#also I'm talking about heterosexual relationships here since that's what I'm familiar with

[la-pheacienne]

Alright I'm choosing violence yet again because that's what we do in this house.

You guys are seriously creepy about adultery. Like. Seriously. It's not even a joke. In the beginning I thought this bizarre attitude was limited to fandom discourse but I don't think that's the case anymore. I think you guys will eventually need to come to terms with the fact that :

1) Adultery is not criminal behavior, at least in the Western world, since... quite a while actually.

2) Married people can and do fall in love with other people and even occasionally fuck them and this is a very real part of human experience that you need to eventually face.

3) Women who cheat on their husbands are not actually whores.

4) Being "the other woman" (funny phrase) does not automatically give you the seal of ultimate shame, depravity and ruined vagina unlike what your grandma may have told you.

5) Nobody is actually going to give you a golden cookie if you're a faithful god-fearing woman in your own marriage.

6) The fidelity of a man is not and should not be a reward for being a "good"/"correct" woman and having a faithful husband is not the Ultimate Badge of a Woman's Worth and Value unlike popular belief.

7) Likewise, having a man cheat on you does not make you Unworthy, Pathetic and Forever Ruined, it just means they wanted to fuck someone else. A man is not and should not be responsible for your value or worth, not even your husband.

8) From the list of all the harmful things a man can inflict on a woman, cheating is actually the least harmful. It is somehow rebranded as the most harmful, for obvious reasons patriarchy, which leads us to the centuries old pervasive mentality of "he's x, y and z (enter abusive, controlling, boring, horrible in bed) but AT LEAST he LOVES ME he's fAiThFuL and has eyes onLY for ME isn't that rOMaNTIC??". No, it is not. A man can cheat on you after years of being a supportive partner, giving you the best sex of your life, being a great parent for your kids, in short, after years of making your life better in all the ways that matter. A man can be blindly faithful to you and also be a horrible lover and a boring, controlling or abusive partner. Fidelity is socially treated as the number 1 undisputed proof of a man's love for a woman and number 1 undisputed proof of his value as a partner and it absolutely should not be so. This is actually a dangerous mentality and you learned it from me today.

9) Marriage vows are not engraved on our skin, they are not the unbreakable vows of harry potter where if you break them you lose your life, they are not the 10th commandments, they are not the vows of the night's watch. Marriage vows are nothing more than an legal agreement between two people and the state, and agreements are sometimes breached. People's genitals are not automatically covered with sealed concrete when they sign the paper, as much as it would like it to be so. People may agree on fidelity for life but they do preserve their bodily and sexual autonomy and free will even after marriage and sometimes they do prioritize that over their agreement because humans are just like that. I get that this very simple fact sucks, I do. But life sometimes sucks, relationships are unpredictable, people change their minds and can't/don't always want to resist on their desires or needs, and things don't always go as planned because as a general rule, you can't control other people's choices. Only your own.

10) Cheating is a morally reprehensible act, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people who cheat are inherently the epitomy of moral depravity or that their faithful partner is the saint in the relationship. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. Maybe they are both problematic, maybe the cheater is the victim, maybe the faithful partner is actually the problem. It fucking depends. In the year of our lord 2024 you need to perhaps acknowledge that this obsession with fidelity in marriage as the Absolute Hallmark of a healthy relationship and the Ultimate Seal of moral purity is actually a by-product of harmful strict patriarchal/religious values, real life is less black and white and the world is not split between faithful partners with a halo over their head and filthy cheating partners that should be lynched. This is bordering on biological essentialism and let's just say that's not the vibe.

11) A big part of the disgust "cheaters" inspire to a certain category of people is simply thinly concealed sex-averse puritanism, rebranded as ethics. Not all of us fall for that.

12) Feeling hurt, betrayed, traumatized, furious or disgusted after being cheated on is a totally valid reaction. Feeling outraged or disgusted on behalf of other people being cheated on isn't a valid reaction. The scarlet letter was published almost two centuries ago. You are still wayy too comfortable talking about other people's sex lives and passing judgment on account of what they are doing with their own genitals. Likewise, you do not have a say on the cheatee's choice to stay in the marriage. Some people do stay in marriages where they have been cheated on, and no, they are not necessarily weak people with no backbone and/or victims and/or financially dependent on their partner and they don't necessarily need saving. A marriage is an agreement between two (2) people and they are free to agree on whatever the fuck they want. You don't know everything that's going on between them.

The sooner you accept the above facts the easier human relationships will be for you, and as a minor but useful side-effect, navigating certain fandom spaces may become less tedious for you and me both. it's a win-win situation.

[silicon-tmblr]

What are some Sexuality headcanons you have for danganronpa

Ohhhh I have so much to say you have no idea

I'll go with my DRV3 post-game headcanons because that's generally what I think about!

Shuichi: Disaster bi. I recently had the thought that he'd actually be awesome as nonbinary, but I feel like he's the type to realize that in his mid 30s or something

Kaito: Bigger disaster bi than Shuichi somehow. I like to think that, while he's iffy/confused about gay people, he accepts trans people without a thought (he's just like "oh you're actually a guy/girl! okay") and just demands that they "act like their gender" bahaha

Ryoma: I know this is a controversial thing to say but. Straight. cis/het. But he's like the biggest and nicest ally ever because well his entire friend group is very queer

Rantaro: I don't see this enough!!!! Aro/ace Rantaro!!! His love hotel is literally him being a tutor with no romantic or sexual undertones!!!! His character concept is probably "playboy with no interest in romance"!! But yeah aro/ace, romance and sex-repulsed

Gonta: Probably pan, but fairly heteronormative. I feel like he gets married in middle age because he's really not searching for a relationship for most of his life and more busy enjoying his hobbies!

Kokichi: Obviously very gay! I generally have him as a trans guy who, due to some shenanigans that happened in his childhood, thought he was a cis guy (until puberty hit and he had to figure out why he was freaking bleeding). Ironically, I like to call him "the cissest of cis guys" haha

Korekiyo: Ace! Not looking for a romantic relationship but I like to think he has a strong platonic partnership with Tenko

Keebo: Aro/ace, romance-positive and sex-neutral. He doesn't experience romantic or sexual attraction but is totally open to a romantic relationship. Intersex and he/him nonbinary, but he generally keeps it to himself and only tells people he trusts

Kirumi: Gay gay lesbian gay. She loves GL (Girl's love genre) but keeps it a secret

Himiko: Aromantic and bisexual! She tends more towards girls than guys

Maki: PSA Maki is gay and was straightwashed when they put her in Danganronpa 53. I mean, Tsumugi really said "I made you fall in love with a guy for plot!" I like to think Maki gets out of DRV3 and her first thought is "why was I straight" (for legal reasons this is a joke and bi Maki believers are based but. gay maki)

Tenko: Bi Tenko bi Tenko I KNOW people insist she's a lesbian (and you people are based) buuut I think even in Danganronpa Tenko is bi. People don't choose who they're attracted to, so her being raised to hate men doesn't mean she can't be attracted to them! Okay that's my ted talk about bi tenko

Tsumugi: Her orientation is none of your business (is what she will say, but I will expose her as the bisexual she is)

Angie: Pan! Kinda heteronormative but she learns not to be

Miu: Pan. I think she would meet someone on the internet that she clicks super well with and then they fly out to meet each other and get married

Kaede: Lesbian! So lesbian. I will insist forever that she isn't actually interested in Shuichi and is just super awkward around him because she doesn't want to lead him on when she's gay

That's it for V3! I don't have as many for the other games, mostly since I'm not as interested in or familiar with them (I like to joke that V3 has the gayest cast and everyone in DR2 is straight (obviously untrue, the irrefutable evidence: Nagito)), but here's a few I like:

Chiaki: Trans girl! She's also straight bahaha

Hiyoko: I used to think she'd be the type to act homophobic "as a joke" but then I realized she's super gay. She'd probably still act homophobic though

Nagito: Bi, for the sole reason of: I think he should date Chiaki

Akane: Seems ace!

Mahiru: I think she's straight, but she's a total lesbian magnet

Hajime: Bi (duh). Cursed to be maidenless

Chihiro: Nonbinary, he/they in conversation but always they/them in writing

Junko: This lady is very heterosexual and cisgender

Mukuro: Bi

Makoto: Bi

I also like to joke that all the girls in DR1 are straight and all the boys in DR1 are gay because everyone is in love with Makoto (obviously false because there are some very gay girls and not so gay dudes)

[purgemarchlockdown]

pleae tell us about the advertisement quality of Cat and This Is How To Be In Love With You @tsuwmya replied.

Im glad I have followers who enable me, anyway:

So This is How to Be In Love With You and Cat have this advertisement sales-like quality to them that I fixate on whenever I think about them. I'll talk TIHTBILWY first cause its much easier to explain, it's a magazine!

While it's portrayed in a sort of personal diary way, it's Undeniably a magazine. This panel shows the front and the back, with little listings of the clothing and what they add to your look and outfit. TIHTBILWY is Selling you the idea of a perfect romantic relationship between two people. One that we know was Not At All Perfect.

It's designed to be mass-market appealing and desirable. You could have this too! All you have to do is these simple things! This translation of this frame has the stuff in parenthesis translated as:

How to be someone anyone can fall in love with! A 16 day memorial Produced by Mahiru Shiina

But since it's an ad, it loses that sense of sincerity and honesty. It's manufactured beauty. Something that's manufactures for Us the audience (and for society as whole.) So that Mahiru and her boyfriend are seen as the Normal Heterosexual Relationship.

Cat on the other hand is a bit subtler about this but it's still Present, for one It abides by KISS (Keep it simple, stupid)

I'm familiar with this being used in animation, but it is also used in advertisements, since clarity and visual communication is Super important. It's why companies have made their logos simpler and simpler and why Corporate Memphis is a plague on this earth.

Not only that but it utilizes halftones and typography! Making it feel more printed and like something you would find in a newspaper advertising a new product. Plus the major colors used (yellow, cyan, magenta) are also ink printing colors!

Cat is Extremely performative, it's clean, it's Safe.

This is just Kazui trying to sell the perfect happy marriage to the rest of society. Heck he even poses like a salesman presenting something to you in this shot!

Again, there is not Honesty here. It's selling you an idea. But the advertisement breaks down over time before falling apart into a bloody mess.

EXCEPT THIS IS ITS OWN PERFORMANCE! KAZUI FEELS GUILTY AND IS TRYING TO SELL YOU THE IDEA THAT HE IS A BRUTAL HORRIBLE MAN! THAT HE IS A VIOLENT PERPETRATOR!

There's Two scenes where this border isn't on screen and I firmly believe those are the only scenes where Kazui isn't trying to sell us on an idea. Or at least isn't performing.

Love as something that needs to be performed and sold to wider society is a FANTASTIC visual and I LOVE IT DEARLY

*grips table* someone please ask me about the advertisement quality of Cat and This Is How To Be In Love With You......sanitized ad of love and romance delivered to you for $1.99! It makes me go insane.....

[automatismoateo]

I'm tired of hearing "I don't hate gay people, but [insert something abhorrent]" Just be honest with how vile you are and just say you hate them. via /r/atheism

I'm tired of hearing "I don't hate gay people, but [insert something abhorrent]" Just be honest with how vile you are and just say you hate them.

Tried posting this on r/offmychest but apparently you have to be an accepted member there, so I figured since this is a religious issue and I'm very familiar with this community that I'd post it here. Sorry if not allowed.

Unfortunately had an interaction with my family today where we were all together at our parents and we were talking about how people turn to things to deal with depression and I brought up the fact I watched The Whale and how the main character uses food and over eating as his way of trying to deal with his grief or "kill his whale" and my parents talked about how they were excited to see it and said it looked really good, until I mentioned the part that the main character is gay. IMMEDIATELY the mood changed and my Ma got a completely disgusted and angry look on her face and said

"Well now I'm not watching it. Hollywood always has to stick their gay agenda into everything."

I'm always having to listen to their vile rhetoric on gay and trans people and I'm just tired of it and looked at her and said

"Why don't you just say that you hate gay people?"

And she was thrown back and said "I don't hate gay people, Hollywood just has to throw it in our faces and shove it down our throats! It's everywhere!"

And I replied, "So are heterosexual relationships but you don't complain about that."

And my dad chimed in saying "That's because it's natural."

There was a long debate back and forth where I explained to them again that homosexuality is natural and has been shown to be natural, and they kept going on about how gay people are so privileged and that Christians are the real persecuted people in the US and that gay people are soon going to be having Christians tried in court for being Christians then start decapitating them and yadda yadda yadda more persecution fetish and how gay people need to just shut up and stop being in media and such. And I ended it with telling them that they are the perfect examples of the American Christian because they aren't loving, they sit in front of Fox News all day and complain about how gay and trans people are the fall of society and how they shouldn't have rights but it's okay because it's "not hate" they do it out of "love". I told them there's something extremely wrong and vile about how they look at their fellow human beings that even just the mere existence of them and the mere mention of that existence is enough to completely change your demeanor into disgust and animosity.

I'm just fucking tired of people having to excuse their own existence. It's dehumanizing and having to spend the one life I have having to fight for my right to exist because you have people like pastor Steve Anderson and Dillon Awes calling for the execution of gay people and the absolute diseased ideas they spread to others who then take out their problems on people they have been told to hate, it's exhausting. I'm exhausted.

If you're the type of person who talks like they do, just say it. You hate gay people. You do. Just be honest. I'm tired of pretending it's something that it's not because you don't have the balls to say what it really is. I'm tired of defending my family. I love them, but they hate people like me. Which is sad because they are otherwise good people. But it's like Hitchens pointed out, religion makes normally moral people do and say wicked and disgusting things.

I'm just frustrated and wanted to get this off my chest because I'm just honestly so tired of it. And I want to say, if your family is the same, you don't need to defend them. I'm learning it's okay to love your family but also recognize when their ideas are absolutely vile and honestly probably recognize that they may not be good people. I can't wait for the day when all these horrible ideas are dead and in the past.

If you read my whole rant, thanks! I wanted to put more but didn't want to bore everyone.

TL;DR My parents hate gay people, I told them to just say it and stop pretending that they don't. Tired of hearing their vile rhetoric towards LGBTQ all the time and learning that it's okay to not have to defend people just because they are related to you.

Submitted March 06, 2023 at 11:59AM by Mr_Kash (From Reddit https://ift.tt/c0HPZnl)

[oldfritz]

I'm genuinely curious and don't want to start something! Just wanted to ask what you make of the 'Old Fritz might've been asexual' take, I don't know much about him and I feel you're one of the best people to ask esp since you lean towards 'he was probably queer in some way' too

Hey there! So, first off, don’t ever worry about me interpreting you asking me a question as starting something. As much as I love making dumb jokes about the guy, I love nothing more than doing this kind of stuff and defending or explaining my points. There’s two degrees I want to get over the next decade: first my JD and then my MA in Prussian history. I live for this stuff! Always have! Second off, I’m very sorry for not getting to this sooner. Things have been incredibly stressful for me for a variety of different reasons which have made answering your question, until now, rather difficult. Putting this under a cut because, holy shit, it got long!

My personal reasoning for why I think he’s bi (which, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m assuming is what you meant instead of ace and could be a different post entirely since some historians have tried to argue that) stems more to do with some of my lingering questions about the nature of his relationships with certain woman, rather than that of his relationships with men. To me and my modern, queer eye, Fritz’s relationships with men like Hans Hermann von Katte, Francisco Algarotti, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, and (much to my personal vexation) one Monsieur Voltaire are either outright homosexual/homoerotic in nature or very, very easily lend themselves to that interpretation rather than strictly romantic friendships (which Wikipedia does a fairly good overview of and, if you’re coming to me from AmRev perspective, uses Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship as a familiar example). While I’m avoiding those relationships in this ask, I’d be more than happy to elaborate upon one/all of them in a different one. 

Before I go into the big pauses that Fritz’s relationships with Madame von Wreech and Countess Orzelska give me, I want to deny the use of Fritz’s wife as an example of Fritz’s attraction to woman. While this, admittedly, may sound odd, we have ample evidence of how turned off and repulsed Fritz found Elisabeth Christine. Before he had even met her, Fritz was complaining about how she was ‘not very pretty, speaks but little, and acts like a blockhead’ (Asprey, 87) and, later, admitted to Grumbkow his plan to ‘keep my word,...get married, but afterwards it will be a case of that is that, and goodbye, Madame, and fare thee well’ (Jones, 52). For Christ’s sake, the man pitied her knowing how his treatment would leave her as ‘one more unhappy princess in the world’! Which is little consolation when you remember he also referred to her with such romantic terms as ‘this unpleasant creature,’ ‘the abominable object of my desires,’ ‘the person,’ and claimed to have preferred to marry ‘the biggest whore in Berlin’ (Asprey, 87). And while we (fortunately? unfortunately?) know quite a bit about their sex life, Fritz largely regarded it as just another duty - to quote him, ‘I will only have the duty to fuck’ (Ibid, 87). And while Seckendorf heard - first, presumably from Count von der Schulenburg and, later on, Count Friedrich von Wartensleben, a close and intimate friend of the then-crown prince - that Fritz would ‘fuck and refuck’ Elisabeth Christine and that said act occurred in the afternoon, it still was out of a sense of obligation (Bely, 481-2). When reminded that if he wanted more money for frivolities, he’d need to produce an heir, Fritz bemoaned that he ‘cannot sleep with my wife out of desire, and when I do sleep with her, I do it out of duty rather than inclination’ (Clark, 50). All this in accumulation, as well as the myriad of other quotes and incidents I’ve left out, makes one wonder why his relationship with Elisabeth Christine is sometimes used by historians to prove any sort of heterosexual impulse in the man when she’s the woman with the weakest supports for that argument.

That being said, now we get to the women with a more muddled places in his romantic escapades, if you will. What exactly happened between Orzelska and Fritz during his trip with his father to Dresden in 1728? The main source for everything that occurred during this trip is Wilhelmina, who didn’t attend and without anything about this specific incident coming from Fritz or Friedrich Wilhelm I, make it rather hard to use as concrete, irrefutable proof. Now, if her recollections were contemporaneous - like coming from a diary or journal she kept at the time - that would be one thing. But it comes from her memoirs which, while a delightful read 10/10 recommend, are written decades after this trip took place and, memory being a finicky thing, can’t be taken to the bank. All those disclaimers, here’s the story as told by her:

‘One evening...,the King of Poland [note: Augustus II] insensibly led the King of Prussia to a very richly decorated room...The King of Prussia, delighted with what he saw, stopped to contemplate all its beauties, when [all of] a sudden a tapestry was rolled up, which procured him a very novel sight. It was a lovely female in a state of nudity [note: Countess Orzelska, the Polish king’s daughter], carelessly reclined on a couch. Her beauty excelled that of the finest pictures of Venus and the Graces; her body seemed of ivory, whiter than snow, and better shaped than that of the Venus de Medicis at Florence.

...Scarcely had the King cast his eyes on the fair one, than he turned about with indignation; and seeing my brother behind him, he rudely pushed him out of the room, and left it immediately after in a violent irritation against the trickery they had attempted to practice on him. ...In spite of the King’s vigilance, [Frederick] had had time to contemplate the Venus of the closet, who did not cause him so much horror as she had done to his father. (Wilhelmina’s Memoirs, vol. 1, 107-6)

Wilhelmina then goes on to claim Fritz had fallen ‘passionately in love’ with Orzelska and that the illness Fritz experienced upon returning home was simply being lovesick. Pinning the accuracy of this story is incredibly difficult because, again, we have only one source relayed decades after the fact and from two volumes of memoirs known to have inaccuracies. While I, personally, would love if he had had a tryst with Orzelska (who is such a badass in her own right and deserves more recognition than as a footnote in this guy’s story), there’s no one way to say with more than 30% confidence. I am inclined to believe something along these lines happened because if someone told me a story like this, lord knows I wouldn’t forget it for the rest of my life. And, with Wilhelmina being so close with her brother, it lends a bit more credence but as to the actual emotional or physical response Fritz had to it, well, without my time machine, I can’t and don’t want to say.

With Madame Eleonore-Louise von Wreech, things are a little more concrete. For starters, Fritz actually talked about her! In written correspondence that survived! We even have seven letters between the two of them that survived, which is a bigger win! As Blanning says, they’re ‘ardent but light in tone, ironic, almost flippant, and highly stylized’ (Blanning, 58). Their relationship was known to those close with Fritz at the time that Schulenberg felt compelled to visit and warn the crown prince against devoting himself to women because ‘the slight pleasures gained cause a million displeasures.’  Fritz’s response? To tell the poor guy that he may have ‘the gift of continence, but I assure you that I do not’ (Asprey, 83-4). Firtz even went so far as to send a letter to her mother, waxing poetic about Louise’s ‘beauty, her majestic air, her bearing, and her entire department.’ It’s worth noting that Louise eventually broke off the affair due to being bored by how he ‘loved [her] too much and often annoyed [her] with his clumsy love’ (Ibid, 84). Contemporaries, including Friedrich Wilhelm, believed Fritz had impregnated her with a daughter who her ‘cuckolded husband would refuse to recognize’ (Blanning, 58). Blanning is the only source I’ve seen dispute this due to this news coming from Seckendorf, who didn’t reveal how he came about this information; that Fritz and Madame von Wreech’s correspondence doesn’t indicate a physical relationship; and on the fact that she was not pregnant. I haven’t been able to find the birth dates or any sort of records for Louise’s two daughters to figure out where their conception could’ve been in the timeline and if it matches with the likely dates for the affair, but I also don’t have the resources Cambridge would afford Blanning. Either way, while the physical nature of the affair is in dispute, the emotional aspect certainly was there. Especially when taking into consideration the fact that she’s the woman Fritz was likely referring to in the 16 August 1737 letter to Voltaire where he claimed she had taught him how to love (and also inspired him to write poetry, which we shouldn’t be thankful for). Specifically, all these years later, he stated how ‘this little miracle of nature possessed every possible charm, together with good taste and delicacy. She sought to transfer these qualities to me. I succeeded well in love but poorly in poetry. Since that time I have very often been in love and have always been a poet’ (Fritz’s Oeuvres, vol. 21, 96).

All this to say, there’s a bit too much evidence of some degree of opposite-gender attraction in Fritz to completely write off the possibility that he could’ve been bisexual. While it’s undeniable he held a preference for men and that’s whose company he typically enjoyed, I still do find it interesting the two exceptions (one potential and the other with a fair degree of certainty) to this. And, while I would never want his attraction to men be minimized in favor of that to women, it still remains important to note to get the most comprehensive picture of the man.

[chosetherose]

Mirrorball /

Don’t Take The Money

🤯

I was just listening to “Don’t Take The Money” by Bleachers (a song that has played pre-show at one of Taylor’s tours) for the first time since folklore was released and the similarities to “mirrorball” slapped me straight in the face. I’m in awe right now.

Let me explain why this is and why I think it’s significant. I promise it’s worth the read.

THE LYRICS

“Don’t Take The Money” by Bleachers

Somebody broke me once

Love was a currency

A shimmering balance act

I think that I laughed at that

And I saw your face and hands

Coloured in sun and then

I think I understand

Will I understand?

“Mirrorball” by Taylor Swift

I want you to know

I'm a mirrorball

I'll show you every version of yourself tonight

I'll get you out on the floor

Shimmering beautiful

And then I break into a million pieces

...

I'm still on that tightrope

I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me

And I'm still a believer, but I don't know why

I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try

I'm still on that trapeze

I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me

If you are familiar with DTTM then you probably know the song (to a lot of us around here at least) is thought to be about bearding (love is a currency, don’t take the money, the entire music video, etc.). So these direct parallels between DDTM and mirrorball lyrics are absolutely wild to me.

Both songs introduce the narrator *breaking* which is synonymous with pain. Both songs describe *shimmering* which is naturally in the context of something to watch (i.e. you usually look at a literal balancing act and at something beautiful). Because the narrators have a lot of eyes on them. Both songs talk about a *balancing act* or *tightrope* or *trapeze*. Because bearding/hiding your true self is difficult and delicate.

If that’s not enough to really blow your mind then please note that Jack Antonoff, aka the lead singer for Bleachers who co-wrote DTTM, also co-wrote mirrorball with Taylor.

THE VISUALS

This is a screenshot of the DTTM music video. These cake toppers were shown several times.

Of course, Taylor confirmed mirrorball=discoball with her Spotify background for the song.

The DTTM music video shows a cake topper bride and groom with shiny blue disco balls for heads. The whole plot of the video is a man and a woman (who don’t even speak the same language) at the alter to get married. But, the bride runs away with the woman who “speaks now” and whisks the bride away. Then Taylor just happens to make the Spotify visual for mirrorball be a freaking blue disco ball.

In my view, the blue discoballs in the DTTM video represent two people who are unhappy to be dressing the part faking a relationship together to project an “accepted” heterosexual relationship to the world. This sentiment fits with mirrorball as well... (Taylor) can change everything about herself to fit in while and the regular masarade revelers (the GP) are drunk off her pain (of bearding, hiding) watching her shattered edges glisten.

But, wait. Look again. The Spotify visuals for mirrorball show only HALF a blue discoball. If you’re familiar with the eye theory, you know its believed Taylor + Karlie have sort of aligned themselves as one. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about see @9w1ft ‘s blog). So, here we can presume the other half of the blue disco ball is Karlie but she remains out of view.

THE SIGNIFICANCE

Consider this.. Taylor may never be able to say “Yes, my public relationships with men were fake. They were beards.” What she can do is set a narrative in motion that slowly allows her public and (true) private life to converge. At the same time, she can release songs like mirrorball that strongly connect to other songs like DTTM and hint at what she really wants to say. She can hope that people put it all together one day so Taylor and Karlie’s love will be passed on like folk songs.

Spoiler alert: The DTTM video ends with the beard kicked to the curb and the girls running off together. 💕

[probablysapphic]

I was in a relationship with a guy and I was crazy about him but it ended. After that, I started questioning my sexuality and thought that I wasn't really honest,deep down i've always known I was attracted to girls but it was easier to push these feelings away and pretend I was straight, I didn't have the guts to admit who I really was and tbh I still don't. Now I feel stucked with this label. Everyone assume I'm straight and Idk how I could explain that or come out, especially to my parents...

Hello :)I’m sorry to hear that you’re so confused but let me tell you that it’s completely natural. Only few people have no trouble figuring out who they are so don’t feel discouraged if you seem “stuck”.

Important things:

- You don’t need to know right now (I understand the feeling that you desperately want to find out what your sexuality is as soon as possible - but trust me, you have time, nobody’s rushing you). Take a deep breath, you’ll get where you wanna be eventually.

- Find someone to talk to about it (if you feel safe doing so). Sharing your thoughts - maybe through text, maybe talking, whatever feels most comfortable - can help to release stress and anxiety. Writing about it can be useful to keep track of your progress, like writing down memories that are “not so straight” or thoughts. It’ll help when you wonder if you’re faking it (you’re probably aren’t but society will most definitely give you doubts, don’t let them confuse you, just do your thing, everything is gonna be fine).

- You don’t need to know anything for sure before identifying a certain way / labeling yourself.

- Feel free to change labels. It’s okay, some things are trickier to figure out than others. You’re not a traitor nor a bad person for not “getting it right” at the first try. For some people, sexuality is very constant, for others it changes over time.

- Just … feel. Embrace all the feelings, thoughts, and fantasies you may have. Everything’s fine, it’s not wrong to think about girls in a way society teaches us to think about guys (as a girl). Go ahead and explore. If you wanna date a girl, date a girl, if you wanna date a guy, do it, if you wanna date a non-binary person, go ahead. (Just be upfront with them if you’re still questioning or not sure, honest communication is key.)

- Surround yourself with positivity. Follow sapphic/bi/lesbian blogs. Read books or watch movies and tv shows that have characters/protagonists that aren’t straight to get comfortable with the thought of not being straight. Maybe read personal stories from other people on how they figured out their sexuality. Attend LGBTQ+ meetings or go to GSA if you have that at your place (if you feel comfortable doing so).

In case you’re thinking about being bi, here’s a great quote from the bisexual activist Robyn Ochs:“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.” [Source]

Look at this post, too. Actually, the whole blog it’s from.

Other thoughts related to that:

- It’s okay if you feel like being attracted to girls or actively thinking about the possibility of being attracted to girls is new for you.

- For you to identify as bi you don’t have to be attracted to girls and guys 50:50. Furthermore, there are people who are both or neither and including them in your attraction doesn’t make you any less bi since bisexuality is defined as “attraction to two or more genders”.

- Your attraction to different genders doesn’t have to be consistent. It can be 10:90 one day and 40:60 the next and 99:1 the following day. All of that is right and natural. It doesn’t invalidate your identity.

- Furthermore, it’s perfectly fine to be attracted to different genders in different ways . Check out this post and this one.

What’s also worth reading about is compulsory heterosexuality. Just get familiar with the concept, it could definitely bring you further in your questioning process. (links are below, included in the asks)

Check out these asks I got in the past, maybe some advice from there will be helpful to you, too (here I mean the broad idea of them, of course I’m not telling you your sexuality - some asks are quite specific about the sexuality of the person who’s asking - but all of these asks have also general advice that might be interesting): coming out - questioning 1 - questioning 2/comp het - questioning 3/comp het/labels - coming out/being bi.

Concerning everyone assuming that you’re straight - ugh, I FEEL YOU. It’s truly awful. Unfortunately, I have no advice on how to deal with this, I usually stay quiet and roll my eyes into another dimension.

About coming out - the most important thing is that you’re safe and that you feel ready. Nobody is (or at least should be) pushing you to come out. Approach general LGBTQ+ topics with the people you plan on coming out to and see how they react. If you decided that it’s safe to come out to them, there’s a million different ways to do so (letter, cake, text message, talking in person, etc.). Usually the band-aid-method as in “okay, listen up, I’m [insert your sexuality here]” and seeing where it goes from there is something lots of people do. (I think?) - some more tips here

I hope that’s helpful. Feel free to send me another ask if you have other questions or I missed the point!Please, if you ever want to talk to someone who’s equally confused and thinks about maybe being bi, message me!! Just say Hi and we go from there :) Or just begin to rant about how terribly heteronormative our society is. (Only if you’re comfortable, of course. No pressure.)

I wish you a wonderful day! :)