March and April flew by in a haze of pollen and work
May. 3rd, 2026 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonesensedThus, if I leave a comment on one of your recent posts that feels out-of-touch with a huge life event you've gone through, I apologize ahead of time for my ignorance. I'm doing my best to skim-read what everyone's been up to, buuuut it's very possible I'll miss things. 🙃
My health has been in the trash all of March and April due to allergies, asthma and back-problems (old slipped discs that never fully healed right). I've at last reached a balance of new meds that seem to be doing the trick, but I've now got a huge backlog of...well, life 😅
What I've neglected the most is my writing. I have this huge urge to write, but I have so many projects that I haven't touched in far too long, so I don't know where to start. And I definitely won't finish line-editing A Werewolf in October this year, which sucks.
On a more positive note, here are fun things that have happened or are happening:
- D&D tonight! The two D&D campaigns I'm running are still going strong (if with long breaks at times) and tonight the Dragonkeepers will (hopefully) be setting sail for the continent of Wildemount 🥳
- I've caught up with both Critical Role and Witch Hat Atelier (the manga version - I'll be watching the anime episodes available next weekend when my sister visits) and all I can say is "AAAAAAAH!!!!" (affectionate) 😆
- Tori Amos released a new album and it's making me feel very nostalgic 💜
- I'm back to running! Only 2km a run as of yet, but going from 0 to that with my asthma feels pretty great still.
- Tomorrow a friend is taking me out to dinner and a movie 💖 We're going to see Project Hail Mary, which I'm really looking forward to!
Hope the start of May has been treating everyone well 💙
Texts From Superheroes
May. 2nd, 2026 09:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
textsfromsuperheroes_feed
Hooray for spring
May. 2nd, 2026 10:23 pmcosmolinguistEvery time I step outside I am struck by how good the air smells this time of year. It smells sweet and green and makes me appreciate topsoil. I live in a city but I still am surrounded by growing things.
Cherry blossoms 2026
May. 2nd, 2026 12:47 pmsabotabbyioplokon and I did the thing.
( cut for people who don't want to see more cherry blossoms and a cool duck )
The Lord of the Rings RPF: "The Journey is the Destination" by lennongirl
May. 1st, 2026 08:44 pmvamp_ress posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fancakePairings/Characters: Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom
Rating: Explicit
Length: 30.000 words
Creator Links: lennongirl on AO3
Theme: Journey & Travel
Summary: AU: Orlando and Viggo meet in Spain under strange circumstances and travel through Europe together in Viggo's truck, getting to know each other and themselves.
Reccer's Notes: This is an old comfort fic that I used to read and re-read all the time back in the day. It's 30.000 words of both road trip and falling in love and that combination is simply too charming for its own good. You'll get to see quite a bit of Europe in the story as this starts out in Spain and and ends in Denmark. And to keep readers in the know there's a map of the characters' journey/progress at the end of each chapter. This story is fluffy and romantic and adventurous - simply the best combination of all the ingredients!
Fanwork Links: The Journey is the Destination on AO3
Reassessing my 2026 New Year's Goals
May. 1st, 2026 10:32 amembracingcalmI'm over that bump though and I would like to celebrate today instead. So, I think evaluating and altering these to fit what I am actually physically capable of doing would be nice. Some goals I will leave alone, others I will reduce the goal number on significantly, some I will be replacing and others I will simply remove with no notes. It will be long and ramble-y so I'll put it behind a cut
( Here we go... )------------------------
After reassessing my goals here is the updated list. It's a much more realistic set of goals that I actually might finish this year.
Get my nose pierced
Make 1 granny square dress using thrifted yarn
Round 186: Journey & Travel
May. 1st, 2026 08:17 amrunpunkrun posting in fancake
Our theme for May is journey & travel!
The tag for this round is: theme: journey & travel
If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.
( Rules! )
( Posting Template! )
( Promote this round! )
podcast friday
May. 1st, 2026 07:00 amsabotabbynaomikritzer , lydamorehouse , Marissa Lingen, and J.R. Dawson about their experiences during ICE's occupation of the Twin Cities during Operation Metro Surge.Look. I think these people are heroes. I think every single person who fought back against a fascist paramilitary that was abducting people from their homes and workplaces, torturing them, putting them in concentration camps, sometimes gunning them down in the streets, is a hero. Any act of resistance that throws sand in those gears is worthy of celebration, and there were a lot of those acts.
The thing is as you can tell by the tagging, I know two of these heroes as people. That to me is what really blew me away listening to this episode. I am currently reading a book about resistance to the Nazis that does amazing work humanizing each and every character, but I don't know any of them personally, so it's easy to imagine that they are somehow larger than life, special people who have qualities that I can never possess. Whereas the folks interviewed in this episode are people basically like me (well, more successful in their writing careers lol) and it was genuinely empowering listening to people just describing what they did. Because it's absolutely heroic but it is heroism that required no particular special skills or background or even executive functioning. A thing needed to be done, they did the thing, they are still doing the thing. It's enough to make you weep.
You still need to do the laundry when the fascists roll in, and this is a podcast episode about that, and everyone should give it a listen.
Board Meeting Minutes: 18 April 2026
May. 1st, 2026 05:30 amotw_board_minutes_feedAgenda
- Decisions made since the last public board meeting
- Updates to Board roadmap
- Updates to Organizational Culture Roadmap
- Updates regarding internal complaint and conflict systems
- Any other business (Questions & Answers)
Transcript
The meeting can be read in full on the official OTW Board Discord server. In order to access it, you’ll need to join our Discord server.
Present
- Anh Pham
- Elizabeth Wiltshire
- Harlan Lieberman-Berg
- Qiao Chu
- Rachel Linton
Guests
- a.
- Æther
- AiedailEclipsed
- alogical
- Arya
- bak.bop
- Beatrice_Otter
- Berix
- Blue
- briar
- Cat
- chanvrerie
- CMDonovann
- cutesy
- daisy
- DawnWinters
- EchoEkhi
- ethanbrecke
- evilanifa
- Ghysals
- Grumpycat
- itsmeimhere
- jess
- keladry
- Keltena
- ladydragona
- LtMel
- Lydia
- missizzy
- Moonbob
- most resilient ugly squid
- muffinman29
- MustardPot
- nova
- Nova Rivera
- pitytheviolins
- sarcasticallyinclined
- Shade
- ShirouHokuto
- Sobriquett
- soundofsnow
- Sparrow
- Sullie Tosho
- Talmoon
- therealmorticia
- Ultraviolet_Ink
- Water_eddown
- Wist
- WonderfulWorld
- XxDarkness
- ZG
Open Session
Decisions made since the last public board meeting
- Approved January Board public meeting minutes.
- Approved interpretation of Article V, clause 16 of the Bylaws to include communication by means of transcription devices for the hearing impaired or similar technology, provided such means permit a contemporaneous transcription. This interpretation will comply with corporate law while accommodating deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals.
- Approved two Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Heads.
- Approved two Fanlore co-chairs.
- Approved two Legal co-chairs.
- Approved one Translation co-chair.
- Approved Crisis Management Documentation.
- Approved sign-on to amicus brief supporting the “server test” for online copyright liability.
- Approved three finance requests.
- AO3 exited beta.
Updates to Board roadmap
Trust, Safety, and Accountability
- Review and revise OTW policies for volunteer discipline (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Continue our commitment to Board transparency by sharing regular updates and improving the Board response time to communication (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Review and revamp the OTW Conflict of Interest Policy (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Assist the development and expansion of the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution (ICCR) subcommittee to provide improved avenues of support for volunteers – In Progress
Work has continued on OTW discipline policies, including on procedures for emergency suspensions. Board continues to provide internal bi-weekly updates on Board and BAT projects. We’ll go into further detail about additional revisions to our internal complaint procedures later in our agenda.
Soliciting Expertise
- Finalize procurement-related documentation (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Engage short-term contractors and subject matter experts to support progress of committee-specific projects (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
We are pleased to have our new Procurement Policy operational! We have also engaged both a consultant and a contractor to contribute to AD&T projects.
OTW Sustainability & Proposals to the Board
- Optimize and document the procedures for the annual turnover of Board members post-election (Ongoing, carried over from 2025)
- Optimize and document the procedures for the annual “Still Willing to Board” survey, as well as personnel admin tasks resulting from this (In-Progress)
- Address and resolve proposals carried over from 2025 (Ongoing)
- Provide retention and recruitment support to committees requesting assistance (New).
We have carried out our “Still Willing to Board” survey for 2026 and are pleased to announce that all Board members are remaining in their positions and have documented the related administrative tasks. We continue to look for ways to improve our processes.
Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup
- Work with OCR to address Culture Roadmap goals – IN PROGRESS
- Support OCR external recruitment – COMPLETE
- Develop further OCR independence from Board and BAT – COMPLETE
We’re pleased to have completed the Board-OCR separation and will be moving our remaining goal, “Work with OCR to address Culture Roadmap goals”, to the “Following Existing Plans” category and removing the Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup section from our roadmap going forward. A final, full update on OCR will follow.
Updates to Organizational Culture Roadmap
The Organizational Culture Roadmap (OCR) workgroup has successfully completed external recruitment, and is currently working on revising the OTW’s Code of Conduct with an external HR firm – the completed draft of which is currently being reviewed by stakeholders. As mentioned in the January public Board meeting, the OCR workgroup now officially operates and is led independently from the Board. As such, this will be their last update in this forum; any and all future updates on OCR work will be communicated in the monthly OTW newsletter, where OCR has been regularly giving updates since last year.
Updates regarding internal complaint and conflict systems
In our January public board meeting, we answered questions about the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution (ICCR) committee and other reporting procedures. We’d like to provide further updates on both ICCR and other complaint procedures, as well as to correct information provided in our previous question response about existing and alternative complaint procedures.
Since January, ICCR has been actively investigating cases and has continued to work on its existing procedures around communication with complainants. At the same time, Board, ICCR, and VolCom have been re-evaluating backup complaint and escalation procedures. Unlike previously stated, while ICCR was working to become operational, volunteers also experienced failures in existing and alternative complaint procedures for certain types of complaints where established backup resolution pathways did not exist. Even now with an active ICCR, having effective alternative reporting channels and clear escalation procedures remains important to ensure volunteers have their concerns addressed in a timely manner.
To address these issues, Board and VolCom have updated the Volunteer Handbook to adjust complaint procedures to clearly identify the available escalation pathways in a variety of situations and outline expected communication. In addition, Board, VolCom, and ICCR have refined procedures internally to better track complaints and ensure they are assigned appropriately for investigation, including by, going forward, providing information on complaint ownership to complainants who report through multiple channels or to multiple parties. We hope that these changes will ensure that all complaints move forward in a timely manner.
We will continue to monitor complaint processes and make further adjustments in response to issues as we move forward. Our goal is to improve both ease of reporting and speed of response, and we thank both the volunteers who have reported issues and ICCR and VolCom for their ongoing work in implementing improvements.
AOB
No items
Open Question time
Q1: In case of people not affiliated with the OTW pretending publicly that they are/insinuating that they are, are there any measures in place to address these situations, especially when such individuals are behaving in a way that due to the misrepresentation reflects badly on the OTW?
A: All OTW volunteers agree to a Code of Conduct, which includes a public communications policy. No volunteer will ever contact you on behalf of the OTW through unofficial channels such as by commenting on your work. Any communication from the OTW, such as from the Policy & Abuse committee regarding your account, will come to your registered email from an official email address. The OTW’s response would depend on the situation, as we have limited control over individuals unaffiliated with the OTW and their behavior on non-OTW-run platforms. However, we do encourage you to contact us if you have questions or concerns about an individual misrepresenting their affiliation with the OTW or questions about whether a communication is official.
Q2: What is the OTW’s stance about online age verification?
A: Currently, there are no laws that require online age verification on Archive of Our Own or any OTW projects. We have no plans to implement any kind of age verification, although we continue to monitor the situation closely. As a policy matter, the OTW is against online age verification and similar regulations that damage personal privacy and access to a free and fair internet.
Q3: Seeing as AO3 has been stably running for many years now, I’d be interested in hearing about the reasons that led to the decision to exit beta status at this point in time rather than years prior, considering it’s described as a mostly cosmetic change and that many of the goals laid out in the roadmaps have not yet been reached. Thank you!
A: AO3 hasn’t met the definition of beta software for several years now, and with over 10 million active users, exiting open beta has been overdue. The timing was chosen because it worked for the groups involved in making and announcing the change, especially our developers and communications team. Graduating from open beta does not necessarily mean AO3 is “complete” — there will definitely be new features to write and bugs to squash. But it’s time to recognize that the software is, and has been for a while, working at massive scale and will continue to do so. While our AD&T team still plans to implement some items from the 2013 roadmap, that plan was written over a decade ago, and some of the listed features do not make sense anymore in today’s internet landscape or with AO3’s current size and scale. Our AD&T team will provide an update in the Roadmap via newspost in the future.
Q4: hi! how’s the ao3 translation to different languages going? is the volunteer recruitement open again? it says on the website that it’s gonna be open in april
A: Our internationalization team is working hard to enable translation across AO3! They finished making AO3 emails translatable late last year and are continuing to work on making the interface translatable. As for volunteer recruitment, our Legal and Policy & Abuse committees are currently recruiting. You can see information about all our open positions here: https://www.transformativeworks.org/volunteer/ In general, we recruit approximately monthly for a variety of positions, so you can check back at that page for future openings. We also announce volunteer recruitment on the AO3 homepage.
Q5: When was the decision made for Ao3 to exit open beta?
A: On April 2nd, we announced AO3 was exiting open beta https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34626. AO3 hasn’t met the definition of beta software for several years now and the idea of exiting open beta had been bouncing around for a while, but because this was largely a cosmetic change, it also wasn’t an urgent priority. The timing was chosen because it worked for the groups involved in making and announcing the change, especially our developers and communications team.
Q6: When AO3 goes down for scheduled maintenance, can the community find out what AO3 is down for? Where can that information be found?
A: We have a status page at https://www.otwstatus.org/ where you can check for server status of all OTW projects, including but not limited to AO3 and Fanlore. That page will sometimes offer details about expected downtime and reasons for maintenance. You can additionally subscribe to the RSS feed of the above-mentioned status page for incident reports. For announcements and news regarding scheduled maintenance, AO3 typically publish advanced notices via site-wide banner and social media posts at the AO3 Status accounts on bsky, X, and Tumblr (@status.archiveofourown.org, https://x.com/AO3_Status, and https://ao3org.tumblr.com/).
Q7: Will there be any graphic design or SWE / web development volunteer positions available this summer?
A: For ease of answering, we’ll assume you mean the period of May to August this year. OTW recruits for multiple positions throughout the year, and amongst them several committees may decide to recruit for graphic design volunteers, or other positions that you may find interesting. For example, Fanlore, Development & Membership, and Communications are the committees that most frequently recruit for graphic designer volunteers. You can subscribe to the OTW newsletter and receive OTW news – including recruitment/call for volunteers related news – via email. For software engineering, we’d recommend you to start by contributing code to the otwarchive on Github: https://github.com/otwcode/otwarchive – this is a great way to get to know our code base, and experience as a contributor is a requirement to become a developer on the AD&T committee.
Q8: How can I join the PAC (Police & Abuse committee)? I am very much interested in contributing more to the ao3 community.
A: Good news! Our Policy & Abuse committee is currently recruiting. You can read more about the position requirements and apply here: https://www.transformativeworks.org/volunteer/application-policy-abuse-volunteer/
Q9: What do you want volunteers to do?
A: Currently, the Organization for Transformative Works is entirely operated by volunteers, including our Board. As a result, we have volunteers who carry out a wide variety of tasks ranging from wrangling tags on AO3, developing code for AO3, editing our peer-reviewed academic journal Transformative Works and Cultures, and doing administration, onboarding, and tool management for all our volunteers. You can read more about all our committees to get a sense of the wide range of roles at our website here: https://www.transformativeworks.org/committees/ We recruit regularly for a variety of roles, so please keep an eye on our volunteer listings here if you are interested in volunteering with us: https://www.transformativeworks.org/volunteer/
Q10: Would the Board be willing to consider making some decision- or goal-making meetings open to members or the public? For the purpose of attendees being able to oversee the processes and dynamics of the Board
A: With the exception of these meetings, the Board works largely asynchronously; while we have a weekly work session, discussions are asynch in our internal messaging tool, and votes are recorded in the ticketing system. A large part of this is simply that the Board is distributed all over the world — we span a fourteen hour timezone difference! A lot of the work the Board does is also coordination between different committees, which adds another layer of conversational back-and-forth. If there’s a particular thing that you’d be interested in understanding how the Board does, though, please let us know (on the internal messaging tool for volunteers, or board@transformativeworks.org for the public). If there’s widespread interest, we may also be able to hold a synchronous meeting, though this would require a lot of resource investment to coordinate and it’s likely not all of our members will be able to attend.
Q11: now that AO3 is outside the beta, how close are you to V1.0?
A: Our team plans to start releasing under 1.0 now that AO3 is out of beta! The actual timing will depend on when it’s practical to make that change.
Q12: which committee is your favorite child and why is it wrangling?
A: We love you all equally. But one of them is the most special. They know which one.
Q13: If you had to pick, would you rather talk to animals or read minds?
A: Anh: I love Cherik dearly and I adore Charles Xavier so definitely talk to animals! I want to know whether my cat is plotting murder or not!
Qiao: Talk to animals! Don’t want to accidentally read mind of my friends who ship opponent ships from me >.>
Liz: Animals – I want my cat to be able to understand my love for her and why we can’t go outside for a walk when it’s raining
Rachel: Talk to animals. I would love to be able to explain to my cat the concept of “sleeping in”.
Harlan: Definitely talk to animals. It would be so noisy though….
Asynchronous Questions
All questions asked were answered live, so there are no asynchronous question responses.
The meeting was adjourned at 01:54 18 April 2026 UTC.
Minutes approved by the Board on 26 April 2026.
The Old Guard: We Wouldn’t Be Standing Here So Tall by Mellyflori
Apr. 30th, 2026 09:42 pmstarwatcher posting in fancakePairings: Joe/Nicky
Characters: Joe, Nicky, a lot of OCs
Rating: Explicit
Length: 40,000 words
Creator Links:
Theme: Arranged marriage, No canon required, Complete AU, Historical AU, Mundane AU, Diplomatic marriage, Enemies to friends (to lovers), Royalty AU
Summary: “I’m certain this is not what you wanted from a marriage any more than I did.”
For a second, Joe is on the receiving end of the most intense stare he’s ever seen. He almost dares to hope for an argument, something unexpected, then his husband blinks, and he’s back to being that blank-faced stranger Joe first met earlier that day. “On the contrary. An advantageous match is all a prince should ever want.”
It was too much to hope that Nicolò might possess wit or charm that he felt free to express behind closed doors. Joe tries to hide a sigh. On the bright side, he thinks, at least it’s forever.
Reccer's Notes: A marriage based on a political arrangement is less than ideal, but Nicky and Joe cautiously move to friendship, then friends with benefits, with each wishing for more. Unfortunately, their tentative journey toward love gets waylaid when their fathers -- still immersed in long-held grudges -- break up the pair "for security." Cue Joe riding in pursuit of his hoped-for love, followed by some astute, verbal sleight-of-hand to force their fathers' acceptance of the marriage remaining intact for the requisite happy ending. Lots of fun, and highly recommended.
Content Notes: None
Fanwork Links: We Wouldn’t Be Standing Here So Tall, by Mellyflori at AO3
Book meme from thatjustwontbreak
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:47 pmsabotabbymaevedarcy is posting a meme a day for 3 Weeks 4 Dreamwidth and well, of course I had to.This week I'm reading: Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple
My favorite book of all time is: I don't really have one. I have favourites for different purposes, like Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy for turning me into, alas, a comedic speculative fiction writer, or Vita Nostra for rewiring my brain, or Moby-Dick for becoming my entire personality for two years, or or or.
My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is: The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar
The last book I bought was: It's on pre-order, but Obstetrix by
naomikritzer .The first book I bought with my own money was: I honestly have no idea.
The first book I received as a gift was: It would have been a children's book? Maybe The Little Prince or Alice's Adventures In Wonderland or something, both of which I was always pretty obsessed with.
The last book I received as a gift was: Always On by Helena Trooperman
The last book I borrowed from the library was: Grendel by John Gardner
The book physically closest to me right now is: There are no books physically close to me because nearly everything is on ebook. The closest paper book is Wake Up! (Book Winter) by R Merey, because tRaum books are beautiful and I paid a dumb amount to get the pretty edition from Germany.
This or that
Physical book or e-book: e-book. I'm a traitor, I know.
Used or new: Library
Fiction or non-fiction: Fiction, but a good non-fiction will engross me
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Traditionally, a coffee shop, but with covid, park.
Paperback or hardcover: E-book, but if it has to be physical, paperback.
Romance or Crime: Best when combined, not a big fan of either on their own.
Yes or no
Stream of consciousness? Fuck yes
Poetry? Yes
Memoirs? No
Philosophy? Sure
Thrillers? Nah
Chronicles? Nope
Travel logs? Big no
Dialogue heavy? Sure
Understanding Brain Responses to Conflict
Apr. 30th, 2026 10:23 pmsustaining_community_feedTired brain
Apr. 30th, 2026 07:58 pmcosmolinguistBefore he left for his date this evening, D asked me "after dinner, why don't you ask [local pal) if they want to go for a pint at [place]?
It is wonderful weather for a beer in the sunshine (still 67°F!) so I can see why he asked this.
But I already had such a busy day of meetings, most of which actually involved thinking really hard, that I was already tired of thinking and talking before my counseling session started.
Some very thinky meetings today: a small group trying to wrap our heads around a proposed new train ticketing system which we have to understand well enough to anticipate what barriers it poses to disabled people, and more internal meetings which have been pretty navel-gazey lately. Last year's restructure means we're working on revising our Purpose (which needed doing, the last one was terrible, but while I love this abstract stuff it's something a lot of people struggle to engage with. And we're doing a theory of change to a new model which I actually think is worth what we paid for the consultant who brought it to us, because it's getting us to ask questions like "how will we know if our campaign has been successful?" but also that's very hard to answer sometimes when you're dealing with things that resist easy measurement or even baselining. And also there are just so many things I don't know, nobody here knows: how do various processes internal to a local/combined authority work? Who is responsible for the Scottish cycling guidance?
So yeah. It's been nice to just spend the evening eating my pizza and listening to chill ambient music and reading my library books.
Harry the spy
Apr. 29th, 2026 09:16 pmcosmolinguistI have so far enjoyed the podcast Be Gay Solve Crimes, where three trans women assert that all detectives are transgender.
I love the premise (I'm even paying for the bonus episodes!), but after a dozen or so episodes I'm increasingly unsettled that these fictional male detectives are mostly talked about as "eggs" (a word some trans women use for their pre-transition selves; the moment of coming out to themselves is described as "their egg cracking"), and these fictional women are mostly talked about as fully-formed trans women.
The occasional background character is claimed to be transmasc, so it's not exactly erasure I'm complaining about. Feels more like a version of "the only good thing a man can do is transition,"* which is a possibly-unkind* shorthand I've adopted for the feeling I get from online spaces or statements that position themselves as universally trans but then end up being about things specific to (white) trans fems/women.
I've been telling myself I'm being unfair and too sensitive. But today's episode about Nancy Drew is making me sad. (Partly because it makes me wonder if Harriet the Spy is a certainty for a future episode as I'd initially thought it'd be; is that also a literary fixture only for USians?)
There's nothing wrong with knowing your audience, but to hear early in this episode "If you're a boy -- which, I imagine, that's not many people listening! you might find out something really important real soon!" in this episode about a girl I related strongly but differently to when I was a kid reading all these books. I can understand wanting to identify with a girl who's strong and clever and who barely even has a boyfriend and who's a bit odd -- this is the premise of the podcast really: the kind of detectives you get in fiction are of course very different from the people they're surrounded by, and once you feel (at least) one kind of difference it's easy (or easier) to feel affinity with other people who don't fit in.
And while there certainly are -- and, I hope, more all the time! -- fully-realized trans women who are in the vague older-teenager age range that Nancy Drew is, fully au fait with the Online touchstones that indicate a woman is trans (whether that be a disinterest in male partners or what the hosts perceive as an old chunky laptop which would've been cutting edge when the movie they're watching, from 2007, was made but they're all such infants that they were in elementary/primary school then so only know such things as hallmarks of retrocomputing and/or poverty), this isn't what I was expecting from the podcast.
I expected some of the assigned-female-at-birth characters to be pre-transition men. I expected their reading of Poirot to be transmasc -- he's short, he's dapper, he's obsessed with his mustache... he's right up there with Gomez Addams in this feels like an exaggerated stereotype except I also know people who are literally like this levels of transmasc representation.
And it's not just characters but their reading of characteristics that baffles me sometimes.
- They mention Trying to Make the Hat Work as "deeply egg-coded behavior," but I only had to work so hard on that pre-transtion! There was some allusion to this in an earlier episode too, like if cis men think they can pull of a hat they not only can't, they aren't even really men. Which might have been these women's experience but I think they're overgeneralizing: a lot of men (cis and trans!) can Make the Hat Work! I find them way more fun now than I used to.
- The podcast host I like the best says that any "quote unquote guy" who wears (US English)suspenders/(UK English)braces is an egg, and they're not just a wardrobe staple for me but a godsend because I'm so short but also because they help hide my wide hips (by wearing (US)pants/(UK)trousers that fit my hips but sit at my waist, suspenders keep them there without having to cinch my torso in half, which is less comfortable and also draws unwanted attention to the shape of my body. Suspenders also distract a bit from the way my chest looks in a binder (I won't wear them without one, of course), and break up the lines of my torso in a useful way.
- And then (UK)waistcoats/(US)vests! (Why does this have to involve all the clothing items that I have bilingual terms for?? Or is that just all of them? Hm...) Which is so funny because immediately when I started my new job I was like "what if I became a waistcoat guy?" and the first time I needed to dress up fancy, I went to Slaters and bought one. It's still as dressed up as I get, because suits are the wrong shape for me (without paying for bespoke tailoring, which isn't an expense I can justify when I don't really need to wear a suit ever). And anyway testosterone has made me too warm all the time -- I'm not quite a shorts-all-year-round kind of guy but I'm way closer to that than I ever thought I would be. And, again, it helps hide the binder! And hips!! Whichever old English king it was who was too fat to button the last button on his waistcoat so the whole court had to start wearing them like that and now we all do...that guy was such a trans ally; I don't think I could button that button on mine! But I'm not supposed to! Marvelous.
Anyway, that's more than enough sartorial commentary from me, far more than I ever thought I'd do. But the point is, it's really odd to have stuff that's so obviously one way for me described as so obviously in a venn diagram circle that doesn't really overlap with that at all.
Writing this all out did make me feel better: I enjoyed the podcast episode more, and in talking about this on fedi I ended up wiht two new library books: Harriet the Spy and a recommended book with a transmasc Watson (The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall), which I'm looking forward to.
*: Though, potential unkindness aside, it seems I'm not even exaggerating: a Black transmasc activist that I know has told me that he's heard people say this in as many words: the only good thing a cis man can do is transition. Oof.)