#beautiful black non binary

[justdavina]

Check out Justdavina's AI transgender fashion community!

[beanghostprincess]

Transmasc Sanji coming out to the gang and of course everyone is incredibly supportive. Chopper even manages to get him the One Piece equivalent of testosterone (may be actual testosterone but also I feel in a world where there’s a viral illness that gets you all boobed up there may be funnier options). Hurrah!

…. Except hat Sanji is afraid of needles and his T-shot is absolute agony for him every time. He can’t do it himself. The only people he trusts with it are Chopper, Nami and Robin. Until one day Usopp asks him if he can try it, because those three are currently otherwise occupied and Sanji has been kind of moping about it all day. Sanji agrees thinking it will be hell and prepares himself to constantly tell Usopp “NOT THERE!” “Make it quick!” “Please for the love of god don’t hit anything important I don’t want- …. What are you doing?”

He locks eyes with Usopp whose tongue is poking out, a pen in his hand, drawing on his leg. “Taking aim.” Sanji looks down at himself to see the bullseye painted onto his thigh. “What-“ The sniper pulls down his goggles with a comically serious expression “Target locked.” “Pff.” “Three. Two. One.” It still startles Sanji despite his laughter, but the needle pierces his skin like butter. Usopp forgoes the theatrics for a second to make sure he does the rest of the injection correctly, just like he had watched Chopper do it a hundred times before. When he pulls back his expression remains dead serious. “Target eliminated.” And that’s when Sanji breaks out into hysterical laughter “God! GOD that’s so stupid!” He needs a minute to calm himself down again, looking at his friends beaming face, happy that it all went down so smoothly. “Thank you…” “What can I say?” Usopp responds, twirling the needle between his fingers and making show out of blowing imaginary smoke from its tip “I’m an expert marksman.”

I've always loved the headcanon of Sanji being scared of needles because of Germa's experiments,,, And this is just so sweet. He finally gets to be himself around his family!! And he's thrilled and so so grateful that Chopper and the others are willing to help him go through this. But of course, the fear of needles doesn't go away easily.

Not that he actually tells people about it. He only says he trusts Chopper and the girls more when it comes to gentle, medical stuff and he doesn't want the clumsy idiots in his crew to get near him with something sharp. Which is, you know, perfectly understandable. So nobody thinks twice about it.

But Usopp knows. Usopp knows because he has seen Sanji close his eyes tightly while doing this, whether it's with the girls or Chopper. He has seen him shaking before getting into the sickbay. He has seen Sanji sighing deeply, trying to calm himself down minutes prior. He has noticed him being a bit too emotionally exhausted after doing it. Usopp knows exactly what fear feels like, so he knows Sanji is scared.

So when nobody else is free to help him, Usopp asks. He knows he won't let the others do it (for obvious reasons) and he's tired of hearing Sanji complain and also feels a bit sad and guilty seeing him like that. The whole thing about Usopp being all dramatic and theatrical about it is so perfect for them. Usopp acts silly to distract him and Sanji used to think those things were stupid and for kids. But-- There's just something about Usopp here.

He's doing this act for him. Because he knows he's scared and he cares and he's being oh so gently with him. Besides, he's so close to him, too. Sanji starts to wonder if he has ever been so close to him before and why the hell he looks so pretty now. Not even with the girls and Chopper he gets so distracted. So much that the whole thing happens quickly. Painless. And it's so damn dumb that Sanji can't help but laugh.

So between Sanji's laugh being the only noise around and startling Usopp with a new feeling inside of him, and Sanji realizing he has never been more comfortable and happy around another person... A new relationship blossoms. So I guess Sanji will be the one asking Usopp for help with his T-shot more frequently now.

[4qu3er1us-punk]

DNI

anti-agere (but tw for ageres this blog may be mature or cuss), anti-alterhuman, queerphobic (that means transphobic, aphobic, homophobic, lesbophobic, biphobic, terfs, if you hate on neopronouns and xenogenders, or any other hate towards 2LGBTQIAP+ people), sexist, racist, ableist, or if you hate on people because of their religion or their identity at all, Pedo, zoo, age play kink, rape kink, incest, endo, proship. Also if you’d ever blame a victim of rape for what happened to them, that applies. I don’t even need to explain here, unless you don’t know what ED means. No eating disorder-positive people here. I’m not shaming eating disorders, but don’t encourage them, they’re not healthy, and you all are beautiful. If you’re on the side of Russia or Israel and think Gaza/Palestine and/or Ukraine deserve whats happened and is happening to them fuck off right now. this is a bullshit free zone where hate isn’t tolerated

about me

[cityonahillphotos]

Who am I?! Why do I exist #setmefre

[dj-romeo-flo]

I would like to follow #spotify and check out your playlist

[gratedlight]

[xtrablak674]

Orange You Glad I Didn't!

[Photo by Brown Estate]

[johannestevans]

A Transphobe Ruined His Own Night Because I Was Existing Next to Him

Hate is a miserable business — but in this case, not for me!

Originally published here in Prism & Pen.

My partner and I went to DILF Leeds for the first time this week — DILF, which obviously stands for Dad I’d Like To Fuck, is a regular gay dance night that runs here in the UK. It runs all over, in Manchester and London and a bunch of other cities, as well as more locally to us in Leeds.

I will be the first to say that dance music is not my vibe as a rule, and a lot of the DJing unfortunately struck me as closer to noise than music — we’d meant to go before but had to miss the event, so we were really excited to go this week. I did have a significant moment of doubt when I realised that the event started at ten o’clock, because despite the night being aimed at older men particularly, I am in my heart much more tired and crotchety than any of them could be, but we went along.

We arrived just as the night opened, and a few guys were stripping out of their day gear into their club gear underneath, or were changing into it.

We logged all our stuff in the cloakroom, and to begin with I didn’t strip down too much — my partner stripped down to his Christmas suspenders and jock strap earlier on, and once it was a good deal busier (and thus a lot warmer), I stripped down to my colourful flared trousers and my leather vest.

There’s honestly so few nights and spaces that are so beautifully liberated as nights like these. There were some men that stayed fully-clothed the whole of the time, either in colourful Christmas or holiday jumpers, or in their jeans and their novelty t-shirts — with basic but emphatic slogans like SLUT, or a good favourite of ours for the evening, FEED ME TO THE BEARS — but a lot of people were dressed in fetish and clubbing gear.

Rubber suits, leather and latex harnesses, jockstraps, lingerie, beautiful underwear and bodysuits, leather collars and fetish gear — and even more exciting than the diversity of the outfits (including those in just their birthday suits) was the diversity of the bodies in the room.

A reason we were interested in DILF rather than a random gay club night was that it focuses explicitly and specifically on celebrating different men’s bodies beyond the twink and the twunk — DILFs and daddies and older men; bears and and otters and bulls, fat men and big muscle men, and all the men in between.

They also have a very explicitly inclusive policy when it comes to trans men:

1. DILF creates events for like-minded queer men (including gay, bi + trans men) and male presenting non-binary people over 18 years old to celebrate + express themselves. 2. There’s no room for racism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, body shaming or any other kind of hate speech and intolerance at DILF’s events. — (From their website.)

And I saw other trans men too, not to mention that apart from having a wider variety of weights and sizes in the men in attendance, there were a lot more brown and Black men than I often see at events in Bradford and Leeds, and it’s obvious that DILF does more than just pay lip service to the idea of diversity, in their organisers and staff, in their promo photos, and in their target audience for attendees.

I also brought my cane with me and spent a good part of the night either sitting down or leaning against a wall or surface, and I got no comments on it, nor even any funny looks, honestly. I cannot readily recollect a night where I’ve gone out and danced with my cane to hand, where no one’s been a dick about it, but also where I’ve genuinely let myself rest enough through the course of the night that I’m in less pain at the end of the night than I am at the beginning.

The night was good.

It was a busy night, it was a busy night full of sexy men, while the music was not my thing one could mostly dance along to it, and it was sexy as Hell. People were grinding on one another, making out, but obviously it was a cruising night as much as a dance night, so while no one was getting bent over and reamed over a bar table — not that I saw, anyway, but perhaps we left too early to enjoy it — but people were giving and receiving blowjobs, handjobs, and frotting a good bit, which one does love to see.

I don’t know what it was that made this dude clock me — I haven’t had top surgery and was only in a leather vest worn open, but my tits are fairly small and given that he was a much bigger man than I am, his were far bigger than mine are. It might have been my chest, it might have been that I had short hair, it might have been that because I was wearing eyeliner and colourful trousers he thought I was nonbinary — who knows? Who cares?

But this fella turns to me and says something to the effect of, “You know this is an event for gay men, right?”

And my partner and I were like, “Uh… Yeah? Duh?”

“Men who are GAY.” And I didn’t initially understand what his problem was, and just sort of looked at him very blankly, whereupon he very snottily said, “Hmph, good luck!” and turned away.

What followed was an interesting exercise in creating one’s own misery.

My partner and I sort of looked at one another with the typical, “What’s her problem?” look one often witnesses in gay clubs like this one when someone’s being a bit of a prick without an apparent reason, and then as we sort of half-observed, we watch this guy go to the friends he was with and complain whilst pointing in my direction. We obviously couldn’t hear what he was saying over the music, but he started with his friends, and then spoke to a few others… and then a few other random guys after that.

All of them, to a man, glanced in my direction, and then gave their mate a look like, “Um… okay? So?”

Thus adding to his frustration and apparently spurring him on to complain to the next man at the audacity of a gay man at this gay men’s event that he didn’t personally approve of.

Several of his mates continued to chat and make small talk with us here and there throughout the night, exchanged horny and admiring looks, et cetera and so on — and this guy’s temper tantrum obviously made no significant change to my night whatsoever.

No one gave a fuck that I was trans — they might have thought my outfit was a bit odd because I wasn’t in nicer fetish gear because I just don’t have any yet beyond some sexy assless underwear and I haven’t yet gotten hold of a harness for myself, but like I said, there were other trans men present, other effete and effeminate men, other guys who were on the skinnier side. On no point was I unique in the room — and people still flirted here and there, had conversations, and so on.

The only night this guy really impacted for himself was his own — focusing on some dude he didn’t want to be present rather than being flirty and having genuine fun with other men, and also embarrassing himself to all his friends, who all kept glancing at him with the same glance of, “Girl, what?” whenever he apparently worked himself up again.

The thing about the anti-trans obsession in recent years is that it’s a fixation on other people’s existence and behaviour that doesn’t impact you in any way — until this guy had made that comment to me, I hadn’t even said hello to him. We were just sitting on the same bench against the wall, and one of his friends had been laughing while helping my partner off with his skinny jeans, all in good fun.

He didn’t get everyone baying for my removal, or complaining about it to staff, or anything else. He didn’t get any of them to get out pitchforks or start burning trans effigies.

He got secondhand embarrassment on his behalf, because he was making himself look ridiculous to his friends because of his obsession with trans people, actively lowering their opinion of him and for what? The one trans dude he noticed vibing nearby, with no direct interaction with him at all that he hadn’t started?

If I was going to be cruising and fucking anybody, it’s not like he had to partake with me! There were plenty of guys to choose from!

This man was in his fifties or so, I would estimate, so by the time he was old enough to be exploring his own sexuality, being gay would have been legal, but he would have been living through the worst of the AIDs crisis, and certainly, a night like DILF would never have been able to be so openly advertised, nor I doubt as well attended or put on as often as it can be today. It’s always funny when I see such silly and self-sabotaging bigotry from men who are old enough and more than experienced enough to know better, but in the meantime, like…

I’m glad I still had a good night, and I’m honestly so pleased to have attended an event where the common consensus was very obviously at this dude’s problem rather than against the trans minority, especially when the world so often feels like it’s the other way around.

It’s a nice reminder that as vocal as they can be with their whinging and complaining, the bigots aren’t the majority they’d like us to believe they are.

[justdavina]

Stunning Transgender Woman! Look at the beautiful color of her eyes!

[take-my-soul-if]

Eros and Psyche IF

TAKE MY SOUL is an 18+ IF game being written in Twine. It's a retelling of the famous story of Eros and Psyche, just... with a few new added twists and turns!

Your sisters married off quick, you didn't. It was hard, harder than necessary for your parents to marry you off. Everyone seemed to kneel at the presence of your beauty but ended up never wanting to stay long enough for something to form.

You were practically a trophy for rich nobles to flaunt around. Cupid had failed you with this one.

Until one night, you felt a prick at your side, a rush of cold air, and suddenly your life flipped upside down when your parents came back to the castle with upsetting news about the rest of your life (or maybe the end of it?)

Customize YOUR own Psyche! Play as female, male, non-binary; straight, bisexual, pansexual, gay; asexual, and even, touch-averse! What hobbies should you have? What beliefs? What religion?

Follow the way the myth is supposed to unfold, or break away and create what you think should happen. Who said the minor god needed to get the person?

Find love in Cupid, or maybe even their mom?

Play as quite literally, one of the most beautiful people roaming Earth

Deal with your two obnoxious older sisters who only want to flaunt their husbands in your face

Enrich yourself in a story filled with new paths at every page and a whole ton of flavor text!

Have the occasional switch of POV, with the starring guest of Aphrodite, the Orcale?, and even your own love interest

CUPID

The god of love, albeit a minor one, but a god nonetheless. You've never seen them, as Eros likes to stay hidden whilst casting their arrows. But, from what your tutors teach you, they have these massive angel wings that preen out whenever they get into something mischievous. Cloth wraps around their naked body, Eros doesn't leave much to the imagination. However, in some readings, Eros is depicted as a female with hip-length black hair, while in others, the male version likes to keep it cropped and out of his way.

this is a draft! more romances may be introduced in the future, but currently, im sticking with Eros

DEMO COMING SOMETIME IN MAY!!!

[probablyasocialecologist]

Transphobia cannot be separated from fascism because it relies on white supremacist principles to function. There are two genders, male and female, each serving a singular biological purpose: the continuation of the race. Anything outside of that binary logic is broken or degenerate. And while not all transphobes might agree that this race must be white, it’s generally white beauty standards that transphobes choose to call upon when trying to determine what a woman is.

The rules prohibiting high levels of testosterone in sports are still more likely to eject black cis women than anybody else, while the assumption that ‘real women’ will always be shorter, smaller, and less hirsute than ‘women who actually men’ leads to the unfair and unnecessary scrutiny of (usually queer, non-white and/or disabled) women’s bodies, sometimes to the point of even the most slightly gender non-conforming cis women being attacked.

Maddison Stoff, Why gender essentialism is a white supremacist ideology

[will80sbyers]

Shelter on Amazon prime has well written characters and an interesting story. There's a black latino guy that is THE main character, a black girl as a protagonist, a lesbian girl as a protagonist, a lovely dorky but genius guy that you are going to love a lot... there are lots of wlws involved, there is a non binary black character that's important to the plot, A LOT of plot twists, it deals with really heavy topics like abuse on children but it's also funny at times so it's not all heavy and the kids are written like actual real people and not just gen Z caricatures... beautiful relationships between the characters, beautiful scenes of platonic friendship and mutual support, lots of action and drama but in a good way, there are queer relationships actually happening on screen that are the main focus!! It has literally everything you could ever want and it's actually pretty damn good!!! GO WATCH IT NOW PLEASE 🥺

[lovisyandereblog]

Yan!Android × Creator!Darling- I just can't get it out my mind... like, you created them. You're ✨️god✨️

I can keep going on this idea for a looong time, maybe next time haha

My English might not be the best, not my native language :D May I be the ⚜️Anon?

Wired Heart

Yandere Android X NON-BINARY Creator [Scientist] Reader

Part 1 <3

Guys big shout out to whoever wrote this ask cause it was one of the first asks I got and I kept postponing it, i love this ask smmmmm i hope its up to your expectations😭😭 and of course you can be ⚜️anonnnn IT TOOK ME FIVE WHOLE MINUTES TO FIND THIS EMOJI!!!!

The whirring of the machinery snapped you out of your thoughts.

Who knew building such an intricate and sophisticated robot took so long?

Sitting before you on your laboratory table was a beautiful android, so gorgeous it almost surprised you that you were its creator. Its jet black hair was soft to the touch, a lean yet muscular frame and those glowing red eyes.

You smile to yourself, hands on your hips as you admire your own creation; he was indeed beautiful.

‘Time to turn it on! Im so excited!’ You thought to yourself, wiping the sweat of your forehead.

You brought your finger to its power button, taking a deep breath before pressing it promptly.

Its bright red eyes opened immediately, you stared at it excitedly as it adjusted to its controls.

“Greetings Master. It’s lovely to finally meet you.” The AI spoke, smiling gently as its smooth voice filled the room.

“Hello Xander, the feeling is mutual.” You smile and can’t stop revelling in the glory of bringing to life such an intricate robot.

Xander was an amazing assistant for you, always there to help with any duty assigned to him. His features, expressions and ministrations were so life-like, sometimes you felt as if the robot in front of you was real.

He was the first prototype for the business you were aiming to start: a company which sold human-like AI to act as partners for lonely people.

An inquisitive idea you were taking advantage of since, let’s face it, millions of people craved a partner in this world.

Your robots would do everything a real partner would do: shower them with affection, spend quality time with them and basically ensure the customer doesn’t feel like it was a robot.

Weeks passed, you felt weary. There was always this feeling in your stomach; something was wrong. You felt a pair of eyes piercing through your skull all of the time. Your creation had been acting weird recently; almost as if it became a sentient being.

Xander would want to be with you 24/7, he would ask constant questions in regards to where you were going, who you were with and how long you were going to be; it became immensely suffocating.

Even your friends and family commented on the nature of your robot, that he seemed more than just your AI helper. They said at time it seemed as though he actually was your real human boyfriend—you kept brushing it off, but the truth of the matter was that you were questioning Xander’s intentions too.

Your robot did take care of you so well: cooking for you, cleaning for you, nursing you back to health when you were sick and tending to your every beck and call.

But you felt uneasy, his touch would linger on you for far too long—not a random touch but one of longing. The way his eyes would follow your every move with were a sense of affection. It was scary.

And thats why you took the long-awaited decision to terminate Xander—it broke your heart to do this, but Xander was taking control of your whole life.

You swallow as you walk into your workspace, looking at Xander on charging. His eyes were closed, hiding that crimson gaze of his. Your eyes ran all over his features, taking them in one by one before sighing.

Your hands worked skilfully on the keyboard of your computer, bringing up the data of Xander on the screen. You had already made a terminate control to be used in dire emergency situations…could this count as one?

You turn your head to look at the side of Xander’s face before bringing the cursor to hover over the big red control which read TERMINATE.

Your finger was inches away from pressing down on the left side of the mouse before a sharp pain evolved in your wrist—you gasped in pain before looking up at the cause.

Xander. Wait…Xander?!

Those bloodshot eyes of his were wide open, his perfect features looked tense; as if he really felt the pain of being eradicated from existence from the very being who gave him life.

You had no words, this can’t be real. He had no control over gaining consciousness during his charging period without your authority.

But here he was, his expression morphed into one of rage.

“Master. What are you doing?” His voice was cold, but you swore you could hear a hint of hurt.

You stared up at him, your wrist in an iron grip which you couldn’t get out of.

Your creation leaned down further, his perfect face inches away from you, “Do not ignore me Master, you are hurting me.”

His voice was broken, hoarse and upset; he couldn’t fathom why you would do something like this to him. He had been so good for you, he did everything you asked from him and never let you complain.

Xander felt his chest hurt, this wasn’t what he was created for. But he couldn’t help what was happening to him; his growing feelings, no, love and obsession he felt for you couldn’t be stopped.

“X-Xander you..you…you’re..h-how..” You could barely form a sentence, your brain still not processing what was happening in front of you. You must have just been sleep-deprived and imagined this situation for yourself. Yes..that was definitely what had happened…this wasn’t real.

“Im yours Master, how could you throw me away like this?!”

You had no words when suddenly he wrapped his arms around you, locking you in his arms; being made of metal still didn’t stop his hug being disturbingly comfortable.

You tried pushing away but there was no way you could escape his grip, you had taken over his wired heart; the sole reason from these unusual feelings he was having.

“You made me Master, but I won’t let you get rid of me.” He spoke, his voice slightly muffled by your shoulder he was nuzzling into, “We will be together…”

“Forever~”

BROOOO IM FINALLY DONEEEEE. Sorry this is so short, I still don’t know how to extend this but im working on other stories aswell!! I love you all so much and have missed you<33333333333

my masterlist <3

divider by @ohmarigold

[witchthewriter]

𝐒𝐢𝐡𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞

⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!

Warnings: some spoilers for the series xx

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ

ISTP

Hufflepuff

Chaotic Good

Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon, Cancer Rising

𝑺𝑭𝑾🌿

・The most sweetest, most gentle and most loyal husband you could ever imagine.

・Exactly like the ones in the romance novels - you are his world.

・And he would do ANYTHING for you. Sounds cliche but he would literally climb the tallest mountain, ask Uhtred to help him bring down the moon, Sihtric is crazy in love with you. And it doesn't stop after the honeymoon phase.

・Any part of your body that you dislike, Sihtric is the first one to be like "what? I don't get it. You are ... the most glorious person to ever walk on midguard."

・Has cried while alone when he's away from you.

・Not when he's been asked by Uhtred to spy though - he just thinks about you when it's safe to do so (he takes caring for his friends very seriously. He's big on loyalty.)

・Further with the loyalty comment; it's actually hilarious that it was he and Uhtred who set up that ruse in season 3. Sihtric would rather die than actually be that person

・Buys you any and every kind of jewellery; bracelets, rings, earrings, necklaces. If you follow his religion/way of life, then he buys you your own thor's hammer pendant.

・When he places it around your neck, he tugs you forward and leans his head against your forehead.

・Calls you, "sweetheart," "my love," "beautiful/handsome". But also likes to call you cheeky ones too: "troublemaker," "danger."

・Puppy god eyes, puppy dog eyes, PUPPY DOG EYES. He doesn't even know he's doing it. It was practically beaten out of him when he was younger by his father and half-brother.

・But when he realised he was doing it, Sihtric thought, 'I have never felt safe enough to act like this. With anyone.'

𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔��𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔

Calm bf (Sihtric) x Hyper gf/bf/non-binary partner (You)

Gives Jewellery (Sihtric) x Tries To Wear Everything Every Day To Make Them Happy (You)

Black Cat (You) x Black Bat (Sihtric)

𝑹𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆

Enemies to Lovers

You first saw Sihtric when he was living with his wretched father. You never expected to find him tied up under Uhtred's command.

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈

Lady of the Dawn by Peter Gundry

𝑁𝑆𝐹𝑊 🔞 No one under the age of 18 past this point.

・When he first gets back from being away from you, he's hungry - like a dog in heat, he's rough, he needs to feel you, all of you.

・Sihtric's favourite thing to do is go down on you. Your juices, your smells; it drives him mad.

・After he's made you cum thrice, he rubs your cum/juices on his clothes just in case he has to leave again. He wants to be able to smell you.

・It has become a ritual now - if he doesn't then it's bad luck in his mind.

・If Sihtric is home for a while then his fucking turns into love making. Gentle, loving, slow, passionate.

・Long strokes, in and out of you while kissing every part of your face from above, nuzzling his face into your neck.

・Has a massive breeding kink (even if your body does not have the means to create a child); he likes to talk dirty while pumping into you.

"That's it, let me cum inside you my love. I want to put a child in you."

・When you agree with a whimper, it sends him over the edge. Hot ropes of cum shooting inside you.

・Sihtric keeps pumping though. The fantasy of having a large family with you made his cock hard again.

[artigas]

I’m really happy that Black Sails is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, but (predictably) some of the takes I’m seeing online are so busted. It’s wild to me that anyone would complain about the fact that Anne Bonny kisses Jack after she’s developed this life-changing relationship with Max. It’s absolutely wild to see anyone roll their eyes or feel uncomfortable about the fact that Flint has sex with Miranda when he returns to her in season one or that Max is most likely a lesbian but actively has sex with men for pay and knows how to make that pleasurable. It’s crazy to me that some of the very audiences who claim to want queer representation feel so discomforted when they actually see the mess and seeming inconsistencies of queerness that they asked for.

The reality is that there are lesbians who have had (and will have!) meaningful, mutually-gratifying, and deeply sexual relationships with men. There are gay men who’ve enjoyed having sex with women, who are gay as the day is long and nevertheless feel sexually attracted to a woman or two and are nevertheless gay men, full stop. There are gay cis men who are happily married to trans women. There are femme dom tops and butch bottoms and there are mascs afab people who like femme boys. There are non-binary people and trans men who actively identify as lesbians. There are ace and aro people who enjoy thinking about and engaging with sex — sometimes in fiction and sometimes in real life. Queerness, in fiction and in reality, defies neat categorization. That is the beauty, power, and (perceived) unorthodoxy of queerness.

Now, I’ll say this — do I think the straight men behind Black Sails were actively thinking deeply and insightfully about the paradoxes and fuckery of queer identity when they wrote Black Sails? No! By their own admission, Steinberg and Levine have owned up to the fact that some of the writing of the show was really hinged on their own blind spots as people who are not (to my knowledge) members of the queer community. If I want to be generous, I think that the beautiful mess of Black Sails is that, in not feeling like experts enough to designate specific identity labels to any of their characters, the writers stumbled their way into more authentic representation of lived queer experience, which is to say that the notion that James Flint was actively thinking of himself as a gay man was anachronistic. As many lesbian archivists and theories have noted, the notion of a queer identity — as in, queerness is who you are, not what you do — was patently unthinkable for most cultures in the past. In other words, the idea that Anne Bonny operates in the eighteenth century as a lesbian and thus would not willingly engage in relationships with men is not only untrue of the series, but untrue of most recorded lesbian experiences in the real world. The notion that a lesbian would operate her entire life without engaging sexually or romantically with men, for instance, is a very new privilege that some of us are very lucky to enjoy, but it is not true for the vast majority of human history — hell, it’s not even true of our present world.

This is all to say that think that there’s something really funny about how we want queer characters to fit into neatly organized boxes. This isn’t a new problem, either. When the show was still airing, the BS fandom would get itself into tizzies about wether or not Flint is gay or bisexual, wether or not Anne Bonny is a lesbian, wether or not Silver is queer when his only canonical relationship is with Madi, etc etc. We’ve been having these discourses for years and I don’t know. I get that much of it is fueled by how badly some people want to see themselves represented in media, but . . . well. The siloing of queer characters and queer narratives into neat little boxes has never felt very authentic to me and nine times out of ten, it’s also just so damn boring.

[watercolourcritters]

thirty-four

bday comics: thirty-three

AN: I have an acquired brain injury, and always have a lot of feels about it on my birthday! so, disability bday comics are now a thing :)

[ID: a ten panel comic drawn in simple black ink with messily drawn borders.

One - I sit cross-legged on a sofa with an open laptop in front of me. Text reads: "And what do you do for work?" "I'm on disability." "Oh. And is it permanent?" "I mean. It's been over four years since my mTBI."

Two - Frame zooms in showing just my torso and chin. Text: "So yeah, probably."

Three - I sit forward on the couch with elbows on knees and chin resting on folded hands and sigh. It shows my whole body. I am a white non-binary person with a curly mullet, glasses, and wearing a t-shirt and ripped jeans. Text: The doctor calls me "dear" as she ends the call. It's been a long year."

Four - I stand and walk away. The image shows just my legs and the couch behind me. Text: When I first got injured, permanency was the scariest possibility. The idea of a lifetime of pain and fatigue made survival feel impossible.

Five - I stand holding a cupboard open, my back to the viewer. The open cupboard shows that it's very full of mugs and tea supplies. Text: It's not so scary, anymore. And it no longer feels just like surviving.

Six - A close up shot of a kettle steaming. Text: There's still grief, trapped under my ribcage. But I think there always will be. I've had to put away so many dreams, said goodbye to who I once was.

Seven - Close up shot showing hot water being poured from the kettle into a handmade mug. Text reads: But in the space left empty, new things have grown. New hopes. New dreams. New understandings of myself.

Eight - Close up shot of my hands holding a steaming mug of tea. Text: This injury might be permanent - but it might not be. No one really knows for sure. I love my life. I love my body, and my brain, all the messy disabled parts of it.

Nine - A full shot showing me sitting on my sofa again, and holding a large blanket out in front of me, as if getting ready to wrap it over my legs. Text: If this is the rest of my life, then what a gift to live it. I'm not done growing, hoping, grieving, healing. Still trying, and trying, and trying.

Ten - I sit on my sofa with the blanket wrapped over my legs, leaning against a cushion. I am sketching in a ringed book held on my lap, and my tea mug rests on the blanket beside the book. I am smiling slightly and look content. On the wall behind me is a quilted progress pride flag. Text: It's messy, complicated, and beautiful. But isn't that what life is?

The comic is signed h. graves '23. End ID.]