#I can post my thoughts on the lgbt stuff but I only have like one (1) new thing to say and it's more about a different book entirely lol

[crtter]

I’ve been seeing some people getting a bit confused and getting some stuff wrong in the comments of that one post telling the story about the creator of Neopets throwing a hissy fit (Hissi fit lol) over people disliking his idea of a game “that’s just like Neopets but with crypto” and I don’t want to add anything to it to not bother the OP but Neopets has been a hyperfixation of mine since I was 13 and I physically can’t stop myself from going “Um, ackshually ☝️🤓” so I’m gonna do it in my own post. Here’s what happened:

The guy who got super pissed off and started badmouthing Neopets users, ending his tirade with a selfie of him giving Neopets users the finger, Adam Powell, did create Neopets, yes, but he doesn’t own it anymore since it was sold to Viacom in 2005. He has been involved in a few game ventures since but they haven’t been very successful.

His idea wasn’t to “implement NFTs in Neopets”, he’s developing (or planning to) another game that’ll apparently be free to play with some extra paid features, and said features would be paid in some sort of cryptocurrency.

Sadly, the parent company of Neopets, JumpStart, already tried to implement NFTs by partnering with Metaverse back in 2021, with disastrous results, both in the eyes of Neopets players (who hated the idea because NFTs are a scam and terrible for the environment and all) and in the eyes of NFT bros (because the NFTs in question were VERY overpriced given their poor quality and made using stolen assets from Neopets fan sites). The project is apparently still underway but it’s hugely unpopular and tweets made by the official Neopets Metaverse account mostly only gets engagement from NFT bots, if they get any at all.

Back to Adam. He apparently thought people would be “excited about his new game because of the Neopets Metaverse thing”, without knowing how much the fanbase hated the whole thing, and tried to peddle it in the Discord server of the r/Neopets subreddit, a subreddit that has always been VERY vocal against the Neopets NFTs. And well. You can guess how much people weren’t interested in his game. Then, just to make matters worse, people went on the Discord server of his game and saw that it was badly moderated and chock full of homophobic comments made by cryptobros.

Adam gets pissed off at people disliking his game idea and not taking kindly to his comments that “they just don’t understand what crypto is about” and goes on an angry tirade, saying stuff such as how much he wished he never made Neopets because the fanbase sucks, saying he’s going to buy it back just to destroy it and ending in the aforementioned middle finger selfie, all while people clowned on him like crazy. This ended in him getting banned from the Discord server AND from the r/Neopets subreddit. He then started trying to defend himself and demanding to be unbanned in… the comment thread of a news article relating the incident in the Neopets fan site Jellyneo. Last time I checked he was still at it.

He blamed his outburst on “having drunk alcohol while on Sertraline” and has said he wasn’t aware of the homophobic comments in his server and claimed that he doesn’t have anything against LGBT+ people, but he has also made it very clear he doesn’t think he’s in the wrong and won’t apologize for anything.

[benkyoutobentou]

LGBTQ+ Japanese Media for Pride Month

Happy pride month! There's no better time to read and watch queer media than June. I tend to read and watch mostly queer content, so I thought I'd drop some things that I've enjoyed over the years for those looking for something that they maybe haven't picked up before. Since lots of Japanese media tends to have multiple versions and adaptations, I'll be organizing this by representation rather than type of media. The version(s) that I've personally seen or read will be bolded. This will also be a little bit different from my usual Japanese media recommendation posts, as I will also be including media that I've read in English or watched with English subtitles. This is also an invitation for anyone to recommend things to me, especially ones that have LGBT rep outside of just gay and lesbian characters. I'm always looking for more stuff to enjoy!

MLM

同級生/Classmates (manga/anime movie): Two seemingly opposite boys meet during the choir festival at their all boys' school and develop a relationship. How could this not be the very first thing I recommend? This is one of my all time favorite BL series and one of my favorite movies as well. Seriously, I watch this at least three times per year (once being during June!). Nakamura Asumiko is one of my favorite manga artists, and this won't be the last series of hers on this list.

ひだまりが聴こえる/I Hear the Sunspot (manga/movie): This follows a college student who agrees to become the designated note taker for a deaf classmate. I love this series and one of my favorite things about it is how much the romance takes a backseat to other things happening in the characters lives. It also has a large cast of deaf characters! If you're looking for something with representation outside of only LGBT and doesn't focus too much on romance, this is a really great choice.

30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい/Cherry Magic! 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard (manga/drama/anime): After waking up on his thirtieth birthday, a businessman discovers that he has gained the ability to read minds. And with that, he discovers that his male coworker has a crush on him. For such a zany concept, this series is very cute and sweet. It's also always nice to see something that follows older characters (ie. not high school or college).

美しい彼/My Beautiful Man (novel/drama/manga): This follows a social outcast who ends up falling in love with a boy in the friend group of his high school bullies. This isn't a sweet and heartwarming romance at all, but it's also not pure toxicity. The drama is extremely bingeable and the author is a juggernaut in the BL light novel community for a reason.

消えた初恋/My Love Mix Up (manga/drama): Due to an eraser mishap, a boy admits to having feelings for another boy in order to save his actual crush from embarrassment. This series is The Blueprint for me in terms of romcoms. It does everything right for me and the characters especially stand out. It covers topics from discovering your identity and first love to dealing with homophobia and it does it all spectacularly. I also think that the manga does visual humor extremely well.

スリーピングデッド/Sleeping Dead (manga): After being stabbed to death on a routine patrol, a popular high school teacher wakes up on a metal table. I have no words [words]. This is definitely up there in my favorites, I love it so much. If you like queer horror, this is definitely one you need to pick up. I also found it very funny and the characters were extremely charming.

僕らの地球の歩き方/Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide (manga): A couple decides to travel the world together, promising that they'll get married upon their return to Japan. Probably my all time favorite manga ever. I love every single thing about this, especially how much this series loves the queer community. This manga is overflowing with love in all ways, and I'm overflowing with love for this manga.

きのう何食べた？/What Did You Eat Yesterday? (manga/drama): This series is basically just snippets of a gay man's daily life. He likes to cook. And you know what? It's all the better for it. This series is award winning and such a great time. The main character is so relatable and it covers some great LGBT+ topics. Honestly, it's a crime that I haven't seen the drama yet.

WLW

独り舞/Solo Dance (novel): After a violent encounter, a Taiwanese woman makes the choice to move to Japan. When reading this, I saw it mention Qiu Miaojin's Notes of a Crocodile, which I had just bought, and now that I've finally read it, I can easily see the influences that Qiu's works had on this one. This is a tough book to get through emotionally, but ultimately a worthwhile read, especially if you're looking for something more on the literary side.

ささやくように恋を唄う/Whisper Me a Love Song (manga/anime): A girl confesses to an upperclassman that she loves her music, but the upperclassman misunderstands it as a true confession of love. I adore this series and the relationships in it. It has a huge cast of female characters and also has a driving plot outside of just the romance. I'm a sucker for series about music and this one is one of my favorites.

あさがおと加瀬さん/Kase San and Morning Glories (manga/anime movie): A shy gardener and a popular track star become friends and begin dating. This series is so cute! It feels like a GL staple to me and is one I've been following for practically as long as I've been reading manga in Japanese. It also has a sequel series called 山田と加瀬さん/Yamada and Kase San which follows the two of them after high school.

メジロバナの咲く/A White Rose in Bloom (manga): After not being able to go home for Christmas, a girl is stuck in her boarding school with one other student, who seems to not like her. This is another one by Nakamura Asumiko and there's something about her writing which always sucks me in. I can't get enough of this series, it has wonderful vibes, impeccable art, and I just want more and more of the characters.

欠けた月とドーナッツ/Donuts Under a Crescent Moon (manga): This series is a slice of life following two coworkers and their growing relationship. It's very slow burn and puts a lot more emphasis on the feelings of coming into and realizing your sexuality as an adult and dealing with compulsory heterosexuality. I really loved this series and how it focused on issues surrounding but not directly related to the central romance.

気になってる人が男じゃなかった/The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All (manga): A girl develops a crush on a worker at a music store after bonding over their shared love of music. Little does she know, he's actually the girl who sits next to her in class. This manga has taken the world by storm to the point of having a collaboration with Nirvana, and let me tell you it deserves every bit of hype you've heard about it. The art and characters are both stunning and is absolutely worth the read.

ハロー、メランコリック！/Hello, Melancholic! (manga): A talented trombonist enters a high school without a wind band, but is scouted anyway by a drummer looking for a new member to join her combo band. This is another one where the romance takes a backseat to other stuff in the plot, can you tell that I love that sort of thing? I also really loved the ways they talked about music in here, and I could definitely relate to it as a musician myself. Apparently, all the chapter titles are songs as well.

さよならローズガーデン/Goodbye, My Rose Garden (manga): A young woman moves from Japan to England to find her favorite author and is hired on as a maid. Her boss agrees to help her find this author so long as she agrees to help her with a grisly task. This is another really lovely series with gorgeous art. Set in the Victorian era, this does have some time period appropriate homophobia but overall it didn't strike me as a very dark manga.

Transgender

彼らが本気で編むときは、/Close Knit (movie): A young girl goes to live with her uncle and his transgender girlfriend. This movie is so sweet and cute! I watched it a couple years back now, but I feel like a lot of specific scenes have stuck with me. This is definitely a good heartwarming Pride month movie night candidate.

不可解なぼくのすべてを/Love Me For Who I Am (manga): A nonbinary teen is offered a job at a crossdressing cafe run by a classmate's family. Although this series has a cast with multiple LGBT identities, I chose to include it here because the main theme seems to revolve around gender. I do recommend this series if you're looking for a cute and sweet story about gender issues, but I did have some hesitations about the way lesbians are portrayed in this manga.

ボーイミーツマリア/Boy Meets Maria (manga): A boy who dreams of being an actor falls in love at first sight with a girl he sees dancing in his high school entrance ceremony, only to later find that she is actually a boy in his class. I feel like I always need to preface any recommendation for this manga by saying that a lot of people took issue with the way certain things and tropes are handled in this regarding being transgender. I personally didn't find it transphobic but I'm also just one person and can't speak for every nonbinary person out there. Regardless, I really enjoyed this. Be aware of trigger warnings when going into this one, it gets extremely graphic.

ボーイズ・ラン・ザ・ライオット/Boys Run the Riot (manga): Two high school boys bond over their shared love of fashion and start a brand together. I read this one a while back and never ended up finishing it but I do remember enjoying what I read! It's also by a transgender mangaka!

放浪息子/Wandering Son (manga/anime): This is a slice of life coming of age series that follows a middle school friend group revolving around two transgender friends. It's more of a slow paced series and a little bit on the more depressing side. The anime is also award winning and the manga was nominated!

星合の空/Stars Align (anime): This is a sports anime about a middle school boys' soft tennis team. I always hesitate to recommend this one because it was greenlit for a twenty four episode anime then cut down to twelve episodes during production. Rather than condense the story, the creator chose to animate only the first half of the series, so it's perpetually unfinished. Despite that, I still think it was a really wonderful anime and I would really love to see the rest of it one day because so much good stuff was set up!

Other/Multiple

しまなみ誰そ彼/Our Dreams at Dusk (manga): A gay teen is about to commit suicide after being outed to his classmates but sees a mysterious person jump from a balcony, which then leads him to a drop in center for LGBT people. I cannot say enough good things about this manga, it is phenomenal and is always my go-to for anyone looking for queer manga. It's heartfelt and beautiful and written by another one of my favorite mangaka, Kamatani Yuhki, who also happens to be X gender!

ヒラエスは旅路の果て/Hiraeth: The End of the Journey (manga): After the death of her best friend, a young girl decides to join a forgotten god and an immortal man on their journey to find death. Another Kamatani manga! This manga deals more with grief and mortality rather than queer identities, but if you want something with casually queer characters, this one is worth picking up. Also, this is one of only two manga to ever make me cry, and boy did I ugly cry at this one.

恋せぬふたり/Two People Who Can't Fall in Love (drama): Though I haven't watched this one, it's been on my radar for quite a while and I've heard so many good things. It's also harder to find series that have explicit aroace representation. This is about a woman who feels ostracized by her lack of romantic interest in anyone around her until she finds a blog about asexuality.

わたしは壁になりたい/I Want to Be a Wall (manga): This series is a marriage of convenience plot between an asexual BL fangirl and a gay man who never got over his childhood crush. I loved the relationship between the two characters and the depiction of a nontraditional family that still has love within it, even if it's not romantic.

Bonus- Music

I'm not one to look much in to the person behind the music, so I often don't know much about band members or singers of the music I listen to. However, there are two wonderful transgender artists that I listen to regularly in Japanese and couldn't pass up the opportunity to share their works with the world! Nakamura Ataru is a pop singer who also takes inspiration from traditional Japanese music. I love her enka styled songs such as 廃墟の森! The other artist is a bit more popular, and that's the rock band QUEEN BEE, whose lead singer is the incredibly talented Avu Chan. Avu Chan also voiced Inu Oh in one of my favorite movies, Inu Oh, which isn't (explicitly) queer, but is definitely worth watching anyways, even if just to hear Avu Chan's insane vocal abilities.

And so, those are (just a few) of my recommendations for Japanese queer reads to celebrate Pride month! If you have any recommendations for me, regardless of whether it's a movie or novel or manga or other, I would love to hear them!

[sanzaibian]

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m still in love. And it made me do some crazy stuff.

Let me talk to you about my first love. Unrequited, of course, but still, first love.

His name was Liam. Skinny, tall, handsome, you know how late middle-school crushes look like. He was sociable, unlike me, but we still did have the kind of deep discussions that I like having, about niche interests, walking back and forth the schoolyard. I was obsessed with him, letting my imagination run wild with scenarios involving him, ranging from seeing him out of school (shock horror ! … it was actually a big deal for me...) to being somehow abducted inside his body and living life as him, with him at the helm and me helping him in daily activities. I also imagined fantastic stories about him being a herald of a magical organization of which I was also part or to which he initiated me. I even wrote them, and hold dear to my heart those worlds I made involving me and Liam.

I even planned on marrying his sister just to be close to him, because I could of course not be in a relationship with him.

Oh, sorry, did I not mention that I was denying I was anything but straight at the time ? Sorry for the misunderstanding. But yes, the whole time I interacted with my first love, I thought he was just a very important friend. How shocking it was to find out just a few years later that I was indeed in love with him.

Sigh.

The problem is that it didn’t stop there, when life drew us to continue school in separate places. After that time, and even now, I see him in anyone looking anything like him. For example, take this guy :

It’s not him.

He’s older, and if I look more closely, I find more and more differences.

However, I look at him, and can only see Liam.

It drove me crazy. Those look-alikes didn’t all look alike, some being buff, some having some stubble, some even being quite short, but all sharing the same short hairstyle, and that unmistakable face.

I just… couldn’t move on, move on from a crush on a straight guy on which I never made any move. I tried finding other people to have crushes on, to fall in love with, perhaps even date, yet I failed at every step. Failed in seeing attractive men as anything more than just that, attractive, failed in meeting men with which to create meaningful relationship, failed in finding any place in the LGBT community.

And punctuating all of that, a slow but steady stream of Liam look-alikes were met in the street.

So don’t blame me if I finished by believing in my own fantasies, that we were in a magical world, with him seeking me to be a part of it, whence all of his appearances in the street. Plus, growing more and more isolated, who was there to bring me back to reality ? Certainly not the internet, as I sought out more and more obscure websites in the quest to understand what was happening to me.

It lead me first of all to psychological knowledge, most of which I have forgotten since then, then to occult, to erotica in a strange turn of events, and then, finally, to that one website that seemed to be the key to all my questions. It was on a weird Weibo post, that kind that leaves links to websites with passwords to open pirated content, that I first encountered. Thankfully, all of my yearning gave me enough frustration to study Chinese enough to read it with a dictionary on the side, so I was able to understand what that post was about.

At first I was skeptical. It was sketchy, plus what it promised was ludicrous… a simple app that would be able to answer any question with 100% accuracy, plus it claimed to use no AI. It also promised to get some “real experience of the answer”, whatever that may mean – assuming my translation of “实际的答案经历” is even correct.

However, at that point, I was desperate to get anything conclusive from this endeavor.

So I entered my question inside the machine, in the best of my poor Chinese, and asked “為什麼我遇到很多像Liam的人？” (Why do I meet a lot of people like Liam ?). Looking back, I should have written my question using simplified characters instead of traditional characters, it might have confused the app…

When I entered the question, it simply answered “谢谢您的问题！请等一下答案经验准备好了！” (Thank you for your question ! Please wait a bit for the experience of the answer to be prepared !). I felt like I was cheated on, even though I didn’t really expect much. At least give me a paywall to be angry at, but no, it was an empty sentence, giving me no catharsis for the long search for any answer to all the Liams I saw. Of why he was still sticking in my mind, of why I couldn’t move on properly.

At that point, it was already late, so, with no catharsis, I decided that this was just not worth it. I uninstalled the app, looking back likely also a mistake, and decided to clock out for the night.

I didn’t sleep well that night, moving a lot, and never able to completely enter the realm of dreams. Instead of plunging in a seemingly instant coma, I was slowly and painfully experiencing all the hallucinations of slumber, tense and sweating.

The next day, when I woke up, nothing felt right.

The bed didn’t feel right, the room didn’t feel right, the weight didn’t feel right, the hair didn’t feel right… even the morning wood didn’t feel right. Yet… there was something undeniably familiar to everything. As if it’s inside the uncanny valley between being what is known to me and what isn’t. I stood up, the height also didn’t feel right… I walked a bit dizzily, and though I could blame my recent waking for that, the way my weight was distributed was too strange to dismiss it on this basis.

So, as any good protagonist in the erotica stories I read in my futile quest, I headed for the bathroom. The house layout wasn’t what I remembered, yet it still felt familiar and easy to navigate, so I found my way to it.

And although I already expected it, all the clues pointing to this very fact, I was still shocked when I saw my reflection.

Let me tell you, nothing, nothing can prepare you for the experience of looking at a stranger in the mirror. Not even dysphoria, I tell you.

Because it was so unsettling, seeing the one thing that is supposed to always be familiar, that is supposed to only change little by little, so slowly enough that the human brain cannot process it changing, be so radically different. To not look like oneself, to not have even the same shape, as I was suddenly buff.

And to look like Liam.

I was unable to do anything but stand, bewildered, in front of the mirror, for quite a long while, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. However, finally, I snapped out of my inaction. I automatically reached for the gel and spiked my hair up, even though I never even touched hair gel in my entire life, before going back to my bedroom to find my computer.

All I found was a laptop, but it sufficed. I go little by little to find back the trace of that Weibo post – installing a Chinese keyboard at the same time – but find little luck. Although I did find some familiar-looking webpages and links, I had a hard time finding anything…

Then, suddenly, it was 10AM, and I remembered that I was supposed to go to the gym. And that I didn’t even take the time to prepare my protein shake… God, I was so taken by my sudden transformation that I didn’t even think about the essential !

It took me until I was greeted by the gym receptionist as “Liam” to notice that I wasn’t actually supposed to work out, only the body I was in was.

It shook me, but not enough to forget to answer the receptionist as I always do. I put away my things in the locker room, and made my way to the machines, performing a well-oiled routine, going from one machine to the other automatically. It was good that everything came to me this naturally, as otherwise I would have found myself silly, standing in front of the machines wondering how they worked.

As I was working out, I was thinking on this whole… experience. Quite clearly, I am not who I used to be, nor where I used to be, yet I was acting perfectly reasonably inside the role of the one who is called Liam – that is not, to my disappointment, the Liam I knew. I only look like him. It seems that, somehow, the Liam I inhabit and I merged, letting me insert myself in the life of that Liam seamlessly, yet still keeping my shock, my interests and my wishes intact. As if I was living the life of the one I had taken the body of, only really acting like myself when the Liam I now am has no obligations.

Coming back “home”, I continued my search, and found the original app that triggered this whole thing. Yet, I couldn’t find a way to reverse what it had done, not within the app, nor inside the documentation, plus the app wouldn’t grand any other answer but “谢谢您使用我们应用，请跟朋友转转！” (Thanks for using our app, please share a bit with friends !).

So I guess I now have to live inside this alien body that is in all manners similar to my first love, even in name. I mean, there are worse fates, especially as this Liam thankfully also seems to be into men, yet I cannot help but feel unhappy about this arrangement. Although I now partly am the Liam I inhabit, I can’t help but feel like I have robbed him of his life, forcing him to sit at the back of my mind, experiencing his life in the third person. Plus, I can’t possibly get used to not being me, and especially not to looking just like the Liam of my memories.

Which lead me to my realization that motivated me to write about this.

The reason why I still find Liam everywhere in the streets (even now, inside the body of one of his look-alikes) isn’t that he has facial features rare enough to be noticeable, yet common enough to be shared by a big number of people. No, it’s the fact that I’m still thinking of him, which makes my brain look for people who look like him, whence seeing the resemblances with the Liam I knew rather than all the differences. And why do I still think of him ? The answer seems to be that I still haven’t moved on, that I’m still in love with my first love.

However, now that his face is the one that is reflected in the mirror...

Am I ever going to be able to move on and find love ?

[jess-the-vampire]

You know it's stuff like this why I partly can't join the owl house fandom. The fandom seems to persnickety about liking certain charactersand headcanons, especially as someone who has dealt with similar shit before in my other fandoms. Granted there are other reasons I hate the fandom, but this is the worst one. It kinda soured the show for me, granted I never cared for it, but they just worsening it for me.

At times like these, i think it's important to remember posts like this

Bigger fandoms, will always end up looking worse by comparison, it's inevitable unfortunately.

For me, this is also unfortunately nothing new, anyone whose been with me since the start knows that.

It was a decade ago, in another fandom, that i was harassed and accused of being homophobic, because i shipped some characters together that wasn't the popular same sex ship.

I shipped plenty of other same sex ships, heck, i considered the characters in question to be bisexual. But that did not stop me from being publicly mocked, harassed, and put on block lists.

I was underage at the time, this was my first fandom experience, and it also soured that fandom for me, even the show itself.

People go into these things, thinking they're protecting people, or helping others.

And on the surface, i could see how one would think that.

But you're really not, people are not that simple, and neither are what they enjoy or are drawn to.

I was a teenager having fun in my own little space, with a ship i knew was noncanon, and it wouldn't of taken much research to find out i had no issue with the lgbt community at all, but no, it was "You are erasing us, you only ship this because you hate gay people, you're a horrible human being and yada yada yada-"

now, a decade later, it's "You are ignoring the poc cast because you're racist, you only like this character and are invested in him because you believe in what he believes in, you're a racist and sexist being for enjoying him and yada yada-"

Look, people do this because they want to protect people who have been screwed for centuries, it's perfectly understandable to worry that people who think belos is a cool character could like him for the wrong reasons. But people who genuinely think this way are a minority, and will be way more outspoken about those beliefs, is the solution here really to go up to anyone who likes something you don't and ruin them without evidence? To accuse them all of horrible beliefs?

this entire belief system removes the possibility of many MANY other reasons people enjoy media, and is straight up jumping to conclusions that if someone doesn't fundamentally agree with what you think, they MUST be a bad person. No critical thinking, no trying to understand others, just straight up assuming things.

Which btw, ironically, is actually acting WAY more like belos then anything the artists doing wittober were actually doing. Even the idea people are making art about his childhood and therefore sympathizing with him falls apart because there have been just as much art about his crimes so far.

Belos is a villain in a cartoon, people have latched onto villain characters since the dawn of time, it's nothing new. If you're going to keep this train of thought going....is disney just bad for their villian brand? are people also horrible for similar reasons if they have a favorite disney villian?

This entire thought process can be applied anywhere if you try hard enough.

Which is the kinda thing that allows actual human beings to be genuinely hurt here.

like are people going to be hurt more because people make aus with belos, or are they going to be hurt more because people who make said aus are accused or being racist people worth scrutinizing?

This thought process also doesn't take into the account of the fact that the people who like belos, might also be lgbt or poc, which....a lot of them are from my experience.

You can't both preach the show's message of accepting people who are different from you, and then also try and justify harassing people because they fandom differently then you. Unless the wittebane people are actively spouting out racist and sexist stuff, they're not doing anything wrong by engaging in the parts of the fandom that interest them.

Not everyone will be drawn to the show for the same reasons, you always gotta remember that, everyone has different favorite characters, different ships, and different things that make them happy.

Fandom is meant to be fun, people make aus because they're fun, they want to play with the media they like and do new things with it.

I strongly doubt everyone who has made an au staring hunter, or belos, or who thinks the wittebanes are interesting, sat down and said "Man, i like this show, but there are too much minorities in it, i hate minorities, i should make an au removing them or draw the wittebanes because they are white".

as a fan of these characters myself, i like them, but don't care too deeply about the blights, other white popular characters. I feel that should imply my investment in them has a lot more to do with other aspects then race.

in fact this makes me wonder if the person complaining in the tags would have the same argument about aus staring eda or amity in the same vain, even though hunter eda and amity are all lgbt, and two are disabled.

If you are doing stuff like this, either don't engage with stuff that doesn't interest you, because it's really weird to be this obsessed with a part of the fandom you don't care about.

or maybe, actually try to understand why people like it, rather then assume it's for the wrong reasons.

just my thoughts.

[beartitled]

Can you do some more comics with Francis mosses

I can, but the problem is

That I’m pretty much out of ideas and I’m progressively getting tired of tnmn fandom

Ppl who look at my tags probably noticed that 😓

More of my thoughts under read more for curious ppl

(short answer maybe I will do more, but I desperately need a break from tnmn)

! Just a general warning: this came out kinda long + sort of venty

Originally I planned to do 1 comic drop and move on, but got stuck bc ppl liked tnmn comics and kept asking for more (and still do-)

Generally I don’t mind doing more if the ideas are there, but I want to address this: I’m tired

I know blowing up is usually a good thing and I appreciate people enjoying my stuff

But it’s exhausting to see that tnmn is the only type of content which is relevant, to the point that my own projects or stuff I enjoy are just kinda.. ignored

It’s fair – again my blog is heavily fandom based

(+Tsp were and still is kinda the focus)

But with tnmn fandom it’s a bit… different

Maybe I’m biased and it’s just my negative experience with tiktok comments

Remember this art?

cleaning up transphobic comments was.. um tough

Again, I get that you can’t be in that neat bubble completely sheltered from negativity

Humans are just assholes by nature really/j

So I was expecting the backlash, but not that much

I think maybe tsp fandom spoiled me a bit (in a good way), bc I got a feeling that everyone in tsp was positive of any lgbt+ headcanons and just generally more supportive

(don’t get me wrong, there ARE problems in tsp community too, taking narrators design controversy into account as one of the examples)

Obviously every fandom always has it’s own issues, show me at least one fandom that didn’t have some sort of meaningless controversy or some sort of problematic people in it

It happens

But it leaves a bad taste in your mouth sometimes

And for me personally it only added to not so pleasant experience

The thing I also noticed, when I interacted with other fandoms

Ppl wrote positive stuff first and foremost, not really asking for anything

Here it’s just “hey more. I want more. Do more. Do this character. Do this. Do more.”

The only reason I kept doing more, because likes, reblogs, views – these comics get a ton of attention

there is a audience to please alright

But this thing comes with a pressure tho

and it shows

so let me illustrate

This bookcase

Is my shame

Because I was so rushing, I just copied and colour corrected this bookcase from my diploma comic and pasted it here in hopes for the best

💥IT LOOKS HORRIBLE OKAY💥

Usually it’s normal to take materials used in other projects

the not so normal part is

to leave it like that because your stress reducing tea doesn’t work and you don’t really have time to redraw it

my m en ta l s t a t e i s f i n e ah ah h ah ah

Ok but jokes aside: it’s really tempting, to just abandon everything and produce content like some sort of content farm

But I don’t want to, I’m forcing myself and it makes my art worse

Yes it’s subtle, new people won’t even see this

But I’m not improving

And I don’t enjoy just anxiously popping out comics because everyone keeps asking

I can give it my all to something when I’m passionate, but just “hey I’m getting attention” is not the best motivator

Attention like that does get to my head, I know that I will probably give in again and do more, bc I will compare my posts engagement

But what’s the point of recognition, when you feel.. so numb about it…

Sorry for a mountain of text and thank you for ppl who actually took their time to read it

It’s been building up for a while and I feel like people need to know the reason why I’m not so enthusiastic about making “more”

I’m not necessarily completely abandoning this fandom

I still plan to do ask/suggestions event for STP (I’m just making sure I can dedicate my time to it, that’s why it’s taking so long) and I can add tnmn to the mix

Like STP+tnmn kind of deal

But for now – I need a break

At least for a little bit

[the-s1lly-corner]

Can you write the TADC cast with a male ballet dancer reader? The reader experiences gender dysphoria 24/7 because they look very feminine and all that.

TADC cast x male!ballet dancer!reader w/ dysphoria

back to finishing up the current line up of requests!! reminder that im only doing requests that have been sent in prior to them being closed! any requests that are sent in while theyre still closed will not be taken and will be deleted so i can keep track of what was sent before closing; its nothing against any of yall and you guys can resend your stuff when they are reopened (i will make it very obvious when they are so dw!!) on a different note i could have sworn i did a cast request with a reader who does ballet; but i guess it was only for jax and i was confusing the group request for the ballora type! reader from this morning huh anyways!! i hope you enjoy this anon! quick warning that i know literally nothing about ballet so im

CAINE:

i think he enjoys a bunch of art forms; from music stuff to dance stuff to painting stuff, this man has taste. i think he would give you a bunch of outfits for you to wear and swap around that fits your aesthetic. bro would give you a whole walk in closet. as for dysphoria, i think he would do a similar thing with jax and reinforce how masculine you are to him, usually through affirmations, but he also shows it through just being there for you, bro is not only your number one fan but hes also your biggest supporter

POMNI:

i am yet again stumped on what to put in for pomni, since i think pomni is. bad at comforting people. very awkward, do not go to her for advice she will fumble so bad. now its not like shes not trying, but i think she would be all over the place trying to cover everything that could possibly help you; perhaps you two ultimately settle on cuddling one another... if this werent the digital world you two would probably put on a movie to take your mind off of it. as for her thoughts on ballet! i think she would find it neat, similar to jax she would have a form of respect for it!

RAGATHA:

she thinks it looks pretty, the dancing! she wouldnt know all the history or more in depth parts of it but she would watch you practice if you allowed her too... i think she would make you a binder, if your digital body causes any gender dysphoria for you.. though now that i type this i recall it being said that the characters clothing being stuck to their body.. so maybe she would just make you clothing thats more masculine as well? im not sure on this one!

JAX:

doing jax first since he already got a similar post and i can use it as a basis; ive said this in that post as well as the ballora one but i think he would at least appreciate the dedication and hard work that goes into ballet... to like, fully commit to something like that impresses him you know? as for dysphoria, i think he would make it a point to call you more masculine terms. hes gonna be trying his best to try to help you with your dysphoria in the way that best helps you. lays off on his teasing on days where its worse

KINGER:

i am yet again distraught that i do not have many ideas for kinger this time, which is sad because hes my favorite character and i can relate so hard to the dysphoria thing... thinks.. probably throws all of his knowledge at you. i mean hes been in the circus for a while, hes probably seen at least a few people come and go; and sure what are the odds that he has some experience helping someone fight through their dysphoria... a boy can dream! takes you to his pillow fort and lets you stay for as long as you want

probably sits and watches you dance on a makeshift pillow thrown. claps when you're done, probably throws roses... i think caine would throw roses too except he would throw way more simply because he can literally. manifest as many as he wants

ZOOBLE:

i dont usually like sharing my lgbt hcs about characters out of fear that it would be met with discourse but if i recall correctly zooble doesnt really have a gender/a set one (if im wrong correct me!) so they understand the dysphoria thing; i think they would offer to let you hang out in your room and vent your feelings out. probably tries to give advice on how to feel better in general if you want advice, but if you want comfort theyre gonna do your best to give it to you. i dont think zooble would have much of an opinion on ballet; neither negative or positive, simply knowing thats its an art form! supports you if it makes you happy, though!

GANGLE:

while not the same thing, i like to think gangle used to do ribbon dancing in the real world... because... ribbon girl. see look im so so creative

but also i think it looks pretty

so you guys can bond over your hobbies! you might have to pry gangle to open up and talk about her interest in it, assuming she picks it up again in the digital world! as for dysphoria, i think gangle would be like zooble in terms of lending you some support; offers to help distract you if you dont want to tackle the issue at that point in time. i dont know about you, but sometimes i just, dont want to deal with my own dysphoria, but perhaps thats just a me thing

[spyroz]

i dont reblog those posts about how hard it is to have moralizing ocd in online spaces, even though i deeply resonate with them. ironically, i can only talk to 2 people about my ocd, because one of my obsessions is that other people will assume im using my mental health as a shield against criticism if i talk about it. therefore, if i talk about my ocd in any circumstance, my brain believes that i'm already doing something immoral

basically, most of my obsessions resolve around people assuming bad faith of me or that i'm somehow secretly an irredeemably bad person, no matter how hard i try to be good. i am a bad person if i dont reblog posts about serious topics, spend every waking moment thinking about extremely serious topics, or make any social mistakes whatsoever (which is scary because i'm also autistic). i believe that i am irredeemable if i make a small mistake, and i often think all my friends are waiting for me to make a mistake so that they can attack me, and that my life will be ruined if i fuck up. im constantly scanning all my interests (and people i know) for the tiniest imperfections (far beyond healthy amounts of criticism in your interests) out of fear that liking anything or anyone makes me a horrible person. if you dont take a side on this lgbt label discourse, then youre a bigot! im ALWAYS mentally preparing responses and apologies to totally theoretical situations of people being upset with me. i have intrusive thoughts about doing the immoral things that scare me most.

the problem is, *talking about* any of these thoughts invites people who will actually bad faith me. "if youre so worried about this stuff, then you must have something to hide! you just want to avoid accountability!" they make your obsession a reality by accusing you of the exact thing you fear most. none of these thoughts are reasonable or realistic, and i know that. i know that i'm mentally ill. i know logically that i'm as good a person as anyone else. when i actually do make a mistake, i stay level-headed and apologize, acknowledge what i did wrong, and change my behavior

but there is a large part of me that does not want to heal from my ocd, because i believe constant self-monitoring and self-critique is the only thing preventing me from becoming a horrible person

there is nothing i want more in this world than to be a good altruistic human being who is capable of growth, but spending weeks trapped in thought loops analyzing all my behaviors for the smallest signs of a mistake will not help me be a better person. it makes me a worse friend. it drains my energy so that i dont have the mental capacity to actually spend time being kind to others. i reread this post many times while writing it to make sure i didnt accidentally write 6 different slurs. but i can't figure out how to heal. what the fuck do i do about this

this is incredibly hard for me to write about. i'm fighting the urge to delete this post as you read it. i cant stress how debilitating this is for me, it is the biggest hurdle in my life and it sucks away days worth of my time and energy. i will become trapped in thought-loops THE SECOND im not kept sufficiently busy and stimulated by tv/music/my bf/being out of the house somewhere/etc. so much of my life is wasted wanting to be good, that i dont get a chance to actually live the life of a good person

i really hope this post resonates with someone. ive only met a few other people who have this particular kind of ocd, and its extremely isolating. but i want to try to heal from it, and i know the first step to healing is talking about it

[daysofmoron]

Okay, by this point I'm tired

A little bit of my thoughts on some situation, that one, by my surprise, that is still going and i see it like some hell of the ride

My discussion going to take places around one person /I'm not going to name them/

I met this person online while drawing in magma, and i thought/and still think/ about them as a fun to talk to and draw with

Let's be honest - we drew some NSFW stuff /in closed magma sessions/

At some point they revealed that they’re turning 18 and not 19.

After this everyone suddenly went into rampage mode/again, this is how i see the situation, you can have your own opinion on that/

Some people, like me, didn't care about their age, if they're fun to communicate with, I don't really think about how old they are

But other audience...well, some said that they're just disappointed, and i understand, they have their own reasons

But there were people who started anonymously or even openly harass this person

Let's be honest - nobody is going to sue you

You didn't know their age when you interacted with them. The fact that they were hiding their real age is their responsibility, not yours

Second of all - once they will turn 18 nobody is going to care or call the police. As if police would want to get involved in something like this

Okay, now to the point

On insta some other day i saw a couple of people posting in their stories "don't talk to this person" and sharing this person’s account

By this point i was so tired of seeing all of this happening, and I don't want people harassing one person because of one mistake they made, and, again, they admitted they were wrong, they’re already paying the price. Of course this doesn't mean that people will suddenly forgive them, but again, does this age stuff really matter when you just chatting?...

Anyway, i texted one person that posted this on insta, expressing my opinion that they shouldn't probably share this person's account, because let's be real, it can encourage more harassment, it even looks like harassment when you post stuff like this with some rude comment about this person

They replied to me that they weren't trying to harass anyone, just wanted to make sure that other people won't get involved in some weird stuff this person causing

. . .

What?

I then saw that they also shared in the story that they have proofs

I asked for these proofs, they send me some screenshots of conversation with another person, who told that the person this whole situation is about not only hid their true age

Is also a t-cest shipper...

//a VERY heavy sigh//

I'm sorry...wHaT?

In this message i saw they were writing about this person following the artist that loves drawing t-cest, not only turtles, but April, Casey Jr and etc and etc

. . .

So like, we can't now like just the drawing style of artist? If they have some strange thing that we don't agree with, we should just ban this person

I still don't see people leaving, for example, fnaf fandom because creator hates lgbt

I still don't see people leaving the fandom of attack on titans because it’s chief editor killed his wife

And i still don't see people leaving hazbin hotel fandom knowing how shady vivziepop has been throughout many years, accused in drawing ped**hilia and z**philia

And wow, people still follow these fandoms and people just because they like what they’re doing.

They don't need to follow artist's ideas or thoughts just to like what they draw or make

And, somehow, we came to a point where the person this post is about is accused in being a t-cest artist basically without proof. Just because someone somewhere told something about that they think they saw. Just baseless words.

How about if I tell you that I am a huge unicorn with rainbow hair and i live in a big castle with butterflies as my servants –

Do you believe it without any photo proof? No, I don’t think so.

I’ve been drawing with them for months. I never saw anything remotely close to anything they’ve been accused in.

I follow their every account I know of.

And again, i didn't see any of this stuff -

I now think, that people are trying to make this person to be seen by others as a black sheep.

And now, I even think about stopping to interact with anyone in ROTTMNT fandom.

Why? Well because of people’s hypocrisy and egoism, how easy they’re ready to give up and turn their backs on a person because of one mistake.

Did the story of Alek Holowka didn’t teach us anything? Or recent story with Ed Piskor? Are you really forgetting that you’re talking about and with a real human beings? Or you just simply don’t care?

I'm getting sick of this -

P.S. again, this is my opinion on things, you can have your own thoughts on the situation

[metaldevilll]

viv and palp both being down bad as hell. that’s the post.

and like…. the stupidity that comes with it….. they say or do things in the heat of the moment and then they’re like wait no. like palp catches himself staring and he’s just like “you’re so fuckin ugly” and viv is like what the hell

or like….. one of them watching the other, just completely fuckin enamored, and then something happens that snaps them back out of it- like. palp watching viv fight and viv catches his eye and is like “yo this sucks let’s gtfo” and palpers has to shake his head and like… etch a sketch his brain back into thinking mode instead of Gay mode

viv zoning out and just watching palp do whatever mundane task, palp is talking about whatever and is like “are you even listening” and viv has to be like uhhhh nah. palp is annoyed and viv is flustered cuz he knows why he wasn’t listening, palp doesn’t notice, and then the moment is just gone again….. locked in back to normal

i just really fuckin love the idea of them being so infatuated while also fighting for their lives to pretend they aren’t.. and them just being stupid ass little simps in general. like the drawing of palpers in the dress you made…… viv thinking lgbt thoughts…… genius

i’ll eat any art you make of them like i’m starving so keep it up man they are my lifeblood

no because i get you anon. grabs you by the shoulders and SHAKES YOU!!!!!!!!!!! i think vivilly finds a sad comfort in believing palpers doesn't love him the way he does. like,, it's fine if he thinks gay thoughts cuz it's not like they'll come true anyway. he can dream, right...? so he indulges in those feelings in his own time, while pretending like he only likes palpers as a friend it never strikes him that palpers might feel the same way. he’s thought over different scenarios a million times and while he doesn’t have a response for every silly thing palpers may say, he’s seemingly never caught off guard despite humoring him, kind of playing into the chill sarcastic stoic dude trope. but he’s not. he’s soft and he feels and he loves and the persona is a result of that with palpers i feel like he also does believe that vivilly could never reciprocate. when he looks at vivilly, he never knows what's going on in his brain. they do have their moments that sort of prove they have similar minds, but he never actually knows what vivilly’s thinking imo his brain is empty more often than viv’s is when it comes to thinking of his crush. a sus moment happens and he’s like “holy fuck….” but it’s glossed over almost immediately afterward. things happen in-the-moment for him, and he reacts with his true emotions and has less of a filter than vivilly, he gets louder and more aggressive (not with malicious intent, just in general as a silly guy) essentially they both are going "nah he can't like me... he CANT... THERES NO WAY" and theyre both dead fucking wrong im writing this using how i personally view the characters (my version of the characters? idk), i have a limited perspective and small perception of things (if you played mc with me you’d know…), i misinterpret stuff a lot, so like… idk. maybe it’s totally out of character for how you view them. it’s kind of cool to think about though, that they can be read so many different ways when none of them are inherently incorrect I TOTALLY CAN SEE THEM MINDLESSLY WATCHING THE OTHER ALSO. not caring about what the other might be thinking while looking at them, not noticing the other watching them equally as much… they’re so clueless it’s INFURIATING i like to imagine that when they flirt with each other, it’s always by accident. i can’t imagine them flirting with each other on purpose… like, they’ll be arguing absentmindedly, bickering or maybe laughing about something, one of them says one thing (most likely palpers) that catches the other off guard. they just continue to build off of that and i think the only thing that stops them from going too far is them getting too flustered to continue… they could be like two centimeters away from kissing (and they both want to) but they both back out because they’re about to fuckign explode from emotion “FINE. I’M GONNA- I’M GONNA KISS YOU, BRO.” “OH YEAH??? BE MY FUCKING GUEST, DUDE.” “BET.” “DOUBLE BET.” “T-... TRIPLE BET.” “bro. you gotta get closer than that…” "i know i know, just- give me a second-"

in my opinion the only situation where i can see them ACKSHUALLYYYY confessing is like… the other’s health is in grave danger and it’s a last minute thing where they mihgt fucking lose them so they just tell them everything. viv comes back from a mine or smth on the verge of fucking splurging bleeding out and palpers holds him in his arms and begins sobbing and says i love you please don’t die over and over or something. viv survives but he was half unconscious throughout it so he doesn’t even remember. the pining continues

[st7arlight]

meet the sims-blackwood family!! this is set post-200 in a new world where the fears are weaker and more hidden in the shadows, but quickly building strength as more avatars and artifacts are born. meet blaire and not-adam, two students in jon’s homeroom and english class!

worldbuilding and brainstorm notes under the cut :D

the student ocs i created here are

-a transfem student who straight up doesnt have a name. you can call her anything but her deadname. its a fun game the class plays. it started as a gag but jon went “yeah okay ive seen weirder and kids deserve a chance to explore” so he comes up with a different name every day during roll call. shes v chaotic and inspired (personality wise, not funky name lore) by an irl friend of mine

-the student she has a crush on and is best friends with, an AP art student who uses they/she pronouns

they both eat lunch in Jon’s classroom, where they eventually notice that he never really eats much? just. reads a book in his free time, maybe has cereal bars occasionally

they form really close bonds with jon and he sponsors their lgbt club,,,, the second student realizes she’s agender when hes explaining the ace spectrum,,,,,, they come across The Horrors that were released when jmart moved on to Somewhere Else and he saves them,,,,,,,,, after they start to understand that “something spooky is here bc of mr sims but he was a victim in it” they sneakily start categorizing what they call “The Horrors” into 9 groups and get into shenanigans. they save jon at some point

their romance follows the plot of jmart’s but jon notices student B treating student A like he did martin at the start of the year and intervenes

so theyre healthier

(maybe jmart adopt student b, as they’re in a rlly unsafe home environment and thats why they started lashing out at their buddy)

at the beginning of the year student A knows shes trans but isnt sure what name to use. her buddy suggests not-adam (as she isnt suuuper uncomfy with her deadname, just that its too masc for her) so they call her that for a good bit and it comes up occasionally until they learn about the fears and the joke kinda. sours.

jon called her anything but that. not-adam thought it was because he didnt want to deadname her (and she insisted she was cool with it and thought it was funny) but she said that he can use a name that isnt adam, just not to stick to one bc she didnt want to feel boxed in

so the joke of her being anything but adam began

!!! WHAT IF NOT ADAM HAS AN ENCOUNTER WITH A STRANGER OBJECT THAT MAKES EVERYONE UNABLE TO SEE OR REMEMBER HER??? AND (character B) IS THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS HER BUT STILL CANT SEE HER!!!! AND THIS IS HOW JON REVEALS HE KNOWS STUFF ABOUT THE SUPERNATURAL

student b breaks down only a couple days in when she realized something was deeply, truly wrong, earing lunch (seemingly) alone with jon in his classroom. she says something with “not-adam” and “nobody remembers her but me” and jon’s trauma plus eye powers helps break his illusion, even though he doesnt remember her still

WHAT IF THIS IS AROUND WHEN NOT ADAM IS STARTING TO SEE HIM AS A FATHER

he adopts her bc she still legally doesnt exist and her family doesnt remember her , and its not like jmart already have fake identities anyways. they break the curse but everyone but B and Jon are completely wiped of her memory, just can finally see her now. its a mush of stranger, spiral, and lonely bc the horrors work different here

…she eventually settles on a name because she desperately needs to be reminded that they know her, they remember her, and that they remember all of her. (jon doesnt remember *everything* still, but most. every now and then she or B references something and they pause when they realize it was another memory lost to The Horrors)

oh also jon wears combat boots bc of daisy now. unrelated but important

im realizing my plan of them adopting B is a little funky with them adopting not-adam. however, unconventional found family prevails in tma. B just stays at their house most of the time bc she is neglected a lot at home so it usually isnt noticed when she disappears. theyre both 16 so fighting for custody when they can move out so soon is deemed too much stress on the teens. not-adam’s family actually are v loving and great, they just. dont remember NA. they dont remember how to love her, that they ever did

(thats why B needed to remember her. also, the effect intended of the horror was to torture NA until she died unnoticed and she will either be remembered by everyone when her body is found or will rot unseen until shes gone. or become an avatar, if she chose to embrace it. B was an intended victim of the leitner, the fear of nobody believing you and losing someone you love feed the Horrors)

(jon and his funky eye powers are likely the only reason NA didnt die)

in the end A picks the name astrid, but jon still calls her any name he can think of that starts with A when calling her down for food n stuff

anyways jmart unofficially adopting queer teens bc found family is so themcore but i *know* the fates would never allow them to do anything conventionally or fully legal

(all of this copy-pasted from me infodumping in a tma chat in the past couple hours)

[sciderman]

I also tried to find that Peter neurodivergent post recently and yup, vanished. But anyway, I just read your post and tags responding to that other person's ask saying they can't find it. I really really don't think you sound stupid (not that I'm a professional either).

That post hit deep for me because as someone very new to getting therapy, it reminded me of my first session (in which I said, do I have audhd or what?). My therapist told me first thing "there's a lot of overlap between these traits you're listing and trauma". I kinda sat back like 🧍she said what's more important is making sure I'm functioning, coping... That not everything needs a label unless I really want one. I went home and asked my housemate (who's currently doing their psychology masters) and she said, "yeah, both often get misdiagnosed for the other".

That kinda changed my whole perspective on everything and so reading your post brought me back to that. Hoo, emotional and stuff,,

Enough rambling though, my points are:

• Thank you for saying that, it meant a lot (I'm kinda crying haha)

• You're right about it all to my knowledge!

• I hope everything's okay with you and you're happy with what stuff will mean for you ❤️ good luck and all that!

(sorry for the essay)

bless you anon!! i'm really proud of you for taking the steps into therapy, and i really hope that it's a helpful experience in getting to understand yourself better! wishing you so, so much luck on your journey, anon!

i definitely think labels aren't for everyone - and sometimes, sometimes they can be a stifling thing. it's a fantastic thing when you need to simplify something to explain to someone else - especially fantastic when you need someone else to make considerations for you. i find i only really use labels when i need someone else to understand something about me in a simple sort of a way. so i say "bisexual" when i need to explain myself quickly, but it's a shorthand, and there's probably a much more complicated label that might fit me better - pan, maybe, but who has time or courage to explain pan to a 50-something-white-guy - certainly not i, so - for ease of understanding, i'll put myself in that box.

i think labels are fantastic when they make your life simpler - but sometimes they can do the adverse when you realise they don't fit as well as you'd thought. when you need a label to fit, and you feel that pressure to fit into it when - actually, actually, you are more complicated than that. then - then, you might realise, the label isn't for you, and you can either hunt down another or - be easy with the fact that you're a unique beast, and not everything will fit all the time. there's overlap, and every brain case is so so unerringly unique to the person.

it's like lgbt+ labels, lord knows, the kids are inventing a new one every week because there's no way to encompass everyone's unique approach to attraction. we can say "this is me, and you might feel similar" and that helps - but truly, no human is 1:1. no experience is 1:1. one of you watched cats (2019) and it irreparably altered your viewpoint on the world once you saw fuzzy idris elba dance on the screen. one of you (mercifully) didn't, and didn't sustain that trauma. you're different.

i hope any explanations you get help you move forwards, anon! but i hope you're also comfortable in the knowledge that there ain't no thing like you, 'cept you! (and i love you)

[liquidstar]

my big fat greek wedding is the realest greek rep in mainstream american media, not because its completely accurate- a lot is rooted in lighthearted sort of self-stereotypes, and is overall pretty shallow if youre looking for legitimate emotionally resonate representation of any kind. BUT thats also EXACTLY what makes it vibe w so many greeks anyway because we hardly ever see those very specific little eccentricities even mentioned, letalone be made the focal point, so we kind of love making fun of it in a way thats like "oh my god thats JUST like my thio maki!!! and thats just like thia calliope!!! oh fuck that ones just like me"

all things considered i dont think greek representation is like the most important ever or anything, but its so rare to see greece acknowledged beyond ancient stuff or mythology, or maybe the occasional jab at eastern europe, that its just... fun to see yourself and your family a little bit on the tv. it doesnt really get into the super deep parts of the culture or anything like that but its fine bc its fun. i think most greek families (esp of diaspora) have bonded to this movie because theyre just like us for real. before this, i think the closest thing id seen to actual greek rep on tv was from an episode of the suite life on deck where it was mainly just an eastern europe stereotype 😭 abt being hairy and playing with pig guts as balloons and shit idk. i mean also true but in a way that comes off as more mean spirited lol. but even then i was excited just to see our flag on tv and remember pointing at it to my mom so i cant say it was the worst. but hey!

anyway i like my big fat greek wedding a lot, wanna see the 3rd sometime too but never got around to it. it just vibes and is fun. and again like i said before, greek rep wasnt the most important thing ever growing up (even if it is super cool to see and does make me very happy to have our culture acknowledged outside of ancients!) but it does make me understand why representation is important in a more general way and why it means so much to people. and i also understand that it can mean a whole lot more to people whove been historically treated way worse by media. like, lack of acknowledgement is one thing, but outright malicious stereotypes are another. i do get this with lgbt+ rep too but since i was lucky enough to be born in a time where its becoming the norm i also cant imagine how it must have seen so much worse and then live in a world where every cartoon has 2 girls kissing. its not perfect and often corporate but... also a good sign

sorry this post is super stream of consciousness so its probably all over the place but i think my general thoughts are that ppl who shit on a series for having any kind of representation they dislike (being "too progressive" or something) is not only an awful unsympathetic person but also like. on the flip side will never know the joy of seeing yourself like that. but i do realize it also comes with the tradeoff of not being seen to begin with so its not like its a net positive but... those ppl still wont know! they will not understand the true joys of "[country] mentioned!!!!" when the country is The United States Of America. the end

[valyrfia]

no actually ur so right. as someone who have been in primarily mlm fandom spaces as an afab person the rampant feminization that goes on with charles especially is crazy. ive been pretty public on my dislike of this characterization if charles because of like exactly what you said (which is excluding my own experience being feminized and treated poorly because of my more masculine gender expression). it makes me pretty uncomfortable to see this in specifically fandom spaces and incredibly uncomfortable so see outside if those places.

just to add, im not against feminization (i actually enjoy it a lot when its like niche kink stuff) but the way it is in formula 1 rpf is unlike anything else ive seen in other fandoms.

I agree, it is CRAZY to see how this has somehow become the default characterisation. I agree with your not being against feminisation as an entire concept and when done well it's fun but rather just....why does it seem to be the default? It's bizarre. On a note that I'm sure is entirely unrelated, someone pointed out to me the other day that (although a small valiant group of us are trying to change it) F/M genderbend is far more common than F/F genderbend in F1 RPF....I'm just going to leave that stat there and you can make your own conclusions but considering I got this anon when I posted only F/F Lestappen stuff for a couple of days like two months ago....

Yeah, it's a little disheartening and is part of the reason why I think I'm so anti the feminisation of Charles as a default characterisation. Fanfiction can be whatever you want it to be, but it has always been a queer space but I've seen it time and time again that when a queer ship becomes popular, people are more desperate to consume it within a hetnorm structure. I haven't just seen it with F1 RPF, there's been a big rise of this over the past half a decade or so which I think is due to the consumption of mlm content becoming widely accepted amongst gen z, but in a way that almost straightwashes queer relationships. I remember when RWRB came out and I watched it when I was home for a bit in the summer with a group of girls I knew from high school as part of an effort to be social, and it was so bizarre. Not only did I witness first hand them obsessively rewinding to watch the kiss and the sex scenes, while exclaiming "that's so hot", but they were obsessed with trying to guess which of them would top and which of them would bottom, and for me most damningly, I made a throwaway comment about Uma Thurman in a suit being very hot (tame compared to what they were saying) and I was met with silence and weird sideways looks or a retort of "Alex in a suit is so hot!". It was a little bit of a humbling experience, to see them root for LGBT acceptance for the hot characters on the screen but be blatantly uncomfortable by actual queer expression in their presence.

I'll be honest I've experienced similar things when I talk about F1, and I think that that's because F1 as a fandom space has really exploded in growth in the past couple of years and thus the newer mlm ships within it, especially the popular ones like Carlando and Lestappen, have been subject to this straightwashing more strongly than other older fandom spaces.

As you said I have zero issue with it when it's a conscious choice on the behalf of the creator, but when it becomes the 'norm' within fanon and people complain when roles are reversed, well, it really rubs me the wrong way. I'm interested to hear your continued thoughts if you have them!

[lippiethehoe]

Well hi tumblr queers again :D.

Okay so for starters CONTENT WARNING I'll be talking about sexuality sex and overall sexual stuff so if that's not something you wanna look at then don't read thanks :).

I kinda feel like starting a little conversation and also hopefully getting some answers from lgbts from tumblr which hmmm... idk if this is the best place for this, especially since I don't particularly have a big following, nor do I think I have the means to make this be more visible to randos on tumblr so hmm, if this amounts to nothing know I'll be embarassed about it but that's okay, but also I fucking hate reddit and all my google research efforts have resulted in either basically nothing or people asking similar questions to mine but having very deeply different prespectives of both gender in general and sexuality in general than me so google research didn't slay at all, and so I'll lend my trust to the tumblers ig.

Ok so hello, I'm lilly I'm a demiromantic trans woman and I've struggled for kind of a while with my sexuality, not because I don't know what it is, but because I'm actually a huge labels person. Having a word to describe the way i feel about things has always helped me feel as though I know myself better and can make others know me better aswell. Even if putting labels on complex human feelings and emotions is essentialy pointless, it's still something that means alot to me, and I hate that for the longest time I have been perfectly capable of knowing what my sexuality is, but can't simple it down to one word and use it on my day to day life and that makes me sad. It also makes me feel kinda alone in my feelings? cause I'm basically the only person i know with this prespective on my sexuality at least for now so I'm a bit confused, obviously I don't think I'm the only person like this cause that's basically impossible but it still feels that way ig?

Also I remembered this recently only because it's pride month, happy pride month btw :3, and I was doing a thing on discord where everyday I'd add a flag that I indetify with on my profile picture, problem is I've ran out of flags, because no sexual orientation feels right and from my knowledge of it there isn't a sexuality nor a flag for what I feel, and now not only does my discord pfp not look full of colors and pretty it also re-awakened a little identity crisis I've had for a while.

This is definetly gonna be a very long post but I won't feel like I explained myself correctly if it isn't a big post so bear with me, but let's start.

So I'm gonna start explaining how I personally view sexuality and gender so you, reader, can have all the means available to understand my prespective on this. Sexuality to me is kinda simple, simply means whatever a person is attracted to, what makes them sexually interested in someone, whatever other way you wanna put it, and gender is simply the way a person identifies themselves with, the eyes they navigate the world through, the way they percieve themselves and the way they want to be percieved as by others etcetera, I won't explain my prespective on romanticism cause that's essentially useless to my question, but yeah simple stuff right?

So here's where I don't believe I fit in with most sexualities, here's the question I've had for quite a while but never thought to express it in a place where more than just a few friends could hear, I am not sexuality attracted to genders, ok now is when someone screams at me and says pansexual, I don't agree, but moving on, I'm not sexually attracted to people much, I am sexually attracted to penis tho, and here's where someone screams heterosexual at me AND IF YOU DID I FUCKING HATE YOU FYI NOT CAUSE I HATE HETEROS BUT BECAUSE THAT AS AN ANSWER TO WHAT I SAID IS FUCKING TRANSPHOBIC, YEAH I SAID IT, BITCH!!!

But here's the thing, what is a gender, ok I wrote alot after i said that but deleted it all cause this could fall into a very long rabbit hole, but gender's a construct blah blah, can you tell I probably have some neurodivergencies going on in the head anyways continuing. Genuinely, I don't know what it feels like to be a sexuality that includes gender in it, not because I don't think it to be true obviously i know people are heterosexual bisexual homosexual lesbians any other sexual orientation that implies gender being a part of the equation. But to me I can't be sexually attracted to men because a man can be anything to me, I can't be sexually attracted to women because a woman can be anything to me, i can't be sexually attracted to enbys cause being non-binary can be anything to me and the list goes on. Nothing is set in gender because to me gender can look like, feel like, and be like anything, if I labeled myself heterosexual, sexually attracted to people of the opposite gender of me, what would I mean by it? cause think about it, there're big men small men skinny fat muscular men hairy shaved brown eyed dark skinned pussy having dick having blah blah blah and the list goes on again, and even in there I'm not specifically attracted to any of the traits on that list anyways, none of those traits sexually arouse me, men don't sexually arouse me, women don't sexually arouse me, but you know what does? penis. So therein lies the issue, cause surprise, there's a bunch of dicks in the world, what? that's crazy? Yeah penis is everywhere, there're men with penises women with penises nonbinaries with penises intersex people with penises dildos people with strap-ons and the list goes on and in that entire list, the only thing that sexualy arouses me personally, is penis, not who has it, not wether or not it was there from birth, not wether or not it's made of plastic or human skin, not wether or not I'm specifically sexually attracted to any other aspect of said person, but simply the thing that sexually arrouses me and makes me feel pleasure is the thing that sexually attracts me, which in my head is so fucking obvious? Like it's a conclusion so natural to me, but it seems I'm the only person in a 50 km radius that feels this way? It's also possible that I'm actually wrong and view the current existing sexualities in the wrong way and if that's what's up please tell me.

Also i feel the rising tension of someone saying stuff like "people can sexually stimulate others with fingers are u FiNgErSeXuAl?" and the truth is not really but I still find it sexually arousing when it happens, but the last thing I'm gonna do is look at fingers and blush I think. WOAH THAT JUST OPENED A NEW DOOR FUCKK OH NO THIS IS GONNA BE TOO LONG MAYBE I SHOULDN'T POST THIS IDK. I am also sexually attracted to certain actions, but at this point I feel I'm leaving sexuality and going into kink territory and that isn't really where I wanted to go. EITHER WAY my overall conclusion is I don't understand most sexualities and feel as though my view of my sexuality should have a label so I feel more comfortable, maybe I should be the catalyst who knows maybe someone's already been the catalyst and I'm simply unaware of that, either way I'd like a sexuality flag to add to my discord pfp so maybe I'll just make a flag up, who fucking knows, that's it tho. So yeah if anyone who sees this post experiences anything similar to this and wants to share about it please do I'd be really thankful.

Thank you so much if you sticked with me all the way to the end, and if you feel like you might have some insight on what I'm saying or simply wanna say something relevant to this topic please do, it's pride month and I'm incredibly proud of all queers and gender fuckers :3 happy pride month!

Ps: I just wanna say something, this isn't an invitation to flirt with me send me unsolicited dick pics or respond to things I clearly showed not to be questions, I want this topic to be taken in more of a discussion way than a sexual one, if that could be possible I'd be thankful, ok that's it bie bie.

[snow-and-shadow-fairy]

About Me

This is my feminism sideblog. I have always been a feminist although there have definitely been times where I had feminist awakenings by discovering just how evil men are. I was raised by conservative Christian parents. My mother was a stay at home mother and loved criticising other women for not doing that, for working instead of taking care of their children. Even as a child I thought she was insane and sexist. I saw that women couldn't live lives the way men could if they had children. At dinner we would all sit in silence while my father monologued about his day at work and whatever else he wanted to talk about.

My first feminist awakening was reading the Bible when I was about 19 and 20. There was so much woman hating in there that I just couldn't take it anymore. Non Christians may know about the Ten Commandments given to Moses, but they are just a small section of many rules. One of the rules was that if a woman is raped and she is not married, she must marry her rapist. (May update this later when I can be bothered to find it.) I saw then that men do not see rape as assault, but theft of another man's property. The Bible is split into two sections. The Old Testament, which is before Jesus, and the New Testament, during and after Jesus. Christians tend to worship the New Testament and pick and choose which bits of the Old Testament they want to follow, which I never understood. For example, they will agree with the bits that condemn homosexuality, but when presented with stuff like "marry your rapist", they will say, yeah, that's bad, but don't worry, you don't have to do that anymore. I didn't understand why they were picking and choosing which rules to follow. As a Christian, I thought shouldn't we follow all the rules? But I didn't agree with the rules, or with Christians picking and choosing their own rules, so I stopped being a Christian.

My second was joining tumblr and seeing the misogyny of the trans rights movement. I'm straight, and I wanted to be a good ally to LGBT people, so at first I just thought it was fine, everyone has the right to respect. But I soon found out just how insane they were. My "peak trans" moment was reading this article in buzzfeed about the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She was asked in an interview about trans women, and I saw nothing wrong with her response. Reading the article I realised that transgender people don't live in the world of reality. I learned that trans women really believe they are actually women, and to say that they were once men is not only wrong, but hate speech. I didn't understand this at all. Surely that's why they were trans women? Also, annoying sjw (for lack of a better phrase) types on the internet love to bang on about intersectional feminism, demonizing the straight white man, and supporting people with marginalized identities, the more marginalized, the better. Yet here was a black women talking about feminism, and hordes of white men (I refused to see them as women anymore) were telling her to shut up. I saw how fake people who bang on about straight white men really are. She didn't say anything offensive, but they were acting like she'd called for their extinction. It didn't make sense.

After that I started following feminist blogs on tumblr. Most of them were lesbians, and I discovered that not only was the trans movement sexist, but it was also homophobic. I tried reblogging their posts, because hey, people on tumblr hate homophobia, right? They love gay people? Wrong. I couldn't believe how many people blocked and unfollowed me for suggesting that lesbians shouldn't have to be attracted to trans women. Eventually I got tired and deleted tumblr. I have a new fandom blog now, completely free of any feminism. I decided to start a feminism blog to post any thoughts I have. I reblog other people's posts at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/snow-and-shadow-fairy-archive.

I believe that sex is the most important part of feminism. Men want sex from women. They want women to be sexually available at all times. Pornography and prostitution abolition should be the main focus of feminism. Women not having to have sex with men if they don't want to should be the main focus of feminism.

Feminists who love to talk about intersectional feminsim love talking about race but never talk about sexuality. Lesbians face the most discrimination due to not wanting to have sex with men. I always knew how creepy men were about lesbians but finding out about the trans rights movement and hearing the phrase "cotton ceiling" really disgusted me even more. It's really sad that "intersectional" feminists don't talk about the intersection of sexism and homophobia. The right pretend that it is only disadvantaged men who assault women. Meanwhile the left pretends that it is only advantaged men who assault women, and do not care when disadvantaged men do it. It's disgusting to see the left completely ignore the misogyny, homophobia and lesbophobia of the trans movement.

Even though I am attracted to men I have never been in a relationship with one and never will. I am genuinely scared of men. I can't even imagine loving one. I'm happy being single. I was delighted when I found out about the South Korean 4B movement. I think that's exactly what women need everywhere.

[artistic-lj]

Okay so I “made” a new gender apathetic/apagender flag because the one I found/we have was just kinda lacking for me?? Like it’s okay and I don’t dislike it, but I thought it needed something

So the current one, according to gender fandom wiki or whatever (https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Gender_Apathetic), is by @pridearchive (idk why I can’t tag them but I also just don’t understand tumblr so oh well)

But anyway, I’m not a huge fan of the fact that a lot of the definition relies upon the usage of the word “lazy” a lot, because like, while it’s true that laziness and apathy are similar, they are not the same. I was confused for MONTHS as to why everyone around me cared so much about their gender, both cis and trans people, and I just didn’t. Like, I thought my dad might understand cause we talk about queer stuff all the time and he was like “???… but I am a man, that’s just a fact… are you saying there’s people who don’t care??” And that confused me more cause I was like “wait even cis people care that much about their gender expression??” Because for me, I thought that trans people really cared about their gender identity and expression because of the dysphoria they dealt with from being born as the opposite sex. So, to hear that cis people also have a strong sense of gender and really care about the way they present and are perceived threw me for a loop.

So I went down this rabbit hole for, as stated previously, MONTHS, just trying to figure out if anyone felt the way I did because I felt fucking crazy. No one else spoke about not caring about their gender identity, not caring if someone called them a guy or a girl or something in between. I found labels like Aporagender (“a gender identity that is neither masculine, feminine or inbetween the two but nonetheless involves a strong sense of gender; a term similar to maverique.” - https://en.pronouns.page/dictionary/terminology#aporagender) and genderfluid (“a gender that varies, or changes over time.” - https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Genderfluid) and bigender (“a gender identity which can be literally translated as 'two genders' or 'double gender'.” - https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Bigender) but none of them felt right, even if I liked their flags.

But then, out of frustration, I decided to google “what is it called when you don’t care about your gender” and gender apathetic popped up. And I read the description and I felt so… understood. I felt like, no matter how small the group was, I had finally found people who understood me and felt the way I did. And then, because I’m annoying and visual, I saw the flag… and I was just… feeling very… ehhh…

Like, the brown, purple/lavender/light blue, white, and gray on their own aren’t inherently bad, but something about it just felt bland and… nothing like the sense of relief I felt when discovering I wasn’t alone.

And then I clicked through onto the post about the meanings of each color and began to like it even less

But, I pushed forward, ignoring my dislike of the color arrangement and meanings behind them and sharing my newfound label/identity and flag with my friends. I finally felt like I had something I understood.

That is, until one night when I got bored. And I started searching for flag makers to see what was out there. I came across a Reddit post about a custom flag builder (https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/ooz3tb/custom_pride_flag_builder/) which lead me to Team Ultima’s custom pride flag maker: https://www.teamultima.org/flag/

Needless to say, as an artist and someone who’s nitpicky about colors and designs, I was stoked to find something that allowed so much creative control! After messing around with it for a bit, I made this:

Now, I know it’s not really that different from the current flag. But, to me, this feels a lot more balanced and cohesive. With the one by pridearchive, the “light blue,” which we all know is just lavender tbh, was the only color that had a bright saturation besides the white. Our eyes are naturally drawn to it and this does not allow our eyes to flow along the flag and take it all in. We kinda see the purple and get stuck there. Not only that, because we expect white to be in the middle of pride flags (as well as Im sure a lot of other color theory reasons that I’m not knowledgeable enough to know of or explain), the flag felt top heavy and uneven, with no equivalent saturated color along the bottom. The flag was lacking horizontal symmetry and I think/hope I did a good job of bringing it to this flag without it feeling like it’s too much or too little.

With all that being said here are my/the new and improved color meanings:

Brown - The natural human desire to find a sense of belonging and community, even if said community is formed around having a label for not caring about labels. It can also represent the warmth and security felt by having a label that represents how you truly feel.

Light Blue - A feeling of tranquility and peace towards one’s gender identity and expression

White - The limitless void of possibilities in which one can express themselves

Lavender - The mixture of all genders, feminine, masculine, neither, and everything in between

Gray - Lack of gender stagnation, not caring if one’s gender presentation is not as simple as black or white

Anyway, I’ve never posted anything like this before so… lemme know if I’m totally doing it wrong and all my color meanings are terrible and way off base or whatever. I’m gonna make a separate post of just the flag and the color meanings and whatever so that people don’t have to read all my dumb backstory to get to the actual “redesign” 💅💅