i take off my mask and say hello to this timeline (mostly so you can all see how handsome i am under here but I DIGRESS). i KNOW with absolute certainty (the same way other bi and autistic buckaroos are probably nodding along right now) that when that day comes i will STILL be accused of ‘not being real’ and ‘faking’ because i ‘dont look autistic’ and i have a beautiful ladybuck partner in sweet barbara.

ALL THAT IS TO SAY, i am taking a moment today to talk FOR THE RECORD about my neurodigence and my particular needs. hopefully i will not have to keep diving this deep every time an organization takes a discrimantory action against me, but i will also say this: at least it is a good fight on an important battlefield

anyway buds, here is the story of my way on the spectrum

when i was a young buckaroo i knew that my thought process was different. i could socialize easily, which is unique in contrast to many autistic buds (it is a spectrum after all), but my social ease was for an interesting reason. I ALWAYS KNEW WHAT OTHERS WERE ABOUT TO SAY. it was like a strange ‘human game’ where someone would say one thing and i would think ‘well you actually mean something else’ in a sort of logical way (this is why i later related to DATA from star trek so dang much). at first i remember thinking ‘well i am just NOT going to play along with this human game’. i quickly learned neurotypical buckaroos do not like this, that there is a BOB AND WEAVE to social interactions that must be learned.

later i realized ‘actually if i WANT to make friends and prove love is real then i can do this like an expert because i can SEE the game where most cant’. this got chuck many buds and took me on many adventures. please understand, i am not saying these connections are not important to me, they are just different. they are full of love, but i express this in my own unique way.

HOWEVER, while growing up i felt disconnected from this timeline in other ways, like an alien or a reverse twin trotting along in a world that is not quite my own. i did not feel emotions the same way my buds did. they would get upset over the ‘human game’ interactions and i would not be moved at all, HOWEVER i could see the way sunlight hit a window and start crying my dang eyes out over the beauty. so my emotion was still there and VERY STRONG, i just felt it in more existential ways (like hearing the call of the lonesome train). these days that feeling has progressed to where i am pretty much in a constant blissed out state of cosmic emotional connection (make of that last sentence what you will, but it is the truth). when i make existential posts online i am not just FIRING OFF SOME CONTENT, i really mean every word. this is really my trot.

anyway as a young buckaroo these feelings made me worry sometimes. i thought about various mental health dianosises and marked the parts and pieces that matched with myself. am i this? am i that? sometimes, instead of just being’ different’ i worried i might actually be ‘wrong’.

when i saw david byrne on letterman in my younger days i immediately recognized something connected to myself. i thought ‘wow this is the mystery being solved before my very eyes.’ i could hear it in the music of talking heads too. i started doing research and realized that i might be on autism spectrum, something that was later confirmed by a therapist (back then the diagnosis was called asperger's). it was a glorious and fulfilling moment. i was SO EXCITED TO BE AUTISTIC LIKE MY HERO. i felt very cool because of it, and i still feel very cool because of it.

one of the big reasons i talk so much about being autistic these days is because i want to make sure OTHER buckaroos can have that same moment that i did. they can see chuck and think ‘wow i really like this autistic artist, maybe being autistic is cool’

so what does an average day WITHOUT wearing the pink bag look like for me?

my thought process is exactly like ROSE from CAMP DAMASCUS, which is part of why i wrote the book. we have the same stim (complex order of finger taps), we prepare for social interactions the same way, we analyze things in the same logical trot that neurotypical people might think feels ‘detached’ but for me feels natural (certain reviews of camp damascus are very funny to me in this way. you can tell when a reader is just very confused by existing in an autistic brain for 250 pages.)

from the outside you would not be able to tell that i am on the spectrum. in fact you would probably find me very socially adept.

the problem is, all of that masking can take its toll. i spent years trotting in and out the emergency room, talking to confused doctors who could not figure out the chronic phantom tension and pain that radiated through my body. i eventually accepted the fact that i would either live a life constantly on heavy painkillers or just stop living altogether.

eventually, however, i started noticing a correlation between the way that i felt, and the space that i allowed for chuck and the pink mask. i was exercising that tension, allowing my mental mask of neurotypical existence to take a rest. i started practicing physical therapy and this time THE RESULTS STUCK because i was approaching from two sides, MIND AND BODY. after a while, i got my pain down to about 5 percent of what it once was. i still have flare ups in times of stress, but the healing has been very real and life changing.

lets get VERY specific now. if i attended the TXLA confrence without a mask and gave my talk i can tell you this: i would do a dang good job. i can work the heck out of a crowd and (not to reveal too much about my secret way) I HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DO THIS ON OCCASION VERY WELL. however, going home from this event i would very likely be in pain. i would likely need to do physical therapy. i would likely need to stim for a while. i would NOT be emotionally fullfilled in the same way. in other words, without my pink mask i can charm the heck out of buckaroos, but THE SPACE OF CHUCK TINGLE IS NOT THE SPACE FOR THAT. the pink bag is a place for me to not have to put up with that tension. it is a place for me to unmask mentally by masking physically.

this pink bag space SAVED MY LIFE and i am not going to risk blurring these lines. if and when that ever happens it will be MY decision, not someone elses. that is my boundary. the part of me that neurotypically masks could handle a library conference in a purely technical sense, but the part of me that chuck represents absolutely cannot and should not be asked to do that without the pink bag. unfortunately, the complexity of this point makes it even MORE difficult for me to think about and takes up even more of my time, because it forces me to START QUESTIONING MYSELF and my own needs. to be honest, that is the most insidious part of other people questioning your identify and refusing to accept your accommodation needs without ‘proof’.

the thing is, while all of this discussion of disability and accessibility is important, i have a much larger point to make by writing these words.

a conference should not uninvite someone with an unusual physical presentation or a strange way of speaking REGARDLESS of it being classified as a disability. it does not matter WHY i look the way that i look and wear what i wear. i should not have to spend all day writing this post instead of writing my next book, just because my sensibilities are unique and my presentation is unusual.

fortunately the solution is very simple: let other people be themselves. its not hurting you to simply accept and nod at the buckaroos you think look strange. let us exist

#actually autistic #chuck tingle #tingleverse #buckaroo lifestyle

7K notes · View notes

bunni-v1 · 8 months

Note

Heyyaaa

May I request dorm leaders finding out you’re a girl please? If it’s too much u can make a part 2

Dorm Leaders Find Out You're a Girl?!?!?! (NOT CLICKBAIT!!!)

TW: Mentions of transphobia (nothing awful, just literally dropping the word lol); Idia is creepy

Info: Riddle, Leona, Azul, Kalim, Vil, Idia, Malleus x Reader (Platonic or Romantic); Fluff, Comedy(?)

🍓This one is gonna be long, like 5.3k words long. I love writing the dorm leaders so damn much <3 Besides, there’s been a long wait for this one, so I hope I make it worth it! You might see some favoritism shine through, but I did my best to keep it even. Hope you all enjoy!

Tags: @kierancaz @danchann33 @arashrita @the-ace-reader @akiyamasmizuki @kitsun369 @bloomstruck (I think I got all of you)

First Years

Ortho Sebek

Second Years

Third Years

-Okay so, I know we’re all wondering, how the hell do you get away with hiding your gender for so damn long?

-Firstly, those ceremonial robes do great at hiding the figure. The only tell would maybe be your hair, but feminine men aren’t unwelcome at Nightraven College, so you mostly get a few questioning stares and that’s it.

-Secondly, Crowley wants to save his own fucking ass. He already has to hide from the press that he has a MAGICLESS student from ANOTHER DIMENSION here, he doesn’t need the fact that you are a woman ALSO on his plate. So, obviously, he helps you hide your gender from others.

-Grim knows, of course, and he keeps his mouth shut for a few yummy cans of tuna (and threats of being expelled from Crowley <3)

-Even when you were just a janitor, he couldn’t have the rumor that he put a “helpless” young woman to work. (Like it wouldn’t be expected.)

-So how do you two do it?

-Baggy ass uniform. Crowley gave you at least three sizes too big.

-Your figure is completely hidden. Sure, you look completely homeless, but at least you’re hidden.

-For your voice, you simply deepen it. After some point, you blackmail Crowley into giving you a potion to help with it, since it's so taxing on your voice. (Or maybe your voice is naturally deep!)

-Sam provides you (for an unfairly pretty penny (not too different from your original world…)) any feminine hygiene products you might need.

-Honestly, you’re set for being cared for, but it’s the adjustment period that’s the hardest part.

-Truly, it’s very jarring to suddenly be thrown into both a magical world and be isolated in a man's world with nowhere to hide.

-At least in your world you had other women who could understand your struggles. Here though? You’re completely alone.

-You notice how… messy some of these guys could be. How some of them smell… really rancid. -How rough they were with you and each other.

-Honestly, it’s kinda eye-opening. The way men show affection to each other is oddly refreshing to watch and experience!

-Ace and Deuce specifically are a good… trial run.

-That’s not what we’re here to talk about though…

-For the most part, it's incredibly easy to hide yourself for the first while on campus. Everyone on campus is so self-absorbed that they don’t bother questioning you.

-Your only real risk factor is Savannaclaw, but it's easy to avoid those guys (minus Jack, of course).

-However, you can only hide your gender for so long… It’s mentally draining to keep up this facade all the time around people you care about.

-So… how do they find out?

Riddle

-Riddle is the last student in Heartslabyul to find out.

-It’s not like he did anything to you for you to hold off on telling him (you know, other than the whole almost killing you that one time thing), it’s just that you don’t feel inclined to tell him.

-Simple as that.

-He also really has no reason to question your gender.

-Riddle didn’t have must interaction with people his own age until he came to night raven college, he doesn’t have the same social ideologies as other people do.

-Nightraven college is really his first touch with society outside of his mothers very watchful, conservative eye.

-So, excuse him for not picking up on stupid little gendered norms that the other students do.

-In his eyes, you dress like a man, you act (sort of) like the other male students, and you prefer he/him pronouns.

-There’s nothing more to it then, right? If you identify as a man, he has no reason not to treat you as such - nor should he suspect you would hide your gender like that.

-Besides, this is an all boys school! Crowley wouldn’t allow you to attend here unless you were also a boy… right?

-He is aware there are exceptions — and you are already QUITE the exception, but surely Crowley wouldn’t be so cruel as to force a young woman to attend an all boys academy.

-Ah, sweet Riddle, ever in denial.

-He isn’t STUPID though. He notices how brotherly Trey is to you. He knows (and has heard) your many “secret sleepovers” with Cater.

-He ignores these things and doesn’t comment on them simply because, well, he likes you!

-He helps to tutor you sometimes, and he’s gotten to know you through that, and he really does come around on enjoying your presence.

-So, he ignores Trey and Cater’s odd behaviors for your sake.

-You keep him and his dorm members in high spirits, why would he want to shoo something like that away?

-He doesn’t really questionthings until he… overhears a conversation between Deuce and Ace. (A rather loud one, for how supposedly secret this topic was meant to be).

-One of them had gotten in trouble with a professor, and he was going to give them a stern scolding when he overheard what they were talking about.

-“Deuce, dude, you’re gonna want to sit down for this one.”

“What is it, I’m busy trying to finish my potionology homework.”

“Seriously this one is crazy, you’re not ready for for it.”

“Ace, if you’re just messing with me I’m going to leave.”

“Dude, the prefect is a girl.”

“…What?”

-Riddle did not bother the two after that. In fact, he just walked back to his room to sit and think about what he just overheard.

-It DID make sense. You didn’t quite fit in with everyone else for reasons outside of your otherworldly origin.

-You acted differently than the typical guy here at NRC, and you seemed to get along with the peers that were more ‘traditionally feminine’ best.

-It would explain Trey’s coddling and Cater’s secretiveness.

-Still, he didn’t want to assume. This was Ace and Deuce, and Ace could just be messing around with Deuce.

-So, at your next tutoring session, he broaches the subject as politely as possible.

-“So, prefect, I have… overheard something that I wanted to ask you about.”

“Oh no, am I in trouble because of Ace and Deuce again.”

“Not… technically… I did, however, overhear them talking about… you being a woman.”

“…I’m gonna kill them.”

“I could collar them for you, if that would help.”

-The confirmation was reassuring for Riddle in multiple ways.

-1) Ace isn’t as terrible of a person as the thought he was.

-2) He wasn’t crazy in noticing the slight differences in you and your other peers.

-Now, you and Riddle aren’t exactly super close by any means, so your interactions with each other are limited to when you’re either being tutored or with friends in Heartslabyul.

-However, he is notably more nervous than he usually is.

-He doesn’t have some super secret crush on your all of the sudden, he just… never really had a chance to interact with women before.

-His mom kept him very sheltered from the opposite gender, so he has little to no experience with them.

-On top of that, because of his mother, he does have a slight fear of women. He’s afraid he’s going to upset you and you’ll blow a fuse on him or something.

-You have to assure him that you don’t bite and you won’t suddenly start screaming at him for no reason, and then he begins to relax a bit.

-Still, he’s very sweet and gentlemanly to you.

-If you need help with anyone around campus, you should come to him and he will have them dealt with accordingly.

Leona

-Leona “Respects Women” Kingscholar.

-Leona has SLIGHTLY worse smell than Ruggie, but he also knew immediately upon your arrival that you were a girl.

-In fact, he knew you weren’t a trans man, because they smell distinctly different from the typical woman.

-There aren’t many trans people in the Savannah though, so Ruggie not being able to pick up on that doesn’t really shock him.

-Leona, however, has smelled and seen plenty of trans people in his life time — you aren’t one of them.

-He won’t lie, he’s definitely interested in you. Women where he comes from are big and strong and proud, you’re just kind of plain.

-He keeps his ever curious eye on you though, because he’s interested in how you might navigate this whole thing.

-Now don’t get it twisted, he doesn’t care about you, he’s curious about you.

-If you were to ask him for help on something, he wouldn’t offer it. (Not that you would, you seem particularly averse to him).

-However, if he were to see some creep trying to… well… creep on you, he’d chase them away without ever having you know he did.

-He was your secret bodyguard who wouldn’t admit it even if you held a knife to his throat.

-Still, he stayed out of your way and you stayed out of his.

-A symbiotic relationship that you weren’t even aware existed… until you got in his way.

-Like Ruggie, when you start getting a little too involved in his ahem business, he gets pretty damn annoyed.

-You’re not exactly a threat to start, but you are a little trouble maker. If you find out what he’s up to, you’ll ruin his plans completely, and he can’t have that.

-However, he’s not exactly comfortable “taking care of you” like he is his male peers.

-He respects women, okay, you can’t blame him for not wanting to purposefully hurt you. (If his mom and brother found out, he’d never hear the damn end of it)

-He sends out Ruggie to scare you off, explicitly telling him he can’t hurt you on purpose.

-He knows Ruggie already has an idea of what’s going on, so he doesn’t have any qualms with telling him to be careful with you.

-Still, despite all this, he doesn’t really broach the topic until he’s forced to.

-He’s made it known to you, at this point, that he knows your secret.

-He hasn’t caused you any extra trouble since his overblot, and he keeps his dorm members off your back, so you have no reason to interact with him… until, again, you get yourself into trouble.

-This time it’s YOU dragging him into your mess, despite him wanting nothing to do with it.

-You are convincing, though, so he gives and allows you to stay in his dorm room — rent free! Isn’t he so nice.

-Jack offers himself for protection if you need it, but you can see that Ruggie is quite bemused with the whole situation, so you decide to turn him down.

-Leona hasn’t tried anything yet, and he really could if he wanted to.

-You decide you can trust him. (You have to trust him).

-Then presents the issue of sharing a bed.

-Leona isn’t a weird pervert, okay. He isn’t absolutely leaping at the idea to be in bed with you — he’s so sorry.

-Honestly, it makes him a bit… uncomfortable.

-Sharing a bed is something you do with family or someone you’re involved with, not the weird magic-less kid who’s at least three years too young for you.

-So, Leona, ever the women’s rights activist, approaches you with a proposition.

-“Listen, I know you’re a woman and I know you know that. We’re not sharing a bed, there ain’t no way that’s happening.”

“Oh, so would you like the poor helpless homeless woman to sleep on the floor? How cruel can you be Leona.”

“Shut up, I’m not gonna do that to you. Listen, you can have the bed all to yourself and I’ll sleep on the couch, so long as you promise not to tell a single soul about this.”

“I promise.”

-You immediately tell Ruggie the next morning, and he is sure to make sure Leona never forgets it.

-Living with Leona for the short period of time that you do is very insightful!

-He’s actually pretty funny, much smarter than he lets on, and almost brotherly to you. Which does not fit the M.O. you built of him in your head.

-He’s gruff and pushy, but he does it out of genuineness.

-You end up getting really close to him because of it.

-His quiet and laid-back demeanor are a break from the chaos of everyone else on campus, and he doesn’t make a big deal out of anything so you can just complain and he nods along unbothered.

-Only thing you notice that upsets him is when you bring up guys who bother you.

-Those guys tend to stop bothering you shortly after. How strange…

Azul

-Azul is hands down the last person on campus you want knowing about this.

-Riddle, Ruggie, Trey, Cater and pretty much everyone with half a brain tell you to stay as far away from him as possible.

-You see him in the halls sometimes, and he doesn’t look to bad. Unapproachable, sure, but he’s a rather pretty guy. Well put together and seemingly very smart from what you’ve been told.

-He helped to subdue Grim in the opening ceremony, so you know he’s magically capable. He’s also a house warden, so that goes unspoken, I suppose.

-He seems interested in you, from what you can tell. He always waves at you when he does see you in a sort of fake friendly kind of way.

-You’ve seen him and his little (large, very large) goonies admiring ramshackle before.

-You’ve also politely asked them to not do that when you moved in, because it freaks you out a lot. To which they all gave you very eerie smiles and walked away.

-They remind you of a very small mafia, and you decided to heed your friends warnings because of that.

-You do so successfully for a long time too. Other than the few previously stated interactions, Azul seems un-inclined to bother you, and you don’t want to catch his leering eyes.

-Little do you know, Azul has a much more watchful eye on you that you initially thought.

-Sure, you don’t have much to offer him magic wise, but you have ramshackle. Oh, how he wants ramshackle.

-You are key to obtaining it, he just… has to find something on you first.

-You’re so painfully average. Perhaps a little more pretty in the face than his other peers, but you sacrifice that with the atrociousness of your uniform.

-Truly, nothing about you is different.

-He almost gives up until Grim delivers him an opportunity in a pretty little bow.

-You agree to his contract out of the goodness of your heart, just like he knew you would. So sweet and kind are you, to practically hand him the deed to ramshackle on a silver platter.

-He notices, however, that Jade grows a very… sudden fascination with you.

-Sure, he told both Jade and Floyd to keep and eye on you and keep you in like, but for Jade to be so interested… very odd.

-Then, shortly after, Floyd’s own interest is piqued. Alright… less odd than Jade, but to have both of their eyes on you must mean he’s missing something. (I know I previously said that Floyd found out after Azul, but I was stupid and wrong and you should never listen to me when I’m talking about Floyd).

-He tries to get it out of them by any means, Asking, blackmailing, manipulation. He really does try, but their lips are sealed tight.

-It frustrates him to no end that they know something he doesn’t, and that he can’t figure out this very big secret.

-It stumps him for so long, because he’s looking in all the wrong places for the answer.

-Meanwhile, you know that Jade and Floyd know and you are TERRIFIED waiting for Azul to use this against you.

-The suspense starts killing you and making you anxious enough that its affecting sleep, so you decide to bite the bullet and arrange a meeting with him.

-Azul is honestly delighted, because he was just going to outright force the truth from you at this point.

-“I’m glad you set up this meeting, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“I know… I’ve been pretty nervous about it since Jade and Floyd started pestering me.”

“Before I talk about what I want to, I’d like to hear what you have to say. I’m a good listener after all.”

“Too good, if you ask me. Uhm, anyway, so I know that Jade and Floyd to you that I’m a girl already, but I’m really hoping you would just leave me be. You owe me after all.”

“…You’re a girl?”

“Did they not tell you…?”

-what. What? WHAT?!?!?!

-How could he not tell, he feel so incredibly stupid. Its so obvious now that he thinks about it.

-No wonder Jade and Floyd wouldn’t stop teasing him about it.

-He agrees not to let the secret out — he DOES owe you his life, after all. This is a minor trade.

-However, he does not mentally recover from this revelation for a while.

-He doesn’t treat you very different, I suppose. He’s more gentlemanly with you, and is generally more friendly, but those things come from saving a persons life regardless.

-He is, surprisingly, willing to ensure your whole gender thing doesn’t get out so long as you work a few hours at the monster lounge.

-Probably the best at keeping it to himself and making sure it doesn’t get out. You wouldn’t expect any less with Azul, though.

Kalim

-You and Kalim don’t really have much of a chance to interact.

-He seems sweet enough, and you know he’s much kinder than the rest of the dorm leaders, but you don’t really have any reason to interact with him.

-Kalim also doesn’t think too much of you.

-You caused a ruckus at the entrance ceremony, that’s for sure, but you kinda blend into the background.

-Besides he’s a party animal — constantly hosting these huge parties at his dorm just because he can.

-As someone trying to keep out of trouble and hide such a huge secret… yeah, parties aren’t exactly your forte.

-So, when you get roped in to coming to Scarabia over winter break, Kalim is pleasantly surprised!

-He’s always excited to make a new friend, and you’re pretty infamous around school, so he’s extra excited to get to know you.

-Kalim has no reason to question anything about you, like most other people would.

-However, he isn’t stupid. He has plenty of younger sisters, and he picks up on social queues better than you’d expect.

-He definitely suspects something is off, but he figures you would tell him if something was up.

-You actually find him quite easy to be around. He’s someone who makes it easy to let your walls down and just relax with.

-Despite his sudden mood shifts, he always makes sure that you’re happy and healthy and doing the best you can be in your position.

-However, you run out of the magical potion that deepens your voice pretty quickly, and you have to go back to dramatically straining your voice.

-You sound sick, honestly, and it makes Kalim worry.

-He figures that you’re forcing yourself to deepen your voice so you’re still perceived as a man.

-Instead of asking you directly, as Kalim does, he goes to Jamil.

-“Jamil…”

“What do you need, Kalim?”

“Don’t you think somethings… off with the prefect?”

“Off? What are you talking about, nothings off with them.”

“No, I mean… do you think they might be… a girl?”

“…Kalim, that’s very rude to say. You need to be more respectful.”

“…You’re right, I’m sorry. Could we get him something to soothe his voice though, it sounds rough.”

-Kalim is a lot more watchful of you after that. He just… knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t want to be rude.

-It’s actually you who comes to him when no one is around for help.

-“Kalim, uhm, I need your help.”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“So, I’m pretty sure you know, but I’m not a guy… I’m a girl, and I really need help hiding it. The longer I’ve been here, the harder it’s been on me.”

-Sweetheart he is, he promises to both help you and keep your secret to himself — and he does both surprisingly well!

-He offers his private bathroom to you so you can shower in peace.

-It’s honestly the best bath you’ve ever had with all his sweet smelling oils. Your skin feels so smooth and renewed.

-Still, even with this, you still don’t feel safe with anyone else — plus the fact that Kalim has random and horrifying mood shifts. You have to flee.

-And yet you still get dragged into more trouble with the octatrio. You still get exposed to the whole dorm by a crazed Jamil, and now have to deal with the horror that they’ll tell everyone.

-Kalim feels awful, and thus shows his forgiveness in the best way he can: giving gifts.

-You get tons of apology gifts from him in the coming months. Baskets of the best shower stuff you’ve ever had; a new, better fitted but still innocuous uniform; enough tuna to keep grim satisfied for years (and sweets that you happily keep to yourself).

-It’s so nice, but you start to feel bad. It feels like you’re taking advantage of his guilt, when you’re not really upset at anyone involved anymore.

-You’re welcome at Scarabia any time. None of his dorm members will ever cause you any trouble, and you can dress and act and sound however you want within Scarabia’s walls.

Vil

-Miss beauty queen himself. We love Vil, we Stan Vil, we adore Vil…

-Oh my god he’s a pain in the ass though, especially for you.

-He sees through you in an instant.

-Truly, Vil finds you to be more of a little pest than anything.

-You are constantly in trouble, you are magic less, and you decided to needlessly hide your gender.

-The last one is the worst offense in his eyes.

-Vil is someone who does not value gender, but expression. Your gender does not matter as much as your expression, therefore you hiding your expression irks him.

-He’s understanding enough in the fact that he knows you might be doing this to protect yourself, but he finds it stupid and useless, because you’re easy to see through.

-He avoids you, and you avoid him. Simple as that.

-Unfortunately for Vil, you’ve caught Rook’s eye, which means he must sit through many hours of Rook rambling on about his “findings” about you.

-When you tried out for the VDC, he was simply going to turn you and Grim away, but Rook convinced him to give you a chance.

-Rook wanted him to help your reveal your “inner beauty”, though Vil wasn’t sure if you had any of that.

-You wore baggy, horrifically ugly clothing up until winter break. Your hair was constantly a mess. Your skin was poorly taken care of, and the bags under your eyes were as dark as night.

-It almost made him feel bad for you… so despite his better judgement, he decided to invest time in you.

-Vil makes it very clear that he knows what your whole secret is.

-“I am aware of the fact that you are a woman, however, I will continue to use your preferred pronouns since it seems to bring you comfort.”

-He’s very insistent that you allow him to do your skincare AND your makeup whenever you give him the chance.

-Especially when he moves into ramshackle temporarily, he’s very insistent on maintaining your skincare routine.

-He essentially makes your entire nightly routine himself, and is right there over your shoulder making sure you do it right.

-Despite how overbearing it is, you actually make good friends with him through this.

-Being stuck alone in a room with no one but him to talk to forces you two to talk.

-You get to learn why he cares so much about appearances, and he gets to know why you hide to protect yourself.

-“It’s just… easier to pretend, because guys will bother me less that way.”

“I can’t understand why they would bother you. You’ve done nothing to them, so why would they want to do anything to you.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know either. I just know it’s scary, and I don’t want to deal with it.”

-You move him, honestly. You’re strong even though you’re scared, and that’s beautiful. Thats what true beauty is.

-He helps you embrace your inner self and express that, while still helping you to hide your gender in a way that feels safe.

-You are always welcome at Pomefiore, and you can come to either him or Rook if you have any issues at all.

-It’s like having a big sister, almost.

Idia

-Idia has eyes everywhere.

-Every inch of that campus is (illegally) being monitored by his watchful eyes.

-When he’s bored in class, he flicks through the cameras to amuse himself — maybe he’ll see someone slip and fall on their ass. That would be funny.

-He’s not really interested in you in particular.

-In fact, he’d like to keep a very far distance between the two of you.

-You’re… intimidating. You’ve fought some of the most powerful mages on campus and won.

-Total final boss energy, not something Idia is interested in being around.

-What he IS interested in is that wittle kitty you’ve got following you around.

-When he’s bored in class, he goes searching for Grim, and where Grim is you are sure to be.

-So, despite his aversion to you, he ends up spending a lot of time watching you.

-He starts to notice… things about you.

-He notices that you seem to put on a tough guy persona around… well… other guys in your class.

-When it’s just you and Grim though? You’re the softest softie he’s ever seen.

-It’s top tier cringe watching you try to being all macho, so he much prefers your more quiet and relaxed self you show in private.

-Seriously though, you’re a TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERSON when you’re alone with certain people.

-EVEN YOUR VOICE CHANGES!!!

-It’s so uber creepy, it’s like a jumpscare every time you drop that fake deep voice.

-If he’s being real, you’ve got a pretty voice. Honestly, you’re really pretty period. Too pretty to be a guy honestly.

-…

-….

-…..HOLY SHIT!!!

-He has to check your medical files to be sure — which he obviously has access to, thanks to having access to everything Ortho has access to.

-Blah blah blah allergies, blah blah blah horrific injuries from overblots, blah blah blah- AH HAH!

-Next to gender you are listed as… transgender man.

-He doesn’t wanna be that weird transphobic incel, but from what he’s seen? He highly doubts that.

-From what he’s seen in his (invasive) watching, you’re definitely doing the troupe of hiding your gender to better fit in.

-He feels like he’s in an anime or something.

-He doesn’t really want to bother you about it — but from watching you, you seem like someone he’d really enjoy being around.

-Ortho also insists that he’d get along with you very well!

-…It’s worth a shot right.

-He tries several times to “bump” into you, which always ends in him skittering away in fear.

-He psyches himself out every time. “They wouldn’t even wanna hang out with a loser like me.” “They’re way too cool for someone as lame as me.”

-It’s not until you invite yourself to one of tabletop club’s meetings that he’s forced to interact with you.

-He’s really banking on the fact that you’ll be too busy talking with Azul to notice him, but then Azul leaves and its just you and him.

-Him and you…

-Both of you… in total and complete silence.

-…yep…

-“Uhm, Idia…?”

“yES!?”

“I came here cause I wanted to talk to you, sorry for being so underhanded about it, I just couldn’t get you alone without you running off.”

“AH— I mean, ahem, okay. My bad.”

-You totally cornered him like an evil villain.

-All because you wanted to… be his friend?

-Is he dreaming, going insane perhaps, did HE get isekaied into an alternate universe where he was likable???

-Nope, Ortho just talks him up a lot, and you think his hair is cool. Huh. Kinda lame compared to what he was thinking.

-You guys talk a LOT after that. You exchange numbers and you text him about all sorts of stuff — and he’s actually interested in it!

-You learn that he’s been watching you and Grim for a long time, and while you scold him.

-You think it’s pretty funny that he’s embarrassed about his love for cute things.

-“If you’ve been keeping your eye on me for so long, you must’ve figured out that I’m a girl, right?”

“Yeah, you’re not great at hiding it. That macho guy act is suuuuper lame, you look like a noob lol.”

“Hey! I’m just copying what Deuce told me to do!”

-You guys don’t really see each other face to face very often, but like I said you text a lot.

-Sometimes he’ll text you shit like ‘I saw that, saved it for blackmail.’ After you biffed your shit on the pavement or something.

-When Idia gets more comfortable, you two spend hours on call whenever you get the chance.

-He lends you some of his precious manga, and even gives you an older TV he had laying around so you can watch stuff at ramshackle.

-Sometimes he invites you over to play video games with him and Ortho, and he gets all cocky and proud when you gush about how cool all his tech is.

-And, yeah, Idia definitely forms a little crush on you — but he would do that regardless of your gender.

-He just likes you a lot, and you can feel safe on campus knowing he’s watching over you when you need it. (Mostly watching Grim, tbh.)

Malleus

-We know that Malleus enjoys… creeping outside of Ramshackle.

-He spends quite a lot of time on your front lawn, therefore, he’s usually in proximity of you.

-However, he is very intimidating!

-As a young woman in a magical world that you are not from, a very tall man with horns is the exact opposite of what you want to be around.

-Besides, you’ve heard the rumors about him — how powerful he is, and how scary he is.

-Malleus, on the other hand, is admittedly curious about you.

-He finds humans in their own right incredibly interesting, but you are not just a regular human.

-You are a human who has no magic and is from another world entirely.

-You are something he has never once seen in his whole life, so excuse his childish curiosity.

-Still, you’re sort of cleverly avoiding him at every chance you get, and he just can’t quite find the time to talk to you.

-Until one night, you come back rather late and you find him in your yard… again.

-You send Grim in by himself and decide to confront him by yourself, because you are tired of being afraid to fall asleep at night.

-“Hey, you, could you maybe not stare at my house in the middle of the night!”

-Oh. You are quite feisty, and very bold to approach Malleus Draconia with such an aggressive tone.

-“I’m unsure what you mean, I’m simply admiring the architecture.”

“I don’t care WHAT you’re doing, you’re freaking me out! I know you’re supposedly some big scary monster guy, but I need you to STOP being weird outside my house.”

“…My apologies…”

-Malleus is pleasantly surprised at your spunk — he’s never been spoken to like that, he’s excited by it.

-After you yell at him, you let him explain himself, and you realize he is just… really, really bad at socializing.

-He wasn’t watching you, he just really enjoys silence and ramshackle is the quietest place on campus — even with you living in it.

-So, you give him the benefit of the doubt, because he really does just seem like he’s lost on everything around him 90% of the time.

-You don’t hang out with him during the day, but if you happen to see him on your lawn (as he usually is), you go out and hang out with him for a while.

-It makes Malleus happy, because you treat him like a friend. You give him cute nicknames, and you invite him inside for snacks, and you go out of your way to say hello to him when you pass him in the halls.

-He also gets to know more about you, and his curiosities about you and your world get quelled.

-He doesn’t really question anything about you, especially not your gender.

-Gender is hardly important for fae, and you seem confident in your expression, so he has no reason to wonder. Besides, there are far more thrilling things about you than your sex.

-So, you and Malleus start to grow close. So close, in fact, that you can confidently say that he’s one of your closest friends.

-At this point, almost everyone who you want to know about your gender knows. Everyone but Malleus.

-Initially you kept it a secret because you didn’t know how good he was at not talking, but now…

-Now, well, you don’t really have a reason.

-People usually question you at this point, or at least seem suspicious, but Malleus?

-Malleus shows not a hint that he thinks something is up. It’s odd to you, isn’t he supposed to be super smart or something. Maybe he’s just too respectful.

-Regardless, you decided to talk to him about it the next time you see him staring at the gargoyles around campus.

-“Hey Tsunotaro, what’re you up to?”

“Just admiring these gargoyles here, aren’t they fascinating? They were the first few installed in the school, if my memory serves me correctly.”

“They are very cool, but could I ask you something not gargoyle related?”

“What is it, child of man?”

“You know that I’m, uhm, a girl right?”

“Oh. I did not know that, how interesting.”

-He doesn’t understand why you would hide that, but it doesn’t really perturb him that much.

-The most you got was an eyebrow raise, and then he was back to his gargoyles.

-You were pretty satisfied with that, so you figured he wouldn’t tell anyone… and then you hear him loudly talking about it with his friends in Diasomania.

-Sigh… he means well, but he just doesn’t get the social stuff.

-You’re not mad, because pretty much everyone knows at this point, but it still sucks that he’s such a loudmouth.

4K notes · View notes

saccharinescorpion · 19 days

Text

i've been debating on whether to post about this but what the hell, it's relevant both to today's episode and the topic of people trying to smooth over the flaws of Dungeon Meshi characters.... so, uh, remember what i said yesterday about Laios forgetting the basics of human decency when interacting with Izutsumi

i was intially worried about people reading this scene in uhh certain ways but was thankful to see most fans were chill with it... before i realized that. uh. maybe people were being a little too chill

okay............ so,

1. for the record: i believe that it is clear from what we know about him and what we know about the entire series as a whole that, yes, Laios didn't have "untoward" intentions towards Izutsumi in this scene. there's even an aside in Izutsumi's profile in the Adventurer's Bible that says as much. he likely saw it in basically the same way Falin did when she was observing the reproductive organs of the caterpillar in that one scene. FOR THE RECORD this excuse would basically never fly in real life, but for Laios, it actually honestly makes sense... he has a habit of ignoring people's boundaries, he gets ahead of himself when it comes to learning about monsters... he didn't have bad intentions, no, but it doesn't change the fact that he's an adult man (not a [my face contorts with a great pain] "curious boy") who was being really invasive about a teenage girl's body. it was weird. it was 100% weird, lmao, i don't think fans are "lacking media literacy" by saying "uh yeah that was kind of creepy and inappropriate of Laios"

2. and i also don't think it's villifying ND people to say that. if i were to be honest, i would argue the whole "he's just a curious boy :(" thing is a lot more offensive to neurodivergent people. Laios clearly knows about the concept of bodily autonomy- he felt weird and bad about touching Marcille and Senshi in "intimate" ways just to heal them. literally one scene after this one he expresses embarassment about accidentally touching the leg of (who he thinks to be) Marcille. he very obviously possesses the capacity to understand why it would be inappropriate to observe a stranger's body like they were an animal. i can accept the explanation that his monster curiosity temporarily overpowered his "oh actually maybe i shouldn't try to get up close and person with this teenager who i literally just met," but that doesn't change that he had to be restrained from doing that. i'm not even saying he's a "bad person" or anything because of this scene- i just am baffled at the idea of fans being presented with the slightest bit of messiness (he was creepy to a young girl, however unintentionally) and jumping to try and "justify" it (he's just silly, he's socially awkward, he's autistic, he's a Curious Boy) and even mock others who rightfully point out that that was uncomfortable behavior. Laios was creepy to Izutsumi. he didn't mean to, but he did (and to be quite frank he was lucky to get off with a smack from Chilchuck and a blindfold)

3. "I would also ask" excuse me?

#i have been utterly haunted by 'he's just a curious boy' for days #he's just a curious boy :( he's just a curious almost 30 year old boy :( :(#dungeon meshi

941 notes · View notes

busket · 2 months

Text

I understand personal preference and that some people just don't like ships with men, and that's ok! but I'm annoyed at the implication from some fans that labru has less depth as a relationship than farcille or any other wlw ship in dungeon meshi, and the idea that people are only shipping it as a joke, or because they're horny, or because they're misogynistic and don't want to look at female characters, etc etc. I've seen people call it like, "bloodlust obsession that turns to horniness" and it made me realize that the people who don't ship labru don't understand their dynamic at all. labru shippers didn't just pull this out of our asses lol

a lot of the story around kabru involves how he and laios are perfect opposites of eachother. NARRATIVE FOILS, if you will. everywhere kabru thrives (social interaction, charisma, the surface) laios completely fails. and everywhere that laios is most successful (in the dungeon against monsters) kabru keeps getting killed. not only that but their desires are mirrors of each other too: laios grew up bullied by humans and wanted to become a monster, kabru grew up dehumanized by his villagers and then the elves, so he wants to affirm his identity as a human being.

despite how kabru should be repulsed by laios due to his hatred of monsters, he's drawn to him instead. kabru spends the entire story trying to get to laios to talk to him and to get to know him. firstly he knows laios is closest to defeating the dungeon lord and needs to sus out if he's a good person, but he admits that he really wants to be friends with laios too, not just to determine his virtue but to see what value laios sees in monsters. he wants laios to share his interest in people, he wants laios to be interested in him back. kabru never had any true bloodlust or desire to kill laios, he was prepared to go that far if laios wasn't a good person, but once finding out that he has good intentions kabru spends all his energy trying to help laios instead. and when you consider that kabru spent his childhood believing he was half monster because of how he was ostracized in utaya, his curiosity about how laios could possibly love monsters feels so much more personal.

and for laios, he's not used to anyone taking an interest in him. people are constantly telling him he's weird, and the person he believed to be his best friend told him he couldn't stand him. he misses falin so dearly because she thinks he's the coolest man on earth, so meeting someone and being told "I hate monsters but I still want to know YOU" would have an impact on him, I think. in postcanon they become good friends, kabru becomes laios' right hand man to help him with more of the dicey social aspects of being a leader. laios asks him to stay by his side and help him, and kabru says "yeah, that's what I've been doing this whole time"

I wouldn't claim that a romantic relationship between them is CANON, but I wouldn't even say that about farcille either tbh (and I love farcille just as much so don't come for me lol) this isn't a comedy crackship that yaoi fans just made up. laios and kabru are really multi dimensional characters and they're made to reflect eachother in every way, even down to their physical design. so it's not out of nowhere that people ship them

#dungeon meshi #labru #MY INSANE YAOI RAMBLINGS

1K notes · View notes

eats-a-berry · 1 month

Text

people when laios struggles with social interaction because he's neurodivergent: awww, it's ok laios, it's not your fault baby. there's nothing you can do about it

people when toshiro struggles with social interaction from being an incredibly repressed japanese guy whos character is literally about being bound by social norms/expectations that inform his worldview of a culture where his behavior is just him doing what he thinks is the best and most respectful way to behave and is mostly just tired of what looks to him as laios' carelessness and him ending up as being a complete pushover because of it: i mean, it's basically shuro's fault, he should just stop having problems since i'm not going to take the time to understand him or the culture he's from

#talk #dungeon meshi #shuro #toshiro nakamoto #not that it's a surprise on this website but like why is only of these allowed to be a reasonable explanation of behavior #at this point all i'm asking for is the bare minimum of understanding; this is already her critiquing her own culture

797 notes · View notes

quantumfeat72 · 2 years

Text

for the past few years i’ve had a personal rule that i do not sign anything i haven’t read - mostly because i genuinely think it’s a good idea, but also as a kind of social experiment - and i wanna share some observations

when i worked at an amusement park, i was one of like two or three people in a group of around twenty young adults who read the employment contract

i gave up on reading every TOS and privacy policy early on - now i only read them if it’s a website or company i’ll be giving personal information to (and even then i only skim them) - but i’ve never found anything super suspect in one

i also have an exception for when i’m made to feel like i’d be an asshole for stopping to read something. notable examples of this going into effect include the patient-intake paperwork at the ER when i went in a few months ago. (i really wish i’d just gone ahead and been the asshole in that situation, even though i have no reason to think there was anything bad in it)

i think the only time i was the only one to read something that the people who gave it to us actually wanted us to read was the waiver at a cat café, which included a lot of safety information about how to interact with the cats

one time i was approached by a guy with a petition who told me it was an anti-fracking petition (which was a real petition that was going around at the time), but the paper he handed me was a petition to instate a “citizenship requirement” for voting. i pointed this out to him and he tried to convince me that even though that’s what it said, it’s not really what my signature meant, and then named the university he graduated from as though it gave him some level of extra credibility??

i have more than once been given a HIPPA form at a doctor’s office where my signature certifies that i’ve been offered a copy of their privacy practices, when i had not, in fact, been offered a copy of their privacy practices. the last time this happened, the receptionist didn’t actually have a copy of their privacy practices, and had to get me to me sign it several days later once she got a copy from her manager

99% of people are very accommodating when you tell them “i want to read this before i sign it,” but it’s never what they’re expecting

on a related note, if someone thinks it’s important that you know what’s in something they’re giving you to sign, they won’t wait for you to read it - they’ll go through, point to each section, and tell you what it says. this is what happened when i signed my lease, and it’s actually a pretty common instance of using my asshole exception, because then i feel like i’m calling the person a liar if i stop to read it myself

the moral of the story is... like... we treat a signature like it’s the absolute most surefire way of saying “yes i understand this and agree to it,” but in practice there’s not even a pretense that a signature means you’ve READ whatever you’re signing. in fact, handing someone a piece of paper and saying “sign here” is one of the LEAST effective ways to make sure they understand and agree to something, and PEOPLE KNOW THIS, and we do it ANYWAY because what else are we gonna do? notarize it??

i don’t have a solution but like. that’s kinda fucked up, you know?

#mine #i didn't realize i had this many things to say about it until i had it all written out #but like #read your contracts guys #i know it sucks but its important #100 notes #500 notes #1000 notes #5000 notes

19K notes · View notes

paper-mario-wiki · 3 months

Note

Hi, sorry if this is a weird question, but do you ever feel lonely in tf2? I've been playing for a few months now and while it's mostly been fun I always get this dreadful feeling when the match ends and everybody leaves. I also haven't made any friends which makes me sad. Have you made friends and if yes, how?

that feeling of loneliness has existed in the heart of every TF2 player since the Meat Your Match update.

it is difficult to meet people in casual unless you're an active participant in chat, or somebody else goes out of their way to interact with you specifically.

i find it really enjoyable to type in chat (even with the chance that 40% of the time i do it's spammed by bigoted jerks), and at the beginning of most of my games i start by sending "hi everyone! im googoo. lets all have fun together ok?" and more often than i get called annoying or cringe, im met with people saying "hi googoo!" and "gl hf!" (good luck have fun), which feels nice.

be ready to up and leave games if things become TOO heinous (what constitutes "too heinous" is up to your own discretion), but also dont be afraid to stick it out and talk with some of the other weirdos who play this 17 year old game.

sometimes, talking with people who are dickheads can be fruitful too.

one time, i was playing in casual and i met a stereotypical edgelord toxic tf2 player. they were typing shitty things in chat and had a bigoted name on one of their weapons. i called them out, and said "that's a weird way to act, most people will find it odd". as a result, they were teasing me and calling me names during the game, but i still played along side them. after a while, when they noticed that i was still being a helpful teammate to them and letting them take health packs/extinguishing them/protecting them, they were like "why are you helping me after i was a dick to you" in voice, but i ignored them. from then on they werent verbally abusive anymore.

the game continued, and they were speaking more in voice chat, specifically to me mostly, but i never responded. and after a while they said disappointedly "did googoo mute me?" and i said "no i didnt mute you." and he said "why do you still help me? even after ive been an asshole" and i said something along the lines of "i want to be a team player, and you are a part of my team. i dont want to be vindictive, because i dont think that's right. it wouldnt be helpful. i just wish you were a kinder person" and they said "oh. ok" in a really sad way.

after the game they left this comment on my steam profile.

and a few weeks later, they deleted it without another word.

the point of this story is that even as unapproachable as people seem, and as unapproachable as they will make themselves, every person playing has some degree of rationality and understanding, and they want to be a part of the normal social world too. some of them just dont really know how to.

#anon #tf2

1K notes · View notes

marcsburnerphone · 4 months

Text

And they were roomates

(Captain John price x F!reader)

Summary: that captain wants somewhere more homely to settle down and when an offer like yours comes alight on Zillow he must take up on it.

Warnings: angsty (very minimal), injury(very minimal), john not knowing how to handle certain situation.

part 1 - part 2 - part 3!! - part 4

-----------

That's when it started, the weird energy that set the scene for every interaction between the two of you. He couldn't help but start to see this so-called “tension” gaz had mentioned fulfill its way into your lives. Not only was it your beauty, it was the domesticity that settled in your relationship. You need that lightbulb in your room replaced, you politely knocked on his door, car troubles? Yeah John should know how to do that. But what scared him the most wasn't the attraction he felt towards you, it was your lack thereof. He never seemed to catch you sparing him any extra glances than were necessary. Unlike him he couldn't help but catch his greedy eyes secretly soaking in every inch of you when given the opportunity.

But he couldn't be further than wrong

Because at the opposite end of your home your mind seems to be obsessed with the thought of john. What a man he was. He must’ve been getting some back on base and you couldn't even be jealous, aroused though definitely. He's actually all 6 foot something of fine, absolutely climbable. But god does that man often look like he wants not a thing to do with you. Especially most recently you rarely even see him and when you do he barely speaks or spares you a glance.

—-----------------

“Hey, haven't seen you in awhile.” you surprise him extremely early in the kitchen one morning.

“Oh um good morning, I’m fine just been a bit busy. Why are you up so early?” He lies then quickly changes the topic knowing being awake during these hours of the morning isn’t your forte.

“Scheduled a client for 6AM instead of 6PM and it's too late to cancel.'' He hums in response, willing himself to say something more but his mind comes up blank as it often does in your presence.

So he leaves without a word and nothing in hand he just leaves. And you stand there absolutely thrown through the loop at the moment that you two just shared.

—--------------

“We were doing great as roommates. You know I was comfortable and he seemed comfortable but now I swear that man avoids me like the plague.” you say to the longtime client in your chair.

“Maybe he’s just not social.” She chimes in, you concentrate while trying to part her hair before replying.

“I could see that being the case if he hadn’t been so social the previous two weeks you know, we’ve made meals in the kitchen together, watched television in the living room so I don’t understand what changed.” you say applying product to the sectioned hair.

“What if he doesn’t like you?” your hands pause for a second as you ponder the thought.

“Well I guess he doesn’t have to like me to live with me.” you say with very visibly discontent.

“But you on the other hand strive when people like you.” she replies, reading right through you.

“Well yeah I think anybody would.” you shrug.

“Not a military man who’s probably widely hated.” She's always right and you hate it.

“What's not to like about me?” you genuinely couldn't come up with an answer yourself.

“Are you a messy roommate or do you bother him a lot or do you nag him for his mess?” You can’t think of doing any of those but maybe asking for his help from time to time.

“I might be bothering him but nothing I would consider too much , just some help from time to time.” she laughs from her seat and you unenthusiastically spin the chair she's in to face you.

“Was it in the contract that he'd have to help you from ‘time to time’.'' You give her a quizzical look and she just continues.

“Men like to do the bare minimum and that's it. They hate being bothered. Take it from me. I'm married with three sons and they're all the same. Oh they have to do the dishes, sure, but will they dry them, or put them away? No, because that's not what I asked.” you hum understanding her point but still finding it hard to see john really feeling that way.

“So then I shouldn't ask him for anything and maybe he'll come around?” you ask in an unsure tone.

“yup.” she replies blunt, fast and very sure of herself.

—-----------

So you listened, this whole week you've not asked John for a thing which was pretty easy up until now. Your luck never fails to run out at the worst times. A flat tire in the middle of the road on your way home. You pull off to the side contemplating what to do as the sun is beginning to set and there's really only two options.

One, call John and ruin your streak of leaving him be. Two, call the car service company and pay their ridiculous prices to change the tire out. Of course you go with option two cause calling john seems to make you more nervous.

It takes 3 hours for the mechanic to get to where you are, change the tire, and point out other imperfections about your car that you pay no mind to. When you finally make it home you’re bothered, exhausted and broke.

John doesn't miss the unusualness of your late arrival but also doesn't question it, even though he wants to. Your groans of frustration echo through the hallway and he immediately can tell it was a bad day.

You change out of your work clothes and go into the kitchen for a snack as you do your daily phone call to your sister to tell her about the events of your day. John creeks his office door open to hear a little better but nothing noticeable.

“He charged me six hundred dollars, I mean how is that even legal?” You complain into the phone that’s balanced between your neck and shoulder.

“It was just my tire that was flat, nothing else.” you follow up while chewing on an apple. You swear you could cry by repeating that monstrosity.

John can't help but feel a bit confused and upset that you hadn't just called him instead of calling whatever dick that charged you that much for something so simple. Changing a tire is an easy 30 minutes that he definitely had on his hands especially for you. You had not hesitated asking for help before so what's changed now?

—-------------

“Okay, unscrew the old bulb and screw in the new bulb, very simple.” you reassure yourself as you stand on top of the tall ladder to replace the porch light. It’s icy outside and cold sweeps under your layers of clothes making your normally shaky hands shakier.

“Okay okay- damn it.” You drop the bulb that burnt out onto the floor watching the glass scatter.

You screw the new one in and step down, closing the latter with frustrated groan, then going to pick up the bigger shards to toss out before sweeping. You should’ve known that bulb glass was insanely thin and sharp but sometimes your brain leaves out the important stuff.

“Ow, fuck fuck fuck.” You cry out at the shard of glass that forms a long clean cut on your palm. You cry as you run into your home holding the cut tightly. Finding the sink you turn the water on and rinse it clean. Your ears don’t comprehend the loud footsteps that make their way towards the kitchen.

“What happened?” A deep voice sighs out behind you.

“Nothing.” Your hiccups escape involuntarily as it continues to bleed dramatically. You squeeze your eyes shut as it begins to burn more and more.

“Let me see.” He tries to grab at your hand genuinely concerned.

“I’m fine, it’s just a cut.” You resist him by keeping your hand under the water.

“Cut from what?” he's a bit frustrated at your refusal of letting his trained mind and hands help.

“I was changing the light bulb outside and one broke.” you admit quietly.

“Why didn’t you ask me to do it?” once again what is with you no longer asking him for his very available help.

“Cause I can handle myself John.” You’re irritated at the obvious evidence that you cannot. Your non wounded hand rips a paper towel from the roll and you hold it to the cut to go bandage it in your room.

You leave John standing in the kitchen and don’t even look back as you make your way to your room. He stays in that same spot for a second wondering where your random change in attitude is coming from but in the end he comes up blank and goes out to the porch to clean the rest of the glass up.

—----------

You feel terribly guilty when you wake up the next morning to see the porch swept clean and ladder put away from the previous night. You toughen up and put your big girl pants on to go apologize. You knock on his bedroom door and hear ruffling on the other side before he answers.

“hey john i'm really sorry for-” you stop noticing him dressed from head to toe in his military attire and damn.

“For what?” He takes notice of your pause and one up.

“For um the way I acted last night I know you were only trying to help and um why are you dressed like that?” You can’t help but question it.

“I have to go on base for a little bit, maybe a day or two. It shouldn't be too long but who knows, let me grab my check for you.” He walks back into his awfully clean room and grabs something out of a drawer and hands you a white envelope that consists of his monthly rent.

“Oh okay.” You can’t even hide the blush that laces between your features and although he notices it he can’t pinpoint the reasoning.

“Also don’t be sorry we all have our days and I shouldn’t have overstepped.” You nod in response not really knowing what to say.

“Okay bye then I guess.” You awkwardly wave at him even though you stand mere inches away from his tall frame.

“Bye doll.” He says before you walk away entirely thrown over whatever conversation that was.

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

comments and reposts and appreicated <3

thankyou for all the love on this story so far.

@beebeechaos @ttsbaby01

@arminarlertssword @quakeroaksguy

@rafaelacallinybbay @bumblebeesfromvenus @glitterypirateduck @midnights-song @spyderdoll @lovelythingsinternal @fruitymoonbeams-blog @kkaaaagt @kit-williams @enfppixie @kythefangirl25 @eviltheleon @here4thespice @dclore22

#captain price x female reader #angst #john price #barry sloane #captain john price #john price x reader #task force 141 #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #simon ghost riley #cod x reader #cod mwii #john price x y/n #john price x you

1K notes · View notes

abtrusion · 2 months

Text

Tranny Tango

There's a man on the sidewalk, looking over, then up to see me walking past. He stops in his tracks and stutters back and forth, his read || reaction to me flickering between upstart woman // taller man || hold ground // make space, glitching him in place. When I step off the sidewalk and into the grass, he sheepishly passes me by without a word.

I'm interested in the everyday glitches, the double-takes, the way "everybody is just a little bit disgusted by you," what Susan Stryker calls 'monstrosity' and more than that, the casual experience of being a gaping hole in the gendered world. Stryker attributes this monstrosity to the idea that medical transsexuality, more than any other form of transgenderism, "represents the prospect of destabilizing the foundational presupposition of fixed genders." She takes anti-trans feminists at their word, assuming that their hate stems from some abstract gender trouble that transsexuals pose to female spaces, and her solution is a near-complete identification with that trouble. We can do better. This monstrosity, this glitching, is not just a downstream consequence of spectacular interruptions to some abstract 'fixed genders.' It is certainly not dependent on some unique threat posed by medicalization. It exists through instinctive disgust and constant little glitches in the social infrastructure that is gender, an uneasy response to an uncanny bricolage of the building blocks of gendered life.

Escaping the Cisgender Gaze

The classic trans encounter is to see a visibly transfeminine person out on the street, or as an escort, or in some carefully-curated performance piece, and to realize that gender is a lie. This is part of the utility of transmisogyny, which renders people both constantly accessible and utterly exemplary, and in turn this casts transmisogyny itself as spectacular exclusion instead of a slow social and economic death that sometimes spikes, particularly with multiply marginalized subjects, into horrific violence.

This singularization of transfeminine life and oppression (particularly with trans women of color) through suicide and murder statistics renders both trans life and pain spectacular and implicitly places one as a 'natural' consequence of the other. We need to seriously inspect the many interactions between non-passing transfem people and cis people which do not end with one of them dead. One way to start is Sandra Lee Bartky's understanding of hegemonic femininity as a disciplinary practice.

Femininity as Disciplinary Practice

As the lesbian separatists of the 1970s and 80s intensified the work of rooting out patriarchy from their spaces, they began to discover that nothing was sacred: nearly all everyday social activities were shaped by gender. As Bartky argues, the 'imposition of such discipline on female identity' influences every second of every day:

Iris Young observes that a space seems to surround women in imagination that they are hesitant to move beyond: this manifests itself both in a reluctance to reach, stretch, and extend the body to meet resistances of matter in motion—as in sport or in the performance of physical tasks—and in a typically constricted posture and general style of movement. In an extraordinary series of over two thousand photographs, many candid shots taken in the street, the German photographer Marianne Wex has documented differences in typical masculine and feminine body posture. Women sit waiting for trains with arms close to the body, hands folded together in their laps, toes pointing straight ahead or turned inward, and legs pressed together. The women in these photographs make themselves small and narrow, harmless; they seem tense; they take up little space. Men, on the other hand, expand into the available space; they sit with legs far apart and arms flung out at some distance from the body. Most common in these sitting male figures is what Wex calls the “proffering position”: the men sit with legs thrown wide apart, crotch visible, feet pointing outward, often with an arm and a casually dangling hand resting comfortably on an open, spread thigh. …in a way that normally goes unnoticed, males in couples may literally steer a woman everywhere she goes: down the street, around corners, into elevators, through doorways, into her chair at the dinner table, around the dance floor. The man’s movement “is not necessarily heavy and pushy or physical in an ugly way; it is light and gentle but firm in the way of the most confident equestrians with the best trained horses.”

Bartky concludes that, between behavior and makeup and skin-care, these disciplinary practices "produce a 'practiced and subjected' body, that is, a body on which an inferior status has been inscribed,” and that "the practices that construct this body have an overt aim and character far removed, indeed, radically distinct, from their covert function;" that is, she claims that gender is everywhere, that it is power, and that cisgender women are structurally made unaware of this connection.

What does this mean for transfeminine experience? First, as seen in the sidewalk example we started with (so chosen precisely because of how fucking boring it is), the abstract 'genderfuck' of transfeminine existence congeals into actual examples in the context of gender-as-infrastructure. Gender is a crossing-guard, a gatekeeper, a reviewer -- it performs social functions, all the time, which glitch and shake in our presence. Transmisogyny is not necessarily vitriolic rage at 'boundary-breakers,' it can also just be the passive exclusion of a person whose existence causes a few too many little frictions.

As we've noted, the singularization of transfeminine life makes non-spectacular trans life impossible for cis people to understand, leading to a constant current of disgust/disdain that accompanies their more exciting bouts of transmisogyny. One major inlet to this current is social friction, the way that non-passing transfems are structurally prevented from using social/visual gender infrastructures to do everyday things. The second inlet, which I will discuss in the next section, is the unease provoked by the negotiations transfems take to navigate gendered systems despite this breakage, making small corrections which are ignored, must be ignored, leaving only the horrible lingering fear that they're better at this gender thing than you.

Gender work

Because transfemininity makes no sense from a vulgar gender-power perspective, cis people generally view transfeminine people as either unwitting 'dupes' of gender or as spectacular hyper-aware gender predators, as seen across the HSTS/AGP split, the dead tranny/serial killer media split, the 'scheming eunuch' archetype, and the binarization of transfem identity in queer spaces. But because cis people also generally want to assume that they're talking to someone that isn't an evil serial manipulator, personal interactions encourage and enforce the good tranny archetype, which demands absolute suppression of any sort of informed gender negotiation. This archetype is impossible to fulfill because of the systematic failure of social gender-power infrastructure to account for transfeminine people, which demands some degree of semi-intentional gender work to fill in the gaps.

Fortunately, this work will basically never be understood as such by well-meaning cis people because of transmisogyny, so you don't have to be /super/ subtle about it. Unfortunately, ignoring this transfeminine gender work takes a lot of effort on the part of cis people, particularly if they also have had to perform reparative gender work because of trans-adjacent conditions (divorce, infertility, lesbianism, PCOS). The invisible work cis people must make to keep themselves separate from transfeminine people is then associated with our presence, most clearly articulated in Janice Raymond's lament that transsexual lesbians are feeding "off woman’s true energy source, i.e., her woman-identified self" -- our proximity alone demands intense effort to keep cis gender negotiations distinct from trans ones, growing frustrations that feed the slow current of transmisogyny.

Even if a cis person successfully suppresses their understanding of transfeminine gender work, for folks within queer & women's spaces, this itself leads to a horrible looming anxiety because people in these spaces usually pride themselves on having a full consciousness of gender, and we're a pretty notable exception to that. These anxieties are then channeled into a constant fear of the bad tranny, manifested in the horrible trans woman that your cis queer initiators will tell you to stay far away from. But there is really not much of a difference between the shadowy machinations of the bad tranny and the gender work transfeminine people have to constantly perform to even exist within queer spaces, so transfeminine people are rendered constantly precarious.

What's so deliciously ironic about all this is that this is just a shallow repetition of the cis man // cis woman dyad! Archetypes like 'the poisoner witch' or 'the gossip' or 'the slut' have always been used as a reaction to negotiating power gained via the kitchen, or cloistered social activity, or sex, all routes that men could never understand as a direct consequence of their own gendered power -- so in response to this fear, these roles pilloried exemplary women to structurally terrify the population, but just as importantly to exonerate the rest of the female population, to let men pretend that these weren't tools that everyone was using, to pretend that heterosexual relationships were pure! Just as transfems serve the role of gay best friend^2 in gay mens' films, they serve the role of women^2 in queer spaces, constantly performing gender work which is simultaneously unknowable and terrifying to the cis majority, forcing periodic purges to pick out 'the bad ones' which temporarily exonerate the rest, letting the majority believe that the 'good tranny' actually exists: that mythical trans woman who is not semi-intentionally managing their gender presentation around you, the one you can fuck without worrying if she's just faking it, the one who is good and pure and radical and really, really boring. I have never met a non-passing trans woman like this, but I'm sure plenty of queer people have.

Conclusion

So there are two main forms of everyday experience that express and constitute transmisogyny. The first is the social friction inherent in being freak-gendered in a world that relies on gender to make people move and talk and shit correctly. The second is the friction between the gender awareness demanded of transfeminine people (none) and the practical result of transgendered living in the world. If you want to take some of this back to cis womanhood, I've been trying to reframe the marginalized position of womanhood in terms of articulation work -- that while women have always worked, that work has generally been rendered unreal, always carried out with a dream of not existing, turned into stage-setting for the real boys to grow up and come in and be breadwinners. In this context, our components look like 1) do gender work and 2) don't let it show, and the framing of transfeminine people as socially useless outcasts despite their constitutive role in social life via flexible labor starts to sound a lot like the making of a super-woman, like the mujerísima sometimes invoked in Latin American travesti activism. That sounds just about right. I will become a witch of witches, the lurking terror that eats astrologers, always and ever a little bit too real.

#transmisogyny

489 notes · View notes