#and the other half proving my gender identity and sexuality

[roseschuu]

the urge to use a name from your own culture but 1. no one will be able to pronounce it and 2. there's going to be at least one or two fuckers who think I'm pretending and 3. it's also a nickname for my deadname.

[alchamy34]

Gwen needs to be canonically independent and not be tied down.

I have to say how grateful I am that other individuals see all the evil, homophobic intentions spider-verse is giving. This is so cruel to Gwen.

Not only is Marvel animation refusing to confirm Gwen's sexuality or at least giving her a purpose of independence, but they are cowardly by forcing her to revolve around a guy named Spider-Man.

I have already made a couple rants/complaints about this but I was reminded of how pissed I get by this as a feminist.

I'll say it again: Spider-Gwen exists for an important reason--she's supposed to stand out! To be different from all the other Gwens.

Those versions died because their whole purpose was to be the gentle damsel in distress hot nerdy straight girl. It's just upsetting how most (and I mean 98%) of Peter Parkers try to force their idealization of straight girly Gwen onto her. Rather than accepting how different and unique she is from the other versions.

So her being Miles's love interest is proving how her true existence is wasted on the big screen. From 2014 onward in the comics, she was always supposed to be queer. She represents what its like to be closeted because no one truly accepts her whole identity. Hence that line in ATSV where she said out loud how she can only show people half of who she really is. It represents the negative results when coming out to everyone. She was hated for that.

I am against Gwiles ship because it encourages the heteronormative patriarchal mindset. Enforcing the misogynistic gender roles and saying all the things about queerness being a sin to be true. It breaks my heart when someone is forced into being straight in hetero hell.

Remember the comics of when Gwen discovered a reality where she was married to Miles and had kids? Not only was that Gwen's biggest fear but also represented queer women's biggest nightmare. Being in a marriage where she can never reciprocate her husband's love, losing her individuality and identity, being viewed as a possession or trophy wife? I wouldn't choose that life ever!

She deserves to express her freedom to be herself. To be accepted, to love anyone she wants to love. The fact that Peter and Miles attempted to take that away proves the fact of how they were trying to be forceful on her to be the illusion of the Gwen that they wanted to shelter and treat her as property.

That's why ships were there is pairings with Quake, fem!oc, Felicia Hardy, and White Fox are much better ships. They are perfect opportunities for Gwen to explore her Bisexuality with someone who she can love out of mutual interest. Female characters who would accept all of her for who she is as a person. She should choose her own happiness and enjoy the freedom she yearns for herself.

Footloose and leash free.

[queeratlast]

Episode 1 - La Maupin

Take a closer look at the illustration we discuss during Episode 1, which focuses on Julie d'Aubigny, or La Maupin as she was known - an incredible figure whose life blurs the boundaries of fact and fiction. See end of post for references.

The image (shown above) is an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley made for Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin A Romance of Love and Passion. It has several queer connections in its own right.

The book

Mademoiselle de Maupin A Romance of Love and Passion was published by Theophile Gautier in 1899. The story was inspired by the life of La Maupin, but rather than attempting to be a facts-based portrayal of her life, it takes her identity as a cross-dressing swordswoman and runs with it. The story centers around a young couple, Chevalier d’Albert and his mistress Rosette, who have both fallen in love with the dashing "Théodore de Sérannes". Unbeknownst to either of them, Théodore is in fact a woman in disguise.

While d'Albert has a sexual identity crisis (a classic trope: the Li Shang of the 19th century, if you will), Rosette attempts to seduce "Théodore" in a very erotically charged scene. Finally, the truth is revealed and "Théodore" reveals herself to both her lovers, spending half the night with d'Albert and the other with Rosette. The reader is left to draw their own conclusions about what could have transpired between the two woman, something that could not be explicitely written at the time.

In the morning their mysterious lover has gone, leaving only a note:

Comfort poor Rosette as well as you can, for she must be at least as sorry for my departure as you are. Love each other well in memory of me, whom both of you have loved, and breathe my name sometimes in a kiss.

Theophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin: A Romance of Love and Passion

In 1922, the novel was condemmed for its portrayal of adultery and homosexuality by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

The artist

Aubrey Beardsley published six illustrations for this work in 1898 - he had originally intended to illustrate the entire novel, but the project proved too intensive and costly and was abandoned. You may well recognise the style of the illustration - Beardsley was a very well known artist from the 19th century whose distinctive art nouveau style was inspired by Japanese woodcuts. He was deliberatively provocative: as Tate Britain put it, "his works explore the erotic and the elegant, the humorous and grotesque."

His works explored sexual freedom and gender fluidity, and he loved to include provocative elements in his drawings. Some of his drawings were particularly explicit and "obscene" - so much so that they couldn't be published, but were instead distributed to private collectors through discrete channels. Beardsley was part of the asthetic movement, a group of artists who strove to create art freed from Victorian notions of morality and rigid establishment ideas, to create a "cult of beauty."

As part of this movement he came into contact with Oscar Wilde, and Wilde comissioned the young artist to illustrate his play Salomé. Beardsley's drawings were incredibly erotic and upturned conventions for portraying women in the era. This was a daring take for a play already in hot water for its depictions of biblical characters. When Wilde was arrested on charges of gross indecency, Beardsley was dammed for his percieved association with the playright. A mob attacked the office of the magazine Beardsley worked for and he was forced to resign from his position as editor.

"I have one aim – the grotesque. If I am not grotesque, I am nothing"

Aubrey Beardsley, 1897

References and further reading (and listening!) for this episode:

Illustration:

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/aubrey-beardsley/exhibition-guide

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/an-introduction-to-the-aesthetic-movement

https://archive.org/details/mademoiselledema00gaute/page/n1/mode/2up

La Maupin's life:

Dictionnaire Des Théâtres De Paris, Volume 3, 1757

Women In Men’s Guise, Oscar Gilbert, 1926

Gallant Ladies, Cameron Rogers, 1928

By the Sword, Richard Cohen, 2002.

https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/julie-daubigny-la-maupin-and-early-french-opera

https://www.historicmysteries.com/history/julie-daubigny/26646/

https://kellygardiner.com/fiction/books/goddess/the-real-life-of-julie-daubigny/

https://podbay.fm/p/bad-gays/e/1679976000

https://clairemead.com/2022/06/17/la-maupin/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cncgq8

[oh-my-im-ply]

This is another post which isn't completely ply focused, but I want to take a second to point out the overlap between people who are transmisic and people who exclude/invalidate mspec lesbians.

Last week, I made a post where I mentioned being a polysexual lesbian, and I made a few mspec lesbian pride flags. Yesterday, someone asked if I was polysexual or a lesbian.

On this blog, we have rules for interaction, as well as rules for mods to follow. At the very top, we have a rule against exclusion and invalidation towards good faith identities, and a rule against bigotry and dogwhistles. However, we will answer questions when they may have been asked in good faith.

So, I answered with this:

Both. I'm attracted to many genders, but not binary men, so I find that polysexual and lesbian both describe my orientation well. Other people may identify as a polysexual lesbian for other reasons.

After I answered, the mask came off, and they started being transmisogynistic and nonbinary-exclusionary, and weaponized the existence of bimisia against me. I deleted their comments and blocked them last night, so I can't copy what they said word for word, but I will repeat their key notes under the cut.

CW: bi erasure, exorsexism/nonbinary-erasure, transmisogyny, mentions of genitalia

"This is what people mean when they talk about bi erasure. You're erasing bi people."

This is a complete misunderstanding of what bi erasure even means. Bi erasure is when you ignore (the existence of) bi people, or outright deny their existence. These are some examples of bi erasure:

Erasing or ignoring bi history.

Saying that bi people need to just "pick a side."

Saying that bi people are secretly straight/secretly gay.

Saying that bi is just "a transitional orientation" or "a phase."

Redefining the broad definition of bisexuality without the consent of the bi community, especially with the intent of telling people that they "aren't really bisexual" or replacing the bi label.

Saying that "everyone is a little bit bisexual," especially with the intent of erasing bisexuality as a distinct category. This can also be a form of erasure against people who aren't bisexual.

Note that "identifying as something other than bi" is not a form of bi erasure, even if you might "technically" fit the definition... Because that is a matter of personal identity.

But do you know what is a form of bi erasure? Erasing bi history. Mspec lesbians (particularly bi lesbians), have existed for decades. It is not a new identity, and bi women and enbies have a right to identify their attractions to women as lesbian attraction if they wish to. The exclusion of bi people from the lesbian label began as a form of bi erasure. It happened because of separatism and political lesbianism, and an idea that attraction to men "tainted" people, or was a "betrayal" to feminism. It happened because of bimisia.

The word "lesbian" has served as an umbrella term synonymous to "sapphic" for over half a century. You want sources? Here you go.

Miller, Trish. Lavender Woman, Vol. 2, No. 5. Lavender Woman Magazine, 1973. "What is a lesbian? To me, a lesbian is a woman-oriented woman; bisexuals can be lesbians. A lesbian does not have to be exclusively woman-oriented, she does not have to prove herself in bed, she does not have to hate men, she does not have to be sexually active at all times, she does not have to be a radical feminist." Ferguson, Ann. Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1981. "Lesbian is a woman who has sexual and erotic-emotional ties primarily with women or who sees herself as centrally involved with a community of self-identified lesbians whose sexual and erotic-emotional ties are primarily with women; and who is herself a self-identified lesbian."....."[My definition] defines both bisexual and celibate women as lesbians as long as they identify themselves as such and have their primary emotional identification with a community of self-defined lesbians." Kafele, Dajenya Shoshanna (1991). Bisexual Lesbian. Archived from the original on July 25, 2022. Queen, Carol A.. Strangers at Home: Bisexuals in the queer movement,. 1992. "A great many bisexual women, particularly those who are feminist and lesbian-identified, have felt both personally and politically rejected and judged by the separatist sisters." Kafele, Dajenya Shoshanna. "Which Part of Me Deserves to Be Free?". Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions. New York : Haworth Press, 1995. ISBN 9781560249504. "Personally, I am unable to separate out the various ways that I am oppressed (as a woman, as an African American, as a bisexual lesbian, as an impoverished single mother) and say that one oppression is worse than the other, or that I desire one form of liberation more than another." Wyeth, Amy. "Don't Assume Anything". Bi Women: The Newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women's Network. Vol. 5, No. 2, 1995. "Unfortunately, many of my experiences as a lesbian-identified bisexual woman have said to me that having an appearance or demeanor that diverges from the expected means I will not be accepted as truly belonging in the lesbian community. Despite my attendance at gay pride parades, dollars spent at gay resorts and in support of gay causes, and numerous attempts to participate in gay and/or lesbian groups and volunteer events, I have often felt unaccepted by this community." Holleb, Morgan Lev Edward. The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019. ISBN 9781784506636. "LESBIAN — A woman who is sexually or romantically attracted to women. Lesbian can mean women who are attracted exclusively to other women, but it is also a broader term for women and femmes who are attracted to other women and femmes. This includes bisexual and pansexual women, asexual women who are romantically attracted to women, and non-binary people who identify with womanhood." Lesbian. The Trans Language Primer. Archived from the original on October 22, 2021.

Does this mean bi people have to identify as lesbians, or "aren't actually" bi, or can't just identify as bi? Obviously not, and I never said that was the case. That would be bi erasure, because that's policing bi people's identities and forcing them under labels that they may not want to be included under. But in the circumstance that a bi person also identifies as a lesbian, they have every right to do so. Bi-inclusive definitions of lesbianism have existed for at least 51 years, and still exist today.

"Attraction to men, binary or not, means you're not a lesbian."

See above for why the lesbian identity is not always dependent on a lack of attraction to men, binary or not. But lets focus on the nonbinary part specifically:

Nonbinary people can people included in lesbianism and lesbian attraction if they want to be. Yes, that includes all nonbinary genders. Even if attraction to men inherently disqualified a person from lesbianism, nonbinary genders cannot be confined to binary gender rules (even when they're aligned with binary genders) because they're nonbinary. Treating nonbinary genders like they're "functionally the same as binary genders" is a form of nonbinary erasure, regardless of gender alignment.

Whether nonbinary people are included in lesbianism or not is entirely up to each individual nonbinary person regarding their own identity. It is not dependent on the gender label used; it is dependent on how each nonbinary person feels about it on an individual level.

The implication that manhood inherently dominates and erases the rest of a person's identity is also troubling. If you accept that nonbinary people can be included in lesbianism, you must also accept that nonbinary men can be included in lesbianism. A nonbinary man is still nonbinary; their manhood doesn't erase that.

As a pangender lesbian, I've had to deal with the experience of people not only erasing my enbyhood, but my womanhood as well, because they think my manhood is the only relevant aspect of my identity. This is misogynistic and exorsexist, plain and simple, and people use this misogyny/exorsexism to tell me that I'm not a lesbian.

With all of that said, nonbinary people (of any gender alignment) are not always comfortable being included in lesbianism. This is why I describe myself as both polysexual and a lesbian; the polysexual part of my orientation acknowledges that my attraction to enbies can't always be described with my more binary-aligned labels.

And funnily enough, while some people tell me that I can't be a lesbian and can only be polysexual, other people tell me the opposite. So clearly, there isn't a consensus on which label is "correct" for me.

"If it has a dick, you can't be a lesbian."

This is just blatant mask off transmisogyny, and it's the main reason I blocked them. Do I even need to explain what's wrong with this? Even under a strictly monosexual definition of lesbianism, this statement is just false. Being attracted to people with penises does not equal being attracted to men. If a lesbian is exclusively attracted to women, including women with penises, that lesbian is attracted to only one gender and is not bisexual or mspec.

Any gender can have a dick. Lesbians can have dicks. Women can have dicks. The presence of a penis or lack thereof is not a defining trait of lesbianism, nor monosexuality. And for fuck's sake, maybe don't call your hypothetical trans woman "it"??

"Mspec lesbian" does not mean "lesbian who is attracted to vaginas and penises," and if you think that's what it means, you need to educate yourself. Yes, this includes any people who might identify as an mspec lesbian because of that transmisogynistic definition.

This blog is an inclusive space. If you come in here to spew bigoted or exclusionary nonsense, expect to be blocked. Think before you speak, and please read our rules.

[hornyisopodhours]

I hate the feeling that even on this side blog that has 10 followers whose only purpose is to be a place for me to post things I find sexy,, I feel like I constantly need to justify myself and prove my identities

In real life, to people I don’t know super well, I identify as a lesbian.

It’s the simplest label and the closest approximation to my feelings and experiences. I’ve only ever had romantic relationships and sex with women. With only one exception that I’ll talk about further down, I can only see myself being in a long term relationship and enjoying sex with women.

To people I know well, I usually just use the label gay or queer cause I can explain what that means more. I think there is a possibility I could end up with a man even though it’s very slim and that makes me feel like I shouldn’t use the label lesbian.

My closest friend right now is a man. I’ve talked about him before on this blog but I feel like one way our relationship could be described is heteroerotic. We don’t kiss and we don’t fuck but we’ve spent the night in the same bed in our underwear, we give each other back rubs, we cuddle basically ever day, he gave me a necklace with his birthstone. He is honestly my other half and I’m pretty sure I’m his. I’ve been to his family’s thanksgiving for Pete’s sake. I could see myself spending the rest of my life with him and I could see myself having sex with him.

I like sex don’t get me wrong but I also feel like I can have orgasms by myself so sex with another person needs to have emotions and intimacy to be truly satisfying for me. With this man, I express my love for him with physical intimacy and sex is another means of expressing it. He’s attractive but I’m not sure I’m sexually attracted to him the same way I am to women. I look at him and can appreciate his attractiveness but it doesn’t really do it for me. But I look at him and want to be physically intimate because he is one of the most important people in my whole world.

Im not sure I’d ever pursue him though. 1. because he is gay (I think he might be gay the same way I’m gay though but I don’t know for sure) and 2. because I would have to give up the identity of lesbian even though that would still probably be the best way to describe my sexuality.

Another reason I feel like I have to justify myself is that even though I don’t think I’d enjoy sex with men in real life (besides the one exception I already talked about), I still have fantasies that involve men.

I find power imbalances really hot. This is not to say that I want actually power imbalances between the genders. I think I’ve just been conditioned by society to see women as weaker and men as stronger and I think I maybe watched too many tv shows that reinforced this when I was a little kid because I remember being younger than 10 and getting a weird warm feeling in my belly when I thought about being overpowered (by men)

It’s never something I’d would ever want in real life but I can’t help that it turns me on

All of this to say that I feel self conscious on this blog when I reblog things involving men because I feel like I’m betraying my lesbian identity and I feel self conscious when I reblog peoples’ post that say like dni if you’re straight because I feel like I’m not gay enough.

I know bisexuality exists but it REALLY does not feel like the right label for me

[thehollowrp]

“i am not a firefly to be caught in a jar; i am a blaze you cannot touch”

× name: utp Quinterelle × age: utp × gender identity: male presenting × sexuality: utp × face claim: utp must match age/ethnicity with Castor (Luke Pasquallino, Simone Nobili, Kumail Nanjiani, Justice Smith, Trevante Rhodes, DaJé Barbour) × faction: the pact × element: fire × district: midland haven × traits: excitable, fiery, utp, utp, utp, utp

BLURB

where you find yourself is in the flickering, the moments between the other moments when colors change from white to blue to orange and red and everything can go in a moment's breath. you are one half to a very defined coin and on your side is shadow figures wreathed in flames bucking against tradition and trying to grow beyond their containment. you have never been one to let status curb your nature and you are steadfast in what you do but always always pushing the buttons of those around you.

BIO

utp

CONNECTIONS

castor ↪ my other half blood doesn’t make family but it helps seal bonds. you always feel as if you and castor would have found one another even if you hadn’t been born twins and there are moments when you try to picture life without them in it and see only darkness. they are your equal and opposite, both enigmas in your own right and capable of so much together.

anaxarete ↪ your words like knives you and anaxarete first met in the training grounds in the midland haven. they were far more adept than you at fighting and you found yourself put on your ass more than once. it didn’t matter how much training you got from your superiors you always found it hard to put them into practice and anaxarete let you know just how bad you were at things. you’re determined to prove them wrong and leap at any chance to fight them.

ourea ↪ pebbles and posies you don’t know what you’re doing when you’re around ourea. your heart races and your mind refuses to process exactly what you are seeing. they have been beauty in your eyes since the moment you set your sights on them and they are far too grounded and lovely to ever look at you... right?

eris ↪ who decides who gives in they’re dangerous, that much you know, but you still haven’t quite figured out why. they seem fascinated with you in a way that makes your toes curl, in a bad way, and you find yourself trying as hard as you can to avoid them. they keep popping up, though, like a weed that refuses to be pulled and you worry that one day you might actually have to confront them... and though you’re loath to admit it, they scare you.

pinterest — playlist

[aveline-amelia]

Hey. I actually wasn't sure if you were going to reply. Thank you for the well wishes! I am much better now and I will always hold a lot of love for all of the Vexos (except King Zenoheld. If he even counts, lol). In my head they all got to live.

I will share some personal details here, just a warning I am an oversharer.

I agree Mylene wanted to live but she requested not to be saved. I believe her words were "I choose death before dishonor." Now if anyone took her on her word and believed her is another issue? That is a moral issue I am not touching, just pointing it out for context. i agree the writing was bad and the Brawlers seemed to only care about saving the good guys? Also in the Japanese dub, Mira is worried about Mylene, while Spectra is worried about Shadow while in the English dub, Keith mostly talks about Mylene while Mira worries about both of them, I believe.

Which I know is great for lovers of the Keith/Spectra and Mylene dynamic, but then it seems like the Brawlers didn't care that Shadow also possibly died? Like even if you hate someone, that is still a little cold.

I agree Shadow isn't stupid, just immature, possibly very mentally ill and also a literal teenager. Maybe I used the wrong word? I didn't mean he wanted to die, more that he didn't care whether or not he lived. I still think he was being selfish, but maybe he was thinking he was respecting her wish not to be saved? Not that Shadow Prove cares about respecting anyone, I mean he mocked the king like a feet away from his face and Mylene had to warn him.

If I can share, I was very suicidal during this time of my life. (Depressed 12-14, suicidal 14-16).

In my country and languages this series was only dubbed to episode 25. So one day, I literally dreamt about Mylene. Just randomly, that she was in my living room while I hid behind a couch, it was weird. She is called differently in our language, it's 'Milena' said mee-lehn-ah (I suck at these pronounce things, sorry), so I looked her up online as I just wondered what happened in the show. I had no idea there was a whole another half of the series I never watched. And I will just quote what at the time was the last line of her wiki.

"They were last seen in the ends of the dimension, still holding on to each other's hand."

And I just thought that was tragic but in a very beautiful way?

I really liked Mylene when I watched the show and while I always thought Shadow was kind of annoying and also scary, he reminded me of my dad, who is also annoying in a very similar way. (sorry, dad). The main reason why I liked them so much was in part that their dynamic reminds me of my parents' marriage, which is for context, pretty bad. I know I am trauma dumping here and it isn't appropriate, but I just thought to share.

I related to Mylene because I also wanted to be powerful and I thought she was cool, her hair color is my favorite color and Aquos was one of my fav attributes.

And Shadow always seemed to be really... isolated? Like he is very loud, but he is always standing up to the side away from people or sitting on the floor facing away and I think he does put on an act. I will probably rewatch the series soon.

But back then I felt very embarrassed about relating to male characters because I had a lot of issues relating to my gender identity and sexuality. I am a bi ace girl/woman, I am 21 now. It also came out in school that I watched the show and I got horribly bullied because of it. Seven years from then, I still have a lot of trauma surrounding it. The reason I had issues with saying his name is because people would yell his name at me to provoke me.

I know this was a lot and I hope I am not being too much. This just fell really good to share.

1)Imagine being the face of series just to be pushed aside and never remembered again.

2)Imagine being a smart and strong female character with high potential (and in a shounen anime,while we're at it ) just to be get killed off for a very dumb excuse that shouldn't even be an excuse...

...And you're only remembered just to be shipped with the "reason" made you die who was misogynistic towards you and had no chemistry with you to begin with...

Ps:Ntm on shadow and mylene×shadow shippers, i don't hate shadow and i know his fans ship them but i feel like mylene could do better than that. I'm also neutral about all the ships (except for my favs of course) but this is the a ship i can't get on, especially when i watch Mylene's death scene...

[jaspersforever]

there's a man-ish thing below this veneer of fat and tears and mood swings, and i liken the situation to an angel trapped in marble to make it sound less disgusting. i promise it's in there... i just have to start chipping away...

[messengerhermes]

So I wrote this as an agreement reblog on a post going around about the ways events branding themselves as "women and nonbinary folks" only is a great way gender essentialists show their ass and shove half of nonbinaries into the "woman-lite" lane and the other half into "you better jump this hurdle in 6-inch heels if you want to be treated with basic human decency. and not called a faker." It got really long. So now it's its own post because I'm not a monster about to word vomit on some innocent human's post. So here we go: Y'all, I have known and loved many nonbinary folks who were read by the world as cis men and struggled to be open about being nonbinary even in queer spaces due to social expectations about gender performance.

It sucks ass and when spaces do the "women and nonbinary folks" thing, it shows that you don't think of nonbinary folks as separating from the gender binary--you think of us as the Light version of whatever our forcibly assigned birth sex's corresponding gender is.

And the thing that suck on top of all this is, it forces nonbinary folks to hold a really firm line centered on stripping away our assigned genders at birth, lest the world shove us right back into the binary gender buckets we were assigned to or prod us to leap into the other bucket to prove our transness/gender variance.

And frankly, I hate this as a nonbinary person, because it eliminates the nuances of nonbinary experience, which makes navigating the world that much more irritating and at times dangerous.

I was assigned female at birth and raised as a girl until I was 19 and figured my shit out. I could have the exact same definition of my gender as another nonbinary person. We could have all the exact same identity markers in everything else too: age, geolocation, class, race, body type, disabilities, sexual orientation, et al. Except. They were assigned male at birth and raised as a boy until they were 19 and figured their shit out.

And that will shape the confusion, trauma, and social journey they experience as a nonbinary person in a fundamentally different way than how my experiences being dumped in the girlbox shaped mine.

Gender conditioning is horrifyingly rigid and intense, and there are different rules depending on which gender box you were dropped in, and the rules in those gender boxes vary depending on whether your culture was colonized by white western imperialism or not, where you're living, and all the other aforementioned identity categories you have. This shit is messy and deep and wild and realizing that you are nonbinary, in whatever flavor of that word is your truth does not instantaneously erase decades of socialization and all the nasty baggage that can come with it.

But nonbinary people can't talk about that shit, because then it gets wielded against those of us deigned too close to being men, or simply just forever tainted because once, somewhere at some point in their life, they were hinged to the concept of manhood without their consent. This once again drives folks who are amab (or assumed amab at birth, gatekeepers are frankly terrible at actually guessing this accurately) to hyper perform whatever the latest social cues for Proper Nonbinariness are to protect themselves. Or it just drives folks completely away from community and deep into the closet because they feel like they will never be accepted.

Likewise, those of us assumed to have crawled out of the girlbox are treated as "The Other Good Gender uwu" which is a ghoulish mix gender essentialism and infantilization. Or we hyper perform the latest social cues for Proper Nonbinariness to avoid people huffing and rolling their eyes when we point out them screwing up our pronouns because clearly we are doing this for some kind of Social Attention or are just pretending because it's cool and trendy to be "they/them," "Ze/Hir," "What do you mean there are other nonbinary pronouns? Are you just making up words now?? What the fuck is 'ey/em, are you Popeye?"

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, bringing it back now y'all.

TLDR: Nonbinary folks benefit greatly from getting to publicly talk about the ways our birth-assigned genders shaped our initial worldviews, because even as a harmful environment hurts us we will still pick up values and beliefs from that environment because that's how the fucking soup works, and how realizing our gender opened up the opportunities to unlearn the gendered lenses we're trained to understand the world through. Frankly, I think we could do a fucking lot for society if we could share these experiences without gender essentialists latching onto whatever we say and warping it to suit their own purposes.

[itsclydebitches]

I keep seeing people calling Good Omens queer bating and a I can't help but ask why? I read the Aziraphale/Crowley relationship threw an Ace lens and they are clearly as close to married as they are probably going to get without stepping on holy ground.... and they love each other... why is it considered queer bating?

Personally, I think it's mostly young queer fans turning legitimate grievances on the wrong target. A case of getting so fed up with queerbaiting in media as a whole that they're instinctually lashing out at anything that seems to resembles it on the surface, without taking the time to consider whether this is, in fact, the thing they're mad at. Good Omens is a scapegoat, if you will. The equivalent of snapping at your partner after a long day. Your friend was an asshole, your boss was an asshole, the guy in traffic was an asshole, and then you come home to your partner who says something teasing and you take it as another asshole comment because you've just been surrounded by assholeness all day, to the point where your brain is primed to see an attack. Your partner wasn't actually an asshole, but by this point you're (understandably) too on guard to realize that. Unless someone sits you down and kindly reminds you of the difference between playful teasing and a legitimate insult - the nuance, if you will - your hackles are just gonna stay up and you'll leave the room, off to phone a different friend to tell them all about how your partner was definitely an asshole to you.

Only in this case, that "friend" is a fan on social media doing think pieces on the supposed queerbaiting of Good Omens, spreading that idea to a) people who aren't familiar with the show themselves and b) those who, like that original fan, have come to expect queerbaiting and thus aren't inclined to question the latest story with that mark leveled against it. Because on the surface Good Omens can look a lot like queerbaiting. Here are two queer coded characters who clearly love each other, but don't say "I love you," don't kiss, don't "prove" that love in a particular way. So Gaiman is just leading everyone on, right?

Well... no. This is where the nuance comes in, the thing that many fans aren't interested in grappling with (because, like it or not, media is not made up of black and white categories; queerbaited and not-queerbaited. Supernatural's finale is proof enough of that...) I won't delve into the most detailed explanation here, but suffice to say:

Gaiman has straight up said it's a love story. He's just not giving them concrete labels like "gay" or "bi" or "asexual," etc. because they are literally not human. Gaiman has subscribed to an inclusive viewpoint in an era where fans are desperate for unambiguous rep that homophobes cannot possibly deny. The freedom to prioritize any interpretation - yes, including a "just friends" interpretation - now, in 2021, feels like a cop-out. However, in this case it's an act of world building (they are an angel and a demon, not bound by human understanding of identity) meeting a genuine desire to make these characters relatable to the entire queer community, not just particular subsets. Gaiman has said they can be whatever we want because the gender, sexuality, and romantic attraction of an angel and a demon is totally up for debate! However, some fans have interpreted that as a dismissal of canonical queerness; the idea that fans can pretend they're whatever they want... but it's definitely not canon. It is though. Them being queer is 100% canon, it's just up to us to decide what kind of queer they are. This isn't Gaiman stringing audiences along, it's him opening the relationship up to all queer possibilities.

We know he's not stringing us along (queerbaiting) because up until just a few days ago season two didn't exist. Queerbaiting is a deliberate strategy to maintain an audience. A miniseries does not need to maintain its audience. You binge it in one go and you're done, no coming back next year required. The announcement for season two doesn't erase that context for season one. No one knew there would be more content and thus the idea that they would implement a strategy designed to keep viewers hooked due to the hope for a queer relationship (with no intent to follow through) is... silly.

In addition, this interpretive, queer relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale existed in the book thirty years ago. Many fans are not considering the difference between creating a totally new story in 2019 and faithfully adapting a story from 1990 in 2019. Good Omens as representation meant something very different back then and that absolutely impacts how we see its adaptation onto the small screen. To put this into perspective, Rowling made HUGE waves when she revealed that she "thought of" Dumbledore as gay in an interview... in 2007. Compare that to the intense coding 17 years before. Gaiman was - and still is - pushing boundaries.

Which includes being an established ally, particularly in his comics. Queerbaiting isn't just the act of a single work, but the way an author approaches their work. Gaiman does not (to my knowledge) have that mark against him and even if he did, he's done enough other work to offset that.

Finally, we've got other, practical issues like: how do you represent asexuality on the screen? How do you show an absence of something? Yeah, one or both of them could claim that label in the show, outright saying, "I'm asexual," but again, Gaimain isn't looking to box his mythological figures into a single identity. So if we want that rep... we have to grapple with the fact that this is one option for what it looks like.

Even if he did want to narrow the representation down to just a few identities for the show, should Gaiman really be making those major changes when he's only one half of the author team? Pratchett has, sadly, passed on and thus obviously has no say in whether his characters undergo such revisions. Even if fans hate every other argument, they should understand that, out of respect, Good Omens is going to largely remain the same story it was 30 years ago.

And those 6,000 years are just the beginning! Again, this was meant to be a miniseries of a single novel, a novel that, crucially, covered only Crowley and Aziraphale's triumph in being able to love one another freely. That's a part of their personal journey. Yeah, they've been together in one sense for 6,000 years, but that was always with hell and heaven on their backs, to say nothing of the slow-burn approach towards acknowledging that love, for Aziraphale in particular. We end the story at the start of their new relationship, one that is more free and open than it ever was before. They can be anything to one another now! The fact that we don't see that isn't a deliberate attempt on the author's part to deny us that representation, but only a result of the story ending.

So yeah, there's a lot to consider and, frankly, I don't think those fans are considering it. Which on a purely emotional level I can understand. I'm pissed about queerbaiting too and the knee-jerk desire to reject anything that doesn't meet a specific standard is understandable. But understandable doesn't mean we don't have to work against that instinct because doing otherwise is harmful in the long run. We need to consider when stories were published and what representation meant back then. We need to consider how we adapt those stories for a modern audience. We need to acknowledge that if we want the inclusivity that "queer" provides us, that includes getting characters whose identity is not strictly defined by the author as well as characters with overtly canonical labels. We need both. We likewise need to be careful about when having higher standards ends up hurting the wrong authors - who are our imperfect allies vs. those straight up unwilling to embrace our community at all? And most importantly, we have to think about how we're using the terms we've developed to discuss these issues. Queerbaiting means something specific and applying it to Good Omens not only does Good Omens a disservice, but it undermines the intended meaning of "queerbaiting," making it harder to use correctly in the future. Good Omens is not queerbaiting and trying to claim it is only hurts the community those fans are speaking up for.

[kcrabb88]

Queer Movies/Books/TV Shows for Pride Month!

Happy Pride everyone!! For your viewing/reading pleasure I have made a (non-exhaustive) list of queer media that I have enjoyed! 

Movies/Documentaries

Pride (2014): An old tried and true favorite, which meets at the intersection of queer and workers’ rights. A group of queer activists support the 1985 miners’ strike in Wales (complete with a sing-through of Bread and Roses + Power in a Union)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman (or, two young lesbians fall in love by the sea, and you cry)

God’s Own Country: Young farmer Johnny Saxby numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker for lambing season ignites an intense relationship that sets Johnny on a new path (Seriously this movie is GREAT and doesn’t get enough love, watch it! It’s rough but ends happily)

The Half of It:  When smart but cash-strapped teen Ellie Chu agrees to write a love letter for a jock, she doesn't expect to become his friend - or fall for his crush (as in she falls for his crush who is another girl. This movie was so good, and really friendship focused!) 

Saving Face:  A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations (this is an oldie and a goodie, with a happy ending!)

Moonlight:  A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood (featuring gay men of color!)

Carol:  An aspiring photographer develops an intimate relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York (everyone’s seen this I think, but I couldn’t not have it here)

Milk: The story of Harvey Milk and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California's first openly gay elected official (the speech at the end of this made me cry. Warning, of course, for death, if you don’t know about Harvey Milk)

Pride (Hulu Documentary):  A six-part documentary series chronicling the fight for LGBTQ civil rights in America (they go by decade from the 50s-2000s, and there is a lot of great trans inclusion in this)

Paris is Burning (Documentary): A 1990s documentary about the African American and Latinx ballroom scene. Available on Youtube!

A New York Christmas Wedding:  As her Christmas Eve wedding draws near, Jennifer is visited by an angel and shown what could have been if she hadn't denied her true feelings for her childhood best friend (this movie is SO CUTE. It’s really only nominally a Christmas movie and easily watched anytime. Features an interracial sapphic couple!) 

TV Shows 

Love, Victor: Victor is a new student at Creekwood High School on his own journey of self-discovery, facing challenges at home, adjusting to a new city, and struggling with his sexual orientation (this is a spin-off of Love, Simon, and it’s very sweet and well done! Featuring a young gay man of color)

Sex Education:  A teenage boy with a sex therapist mother teams up with a high school classmate to set up an underground sex therapy clinic at school (this has multiple queer characters, including a featured young Black gay man and also in season 2 there is a side ace character!) 

Black Sails: I mean, do I even need to put a summary here? If you follow me you know that Black Sails is full of queer pirates, just queers everywhere.

Gentleman Jack:  A dramatization of the life of LGBTQ+ trailblazer, voracious learner and cryptic diarist Anne Lister, who returns to Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1832, determined to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home Shibden Hall (Period drama lesbians!!! A title sequence  that will make you gay just by watching!) 

Tales of the City (2019):  A middle-aged Mary Ann returns to San Francisco and reunites with the eccentric friends she left behind. "Tales of the City" focuses primarily on the people who live in a boardinghouse turned apartment complex owned by Anna Madrigal at 28 Barbary Lane, all of whom quickly become part of what Maupin coined a "logical family". It's no longer a secret that Mrs. Madrigal is transgender. Instead, she is haunted by something from her past that has long been too painful to share (this is based on a book series and it’s got lots of great inter-generational queer relationships!) 

The Haunting of Bly Manor:  After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry hires a young American nanny to care for his orphaned niece and nephew who reside at Bly Manor with the chef Owen, groundskeeper Jamie and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (sweet, tender, wonderful lesbians. A bittersweet ending but this show is so so wonderful)

Sense8: A group of people around the world are suddenly linked mentally, and must find a way to survive being hunted by those who see them as a threat to the world's order (queers just EVERYWHERE in this show, of all kinds)

Books

Loveless by Alice Oseman:  Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day. This wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance sees Alice Oseman on towering form as Georgia and her friends discover that true love isn’t limited to romance (don’t be turned off by this title, it’s tongue-in-cheek. This is a book about an aroace college girl discovering herself and centers the importance and power of platonic relationships! I have it on my TBR and have heard great things)

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters: Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel (again, don’t be thrown off by the title, it too, is tongue-in-cheek. This book was GREAT, and written by a trans women with a queer-and especially trans--audience in mind)

A Tip for the Hangman by Allison Epstein: A gay Christopher Marlowe, at Cambridge and trying to become England’s best new playwright, finds himself wrapped up in royal espionage schemes while also falling in love (this book is by a Twitter friend of mine, and it is a wonderful historical thriller with a gay man at the center).

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer: a very very queer remix of The Picture of Dorian Gray (which was already quite queer), featuring amazing female characters, a gay Basil, and a much happier ending than the original. 

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: The gay prince of England and the bisexual, biracial first son of the president fall in love (think an AU of 2016 where a woman becomes president). Featuring a fantastic discovery of bisexuality, ruminations on grief, and just a truly astonishing book. One of my favorites!

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston:  For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train (This is Casey McQuiston’s brand new novel featuring time-travel, queer women, and I absolutely cannot WAIT to read it)

The Heiress by Molly Greely: Set in the Pride and Prejudice universe, this takes on Anne de Bourg (Lady Catherine’s daughter), and makes her queer! 

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters:  Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins (Sarah Waters is the queen of historical lesbians. All of her books are good, and they’re all gay! The Paying Guests is another great one)

(On a side note re: queer books, there are MANY, these are just ones I’ve read more recently. Also there are a lot of indie/self-published writers doing great work writing queer books, so definitely support your local indie authors!) 

[cyndavilachase]

I’m Looking Forward Now 💖Thank you and good bye

So, it’s been a little over a week since Steven Universe Future ended… 

I’ve been hesitant to write this, honestly, but I’m tired of holding myself back from properly expressing myself in fear of appearing overly invested in the media I consume, even in private. Writing helps me organize my thoughts and feelings, and I feel like these thoughts in particular may resonate with many, so I want to share them. I want to talk about what Steven Universe has done for me personally, both as an artist, and as a person.

I’ve been around since the day the first episode of the original series aired. I actually remember when Steven Universe was just a logo on Wikipedia’s “List of Upcoming Cartoon Network Shows” list, back when I was a freshman in high school. It piqued my interest, but when commercials finally dropped for it, I thought it was going to be bad because of the way marketing handled introducing Steven as a likeable character. There was still something about it that made me want to give it a chance though, so I went online and watched the pilot before the first episode's release. I was hooked immediately. I knew I was going to love it, and I did. I fell so absolutely in love with Steven as a character, and the world that he and the gems lived in. I became obsessed. I was always so excited for new episodes to come out. Little did I know what else it would do for me as I went through my adolescence alongside it.

As the show progressed, it was evident that what I wanted out of a western animated childrens’ cartoon was finally coming into fruition: this show was becoming serialized. There was continuity, there was plot, there was character development-- it was getting deep. It was pushing the groundwork that Adventure Time laid out even further (thank you, Adventure Time).  

I will give credit where credit is due: earlier western childrens’ cartoons I grew up with like Hey Arnold, and Rugrats, among others, also touched on heavy topics, but Steven Universe was able to take similar ideas (and even more complex ones, concerning mental health and relationships) and expand on them outside of contained episodes and/or short arcs. These themes, which were a part of the show’s overarching story, spanned across its entirety. Continuity was rampant. 

What did this mean? It meant kids cartoons didn’t have to be silly and fun all the time and characters weren’t just actors playing a part in 11-minute skits. Steven and the gems would remember things that happened to them, and it affected them and how they would function and play a part in their story. This was a huge deal to me as a teenager. I always wanted the cartoons I grew up with featuring kid characters to feel more. In my own work, I often felt discouraged when combining a fun, cutesy western art style with themes as dark or layered as anime would cover. I always thought it had to be one or the other because an audience wouldn’t take a combination of the two seriously enough, based on discussions I had with classmates, friends, and online analysis I read at the time. Steven Universe proved to me otherwise. This show was opening the door for future cartoons exploring in-depth, adult concepts. I felt so seen as a kid, and was inspired to stick with what I love doing.

I was actually very worried about the show’s survival. It was in fact immensely underrated and the fandom was miniscule. Then in 2014, JailBreak dropped, and it’s popularity exploded. Part of it was because of the complex plot and the themes it was covering like I mentioned, but also because of its representation. 

I remember when fandom theorized that Garnet was a fusion due to grand, tragic reasons. Turns out, she’s simply a metaphor for a very loving w|w relationship. This was huge. I cannot stress how important it is that we continue to normalize healthy canon queer relationships in childens’ media, and Steven Universe finally was the first to do that proper. Introducing these themes offers the chance for a kid to sit there and ask themselves, “Why is this demonized by so many people?” I asked myself exactly that. Ruby and Sapphire were my cartoon LGBT rep. They were the first LGBT couple I ever ecstatically drew fanart of. I was dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia at the time, and they showed me that I was allowed to love women and feel normal about it. The process of overcoming this was a long one, but they played a part in my very first steps into becoming comfortable with my sexuality. I could go on and on about it’s representation in general-- how it breaks the mold when it comes to showcasing a diverse set of characters in design, in casting, and in breaking gender roles. It’s focus on love and empathy. Steven himself is a big boy, but he's the protagonist, and the show never once makes fun of his weight, or any other bigger characters for that matter. It wasn’t hard to see why the fandom had grown so large.

Fandom was always a joy for me. It was a hobby I picked up when I was in middle school, like many of us here did. I would always cater my experience to fun, and fun only. I only started getting more deeply involved in SU’s fandom when I had just turned into an adult. During the summer of 2016, between my first and second year of college, I drew for the show almost every day non-stop when the Summer of Steven event was going on and posted them online. This was a form of practice for me in order to become not just more comfortable with experimenting with my art, but also to meet new artists, make new friends, and learn to interact with strangers without fear. I dealt with a ton of anxiety when I was in high school. When I was a senior applying to art school for animation, I decided I was going to overcome that anxiety. I made plans to take baby steps to improve myself over the course of my 4 years of college. Joining the fandom, while unforeseen, was definitely a part of that process. I started feeling more confident in sharing my ideas, even if they were fan-made. I fell in love with storyboarding after that summer, when I took my first storyboarding class, and genuinely felt like I was actually getting somewhere with all of this. I remember finally coming to a point in my classes where I could pitch and not feel hopelessly insecure about it. I was opening up more to my friends and peers. 

But this process, unfortunately, came to a screeching halt. 

My life completely, utterly crumbled under me in the Fall of 2017 due to a series of blows in my personal life that happened in the span of just a couple weeks. My mental health and sense of identity were completely destroyed. All of that confidence I had worked for-- completely ruined. I was alone. I nearly died. My stay at college was extended to 4 and half years, instead of the 4 I had intended. I lost my love for animation-- making it, and watching it. I could no longer watch Steven Universe with the same love I had for it beforehand. It’s a terrible thing, trying to give your attention to something you don’t love anymore, and wanting so desperately to love again. I dropped so many things I loved in my life, including the fandom.

Healing was a long and complicated road. I continued to watch the show all the way up until Change Your Mind aired in the beginning of 2019, and while I still felt empty, that was definitely a turning point for me with it’s encapsulation of self-love. I was hoping James Baxter would get to work on Steven Universe since he guest-animated on Adventure Time, and it was incredible seeing that wish actually come true. The movie came out and while I enjoyed it and thought highly of it, I was still having issues letting myself genuinely love things again, old and new. It was especially difficult because cartoons were my solace as a kid, when things got rough at home. I remember feeling sad because the show ended, and not getting the chance to love it again like I used to while it was still going.

By the time Steven Universe Future was announced, I was finally coming around. I was genuinely starting to feel excitement for art and animation again. I wasn’t expecting there to be a whole new epilogue series, but happily ever after, there we were! Prickly Pear aired, and the implications it left in terms of where the story was going did it. I was finally ready to let myself take the dive back into fandom in January of this year. My art blew up, something I wasn’t expecting considering my 2-year hiatus. Following this, I was invited into a discord server containing some of the biggest writers, artists, editors, and analysts in the fandom. I had no idea there were so many talented people in the fandom, some already with degrees, some getting their degrees-- creating stuff for it on the side just for fun. The amount of passion and productivity level here is insane, and so is the amount of discussion that has come out of it.

I didn’t realize it at first, but it was actually helping me gain back the courage to share ideas. I lost my confidence in pitching while I was taking the time to heal, and graduating meant there would no longer be a classroom setting I could practice in. This group helped immensely. 

I have made so many friends through this wonderful series, and I have so many fond memories talking to like-minded creatives, getting feedback and a myriad of sources for inspiration, as well as all of the memes and jokes and weekly theorizations that came about as we all waited on the edges of our seats for episodes to air. I needed this so badly, I needed to get back in touch with my roots, when I would go absolutely hog-wild over a cartoon I loved with people who loved it as much I did. Future has been a blessing for me in this way. I graduated feeling like I was back at square-one, but now I feel like I’m on my way again.

It’s 2020 and while I’m doing great right now, I am honestly still recovering from the total exhaustion that followed after graduating a few months ago, and finally leaving the campus where my life fell apart behind. Needless to say, watching Future was like looking into a mirror. Watching one of my favorite characters of all time-- one that grew up with me-- go through so many of the same things I went through not too long ago was absolutely insane to watch unfold. It’s such an important thing too, to show a character go through the process of breaking down over trauma and all the nasty things that come with it, and to have them go on the road to healing. Steven got that therapy. He wasn’t blamed. The gems were called out. The finale was everything I could have ever hoped for. The catharsis I experienced watching it was out of this world.

As I continue my own healing journey, I will always look up to the storyboard artists, revisionists, and designers that I have been following over these past 7 years, as well as the new ones introduced in Future. It's been such a joy watching these artists release their promo art for episodes, talk about their experiences working on the show, and post the work they've done for it alongside episodes airing.

Thank you Rebecca Sugar, the Crewniverse, and the fans, for making this such a truly wonderful and unique experience. Thank you for reminding me that I am, and always will be, an artist, a cartoonist, and a fan. Thank you, my followers, for the overwhelmingly positive response to my artwork. I have had so much fun interacting and discussing the show with you all again over these past few months. Steven Universe and it’s fandom will always have a special place in my heart, and it will always be a classic that I will return to for comfort and inspiration for decades to come. I am sad that the cartoon renaissance is over, but so many doors have been opened thanks to this show. I am so, so excited to see what this show will inspire in the future, and I hope one day I get the opportunity to be a part of that. 

Goodbye Steven, thank you for everything. I wish you healing, and I wish Rebecca and the team a well-deserved rest. ♥️

-Cynthia D.

[krsonmar]

I’m shrinking Laszlo again and this time it's about the topiaries...yes, we're going there, kids!

CW: genitalia, childbirth trauma, serial killers, gendered violence...yeah this is gonna get pretty dark, but I will say there's a specific exclusion of discussion of sexual abuse because I think it doesn't fit my theory. So yes we all find it very funny and raunchy that Laszlo has his vulva topiaries and one of them omg is his own mother's ladyparts, but here's something that's struck me: how the heck does a man know what his own mother's vulva looks like? The others all were ostensibly sexual partners, which makes sense for why he would have them memorized, but how does a man, 300 years later, remember his own mother's external genitals in such detail? No, I *don't* mean something like that, I'm not thinking anything like sexual abuse, because here's the other part of some half-formed theory I'm working on: Jack the Ripper. The Ripper's identity, IRL, has never been confirmed (supposedly Scotland Yard figured it out and agreed to not release the files for 100+ years or something, whatever) but the dominant theories from criminologists all center around the way in which the bodies were butchered. The victims were all prostitutes who had their reproductive organs cut out (and other organs too, but, IIRC, always the reproductive organs) and a lot of the theorizing centers around the idea that the murderer obviously had medical knowledge and seemed well-acquainted with the internal female reproductive system, and so might have been the Victorian equivalent of an OB/GYN or an abortion provider. So here's my idea: Laszlo died in, what, the mid-1700s? I'm wondering if he has some kind of trauma about seeing his mother during childbirth. Women died in childbirth all the time in those days, and yeah, I get that the trappings down there are...distorted...while giving birth, they won't look like they do at other times, but I'm not sure if that's overthinking things. Basically, what if somehow Laszlo needed to help his mother give birth to some younger sibling of his at some point--she went into labor unexpectedly or started miscarrying or something--and he was all that was around to try to help...and maybe it didn't go so well. It would explain why he's got his mother's nether regions memorized--trauma will do that--and would tie in with the Jack The Ripper thing. And this show talks a lot about trauma in various ways that are sugarcoated as comedy, so that would fit right in. I don't have enough puzzle pieces, post-Season 3, to make a whole picture, but I'm going to be watching Season 4 with an eye to proving, elaborating on, or disproving this theory.

[duuhrayliegh]

social media

warnings: none? maybe a smidgen of language? fluffy bucky, bad description of dancing? idk, there really isn’t anything in this one to be warned about it just super wholesome

word count: 2437 

a/n: okay so this came out longer than i meant it to, but i’m not mad at it. there’s mention of he/they pronouns and gender identity, if i didn’t do the subject justice please let me know. also tiktok mentions and all creators are tagged accordingly so please go appreciate their wonderfulness :) 

p.s.: my requests and tag lists are open!! 

if you want to know where these characters are coming from, check out the other parts! you don’t have to read them in any particular order!

ray’s m.list

******************************

Being from the 1940’s, Bucky didn’t have much education in the world of smartphones and social media. When he came out of cryo in Wakanda, Shuri wasted no time showing him the ways of the iPhone. Honestly, he was stunned because there were so many things you could do with it. So much information was available at the touch of his fingers.

Shuri taught him the ins and outs of the phone. He had gotten pretty good at it, if he did say so himself. She had just begun to teach Bucky about social media when Steve pulled him back to the Big Apple. When he returned to New York, he was able to easily contact Steve, who was not as proficient as Bucky was. So when he met the fantastical group of four friends, they began to teach him. This was one of those things that they were incredibly excited to teach Bucky about.

“So you don’t have an account on anything?” Freddie held his hand out for Bucky’s phone.

“No, I have one on something. I think Instant Graham? My friend set it up for me, but she never taught me how to use it.” Freddie smiled and shook his head, dark curls bouncing back and forth.

“It’s Instagram, bubs and that’s a good jumping off point.” He opened the black iPhone and swiped through the pages on the homescreen. Coming across the sunset colored icon, he hovered his finger over it. The screen changed, opening to a white screen with the words, WELCOME to INSTAGRAM, whitewolf. Bucky smiled at the name displayed and Freddie scrunched his brows.

“What is a White Wolf?”

“I’m the White Wolf. It’s Wakandan. We can change it if we need to.” Freddie looked over at Bucky and saw the happiness on his face at the name.

“No, it’s good we can leave it.” He clicked on the profile button in the bottom right corner of the screen. “Okay, so this is your personal profile.” In the top left corner whitewolf was written with a little arrow next to it facing downward. Freddie opened the edit profile section.

“Do you have a favorite picture of yourself? You have to set a profile picture so people know that it’s you.” Bucky nodded in understanding, and then took his phone back to scroll through his pictures. He didn’t have many, just the ones that he took recently. There was hardly any of just him, but he eventually found one he deemed good enough.

“Alright, now what do you want to put in your bio?” Shrugging his shoulders, Bucky leaned back into Cassie’s plush couch.

“What does yours say?” Freddie pulled his own phone out of his pocket. The pale lilac color seemed to shine through the clear case that it wore. Opening his own Instagram, Freddie leaned the phone towards Bucky.

|| he/they || activist || va te faire voir ||

“What does ‘he slash they’ mean?”

“Oh, those are my pronouns.” Freddie received a head tilt from Bucky, so he decided to elaborate. “So, I identify as a non-binary who is comfortable with you using he/him pronouns or they/them pronouns. If you’re talking about me to someone else, you can say ‘he is at the store,’ or ‘they are at the store.’” Bucky nodded, still a bit confused on the subject.

“When do you use each one? Like is there a certain time that you say he and him and another time for they and them?” Bucky was trying to get some clarification on the topic.

“Not necessarily. Usually, when you’re first talking to someone, it’s common practice nowadays to use they/them pronouns so as to not misgender anyone. I know it probably sounds a bit excessive and a small bit over sensitive to you, but to a queer or non-binary person it makes a whole hell of a lot of difference when someone tries to be inclusive.”

“Okay, so like if I just meet someone on the street, I should use the they/them pronouns until told otherwise?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to include your pronouns in your bio?” Bucky smiled and nodded, happy with himself that he was able to understand that so well.

“So, what does it mean to be non-binary and still use the he/him pronouns? Don’t those two contradict each other?”

“Not really. Gender is a spectrum, as is sexuality, but for someone to identify as non-binary and use he/they pronouns, means that I feel that not everything about manhood accurately describes my truth. On that same hand, I still do identify as a male.”

“Right, right.” Throughout Freddie’s lesson about gender identity, he was able to finish Bucky’s profile and begin to follow the three girls. After clicking the blue follow button on all three of the girls profiles, the group chat between them started blowing up, that was a new phrase Bucky learned last week.

Evie: um, i just got the weirdest insta notif

Penny: me too???

Cassie: I did too.

Cassie: Wait, who is Bucky with right now?

Evie: DANG IT FREDERICK I WANTED TO HELP HIM SET IT UP

Bucky: My name isn’t Frederick, Evie

Incoming Call from Evie

“What do you want, spaz?” Freddie answered on speakerphone. An indignant scoff  came from the other end.

“I thought we were all going to help him with that, Frederick.”

“Um, I don’t remember us talking about that.” He laughed as the door to Cassie’s apartment opened, allowing Penny to walk in and smile at the two men on the couch. “Also, when were we going to have time to do that with you being at school and all?”

“We were going to wait until the weekend!”

“Eves, you’ve been saying that for the past like three weeks.”

“Oh my gosh, fine.” Her end of the phone got real quiet, “I’ll be home in like ten minutes. I call dibs on helping him set up a TikTok.” Three beeps signalled to the room that Evie had hung up the phone. Bucky turned to Penny and began to ask about her day.

“Ya know, the usual. Rude customers, bratty co-workers, life’s a dream at the bank.” She slipped out of her nude heels and made her way to the sofa. “What have you boys been up to?”

“We have been setting Buck up with some social media and learning about gender identity and respecting pronouns.” Freddie said proudly as he handed Bucky his phone back.

“Sick! Which ones did you do?”

“All the classics, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook just for PR though because hardly anyone uses it anymore.”

“Right, and can’t do TikTok until Evie gets here. Um, did you set up a Spotify for him?” Bucky recognized the name and the memories of Shuri helping him floated in his head.

“Oh, I have one of those. That was actually the first thing that Shuri helped me set up whenever I got this thing.” He opened the app quickly to prove what he was saying. Penny smiled and gave a small thumbs up. “I do have one question.” The two of them gave Bucky their undivided attention. “What is a TikTok?”

“Right, so it’s just short videos. It’s really pretty cool and a really good way to waste time.” Freddie answered while pulling up his own page on the app.

“Yeah, and the thing that shows you videos is curated to your tastes because it’s based on your likes and people you follow.”

“I’m almost positive that Evie is going to teach you a dance and do a TikTok with you, if you agree to it.” Penny laughed at the thought of Bucky doing one of the dances that she saw on her For You page. The door to the apartment swung open a second time, revealing a winded Evie.

She dropped her school bag on the floor, hunching over while gripping the side of the granite countertop. Evie held a finger up and the group on the couch waited for her to speak.

“I ran--” deep inhale, “I ran from the subway.” Another deep breath as she lifted her upper half, stretching out her back with her hands on the back of her hips. “You haven’t done TikTok yet right?”

“No, your Highness, we haven’t done TikTok.” She smiled big and then plopped herself on Bucky’s left side. She thrust her hand toward him, wiggling her fingers. Bucky cautiously placed his phone in the center of her palm.

“This is going to be good. Okay so since your name on Instagram is whitewolf, we can’t use that for TikTok. It’s gotta be something snappy.”

“I don’t know, I think you can use the same one for both, Eve.” Penny remarked as Evie downloaded TikTok onto Bucky’s phone.

“Well, of course you can, but we’re not going to.” She giggled as the app opened. She looked over at Bucky with wrinkled brows. “Do you have any nicknames?”

“Um, Bucky is my nickname.” He said in a duh tone.

“Well, obviously, but do you have any other ones? Like, what do your friends call you?”

“Bucky or Buck, I don’t really have nicknames.” Evie groaned and threw her head back.

“Okay, well let’s think. You’re a Sergeant. Your real name is James Buchanan Barnes. Superhero name is Winter Soldier or White Wolf. You have a metal arm.”

“You’re literally just stating facts, Evie.” Freddie said from the other side of Bucky, who was nodding along in confirmation to Evie’s statements.

“I know! I’m processing. What about vibraniumjames?”

“That’s disgusting.” “Mm, yeah that’s a no from me.” Penny and Freddie talked at the same time.

“metallicsergeant? jamesbby? Any of those tickle our fancy?”

“The first one isn’t terrible, but it’s not great. Why don’t you just use whitewolf like his Instagram? Or you could do iambuckybarnes.”

“Yeah, I’m with Freddie. I like whitewolf or iambuckybarnes, it’s simple. And I am the White Wolf, so yeah.” Bucky said to a disgruntled Evie.

“Oh my gosh, fine. We can always change it later, but this is fine for now.” She set up his profile, making it match the other ones that Freddie had made. Once she was finished with her work, she turned to Bucky and smiled big again. “Now, I can teach you a dance and if you’re cool with it we can post it on your profile.” Bucky shook his head and pulled himself off of the comfy couch beneath him.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it right, so don’t hold back on me.” He smiled as Evie squealed in excitement.

“You know, my school friends were just dying to see the day that you got social media.” This statement confused Bucky.

“And why would that be?” Evie laughed as she scrolled through her TikTok feed, searching for the right dance to do with Bucky.

“Well, for one, they think you’re hot and they’re thirsty hoes.” She clicked on the original dance video, showing the screen to Bucky. “And, for two, they love you. Everyone does.” Bucky shook his head at that. He did too many bad things for everyone to love him.

“Hey, remember what we talked about?” Penny said from across the room. “We don’t downgrade our progress. Most of the general public is more forgiving than we give them credit for.” Bucky nodded then focused his attention on the video.

“This is Cardi B’s song Up. People on TikTok have made a challenge of doing this dance to the song. I think it originated with a girl named Mya Nicole. Anyway! We’re going to do this one, if you’re up for it.” Bucky looked at Evie with one brow quirked. There was so much shaking in this. Nonetheless, he shrugged his shoulders., it clearly was making Evie happy so he wasn’t going to take that away.

“Sickening! Okay, let’s start learning it.” It took a good hour and a half to help Bucky move his body in the way that the dance required. By the time they were ready to start filming the actual video, Cassie had walked in.

“What is happening here?” A large smile spread across her face as she watched Bucky and Evie practice one last time. A breathless Evie turned to Cassie.

“Bucky agreed to do the Cardi B Up dance with me.” She then turned to Bucky, “You ready to do this for real?” The tall man beside her shook his head while laughing.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” From the safety of the couch, Freddie, Penny and Cassie were watching the scene before them unfold. Both Bucky and Evie jumped into frame, with their legs spread wide. Throwing their fists in front of them and then behind their legs in time with the music. Bringing their hands above their head to clap and then jumping again, throwing just one hand up at a time.

Shifting to the side, the pair brought the leg closest to the camera up to their waist while hitting it back down with their fist. They both remained facing sideways as they shook the leg they just hit and ran their hands down their torso. The pair did another vertical jump, bringing their knees up to their fists. Once their feet hit the floor, they folded at the waist, slamming their palms flat on the ground.

Smiles were plastered on both their faces as they finished out the dance, knees bent, bouncing their legs back and forth while tossing their hands above their heads. Loud laughter rang out from the three friends in the living room as Bucky and Evie dropped to their butts. The video ended with Bucky and Evie yelling at the other three in the room.

“You’re definitely going to go viral with that one, Buck!”

“Like an infection?” He asked with wide eyes of concern, more peels of laughter rang out.

“No, like famous, lots of people are going to see it.” That relieved and scared Bucky at the same time. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, but he knows that his friends wouldn’t steer him wrong.

“Now we can caption it something cute!” Evie breathed out as she leaned over the couch next to Cassie, who was now curled up beneath a fluffy white blanket.

“Don’t forget to tag the original creator, I hate it when people don’t do that.”

The video was posted with the caption,

iambuckybarnes: am i doing the tiktok right realpokemonevie? dance cr: theemyanicole

And it wasn’t long after posting that Bucky got a call from Steve that he needed to come into the tower.

***************************

@mishaandthebrits

[samwisethewitch]

Reconnecting with the Divine Feminine

I don’t think it’s groundbreaking or controversial at this point to say that all three Abrahamic religions are mostly patriarchal. Sure, we can talk about the veneration of the Virgin Mary, or the woman prophets in the Tanakh, or women saints in Islam. At the end of the day, though, we cannot overlook the fact that in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, God is a man. Since 31% of the world’s population identify as Christian and 23% identify as Muslim, that means over half of the people on Earth are completely disconnected from the feminine side of divinity.

Ironically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are among very few religions that don’t embrace a feminine aspect of divinity. Patriarchal religion is treated like the norm in most modern cultures (again, largely because of the dominance of Christianity and Islam), but it has definitely not been the norm throughout human history. The Goddess, the Divine Feminine, has been a prominent part of human spirituality since before recorded history.

In ancient Sumer she was Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. In Egypt she was Isis, Lady of the Sky, Great of Magic, and Hathor, Lady of the West, and Sekhmet, Mistress of Fear. In Hinduism she is Shakti, the feminine principle that moves the universe. In Japan she is Amaterasu, the Great Illuminating Deity, and Izanami, the creatrix who rules the underworld. The Divine Feminine has taken all of these forms at different times and places, among many, many others.

Even the Abrahamic religions haven’t always been solely focused on masculine divinity. There is significant evidence that the Abrahamic God was originally part of a larger pantheon before becoming the sole object of worship in Israel and Judah. As part of a polytheist system, he had a consort, a goddess named Asherah. Rabbinic literature refers to the divine presence of the Jewish God as “shekinah” — interestingly, this is a feminine word, implying that this aspect of God is feminine.

The removal of feminine divinity from Christianity largely occurred during the fourth century, when Roman Christianity beat out other traditions as the sole “correct” Church. Before this some Christian groups, notably those in North Africa, had worshiped God as both Father and Mother — a masculine/feminine dyad, rather than the masculine trinity worshiped in Rome. Other groups identified the Holy Spirit as feminine, creating a trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. (Interestingly, these family triads were also common in Egyptian paganism.) When the Nicene Creed was created in 325 to standardize Christian belief and practice, it excluded these interpretations by affirming belief only in “God, the Father Almighty” and “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” and removing all mentions of God the Mother.

All of this does not invalidate the genuine, life-changing spiritual experiences people have had with modern Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It does, however, prove that patriarchal religion is the exception, not the rule.

Modern paganism’s acceptance and veneration of the Divine Feminine is a large part of its appeal for many converts, especially women, genderfluid, and nonbinary people who do not see themselves represented in the mythology and art of patriarchal religion. The Divine Feminine is present in all pagan religions, though She takes different forms in different faiths.

In monist pagan paths like Wicca, the polarity of Goddess and God is seen as one of the primary ways deity makes itself known to mankind. In the words of Scott Cunningham, one of Wicca’s most influential authors, “The Goddess and God are equal; neither is higher or more deserving of respect… The Goddess is the universal mother. She is the source of fertility, endless wisdom, and loving caresses… She is at once the unploughed field, the full harvest, and the dormant, frost-covered earth.”

The Goddess and the God balance and compliment each other, and this balance is at the core of many neopagan religions. (There are some traditions that exclusively worship the Goddess, but we’ll talk more about that in a future post.)

In polytheist paganism, the Divine Feminine is present in the form of various goddesses who rule over different aspects of life and nature. It is not uncommon for polytheist pagans (or monist pagans, for that matter) to work with multiple goddesses, even goddesses from different historical pantheons. Some goddesses are explicitly associated with certain aspects of womanhood — for example, the Greek goddess Artemis is associated with virgins and young girls, while Demeter is associated with motherhood.

In many (but not all) polytheist systems, there is an emphasis on balance between gods and goddesses. One of my favorite examples of this is the marriage of the Morrigan and the Dagda in Irish mythology. The Morrigan, goddess of war, magic, and death, is married to the “good god” of life, fertility, and knowledge. Their union represents a balance between opposite, complimentary forces.

This brings us to another point I want to make, while we’re on the subject of the Divine Feminine: not all feminine divinities are passive, maternal, fertility goddesses.

In Western culture, women (and, by extension, feminine deities) are seen as the passive or receptive sex. This is largely a product of Victorian England, not an ancient truth.

Without knowledge of sex chromosomes, hormones, or the complexities of gender, Victorian thinkers developed a theory that men had a “katabolic” nature that was constantly releasing energy, while women had an “anabolic” nature that was constantly receiving and storing up energy. This concept of gender greatly influenced Western occultism and can be seen, for example, in Gerald Gardener’s conception of the Goddess as the passive recipient of the God’s energy.

This is a relatively new and very Western idea. In Hinduism, for example, Shakti is both the feminine principle and the energy that moves the cosmos. In the words of author Kavitha Chinnaiyan, “there is nothing in creation that isn’t a manifestation of Shakti.” Shiva, the masculine principle, is unchanging awareness — it is Shakti who possesses the dynamic energy necessary for creation.

I am by no means encouraging pagans to appropriate Hindu concepts. My point here is that no gender is entirely active or entirely passive, which is why so many cultures interpret gender in so many different ways.

Even within systems like traditional Wicca, which operate within a strict gender binary, neither gender can be completely tied down. In their book A Witches’ Bible, traditional Wiccans Janet and Stewart Farrar acknowledge that the “masculine = active, feminine = passive” model is an oversimplification. They use the example of an artist and muse. The (feminine) muse “fertilizes” the (masculine) artist, who “gives birth” to the resulting art.

Personally, I see the masculine/feminine polarity as a constantly shifting dynamic, with both sides giving and receiving energy all the time. Which side of the polarity is more active or passive depends on the situation.

Being pagan does not mean dedicating yourself to the worship of gender binaries, and it does not mean you need to uphold those binaries. God and Goddess are only two of many possible expressions of the Divine, just like man and woman are only two of many possible gender expressions.

Monist pagans see the God and Goddess as two halves of a greater, all-gendered whole. Polytheist pagans may worship gods and goddesses who fall outside of the gender binary such as the Norse Loki or the Egyptian Atum. In either case, divinity is seen as encompassing all possible gender expressions, not just cis man and cis woman.

The erasure of the feminine from Western religion and mythology means that the nonbinary nature of some deities is often downplayed or erased completely. (You’d be hard pressed to find a mythology book that doesn’t use he/him pronouns for both Loki and Atum.) Reconnecting with the Divine Feminine opens the door for other divine expressions of gender.

The end result of this acceptance of feminine and nonbinary divinity is a religious community built on equality between all gender expressions. No one is closer to the gods because of the anatomy they were born with or the gender they present as.

This paves the way for a religion where no one’s worship is restricted because of their gender expression. It allows for priests, priestesses, and priestixes. It allows everyone to fully participate in the rites of their faith, on equal footing regardless of gender or pronouns. It also creates an environment where practitioners feel comfortable exploring issues of gender and sexuality, knowing that they will not lose the support of their community if their identity changes.

Resources:

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

The Morrigan and The Dagda by Morgan Daimler

“Victorian Theories of Sex and Sexuality” by Elizabeth Lee, Brown University

Shakti Rising by Kavitha M. Chinnaiyan, M.D.

A Witches’ Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar

Casting a Queer Circle: Non-binary Witchcraft by Thista Minai

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXXVII (federal 2022): Socialist Equality Party

Running where: Senate grouped independents in NSW (Group F), QLD (Group I), VIC (Group Y)

Prior reviews: federal 2013, federal 2016, federal 2019

What I said before: “This is the sort of party so disagreeable, so keen to condemn anyone for stepping outside of a very narrow expression of ideology, that they could split over almost anything. Why not have a split about splitting! I do not take them seriously and I never have.”

What I think this year: The worst socialist option. I’m genuinely surprised the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) are fielding candidates, albeit as grouped independents. Back in the Group Ticket Voting days, the SEP had such contempt for electoral politics that it registered donkey votes as its tickets. But here they are anyway, stumping up the cash to get on the ballot knowing full well they won’t get the 4% first-preference vote required to have their deposit returned.

You might be wondering why they are standing as independents. The Australian Electoral Commission deregistered the SEP on 23 February 2022 after a genuinely funny sequence of events (AEC notice of decision here). Legislative amendments last year raised the party membership threshold from 500 to 1,500. Many parties met this with ease, a few merged with likeminded souls, and some simply gave up. The SEP, comically, submitted a list of 700 members, less than half of what was required, and the Australian Electoral Commission got to make surely the easiest deregistration decision of all time. What did the SEP do? Protest, of course. They pled that it was utterly unreasonable for them to be expected to sign up new members in the midst of a pandemic. Now, if this were 1922 and you needed to organise town hall meetings and stump speeches to reach potential supporters, that might be reasonable. But if you cannot find enough supporters despite you and everyone else being stuck in their homes on the Internet all the time—mate, mate, that’s on you.

You might also be waiting for me to get to the point: why is this the worst socialist option? Simply put, the SEP are the cranks of the Australian socialist space. That’s saying a lot given some of the weird units out there too. The SEP are still ranting that all other left-wing parties and trade unions, including other socialist parties, are on the “pseudo-left”. It’s tedious and childish. Just because you have minor ideological disagreements does not mean everyone else is some stooge of global capital.

The SEP also love to rant against identity politics and believe other socialist parties “represent the interests of an upper middle-class layer steeped in the divisive and regressive politics of identity based on race and ethnicity, sexuality and gender”. That’s right, these brane geniouses think that attention to—pervasive! systemic!—problems surrounding e.g. racism, sexism, and misogyny is simply “divisive and regressive”. They wouldn’t know solidarity if it bit them on the bum and they are sure as shit not intersectional. Everything else must bow to their class campaign, and only once there is a dictatorship of the proletariat dare you think about doing something about sexual harassment or racial discrimination.

Oh yeah and they’re also doing the whole thing of “covid proves everything we ever said was right; even though we weren’t talking about pandemic respiratory diseases, we told you bro!”

In the past I’ve recommended a middling preference because at least they have some core principles that leftists share, even if they won’t recognise this. I’ve bumped this down because I think their behaviour is childish and their failure to even cobble together enough members shows how poorly they engage people.

My recommendation: Give Group F (NSW), Group I (QLD), or Group Y (VIC) a weak or no preference.

Website: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/23/svgy-a23.html lists the candidates and https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/13/aust-a13.html contains their election manifesto