#being weird and queer in my art and making it interesting for others isn't something i do well at :(

[wild-at-mind]

I wish I could be a weird queer zine artist :/

[velvetvexations]

Oh btw about predatorjacketing and kinkshaming trans people;

This is generally going on among modern fandoms and among young queer and trans adults outside of just transfems.

I've seen plenty of non-transfeminine nonbinary and transmasculine folk get hunted down and harassed over cartoon porn they draw. I don't know in detail if it's more frequent or violent towards transfeminine folk (it could be, - given how mainstream transmisogyny relates to the gay or gnc men as predators myth).

I'm transmasc and I don't have a NSFW art platform at all because I'm THAT scared of people finding it, associating it with my mains and then slandering me over it. I can not find community around my kinks etc. because I feel unsafe to discuss that with the vast majority of people. And yes, my transness is a factor. I always feel that it if I was a feminine cis woman I would be seen as cute and innocent. I have a very deep instinctive feeling that my transness to many people represents a sexual threat and that it's easier to demonize me over kinks bcs I stick out too much etc.

Even in a women's changing room I feel that my masculinity is in this stark direct contrast with most people I share that space with, - that I have to be really careful of how I move, where I look and how I come across. I have felt for my whole life, even when being a fem presenting teen, that I am clocked as a boy thing that doesn't belong there. Now on T, with boobs... I also have to avoid talking in those changing rooms. In the company of really fem presenting cis women I feel socially and culturally hypersexualized for my deviant masculinity, for being an apparent dyke in the midst of women. I have cptsd from being around feminine people because of how othered I am + some experiences of being subtly ruled out of the Girls TM club.

Being a sexual being with my kinds of sexual interests while having this experience as a transmasculine person is something quite vulnerable and difficult to fully become confident in and love oneself about. I think transandrophobia and transmisogyny have that whole "you're a predatory impostor among women" thing and "you emasculate straight cis men by existing" thing in common... Just from a slightly diff. angle but there's so much similiarity.

A lot of the chronic policing between transmasc people over kink and sexuality is actually a result of internalizing the idea that we are dirty masculine predators. There is a high social pressure to be cute, feminized, sanitized and say "PROSHIT DNI >:/" because transmascs have an instinctive self-awareness of how we're easily thrown to the wolves when our gender-nonconformity or sexuality is no longer cute and Christian Values Friendly enough.

Being terrified to death about some kind of predatorjacketing over writing fanfic or drawing weird cartoon porn isn't exclusive to transfems. Any transmasc person encaging in fandom or any online art subcultures is waaayyy too intimately aware of this fact 24/7.

Oh and? Transmasc people with feminine partners who are tops / encage in some kind of roleplay where they're in the 'aggressing' role are extremely stigmatized too. I see people instantly write this off as toxic masculinity or inherently gross because a transmasc does it.

A lot of transmascs (speaking from experience) who actually prefer these "scary" roles in fantasy etc., feel social pressure to over-emphasize how bottom uwu sluts we are. I've recently stopped doing this because I realized it makes me dysphoric + I only do it to make my sexuality more palatable to other people. And I see so many transmascs as like... Having to reduce themselves to these cute slut boytoys. While I fully believe this is the authenthic preference of many of them, I think as a transmasc there is a strong social pressure to be /that way/ because being seen as Gross Threatening Men is like a social death sentence.

(there's a lot of good discussion about everything on this blog btw and I love to read it. I just wanted to add 2 cents to the anti kink vs trans people discussion.)

I don't think there's any difference literally at all between how transfem and transmasc sexuality is "handled" by the internet. People have it in their head that everything is an exact 1-1 of everything else so the fact that a trans woman is more likely to be visibly tagged as a pervert just for walking down the street (transmasc members of Velvet Nation please let me know if that's inaccurate) gets transferred to the internet as though everyone treats trans men who have being trans in their bio as the first thing everyone sees as cis men.

At most TERFs might report trans women more often and I don't want to downplay the seriousness of that but get fucking real if one doesn't think trans men aren't under constant scrutiny.

[the-ace-lesbians]

This may be a weird ask, I don’t usually ask folks stuff so feel free to ignore! But I have always known intellectually that I’m ace and I used to be able to identify more with that concept, but I feel like I don’t know how to accept it truly as a part of myself. Especially as I’ve gotten older and my peer group has aged and sex has gotten more normal. I know how to conceptualize it but I don’t know how to feel it and accept it without still feeling so other, if that makes sense? I haven’t ever really met anyone I’m able to relate to or talk about it with which makes it harder. Just looking for some advice or understanding. Thank you!

Hello! I don't think it's weird to ask at all, looking for a little advice from your community is a good thing, in my opinion, and the ask box is there for anyone to ask or share or anything like that!

I think accepting asexuality as an integral part of yourself is a hard thing to do. It's very, very much, for me, like the struggle for younger me to accept being a lesbian - I knew that it was true. I was happy to say it. But it didn't quite click in my soul for a while. I think, for being a lesbian, it was because of the state of society. Homophobia abound, comphet, the societal pressure to marry a man, and just general misogyny always implying men were the constant end goal in everything anyone deemed 'a woman' did, you know?

For being asexual, I feel a similar thing is true. Sex is everywhere, it's considered not only something that must be done, but that should be expected to see, engage in, revel in, surround yourself in. So when you exist outside of that overbearing concept, there's this inherent inability accept it inside yourself because it's like -

'Oh, here I am. Purposefully putting myself apart from others,'

Queer identities always feel othering because of our society, it's something I feel is just... integral to it all? I'm not saying to be queer is to be other, or different, or lonely, it's more like to be queer is to exist in a world where people will tell you it's other, different, and lonely, even if your lived experience is the opposite of, but anyone constantly being told that is going to have a sort of cognitive dissonance moment.

The feeling of loneliness or being othered is real. I dare say in many ways it's normal for asexuals, as well as any other queer identity. There have been many times where I wished I was simply not asexual because the ostracization from all directions is too much, I've even posted vent art I made about it on this blog.

I do understand you. Being asexual can sometimes feel like being stunted, or left behind, or just so intrinsically different from others that it's sort of a weird road block, and there's this question of, how do I embody something that sets me apart - at least, for me.

I'm not sure if any advice I can give you would help exactly, because everyone's own journey in accepting and being and internalizing who they are is different, and comes about in different ways. I can tell you that my personal journey for that was turning to sex positivity, learning about it, and in the end when I was even more disinterested in it for myself, I went, 'yeah, okay, so my boundaries and consent are always a hard no for this'. Once I had established a hard belief in consent and learned about the intricacies of sexual identity and the likes, the idea of where my own boundaries and interests sat really felt like just nothing.

It was like, okay, so, I'm not sexually attracted to anyone. Some people are mainly into feet, or balloons, or some other really specific niche - once I realized and accepted the variety and spectrum of human sexuality, the fact that I sat inside my own niche was just nothing out of the ordinary.

Of course, that was my own personal journey! It was also largely spurred on by being sex-averse (yeah, a sex-averse stone butch sex-positive asexual is a crazy mix), so this isn't a one size fits all solution, and maybe your own journey could come from a completely different thing. Maybe finding a specific label, or figuring out exactly where your lines are drawn, or acknowledging your sexuality online or to people you know in real life, can start making it feel more real, and more like you instead of a concept.

You'll have a community here regardless of where your journey is on the road, or how you got there, or where you end up, chief.

[robo--homo]

How to make friends

So I have a superpower: I am incredibly good at making friends with strangers. I can and have gone to bars/parties/events and, in the space of a couple hours, assembled a group of people to talk to out of complete strangers. All of my current friends are people I've met this way, including my best friend of a year who helped me get my job.

I want to give this super power to people, but it involved a LOT of therapy and restructuring my world view. Still; I am autistic and have social anxiety, so please don't think it's something you're not also capable of. At the very least, I can try and give advice for how I approach random people and turn them into friends. May you twist it and use it however it will help you.

Find a place for meeting people.

This is, of course, the first step. Find a place where people go TO meet people. Gay bars work great so long as it's not too loud you can't talk. You do not have to drink. You can go to straight bars if you're into that (this is a joke). Art exhibits. Poetry readings. Open mic nights. Parties. Anywhere that many people come and exist together on purpose. Coffee shops won't do it if there's not an event- most people don't go to coffee shops without a purpose, including "I'm going to sit here alone in peace". That being said, give it a try anyways; if there's one thing I've found in all my time doing this, it's that people are remarkably open to friendly conversation.

Find someone who's alone.

Maybe you can relate to this: you go out to one of these places, maybe you find a seat at a bar, thinking tonight I'm gonna make friends, and then nothing happens. You don't know how. You're too nervous. Have you ever felt like that? Then DING DING DING, congrats, you now know that other people feel like that. Use this to your advantage! Find someone sitting or standing around on their own and approach THEM. If you can muster up that confidence, other people will be so grateful you are able to initiate. You can absolutely approach groups, but I find that finding singular people is easier especially the first few times you try this.

Compliment and question.

Most people love a) getting complimented and b) talking about themself. It is human nature. Either one of these things will get you the kind of response you want, so find something you like about a person or even just something you think is interesting. "I like your Dr. Who shirt! Who's your favorite doctor?" "What's your drink of choice?" "Your hair is so pretty! Did you dye it yourself?" "Have you been to one of these events before?" Do some thinking before you approach and feeling prepared will help you bolster your nerves. Have a few more canned questions to move the conversation along once you've started (if it doesn't flow naturally): what do you do for work, hobbies, etc.

Don't be afraid of clear communication.

Even the most neurotypical cishet will usually respond well to you being open and honest about what you want; queer neurodivergent people will respond spectacularly. "Are you here with friends? Would you like a friend?" "Hey, is it okay if I sit with you? I'm just looking for someone to chat with." Etc. "Is it okay if I join you guys?" "I'm just trying to meet people." People love when you're clear with your intentions. This works for dating, too; I got my last boyfriend by going up to him at a dance club and saying "I can't figure out how to flirt with you but you're really hot."

Be prepared to bail.

I will not lie to you and say this approach works perfectly every time. That's not how people work; sometimes the vibes are weird, sometimes the other person ISN'T in the mood to make a friend, sometimes you're not meant to be friends. Again, having something in your back pocket will help you. Come up with a lie beforehand; pull out your phone and pretend to check a text, "Oh, my friend is looking for me, sorry!" "I didn't realize what time it is! I have to go!" Be polite! We're all robots programmed to give certain outputs, so even if you don't have a lie, just going, "Well, it was nice to meet you! Have a fun night!" can give you a perfectly acceptable way to leave.

Try, try again.

Out of the nine billion or so people on the planet, you're probably not gonna like half of them. Much like there are many fish in the sea, there are many friends! And some of them have nothing in common with you, or just don't match up with what you want. You have to go into this prepared to do it over and over again, because it can take a while to find the people with the heart of gold you will cherish for the rest of your life.

Remember: No one cares.

My personal litany against social anxiety is 'nobody will remember you.' It sounds bleak, but in terms of your little mess ups, it's extremely true! No one will remember if you spilled something on yourself. No one will remember if you stuttered a lot, or you said something awkward, or if you approached them and it went super terribly and you had to stumble away apologizing. At the very most, you are a funny tale of a stranger, but think about your own experiences from the other side- can you actually name any times that another person did any of these things in front of you? We don't record life's little mess ups in other people. A lot of times we straight up don't even notice them. The thing you are the most anxious about in yourself, there's a good chance no one else cares. Be kind to yourself. Worry a little less about the little things.

Like I said at the beginning, a lot of it is world view. I have found through my experiences that people are generally good, or at least generally friendly. Your experiences will be different, but maybe try thinking about things my way for a little bit. Humans are social animals. I talk to people on buses, in lines at stores, at coffee shops, everywhere. It's not just for making friends; a lot of these people are wildly different from me and I will never see longer than a few minutes, but it makes me feel more connected and more generally happy with the state of existence. Weird, funny little interactions still fill up your social meter, and they can make you feel like the world is a kinder place.

[some-pers0n]

I just typed out this when talking with some friends in a Discord server, but I think it probably could go here as well not gonna lie.

I have a lot of opinions on the views of fanart VS fanfic. A lot of fandom things in general are mocked by people who aren't really in them, despite other things being normalized. People who buy all sorts of merch for their favourite sports team or take off their shirt and paint their body the colours of the team aren't seen as that strange, but if you try to express that you like something more niche you're seen as weird.

Twilight is a great example of how something that's relatively innocent and light-hearted is twisted into a dead horse for people to routinely beat over and over again. Are the books that great? In my opinion, not really. However, a lot of people (in particular young teens) loved it. They however were made fun of and mocked relentlessly for their interests. A lot of the time you'll see fandom mocked because it's seen as something weird kids, do. Halo and Call of Duty aren't talked about in the same breath as something like Twilight, because despite being targeted towards a similar demographic (pre-teens and adolescents), they're seen as cool and nostalgic. Twilight? That's some dumb girl stuff. They should do something better with their lives than talk about a dumb stupid book all the time. Criticizing the writing and themes were a shield a lot of people used to bully others. A lot of the time, it's making fun of people for liking things. I bring gender into this because fandom culture is predominantly queer and neurodivergent oriented with a ton of teenagers. They are spaces for queer and neurodivergent people to express themselves and find safety in the comfort of media. A good chunk of the time when a person complains about fancontent and media, it ties back to ableism.

Anywho, back to fanart. Fanart is iffy in that sense. Some fanart is seen as cool and amazing. I find it absolutely hilarious when some guy will complain about young girls drawing fanart of DSMP characters doing. literally nothing bad. Maybe they're just hanging out and talking. I dunno. Regardless, those type of people are more than likely to have hyperrealistic Joker art as their background. You know the type. It makes me laugh because like…how do you think that came into existence? But, still. Depending on who makes the fanart, it's seen as a cool and badass thing. If it's some random guy who paints Scrooge McDuck smoking a cigar and counting dollar bills or the Joker in front of an explosion, that's based and cool. But if it's like Gordon Freeman chatting with Barney and maybe being a bit vulnerable after being subjected to all of this trauma, it's lame and weird. Gordon Freeman is a cool strong guy!! Re-enforcing ideas that there's a certain level of tolerance. Somebody drawing your favourite cartoons from your childhood or your favourite characters doing generic and random stuff in a somewhat hyper-realistic style? Cool! If it's in a style that may vaguely resemble something softer, lame and gay. A lot of artists in fandom spheres will draw these characters doing silly things because it's an expression of their admiration for the media. It's comforting to them. Art in general is very personal, with fanart being something you make from your heart. You were inspired by this piece of media to not only create art, but create art of this media. Fanart is a bit iffy. Fanart is cool when it's Chell hopping through portals or standing over GLaD0S's destoryed body. Fanart is not cool when you make shipart of Winter and Qibli.

Fanfic however? You'd be pressed to find anybody who isn't involved in fandom defend this. Why? Because most fanfic at its core is queer. A lot of the criticism thrown at is is because of it being seen as something weird young teenagers do as some sort of wish fulfillment. Depraved weirdos who want to see your favourite characters kiss??? How horrible!! God, what weirdos. Not just that, but you're STEALING these characters!! You're taking them and using them as your own little dolls to do things with (these things being like. I dunno. making them kiss or hold hands). God, who would even write this stuff? Fanfic is almost always associated with NSFW content as well, far more than fanart. A good chunk of the reason I feel is because of stuff like Fifty Shades of Gray breaking out into the mainstream and being well-known for originally being a Twilight fanfic. It's. uh. known for not being the most PG of books, so yeah. Again, it's associated with young teens being stupid and dumb and writing this dumb stupid stuff because they are weird little freaks. It's stereotyped as being bad and generally kind of immature, far more than fanart ever was. While fanart is occasionally hit with the "drawn by stupid children who are barely even talented" stereotype (mostly with fangirls and such), fanfic is almost always is.

But, fanfic is so personal. It's incredible. Wonderful. I'm biased indeed, I mean, look at me writing my TF2 fanfic where I take the insane healer character and make him into a silly guy who is aro/ace and autistic (as well as having 97 other mental disorders). I'm no different than these other people who write slashfic of these video game and TV characters holding hands and kissing. However, I've seen so much passion and love. People pour so much of their time into creating these long and beautiful works of art. Thousands upon thousands of words, a good chunk of the time stretching over the length of entire books. These characters mean so much to these people. Fanfic is seen as lesser and more heavily stereotyped IMO because, more than anything else, it's about queer and neurodivergent people expressing their emotions, sexuality, traumas, and thoughts. Not to say that EVERYBODY who writes fanfic is gay or autistic or that there isn't any cis/het/allo neurotypical people out there, but just that it's heavily dominated by women, queers, and neurodivergent people.

But, that's just me and my silly opinions, ya know?

[purplezombietumbler]

I want to write a fanfic, but I am super not confident that anyone else would read it. If you look at this and are interested, let me know, and i might be motivated to write it. lmao:

Miraculous Ladybug but somewhat re-written but with Emo!Marinette as Marinette’s twin sister I named Vivienne. (because Bridgette was too cliché lol) She’s is supportive of Marinette and knows Marinette is Ladybug from the jump so she can help cover for Marinette when her sister is late. I don't really have an overarching plot, it's basically one shots strung together. I have a few specific chapter ideas in no particular oder:

Day in life of Vivienne. She gets bullied by Chloé, hangs out with Nathaniel to get art tips, gets music lessons from Luka, going to the skate park with Alix, hangs out with Alya, gose to a movie, ect. Revealing she had a secret girlfriend named Jaclyn who gose to a different school. It's probably going to be the first chapter to introduce this oc-not-really-oc

Vivienne getting into a fight with Chloé for saying something particularly vile about Marinette.

Vivienne gets Akumatized into Attention Grabber when she can't get Marinette’s attention on their shared birthday. When she's de-evilize, she gives a speech that's for Marinette and Ladybug about how she wants to be involved more in Marinette's "activities." Marinette tells her she'll let Viv be more involved.

Vivienne trying to be friends with Lila and getting a Bad Vibe™ from her and deciding to keep her distance.

There's confusion with the Ladybug Miraculous, so Vivienne gets to be "Betty Bug" for a day ala Scarabella/Reflekdoll. When Cat Noir flirts with her, she, without thinking, says "oh I don't swing that way, Kitty Cat." Cat Noir, being the Epic Chad™ that he is says,"My apologies, now let's kick some ass" (Yes there will be swears) after the fight they both detransform on a roof and a conversation like this happens:

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"If it's your identity, I can't know."

"What!? No no no! It's not that"

"Phew, than, what could you what to tell me?"

"Well it's just, I've never told anyone..."

"Anyone what?"

"That I swing..."

"Oh. Oh! I well, I'm glad I was the first!"

"It's just... I have a sister and I love her and I want to tell her but I'm scared of her reaction. Like she's supportive of our other queer friends but what if she's- * starts rambling like Marinette *"

"Woah woah woah, stop. Listen, I don't know you or your sister, but if she's as clawesome as you, she'd love and support you no matter what."

"Thanks Cat, you're really cool, even without the costume :)"

"Thanks. I'm glad I could help"

Vivienne gose home and comes out to Marinette.

Vivienne confides in Marinette that Jaclyn isn't treating her right, and Marinette pressures her to break up. Vivienne insists that everything's fine but gets Akumatized to No Heart when Viv finds out Jaclyn has been cheating. No Heart makes people lose all love for everything and everyone. When she's de-evilized, she sings a break-up song (probably a already existing song because I'm not smart) as a way to channel that energy in a healthier way.

Lila finds out about Jaclyn and "accidentally" outs Viv in front of the school and her parents. Hawkmoth tries to Akumatize her as "Outer" abilities to out those biggest secrets (I am aware it's the same as Truth but shhhhhhh this is TOTALLY DIFFERENT) Vivienne, with Marinette, her parents, and friends help is able to resist being Akumatized.

Vivienne has a crush on Zoé when she's introduced and struggles to tell Marinette because she doesn't want to make it weird for Marinette and her friend group. She eventually tells Marinette, and Marinette is supportive. Later, when Zoé tells Marinette she has a crush on her, Marinette turns her down gently and not so subtly tells Zoé about Vivienne's crush on the blonde.

I'm sure there's more ideas put there, but I can't think of any others rn.

[castlebyersafterdark]

i always wanna know more from charlie and natalia... like, when is the time when you actually talk to your co star and suggest there's something going on irl too? how do you differentiate between that and the show? when do you cross the line without spoiling the professional dynamic? they might have waited until the show finished to make sure. but finn and noah already have years of knowing each other.

also do you think foah find themselves to be a cliche or do you think they find it cute? like, i cant imagine my life being mapped out by a tv show lol

I know so very little about these two actors, they are so mysterious to me. But maybe at some point I'll dig into their timeline and how they got together because honestly, gay or straight or whatever - my sappy dramatic ass really loves a SHOWMANCE!! It's just a trope in general I like, since I'm a bit fixated on the movie industry and film sets and all that stuff. Especially with Charlie and Natalia playing love interests, they actually went there! Love that they're the ones who got together over - holy shit I forgot Steve's actor's name again? (Google save me. Joe! Genuinely he is just Steve to me. Steve's a real guy who's playing himself on the show. Anyway).

Def different with those two, even if I don't know the details. Because they met during filming already at an age where it isn't too far-fetched to catch feelings and start a relationship. Finn and Noah were little kids. Pre-teen/teenage crushes operate on a different timeline than their older costars, especially too for queer kids under the media microscope. Even if something is there between F/N, maybe that's preventing it - feeling weird that they'd be following a similar storyline to what they are acting on screen. I don't know! It's all speculation.

I know the writers will do what they gotta do and the story/narrative is separate from the actors, but I do wonder if there's any influence at all from what the actors are doing. Like there was the Steve/Nancy divergence in season 4 and I know the narrative purpose of that was to develop Nancy and Jonathan's relationship, and their individual characters. More for, would the DB entertain ending the show with them not together? Does that matter at all for a cast like this, who are really together also now portraying a romantic pair? Kinda naive thinking, I absolutely understand that, but it's interesting. Just like, you wonder if there were rewrites with Millie after she was trashing the show a little, talking about how she can't wait for it to end so she can move on. Maybe the DB were like - oh, bet? Screen time slashed, have fun. That's mostly me being spiteful though 🤭 Sorry...

And then you have Noah / Will. How will season 5 go? Because of his real life now that he's out, do we think that now gives more weight to him getting the happy ending, getting the boy? Letting the gay character AND the gay actor "win" - I don't know. There's the separation of real life and art. But we're all human and they're telling fantastical stories, but also very human stories. How deep does the influence go? It's not unheard of to shape things around your actors sometimes.

[hyohaehyuk]

It's Pride Month and i want to post this before the month ends 🙃 Almost a year ago i found an old OOR interview where Taka might had come out as bi.

Now about Takeru i found some interesting interview that make me wondering if he is not gay/queer too.

Actor Takeru Sato (30) appeared on the TBS variety show "Sakurai Ariyoshi THE Yakai" broadcast on January 23rd, 2020. Looking back on his first date, he revealed how shy he was when he was a student.

According to information provided by a friend from junior high school, Sato was always at the top of his class and had outstanding athletic ability. However, he was "terrible at love." On his first date, while riding his bike to the date's destination, he started pedaling at full speed for some reason. He left the girl behind and went home.

Looking back on that time, Sato explained, "I just couldn't bear being alone with a woman in the city... I'm really sorry, but I ran away. I was so embarrassed," and apologized, "I'm so sorry that I caused her so much trauma."

Sato continued, "I never fell in love or got carried away with love during my school days. My romantic feelings for women were all directed towards the two-dimensional world." When Wakako Shimazaki asked, "What do you like about the two-dimensional world? It's not human," Sato reflexively turned around and said, "Eh, but!" The studio was filled with laughter at Sato's unexpected reaction.

On the show, Sato said, "I didn't think that the object of my heart's desire had to be a human," and introduced Amatsuka Megumi, the heroine of the manga "Tenshi na konamaiki" (Cheeky Angel) as his "favorite woman" from his school days. As the crowd exclaimed, "Eh?", Sato revealed that he was crazy about her, saying, "Even though it was my first love..."

Besides the fact that he run away from a date with a girl (lol) the interesting thing here is that, according with wiki (bc i didn't read the manga) Amatsuka Megumi is tomboy that always get into fights and have a secret: she used to be a boy."

From other place "Megumi is a nine-year old kid who, after saving a sorceror from getting beat-up by some punks, as thanks was given a magic book with a demon inside. His wish to become the "manliest man on Earth" is misinterpretted as the "womanliest woman on Earth" and he is transformed into a girl. Out of fury she throws the book into a river. Six years later, Megumi may still have the body of a girl but behaves like a guy and is only interested in fighting and martial arts. Megumi dreamed of the day when she can return to being a man by finding the book again."

I dont know if she turned back into a boy tho.

Even Takeru views about marriage are weird. It really feels that he is forced himself into that idea to fit in society norms rather than him really wanting to get married

From this video around 8:33 (transcriptions from here)

"I've been saying this for a long time, but marriage isn't something you do alone, it's something you do together, so do you have the desire to get married when you don't have a partner? Even if you ask me that, there is no way to answer.

If you keep saying things like that, you'll never get married. I think that if I don't decide to get married at some point, I won't, or rather, won't be able to do it even when I'm 40 or 50, and that's becoming a reality. So now I've declared that I'll get married by 35. I really want to do that. I'll try my best.

On the other hand, if I can't do it by 35, I probably won't be able to do it for a while until I'm 45 or something"

He even uses a fortune teller to telling me when he should get married like he mentioned in the Bokura no Jidai interview. At least here he is acknowledging that marriage is a thing made by 2 people (him and his partner, not him and the fortune teller)

Still on topic of marriage there is interesting convo in the Miura Shohei, Shirota yu, Takeru Sato and Taka youtube live.

Around 51:24, Miura says that Takeru, Taka and Yu are all equality the most difficult to get married. Taka and Yu are unbeliever at that and Taka even say that Takeru is the most difficulted one. Takeru says that he believes Yu is the one cabable of doing it but him and Taka cant.

Taka complains but then says "can't we do it?"

Takeru: "No, it's impossible"

Then Miura mentioned that Taka said before to him that he would when all OOR members got married and now that Toru is married he could do it anytime. Taka said "if there is the right person" and then Takeru start laughing and Taka asked why he is laughing. Then the convo start to be about Takeru.

Taka: Takeru is the most special among the four of us. Unlike us, maybe it will develop in other directions...

Takeru: Everyone is different

Taka: Although everyone is different...

Takeru: I think the next one it will be Yu.

(proceeds to talk about why he think Yu should get married and that he is suitable to start a family)

Takeru: This person (Taka) case is a little different (from Yu case). He have such a strong personality.

Miura: He values his music more/this is music is the most important.

Taka: No, No. That's not truth. I think my own life is more important than anything else.

[yarnlet]

March 18th 2024; Dilemma

It is currently 3:28am on March 18th 2024 as I am writing this.

I'm writing this for the purpose of suppressing the thoughts I have inside, my hope is that writing this document will sort of just allow the thoughts to subside and half-satisfy myself by getting it all out at once, albeit to nobody but myself.

Since I was about six years old, I had a strange feeling that I never understood, and somewhat still don't understand. I did things that I believe some others did not, based on this feeling when I was younger. At home I would play "dress up" with my sister, where she would put me in her play dresses and all sorts of accessories… Younger me enjoyed this a lot, and I thought that was normal, and so did she. I had this weird urge to be more feminine, which younger me decided could be exercised by this activity.

Before my peers were acclimated with the topic of queer people, I was simply the 'weird' kid, that people would sometimes engage in activities with, but outside of those activities, their opinions were the same on me (with a few exceptions of course, but it was a majority). I had a few friends that sort of looked past this, that thought it wasn't super strange for me to show up to school with painted nails or to do 'dumb girlish activities' like writing books or doing art. Looking back on this, I feel strange thinking that these activities were regarded this way by my peers, but nonetheless, the past is the past.

Sometimes I miss those times, and some of those friends which I've moved on from, mostly due to circumstances out of my control.

The point I make from all of that, is that during those times, it was easier, and everything was purely natural… Any things I did were purely for myself and satisfying my own wonders and interests.

Later on, as in more recent times, I've been called everything under the sun as in homosexuality-based insults. Gay, Queer, the 'F' slur, the 'T' slur, and some more vulagar ones that I can't even bring myself to type due to the sheer absurdity of them being directed at me, and though I don't care about the words anymore, I feel like they sort of 'silently impacted me'… Like I kind of assumed the titles that were given to me.

Let me be completely clear, my sexuality's alignment being pansexual is completely true, and I do feel attraction regardless of gender, but something deep inside me just keeps poking at me that this is only because people have said this to me. It may sound absurd to some, but it won't go away.

Though that's beside the point, as this document isn't solely about my sexuality.

In Grade seven I learned about the concept of Transgender people (whereas before my actual knowledge on the topic was from others that joked about and mocked the concept). I think it was around this time that (not rediscovered) but added onto my feelings that popped up when I was six. I figured out that this 'joke' of a concept… That being Transgender actually is something that sounds like what I feel. That sentence sounds weird in my head but it's almost 4am now so please forgive me.

In Grade eight one of my friends began showing the signs that I knew were the same as mine. One day they brought a female wig to school and just wore that. At the time it still confused me (and I wasn't completely aware that my friend was Trans yet) but deep down I knew that what they were doing was what I did as well.

I believe that in Grade seven I began crossdressing… I adopted a new sort of aesthetic behind closed doors where I would wear clothes that I genuinely liked, rather than clothes that I wore in public just to wear… I had a pair of those socks that go all the way up to the knees (I still have them) and at the time it just felt great to wear them, like it satisfied a part of me, but not fully because I still had to hide them in my house, as I didn't want my parents to know about it. In Grade nine, my first year of high school, I ramped it up during Christmas and bought a new hoodie and a skirt, I had a new pair of those socks from my Halloween costume (which was of a female character too), and those annoying black leggings that make your legs look like patterned..? (I forgot what they're called).

By this time I'd created an online persona where I presented myself as female to others, and every time that someone would believe it (that I was a girl) it would just feel so good to me, and I'd be so happy about it…

Right after Christmas break after I got all that stuff, my parents asked to check one of my packages (which contained something that I really didn't want them to see), and I swapped it for something that I believed had to be done, my crossdressing clothes. Part of me hoped they'd say something to me, but they just left me alone in my room and told me that if I wanted to talk about anything with them I could… I didn't take the offer.

This leads to a few months back when one of my friends helped me do a sort of 'experiment' where I would take a photo in front of the mirror in full feminine attire and they would send it to a few group chats on an instant messaging platform and ask them what they thought. Most of them thought I was a girl (with one exception who knew I wasn't one because my friend had been known for talking to Trans people or something..?). This made me feel the happiest I had felt in months, maybe even in a few years. I had this drug-like dopamine rush and was high for the rest of the night, unable to sleep.

I want that feeling more, but it's hard to replicate now and has been replaced by negative thoughts again.

I believe that the most important thing for me to do right now is to go through with these thoughts I've been having since childhood. I've told one person about this, and it's my aforementioned Trans friend, but every time I try to tell someone I stop myself and the negative thoughts just accumulate.

I'm at a dilemma that pops up in my head no matter how fucking hard I try to censor it.

Will people look at me the same? Will people think I'm weird? Will I look weird? Will my sister mock me? (She constantly berates me and jokes about me being a 'T slur') Will my family still love me?

All of these happen while simultaneously I cringe when hearing my own name or being called 'boy' or 'man'.

I want to act, and I want to act fast, but then again, I'm here typing this document instead of actually voicing my thoughts to someone. I don't know if that day will ever come, but it's either gonna come soon or I'm going to go insane.

That's all I can bring myself to say… I'm tired and worn out. Tomorrow is the first day back to school and though I am dreading every single second of it, I have to get at least some sleep, or I'll noticeably be a walking corpse.

Goodnight, and hopefully goodbye. I hate writing these.

[fidenciocryptidcreechur]

Gonna make this my pinned post and or masterlist

Will update as i get to it

Help sites

esim link

Post of resources (USA and international)

abortion clinic fund donation link

transgender law donation link

I'm Fidencio, he/him 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ 20+

Just be polite, i don't really have a do-not-interact or DNI list. I just block folks if they're transphobic, racist or something. I guess that's my DNI list and rules: Don't hate people for arbitrary reasons and don't incite violence/hate.

This blog is basically for anything and everything. From sfw to nsfw. This blog itself isn't focused on anything in particular, however i can't say the same for most of the folks i reblog from so be sure to check that OP's do-not-interact list.

All i can say is curate your own online experience and if something you see isn't your vibe then block button is free plus there's a function to block tags and even content.

Asks are unlikely to be put on anonymous mode on this account and that's mostly because i am of the stance that if someone's going to come chat on this little stage then we're both going to be under the spotlight, that's only fair. I like knowing who I'm chatting to plus too many folks seem to act way too rude when they have on the mask of an anon

personal writing/fics master list <- Link

Current interests:

Twisted Wonderland

Top readers and monster readers

Cookie Run Kingdom

Centaurs and taurs in general

Interests I've always had:

ISOPODS, sea slugs, MOTHS, JUMPING SPIDERS, dinosaurs, Dunkleosteus, all theropods (raptors, t-rexes, etc)

Marine facts- Anything nature or organic or biological sciences- Art (especially creature designs)- Monster fics - Yandere fics

Current Energy Level:

Head hurts

Fic recs/ good posts/ recommended and mental health posts ↓↓ below cut cause there's a lot

Drag Kings Post fuck yes

Tumblr advice to navigate it

Inconvenience yourself for your health. Learn things, combat learned helplessness

Post about how abusers have to be able accept and be able to improve themselves or risk relapsing and believing they will always be an abuser and thus never moving on. Allow room to grow and move forward.

Building mastery and therapy, studying the blade is a coping mechanism and gaining more is also good (semi comedic but genuinely helpful)

Condom education, proper use, why it matters, sex education

US history, puritans and how American Christianity was founded by several culty sects

Names and choosing them positivity

Action helps. Action inspires change and thus systemic change. Do things that you can feasibly do

Excellent post about thinking before speaking/posting and how it can happen to anyone and everyone

Good punk advice. Good advice. Stuff to do.

Free Media resource (watch stuff)

The noble thief, employees should be allowed to steal. The rich drain life. Helping your fellows cause the rich would shoot you dead for profit

Dream walker yuri- immortal thing x Lady

Drinking virus concentrate, i can be trusted with infectious diseases

Extremely accurate interpretation of nativity scene (humble beginnings and art of Jose and Maria)

Wikipedia, monkey photos and how this means ai art isn't copyrightable cause art needs to be made by humans

Why Americans don't know what's going on (all info is curated and vetted and it's extremely difficult to get access, this is on purpose from higher ups. Further resources in notes and in this post)

Tracy Town usa place that's definitely not being experimented on where they found a weird retainer in posters mouth

The sea eats metal (titanic is decomposing and also wood does better in the ocean and steel is used cause it's stronger)

Enlightened one helping others budhisattva

Cute kinder egg positivity

Plague doctor appreciation post

Abuse is long lasting. An eye for an eye makes the world blind. Breaking the cycle post

Sex negativity detracts from ability to view art as art in porn and vilifies the fact that sex is natural like hunger or thirst

BLOOD IS IMITATION SEA WATER (sorta a myth style but very true)

Vocabulary added! New phrases besides herculean task!

Solxamber's super sweet twisted wonderland fic where everyone comforts reader very lovely very cute

Balto and togo vaccine sled run

INCREDIBLE absolutely AMAZING dungeon meshi/delicious in dungeon analysis

Holy fuck what a read "dreaming about an entirely different life and grieving it after awakened by a lamp"

Pool stranger "she tore me open but she taught me a lot about love" post (very sweet, kid gets saved and stranger learned about how even just existing can save a life. very sweet)

Ecofascism and the myth of overpopulation (informative)

Floyd leech eating the fuck out of a fortune cookie (ruggie is appalled) animation

Ancient Egyptian leatherworking and the leather fishnet/mesh underwear post (history and leatherworking)

Dinosaur cloaca post (informative and funny)

Pomefioredove's comfort fic for awkward reader

Sol's kalim x reader fic (so good so fucking good omg)↓↓

Brighter than the sun- Kalim al Asim by Solxamber

Really good Jamil viper x fem reader smut (yandere) by cataclyysmiic

Really cute and AMAZING sebek x gn reader fic cafe shop meeting bodyguard actor au fic by zgvlt

Post about positivity and affection from pets

Yandere jade leech android by merakiui (very good, warning for death but not to reader)

Big dudes being cute long post (good for reminders not to judge based on appearances)

Another vil Schoenheit fluff fic banger from Solxamber (vil is out of it from anesthesia)

Peak athletes body positivity (w/ photos) body diversity post

Positivity post about loving yourself as you age (gender inclusive)

Transmasc sock method

Health care stuff

^ I've used this and it's genuinely nice. It's gentle, it's not pushy, no guilt, it's uplifting, there's a cute bird, you can add friends, it has actually mental health exercises in it. It's free.

^ pdf to help you

^ full of tools to help when you aren't up to thinking or need to make a list but don't know where to start. Good for meal plans and recipes and to do lists. Really good if you have adhd and brain fog or just low energy and can't compute that to do list

[genuineformality]

I am not, when it comes to it, a particularly "woo" person. My religious sensibilities are informed heavily by a Jewish-come-cult-member parent (who, over the course of my childhood, joined 2.5 cults in a desperate attempt to find belonging) and a catholic-come-wiccan other parent, and all of the various and varied religious trauma that came from that upbringing*.

For various reasons and through various mechanisms, I started reading tarot** and discovered that I'm both pretty good at doing readings for other people and also that I find a certain amount of meaning in reading for myself - not as a fortune telling mechanism, but as a method of stepping outside myself and getting some additional perspective.

Because of that, I started collecting novel tarot decks, backing interesting looking decks on kickstarter and indiegogo, and occasionally frequenting little headshops where one might peruse and acquire more and more weird decks. My current collection numbers around 70ish decks and I bought a little bookshelf just for them.

I don't often admit this to people I know socially, because when people hear that you're into tarot, they will make certain assumptions about you that, in my case, are so far from the truth as to be laughable, but I live in terror that a certain type of Woo Person will learn that I'm into tarot and I will regret ever letting anyone know that.

ANYWAY.

One of the things that I find tarot useful for is as part of a mindfulness/journaling practice to get my brain out of its current (very difficult, problematic) ruts.*** Having little flash cards with cool art that hits Some Archetypes to contemplate is good for making Good Brain Chemicals and Brain go BRR-BRR over outside stimuli that isn't just How Angry I Am About a Situation.

I've had a number of favorite decks that I tend to go back to, but for this current situation, I wanted something I hadn't really worked with before. So I cracked open my Fifth Spirit Tarot Deck (backed on kickstarter awhile ago) which is super fucking queer, ethnically diverse, has a bunch of disabled rep - and is the most gently direct deck I think I've ever worked with. It's a deck that says, "Hey, you're not okay. But maybe you could be?" with the loveliest, kindest, most direct tone. It reminds me of the best therapist I ever had.

I'm not terribly woo. I don't vibe with a lot of woo stuff. I'm not about a Deep Connection to My Inner Goddess or whatever. I'm really here to get some extra perspective. I'm sure this deck would probably be good for nonbinary woo people. It's probably not for everyone. It's probably not for most people.

But gosh, this is a good deck for me, right now, in all my woo-less, nonbinary, needing perspective-ness. Thanks Charlie Claire Burgess. You're helping this queer, jewish, atheist enby a lot right now.

-=-=-=-=-

*If I were to describe my current religious tendencies, I would describe myself as a Jewish atheist who has a chavurah and davens on friday nights only, throws a rager of a party for passover, tolerates a lot of christmas, likes yule, and occasionally remembers when the other holidays are, while eating pork and shrimp, preferably together. So... take that with as many grains of salt as you like.

**It was for a LARP. And then, like many LARP related things, went wildly out of control.

***I am actively mad at how well my brain responds to this. I had stopped journaling for awhile because I was in a good spot, then was in a Very Bad spot for a bit, and when my therapist asked, "how's your self care routine going?" I was like, FINE. I'LL START DOING MY STUPID JOURNAL AGAIN. And then within two days my brain stopped being an asshole to me. What the fuck.

[questinwitchface]

ok so from your WIP Game

Two Big, Blonde, Bearded Himbos Discover They're a Little Queer

fucking iconic title we love it

Peter/Oli - No Bad Decisions

PETER !!! AND OLI!! SDOJGAS

basically all of your writing projects sound so cool and so do all of your other art projects

like,,, nerd vest? bi pride skirt?? avenger dolls??? askSJOdjsjZIS

i would love to learn more abt the wips u talked abt if u have the energy to share that's all thx <3

Okay, you asked for a lot of them (thank you for being interested!), so I'm gonna try to keep the explanations short so this answer isn't a mile long lol.

Two Big, Blonde, Bearded Himbos Discover They're a Little Queer is a Steve/Thor fic. I don't have much of it written, but the premise is basically that Thor and Steve both think they're straight and discover that they are not. Steve realizes he's feeling some kind of way about Thor's sparkly eyes and freaks, so he goes to Sam and Bucky for help. Meanwhile, Thor figures out that he's not squeezing his gym bro Steve's biceps platonically, so he goes to Valkyrie and Loki for help ("Can you just... wake up one day and realize you're attracted to a man after thinking you were straight for a couple millennia?"). Their friends try to help them get together, and it's really just a bunch of awkward fails and confusion lol. They get together at the end tho. (Also thank you, I'm really super proud of this title 😊)

Peter/Oli - No Bad Decisions is a spin-off of Pride Brought Us to Bad Decisions that takes place during Peter's sophomore year at MIT, when Oli ends up moving in with him, Ned, and MJ. Cue the cute Oli/Peter romance. Idk if I'll ever actually write this one bc I always feel kinda weird about making OCs a main part of a fic, but idk. I really love Oli, and I liked writing Peter like this, so whether it's popular or not, I'll probably end up writing it eventually. I love them. 😅

Nerd Vest is a white denim, cropped vest I bought about a year ago on clearance at my favorite store, and I've been slowly and surely doing nerd shit to it. I'm currently working on some Avengers-themed embroidery along the hem, which is slow-going because I have embroider and denim is thick. I have plans to acquire patches to sew on and pins to pin on it, and if I get really brave, I'll pick up some fabric medium and maybe attempt painting on some designs, but idk about my paint skills, lol.... Nerd Vest!

Bi Pride Skirt is my attempt at crocheting myself a skirt. It's basically like 15 purple panels I plan on joining together with pink and blue, and doing a pink waistband with a blue scalloped hem at the bottom. Idk if that makes any sense for people who don't crochet, but, as usual, I'm making it up as I go along, so idk how to explain it better yet. I only have the purple panels made right now.

Avenger Dolls are little crochet dolls (I think they're technically called amigurumi or something like that?). I found a pattern book and kit thing at Barnes and Noble 2+ years ago, and it only includes like 8 character patterns, but I'm pretty sure the patterns are adaptable for other characters if I dedicate enough brain power to it. So once I've finished the first one (I misunderstood the pattern on the first attempt and the result was 🥴 not great, poor drunk-looking Steve), I'll figure out how to make myself a little set of my favorite little characters.

I'm sorry that was so long. Hopefully each thing was interesting enough. I know you said you're interested in all of it, but explaining all my WIPs in one post felt really gratuitous lol. Thank you for asking and being interested! 😊

[quillquiver]

So I already didn't trust occam when she was bullying people for doing art wrong over a year ago and I don't trust Jess after she lied about future episodes and tried to blame it on meta writers. Like I know no one has any network connections or anything like that.

All I know is I can't think of one book, tv show, or movie that has a love confession between two big characters and then never mentions it again. I can't think of another one that had a blatant love interests with dates and a kiss and is dropped. To me that's weird. That says "something" happened. I don't know what but I know nothing can be done to change what occurred.

I do think though we should use this instance to try and make sure that CWs inclusivity isn't just tokenism. Our show is done (for now) but no other fandoms on tv in general should have to settle or deal with whatever episode 20 was. Queer characters, BIPOC, and disabled characters should have more fulfilling story arcs and we need to try and keep that message.

Yeah, for sure! My reblogging and sharing of receipts has nothing to do with my feelings re: campaigns for better representation. The CW might be the most “progressive” network in looking at the number of queer characters they have on screen, but you’re totally right, a lot are tokenism, very few are actually well fleshed-out characters, and it often feels like they understood that there’s a dedicated audience for queer content but haven’t thought about anything beyond capturing our viewership. 

I also think that this would be a great time to start talking more seriously about representation on TV--and on networks like the CW--in a more meaningful way. But I think that before we start talking to the network directly, we need to figure out what we actually want.

The problem with representation is that it’s a really nebulous concept. Good rep to me might be bad rep to you! So if we’re going to start asking for better representation, we need to be specific about what we want, and we all need to rally behind a unified message. Do we want sensitivity readers? Do we want the network to put forth a hiring initiative for projects headed by BIPOC, queer, disabled and/or woman creatives? A hiring initiative that tackles the lack of minority rep every CW writers’ room? 

Asking for things that are actionable and can be implemented into the structure of the network will guarantee us better results than vague demands about representation. At that point, it would probably be a good idea to set up a website; transparency is key, here. We’d want everyone--not just SPN fans--to understand what we’re asking for and why. I think that after all of that is done, only then would we want to start twitter campaigns, writing letters, sending in proof of cancelled subscriptions, etc. and we’d want to let people know what we were doing via our website so that if, say, we did get the network’s attention, they could go to our website and see what we were asking for. 

Like, I can’t stress how important transparency is here, and how transparency paired with a centralized platform leads to consistent messaging and, hopefully, actual results. We got a whole bunch of things trending a little while ago, but it sounded like almost no one outside the movement understood what we actually wanted. I think this was a mix of people being deliberately obtuse and not doing their research... but also just us having a fractured message from the get-go. So yeah. I realize this is probably way more than you wanted when you sent me that ask, anon, but I truly think that we could make a difference here if we went about it differently. 

[chaotic-queer-disaster]

i will say first this is not the fault of autistic people on tikok (or other social media platforms but im using "tiktok" as the example for this post), it is the fault of society as a whole. tiktok autistics choosing to only talk about certain parts of their experiences aren't at fault for what neurotypicals assume (though sometimes low support ones can contribute to the erasure of MSN/HSN autistics on purpose, but... that's a different issue).

what tiktok autism looks like (to neurotypicals, i mean)

ooh flappy hands (and other calm or "cute" stims)

i like steven universe or another cartoon!!! isn't it fun how i'm very into my interest at a quirky level, but still a normal one

i give off the vibe i can live independently (it does not actually matter if they can; neurotypicals will assume)

fully verbal, only occasionally loses speech

has sensory issues but isn't "annoying" about it

meltdowns are mostly being sad, not angry or weird

disassociates, maybe

has cool skills (good at academics, art, whatever)

all of those things are, of course, things autistics can experience. some are also infantilized (like liking children's shows or having "cute" stims). the problem is not that those autistics exist and talk about their experiences--the problem is neurotypicals assuming this is all autism is, "removing their biases" on these tiny groups of symptoms and experiences, and not destigmatizing:

being semiverbal or noverbal

incontinence issues or difficulty remembering/realizing you need to use the bathroom

needing a carer, part or full time, or being otherwise unable to live independently

being "weird" about our special interests or obsessed with them in a way that isn't palatable (like me)

having an interest that isn't "fun" or "cute"; something to do with horror or gore, something "strange" like stamp collecting or corgis, something "boring" like the war of 1812, whatever (like me)

autistics who grunt, rock, hit things, etc to stim ("weird" stimming) (like me.)

autistics who frequently dissasociate, have trouble remembering things, or can't follow instructions (like. me.)

meltdowns that are angry, loud, screamy, full of movement, or some other "inconvenient" meltdown (LIKE ME)

how their racialized, queerphobic, or physically ableist biases intersect with their view of non-white, queer, or physically disabled autistic people (e.g. thinking black autistics are scary, for some reason)

autistics who have difficulty using the right words or sentence structure and thus often say odd or technically incorrect things (like me--ok ill stop now)

intellectually disabled or otherwise non-high-IQ autistics, as well as autistics who were/are in special ed

not understanding danger/doing "reckless" or "stupid" things

autistics who are monotone, lack facial expressions, or appear not to show emotions (we are often called "creepy" or "scary" for this)

and more

none of this is destigmatized. i deal with several of them on a day-to-day basis. the autistic that is destigmatized is the "cute", inobtrusive, i-choose-not-to-discuss-my-bad-days, low-support needs, often white and/or physically abled autistic experience. an autistic experience that does not even truly exist, i'd wager--bc again, even those autistics who seem "destigmatized" will often immediately be stigmatized if they talk about any of their more negative or strange traits.

even i, a white low-support high-IQ autistic person, find my autism to cause people to make horrendous assumptions and say awful things about/to me very often. autism is not destigmatized.

gonna swing a bat at a hornet's nest and say autism as a whole is not destigmatized, tiktok autism is

[flying-elliska]

You said it feels cool to have a specific identity but isn't that exactly why we are seen as the special snowflake generation? Not to mention wasn't the whole point to be free from stereotypes and dress however we want, love whoever we want etc? And yet there's now so many identities, labels, flags which create an implicit pressure to define yourself so you'll be included. Idk I think your french friends are right,it still feels like we're pushing people into boxes; they're just woke boxes now.

Hey anon ! Thank you for this very interesting question. I hope you’re ok with getting a mini-essay as a response (that’s kind of my brand now lmao)

So first of all, if you don’t feel like you personally need labels, you are totally valid. And so are my friends. I think you have to find out what you’re most comfortable with. It’s true that labels can be used to exclude, esp in the LGBTQ+ communities. I think we focus our activism a little bit too much on words and online stuff and media representation nowadays, as opposed to practical political action, and that’s an issue. And we focus too much on people not having the correct, latest approved terminology and labels as a way to show you’re a good person, as opposed to what people are actually doing and their lived experiences, and who is authorized to use what label and those debates often just exasperate me to the highest point. It’s like, don’t you have anything better to do ? It becomes very clique-ish, school courtyard drama at times. There should always be a place for questioning, fluidity, no labels, a place for discovery and uncertainty, shifting identifications, multiple labels at once, words changing, and questioning what place they take in our lives.

But, on the whole, I still like my labels, and I’m going to try and explain why. 

Labels are words right ? They have the benefits and drawbacks of words. A rose under any other name would still smell as sweet, of course. But we are a fundamentally social species, and words are a way to create bridges between people, between our experiences. It signals that you are not alone ; it’s a way to make visible things that are usually invalidated, ostracized or just plain erased by the mainstream and the status quo. The development of a vocabulary for the queer community was what made their political struggle and pride possible ; before it was “the love that dare not speak it name”, all euphemisms and shame. It honors, too, the struggle of those who came before us ; it places us in the continuity of a history ; it says we have been here before, it gives us memory and context. Of course words are going to betray us, because they can never retranscribe the fullness, complexity and confusion of lived experience. But they’re a conversation starter ; they bring people together ; they create spaces of freedom. 

I’m going to give you a personal example : a few years ago I fell in love with a girl for the first time ; after that I seriously started thinking of myself as bisexual. There had always been a thing there but because I had been mostly attracted to boys before, I’d swept it under the rug. But finding the ‘bisexual’ label made me realize - no this is a thing, this is valid, and it made me look back at all those instances in the past of having weirdly intense feelings for some of my girl friends, of being obsessed with certain actresses, etc…that back then I didn’t understand, I just thought I was weird…and I always thought that bisexuality was something that something Hollywood starlets did for attention. But finding a community behind that word that was seeking to reclaim it from the stereotypes and being proud about what it meant, it was so healing.

 After that I immersed myself more in my local LGBTQ+ community ; and in particular I volunteered for the European Bisexual Convention - that one in particular was incredible because it felt so…liberating. In the general LGBTQ community, people expect you to be gay until you say otherwise. In the student association I was in, it was cool, but it was also…very normative in a way. Lots of stereotypes about how we were expected to be, what we were expected to like, behave like. So for Eurobicon, to have all of that lifted, it was amazing. And it was also so much more inclusive - of disabled, neuroatypical, transgender ppl, different body types and ethnicities, like you could feel that they had made an effort. I also met several nonbinary ppl for the first time of my life and I was like…oh wow there’s something here that feels very important and real. We shared experiences that we did not have a space before, that were specifically bisexual and that tend to go unheard in general queer spaces because they’re not part of the dominant narrative : the daily hesitations, the lack of visibility, the much higher rates of staying closeted, feeling like you are not really part of the community, but also the really cool aspects too - there was this incredible energy of fluidity too of thinking, here is a space where everyone can potentially be into everyone, there aren’t as many barriers as we usually have to think about. And there was this one party and we were all dancing and flirting in a very sweet kind of way, people of different ages and body types, gender presentations and configurations I hadn’t thought about before, a girl in a wheelchair swirling around and being treated like a queen, guys in corsets and cool butches and just some beautiful people - and there was this euphoria in the room, of recognition and kinship, and it felt so…normal, not freakish like I had been led to believe it would be. Nobody was putting on airs or trying hard or whatever, they were just being themselves. And I was like, wow, this is something I need more of in my life. And this freedom was made possible by people coming together under a certain label, recognizing that certain people have specific needs and experiences. Especially after growing up in environments that never tell you that those things are possible, finding the right label can be like coming home. 

I have other labels for myself I am less public about because I don’t want to deal with the social aspect of it, or I’m like this is none of anybody’s business, or I want to give myself the time to figure it out on my own. But they’re tools for self-knowledge, they allow me to think about things, to conceptualize, to research (and lol I’m a nerd so…). And to be less hard on myself sometimes, and to stand up for myself in a ‘I know who I am and it’s okay’ kind of way. Because society tends to pathologize, ostracize or demonize the things it doesn’t understand, and labels can protect you against that. 

In an ideal society maybe we wouldn’t need labels - to have a right to exist or survive, and that’s definitely a goal, but I think we would still make some, because that’s who we are as a species, we need to classify certain things in order to think about them. The problem is when those boxes become cages instead of like, beautiful pots to grow seeds in, like art or poetry. And of course deconstructing the boxes we don’t want remain important. But I don’t think we can ever be box-less, it just to me doesn’t compute. 

I just wanna come back to the ‘special snowflake generation’ thing. If you don’t want labels, like I said, that’s fine. But I hate hate hate that term, and I don’t want to define myself in reaction to it. To me it’s used by a) bigots who just hate the fact that natural human diversity is becoming more recognized and discussed, and want to put us back in the artificial, stifling boxes that dynamics of power, patriarchy and imperialism have made us believe were normal when they really weren’t. And b) older people who are uncomfortable with increased levels of emotional intelligence and lability among younger generations. It’s a thing I’ve noticed over and over again ; people used to talk so much less. When they had feelings in general, or experiences out of the norm, they were taught that stuffing them down and sitting on them and repressing the shit out of them, was the noble/normal/grown up thing to do. So they did and they suffered in silence. And maybe some of them now feel bitter, or at least bewildered, by younger generations refusing to do so and inventing and or reclaiming all those new ways of talking about their experiences out in the open. And so they’re like ‘it’s too much ! you’re spoiled !’ because they want to believe that their sacrifices had a point. They don’t want to realize they could have done things differently all along. It’s very sad. But I don’t think it should be a barrier to us using them like…just as we shouldn’t refrain from using washing machines because our grandmothers suffered to wash everything in a bucket…There’s nothing entitled about wanting a better life than previous generations… And to me, having more words and more space to express myself will never be a bad thing. 

[demyrie]

Wow I totally forgot to cry here but I love love love how you portrayed trans Shinsou in BnB?? Like maybe it's cause it's from Aizawa's POV or Izuku's instead of Shinsou's but it's just. I love it. It's not the only thing in his arc, it's not his only (very valid) concern. It's not over-mentioned and there's a good balance of acceptance and surprise from those who know like- God idk I just love that there's unrelenting support for him that isn't in his face or in the readers', it's so genuine

Oh god thank you so much. Really. It means the goddamn world to me, OH GODDDDD, because the instant that I realized it was perfect, that it was true for my Shinsou and how, I shied away from it for weeks because I was afraid i would mess it up. I didn’t even tell Rae that he was trans???? Like not until right before that chapter dropped??

So .. just … thank you. Everyone around him just loves him very much and will do their utmost to understand and support him. There will be misunderstandings and weirdness, but everyone is FOR him and whatever he decides, and not ABOUT him, and that makes all the difference in the world, and I really hope I communicated it in a way that wasn’t a Very Special Episode but also wove it into his identity and struggle in a real way that makes sense narratively.

Reflection on Trans/queer fics and headcanons and storytelling under the cut!

So here’s the thing that’s cool about being in fandom for many years and being able to see how queer and revolutionary existence grows and finds free expression within these communities and how it’s often our first time to see or just IMAGINE someone who looks like us and is like us in our popular media. It’s so encouraging and transformative to see trans characters and trans headcanons reaching the same level of notoriety or prevalence/relentlessness/joyful enthusiasm as cis gay/queer headcanons back in like the early 00′s when we (fandom) decided we could just shout “THEY’RE GAY GET OVER IT” with no further explanation and i still support that right with every part of me.

BECAUSE! Everyone could and can be gay or trans for no fucking reason, because we said so, because we need it. But Rae and i love to talk, and it’s brought up an interesting split in priority in the stories we are telling: the deep desire for normalization in “they’re just trans (stop making a big deal out of it)” vs the desire for understanding and identification and exploration in “They are TRANS!!!! OK!!!!!! >:O”. 

It’s the difference, per se, between having a Trans Hero and a hero that is also trans, which mainly depends on how the thematics of identity, belonging and the struggle reflect on and connect with the main plot. Trans or cis, most all of our queer media explores Otherness and separation because … we weren’t like other kids. We just weren’t, and it hurt, and we continue to hurt because there aren’t any people like us on screen that don’t end up dead or shamed or a lie. We are caught in the valley between people rolling their eyes that we dare claim different pronouns and be “so extra, it’s 2018 get over yourself” and being faced with massive violence and gender policing and murder for existing altogether.

So the question for narratives often is this: do we want to be like everyone else but also trans? or do we want to be trans heroes? And I think the answer is, we need both kinds of stories in our world.

We need stories that have a trans character who is just hanging out. Transness is not the largest part of their life, but neither is it a footnote. it’s like … veganism maybe. I mean, yer gonna know, it’s a part of them, but what you decide to do with that info is your own decision and may only come into play if you (following the metaphor) take that person out to eat lol lol. It carries the statement “hey im a fucking person outside of my XYZ” and … i mean hey thats fucking important and clearly some people are still in the dark about this ok.

But we also need stories with unapologetically Trans heroes – heroes whose story is one of Becoming, who struggle, and fight with themselves and others to be the person they want to be, the person THEY ARE, and the narrative reflects that and draws the ignorant in while venerating and affirming the trans reader. This will lead us into the kind of empathy that demonstrates that not only are we people, we are extraordinary, and we have something to add to the world. 

We can be heroes not despite of our Otherness, but because of it, because we see things and have seen things no one else can see, and that’s immensely fucking important as well.

Identities fluctuate in and out of the spotlight of our lives. Not to say they’re in vogue one minute and gone the next, a fad, but that some days you are a BALL of trans or queer or gay anger and you cannot IMAGINE how you are supposed to fit into this hateful ignorant and dangerous world, and your body is at its max and just can’t hold anymore pain or disappointment. Other days, it’s alright, and your body is behaving itself, and you’re more concerned with your status as Caffeinated person, or Art person, or Gonna Get a Promotion person who is also trans.

Anyway, all this to say … y’all are heroes. Be yourself. write what you want to write about people like you because every viewpoint matters and I honor your story.

My Shinsou is trans and a queer disaster (he has a crush on the entirety of 1-A) and Aizawa is very fucking proud of him. So here’s a snippet in the hypothetical Eri arc with a freshly-on-T Shinsou and his dadzawa having a conversation about what it means to be “manly” RE: the fact that Aizawa’s sweet hero husband is currently cooking pancakes with Eri and Shinsou wants to join in but is AFEARED of gender roles:

“Getting over yourself is important,”he admitted, when he’d thought for a bit. “Life is short. Do whatinterests you. You’re not going to gain anything by playing toothers’ expectations. You want to learn how to cook, learn how.”

Shinsou’s expression was serious as hetook in that bit of wisdom. Looking him over, Aizawa reached out andthumbed the kid’s head to the side, then curtly flicked his nose.Shinsou grunted.

“Also, shave.”

“Says you?” he snorted, grinningonce more. Aizawa frowned.

“It’s inappropriate for a Hero Coursestudent to be scruffy,” he stated. “You have reason to be proud,but there’s decorum to consider.”

(He’s still a hardass tho. A very proud hardass! He loves his scruffy son!!!! TAKING AFTER HIS DAD!!!! AAAAAAA)

thank you for the beautiful message anon!!! You are great!! and I’m glad it resonated with you!! I put a lot of heart into it and I’m glad you felt it.