#and the idea that queer identities have a moral alignment

[daiwild]

i genuinely cannot comprehend how some people yearn for blatantly hetero and/or unstated celebs to be queer when there are SO MANY existing artists that are openly queer and ik this is a basic take but im only saying this because i recently realized that i listen to a shit ton of queer musicians and i dont even actively seek them out. like, i just accidentally stumbled upon tons of really good queer musicians, some with queer centric music but many without. i didnt even ask for this. so why are people itching to put a label on basic white singer #25 when trans breakcore bangers are RIGHT THERE.

[sethshead]

Another disconcerting element of “Queers for Palestine” is that it popped up in prominent left-wing anti-Israel/pro-Palestine rallies in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s terrorist attacks, before Israel had the chance to respond. As such, there is no way to interpret this slogan and the surrounding leftist fervor except as a signal of support not merely for Palestine, but specifically for Hamas, the jihadist movement with the explicit aim of eradicating the state of Israel. It's imperative to understand that Hamas, as detailed in its 1988 Covenant, is propelled by a fundamentalist Islamist ideology with the goal not only of eliminating all Jews but also conquering the world — just like ISIS. Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar was recorded saying, “The entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors.” Western support for Hamas, under the guise of Palestinian liberation, overlooks the deep-seated radical Islamist ethos driving the organization, which, if unbridled, would jeopardize the very freedoms cherished by LGBT people across the developed world. Anyone who doubts this should try being gay, bi, or trans in most of the Middle East and North Africa’s (MENA) Muslim-majority countries. Virtually all of these nations have laws that criminalize homosexuality and being trans, some of which carry the death penalty​​. Human Rights Watch’s "Everyone Wants Me Dead" report succinctly encapsulates in its title alone the perilous environment faced by LGBT individuals in these regions​. [...] The aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran is a harrowing tale of leftists being tortured and executed en masse by the very Islamic regime they supported for the sake of their anti-imperialist goals. Many Iranians who aligned with leftist organizations supported the revolution only to find themselves persecuted by Islamists they helped put in power. Immediately following the revolution, the new regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini began systematically oppressing LGBT people and publicly executing them by the thousands. These atrocities were justified as a means to "eliminate corruption" and prevent the "contamination" of society. Between 4,000 to 6,000 gay, lesbian, and bi people have been executed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution​​. Iran’s legal system, rooted in Islamic law, criminalizes consensual sexual relations between same-sex individuals, with penalties ranging from lashes to death. Iranian law does not distinguish between consensual and non-consensual same-sex intercourse, allowing authorities to prosecute both perpetrators and victims of sexual assault​.

But I've been told by queer activists that criminalized, illicit sex is hot, and that gay men in the Muslim world therefore have the best and most sex of anywhere. Given that frequent, anonymous, and risky sex is to those activists the high point of LGBTQ liberation, gay men in Gaza and Iran are thus freer than they are in the US. It is truly Michel Foucault's world, and we are all just living in it.

Back in reality, however, Navabi places his finger on a core part of the "Queers for Hamas" problem: the flattening of all conflicts into a single perceived intersectional struggle between power and the lack thereof. Motives, histories, local considerations, ideological incompatibility - all of these can be replaced by the imposition of provincial Western issues on very different peoples, ideas, needs, and lives. None of the individual conflicts and movements embraced by intersectionality discourse are allowed to breathe on their own, to have their own particulars respected. Instead it all becomes one vast, undifferentiated, vague liberation kitsch using the same prefabricated slogans and jargon. "How is that not its own form of small-minded, white-man's-burden, Western colonialism", you may ask. And you would be right.

[orkbutch]

So I've been seeing A Viewpoint within the bg3 fandom occuring. And I gotta be honest. I disagree that the characters being bisexual in Baldur's Gate 3 means you cannot headcanon them as other sexualities for your own fandom content purposes. I think that's not reflective of how queer people and their sexual identities actually work, and its just antithetical to how fandom has always functioned, which is an exercise of imagination. I wanna clarify up front: I agree that someone saying that a character Can't or Shouldn't or Was Not Meant To Be bisexual because of whatever reason IS biphobic sentiment. The characters in Baldur's Gate 3 are canonically bi/pan, thats made pretty damn clear when you look through all their content. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about headcanons, au's; the kind of imaginitve play that is very much what fandom creativity is about. If you set a standard in fandom that depicting a character as a certain sexuality is Not Allowed, 1. you're kinda flattening sexuality in a weird way, like personally my sexuality is complicated as fuck and has changed over time, and 2. you're limiting creativity. And I think creativity in fandom is extremely important. It's the whole fun of fandom. Creativity is worth protecting and its worth establishing the nuance between Depicting A Version of Character who is X and Insisting That Character Should Be X in canon. Because like... we meddle with character's identities in fandom all the time. That's what headcanons ARE, they change appearance, social position, career, faith, species, traumatic experience, moral and political alignment, and SO much more. I think limiting what people can headcanon within fandom... is less fun! It's just less fun. Imaginative scope lets you do more, weird fun stuff. It lets you depict more complex interesting characters. Example: my Bad Nun AU. In that, Shadowheart identifies as a lesbian. Why is that? Because I wanted Shadowheart's experience within Bad Nun to specifically explore the history and context of lesbians within nunneries, especially how that manifested post Vatican II. These were also eras when 'lesbian' was more ubiquitos, had a different context and more flexibility; a lot of women that would probably consider themselves 'bisexual' now were identifying as lesbians, were in lesbian communities and events and spaces.

On that note: Flattening sexuality. You're gonna say people CANNOT depict these characters as ANYTHING but bisexual? That is not how most queer people's sexualities work. It simply isn't. I've identified as tons of different shit in my sexuality. I'm still not sure about it. For me half the time my "sexual identity" is just the words I use to communicate what I'm looking for, and that changes depends on What I Want at that time, what I'm looking to explore, my social context, ect. ect. like what. This isn't how sexuality works for real people. How are artists meant to be Creative and imaginatively depict real, complex, queer sexuality if they are restricted to depicting only what is within canon?? This is not how any other part of fandom works. Fandom art should work how all art works. If someone makes shit art, it gets dunked on and ignored for being bad or lazy or lame. If someone did Heterosexual Karlach fanfic, I would be like "what the fuck why" because they made Karlach less fucking cool. Het Karlach would be boring and thats More Egregious because they DECIDED to make her heterosexual DESPITE canon. But even then, EVEN THEN, I don't think that should be looked at as off limits shit, because I don't believe art should have many things off limits. Any limits must be very nuanced, because art and creativity is nuanced. Obviously my brain would go "het karlach? you deserve jail time and thats queerphobic", but I honestly believe creative license is more important than those feelings. I WOULD happily comment on their thing, "heterosexual karlach is boring, thats a shit idea" because I'm right

If you want good art and good writing, you need to protext creative license.

[goetiae]

𝕭lack Butler has quite an interesting plot though, admittedly, we are of a belief that it could have been significantly more scandalous.

In one of our previous posts we have explained in detail why we believe that Ciel was written with transgender coding, specifically that of a transgender man. Keeping in mind the point made, we would like to expand on the idea of o!Ciel being a secret transgender (transmasculine) person with a younger brother instead of a "secret evil double".

The plotline that is currently true to the canon of the manga does not quite make sense: o!Ciel, if truly born a boy, no matter his health condition, would not be left with nothing. Yana portrays his fate as if it would have been miserable, but that is simply not how second sons — of Earls — were treated in the Victorian society. If r!Ciel was granted the title of an Earl, as it is an assigned title and not an inherited one, then o!Ciel would still have a significant say in family matters and inherit a large sum of money upon Vincent's death. After all, he would still be a son, even if the second son.

The current plot with multiple characters suspecting him of identity theft in order to gain inheritance and position does not quite make sense: if he were a born boy, he'd have inherited it anyways, and none of them would have suspected him in stealing an identity for that reason as he'd have benefits promised to him by the birthright. Second sons often became business owners, which would perfectly align with o!Ciel's dreams of owning a toy company — all the while r!Ciel would be handling political matters as an Earl.

However, the story would be entirely different if o!Ciel was born a girl: in this case, he would be experiencing the trouble he's met with in the canon of the current manga. As a born-girl, he'd be expected to either marry off early, stay at home under his brother's guardianship, or be sent off to a monastery. At least two of which are something o!Ciel is expected to do — we do not count his arranged marriage as Elizabeth was never meant for him.

If o!Ciel was an older sibling whose gender and health prevented him from gaining inheritance and position, then the in-manga concern other characters voice about identity theft would make sense. If he was an older sibling, in this case a born older sister, who was denied any position and rank despite being more mature than his brother due to the gender stereotypes and expectations, then the "identity theft" plot would make more sense. The younger, more immature brother would be given everything o!Ciel could never hope for. In this case, o!Ciel would indeed have a motif to steal his younger brother's identity. He could even be accused of the murder of his aunt, to make matters worse, as she would be the first in line to becoming his official caretaker and a claimant to her sister's and her in-law's wealth.

As a secret transgender boy, o!Ciel would be able to pass as the younger brother due to being genetically shorter. The arranged marriage to Elizabeth, once the truth is revealed, would be actually scandalous — in the current manga plot, it is not even remotely a matter of public concern. If seen as a queer individual, o!Ciel would be actually disowned in the public eye and brought into the moral court. He would be treated as a genuine criminal as matters of both transgender identities and homosexuality would be seen as gross indecencies in the Victorian era; he would, in fact, be both in all newspapers and under the danger of being imprisoned.

All of the already-present dancing around the subject of o!Ciel's gender that is present in the manga — at least in our reading of it — could be expanded to another degree. The plot of the manga is fine as it is, though we do have a preference for an even more scandalous idea.

[vintage-bentley]

How in the fuck are you going to be anti trans and a Good Omens fan as if both the book and the show don’t explicitly establish the existence of several nonbinary characters and both Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are genderless beings

Not to mention both David and Michael’s staunch support of the LGBT (really emphasizing the T here, since you love to drop it) community as a whole, and David literally has a trans child

Part of me is even asking this in good faith because how do you see a series that is so incredibly queer and like it considering how much you shit-talk trans people on your lackluster TERF blog

There’s many reasons, actually! I’ll explain them in good faith, because I think that people who ask questions like this don’t understand the perspective of so-called “terfs” and assume we think like you do.

Firstly, I’m a feminist, so I’m used to media not aligning with my politics. I expect it, actually. Down to very simple things, like knowing I’m never going to go into a show and see a woman just existing with body hair like men do in shows all the time. But I’m comfortable and confident enough in my beliefs that I can consume media that doesn’t align with them. This extends to my feelings regarding gender. A they/them character doesn’t make my head explode, it’s just the same for me as seeing a Christian character (like Ella from Netlix’s Lucifer) or a female character who’s pro-beauty culture (like Elinor from First Kill). It’s a representation of a belief I don’t agree with and personally don’t believe in, that’s all.

Secondly, Good Omens is set in a made up universe with fantasy themes. I can easily get behind the idea that the true forms of angels and demons are genderless, because that makes sense to me in the same way God being genderless makes sense to me. This doesn’t have to carry over to me believing that humans can be genderless (I don’t believe in the concept of internal gender identity, because I don’t believe in souls. So I guess the better way to put this is that I don’t believe humans can be sexless unless we’re using gender and sex as synonyms). In the same way that it makes sense to me that angels and demons have souls that are put into bodies issued to them…but I don’t have to believe that also applies to humans. Or how it makes sense to me that Aziraphale and Crowley could survive without food, water, and sleep…but I don’t have to believe that also applies to humans. Etc. etc.

Basically, just because something is in a fantasy show, doesn’t mean I have to believe it’s real.

Thirdly, what the actors do in their own lives is none of my business. I don’t agree with supporting the TQ+ especially in relation to LGB (considering they’ve made it a primary goal to harass lesbians into pretending we can like penis, and to take every chance they get to express their hatred for homosexuality. I love to drop the T because they dropped me and my fellow homosexuals years ago). If two straight male actors want to do that, whatever. I also don’t agree with Sheen having a baby with a woman his daughter’s age, but that hasn’t stopped me from watching the show or appreciating his talent.

This all takes me back to what I said about believing you don’t truly understand the perspective of those you call “terfs”. Just because you might not be able to comprehend watching and enjoying something that doesn’t perfectly align with your worldview, doesn’t mean others feel the same. For example, many radical and rad-leaning feminists enjoyed the Barbie movie, despite it not being radical feminist. We’re capable of watching and enjoying things we don’t agree with, and of having discussions about why we don’t agree with it.

A much simpler answer to your question would be: I’ve always loved angels and demons and all things supernatural. I’ve always loved old cars. I love Queen. Religious/moral commentary and critique interest me. I love lighthearted comedies. I’m gay and starved for representation of healthy gay relationships. I love gay star-crossed lovers stories (go watch First Kill). Naturally, I’m going to love Good Omens, even if it doesn’t perfectly align with my worldview.

[iceflwers]

𝓫𝓮𝓷𝓳𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓷 “𝓫𝓮𝓷” 𝓫𝓻𝓪𝓭𝓼𝓱𝓪𝔀 !

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ THE BASICS !

— ❥ FULL NAME: Benjamin Jeffrey Bradshaw.

— ❥ NICKNAMES: Ben (most commonly used), Benny, Benji, Bradley, Bradshaw, babe (by Matthew only), sweetheart (by Matthew only).

— ❥ DATE OF BIRTH: September 9th, 2002 (Virgo).

— ❥ BIRTHPLACE: Miami, Florida, United States.

— ❥ CURRENT RESIDENCE: Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada.

— ❥ SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, Spanish (not fluently), German (not fluently), Swiss German (not fluently), Swedish (not fluently), American Sign Language (not fluently).

— ❥ ORIENTATION: Homoromantic, homosexual.

— ❥ GENDER IDENTITY: Cisgender male (he/him pronouns).

— ❥ OCCUPATION: Center for the Vancouver Canucks.

— ❥ FACECLAIM: Kit Connor.

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ PERSONALITY !

— ❥ HOGWARTS HOUSE: Hufflepuff (loyal, hard-working, compassionate).

— ❥ MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE: INFP - The Mediator (empathetic, open-minded, self-isolating).

— ❥ ENNEAGRAM TYPE: Type Two - The Helper (warm-hearted, sincere, sentimental).

— ❥ MORAL ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good.

— ❥ LOVE LANGUAGES: Physical touch for receiving, quality time for giving.

— ❥ SKILLS: Hockey, skating, cooking, memorization, playing acoustic guitar, dancing.

— ❥ LIKES: Cozy sweaters, fantasy novels, lying on his bed listening to music in the dark, winning hockey games, spending time with his teammates and friends, warm and Sunny weather, petting cats, cuddling with Matthew, comedy movies, doing puzzles, skating on fresh ice.

— ❥ DISLIKES: Losing, thunderstorms, being ignored, talking to his parents, scratchy fabrics, people who mistreat public servants, rainy days, any kind of discrimination, fake people, bugs.

— ❥ FEARS/PHOBIAS: Being left alone again, being hated, drowning, snakes.

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ RELATIONSHIPS !

— ❥ FAMILY: Lydia Bradshaw (mother, estranged), David Bradshaw (father, estranged).

— ❥ FRIENDS: Elias Petterson, Joseph Woll, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, Luke Hughes, John Marino, Jack Hughes, Thatcher Demko.

— ❥ ACQUAINTANCES: Remainder of the Vancouver Canucks roster, Mitch Marner, Nico Hischier, Fraser Minten, Connor Dewar, William Nylander.

— ❥ ROMANTIC INTERESTS: Jackson Harlan (former crush), Charlie Brighton (first boyfriend), Sal Ahmad (brief fling), Brock Boeser (brief crush), Matthew Knies (current romantic interest).

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ FUN FACTS !

— ❥ While Ben would never classify himself as a bookworm - he doesn’t really have enough time to read a lot because of his career - he does like to read, and always makes it a mission to read three books during the off-season.

— ❥ Ben’s favorite form of physical affection is holding hands with someone, or even just linking pinkies with them - he loves having that feeling of connection and not being able to be separated from someone in public.

— ❥ He is, unsurprisingly, very popular with queer hockey fans. There are plenty of edits floating around on the Internet calling him a queer icon and highlighting moments during games and media that the creators think showcase that, and honestly, he kind of loves it.

— ❥ Ben is also a proud feminist, and a huge supporter of women in professional hockey. He attends all the PWHL games he can get to, often bringing Matty and Joey with him, and consistently posts in support of women in professional sports and praises women’s hockey teams in interviews when he can. (Quinn is a very proud captain for him because of this.)

— ❥ Despite mainly being a student athlete, he really liked his classes in college, especially the Creative Writing course he took - Matty always jokes that he’ll have to become an author after retiring from hockey.

tagging @lovings4turn, @hiya-itsamber, & @theopenlocker !

─┈ ♡ copyright © 2024: you do not have permission to copy, translate, or repost my works, nor to use my oc ideas or plots.

[ragecndybars]

NGL I've been pretty steamed lately over how people feel this need to align every character they like with their own morals.

In broader fandom spaces, I see such widespread refusal to give any character a flaw which contrasts too strongly with the fan's sensibilities. Murderers are fair game, for example, because that's not something which personally impacts the fan, but someone being a little sexist, or needing to have XYZ queer identity explained to them instead of instantly recognizing and understanding the term, or even just asking a slightly insensitive question? That will suddenly get fans all up in arms accusing you of slandering the character in question.

Like, I'll write a fic or do a silly little edit where one character will say something ignorant or insensitive, or even just clearly showing that they're a little confused but they got the spirit (ie. that "His pronouns are they/them!!!" meme), and people will suddenly drop into my replies steaming out the ears because "THAT CHARACTER WOULD NOT SAY THAT!!!" As if I'm personally breaking into their house and calling them transphobic because I said their favorite character would mess up someone's pronouns by accident.

It feels very much related to the trend of taking characters and injecting them with an insane level of emotional maturity, such that they no longer resemble their initial character at all. Much has been said about fanfictions where every character talks like a therapist, but at least in those fics, it's usually just written that way because the author finds it satisfying, not because they think the characters have to be flawless communicators or else they're shitty people. At least, that's the vibe I usually get. But I feel like for at least several years, it's been completely taboo to even imply that a character might have some biases to work through -- even if said biases are clearly evident in the source material!! A character can say some truly horrific homophobic shit in their source material, but if you write a fic where they say "Dude, that's gay" suddenly you're a character assassin.

I dunno. I feel like I could tie this into a larger point about the reemerging obsession with a mythical "moral purity" and frantic disavowal of anything which taints that for fear of being seen as One Of The Bad Guys, but I think the biggest thing is just... acknowledging that characters can have flaws. Flaws that go beyond "a little obnoxious", and into the territory of "genuinely thoughtless in a way which can hurt people". Flaws which may actually make you uncomfortable, because people with those flaws may have been callous, cruel, or even outright abusive to you in real life. Those flaws can exist within fictional characters who are good and kind people, and it doesn't mean the character is being mischaracterized as shitty bigots. Because nice, good people can still have prejudices and biases -- or, hell, just be a little awkward or misspeak! (See again the "his pronouns are they/them" meme -- do we not all agree that the joke there isn't "X character is transphobic", it's "X character is trying so hard to be an ally but has no idea what they're doing"?)

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying you have to be "realistic" by writing characters you like as prejudiced or rude. If you wanna write your characters as completely accepting of every queer thing under the sun, do that! Do it regardless of "realism" or whatever the hell, and fuck anyone who tells you otherwise!!! But if someone else does examine the prejudices or rudeness of those characters, you can NOT be out here taking it personally, or extrapolating from that to decide that the author is prejudiced.

and if you can't stand to see characters you love being written as such?

block the author and move tf on with your life.

[bethdelaguerre]

foreward: t4t

I’ve arrived in this place where thoughts feel important enough to record, and screaming it to an anonymous blog is somehow less passé than carefully crafting clauses in some instagram story for my friends to read and assess or swipe and ignore. That was for them, this is for me.

At three years into transition I have arrived at some sort of queer awakening. For someone who spent most of their life as some kind of confused effeminate bisexual man who wasn’t into men, finally transitioning and yelling I’M A DYKE felt like the most relief someone could have, that I could finally understand to myself that yes, I love women, but no, not like that. Dating women, straight women, as a man was this confusing exercise in relatability and frustration. It’s a tired trope, isn’t it? Trans woman dates women she’d rather be— never finding anything approaching love, only envy, frustration, and depression. Dating queer women, dating lesbians, was entirely its own awakening. 

But waking up comes in stages. For these three years I’ve surrounded myself in the company of other lesbians, I met and married a woman whom I could finally say I love and adore. There were not many trans women. There weren’t any. 

My transition, like so many other COVID trannies, began in a bubble. I figured my shit out, I changed my name, I started hormones; I was alone. It didn’t feel that way— we had the internet, after all. But the company I kept with my cat and my seventy thousand something parasocial following wasn’t community. 

We like that word, community— we throw it around as some vague catch-all as if it has some ubiquitous meaning and that it is the cure for most psychic ailments. The thing is, it’s a transient idea: you find the people whom you love and support and in return they love and support you and then *bam* you’re fixed. But people will fall in and out of this category, and the categories of people therein will vary greatly with the passage of your own identity into the next. 

Anyway, for a time lesbians were my community— they still very much are. But I’ve met someone and it has upended my entire perspective on community because she’s among the first in another less transient selfsame category: a transsexual woman.

I put maybe too much weight into this particular person. I have had friends who are more or less like myself, but I have never felt so terribly aligned as I do with this woman. It should be noted that in addition to being an hopeless romantic I just finished my first reading of Imogen Binnie’s “Nevada” and am as raw as one might expect. I think we all see a bit of ourselves in Maria and loathe to see ourselves in… I can’t even remember his name because I hated the experience of reading part 2, relatable as it was.  

This girl has me romanticizing my life in every way possible. Shortly after we met she made me a mixtape (it was a Spotify playlist but I was born in 1990 and some things just can’t change)— I don’t even listen to music but I found myself making reasons to leave the house and walk and listen. I live just on the other end of a redline: the neighborhood across the street from mine is this ostentatious enclave of opulence, an island of privilege and superficial beauty that is morally repugnant in a city with the wealth disparity of mine. I put on my headphones and immerse myself in this music that she’s selected for me, taking in the beautiful gardens and perfectly manicured lawns and just thinking of her for hours at a time. My best friend tells me that I’m not falling in love with her, I’m falling in love with the idea of her. Given enough time and connection, aren’t they the same?

She tells me sometimes that actually when the limerence wears off you’ll find I’m quite plain. I can’t imagine. Every time I see her, every new conversation, all I can see is this perfectly messy intellectual beauty of a woman and wonder what it could possibly be that she found attractive enough in me to ask if she could kiss me the night we met. 

Yesterday lying in her bed with her body nestled against mine, I looked out of her bedroom window to a towering tree and remarked how lovely it must be to have that view. I thought about how meeting her now at the height of summer meant that I could measure the passage of time not only in the moments between messages but in the turning of the leaves, and a little piece of me feels like it is dying. That’s what love feels like, right? A slow death in the changing of leaves before they fall to the earth. 

[gaymessriku]

Old issue at this point, but the American reception to Dragona Joestar really is emblematic of the remaking of the gender binary into a 'woke' version. As presented in the manga, Dragona is called Jodio's brother and uses he/him pronouns. He also has a stereotypically feminine appearance and has canonically had surgeries to achieve this.

It is of course important to understand this in the context of Araki's treatment of women in past chapters. And he has in fact repeated these tropes with Dragona. However, especially with any knowledge of how gender is seen in Japan, there is no reason to view his pronouns and presentation as unintended or inherently transphobic.

I have seen person after person use she/her or they/them when referring to him, not due to any textual support but their own confusion and discomfort. Dragona may be a binary trans woman, or a gnc man, or whatever the fuck his heart desires. That is irrelevant to his pronouns. The idea that he cannot possibly use or like he/him due to his presentation is incredibly restrictive and disrespectful.

Viewing pronouns as inherently tied to gender or presentation only rebrands transphobic ideas of gender being inherently tied to sex. It implies an inherent scale between 2 points of male and female which are tied to certain appearances and behaviors, and everyone falling somewhere on it. E.G. the idea of having to be a masc or fem aligned nonbinary, or stereotypically feminine traits in men causing jokes about how they're secretly trans women and don't realize it yet.

This is harmful to not only the people who fall outside these categories but also those who are comfortable within them. It perpetuates stereotypes in queer spaces that cause fear and ostracization. And it is completely ahistorical to the movement as a whole. Accepting gender as a construct means both acknowledging the utility and weight of its signifiers in a personal and societal context, while also releasing yourself and others from the obligations thereof.

A trans man and a butch lesbian can look or act exactly the same and that makes them no less different or authentic in their existence. Promoting men wearing skirts or makeup while simultaneously viewing them as less their gender is hypocritical and still presents maleness as a default that femininity and womanhood is an aberration or change to. Saying you support trans people and gender nonconformity is incongruous with assigning certain traits to certain genders.

It is of course entirely possible that Araki has some level of misunderstanding or ill intent in his representation of Dragona. It is also possible that his identity or pronouns will change over the course of the manga. However, as currently presented, that is what he wants and is comfortable with. As a reader, in the same way you wouldn't misgender someone who doesn't fit your standards for presentation in real life it should also be applied to characters. This is not a matter of personal headcanon but the material as it is presented.

I'm not attributing intent or malice to those who do this. It is very much not about accusations of queerphobia or inciting self flagellation. This is about explaining how these actions are harmful and what they perpetuate. It is an invitation to think about how you view these categories and apply them to the world, even subconsciously.

It is not a sin to be wrong. It is not a sin to not have the perfect enlightened ideas inside and out. We all have biases, and they take time to identify and account for. Part of having moral and ethical principles is recognizing your own flaws in these areas. That is always the first step to understanding and improvement.

And of course I'm not a perfect being either, so contributions, criticism, or questions are very much welcome. Community is based on shared values and identity but also the ability to keep an open mind. We all have pieces of the world and the only way to get a better picture is sharing them.

[artemiseamoon]

Be The Shark Or Get Eaten

Lady Crimson (my oc) ft. Sharon Carter | oneshot

Warnings: criminal underworld

An: one of my many long standing drafts, collecting dust. This was inspired by TFATWS, specifically life in Madripoor. My oc came to mind instantly. I’ve said before Sharon Carter annoyed me in the movies and seemed like such a filler character. But I did like her in this. She went from blah to interesting to me. I’m also soft for art x lesbians /queer women and morally grey women. So yeah. I didn’t expand the idea behind this yet, so just sharing as it it. I have 147 drafts 😩 I hope to clear some out over the coming months.

Madripoor wasn’t for the faint of heart. Morality, a sense of decency, and any aversion to excess is best left on the other side of the bridge. If you want to do right, if you want to be good and play by the rules, Madripoor will eat you alive.

Madripoor’s underbelly is run by crooks, masterminds, manipulators, smugglers and those willing to do whatever it takes so survive. Be the shark or get eaten.

The city is full of criminals, every type you could imagine. But it’s not always the best place to hide, despite it being known as a criminal safe haven. Some in Madripoor will do anything for a big pay day.

The rate of captured bounties in the city is high. The only way for a wanted person to survive, and not get caught, is to outsmart everyone else and create a believable and fool proof identity. Just as important as that; don’t get close, to anyone. Privacy = survival.

Friends in high places helps, sometimes, but no one really is your friend in Madripoor. At least not in the underbelly, the high rises, the well off crowds. Even in a crowd, everyone laughing, hugging and enjoying themselves, it’s still every woman (man, person) for themselves.

One of the best things a person could do is align themselves with the big bosses and the Power Broker, but even that, didn’t come with guarantees, not long standing ones anyway.

Club Lilith, Friday night

Lady Crimson made her way through the dance floor, observing the crowd as they drank and danced. She took ownership of this place 4 years ago, and it’s still the hottest club in town. Madripoor is full of places to party, and of the top 10, half belong to her.

Over the last 5 years, her name has become synonyms with nightlife, parties, and the most elite gatherings. What started years ago as underground parties has now grown to an empire.

Lady Crimson is one of the top 12 wealthiest people in Madripoor. In a city of people making their riches by illegal means, it wasn’t an easy ranking to get.

Making her way to the third floor, she stepped into the waiting room of her office to see a familiar face. In the far left of the room, a large canvas. The three men leave the room after the blonde signaled to them.

“I’ve been here for 16 minutes.” She tops off her drink at the bar.

“I was busy,” Crimson grinned, her eyes darted to the glass, two fingers of whiskey, “you helped yourself I see.”

“I don’t have time to wait.” Sharon, drink in hand, walked over to the canvas. “ the Guillaume, hand delivered as requested.”

Crimson sauntered over to it, taking her sweet time. Standing before it, her smile widened as she took in the imagery.

“You have grossly overcharged for this, Carter,” her eyes briefly leave the painting. She makes eye contact with Sharon, who is already watching her. “It’s criminal,” a sly foxlike grin lingers on her lips, “bad girl.”

Sharon grinned in response.

“I’ll forgive it,” Crimsons eyes return to the painting, “I’ve been searching for this for many years,” she hovers her hand over the painting. The silver bracelets stacked on her wrist jingled, “well worth the inflation.”

Sharon sipped her drink as her eyes wandered. Yes, the Guillaume is a breathtaking piece, Sharon was almost tempted to keep it for herself. But it’s not what has her attention.

Lady Crimson is hard to ignore. Tall, athletic, a beautiful face with striking green eyes. She could often be found decorating herself with dark heavy makeup, leather, crushed velvet, and sheer fabrics. Her look is best described as goth underground meets high fashion. She liked wigs, and often had a different hair color each time you saw her.

Crimson, like most smart people in Madripoor is mysterious, and keeps herself that way. No one knows anything about her, where she came from, or who she was before coming here 10 years ago.

There’s something fox like about her, and from the very first meeting, it drew Sharon in. There’s also a clever quality to Crimsion, and a look in her eye like she know more than anyone else around her.

She’s also one of the people who seem completely unintimidated by Sharon’s rise in the ranks and title as Power Broker. It’s Madripoor, someone always wants what you have, challengers come left and right. Sharon had seen plenty, and there will always be more to come.

But Crimson didn’t care about that, or display any interest in taking the role for herself. She just liked to test Sharon. She’d be late on purpose, make Sharon wait, challenge her prices. At first, it frustrated Sharon, now, through she won’t admit it, she finds it entertaining, maybe even looks forward to it.

Sharon didn’t care who anyone was, as long as she got paid and kept her status. She can’t recall the last time she even found herself curious about a person, and their real identity.

Crimson took a step back from the painting. Her eyes are still glued to it when she speaks,

“If you ever get your hands on an Acacio,” her eyes meet Sharon’s, “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

Sharon put the empty drink down. The small raise of her brow gets Crimsons attention.

“You have one?” Crimson walked over to her.

“You’re mistaken.” Sharon slid her hands in her pockets, her eyes locked on Crimsons.

A wide jokers grin lights up Crimsons face, she steps into Sharon’s personal space.

“How much?”

“Did I say I have one?” Sharon keeps her poker face, her eyebrows still. Crimsons always been able to catch her micro expressions, even if no one else does. She also suppresses her excitement.

Anabela Acacio is one Sharon’s favorite artists. The photographer /painter moved Sharon to tears the first time she saw her work. Though the artist is long gone now, and only saw medium level fame during her time, she amassed a huge cult following.

Sharon also found her work later in life, a couple of years before the snap when she was dealing with her newly realized identity as a bisexual woman. Something always felt like it was missing, there was always a hunger left in her, one the men she bedded couldn’t fill. Once Sharon realized her true identity, it changed everything. And discovering the underground queer icon, Anabela Acacio, at the same time was life changing.

Not that Sharon needed much to deepen her draw to Crimson, but the fact that she knows Acacio, it nearly makes Sharon crumble on the spot.

“You’ve grown quiet, Carter,” Crimson leaned forward slightly, she can see an almost unnoticeable shift in Sharon’s breathing, “you do have one.”

Sharon’s lips part as they hold each-others gaze. Her eyes drop briefly to Crimsions lips, full soft looking lips painted a deep red, vampire red.

Crimson catches her, and smirks, “how much?”

“Never said I had one,” Sharon pulled herself together and takes a step back, putting distance between them. “If one makes its way to me, you’ll be my first call.”

Crimson only grins as her.

Sharon heads for the door. “I have another meeting. One you’ve made me late for. “

“They’ll live,” Crimson sat on the couch and extended her arms over the back, “what are you selling?”

Sharon looks back with a half smile, “art nouveau sculpture.”

Crimson whistles, “damn. I can imagine the price tag on that one. Let me guess, you added the Carter tax?”

“What is it you always say,” Sharon pretends to think,“be the shark or get eaten?”

Lady Crimson chucked, “I do. But , don’t over use it, I’ll sue you, plus tax.”

Sharon laughs and opens the doors. “We’ll see about that.”

Crimson watches her exit and disappear behind the doors. “We shall.”

Sapphic masterlist (fxf)

[findingmyselfatm]

Venus-uranus because I love this generational planet

Venus-uranus combines the themes of venus: love, beauty, affection, romance and self-esteem with Uranus': rebellion, break of routine, innovation, genius and uniqueness. Venus-uranus are unconventional people in their relationships, and definitely interesting individuals.

Anything Uranus touches becomes a place of novelty, a place where you are unique and don't confirm.

So with venus-uranus, love, affection and self-esteem are tied to the new and unconventional.

The people with these aspects have a strong relationship with excitement in their social lives. They're also unique themselves in partnerships.

Their type may be uranus-like. Intelligent, innovative and someone who doesn't let standards stop them from being themselves.

I noticed that people with venus-uranus also might express their affection in strange ways, not the typical bringing you flowers. Their love language varies, but I think it definitely centers around exchange of ideas, since these people need mental stimulation in their relationships.

I sense that venus-uranus could show affection through memes? I have multiple friends with such placements that do this.

Their self-esteem is tied to how "unique" they are, but not in a "not like other girls" way. They value what makes them stand out, what is special about them, what core traits define their identity and if those traits align with what they want inside (I have uranus in the 1st, so couldn't relate more)

Since Uranus is a generarional planet, I think venus-uranus people are somewhat humanitarian.

These people are definitely magnetic too.

I've seen these aspects interpreted as flighty and non-committal. I think this is mostly true for undeveloped venus-uranus, but non-committal applies to some extent for all of them, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Since venus-uranus is focused on the excitement and novelty in their relationships, they could drop the ones that feel boring and stale (depending on other aspects of course).

Venus-uranus can also have some problems adapting to social norms (I will get to this to the individual descriptions for each aspect).

There is big possibility they're extroverts, or at least introverts that go wild when they feel comfortable. F.e: scorpio venus sextile capricorm uranus. Alone, these placements are introverted, but after you get to know them (and they like you-), they become more open, and scorpio's dark veil drops down.

They may be good at giving random gifts?

These people could have unusual interests as well! A unique music or art taste, maybe food too. I sense they might be drawn to science, astrology, tarot and divination. Very creative.

ALSO, venus-uranus might not like the idea of traditional marriage. They may not marry at all (this doesn't mean the lack of relationships).

Venus conjunct uranus merges the two planets together. This brings novelty to their social lives, it can create a constant feeling of freshness (if not, these people can become rather bored-). They are dynamic and open-minded in their relationships, but also inflexible when it comes to their moral/innercode. Inclined to experiment romantically and or sexually, venus conjunct uranus could indicate towards being queer (just an observation, don't take this literally lmao).

Venus trine uranus is an easy aspect and things go smoothly. These people are open-minded just like venus conjunct uranus, social and have a creativity off the charts. They can also have a community attitude, a little less so than venus conjunct uranus. The danger here is taking advantage of the trines's talents. Open-mindness and search for excitement can turn into a flighty and uncompromising attitude.

Venus sextile uranus is a positive asoect too, more low key than the trine. It makes someone amiable and intriguing, easily liked. The aspect brings excitement to their social life, and make them open to new experiences.

Venus square uranus is a harsh aspect. The square puts the planets at odds with each other. Love, affection and self-esteem do not cooperate well with rebellion and innovation. While very magnetic and probably open minded, these people get the dark taste of venus-uranus. They might be inclined to avoid commitment, and rationalise their emotions too much in love. The person can also be unwilling to compromise their individuality in relationships (which is good, but if overly done it sabotages the relationship, you cannot have one if the people involved are kept apart). They could feel like partnerships take away their freedom. I sense there is a bad image of marriage with this aspect as well. To deal with this compromise must be made. With a lot of introspection and communication (because venus relates to others, if it were for example mars square uranus, the difficulties would be found more internally), venus square uranus can cultivate their talents (don't mean to scare y'all, everyone has squares and they will forever need improvement).

Venus opposite uranus makes the planets completely in conflict with each other. Love, affection and self-esteem are against innovation and rebellion. This can make someone take one side and excessively develop it. If it's venus, the person may give up their individuality for others. If it's uranus, they are overly individualistic. The key here is to find common ground, see what satisfies both parties and get the best of both worlds.

As an ending note, venus-uranus are very pretty aspects in my opinion. I generally love anything uranus touches lmao, but with venus it's more of an unexpected combo :)

Thanks for reading!

[batmansymbol]

hi riley! read this recently and would love to get ur perspective on this as a YA author https://tinyletter.com/misshelved/letters/did-twitter-break-ya-misshelved-6

hi anon! yeah, i read this the day it was posted. thoughts/supplementary essay below.

firstly, i'd put a big "I AGREE" stamp across this essay. i think it's well-cited and thoughtful, and i agree with pretty much everything in it. i especially appreciate it for introducing me to the terms "context collapse" and "morally motivated networked harassment" - seeing internet sociology studied and labeled is ... odd, but useful.

i left twitter in 2017, but i keep an eye on things, which seem similar now to the way they were four years ago. the essay describes the never-ending scrutiny, the need to seem perfect, and the pressure on writers to out themselves. all of that is spot-on. twitter is an outing machine. there is so much harassment and anger on the platform that in serious conversations, good-faith engagement becomes something that must be earned, rather than something that's expected. and in order to earn good faith, strangers expect you to offer up an all-access pass to who you are. otherwise, things might take a swift left turn into verbal abuse.

obviously twitter is a cesspit of harassment from racist, homophobic, and transphobic people, but i think the most painful harassment comes from within the community. i, and most people i know, wouldn't give a single minuscule little fuck if ben shapiro's entire army of ghouls came after us and told us we were destroying the sacred values of Old America or whatever. but the community at large does care about issues of racial justice and queer liberation and economic justice. which is why it's painful to see this supposed "community" eating its own over and over again.

how cruel can we be to people and pretend that we are their friends? that's the emotional crux of the essay to me. what we're doing to ourselves - people who do share our values and want to achieve the same goals - because this one platform is built on rewarding the quickest, most brutal, and most public response.

god forbid you don't have your identity figured out. god forbid you have an invisible disability, or are writing a story about something sensitive you've personally experienced but had an off-consensus reaction to. on twitter, if you are not a paragon of absolute and immediate clarity, you may as well be lower than dirt morally, because you're unable to do what the platform requires of you: air every private corner of your identity, up to and including your trauma, to justify not only your everyday actions and opinions but also your art.

(this is all honestly incompatible with interesting art, but i'll get to that in a bit.)

it doesn't take a genius to see how troubling this environment is when combined with twitter as a marketing tool. i remember that around the time of my debut, i'd tweet out threads of private, painful, personal stuff, which felt terrible to recount, but i'd watch the like count increase with this sense of catholic, confessional satisfaction. all of this was tied to the idea of my potential salability as a writer.

i was around 21 at the time. i felt a lot of pressure as a debut. i wanted people to like me and think i was exceptionally mature and confident. i wanted to do my job and build buzz for my book. i saw that all these publishing professionals and authors spent day in, day out angry and exhausted on twitter. every few days, a new person fifteen years older than me would say, "i can't take this anymore, i'm so fucking tired of this, i'm logging off for a while." i thought, well, this must be how online activism feels: like running on a sprained ankle.

i can still remember book after book after book that inspired blow-ups, big explanations, and simmering resentment: carve the mark (whose author was forced to admit that she suffered chronic pain after relentless criticism of that element), the black witch (a book explicitly about unlearning racism that was criticized for depicting ... racism), ramona blue (a book about a bi girl who thinks she's a lesbian but winds up in an m/f relationship, because she's still discovering her identity) ... etc

each book, each incident, followed the same pattern. firestorms of anger, a decision of where to place blame, the desperate need for a single consensus opinion in the community. i think a lot of people on book twitter see these as bugs inherent to the platform, but really, in twitter's eyes, they're features. the angrier and more upset twitter's userbase is, the more reliant they are on the platform.

i wound up leaving around the time i realized that not only was twitter making me anxious - NOT being on twitter was beginning to make me anxious, because of vaguely dread-infused tweets all around like "i'm seeing an awful lot of people who are staying silent about X. ... why are so many people who are so loud about X so silent about Y?" etc.

that shit is beyond poisonous. people will not always be logged on. the absence of someone's agreement does not mean disagreement. actually, someone's absence is not inherently meaningful, because it is the internet and silence is everyone's default position; internet silence in all likelihood means that that person is out in the universe doing other things.

this is already a ridiculously long response, so i'll try to wrap up. firstly, i think that progressive writers and readers have GOT to stop thinking that a correct consensus opinion can exist on every piece of fiction, and on every issue in general, and that if someone diverges from that consensus, they're incorrectly progressive.

secondly, i think that progressive writers and readers have got to uncouple the idea of a "book with good politics" from a good book, because 1) there are books about morally grimy, despicable subjects that help us process the landscape of human behavior, and

2) if, in your fiction, there is only one set of allowed responses for your protagonist, you will write the same person over and over and over again. you see this a lot in religious fiction. the person is not a human being but an expression of the creator's moral alignment. (not entirely surprising that this similarity to religious correctness might crop up with the current state of the movement. i read this piece around the time i left twitter and it shook me really, really deeply.)

i understand that in YA, there's a sensation of immense pressure because people want to model good politics and correct behavior for kids. this is a noble idea - and maybe twitter is great for people who want to be role models. but i've become more and more staunchly against the idea of artist as role model. the role of the writer is not to be emulated but to write fiction. and the role of fiction is not to read like something delivered from a soapbox, or to display some scrubbed-clean universe where each wrong is immediately identified as a wrong, and where total morality is always glowing in the backdrop. it's to put something human on paper, and as human beings, we might aspire to total morality, but we fall short again and again. honestly, that's what being on twitter showed me more clearly than anything.

[the-starset-system]

┈ ⋅━━⋅⋆⋅━━⋅𖥔⋅━━⋅𖥔⋅✶⋅𖥔⋅━━⋅𖥔⋅━━⋅⋆⋅━━⋅ ┈

✶ Do Not Interact ✶

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⚠️ Do not interact if...

🚫 -You identify as or support "MAPS".

🚫 -Your Homophobic or Transphobic. This includes excluding certain identities. We are proud to be queer.

🚫 -You identify as or support "super straight".

🚫 -You identify as or support "proshippers".

🚫 -Your blog is provocative in any way. We are minors. (If it's just jokes and nothing graphic that is fine)

🚫 -You support the glorification of metal illness.

🚫 -You believe in "cringe culture".

🚫 -You sexualize age regression.

🚫 -You dislike or harass people over things they cannot control, such as, race, age, disabilities, gender, mental illnesses, emotions, etc.

🚫 -You are going to shove religious beliefs in our face. We are Christan but do not want to talk about it with you. (Religious blogs may interact if respecting boundaries.)

🚫 -You promote or support any sort of harassment or send threats to people. (Yes this includes anyone who is morally "wrong")

🚫 -You are anti (well researched) self diagnosis. Diagnosis is a privilege and it is selfish to try to force someone struggling to go through all the medical hoops and stress of getting doctors to listen to them.

🚫 -You are anti-MCYT. Nothing against your opinions, but we have many introjects from Minecraft YouTubers and our mental health cannot handle seeing the hate everyday. (It's okay to interact if you don't post anything about it, we respect your opinions, just can't handle seeing them)

🚫 -You are a role-play blog. Once again, nothing against you, but it gives the impression that you believe we are just roleplaying.

🚫 -You identify as or support any "system" that is not traumagenic.

🚫 -You believe introjects are "cringe" or a sign of faking. This includes the belief of "problematic" introjects and the idea that they should change.

🚫 -You align with any other basic DNI criteria's.

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✶ Thank you for reading! ✶

🔙 Back to pinned post

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[princeandhisboyfriends]

Yo low-key the idea that nonbinary sapphics/lesbians have to be woman-aligned in presentation and/or identity when cis* butch lesbians can feel how they want via gender and expression is fucking wack y’all.

nonbinary identities are rarely that simple. I id as sapphic most of the time(my attraction fluctuates with my gender identity). It’s never really been my experience that being queer is something so specifically and only personal. My queerness is vastly political and largely presentational, and sometimes that means being a woman or even fem aligned just isn’t in the cards but that doesn’t make me less sapphic. The only thing that makes me less sapphic is when my attraction wanes altogether, and even then there’s other types of attraction.

Queer, sapphic, lesbian, butch are rarely and rarely have been only personal. To act like it has to be for nonbinary people is just gatekeeping, and often only an excuse for why you don’t want to date masculine ones the same way that people coming up with a reason why a show is problematic are often only trying to justify why they dislike it through a moral lens, often because of acceptable queer politics among other things. You’re allowed to just not like things, you’re allowed to not be attracted to people, you’re allowed to not want to date people, but that doesn’t mean that their identity, their validity, or their presence in the community is wrong.

It often feels like I’m being told to put my identity as sapphic before my being nonbinary, even though if I told my friends I ided as sapphic they’d tell me otherwise. It’s just such a nonissue, when there’s active rampant racism and homophobia and transphobia and sexism. Squabbling over the definition of an identity that has been changing for decades isn’t gonna change anything in the end.

I should mention that I’ve seen most of these debates in regards to people who would and sometimes did have to medically transition in order to be seen as fem aligned, so a lot of it seems to be terf bullshit anyways, but a few of y’all have taken it to heart.

* bc butch means different things to different people, and for many that does not necessarily mean they identify completely as a woman but the point is more that their lesbianism isn’t nearly as doubted or debated despite them being masc aligned, in online sapphic circles.

[abecat]

One of the many sketches I’ve done this summer, trying to figure out how to teach the figure drawing/character design class online. Of course, these indulgent drawings are just for me, but they help me think about the biopolitics of figure drawing in the current moment (of pandemic, of political unrest, of collective trauma)

First some background: From late modernism onwards, the whole enterprise of  academic figure drawing becomes highly suspect. As I understand it, the french academic tradition (that spread through Europe and into the US) established the educational standards of anatomy and naturalistic rendering, with the aim of training artists in the creation of highly emotional images. These images would be used by the state to form cohesive and durable nationalist identities: cheesy neoclassical paintings that drew a connection between France’s III republic to ancient Greece and its idealized concept of democracy. Like Uncle Sam in America’s WWI, these neoclassical mascots have one purpose above all: to rouse the spirit in service of the sovereign (emperor, corporation) for easy manipulation. Now, dear person reading this, you may agree with the project of building a national imagery regardless of how “ahistorical” these pictures may be. But you have give modernist their due: the worst excesses of these canons were embarrassingly in evidence during the Third Reich, with its obsession over "perfect” bodies for a “perfect” race.

So drawing state-sanctioned “perfect” bodies is out of the question, but modernist didn’t really delivered us from sin either. There are just too many examples of asshole “genius” artists who thrived on a predatory relationship to their subjects (Gaugin and Picasso, anyone?) It seems that the emancipatory gesture against the naive bourgeoise taste could not extend to the issues of gender and race inequalities. Postmodern artists, aligned to feminist, queer and anti-colonial projects, thrived on these active biopolitics, engaging them to draw attention to injustice, to deal with false consciousness and internalized opression, and to express long-repressed lust. The question become not whether we should do figure drawing, but who and why should do it. I find the question to be eminently just and interesting, but just as often, paralyzing.

In this context, a class “Figure Drawing/Character Design” may look, from the outside like a puzzling idea. It is like a bad recipe that mixes modernis-postmodernist unresolved issues with total capitulation to market forces. Anime? Cartoons? Caricatures? Stories? And all of it mixed with figure drawing? How can this be insightful?

Figuring the potential for insight in this class, given this context I sketch here, has been my challenge for the last five years. I could simply say that there is a market for it, that students/audiences like it, that gaining skills is pragmatic, that people have been drawing “characters” from prehistory... and just move on feeling justified. But that wont do.

One day I will write something scholarly about this, but here is a sketch of why I think this class has the potential for insight: Character design and figure drawing exist in the context of a complete immersion in capitalist communication technologies. After giving ourselves a moment to mourn the fall fo the Berlin Wall (if that’s your jam,) we must understand that our existence in this soup of capitalist communication technologies has the effect of diluting the membrane that trap us in our bodies. The concept of “Character Design” as something that can be learned and practiced by anyone (the putative project of art education) means that we all have the right toy around with the body. Paradoxically, the fact that we all are here shouting in social media, telling our stories and drawing our traumas, attenuates some of the inequalities that made modernist and postmodernist so anxious. Character Design is a conversational tool, a shared language that a huge mass of “content creators” use to talk about The Other, and by extension, The Self.

To put it clearly, drawing characters reveals a deep longing for The Other - an enormously human need for proximity and validation (just ask Henry Darger). But because, in the “old, real world” The Other is prickly and hurts (and we hurt them), we must negotiate. Like transitional objects, these characters facilitate the exploration of new shared realities, new embodiments.

Here is the secret you should know: every character I draw is me. Is not a portrait of me, is not a realistic or idealized version of me. It is me extending my being into matter, exploring other bodies, and making those explorations have real stakes thanks to erotic, violent or tender psychodynamics. In every choice I make about the design of my characters I detect, after the fact, the longings, traumas and hopes to form my personality. For example: all this skinny catgirls I’ve been drawing since Im 12 (way before I knew what the internet and furry or anime was) are intimatel related to life-long struggle with body dysmorphia. As I draw a crispy ribcage, I can feel the sharp angles as if they were mine, to mention one example.

The figure component of the class comes into play in a very specific way: the ritual of drawing a nude model in person is a perfect illustration of the shared responsibility for reality formation among people. Nude models, who must stay still and never turn their heads around to scan the room, depend on all artists in attendance to hold the world together, to perceive and refigure what the model can’t see. It is a powerfully intimate dynamic in which the model imposes a moral contract. The model says “ you see me naked and I hold you responsible for my well being, as I remain in this vulnerable position, all in service of this ritual that transcends us both.” To bring storytelling and character design into the mix (that is, to bring the vulnerability revealed by design choices, as in the case of my anorexic catgirls), is to up the ante. I’ve seen it in the room: both artist and model disrobe, the model by putting themslves, nude, in the hands of us artists in attendance. The artists by revealing their current negotiation with The Other through their characters.

And now I gotta teach this remotely. The model is not available, and so the stakes feel lower, less challenging. As I was drawing these characters using cheesy nude photos I found on some website, I realized that I missed the sacred contract, the confessional dimension of drawing like this in the figure drawing room. I guess I’m writing all of this precisely because I feel the need to confess.

[dearheart42regenerated]

hoo boy, okay, this is a baaaaad idea and it’s LONG but I’m doing it anyway because I’m genuinely struggling with this, I don’t have an IRL community to turn to, and I want to hear what other lesbians/wlw think about this beyond my own tiny circle. (for the record I’m not a discourse blog, so pleeeease be gentle and don’t drag me into any super messy debates? the most I want to do is get opinions from different people and learn enough to come to my own private conclusions and move on)

I’m a bby lesbian (and a long-time ace) and the “bi-lesbian” thing upsets me too. but I’ve seen an argument brought up that made me stop and think, and I’m kinda stumped about it. the argument is that we're ALREADY using lesbian as an umbrella term, but only get upset about it when bi women do the same. 

for example...when we see a wlw couple walking down the street or getting married, or two women kissing in a TV show or pictures shown on twitter (much like the cute “sword lesbians” story that’s been circulating), MOST of the time, everyone (including us!) tends to automatically call them “lesbians” or a "lesbian couple” or a “lesbian wedding”, etc...without thinking about what their actual orientations are.

I saw another person bring up an experience where her lesbian gf would joke about them "doing lesbianism babey!" but when she tried to do the same as a bi woman, her gf would get mad at her and say she couldn't do that. the main point of all of this is that there's hypocrisy in play - when lesbians put the "lesbian" label on other women, whether irl or fiction, most people don’t kick up a fuss. but when bi women use the label themselves, suddenly it's bad and lesbophobic/biphobic.

this troubles me because I DO see it happen all the time, both online and in the few irl experiences I’ve had. and I think it's a valid point to make (especially because "sapphic" is barely used irl at all). it feels unfair to use "lesbian" with the same-ish looseness we use "gay", and then draw the line at bi women using it too. (there’s also a very real problem of bi ppl with same-gender partners turning to “Gay And Lesbian” spaces cos they have nowhere else to turn, and getting kicked out for not being a “real gay”. there are tangible real-life layers to this discourse that I don’t want to brush off.)

but at the same time, "lesbian" is the only modern word we have (particularly our only mainstream word) to describe our full, unique experience as women who are exclusively attracted to other women/women-aligned people. bi women already have “bisexual” as their recognizable mainstream term, and they also have “queer”, “wlw”, “sapphic”, etc as further options to fine-tune their identity...so it feels just as unfair to use "lesbian” too, and that’s the main reason why the term “bi-lesbian” personally upsets me right now. 

it’s also upsetting because “bi-lesbian” implies that some lesbians could still be open to men, and we already face so much lesbophobic pressure to create space for men in our identity/attraction because “you never know, you might feel attracted to a man someday! sexuality is always fluid y’know! maybe you’re not really a lesbian!” we get that pressure both from the outside world AND often from the rest of the LGBTQ+ community too. it’s really harmful and painful to deal with, especially for those of us who’ve had to deal with comphet and still do (aka meeeee)

putting the rest under a readmore cos this is getting long lol

I wish "bi lesbians” and their supporters would take that stuff into consideration...and I wish I saw more people caring in general about the lesbians who are hurting from this. 

we’re tired of having the worst assumed of us, of being treated as the “bad guys” by other communities every time we speak up about things that hurt us. statistically, we’re one of the smallest groups in the alphabet soup. we barely even have our own flag, and the creator of our most popular one right now is still facing hate, harassment and being unjustly accused of being a TERF/exclusionist/bigot. 

it feels like morale and pride are so low among us right now. we just want people to care about us, to be mindful of how we feel and what we go through as lesbians, to give us the same support and benefit-of-a-doubt that you so easily give to our other LGBTQ+ siblings. 

aaand now I’m just emotionally venting lol but TL;DR - I want to be fair to both sides of this topic, cos that’s the type of person I am. I want to stick up for my own community, but I also want to be inclusive to questioning/struggling people and a good ally to my bi sisters. so help me figure all this out. how do y’all feel about what I’ve brought up here?

lesbians and bi women: how do you feel about the point that we’re already using “lesbian” as a roughly gay-equivalent umbrella term for the women we see in relationships with other women? why shouldn’t bi women use it that way too? if they shouldn’t, why aren’t we pushing harder for alternatives like “sapphic” to use in those cases and telling each other to stop when one of us uses “lesbian” or “lesbianism” incorrectly for unspecified wlw couples?

pro-bi-lesbian people: asking in genuine confusion here, how is using the term “bi lesbian” any better than using “bihet” or “bi straight”? how is it not feeding into the misconception that bisexuals are just “half-gay half-straight”? and why is it worth holding onto that label when a) “bisexual” is a mainstream term that, by definition, already has room to encompass your experience, b) other more specific words that mean the same/similar thing already exist for you (i.e. “sapphic”), and c) your term of choice hurts lesbians by undermining our definition of ourselves and adding to the cultural pressure we face to make room for hypothetical future men in our sexuality?

also I want to make it very clear that I’m NOT blaming “bi lesbians” for men feeling entitled to seduce/harass us, or insinuating that you contribute to rape culture or anything like that. predatory men will be predatory no matter what words we use, I fully acknowledge that. rather my concern is that anyone can put pressure on us (and all too often do) to make room for men in our orientation, including within the LGBTQ+ community, and “bi lesbian” as a term contributes to that type of lesbophobia.

please be nice, or at least civil, and talk to me. I want to listen and see if your opinions will help me find some clarity in my own. you’re free to message me or reblog this with your takes on these issues, but if you reblog, please focus on talking with me and don’t fight each other. I will delete this if things get ugly or out of hand.