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allthoseotherworlds · 4 months

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It's honestly pretty frustrating sometimes how I feel like so many people say they love Martha, but mostly what I actually see people saying about Martha is how much she probably does/should hate the Doctor for not returning her crush, or sometimes how much people hate Blink/Family of Blood/Last of the Time Lords because they were hard for her.

And like, the former of those is frustrating because a) Nobody is obligated to return someone's romantic feelings, b) Being oblivious to someone having a crush on you might suck for the other person but is not actually a moral failing and c) Martha was sad about it but like. She didn't leave because she was furious at the Doctor for not returning her crush? She left because she knew her crush wasn't reciprocated and wasn't going to be, but couldn't get over it on her end while travelling with the Doctor. And also because the past year had been pretty traumatizing for everyone, including her and also the Doctor and also everyone else who was on that ship thing.

Anyways

I just wanted to talk for a bit about the things I like about Martha, or that are interesting, that are unrelated to those points above.

I think she's the first companion in New Who to join Unit, and I think still the only one to be a medical doctor with a strong scientific backing. Which is cool!

I think it's interesting that in the first episode she appears in, her family is shown to be kind of messy and kind of frustrating, and it feels like that's something she's a little glad to be getting away from for a bit when she travels with the Doctor (though it's not the reason she travels with them). And then, at the end of the season when her family is in danger she prioritizes their wellbeing enough to snap at the Doctor about it. If I remember correctly their phones were tapped or something and it wound up making things a bit worse, but I appreciate the nuances of her relationship with them and how important they are to her despite the messiness.

Despite all the ado made about her crush on the Doctor, I really loved how she really seemed to get the point of travelling with the Doctor. I think that she nailed both the joy and excitement of the unknown, and the compassion and sense of care that motivates the Doctor's travels, and which I think is vital to all of my favourite companions.

It also contrasts in interesting ways with how her personality shifts after she stops travelling with the Doctor - she still cares about people's wellbeing and seems to value the things she learned while travelling, but working with Unit and Torchwood does make her more military, and then of course doing freelance alien fighting (? or something?) in the End of Time.

I think Martha and the Doctor are an interesting duo because they contrast each other in interesting ways. They're both compassionate, hopeful but practical, and good at what they do, but they reflect those qualities in ways that almost, but don't quite, fit together nicely. They don't conflict, really, but they're not quite sustainable either.

They work well together and care about each other, but they're too similar in some ways and too different in others to ever quite see eye to eye, which is why they end up going in different directions. And I think that's not anyone's fault, or indicative of any deep flaws in either of them. Or even really a tragedy, because Martha seems to be doing new and interesting things every time we see her, with plenty of options available and a decent rapport with the Doctor whenever they show up.

Anyway this got way longer than I meant it to. Tldr: There are so many more interesting things to say about Martha than just "She must hate the Doctor". Here are some of them.

#Also I didn't have room here but. I understand hating the family of blood stuff but. John Smith is not the Doctor. That's the whole point #John Smith is absolutely rude to Martha and I dislike him as a person. But he is also not the Doctor #And I absolutely do not believe that the Doctor handpicked the persona and went “Yeah. Making him rude and racist and like guns”#I think they just got out the chameleon arch and said #“Here's the time and location that gives us the best shot at avoiding the family of blood. Give me and Martha random identities. Thanks”#That said it's actually not an episode I particularly like so I don't know why I'm rambling about it here #I get anxious about things where characters are Not Themselves and being rude and mean in ways they aren't #And also found the ending a little Too Much personally #Anyways I'm just monologuing now #Doctor Who #Doctor Who Meta #Martha Jones #I am talking #I am just some guy (gender neutral)#This post brought to you by another person joking about how Martha is so strong for putting up with the Doctor because of the crush stuff #And me as an aromantic not enjoying the implication that I am something to put up with and that the most interesting thing anyone can say #about a dynamic between two people is how much it sucks that one of them didn't know the other had a crush and 'led them on'#or whatever. But just ranting about that again didn't feel constructive so I tried to say more interesting things instead

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theboxfort · 1 year

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human multimeter IS SO PRETTY!!!

awjlilgwlislid thank you!!!! 🥺

#pink draws #multimeter (object oc)#i based her outfit on your stereotypical engineer/mechanic uniforms LKJASGDASG #i was considering a lab coat but that then people would assume that she's good in other fields of science too which!! she isn't #so yeah! i tried to make it as clear as possible that she's more of a tinkerer/fixer than a chemist/biologist #also her goggles are based on her object form's eyes!!#the yellow/light gray straps on her uniform are reflective straps like those on construction worker's vests #lowkey getting gender envy from my own oc LAISJGLASIGASG

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neverendingford · 2 months

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#tag talk #hey bitches. she's afk so mom said it's my turn with the body. feels good to be back. I hate half of you parasites and I'm blocking some #same with Instagram. bunch of fucking drones posting shitty memes and sending the most unfunny jokes possible. blocking most of you there #started the process of sorting some things out with her girlfriend because damn some things are unacceptable and you've gotta say something.#she gets to do the soft and useless damage control later I guess I don't fucking care. I'm not going to let us get disrespected like that.#she lets it slide but I'm done taking shit.#sent an angry email to our therapist last night as well because fucking hell how can you be so incompetent at your fucking job.#Jesus h Christ didn't you study this in school or something? yeah we've gone through multiple therapists sorry that makes you insecure???#you're not the first and from the looks of things you're not going to be the last either.#saw the psychiatrist this morning and bipolar confirmed I guess. we'll see whether the new meds make much of a difference.#I kind of don't want them to though. I like being out and finally able to sort our shit out.#feels good to finally message people and tell them how I feel. I don't get a voice much anymore #and ugh I hate having long hair so much but I have to keep it because she needs it so I'll put up with it for her sake but damn I miss short #short hair was genuinely so fucking good and the hassle of long hair is so stupidly intensive but gender dysphoria so whatever I guess #anyway bye you mouth breathers I'm off to go get this stupid-ass body showered #I hate having a penis too though. that's one thing we can both agree on. it's so stupid and it hangs out and the shape is so stupid #God should take constructive criticism and also mean criticism because I have some opinions about how shitty his design is #anyway. bye idiots #Fade is such a fucking good band they were such a good pick for the Deadman Wonderland op

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tyrannuspitch · 10 months

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only got two chapters into wml before giving up for the night so i might have to eat these words but. from what i've read. it seems like they're mostly decoupling asgardian magic stigma from gender? and in an ~explicitly queer~ loki book that is not just cowardly but also really really odd. why would you do that??? it's free gender!!

#space viking tag #yeah i know it's m*ckenzi lee but all authors get theythemmed when i'm being abstract #like i'm not talking to you i'm talking to the pages in front of me... and theres more than one of them.....#sigh. anyway. if no one else wants to talk about fucked up old norse gender roles then i guess i'll have to do it.#i still have a 70% drafted weird little fic in my archives. this is a threat #constructive complaining #s: other marvel #th: sorcery #th: ergi #th: gender + sexuality

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falinscloaca · 1 year

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Sees fromsofts saddest of sad old men, but consider, what if sad old woman?

#this is about gehrman #i love the ‘curious mania’ bit its like the game gives you a chaos card that can mean fuckin anything just nothing normal #creep-o lusting stalker stuff? not my fave but you can go that way ig #paternal protectiveness and projection-of-responsibilities/‘shoulds’? yeap!#likewise projective and protective impulses but motivated instead by DEEEPLY repressed gender dysphoria?? thats what i’m talking about!!#my actual full interpretation of what i lije to imagine that whole dynamic was is way too complicated and nuanced for a tags dump but.#yeah #WIERDLY ENOUGH MY CURRENT VERSION OF GEHRMAN IS HEAVILY INSPIRED BY FUCKIN. MARCILLE FROM DUNGEON MESHI. LMAO #SPECIFICALLY IN HOW SHE CONSTRUCTS FEMININITY WRT FALIN (AND TO A LESSER EXTENT IZUTSUMI)#well actualky there might be more textually there between her and Izu its just. i think it was in a daydream hour? falin gets shorter hair #and marcille is a bit incredulous about it iirc and like. it feels like the finishing cog in her whole goddamn character

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rensblade · 5 months

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𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐃.

⟢ warnings/notes: husband! jing yuan x gender neutral! reader. toothrotting fluff, cute domestic banter tbh. husband yuan nation, please rise. not proofread, we die like tingyun. might be ooc. pls lmk if i got any of the hsr terminology wrong.. appreciate any type of feedback & please please pleaseee send me reqs if u have any ✩

“beloved, am i really that bad of a general?”

the all too familiar baritone of your husband’s voice fills in your ears, as you raise your gaze from the distance, only to watch him sulk from where he was sat upon the seat of divine foresight.

to anyone that squints, would be graced upon a phenomenon all too odd— jing yuan, one of seven arbiter generals, pouting.

“and what.. exactly makes you think so, ‘yuan?” you already knew the answer, but you still entertained the fact he was pouting, almost comically the same way yanqing does, when you deny him from making impulsive sword purchases.. or the same way mimi, your household lion, scrunches up her face and paws at your clothes when you tell her that she won't get any more snacks for the night.

said man sits up from where he's at, and abruptly makes his way down to where you're seated— at his desk. sorting through some of the things unattended earlier during his earlier escapade to fyxestroll garden.

“well.. you know.” he deadpans, staring down at you. you have to keep in a giggle, finding the way he waited so patiently for you to finish with the work at your side, almost akin to your precious lion who does the same.

you heave a sigh, but in an amused way, as you stack the last documents into a neat pile and turn in your chair, and upon being graced with your attention; your lover nearly falls dramatically into your arms.

“i can't help but think i should just hand over my resignation early. you know what, fu xuan probably saw this coming,” he fake-wails, as you caress his hair, cooing at the man who was currently at your feet.

eventually, he relents, when you tug a little hard on his fluffy white mane. “darling.. is this about cirrus?” the mere mention of the heliobus makes jing yuan glower, and you practically have to bite back your laughter at the expression, opting to clear your throat instead.

he stays silent for a second, then scrunches his face. “..absolutely not,” he retaliates in a serious tone. then, he slumps forward again, almost nuzzling into your lap as he tries to hypothesize. “it's just. i need some constructive criticism, before i actually hand over my position to someone else, you know,” he reasons, but you know better.

“right, why of course.” you humor him a little bit longer. pushing the general’s buttons has always been your favorite past time activity.

he pulls away, getting on his feet before he gathers your hands into his and gives you a solemn look. “you get me, my love. this is why we're married.”

that makes you crack a smile. jing yuan only raises a brow, but returns the smile nevertheless, a little hesitant. “yuan, i love you, but. you mean solid constructive criticism like.. i don't know, maybe it's about time you retired and took a big fat cat nap?” you suggest with a snort, and jing yuan simply huffs. (yeah, mimi definitely got the attitude from her dad).

you shake your head, dragging him to sit next to you as you elaborated. “in all seriousness.. you're not a bad general. not a bad mentor, father or husband, jing yuan. don't let that silly heliobi’s words get to your head.” the tall man, lets you cup his face, squishing his cheeks as you pepper kisses across them, as if to prove your point.

he simply gathers your form up into his arms, holding you tightly and you can't help but relax into the warmth he emits. he's truly a big cat. “you know, i’m starting to think this must be how birds that nest in your hair must feel.” you point out with a false-huff, after a minute of silence.

jing yuan chuckles at that, purposely tugging you by the waist; flush closer against his torso as he nuzzles into you— pale locks of his hair cloud your vision. “why, of course. a wise, little sparrow, you are.” he snuggles against you, golden eyes softening as they examine your reactions. “in fact, my favorite.” the baritone of his words send a pleasant wave of warmth through your body, you can feel him smile against your skin as he litters little kisses here and there.

to be fair, if you were held prisoner in his gentle yet steady hold forever, you were more than willing to be reduced to a mere bird, for eternity. okay, and maybe you would miss making snarky rebuttals at the general, but that's about it.

as you're resting yourself against him, a thought crosses your mind, and you'd bask in the silent affection but your loud thoughts cut you short. “and for the record, you still should've let me kick cirrus’s butt.” as expected, a hearty laugh booms from the man’s chest, the vibrations making your body tingle.

“i love you.” he says, practically purring, as the gigantic man nuzzles even further into the crevice of your neck, pressing yet another kiss to the spot he loves. his hair tickles your neck, but you love the familiarity of it all.

what a heavenly life you live, as the general’s personal songbird.

rensblade, 2023. please do not steal my writings or headers, i put a lot of effort into this. reblogs & comments are appreciated! pls send me asks/reqs, i write for most genshin or hsr or jjk characters as of now. thank u once again <3

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waskurttrans · 2 years

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Kurt Cobain Will Have His Revenge on the Straights

Had a video call with my brother Chuck the other day. Things got heavy:

KATE: Was Kurt Cobain a trans woman?

CHUCK: What?

Kurt Cobain. Rock musician. He was in a band called Nirvana.

I’m familiar with him, yes.

Was he a trans woman?

Um. No?

OK. Why not?

I mean, he wasn’t. It’s like asking why he wasn’t an astronaut.

He wasn’t an astronaut because he never went to space. Why wasn’t he a trans woman?

Because he didn’t transition. I mean, he didn’t ever say he was a woman, didn’t ever say he was trans. So no. Kurt Cobain wasn’t a trans woman.

So someone is trans if they say they’re trans. Self-determination.

That’s what you’ve told me. Is that wrong?

No, that’s right. We know ourselves better than anybody else can know us. If we say we’re trans, nobody can say we aren’t.

And Kurt Cobain never said he was trans.

So was I trans in 1994?

I don’t know, were you?

Yes, but if you’d asked me in 1994, I would have told you “no”.

So if I tell you I’m trans, I’m trans…

Right.

But if I tell you I’m cis, I might still be trans?

If you tell me you’re cis, I believe you.

That’s not the same thing as “I’m cis”.

That’s a really good point. This is sort of what some queer people are getting at when they say “gender is a construct”.

Come again?

Well, you’re cisgender, right?

As far as I know, yes.

Aha.

Hmmm?

You hedged. “As far as I know” isn’t the same thing as “yes”. “As far as I know” opens up the possibility that you could be trans and not know it.

It doesn’t seem terribly likely.

That’s an interesting statement. Early on in transition one of the biggest problems I had was dealing with the sheer unlikelihood of my being trans. I mean, I knew trans people existed. I knew somebody had to be trans. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that it would be me.

Do you think this is why you’re on this whole “Kurt Cobain was a trans woman” kick?

Hey now, I’m just asking questions. You know. Like J.K. Rowling is “just asking questions”.

Kate, you are literally wearing a T-shirt that says “KURT COBAIN WAS A TRANS WOMAN” on it right now.

Am I? Oh, shit. I thought I was wearing my “Skip school, take hormones, kill God” T-shirt. To your question, though - yeah, I do think that’s part of it. Honestly, the hardest thing about growing up trans was believing that nobody in the world had ever experienced what I was experiencing. I didn’t have any role models. I didn’t wonder if I was the only one. I was convinced of it.

So being able to say that this incredibly gifted songwriter, the voice of a generation, was a trans woman like you…

I need someone like that. I need to not be the first of my kind.

Of course you’re not the first trans woman.

No, but before a couple of years ago almost every trans woman would tell you they always knew, unquestionably and innately, that they were women.

So it’s not just about him being trans, but specifically his being a trans woman who didn’t know he was a trans woman.

An egg. Right.

Why Kurt Cobain, anyway? What’s so special about him that you’re trying to induct him into the Egg Hall of Fame?

He knew things. Things cis guys don’t know. Things I didn’t know until after I started transition. He understood women, what we’re like, what we experience. “Pennyroyal Tea”. “Rape Me”. I just have a hard time thinking of a cis man who could write songs like that.

It wouldn’t be the only way in which he was exceptional.

True. Ahhh. I don’t know. I mean, I know, I can give you all the reasons, but there’s something in his eyes.

Something in his eyes.

All the pictures of him. No matter what he’s doing. If he’s grinning, or sad, whatever he’s doing, you can see something trapped there. Trapped and in pain, wanting to get out but not quite knowing how.

Huh. You, uh, know that what you’re doing is pretty much the textbook definition of projection, right?

Maybe. Chuck, do you think I’m happier?

Since you transitioned?

Yeah.

Of course. Absolutely. Night and day.

Everyone says that, and honestly, I see it. Even in pictures, you know? I see it. You’ve seen some of my transition timelines, right?

You do look really different.

It’s not just me. Every single person who transitions looks like that. We look so much happier, so much more alive, so much more us. I don’t understand how anybody can hate us.

I don’t get it either, Kate.

And when I look at any timelines, I look at the before photos… and I see something in their eyes. Transmasc, transfem, doesn’t matter. There’s something trapped wanting to get out. Every picture I’ve ever seen of Kurt Cobain looks like the “before” picture on a transition timeline. It’s just that with him, there aren’t any after pictures.

And it’s not just the eyes, either. The way he dressed, the whole “grunge look”. It’s just literally egg fashion. We dress with total disregard for our appearance or how we look because no matter what we do it’s wrong.

“Egg fashion”, egg this, egg that… isn’t it a little bit anachronistic, judging him by 2022 standards, 2022 values?

Is it? Chuck, I was alive in 1994. I was an 18 year old egg. I know what that feels like. I know what that looks like. I lived that. Why didn’t I come out as trans in 1994? Because I didn’t have the opportunity. Because self-determination needs to be informed, and none of us were. None of us. Look. You know what he said to Melody Maker in 1991? “I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all.” That’s what he said.

Holy shit. Really?

Really. September 14, 1991.

Hold on, let me look that up. Oh, yeah, I see it. Look, if you look at the full quote he’s just saying he’s not a jock. Like he didn’t fit in with the jocks.

Well, what about the dresses?

What dresses?

Kurt Cobain wore a lot of dresses. Like, a lot, both onstage and off. On MTV in 1991, he said “It’s ‘Headbanger’s Ball’ so I thought I’d wear a gown.” He said in a 1993 interview, “I personally like to wear dresses. I wear them around the house sometimes.” This is not some shameful secret he kept hidden from the world. He was open about this. He was proud about this.

Yeah, but… it’s just clothes.

Except it’s not just clothes. Listen to his songs. Listen to his lyrics. “Should have been a son”. “I’m a lady, can you save me?” “Everyone is gay.” The original lyrics to “All Apologies” from his journals – “Boys write songs for girls. Let me grow some breasts.”

I mean they’re song lyrics. There are all kinds of ways to interpret song lyrics.

Sure. All kinds of ways. You ever read Michael Azerrad’s biography of Cobain, Come As You Are?

Nope.

Azerrad spent weeks talking to Cobain. He was Cobain’s biographer, but also his friend. And he has his own interpretation of the lyrics. For instance, Azerrad talks about all the lyrics about guns, and to me, now, I look at that, and I think of how he died, but Azerrad, when Kurt was alive, he looked at it another way. He thought it’s about dicks. “To paraphrase Dr. Freud,” he says, “sometimes a gun is just a gun. But not this time.” He talks about “Come As You Are”, where Kurt keeps singing “I swear I don’t have a gun.” That’s not my interpretation. That’s never been my interpretation. That’s what this cis man says. More than one cis man. Kurt says Dave Grohl’s dad, he said the same thing. Yeah. There are all kinds of ways to interpret lyrics.

“By this time,” Azerrad wrote, “one begins to wonder how Kurt rationalizes being a man at all. His first response is revealing. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Castration.’” I don’t wonder how Kurt rationalizes being a man. I rationalized “being a man” in all kinds of ways. What strikes me is that he needed to rationalize being a man. Had to come up with some kind of excuse. It just strikes me kind of funny.

Kurt’s songs have meanings. The lyrics to “In Bloom”, Kurt was pretty explicit about that. The lyrics he wrote have meanings. “Heart-Shaped Box”. You know what that refers to? When Courtney Love was flirting with Kurt, Michael Azerrad says in Come As You Are, “She gave Dave (Grohl) a package to give to Kurt – little sea shells and miniature teacups and a tiny doll, all packed into a small heart-shaped box.” A tiny doll locked away inside a box shaped like a heart. That was what I felt like before I came out. A tiny phantom doll. Kurt and Courtney first kissed after a show at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago. Rumor was that they fucked against the bar, but they denied it. What actually happened, Azerrad says, is that “Courtney had a bag of lingerie with her for some reason and Kurt ended up modeling the contents.” And then they went to Kurt’s hotel room and they fucked.

You’re making it sound…

Maybe it was. Because you look at that and you think that if it was like that, it was perverted and wrong, because that’s what you were told, that it’s a sick fetish thing, and I look at it and it isn’t. To me, that’s normal. That Kurt Cobain was sexually aroused while wearing Courtney Love’s lingerie, that’s normal.

Kate, he was a punk! He hated jocks, and wearing a dress pissed off jocks, so he wore dresses. He talked about wanting to wear a dress and piss on a redneck A&R man’s desk! You think that was some kind of sex thing?

Sexuality is part of being a woman. Part. Rage – and Kurt Cobain had a lot of rage inside him – that’s another part. Am I interpreting, am I looking at things from my perspective as a trans woman? Yes, certainly, just like you’re interpreting, looking at it from your perspective as a cis man. When cis people interpret things, their conclusion is never “they were trans”. Never.

Ed Wood wasn’t a trans woman. He was just a transvestite. He was a man.

Pete Burns from Dead or Alive wasn’t a trans woman. Sure, he got all sorts of feminizing surgeries, but he never said he was a woman. Man.

Prince Nelson adopted a female persona, feminized his voice, and recorded a song about wanting to be a woman's girlfriend, but he was also a Christian and believed that being queer was wicked and sinful, and that's the identity of his we need to respect. Man.

Richard Wright, who wrote the Phish song “Halley’s Comet”, spent most of the 1980s telling everyone he knew he was a transsexual lesbian named Nancy, but after being consistently treated like shit changed his mind about that, so none of that counts for anything. Man.

Dave Carter was on HRT when he died, but he was just questioning. He didn’t tell anybody for sure that he was a woman. Man.

Quentin Crisp said just before he died that if he was younger, he absolutely would have transitioned, but wanting to transition isn’t the same as actually transitioning. Man.

All men. Always, always men, whatever they do, whatever they say. I know how that works. I was told all these same things about myself for decades, all these same reasons, and now, I don’t know, I guess people will make a personal exception for me, but for everybody else, the same old assumptions, the same old arguments, they still apply. They’re still legitimate.

I thought we were talking about Kurt Cobain.

And the only way to do that is to talk about him in isolation. There’s no larger context to consider, no bigger picture. I can’t really know. I can’t really judge.

I mean, everybody else does. I guess I can’t tell you not to. But all of this circumstantial evidence, all of the dresses and the lyrics that you I guess know the real meaning of – none of that makes him a girl.

Sure. And nothing can make him a girl. Because he’s dead. Because he killed himself.

Oh, here we go. After thirty years and countless speculation, you have at last uncovered the real reason Kurt Cobain killed himself – gender dysphoria. Do you have a book deal yet?

Working on it. And yes, people say a lot of stupid things about Cobain’s death, like it’s this big shock that this guy who hated himself and wanted to die killed himself.

Right. He was pretty well-known for being a heroin addict, which isn’t exactly something that improves one’s quality of life.

Sure, but why did he start heroin?

I don’t know. Why does anybody start heroin?

To help him cope with his eating disorder.

Wait, what? Eating disorder?

You don’t know about that? He had stomach problems, for a long, long time. He could only eat certain kinds of food, certain kinds of food that wouldn’t make his stomach hurt. Doctors looked but they could never find any organic cause for it. Nobody took it seriously. So he self-medicated with heroin. “It was my choice,” he told Azerrad. “I don’t regret it at all because it was such a relief from not having stomach pain every day.” I know, though. Lots of cis guys have eating disorders. Doesn’t mean anything.

Kate there’s a lot of interpreting going on here.

Yeah, I guess there is. Is that necessarily a bad thing, though? Is that necessarily wrong? Like. You’ve seen The Matrix, right?

Only the first one.

Yeah, that’s fine. So you know how important The Matrix is to a lot of trans women, right?

Yes, but I’m not really sure why. Just seems like a retelling of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” with extra fight scenes.

It’s pretty trans, though, right?

Clearly. It was directed by two trans women.

And trans women who watch it – eggs or otherwise – find their own lives and experiences reflected in it in ways that cis people, like you, don’t.

I guess, but the fact that it was actually made by two trans women carries a little more weight with me.

OK, but what if the Wachowskis had died in 2000? In, like… a car crash or something? Does that mean The Matrix isn’t a trans film?

Well, no, because it’s still a film made by two trans women.

A film made by two trans women that speaks to the trans experience, and that is recognized by living trans women as speaking specifically to the trans experience. The only difference is that, in this scenario, nobody knows the Wachowski Sisters are trans women. And we can’t prove it. We can’t possibly prove it, and nobody is going to just believe us when we say it’s a trans movie, that the Wachowskis were trans women, because they didn’t say it, they didn’t say the special magic words. Self-determination. You know what self-determination meant to Kurt Cobain? I remember seeing Courtney Love on television reading his note, I remember her interrupting to say that he was an asshole, that what he was saying was bullshit. She didn’t respect his self-determination.

Um…

“Pennyroyal Tea”. Cobain told Azerrad “It's a cleansing theme where I’m trying to get all my bad evil spirits out of me and drinking Pennyroyal tea would cleanse that away.” Pennyroyal is an abortifacient – but, Azerrad notes, only in lethal doses.

Hell, not just that song. The whole album. In Utero. The collage on the back cover, the one Cobain described to Azerrad as “Sex and woman and In Utero and vaginas and birth and death". The occult symbols surrounding it, taken from Barbara G. Walker’s The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects1. There was something inside Kurt Cobain, something inside him waiting to be born, but he was told, over and over, that it was a monster, so he killed it, the only way he could. By killing himself.

That could have been me. That could so easily have been me. I was told all the same things he was. We all were. When I was 27? When I was 27, I was addicted to benzos, benzos they prescribed me because I was trying to bury, trying to kill this thing, this thing I had inside of me. I was a zombie. Walking dead. When I quit, I quit cold turkey. Nobody told me about the withdrawal syndrome. Nobody told me it could have killed me. And if it had, everybody would remember me, everybody would think of me, as a cis man. Forever. They would perpetuate the Lie. That’s why I transitioned, why I chose to go through all the shit I went through. The writer and musician Margaret Killjoy, in 2017 she talked about what she went through the day before she came out:

“All I could think was: ‘Oh god, I don’t want to die a boy.’”2

I felt the same way, came out for the same reason. I figured no matter what I did, I was dead. I didn’t do it live, but to at least have an honest death. I genuinely believed transition would kill me.

It didn’t, though! You’re alive and you’re beautiful and I’m so, so glad for that. It didn’t kill you.

It could have. Still could. Transition has helped, has made it easier for me, but it’s not that way with everyone. People have been kind to me, in ways that they aren’t kind to other trans women. Others of us… aren’t so lucky.

Who are we respecting, exactly, by remaining silent about our shared experiences, our shared perspectives, things we see that you fucking don’t, that you can’t see? Of course I can’t prove it. I can’t prove that I’m trans. You can’t prove that you’re cis. Cis people, though, cis people never have to prove anything. Their prejudices are the null hypothesis3. If I was to go out there and say that Kurt Cobain was a cisgender man, would anybody say I was wrong? Would anybody object or complain? Even though my saying that is an anachronism, is meaningless. The word, the concept, it literally didn’t exist when Cobain died. Have you ever heard the word “agnotology”?

No?

It means making a false claim to ignorance. Claiming that we don’t know something that we do. That we can’t know something that we can. We know things now, Chuck. We know what the symptoms of gender dysphoria are. We know what it does to people. How eggs think. How eggs act. How eggs die. But we pretend we don’t. We still pretend. We pretend suicide is an individual act, even when we know it’s not, that the reasons for it are wholly personal. We pretend that when someone dies by suicide, their reasons for doing so die with them. And they don’t, Chuck. We’re still dying, still dying for the same reasons Kurt Cobain did. It’s not just that we aren’t allowed to recognize ourselves. We aren’t allowed to recognize each other. Individual choice or social contagion. Those are the options we’re given. And neither of them are right. Neither of them are who we are.

Kurt Cobain wrote, thought, talked, died like eggs do. I don’t care if he never said the magic fucking words. We know our own. We recognize each other. And if someone is alive? If someone is alive I will go my whole life without ever breathing a word. Because as long as we’re alive, we do choose, and that means we can choose ignorance. What I think, what I want, for someone else, for us, it doesn’t matter. I do that, I follow that code, for the benefit of one person – the egg themselves. Once they die, all bets are off. Omerta no longer applies. Kayfabe no longer applies.

To be queer is to be erased, to experience erasure. I still hear straight men arguing, as if they have any right to argue, as if they know, that Emily Dickinson was not a lesbian. Emily Dickinson! I’m supposed to listen to people who say this shit? I’m supposed to take them seriously when they say well, actually, calling Dickinson a “lesbian” is historically anachronistic, we can’t apply the standards of the present to the past, and Jesus fuck have you read her letters? She liked girls. She really liked girls. Kurt Cobain was a trans woman. Kurt Cobain was every bit as much a trans woman as Emily Dickinson was a lesbian. Refusing to say it isn’t “respect”. It’s perpetuating the crime perpetrated against Cobain, against every other trans woman who ever killed herself because of the lies we were told about ourselves. No more. Kurt Cobain was a trans woman. I can’t, as an individual, say that. I don’t have the right. No trans woman can say that, individually. But collectively? All of us together? The things we see in each other, we see those things in him too. Not all of them, and not all of us. Absolutely not all of us. But enough of us. Enough that we have the right. We have the right, and I will fucking say it, and if you don’t like that, you can go fuck yourself.

Kate, are you ok?

I’m fine.

Do you want a hug?

Fuck you, Chuck.

OK, well. I’m, uh. Gonna go to the other room. You should, uh. Drink some water. Stay hydrated. Love you, Kate.

Love you too, Chuck. Sorry.

Shhh. It’s OK, Kate. It’s OK.

1 Diane Purkiss criticizes the occult nature of Walker’s encyclopedia in "Women's Rewriting of Myth", in Carolyne Larrington (ed), The Feminist Companion to Mythology, London, 1992, p. 444: “In Donna Haraway's influential terms, these women may wish to be goddesses, but they are cyborgs all the same”. The work she’s referencing is Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”. Haraway was, it happens, an academic advisor to the trans woman Sandy Stone, and her “Cyborg Manifesto” was a pivotal influence on Stone’s “The Empire Strikes Back: A Post-Transsexual Manifesto”, one of the foundational works of transgender theory.

2 Margaret Killjoy, https://birdsbeforethestorm.net/2017/06/im-not-even-going-to-try-to-pass/

3 Natalie Reed, https://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/04/17/the-null-hypothecis/

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love-takes-work · 6 months

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I've seen a fair number of people interpret Rebecca Sugar's (and the Crew's) decision to put Ruby in a dress as subversive, and I want to discuss why that feels like a clear miss to me.

Every time--every single time--I've heard Rebecca Sugar talk about the queer relationships on this show, it comes with this expression of wholesomeness, and often glazed with a sheen of wistfulness, flavored something like "I needed this as a child and young person, and I didn't have it." Much of Rebecca Sugar's work to bring this wedding (and other unapologetic queer relationships) to the screen was framed as an emergency--as in, we HAVE to get this out there for those kids we used to be, because we know they're drowning.

Yes, it's funny sometimes when people make jokes about Sugar deliberately "adding more gay" or "making it gayer" as a big eff-you to the people who spoke against it, but that doesn't sit right from where I'm standing. It took so much strength (and resulted in so much battle damage) to fight that fight, yes. But from everything I can see from the interviews and conversations I've seen and read, this wasn't served up in a "ha-HA, take THAT!" kind of way. These characters having these kinds of relationships should have been a non-issue, and the fact that their very wholesome kids'-show wedding and very sweet kiss and very adorable love for each other was seen as Political when it should have been just two characters in love is so sad to me.

I've seen dozens of people suggest that Ruby is in a dress and Sapphire is in a suit "to fuck with the bigoted censors in other countries" or "to give the finger to gender roles," but again, I think it is simpler and sweeter than that. Rebecca's said that Ruby in a dress is how she feels in a dress. Celebration and exploration of feminine-coded stuff felt wrong to Rebecca for a long time, like it wasn't hers, because she wasn't really a woman and didn't want it forced on her. As a result she was robbed of all the beauty that should have been a non-issue, from what TV shows and toys she was supposed to enjoy as a kid to what kind of person she was supposed to marry and what she should wear as an adult.

Ruby never got a choice about how she looked really. Once she got to choose her presentation for a significant event, this is what she chose. It means so much more to see that than to construct it primarily as a reactionary measure, as if it would somehow foil the sinister censors in more homophobic countries (who, incidentally, are not therefore forced to show Ruby in a dress even though they tried to hide that Ruby was a "she" or that she was in a romantic relationship with another "she"; y'all, they just don't show the episode).

We see plenty of other examples of gender-role-related expectations being casually stepped on and squashed, like when they took the trouble to give traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine "clothes" to some watermelons to make the audience think there was a husband and wife watermelon only to have the wife be the warrior and the husband stay home with the child. With stuff like that, yeah, sure, maybe it's designed to make you think "oh isn't that very feminist of them!" Or maybe it's more "well why do I see this as a 'reversal' when it's just a thing that happened?" This show is full of ladyish beings who fight and have power. And as for Steven. . . .

Nobody has negative reactions onscreen (or even particularly confused reactions) when Steven wears traditionally feminine clothes, and it is (of course) also not presented as a "boy in a dress gag"--it's not supposed to be funny. When they go all in slathering Steven in literal princess tropes throughout the final act of Season 5, we understand that it's because the powerful Diamonds expect him to be Pink Diamond, not because the show is trying to girlify him or embarrass him or even make the audience think positive thoughts about boys in girls' clothes. It's more neutral than that in my interpretation: "these are literally just pieces of cloth, and while some of them have meaning, they don't inherently have a gender." I don't see this as transgressive. It's just in a world where putting on what you want to wear doesn't HAVE to be a political statement. (Though obviously it CAN be, and plenty of people wear a variety of clothes as a fuck-you to whoever they want to give the finger to. I just don't see that as happening here.)

Don't get me wrong; Rebecca Sugar certainly knew about the politics (intimately) and has lived at many of their intersections. She was not ignorant of how queer people are seen in this world. She was silenced as a bisexual person because her identity supposedly didn't matter if she was with a man and planned to be with that same man forever. She was shunted into "omg a woman did this!" categories over and over again, which she wore uneasily as a nonbinary person while accepting that part of who we are is how the world sees us. But what is it like if everything someone like her embraces is seen as a statement synonymous with "fuck you" to someone else?

She is married to a person who happens to be a man and happens to be Black. Her relationship isn't a "statement" about either of those aspects of his existence; her love is simply something that is. She is Jewish working in a society that's largely Christian. Her cultural perspective to NOT center her cartoon around Christian holidays and Christian morals; her choices to make an alternate world in this specific way is simply something that is. Her queer perspective as a nonbinary bisexual person has helped inform the Gems' radical philosophy of "what if we learned to explore and define ourselves instead of doing the 'jobs' we're assigned and being told it's our nature?" Her decision to include queer people in a broadly queer cartoon isn't designed PRIMARILY as a battle against baddies, or to drown out all the relentless straightness, or to deliciously get our queer little paws all over their kids' TV. It's an act of love.

So this is just to say that though I DO understand that sometimes subversion and intentional transgression are very necessary, I do not think that's the HEART of what's going on at this Gem wedding. We got a wholesome marriage scene between two of the most lovely little flawed-but-still-somehow-perfect characters, and I very much want to see their choices as being about them. About how Ruby feels in a dress. About how Sapphire feels about not having to always wear a dress. About them incorporating a symbol of their union into their separate lives so they can have some independence in their togetherness. About them celebrating their love by letting Steven wipe his schmaltz all over them.

There are many choices in the show that ARE carefully constructed to counter existing narratives, you know, giving the Crystal Gems' only boy all the healing, pink, flower imagery; having a single-sex species that's ladyish with all the members going by "she"; featuring many nurturing male characters who cry and cook and raise kids without mothers; pairing multiple fighty ladies with gentler guys; and importantly, intentionally loading up the show with stories, characters, and imagery any gender will find appealing despite being tasked with expectations to pander to the preteen boy demographic.

But it's very important to me that the inclusion of queer characters and the featuring of their choices be seen primarily as a loving act, and way way less of a "lol screw the bigots." I want our stories to be about us. Yes, I know it's a necessary evil that sometimes our stories are also about fighting Them. But every time I see someone say they put Ruby in the dress to "piss off the homophobes" or "stump the censors" I feel a little gross. Like the time I picked out an outfit I loved and my mom said I only dressed in such an obnoxious way to upset her, and I was baffled because my aesthetic choices, my opinions, my choices had nothing to do with her. Yet they were framed like I chose these clothes primarily to cause some kind of petty harm to her, when not only was it not true but I was not even that kind of person who would gloat over intentionally irritating someone.

The queerness of this show isn't a sneaky, underhanded act trying above all to upset a bigot or celebrate someone's homophobic fury. It lives for itself. Its existence is about itself. It's so we can see ourselves in a show, and it's so people who aren't queer or don't have those experiences can see that we exist, we participate, we want very similar things, and definitely are focusing way more about celebrating our love at our own weddings rather than relishing the thought of bigots tearing their hair out and hating us.

It's dangerous to turn every act of our love into a deliberate movement in a battle strategy when their weddings just get to be weddings.

I think there’s this idea that that [queer characters] is something that applies or should be only discussed with adults that is completely wrong. And I think when you realize that talking to kids about heteronormativity is just like air that you breathe all the time, it’s kind of amazing that that is not true in any other capacity. I think if you wait to tell kids, to tell queer youth that it matters how they feel or that they are even a person, then it’s going to be too late! You have to talk about it—you have to let it be what it gets to be for everyone. I mean, like, I think about, a lot of times I think about sort of fairy tales and Disney movies and the way that love is something that is ALWAYS discussed with children. And I think also there’s this idea that’s like, oh, we should represent, you know, queer characters that are adults, because there are adults that are queer, and you should know that’s something that is happening in the adult world, but that’s not how those films or those stories are told to children. You’re told that YOU should dream about love, about this fulfilling love that YOU’RE going to have. […] The Prince and Snow White are not like someone’s PARENTS. They’re something you want to be, that you are sort of dreaming of a future where you will find happiness. Why shouldn’t everyone have that? It’s really absurd to think that everyone shouldn’t get to have that! --Rebecca Sugar

#steven universe #ruby and sapphire #rebecca sugar #queer relationships #long post #myblog

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cocteaucherry · 4 months

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another silly gojo thing I wrote with pregnant reader (I was inspired by Kali’s pregnancy announcement 🩷)

a/n- (I promise pt 3 of LTLM is coming out later today or tomorrow)

cw- pregnancy, talks of sexual situations, gojo being gojo :p

The day Satoru found out you were pregnant was a day you’ll never forget.

It was a freezing morning in January and you had just finished taking down the Christmas decorations (yeah it was a few weeks after Christmas but you both were lazy) you let out a huff wiping your hands as you stared at the old cardboard boxes that housed the glittery decorations, it made you feel more emotional than usual seeing yet another year pass.

You heard the door burst open and you turned to find your husband dragging in a bunch of wires and lights, “ six hundred twinkling lights taken down by your one and only!” He exclaimed, dropping the lights and using his foot to close the door, “you sure? I could’ve sworn I heard you on the verge of using Hollow Purple.” You said playfully as you gazed lovingly at your husband.

“What?! No! I was of course gonna take you out of the house first!” The blue eyed male chuckled as he walked towards you immediately wrapping his arms around your waist, “I think I deserve a kiss for my bravery and perseverance.” He hummed his hands running over the slight pudge in your stomach, “Do you really?” You peered up at his face to be met with a very shocked expression, you chuckled nervously staring at his over exaggerated face.

Gojo could tell something was off for the past few days, frequent bathroom trips, slight nausea in the morning and your missed period. (He might be the strongest but he’s not the smartest) and now your cursed energy was changing he sensed it when he walked in it was almost doubled. “I mean this is the BEST way possible, let me stress BEST, are you somehow maybe- just a little bit ermm.. pregnant?”

Your mind went blank at the question, “Maybe?” You shrugged your shoulders, “it would make sense..” your mind tried to calculate the last time you and Gojo were intimate but Gojo calculated for you, “Christmas.” He said his mouth was still wide open, “yeah , maybe wrapping myself like a present wasn’t the best idea.” You giggled and Satoru was quick to retort with a red face, “you practically had nothing on! You can’t blame me!” Gojo pouted, rubbing the back of his neck, “can we go buy some tests to confirm your theory?”

About seven tests later it was confirmed, you were pregnant.

Of course tears and hugs were shared and you wanted to share the news with your friends but Gojo stopped you claiming he wanted to see how long you both could go unnoticed, he also opted to buy a camcorder to track your happy moments. It was more of a nostalgia thing. (Even while you're pregnant he’s still dramatic.)

By the time you were breaching your second trimester a lot of things changed, for worse and better, the spare room in your house was converted into a full baby room, all constructed by gojo himself since he was terrified of you getting injured. The baby room was filled with expensive baby materials and toys, “Satoru.. are you sure this isn’t too much?” You stared at the room in disbelief, your hand stroking your bump, He grunted, placing a heavy box with more materials down, “What? Think I can go bigger?” He winked and opened the package.

“We don’t even know the gender yet? you yelled walking down the hallway to lay down.

Everyone in Satoru’s life knew something was up, he walked with more pep in his step and glowed even more than he already was.

“So does anyone know what’s up with Gojo-sensei?” Yuji questioned sitting on his bed, Kugusaki and Megumi on the floor visibly not listening. “Don’t know, don’t really care either.” Megumi deadpanned which earned a grin from Kugisaki, “Not sure Yuuji, have you tried asking his wife?” she asked, peering from her phone. “She hasn’t been around here in like months!” The pink haired boy exclaimed failing to connect the dots but Megumi did for him.

“Maybe she’s expecting.” He shrugged it off going back to type on his phone, “What?! You mean they-they-“ yuuji stuttered.

“Yuuji they are adults, plus it would make sense right after the holidays too. So she’d be about.."Kugisaki counted in her head, “second trimester?”

“You guys are taking this a little too well?!” Yuuji exclaimed, “oh Kugisaki and I made our own theory a few weeks ago-“

“And you didn’t tell me?!-“

Later that day you had a teary eyed pink haired teenager yapping at the door about how you didn’t tell him sooner.

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu x reader #x reader #jjk imagines #gojo saturo #gojou satoru x reader #gojo x y/n #gojo fluff #satorugojo #pregnancy #pregnant reader #jjk x reader #jjk x you

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ftmtftm · 4 months

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I've been scrolling through your blog, and I saw your post about discussing the racialized nature of gender. As someone who has several transmasc POC friends, and someone who's a nonbinary POC themself, I wanted to give my 2 cents.

It's important to understand that "woman" in the "man vs woman" gender binary is a colonialist, white supremacist construct, especially in Western countries where you are the numerical minority. My trans friends aren't on T, they haven't gotten top surgery, we are all quite young. But they all have numerous stories about being addressed as "sir" which brings them euphoria but as one person said, while we were making fun of the amount of white people in our club, "Due to my race and skin color, I get masculinized."

And again I'd like to emphasize, that since we're young, none of us really have medically transitioned due to financial and familial barriers. Their hair is long, our binders we definitely have notable chests, and even if they dress masculine, it's notable that no one in our communities would ever gender us properly. It's often white people calling them "sir." Again, I think this reflects how gender performances in mainstream queer communities are deeply White. Like, trans boys talk about having haircuts, but only one of my friends has that wavier, more manageable hair that will help them pass. When you've got curly/kinky hair, the standards are different. For a white person, what's the difference between a "girl" Afro and a boy "Afro"? White cis people have a harder time identifying us, and literally talk to any black girl, and they'll tell you about being mocked, dehumanized, and called "manly".

I don't have much else to say. These are just my personal experiences. But if you want to be an ally to POC in the queer community, this is why it's so fucking important to bring in colonialism/imperialism/white supremacy into discussions of queer liberation. My biggest gripe with ignorant white queers is when they ignore their white privilege, and act like "cishets" (AKA the patriarchal system regulating sexuality and gender) is the only enemy. Because cishet POC deal with plenty of shit with being infantilized, masculinized, feminized, seen as brutish & dangerous, the list goes on. Doberbutts had a post saying, "Believe me, your family's going to care more about me being black than my queerness." towards his white partners. Acknowledging and creating a framework that centers these intersections of queerness and race into your beliefs is true allyship. This is why if you're not anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, ACAB...I do not think you care for queer liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Please don't view this post as an attack. But this is my perspective, and I thought you'd be receptive to me sharing my lived experiences.

Oh I absolutely don't view this ask as an attack, and I really appreciate you bringing these things up because you're right! Like, just very plainly: You are right and your and your friends lived experiences are extremely important to the conversation on the racialized aspects of gender.

It gets me thinking about where Misogynoir and the social White Fear of Black manhood intersect for Black trans men in particular. Because Black women and Women of Color in general are masculinized by White gender standards and the ways in which Black trans masculine people are gendered in alignment with their identity is absolutely not always done with gender affirming intent. In fact, it's often actually done with racist intent or is fueled by racist bias when it's coming from White people or even from non-Black POC.

That's kind of restating things you've said but differently, it's just such a topic worth highlighting explicitly since it's extremely relevant to the conversation that's been happening about Male Privilege here the last few days.

I do think I know exactly what @doberbutts post you're talking about and yeah. It's just truth. It's something Black queer people have been talking about for ages in both theory and in pop culture (my mind immediately goes to Kevin Abstract and "American Boyfriend") where Black queer/trans identity is both materially different from (neutral) and is treated differently from (negative) White queer/trans identity in multitudes of ways and those differences are worth sharing and exploring and talking about.

Genuinely, thank you for sharing! I try really hard not to lead these kinds of conversations outside of explicitly referencing back to non-White theorists because I don't particularly feel like it's my place to do so, but I will always provide a platform for them because they're extremely important conversations to be had.

#asks #anon #racialized gender #male privilege #transandrophobia

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saintslewis · 4 months

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❝ 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 | 𝐋𝐇𝟒𝟒 ❞

pairing: sir lewis hamilton x black fem!reader

summary: it has been a dream to have the perfect family but a nightmare occurs and you question the love you receive.

warnings: angst, mentions of death, descriptions of pain, loads of crying.

saint’s team radio 🎀: we’re getting sad with this one!! buckle up and thank you anon for requesting this! <3 sorry for any typos!

tags: @non-stop-imagines @arshiyuh @queenshikongo3 @mauvecherie-writes @lorarri @goldsainz @exotic-iris13 @alika-4466 @yeea-nah

pls like, reblog and comment! 🤍

The nursery was filled with so many gifts from the baby shower that you felt tired just at the thought of organising it all.

Looking up at the wall, her name was painted in light pink paint with cursive that you insisted would make you smile. Her cot was filled to the brim with stuffed animals that you guaranteed would last her a lifetime and just at the thought of your little princess entering the world in six months made you rub your belly with happiness, feeling her slightly kick as if to say “Hello.”

Oh you could just remember the exact moment you found out you were pregnant, the look on Lewis’ face was filled with love and adoration. Thanking you for bearing your child, the start of the family the both of you had been dreaming about. The gender reveal was celebrated intimately, the simple slice of the cake revealing the pink sponge cake within, the tears overflowing at the thought of you having a baby girl. The world finding out that you were expecting a picture of the slice of cake with a little onesie next to it, causing a frenzy at the sight of the 8 time world champion and his wife celebrating a new life soon.

The memories were as sweet as can be, Lewis being there every step of the way. He would panic when you weren’t by his side during race weekends but he knew you were in the comfort of your family and friends and that you were loved beyond measure. His love towards you was always growing stronger every day, his excitement for his family had always caused butterflies in his stomach. He hugged you every chance he got, he spoke to your pregnant belly with the softest of voices and your heart swelled up.

You were both more than ready to begin parenthood with each other.

Sitting down on the couch with a few groans, you reached for the remote whilst Lewis was in the kitchen making an afternoon snack. It was a chill afternoon, a few phone calls from your friends here and there but it was spent in the comfort of your home. You carefully placed your braids into a bun and in that moment, you felt a slight cramp around your womb. Taking it as a sign that you were most likely dehydrated, you stood up to get a glass of water.

“Babe, are you okay? D’you need help?” Lewis asked, slowing down his chopping up of fruits to watch you walk into the kitchen. “Yeah I’m good. Just felt a normal pain. Don’t stress.” You reassured him, walking quite slowly as you felt the pain coming back.

You managed to make it to the island when the pain hit you stronger than before causing you to hold onto the marble surface, your legs weakening as you continued to stand. “Y/n, let’s sit you down. I’ll get whatever you need.” Lewis said, coming around his side of the island to help you sit down but you waved him off, barely able to construct a coherent sentence.

“Please.” You managed to let out before groaning loudly, holding onto your swollen belly. He was stressing out, holding onto your hands as he began to guide you towards the couch. One step out, you let out a scream of pain, your legs giving out on you but Lewis was there to catch you. Now carrying you onto the couch, he gathered all the cushions to make you a little comfortable.

“I think I’ll go get the car ready for the hospital.” He said, holding onto your face as tears rolled down in every direction. One hand on your belly and the other on his hand, you cried out in pain. “She’s n-not moving, Lew.” You croaked out, the worst thoughts filling your mind. Was your baby okay? Could she feel the pain that you were experiencing.”

“No, my angel. Don’t say that, please don’t say that. She’s okay, our baby is okay.” Tears filled Lewis’ eyes as he tried to convince himself and you that all was okay. Your eyes were squeezed shut as the pain spread across your lower waist, your hips aching. He looked all over your body for any signs of shaking and once his eyes got to the crotch of your white cotton pants, his heart dropped. Blood slowly spread and he didn’t want to think of that. Nothing could’ve prepared him to experience this. You both have done everything by the book, everything to keep your little princess safe.

Lewis couldn’t think of the worst. Maybe these pants had been this stain for a while but he knows better than anyone that you would know of any stain on any of your clothing. He was panicking, he was stressed. He couldn’t let this happen, not after the both of you had been dreaming of your own family.

He grabbed the nearest car keys and picked you up bridal style once again and carefully rushed you to the large enough car, laying you down onto the backseat as he rushed back inside to get your hospital bag and both of your phones. Everything was a blur, driving off to the nearest hospital, keeping the ac cold so that you could stay awake. Calling your mom to let her know, not wanting her panic but still warned her along with his mom.

Rushed you into emergency. Parked the car. Watched you roll away on a stretcher, barely awake but your hands still held onto your belly. 40 minutes. In that moment, your mother arrived and so did his. Your best friend arrived and so did his. Your younger sister gathering her tears and carried one of your baby’s stuffed animals as a source of comfort. Everyone was waiting in the waiting room, trying to console Lewis but he wanted to be as calm as he could be. For your sake.

Dr Watts, your paediatrician, rounded the corner of the waiting room with a tissue patting her tears as she stuffed it into her scrubs. She had made eye contact with Lewis and right in that moment, he knew.

“Uhm everyone, Y/n unfortunately suffered a miscarriage. We had to extract the baby from her womb, it was internal bleeding from the womb and I will let the father of the baby know of other information.” She sniffled. Dr Watts had been helping you throughout your pregnancy, how excited you were for motherhood and seeing that being taken away from you was heartbreaking.

“Does she know?” Your mom spoke up, rubbing Lewis’s shoulders as his head was in his hands. Shaking her head, the paediatrician spoke up. “Y/n is very close to waking up. Two people can be in the room with her.”

The walk to your hospital room was dreadful, everyone else staying behind to let you and Lewis have this moment together. Your eyelids felt heavy but you still managed to keep them open, your husband holding your hand with drips connected to it. His eyes looked empty, only moving to look at you with a look you couldn’t quite grasp. Watts gathered up the courage to tell you the bad news, your stomach dropping at the moment you heard that she had already let your body.

“I killed my own creation.” You whispered but Lewis heard you and immediately shook his head. “Sweetheat, it is not your fault. Please don’t blame yourself, I’m begging.” He tried to help but he had very little strength in him as well. “She’s gone forever. I caused her to leave. I walked around and ruined everything.” You rasped out.

It was inevitable that you were going to blame yourself. Your bump slowly started falling as you cried to yourself all night. You chased everyone out, keeping your hand encased in Lewis’ as he cried alongside you.

Once discharged from the hospital, you felt suffocated by your thoughts. You hadn’t spoken to anyone, not even the doctor and not even Lewis who was losing his mind over you going non-verbal. He knew you made your late daughter your entire life and to see the light get sucked out of you was heart-wrenching. You reached home and sat in the nursery with him, crying your heart out but still refusing to speak. You slept there for most of the week after, you ate there and one night, you faced Lewis.

“I’m sorry.” You spoke softly as you leaned over to hug him. Without hesitation, he welcomed you into his arms and you felt the love he was giving within your soul. You now knew you were loved beyond words when you were around him. “Don’t be sorry, I’ve got you forever.” He reassured you, kissing your forehead and slightly tightening his hold on you.

saint speaks: omg y’all i cried while writing this, hope y’all enjoyed!

#saint writes #celebrating 600 with saint!#lewis hamilton x black reader #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton fanfics #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton angst #lewis hamilton fic #f1 x black!reader #f1 imagines #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #SoundCloud

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neverendingford · 1 year

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#like. ugh. it feels like I have to try everything before I'll know anything.#like. not gay in the m/m way but gay as in 'any intimate relationship with me will be inherently queer' kind of way #and maybe that's okay. yaknow?#maybe it's okay to not fall into any of the predetermined narratives. maybe it's okay to not play any of the prerolled characters #it's a bigger pain for sure because then you have to figure out all that shit yourself. but like. idk. it's the only way I guess #yeah it's more work but if your options are either 'keep figuring it out' or 'kill yourself' it turns into a pretty simple choice #being gendered female is nice because I'm not being gendered male. maybe that's it.#being gendered female feels kind of restrictive still. like. I like being free to speak from 'male experience' without getting boxed in.#idk maybe that speaks more to the people I was hanging out with that I would feel like 'male' experience would somehow invalidate me?#ugh social constructs are so complicateddddddd. fuck #tag talk

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dukeofankh · 9 days

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Almost everybody has at least a *little* bit of a point.

Yeah. Even them. And being wrong about everything else doesn't actually change that. They might not know how that point should actually be interpreted, they might come to foolish or even actively harmful conclusions from that point. They might radically overstate how prevalent or important the point is. But don't fall into the trap of refusing to acknowledge things that are true just because a bad person says them.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone from a group I belong to dunking on someone from some outgroup, even a very harmful outgroup, and in doing so, denying basically true things that we would absolutely agree with if we were talking about them in private.

I dunno. Maybe it bugs me for neurodivergent reasons. Maybe I'm a pedantic ass.

The other day I got into a massive fight online with a guy in a feminist group because he was squabbling with a bit of a dipshit who pointed out that men are under a lot of pressure to become financially successful, and that's why they do stupid shit like get into crypto.

And like... rather than say "yeah, men are still expected under hegemonic masculinity to be breadwinners, despite the advances of women into the workforce, the economy being in shambles and the middle class having been whittled to a toothpick at this point. We need to work as feminists to challenge that gendered expectation, and as leftists to rebuild the power of labour to allow everyone, both men and women, to have a living wage that can allow for a family and a dignified life." This other feminist guy decided instead that, since the concept of men being pressured to be economic providers was being used in a way that sounded like it was suggesting that women only want to date rich men, it was redpill propaganda and, therefore, fascist misinformation. He went with, "what are you talking about, Gen X killed the concept of corporate success as marker of personal worth, everyone agrees that being a workaholic is bad and unattractive now. The idea that you think you'll be judged for being poor is a lie spread by the right to radicalize you into hating women." He did not react well when I pointed out that he was just as wrong as the other guy was. More wrong, actually.

And like...you can build multiple arguments from the same data point. Some are well reasoned, some aren't. Someone can feel pressure and assume it's much more widespread than it is, or that it takes a much more extreme form than it really does. But if you're going to coherently argue against an idea, you have to honestly appraise the situation and figure out what grains of truth it has in it. You have to acknowledge that core root of truth and show them how it means something else.

If, instead of doing that, you just deny the true thing because the other person's argument is built on it and you want to stamp it out? Because, hey, they interpreted it wrong, it's not like they really believe something true? You act as though a fact used to support a lie is also a lie. And if you do that, and argue against the facts because their conclusions are stupid, you construct a little world where, in refusing to accept both their flawed argument AND the fact it's based on, you become more wrong than they are. And you make the deeply foolish choice of picking a fight in that world. And if it's on the internet, that little world can become pretty big. Tactically, it's about the dumbest thing you could do. It ensures that they will keep fighting you because...you're fucking obviously wrong? It radicalizes people, because suddenly the only people who will acknowledge the truth on this thing they care about are other terrible people. It makes your side look dogmatic and ignorant. And apart from all of that...it gets things completely backwards.

Your principles are what you want to use to change the world for the better. You believe them because you honestly believe that following your principles improves things, because they are based on a solid grasp of how the world works. Your beliefs follow from what is true. If you flip it so that whether something is true is based on whether it supports your beliefs...that's a bad road to go down.

#me writing stuff #positive masculinity #menslib

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comradekatara · 2 months

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hey, so. people on twt (ugh, I need to delete that account) started to compare Zuko and Azula’s relationship to Sokka and Katara. So, I jump in like “they are not comparable in any way” then people are like “Sokka and Katara do have issues even though it’s not the same as Zuko and Azula” (even though the original tweet did imply that but, whatever). and I’m all like “sure, they both have trauma from their upbringing and they fight like siblings and that trauma probably has effected their relationship but it’s still no way like it’s being compared… they love and care for one another” and then they’re coming back like “it’s not the same but they still have issues” and citing the southern raiders (which I have my own opinions about and I feel like people totally miss read that scene) but all in all to say; I’m annoyed because I feel like people are being disingenuous and I feel like your thoughts would be interesting

okay yeah obviously I don’t know what the full arguments were (and I never will because I loathe twitter. I mean X sorry) but i can definitely talk about this more generally. I mean they are the central sibling pairs configured in a similar way for obvious reasons. they are definitely comparable.

sokka and zuko have superficial similarities as older brothers who feel undervalued, struggle to live up to a harmful patriarchal standard of gender (specifically masculinity/manhood) as shaped by imperialism/colonialism/war and the expectations their fathers placed on them to “be a real man” within a very limited framework, and ultimately find their worth via other avenues beyond the limited scope of patriarchal imperialist logic. azula and katara have superficial similarities as younger sisters who are placed on a pedestal by their culture community, are the best benders of their respective elements and outclass all the older more established (male) masters who dismiss and look down on them for being teenage girls, and who feel a deep sense of grief due to the loss of their mothers that informs everything they do and fundamentally who they are as people. and then obviously the REAL foils who are foiling are katara and zuko, and sokka and azula. these pairs are each very obvious mirrors, both in terms of their personalities (as developed differently by their respective environments) and their arcs. zuko is fire nation katara. azula is fire nation sokka. so obviously their relationships are similar in this way. they are narratively constructed as parallels.

that said, I think the key primary difference between these sets of siblings is that zuko and azula are directly opposed due to being pitted against each other by ozai’s abuse, whereas sokka and katara are extremely codependent, to the point that sokka’s entire identity is shaped by his role as katara’s brother and protector. so if you read zuko as a foil to sokka (which he certainly somewhat is, but is not the primary foil to sokka) you’ll get confused because he doesn’t live for others and he doesn’t look out for azula at all. but azula, like sokka, does define her identity through her loyalty and her ability to best serve others, so she does try to help zuko as best she can, which is obviously hindered by the incredibly limited of scope of what she considers “helpful” (much in the same way that sokka’s protection of katara is often limited by his own narrow worldview and unhealthy sense of duty as it corresponds to his identity). azula wants zuko to be a “perfect prince” in the way that she is a “perfect princess” because she refuses to acknowledge how specifically harmful that paradigm is to both of them until it is too late. so her intentions are actually good (don’t @ me), but she’s just deeply misguided and her level of cognitive dissonance is off the charts generally (again, much like sokka).

meanwhile katara and zuko, despite loving their families a lot and feeling defined by their families in many ways, are still very self-focused. which isn’t to say that’s a bad thing or that they’re selfish (they are both defined by an incredibly passionate and outspoken sense of justice for others, of course), but rather that they understand that what they want is to further their own interests for their own benefit even as they are seeking justice for the entire world. (in katara’s worlds: “me. me, personally!”) but like. if anything, the fact that azula and sokka never think in terms of the ego but only in terms of servitude to the point that they are actually detached from their own humanity is deeply unhealthy and awful, which is why so much of sokka’s arc is about getting him to understand his intrinsic worth as a human being and the value of accepting help, and azula’s tragedy and downfall is precipitated by her acknowledgement that she has been deliberately isolated her entire life and now she is alone and utterly helpless.

I do see katara and zuko as quite heroic, inspiring characters, to azula and sokka’s quite tragic, heartbreaking characters (especially azula of course, but like. I don’t think sokka’s deep-seated, copious issues have somehow been magically resolved just because “the boiling rock” is his apotheosis. you get it). but katara was always the “valued” sibling whereas azula began as the valued sibling and zuko rose above her by disrupting/transcending the paradigm that valued her only to end up in the position that she felt teleologically entitled to (not to say that she thought she would become fire lord, but that he does become the most powerful player in the fire nation, at least in name). and a large part of that is the fact that katara and sokka grew up in extremely different conditions than azula and zuko did, even if both their worldviews are informed by imperialism and patriarchy in some way. so katara was valued as a sort of cultural artefact who represents the last hope of a dying people, whereas azula was valued as the obedient daughter of a powerful abusive patriarch. it’s still a way of ascribing “value,” but the criteria are completely different in both cases. which is why I still think that azula and sokka are functionally more similar, because even if azula is valued, it is with the expectation that she function in the same way that sokka is expected to function, as a depersonalized vessel for the good of their people.

so there are similarities for sure, but also those similarities are constantly being complicated through locating their respective cultural contexts as they informed their upbringing, psychologies, and sibling relationships. I will say that it’s true that both of these relationships are unhealthy (to an extent), and both sets of siblings parallel each other in very significant ways, but the ways in which their relationships are in fact “unhealthy” are nonetheless almost diametrically opposed.

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