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our-lesboy-experience · 7 months ago

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hiii!!! so uh, this is sorta about 'contradicting' (?) identities in general, but i only recently found out about, like, lesboys and gaygirls and all of that, but what is it exactly? like how does it work? or is that weird to ask? i'm trying figuring myself out but a lot of stuff i've seen doesn't exactly... explain it (or explain it well), and while i guess i do get why, it's just kinda hard to understand it myself for my own identity

also, probably a question you get a lot in a hating way, but isn't the definition of lesbian nonman loving nonman? so then how does lesboy work? like is it for people with more complicated gender identites, like fluctuating genders and bigender? just genuinly confused, my apologies...

sorry for not getting to this sooner- been busier lately and didn't have the time to collect everything I needed to respond!

About what it exactly means to be a lesboy or a gaygirl ('turigirl' is the more common term, 'turi' meaning turian, another word for gay attraction to men. so I'll be referring to it as that from now on), there isn't exactly....one right way to call yourself such. it really depends on the person, but I can give you a basic definition and a list of common reasons someone may call themselves such

im gonna put a read more because this ended up being super long so sorry

lesboy is a term for any lesbian who may have a connection to manhood and/or masculinity. turigirl is just the opposite of that, a gay person (mlm/nblm) who may have a connection to womanhood and/or femininity. common reasons I've seen are:

being multigender or genderfluid

being cusper/in between trans and cis gnc (in between trans man and cis gnc woman, in between trans woman and cis gnc man)

being a system who uses lesboy/turigirl as a collective identity or when identities blur together

a person who uses man/boy or woman/girl as a means of masculine or feminine gender expression but not actually identifying as such

being a trans man/ftm or a trans woman/mtf who still identifies as lesbian or gay for personal reasons

those are far from all the reasons, everyone has their own unique experiences, but the gist is these people may have some sort of connection to manhood/womanhood while still having a queer attraction. personally, I'm multigender, genderfluid, and transmasc. lesboy I find is a nice label to express being both my bigender self and being a lesbian, as it forces people to acknowledge both without separating the two. it's cute and makes me feel validated!

as for "nonman attracted to nonmen" definition of lesbian......it has its issues. it's received criticism all around from all sorts of lesbians in the community. this definition is very new - it emerged only in the recent years, and someone on twitter had date searched it and found it didn't even really exist before 2019. and having that as the one and only official definition that every lesbian has to abide by, when lesbian is a centuries old word with so much history behind it, is a bit ignorant. people who are multiple genders or ftm or bi being lesbian is not even remotely new, going back decades upon decades, and it never stopped existing too. It's a bit weird to have a whole new definition that doesn't include all sorts of lesbians that have been here for so long and just tell them they're not welcomed anymore, right?

that's not even close to the only issue there is with it. it's been disliked for centering lack of attraction to men, or defining lesbian in relation to men, rather than who we're actually attracted to. putting nonbinary people in a new binary of either being "men or nonmen," which not all feel comfortable putting themselves into. especially when considering a definition of gay being "nonwomen attracted to nonwomen," man-woman bigender people are simultaneously excluded from being both lesbian or gay. It inherently overlaps with mspec identity ("attraction to nonmen, which is more than one gender" and "any orientation that involves attraction to more than one gender" kinda obviously overlap), despite people insisting that a lesbian can never be mspec. people have found multiple loopholes in it, (which I can elaborate on if someone wants me to, for the sake of trying to make this as short as possible), and lastly, and term "nonman" (and nonwoman) were found to have existed before to describe the degendering of black people in society. this isn't the only source I've seen for this, but sadly I can't exactly find it (or find it without going back to that hellsite called twitter and I'm not doing that to myself)

oh and as the link points out, defining lesbian by these words also ends up excluding a lot of two-spirit people from ever identifying as lesbian, myself included. which is also really racist. I don't know how you're gonna end up excluding a whole cultural gender that's common for indigenous americans to describe themselves with and try to prove it somehow isn't racist, to be honest

and lastly, some surveys/polls have shown that the definition isn't the most widely accepted by lesbians as people make it out to be. there's this simple poll that someone posted asking how lesbians felt about the definition that received 1,529 responses, and 61.1% of voters said they disliked it. comments gave lots of reasons I've stated already. there was another survey put out that received 211 responses that for any lesbian who had a genderqueer or unique relationship with gender, and one of the questions asking opinions on the "nonmen loving nonmen" as a definition. the average among the group was slightly negative (average 2.838), and reported that the group who tended to feel the most positively about it didn't consider themselves to be trans, with the other positive leaning group considered themselves to be somewhat cis. the group that felt the most negatively sometimes considered themselves to be trans. and of the multigender participants, the average opinion was 2.255 (more negative than the overall average). When concluding, the original poster stated, "When divided by gender, the only groups to feel positive about this definition were "not trans" and "somewhat cis" participants. Multigender participants felt especially negative about this definition"

all of this shows that this definition isn't nearly the best for everyone who considers themselves a lesbian. I know it's been a way to include nonbinary people who are lesbian in it's definition, but I think it really misunderstands why nonbinary people are included in lesbianism in the first place, and just assumes that all nonbinary people aren't men and fails to recognize that multigender/genderfluid people are nonbinary too. and it's not like lesbian has to only have on definition- it can definitely have multiple and depend on each person's experience with it. if someone personally defines them being lesbian around being a nonman attracted to nonmen, and takes pride in not being attracted to men, that's totally fine. what becomes a problem is forcing all lesbians to define themselves like this and make it the standard, or else they're "not real lesbians." it is ahistorical and ignorant to require this or else you'll strip them of their lesbian status, and is really at the end of the day, lesbophobic. especially as a requirement that primarily exists in online spaces. im sure the lesbian who is not at all connected to these circles doesn't particularly care about strict requirements or whether someone is a "nonman" or not. in conclusion, it is not the best nor most accepted definition of lesbian, and deciding which lesbians are valid or not based solely on that definition is pretty exclusionary and ends up policing a lot of lesbians, myself included

#lesboy #turigirl #lesbian #gay #multigender #genderfluid #mspec lesbian #asks #tw exclusionism #tw queerphobia #lesbophobia #I can definitely elaborate on some points if asked #I do have some thoughts I've never shared before

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featureenvyproductions · 2 years ago

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here’s a bird’s eye view of my comic Eyan Eternal

For people who don't know what it is. Bc I think some of you might find it's right up your alley. Well this is an updated one anyway. I do actually have a volume of this out in print right now, but the low def, basic version is online and complete, and tbh, I just want people to read it. I took almost two years to complete this and quite literally poured every waking moment (after work and when I wasn’t fixing stuff in my house) into this to try and finish it.

Ahem

Here is one of these at a glance things!

If that’s enough to intrigue you, take a look at my chapter masterpost which has convenient links to every chapter post so you don’t have to go figuring out where they are and what order they go in!: https://www.tumblr.com/featureenvyproductions/717516139934154752/eyan-eternal-tumblr-chapter-masterpost?source=share

If you like it and want to support me you can also buy a copy of the first print volume, which collects chapters 1-5 and has a smidge of bonus content (only available in the US right now, but that’s not going to be forever, and I’m working on an e-book as well): https://www.etsy.com/FeatureEnvy/listing/1447399615/eyan-eternal?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1683565699335

And now here is a more detailed break down if you need more info than that...

*Jonathan Frakes asks you things meme voice* have you ever wondered what you’d find if you REALLY lived forever?

Well, meet Eyan, an immortal vampire.

He’s slowly finding out the answer to that question...

...And it appears to be unbearable isolation.

Eons into the distant future, when most stars have faded in the night sky and the cosmic event horizon has confined any remaining beings to an isolated pocket of the universe, Eyan roams interstellar space in a repurposed generation ship in search of anything that could be considered alive/sentient in the way he is.

So far, he’s out of luck.

That is until he runs into an unexpected former rival on a remote planet - Zero, a sentient android he never expected to be the only other person left alive.

Well. That is, if either of them can really be considered “alive”. What does that mean anyway, when the humans who defined what it means to be alive are all gone?

This is something they’ll have to explore and define for themselves as they attempt to set aside their myriad of differences and try to work together on one of the few ways left to escape the dark fate of ultimate isolation - The Grand Encoder, a machine that can upload minds to a special medium - if it even works for them anyway. In the process, they slowly come to accept that maybe they’d had each other all wrong and weren’t seeing the bigger picture.

You may not find any action-packed Star Wars like escapades here in this sci fi drama. You also won’t find ponderings about the origins of vampires or what gave rise to robot sentience - It’s integral to the plot that these things just ARE. But you will find a thoughtful exploration of identity and how it can cause us to define ourselves and relate to (or abandon) each other depending on the framework within which we are doing that exploration and within which we are compelled to exist. It asks the question, what if the frameworks within which we defined our existence and purpose no LONGER existed...Where would we go from there?

And as two immortal guys who are the only folks left in the universe (as far as they know), Eyan and Zero are just the right people to mull over that.

There is both textual and allegorical queerness in this story - both main characters should be considered gay men, even if it’s The Future TM and terms/exact scopes of identities may not be EXACTLY 1-1 with today’s...But I want to be perfectly clear that it was my intent to make them gay because I wanted to see more gay guys in sci fi and I don’t want anyone erasing that. As for the allegorical stuff - I myself am a trans gay man in my late 30s, so this act of re-exploring and re-framing myself and evaluating how and why queer folks interact with each other the way we do is something I’m very familiar with, and I feel like other folks might relate. (I also peppered in some neurodivergent-person-in-a-neurotypical-world moods tbh.)

Of course it’s not all serious. I do have a bit of fun with some old school vampire tropes, tossing Eyan around and putting him in Situations.

Anyway if this all sounds interesting to you, take a look at my tag and site (above)! I’d appreciate it! I also like to hear from people and see if there’s anything about it you related to! :)

I also do everything. Every last monotonous step (well, aside from literally loading up a printing press to churn out volumes lol - BUT REST ASSURED IF I HAD $10K TO PISS INTO THE WIND I WOULD DO THAT TOO). So if there’s ANYTHING you want to know about my process, I’m happy to tell you so please ask, especially if you’re like trying to get started on your own comic or trying to go to print :)

Edit before I go ahead and blaze this: I want to say, to be honest, the creation of comic was initially motivated almost entirely by the isolation/loneliness I’ve felt in my life. It’s not as bad as some folks’ and I know that, but it is a really prevalent thread throughout my life and sometimes is almost unbearable, and my comic began as an exploration of that loneliness, as well as a narrative exercise to try and express the depth of it at its worst point. I’m putting this out here because ultimately I don’t know...maybe someone will catch my drift and understand the feeling I’m trying to illustrate, and maybe they’ll want to see the plot that came of those feelings. I am not above the need to feel seen lol, especially if other people out there feel like they can resonate with this experience as well.

#Eyan Eternal #my comic #vampire #robot #queer sff #indie comic #indie artist

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saturnsbabyboii · 2 years ago

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💮Random Astro Notes, Answering Questions and a lil Rant💮

🪷The house that Saturn resides in can tell us what items we have been more careful and gentle with. To name a few, people with Saturn in 3rd house may have their books degrade faster, and their phones break often. Saturn in 4th need to be careful with their furniture, photos, kitchen, and even their entire home. Saturn in 7th may lose or damage their jewelry. Saturn in 11th may electronics break and malfunction.

🪷The house that Scorpio and Pluto reside in gives us some insight into how/where we are mistreated, misunderstood, taken advantage of, and perhaps even abused. However, it’s also where you’ll eventually come on top. If you thought Saturian karma doesn’t play then wait until you see Plutonian karma. Unlike Saturn, it is public and done indirectly. Because it’s the house of death (symbolically more than literally) and transformation, Pluto works slowly but on a large scale. Just like tectonic plates, they're slow and great. It may very well (especially for Scorpio) happen after your death or in a different lifetime.

🪷The Pisces paradox of being obsessed with yourself and taking pictures 24/7 and also desiring to escape your mortal flesh

🪷Side bar but I love how the sign of most season winners and of miss congeniality on Ruapul Drag Race is Taurus followed by Libra. It makes for Venusians to dominate a beauty competition show.

🪷Leo and Libra placements are obsessed with having an aesthetic. They drown themselves in whatever they find beautiful, and they do it well.

🪷I never understood the obsession with spouse, wealth, fame, and indicators in the chart. To me personally, when it comes to these subjects is that if you aren't actively trying to have or working in whichever way that suits you and seems the most effective, you won't attain it. How are you getting anything without putting an effort into it?

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Questions Asked:

🌸@brielledoesastrology thank you for the message, but I don't want to tell people about my chart 😅. I like to be as impartial as I can when it comes to doing astrology. I do it to help people and for fun not for fame or any gratification. It may seem dramatic but I swear it's easier when people don't know 😭

🌸 @spixcyy "Can I ask if you're gay?"

It's giving (Yes, I am very colorful and zesty)

🌸 Question from @iproposedtoyomamaandshesaidyes: “Heyy wassup bro how’s everything? I have Chiron in Leo is that a good placement?”

Heyy, I am good thank you and I hope you’re healthy and happy. Well, it depends on what we mean by “good”. In terms of the role of Chiron in Leo’s role in your trauma and healing.

Here are some of my interpretations of Chiron in Leo:

Sensitivity to your sense of person

Having limited self expression or authenticity (The house Chiron resides in can indicate where, how, and in some cases by whom.)

Being forced into the collective and not allowed to have a sense of independence

Individuality and unbecoming is a major life themes/struggles (regardless of the house)

Problems with self esteem, courage, vitality, creativity, and originality

Having a hard time accepting your possibilities and fearing success

Fear of disappointing role model/guide

Pressure from an early age for living a prodigy

Having to play a “role” or a character for a large portion of your early years

Trouble feeling that you do not have a central purpose or reason for existing

Difficulty understanding what it is you are ‘supposed’ to be doing with your life, yet having an overwhelming sense that you are supposed to be doing something.

Excessive rebellion or conformity

Healing and Moving on:

Learning to be content

Finding yourself as you move along life

Accepting that you won’t find instant solutions and results

Allowing yourself to grow

Forgiving yourself for being the person you were and needed to be

Helping others embrace their qualities (especially those that are viewed negatively by society) will help accept yourself

Leading with love and compassion, not detachment

As Chiron is the great healer that can’t heal his wound, your life purpose is:

To lead by example

Break the mold

Be the new “normal”

Perseverance

Act as a leader of the collective rather than be part of the group

Depending on the themes of the house Chiron resides in, you’ll work as a great motivator and healer in that aspect of life.

Hope this was of any help and thank you for your question.

🌸 @astro-lab asked :” So what is “the other Lilith” that comes with every chart? Which one is more relevant? How are they related?”

There are four asteroids that are part of Lilith.

- First, we have the Black Moon Lilith or Mean Lilith (h12), which is the most commonly used and referred to when people say “Lilith”. This is the one that is usually used in birth chart tools you find online.

The others are Asteroid Lilith (1181), True/Osculating Lilith (h13), and lastly, we have Dark Moon Lilith/ Waldemath Black Moon (h58).

Mean Lilith uses the average orbit of the theoretical Black Moon. This is why she is called Mean Lilith. “Mean” refers to the average, not her temperament. For True Lilith, her orbit oscillates or interchanges constantly. This Lilith uses the actual, real orbit of the Black Moon rather than the average in comparison. As for Dark Moon Lilith, some people have claimed to have seen this Moon, although its existence is debatable. Asteroid Lilith is the only Lilith that is an actual astronomical body.

In terms of their relevancy and importance depends on what areas of life are you looking to get insight from. Like other asteroids, they can shed light on things we tend to overlook. However, when it comes to Lilith, in general, these are things that we feel but never understand period.

The Mean Lilith is widely used because it takes the average orbit of Lilith and its mystic influence astrologically. In the birth chart, it represents the unconscious mirages that we create to protect our most vulnerable parts and deepest fears. Where we tend to be mistreated the most as Lilith had been and how can we fall victim to others but also heal, transform, and regain that power.

True Lilith in contrast is what we might now refer to as “your villain origin story”. This is where we find ourselves pushing the boundaries of ourselves and others. Our darker instincts and desires.

Asteroid Lilith is where and how we embody Lilith through the chart and in our everyday life.

I hope I was able to explain it well but thank you so much for your question 💕

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That's it, thank you for the questions and for reading.

Adios PUTAAASSSS

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homestuckreplay · 7 months ago

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Week 1 Retrospective: Who Is John Egbert?

It’s official - Homestuck is one week old today! And while a week is not a long run for a comic, it’s already got more pages than the author’s earlier work Bard Quest, so maybe it’s something worth recognizing. So I wanted to mark a week of Homestuck by doing a deep dive on what we’ve learned about our protagonist John Egbert so far. It’s some fact collection, some wild speculation, and some ongoing questions. It’s over 3000 words, so it’s under a readmore for anyone who’s interested.

If that doesn’t sound like a fun time to you (or even if it does), you can take the John Egbert Big 5 Personality Test to see how you score on John’s five key personality traits. It’s 14 multiple choice questions, so a much quicker read.

We’re introduced to John on page 4, where we’re given five key interests of his: bad movies, programming computers, paranormal lore, amateur magic, and gaming. I’ll take these one by one and use them as a framework for John’s character so far.

“You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES.”

John has eleven (11) movie posters on his walls. Of these, three star Matthew McConaughey and two star Nicolas Cage. More notably, six have a Rotten Tomatoes rating below 50%, and two of these are below 10%. I haven’t seen any of these movies, but as far as I can tell, here are the one sentence summaries [broad spoilers for all these movies].

Little Monsters: A boy befriends a monster and visits the monster world, where they try to convert him into a monster too.

Con Air: A paroled man disrupts a gang of prisoner’s escape from a prison transport plane.

Deep Impact: Earth tries to prepare for extinction after a comet is found on a collision course with Earth.

Ghostbusters II: After going out of business, the Ghostbusters reunite to combat a negative energy slime monster.

Mac and Me: A boy befriends a young alien who gets separated from his family and lost on Earth.

Contact: An Earth scientist successfully discovers alien life and travels to an alien world.

A Time to Kill: A father is acquitted in court for killing the perpetrators of racial hate crimes against his daughter.

Failure to Launch: A 35 year old man’s parents hire a woman to persuade him to finally move out of their home.

Face/Off: A terrorist and a FBI agent go through facial transplant surgery and temporarily swap identities.

Armageddon: A group of space workmen go on a mission to stop an asteroid from destroying Earth.

Ghost Dad: A man temporarily dies but is able to interact with his children in ghost form.

From this we can see that John really likes science fiction movies related to aliens, ghosts and monsters, as well as action comedy. We also know from page 21: ‘Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you’. A Time to Kill and Failure to Launch are the only ones that don’t fit his taste. The implication here is that John really loved Matthew McConaughey in Contact and so watched his other movies even though they were things he wouldn’t usually watch.

I’m curious if these movies are intended as clues to John’s character, the future of the comic, or both. In terms of his character, they make me see him as someone who’s imaginative and goofy, young and carefree, not concerned with other people’s opinions, more interested in watching movies for their surface meanings and exciting stories, maybe wants to escape to a different world, might be a little bit gay.

In terms of the future of the comic, it could be that we’re going to see literal aliens or monsters - they could even be already here, keeping John ‘homestuck’. Slime monsters are particularly highlighted, with Slimer from Ghostbusters appearing on John’s shirt and computer background, and his chumhandle, ectoBiologist, relating to slime. Slime invasion honestly feels too obvious, and anyway, several of John’s movies are about befriending a more benign supernatural force - could John’s Pesterchum friends be something other than human? Or maybe it’s a more metaphorical meaning, referring to John having a very different life to his friends?

Two of these movies feature Earth extinctions by giant space rocks, but there’s absolutely no indication of this being a real world threat John is dealing with. Again, it could refer more generally to a sudden, life changing event that’s about to happen to disrupt John’s current state, something that would fit thematically with this being John’s 13th birthday, a milestone age.

There’s also a theme of crime and the legal system in several movies, including Con Air, the one that’s been most highlighted. The most obvious interpretation of John’s dad right now is that he’s a clown or performer, but there’s an outside chance he could be in law enforcement, or a criminal. It’s even possible that he’s currently in hiding or some kind of safe house. This would explain John being ‘homestuck’ and sick of spending time with his dad.

Speaking of John’s dad, I’m concerned for him based on the Ghost Dad summary - the comic keeps teasing his presence, but we haven’t actually seen him yet. Could he be a ghost? Or become one at some point? Alternatively, we know John has an already dead relative - could his nanna be a ghost? Did John dropping her ashes release her ghost? Family is a really common theme in movies, so I don’t know if a large number of these movies being about family (especially fathers) is relevant, but I’m noting it all the same.

“You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.”

John claims he ‘likes to program’, but it actually seems to make him angry. We first learn ‘[y]ou were never all that great with data structures and you find the concept [of the stack modus] puzzling and mildly irritating.’ We then see three files on John’s desktop, two in ^CAKE - ‘pff.^CAKE’ and ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK.^CAKE’ and one in ~ATH - ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.~ATH’. These tell a clear narrative of John trying to work on his programming and getting increasingly more frustrated with his attempts, until inevitably giving up. Both of the programming languages are puns, too. ^ is often called a carat (carrot cake) while ~ is a tilde (til death).

I know this is wild speculation, but… John started off coding in a harmless programming language, was already struggling, then for some reason switched over to the most ominous possible sounding language, screwed it up even worse, and now… he’s constantly haunted by the ghost of failed programming attempts in the form of his sylladex, which he appears to be new to using (he had no prior understanding of it on page 7 - although this could be handwaved due to video game tutorial logic), and which operates similarly to a computer program and seems to cause John endless frustration. He’ll have to figure out how to exploit the inventory system in ways that help him, which involves actually figuring out some stuff about coding, in order to partake in some real life ghostbusting, or monster hunting, or dealing with whatever threat he’ll have to deal with by using inventory hacks.

“You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE,” (...)

By far the interest of John’s that we’ve seen the least of so far, John’s love of the paranormal is mostly inferred through his movie preferences, and we don’t see any direct evidence of an interest in lore. However, I can’t stop fixating on John’s chumhandle: ectoBiologist. The comic’s first act was to draw attention to giving John a name, and for many 2009 kids, the names they go by online are more meaningful and representative of them than their real world names.

‘ecto-’ means ‘outer, outside, external’ according to dictionary.com, and it’s actually a common prefix in a variety of fields of biology, but there’s no such thing as ‘ectobiology’ as a field, or an ‘ectobiologist’ - neither term has any search results prior to Homestuck. I think it’s way more likely that this refers to ectoplasm, a term from both cell biology and spiritualism that was popularized by Ghostbusters to mean any substance secreted by a ghost, in practice often manifesting as green slime. Slimer, who we can guess is John’s favorite, is a benign ghost made of pure ectoplasm. I love the idea that John loves this dumb ghost so much that he’s memorized all the lore about them in their appearances throughout the franchise, and devised this username based on being an expert on these ghosts right down to their biology (or at least thinking he is).

The only catch is, ‘fondness for paranormal lore’ is very passive and doesn’t even imply much knowledge, much less action, while ‘biologist’ implies that John has been doing actual experiments. The idea of John trying to create a real life Slimer the same way other kids make slime in their kitchens is really entertaining, if an off the wall theory. Does ‘homestuck’ just mean John is grounded for an unethical science project?

(...) “and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN.”

The magic chest is one of the biggest, most eye catching and most colorful objects in John’s room. We see its contents on page 8, which lean more into joke store items than things a magician might use, except for the trick handcuffs and perhaps the collapsible sword. The narration on this page states that John is neither a skilled magician nor a cunning prankster. I’m nitpicking definitions here, but everything John has done so far has been way more about pranks than about magic.

John’s uses of the magic chest to date are…

various putting things into his inventory and removing them (funny, but unintentionally)

combining fake arms with cake (p.36) out of necessity, which ‘makes the cake at least 300% more hilarious’

merging hat with beagle puss to create a clever disguise (p.45) and wearing it for 25+ pages, which he acknowledges is a ‘shitty disguise’

attaching fake arms to harlequin doll (p.65), which makes it ‘AT LEAST a million percent funnier’

All of which are definitely not magic tricks, and honestly not even pranks. Arguably John’s best and most successful prank so far has been when he pretended not to have arms for the first six pages, before revealing his arms after the interface had gone to the trouble of moving the cake off his magic chest to get him some arms.

John keeps thinking about reading Colonel Sassacre’s Guide to Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery, but always finding some excuse not to. He can’t read it until he captchalogues it, but once he does that, it gets buried in his inventory. He assumes that the book can tell him the exact percentage increase of hilarity a prank leads to, but it’s too big for him to actually look anything up.

An outside theory for this that I don’t think is likely simply because it’s so much darker than the comic has been so far, is that John loves this book, but since the incident where his nanna was killed by a copy (perhaps even this copy?) he hasn’t been able to bring himself to read it. A far more likely theory is that while John is an aspiring amateur magician, it’s more of a big idea, and he hasn’t actually done any magic yet. This also tracks with his weaksauce pranks above. And if that’s true, then it says a lot about John that he defines himself by a hobby he aspires to but doesn’t actually practice - he’s someone with big dreams and less motivation, just like his big dream of going to collect the mail from his father despite the lack of motivation that’s kept him messing around for 70 pages.

“You also like to play GAMES sometimes.”

Potentially most important of all is Gamer John. We get a list of games John likes to play from inspecting his CD tower the same way we get a list of movies from looking at his posters.

Bard Quest

The Caper Havers

Problem Sleuth

And It Don’t Stop

What Pumpkin?

Ghostbusters II MMORPG

Little Monsters (for Nintendo)

Harry Anderson: Call My Bluff!

The first five games all reference previous work by the author of Homestuck, and as such probably don’t need in depth analysis. However, the fact that within the world of Homestuck, these are all games (instead of comics) is one of several suggestions that we should think of Homestuck as a game, something that needs further analysis.

The next two games are video game adaptations of movies we know John likes, and the last is a branded video game from Harry Anderson, whose book we’ve already seen in John’s magic chest. Notably, none of these are real video games in our world either. It says a lot that John plays game versions of things he already likes (he’s put ‘countless manhours’ into this assortment of quality titles).

However, it’s undeniable that the most important game in John’s life right now is Sburb. The poster is behind his head in the first panel, placed centrally with one of the only two splashes of color in the panel. The beta release is the only thing marked on his calendar for April besides his birthday, and the Sburb logo is even the picture printed on the calendar - perhaps it’s a calendar themed around new game releases? There’s clear delight on John’s face when he thinks about getting the beta, and his quest to fetch it from the recently delivered mail is the closest thing to a story this comic has so far.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about Sburb, so we don’t know what it says about John that he wants to play it. It’s publicized as the Game of the Year, and according to GameBro, the game may be about houses and the player may not get to thrash anything, although these details are provided by someone who hasn’t played the game so I’m not taking them as expert opinion. It might be multiplayer - TT has been pestering TG all day about playing it with her. Maybe John just wants to share a game with his friends.

Speaking of GameBro, John can’t stand the magazine, although he for some reason has a copy on his desk. He describes the publication as ‘a joke’ to TG, and he makes the effort to take it downstairs to the fire and burn it, presumably releasing asbestos fibers into the house and causing serious lung damage to himself and his father. Does he read this because it’s the only games magazine that exists? Or did he like it just fine until now, when it trashed the game he’s excited about, and now he’s furious with it? Either way, it tracks with John’s overall fondness for critically panned media that he would be angry about contrarian critics.

–

All of this has left me with a few questions about John as our main character. These are the things that I’m keeping an eye on and trying to answer as the story continues.

What is John good at?

We hear so much about what John is bad at. He’s explicitly stated to be bad at programming, pranks, and magic. He’s bad at using his sylladex. He’s clumsy and knocked over his nanna’s ashes. He’s got bad taste in media. He’s funny but only when he doesn’t try to be, and even then he’s sometimes the butt of the joke, where the joke is how not funny John’s joke is. He was tempted to squawk like an imbecile and shit on his desk. He has like six different prankster props and he doesn’t even use all of them. I’m saying all this with love and kindness because he also just seems like such a sweet kid, but so far he doesn’t have any defined strengths or skills.

Is he going to turn out to be really good at gaming and kick ass at Sburb? Are we going to get a curveball where it turns out John is an amazing baker, and he hates the cakes in his room and the smell of Betty Crocker because he can do so much better than that packet mix? Or is he starting off from this low point so he can develop skills as time goes on?

What is John’s relationship with his dad really like?

John doesn’t want his dad to monopolize his time and feels trapped in his room, despite his dad baking cakes and leaving notes on gifts telling John he’s proud of him. John’s dad gets his son one great present that John’s really appreciative of, and one terrible present that John immediately hates. All of this feels very reasonable and normal for a teen feeling misunderstood by a parent who’s trying their best.

And then there’s the clowns.

John can excuse magical frivolity and practical japery, but he draws the line at harlequins. He’s an aspiring magician, but his dad’s figurines are ‘fucking garbage’ and his dad ‘sure can be a real cornball’. John seems like somebody who gets angry at ultimately unimportant things, like bad reviews of games, too many cakes, and harlequin figurines, but because of the subject matter it reads like an intense rivalry between two highly specific subcultures that outsiders would group together. John is really making a huge deal of needing to disguise himself and mentally prepare himself to go down and face his dad, and I want to know if there’s any genuine reason behind John’s fear, or if it’s solely the overdramatics I’m starting to think are typical of him.

Is John ‘Homestuck’?

‘Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular.’ (p.30)

John clearly feels like he’s stuck at home, but is this the extent of the title’s meaning? His dad has recently returned from getting groceries, so leaving the house is in theory possible. Reasons why John might be homestuck include: he’s not allowed to leave the house (for example, he’s grounded, or his dad is very controlling), he can leave the house but there’s nowhere to go (he lives near major roads, bodies of water, farms, or other obstacles, and there’s no public transport to get anywhere), or he can leave the house but it’s not safe to do so (there’s some sort of external threat, either supernatural like a monster or alien invasion, or mundane like a criminal or bomb threat). Seeing out of John’s window and into his front yard does not provide any clues; it looks like an extremely average front yard with a tree, swing and mailbox, and we know the mail was recently delivered, so there can’t be anything too world-ending happening in the neighborhood. Right now John’s goal (the Sburb Beta disc) is inside the house, so this might not get answered right away - in fact, my running theory is that the game itself might hold the answers, as its logo is a house.

What’s the differentiation between John and the narrator?

My biggest question of all, and one that probably deserves its own essay. I’m fascinated by the lines ‘In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle.’ (p.27) and ‘In a home, a FIREPLACE needs a fire, because that's what FIREPLACE is for.’ (p.50). These lines carry so much opinion, but because the narrator is constantly addressing John with the second person ‘you’, I don’t think these are John’s opinions. The narrator does have a window into John’s thoughts, so the line between them can be blurred, but there's clearly a distinction somewhere, because there have been pushbacks and disagreements between the two of them.

One theory is that John’s dad is the narrator - John’s at home a lot for whatever reason, and so the constant and overbearing presence of his dad means that he can’t get him out of his head even when he’s alone, the commands at the top of each page reflecting John’s dad’s level of control over his son’s life. But I think this question is open ended enough that I’m not willing to commit to one theory yet. After all, we ‘examine 3rd and 4th walls of [John’s] room’ which is a directly meta allusion to the comic’s audience that only really makes sense if the narrator isn’t a character in the comic itself.

–

I think John Egbert has been really well characterized so far. He feels like a real kid, one who keeps getting off track and forgetting what he should be doing, but one who it’s enough fun to get to know that I don’t really notice. While the main character in media often doesn’t end up being the most interesting character, I do want to keep an eye on John because I think he has a lot going on to analyze. Above the style and the world and the mechanics, John as a character is the aspect of the comic I’m most interested in right now.

#homestuck #john egbert #analysis #chrono

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matan4il · 11 months ago

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Daily update post:

A recent study (sorry, some stuff I can only find in Hebrew, this is one of those articles) shows 83% of Israeli kids are experiencing psychological distress since Oct 7. Among the kids of the south, (the area which was hit the worst, and where even communities that were not massacred by Hamas, were evacuated following this massive invasion), the percentage is even higher, 93%. An important note is that the study sampled both Jewish and Arab kids based on the size of these populations (Arabs make up 21% of Israeli citizens).

The IDF published aerial footage of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid from regular Gazans, and beating them up. If there's a blog that claims to be sharing pro-Palestinian info, but doesn't share this kind of news, they're not really pro-Palestinian, they're just exploiting Palestinians as an excuse to be anti-Israel.

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to have escaped from the northern Gaza City to the south, to Khan Younis, in a medical convoy. Just take in the cynical use of medical and humanitarian protections, to do anything which would prolong the fighting, no matter how many Palestinian lives it would cost. I'm trying hard to remember any other (real) liberation movement that was directly responsible for the deaths of so many of the people it seeked to liberate...

Five Israeli soldiers were pronounced dead yesterday, four were killed in Gaza, while one was badly wounded on Oct 7, and after over two months in hospital, passed away. The number of Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting in Gaza so far is 97. Up until number, the bloodiest battle Israel has had to wage in Gaza since withdrawing from it, was operation Protective Edge in 2014, with 70 Israeli soldiers killed.

The Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister said, when discussing plans for Gaza after the end of the war, that Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic, and that dismantling Hamas is unacceptable to the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, an American base in Iraq was attacked by Hezbollah forces. You absolutely should ask yourself why the terrorist organization calling itself the "defender of Lebanon" has units in Iraq, and how is attacking American forces there helping Lebanon. Just a side note, Iran funds Hezbollah.

Also yesterday, the Yemenite terrorist group known as the Houthis announced that instead of going after Israeli ships only, they will target any ship that is headed for Israel through one of the most important naval routes in the world, and which is Israel's only connection to the far east. Essentially, it means they're placing Israel under a naval blockade. I'm looking forward to people condemning Yemen for occupying Israel. Just a side note, Iran funds the Houthis.

Today, it was published that in Cyprus, two Iranian political refugees, who entered the country with a fake passport, were arrested for collecting intel to carry out a terrorist attack against Israelis there. Just a side note, these refugees were in touch with Iran's political militarized force, IRGC. Stop me when you notice a theme here...

On the first even of Hanukkah, 138 hanukkiot were lit at the Kotel (the Western wall), one for each hostage. Since then, two of the hostages have been confirmed as murdered.

Following the Congress hearing where three presidents of prestigious universities couldn't explicitly say that a call for the genocide of the Jewish people constitutes bullying and harassment, UPenn's president resigned. That's good, but I wanna point out that, as their answers were obviously coordinated, down to repeating the exact same terms, there is no difference between UPenn's president and the ones of Harvard and MIT. They all need to go home. And the universities still have the burden of proof that this will be more than a cosmetic change in leadership.

I watched a TV interview with two married Israeli Harvard professors, who recounted how they went out and celebrated when Claudine Gay was elected as their university's president, and now they've chosen to leave Harvard and the US, to return to Israel, because the campus has become an environment that's just too toxic. I think if the amount of Jews who are moving to Israel, while the country is in a state of war, isn't a wake up call for the west, then nothing will be.

On the left is 25 years old Gal Eizenkott, the son of Israel's former Chief of Staff, and current minister, who is a part of the war cabinet, Gadi Eizenkott. I wrote about Gal in previous daily updates. Something I can add is that his father happened to be in an IDF command center, when they got the news of the incident in which Gal was killed. It took several minutes for the info to arrive at the command center, that one of those soldiers injured mortally was Gadi's son.

On the right is 19 years old Maor Cohen Eizenkott. Maor is Gal's cousin, and was a soccer player. He was killed a day after Gal, when an explosive device planted in a Gaza mosque blew up. Maor was buried today. May his memory be a blessing.

This is 53 years old Eitan Levi.

He was a taxi driver, who on Oct 7 took a lady to one of the kibbutzim on the border of Gaza. On his way back, he called his sister, telling her about the rocket barrages into Israel, and that he was scared. She stayed with him on the line as he was driving back from the south of Israel, but then he was stopped, his sister heard Arabic, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" and shots. Later, his phone was detected in Gaza, and he was considered kidnapped. Then Hamas released a video of its terrorists abusing a body. It was beyond recognition, but based on some accessories, the army finally determined it was Eitan, that he had been murdered on Oct 7, and it was his body that was kidnapped to Gaza. His sister watched the vid, but as the body is unrecognizable, she said in an interview, "He's the only family I have in this world. We don't even have a body to sit Shiva for. Until such time, I'm going to keep hoping he's alive, kidnapped and just injured."

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #israelunderattack #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish

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rainbowsforbeginners · 4 months ago

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Rainbow 101: 001

Today’s topic, as voted by you: What is LGBTQIA+?

Hello, class!

Welcome to Rainbow 101!

To start us off, today I’ll explain the acronym LGBTQIA+:

It stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and A-spec - And the little “plus” at the end stands for any other queer labels that don’t fit neatly into the main acronym!

You may also see it shortened to LGBTQ+, LGBT+, LGBT, as well as a few others - But, they all refer to the same community!

Now, as this is a beginner-friendly lecture, I’ll also give a brief explanation of the main “flagship” identities - Though I highly encourage you do your own research of any terms you find interesting, as I will likely not be able to cover all nuance here!

Also, if anyone has any comments, questions, corrections, or kudos, please put them in the ask box after class!

Alright, let’s get started:

Lesbian:

Someone who is a lesbian is a women who is attracted to other women - Non-binary people can also use this label if they wish! The term Lesbian is also related to the terms WLW and Sapphic - Though I recommend finding sources who are more well-versed in those labels to understand the nuances/differences!

Gay:

The “proper” definition of gay is similar to lesbian, being a man who is attracted to other men - And non-binary folk can use this one, too! - However, you will also find many people use “gay” as a broad blanket term similar to “queer,” so context is useful here! Gay is also sometimes called MLM (men-loving-men, not multi-level-marketing :) )

Bisexual/Biromantic:

Someone who is bisexual/biromantic is attracted to multiple genders - Commonly interpreted as simply “likes both men and women.” But, as with many of these labels, there can be nuance that is different for every person; Such as having attraction for multiple, but preferring one over another. You’ll often see Bisexual/Biromantic shortened to Bi!

Transgender:

Someone who is transgender doesn’t fully identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. For example, someone who was born as a girl named Jane and later transitions to a man named John. (Something to note here: While many transgender people do fully identify with the “opposite” gender, and undergo various visual/biological transformations (ha!), there are many who don’t do either! Some people only change their pronouns, and some may not change anything!) Non-binary people are also under this umbrella term - though not everyone identifies with the label! You’ll often see Transgender shortened to Trans!

Queer/Questioning:

From what I’ve seen, “Queer” is a pretty broad label, often used as a collective term for all LGBTQIA+ people - But, I’ve also seen some people use it as a catch-all personal miscellaneous label, when they don’t care to explain or define the details! “Questioning” is pretty simple - It just means the person is figuring out some aspect of their identity, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet!

Intersex:

This one I don’t know as much about as I could, but my understanding is that an intersex person falls between or outside of the biological sex binary - And it can be as drastically obvious as physical organ differences, or more often, as subtle as having unusual chromosomes!

A-spec:

A-spec, or the A-spectrum, is a wide category for those who experience little, no, and/or specifically-parametrized attraction! Aromantic (or Aro, little-to-no romantic attraction) and Asexual (or Ace, little-to-no sexual attraction) are the more popular, “flagship” labels, but the A spectrum also includes Aplatonic, Agender, Afamilial, Asensual, and probably a few others I don’t know of! To oversimplify for the sake of comedy, the A-spec is for those of us who look at everyone else and go, “No thanks!” with varying degrees of intensity.

Plus (+):

And the + is for everyone else who might not fit within the above!

…And there you have it - That was a lot, and I’m glad you stuck around to the end!

I want to note here that many of these labels have more sub-labels nested under them, and/or have more nuance than we covered today - So, if any of you have questions or clarifications, or have a correction to make, please feel free to drop a note in my ask box!

Also, any ideas for future topics to cover would be much appreciated!

Batteries and Bars,

Neon

#rainbow 101 #lgbt #lgbtqia #lesbian #gay #bisexual #transgender #trans #queer #intersex #aspec #asexual #aromantic #agender

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freckliedan · 3 months ago

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please forgive me for being wildly late to this party but how did we become so sure there will be a hard launch.. at all? all I know is they joked about soft launching the gay before really coming out so I thought the coming out videos were the proper launch. how does that translate to hard launch meaning confirming they're a couple?? 😅thanks

no sorries! i have a few points i'm going to hit in replying to you and i'm going to number them for convenience's sake.

1: imo, use of soft/hard launch to describe both them coming out as individuals and as a couple is just bc it's a common phrase

you're right that they've only ever talked about hard launch/soft launch in terms of their coming out videos! but it's clear that those did not function as a relationship hard launch, because there's still loads of people assuming they're not together. so coming out as a couple would have to be a separate event if it happens, which is why people also discuss it in terms of hard/soft launch .

as far as i know hard and soft launch get used often to describe people announcing they're together—someone might soft launch their partner on social media by including glimpses of them in insta stories for a while before explicitly saying they're with someone. explicitly saying it would be a grid post where the nature of their relationship is mentioned in the caption.

2: not everyone is certain there's going to be a hard launch!

a lot of people think they will maintain their privacy and commitment to the ambiguity bit. and they might! it's clear they're having fun with it, & i forever admire queer people who say "none of your business" & stick with that.

3: i personally do think they will hard launch for a number of reasons, but also just enjoy playing in the space of speculation.

reasons i believe in a hard launch:

they've been engaging in the same pattern of behavior re: escalating openness and queerness as they did in 2018, and a relationship hard launch is the only thing that they could be coming out about jointly. i talk about this at length here. part of the repeating pattern is the build up to tour, but that was guessed separately based on an entirely separate pattern we collectively recognized.

i am mostly serious about thinking they want to get married, though do play in that space sometimes just because it's fun to do so. marriage is public record, so necessitates a hard launch. my engagement theory tag is here, i answered some asks on it earlier this year, but i'm not confident that everything i've said recently about a hard launch/engagement can be found there & i do not think i've comprehensively written about it post dapg return.

i was actually starting to shift into thinking it was less likely before @pseudophan acknowledged it as probable in late april, but nora is never wrong and i don't think they'd be joining marriage hill for fun. this deserves its own bullet point.

i have an insanely good track record of being right about dan and phil. i am often wrong if i try guessing timing or the details of something, but have never been wrong about the big picture. this is big picture. i'm trusting my gut on this.

you can check my jam thoughts & den thoughts tags for more of my theorizing, if you'd like. i am a thorough tagger and also collect things in a number of tags, including meta, analysis, & history.

#you can see all of my replies to asks in #jam replies #and all of my effortful/better posts in #jam posts #anon #phan #jam thoughts

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talisidekick · 1 year ago

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I wanna talk about how transmen are sexualized.

Transmen aren't Femboys.

Transmen aren't Sissys.

Transmen aren't for your sexual pleasure.

Transmen are biological women who have dysphoria.

You cannot change sex, you can change gender presentation and how your gender is perceived.

-Sincerely A transguy tired of being sexualized and misinformation

When people go out of their way to say "all trans men are" or act like all trans mascs are a specific thing only, like a femboy, or a sissy, it's transphobic because it's debasing people to a kink and not recognizing that these can be aspects of a person, but not their entire personality. When someone treats a kink like the default for a type of person, it's offensive. Gay men got reasonably upset when people kept expecting and depicting them to be effeminate because it was rightfully offensive as fuck. We shouldn't be debasing people to sexual roles and stereotypical presentations grounded in bigotry. In your examples, that's transandrophobia. Beyond this, I will disagree with everything except your sign off.

Transgender men are not 'biological women'. They're men. Medically, commonly assigned female at birth (afab). I say "commonly" because intersex transgender men exist and the term 'afab' isn't all inclusive of the biological reality we're dealing with. The term "women" is a social term, not a medical one, that relates a person to experiences of womanhood and defines them as a woman by proxy. This is incorrect. Transgender men are men, period. If you're talking biology, use biology terms. Social terms belong in social contexts. Conflating the two aids no one and instead walks right into the rhetoric fascists like the so called "radfems" and "gender criticals" use to associate sex with gender as falsely inseparable terms.

Also, no again to "you cannot change sex". That is a falsity in the reality of modern science. We can make functional penises for transgender men, this is widely documented, and modern science has procedures that would allow an individual to no longer be accurately medically classified as "female" and even "male". One such procedure is called SRS or Sex Reassignment Surgery, sometimes referred to under a broader category of Gender Confirming Surgery or GCS that covers the creation or removal of primary and secondary sex characteristics. Now before we get on the "what do I mean by functional" train, I'm deliberately not including sperm production or egg production in this statement because if that's your argument that it's not 'functional' unless it can be used to reproduce, you're an asshole that just said sterile men aren't men, and post-menopausal women aren't women, and fuck you. Men and women aren't defined by their ability to reproduce. That's bioessentialist bullshit that can fuck right off, this ain't the fucking 1960's.

I'm being highly specific here because I want to be very clear that the terms we use have impact, they're meant to be used in certain contexts and conflating terms with eachother doesn't help us make the points that we're trying to here.

The real meat of this though is that these sexualizations as femboys and sissy's being default used on trans masculine people in general is deliberately denying transgender men and mascs their masculinity. If a transgender man or masc chooses to express themself in such a way, that's their choice. But it's a choice an individual is making, not a collective. It doesn't matter what a transgender man or masc looks like, it matters how they want to be treated, and denying them that treatment to force them into a sexual role they don't agree with is a big fucking baaaaaaaaaaad move. We talk about sexual liberation in being 2SLGBTQIA+, and defining ourselves our way, but doing this to trans mascs is just reflavouring homophobia to attack a different group. Fucking stop it. Let trans mascs and transgender men be masculine. Stop default coding them as feminine.

#trans #transgender #transandrophobia #lgbt+#lgbtq+#lgbtqia+#trans men #trans masc #non binary #talisidekick #talisidekick things

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19871997 · 5 months ago

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do u have any mcstrome fic recs. dylan liking that tweet has sent me into a spiral

dylan liking that tweet is so freaking . estranged ex best friend but i still think about you on your birthday and my mom makes apple pie the way your mom does and i know what you're like when youre asleep and you used to know me better than anyone else and i dont know how to tell you i think ive changed and i know you have BUT FIC WISE:

the absolute classic burn the straw house down by theundiagnosable (E, 39k) all of their fics are incredible but this one is a classic for a reason like truly just such an incredible fic quite possibly the thesis of modern/post draft/post career mcstrome like this is Them and them learning each other again and dealing with their history and what they meant to eachother and what they mean to eachother now

in a very similar vein (future fic, dealing with all their nonsense, connor being strange and bizarre) The Next Next One by yourblues (M, 71k) is also a classic also one of those like. That mcstrome fic. where theyre relearning eachother and that process is painful and thourough and detailed so well here

so collect your scars and wear them well by addandsubtract (M, 15k) is also so so good also a classic (probably one of the first mcstrome fics ever?) has the benefit of being written right around the draft/a little after such that unlike in all the future fics, they already know eachother as they are and its more like connor coming to terms w the fact that dylans love and care for him is actually quite endless (like idk if this out of place to say but this reads like a lot of modern connorleon fics read like its far more of a friends to lovers/codependant boybestfriends to codependant boybestfriends who have tenderhorny sex fic than an ex codependant best friends who had mutual crushes on eachother but didnt dare say a word about it to lovers who say many many words about it. if that makes sense)

the kids are gonna be by Sour_Idealist (T, 24k) is a very fun getting together fic featuring fated generational talent/first overall/gay yoda mentor sidney crosby truly truly wish there were more fics like this. this is a bit the fic that clocked me on to everyone's tendancy in hrpf to drop a sentance about sidcros is also gay regardless of who the hrpf is about LSDFHGLSDFLHG

and finally i watched your life in pictures by Stromesquad (E, 20k) another post retirement getting together/getting back in sync wondering what happened realising they never really stopped loving eachother etc etc like i do think the main draw of mcstrome these days is in post retirement/post career like they are the pinnacle of codependant teenage best friendship that leaves you fundementally changed especially w the trajectory of their careers rn (like dylan's old teams having to move/enter a rebuild + his current team on the brink of a rebuild vs connor being the one the oilers built around)

#[redacted] tumblr user #asks #mcstrome #im always torn between. post retirement mcstrome is so freaking compelling like endlessly so and also. they havent played w eachother in #9 years let it go ykwim #fic recs

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spacelazarwolf · 1 year ago

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So do you like think there's a line between lgb (cis homos) and "queer" people? Because I hate the term queer (for myself), but I have always and will always be for trans rights. L with the T. The argument you make (aro manifesto) makes it seem like the same idea of "well bi people and pan people are different bc pan people are the real 'queer movement' and trans inclusive"...as if cis lgb people don't consider themselves queer or trans inclusive. Just seems like a separation of us and queers, which only divides us more. Like I get people think we are only ever for marriage equality/rights (due to the aids crisis) and also current organizations highlighting only that need, but like stop separating "us" (cis lgb) from you/queers as if we don't have the same goals in mind. I too think we should focus more on other goals as marriage is not the only important thing. We are of the same community, not different.

i'm gonna break this down/define the way i use things so you can understand what i'm talking about, because you have made a lot of assumptions. these aren't like official definitions, because strict definitions just never really quite work in these kinds of conversations, but this is what i generally mean when i use these terms. any identities listed aren't an exhaustive list, they're just what i thought of in the moment.

lgbt+ community: anyone who is lesbian, gay, bi, trans, ace, aro, pan, nonbinary, etc. this is not an established group with a mission, it's just a category of people who identify as not cishetallo.

queer community: a group united by a mission you can read more about the original queer manifesto from 1990 here. queer people are cis, trans, intersex, genderqueer, nonbinary, gnc, straight, gay, lesbian, bi, pan, ace, aro, etc. but that's not what makes them queer, what makes them queer is the goal of collective queer liberation. (some people use queer as an individual identity and want to separate themselves from queer as a political identity and like, i can't stop them, but the fact of the matter is that since the word queer was reclaimed in the 80's it has been inextricably linked to the queer liberation movement, which is inherently political.)

the difference between these two is that lgbt+ is an individual identity whereas queer is a political identity.

there's a lot of ways lgbt+ people might form community that don't include being part of the queer community, and there are many queer people who take the political stance of not identifying as lgbt+ because they consider their queerness to be more than just an individual identity and feel that being categorized under lgbt+ removes the political aspects of their identity. the venn diagram of these two communities is not a circle, but it's also not two completely disconnected circles either. there is overlap, and that includes cis queer lesbians and gays.

lgbt+ advocacy: this is advocacy that is based within the current system. fighting for marriage equality, right to start a family by adopting within the system or using ivf, fighting discrimination in the workplace, etc. all great things to fight for.

queer liberation movement: this movement seeks to dismantle the cisheteropatriarchy entirely. for example, some folks believe that we should be fighting to dismantle the concept of marriage rather than just fight for lgbt+ people to be able to get married under the current system.

neither of these approaches is Objectively Correct, though everyone is going to have their own opinions on what they think the right course of action is. you can think of these two categories as reform vs. abolition. sometimes they overlap, sometimes their ideologies are incompatible.

so when i say that the aromantic manifesto had a fundamental understanding of what the queer community is and what the queer rights movement is, this is what i mean: the manifesto presented the "queer community" and "queer rights" as what i would define as the lgbt+ community and lgbt+ advocacy. based in identity, and prioritizing reform over abolition. so their critiques that the "queer community" and "queer rights movement" only fights for marriage equality seemed bizarre to me, because queer liberation is more likely to fight for the dissolution of the concept of marriage. it's more likely to tackle the concepts of societal norms and what a "normal" relationship looks like and how it functions.

and the thing is, i get a lot of people who get angry at me for "separating" queer people from the rest of the community, but the fact of the matter is that the rest of the community separated itself from us. when i talk about cis lgb people who prioritize assimilation, i'm not talking about Anyone Who Is Cis And LGB, i'm talking about cis people who are lgb who will throw trans women under the bus to maintain a cisnormative view of what a woman is. i'm talking about cis lgb people who think that kink is disgusting and wrong and blame queer kinksters for "making the lgbt community look bad." i'm not talking about identities, i'm talking about actions.

i'm not saying i think any one identity is "more queer" than others, i'm saying that i do not definitionally consider the lgbt+ community and queer community to be the same thing. and tbh, i do get really tired of people who don't identify with the queer community getting pissed off that i don't set my queerness aside to align myself with them if they wouldn't set aside their discomfort with queerness to align with me. if you don't want to align yourself with the queer community, that is entirely your prerogative. but it seems like you think that queer people are the ones creating the separation simply by identifying as queer while you don't, when the problem is that people who don't want to identify with queerness still want access to the same level of community with queer people as if they were in the community, and i'm very sorry but that's just not feasible. we can still fight side by side for our rights, but no, we are not the same community.

#ask avishai #gender studies

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dilutedh2so4 · 5 months ago

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Book of Ruth: Is it Gay? (part two yay)

image credit: jw.org (lol)

(continued from part one)

I can already see your objections: "But then Ruth married Boaz [her male relative]! Naomi told her to do it!"

Again, let us consider Naomi and Ruth's social standing. They were both women, both widows, both poor and starving. Ruth had to go foraging in the fields, collecting scraps of grain left behind so they could eat! (see Ruth 2:2-3, referring to Leviticus 23:22)

These women needed a male relative to survive, a "guardian redeemer." This was the practice, highlighted in Leviticus 25:25-28 and Deuteronomy 25:5-10, where a man had the duty of restoring the land and marrying the widow of a kinsman who had died without an heir.

"Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel."

Deuteronomy 25:5-6

This union of Ruth and Boaz was a matter of survival. Naomi may have seemed excited and insistent in Ruth 2:20, but this was only after she realised Boaz was their kin and could 'redeem' Ruth. She was relieved they would not have to scavenge, starve, and suffer for much longer. She says this herself in Ruth 3:1, "My daughter, I must seek a home for you!"

Her use of "daughter" when referring to Ruth may irk some of you, but it is only a term of endearment. Boaz himself uses the same phrase for her, in Ruth 3:10, where it is then implied they subsequently had sex.

Soon after, they are married, and Ruth bears a son. He is named Obed, and he will be the grandfather of King David. Here is the passage in full:

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son.

Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel!

He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.”

Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom and became his nurse. The women of the neighbourhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.”

Ruth 4:13-17

That final line, "a son has been born to Naomi," is particularly interesting to me. It is probably referencing how this firstborn will carry on her son Mahlon's legacy, but I like to think this is a subtle nod to Ruth and Naomi's relationship. I like to think it solidifies their "marriage," which began with those vows in Ruth 1, and ends here with the birth of a child they will raise together. A child not said to be born to Ruth's husband Boaz, but to Naomi - her true lover.

*thank you so much for reading this! **there may be others to come... (if i can find the time lol) ***BTW this is just an interpretation from an ex christian lesbian lol

image credit: philip h. calderon // walker art gallery, liverpool

BONUS: According to Ruth Zuta (4:3), Boaz died the day after their wedding, so that left Naomi and Ruth to raise Obed alone! It's unfortunate for Boaz (to say the least), but - if we take this interpretation - it means our two little lesbians could finally live out their dreams (perhaps).

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ranahan · 9 months ago

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Mandalorian soul(s) & Mando’a words for them

So have you noticed how Mando’a has three different words for a soul or a spirit: manda, kar’am, and runi?

Warnings for lots of speculation and headcanons about Mandalorian religion and spirituality.

What is a soul?

First of all, I want to note that cultures around the world have very different ideas of what the soul is. The Christian idea of an immortal soul that goes to heaven after the body dies is hardly the only or even the most prevalent one. Many cultures believe there are many different kinds of souls and that humans have more than one soul.

I was going to draw examples from earthly cultures and religions, but I just put about 50 posts in my drafts folder and I want to publish this before it disappears in that black hole where no information escapes from. Suffice it to say that people have really different takes on what a soul is. Seriously, look up some examples. Blow your mind a bit.

GFFA of course also has the Force, so who knows what kinds of Force traditions Mandalorians have if any, and how those would affect their views of souls and spirituality. I recently reblogged Izzy’s interesting headcanons about Mandalorians and the Force, if anyone is in need of inspiration.

*maan- ‘original’ & Manda

In the canon dictionary, this root on its own is an adjective:

maan (adj): original, first

That’s “original, first” in the sense of “genuine, true” and given the derivations, the root *maan- at least probably also carries the meaning of “inherent, intrinsic, innate”.

*maan- also appears in words like:

veman (adj): real, genuine

Probably from *vut- ‘special’ + maan. “Really original”.

ramaan (n): death (a neutral term)

Probably from *ram- ‘attack’ + maan, “the original attack(er)” or ram + an, “one who attacks all”. Could be either. I’m more partial to the latter etymology, but I’m putting ramaan here just in case.

I believe that the element *mand- that appears in lots of words like mando, manda, and their derivations, is etymologically maan-ad, which has lost an unstressed vowel. This carries the meaning of ‘first person, original person’ or as a plural, “first/original people” which is actually what a number of earthly peoples call themselves. Like that’s a very, very common etymology for the name of your own tribe.

So I reconstruct *maanad (or the same with a short vowel, *manad) as an archaic word with the meaning of “a mandalorian”. I also reconstruct it with a second meaning of “true self, innate self, inner self”, or a soul in that sense. So then…

manda (n): collective soul

…could be an archaic plural of manad-a, with a lost syllable in the middle which is a really common pattern in Mando’a. Mando’a uses plural as a way to form collective concepts, so this is “all Mandalorian souls”.

So when you have gai bal manda, “name and soul”, or kir’manir ‘to adopt, give a soul to someone’, the soul here is specifically the Mandalorian soul, a partaking of the shared identity.

Kir’manir could also be glossed as “to give an origin”, which in Mandalorian terms is exactly what you are doing when you adopt someone: you take them in as a part of your clan. For Mandalorians who don’t care about bloodlines, this is just as legitimate a tie as being born into a clan: in both cases, you become a part of the shared ancestry and heritage.

This is a headcanon, but the picture I get of Mandalorians is that anyone can be a Mandalorian (if you have mandokar, literally “Mandalorian heart”)—but no one can be a Mandalorian without a clan (it’s in the Resol’nare & and in words like kir’manir). You need to get adopted in order to convert and become a Mandalorian. You need to have a clan to hold up the basic tenets of being a mando’ad. You need to be adopted in order to share in the web of souls that make up the manda. This is a really interesting dichotomy. It makes Mandalorians kind of into an ethnic religion like Judaism, only you don’t need to be born as a Mandalorian, only be adopted as one.

In fact, I think that adopting your biological children is really common if not the norm. If you view the gai bal manda in the light of giving the child a soul and a tie-in to the manda, then gai bal manda is to Mandalorians what baptism is to Christians. You can’t go to the Christian heaven without a baptism, and you can’t reach the manda without gai bal manda. I imagine this is where the fanon of adopting dead children so they don’t have to wander eternally comes from (someone hit me with a name; who came up with that? I love it!).

But also! Mandalorians in general are not depicted as very religious. So I guess this is one belief, but it is probably not shared universally and perhaps not even widely. Maybe it’s an old belief, developed in the aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars, when the tie of the non-Taung to their adopted ancestors was still tenuous, and while they were moving away from the worship of the old gods, religious beliefs of all kinds were still rampant. And in the upheaval before they settled on a new canon, all kinds of beliefs and split-off religious sects sprung up left and right.

kar’am

kar’am (n): breath

Okay, not soul. But I believe this is “breath” in the sense of “spirit” (breath and spirit are connected words in many many many languages). Not breath in the sense of “to breathe” as in the bodily function (that’s haal).

So what kind of a spirit is this? Well, it’s made of two roots: *kar- ‘heart, core’ and *am- ‘change’. Heart for mandalorians is also the seat of knowledge and by extension, consciousness. Change is a loaded concept spiritually.

But the interpretation I want to go with is that change is also considered the true nature of the reality and natural world, and is thus connected to a lot of words that relate to nature and reality. The Aay’han dictionary has aman (n): nature, lit. “one who changes all” and I absolutely adore that. So kar’am would be a more bodily spirit, related to life force, vital force, vitality and physical states. So you could derive words like:

akaan’karam: morale, fighting spirit

to’karam: “together spirit”, the spirit of pulling together for a common cause.

ures kar’am: listless, lifeless

Alternatively, you could derive these form oya instead.

Runi

runi (n): soul (poetic only)

My best guess is that this is *run- + nominal suffix -i.

Best I can tell, there are no other words related to it in the dictionary, unless it’s related to the past prefix r’/ru’ and ruug ‘old age’, in which case the sense could be something like “the thing which has gone” as in “the soul has fled”.

So what about the definition? Traviss says “poetic only”, so which poetic sense is she referring to? English (in which the translation is given) has several:

The innate quality that makes something itself, “the soul of (something)”. I would have been tempted to go for this sense, but for me that seems like repeating *maan-. It could of course be that over the time, maan has come to mean Mandalorianness specifically, so runi has acquired this more general sense which maan had originally.

The animating principle, vital force. Already interpreted kar’am this way. And even if I scrapped that interpretation, I’d go with oya instead, not runi.

Embodiment, personification. “You are the very soul of the party.”

Psyche, “body and soul”. Does not seem very “poetic” to me?

Person. “Not a soul.”

A strong positive feeling, inspiration, passion, fervour. Hmm, in Mando’a words like that seem to be derived from oya.

A supernatural spirit.

So which sense was Traviss going for? Shab if I know.

I’ll make a part 2 with some more derived words later, but now I want to post this before going to bed.

#mando’a #mandoa #meta: mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando’a language #mandalorians #mando'a #mandalorian philosophy #mandalorian religion #ranah talks mando’a #mando’a words #mando’a etymology #mando’a linguistics

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beautiful-basque-country · 9 months ago

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Kaixo !

Would you know words in euskara to refer to LGBT people ? I'm learning the language since only one of my parents speaks it and I only had a child vocabulary, and I don't really know where I would find slangs or if basque LGBT history is totally similaire to the one of Spain and France. The dictionaries I looked at only give the formal words and I was wondering if there was others (I don't dare to ask my father so I come at you, ô stranger on the internet).

Have a wonderful day !

Kaixo!!!

Here's a little word list found online:

Words to say lesbian:

Neskazale: girls enthusiast Aluzale, motxinzale, potxorzale: vulva enthusiast Motxinjale, pikujale, txirlajale: pussy eater Lesbiana hutsa: A lesbian who has never had sexual relations with a man. Bargasta: It has been used to designate shameless women, although it does not exclusively refer to lesbianism.

Bekatorosa: it means "sinners" and it's used in Iparralde. It was used as a queer response to the exclusion promoted by the hegemonic Catholic religion.

Bilitisen alabak: it means "the daughters of Bilitis". Lesbians were also called "the sisters of Bilitis". In 1894 Pierre Louÿs published a fake collection of Greek poems called The Songs of Bilitis where Bilitis is a Sappho's student and that is the reason why Bilitis and his daughters are rightly associated with lesbians.

Joxe-Joxepa: it means John-Jean taken from the dialect of the valley of Deba.

Kuku: it means cuckoo. It is used in the area of Oarsoaldea. "Cuckoo parties" were held in the past, the term may be related to the Kuku Herri district of Azkoitia.

Lamia: character of Basque mythology. A name that gays, lesbians and transsexuals use to call themselves in good humor or jokingly.

Lesbiama: from lesbiana + ama (mom), a word game for a lesbian who is a mother.

Emakoi, emaztekoi, andrakoi, neskakoi and verb neskakoitu: they can be used to mean to have a crush on girls, to slip into lesbian attitudes and actions.

Piper-opila: it means pepper cake. A word proposed by the Basque lesbians of EHGAM in Donostia to name themselves about twenty years ago.

Sorgin: meaning witch. It has been used in both good and bad ways.

Soropila: proposed as an alternative to 'bollera'. Formed by sorority + opila (cake).

Tortillera and bollera: literally, omelette maker and buns maker. They're common Spanish loanwords for lesbians in many areas of the Southern Basque Country.

Ulertua, kapaza: The understanding one, the one who understands. Codified statement to indicate that someone is gay or lesbian.

For butch:

Emarkia, marimutila, tunkurruna: tomboy

Hartzeme: it means female bear. It describes a masculine lesbian as an alternative to the English word butch. Other words are mariaker (mary male) and mari-motrailu.

Lumaontzi, lumadun, lumatzar, lumatza: the feathered one. A lesbian with a masculine look.

For femme:

Emaztetto, ematto, maripinpirin, marinexka, mariguapa

Words to say gay:

maritxu, garbiñe: they mean little Mary and Claire, used for femenine gay men. It was a slur but now it's been reclaimed.

tximeleta, marikoi: butterfly, fag*ot. Homophobic slurs, more and more reappropiated among the gay community.

atzelari: top

erregina: queen. A proud gay.

hartz: bear Vocabulary related to sexuality:

Andraketa: from woman + suffix of action. Sex or sexual activity between lesbians.

Andramin: from woman + pain. Strong sexual desire for women. Lesbian sex passion.

Neskatan or mutiletan egin: sort of "to do among the girls" or "to do among the boys". Flirt with girls / boys (same sex flirting).

Opila, opiltxo bat egin: Cake / Make a little cake. Two lesbians have sex.

Bilbon ibili: literally, to walk in Bilbo. To have sex.

[x, x]

Regarding LGBTI history in Euskadi, it's been linked to the one in Spain: heavily prosecuted during the dictatorship and after it - late 70s - the movement started to rally and ask for rights and legal protection. Some highlights:

1978: Basque congressman Francisco Letamendia Belzunce “Ortzi” defends for the first time ever LGBTI rights in Madrid.

1983: Legalization of the first Basque LGBTI association and decriminalisation of sex reasignment surgeries.

1994: First registration of a common-law partner in Gasteiz.

2003: Right to adoption to same-sex couples achieved in Euskadi.

2004: First edition of the International Gay-Lesbo-Trans Film Festival Zinegoak in Bilbo.

2009: Unity of Gender created at the Gurutzeta hospital (Bizkaia), formed by a multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, psychologists, endocrine system specialists, and plastic surgeons.

2010: The Basque Parliament passes a law proposal supporting the end of the consideration of transexuality as a mental illness.

Sorry for the loooong post!! Eskerrik asko for reading!

#euskal herria #basque country #pays basque #pais vasco #euskadi #culture #lgbtiq #words #euskera #euskara #basque #languages #history #word list #anons #queer community

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