#but trans is also much more of a general term than something like lesbian is

[wazzuppy]

genuine question as i'm attempting to learn:

for everyone who identifies as exclusively lesbian or exclusively gay, what do you think about about mspec lesbians and gays? ive seen different views from people all over the queer community, but never together, and i'd like to attempt to gather a few here for a bigger picture of everything

terfs dni

[our-lesboy-experience]

HELLOOO AGAIN! Ive been thinking abt this all day so I was wondering if had an opinion abt this? how do u feel abt cis men identifying as lesbians? /genq just wanted to hear what someone thought abt this

I've seen this asked a lot and it's also the point where some people start getting a bittt exclusionary (more so in a way they don't think deeper about it, because "how can a cis man experience queer attraction to women?" rather than something hateful)

for starters, "cis" is generally identifying with the gender assigned to you at birth (though im aware of intersex and detrans experiences that deviate from this). A person can both identify with their birth gender and other genders. a cis man can also be a trans woman. a cis woman can also be a trans man. obviously I'm talking about multigender people, and "cistrans" is a term for a reason

secondly, have you....EVER heard of a completely binary, cisgender man, seriously identifying with and feeling like he's a lesbian (no joke whatsoever) who 100% insists he's cis? there's definitely not a lot and not enough to raise a whole scandal about it

thirdly, many people have commented that they have heard of or they themselves felt connection to lesbian identity before realizing they were a trans woman. if a supposed cis man is seriously feeling like a lesbian.....then maybe that person is a trans woman? and we should give that person space to figure it out instead of getting mad about it?

and lastly, im not the type to throw a fit over someone identifying in good faith and certainly not in a way im probably never going to see. if a cis man actually feels as if he's a lesbian then I would just wish him luck in figuring things out for himself. it really doesn't affect me whatsoever, and drawing a hard line between "valid belonging trans women lesbians" and "invalid invading cis men lesbians" will never help anyone and from actual trans women I've seen say this, it just makes it harder for them to accept themselves and not feel like they're intruding on a space they don't belong in. just leave people with identities you don't understand alone

tldr; if a cis man seriously feels like a lesbian you should just wish him luck on his journey of self-discovery, and there's so few of them that it's pretty much a non-issue + multigender cistrans people exist

[animentality]

Hiya. Little chance you'll see/respond to this, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. I'm kind of stuck, gender-wise. As a gender-fluid afab person, I kind of know where I want my transition to go, with both T and surgery. The problem is, my very lesbian partner has some squicks about the way I want my transition to go, (namely the clitoromegaly and metoidioplasty.) I haven't talked to her about this yet, because of the squicks. (I know I need to, it's just something I haven't built up to yet.) There's a lot of love in the community for the effects of going on T that I want, which makes me feel good, but knowing my partner would no longer find me attractive because of it is. distressing. This is complicated by the fact that I do sex work, so I'm putting off transition anyway to retain my audience. I know I need to stop letting other people's approval and attraction dictate what I'm doing with my body, but it's money to live off of and I desperately love my partner, (and I'm used to sublimating what I want for others.) I don't know if you have or care to give any advice or response, but even just typing this out and sending it is making me feel better, so thank you <3

I get it, friend.

I really do. You know it's what you want, but you're also afraid of how much it'll change things.

And I don't blame you. There's always comfort in stability and the status quo. holding on to things you've grown so used to having, that you worry you might not be able to survive without them.

But if you know it's what you want- and I think it must be, otherwise would it really be a difficult decision? - then you'll find some peace in knowing that things are never as stable as they seem anyway.

you have to pursue the things that will make you happy in this life. it's the most important thing. sometimes that means choosing something that's harder to do, in the short term, but will bring you peace in the long term.

and yeah, it will be uncomfortable and painful if, or when, your partner no longer finds you attractive because of the transition, but if she really loves you, and cares for you as a person, then she'll support you, even if it's only as a friend. she won't cut you out of her life, if she loves you as much as you love her.

And I know that sounds bad, but the truth is, people are attracted to what they're attracted to. Now that doesn't mean she definitely will lose interest in you, though. Because honestly, I think you definitely need to talk about it, and maybe you'll be surprised.

I have known lesbians who have a few exceptions, just as there are straight people with their own "gay exceptions."

And transition isn't exactly a new practice or anything, but transition surgeries sort of are, in the grand scheme of things. they can be kind of disturbing to people, even supportive people, at first, because surgeries in general are always disturbing.

something primal in us just doesn't like the idea of letting someone else cut into our flesh and rearrange all the parts inside. it's instinctive, i think. but just as you can grow and change, so can other people.

even if they never ever thought about it before.

life is kinda funny like that. you can think you'll never ever do something, but then someone else might come along, someone you desperately want to be with, and then you'll become more than you ever expected you would be. and you'd do it together.

but you definitely need to talk to her. she might surprise you. or she might surprise herself, actually, if you give her the time to consider how it'll change your relationship.

But if she's no longer attracted to you, and if you break up, well, relationships always fall apart when one person wants to stay the same, but the other desires growth, and change. It might seem terrifying, not to have her as a romantic partner, and maybe you're afraid you'll never find someone else, but these things are normal, these things are not as scary as they seem.

All human beings, trans, cis, het, gay, bi, have to deal with the fact that people change and some relationships end. Some people can adapt, and stay together. Some can't.

Some people lose interest in their partners over many, many years, and some people can't stay in relationships with people who become sick, or disfigured, who have horrible injuries that change who they are. Life doesn't go the way you plan, ever.

So you aren't alone in that feeling. And I hope that your community is there to support you too, so that you don't feel alone in this either.

You might consider joining groups, or finding people, who know what it's like to lose partners because of transition, by the way.

It's always good to have a network of support.

Now as for the sex work... listen, I don't know your financial situation. if it makes sense to not transition right now, to put it off so you can pay the bills, have a roof over your head, then you can always wait as long as you need to.

But I wouldn't let that hold you back either.

Financial stability is very important, and being able to pay for food is your first need and all that, but emotional and psychological fulfillment are important too.

so in the future, if you have the money, or maybe find other jobs, or other means of income, then don't let it stop you.

and also, if you enjoy sex work, and you don't want to stop doing it, or having it as an option...you can find another audience.

it might be smaller, and different, and you might have to start from the ground up, but if you already have an audience that makes you good money, then you're resourceful. you're creative.

you can do this. all of this.

but anyway.

my advice to you is...do what you need to do, to make money, but remember that life is primarily about being happy. it can't always be happy, but...the end goal is happiness.

you have to go looking for it, though.

even if it doesn't look the way it used to, that's the grand adventure called living.

thanks for the ask.

always feel free to vent to me, by the way, especially about this, because as a transmac, I get it.

I personally only would want top surgery, but I understand completely the afabs who want to fully transition.

I remember the first time I used my name, and not my deadname...I remember the joy I felt, when my friends started calling me by masculine pronouns...

I couldn't discourage you from seeking the self you were born to be. It's a wonderful feeling, being the person you dreamt of, on those lonely nights where you laid in bed and wondered why you feel so different and alone.

But you aren't alone now.

Good luck, anon.

Hope everything turns out ok, and then I hope the rest of your life is wonderful.

[lockedtombbrainworms]

Patriarchy and the Nine Houses

I've been mulling this one over in my brain on long drives recently, and as I'm currently at home resting up after an insanely busy few days and also some sort of illness flareup, I want to put some of what I've come up with into writing. These are coming from the perspective of a somewhat masculine-presenting queer trans woman with some degree of familiarity with anarcha-feminism, a lot more familiarity with anarchism in general, but not really much academic feminist background. I'm also white, which may well impact what I'm taking away from this here.

Something else that might influence what I've written here are the frankly insane doses of decongestants I'm currently on, but here goes.

So firstly, I don't think 'Patriarchy' as common feminist discourse uses the term exists within the Houses.

In terms of "Evidence Against", for one, there is seemingly no gendered violence in the Nine Houses - I've seen more than one post about how at no point does Gideon Nav feel like she's in any sort of danger of sexual assault or anything like that from the men she interacts with - she's quite happy to walk into Silas and Colum's room, and at no point does the narrative mention her being concerned about sexual violence while she, a teenage butch lesbian, is trapped in a room with an older man whose intentions towards her are unknown. She gets worried, sure, but mostly about swords or necromancy, not sexual assault. Our Griddle may be a bit sheltered, sure, but she's read a lot of adult-oriented comics, which in my experience tend to be fairly lurid about any and every fucked up thing that happens in the society that produced them, and none of those, nor anything she's been told by Aiglamene or witnessed on the Ninth, seem to have instilled any fear of patriarchal sexual violence in her.

The houses also don't seem to have a concept of homophobia or particularly rigid gender roles - at absolutely no point does anyone take issue with Gideon's sexuality and gender presentation, despite various other characters being absolute shits to her in various other ways throughout the book - Crux, Naberius, Silas, the Reverend Parents - at no point is it even hinted at that any of them were homophobic or shitty about gender-non-conformity. I don't really think you can get rid of any of those things entirely without also at least taking a big chunk out of patriarchy, if not eliminating it - they're all too tightly linked together.

I honestly don't think you can describe, for instance, Palamedes or Silas or Naberius as benefitting from "male privilege" in the context of the books without getting into some weird gender-essentialist bollocks about how being male Just Does That For You, at which point you may well be sliding into terf shit and I don't really think we have much of a common ground to discuss this from. The fandom's treatment of gender (and race, while we're at it) is another matter, but in the context of the books, I genuinely don't see "male privilege" or "patriarchy" existing within the wider society of the Nine Houses. You can look at the necro/cav dynamic as a sort of metaphor for gender, and I do consider them through that lense in some cases, but it's not a 1:1 map for gender and I don't think it's trying to be.

You could argue there's some weird patriarchal ideas of manhood in Mortus' treatment of Ortus - the guy very clearly abused his son to try to "toughen him up" and make him into a warrior when Ortus wanted nothing more than to write poetry, but while that's arguably written with a patriarchal bent to it from a doylist perspective, at no point does anyone actually tell Ortus he's less of a man in the text. What they do tell him is that he's less of a cavalier, which is why I actually view that dynamic as much more of an exploration of cavalier-hood as a metaphor for gender - 'toxic cavalierhood' rather than toxic masculinity, albeit via a dynamic that's unforunately very familiar to a lot of us.

The big flaw in my argument is that, unfortunately, in the literal sense of the word, the Nine Houses very much are a capital-P Patriarchy. They're run by an immortal God-Emperor dude with some fairly intense catholic shit going on! John actually was raised in a patriarchal society, and while his experiences as a he remembers it, and while he seems to have done an OK job of not passing homophobia, misogyny or strict gender roles onto the society he built after literally fucking nuking the one he grew up in, I don't know if someone in his position of power is really in a position to unlearn anything more at this point. To a lesser extent we see it with Augustine as well - the Saint of Patience definitely reads as a misogynist at times during the text (telling Mercymorn "you have made yourself unlovable" and his whole thing about Ianthe chosing to be broken spring to mind), and while he may not remember the pre-resurrection world, it still shaped him (and his brother, who is as much a part of the man we meet in HtN as the original Augustine who was resurrected).

Also none of this is to say the society of the Nine Houses is perfect - far from it! There's all sorts of fucked up abuse dynamics present, and the entire thing has been a fucked-up expansionist empire since it found someone to do expansionist imperialism on about five millennia before the story takes place, before which it was still a fucked-up death cult living on the reanimated wreckage of a dead solar system. If anything, the lack of misogyny, homophobia, rigid gender roles and the like are a parable - it doesn't matter how inclusive and egalitarian the society of the imperial core is when it perpetuates brutal violence on the imperial periphery.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Lore: Common Phrases and Words #2

Accuracy Disclaimer & The Other Stuff [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Abeir-Toril Why it's called the "Forgotten" Realms History | Time & Festivals | Lexicon [1] [2]| Languages | Living in Faerûn [1] [?] | Notable Organisations | Magic | Baldurs Gate | Waterdeep | The Underdark | Geography and Human Cultures --- WIP

Some more random assorted Common vocabulary and phrases - including some LGBT+ terminology and yet more swearing.

An interesting note about insults in the Realms is that you're encouraged to be creative about them. Performers in particular, like playwrights and minstrels, keep a cycle of new and creative phrases coming and going among the population (Earth has social media for its memes, on Toril you can blame the bards).

'tis and 'twas are not uncommonly heard peppered into speech now and then, though the everyday variants we use are just as common.

Badauler - Nonsense, Hogwash

To be "Right darlburl" / "Proper darlburl" - Pissed off

"The thrust of it" - "the gist of it"

Galad! - Wow!

Anyhail - Anyway

Mayhap - Perhaps "Perhaps" is used only in appropriate social settings as fancy etiquette, and only by the upper class and those who wish to affect such mannerisms (bards and the upper middle-class).

Casking - Vandalism (Sword Coast dialect)

a Nightblood - A thief

"The blood of the night" - Thieving, a phrase used by professionals in the trade.

a Sharpjaw - Juvenile delinquent

a Thruster - An aggressively ambitious social climber (not necessarily derogatory)

Brightbird/s - Lover/s

a Rose [Waterdhavian dialect] - Somebody you're in love with, anyone from a crush to a soulmate a Rose [outside of Waterdeep] - A Submissive [BDSM].

a Fancyman/Fancylad/Fancylass - A partner whom the speaker disapproves of. (So, like, your boyfriend knocks on the door and your mother, who hates him, answers, she'll inform you that your "fancylad" is around again.

Power - Divine magic

a Tavernmaster - Barkeeper

a Clevershanks - Know-it-all (usually used for men) a Clevertongue - Know-it-all (usually used for women)

a Highborn - Noble (polite) a Highnose - Noble (rude), also means "has a stick-up-their-ass"

a Holy-nose - Priest; mildly rude, but more rough than offensive.

a Thruss - Lesbian a Liyan - Gay man (elvish loanword) a Praed - Gay man (gnomish loanword)

a Dathna - Twink

a Harnor - Butch

a Tasmar - Bisexual (masc.) a Shaeda - Bisexual (fem.) (elven loanword)

a "No-thorn" - Asexual

a One - An agender term, similar to using they/them.

Sildur - Trans I didn't see much extrapolation on this one, so I assume it's an adjective: a sildur woman, a sildur man, a sildur one or just "I'm sildur" when providing your gender, I guess.

a Brightcoin - Nouveau Riche. Somebody rising through the social ranks.

a Highmantle - Old Money, or somebody with the etiquette and bearing of one

a Turncoin, Coin lass, Coin lad - Sex worker. Something of a generic term, but also refers more specifically to those unaffiliated with brothels and festhalls.

a Laughing-lad/lass, Highcoin lass/lad - A more affluent sex-worker

a Brightspear, Highcoin Lady/Lord - Sex workers who play the part of the noble and draw clients from that crowd.

"Sark!" - The impolite way to say "gods fucking damn it!" (in contrast to haularake - the polite way to say it)

"Bind me and tar me" - An oath of astonishment, milder but similar in form to "well, fuck me." "Bind me" - short version

"Dark!" - "Damn it!"

"Straek" - "Go drown yourself, right now and painfully." No, really, that's the translation given.

"To stlarn up" - to screw up "Stlarning it up" - Screwing up "Stlarn" - a mild "damn" "Stlarning [thing]" - "Bloody [thing]"

"Tluin" - an emphatic "fuck off"

"Those of all the Nine Hells take you!” - the full version of "Hells"

"Happy Dancing Hobgoblins" - a curse used by the old fashioned and parents trying too hard not to swear in front of infants, rather like that old lady I once met on a train who unironically used "jiminy cricket." Hobgoblins are noted to be unimpressed by this particular phrase.

[jojotichakorn]

i know you're mostly kidding but. is there any part of you that's actually mad about straight dramas? i'll be honest. there is a small part of me that is 🤠

ur so real for that actually kgjlkdfjglkfdjgklf

no but. hm, i wouldn't say i'm actively mad. one of the things about gmmtv series specifically is that we are in a unique position where one more cishet series = one less queer series. literally. they have a specific amount of resources per year and those resources are poured into a specific amount of series they can afford to make. i know it's a little silly because it's not like some queer series was actively murdered to birth a cishet one, but it's a thing in broad terms.

it's also like i am not really even advocating for more bls necessarily. there is a reason why i choose such broad language to describe the series i want / don't want to see more of.

if you look at my list of favourite dramas, you will see things like 3 will be free and the warp effect and even dirty laundry on there. and the thing is, the main reason why i love 3wbf is literally because of an m/f pairing. but that pairing isn't cis. and generally, 3wbf is a queer series with a poly couple at its centre and a trans woman playing an important role in it as well. the warp effect technically revolves around lots of m/f romance, but you have a non-binary character and a trans character and lesbians and gays and puppy play - it's a really queer series, even if technically the main character is cishet and the main pairing is m/f. not to mention that it was actually something really unique and important in terms of how it discussed sex. dirty laundry is very much about an m/f pairing as well, i would say it's a fairly standard romcom about a guy and a girl, but you once again have trans women in that series, and generally it feels incredibly queer. most of all because all these series are directed by jojo tichakorn, of course, and all of his works feel incredibly queer regardless. and i love all of them. and i'd love to see more of them.

so i'd love to see more of those queer series with lots of different, important representation and more gls, of course, instead of, let us put it plainly, a series with the same fucking cishet storyline you have seen literally millions of times before. and even if the balance shifts at one or two companies like i want it to, those same cishet storylines will still be made thousands of times more often than queer ones. so it's not like i'm suddenly depriving people who wanna see boy and girl fall in love in the same way for the billionth time of the opportunity to do so. it's still out there. it's being made right as we speak. a lot of it. like a whole fucking lot of it. meanwhile, one dedicated motherfucker with a free evening on their hands can trace every single queer series that's being made at the moment with ease. the gap is fucking insane there.

[ruthlesslistener]

Hello! I'm not sure what proper etiquette is here so I hope I'm not overstepping, pls feel free to ignore if I am. You mentioned in a tag and/or post about having estrogen allergy? My wife is dealing with that, and it's... so difficult, most doctors don't know what it is and we thought we had a short term solution so she could finally get some sleep (she hardly sleeps at all anymore because of nightly itching). It's so hard to find ANY information on it and we're not sure how to proceed anymore. Just...wondering if you have any information at all? I'm sorry if this sounds desperate, it's because...it is lol.

Thanks kindly, from, your friendly neighborhood very worried lesbian wife.

Dw anon, you're not overstepping!! I've been in hormone hell since I was 13 so I know how much of a relief it is to find someone who understands for once. I don't believe that me or my mom (who's also affected) have the same allergic reactions that your wife is experiencing, but I'm hoping that I can help anyways.

Okay so first off, the doctors not knowing about estrogen allergies is bullshit. They may not be super common, but they've also been documented since at LEAST 1921. Just a cursory google search has yielded two scientific articles about it (that looked legit when I scanned through them before going to lecture, where I'm typing this rn), which I'll put right here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745953/

https://waojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40413-017-0176-x

I'd suggest trying to read through medical journal articles on it because despite the density of the information and the difficulty of the language, medical articles tend to be more comprehensive about the symptoms and causes than ones written for the general public. They also mean that you have the language to confront doctors about it if you wish- which you'll have to do, because if she's experiencing an allergic reaction like itchieness, then I'd also be concerned about potential anaphalaxis if her reactions get more severe. The intolerance that me and my mother had manifested in different ways (migraines, muscle weakness, disorintation, being hypersensitive to food/unable to keep food down, extreme drowsieness leading to being bed-bound), but those weren't quite on the level of being so itchy that you can't sleep. A more typical allergic reaction is something to be concerned about and I highly suggest not only stressing this to your doctor, but also getting confrontational about it and meeting multiple different doctors if needed before you get care. Force them to run tests, force them to listen to you. That's my biggest regret when it comes to my hormone issues, because they just got progressively worse and worse until I had to go to the ER for it. Turns out that I was not only estrogen intolerant, I also had hypothyroidism! And nobody in 10 years of appointments thought to check for that!!

As for what helps me and my mom, I found that progesterone hormone treatment was effective for us both (until it stopped working for me, but I still don't know why that is. It works for my mother). You might want to be cautious about trying this because in the articles I read, some people were just as sensitive to progesterone, but it's worth a shot. I used to get the DEPO-provera (or however its spelled) shot to offset the issues caused by estrogen, which is an injection once every few months. I also found that once I went on testosterone that a good chunk of my hormonal health issues straight-up vanished, but obviously that's not exactly the best option for everyone. I'm on a masculinizing dose so maybe you can do a really super low-grade dose, but I'm telling you about it mostly just to get the point across that HRT works. It's not just for trans people- cis people get hormone fuckery and need hormone therapy as well.

But there's also proposed solutions in the articles I linked, so I hope those are helpful or give you an idea of treatment options. Best of luck!

[quinnhills]

Good to know you're feeling welcome! :D this is our little place in the internet, and we've decided to make it trans and gay as hell (n i gotta say, i did think "they-them gang! :o" when i found out you started using they/them too a while ago X3 ) n if you received this ask more than once, my tumblr bugged out before i could finish, sorry (。_。)

anyways, and sorry if this is long, but Woe- More Tumblr Things Be Upon Ye:

there used to not be an image limit before, causing a few- interesting posts… tho that changed a few years ago and recently, at first the limit being 10 images per post to now 30 images per post (you can also move the images around a bit)

if you plan on staying long term on tumblr and use desktop the most, i recommend getting the browser extensions Xkit &/or New Xkit cuz… yeah, tumblr is pretty nice, but it sometimes gets hard to use. it also adds extra useful things to the tumblr experience, which is nice to have. i'd say tumblr is like living in a cheap apartment in a calm area of the city. the place's great for what it is, just gotta be sure to leave rat traps near holes and dont worry about the Beast down the hall,

speaking of rats, we got an infestation. you may or may not have heard of it with the voter fraudage going with the polls a bit ago; since tumblr has little to No email verification, people outside tumblr buy bots to get in here and start posting malicious links. tho the bots are surprisingly easy to identify (often times blank blogs with very weird descriptions + stolen picture of lady or ai generated. you'll know it when you see it), and the protocol here is block and report spam so staff can deal with it

and btw if you want to keep a post for as long as your blog stands, i recommend rebloggin! thanks to how tumblr is build as, even if the original post or that blog is gone, the reblog will stay with you (+ tags on reblogs dont really make a post expand outside of your own blog, so many use this to create Very intricate personal tag systems to make easier finding posts, bc once a blog gets 1k+ post in it, it gets hard finding anything on it... <- knows this from experience u.u)

oh and last thing before i go again (and something i found out recently), another browser extension ive been loving: Stylus! with it you can customize a ton of sites to your liking And with a specific style found in the archive of this extension, you can change how the dashboard looks! even changing the background to any image you might want :D

so yeah, thats it, for now. i got more info if you want it, just lmk 👉👈

and you probably already noticed this, but there isnt really any word limit for posts or asks around these lands. tho on tags, the character limit on a single tag is 139. but you can put a Lot of tags, so there! be free mx quinn, no character limit holds you down no more ヽ(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ

Thank you so much for the knowledge!

Some Quinn Facts:

Mx., Ms. and Miss are all acceptable :)

I use ��gay as hell” as a sort of tongue-in-cheek shorthand, but I also identify as trans as hell, queer as hell, non-binary as hell, lesbian as hell, and anxious/depressive as hell

I’m a vegetarian

My favorite food is pineapple pizza (controversial, I know)

For a few years in the early 2000s, I was a licensed auctioneer

The most times I’ve ever cried during a movie is 5 times during Happiest Season

I like the idea of books, but I’m bad at reading them

Overalls give me gender euphoria, and I don’t know why

I hope to release a solo album within the next year

I hope to direct a feature-length film by the time I’m 40

Coming out was the best thing I ever did

[nenilein]

since it's pride month, do you have any lgbtq+ headcanons/interpretations for the puyo cast?

I got this one before pride month, so I was waiting till it's actually June to answer it.

Let me preempt this by saying that I don't really like making "headcanons" that would create contradiction in how I read the text as presented by the writers, because something that doesn't gel with the source material in a way that enhances my experience with it isn't a "headcanon" to me but an AU.

(I infamously once made a post on here where I was yelling about how people need to stop calling their AUs "headcanons" that went kinda viral... oops.)

(Don't look for it, that was YEARS ago)

So, while I love reading, for example, Arle x Rulue fanfics, lesbian Rulue would be an AU to me, not a headcanon, because Rulue being into Satan is just an undeniable reality of the source material.

(That said, bisexual or pan Rulue WOULD be a headcanon)

Likewise, due to how extremely proud Raffina is of being a "lady", trans girl Raffina would be a headcanon, but trans boy Raffina would be an AU... Anyway, I am rambling. This is just how I define those terms for myself.

So, let's move on to the queer readings I have for the Puyo characters (it's a lot).

Arle is asexual and aromantic. Schezo is asexual.

This one is obvious, I even drew art for that a couple days ago. It's not just a case of me projecting my own sexuality onto "my favorite characters" either; Schezo and Arle aren't even close to my favorites, I'm more partial to the Primp characters. However, in most of the games, with some sparse exceptions from the Compile era (where characterization was generally inconsistent and spotty), Arle and Schezo are written in a way that I can only describe as "arch-asexual".

Whenever Arle is written as she is currently understood (spunky, freedom loving, adventurous), she never shows interest in relationships of any kind. She outright calls Schezo and Rulue "sexy" multiple times in both, the Compile era and the Sega era, but that doesn't seem to make her feel anything, she uses the terms as blunt descriptors that don't have much meaning to her personally. As an asexual, I do find that very relatable. In general, Arle's only one true love seems to be the concept of adventure (especially dungeon crawling) itself. In the novel "Everyone's Dreams Come True", the projection the dream mist tries to entice her with when its sleep curse fails to grip onto her is a projection of the entrance to an underground dungeon. In the Web Original Manzai Shorts, when she tries to explain the concept of a "wedding" to Amitie, she is incredibly awkward about it, like she's never even considered it herself before. She really doesn't show any interest in "partnering" up with anyone (other than Carbuncle) for life.

Meanwhile, Schezo's entire running gag simply doesn't work if he's not asexual. His slip ups are funny because he does NOT mean it that way, but is really only interested in three things: Power, cute stuff and food (in that order). The two times in the Compile era where he's not written as "asexual" infamously are hated by fans because they ruin his entire characterization: Saturn Madou's portrayal of Schezo is a black sheep for the entire franchise, both in the Japanese and English fandoms, and the one line he has in Nazo Puyo Tsuu that contradicts his otherwise asexual portrayal (I won't even repeat what he says...) makes absolutely no damn sense, even in context. A Schezo who portrays actual genuine interest in sexual matters in canon materials is a badly written Schezo. We have empirical proof of that.

That said, unlike with Arle, I don't feel comfortable also calling Schezo aromantic, because... I feel like he just hasn't had the room to explore whether he wants someone in his life or not yet. He had the Dark Mage business forced upon him at a very young age. He's isolated himself from people in a way that made it hard for him to start connecting again once people actually did come back into his life. When he thinks someone (I think it was Draco, but I forget) is flirting with him in Waku Puyo Dungeon, he seems genuinely flustered, not because he's interested, but because he's never thought anyone ever would act like that towards him (and unlike with Arle, that moment doesn't disrupt his characterization at all), and when he thinks Ms. Accord is flirting with him in Puyo Puyo 15th he has a minor meltdown, because he's not even sure if he wants to turn her down, but also thinks he just shouldn't have a romantic partner as the dark mage... So yeah, I think Schezo still needs time to figure stuff out for himself.

Satan is bigender or genderfluid

While he's portraying a super-masculine image whenever he's on screen, he's also shown zero qualms about slipping into more feminine roles, and openly and happily admits that he wanted to LARP as a princess in distress for Arle to save in Chronicle. His "Satan Saturn" alt in Quest is also really girlish, with the bow and the ponytail and the cherry blossoms, and he seems to be enjoying himself... As an ancient, possibly primordial demon lord, I think it would be weirder if he didn't have a rather lax approach to gender, tbh.

Oh, fun fact, in Madou Monogatari 2, the first time Satan ever appeared, his description of the person he wants to marry does not mention gender at any point. His only condition is that they're powerful, beautiful, wise and intelligent enough to make it to the bottom level of his dungeon in the Layla ruins...

Klug is a baby gay.

His babysitter-crush on Lemres is so palpable, it's downright painful. :'D Even Feli sees him as a romantic rival! The way swoons about Lemres during Tet 2 was quite telling as well.

There are a couple of moments in 15th where Klug portrays interest in women (specifically, older women...) but those just stink of comphet to me and are genuinely just extremely awkward moments that I am glad have never been addressed again since. 15th was only the second time Klug was more than a minor side character and I feel his characterization wasn't quite settled yet back then, so even aside from this, there is a lot of stuff in there that generally "feels wrong" in comparison to how the character has been consistently written in all materials since then. Even in his White Day alt in Quest, he only talks about how being popular by giving girls chocolate gifts will give him a sense of authority AND bring him closer to Lemres, so yeah. In retrospect, I absolutely read those awkward moments in 15th as comphet. He's a baby gay with a babysitter crush on Lemres and will hopefully find himself a nice guy his own age as he grows up.

Amitie will grow up to be poly and pan

In the drama CDs and novels its shown that Amitie absolutely doesn't understand why anyone would want to have only one romantic partner, and when she first hears about the concept of a "wedding" (which she apparently has never been confronted with directly before then??) she immediately wants to have one with her entire class.

Rulue attributes this to Amitie being "still a child", but I don't see it that way, given this behavior persists for two novels in succession. Even when Amitie shows signs of a specific crush on Sig, it always comes with the caveat on "I want to get others in on it too!"

So yeah. No way this girl won't have amassed a "harem" of boy- girl- and other-friends by the time she's off age and certified as a sorceress...

Raffina and Lidelle give off trans girl vibes, and Raffina is probably a lesbian

Raffina's determination to prove herself as a "lady" and Lidelle's fear of having certain of her physical features be "seen" seem to connect really strongly to a lot of my trans friends as analogue to their own experiences and I can totally see it. Portrayals like that would just blend in perfectly with their characterization.

As for lesbian Raffina, it's just a vibe I get from her. The few times she mentions handsome men, it seems more like she wants them as a status symbol, but has no actual interest in being with them. Even when she thinks the prince Otomo is looking for is "handsome", she has 0 interest in helping the man search for the prince until Otomo offers her a reward. Then, "Everyone's Dreams Come True" showcasts it even more clearly when the dream she is trapped in includes her "keeping" an army of young bodybuilders as "servants", and enjoying the fact that they want to be with her soooo badly, while she has no intention of ever giving them the time of day, holding the fact that they are "not worthy of her" over their heads. Meanwhile, when she's with other girls (like Rulue or Lidelle post Fever 2) she seems far more appreciative.

Either Maguro or Risukuma is a trans boy. Either one of them.

I don't think about this one too often, but it would make sense. Maguro was bullied as a kid for "looking like a girl", and a friend of mine has this amazing headcanon that the experiment that turned Risukuma into a squirrelbear was actually homebrew instant HRT. Amazing, 10/10.

I'll admit, this is partially just me having fun with the fact that Maguro and Ris were originally written as girls before plans for Puyo Puyo 7 changed, but, hey! It doesn't contradict with anything, so why not?

Ecolo is Ecolo

'Nuff said. There is no gender that can contain the absolute glitch in spacetime that is Ecolo.

The fact that Ecolonosuke (one of Team Ecolo, who all represent aspects of Ecolo's personality) is canonically nonbinary helps, too!

Seo and Accord are lesbians and they will get married in this essay I will-

I AM SORRY, BUT SEO CANONICALLY NEEDS ACCORD TO REMIND HER TO EAT FOOD OR SHE WILL DIE.

THEY ARE THE GASLIGHT AND THE GIRLBOSS, THEY BELONG TOGETHER (Popoi is the gatekeep)

Eight = GAY

I'm sorry, Quest is not even SUBTLE about this one!

The day Eight shuts up about how badly he wants to get closer to Zero and his genius is the day he finally forgets to breathe between his words and perishes.

Okay, so these are all the big ones. If I forgot anything, it's because I don't think about it often or because it's canon anyway (cough, cough, dapper bones...)

[mermaidsirennikita]

Do you have any good wlw romance recs? Like explicit?

I do, but I will say--one thing I've noticed about f/f romance is that they are often less explicit than m/f and m/m. And I do tend to wonder why that is. There's of course the issue that f/f is less common in general than m/m and m/f, but.................... I also think there's a fear of being accused of sexualizing sapphic relationships. Which, totally get; but sometimes you want to read a hot sapphic book, I don't know what to tell ya.

Anyway, I would recommend checking out:

A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger. Not out until 5/16, but I recommend getting it ASAP. It's a vampire romance--one heroine is a lesbian, the other I think prefers women but is most likely bisexual. It's this decades long push/pull, and the sex is reeeeally good. There are some D/s vibes, "good girl"-ing, the strap gets broken out. One heroine also does have on-page sex with another person before the relationship fully gets going; this other person is a trans woman, and I really like how that sex scene was handled, both in terms of consent and in terms of a REAL trippy vibe. Such a good book. Here's my full review.

The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur. If you're more into contemporary romcom vibes, this is a marriage of convenience book with two bi heroines. It's not as explicit as others. There is one full sex scene, and one interrupted sex scene. Very cute if you're looking for something a bit gentler. Full review here.

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner. A much sex-heavier contemporary. This one has a heroine who's in college and hooks up with an older woman at a bar... only to find out said older woman is her new bestie's mom!!! It's hot. A lot of sneaking around (both characters are out, to be clear). A lot of really good sex.

Queen Takes Rose by Katee Robert. This is one of Katee's Wicked Villains books, and that series is pretty high heat. It's basically a Maleficent/Aurora books but modern--older woman/younger woman, a deal with the devil/contract situation. Very hot.

Katee also has a f/f pirate book coming out soon, and Stone Heart is a f/f book of hers that's basically Medusa/Calypso, but modern. If you're open to m/f/f, The Sea Witch is a triad book that's Ursula/Ariel/Eric. Everyone is together, but there's a bit more emphasis on the f/f aspect, imo.

The Conquering of Tate the Pious by Sierra Simone is a medieval historical romance (not sure if it's available individually yet, was originally released as a part of the Villain I'd Like to F... collection) with a villainous Norman invader lady and an ABBESS. Kinda dark, super sexy, objects are used.

Olivia Waite writes explicit (though not super hardcore) historical romances--The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics is one I would recommend. Cat Sebastian has a f/f novella with one explicit sex scene, A Little Light Mischief.

Hope this helps! It can be difficult to find good f/f books, not because they aren't there, but because there are fewer, they aren't traditionally published as often, and they just aren't discussed as much, unfortunately.

[sharpth1ng]

Hey do you have any transfem Billy headcanons

I know you’re transmasc but I feel like transfem representation is really low compared to transmasc representation

So do you have any headcanons you might have for transfem Billy

Yeah feels like there's more transfem rep in mainstream media but less in fanfiction, which sucks. But there's never enough trans rep in general, we need more of everything.

In terms of transfem Billy honestly I have a hard time coming up with anything because the characterization of this character is very rooted in masculinity and a relationship to masculinity. Billy is a gay man in my mind, so I'm not really sure how to conceptualize of a non-male Billy. Once I have a characterization in my head it's hard for me to step out of that.

To be honest I'm also not always sure what folks are looking for with trans head-canons. For the most part hcs for trans characters don't differ from their cis counterparts, unless we're talking about what steps they took to physically transition, and I feel kind of weird making a list of trans hcs that are just about physical transition.

ALL THAT SAID, I want to give you something, even if I can't give you quite what you asked for, SO:

Transfem Tatum hcs

Tatum was a pretty shy and reserved kid before she came out, didn't talk a lot, didn't have a lot of friends. She became a lot more social and bold post transition

She and Sid have basically been friends since they were babies because their moms went to the same maternity class while they were pregnant. She never really had to come out to Sid, Sid was just there the whole time

Her mom always wanted a daughter so Tatum got to do a lot of shopping and dressing up with her. There's a bunch of cute/cheesy 80's mall style portraits of her and her mom dressed up from when they went on shopping trips

As an adult Tatum wants to work in fashion, partially because it was such an important and early part of her gender expression

Stu was the first dude she came out to. She was understandably nervous because he's an idiot, but he really doesn't give a shit and it doesn't change much of anything for their relationship. He's just horny, he doesn't care what parts you have

When she's older, out of Woodboro, and able to go to bars and stuff she makes an effort to connect more with the queer community that she didn't have access to when she was younger. As a result she ends up sewing costumes for the drag queens at her local gay bar. She is beloved.

Tatum's the first girl Sid ever had a crush on

When they're older her and Sid become that one extremely wholesome (but also not to be fucked with) lesbian couple that adopts all the local queer kids who aren't safe staying at home

So yeah, I know that's not exactly what you asked for, but I'd rather give you something that feels in character than force hcs that my brain can't quite wrap around. And by the way I'm not saying transfem Billy shouldn't exist, if anyone has that in them please feel free to write it!

[whomst-is-hex]

hi im a cis (late teenage) woman who was a transgender man for like 5 years and just recently figured out im not. throughout that whole period there was so so so much fear about how people around me would view me, and it was a very insecure time. BUT, unlike the general expectation of detrans (the asshole idea that transitioning was for trends) i'm really fucking glad i did it.

before i fully started going by he/him and Marcus, i had a couple months where i was just switching from gender to gender, sexuality to sexuality, because i just recently started comprehending queer people and was desperately searching for identity and community. i settled on the name and pronouns one day at a playground, where i told a stranger around my age my name was Marcus and i am transgender. i told my parents shortly after (i told my parents everything in that regard) and right after that i started to strip away anything remotely girlish about myself, which i kinda started doing anyway after i started to call myself a lesbian.

a few years in i started to notice that the "femininity" was around anyway. i admired my silhouette sometimes in the mirror, but quickly switched to trying to flatten my chest. i loved being masculine, i loved passing, but i really also loved my body in all of its generally-percieved-as-woman-ness. this pretty much balanced me out for the last couple years. i stopped trying desperately to pass, and started to accept myself as inherently masculine without binding or vocal exercises (and even in drag, which i still really fucking love doing)

and now we're at a few months ago, where i presented fully female for 30 days as an experiment. obviously my brain had went through SO many chemical changes, and i think just general maturity caused me to click and realize that i don't want this anymore. not to say that young trans people are immature, or that being a man is low, i just started to realize that i messed up and taught myself to fit in another box that i didn't fully want.

right now, i have ditched that box all together. but now i know that it never had to be a box to begin with. i believe that i really was a man for that period of time, even when i admired my curves and face and voice. i was looking for identity, and i found it. but now, i'm sort of a different person with different needs in life and myself. and because i had that experience of rapid change, experimentation, insecurity, and self love, i really really know how to be a woman now. and like the post i reblogged just before writing this says, being a woman doesnt have to mean much in terms of differences. in my case, it means that i am not the basic cisgender bisexual woman cutout i was terrified of becoming when i was younger. and it means im keeping marcus as my name, and my dead-name remains as my middle name.

my point with this was to catalogue my experience, but i think i really need to bring up how actual trans people experiment at all sorts of ages, and it works for them pretty damn well. i have friends who experimented just as much as i did and are way more cemented in their transgender identity than i ever was. i think its also important to say that my experience happens a lot as well. brains change, people change, and i've heard of trauma messing with identities too. point is, we have Got to stop generalizing trans and detrans people, or at least catch ourselves when we do. brains are so goddamned complicated and we dont even know everything about gender. what we do know is it changes sometimes, its unpredictable, and its across all cultures. like my dad says, the minute you figure out something about yourself, itll change. and i believe having a brain that doesnt change is no way to live

TL;DR: i was transgender, now im not, im happy, people are happy being trans or cis sometimes and thats cool as hell. dont be an asshole and stop trying to assume things about people like identity that shit sucks

[myopicry]

Me againnn what a surpriissseee... I just have a lot of fun reading rambles about things I'm interested in lol, I haven't thought of perspectives like yours so it's super informative to read for me, especially considering that I've been rethinking a lot of things lately. Anyway, prompt of the day !! You mentioned in your last post something among the lines of "not believing in an lgbtq community"? Could you tell me more about that pls? I'm quite surprised considering the history of LGBT people and different cultures we have (such as lesbian culture, or whatever you want to call it lol). ~🪼

always happy to have you here!!

I swear when I start writing these I think it'll be a paragraph or two and then. well. you'll see. keep reading breaks my beloved you keep my blog a tolerable scroll...

[mandatory preface because I like keeping the peace lol] now honestly, this take mostly might be more of a personal opinion/observation moreso than a generally applicable argument or anything, I don't really care how "agreed upon" the take is and I don't think by any means my silly tumblr blog opinion on how communities exist really matters to those communities themselves lmao. plus, I think I believe this mostly due to my exposure to how lgbtq or "queer" community things manifest in people of my age (early/mid gen z) as well as how it interacts with some of my more anti-consumerist stances, so it might not even apply to a lot of people who have a different mindset than me. I mean, I'll still defend my opinion if someone asks, but I don't need anyone to agree with me if they don't want to.

[oh and a bonus semantic distinction! fun!] when I say lgbtq+, lgbtq, or queer community, it is specifically referring to the modern day, mainstream one that labels itself with these terms as such now, I don't equate it with historical lgbt movements, groups, or lgbt people in groups in general in the past. I also don't equate it with the individual communities that are literally a part of the acronym lgbt, like lesbians or gay men or bisexuals or the trans community, and their specific unique cultures and histories. I try and use lgbt when referring to that, but it's probably not really clear to people who don't literally share my brain lol. I basically consider me using lgbtq as interchangeable with "queer", I personally just don't prefer to use the word queer too much because I respect that a lot of people still consider it a slur, and though I guess I have "the pass" to say it or whatever, I don't like the term anyway (you probably get how I feel about general open-ended definitions at this point lmaoo), but a lot of people in the specific demographic I'm talking about use it as identification so it also helps to summarize who I actually mean. dunno if this is a necessary precursor I just realized halfway through that even though I elaborate on this distinction in what I wrote this might be a good just general heads-up on what I'm working with in my brain as I write! if it's still unclear feel free to ask further!

--- actual answer to the question now lmao ---

obviously, general lgbt solidarity and activism has had very important effects, and individual communities and their cultures. and for the most part what people would consider the collective lgbt community has at least historically helped with visibility and activism to normalize gender non-conformity, and promote visibility and acceptance of sexual minorities. that's all super rad and very cool!

however, at least from what I notice now that lgbt acceptance has become mainstream, a lot of the most important activism has been secured has gotten to a relatively stable point in the western world. (well, in the US, I guess it's actually not as stable since it might depend on who the president ends up being and how dumb our supreme court decides to be lmao) and the lgbtq community has become more and more of a cultural movement than a political movement (which is again, good! people's sexuality shouldn't be inherently political). but, with this emphasis on culture vs. activism within the community combined with the reliance young people have on social media and the growing culture of consumerism in the west, the "lgbtq community" becomes this sort of forced consumer demographic and personal aesthetic rather than an actual community focused on bonding over shared experiences and collaboration to further shared goals.

besides, at least how I see it and how I've experienced being a part of the "community", outside of being same-sex attracted and the impact that has on life, even gay men and lesbians don't share much culture or experience outside of being closeted and coming out (which are experiences that already will vary anyway based on other factors such as ethnic background or social class). when you add in transgender with the t, or other newer labels with the q, or even more things with a +, there becomes even less overlap that would necessitate a community to form.

yet a community has formed, you might say! yes, but from my experience, it's formed mostly around artificially produced trends and now--increasingly--social media and branding. in my opinion, this is not only just a weak start for community building, but also it sucks and makes even real social interactions and gathering feel hollow. this is something I had to think about a lot when I found lgbtq+ communities in real life seeking, well, community, but actually found very little in common with most people that I supposedly shared community with. now, I could say this issue might just be that I suck at identifying myself and couldn't find my real community! and straight up didn't even acknowledge my actual experiences and feelings at time! which is true, but I would still need to realize that as a naive teenager I wasn't able to understand my actual sexuality or anything because the community that was supposed to help was either too general or too focused on outward manufactured culture rather than material experiences or realities, and that the mainstream lgbtq community's conception of what the specific communities within it were also following that trend. when I was bi-curious, the community I could find told me bisexuality was clear phone cases, cuffed jeans, and having a golden retriever boyfriend to wear pride merch with. when I was identifying as aroace, I found discussion of cartoon characters and flimsy metaphors. when I was trans--okay that one is a bit more complicated because I was basically almost a transmedicalist at points lol but within the more mainstream trans community with non-binary stuff--it was about passing and fashion and surgery (which in some cases, is quite consumerist) and the feelings/vibes. and always, in every real life lgbtq community I could find, it was like this, plus mostly discussions about celebrity culture, the same dozen or so popular community memes at the time, and probably fandom. and at that point too, there wasn't really a discussion on being closeted and dealing with that, as (again, positively) acceptance is more widespread, but also because with social media, it almost became an extra little "self-branding" point to share online.

are many of these personal problems? yeah! I don't care that much (anymore) about clothing trends and buying accessories or even how others perceive me, and I try to not be as "online" (it's a process :p obviously I am still very online...to my own detriment). I did find more of what I wanted to from communities, but it was always the specific separate ones (like the lesbian community, which definitely has a unique culture and history isolated from the mainstream lgbt ones) and usually it was from reddit (which sucks for so many reason still so that wasn't ideal) or old forums that were long dead because people my age do not use forums lmao. however, I think acknowledging the trend of lgbt community basically being a consumer focused demographic more so than an actual community is important as trends of consumerism become more and more hostile to the environment, to labor rights across the world, and just to critical thinking.

additionally, I think continuously propping up the lgbtq+ community as a monolithic community of shared culture and voices rather than what historically was a community of solidarity for activism and civil rights born out of necessity, creates a false dichotomy of "straight" and "not straight", with straight people being seen more and more as "uncool" due to the social media landscape promoting hyper-individualism. this not only alienates people outside of the community and gives people already homophobic more causes to generalize people unlike them negatively, and also promotes people who want to be differentiated from that negative "straight" identity to find a way in to the community. which again, by itself who cares, I'm not policing what people want to identify as, but that also dilutes the commonalities of the lgbt community even further and allows for even more of the absence of real community tenets to be filled with consumerism.

and look, maybe people just want to have fun and they want to be catered to with fun products and events and parties and that's their right, even if I disagree! but I can't really bring myself to understand it as what a community actually is/ideally should be: a group of people with something in common enriching each other and forming social bonds around that commonality. for a bit of a comparison, it gives me the vibe of a modern push to have things like AAPI or BIPOC or labels for communities like that, where the point is to outline your identity for brandable purposes more than it is to connect with others with shared identity (because, spoiler, most groups pushed together into these communities have very little in common!). I guess you could make a differentiation here that genuinely helpful community is based on people, where as communities that lack in actual community are based on labels. something like that. there's probably a lot more nuance I could explore with this including how "american" this whole kind of label-based community is but that seems like an actual thesis and unfortunately doing real research is a bit above my pay-grade on this blog :p

all that rambling to basically say: I don't think the lgbtq+ community has that much in common amongst itself and the variety of specific groups clumped within it anymore (outside of being affected by the same bigotry which if you really think about it also isn't necessarily true but that's like so many more words and so much more discourse lol and my brain is running out of steam). so, it kind of makes for a subpar actual "community" in my eyes. it's nice to have other queer-identified friends at times, yeah! actually being able to openly talk about being attracted to women with others for one, is really great especially in a misogynistic society that demonizes female sexuality especially when it doesn't involve men. but, what does it help me, or any other young lgbt person, to go to so-called community events and just be sold things or told to buy things based on a label that I honestly only assign to my self because it's definitionally important for me, not because "I feel the vibes". or told to look a certain way because it's cool and that's what my identity really means, how I look to others? what am I, a walking bundle of tags labeled for advertisers so I can be sold the exact thing that appeals to me because I'm gay? if I think too much about it it gets dystopian lmao and I get a lot of people in my generation don't think about it at all, or choose not to care. for some reason or another though, I care a lot. oh well!

as always, pick any random offshoot comment I said and I could probably write you ten more paragraphs lolol, but I'm happy to do it! this one especially, it's based on so much anecdotal experience that if anyone wants more examples, I can absolutely do my best to provide !! (I have too much free time and this beats my bad habit of laying catatonic phone scroll time)

realizing now also that I do have some thoughts about lgb seperatism that relate to this but it's a bit late to rework this train of thought, I'll just say I can definitely understand that sentiment, but I have yet to lurk enough in actual explicitly lgb communities so I can't speak clearly about it. interesting stuff though.

also also I actually remembered there might have been a point to be made further about how the modern lgbtq community might have historical roots but historical revisionism and misinformation is so common for the up and coming waves of the community (young people do learn facts from tiktok yeahhhh unfortunate) diminish the actual culture from the past anyway, but I forgot to mention it above and it would've been another two paragraphs or something and that one might actually be good to have more sources to supplement, so...I'll file it for later!

really, this is a personal exercise for me more than it feels like a response to someone, and despite that people still take the time to prompt me anyway lmao. all people hitting up my inbox in good faith you're awesome and great and other nice adjectives!

and jellyfish anon I hope you have a delightful day after reading this (or in between reading this, it might be long enough to deserve an intermission tbh lol) !! thank you again !! happy thinking and whatnot!!

[perenlop]

give me uhhhhhhh 3, 6, and 8 for Marlow, Felicity, and Aisling for the pride ask game!

Answering all three for each under the cut <3

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know?

Marlow: New choice, but I'm thinking he figured out their identity through Felicity when he was still training with Team Spark. Like Felicity was talking about when everything finally clicked for her, that she wanted to be a girl but felt she was held back because "well just because I look feminine doesn't mean I AM feminine, so wouldn't it be a lie? And then I realized it didn't matter because either way I felt like a girl". And that like. activates something in Marlow's brain because he was like. I. Is that not normal. I'm not sure what their bi awakening would've been though. I'm pretty sure that would've been a thing Marlow always knew.

Felicity: See above for how, but I'm thinking she realized she was a girl when she was a preteen or so? Maybe even younger, since she'd have been pondering it as a kid after learning about Baxtor and Wyle being trans. She never really felt comfortable with masculine terms though, but then again she didn't feel feminine either. I'm thinking she was a little lost on how she felt exactly and identified as nonbinary and then cis and then back until she realized she was a trans girl.

Aisling: Always knew she was a lesbian, she wears her heart on her sleeves and she's had too many crushes to count. She realized she was ace later though, probably when her peers started talking about sex and stuff and she felt ambivalent

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

Marlow: I think he likes knowing exactly what they are, so they do like labels for himself and in general.

Felicity: Probably more ambivalent about it towards others, but cares a lot more for her own. She likes having a name for what she is.

Aisling: I think she's more ambivalent to labels. Like she knows exactly what her preferences are but doesn't really think about the preference itself too hard. Doesn't care about anyone else's.

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?

Marlow: Can't really see much for him! I think both their journeys went pretty smoothly all things considered.

Felicity: I think she took a long time to really figure out who she was. Like I said, she changed labels a lot before she realized she was a girl. I don't think there was any pushback, it was just about her internal struggle. Now that I think about it, it likely played a part in her general identity issues where she feels like she's responsible for a tribe and culture that no longer exists, yet she barely has any connection to, and her insecurity over her "failure" to use aura properly. I'm also thinking her aura might not reflect her gender because it's not able to do much at all, so she had to use more traditional methods to transition, which likely contributed to her "impostor syndrome" about it I suppose? "well maybe it's like my evolution. maybe my body is rejecting the change because i'm not worth it." :(

Aisling: If you can count being bitchless as struggling with her lesbianism than sure

[the-yuri-librarian]

Can I ask, why do you love WLW romance better than Het romance? What makes them better? I did not mean anything negative, and I know everyone have their own like and dislike but I want to know your thoughts....

Also what do you think that made Asian WLW (GL manga/manhwa/manhua) romances different than western WLW romances?

This is a very good question on both fronts!

Answering the first part is easy: I prefer WLW relationships because I'm a lesbian. That's sort of all there is to it? Like, on some level, I have only been reading WLW novels for the past several years (and WLW comics since Sept '23), because hetero relationships in fiction have sort of dominated culture my whole life? I can't name a movie or a book series off hand from my childhood/teen years that did not contain a straight relationship. I would genuinely have to think about it. But, when I graduated from grad school for the first time and started to connect with reading on a level I hadn't since I was a kid-early teen, I made this very conscious decision to focus really really heavily on sapphic fiction, even more so than trans fiction even though I am trans, too. I think part of this is because I just wanted to see myself represented in the works I am reading. Another part of this is I relate more to sapphic romances. For all my life, I have only ever loved women as a woman, and that makes straight romances feel somewhat foreign to me? I think maybe it's because the way relationships are talked about in queer culture versus the way relationships are talked about in straight culture; it feels very different, though I don't have an example offhand to point to. On top of that, there is also a lot of historical precedent for lesbians feeling like their sexuality and their gender identity are somewhat meshed or intersected (if you want to know more I'd have to do like actual research lol), and I think I definitely feel that. The lesbian label is really important for me, and I think that importance draws me to WLW fiction

In terms of what makes eastern and western comics/yuri/sapphic romances different, I think that you could write an entire dissertation on this (but I'll try not to lol). Now, I am by no means an expert on Japanese or Korean cultural studies, in fact I am far from that, but I think the way the romances play out really highlights the way their cultures function differently from cultures in the west. Firstly, I think that eastern cultures place a much higher focus on cultural expectations. I would not say that eastern cultures are necessarily more conservative than western cultures (I mean, just look at any news coming out of the US, we're practically a theocracy). Instead, I would say that people living in eastern cultures are more bound by their culture. For example: in the US, or a similar western culture, it is generally ok to be gay in the 2010s and 2020s. From my understanding, this is also the case in Korea and Japan, but there is more cultural push back. I think this reality is represented in sapphic romance stories from the two places well. Look at any fiction featuring a lesbian main character coming out of America: their sexuality is never treated like some weird thing (unless the story is trying to realistically represent discrimination); instead, they just are gay. And, when a character is beginning to realize she might be a lesbian, she might have to adjust her view of herself, but it's really no big deal. On the other hand, look at Japanese yuri, especially high school stories: there is almost universally a moment where one of the characters will be like "but we're both girls!" to which the other character will be like "it's fine." I think this moment is included in those stories because the mangaka are consciously pushing back on the idea that it's wrong to be gay. A really good example of this can be seen in Rei's "it's ok to be gay monologue" in I'm in Love with the Villainess. In American fiction, something like that would likely feel unnecessary (though, for the record, I think American TV shows and movies are at the point where such a monologue is necessary, but that's a different story).

Another example can be seen in the way eastern comics treat cunnilingus. This is not a universal thing, but one trend that I've noticed in the more NSFW or smutty comics I've read is that, often, when a woman is about to go down on another woman, the one getting eaten out will protest like "no, not there" or "no, I'm not clean," and I think that this too is indicative of the ways women are entangled by cultural expectations in the east. In an America comic or novel, this would not be treated with the same hesitancy. But, in eastern cultures, there seems to almost be this expectation that the women turns down getting eaten out, only to relent and accept it when their lover insists.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but it's the best I got without doing real research. Also, again, I am not an expert, so take everything I just said with about a tablespoon of salt!

[aardvaark]

let's talk about how to spot TERF rhetoric & what TERF dogwhistles exist, because it's important to make your blogs actually safe for trans people!

unfortunately, i still see TERF posts that seem innocuous enough, making their way to my dash because people don't notice the dogwhistles. or TERF rhetoric appearing in feminist conversations and going unidentified & unchecked. also, it's one thing to say you hate TERFs, but it's important to actually know what it is you disagree with! and to make sure you're not so susceptible to propaganda!

note: "TERF" stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". its worth remembering that TERFs believe general feminism ideas, and almost always consider themselves to be left-leaning in politics. TERFs generally believe that trans activism is in some way incompatible with feminism. this is different to conservatives and anti-feminists who hate trans people for other reasons, like based on their religious beliefs, patriarchal values/sexism, general bigotry, etc etc. and i know, yeah, you can argue that TERFs still ultimately hate trans people for these reasons or that TERFs are inherently anti-feminist, but i'm just here to tell you about what TERFs believe. and thats what TERFs believe about themselves.

TERF terms & definitions. many of these apply more broadly to transphobes in general, but they are very much also used by TERFs.

TIM: "trans-identified male", ie any amab person who is trans/nonbinary, usually trans women, because they believe that trans women are males who identify as trans.

TIF: "trans-identified female", ie any afab person who is trans/nonbinary, usually trans men.

libfem: "liberal feminists" which generally just refers to feminists who are trans-inclusive, rather than feminists who hold liberal political views

radfem: "radical feminists" which is what TERFs call themselves. technically radical feminists are not always trans-exclusionary, however radfem ideas tend to go hand-in-hand with a lot of transphobic ideas, and the terms "TERF" and "radfem" are often used interchangeably on tumblr, by TERFs and non-TERFs alike.

autogynephiliac/AGP: a male who is sexually aroused by the idea of himself as a female, or who has a fetish for being a female within a sexual fantasy. this is what some TERFs believe some/most/all trans women "actually are". it is generally believed that AGPs should not be allowed to transition medically, and that they are perverts or a danger to cis women. part of Blanchardism.

transsexual-homosexual/TSHS: a "real" trans woman, in comparison to an AGP (explained above). within this framework, the "real" trans women must be sexually attracted to (cis) men exclusively, and must have known they were transgender since they were very young due to significant gender dysphoria. TSHS are considered preferable to AGPs, and some TERFs & other transphobes think that only TSHS-types should be allowed to transition.

same-sex attraction: not always a dogwhistle or intentional! especially not in older sources or scientific sources. however, many TERFs are very specific about saying that all lesbians can only ever be attracted to cis women (and opposite way round for gay men). so, trans women are invading lesbian spaces by... existing or dating, i guess.

gender ideology: the "ideology" that sex and gender are different, or that its possible & fine to be transgender. the exact traits of this "ideology" vary wildly between different accounts. its kind of like the "gay agenda" but for being transgender.

TRAs: "trans rights activists", ie anyone who supports trans people.

adult human female: TERF definition of what a woman is, and something you will see TERFs call themselves or put in their profiles. honestly gotta applaud this dogwhistle because its exactly what a dogwhistle is meant to be - seemingly totally innocuous, nothing much you can debate about it, but used to identify their

gyns: fellow women, fellow TERFs. in the way that most people might start a post with "hey guys" or "hey everyone", you'll see TERF posts started with "hey gyns". think "gynecologist", it comes from Greek.

womxn, wombyn, womyn, womon, etc: taking the "men" out of "women", very second-wave feminism. wombyn to include "womb" and emphasise the importance of being afab. (ironically womyn/womxn is sometimes used by trans allies in an attempt to be more inclusive of nonbinary ppl and trans women, but ultimately that's really not helpful either).

biological women, natal females, real women, etc: many TERFs dislike the term "cis", and will replace it with virtually anything else to distinguish between themselves and trans women.

hygienic (as a dogwhistle): not sure how popular it is currently, but some TERFs call themselves "hygienic" in their bios to discretely indicate that they are cisgender & are TERFs.

self-hating women: afab people who are trans/nonbinary. comes from the idea that afab people only transition because of internalised misogyny or body dysmorphia or something similar.

gender critical: opposing "gender ideology" as previously explained, thinking that biological sex is the only important thing. another term that many TERFs will use to refer to themselves or tag their posts with.

the ones that are most commonly used as dogwhistles or which may go unnoticed in bios/popular posts, are; adult human female/AHF, womxn/womyn/womon, hygienic, biological women, and (complaints about) liberal feminists.

now onto TERF-related concepts & TERF rhetoric

remember: not all TERFs believe all of these things. some will believe many/all of these ideas, some will only believe one or two, some might actually have a totally different ideology thats rare enough that i've never even heard of it. also, they might follow these ideologies but disagree that its what they believe, or they might believe these ideas without knowing their origin.

blanchardism: the ideas created by Richard Blanchard, a sexologist in the 1980s-90s. this is where the AGP/TSHS dichotomy comes from, as well as other transphobic ideas primarily about trans women. in regards to trans men,

bioessentialism/gender essentialism: the idea that there are distinct, intrinsic qualities that differ between amab people and afab people. that afab people are biologically predetermined to be X and biologically made for Y, and that amab people are biologically predetermined to be A and biologically made for B, basically. this is also classic sexism, with ideas like "men should go to work, while women should be homemakers" and "women are inherently more emotional and less intelligent than men" being examples of bioessentialism too.

gender socialisation: sort of like bioessentialism, but based on early childhood experiences rather than genes. idea that all children assigned male are treated and brought up one way (which involves "boys will be boys" sort of lifestyle, being allowed to do anything, no responsibility, being taught to be violent, being allowed to harm girls they're attracted to, etc) and all children assigned female are brought up a different way (which involves constant sexism & misogyny, patriarchal standards thrust upon them, huge amounts of responsibility, early objectification, being harmed by boys/men). now, its not untrue that afab kids and amab kids tend to be treated differently, especially if their parents are more conservative or part of an older generation, at least within the western/american cultural sphere (although this disregards the variation that exists in everyones childhoods but... anyway). however, this concept is used by TERFs to claim that (a) amab people are inherently irresponsible, violent, perverted, etc, (b) trans women are all male-socialised, and (c) thus, trans women are a danger to cis women, do not understand what it is to be female, and must be excluded from womanhood.

girlhood/womanhood as suffering: the idea that being assigned female leads to a childhood of suffering (due to gender socialisation as described above) and an adulthood of suffering due to futher sexism, so trans women (who allegedly didn't experience this) must be excluded from womanhood. this suffering is often romanticised in a sorta disturbing way.again, obviously sexism exists and causes a lot of suffering, but its the conclusion of "so trans women are bad" that is... just ridiculous. also holds the idea that trans women & girls do not experience sexism or are totally unaffected by it. and basing entry to womanhood on suffering is fucked up because, like... don't we want young girls to suffer less? isn't that a huge part of feminism? anyway.

trans women are privileged: the idea that trans women benefit from male privilege & also get treated particularly well by the rest of the LGBTQ community. often apparently because other trans & queer people are "too scared" to get accused of transmisogyny if they speak up. idea that theres a "silent majority" of queer people & trans allies who actually dislike trans women and/or agree with TERF ideas, but they're "too scared" to be accused of transmisogyny, so they never speak up. disregards the existence of transmisogyny & assumes that most people are trans allies, apparently.

trans women oppress afab trans people: the above, but specifically afab trans people being "too scared" to go against trans women. paints trans women as evil, controlling, cunning, angry & oppressive. disregards the existence of transmisogyny, often also assumes that trans women are pretending to be trans on purpose. paints afab trans people as poor, fragile, confused women, who have been tricked by evil trans women, and who are in need of saving.

gender abolition: the idea that yes, gender is a social construct, so we should get rid of it entirely. through a TERF lens, that also means that trans people are in the way of gender abolition because they identify as whatever gender they identify as, and that encourages belief in gender.

sex-based feminism: the idea that all misogyny and sexism is tied exclusively to biological sex, and thus feminism, as an opposition to sexism, should be concerned exclusively with the female sex.

gender/sex separatism, or female separatism: idea that feminism is exclusively for women, men can't be feminists, and a lot of bioessentialist ideas about the "impurity" of letting amab people into feminist spaces, whether thats cis men or transfems & trans women. idea that women should run society, or that men should be fully excluded from an idealistic utopian female-only society.

lesbian separatism: feminist movement exclusively for trans-exclusionary cis lesbians. holds the idea that virtually any contact with men (or, really, amab people) is anti-feminist, to the point that even bisexual cis women who are TERFs too but may sleep with/be in a relationship with men, are traitors. usually claims that trans women & transfems are invading lesbian spaces & tricking cis lesbians into having sex, which was already a transphobic concept used by heterosexual men. also, that a cis lesbian choosing to have sex with a trans woman (particularly an individual who hasn't had bottom surgery, but honestly often pefcieved the same way even if they have) is somehow being manipulated by that trans woman and that it is comparable to conversion therapy. this is transphobic, transmiogynistic, AND biphobic. the lesbian-exclusive idea does seem to have diminished a bit in TERF spaces, though - i used to see it a lot more. but the idea of trans women invading lesbian/wlw spaces is still pervasive.

gender dysphoria as body dysmorphia: people who transition actually just hate their bodies, and are encouraged by the "gender extremists" or whatever to transition as a solution.

gender dysphoria as internalised misogyny: the idea that afab trans people, especially trans men, are only transitioning due to internalised misogyny. that they desire male privilege, they have dysmorphia due to patriarchal standards (as described above), they don't want to be sexualised by men, etc.

transition to distance oneself from privilege: the idea that trans women are transitioning as a way to distance themselves from their male privilege. ironically the exact opposite of the above. may also contain the idea that straight people, white people, or otherwise privileged people, "become trans" to give themselves an extra marginalised identity.

gender dysphoria as sexual trauma: the idea that some/many/all trans people only want to transition because they were sexually abused/assaulted. either because they don't want to be seen as the sex they were when they were abused/assaulted, or

gender dysphoria as mental illness: it's in the DSM so obviously it must be just a mental illness! yikes. anyway, they'll point out that many trans people have mental health issues, so being trans must also be some sort of delusion, paraphilia, confusion, or other sort of mental illness.

exclusionism: asexual & aromantic exclusionism, nonbinary exclusionism, bi & mspec exclusionism, etc. the idea that some identities are fake and/or that they aren't oppressed enough to be part of the LGBTQ community. this is harmful in & of itself, of course. but it's also a lead-in to trans exclusionism, since TERFs push the idea that transness is fake in some way or another, and that trans women aren't really oppressed, or retain male privilege.

these are all the examples i can think of right now. if i think of more, or anyone lets me know about more! thanks for taking the time to listen.