if you know my main (or if i just follow you from it even if i never explicitly said its me) theres like a 76% chance im atleast a tiny bit in love with you

seriously have been thinking about this all night long. call me autistic but the fact that 90% of workplaces the point is not to get your work done and then be done doing it but to instead perform an elaborate social dance in which you find something to do even when you're done doing everything you need to do in order to show your fellow workers that you, too, are Working . because you are at Work . disgusting why cant we all agree that if there is no work immediately to be done. we just dont do anything

Ok, fine, let's talk about why sometimes I fucking hate identity politics. Your identity, your lived experience, does not make you automatically right about a subject that is not your personal experience.

your identity is important because it gives you a certain perspective that is unique to your lived experience, which can allow a more meaningful examination of subjects, it does not mean you are automatically right about something or have a higher moral standing grounds.

here is a timely example, I have been hearing a lot of "listen to the holocaust survivors! they have a higher moral ground! they know better then everyone what it looks like! their perspective must be better!" as if to say that because they survived the holocaust they must have a higher understanding of horrors. this is bullshit, and my timely example is Henry Kissinger (Oh yeah baby, we are going there). The guy fled the Nazis as a child, does it give him the moral high ground? does it means his understanding of abusive governments is the definitive authority? NO! that fucker was the living embodiment of the end justify the means and he was ready to sacrifice everyone and everything if it meant preserving what he decided is the USian interests. If I would have tried to give him the moral high ground just because he survived the Nazis people will justifiably call foul!

Being a victim or being from a victimized group does not makes you automatically right about everything! Abuse victims can still be toxic and abusive. I will give another example that is gonna piss some people off (GOOD):

being a woman does not give you a monopoly on defining what is and is not abuse and sexual harassment. Yes, women has more experience in the matter but for fuck sake I cannot even count how many times women I know refused to admit blatant abuse and sexual harassment. Or on the flip side, I saw women call innocent things abusive and sexual harassment! their womanhood did not gave them the definitive authority on the matter.

I know rape victims that advocates that all men are monsters and seek to abuse women. Will you say that they are more right than others because they were abused by a man? Does their experience give them the definitive authority on masculinity?

and you know what, in for a penny in for a pound. In Israel the families of the fallen get a kind of saintly position, where their word is given higher regards then other citizens, and let me tell you people, that is fucking bullshit. Having lost a family member in a war or a terrorist attack does not mean that you are automatically know better! I have heard so much bullshit from some of those families, and people don't call it out because it was a Shacol Family!

and this goes to everyone! if you lost a family member to a shitty situation you do not automatically know how to fix the broken system that killed them! Being right about the way to fix the system is what makes you right about it!

Grief does not makes you superior to others, or make you more right, it just makes your a grieving person.

don't get me wrong, your experiences and identity does give you important perspective and it should be taken in account when examining stuff, and can even help you develop a perspective for matters that can offer deeper understandings. you are always right about your own experiences.

still doesn't make you automatically right about all the other stuff, like the experiences of others. or how the world should work.

So the next person that tells me that someone is automatically right about everything based on their identity alone and not facts, can fuck off. Your identity and experiences does not means shit if you are fucking wrong.

maybe i'm missing something here, but it always confuses me when i see things like "some autistic people are disabled by their autism and some aren't" or "not everyone sees their autism as a disability". because... autism very much is a disability?! if you're autistic, then your symptoms must be present in a way that is disabling to you in your everyday life. it's literally in the diagnostic criteria. of course the extent to and areas in which you're disabled can vary greatly depending on the individual, but disability is part of the basic definition of autism, regardless of your personal feelings on the matter.

don't get me wrong, it's still much better than "autism is only a disability because of capitalism" because at least it doesn't make sweeping generalisations that aren't even remotely accurate to the lived reality of most autistic people. but it still perpetuates incorrect assumptions under the guise of personal choice, and honestly feels like an attempt to distance autism from disability in general. being disabled is nothing to be ashamed of, and i wish people wouldn't twist the meaning of autism to remove disability from it.

(and yes, that goes for level 1/low support needs autistics as well. i would be considered level 1 (though i wasn't diagnosed that way) and i'm still disabled by my autism! not to the same extent as many other people, sure, but i'm still disabled. if i wasn't, i wouldn't be autistic.)

I like to think of halbarry as two gay men who haven't come to terms with their sexuality and complete denial bc of their trauma and bullying

like what you said in flashpoint paradox where in that timeline he got the support system and no trauma I think

I think it makes sense to me them being gay than bi/pan. etc

oh this could not have come at a worse time, i’m drawing the most bisexual halbarryisms in the world rn 💔

here's a neat vid, go watch it if you haven't yet

there's Some things that i don't completely agree with personally, like attributing the Third sin to Materialism rather than Connection (i'd argue that the Ancients had no big issue with being materialistic, considering their golden attires and such- and that going with Connection overall better addresses both the core of Materialism and relationships overall) and then attributing the word Dynasty specifically to asian cultures but that's more history/word definition beef more than anything djgklsjlcgjkd

oh how i'd love to have a debate with this guy about Ancients...

listen i know there's Something here i know i can make steban have a fascinatingly faceted and complex and thorny relationship to culture considering the whole [gestures at mesque] [gestures at villalobos] [gestures at the ideal inframaterialist world as conceptualized by nilsen] [gestures at steban]

things that really suck: when a fucked up fictional dynamic is genuinely upsetting to you in a way that'd normally be much easier to engage with and process if you dead doved it, except the ship in question has been ruined for you by Bad Associations so that is a no-go and you're left to deal with the upsetting shit raw. ugh

i have planned to write a pseudo-essay or some kind of detailed look at linebeck in phantom hourglass and how he can be interpreted as autistic but thats not going very well right now so here are some autistic linebeck headcanons

He has low empathy and as such has a hard time responding very well to emotional situations, but he can take advantage of his lower empathy in situations where empathy could make things harder, like tending to wounds or rationally handling emotionally-charged situations

His coat is a comfort object and he made it specifically to act as a very slight accommodation; it’s heavy and barely lets any light through it, and he can keep all kinds of little things in pockets sewn into the inner lining, but larger objects do make it more uncomfortable to wear at times. It’s mostly good to carry around things to fidget or stim with and can be helpful in trying to recover from overwhelming sensory experiences

He doesn’t usually stim in public, but taps his fingers on tables quickly and tends to rhythmically snap his fingers when excited, and on his ship is more vocal and more willing to stim, even if around others. One of his main stims that he’ll do for no particular reason is that he’ll hold his arm or back of his wrist/hand up to his nose and mouth for the smell.

He masks frequently to please people. His default mask is that arrogant and brave front he puts up for islanders and other he may come across. Usually, if that mask doesn’t work, he tends to double-down because it usually works and, in his experience, dropping the mask has usually gone badly (non masking he’s rude and blunt but more outwardly excited about adventure and his ship and all of that, i consider it where overseas in the game is when he usually isn’t masking. this shifts his arc to be about him learning to stop masking and feel comfortable being himself)

His special interests could include stuff related to treasure hunting but it could really range from stuff about adventuring or the ocean or engineering (relating to his ship) to stuff not at all touched in the game like music. He really enjoys music, listening to it, playing it, and writing it. He also enjoys and is fascinated by shellfish.

When busy or otherwise occupied, he doesn't usually notice when he's hungry. He doesn't have as much of a problem noticing thirst or exhaustion, but feeling hunger is a problem for him, and often leads to him going a long time without eating. On the other hand, he doesn't mind eating the same thing repeatedly and is perfectly fine with blander foods, so handling food supplies for when he'll be overseas for a long time is easy for him.

He knows he's autistic, he's known for a pretty long time, and he has books on it; he also knows that Link is autistic, but doesn't say anything about it and instead waits until someone else tells him. Until (and after, I suppose) Link actually learns that he's autistic Linebeck just makes sure to keep note of what accommodations he might need and if there are any textures or tastes or smells he can't stand. He doesn't have much of a problem helping out during sensory overloads, even soon after meeting him. It's more out of understanding how it feels to not have your needs met and a sort of solidarity rather than actual friendship.

god i know that complaining abt fic which most of you haven't read, and which i won't, for politeness' sake, identify in this post, is a great way to come across as both dickish and boring—

but i've been rereading a very long, very satisfyingly plotty series that's a fandom darling and the thing is, when you read like 400k of an author's work at once it really starts to become painfully apparent what their priorities are, by which i mean two things:

holy shit they're obsessed with 'what if strong powerful men who could hurt you didn't (but did hurt Bad Guys) (and it was sexy of them),' which leads into

holy shit they do not appear to have thought through the implications of saying 'i will have my heroes take over the same power structures that have enabled abuse, make no real changes to those structures other than swapping out the leadership, and then claim that everything is wonderful now bc Good Men Are In Charge'??

like. i don't necessarily need every passing fantasy to present me with a coherent, revolutionary system of politics and ethics—sometimes things are just fun and sexy and not especially Examined and that's fine!—but by the time someone's written literally almost half a million words, and done a lot of worldbuilding while they were at it, i am going to start squinting if they seem to think a Good Man can e.g. become an emperor by killing off the leadership of multiple countries and installing puppet kings loyal to him and still remain a Good Man, even if the justification was that the original leadership was maltreating its citizens and deserved to be extrajudicially executed. like. this shit was a bad, autocratic move when the US did it in real life and it's still bad now that you're having our mutual blorbo do it in fiction! and that's not even getting into the whole thing where like. they've got servants who the Good Man and his friends ""treat well"" but who very much remain second-class citizens in terms of how the story actually frames them and their concerns. [this was also a huge issue i had with foz m*adows' most recent book—everyone wants to write about fantasy nobles but they also want to make them good people and it's like. honestly i think it might be better to get comfortable writing about flawed people, but also—if your aristos aren't treating their servants like equals and your text isn't either, you haven't actually cracked the Moral Aristo paradox, sorry!] like, there's nothing that says your story has to depict a fully Healed World, nor should there be! but it's troubling if you seem to be convinced you've written one (and have your wide-eyed love interests constantly marveling at it!) when you very patently haven't.

there’s so much i wanna do this week/month/etc but i’m just too sick, i have no energy, i can’t sleep, i’m constantly nauseous and headachey and on the verge of a migraine, i’m stressed and irritable and impatient and panicky…….how tf did i survive nearly 5 years of high school untreated if i can’t even manage this when i don’t have any major obligations rn

Anyway I love you pan, I love you omni, I love you p(o)ly, I love you abro, I love you pomo, I love you mspec lesbians, I love you mspec gays, I love you mspec identities that have faced horrific discourse and been accused of being "bi/lesbo/homo/transphobic" for things out of your control, and I love you mspec identities that help to give people more accurate labels for their feelings

We are all so damn cool and our histories all run much deeper and have way more meaning than what any sad exclusionists try to give us

Our identities have a place in the community, and we're damn well going to stay where we feel we belong

We aren't hurting anyone by simply existing. We are creating a better diversity in the spaces we visit. We are broadening the horizons more by existing and talking with our fellow queer and gay folk.

Our identities are more than discourse points. Our identities are more than the "worst" parts of our (old) definitions. Our identities are real, good, and beautiful.

Our identities belong. You belong. Don't let any damn nitpicky ahistorical exclusionist try to tell you otherwise.

And before I go, I love you mspec solidarity, including solidarity with our bi siblings, friends, companions and lovers.

Have a great day y'all

my one (1) friend invited me to her sister’s place for games night a couple weeks back so (in a move that was very true to myself and very transparent to her) i said sure knowing it would be super easy to back out but then she responded by asking me to pick her up (scuppering my exit strategy) and she just let me know that she cornered me into driving specifically so i couldn’t bail because she knew i’d have fun if i went 🥺

Hiya Pia. I know you've said you will never write f/m or f/f stories but what about ftm/m? Would you ever write a main character who was a transman or is that in the same nope category? Thanks

Hello there!

I have written f/f, just not in a dedicated fashion. It's only ever been in oneshots etc. But there's at least one Fenwrel/Gulvi oneshot out there. :D

I've definitely considered writing trans characters, and nonbinary characters, at the moment it doesn't really jangle around in my brain the same way mostly because of my own trans/nonbinary experience, and I often try and avoid writing /thinks/ my gender experience into stories, because of complexity and dysphoria and a few other things. It's also a reason for example why I don't really write many fat MCs either. The 'it hits very close to home and I still have stuff I'm unpacking around it' thing makes it not easier, but harder.

I've noticed that some authors find it a lot easier to write that stuff into stories, but I've talked to a friend who similarly struggles (who is also transmasc) about how much we sort of...have had issues writing these sorts of characters if they just hit too close to home. And I think it's partly that while my writing allows me to explore things, it does need to feel at least a little escapist to me too.

Anyway, what you've listed above would to me still just be straight up m/m, it's just a flavour of m/m that I don't really write at this time.

Kimerrin/Gwyn is probably the closest version of it, right now. But the vench aren't human, and don't have human gender (which honestly helps a lot).

I do read quite a few stories with trans characters, but writing it feels different. I'm definitely not ruling it out, it's not a hard no or anything, it's just not where I'm really pulled for my future stories right now, I apologise!

so yall will agree that you shouldn't call your friends or anyone else a f*g or d*ke or fairy or pansy without their explicit permission because, fucking obviously, but everyone simultaneously decided that its okay to call anyone and everyone qu**r without asking just because You identify with it? okay cool got it