Hello. So I'm having a battle inside of my brain. I've been following you for a while now, and I'm also in recovery for anorexia and bulimia. I'm also a newly graduated medical doctor. This means I know a lot about the human body. Which is exactly my point now. I try so, so hard to eat 'intuitively', listen to my body, and be okay with gaining weight, and I try to be in body positive and fat acceptance spaces (1/2, I will continue in next question)

(2/2), but I also know and I have seen with my two eyes, and treated with my own hands, the consequences of not eating healthy or being at an unhealthy body weight. I live in fear that If I eat and eat because I'm trying to recover, I'm gonna have the opposite health problems. I bring it up to my psychiatrist and psychologist, and they tell me there is no unhealthy food. But there is. And I just don't know how I should go with my recovery like this. Any advice for this? thank you for this blog

So I had to take a bit of time to think about the best way to articulate answers for you, because there are some complex and often competing needs addressed on my blog. I think it's important that you get an answer to your question, but I wanted to be careful to go about it in a way that wouldn't cause harm to anyone else. So I'm going to make my best effort, and putting it under a cut because it will be long and some who are triggered by medical views on fatness may prefer not to read on.

First of all, I'm so sorry to hear that you're struggling with this. Having a battle in your brain, as you say, sounds like an agonizing way to live. I hope that you are able to work through it.

Now, as you may know if you frequent this blog, eating disorders are complex and varied. Bodies and their workings are complex and varied. Some people do experience a variety of health conditions that are influenced by what they eat, so for these individuals, they may be best served by making choices accordingly. These choices can also be incredibly complex in this world - you may have seen a recent ask I recieved, for example, about somebody whose husband was just diagnosed with diabetes. The asker was stressed about learning to prepare foods for them both in accordance with his strict diabetes-friendly diet would trigger their restrictive tendencies from their eating disorder. So as you can see, the dietary choices that might be in his best interest might not be in the best interest of the asker. But them being married, I'm sure they would like to share meals together, so following a diet that suits them both is complicated. Difficult choices will have to be made at every juncture.

Gluten is not inherently bad or evil. Unless you have Celiac disease, in which case gluten is actually going to kill you slowly. You need to monitor your salt if you have high blood pressure, but if you've been diagnosed with POTS, you may actually need more salt, and lots of it. I myself will occasionally snack on chips, but never Funyuns. There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but they were invariably a trigger food for me to binge, so I stopped bringing them into my house. But this doesn't make them an unacceptable snack choice for everybody else.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Different people are experiencing different circumstances, and may need different things. Just because a food is particularly bad for one person doesn't make it a "bad food" unilaterally. Even the kinds of foods we consider "junk foods" can be tolerated by our bodies in moderation - well, most of our bodies, anyway. Now there are some people who have eating disorders like ARFID, where they literally cannot eat most foods and must veeery gradually expand their palate. For these individuals, we say "no food is bad food" because, while you might not like to see a person living on, say, saltine crackers or potato chips alone, they will literally starve without it, and so eating the food they can eat is preferable. For these individuals, that sleeve of saltine crackers can be a lifeline. Or take anyone who has a complex gastrointestinal disorder. Ask anyone with Chrohn's about their gut and its complicated relationship with fruits and veggies, a staple segment of the food pyramid touted by most doctors for its immense health benefits. Eating what you can will keep you alive and as healthy as possible in cases like these.

Now, there are people who are impacted in complex ways by the kinds of foods I'm guessing you're describing - things like chips, candy, fried food, processed/instant food. So in this case, do keep in mind that when an individual has a diet consisting largely of these types of foods, there are often complex genetic, epigenetic, and socioeconomic factors that are influencing the way their bodies naturally work and the way their dietary patterns have been established. I do understand how easy it is, at first glance, to just point at their diet and assume that it's easy and sustainable to change it, or that it would be a fix-all. But those same factors that contribute to the development of those complex health issues are often ongoing into the life of the affected individual, not to mention financial and social complications that may make it difficult to change things. But again, just because you've identified a certain food as detrimental to a patient's specific needs doesn't mean it's the same in regards to your own body's needs. Especially if these foods cause a trigger reaction for you to restrict or become obsessed with food "purity."

Now I know that in your work you say that you've treated with your own two hands the results of eating unhealthy foods. But I want you to get honest with yourself here, because you're not mentioning the experiences of the doctors who have treated and seen the damages of restrictive eating disorders. Both anorexia and bulimia, when sufficiently progressed, can cause lasting damage to the body even years into recovery. And they can also cause death. Surely a bag of chips or a cookie every now and again can't be more unhealthy than that? I'm hoping that you can take the time to periodically remind yourself of this, and to remind yourself that your own bodily needs are your own, and that paying attention to what YOUR body needs is self-care.

I know it's hard for an eating-disordered mind to listen to logic, but I'm truly hoping that you can overcome this for your own sake as well as for the sake of your patients. Anon, medical fatphobia has a long history of damaging patients. I know this because I myself have seen it happen. I've told the story before of my friend who was raised by hippies, fed all-organic snacks and kale chips, never allowed a hydrogenated oil, and was still fat growing up. I watched this person reduced to eating saltines and a few bites of apple per day when they were suffering with gallstones. It was all they could eat, but because they were fat, doctors assumed that their gastrointestinal distress must be caused by an excess of fatty foods in their diet. They lived on apple slices and saltines for months, still suffering pain all that time, before they were correctly diagnosed. Can you imagine what it did to their body, to live on such a restricted diet for such an extended period of time? This was not the only time a missed diagnosis threatened their health because all doctors saw was the fat. This person also starved themselves for a few years after being taught to do so at fat camp, and their anorexic behaviors were never called out because even though they did lose weight, they never ended up "skinny" at their lowest weight. But that starving certainly couldn't have been better for them than just living fat - their vision was blacking out every time they stood up! Anon, I hope you don't mind if I speak to you honestly about this. It's hard to gain a full honest medical history from every patient and patient family member you come across, because healthcare is a complicated field. But you cannot let your fear of fatness dictate the way you hear and see your patients. Yes, even if they're not following their prescribed diet. Yes, even if food is a contributing factor in their particular case. (And do keep in mind that a patient's refusal to change diet may come from a place of complicated factors, financial, social, emotional, you name it. Compassion will get you farther with them than judgment, and may even help you get a fuller story.) But do it for yourself, too. And listen to your body. If a food makes your body FEEL well and nourished, then it wasn't a bad food. And you deserve to be well fed and embark on your own healing journey. I hope you find the self-worth to believe that.

Because honestly, food deprivation affects your metabolism. You may experience the notorious anorexia recovery hunger as your appetite reemerges, and you will need to give your body what it needs in order to develop a pattern of being healed in both body and mind. You can keep nutritious options around for that, but I think you may need to keep working on your fear of "snack foods." Your metabolism may be changed as well, and so yes, you may gain back more weight than you had envisioned, or your body shape may be different than you had expected for a little while. Sometimes the weight distribution is a little weird during that regaining phase, and that's okay and does not determine your worth. You are going through a medical event and deserve to be compassionate with your body and soul as that happens. In fact, that is the only way you can heal your mind. Because, even before you look to your patients and the ideal steps for their specific health needs, you need to prioritize yourself and look to your own individual needs. So to recap, periodically use these reminders.

"Just because a food is bad for that other person doesn't make it a bad food. My dietary needs are my own."

"There's no food unhealthier than an eating disorder."

"I will look inward at what my own eating behaviors have done to my health, rather than ruminating on that patient's eating behaviors."

"I'd rather gain weight than hurt my body again."

"My thinness does not reflect my worth."

Feel free to add on as you progress in your recovery journey. Best of luck, in that and in your career. It's certainly not an easy one. Do your best, be open to learning, and remind your eating disorder that your therapists are right even if it doesn't want to listen to logic. I hope that when you are able to bring yourself to eat your next treat, you enjoy it thoroughly.

Responding to this in an image since it had a link to an account I'm blocked by.

I'm going to preface this by saying that you're allowed to identify as whatever you want, and if your tulpa wants to go by something else, that's great.

Having said that, I don't support attempts at convincing other people to stop using the word tulpa. I don't think the appropriation narrative that was invented by anti-endos is legitimate. And I think that a strong tulpa community is too important to endogenic and plural acceptance.

I've gone over my own reasoning for my choices here.

But we cannot overstate the importance of that research.

The post you link claims that using the word tulpa is harmful. But it uses "harm" in a very abstract way. Most of the people spreading the anti-tulpa narrative aren't Buddhists. Of those that are, most of those aren't Tibetan Buddhists and haven't usually even heard of the term before getting involved in syscourse and listening to anti-endos.

How are people being harmed by us identifying as tulpas? I've yet to see anyone be able to actually articulate that.

But I can see the harm of continuing to live in a world where tulpas and endogenic plurality aren't accepted. We see this all around us.

People who have to keep secrets from their loved ones lest they be seen as crazy or liars, and ostracized. Tulpamancers who fear talking to their therapists about their tulpa because they don't want to be misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia or some other disorders. People who have to live a double life constantly, with the people around them never knowing who they really are. And the tulpas themselves suffer from not being able to have personal connections with others.

The academic research into tulpamancy is the BEST chance we have at achieving plural acceptance.

It's the best chance we have at shutting down the fakeclaimers both in and outside of the endogenic community, and maybe help make a world where endogenic systems don't have to be harassed for our very existence.

Researchers depend on being able to gather participants from hubs like tulpa.info and r/tulpas. If the tulpa community is divided, then research could stall or cease altogether. It could be years before we have another mostly-psychological community of created systems as a subject of research again. Years of systems suffering real psychological harm in a society that refuses to accept our existence.

And don't get me wrong... this research is only the first step. It's not going to instantly solve everything. But the sooner we can achieve that first step, the sooner we can achieve our longterm goals and make the world safer for endogenic systems.

I think it's easy for some unaligned and neutral DID systems who have neurological evidence supporting the existence of DID to minimize the importance of getting the same neurological evidence for endogenic and created systems.

They have nothing to lose if the studies into created systems can't continue because researchers can't gather the necessary participants.

But to us, anything that gets in the way of this research... anything that sets it back by even as much as a day, is completely unacceptable.

Identify by whatever feels comfortable with you.

But for myself, I'm going to keep identifying as a tulpa, providing resources on tulpamancy to others, and spreading awareness of tulpamancy because I believe that this is what's best for both the tulpa community and for the endogenic community as a whole.

I think i saw someone once conflate bear/twink with butch/femme respectively as the gay male alternative and... dont think that's how that works, i've known many a femme bear

Lmaooo god

I try to not be too flippant about the butch/femme discourse because I know it comes from a hurt space where communities have been violated and infiltrated. Where no LGBT group can have their own shit because there’s morons saying you can be an aroace gay man or a bisexual lesbian or you can be queer because your dick only works on thursdays and fridays or whatever

Like... I get it.

“This is mine, I don’t want you to take it from me” is a valid thing, especially when we know that when those things are taken, they lose/change meaning to the point of creating tangible harm.

This is not one of those cases. This is like a group of people baking cookies together, going “Oh, this is gonna be our thing we do every week together,” and then some people leaving the baking party upset that the other people are eating the cookies... that you all baked together. They aren’t “yours,” they’re OURS and have been since cookie mix was invented.

The only one trying to take away the cookies are the ones insisting they’re only for them.

And then trying to point to gay men and bi men and... yes, bisexual women, and go “Actually, you use BROWNIES for your sweets, THESE terms are your equivalent, like, no, bear/twink aren’t butch/femme alternatives... neither are stag/doe lmao

I think one of the easiest indicators of “Has this person ever actually talked to LGBT people over the age of 30 or like... done even basic skimming of LGBT history” is how exclusive they think the terms butch/femme are... NOT even getting in the fact that cishets use the term butch and like... femme is just a french word (does anyone remember when some like... forever 21 shirt had the word woman/women in multiple languages and it had the word femme on it because... france and people called it appropriation??)

I really think there’s an issue in online LGBT culture where issues are being conflated with each other. Like cishets casually using the word queer is not comparable to butch/femme being “stolen” by people who have been using the terms since their conception. A bi man calling his bi bf butch isn’t the same as a cishet girl calling herself her man’s femme. Femme bisexual is not comparable to someone using the term bisexual lesbian.

This is just a lot of pissing on the ground to mark territory and it all fucking reeks.

And, just like any other case of pissing in public, it’s majorly embarrassing to be witnessing the pissing. Like it does not belong here. Lmao.

Like please just read a book... talk to a LGBT person who didn’t learn everything from twitter threads and tumblr rants... touch a blade of grass and maybe think long and hard about why THIS is the hill you want to die on

About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

On disability and gender

I'm writing this from my perspective as a dyadic TME non-binary lesbian (also mixed but very pale and non-Black, as well as relatively thin). I will group myself with women but like, I'm also not really a woman it's complicated lol. I say this because I can't have first-hand comprehension of all the possible dynamics between gender and disability, and other physically disabled people are very much encouraged to add their own thoughts and perspectives to this post.

I don't feel equipped to speak on how being disabled and intersex impacts gendered experiences because I have too much left to learn, so I'm sorry that I'm not going to go into it. It's not because I don't recognize that struggle, it's because I just don't have the range, so please, if you're an intersex and physically disabled person and you want to expand on this, don't be afraid to do so.

Able-bodieds can reblog but don't speak out of turn.

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

For a long time I've been trying to articulate my thoughts and pain on how physical disability impacts our gendered experiences and I think I'm finally starting to get to it.

When you're physically disabled you're immediately stripped of a (willing) gender identity as well as desexualized.

Gender is embodied and performed. You can embody it "incorrectly" and perform it "poorly". Everything regarding the embodiment of physically disabled people is seen as incorrect, and the literal meaning of "disabled" is that we can't perform the same way that able-bodied people can, or at least we can't without severely impacting our wellness.

Disabled men are emasculated. Constructs of ideal manhood are in big part built on things such as physical prowess, never expressing vulnerability, being self-sufficient outside of anything domestic, and conquering women sexually and romantically.

Disabled men are seen as weak, they are seen as pathetic for having visible vulnerabilities or (if their disability isn't immediately visible) for exposing their vulnerabilities instead of "sucking it up". By needing aid, accessibility and carers that do more than what a wife would traditionally do for any man, the sense of self-sufficiency men are supposed to perform is unavailable to disabled men. All disabled people are desexualized and seen as repulsive once our sexualities are acknowledged, and even disabled dyadic cishet men can't escape this. Able-bodied women see them as unfit for any sort of serious romantic or sexual partnership. Not to mention too the traditional role of men as providers and how difficult it is for any disabled person to acquire wealth at all, let alone enough to support more than ourselves alone. The rates of poverty for physically disabled people are fucking astronomical, so most disabled men can't even use that to their advantage in romance and sex to make up for all the other ways in which they're at a disadvantage compared to able-bodied men.

Disabled women fail at embodying and performing every single aspect of traditional womanhood too, but in particular; domestic labor, sexual labor, and beauty standards.

All labor is difficult if not downright impossible when you're disabled. Disabled women who need carers as adults are seen as complete failures because, even as children, but especially as adults, we're the ones who're supposed to be the carers of others, not the other way around. People love to pretend that women are coddled more than men, but nothing breaks that illusion more than being a disabled woman. A woman's needs are supposed to be invisible and self-fulfilled, or else we're whiny spoiled bitches, and guess what that means for disabled women. When we can't perform this pristine role we're immediately marked as failures, we're undesirable and nothing but a parasitic drag in the lives of abled people.

Yes, not all disabled women are straight, plenty of us are bi or lesbians, many are also aro/ace, but the point is that the patriarchy doesn't really give a shit what a woman's sexuality is, because no woman is seen as having sexual agency, so even if we're not straight we're expected to exist to satisfy men sexually. I cannot describe how difficult it is to be sexual, even when you're not ace, if you're physically disabled. Speaking from my own experience, trying to maintain a sex life as someone who experiences chronic fatigue and chronic pain is one of the most frustrating and demoralizing aspects of my disability. I want sex, I want to want sex, to be able to fuck my fiancé, but most of the time I simply can't gather the energy to even feel horny. I feel like such a failure of a lover because of it. Even though my fiancé is patient and understanding with me!

Can you imagine what it is like for disabled women who aren't as "lucky" as me, to have a partner who understands that we simply can't do it all the time even if we do want to? I don't want to go into too much detail about this because it's very painful and triggering to many, but I think you can imagine what happens to a lot of disabled women (and disabled people in general) when we're not satisfying a partner sexually and they get too frustrated by it. Being as vulnerable as we are, nobody cares much what happens to us. More so since, again, physically disabled people are seen as sexually repulsive, so if anyone wants sex with us we're supposed to be "thankful" for it, no matter the circumstances.

As for beauty standards, any woman who doesn't fit traditional beauty standards will know just how badly men treat you when they don't find you physically appealing, and well... Let's just say that a cane or a wheelchair aren't seen by society as particularly attractive, no matter how much the woman using them fits traditional beauty standards otherwise. Then there's female amputees, women with deformities, etc. In my case, I'm a literal mutant. If I don't disguise my tells with corsetry, long sleeves, and so, so much more, my body looks "off", I have been told repeatedly that my body looks "off" my whole life, and I'm one of the least visibly disabled ones! Even regarding body hair it's fucking hell. My collagen is so elastic that when new hair grows it stays ingrown unless I manually break my skin with a needle or a pumice stone (no, gentler ways of exfoliation don't work), but shaving isn't ideal either because my skin is, due to my altered collagen too, literally transparent and you can see the roots of my dark hairs under it even if I shave down to accidentally harming my skin with the blade.

Performing femininity at all is just... It's fucking hell. If it's exhausting for able-bodied women, can you imagine what it is like for us? I can barely manage to shower, by the time I'm done with my hair, makeup and outfit, every bit of my very limited energy is depleted and then I still have the rest of the day to go through. And I LIKE being feminine. I like wearing makeup and wearing the outfits I wear and yet I still dread it when I know I'll have to do more than stay in my pajamas at home.

Also, the perceived fragility of disabled women isn't the type of fragility that is seen as desirable in women. It's not delicacy. Wheelchairs, canes and other mobility aids aren't seen as "delicate" or "demure". Neither is kinesio tape, or compression stockings, or any other sort of medical equipment which, on top of it all, tend to not be very "aesthetic". Our fragility isn't the romanticized type, it's the "wow, you're an useless burden who can't serve me the way I expect you to" type.

When it comes to "binary" disabled trans people (for a lack of a better term) the degendering is even more intense than it already is for their cis counterparts (all that I described above applies to them too). There's a dichotomy of the even heavier denial of their actual genders as men and women due to the combination of their transness and disabilities, contrasting with how even if they were to conform to their assigned genders at birth they'd still be seen as failures at it due to everything I've already stated. There's also the sentiment that their identifying outside of their assigned gender at birth is a sort of consolation prize, something they're going for only because they were failing at being proper cis men and cis women, and thus their actual genders are even more invalidated and effectively pathologized in the most medical sense of the word, which is already a problem for all trans people, but for physically disabled trans people this intensifies the problem even more.

When it comes to non-binary disabled people things get so fucking confusing and infuriating. If binary disabled people get denied their manhood and womanhood, best believe that multigender disabled people (bigender, genderfluid, etc) are denied all aspects of their genders even harder. Not even completely agender disabled people are safe from being seen as failures of their gender identities by people who would perfectly respect the identity of an agender but able-bodied person. The fact that the default gendered status of all disabled people is forcefully degendered makes it so agender disabled people aren't seen as having any agency or self-determination in their (lack of or neutral) gender identity, it's seen as a passive inevitability from their embodiment, so it doesn't really "count", while simultaneously being subjected to the general transphobic bullshit any other agender person would be subjected to.

All of these things already affect white, thin and dyadic physically disabled people. When you add race (especially Blackness and/or being dark skinned), fatness and being intersex into the mix, the ways in which we're degendered and misgendered are off the fucking rails.

We can't fucking win.

I like your thoughts on how Rapunzel was handling things wrong in “Rapunzel: Day One.” The episode tries to imply that Cassandra is wrong for not sharing her feelings with Rapunzel, but is a Rapunzel really the person Cassandra should be opening up to? Rapunzel never respects Cassandra’s boundaries. Cassandra’s a private person. Rapunzel doesn’t respect that. And just because Cassandra doesn’t want to open up to everyone doesn’t mean that she’s bottling things up.

ok so this is gonna be a long one bc tbh i like. fundamentally disagree that RDO, the narrative of RDO, in any way positions cassandra as the one at fault for the emotional conflict between her and raps.

to digress a bit - while tts is not immune to Aesop Episodes (e.g. rapunzel's enemy or you're kidding me) wherein the characters close out the story by talking about What They've Learned, ultimately i don't think tts can or should be read as a morality play. it's a story where sometimes characters just... fuck up and the narrative doesn't waste its time on hand-holding or spoon-feeding us the moral.

anyway, i submit that RDO is what i'll call a False Aesop Episode. it follows the basic structure of an Aesop Episode (protagonist acts badly -> protagonist learns a lesson) but the lesson rapunzel learns is a bad one. it's like if you took... say, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" as an aesop, the False Aesop here is rapunzel confidently eating a rotten apple and then being blindsided a few months later when the doctor who kept begging her not to eat food with maggots in it steals the moonstone from under her nose and runs off into the night with her new demon pal--

and that metaphor got away from me a little bit but you get the idea.

#1: constructing the conflict

the episode opens with cassandra. she's training; we see the sword fly out of her injured hand; lance suggests she take a break, and she answers, "thanks to rapunzel's little trick at the great tree, i have to relearn everything using this hand, so breaks aren't really an option."

she isn't harsh about it. her demeanor isn't all that different from her normal self—she even segues into a very typical concern (that the woods are dangerous and they should all be on their guard) and banters with lance a bit.

what this communicates, immediately and succinctly, is that:

1. cassandra's injury is severe. it's disabling. she's either in immense pain or she's lost all the strength in that hand or both.

2. cass is really upset about this, and not happy with rapunzel.

3. nevertheless cass is keeping her feelings more or less in check; the worst anyone could say about her is she's being a bit more curt than normal.

which is to say, she's acting quite reasonable. she's not taking out her hurt feelings on anyone else or being mean or lashing out, and she's not hiding her injury either. the most concerning thing about her behavior here is actually that she's focused on training so she can do her job instead of on healing or resting or taking care of herself.

then there's a pan over to rapunzel, who is angrily watching this play out while venting to pascal. "i get why cass is mad at me," she says. "she told me—" huge disdainful rolling of eyes here "—not to use the decay spell back and the tree, and i did, and she hurt her hand. but if she had just listened to me and stayed out of it, this all could have been avoided! and i feel like we could work things out, but she refuses to talk about it!!"

line this up against cassandra's behavior and spot the differences.

cass is focused on her injured hand. cass is upset because rapunzel accidentally mutilated her in the great tree. that's what this conflict is about for cass; her injury, and how she feels about being injured.

by contrast, rapunzel thinks the conflict is about them not listening to each other. she does acknowledge that cass was injured, but 1. she puts the blame on cass, and 2. has shoved the fact of the injury to the periphery of the conflict. it's not important, it's just a natural consequence of the real conflict, which is cass being mad and petty and refusing to talk to her about how she's unfairly blaming rapunzel for something that wasn't rapunzel's fault.

[i will add here that this behavior from rapunzel is 100% not knowing how to handle guilt and externalizing it as anger, and this thread of rapunzel burying her guilt gets picked up again in rapunzeltopia; it isn't that rapunzel doesn't care that cass is hurt, so much as she's just not emotionally equipped to process these feelings in a healthy way so it mutates into...this.]

and where cass handles her feelings in a pretty reasonable way, rapunzel rants and raves and draws cass as a literal monster with fangs and claws—she's stewing in her out of control emotions and concludes that she just has to find a way to force cass talk to her, which she does shortly thereafter by ordering—not asking—cass to come with her to search for parts to fix the caravan.

#2: the breakdown of communication

i've said it before but it bears repeating: cassandra might not be perfect, but she's a good communicator. in s1 and the front half of s2, she shares her feelings with rapunzel readily and frequently. when she tries to set boundaries with rapunzel, she's able to be clear and specific about what she needs. when she expresses frustration with eugene or her dad or rapunzel, she's very articulate about exactly what she's frustrated about. she can recognize when politer, softer refusals are being ignored and become blunter and more specific to ensure the message is getting across.

the moments when cass struggles to communicate are noteworthy because they're not normal. they signal that she's in acute crisis. think of how her unhinged rant about adira in RATGT heralded a complete emotional breakdown. she clams up in RDO because it's the only thing she can do to protect herself. because rapunzel is an inexperienced nineteen year old who learned all her social "skills" from a manipulative, egotistical abuser and nowhere in the series does that show more than in RDO.

rapunzel knows cass doesn't want to talk about the great tree, so she isolates cass from the rest of the group with the intention of forcing her to talk about it anyway. she's passive aggressive at first: chattering about inanities and trying to bait cass into 'opening up,' and acting vexed and guilt-trippy when she finds out cass brought owl along. she broaches the subject by going "too bad there's not an open-up-to-your-best-friend-about-the-thing-you-guys-are-fighting-about wand, huh?"

then she leads with "i know you're mad at me, but i did the right thing. i didn't have a choice," which... what can cass even say to that? she acknowledged cassandra's anger in one breath and followed up with "but you're wrong tho" in the next. that statement makes cassandra's feelings about her debilitating injury into an argument about Who Was Right.

this is a game that cass tries very hard not to play. "look, if you feel that way, then it's fine. we're good," she says, which is a statement that is not true at all on its face but - what it means is that if rapunzel wants to turn this into a debate about Who Was Right, cass will concede because that's not an argument she's invested in. cass does not want to put her feelings on trial so rapunzel can pick them apart and decide whether she deserves to have them or not.

so she disengages. the sun sets. they camp. rapunzel pokes her again, this time with a more direct approach: "cass, i need to talk about what we both know is going on between us."

and that's when cass throws up a WALL. prior to RDO, when cass is pressed on her feelings, she either: 1. opens up and explains to the extent that she's able (e.g. under raps or RATGT), or 2. flatly shuts the conversation down (e.g. cassandra vs eugene). but in RDO?

"there's nothing to talk about."

"i never said i was upset."

"what makes you so sure that you know how i'm feeling?"

this is cass falling off the end of her rope. this is a cass who spent the last year and a half with rapunzel running roughshod over every boundary cass exhausted herself trying to set. this is cass maybe a few weeks out from rapunzel screaming at her in front of all their mutual friends and then telling her "i am going to make decisions you don't agree with and i need you to be okay with that" when cass tried to open up about her deepest insecurities. this is cass spiraling into despair because she's seen that her best friend cares more about assuaging her own guilt and exerting her authority as a princess than she does about cassandra's feelings.

this is the moment when the friendship dies.

#3: the memory wipe, cassandra's apology, and the false aesop

the details of the tangled-but-cass shenanigans are not super important for the purposes of this discussion. suffice it to say that cassandra lashes out in the heat of the moment, seriously harms rapunzel by mistake, and spends the rest of the episode trying to repair the damage, then apologizes to rapunzel for hurting her. this is, obviously, the correct thing to do when you hurt someone, even if it was an accident.

you see the parallel here, yeah?

rapunzel hurt cass with magic by accident, and then made cass's hurt feelings all about her, blamed cass for the injury, twisted the facts to justify her own indignation, picked a fight about Who Was Right and invalidated cassandra's feelings, and pushed and pushed and pushed until cass blew up and lashed out at her.

cassandra also hurt rapunzel with magic by accident, and then she set aside her own hurt feelings from the argument they were having before to focus one hundred percent of her energy on brewing a cure and keeping amnesiac rapunzel safe, readily admitted her fault, and offered an earnest apology for losing her temper as soon as she could reasonably do so.

if RDO were a true Aesop Episode, this would be the lesson, and rapunzel would of course learn from cassandra's good example and reciprocate by apologizing for the accident in the great tree and her abysmal behavior afterwards—and in a reflection of how cass shared how bottling up her anger allowed it to erupt in a catastrophic way, rapunzel would probably confess that her demanding, selfish behavior came from a place of feeling awful about what happened and terrified that it would ruin their friendship.

but RDO is a False Aesop Episode. rapunzel isn't emotionally equipped to handle the intensity of her guilt, and she lacks the social insight and empathy to draw comparisons between what she did to cass and what cass did to her, so she can't connect the two situations in her head to understand what she's doing wrong. the true aesop flies right over her head, and instead what she learns is this:

1. she was right about cass being upset

2. backing cass into a corner fixed the problem

3. friends really do "just know"

4. being pushy and forceful was the right thing to do.

because the thing is, when cass apologizes for the accidental memory wipe, she truthfully explains why she acted the way she did—she's furious and she didn't want to talk about it, so she held it in as long as she could and then exploded when the pressure became too much—and for rapunzel, i think the explanation and the actual apology get conflated. meaning, cass says "i'm sorry for what i did out of anger" and what rapunzel hears is "i'm sorry for being angry."

and because of that misunderstanding, from rapunzel's perspective her own indignation has been validated and her behavior justified, because she was right all along and cass shouldn't have been angry with her in the first place and now everything is fine--

but it's not fine.

we're not supposed to share rapunzel's perspective here, because she's flat out wrong. nothing is really better and nothing has really changed, except that rapunzel got the talk she wanted and stops putting this intense pressure on cass. so as we enter the house of yesterday's tomorrow, rapunzel is taking it for granted that things are fine with cass, and meanwhile cass is still injured, still angry, still as aloof as she can be without getting rapunzel breathing down her neck again... and then she meets zhan tiri, who gives her everything she needed and couldn't get from rapunzel.

like, to my mind, this is the entire point of RDO, that rapunzel makes this catastrophic mess of trying to patch things up after RATGT and comes out of that mess wrongly thinking she succeeded. the episode is presented through the lens of rapunzel's perspective, but the lines are very wide and i absolutely think the intention is for the audience to read between them and understand the reality that rapunzel has sort of blinded herself to.

help! a thought a thought!

s13: cas comes back from the empty without his grace and jack is very much a baby.

cas promised kelly he'd look after him, but despite all those parenting books qnd online forums, looking after a nephil is no easy task, curiously more so when it comes to jack's human wants and needs. he sees the winchesters’ intent tohelp, but jack is his charge, and cas is going to protect and look after this kid with his own limited resources even if it kills him. in return, he gets apologetic and compassionate looks from both the brothers, but dean's gaze is also... stern? no, serious. it's as if he's holding back.

cas feels judged.

at the end of one such days in which jack is being extremely... difficult, cas all but collapses. funny how an angel of the lord who once led heavenly armies and would annihilate on command like a good soldier has been brought to the brink of tears by an adorable chubby-cheeked infant with a penchant for making cas feel guilty for arguably being the worst parental figure in the whole of history. well, surely not as bad as abraham or ivan vasilyevich. cas would never harm a single blond hair on jack’s precious little head, but he’s not a good.

he's so immersed in his own frustration that he doesn't notice the door opening or the familiar weight of steps across the bedroom. he does notice the sudden shadow, and he definitely notices when jack's being taken from him by a pair of hands he rebuilt himself with the utmost care, never suspecting how he'd yearn for their touch years down the line.

dean is good with kids. he had to be. right now though, with jack? he doesn't have to be good, but he is, he's excellent. obviously better than castiel, since in less than a couple minutes jack’s long-winded on-and-off tantrum morphed into silence and then giggles. jack's actually delighted, toothless smile and happy squeals and little fists thrown in the air.

'how did you...?' cas asks stunned, wiping from his eyes the treacherous evidence of his failed parenting.

dean raises an eyebrow, but turns his face when jack's tiny hand pets his jaw. dean makes faces then, his beautiful features contorting into expressions cas had never seen. jack, laughs and curls up against dean's chest, face hiding in the junction between his neck and chin.

jack closes his red-rimmed eyes and sighs contentedly.

'dude. babies are all about vibes, man. they can sense shit, and you being all stressed out was not helping.'

cas looks down at his hands and feels every ounce of his inadequacy being maximized to stand as tall as the chrysler building.

'i... thought it'd be easier, dean. i try, i do. but jack... of course it's not his fault, that’s not what i’m saying. it's mine. he doesn't seem happy with me, and he obviously does not like me.'

dean stops rocking jack and sits on the bed next to cas, his face schooled into that expression cas has seen but can't tell the meaning of.

this time dean doesn't hold back though.

'one, that's a load of bullcrap. kid loves you. you're his dad, remember?' it's weird being admonished by dean on this particular subject, but if anyone would know about raising kids, that'd dean. he continues, 'which brings me to point number two. cas, babies are not easy. no parent has it all figured out, no matter how many books you read or how old you are. it's totally normal to hit a few bumps in the road, trust me.'

cas sighs, relieved by dean's soothing words of wisdom.

but cas' self-doubt must be a thousand-headed beast, experience has taught him many things, and right now that means he knows, from experience, that he's most likely to mess things up with jack as soon as dean hands him back.

he misses his powers. if he were still an angel he'd be able to bond with jack through their grace, and they’d have a more meaningful connection. or not.

dean, wonderful as he is, is only a human, and in less than five minutes he got jack wrapped around his finger. maybe even all “juiced-up” cas would be just as lacking.

'i wish i had your nurturing skills' cas confesses.

dean clears his throat.

'you have them' he says.

cas looks up and meets dean's determined yet nervous eyes. confused, cas clarifies, 'no, i meant i wish i could-'

dean cuts in, 'i know what you meant, cas. but i meant you have, uh, my... "nurturing skills" or whatever. because you have me. okay, cas? you have me.'

'oh?'

cas hopes, he does. but he isn't good at articulating his feelings when it comes to dean. perhaps cas learned it from him. after all, once he used to be able to declare his thoughts without flinching or feeling apprehensions of any kind.

but, when it comes to dean, he's afraid of saying the wrong thing, of saying too much.

dean continues, making what he can with cas' poor response, 'if you want, of course. and i mean... you're doing great with the little rugrat, cas, but normal babies are a handful and jack's half freaking angel. i know it's tough, and i don't like seeing you all...' he waves in cas' direction. baby-stained rumpled clothes and face worn, dark circles under the eyes are apparently not a very good look on him. he shouldn't be offended, but it still stings a bit, knowing he's doing a bad enough that his whole body is living proof of it.

'dean, you don't have to,' he replies.

'but i want to,' dean says without skipping a beat.

jack sighs happily.

'let me take care of him. with you.' his green eyes search into cas', his pitch slightly higher and his tone pleading, 'just let me help you, cas. please. we' re a - a good team, you and i. we've gone through shit must people can't even begin to imagine, so i think we can do this' his shoulder bumps gently against cas' arm. 'watcha' say, pal. wanna raise a baby together?'

cas stares back in shock, failing to taper down his burgeoning hope. but dean cannot mean what cas wants him to mean. it's not like that with them. they're friends. best friends. but do best friends raise kids together? he shouldn't poke at this.. thing, but the need to know is overpowers his better judgment, so his next words could very well be the last ones he uttered before getting his heart irreparably torn to shreds.

'i thought only couples raised children together, dean.'

dean huffs and rolls his eyes, 'that nuclear family crap is a big fat lie, cas. white picket-fence propaganda. there are many types of families in the world. not everyone gets to have a mom who lives long enough to raise her children or a dad who gives a fuck if his kids ate, consumed by a piss-poor avenger complex.'

of course. he should've known. absorbed by his own selfish wants, dean's complicated upbringing slipped from cas' mind, and now he's made the conversation awkward if dean's hesitancy is any indication to go by.

cas stays silent.

'but,' dean starts, his cheeks are colored red and he blinks twice then once again, keeping watery eyes at bay. 'we could do that too, cas. if that's.. if you'd, um, like that. you and me and this little one.'

dreaming. cas must be dreaming.

'like a family?' he asks suspiciously.

'like a family' dean says guarded.

but.

and because he needs to be sure, and dean probably didn't realize the very non-platonic implication of his statement, he asks 'like a... couple?'

'yes' the word is breathed out with pleasure and dean smiles at him warmly and openly, and he looks so beautiful like this, sitting on cas' bed with a sleepy jack safely tucked against his body.

'okay' cas says, because he doesn't know the etiquette for this specific scenario, and besides, they have to keep their voices low and their movements subtle if they want to keep jack from stirring awake.

'alright' dean says. then dean turns to whisper something in jack's ear, but the words are easily carried across what little space rests between them.

'heard that, baby? i’m gonna take good care of you and your daddy from now on.'

so, they take care of jack together. cas' parenting skills improve rather quickly, dean's natural instincts are lifesavers, and every day the three of them become happier and better rested. endless nights of cuddling will do that to you. in short, dean and cas raise their baby like a couple, and, with jack, they are, in every sense of the word, a family.

uhh body feels big cw for body image / weight stuff? 

i’m not sure how to write about this tactfully since this is something i don’t really talk to anyone about, not fully, and never have really tried to 

been having a lot of strange body feels, mostly good. i had a lot of VERRYYY disordered/harmful ideologies/practices surrounding food imposed on me at a very young age. it shaped the ways I’ve been able to engage with food/movement/the world around me in a way i always figured was sort of normal until i realized it really wasn’t 

it was a really alienating and isolating experience! i know it’s similar to a lot of other people’s, but it’s one that’s hard to talk about and explain and it’s also one that doesn’t feel good to describe 

but, like, I think this last year or so is the first time i’ve ever felt, like, fully comfortable in physicality. I it is also the first time since I was pretty young that I’ve just eaten whatever I want without restricting myself or making nonsensical, terrible rules and it’s felt really good. i’ve tried a lot more things. i’ve learned more about what i actually like 

and same goes for movement- it was very complicated. it was always in flux between overexertion or not doing anything at all (as a response to grief, mostly) and both of these things felt like punishments in their own right 

but, as of these last two years, i love hiking. i love walking. i love climbing, i love running, i love swimming and jumping around with halliwell. it’s just fun and i feel strong and very free. and i love that i can, like, do these things and then feel a hunger so deep without it feeling shameful and i love that i know I can just eat until i do not feel hungry and the best part is i’m doing it because i WANT to and because it feels good and not as some form of ritualistic & desperate self-harm

new feelings are arising these days. yeah, my body has changed. it still is. i gained a lot of weight when i was grieving -and i think that i had to in that it was survival and i wish it was met with, like, neutrality? decency?- and i still feel frustrated by the ways i was treated when that happened, even by people very close to me. I lost a bunch later (and, like, only after I’d worked though a lot of the restrictive habits so i’m really not trying to pedal any sort of ‘dieting and weight loss is good!’ thing here AT ALL, it was just that i want to point out that this coincided with me engaging with food/movement in a healthy and non-obsessive way)

but, like, idk, i mentioned in a group chat about wanting to go for a run after work and one of my friends, well-intentioned, was like ‘make sure you are eating and nourishing your body with food’ which was like....idk? made me feel weird. i can’t fault anyone for not understanding something so internal but it was hard not to bristle at the implication that i DON’T do that. i’m not mad or upset with anyone since obviously it was coming from a place of care 

but like....i’ve only seen my family a couple times in the past year and they want to talk about how different i look- what i’m doing, etc. outside of this, it has felt good to be honest if i do or do not want to eat something and my grandma was trying to get me to take, like, a huge tray of croissants home and I didn’t really want to. it wasn’t a stance- I’m just not a huge fan of bread and i feel bad about throwing away food that’s perfectly good. everyone thought it was a show of temperance and someone said something like “oh yeah i bet you don’t eat that anymore” and I just like....did not know what to say to that? it’s hard not to come off as combative when you gawk at something that’s supposed to be a compliment 

and then, like, my aunt pulled me aside and asked what i was doing to lose weight...like, straight up asked me if i was on a diet, and i was like, so caught off guard. i literally never ever want to try any sort of ‘diet’ again in my life. and like i wasn’t sure how to answer her question- because I’m doing literally nothing, there are no rules or restrictions. there is nothing that i don’t eat, there is nothing that I do out of some artificial obligation to creating a deficit. it’s just almost, like, if you stop torturing yourself by withholding food your body will just...stop feeling starved and desperate and you just stop thinking about it. I ended up telling her that I just started cooking for myself a lot more and figuring out what I actually really like but i felt backed into a corner and i’m still unsure how to articulate that prioritizing pleasure and fun over, like, unachievable aesthetics has kind of been the main goal versus, like, body changes that happened inadvertently as a result of making myself suffer less 

it still is very complicated. when people i haven’t seen in a while tell me i look great i don’t like knowing that they are comparing the current version of myself who has learned a better way to survive to the past version, who was also surviving the best he could. and it feels hard to not WANT to be a little showy with my body, where i feel strong and safe, but i’m worried it comes off as some sort of pointed ‘im smaller now!’ when in reality it’s just that, idk, i’ve never been ABLE to feel this good, even when i was, like, a lot smaller than i am now and was literally starving 

wrapping this up now. if you read this, thanks? 

Why do you think Sunrise did that event in with Sesshomaru and Rin's VAs mirroring InuKag? They have already done that CD Drama, do you think they did that to give hope to the shippers? What if after so many hints, if they reveal in the anime that Sessrin isn't canon, aren't the shippers gonna be disapointed? This may be a dumb question and your answers are always smart and well-articulated, but i seriously don't understand their marketing strategy, do you care to explain for me?

Oh, hey there! I appreciate all the love you've been leaving on my blogs lately. I really hope I'm able to give you an answer you're satisfied with. Sorry it took some time to get back to you. I hope this makes up for it. 🙏

I'm not gonna lie, I'm up and down about how I feel about that livestream and what it means for the future of this ship. My brain has been on roller coaster mode since basically the moment the sequel was announced. We're in the home stretch now, and we better get the answers WE WANT the second that sequel comes out. Since it's evidently not going to happen anytime sooner- welp!

Before the livestream aired, I really thought us fans were on the verge of discovering the mom and that it was going to be Rin. We still had hope she wasn't, but at the same time most of us antis were "bracing for impact." lol

Then nothing happened.

We were pretty shocked but obviously relieved. The days before it came out, I was telling others (as well as myself lol) that just because Sesshomaru and Rin's VAs had a livestream together doesn't confirm anything. Besides, why does that have to automatically mean that both pairings need to be romantic? We all know how integral these characters are/were to each other's storylines, so these pairings make the most logical sense, wouldn't you say?

In the previous livestream with the voice actors who play Inuyasha and Kagome, they discuss the new character Moroha and introduce her as Inuyasha AND Kagome's daughter. Now let's compare that to the other livestream with Sesshomaru and Rin's VAs. When they described Towa and Setsuna, they did so as Sesshomaru's daughters NOT Sesshomaru and Rin's daughters. That to me is the most telling piece of evidence.

Like how could they not use that prime opportunity to tell us Rin's the mom when her voice actor was literally sitting right there??! We were all expecting it and they still insisted on giving us nothing! What this tells me is that it's possible this mom is a new character, and it even appears she is quite pivotal to the new series. I keep changing my opinion on that part though to be honest with you, because sometimes I think she won't be important at all in the grand scheme of things. (See what I mean about being up and down? lol) Idk about you, but it seems to me like we haven't even met her character. If it was Rin, why keep it a mystery? It's not like Sessrin's popularity is exactly a secret in this fandom. Why wait until the big reveal if it's "so obvious" in the first place? How does Sunrise benefit from hiding this information?

If it does end up being Rin, it would've been better to just come out and say it. If this ain't just pure fanbait like some of us still hope it is, why hold back? Give 'em what they want already and let us antis be at peace. If they hope to think that I'll change my mind and give this sequel a go just because I've waited this long so might as well, they're sorely mistaken. If anything, I'm going to be pissed they kept us in the dark this long when they could've just saved us all the trouble. I imagine that goes for a lot of us, shippers and antis alike. Whatever way you look at it, I won't be invested in this sequel if Sessrin goes canon- period. I cannot and will not be on board with a series that promotes such a harmful and insulting dynamic.

Which brings us to Sunrise's marketing strategy. Well, I definitely think they have been catering to the fans of this ship for quite some time now. Because, ya know, money. Whether that's because they plan to make this ship canon or not remains to be seen. "Show meee the moneeeeyyyy!" *yells in Jerry Maguire*

There was first the drama cd and more recently that calendar which included art of adult!Rin with Sesshomaru, but neither of those are canon first off. Also, does anyone know if it was actually confirmed to be pro-Sessrin fan art? I mean, I know it doesn't look very good when the artist who made it is a Sessrin shipper and certain fans are fawning over their OTP, but that doesn't necessarily mean the calender automatically is either last I checked. I wonder why it can't simply be Rin as an adult visiting with Sesshomaru. I believe in one picture she's seen giving him a flower, much like little Rin would've done, or just as any child does for a loved one. So if Rin is still bringing him flowers as an adult, I would assume that means their relationship dynamic hasn't changed at all. That's what's supposed to happen, too! If an adult's relationship was established with another person while they were just a child, then that adult will always view them as a child no matter what and vice versa. Even when those children become grown-ups, that won't change. That's just how things are, or how they're supposed to be rather. In other words, a normal healthy adult-child bond does not resemble one like Sessrin.

Both Sessrin fans and antis agree there haven't been any romantic implications between Sesshomaru and Rin in the original series. That's why I can't understand for the life of me why we're even having this discussion. Alas, here we are. This is what happens when society has conditioned us to believe that the only proper (aka "best") way an adult male and a young female's closeness can evolve is with romance. So maybe it's not obvious at first (because that would be illegal), but we should EXPECT their relationship to shift in that direction. Why, you ask? Well, simply because sexualizing young girls is the norm so why not, right? No clues or foreshadowing required! Because like I just said, that would be illegal. Fiction has loopholes for this kinda stuff, so problem solved?

Nope! Aging her up counts too, folks! When you look at a girl character and the first thing you think is, "I can't wait till she grows up so she can f*ck" then, yeah, you're a part of the problem. You may not realize it, but you are. That's not to say you're a bad person or that it's even your fault, just saying that there are times in all of our lives where we start to question some of our beliefs. If you not only support but desire the idea of a romance eventually forming between a grown man- yes, 19 is an adult- and a young girl, then you should probably ask yourself why that may be and re-evaluate. Please stop using cultural differences and history that dates back almost a thousand years to justify this so-called tradition.

"You all shouldn't think too deeply about this, it's just fiction! Ugh, you're ruining the fun! Antis should all just shut up! Only we can have problems, but when you do it's just complaining!"

Right....

And by the way, most of us are not even complaining. We're being critical of the content we're watching. Criticism isn't always pretty unfortunately.

If Sunrise and Rumiko do decide to go through with this, then I will disappointed, sure, but not surprised. Romanticizing these sexualized images of young or pre-pubescent girls has been happening for far too long, after all. We've become desensitized to it sadly enough, especially when the media continues to glorify it. I wish we'd realize how many young girls- or minors in general- we're putting in danger by sending messages such as this.

To you young teenage girls and even boys reading this, you may not fully understand right now, but it's never okay for anyone to tell you that your body being sexualized is a natural and beautiful thing. It's going through through a lot changes at your age, yes, but they should never use your curiosity to satisfy their sexual needs. Don't allow some of these stories to be an example of what is acceptable to occur in your own life if you were ever to encounter a similar situation, especially if fiction is all that you have to compare it to. It is not in any way, shape, or form okay for an adult to say or do sexual/romantic things to you. Even a conversation that may seem harmless at first could have dire consequences. No, not even if you trust them and they're one of your favorite people in this world are these things ever appropriate. What they're asking from you or showing you is dangerous, and even if it doesn't seem like it they are very likely taking advantage of you. If you're ever unsure about something, don't hesitate to come to me. Or maybe you have a loved one that you can go to, that works too. 😊

Idk if I even gave you a definite answer, but perhaps it's because I'm still figuring it out myself. If I ever do, ha! I hope by allowing you to get inside my head for a little bit you got a better idea. Or maybe not, and I just made it more confusing for you. Oops! lol Feel free to hit me up again, dear, and have a nice day/night!! 👋

Voltron Foster Care AU

That time when you get so mad about Voltron’s failed found family trope that you build an AU based entirely around the idea of the Paladins finding each other and fighting to be a family.

It starts with Anthony and Honerva Zarkon.

Anthony Zarkon--from here on out simply Zarkon--is the mayor of a major city in Arizona with political aspirations and a horde of inherited wealth.

Honvera is a surgeon with an intense interest the limitations of the human body. She has ideas for enhancement and human modification that’s she’s desperate to try out.

Problem is that Honvera’s experiments are such that no sane human being (and here “sane” means “legally able to consent”) would agree to them. 

Honvera isn’t about to let something little like ethics to stop her. She starts thinking about how to get around this pesky “do no harm” rule and realizes that children present an interesting opportunity. 

Now typically children run into the same problem as anyone else--absolutely no parent is going to consent to this, so that’s mostly a no go. But if the children are legally Honvera’s... Then things get interesting.

Of course, Honvera would never touch a hair on her precious baby Lotor’s head (and he’ll be reaching eighteen soon anyway). But there are other options. 

And this is when Honvera hits on foster care.

It’s an ingenious idea that accomplishes two things.

 First, it looks good for Zarkon’s political career, taking in these poor, underprivileged kids and giving them a home. 

And second, it gives Honvera free rein as their legal guardian to completely circumvent consent and experiment as she pleases.

Enter Takashi Shirogane, a nine-year-old with a chronic muscular disease that might be able to be treated with physical therapy and the right drugs or might be indicative of something much worse. The state hasn’t had the resources to figure it out yet.

In swoops Honvera with her MD and impressive credentials, claiming that Takashi’s condition is almost certainly terminal but she has access to experimental treatments that could save his life. And the Zarkons are a good family with strong standing in the community it--it seems like the perfect match.

Honvera certainly thinks so. Takashi’s pre-existing condition gives her license to throw around any treatment or diagnosis with no questions asked.

In fact, Honvera thinks it works so well, that the Zarkons take in four more foster children.

Shiro tries to fight against any more children being placed with the Zarkons, but he’s nine and he’s not able to articulate “misdiagnosis” and “excessive invasive operations”. All he knows how to say is that procedures scare him, and his social worker tells him “it’s for your own good, honey. Dr. Honvera is helping you.”

By the time Keith, Hunk, Lance, and Pidge (aged 5-6) arrive, Shiro knows two things: 

1) The social workers aren’t going to believe him.

2) If anyone is going to actually raise these kids, it’s not going to be the Zarkons.

Naturally, Shiro decides these kids are his responsibility.

For the next five years, they survive by working together and coming up with increasingly creative ways of fighting back/rebelling.

They each have a role in the “surviving the fosters” act:

Keith and Pidge both become very sneaky and very good at getting into things they shouldn’t. 

Hunk keeps track food, first aid, and other essentials, making sure they have stashes the Zarkons won’t find.

Lance is a distraction extraordinaire.

And Shiro keeps track of all of them, organizes their escapes and raids on the kitchen, helps with the homework (because good grades are essential to Zarkon’s image), and does everything he can give them a glimpse at a normal childhood. 

The kids know that any problem that they have from “I broke a frame and Zarkon’s going to kill me” to bullies at school, they can bring it to Shiro and he’ll fix it.

Shiro doesn't actually know how to fix any of it. Mostly he just takes the fall for it and doesn’t let them see when it hurts him.

Honvera experiments on all of them, but Shiro is still her favorite. He’s in and out of surgery a lot.

During recovery, the roles flip, and the others are the ones taking care of Shiro 

Honvera is fascinated by surprisingly positive effects of this amateur caregiving.

(She is also fascinated by how the best way to guarantee compliance from the others is to threaten to hurt Shiro. And how Shiro is the same but more so with regard to the others.)

Honvera’s experiments escalate throughout the years they’re with the Zarkons, cumulating in removing Shiro’s right arm just before he turns 15 and replacing it with a prosthetic of her own design.

To Honvera’s credit, it is an incredible feat of engineering. To very much not Honvera’s credit, Shiro did not require a prosthetic until she sawed his right arm off.

Still, it’s not until Shiro suspects that Lotor has creepy intentions for Lance that he realizes his found-siblings aren’t safe in the Zarkon house anymore and he can’t protect them there.

Once again, Shiro goes to his social worker, but this time he refuses to back down until they take him seriously.

The Zarkons’ have too much social standing to face legal action, but Shiro and his now-siblings get out and the Zarkons are banned from fostering more children.

This is good, but no family is prepared for five foster kids, especially four pre-teens and one teenager, all at least a bit damaged and deeply suspicious of authority. Shiro is the first to be separated, but eventually they all end up in different homes. 

It takes a year for them to find each other again, by which time they’ve all experienced their own little traumas on their own.

Shiro had actually hoped in a different home, his siblings would be looked after better than he could.

(Even if he misses being around them more than he can hardly stand).

But when Shiro finds them again--or more accurately, they find him--he’s forced to realize that, No. No one is taking care of his siblings at all.

And once again, Shiro decides if not a single freaking actual adult is going to do their job and raise his siblings, he’ll do it HIMSELF. 

For two years, they keep in touch over messaging apps, library computers, and their own specifically developed code, and Shiro darts around the state rescuing them from the ridiculous to scary situations they find themselves in.

Meanwhile, Shiro is doing everything he can to establish himself as a stable, responsible party to the establishment. As soon as he turns eighteen, he starts fighting for his siblings and he doesn’t stop until he has custody of every single one of them.

So we come to the ‘now’ of the story:

Shiro and his siblings move out of state as soon as they can. They have had enough of the state of Arizona screwing them over, thank you very much.

Shiro is starting college partly because he actually wants to attend and prove he can do it. And mostly because he knows if he doesn’t, none of his sibling will be they can either and that’s unacceptable.

But, despite finally having his family all together like they’ve wanted ever since they got separated, things aren’t all rosy

They’re all traumatized, both from their time in the Zarkon household and just from growing up in the system. This manifests in a myriad of ways. From Keith starting fights and Lance’s risky behavior to Hunk’s anxiety attacks and Pidge’s massive issues with authority.

Shiro in particular is convinced that if he is ever seen as less than “perfect”, the state will take them all away again. 

None of this is helped by Shiro’s definite and seemingly worsening PTSD.

In short, they’re a mess and constantly teetering on the edge of disaster.

But Shiro’s determined to keep them together. They’re family. They didn’t survive this long to fail now. Just because the rest of the world has given up on them, doesn’t mean Shiro will.

Shiro will do whatever it takes to make sure they make it.

Whatever.

It.

Takes.

come hell or high water

anon requested some theo and boris hurt/comfort that surrounds self-harm. i put it all under the cut for y’all’s consideration. content warning for the obvious, but also know: it is not explicit or graphic, but more so a very pointed, minor exploration of the discovery of a loved one with destructive habits (based on my own experiences)

from the beginning, it’s just easier for boris to say that They were from when he’s fallen as a stumbling drunk, or that they’re reminders of interactions with his father. it’s just easier that way. put the blame somewhere else but directly in front of him-- something he has to explain, when he himself doesn’t really have a coherent one.

why does he do it? he couldn’t tell anyone-- definitely not his theo-- for the life of him. it stopped being clean and organized and what people expected from a depressed high schooler ages ago. he no longer sounded like the mopey degenerate from an after-school special. he just sounded confused. which he was. he always was.

why was this happening? to him, to theo, to any one on earth? why was love balanced with destruction, rather than just neutral apathy? why did the world try to kill passion rather than just ignore it-- it’d die all on its own anyway.

since moving to vegas, the occasional mistake became a Habit. his Habit. it became the quickest answer and resolution when everything around him seemed so out of control. did it actually fix anything? not the way boris hoped, the way boris needed. but it was a way he felt like he was doing something. he could have the control and power to do something when everything was being done for him. being done to him.

he was sixteen before anyone noticed what he was doing. it wasn’t completely by design that boris would hide everything for years. he just knew it was no one’s business but his own. or at least, that’s how everything felt-- so why would This be any different.

then again, boris hadn’t had theo in russia or australia or sweden. he hadn’t had a friend. hadn’t had someone who cared about the rest of boris’s life-- because it was also their own.

it was a wednesday night in the middle of yet another melting summer. it was close to two in the morning. boris wasn’t drunk anymore but still felt dizzy. he and theo had been watching movies and passing a bottle of vodka since sunset. one of the movies-- one that was cut up by a thousand different commercials-- had upset boris in some copper-tasting way, settling deep in his stomach and nearly puncturing through him. he couldn’t remember what he’d seen or heard, but he could feel it shift in his chest. he’d swallowed something more than alcohol.

he sat up in his bed, shirt off and staring down at himself. he was procrastinating as always-- but he never knew why. maybe it was some losing part of himself trying to speak up. he was interrupted, and admittedly grateful.

“boris?” he thought theo had gone home. boris’s father hadn’t been home in two days; boris thought he was all alone. theo had his hand on the door, holding it open. his eyes were trying to figure out where on his upper body they could land. “what are you doing?”

still, boris wasn’t doing anything. he was just sitting with It sitting in his hand, bending it lightly between his fingers. It was flimsy and cheap-- he’d stolen it last week when theo was looking at the snack aisle.

“potter, is nothing i swear.”

“what are you holding.” theo sounded angry, but mostly from his own uncertainty. most certainly because boris wasn’t about to answer him, and theo knew that. but at least theo could then hold the silence as acknowledgement.

“is nothing. just, uh, just nothing.” boris answered like he was fall asleep. he couldn’t help it.

“boris--” 

the stalemate could go on forever. theo didn’t want to believe the pieces laid out to him, and boris didn’t want to admit to anything. they were just trying to protect each other.

“boris... boris, what are you--” theo staggered into his room but he wasn’t drunk. “hey-- put that down. put it down.”

boris placed it on his pant leg slowly and held his hands up-- all empty-- and looked back at theo. his throat felt tight and he could still taste copper in his mouth-- or was it just blood? was he bleeding already, his mouth filling up like he was prepared to drown?

it felt like he’d been chewing gum on an empty stomach. his mouth felt dry but he couldn’t stop swallowing. maybe this was what suffocating felt like. maybe. 

boris couldn’t look away from theo. that would be somehow far worse: to feel, even for a moment, that he was alone in that room.

“boris, is everything okay?”

of course it was. of course it wasn’t. of course of course. never and always.

“am just...” It didn’t like being spoken aloud. It always came out wrong-- never enough explanation but without any accompanying articulation. it was an island of emotions: no way to or from it. “yes.”

“i’m staying over.”

it wasn’t a strange announcement, but the understanding was new. theo wasn’t going home-- was staying in boris’s house-- for a reason beyond the lack of motor function to make it home without hurting himself. theo was saying it like boris would argue. like he had the energy to do so.

“okay.” he said. he was so scared, but he felt he could fall right asleep. his muscles felt like they were flattening. “should i get more vodka from downstairs?”

“what? no. boris, no. we’re not drinking any more tonight.” theo shook his head as he got onto boris’s bed.

boris felt like he’d never had anyone so close to him. theo looked down at his leg, then at his bare upper body. his bedroom lighting was dim, but the shadows weren’t very good with disguises. he’d been far less dressed in front of theo before, but never this naked. never undressed at a point when theo would genuinely be looking at how his body looked. seeing what had happened to it.

theo was taller than he had been when he first moved, his legs folding up under himself, but still hitting boris’s own leg. boris moved his hand to avoid it.

“boris, say something, please.”

“what can i say?” boris was genuine. “what do you think.”

“what’s going on.” theo splayed his fingers and carefully picked It up from boris’s leg. boris didn’t flinch. he kept staring at theo, trying to see through his glasses. trying to get closer. “i was right here. sitting with you, less than an hour ago. what happened? did i say something?”

“no,” boris crossed his arms over his chest, as if prepping to have more to say. “no.”

“then what was it, huh? you don’t just sober up and then-- boris, this is crazy.”

“crazy...” okay, seemed about right.

“no-- that’s not the right word. fuck, uh, fuck... come on, come on... SAT word, theo come on-- this is just, it’s a lot, boris. this is a very particular change in mood. what happened. talk to me, i want you to talk to me”

boris wanted, more than anything, to be able to talk.

“i don’t know.”

“that’s bullshit.”

“i don’t know.” boris repeated. “i do not know.”

“boris you were-- what do you mean?” theo placed his hand on boris’s arm and pulled on his wrist. he uncrossed boris’s arms. he had privileged to see them. he was the only one. “what are you talking about? you don’t know?”

“i-- no.” boris shifted, his arms falling limp in theo’s hands. “i do not feel good. is like... being full... but of emptiness. am choking.”

“oh. oh boris.”

he knew it didn’t make sense, but for some reason, theo looked at him like he understood. like something had clicked. it couldn’t have. it barely settled with boris: how could It get easier when sharing with someone else?

“i’m here now, okay? you’re not-- you’re not alone. i’m here.” what he meant to say was: i’m listening, but they both knew this was as far as the conversation could go. there wasn’t anything more to share, only things left to give. “i-- i don’t know how we’d get there but... do you need to go somewhere? are you-- is everything okay?”

“go somewhere?”

“i’m sure there’s a hospital nearby. i can call a taxi or-- maybe xandra-”

“hospital? why are we going to hospital? i am not bleeding. am not hurt.”

“i know, i know, but if you needed...” he grabs boris’s hands and it felt like theo was reaching into his chest. somehow they kept getting closer. “if you needed someone other than me. i can get you someone to talk to.”

“no. do not want to talk to anyone. no one please.” leaving his room felt impossible, especially now that theo was beside him. usually everything seemed so far away, so out of reach, but for once it was right there.

“are you sure? i want you to be sure. i want you to be okay.” theo dropped boris’s wrists and held his face. he pushed his hair back, his fingers getting tangled in his unwashed, matted curls. boris tried to twist his face out of theo’s grip, ducking and turning away. “no no, let me look at you.”

boris stilled scared simply by the words. it felt like an investigation to something boris was sure he’d done, despite not knowing the accusation. theo stared closely at boris’s eyes, boris nearly able to see himself in the reflection of theo’s glasses. he avoided the confrontation.

he let theo pour over him, simply because he was unsure if he was in a position to refuse. maybe his procrastination had been to for this. to wait to feel this. theo soothingly pushed boris’s hair around, checking his pupils and tugging a blanket around his shoulders.

boris wondered, silently, what theo was seeing. if he was looking for anything, or just trying to learn from boris’s body what he couldn’t say. he didn’t spend too much time fussing over one area of him, not making a big deal about the things that boris was so obviously and already embarrassed about.

just by being found, boris wasn’t suddenly cured-- or whatever the proper word could’ve been-- but instead could feel the backup of shame and anxiety climbing in his chest, ready to be attached to his Habit the moment he was alone again. the moment he was all alone again. even when he was with theo, he could feel it already starting.

theo’s thumbs started tracing the Ones on boris’s shoulders as he held him again. “when did you start This?” theo spoke Its name, but boris pretended they were strangers.

“long time ago. was just... how things happened. no one ever notice-- knew father and then, They just became part of consequences. no one ever asked.”

“what do you wish they asked you?” theo’s thumbs stopped.

“nothing.” boris said, blinking. “wish they would just speak instead. is not hard to say hello, yes? say that i am... that i am okay. not a question, something they are unsure of-- are adult, should have answers for child-- should be sure. am okay. boris, you are okay! you are okay now and are going to be, when you think are not.”

“boris.” theo removed his glasses and took boris’s face again. he tucked hair behind both his ears. “you are okay. and, if you aren’t-- and i know you’re not-- we are going to make sure you are.”

“you sound so sure.”

“you always are when you make promises.” theo said. he was trying not to squint and brought boris’s face closer to his own. “it’s you making demands with the universe.”

boris twisted again, the copper taste still melting across his tongue. he could only feel the impulse to apologize. “pfft. you are still drunk.”

"you’re gonna be okay, boris.” theo said, disregarding the comment. “i’m not leaving. we’re... we’re going to get through this.”

“and, you promise.” boris was trying to stomach the reality. keep it down and let it settle warmly in his stomach-- rather than violently or with sickening heaviness. it was a promise. not a threat.

“i promise, boris.” theo rested his forehead against boris’s. the closest he could be. the safest boris could think to be. “come hell or high water, i promise.”

We really ignoring Horobi murdering Izu who not trying to kill him and the fact while he didn’t started this cycle. He sure as hell doing himself no favors by murdering Izu who Artuo closet ally and act all surprised when Artuo hate him. Not acknowledging he the cause for this malice in Artuo. Should Artuo still try to get though to him even though he murder Izu who got no back up compare to Jin who died before and can very well be bought back again?

…

Uh.

Can I just ask… Why are you on my blog? It’s not like I’ve been subtle about my love for Horobi. And you must be on my blog bc I’m pretty sure I haven’t put any of those thoughts in the main tag, and have been carefully tagging them as complaining/negativity/opinions/salt.

1) I’m not saying Horobi was ‘right,’ I’m saying he isn’t in a sane place right now and this wasn’t a ‘cold blooded murder,’ esp bc I’m pretty sure he understands that he regrets it now. He’s been trained for more than ten years to respond to things w/ extremity and violence, as evidenced by the Ark having him repeatedly take out or try to take out things/people that were making him feel in any way—what happened w/ Midori, why he was driven to attack Jin in 41. From Horobi’s extremely damaged and fucked up perspective, he just wanted to make the pain and confusion go away. He didn’t try to hunt out Izu, she approached him, and knowingly endangered herself. Which is why I’m also calling the fact that we’ve seen Izu move faster than a car, she could have dodged the shot and didn’t, so it’s ineffective as drama bc it was easily preventable. I’m calling bs on the writing.

2) Horobi’s definitely not surprised that Aruto hates him? He might be surprised that Aruto went full Ark (I am, too, that feels out of character, I would’ve expected him to just go regular berserk on his own). I’m not saying it’s wrong for Aruto to be mad. Like I just said, I would have expected him to go berserk on his own, which might have ended up leading to Jin’s death anyway. Like… Where did you get that. Actually don’t answer that. Aruto getting angry and going after Horobi would have been one thing, though the way he went Ark is weird to me. What bugs me is the way it’s being treated/reacted to as a ‘black and white’ situation when it should be more grey. Horobi is mentally unwell, and there were multiple factors at work/responsible for the situation. This isn’t just ‘Horobi is a bad person it’s all his fault.’ This is also ‘contrived drama by the writers who are hoping we forgot Izu can break land-speed records.’

2.5) I’m not expecting Aruto to reach out to him at this point. Hell, I’m not even saying ‘forgive’ him, even though I think by this point Horobi has figured out he regrets it. What should really happen is someone else intervenes and keeps them away from each other until both are more stable. Really, someone should have stepped in to control that on both ends. Aruto shouldn’t have been left alone. Neither of them should have. I do think more effort should have gone into reaching out to him before it happened. If they hadn’t been alone in there/if someone w/ a little more ‘emotional/mental experience’ had been present, things might’ve gone differently.

3) Izu still not having a back up is ridiculous, literally everyone knows Aruto is Zero-One, this feels like just terrible planning/lack lustre writing imo, and on top of that, Horobi didn’t know she had no backup. Still doesn’t make his reaction ‘okay,’ bc violence is never the answer, but he’s shown before he believes in bringing AI back through backups, so it may not even have occurred to him that she wouldn’t have one. Additionally, we don’t know Jin has a back up. We can’t say he ‘can very well be brought back again’ bc we don’t actually know that. We don’t know if ZAIA kept that data, Williamson just said they ‘repaired’ him. And that’s also it, even if it exists, ZAIA has it. Not Horobi. Also… This is KR, they could figure out some MacGyver to bring Izu back, even if it’s not clear now, though that’s more of a meta thing. Actually, what I would love to happen is Horobi helps bring her back, maybe as part of therapy.

Look, disagreeing is fine. That’s why I’ve been trying to keep my negative reactions out of the main tag. I’m not trying to get into fights, I’m just venting. I’m analysing what I see and interpret. It’s not that Horobi was ‘right’ it’s that he’s mentally and emotionally unstable rn bc of what happened to him, he should not be expected to know how to react calmly to things, esp if under pressure and in an intense situation. I also literally just wrote a post about how I don’t think it’s fair to blame Izu entirely, either. I comment about blaming the humans (esp Yua and Fuwa (whom I love dearly), but they did escalate the situation and then leave Aruto alone there, wtf did they leave him alone???) bc if they’d listened to Izu at the start we’d likely not be in this mess, or if they’d actually tried to reach out to him before, things could have gone differently.

This is my point of view. If this is upsetting to you, which it seems to be from the tone of this Ask, I recommend blocking my blog, bc these are my feelings on this, and I’m not going to change. I’d block you so that you wouldn’t have to see my posts, but then you wouldn’t be able to see this answer, which I hope explains some of my position, so I’ll leave it for now. Besides, in the end, it’s just a tv show, and it doesn’t actually matter, for all I can get very emotional about things, esp bc Horobi as a character became very important to me.

I hope at least some of that was coherent. I have a hard time articulating my thoughts (part of why I repeat myself so much), and I have been extremely exhausted for the past few days bc my sleep schedule is messed up, so it’s even worse.

I’m not apologising for having an opinion and an interpretation of a piece of media, and I never will. That’s not something I should be required to apologise for. I’m not hurting anyone, bc, again, it’s just a tv show. I’m just in my corner, rambling. I don’t mean any of it as an attack against people who disagree, everyone interpret things differently. For instance, I have things in media that I dislike so much it makes me feel physically ill to think about them, but I just filter them out and it’s fine. I’m even on friendly terms (I hope?) w/ people who like some of those things that make me feel sick, but it’s fine, bc we just don’t discuss them. I know people I disagree about things w/, less viscerally, and have actually had discussions w/ them about that stuff.

Having differing opinions is one thing, but I don’t appreciate the aggressive tone here. I’m saying this partially bc I do understand getting very fired up about something, even if it’s fictional (*looks pointedly at my own blog*), so I’m assuming you just feel very strongly on the subject, but please be aware of how your words might come across—bc the another part of the reason I’m saying this is that I know if I had been in a slightly different mood when I saw this, it might have greatly upset me to unwell levels. I hope it was not your intention to attack me on anything, and that this is just something you feel passionate about, but as someone who often struggles w/ tone and knows it… Please consider it. It can be harmful.

Remembering Joey Bruno

Originally published in the Sacramento Jazz & Blues Quarterly Bedtime is sometime around dawn. Dinner is usually whatever you want it to be. Shall we go to Iceland? Festivals, fliers, wristbands, Sharpies on skin, smoke, grass, hash, molasses, sky, blue, crisp, clear sky. And yet I’m still writing all this within a grey airport terminal, locked into some kind of strange Druid-esque ritual with pen and paper. Deadline is tomorrow, where were you when you were supposed to be working? Don’t have any answers for now, just that I need to write and get it out to my boss within the next day. Or two. It wouldn’t have been the first deadline blown. But think, distract myself with the McDonald’s coffee and keep putting down adjectives and phrases from places I’ve been, things I’d seen, dreams I’d never have again with people I’ve never met and music I had. 40 minutes till boarding starts, I’ll be last, of course. It pays enough to fly but not enough to enjoy it. Been getting harder and harder to deal with the travel, at any rate. Starting to notice the spell everyone is under, the sleepwalking nature of the corporate employee. It had only been noticeable after it had been broken, which I had no problem doing, ever. When your home is a hotel you take your shots however you can get them, besides it wasn’t like you have to live in any particular town past a few days at most. Half-heartedly started keeping a list of rejections and their professions, making sure to note that there was only one waitress on the list, most were from bookstores or places where there was an escape for all parties. Don’t need to make it more awkward than it has to be. Sorry, I didn’t mean, then the words fade off into the ocean. On the edge of nowhere, like a little seaside town. Maybe that’s where I’d like to end up, like a lifeguard in the post-apocalypse, no responsibilities, just looking cool for the seagulls. How many life guards had I asked out? Not many, either way. Concerts didn’t go well with water, not in my experience. Can’t seem to find a way to write about anything other than something on the present times, life and times. I struggle, already flipped through the notebooks to jog the memory with some tit and tat that had to be discarded for the sake of length from another article. Or two. Or four. Or 12. Throwing yourself to the wolves, towards and into the meat grinder that one might just pay the bills with the right amount of ink in the right places on a blank piece of paper. Who cares about music festivals and pop culture when there’s McDonald’s coffee and the cold inside of an airplane to look forward to? Four times I’d attempted to ask about an airline attendant’s relationship status, thrice I’d been rejected. Once she’d pretended not to hear me and instead moved to the opposite end of the plane for the remainder or the flight. Understandable, no harm done. No harm done. By anyone, right? Who said this was ever going to be a love story, you and I?

College had been a breeze, not that I’m bragging. State schools were like that, at least then, and Californ-I-A’s were no different. No doubt now there’s better options available for where I was at when I had to decide where to go to school, but there you are. A degree in journalism is a degree in journalism, and I had little else to go on other than my love of music, substances, travel, female company, and a shocking talent at being able to string together sentences. In a way it’s always given me a bit of a guilty feeling. I never sat down and really worked at learning or improving with regards to writing, I just sort of could do it. That’s the short version of how I found my niche of a career, one I thought I could exploit anyway. Turns out I was right, and in a way it was everything I could (and did!) hope for. Except everybody’s got to grow up sometimes, and I did, regrettably. There’s only so many hungover mornings a human being can take before they’re permanently reduced to a shambling, sickly mess of what used to be a humanoid organism, and I had certainly put myself on that path. Got off of it, thanks to the countless AA meetings I made myself go to, but I digress. That had been the first mark on the wall of things that I could no longer enjoy about the gig, the fact that now I had to do the whole thing sober. The hardest substance I have confidence I can enjoy responsibly now is coffee, and even then the ugly demon of acid reflux put me back in my place before too long. Suddenly all the kids were much more annoying than usual, the travel a hassle, the food revolting, and the music itself just kind of bad, which was the real heartbreaker. Some days before it had been all to keep me going, minus the women, which were always a constant. “Festival sluts” is the term you’ll want to Google (or DuckDuckGo) if you’re curious about what I mean, also colloquially known as upper middle class girls whose parents were too busy working to devote anything past a friendly “hullo” to their children, and thus succeeded in raising a bunch of hedonistic, attention-desperate, and morally naïve young people with excess income and too much time to spend it all in. Nasty ain’t it? But it kept me coming back for more, like the good-natured animal that I am. We all are. That’s the secret that I learned more than anything from the beat, we are all more simple and pleasure driven than we could ever articulate or realize. It’s what keeps the lights on at home, for everything and anything. Probably. Or maybe I’m just bitter. Most of the friends I made during college or were colleagues in my escapades writing about indie rock et al. around the globe are gone now. Burnt out, some burnt up, most just couldn’t hack it anymore and left to go get real jobs at real newspapers. The circus, or pirate ship, as is probably more accurate a nomer, is not for everyone, and rarely does it last forever. Bet you’re wondering where that leaves me. Still bitter, but still coming back for more, just like I was always going to. Always. So why don’t I quit? You tell me. Because I know why.

The finest writer I ever met was a journalist by the name of Joey Bruno, a guy I came across one of the many late nights I spent at the pathetic office of my college’s newspaper. I was editing a freshman’s piece about how the White Album was actually really bad, sighing uncontrollably the whole time, when Mr. Bruno walked in and struck up a conversation with yours truly. I happily engaged, as any activity that didn’t involve that stupid piece of writing was fine by me. He explained that he was friends with the real Editor , who was at his parents’ in Wisconsin for the weekend, and would drop by periodically when he got off work to help out where he could. “Why spend your time working on bad writing by dumb college kids?” I’d asked him. “Free beer, plus it can be fun sometimes. There’s been plenty of stuff come through here that I rewrote beyond all recognition just for fun, and nine times out of ten the original author doesn’t even notice. Good times.” Maybe so, I’d thought. In any case every other Friday or thereabouts I’d get a late night revising buddy to help cull the newspaper’s intimidating stack of submissions. It was in those early morning hours that I came to the conclusion that I wanted to become a music journalist, mostly from talking to Mr. Bruno about his own adventures. But I don’t think I listened, not really. Maybe if I had I’d be off this conveyor belt by now, but then again maybe not. Maybe I’d never have started. One night in particular while we were enjoying our cigarettes, coffee, and beer (all courtesy of the newspaper of course), he retailed me with a story of his long lost love, a girl he’d known briefly in the California punk scene of the late 80s. I was instantly entranced. “It was a magical time,” he’d said to me while stroking his magnificent beard. “But I’m glad it’s over now. It was getting messy there at the end,” I brought up how those little parts of the world, at that time were being romanticized an awful lot in contemporary media then. “And for good reason, too.” He’d responded wistfully. “A lot of great things happened for a lot of good people. It was about as close to the 60s as anyone came since then, I think. That much hope,” And this is where he began to tell his story, the story of “the rebel known as ‘Justine,’” as he’d put it. However it had happened, the two had come into contact through the various zines they’d each produced and sent out to the other punks in town. The closest thing to an internet forum for back then was to just be louder than everyone else, apparently. That was the only real way to get heard, to start a dialogue of some kind. That or take your chances at the shows, which they did anyway, but there wasn’t much talking going on there. Joey had written to Justine complimenting her on “Pop!,” which was her way of pushing her radical politics and militant-feminist views out on to the unsuspecting public behind the thin-façade of a bubblegum periodical. The art had been good, and the writing made everyone Joe showed it to laugh out loud, so he made a point to let the author know, whoever they were. There was an address included in the back for people to write in, so he did just that. He also included a copy of his own creation, the somewhat popular (in those circles anyway) “Buzz ‘n’ Stuff.” “What was it about?” I asked as my friend rolled himself another cigarette. “Nothing really, I just sort of made stuff about interesting things I found at the library then slapped it together in that. It seemed to work. I remember the one I sent her had something about how to get popped bubblegum out of your hair without cutting it all off, so I think that’s what got her interested. There wasn’t anything of value or substance in there, let’s be real,” Joey took another swig of his beer and reached into the cooler below his desk for another, being sure to throw me one too like a sport. “Thanks, boss. But continue, you got me interested now,” So he did. It had started slowly, really, with the trading of zines and letters, the occasional patch or pin by mail too. Eventually after a lengthy correspondence they made a plan to meet up at a concert, The Vandals to be precise. Joey had taken painstaking measures to show up in the most hip clothing of the day, studded leather jacket, combat boots, the whole nine yards. “I looked like a freak,” he told me with a chuckle. “But then I saw her,” Justine had arrived looking like everything and nothing Joey had expected her to. She had the familiar punk gear, Doc Martins and an army jacket covered in patches and safety pins, but the rest of what she had on departed from the norm drastically. It had been some bizarre cross between a punk, hippy, and cult leader all in one, macabre golden jewelry offsetting the “meat is murder” t shirt underneath. “It was great,” said Joey. “People were afraid of her at that show. She looked really scary,” They hit it off and had a jolly old time watching The Vandals play, and later they found themselves alone on a hill overlooking the suburbs, talking about the issues and passing a joint back and forth. It was all music to my ears, as it would be for most any young person, I suspect. “Tell me more,” I’d implored. These were fantasies that I needed fulfilled. Joey paused and rocked back and forth in his chair contently for a few seconds before he complied. My heart sank before he spoke. “We were inseparable after that first time. It really was something. We could go anywhere, do anything, and we would always end up on the same page somehow. It was easily the deepest spiritual, emotional, whatever you want to call it connection I’ve ever had with another human being, let alone girlfriend. But then a year or two later her Mom moved her and her brother up to Connecticut to be closer to the rest of their family. Last I heard she went to school in Maine, but that was it as far as we were concerned. Finito,” He smiled through all this as though recalling some rosy-cheeked memory but I was aghast. “What do you mean that’s it? You didn’t try to follow her or anything?” Joey just laughed. “Yeah, that was really an option at 17 without a car or money. It was just something that happened when we were kids, nothing really. I’m glad it happened at all, now.” Well then. What do you make of that? The conversation drifted pretty heavily after that point, as it always did when Joey and I got to jabbering and drinking, and as usual it was stories of the times he’d been on tour years later with Ozzy Osbourne or The Stooges or someone, then got to interview them endlessly and write about it. The usual vices were there as well in his stories, the drugs, the travel, the women, the glamor, the romance. But it all left pretty quickly once the novelty wore off, hence why Joey had quit after a few years and moved back home to Sacramento. When I knew him at the college newspaper he was a jazz correspondent, if you can wrap your head around that, for several of the snootier publications in the area. “I skipped to the fun part,” he told me. “The shows never get old, now. Plus jazz cats have the best shit,” he said with a wink. I probably just laughed, I don’t know, maybe downed the rest of my beer. I’ll be bound to have another once I get on the plane, off to Finland this time. Apparently it’s festival season in Scandinavia and its surrounding territories. Guess I’ll be writing about that all then though, from a different airport terminal that looks just like this one, with coffee and food and cigarettes and beer that shortens the life as much as the ones that came before. I could go on, but I won’t, for both our sake. There’s no moral to be gleaned from all this just a simple explanation of the reality, and how I’m passing the time in the airport by writing this, because I said I would. I promised. It’s my group now, and I have to go.

Loathly - Chapter 3

Here is Chapter 3 of my “Sir Gawain and the Dame Ragnell” Malex AU.  Enjoy!

Previous parts are here on AO3.

Warnings for some homophobia, threats of violence, ageism and sexism.

***

The day arrives, and Jesse breezes back to the old woman’s cottage, all pomp and circumstance. There’s always tension around Jesse, but it’s heightened now. 

“I wish to see the hag,” he announces.

Alex’s jaw tightens.  “Do you mean the Lady Guerin, father?”

Jesse scowls at him.  “Yes.  Lady Guerin. The hag.”

Alex shakes his head a bit. “She is saving your life.”

Jesse scoffs.  “Have you gone soft for your bride to be?”

Flint laughs at that.  “I think soft is the only thing Alex can be with a woman.”

Gregory stifles a laugh, but Jesse just holds up a hand.  “Bring her to me, now.”

Alex bites back a retort, goes to the door of the cottage, knocks twice.  Lady Guerin opens the door after a few moments, revealing an outfit Alex has never seen before – a simple dress, cheap, even, but overlaid with a beautiful cloak, trimmed in gold thread and seed pearls.  It’s long on the woman, as if it had been made for someone taller.

“Good morning to you, Lady Guerin.”

“And good morning to you, Sir Alex.” She peeks around him, raises an eyebrow inconspicuously.  “The King is here, I see.”

“Indeed,” Alex says.  “He wishes to speak to you.”

She sighs, then reaches up to Alex’s tunic, grasps it.  Pulls him in close.  “Your father is a cruel king and a worse man,” she says, voice low.  “I confess that I am torn.  I have his answer, I know it to be true, but…” she pauses, “I find myself contemplating giving him an alternative response.”

Alex’s jaw drops involuntarily.  “My, my lady,” he falters.  “What you are suggesting, it’s – “

“Justice?”

“Treason.”

She releases his tunic, and he stumbles back a bit. Her grip had been surprisingly strong.

“If you cross him, you’ll be dead.  My brothers will see to it.  The… the whole reason you proposed this was for protection. Why even think about endangering yourself?”

She stares at him for a long time, a strange expression on her face. “If you don’t know now, I believe you will find out soon,” she says cryptically, not even waiting for a response before pushing past him, cloak flowing regally behind her.

“Finally!” Flint calls when the Lady Guerin exits the cottage.  “Thought perhaps you two lovebirds were having a tumble.”

“Flint,” Alex says sharply.  He looks to the Lady Guerin to gauge if she is offended, but instead she is just staring at Flint, an amused, almost pitying expression on her face. She straightens, then, and faces Jesse.

“My king,” she says, a bit overdramatically, curtsying low.

“Today is the day.  I would take you with me, but King Noah was very clear that it should be just me. You will remain here under guard until I have safely returned.”  His face goes cold, even colder than usual.  “And if I do not return, you are to be publicly executed, in as painful and creative a way as can be conceived.”

The woman doesn’t even flinch.  “Of course, my king,” she says, so sweetly. 

Jesse glares at her a while longer before drawing himself up to his full height.  “And so, it comes time to tell us all the answer to King Noah’s riddle. What is it that everyone desires most, above all else?”

The woman swallows, and her eyes flick over to Alex, just for a moment, before she answers the king.  “Sovereignty,” she says simply, voice clear and strong.

Jesse’s brow furrows.  “What? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Sovereignty,” the Lady Guerin repeats, “means to be able to rule one’s life as one sees fit.  To not be beholden to the whims and commands of another.”

“That’s nonsense,” Jesse mutters.

“Is it?” Lady Guerin questions, drawing nearer to Jesse.  “It must be easy for you, dear king, to believe the concept to be nonsense.  Irrelevant.  Your own sovereignty is built into the very nature of your station. But consider the peasant woman, totally at the mercy of her husband. The serf toiling under a cruel lord.”  She exhales, continues.  “The dutiful son of a monstrous father.”

By the gods, what is she doing?

But Jesse, Jesse is still in the dark, so focused on his own fate with King Noah, believing the woman to be speaking in hypotheticals… “You’re sure that this is the answer King Noah seeks?”

“Quite sure, my king.”

Jesse regards her warily. “Very well,” he finally says. “You are aware of the consequences, if you have given me this response in jest or error?”

“Well aware,” the woman says, not backing down.  Smiling up at Jesse, in fact.

“Alright,” Jesse says.  “Sovereignty,” he mutters under his breath.  He mounts his fine horse and turns to his two eldest sons.  “I wish for you to ride with me as far as the clearing. Alex, Flint, you are to remain here guarding the Lady Guerin until your brothers return.  With or without me.”

And with that, he’s off, urging his horse onward.

Alex and Flint watch him go, not speaking until he is well out of ear shot.

Flint turns to the Lady Guerin.  “Sovereignty?  Really?” He shakes his head.

“I believe her,” says Alex quietly.

The woman arches an eyebrow.

“Course you do,” Flint mutters. 

Alex watches as the Lady Guerin begins busying herself with preparations for the evening meal.

“What does your father like?” she asks Alex and Flint, nonchalantly.

“Nothing you make is worthy of our father,” Flint says, disdainful.  “But perhaps a fresh-baked loaf or two, and your pheasant stew.”

Alex knows the woman well enough by now that he can see the amusement in her eyes.  “Right away, my good sir.”

She retreats to the cottage to retrieve the large cooking pot.  Flint watches her carefully as she rolls it outside.

“By the gods, she looks like a witch right now, with her cauldron.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “You were the one that wanted stew. What was she supposed to do?”

Flint shakes his head.  “I don’t like her. There’s something about her…”

Alex scoffs.  “You don’t like anyone who’s the least bit different from you.”

Flint gives a mean little smirk.  “Oh, I can appreciate some differences, in a way you can’t.”

“Does everything come back to that, for you?”

Flint shrugs.  Eyes the woman again. “You know, brother,” he says thoughtfully, voice low, “you don’t have to marry her.  We were the only ones there, just us brothers, when father made that deal.  If her answer was indeed correct, which is far from a given, we can kill her before heading home.”

Alex must look shocked, for Flint quickly amends his words.  “Or, or simply leave her here at this godforsaken cottage. She’s completely unfit for court life.”

Alex is gaping at him.  “But, but father made a deal!”

Flint laughs. “As if father’s never gone back on a deal before!  And who in all the kingdoms would believe her word against the word of the king?” He points in her general direction.  “Look at her, Alex, really look.  She’s hideous.  No one would ever believe that King Manes had promised one of his sons to her.”

Alex swallows hard. “She is my betrothed.  No harm is to come to her.” He sets his jaw, looks at Flint.  “Unless she has proven untrue, with her response.”

Flint gives Alex a wry half-smile. “We will see soon enough.”

***

It is nearly sundown, and there is still no sign of Jesse.  The woman is calmly whittling now, a small statue out of wood. It is an odd habit for an older woman, but Alex supposes she has no man in her life. She looks relaxed, calm.

Flint is just the opposite – on edge, suspicious.  He’s sharpening his sword, quite conspicuously, obviously attempting to cow the woman.

It is having… quite the opposite effect, actually.  The woman occasionally looks at Flint in a downright patronizing manner, shakes her head, and resumes her whittling.

“She has lied, I know she has,” Flint says.  “What… what if she is allied with King Noah?  What if he has taken out father and our brothers, and we are next?” His eyes widen.  “She might have drugged the food.”

Alex whirls around.  “Not everyone is so conniving as father.” Flint’s eyes widen, as do Alex’s.  “Forgive me,” Alex says quickly.  “I… I am tense, too, over this whole situation.”

Flint looks at him, and there is a flash of pity.  “No doubt,” he says, softly.  “I… I am grateful it is you, about to sign your life away, rather than me.”

Alex exhales, eyes Flint.  “Why do you think she has lied?” Because to Alex… to Alex her response was perfect.  Sovereignty.  A response he would never have thought of on his own, never articulated in that manner, but perfect nonetheless.  It is not a lie, he knows that. Should his father not return to this clearing, he is certain it is through no trickery of the Lady Guerin.

And just as he is thinking this, King Manes rides into the clearing.

Everyone stands, quickly, including the woman.  Jesse guides his horse right up to her cottage.

“Lady Guerin, you have proven true in your response.” A smile plays at his lips.  “King Noah was most disappointed.”

A complicated expression crosses the Lady Guerin’s face.  “No doubt, my king.”

“We shall ride tomorrow for the castle at Unidos.  We will accompany us, and there, you shall be married to my youngest son, Alex.”

The woman prostrates herself.  It looks uncomfortable.  “You have my sincere gratitude, dear king.”

Jesse leaves her like that for a long moment, stares down at her. “You may rise,” he finally says, and she does. “It has been a long day, and I am in need of nourishment.”

The woman smiles at him, politely.  “There is pheasant stew and fresh-baked bread for your enjoyment, dear king.  Simple fare, but hopefully it will be to your liking.” She eyes the horizon, where the sun is sinking low. “But I must beg that you grant me leave. I am but an old woman, and I must rest before our long journey in the morn. May I retire, my king?”

Jesse actually looks a bit relieved. “Of course, Lady Guerin.”

Well, thinks Alex.  It’s an improvement from ‘hag.’

i said i would elaborate on my thoughts/lore i guess re: dragons n shapeshifted (humanoid) forms and like.. social rules and whatnot around all that.... and then i wrote a ridiculous amount of notes abt the whole thing, oops.

separated into key sections but still very rambly and stream-of-thought overall, bc, when do i not type..... weird. words are eternally difficult for me and thoughts are a struggle to articulate, but i hope any of this.. makes sense? obviously this is largely abt my own clan/dragons/headspace/etc and not like. headcanons about other ppl’s stuff in general or anything like that haha. this is a LOT to read thru so if u actually go thru the whole thing a) wow thank u so much wtf b) perhaps give it a like so i know how u feel. not required but very very appreciated. :^) also deep apology to anyone for whom the read more breaks or something, oh god.

a tl;dr/basic overview

everyone can shift to humanoid/gijinka/person-shaped forms, differing based on their actual look as a dragon

most day-to-day life within the clan is in shifted forms, partly bc of Convenience, partly bc there’s a lot of Social Rules abt being on relatively equal footing w/ one another and keeping things fair and whatnot

using your dragon form to hurt not-dragon form people or even using it to harm smaller dragons is considered a terrible crime, and harming others while they’re mid-transformation is considered the ultimate taboo.

shifting 101:

everybody can shift between dragon/humanoid (gijinka.. however u wanna word this.... yall know what i Mean) form w/ different results--some more dragon-looking and/or generally monstrous, some looking fairly normal/basically like People, But In Rainbow Colors And With Horns. some may keep tails and/or wings or other things like that, but that isn’t especially common

smaller breeds tend to be shorter, bigger breeds tend to be taller, but there are exceptions & outliers! 

shifted forms tend to be pretty 'set' for most dragons, all obviously dependent on their looks as an actual dragon. their shifted form reflects their dragon form, and they can't make drastic changes to their form like changing entire facial structure/shape or body type or overall coloring.  however, dragons with stronger magic abilities/connections/powers/etc usually tend to have more freedom of their own form and may be able to change certain features at will--not entire faces or body shapes, but things like hair, nails, sometimes even patterns from genes (esp. tert genes)

dragons that are like, deity level or otherwise some sort of not-entirely/not-actually-a-dragon all-powerful creature or w/e usually have MUCH more freedom to change their form completely, if they so choose.

transformation is at will (and cant be done or undone unconsciously... ie a sleeping-in-shifted-form person is Not gonna turn back into dragon form in their sleep) and happens fairly quick for most, usually no long&slow weird animorph-esque thing, though it isn't all in a flash either--usually! once again on the "dragons with More/Better Magic Skillz" concept, a very magic-powerful dragon can usually shift much quicker than others. a "finger snap puff of smoke boom you're done" level of speed is Very Rare, but not unheard of. dragons who are either very young or simply not very talented w/ magic may take longer than others. the largest & smallest breeds also take a bit longer due to having to shrink down/size up every time. all this said, it never takes more than like, 15-20 seconds at Most, and even that range is considered Very Slow. it’s a short window, generally!

things like injury or sickness can make shifting difficult, but typically only like........... basically if you're literally dying you're probably not gonna be able to do it. having a broken leg or the flu shouldn't impact ability much, but bleeding out in the boneyard? ain't gonna make it work, buddy.

idk how clothes work lmfao. they just shift with the dragon i guess? sure. let's go with that. all clothes are magic now. i don't think EVERYTHING through, ok?

ok cool but Why Shift:

shifted forms make for much easier living-together-in-a-big-clan, especially in situations (like my own clan itself) where everyone lives in, y'know, buildings. houses and castles and churches and whatnot. it takes a lot more effort and resources and whatnot to build a house big enough for imperials to comfortably live in in dragon form than it does to just build a regular-sized house that a spiral & a ridgeback both can settle into & live comfortably in in shifted form or smth, yknow. it’s easier to accommodate people than dragons! 

communication & relationships can also be easier to deal with if you are all Relatively Close to the same size range. less leaning down or flying up to try and talk to your friend/coworker/partner/rival/whatever. part of this is also influenced by The Rules About Being On An Even Playing Field We Will Get To In A Moment

for many dragons its just easier to do things like art, music, crafting, writing, or working w/ small & delicate things, etc etc when you have proper hands and lot funky dragon claws. much of the more mundane reasons for these forms is just For Convenience's Sake!

that said, obvs. certain things are easier/preferred to stay in dragon form to do--traveling, for one, since, y'know, Dragons Can Fly, Usually. hunting & gathering is usually done in dragon form as well, though not 100% of the time. maybe u want to be a big and powerful dragon to go take down wild animals for food but just like, chill out w ur buds in person-shape to go have a relaxing fishing trip by the lake. it's up 2 u really.

sometimes dragon forms are preferred for fighting in general, esp against beasts, or if you are a lone dragon trying to protect yourself from threats, etc. in the case of smaller breeds especially, they can also be preferred for making a quick escape instead! (sometimes this is seen as Cowardly to do, but yknow, it’s an Option.)

aaaaaaand now we can get to The Rules which is where things become less abt convenience & common sense and more about my own........... we can call it lore? i guess? sure. it's lore. ok.

The Rules:

all the "for convenience" reasons aside, there are many largely unspoken but VERY important social rules regarding shifting and when you "should" or "should not" be in which form. within my clan/characters/headspace/etc etc it's all just sort of a known thing/smth ur raised knowing, there isn't like, an actual rulebook or smth anyone has to figure out. 

much of these rules are about being on an equal playing field, both socially & in battle. the social rules are much more important & strict within clan living areas, ie. the walls of cities and whatnot. things can get more loose & informal if ur like, out travelling thru the wasteland or wilds or whatever.

it's considered VERY rude to enter/generally be inside buildings in dragon form, usually, unless you're just like... popping in real quick to deliver smth or say hi or whatever.. and you can fit inside said building... and know the ppl there and whatnot... etc...... if you dragon out while already inside somewhere that's usually seen as like, a threat of some sort. due to how much construction & architecture & living spaces are shaped and whatnot, it's deemed unnecessary to bother with dragon forms inside the clan's walls in general, but especially within buildings, bc jesus christ dude ur gonna hit the ceiling or break stuff with your wings or something. be polite.

social interaction in general, esp. when Formal or in work/work-like settings, is seen as something usually meant more for shifted forms... some dragons who are very close, ie family & mates, can be fine in dragon form around each other, bc of the mix of informality & Trust. typically, if you want to have a conversation with someone and Not be seen as impolite or even hostile, shifted form is key. this falls back very much to the fact that dragons come in such VASTLY different sizes, from imps down to faes, and it's seen as unfair and often threatening to present oneself as a giant monster to whom others have to talk to, or as a tiny little creature either down on the floor or flitting around the room. shifted forms have about as much height/size variance as we do as humans, which can be A Lot, and some individuals can be even smaller or bigger than regular people bc Hey Its Fantasy, but generally speaking no People-Shaped height difference is going to be as crazy as dragons' can be.

basically, if you walk into the throne room or the church or anywhere Important & Protected and you're not in shifted form, you WILL be seen as either physically threatening the leadership or as an extremely arrogant & disrespectful fool. walking into shops/businesses in general as a dragon makes you look like you're trying to like, rob the place or smth. even just moving about the streets of the town as a dragon is weird, rude, and will make people uneasy. not to mention it’s potentially destructive!

everything comes back to the idea of being relatively similar in size/shape, in being close enough to equal in ability, strength, weakness, etc, barring the obvious difference that yes some people are stronger/more trained than others, some better at magic, etc etc. it's all about fairness!

this is all MOST IMPORTANT when it comes to FIGHTING........ bc obviously a very large dragon can just squish the bones of a very tiny dragon like nothing...... things like formal duels etc everyone knows OF COURSE this meant for shifted form, it's just an inherently known thing. if u fight with honor u fight shifted.

this even extends to the point that outside city walls, if someone's going to pick a fight with you, you Should still be duking it out in shifted form. it's such an important & revered rule that it's even usual for bandits and such out on the roads to attack travelers while in their own shifted forms. only the worst of all criminals cross the line--from the average petty thief & pickpocket up to professional hitmen and honorable assassins, it's rare to see even career rulebreakers break these rules. it’s That Serious

using your dragon form to attack someone who's shifted is seen as like, a completely horrifying and heinous thing to do, a sign of true cruelty and mercilessness. using your dragon form to escape from people is often seen as a cowardly and weak thing to do, unless ofc ur just like, small and afraid and get fuckin jumped by some big tuff dudes, yknow. being in a real & honorable battle means fighting in your shifted form.

the Ultimate Taboo however is hurting--especially killing--someone while they're mid-transformation, due to the fact that the process--while, as stated previously, is Very Short--leaves someone completely vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. transformation takes focus and action, and you can't really attack or dodge or anything while changing from form to form. the strength and speed and complete lack of hesitation required to end someone's life in the small window of time that it takes to shift is a terrifying thing to behold. killing someone midshift while in your own shifted form is especially weird & scary and means everyone is going to be afraid of you forever, basically, because. dude. holy fuck. how & WHY did you do that.

obviously the Normal reaction that Nice & Good dragons feel knowing someone who has crossed that particular line is, yknow, fear and resentment and seeing them as someone who is heartless and completely evil and terrible. to be avoided at all costs, if not outright arrested and executed for such a thing, in other places where ppl are like. ultimately good & caring abt one another and whatnot. but that ain't my clan babey!

aaaaaand finally a wrap-up w a lil bit abt my clan full of shitty devil babies and how these rules impact their lives hehehe

though the clan is VERY strict abt the larger social rules regarding shifted forms vs. dragon forms, thats more for formality's sake & a part of the clan's entire thing of being like........... full of/ruled by morally bankrupt weirdos and villains and chaotic neutrals mostly And Yet all putting on the show & appearance of being honorable high-status nobles & academics and whatnot. among the court in particular it's all Very Important bc everyone has to behave like stuffy uptight formal folk very often. also their section of the clan home is like, a very compact city w/ narrow streets and stuff, so obviously no one Can just. walk around as a big giant dragon.

a few examples of dragons Breaking The Rules in more 'minor' ways include: -outlaw, who has absolutely 0 issue using the small size of his spiral form to break into houses & businesses and steal shit, or using it to slip away from authority figures and zip off and fly outta there. or to just be able to hide from authorities more easily. -fissure, one of the kings, a guardian, will occasionally use his dragon form as a threat display if anyone shows too much hostility towards his clan. threaten him and his people and he WILL threaten you back big time. -silhouette, royal guard captain, also a guardian, will do the same thing, though she reserves that for people found along the outskirts of the city walls. -sepulcher takes things the other way around--he enjoys the challenge of fighting&killing things 100x his size and if a dragon tries to harm him when he's in his shifted form he gets VERY excited!!!!!

the 2 worst culprits confirmed so far are the high priest, leader of the clan, scary rotten plague cult wyrmwound-worshipping bastard himself, fhtagn......... and the friendly, chatty, fashionable tailor, needle.

the skull mask fhtagn wears is fashioned from the skull of a half-transformed dragon. to have not only crossed the line of killing a dragon mid-shift but to wear a part of them as one's most striking attire that they're never seen without is a truly terrifying sight to behold for most... those of kinder hearts than this clan would see him for the disgusting & dishonorable bastard he is because of that alone, but the clan members--especially the church, of course--revere him for this. fear & horror go hand in hand with love & adoration among the congregation, so of course they love their mercilessly masked priest.

needle does not allow too many people to get a good look at his "trophy room" but it is... certainly something to behold. stitched & stuffed bodies of people killed mid-shift make up his favorite taxidermy collection, and he likes to think of this as.. some form of art. though very private about it, he's still fiercely proud of his collection. go out and bring him such a body yourself for him to work on and he'll love you forever!

anyway that’s it for now. this post is fucking long. i never write this much what fucking possessed me.

if u made it this far i wuv u. thank u :’)

GUYSGUYSGUYS IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

So I recently found a post on a website written by @thatdiabolicalfeminist which describes what a lesbian experience is like before someone realizes they're a lesbian, and I just want to say THANK YOU, I needed this, it's incredibly validating to realize that I'm not lying to myself, that I'm definitely not straight and I should be proud :))

Here's the text post, since I can't find the original on their blog:

"Common experiences of lesbians who don’t know they’re lesbians yet

 Out of curiosity, I recently googled “Am I lesbian quiz”. Half the “Are You a Lesbian” quizzes just asked outright, “Are you attracted to women?” as though that isn’t the very answer a questioning lesbian is trying to figure out. The other half marked me as heterosexual for things like owning more nail varnish than dogs. I hope this list will give you more nuanced ideas to think about as you explore your identity. 

These experiences are all really common among - but not universal or exclusive to - people who later realize they’re lesbians and find a comfortable home in the lesbian label and community. 

It’s mostly stuff that I and other lesbians I know have wished we knew when we were first coming to grips with our lesbian identities, because the fact is it takes a long time to discover how common a lot of these experiences are among lesbians, and not knowing what to look for when trying to figure out if you’re a lesbian can be hard. 

‘Attraction’ to men

Deciding which guys to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to – based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities 

Only developing attraction to a guy after a female friend expresses attraction to him

Getting jealous of a specific female friend’s relationships with guys and assuming you must be attracted to the guys she’s with (even if you never really noticed them before she was interested in them)

Picking a guy at random to be attracted to

Choosing to be attracted to a guy at all, not just choosing to act on it but flipping your attraction on like a switch – that’s a common lesbian thing

Having such high standards that literally no guy meets them – and feeling no spark of attraction to any guy who doesn’t meet them

Only/mostly being into guys who are gnc in some way (losing interest when a long-haired or androgynous guy cuts off his hair or grows a beard is common)

Only/mostly being attracted to unattainable, disinterested, or fictional guys or guys you never or rarely interact with

Being deeply uncomfortable and losing all interest in these unattainable guys if they ever indicate they might reciprocate

Reading your anxiety/discomfort/nervousness/combativeness around men as attraction to them

Reading a desire to be attractive to men as attraction to them

Having a lot of your ‘guy’ crushes later turn out to be trans women

Relationships with men

Feeling anxious and put on the spot any time you interact with any guy who could conceivably be interested in you, even if he doesn’t make a move

Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a man

Or looking forward to an idealized version of it that resembles literally no m/f relationship you’ve ever seen in your life, never being able to picture any man you’ve actually met in that image

Being repulsed by the dynamics of most/all real life m/f relationships you’ve seen and/or regularly feeling like “maybe it works for them but I never want my relationship to be like that”

Thinking you’re commitmentphobic because no relationship, no matter how great the guy, feels quite right and you drag your feet when it comes time to escalate it

Going along with escalation because it seems like the 'appropriate time’ or bc the guy wants it so bad, even if you personally aren’t quite ready to say I love you or have labels or move in together etc.

Or jumping ahead and trying to rush to the ‘comfortably settled’ part of relationships with guys, trying to make a relationship a done deal without investing time into emotional closeness

Feeling like you have to have relationships with guys and/or let them get serious in order to prove something, maybe something nebulous you can’t identify

Only having online relationships with guys; preferring not to look at the guys you’re interacting with online; choosing not to meet up with a guy even if you seem very into him and he reciprocates and meeting up is totally realistic

Getting a boyfriend mostly so other people know you have a boyfriend and not really being interested in him romantically/sexually

Wishing your boyfriend was more like your female friends

Wishing your boyfriend was less interested in romance and/or sex with you and that you could just hang out as pals

Thinking you’re really in love with a guy but being able to get over him in such record time that you pretend to be more affected than you are so your friends don’t think you’re heartless

After a breakup, missing having a boyfriend more than you miss the specific guy you were with 

Worrying that you’re broken inside and unable to really love anyone

Sex with men

Having sex not out of desire for the physical pleasure or emotional closeness but because you like feeling wanted

OR: preferring to 'be a tease’ to feel wanted but feeling like following through is a chore

Only being comfortable with sex with men if there’s an extreme power imbalance 

Only having sex with men that’s about fulfilling their fantasies or pleasing them

Spending the whole time making sure you look or sound hot and not really thinking about what feels good

Using sex with men as a form of self-harm

Feeling numb or dissociating or crying during/after sex with men (even if you don’t understand that reaction and think you’re fine and that you’re crying etc for no reason)

Being bored with sex with men/not understanding what the big deal is that makes other women want it

Doing it anyway out of obligation or a desire to be a good sport/do something nice for him

Never/rarely having sexual fantasies about specific men, preferring to leave them as undetailed as possible or not thinking about men at all while fantasizing

Having to make a concerted effort to fantasize about the guy you’re “attracted” to

Early interest in women

Not recognizing past/current crushes on women until you’ve come to grips with your attraction to women

Being unusually competitive, shy, or eager to impress specific women when you’re not that way with anyone else

Wanting to kiss your female best friend on the mouth for literally any reason (”to practice for boys” included)

Getting butterflies or feeling like you can’t get close enough when cuddling with a close female friend

Looking at a close female friend and feeling something in your chest clench up and being overwhelmed with love for her - love you may read as platonic

Having had strong and abiding feelings of admiration for a specific female teacher, actor, etc., growing up that were deep and reverent

Having had an unusually close relationship with a female friend growing up that was different and special in a way you couldn’t articulate

Thinking relationships would be simpler “if only I were attracted to women/my best friend who would be perfect for me if she/I weren’t a girl”

When a female friend is treated badly by a man, having your protective thoughts turn in the direction of “if I was him/a man I’d never do that to her/my girlfriend”

Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people

Having your favourite character in every show be that one gay-coded or butch-looking woman (like Shego from Kim Possible or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica)

Feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable in locker rooms etc., when your female friends are less clothed than they normally would be around men, and being more careful not to look than they are

Spending a lot of time looking at women and appreciating/being curious about their bodies

Being really curious about women who defy gender roles in some way, finding defying gender roles in dress, behaviour, styling etc really appealing and cool

The 'straight’ version of you

Thinking that all straight girls feel at least some attraction to women

Thinking that your interest in seeing attractive women/scantily clad women/boobs is an artificial reaction caused by the objectification of women in media

Thinking you’re just a super intense feminist for genuinely thinking women are amazing and having an overwhelming preference for their company

Being really into how women look “aesthetically”/“just as artistic interest”/“fashion goals”

Thinking it’s objective and uncontested that almost all women are way more attractive than most men

Being a really intense LGBT+ “ally” and getting weirdly emotional about homophobia but assuming you’re just a Really Good Ally and v empathetic

Having like half your friend group from school turn out to be LGBT+ 

Getting emotional or having a strong reaction you don’t understand to f/f love stories etc.

Having had people think you were gay when you had no suspicion you were gay 

Exploring attraction to women

Feeling like you could live with a woman in a romantic way, even if you can’t imagine doing anything sexual with a woman

Feeling like you could enjoy sexual interaction with a woman, even if you can’t imagine having romantic feelings for a woman

Thinking you couldn’t be a lesbian because you’re not attractive enough, cool enough, or otherwise in the same league as most of the women you know 

Interacting with het sex/romance in media by imagining yourself in the man’s position or just never/rarely imagining yourself in the woman’s position

Really focusing on the women in het porn

Being really into the idea of kissing/being sexual with a woman 'to turn guys on’

Being really annoyed when guys actually do express interest in watching or joining in when you do that

Only feeling/expressing attraction to or sexual interest in women when you’re inebriated or otherwise impaired 

Gender Feelings

Having a lot of conflicting gender feelings that are only possible to resolve once you understand you are/can be a lesbian

Thinking that being gnc and feeling a disconnect from traditional womanhood mean that you can’t be a woman even if that’s what feels closest to right - many lesbians are gnc and many lesbians feel disconnected from traditional womanhood since it’s so bound up in heteropatriarchy

Knowing you’re attracted to women and not being able to parse that (esp + any gender nonconformance) as gay, taking a long time to figure out if you’re a straight man or a lesbian

Being dysphoric about the parts of you that make straight men think your body is owed to them, having to figure out what that dysphoria means for/to you

Wishing straight people and/or men didn’t parse you as a woman, but being totally comfortable with the idea of other women seeing you as one of them

Knowing you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian

Knowing you’re gay, but feeling like you’re struggling against comp het stuff – discomfort, obligation, fear, disinterest, self-objectification, etc. – when you try to interact with men romantically/sexually, and only later realizing you’re a trans lesbian and not a gay man

Being nonbinary and taking a long time to sort through being able to respect/understand your nonbinary identity and your lesbianness at the same time

Considering lesbianism

Wanting to be a lesbian but feeling like if you don’t already know you are one you can’t be

Feeling alienated from all the male-gazey unrealistic depictions of lesbians as only being young thin rich white cis abled conventionally attractive gender conforming straight actresses in tv/movies/porn and thinking that alienation means you can’t be gay 

Discovering that your type is gnc women or women who share your underrepresented demographic and that’s why you’re not really attracted to celebrities

Not feeling attracted to straight women but suddenly having lots of crushes when you know for sure certain women are bi/gay

Feeling guilty about wanting to be a lesbian, feeling like you’re just attention-seeking or trying to be trendy

Suppressing your lesbian dreams because you think exploring that desire would mean you’re a bad/homophobic person using lesbianness selfishly

Wishing you were a lesbian to escape the discomfort of dating men

Fantasizing about how much fun it would be to be a lesbian and just be with women/a specific woman, but thinking that can’t be for you

Worrying that some of your past attraction to men was actually real so you can’t be a lesbian

Worrying that bc you can’t be 100% sure you’re not attracted to men and can’t be 100% sure you won’t change your mind, you can’t be a lesbian

Worrying that you only want to be a lesbian because of trauma and that means your lesbianness would be Fake

Worrying that trauma-induced complications in how you experience sex (e.g., a habit of self-harming via sex w men or a fear of/lack of interest in any sex at all) mean you’re not a Real Lesbian

Every item on this list is common among Real Lesbians. It’s all Normal Lesbian Stuff. If you’re worried that you can’t be a lesbian even though it’s the life you really want for yourself, I hope this gives you permission to explore that. You are allowed to be a lesbian.  

And if you’re not sure yet – if you took the time to read this entire thing because you’re curious about your identity, if you identified with a bunch of items on this list – you may or may not be a lesbian, but friend, you almost certainly aren’t cishet. Welcome.

(I’d love to hear other things lesbians wish you’d known were A Thing when you were first exploring your identity!)"

Again, this post is from @thatdiabolicalfeminist , all credit is to them