#and thats the closest thing i have to a queer experience

[orkbutch]

i am a butch now but i don’t know whether that’s true or not anymore. i want to take T, but at what point am i actually just a trans man? have you question that line in the sand at all yet?

Oh boy.

I can only talk from my perspective on this, others may differ, and thats because "whats the difference between a butch on T and a trans man" is such a new sociological concept that its basically in the very beginnings of its infancy. its SO new, and neither Butch nor Trans Man nor Trans Masc have secure, well established roots as social identities or concepts. It may seem like they do and it may seem like there are rules or lines that are firm, but when you step back, zoom out, and consider them in the context of broader society (and especially compared to the idea of a Man and Woman), they do not. These are social contructs that are actually very early in their construction, and we are doing the constructing like, right now, within this ask.

That said, I can tell you why I don't identify as a trans man fairly easily: I don't care about men or the idea of a man. "Man" as a static concept is like... I don't know what that is. Its almost alien to me.

Now, to ramble that point out:

I have considered if I'm a man throughout my life. The closest I've been to identifying as a man was when I was in a period in my life when I considered that there was at least an aspect of me that was drawn to Manhood. Also, as I came to be read as a man in my public life, i supposed that in social situations when I was being treated as a man and I didn't correct people because I didn't care to, and I even enjoyed it somewhat and leaned into that role, I was essentially Being a Man (socially). So Man came to be a role I found myself in occasionally, and Manhood came to be a vaguely defined something that was intriguing to me.

But these moments of Man Feeling ended up being more like exceptions that proved the rule. Anyone can feel a bit like a man in the right circumstance, because gender isn't static; its something we can and often do play with, and phase through. I feel like music puts me in some heavily gendered spaces, like Everyone has a part of them thats a woman when they're belting along to "I'm Every Woman", yknow. Anyway.

I didn't feel like a man that much. I didn't feel like a woman that much either. I felt like a butch more frequently, because when I do things that indulged my masculinity, when I'm consumed by my love and attraction to femininity, when I think about the queers that I admire most, I felt butch, and was drawn to butches and interesting queer women. Leslie Feinberg, Frida Kahlo, Nancy Grossman, Patricia Highsmith, leather dykes and femme pro-doms, transgender queens... I've just never been that drawn to the experience of being a man. I've never been interested in men, frankly. Every man I've admired has been very much despite being men. Sufjan Stevens, Clive Barker, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, John Waters... great and usually queer artists whose gender is irrelevant because I like their work. The only man in that list who I have some personal affection for is Sufjan Stevens. He is an angel.

If I'm going to be a gender, its going to be the gender I admire. That I aspire to. I don't aspire to any man. Perhaps I aspire to a kind of body or a kind of masculinity, and sometimes men do that, but thats just a lack of other non-man representations of the thing I like. When I see in butches, it feels like a depiction of Me. Also WOW do I So Not feel like a man when I'm with my lovers. Sometimes I feel a bit like a man when I'm in a certain headspace while domming or if I'm having the rare T4T(masc) dalliance, but I feel very dyky when I'm with femmes. I just don't FEEL manhood. And I don't really care for man. Edit: I will say, there is a kind of Queer Man Masculinity that I definitely admire and aspire to, like that depicted by Tom of Finland or various other usually kinky gay art. But again, I don't see the Man part as important - its the masculinity. Btw, imo, there is no line in the sand as far as transition stuff. I'm very dysphoric about my body and that's never been about how I'm seen by others; it's my comfort in my own skin, and doesn't change my indifference to men or manhood. and that is my butch vs trans man ramble

[sciderman]

i feel bad for peter sometimes because he has a non-functioning gaydar and thats led to so many people assuming he's homophobic, but also i wonder if peter ever even really considered that people could be gay... like he's aware gay people exist but like. he was raised in such a hetero environment and masked his own bi-ness so hard that like. he failed to even remember people could be gay/queer. am i making sense i feel crazy for saying it but like did peter even remember gayness outside of his (1) experience with harry and he backed off and was like "wow that was a crazy experience i bet no one has ever had that before. anyway going to go lie down forever now"

it's actually really interesting that you bring this up!! because i was thinking about wade and peter's differing worldviews the other day (as usual) and how they're always, always at polar opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to how they perceive things

peter kind of always assumes he's alone in his experiences. that he's weird. he's a freak. there's nobody out there experiencing the same thing he is. he is totally alone. he is the only one having these thoughts, and everyone else must be normal and so he has to try to be normal.

and while peter assumes he's the weird one - wade is in the opposite camp. he projects all over everyone. he likes to think people are like him, they're just hiding it. and that's what makes him latch onto certain people.

it's why wade's gaydar is so hyper-active. he's so, so eager to project his own experiences onto other people.

and sometimes, it misfires. again. because he's projecting.

we're going to get into all the issues that come with wade projecting all over peter, but tl;dr, wade sniffs out people who are like him. while peter - peter always believes he's alone, and there's no one like him. thinks nobody'll understand. not even the people closest to him.

peter i'll do it alone parker

[atlas-affogato]

Annoyed aromantic rant, vent, ramble, whatever you want to call it

I'm not going to put this in any tags because I am very aware that this is my own experience and not a common experience, but like, I don't understand when other aromantic people are so sad about not being in committed relationships or their friendships not being seen as "as important" as romantic relationships.

Like, I don't know, I'm just very aware of the cultural importance of romance and marriage and stuff like that, and yeah I guess it kind of sucks that a lot of things like tax benefits and child custody and next of kin are kept behind these walls of romantic relationships and marriages and stuff. Like yeah that does suck. But when people complain that they will never matter to someone as much as that person's partner, I just feel like saying "well what did you expect?" For a lot of people, their romantic partner is the closest person to them, their best friend and confidant and the person who knows them best, so of course that's the most important person in their life. For a lot of people a romantic tie is the closest relationship they can form. I'm not saying that's everyone, even romantic inclined people have more important relationships to them, but I don't understand being upset about someone else having a bond that they consider the Most Important in their life.

It just feels like at a certain point you have to find people who don't put romantic ties above platonic and familial ones. People interested in romance who don't put romance on top definitely do exist, you just have to find them. I don’t know how common they are because of the importance romance plays in a lot of people's lives, but I know those people exist, I've spoken to and befriended people like that. They exist, you just have to find them.

When people go all "I'll never be the most important person in someone's life" "I'll always be left behind, abandoned by friends for their romantic relationships" it feels very "woe is me." Like sorry man maybe you should just be friends with people who view romance and friendships in a way you do too.

And while I'm on the topic, I do not understand wanting to be the most important person in someone's life. All this talk about queer platonic partnerships, and being exclusive within them, or having qpps you live with, its just like....I don't want any commitment that intense. It feels like a lot of people have just replaced a romantic relationship with that and called it a different name while changing nothing. I dont want a committed relationship, I don't want to live with someone, I don't want to be exclusive, I don't want to marry someone, that's like the whole point of me being aromantic. Thats literally just being in a relationship, doesn't matter if you change the name, its the same thing to me. "Marry your friend for the tax benefits!" I would rather eat drywall.

(A thousand disclaimers that this is my experience and my feelings and my preferences and you can use whatever label or relationship label you want and I'm not the label police you can do whatever the hell you want, I do not care. This is just my two cents on my feelings.)

[our-lesboy-experience]

as a peculiar lesbian myself i think its hilarious how anti lesboys/anti mspec lesbians either push lesbians who arent fluid in their gender (in terms of being multigender) under the rug or try to severely police how they should identify.. just because THEY dont like it. and most of the time these people who are mad arent even lesbian identifying either which is absolutely WILD??? anyways, im proud of being an aroace, contrapan, pan lesbian boygirlthing. well at least im proud of it in inclusive spaces. thanks exclus! youve made me scared of revealing my full identity to friends! even on roblox! fucking roblox! thank god my closest friends literally dont understand mspec lesbians at all which makes it easier to explain to them how i feel without them being mad at me. thank yew c and e (first letter only for anonymity obvi) but oh well, itll probably be accepted by most in a few years anyways. thats how all this 'discourse' goes. something becomes popular from tumblr, people dont like it because it becomes a 'mockery of their community' as they so call it, and then they learn more about it and proceed to then use those labels while entirely ignoring their absolute vitriol in the near past. but at least people learn.. even if it takes way too long. and i will admit i never understood things like mspec lesbians in the past but also i was on fucking queer insta. as a 12 year old in 2019. but at least i never attacked anyone and still remained openminded, bc SOMEHOW queer insta was a little more stable than tiktok is now? its a miracle. SHOCKER! anyways, sorry this is such a LONGGGG ramble, and im even more sorry if my wording is absolute SHIT! i type how i speak and i speak in major tangents. thats autism for you. have a good day tumblr user our lesboy experience (>_<)

yeah I relate to everything you just said. the most vitriolic hate I've ever gotten for being a lesboy were from non-lesbians. really

the mspec lesbian discourse started in like 2020 when covid hit, and then lesboy discourse had been following right behind. guess that's what happens when you have a bunch of people stuck inside with nothing but the internet to access the outside world

[rawrlands]

Hi! If you don't mind, can you tell me more about how you found out you're cupioromantic? I saw your post and thought it was really interesting! I've been questioning it myself for a bit because i feel like I'm somewhere in the aro spectrum and it feels cupio could be it

Hi!! So to start off I want to state that this is just my personal experience and even people with the same sexuality all explore and discover in different ways, I think a common misconception especially in the aro/Ace community is that we all have that exact same feelings but aroace sexuality is actually fluid and a spectrum and I think thats a good thing to keep in mind :}

Personally when it came to me, I first knew that I was on the aro spectrum I identified as an aro person who was just into the romance genre at first but that never really felt right. I knew I didn't feel romantic attraction to people, but I still had heavy Infactiations with people I admired enough where I felt comfortable calling it a "crush". It starts out as just a general feeling of closure but the thing that helped me is realizing even though I didn't actually have romantic feelings for these people I wouldn't mind putting myself in a position of a relationship with them because to me that just felt like the best of the closest bond achievable.

I never felt alone or a need to be with anyone but I just never minded the idea infact I like it, I like the idea of romance. To me relationships are about mutual respect and a bonding experience of two very close people instead of being exactly in love, because queer platonic you can still love eachother to its full extent without being "in love". I think cupioromantic is very hard to sum in words but I hoped this help even if just a bit :} {also sorry if there are any spelling mistakes I didn't notice when typing this, if you have any questions feel free to ask!! }

[aphrodisianbaby]

Hi! I really like your blog, and I'm curious if you just worship deities, or do you worship heroes, spirits, etc. as well? Would you be interested in worshiping Sappho, for example? 

 I'm new to the Tumblr pagan/polytheist-sphere, and I was inspired by my research on Sappho and Aphrodite (I'm slowly working on defining modern Sapphic rhetoric and modern Sapphic online spaces) for my MA thesis to look into polytheism. I' also identify as a sapphic woman so this topic is in general very fun for me to learn about. Also, would it be okay if I included your answer in my project? If not, totally cool! ☺️ and if so, thats great too. (I can def give you more info about what I'm doing if you'd like as well.)

hello love !! apologies that this is so late, asks are anti-my executive functioning. i absolutely wouldnt mind you including my opinion or asking for more ! since you're focusing on sapphic themes, I'll make it clear that I'm a transmasc mlm not a sapphic or a woman ! I'm unsure if that matters to your thesis, but I wouldn't want to skew your data :)

for your question, i personally only really worship Deities. this isn't because I wouldn't worship a hero or a past human, but I have never really felt called to thus far. the closest I've come is contact with a spirit i consider an ancestor and spirit guide whom i refer to as "the fox" online for privacy reasons. even then, we don't have a consistent line of contact like i do with the Divine.

I do have an appreciation for Sappho absolutely. i honor her on this blog specifically because i have a UPG view* that Sappho was a lover of Aphrodite. i believe that Deities can share different levels of relationship with humans, and that Aphrodite had favor for Sappho. I can go more in depth on this if you're interested, or if anyone else is, but I won't clog up this ask with my upg

I think, in the future, I may be interested in hero worship**. i think there is something very healing and personal about forming relationships with energies that were once human, especially those who lived in completely different times than us now. I think it can really bridge the gap between the Divine and human experiences by adding a level of understanding that a Deity may never have, the experience of living as a human being. this was something I valued a lot when I worshiped Psykhe, the Goddess often considered the ruler of the human soul. when you're surrounded by big Divine energies all the time, having a familiar, mortal energy can be quite relieving.

on top of this, I think there's something unique about Sappho's position. it's one thing for a Goddess to tell you how much She loves and accepts you, it's another thing to speak with a queer spirit who lived, breathed, and was adored by others for their queerness. the ancient people loved Sappho's poetry and it was spread across the middle east, even if only fragments remain now. i think it can be an amazing experience for queer people to connect with someone who was adored for their sapphic identity so long ago. even if you don't personally identify as sapphic or even as femme/female. Sappho is the teacher who reminds us that being queer was and always will be something to honor and worship.

*UPG meaning unverified personal gnosis. it's a religious idea or practice that I carry without it being a verified belief or practice in antiquity.

**when I say "hero worship", im generally referring to the worship of influential humans or human figures.

[transzilla]

tgirl user on this site like last december who calls herself a baeddal: i cant believe were getting villified for making jokes about force fem, let trans people live

the same tgirl seeing a few tboys experiment with a similar kink in the same way: uh dont you know the term autoandrophile was once used by PSYCHOLOGISTS to god forbid CALL WOMEN CRAZY? do you think women are CRAZY? also since we All Know being feminine can only ever be lesser and humiliating by liking forcemasc youre basically a woman hating sexist for not only viewing gender roles as black and white. Oh and since youre a trans man you clearly have not matured at all mentally or sexually beyond that one annoying 14 year old trans boy i still hold a gurdge over. Over theres butch lesbians in the forcemasc community? Well theyre okay because theyre women.

Alright well don't take what I said like that hahaha like idk who tf you're talking abt and I do see a lot of trans men bitching abt forcemasc. And cis women which is umm kind of special.

I understand what you're saying and inter community transphobia pisses me the fuck off but I mostly see the "men are evil and transitioning to male is evil" from cis women and these neofeminist environments mostly like i really dont think the heat youre experiencing is a tgirl invention. Like thats a cis pioneer lol

I do see a lot of trans women that are transphobic toward men and don't trust transmasc circles and like I understand some trans male circles have UNIQUE issues but like baeddel shit from tgirls... if I get tired of it I just turn my phone off LMAOO like this shit just does not fly or exist in real life

My whole thing is if you're gonna do the baeddel thing and hate men and say being a man is unethical whatever at least take care of your girls. Like I think I've experienced maybe one "baeddel" circle irl and it was in like a sheltered city bubble and it was just pretty normal transgender female drama like all these liberated queer people say they hate men and dickride them anyway. theyd just be dicks to trans men and dickride cis dudes. And they were even awful to other tgirls like you couldn't do anything and anger the fucking clique without somebody being like oh my god she was such a bitch like it really is ur own people LMAO but like I understand it just blew trying to hack it in those tboy and cis people spaces cus everyone was horrible to u for being transfem. Like they werent any less misogynistic. But then even in the transfem circle they also were not less misogynistic even if tgey talked all this shit abt men. transgender people are awful mostly because they're neurotic, it was rejection from other trans people that had these girls reacting with bullshit like that, I just don't want you responding to these wolf notes with more anger. Like let the fire die out. Please. Lol.

Dont read too much into internet drama especially, like this shit isnt real I think it gets so cutthroat cause a lot of people arent really trans or have trans communities outside of the internet unfortunately like the real world resources are not there and people are too eager to subsitute with tumblr. And I'm the same way like I'm a hick like my closest trans friend is a half hour away. Like just calm down cus if ur not calm ur not thinking.

[bodylanda]

🏳️‍🌈♣️✨ chodark for tha ask game ^_^

God this ended up long and kinda rambly OOPSIES… SORRY

Also idk how to read more ok mobile without possibly breaking the post so 🫡 im sorry, but thank u again for sending this ask!!

Link to the list of questions: [click here]

🏳️‍🌈 what’s some queer headcannons you have? (Can add a specific character in ask)

I think i have some pretty simples ones all things considered? And they’re all pretty fluid/all exist at the same time but for these

Chosen: made with they/them in mind -> experiemented with she/they/he -> had a crisis abt it -> she/her at the end

Dark: started we they/he -> she/they at the end

This isn’t really a queer headcanon (maybe?) but i do think theyre soulmates in a “whatever souls are made of, yours and mine are the same (insult)”, which is probably the closest thing i have to a queer headcanon LDNWOODOW.

I typically use they/them when discussing them in general tho!

♣️ angst headcannons? (Can add a specific character in ask)

I got a bunch here but not sure if it counts as angst? Makes me 🥹 so i’ll count it as such

Headcanon 1: Chosen knew about victim

-The moment chosen was born she immediately started being a hater. She threw the first punch (fireball?)! Why’d she do that? The moment second was born, they seemed more curious and inquisitive, but none of that curiosity happened to chosen.

-i know the popular theory is that its bcs chosen’s a virus (considering she was beaten by an antivirus in ava 2 + in a way so is tdl and tsc) but idk, they were made by alan (maybe tsc is a virus but thats a theory for another time), but i also like to think its more that chosen knew about victim in some like, unfathomable way?

-like the avatar in ATLA hahaha. Is this angst? I’m not sure. But this is why i think she immediately started going sicko mode

Headcanon 2: Chosen is the tragedy of a stick born without love

-honestly just took this one from kirby

-Chosen’s creation was definitely intentional, while Second’s wasn’t. Why are they so different? Its not like second got that much love either initially, but they did manage to get some free time.

-Second was less a literal second coming of chosen and more of a “history could repeat itself again”

-this is. Getting into second & chosen territory Moving back to chosen/dark APDJOWKFOWKDP

Headcanon 3: Dark has nightmares about killing chosen

-well she was made for it wasn’t she? Sometimes the directive just takes over for a bit

-a lil like wall-e

-Will isolate herself during these moments

-Shrugs it off after the fact but kind of always has this lurking lingering fear that one day her programming will take over and try to kill chosen (even though their friendship handshake thing and also their literal friendship in ava 3 kind of nerfed it a lil to the point that it can’t actually make her do that.

-in the end she discovered a new fear; She actually choose to fight Chosen and it wasn’t some divinely mandated/program forced thing.

✨ fluffy headcannons is you have? (Can add a specific character in ask)

SIKE I DONT ACTUALLY WANT DARK DIED

More AU than headcanon: Dark survived!

-Sees error of her ways

-Still awful

-Actually doesn’t she just doesn’t want to get her ass handed to her again by a fucking kid that was pretty embarassing

-Morality gained through wanting to avoid getting an ass whooping. Like “Hmm i think today i will make a virus- no i wont. That fucking orange kid’ll beat me up somehow”

Headcanon: They both have their own way of communicating

-Both can technically speak in the same way Second can speak, but chooses a different method almost always.

-the way they communicate is so completely all over the place. Its a mix of formal (actual proper typing/Some kind of sign language (stick version of it? Body gesture language?) used correctly) and informal (impact text font memes like fucking philosoraptor format)

-Kind of a contrast to tsc and color gang’s communication method that is also all over the place, but older memes and refs bcs they’re an older generation

-Dark: Back in my day the best cat on earth was longcat and now everycat can just be i can haz cheeseburgers…. Tch this used to be a respectable career

Yellow: (what the FUCK is she saying…….)

-Chosen being gaptek is something thats actually so near and dear to my heart and also a lil bit of jadul chosen. She gets sent some really gen z memes on stick whatsapp by second or color gang and just squints and shows it to dark like “what is she saying” and dark just gags

[4uru]

I have a thing where i cant read books i might relate to. I want representation but i cant engage with it for some reason. The only book i read with a main trans character was "when the moon was ours" and thats bc i didnt know sam was a desi trans guy like me. I love that there are books of desi /muslim lgbtq ppl. But i cant bring myself to read them bc some part of me just hurts. When i watch western queer media i am still far enough not to get too hurt. Reading desi queer books feel like opening up my ribcage to a book. Feeling like this piece of fiction knows who i am, what i am, it holds power over me. It can kill me while wearing the face of my own mother and speaking her tongue. For the Same reason i cant watch sapphic media either. I am sapphic and have been in a very mutually toxic and emotionally clusterfucky relationship. I know this sounds cringy as shit. But i lived a girl very much and i fell like watching sapphic media makes me regret /bitter that i didnt have that nice experience. Or triggers me when the bad experiences are potrayed. I can ingest mlm content more bc i will never be a cis guy i am not in that circle. I am removed, i cant get too hurt. And i feel bad that i cant engage in these contents. Bc they deserve to be seen.

Being specifically bangladeshi is also a big part of it. Bc i feel like india and pakistan are the more well known. As a bangladeshi i am used to beig invisible in the eye of the western media. The first time i ever heard the word bangladesh in mainstrem western media is "how i met your mother" where the cab driver said that he was bangladeshi. I generally relate to the closest indian character on the screen. I am so scared to engage with books with bangladeshi characters.

I am used to being invisible all the time now the minimal amount of spotlight makes me afraid that i will go blind or smth.

[faaarawayyy]

16. interesting ass question

“if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?”

oh wow. yeah this is VERY interesting hmmm….. im gonna take this three different ways. also im gonna get deep into this rn so

if i had grown up in a different family- which, for everyones perspective, i have a mom and a dad (who is chronically ill/disabled) and a year-younger brother who i live with. my mom is mexican, dad is american, so my brother and i are mexican-american. i think if i lived without any of these people there would already be an immediate difference. with only my dad and brother id probably be tougher, but not as happy. with only my mom and brother id be a bit more… not-tough? i guess? its hard to say whether i would be more content or less content than i am now. without my brother it is very easy to say i would be a very different, likely more unhappy person. turn my family into bigots and either which way that would be the same outcome, unhappy and feeling unsafe… yk, im queer, and i think i would be in any life. there is more of my family to take into account (grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc) and things probably would change about me if they were different too, but theres so many different possibilities with that. i will say there is one specific younger cousin i have so much hope for- i love her dearly and care about her with all i have. our closeness is only separated by the fact we arent siblings, i think. i’m the oldest (non-step) cousin in my family, so there’s a lot that everyone looks up to me for. not having any of them, especially the one i just talked about, would be so… strange, i think. like a missing piece.

if i had grown up in a different irl community, then damn, theres so many possibilities about that too. different city, different state, different country, different views, different ideologies, so so so many things could be so different. i am glad i grew up where i did/am growing up where i am, though. i know amazing and awful people alike and i think thats just… what community is. you will know people you love and you will know people you hate. thats just the nature of people i think. i would not change it though. shoutout to you and my other irl friends on this site <33

and god, if id grown up in a different online community… lets say i never ever stumbled into wof amino (shudders), and things would be so, so, so different in ways i cant even describe. being present online taught me about so many things, mostly about all the many different kinds of people that live and breathe and love on this earth just like me. i was introduced to the queer community, the neurodivergent community, the furry community, three that i identify with so strongly, and countless other peoples, like disabled communities i never wouldve known about otherwise. its crazy to think how much knowledge the online community gave me. despite the bad experiences and the trauma and the hurt ive faced here, too, i cant say anything other than that i love it. its a big part of what shaped me into what i am today. it introduced me to some of my closest friends, my found family (hugest shoutout in the world to freak bin, you guys are my everything) who i consider a wonderful extension on top of who i already have, my biggest inspirations and idols, it helped me find my footing in becoming an artist, a writer, someday an animator, and it helped me discover who i am- this funky queer, neurodivergent girlthing that i am which i had been unable to even fathom or explain to my own self for so long- and for that i have so much love.

i love what i grew up with and all the amazing people with me. i really would be very different without it all.

[cherryblossomriot]

every time i attempt to capture how deeply my chemical romance is rooted in my heart, how their music, their mythos as a band, their moral philosophies, their symbolic career, how much it all means to me, i fall short every single time.

how can i write essays to explain the words that quite literally give voice to my soul? how can i capture a heartbeat in a simple, neatly wrapped package? i cant. my chemical romance is and always will be the closest thing i will ever have to my most pure, most raw emotions being captured in a visceral, visual, auditory experience.

it is a life-long connection for me. a faith, if i want to be ironic about it.

sometimes i don't need to listen to them every day. but when i need them, their music doesn't just see me, it captures me. re-invents itself every time i come back, older and older and older, with more life experience, more knowledge, more wisdom, but just the same intense, overwhelming emotion. just the same unfathomable sorrow. unfathomable frustration, unfathomable grief, unfathomable fury.

they grabbed me where I was at 14 and said, do you want to learn about the world, do want to learn what love really looks like, motherfucker? it's not everything you've ever been taught about christianity, about the military, about capitalism, about art, about oppression and queerness and feminism and war. when education and my parents and my world failed me, they guided me into becoming a good person, just by expressing their own pain.

and then, when the years passed, i treasured their music, listened to it constantly but lost all of its meaning in a blinding repression of my high-school self and depression that changed its shape, make me purge but not bleed.

when i came back at 20, having lost my religion, lost my ignorance, lost my fear, when I came back and I knew the world, and felt like a body so alive its dying, felt like there was a star in my chest, threatening to collapse, exploding in a cacophony from the fear the drugs and the isolation and art madness and stress and the crushing weight of being a perfectionist that only sees failure. when i felt all of that i came back and i understood and it made sense again and it reformed, lost the bloated reputation i'd bulit for it from youtube comments sections and old albums and a time before me, and it all just became. about me. and i didnt need anyone else's opinion and i didnt need what anyone else thoguht or felt about their music because they were so wholly mine, so fully beloved by me. thats a lack of insecurity ive never encountered with any other form of media, any show or band or movie that i've adored.

old scars, new wounds, it's poetry that breaks through time, finds me right where i am, no matter my age. and I am beyond thankful for that.

no matter what anyone says, music is the language of the soul. don't let anyone try to ridicule you for how your soul needs to speak.

[pixiesfondlingmyballs]

boutta become a winter skirts + tights fits kinda gay

[lesbiten]

Hate to hop into your asks and drop this on you but god I am inspired by your walls of text tonight. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. The way that people dumb Fiddleford in particular down to just some hillbilly that dated Ford in a traditional romantic relationship is honestly wrong in so many ways. I won’t get into all of them for the sake of time and you reading this, which if you do, thank you so much. Something a lot of people fail to realize is that especially with the kind of abuse Ford received growing up (from Filbrick primarily but also the other children of Glass Shard Beach), there is no chance he would ever unpromptedly confess to Fiddleford and be like “yeah let’s get in a relationship”. Fiddleford as well is also so complex in this topic. He is clearly interested in women as he does dearly love Emma (keeping a photo of her on his desk, talking about her to Ford, being shown to miss her a lot), but when it comes down to it, he was queercoded. Which yeah sure great but that is not his only character trait! He’s incredibly written as a man in that day and age where mental health was very much taboo and he was doing the only thing he could think of to cope, which does actually link back to his childhood and how he was raised Christian but that’s a different conversation, he knew no other way than out of sight out of mind taken to the extremes which is so tragic in itself. He didn’t feel like he could really confide in anyone his fears, including his wife and best friend. I think the saddest part of him, though, really comes down to the memory gun and how he was so smart, he probably knew it would cause brain damage. Yet he still decided he would rather permanently damage his mind than deal with the trauma he’d received. Anyways there’s my wall of text sorry again. Have a good night o/

WOO MORE WALLS OF TEXT. THANK YOU ANON I LOVE IT

okay okay but i really think people forget a multitude of things when talking about the nature of their relationship and its

-its the 1980s in research era. In The United States.

-fiddleford is not only noted to be christian but like. Very christian. like ford puts a big emphasis on it. and obviously being christian doesnt stop him from being queer but once again he grew up during a time when those two things Especially did not mesh together

-filbrick absolutely was the kind of dad to. React Negatively if either ford or stan ever strayed from traditional masculinity. having a parent like that seriously impacts your ability to analyze your own sexuality

but anyways thats not me saying anything against people who don't really care about all that but i find that considering the complexities of the time they lived in as well as their own personal experiences makes their relationship a Lot more interesting than just. teehee they were in love. they r so much more Okay theres so much more to look at and talk about than just them having a regular normal relationship

Anyways . moving along

fiddleford is such an insanely interesting character outside of him being shipped with ford which is something i definitely think people forget. you are very right that him inventing the memory gun and ruining his life with it is a really good (if extreme) representation of how having poor mental health back then was very very frowned upon. to the point where he'd rather do all the things he did than simply confide in the two people closest to him about his struggles.

& yes yes he is Very sad to think about because ur not wrong that he was smart enough to know what the gun would do to him. even if after a few uses it slipped away from him. when he shows it to ford and ford tells him to destroy it, fiddleford straight up acknowledges he could (and doesnt want to) forget his wife and son, before proceeding to erase fords memory and keep the gun. he knows the risks. he would rather lose his life than deal with his trauma and axiety in a healthy way. and isnt that so great and awesome i feel great about it!!!!!! <- dead

[monsterqueers]

New Essay Up

New essay up on the website!

props and credit to @shadowfae , whos panel on problematic sources at Othercon 2021 motivated and inspired me to write about morality differences.

Alignments - A Memory Dump Essay

Essay has also been transcribed under this readmore if thats easier to read for anyone.

Morality, in The Before, was different, in the sense that there were Allignments.

I am A Silver Dragon, from a slightly AU-ed Dungeons and Dragons world. Alignments there dictated whether you were good or evil, lawful or chaotic. You may have seen the grid around, the nine squares with things like ‘neutral good’ and ‘lawful evil’ on them. This is that.

When I say ‘good’ and ‘evil’ I mean a different concept than the behavior choices that fall into ‘doing harm’ and ‘helping people’. There were words differing between the two in dragonic, though I do not remember them now, for what I am talking about.

In this world, ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘lawful’ and ‘chaotic’ - the dragonic forms of these words, were not behavior descriptors, nor intention descriptions. They were factions, and many species simply could not choose their born faction or change it very much if they could. These factions were generally due to god interference in the creation of that species, and it meant certain magics worked or did not work against/for them or they had traits that were often seen as harmful. The correct translation for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is more accurately ‘darkness’ and ‘light’, though lawful and chaotic are close enough to ‘things that follow order’, and ‘things that reject order’.

These alignments said very little about the behavior they exhibited or the morals they had. The dragonic word for ‘evil’ as in how people here use it to mean ‘does harm to others’ could be retranslated as ‘being an asshole’. A person aligned lawful good could regularly commit tax fraud and beat their wife, and a person who was chaotic evil could be a pacifist who gardens and is passionate about healthcare reform.

For some of the littlefolk (the Polite translated dragonic word for humans and elves and the like), this was more flexible, and generally littlefolk would not consider those who did large amounts of harm to their in-group to be good aligned, nor people who had never done harm any worse than neutral, despite this not being the case magically speaking. It could make things rather confusing when talking to the layman, as much of the littlefolk could simply choose whatever faction they liked and often could jump ship whenever they liked too.

There were other various littlefolk somewhat limited in their alignment choice however- a Drow could not be ‘good’, and Aasimir could not be ‘evil’, for example. Usually this was split down the good and evil, rather than lawful and chaotic, as the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ deities held the most active sway.

Think of it like nationality, I suppose. Its the closest equivalent. Some people can't ever gain citizenship in a country other than their country of birth even if they want to, others can do so with a bit of work.

Dragons, however, didn’t have this sort of choice. All true dragons were born a specific alignment to do with their species, and inherent instincts to follow the tenants generally professed by that faction. This is one of the major traits that separated a True -also known as Greater- Dragon from other dragonic creatures, such as fairy dragons, wyverns, and rust dragons, actually. Other dragonic creatures had some wiggle room.

Chromatic dragons were all evil aligned, Gem dragons were all neutral aligned, and Metallic dragons were all good aligned. Planar dragons, while true dragons, were another matter and their alignments were to nothing on the scale as their origin points and commitments were beyond the gods of that my former plane’s influence. Lung dragons were a type of Planar dragon in my canon, instead of their own category.

The individual species of those groupings each had a assigned further spot. A Gold Dragon was ALWAYS Lawful Good, whether they are an abhorrent entity or not, and a White Dragon was always Chaotic Evil.

The individual species were as follows(* for ones that are AU to dnd 5e canon but are true to mine):

Chaotic Evil - Red, Black, Yellow, White

Neutral Evil - Brown, Purple*, Gray

Lawful Evil - Blue, Green

Chaotic Neutral - Topaz, Crystal

True Neutral - Amber, Amethyst, Obsidian*, Prismatic

Lawful Neutral - Emerald, Sapphire

Chaotic Good - Copper, Mercury*, Brass

Neutral Good - Silver*, Iron*

Lawful Good - Gold, Bronze, Platinum*, Steel

So I was and am a Silver Dragon. Bahumat created metallic dragons with the intention of combating His sister Tiamat, who created chromatic dragons in turn. The deities of Law and Chaos- neither touched my kind deeply. We could use all magic aligned with the light or neutral powers, and none of the dark. There was little magic that was specifically aligned with order and chaos, but all of that was accessible, provided the spell was not of the shadow. Things that repelled creatures of the light could keep me out.

The more ‘good’ creatures that existed in the world in relation to ‘evil’ ones brought more and less power to Bahumat and Tiamat in their eternal fight. So long as one ‘good’ or ‘evil’ creature existed, neither god could die and they were driven to wipe each other out. The same could be said of the law and chaos deities.

Of my life, the beginning is murky. Once I was grown enough to roam, I first Adventured with a elven rider companion and then lived upon a mountain lair until my death. Towards the middle and latter end, the towns at its base paid me rites and respect for my guardianship. These rites did technically elevate me to a minor god* capable of working greater magic. I also had a village much closer to and in my lair, one where I took those who asked my asylum who perhaps needed greater safety or guidance.

I would defend my territory and would help those who asked. It was a good life, and I hold little to no exotrauma from it.

*not to be confused with Greater gods, which are what effect Alignment or embody big concepts, minor gods are just those who are Believed in by enough people- and thus given power from that collective Belief

The divide between what was and what is is deeper and more shallow that one would expect, all at once.

I’ve started tentatively identifying as a walk-in relatively recently, my selfhood simply showed up one day and the original, whos interests, opinions, demeanor, and identity was different than mine disappeared shortly thereafter. The system has many theories on how exactly this happened, the origins thus such, and how much of the original’s ego was made into me, and also exactly when. The transition was rather seamless and there was much brain weirdness to muddle it all and convince me that I have always been here. None of us know the answer, and it generally doesn’t matter in practice.

The experiences of the original that I inherited gave a large amount of distance to this life. For reference, I Awakened as a Silver Dragon ~2014 perhaps 2015 -time is muddy- or so- having finally put together all the noema and shifts and assorted feelings that were not my cat theriotype into what they were. I had been in the body for a good handful of years previous to that, however. It gives me a distance from that life. My memories and retained selfhood from that life are dull- a botched reincarnation. I remember just enough- I experience just enough bleedover that it upholds a pillar of my identity and I still identify as the being of that life, but not so much I am exactly as-is.

I want to do a little disclaimer- The statement that this definitively IS a past life and I AM a walk in and these ARE memories of a past life is a theory, not fact. I do not and cannot know if my theory is right, and I have a healthy dose of skepticism in regards to this. My experiences could be sourced to many things, however I experience my draconity in a fashion that is similar to how others describe their past life experiences. It fits accounts better than the accounts of people who are not past-life otherkin. It feels right to describe these experiences as such, and so I do. Perhaps one day my understanding of this may change, but for now it is as such.

Returning to the topic at hand; its a point of frustration to me almost to the point of dysphoria, how good and evil, and moral and immoral are used in society here and how. Good and evil denote both the ingroup-outgroup AND the moral standard, equating sinful with strange with harmful behavior. Evil no longer means ‘entity supporting or created by Tiamat’- who is night and shadow. Good no longer means ‘entity supporting or created by Bahumat’- who is day and light.

The congruence of good with helping and evil with harming is far more intense here, Bahumat and Tiamat as I know them hold no power here- as they shouldn’t. Their place was in my old reality and that is as far as those entities reach. The assignment of moral values to enjoyment of a thing or thoughts, rather than actions is wholly new, and honestly quite unpleasant.

Evil here, becomes ‘entity that enjoys harming’ and often ‘anyone I don’t like’

Good here them also becomes ‘entity that enjoys helping’ and often ‘anyone I do like’

There will be people who insist to ignore people that do that last part and claim that it doesn’t matter- that the social realities of how others assign you do not matter, but I disagree.

Being queer, kinky, mentally ill, neurodivergent, disabled, and a strong leftist among other things means people will think me evil for existing quite a bit. Stigmatized minorities are othered, our traits become evil no matter how kind we may be.

Society calls us evil, has designated us evil- alright, how is this a bad thing?

Disassociating Evil from moral allows one to reclaim Evil. Ok, we are Evil now, but oh, no less kind. No less caring. Take the words slung at you and make armor out of them.

And also no matter how kind you may be, by this metric if you enjoy causing pain and destruction, you are evil.

This… is a thoughtcrime thing. No matter how you conduct yourself in life, if you enjoy pain you are evil to society at large. So as above, unlink Evil from Moral, and it is reclaimable.

How people assign you is a material reality you can choose to make hold no power over you. You can make it your own scales.

It is for the reason of words changing meanings, of the fact that my god I was born to does not reach here and thus frees me from obligations, that I no longer identify as Neutral Good. It simply does not mean the same thing anymore and I can now choose my alignment besides. Bahumat was no terrible god to serve or anything, but I would have appreciated the choice if it was not hardwired into my dragon brain at the time to be devoted to such a being.

I take joy in harm and at the same time take joy in helping, I think the absence of care of society is not something I can do, nor do I think rigid obedience is right.

Thus I would consider myself in the alignments of this world today as True Neutral.

Not to mention I have chosen the service of a True Neutral god in Cernunnos, so by my former world’s standards I am True Neutral now as well.

It feels right, to identify as such now. Society considers me evil enough I am too sin-stained to be good, but I have too much love of creation and helping to be wholly evil.

I believe that rules are necessary or we get Situations that cause harm to others, but at the same time am too Anarchist-leaning to not chafe under absolute order.

Still, the... Dissatisfaction with how people use alignments here persists.

[thatfunkyopossum]

whys it a worthless video essay? genuinely curious on your thoughts :0

The racism mostly!

Disclaimer: i’m white, and not meaning to speak for any person of color! My opinions on this are formed based on what i noticed in combination with what i know about racism, and I believe that in this case i’m right about what i’ve observed. That said, my observations are open to criticism from any black people who might be reading this and feel like weighing in, as my only personal experiences in bigotry are with my identity as a queer person. In short: i’m not an expert, but i do have eyes and what they see is repulsive. Anyway this will be rambly.

First and foremost, The Tragedy of Droids by @popculturedetective’s editing directly connects the Droids in Star Wars with the atrocities of chattel slavery in the americas, and the perceived connection is at times hinted at in the script.

@4:10 into the video “...they’re also bought and sold like cattle” is a quote i caught when trying to find the following time stamps, because the editing is the real beast here.

There’s also @ 4:35 “you can probably guess where i’m going with this, because the social arrangement i’ve just described is one of property and owner. And a property relationship between two intelligent beings that gives one absolute power over the other is called slavery.”

In this video essay, there are multiple times when the visuals cut between Roots and the droids of Star Wars. This is important because Roots is a mini series based off the family history of the black man who wrote the book, Alex Haley, and the scenes being directly juxtaposed with Star Wars droids are the scenes from it where black people are on slave ships or being sold at auction. TToD essay, which was at the very least presented by a white man, wants the viewer to connect robots and black people for the sake of the essay’s argument. TToD essay wants the connection between real black human beings who actually lived and suffered and died in the real damn world to, i cannot stress this enough, machines.

To anyone who is reading this and not seeing why thats fucked up, because they view the droids as people, here’s the problem. Droids aren’t people. No matter how you slice it, no matter how much you love them, theres actually no way for us to be sure that 99% of droids are sentient beings, that are self aware, and that feel things. Droids in the Star Wars universe are constructed to be tools that talk to you and have fun personalities. Some droids might be self aware and sentient, but the likelihood is that the vast majority aren’t due to being what they are. Tools. This is in stark contrast to black people, because black people are, uh, people!!

At 4:00 into the video essay, we start to see the cuts between Roots and Star Wars. Pop Culture Detective cuts between C-3PO/R2-D2 being sold to Luke’s family and a black woman being put in front of a crowd of white people to be auctioned off. This same sequence of cuts is used again later in the video essay.

At 28:20 into the video, a clip from Star Trek: The Next Generation is used wherein Guinan (played by Whoopi Goldberg, a black woman) is talking about slaves and slavery, how there have been disposable people in history. This clip on its own is so, so good. It aired in 1989, and I have no idea what the political climate was like for black people then (im not as well versed in history as i would like) but i can guess it probably wasn’t good!

“...They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do because its too difficult or too hazardous. You don’t have to think about their welfare. You don’t think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.”

And then Pop Culture Detective uses this (to me) powerful line about atrocities done to human beings... and cuts to R2-D2 serving drinks to Jabba’s crew. PCD says some bullshit about how star wars is using the droids as an allegory for slavery but has nothing to say with the metaphor, and then it cuts back to Guinan to finish her speech. Might i say: what the fuck. What the fuck.

I can’t find it right now, but i distinctly remember there is also a bit where the visuals cut straight from a black man’s face to the face of an astromech.

And the cherry on top is that the clones are in this video... and never mentioned. Okay actually i’m going to talk about this video’s treatment of the clones and how utterly fucked up it is because i was so caught up in the “this essay wants you to think of the horrors of chattel slavery done to black people as being even remotely comparable to the existence of R2-D2” that i forgot to talk about the clones.

Okay so this video does not mention the clones at all. It uses clips from the clone wars and clips from the prequels movies with clones in them, but the clones aren’t even so much as talked about in passing. The closest we get is this brushing off of the issue in general @29:50:

“Remember, this is a universe where humanoid slavery exists as well, but its presented as unambiguously negative, though not exactly something the heroes are in a rush to abolish.”

Which is said about Anakin and his mother. And its not like they forgot about the clone wars and to talk about it at all! No, they had this to say on it @15:10. See if you notice anything.

“...But what about Battle droids?... Well, the separatist droid army in the prequels seems specifically designed as little more than canon fodder. Making the bad guys unfeeling robots avoids the messy moral complications and mass casualties that would result from an interstellar war. If battle droids aren’t alive then the audience doesn’t have to care when thousands of them are killed in extended battlefield scenes. Indeed we’re encouraged to think of these types of droids as mere objects and to cheer at their dismemberment.”

Drink it in y’all, i’m still absorbing it. I’ll note that sections of this were played over clips from the first battle of geonosis, and there were clones on screen. So, PCD completely sidesteps the issue of the clones, seemingly unaware of the actual explicit enslavement of brown men who are unquestionably living thinking feeling people, in favor of projecting humanity onto every single droid including the infamously poorly programed B1 Battle droids.

I don’t know what else I can say on that besides the fact that some obscure ass clips from the clone wars are used to humanize the robots, implying that PCD watched tcw and missed the episode where Slick calls the Jedi slavers.

There’s other problems with it as a whole, like the essayist completely failing to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that all droids are sentient, or that even most droids are. No consideration is given to the purpose, construction, or make/model of droid into the question of “are they sentient”? And we’re left with the implication that your average mouse droid is at all relatable to a black person.

In fact, PCD in this essay seems to actually imply that r2-d2 and bb8 being sentient-ish robots we’re supposed to empathize with, and the battle droids being not that, is due to a failure/breakdown of internal logic. And not that they’re, you know, different machines...?

I have so much to say on this mess, but this is long enough as it is. In conclusion, Pop Culture Detective’s video essay should have been about the clones, but it chose to focus on droids instead and in doing so dehumanized black people in an attempt to humanize robots.

I’ll leave you with this quote from the video, but edited slightly to be instead about the clones.

“[Slick]’s observations about [clone] slavery could have been an opportunity for Star Wars to finally grapple with the uncomfortable fact that...the good guys seem to have been keeping sentient beings in a state of perpetual servitude.”

[lgbtpolitics]

Just fyi the warfare around "discourse" is entirely an online phenomena. If you know some lgbt+ people, you'll find a lot of conversations come around to the nuances of politics around sexuality and gender. You ask a group of people what they think about ace inclusionism, using the term queer, differences between bisexual and pansexual... any other discourse topic really and people will just have mixed opinions, and think different things in different contexts, and most importantly be able to talk about it in a friendly way.

One of my closest friends in the whole world LOVES the word queer and thinks it's all inclusive whatever. He knows full well that I, and actually most of our friend group do not feel the same. Whilst we sometimes have discussions about it this has never come between and it never will, because in the real world no one thinks you're a terf, or hate nb people, or whatever else because you dont like being called queer.

I know a lot of people have been hesitant to meet other lgbt people and partake in lgbt activities because their experiences online have taught them thats it's an aggressive environment, where one wrong statement can get you blacklisted. And unfortunately this is starting to leak out into some lgbt organisations. We need to take a step back and realise that these issues are not the be all and end all, and stop this from leaking out into general society. The ridiculous hyperbole over these topics needs to stop.