#posts i created

dirigibleplumbing:

I say all the time that I use my ao3 profile as an archive, not a portfolio, and that is definitely true of my writing, but I have some fanart up there that I’m just… self-conscious about. I already don’t put all my fanart on ao3, just certain pieces. 

I’mnotgoing to delete any ao3 works permanently. I’ll be adding them to a collection of mine that’s anonymous. I may un-anonymize them someday if I feel like it. 

I’ll be putting stuff in the collection starting in about a week. Feel free to save your own copies of my art, but DO NOT REPOST IT. 

this is happening in the next day or two!

dirigibleplumbing:

I say all the time that I use my ao3 profile as an archive, not a portfolio, and that is definitely true of my writing, but I have some fanart up there that I’m just… self-conscious about. I already don’t put all my fanart on ao3, just certain pieces. 

I’mnotgoing to delete any ao3 works permanently. I’ll be adding them to a collection of mine that’s anonymous. I may un-anonymize them someday if I feel like it. 

I’ll be putting stuff in the collection starting in about a week. Feel free to save your own copies of my art, but DO NOT REPOST IT. 

I say all the time that I use my ao3 profile as an archive, not a portfolio, and that is definitely true of my writing, but I have some fanart up there that I’m just… self-conscious about. I already don’t put all my fanart on ao3, just certain pieces. 

I’mnotgoing to delete any ao3 works permanently. I’ll be adding them to a collection of mine that’s anonymous. I may un-anonymize them someday if I feel like it. 

I’ll be putting stuff in the collection starting in about a week. Feel free to save your own copies of my art, but DO NOT REPOST IT. 

dirigibleplumbing:

the other day this teenager who couldn’t’ve been more than 15 or 16 years old was checking me out relentlessly and I absolutely didn’t get it. like I’m happy with how I look but I don’t think I’m so fine that a rando teen is gonna be lusting after some stereotypically-Ashkenazi-looking lady twice his age. 

but then I thought, what do I know. maybe I look just like Blorbina Blorbstein from his shows and that’s why he can’t stop looking at me

anyway later I figured out it was almost definitely because I wasn’t wearing a bra and my nipples were EXTREMELY visible 

the other day this teenager who couldn’t’ve been more than 15 or 16 years old was checking me out relentlessly and I absolutely didn’t get it. like I’m happy with how I look but I don’t think I’m so fine that a rando teen is gonna be lusting after some stereotypically-Ashkenazi-looking lady twice his age. 

but then I thought, what do I know. maybe I look just like Blorbina Blorbstein from his shows and that’s why he can’t stop looking at me

Omfg I keep accidentally erasing custom paths in ACNH. This is an incredibly stupid bit of game design and one that would be so easy to fix: just make it so that custem paths work like all other paths in the construction app! Why the heck are they erasable outside of the construction app with the same button I use to pick things up? Which idiot thought this was a good idea?

An anonymous someone sent me an ask on my other account for a continuation of the AU where Zuko is made Azula’s servant.

Continued from: [Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link], and [Link], and [Link].

1. Iroh has always been skilled at being who he needs to be to get what he wants out of the person he’s with. He can dress in simple peasant clothes and be the down to earth true Firelord who knows what it is to struggle, and will listen to the poor and powerless when he takes the throne. He can be the grand prince, unjustly usurped by his unworthy little brother. He can be the grieving father, whose son and throne were taken from him at the same time. He can be the wily old soldier. He can be the peacemaker, who wishes to return the world to a sense of balance, free of Fire Nation aggression.

2. The secret is, he’s all of these things, and he turns the side of himself the person he needs to persuade needs to see to be persuaded.

3. But Zuko is not like Iroh. He is always exactly who he is, in all his facets, all his sides shown at once. He might try to guard his thoughts, but he is never something he is not. It’s a terrible trait for a rebel prince, but Iroh can’t bring himself to be too unhappy. It makes him Zuko, and it will make him a good man. So when he sends Zuko to the Avatar, he has to trust that his nephew’s earnestness, and solemn sense of duty and obligation are exactly the side of their rebellion that the Avatar needs to see.

4. Zuko sails south, and makes good time with a small crew in a small refurbished Fire Navy ship, loaded of useful, but admittedly humble gifts for the Avatar and his hosts, tea, honey, rock sugar, spices from the fire islands, iron teapots and cooking pots, dried and preserved fruits, all things the Southern Water Tribe used to trade for, and which Iroh hopes will endear Zuko to them. They fly stolen Fire Navy flags, until they are within sight of the South Pole. Then, they run up Iroh’s rebel flag, the crown prince’s flag, and a flag of peace. They have no idea if anyone at the pole will recognize the flags, but they have to hope.

5. What they find when they land is, well, Zuko has been living in a rebel camp for a while now. He is used to a temporary life, in the shadow of something grander. But the rebel life has hope, a goal, an endpoint. The South Pole’s villages are clinging to the ice by their fingernails.

Just call me Harriet Vane.

An anonymous someone asked on my other account: “Could you give us more of the AU where Iroh and Zuko find Lu Ten brainwashed at Lake Laogai?”

Continued from: [Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link],[Link], and [Link].

1. Meanwhile, back in the Fire Nation, or at least on a specific ship headed to the Fire Nation, with the Fire Nation prince and princess onboard, a certain Dragon of the West whiles away the hours, in a dark, and dank, brig. His nephew sided with Azula, and he has to grieve about that, to deal with the swirl of misery and disappointment, and even that sense of failure, but more than that, he is afraid. He is so deeply afraid of what Zuko might tell his sister and father about Lu Ten. And even if he doesn’t, where is Lu Ten? Is he on his own? He’s far from ready for that. What if he gets hurt? What if he is found? For so long, Iroh believed his son was dead. Now he knows he is alive, and in danger.

2. Zuko has told Azula absolutely nothing about Lu Ten. And no, he has no intention of examining why. For all he desperately wants to believe Azula, to go home and be his father’s son again, deep down, he’s afraid. He knows what his family is capable of, even if he can’t admit it to himself. When he starts to visit his uncle, when he tries to talk to him, but Itoh won’t answer him, this is one of the things he tells him, soft, almost whispering it, so no one else can hear.

3. Zuko doesn’t talk about the brainwashing. He doesn’t want anybody to know. But Azula already does know. The Dai Li told her about brainwashing her brother, and this is information she plans to make use of. Azula is delighted with the Dai Li. After they have done their job securing Ba Sing Se for her, she packs a contingent of them onto a ship and sends them to the Fire Nation palace. They arrive not long after Azula and Zuko do. Every so often, Zuko catches sight of one, his green robes flapping, and can’t breathe.

4. But of course, Azula would never tell Mai and Ty Lee about such things, and neither would Zuko.

5. And on another ship, sailing for the Fire Nation, Lu Ten remembers everything. He remembers being Lu Ten, at least. The fog of his captivity in Ba Sing Se is another thing entirely. And he knows he is among enemies of the Fire Nation. So he concludes the only reasonable thing: he is a captive. And captives have a duty to escape.

@elf-kid2 in their last ask for the Reach this Moment AU asked for two things, each of which I decided needed its own post. The part I am answering here is What is Mai’s relationship like with the Gaang.

Reach this Moment: [Link]. Universe tag: [Link].

Conveniently, there are, minus Zuko, five members of the Gaang.

1. The member of the Gaang (other than Zuko) that Mai sees most often is Suki. Suki, as head of the Kyoshi Warriors, spends most of her time in the Fire Nation palace. She’s kind, she’s sympathetic, and she’s a natural born leader. Mai envies her, envies the ease she has with power, and with herself, and is so absolutely grateful for her presence that she could never express it. Not only does Suki admirably protect her new husband, toward whom she has many and complicated feelings, and gives Ty Lee the task to defend her, but she is also a fellow Earth Kingdom woman, an Earth Kingdom woman who is so far from what the Fire Nation expects of Earth Kingdom women, who comes with a band of Earth Kingdom women, who live well beyond the limits the Fire Nation expects. Mai is so grateful for all of them and their company. And she’s grateful for Ty Lee too, not that she’ll admit it.

2. Sokka shows up pretty regularly to visit his girlfriend. And the problem with Sokka is that he’s just one more complication. He’s a friend of her husband’s, a husband for whom her feelings are anything but straightforward. And of course he helped end the war with said husband, and he pops in and out of the palace, making being a foreigner there look effortless. She hates him just a little for that. And she hates him just a little for being able to help end the war, when she spent every minute she knew there was a war, running around just fixing one problem after another and trying to keep her head above water as the Fire Nation appointed governor. And does she also have complicated feelings about that? Yeah. But he also goes out of the way to make her laugh. He doesn’t treat her like a doll or a traitor for being Azula’s appointed governor. And yeah, she kind of hates sometimes him, but she also kind of likes him a lot more often.

3. Toph is always an anomaly. She only rarely comes to the Fire Nation royal palace, and when she does, she doesn’t stay long. She and Mai have become such different women, and yet they have so much in common, life experience, childhood, culture. Gaoling for all it is in the south, well south of the Si Wong desert, has tended to ape the cultural norms of Ba Sing Se as much as it was able. Supposedly the town was founded by the Bei Fongs, who were, and still are Ba Sing Se nobility and they still look to Ba Sing Se for spouses for their children. And like Mai, she grew up shut away, that restless despair and anger bubbling just under the surface. And like Mai Toph sees femininity as a prison. They each have their own relationship to that. Toph rejects it utterly, while Mai has learned to wield it. But neither likes it, neither is comfortable with it, any more than they are comfortable with their families, or their pasts. Mai doesn’t always get along with Toph, or agree with her, but at least when she’s around, Mai feels like their speaking the same language.

4. Katara and Aang came to the wedding. Sometimes, when she can’t hold back the sense of shame and anger, Mai remembers Katara’s look of pity. But they’ve met since then, talked, and Katara knows better now, knows that Mai has much sharper edges than she thought. Katara and Mai first really come to meet during the crisis over Yu Dao. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to find one’s way through a new role, one with no set parameters, that one is supposed to shape to suit one’s self when one has no idea what one wants out of it or out of anything when one’s whole life and purpose has fallen away twice in a year, and one hasn’t an goals left. But Mai was governor of Ba Sing Se, and her sense of responsibility hasn’t left her. And she knows intimately what it’s like to be conquered by the Fire Nation. She knows the horrors and the cruelties of it, small and large, deliberate and incidental. Political boundaries between the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation over former colonies makes Mai’s nose twitch like a shirshu’s smelling its quarry. And Katara spots her immediately as a natural ally. Aang, she knows, is more wary of her. He knows what she is, a woman with her own agenda.

5. He isn’t wrong. For Mai, it’s not as simple as Fire Nation verses Earth Kingdom, colony or province. For Katara, it’s always simple. She’s so good at getting to the straight forward clarity of a thing, when Mai feels like she’s drowning in mud. But Mai has seen how little interest anyone in Ba Sing Se has beyond the walls, how it’s a nation unto itself, and how benign the neglect has not been. These problems were exploited by the Fire Nation but they predate the conquest. And besides, who is it ruling Ba Sing Se, who wants the colonies back so badly? Why it’s Long Feng. And Mai has found a goal, at least for now: making Long Feng’s life as hard as possible. Later, this will evolve, into fighting for her brother’s future independence as Earth King, but for now, she just wants to teach the man who used her and threw her out as soon as she was a threat, that he can’t screw with her. Underneath her anger, she knows, is fear, but she has agreed with herself not to look at that too closely.

6. Long Feng is not eager for a war he can’t win, and he’s fully confident he can run rings around the child Avatar and teenage Firelord. So he readily agrees to negotiate. But it’s neither Aang nor Zuko he meets on arrival in the Fire Nation capital. It’s Mai. Her husband leaves the negotiations to her, a gesture of profound trust, and one she does not forget.

amourduloup replied to your text post:

thank you for replying and welcoming disagreement. the only thing i have to add is that i understand the desire to respect how people choose to describe themselves and to not police their personal choices. however, these terms do carry meaning that are socially and politically important. also, and i say this not knowing anything about you, but if it is the case that you don’t identify as lesbian, bi or trans, it’s fine not to have a definite opinion! i appreciate you deciding to look for more information.

This reply makes me really happy. It means a lot that it’s possible to discuss these sensitive, and very personal, topics without assuming the worst of each other. I appreciate you and everyone else who took the time to reply so thoughtfully. 

wormieworms replied to your text post:

As a trans/bi person I will probs have to unfollow. Labels don’t exist in a vaccum and ppl cant identify as them just cause they “want” to. Ignoring these criticisms does not fight the terfs, it just ignores what real trans/bi/lesbian people are saying.

I’m sorry you feel that way and I’m sorry to see you go. I appreciate you sharing this. I don’t feel I’m ignoring these criticisms, but I understand why it seems that way to you. It really sucks feeling you’re not heard, and I’m sorry I made you feel that way. 

I recently replied to an anon question about “mspec lesbians” and “bi lesbians.” I’ve since learned that there is a larger context regarding the terms, of which I was unaware. It was wrong of me to post an ill-informed reply, and I apologize. 

I did a small amount of research before replying, and also talked to several queer friends about the terms. They hadn’t heard of them before either, so they weren’t able to give me a full picture. I wish I had done more research and better understood what I was discussing before making a reply. 

Here is the main addition I have to that original post: 

• If these terms exists only in the minds of transphobes, that’s fucked up and bad. 

That said, my position is basically the same as before:

• if people do identify with these terms, they are welcome to, and it is not my place to police them. I support them and their identities.
• If these terms exists because of transphobes but is now something that real people use to describe their identities, that’s really complicated and still not my place to police anyone else’s identities.
  
• policing lesbian identities is often transphobic and sets of red flags for me
• that policing bi identities is often biphobic and sets of red flags for me 
  

I might add more later, but that is all for now. More discussion can be found on this post I made including a number of asks and replies I received following the original post. 

I’ve turned off asks and have limited replies for now. Thank you to all of you who sent thoughtful replies and asks explaining your point of view, I appreciate it a lot. Even if we have a different take on this, I’m glad you felt comfortable sharing yours. 

I’m replying to a few asks and replies at once. I tried to fix tumblr’s mangling of quotes and other punctuation, apologies if I mangled further. There are a few asks and replies I didn’t respond to because they were very similar to others included here, and a few I didn’t respond to because I accidentally hit the “back” button and tumblr lost my draft and I got confused about what I had and hadn’t responded to, but this covers what I felt was most important to respond to. 

Anonymous asked artthatremindsmeofhannibalnbc a question:

hi! not exactly sure if this is what that anon was talking about, but transphobes have used the term “bi lesbian” to describe lesbians who include trans women in their attraction. it’s separate from its use as a term for split attraction–that specific usage is extremely transphobic. but idk if that’s what anon was talking about

Wow! I’m really glad you told me this. That is really messed up!

So yes, uh, I oppose the term in this usage. Lesbians who include trans women in their attraction are lesbians, no modifier needed.

Anonymous asked artthatremindsmeofhannibalnbc a question

bi lesbian literally originated as a term terfs used for cis lesbians who date trans women. no one who isn’t affected by that sort of transmisogyny has any place calling using the term okay because people claim it means something else now because 1) ppl who aren’t transfeminine using a transmisogynistic dogwhistle as an identity is incredibly poor taste, 2) most “mspec/bi/pan lesbians” now use it to justify fetishizing trans people who don’t identify under the “woman & some non-binary” umbrella instead of just using bi, pan, or sapphic. ffs, sapphic as an umbrella term for all wlwnb exists for a reason without being offensive to trans people, bi people, and lesbians, and accomplishes anything positive that bi lesbian could claim to.

Well, shit. That sounds really fucked up. 

I am learning that there is a larger context to this discussion of which I was entirely ignorant. I apologize for replying without knowing the full story.

thislousytshirt replied to your ask post (this combines 3 replies):

people who do identify as bi-lesbian and mspec lesbian are certainly not terfs. terfs are all about lesbian purism. its not a transphobic phrase and it does not refer to lesbians who date trans women.

the reason being anti-mspec lesbian is terfy is that terfs are very invested in gatekeeping “lesbian” as a term, its sort of an adjacent goal to the transphobia

reasons that someone might identify as bi lesbian: they identify strongly with the word lesbian or identified solely as lesbian in the past but now consider themself bi as well. they mostly like girls but are into other genders as well. they are nonbinary and primarily attracted to girls but are also sometimes not a girl and therefore are bi as well. they are part of lesbian communities that include all wlw in the definition of lesbian.

Thank you for saying this. This is exactly the stuff I was thinking about when I made my original reply. 

doctor-creepy replied to your ask post:

there’s no such thing as being bi and a lesbian? choose one? you can be bi with a preference for women but you’re not a lesbian. lesbian = no attraction to men flat out. ever.

Okay, so. I put the above replies first because I want to make it clear that I realize that my previous post was ill-informed. That said… 

Look. I don’t know anything about you. But “choose one” is a phrase I have pretty much only heard from biphobes. And “lesbian = no attraction to men flat out. ever.” is a sentiment I have pretty much only heard from TERFs.

I apologize if this is simply a case of unfortunate word choice / phrasing, but it is this kind of sentiment that led me to suspect that opposition to these identities is biphobic and transphobic.

doctor-creepy replied to your ask post:

the fuck is it transphobic to only be attracted to womenn

I never said it was.

However, most of the time that I see people say “lesbians are only attracted to women” they mean “trans women aren’t women.” Which is transphobic.

eskamtrash replied to your ask post:

Sorry but isnt “bi lesbian” a lesbophobic and biphobic term in itself?? If youre lesbian you like women (cis and trans women ofc), if youre bi you like more than one gender. You cannot be both at the same time. Not trying to be confronting, but i dont get that term at all

Hi! As I mentioned, I only learned this term a couple of hours ago. I’m learning that there is a wider context of which I was unaware, and that it was ill-done of me to reply without knowing all of the background. 

However, the original information I found when I looked up the term made me think that some people identify this way. And I think that, whether I “get” the term or not, people can identify however they like. 

Yes, “lesbian” means a woman who likes women. In the term “bi lesbian,” “bi” is an adjective. It specifies a type of lesbian. In this case, a bi lesbian. It is not, in my opinion, inherently making any kind of statement on lesbianism, bisexuality, or anyone other than the person who uses this term for themselves. 

It could still be making that statement due to everything else going on in this discussion – see above – but again, other people’s identities aren’t for me to “get.” They’re for the people who identify that way. 

Anonymous asked artthatremindsmeofhannibalnbc a question:

hey! im sorry you are getting rude anons about this, you obviously care about other people and have the best intentions in your opinion on bi lesbians. the argument i see most for the validity of the term is so that lesbians with nonbinary partners or say, partners that come out as male later in their relationship have room in their identity to account for that BUT nuance and The Genders and people growing and changing have always been a part of life as a lesbian and the term “bi lesbian” is a little unnecessary and confusing in my opinion. I think calling it biphobic and lesphobic is a little unfair because that is not anyone’s intention in using it, but it does muddy the water in a way it doesnt need to be muddied. anyways! love your blog and you seem cool, hope u have a nice day!

Thank you so much for this message. Your examples are exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about when I made my original reply.

amourduloup replied to your ask post

that doesn’t make any sense! the term lesbian does not in itself exclude trans women/nb women, at all. lesbians are women attracted exclusively to women, which of course can include trans women and nb women. i don’t understand the need for the term bi lesbian, and it’s obviously a way to further alienate lesbians, and it reinforces the idea that lesbians are attracted to men. i’m bisexual so you can be sure this is not biphobic rhetoric, but i just don’t understand this term or why it needs to exist.

replying because you said explanations are welcome, i don’t mean any disrespect, only a disagreement.

Thank you for replying, it is absolutely welcome. 

I didn’t mean to suggest that the term lesbian excludes trans women or enby women. If it came off that way, I truly apologize. 

As far as I’m concerned, if people identify as bi lesbians, that is why the term exists. Honestly, if people don’t identify this way then yeah, I don’t know why it exists either. 

In a vacuum, I don’t see how it reinforces the idea that lesbians are attracted to men. I think it conveys that bi lesbians are attracted to men. However, this term doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and I once again apologize for my original ill-informed reply. 

The reason I suspected that opposition to the term is biphobic is because biphobes also say that the very existence of bisexual people is harmful to lesbians. Biphobes also say that bisexual people who are with or have only been with people of hetero genders are not queer and that their existence threatens other queer identities. 

The reason I suspected that opposition to the term is transphobic is because people who police lesbian identities – or queer identities in general – are usually transphobic. 

Anonymous asked artthatremindsmeofhannibalnbc a question:

hi! lesbian here! “bi lesbians” and “m-spec lesbians” as identities are damaging to lesbians because lesbian has functionally meant woman or woman-aligned person that’s attracted to only women or woman-aligned people. this is by definition inclusive of trans women because they are women. it’s not biphobic to say that lesbians are not bisexual and bisexuals are not lesbians. words mean things i also don’t really understand why you think it’s transphobic to not support “m-spec lesbians” (½)

(2/2) the lesbian identity already includes trans people?? trans lesbians exist and lesbians who have trans partners also exist?? lesbians are exclusively attracted to women and women-aligned people. it’s lesbophobic to support identities that claim otherwise, and also inherently harmful to lesbians. it’s not biphobic or transphobic to say that lesbian means lesbian.

Hi, thank you taking the time to explain this, I appreciate it.  

I didn’t mean to suggest that the lesbian identity doesn’t include trans people. I apologize if this is how I came off. 

I don’t think the term “bi lesbian” is saying that lesbians are bi. I think it’s saying that some people identify as bi lesbians. My understanding is that it’s a way to describe people who identify as lesbians who are also attracted to genders other than women. I don’t see how this undermines or threatens other lesbian identities, any more than the existence or queer identities undermines or threatens hetero identities. 

There are several examples above of reasons a person might identify as a bi lesbian. What do you think the people in these examples should call themselves if not bi lesbians?  

Anonymous asked artthatremindsmeofhannibalnbc a question:

I think the term bi lesbian is considered distasteful because it erases both the bi and the lesbian experience. Bi ppl face pressure to just pick one, lesbians face the opposite where ppl assume they haven’t found the right man. As for bi lesbians having anything to do with trans ppl–you’re not less of a lesbian for being attracted to a trans woman, yknow? Speaking as a trans person, it’s more alienating to see cis gay ppl (mlm or wlw) using the term bi to justify their attraction to trans ppl.

Hi. Thank you very much for sharing this with me. I’m really glad to know this point of view, and I’m glad you felt comfortable sharing it. I absolutely agree with you that if someone identifies as a “bi lesbian” because they mean “attracted to women and trans women” that’s fucked up and transphobic. 

Anonymous asked artthatremindsmeofhannibalnbc a question:

i dont want to “start discourse” or w/e but i just want to gently say nothing about that statement is “terfy” of involves the exclusion or opression of trans women at all. its between bi and lesbian identities. please dont call random unrelated community issues terfy /terf related unless they actively do those things . not everyone who isnt “inclusive” is a terf

It’s true that not everyone who isn’t inclusive is a TERF. However, TERFs are well-known for converting people to their point of view by making seemingly unambiguous statements that then escalate into excluding people based on their sexual identity and/or gender identity. It was that vibe that led me to say that it sounded TERF-y. 

What I am getting from this discussion is that: 

• some people think the terms “bi lesbian” and “mspec lesbian” are lesbophobic because they think their very existence means that all lesbians are attracted to men 
• some people think the terms are biphobic or lesbophobic because they conflate the two identities, suggests that bi people are really only attracted to one gender (in this case, women), suggests that lesbians are actually attracted to men, or some combination of the above 
• some people think the terms are transphobic because it was invented by TERFs 
• some people think the term is fine and inclusive of trans and nonbinary and that opposing it is transphobic 
• that some people think the term is confusing but fine
• plus probably a lot more that either isn’t represented here or I don’t understand 

My conclusion is that my original reply was ill-informed. I apologize for this, and am making a separate post to apologize without it being buried in this long post. 

I still believe that people can identify how they want and that it’s not my place to police them, that policing lesbian identities is usually transphobic, and that policing bi identities is usually biphobic.