Decay Era (Growth)

by the way you can be a girl, a boy, AND gender neutral, all at the same time

by the way you can be EVERY gender, all at the same time, just identifying as all of them

by the way you can be NO gender, yep, if you want; not even "nonbinary" if you don't want to

by the way you can be COMPLETELY a boy PLUS something else

by the way you can be COMPLETELY a girl PLUS something else

by the way you can be a gender themed after something that means a lot to you

by the way you can be a gender related to your neurodivergency

by the way you can be a gender related to your species (for alterhumans)

by the way you can be fluid between VERY specific genders

by the way you can be flux between one gender or another only

by the way you be completely one of the options above WHILE having a gender that fully contradicts it

by the way you can have a gender SPLIT between two or way more genders

by the way you can have your gender set to "just whatever I feel convenient to call myself" without being genderfluid

by the way you can have no label at all

by the way you can make up labels or just completely frankenstein genders together until somethings make you comfortable

i have turn into a bag for you!

incorrect response: write the rest of the story to be as twisty, shocking and counter to expectations as possible, regardless of whether this is a logical or satisfying way for the plot to go

correct response:

(you’re not stupid. I posted this thinking it would amuse a handful of mutuals who all knew the context and that would be about it, so I didn’t think about providing any other explanation. I had no idea it would spread this far.)

I’ll start from the very beginning just to be thorough. so this is Alex Hirsch, creator and head writer of Gravity Falls, a show which had a big focus on mystery, conspiracies, codes and ciphers, etc. the whole plot is kicked off by one of the main characters finding a mysterious old journal in the woods, which detailed all kinds of weird and supernatural things, but then ended abruptly with the author saying they had to hide the journal because they were being watched. the central driving mystery of the show, therefore, was the question of who wrote the journal and what happened to them.

now, the thing about Gravity Falls is that, while it must be said that the writers weren’t always quite as sure of their plans as we tend to like to think they are, it is very much a fair play mystery, with legitimate clues to what was going on. but the writers were caught off guard by how quickly the show attracted a dedicated audience, including a lot of people outside the primary presumed demographic, who started solving the clues faster than expected. so some of the fans were able to correctly guess who the author was before it was revealed in the show, and the theory started spreading. this put the writers in something of a panic, because this was THE mystery that the whole story revolved around, with ¾ of the show building up to the dramatic reveal in the middle of season 2. they wanted it to be a mystery that could be figured out, sure, but they weren’t prepared for people to solve it so far in advance of when it was planned to be revealed, which would have really taken away from the big moment. they weren’t going to change the main story itself, but having been caught unaware by how much attention the fans were paying, they wanted to up the ante and make the mystery more complex to solve going forward–but first they needed to buy some time and throw the fandom off the scent for a little longer.

hence, Alex’s plan as described above. they whipped up a fake shot that appears to give away the identity of the author as being another character in the show, put it on a screen in the studio as if it was a real animation frame, took a picture of it, and ‘leaked’ it online. it was initially decided to be a hoax (albeit, I think, presumed to be a hoax originating from outside the production team), until Alex posted this tweet:

…before quickly deleting it (though not so quickly that it didn’t get seen, of course).

it worked well enough to distract most people for a while, and wasn’t revealed as a hoax until a year later, when an episode aired that definitively proved that the supposed screenshot could never have happened, at which point Alex owned up to the whole thing as seen in the tweet above. by then the episode with the real reveal wasn’t far off, and while people did still work it out ahead of time, it was more of an “OH MY GOD I KNEW IT!” moment than a “booooooring, we’ve known that for ages” moment, which of course was what the writers wanted all along.

personally I find this a fascinating approach to dealing with the problem of spoilers, because it doesn’t affect the story itself at all; if you watch Gravity Falls today–or if you were watching it when it aired without any significant contact with the fandom–you’d never know about it. ultimately, the problem the writers were facing wasn’t that some people might guess the answer to the mystery–they never wanted to make it completely impossible to predict–so much as it was that they hadn’t designed the story to stand up to so many people working on the puzzle together, which resulted in a sort of total output of puzzle-solving ability that far outstripped the capability of any one solo human being. so their solution is something that’s very much targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show.

plus, it’s very in keeping with the overall tone of the show.

don’t:

change the ending

do:

But I know how to apply the gel because I saw posts from trans women how to apply it and I feel that even though are reasons for using it are different that we are not so different

even if she doesn't "try to pass" she still deserves the same basic respect you give everybody else.

even if she's done something bad that doesn't excuse you misgendering her on purpose.

i'm so sick of people treating trans people's pronouns as some kind of reward you get if you've been a good tranny.

this goes for those who use neopronouns too i dont care how "weird" you think it is especially if you're trans yourself.

To start with a useless platitude: Like with many things, the more you do it, the less scary it gets.

To make sure there's a minimum of people around to see you you could go stickering around dinnertime in the evening, in the morning before or after rush hour, or late at night.

I used the recent train workers strike to sticker on some normally busy train stations. I know some graffiti crews have done the same to put up pieces in normally busy places along the tracks.

To make putting up stickers quicker I usually already remove the backing, and then hide the sticker in my hand, makes the actual sticking very fast and not very obvious.

Go stickering / removing fascist propaganda with a friend or group of friends. Because you are in the Netherlands you could join up with an antifascist Wandelclub (like this one in Utrecht), their thing is going on walks and chatting and having a nice time while putting up antifascist stickers / removing fascist propaganda.

A handy thing about rush hour is that it's so busy that noone who might object wants to stop if they even see you stickering, and most people dont want to make a scene when there's lots of others around.

I put up around 40 stickers, and i had 3 people visibly slow down and look to see what I was putting up, one just rode past, one yelled "Good Job!" when he saw i was putting up a Palestinian flag sticker, and another biked past giving me thumbs up for putting up an antifa sticker.

Just walking with purpose, not lingering, not looking like you're doing something secretive, and making sure you dont sticker next'to like a red light where people have time to sit and think, will usually ensure noone bothers you.

Today I've removed two of these stickers covering my antifa stickers:

they were vinyl stickers with bad adhesive, so easy to peel off of the underlying antifa stickers without damaging them. They are also clearly inspired by these (and similar) great antifascist stickers used for years now around the Netherlands, meant to cover up nazi stickers: