#besmirchthis

[goatsandgangsters]

ohh for the trans ask meme how about 7, 11, 16?

7. favorite trans meme/bit of trans humor?

When there are only two options of something presented and you point at it and go “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS. DECAF OR REGULAR.”

11. recent happy trans moment?

So something that’s very affirming is that when trying to think of another good gender moment that’s happened subsequently since I got this ask, there were a TON of different moments—both big and small—that popped into my head. Brief summaries of some things from this past week:

recent IRL conversation with A Very Baby Trans who seemed very enthusiastic about talking to me and I was mentally like “I high-key remember being exactly in your shoes and being so eager for someone to See Me and see all this inner conflict that I didn’t know what to do with” so there’s the empathy side, but then also a side of “wait do you… do you see me as someone Experienced?” and it feels good but also unusual to think of myself as being in a position to be welcoming and supportive to new people in a trans space (especially when I’m STILL, after YEARS, like “but am I really trans ENOUGH??” so when other people in this IRL group are just like “yeah?” like it’s a non-issue I’m like “........whoa”)

the details of this as hard to explain, but for work I went to this exhibit-ish thing, the premise of which is “share trans people’s personal narratives with cis people to increase empathy” and that was really cool, but also I was very much not the target audience because the video was like “this is My Binder” and I’m like “hmm I’m not familiar with this brand, gonna look into it.” But also I hung out with the people who put this together and we just like talked about gender and The Perils of Being Perceived and it was a good conversation

HAD A SAME HAT MOMENT IN TRADER JOE’S. the checkout person had very long and beautiful hair, a low voice, and a very gender neutral name tag, though for once I was NOT decked out in any pronoun gear, but we still like… made a lot of Genuine and Enthusiastic Smalltalk with each other? And I just felt really good afterwards, because I love the way we SAME HAT at each other, and even if we don’t ACKNOWLEDGE the hat, the interaction just FEELS so different. It feels less like polite smalltalk with a stranger and way more along the lines of like “you ran into a casual friend you haven’t seen in a number of years” and IT JUST FEELS GOOD TO SEE AND BE SEEN BY QUEER PEOPLE, YA KNOW? In a world of constant invisibility, it’s Healing to have these small moments where you both just very subtly indicate “oh hello. Me too.”

16. song that gives you Big Trans Feels?

So over the summer, I found out about Mal Blum when they released a new album. And literally three days after hearing their music for the first time, I was at their show because they happened to be playing in Boston RIGHT after and I have nO REGRETS  

A lot of their music is very good and is about, and I quote, “being a sad trans ghost” and stuff about boundaries and bad relationships that’s also really relatable

But “Things Still Left to Say” is, to me, the MOST relatable in terms of trans feels.

Particularly:

Do you miss me when I'm not around, cause you don't see me when I'm here.I'm like a ghost of myself already, if I could I would disappearBut I'm still here

AND:

Should I explain myself?I'd rather read the dictionary.Why does everybody else feel closer to me than I can feel to them?

trans ask meme

[wefewwehappyfew]

for the prompts, going to send a few (maybe all character(s) + a word) in hopes that one of them will give you a something for writing. soooo... for the first: skywalker of your choice + aeviternal

@besmirchthis Here goes the first one!

-------

There’s a thought that comforts Luke.After the last thread of his life is cut, he’ll be nothing. There’ll be no legend he’ll have to live up to. The Resistance will have no need of him. If anything, only Leia will listen to his last breath. She’ll cry in the darkness of the most secluded place she’ll be able to find.Like she did for Alderaan.Like she did for Han.But after that, she’ll stand up and lead. Luke knows his sister, even the distance and the years can’t take away that from him. He knows she has the strength he has always lacked. Leia would not have made the same mistakes he did, because her whole self had been built to carry the burning crown that is knowing that the destiny of the galaxy rests in your hands.Whereas Luke himself has always wondered, when reason and the passing from his youth to old age allowed him to see things with a distance, if it hadn’t been a better idea if he had stayed in Tatooine. He was not cut to be a hero, for his feats to be sung or whispered as some way to instil hope in the hearts of those under the yoke of the Dark Side.After all, the Last Jedi will come and save them.Save them from what? From the very darkness he helped create?It took him long to see it. But darkness cannot exist without light and viceversa. Just as he brought one of his family to the Light, another one had to go to the Dark Side. The eternal cycle had to go on.But at what cost?The corruption of Ben? (Not only darkness was within him. I only wish I had  known how to help him better.)The death of Han? (The galaxies feel emptier without you, my friend.)The suffering of Leia? (Oh sister. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.)And all of this part of another war to drench the stars in blood and the most terrifying of silences.So he did what he had to do. Cut himself from the Force. Stop the idea that the Jedi are needed.  Only by breaking the wheel you stop it.He only wishes he had done it earlier.―The girl comes from nothing. From nowhere.Luke wonders if the eagerness he sees in her eyes and the almost audacious lack of knowledge regarding the Force were the same Obi-Wan saw once in him.(Did you see in me the same power I see in her, Master?)But no. He cannot train her.He cannot remake the wheel again at the expense of this girl that should have stayed in Jakku, just as he should have stayed in Tatooine. They both should have died in obscurity.And yet, as with everything, it is too late for that.―Twin suns.For once in his life, Luke actually smiles at the vision.It makes him forget the pain. It makes him understand that no matter how much he had stayed away from the Force, he has always been one of Its creatures.He doesn’t embrace the eternity that means becoming one with the Force with open arms, but he accepts It as It takes every fibre of his being.And that, for him, is a start.

[meyerlansky]

besmirchthis replied to your post “if i never have to hear from this one girl in my program about how...”

fucking christ.

like i absolutely have a bias considering i’m a northeast coastal elite or whatever but “i’m from california” is not a shield to hide behind when your response to a well thought out presentation is “okay but how is this even connected to the class? i just don’t see why you bothered” and considering she only asked the question so she could go off on a tangent about how in california there’s no collective memory of the civil war and it’s weird that a collective memory class in the northeast would’ve asked students about their associations with the civil war without thinking about ~the poor californians~ who don’t occupy their thoughts with silly things like the civil war, i’m not inclined to be forgiving here

[meyerlansky]

for the video game meme: 3, 4, 14, 25?

first two answered, SO:

14. Most memorable gaming moment?

honestly for a game that let me down so very hard in the last 15 minutes, mass effect 3 had a few: the elcor dignitary saying “not enough” with no emotion tag, femshep’s goodbye with garrus, and shepard saying “what do you need me to do?” to anderson when she’s battered and bloody and very very obviously ready to die as soon as her mission’s finished

25. Hardest boss fight you’ve been in?

in recent memory, both thunderblight ganon in breath of the wild and gondul in god of war were VERY tough, mostly because for both of them i did NOT follow the recommended order of fights and they were both the first ones in the sequence, so i was deeply, DEEPLY unprepared for both of them. sigrun is also pretty rough, but gondul stands out as harder in my memory.

WAIT NO DR. KAHL’S ROBOT IN CUPHEAD IS WORSE THAN ALL THREE OF THEM COMBINED, that goddamn horsefucking piece of shit boss was SO FUCKING DIFFICULT that the cuphead devs literally patched the fight to make it slightly easier. i beat the pre-patch version. after HOURS of suffering. the xbox 360 i USED to use to game on the pc was very very quickly retired after cuphead, and I blame that FUCKING robot for a lot of the wear and tear on that thing.

[wefewwehappyfew]

@besmirchthis

THANK YOU. JUST THANK YOU. BECAUSE ALL OF THE PROMPTS YOU ARE SENDING ME ARE BRILLIANT.

[deanobanion]

oh! OH! a showering of birthday wishes for you! and wishes for the coming year, in general. which, y'know, actually triple those wishes, because yeah, it'll be a year, and you'll kick its ass, but never hurts to have some extra wishing. ANYWAY. best and best to you!

ty ty ty kristie!!! i appreciate all of your wishes and will collect them and utilize them in year ass kicking activities. thank you!!!

[goatsandgangsters]

BOOK/WHATEVER KIND OF TEXT MEME! how aboutttt 2, 10, 15?

TRYING THIS AGAIN, PRAYER CIRCLE THAT TUMBLR DOES NOT EAT IT

The book(s) you bought because the cover was pretty, and whether it was worth it

I will 100% own up to the fact that I am drawn to books with pretty covers. I love a good cover design, you know? But then I still have to be interested in the content of the book. If it doesn’t interest me, I’ll just appreciate the cover and move on. But then—just so you don’t think I’m 0% shallow—the reverse is also true. I will forgive a bad cover, but I’ve put books down because the interior design was bad. If it has a bad interior design, I’m going to be annoyed at it the whole time I’m reading?

The book that you reread over and over again and get new things from every time

So I’m realizing I don’t tend to reread things often unless it’s been assigned for class multiple times or it’s Harry Potter, but. Apart from The Great Gatsby, I’m going to give a slightly angry shout out to Romeo and Juliet.

Like many people, I first read Romeo and Juliet in high school. Okay so we read an easier modern English version in 5th grade but that doesn’t count. And, like many people, I was a TEENAGER. So OF COURSE I had to be all “oooooh look at me I’m a TEENAGER I’m DEEP AND DIFFERENT and I think Romeo and Juliet are STUPID DUMB IDIOTS and LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT IS FAKE and DID I MENTION HOW DEEP I AM????” Yep, that’s good ol’ Will outsmarted right there by a 10th grader.

And of course I eased up on that viewpoint with age, because I heard intelligent people who weren’t fake deep talking about it and became an all-around more educated person with less to Prove. But I don’t think I’d actually reread it myself until later in my college years and uh, talk about getting something new from it but

WHO THE FUCK EVER TRIED TO ARGUE THAT JULIET IS STUPID???? LIKE SHE’S SUPER FUCKING CAPABLE AND HONESTLY PRETTY DAMN SMART AND LEVEL HEADED AND DOES A GOOD JOB IN MOST SITUATIONS?? Romeo, he can be a lil dumb, he’s gotta turn down the drama a notch, but I AM GOING TO THE MAT FOR JULIET HERE SHE’S??? NOT DUMB AT ALL?????? SHE HANDLES EVERYTHING SUPER WELL, CONSIDERING THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF EVERYTHING GOING ON

What’s the worst book you’ve ever read, and why?

[under a cut for mentions of p[[[[edophilia and s[[[[exual a[[[ssault and s//uicide]

THE ELEMENTARY PARTICLES BY MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ

IF I HAVE TO READ ONE MORE GODDAMN PAGE OF MASTURBATION AND THIS ASSHOLE BEING SUPER TICKED OFF THAT HE CAN’T GET LAID I SWEAR—

okay but so this book is about these two half-brothers who are like, super fucked up because their mom was a hippie and it’s supposed to be like ~a cultural analysis~ or some shit like that, but mostly the one brother is just… super boring and doesn’t get up to much. AND THE OTHER ONE IS A DISGUSTING TURD PILE WITH MASTURBATION SCENE UPON MASTURBATION SCENE UPON RANDOM ORGY UPON SEXUAL FRUSTRATION UPON FINALLY GETTING LAID

like he ~finds true love~ but the girl throws her back out during an orgy during an orgy and then she’s paralyzed and kills herself and that’s the last he ever knows of love

NOT TO MENTION THE MULTIPLE PAGE ANECDOTE of that time when he was a little boy and accidentally saw his mom’s vag, so he had to go jerk off to THOUGHTS OF HIS MOM’S VAG and some stray cat was watching and the cat was watching him when he came so he KILLED THE CAT WITH HIS BARE HANDS because ????

He’s also a literal p[[[edophile and he’s a teacher and there’s lots of lovely pages detailing this AND THEN HE GOES ON A DATE with an actual adult woman and he’s TELLING HER ABOUT ALL OF THIS and he straight up admits to sexually assaulting one of his students?? and the date is like ~wow that’s so hot and risque, I’m so turned on~ LIKE SHE DOESN’T LEAVE??? SHE KEEPS??????? TALKING TO HIM ABOUT THIS??????????

That was the point at which I gave up but I cannot even COUNT how MUCH FUCKING MASTURBATION IS IN THIS GODDAMN BOOK OH MY GODDDDDDDDD

and then A N D  T H E N. do you wanna know. how this fucking ends??? DO YOU?????? this is the epilogue okay. the epilogue. which, I did not read so imAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I TURNED UP TO CLASS AND WE DISCUSSED THIS LITTLE TIDBIT. after hundreds and hundreds of pages of Sad Boring Dude Who You Probably Forgot About Because Honestly I Did Too + disgusting man who is an actual turdpile TURNS OUT

oh my  god I’m not making this up I swear turns out

this ENTIRE BOOK is set 50 years in the future.

Boring man perfected cloning and has like, removed sex from our society. This story is being told to us FROM ONE OF BORING MAN’S CLONES?????????? LITERALLY THIS IS THE LAST FEW PAGES AFTER HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF PAGES OF MASTURBATION. LITERAL MASTURBATION. I DON’T MEAN THE WRITING IS MASTURBATORY I MEAN I LITERALLY CANNOT EXPRESS TO YOU HOW MUCH THE ONE GUY JERKS OFF

hundreds of pages of dispassionate, blunt, emotionally deadened, matter of fact descriptions. of masturbation.

told by this guy’s half-brother’s clone.

I’m not even shitting you and honestly I’m glad I got to write this rant twice because I was even MORE FED UP THE SECOND TIME

oh my god I hate this book

I had to read this for class. FOR CLASS.

[orangejuiceandopium]

for the book meme... 8, 13, 19?

8. The book you read when you’re stuck in bed sick.

There isn’t really a particular one but when I was younger I did reread my favorite book East by Edith Pattou a lot when I didn’t know what else to read. Or I’d reread the Han Solo Trilogy by AC Crispin.

13. The fictional character you want to believe you resemble and the fictional character you actually resemble.

I want to be Margaery Tyrell but I’m more of a Sansa Stark--Which isn’t really a bad thing. I love Sansa.

19. That book with a twist that felt like a blow to the chest. Tell me about it. (But warn for spoilers if necessary!).

Hedwig’s death in Deathy Hallows. :’(