#i have switched from lesbian to bi woman to lesbian to bi guy back to lesbian like 5 times this summer

[gideonisms]

I also love people who are not quite sure if they count as lesbians due to the ever-changing definitions of gender and sexuality but who do have lesbian problems and lesbian relationship dynamics and who get weird looks from straight guys but also sometimes from other gay people and who can't really put into words exactly what they are because that's not exactly the point but it might be nice if it was easier to explain but it is what it is

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi, it's follow up anon, this is kinda a mix of ask and vent (this is almost word to word copied from my venting journal)

so i saw this tiktok where the person said:

"me trying to explain how i get gender envy from boys but i'm comfortable being a girl but i wouldn't mind being a boy but i'm mostly comfortable with having female body but sometimes i want to have male body but i still want to be a girl but i feel like i'm neither"

and i felt that, like that's almost EXACTLY what's going on in my head.

bcuz like, fuck, what is gender? i wish i could just switch my gender like an outfit. i mean i'm a girl and shit like i'm pretty sure i'm not trans, but i really wouldn't mind being a guy, like i've always thought that if i randomly woke up as a boy i wouldn't care. but i wouldn't go as far as top surgery. but it varies from day to day.

i'm not nonbinary but i think maybe genderfluid, i've googled a bit and that seems pretty fitting. but idk cuz i've been a full on girl for 15 years, with no issues whatsoever, tho i've always wanted to seem kinda "manly" in guys' eyes, yk, like be strong and know about football, cars etc. but maybe i'm just masc? but i'm bi not lesbian, but does it matter? i don't think so

but back to the gender, i could imagine owning a binder in the future, but it's not the same, i want mans body, the pecs and abs, but i also want boobs.

aldjhkjshskha, fuck, this is frustrating.

and i want to cut my hair, but at the same time i want to grow it. well i mean i can always buy a wig i guess? but it isn't the same. the biggest problem is the shirtless part cuz i want to have a man chest. and boobs. ahhhh i get so strong gender envy from fit guys.

no but imagine this: i meet a cute guy, i'm feeling and dressing masculine that day. we really hit it off and maybe meet again, and later we yk want to fuck, but i'm not a man, i don't have a dick, no top surgery, no t, no nothing, i'm just a girl dressed as a guy. on the other hand i could get a top surgery and just be like i'm flat woman, but it's not that simple. and think the other way: i meet a girl and were gonna get nasty, and then i have a cooter and top surgery done. how is that not confusing to anyone? and if what gender i feel like varies, like they meet a cute guy, and week later i'm a girl.

and i want to love a man in a mlm way, (i've read way too much fanfincs) and i want to love a girl in a wlw way, but the tought of being in a straight relationship isn't repulsive or anything, it's just neutral. oh and fuck, i NEED to be friends with guys the way they are with each other, yk the "homie" kinda friendship.

uhmm, but yeah, that's pretty much it.

and again, have a lovely day/night <3

Hi! <3

Honestly, I think you should try some things out! If you're able, buy a binder, a wig, some different clothes. See what feels right, you know?

And as far as wondering if you'll find someone who's cool with you being one gender one day and a different the next- I'm genderfluid and my wife is great about it. I wasn't even out when i married her and she's STILL cool with it. If it turns out that's how you want to express your gender, you'll find someone who loves you for you <3

[starguardianniom]

Greetings fellow Billy Enjoyer~ I wanted to say that I love your long essays collecting the little bits and pieces of information we got on our Billy bOi :D

Majority of my friends play HSR or Genshin and my friends who do play ZZZ are usually guys who are more after the ladies (and Lycaon but I'm not surprised XD) so I don't usually get the chance to fan girl about my bOi Billy 😭

We are being fed literal CRUMBS about Billy and while I'm glad, I am starving 😭, though I am of the belief that Billy is much MUCH more important than what we are currently led to believe atm, which is why they are giving us crumbs and the occasional nugget of information as of the moment.

I hope to see more of your essays, as I also pray for more Billy fanfics XD

WHY THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!! T_T <3 <3 <3

Well as a woman who is a lesbian but is bi toward fictional men (XD) I am of course in love with Billy. He single-handedly ended my previous obsession with Baldur's Gate 3 and I seriously have played non stop since august with ZZZ, though that now I have used everything for pulls I am left starving for trying to maybe get Caesar, and I hope to be so freaking lucky for when Miyabi will come.

Rest assured I will continue fangirling about Billy and will make it everyone else's problem on this site. XD

Honestly I find Lycaon just ok, like sorry but after meeting Billy like Lycaon seems to just not look as alive as Billy because Billy is so dynamic as a character that some just don't feel to have the same energy as him, and the guy is a robot yet he feels more human and alive than some people I know. Extra ironic about Lycaon I don't have him but I got his W-engine yesterday when trying to get Caesar so I'm like "but I don't even have you what the ehll do you want me to do with your w-engine???"

Yeah we are fed, also found more background on him while doing a commission in the Outer Ring yesterday, I'll post that later today once I'm back from work. ^^ I mean dude is a freaking android made of lost technology and it seems nobody cares, or well the ones that do are people looking to dismantle him or sell him or use him as a weapon.

I am still legit miffed that he doesn't have an Agent Story yet, maybe one day all agents will have one, hopefully, maybe.

Currently I am running after Caesar because she just casually drops info on Billy that I need so bad and either my character doesn't press further or seems to want to diss him and I'm banging my head on my wall to make the game stop insulting my boy. I legit wish now that I played as Wise instead of Belle a bit but on PS5 I tried everything and I can't switch to Wise when walking around, dunno if that comes later with the last part of Cheesetopia or if it's gonna be with Burnice.

Oh worry not essays and headcanons are coming, just that they take over an hour to write. XD But I don't have school or homework, just work because I'm 30 years old and said work doesn't requires me to bring anything work related back at home at all so I can just unwind and write my ramblings and observations and just me fangirling. XD

Now I'm currently trying to get everyone leveled up to level 60, and so far Billy is the most leveled up at level 47 because I legit used all the things I had to level up Jane, Seth, Lucy and Piper, my dude Anton is only at level 20 and I don't need Koleda so she's staying at level 1 (legit miffed to have gotten her instead of Nekomata I wanted the entire Cunning Hares faction dammit!)

Did some other pulls yesterday, gave me 1 Piper and 1 Anby. So currently I have Billy M2, Seth M2, Anton M2, Anby M5, Nicole M1, Ben M0, Jane M0, Lucy M1, Piper M1, Corin M4, Soukaku M6. I also got Piper's engine twice.

Also bought Amillion because I kind of legit did pretty much everything with Billy, Nicole and Anby so. XD

I also have tons of headcanons about Billy... that keep changing each time we get new info on him because it pretty much destroys what I mentally pictured so I have to adjust and I'm even more motivated after that. XD

Feel free to come chatting more about Billy. Love Billy squad unite. I'll answer once I'm home and can finally get in front of my computer.

[fuck-comphet]

Hi! I have a legit question: Do you think someone's sexual orientation can change during their lifetime?? (And just so I'm clear, I don't mean "conversion therapy" or an “off/on switch” or anything like that.)

When I was a teenager/young adult, I thought I was bi: crushed on boys, but mostly fantasized about intimacy with girls. But years later, after a head over heels/gave me stomachaches I was so nervous/I wanted to be her everything crush on a female coworker lol, I slowly came to terms with my lesbian identity. I remember feeling lots of imposter syndrome because I didn't feel like I was gay since birth like so many stories I'd heard from other gays/lesbians. Bisexuality was even more frowned upon back then, and I remember really NOT wanting to be bi. But I waited for the "other shoe to drop" on crushing on a bunch of guys which, aside from a couple "comphet crushes" (a married guy who was "nice" to me, and a male coworker who paid attention to me that all the other women in the office thought was hot) never really happened. I sure started crushing hard on women though! Lol. And after a breakup with my only boyfriend, I remember craving a relationship with a woman at the time.

Now I'm older and legit feel like I can't stand the idea of being with a man. My long term partner is a woman, but even if we ever broke up, I see myself seeking only women or other sapphics. Sure, I find a few men (mostly on TV, from a specific demographic) attractive, but I don't really feel anything when I see them in the wild. I'm only questioning myself after now seeing all the updated discourse on lesbianism (in my day “lesbian” meant “mostly or only attracted to women”) and want to make sure I'm properly communicating and naming my identity.

I feel like I went from “secretly bi" to "publicly identifying as straight but suppressing my physical attraction to women” to “lesbian” without looking back. It could’ve been comphet, I’m not entirely sure. Do you think it’s possible for sexual orientation to shift like this though?

I think Ricky Martin said something about genuinely having loved the women he used to date, but he stands firmly in his gay identity today.... I can somewhat relate. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts!

Hi friend! Your question is something I think a lot of people wonder about and I guess it can also be quite polarizing in online queer spaces.

I want to start off by saying that "lesbian" can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, but the main thing I think most people agree with is that it excludes attraction to men. I want to follow that up with this: online discourse is online discourse, and real life people in the community are more real than any online discourse will ever be. If you currently feel zero attraction to men, and have zero desire to ever be with a man romantically and sexually, then in my mind you are a lesbian unless you specifically tell me otherwise.

In terms of shifting sexual orientation; I think anything is possible when it comes to human emotions and experiences. That's actually one of the main features of being human; we change, and grow, and adapt. There are as many queer experiences in the queer community as there are people. Also regarding Ricky Martin saying he genuinely loved the women he dated in the past; love is not necessarily always romantic or sexual, he could have loved these women as people, he could love them platonically, that doesn't make him less gay somehow.

I will conclude with this: why does it matter how you felt in the past vs now? No one else can tell you how you feel or how to identify, that's not anyone else's business but your own. There is no LGBTQ+ police, and if someone is saying you technically can't be a lesbian because you sincerely feel like you used to be bisexual, maybe you can tell them to kindly kill the cop in their mind. We don't police eachother in the queer community; we respect and uplift eachother.

As always, the queer community loves you <3

[tw1stedthicket]

fuck me man. after going back through some stuff and really thinking about it, im ngl, i feel pretty happy with just calling myself sapphic due to really only caring about being with women and wanting to define my relationships in that context and not in a context of including or centering men, and i wouldn't even mind if someone referred to me as lesbian even if it's not the word i would use, but that'a the thing! there's a word called "gay" and newsflash abby, that's what only wanting women is, even if you worm your way around not being called a "lesbian"; but! i am really afraid to own that. It's like, okay, i'm afraid of using the word "lesbian" due to what i'm afraid people might think, but if i tell people i like women and do what i wanna do.. they're gonna come to the same conclusion. I know this is internalized homophobia which makes me feel even more shameful, but it's me being honest.

What sparked this thinking was how i found a really cute bracelet of the "woman" symbol with the circle as a heart and it was linked to another one to represent 2 women connected and love for each other and stuff and i was like omg i wanna wear that that makes my heart go soft 🥹 but then i was like no because if i do that then i really have to own it! Theres no longer any way i can be like "well...yes....um....you see this only makes me happy because i also have an attraction to women...it's not that i really really love them haha... i am also attracted to everyone else too including men!" And so i was like well maybe i can do like a little rainbow! I can always say "i just like rainbows" right?

But then it's like ah goddamit people really are gonna assume then that im not bi! But i dont want people to think im bi and i dont know how that fucking works! The thing is, is i dont think to myself anymore than i am bi, even tho sure, there are lots of attractive and wonderful men. But i feel like my inclusion of them in my identity is me being disingenous, it's me including them because i know there is a real possibility that i would feel attraction toward a guy enough that i want to be with him but in reality if i felt that way about a guy, the thought that they might like me back makes me feel afraid, because somewhere in my fucked up thought process i am thinking that means im gonna be with him!! I like him, he likes me, we obviously get together right? But i dont want that! If i could honestly flip a switch where no guy ever liked me romantically again and instead just wanted to be good friends or besties and the strongest sense of attraction they felt to me was entirely platonic, i would flip it immediately! I wanna be their friends so much more! Please save me that anxiety. Is it anxiety from having to perform gender roles for them and in reality if i deconstructed those then i would see myself comfortably being with a man? Maybe?? I dont feel like fucking doing that work tho anyway because the attraction i feel toward men is, and im so sorry dudes, is like... not worth doing the mental lifting for for what it would take for me being with them. I'm sorry, women are literally right there instead. And i dont feel the same baggage for them, just genuine warm fuzzies. People tell me "oh women are just as complicated and human and capable of being bitches! It's hard work either way!" Okay but i have never wanted a man bad enough that i would stick with it like i would with an amazing woman i loved, and newsflash there are a million fucking more of them than there are men. *IN MY INTERPRETATION* again sorry dudes. Thats not even just saying like all dudes are bad people or something to have to do labor for, i just have to jump through hoops to find who i am to them, you know? I get out of myself in every romantic encounter/relationship ive had with guys. Again, is it because i was raised with fucked up experiences of what men and women are supposed to be like or do? I dont fucking know.

If i had to honestly and truthfully take a guess, my guess would be that i am capable of experiencing attraction and happiness with anybody, regardless of gender, given that the relationship is equal and based on a genuine love and respect for both people. In the sense that perhaps there are always exceptions to every rule because the world is so fucking big and there will always be humans out there that could make you question no matter how much you like a particular type of person, but also because maybe some of my attraction to men, as anxiety-producing as it tends to be, is more of an inner thing and actually could be be appropriately healed and manifested in genuine good feelings toward him and a desire to be with him i.e. true attraction. And maybe the reason i want to pursue romance and love and whatnot with women more is because it feels safer. And maybe part of that is because i am a woman myself. Is that wrong? Is it safer because it's more genuine? Hey, i think so in the most charitable part of my brain, but the comphet part of me says "women are always just emotionally connected and intuitive with each other ofc it's easier for them to have relationships with each other! the connection is just all women tho!" but that just serves to devalue the genuine attraction i feel for women that is romantic and sexual and all that :/ Like stfu brain, i dont think most women actually desire relationships with other women and life partners and stuff and labeling it as "just girls and their casual soulmate status with their best friend 🤪" pisses me off. But at the end of the fucking day i know what my choice is! Am i being biphobic? Thinking it's invalid and i need to choose? Well my mind feels like it's fucking chosen for me and i like women!

I hate this because then it makes me really sad like goddamn this really is me huh and i know how people fucking act and treat gay people or lesbian people and it makes me really fucking sad. I was just thinking to myself and it was like, yknow, i feel like i really am in a closet. And i have tried on an outfit that i think i would really like. And i put it on and have to close my eyes to do it because if i open them im gonna be too scared to really look at myself and go through with it. So then i put it on and it feels different, but it hugs my body in ways that feel comfortable even when i cant see it. And when i open my eyes and look in the mirror, it is startling but not surprising, and a little bit awe-some, and theres a moment of recognition that...In my private mind, this is how i see myself. What i am looking at on the outside is what i see on the inside. What i always wanted to be, at least. There's a "Finally" caught behind your breath but it feels not quite right to say that, because how could you have known? I never would have had i not let myself actually...explore. Actually recognize, i guess. But i cant exit the safety of my room, my closet, my dressing room, whatever it is. People would say im a freak, they'd be disgusted, at worst. People might forcibly rip at the clothes or force me to change. People might say theres nothing wrong with it but it's inappropriate to wear in public. People might even say "wow! That outfit really is you! But...i dont like this you." And a million things.

I'm so fucking new to this, i only recognized and realized attraction, and i mean genuine attraction, to women just a couple years ago even tho i had been privately questioning it for longer, but. Damn. It makes me really sad to think of the women that look at other women who like women and dont feel the same comraderie because they think im gross, or a predator, or something. It hurts to think of anyone thinking badly of me, but honestly its the other women that would see me differently that makes me sad. If men wanna be mad then fuck them but it makes me really sad to think that other women would not like me or distrust me.. :(

[redheadbigshoes]

Hi! I have a legit question: Do you think someone's sexual orientation can change during their lifetime?? (And just so I'm clear, I don't mean "conversion therapy" or an “off/on switch” or anything like that!)

When I was a teenager, I thought I was bi: crushed on boys, but mostly fantasized about intimacy with girls. But years later, after a head over heels/gave me stomachaches I was so nervous/I wanted to be her everything crush on a female coworker lol, I slowly came to terms with my lesbian identity. I remember feeling lots of imposter syndrome because I didn't feel I was gay since birth like so many stories I'd heard from other gays/lesbians. Bisexuality was even more frowned upon back then, and I remember really NOT wanting to be bi. But I waited for the "other shoe to drop" on crushing on a bunch of guys which, aside from a couple "comphet crushes" (a married guy who was "nice" to me, and a male coworker who paid attention to me that all the other women in the office thought was hot) never really happened. I sure started crushing hard on women though! Lol. And after a breakup with my only boyfriend, I remember craving a relationship with a woman at the time.

Now I'm older and legit feel like I can't stand the idea of being with a man. My long term partner is a woman, but even if we ever broke up, I see myself seeking only women or other sapphics. Sure, I find a few men (mostly on TV, from a specific demographic) attractive, but I don't feel anything when I see them in the wild, even the good looking ones. I'm only questioning myself after now seeing all the updated discourse on lesbianism, and want to make sure I'm properly communicating and naming my identity.

I feel like I went from “secretly bi" to "publicly identifying as straight but suppressing my physical attraction to women” to “lesbian” without looking back. It could’ve been comphet, I’m not entirely sure. Do you think it’s possible for sexual orientation to shift like this though? I think Ricky Martin said something about genuinely having loved the women he used to date, but he stands firmly in his gay identity today.... I can somewhat relate. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts!

Hi! I think 99% of the time people’s sexuality doesn’t change, what happens is that most of the time people are bisexual but their preference can change and make them think they’re either homosexual or straight. Bisexuality can be a fluid identity, a lot of bisexuals can change their gender preferences over time, but I feel like those preferences just change, not that they actually stop being attracted to a certain gender. This also goes to aro/ace people (imo), their amount of sexual/romantic attraction might change over time but they’re still in the aspec.

Also when it comes to gays and lesbians who used to identify as bi before they figured out their identity, it’s not that they once were actually bi, they just took more time to figure out their lack of attraction to the opposite gender. This also goes to the opposite situation: someone who used to identify as gay/lesbian but later started identifying as bi. I honestly think they were always bi but they just had a heavy gender preference that made them think they weren’t.

I’ve seen some people bring up a situation where there was abuse and trauma involved and that trauma made them stop being attracted to a certain gender or made them be attracted to a certain gender. I’ve never been through anything like that, and though maybe that person’s sexuality could’ve actually changed, I think what happened is that after that trauma they suppressed their feelings towards a certain gender, and maybe those suppressed feelings made them realize their attraction to another gender (that attraction was always there but never really explored).

Idk exactly what Ricky Martin said, but maybe that love for the woman he used to date isn’t sexual and romantic, there’s other kinds of love that do not involve sexuality. Maybe he just really cares about that woman and he loves her platonically, but was never sexually and romantically attracted to her.

[summercool3]

Ch6: Omg, is she going to get with her old art teacher??

Ch8: SHE DID OMG, FULL ON!

Ch 10: Ahh, now she's got two dates, 1 with Alice & 1 with her teacher. I'm sure she's a lesbian, well, bi!

Ch12: Ok... I am super curious where this is going now!! I do think Ellie is going to have her first lesbian experience (!!!) with Alice, but whats happening with Mr Windsor? I switch between thinking he's sweet, and thinking he's... very creepy. In a bad way. Now we've found out that he's sleeping with a TWENTY-THREE y/o from work, when he's in his 50s!! Ellie is bothered by it too... and seriously, why is he so interested in Ellie already? He said he was disappointed when he wasn't invited to her party, but why would he care about his old school student?? Nadine said he took a special interest in her at school too.

Also, was that a total Saltburn move? She's come on and he doesn't care, I mean he doesn't like relish in it I guess (like Saltburn!) but he goes for it still... is it meant to be a clue he's a bit of a deviant??

And, who tf is leaving her romantic gifts at her flat? It is a bit scary...

And now I'm starting to ponder on the title 'think again'... I thought it was like if you think life's crap, think again, but... maybe its a clue to think a bit more carefully into the plotlines!!!! I really hope its not those kids from the park, we did get a clue that it might be a young boy in her class. She said she was going to hint about a doorstep to him to see if he blushed... Ahhh.

Ch13- Omg... I'm starting to get scared for her now. There's ANOTHER 'gift' from this mysterious person at her house... this time it's a card with a poem that 'I love you'... its so creepy 🙈 and scary. Who is it?!?! It can't be Alice can it??? Gary?? A kid would be really disturbing... that's the only people it could be... I need to go back and check when she first got one!!!

Ch16- Omg, we've just found out that the gifts & presents she's getting is from some creepy guy called Nigel!!! I forget who he is!! At least it wasn't a child!! He's with her AUNT?! It can't be a family member can it...? I vaguely remember him from the party chapter. Next chapter should tell me!!

Ch19- Wow, only 2 more chapters to go! She's slowlyyy starting to realise that she's into women, she was fantasising about a girl similar to Alice whilst with Mr W/Gary!!! And Nadine said at the restaurant that what she was describing wanting from a partner sounded like a woman... she's eager to see Alice again but she kinda managed to scare her off because Alice showed up whilst Gary was round (Gary was rude to her then said after that Alice fancies her) and then she felt awkward and left (who can blame her???), and then the chapter just ended with Alice sending her an abrupt message to say they're just swimming buddies 😬 also Gary is annoying me as much as he's annoying Ellie, altho I can get why she still likes him during the s3x scenes 🤣

Also Lottie has got in touch with her dad and it really upset Ellie, but he accused Ellie of not telling him about her (yes and no?? She only told him the once when she was initially pregnant and then nothing since then so EH you can see it both ways), but she's interpreted that that he's trying to paint her out as the bad guy and thinks he'll hurt Lottie... but he's now a married man with 2 kids so I'm not sure!!!

How only 2 chapters to go? :O

Ch21- Aww. It ended with her getting together with Alice! Mr W ended up saying slightly hurtful things to her which sucked! I did feel bad for him a bit too, but he was too bossy. Good light-touch smut scenes though!

[acertainmoshke]

I never really wrote much of this down because I had trouble finding a plot since there was no magic or saving the world or anything, but years ago I had these 3 characters who were all in love with each other and part of me is still attached to them.

Victoria "Vick" Winters was a lesbian who grew up in a small town and abusive home before running away after losing her sister. Her backstory was very dramatic and included homelessness and a long stint of being the "kept" girlfriend of an older woman while still a teenager because it let her have a comfortable place to live and a kitchen to cook in. She loves cooking and photography and cute clothes. She's disabled and eventually unable to work to help support the family, which is part of where 2 other adult incomes come in.

Mallory "Mal" Artemis was also a young lesbian from the city, who got kicked out of her parents' house in high school for kissing a girl. She did graduate (unlike Vick) by couch surfing for 6 months, then drifting between shelters while she tried to save up enough for a real place. That was where Vick and Mal met, and eventually both got low-wage jobs that let them have a tiny place to themselves. Mal eventually ends up going to school to be an electrician, which she does for several years before switching careers to working on theater sets. She loves musicals and making elaborate scenes in Legos.

Megan Beck: she was bi and actually had a wonderful family and was well-adjusted. Her parents love her. Her brother is a librarian and they're very close. She's a 2nd grade teacher and though (this was initially set a while ago) she's not overtly out at work, she has a good relationship with her colleagues and loves her job. However, she also ended up in an abusive marriage that she only just escaped and led her to move and start over, which was when she met the other two. She was their roommate at first and then feelings developed in all directions.

Megan has a son, Jon, who is autistic and gnc and a teenager by the main story. He is colorful and likes cute fun things, and also violent video games, and wants to be a lawyer.

They also have 2 younger kids that I have given various genetic provenances over the years

Ali is a couple years younger than Jon, nonbinary, and struggles with their mental health. They like reading and drawing comics, they like to help bake, they enjoy horror movies. But they struggle to control their moods and deal with the world.

Helena is much younger than the other two, autistic, and nonverbal. All the kids are treated as belonging to all of the adults, but Helena is basically glued to Vick most of the time. She's still very young and likes cartoons, stuffed animals, and dinosaurs.

Oh, also Vick has a little sister

So yes this is overly dramatic and angsty but I was 18 when I had these ideas and also I kind of genuinely enjoy ridiculously angsty backstories ok

So Vick's Mom, Tammy, was not cut out to be a mother. She was a mother purely through the statistics of how often she meets guys. She usually doesn't get pregnant, but 3 times she did. The first was Vick's older sister, Clara, and then a couple years later Vick. The two were very close and Clara sort of looked out for her sister in a way that allowed Vick to grow up freer, more social, and less depressed. Their plan was to leave the second Clara turned 18, but she died at 17 and Vick, unable to handle being alone with her mother, ran away.

I used to have the math on this down but I have since forgotten it. Sometime in the next 2-3 years, Tammy ended up having another daughter, Wren. And no she isn't a cardboard monster, just an abusive and incompetent parent. She did grieve her older daughters, but reacted in part by never mentioning them to Wren.

When Wren was a young teenager, either Tammy died or Vick somehow found out about her (went back and forth on this), and got custody. And that caused drama because while Jon was a really easy teenager since he had been raised by being listened to and valued and felt safe enough to be himself and so was willing to be helpful, Wren was difficult because she was always on the lookout for betrayal and used to relying on herself.

Side note: the story was called Hell Froze Over (as in "sure, we can be together when hell freezes over") because for a while I put it in an apocalyptic setting before sticking it back in the real world

Everyone has those ideas that never make it to the paper. Either they just won't fit with your current story, the character doesn't have a world, the world doesn't have a character... But we love them anyways.

Use this as a way to share your love for that scrapped scene, cut character, lost plot point - or even for a story that never made it off the drawing board!

[luxgalador]

Can I ask, how did you come to find your name? (I love it btw!)

so i'd always admired the name Lux, from Latin meaning "light." there was a couple people online that i'd followed that went by Lux or Luxie. i just liked the name a whole lot.

flash forward to me, a certified Splatoon 2 for the Nintendo Switch Entertainment System sweat, a real bastard of a gamer girl, an ancient entity nearing 30 years of age shitting on children (in game), yet frustrated with the low quality of play in a solo queue environment.

wanting to ease the stress and pressure, i made an alt account where rank didn't matter to me so i could just play the game without concern for my stats and work on my mechanics (the splatoon children do not slow down, they must be shit upon [in game] so i must keep up as their elder, especially the japanese children they are the final boss of splatoon gameplay).

i thought, "well let's have fun here and make the inkling on this account into an OC of sorts" because who doesn't love a good character creation and in splatoon putting clothes on your little guy is part of it. so i named her Lux since i was sweet on that name already. i got really attached to this OC like instantly, like i'm talking INSTA-PACK-BOND type vibe with a squid child made of pixels on a game console. i thought to myself, "that's interesting" and continued grinding the account out of low rank.

i assumed the story would end there, that i'd just game and have this cute little inkling OC and maybe eventually would commission some cute art of her (aside: the splatoon community is filled with immensely talented artists and creatives of all sorts, so not only is it a great game [with a new title coming out in about a month], it has a thriving and lovely global community).

READER, THE STORY DID NOT END THERE

i had a dream where Lux was actually my name, and in this dream i was further along in my transition (was they/themming at the time and settled into an androgynous aesthetic) and i was happy. i woke up, decided to receive that message, and started trying Lux out in my discord server and on twitch. 1 week later it was changed everywhere including at work and within my family.

a very common trans experience is an extremely clear hindsight. for years, i settled in a nonbinary/bi+ queer identity because i felt undoubtedly queer but there was a large part of myself that didn't feel like i was "allowed" to truly have what i wanted. this extended beyond identity. i had internalized very young this notion that the way to survive is to ask for and impact others as little as possible, to not make waves. my entire life, if asked, i would tell you that i would've "rather been born a woman." but that didn't clarify to me that i was just, in fact, a woman until like 6 months ago.

6 months ago.

i was an outspoken queer advocate to an audience of thousands in my heyday on youtube. i had shed my cis identity in 2016. i had literally been medically transitioning with feminine hormones since summer 2019 (3 years coming up on that btw). but it wasn't until 6 months ago that i allowed myself to speak the words "i am a woman. i am a lesbian."

truth be told, i was holding back this dam my whole life. because my river would intersect with others, would siphon water from the lake above. if i were to let my river flow (at least in my mind), i would be taking water from others. it's less important for me to thrive than it is for my family, workplace, really any institution i'm a part of to survive. that's how my body and brain reacted to stressors and trauma as a little. obviously that's not how nature works.

each seismic shift in my identity represented a piece of that dam breaking off, allowing some of the water to flow. coming out as queer in 2013, not cis in 2016, each pronoun change and transition step, the name change in spring 2021. all those holes in the dam made the structure weaker, until it broke early this year while i was emerging from a dark place at the end of my time in los angeles.

Lux was there all along. she was there in Connor's body of work, who took her pain and turned it around towards helping people through her videos. she was there at her jobs, in her relationships. the light was there. it took a bit for her to turn that light towards herself entirely, but she did it.

i did it.

my name represents an imagery and an intent to how i want to walk through this world and how i want to undertake projects and goals. how i want to treat others. all of it with love. all of it with light.

thanks for asking this.

[causewealwayshaveeachother]

she/they bi trans butch lesbian nick

bc. nick dresses like a butch lesbian

pins: x x x / ritual 6 / ID in alt text

some hcs:

nick is very much the sort of "i am a woman because i'm a lesbian" sort of gender

not nonbinary, just likes she/they pronouns

she's out to her family, and to her girlfriend (and her girlfriend's dad) and that's it. coming out is hard. it means people asking questions and changing perceptions and losing friends. there's also just, like, so many steps. there's too many things you need to do. hell. hell. what if they just didn't -> it also might mean getting switched to the girls' lacrosse team, and like, nick is all for trans inclusivity in sports, but like, these are her guys. and also the team she knows how to work with. really, they ought to make it co-ed

nick is the handsomest butch princess at the princess dance party <3 -> alternatively, nick attending a short-notice princess dance party in her normal clothes + a pink feather boa and plastic tiara for that nuanced gender experience

nick's little sister is the coolest kid in her class because she has a "secret sister" -> adults assume this is an imaginary friend. kids assume she's a superspy like kim possible. nick's sister doesn't confirm or deny anything because she's good at secrets

carrie likes having "girls' nights" and painting nick's nails while they gossip and vent. nick doesn't get any particular gender euphoria from having painted nails, but it is gender affirming in the "this is a thing girls do together" sense

nick's very happy with their gender presentation, actually

being only out to carrie is part of why they stay in their on/off relationship for so long; nick doesn't want to lose being able to go over to carrie's house and just vibe knowing that all 2 people there know she's a girl. she really doesn't want to have to come out to more people -> nick liked hanging out with carrie more before they were dating. but there's no going back now! -> it's not like you can just go back to being friends with your ex or anything!!

nick, posessed by caleb: well THAT's definitely not my gender. nice to have those lingering doubts handily done away with. also, i would like to not be posessed please

nick is now significantly less okay with being constantly misgendered by 99% of everyone they know! -> cause yk. being possessed by a transphobic ghost pretending to be you for months. it has what one might call An Effect

after all the caleb stuff, nick ends up hanging out with the whole ghost band gang more & makes trans friends for the first time! -> they also learn that you can, actually, go back to being friends with your ex, if you're willing to like, have an honest conversation and talk it out

with all the openly trans people in the ghost band gang (flynn, luke, willie, reggie in particular as a fellow transfem) nick feels a lot more comfortable and undaunted by the idea of coming out to them since, like, they already know what's up -> nick's like what's up i'm a she/they bi lesbian and flynns like damn same and then they high five

bc she's now regularly hanging out with a whole bunch of people who know her pronouns and thus hearing them used with some regularity, she starts to get used to it for the first time :) -> downside: now it feels bad when people don't use them. that plus yk. The Caleb Thing means that now they kinda really want to be out, instead of relegating All That to a nebulous future where it's easy and not complicated. Oh Fuck That's So Much Shit To Do. luckily, she has her friends by her side :)

julie and flynn (and luke and alex and reggie and willie and the molinas) help motivate & support her to actually go through with coming out instead of just continuing-not-to-but-now-it-feels-bad -> and help her remember & deal with all the Billion Fucking Steps and Paperwork. executive dysfunction is easier with a friend<3

when nick comes out publicly, she literally just starts wearing pronoun pins. no other changes in appearance whatsoever. she already dressed exactly how she liked :)

when she gets her name legally changed, she just changes it to nick, bc changing your legal name to a nickname of your deadname rules

[sapphos-darlings]

So, for context: my father used to give me hell over the probability of me being gay and over the fact that I look like a dude. I've been fighting against this nonsense for many years, but as I just started winning, I feel like giving up and becoming normal.

Finding out that I'm gay and not bi is already too much for me. Obviously, I cannot change that. But I want to be normal in at least one aspect in my life. Yes, unisex and masculine clothing make me euphoric. I'm at my best mood when I look like that. However, I'm not gonna die if I try to apply some makeup or put on something more feminine. The downside is if I do, guys might start checking me out. I know that in a few years I'll probably move out, so this advantage won't matter, but at least I'll cause less suspicions for my family and I'll look more like my favorite alternative character. Recently, while looking at myself in the mirror, I got flashbacks to what I heard and it completely messed me up. Yes, I'm winning the fight for my preferences, but at what cost? I do not feel like a winner, I hate myself for being tomboyish/soft butch and I feel like a stubborn teenager who was arguing over nothing (I'm in my mid twenties). I just wish I could be normal in at least one aspect of my life. Sure, I may hate wearing all that, but it won't kill me to switch things up. I'll look cute, my family will leave me alone and I'll get to look like one of my favorite characters. Everybody wins, so what's holding me back?

Hello, Anon!

Ah, I relate to your stuggles. I too grew up gender-nonconforming, I'm to this day pretty regularly mistaken for a man despite what I wear, and I'm also a lesbian. That is indeed a lot. I understand how it can feel like "too much".

But this is not all you are. You are focusing on your looks and your sexuality a lot here, and for a good reason. You are right, they do affect our lives drastically, and not the least because other people - even those closest to us, such as family - have their own strong opinions and may even judge us solely for those aspects. You write that you wish at least one aspect of you could be normal, and that certain clothes make you feel "euphoric". You use very strong words for these feelings and experiences, but at the same time you feel like giving up.

So what's holding you back? Probably your self-respect. Because even though you're tired and feel this immense pressure, you still want to act loving towards yourself. You have struggled a lot and want it to get easier, of course you do. But I think that deep down you know who you are, and you know you deserve better, and you want to protect these personal, valuable parts of you.

It's very normal to have strong emotions about subjects this close to your heart, things that are so personal, and things that you have put a lot of energy into. You have been through a lot. People you should have been able to trust and rely on to protect you have not done that, but instead caused you pain. You have fought for yourself for a long time. I'm sorry for all the pain you have endured, but very happy that you are here today.

As a woman pushing thirty, I have good news to you: It gets better with age. Things get easier. You are in your mid-twenties and you are looking towards an independent future. I think at least some of your "giving up" feeling is just you are growing out of old pains.

You are so much more than your sexual orientation and your clothes. I know it's a lot to take in and come to terms with, but you can take babysteps. Ground yourself first, solve small problems, take on everyday challenges, do simple things that make you happy. Maybe you are not a confident butch lesbian in perfect harmony today, but you are you every day of your life, no matter what. Maybe tomorrow you are someone who simply does her best, works on silencing negative self-talk, and separates opinions of others from your sense of self worth. Then the day after that, you do it again.

You said you wish you were normal in at least in one aspect of your life, and you definitely are. There's more to you than these two things, and I would bet that you have basic interests, basic hobbies, ordinary worries and beautiful, wonderful hopes and dreams that many people share with you. You might feel hyperaware of some things, but I promise you, those are not be all end all.

Now, actual concrete advice for changing your situation: How can you change your circumstances? You need a long term plan of how to get on your own. Have you made plans to go to school? Or to work? How about move out on your own? What you might need is a step-by-step plan with short-term goals leading up to your big target goal. Have you thought of a profession? Do you have one? How about living on your own, or perhaps with roommates in order to cut costs? Maybe you need a job now and a saving plan to get enough money to do it. Research is your friend, and online you are bound to find people who have been through something similar, and resources on how to get out of difficult family situations.

Meanwhile, focusing on your hobbies, interests, school work, job, friend group activities, whatever you have in your life or you are interested in having, would divert your family's attention too. The very least those will keep you out of the house.

Also, company and friendship of women like you is the balm to your emotional wounds. Seek out other butch and gender non-conforming women, however you can. IRL would of course be the best, but online communities can be just as wonderful and giving, and perhaps more easily available.

Sure, you wouln't die of some mascara, but giving yourself away piece by piece doesn't mean that everybody wins, it means you lose. You are worth so much more than that. You are special.

I wish you all the good luck and strength! Don't give up.

-Lavender

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy Season 8: Review

It’s bad. It’s just... really... bad. That’s the TL;DR of this review. There was one (1) good thing about this season and that was the return of Oz. So if you’re looking for something that hypes season 8? This is not it. If you are confused, angry or salty about season 8? Hi, yes, me too.

Starting at the beginning. At first, I was really happy that they introduced more characters of color, with Renee and Satsu. And when Renee was then even “promoted” to Xander’s love interest? Nice. The two were even cute.

But no. That was all just the set-up to fridge her. Which, I am so very tired of that trope. And that is what that was. That wasn’t just a slayer dying during a fight. The entire issue of her death focused on her and Xander, building up to their relationship, setting them up for their first date, having her be prominently featured, just to then kill her off and have Xander avenge her.

What made it feel even worse - worse than just the fridging - was that they really had to fridge one of their very few women of color. And, to top it off, spend the entire issue in which she dies having her subjected to racism. Just great. Really, you managed to make an already shitty trope even worse. That’s impressive.

The racism itself too. Dracula. They just decided to make Dracula totally racist now, huh? and it doesn’t get a pass just because Xander points out in the comic that he doesn’t remember Dracula being this racist. Because he wasn’t. This Dracula just throws around slurs left and right in a way that feels more like the writers just really wanted to use slurs. Because the character? He was suave, charming, heck he charmed the straight men and the lesbians too when he was on the show. He was a smooth talker. This Dracula? He just... He was just racist and rude in general. Why.

Moving on from the racism to the next failure in rep. The gays. At this point in time I am simply convinced that Joss Whedon is entirely unfamiliar with the concept of bisexuality.

I know I’ve already made a separate post complaining about this, but it needs mentioning in the review of the season too. Having Buffy hook up with a lesbian twice, but #NoHomo, just a straight girl in her “experimental phase”. That’s just cringey and also offensive. Just... make her... come out as a bisexual? It’s not like the writing in the show hadn’t already set her up with quite the bi vibes.

Instead, the narrative made it sound like the only options would be to be straight or to now suddenly turn “into” a lesbian. Which is also offensive on itself, because - as this very show had proven on screen - lesbians can come out later in life and genuinely, I adore Willow’s arc. For her narrative, it fit to have her come out as a lesbian, the circumstances and her life fit for that. I absolutely agree that it would have been weird for Buffy to have a sudden coming out as a lesbian at that point in her life and after everything, but referring to it as turning into a dyke was just not great.

And lesbian wasn’t the only option. Though, I’m unsure Whedon knows that, considering that 6/6 canon queer characters are homosexual and 4/4 wlw are lesbians. They just keep introducing more lesbians - which, as a lesbian I am always in favor of more lesbians. However, when you have a very small number (2) of queer characters, it figures you can not cover all the sexualities and it’s even fair that even with two, you still choose to have them both be the same sexuality. But... the more you add? The more questionable it becomes that you limit it to one sexuality only.

This arc would have so beautifully set up for Buffy to come out as bi. But no.

And while we’re on the wlw; one of the things I always loved about Buffy was that the lesbians weren’t just there for the male gaze, they weren’t oversexualized. They desired each other, they even had sex. But... in a normal frame work, to a normal amount, meaning equal to how the straights were handled. I always liked that, because especially in early days, lesbians were usually just there to look really hot and have hot sex that straight men could get off to. Well, consider me very unimpressed with the comics, because... man are lesbians sexualized now. Willow gets a hot constantly naked snake goddess girlfriend whom she can only contact by - and I am not making this up - having an orgasm. So we prelude the trip by her having sex with Kennedy, before waking up all nude in snake goddess’ realm and usually having am makeout session or sex with her too while doing whatever business she has with her. So much nakedness, so much oversexualization. Really... disappointing.

Staying on the romance but turning to the other Summers sister, I truly can’t believe they made Xander/Dawn canon. Like, I can not comprehend they decided to make that a canon ship.

Sure, Dawnie’s had a crush on Xander since the literal beginning of Dawn. And that was... cute, honestly. Fifteen year old girls have crushes on cute older guys who are nice to them. Figures. Adorable. But she kind of... grew out of that over the course of the show? Or so it seemed...

And Xander. One of the things I loved about Xander was that Dawn was always a total no go. She was Buffy’s sister, heck, she was kind of every Scoobie’s little sister. He had always had brotherly advise for her. Heck, in this comic he points out that it’s weird since he’s known her since she was little - and yeah it is. It’s not weird when two people were both little together, but when one was sixteen when the other was eleven and one has babysat the other? That’s weird.

Getting infinitely more disturbing by the fact that she... literally... just turned eighteen. If they had put this into a rather later season, or a bigger time skip, had Dawn been A WomanTM for a few years now and Xander had gotten around to separating the idea of kiddo!Dawnie from the woman she has become, but Dawn is only eighteen, she hasn’t become a woman yet. She just turned legal to bang and thus, a switch was flipped in Xander’s mind, putting her on his radar. And just... no. Why.

And even beyond this decision; Dawn spends the first third of this season being slut-shamed in ridiculous ways. Which is also tiresome. I am the last person to defend cheaters, but there’s a difference between “You cheated and are being held accountable for it” and “You cheated so now you are cursed to be a giant, a centaur and then a porcellain doll for weeks at a time, being publicly humiliated and having control over your body taken away from you”. That was... sure a choice.

Moving on to the actual main problem of this season. The plot.

Starting with the incomprehensibly dumb idea of “hey let’s retreat to Tibet, put a huge target on Oz’s new home and get rid of all of our magic. surely that will not come to bite us in the arse when the bad guys find us”. Naturally, it came back to bite them in their collective asses. This was just... No one objected or pointed out how dumb that plan was? Really? No one? Really?

Anyway, let’s talk villains. And work our way up there. The return of Amy and Warren. Once again, I ask why. I’m still salty about the 180° Amy did from sweet Wiccan to wicked bitch after her stint as a rat, but having her now... hook up with Warren, the second biggest misogynist on this show, who is also skinless. She used a spell to keep him alive but she couldn’t... give the spell a color? Anything? Anything to not make him look flayed? Because this was just unnecessarily gross body-horror.

Not to mention the... lack of reaction? Sure, some spoke grumpily against working with Warren. But... this is Warren. The guy who killed Tara when he was trying to kill Buffy. There really should have been more breather-scenes of the Scoobies talking about this, digesting the fact that the guy was still alive and more so when they worked with him.

But nevermind them, because they’re working for Angel. Because Angel’s the villain behind this season. I mean, he was manipulated into that by Twilight, but manipulated means he still chose to do it.

Now let me preface that I might not ship Angel/Buffy, but that really only factors marginally in here, because this plot would be bullshit even if it were my OTP.

We now retcon the creation of the Slayers as not just being something dirty old men did in a cave, it was now all the greater plan of the universe. Which. Might have worked had Slayers been... naturally occuring. And not created by men, forcing this upon a young woman. Sure, what people do can be seen as the greater plan of the universe too if you will, but that seems like a cop-out that absolves bad people of their bad choices and deeds.

Anyway. The universe created Slayers and vampires and the ““balance”“ between them (which is bullshit anyway because 1 Slayer vs thousands of vampires... not balanced at all), including the now supposedly destined romance between Angel and Buffy.

Both get rewarded with super-powers now so they can super-fuck and thus give birth to a new universe. That universe is called Twilight and manifests as a burning, winged, green lion who can talk (because that sure is how I always headcanoned Angel/Buffy’s children to look like /s) and who, through time-travel shenannigans, has been manipulating Angel into his own creation.

The magic pull between them is so strong that it overrides the “Angel just caused the death of over two-hundred Slayers” so Buffy fucks him.

At which point I just... this season was flat-out character assassination of Angel? He was manipulated by the bad guy. Not controlled, manipulated. He caused the death of hundreds. He threw everything he stood for and believed in out the window for the promise of a paradise where he could be with Buffy, when the real Angel has chosen other things, higher goals, over being with Buffy over and over again, because that’s what they do. That is their whole thing, they choose the good of the world over being together. They have always been a “will they/won’t they?” where the answer is they won’t, because they know they are needed elsewhere, by others. But now Angel just... doesn’t care about all that anymore, or heck about his own son and his friends, ready to abandon everything for this.

And then when Twilight is born and consequently abandoned by Buffy, who still prioritizes her friends, family and the world over being with Angel, Angel actually... needs convincing in the abandoning? Because, again, character assassination. Ultimately, Angel gets controlled by Twilight and used to kill Giles and try to kill Buffy.

But thanks to the Deus Ex Machina of Spike dropping in in the final arc, they know how to stop this. He hasn’t been in this season so far, because - truly in line with this season - he was off being the king of a race of alien bugs, traveling in their space-ship.

To stop this all, they go back to Sunnydale, where of course the “heart of the Earth” is located, the seed that contains all magic, and destroy it, and with it all magic. Also, the Master was apparently always just there to guard that seed. He is now back from the dead!

Let me summarize that once more, just for emphasis: The universe wanted Buffy and Angel to fuck so they can give birth to a new universe that personifies as a green, winged, burning lion but before it can destroy our universe, Spike, now king of an alien bug race, delivers the solution to go back to Sunnydale and destroy the seed of all magic that is being guarded by a resurrected Master.

How do you read that with a straight face? How do you pitch that? This is just so incomprehensibly stupid.

We end the comic with Buffy as a waitress, hated by many, Xander and Dawn now have an apartment and are playing house, Willow broke up with Kennedy because she realized she is in love with the snake goddess she will now never get to see again, Giles is dead, Faith somehow inherited everything from Giles and she is also the designated Angel-sitter now.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Bisexuality didn't "feel right" as a label because you're biphobic and will do anything to distance yourself from bisexuality. Get well soon, the bi community will be here when you're ready.

Are you the raging homophobe anon back for round two or a new guy? ...It doesn’t really matter, you people are all the same.

If you are the same anon, then now I’m extra pissed off at you because do you have any idea how difficult it is to make fun of your messages? You’re making this really hard for me. First you send a five word ask declaring me a homophobe with no details, and it took a lot of thinking to come up with a vaguely funny response to such a lackluster prompt. You’re a really bad improv partner.

And now you send me this shit. Sorry everybody, no jokes today, now I’m actually just fucking furious.

Let me tell you a story, anon. When I was an innocent little twelve year old back in the far of reaches of 2011, I first discovered Tumblr, and soon enough I was learning about different genders and sexualities, and began exploring my own identity. As you already know since you’re sarcastically quoting me talking about my own fucking feelings, I’d been having a minor sexuality crisis for several years at that point, since gay, straight and bisexual were the only label I’d known before then, and none of them fit me. Despite me trying all of them. Multiple times. You condescending piece of shit.All this was resolved by me stumbling across a post defining pansexuality, and that being the first and only sexual identity that’s ever actually felt right for me. It clicked instantly, and has continued to be my sexuality for literally a decade now.

But back when I first started entering the queer community, pansexuality was actually pretty controversial. So was bisexuality. The two were just lumped together actually, because according to the exclusionists back then, bi/pan people are attracted to the opposite sex, and therefor are basically just straight. Actually they rarely cared enough to bother differentiating between bisexual and pansexual people, they just lumped us all in together as a bunch of heteros pretending to be gay for attention and oppressing the real gays. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be gay for attention. So there I was, a twelve year old queer kid with a brand new identity, being welcomed by a bunch of exclusionists angrily yelling about how I was definitely just a hetero faking it for attention, and being pansexual was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Let’s jump forward a few years. I was older, and still perfectly confident in my identity as a pansexual. I hadn’t considered any other parts of my identity. Why would I? I just never really thought much about gender. Then shortly after my fourteenth birthday, I watched a short film online about a trans boy figuring out his identity and working up the courage to come out to his mother. I don’t remember what it was called or most of the details. All I remember was the last scene where the boy and his mother got into an argument about him not feminine enough, which ended with him screaming that he wasn’t a girl. And then I unexpectedly burst into tears because neither was I.

So that was a fun surprise. Once I pulled through that unexpected sobbing breakdown in the middle of the night and re-evaluated my entire life, I realized that yeah. I really wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t a boy either. Fortunately by then I knew that nonbinary people were a thing, so I had plenty of options. I spent awhile feeling things out and experimenting with different labels and pronouns before finally settling on agender and they/them pronouns. Which was great! I felt better than ever, and was confident that I had my identity down and everything would be fine. But everything was not fine. Because I’d been so happy about the biphobia dying down that I hadn’t quite noticed the exclusionists switching targets. Now the nonbinary people were lying. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. The ones who wanted to medically transition were declared to actually be poor confused trans people who couldn’t get over their internalized transphobia to accept their True Identities. And the rest of us... well, we were just a bunch of cishet special snowflakes playing at being trans for attention, and oppressing the real trans people. I wasn’t agender. I was a cis girl making up fake identities for attention, and calling myself nonbinary was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Step forward a few more years, now to eighteen year old me. There’s no dramatic revelations or long struggles this time, just a slow realization. Because I’d been single for years, and I wasn’t bothered by that. I actually enjoyed it. Marriage didn’t sound very appealing. Neither did dating. I’d dated people before, but I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to; it was just... the thing I was supposed to do. I found people attractive, sure. But I hadn’t wanted to flirt with anyone. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, had I ever felt romantically attracted to anyone? I didn’t even want romance in fiction! So I experimented. Went on some dates just in case age made it more appealing (it didn’t). Began calling myself aromantic, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the longer I used it, the better it felt. It was right.

But once again, the exclusionists were back and even angier than ever. Because now aphobia was in full swing. After all, asexuality wasn’t really queer. It’s just not having sex! It’s basically straight! What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. And the aromantics, oh the aromantics who weren’t asexual were even worse. Because everyone knows that love is what makes us human. How could someone not feel romance? Us aro people weren’t just lying about our identities, we were pretending to not have feelings so that we could get away with using people for sex without commitment. Being aro meant I was an abusive sex crazed monster taking advantage of all the poor innocent allo’s. I wasn’t aromantic. I was a sexual predator making up a fake identity to take advantage of people, and even though I wasn’t actually sleeping around calling myself aro was Bad and Wrong. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

And I didn’t fucking do that.

Look. I’ve been here for a very long time, and I have dealt with so many versions of exclusionist bullshit. Every aspect of my identity has been met with random fucking strangers online smugly informing me that I was wrong about myself and they were right. And that’s just the ones that wanted me to pretend to be something else; about half of the exclusionists didn’t make any attempts at conversion therapy, and instead skipped straight to suicide baiting. I’m not even getting into the actual homophobes I’ve had to deal with, or the TERF’s that have come after me under the assumption that I’m a trans woman. My point is, I’m pretty fucking used to this sort of thing.

This just hurts a little more, because like I said earlier, the first round of exclusionism I faced was just expanded biphobia. And the bi/pan community banded together in the face of that. We weren’t the exact same identities, but we were being treated the same, and we were similar enough that nobody really minded the difference. It was wonderful. Bi and pan people were a tightly knit group, and that was a sense of community I desperately needed when I was young. I’ve been seeing this coming for awhile. There’s been increasing amounts of bi people getting drawn in by exclusionist bullshit, and I’ve seen anti-pansexual sentiment growing. I just... really hoped it wouldn’t get this far. It’s sad, y’know? It feels like losing an old friend. I’m really disappointed that you think trying to force people out of their community is right. It’s fucking pathetic, and I hope that someday you’ll rediscover basic compassion and realize how much damage you’re doing to yourself and others. This sort of thing doesn’t help the bisexual community. It drives people away. It’s like the damage that TERF’s have done to the lesbian community; this sort of thing poisons the whole well. I hope you re-evaluate what you’re doing and find a more healthy mindset.

...But also at the same time: Who the fuck do you think you are? Take your condescending bullshit and shove it directly up your ass you fucking waste of oxygen. How the fuck dare you. Do you realize the fucking audacity it takes to claim to know someone's identity better than they do? You self centered egotistical douchebag. Your parents should feel ashamed for having raised such an utter failure of a human being. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but I can already tell you beat off twice a day to how fucking clever you think you are. If you ever darken my inbox again you’d better be damn sure you keep it anonymous, because if I find you I’ll kick your fucking teeth in, you smug piece of shit.

[portraitofadumbassonfire]

On Biphobia

I’m an empathetic person, there’s good & bad things that come with it. When it comes to why people (especially those in the LGBTQ+ community) are biphobic, I think there are different factors to why they are other than plain ignorance. 

Those factors? Jealousy, Insecurity, & “Passing”  

Dating and finding love is difficult  but being in the queer community dating is an uphill battle, and it’s even harder for those who identify as bisexual. I identify as gay so I know how strong the loneliness can get, I also know how strong the jealousy can get as well. (I can be the jealous type i will admit) A lot of biphobes say they don’t want to date someone who is bisexual because they think they’ll cheat, despite the fact that there are a LOT of gays who cheat pretty much for fun, they feel like they will have to compete with the rest of the world if they like someone who is bisexual because their dating pool is bigger and they’ve probably dealt with people who have played games with their emotions while at the same time making a bad name for actual bi people. But the thing is....from what I’ve from many bisexuals, dating isn’t easier, some don’t even disclose their sexuality or just say they’re gay so they don’t have to explain themselves because I’m sure at this point they’re tired of having doing that.

That jealousy bleeds into the argument that Bi people whom are with someone of the opposite sex can pass as straight in public much easier than the rest of the community. Personally....I feel like Bi people can, but that’s only when they’re around straight people, when they come to their own community where they SHOULD feel safe and yet... here they are being ostracized by people who they thought would be more accepting of their sexuality, because yes they can blend in easier but that doesn’t mean straight people can’t be biphobic. (And i’m gonna go on a small tangent and say y’all kill me with this “gold star” shit, we’re not in a fucking kindergarten class) 

I will admit, I have been that kind of person and will slip up sometimes, I can be jealous and selfish when I like a guy and pretty much just want him to pay attention to me only (Ik i sound insane), but I have to remind myself of what I dealt with eternally with figuring out my sexuality (even as a virgin) and how I HATED having it be invalidated or even judged for not being “gay enough” because I’ve never been with a woman, so how can I know I’m gay? I DON’T HAVE THE DESIRE FOR WOMEN SEXUALLY that’s how I know. No one, especially in the queer community likes to have their sexuality or their gender to judged by someone else’s standards, I know i don’t like that, why should I do that to someone else, especially someone form my own community?

On insecurity.... I’m gonna on another tangent but it’s related to insecurity(This is gonna sound pathetic) I’m a big Harry Styles fan (yeah no shit) and I’ve loved how over the past few years he’s been expressing his sexuality, but being in his fanbase, or even being in the 1D fanbase can poke at my insecurity at times, it’s not really anyone’s fault, it’s just how I feel about it. Most of H’s fanbase is consistent of str8 girls/bi girls/and lesbians, which is not a negative thing, but as a gay man, I can feel like a fish out of water at times. It kind of goes back to why I previously thought I’d never fawn over a boyband member because I thought “I’m not gonna play with my own emotions like that” I’d see millions of female fans lose their minds over these guys and some of them hope they have a chance to date any of them, I thought if I joined in on their fawning, I’d look and feel stupid because none of us would have a chance with them and if we did, I’d have a MUCH lesser chance than they did, so I vowed I’d never lose my mind over a boyband member. That’s until I found out about a certain green-eyed MF and the rest is history. It’s part of why I’ve been secretly dreading his upcoming music video after seeing the filming of it because it reminds me all too much of that insecurity; That I have no chance at all with the men I’m attracted to. (Not to mention the song where it’s suggested he’s talking about sucking dick is unreleased and only sung on tour, yet the song that’s suggestively about eating pussy is a single and has a music video) I know that’s a very negative thing to think about, but it’s something that’s been stuck in the back of my head for years and I know there are other gay male fans of Harry but let’s be real the last time I’ve seen some acknowledgement was that gay vodka moment & the “yes daddy I will” moment (A black gay male fan yelled that at him and he repeated it and I saw so many pretend as if he wasn’t responding to a guyor straight up say a female fan said that even though there is video footage of the dude saying it) I’m not gonna get on the topic of H’s fans who disregard his attraction to men, I’ll be here all day unsurprisingly the queer fans are the ones whom I’ve seen call out that bullshit. That’s my own personal insecurity, but I know I’m not the only one who feels or has felt that way. That’s at least one place, I’m sure some people’s biphobia stems from, personal insecurity.

I think a lot of biphobia comes from ignorance, but I think it also comes from hurt or the fear of being hurt even more. I can understand that fear all too well,  I’ve been hurt by other people, not romantically (yet) and honestly I have and feel that fear strongly, but so do Bi people, we’re all humans with emotions that don’t have an off switch, and I also know that being oppressive toward someone else in an already oppressed community won’t help in any way, no matter how much you convince yourself it can. I know i’m not saying anything brand new or ground-breaking I just felt like airing that out.

I hope I don’t cussed out for this post.

[nyarmand]

hi i saw ur sherlock post and wanted to hear why you wouldnt be looking forward to that, if ur okay with answering :) i was wondering bc its a show i really enjoyed so i prolly missed the issues it has :0

ok im going to be totally honest. i LOVED sherlock when i first started it. sherlock holmes has been a huge favorite of mine for a very very long time and sherlock did so much for me. i must’ve been what, 13 or 14 when i first watched it? and i loved it. now, though... i have some Thoughts.

this is going to get really long because i have a lot to say about this show. it’s also going to be full of spoilers.

‘a study in pink’ had me absolutely enthralled. i’m not kidding, i was so excited throughout the whole episode and i will admit i actually ‘squee’d. i really liked the switch from the original story with regards to the victim’s message; in case anyone reading this hasn’t read the original a study in scarlet, in that, the message the victim leaves is also ‘rache’, and people assume it’s meant to be ‘rachel’, before holmes says that it’s german for revenge (don’t ask me if that’s true. i don’t speak german.) but in ‘a study in pink’, they swap it, so that someone originally thinks it’s meant to mean revenge, but holmes says no, it’s meant to be rachel. i LOVED it! it felt really clever and fun. i also really enjoyed how they rendered the text messages and deductions on screen. i still love that. it’s a cool effect. (but i’m going to be honest with you: that ‘deduction’ about john’s phone was stupid. i fumble with my phone charger a lot because i don’t always have the best motor skills. there are so many reasons why someone could have scratched up their phone like that, and sherlock was honestly just guessing. it wasn’t nearly as clever as it was supposed to look. it was lifted from an actual deduction from the original stories, but that wasn’t all that impressive of a deduction either.)

i also liked that they made a nod to and resolved a weird continuity error in the original stories, where the location of watson’s war wound (ha. alliteration) kept switching from his shoulder to his leg. sir arthur conan doyle was not always the best at keeping track of things, haha. but he actually didn’t even like sherlock holmes, so he may just have been a lot more lax about it. 

i really enjoyed all the little references to the original stories; you can tell the show was written by sherlock holmes fans. that made it really fun for me.

i don’t have a whole lot to say about ‘the blind banker’ because i thought it was a pretty boring episode and also it was really fucking racist. ‘yellow peril’, much? i can’t really go into a lot of details because i watched it like. once. (also i was very displeased that soo lin yao got killed by her brother. but that’s a me problem.)

but the season finale! oh my god! the season finale. i do have a complaint with the plot that i’ll mention later (because it’s more of a criticism of the overall show.) also not a huge fan of the homophobic tones taken towards ‘jim, from it’. but the episode itself was so fun. i had such a great time watching and the ending had me absolutely on the edge of my seat. i was desperate to watch the next season right then. 

on to ‘a scandal in belgravia’. if you haven’t seen this episode then skip this section. also, it’s gonna get into some (not graphic) nsfw discussion, just because of what the episode is about, so if you don’t want to read that then skip that too. i watched it once. and it took me a couple years to even do that, because i was young when i started watching sherlock and let me tell you my parents did NOT want me watching that episode then. (frankly, i didn’t want me watching that episode then, either.) when i did watch it, i promptly forgot a lot of it, because i hated it. irene adler in the original stories was super cool; she was smart and capable and outwitted sherlock holmes himself, to the point that she got the title of ‘the woman’ (which. bit sexist. but this was the 1800s so i’m not too shocked.) unfortunately, irene adler from sherlock was... uhhhhh... look, i don’t give a damn about her job but i do give a damn about how she was written. she wasn’t portrayed as the same awesome woman from the original a scandal in bohemia. she was portrayed as... beating sherlock holmes... through the power of being sexy????? i mean, what the hell. what the actual hell was happening there. some people might think that kind of writing is feminist, but i really don’t. also, it wasn’t even fully her plan. it was moriarty’s. (once again, we are reducing the really smart and capable woman and making her dependent on a man.) ALSO, she was in love with sherlock(despite saying she was a lesbian??? if she’s bi then say she’s bi, for fuck’s sake, lesbian erasure isn’t cool), and that was her downfall? excuse me? that episode sucked so much and i was quite frankly miserable. the ending was stupid too. in the original story she got away scot free, having outwitted the great detective himself. in sherlock... she didn’t really win at all, and became a damsel in distress. thanks, moffatt and gatiss. very cool of you.

‘the hounds of baskerville’, though! oh that one was SO entertaining. i will say that the ending where sherlock intentionally tried to drug john was really fucked up. but the rest of the episode absolutely thrilled me. when john actually said ‘aspergers?’ in relation to sherlock i felt like i might die on the spot from pure joy, and for a while i had the exact timestamp at which he said it memorized because it made me so damn happy. (this was back before i realized some of the problems with that terminology.) and the episode itself... i LOVE horror and it creeped me out so much. 

and of course. ‘the reichenbach fall’. ohhhhhh my god. just thinking about it... i cried so much in that episode. even though i knew he would be totally fine because hey, i read the original stories, sherlock holmes doesn’t actually die, i don’t give a fuck, i still cried. i don’t have a lot to say about this episode because it just had me losing it the whole time. it was a total shift from the original story but i didn’t even care. it was just. oh my god.

but then things started going downhill.

season three was fine. not the best, but fine.

‘the empty hearse’ was kind of weird. it was interesting how they really showcased sherlock’s selfishness by how he just waltzed right back into john’s life (while he was planning to propose!) and expected things to be fine. it was not, however, interesting nor fun, how he made john think they were both going to die in order to manipulate john into admitting that he missed sherlock. i like mary, though. she’s cool.

full honestly: i loved ‘the sign of three’. that best man speech. it was weird, and rambling, and really, really sweet. totally thought sherlock was just being an asshole again, and then it ended with a genuine, heartfelt expression of how much john has changed him for the better. the ending made me sad though.

aaaaaaaaand then we got ‘his last vow.’ uhhhhh. uhhhhhhhhh. i don’t have a lot to say about this one. i don’t like it. i don’t like how sherlock manipulated janine (hello, fucked up territory). i don’t like what they did with mary’s character. and i don’t like how they took charles augustus magnussen (milverton, in the original) and made sherlock kill him instead of the cool ending of the original, where one of his blackmail victims took revenge. 

i can’t properly review the abominable bride here. that would need its own post.

unfortunately it was all very much downhill from here.

‘the six thatchers’. john has an affair? john watson? has an affair? we go back to the problems i had with mary’s character, and then she dies? she sacrifices herself for sherlock? right after she has a baby? she just fucking dies? this episode was horrible. 

i don’t have a whole lot of thoughts on ‘the lying detective’ except that i think ‘the dying detective’ was better. also, this is where things really went to hell in a handbasket.

eurus. oh my god, eurus. look. i am a little sick of ‘secret holmes sibling’ plotlines. ‘how many have you seen?’ two, and that’s two too many. (it might be different if they handed over some sibling rights to go with it, but they never do.)

also, the whole plot was just ridiculous. i can’t even begin to explain how ridiculous it was. total genius smarter than even sherlock and mycroft, SO SMART that she can program people to do whatever she wants just by talking to them for a few minutes, killed sherlock’s best friend and traumatized him so much that he had to get his memories erased? RIDICULOUS. the ‘saw’ style games? all organized by eurus and, you guessed it, moriarty? for fuck’s sake. IT’S ABSURD. and in the end, it was all a cry for help? cool motive, still MULTIPLE MURDERS. also molly getting forced to say she loves sherlock was just so incredibly fucked up. these are only surface level complaints based on what i remember of the episode (which i have seen only one time because i only watched this season one time.) if i watched it again i’m sure i could come up with more, but i don’t really want to watch it again, because i think it might kill me instantly.

now for some more overarching criticisms:

from a purely plot based perspective, i’m not a fan of how moriarty was behind so much. he really wasn’t that involved in the original stories; the guy played a role in two stories and showed up a grand total of once and then died. that was it. he was there so conan doyle could finally kill off sherlock holmes (though we all know how well THAT went. did you know people actually went into mourning for holmes? and conan doyle got accosted in the street about it. i’m not even kidding. people were so upset. and, i mean, so was i.) yes, he was a criminal mastermind (the napoleon of crime!) but he wasn’t behind basically every single case. it’s not the worst change ever, but it is a little bit weird to be giving sherlock an archenemy. but sherlock is far from the first adaptation to do that. (if i wrote it, it’d be less archenemy and more ‘sherlock holmes is being really annoying again, guess i have to do something about it.’ which honestly felt like what was happening in the original stories.)

from a more socially conscious perspective: the sexism in that show is so ridiculous. most of the female characters are written horribly (molly deserved so much better. so. much. better.) and often damsel in distress types. when they aren’t, well, see my discussion of ‘a scandal in belgravia’. i can’t think of a single female character in sherlock whose story doesn’t essentially revolve around the men in her life.

furthermore, the constant jokes about john and sherlock TOTALLY NOT BEING GAY is. i will be honest with you; i do not give a damn about j*hnlock. i don’t ship it at all. but those jokes were so damn uncomfortable. homophobia much. 

also: the racism. particularly egregious in ‘the blind banker’ but it was scattered throughout the rest of the show too. (can we talk about how sally donovan was treated? because the intersection of racism and misogyny was... deeply, deeply unpleasant.)

oh and the whole ‘high functioning sociopath’ thing was... can we not be weird about this for five minutes. can we. i’m begging. i do not like a character that i’ve related to for years (one of the reasons i’ve been so into sherlock holmes for so long was bc he was one of the first characters i really related to and made me feel a lot better about my autism diagnosis) being treated like this.

i am not going to pretend that the original sherlock holmes stories weren’t horribly racist, misogynistic, and so much more. they were. they were written in the 1800s, though. i will say that that is absolutely not an excuse and they could have and should have been better, but that goes so much more for sherlock, because, i mean. come on. this is the 21st century. there’s less than negative excuse for this kind of bullshit. moffatt in particular has received a lot of criticism for both sherlock and doctor who, particularly regarding the misogyny that often shows up in his writing, and it seems he learned absolutely nothing.

as i said, i have a lot of thoughts on sherlock. but given some of the overarching problems with the series as a whole, as well as the sharp downturn the quality of the writing took in the second half (particularly season four), i really do not want another season. i am frankly terrified of what kind of absurdity might be produced. 

so yeah. that’s my thoughts on Why I Do Not Want Sherlock Season Five.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Execution of Innocence by Christopher Pike

"'Many of the richest people in the world are the most miserable. Especially when they have destroyed their humanity to get what they have.'"

Year Read: 2020

Rating: 2/5

About: Mary and Charlie are a happy high school couple, the girl bound for Stanford and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. When Charlie discovers that Mary has gone out with another guy, he loses his temper. Now someone is dead, and Mary and her friend Hannah sit in interrogation rooms at the local police station. What really happened the night that Dick was shot, and who are the girls trying to protect? Trigger warnings: death, gore, autopsy, guns, blood, homophobia, underage drug/alcohol use.

Thoughts: There aren't a lot of YA Pike titles I missed when I was scouring the library shelves for them as an adolescent. In the case of Execution of Innocence, it turns out I wasn't missing much. Pike's novels mean so much to me, and I'll be a lifelong fan, but there are too many problems with this book. First and foremost, and worse than the meager plot and unlikable characters, is the fact that straight male writers in the 90s obviously had no idea how to write LGBTQ+ women. Despite the fact that Hannah refers to herself as bisexual, the novel continuously overwrites her as a lesbian for the rest of the book (Bi. People. Exist.). Mary's inner monologue is constantly paranoid that Hannah is coming onto her, and it's only after she finds out that she refers to Hannah's haircut as "butch." Hard to pull for a main character who’s a blatant homophobe. More on this after the spoilers.

Sadly, for a thriller novel, it’s pretty dull. The narrative moves back and forth on the police investigation into Dick's murder and the events leading up to it. It's an odd switch from Pike's usual thrillers, and it doesn't do a lot for the suspense. The point isn't who's dead but how it happened. The knowledge of whodunnit is a slow-build, and there was at least one twist in there that I didn't see coming. It's just... really not his best plot, and the actual answers or outcome aren't all that interesting.

Nor are the characters. I was beginning to believe everyone that Mary is a stuck-up bitch, since her sole concern throughout the novel is herself (or Charlie's absence, and how that affects her). Charlie is barely on the page but seems to have the personality of a busted carburetor. He's just flat, and the truth is that Mary and Charlie's romance could have easily been interchanged with almost any other from Pike's thrillers (Rox and Pepper from Whisper of Death come to mind). It’s not even clear why they like each other and, frankly, I didn’t care what happened to any of them. All in all, a disappointment and at times outright offensive.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. TURN BACK BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

Pike's novels aren't known for their LGBTQ+ representation, which is part of the reason this book is so off-putting. You can't make your only non-hetero character the villain without treading on dangerous ground. Further, writing, "She's the villain because she's evil, not because she's a lesbian (which she isn’t anyway)," doesn't really change anything. It's not that LGBTQ characters can never be villains (I happen to love villains), but they're already fighting centuries of stigma. Hannah is misrepresented all over the place, her sexuality used for shock value and motivation, and it sucks. As a bisexual woman, I'm really happy I didn't read this as a teenager when I was absorbing novels like they were reality.