#Also also me: But I don't have a good enough grade in being nonbinary! Which is something both normal to want and possible to achieve

[cupcakeshakesnake]

I am wondering if I'm nonbinary or agender.

Wondering very hard

If I ever come to a conclusion (read: never) I will let you know via a very faint flag overlay on my icon

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for calling out someone for being manipulative towards a trans friend? Names have been changed for privacy reasons and TLDR at the end because this is long.

I (24f) am cis but have had a lot of trans friends (binary, nonbinary, and neopronoun) throughout the years and am very supportive so i take this very seriously. So I met this girl my first year in college (we were 18 at the time) and we became friends. We're polar opposites, she talks a lot and I don't, she parties a lot and I like to do more sophisticated things, she's a typical extrovert basically, and I'm more introverted. Anne (24f) was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I don't know when, she just told me this years ago. I've seen tiktoks about bpd and researched Google about bpd a little so I know all about how they have fave persons and will "mimic" people in the friend group and become clingy, manipulate, etc. I've seen pics of her in high school, noticed that she was a theater kid, she said she was good at acting and even said she thinks her bpd helped with her acting although I'm not sure how, but she said she only joined the theater club because a boy she had a crush on was in theater. That should've been my first red flag but I was naive. She has a degree in something else (not theater) because our second year in college her favorite character in a TV show did a certain job, she got interested in that, and now she also does that as a living. She doesn't talk about her bpd, she's only mentioned it a handful of times. I can count on one hand how many times. And I get it because she said someone once told her people with bpd should be sterilized and not be allowed near children. Which is really messed up and I hate that someone said that.

However on with the situation. One of our friends Mike (25m) is a trans man. We met him four years ago. He's very handsome, broody, introverted, intelligent, great listener, very accepting and understanding, similar to me but opposite to her. Now we didn't know he was trans until two years ago, because I asked him on a date and he turned me down, and when I asked why he told me that he was mostly T4T and only viewed me as a friend. We were like woah you're trans, okay that's cool, etc. He explained that he was lucky enough to get on puberty blockers and transition young etc which is why he passes. I said okay I'm not trans and you're mostly T4T fair enough.

Well last year Anne suddenly tells us that she is trans too. She says she's bigender. She says she is okay with either she her or he him because she feels like a man and a woman at the same time. Some days she's a woman, some days she's a man, and some days she's both, according to her. She says she does not like they them pronouns. Suddenly her and Mike are spending all this extra time together. Last month he confided in me that he thinks he's in love with her, after years of him only seeing her as a friend, and then they started officially dating.

Here's the problem: she has not changed her outward appearance, her name, started any kind of medical stuff, joined any groups, bought a binder etc. We all continue to call her she and her because she fully presents as female and doesn't have a problem with it. Also she's very effeminate in body language, the way she talks, etc. I know technically I could call her a he or a him, too, but she never asks me to or corrects people when they call her she because well technically she is a she too. Mike is the only one who uses he and him pronouns with her as often as she and her, but she has never thanked him. It really feels like she's saying she's trans and then going about her life exactly as a cis woman simply to convince Mike to date her.

First off, Anne and Mike are NOT compatible. She likes to party, smoke weed, talks a lot, I'm not sure how she graduated with such good grades or why she does so well in her job because she is honestly a LOT to handle and I'm saying that as nice as possible. Mike would never touch weed or go to clubs and he says he would be fine staying home while she does those things but how could you trust someone to party while high and not hook up with others? I've seen her make out with five people in one night at a frat party. They also had wildly different childhoods, such as she grew up in a conservative community and doesn't speak to her family, and he grew up in a liberal area and is close with his family. But more importantly she has a history of joining theater because she had a crush on someone in theater (plus she admits she is good at acting, so maybe she is acting now?) and getting a degree and job in a field because a favorite fictional character did that and now this? It feels like she was attracted to him, found out he usually dates other trans people, and found a way to continue being cis but claim to be trans without having to do anything trans related, basically mimicing her favorite person. As soon as they met they hit it off, or should I say she clung to him and pretended to have the same likes and dislikes whenever they were alone I assume.

It sounds terrible I know, which is why I discussed this with a group chat first that neither of them are in, and the group chat not only agreed that she is far too "obnoxious" for him (those were NOT my words!) but that she is faking being trans in an attempt to make him fall in love with her (which seems to be working.) I would NEVER have gone further without making sure with them first. So then a few of the people in my group chat and I held an intervention with Anne alone. The six of us (the others don't live close enough to come) met up with Anne at her place and told her what she was doing was wrong and gross and that she needed to get help for her bpd and to stop catfishing Mike. She didn't take well to what was said, which I anticipated, but she went crazy. She was screaming at us, insulting us, sobbing while yelling etc, literally said if we ever contacted her again she would call the cops, so we left.

I immediately called Mike before she could and asked him to meet me at a restaurant nearby and that it was very important. Since Mike doesn't know anyone in the group chat I went alone and I explained EVERYTHING before she could gaslight and manipulate him even further. He left, did not finish or pay for his food. I messaged him several times, but a few hours later he texted me to never to speak to him again, and then blocked me on everything. I showed up to his house and Anne was there. Mike said if I ever contacted him again he would get a restraining order on me so I left. I've discussed this with the group chat and now suddenly half of them changed their mind and don't want to talk about it anymore. Several of them left the group chat. Not only that but several of my friends who know either Mike or Anne or both have blocked me on everything. When I've tried to contact these friends through other means and explain everything, they either didn't respond or said for me never to contact them again because I was being transphobic. Listen I know under NORMAL circumstances you shouldn't question when someone comes out but this is NOT a normal situation, and now I am concerned Anne is unsafe for Mike but also an unsafe person to know, as she literally is trying to destroy my life because I called her out on some seriously messed up and abusive behavior.

TLDR am I the asshole for trying to protect my trans friend from a potential stalker?

What are these acronyms?

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

pt II our flag means death but I've never watched it

HELLO OFMD FANDOM! It's the Good Omens Mascot and Resident Dumbass, back again for part II. First, let's clear the air of all controversy!

Some of you lovely maggots were kind enough to warn me about certain discourse about a salad spoon and also about a certain gentleman named Izzy. I was warned not to make assumptions and not to take sides, and I hear some members had to leave the fandom for a while because it got toxic. Maggots. All the rest of you. Worry not about me. I'm here to unite the OFMD fandom! How, you ask? By being so undeniably stupid in my own opinions that you all will have to unite to disagree with me. You underestimate the power of my dumbassery. Well, let's not dilly dally and dawdle, here's the updated summary:

I have been informed there is cannibalism on this ship but it is not real. Someone pretends to eat someone and then their wife helps them fake their death while they run away from the ship though their lover wanted them to run to China.

There are BDSM lesbians, which is honestly such a slay, Pinterest has let me down by not informing me of that when I made Part I. I will no longer be using Pinterest a reliable source in future academic essays.

Mermaid Stede performs necromancy while a song called Kate Bush plays (I don't know who this is, a politician? Idk whether of US or UK).

Gravy Basket is a destination and Buttons is a sea witch and there is educational stabbing. Buttons is then a bird because of the BDSM lesbians.

There is a lady who is extremely beautiful and intimidating and powerful and she has twenty husbands and I assumed incorrectly that you were all talking about a Jack Russel terrier.

Let's start with the controversy! Izzy. Secondary protagonist or antagonist? Good or bad? Kindly father figure or homoerotically charged friend? Necessary death or not? No no no. Behold:

I present a new question, a hot take sizzling from the pan: Did Izzy really exist?

Personally, I firmly believe that no, he did not. I believe that the rum on the ship was spiked with hallucinogens.

Izzy was simply the manifestation of Ed's Freudian subconscious, taking the shape of a human being, vaguely resembling a humanoid potato Ed was forced to boil as a kid. I was a psychology student with a final grade of 99% and I accept only destructive criticism on my posts thank you. Feel free to discuss whether he boiled the potato in a fit of rage or whether he was forced to.

There are assorted Ned's, Mary's and an uncertain number of Jeff's on ship.

One of the Jeff's is an accountant, and there is a nonbinary talking sword named Jim. Actually I'm not sure if they talk.

Love you all, rooting for the show to be renewed.

REMINDERS. Be polite to each other in the reblogs, on tumblr reblogs spread posts and not likes (which don't do anything for visibility) unlike other social media sites, but MOST IMPORTANTLY.

I ACCEPT ONLY DESTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, THIS BLOG IS A GODLESS, LAWLESS LAND, AND ALL RAGE AT EACH OTHER MUST BE REDIRECTED AT ME. UNDERSTOOD? YAY.

[diogenescynic2288]

Gender Stuff and Hobbies

In fifth or sixth grade I was interested in the Babysitter's Club novel advertised in the monthly Scholastic Books advertisement catalog pamphlet thing. The description of the plot sounded like something that would be amusing to see on a sitcom. A girl classmate saw me circle it and teased me for being a boy that wanted to read a girl book. Also, my parents didn't end up ordering that one.

I don't have the experience some trans women have of: "I was always more into pink and dresses and Barbie than blue and trousers and GI Joe". I'm kind of neutral on colors*, I haven't tried wearing a dress yet, and I enjoyed playing with my GI Joe, He-Man, Thundercats, and Transformers action figures as a child.

I also did enjoy watching the GI Joe and He-Man and similar boys' action figure advertisement cartoon shows but the selection of things to watch was narrow enough that I also liked My Little Pony and Care Bears and She-Ra Princess of Power, which I think were more for the girls' marketing demographic.

I did own one She-Ra action figure that may have been a thrift store or garage sale find.

Somewhere I found out that one of the enjoyable things to read, for me, is books in the intersection of chick-lit and YA marketing demographics segments. Things like The Princess Diaries. Or everything Ally Carter writes.

Somewhere else I spent time on the internet and started learning that gender is a spectrum and that things like nonbinary and genderqueer identities exist, and had some realizations.

Recently I picked up the first of the graphic novel adaptations of the Babysitters' Club books and enjoyed reading it.

Most recently I had a good paycheck and felt like disposing of my disposable income in some specific ways I picked up the core rulebook for the Transformers RPG and another Babysitters' Club graphic novel, which seems to be second in the series: The Truth about Stacey.

I took that picture when I had both books with me. I finished reading the graphic novel in one long sitting at a restaurant. I'm still working on the Transformers. I'm about a hundred pages in, which is around a third of the way.

I was thinking of just posting that picture and a short text caption like "Enby's reading list", but it felt too reductive, and even though I am an enby and that is my reading list it sounded in my head too close to old people claiming schools have to put in cat boxes for catgender students. Don't ask me why.

*I do wear a bit more pink now as a deliberate FU to gender norms. In fact, I think when I get dressed and go out today I will wear my pink t-shirt with Wonder Woman circled by a rainbow.

Thank you to @thewizardofsass of enduring an early draft of this.

[transfemmbeatrice]

parker's personal much ado primer

i'm gonna keep posting much ado shit so here is some background on my personal favorite interpretation of the characters; this is not a primer on the actual play and these opinions somewhat differ from my like. canonical readings of these characters. this is what my personal action figures are like when i'm talking about aus. i'm mostly leaving physical descriptions out bc they can vary quite a bit.

when i say "we" i mean me and my wonderful spouse @zaxal because so much of this we sort of developed together over the years and none of these characters would be quite who they are to me without them.

Beatrice: beatrice is a trans woman to me!! i talked about this a bunch here. she will also always have red hair to me (thanks catherine tate for that one). she's hot, she's confident, she doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks about her, she has relatively good judgement, she sometimes struggles to be vulnerable or soft with other people, she loves hero more than anything. she's also arrogant as hell! and often quite angry. beatrice is all fire all the time, she is alive and loud and proud and really likes having the last word. you will always know when she is in the room.

Benedick: oh this man is such a slut. grade a whore. pansexual as shit too. always cracking jokes to cover his own insecurities, desperately needs to be liked or if not that at least the center of attention--even if people don't like him, if they're thinking about him and watching him, that's good enough. he loves being witty and he is prideful and acts somewhat detached when in reality he feels things the Most and gets desperately attached to people and doesn't truly believe they could love him back.

Pedro: strong sense of duty. pedro is one that tends to vary more wildly because we've fallen into "suffocated by responsibility and shitty father, actually kinda shy and dumb and kind" which i love but in the play he is mostly just kinda shitty but i don't WANT him to be, so sometimes we try to lean more into the shitty side of him but often he is an earnest idiot (affectionate)

John: as mentioned in my beatrice post, i hc him as a trans man! sometimes more genderfluid or nonbinary. he's quiet, serious, and calm, and has been done fucking dirty by his dad/the world. generally our thought is that he was raised by his mom until about age 12 when she died and he got dumped on the palace steps and the king extremely resented taking him in and everyone was shitty to him because he's illegitimate. everyone thinks he's a villain and he knows he'll never convince them otherwise so he doesn't try; he just keeps to himself and doesn't form many attachments.

Hero: usually soft spoken but whip smart, doesn't like a lot of attention, stem major, big lesbian facing comphet vibes. she and beatrice are basically sisters. she's insightful but she doesn't share those insights with most people, and is by far the one who calls beatrice on her shit the most. we've ended up friendshipping hero and john because they're both such flat characters who exist at the whims of others and i love the idea of two wallflowers finding each other.

Claudio: obviously the villain. there are lots of different approaches to this--he might be an entitled golden boy, or a rich kid not used to hearing no, or an incel--but essentially he's a bully. i think its most interesting when he appears very nice at first and then when there's any amount of pushback things get ugly but i hate him so much i often make him pretty rancid from the start.

Margaret: outgoing and fairly relaxed, a jock, bi, in love with hero.

Conrade: john's bf, utterly loyal, and by a twist of fate it has become a running joke that he has tumblr disease (purple eyes/white hair). we usually depict him as similar to john--stolid, serious, not interested in taking anyone's shit, but lately i've been wondering if maybe he should be the bright sunshine in contrast to john.

Borachio: essentially a stray dog john and conrade adopted. he comes and goes. he's a mess.

Antonio: beatrice's surrogate parent, and elder queer genderfuck who uses ve/vir pronouns. general chaos agent.

ship abbreviations:

b&b: beatrice/benedick bbp: beatrice/benedick/pedro benepedro: take a guess beap: beatrice/pedro heromeg: hero/margaret johnrade: john/conrade

[my-silly-rabbit]

general blog stuff:

💜 hello! names gems! I'm 25 and have brain rot for this man. im sorry i'm like this. I have no excuse. it's the British accent and Mathew Lillard for me.

💜 please be nice. ik people aren't fond of Afton fans, I've had my good share of stinkers. he is a comfort character on top of a f/o so please just. if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. 💜 i do regularly get high and post, if that makes you uncomfortable then please stay safe and don't interact with me.

Strawpage: SEND ME DOODLES! PROSHIPPERS AND MINORS DNI details and other stuff bellow

tags:

💜🐇 = William

💛 🎈 = Bonbon

🍰 💃 = Ms. Afton

🧰🐻 = Henry (i might end up forgetting to even use these lol)

self-insert:

💜 name: Bonbon Benson

💜 age: 30+ (it changes around but always early to mid 30's)

gender/pronouns: nonbinary any but mainly she/her

Bio: as a child, bonbon wasn't very well cared for. her parents were poor and always fought. this caused Bonbon to hide away in themselves and try to not be a burden. they eventually developed a love for robotics and wanted to further that career but their homelife and mid to high-functioning autism made that difficult. her parents eventually divorced after the birth of her sibling, Molly, and stuff started to look a bit better. but that didn't last long.

bonbon couldn't manage to finish high school due to her anti-social behavior, lack of friends, poor home life, and poor grades in most classes outside of math and science.

She is 25+ now and still needs to get her GED but living with her distant dad and no friends, it's very hard to think. its not the best environment to do schoolwork. never was.

after the divorce, her mother gained a large sum of money and this caused her sibling to be rather spoiled, which their mother isn't fond of so to help her branch out, she let her have visits with Bonbon and their dad.....aka just bonbon.

(pic of molly. picrew link: here)

there are not many places a kid would enjoy in Hurricane, Utah. molly only wanted to go to the library but Bonbon felt like their little sister deserved someplace better. then she saw an ad for Freddy's. idk which Freddy's, they change with the timelines, vers of William etc but it's usually between Fred Bears and Freddy's JUST opening. early enough for Bonbon to still see William use the Springbonnie suit at least a few times before showcasing the band.

once they got there, bonbon fell in love. the lights, the games, the animatronics....everything. they never had anything like it as a child. they felt so happy just being able to see something so lively.....and yet it brought Molly no joy. She found it loud, crowded, and annoying.

bonbon couldn't understand. She was a kid??? why did she like it so much??? it infuriated Bonbon...but at least she wasn't alone.

after a few visits, the founders took notice of the hyper adult adoring their pizzeria with no child in sight (Molly stayed cooped in one of the booths the whole time). and William eventually started striking up conversations.

bonbon is a....hyper sort. easy to read and William found it refreshing. As much as she adores what he does, she isn't afraid to say how she feels. just barely a filter on this little lady.

idk what more to say lol. they become silly murder partners, bonding over how much kids take that adults also enjoy and their lost youths

either ms afton is a few years already dead or in their silly polycule.

[gorey]

It's just so weird now trying to find a "peer group" when our life has been inconsistent in such ways that the circles we felt most connected to initially in life were these hyperperforming academic type kids bc that's like. what we Were too. before the episodes started. I know a lot of people talk about "gifted kid burnout" or whatever and like. We do not value or even believe in Intelligence as a metric any positioning of ourself as being above others due to the fact that we used to get good grades is completely worthless to us but it's not about that. It's about not only having your deepest passions and dreams (in our case professionally pursuing astrophysics which was/is our special interest) become completely unattainable but also losing access to basic freedoms bc you're too fucked in the head to make enough money in any job at any prestige level to house yourself feed yourself etc etc, watching those around you who you were once on par with excel and integrate into academia and industry while you feel like you've totally lost the plot and are just waiting around to die. bc there's no salvaging this. Those who were once our peers are now light-years away from who we are now and from the way we exist and move through the world. There were others from other places but the people we were closest to in our later high school years no longer speak to us. There's literally only one person we can think of that we like. Relate to in any way in terms of worldview and spirituality and what sounds like a good time. It was the three of us for a while, him and me and my now-ex. the breakup didn't affect our friendship with him and we're hopefully seeing him again later this month but every time we hang out with anyone even if we love them to bits we want to eat glass. Nostalgia for our other ex's vast and easygoing high school friend group that survived into college and after that we were never truly a part of bc we were from another town and also like three years younger than everybody but they were kind to us. It was a group we could socialize with and not hate ourselves terribly afterward. They were kinda normie but if you looked close not really. Wish we had gotten to know the nonbinary fem section of the group better but we were intimidated so we mostly just chilled with the cis dudes. it didn't feel like a peer group but it did feel safe and they liked our music taste and shared their weed and were all around solid folks. we just dream of like. one day being in a group as in 4+ people who are chill and likeminded and communicative and have some perspective on the shit we've faced so we don't feel like a complete disaster. maybe one day we'll be able to create that for ourself

[femmedionysus]

sorry if this is too personal feel free to just ignore if so, maybe im thinking of a different user but did you used to id as bi? : o i was curious cause ive been questioning lately and was wondering if you felt comfortable talking about the process of realizing you are lesbian

hope you're having a good day!

okay so first off, sorry it's taken me so long to answer this! I did id as bi until recently, & I don't at all mind talking about how I figured out I was a lesbian, but I am gonna put it under a readmore to spare people's dashboards because I did end up going on forever about it.

long post short: it's about finding what feels right & chasing that.

so I don't claim to speak for Every Lesbian Experience Ever, but personally, my realization went something like:

-be a neurodivergent & traumatized kid who is unsure of their footing in any social situation & very concerned with having the Correct reactions to things, in order to get a good grade in Being A Person.

-choose which boys you are going to have a crush on, based on things like whether they are nice to you or at least not outright mean, whether other girls in your class also like them, & crucially, whether they are unlikely to ever like you back, because the idea of actually dating them makes you nervous in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. assume everyone decides who to have a crush on this way.

-in gym class at age 12ish, get absolutely smitten with a pretty girl who passed the ball to you during soccer. assume that since you've had crushes on boys before, this must mean you're bi.

-do not question this assumption for the next 17 years of your life.

-in between dating a series of boys that range from "blandly inoffensive" to "actively abusive," have exactly two experiences with girls:

-hook up with your best friend in senior year of high school. catch feelings. get your heart broken when she does not feel the same.

-fall into a friends-with-benefits situation with your college roommate. catch feelings. get your heart broken when they do not feel the same. (I hesitate to include him in this actually, since they did come out as a trans guy later, but at the time we both thought that we were both cis girls, so it was an experience at the time)

-at age 20, date a man much older than yourself who turns out to be massively abusive. accumulate some more trauma.

-a few months after escaping that relationship, jump into another long term relationship with a different man who is mostly fine. shitty, sometimes, but better than the last one, anyway.

-it's hard to know if you're happy when all you have to compare it to is literal hell.

-when that relationship ends, fuck around with your gender & confirm that you are in fact nonbinary. nice!

-have a minor hoe phase that consists of two very underwhelming hookups with two men who were nice enough, but something just didn’t feel right about it. 

-get together with the butch you've been friends with for years (& had some level of feelings for them for pretty much that whole time).

-realize "wait, hang on, relationships are supposed to feel this good? is this allowed??"

I didn't think too hard about it at first but dating them felt different than dating any boy had felt, right from the start. they feel safe in a way that I hadn't ever felt before? I fell for them extremely hard, & getting to visit them & spend time with them in person again really just confirmed that for me.

it was when I started really examining that feeling that it made me question the rest of it. I made a post a couple days ago, but like, imagine thinking you like black&white movies the same amount as color movies when you've only ever seen black&white movies, & then watching something that's all neon. it makes you question what you thought you knew before you had had that experience!

the biggest part of the realization for me was figuring out that with kiwi, my feelings were "I really like them," instead of the feeling I was used to of "I really want them to like me." I really thought those two feelings were the same, but as it turns out, nope! huge difference.

dating women in general & kiwi specifically feels easy & natural & good in a way that dating men never has, for me. & I'm sure that part of that is that I am absolutely head over heels for this butch, & I want us to keep making each other happy for as long as they'll have me! but it's also the knowledge that having feelings for someone can feel like this, like the main emotion behind it is joy instead of anxiety.

I don't know that I'd even say that every feeling I've ever had for any man was fake, necessarily. but I do know that the thought of "I never have to date a man ever again" gives me such a huge wave of euphoria & relief. I saw a post recently that described figuring out your attraction as "joy-sensitive" & I really love that way of looking at it. like sure, I could sit here & agonize over every relationship or "crush" that I've ever had with a man, & go over my feelings with a microscope looking for proof that I'm really bisexual or really a lesbian, but honestly? that sounds hellish. I only want to date women/sapphic nonbinaries, so I'm calling myself a lesbian, & that feels incredible to say!

you're allowed to sit with your feelings for as long as you need to to find what feels right for you, but you don't have to prove it to yourself (or anyone else). you're allowed to try it on for size - when you're alone sometime, say it out loud to yourself, see how it feels! say out loud, "I'm a lesbian." does it feel terrifying? wrong? right? freeing? restrictive? don't put too much stress on figuring it out right away - there's no time limit. just sit with whatever feelings it gives you, & see which feelings you want to chase.

do the same thing with "I'm bisexual." how does that feel? better or worse? more or less accurate?

think about never dating a man, ever again. does that feel like loss, or does it feel like freedom?

there's no right or wrong answers to these questions. being bisexual & being a lesbian are both wonderful, amazing, healthy, beautiful things to be! whichever label you decide fits you best, I wish you nothing but happiness. good luck!

[hughiecampbelle]

Howdy!✨✨ Congratulations on 5k! You are literally one of the most talented writers I follow! Ilysm never change!💕

Alrighty, I was hoping for a male ship from Marvel? I'm nonbinary(they/them), I dye my hair frequently but currently it's black and short. Think like a shaggy grown out buzzcut. I have hazel eyes, a small nose and I'm 5'1. I'm a Gemini, an INTP, and a Hufflepuff. I have anxiety so I'm pretty quiet and nervous in public or around people I don't know but around my close friends I'm extremely outgoing. My friends say I'm the scariest in the friend group but I don't believe them lmao. I'm fairly confident that I'm autistic and I'm working towards getting a diagnosis. I'm not really the dating type but I suppose my type would be smart people who can make me laugh. Ive been wearing glasses since grade 7 and my eyesight keeps getting worse. I think my favorite feature would probably be my hair. If my hair looks nice I feel nice. I have this big birthmark that's right under my belly button and for as long as I can remember I've hated it but its whatever. My taste in music is honestly all over the place. Most of the music on my playlists come from wildly random artists that i don't even know the name of. But for the most part Id say Ajr, Abba, Huey Lewis, Billy Joel, anything 70's and 80's, and random Tiktok songs I take a liking to. My favorite author is Gordan Korman and I probably read 10 or so of his books in a year and a half which doesn't sound like a lot but it's an achievement in my books. Im in band and I play the clarinet. I wanted to play the saxophone because my mom played it but my 6th grade band teacher just gave me a clarinet and ive loved it ever since. (Would still love to play the sax tho) I'm in drama and id probably be an actor if I could do it without the fame. The only sports I actually enjoy are soccer and volleyball. But I don't even play them properly, I only play them in gym. Im planning on going into graphic design when I graduate. I love all things computers and technology, and I love to draw and being able to combine those two thing is amazing. My current favorite movies are Dead Poets Society, Mamma Mia, Spiderman into the Spider verse, Now You See Me, and Pride and Prejudice. I also really love nature documentarys, specifically ocean ones. I love the ocean alot, its probably one of my favorite topics. I really like deep sea creatures.

I can't really think of anything more. I hope this is enough lmao. I have a really weird perception of myself so when I have to describe myself I take a really long time. Also I really hope I'm not late with this. I know its the last day for ships. Ahhh that would be embarassing. You are literally the coolest. Thanks so much and have an awesome day/night!💕💕 lots of love!✨

What trope are you? Opposites Attract 💕

Your friends would describe you as scary. Peter's friends would say he's about as scary as a baby deer learning to walk. You love to read. Peter's more of the skimming and hoping for the best type. All the clubs you're part of, he had to quit because of Spiderman. You and Peter are part of different social circles. Sure, you know of him, much like the rest of the kids in your class, but you don't really know him. Not that well, at least. He's nice, nice to everyone, and that's good enough in your book. He doesn't cause trouble, he's not one of the mean kids or the ones who think High School is their whole lives. He doesn't make waves or cause trouble. You see him and Ned goofing off at lunch or in the hall, but other than that you don't really see him. And then you become lab partners.

Though Peter and Ned tried to have all the same classes, their labs got mixed up. You didn't realize you were the only ones without a partner until the teacher put you together. He was all smiles, offering jokes along the way. It wasn't the worst class you'd ever had. When you realized you'd be partners for the semester you were secretly grateful. You and Peter are both smart students. You know whatever group work you do, it won't be up to you to do it all. Through the school year, despite your many differences, you become friends. He always compliments your hair and teases you about the music you listen to. Aunt May has shown him similar movies and he may, or may not, know every word to every song in Mama Mia! You talk about your shared love of science and technology, too. You see more of him everywhere and you're happy about that. He's always willing to offer help when you're carrying too many books and of course tries to read things with your glasses on. When he's not in school, for reasons that always sound a little too detailed, you find yourself missing him. . . .

Peter doesn't realize it til the last weeks of the semester that your classes change, that he won't see you almost every day. He starts to panic, hating the idea of not seeing you anymore. Seeing you makes his days better and brighter. He loves to make you laugh with the worst jokes he can come up with. He adores how excited you get telling him about all the sea creatures you love to learn about. He never realized how you went from strangers to friends, and never wants to go back to that. You and Peter start hanging out more outside of school, beyond the homework and study groups. You spend hours watching movies and talking. You've both got big plans for the future. He doesn't want to ruin the friendship you have, bit he can't get you out of his head. If he doesn't tell you how he feels, he fears he'll never work up the courage again!

~ I hope you like it my love!!! Xoxoxo💜💖💜💖💜💖💜

[tempestaurora]

So, I'm just curious as to why you hate RPO? I read it ages ago and liked it enough (but don't get me started on the film, that was a trainwreck of a shit bucket) anyways, you really seems to diskike the book, and I'm just wondering why...

film was purely average. i might watch it if it’s on but not like, out of choice, and i’ll still firmly hate wade watts, the most intolerable man on earth.

the reasons are many tbh, though i haven’t read the book in a while so i’m going from previous posts and this seething hate that still sits in my body. this isn’t all of it, really, but i think you get my point lmao:

the first chapter has a nerd trivia contest in which one guy messes up a comic book fact and literally lowered his head in shame while the audience cheered

making me read the words twinked out wannabe gunter uberdork

in ready player one he makes it clear he doesn’t think transgender women are women, and then in ready player two has aggressively backpeddled and yet is still a dumbass and wrote (and got past the editors) the phrase nonbinary sex

ernest cline wrote the cringiest fucking poem about porn. like this shit wouldn’t even get a grade in my degree. the teacher would tell him he did bad and to write a new poem.

incredibly info-dumpy

the 70s references are so overdone that it’s clear the author’s just jerking off to his own intelligence

actual interesting lore keeps getting ruined by the author’s shit narrative

the Masturbation Paragraphs

that time wade watts removed all the hair from his body for no valid reason whatsoever

he said it was so he could spend less time in the shower so he could game more but how does shaving off your eyebrows actually save you time in the shower and ALSO he says he showers everyday anyway so what was the fucking point of resembling an egg i hate this novel so much

samantha has absolutely no reason to be attracted to him in the slightest

samantha’s biggest problem was that she had a birthmark on her face so she believed she wasn’t beautiful

and that meant the moment someone (wade) called her hot, she melted into his arms because no one else has ever loved her and her birthmark

the movie’s trials were actually better than the book’s but that’s because different shit works for different mediums

conveniently having vital passcodes for 6 months without telling the reader (and without having the passcodes change)

lbr this was the author shitting himself and realising he needed a loophole to his problem and decided to get fucking lazy

continues his laziness into the sequel

at one point in rpt he describes a character just as a “young arnold schwarzenegger” and that’s it like fuck dude learn to WRITE

ernest cline and his novels (even his armada book got panned btw) are a direct response to white men trying to take science fiction for themselves - and succeeding! - ever since the 70s. the big bang theory is also a response to that. his book perhaps fit that culture in 2011 (despite being terrible), but considering his sequel follows the exact same themes in the year 2020, despite the 2015/16 hugo awards wars about white men controlling this genre, IT DOESN’T FIT. he hasn’t learned. he’s tried to aggressively show lgbtqia support because he got panned so hard for it last time, and it comes off forced and tacky and like he doesn’t actually care

it’s obviously a self insert novel power fantasy for ernest cline, and tbh, power fantasies are fine. just make it a fucking good one oh my god

[cptsdstudyblr]

Hey, I saw your religious trauma series thing and I was wondering 1) if questions are still open and 2) if I can ask questions even if I wasn't in a cult, technically?? I'm still not sure.

Up until this summer I was in a very bad church environment that made me hate the faith I was raised in. My father is a priest and graduated seminary when I was about six years old. Our first church was too small for him to have a good salary on, he had to get a second job, and people kept leaving so it got to the point where, six or seven years in, we were forced to move. The church we moved to had more priests, so it would maybe ease my dad's role as pastor, but it also had a really bad reputation. It was a community in which, generations ago, but not long enough, it had been controlled by this guy who was ignoring his bishop and the Metropolitan (he's the guy who runs the faith, kinda like the Pope but we're not catholic, we're Antiochian Orthodox Christians) and went on a power trip essentially brainwashing the church. The church ended up splitting up because half of them realized what was wrong and wanted to start their new church across town, while the rest stayed. Skip a few generations, and my father becomes the new pastor of the older church. Because he followed the rules of our religion, and obeyed the bishop, people thought he was too controlling, when it was really the opposite. It was really hard on my family and made me and my siblings start to resent the faith, even though we knew that wasn't the issue. Not to mention, all three of us kids were very uncomfortable with how traditional our faith is about LGBTQ issues and other outdated values, but never felt comfortable talking about it with our parents. I was in this situation from 7th grade to junior year of high school, when we were essentially kicked out because someone close to our bishop tried to paint my dad as a bad pastor. He's still a priest of our new church, but if anything I hate my new church more bc it's someone else at the pulpit, someome I just couldn't agree with. Now I'm almost an adult and I'm scared about how to treat my faith in the future. My parents don't make me go to church anymore bc I came out as nonbinary and talked about some of these issues, and they're very kind and try to be understanding and supportive in the ways they can be. But I'm still very nervous about how to go forward with this, particularly in my relationship with my family and friends who also grew up Orthodox, particularly ones that are more politically conservative. Any tips on processing this?

(sorry about the wall of text haha)

TW: religion, Christianity, cults

I’m so, so sorry it took me so long to answer this. I was out of power for a while due to a natural disaster, and now I’ve been trying to catch up on schoolwork in the aftermath of that. 

Questions are always open on this blog, even if they aren’t relevant! I have a couple more parts I might add to the religious trauma series, but I’m not sure whether I’ll post them at this point.

My biggest advice would be to open up a conversation with your parents first. Obviously, make sure you’re safe and that it won’t blow up in your face, but based on your question it seems like they are pretty supportive of you already. They’ll likely be able to help you with how to approach other people, especially family. They may also have a better idea of how some family members will react and/or may be able to act as mediators or facilitators. 

I’d also recommend talking to them about your boundaries when it comes to religion. For example, talk about how comfortable you are with being asked to attend church for holidays, whether you’re okay with religious music in the car, whether you’re okay with them talking to you about the sermon when they get home, etc. You might not reach a total agreement on boundaries, but it’s good to know where everybody stands on those issues going forwards and might also allow you to compromise in a way that satisfies everyone and avoids potential future discomfort.

Unfortunately, I’m not super familiar with your denomination or situation, so I can’t give much specific advice. However, I’ll give you some general suggestions that worked for me with talking to friends and family about leaving religion.

The biggest thing I can recommend is to avoid framing it as a discussion. What I mean by this is that you need to present it as “This is a choice I’ve made and here’s why. I’d appreciate your support.” Especially when it comes to older relatives, they are likely going to want to change your mind and convince you to come back. Framing your discussion this way may not totally avoid that issue, but it will avoid it coming across as if you’re asking for advice. 

One tactic I used that satiated some family members was to basically say “This is my choice for right now, but it is not totally out of the question that I might return to the faith at some point in the future. Please don’t pressure me to return soon though, because I’m not in a place where I’m ready to consider that and your pressure will likely push me farther away.” I think framing it as though I might come back (even though I almost certainly won’t) made a lot of people feel a little more comfortable with the initial conversation when they might have not been supportive otherwise. This is an approach I’d personally recommend for people who are much more traditional and unwilling to acknowledge that it’s okay to have a difference in beliefs because it gives them permission to accept your current beliefs and still cling to that hope.

Make sure that you have your reasons prepared before any conversations. They will want to know why you are leaving religion, and you need to be prepared to give thorough, good reasons and have a discussion on the reasons. If you’ve clearly thought it through and are familiar with the beliefs of the religion and how they compare to your own beliefs, it will make a lot of people more comfortable with your choice because they can tell you have put a lot of thought into it.

Make it clear that you don’t have any issue with them continuing to practice religion. Be supportive of their choice to stay and try not to act uncomfortable around their expression of religion (unless, of course, it’s hateful or harmful). It’s a two-way street and if you want them to be comfortable with your lack of religion, you need to be comfortable with the presence of religion in their lives.

Best of luck!

[nonbinarypoststhings]

Hi, irrelevant, I know, but do you remember anything about the highschool period of your life? I swear this part is the most stressful part of all my life, first I figure out my sexuality, then I move away from all my friends, then my gender, and as if it's not enough, add to that school and standardised tests and all the typical drama of being a teen. Oh and also don't forget that you're somehow supposed to make choices that will affect the rest of your life.How does anyone even survive it?

I do remember my high school life, and as I have reconnected with one of my old classmates recently, I've even talked a bit about it with her.

(Warning for Homophobia, transphobia, Sexism, Racism. Only the homophobia is like explicit, but the others are mentioned. Feel free to tell me if there is more warnings I should have. Also, long post)

High school is a tough period of time for everyone. Everyone is struggling with who they are, and what they want in life.

And add in the layer of being Lgbtq+ it becomes more frustrating.

I have a hard time translating the school things from my country to others, but I believe I graduated what would be translated into high school only this year, but I will still talk about my old school which I graduated from three years ago.

My class back then was not the best place for anyone who is lgbtq+. Me and the classmate I mentioned earlier connected well back then, and still do now, but the rest of them..? Not so much (I will also exclude two more people from that rest, who also is my friends now).

We were a class of 22 or 23, and yes I believe that most of us probably were at least somewhat accepting of the lgbtq+ community, we still only had, from what I know, 2 people who actually is in the community. Neither of us accepted it at the time, even though we both were proudly supportive of the community.

The thing is, she struggled with internalized shit about her identity and that delayed the realization.

I was genderfluid, and same thing there. I denied my own gender because, my friend was nonbinary, I couldn't also be, right? So internlized shit that delayed the realization.

Neither of us came to term with it until after we had left that school.

But I have a clear memory of us both Hating our class, we were a class of mainly guys, and every single guy was white (tbf, we had 1 person who wasn't white in our class all together).

We all know what white cis straight men are famous for...

Being bigots.

I don't know if anything has changed these past years, I haven't talked to them. But back then,

At least half of them were openly sexist, homophobic, transphobic etc.

I have a clear memory, that still Disgusts me so much to this day, of a sex ed class where the teacher, bless her, tried to be inclusive and ask us what we thought about gay couples. (Not how it should be done, but it was atleast a try in the right direction) The guys, who always ran the show (the ones I hated more than I think I can explain), said (TW for Homophobia):

"Gay guys are disgusting. Lesbians are hot".

I was so mad, my skin was crawling with disgust, still is when I think about it. To everyone who only accept lesbians because they think it's hot, you are disgusting. Lesbians are real people and they are not there to please some man. It's not for you, it's between the lesbian and her girlfriend and you should Stay Out Of It!

It wasn't a great place to be out in, so maybe it wasn't weird for us to ignore our own identity, to not want to be lgbtq+ in that space, because if we had been out back then even just to ourselves we would've had to face these people every day and therefore face these kind of things knowing that they are talking about us like this. Even though they didn't know it, they were and it was disgusting and terrible.

(I am not saying repress your gender or sexuality until you are older, you don't have to do that at all. Just be safe, and know that if people are mean or ignorant, they are wrong. You are valid and loved and we all support you so much. Find support, and don't let bigots tear you down. You are Valid and you are who You are no matter what others tell you)

I wanted out of that class, from those people, ever since I was like 6-7 years old. I hoped when we switched school when we were 12-13 that I would end up without a bunch of them. I did still have that same class, which really I had expected even if I hoped differently.

At 16 I got a change to move across the country, I took it. Actually, I kinda fought for it, and I was lucky enough to get it.

Moving away from all my friends were scary even if I had made an active choice to do so. I was terrified that I would be lonely, and that everyone at this new school would be terrible and I had to move back home and face that shame of failure (obvs, it wouldn't be actual failure to get out of a toxic place if it has been that, but I saw it as such)

When I came to this new school, everything was super different from back home.

My class was, to my standards, filled with so many different people with different cultures. All of them different from mine because I was from across the country, from a small town. And suddenly here I was in a gigantic city.

Anyway, this school taught me a lot, about everything. My class had openly Lgbtq+ people. My new friends were suddenly all queer or questioning, and I was in awe, because... It could be like this?

Also, everyone was super nice to me. Asking for my instagram on day 1 so we could be friends on there, showing me how to get back home in this new city when everything was so new to be, starting conversations and being just geniune good people. Like, huge shout out to those people.

I learned so much about oppression, and how to stand against it in this school, not because I myself was oppressed, I'm white and at the time I thought I was cishet.

No, I learned because our teachers wanted us to learn about all these things that I knew were real problems but I had only heard of in fiction, never in real life.

I got to a safe space, where racist teachers got fired asap. Where teachers were openly queer and my classmates could come out as trans to the class simply by stating their new name and pronouns. No questions asked. I got to a school where every introduction included name and pronouns. Where we were all shown that we can be who we are and that is okay. And where teachers apologized to students in a real and honest way when they did something wrong.

In this environment I got to figure out who I am. Yes it took two years, but I figured it out and felt safe enough to tell my new friends in weeks, because they accept everyone.

So, the question, how do you survive high school?

My answer is simply, you hold onto the belief that you will survive, and that things will get better. And you will get there.

You can try to find other lgbtq+ people in your school, I know some have groups you can join (mine didn't).

And with the tests, I guess I recommend you study, and remember that a bad grade isn't the end of the world. You are worth more than a grade.

I wish I could promise you that you could enter a school like mine, where everything certainly wasn't perfect (you never get rid of high school drama...), but it was still a very friendly space.

But I can promise you that you are not alone and things will be better. If it gets better in high school or if it gets better years later, I can't tell you. But it does get better. And you will survive.

Also, sorry for this extremely long answer, it was probably not what you're looking for. But I hope you find an answer in there eitherway.

Long story short, high school is a shitshow, but the show must go on.

Also, gender neutral bathrooms in schools should be standard (it has been in all schools I've gone to and no one is complaining here, not even the transphobes).

Also, the reason why I barely mention the girls in my old class, is simply because there were almost none and nothing any of them have said when I've been around has been relevant to this answer.

Tell me if you want things tagged or added to the warnings at top.

[star-anise]

I just came here purely to learn and hear all sides so please don't yell at me thanks. I'm confused because I've always heard that butch and femme are terms that describe a woman who presents and lives for women only, so what do those terms mean for a bi woman?

I’m definitely here to answer honest questions. :)

The idea that a lesbian presents and lives for women only has its counterpart, that straight and bi women live and dress for men, that our primary intention when doing things is to please men. And, well, that definitely is what many men would like to be true; it’s certainly the standard to which many women were held when my grandmother was a girl.

But resisting the idea that you should define your identity by what’s appealing to men isn’t a lesbian-exclusive thing, it’s a feminist thing. It was basically one of the first things feminists started talking about in the Second Wave of feminism in the 1950s and 60s. “Hey, men put a lot of sexist expectations on us that feel really weird and unnatural. We don’t like that. We want to define our own identities for ourselves, based on what feels useful and relevant to us.”

Theory time: Society encourages us to think of ourselves as objects, as things that other people will look at and make judgments about. We’re supposed to think, “Will Mommy think I’m being good?” and “Will my teacher think I’m a good student?” and “Will boys think I’m hot?” and “Will my employer think I’m a good worker?” In small doses, learning how to empathize with other peoples’ perspectives and understand how we come across to them is useful. But when we’re pushed to define our selves, our identities, by outside sources, we can quickly become unhealthy and alienated, made strangers to ourselves, and easier to control, abuse, and exploit.

Feminists (and other social movements) have been working to get people in touch with their subjective selves, which is to say, to be the one doing the looking and judging, not the object being looked at and judged. The goal is to define ourselves by our own value systems, and to pay attention to our own experiences, not how we’re judged by others. So that means switching to, “Am I following my own moral code?” and “Do I understand the things they’re trying to teach us?” and “Do I like the way I look?” and “Am I doing good and meaningful work?” I mean, if you want good grades or to stay employed or for someone to want to date you, it does help to consider their perspective too, but--subjectivity means power. If you have the self-confidence to define yourself, you are much harder for anyone else to take advantage of.

So as a feminist, I consider my femininity to be an expression of myself, of who I feel I am, or want to be, and what I value. I wear my hair long because I like how it feels that way. I wear clothes that make me feel comfortable. I try to dress and groom myself to look like people who, when I was a child, I saw and thought, “I want to look like that.” When I feel pretty, it means I feel as though I were someone I would see and think was pretty. If some man or woman or nonbinary person looks at me and thinks, “Wow, she’s awesome, I want to kiss her/date her/help her achieve all her dreams/build a future and have four children together” then that’s potentially great! But they’re responding to how I’ve expressed who I am. Because I was raised steeped in a feminist tradition that worked to prepare straight girls to be happy living alone if no man accepted them for who they really were, I try my best not to worry about people potentially finding me attractive, and just focus on doing the things I want to do with my life.

It can get a lot messier than that, of course. I used to have really debilitating social anxiety, where I was incredibly afraid of people seeing me negatively; it took me a lot of work and therapy to feel as self-assured as I do today. And there’s an entire, deeper question of, how did I form my basic ideals about what a good person does or what do I consider pretty or what is meaningful work? Those are all influenced by society, and not always in positive ways--for example, growing up with a beauty ideal of thin white women definitely shaped my own attitudes about what weight I want to be and what shade of skin I want to have. Not even my own��standards for myself are guaranteed to be healthy and desirable, and there are times when it’s healthier for me to give up my own ideals, and accept when my friends or teachers or loved ones say I’m good enough. But that’s the system as I understand it.

In that view, I don’t actually see dressing and presenting for other women as actually necessarily more liberated than dressing and presenting for men. It’s still letting someone else’s standards determine my identity, and to a degree, my self-worth. That’s something I have to trust a person a lot to give them any input in, so random people I want to flirt with tend not to qualify. Also, women aren’t magically good at reading somebody’s mind and knowing what they’d look like at their happiest and best, so it’s likely that even if I were totally wonderful and desirable to another woman, there’s no guarantee that would be the same thing as me when I’m comfortable and doing what felt important to me.

[bread-and-roses-too]

alright now I have to vent.

Basically I first found out I was gay around 10th grade (approx. 15 or 16 years old). I don't remember what prompted it but I was like "yo I think I like girls". The definition of bi when you looked up "bisexual" on google at the time read like this:

[image ID: the first definition of bisexual in the merriam-webster dictionary which reads "of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to people of one's same sex and of the opposite sex"]

I had a vague awareness of the existence of nonbinary people (because of watching Onision of all things) enough to know that genders besides mine and "the opposite" existed and I was attracted to them. I also had a vague awareness of pansexual but was frankly too scared to look it up because my conservative parents still monitored my internet as far as I knew. I had enough grasp of the term queer, I think from seeing LGBTQ+ posts float past me on Tumblr although I don't remember exactly, to know that it basically meant whatever you want it to mean. That sounded good for my confused ass.So with this identity in hand I went off to school.

I had a bag that, among other things, had the word "queens" on it with an odd crease that made it look like "queers" sometimes. Someone in the locker room pointed it out and I thought "great time to test the waters" so I said something to the effect of "I like them too". A bi friend who I was very close to chimed in to say "that word is a slur, you shouldn't joke about it". Fuck. Now my friend thinks I'm homophobic. I tried to save it by explaining that I meant people who identified as queer, to which she responded "that's stupid, that's like identifying as the n word".

Now current me would like to point out that there are in fact black people who identify with the n word and use it to describe themselves, but past me was too devastated to argue. One of my closest gay friends had rejected me at a crucial point in my figuring myself out without even knowing it. It stressed me out so much, in fact, that I completely suppressed it. Not just the encounter I had, but the entire finding out I was gay. For the rest of high school. It wasn't until late in my first semester of college that I figured it out again.

Basically what I'm saying is this is why I attack "queer is a slur" discourse with such ferocity. It's not just harmless internet discourse, it kept me in the closet for like 2 or 3 actual years. I missed out on being gay in my accepting high school and shipped myself off to a Christian college totally unaware. I'm actually now facing a decision on whether to go back to that college knowing that I'm gay and that being in a gay relationship is an expellable offense or to go to a new college where I'll have to readjust to everything which will be extremely stressful for me.

mmm triggered my own bad feelings about how I realized I wasn't straight by making a joke about it. Good job me

[infiniteglitterfall]

This also reminds me of transmedicalists. The constant insistence that you aren't REALLY trans unless you can no longer function as your incorrect gender.

The belief that if you're nonbinary and haven't transitioned, it's because you're not "suffering"; that if you're nonbinary and HAVE transitioned, either you weren't "suffering" and "took resources from real trans people," or you were "really" trans and Suffering, and are also mentally ill for still thinking that you're nonbinary.

It reminds me of the non-trans-competent gatekeeping doctors and therapists that require trans people in general to be at the end of our ropes, unable to keep functioning, before they'll believe we're really trans and really need to transition.

And of how they wield that stick even harder at nonbinary people. Trans-ignorant medical professionals know even less about nonbinary people than about binary ones, so those that push back against binary people's transition will often block nonbinary people completely.

They'll use "too femme" against people too. Too normal. Too weird. Too able to get good grades or make a living or be in a relationship; can't possibly need help. Too passing already, too unable to pass. Too gay.

(A friend of a friend was rejected for transition last year for being gay, which is a very old rule that people were supposed to drop about thirty years ago. The first doctor I tried to transition with complained that I just wanted to be "dykier." Dykeieier? More dyke-y. Her exact word, but don't get me started.)

Of course, we have the added complication that if we're desperate enough, and let them know how desperate we are, a trans-incompetent doctor may well decide we're TOO nonfunctional, TOO "crazy" to help, that we couldn't possibly know what our reality and needs are in this state.

Which is a level of bullshit that people with mental illnesses get too.