#also generally queer and proud/without shame

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

It's kind of sad to me how so many queer communities have their own cultures and symbolism that you can choose to connect with or not, but most aspec communities don't have a choice.

So many ace people I've met didn't even have a clue about the cake symbol or the dragons and all that. And aromantic symbolism/culture is even more ignored!! And I won't even name the poor apl and other tertiary attraction aspec culture/symbolism.

So many of us are so proud of our identities, but what about culture? The symbolism? We don't have those privileges.

I miss the time I found out I was ace and every time I saw a cake I would giggle and whisper to myself "look, it's like my identity!", I wanted to feel it back, and I also wanted other aspec people (both young acespec who just discovered themselves AND aspec who aren't (only) ace) to feel it too.

I don't know how to explain it, I was just thinking about it...

(Apologies for even bringing this up but) I feel like the so-called ace discourse* really did a number on our community, because one of the big things they did was shame ace and a-spec culture and symbols. It got very hard to post cute things like purple dragons and cake the same colours as the ace flag without someone showing up and yelling at you and accusing you of all kinds of things. It died down on Tumblr years ago, but I'm still seeing the effects.

I think one of the best things we can though is spread and share these things, share ace dragons, make jokes, teach people about community culture things like the asexual ring and aromantic ring. And of course we can always create more symbols, more cultural things, and often that happens from connecting as a community. Community building is something any of us can do if we want to.

All the best, Anon!

*I know that's not a good name for it since what it actually was was a large scale harassment campaign, and generally targeted the entire a-spec community, but not sure if there's an alternate recognizable name for it.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  MuseumGiftShopEraser! They have 9 works on AO3 in the Stranger Things Fandom, and 6 of those are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @museumgiftshoperaser:

Paint the Devil on the Wall

Conversations About Love

Now I'm A Stranger

An Exercise In Denial

Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me

Her fics are BEAUTIFUL. When I first read Paint the Devil on the Wall I was so obsessed I immediately recced the fic to everyone I knew who would be vaguely interested in a steddie fic. -- anonymous

Below the cut, @museumgiftshoperaser answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I stumbled into it immediately after season 4 came out. I’ve felt very attached to Steve as a character from the beginning of the show and I think I was subconsciously waiting for someone to pair him up with. I think they’re both such great characters to explore themes of dealing with expectation (either by conforming, or fighting against it) and that’s something I always love to write about.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Absolute sucker for fake dating. Can’t get enough of it.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Enemies to lovers! Though now that I’m looking through my AO3 I haven’t actually written that much of it. It doesn’t have to be very intense enemies, though. I just like it when characters don’t immediately get along.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

My brain has been forever rewired by took you for a working boy by pukner. It’s such a gentle, nuanced queer story. It feels vulnerable to me in a way that really only fanfiction can be. Can I sneak in another one?? Because everyone should also absolutely read the shame is on the other side by scoops_ahoy. It taps into this very specific kind of queer compartmentalizing, that I’ve never seen written this well. It broke my heart and patched it right back up.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’ve been stupidly busy with my masters lately so there’s probably not a lot of writing on my horizon. I do have a wip called Doll that I’m slowly chipping away at. It’s a little darker than stuff I’ve written before. I know ‘dark’ isn’t really a trope, but I’m excited to see if I can push these characters a little further. 

What is your writing process like?

Absolute chaos. I write non-chronologically, without an outline, all in the same document. I keep writing snippets and scenes until the whole thing slowly comes together. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

Italicizing words for emphasis. I love it so much, you can rip it from my cold dead hands. It accidentally makes its way into my academic writing for my degree sometimes which is a little embarrassing, but I just love the flair of it. 

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I don’t really do schedules, it doesn’t work for me at all. I try to make sure I have a decent amount of the story written before I start posting to give me a bit of a head start, but forcing myself to finish something by a certain date is a surefire way to kill my motivation.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Probably Paint the Devil on the Wall. It was the first time I’d written the entire story before I started posting so it went through way more rounds of editing than normal. I think you can really tell. It’s also the longest story I’ve ever written (in general, even outside of fanfic). The whole project gave me a lot of confidence as a writer.

How did you get the idea for Paint the Devil on the Wall?

I knew I wanted to participate in the Bigbang and the deadline was coming up, but I still didn’t have an idea. I decided to work backwards and try to think of something that would be fun for the artist(s) to draw. I had a vision of Eddie wearing dungarees without a shirt, absolutely covered in paint and I knew I had to write something to make it happen. I set the story in 80s New York because neo expressionism is really the only kind of art I could see Eddie making. I think it suits him very well. I do actually have a background in art, though! I’m currently getting my MFA, but I’ve worked full time as an artist for several years before that. I had a lot of fun working my passion for art (and all those art history classes I had to take) into the fic.

When writing Paint the Devil on the Wall, what was something you didn’t expect?

All of Steve’s character, to be honest. The fic is written from Eddie’s POV and for a large part of it he has a very hard time figuring out what Steve’s deal is. Right alongside him, I also had an incredibly hard time figuring out his character. It wasn’t until I was working on the final chapter that he finally clicked for me. I realized very late, just like Eddie, that Steve liked him from the very beginning. Most of the enemies to lovers premise was all in Eddie’s head.

What inspired Now I'm a Stranger?

Oh boy, that was forever ago! I remember I started writing it while I was camping with friends because I liked having something to do after everyone went to bed at night. I think I had the idea for that very first scene where Steve doesn’t remember Eddie and it all sort of spiraled from there.

What was your favorite part to write from An Exercise in Denial?

That was the very first fic I wrote, right after season 4 came out! I’ve never written something that fast, I think the whole thing took me less than a week. My favorite part was probably Robin being completely exasperated with both of them. They’re such complete idiots in that fic.

How do/did you feel writing Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me?

Ahhh… I never got around to finishing that one. I probably never will, to be honest. I wrote the first two parts quite quickly and then the idea I had for the plot spiraled out of control and I realized I didn’t actually feel like writing the rest of it. There were going to be a lot of misunderstandings and I learned that I find that an incredibly frustrating trope to write (when done for drama at least. For comedy, I’m a sucker for misunderstandings.) So I guess I felt a little in over my head.

What was the most difficult part of writing Conversations About Love?

The ending! That fic is so incredibly personal to me and I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to have a very sappy, happy ending. It was important to me to write an aromantic character getting everything they wanted, but I realized as I was writing it that I don’t actually fully know what that means. So it took a bit more soul searching than fics typically do, but it was very much worth it. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I still think the short little prologue for Paint the Devil on the Wall is the best thing I’ve written. “You don’t draw on things that aren’t yours, baby” is probably the best summary I have for that story.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Not really!

Thank you to our author, @museumgiftshoperaser, and our anonymous nominator! See more of @museumgiftshoperaser works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[arons-beanst]

Today the world made me feel the need to speak up again. So I will raise my voice now:

I went to the hairdressers today.

I had an undercut with about 1.5 centimeters length on the sides. On the top I had about chin long hair. I usually wore my hair in a man bun. I have only ever seen that kind of hairstyle on men.

I wanted a shorter, even more boyish haircut, since i get constantly misgendered and I really wanted to have short hair and felt brave enough to cut it now.

Here to say, I am not far along in my transition. I haven't even started T yet.

So today I took a friend with me and went for it.

At the beginning everything seemed fine, but as an autistic guy, I sometimes just realise that people have been rude or just acting friendly after talking to them.

So I sat down in the chair, not even having a picture, being really nervous. And I told the lady that was about to cut my hair: I don't really know which hairstyles work with my hair, but I want the classical boys haircut most guys you pass on the street have.

Here I have to say I was very nervous and she probably realised that. I was kinda hoping for her to have those old-school little books with hairstyles in there, but they didn't.

So I was stammering around a bit more.

Then she cut my hair.

If I am honest I am actually pretty happy with the cut. She was seemingly nice but not doing any smalltalk. I got confused about that so I tried to make smalltalk with her. Spoiler alert: It didn't work out.

So after the cut we went to pay. I was very happy at that point. Until the "young lady" from the woman at the counter.

I said then "That is not quite right."

Then she said I have to pay 56€ for a Neuschnitt (new cut).

There is a lot wrong with that. It kinda was a new cut, yes. But also it was pretty much only shortening the top. I only sat there for like 15 minutes. Also I went from a pretty much boys haircut to a boys haircut and still it was so expensive. Usually a womens haircut is about twice as expensive as a mens haircut. So they definitely did charge it as a womans haircut.

Additionally to that, the other hairdressing salons near here would charge about 23€ (for a women haircut, without washing and styling on short hair). And I am very sure they would not charge that much anyways. I have read in reviews quite a lot about people being happy with the price.

Of course I was in shock at that moment, so I didn't ask questions, paid quickly and went away, which I regret by now.

After getting out of there, when I got to think about everything, I realised that they just acted their kindness, which makes me sad now.

All in all I am happy with my hair, but I got a huge gap in my budget. I have to say I am really angry about that and very disappointed.

I think it really is a shame that lots of shops still are homo- or transphobic and you, the queer self you are, can't know where you are welcome or not.

So my idea would be:

Dear shop owners, if you are openminded and accepting and want to show the lgbtqia+ community that they are welcome inside your store, you could put a little progress flag somewhere into your store window or onto the glass next to the doors.

We, the community, would really be thankful and happy to see something like that and feel very welcome in your shop.

Thank you for reading this. I really hope you never had an experience like this and never will have. When we act now, we can save the next generation from painful experiences.

Help make the world more colourful. And be proud for who you are!

[lil-nova]

A Little Personal

TW: if you don’t like depressing things don’t read.

As I am growing into the adult I am supposed to be, I realize more and more my parents were light-years away from being perfect. I want to write about my experiences in hope of getting them out. Finding peace within myself over the years to come, is all I want out of sharing these vulnerable pieces of my life. Dad wasn’t all too great of a person. He was sexist, racist, and an all round conservative person. Although, throughout my childhood he showed sexual curiosity for queerness. He did love thy neighbor. Just nothing usually added up, contradictions left and right. He would yell and scream at mom and my brother. He never liked how mom handled raising me. With my brother, dad believed that men were meant to have a full life by 21. So he was kicked out for a year, which wasted a bunch of money. My household was unpredictable, noisy, and confusing. I know for sure I have depression and anxiety of some form, but getting a diagnosis is tough with my financial situation as a college student. I suspect ADHD. Mom was never around emotionally, it felt like I couldn’t cry without hearing “Why are you crying for??” being shouted at me.

Dad on the other hand would keep me together emotionally. I had so much difficulty with emotions as a child. I remember vaguely crying at my school numerous times for missing dad. I remember not wanting to play with other kids, because I felt so detached from everything. You can’t say a child can’t remember those things. Some people cut negative memories out of their unconsciousness, but I never did.

I remember all the horrible things that went on in that house, and all the worry I had. All the blame I put on myself for my parent’s divorce, despite them telling me it’s not my fault. THEN, turning around when they were in the heat of an argument to tell me I was meant to be aborted. My dad, my friend at this point in time, wanted me aborted. I asked him about what mom told me and he said, “Your mother wouldn’t be fit to take care of you. I didn’t want another child to suffer, again.” He told me when I was born, I was his shining pride. It was like something kept him going for as long as he did, and he loved me. He loved how smart and talented I was. He was so proud. He valued my existence. Although, those negative traits would leak through and taint the fatherly love. It pains me to think about, but he would critique my eating habits. He told me if I didn’t do XYZ, I would never find a boyfriend. No boy would want me. But he also told me, don’t mess with boys. In retrospect, it confuses the hell outta me. Emotionally he helped me get over a lot of things with mom. Yet again, it was tainted with them always fighting. She said, he said. Back and forth, for what felt like eons. At one point, they would use me to send messages back and forth. I stood up for myself as a kid, “I’m not your telephone, daddy.” I remember I told him while sitting in the black Chevy truck waiting for mom to pick me up. The more I dig in my memories, the more I see how terrible they acted around me. As if I were a doll to be tugged around. I was somehow an object in their spats to nudge one another to do something. It sucks. They are my parents, but they are both so flawed. So you got me at 21 years old. 9 years since Dad passed away. I know he wouldn’t like who I am. But I know I am almost free from this generational cycle of pain. I want to be free. Free from shame, from pain of the past, from the inky blackness that plagued my family’s hearts before I was even conceived. I want to live for the people I have in my life currently. I have been through hell since I was born. Being tossed around by the forces of life. I needed to let this all out, so I can take on the bigger wave ahead of me, existence as I am. Who I am, and being unapologetically me.

[paparazzifuckoff]

Like the Fall from Eden

And the Fall from Heaven

Kisê-Manitow/Giiche Manito

casts down

Queer love

joy not shame

we can feel now

the canvas is gypsum

paint yourself on stone

and your modern absurd

becomes primal

Mishipzheu is the Triceratops

Animkii the Pterodactyl

Leviathan

Behemoth

Mythos made real

Words

mîmîkwîsiwak

most sacred ones

âcimowina

stories with knowledge 

mistahi-paskwâwi-mostowak

mammoth

ahcâhk

spirit

kohkominâkîsîs

Grandmother Spider

Grandmother Spider 

Surrounds herself with

Her daughters

Male Female Twospirit

All of us her daughters

We Have Always Been Here

Androgyny

informed by masculine and feminine

truthfully

informs masculine and feminine

We Have Always Been Here

the land gives âcimowina

we have âcimowina

we are also the land

continuum

We Have Always Been Here

Words

awâsiskak

Children

Children are spirits of light

TAKEN

our light was too dark

Kills Us

KILLS US KILLS US KILLS US

Children helped us hide them

Kids too Queer

         too red

for the RedWhiteRedWhiteRedWhite

HatCoatGunHatCoatGun

7

7 Generations

7

Western Perfection

Stealing

Our Perfection

Stolen

Too Red too Queer

For the RedWhiteRedWhiteRedWhite

HatCoatGunHatCoatGun

Sit at the tobacco

Rock at the tobacco

BackForthBackForthBackForth

ELECTROCUTE

Break from âhcahk flowing through

Words

Nipiy 

Water

Piyesiwak

Animkiiag

Thunderbird

papâmihâw asiniy 

the flying stone

at the stolen flying stone

Empty shoes

Lost children 

8

Language

Knowledge

Family

Medicine

Ceremony

Tradition

Joy

Hope

Crushed

Job’s Kids | Our Kids

Loss

not the same

Frost Moon 1885

(Untypable - Syllabics) 1885

    watch them hang

8

Kapapmahchakwew

wandering spirit free

Papamaskeesik 

round the sky free

Kitahwaken

miserable man free

Manichoos

bad arrow free

Nahpase 

iron body strong

Aposchikoos

little bear strong

Itka 

crooked leg strong

Wayawahakeh

man without blood strong

   turn to the west

   to the door

   sing a νόστος

   a going away

   a coming home

freefreefreefreestrongstrongstrongstrong

Proud

8 

Mocassins

artists once known

Nehiyâw?

Ancestors? Is that you?

Taken.

Nehiyâw.

Alberta.

No shoes

Too Red

Too Queer

Ribbon Skirt Drum Woman in Rococo

The red way

Rainbow flag purple nails Jesus

The queer way

Jingle dress hard state doctor

The red way

Jingle dress mukluks social worker mind doctor

The red way

Drum jade stone artist

The red way

Beaded belt feather tattoo warrior land defender

The red way

Jingle dress drum Jesus

the red way

Tipi beaded earring teacher

The red way

Ribbon dress high heels artist

The red way

Fist in air ribbon skirt midwife 

The red way 

Avaiators ribbon coat scientist

The red way

We Have Always Been Here

Rock in the lounge

BackForthBackForthBackForthand

Marble Stairs

Totem Pole

Atrium

Settler

Crystal Eagle

Their Home

They Have Always Been There

We Have Always Been Here

Forever

All

One

All

None 

Stop

Stop

Stop

Stop

Stop

Stop

Stop

Stop

[memoleather]

BDSM and kink DO belong in Pride celebrations. This is why.

I've read a column on The Independent trying to explain why BDSM and Kink don't belong in Pride celebrations. What I found interesting is not only the lack of knowledge from the author, but the way he can contradict himself in the same article. I'll try to explain why based on my personal experience as a Leatherman.

Before anything I'd like to perfectly make myself clear: in the US (country where I live) showing your genitals or anus in public is illegal.

In the column, the autor tries to explain that BDSM and Kink aren't of good taste or decent enough for the public. And that could potentially alienate possible allies we could need in the LGBTQ movement. A lot of this type of arguments against the same LGBTQ community have been heard thorough our contemporary history, and most of the times have been used to attack and suppress us.

But contrary to what most of the readers think is the main error in the column, which is the wrongful denial of the presence of the BDSM and Kink collective based on their clothing or what they're doing in public, I think the main error lies deeper within the column.

The author tries to make a separation between sexual orientation and sexual preference. He states that where sexual orientation is of a permanent state, a sexual preference is a choice that can change. The author couldn't be any more wrong with this argument: BDSM and Kink people have both perfectly attached one to the other.

In my personal case as a Leatherman who has met diverse type of Leathermen around the globe, most of them coincide with what I think: a gay Leatherman can only be attracted to other gay Leathermen. That is the main characteristic of a fetish tied to a sexual preference. I cannot have sexual intercourse with a woman dressed in leather, or with a man dressed in casual clothing. My sexual orientation and preference are intimately tied one to each other.

The author makes a reference to his lack of knowledge from the subject when he tries to dismiss Leathermen, and most likely all Kinksters (rubbermen, pups, Levi, balloons, diapers, etc) and practicioners of BDSM to a simple case of a "preference", or a choice. He considers that at a certain point in my life I was given the option of liking Leathermen, a thing that never happened. There was a time when I was growing up (probably around when I was 6 or 7 years old) when I discovered that I like men dressed in leather. Before knowing that I was gay, or what being gay is, I was already a kinkster and I already had a defined sexual preference. If the author of the column had a minimum knowledge of the topic, he would have known that most fetish people are born with their fetishes in their blood: we cannot choose whether to accept or dismiss our fetishes, we have to practice them in order to be in peace with ourselves, to be our own true selves. In all my life I've met several diverse Leathermen and fetish people that cannot have a sexual hookup or a meaningful relationship with a person who does not share their sexual preference, or their fetish. That has happened to me. I've tried several times without success to have sex with a person who does not share my fetish. Having a shared fetish or kink is a basic requirement for me to have a good time with a man.

From that wrong argument on, the whole column loses its value. Thanks to his wrongful reasoning, the author falls into the same rhetoric that conservatives from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, 2010's and 2020's have long used to attack us: the BDSM and Kink collective (or replacing those with the LGBTQ acronym), which is nothing more than a bunch of people that CHOSE to get dressed in leather that day (or a bunch of people that CHOSE to love a person from the same sex) is not of good taste to mingle in a Pride celebration, or with the rest of the society in general. Other proof of his ignorance of the Kink and BDSM world can be seen in the same column: when the author mentions that he's practiced a fetish but no longer does. That implies that for him the fetish is nothing more than a costume he uses to make sex "more fun" and when he's over, he hangs it back in the closet and forgets about it until he needs it again. Unlike the author, I wear leather because that is who I am: a Leatherman. I consider that I use a costume when I go to work using casual clothes in a job that doesn't allow to wear leather garments.

Now I'd like to ask the author the specific type of Pride he's been going where showing genitals or anuses is allowed. Never in my lifetime as Leatherman I've been to a pride where people shows those. Any gay person (at least in the US) independently of whether if they participate in a collective or not, knows that showing the genitals or anuses in public is illegal. No matter how proud of being a Leatherman I am, I'd never do it, nor I ever will. I know the places where I can do that. Now, if his comments regarding the so called "sexual intercourses" he witness, or imagines, when assisting to a Pride event stems from the way we dress or act there, then I have the next words for him: stop reflecting your insecurities on us. I dress the way I do and act the way I do because that is what I want, that is who I am. If you have a problem with it, then that problem is yours and yours only to solve. I don't have to change my persona, nor I ever will, to accommodate to your insecurities.

Instead of attacking me, or the BDSM / Kink collective, the author should try to know me/us. He would get shocked to know that despite my preferences, I am a human being just like him: I have a job just like him, I go back home just like him, I go to bed just like him, and if someone attacks me I bleed, just like him. Maybe if he devoted more time to know us, or the different facets of the LGBTQ movement, he would spend less time attacking us. The attack to one of us does not minimize it's impact: an attack to one of us is an attack to all of us.

I also have some words for The Independent: shame on you for trying to legitimize voices of people that have no idea or knowledge of a topic you agree to publish. Rather than demonstrating the lack of knowledge and ignorance from the author, you're showing the null capacity from your editorial board to choose quality writers for your publication.

Lastly, I'd like to tell to my beloved LGBTqia+ / BDSM / Kink community: this month celebrate the freedom of being however you really are. We have a long history of fighting against what society tells us how we should be. Now is not the time to give up, nor to take a small break. And the best way to celebrate is this: if you're a Femdom, be a proud Femdom in the bank. If you're a Leatherman, be a proud Leatherman in the bus. If you're Queer, be a proud Queer in an art gallery. Gather together with your kinky friends, or just your friends and mingle with the rest of the society in your best gear. Let's build bridges of communication between our BDSM / kink world and the people that don't know us. Because what's better than a day, a week, a month or even a year of celebrations, is a lifetime of Pride.

[zandracourt]

I’ve been reflecting a lot on Cas’ recent confession of love and the responses I’ve been seeing across tumblr and Twitter. As a Destiel fic writer, I am thrilled to see this become canon and as a queer woman, also really touched to see how much Misha has embraced this as a really significant thing. I already ordered my Only Love merch. So I’m content with it all as much as it is. SPN has never made queer representation its issue. SPN *has* responded to its fanbase, who have both pushed the importance of representation and also brought the actors into a realm of growth over queer issues that they may never have come to without this show and this fandom. For that reason, I don’t think it’s helpful to be mad at Jensen or the Showrunners for Destiel not being perfect. You don’t have to celebrate them as allies, but the anger and vitriol just doesn’t help, in my opinion.

BUT...where my thoughts have been going is around what it means to be an actor in a ‘ship and what the impact of the story has on the actors, the fandom, and the constant dance of who controls the story because I think this has been something that even with straight characters has had serious impacts on how fans feel about an ending.

My first fandom, Starsky & Hutch, was mostly written by a gay man who wrote “straight” characters because that was what they had to be in 1974. The characters and show plots were such that the actors felt the love underneath the words and acted accordingly. Back then, it wasn’t so much queer baiting as queer coding. I find it amazing that my parents never thought for a minute Starsky and Hutch were gay, but even as a 7 year old, I knew they were in love and saw them that way. And anyone who watches the show now, it’s so clear that it’s almost laughable. When their show won the Peopel’s Choice award in 1977, David Soul said in his acceptance speech that the best part of being on this show was that people saw two men who “could be anything”. He knew that queer folk read their characters as gay and that straight folks saw them as straight and he was happy for both to be true. While the show never had an explicitly romantic declaration, the characters held hands, hugged, and in the final episode, their final scene is Hutch crawling into Starsky’s hospital bed with him, something done with amusement, but was completely coded to mean something else. It was never “canon”, but the ‘ship has lasted 46 years with new fic being written even now.

In the new SW films, actor Oscar Isaac was not at all quiet about his feelings that his character, Poe Dameron, was in love with Finn. He stated he played him that way (and was not directed otherwise) and he even explicitly asked for that ship to be made canon. He was told no and that is not how the story ended. The romance plot was instead focused on two other characters. Some fans liked that. Many didn’t. In general, though, the story is open-ended enough that shippers could have Stormpilot be their ship and there is nothing that really contradicts that. In that scenario, Oscar had his sense of who this character was and felt strongly about that, but in the end, it wasn’t his story, so the ending was what it was.

Hawai’i Five-0 ended its 10 year run last spring. Actor Scott Caan said in an interview during the show’s 5-year mark that he wanted to see his charcter have a romantic story line with his other lead, Steve McGarrett. And while Scott did not go so far as Oscar Isaac did to say he made his acting choices based on that, watching him and Alex play their characters, there was definitely some intention to show their characters as loving one another. Actor Alex O’Loughlin voiced a few times over the years that he felt his character would not get back together with Catherine, a woman his character was on-again, off-again with, because he felt Steve had reached his limit with what Catherine had done to him. The series made a decision to end with Steve leaving Hawai’i behind and flying away with Catherine. Neither actor has commented much about the show’s ending, but clearly it went against what both actors had publicly expressed in the past. Again, they don’t control the story, but they do understand their characters after playing them for so many years and they are invested in that. In that sense, the actor’s subsequent silence about how the show ended says quite a bit. And McDanno fans were very unsatisfied with the show’s ending, myself included.

So we come to Destiel. Over the years, this ship has been very controversial in part because one actor (Misha) has clearly been OK with his character being perceived as being in love with Dean, while the other actor (Jensen) has not. At times he has been very negative about it, and that has been taken by some fans to imply how Jensen feels about homosexuality in general. I’m not convinced it does, but I understand why people feel that way. Over the 12 years since Cas’ introduction on the show, there clearly has been a shift from the writers and showrunners avoiding the topic entirely, to talking about it, and now to having Cas confess his feelings of love to Dean in canon. In the days since, Misha has been unequivocal in saying Cas is romantically in love with Dean and that he has played him that way, at least for this season and likely longer. Misha is proud that he was able to advocate for Cas to be gay and he clearly understands why it is important for the show to have made this choice. For Jensen’s part, however, he has stated he has not played Dean that way and from video clips of him talking about the show’s ending, it appears that he needed some convincing to accept this as the story. To his credit though, once he was convinced that this was something show creator (Eric Kripke) could envision as part of Dean’s character arc, he was on-board with this ending and feels statisfied with it. And I think some of the frustration folks feel stems from both in how the actors portrayed their characters and in which takes were chosen to be in the final cuts of episodes. In that way, the show has fed this ship, whether the actors realized it or not, and that is why Destiel has felt particularly painful at times. The fanbase has been gaslighted for seeing it at all (from actors and showrunners) while the directors have seemed to go out of their way to choose shots where the actor’s choices were more tender and affectionate and write lines where characters make explicit statements about Dean and Cas as romantic. I can’t help but wonder if Jensen really didn’t see Dean as being in love with Cas, but that we saw Jensen’s own affinity for Misha bleed through in their incredible chemsitry together or if Jensen has just been in denial of this ‘ship having teeth for his own personal reasons. I don’t know and so far, he hasn’t been willing to talk about that. Maybe he will once it’s over. Maybe he won’t and I’m not going to be angry with him for it. He’s an incredible actor and he’s lived this character for 15 years, so he has a right to who he believed Dean is and isn’t.

The issues of representation continue to be pressing and what I see happening with Destiel and these other ‘ships is exciting because it shows growth on all sides. We have audiences able to voice not only how they perceive characters without shame but can express a desire for characters to be together. None of that is new for straight characters, but it is for queer characters. We have actors who not only can see these same things, but feel enough ownership of their characters to expresss what they believe their characters would do or feel. And we have showrunners who are going to make their story, sometimes in response to feedback from their fans and actors, and sometimes in spite of it.

What Destiel becoming canon gives me hope for is that as new shows come into being, characters that take off, actors who have unexpected chemistry, and ‘ships that gain a life of their own, will lead to shows that are less inclined to care if those ships are queer or not and just go with what fans respond to. That it will normalize that people can (and do) come out an all different times of life, even after being het-married, having kids, or presenting as straight to everyone else for 40 years. That it will reflect that sometimes, it’s not about having been queer or straight from the beginning, but be about that ONE relationship that just is different, special, or grows into a deep love regardless of the genders of the people. I hope we can get to a place where deep intimacy between same-gender characters doesn’t have to be a war over romance vs. platonic and the story can just develop without the pressure of representation because queer characters will be so prevalent that we don’t have to feel like we must cling so tightly to every one we get. I hope we can come to a place where sometimes relationships don’t go romantic because one person (regardless of gender) just doesn’t feel that way, because that is very fucking true in real life. I want to watch shows where the sexual identity of any character doesn’t have to be etched in stone from the word go, never to change ever because that’s boring and limiting, and honestly, not real life.

I am deeply grateful for actors like Isaac, Caan, and Collins who are willing to see characters outside the heteronormative lens and to advocate for queer romantic arcs. I’m thankful to showrunners who are making shows with greater queer representation than ever before. And I’m grateful to actors like Ackles, who while it wasn’t who he thought his character was, was able to expand his view enough to go where the story was going to go. The arc of the universe does bend towards justice, and we will get there. Until then, there’s fic. And thank God for that.

[where-s-all-blue]

Here's something very important people seem to conventionally forget while they're tripping over themselves in order to shame Oda over trans presentation:

The residents of Okama Island are not transgender, they are okama, which can refer to a homosexual, transvestite or a certain type of an artist.

Emporio Ivankov, the Okama King, themselves was modelled after the transvestite character Frank N. Further from Rocky Horror Show. And they appear to be gender fluid/Non-binary/gender queer based on their alteration between male and female physiology, though he mainly uses the feminine way of addressing himself, which is usual for gay men in Japan.

Now if I were to criticise a form of "trans representation" prior to the appearance of Okiku and Yamato, I'd bring up the instance during which Ivankov swapped the sex of an individual from male to female without the person's consent, though I wouldn't call it that either. If anything, that moment, the transformation of Prince Bellett into Princess Bellett, was Ivankov merely showing off his devilfruit power for both the newcomers and to Bellett himself, he then offered him a place in his crew, which was met with a shock reaction and rejection.

The background to the situation was that the King had joined Ivankov and outed himself as an okama, which caused the kingdom to suffer, Bellett saw that this was all Ivankov's fault and seeked to destroy the Okama, becoming a pirate in the process.

Ivankov's words about a father wishing to be a woman and spend quality time with his daughter didn't refer to Bellett but rather his father. Which indicates that sometime after coming out as either homosexual or a transvestite, the King himself realised that he wasn't content with just dressing up as a woman, but that he wanted to be a woman. Mention about a daughter however was potentially referring to Bellett, hence it is possible that he too felt that way but hadn't yet acknowledged it or come in terms with it, though I wouldn't bet on it without any further evidence.

So basically the tag line here is:

Not everyone who dresses up in the clothes of the opposite sex identify as the said gender. However if someone explicitly expresses wish to be treated as X gender, it should be met with respect towards that decision whether or not they "pass".

Okama does not translate as transgender, it means homosexual/transvestite (or a Drag Queen if you will).

Emporio Ivankov uses feminine pronoun for "I" (watashi), which is normal in the gay community of Japan. However his way of altering himself to switch between male and female suggests that they might be nonbinary.

The potential trans presentation of One Piece prior to Okiku and Yamato are the unnamed King who outed himself as Okama and Prince Bellett [note the word "potential"].

Ivankov was very much untactful with his choice of changing Bellett's sex without consent nor even considering the possibility that while he might be trans, Bellett hadn't come in terms with it yet and potentially had no idea of it. While intimidation of your potential enemies is important, so is just sitting them down in order to give them a stern talk and to find a mutual agreement.

It is more than possible that the residents of the Okama Island are still learning how to dress up as women thus the clumsiness and while there also can potentially be few trans people in the mix, it takes a lot of time before they usually have things together to the point where the society starts to accept them as women/men. Change like that doesn't happen over night and Ivankov might be giving them time to get used to things slowly.

Could Oda have done the whole Okama thing better?

Absolutely, it seems like he was dipping his toes into a subject he wasn't too familiar with, ie gay culture of Japan, drag queens, and crossdressing in general, but it is just as important to showcase the less conventionally beautiful characters doing things like that, because something like that isn't exclusive to those who happen to be seen as beautiful by the society.

Is he doing better with these matters now?

Hard to say, all I can say is that currently, it seems like he is trying his best, though we are yet to see more openly gay characters in One Piece.

We do have Okiku and Yamato to represent both mtf and ftm in different stages, we do have Bon Clay who is openly gay and proud, we do have Emporio Ivankov and Inazuma. Crocodile is a possibility, but that hasn't been confirmed.

Either way, it's pointless to wallow in the past, and it's even more pointless to attack someone who had no better knowledge of the matters. What is important is that the person knows better now than they did then and strive to do better.

It also never hurts to read up about how other countries express themselves, as certain habits/expressions aren't universally used. For example I can rarely relate to the posts about bisexual behaviour, sexuality exclusive way of acting isn't part of the culture I grew up in.

That's all I have to say about this subject.

[lucidpantone]

Modified anon: Do you have discord? There is a skam groupchat on there. Check out what -------- is saying about you?

hi anon. I’ave heard but not read but I got the cliff notes version of what people have been saying. You’re the 4th person to flag the chatter to me. Thank you for feeling like you needed to inform me. It’s a bit weird that there is a whole group chat occurring about my personal life and trying to uncover personal details about me or head-canoning those details but I can’t really control others ya know? However this highlights one thing which is I was right not to expose personal details about myself on the blog because the one time I have which was celebrating closing on my apt people weaponized an achievement that I consider a milestone in my life and something that anyone should be rightfully proud of to ridicule me and assume things about my life that aren’t even remotely true. 

So all I gotta say to this. Ladies especially those who are woc dragging me or inciting a conversation that seeks to uncover personal details about me (to do what exactly with? Dox me?) or generate presumptions about my life. You have never even had a conversation with me.  What are you doing?? Also every time I hear a brown/black sister is buying property, getting promoted in a job, buying herself a pair of boobs, botox or hair extensions, or generally just making boss moves maybe lets not sit there as women and call those women liars, lacking dignity or tearing into them for their age (or making passive comments that imply I did some shady shit on the side to garner things ). I didn’t I worked really hard for the last few years in grueling jobs that almost broke me to be able to save up to buy a place and even then because my generation has been so screwed over by unrealistic housing prices I could only do it because a pandemic collapsed the NY market and my father helped me out greatly. I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own because sadly the game is rigged against us. Especially single women of color who strive to succeed.  Also folks I am not 40 years old am in my early 30′s (and damn well proud of it!) but if I was 40 what would be the issue? 

Last thing, its a shame this has happened because let me tell you there is some wonderful women in their late 20′s and early 30′s in the tag (not publicly). There is a doctor, an attorney, a teacher, a marketing exec and an array of really funny well educated women who just use tumblr as a form of decompression(oh and they own homes too btw) because in the working adult world women are always expected to be on and you cant really ever just be your fun silly self without getting judged or exploiting a vulnerability. So sadly this occurrences makes me and probably those other women not really want to exchange thoughts in fear of getting Doxed or called a liar or judged. Its a shame because women should all collectively aim at creating spaces in where we can exchange thought. Whether it be: “Hey, you mentioned you get laser whats it like am curious?” or “Am applying into grad school and you went there right? can you read my essay see what you think?” or “Hey am queer and you’re pretty open about having alot of sexual partners from different genders?What kind of protection do you use with different gendered partners to prevent from STI, STDS?”. These are all questions I was always open to answering but now I just feel like I have to close myself off and that really sucks and also I love your guys support too. 

For example I was gonna make a whole side blog detailing my whole renovation adventure for my new place(it a complete dump a total  fixer upper fyi). A light hearted comical  side blog being like “oh so your a single girl who is going to attempt to renovate without past experience and no man!!”. Read my blog detailing everything you should not do because I did it! hahahaha. I thought it would be a cute journey to share with you guys but now its like okay. Well i guess I cant because am paranoid if I show you to much of my building your just gonna dox me. Like this sucks and am honestly really bummed about this because I wanted to share this with you guys. Plus you could help me pick out wall paint or kitchen hardware and it just be a fun light hearted thing. Anyhow..... I know these people talking about me are the few not the many and trust me I know how many wonderful people are on tumblr. They are so many amazing people I would have never met any other way. Anyways lets not end on a bad note and buy the discord posse some shots. God knows they need the alcohol to cleanse their soul!

[randomoranges]

thoughts i’ve had about teaching and being queer and whatnot and how concessions are made and not and how does it all fit in

this turned into a thing yall.

Teacher AU

Cookie Cutter Mold

 Edward is a proud gay man. He’s always been a proud gay man since his coming out, years ago, and has never backed away from who he is. He’s stood up for his rights, has gone to marches and protests, and has taken the time to educate those around him who didn’t get it. Before he started working, Edward was an active part of the community. He’d volunteered. He’d attended talks. He’d gone to events.

 He considers himself lucky that his parents didn’t boot him out, that most of his friends, family didn’t turn their backs on him, and he knows he’s luckier still to feel safe and good about himself. He knows it’s not everyone who gets what he has and so he’d fought to even out the playing field as much as he could.

 With his job now, he has less time and lesser energy for such things. He keeps an ear peeled out for news and follows what he can on social media, but the fight in him has shifted. He has students’ he’s responsible for and they have needs that are seldom met. He figures, the new generation will pick up where he left off and such. He has enough on his plate as it is.

 Despite the fact that he likes to say that he’s proud of who he is and that he has no shame, he still finds himself struggling with some aspects of his identity and there are times when it irritates him that the fighter he used to be seems to be cowered by some other faceless entity named school.

 It seems that he’s able to make a safe space in his classroom for the kids, he can put up a rainbow sticker in his window, remind them constantly that they’re allowed to be whomever they want to be, that he can shut down any discussion where the word “gay” is used as an insult and then have frank discussions about gender and sexuality. He can make interesting units and even be cross curricular in his projects about such topics and really get the kids thinking and talking, but for some reason, he can’t ever bring himself to place a photo on his desk of him and his partner.

 He feels like he tells half a lie and half a truth every time one of his kids asks him if he has a girlfriend and he says no. On most days, it doesn’t bother him, but there are those times when he’d like to tell them that he might not have a girlfriend, but instead he has a wonderful partner who makes him just as happy. That you don’t need to have a significant other to be happy and that it’s okay if your partner is of the same gender as you.

 He keeps the last part for his lessons on gender and sexuality, once he hits the sex education module, but otherwise, he says he doesn’t have a girlfriend and tries not to let their surprised or shocked expressions get to him.

 And it’s not that he fears the reaction of the kids. He can deal with that. He’s dealt with their reactions over a multitude of things over the many years of his career and has lived to tell the tale. They’re young and need to have their world’s broadened. It’s why he’s here. It’s what he’s for. But, for some reason, it’s the parents and administration he still somehow fears in some measure, despite everything.

 He doesn’t know what the parents think and doesn’t know what upbringing they had. He can’t tell what their political affiliations are and just how bothered they would be to know that their precious child is being taught by a gay man. He’d stand up for any of his students’ if they were being shunned by their parents– would fight their parents if they needed him to in regards to pretty much anything, but the thought of doing it for himself freezes him – it’s easier to keep quiet and keep his head low.  

 In retrospect, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not as if he wants to announce it to the whole school that he’s gay and that he has a partner. Him and Étienne have decided from day one to keep it on the down low – that the students’ don’t need to know. Not out of shame, but more because it’s part of their personal lives and they like to keep that to themselves. School already takes so much out of them, they’ll give it the fact that they met there and call it a day.

 Sure, the kids will ask, but other than that, they care more about their friends, when’s recess and how soon is snack or lunchtime.

 With time, they’ve let some of their colleagues in on it. Colleagues who’ve turned into friends – those they’ve learned to trust over the years and over careful conversations. It’s taken a while, but they’ve crafted a solid circle through careful and considerate conversations. Discreet gathering of information and such. Watching for reactions. Listening and waiting.

 Edward’s learned the hard way that even if people seem friendly and open minded, sometimes, it is more of an appearance than a truth. He’s learned to listen and to wait. He never brings up the more controversial topics and instead waits for them to happen in the news. Then, when it inevitably comes up in conversation, he listens to his colleague’s reactions – sees what they say about such an actor who’s come out, or such a comedian who’s letting their son wear a dress at school. He wonders, every time, if his colleagues would have currated their reactions had they known that they’d been in the presence of a queer man, but he supposes that this staged authenticity allows him to carefully navigate who it is he can trust.

 Between the two of them, Étienne is, and will probably always be, the more flamboyant one, if only for their hair. Étienne’s hair is a thing of beauty that cascades down their back in thick curls that Edward knows are the envy of many. They like wearing patterned shirts and colourful socks with shoes with motifs on them and they play the art teacher card, even though Edward knows better. If they’re a little quirky and bold in their style, it passes and the rest of the school lets them be. If the students think they look “weird” with their hair and clothes, Étienne can get them to discuss why it is they’re weird and throw a myriad of images of various “weird” artists on the board and it gets the students’ to settle down.

 But, even if Étienne gets to be their flamboyant self, Edward does his own thing in his own way. He knows that doing it Étienne’s way wouldn’t necessarily work for him and he also knows that his partner struggles with their own identity as well.

 It’s still a quiet fact amongst their inner most circle – family and really close friends only, but last summer or so, during a scorcher of a July day, shortly after the school year had finally ended and they’d spent the first week of break sleeping and doing little less, Étienne had quietly admitted that on top of everything else that had happened during the school year, they were starting to feel the weight of “Monsieur Étienne” even more. Edward hadn’t been sure what his partner had meant by that, but Étienne had told him that it’d been a while now, but really this year in particular, that they didn’t feel like “he” as a pronoun fit as well as it used to. Some of it did – kind of like a shirt you tried on at the store, where the shoulders might fit nicely, but the stomach area was too tight. Or something of the likes.

 They haven’t figured all of it out yet, don’t really know how it can even work within a school setting – and whether or not they want to even go down that route – but it’s drained them. Hearing it. A million times a day. It already did beforehand, being called by this name; a name that represented this other entity – this teacher person that wore the same name, but couldn’t exactly be as authentic.

 Étienne tells him that it would’ve been easier, maybe, if the kids could just call him Étienne without the Monsieur attached in front of it, but they both know that that holds its own set of slippery issues and could have other repercussions on their selves. Monsieur-Étienne is a whole different person than Just Étienne and Edward knows. They both joke that it’s their teacher persona.

 They also tell him that sometimes, they’d like to wear a little bit of makeup – that they would like to do it during the week as well, not just holidays and weekends – not just as a funny thing for a photo op, but – they’re not sure if that would be crossing some imaginary line and – Edward gets it all too well.

 It’s one thing to do it as a joke for Halloween; to dress up and play along to their old gag they’ve been doing for the kids for years now. However, it remains a Halloween joke and doesn’t do enough to quench the thirst they have for something more in regards to their own identity – to the authenticity to their own self.

 Edward asks his partner if there’s anything he can do for them to make it less daunting – if there’s a better name to call them by, but Étienne tells him that for now, it’s not so much Étienne as it is everything else. Edward leaves it at that and does his best to use less gendered terms in regards to Étienne and when speaking about them. It’s hard, though; not because he can’t wrap his mind around it, but because French is a very gendered language.

 He figures it would be easier if there were others – if there were a group of queer teachers he could go to, but when he searches he finds little to nothing and he wonders if they’re not totally alone in this. It sometimes feels like it is. He wants people who get it, more than anything. He wants to speak freely to other people who are in the same situation as they both are and get a new fresh perspective from like-minded people. He doesn’t want to change the world and he doesn’t want to rock the boat, but he’d like to have companionship along the way.

 He hates that he needs to make concessions – that he can’t just be his authentic self as a teacher. That the expectations of what a teacher should be are some cookie cutter mold of genderless, sexless and opinionless being who is only there to be dressed sharply and to teach the curriculum to the kids. He wants to spread his wings. He wants to bring the kids along on adventures and go beyond and above, but he hears so many horror stories about what happens to other teachers, that he keeps to himself and minds the proverbial gap. But it gets to him. Drains him. Eats away at his essence and it feels he’s doing no one a favour, least of all the kids.

 And even though he knows that the school he works at has the whole “anti-bullying law” and that the kids are told that it’s not nice to bully others or discriminate over skin colour, or gender, or race, or sexuality, or religion or whatever, he’s not certain they fully get it and he’s less certain still how it applies in regards to administration. Technically, he knows he can’t get canned for being queer, but, if they wanted to, they could come up with half a dozen other reasons to let him go.

 Instead, he likes to think that it’ll be easier the day they get a student with same sex parents, or something of the likes. He yearns for that day, for he feels it’ll really start the discussion – get the ball rolling and such – be a marker that things are really changing and that the comforting words administration says actually mean something. Maybe then – maybe if he’s still around at that point, he can be brave and contribute.

 If he’s honest, though, it feels like a lot has been done – or is trying to be done – for the students (which is a step in the right direction), but it seems as though the queer folk already out working in schools in some faction or another, have been left out to figure it out on their own.

 He hates that he’s still afraid when he could easily ask and get it over with. He could walk over to the vice-principal’s office and ask. He gets along with the man and he could simply ask, out of curiosity. Just to know. But he fears that if he does, the vice principal might read into it and that if the school doesn’t agree, he’ll be shown the door. He doesn’t want to tickle the sleeping dragon – or whatever the expression is. Keep to the status quo. It’s already so much better – and yet.

 And yet.

 Perhaps with the next generation of teachers and administration it’ll be different, but at the moment, school still somehow feels as though it keeps reinforcing the old traditional values of gender, stuck in some archaic mold, never really stepping out.

 Sometimes, Edward wonders if it’s even worth it. He wonders if he’s over thinking it all and if he isn’t making a big case out of something small and insignificant. All this for a photo, really. The fact that he’d like to display a photo of him and his partner on his desk. He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t need to. But – he’d like to. He’d like to have the freedom to do so if he desires and not have to second-guess himself or constantly fear for something bad to happen. He wonders, also, briefly, if he would have had a different outlook on the whole matter if Étienne worked in a different school. He doesn’t know how it could have changed things, but maybe he fears his partner will also be shown the door if word gets out.

 He’s – tried being brave. In his own way. In what he says and does and wears. He also keeps trying to do more.

 Sometimes, when he’s alone in his classroom and not off with the science club or down in the art room with Étienne, he’ll prop up his cell phone and leave it on so that the wallpaper photo can be seen. If it’s not one of him and Étienne, he’ll peruse his phone to find one and leave it on while he eats. He tells himself he’s testing the waters and trying to get comfortable with the idea of the photo, yet every time someone knocks at his door or one of his students’ returns because they inevitably forgot something in their desk, he slams his phone down and turns it off with rapid speed, afraid. Always afraid. His heart thundering in his chest and the taste of whatever he’d been eating going sour in his mouth.

 And he hates it.

 Hates himself a little for it too.

 And when he tells Étienne about it, later on, at the end of the day, Étienne quietly takes his hand in theirs and offers him their support, reminding him that he doesn’t need to do more than what he already does.  He supposes they’re right. He’s tired of fighting for his right to exist, even if it is an invisible fight that may or may not be real, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to jinx it. He’d like to, ideally, be able to do his job and be a gay man doing his job. He’d like to know that he can be a gay teacher and have a photo of his partner and him up on his desk, if he so desired and not have to worry that it’ll be featured in the evening news with accompanying hate and scandal.

 He lets the issues rest, for now. He’s given them enough thought and figures he can look at them from a fresh angle another time – maybe next year or the one after that. Eventually, he knows, - he dares to hope – there will come a time when a simple photo will not cause him so much anxiety.

 (The time does come, eventually, but without much fanfare. It comes quietly, one day, in its own way, sometime during the autumn of a new school year. Edward finds a photo he rather likes a lot that he very carefully cuts and crops just so. It’s not perfect – it doesn’t scream in anyone’s face, but to him, he knows what it is and for now, it is enough. It is a step in the right direction, small as it may be, but it counts in its own way.)

  FIN

[noassallclass]

Ok I'm gonna be a little petty on main about CR discourse stuff so if you dont wanna see that, understandable.

Honestly this is expect as I engaged in the discourse by posting something critical, but I just wanted to make my retorts the pushback I saw on Twitter. I'm posting it on tumblr and cropping out names, I really just want to air things out.

I want to state, I do not think Beaujester is dead, I think it will come back, I have hope in Marisha and Laura to address in whatever way they choose to. Marisha does not seem like one to change their mind on things based on fandom push back. But I still think there is room to be disappointed in this moment in time based on ones views on the matter.

Anyway these tweets are about my post about liking friends to lovers in wlw shipping, how the ships I like aren't usually canon, and how one inching into canon and then somewhat seemingly inching away was disappointing to me.

I want to say off the bat, that my statements were personal opinions and not meant to be a judgment on how anyone else ships or consumes media.

Did I say too much? Did I go too far? Maybe. Maybe I just want to see different love stories, love stories I connect with me in popular media.

I did not say anyone had to feel the same way as me. I never said "this is why I'm leaving critical role" I did not say it was queer baiting. Just that I was excited about a thing then disappointed, and I am comfortable with this disappointment rather than trying to shrug it off.

Here's the first tweet I wanted to retort

1) I never said I wanted to see a gay realization story over an out and proud one. Thats why I dont feel any shame about that, because I didnt say that. I said I want relationships with depth and growth, and that sometimes wlw fall into the pitfalls of leaning on mutual sexuality without as deep of a connection as could be. This also happens aaaallll the time with straight pairing, the girl and the guy get together purely because they are the girl and the boy. Sometimes love stories aren't engaging

2) my post wasn't tagged with anything so you had to go out of your way to find this looking through posts mentioning beaujester. If you dislike the ship or how ppl interact with it in their own space then dont go looking for it.

The second

1) again not looking for a gay awakening story, I never said that, i said i like an intense emotional relationship, which I generally find more so in gal pals than wlw ships. Again a personal preference.

2) those movies are usually exclusively about being a wlw, which have their place but wlw romances in shows and settings that aren't just about that are what I'm most interested in. As a personal preference. Consume media how you want to

3) B/Y is not an established relationship, but they are both lesbians yes.

4) the type of relationship I am talking about is rarely shown in media though? I can see how this might have been misinterpreted, but I think we are one the same page. I want to see a variety of wlw stories that we are not getting. I want to see how I feel love and relate to love stories as much as you want to, those just might be two different types of love stories. If we had more rep as a whole we wouldn't have to pit it together in the same show.

The 3rd photo

Ok this one I probs shouldn't have to add, but same as above, I'm not talking about a gay awakening story. I'm talking about a deep full well rounded friendship to lovers relationship.

Photo number 4

I dont know what to say here. That's not how sexuality works?? You are not attracted to everyone that has the same sexuality as you. That's the exact issue I was taking..."if they're both gay they're going to be attracted to each other" is the exact pitfall i was talking about, you can lean on the implication that ofcourse the two gay characters are getting together, because they're gay.

Also yes, if jester and beau had the same dynamic as beau and yasha I would also not be as interested in it as other ships. I like beau and jester's in canon dynamic." If you change the thing you're interested in to something you're not as interested in you wouldn't be interested in it." Is a true statement but I dont think it's the point you are trying to make.

Sorry for my rambling and venting you may now go back to your regularly programmed blogging

[margridarnauds]

ronan & olympe for the ship opinions? (also please let your previous anon know that they're the funniest person in the world and i love them)

So…interesting thing, there. And something I’ve been increasingly thinking about as I think back on my last few years of fandom, my evolving feelings towards M/F shipping, and how fandom, as a whole, treats M/F ships. I’m going to apologize in advance for the length since I KNOW you didn’t sign on for 1.5k words of reminiscence. 

Also: BEAGLE ANON, YOU’RE THE FUNNIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. 

When I first started out with 1789, in about 2015 or so, I was actually pro-Ronan/Olympe. Like, I wanted NOTHING more than fix-it fics where they retired to the country and had babies. I listened to La Guerre Pour se Plaire for HOURS, getting caught in the gothic atmosphere and the passionate, conflicted lyrics. But, at the time, the overall fandom environment was…well. Not conducive to it. And I was young, and I wasn’t strong in my opinions yet, so I stood back and kept it to myself. I think that might be part of why I ended up backing away from 1789 when I did. Yeah, I liked it, but I didn’t have a strong sense of community, and most of the attention, at that time, was in the Mozart, L’Opera fandom, and I wasn’t a major picture there. I attended streams, yeah, but I wasn’t a CONTENT creator, and it was easy for me to fade into the background, I think. Maybe because I was too afraid to be a content creator, back then, because that would involve possibly expressing my own opinions. I accepted that Ronan/Olympe was No bad, terrible, awful based on that desire to fit in, because it was so much EASIER. Just like I accepted that French 1789 was a disaster, that MOR was much better, and that, really, it wasn’t worth the effort. Just an inferior musical. (The problem, of course, was that I NEVER liked MOR as well as I liked 1789. Maybe it’s better put together, but I don’t ENJOY it as much, and imo it drags quite a bit at a few places, a problem shared by its German counterpart.) 

I came back to 1789 around…2017, with the European Musicals Streaming event, with the Takarazuka one totally stealing my heart, specifically Lazare/Ronan. Suddenly, I was IN, and I was creating content. Yeah, most of the French musicals fandom didn’t give a flying fuck that I was creating content, with most of my support coming from my friends and Takarazuka fans, but I was CREATING CONTENT, for the first time since I joined fandom. I was finally starting to figure out my way in fandom, finally starting to get noticed. In 2018……..for reasons I won’t give out, at least publicly, there was a massive rift in the old French musicals fandom, a lot of bridges got burned, and, naturally, I was far enough from the fire. But this DID give me a shot at carving out my own 1789 experience, for once, without them hanging over my shoulder. I do think that the reason why the 1789 fandom’s as strong as it is now is because of that rift, because it left a sort of power vacuum. Suddenly, there was a space for other French musicals, and we didn’t have to worry about the constant comparison to MOR. BUT. Keep in mind. 2-3 years ago, the overwhelming consensus on Ronan was pure, unadulterated hatred. There were a few Ronan content creators in an already small pool, but the general consensus was that Lazare was better in every way and Ronan was a terrible protagonist.  (I know fully well that some old members of the French musicals fandom, to this day, won’t engage with Ronan content. At all. And I can say this as openly as I do because I KNOW they don’t follow me.) As a Peyronan shipper, I was in an awkward place, especially as time went on and I realized that I actually did like the little shit. One half of my OTP was absolutely beloved, one half was hated, and, while there was definitely some content on the Tumblr side of things (I definitely did NOT single-handedly invent the ship out of thin air, I don’t take credit for it, and I’m grateful to everyone who kind of. Took me in), the fan fiction side of things still tended to lean Ronan/Olympe. If, today, it seems like the fandom consensus is Ronan/Lazare, that’s because I fought tooth and nail to get my own place in the fandom. 

I…suppose you could say that I justified my place in the fandom by tossing Ronan/Olympe under the bus. It was easier, that way. It meant that I could forge alliances with anyone who wanted Solène/Olympe instead, though I was still on dangerous ground since I still wanted precious Lazare with Ronan, and, of course, the show would be better without Ronan. (You’ll note that the VERY FIRST fic I ever published on AO3 was Solène/Olympe. Why? Because I knew it would be a safe option to test the waters. That. And I really did just write it the night before my GRE.) But, at least I wasn’t a Ronan/Olympe shipper, right? I was safely gay. (Biphobia, thy name is fandom.) When I talked about Ronan, I talked about him as gay, I talked shit about Ronan/Olympe whenever I had the chance. All properly tagged, of course, in the proper channels. I’ve never been the sort to actively hurt someone who DID ship it, I just took pains to not associate myself with the Icky Het Ship. When I talked about Ronan, I talked about him as GAY, VERY GAY, not a hint of bisexuality to him. Because if he was bi, that might mean that Ronan/Olympe had a leg to stand on, you see? You’ll note that, to this day, I almost never acknowledge Ronan/Olympe as a thing that HAPPENED in any given fic continuities, because it was so much easier if he simply fell into Lazare’s arms instead. Wiping that little spot clean. And. Well. Here I am. About 5 years after I first got into 1789. And, looking back, I wonder if it was REALLY that bad, or if I just nodded my head because it was easy at the time, since it’s only been in the last year that I really, really began to develop my own spine. (Honestly, props to Marie Antoinette the Musical and, specifically, Morléans as a ship for that one.) For the most part, I’m proud of how far the fandom’s come in the last five years, and I’m proud of the work that I, individually, have done to help get it there, whether it was streams, gifs, or fanfics. But sometimes, I do worry that anyone coming in who ships Ronan/Olympe, like I used to…might feel out of place, and I never want to treat them like I was treated back in the day. 

Do I ship it? Not really. That ship’s sailed for me (I didn’t mean to make that a pun but here we are). I’m fairly firmly Lazare/Ronan and Solène/Olympe (though I’m not as firmly pro-the latter as the former, simply because I REALLY don’t have as much material to go off of there.) Not just because of the old pressure, but just because…looking at it in, say, the French cast…there’s really no chemistry there. At all. The Takarazuka Olympe looks mildly terrified to be in Ronan’s presence at any given moment. I DO actually kind of like it in the Toho production, especially with Teppei Koike and Sayaka Kanda, since the two of them fit together SO naturally and their voices are like two pieces of the same puzzle, but I’m not sure it’s something I’d particularly want to create content for. In fact, when I tried to write Ronan/Lazare/Olympe as an OT3, my HARDEST dynamic to write and justify was Ronan/Olympe. I do think that “La Guerre Pour se Plaire” is a stunning song, musically, it’s probably one of my favorite French musical songs. I do kind of tend to see Ronan as gay, simply because Takarazuka Ronan in particular is………..forceful, to the point that I can see him forcing himself to believe he’s in love with Olympe in order to distract himself from Lazare. I feel like the French cast, while arguably realistic in it showing Ronan/Olympe’s relationship having problems, also shows a couple that, really, beyond the physical attraction, couldn’t have made it work had both of them survived. And I feel like fandom, back in the day, was far too willing to take Olympe’s side over Ronan’s in that dispute, ignoring how Olympe’s own relationship to her side of the conflict is…kind of toxic to her. And while Ronan went about it in an ass-backward way (“I will kill your friends and family! To remind you of my love!”)……..he did make some Points. And Toho Ronan/Olympe, particularly Teppei/Sayaka, are more two kids in love who just want to give it a shot. (Kato Kazuki/Nene Yumesaki were more….forceful, manly hero/prim and proper governess with a spine of steel. Which is OKAY, but not really personally as interesting to me.) I do give the Toho credit for really, really making me see that, okay, it might not be for me, but it CAN work on stage. Mostly. (I still hate that forced kiss.) 

 I will say that there are times where I find myself writing Lazare rather similarly to Olympe in terms of him going through the same feelings of guilt, shame, and duty, and I’m just like “....hm. What have I really changed? Did I just substitute Lazare’s face for Olympe because it was easier? Or copied the existing dynamic and pasted a dude’s face over Olympe’s?” (I do think that there are definitely DIFFERENCES to Olympe VS Lazare, it’s just...eerie in those individual moments.) I do think, at the end of the day, the story of forbidden love during the French Revolution....we’ve HAD it before, in the La Revolution Française musical, and in my opinion it does work best as a queer narrative. And, unfortunately, Ronan/Olympe just...isn’t developed particularly well enough on stage to justify it as an EPIC ROMANCE. 

Overall, I think that I’m fairly settled in my ways at this point, but I also don’t hate it to the extent that I once did. It’ll never be my favorite, I can’t really see them getting married and having kids, and, frankly, the relationship just isn’t as interesting to me as the alternatives since we’ve SEEN it played out on screen, and I can’t really see myself making content for it or really engaging with it in any meaningful way outside of reblogging gifsets/reading fics, but like. I don’t HATE it anymore. I’m neutral to its existence. And, when it comes down to it, I have read fic/engaged in content for it, because, at this point, it’s STILL part of my favorite musical. If I could have done things differently….maybe I would have stayed with it more, for longer. Maybe I’d have written that happy country babyfic (you know. In 18th century France. Where raising babies in the country was so painless). Maybe I’d have gone over to Peyronan earlier and not looked back. Maybe I would have written Ronan more consciously as a bisexual man instead of a gay man. Who knows? Maybe I’m just a tired bitch these days and so am hyper-dissecting everything. But I definitely never want anyone coming into the fandom to think there isn’t a place for them just because they ship Ronan/Olympe. 

[gra-sonas]

Down to Earth With Tyler Blackburn

I‘ve never met Tyler Blackburn before—except that I have. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve met versions of Tyler Blackburn. I’ve spent time with the actor on multiple occasions while covering his TV series Pretty Little Liars, the soapy teen-centered murder mystery that regularly generated more than a million tweets throughout its seven-season run. Just two weeks ago I reconnected with him in a lush meadow of flowering mustard outside Angeles National Forest, the site of his PLAYBOY photo shoot. But the Tyler Blackburn I’m meeting today at his home in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles is in many ways an entirely different man.

When he greets me at the front door, Blackburn is relaxed, barefoot and still wearing what appears to be bed head. His disposition is unmistakably freer—lighter—than it’s been during our previous encounters. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Six days earlier the 32-year-old actor came out publicly as bisexual in an online interview with The Advocate.

The announcement is clearly at the forefront of his mind as we sit down at his dining room table.

Almost immediately he starts to gush about the positive, and at times overwhelming, feedback he has received over the past few days. Within minutes he’s in tears. He tries to lighten the mood with a self-effacing quip, but now I’m in tears too. Then he tells me he can’t remember my question.

I haven’t even asked one yet, I reply.

“It just makes me feel, Wow, the world’s a little bit safer than I thought it was,” Blackburn says.

The most affecting response he’s received thus far has been from his father, whom Blackburn didn’t meet until he was five years old. Although he avoids offering any more details about that early chapter, he says, “Feeling like I’m a little bit different always made me wonder if he likes me, approves of me, loves me. He called, and it was just every single thing you would want to hear from your dad: ‘That was a bold move. I’m so proud of you.’ It was wild.”

Blackburn can’t pinpoint the exact moment he knew he was bisexual but says he was curious from the age of 16. It wasn’t until two years ago, though, that he decided to approach his publicity team about coming out publicly. At that point, Pretty Little Liars had wrapped, and the actor was without a job. So Blackburn and his team agreed they needed to hold off on making an announcement until his career was stable again. The lack of resolution weighed on him. “A year ago I was in a very bad place,” he says, adding that he has struggled with depression and anxiety. “I didn’t know what my career was going to be or where it was going. My personal life—my relationship with myself—was in a really bad place.” His casting on the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, adapted from the same Melinda Metz book series as the WB’s 1999 cult favorite Roswell, seems to have come at the right time. Blackburn portrays Alex, a gay Army veteran whose relationship with Michael, a bisexual alien, has attracted legions of “Malex” devotees since the show’s January debut. Roswell, New Mexico has already been renewed for a second season—a feat for any series in this era of streaming, let alone one involving gay exophilia. Playing a character whose queerness has been so widely embraced by fans no doubt nudged Blackburn closer to revealing his truth for the first time since becoming an actor 15 years ago. (As he told The Advocate, “I’m so tired of caring so much. I just want to…feel okay with experiencing love and experiencing self-love.”) Still, he was somewhat reluctant. His hesitation was rooted in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to control what came next: the social pressures that often come with being one of the first—in his case, one of the first openly bisexual male actors to lead a prime-time television series. “If you stand for this thing, and you say it publicly, there’s suddenly the expectation of ‘Now your job is this,’ ” he says. “Even if someone’s like, ‘Now you’re going to go be the spokesperson’—well, no. If I don’t want to, I don’t want to. And that doesn’t mean I’m a half-assed queer.” Full disclosure: I previously wrote for a Pretty Little Liars fan site. In 2012 I published a listicle that ranked the show’s hottest male characters. Blackburn cracks up when I tell him this and wants to know whether he bested Ian Harding, his former co-star. After I inform him that his character (hacker with a heart of gold Caleb Rivers) finished second behind Harding’s (Ezra Fitz, a student-dating teacher) I promise to organize a recount. The always-modest Blackburn concedes that Harding is the rightful winner. (If anyone ever compiles a BuzzFeed article titled “Most Embarrassing Moments for Former Bloggers,” I’ll be offended if I’m not in the mix.)

Blackburn makes it clear that he has not always been comfortable with his status as a teen heartthrob. Knowing he was queer made it “hard to embrace it and enjoy it.” Growing up, he was bullied for being perceived as effeminate and was frequently subjected to slurs and homophobic jokes. He describes himself as a late bloomer who took longer than usual to shed his baby fat. He didn’t have many friends, nor did he date much in high school. A lifelong fan of musical theater and the performing arts, Blackburn signed with a Hollywood management company at the age of 17. His team at the time warned him that projecting femininity would hinder his success. An especially painful moment came after he’d auditioned for a role as a soldier and the producers wrote back that Blackburn had seemed “a little gay.” “Those two managers were so twisted in their advice to me,” Blackburn says. “They just said, ‘We don’t care if you are, but no one can know. You can’t walk into these rooms and seem gay. It’s not gonna work.’ I remember the shame, because I’ve been dealing with the feeling that I’m not a normal boy for my entire life.” After landing a recurring role on Days of Our Lives in 2010, Blackburn scored his big break when he appeared midway through the first season of Pretty Little Liars. “I was in Tyler’s first scene, so I got to be one of the first to work with him,” Shay Mitchell, who starred opposite Blackburn, tells PLAYBOY. “Right away, I knew he was special. Since the day I met him, Tyler always struck me as very authentic and very true to himself.” Fans instantly adored his on-screen love affair with Hanna Marin, played by Ashley Benson. The pair became known as “Haleb,” and Blackburn went on to win three Teen Choice Awards—surfboard trophies that solidify one’s status as a teen idol—in categories including Choice TV: Chemistry.

According to Blackburn, during the show’s seven years on the air, he and Benson bonded over their mutual distaste for the tabloid stardom that comes with headlining a TV phenomenon lapped up by teens. Today he fondly reflects on their on-camera chemistry. “It felt good,” he says. “It felt real.” Of course, rumors swirled that the pair’s romance was actually quite real. “We never officially dated,” he tells me. “In navigating our relationship—as co-workers but also as friends—sometimes the lines blurred a little. We had periods when we felt more for each other, but ultimately we’re good buds. For the most part, those rumors made us laugh. But then sometimes we’d be like, ‘Did someone see us hugging the other night?’ She was a huge part of a huge change in my life, so I’ll always hold her dear.” Blackburn also shares a unique connection with Mitchell outside their friendship. Similar to what Blackburn is now experiencing with Roswell, Mitchell was embraced by the LGBTQ community for playing a lesbian character, Emily Fields, whose same-sex romances on Pretty Little Liars were among the first on ABC Family (the former name of the Freeform network). Over the years, Blackburn had come out to select members of the Pretty Little Liars cast and crew, including creator I. Marlene King. But as the show approached its swan song, he started to recognize how hiding a part of himself was negatively affecting his life. He entered his first serious relationship with a man while filming the show’s final season. Not knowing how to tell co-workers—or whether to, say, invite his boyfriend to an afterparty—caused him to “go into a little bit of a shell” on the set.

“My boyfriend was hanging out with me at a Pretty Little Liars convention, and some of the fans were like, ‘Are you Tyler’s brother?’ ” Blackburn says. “He was very patient, but then afterward he was like, ‘That kind of hurt me.’ It was a big part of why we didn’t work out, just because he was at a different place than I was. Unfortunately, we don’t really talk anymore, but if he reads this, I hope he knows that he helped me so much in so many ways.” At that, Blackburn tearfully excuses himself and takes a private moment to regain his composure. “I never remember a time when I didn’t enjoy being with him,” says Harding, Blackburn’s former co-star. He says he saw the actor “start to become the person he is now when we worked together” but believes Blackburn needed to first come to terms with the idea that he could become “the face” of bisexuality. “Tyler’s discovering a way to bring real meaning with his presence in the world,” Harding says, “as an actor and as a whole human.”

Once the teenage Blackburn realized he was attracted to guys, he began “experimenting” with men while taking care not to become too emotionally attached. “I just didn’t feel I had the inner strength or the certainty that it was okay,” he says. It wasn’t until a decade later, at the age of 26, that he began to “actively embrace my bisexuality and start dating men, or at least open myself up to the idea.” He says he’s been in love with two women and had great relationships with both, but he “just knew that wasn’t the whole story.” 

He was able to enjoy being single in his 20s in part because he wasn’t confident enough in his identity to commit to any one person in a relationship. “I had to really be patient with myself—and more so with men,” he says. “Certain things are much easier with women, just anatomically, and there’s a freedom in that.” He came out of that period with an appreciation for romance and intimacy. Sex without an emotional component, he discovered, didn’t have much appeal. “As I got older, I realized good sex is when you really have something between the two of you,” says Blackburn, who’s now dating an “amazing” guy. “It’s not just a body. The more I’ve realized that, the more able I am to be settled in my sexuality. I’m freer in my sexuality now. I’m very sexual; it’s a beautiful aspect of life.” Blackburn has, however, felt resistance from the LGBTQ community, particularly when bisexual women have questioned his orientation. “Once I decided to date men, I was like, Please just let me be gay and be okay with that, because it would be a lot fucking easier. At times, bisexuality feels like a big gray zone,” he says. (For example, Blackburn knows his sexuality may complicate how he becomes a father.) “I’ve had to check myself and say, I know how I felt when I was in love with women and when I slept with women. That was true and real. Don’t discredit that, because you’re feeding into what other people think about bisexuality.” He clearly isn't the first rising star who's had to deal with outside opinions of how to handle his Hollywood coming-out. I spoke to Brianna Hildebrand just before the release of 2018's smash hit Deadpool 2, and she explained that she had previously met with publicists who had offered to keep her sexuality under wraps, even though the actress herself had never suggested this. Meanwhile, ahead of the launch of last fall's Fantastic Beasts sequel, Ezra Miller told me that he's "been in audition situations where sexuality was totally being leveraged."

Fortunately for Blackburn, his recent experiences with colleagues have largely been supportive ones. He came out to Roswell, New Mexico showrunner Carina Adly Mackenzie when he first arrived in N.M. to shoot the pilot but after he had earned the role of Alex, which for him was the ideal sequence. "I think he takes the responsibility of being queer in the public eye very seriously, and waiting to come out was just about waiting until he was ready to share a private matter—not about being dishonest to his fans," Mackenzie tells PLAYBOY. "I have always known how important Alex is to Tyler, and I know that Tyler trusts me to do right by him, ultimately, and that’s really special." Blackburn finds it funny that he’s known for young-skewing TV shows; the question is, What might define him next? He’s grateful for his career, but he grew up wanting to make edgy dramas like the young Leonardo DiCaprio. He also cites an admiration for Miller, the queer actor who plays the Flash. “I most definitely want to be a fucking superhero one day,” Blackburn says a bit wistfully. His path to cape wearing does look more tenable. The day before his Advocate interview was posted, he booked a lead role in a fact-based disaster-survival film opposite Josh Duhamel. Blackburn jokes that his movie career was previously nonexistent, though his résumé features such thoughtful indie fare as 2017’s vignette-driven Hello Again. There, he plays a love interest to T.R. Knight, who tells PLAYBOY that Blackburn “embraces the challenge to stretch and not choose the easy path.” For now, Blackburn’s path appears to be just where he needs it to be. “I may never want to be a spokesperson in a huge way, but honestly, being truthful and authentic sets a great example,” he says. “To continue on a path of fulfillment and happiness is going to make people feel like they too can have that and it doesn’t need to be some spectacle.” As it turns out, he may already be a superhero.

- Playboy

[tumblingdoe]

FULL INTERVIEW WITH DR. KIT STUBBS the founder of the Effing Foundation. 

1. How did the Effing Foundation start? Why? Why you?

I started getting the idea for what would eventually become the Effing Foundation back around 2012. I had started making some very nerdy sex toys -- my first dildo, the Tardis Tickler, is a copy of my favorite toy with a small Tardis suspended inside it; I also made The Hammer, a rainbow light-up dildo controlled by an Arduino microcontroller. People really enjoyed those toys! They made people laugh, and they encouraged people to talk about sex and sexuality in a way that wasn't sexualizing or objectifying. So I started giving talks about DIY sex toys and sex/tech, which meant I started meeting all kinds of cool artists, educators, and other sex-positive folk. And I realized that there was a growing community of creators who were trying to start these conversations, but that it's incredibly difficult to get financial support to do so. I realized that changing the world requires money. It takes a lot of other things, too, but if you don't have money, it's hard to get very far. So the Foundation grew out of the desire to move money from, say, my friends in tech who are sex-positive, and get it to sex-positive artists and educators who really need the support to do their work.

Why me? Well, after I got my Ph.D. in robotics and had been working in that field for a couple of years, I realized that there were already a lot of people doing great work in robotics. But there weren't very many people doing sex-positive activism, and I have a lot of privileges that make it easier for me -- I'm white, I'm well-educated, I have financial support, and I can use my wallet name with the fancy letters after it. I felt that I could make better use of those advantages, and make a bigger impact on the world, if I moved from robotics to sex-positive activism.

2. Why do you keep it going? How long would you like it to live on for?

I work so hard to keep the Foundation alive not only because I love doing this work -- I have met so many amazing people, and I have had the honor of helping to bring some absolutely fabulous projects into the world -- but also because it's so desperately needed. We've made a lot of progress, but we are still a ways away from a world where every person has access to pleasure-focused, scientifically accurate, age-appropriate, queer, trans, and disability-inclusive sexual education; a world where we can have open conversations about sex, sexuality and asexuality, about consent and relationships, without fear, shame, or stigma.

I want the Effing Foundation to live on until it's no longer needed, to be honest! But I think we have a lot of work to get there.

3. What's your big dream with it?

I want us to be able to give away hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, to be able to offer ongoing funding to projects we support, and to have a small staff of folks who are doing this full time and getting paid for their work. Right now we can only make grants in the US, but eventually I'd love for us to gain the skills and people we need in order to make grants internationally, too.

4. Is there a way for the public to have a say on who is granted funding?

No, not really, and that's an intentional choice. The folks who have the most say right now are our Board and our Advisory Council, which is made up of sex-positive artists, educators and activists -- as much as possible, we want funding decisions to be made by people who represent the communities we are trying to support.

If you're a member of the public, you can get involved by donating and by telling your favorite sex-positive educators, artists, or organizations about our grant program so they can apply!

5. When is the application for funding deadline?

We haven't announced next year's calendar yet, but generally submissions open in late spring and close in the summer. If you want to get emails about the grant program, you can go to

https://www.effing.org/join

and sign up for grant updates there.

6. How do you decide who to give the money to?

Our submission process starts with an online survey, where someone tells us a bit about who they are and what they would like to do. We first rule out submissions that aren't really about sex or that aren't #ownvoices (meaning the person doing the work doesn't share the same life experiences as the people the work is focused on). We also rule out projects where there are other funding agencies available, like projects that are about public health. We look at how well the work supports our mission and our values, and we have a number of demographic goals to make sure we are getting funding to people with (multiple) marginalized identities. We also have a set of special topics that we're particularly interested in -- this year, those topics included supporting intersex people and supporting neurodiverse people.  Based on all of those goals, our staff and Advisory Council narrow those initial surveys down to the top dozen or so, and then those projects move to the next round where they give us more details and things like a budget. The Advisory Council reviews that information more closely and provides feedback to the applicants, who have an opportunity to edit their applications before the Advisory Council reviews them and make recommendations to the Board, who make the final funding decisions.

We try to balance supporting projects and organizations that are well-established with supporting people who may be relatively new to the sexuality space; and we try to make sure we are funding projects from a lot of different parts of the US.

7. Is sexuality underfunded!?!

The sexuality field is extremely underfunded! If you start looking at an area like public health -- HIV and STI prevention and treatment -- those  have some funding, but they're still really underfunded. If you look at things like queer- and trans-inclusive, pleasure-focused sex education, or support for art that celebrates sexuality, or for resources supporting fat folks or disabled folks with respect to sex, there's basically nothing. Sadface!

We're extremely proud that the Effing Foundation funds the kinds of work that almost no one else will. Award-winning, ethically produced queer feminist porn? An anthology of erotic live-action games? Phenomenal fat-positive nude photography shoots? Yep, we fund that.

8. How much of an impact do you think it makes? Do you have statistics?

In our first two years, we've awarded over $100,000 in grants. That has helped us reach over 2,400 people directly as audience members, workshop participants, and performers, and we've reached over 240,000 people via the web (including social media, web visits, and podcast downloads). That doesn't include the impacts that are harder to measure -- the work that couldn't have been done with out our support, and the difference that we've made in the lives of individual artists and educators, where we've helped fund new equipment that will help them keep doing their awesome work for years to come.

9. Why did you choose to partner with Sexplanations?

Choosing to partner with Sexplanations was a really exciting opportunity for us. Sexplanations works to provide inclusive, scientifically accurate, pleasure-focused sex education, which is exactly the kind of work that our organization wants to support! We're a relatively young and small organization, so this partnership also gives us the opportunity to tell the Sexplanations audience about our mission and our awesome grantees.

10. What do you want my audience to know about the Effing Foundation?

The Effing Foundation is a new non-profit whose entire purpose is to help bring more sex-positive art and education into the world. If you like Sexplanations, you might also like some of the other projects we're supporting! And if you want to support awesome sexuality educators and artists, your donations will help us make even more grants.

11. What other names did you come up with for it before choosing the Effing Foundation?

Oh, geez! I am so horrible at naming things. So originally my idea had been to build a crowdfunding site for sexuality projects (this was back before you could put much of anything relating to sex on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo), and the best name I could come up with for that site was "Passionate Produce." It was a very weird garden metaphor. Once I realized that it made more sense to build a not-for-profit, The Effing Foundation was actually almost the first name that I came up with, but I was like, "lol, that would never actually work." So I spent another six or eight months trying to come up with a name, but I never found anything that was as good or memorable as The Effing Foundation. So here we are!

12. What is your fundraising goal?

We are trying to raise $150,000 this year, which will let us make more grants and help build our organization's capacity for the future. Our stretch goal is closer to $250,000. (More specific time frame: $75,000 by the end of November and $150,000 by the end of May.)

13. What is the best way for people to donate?

Go to

www.effing.org/donate

! We accept PayPal, checks, credit or debit cards directly on our site, and more.

14. Can they donate in someone else's honor? Like a gift for the holidays?

That's a great idea! Unfortunately we don't have a way to do that on the website yet.

15. How do you feel when you inform people they are grant recipients?

Telling people that they've been awarded a grant is The. Best. It's absolutely the highlight of my year. I'm so excited, and they're so excited! And what's great is, it's really just the beginning of a new collaboration -- now we get to provide support and watch as grantees start doing fabulous things.

16. How can people get in ways?

My guess is this question is, how can people get involved?

- Sign up for our newsletter (www.effing.org/join) and follow us on social media (@Twitter, facebook.com/EffingFoundation)- Donate if you can.- Please help us spread the word! If you have friends who are into sex-positivity, please tell them about us. If you are doing sex-positive activism, or you know someone else who is, please check out our grant program (www.effing.org/grants).- If you're interested in running a fundraiser for us, or you have other skills to volunteer, drop us a line (info@effing.org).

17. What gap is the Effing Foundation filling? Is there anything else helping to fill this gap?

There are some awesome groups out there doing sex-positive education and activism, and activism in support of sex workers, and we hope you'll consider supporting them as well. Here are just a few to get started:

- Scarleteen (https://www.scarleteen.com/)

- The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (https://ncsfreedom.org/)- The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (http://www.thecsph.org/)- Sex Workers Outreach Project USA (https://swopusa.org/)

Honestly, I don't know any other organization with a grant program that's supporting sex-positive art and education. And unlike a lot of grant givers, we don't require our applicants to have 501(c)(3) status or a fiscal sponsor -- literally anyone in the US doing sex-positive work can apply for a grant from us, and we absolutely fund folks who have never applied for a grant before.

[quaspoch]

Reflections of a Queer Asian PoC Christian

Growing up in white America, I wanted to erase my heritage. I wished I could’ve been born with fair, white skin, blond hair, blue eyes, the beautiful standard set by America. I hated my black hair, my big nose, everything ethnic about me that made me different. I wished I could be one of the many, and I hated myself and my parents for having me and making me Asian.

It wasn’t only my physical features, it was also my culture. I hated that my dumplings smelled, and often times I would not eat lunch to avoid embarrassment. I now wonder how many dumplings I threw away, how much I wasted, how much privilege I had to waste food to save myself humiliation and questions, when so many others go hungry.

I hated my parents’ accents, it was embarrassing. I never told them about parents day, because then my dirty secret would be exposed. I am not American. I am different. I am not white. I am different. I am unacceptable.

I hated my parents’ values, why didn’t they value freedom and privacy, like my friends’ parents did? Why weren’t they grateful when I finished my homework, and passed my classes? Why did they expect me to excel, to take after-school classes, to learn Chinese, to play piano, to spend what was supposed to be my free time, on miscellaneous things they valued? It felt unfair, and in rebellion, I did my best to learn as little as possible, work as dispassionately as possible, and exert as little effort as possible. Looking back, I recognize that privilege as well. I wasted time and opportunity that my mom worked hard for.

My mom didn’t speak much English, and she didn’t finish school. She often put herself down, saying that she wasn’t very smart and didn’t have the capacity to learn things. She was extremely resourceful and hardworking though. As a Taiwanese mother without English and/or other skills, she strove to provide my sister and I with opportunities she felt would help us in the future. She graded papers for a private math teacher, Tsai Laoshi, so that I could be in the classes. She taught Chinese school so I could attend Chinese school. She learned how to bargain and utilize her skills in ways to benefit her children, even if it didn’t mean financial rewards. Looking back, I can see my mom truly was a hustler.

My dad wanted to be fully assimilated into American culture, and hated that we were attending Chinese school and doing things “non-American” families do. That’s why he didn’t foot the bill for piano classes, Chinese school, or after-school math classes. My mom, who had no job and no degree, somehow was able to provide those opportunities despite the barriers.

My dad loved American football, and I learned from him about the Cowboys, beer, BBQ, and family vacations. In some ways, I internalized his hatred for being outcast, and wanted also to become one of the many here in America. I wished I could blend in, become invisible in a crowd, not different.

I hated family vacations, and yet, it was something my dad felt pride in. He said, no other Chinese families do this, they see vacations as a waste of money, but we do this. Just like the white families. We are more American. So, begrudgingly, we were forced to go on these family vacations together, so that my dad could feel a sense of belonging in the world he had immigrated to.

Growing up, I was surrounded by “family.” Second cousins, once removed, others who I called uncles and aunties, but had no blood relations. I was embarrassed of these gatherings. These gatherings consisted of potluck dinners in which every family brought a dish, all the adults would laugh and sing karaoke together late into the night, and the children would have to figure out how to stay occupied for the entirety of the night (in the other room).

Often, we ended up “sneaking out” to watch movies and other activities. The “cool” ones did at least. I now look back, a bit sad that I didn’t spend more time enjoying these large, raucous gatherings of misfits. I miss these gatherings where adults laugh and let loose, kids are left to spend time with cousins and folks we would never be caught with in public.

Looking back, what I miss are not the “white-passing” things that I pretended to do. It wasn’t the, swimming in the pool, eating hot dogs, watching movies that I miss. I miss the parts of me that were discarded and unvalued. I miss the dumplings my mom would pack. I miss the after-school math classes, in which I was surrounded with other ABCs irritated that we had to be there. I miss being surrounded by Mandarin conversation (when the adults would gather and conversation and laughter would flow freely). I miss Chinese school, I would play hooky less. I miss piano class, I wish I practiced more. I wish I could play piano for fun; I wish I had known that my mom was trying to gift me with a future. But I was too blinded by my fear of being outcast. Different.

All in all, I feel ripped-off. I was sold this American dream by my white peers, by the media, by American society. I paid for it by not engaging in my ancestral culture, by tossing it aside to put on the facade of being “white American.” Now, as an adult, there is nothing more sad, more superficial, more shallow to me than white culture. I cannot stand it. I’m angry that I was swindled, that I was tricked. I was a fool.

How would my life have looked different if society around me sold me a different American dream? One that valued diversity and cultural differences, one that valued immigrants? I would’ve felt proud of being Taiwanese American, I would have seen the opportunities given to me and taken hold. It didn’t happen for me and my generation. Perhaps it can change for future generations. It would be nice, if future generations could feel proud of being Asian American, or ——— American. Indian American, Mexican American, African American, Native American, etc. It would be nice if there isn’t a silent shame that permeates society, telling non-whites that who we are, are less than, and needs to be hidden and disposed of.

I’m glad to be here, and that I got to grow in Americanness and Asianness. I wish that I hadn’t bought into the lie that these were mutually exclusive. It didn’t have to be one or the other. Could it have been both? Could both have been celebrated?

Is this how all children of color feel in this white America? I hope that the TVs shows like Fresh Off the Boat, Never have I ever, Master Of None, etc, will help children to take pride in their identities, which includes ancestry, culture, and values.

[templeofshame]

what do you personally like about drag? i feel a bit bad, bc i don't really see the appeal in it, or maybe i just know too little about it (i feel like it reminds me too much of how often femininity is equated with presentation like fashion and make-up or drama which i'm just not that into) but it seems to be such a big part of queer culture that i feel like i should enjoy it?

First off, it is totally okay not to enjoy things other people enjoy. Drag doesn’t have to be part of how you enjoy queer culture if it doesn’t work for you. But the rest of your question is more fun so I’m gonna focus on that.

I love a lot of things about drag. I love the theatricality of it, the over-the-top fashion, the way it makes performance art accessible. I love the idea of alter egos, of transforming yourself temporarily into someone confident and bold and unabashedly weird. (Have I mentioned that time I tried to go to a thing for beginner drag kings and then the group that ran it folded? Sometimes I’m slightly obsessed with the idea of self-transformation and identity.) I also love the subversive spirit and the comedy and the dramatic personalities that come with it, in-character and out.

And I do love the diversity of drag, but I definitely have my preferences and types of drag that are more and less meaningful to me. Personally, I’m not very interested in the queens whose goal is just to present as a very pretty woman; I respect that that’s a valid type of drag, and if those queens have personalities that win me over, I don’t mind, but the actual drag I’m interested in tends to be high-concept, wildly creative, and weird. I love seeing queens do things I’ve never seen before, that are really specific to them and their interests, or just interpreting challenges (when we’re talking about RPDR) in unexpected new ways. I love lipsyncs and performances that make me see a song a new way or challenge my assumptions. (I saw a very powerful political drag piece in NYC, I've seen spectacle and musical talent  and so much just fun and comedy and challenging assumptions.)

In terms of femininity, when I started watching Drag Race I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it, but personally I haven't found it to present judgments or right/wrong about what women or femininity should be. (I do sometimes get annoyed by things like queens "should" wear heels, eyelashes, whatever, but I haven't seen it presented as about what women are or should be, just some narrow views of what drag is.) I love the way drag finds empowerment in gender fluidity, queerness, and male femininity instead of finding men in “women’s clothes” to be shameful or the butt of the joke (and of course many drag queens are not men and drag also includes kings and all of that is wonderful and also drag can be really personally important for all sorts of queer people to explore their gender and expression). I love genderfuck drag, I love "boy drag," I love bald queens and queens who show body hair and muscle queens, so so much. But I also think there's value in the sort of over-the-top superhero femininity that people want the space to inhabit, that it can take up space and be weird and proud and say things and not be any less feminine for it? I'm not sure I'm articulating this well.

Ultimately, I'm a cis woman who never wears makeup and generally doesn't feel "feminine" but also doesn't feel butch/androgynous/masculine, and I haven't found drag to be presenting anything about what femininity is or should be, but more a lot of things it can include? Drag is definitely about performance and expression and presentation, and fashion and makeup and drama are a part of that. And on a linguistic level, there are things like associating "fishiness" with certain types of "feminine beauty."  Drag, and Drag Race specifically, are not without their problematic elements, certainly. But as an art form, I think fashion and makeup and drama are tools that get used for expression rather than like, statements about femininity?

Obviously I have too much to say on this, and I’m not an expert by any means, but you can feel free to talk to me more, like message me or send more asks if you want.