Truly One Of The Best Side-effects 😭

This is exactly what runs through my head every time I hear that we “only make up 1% of the population” defense. Would 2% be too much for y’all?

It often feels like mainstream acceptance of queer people, particularly trans and nonbinary people, is contingent on there being few of us. When I was a kid witnessing arguments about gay marriage, statistics about LGBTQ people were so often presented in such a way as to reassure everyone else that we are not dangerous because we are rare. "It's not going to cause societal collapse ... because such a small percentage of people are gay."

And conservative rhetoric against queer people, particularly trans people, which explicitly refers to us as a "social contagion," really underscores that any perceived "increase" in sexual or gender diversity will be seen as a threat. If queer people are permitted to exist, we must be aberrant and isolated. If we are normal and natural and commonly occurring, it is because something has gone terribly wrong.

So. Forgive me if I bristle at the well-meaning argument that "these trans athlete bans are ridiculous, they're only going to affect a few dozen people!" I understand where they're coming from. But I think trans people should be free and abundant.

😔

I still think this is my best comic.

Gideon is just as much a product of the 9th as Harrow is, just with different sets of traumas. Harrow bears the burden of her entire House’s expectations and future, whereas Gideon was never expected to amount to anything save for a set of bones to tend the snow leek fields.

Gideon’s whole persona is a reaction to “nobody” seeing her as valuable or worthy of attention. So she makes herself as annoying and loud as possible in order to get the people in her life to notice her.

It’s why she caves to anyone who gives her a scrap of recognition or appreciation, well intentioned or not 💀

thinking about the fact that Gideon grew up in the same exact place and with the same exact background as Harrow, yet there isn't one religious bone in her whole body and she just seems to not care at all about the Emperor or praying or religion as a whole.

thinking about the fact that she doesn't necessarily mock the Ninth for believing, but it's clear she doesn't. yet, she has to have spent at least some years of her life believing in the same religion because it was the only thing she ever knew and she was raised to possibly become a nun, so someone had to teach her about it.

thinking about how I personally stopped believing after growing up catholic and imagining a six years old Gideon Nav hiding in a corner of the Ninth just like I used to do in my house, praying the Emperor for someone to come and claim her, for her father to save her from Crux, from Harrow, from her life. thinking of Gideon going to the same corner day after day, maybe near her mother's burial niche, because in her naive mind that has turned into the praying-spot where God can hear her more clearly, for some reason. he doesn't usually listen to her, but maybe if she prays there he will actually listen to her and help her. and she keeps praying, every day, for weeks, months, years.

thinking of eleven years old Gideon Nav that has prayed and prayed and prayed and ultimately has decided that there must be no God, because he never once listened to her. not even when she asked for something small, something that the Kind Undying should have no problem granting her, since everyone always talks about how powerful he is and how many great things he has done.

or maybe there is a God, but he clearly doesn't care about her, just like everybody else, so why should she care about him?

I am also very well fed from both of them lol, but I wonder how much of the mixup happens due to all the inaccurate white-passing Griddlehark fan-art… 🤔

(Coming from a pasty white person who went to their first queer Halloween party as Gideon full disclosure)

Happy to live in a universe where I sometimes come across fanart and am momentarily confused bc which ginger gay with the golden eyes and sunglasses is it??

Now see, the big brained strategy that I’ve employed to combat this is to transition to the point where I’m forced to come out as a formality.

First pass through: Oh Gideon you poor baby 😭😅. Coming from someone who’s been in recovery from an awful haircut for just over a year now, I feel your pain.

Second pass through: Okay I know Harrow always looks pissed… but I’m detecting a higher degree of resigned acceptance than normal from her here. Like, she’s suffering from the awful cut just as much as her situation-ship is, but like with everything else in her life, Harrow sees it as a just punishment for her sins and throws bones at Gideon to cope 💀

Thank you OP. These two panels were great!

P.s. Plus the mental image of Harrow holding clippers menacingly just sends me.

P.p.s… (bear with me)

Okay actually scratch my original thought about Harrow. It would TOTALLY be in character for her to be in her dark little library one night and have the most evil idea imaginable pop into her head…

She would write up a new doctrine for the Ninth then and there, explaining how the haircut is a parallel to the distant pinprick of light offered by Dominicus amidst a vast sea of darkness devoid of their gracious Emperor’s undying radiance.

A muster would then be called. Gideon would be dragged out of her cell by a freshly skull-capped Aiglamene (odd, but you’re never too old to rock a butch buzz-cut right?) to be plopped onto a pew amidst of sea of skeletons (with no hair), a dwindling handful of ancient nuns (also with no hair), Ortus (again, no hair), Crux (get the picture?), and Harrow’s parents (who due to being MEGAdead, always have their hoods up).

At this point, Gideon’s head is a single fiery beacon amidst an unchanged congregation of geriatrics and their token 30s-something poet.

So when Harrow steps out of the shadows and gets “permission” from her parents to read out a parchment “previously thought lost within the bowels of the Anastasian,” It becomes immediately apparent to a newly horrified Gideon that this will only really apply to her. Harrow won’t give a rat’s ass about her own hair because as Gideon knows, all she cares about is that damned tomb. And bones.

As Gideon stands to flip harrow the bird, a quartet of skeletons pin her back down to the pew and a mechanical buzzing noise suddenly echos through the rafters of Drearburh. 😈

Cannot for the life of me find the post, however, someone had the idea of the ninth house with tonsures and it was so funny I had to draw it

Low key would LOVE to be able to attach computers to myself like this. Imagine the memories you could store and retrieve with this tech. Plus it just looks cool… that may be the main reason… body modification 🤖

Nerd and jock from yesterday’s illustration

I deserve to take up space. I am worth being a part of my friends’ lives. Advocating for myself is not selfishness.

"No one remembered my birthday-" Well, but did YOU tell anyone it was coming up and you wanted to celebrate it with them?

"I wish someone would see through it when I tell people I'm fine-" Well, but have YOU considered not lying when people ask you how you're doing?

"I am so resentful of my friend because they keep doing this thing that really bothers me-" Well, but have YOU directly communicated that the thing is bothering you?

"I am burning out because my friend keeps expecting me to help them with serious struggles-" Well, but have YOU tried to establish the boundaries you need to feel okay?

"No one ever asks me about this thing I really care about-" Well, but have YOU brought it up yourself?

"I miss my friend but they haven't texted me-" Well, but have YOU been reaching out to them?

Sometimes people are mean, uncaring assholes, in which case you get to be mad. But sometimes you just need to communicate better. Try communication before you assume someone doesn't care!

Quite well thank you!

Happy February. How's your woolies mammoths coming along ladies?

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Mood. Not a healthy one, but mood

“i must be faking this for attention” thinks the girl who isn’t even telling anyone about it