#intracommunity meta

[epiceneandroid]

i know, and it sucks that we NEEDED a mainstream study in the first place for fellow tme people to know this shit was HAPPENING and it's as insidious as fuck. i'm not sure where nonbinary people who are both, neither (like i am sometimes), or both and neither (like i am now) would be represented in this study, but i assume that, at least under the binary transmedicalist system (that trans women and nonbinary tma folks suffer under alike to have to even get the stuff a lot of them need to ease dysphoria or gain euphoria), nonbinary people seeking feminizing hrt or surgical transition would be considered trans women (e.g. a toongender toygender girl seeking feminizing hrt would be considered a trans woman, despite toons internal reality as more toon and toy seeking a typical girl-shaped outer shell that helps toy feel euphoric) and nonbinary people seeking masculinizing hrt would be considered trans men (i could offer you as an example, as you identify as a transmaverine bigender neutrois trans man, and you have sought masculinizing hrt and from the posts i've seen, top surgery). (i'm not sure how, under this transmedicalist system, nonbinary people like me who only desire social transition for the most part because they don't consider their bodies inherently as their former agab and moreso as the desired gender of their transitions, but i'm fairly sure both non-hormonally and/or non-surgically transitioning tma people, especially those who present counter to their assigned sex, are HEAVILY penalized in comparison to non-hormonally and/or non-surgically transitioning tme people, who tend to be perceived simply as "tomboys" or lesbians instead which is bad because Misgendering in a lot of cases but not as bad as "risk of being put in a psychiatric hold or arrested/killed/subject to violent police brutality esp. if psychotic, level 2-3 autistic, lesbian or mspec, black or indigenous if you're a "non-passing" trans woman who wears clothes typical of cis women or even niche transfem or transfem inclusive fetish subcultures" so i'm pretty sure tme people like me who either only plan to socially transition or have "only transitioned" (ugh) with hormone blockers after puberty who neither identify as trans women/transfem or trans men/transmasculine are not given as much of a raw deal as tma people in general, whether binary or nonbinary gendered.)

and like. it's so disgusting that dr. devon price, for what i'm aware of is a transmasculine/trans man sociologist, having to be the one to break this report that trans women and presumably tma nonbinary people are reviled even in comparison to trans men and tme nonbinary people when trans women and tma nonbinary people have been telling people this FOR YEARS and most tme people have not been listening or because a lot of tma people are heavily critical of some types of "do what you want forever" type forms of gendering (such as like basically reinvented circumgender style "afab transfem" stuff which is almost always excused by someone being intersex when. a lot of the intersex people who identify with the afab transfem label have fucking pcos or some type of congenital adrenal hyperplasia which are both disorders that mostly only cause visible symptoms in babies who are either clearly or ambiguously but eventually assigned FEMALE at birth, like. just because i'm discovering i have possibly a mild form of simple virilizing congenital adrenal hyperplasia (which can cause both hyperandrogenism and hyperprogestinism in people who were afab) with pcos or fibroids (which can cause hyperestrogenism in people who were afab) likely developing after it because of the effects of the disorder and secondary cushing's likely because of the mild simple virilizing cah (which also causes further hyperandrogenism as a little known side effect) doesn't mean i'm transfem. just because i wasn't Consistently treated like my birth gender and instead treated like i was wholly and completely genderless and unpersoned and inhuman doesn't mean i'm transfem, despite transfems often sharing that experience. that specific experience of mine is because of more severe than most autism and adhd and likely schizoaffective bipolar disorder that's pretty much undiagnosed except for one psych evaluator basically saying in unambiguous terms i'm basically bipolar and borderline with schizophrenic features in a psych evaluation sheet that my mom and current therapist refused to listen to as well as my undiagnosed at the time but suspected as of now intersex conditions, not because i'm Inherently a trans woman because i'm "masculine" even though i was "assigned female" that is so fucking reductive). it's just.

god.

when will the lgbt community and the mogai/liom/whatever they're calling themselves now subcommunity i'm a part of finally recognize actual tma people and their issues instead of throwing up their hands and saying "EVERYONE IS TMA, TRANS WOMEN SHOULD STOP ACTING LIKE RADFEMS!!!!" and pushing even more transfem people that could be questioning whether they have parts of their identity that could get a bit nonbinary/xenogender with it away from the mogai/liom/whatever we're calling ourselves now community.

it's always bothered me especially as someone who's pretty pro-good faith identities for the most part and even accepts stuff like bi lesbian and lesboy as frequent identities that primarily transfems (and yes, i've seen lesboy transfems, not all lesboys are transmasc and not all lesbian transfems are femme, stop with that stupid binarist gender essentialist assumption too) identify with to explain their complicated relationships with their sexualities and genders like. it's so irritating. i hate how our community purports itself to be Radically Inclusive but ends up so Radically Inclusive they end up Radically Excluding tma people from it.

omg did not expect to see “we have mainstream research evidence for transmisogyny now” this morning but happy friday?? thanks dr. devon price for pre-digesting it

and of course there’s the angle of, well lmfao yes trans women have been saying this in mainstream print since at least 2007 and doubtlessly in other fora for much longer, but sometimes an argument from authority has more force and how do we emotionally reckon with ongoing lack of agency in conversations about us, but i digressss

[olderthannetfic]

Age gap discourse isn't usually my thing, but I am actually enjoying people trying to figure out if it even applies in one fandom I'm in. To TL;DR a lot of volumes of manga, a character aged while in another world, returned to his age upon getting back to Earth, lost his memories of said magical world, eventually got back to said world 15 years later, and his memories returned. So he was 10, +15 years in another world, -15 years, +15 years, and then... arguably + that same 15 we subtracted?

He's in love with a 45 year old woman and either he's 25 or he's 40 depending on how you figure it.

You'd think antis would be doing their usual thing. "Oh it's bad, it's an age gap" etc. But instead it's, "...is it an age gap? Wait, how old does he really count as?" This prompted a whole intracommunity meta discussion on if experiences and memories = age. But losing memories in real life doesn't knock years off your age. Physically he's 25 but that's over antis' debunked science about the brain developing that they cling to. Also, he lost his memories, but would he have lost his brain development from time spent in the other world? He only lost his memories due to the trauma of people not believing him, not because of magic, so it's not like the universe hit the reset button on him.

Nobody's been able to draw any conclusions. That said, we've gotten a lot of new jokes about him as a character. "His favorite song is probably Stacy's Mom", "he secret owns an I Heart MILFs shirt", etc. Even people who don't ship it do find the idea funny.

But all that said... OTNF, you've been in fandom much longer than the paltry 5 years I have. You've read sci-fi and fantasy that does things like this. What age would you personally consider this character?

--

Ooh, tricky. I think I'd consider him 25. He just did ages 10-25 twice.

The reason I'd count him this way isn't his physical body but because he did not have the experience of hitting 25 and then living another 15 years starting from how he thought and felt at 25. He's not, functionally, middle aged: he's a 20-something with weird baggage.

[thedeadflag]

You don’t like g!p like ik you said you don’t like it but there’s plenty of trans people who said they didn’t mind

Okay? There are trans people like Debbie Hayton who pretty much want to stop legal recognition and protections and healthcare access for trans folks. There are trans people like Blair White who want to not only maintain but bring in more restrictive genocidal gatekeeping measures for trans healthcare.

Are their goals suddenly acceptable and good because they're trans? Is this really the argument you came into my inbox to make?

Please for the love of all that is good, engage in some critical thinking for once in your life and examine the reasons why g!p is transmisogynistic/trans fetishistic/intersexist/intersex fetishishistic/cissexist/transphobic/etc.

Like, I'm not just saying I don't like it. Someone liking it or not minding it is irrelevant. It is materially harmful and I have spent tens of thousands of words explaining why that is, so some nebulous trans person with their own internalized transphobia or transmisogyny who doesn't mind g!p is not some get out of jail free card.

[queerascat]

This post is a submission for the December 2018 Carnival of Aces on the topic of “burnout”, hosted by Sennkestra at Next Step: Cake. See the call for submissions if you’d like to participate. 

Over the last few years, I’ve had to own up to the fact that I’m not exactly the spitting image of mental health. Unbeknownst to (or rather, unacknowledged by) me until relatively recently, I’ve struggled with persistent depression and social anxiety for most of my life. As such, debilitating depression/anxiety isn’t new to me. Major depressive episodes? Been there. Anxiety attacks? Par for the course.

It’s precisely that kind of attitude that left me oblivious to signs that, in hindsight, should have made it clear that what I first experienced in 2016 and continue to experience today was/is more than ‘just’ a depressive episode or exacerbated anxiety. Rather, I was/am in the midst of burnout that has been compounded upon by a mental breakdown.

Actually, I feel I should take a step back and rephrase what I’ve just said. Rather than refer to it as burnout that was compounded upon by a mental breakdown, it’s more accurate to say that neither proceeded nor followed the other. Instead, both occured simultaneously as the culmination of years worth of ‘lesser’ burnouts and otherwise nicks & dings to my mental well-being during the course of blogging, vlogging, and organizing as an ace activist.*

I do want to stress that while one particular incident in 2016 may have been the needle that broke this cat’s back, even that incident is part of a larger problem; that is, my own failure to adequately manage my own mental [un]health and personal grievances in regards to blogging about asexuality and aromanticism, so-called ‘discourse’, and toxic callout culture on the social media platform that is Tumblr.

What happened to make this instance of burnout and mental breakdown particularly noteworthy? What has the road to recovery been like thus far? What repercussions to my future as an ace blogger/vlogger will there be in light of my aversion to Tumblr blogging culture?

The answer to all of these questions and more is The Opposite of Fun Times, but of course there is also a tl;dr version, for those interested [ … ]

Continue reading at QueerAsCat.com.

[etz-ashashiyot]

Wow, thank you both @biglawbear and @anyroads for these thoughtful and important additions. And thank you to the many other people who replied with your thoughts and insights as well. So far this has been an extremely solid discussion on what can be a major sore subject, so seriously thank you to everyone who helped keep the conversation productive (and please let's all stay on that derech, yeah? This is great.)

There's a lot that is swirling in my mind right now because I'm replying to the discussion response as a whole, not individual posts, so bear with me if this is a bit all over the map.

One thing to preface: I've said this elsewhere and I'll say it again because it bears repeating I think. "Culturally Christian" in and of itself is NOT meant to be a term of coercion or abuse by outsiders, but rather a neutral description of the cultural milieu we live in here. It can simply be a neutral descriptor of a neutral trait that simply must be named and identified and addressed as the bias and ideological framework that it is. For example, my own parents are culturally Christian. They dropped the theology many years ago at this point and are functionally atheists from that perspective, but they still go to the church they raised me in because that's their community. That's their people. They are honestly pretty self-aware of this for people within it and yet I still know that means that I must account for this cultural gap when I explain Jewish stuff to them.

(B"H they have been wonderfully supportive of my conversion, even though they now understand that this means I have acculturated away from the community and culture they raised me in. Credit where credit is due, I can't imagine that's easy.)

I framed these posts initially in the negative because, in this context, American Calvinism really is hurting progressive movements here, both in its own right and from a meta perspective of refusing to identify and interrogate where certain ideas are coming from. Also American Calvinism has few redeeming qualities, in my opinion, even if there are some good qualities in Christianity more broadly. (*Pin that thought, more on that later.)

It's not even really that helpful to label people as culturally Christian in my opinion, but rather thoughts, ideas, and behavioral patterns that flow from having been raised in a Christian culture without also being raised in a fully formed minority culture that is different. Some of those are even Christians from vastly different cultures! I've talked to Coptic Christians who grew up in Muslim majority countries and guess what? Their attitudes overlap far more with Islam than American Calvinism. Same thing with the culturally Catholic (admittedly ex-Catholic) folks I've spoken to from Latine countries, culturally Orthodox Christians living in proximity to eastern cultures and religions, and even some from the African-American churches who center their Christianity less on the Calvinism of their white abusers but rather on Black identity, liberation theology, and the Exodus narrative. This is not to absolve any of the above of having issues, bad acts, or problematic ideology — everyone has that (yes including Jews and Jewish culture, don't think I don't see our intracommunity issues) — but those problems are different and most importantly to this discussion, they do not create the baseline ideological framework for the United States. That would, unfortunately, be white settler Christianity in particular.* That other groups have gotten caught up in it or forced to work with it because it's too powerful to have to work against it is less an indictment or devaluation of these cultures, but simply a practical reality when it is the proverbial soup you swim in.

Which brings me to:

Systems, prevailing cultural attitudes, and infrastructure are also helpful things to identify as being culturally Christian when that is in fact the case. Labeling a person as a whole human being as ontologically culturally Christian is not only not optimal but often hurts the conversation by causing people with genuine religious trauma from Christianity (and especially fundamentalist and/or calvinist Christianity — a not-small portion of progressives) to understandably and reflexively shut down.

It also — spicy opinion incoming — plays into culturally Christian fears itself, in that it judges whole people and their lives as one, immutable thing. And so in Calvinist speak, what that means is that if someone is labeled culturally Christian because of their negative behaviors that flow from that, what they hear is that they are not selected for heaven but condemned to Hell. Or, to translate that again to secular cultural Christian speak, they have been adjudged to be Problematic in an ontological and unfixable way. Which is actually not what I think the Jews of tumblr are usually meaning by this; usually it's meant as a shorthand for: "you were raised in a Christian culture and I'm trying to help you break out of some negative thought and behavioral patterns that I, a cultural outsider, have observed. You can't go back in time and change your upbringing and you shouldn't have to change your default culture unless you individually want to, but you seem to want to divorce yourself from Christianity while simultaneously are still acting within its framework in a way that is actively harmful to others [usually this is said in the context of someone being antisemitic in a CC way] and ultimately to your goals. Let's work on that together, shall we?"

And of course, the people who need to hear what we are actually saying and our intended meaning the most are, unfortunately, the least likely to listen. This is because if they haven't unpacked their culturally Christian framework, they sure as hell haven't worked to unpack their culturally Christian antisemitism. Of which there is a lot. Christianity as a religion was built on the bones of a profoundly desperate and traumatized Jewish apocalyptic cult that was then stolen and colonized like the rest of Eretz Yisrael by the Romans. This would be the same Romans who hated and felt threatened by Judaism, Jewish peoplehood, and Jewish national identity, and therefore baked these ideas into Christianity's foundational texts. This has morphed and warped over time into not just theological opposition and anti-Judaism, but is the precursor to 2000 years of European (and their colonies') violent antisemitism, up to and very much including the Holocaust (even though that had already twisted into a racialized hatred post-Enlightenment) and certain types of goyische opposition to Jewish national identity today. There's even an argument that early Christianity's attempts to cut its own umbilical cord to Judaism led to our modern understanding of racial categories and all of the associated horrors that came with it.

It is in some ways the Ur-example of why cultural appropriation is morally wrong and evil, and can carry disastrous consequences for the original (often indigenous) culture it came from. (But I digress.)

Bottom line: if you were raised in Christianity or a Christian culture or have only learned about Judaism through a Christian lens, you have a lot of antisemitism to unpack, and it's not gonna be fun. Having done it (and periodically reassessing to make sure it doesn't creep back in) it can be cathartic. I can recommend some reading for anyone looking to actually do this work of unlearning.

Which brings us back around to the thoughts I'd pinned above with an * to hold on to.

I want to make now a distinction between the gory and inexcusable antisemitic violence of the church, the horrific twisting of scripture to serve white supremacy in the US via American Calvinism, and the genuinely good parts of Christianity and the good people who are Christians and/or culturally Christian.

The first thing is something that absolutely must be reckoned with in a real way by all Christians globally, as this is a problem deeply embedded in the fabric of Christianity itself. We can expect no real progress on Christian antisemitism until this has been done, and quite frankly Christians need to do this for your own sake to heal the body of Christ and the soul of the church. For how can the church be God's hands in the world if they are covered in the blood of their Jewish brothers? How can the church be fit to be the bride of Christ when she celebrates this union with the rape and murder of her Jewish sisters? But ultimately, as much as I can offer tochecha, loving rebuke, and implore good-hearted Christians to listen, it is not up to Jews to mend this breakdown in your humanity and your ability to see ours. It is up to Christians to do teshuva — that is, seek repentance in a way that earns forgiveness through fixing what can be fixed, grieving what cannot and offering alternative restoration where possible, and fundamentally changing yourselves to prevent future pogroms and Holocausts. That is how Jews address sins against our fellow human beings, and it is our belief that not even G-d can forgive you if you haven't made your best effort first. If you seek our forgiveness, understand that it will need to be on our terms, by doing teshuva.

The second thing is something all American Christians, especially all non-Black American Christians, and exponentially moreso white American Christians, need to seriously reckon with and work on unlearning the white supremacy settler version of Christianity, of which Calvinism is very much a part. The truth is — and if you look into the linked source above, written by a Black Christian man, you'll see what I mean as he explains this much more eloquently and deeply than I ever could — American Christianity and whiteness are linked, hand in hand, and Christianity was used as a tool of oppression and violence for our entire country's history from the very start of the colonies to the present day. Christians of color, especially Black and Native Christians, have done a lot of this unpacking for themselves and wrestled with their faith until they found versions of it that were not simply the master's tools. Some white Christians have started this process as allies, but that is not my place to assess. All I can say is that there is a lot more work to do, and, like the discussion of teshuva above, reparations are in order. If you are a white American Christian and you haven't started to unpack the deep ties between American Christianity and racism, you have a moral obligation to start. Even for non-Christians, learning how cultural Christianity plays into American racism is something we need to do, too, especially those of us who were raised as white Christians. This is an area I very much include myself in; being Jewish has helped me identify lingering cultural Christianity in my anti-racism learning, but does not absolve me (or anyone like me) from this lifelong process.

Which brings us to that third and final category: the possibility of a Christianity that has redeemed itself, and the good-hearted Christians that have the ability to realize that vision collectively over time, probably over the course of generations.

I'm going to be blunt: this is something I had a lot more faith in before the utter inhumanity expressed towards Jews in the wake of October 7th, specifically and especially by progressive Christians. You collectively and the majority of you individually failed us miserably. This is an open wound for me because I lost progressive Christian friends over what should have been a moment of solidarity. I can hardly even talk about it because I really believed in the ability of progressive Christianity to do this tikkun, to make this repair of the gaping wound of Christian antisemitism. I was so invested in interfaith work because I knew people who believed it was their mission to change that fate. That the church is not doomed to repeat the sins of its forefathers but can break the cycle of violence. To say that seeing said friends refer to the largest antisemitic massacre of Jews on one day since the Holocaust, replete with rape, torture, burning people alive with their children wrapped in barbed wire to them, mutilation, and ultimate murder of 1200 Israelis and the taking of hundreds more as hostages as legitimate "resistance" is a betrayal? I don't even have the words. Ein milim. It's been nearly eight months and there are still hostages and my belief in gentiles' ability to even see us as human has been shaken to my core. It wasn't everybody, but it was everybody I knew here. I have since met a small handful of new people who are progressive Christians who met us in our grief and outcry, and that is not nothing. It is a seed of hope and hope is everything.

But everyone I knew before on here (and even some in person) is someone who has fundamentally broken my trust in a way that cannot really be fixed. Not without some significant apologies offered unprompted that show they have done some deep learning on this issue and truly understand how profoundly they have hurt us and sincerely regret it. That would earn your forgiveness from me as an individual (if not necessarily my trust on this matter), but the ugly truth is that teshuva is only complete once a similar set of facts arises and that would require a similarly traumatic event to occur to my people. I am not so naive as to think that's not fully possible in my lifetime, but you'll have to excuse me for davening every day that this does not come to pass.

How about this: if your work in teshuva prevents said future violence, such that you never get the opportunity to support us like you should have, I'll forgive you anyway.

Now and most importantly, are the actionable things:

So first, with the above in mind, I still think it's absolutely critical for progressive Christians to get involved and begin building a Christianity that doesn't sully the blood of Jesus with the bloodshed of innocents. The ground cries out to Hashem and if you stand idly by the blood of your brother, you will be held accountable in the end. We can't stop this violence for you; we need you to step up and start clawing your faith back from the bigots who will use it to kill us all. This needed to start, like, yesterday, but now is better than later. Put unlearning antisemitism at the top of your list. Not because Jews are more important than anyone else, but 1) so it's not an afterthought or forgotten entirely, which has been my experience so far, and 2) because antisemitism is so foundational to Christianity that I don't know how you can even begin to fully root out the rest without having done that first. Choose the shack on the rock rather than the castle in the sand. If you need help figuring that out, you know where to find me and I'm happy to help however I can.

As for people who have left Christianity or were raised culturally but not religiously Christian and are trying to unlearn cultural Christianity, feel free to message me for sources on whatever topic you're looking for. If I don't know, I'll poll my friends for you. :)

Additionally, there was at least one comment in the tags about how difficult it can be to balance avoiding purity politics with laying down with the flea-ridden dogs, so to speak.

It's a good question and deserves an actionable answer. I wouldn't say I have a full or complete answer for all such situations (anyone who does is overconfident or lying tbh) but here are some questions to get you started:

I mean honestly, stopping and asking the question itself, every time, really is the best place to start.

Ask yourself and your comrades to weigh the pragmatic value of allying with this person or group versus making a point of not doing so.

What is it you are actually doing with them, and how does that impact the seriousness of your connection to them?

Is allying with them going to make you or members of your group actually unsafe? (Not vibes. Concrete safety concerns.)

(Examples of some actual safety concerns might be: physical or spiritual violence against Jews, transphobes not respecting people's genders in spaces where there would be direct interaction with trans folks and the transphobes, people refusing to wear masks or take Covid and high-risk folks' safety seriously, etc.)

Is their negative quality actually so negative that engaging them at all is eating fruit of the poisoned vine? Or will it simply make a small number of disproportionately loud and self-styled "radical" people squawk about it on social media? Are those people's opinions really so critical to maintain?

How likely is it that, if you organize with objectionable people, that they will use this as a way to get their foot in the door and recruit, either from your ranks or whoever else you're engaging with who might be reassured of their legitimacy by their connection to you?

How fortified against disinformation, misinformation, propaganda, and/or recruitment tactics are you, your comrades, and/or your allies?

Are there ways to mitigate any of the above? Do they mitigate it to a point that you feel comfortable allying with these people for your limited pragmatic purposes anyway?

I'm sure there are more concerns and questions and discussions to be had, but this is a good start.

I genuinely believe that a lot of the reason that the American left is so ineffectual and self-sabotaging is because of how deeply and unrepentantly calvinist it is.

[aroworlds]

Can I ask that, when we’re discussing and recommending creative media that isn’t just pride art content, like comics and music and fiction, we take the time to specify if something depicts aro-ace, non-SAM-using aro and/or allo-aro characters and/or experiences? That this, as much as it is possible to observe, becomes a standard part of how we communicate media in aro-spec spaces?

I acknowledge that it won’t always be possible, depending on the nature of the work. Some short pieces don’t have time to explore this, focusing more on general aromantic experiences; some works that are more about coded characters may not provide enough information to determine this. Some works will include lots of different kinds of aro-specs! If it is possible to determine that a character is a particular shade of aro-spec, though, and therefore their narrative is about that set of experiences, I’d really like to see folks make a point of observing this in their discussions and recommendations.

I’m seeing some circumstances where folks recommend aro content as simply that, aro content, but I click on it to discover that it’s really about aro-ace feelings and experiences, nobody ahead of me taking the time to observe this. If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up alienating allo-aro folks in assuming allo-aros can and should relate to all aro-ace representation.

(It can go the other way, too, where allo-aro content isn’t specified as allo-aro as opposed to generally aro, but I usually see this in places where aro-ace or aromantic and asexual is used as an identifying term but allo-aro is lumped under “aromantic”. In this case, the problem seems more a lack of recognition that allosexual aromantic is a term or category in use--uncommon outside of a-spec Tumblr.)

If an aro-ace story/character leans heavy on sexual repulsion or lack of interest, I struggle to find that it speaks to me as an aromantic. Even if it doesn’t lean hard on asexual experiences, aro-ace is something I relate to on the strength of my aromanticism, but it doesn’t depict my experiences of aromanticism shaped by allosexual attraction. (Something I increasingly wish to see in fictional media!) This is just a reality of the state of representation and a-spec history, not something I see shaped by intent; our dreams are several steps ahead of the shape of the broader a-spec community at present! But I would like an acknowledgement that any given aro-spec work depicts aro-ace, non-SAM-using aro or allo-aro characters/experiences (if appropriate for the work) so the community as a whole demonstrates the understanding that this particular story does not and should not represent all aro-specs.

For the same reasons that we specify a character as demiromantic or quoiromantic (if appropriate for the work) we need to say if they’re aro-ace, non-SAM-using or allo-aro. (And more detailed information on all characters’ a-spectrum identities, if extant.) It’s giving me the ability to make informed choices. All I want is to know that a piece is about aro-ace experiences, just so I don’t click on something labelled and tagged as generally aro only to discover that it requires me to also relate to experiences on the asexual spectrum. That is, I’ll admit, becoming increasingly difficult to take.

(The more I find myself as allo-aro, the harder it is for me to always find comfort and representation in media that treats asexual experiences as a universal accompaniment to aromanticism. And that, I think, is right and okay. You know I’m writing stories about allo-aro experiences right now; I have no expectation that aro-aces should connect to these. It is right and okay that not all creative works serve all aro-specs, especially when we’re writing about our own experiences and feelings! The goal of this blog is to support and encourage diverse aro-spec creativity so that every aro-spec someday finds representation that speaks to their unique intersectional identities and experiences--not to force aro-specs into writing stories that don’t speak to their own experiences, unless they freely wish to do so. People should write stories where aromanticism and asexuality are naturally inseparable; I’m just asking for an identifying tag.)

Again, I’ll stress that some media cannot be distinguished along thise lines; some works are just generally aro, neither aro-ace nor allo-aro. (Visual pride-flag works are often just aromantic and shouldn’t be shoved into an irrelevant category.) But if there is the capability to distinguish, if it is clear that not experiencing sexual attraction is part of an aro-spec character’s identity (or experiencing sexual attraction is part of a character’s identity), I’d really appreciate if observing this in our conversations becomes community habit. Just so folks can make informed choices as suiting their current needs of a work.

The aro-spec community is, generally, fairly good about this, but I have seen an increasing tendency to lapse. Before this becomes a widespread issue, I’d like to ask that my fellow aro-specs keep in mind the importance of letting folks know--by tags, by headers, by a mention inside a post--what kinds of aro characters or experiences any given work depicts.

[thebookewyrme]

Ok, but where is my Tumblr documentary? Where is my dramatically edited shots of websites with a voice overlay from some academic you’ve never heard of explaining Tumblr culture to the masses?

I want a documentary where an internet historian explains the origins and evolutions of The Color of the Sky andThe President’s Shoe laces and Dashcon ball pit and bone stealing witch and @biggest-gaudiest-patronuses in a way that gets everything factually correct but misses out on the actual feeling of experiencing these phenomenon by a mile. Who is gonna make that documentary?

[irrealisms]

-- TAGS LIST --

(not including tags that are straightforward, e.g. #parasocialing which is for parasocialing, #tma which is for the magnus archives, #cat tag which is for cats, etc)

#therapists dni: personal posts #any british ants in the chat?: og posts about dsmp/mcyt content #holy holy holy: religion + brain stuff intersection, approximately #girdled by the lightning: angels #and still to begin to sing it again: tragedy, meta conversations about narratives #i want to be strung up in a strong light: religion + kink intersection, approximately #where the winds sigh: kink/sex stuff; ship dynamics that hit My Buttons Specifically #rare and sweet as cherry wine: gore/etc tag, especially if i think it’s pretty #this cumbersome and heavy body: having a body is BULLSHIT #i tell you it has taken me all my life: also religion + brain stuff intersection, but in a different way #problems disorder: having a brain is ALSO bullshit sometimes #a symptom superficial to what they call knowing you: general ableism tag #crabs in a bucket: intracommunity ableism + intracommunity disability discourse. #your dreams will be reduced down to breathing: internalized ableism #watch me i’m flying: living while crazy. living, living, living. #hand in unlovable hand: ship dynamics where they both hate each other but there’s nobody else for them anymore. where the hatred is familiar. #fervid as a flame: ship dynamics where they both hate each other and they’re kismeses about it #we are known among the stars by our poems: humanity-positive #aure entuluva: hope #to love another person is to see the face of god: love #there are still stars: hope and love #show up in shining colors and then stand there and get hit: tma and trauma/brain stuff #down to hell and up to the sky: s4 daisy&jon friendship content #in this twilight our choices seal our fate: tma and themes of choice #i saw a sign there: americana #the harvest is passed the summer is ended: the specific sort of religious americana that results in those giant billboards that just say “HELL IS REAL” #a field with thirty ghost boys: MDZS/mo dao zu shi/CQL/the untamed #the cellar door is an open throat: yi city gang #i lost my heart in the dark with you: wei wuxian & jiang cheng #don’t you love me caroline: 3zun #hamsteak: homestuck #things will never stop from keep happening constantly: every day! every day i get emails!!!! #yet each man kills the thing he loves: romantic murder #come running come running through rivers with me: friendship #the piano is not firewood yet: beautiful things in dark places #not because of victories i sing: ordinary people, existing #do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away: survival #where there is power: politics #these deeds that we do shall be the matter of song: legacy #everything in this forest wants to hurt us: everyone said you were a villain so you’ve decided to prove them right #could be love in his own eyes: characters who have been taught that love and violence are one and the same #i can’t stop that kind of touch: OCD feelings around desire and touch #one salt taste of the sea once more: water, the ocean, sea-longing #man hands on misery to man: trauma in MDZS/the untamed #when you go down all your darkest roads: book 4 of tgcf #angel or father/friend or phantom: white no-face/jun wu from tgcf. sometimes contains bailian/junlian ship content. #a video about a game: polygon, especially the polygon video team #peering through the keyhole: tfw you are your own voyeur #the narrative is sentient and it is coming to get you: fate, inevitability, heroes who are dead from the beginning #what is called resignation: everyone has Issues and Problems, the world is fundamentally fallen #clingys your duo: tubbo & tommy #crimeboys: tommy & wilbur #i’ll see you all when we’re reincarnated into bushes: SBI #you even broke my good tape deck: ctommy & cdream, exile arc, etc #everything flash and guile: cquackity & cwilbur. sometimes contains ship content. #o7: l’manberg #tunglr dot edu: tumblr is a webbed site. can be either (affectionate) or (derogatory). #blorbo from my shows: generic posts about Characters #the most interesting thing in the world: tfw special interest #be cringe do cringe: ocd recovery stuff, doing things that are scary and embarrassing #personal pre script ions: things i should do, advice(tm) #the alternative to tragedy is damnation: attachments on the dream smp #we are no longer plankton: c!ranboo & c!tubbo. contains canon-typical ship content. #it’s obvious if you understand decision theory: for a certain stripe of discourse. i will not be elaborating. #the grackles calling to each other: rejecting dramatic tragedies, focusing on happiness in everyday life #light and air and color: nbc hannibal #from the house that we made our home: eclipse federation and all three relationships within it (vitalasy&subz, vitalasy&zam, subz&zam). sometimes contains ship content.

[orange-orchard-system]

Pop off all you'd like

I will say that I do see accounts of people who are affected by syscourse (and those who care about it) offline – everything from attempted institutionalization to physical assault to general unkindness – and I don't want these people's experiences to be erased, which I fear the common narrative of "none of this matters offline" perpetuates. But I'm very glad that you've been able to have more positive experiences; it brings me hope whenever I hear things like that.

Something I think that people may be missing in my original post is that it was inspired by seeing syscourse around the very concept of pluralphobia. Out of all the things we're going to argue over, it's how we talk about the shit we face for being plural?! It's about whether the shit we face is "bad enough" to spend time talking about?! It's about whether the shit we face specifically for being plural is distinct enough to identify it as its own form of oppression?! We've graduated from the "you aren't real" argument to the "even if we suppose you are real, none of the oppression or discrimination you face matters, it's just people being mean on the internet, you don't need your own word for that" argument (and wow, I wonder where I've heard that before! *stares aggressively at ace and trans discourse*). The usual exclus have gone a step further in adopting common bigot logic to shoot all of us in the foot, and even the people I see pointing this out are ending up dragged into intracommunity slapfights over the precise ways we talk about our pain. This whole thing makes me feel like the "can I please get a waffle" vine, except it's "can I please get some legal protections".

Like you mention in your post, we should be helping and looking out for each other. I don't think syscourse focused blogs are necessarily worsening things, or putting their energy towards the wrong things – the work to fight against exclusionism, misinformation, and cruelty within our online spaces is important, especially as we see it begin to spill into offline spaces as well. But we as a community shouldn't lose sight of there being more to the problems we all face than syscourse alone. We shouldn't be infighting about the parallels we draw between different forms of oppression; we shouldn't be telling each other off for drawing comparisons and handshaking with communities that have gone through similar to us. There are systems who could be kicked out by their families at any given time for being plural and yet people are arguing over the meta of our exploratory theories and thoughts on our own oppression; on whether or not we're "allowed" to call it oppression at all. It makes me so angry to think about. Call it whatever the fuck you like, but call it out.

When I'm in a safe place in life, I want to turn my attention to helping more systems offline. Probably in the form of a regular, local meetup at a library or something. We desperately need more in-person places to foster community and meet other plurals at. I want us all to be able to know for a fact that we are not alone. I want us all to know there's at least one other person/system they can go to who will understand and can help them. I want us all to be able to come together, whether that's to push for change, or just to be there for one another. It's hard to do those things in a way that feels tangible and real in online spaces, no matter how much the online world affects offline events and lives.

Peace and love to all plurals and survivors, indeed. May we all find the peace and community we need.

I wrote a whole f-cking poem about this that I may or may not publish but. I need to stop looking at syscourse. People are arguing over whether or not pluralphobia is bad enough to care about and what kinds of discrimination it's okay to draw parallels between and I'm just here like. Okay. Great. So anyway, regardless of these slapfights, I'm still stuck depending on openly and specifically pluralphobic family – as in, my own family I directly depend upon who have outright stated their hostility towards systems specifically– to be housed and fed. I have met multiple other systems offline in my local area who are stuck in the same position I am, with unsupportive if not outright hostile and hateful family. We are forced to remain closeted for our own safety and to ensure our basic needs are met. Can we focus on problems like that, please? We can hold the Oppression Olympics after we get a start on making sure vulnerable systems are safe.

[emcads]

i’m sure i’ve written up a meta about this before but esme is so so guarded around men  ( for good reason, considering the number of intracommunal betrayals she’s dealt with from them ) and simply.  so open and free and herself around women. even when she knows she shouldn’t be and even when she tries to convince herself that women can hurt her too. women are so rare and precious and wonderful in her life that anytime she meets a girl she is simply hearteyes.  even if they do have nefarious motives who cares.  it’s a girl.

[absynthe--minded]

opinions on the recent russingon meta? tbh i love russingon, i love black fingon headcanons, but i do agree that it's a little weird when fingon gets totally sidelined in fics as just Maedhros' Emotional Growth or the Black Nanny. i mean, russingon really lends itself to hurt/comfort, which is fine, but i think ppl sometimes neglect fingon's arc. thoughts as a russingon writer? (no accusations, love your work, but wanted your perspective on other ppls russingon works)

(Wow this got long, lol.

Full disclosure - I haven’t read the recent Russingon meta, or offered any substantial response to it. Quite a lot of people I know have, but I’ve not had the time and my brain hasn’t been cooperating with me to read large chunks of text over the last couple of days. I have opinions on your ask as I’m seeing it now, and that’s what I’ll be responding to. I’m also not black, though I’m not white either - my ethnic group is one that has troubling stereotypes associated with it of caring for white people/acting as sage dispensers of advice/etc, but I can’t speak to the breadth and depth of the black experience when it comes to being a ‘black nanny’ in fiction, and I’m not going to try to.)

So, Fingon being a cardboard cutout/emotional support animal for Maedhros and Fingon being perceived as black by large portions of the fandom are two things that arose completely independently of one another. Fingon being Maedhros’s support animal is a trope as old as Russingon itself, and possibly is as old as the published Silm itself. I’ve read Russingon fics that were almost as old as I am, Russingon fics published last week, Russingon fics that vilified the Nolofinwëans, and Russingon fics from the turn of the 21st century when the Fëanorians were seen as uncomplicated villains. Fingon being a cardboard cutout is ubiquitous through all of them. It doesn’t matter how old the fic is, it’s basically guaranteed.

The reason for this is that Maedhros is far and away the most popular character in the Silmarillion, and his pain and angst and mental strife and trauma are front and center in many writers’ lists of priorities. If it’s not Fingon propping him up, it’s Maglor, or another brother, or an OC - this is a very common genre of Silm fic and it’s not limited to Russingon.

But.

This is my least favorite Russingon trope and it’s the entire reason I’m writing Blessed Hands and why all my Russingon fics are at least majority-Fingon POV. I can’t fucking stand it, and it completely kills my interest in a story. I’m super picky with my Russingon fics because of this trope, and because of its ubiquity, and I’ve talked about it on my blog many times before. For me to love a Russingon fic, it has to be about how they anchor and support one another, and how their mutual and equal investment in their relationship is the foundation of their lives. This trope’s not nearly as common as it used to be, thank Eru, but it’s still around, and I cannot talk enough about how I Hate It, lol. It’s also old enough and omnipresent enough that the majority of fics feature it, and - interestingly - the majority of fics also feature white Fingon.

Alongside this, Black Fingon arose out of a non-Russingon intracommunity discussion among the artists of the Silm fandom, in about 2013. I saw this play out in real time on my dash, and so while I can’t source posts reliably, I can promise this is as accurate as I can make it.

The paradigm shift came as a result of content creators realizing that several of their number weren’t white, and quite a few people in the fandom weren’t white, and yet 100% of art and fics featured white elves with zero real diversity (and a number of very troubling, somewhat stereotypical older illustrations of Men as the only significant examples of people of color in Middle-Earth). There was concern as to why this was being accepted as the norm when there was ample opportunity for representing both one’s own ethnicity and other people of color (and a lot of concern about unexamined racism in white artists who found themselves unable, for various reasons, to picture heroic elves as anything but fair-skinned) and the general consensus was that we had more consistent information from HoME draft to HoME draft about hair color than skin tone, so why were we all picturing our heroes as white?

Fingon in particular was headcanoned as black due to a discovery by a fan (whose URL escapes me, sadly) who I’m certain was black themself. There’s a passage in The Peoples of Middle-Earth describing Fingon as wearing his hair in plaits braided through with gold, and this fan made the comparison to hairstyles worn by IRL black people. The idea was that he was the most uncomplicatedly brave, heroic, and noble person in the Silm, and look, he could be a man of color! There was also a sort of gentleman’s agreement to refrain from making explicit connections beyond that to real human ethnic groups/cultures/races. The logic behind this was that if the generic Eurofantasy aesthetic was kept, white artists would be encouraged to draw diverse elves without concern for cultural appropriation, as well as steering racists away from caricature and the ability to twist a well-meaning effort into a stereotypical attack.

When these ideas first emerged, there was a lot of resistance. Arguments were made that those of us who advocated for diverse elves and specifically black Fingon were discreetly accusing other artists of being racist, or were acting purposefully holier-than-thou, or just wanted to start drama. There were some people who claimed we’d attack anyone who didn’t agree with us that elves were brown. This was an exhausting mess to deal with and it was a major part of my disillusionment with discussing racism in the Tolkien fandom - the majority of voices were reasonable people but the minority was loud and obnoxious. I bring this up to say that diverse elves were genuinely progressive and forward-looking in 2013, even when it was more or less explicitly stated that they had no real ties to existing human races and they had no change to their characters.

Black Fingon, agreed upon outside the Russingon fandom, and Fingon the cardboard cutout, the most reliably present version of Fingon in Russingon fic, sort of ran into one another. No real change was ever made to Finno’s character upon making him black - this would have been seen at the time as unnecessary because his character was just fine as-is, and the whole point was that he could be exactly as he’d been before and be black or brown, that men of color had the exact same range of emotion and depth of character that he did when he was perceived as white. 

The problem is that there hasn’t been much examination of the idea that Fingon being a black man who exists to prop up a white man is uh. Really racist and kind of fraught.

All I have to say really is that this wasn’t a conscious decision by anyone to be racist - the opposite, actually. As I mentioned above I can’t speak for black people, or for other BIPOC, but my opinion is that it’s an unfortunate and unconscious choice that has nothing to do with Fingon’s race and everything to do with the fact that his character has been seriously neglected for decades now. It opens the door to a lot of really frustrating tropes and plotlines that smack fans of color in the face with how bigoted they are, and it’s something that I’m glad is being discussed, if only because I’ve been trying to push for a reevaluation of Fingon’s personality and general role for a long time now (though of course I’m also glad that this is actually getting acknowledged as a harmful thing real people now are at risk of doing).

My solution? Same as ever - “write Fingon like a real person with interests and desires and goals of his own, and treat his family like they matter, and flesh out the world he lives in. Listen to people of color if you’re white, educate yourself regardless, and learn to avoid harmful tropes.” If that becomes the fandom norm? I’ll be a happy Absynthe.

[margokesses]

to what extent do you want to see real life reflected in fic/meta about sam as capt. america? when I think about such a superhero I immediately fall into wish-fulfillment fantasies about forcing bezos to demonopolize, dangling tr*mp from the chrysler building, real antifa shit like that. but I know there should be other stories too, especially so we don't get "Fandom Tackles BLM" trainwrecks.

Okay so in the comics (ik y'all are like "shut up about comics op") but here me out this time. The sam wilson cap run talked about things like immigration, police brutality, evil corporations, overpolicing, etc. And it would be nice to see that talked about in fic. I also want discussions about racism to happen but like... Only by black people. Because white people don't know what the fuck they're talking about sometimes and being black is a whole different ballpark compared to other poc. Basically i want more discussions like y'all did with steve but more prominent if that makes sense? Like if you look at steve meta and headcanons its like "steve supports lgbt, and people with disabilities, and vaccinating your kids, and he supports women, etc" and i wish that we got that for sam. Because alot of y'all are just like "he hates racism because he's black" and that's it. Also there's a lot of like intracommunity things ppl can discuss as well because the black community has a lot of issues lmao

[blaqueer]

me: any day now i’ll finally stop being butthurt and be able to go back to reblogging aro ace stuff like usual. any day now......

also me: “any day now, any day now--” you’ve been telling yourself that for nearly a month now. it’s time to face up to the fact that you may be a million different things right now, but “butthurt” isn’t one of them. even if you are able to get past anxiety / depression and reblog aro ace stuff again, then what? a year from now you’ll be right back where you are now, except probably worse off. this is the second time, you know. what are you going to do about it? what can you even do about it but distance yourself from the “community” that makes you feel this way to begin with?

[thedeadflag]

@thefandombusines said:  Golder rule of fandom DL:DR

I generally don’t agree with that ‘golden rule’ for many reasons that myself and others have fleshed out over the years.

“Too Many Links; Didn’t Read” version: 

In an ideal world, it might make sense, but not ours. It’s well established that media shapes people’s perspectives and can have great material impact on people’s lives. As such, ignoring serious harms reproduced through media never solves the problems those media create, and only allows for those kinds of harm to spread in society. 

[dalishious]

really really great meta. you did an amazing job pulling things from canon & clearly explaining why things are problematic. it means a lot to a fellow biracial person! :) idk if you knew this but refrained from saying it, or just didn't know, but feeling pressured to marry within our own ethnicity to prevent from "dying out" is also (albeit w/different context ofc) a jewish (ashkie?) intracommunity issue. which makes what bioware did doubly disconcerting, considering elves' ties to both groups.

No, I did not know this, thank you for the addition.

[lines-and-edges]

Having seen both the behavior you're talking about and the behavior OP is talking about, I feel fairly confident in saying that they mostly belong to different conversations.

However, important to know: I've also seen a weird pernicious interference dynamic going on in which transmisogyny-exempt people (including the set of cis wlw you're talking about, the men OP is talking about, etc) wind up defending their misogynistic behavior (including their transmisogyny) by saying "oh we're only taking potshots at cishets", and then calling anyone who is harmed by their shit cishet, even if that person is a trans woman.

To my view, those people are basically appropriating your angle of critique, so that when anyone calls them on it, they can hide behind trans women (and make trans women vulnerable to TERF scapegoating in the process, because you just KNOW if a transmasc gay dude jettisoning his baggage says something violently vitriolic about women it's going to be misattributed by some radfem later.)

In conclusion, Situation Normal is All Fucked Up.

Oh yeah, and here’s my hot take about people (especially men) in fandom using their platform to take steamy shits on cis, straight women: 

Your misogyny is still misogyny, and it’s still disgusting! Sexism is still a real thing that affects women all over the world, many of whom are straight and cis! Oppression on one axis is still oppression! Reducing straight cis women who write fanfiction or draw fan art that you don’t like into villains eternally deserving of being on the receiving end of cruel jabs often littered with sexist language reinforces and normalizes misogynist perspectives! It encourages internalized misogyny! It harms real life living and breathing women! It assumes that all women in fandom who identify cis and straight right now in this moment will continue to do so forever, an assumption that is fucking laughable, and you god damn well know it!

Your queerness does not absolve you of your ability to be a misogynist!

And, by the way, if you are a queer woman who enjoys laughing it up with the group about how awful those evil cis straight women are, please know, the moment that your morality and the morality of the bullies you are surrounded by diverges even slightly, your identification will become subject to scrutiny. Please know the moment that you question or otherwise think beyond the groupthink, your identity regardless of how not cis or not straight you are will not prevent you from being lumped in with the cis straight women that you denigrate today. 

Please find and surround yourself with people who respect women. Full fucking stop.