#but my experiences are very different and also broadly overlapped by my experiences as an OSDD-1 system

[thealterscrolls]

Bucky having DID as a headcanon generally sucks because it’s almost always a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the disorder that falls into “guy and his evil alter” territory but Bucky having OSDD-2? It’s quite literally canon, even if not stated. He is THE media representation for OSDD-2, which is the designation given for the dissociative disorder stemming from brainwashing, coercion, torture, etc resulting in prolonged identity disturbance. As someone with said disorder, it’s frustrating that there’s not more readily available or findable literature on it and I also wish it was more generally acknowledged in regards to Bucky. This is another reason I’m frustrated by TFaTWS because they actually somewhat addressed his dissociation and identity struggles but the show writing overall did him so dirty with his “therapy.”

[librarycards]

Hello! Sorry if you’ve posted about this somewhere already/if it’s redundant, but I thought your coinage of “transMad” was very cool and I’m wondering what that term means to you? I’m really happy to see other people talking about madness being intertwined w their gender/transness and looking forward to checking out your reading lists :))

thank you so much for asking about one of my favorite things to infodump about!! rather than rehash a bunch of stuff, if it's okay, I'm going to borrow a few quotes from past!me that i've published in different places // offer you some things of mine to read.

broadly, though, i use transMadness as a way to explore the identificatory, epistemological, methodological, and theoretical implications of an orientation (to use Sara Ahmed's term) toward bodymind noncompliance and self/selves-determination. this orientation refuses to delineate diagnostically between Maddened / transed experiences of the world/our many worlds, and instead takes this shared/overlapping ground as a jumping off point for solidarity and speculation - that is, something that allows us to imagine otherwise worlds / make them manifest through creativity and collaboration.

(Ha, and I claimed i wouldn't talk too much...famous autistic last words)

ANYWAY. here are some clips that might help explain more dimensions of transMadness. note that, in my dissertation-in-progress, i'm focusing on xeno/neogender and/as self-diagnostic cultures among queercrip and transMad internet users. i'm interested in the anti-psych liberatory potential of this digital community work, especially as it centers forms of knowledge and scholarship devalued within Academia Proper, especially because so much of it is made by and for disabled, Mad, queer, trans people, esp. youth. Onward to quotes!

On transMad epistemologies: citation/power/knowledge:

I’ll spend most of this piece looking not at what transMad is, but what it does. First and foremost, transMad cites. Even its name alludes to other portmanteaus: neuroqueer and queercrip being the best-known among them. Many people have offered many different (ever-“working”!) definitions of these terms; today, I offer co-coiner Nick Walker’s (2021) definition of neuroqueer: a verb and an adjective “encompass[ing] the queering of neurocognitive norms as well as gender norms” (p. 196). In terms of queercrip, I also return to its coiner, Carrie Sandahl (2003), who for whom the queercrip (as person and as method/movement) confuses the diagnostic gaze, bears sociopolitical witness, and performs glitchful[4], incongruous, confusing in(ter)ventions into possible community. At base, “queer” and “crip” appear as analogous, reclaimed slurs signifying marginalized transgression. When combined, they describe a loop, perhaps a Möbius strip: crip (ani)mates queer, queer tells-on crip. The specter of crip haunts queer—and even more explicitly, as we will see, trans—and the crip(ped) bodymind holds, moves, and fucks queerly. Who knows where “queer” stops and “crip” and “neuro” begin? Likewise, transMad, whose citational style leaves little room for diagnostic clarity amidst a pastiche of noncompliant text.

On transMad epistemologies: multiplicity (h/t @materialisnt):

They encourage us to remove others’ names from our bodies, to reign in unruly citations, to set “boundaries” which violate Mad, crip ethics of care (see Fletcher, 2019). In truth, any framing of individual authorship in which the body text is “mine” and the citations gesture “elsewhere” belie the inherent interdependence of all intellectual life, and particularly of transMad intellectual life. transMad plural scholar mix. alan moss (2022) argues in relation to the pathologization of multiple systems: “all people, indeed all that exists, is a system that itself is constantly enmeshed in several overlapping and interconnected systems.” In short, I am full of Is, and will continue as many more. Just as disability justice helps us understand all life as interdependent and deserving of access, a transMad approach sees our selves as numerous and fuzzy. We have permission to dispense with the need for tidy texts, with our interlocutors, edits, and iterations either obfuscated entirely or exclusively relegated to a bibliography. transMad citation may thus be considered akin to visible mending[6], creating flamboyantly messy, multiplicitous work that does not seek to pass as objective or discrete.

On the value of (crip) failure and/as "virtuality":

Don’t get me wrong: Zoom PhD work is a failing enterprise. That is to say, it is a queercrip, transMad enterprise, which is to say, it is a beautiful, beautiful project. Mitchell, Snyder, and Ware describe such “fortunate failures” in the context of “curricular cripistemologies.”5 Coined by Merri Lisa Johnson, the term “cripistemologies,” refers to “embodied ways of knowing in relation, knowing-with, knowing-alongside, knowing-across-difference, and unknowing,” ways which frequently exist outside the purview of mainstream academia.6 Curricular cripistemologies, then, refer to an intentional, queercrip deviation from normative pedagogical approaches which trades the corrective impulse of “special ed” and other rehabilitative programs, and offers instead a generative noncompliance.7 That is, rather than trying to identify, isolate, and ameliorate difference, curricular cripistemologies lean into difference as it is experienced by disabled students ourselves, querying how atmospheres of in/accessibility shape normative approaches to education and how the embrace of “failure,” not as a last-resort but as a first choice, poses potentially transformative possibilities.

On transMadness and fat liberation: (for @trans-axolotl's Psych Survivor Zine)

A transMad, fat approach to disorderly eating requires making connections with humility and understanding, and, as I discussed above, engaging in compassionate, critical interrogation of our own anti-fatness.

[...]

A transMad, fat, abolitionist politic is one that makes room. We imagine beyond the cage, even if the details of that imagining are not yet clear. Just as we have carved micro-sites of support within violent digital and in-person contexts, just as we have learned to think about our lifeworlds beyond the paradigm of “recovery or death,” we can also reconceptualize fatness not as the enemy, but as another form of bodymind noncompliance in alliance and/or entanglement with disorderly eating practices. For thin disorderly eaters, this requires us to fundamentally challenge the way we view food and embodiment, even while maintaining a Mad respect for alternative ways of approaching reality.

On xenogenders, virtuality, and self-determination:

It is this very “irrationality” –– the “unrealness,” the “you’ve-got-to-be-kiddinghood,” that is most frequently weaponized against xenogenders, as well as their newly-coined sets of xenopronouns. The perceived and actual virtuality of xenogenders is often placed against the notion of “actuality,” in this case, of “real” (or “practical”) genders and pronouns to be used in one’s “real life.” Disabled activists have rightly resisted the distinction between online and (presumed-offline) “real life,” given that this categorically excludes homebound bodyminds, as well as those without IRL social and support circles. That said, I believe the virtual –– as almost, not-quite, proximite, making-do –– is incredibly useful in thinking about xenoidentities as transMad tools –– particularly, as transMad tools of underground collaboration / co-liberation.

[...]

What if gender was a project we wanted to fail? That is, what if trans- was a process not of getting better, not of moving-toward a bodymind more sane, more straight, and more cisheteropatriarchially desirable, but rather a line of flight on a longer trail to illegibility? Indeed, what if we replaced pathology’s narrow “path” with a trail lighted by the language of our comrades, whose linguistic interventions make and break gender in ways heretofore unimaginable? Xenoidentities, both individually and as a trans-gressive M.O., are fundamental to a broader transMad project of crafted, collective illegibility; intersubjective citation (imagine what it feels like for someone to be the gender that you coined!); and collective care that refuses a politics of cure. Crucially both virtual and digital, xenoidentities are furthermore a manifestation of the power of trans, predominantly disabled digital counterpublics, who overturn the hierarchy which places the IRL-real above the digital-unreal, making unruly, Mad space in which (with apologies to Donna Haraway) a hundred xenoselves might bloom.

On Maddening queer "diagnosis":

In her indictment of all “Kwik-Fix Drugs,” Gray further indicates the practice of forced treatment as in and of itself as a project of violent normalization, regardless of specific target or reason. The intentional ambiguity between her narrative of Madness and her narrative of asexuality disrupt mounting demands for a healthy (sanitized, neoliberal, and consumable) queerness. A Mad ace approach identifies these demands as, indeed, comparable with cis heteronormative notions of sexual maturity and responsibility – the idea that participation in culturally-normative sexual practices is a prerequisite for health (Kim, 2011, 481) and thus, personal autonomy (Meerai, Abdillahi, and Poole 2016, 21). By fusing the “lack of sexual appetite” attributed to her medications for bipolar disorder with her asexuality, Gray destabilizes the binary between healthy-sexual-diversity and unhealthy-psychopathology. She is once again disrupting contemporary queer impulses to dissociate from ongoing histories of pathologization. Here, Mad and queer/asexual activism are as inseparable in text as they are in Gray. Gray and her comrades collectively refuse both sexuality-as-“rehabilitation” (See Kim 2011, 486) and asexual acceptance predicated upon normative “health” (Kim 2010, 158) – that is, they Madden asexuality. Twoey, in her own voice, remixes the sources of her own pathologization, staggering the supposedly-divine pronouncement of the DSM across pages and bookending its extracts with her own writing and art. In this undermining of the DSM’s epistemological polish, Gray disrupts the domination of written prose over poetry and visual art, while also critiquing the role of the DSM in commercialized health “care.” Her zine opens with the lines “sex sells and sex is sold / sex was being sold and i didn’t buy” (Gray 2018, n.p.). Gray indicates a pathology perceived not only in a refusal to practice sex, but also in a refusal to buy (into) it. After all, a refusal to buy into existing sexual paradigms is for her also a refusal to buy into a feminized reproductive mandate.

[ineffable-opinions]

BL: Romancing in a Bubble?

As always, please let me know if you have suggestions, critiques, comments or corrections.

I will only be discussing BL broadly (here I use BL as an umbrella term) and not just live action. I don’t want to club together BL and GL since in spite of their shared roots they are very different in their genre conventions, target demographics, and history. Also, I am not very familiar with it.

I consider BL a genre in itself – practically well as the way Masala is a cinema genre.

Please check the content/trigger warnings before diving into the works I have mentioned below. Feel free to message or ask.

BL / romance

I don’t think BL is romance or even a sub-genre of romance. A lot of BL is romance. Many more of them have at least a romantic side to them. There is enough overlap between those genres to give the impression that BL is romance. (I remember the discussion Killing Stalking had prompted.)

But there are plenty of BL devoid of romance. Like One Room Angel, Social Reform Season, and The Orc Bride. Similarly, BL is not exactly a porn sub-genre even though there are plenty of ero-BL.

Also, there are plenty of BL where romance takes backseat such as The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window, Blue Morning, Brother, Lawless Gangster and Thousand Autumns.

BL / queer

Queer – Can I call it a genre the way I call BL a genre? Even if one were to ignore queer as method in academia, it is still so complex.

Let me quote Taiwanese tongzhi (queer) author Chiang-Sheng Kuo:

[W]hat exactly is queer literature? Is it queer literature if queer people like to read it, or is it only queer literature if there are queer characters in the books? Or is it an appendage of the queer movement? If a queer author writes a book without queer characters, does that represent a certain aspect of queer culture?

(You can find the whole interview here.)

I think the problem persist even when I think of queer as a label.

Then there is the issue with conception of “queerness” itself. Like, in a way it is a limiting term. Is it fair to call normative or customary male-male erotic practices such as masti and Launda Naach, “queer” just because that’s how it is perceived elsewhere now?

To quote what Kaustav Bakshi wrote in Writing the LGBTIHQ+ movement in Bangla:

In the last decade, the question of decolonizing queer epistemologies was being raised periodically, whereby queer politics, despite having a shared agenda of toppling heteronormativity, and queer culture, albeit having a shared aesthetics, became more and more regionalist – not in a negative sense – but, with implications of difference, which can be interpreted and understood only when one subjectively experiences the ‘region’ with respect to gender, class, caste, ethnicity, physical and intellectual ability, access to education, metropolitan cultures, and most importantly, the internet.

[T]he attraction towards the launda is not understood as ‘queer’ – non-normative or out of the ordinary – but, as an integral part of sexual life, which is not always compulsively alert to the heterosexual-homosexual binary.

Imo, decolonizing queer epistemologies comes in handy when discussing BL since there are plenty of BL dealing with:

Historical BL set in eras and locations that had customary male-male sexualities and practices.

BL with special settings, like omegaverse, with different (if any) idea of queerness.

BL / other queer content

Just as Japan has gei-comi, and other manga like Shoujo Manga Artist Minamoto-San Comes Out, and Kieta Hatsukoi (shoujo), What Did You Eat Yesterday and My Brother's Husband (seinen) beside BL manga, different countries offer diversity in queer content with noticeable overlap. But clubbing them together would not be easy. Moreover, this diversity is as much cross-sectional as it is temporal (tanbi, JUNE, shonen ai, yaoi, BL in Japan).

BL the main difference between BL and other queer genres is BL’s focus on moe (affect). Anyway, BL predates LGBTQ+ acronym. It predates de-pathologization of homosexuality in many BL creating regions. Fu-people (BL fans) were creating BL before mainstream media started representing queer people in media. Fu-people battled state and its censors everywhere along with queer people. Live action BL is commercialized and we get mostly feel-good content. But that is capitalism (and the State) reaping the dividends of decades of fu-people’s labor of love.

I wonder if it is apt to consider BL the way western queer shows (such Verbotene Liebe, Queer as Folks, Os Nossos Dias and SKAM) as benchmark when discussing BL? Won’t it be better to evaluate consider BL in relation to local non-BL queer content in BL producing countries? But then, there are BL inspired by western queer culture such as Partners by Tamaki Yura.

Here are three gei-comi that I recommend for BL audience, through which they can get an insight into non-BL queer manga from Japan (created with androphilic men as target audience) :

Fire Code by Ichikawa Kazuhide

Fisherman's Lodge by Gengoroh Tagame

Coming Home by Go Fujimoto

Here is my BL versus gei-comi list which I think highlights their differences and similarities (I have included only Gengoroh Tagame’s works since they are probably the easiest to access/buy/borrow):

Do You Remember South Island P.O.W. Camp? by Gengoroh Tagame || Hitori de Yoru wa Koerarenai by Matsumoto Yoh

Arena by Gengoroh Tagame || Jinx by Mingwa

Cretian Cow by Gengoroh Tagame || The Orc Bride by Madobuchiya (Nishin)

Uo to Mizu by Gengoroh Tagame || Terpenoid by Okadaya Tetuzoh

My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame || The Story of My Brother by Ike Reibun

There is lot of overlap between BL and gei-comi. Gengoroh Tagame first published in JUNE (a magazine that contributed to BL we know now). There are magazines and anthologies (Nikutaiha BL) that offer crossover between different streams of queer content.

Similarly, there are danmei (Chinese BL) novel written by queer men such as the autobiographical works: Six Records of a Floating Life and Waiting Until 35 Years Old by NanKang BaiQi and Bei Cheng Tian Jie (北城天街) by FeiTian YeXiang.

BL / Queerness - exploration and conflict

Here are some live action BL (I’m not including some of the more famous ones like TharnType and Wedding Plan) where plot is rooted in character’s queerness and its exploration or implications:

Lan Yu – first danmei to get live action adaptation. The central conflict is rooted in the queerness of its characters, particularly Chen HanDong.

A Round Trip to Love and Irresistible Love – based on danmei by Lan Lin. These are part of a shared universe. The former has both ‘coming out’ (Cheng Yichen) and ‘leaving home’ (Lu Feng). In the latter, all the conflict is rooted in compulsory heterosexuality and we get the perspective of not only an amphiphilic (bisexual) man (Xie Yan) but also an amphiphilic woman (Xia Jun) of the same social class.

Boys Love: The Movie

No Touching At All (2014)

Udagawachou de Matteteyo (2015)

The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese

Sing in Love (2022) – Queerness is part of the main conflict.

Mood Indigo

Life: Senjou no Bokura

Light on Me

I don’t keep track of these things usually, so this is based off memory.

In Japan, most BL has dealt with the struggles of being queer in a largely heterosexist society since the days of tanbi and shonen-ai (such as Zankoku Na Kami Ga Shihai Suru by Hagio Moto). JUNE gained notoriety for focusing on it and yaoi boom was movement away from that. Then yaoi gained notoriety for existing in a bubble. When BL started to treat heterosexism in society as a part of the narrative, it garnered praise for being ‘transformative’.

BL has managed to carry within it different modes of identity and queerness.

Take Okane ga Nai (No Money) by Hitoyo Shinozaki and Toru Kousaka for example.

It is often held up as the epitome of all that is wrong with BL (or yaoi as anglophone fandom calls it). What’s less talked about is the main character, Ayase Yukiya’s queer angst and his exploration of identity that spans several volumes of the manga series. Kano on the other hand doesn’t struggle with his identity at all since his attraction to Ayase is driven by a very strong, initially unreciprocated emotional connection dependency (formed when his father died and he was at his lowest). For him, sexuality is merely a form of expression of his attraction for Ayase. Therefore, it does not inform his identity in anyway.

Within cannon, Someya and Honda’s pairing offer contrast to Ayase and Kano’s pairing. In a way, Kano and Someya have post-queer and pre-queer identities, respectively. Someya is a self-actualized person who mentors other queer characters (club staff, Ayase, Honda, Kano). There is a lot of give and take that happens between Ayase and all the queer people he meets at Someya’s club. Ayase's and Honda’s struggles with identity and sexuality are juxtaposed with Kano's and Someya's self-assured disposition.

That is also why I don’t think I Told Sunset About You stands out much. It can easily fit into the BL fold because there are plenty of BL that approached the same theme as I Told Sunset About You in a similar fashion (including these live action BL: His - Koisuru Tsumori Nante Nakatta, Life: Senjou no Bokura and The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese).  

I recommend the danmei novel Sissy by Shui QianCheng, the author of the works Beloved Enemy, My Stand-In and Meet You at the Blossom are based on, for a more detailed exploration of heterosexism, including femmephobia and homophobia.

Sissy, Beloved Enemy and Professional Body Double (the novel My Stand-in is based on) are all part of 188 group (a shared universe of novels).

There are plenty of other BL from other region that are focus on themes such as heterosexism and compulsory heterosexuality. Here is such a one-shot: Romantic by Motoni Modoru (part of the anthology Tanbishugi).

BL / terms

I like BL and associated terms like danmei because of the culture and the history associated with those terms. Tanbi and danmei are different readings of same characters 耽美 but they represent very different things. Shonen-ai literally translate to boy(s) love but that term (or BRM (boys’ romantic manga) as Emiko Nozawa puts it) carries within it so much history and specific artistic styles and sensibilities. Waai is derived from yaoi/yuri but there are fu-cultural processes, very different from that of yaoi creation, behind the production of Y-novels. I learned a lot from exploring these words alone.

[kienansidhe]

Saw your tags on a post and wanted to mention that trans women having their bulge be seen as gross also isn't an exceptional experience. It's definitely more visible because they face hyper visibility, but bigots treat all trans people that way.

If you need a one to one many NBs who have a penis will have their bulge treated the exact same as trans women. For a different but comparable experience, people who pack have it treated as gross as well and it's assumed to be a sexual thing. Same thing with people who've had phalloplasty.

I've also seen cis gay guys treated that way too. It's "gross" and assumed predatory. Because the cisheteropatriarchy punishes any deviance from traditional masculinity and femininity, queer bodies are as a whole demonized and policed. And that means a lot of bulges are treated as inherently sexual, threatening, and gross by mainstream society.

You kind of ended up doing the exact thing the post was warning against, where you assumed X doesn't happen to Y group of people, and only Z group of people experiences that. It's something that's easy to do but I hope you'll be able to expand your knowledge of the topic with this and also consider future things more broadly. There are definitely a few experiences one group will have different than another, but there's also a lot more overlap than people think. And there are very few experiences that literally only one group has, even if the exact way people experience it might differ some.

thank you for your thoughts! i inhabit a transmasc body that has chosen to only partially transition, and i struggle a lot with moral ocd, so on this site where there r a lot of loud ppl saying that trans women / transfems have it the worst of anyone, while other people say that different trans ppls struggles are different but not better or worse, while trolls and bullies muddy the conversation constantly, i really have trouble figuring out whats what.

i kinda default to deferring to trans womens voices because i dont know what its like to be transfem, but like, of course different transfems say different things and not all can be right at the same time, so its very confusing! im very afraid of erring on the side of dismissing transmisogyny, i guess? and theres so many ppl on this site who jump at the chance to call any statement transmisogynistic that i am maybe putting 'ofc trans women have it worse' disclaimers in too many places? (this is NOT trans womens fault, i see this from every demographic and often most viciously from other transmascs.) like. not gonna lie, im very scared of people on social media lol.

im sorry if ive made people feel invalidated by the way i talk abt this stuff, especially since i feel invalidated a lot when ppl call transmascs transmisogynistic for talking abt transandrophobia/transmisandry? maybe i need to just stop commenting and listen more until i can comment more confidently and with less fear. i dont know? im open to input!

[edit: heres the post and my tags that anon is referring to]

[lilflowerpot]

i just saw your reply saying you wrote keith with your experience with autism in mind without realizing it! i just want to say that i love how personal this fic is for you, whether you intended it or not! like, looking back and realizing you connect even more with your character (bc you’ve developed keith so well he’s practically yours) is so cool!! and the autistic-coded-ness fits with the character so well, it fits with his foundations from the show and also the world you’ve built

anyways yeah just came to say i love that for you, as a huge fan of your work!

anonymous(2): Hello!! I recently read your little blade fanfic and I'm about to re read it as well, I love it sm! I saw that another person had said they related to Keith in relation to their autism and I'm so happy they did because I do as well!! I love seeing representation like that even if it's unintentional lol, and I was wondering if you had any autistic headcanons for Keith and or Lotor and if being galra effects that? If not that's totally chill! I hope you have an awesome day or night!

-

Thank you both! I'm honestly so happy to see so much love for autistic-coded Keith, he deserves it ♡

I don't explicitly have any autistic headcanons for either Keith or Lotor, because (as anon 1 said) it wasn't entirely intentional on my part. When writing Keith, I knew from the start that I wanted to explore his galra side and how that element of himself impacts his experiences, and obviously because he looks human this was always going to manifest in his instincts/behaviour; what with the galra being aliens, I wanted them to feel more nuanced than simply "tall purple humans" which lead to me playing around with the differences in how they might express themselves and the ways in which this might have caused Keith difficulties in the past.

Autism itself manifests in different ways to different degrees in different people, but broadly speaking it's a variation in how the brain works as opposed to the majority. According to the NHS, the key traits include:

difficulty communicating with / understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, unintentionally coming across as blunt / rude / uninterested, and misreading tone / intent in others

struggling with anxiety in unfamiliar situations / social settings, often preferring a set routine with clearly defined "rules", and difficulty making friends (and/or preferring solitude)

heightened pattern recognition, attention to detail, and senses

over-stimulation from things neurotypicals might consider mundane, such as bright lights / loud noises / strong smells / eye contact / physical proximity and/or touch

self-stimulating behaviours (stimming) often repetitive movements / sounds that can serve a variety of purposes

a keen or intense interest in a particular subject area / activity

These, obviously, are only the very broadest of strokes (and I comped together many of the bullet points for brevity's sake) but as you can see a lot of them are applicable to Keith—not only in LB, but in VLD too! As such, I don't think it's especially surprising that in dissecting his character so as to better understand and therefore write for him, I ended up creating a lot of overlap between autism and the galra, with the latter becoming a metaphor for how the former sees people (like Keith!) being "othered". With regard to Lotor, it's actually quite interesting because his galra/autistic traits are considered "normal" in Imperial society, whereas it's everything altean about him that has been met with reproach.

[nothorses]

Hey um is it possible to be transfem AND transmasc? Let me explain. I am a trans woman. Very much so. I am planning to get bottom surgery, vocal feminization, laser hair removal, whole nine yards. However, I want a dick AND a pussy so I might get a vagina preserving phalloplasty after getting vaginoplasty. Does that technically make me both transfem and transmasc physically? Huge fan of your blog btw

Oooh- so, my answer to this question ("can I be this identity") is and will always be "yes", and it is here, too! It is possible to be both of those things at once, because it is possible to identify in any way at all.

But you offer some insight into your understanding of those words, so I want to offer you some of my own insight as well. Keep in mind that ultimately, labels are just a way of understanding yourself and communicating that to other people; how you personally understand and relate to a word is more important than anything else, when deciding what words to use for yourself. If you want to call yourself something, do it! Who cares what anyone else thinks.

My own understanding of the words is this: "transfeminine" and "transmasculine" are used more broadly to describe a set of common experiences, generally centered around the "direction" someone's gender is moving in.

If you're moving from a "male" place to a "female" place, you might be "transfeminine" (or vice versa). If you're moving from a "girl" place to a "boy" place, you might be "transmasculine" (or vice versa). If you're moving from a "masculine" place to a "feminine" place, you might be "transfeminine" (or vice versa). Or maybe you're moving from a "male" place to a "feminine" place, or from a "woman" place to a "boy" place. There are infinite ways to fit under this umbrella!

I like to think about it in terms of experiences, and how you relate to those; are other people calling themselves "transmasc" and talking about the experiences they share also talking about experiences you relate to? Is the thing you relate to about those experiences unique to transmasculinity, or is it broader than that? Do you feel at home in a space geared toward transmasculine people? If you describe yourself as "transmasc" to someone else, do you think they'll understand who you are correctly?

Those aren't hard lines, either- your experiences can be unusual, you can struggle to relate, you can feel more at home in a more niche community within that one (a community specifically for transmascs of color might be more comfortable than one that includes lots of white transmascs, for example).

You can also need to use multiple words together to more accurately describe yourself, and feel that one alone doesn't work at all; "transmasc and transfemme" might work for you, even if "transmasc" alone does not.

And there is also a difference between how you choose to identify, and where you might fall within broader conversations. Lots of people do not identify as transmasc, but include themselves/feel included/are included when "transmasc experiences" or "the transmasc community" is being discussed. You can identify as transmasc, and also not see yourself in the word in those specific contexts.

"Technically" you can identify however you want. I don't know if just sharing the desire to have a dick, or undergo phallo, is enough that most broader conversations about Transmasc Experiences would feel very relevant to you; but like, there will absolutely be overlap there. The vast majority of people who undergo that procedure, or want to, are transmasc, and you will probably have a lot in common with them that you won't have in common with anyone else- that alone might be reason enough for you to include yourself in the label.

Ultimately, it's up to you! I think you should decide how useful a term is to you practically, how it feels for you to use it personally, and all those other factors. Whatever you decide is right for you is the most correct decision about it, and you can always change your mind later.

If anyone tries to tell you not to use those words for yourself, I highly recommend setting them on fire.

[phregnancy]

Hi. I know you said you don't usually respond to asks of this nature, but I just wanted to add to the interruption discourse even if you don't publish this.

I would like to push back on the idea that chronic interrupting is always rude and easy to just stop or work out in therapy (Also, if this is not what you were saying, I'm sorry :3). I'm not saying this is the case for Dan, but often times this behavior is because of neurodivergence or a genuine disability. If you have poor vision, hearing issues, auditory processing issues, social skill issues, etc. it can often be genuinely difficult to tell when someone is done talking (even when you are actively listening to them to the best of your ability.) Furthermore, just because we see someone frequently interrupting others, doesn't mean they are not actively working to communicate better; these things often take time.

Furthermore, what is or isn't considered rude is dependent on context and culture. Conversational styles that include interrupting, cooperative overlapping, are not considered rude in many cultures and situations.

All that being said, I do think constantly interrupting someone and then disregarding their frustrations (like rolling your eyes when they call you out lol) is rude and uncooperative because people with different communication styles who want to have a relationship with each other should be making a conscious effort to consider each others needs, abilities and feelings.

Again, this is not to defend Dan's interruptions specifically or say that interrupting is never rude, but more so just point out that interrupting is not always considered rude, and not interrupting can be genuinely difficult to just stop doing for many people. Of course, this doesn't mean people who are bothered by interrupters are wrong (or ableist, or culturally insensitive etc.) or shouldn't point out the behavior. In fact, the best way to help accommodate an interrupter is to just let them know they are doing the thing again, and if they care about your relationship they should be receptive.

Anyway, thank you for reading all that if you did. I really appreciate it. And if you didn't... you're real for that lol.

the issue i’m having with all of these asks i’ve received is that people are talking to me like i do not understand what it’s like to be neglected by my family (as multiple people have given that as a reason for why dan behaves like this, which is why i said he should work this out in therapy if people are saying its a trauma response) and that i’m not neurodivergent, when i am autistic and i do very well know what it’s like to experience severe and extreme neglect over a long period of time. also talking at me using things as excuses, when really there is no excuse. they explain why someone might talk over people and interrupt, but ultimately it is still on us to make the effort when people are communicating to us that this is an issue. and it is our loved ones responsibilities to openly and directly communicate and show us grace as we make efforts, so there is no building resentment or confusion as to what the problem is or what their feelings are. communication, respect, and effort are the key components. also i am overly familiar with cultural differences, i come from a culture where everyone is talking over each other constantly and that is the norm. that is not the issue - the issue is when someone is unhappy and has communicated to you that you talking over them is a problem, or you are broadly aware of how this is viewed as a problem that you have inflicted upon people, and you do not take that seriously and try to excuse it. we all have personal responsibilities to ourselves and to each other, and a british allistic (as he proudly stated recently) man continuing a behavior he has been told someone doesn’t like and has rolled his eyes over in the past is bad. that’s it. i do not have anything more to contribute to this conversation.

[weepingpussywillowtree]

I have complicated feelings about self-diagnosis in the autism community. Obviously, there are immense barriers to getting diagnosed as a lower support needs person, especially an adult, in the US. as well, there are potential downsides to an official diagnosis to consider. I'm not unilaterally against self-diagnosis. Suspected self-diagnosis and concern from teachers and therapists is what got me to ultimately seek official diagnosis.

However, I feel like self-diagnosis has become so common and accepted, as well as the sentiment that research about autism is "wrong" or that professionals by and large don't know what they're talking about but the online autistic community definitely does that things have started getting a little toxic and harmful. (Rest below cut)

I see people so often talk about autism like a personality type or a horoscope online. I see other autistic folks encouraging watching tiktoks as a valid form of "research" to self-diagnose. I see autistic people getting pushed out of autism spaces because they don't fit in with this new clique of self-diagnosed folks. I see self-diagnosed autistic people downplaying the experiences of higher support need autistic people, distancing themselves from that part of the community. Misinformation is rampant, sometimes even disinformation. The symptoms of low support needs autism can overlap with many other mental health conditions, and I very rarely see this considered. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder and there needs to be symptoms present in the first few years of life for a diagnosis to be made usually. This is also almost never brought up. Experiences are treated as universal, autism treated like a card that gets you into a special club where everyone gets along, when the reality is many autistic people are extremely different from each other, present in completely different ways, and do not get along at all.

Frankly, I also see a lot of sexism in the online autistic community. There has been such a focus on how women and nonbinary people are often under diagnosed and dismissed that autistic traits associated with boys and men are villainized as stereotypical and broadly mocked.

And, as taboo as it is to say, some of the folks in the autism self-diagnosed community are very clearly young people identity seeking and trying to find a place in the world. This by itself is not a bad thing, there is no harm in exploring your identity and spending time in a community that you ultimately decide is not something you identify with, but when the online autistic community becomes exclusively lower support needs, self diagnosed adults, who will tell you up and down that medical professionals are always wrong about autism and they're right. Who will spread misinformation, downplay the experiences of higher support needs individuals, make assertions about how autism isn't actually a disability, and turn the whole thing into the next myers-briggs personality type....

I don't know, I can't really see it as a good thing. Now, often, when I disclose my diagnosis in confidence to friends, especially people my age, they say something to the effect of "oh, I always thought I might be autistic too, because I don't like loud noises and sometimes I don't fit in" and it makes me want to tear my hair out. When I ask where they learned about autism, it's always this same community online. When I dig deeper, and ask about their other experiences, or talk about the diagnostic criteria, they are usually surprised. Like, oh, I didn't realize it was that serious. I'm not a medical professional, and I'm not here to tell anyone that they are or aren't autistic, but this common perception that autism and ADHD (don't get me started on the online ADHD community. It's not my place to speak to it really, but some of my close loved ones with ADHD have been really harmed by the bullshit they spread) are just quirky fun personality types where you don't like loud noises and are an introvert or you think your lectures are boring sometimes is so so harmful, and I'm honestly so sick of people being attacked when they talk about the way the self-diagnosis community can cause harm in neurodivergent spaces. This can be a nuanced conversation. Two things can be true, self-diagnosis can be a useful tool and systemic barriers to diagnosis can be a bitch. AND autistic traits overlap with a lot of other conditions and also just normal behaviors, which can lead to inaccurate or unreliable self-diagnosis and minimizing autism as a neurodevelopmental disability is harmful to the autistic community as a whole.

[no-pennies4thoughts]

The other day I said something and I guess I just wanted your thoughts on it. What I said was that the term "asexual spectrum" really bothered me for the following reasons:

It implies that allosexuals are inherently crazy nonstop sex machines (which is already a stigma bisexuals face) and it can create confusion among people struggling with their identity (which genuinely happened to me, a so-called allosexual with what was at the time an extremely low libido due to various mental health struggles)

There are near infinite ways to experience an emotion (ie attraction), but there's only one way to not experience said emotion

I just wanted to run it by you since you pop up a lot in my feed, seem to have a good head on your shoulders, and are actually asexual and can provide insight that I wouldn't have as an 'allosexual' (God I hate that word, it feels bad in my mouth lol)

Just a quick note: I am not asexual. I thought I was for 7 years (those last two years I used the split attraction model and believed I was asexual AND a lesbian). But after more of my own journey I realized I was just a straight trans man (the lack of attraction stemming from dysphoria in my case). And while I may not be asexual I 1. Was very much involved in the community for a long time, and 2. Firmly believe that everyone has a right to their opinion and are allowed to voice it even if you aren't in that group (with there being respectful ways to discuss things).

Also you can just say non asexual lol. Or just what ever your sexuality is. It's all good.

That said, I 100% agree with you. Your two points are some major ones. My FAQ has links to a ton of posts where I explain more issues with the split attraction model. But a quick summary based on my memory:

-like you said. There's only one way to experience a lack of something.

-boundaries (ie. What you want out of a relationship) are not a sexuality.

-it allows so much overlap between other sexualities that it starts to invalidate and take meaning away from them.

-the model is so broad that anyone can fit into it. It can be used to define anyone, asexual or not. And that leads to lots of confusion and makes the asexuality lose meaning.

-defining every single part of yourself and how you experience attraction is harmful. How you experience/express attraction can change with time. Who you are attracted to (used broadly) cannot. By defining things based on something that can change you head down the slope that sexuality is a choice rather than just who you are. This fuels homophobia and will fuel aphobia. I have met actual people who claim to be asexual and claim sexuality is a choice without any understanding of how homo/lesbo/bi/aphobic that is to say.

-asexuality at this point means something different for everyone. This means I know nothing if you tell me you're asexual. You could be dating everyone on the block or have no interest at all and saying you're asexual. I can't tell. What's the point of using a word to describe yourself if the word doesn't have any concrete meaning?? If someone says their gay or bi I know what that means. I can't say the same for asexuality and I feel bad for actual asexuals who's identity has been taken away like that.

-I have legitimately seen it used to justify being with someone you aren't attracted too. One of my links in my FAQ has stories from asexuals who have had the split attraction model used to coerce them into dating or having sex and how much that messed up their mental health. The justification being "I can have sex to make my partner happy even tho I don't actually find them attractive." When no partner should be asking you to do that. Ever. Every single one of those stories explained how the person thought they were fine until they realized how fucked up it made them.

Check out the FAQ for more. Hope that helps.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

what is a swerf and why is it hated?

touchy subject for an ask on this fine Monday afternoon.

Here is a super high-level summary:

SWERF stands for "sex work-exclusionary radical feminist" - a very broad brushstroke definition is that SWERFs oppose sex work of all forms, viewing it as inherently degrading and violent to women, and seek to have all forms of it abolished. (There are gradations of this and not all radical feminists agree on all things etc. As with all movements, ymmv.)

There are sort of two "camps" around sex work in feminism (again, super broad brushstroke): one arguing that all sex work is inherently demeaning and no matter what, it will always be a form of subjugation and/or violence against women and therefore will never be seen as a form of work for women. Another way to put it is that sex work isn't work, it's abuse/subjugation. Sex workers therefore cannot be workers, since they are not undertaking labour, they are instead victims.

This approach can lead to a condescending and patronizing view of sex-workers who tend to be silenced by SWERFs who argue that they are representing the best interests of the sex workers on their behalf.

Indeed, some sex workers have expressed frustration, anger, and disappointment at the condescension and patronization they have experienced from those who align with sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism. They argue that the position held by SWERFs of sex workers "selling themselves/their bodies" is a) stupid because all workers use their bodies to sell labour, b) reductionist by making sex workers little more than their body parts, and c) feeds into the patriarchal trope of the victimized sex worker who has limited personal agency.

There also tends to be a lot of reducing all sex workers down to (white) cis women ignoring trans, two-spirit, non-binary etc. sex workers.

-

On the other side of the conversation are feminists who view sex work as work. There are a tonne of variations on the details around this position.

Two easy examples of some diverging views: there are those who argue that sex work is no different to other occupations and it's only treated as such because of moral strictures around, and fear of, sex (and women, queers, trans folk etc).

Then there are others who say that sex work is legitimate as any other form of work, but there's still an inherent problem around society being structured in a way where work (as a broad concept) is required in order to survive. Therefore, there should be means to ensure people can survive without being forced into labour (e.g., universal basic income). This would then reduce situations wherein anyone is pressured or forced into any occupation/form of labour, including sex work.

Then there are those who say it's a combination of the two above points or something else entirely.

There is also variety of opinions on whether sex work can be empowering or if it's almost always going to be a more negative experience. The nuances of why/to what degree/which circumstances etc. are many.

Differences aside, 'sex-work is work' feminists tend to agree that sex work is shaped by the class, gender, race, legal position etc. of those undertaking it in relation to where they live and the social/political realities there. In addition, most in this camp agree that it's a complex topic and that sex work can be both exploitative/violent and a site of agency, depending on the person and the situation.

-

My personal issues with SWERFs, among other things, is the policing of the voices of sex-workers which goes part and parcel with the condescension and patronization. Also the tendency of some to reduce women to little more than their body parts tends to lead to a strong overlap in these circles between SWERFs and TERFs (though not all SWERFs are TERFs and vice versa).

-

That said, feminist thinkers across the board (including SWERFs) broadly agree that legal policies which criminalize the sex workers themselves are harmful and they also broadly agree/recognize that those in the sex work industry tend to be disproportionally vulnerable to violence, which is an issue largely neglected in policy-making.

-

The International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe has a decent briefing paper on the ongoing the matter which is a decent place to start, if you're interested in reading more. It focuses the voices and opinions of sex workers themselves and is trans inclusive, which is great.

-

quick end note: as noted above but I want to re-emphasize, not all sex workers are exclusively women. There is a wide range of people who identify all across the gender and sexuality spectrum who undertake sex work.

second end note: everything in the above is super high level and very simplified. There's a lot I left out or glossed at a real high, high level. YMMV in most of what I have written, depending on the feminist you're talking to.

[robustcornhusk]

curious if you have more Opinions on heel-to-toe drop. I've noticed that my ankle mobility is worse after wearing higher-drop shoes and this has me biased against them. but I also do not want to fuck up my everything

again, i'm speaking with all the authority of a 14-year-old who has tried weed like three times, and one of those times may have been oregano:

context: what's higher-drop for you? daily, running, or other athletic endeavors?

caveats/personal experience: i have usually worn 8mm drop shoes (or gone barefoot) for daily shit, 4mm-8mm for running. as far as i can tell, i'm not heelstriking even in the 8mm shoes (but people are notoriously bad at actually knowing what's going on there! possibly i heelstrike. too lazy to record it). i have fantastic ankle mobility in some directions (plantar flexion), and kinda meh in others (dorsiflexion), though not to the extent that it causes me a problem.

i have a bunch of injuries atm, but the pt i'm seeing thinks it looks like it's my hip mobility that's causing it (too much of it, uncontrolled).

some assorted considerations/thoughts/etc for high/low drop in running shoes in particular...

broadly speaking, with lower drops, forces on the foot and ankle get emphasized, and with higher drops, on the knees and hips. it's a spectrum. your everything is affected by every shoe. the forces have to go somewhere.

supposedly, when measured, the injury rate is more or less the same for all kinds of running shoes with respect to drop, it's just that people get injured in different places.

most current shoes are going to be 4mm-8mm. as i understand, just a few years ago, there were oodles at 12mm, but it's dwindled down, and now it's just like one brooks shoe and one mizuno? there's a few more at 10mm.

the current trend is high-stack shoes (let's say 30mm+), and high-stack doesn't play very nicely with high-drop (let's say 8mm+ but it's not a firm border). i'm not totally sure on the reason; it's to do with everything getting unstable when they're both high.

in the other direction, higher stack can encourage being fast, for (handwave) reasons?, so race-day & speed workout shoes sometimes stay up at 8mm. or 6mm. or whatever. track shoes have undefined stack but i guess if we tried to define it, it would be very, very high. (tbf track sprinters apparently have astoundingly high rates of injury-per-mile, but they put so much force into each of those miles.)

very very minimalist shoes (0-4mm drop, low stack like <15mm including the sock liner) exist. they can be kinda rough to run in. i used to run in them! i also ended up injured. they will work some foot muscles that get worked less in non-minimalist shoes, but to some degree it's kinda at the expense of getting better in a straightforward way at running. possibly the majority of these benefits can come from just walking in the minimalist shoes; also possibly the same/at least highly overlapping proprioceptive & and weird foot muscle benefits can come from trail running (uneven surfaces). on the bright side, they're fairly decent to lift in.

if you're running but only a little bit (pulled out of my ass: <<10 miles a week, <2 miles each, like as a warmup or whatever for something else), you can try whatever you want to try as long as it's comfortable. if you're running more than that, you can also do whatever you want, as long as it's comfortable, but probably fewer things will be comfortable.

"as long as it's comfortable" is really the important part there. like, this is the best, most-supported scientific shoe-picking-out process we have. if it's comfortable, then you're less likely to get injured (tendonitis etc).

idk if any of this was relevant or if i totally misread it. but. shoes! i can look up any of the relevant papers but i am being hassled atm by a cat.

[vampirebeverage]

It bums me out that like... when you're perceived as a girl as a kid, there are formative experiences that objectively suck. Everyone's mileage varies, some people barely experience this stuff and for others it's legitimately traumatic, it all exists on a huge spectrum.

There's studies about girl-percieved children being treated differently, held to different standards, having their concerns ignored. Girl-percieved kids have a harder time getting a diagnosis for things like adhd or autism. If you're 8 years old, getting told you have to wear shorts under your skirt if you want to run around and play, but not understanding why, and just internalizing that there is something shameful about your body... that can have a lasting impact on your psyche. In computer class in middle school, I had a shitty teacher who didn't think there was any point in teaching girls how to code, so he ignored half the students and gave his time and attention to the other half.

This stuff follows you into adulthood. Misogyny is not only experienced by adults.

... but the second transmascs talk about having these experiences? Oof. People do NOT wanna hear about it. Yet... for a lot of transmascs, this is just objectively true stuff that happened to them, these experiences made more uncomfortable and impactful by being trans and feeling that unnamed discomfort.

When you talk about it, terfs will go "SEE?! you're trying to escape misogyny by transitioning! this is proof misogyny is sex-based!" ... and that's fucking obnoxious and incorrect.

What really bothers me, though, and something I feel deserves clarification, is a response I sometimes see from transfems. The assumption that by talking about these experiences, you are somehow implying that transfems grew up with "male privilege"... even if you were just specifically talking about things you experienced as a transmasc.

I want to be very, very clear. I do not think that transfems benefit from "male privilege" at any age. I think that the transfem experience is singular, that transfems are also negatively affected by misogyny in different ways in childhood. It broadly seems to me like it's just a different experience of womanhood, even as a kid, even not being out, even before you know that trans people exist (of course, different people will categorize their experiences in a way that's personal to them, so there's no "one size fits all" label due to the vast, vast diversity within the trans community).

I've talked to a friend of mine about this at length, and even though she's transfem and I'm transmasc, our experiences overlap more than they differ (though a lot of that is due to us having the exact same brand of autism). I value my friendship with her, and I like to get her perspective on stuff to make sure I'm not just stuck looking at things from my own, fixed point of view.

I think if we all sat down together and talked about our experiences, and were willing to listen, it would be enlightening and foster solidarity... and we'd all realize that we're all just screwed over by the patriarchy, because misogyny is inseparable from transphobia. And together we can blow up governments. Amen.

[vanillabat99]

This diagram has been bouncing around in my head for a very long time, and I think it is finally time to post it :3

This is a simplification of my Gender Philosophy!! I don't want to put labels or terms in the overlaps, because I don't think it's up to me to decide how to broadly categorise the intricacies of gender labels into neat little boxes, and also I have no idea what terminology is common these days.

Feel free to use this however you like!! If you have questions, I will do my best to answer, but I only really know my own life experiences. (More chatter under the cut :3)

I consider myself to be somewhere in the Transgender and Nonbinary sphere overlap, but even then my feelings are more complicated than any quick graph can explain.

I see a lot of posts about the different variations of being transgender or nonbinary, and I often feel like the conversations are still so rigid. Many people understand there is overlap between being transgender and being nonbinary, but most of those people view nonbinary as a subset of transgender rather than a separate, overlapping category. Further still, many of the conversations I see don't include how there is overlap with cisgender at all (which I understand from a community standpoint) but in terms of deeper conversations about gender I think it is very important to take into consideration.

I don't think the lines between Cisgender and Transgender are as crisp and clean as people would like to believe. I think it's very important to listen to how individuals choose to categorise themselves (if they categorise themselves at all!!) and I think it's important to be okay with how other people understand themselves in the world.

I don't want to drag this out for too long, as it is 2AM for me as I write this and I am very tired, so I will end the post here. Thank you for reading!! I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this :3

[bfxenon]

Google SGE: Early Local Search Data

If the local version of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) experiment rolls out broadly, what will that be like for local business owners and their marketers?

This is the question I set out to answer with a small study geared to gather some early basic data. Bearing in mind that there is no guarantee that the present version of SGE will roll out or will look exactly as it does now, I have what I hope are some interesting takeaways for you today!

Methodology

With SGE enabled, I performed 50 manual local searches. 100% of these searches generate local packs in the non-SGE setting, and 100% of them also generate local packs beneath the SGE box in the SERPs. I included both branded and non-branded terms (e.g. Safeway vs. grocery store), and modified and non-modified terms (e.g. bookstore vs. bookstore in novato). I tracked the data in a spreadsheet and took screenshots along the way.

How many local searches return SGE results?

100% of my keyword phrases (things like pizza, women–owned cafe near me, and bookstore in San Francisco) returned a local pack, signifying that Google recognizes their local intent, but of those searches:

10% returned no SGE display

34% returned a “generate” button to prompt to SGE display

56% auto-generated an SGE display without prompting

Takeaway: At this stage, Google isn’t sure whether users will automatically want SGE for everything or only as an option for some searches.

How many SGE results included an SGE local pack?

While 100% of my searches yielded a traditional local pack outside the SGE display:

Only 77.6% of the SGE results included a local pack

22.4% resulted in an SGE display of something other than a local pack

For example, most of us would expect a search for “shoes” to generate a local pack in Google’s interface these days, but here we see this SGE result, instead:

Similarly, we’ve been trained by Google to think we only need to type “Catholic churches” into a search box to be shown houses of worship near us, but SGE provided this very broad definition instead of any type of local result:

And SGE is really taking a surprising view of my intent in looking up “EV charging stations”. Instead of showing me a pack of nearby places where I can charge my electric vehicle, I’m being shown products to purchase:

When clicking on these products, I’m given an interstitial card of places to buy these products, like eBay and Best Buy, which feels quite remote from my intent:

Takeaway: There is a different logic powering SGE than what we’ve become accustomed to in pre-SGE Google. This may impact both your keyword research and your local search marketing strategy. Just because a search used to be perceived by Google as having an obvious local intent that would then be reflected in the SERPs returned, that doesn’t mean that the same logic applies in what SGE thinks your intent is. You’ll need to re-study the SERPs for your core keyword phrases if SGE rolls out broadly and is adopted by your customers.

The big question: Do SGE packs match traditional local packs?

The short answer is a decisive “no”. In my case study, 62.8% of SGE packs did not exactly match the contents or precise ranking of traditional local packs. That’s right, well over half the time, SGE rankings are different from local pack rankings.

As seen in the above side-by-side comparison, the SGE pack has a completely different business in first place, and the ranking order of restaurants 2, 3, and 4 is in a different order than its traditional local pack analog. These are significant differences for the businesses involved and one is left wondering why that #1 spot is being awarded to an eatery that isn’t strong enough to make it into the familiar local pack.

Takeaway: While I observed many instances of overlap of pack contents between SGE and traditional SERPs, the % of differentiation means that your traditional local pack rankings in no way guarantee the same spot in SGE’s recommendations. You’ll need to study and audit your SGE competitors separately if SGE rolls out to the public and is widely adopted.

How many businesses are included in SGE local packs?

Once upon a time, Google’s local packs contained 10 results. Imagine! Then we had 7. Now, we mostly have 3. SGE packs have their own variation. In my study, I found that:

46.6% have a 5-pack

22.2% have a 4-pack

4.4% have a 3-pack

4.4 have a 2-pack

Takeaway: In 68.8% of SGE packs, more local businesses are being displayed that would be shown in a traditional 3-pack in the organic SERPs. This provides more opportunity for you to be visible without a searcher having to click through an initial interface to something secondary like the Local Finder.

Is there an escape route out of SGE, and what about the ongoing importance of links and citations?

In my June live-tweeted thread documenting my first encounter with SGE, one of my first reactions to the interface was that it felt very enclosed. The SGE packs don’t click to the Local Finder or Google Maps or the reviews interface, making me feel sort of stuck. No matter where I was clicking around in the results, I was kept within the walled garden. Since that first experience, I’ve realized that the local version of SGE does contain an escape route in the form of these carousels to the right of the SGE packs:

In my case study:

53.3% of the carousels linked to Yelp

6.6% linked to Wikipedia

4.4% linked to TripAdvisor

4.4% linked to YP

15.5% linked directly to brands’ own websites

8.8% linked to a local informational site, like local online tourism sites or online local travel magazines

There was also a smattering of Facebook, Michelin, UberEats, GrubHub, and Superpages

This did not come up in my study, but I would like to anecdotally mention that in playing around with SGE, I am seeing a lot of citations of LinkedIn. Local businesses that don’t yet have a Linkedin profile should consider creating one.

Takeaways: Your structured citations in the form of formal local business listings still matter very much in the SGE setting. Your unstructured citations in the form of mentions on relevant local and industry sites still matter, too. The number of direct links from these carousels to local business websites is quite meager, and I would like to see Google reconsider this.

At any rate, there is some escape from SGE to third-party destinations, but here’s what I really want to emphasize:

100% of SGE results containing SGE packs include carousel links to local.google.com

When moused over, these bring up a local.google.com URL, including a Place ID, like this:

I was puzzled at first by that local.google.com subdomain. I feel like I hadn’t seen a URL from Google like that in a long time, but when clicked on, these types of URLs in the SGE carousel redirect to a google.com/search URL and this familiar display:

Takeaway: I could be 100% wrong about this, but looking at the way SGE is currently structured makes me feel like it’s not the ultimate way this will work. As it currently is, you’re already sitting right above the organic results while in SGE, and then there are these tiny cards in the carousel taking you back to the organic results, and the paths just feel a bit bewildering. So, while I like the escape routes out of the confines of AI, there’s something non-intuitive about the CTAs in these SGE packs.

What about local attributes in SGE?

I’m sorry to report that the work you’ve put into adding excellent attributes to your Google Business Profiles to serve specific customer intents seems to be wasted when it comes to SGE at this point. If you’ve taken the time to proudly add self-selected attributes like Black-owned or women-owned to your profiles, these results may let you down. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of my search for “women-owned clothing store Novato”:

The traditional local pack tells me my intent will be met at these two stores on the left with their clear women-owned attributes. On the right, though, SGE is apparently ignoring my modifier and just showing me women’s clothing stores, which may or may not be owned by women. The nuance is being lost. This made me lack confidence in using SGE to search for other businesses with particular attributes.

Takeaway: This version of SGE is coming off as a bit less “smart” about local nuances than the local results to which we’re accustomed.

How standardized are the results when SGE thinks your intent is local?

The answer is not very standardized at all. There’s something very vague and Google-y about the fact that some packs are headed with a simple message like “There are lots of yarn stores in Novato” or:

Whereas, for quite similar queries, Google suddenly wants to tell me a bunch of other information, which, quite frankly, seems rather random. A lookup of nearby Chinese restaurants generated a long list for me of people’s favorite Chinese takeout dishes (which I hadn’t asked about), and look at this example for Mexican restaurants. Explain to me the logic behind a 4-pack (when there are clearly enough choices for a 5-pack) being followed by a list of non-clickable “other” restaurants. What am I supposed to do with that list? What’s the CTA?

Another odd variant I encountered more than once is this one, where the “other” restaurant is clickable but, for some reason unknown to me, is being portioned off outside the other results. Why Google, why?

We won’t even get into the fact that Toast is not a Thai restaurant and is characterized (categorized?) right there in the results as an “American” eatery. So what is it doing there, being labeled a Thai restaurant? Ah, well.

Meanwhile, local business owners will likely be most curious to know how they appear for a branded search in the SGE world. Typically, you’ll see yourself presented like this, with location info, a descriptive summary, some photos, a couple of review boxes, and one of those local.google.com links:

Unless you have that special misfortune of having branded your business something that defies Google’s intent logic, as in the case of the great brand, Patagonia. SGE is uncertain as to whether I’m searching for a store or a geographical region here, and I get this:

Takeaway: As we can see, there is not strong standardization across SGE at this point, and while in some cases, you’d think time might yield a more uniform presentation, I wouldn’t count on it with Google. Traditional local search has changed continuously over the past two decades. Branding, features, pack counts, guidelines, and mysterious ranking logic are all in flux, all the time. I would expect the same from SGE, necessitating ongoing study.

SGE packs vs. local packs: which is better?

I may have oodles of objectivity from studying Google’s local results for nearly 20 years, but this opinion is entirely subjective: right now, SGE is simply not providing as good of an experience as traditional packs and GBPs for basic local search functions. Why do I say this?

If I just want to see an actionable set of local businesses, local packs are faster to access and easier to understand in terms of layout.

SGE is a whole new interface for people to learn without any obvious added benefit to learning it. I did not get into asking SGE further questions in this case study because such activity isn’t basic to basic local search. I want to talk directly to the business after finding it online - not to a bot, given that I have no idea how current its information is.

I really don’t like that I don’t get a review interface when clicking on the reviews portion of the SGE pack. It almost feels like an error that nothing comes up.

I am really surprised by, and not a fan of, the map disappearing when I click on one of the results. How can it be that Google, which has based its entire local search enterprise out of Google Maps, is letting maps take such a backseat in the local SGE interface?

The SGE results for branded searches in no way touch the depth of information provided by a direct look at a Google Business Profile. If Google is betting that people would rather see a bare-bones summary than a novel full of info, then maybe this approach will be popular, but I am not wowed by what I am seeing as the SGE replacement for a GBP. It feels very empty.

Looking at a branded SGE result really makes me wonder about the pressure for conversational search to become ‘a thing’. Local search has accustomed us to getting the name, address, phone number, and hours of operation in a neat little package, nicely organized, almost like a list. If you go back and look at the branded SGE result for The Good Earth Market, Google is expecting you to read through paragraphs of text to find this information. In many ways, local search has been like a giant experiment in shorthand, giving you quick data at a click so that you can make fast decisions. Conversational search presumes you want to read a lot and talk a lot before finding a place for a fast box of tacos. Conversational search is a real 180, and I have to wonder if, like voice search, it will struggle to find the kind of use cases that lead to longevity.

I remain unconvinced that AI, in general, is a natural match for local search. The introduction of an AI-based review filter has caused havoc in local business reviews, and I feel that this movement towards automation simply takes us further towards a virtual world and further away from the local world that local searchers want.

Takeaway: Do your own research and monitor your presence in SGE to see how it evolves. Be wary of hype. Every new thing that is being launched in the AI era comes with claims that it will “change the world forever.” Wait, watch, and see, and keep working on the things that you know work in local.

[sabrinahawthorne]

I've been sitting on this post since it first got to my feed, struggling to articulate exactly what I felt was missing from the conversation. But I think I have it, so let's dive in.

The conversation around this idea, that of Game Feel in ttrpgs, seems to have come to a consensus that it has something to do with the game rules themselves, but so far as I've read no one has been able to pin down anything explicable. I think the reason for this is because we may be missing something rather obvious: the sensory experience of play. Walk with me.

In video games, the term Game Feel refers to a large body of nebulous and inexact factors that make a game - well - feel better or worse to play. The classic example (which I've seen cited here) is the reload animation. How personality and atmosphere can be conveyed through simple animations no longer than 5 seconds apiece.

We may also think of the reactivity of a game's character to movement controls. Some games' movement mechanics feel tight and controlled, or loose and forgiving. While others might feel constricted and slow, or too slippery to be any fun.

There are countless other examples, but they all point to the same thing: how the game interacts with our senses. Sight, sound, the simulation of tactility - at the end of the day, Game Feel as a term refers to the most baseline avenues of connecting to the player.

I think this is our key. If we want to nail down the parts of our games that we, as designers, can make Feel better, then we should be looking at the parts of the game that stimulate the players' senses. I think that, once we do, we can understand those elements as belonging to one of three rough categories. I'll call them Materials, Actions, and Interfaces.

Materials are the physical tools that will be used by the players. These are things like dice, tokens, minis, and cards. How do different materials influence what it feels like to play? Ignoring the mathematical differences, what makes a playing-card-based resolution mechanic feel different from a dice-based one? Versus a diceless one? How do tokens improve or hinder the tactile experience of your game?

This is an area I think ttrpg designers can learn a lot from board game designers. I'm far from an expert on board games, but I do know their developers spend huge portions of their development time testing and refining the physical, tactile experience of the game. What happens if we follow their lead?

Actions are the kinds of things you know an average player is going to be doing at the table. This has a lot of overlap with Materials - after all, the sensation of rolling a pool of dice versus a single one has as much to do with the dice themselves as your interactions with them. But we can understand this more broadly as well; how much time do you want an average player spending without looking at their character sheet, or making mechanical changes to the game-state?

I think a lot of the difference between dice rolls in Powered by the Apocalypse games, versus d20 games like Pathfinder. In the latter, players are generally expected to be making skill checks frequently. The stakes of a given roll on the game-state tend to be fairly low as a result. Your average negotiation check might determine if you get banned from a tavern, but it might just as well be the difference between a price of 1 or 2 silver for a drink. In the former case however, a roll of the dice routinely spells disruption for the status quo; PbtA doesn't generally expect its players to roll unless the results will have a dramatic effect on the state of the story.

Interfaces are the elements of the game text itself. This is a very broad range of things; everything from text font to adventure maps to the terminology you use to describe your game's mechanics. Again, we see an overlap with the other categories - is the character sheet a cogent example of a material or interface? Well, both.

The character sheet is actually what I would consider a prime example of how an interface can drastically effect Game Feel. For example: I loathe the standard D&D 5th Edition character sheet. I despise it. Why? Because skills aren't placed alongside their corresponding ability score boxes. It infuriates me to look at. Sleight of Hand sits to the right of Charisma for pete's sake. And Wizards of the Coast has the gaul to put each skill's associated ability in parenthesis after the skill entry.

Look at this. The Game Feels Horrible. It's inefficient, confusing, and bad design that even the people making the game seemed to be aware needed fixing, because an alternate version is included with this PDF which organizes skills in the way an actual player would intuit they should be, making for a much easier experience of interacting with the character sheet as a whole.

TL;DR - We must recognize that Game Feel what happens when we consider the sensory experience of our players when designing our games. It's the sensation of our game's materials in the hand; the accessibility of the game's texts and tools; and it's the environment we attempt to facilitate through our systems.

I love talking about Game Feel in ttrpgs because

what even is Game Feel in ttrpgs.

Like, in video games game feel is a thing and you can point to specific elements of the animation, or feedback, or musical cues, etc etc.

But it is much more, amorphous, in ttrpgs because every table is going to be different. I can point to a mechanic and say it doesn't have enough chew or texture or that Game Feel is off, and just kind of shrug wildly when trying to pinpoint why lol.

Regardless, I think you gotta think about Game Feel in your games lmaoo.

[comicaurora]

Okay so this might be one of those '*vague shrug* I just kinda.... Do It??' answers, but I simply must pick your brain over how you do body language, because Vash taking the wheel and subsequently changing All Of The Body Language made me realize I was not in fact finding things that weren't there when I noticed Walter also changing the body language when possessing Erin. So like. How do you capture various types of body language in panel to panel linework? What's your internal logic/intuition on framing different characters? How much do you make note of contrasting body language between characters in a scene?

(Also fully unrelated, I've been wondering for months now if you recognize recurring people whose questions you answer or if it all kinda washes over you regardless?)

This question is very interesting for me to think about, because it made me realize how character posing is not something I consciously consider - it just follows naturally from my understanding of each character and how they'd move in each situation.

The most visible shift from Kendal to Vash is that Vash appears happy and relaxed, lounging in a completely open stance because he doesn't consider Tynan a threat. Kendal wouldn't do the same, and spent the rest of the fight intensely focused and broadly unhappy. There are situations where their body language overlaps, but broadly they carry themselves differently because they feel different about who they are and what space they fill in the world. Vash incarnates to have a good time; Kendal did not choose his existence and believes it's a means to an end. These two people will respond to their environment differently, and that means they'll carry tension in different areas, react to or disregard different things, etc. Vash and Kendal are similarly poised and graceful, but Vash adds a swagger to his body language that Kendal doesn't, and Kendal has an open, calm curiosity that Vash is too brash and worldly to mirror. Vash is also supremely confident and feels at home anywhere, because in a real sense as a god of a society he is at home anywhere in that society or its neighbors he manifests. In contrast, Kendal does not feel like he belongs anywhere, and correspondingly sticks to the fringes and out-of-the-way corners where he won't disrupt things. This colors a lot of the way they engage with their surroundings and carry themselves.

Erin and the Void Dragon have a slightly subtler internal distinction, because they have a lot of personality similarities. The key difference is the Void Dragon truly believes he knows everything and is better than everyone, while Erin only assumes he knows everything and reacts quickly to adapt when he's proven wrong - and Erin, despite recognizing and taking pride in his own abilities, does not actually believe they make him innately superior to anyone else. He'll play an upper-crust social role when the situation demands it, but it's an act. Erin's enthusiastic curiosity and bricked-over wellspring of insecurities set him apart from the Void Dragon, and that manifests in their body language. When Erin gets intrigued by something it spills over into his body language, breaking his practiced perfect posture into hunched shoulders or flailing arms. When he's sad or disheartened he sags down like his strings are cut. The Void Dragon has none of these nuances, and slides between confident stances with the occasional dip into full-on panic when a situation slips unexpectedly from his supposedly total control. Unlike Erin, the Void Dragon does not have much experience in taking Ls.

And the only time we've seen Life talk through Alinua, Alinua was fully unconscious, and her body language reflected that. It was important to communicate that she wasn't a puppet on strings or a mask being worn by another being.

Body language is crazy complicated and you can do a lot with a little. Even just the set of the shoulders can communicate someone intensely focused, someone rigidly disciplined or loosely relaxed, someone on guard or ready to start swinging. There's no easy way to break it down because it's a truly huge space of visual storytelling, and even in a very narrow subset, similar poses on different characters can reflect completely different things. Kendal's neutral stance is straight-backed and tall with arms loosely at his sides, but the same posture on Falst is very rare, as he only takes a similar posture when he's actively on the lookout for nearby dangers and doesn't want to stay close to the ground. When Alinua's under stress she curls in on herself and makes herself small, hugging her own shoulders, a stance almost nobody else ever takes. Dainix stands tall like Kendal but almost always carries himself with a fluidity, weight shifted on one foot or the other, ready to rock back or spring forward; Falst carries himself with similar flexible energy but stays crouched and low, more willing to use his hands for mobility than anyone else. Tess spends 90% of her time completely relaxed, privileged by armor and speed to be absolutely unbothered by most potential inconveniences, and when she does check into the situation she carries herself loosely and smoothly, stances and arms wide open because she doesn't concern herself with defense. Everyone has a different vibe and a different perspective on their situation, and that means the body language between two different characters will never be the same.

(I do recognize recurring asks! I don't have a dossier or everyone or anything, but I pattern-recognize with the best of 'em)