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#i think i get to tag all the queer stuff. as a treat
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This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  deadratz/@munsonkitten! They have 32 works in the Stranger Things fandom on AO3 and 31 of those are in the Steddie tag!
Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @munsonkitten:
the sound of silence
float among the wreckage
share the same space for a minute or two
you make me feel like i am whole again
sugar on my tongue
"In a fandom with over 20 thousand fics, it's hard to find fics that stand out, and Grim has so many that feel like a breath of fresh air for the characters. His specialty is exploring Eddie's trauma, past and present, and being patient with letting him heal in a messy, realistic way that tears your heart out and puts it back. Grim takes on topics that can be difficult to explain, like trauma and gender exploration, and puts them into words so perfectly. His fics are entertaining and heartfelt and always hot, no matter which one you open, you're in for a treat and he has some hidden gems! Regardless of what's popular, Grim stays true to the characters and it's easy to trust him with them, and that's something to appreciate!" -- anonymous
Below the cut, @munsonkitten answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!
Why do you write Steddie?
When Season 4 came out, I had lost all motivation in my old fandoms. I hadn’t written anything in months, but then I saw Eddie and fell in love instantly. As I was watching, I started to have this little thought like “is anyone else seeing this?” when I saw Steve and Eddie interact, and I ended up on AO3, reading through anything that looked good out of the 300 fics that came out in those first couple of days, and then I kept reading, and I was completely inspired. I was pulled in, and I tried to write something between volumes 1&2 that didn’t go anywhere, but I didn’t want to give up on them because there was just this pull that kept me thinking of them, and then, of course, we saw Eddie’s fate and I immediately had to rectify that in my own way. I love writing Steve and Eddie because they come from very different worlds, but as a queer punk who also played sports in high school, I know firsthand how those worlds can collide and I can relate to both Steve and Eddie and how they fit into their places as the freak/jock. There’s also just a certain coziness that comes with writing Steddie for me, like they’re familiar and something I can find safety in. They’re both complex characters with traumatic experiences and there’s comfort in that and there’s comfort in being able to process my own life through the perspective of the two of them and apply different things to their canon personalities and backstories. It really comes down to, like, even though they’ve fought monsters, they’re really just regular guys, too. They’re relatable and accessible because their lives are pretty average without the monster stuff. I don’t find myself wasting time doing tons of research about certain jobs or lifestyles as I have with other pairings in the past. Steddie has just given me a lot of freedom to do what I want.
What’s your favorite trope to READ?
There are so many tropes that I love. I think a lot of them depend on how they’re written, of course, so even tropes I don’t typically like to read can end up being really good to me. My go-to answer for this is usually pre-dating sharing a bed/only one bed, whether they’re sharing because they get paired up together on a trip; they’re laying low at Steve’s and Steve needs to keep an eye on Eddie while he’s healing; nightmares bringing them to each other in the middle of the night; or one of them just crashing in the other’s bed. I think there’s something so intimate about the way these scenes can be written, something very vulnerable that I just love. There’s a lot of trust that goes into being comfortable enough sleeping near someone else, and I think it’s a really good way to start Steve and Eddie’s relationship. I also love, love like any kind of friends with benefits situation where they’re obviously pining for each other and completely in love but try to pretend the things they do together is just “helping a friend out,” while mutually being in denial of feelings. It serves for great tension and there’s always really good pay off when they start dating.
What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?
My answer for this is really similar to the last one. First and foremost, I write what I want to read. I’m just very drawn to these kinds of fics with pre-relationship intimacy that turns into something solid between them. So I love writing only one bed and pining/fwb/friends to lovers fics as much as I love reading them.
What’s your favorite Steddie fic?
It’s hard to choose just one favorite after almost two years of reading Steddie fics, but some real stand out fics for me that I’ve read fairly recently have been Trouble Looks Good on You by indelicate, Metamorphoses by fastcardotmp3, Play it Right by stereobone, and Doing Nothing with You by redoaktree. All of these give such nice depth to the characters and their situations and have stuck with me. “Trouble” is still ongoing, but I trust Rue (indelicate) with these characters so much that I can say it’s one of my favorites without having the entire fic yet. It just hits so many of my boxes for Steddie, has all the right factors for a phenomenal fic, and stays so true to the characters in my opinion.
Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?
I have so many plans for upcoming fics, but one I’ve been trying to find time to write for over a year now deals with a lot of grief/mourning of a loved one and includes rockstar!Eddie with a good slooow burn. It’s all things I’ve somewhat explored, but want to really expand upon with this one. I feel like I haven’t written a proper slow burn, either, because I tend to do fwb situations with slow burns on the emotional aspects and admitting feelings part of their relationship, and I want to do a full slowburn in more aspects of their relationship. 
What is your writing process like?
Usually I’m inspired by something, whether it’s a situation that happens to me or something I see on TV, and I think about what kinds of stories could be told with those elements. Sometimes I take one trope and try to build a fic around it, sometimes I see a tiktok or a scene in a show and decide I need to use that in something. Other times, I just have a sentence in my head that I have to write down and it turns into a whole page and then suddenly I have 5k words. A lot of my process is spent brainstorming with friends, talking through scenarios and seeing what kinds of responses they get, other times I have an idea and I run with it and don’t tell anyone until it’s done. There are some fics I’ve fully outlined and then gone in completely different directions, and there are some fics I never wrote down a single note for. I’ve had a few fics that started as just single sentences and turned into paragraphs and merged them with other ideas in other documents. My process is kind of chaotic and always changes, if I’m being honest, but it works for me. I think it entirely depends on the mood of the fic I’m trying to write, how much research goes into it, and how long it’s going to be, and all of that. Sometimes I’ll sit down to write something fully knowing it won’t go anywhere just to get me into a writing mood. I’m really all over the place with my process.
Do you have any writing quirks?
I don’t know if this is really a quirk, but I’m the type of person who will go weeks without writing anything and then suddenly have an entire chapter or oneshot finished in two days. I procrastinate until I realize I need to do something or until inspiration really hits me and then I just lock it in and write nonstop until it’s done.
Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?
This is kind of fic-dependent. If I know for sure that I have the time and motivation for a story, I post as soon as I get chapters finished. If I know I don’t have the capacity for another long form fic, I’ll write out the first chapter and leave it in my drafts until I get a bit further on it, just working when I’m between other projects or stumped on something else. I wouldn’t exactly say I post on a schedule because it’s nowhere near consistent, but I’ve never finished a full multi-chaptered fic before I start posting. I do write a lot of oneshots and two chapter shorter fics, though, so those two chaptered ones are usually close to finished before I post them.
Which fic are you most proud of?
Hands down, the sound of silence. They’re not done yet, but ‘you make me feel like i am whole again,’ and ‘sugar on my tongue’ are also up there with ‘sound of silence.’ It’s my longest fic in this fandom (currently) and my second longest fic I’ve ever written. I put so much of myself into this fic and I’m just really proud of myself for it. There were some definite challenges with this one, with one character in the main pairing barely having any dialogue for the first half of the fic, with the other half of the pairing navigating his newfound sexuality and his life being turned upside down yet again, and I also have a few outsider POVs like Wayne, El, Robin and Hopper sprinkled in there, which is always difficult to work in for me. I’m proud of myself for doing all of that and finishing it.
How did you get the idea for the sound of silence?
This fic started as two separate documents, just unconnected pieces of different stories, both of them hitting dead ends with no hope for continuation. I had started with just a simple idea of Wayne and Steve meeting after the events of season 4 put Eddie in the hospital, and I wanted to show the way Wayne cares for the people who love Eddie, and that ended up becoming the beginning of the fic once I put all the pieces together. The other document I had started around the same time was a short Wayne POV about living with Eddie after S4 and the person he turned into after losing so much of himself. I wanted to explore the idea of someone as loud as Eddie going non-verbal for weeks to months at a time (something I explored in a different fandom, so that sort of inspired me to write SOS too), and when I finally put those together, it just felt like everything was so clear to me and I took off with these ideas.
When writing float among the wreckage, what was something you didn’t expect?
Oh boy. This one was actually difficult for me because I wanted it to be a hate sex fic, and I realized I’m just incapable of making Steve and Eddie hate each other at all. I did something like that one other time earlier when the fandom was still pretty new, but wreckage came to me nearly a year into writing them and I’d really cemented the idea of these characters in my head, and it was just… Very unexpected that I struggled to tap into that tension and hatred. It ended up being less about hating each other and more about misplaced/misidentified feelings in the end.
What inspired share the same space for a minute or two?
I think my friend Teddy actually gave me the main idea for this one. An end of the world “I’m going to die a virgin” apocalypse setting during “season 5.” From that, I just started writing and saw where it took me, and I’m happy with where I took it. Sometimes all I need is one sentence and then I have 11k words written in just a few days, and that fic was one of those times.
What was your favorite part to write from sugar on my tongue?
This is a really hard question because I love so much of this fic and it’s still ongoing so I might still write something I love even more than any previous parts. Without giving too much away, it’s probably a tie between their first smut scene in chapter 1, their club night in chapter 2, and the part in chapter 3 where Eddie’s walking down the road after he runs out of gas and has a lot of introspection about his life and how he finds safety in Steve. One of my close friends told me the writing in that last part was beautiful and I’ve since decided it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.
How do/did you feel writing the sound of silence?
Sound of Silence was very cathartic for me. I’m so proud of this fic and it deals with so much I rarely see in fanfiction – some of the topics are unsexy and there are a lot of symptoms of mental illness that are highly stigmatized that people just might not want to read in a story. But I knew it was the story I needed to tell for Eddie, mostly, but for Steve, too, and for myself. It’s not always happy, but it’s real to me. Life can be ugly and people can be volatile and traumatized and struggle with sexual function and have undesirable compulsions, and writing that whole fic felt like a release in a way because it’s stuff I relate to and stuff my best friends have also gone through. And the comments on this fic have made me feel seen and less alone in the things I struggle with that I had Steve and Eddie struggle with, as well. I think it’s just really important to have those fics that give at least one reader some comfort in their own situations.
What was the most difficult part of writing you make me feel like i am whole again?
This fic is about gender identity and pregnancy and love and all sorts of stuff that can be hard to put into words. I’ve never experienced a pregnancy, so there’s a lot of research that goes into that, a lot of reading firsthand accounts and finding out all sorts of things that weren’t taught in sex-ed classes. It’s also been a very vulnerable fic for me because Steve and Eddie both experience gender in ways that I do, too. Every time I write about identity and dysphoria through them, I’m putting parts of myself on display for others, and that can be hard, especially when people don’t always understand. I’m very protective over this fic, and I’ve had to defend aspects of it from people who can’t always accept other people’s experiences with gender identity and queerness. That’s been difficult, even well meaning comments can come across as criticism when the writing is so close to home, and it’s been a struggle to keep my head on straight with this one. But as difficult as that may be, the pros outweigh the cons with this fic. It’s so rewarding when people DO relate to the things I write about, and it’s been validating for my own identity and I’ve been told so many times the fic has felt validating to others, too. So as difficult as it can be, I wouldn’t change anything. 
Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?
I mentioned this bit of sugar on my tongue earlier and I think it’s my current favorite, but I have so many scenes and lines from other fics I’d consider my favorites: The sun beats down on his face and arms. He’s burning, red skin and hot tears. He feels like he needs to crawl out of his own skin. To leave it on the ground and walk away someone else.  Someone who doesn’t have to deal with Al Munson, doesn’t have to deal with a town that hates him for things he didn’t do. He wants to be someone who doesn’t have to be Eddie Munson at all. He just wants to be someone else, to feel safe in the skin he wears.  He thinks Steve might be the only person who makes him feel that way, even if it’s only for a glimpse, a small fraction of his life. Even if it’s just in the quiet hours of the morning when they’re curled up in Eddie’s bed, or when they’re just two boys kissing in a bar where no one knows their names. He wants to feel like that again. Safe. 
Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?
I’m helping with a Sub Eddie Week event in April, so if anyone wants to do a fic or art for that event, you can find all info @subeddieweek. Most of my upcoming work is going to be made for this event, so stay tuned.
Thank you to our author, @munsonkitten, and our anonymous nominator! See more of deadratz works featured on our page throughout the day!
Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!
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mothmans-cumrag · 2 years
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I took my dad to pride today. After asking him and saying what itt might entail, I made him a free dad hugs sign:
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While walking there, a lot of people pointed at him and said it was a cute idea. They were right.
My (and his) personal highlights were:
A guy hugging him and saying something in Ukrainian (bc of the flag, probably)
Someone asking him if they can call him "daddy" (I had to explain to him why I started laughing. He now knows.)
Someone giving him a rose
Someone kissing him on the cheeck
A lot of people seeing me standing around awkwardly while there was a line forming in front of him and hugging me too
A guy my dad's age hugging him with tears in his eyes
A kid my age shouting "I don't have a father!", Running towards and almost tackling him
A guy in a fetish-related dog mask hugging him and clinging to him like a lifeline
Two children between eight and ten initiating a group hug with him and giggling the entire time
Everyone thanking him afterwards and a lot of people saying he gives the best hugs in the world. One guy said he'd never been hugged like that before
This guy in a moving lorry shouting and making the lorry stop driving to get a hug from my dad:
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My dad said that the majority of people hugging him were either older (25-60) queer men or younger (15-25) trans people. He really loved the experience and felt like a lot of the people, especially the older guys really needed it.
Anyway we're definitely doing this again next year
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sourstiless · 2 years
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do you headcanon sarah jacobs as a lesbian because you actually think she’s a lesbian or because you want her out of the picture so you can ship javid
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sataniqueer-ghostie · 3 months
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paxiqueer
a queer stance that is inherently anti-radqueer but also inherently anti harassment and pro recovery. because APPERANTLY we need this /neg /targeted
it's emoji code, should you want to use it, is 💬🤝!!
beliefs:
radqueers should be viewed as innocent until proven guilty, and this goes per individual/system, not per the entire community
no one should be harassed for their beliefs as it doesnt fix anything and simply hurts people (what is considered harassment under paxiqueer is here and will get updated via suggestions)
recovery and compassion, not othering and blind hatred.
active support for radqueers who consider leaving the community
treat those, even those you dislike, how you'd like to be treated.
ask, question, talk to, before deciding something or someone is bad
inherently pro:
arissomei, atypical dysphoria and support for those with atypical dysphoria. even those radqueers think we wont tolerate
ALL paraphilias
alterhumanity, nonhumanity, believing all systems right to exist
mogai, aspec identities, contradictory identities (lesboys, bi lesbians, etc.), radinclus (the user doesnt need to be radinclus, just okay with it)
open-mindedness
psych criticalism, knowing psychology exists to help people while being aware it is flawed
safe amputation/severing of nerves for BIID, only as a last resort (due to the risks that come with it)
educated kink, informed consent, SSC, RACK, using kink as a safe way to cope
recovery, recovering radqueers, ex/former radqueers, those who got groomed into it
support for ALL trauma, healthy coping
past abusers who regret who or what they used to be and want to grow better
education
it is inherently anti:
harassment
any form of prejudice/preconception
radqueer ideologies, specifically transids, transitioning to stuff that would harm you or other people, coining MUDs, pro/comp/neu contact paras, etc.
"fults"
safequeer, exclusionism, transmeds/truscum, radfems of any kind.
believing anything is inherently a gateway to the radqueer community, thats not how that works.
xenosatanism and everything it stands for
self harm (including emotional/psychological), harm towards other people, "hypoharmful"
nccnc, minors in kink (ghosting through the tags or blogs is okay but do not engage with it for both you and the adults' safety I beg)
victim blaming, fake claiming
believing any disorder is inherently abusive or dangerous, including but not limited to npd, schizophrenia, aspd, bpd, pedophilic or zoophilic disorder, etc.
it is not set on:
shipcourse
syscourse
tagging @blankqueer @egoistboy @autumnmoon-morrison @acetrappolaswife @anti-radqueer-zone
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Note
do you have any opinions on the hazbin critical and vivziepop critical tags?
tw // mentions of sexual abuse and sucide
I have a personal beef with them. And not because I love Hazbin and Vivzie so much but for more presonal reasons so the following opinion won't be measured at all.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are some legit criticisms out there. Like, the show could definitely do better with body diversity and giving us more varied sapphic relationships instead of just throwing a ton of male/male couples at us. And, yeah, Vivzie's response to some of the criticism has been... questionable. (I still cringe when I think about that one time she explained that Raphielle can ship ValAngel because they are sa survivor, but Raphielle explicitly admitted to not be one).
But then, there's stuff that's just... pulled out of nowhere. Like the whole thing about Valentino being a "fetish character." Come on, the world of villains is filled with queer, flamboyant baddies. What sets Valentino apart is how his abusive behavior is shown in the open, making us rethink our love for villains. If it weren't for Mascarade, people would worship this moth daddy gangster in a dress, much like they are with Vox now. It's hard to root for the bad guy when you see the fallout of their actions. Like, Loki committed war crimes and no one was outraged when he got his own TV series and dragged creators for supporting atrocities.
Constant Valentino/Angel Dust discourse actually leads to the more serious issues I have with this "community", more harmful than just "bad media literacy" like the way they handle the topic of sexual abuse and weaponize it, without ever listening to victims. There is this constant shitstorm about Angel being a "bad sa survivor rep," that the way he's written is insensitive because "he shouldn't be horny, he's sexually traumatized." Like, do these people not understand that making Angel unable to enjoy his sexuality the way he wants would essentially mean acknowledging that it's no longer his but belongs to his abuser now? Also, the argument I keep seeing that drives me BAT SHIT CRAZY aka "I can enjoy this media that is centered around murderer, you cannot enjoy the media that treats rapist as a nuanced character because rape is objectively worse than murder." WHO THE FUCK TOLD YOU THAT? Reading this makes me feel so angry and sad and guilty because frankly, I was raped, and of course, it was horrible but still I'd choose it any time over being murdered. Because I have my life, I'm loved, and I love, I pursue my dreams, and I can still experience so many good things in my life. Painting sexual assault as this worse-than-death experience is not the feminist take they think it is and does not do victims any good.
Or accusations that Vivzie's support of fandom bullying led to someone taking their life. It's such a ridiculous and harmful claim. Honestly, this thing always makes me heated because suicide is not an easy decision, ask any person who ever faced it. It's not like "ah, this stranger told me to kms, I guess I gotta do it now." Of course, any kind of bullying and abuse adds to the suffering and can be the final trigger, but to me, it's just so disrespectful and harmful that someone could have experienced prolonged, intense suffering and all of this is omitted, their death labeled as a result of "fandom bullying" and weaponized in fandom drama. Also, it's simply cruel to put the blame for it on one, uninvolved person.
Also, it always annoys me when people hold small creators to immensely high standards while not doing the same with others. If we keep lynching and canceling every media that is not objectively morally pure, we won't be left with only perfect media. We will be left with media produced by white, privileged billionaires who might be real-life rapists, abusers, and thieves but are too powerful to be taken down by social media outrage. Hazbin's success is a major W for the underappreciated medium of animation (we saw what WB did to 90% of their animated shows), unpopular genres like musicals (Wonka creators were literally too ashamed to market it as one??), and unapologetic queer narratives that are not written for a heteronormative audience or centered around queer oppression (ofmd, the other medium I can think of in that realm has just been canceled). I can't stand people so desperate to put it down driven by their black-or-white sense of morality. Kant won't be patting your back for being the Moraliest Person because you bullied an indie creator and her fans.
Also everyone who feels the need to explain me hazbin critical agenda - save your breath. I'm very emotional about it and I frankly don't fucking care why you think you are right.
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spacelazarwolf · 2 years
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“trans men have male privilege!!!!!!!!!!”
let’s take a look.
here’s some examples of male privilege from an article i found:
“you’re not said to be going against your gender’s “natural instinct” or your role in society by not having children.”
trans men are barred from gender affirming care, often on the basis that people think we should be having babies. also there are many groups of people who can get pregnant who deal with the opposite, who are encouraged not to have children or even forcibly sterilized.
“the media, popular sex advice, and normative definitions of sex focus primarily on your pleasure, especially if you’re cisgender.”
i have literally never once seen trans men mentioned in the media in regards to sex advice or positivity, and the fact the author tagged on that “especially if you’re cisgender” shows me they have never in their life spoken to a trans man.
“school sex ed, religious values, and other pervasive sources of sexual norms don’t treat your gender as more dirty, impure, and undesirable for losing your virginity.”
except they do, because most of us grew up assumed to be or forced to be girls, so we heard and internalized all this along with the cis girls, with the added element of “being trans is morally wrong and dirty and disgusting.”
“most pornography is made with your gender in mind (and it creates some pretty damaging ideas about women and other genders).”
there is very, very, very little pornography made with trans men in mind, and the stuff that is is made for chasers.
“you can be open about enjoying sex without people feeling automatically entitled to have sex with you.”
we actually can’t, because of our “lifestyle of degeneracy” and even the most woke cis people wring their hands when it comes to the question of sex with trans men. not to mention the constant harassment we receive from cis people who insist that they’re not transphobic while making it very clear that they think trans men’s bodies are disgusting and they would never in a million years sleep with us.
“you can make changes to your appearance like a haircut or dye without assumptions that you’re doing it for men.”
every change a trans man makes is put under a microscope. we are assumed to be doing it to “pass”, aka..... doing it for men, and other cis people.
“products like viagra exist with the aim of helping cisgender men maintain their sex lives as they get older, and social norms congratulate you for doing so. there is far less support for women to continue being sexual beings as they age.”
i guess you just forgot trans men exist with this one.
“you can be expressive about your sexuality in conversation, art, music, and more, without people accusing you of ‘using your body to get by’.”
nope. our art is suppressed, and when it’s not, it is under an intense amount of scrutiny, with people often saying that the only reason it’s successful is because we’re trans, not because it’s good art. and god forbid the art is about being trans.
“you can participate in kink, BDSM, and other alternative sexual practices without being judged as a “slut” or facing assumptions that you’re not in control of your own sexual choices.”
did we forget about the fact that people call trans people sexual deviants? or that there are people on this website who stalk and sexually harass trans men for their private sex lives?
“you’re less likely to be the target of street harassment. the majority of women have experienced street harassment in their lives, and most of the men who do are queer or gender non-conforming.”
so we’re just admitting that we consider white cishet men to be the owners of manhood? 
“you can turn down a date without worrying about being verbally attacked, physically assaulted, or even killed.”
nope, most of us face the exact same bullshit, but with an added element of transphobia.
“you’re less likely to experience intimate partner violence.”
false again. we experience incredibly high rates of intimate partner violence, again with an added element of transphobia and exacerbated by the fact we are economically disenfranchised, leading to higher likelihoods of financial abuse.
“you’re less likely to be raped, especially if you never go to prison.”
trans men actually have higher rates of rape than any other demographic.
“you’re less likely to be homeless as a result of intimate partner violence. Half of all homeless women and children in the US are fleeing intimate partner violence.”
trans men are more likely to be homeless than cis women, and are more likely to be turned away from domestic violence shelters because of their appearance and gender.
“you can enjoy partying without people blaming your “lifestyle” if you’re sexually assaulted.”
do i really have to explain why saying trans men won’t be blamed for our “lifestyle” is incorrect?
“doctors are more likely to take you seriously when you tell them your symptoms.”
trans men face higher rates of medical neglect and healthcare avoidance because of that medical neglect than cis women because we face both medical misogyny and medical transphobia.
“while medical research often ignores women and other genders, you get the benefits like research focusing on the heart attack symptoms you’re more likely to experience.”
again, just forgetting trans men exist.
“you’re less likely to have your physical illness symptoms attributed to psychological factors. For instance, when men and women with identical symptoms mention stress, doctors are more likely to overlook a woman’s symptoms of heart disease.”
incorrect, we often face the same medical neglect as cis women, with, again, an added element of transphobia. for example, doctors will often completely disregard our actual issues and just blame it on the testosterone if we are on hrt to the point we literally have a specific name for it: trans broken arm syndrome. 
“you can show your nipples in public, and are less likely to be harassed overall for showing some skin – even when women in public are using breasts for breastfeeding, they can be subject to harassment.”
do i really have to explain why trans men, whether they’ve had top surgery or not, can’t safely be shirtless in public?
“you can easily enjoy sports with athletes of your gender, as men’s sports get more airtime and promotion than women’s sports.”
there are very, very few athletes who are trans men, and it’s difficult for trans men to join men’s sports in the first place because cis men will often become violent if the trans man is better at the sport than they are.
“you can use the internet without being harassed.”
HAH.
“your gender is more represented in film, with women making up 12% of protagonists, 29% of major characters, and 30% of speaking characters in the top 100 grossing films.”
i can count on hand the number of trans men i’ve seen on the big screen.
“you don’t have politicians primarily of another gender making laws to control your gender’s bodies.”
again, HAH.
“there are more lawmakers of your gender determining the rules we all have to live by. for instance, women make up not even 20% of congress.”
according to a study done by an associate at harvard, during the year the study was done, there were 36 transgender people running for government positions. only 6 of them were trans men.
“you can have strong political opinions without people calling you a “feminazi” or judging you for being “opinionated.”
trans men get crucified on social media and in real life day in and day out for simply saying we have a right to exist.
“as a parent, you get more professional opportunities – avoiding the “motherhood penalty” that hurts women’s careers if they have children.”
don’t even know where to start with the cisnormativity. anyway trans men can be birth parents and face a shit ton of discrimination for it.
“you have a lower risk of living in poverty. 1 in 7 women and 4 in 10 single-mother families are poor, with the poverty rate for native american, black, and latina women at almost double the rate for white women.”
trans men have a higher risk of poverty than cis women, especially if they are not white or are disabled.
“you can put little time into your appearance without a negative impact on your work life, like having people believe you’re unprofessional or not put together.”
trans men have to agonize over tiny details about our appearance in order to gain a tiny amount of respect from cis people. this includes in the workplace.
“you can spend less on products to maintain your “professional” appearance. women are expected to spend more on clothing, accessories, and beauty products, even when they’re earning less.”
trans men have to spend thousands of dollars on surgeries and hrt, new clothing, makeup, other things to help us pass. if we don’t do that, or don’t want to do that, then we are subject to an immense amount of scrutiny.
“if you’re never promoted, it’s not because of your gender.”
lmao.
“you’re not expected to put in unpaid emotional labor, like maintaining office harmony, in addition to your work duties. people don’t believe that your gender is just more suited to this often unrecognized and uncompensated work.”
trans people are often expected to put in an incredible amount of emotional labor in the workplace, especially if they are out, and even then our workplaces aren’t always safe. it’s why we have higher rates of unemployment than cis people.
“you aren’t raised to believe your gender is inherently more delicate or weak with phrases like “you throw like a girl.”
more cisnormativity.
“as you’re growing up, you have more positive role models of your gender to choose from in media, history books, fiction, and more.”
cisnormativity 2.0. i didn’t even know trans men existed until i was well into adulthood.
“If you’re religious, you can find a place of worship that doesn’t treat your gender as inferior. for instance, feminist christian churches exist, but in many areas, the only options for worship are churches that follow patriarchal traditions.”
not only is this christonormative, but also ignores the fact that most if not all religious spaces are either not welcoming or actively hostile to trans people, including trans men.
also, most of these examples don’t take into account intersectionality but that’s not surprising.
in conclusion:
begging y’all to use a single fucking brain cell.
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penny00dreadful · 8 months
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WIP Writing Poll
Oh boy here we go again, the number of WIPs just keeps getting bigger! 😬
Thank you @hbyrde36, my dear, for the tag. 🖤
Rules: Make a 24-hour poll with the names of your wips and then for whichever wins, write one sentence for every vote it gets (but you should also write 1 sentence for every vote each of them gets!)
I think I'll do the same and post the snippets here after I get them written so watch this space! All will be posted under their respective tags that are tagged here too. I'm currently vacillating between debilitating burnout, writers block and an idiosyncratic want to write at the same time. So hopefully this will help me get my head on straight again.
(Results)
Fic blurbs below the cut:
Return of The King - Part 8
Steddie vampire fic with vampire!Steve. Last chapter there was an earthquake, Wayne got the cliff-notes of the Upside Down, a car chase van chase, feral Steve, and they approached the gate to the Upside Down.
Comeuppance
The kids (Dustin) try to meddle in Steve's love life though they've been warned not to. Everything starts falling apart and they get their comeuppance.
Through The Valley
Post-Apocalyptic AU set roughly fourteen months after spring break. Eddie, Dustin and Nancy have a nice little community of survivors outside of Hawkins that they take care of. They're the ones who know most about this stuff after all, since the military abandoned them. They don't talk about it, but each of them hopes they can find the others again soon. But it's been so long already.
Unnamed D&D AU
Step right up! Step right up! We got a fantasy AU here! Necromancy! Enemies to lovers! Religious cults! Murder husbands! Who did this to you? Featuring Paladin!Steve and Bard!Eddie who won't stay Bard!Eddie for very long...
And They Were Roommates!
Bitchy queers Steve and Eddie don't like living together and they do not like each other. They snipe and bitch and complain. But Eddie hasn't come home yet and it's not like Steve is worried or anything... he's just... concerned for a fellow human being... that's all.
Unnamed Spies/Secret Agents AU
Containing both an established relationship oneshot and a getting together prequel. Similar to others above we've got enemies to lovers, bitchy, sexy, flirting while trying to kill each other, murder husbands, protective Eddie and maybe just a smidge of Steve getting duped. As a treat.
Unnamed PStobin+RSteddie Baby AU
Steve and his husband had always wanted kids. Except apparently Albert wasn't quite so up for it as he'd previously said. Robin is just standing there, 37 weeks pregnant with Steve's IVF baby having just punched Albert in the nose and oh god why is she leaking everywhere?? Is it happening?? IT'S HAPPENING, OH JESUS! TAXI!
Before He Cheats
I swear to god it sounds so much worse than it is. Steddie boys DO NOT cheat on each other in this fic or ANY of my fics EVER, you can be assured of that.
It's a songfic.
I'm just gonna drop this here.
Zero pressure taggy tags. @augustjustice @artaxlivs @i-less-than-three-you @xenon-demon @every-aj-needs-an-angel @mentallyundone @scoops-stevie @nburkhardt @steves-strapcollection @outpastthebrakers @hardboiledleggs
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dabwax · 2 months
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Folks who rb Interview with the Vampire 2022 show stuff from me and put in the tags "should I watch this? I think I should watch this"
It's such a treat if you like messy queer romance and drama particularly. Within episode one we have a messy excitable French bisexual vampire seducing a sad stressed beautiful closeted gay man, they fuck, frenchie maybe kills sad man's brother to force him into a vulnerable state and then corners him in a Catholic church, rips his priest apart, and confesses his undying love while covered in priest blood and sad man is like actually yeah. Let's be dead together or whatever. And that's just ep one
And it just gets messier, the old man doing the interviews likely had his memory erased of being deeply in love and obsessed with sad guy's other autistic unhinged creepy boyhusband who is also deeply in love and obsessed with old man AND sad man AND frenchie all at once but he killed sad man and frenchies fucking vampire daughter
Season 2 comes out this year :))))) Real Househusbands of Miami vibes
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highball66 · 3 months
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I meant to send this ask in aaaaaaaaages ago but I got cold feet BABSHWNEHSN I just wanted to say thank you so much for making your blog so inclusive and welcoming man. A lot of the time it’s hard to find these kind of analysis blogs who’re trans/queer friendly and openly discuss topics like that, and spaces who are friendly to neurodivergent (or in my case autistic) people who wanna ramble about a very particular subject or character!!!!!!! I feel like whenever I find a new analysis blog, it always comes with a double-edged sword; they’ll usually VEHEMENTLY hate a certain character or ship, they won’t be very understanding of hyperfixations or special interests, or they’ll shut down discussions of trans or queer topics entirely and I dunno it just means the WOLRD to me to have a blog I can go to and feel safe reading <<<<3333 so yeah just thank you so much man!!!!!
The RE community is a strange mix of a lot of queer people and then a lot of very vehemently homophobic straggots, which is interesting considering how campy the franchise is as a whole lmfao. Regardless, I'm glad that this blog feels like the safe space I wanted it to be.
Personally, I never really felt welcomed in any of the bigger RE lore spaces, especially on Twitter. I'm not going to name names since it's just the vibes I get from the content that's posted and the people they all interact with, but there's a reason why I don't follow and am not mutuals with a lot of the big names in the RE community. Most of them are straight men, and as a queer trans guy, I just kinda assumed that I likely wouldn't be treated like everyone else since I never saw any sort of representation or discussion of such. None of the accounts acknowledge queercoding or any of that in any of their analyses, and the posts the do make about relationships or romance are all about the basic hetero relationships-- it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. And I'm not going to hide my queerness or stop talking about the queer ships I enjoy for the comfort of straight men or to be accepted by them. Also a few of the wiki admins are zionists, so no thanks bro.
As for accounts on here, it's a lot of the same problems, except instead of straight men it's people so obsessed with their own ship that they can't possibly fathom anyone shipping something else. And to that I say, to put it bluntly, I'm too old to give even a fraction of a fuck about this petulant shipping bullshit. There's a lot of ships in this fandom that I outright dislike and plenty that I don't care for, but I usually don't bring it up because I don't care. I write about and analyze the things I find interesting, and I think if everyone would spend more time talking about the things they like rather than the things they don't, the community would be a much more positive space. I'll discuss issues I see, even it pertains to shipping, because I can understand the line between "I personally don't like this thing" and "this thing that people are perpetuating is wrong," like if someone tries to say [x] is canon and harass people about it when it's actually a screenshot of a Wattpad fic or some bullshit (true story, that did actually happen I shit you not).
Additionally, if they get so worked up about someone shipping something else, they can just... ya know... block people. I don't know why some people treat blocking people like you're excommunicating them from the fandom or some shit like the block button is there for a reason, so are filtering tools. Curate your own experience-- filter the tags and such you aren't interested in, block people you don't like, block people who post content you don't like, etc.
So yeah! I'm glad that you enjoy what I do and that you all feel welcome on this blog because that's what I created this for. I wanted my own little corner to talk about the things I enjoyed and the stuff I wanted to talk about, and I was lucky enough to find a lot of like-minded people who enjoyed similar things.
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thegiftofgabes · 7 months
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The Gift of Dice - Intro Post
I am Gabriel Caetano (they/them), and I am a queer, Latine parent, TRPG creator, audio producer, and game facilitator (aka GM) from Brazil.
Roleplaying Games
I make tabletop Roleplaying Games, as well as TTRPG-adjacent experiences.
I like fantasy, science fantasy, and weird fantasy the most and I have been more and more invested in looking at games as enablers of social experimentation and questioning.
I like to say that every game I make is a product of excellent taste and developing skill.
You can find my games at https://thegiftofdice.itch.io/
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Indie Games Facilitator for Hire
I run and facilitate (aka GM) roleplaying games as a gig.
I have over 100 session under my belt, and growing, and a large catalogue of indie, alternative games to facilitate for players anywhere out there in the world, including Masks, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Nibiru, Apocalypse Keys, Noctis Labyrinth, Troika!, Blades in the Dark, CBR+PNK, and many more.
You can browse through the dates I setup, or make a custom request.
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Politics and Ethics
All TTRPG content has a price tag, except when I think it shouldn't, and all of them should have alternate methods of access for anyone who does not enjoy the privilege of earning dollars, euros, pounds, and other hegemon currencies.
Yet, non-white people, non-het, and non cis-male people anywhere who cannot afford to buy anything I make without putting their safety and well-being financially are welcome to get my stuff for free, one way or another.
I also offer seats for free or at a greatly reduced fee to people in the Global South, where the dollar exchange would make access to my game sessions absolutely crushing.
None of the content I create is compatible with Hasbro or Paizo products, or products by any company or individual that shares their ethics and predatory approach to industrializing an art form, on principle.
Additionally I do not use or rely on artificially generated content to create my games or run my sessions.
Game Design Principles
I've come across this game design manifesto and I've decided to adopt it for my own game design as best as I can and let it evolve as I grow as a game designer and writer.
against coercion: a game design manifesto by JPLeBreton
let players wonder about things and trust them to find answers;
connect players with patterns they find intrinsically fulfilling;
never treat a number going up as an inherently positive or meaningful even;
teach respect for the autonomy and boundaries of all things;
posit alternatives to fantasies of accumulation and extraction;
do not think of emotional responses as something you extract from players;
produce and distribute ethically;
aspire to more than escape.
Whether I'll succeed or fail at following these principles, or even how they will evolve over time, all I can say is let's play to find out.
Kindly, Gabriel Caetano
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breakbeatbun · 6 months
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i did a lot of "boy things" as a kid and I've always felt less "girl" because of it, i never played with stuff that was considered feminine, partly because i was afraid of judgment, but also i found "boy stuff" more appealing. it's tough not relating to one's peers in a binary way. i would love to play cars
tags on this post for context
i was raised by a mechanic and carpenter so a lot of my early free time was spent in a barn full of tools, machines, welding masks, piles of cut-up BMX bikes we'd find in the garbage, stripped-bare sandrails and their engines, couple rifles or compound bows here or there, probably listening to whatever crusty old rock music my dad put on. hell, i was rowing through the gears of my mom's old square body S10 while she drove us to the store before i was barely tall enough to see over the dash. "hanging out with friends" was playing Guitar Hero or Racing & Skateboarding Video Games, or riding our bikes and skinning our knees. "hanging out with dad" was often target shooting in the backyard or building something; I rarely ever held the flashlight, i had the tools in my hands and grease under my fingernails.
that's a lot of exposition but i'm trying to paint the most specific picture i can! TL;DR, a lot of arguably "boy things" in my upbringing, and i fit right into it, lot of fondness in my heart for it still!
around the time i had my big Gender Awakening at the tail-end of high school i had already been Online for a bit - hell i learned what it meant to feel non-binary from this very website circa 2013 - but it wouldn't be until maybe 2019 or so when i moved out that i really started making other queer and trans friends, and it was pretty immediately obvious that i was extremely different from the rest of my community, both online and offline. of course, nobody was rude about it, everybody was VERY respectful of my name and my pronouns and my identity, but it was still really easy for me to feel "othered" because our shared experiences didn't line up at all; At most maybe i got made fun of for having long hair. it made it really easy to feel like i wasn't doing enough work to justify my queerness.
at the other end of that spectrum, i recently tried on she/her pronouns at the front of my bio, just to see if i was missing something, and i was quickly met with an IMMEDIATE outpour of support from friends and community alike. SO many people were loud about being So Proud of me, Knew i Had It In Me, i had multiple friends message me privately to offer information and easy routes to HRT "just in case ;)" i was thinking about it! and, yeah, it's nice to have that kinda support, i'll admit! but it was hard not to feel a little invalidated in not wanting to change. it really felt like a lot of people, close friends even, just kinda saw me as a trans woman waiting to have a bigger realization, as though being non-binary was just a meaningless stepping-stone to something greater. and i mean, i can't blame them, they just wanted to help!!
today i'm pretty firmly Queer/non-binary (with a little bit of Girl on the side when it's either Appropriate or Funny), and my body and voice are very much unaltered from the ones i was born with. virtually indistinguishable from a cishet version of myself, just with the he/him lopped off and they/she sloppily appended in its place; simply because i don't have the energy or don't care to put much effort into change, and that's very much fine for me. I know damn well i don't owe it to anybody but myself anyway, granted none of it tends to matter much when you present as a rabbit girl on the internet LOL. I'm thankful to have built myself a little space where i can engage with others like me, or where other queers feel welcome to express interest in the things that I'M all about! even if it's a little few and far between. still struggle with feeling like i fit in with The Girls tho LMAO.
IDK! this post is my half-baked love letter to my fellow AMAB NB folks who get treated like Cis Men, Trans Women who don't "put the effort in," or Anyone who can Otherwise Relate in the same, or even an opposite sort of way. we are playing cars together
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wardenwyrd · 7 months
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Writeblr Introduction
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Dotted in secret stars and whispered moons lies The Warden O' Wyrd; too bright smiles and sharp eyes linger on her skin, miasma orbiting their visage. When dusk's hands sweep fluttering eyes closed her shackles, in turn, loosen.
Greetings and welcome all, I am Wardenwyrd - connoisseur of messy queers, the freaky & occult, and all things speculative fiction! I am freshly new to Writeblr and am keen to dig my claws so fellow denizens of Writeblr interact if you enjoy my vibes < 3
Open to ask and tag games !
◈What I write ◈
Anything and absolutely everything speculative, weird horror, all shapes and forms of queerness, and a metric ton of worldbuilding.
Genres: Fantasy (Low, high, dark, fairy tale-esque, etc), Sci-Fi, Paranormal, Romance, Horror, Mystery
Fantastical, often ethereal and treacherous worlds flavoured with flowery prose
Queer, neurodivergent, and disabled characters and themes. All kinds of diversity really. Always looking to broaden and grow my noggin' with wisdom
Gender queer characters. An UNBELIEVABLE amount of dyed hair and pronounces.
Body horror: elegant body horror; gross, grimy body horror; wonderfully queer body horror 'til I burst at the seams; all sorts. Twisting of the body into something other than human as a form of beauty my beloved < 3 < 3
Characters who desperately need therapy (That would be my fault)
Rich settings and worlds. Give me intricate magic systems !!! give me ecology that could be shown in a nature documentary !!!
🌔About Me 🌒
Goblin in my (late) teens. I've been writing for a whiiiile but started really getting into it about half a decade ago. I will ravenously consume all forms of creative media.
⭐Likes ⭐
Favourite colour: Purple my beloved Favourite band: Mili (I'm so normal about them) Favourite genre/s: Gothic lit, Fantasy, Horror romance, whimsical fairies Fav insect: Moths/Butterflies
Stats:
Creative writing college student
Panromantic Ace | Queering my gender to the max
English (Regrettably)
Autism kreachure
Revolving door of hyperfixations on science-y stuff
Purple hair (Not beating the stereotype allegations)
WIPs
[Note: I am very bad at deciding on WIP names]
Prisma
My surreal fantasy WIP comprised of a collection of different stories linked by a unifying setting.
Colour-Coded to the max. Each central story focuses on a character assigned a colour, differing in tone, POV, and focus. Main three are purple, blue, and red.
Literal becomes figurative, and figurative literal
Charms and incantations of old swirl in from afar, weaving our hands together with something much deeper than flesh – a curious sentiment oozing from the recesses of Damsel’s cloak as the feeling of moss and stone wove through my veins; cold and refreshing.
‘What absurdity’, The Arbiter would think to himself. After all, those carmine red eyes of his delve into the primaeval madness: in their muddy depths lies the shivering madness - Fear. From fear is the knowledge wrenched from uncertainty and bloodshot eyes. Dread is the light; tugging on world-weary watchers. 
Sort of portal fantasy, sort of not. The stories in this WIP span across many eras and places, yet often find themselves connecting and mingling. Incredibly queer.
Main characters:
MC of Red, Jack Pronouns: He/Him Bnuuy ass trans Victorian boy. Pasty and WILL combust in the sun. Autism creature. He gets a himbo bf and sick asf t-surgery scars as a treat &lt; 3 Character Playlist
MC of Blue, Hel Pronouns: Any/All seemingly innocent girl but remove the innocent and girl part. Kind of an eldritch horror after a character arc but like, that's the good ending. So old surnames weren't a thing in the era they're from. Character Playlist
MC of Purple, Dorothea Pronouns: She/They Gatekeep, Gaslight, Girlboss. Autistic adhd precocious mess who WILL make it your problem. Genuinely manipulative but has great hair so it's fine. Character Playlist
Other notable mentions
[Note: I will elaborate on all of these later]
Witch WIP
My beloved blorbos < 3 Once I figure out how to frame and present it in a more refined way I like I shall be posting about this.
Personal & Cultural struggle within a fantasy context | Disability & Identity as a main theme | Aroace protagonist and Queerplatonic relationship | Magic inspired by folklore and myth | Found family
Low Fantasy setting in a somewhat alternate earth
Sprawling magic system
Conventional fantasy groups but with a spin: revamping those vibes
Witches aren't just funny flying women but genuinely inhuman creatures with spicy shit going on
Demons and angels but: demon is the colloquial term for a class of magical beasts characterised by dense essence, not like hell demons. Angels are living algorithms born from patterns and don't have an actual association to any gods.
MC Playlists:
Branwen | Ingram
Five Steps From Hell
Biblically Accurate Angelic-Flavoured paranormal apocalypse
Autistic MC
More horror oriented than action
Lots of vibes.
MC becoming something not very human, but they're more worried that they aren't worried too much about it
I've got some dastardly plans for this one. Vibes and atmosphere whilst the world falls apart and neurodivergence is a great combo.
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inmyhorrorsera · 7 months
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S5E9 & S5E10 thoughts
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Well, I liked it!
The biggest loser here is Episode 9 because all my thoughts are so occupied by the finale that I can't say much about the previous episode which wasn't even bad. So just three quick things:
Finally I get some good fucking food (The Guide content).
"I'm… going…to kill you… Guillermo" gave me CHILLS.
Guidja real.
Now, to Episode 10:
Didn't notice the previous episode how feral Nandor was filmed, his face all darkened except for a beam of light on his furious eyes, good and classic vampire shit!
Nadja Detective Policeman visiting Guillermo in that outfit😩
Wow, Guillermo treating Derek bad after all he did for him really make the point across that he's a shitty person.
There's something so 😙👌 about Nandor going back to Panera, always love a full circle moment.
I don't care about Patton Oswald as a comedian or person due some disgusting shit he pulled years ago, so sadly I couldn't enjoy his scenes with Nandor that much. I loved that after the whole conversation he still killed him tho. I read someone in the tags paralleling this scene to Guillermo and Meg in S3E2, and I fully agree with that interpretation.
Laszlo helping Guillermo and apologizing…😭 He loves him! I would love to see more of how Laszlo feels about his "frustrations" (his innability to help Guillermo, the impotency of seeing Colin grow up and not remember him). That's something that should be explored better next season imo.
Him trying to have a serious conversation but keep getting distracted by the porn is me trying to watch this show as a dumb comedy but getting distracted by the nandermo of it all.
All the vampires visiting him with dumb excuses was so cute. I wish I never see those creatures ever again tho.
Ahhhh Nandor calling Guillermo from his mother in law mom's house was some psycho shit. Also it remind me a bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Spike visits Buffy's mom just to taunt her. Imagine Nandor pulling this shit:
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(Silvia immediately stakes him of course).
"My friend, Patton Oswalt, he passed away". The solemn way he says it as if he wasn't the culprit 😭.
The moment of Guillermo putting the stake on Nandor's neck was an explicit sex scene for me and for everyone with good taste.
On the opposite side, Nandor helping Guillermo with the red cape is SO SOFT, it's all about being equals this time.
The Djinn… oof… as someone who was begging for his appearance since the beginning of the season, this stunt left me cold… sorry but everything that starts with "it happened off screen" it's bad writing. It's giving "Daenerys kind of forgot…" level of bad.
Didn't like that suddenly Nandor is smarter than the others (specially if we come from an episode when Laszlo called him 'a fuckin idiot' for not getting the Guide reveal).
I already mentioned this in a post I made last night, but I'll repeat it verbatim here, because I stand by it:
I don't believe FOR A SECOND that Laszlo didn't try to feed Guillermo human blood 🤔 Remember when Nadja on s1 went on an entire mission to help Jenna to complete her transformation? (hey everybody, remember Jenna?) How Guillermo 'all my life I dreamed of being a vampire' did not know that piece of lore??
"Guillermo can't kill people" Umm whoever decided to go on this direction, I recommend them this show on FX called What we do in the shadows it's very good! (when consistent).
I…. don't trust that "Guillermo is not cut to be a vampire" stuff… sounds like retcon… BUT! I love the "Guillermo is not cut to be a vampire YET, specially if he isnt sired by Nandor" interpretation.
From the beginning I had this hunch that Guillermo's longing for a family and community (I'm not saying he dislikes his bio family, but obviously he grow up distant from them, probably for being queer and feeling like "an outsider") was a reason for being so desperate to become a vampire. Now that he has the family (bio AND chosen) and the community, it's his time to think if he STILL wants to be vampire or not (and he said at the fake ceremony that he still wants it 😌).
Lmao Guillermo's beard... that thing... didn't look like it was growing from Harvey's face.
🗣️HE 🗣️KEPT 🗣️THE 🗣️GLASSES!!!
More Derek! And with better make up than that ashy talcum powder nightmare from Episode 1!! WTF they got rid of another character of color again??!! Benedict Wong what are you doing here???!!! Yay??????
I really like that Topher is a "functional" zombie in comparison with his state in S2E1, it makes sense with the zombies we saw on the original movie.
Still weird that we end the episode and season here, with Derek happy ending?
HOT take but I like that it didn't end on a cliffhanger, considering that we don't know the state of the show post strikes yet AND after s4 I don't trust this people with cliffhangers ever again lol.
Now that the season is finished I came to realize Nadja's entire arc AGAIN was a big 'ol nothing, huh? The hex, her Antipaxos found family, the little stunt as a teacher, literal "throw at the wall and see what it sticks". I'm sorry but I'll repeat: WWDITS learn how to write women challenge.
Excited to see how Guillermo and Nandor's relationship will develop from now on, I know some people are frustrated but as someone who is used to slow burns being SLOW this is my shit. I joke a lot about the pairing but also I understand that this is the shit&farts show first, nandermo nation second (unlike some people that appears they only consume and rate media depending on how much kissy kissy is on the screen).
From 1 to 10, I'll give this season a 7. Not that good as my god tier seasons (S2 is a 9, S3 is a 10), but not so bad as S4.
What I want next season:
Guillermo NEEDS to be a Bad Bitch again: slaying vampires like the Van Helsing he is, being gay af, not being scared to sass out Nandor, etc.
Laszlo and Colin NEED to have a real talk.
Consistency.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LEARN HOW TO WRITE FOR NADJA I'M ON MY KNEES AT THIS POINT!!!
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soupbabe · 1 year
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Maybe how the slashers could react to reader coming out?? If you write for Otis Driftwood I would go feral his so pretty I can't ♡
Coming Out to Otis Driftwood
I love Otis sm and I barely write anything for him </3 I went with more of a platonic route for this one if that's alright!
Tagging: @slaasherslut, @devil-doll13
Warning: mentions of murder, typical Otis shenanigans
- I don't think Otis cares at all when you bring it up to him
- Like he accepts you, he loves you like sibling, but he could've had so much other stuff done than sit down and have sappy heart-to-hearts
- It's just not his style, y'know?
- Besides, Otis would claim that he's always known
- Regardless of identity, he's going to look at you and tell you that nothing gets by him, he knew that something was off about you
- Other than that, he pays your identity no mind. He still treats you as anyone else, and he adapts to any name or pronoun changes quickly
- He never weaponizes your identity against you; he'd hate you for being annoying, not for being queer ♡
- Despite how dismissive he seems of everything, Otis can and will start a scene if someone is being homophobic/transphobic to you
- Granted to get him to start acting up, it'd have to be more extreme cases like someone harassing you with slurs or someone trying to start a physical fight
- You're family to him, kind of a given that your harassers are gonna die if they mess with you
- Especially if they're two men
- He's gonna make their bodies look like they had the nastiest, grimiest, gay sex and display it for everyone to see c'mon we all saw that coming
- He's a man with a message and a great sense of humor
- Hell, he's even going to encourage you to join in on the killing!
- They were the ones to start it all, why not let you get the last laugh?
- a true ally
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cadybear420 · 2 days
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Cadybear's Reviews- My Two First Loves
Welcome to the twenty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about My Two First Loves, which I have ranked on the "Rotting Flesh Tier" at 2 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was back in April-June 2021.
Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I could write a whole essay on everything wrong with this…  
So I will. 
To put it briefly: this story feels like it was adapted from a Wattpad story that was written by a 12-year-old whose only ever exposure to high school media and depictions of teenage sexuality was Glee, and then had serious queer and mature themes slapped onto it in order to make it seem better. Y’know, the equivalent of trying to polish a turd.
Or, heck, it’s probably PB’s attempt at ripping off “The Kissing Booth”, seeing as both have a MC in a love triangle between her childhood best friend and a bad boy named Noah, after all. Which, funnily enough, was also originally adapted from some tween’s Wattpad story. That’s about the equivalent to a dog eating some rotten food, shitting it out, then another dog finds it, eats it, and then shits it right out again. And THEN that second dog’s owner comes along to try to polish that double-toured turd. 
Number 1: The LGBTQ+ tag is clearly an attempt to appease the queer players that they probably think are being whiny. 
Ava’s arc about realizing she’s a lesbian who had been experiencing compulsory heterosexuality is pretty solid in a vacuum. But her being an LI was so blatantly only a last-minute decision PB made during the writing process, and it shows because Ava’s CG just uses her game sprite while Mason’s and Noah’s are fresh art. 
MC starts to fall for Ava sometime around at least 30 chapters in, but we don’t get to officially pursue her as a romance option until about 70 chapters in. I get delaying her as a love interest a bit because of the whole thing with MC realizing she’s bi, but even then, there’s just so few opportunities for building any kind of relationship with her that it hardly feels authentic. 
Speaking of, MC’s supposed bi awakening is completely rushed and treated with about as much value as a Family Guy cutaway gag, even outside of Ava being sidelined. As someone who realized I wasn’t straight three years ago and is still questioning if I’m bi or straight, I understand that people take different amounts of time to figure out their sexuality. But this MC does not spend any period of time figuring out her bisexuality. She basically just goes “Welp, guess I’m bi now”, and then it’s back to being indecisive as per usual except now there’s a female love interest in the mix too.
To add insult to injury, "discussions of sexuality" is placed in a "player discretion" warning, alongside "racial tensions" and "occasionally violence" to boot. How the fuck is discussion of sexuality even remotely on the same level as either of those? If they meant discussions or depictions of homophobia then maybe I could understand… but I don’t even recall seeing any depictions of homophobia in the book, so including this in the freaking warning tags is pointless at best and kind of insulting at worst. 
Not to mention, plenty of other Choices books like MOTY, ILS, D&D, etc. have had discussions about sexuality/LGBTQ+ stuff before, and didn't have to warn us about it. Not even MAH, a later book which had discussions about freaking conversion therapy for Christ’s sake. Sure, some of those books did have content warnings, but they were generally vague and/or mainly warned for violence, and didn’t warn specifically for depictions of queerphobia or discussions of sexuality. Yet for some reason, MTFL feels the need to include a player discretion warning for sexuality discussions, even though it contains far less harsher queer themes. 
Number 2: The portrayal of teen sexuality in this does not feel earnest. 
Let me just say, I found it very jarring how this one was much more sexually charged compared to PB’s other high school books. PB is usually way more “safe” and PG-13 at most when writing high school characters. Even in books like ROD and WEH, where the characters are 18+ and do have smutty scenes, it’s clear that those books are a lot more restricted compared to the adult cast books.  
I mean, with WEH, the safeness makes sense– it was meant to be a serious and tender story from the start, and it does actually follow through on those themes. But ROD feels like it could have easily been as horny with its writing as MTFL was, what with being about a studious “good girl” who goes rebellious. In fact, the story’s loading screen was pretty infamous at first for looking “steamier” than other covers and loading screens.
In actuality though, ROD had only, what, one smut scene? And despite a lot of MC’s outfits being revealing or arguably sensual, there are practically no moments where MC fawned over how “sexy” a revealing diamond outfit looked. Like, I’m pretty sure there were just little to no sexually charged scenes in general. 
My point is, whatever compelled PB to make MTFL *this* sexualized is beyond me. My guess is the fact that PB called this one a story about “navigating sexuality” and thus wanted to focus more on the aspects of sexuality, but if that’s the case… hoo boy, did they do a terrible job at it. 
I don’t really care about the hypersexualized writing of the teenage characters on its own, or how the characters were initially not confirmed 18+ when the earlier smut scenes were written. What I find far more important is the fact that this sort of cliche and formulaic hypersexualized writing is in a book that markets itself as being about “a young woman navigating love and sexuality for the first time”.
Teens do indeed have sex and can be all over the place with their hormones and sexuality. A lot of us have been there in some way, myself included. And there are ways to talk about that type of stuff in a manner that is silly and/or exaggerated, but still earnest and respectful. But the particular way that MTFL handles super-horny teen sexuality, specifically while claiming to be a coming-of-age story, is neither earnest nor respectful. 
The way this story handles these sorts of topics is the writing equivalent to doing a surgery with Fisher-Price toy surgery tools. It’s genuinely difficult to take MC “navigating her sexuality for the first time” seriously when has to constantly blubber about how Mason and Noah are so muscular or how a diamond outfit has “naughty little thigh highs” or how she wants to do a “down and dirty” cheer routine with Ava for Mason and Noah. 
That last one especially feels like the kind of stuff we’d see more in a campy chick flick that doesn’t take itself seriously. Honestly, if this was a more campy high school book with the tone of DLS or the 2023 movie “Bottoms”, it probably wouldn’t be as glaring. But in a book that markets itself as a coming-of-age story, the tone feels completely off and the whole book honestly felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. 
(Also, while we’re on this topic of MC’s premium outfits, I really fucking despise how MC gets so upset about wearing "mom clothes" if you choose to wear the free modest clothing instead of the revealing diamond outfit in Chapter 2. Ugh. Yes, the dad was being shitty about not letting MC dress how she likes, but all it does is it just makes you feel like shit for not wanting to dress in more revealing clothes. Stop making me feel bad for wanting to wear simple non-revealing clothing. Same goes for you, Chris Romantic Getaway story with your “the regular jerseys aren’t cute enough for girls to wear, we have to cut one up into a cleavage crop top in order to make it good for us girls to wear” bullshit.) 
And it just slaps you in the face with these sexual moments too, placing them in frequently whenever it feels like it, and the amount of it that actually contributed to any coming-of-age navigating-sexuality are few and far between. Honestly, it felt like it was trying way too hard to look "mature" with how it handled sexuality (as well as some of the other stuff like them drinking alcohol). Like it maybe was trying to portray teens realistically, but it only does so at a very shallow level. 
It's literally just "Look at the teens that talk about sex and like doing sexy things and having sex and doing grown-up stuff like drinking alcohol, see how MATUUURRREEE they are!" and they don't do anything more with it. It's just tacked on so they can pretend their book is a realistic story about maturing/being mature, when it fails at actually doing so.
I mean, I guess you could argue that the MC is meant to be seen as more messy and hormonal. And in that case, I could give it a pass. But, again, MC’s supposed arc of “navigating sexuality” never goes anywhere from that until the very last few chapters where you choose which LI she ends up with. It’s pretty much the same crap all throughout the book. MC doesn’t navigate sexuality, she just runs around aimlessly in it like a chicken with its head cut off.
Number 3: All the serious themes they try to have in the story are overshadowed by MC’s stupid indecisiveness plot. 
I’ve already said MTFL tries way too hard to make its story seem “mature” with the trashy way it sexualizes its characters. I’ve said it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Honestly though, this just sums up MTFL’s writing in general. 
MTFL has quite a handful of subplots, and I will admit, all of them are pretty compelling. You have Ava figuring out she’s lesbian, Mack dealing with gang drama, and Mason and Noah dealing with their past and Mason’s dad’s abusive behaviors. And an admittedly decent arc about MC discovering her love for photography instead of cheerleading. 
And then you have MC going on about how she can’t decide between her love interests, which is just the bad apple of the bunch that ruins the rest. It just makes it very hard to take everything else seriously. You ever seen that one meme where the Power Rangers put their hands in a circle but then a Teletubbie tries to join in? It’s the writing-equivalent to that, and MC’s indecisiveness plot is the Teletubbie. 
And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if MC’s indecisiveness wasn’t the main focus plot of the whole book. I want to take these other storylines seriously. I want to take this story as a whole seriously. But how can I when the main focus of the story is so god damn shallow? No matter how many "soft positive heartfelt" piano tracks and “so sad and tragic sad” piano tracks from WEH they try put over it, it doesn't change the fact that the focus is MC going on and on about being unable to choose between Mason, Noah, and Ava. 
I get teens are shallow and can have shallow issues, but did we really need it to be that big of a focus of the story? Especially when the way it handles it is completely empty? Something like OG HSS was great because even though a lot of the issues the characters had were seemingly shallow and basic (such as the band fighting over which song to play), they do give a little more depth to it and reason to care about it (ie. Aiden starts to feel like a failure at music because of the band infighting). MTFL just throws MC’s indecisiveness at you for 95 chapters and expects you to take it seriously with nothing else surrounding it. 
And they try to pull the twist on the title at the end where it’s all like “LI and photography, the two greatest loves of MC’s life”. Which is an interesting idea in concept, except it feels so artificial and non-earned when MC’s romance plot was spending 95 chapters being unable to decide between the LIs. 
Number 4: It reuses way too much from HSS. 
I know this is a less severe issue, but I just can’t get past it. Sprites, backgrounds, school colors… even plot points like the corrupt principal embezzling from the school, or MC and LI(s) being locked in a large school room (remember when HSS:CA MC and Ajay were locked in the auditorium?). Heck, even MC having lost her mom and having a photography passion connected to that, rings way too similar to one of Autumn’s arcs from the freaking HSS PRIME GAME! Oh yeah, and both of those characters have a love triangle with a golden boy and a bad boy. Holy hell. 
Easily the most noticeable part is the sprites. In my playthrough, I counted 7 whole HSS sprites that were used in MTFL: Sydney became Iris, Payton became Toni, Frank became this random kid in a flashback for Mason and Noah's past, Morgan became a kid in Elijah's gang named Lucy, Lorenzo became Chad, Aiden's mom became Asian Noah's mom, Skye's dad became White Mason's dad (PB really said use that sprite for abusive dads huh). And there’s probably more, I’m sure. 
And the worst offense? They even reuse the iconic bird's-eye view of Berry High in MTFL. Call me petty if you must, but that's just criminal. It's one thing to reuse and alter a bunch of the sprites, uniforms, and backgrounds from the series but to reuse another book series' iconic background like that? Honestly, it feels rather insulting. They couldn't even be arsed to change the "Go Tigers!" on the football field, that’s how little sense it makes to use that background outside of HSS. Fuck’s sake.
I know it’s kind of the norm for Choices to reuse assets throughout different series, but the fact that they do it so much here and majority of it is from HSS just rubs me the wrong way. At best, it’s jarring and lazy. And at worst, it comes off as trying way too hard to be a “more mature” version of HSS. When in reality, it makes HSS:CA’s side characters look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, at least Clint and Natalie and MC stopped whinging about Rory ⅓rd of the way through the series. 
At least when other high-school-setting books like ROD, WEH, and ILITW were made, they at least somewhat bothered to change up a few things and make it feel like an actually different school. They changed up the backgrounds a bit, used different school colors and uniforms, and didn’t reuse nearly as many sprites from HSS.  
In MTFL, all they did was make new cheer uniforms for the non-reused sprites and remove the Berry High logos from everything HSS that they used. Yeah they made some changes, but it’s clear that they didn’t put nearly the same amount of effort into it as they did in the other high school setting books. 
All it does is just make me miss HSS. Like, stop toying with my heart by piggybacking off of a better series (that has better queer rep too) so much. It’s to the point where it feels like they should have just used the time making this book to instead make a HSS senior year (Which, y’know, would be nice, especially since the sendoff we got in HSS:CA 3 was absolute flaming fucking garbage). 
So… in all honesty, I don’t hate this book. But it had a lot of things that annoyed me to no end and it sure as fuck is disappointing wasted potential. It had a great opportunity to be a nice queer coming-of-age story. But instead it felt like a Kissing Booth rip-off with serious themes only hamfisted in order to make it seem more “mature”.
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youngpettyqueen · 11 months
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9, 10, 20, 21!
9: worst part of canon
me 2 seconds ago: im not gonna go on about the anti-military stance of MASH softening
me seeing this: SO THE ANTI-MILITARY STANCE OF MASH SOFTENING-
for real though. as much as I love the show as a whole, I wish they kept the anti-military stance of seasons 1 - 3. I hate that it got lax and slowly got softer and softer as the show went on. yes the anti-war themes remain but its such a weird stance they take where they try to go "well not all army people are bad" with the introduction of Potter that ultimately just doesnt work
also the way Klinger gets treated often being shoved under the rug. my man deserved BETTER
10: worst part of fanon
I did answer this one but ill focus on a specific character here and say I really dont like a lot of fanon Klinger stuff I used to see when I was in the tags more. people make him out to be really dumb which is a large issue in the show itself, even though he's like. really fucking smart. but there's also a general issue ive seen of him being made out to be this, like, flamboyant slutty character which doesnt match him at all?? he's a romantic! he wants to get married! he's a sweetheart with the ladies- and close friends with the nurses, too. it doesnt surprise me this happens, fandoms in general are just. incapable of being normal about characters of colour, but I still hate to see it
20: part of canon you found tedious or boring
answered this one!
21: part of canon you think is overhyped
I love to joke around about queer subtext but I really really get nervous when I see people act like MASH was somehow deliberately queer. I think you can make a case for queerness as an anti-military device in the early seasons! but thats about it, I dont genuinely think any of these characters were meant to be read as queer themselves, and I think its important to remember that
like I love to call them all queer and say "what was the heterosexual reason for this" but at the end of the day. im well aware they weren't meant to be read that way. the heterosexual explanation is that these characters were written by heterosexual writers and queer jokes have always been a thing. MASH has fortunately aged fairly well in some of these and its easy to relate to the humour, but when people act like characters being queer is like, deliberate and canon subtext... I get nervous. ive been in a lot of fandoms over the years where this happens and it never ends well, it always ends up in queer baiting discourse and ship wars and it just. sucks
thats the long way of saying I think the fandom way overhypes what is considered queer subtext
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