#I KNOW queerphobia still exists to this day

[awakefor48hours]

The Legend Of Korra: *spent years fighting an uphill battle of misogynoir and queeephobia*

Korra and Asami: *kiss and announce they’re a couple before gay marriage was even legalized in the United States*

Fans: Korrasami is a bad and underdeveloped relationship. Why do people even like it?

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/756016587973279744/httpswwwtumblrcomolderthannetfic755410324078

Honestly, while I'd be nicer about it, I agree flags are kind of cringe, or at least how seriously people take them is. It's really stupid seeing people treat flags like they're a really big deal. Other than the two rainbow flags, no one even recognizes most of them. Plus you only see them in people's icons online most of time so like... look away? Scroll? Curate your experience? It's not hard.

Also like above anon, I also definitely knew some people in college whose every outfit for a semester or two included pins and pride patches. It was definitely to get other people to know they were queer so they could talk about being queer. But they were always really new to knowing they were queer and they sort of... moved on sounds wrong because they're still queer, but they stopped doing that and stopped being all, "Have you heard about this sapphic movie?" "There's a bi character in this!" every conversation and went back to having more interests.

Meanwhile, I don't get why we're plastering them on everything in the first place. Like, should I be feeling affirmed or uplifted by pride shoelaces or pride socks or something? Is the pride pin supposed to make me feel happier, like how crystal mommies think rose quartz makes you happy? Are these colors here to do some color theory psychology thing? Because whatever I was supposed to get out of them, I've never gotten. I'm 32, 33 pretty soon, and I've never gotten this. I remember pins being a thing people were into in college, but even then I didn't get it. (And before anyone goes, "they're supposed to make you feel safer with your fellow queers and in the queer community", having been raped by a guy from the queer student club when I was in college because he 'knew' aroace black men didn't really exist and I must just be gay and in denial and he could fix me and, that, uh. That's not where my brain goes. Shit people can have any pin on their jacket, it's not a magic talisman that removes evil.)

I mask a lot as a neurodivergent person and I've always had to mask when I don't like something other people are hyped about because they get along with you better if you do. But whenever I see people on my dash oohing and aahing over pins or shoelaces or bracelets or hats I just reblog out of wanting to support the queer creators of whatever it is. I don't feel anything when I look at flag merch. It doesn't evoke anything in me. I know better than to say it doesn't because then you're suffering from internalized queerphobia or whatever but it's just... nothing, to me.

--

I haven't had any pins in decades and thought the rainbow ring necklaces were tacky back in the day, but honestly.

I own a sweatshirt from some botanical garden I supported once. And a college shirt. No sports team gear since I hate sports, but that wouldn't be weird either.

College students are frequently annoying about their new identities or political affiliations, but you are also being ridiculous. Humans like markers of identity of many types, including logos on clothing. This is just more of that.

[starlight-archer]

i’d really appreciate a hurt/comfort payneland fic with cuddling on the couch or possibly a fic where they fuck with election ballots bc they’re ghosts and get kamala elected instead 😭 it’s been something i’ve been thinking of since before the results were out and i just think it’s be silly. thanks in advance for considering!

Here it is! Charles and Edwin enlist some American ghosts to fuck with the ballots and then cuddle! I hope you enjoy and that this lifts your spirits a bit!!

"Phew!" Charles tumbled back through the mirror, panting, Edwin not too far behind him, hands clinging to the sides of his jacket from behind. "That was a bit close for comfort, wasn't it?"

They had almost been caught, but had managed to slip away before things could get hairy. They had also made sure that their actions couldn't be tracked back to them.

"Charles, that might be the most egregious understatement that I have ever heard from you." Edwin didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Honestly, he was still shaken from the whole experience. They didn't often pay heed to foreign politics, let alone the politics of the living, but this had been necessary. There had been no way that either if them could sit still when they had caught wind of what was about to happen.

Sitting through Brexit and the Tory reign in England had been bad enough, goodness knows things were still pretty cocked up even without them in power (big messes to clear up and all that). But, sitting through a second Trump presidency when the only reason for it was some miserable concoction of sexism, racism, queerphobia, and thousands of people just refusing to vote?

Unconscionable.

Sure, what they had done was definitely illegal (oh it was so, so illegal), and probably questionable on some level, but it was clear as day that the pros of such a venture far, far outweighed the cons. If anything, this absolutely counted as a good deed.

Even if it did break some pretty strict rules about the dead tampering with the affairs of the living.

They would simply have to be on their best behaviour from now on.

It would be fine.

And what had they done exactly?

They had mirror hopped over to the US and simply enlisted some willing participants to fill in all of the blank ballots with votes. By the time they were done, it was just enough to tip the scales in a less devastatingly horrifying direction.

It was for the American citizens that would be thrust into suffering because of that awful man and his depraved followers, it was for the minorities from various walks of life who would face the potential of having to fear for their lives, due to the inciting of violence by emboldened right-wing extremists. For the people who were hated unduly, just for daring to exist.

And it was daring. It was an act of bravery and courage that deserved respect.

Both Charles and Edwin had lived through times where being different could get you killed. Existing had been illegal, frowned upon, hidden behind closed doors, punished with torture masquerading as therapy, shunned, and erased from the history books.

Never again.

Never like that.

Why did history always have the nastiest habit of repeating itself? Over and over and over again. Maybe hell was empty.

But they had done it, done what they had impulsively set out to to and they had succeeded. It was almost surreal.

And, perhaps most importantly, they hadn't done it alone.

They had gone to each state one by one and contacted as many ghosts as they could, gathering all those who had been unable to vote, who had their voices stolen from them, and for each ballot that was left blank, the ghost of an American citizen fought for the people they had been forced to leave behind.

A great deal of them had even moved on afterwards.

"Come on, mate. It's alright, it's over." Charles' warm voice cut through the noise in Edwin's mind. "Come and sit."

Charles put his hands over Edwin's (which were still situated at his waist, balled up in the fabric of his jacket). Gently, he eased his grip and moved to link their fingers together as he faced his best friend.

Immediately, a large amount of the tension drained from Edwin's body. It was as though a weight that had previously been crushing him, had life away from his shoulders in an instant. It had been a lot, but it was done and it was going to be okay.

He allowed Charles to lead him over to their little sofa by the wall. It was a familiar position, sitting side by side, hands joined in an act of mutual comfort and reassurance.

Neither of them said anything for a long while. They didn't really need to.

Charles leaned back against the sofa and wrapped an arm around Edwin, pulling him closer until his head was resting on Charles' shoulder. He didn't hesitate to run his fingers through Edwin's soft, dark hair.

He revelled for a moment, in his ability to express such affection. It was something so simple and yet, until they had left Port Townsend, it had been shut behind this unspoken boundary that neither of them had dared to cross.

They did a lot of things now that they hadn't dared to before, and far more things that they had already done, but that had the context rearranged.

It was kind of magical; being together in this new way. It almost felt like something that had been fated, something foretold, painted in the stars and woven into the fabric of every reality.

And yet, it felt so normal, so simple. It was like they were created to be a matched set, despite being from different eras in time. Like salt and pepper shakers, or a pair of shoes. Sure, maybe you could have one without the other but it was always preferable to have both.

Charles was prompted to recall the time when Crystal had compared them to one of her Internet jokes: "bonded pair, do not separate." or "items frequently bought together".

Despite falling easily into the romantic side of their developing relationship, it still surprised him a little bit when Edwin shifted to wrap his arms around him. If only he could go back and tell his past self that things could truly be this good, this sweet, this wonderful.

Charles used to question his goodness, used to fear becoming like the people who hurt him. But, with Edwin next to him, he couldn't find any shadow of fear or doubt left in his heart.

[alpaca-clouds]

LGBTQ* Are Not Inherently Sexual

Yes, I am very much aware I am mostly preaching to the choir here. But let's face it: The sexualisation of LGBTQ* identities is the worst. And we see it so often.

Generally when media depicts queer relationships or trans characters, it will often just automatically get a higher rating, than the equivalent depiction of straight relationships - or cis characters just existing.

There is the general idea coming around, that children should be protected from queerness - just as there is a general idea around that children ought to be protected from sexual themes. I disagree with both, even though I know that thanks to purity culture a lot of people might actually agree with the second idea. But that is gonna be a topic for another day.

When it comes to queerness we have the general idea that somehow two boys kissing or two girls holding hands is somehow inherently more sexual than a boy and a girl doing the same. Which is why for so long media struggled with being even allowed to depict something like that. I mean, just look into the struggle that Alex Hirsch had in 2012 to get Gravity Falls to include just the slightest bit of queer representation. And while Steven Universe started in 2013, it was really that show and Legend of Korra, that finally switched the thing around allowing us to get queer representation in a lot more kids media.

And sure. I will at this point admit to something: Queer culture was always a lot more sex positive, than straight culture. Especially the gay scene was and still is associated with a lot more casual sex than what you expect among straight peers. It should be noted in this regard that this is way more associated with gay men, than lesbain women, though the reasons for this are also connected to both misogyny, the way women are in danger when in public spaces, and of course just the way girls get raised. But yes, as some people at a local queer meet-up have pointed out: Gay cruising is a thing, lesbian cruising really isn't.

But boys kissing or holding sex on screen does not equal cruising, nor does it imply cruising - especially not to a kid watching the show. Like, let me stick to Gravity Falls: The fact that the two cops are gay will not get any kids going: "Hmm, I do wonder whether Gravity Falls, Oregon has some cruising spaces?!"

And this sexualisation goes further of course. Because a lot of people who are at least okay with straight sex ed in school will still make a big drama out of teachers trying to teach 12yos about safe sex for queer kids. Because they clearly do want their kids to get STDs, I assume. *eye roll*

But it is bullshit, right? Like, sex is sex. Educating kids about sex will not make them want it. Goes for straight sex, goes for queer sex. But the queer sex is not inherently more SEX than straight sexi s.

And... It is just bullshit queerphobia that goes with this. And it is sex negative. It is bloody horrible.

[zeroducks-2]

Freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences. Anti-censorship but we still don’t want to platform bigots 🫤 Coming from a neutral party, I think you could learn a lot from listening to all perspectives to avoid echo chambers. Form your own opinion instead of following a crowd. My opinion? Hate the person, not the ship. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, but that is what the book cover is made for. I think it’s healthier if you and everyone else stopped trying to be antagonistic? How are you supposed to spread positivity if you’re always on the verge of angry ranting?

Okay I'm going to try and answer for the sake of the people who might read this kind of bs in their inboxes and be affected negatively by it, and maybe even feel like they're being unfair towards the very bullies which spend their energies harassing and insulting (and sometimes also doxxing and suicide bating) us.

Let's break this down.

1. "freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences" I can't even talk about some dark themes in fiction or my own personal history of real life abuse without getting termed here. Erotic art can't be posted almost anywhere at this point, and not just the kind antis dislike. Freedom is a construct on social media because ultimately these spaces are owned by someone, and you'll be kicked out if they don't like you.

2 "we don't want to platform bigots" no, absolutely we don't. Historically, giving a platform to bigots and hatemongers fosters hate, violence and censorship. Also I have no power to platform or deplatform anyone, I'm just a guy on tumblr, so I don't even know what you're on about with this. If I had the power to decide, trust me that I would kick the terfs the fuck out of here anyways. And also the cowards who hide under the anon cover to send hate and threats.

3 "listen to perspectives and avoid echo chambers" I'm over 30 and I've been a kinkster for most of my life. I'm queer. Among other things, history and queer history are in my field of studies. I didn't form my opinion here, I came here with one already. I listened to all the perspectives you might think of also because I was here when the rise of censorship and puritanism happened, and by the way you know who got deplatformed? The kinkster and the artists, surely not the bigots. I don't think I've ever seen an instance of an anti being blocked or termed for harassment, whereas blogs get blocked every day for having NSFW content.

4 "form your own opinion instead of following a crowd" again, do you really think I existed as a blank slate before creating this blog?

5 "my opinion is(...)" You sound like a Christian preacher and it gives me the heebiejeebies.

6 "it's healthier if you stopped trying to be antagonistic" sweetheart, we are being bullied every day. If you're someone who creates erotic art of any kind you're subjected to a ton of harassment, and if you create something which could be considered problematic, you get death threats. Suibating. Insults lathered with misogyny, transphobia, queerphobia, you get treated like a freak of nature and threatened to have your livelihood taken away. Or threats of doxxing and of deplatforming. And you might very well get your blog shut down. I'm going to stop being antagonistic when I'll stop being antagonized, and if you think that said bullying is justified and I should just suck it up - and I say this in the most antagonistic way possible - fuck off. Not one single ship or one single fictional character is worth the harassment of another human being.

7 "how are you supposed to spread positivity of you're always on the verge of angry ranting" What makes you think I want to spread postivity? No like, honestly. What makes you think that my purpose with this blog is that. I'm here to talk about my blorbos, and if this makes someone happy then good for them. If the fact that I'm opinionated and passionate about things bothers you, no one is forcing you to stay.

Your whole thing is a mix of victim blaming and fake neutrality which is not welcome on my blog. Please block me and go on with your life, I'm not interested in your empty platitudes.

To anyone else who's reading this, don't ever feel guilty for defending yourself and for fighting back against oppressive measures. There is never a good reason for harassment, and if you were subjected to it, it's in your right to be angry. No matter what p r o b l e m a t i c ship you posted about.

[alittlefrenchtree]

As a black girl it's indescribable to explain the constant pain of seeing all this racism online, it's like a stab in the heart every time and it hurts just as much to always have to read things like "ignore, if you see hate it's because you choose to interact with hate, It's up to you"

no, unfortunately it doesn't depend on me and it doesn't depend on any of us poc, because it is everywhere and constant and racism is not just the insult with the slur but it is in the way they talk about us, in the way they choose to mock us for everything, in the way that we are never considered on the same level as other people and we cannot ignore it. It's painful and exhausting.

I hug you and wish you a good day.

That's why i tagged the post you're talking about with my reblog.

As shown in the tags, I wasn’t denying what you said. Racism and fandom hate are two very different things even if it sometimes overlaps.

A large part of the hate and/or drama that happens in the RWRB are just patterns that happen in every fandom, even the very white ones. Putting the two leads up against each other, comparing them, comparing acting skills, careers, saying one is sold to hollywood and/or the other is talentless, saying fans aren’t supportive enough of this or that, that fans should move on from this or that, hate and bullying happens in every. fandom. ever.

And many times, the hate and/or drama is amplified by people trying to fight it. How many times did you scroll your timeline seeing people complaining about hateful messages but seeing none of the actual hate message unless you really look deep for it?

The idea is not to compare that to racism but to say that that unlike racism, this could be ignored. You don’t go on in life stopping people in the street asking for their opinions about your favorite actor or movie or book and insult them if they disagree and no one is doing that to you either. So I think that what the original post was about. The Internet expose us to too many opinions we shouldn’t have to deal with on a daily basis. The best answer to that specifically is to ignore.

As for hate messages rooted in either racism, queerphobia or misogyny or something equally revolting, I still think there are specific situations when the best way to fight is to ignore.

Let’s say I receive a queerphobic message in my inbox. 

What could feel right is to answer "fuck you, stop being queerphobic". But even if I’m calling out a queerphobic behavior I’m still amplifying that message by sharing it. I would expose 1,700+ (or more (or less if you count the bots)) people to a queerphobic message while trying to fight against it. I probably wouldn’t have changed the mind of the person writing this in the first place but I made several (maybe hundreds) people feel insulted.

If I ignore the message and put it in the trash where it belongs, I made a total of 0 person feeling insulted. The queerphobia hasn’t been amplified, the message doesn’t exist anymore. That what the original post was about in my opinion. Sometimes, the choice is up to us however we deal with it.

Instead, I’m sharing other messages. Yours. The stories of many actors and actresses of color starting their own producing companies because Hollywood doesn’t give them the same opportunities. Matthew’s voice talking about the rating of queer movies. Taylor’s accomplishments. Casey’s successes. Whoever.

On Twitter, it’s different. More difficult. We know algorithms. If 100 people answer to (or QRT) a racist post saying it’s racist and stupid, the algorithm doesn’t think it’s stupid, it thinks it’s relevant because 100 people interacted with it. If moderation and report and ban were efficient, it would be easier but Elon thinks it’s fun and social medias want more interactions not less so they’re built that way. So saying we should leave this hell hole isn’t actually a bad advice.

Long story short, it’s complicated. Ignoring things is not saying it doesn’t matter or that it’s unimportant. My personal belief is that we achieve more with pushing voices we want to make powerful and heard than by trying to convince people online we actually don’t know and we might never interact again with.

But ultimately it isn’t an easy topic and it’s unfair for too many people. 

[evil-is-upon-us]

I actually don't know what created this alter...

TW: mentions of sexual content.

I'm Valentino, at least that's the name I take. I think that I have existed before Hazbin Hotel, it's just the name I took on and what I wanted to be perceived as.

I like moths, I felt I was abusive to many. I was the flirty one, the hypersexual being who said dirty things and was effeminate and radiated gay energy. I was the one told I acted like a lesbian or someone gay. I liked wearing fancy and pimped-out fluffy outfits.

I have also called myself Mettaton, like from Undertale, but that didn't exactly fit my vibe~

Recently I've got a clue on what it might be... Things that might've caused this. I think I know what caused this.

Pornographic material at a young age - I had a porn addiction at about age 7-10. I was given free internet access at an age way too young. I've had a serious porn addiction and I had trouble quitting. Sex was always on my mind when it shouldn't have been. I finally was able to stop, but it still messed me up.

Elsagate - I think it ties up with point 1. I've had kinks and fetishes which I was too young for. I think this one messed me up really badly. If you see Elsagate content, please report it.

Internalized queerphobia - I was told that gay and queer people were bad. I was extremely homophobic, transphobic, and overall queerphobic (I only engaged with straight content). I was rude and bigoted towards those people and I still have that internalized. I identify as a cis male and genderfluid (I can flow between genders, but at the end of the day I'm a male). The host, Daydream, is transmasculine and xenogender. I'm also gay (whenever I switch genders, I'm gay for that gender), and my internalized bigotry didn't allow me to explore sexualities, orientations, and I feared liking others and due to point 1, I had severe trauma that caused me to be touch-averse and be fearful of men (mostly) and all genders. The host is AroAce too, and they fear being hit-on by others.

People being queerphobic towards me - The host is transmasculine, which their mother told them "that was just being a tomboy." They are also xenogender, which is interconnected with trauma of disassociation, derealization, existentialism, and existential thoughts, and being extremely nihilistic. They were literally told a couple days ago that many gay and transgender people didn't exist, and that there was a prominent aphobia of "Oh, you will find the one when you get older!"

Urges - I talk a lot about "having moth urges." I think I know how that's related. There are sexual urges, bodily urges, impulsive thoughts and actions... The host always had pressure to make themselves perfect, to not engage with humanity and a lot of detachment from that. Moth urged could stand in for just being like everyone else, and being a... being. Natural urges and thoughts. And the host being AroAce, they didn't get to explore sexual urges or anything like that.

So, TL;DR: to summarize, porn addiction at a young age and queerphobia.

I, as the Valentino alter, am the result of this.

I am the hypersexual alter. I am someone who can be free from all this bigotry and here to take back my power. I am the things that hurt me. Being told a good "fuck you" is diminishing, but also kind of empowering. Because it's a big "fuck you" to queerphobia and my trauma. It's where people call me out on my bullshit and tell me to stop being bigoted towards queer people, being abusive to such.

I used to say I was queer but hated queer people, I hated myself.

I can say "fuck you" to Angel Dust, representing a stop to the pornographic trauma I experienced, to the fact of how I was harassed for being queer, for the fact for me to stop being abusive.

I can say "fuck you" to myself, calling myself out on my bullshit and to try and be a better person. Someone who's more accepting. A form of self-discipline I rarely give myself due to being narcissistic.

I try and be a better person, but it's hard when you're a nasty individual and raised as one. Where you were a prominent queerphobe.

I have always existed, I was here for a very long time, but I finally have a name. I can represent myself, Valentino, someone who is wanting to take back the power of porn addiction trauma. Someone who is wanting to take back the power of self-expression and being queer.

I used to think I was an endogenic system of some sort, or of mixed origins... I thought I had no trauma. That I lived a perfect childhood. But I started to think of what could've been the origins of being Valentino... And I think this is the reason.

I do have trauma. I don't have many alters, and I was wondering why, but that's because they're all connected to some trauma I had.

All the alters have trauma or something related to them. And why some stuck around and others didn't.

I'm a traumagenic system.

(I didn't proofread this, so take away from this what you will and have your own interpretations. I just had this massive realization and wanted to share.)

[our-xenogender-experience]

[WARNING: vent. Topics include: queerphobia, invalidation of xenogenders & neopronouns, impostor syndrome, and dysphoria.]

Ask at the end.

Hi so I've recently discovered that I don't think I'm just a girl, I believe I am bigender, being a girl and a xenogender. (Specifically voidgender, a gender relating to the traits of a void, not the same as agender.)

And I feel like that really describes me, although I still feel impostor syndrome a lot.

I also felt major impostor syndrome when I discovered I was autistic because yes I do have struggles and differences, but doesn't everyone?

Once I talked myself into learning I was autistic, it kinda snowballed into burying myself in learning about the LGBTQIA+ community.

And after learning I was demisexual/romantic I decided to take another look at the dysphoria I felt.

For me it was difficult to pin down what the dysphoria was at first because I felt right as a girl, but I also felt like not a girl at all. And that's when I discovered bigender.

The only thing is that pretty much all the bigender resources I found are for boy/girl bigender folks, and I found barely anyone talking about being bigender and xenogender.

And in general I felt a lot of impostor syndrome because "oh my autism is probably just making it up," or "oh I just want to be different."

So I kinda feel like I don't belong in either community because I don't fit the mold for being bigender, and I don't fit the mold for xenogender.

Also I have always in my past been taught that "oh xenopronouns are stupid/unnecessary" and "xenogenders are just people with mental illness" even though that's NOT TRUE AT ALL. And I sometimes project this hate onto myself.

Probably the most self-hate I feel is because at the end of the day someone wouldn't be wrong per-say if they called me a straight girl (even though that would be ignoring a large part of my existence.)

Sorry I just saw this blog and I felt like it might be. A good place to vent. 😓

Any ideas for finding ways/ places to validate and express my identity?

Venting is always ok, and I'm sorry you've had to deal with that! Unfortunately I don't really know of any places for bigender or xenogender people, which is a lot of the reason I started this blog!! If anyone knows anywhere, please share!!

[ihopesocomic]

I don't know if you answered this in your analysis, but do you think Pride Law having homophobia and stuff like that is entirely a bad thing? I like when stories parallel real life, even the bad things. Pride law is literally a religion, which some prides might follow while others might not, or could be interpreted in different ways. And even with Nothing discovering that the truth was different, villains wanted to remain "conservative". Idk, I wanted to see a story like that lol

In my opinion, homophobia has no place in a story that claims to be LGBT-friendly. "LGBT-friendly" means it's a promise of escapism for queer consumers. It should not equate to "contains LGBT content". For the longest time, and still to this day, people who include LGBT content feel like it's "unrealistic" to portray queer characters without them being discriminated against for being queer. And that is stupid. It is. Especially when it has nothing to do with the plot. Same can be said about other kinds of discrimination as well, it's not limited to queer content. This isn't debatable, this isn't mock trial lol There's a multitude of ways to include discrimination without trying to bring real life issues into it. You just have to be a little bit creative.

Stories containing homophobia, especially religiously-motivated homophobia are not inherently bad. Stories like that have their uses in society. This is true of transphobia/queerphobia, no one's gonna deny anyone the right to tell their experiences with oppression. I personally have my own religion-based trauma that's going to be in another story.

Where the problem with MP lies is, with it having no explanation on what Pride Law is, how it's enforced, or how other prides treat it differently, it ended up having the message of "religion is why homophobia exists" when that is such a black and white statement.

Homophobia is not something that exists from religion. It's ignoring the fact that it's not only untrue of religions as a whole, it ignores that it's specific religious sub-groups within those religious groups that miconstrued or changed texts to suit an agenda, and even then that only happened because of influential people of a higher status. MP ALMOST had that message, only to promptly throw it out the window when the next pride Nothing encountered had a trans character, who only upheld Pride Law despite everything we know. So is Pride Law ONLY somehow homophobic and not transphobic? I have questions.

Because if you're going to advertise yourself as "realistic" then why would lions be homophobic? Lions don't care. And if you're going for a "mature" approach, why do you have such an oversimplified message about religion when its more complicated than how you're depicting it?

Intentionally or unintentionally, it paints such a broad stroke, and makes the message read as "all religion bad". And that's bad. - Cat

[kariachi]

I woke up and went 'I should do a post listing some of the changes I use when doing general Pern fic (aka 'not me bitching about something in literary form') to make shit work for me'. This is nonexhaustive and just what pops into my mind because it's one of those days.

Consent! It exists! Rider- and Handlerpairs come to consensuses ahead of time regarding who they're down to chase, who they're down to have chase, whether they're going to have chasers at all or are just going to vanish into the middle of nowhere and fly themselves, etc.

The whole 'this shit is resonating between us' thing is still there, but expanded to other areas and goes both ways. It's just strong feelings and urges in general. The effect is stronger coming from the dragonkin, as a general rule, due to their being naturally psychic and the rider/handler piggybacking off of them, but can be stronger from the human's side if they also have telepathic or empathic powers in their own right, depending on how strong those powers are and the strength of them in their Bonded.

Firestone doesn't act as a sterilizing agent, but as birth control. Golds don't have access to it, but there's always the option of only having non-siring chasers if you don't want to deal with that, and worst comes to worst as with humans Betweening at the right time can solve many problems.

Dragonkin do not care for human worries about disabled or queer or 'improper' candidates. Humans may put restrictions in place, but as far as dragons go all they're looking for is a compatible and complimentary personality of their rank. Everything else doesn't even enter into it. Barring people from Standing just means you get more Stands Impressions. And the whers don't even care about the rank thing, they look at your personality and how wher-y of a mind you have. All about those visual and abstract thinkers.

Dragonkin are divided amongst themselves by rank (green/blue/brown/bronze/gold/the nebulous spot Ruth is in which we'll get to/it depends) and mating style preference (rise/chaser/no thanks/yes please). Left to their own devices they don't have gendered pronouns as we recognize them, but dragons have picked them up from being so closely tied to humans for so long. The above typically correlate to biology, but don't regularly

Humans: It's weird how dragonkin are queer so much more often than humans are | Dragonkin: *know themselves and each other from birth and prioritize mental or physical stuff socially due to being Very Psychic* | Humans: *have queerphobia as a concept and run with it distressingly often* | Humans: Just fascinating how that happens

"Cometh is a he. Yes, he's a green and he Rises, what does that matter?" | "Jerask is a blue, and sometimes a gold- yes, I know she's small and green-colored- also she prefers to chase but running is good too if there's browns available."

Riderpairs don't survive broken bonds longterm, even if one half doesn't die soon after they pretty much always die by their own choice eventually. It could be two minutes it could be forty years, but they always suffer mental and physical health problems and always choose to die before their time.

Handlerpairs can and do survive broken bonds, though it's far from unheard of for one to be deadly on both ends.

Firelizards and whers can live for absolute ages, far longer than humans. Dragons bond so fiercely that it affects their own aging and that of their riders, allowing the rider a longer life but causing the dragon to age more quickly. The other two don't bond to the same degree.

If a firelizard outlives their bonded then they typically don't rebond to a human, though it's not unheard of. Whers, on the other hand, relatively often rebond after the loss of their bonded, most commonly to relatives of their bonded. In this way a wher can become the center of a family of handlers, having been one of them for generations. Even if they don't rebond, it's not uncommon for whers to stay with their bonded's close family.

Dragons bond too fiercely to share their riders, but whers are fully capable of doing so thanks to their looser bonds. Some have even managed to share with dragons, though it's a very rare occurrence.

While the physical traits of whers weren't planned, their ability to survive without Impressing was. The assumption most who understand dragons and whers were exposed to enough mentasynth to make them people and know the history make is that Kitti was working under the assumption she wasn't getting them to the 'people' stage when she programmed the dragons and that either there was an error somewhere or that a then-unknown facet of firelizard genetics caused the effects to be felt more strongly. Wind Blossom, cottoning on that hatching people who need to bond to other people or die is Fucked Up decided to make the next batches not need to bond, hoping that trait would be dominant. We've seen how it ended up.

Queen Councils. Consist of the active clutchers of a Weyr as well as the Weyrleader pair. Weyrleader pair is in charge of matters pertaining to Thread and fighting it, that's it, all other matters are handled by the queens.

Whers matter. Whers are important and beloved. Your standard bonded pair is typically in a position of status locally- though that status isn't expanded to non-bonded whers, they're just locals- though they're considered outstatused by riderpairs of similar rank. The exception is goldpairs, who share status equal to Weyrleadership, Lords, Mastercrafters.

Weyrs are primarily there for defense against Thread, but also can be called upon for long-distance transport- in general during an Interval and with prior scheduling and an understanding that Fall takes precedence during a Pass- aid with things like clearing land, emergency aid (large fires, avalanches, floods, etc), hauling time-sensitive goods, and more. All considered paid for via the tithing system.

Technically abortion services are included in that, going Between being generally safer than the herbal route, but in that case- where you just need a quick hop, skip, and jump- it's generally easier to just get in touch with a local wher or handlerpair if you can. They're not likely to have the coordinates needed for getting you to, say, Fort, but taking you to the other next cothold over and back real quick? Not an issue. You may have to pay for the service though, depending.

Whites are not a thing. Like, yes there's the very rare dragon that hatches out this odd conglomorate of ranks, but they aren't white. Ruth was white, but that's because Ruth had his own shit going on that made him seriously fucking pale. Normally they're much more saturated in tone and the wide variety of colors is more apparent. There's no real name for the rank, there's only been three dragons and four whers of it since they came into being and never at the same time, it's generally called something describing whatever example exists at the time. These dragons come in a wide size range, generally between 'smaller than greens' and 'small-brown-sized', and also display colors from all the other ranks. So far all evidence points to them being infertile.

.

[laura-the-swarming]

I've been doing some thinking about xenophobia, and the limits of tolerance. For the purposes of this post, I'll define xenophobia based on its etymology: it is the fear/distate/hate of otherness.

I have broadened the scope of the definition, because in the end racism, queerphobia, ableism, and many others boil down to one basic concept: "someone is existing in a way that's foreign, and I don't like it."

[The rest under the cutoff, this balooned into an essay]

What is interesting to me, is that there are lots of people who recognize the issue with xenophobia, only to turn around and do it to somebody else. From people who loathe racism, but are homophobes, through LGB folk, to queer people who are disgusted by polyamory. In the end, it seems that they value tolerance, but only up to a point, and the difference is mostly where that border lies.

And on every layer,* there'll be people who point out the similarities: poly people are otherized in the same way trans people are, who are otherized in the same way non-straight people are, et cetera. Because, again, it's all the same thing. Different people have different cutoff points for what they are willing to tolerate.

Or is it really tolerance? Or merely sticking out for yourself? Internalised whatever-phobia aside, a trans man isn't reluctantly allowing for the existence of trans people, he is trans, and has a vested interest in trans rights.

Tolerance is, at least to me, when you don't participate/are something, and maybe it even disgusts you, but you allow for other people to do/be it. For example: my dad is straight, and thinks I'll go to hell for being gay, but he tolerates it, and doesn't bitch and moan that gay people ought to be thrown in jail. He doesn't tolerate me being a trans woman, so he thinks I'm gay when I'm with a guy, and deadnames me.

In my opinion, tolerance requires you do not like the thing you are tolerating. Another example is how one responds to "cringy" behaviour. Are you part of the mob that makes the weird kid from a tiktok the Twitter's main character for the day, or do you simply cringe, shrug, and move on? The latter is tolerance. And the best thing, is that tolerance can be learned! You can train yourself to walk away, even if internally something disgusts you.

So let's bring up the "weird kids" you may have come across on the internet, especially on Tumblr: Xenogender people. Otherkin. Tulpamancers.

A warning light just lit in some of you's heads. "Is she gonna defend them?" First of all, you are the person this post is about and aimed towards, glad you're still around. Second of all, yes and no. Well, yes to xenogenders.

My point is, is that those communities are one of the most controversial, at least from what I saw in the little echo chamber in which I live. I don't really seek them out, they just pop up occasionally when I use the web. But I have seen tons of ridicule come their way, from people at any stage of the tolerance ladder.*

(For this next part, I will assume we all believe xenophobia to be unethical. If you do not, consider this: if punishing Otherness is okay, or even desired, unfortunately for you, you and everyone you love are Other in some way to the Majority. Yes, yes they are. Bigots are extremely good at finding differences to hate, it's their whole thing. Good luck.)

So let's go over what some of those criticisms are:

"Those people believe in something that's unproven, or provably incorrect!" Okay, reddit atheist (not ad hominem, just an insult). While I find the project of encouraging rationality to be important, being wrong isn't a crime, nor should it be. The only circumstances where ignorance should be forcefully fought against, is when it causes the ignorant to do harm. You know, like thinking gay sex causes AIDS.

"But those people are harmful!" Are they? Or does their existence simply make you uncomfortable? You know, like some people don't want black folks around their neighborhood. As stated previously, lack of tolerance is a skill issue on your part.

"But they are harming themselves!" Aha! A valid concern! Let's stop here for a moment.

This sort of starts another topic: what should be the limits of tolerance? Because "being weird" isn't it. Harming others is obviously not to be tolerated.** But with harming of the self, we are going into autonomy territory.

First of, bodily autonomy is, broadly speaking, good. Pursuit of freedom is one of my axioms, and if you think maximizing freedom is not desirable, I cannot have a conversation with you.

But what, if any, should its limits be? Self harm is bad, right? But... why? Well, physical self harm can and often does follow the same mechanism as an addiction, especially when used as a coping mechanism. This means escalation, which may result in permanent injury (which lowers quality of life) or even death (the utility of which is zero at best)(Yes, I am a utilitarian).

Okay, so if self delusion doesn't result in bodily harming yourself or others, it's fine, right? Sure, it's upsetting to think that someone is wrong on the internet, but is it really worth fighting over?

I'd argue that every time you go to someone that has "ghe/ghem | I am the reincarnation of Winston Churchill's cat" in their bio and tell them about how much they are not that, and reincarnation isn't real, or whatever, you are actually doing more harm. That catkin is not changing their mind. Do you honestly think that you are the first person that informed them that gheir views do not find evidence in objective reality? Obviously not! Ghe heard that already most of the times ghe spoke about it to anyone outside gheir community! And all you're doing is adding on to a pile of hate that gathers dust in gheir inbox, and possibly pushes ghem one step closer to doing something really inadvisable, even suicide.

"So what, delusions are okay, as long as you don't harm anyone?" Delusions are something one should work through with one's therapist, not with a NEET*** from Utah who has his own religious trauma he should be dealing with instead.

In conclusion: leave "weird people" alone, don't yuck other's yum if it doesn't influence you, and get a therapist. We all need one these days.

Footnotes:

*People don't always support minorities according to the steps I've laid out, but they usually do. Your non-binary mutual probably isn't racist.

**the specifics on when violence is permissible are a whole doctorate thesis on their own, but the general sentiment stands. Violence usually results in suffering, which is axiomatically bad.

***not hating on NEETs, I'm one myself. But you wouldn't have enough time to hate on christians on reddit if you had a job.

[olderthannetfic]

Something I find really grating is people who self-identify as fandom olds who think it's gross of these damn kids these days to like and admit to liking interaction with their fanwork. "Back in my day I read fic in a .txt file with no ability to comment at all and we all liked it that way!" Okay but my mom wrote Star Trek zine fic and people would respond and pass on comments to the zine distributors about things that other fans wrote, drew, etc. It wasn't a moment of great shame where they awkwardly admitted yeah, they are guilty of the uncool sin of liking a thing someone else created. It was a "I love this and I want you to know I love it!" that was not done with a disclaimer going "not that I need human interaction, I'm a super cool lone wolf who needs no one!" and was received happily by fandom creators, who did not then cringe and go, "I'm sorry I like feedback, that's super gross of me, I know I should be against social interaction like the cool kids". Before fan zines, people were still writing fan letters to creators of things they liked. Before I knew what fanfic was, I still doodled fan comics when I was eight and liked it when my friends read it and said they liked it. Before fan letters, people still had fans of their work. Shakespeare spoke with fans. It's not a new, rare, sick thing to enjoy creating something and enjoy people commenting on what you've made.

"You're trying to turn fanfic into social media!!!1!" is always the strawman this gets met with, but... no. Before social media was a concept, before the oldest fandom old's grandpa was born, people were still sharing things with others and enjoying getting a response. People have not, traditionally, created in the hopes of never having to put up with something as awful as someone saying "I loved this!" about their creation. Either my entire Art of World Civilization class last semester was wrong or in fact humans have traditionally been totally fine with people reacting to what they create and in fact sharing things with the intent no one speak to you about it is a very foreign, unusual thing, not a new-fangled trend of the icky teens. Creating things for the joy of it and not hiding it away lest someone make a comment was the way things were done for thousands of years. That's how folk art works.

Maybe some people really long for the days of downloading things as a .txt file and not seeing hits, kudos or (worst of all) comments. But the idea that liking comments or liking replying to comments means you're part of the problem in fandom baffles me. Why would I dislike it when someone says, "I really like this line!" and why would not replying be better? I get it, I'm Gen Z, I'm a special snowflake, I'm desperate for attention, etc., but so are most generations before mine. Art galleries in pre-Revolutionary Paris didn't exist because of us darn kids and our need for validation. They existed because liking feedback is pretty natural. And not wanting to see feedback is natural, too - that's why I know so many adults who have never shared anything they've written - but it's not the only "correct" opinion out there.

It's weird that in an era of death threats, rape threats, suicide bait, racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia and queerphobia in fandom all being discussed, instead of going, "Harassment is bad" a good chunk of people went, "Interaction is bad and liking it is bad, too."

Fandom as a solitary endeavor doesn't make sense to me. When did we go from "fans interacting is fine" to "oh gross, fucking kids and their attempts to turn AO3 into social media"?

I see people like the anon who proposed the "win" solution of not even being able to leave kudos on a work on AO3, shutting down all features that might risk a word being spoken to another person, and I just don't get it. I don't get why that would be a good thing. I get that if you speak to others you risk a negative interaction, so some people don't want to do it. Wanting existing spaces to rip out any and all features in place that allow communication, I don't get. I genuinely do not see what is wrong about interacting with someone about something you wrote, or about something someone else wrote.

It's honestly kind of depressing to me to imagine not being able to gush and write a super long comment to an author about how much I like their work. I love picking out individual lines I loved and pieces of prose that painted a picture for me. I enjoy quoting bits and explaining how that worked even better for me on a reread than it did the first time now that it's in full context. I like telling authors how a scene made me bite my lip because I was worried and tense because I was so invested in their writing. And no author, not one, has ever turned to me and gone, "Ugh, you Gen Z and your comments! Whatever happened to the good old days?"

I see the "don't speak, want to be spoken to or respond" attitude on DW and on tumblr from people who self-identify as fandom olds and I'm sorry to get all Gen Z psychoanalytical on you, but all I think to myself when I read that is, "Who hurt you?", because that's the only reason I can imagine someone viewing people interacting with others as bad. It reads as a trauma thing.

--

Really? That's a "fandom Old" thing now? I thought most people were still hung up on how community was so much better on LJ or whatever.

[thetantiger]

Character Insight #6: Ashley

Full Name: Ashley Cindra Scorchmane Gender: Female (she/her) Race: Worgen Class: Mage Specialization: Fire Orientation: Straight (ally!) Relatives: No Known Relatives Age: 39 Height: 6'11 (5'7 Human form) Voice reference: Loona - Helluva Boss Theme: Choke - I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

[BACKSTORY] (TWs for implied queerphobia and racism happening in this character's backstory)

Ashley grew up in Tirisfal Glades surrounded by the Scarlet Crusade. As a toddler, her parents were slain by rogue undead, and thus the organization took her in. Their goal with her was to raise her to be an Inquisitor of the Crusade, and so they assigned her to one Samuel Price in order to teach her their arts of interrogation. However, their methods were.. less than humane, with Inquisitor Price teaching Ashley to set alight the flesh of any the Crusade had deemed heretics until they either gave in to their ideals or died of the torture. If she protested or questioned him, she was often abused herself, and as a result, Ashley's outlook on any that disagreed with the teachings of the Crusade turned sinister quickly. She was indoctrinated to believe that those that opposed the Crusade or any of its teachings were not to be trusted, and sometimes that spread to some people's mere existences as their race or sexuality or gender orientation. After all, she was taught that they were heretics, and any accused of such that the Crusade would bring to her, once she had taken up the role of Inquisitor and grown into her own, would burn before her magic.

Except.. something went wrong. In her own perfect world of delusion existed the outside world of Tirisfal, full of monsters and harsh realities she would soon face. A wild, feral Worgen found her in the woods and sank its teeth into her. Before she could even begin to wonder how to stop the bleeding her mind and body were taken over by the Worgen curse. Her mentor, Inquisitor Price, took enough mercy on her to administer the cure to her so she could be of sound mind again. However, he also outcast her from the Crusade, and swore she would be killed on sight if she were to ever return simply for her state as a Worgen.

Ashley did the only thing she could do. She fled, running into the hills of Tirisfal, her mind still plagued by the Scarlet Crusade's indoctrination. She lived alone in the woods, surviving on her magics and only delving further into insanity.. until she met the Shadows of the Faithful.

The most notable member of the group to her was one Derek Montend, a Gilnean priest that had also previously been a sort of.. harsh person. An overabundance of Light magic crazed him and caused him to attack the Shadows of the Faithful, later returning as an ally to fix the wounds he had left behind. He saw himself in Ashley quite blatantly, and chose to help her leave her old mindset behind instead of fighting fire with fire.. literally. So, he took her in. She had to be caged at first in order to restrain her insatiable need for violence against the members of the Faithful--many of them she found disgusting and worthy of incinerating--yet slowly but surely, she began to warm up (see what I did there) to both Derek and the rest of the Faithful. She conversed with them, and found that they were simply people just like herself, and, over time, she noticed herself growing fond of quite a few of them. So, one day, when discussing the fact she still wore a Scarlet Crusade tabard, she silently made a decision.

The Scarlet Crusade had been long wiped out for a while now. Their remaining settlements were few and dwindling. Lady Whitemane was a Horseman of the Ebon Blade. Renault Mograine had been slain long ago. The Dreadlord in their midst had ruined them, and their ideologies were simply outdated in modern society. But the ruins of their hatred remained in the northern lands of the Eastern Kingdoms. Ashley journeyed into the Eastern Plaguelands, towards their old settlement on the coast near Light's Hope Chapel and Acherus's former residence. She did not enact her horrors here, but it fit well enough. She had dawned a new tabard, one still reminiscent of her firey magics and even kept a blazing symbol as a small reminder to her origins, but was orange and yellow instead, bearing new colors to represent a new era of Ashley Scorchmane. She raised her old tabard--the red and white one bearing the mark of the Crusade as well as faded bloodstains--to the podium where a preacher may have once stood, and set the tabard alight. She ripped demonizing texts from their pages and set those alight, too, keeping them locked in a permanent state of incinerations with a little arcane touch, and wrapped them around herself. The very teachings that had taught her so ruthlessly to burn those unlike her would, themselves, burn. Satisfied, she stepped back outside, and for the first time in her life-- felt the true, warm and pure embrace of the Light.

She would serve the Shadows of the Faithful as retribution for her past actions and philosophies--just as Derek Montend had done.

[THOUGHTS]

WHEW, personally I fucking love this girl's development! She only had her redemption moment recently and I would argue there's still a long way for her to go to truly balance out everything she's done, but I absolutely adore this spoicy little ball of hatred that evolved into a warmer, happier and friendlier gal. She even knitted a little pride mug warmer for Rachel qwq

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed! I sure enjoy writing these, so :D

[moonisthedoor]

slight vent under cut, cw for general queerphobia

Zero days since a lecturer used "sexual minorities" as an example for the point they wanted to make... Like, the thing is, even the most well-meaning of them always talk about it like they don't think any of the students in attendance might actually be queer, which is slightly disheartening and I always disengage until the conversation shifts to something else because, well. Might as well not be here since they don't expect me to. At least in a class mostly consisting of women (or, well, afab students, case in point: me), most lecturers know better than to talk about sexism/misogyny like it doesn't affect people in the room, at least that much they understand. But as for queer students, especially trans/nonbinary ones... Well. Most people don't think someone like me exists in their vicinity and just. I guess I should be grateful that they aren't outright hateful at least? That they don't set out to specifically hurt anyone? Still.

[fragileswift1313]

Kia ora, friends!

If you’ve been following along since last year, you might remember a little piece of something I shared in December called Underground. If you haven’t read that, I definitely think you should either before or after this! It doesn’t matter what order, though, either way I think you’ll get some context for details present in the other. This is another very rough draft, but I like where it’s going and it definitely has potential to feed back into the afore mentioned Underground scenario.

I posted on twitter tonight (at the time I was writing this, a couple days ago) about how I have kind of been struggling with whether or not to make every one of my big characters queer; every time I write a new person into existence (or they come into existence for me to write about - I’m not entirely sure!), my instinct is always to make them a lesbian or bisexual or non-binary or trans (or many all in one) and there’s a part of my brain that pushes back on that. I think it really comes down to the deeply internalised misogyny and queerphobia that I have as someone who didn’t always know they were queer and trans and non-binary, so I’m trying to push back against that. I really enjoy writing queer relationships and the people in them, and I think there is a part of me that thinks that excluding cisgender heteronormative relationships is excluding a portion of a potential audience, which is wild because, like, who cares? So, sorry, if you are a cisgender heteronormative person coming to my writing and feel excluded… that’s kind of by design. There are enough stories in the world about those kinds of people, and I want to hold space for stories about not those people.

Anyway, all of that is to say that this fragment of a story is about two new characters named Cassy and Taylor. Taylor is a non-binary trans-fem and Cassy is a gay trans man. They have two children together named Riley and Canada (why Canada? I don’t know, it just came to me!) and they all live together in an underground facility known as a crisis shelter. I haven’t nailed down all the details about timelines or even locations compared to the Underground story fragment, I mean that should be obvious since both are pretty rough drafts, but I wanted to make sure these share some key details. These stories are part of a whole that comes after a form of world-shattering collapse, hundreds of years in the past, where technology is still present and usable but ancient. I could write a whole page about where I got my inspiration for this setting, and if you know me you can probably guess a few, but I have tried to make it my own and I will work on that further as this story, these stories, become more cohesive. But I should shut up and let you get to the part you came here for: queer people!

Let’s jump in.

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“When you were packing up and getting ready to leave, it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I told you I love you.” Cassy’s eyes darted around Taylor, trying desperately not to look at them, yet somehow always landing on them, even for the briefest of moments. Taylor blushed.

“So, are you going to, then?” Taylor prodded, shyly but playfully. “Uhm, am I going to?” “Tell me you love me, idiot,” they laughed. “Oh… uh, yes… I love you.” “I love you too Cassy. Was that so hard?” “No, I…” “We’ve been together for ages now, it’s okay to say it sometimes.” “I know, I… it’s been a long time since I felt safe.” “I know, and you are safe here.” “I love you, Taylor,” Cassy sighed gently as the butterflies in his stomach took flight. “I love you too,” Taylor reached out to put a hand to Cassy’s cheek, and they responded with a small chuckle and a smile. “Are you ready to go?” “No. I’m going to miss you, I hope you know that.” “I do. I’ll miss you too. But it’s only for a few months.” “Yes.” “And when you’re back, well, you’ll have succeeded.” “I will.” “And we’ll be safe. For good.” “Yes.” “So, are you ready to go?” “Yes.”

Daylight was barely breaking as Cassy watched his love from a short distance as they loaded their saddlebags onto the small courier mech. The two of them had cobbled the mech together from scrap salvaged in the lower levels of the shelter where the life support systems had broken down. It had taken them a year to build, and it was ramshackle but sturdy. Taylor had a lot of gear to bring with them, no one knew what they would find when they reached their destination, or even along the route. No one had been that way for decades, much less returned. Taylor’s destination was an ancient pre-apocalypse crisis shelter, much like Sierra shelter, the one Cassy and Taylor lived in, but long since abandoned and overrun by various flora and fauna. Taylor’s objective was a computer deep within the shelter, hundreds of metres underground. On that computer should be access codes and telemetry data for the dormant communications satellites orbiting the planet. The theory was that if the data on that computer could be recovered, it would be possible to feed it into their own shelter’s systems and reactivate the satellites, reenabling communication between all of the shelters across the planet. And if that theory proved correct, then the shelters could begin to coordinate their efforts against the elements and hostile forces, with the goal of securing the planet and making it safe for everyone to start returning to the surface, to repopulate the world and rebuild it. It was a noble plan, but an extremely tenuous one. There were some in Sierra shelter who believed it was a wasted effort and that the data was lost, or that even if the satellites were able to be spun up again the communications architecture on the ground would still be inoperable. But no one really knew for sure. The consensus was that it would be a waste of equipment, resources, and people. But that was why Taylor was going, and going alone – they knew that if they didn’t, no one else would. And Cassy understood – he believed in the mission.

Once all of the gear was loaded, Taylor made their way back to Cassy. They took Cassy’s hand in theirs and looked into his eyes. “It’s not too late to forget about all this,” Cassy smirked, knowing he wouldn’t change their mind. “You know that’s not true,” they smiled. “This will all be worth it.” “It will. We’re counting on you.” “And I’m counting on you to keep it together while I’m gone. For the kids.” Cassy nodded. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a small circular object and presented it to Taylor. “I found this a few days ago, I kept it from you because I wanted it to be a surprise.” “Is that…?” “…a network beacon. I tinkered with it a little and got it to work with the terrestrial network. It has a solar charger, so if you wear it on your backpack it’ll be charged when you want to use it.” Taylor turned the device over in their hands. “It doesn’t squawk?” they asked almost to themselves, noticing it had no speaker or microphone. “No, it’s an old emergency beacon. I couldn’t get a comms one working. But when you hook this up, it’ll send a ping through the network to the computer in our quarters. I’ll be able to see where you are on the map… and I’ll know you’re still alive.” Cassy averted his eyes, a little ashamed of his insinuation. “I’ll be fine, love,” Taylor reassured him, squeezing his hand. “I know, just… use the beacon? Please?” “I will,” they smiled warmly. “The, uh… kids will be grateful.” “Right. The kids.” Taylor winked at Cassy and squeezed his hand again. “You should get going. Don’t want to waste the daylight.” “Yes. Tell Riley and Canada I love them.” “They know. But I will.” Cassy and Taylor embraced, and then softly kissed. “I’ll be back before you know it.” “Be careful.” “I will.” “I’ll see you soon.” “See you soon.” Taylor turned and headed toward the courier mech and climbed aboard. They briefly looked back and waved to Cassy, before turning their attention back to the patchwork control panel and reacquainted themselves with the navigation system. A few button presses and a couple of switch turns later, the mech lurched into life and began making its way down the dirt path, away from the shelter access tunnel where Cassy was standing, and toward the sun cresting the horizon. Cassy continued to watch until he couldn’t see Taylor or hear their creaking mech lurching across the landscape and returned to the shelter.

Taylor’s expression turned steely as looked to the horizon and absent-mindedly adjusted the mech’s stability switch, trying to find a comfortable balance.

“I swear to the stars, this plan had better work.”

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So what did you think? As always, I would love to hear your feedback, and you can hit me up at the social or email links at the bottom of the page. Comments, questions, suggestions? Let me know!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read, I really appreciate it. And if you liked this or any of my other posts, consider telling a friend? It’s completely free and would really help me out - I don’t do any paid advertising of any sort so the best way I can reach more people is by word-of-mouth. Also, please consider subscribing to my Substack to get these posts direct to your inbox every Monday at 8am NZST! It's also free, but I have a couple of paid tiers too if you you want to support me monetarily - or you can tip me here!

That’s it for this week, folks. Take care of yourselves and I’ll talk to you again soon.

Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚

Socials etc | Twitter | Mastodon | Cohost | Substack | itch.io | Letterboxd | Instagram | Carrd | Email

[ear-motif]

hi i saw a post u deleted and i would like to comment on it without saying too much and betraying ur choice to delete it (but if you'd like to not publish this anon, i will not be offended) ... however i want u to know it's completely 100% normal and okay. we live in a society and all things are progress (in case u needed to hear it). i've experienced that as well and i think about it like this: things around you that you experience are no more than the language of the world. you are learning a new language in which to express yourself. immersion (if possible) even in small and growing increments helps wildly. and, until you are comfortable enough to speak that language, stay silent. just listen and learn until you're ready. but if everyone around you is speaking a different language, you couldn't possibly be ready from the start! its very okay and while i respect and understand why you deleted, i did really enjoy the vulnerability. it was brave and true <3

YOU ARE SO SWEEEET THANK U SO MUCH ANON feel free to hop in my dm's any time.

So I had a post up for like 5 mins talking about struggling with internalized queerphobia and this is one of those days where the adderall hit well enough for me to perceive myself so here's some detail on that

So I've identified as a more-or-less-binary trans man for ~4 years now. I've been closeted to a majority of people that whole time, as I was busy with school, my family is/was unsupportive, and my mental health has been too shit for me to deal with transitioning on top of everything else.

But because I've waited so long I'm thinking...well am I really trans? And the long and short of it is; I don't really care anymore if I'm "technically" trans or not. But if I'm not a trans man, then the easiest way to communicate my identity would be butch and/or nonbinary (which, I know nb is still trans but its different than man so idk).

But I've aaalways been super uncomfortable being thought of as a lesbian. One reason, which is the easy one, is because it's simply not true. I'm bi/pan and I'm attracted to men. That's a solid part of my identity and I don't see that changing any time soon.

But hating being seen as nonbinary and/or butch (if we assume butches can be non-lesbians, idk what the community consensus is on that tbh) is a little...weirder. I shouldn't be so angry and worried about being perceived as a lesbian, lesbians are awesome. At first I thought well it's because I hate being seen as a woman, duh. But like...a lot of lesbians, especially butches, don't like being referred to as women either. So that felt like a cop-out.

And basically what I've realized is that this fucking pattern I've had of being extremely competitive over the stupidest shit is rearing its ugly head again. I was (I guess still am) threatened by butches being more effortlessly masculine and even male-passing than I will ever be. And I thought of it as a diss or a put down, like if I even tried to be butch, I wouldn't be masc enough and I wouldn't be welcome. Or that butches very existence was proof that I'll never be masculine enough to justify transitioning to male, I can't even fit in with masc women for christsakes. So I think I sublimated this insecurity into envy that spiralled into contempt and othering. Never intentionally or outwardly...but it doesn't feel good knowing in your own mind that you are prejudiced against a marginalized group.

And I deleted the post kinda because I was like fuck if I'm not a lesbian or butch this isn't internalized anything this is just lesbophobia. and that's not something to make a cute lil post about, thats something to be genuinely ashamed of and to work on in private. but also. just cause it's internalized doesn't mean its not bad so.

and then I kinda just realized that 99% of butches are not gonna give one tenth of a shit how masc I am or if I'm "really butch" and I am literally the only one who cares so much about this shit. I've spent my entire life shadowboxing with everyone and it's gotten me fucking nowhere. and that helped! i dont feel this mysterious resentment when i think about butch lesbians as a group anymore.

so i am gonna take your advise and just listen and learn. I wanna try to read stone butch blues again. I stopped because I got horribly insecure about how I actually enjoy bottoming and that must mean I'm not masculine enough to even be butch, let alone a man...and that's not the point of the book at all i was/am just too self-absorbed to understand another person's worldview

and there's always gonna be the shame about how in the end. this whole envy thing is self-obsession. and that doesnt feel good at all. i claim to want to help others but really im so fucking obsessed with myself that i make my own problems. most days i know that and all i can do with that info is succumb to the depression. and be more self-obsessed. because despite being competitive i suck shit at actually being productive lol. but some days, like today, the meds will hit just right and ill be able to make some kind of progress.

so idk. sorry im yappin nobody has to read this but anyways anon i love you to death. it means a lot that u like my vulnerability, i consider it one of my worst traits. i try hard not to let it out irl so it gets shat out online. love u mwah bye