#but i tend to use it as an umbrella term bc most ppl understand what i mean when i say that

[fallen-angel-adam-frankenstein]

I love these classical music "dark academia" type playlists but my god please people more pieces exist than Carnival of the Animals, Swan Lake, Moonlight Sonata, Clair de Lune, and the Chopin nocturnes like show me some random Fanny Mendelssohn composition I've never heard before PLEASE

[transrightsjimin]

big question, is the q word something that most of the community avoids or is it just wrong for cishet people to use? I'm not cis and not het and I've always used the word to identify myself. similarly, i have many many lgbt friends and we all use it about ourselves/each other and also to title the community in general. it proves to be easier to say than a string of letters. i guess i just don't know if we're behind the times or is it just dependent on the person?

i rly can’t speak for what most of the community wants or doesnt bc that’s hard to measure. it’s in general just difficult to speak of one true global LGBT community, considering LGBT was never intended as a solid group with rigid identities, but moreso referring to a coalition of different marginalized groups that sought to fight for equal rights. the labels and discourses surrounding it only make sense in “western“ or colonial cisheteronormative societies in which a gender binary is the norm. i tend to use lgbt for ease, but i wanted to emphasize here that there is not one universal understanding of / equal amount of relevance across cultures to the term LGBT. i understand that ppl prefer a different word for personal use for reasons such as this.

that aside, i’m afraid the trend is heading towards the q slur being used as umbrella term, or on the other hand, to use a long acronym despite not all groups in additions unanimously agreeing with being included, nor being faced with similar degrees of stigma and violence. ive seen both of these trends start to show years ago on tumblr and by now it has reached outside it and it’s rly tiresome bc other perspectives aren’t considered as much, and it allows in people w power over others who reinforce prejudice and make spaces unsafe, e.g. with asexuals joining GSAs in the US and pushing for PDA being banned in the groups bc it makes them uncomfortable.

i’ve been told by some dutch people that the q slur somehow isn’t considered a slur to ppl here bc it got introduced through academia while gay was introduced here as insult. but idk what to think of that, considering i don’t like the loose use of the q slur in academia (to the point where it’s used to refer to inanimate objects and random shit) nd i have not been introduced to it this way but knew it as a slur first and foremost.

and of course the ppl i spoke to who like the term and use it so liberally didn’t consider other views when they only engaged w other ppl who id more as q***r. and i’m just kinda iffy w local groups w the word in the name anyway since my impression thus far has been that these groups pose having less common genders or sexualities (and often include things tht are not oppressed in the same way tht being lgbt is, and invite in cishets) in itself as a very radical thing, even more than different labels, and i just cringe at that bc it says nothing abt politics at this point.

if anything it’s downright insulting to call everyone the slur despite being asked for years and years by others to not to do it. i dont think you followed me for a long time bc otherwise it wouldn’t be so shocking to you to come across the criticism. people keep asking again and again to not call them the q slur, nor refer to a community as a whole this way. i know ppl on tumblr have 0 reading comprehension but i get really tired of people responding in defense, as if personally attacked, time and again, “should i not call myself this then?? are you saying i’m not valid??“ (i cant see the word valid anymore since like 7 years ago, but thats another topic).

and like no, people simply ask to not be called this by strangers or have whole communities be called a slur. you can reclaim words that might’ve been used against you, but that nor the fact that it’s been reclaimed by more people over the past few years doesn’t make it not a slur anymore suddenly.

like just say LGBT for others, if it deems relevant to the context, and stop referring to strangers or a community at large with a slur that’s used against people to this day.

[bi-lesbian]

I kinda vibe w bi lesbians cause I'm agenderflux & omnique (my gender changes depending on who I'm attracted to so that it's always gay), and I am a lesbian sometimes, and really wish I could express thatbut I feel wayy to scared to talk abt that because of how ppl would react to that? but seeing bi lesbians makes me happy! it's a similar boat of "using the term lesbian despite not being what most people consider a lesbian" ya know? anyways have a great day, keep bein urself!

ohhhh thats what omnique means !!! ive seen the word a couple times but never looked into it :Oo i didnt know there was a term (or That was the term) for that sorta thing !! i def vibe with that..

anyways thats super valid !! im sorry u feel scared to be able to express this stuff much, its unfortunate ppl are so judgemental/hateful about things they may not understand or agree with :( but you can defintely be open about things on this blog at least ! i like keeping this a safe space for all identities :33 and im glad to hear seeing bi lesbians makes u happy :D

and yeah, lesbian doesnt really have much of one solid definition to it bc it can be quite different for everyone- a lot tend to say its exclusively wlw, a lot of others say it includes nb ppl too, and historically its been an umbrella term for any wlw (before biphobes forced a change in the general public eye), and its still seen and used as such by many, many ppl. in the end, i think it should become common again for it just to mean they like women, whether exclusively or not. so if someone says theyre a lesbian, assume they only like women unless stated otherwise- much like how gay tends to be used (so theres still no excuse for shitty men to assume they can get with a woman if she tells them shes a lesbian).

anyways, i hope u have a great day too !!! and keep being your super valid self :333

[collectivedreamscapes-moved]

i just had the most random thought. well... two of them.

1) i remembered when Main Renee thought we only had a few boys in the system... and wanted to hysterical laugh. Cuz so very wrong.

2) of all the reasons system mates can form, can 'dealing with the dissonance and dysphoria of being trans' be one of them?

we were kids in the late 70s and early 80s. we didn't even know being transgender was a thing until our 30s.

we remember being inordinately confused by Boy George and Hollywood from the movie Mannequin because in our experience, we were informed multiple times in multiple ways that there was a Right Way and a Wrong Way to express your gender (ie we were always doing it Wrong) and we asked our mother one time why Boy George dressed like that (bc she listened to a lot of Culture Club) and she was all 'it's just part of his act' in this 'don't ask anymore questions' tone of voice. (this is a woman who would lose her shit if my brother didn't clip his nails.)

sexuality has always been easier hands down for us bc we didn't bother thinking about terms we didn't even know existed. we would just be: 'cute. 10 of 10 would bone'. regardless of gender.

gender is a confusing mess of '???' in our heads. along with gender expression. we remember Main Renee feeling ashamed bc she liked quilting and being confused as to why because clearly we were a girl and quilting in our family was an approved girly thing. so why be ashamed?

we laughed when we were scheduled for a hysterectomy and our mother and aunt were all like 'you'll still be a woman without ur uterus' because we were just like 'thank god! just take the thing!' and we were genuinely confused at all the comforting and consoling literature. like... being a breeder doesn't define being a woman? or does it? we didn't know and figured this was just another in the very long list of things that didn't make basic sense to us.

(and we'll tell you a thing. we know it's a fanfic trope and some ppl find it a helluva squick, but we love ABO bc it allows for normalized male pregnancy... even if we don't agree with certain anatomical presentations of it. because we had three kids and the guys in our system are PROUD to consider themselves Moms.)

when we learned about transgender and started actively reading up on it and was like 'oh! oh this is a real thing?!' we were dating a lesbian at the time and she was Not Pleased and told us she would have to break up with us if we pursued it and we were again... confused as hell. like 'what tf does it matter what our body looks like if you love us???' we had the worst disagreements about our chest. we mostly wanted our tits gone and she kept suggesting reduction instead. (she'd had one.) and we realized she didn't get it. so we left it alone.

the body is 45 now and we've been using genderqueer as a term bc it encompasses all of the system's various gender issues. we hesitated to use trans bc we felt like we didn't fit our understanding of the term. (we've since been told that genderqueer falls under the trans umbrella?)

so we've largely avoided specific terms (and lemme tell you, the whole aro umbrella was both eye opening and even more confusing than anything else) because people seem to have ideas and opinions on what they practically mean that just... do not compute to us. our spawn has tried to explain and watched us just... '???' ... as we tried to wrap our brain around it. and finally just said 'mom... you're prolly not gonna get it.'

sexuality is easy for us. once we learned the term pansexual we all went 'oh yeah this fits way better than bi' and haven't looked back. the rest? sometimes it feels like we'll never sort it out. so every year Pride month is... kinda painful. Because the things you see the most are people who are fiercely about 'this is who I am!' which is awesome for them. but us? it just kinda emphasizes everything that confuses the hell out of us.

as a system... we tend to lean towards genderqueer pansexual and quoiromantic bc trying to explain it is hard. we think we're likely more demiromantic to quoiromantic but we're still grappling with the fifty million definitions for love and the difference between 'platonic' and 'romantic' still baffles tf out of us.

individually.... our identities roam the map. some are ace, some are proudly gay, but all of that is still sexual attraction, which is easy.

the rest... not so easy.

[opendoorlorien]

I'm curious what are ur thoughts on Takumi? I personally don't like him, but I always give ppl the chance to try to change my mind abt him

lol I had a feeling sooner or later that someone was goingto ask me my opinion on this kid. OKAY BUCKLE UP. There’s no way I can be brieftalking about a character like him so here we go.

Takumi is without a doubt one of the more complex andlayered character of Fates (but not the most, no, that honor would go to Xander.But Takumi is definitely just behind him.) This is a great and welcome change fromAwakening where most of the cast just were as they were and didn’t have anydevelopment or character arcs or great change for better or for worse duringthe entire story (the only ones who really did are Chrom (a bit), some villainsif you count spotpass which is barely canon, and perhaps Lucina a tad). Fatescranked this up quite a bit with many of the royal family members going throughgreat character arcs for better and for worse in both routes, and some nonmain/royal characters who have smaller—but still powerful and significant—charactermoments… some being only for the worse (like Flora and Gunter to a similarextent).

But the real question here is how I feel about Takumispecifically. And I don’t suppose that’s really a simple question to answer (Ialso figure you sent me this ask bc you want to see me analyze him and talk indepth about his character lol. So I’ll do that a bit here too instead of justgiving my opinion.) For one I actually really like complex and multi layeredcharacters. I tend to avoid or disregard the ones that don’t really haveanything going for them (I feel like if Kaze didnt have all his character stuffI might not have liked him as much. If anything it really works to his benefiton how he appeals to me (and a reason why I like him better than say, Frederick)). So as long as a character is complex and goes throughsome nice development, even if I dont like their personality, it’s hard for meto at least not respect how they were written as a character, you know.

And I think that describes how I feel about Takumi too lol.NOW DONT GET ME WRONG, I definitely don’t hate him in any sense of the word.It’s just that……… I don’t like tsunderes lol. And here I’m going to usetsundere here as an umbrella term for “a character who is mean to you but doesn’treally hate you, necessarily”. Fates actually has a few of these characters invarying levels of intensity: Saizo, Rinkah, Selena lololol. And Takumi is oneof them too. But honestly I like to give Takumi the benefit of the doubt herebecause among them all, he’s has the most understandable and relateable reasons for acting the way he does to you.  Like Saizo is an ass just because lol (I get his pricklypersonality also stems from how he was brought up and the position he wasmeant to fill and everything but geez dude CHILL). Rinkah is an even worse casehere since she’s just very angry and snippy to everyone bc LOL FLAME TRIBE GETIT!? SHE’S LIKE FIRE LMAO. AND THAT MEANS SHE’S ANGRY LOLOLOLOLOOL.

And while I generally dislike tsunderes (or at least maletsunderes because I find they’re generally more harsh and brutal to you), I’mwilling to give Takumi a pretty big benefit of the doubt here because of what MADEhim the way he is. He has a LOT of reasons why he developed his harsh and coldattitude toward strangers. I feel like most people who dislike or even hateTakumi have no compassion for what he went through and just disregard it asirrelevancy. Like they’re just either unwilling or unable to understand him. AndI get it, like sometimes you’ll come across a character that you can’t findyourself liking no matter what. But I feel like when you understand whereTakumi’s coming from and what made him this way, he becomes MUCH less of a shitand much easier to sympathize with.  

Okay so a lot of people give Takumi shit in his firstappearance for being really mean to both you and Azura. Like literally thefirst thing you hear him say (outside of the weird dream battle in the prologue)is that he doesn’t trust you or Azura and he’s not really going to give you achance. Now the game doesn’t really explain why he’s so harsh to you from theget go (which is why I think people get upset with Takumi and his first real appearance gives you a bad impression of him from the start), but guess what he actually has a legit reason for how he acted here. I’m not going to go superdeep into why, but instead I’m going to recommend you watch the Fates drama CD.More specifically the Birthright one which recounts chapters 4ish to 6 in Fates,from mostly Takumi’s perspective. And these tracks humanize him WONDERFULLY andexplains and justifies PERFECTLY his attitude toward you in his firstappearance AND afterward. Like Takumi actually REALLY did want to like you, getfamiliar with you as his family, and form a relationship and a bond with you.Just… a lot of unfortunate things kept getting in the way. It’s DEFINITELY wortha watch and honestly just tore at my heart strings, and put a lot of things in perspectiveand set up the beginning of Takumi’s character arc perfectly. Long story short?It’s all Saizo’s fault lol.

Takumi gets his best development and most exploration ofcharacter ironically in Conquest. Also, personally, I just find Conquest to,generally, be the best written of all three routes. Yes Takumi does have somemoments in Birthright, but they either exist for eerie foreshadowing for whatwill happen in Conquest

or they just aren’t written that well. 

sigh.

And when I play Birthright, I find that is the route I enjoyTakumi the least. Yes my feelings are still far far away from hate. But whenhe’s not pushed into the extreme downward spiral situation like he is inConquest, he just ends up acting like a snippy tsundere. I mean even toward hisfamily and very late in the game too he keeps acting this way with theoccasional snarky comment or “more harsh than he meant it to comeoff” remark. Which wore on me a little bit but nowhere near as much asSaizo or Rinkah’s constant mean attitude. Takumi’s support with MU is also agood example of this. And since M!Corrin is canon with BR, and F!Corrin iscanon with Conquest, I think Takumi’s support was written with M!Corrin inmind, no matter which one you pick. Which is why I think he acts so mean to youin that support.

Despite my gripes with Birthright, the one valuable thing itdoes show us about Takumi’s character is his dorky side. Because this boy is adork lol. And this is actually a surprising, but also very welcoming, side ofhis character to see. I don’t think Takumi’s tsundere side is who he is. It’sjust an unfortunate byproduct of his inferiority complex and ptsd from Corrinbeing taken away and leaving a huge void in the family. It’s not who he is. Andin Birthright we really get to see more of Takumi’s better side in a morecasual and less extreme environment in supports with other people in the army.We get to see firsthand he’s actually a very sweet, kind and well meaning boy.Yall haven’t forgot that DAD IS ON THE WAY comment right lol. Takumi is verypure of heart and its really nice to see this part of him in BR. Like, look, he is a NERD

(lol Kaze lurkin in that img I didnt even notice)

AND in his support with Oboro when she makes some clothes and asks his opinion he says “this gets the Takumi seal of approval” AND do you remember how he pushes Leo’s back and brings him closer to the group in that very last cutscene of Rev? YEAH

In my Revelations opinion piece where I talked aboutcharacters, I mentioned the four big ones who get the most development andcharacter focus in this game, those being: Xander, Ryoma, Leo and Takumi. Nowthese four are similar in that they both kind of have a good end character arcand a bad end character arc depending on whether you’re playing BR or Conquest.Like Xander gets his best end in Conquest while BR is his WORST.

So, naturally, the same is applicable for Takumi whereConquest leads to his bad end. Or… does it?  

Now everything here begins with Anankos. It’s never actuallyofficially stated anywhere exactly WHEN Takumi was first possessed by him, butif I were going to put my two cents in, I would say it happened when Mikotodied in chapter five. Now going back again to the drama CD, we get to see morehere just how deeply this affected Takumi. In the game Takumi only talks to youpost battle in chapter five where he just screams curses and blame at you. Ifyou don’t know where he’s coming from, this also puts him in a kind of badlight. But the drama CD gives us another more focused account on what Takumiwent through in the direct aftermath of Mikoto’s death and its really notpretty. And if there was any perfect time to want to brainwash this kid, itwould have been here.

Now Leo and Takumi are sort of similar as characters in thatthey kind of have the same problems and struggles. Like they both haveinferiority complexes, and are desperate to live up to their over achieving siblingsect. I think the most important part where they differ—and why Takumi waspossessed and not Leo—is that Leo has his pride. I feel like he has less selfdoubt than Takumi and a higher opinion of himself than Takumi does of himself.(I’m also sure Leo’s magic power helped to stave Anankos’ influence off a bit).Takumi was also put in more extreme situations than Leo was. Keeping in mindTakumi is kind of weak of constitution and has a low opinion on himself, andthat he just saw the woman he’s known as his mother killed before his eyes,gives us more than enough reasons for him to fall hard victim to Anankos’influence here lol.

When you take into consideration everything that happens toTakumi in Conquest, its honestly not hard to understand why he became this way.Firstly, I believe Anankos’ endgame goal here was to kill Takumi, and as soonas possible. For whatever reason, Anankos can’t completely control someoneunless they’re dead first (as evidenced by all the other people he controlslike Sumeragi, Arete, the people of Valla, Garon too—though its not really madeclear to us how or when he died).

Like, we don’t get this

 until Anankos hassuccessfully pushed Takumi beyond the breaking point and gets him killed.

Before then Takumi is very angry sure, but he’s stillhimself to at least some extent. He’s not ‘completely lost’.

So what Anankos did instead to further his agenda wasamplify Takumi’s emotions of anger, rage and hate and push him to the breakingpoint. I think Anankos actually kind of sees himself in Takumi because theyboth had similar issues and personal downfalls, and that added with Takumialready being kind of mentally weak and vulnerable, was the perfect recipe fordisaster here.

In Conquest, Takumi suffers. A lot. Think about all of thisfor a second. He fights and loses to you in chapter 10 which, in his mind, allowsyou to move forward and attain greater power that he knows you’re going to useto harm his friends and family in Hoshido. And him losing to you only adds tohis inferiority complex because he was unable to stop you. In chapter 13 afterhe loses to you, Hans goes on a bloody killing spree, brutally taking the livesof Orochi, Reina and Scarlet. And Takumi has NO reason to think you didn’t havea hand in either helping Hans or allowing him to go through with it. And thelast time you see him alive in chapter 23, you’ve just started your invasion ofHoshido, have captured Sakura, her retainers, and Yukimura, and you’ve just gotdone killing Oboro and Hinata—because let’s not mince words here, they do die inchapter 23. So, honestly, taking all this into account, even WITHOUT Anankosbuffing his rage, Takumi has every right to act as angry and frustrated withyou as he does in Conquest. And anger blinds.

And all of that finally culminates to Takumi DOING A FLIPoff the Great Wall of Suzanoh.  And nowthat he is dead, Anankos has more control over him. Based on what we see ingame I don’t think Anankos can 100% control a person like a puppet, but more orless influence their extreme negative desires. When we see characters likeTakumi or Garon as a goo zombie, they don’t even mention Anankos by name, impliedor otherwise. When you see Takumi again he’s gone FULLMADNESS and his onlydesire is to kill you, which were his biggest defining thoughts when he wasalive in Conquest, now pushed beyond to the extreme now that he’s dead and completelyunder Anankos’ influence. He’s basically just a zombie made out of nothing buthate and the desire to kill you. I actually think Anankos probably wanted touse him as a trump card just in case you ended up stopping Garon, which you did.

Luckily we still got the power of love to contend with here.The ‘dream sequence’ at the very end of Conquest does wonders for both Takumiand the viewer. Like, even if you DON’T like him, you had to have feltsomething here. What both Corrin and Takumi needed in this route more thananything, but didn’t get the chance to do until now, was to TALK IT TF OUT. Andtalking it out can really do wonders. Takumi in this dream sequence appears toyou as his truest self and is able to give to you all of his honest to goodnessfeelings and smooth things over for the most part. And as a bonus he infusesYato with some Fujin Yumi goodness so you’re all good. (Which, now that I think about it, is some kind of symbolism with him truly forgiving you, apologizing to you, and giving his heart to you)

The Conquest finale will always be incredibly special to me.Because unlike in every other FE endgame where you just kill a transparentlyevil big bad dragon (or in Sacred Stone’s case—SATAN) after all the horrible,cruel, bloody and nasty stuff you went through in Conquest, after hitting rock bottomafter rock bottom, the last thing you do in the route is fight to save someone’ssoul. And that is honestly so powerful to me, and a reason why I’ll alwaysprefer Conquest over BR or Rev.

That’s more or less all I have to say about Takumi opinionswise. He is a very extreme character, and because of some of his actions inConquest I can understand people not liking him. But, much like Xander, he is avery complex and layered character who has a lot going on for him. He’sdefinitely not one of those characters you can just write off at first glancewithout trying to understand what makes him who he is, and why he acts theextreme ways that he does, and understand the reasons why he does the thingsthat people give him flack for.

It’s definitely okay not to like him if you don’t want to—I appreciatehim a lot as a character but I could really take or leave his tsundere side—buthate him or not, you got to admit he’s one of the best characters in this game.If everything you read here didn’t change your opinion on him or cause you tosympathize more with him, then I gotta recommend you go watch/listen to thatDrama CD because like I said, it really does WONDERS for Takumi as a character,explaining where he’s coming from, his stand points on things, and explaininghis volatile attitude toward you. He really doesn’t hate you at all, butsometimes people can let their emotions get the worst of them without meaningto—and when a centuries old evil helldragon is controlling you, it’s honestlyno wonder things got so bad, right.

And, all in all, TAKUMI DID NOT DESERVE THIS SUFFERING AND HE DESERVED SO MUCH MORE AND DESERVES HAPPIEST END

Also here’s a link to that drama CD on youtubePart OnePart Tworecommended tracks if you dont want to watch the entire thingVol 1. Track 2Vol 2. Tracks 4-6 and 8CHECK IT OUT

[kayvsworld]

(the interchangeablity question anon) ah okay, I get the concept familiarity thing, thank you for explaining. i still don't really understand what the word means, as like who is allowed to identify with it? the times ive not seen it used hatefully it's been like? everyone is forced & it offers no distinction & erasure of the specific identities of people and straight ppl use it bc they're "queering heterosexuality" by being androgynous. i think the entire acronym could be used as a (1)

like you could specify you mean any of the letters? like i know it doesn't have your familiarity but it is an option. also the way you explained it to made a lot more sense like it was giving specific concepts bc queer is just a nebulous hateful word to me &r others so like? I know it's longer but saying what you explained could work, too. anyway thanks again for the explanation!

i’m pretty sure the idea of only certain people being “allowed” to use certain terms if they fit a specific set of criteria is part of why The Q Word started to be used as an individual identifier? in my experience, the concept of the word in the context of individual identity is that despite there being like 30 different boxes in the acronym, you maybe don’t fit perfectly into one of them specifically. like my actual identity can be easily explained through a combo of two different terms and a lot of vague hand gestures, but it’s just easier to have a word you can use to mean “listen dude it’s a little complicated and i don’t want to get into it right now, or i want to be vague about it in this particular situation, but i’m for sure not cishet”. maybe you aren’t sure exactly where you fit yet, but you’re for sure a part of the community to some extent and don’t want to be switching labels every 2 months because you had another epiphany. its use is pretty unique to each individual, but that’s kind of the gist of it, from what i can gather! it’s just a really flexible umbrella term that’s used to discuss the concept of the community?

like in my personal experience where i am, re: the umbrella term, it’s used sort of in the same way that “people of colour” is used to refer generally to “not white”, without having to say “non-white” (which refers to whiteness as some sort of default) or directly list every single possibility. that has the similar problem of frequently erasing specific relevant racial issues (moonlight and hidden figures aren’t about poc generally, they’re about black people, and it’s important to specify that). 

i know some older people who aren’t okay with that term, either, because it’s connected to the idea of some people being ““coloured”” as opposed to The Default, and they’ve had terrible experiences with that word, but when you need an umbrella term for discussing similar issues that affect multiple individual communities for a variety of kind of similar reasons, one tends to happen, even if it’s tied to communities through having to fight while labelling yourselves with words that have been given to you by people who are very much not on your side.

(before i get an angry message about this, i’m not trying to directly compare the struggles of the black community and the gay community, i’m just trying to use another thing that is a part of my identity as a person that i Know A Little About to explain my general personal experience involving these kinds of umbrella terms)

here it The Q Word being used on the official Pride Centre FAQ (the lgbtqia+ resource centre at my uni, which is what i’m most recently familiar with) 

here’s it being used as a course name!

everyone has different experiences with different terms, but it’d be supremely nice if people on both sides of this situation considered that!