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aestherians · 3 years ago

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Choice or Chance?: Exploring voluntarity and categorization in the otherkin and therian communities

Under the cut is the full script for my Othercon 2021 lecture, in which I examine the way we categorize nonhumans based on the perceived amount of choice they had in their identity and how this practice is detrimental to both questioning people and our community as a whole. At the end, I propose a new way to define otherkind and otherlinkers to hopefully move our community forward.

Reading time: 30-40 minutes.

The focus of this lecture has changed a bit since I started working on it. My earliest idea was to discuss the grey area between otherlinks and kintypes - in fact one of my working titles was Grey Zones and Silver Linings. And I still plan on talking about this, though not in the way you might expect. I originally wanted to argue that those who found themselves in this grey area should be able to choose how they wanted to refer to their identity, but the more research and thinking I did, the more I realized that this would still leave a bunch of people torn and confused and wouldn’t solve any of the greater problems in our community. It also seems like such a water-is-wet statement with how the conversation has developed… and you know me, I’m only happy when I’m starting controversies.

So I went looking for the root of this whole categorization debacle.

The nonhuman community, as we know it, didn’t always exist, and though we often say it has roots in elven communities from the ‘70s, that’s only half the truth. While the Elf Queen’s Daughters and related successors such as the Silver Elves are the earliest known organized nonhuman communities, they’re by far not the only pioneers.

Because nonhuman identifying people have always existed, and our numbers have always been relatively small, some of us ended up grouping together without even being aware of the other groups that existed. And of course, all these independently formed groups ended up with their own cultures and traditions and philosophies.

Mailing lists, like the Elfinkind Digest, were generally open for anyone to join and read. But they also weren’t widely known or easy to stumble upon for folks who didn’t already have an interest in these kinds of spirituality and identification. This resulted in a culture where people’s self-identification was generally respected, and they would only be questioned if they made extraordinary claims.

Compare this with the newsgroup Alt.Horror.Werewolves, which was open for anyone to access on Usenet, and which was originally created as just a place to discuss werewolf media. On AHWw, the therians (or ‘weres’ as it was back then) would frequently have to defend their existence against strangers who just found them by coincidence. This would lead to a culture more focused on appearing respectable, which in turn would lead to grilling of new members and shut-downs of “fluffy” topics.

Other independent groups, such as Alt.Fan.Dragons, which was centered around dragons, or Always Believe, which was centered around unicorns, had their own cultures as well. For example, AFD generally accepted dragons from modern fiction, which would not have been tolerated on AHWw.

The Silver Elves is another semi-independently evolved group of elves, fae and similar beings that still exists to this day. They only represent a fraction of our community, but for today’s discussions I find their writings very illustrative. They’ve written about choice of identity on multiple levels. For starters, they believe a lot of elven spirits have actively chosen to incarnate into human bodies. More provocatively, and more interesting to me, they’ve stated multiple times that simply wanting to be an elf means you are an elf.

This is in contrast to the therian community on AHWw, where there was a big focus on involuntary shifts and theorizing on why some people were born with and animal side. I think it’s reasonable to assume this focus on involuntary experiences is due to the werewolf narrative that the community stemmed from. In werewolf media, a person’s wolfish side is rarely, if ever, a choice, while in new age and spiritual communities, like that of the Silver Elves, there’s a greater emphasis on choice of spirituality and subsequently on choice of identity.

It wouldn’t be right to say that every therian back then shared the same idea; however, the idea that involuntary shifts are a core trait of therianthropy does seem to persist in the AHWw’s userbase. Nearly all introduction posts include a line about involuntary shifts. Another idea that repeats itself is that the therian either had a “sudden awakening” or “just always knew” they were animalistic; contrasted with the Silver Elves’ idea that simply wanting to be an elf is enough for you to be one.

There are two main ideas about origins that seem to persist in all of this: That one is either born nonhuman or becomes nonhuman. Both are equally true. The ‘born-this-way’-narrative is quite a bit more common than the ‘becoming’-narrative, though that’s not to say that the idea of becoming nonhuman is rare, or even all that controversial in most communities - with a few caveats, that is.

The idea that one can become nonhuman tends to rest on the idea that what we become is outside our control. On the more metaphysical side of things there are stories of people being spiritually transformed into an animal after encounters with an animal spirit, or of having a shard of a god put into them. And on the more mundane side, there are stories of imprinting on a species during early development, or of taking on the experiences of a character after being engrossed in a piece of media. Most people I’ve talked to don’t have a problem with these ideas of ‘becoming’ as something outside your control.

What really gets people’s goat is when someone describes specific choices they’ve made on their journey, which ultimately led to their nonhuman identity.

This finally leads to the theme of this lecture: The topic of choice itself and how we categorize others based on the perceived amount of choice or chance there’s been in the development of their identity.

Questions I’ll discuss include: What kind of choices do we have regarding our identities? What the heck does ‘choice’ even mean in this context? And how does the idea of choice (or lack of choice) affect the way our community functions?

There are many kinds of choices that we inarguably do make on our journey of self-discovery. Probably the first universal choice is to undertake the journey and to seek out a nonhuman community. Choices that naturally follow include choice of labeling - whether we want to call ourselves otherkin, therian, fictionkin, nonhuman, and so on - and the choice to accept or reject whatever feelings caused us to seek out a nonhuman community in the first place. In this line of thinking, being otherkin is a choice - you choose to label yourself as otherkin. However, the feelings, on which you base your decision to label yourself, are not a choice. The feelings that pushed you towards the community were already there.

Another choice that follows pretty naturally in this line of thinking is the choice to strengthen whatever connections you already have. This is something I’m intimately familiar with, as I’ve been doing it since I awakened as a bison. Before I even became aware of my species identity, I knew I was nonhuman. I’d been having simultaneous bison and gnoll feelings for a few years, but couldn’t separate them, and had, without much introspection, decided that I must be some weird kind of wolf. I think a lot of us with uncommon theriotypes have gone through a phase like that.

However, one day I experienced a very strong flashing image - basically a flashback - of being physically a bison. The vision was so vivid and tactile, I immediately knew what it meant, and for the next few weeks I ignored every experience that wasn’t quite bison in nature, and just examined the recognizably bovine feelings. This helped strengthen my bison identity, and in total my questioning process only took around 2 months.

Though I’ve settled in my identity as a bison, and I’m comfortable referring to myself as a bison, I never quit reinforcing it. While I didn’t create the original bison-like feelings, I’m very conscious of the fact that I do choose to connect every trait to my bisonhood that I can. Whether I see the traits as a cause of my current bisonhood, or a result of it, things like being stubborn, preferring physical fights over verbal ones, and even liking the taste of those Beanboozled jellybeans that are supposed to taste like grass… all these traits, that any human could have, are things I connect to my identity as a bison.

I’ve experienced some pushback towards this idea from a few therian communities. A very common rebuttal I’ve run into in introduction threads and grilling threads (which, introduction threads should never be grilling threads in my opinion, but that’s another story)… a very common rebuttal to considering these kinds of traits part of your nonhuman identity is: “Isn’t that just a regular human thing?”

I have so many problems with that question, I’m honestly not sure where to even begin. Yes, those traits are experienced by humans all the time. I think some of the only experiences in the community that regular humans don’t experience are, perhaps, species dysphoria and shifting. But if your identity began and ended with having dysphoria and experiencing shifts, it would hardly qualify as an identity. Treating an identity like just the sum of its parts, rather than a whole and complicated construct, is reductive and it doesn’t just hinder discussion, it stifles discussions.

I don’t know, maybe I’m the odd one here, but my whole nonhuman identity can not be encompassed by my horn dysphoria or the fact that I sometimes feel more like a prey animal than an apex predator. My identity is so much more than that. It’s how I view the world and how I view myself in relation to the world. It’s how I react to things, what I like and dislike, and what I want out of my life. When you envision an identity in this way, as a way to describe who you are, rather than a summary of every individual thing you experience, you absolutely will see some overlap with humans, like it or not.

Another reason I dislike the question “Aren’t those just human traits?” is that it’s often asked in communities where the consensus is that you were born nonhuman, and that your identity is somehow more real or ‘valid’ if it can be corroborated by childhood memories.

While looking back at your childhood and seeing how your current identity might have formed or changed throughout the years can help paint a picture of the identity as a whole, that kind of reminiscence should always be secondary to what you are currently experiencing. Your identity is not based on the fact that you played dog when you were a toddler. Pretty much every human child has played dog or been obsessed with cats or wished they were a dragon. It might be related to your current identity, but if those were your primary nonhuman experiences you would hardly consider yourself nonhuman, nor would you find a home in the community.

No, your identity is based on who and what you are right now, and what you’re experiencing this moment. The validity of your identity should not be judged based on the number of times you pretended to be that creature in kindergarten. Your kintype should be determined based on your current experiences. And if your current experiences include things that humans can also go through, that should have no impact on the validity of your identity.

Alright, back on topic: Hopefully, we can agree that there’s no shame in strengthening your connections, reinforcing what traits you already have, and in drawing connections between a nonhuman identity and seemingly human traits. Which is a nice segue into a statement that might ruffle a few feathers:

Linktypes are typically based on preexisting traits that are reinforced to fit a certain narrative or ideal. A copinglink or an otherlink is rarely if ever pulled out of thin air. You just can’t craft an identity from nothing. Yeah, crazy, I know?

This parallels otherkin identities, which, as I mentioned earlier, are based on preexisting experiences and connections that one chooses to give a name and to strengthen.

The process of becoming a linker usually starts with recognizing certain traits that one either wants, or already has but wants to reinforce, by focusing them through a linktype. For example, wanting to become better at handling stress can be difficult to accomplish on its own, but is made easier by thinking about what a specific character or animal would do in a stressful situation.

But you can’t just establish a connection to any given character. There needs to be a resonance between you and the linktype, and if you don’t already have that resonance with the character, it’s impossible for you to craft an identity around them. And in that sense you could easily argue that there is an involuntary aspect to linktypes.

Once the prospective linker has recognized a connection with a character, they will begin the process of reinforcing the identity, which can include anything from writing fanfics in 1st person to wearing clothes reminiscent of the character to asking people to treat you like the character. All things that an otherkin or fictionkind might do when first establishing their identity.

A key trait of linking is that a linktype should fade away once you stop reinforcing it… Linktypes are supposed to go away if you just ignore them and push them away long enough. They’re built to be temporary.

However, a significant number of linkers or former linkers have talked about their linktype becoming an inseparable part of how they view themselves - even the ones who might be able to force their linktype away would at this point become completely different people if they did so.

In other words, their linktype has become an inherent part of who they are as a person. This integrality can appear regardless of how much effort they put into creating the linktype in the first place, and regardless of how nonexistent the linktype was before they created it… What I’m getting at is that some people describe creating an identity from scratch by their own choice, which later becomes an irreversibly ingrained part of them. It’s an experience completely contrary to the idea that we are born nonhuman. I’ll refer to these people as ‘linkers-turned-kin’.

There are a few regular rebuttals I’ve seen to this idea: That linkers-turned-kin just had a late awakening. Or that, perhaps, they felt compelled by their inner true species to seek out the identity. Or even that they were actually born nonhuman, but just didn’t realize until later.

All these rebuttals are disrespectful of the linker-turned-kin’s experiences and intelligence. I won’t even try to hide it: They make me angry. The rebuttals ride on the idea that the born-this-way idea of nonhuman identities is a fact rather than a common belief. I know that for a lot of people the born-this-way narrative rings true. I see you and I am not trying to invalidate your beliefs. Instead, I want you to acknowledge that others may not have the same belief as you. For several people in our community otherkinity is an identity that develops in response to certain traits they have - for some, those traits are inherent, something they’re born with. For others they’re traits that developed later in life, or that were worked towards. And I want to argue that, for some, these traits were expressly chosen.

The reason these arguments against linker-turned-kin make me so angry, aside from the fact that they’re built on the idea that linkers-turned-kin don’t understand their own experiences, and the assumption that your idea of how nonhuman identities work trumps someone’s lived experience… Another reason the arguments make me so angry is that they prescribe more importance to the why than the how of our identity. When you define otherkin by the way our identity formed, you’re basically saying that the cause of otherkinity is more important than the experience of otherkinity.

We can’t talk about this without also exploring the community’s animosity towards psychological beliefs.

Through my years in the community, I feel like I’ve had to handhold some folks through the concept of religious tolerance. I remember a little over 4 years ago someone on tumblr asked me my opinion on fictionkind - it would be another 2 years before I had my own awakening, so my response was basically that I was fine with fictionkind, though I didn’t understand their experiences and the only way it could fit into my own worldview was as a psychological phenomenon. Even after my awakening, the latter still holds true. My fictionkinity is primarily psychological. But yeah, somehow my statement that I didn’t believe fictionkinity was caused by past lives got twisted into me saying that fictionkind were all just roleplayers.

Rereading the whole debacle that ensued, this twisting of my words had little to nothing to do with my own personal beliefs - it instead exposed a widespread antipathy towards psychological otherkin. When I have talked about my current experiences as a gnoll, my shifts and my flashbacks and my hiraeth, people generally accept it without a second thought. But when I mention that I believe it’s caused by various psychological phenomena, I have on multiple occasions been told that it must not be a real identity. Some people have even treated my parallel life as just an elaborate fantasy, rather than something that’s completely real to me. I have, word for word, been told that there’s no way I could identify as a nonhuman, or be another species than a human, without believing I have a nonhuman soul. A direct quote: “To say “I am fae” when [you] don’t believe in fae is illogical.”

What I take from these kinds of responses is that a subset of people within our community take it for granted that whatever beliefs someone has about the origin of their identity are objectively true, rather than understanding that our beliefs about our origins are just that: Beliefs. Whatever conclusion we’ve reached based on our experiences, reincarnation or imprinting or something else entirely, and no matter how much we believe in it, it will always be a belief and never a fact. I’m fully convinced that my bison identity is caused by a past life, and that my gnoll and Ben 10 identities are caused by various psychological phenomena. But if that doesn’t fit into someone else’s worldview, they have all the right in the world to explain it away however they want. I have friends who believe my bison identity must be caused by something psychological, and I have friends who believe my gnoll identity must be caused by something spiritual. That is their prerogative.

It doesn’t matter how people make sense of my nonhumanity, as long as they’re respectful towards my own experiences with my identity and don’t try to impose their beliefs on me. If you have to quietly believe that someone really has a faerie soul in order to accept that they’re really a fae, so be it. As long as you don’t try to deny the reality of their current identity. As long as you don’t try to claim that they aren’t really nonhuman, just because they have the quote-unquote “wrong” beliefs about their origin.

There is another, more recent and more prominent, example of the animosity towards psychological otherkin that comes to mind. I will not mention the term itself for fear of people harassing its creator. For the purpose of this lecture, I’ll refer to the concept as “nonhuman by birth”, which is essentially its meaning. If you know which word I’m talking about, I ask that you please don’t mention it in the chat. If you need to know, you can DM me. Also, don’t misunderstand this as me hating on people with past life or soul beliefs. Remember, my own bison identity is based on a soul from a past life.

So, last year a rather old community member on tumblr coined a term, separate from ‘otherkin’, to refer specifically to those who believe they have a nonhuman soul. Which wouldn’t be a problem in and of itself. After all, terms like animafidem and cerebrumalius have been around for half a decade with no issues. However, “nonhuman by birth” is specifically described in its coining post as a “less bastardized” alternative to the word ‘otherkin’. What this post describes as “less bastardized” is spiritual experiences, and specifically those spiritual experiences that are based on soul transfers and reincarnation. Essentially “nonhuman by birth” defines all other beliefs as bastardizations of what otherkinity is supposed to be. All beliefs, including spiritual beliefs that aren’t based on souls or past lives, psychological beliefs, beliefs of becoming nonhuman, beliefs based on magic, neurological beliefs, and archetypal beliefs… None of these are quote-unquote “true otherkin” according to the “nonhuman by birth” concept.

The word thankfully never gained much traction off tumblr, but I have seen individuals use it, and it always, without fail, makes me feel unwelcome, and unwanted. Not because there’s anything wrong with a strong belief in past lives or souls, but because those who choose to use that label specifically believe themselves to be the only true nonhumans. Because the term itself is not based on a respectful, individual belief, but on what its coiner believes to be an objective fact. Because this subset of our community has an almost-evangelical conviction that all nonhumans have nonhuman souls, and those who don’t have nonhuman souls are not nonhuman.

And like I mentioned earlier: The cause of otherkinity can affect the experience a lot. That’s why we have these discussions in the first place - we come together due to our similarities, and we try to understand each other and ourselves by discussing our differences. And this is exactly why proclaiming any version of nonhumanity as the One True Kind of Nonhumanity is so damaging. It completely stifles any exchange of ideas. It makes it impossible for us to understand our differences, and it leads to more and more narrowly defined subcommunities that all believe themselves to be more real than the others.

To define is to limit. We need some limitations, otherwise a dog is a cat and no words have meaning. But we need to be extremely careful where we want those limits to be, otherwise we end up with a community where psychological otherkin are bastards, and only those who are born with nonhuman souls are really nonhuman.

The next thing I want to discuss is subjective truth… Subjective truth is one of the most important concepts to understand and really internalize if we wanna have fruitful discussions and respectful experience sharing. In short, a subjective truth is something that is not real because it can be proven to exist through scientific measurements but is instead real because a person experiences it as real. If I make the claim that tea tastes better than coffee, for example, you cannot refute that simply because you think coffee tastes better. We have to understand each other’s experiences and accept that we experience the world in different ways. It’s equally true to say that coffee is better than tea and that tea is better than coffee. This is what I was talking about when I said that the “born-this-way”-narrative and the becoming-narrative are equally true.

So, how does subjective truth apply to this discussion?

A phenomenon in the community I’m sure we’re all aware of is kin memories. If you’re somehow not aware of them, in short they are images, episodes, sensory information, and similar experiences that are thought to stem from another life, usually a past life. They have all the qualia of a memory, except they didn’t happen to the body currently recalling them. These experiences, though, are not restricted to those who believe their nonhumanity stems from a past life. They aren’t even restricted to spiritual otherkin. Plenty of folks with psychological beliefs, mixed beliefs, and other beliefs report the exact same experience: Images, episodes, and sensory information that does not originate from this world or from this current life.

For decades there’s been a lexical gap in the community to describe these memories that aren’t memories. Which is where I can’t avoid tooting my own horn a bit. I have an extremely rich and detailed parallel life as a gnoll, from which I can quote-unquote “recall” events, people, traditions, names, and so much more. It’s all integral to my nonhuman identity.

However, because I believe it all stems from some deep unconscious part of my brain, and because it feels like a parallel life, not a past life, I never felt right calling these things memories. So almost two years ago at this point, I undertook the quest to fill that lexical gap. And after looking through dozens of obscure web pages and dictionaries and articles, I found something useful: The word ‘noema’. Noema is a rarely used Greek word that translates to concept, idea, perception, or thought. And I’ve been very happy to see the term catching on in my corner of the community, where it’s often used as a broader alternative to ‘memory’.

In philosophy, a noema is defined as “the perceived as it is perceived.” At first this might sound a bit vague or esoteric, but when looked at through the lens of subjective truth it suddenly starts to make sense. A subjective truth is something that’s real just because a person experiences it as real. A noema is the perceived as it is perceived. So when we’re using noema as a substitute for memory… when we’re discussing memory-like experiences in the community and we explicitly refer to them as noemata, instead of referring to them as memories, the actual cause of the noema is then irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that it’s in one way or another perceived as a memory. When talking about noemata, it’s completely and utterly irrelevant if they’re real in any objective way - the only thing that matters is that the individual experiences the noema as real. Essentially the word ‘noema’ makes the cause irrelevant, so we can instead focus on the experience alone.

And I think the fact that this word has caught on (at least on tumblr) hints that our community might be moving in a positive direction. I at least dream of a community where we care a lot less about our origins, and a lot more about our actual presence in the world.

I had a conversation with a friend a few months ago, about this community-wide worry about the origins of our identity. And just to reiterate, I’m not saying your spiritual beliefs are irrelevant, because they can be really important when forming a whole picture of your identity. I’m more so saying they can be a bit of a distraction. In my opinion, the whole discussion about spirituality vs psychology is a red herring. Most of us didn’t seek out the community because we had certain spiritual beliefs. We sought it out because we felt not-quite-human, and it was only later that we reached any conclusions about why we feel nonhuman.

So, my friend and I talked about the role this discussion of origins plays in our community, and we reached a few interesting conclusions. For starters, it’s really upsetting to some folks to have to earnestly consider the idea that reincarnated souls are no more real or ‘valid’ than psychological imprinting, or any other non-spiritual beliefs for that matter. That’s part of what started the whole ‘nonhuman by birth’ idea I mentioned earlier. And it seems this uncomfortableness stems from a place of insecurity.

At the risk of offending some folks, I’m gonna draw a parallel to the trans community. In the trans community there’s a discussion of origins that parallels the one in the kin community and is likewise an attempt to draw lines between the quote-unquote ‘real’ trans people and the so-called transtrenders - which are supposedly people who pretend to be trans for clout. Those who attempt to draw these lines proclaim that being trans is a medical condition that they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy, and one that’s marked by intense dysphoria and stress. They’ll also regularly state that being trans is only real or ‘valid’ because it has been proven through MRI brain scans that some female-assigned people have supposedly male brains, and vice versa.

(And just to make things clear, those brain scans are not real. It’s malicious pseudoscience spread by people who want to ‘cure’ transness by preventing trans kids from being born.)

But I think this attempt at validating your identity - in this case with science - stems from a dislike of one’s own traits, or more likely from the outside world’s dislike of those traits. When certain trans people try to prove themselves more valid than others in the eyes of the public, it’s not because they just hate those they deem ‘not trans enough’ - it’s because they’re afraid of being rejected by the rest of the world. These people are basically saying: “I didn’t choose to be trans. This is how I was born, so you have to accept it because it’s unchangeable.” It’s a cry for acceptance in an unaccepting world. And all this is not to say that some trans people aren’t born trans; I really think most trans people have a narrative like that. I’m more so trying to get across that, someone else’s narrative of choice should have no impact on your narrative of involuntarity. Both are real ways to experience being trans. And in many ways, having a narrative of choosing to be trans is necessary for the community, because it closes the doors for eugenicists who would try to eliminate quote-unquote “the trans gene”.

Viewing transness as a purely medical phenomenon where you need to meet certain requirements to get a trans diagnosis is a really reductive way to look at identity. Like I mentioned earlier: An identity is not just the sum of its parts, and it cannot be summarized by being forced to feel dysphoria. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know trans people are real because we have brain imaging technology, or even because certain people meet the medical criteria for having gender dysphoria. We know trans people are real because there are real people who identify as trans. We should be able to trust that people are trans when they tell us they are. And I think we need to look at nonhuman identities the same way.

Before I move on to the conclusion, I want to explain why this topic has become so important to me. A couple of months ago, after a good year or two of introspection, I realized I had created a hearttype. Not a kintype, but nonetheless an equally integral part of how I view myself and engage with the world. And changing something so fundamental about myself sent my thoughts racing.

When I was a kid I picked up a fear of spiders. It wasn’t bad enough to give me panic attacks, but it was bad enough that I couldn’t pick up a spider and carry it outside, even though I could do so with other bugs. I was around 10 years old when I decided that this was dumb, and I wanted to change it. So as a tween I quickly started on my own exposure therapy, looking at photos of spiders, reading about them, photographing them in nature, and after several years it had gotten to the point where I barely had a reaction to seeing them. But as I continued on, getting used to the idea of holding them and touching them, something changed in me.

Where I had previously felt fear, I started to feel admiration and love and a sense of familiarity. I wanted to surround myself with these animals, I wanted to work with them, and I started spending a not-insignificant amount of money on terrariums. And now, after more than a decade of rewriting my own thoughts and changing a mild fear into a love so deep it affects my sense of identity itself, I feel confident saying I created a hearttype. It was not an easy process. Like I said, it took more than a decade. Changing your entire mindset like that can’t be done with just a snap of your fingers. But evidently, some people are able to do it.

Though I have to add that, even here, it’s very easy to argue that there was some level of involuntarity. I already had an emotional response to spiders when I was scared of them. I don’t think I could form this kind of relationship with something I’m completely indifferent to, like, I dunno, a Toyota or a Marvel character. You can’t really form a relationship from nothing. And I appreciate this argument, because it really highlights just how confusing the entire concept of choice is, and how it doesn’t make sense to define ourselves by our lack of choice, when we can’t even define what counts as a choice.

But yeah, realizing that I created a hearttype, an identity that at the time was considered involuntary… realizing that I didn’t just play a part in creating this identity, but that I did create it, period. It sent my mind spinning, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what else might be possible. If I could create such love in myself, could I also do the opposite and tear down my own hearttype and recreate the phobia? Not something I want to test. But I think I could. And which other identities could be created like this?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the creation process has no impact on the nature of the identity itself, and I ended up posting a really controversial thing on tumblr. In hindsight I understand why some people got so pissed off about it, but I still stand by those thoughts. I’ll read it to you in full: “Theoretically I probably could force myself to not be otherkin. But it would take a decade or more, the way my hearttype creation did, and it would require constant work throughout those years. However, I see no way I wouldbenefit from that work, the way I did when I unintentionally created a hearttype in the process of getting rid of a phobia. It would just rid me of a part of myself that’s intrinsic to how I recognize myself. That’s not something I in any way want - and because I don’t want it, and because the choice would have to happen continuously on a timescale I can barely comprehend, I couldn’t make that choice in practicality.”

A very long and very complicated discussion came out of this post that I’d need a whole separate lecture to recap. But a few important ideas were developed, which I need to mention here. For starters, when discussing shadowwork and the Jungian archetypes, Jasper accidentally coined the term ego alteration. Through that discussion we ended up defining ego alteration as the process by which you proactively alter your conscious mind, your self-perception, and your thought-patterns. It’s not something to be taken lightly, as you’ll essentially be changing your sense of self by it. And it’s also not something everyone has the ability, desire, or drive to do. To integrate something into your sense of self, or to remove something that’s currently a part of your sense of self is serious business, and, like my hearttype creation, is something that should be thought about on a decades long timescale. I don’t have time to get in-depth about it here, but to consciously change your identity and your sense of self is definitely possible for some folks, and it’s nice to have a name for the concept.

Something else that came of that discussion is my own thoughts about how we define otherkin. The most common definition I’ve seen is “to identify, wholly or partially, as something nonhuman on a nonphysical level, by no choice of your own.” … I suggest we drop the last bit.

Okay, it’s a bit more complicated than just deleting a few words. In order to drop the “by no choice of your own” bit, without losing the meaning of otherkinity completely, and letting kin for fun take over, we’d need to rethink that entire definition.

Instead of defining otherkin by the amount of choice we had in the formation of our identity, I suggest we define otherkin by how integral our identities are to us. It was briefly mentioned on in one of the other panels (though I forget which one), but a pretty big source of conflict is that kin for fun just don’t understand the gravity of otherkin identities. If we define otherkinity as something that’s inseparable from who we are as individuals, it would not only make it clear to kin for fun that this is, well, not for fun. It would also get around the problem of people who worry that their identities might be invalid because they’ve made certain choices.

Your otherkinity is inherent, and by that I mean you would be a fundamentally different person if not for your kintype. At its most basic level, your kintype is what you recognize yourself to be. It’s the kind you belong to, rather than, or in tandem with, belonging to humankind. You kintype is an intrinsic part of you, and even if you could get rid of it, it would fundamentally change who you are is a person. If you chose not to be otherkin, you would also choose not to be you. In that sense, I suppose otherkinity is involuntary, in that you yourself can’t choose not to be otherkin, because as soon as you make that choice, you aren’t you. Though you could also argue that it is a choice because you wake up every day and choose to be you. And thus, the topic of choice leaves us running around in circles like it always has.

Being otherkin… being otherkind has never been about being forced to feel species dysphoria. It’s about being of another kind. It’s about knowing and recognizing humankind, and accepting that, in one way or another, that does not describe us.

And all this is not to say that copinglinking shouldn’t be a concept, but we need to rethink that as well. From the very few copinglink writings that exist, one topic I’ve seen several times is the idea of copinglinks becoming inseparable from you. This is not the point of links, and those who do go through a change like that find themselves more at home in the kin community than the link community. I don’t want to impose myself on linkers, but if we want these two words to make sense and have a use, we need to redefine both. I suggest defining copinglinks and otherlinks by their lack of integrality or by their ability to be dropped when necessary.

The line that has been drawn between otherkin and copinglinkers doesn’t help anyone as it is. There are far too many nonhumans who straddle the line, who feel torn between either community, or who only call themselves linkers because they feel pressured to do so. There are far too many nonhumans who don’t feel like they have a community they can call home.

So, I’m gonna propose a new and much more inclusive definition: To be otherkin is to identify as something nonhuman on an inherent or integral level. There you go, clean and simple. No more caveats or nested sentences.

#otherkin #otherkind #fictionkin #fictionkind #alterhuman #othercon #i don't think this is gonna show in the tags so reblogs are very appreciated

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 4 years ago

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Let’s talk about ‘Friends’ by BTS

by Admin 1

Friends is the subunit song by Jimin and Taehyung (co-written and co-produced by Jimin) from Map of the Soul : 7 which was released in February 2020. Interestingly enough, the Korean title is actually 친구, a word that is only used for friends of the same age, which is how ARMY figured out that it had to be their subunit prior to the release of the album.

On a very surface level, Friends is about the bond between Jimin and Taehyung recounting different little stories over the years, including the now famous dumpling incident which was first presented to us as a conflict that merely took up a few hours. Actually though it was a conflict that grew big enough that Jimin and Taehyung barely spoke to each other for two weeks and it culminated in Jimin getting drunk with Yoongi and then meeting Taehyung at a park at 4 am to make up. Yes, the same park at 4 am that Taehyung and Namjoon sing about in 4 O’Clock. That song, like many suspected, really was about Jimin and Taehyung as well.

But, while Friends might seem simple and fun on the outside, especially due to the upbeat melody and anthem like chorus, I think there is far more to it than meets the eye. Stella Jang, who co-wrote the lyrics, said in an interview with K-Pop Herald that BigHit sent her an email which contained the song as well as long stories about Jimin’s and Taehyung’s bond and based on that she was supposed to write short lyrics. She also had a friend, who is an ARMY, help her truly understand the depth of their bond. That alone to me shows that this goes far deeper than most might assume, and others wish for it.

Hello my alien We’re each other’s mystery Would it be why it’s more special

This verse for me is very interesting, especially since Jimin reclaims a nickname that people used to call Taehyung by which he hated. Instead Jimin turned it into something endearing, something that now belongs to them instead of others. It’s also noteworthy that that specific line is in English, not Korean, and he says my alien, so basically telling the listener that he takes some kind of claim over Taehyung, connects them in a way that anyone would understand, and unmistakably highlights that he’s the only one to call him like this because Taehyung is special to him, much the way you’d call someone dear to you/someone you love by an endearment such as ‘my darling’ or ‘my love’.

More below the cut:

The mystery part could refer to the early days of their friendship, the times when they were just getting to know each other and trying to figure out their dynamic and each other in a more general sense. We know they almost instantly became friends, stuck to each other and spent a lot of time together, despite constantly getting in little fights, but perhaps those struggles were what made the end result that much more special to them. Interesting to note is also how Jimin once said that when he saw Tae for the first time he experienced many different emotions (he didn’t specify which ones though), and how to this day he remembers Tae only wearing those red shorts and snapback and how even then he already looked like an idol/celebrity.

But the line could also refer to something more recent, or something more overarching, like a secret about themselves that only they know about, that they share and guard together.

Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey Stay with me by my side Forever, keep staying here, hey

and

Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey You are my soulmate Forever, keep staying here, hey You are my soulmate

These two might just be the most important parts of the song, and the ones that seem to be the hardest to swallow for some. This is basically Jimin and Taehyung asking each other to stay together forever, even when (or especially when) their careers will be over and BTS won’t be such a main and overarching reason for them to stay by each other anymore, so to speak. It implies that what they have is something they want to last forever, that it reaches far beyond them just being two best friends inside a group, but that they are rather two people who found ‘their person’ in each other. They know they’ve found something one of a kind, once in a lifetime, and want to hold on to it, to each other. It’s also them proclaiming and reminding everyone once again that they are soulmates, that this isn’t just something ARMY made up, some shipping agenda or anything like it, but that it is truly the title they see most fit for each other, that it basically feels like their bond was destiny and they were always meant to be together. You are my soulmate is also in English, something that every listener will understand, something so important they specifically made it this way so you wouldn’t need to look up translations from Korean to get it.

Sidenote--somehow soulmate has become a very debated term in connection to vmin so lets look at the definition for soulmate that wikipedia gives us: A soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity. This may involve similarity, love, romance, platonic relationships, comfort, intimacy, sexuality, sexual activity, spirituality, compatibility and trust. Most of these are rather connected to the most traditional way in which people imagine soulmates, as in two people destined for each other, lovers perfect for one another. Of course there are friendship type soulmates, but those are far more rare in peoples minds. The point I’m getting at is that Jimin and Taehyung never defined which type of soulmate they are, and until I saw non-vminies have a fight about how they’re definitely just platonic ones, I never even really saw the word soulmate in connection with ‘platonic’. In a way you could argue that both sides are right, that they are both friendship soulmates but also romantic ones as well, their bond encompassing both. But in the end, of course, that’s something only they can confirm yet I thought I’ll mention it anyway.

Like your pinky, we’re still the same I know your everything We must trust each other Don’t forget Instead of an obvious thank-you, you and I — let’s promise that we won’t fight tomorrow, for real

These lines may seem so simple, short and sweet, but I think there is a lot of meaning to them, a lot that’s written between the lines and potentially only something they understand the true extent of. I know your everything is another reminder that they are each others secret keepers, each others closest confidants, their person to go to and laugh or cry or celebrate with. Jimin and Taehyung have something that is rare, one of a kind, and it’s something beautiful that should be regarded with respect and wonder since it’s close to a miracle that they met and formed their bond in such a manner. After all Jimin is from Busan and Taehyung from Daegu, chances are, if BTS hadn’t happened, they might’ve never met, though looking at everything BTS have said about each other, they seem to believe they were all destined to meet regardless if as members of BTS or as normal people. The same most likely would’ve also have been the case for Jimin and Taehyung, and Friends is a beautiful piece of proof of that.

Many dismiss Friends as just a song about their friendship, but I think once you truly think about the lyrics and the thoughts that must’ve gone into it, you might change your mind. Even more so when you take into account what Namjoon said about Friends in his MOTS:7 vlive, how he wouldn’t even dare try writing any of the lyrics because he could never, ever do them justice, and how just thinking about the bond Taehyung and Jimin have, he gets goosebumps. That alone already says a lot, implies a lot of different things, very deep and (in my opinion) potentially more than just friends type things. There was also a moment during Bon Voyage 3 in Malta where Namjoon and Seokjin were at a restaurant together and somehow they brought up Taehyung and Jimin and both just shook their heads at how they are just--something, something apparently meaningful enough neither dared to voice it.

Friends might not be something you’d call a traditionally romantic or love song by any means, at least sound wise, but I’d argue the lyrics tell a completely different story, one of a bond that binds two souls, that combines friendship and love (both the love you have for a cherished friend, but also the one you feel for a romantic partner, I’d argue). The song, as well as 4 O’Clock are far more than meets the eye, you just have to be open and willing enough to see it.

After all Taehyung did say: “95z is love.” The biggest clue of them all.

(Lyric snippets taken from 친구 (Friends))

#bts #vmin #Vmin friends song #song analysis #song commentary #taehyung #jimin #kim taehyung #park jimin #BTS V #map of the soul 7 #4 o clock #bangtan seonyandan #bts jimin

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socialwriter · 4 years ago

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If I Die Young

**gif by @somebodylikeaguardianangel**

Pairing: John B Routledge x Female! Reader

TW: Angst (duh), death, hospitals, not eating, fainting/passing out, near death experience, grief, sadness

1.4k+

Based off of the song If I Die Young

Series masterlist

A/n: Here it is, the first chapter of my glee song fic sereis! A huge thank you to @girlsru1eboysdroo1 for reading this through and encouraging me to post this, ily boo <3

The sharp knife of a short life,

Well, I've had just enough time

The pain was agonizing, all encompassing. It drowned out the sounds of the rain pounding down, drowns out the sounds of Kiara and Pope’s tears, JJ’s screams. He’s gone. John b’s gone, lost at sea because some stupid cops that didn’t care about him chased him out there for no good reason. He was innocent, but because he was just a pogue and just a teenager, no one believed him when it mattered. The hurt didn’t leave you. Not when you were taken away from what was now a crime scene. Not when you arrived at the chateau, glaringly empty. Not when you went to bed, enveloping yourself in sheets that still faintly smelled like him. You were too hurt, too broken, left behind by the only boy you had ever loved.

And I'll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom

I'm as green as the ring on my little cold finger

You all had promised each other that you wouldn’t wear black to the funeral. The color was too dark, too real. It represented too much for the four of you to handle, so you had agreed to brighter and happier colors. Which is why you were in the bathroom of the chateau, smoothing out the wrinkles in the white dress you wore. It hung loosely on your body, making you look like even more of a shell of your former self. Your eyes were sunken in and red from all the crying and lack of sleep, unable to rest without the soothing lullaby of John B’s heartbeat. You looked much thinner than you remembered, probably from the lack of food the past week. You couldn’t bring yourself to eat anything or care for yourself. You did it for him before, not wanting to worry him, but now what was the point? You fiddled with the rings on your finger, stopping when you feel the cold metal on your ring finger. You hold your hand out in front of you, smiling sadly at the small green jewel.

It had been three weeks since you had had a proper date night, or really spent any time, with your boyfriend John B and you were completely and thoroughly pissed off. He’d been avoiding your calls, texts, and barely spoke a word to you when he got home after long days out. None of the other pogues would tell you what was up and frankly you were fed up with it. So, instead of getting dressed up for the date John B had told you about earlier in the day, you sat around moping in sweats and one of his old t-shirts.

“Hey babe are you ready to g- why aren’t you getting ready?” John B’s voice rang out through the chateau, causing you to pull your knees up to your chest, staring at the ground. John B’s shoulders fall when he sees your demeanor, approaching you slowly. “What’s wrong?”

You shrug your shoulders at him, letting out a deep sigh. “You cheating on me or somethin’?” You mumble, tears filling your eyes as soon as you say the words out loud.

“W-what? No, I’m not why would you even think something like that,” John B says instantly, sitting next to you on the couch and placing a gentle hand on your cheek, forcing you to look at him.

“Well I mean, you’ve been avoiding me the past couple of weeks and no one’s telling me anything so what else am I supposed to think?” You ask him, your voice raising slightly in irritation.

John B makes an ‘o’ with his lips, suddenly connecting all the dots. “I’ve been working a lot of overtime, for the money.”

You scoff, pulling away from him. “Cut the crap JB, we get by fine without you working so much.”

John B sighs, fishing something out of his back pocket. “Well I mean, I was hoping that I could give this to you in a more romantic way, but here.” He hands you a small box containing a small ring with a little green gem on top. You gasp as soon as you see the present, easily the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given you. “What is this?” You ask breathlessly.

“A promise ring, like a representation of our love. It sounded a lot better when Kie explained it to me..” John B trailed off, suddenly nervous that you wouldn’t like the present or think it was stupid.

“JB I love it,” you whisper, a small smile gracing your lips. He instantly perks up, grinning at you. “Yea?”

You nod, slipping the ring on your finger. “Thank you JB,” you say, pressing a small kiss against his lips.

“Anything for you princess.”

I've never known the lovin' of a man

But it sure felt nice when he was holding my hand

There's a boy here in town says he'll love me forever

Who would have thought forever could be severed

Your home life wasn’t the best. You were a pogue, living alone after your mother had left you for some kook. You never knew your father, never got to experience that love. The only love you experienced was what you had with John b. And now that too had been taken away from you, the world playing yet another cruel trick on you. That promise ring meant that the two of you would love each other for the rest of your lives, what felt like forever. Apparently forever isn’t very long at all. Love wasn’t as strong as you had once thought it was, because it was able to be completely shattered by life, or rather the ending of one. You had never known what love was before John B came into your life, and now that he was gone, you feared that you would never experience love again.

So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls

What I never did is done

The four of you all stood looking over the marsh, grieving the one person that had kept you all together. None of you knew how to handle this, how to cope. You couldn’t look out for one another because each of you were falling apart on your own. Your mind wandered to what could have been. The kisses you never gave him, too shy or fearful of rejection. The words you never said, emotions getting in the way. It all felt silly and stupid. Why hadn’t you simply done everything you wanted with John B while you still had the chance? All the what ifs crushed you, made you feel like you couldn’t breathe and your vision blur, until eventually everything just went dark.

The ballad of a dove

Go with peace and love

Gather up your tears, keep 'em in your pocket

Save 'em for a time when your really gonna need 'em oh

Pope caught you before you hit the ground, instantly in a frenzy. “Guys she’s barely breathing.”

Both Kie and JJ turned to look at your all but lifeless form, panic in their eyes. “Shit she- what do we do?” JJ’s frantic voice echoed throughout the marsh, only increasing the tension and worry in the environment. Eventually, despite the money it would cost, the three of them were speeding off to the hospital, trying their best to keep you breathing and comfortable. As soon as Kie pulled into the hospital, JJ slammed the car door open, picking you up and running inside with your limp body in his arms, Kie and Pope not far behind him. Doctors and nurses were all over you in a matter of seconds, pushing the three pogues away whenever they tried to see what exactly was happening to their best friend. The situation felt eerily similar, the painful events that lead to John B’s death still fresh in their minds. All they could do was stand there, wondering if they were going to lose yet another friend. There were no more tears left to cry, all of them already spent on John B.

The ringing of a phone pulls them out of their stupor. “Who’s damn phone is that?” Kie questions aloud, prompting JJ to pull the buzzing device out of his pocket.

“Mine.” He mumbles before answering the call. His eyes widen as soon as he hears the voice on the other end, earning questioning glances from both Pope and Kie.

“John B?”

Taglist: @thelocalpogue @rae131415 @goldenhanna @scandalousfemale @obx-direction-sos @rafecameron @paradigmax @anonymous0writer @x-lulu @futuretaxcheat @olsenholic @jjaybank @starlightstarkey @girlsru1eboysdroo1 @Theyrealldruggy @pit-zuh @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar @simonsbluee @outerbongs @stfukie @yxseminx @ilovejjmaybank @abbiesthings @captain-molls-of-the-small-world @kikinuke2 @maddymfperez @pogue-writings @rudths @i-love-scott-mccall @strangerthanfanfiction713 @jj-iz-bae @sguymon21 @kookkyra @wallflowercal @maybanksbaby @jiaraendgame @copper-boom @sunwardsss @starksweasley @trashmouthpogues @allielozoya @vindictive-hearts @kaitieskidmore1 @teenwaywardasgardian @diverrdown @lynniep @apoguecalledjj @dancer0614 @jjtheangel @deathcompass @dpaccione @canibeoneofthepogues @arianabrashierstuff @bolaurel @outerbanksbro @beth-winchester21 @ifilwtmfc

Frenz: @sortagaysortahigh @bluesiderudy @ad-infinitums @midnightmagicmusings @spideymyluv @diverdcwn @softstarkey

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woman-loving · 4 years ago

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“The SAM” and its critics

I guess I won’t make it a whole thing, but here are my thoughts on the “split attraction model.” (NB: This perspective is based on my own recollections and interpretations, but I don’t know all things. Different versions of the story may exist.)

To begin with, the term “split attraction model” was coined circa May 2015 by critics who were trying to name a phenomenon they took issue with. Going forward, “critics” will refer to this group who first coined the term, but they are not the only ones who criticize the language, components, or universalism of the “split attraction model.” (Example from theacetheist with lots of links.) The particular criticisms I’m concerned with developed around the time that monosexism discourse was dying down, and a group that had been critical of “monosexism” was exploring new topics to complain about. (I was one of the complainers, to be clear; that is not a disavowal.) Here are a couple sample posts from May-July 2015: one, two, three, four. Note the anons mentioning they can’t find anything about the “split attraction model”--that’s because there was nothing else written using that language!

Grumblings were eventually arranged into the sequence of words, “split attraction model,” and that term took off among critics who used it as a vague gesture toward a set of grievances. As I remember it, one of the primary targets was the paired sexual-romantic identity format, e.g. naming one’s orientation as --sexual --romantic. Also as I remember it, criticisms were primarily concerned with its use beyond ace/aro people, focusing on what might be considered bi-range “mixed orientations” like “bisexual heteromantic” or “homosexual biromantic.” It wasn’t too uncommon to see people say that these paired identities could work for ace or aro people, but didn’t otherwise make sense.

I believe connections were also made between these identities and the creation and cataloguing of specialized identities that detailed to whom/what and how/whether one experienced attraction. The people who advanced or approved of these projects, and the approach to sexuality/gender that seemed to motivate them, were scorned as “mogai.” Although I too scorned “mogais,” I never looked too closely at any “mogai” blogs; “mogai” was a category based mostly on impressions. The use of other subtypes of attraction (e.g. sensual, aesthetic, platonic, which may have been previously popularized among ace/aro people) as the basis for orientation-like labels such as “heteroaesthetic” or “homosensual” also provoked consternation, although I couldn’t tell you if these labels were ever seriously adopted by a significant number of people. As I understand it, “romantic orientation” was also popularized among aces, although this and other concepts that took inspiration from it were being used on tumblr by a mixed and overlapping group of ace/aro/lgbtq people.

Sometimes when critics invoked the “split attraction model,” they were imagining all of this as a single model of orientation, in which (they presumed) a “complete” orientation (as they were used to thinking of it) would entail listing out --sexual --romantic --sensual --aesthetic and whatever other dimensions people created. But I think that often times critics would be thinking mainly of the paired sexual-romantic identity format, which was more commonly used.

The objections were many. A lot of these revolved around the way “sexual orientation” and --sexual terms were defined by people who also used “romantic orientation,” --romantic terms, and other parallel dimensions of orientation and identity.

Critics were used to “sexual orientation” and “sexuality” naming something that encompassed erotic/sexual, emotional/romantic (e.g. being “in love”), and social/kinship (e.g. dating, marriage) elements. Likewise, they understood terms like “bisexual,” “homosexual,” and “heterosexual,” as well as “gay” and “lesbian,” as inclusive of all these elements. And, in fact, this is the typical way in which these terms are used by gay/bi people and activists and by almost anyone writing about these subjects in a serious way. Gay/bi people have often had to demand recognition for the emotional and social aspects of their relationships and desires, or (alternately) for the sexual aspects, and so there was some significance attached to affirmation of their integration. Critics didn’t believe that all elements always occurred together, however. There's general recognition that sexual interest can occur apart from being “in love.” And while there’s more social skepticism over this possibility, many of these critics would have also agreed that you could be “in love” without sexual interest. (Some critics identified as ace and/or sex-repulsed.)

Critics sensed that when “sexual orientation” and --sexual terms were being paired/contrasted with “romantic orientation” and --romantic terms (and others), the meaning of the former were narrowed to only refer to specifically sexual and not emotional/social components. And I think you can, in fact, see that reflected in how "sexual orientation” is explained by some people who use both orientations (and others). A while back I compiled a sample of definitions of “sexual orientation” from a few college LGBTQ groups and compared them with a few definitions from AVEN and AVENwiki, and the difference is apparent. (Some of those entries have sense been edited in response to my post.)

So I think there was a real difference in how people were using “sexual orientation” and --sexual identity terms. The critics were using them in the broader, mainstream sense, while others were using them more narrowly. For record, I don’t think the narrower version is objectively “incorrect” or anything like that, and I can understand why some people would like to use it. But it is different from how the terms are usually used, and how a lot of gay/bi people and others would like to see them used. And reading “sexual orientation” in the narrower sense when it was intended to be used in the broader sense can result in a very loaded misunderstanding. The same is true for words like “bisexual” and “homosexual.” There was a lot of concern that calling oneself “bisexual” would be interpreted as exclusively sexual-related information.

The use of “homosexual” itself was also criticized. This was (with reason) identified as a stigmatizing term that a lot of gay people didn’t want to be called. But within the “split attraction model,” this term, in its narrower re-sexualized sense, seemed to be the “correct” term for gay people.

There was also concern about who was adopting “homosexual.” Critics who were coming from anti-monosexism circles tended to value solidarity between lesbians and bisexual women and didn’t see either group as privileged over the other. But they also accepted that there was a fairly clean boundary between these groups, and that keeping this boundary unambiguous was important. The “mixed” sexual-romantic identities such as “homosexual biromantic” blurred the distinction between gay and bi, and were thus unintelligible until they were translated as “just a gay person” or “just a bi person.” This translation could go either way. When translated as “just a bi person,” “homosexual biromantic” was perceived as bi people appropriating a gay identity, and a disrespectful one at that.

A clear division between “oppressed” gay/bi people and “privileged” straight people was also a key point in critics’ social-political worldview, and this mixed identities also blurred this divide, resulting in potential “just a (homophobic) straight person” readings. A “heteromantic bisexual” could be a straight person who just used gay/bi people for sex, and was further obscuring their privilege and homophobic by presenting themselves as non-straight.

Unprocessed internalized homophobia and biphobia were seen as explanations for the adoption of these identities (for either “just gay” or “just bi” translations). The use and promotion of these terms (among advice blogs or through LGBTQ glossaries, for example) was also seen as limiting the ability for young gay/bi people to work through internalized homophobia and biphobia. Having doubts about whether one could have a sexual or emotional relationship with someone of the same gender were seen as common uncertainties among young and newly-out gay/bi people, resulting from the suppression of same-gender possibilities by a heterosexist society. There was a perception that questioning people were being actively encouraged to accept these uncertainties at face value as natural, enduring aspects of their orientation. Even simple exposure to these identities could set people back in their self coming out process, and some people reported how adopting these identities had been a roadblock on their own journeys.

In conjunction with all this, there was a perception that these models of orientation were gaining ground and displacing the models they favored. It seemed easy for current and past broader uses of “sexual orientation” to be overwritten with the narrower version, and thus have the speaker’s meaning completely distorted. I think part of this sense of threat was due to the paired sexual-romantic identities--and other specialized identities that were being developed--following a very empirical-sounding format. It seemed easy to read these terms as a cutting-edge classification of newly observed patterns of human “attraction” and “orientation.” Models that didn’t include them could easily be read as lagging behind and incomplete, their omissions attributed to ignorance rather than an alternate vision of what was meaningful and important to name. This all seemed to lean hard on on a “scientific,” essentialist model of sexuality. And actually, critics themselves sometimes drew on a similar model of sexuality to justify the divisions they saw as important (e.g. between gay and bi). Unfortunately, although critics saw these paired and specialized identities as a clear folly of “going too far,” I think they found it difficult to explain why these terms that sounded even more “sciencey” and comprehensive (= authoritative), were actually wrong.

Anyway, I guess that’s about all I have to say on it for now. Feel free to let me know if you think this story is accurate or inaccurate.

#split attraction model

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antialiasis · 4 years ago

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Worldbuilding June (Pokémon edition), Days 8-12

Whoops forgot to post these for a couple of days, too busy with a load of Things as always.

8. Who rules in your world?

TQftL never brings up government, but each region has its own human government, generally just standard representative democracies similar to what we have in the modern world. Ouen has an elected parliament and president. It's a fairly utopian world with little scarcity and politics play kind of a background role - they keep things running, they have some different parties, but there's low polarization and usually they work pretty smoothly together and have little conflict. The situation in other regions is similar - movement is very free and conflict between them is rare and minor in the grand scheme of things.

QftLverse Pokémon, once again, have their own societies and are not subject to human rule except in a limited way while they're with a trainer, as per the Agreement, an all-encompassing contract dictating how the relationship between humans and Pokémon should work. Different Pokémon species govern themselves differently, but their societies are generally based on smaller self-governing groups. The Scyther society has a single leader, who is meant to be the simply strongest in the swarm, and anyone can challenge them to a duel to the death to take their place at any time.

The Morphicverse is once again close to Earth, with different countries having different modes of government. The Poké-USA's politicical climate resembles the actual USA's political climate in ~2007, but if I ever wrote references to the current president I wouldn't make him an outright Bush expy or anything, beyond being from the conservative one of the two highly polarized parties.

9. What religions and myths/legends exist in your world?

The QftLverse's human society is basically post-religious. Legendary Pokémon are revered, but not worshipped - people don't pray to them, ascribe natural phenomena to them, expect them to watch over them personally, perform symbolic rituals associated with them, etc. That said, humans do have myths concerning them - not always accurate ones. The story describes the human myth behind one set of legendaries early on before the reality much later turns out to have been fairly different, for instance.

QftLverse Pokémon have their own myths, legends, religions and beliefs. The Scyther society explored in the spin-offs has a bit of a vague mythology going on explaining the sun, moon, stars and clouds, but it's not very important to them, more of a just-so story. Meanwhile, they live by a system of ethics known as the Code that they consider sacred and all-important, though it doesn't have a godly figure behind it as the source of it, only a philosophy. Other Pokémon might variously have straight-up religion (whether worshipping legendary Pokémon or something else), be entirely areligious, or something in between; most will have myths and legends in some form, though.

The Morphicverse has a form of Christianity, which is functionally a lot like ours; this also means they had a version of Judaism. Other specific religions don't come up, but they'd at the very least be as varied as real-world religions. Like in real life, there are many sects and variants, and as many individual interpretations of faiths as there are people. The villain cult in particular has fringe views that in no way resemble the mainstream. And like in real life, many people nominally believe but don't really practice their religion, and many are agnostic or atheist.

Legendary Pokémon in the Morphicverse are cryptids - there are myths and legends about them, and people think they're neat, write fiction and make movies about them all the time, but in the modern day, actually-for-real believing that they exist out there ranges from mildly eccentric to entirely unthinkable. Worship of legendary Pokémon exists, but in the way that modern neo-Paganism does. It's not remotely mainstream, generally seen as a weird hippie thing, and the notion of Arceus appearing in the flesh one day and declaring he created the universe is about as fantastical to most people as the notion of the Norse pantheon doing the same in our world.

10. What traditions are observed in your world?

QftLverse human traditions are mostly just secular holidays - commemorations of important days in the region's history, etc. It's tradition for most children to go out on a Pokémon journey the spring after they turn ten years old, and participate in a First-Timers' League in the autumn if they manage to stick it out for the whole journey and collect all the badges - there are kids who don't, but it's rare for them to not want to, and other kids may see them as no fun.

Every year in Green Town, there is a Pokémon Festival originally built around the legendary Pokémon Chaletwo's yearly brief visit to the outskirts of the city (which may or may not be ditched in the next revision); it hosts a number of Pokémon-themed events over several days. One of them is a starter Pokémon giveaway, where most kids go to get official starter Pokémon, who have specifically volunteered and been trained to work with beginning trainers - though many kids have had Pokémon as pets/partners since they were young and journey with them instead, or their parents otherwise get them a Pokémon who's up for a beginning trainer. (Many Pokémon kind of like the idea of journeying with a beginning trainer, in the way that many people like the idea of getting a kitten rather than an adult cat - just something special about having been with them from the start. Though getting a starter who's actually been trained to deal with kids is recommended over just finding any random enthusiastic Pokémon.)

Pokémon have all kinds of different traditions. The Scyther society as explored in the spin-offs has a number of traditions and rituals, including a sort of blood baptism of new hatchlings, the leader of the swarm teaching all the adolescent Scyther about the Code, and First Prey, where each of the adolescents is sent out to hunt prey on their own for the first time, with a male and female witness following, so they can prove their ability to kill and to feed themselves. Afterwards, they're expected to publicly offer a symbolic piece of the meat of their first prey to some members of the swarm, and doing so signals respect; you don't technically have to, but in practice everyone always offers it to the leader and not doing so would be taken as outright disrespect.

The Morphicverse is once again culturally similar to the real world and has mostly similar sorts of traditions. Pokémon training is less culturally ingrained there, but still a very common hobby for kids.

11. What are some ways people communicate with pokémon in your world, or pokémon with each other?

In the QftLverse, humans learn to understand Pokémon speech as a mandatory subject at school. Pokémon inherently understand human speech, but they speak anime-style, usually in syllables of their species' name (which is what the species are named after). They share one language, which is not based on exactly what the syllables are but the tone and the way they're combined, hence why it works regardless of the species.

In the current version of the fic, this is pure handwave worldbuilding: it's established that it happens at school at the beginning, and then we just move on to the story, where every human simply understands what Pokémon are saying at all times. In the next revision I'd give a bit more proper worldbuilding attention to it - let the language barrier be a little more present, humans vary in exactly how good they are at it (luckily it's already the main character's best subject at school), and otherwise treat it less like it's just an excuse to act like Pokémon speak English.

In the Morphicverse, Pokémon do communicate but they don't do complex communication - instead, it's closer to the sort of communication most animals do in the real world. They can express how they're feeling, draw attention to something interesting, sound the alarm about something scary, ask another Pokémon to follow, and can do this in a somewhat more efficient and intelligent way than most animals generally do. But one way or another, they don't communicate complicated abstract ideas, neither to humans nor to one another. Pokémon don't automatically understand human speech here, though they're very quick learners when it comes to commands, and they can pick up a fair amount just by being around humans, allowing them to get the gist of basic statements and requests without being explicitly taught them, though anything abstract would still be entirely lost on them. You could tell a Pokémon you've lived with for years "I lost my hat, can you help me find it" and they'll go look for your hat, but they'd be lost if you tried to ask them for anything much more complicated than that.

12. What is the gym circuit or adventuring organization like in your world?

In the QftLverse, gyms are meant to be taken on in a specific order and gym leaders are accordingly expected to keep their Pokémon below a certain level. To be officially sanctioned by the League, a gym needs to have a theme - usually a type, although Rick got away with a legendary theme because he gets away with everything because he is hypnotizing League officials with his Mewtwo super-clone I was twelve years old. Every year there's a First-Timers' League in the autumn in each region, where new trainers who have collected all eight badges of their region face off (except for the bit where I somehow made a guy who'd been training for years be part of it without thinking about it properly). There's also a global Old-Timers' League for more experienced trainers, which crowns a world champion; this doesn't involve badges and is just a tournament. Trainers are advised to stick to official routes, while Pokémon who want a trainer seek out the routes and others avoid them; going off-route has the potential to lead to run-ins with Pokémon who are more hostile to humans. It's not forbidden but it's drilled into kids' heads that you're not supposed to.

The Morphicverse's gym circuit is not too dissimilar to that, but gym leaders are expected to carry a variety of Pokémon teams to take on challengers of different skill levels, who can take on the gyms of their circuit in any order. Kid trainers are strictly meant to travel only along official routes, which are thoroughly monitored to be safe, and often take public trainer transportation; when they're eighteen they can get an adult trainer license with which they can take their Pokémon anywhere they like, at their own risk. Mostly kids do it as a hobby, and many young children dream of being professional trainers, but only a fraction are actually good enough to make money off it, so most either quit it after a few summers on realizing it's not for them (they might release their Pokémon or keep them as pets, depending on how high-maintenance they are), or continue to do it as a side hobby. There exist college-level training schools for those who really want to dedicate their lives to it, but by that point in time most people will have dropped their pro trainer dreams.

#tqftl #morphic #worldbuilding june #pokemon

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mackwritess · 4 years ago

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Westwood Road (Part 2)

A/N: I’m back with a second part! This was another commission, I didn’t think people liked the first part enough to want more of these two, but I guess I was wrong! My commissions are still open, with three slots available currently, so if you like what I do feel free to hit me with your own requests!

Summary: It’s been years since the incident on Westwood Road, and the two of them have long since gone their separate ways. But when an opprotunity to be reunited presents itself, will the risks be worth the reward?

Word count: 5.8k

Part 1

He doesn’t know how long he sits in the dark.

For all he knows, the dark is all he’s ever known. He sits there, waiting. Waiting for what exactly, he doesn’t know for sure. He just feels like this is the calm before the storm. Though he feels, upon thinking about it a bit longer, that this is more like the eye of the storm.

After all, he was just killed by someone he loved.

No, that doesn’t quite sound right either. He does still love her. He knows he probably shouldn’t, given the way she had just ripped him apart like a rabid animal, but he can’t bring herself to harbor any negative feelings about her. His only regret is not asking how she’d ended up in such a tragic situation. If the tears that streamed down her face as she finished him off were anything to go by, it must have been devastating.

He continues to just sit there in the all encompassing darkness. He wonders if he’ll ever be reunited with her again. He wonders if he’ll ever get to see her smile again, or hear her voice.

While he’s lost in thought, memories drifting in and out of his mind, he doesn’t notice the way things are beginning to grow brighter around him. He doesn’t notice until the light is near blinding, and he finds himself losing consciousness again.

It’s been years since she did what she did.

She’d convinced herself that she would move on and, in a way, she has. She continues to feed, preying on men and women alike as she sustains herself on their souls. In all this time, none of them had the same effect on her. She was able to do the same process that she had done with him with very little trouble. She was so certain this meant she had moved on.

Deep down she knew she hadn’t.

Even after all this time, the way he had looked at her before she took his life sits at the back of her mind, coming forward at the worst possible moment without fail.

Sometimes it comes to her just before she falls asleep, rendering her unable to do so for several hours, if she gets to at all. Other times, it comes when she’s about to feed, when she’s already planning where she’ll go to catch her next one. Suddenly, her prey becomes the predator, looking back at her with his forgiving eyes rather than the terrified ones they’d replaced. She’s taken back to the moment before she committed what she considers to be her greatest sin. Though he wasn’t fully composed, the fear of death as paralyzing as ever, his eyes told a different story. It was one of forgiveness, of acceptance.

It was one of love.

Sometimes she wonders if she’ll ever see him again. Perhaps he’d be traveling the world as a spirit, unable to move on from his mortal dwelling. Though she figures he’s likely become an angel by now. Helping others where he can, protecting them from things that may come to harm them. Protecting them from beings like her.

She knows he couldn’t have become something like her. It’s not in his nature.

While he had been able to accept his end, remembering all their moments together with fondness rather than regret, she hadn’t been able to do the same. Instead of remembering any good that had happened between her and the man that had ended her life, she found herself thinking about all the red flags that she had looked past. The way she had ultimately pushed away her friends and family who tried to warn her floated through her mind. She wished she’d listened to them.

Now she was doomed, her soul tainted with spite and vengefulness. She was to wander the earth, inflicting the same pain tht had been done unto her, only able to survive by causing heartbreak that could rival her own.

She wonders if the man who killed her had wanted to do the same. Reveling in the damage he had done to her, for fun rather than for survival. She thinks he was her first encounter with a demon. No person could be that evil without corruption. Though she fears she’s become like him.

She wonders if the cycle will ever break. If she’ll ever be free of her curse.

When he wakes up again, he’s disoriented.

The room is covered in a blinding white. The white curtains that hang in front of the window move slightly, a light breeze flowing into the room. There’s not a single sound coming from inside or outside of the room. He takes in his minimal surroundings, noting the chair sitting at the edge of the bed. The walls are as bare as the rest of the room, save for a rather intricate painting of clouds that rests near the door. It’s redundant, he thinks. It’s as if whoever was responsible for designing this pace felt it was too plain, but decided any sort of color would disturb the flow of the room.

He continues scanning the room, searching for something, anything, that could tell him where he is, when there’s a knock at the door. He freezes. Should he be hiding right now? Would making any sounds alert whoever, or whatever was on the other side of the door?

As if able to sense his apprehensiveness, the door opens slightly. It continues slowly, and he doesn’t dare move an inch. When it does open, he’s met with a young woman. She wears a simple white dress, and carries a clipboard with a few sheets of paper attached to the front of it.

“There’s no need to be alarmed,” she says. “You’re safe now.”

“Where am I?” He asks immediately. He can’t quite explain it, but her presence soothes him instantly. He finds any worries he has have melted away, and now he only has questions that need answers.

“Heaven, of course. You do know that you’re dead, right?” He nods. “Well, you’re certainly handling this better than most people your age do.”

“I didn’t think heaven would be so… clinical.”

“We’ve tried modernizing the way we welcome new angels.”

“It’s a little…”

“Plain?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no real reason for that. Just how it is.” He nods again. “Were those all your questions?”

“What’s the clipboard for?”

“Oh! That’s actually what I’m here to go over with you. You see, once you die, the place you end up after assigns a job to you.”

“So we don’t just get to enjoy the afterlife?”

“You do, just as long as you’re on top of assignments. It’s just so we can keep things running smoothly. Gives the people here a purpose.”

“So it’s like having a job.”

“Exactly! Only the payment is living in paradise.”

He considers this for a moment. Everything he’d been told about what Heaven is like has been a little misleading, it would seem. Though, he guesses that angels who visited humans in all the stories he’d heard were just doing their job. He tries not to think too hard about what that implies.

“So how do I choose my job?”

“Oh, you don’t choose. Your assignment is chosen when it’s decided where you’ll go after you die. Easier to get both of those examinations done in one go. Much faster that way.”

“But what if someone gets a job they aren’t happy with?”

“They learn to be happy with it eventually. Each job is rewarding in its own way.”

“I guess so.”

“You’ll understand more the longer you stay.” The woman clears her throat. “Now then! Let’s talk about your job. Your file says that you tend to go out of your way to help people. You were fairly popular in high school. A shame that you died so young. You really didn’t get to live much of your life.”

“I’d rather not think about that too much.”

“Your manner of death, though, that’s what really interests us.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Oh, this is a great thing. It’s the reason you’re getting the job you’re getting. We’ve been trying to deal with this type of demon for a while now. So many souls, unable to be saved.”

“Why?”

“Well, we don’t really base where you’ll go on your whole life. We base it on your emotions during your final moments. Really says a lot about you as a person. Much more than you realize.”

“So the people who died the way I did? What were they feeling?”

“Rage. Vengeance. Bloodlust. They wanted the person who had betrayed them to pay for what they’d done. They wanted them to suffer as they had.”

“But isn’t that normal? Isn’t it reasonable to be angry that someone you loved would hurt you?”

“Maybe. But forgiveness should follow. That’s what we’ve all been taught. And that’s why you’re the only one who’s been saved.”

“The only one?”

“Understanding. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Those were the last things you felt before your death. We’d never seen that before. More interesting, though, you felt love. You were still under the spell of that demon.”

“A spell?” His voice raises slightly at the mention of her. “She never used any spell on me. I love her.”

The woman eyes him for a moment, mild concern written on her features.

“You poor boy. One day you’ll be free.”

“From what?”

“Nothing. Now, your job is similar to a guardian angel, albeit a bit more dangerous. You’ll be helping more people free themselves from these demons. Or, at the very least, you can warn them by telling them what will happen if their emotions lean too negatively when the time finally comes.”

“Okay. I think I can do that. But why is it so dangerous?”

“In doing your job you're essentially taking away a demon’s source of food. Much like a wild animal, this will make them more dangerous. We usually leave a job like this to our more experienced angels, but seeing as you know first hand how these demons work, you should be just fine.”

He’s silent for a moment. He didn’t think there were very many demons who operated the way she did. Certainly not enough to cause such a problem that it would be considered dangerous. His heart hurts at the thought of so many people suffering the way she had. He wonders if there’s a way for him to help the demons themselves as well as their prey.

“Will I ever find her again?” He opts to ask.

“I doubt that. None of us know her name?”

“What? But-”

“Demon’s names hold power. If someone knows the true name of a demon, then they’re basically owned by that person. They usually go by cover names.”

“And you don’t know hers?”

“No, I do. But you can’t know that information. You could end up going rogue, and we can’t have an asset as valuable as you doing something like that.”

“Rogue?”

“You know them as fallen angels. You’d essentially become a powerful demon. I’m sure you can understand why we wouldn’t want such a thing.”

“Could a demon become an angel?”

“That’s not possible. Their place was already decided. There is no way for them to rise in status, no matter how much they believe they have redeemed themselves.”

“But that’s-”

“I know. It seems harsh, judging someone based on a single moment. But that’s the way things are here.”

He’s speechless. He wamts to do this job, that much is for sure. He wants to save people from having everything taken from them the way he had. He’s got all the motive he needs to do the tasks given, not really afraid of the potential danger of this new proffession.

He just wishes there was a way from him to save her.

This is probably the worst attempt at feeding she’s had to suffer through in a long time.

It seemed easy enough when she first stumbled across him. A strange man who’d never even been in a relationship. He would be quick work, she’d thought. He’d fall for her in a week, three at the most. That’s what she’d assumed.

It’s been about four weeks now, and she can’t lure the guy away from his house for long enough to finish the job.

It wouldn’t be as bad, all things considered, if the guys weren't also a total freak. He’s definitely not someone she feels any sympathy for. He’d started pressuring her into sleeping with him a week into the relationship, which would’ve been the first red flag to anyone who knew how to spot them. She’d managed to convince him that she wanted to wait, and he agreed, deciding that her reluctance made her more “worthy” of him when the time came.

She thinks he’s full of shit.

She’s tried everything to lure him away, from telling him that she wanted to take him out to dinner to telling him that she had some sort of surprise for him that needed to happen outside the city. Just her luck she’d find prey that was essentially a hermit. She’d only come across him when he was out buying computer parts. Today, though, she was at her limit.

It was when he’d berated her for her choice in clothing, a simple tank top and jeans combination, that she’d decided that she’d let his pathetic existence go on for much longer than what was necessary.

It takes finally giving in to his request of hooking up with her to pull him away from the basement he was living in. She imagines his soul won’t be particularly tasty, but at this point, she’s more worried about having someone like him taking up valuable space on earth than anything else.

She brings him to the outskirts of the city, his greasy hands finding their way all over her body on the way. She can’t wait to be done with him. He’s so focused on trying to make her focus on him that he doesn’t notice the way her eyes flash red with every press to her skin.

She’s so focused on trying not to kill the man right then and there that she doesn’t notice she’s being watched.

She managed to convince him that allowing him to tie her up would be a good idea, and he agreed, noticing that the building they’re in is run down, but too concerned with what he thinks is about to happen to interrupt her.

“C’mon, Miranda, when do we get started? I’ve gotta be back home for this tournament.”

She flinches at the use of her name, or at least what he thinks is her name. Somehow it doesn’t make her feel any less dirty.

“Oh, you poor soul, you don’t realize the danger you’re in. Not that it matters.”

“What danger? Does this building have asbestos or something? Why would you bring us here, are you really that stupid?”

Her eye twitches at the comment, but she makes the decision to ignore it. He’s the fool here, after all.

“It’s not that you should be worried about, though you’re probably right about the chemicals. This building has been around for centuries. Great place to harvest a soul.” The man lets out a nervous chuckle.

“What are you, like, one of those fake vampire people?”

“A vampire? You don’t even know enough to know what it is they do? The most explored mythical creature in existence?”

“I don’t need the likes of you telling me what I do and don’t know. Let me go, you’ve ruined the mood. Maybe I’ll let you try again in a week.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what? Let me out of here!”

“Ah, you’re another one that doesn’t get it. Frankly, I’ve wasted enough time on you, so I’ll just spell it out for you. I’m a demon and I’m here to consume your soul.” His eyes widen, but he says nothing. She continues. “Ideally I would’ve been done with you a week ago. But you’re such a pathetic waste of a person that I couldn’t even get you out for long enough.”

“So this is what you do? Trick men so you can eat us?”

“Yup. You made the hard part easy, too. You were wrapped around my finger the second I rejected you. Strange behavior, if you ask me.”

“You bitch, you won’t get away with this!”

“You’re not even that original. A misogynist named Kyle? Give me a break”

Her eyes begin to change from their warm brown to a harsh crimson. She opens her mouth, rows of inhumanly sharp teeth appearing seemingly out of nowhere. When she does, she can feel her body begin regaining energy, his soul draining from his body and entering hers. She watches as the life drains from his eyes, growing duller the more of his soul he loses. When the light is gone, she reverts back to her human form, and breathes a sigh of relief.

“Wow, that was exhausting. Never going after one of these types ever again.”

“That’s a good idea. I didn’t like the way he treated you.”

She freezes. It’s happening again. She hasn’t imagined his voice in such a long time. It hasn’t crossed her mind in months. Why now? Why after all this time?

“I know you’re not real,” She says. “I’m just hearing things again. Go away.”

“Again? So you’ve heard me before?”

“You know I have.”

“How could I know that? I haven’t seen you since the day I lost you.”

“Since you lost me... You don’t talk like that. Where’s the ‘you did this to me’ speech?”

“Turn around. I’m real.”

She’s unconvinced. She knows this is her mind playing a dirty trick on her. A simple rewording of what it usually tells her won’t get her hopes up. Still, she decides to play along. She turns, slowly, like a model on a runway showing off their every angle. She figures that she’s already on the edge of her sanity as it is, and she closes her eyes too, making it a bit of a game. Her turning comes to a stop.

“Alrighty, go ahead and tell me when I can open my eyes. Really make me look even more unhinged than I feel. Let’s have fun with this.”

He can’t believe that after all this time, she’s right in front of him.

She’s just as beautiful as he remembered. He’d just watched her consume a soul, a soul which he’d been sent to save, but he can’t find himself feeling anything other than pure joy at the sight of her. He thanks his lucky stars that he was assigned to this case, he was starting to lose hope that he would ever see her again.

He’s thinking about what she said. She’d been hearing his voice before he found her. Killing him really had taken a toll on her, it would seem. At this realization, he thinks back to what he had been told so long ago.

“Her kind don’t form connections to the people they kill,” the woman says. “They’re heartless creatures. It’s best that you accept that now rather than finding out later.”

“Is it just something that doesn’t happen often? Or is it difficult for them to do it?”

“No. It’s impossible. You really need to let that girl go. She’s out there right now forming the same type of relationship with other people as she did with you. You were nothing but something for her to use.”

“Right. A food source.”

“Exactly. You’ll feel better once you move on. For now, just focus on your work.”

He did exactly that. He’d managed to save many people in the time since he'd begun his job. Luckily, he’s been able to avoid every demon he’s managed to swindle out of a meal. Until now, that is.

This is the first mission he’s ever failed. Surely, he would be questioned about what happened, and he knew he would have to make something up. But seeing the way this particular person acted, especially after he found out it was her he was talking about in such a disrespectful way, he decided he had no qualms about letting him die, taking advantage of his luck so that he could get the answers to his questions. He needed to know if he really should be moving on, or if he should be looking for a cure.

“You can open your eyes. It really is me,” He says. She scoffs.

“You better leave me alone for good after this.” She wastes no time in letting her eyes fly open. When she does, she looks unimpressed. “Oh, you haven’t done this little trick in a while. I suppose you expected me to run forward only for you to turn to dust, right?”

“You can touch me. I’m real. I came to see you.”

“Prove it then. Walk forward. All the way over here to me. I’m just dying to see what you’ll do when you get here.”

He obeys immediately, making his way over and resisting the urge to run over to keep from alarming her. He stands right in front of her now, and she continues to give him the same unimpressed gaze. She still doesn’t believe what she’s seeing.

It’s when he makes the bold move to wrap his arms around her that she goes quiet.

This isn’t real. It can’t be real. This is just an intense delusion of hers.

He’s warm, that’s the first thing she takes note of. He’s got a tight hold on her, almost as if he’s afraid that he’ll leave him again. Against her better judgement, she leans into his embrace, taking in his scent.

“You’re real,” she says. “You’re really here.”

“I’m real,” he confirms. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“But why?” She asks. “I’m the reason you ended up this way. You’re supposed to hate me.”

“I could never hate you. Not when I understand why you do what you do. I won’t punish you for doing something out of your control.”

She finds herself relaxing in his hold. She hasn’t been able to relax in such a long time. It’s not what she was made to do. It’s entirely out of her nature to do such a thing. She’s never been able to stick to her own rules when it comes to him, though. Still, she pushes him away.

“You shouldn’t be here. Not with me. You could get in trouble.”

“You’re worried about me?”

“Of course I am, don’t be ridiculous.”

He seems to consider her words for a moment.

“I need you to listen to me, okay?” She thinks a moment before nodding. “There’s a way for me to cure you, I know there is, but I need to know that this is what you want.”

“What? That’s not possible.”

“No, there’s a way. I just need time. I’m not gonna let them keep us apart like this. I just need you to trust me.”

She already trusts him, though. She doesn’t need any convincing. She only worries about what will happen to him if he’s caught.

“You can’t help me. It’s against your rules. You could get in serious trouble.”

“I don’t care. As long as your burden is lifted, I’ll be happy.” She says nothing. “I’m going to get you out of this. But we’ll need to be apart again for some time. Stay safe until that day.”

She doesn’t bother arguing with him. He’s always been this way, setting his mind to something and not stopping until he gets what he wants. It’s a trait of his that she always admired. She’s afraid that this time, it may be his downfall. He’s challenging forces he’s only just begun to understand.

But she’s tired of them too. She doesn’t care what happens to her, but if this is something that can cause a change, she’ll do it.

“Okay,” she says. “I want this. I trust you.”

He grabs her by the waist and pulls her close to him again, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead, before backing away again.

“I’ll see you soon. I promise.” With the flash of a bright light, he disappears, leaving her alone with nothing but her thoughts, and the shell of the soul she had eaten.

For the first time since she lost him, she breaks down.

When he returns home, the first thing he does is report what happened to him.

Not all of it, of course, he can’t mention that he’d finally found her. That would only anger them. They would likely restrict his activities, making his mission more difficult than it likely already will be. The people in charge tell him that because of his great work in other cases, one failed case was nothing to worry about, so he could just go about his day until he received his next assignment.

While he waited, he went to visit the person who would help him to do what he needed to do. He knocks lightly on the door, and upon hearing the quiet “come in” on the other side of the door, he lets himself in

“Oh, it’s you again. Don’t tell me you’re here to find more ways around the curse.” The woman says.

After being here for several years now, he’s met tons of people. Though, he’s never bonded with someone the way he has with Kora, an elderly woman whose death came to her in her sleep. In her life she had been a witch doctor, dabbling in spells that could transform things into different objects, cause misfortune for others, and yes, lift curses.

“I don’t need to do that.”

“Sure,” Kora says. “I just made tea, come have some.”

He sits down at her kitchen table, and she turns to pour him a cup, placing it in front of him before pouring one for herself and taking a seat.

“I really don’t need to find a way around the curse, Kora. I found her today. She wants to do this.”

Kora looks up at him, expecting him to tell her he was just joking. But when she sees the way his eyes sparkle, unbridled hope written in them, she knows he’s serious. She lets out a sigh.

“Well, I did say I’d help you. I’m a woman of my word.” He smiles. “But you’re risking a lot here. If it doesn’t work, you could risk everything. Not just for you, but for both of you.”

“That’s fine. Whatever it is, we can handle it.”

“So, it’s not the procedure that takes much effort. It’s the aftermath. The main step is finding the man who killed her, in order for her vengeance to be achieved. Lucky for you, he’s still alive.”

“Sounds easy enough. It didn’t take much for her to tear me up,” he says with a chuckle.

“However, once she does this, she’ll be reborn. This would separate the two of you, leaving you behind to deal with the consequences, on top of defeating the purpose of you doing this.”

“I can’t accept us getting separated from each other. Not again.”

“There is a way for the two of you to be reborn together. But it is difficult. You’ll have to have bonded to her. Seeing as she’s a demon, the only way for you to do that is for you to get her name.”

“She didn’t even tell me that when we were alive.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. In the end, will she have trusted you enough to give you this information? Will she love you enough to make herself so vulnerable?” He says nothing. “Even so, there’s no guarantee that in your next life the two of you will meet. That will also depend on how strong your bond is. You could end up in entirely different countries, even.”

He thinks about this. Now that he knows what will be required, he’s hit with the weight of what exactly it is he’s risking here. If he’s unsuccessful, he'll have to face the wrath of the angels he’d betrayed. If he succeeds, he doesn’t even know if he’ll get the result he’s really after.

But then he thinks of her. No matter the outcome, she’ll be freed from her curse. She’ll get to live the life she didn’t get to before. More than his desire to be with her, he wants her to have the life she deserves.

“I’ll do it. I don’t care about the risks. I’m going to do it.” Kora sighs.

“Alright, then. I’ll tell you where the man is, but the rest is up to you.” He rises from his seat and makes his way over to her, wrapping her in a tight hug.

“I’ll be okay, Kora. Everything will be fine.”

He makes his way out of her home after talking a bit more with her. He knows that regardless of what happens, he won’t see her again after this.

She watches him leave, and for his sake, she hopes that if she is to hear about him again, it won’t be a story of a young man who risked everything for the wrong person.

When they arrive at their destination, she feels a chill run up her spine.

It’s late. They wanted to be certain that no one would be around when they did what they came to do. Things would be less messy that way.

“He’s in a church?” He asks, confused. She rolls her eyes.

“I expect nothing less from him. He always did hide behind a facade. This is the best one yet.”

The two of them head in, and hide amongst a few churchgoers that linger inside. She assumes that there was a late night church service being held here. They must’ve come at the end, and she’s thankful. The thought of having to actually listen to him pretend to be a good man makes her sick to her stomach.

They linger until the church is empty, and she sees him head to the back, leading to the basement that she knows all too well. She grabs his hand and leads him in that direction, bringing him to the door that leads deeper into the church.

“Are you sure you’re ready to face him again?’

“I’m sure. It’s about time I see him again. This is long overdue.” Her eyes flash red for a moment, and he decides to stop asking questions.

She pushes the door open, and makes her way down the stairs with him following close behind her. She sees the man at the back of the room, rifling through boxes, and wastes no time in letting him know she’s here.

“Well, well, well.” The man freezes. “Been a while since we were down here, huh? Sure brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real,” the man mutters to himself.

“Oh, so you do feel guilty about what you did to me? Could’ve fooled me. Your little holy man cosplay is quite interesting.”

“Why are you here?”

“Look me in the eye, coward.” Afraid of provoking her, he turns to face her, slowly. “Much better.”

“How are you here? What are you?”

“This question gets more annoying the more i hear it, you know. Figure it out yourself, holy man.”

“What do you want from me? Please go away.”

“Oh no. Not yet. See him?” she points to where he stands, standing a little distance behind her. “I want you to tell him what you did to me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Tell him why you thought my life needed to end.”

“I had to. You know what would have happened.” the man turns to him. “She knew what she was doing.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.”

“They would have disowned me!”

“So a little premarital sex is an issue, but murder is cool? Got it. Anything to keep your dirty little secret, right?”

The room is silent. Now that the truth is out there, now that he knows what happened to her, he understands why no one knows her name.

“I guess I should’ve expected this, right?” She continues, “After getting involved with the preacher’s son? And you got to go on, right? Continued living? Taking up after your dad? And what did I get? Cursed. Dooming people to the same fate you forced me into. But today, that changes.”

“You dare to claim that what I did wasn’t justified? You wanted to ruin me!”

“I wanted to be with you. In public. I didn’t wanna be a secret.”

“You convinced me to commit a sin. You haven’t earned the right to love, I could’ve been great. Instead, I’m stuck in this town, in the middle of nowhere, trying to make up for something that you did.”

“You did this to yourself.” she says. Her eyes quickly change to that harsh red he had seen before, and he knows what’s about to happen before the man does. “I don’t need to prove my worth. To you, or to anyone. You were nothing in life, and now, you’ll be nothing in death.”

Before he can even get a word in, she’s latched onto him, ripping him apart in the very same room where her existence was cut short.

A few moments of silence go by before she begins to glow slightly.

“It’s happening. I did it, I broke the curse.”

“You did. You’re free now.”

“But what about you? Why aren’t you glowing too?”

“We haven’t bonded enough. It’s okay though, I wouldn’t have wanted you forced into doing something. You’ve been through enough.”

“No! No, tell me. I’ll do it.” He knows she won’t, but she won’t remember him when she’s reborn anyway.

“I needed your name.”

She looks at him. She’s so close, so close to being free from that person. She can’t be bound to her again. She can’t say her name.

Taking note of her silence, He grabs the sides of the face, and pulls her in for a kiss, putting everything he has into it, as he knows it’ll be the last time. He whispers an “I love you” before looking her in the eyes to be sure she knows.

It’s at this moment, as her glow is becoming blinding, that she realizes this is a decision she can make herself. Finally, she’s the one who gets to make a choice. Instead of misery, this time, she chooses happiness. She just hopes it isn’t too late.

“My real name is..”

Somewhere, in another part of the world, a baby girl is born to a family that had been trying to conceive a child for years. They know this is the most precious gift they’ll ever receive.

Minutes later, in that same hospital, a baby boy is born.

#short fiction #short story #commission #commisions open #writers on tumblr #writing #writing commissions #support black creators #support black authors #support black writers #demons #demon #angels #angel #my work #my writing #horror #short horror story

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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Im asking this genuinely so pls dont yell at me; when you say that those using trigger warnings dont care about their readers’ mental health and wellbeing, what else are trigger warnings supposed to be for? To make sure people don’t enter fics that have material that would harm them. Just like tv shows that warn about nudity or violence or what have you. Its a rating system, theyre warnings. Tagging for rape or underage ARE the looking-out-for-readers thing. Past that, it is on readers to decide

I try not to yell at anyone engaging in good faith, I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but I would rather be engaged with than ignored...the latter is when my volume goes up, lol.

But in answer to your question, it comes down to the fact that trigger warnings are well established enough in fandom by now, that they exist as a kind of social contract.

In short, its EXPECTED that you provide trigger warnings, and that if you don’t have them, someone will bring that up at some point.

Problem is, this counter-productively works against what trigger warnings are actually FOR.....once we reach a point (which we’ve long since reached)....where a lot of people are only including the trigger warnings because of the social contract that expects them to have them, and not ACTUALLY because they’re prioritizing their readers’ well-being.

Something I see a LOT after trigger warnings is the phrase or sentiment “enter at your own risk”....and the phrasings are so, so key to what I’m talking about.

Take a small sampling and just look for what I’m describing and I’m fairly certain you won’t have to go far to find an example of a fic where the tone of the author is not one of concern for readers, but preemptive concern for potential backlash from readers.

And these are two very different things.

Like, we all know how to read and interpret tone and nuance. Its genuinely not that hard to tell the difference between a sincere expression of wanting readers to be aware of potentially triggering content, and a faux-expression of that when really, the only thing you’re worried about triggering is a negative reception from people, and you want to get ahead of that by making it clear from the get go that hey, you did your job, you warned readers, and thus nobody has any grounds to say anything about your content itself.

Because also too there’s the fact that trigger warnings are inherently fallible. They rely on the author’s own AWARENESS of their content and everything it might include......but a racist author isn’t going to place a trigger warning for using their characters as mouthpieces for even blatant white supremacist ideology.

A genuinely predatory author (and yes, they absolutely do exist, and its willful stubbornness that people rely on to pretend that like, for some bizarre reason, only genuinely predatory people don’t partake in this otherwise global hobby of reading and writing fiction, like what even is that, how do you arrive at that conclusion, that like, actual pedophiles are so busy preying on ‘real life’ teenagers in their zip code 24/7 that they just don’t have TIME to go online and cultivate predatory relationships with real life teenagers via social media? That doesn’t make any sense!)

But anyway, a genuinely predatory author, is absolutely NOT going to tag or place trigger warnings for pedophilia, etc....because they don’t WANT the things they write perceived that way.

People trying to normalize incest are not always going to tag for incest because they want to DISTANCE the cute, sweet dynamic between two ‘only sorta brothers’ as other than the kind of incest that destroys families...regardless of the reality that most cases of incest are the LATTER and its the FORMER that’s so rare it barely exists.

And that sort of thing is how we get terms like dub-con and pseudo-incest and ‘consensual underage sex’ when its describing a relationship between a minor and adult....because this is mitigating, distancing language. Its entire reason for existing is to make unpalatable content seem more palatable.

And especially in Batfandom, we KNOW this.

Because we all, practically universally, give Devin Grayson crap for describing the rape in Nightwing #93 as ‘nonconsensual sex’ and go.....THATS NOT A THING!

And then half of fandom turns around and....acts like that and similar stuff...IS A THING.

That doesn’t work! LOL. It just...doesn’t.

Or another example, because abuse can be just as triggering as rape.....like, for me, personally, I’m a survivor of both, and yes, both CAN be triggering. But not as much as people might think....like, just reading a depiction of these things doesn’t trigger me.

Its, like you were saying at the get go, yes, a matter of surprise.....the kind of thing that CAN be warned for, and prepared for, and its the sheer unexpectedness that’s usually the trigger.

Like.....I went off a few weeks ago about reading a story that was supposed to be about Dick’s brothers learning the truth about what led him to take the Spyral mission and what happened in Forever Evil. That’s what the summary said, that was it, that was the only thing it led me to expect about the story. So understandably, I go into the story expecting it to be sympathetic to Dick. I’m looking for catharsis from it honestly, a salve for the many fics and canon events that blamed and punished him for something I don’t consider his fault, right?

And then towards the end....I get Jason punching Dick again, before hugging him, because that’s just how he reluctantly shows love or whatever.

This genuinely triggered me, yeah. Its why I got so upset about it. Because I was blindsided, I had no way to prepare for it, because I went in expecting catharsis for a story that bothered me due to its victim blaming, and instead I got the author heaping on more of the same abuse we already saw in canon.....with zero awareness that’s what she was doing.

So....that’s absolutely something I wrestled with should I message the author and ask them to add a trigger warning or not? Because I genuinely could have used one. It would have helped. I would have avoided that story if I had any notion that might crop up in it, because frankly, that’s not something I had any interest in reading.

But problem is, there’s only really two realistic outcomes there. If she was open to hearing a genuine request for her to be aware that her content contained triggering material for a reader....chances are, she probably would have just edited it and taken that out entirely. It was just one line. Easy enough to do. It certainly didn’t add anything.

Problem is....there’s an equal and opposite likely outcome....that she’d get defensive, call this unsolicited criticism, and double down on the idea that what she had written wasn’t abuse, because obviously she doesn’t condone abuse, so she wouldn’t have written that plain and simple. It has to be acknowledged that a lot of authors ARE innately defensive about social content in their work, and not open to hearing they’ve done something offensive or triggering....because that’s like...literally the basis of the ‘no unsolicited criticism’ movement in fandom, even though being critical of toxic ideology expressed in content is NOT the same as offering criticism of someone’s writing in general.

So you see what I mean? A trigger warning COULD genuinely help in that situation....but our fandom environment simply flat out is not conducive for readers to be at all confident that they even CAN come forward and alert an author that they delved into an offensive, even harmful take with their content and be well received no matter HOW they phrase it....

For much the same reasons I mentioned in that other post. People are more likely to instinctively jump to the defense of the person WRITING the content that offended or did actual emotional harm....than the person simply trying to say, backed by their own lived experience of....being offended or experiencing emotional harm....hey, this is a problem for me and I would appreciate it being regarded as such....

Otherwise, what is even the POINT of this entire system of trigger warnings in the first place? If a problem for a reader isn’t regarded as worthy of attention in and of itself.....at least, not in comparison to whatever problem that READER’S problem creates for the WRITER.

You see what I’m saying? For this, and a lot of other reasons, trigger warnings are innately fallible. They rely on an honor code system, and the uncomfortable truth is none of us are actually naive enough to believe everyone in fandom is innately honorable enough to honor that....if they were, would we have as much cases of anon hate, spite fics, etc?

But fandom as a whole looked at the trigger warning system and decided well....its good enough. Because its not like I’m proposing a viable alternative, its not like I have a BETTER system in mind, offhand. All I do have is the point that well...no...its NOT good enough as is....because for a ton of reasons, there’s a ton of cases in which there’s a ton of people for which it flat out doesn’t work for or benefit at all.

But when this comes up to any degree, in any capacity whatsoever....and the only thing people fall back on is well, I tagged it, or I used trigger warnings what more do you want, or its good enough for me so that’s what matters, or just....

“I did what I was supposed to per the social contract about trigger warnings, so if anything goes wrong in your reading experience at this point, that’s entirely on you.”

Like, does that make sense?

Basically, there’s a world of difference between:

This is a problem that still needs solving because the solution provided now is not all-encompassing or inclusive....

And....

This is a problem that’s already been solved as far as I’m concerned, and I’m utilizing that solution so any further problems are just in the mind of the reader and have nothing to do with reality, let alone me and my work.

Again, as I said above....its the difference between genuinely engaging with other members of your fandom community with actual concern for THEIR fandom experience.....or faking engagement with other members of your fandom community when your only real concern is YOUR fandom experience, and at most, the experiences of anyone who already is of like minds to you on a subject.

Hopefully that answers your question or clarifies my stance there, anon. And thank you for actually engaging on this. It feels a bit like shouting into the void a lot of the time, lol.

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carewyncromwell · 4 years ago

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This is going to sound weird, but I think I'm an ace?? I don't really know though. I've looked it up before and it's kinda confusing all the labels and such, but also makes sense to me??? Since the description says carey is an ace, could you please explain it? Like what's it about, and how did carey find out she was one? How does she know that she's not Pan? Does she come out to others? Sorry if this is a bad ask :(

Hi, Anon! Well, like Carewyn, I identify with the asexual spectrum, though I’m still romantic...so hopefully going into my experiences (which colored Carey’s) might help? Naturally everyone’s experience is a little different, even if they’re the same or a similar sexuality, but sometimes one can find common ground. all the same.

First things first, one must split asexuality up into some categories, for it is a spectrum:

Asexuality (Ace) is feeling little to no sexual attraction. One can feel romantic or even aesthetic attraction even if they don’t have much interest in or are actively disinterested in sex. Some ace people are also sex-repulsed, meaning they are actively turned-off by sex, but a lot of ace people aren’t. People who are asexual can still have sex or masturbate and even enjoy it, but generally don’t have as much interest in it as straight/gay/bi/lesbian/pan/etc. (A.K.A. allosexual, meaning “feeling any kind of sexual attraction”) people do. Some people on the asexual spectrum like to use this word rather than any of the following terms as it’s the most all-encompassing and recognizable, even though asexuality in general still isn’t very well-understood in mainstream society.

Demisexuality (Demi-Ace) is only feeling sexual attraction after creating a close emotional bond with someone.

Graysexuality (Gray-A) is only feeling sexual attraction very sparingly or in limited amounts.

Asexuality can also be refined further depending on what if any kind of romantic attraction one feels.

Some asexuals don’t feel any romantic attraction at all. These people are asexual/aromantic, or aro-ace. These sorts of people are perfectly happy just experiencing platonic love. They also sometimes enter into what are called queerplatonic relationships, which are individualized and customizable relationships that sort of play with the conventions of what’s generally classified as “romantic” and what’s classified as “friendship” (for instance, some queerplatonic relationships involve hand-holding, others don’t; some involve sex, others don’t; some involve two partners living together, others don’t; some involve exclusivity with one partner, others don’t).

Some asexuals, however, do feel romantic attraction, at which point they can be split in a similar way as sexualities are, except romantically. This is how you get people who are asexual/homoromantic (being romantically attracted to the same gender), asexual/heteroromantic (being romantically attracted to the opposite gender), asexual/biromantic or panromantic (being romantically attracted to multiple genders), and so on.

For me, I only first suspected I might be asexual as an adult, as when I was a teenager I hadn’t even known it was a thing. Before then, I’d been romantically attracted to and dated both a woman and a man, and looking back on my experiences, I was very aware of how much less interest I had in intimacy compared to my partners. I just always found myself getting bored whenever we’d share long, deep kisses or restless whenever we were cuddling too long, even if I really enjoyed being with my partner. Whenever sex would come up, I was just never really that interested -- especially in comparison to how interested I’d be in going out and doing things with my partner, like going to the movies or watching a show or even just having a spirited debate about something. When I was younger as well, I always felt very out-of-the-loop whenever anyone my age gushed about how “hot” a celebrity was or made sexual innuendos. It’s not that I didn’t know what the innuendos meant or that I was a prude, either -- there were plenty of times I’d use those terms myself or write “lemon” fanfictions for my fandoms, to fit in -- but I always felt like the things that drew me to people were different than what drew other people to them. My crushes were almost never about how “sexy” someone was -- if anything, I most frequently ended up getting crushes on people for their singing voices. (Yes, I’m serious. XDDD) I’d also have trouble relating to people talking about a certain woman having a great ass or a certain guy’s muscles because my brain really just doesn’t split people up into pieces like that. I’m much more likely to find someone beautiful because of their sparkling eyes or their bright smile than because of their body -- it’s not that I can’t see someone as beautiful all the way around, but it’s much more of an aesthetic attraction, like one might feel toward a piece of art, than anything that gets you hot and bothered. And it took me a long time before I really could figure out the difference and therefore why I had such difficulty relating to the allosexual people around me. At times it made me feel stupid or, worse, like there was something wrong with me. I felt like maybe I’d just been born missing something, and it made me that much more afraid to even open myself up, because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to be what anyone I might fall in love with would need me to be. Fortunately I learned otherwise, and now I feel a lot better, now that I understand this aspect of myself. It also makes it a lot easier for me to talk about LGBT+ issues and about romantic relationships with other people, now that I can better explain where I fit on the spectrum!

I see Carewyn, like me, only really learning about what asexuality is as an adult, and once she did and did the proper amount of soul-searching, she came out to her friends about her identity. I personally HC her “unofficial twin” and fellow Fireball Charlie Weasley being aro-ace and her future love interest Orion being gray-A, so that definitely helps a bit...and I also HC several of Carewyn’s other friends as LGBT+ too, including her ex-boyfriend Andre Egwu, so they’re all pretty accepting. ^.^

#ooc #personal #carewyn cromwell #asexuality #opinion #analysis #lgbtq pride

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aquagenesis · 4 years ago

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I know that due to my general inability to articulate my emotions in one cohesive statement has in no small part led to many of my legitimate boundaries being misconstrued as “I am looking to start a fight” or “I am stubbornly set into things I picked up on the internet because I am stupid and think online discourse is real life”. I also know that this misconstruction has led to my own paranoia spiking up under the fight or flight reflex of “stand your ground”. Regardless of the fact that both of these issues are “true” or not I cannot deny, it has irreparably fucked my ability to feel confident in what I’m saying being what I’m actually articulating for the sake of being “too vulnerable” and then being told I’m deluding myself into feeling my own emotions.

The reason why I have been and continue to be specifically aggressive about topics to do with real-life issues involving My Psychosis is because I suffered severe childhood trauma due to it. The reason I hate so badly when people mindlessly refer to people as “crazy” or “psycho” is because that was not only the terminology that got me involuntarily admitted into institutionalization but the same terminology that got my father off the hook for extreme child abuse and kidnapping. It is the same terminology that had the courts combing through every aspect of my psyche and life and the same terminology that got me barred from things like college admission or being able to gain independence from my family. It is the same terminology that dredged me through the underbelly of abusive relationships desperate for someone who would “understand” me and the same terminology that got someone poisoning and stabbing me laughed off as “teenage drama”. I was stalked and then ridiculed for it; told I was insane and living in delusion because I “refused to be medicated” or seek help when I was only in the position to be berated in such a way because I was seeking help.

The only reason I say any of this is because fundamentally I feel as though so much of this- so much trauma and self-hatred has been boiled down to “Lukas read some SJW posts on the internet and now he gets fucking pissed when someone doesn’t adhere to his beliefs”. I say this because no matter how many times I scream and fling myself into the mindset of “I have to prove I’m actually warranted to feel this way” I have no choice but to live through the memories of the trauma which got me so twisted in the first place. I say this because for years I’ve been identifying exclusively with this trauma because nobody: not friends, not family, not even myself, will accept this one boundary unless I could pull proof I was justified to speak of anything.

I say this because as someone who has been on the internet from far too early to introduced to an atmosphere like 2012 Tumblr far too late I cannot help thinking of how much we (and I) have done this to everyone. I say this because I myself have never been shy to do the same thing I write rants about, that being to criticize someone’s “validity” to say or do something which I have no justification to judge. The concept of what makes a “real” boundary versus “something you read in a discourse post circlejerk and got inducted into” has been twisted and stretched. Meeting and experiencing people with similar problems to those who once used their “boundaries” as a means to silence and control no longer sits the same way when you don’t bother to think or understand that the trauma which hurts someone can be wildly different than that which hurts another. I am not harmed by the fact my friend groups have gotten into arguments which we got back together from (albeit not always for the right reasons) but someone else may hold that pain very closely to them. Rather, I cannot trust someone when they drop terms like “crazy” or “psycho” because I have been so severely hurt with incorrect correlations being made between sociopath serial killers and myself, to the point where it did fundamentally affect my life.

I say this because I even feel so ashamed being vulnerable enough to coherently write the same post I’ve been making for years, at the idea that someone will realize this is something that I’ve been struggling with and not a hill to die on. I say this because there is always the haunting presence of a phantom in my mind who tells me anyone who reads my post where I am so truthful and genuine will use it against me, though there’s nobody I would imagine would do that. Everyone who knows me and would care enough to read this knows the pain I talk about so often, and I do not keep the company of those I do not trust with this intimate emotions. So why am I afraid?

I am afraid of mockery, I am afraid of being vulnerable enough to tell someone outright what they do is a boundary because I am so used to being talked over or screamed at and told I “don’t need that boundary”. I’ve spent so long building up the walls of “one strike and you’re out but I’ll give you a thousand do-overs just in case” to realize that tolerating that kind of pain is what keeps me forever locked in my psychotic condition. I don’t have to let go of a boundary just because others cannot respect it but that does not mean I need to make the boundary all that I am. No post will ever encompass the emotions I feel unless someone cares enough to listen, and I need to trust my own intuition rather than looking for validation in others before making my decisions.

While this will always remain a boundary I cannot move on that does not mean I need to be the loudest about it. It does me no good to live in the confines of as far as I can see inside of my psyche and wait anxiously for the next storm to arrive. Things can be important and not forgotten without spinning into obsession; I have done so much to ensure I am no longer around company that which would try to put a boundary on my boundaries. By not trusting my own decisions I am only continuing to give up my autonomy to the unknown, and the unknown also does not know me. Maybe one day that terminology will not trigger me; maybe one day that terminology won’t send a chill down my spine, but until then I must care for myself so it aches less every time.

#this is under a readmore for space not content

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rgr-pop · 5 years ago

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Re: canvassing for Bernie. I guess mostly advice on being effective. I went canvassing in Va before Super Tuesday and felt pretty ineffective, we used the minivan app which just showed us dem voters which makes sense right before the election but I’m wondering if I should widen the net going forward? Idk I’d be canvassing in md and wv thanks in advance you truly are the only smart person on this site

i actually did not have the best experience today, but some of my friends did. my friend the one from flint who went on msnbc to tell chris hayes he didn't vote for hillary because he's from flint, he had a really good day and he felt really good about everything. he gave me some good points, which i will share with you in a second. the reason you didn't feel effective in VA is because everyone in VA is a CIA asset and you shouldn't internalize that. i'm thrilled that you get to talk to people in WV and I think policy and talking points are really going to be on your side, and the people are going to be cool as hell (even if they are not-already bernard voters).

i think bernard kinda fucked over michigan in a few ways this year (no beef but it's true), but i am lucky because my city has some extremely experienced campaign people, and i have never really had to experience doing canvassing for any kind of campaign that wasn't run by them, so i was kind of confused about how little direction you were given. they keep asking me to do higher-up stuff like drawing up the voter lists and strategizing and hosting canvasses, but i keep being like, put me on the doors dude that's where i belong. (my palestinian libra dirtbag is exactly the same, he did like three turfs today lol.) i can probably ask my campaign people for tips if you feel like you don't have any guidance.

since we're so close to election day, we'd normally be only targeting likely/confirmed voters to get out the vote, but because things are so crazy, we're also hitting up voters identified as undecided or previously soft-opponent or i think even independent and we're actually still trying to change minds. this is not super usual but it's crisis time! so, to answer your question, i would say i think you should widen the net, especially in WV. the dem voter problem isn't a huge issue where i am because people in lansing flint and detroit are literally just always democrats no matter what, but in other states i think it's more nuanced.

most of the following advice pertains to actually talking to people, but it should cover the range of voters you may encounter. i think i feel the least effective when i "fail" to engage people in a conversation, so i recommend talking to them in more open-ended ways. i share some of our script down below, but in general i like to ask people questions to draw them in, rather than telling people what we're about. get them to talk about themselves, and they will remember bernie sanders as the candidate that listened. i swear to god that works.

today they gave me a sheet (i gave it to a new girl so i can't remember exactly, but) that focused on swinging those voters. it's still "don't shittalk opponent" territory but it's a list of ways to explicitly contrast sanders and biden on the policies, and it made me realize that we're extremely lucky to be put in this position because those contrasts are stark, and they are convincing to poor people in particular.

what's interesting is that i'm no longer leaning into medicare for all to do my arguing, and i think that's gonna make me more effective. obviously bernie is stronger (literally: strongest) on this issue, but the messaging around biden's work on the ACA and his recent dodging about the issue doesn't help us convince anybody. healthcare is the most important thing on the table but it remains inscrutable: i would say dig into it with voters only if they bring it up as an issue that matters to them, or if they're healthcare workers (non-doctor probably), or if you are going to talk about an experience of your own. when you do talk about healthcare, especially in WV, remember bernie's position on medical debt. this is one of his clearest contrasts with biden. make sure you're familiar with biden's history with bankruptcy and debt, because i'd be willing to bet that that's something that's gonna resonate with WV and MD voters.

the trade deals and NAFTA are, simply, the most important thing to talk about at this point, and imo (based on the critical states, michigan most of all) that's what's going to win us this election, if we talk to people about it. hillary clinton lost the election because she did NAFTA--simple as that. biden, too, did NAFTA, but the thing about him--as i'm sure you're noticing--is that people seem to forget absolutely everything about him, and no one knows that he did NAFTA. joe biden is behind loads of policy that was outright bad for industrial workers and ruined lives. it is simply enough to argue "bernie sanders did not do NAFTA" but you'll want to look into his trade deal positions and history, contrast these with both biden and trump. if you're worried about the xenophobic underbelly of this problem, frame it as exactly what it is: a position that resists giving corporations free reign to do whatever they want, to abandon communities, and stomp all over workers.

look over some of bernie's positions on unions and labor in general. neither of the states you are going to are strongly right-to-work states right now, but where i live that's a really important thing. both biden and bernie, interestingly, have proposed a ban on right-to-work laws (it rules that we are in a place where this was mainstream for candidates, but it remains to be seen who will actually pursue this! the literal birthplace of the UAW went right-to-work while biden was VP soooo.) bernie also wants to end at-will employment and has a slate of proposal to strengthen unions. you should tell this to almost everyone. biden claims to support many similar plans, but he has not historically been especially strong in these areas, and his plans are generally less encompassing.

you should be prepared to confront concerns that bernie's strong environmental positions will hurt workers in WV. talk to people about a "just transition" and really emphasize the point that industry, and coal companies in particular, have been empowered to come and go as they please without any consequences. bernard's plans in general are job creators, and the idea is to bring sustainable--as in, sticking--jobs to appalachia and the rust belt, as well as universal healthcare for people made sick by their jobs. universal healthcare is an engine for jobs.

the war in iraq, support for veterans, and social security are extremely huge issues for poor people, probably specifically in WV.

you will also talk to another major electorate: people who just want to beat trump. this is advice from the msnbc friend, who knows: give them all the bernie beats trump lines. only bernie beats trump. convince them that biden will have all the same problems hillary clinton had against trump. if they bring up the alleged low youth turnout on super tuesday, remind them that the south has particular voter suppression issues that impact young and college voters, and that thus far young people actually have been turning out in the north and west. and the youth turnout on super tuesday was still higher than average! remind them that a democrat without the so-called youth vote has never beat a republican in the general in this century. most importantly, remind them that because of our flawed electoral system, you could win every single person on the west coast, but you're essentially never going to win the election if you can't win macomb county, michigan. and macomb county, michigan is full of working class voters who were really hurt by the policies of joe biden and hillary clinton and, increasingly, donald trump, and they are interested in bernie sanders, and it's life or death for them. tell them you have a friend in michigan who has seen this first hand :). (hoping march tenth bears this out for us lol.)

gonna round out the hard issues section here by suggesting you read this, which i think is pretty convincing: https://newrepublic.com/article/156819/rebooting-bernie-sanders

today i talked to a guy who said, "bernie sanders, i think i heard obama likes him." and i said, yep, bernie worked really hard to pass some of obama's best policies. and that's true :)

in general, the sanders campaign relies really heavily on the "bernie story," the personal narrative. i think it probably works. it really works for me, because i can talk to people about the stuff that isn't just the green new deal and loan forgiveness--although you will definitely also end up talking to educated people who will need to be reminded that bernie sanders wants to forgive their loans and joe biden wants them to be saddled with them until the end of time. remember to talk to people about where you work and where you live. work and homes is the most important thing to absolutely everyone. tell them you have a teacher friend lol. talk to people about other people you've met. tell other people's stories.

in case you need guidance in this area, try a script that looks something like this (sorry if this is condescending and you already have seen the scripts, but i kind of modify them based on my strengths as a canvasser):

i'm so and so and i'm with the bernard sanders campaign and we're out reminding people to vote on [date].

do you plan on voting? do you know who you're voting for? can we count on you to vote for bernie? [remind people of the stakes of the election, it's gonna be a close one, talk to your friends and family.] [then get them to think about their election day plan: do you know where your polling location is? what time are you going? do you have transportation?] [try to have support info available for them if they do not have these things. if they're worrying about not being able to get off work, commiserate/be empathetic and don't blame.] [let them know how they can get involved in the campaign.]

if they say they are not voting, sometimes you can respect that (shoutout to jehovah's witness), but if they're on your list, they're probably registered, so you can ask them what kind of issues prevent them from voting. a lot of people will tell you that voting is stupid. you should agree with them (they are right). remind them that you would not normally be canvassing for a democratic candidate or any presidential candidate. you're working with tons of people who never canvassed, or maybe never even voted before. this is the first time in my entire life that i had the opportunity to vote for a candidate that addressed the issues that weigh on me on a day to day basis. a major candidate that hates the two party system and refuses to submit to democratic party nonsense. who has a plan that might actually work. a candidate that has a plan to make everybody's life better, even people who aren't out here canvassing for him. poor people. remind them that bernie sanders is the strongest candidate among non- and first-time voters! this area is a strength of mine because all of this is 100% true for me. i hate electoral politics and i hate the democratic party! if they have other reasons for not voting, see if you have any info that can help them. also remind them that this is a close race, an uphill battle, a difficult fight, and their vote is going to REALLY make a difference. but if we try, we will win.

if they say they "think" they know who they're voting for, they're probably thinking about someone else. you'd be surprised--i am so surprised--how many people have no idea, even up til they get to the polls, or they change their mind last minute. try to prepare a few sentences that are really personal but probably relatable that they can chew on. mine looks something like this: i'm from flint michigan and i've seen the way the government has started to let companies get away with absolutely anything, abandon families that have worked for them for generations, and weaken unions. i want fair wages, fair taxes and for companies to be accountable to their workers and the communities that make them run & make them rich, and that's the bernie sanders platform, and i fear joe biden's ideas are moving us in the same direction that we're already moving. my husband's family worked for GM for four generations but we can't get jobs in flint much less find a place to live. being from flint, and in my own working life, i've watched the power of unions just totally erode. i myself am in a teacher's union and just recently, for the first time in my life,i feel like we can move in a direction where workers have real power in their workplace. especially watching teachers and support staff rally behind sanders, or these huge strikes. sometimes here i also say something about schools! etc.! ! sometimes that's all you get, but sometimes people want to hear more! in either case, this will stick with them.

if they say they are undecided, ask them what kind of issues motivate them to vote, or ask them what they think about sanders. refer to all of the above, but don't argue, use bernie's positions to add to what they are saying, be a good empathetic active listener etc. but also make sure they know that you have shared experiences, agree with them. 99% of the time their issues will be better addressed by bernie, if they are working class people. sometimes they will reveal that they are nervous to vote for sanders. remind them of the size and energy of the base, and the electability arguments listed above. one of the reasons we want to canvass is to remind people--especially in conservative communities, where their neighbors may not even be voting in this primary--that it's okay and in fact very popular to vote for bernie, and we're competitive, and if we make it to the general we're gonna win. but it's not going to be easy [talk to your friends and family get involved go online etc.]

if they are leaning biden but undecided, sometimes it's fine to ask them why, ask them for a pitch. you can tell them that you agree, and that we have had a really strong contest this year, and maybe in another year biden would have been the strongest choice, but bernie's just better in all these areas, etc.

please lmk if you want more ideas! i'll try to take a picture of some of our documents tomorrow when i'm out.

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