#and this is in spite of their breaking the gender binary

[dullahandyke]

I have a feeling my lecturer isnt gonna think my essay idea is relevant so some time tomorrow I'm setting myself up with speech to text and rambling to yis abt aye and gomorrah and its colonial gender identities

[genderkoolaid]

Tumblr is all "sex ≠ gender", men can have vaginas and women can have penises, gender is a social construct, "trans ≠ dysphoric", and whatever else up until a cisgender person is transsexual. The moment my cis guy ass mentions I'd be happier with a vagina instead of a penis, everyone starts trying to tell me I am, in fact, a trans woman in spite of me making it very clear that I did the soul-searching and experimentation, I feel shitty as a woman and don't wanna be one. I am happy as a man.

And it is just... so... tiring...

I'm sorry you have to deal with that. It sucks that even in trans* + queer spaces there's still so much exorsexism. People will say they want to break the binary until someone is actually transgressive in a way that confuses them & then suddenly there's a problem.

[trans-wojak]

Hello! I find your posts interesting and I'm a transmed myself, so I wanted to bring up something I've noticed about tucutes and the non-binary labels.

As we all know, cisgender transphobes claim being trans is a choice. But what happened to more people being offended by this statement?

Due to new mainstream media with tucutes and non-binary labels populating and taking over actual trans spaces, more people now think gender is a choice, because of tucutes. If people can acknowledge that transphobes think gender is a choice, then why can't people see past the non-binary façade and the tucute ideology spitting the same theme? Tucutes have the same beliefs as the oppressors, and their appearance in mainstream media lures cis people into thinking they're trans and stretching the 'being trans is a choice' theme, while also bringing more hate to the community because of their appearance.

Tucutes are our oppressors in disguise as the oppressed. Their whole non-binary scheme is to keep them in the community to try fitting in while breaking off actual transsexuals. They're on a mission to make LGBT labels infinite and meaningless, taking over certain spaces- trans, lesbian, etc. All the while indoctrinating people that don't have a mind of their own and guilt tripping people into believing them. They're confused, and they're confusing others. The future is headed in the wrong direction with their plotting.

I as a Gen Z notice how the ideology of tucutes is to rebel and express their spite for social norms while feeling unique. They 'reclaim' slurs that aren't meant for them to feel like they're winning against their enemies. And they take over on TikTok and act like they were victims of their past transmed ideology. Saying transmed ideology made them dysphoric. If they need certain ideology to be dysphoric and another ideology makes them not feel dysphoric, then visibly they're contradictory, and therefore trenders.

Yes this exactly true, nonbinary and transphobes share the same belief system; that trans healthcare is just cosmetic body modification and not a medical need, they just believe in diff results: one believes it should be banned indefinitely, the other thinks it should be freely handed out to anyone who wants it.

They think gender dysphoria is socially created, just like transphobes. That you can just use mental gymnastics to ignore the male gender is associated with having male sexual characteristics in biology, it’s not a made up social concept and no amount of “you are valid as a man even if you are entirely female!” will magically change the fact the human brain sees sexual characteristics as either male or female even without socialisation.

Fence sitters now accuse transsexuals of being wrong for wanting to alter our sex and NOT just using stupid terms like “I identify as”. Like, non binary isn’t even gender non conforming majority of the time.

It’s confused many transsexual men and women into thinking if they don’t fit gender roles, they aren’t real men or women. It’s confused butch lesbians into thinking because they aren’t subscribing to gender roles and like the same sex, they mustn’t be real women. Like talk about non binary being the new third sexist gender role lmao.

[sprawlingants]

otis and his stupid gender and his stupid HAT!!!!!! /j

okay MAN where do i start with this guy,, i have so many headcanons that i can't all fit into my canon,

because i DO headcanon him as transmasc but i also DO headcanon her as transfem, he just works for both

because what if he was transmasc??? if you called him short, or small, or anything that could barely be considered feminine, he'll kick your ass, heavily insecure that he looks too much like a girl to be a real man

or what if she was transfem, heavy internalized transphobia while she tries to dress more masculine so she could "get rid of those thoughts" and deepens her voice purposely to spite herself

but alsooo what if he was genderfluid and literally starts being so confused about his gender, one moment he NEEDS to wear a dress and do his eyeliner, and grow his hair out or he dies, and next second he needs to cut his hair so short, and dress into a suit and tie or he'll DIE!!!

^ he attempts to block out those thoughts, because it's dumb and gets irritated and frustrated because of gender dysphoria so he tries to excuse them as mood swings (which he tries to keep all bottled up, because he also thinks THOSE are dumb TOO!! this man can't catch a break with me)

what if they were non-binary, they'd get frustrated because something just FEELS wrong but they can't specify it, just slightly ever so wrong and they can't tell what

i headcanon that otis was raised in a family who thought lgbtq was just plain dumb, and otis had no other family, who was gonna tell him it's wrong to think that way??

it's getting a bit too long for my liking, hopefully i open someone's eyes to otis and his horrible gender thanks,,,

i was previously writing about my headcanons again but then i got to otis and then i NEEDED to write down my thoughts right now!!! ugoh DAMN YOU OTIS!!!!!! you INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIC THING GRAH!!!! imm putting him in a microwave..

also if u don't like these headcanons,, just don't say anything

[1moreff-creator]

since you’re interested in both drdt and fnaf……………. thoughts on Min as Circus Baby? or maybe Cassidy?

Ooh, these are nice ideas! I’ve seen the FNAF x DRDT AU idea being thrown around, and I’ve always found it quite intriguing. And obviously I’m always happy to talk about Min :D

So, I’ll start with Cassidy first since that’s the one I see working slightly less.

Though, of course, we have to ask: which interpretation of Cassidy? Are we going VengefulSpirit!Cassidy? Or are we more of a VS!Andrew believer? What about the kid from Happiest Day, is that Cassidy or BV? Or both, and we’re going with BV!Fifth? What about Golden Freddy (GF)? Does Cassidy share it with Bite Victim, Andrew, both? And what about Princess Quest?

It’s a lot, yeah. I’m more of a VS!Cassidy defender myself, since I still refuse StitchLine!Games on principle. And while I could sorta see Min as the Vengeful Spirit, since she can be quite mean (read: murder-y) at times, she’s not particularly hateful from what we saw, so I feel there’s better alternatives. In particular, I raise to you VS!Cassidy as Nico. Quiet like GF, but still clearly spiteful and very capable of evil things. And you can attribute the gender confusion around Cassidy to Nico being non-binary!

However, if we go with Cassidy sharing a body with Andrew, I could definitely see Min as Cassidy if you put Xander as Andrew. You know, foils gonna foil. They would disagree constantly, and Min would want to just be done with whoever William is after a while, like Cassidy under some interpretations, but Xander would want to keep going I guess. It could work! And then if BV is also there, they would maybe try to break them up when they fight, so Eden could work maybe? I would need to know what the rest of your AU looks like :p

I’m not getting into BV!Fifth.

And I don’t quite see how Princess Quest could be related to Min, so I guess you’d have to assume that’s a representation of Vanessa and put whoever Vanessa is in your AU there.

But as for Circus Baby… oh, that’s where we’re cooking. You really want to turn my favorite DRDT character into my favorite FNAF character? (If we ignore everything post-SL, I don’t quite like Scrap Baby or SE!Baby). Oh, I’m down.

I absolutely see Min as Baby, or, well, Elizabeth. I’m not sure if we’re considering them separate or not, but I’m gonna consider you mean Elizabeth because… well, frankly I just don’t know what being only Circus Baby would even entail. All the animatronic itself does is kill Elizabeth and get possessed, though I guess you could rework it to be a sort of “animatronic conscience influences soul behavior” situation, and even then I feel there’s better characters for something like that (read: David, Veronika, maybe Mai, etc).

But all that doesn’t matter too much in my eyes. Because Min as Elizabeth is fantastic.

“Perfectionist people-pleaser” fits both Elizabeth and Min perfectly, if we assume Elizabeth’s personality in the books can be extrapolated to the games (which, I guess Scrap Baby sorta proves that). Replace “William” with “XF-Ture Tech” and it’s like a perfect match.

Deceptive and cunning, like Baby was in SL, also fits with the girl who tried to get everyone killed in a class trial. Min is definitely smart, but she can freak out if she doesn’t feel in control like Elizabeth sometimes, and you can even see hints of Baby’s ego in the way Min constantly argues with Xander.

In fact, if we’re going with Min as Baby, I’d imagine maybe Xander as FT Freddy could work. Again, foils gonna foil, but the whole “overthrowing Baby” thing FT Freddy (presumably) pulled in that source code conversation inside Ennard? Perfect for Xander fighting Min as always.

Though I’d imagine there’s a few important differences. For one, I imagine Min would pull the whole Ennard stunt more to save all the other animatronics than for any selfish reasons, which I also believe applies to Baby but not everyone sees her like that. “I just wanted to save you” is Min’s secret quote, right? Works. I don’t know who we’re assuming Michael to be, but if it’s Teruko (read: protagonist), then that’d be pretty heartbreaking.

And also, I would like to imagine Min wouldn’t get so easily manipulated by the William equivalent. She’d see through it and maybe end up hating him for it? Maybe give us the team up with the Charlie equivalent that canon FNAF was too cowardly to gives us? I don’t know, maybe I’m coping. I would need to know who the William equivalent is, I guess. But Min did always feel a bit iffy about the whole Contest thing Hope’s Peak set up (understatement), so I imagine she’d also be critical of the William equivalent.

Let my girl roller skate. She’s kill it in Scrap Baby’s shoes.

So, yeah, pretty nice ideas! Thanks for sharing! Hope you’re satisfied with this answer.

God, I really wanna see a full AU like this now. Y’all are gonna drag me kicking and screaming back to my FNAF phase I swear /lh

[queer-starwars-bracket]

Queer Star Wars Characters (Round 2): General Bracket Match 28

Sky Graf | Identity: non-binary | Media: The High Republic Quest for Planet X

Sky Graf was a young member of the wealthy Graf family. A year before the Night of Sorrow, their father went missing looking for Planet X. To prove themselves to their family and possibly find their father, they stole their older brother’s ship the Brightbird and deemed up with Dass Leffbruk (who had previously made it to Planet X) and the Jedi padawan Rooper Nitani to use a Force artifact to try to find Planet X during the great hyperspace race. The Force artifact brought them backwards through the planets Dass had recently visited, where they face challenges while also trying to outrun Sky’s brother. During their journey, they also had to take the Path of the Open Hand member Fel Ix as a hostage. Fel Ix began to break through his cult programming, and when the news of a possible battle between the Path and the Republic reached the crew of the Brightbird, he convinced Sky to give up the search for Planet X to travel to Dalna. Fel Ix succeeded by appealing to Sky’s connection with their father by pointing out how he was a father himself. Working with Fel Ix, Sky helped defeat the Graf code that was corrupting the communication buoys in the Dalna sector, preventing more violence during the Night of Sorrow. Their brother, Helis, eventually caught up with them. But the siblings were able to talk about their feelings and reconcile. The two of them would fly the Brightbird together and continue to prospect. But Sky would no longer chase their father’s ghost.

Sky’s lifestyle was a combination of the hard and technical life of a pilot and hyperspace prospector combined with the luxury of their family’s level of wealth. They are very intelligent when it comes to science. They are confident, with a prickly exterior. They didn’t connect with Fel Ix the way Dass or Rooper did until the end, not wanting to try to understand the perspective of someone who tried to kill them. When things got serious, they showed a surprising capacity of violence and a willingness to do anything to achieve their goals. They only felt like they had unconditional love from their father, his disappearance driving them even further in conflict with their family. At the end of the book, they are more at peace, but still eager to make their own name separate from the Graf dynasty. Unusually for transgender characters in Star Wars, there is explicit discussion in their internal monolog about how they felt gender dysphoria when they started to go through puberty and how their father got them a binder.

Amara Kel/Howlrunner | Identity: wlw couple | Media: “Amara Kel’s Rules for TIE Pilot Survival (Probably)”

Amara Kel is the narrator of the short story “Amara Kel’s Rules for TIE PIlot Survival (Probably)” which is her internal thoughts about how to survive as a line TIE Pilot. This military satire story also details her relationship with another pilot, nicknamed Howlrunner. Amara Kel is snarky and cynical, dissoluted with the Imperial Navy but without the kind of spark that would lead her to defecting. She is happy to stay in the background, staying alive without promotion and glory. However, Howl’s skilled flying inspires in her a sense of love and respect for the TIE fighter and the wire thin finesse in its flying.

Amara and Howl’s Theta Squadron was one of the squadrons dispatched to hunt the Millenium Falcon through the asteroid field around Hoth. In spite of rule number one “Don’t Get Attached”, Howl pulls off some crazy flying maneuvers and saves Amara from being eaten by the exogorth. Miraculously, they both survive that deployment.

[musical-chick-13]

6, 7, 8, 10, 13?

YES THANK YOU. BLESS YOU.

6. Which ship fans are the most annoying?

Oh, God. Um. Most of the popular ones, if I'm being honest. There are a bunch of different ways I could answer this, from "it's everywhere" to "people misunderstand this canon dynamic" to "people make disgusting bigoted comments toward another, '''in the way''' character" to "most destructively moralistic" so I'll talk about the fanbase that historically has encompassed all of these, which is. The J*hnlockers.

I don't think I can EVER explain how utterly unhinged (derogatory) this fandom was when the show was airing. People straight-up labeling their analyses as a "conspiracy," convincing others that there was a Super Secret Actual Finale Episode that would "fix" their ship not being canon. They paired the main villain up with a character who didn't even exist in canon because doing anything involving the women was, presumably, too much to ask. The absolutely horrendous things they would say about the female characters, ESPECIALLY to fans of them who were minding their own business. (Also, they called one of the gay co-creators "actually a straight man" for not canonizing this ship which is completely and utterly WILD to me.) Genuinely there was NO space more unsafe fandom-wise that I have EVER been in. I cosplayed Irene for a con one time and, though luckily nothing happened, I was AFRAID FOR MY LIFE THE WHOLE TIME. Like. The level of vitriol and misogyny and biphobia (I'm not even going to get into that one) was UNREAL. To the point where genuinely I hope we never get new content of any kind so I don't have to think about people who act like this ever again.

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

...........at the risk of getting murdered. MCU Steve. He was just kind of. There. To me. I didn't particularly care about him because he read to me as "generic good guy" which isn't an archetype that particularly resonates with me, but...then the fandom just. My God. Saying that EVERYTHING he ever did was right, that NO ONE had any points when they questioned him, that he EPITOMIZED goodness in a way no other character did ever, that anyone who liked Tony (or anyone who was ever perceived as being in Steve's "way" about anything, don't get me started on how people treated Sharon) was A War Criminal Apologist Irl and was Singlehandedly Upholding Every Type of Oppression, like it was. SO annoying. I went from indifference to borderline-hatred out of spite.

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

GOT SEASON 8 WAS NOT THAT BAD, GOT SEASON 8 WAS NOT THAT BAD, GOT SEASON 8 WAS NOT THAT BAD, GOT SEASON 8 WAS NOT THAT BAD, GOT SEASON 8 WAS NOT THAT BAD, GOT SEASON 8---*I am forcibly removed from the building*

(On a more, uh...eloquent note, Lady Macbeth is not a badass gender-binary-shattering Girlboss™ femme fatale, she is a complete mess struggling with layers and layers of psychological issues that she does not let herself process, as well as a HELL of a lot of internalized misogyny. I love her, too, but this creation of her into some sort of suave or cool monarch lady genuinely baffles me. But then again, this play was my Capstone Research Project my final year of college and I wrote a 50-page paper on it, so maybe I'm a little too invested in how people present her, lmao.)

10. Worst part of fanon

Tbh, everyone who insists that two characters [usually (cis, white, abled) men] MUST be in romantic love because they care about each other. Like...don't get me wrong, I love looking at a LOT of non-canon pairings through a romantic lens because It's Neat™, but showing physical affection or willing to throw down/break the law for someone or calling them things like "admirable" or "amazing" are not? Inherently romantic?? Like by so many people's standards I'd be in romantic love with all my platonic friends, I guess, and that's very annoying. Romance isn't the only kind of love that exists!!! Nor is it the only important or significant one!!!

(On a more specific note, there's a fairly pervasive idea that Aki/Himeno is...a grooming relationship? When according to the established timeline and personal events that would. Literally be impossible. People take the "I'm not old enough to smoke" line that happens not long after they meet as some sort of confirmation that Aki was, like, fifteen or sixteen at the time? Or something? Instead of like. Nineteen. Dude has to have time in the three years he's known her to change significantly in appearance, become old enough to smoke (the legal age for that is 20 over there btw), and develop a substance dependence. And given the visual markers of Himeno's appearance when the two of them meet and how drastically her appearance changes in the intervening years, she can't be more than a couple of years older than him? People also take a comment that's meant to convey that he's been at his job three years longer than another character as saying that he's only three years older age-wise than said character. Which, again, given the timeline. Would be impossible. And also. There is an example of grooming in this story! It's really important to the plot actually! It's meant to be seen as horrifying! You would assume that the fact that this relationship is not presented in the same way means something! Don't get me wrong, Himeno's done her fair share of shitty things, but grooming her fight partner was not one of them. There are plenty of reasons this ship isn't for everyone, you don't have to make shit up, lmao.)

13. Worst blorbo-ification

Genuinely I cannot choose between these two, so we're gonna make this post even longer.

Why do people like K*lo R*n. I don't understand. He was given the barest hint of sort-of, hazy tragic "backstory" and people...very much disagreed with me when I said I didn't think that was enough from a narrative standpoint to actually mean anything. And that's not taking into account that this blorbo-ification happened before we even knew that. When all we knew was that he felt kind of lost sometimes and killed his dad while helping head up a fascist empire, people went wild, and not in a "I like villains" kind of way. In a "he's MEANT to be read as mentally ill" kind of way (my God, please stop saying this about every character who is mean and exhibits one emotion) and "his parents MUST have been abusive to him" kind of way. Neither of those things. Has any basis in canon. Just. Just admit you like a character who's not a good person. And that you like a ship that's a dark romance. You won't explode, I promise.

The other one is Light. People want him to be a tragic anti-hero SO bad, I am incredibly tired. He went from zero to beyond 100 in the space of a couple of in-story hours. He's not some misguided utopian visionary, he's a hypocrite with a god complex. I have met too many people like this irl to get behind any positive or sympathetic interpretation of this character. (And don't get me wrong. I think in order to most effectively present the Themes™ of the work as a whole, he had to be written like this. I don't begrudge the creator (in this instance, anyway), I begrudge the fanbase. There's actually a lot I could say about this piece of media and general reaction to it, but my God this is already long enough.)

I choose violence asks

[mendaciumhq]

CHARACTER NAME: sebastian o'shannon / salazar slytherin reincarnate

CHARACTER FACECLAIM: freddy carter

CHARACTER AGE/DOB: 23 years old / december 17th 2000

CHARACTER PRONOUNS/GENDER IDENTITY/SEXUALITY ETC: he/him or they/them, non binary, greyace & aroflux, polyamorous.

CANON OR OC: oc???

CHARACTER FANDOM: hp/magical world

CHARACTER PROFESSION IF RELEVANT: part-time potions professor at hogwarts, part-time magical history author

SCHOOL INFORMATION/HOUSE/ETC: hogwarts, slytherin

ALIGNMENT IN THE WAR & OPINIONS: sebastian has long been sided with the order of the phoenix. however, some will assume the opposite. this is because since sebastian's final year of hogwarts, he has been a spy for the order. so to those he's worked alongside within the death eaters, he would appear to be on their side. this happened because, in spite of his own beliefs built about the idiocy of blood purity supremacy, sebastian's mother and step father have entirely different views. they joined the death eaters and claimed they would force sebastian's younger siblings when the time came too. in order to protect his siblings, sebastian 'joined', even took the dark mark to full commit to selling it as truth. he's been secretly funnelling back information to the order the whole time.

THREE CHARACTER AESTHETICS:

the sound of waves crashing against the shore on a stormy winter day

feeling stronger, invincible even, when with your friends

keeping your appearance together to sell the idea that you are 'okay'

ONE SONG THAT REMINDS YOU OF YOUR CHARACTER:

wires by the neighbourhood

ANY IMPORTANT CHARACTER NOTES/FURTHER BIO/HISTORY: see attached google doc for in depth lore/details on sebastian, salazar etc:

sebastian o'shannon is the reincarnate of salazar slytherin. he has known this since early childhood, when memories from a previous life began bleeding through, when it all began to unravel. however, he kept this to himself: the only time he spoke of it, his mother called him attention seeking and childish for making up such stories. he quickly learned to keep his mouth shut from then on. until, of course, he finally came to hogwarts. the moment the sorting hat landed on him, it confirmed what he thought to be true and welcomed back the true slytherin to the school. he also told him of another walking the halls: gryffindor. but, of course, the hat didn't give specifics. so it took a month for sebastian to figure it out and bond with the gryffindor reincarnate. each other meeting of a reincarnate came with it's own chaotic energy.

sebastian went through school growing, changing a lot as a person. breaking free of what he'd grown up in: the pureblood superiority of his family in particular. in spite of being around a lot of people who still supported the ideologies, sebastian found his friends and broke the generational bullshit. rejected it outright and wasn't quiet about it either.

it isn't until his final year that all of that rebellion went quiet and died. it had to. he had a cover to keep after all, as a death eater-- even if it were a lie, he still had to commit to it in order to keep up the belief. it meant some public fall outs had to be staged with friends. cruel things that still haunt him, even if all parties involved know the truth.

sebastian hopes that, eventually, he'll be free of this life of living a lie. he misses his friends dearly, and wants to stop pretending. but he'll do it for as long as he has to, for as long as it's feeding back good information that saves lives.

sebastian also works part time at hogwarts as a potions professor, working alongside slughorn, but the majority of his time is spent in his own private works, writing about magical history. he has a bit of a leg up, after all.

ADMIN ALEX APP.

[queenofmorolianspiders]

In honor of weeding out the shitlords in my follows, here’s some headcanons for QB’s society!! I’ll have a few trusted friends go over these later to make sure that everything comes off non-offensively, but for now, AGGRESSIVELY SHOVES GENDER-RELATED HEADCANONS AT PEOPLE (I’m also probably forgetting a lot.)

also if you have ideas for things i should make up hcs for please hmu my askbox is always open to discussing/figuring out things for qb’s society.

[i’m very very very certain that i’ll need to edit this and make everything nicer and that there are better ways to say the things i’m thinking of, or the goal i’m trying to get at....]

QB’s people literally do not care what your gender id is, in the grand scheme of things. All they care about is how strong you are.

Wanting to change your body’s appearance to match how you feel inside is no big deal. There are literal permanent transition options that will match what you need/want/desire, if you so choose. Out of all the things you should be worried about, whether or not you feel comfortable with your body is not one of those things.

While the temporary names for children are based on things like the set of pronouns a person uses, (ie [parent a name]+wyn, [parent a name]+son), there are many more options. I honestly need to update that naming mechanic, esp since that convention came out of a bad binary. Maybe [name]+en. So in QB’s case, the names are Cedwyn, Ilywin, and Ceden or Ilien. Or maybe even Cedilien. 

I don’t know how many genders her society has language markers for, but I’m gonna guess at least 5. Or maybe one. Either way, it’s not 2-3.

A lot of her culture really hates converting to a language/culture that relies on a binary set of gender markers. So, languages such as English, Spanish, other (romance?) languages that require adding gender to things that are inanimate, etc. It’s so very frustrating, especially when THAT IS THE LEAST OF YOUR CONCERNS WHAT GENDER SOMEONE USES WHEN THEY’RE GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU

QB has been male before. This was less a “pretend to be a guy” and more “Hm, I feel like trying this out”, especially in her teenage years, when she wanted to make certain of who she was. Because it’s okay to see if an identity fits you or not, even if it’s to make sure that you are comfortable in your own identity.

sometimes, she still goes for a masculine appearance/body if the whim suits her.

QB’s people literally do not understand human’s aggressive nature towards gender roles. They understand how to use them against them, however.

 but they literally do not understand why you would kill someone for saying that they’re a different gender than was assigned/expected of them. 

like, let them die for other reasons what the fuck is wrong with you for killing someone because they said they were a woman like don’t you guys need more women.

people who don’t have any particular gender association and/or preference are normal and valid. there’s no confusion about it or trying to pin them down into anything unless it’s a kink.

qb’s society aren’t picky about sex and aren’t going to freak out about what is or isn’t in a partner’s pants. If they really want to have sex with someone, they’ll figure out a way to make it work.

QB is pan sexual for a reason. She doesn’t care. She’ll do you no matter what you look like, so long as she’s attracted to you. 

qb’s society probably has no stipulations or social faux pas about presenting. You can wear a dress and still be a dude, if that’s how you identify. you can look masculine and wear a dress and still be a chick, if that’s how you identify.

....i guess this kind of works with how “procreation/survival of the fittest” works for them as a culture. People who live to be longer than 40 of their years are allowed the right to procreate, as they are seen as “the fittest”. And, like, it never occurred to me SOONER to have it be a thing where people could like.... not necessarily have a “sex” change since idk if that’s even the right wording anymore, and i’m not sure how it’d work but like. if someone wanted to be able to carry, they’d be given the stuff to carry. if someone wanted to give, they could give. if that like, makes sense. tho i’m bad at explaining how that’d work esp since i’m just. really bad at this stuff overall.

fashion is not restricted by gender. If you can rock it, then it’s meant for your bod. You can have men wearing slinky dresses and dolled up to the 9′s, or dressed up like Bayonetta, and they’re still men. Why hold back a fashion/design because of bullshit like “gender roles”. Are gender roles based off clothes you wear gonna save your ass? Very rarely. 

granted, this won’t stop someone from telling you that your fashion sense sucks regardless

[neptunemagia]

@its-decido asked so I shall deliver. Here are all of my gender and sexuality headcannons for Sailor Moon.

For reference I ship Michiru x Haruka, Rei x Minako, Inners poly pile, Ami x Makoto, Mamoru x Usagi x Seiya, Kunzite x Jadeite, Chibiusa x Hotaru, and Princess Kakyuu x Reformed Galaxia. The only ships I have strong feelings against is anything that breaks up harumichi and anything involving Prince Demande bcuz he sucks ass and doesn’t deserve love.

Usagi is bi with a preference for her precious Mamo-chan. She/her, potentially some cutesy neo-pronouns.

As the goddess of love it only makes sense for Minako to be pansexual. She/her.

I think Ami would be demiromantic and demisexual. Not really sure of she’d like multiple genders or just girls. She/her, but might try out she/they at some point.

Makoto is bi. She crushes on everything that breathes within a ten mile radius of her. Preference for guys and more masculine girls. She/her, I think trans girl Mako headcannons are super cute.

Rei is the man hating lesbian straight men fear. In the manga, she makes it clear that she hardly tolerates the existence of men, so I doubt she would date one. The 90s anime always felt really weird, so I’m calling it internalized homophobia (she went to Catholic school after all). She/her or maybe she/they, purely out of spite for this world.

Chibiusa, much like her mother, is bi and in love with everyone. Even horse boy gets a kiss. She and Hotaru are canonically the same age when she is reborn. It’s not problematic, you just don’t like it. Which is fine, but chill out a little. She/bunself, it’s the 30th century, her using neo pronouns is entirely realistic.

Michiru is literally the biggest lesbian to ever lesbian. I get vibes like she has mommy AND daddy issues. There’s no such thing as a mentally well artist after all. She/her.

I can see Haruka as being non-binary or a cis woman. Lesbian, potentially bisexual (NOT biromantic), with a heavy preference for ladies. Anime Haruka absolutely has some kind of religious trauma. All she talks about is going to hell for her sins. She/they (maybe ze/zir).

I stand by Setsuna being aroace. The Endymion thing felt like filler, and all she ever talked about was his lavender jacket. Next season, her only outfit is a lavender jacket (I distinctly remember her wearing a lavender tee shirt in Crystal as well). She’s even stated to be an aspiring fashion designer. Clearly she was just jealous of his suit. She/they/it, because as an eternal being this gender shit is probably pretty pointless to her.

Hotaru is some form of gay. Lesbian, bi, pan, no idea. All I know is she has a massive crush on Chibiusa. She/it, she probably has some crazy depersonalization going on with Mistress 9 and the cyborg stuff.

Seiya, Seiya, Seiya. I get heavy trans masc vibes from them, but Naoko did say all sailor senshi were women, so I’m going with the in-between of non-binary and/or genderfluid. As for sexuality, I’m just going to leave it as sapphic. She/he/they/ze. Do they even have gender/pronouns on Kinmoku?

I refuse to see Yaten as anything other than a aroace girly girl. Yaten forever chooses sleep over sex . She/her.

Taiki confuses and upsets me to no end. The hair makes it so unbelievably painful to think about them that I leave my thoughts at pansexual they/them.

Kakyuu is bi, and all loving like Usagi, our other princess. She/her.

Manga Mamoru is the token straight friend. Anime Mamoru is bi purely because of the Fiore arc. He/him.

feel free to request a continued analysis of the genders/sexualities of minor characters and villains, other headcannons, along with my list of which villains are redeemable (all monsters of the day will be included, you have been warned)

[raichukfm]

As a very very binary trans person myself, I'm pretty confident people who say they don't fit that binary are telling the truth. I've been mistakenly assumed nonbinary before, because of something about my looks or the fact I have two first names the genders of which clash. And that's pretty uncomfortable, actually! I am a woman and just a woman and that's important to me, I fit into the shell nice and snug even if I had to shuffle sideways over to get at it. Of course when that happens I just politely correct it, "Oh no I'm quite binary" is a silly enough way of putting it breaks the ice. But I bring it up because that visceral discomfort is a thing, although obviously it varies in severity or what it takes to set it off. It's not like cis people just don't care and can slip on the disguise and not feel any sort of ick at the lying. So... People probably aren't lying.

So if they say they're non-binary then they have some reason they're saying that. They're telling you an element of who they fundamentally are right now, filtered through their self-understanding and the messy imperfect words we have for these things. That's what it's about. They're nonbinary, so accept that, treat them kindly and with respect. Simple and easy.

Because gender isn't some sorting criteria for your convenience. It doesn't matter if you can personally understand their relationship with gender. Sometimes you won't! But it doesn't mean they're lying or appropriating when you can't see how their gender differs from some other gender. (And that's ignoring the fact that you can't look into somebody's heart and mind to know all the pieces in play. Presentation is presentation, not the whole of it all.) You don't have to know why they aren't a woman or why they aren't a man to be able to treat them the way they want to be. Not everyone can express that, even when they feel that. Even if they can, they don't owe you an explanation. Just... Be fucking normal about other people, maybe?

And if it's some principles thing, get over yourself. Whatever it is you think separates "real" trans people from "fake" literally what reason do you have to be mad at those other people also getting treated with respect? Even if we entertain you're somehow better, realer (which is absurd) and more deserving of whatever, why does that they mean they have to be undeserving? There's no good reason other than spite and bigotry, and deep down in your heart you know that's bad. Don't be possessive about respect and accommodation, just accept them. Respect isn't a zero-sum game, you can all have it. And you should. Obviously.

And again, respect isn't a zero-sum game. For people who have drawn some line in the sand and decry the other side for ruining things for the rest of you... The simple realpolitik of it is that you only stand to gain by society accepting them because it will shift the window closer to accepting you. If you think them existing is an image problem, tough shit, they do exist. You aren't going to bitch them out of existence, so you have that image problem, and sectarian infighting doesn't help that image problem. Play the hand you're dealt and focus on your actual cause.

If you just don't like them for some reason and so want to be mean, outright or passive-aggressive judgy, you're an asshole and I guess I can't say much, just help you grow as a person.

Like obviously the easy answer is that we should all accept people of whatever gender and there's nothing different about nonbinary people who "seem cis" or whatever to change that. But clearly the easy answer hasn't gotten through to everyone, so... Here's just all the thoughts I can think for why people might try to justify being weird and shitty that way.

I hope this can get better relatively soon and more people can stop being so fucking weird about breasts or clothes or whatever else.

"The nonbinary afab who goes by she/her, dresses femininely, and uses a push-up bra when I—" when you what? What's wrong with her?

Is she not nonbinary enough for you? Is the way she experiences her queerness and how she presents not perfect enough for you? Nonbinary people don't owe you androgyny, right? So why is she the exception? Why does she have to hate herself to appeal to your standards? Why is she any less trans—any less worthy of respect—cause it's "not visible"? Queer solidarity my ass. Don't spout this bullshit on Pride, man.

[morporkian-cryptid]

Me and my partner are getting into the discworld books and I always love your reblogs for it! Do you have any recs? we just finished Going Postal (a personal favourite of mine)

OH BOI DO I HAVE RECS!! You knocked on the right door, my friend!

The Discworld series can be broken down into several sub-series. I advise reading each book in a given sub-series in order (eg, book 1 of the Watch before book 2 of the Watch), but reading each sub-series in whatever order (Death before the Witches, or the Witches before Death, or mixing them up). Reading the books in order is not absolutely necessary, you might just miss some context, and see the characters' evolution in the wrong order; but each book has its own separate plot.

@blackboard-monitor wrote a very good comprehensive break-down of each sub-series, and which ones you might enjoy depending on what you like.

---

As for my personal recommendations:

If you liked Moist von Lipwig, I'd recommend his other two books: "Making Money" and "Raising Steam".

If you want to stay in Ankh-Morpork but with different protagonists, I'd suggest the Watch series (my personal favourite). It's about a cynical noir inspector and his band of loser cops who accidentally become a competent police force through sheer spite. Start with "Guards! Guards!"

The Death series is a fandom favorite. It tells the story of the Grim Reaper, his family, and his recurring existential crises. Start with "Mort".

If you don't want to get into a sub-series just yet, you can try one of the free standing books.

"Small Gods" is a must-read, it's about the origins of religion, the meaning of faith, and the dangers of religious extremism. Also it has a one-eyed sentient tortoise that swears a lot.

I'd also recommend "Monstrous Regiment", which can only be described as "Mulan but with more lesbians". It's about feminism, gender roles, the pointlessness of war, nationalism, and it has a non-binary caffeine-addict vampire.

---

And of course, this wouldn't be a proper Discworld Recommendation Post without whipping out a Reading Order Chart, the Discworld Fan's most efficient weapon.

This may look like a mess at first glance, but Fear Not! It's actually pretty simple to use: just pick a color and follow it!

I hope you enjoy Discworld, and might one day become one of us feral fans lurking in the shadows of the Internet with a reading order chart, ready to spring onto unsuspecting newbies!

[vergess]

Mina Harker: Omni Mommy

Or, Mina Harker has a mommy-domme kink so powerful it literally warps reality around her.

Content warnings:

This is going to discuss a lot of what you might call "period typical sexism" and discussion of Victorian politics. Please remember that this will be focusing primarily on white, middle class women's politics because that is the framework Stoker himself invokes with Mina. This political framing is demeaning to all women and marginalizing to anyone outside the white middle class. It's a very narrow focus, set by the author.

Let's break this down by character, because otherwise it will be impossible to navigate.

Mina:

Mina is a married, adult woman. Victorian culture already equates this with motherhood more or less automatically. A girl is an unmarried child. A woman is a married mother. Those are the frameworks. It's some fuckery, to be honest, and the long legacy of this limiting binary of roles continues to this day.

But the point is, the very framework of her role screams "mother" in the era and context she was written. Also she literally works with children to raise them. She's a teacher. That's the most maternal of the middle class working positions a woman could take in this era.

Lucy:

Lucy's role as the innocent child is well established. In spite of being 19 and engaged to wed, even. This is in part because there were only two morally just roles for women in the era. The girl/maiden/virgin, and the woman/wife/mother. Being a wife and a mother were the defining characteristics of being a woman. If an unmarried "woman" was to be trusted as morally legitimate, she needed to be young, innocent, and virginal.

Lucy is constantly referred to as a child, even. And her actual mother is (for understandable reasons) utterly negligent in caretaking for her. So, Mina steps into the role. Mina is explicitly performing the house and childcare duties that Lucy's Mother cannot, including managing Lucy's sleepwalking, sleeping in the same room with her, etc.

It is only when Mina's motherly care is removed (for the only other legitimate moral reason: marriage) that Lucy ultimately cannot be saved. Had Mina stayed with Lucy for another week or two, ther eis little doubt that Dracula's other work in London would draw him to the easier and more abundant prey. Remeber: Lucy wasn't special, she was easy. And without a mother to protect her, Lucy died. This echoes the Romanian mother who was likewise lauded by the narrative as a mother-protector-hero even as she failed.

Jonathan:

Malewife. He literally almost died of Victorian Dying Woman Disease. I could leave this here, but I do want to underline that Mina's mother-protector stuff gets invoked so strongly with Jonathan that the Harkers become actually, legitimiately gender nonconforming for the era. But, because Stoker is specifically framing them as the heroes, their gender nonconformity is mentioned often enough, but immediately discarded.

Also, let's talk about his dick for a minute.

Jonathan Harker's Dick is the reason Mina is the most sexually competent character in the narrative. In fact, I think one could argue that she's the only person in Dracula who fucks. (Obviously, Jonathan is the bottom).

This is because she and Jonathan are the only characters morally allowed to have sex, and of them, Mina is the only one who has not been involved in a sexually transgressive and traumatic scenario.

But it's also very interesting because the sexual implications that surround them (eg, they have the same bed at the asylum, their marriage is suggested to have been consummated at the nun hospital, etc etc) are all… you know. Healthy. Normal. Passing mentions that don't require anything more. Not the hauntinc spectre of (voluptuous) sexual predation that occupies basically the entire rest of the book.

If it weren't for all of the gender nonconformity, you could say that Jonathan and Mina represent a heterosexuality so healthy and complete that it helps eradicate the homoeroticism of vampires by simple proximity. I imagine that was likely the intent.

But there is all the gender nonconformity. This humanizes and enriches their relationship. It also, however, enriches Mina's relationship with other characters, creating a sort of halo-of-healthy-sexual-intent around her.

Seward:

I had some really good stuff here when I wrote this post the first time, bu tumblr ate it, so now I'm going to be a shit.

Seward and Mina are schoolgirl senpai/kouhai yuri.

Think about it. Seward gushes about how cool and lovely and wonderful Mina is within seconds. The shoujo sparkles write themselves.

Mina is a calm, collected, empathetic figure that tenderly soothes his tears even as she maintains her formality; there's literally a name for this. Mina is an Onee-sama.

I am not even SLIGHTLY kidding. She even makes her kouhai tea.

[Image: Tomoe Mami from Madoka Magica, another Onee-sama character, hosting a tea party for her kouhai]

This is especially convenient as a comparison because the two of them even have a Hot Teacher(tm).

Van Helsing:

Primarily, Van Helsing's reinforcement of Mina ans the Omni-Mommy comes from his intense praise for Mina and Jonathan's marriage. As I've repeated excessively, wife and mother were both basically interchangeable with 'woman.' Especially if you meant 'woman' positively, as the only "good" way to be an adult woman in Victorian culture was to be a wife and mother.

Plus the whole weirdly parental conversation they had about Jonathan a while back.

Of course, the simple fact is that for all Mina has immense autonomy within the narrative granted to her by her status as The Mother, Van Helsing points out the limits of that power.

"And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to think of some time, if not now."

He's referring here to her not actually having children yet, and needing to be spared trauma so that she can fulfill her god-made purpose of raising Jonathan's kids, and again when he and the boys forbid her from participating that night.

Quincey:

First off, let's talk about that kiss. Because of the immense amount of work put into framing Mina as a mother this whole time, and framing the men as her crying children, this kiss is emphatically supposed to be unsexual. Not just nonsexual, but antisexual. Desexual. Actively removing sex.

Today's norms surrounding physical contact being what they are, I would equate this to a modern gesture of pushing back someone's hair and kissing their forehead, like you would do to a small child who got hurt on the playground.

Now, whether it actually serves to desexualize her care of the men is up for debate. But it's clear that is one interpretation, and if I know straight people, it's the interpretation they picked up on the most.

Personally, I think it serves to do the inverse, putting romantic or sexual implications on top of all of the rest of her interactions with the men and specifically with Lucy. Lucy being the person with whom the maternal imagery was the strongest up until this point.

But, in stark contrast to Dracula, all of these implications read as healthy caretaking and intimacy, rather than invasive predation.

Art:

Do I even need to say anything? Aren't the words "mother spirit" and "baby on my bosom" enough?

If not, we can also talk about how Arther immediately senses he can be emotionally vulnerable around her in the way he would not just with a woman but with a woman in his family.

Even the constant use of "sister" early in the scen has maternal implciations with it, given that Mina is older than Lucy (either literally or because Mina became a woman before her by marrying first, whichever). As obnoxious a term as I find it, "eldest daughter syndrome" does manage to evoke the right vibes for this. The caretaking of a sister for her family is explicitly a mimicry of motherhood in this political context.

Plus, I mean. Again. Onee-sama. The adult equivalent of an Onee-sama is a mommy domme. That's just the facts.

Renfield:

Magical healing powers. Classic maternal imagery. Also this scene was SO funny. Seward_eat_shit_challenge.MOV, honestly.

But yeah anyway the fact that Seward ascribes Renfield's lucidity to Mina's presence is another example of this aura of healthy intimacy around her that acts in a shocking inverse to Dracula's aura of infectious predation.

Lucy (Goth):

The Bloofer Lady acts as a fun twist on Lucy and Mina's and Mother/Child dynamic.

Mina went away to get married which, again, carries automatic connotations of having a 'real' child rather than taking care of Lucy. Even before their elopment, Mina is already nursing her husband back to health. Lucy is unable to get married before being corrupted by Dracula. So, upon her "transformation" into a metaphorical "corrupt adult woman," the Bloofer Lady preys upon what would have been Lucy's husband, intent on killing or damning him. This reflects a lot of systemic biases around women's sexual maturity as a corrupting force on men. Anyway, all this serves to further underline both the tragedy of Lucy's lost innocence, and the value of Mina's preserved Moral Fiber as an Adult Woman.

There's also their interactions with children. Mina is a perfect caretaker, a beloved teacher and trusted mother figure by basically everyone in the book. The Bloofer Lady acts like a child playing with dolls. She nurtures and coddles the children, even as she tears them apart to slake her hunger. She is doting and gentle, to an exagerrated degree. Until the very moment daddy comes home, when she throws her toy away, unconcerned that it might break.

The New Women:

No one is still reading this right?

Anyway, Stoker probably had Mina talk about the New Women because they had a reputation of sexual promiscuity and lesbianism that Stoker, as a queer man of moderate class status would have been very familiar with. That's why Stoker (and thus Mina) don't see hypocrisy in Mina deriding them. Mina's absolute adherence to every single character trope, every political goal, every stated motive of the New Woman movement is irrelevant. What matters is that she is a Good And Pure Married Woman Of Noble Character.

Not like this whores and harpies that never listen to the men around them and go around trying to inherit property or remarry after a divorce. Disgusting. What monsters.

Like that's literally all that the comment is for, IMO. It's just a way to pre-address criticism about ~being a new woman~ by contrasting her Good Character against this stereotype of sexual and legal perversion.

It's kind of all like that actually. Mina would almost look like a step-by-step reclamation of the rude stereotypes of the movement, except that she's supposed to unironically be "a good woman, not like them."

Like, Mina doesn't go to university, she just studies alongside her university educated husband like a Good Woman. And in so doing she.... just so happens to also develop all of the technical skills that New Woman activists wanted access to universities for.

Mina doesn't go around demanding fair wages. She marries upwards and inherits from her adoptive father, like a good respectable woman. Don't pay attention to the fact that she literally works. Besides, she works as a carer of children, why, that's barely different from being a mother (/sarcasm).

Mina has friends across both the middle and upper classes, another common goal of New Women. But unlike those ~nasty political types~ our good girl Mina simply takes care of her upperclass companions, obeying them and soothing them with her maternal powers. If it weren't so well written, it would be sickening.

I mean she even has freedom of movement (a common NW goal) by exclusively using public transit, unlike those harlots who rode bicycles by themselves with their legs, the horror.

It's kind of amazing.

Anyway having to rewrite this and deal with Bram Stoker's absurd bullshit surrounding ~sexual panic~ because of his own gay trauma is like. I'm becoming angry so the post is done now.

Have fun!

[ultraericthered]

Random Future Diary Thoughts

I’ve noticed a really strange trend among viewers of Future Diary regarding the perception of the four central characters - Yukiteru Amano, Yuno Gasai, Minene Uryuu, and Aru Akise. Particularly, how people who despise the first two are inclined to view the latter two as their “Good Counterparts” (though the counterparts are of opposite gender: Minene is Yuki’s counterpart while Akise is Yuno’s.) And I’m sure there might be some Yuki/Yuno stans who think the reverse.

I think this really misses the whole point, breaking things down into simplistic, binary black-and-white morality. None of these characters are pure good or pure bad, or even the main antagonistic forces behind the series’ core conflict. I’d argue that doesn’t even apply to MurMur. Ultimately, Deus Ex Machina and John Balks are the ones responsible for the survival game, and what we see as a result of that game is that some people who are otherwise bottom-of-the-barrel morality-wise become situated as “good guys” and may even find self-improvement, while others who should by all means be lesser evils sink to depths lower than they would otherwise. As Minene would put it, it all depends on what their instincts dictate when they’re placed in a “kill or be killed” personal crisis situation.

In Yuki and Minene’s case, normally Minene would be viewed as the infinitely worse human being since she’s older, is a terrorist who has a high bodycount, and is motivated by pure spite and resentment, willing to persecute thousands in an effort to end persecution based in religion. Compared to that, Yuki’s just a whiny ass punk bitch still in junior high school. Yuki got “worse” than Minene not because he naturally IS worse, but rather the opposite - he reminds Minene of the innocence, vulnerability, and human decency that she lost long ago, yet he tries to be the sort of person that present day Minene is, BUT the key difference between them is his moral cowardice: he doesn’t own his shit the way Minene does. He plays at being big and bad, doing terrible things that hurts others in the process, but when faced with repercussions, he deflects blame for his circumstances, runs and hides, and pleads for somebody else to deal with his mess for him (usually Yuno). The self-awareness and ability to own up to being an evil PoS who, even for a percieved greater good, has to do great evil, is not there for him the way it is for Minene. In that sense, Yuki becomes more wretched, loathsome and villainous while at the same time, Minene becomes more dignified, admirable, and noble, even heroic once she comes back with Deus’ godly powers. So Minene, out of all the lead characters, is the most evil overall, but in the context of the survival game, Yuki became the bigger villain.

Yuno and Akise’s case is weird in that if you watch the anime, it’s pretty clear cut - Yuno is worse than Akise in every possible way. Except there are two caveats here. First one being motivations. Both these two are head over heels for Yuki...but why? Over what? Regardless of whether or not you find Yuno’s reasoning flimsy, Akise literally has no reasoning other than Deus just kind of made him that way. Sure, his feelings prove strong enough to allow him to defy Deus and assert his own existence, but there is never any indication that Yuki has anything close to the feelings for Akise that Akise has for him, whereas with Yuno at least there IS mutual love between them. This makes Akise come off as more selfish and possessive. Second one being that in the manga, he flat abandons Yuki’s other three friends to die by Yuki's hands, just so he can get the chance to kill Yuno, something so shockingly self-interested and appalling that even Yuki himself is disturbed by it. This moral decline continues in the manga version of Redial, where rather than provide a secret test of character and stealth assistance to Yuno like in the anime, he just flat out wants to kill her and make sure she and Yuki 2 are never together again, out of spite. Keep in mind that Akise’s not mentally ill, nor has he been abused, so his excuses would hold far less water than Yuno’s. So while I’d not say he’s ever really the “greater evil” to Yuno overall, he’s by far the even worse romantic option for Yuki.

So I’d put it as Akise > Yuno > Yuki > Minene in terms of moral character (yes, the “by reason of insanity” factor actually puts Yuno ahead of Yuki, who more deliberately chooses his lowest actions), but factoring in the survival game, it’s Yuno > Yuki > Minene > Akise in terms of villainy. Akise’s the least bad both times. Good for him!

[king-of-vertigo]

((love you too angel~))

yeah no, in case it wasn't obvious-- given how much of his art I reblog

we gay as fuck

happy pride to everyone, regardless of what letter you are and whatever spectrum you fall on. y'all are valid as fuck and should take pride in the fact that, despite everything, you're still here <33 ((you're spiting assholes by merely existing, good for you))

since he gave a bit of a desc about what the identities mean to him, I'm inclined to do the same. under the cut ofc

also.

go follow him. go follow this man rn. he is so fucking talented, he deserves it.

Queer - my struggle between wanting to label myself and the absolute inability to commit to anything solid, is crippling. ((though I'm well aware I, nor anyone else don't need a label, I just like the idea of it for myself)) queer is just the most-- all encompassing one, I guess. personally, I think of the queer label as similar to the umbrella term that is trans, it doesn't go into specifics, but indicates that the person is somewhere on the spectrum. I identify with more specific identities within the umbrella term of queer ((vincian, cinthean, a whole host of things on the ace/aro spectrum. also probably t4t.)) but it's-- kinda a mess. more than kinda a mess. so queer is best for a cute little drawing like this. otherwise the outfit would be at least 30% pins. overall; love men, love enby and gender neutral folks. pretty much everyone but women/fem identifying people. ((love all the queens platonically though <33))

Demiromantic - the idea of meetcutes was always nice-- but only ever in theory. I've been creating characters/stories since I could make a somewhat coherent narrative and 9/10 times the lovers in question were always friends beforehand, or had history in some way. I didn't crush on a lot of people, and lo and behold, whenever I did, prior friendship was always there. the idea of casual relationships, or just up and asking a random person on a date because 'they're cute' felt-- wrong. was this the reason I did ((and still do)) cling to slowburn content? maybe. what are you, a cop? unfortunately I haven't figured out the time:feeling ratio yet, but it hasn't been my biggest concern ((I'm in a lovely, three years pending relationship after all <33))

Trans - one of the most amusing things about figuring out 'oh shit. I'm boy.' is that it happened after I got a general grasp on my sexuality. so going from 'yeah no I'm mostly straight I like men' to 'no I am very, very, incredibly homosexual. I like men.' is objectively really funny. is my gender entirely binary? doubt it. but he/him and other masc titles do the trick, and I haven't yet found a wack-ass metaphor to compare it to yet-- so why bother with specifics, y'know? ((also, this is your reminder to check in/take off your binder. figure out how many hours it's been. don't break your bones.))

thanks for taking time to read this, ig?

have a lovely day/night, remember to hydrate or diestraight, get some sleep, take care of yourself, and of course

have a lovely pride~~

:DD

Happy Pride everyone~~

I drew me and my lovely boyfriend @king-of-vertigo, (I love you honeybee~), We are being gay and transing all your children. Watch out or you're next.

Anyways. Happy Pride to those who celebrate. (And especially happy pride slay queen girlypop month to those who don't) Under the cut I'll have each flag and an explanation of what it means to me~

Likes and reblogs appreciated!! Do not repost!

I would like to preface this with: I am not an expert in all of these identities (despite being a part of them) and my connection to them is hugely shaped by my own experience and interpretation of each label. My only hope with all this is to hopefully make someone feel less alone, (because my god i spent a long time finding some of these labels-)

Aceflux

Aceflux us defined as a person with a fluctuating feeing of sexual attraction to others, I sort of think of it like a dial being turned up and down based on the moment. (there are also romantic and aroace versions of the label I beleive, along with another variation of the flag with a purple/red gradient striping.)

In my own experience that results in differing kinds of days, some where I feel really strong attraction, others where I feel little to none. Sometimes it changes day to day, sometimes its the same for weeks, or it changes throughout the day based on context.

This label was one that took me. An entirely too long time to find. and this is one that feels. right. because I had very flexible and changing feelings and attraction, I knew I could place myself somewhere on the ace spectrum, but not exactly where because it wasn't consistent at all (wowee i wonder why that is because its not like thats the whole thing lmao) and I ended up cycling through so many aspec labels. This is one that I can feel comfortable in, and I'm hoping others resonate with it as well.

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term and very ambiguous identity that can essentially encompass anyone that identifies with it.

So- my sexuality is. incredibly nuanced and complicated when it comes to describing who I find myself romantically, aesthetically, or platonically attracted to (I know there are so many other ways to be attracted to someone, those are just the simplest for me to explain). For example: I can (when allowed by my silly demiromantic ass) be romantically attracted to men and masc (or even non aligned) presenting and identifying people, and I in fact, have a lovely boyfriend whom I love a lot! And as for femme aligned people its more interesting because I don't feel particularly romantically about them, but I can experience aesthetic, or platonic forms of attraction, and Queer is simply a label that I connect with that has the space to encompass all of that.

Demiromantic

Demiromantic is a label that essentially encompasses the idea that an individual doesn't feel romantic attraction to another unless they have an emotional or platonic bond with that person. (there is also an ace and an aroace version, which I think is super neat)

Demiromantic is a label that I personally connect with, be that because I'm naturally incredibly slow to make connections, or maybe connected to the fact that I'm very neurodivergent, (although thats a post for another day-) and feeling comfortable being and feeling romantic about someone is already incredibly rare, and I feel like I need a connection to someone personally until I can feel romantically (I say that like I control when I feel romantic. Its kinda. I dunno I can't control it. this label is just one I felt encompassed it. which is the point.)

Transgender

Transgender is an umbrella term in which someone doesnt connect or identify with the assigned gender given at birth. (I'm very sure I have made it no secret that I am transmasc. We love the transes here)

However. no matter how many labels I find to express and explain my gender being 'masculine' (with several different question marks. I'm a boy in the same way orange soda is the same as a regular orange. same sorta spirit. completely different executions.) above all. I am still trans. and I will always be trans. that's who I am <33

My gender is. an interesting topic. In the way that I have not yet found a label to describe it other than being transmasc. which I know as different to being a trans 'man' in the fact that I didnt transition to be a 'man', not binarily being a man. I bounce between being androgynous and being masculine, but in a way where labels like demigendered/demiboy or boyflux (other labels I've considered) don't seem to fit. because it is in a way where some days I feel more or less masculine to completely genderless. (If anyone can think of a label that fits that- I would love to hear it. I haven't even gotten into My pronoun search. maybe a seperate post on that later.)

[tuiyla]

idk if you've said anything like this before but you're the only glee & avatar person i see anymore sooo... what kind of benders do you think all the glee kids would be (or just the ones you feel like talking about lol)

Ah yes, the intersection of Glee and Avatar is... quite something lmao. I think I listed them out like a year ago and on a different platform so that's no longer relevant anyway. These are most vibes-based but Avatar does have a pretty neat system of symbolism behind the elements so I'll try to keep that in mind - unfortunately, Glee lacks any kind of thematic consistency lmao.

Fire

I've seen people say water as Santana's element (in a non-Avatar context) and as interesting as I find that choice, I kinda can't not go with fire for her. I think she'd initially rely a lot on anger and I like the idea that she needs to be more like a waterbender and find that push and pull balance. Can be a chaotic and destructive force but also someone who breathes life into things, metaphorically? Heck yeah.

Rachel’s the most difficult character for me to envision in the Avatarverse and I feel like this is a pretty surface level choice but idk, it’s her drive. That passion and persistence, the way she burns so brightly in spite and because of everything. And she will not shine with a lesser intensity for anyone.

Blaine’s friendliness also makes me think of air or others for him but I think the passion with which he creates makes a case for fire. Because fire is creation, and I think the fire peeps together could represent different but equally fascinating aspects of the element. He can be intense like Pezberry but is more aware of not, well, burning out as it was. Like a more lowkey firebender? But other elements could be compatible too.

Air

Mike as major air vibes, with his fluidity and easy-going attitude, willingness to remove personal glory, all that. He’d be such a fun airbender, showing off on his glider and all. I’m also manifesting Harry Shum to play some kind of role in the franchise, whether that’s Avatar Studios or the Netflix live-action.

While I’m drawn to the idea of fire and water Brittana and the binary opposition there, I think air fits Brittany more. She’s one of the least grounded characters and very much about different perspectives, finding her own way, that eccentricity that we see from flashbacks with the Air Nomads. She’d follow her own path for sure.

I swear I only thought of Theo after I thought of this, but Artie. Bending is something that can turn traditional disabilities into strengths in the Avatarverse and I like the idea of air being an escape for Artie where he’s flying free. His creative vision also makes me think of airbending and how it’s full possibilites and the freedom to do whatever you want.

Water

I can see Quinn being a lot things depending on which personality she's using that day but I gravitate towards water for her. Sort of ice queen vibes, starts out solely as a healer but breaks away from her traditional family. I also think she'd be the most likely to dabble in bloodbending just because of the thematic importance of generational trauma and breaking the cycle there. Out of all the elements and subtypes of bending, I'm the most fascinated by bloodbending but convo for another day haha. Water is also the element of change and that’s a huuuge thing for Quinn, learning to embrace it.

Kurt, and I can’t really put my finger on why. I suppose, the adaptability, associating him with the colour blue, maybe the defying of traditional gender roles too. I could see him being air as well but yeah I’m going with water.

Sam could probably be different ones depending on the season but there’s something about the fluidity of water, the sense of community and adapting to different tides. Push and pull also feels kinda apt for him and I think he embodies different qualities of the element than Quinn and Kurt do but still fits. A more lowkey waterbender.

Earth

Finn could be different things depending on how you read him and I’m tempted to say fire because of his temper but earth feels more accurate. He’s stubborn and finds it hard to find a different perspective but once he opens up his world he can be a really grounding presence for others. There’s also a special kind of community feeling to the Earth Kingdom where they’re quite scattered generally but have this greater sense of belonging that I vibe with for Finn, who does have this arc of being the uniter.

Puck goes here because of his toughness but I also like a metalbending arc for him. Metalbending is about pressure, and social pressure hardening you until you can turn it around and live by your own terms. I think Puck has a lot of redefining to do and I like the idea of him starting as such an indelicate earthebnder and learning to appreciate and use the finer things. Handle things with more care as it was.

Tina could also be water on a different day but today I’m feeling earth for her. The stability, but also the danger of being stagnant and struggling to break free of the mold others have created for her. The power to shape so much around her but the willingness to do so being a key component. Also the endurance of putting up with so much, often unappreciated. Yeah, today I’m feelign earthbender Tina.

And, finally, hear me out... Mercedes as the Avatar. I see maybe earth being her base element but I just vibe with the idea of her being the master of all four elements, the one being the most balanced and capable. She's also the only one I'd trust with my life, frankly.

Shout out to @randomcanbian and @md-drawz who influenced some of this!