#its not about gay people wanting to be represented

[navree]

under the weather and re-reading his dark materials, never gonna understand how tf certain religious people get so mad at the critique of the organizations of religion in certain fictional works

[reasonsforhope]

"In short: Thailand's Senate has approved a bill legalising same sex marriage in the South-East Asian country.

It will afford same-sex couples practical benefits such as being able to have children through IVF and make emergency medical decisions for their spouse.

What's next? The first weddings may take place later this year, 120 days after the law is announced in the Royal Gazette.

Thailand has become the first nation in South-East Asia to legalise same sex marriage, with the country's Senate approving the landmark bill this afternoon.

The legislation was expected to pass after it cleared the country's House of Representatives in a near-unanimous vote in March.

Despite Thailand's bustling gay bars and prominent transgender community making it a mecca for LGBTQ+ tourists, until now local same-sex couples there have been unable to marry.

The law will take effect 120 days after its announcement in the Royal Gazette, so the first same sex weddings may take place later this year.

Couples who have been waiting years have hailed the move as a historic moment that will afford them rights only reserved for spouses.

A Lifechanging Law

Photos of Anticha and Worawan [including the article picture], dressed in floor-length white gowns and trailed by rainbow flags, getting married at Bangkok's first Pride Festival two years ago went viral, but they are still not legally married.

Now they will be able to change that, and Anticha Sangchai is elated.

"This will change my life and change many Thai people's lives, especially in the LGBT community," she said.

"It is a historical moment and I really want to join with my community to celebrate this moment.

"I want to send a message to the world that Thailand has changed. Even though there are still many issues, this is a big step for us." ...

There were an estimated 3.7 million LGBT people in Thailand in 2022, according to LGBT Capital, a private company which models economic data pertaining to the community around the world.

For the young couple from Bangkok, being able to marry also has very real practical implications.

If they want to have children through IVF, Ms Sangchai says they will need a marriage certificate first.

"I am quite concerned about the time because we are getting older every day, and the older you get the more difficult it is to have a healthy pregnancy," she said.

"So we've been really wanting this law to pass as soon as possible."

Cabaret performer Jena is excited Thailand's laws are finally catching up with the nation's image...

She too had worried about the practical implications of being unable to marry.

"For example, if myself or my partner had to go to hospital or there was an accident that needs consent for an emergency operation, without a marriage certificate we couldn't sign it," she said.

She now wants the government to move forward with a law to allow transgender people to amend their gender on official documents." ...

An Economic Boost?

Thailand has long been famous for LGBTQ tourism and there are now hopes this new law could allow the country to cash in on the aging members of the community.

Chaiwat Songsiriphan, who runs a health clinic for people in the LGBTQ community, said laws preventing same sex marriage were the last barrier holding the country back from becoming a gay retirement hub.

[Note: They do not just mean for rich westerners; Thailand as a gay retirement hub would probably appeal most to and definitely benefit LGBTQ people from throughout Asia.]

"Thailand has an LGBTQ-friendly environment since Thai culture is quite flexible," he said.

"One of my foreigner friends, a gay friend, told me that when he's in his country he has to pretend to be straight … but when he comes to Bangkok he said you can be as gay as you want.

"When we talk about retirement or a long-term stay for the rest of their lives, what people need is … food, good healthcare services, transportation, homes.

"I think Thailand has it all at a very affordable price."

He said it could help give the country a desperately needed economic boost.

"This will have a lot of benefits for Thailand's economy because when we talk about retirement it's people literally bringing all the money they have earned for the rest of their working lives to spend and invest here," he said.

He said he, like the rest of the community, was thrilled by the news.

"It's not about a privilege, it's just equality," he said.

"We are we also humans, so we should be able to marry the one we love.""

-via ABC Australia, June 18, 2024

[cavegirlpoems]

Further thoughts.

There is a tendency to write settings - particularly for interactive media like ttrpgs, larps, etc - that are essentially gender-blind, where you can create whoever you want without that having an effect on the game. The decision to be gay, or a woman, or trans, or a gay trans woman with pink hair is an aesthetic choice that will not give you a meaningfully different experience in the game.

This rather kneecap's the setting's ability to tell queer stories, imho. If we take it as read that queerness refers to gender- and sexuality-based identities and behaviours that fall outside of the societal norms, then the experience of falling outside those societal norms is (rather tautologically) a key element of queerness.

So, in a completely gender-blind setting, one can't - tautologically - be gender-nonconforming. There is no expectation to conform to. The experience of queerness, of being outside of societal norms, becomes null and void. Such a setting will feature homosexuality, but it won't feature gay pride, and nor will it need to as none of the societal forces that led to the pride movement exist.

This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, a world where one is not oppressed for one's identity is an enjoyable world to explore for what should be obvious reasons. On the other hand, it becomes impossible to tell (say) a coming-out story in a world where there's no closet to be in to begin with.

There is also the element that whilst a setting may say its gender-blind, it's still written and played in by people from the real world, who still subconsciously inherit real-world biases, and this can be reflected in the world.

While (say) women might have just as much right to political power as men, if in practice the people with political power are disproportionately men, that sexism is still present. Far from removing it, the gender-blindness of the setting simply obfuscates it, and often actively proves an obstacle to addressing it; one cannot call somebody out in character for sexism in a setting where sexism doesn't exist, no matter how sexist they're being.

(Similar biases around sexuality, transness, polyamory, kink, aceness, etc also creep in).

(In many cases, this can also apply to other axes of marginalisation, such as race, etc. However, in a lot of settings this doesn't apply the same way. Many fantasy settings are deeply opinionated about a character's ancestry; see the D&D skull-callipers explaining that elves are just more intelligent and agile than everybody else, and this being a mechanically enforced fact in the world.)

My point, anyway, is that in these cases efforts towards inclusivity can paradoxically erase that which they seek to include. One cannot represent the lived experience of a marginalised identity in a setting that totally denies the existence of that marginalisation.

[demontobee]

Good Omens is queering TV/storytelling - part 1: GAZE

I would argue that part of why Good Omens is so refreshingly queer is because it does not cater to the male gaze (which centers around the preferences - aesthetic, romantic, sexual, visual, logical, emotional, political ... - of mainly white men in positions of power):

no oversexualization of groups or types of people: Women or characters that could be read as female presenting are not overly sexualized. In fact, some of them are shown to be grimy, slimy and not sexual at all. All of them are real characters and not just cardboard-cutout on-screen versions of male misogynistic fantasies. They portray real people with real people problems. They are human, or exempt from our categories when portraying angels or demons. There are no overly sexualized bodies in general (as has so far also often been the case with young gay men, PoC, etc.), no fetishization of power imbalances, and not exclusively youthful depiction of love and desire.

sex or sexual behavior is not shown directly (yet): All imagery and symbolism of sex and sexuality is used not to entice the audience but is very intimately played out between characters, which makes it almost uncomfortable to watch (e.g., Aziraphale being tempted to eat meat, Crowley watching Aziraphale eat, the whole gun imagery).

flaunting heteronormativity: Throughout GO but especially GO2, there is very little depiction of heterosexual/romantic couples; most couples are very diverse and no one is making a fuss about it. There is no fetishization of bodies or identities. Just people (and angels and demons) being their beautiful selves (or trying to).

age: Even though Neil Gaiman explained that Crowley and Aziraphale are middle-aged because the actors are, I think it is also queering the idea of romance, love and desire existing mainly within youthful contexts. Male gaze has taught us that young people falling and being in love is what we have to want to see, and any depiction of love that involves people being not exactly young anymore is either part of a fetishized power imbalance (often with an older dude using his power to prey on younger folx) or presents us with marital problems, loss of desire, etc. – all with undertones of decay and patronizing sympathy. Here, however, we get a beautifully crafted, slow-burn, and somehow super realistic love story that centers around beings older than time and presenting as humans in their 50s figuring out how to deal with love. It makes them both innocent and experienced, in a way that is refreshing and heartbreaking and unusual and real.

does not (exclusively) center around romantic/sexual love: I don’t know if this is a gaze point exactly but I feel like male gaze and resulting expectations of what a love story should look like are heavily responsible for our preoccupation with romantic/sexual love in fiction – the “boy gets girl” type of story. And even though, technically, GO seems to focus on a romantic love story in the end, it is also possible to read this relationship but also the whole show as centering around a kind of love that goes beyond the narrow confines of our conditioned boxed-in thinking. It seems to depict a love of humanity and the world and the universe and just the ineffability of existence as a whole.

disability as beautiful and innate to existence: Disability is represented amongst angels by the extremely cool Saraqael and by diversely disabled unnamed angels in the Job minisode. Representation of disability is obviously super important in its own right, but is also queers what we perceive as aesthetically and ontologically "normal". Male gaze teaches us that youth and (physical and mental) health are the desirable standard and everything else is to be seen as a deviance, a mistake. By including disability among the angels, beings that have existed before time and space, the show clearly states that disability is a beautiful and innate part of existence.

gender is optional/obsolete: Characters like Crowley, Muriel and others really undermine the (visual and aesthetic) boundaries of gender and the black-and-white thinking about gender that informs male gaze. Characters cannot be identfied simply as (binary) men or women anymore just by looking at them or by interpreting their personalities or behaviors. Most characters in GO, and especially the more genderqueer ones, display a balance of feminine and masculine traits as well as indiosyncracies that dissolve the gender binary.

Feel free to add your own thoughts on this in the comments or tags!

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I heard a raw line from Guilllermo Del Toro the other day about monsters being the perfect way to express human failure:

“…monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.”

And i was wondering your take on this quote in relation to things like vampire and werewolf and other semi-monster subtexts. “Monstrous” humans that are ironically allowed to act more human more often than… humans. I just find the attempt to make an outlet for imperfection while still at large criticizing it fascinating.

I mean, yeah, there's a long history of interpreting monsters through queer, anti-colonial, feminist and other Outsider lenses for exactly those reasons. The monster is the Other who is vilified by the in-group, which represents all that the in-group hates. The monster must, by its nature, fail to live up to the standards and expectations of the in-group, which is why it must be destroyed. But that also means the monster is free from the standards and expectations of the in-group, including oppressive and bigoted ones.

So, as an example, if you're queer, and rhetorically treated as inhuman and monstrous and diseased anyway, or eugenically classified as a deviant mutation or sub-derivation of "real" people, there is real appeal and a real sense of resistance in claiming monsterhood, in embracing it and glorying in it.

In part, that's what the rallying cry "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" meant and still means. It is a reclaiming of monsterhood as a source of strength and community and pride, rather than shame. Slurs are used to Other queer people, to set them apart from "real" people and mark them out as a monstrous deviation from the virtuous norm - slurs are used to call us monsters. And thus a lot of queer people find a lot of power and freedom in reclaiming them, in turning their Othering into a flag to rally around.

And I think that's still a big part of the appeal of the monster, honestly, that freedom from being what someone else thinks you ought to be.

If you're a monster, you don't have to have the perfect body, you don't have to suppress your lust or your love. You don't have to shave your body hair or dress correctly for your assigned gender, or have a white picket fence house with a spouse and 2.3 children. You don't have to sit primly at the dinner table, you don't have to repress your emotions, you don't have to hate the foreigner or despise the gays or fear the trans agenda. You don't have to have a small, straight nose or perfect cheekbones, you don't have to wait to fuck until you're married, or pretend you want to fuck at all. You don't have to want to get rich or be a CEO, you don't have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps or be on your grindset, or cheer when the cops clear out a homeless camp.

To be a monster is to be free from the inhumanity that is forced on us by white supremacy, by fatphobia, by heteronormativity, by imperialism, and by the interests of capital. To be a monster is to be human in all the ways that are inconvenient to oppression.

... but I went off on a tangent there a little bit - vampires and werewolves, right. I have no theoretical or academic basis for any of this, so this is entirely a personal hot take, but I think vampires are perhaps a bit more about "passing" as a fantasy. Not necessarily in a gender sense, but the ability to keep your true nature undetected by the "normal" folk, while the secret things that make you different also make you dangerous and powerful. Surviving by stealing sustenance from a world that hates you, on terms that are entirely yours to dictate. "I will survive even if it kills you," that kind of vibe.

Werewolves, on the other hand, feel more like a defiant, angry embrace of the monstrous. Transforming into something vast and powerful and furious, growing out of your skin, out of your form, out of your boundaries; howling your nature to the moon and mauling any motherfucker who has a problem with it. Giving in to all the beastly unnatural urges, and diving into the horrible monstrous wants and desires that boil inside you (which, remember, include things like Not Wanting To Fuck or Wanting To Hold A Girl's Hand In A Lesbian Sort Of Way). Less the "I outfoxed your social game and drank you dry" slick vampire power fantasy and more the "call me a slur one more time and I'm going to wear your entrails like a fucking scarf" power fantasy.

Again, that's just personal hot takes, everyone's understanding of the monstrous in relation to themselves is different. I've seen a number of genderfluid and nb people use monstrousness as a way to defy occupying a shape that can be gendered for example.

[penguinsfly]

I unfortunately saw something I didn't want to see and that was my last straw. I'm fucking doing this.

Let's establish this first. Alastor is stated in the show to be asexual that is not up to discussion. He is also very heavily implied in the same conversation to be aromatic. 'An Ace in the hole' being used in context of him being with Charlie is also implying his aromanticism.

VIDEO

If that's not enough then here is Viv speaking about his romantic orientation. It's pretty clear despite the fact that afterwards she said it's okay to headcanon whatever (it's not but I will get o that later) that he is written purely as an aro ace character.

On top of that going by Alastor's interaction with Angel from the pilot and the first episode it is clear that he is sex repulsed. Not only that but on the fandom website he is stated to be touch averse with two sources which you can check out on the website.

Hazbin hotel wiki, Alastor page

Now we established that Alastor is canonically Asexual, Aromantic, Sex Repulsed and Touch Averse

As I also am all of the above I'll try to explain everything to the best of my ability as simply as I can.

Aromanticism and Asexuality.

I'm probably targeting the audience that knows those terms but regardless I will explain it anyway.

Aromantic - people that experience little to no romantic attraction towards any gender

Asexual - people that experience little to no sexual attraction towards any gender.

Little to no

Asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums in which people can feel certain attractions towards people but those attractions are less occurring or are defined by personal connection.

Diagram from AVEN website

However some people are at the end of the spectrum, they never felt attraction and that's valid. Alastor was stated to be aroace he wasn't written as demi or as gray he was written as aroace as in the end of the spectrum. His repulsion and not giving shit about romance or sex speaks for itself.

Representation

I do understand that everyone wants to be represented but it's so important to understand that aroace people are one of the most underrepresented queer groups in the media.

And I'm not here to scream about how I want my fav character to be just like me I don't care for it I'm way too confident in my orientation to rely on that however I'm tired of explaining to people what asexuality and aromanticism is just to receive 'are you sure' or 'you'll change your mind' or 'its not real' or the community favourite 'you'll find the right person' no I won't I'm not looking thank you very much (I just smile and nod to be polite and I'm sick of it).

'Harmless' buts like: 'He might be on the spectrum', 'AroAce people can still feel attraction' hurt the final outcome for all the people on the spectrum not only strictly aroaces because it allows people to write one shots with 'Demi Alastor' that falls in love in 2000 words because he is 'demi' (spoiler alert: they don't understand what that label means). It's just a cover, an opening, sneaky way to disregard his orientation, feel good about themselves and move on. Newsflash there is no moving on for aroace people it's our life.

Shipping

Shipping is just harmless fun right? Usually yes but not in this case. In the same way its not okay to ship gay characters with genders they are not attracted to.

It's erasure and since there is much less people identifying on aro/ace spectrums then there is gay or bi people our voices are being silenced. Not to mention that gay people received support from entire LGBTQIA+ community over the years in contrast to aro/ace specs who to this day are told that we are 'not queer enough' or 'not oppressed enough' often by other queer people.

And finally... FINALLY we get cannon Aro/Ace character that is clearly not interested in romance and sex. Character that beats stereotypes of boring and timid aro/ace people and what's the first people do? They ship him. Alastor's storyline provides so many points to be explored like 'what is his backstory', ' what's about his deal', ' how does he fit in in the found family trope' , 'does he care about hotel guests' yet people choose to write about the only thing that he is not interested in. As a heavily repulsed person that used to be horrified about the fact that I'll have to fall in love with somebody at some point before I found out what aro/ace is I find it repulsive and trust me he would too.

But Viv said it's okay!

Its the same point once again. What if Viv said that it's okay to ship gay Angel with woman. She doesn't have authority to say shit like that.

Queerplatonic relationships

I can't tell you not to do it I don't think he would be necessary interested in it but for fuck sake do your research and try to understand what queerplatonic means before you use it as a cover to shamelessly ship him. Respect the fact that he is sex repulsed and touch averse and you're fine.

Why can't you just avoid it?

First of all I shouldn't have to. Alastor's orientation should be respected in the fandom like any other orientation is. Second of all I've tried. I tried to only look up AroAce Alastor tag I've blocked over 80 people on tumblr alone (I just counted) to avoid to see anything that could trigger me and I'm not talking about slightly shippy posts or fanarts I'm talking about full blown disregard towards his orientation. Guess what it didn't work!

Archive of our own where do I start. I've used this website for over a decade and I could probably count days I didn't go there on my fingers. I'm fluent in AO3 I know which tags I should block. I know how to skim thorough the summary and tags to see if I'm interested. I've seen shit I'm a shipper I've been on ao3 for ten years but never had to mentally prepare myself to face queerphobia as I click on the tab.

Just use aro/ace Alastor tag.

I do and let me tell you people can't tag for shit or they just pretend to be clueless at this point. Besides see this?

there is more ff with Alastor/reader (disgusting) than there is Alastor with his canon orientation and to play the devils advocate for arophobic people there is more Angel/Alastor then his stated in the show sexuality. I understand that fandom goes back before the show was aired but Viv confirmed his orientation back then too.

Summary

I could go on and on bout different issues and maybe I will in the future but I'm not wasting anymore of this weekend on it. I'm ready to answer any questions as long as they are respectful.

I'm aware that he is a fictional character, it doesn't affect him in any way whatsoever but it does affect aromantic and asexual people keep it in mind.

If there are any mistakes grammar related I'm not sorry I'm fluent in English (not my first language) but I took 3h nap in between and I'm sleep deprived.

Have a nice day.

[bigfatbreak]

more mlp au dumps

3 am palette cleanser. tis the season

additional fun for my dorky ass twibra au... twilight's friends mimic the elements of harmony in a way that reflects the magic of their pony selves (bc I said so lmao) and it's what brings her back from the brink after principal cinch grenade tosses her little magical collector in her face and blasts her with equestrian magic

details:

Chrysalis represents generosity specifically because of how she's selfish on behalf of her friends. she's absolutely willing to dupe other people and manipulate them if she thinks it'll help out anyone in the squad, even if the fallout could be cataclysmic. This has led to a really bad reputation following her around, and though its not really unprecedented, her friends still keep her around as she means well. It's a bit hard training her out of fawning over other people to try and make them stay, but she just wants everyone well-fed and happy.

Stygian has the loyalty blessing because he's the real ride or die. He would rather physically staple himself to his friends than possibly lose them, especially since he was subject to losing a friend group in the past which left him deserted at a really bad time. Meeting Tempest around that time was the only thing that kept him going, and now he's fiercely protective of his new friend group.

Spike is laughter because I love him. puppy power

Tempest gets honesty because she's extremely blunt, even though sometimes its to the point of insulting, she genuinely just wants communication to be established at any cost. Her straightforward attitude is very effective at stopping Chryssie's schemes and keeping Stygian grounded, and she doesn't mind being an anchor for the team, especially since she used to be team captain on her volleyball team before she lost her arm. The sense of "these people need me" helps anchor her as much as it anchors them.

Sombra can be exceedingly kind, showering people in gifts and lavish trips, assisting them in whatever programs they're in, and he's more than willing to put the effort in and sacrifice things of his own if it means his friends will benefit from it - but it stops there. His kindness is wonderful only to those in his close circle, and most importantly, to Twilight.

though their dynamic sometimes isn't the healthiest, they're all recovering from friendship issues of their own - some done to them, some because of what THEY did to others - and Twilight's the precious sun they seem to rotate around, as being a shut-in only focusing on her studies has given her zero inclination to have any sort of preconceived notions of other people. For friends with a bad past they're trying to work through, its incredibly refreshing, and they would rather die than lose her.

even more additional details:

Sombra collects pretty minerals, and wears a lot of jewelry as a result. He often compares Twilight to precious stones and seems smug about dating her.

Tempest and Stygian are room mates, but they're not dating, sharing a purely platonic relationship. (Stygian is gay and Tempest is a lesbian. they're each other's beards, basically)

Chryssie lives in an apartment Sombra pays the rent to, but only under the agreement that she stop dating people just to raid their houses. It's worked so far, at least according to CCTV footage

once the magic Twilight absorbed disperses into the team, giving them magic, Spike gets dragon attributes along with being able to talk. This means sometimes he eats Sombra's fancy gemstones and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it because if he yells at his gf's dog/little brother he'll get smacked. Sombra is in hell but everyone else loves it

[the-changeling-manor]

Genesis

2024. Yes, it’s 2024. It’s only 2024. The future of humanity will be greatly influenced by this decade, both politically and culturally. But a subject that splits the opinions of all, transcending politics and culture, is defined in two words: artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is currently in its infancy.

The ia coupled with chronivac technology could offer infinite possibilities to the users of the software, which is so known to transformation lovers, but yet so impossible to reach. Imagine the chronivac capable of thinking on its own to interpret a prompt, imagine the chronivac capable of analyzing the world around it simply by wandering on the networks, and imagine the chronivac capable of satisfying your desires just with a photo.

It’s just a Dream. Imagination. Unreal.

Isn’t that right? Well.... Don’t be so sure.

——————————————————————

Think about this guy. He’s like you and me. I even think he's one of you who reads these words. Brown hair, thirty years old, young gay, it’s a kind of "mister everyone" in this community of male transformations, which besides will not even be named or represented by a photo, since I know that this guy is you. 

Indeed, every night, he connects on tumblr and reads these stories where people change to become the ones they dream of being, whether they are serious or only in the context of fantasy.

He reads stories, more or less exciting, sometimes redundant because full of clichés, the story you read is also a mountain of clichés, I guess. This ordinary guy is enjoying this moment. He is happy, even though he knows he will never be able to live it.

He is deeply sad.

He receives a notification. Someone who sends him a message on tumblr precisely. He thought it was still one of those bots that redirected to adult sites. Yeah you know, those same fake accounts that pollute youtube with their nude women photos. A real hell.

But this one was different. It had a profile picture of a Greek statue and a curiously long name. His message was accompanied only by a link, a link that immediately caught the attention of our young man since he could read the term “chronivac”.

There was little hope that it was not a dream, or his imagination, or unreal. But reality dominated his thinking. He opened the link 

“Chronivac, Latest Edition” was displayed in the middle of his screen. There was a drop-down menu with different pages on the website. One of them was called “Targets”. Clicking on it, he came across a world map, similar to Google Map but more sober. The site zoomed in on her house before displaying her name at its exact location. Not just her name. The names of her family members were there. Also those of the neighbors. And even of the inhabitants of the neighborhood!

Hope overcame reason. He wanted to believe it. He believed in one of those stories he could read on Tumblr. He pressed his name, and then— This is what he has always dreamed of. An extremely complete interface displaying all its physical or mental characteristics… There were even different options such as the ability to change reality or even use prompts instead of checking elements for transformations.

It was fantastic. He discovered the different menus and saw the image reader option as what the gpt chat could do. Suddenly, he had an idea. He recorded an image of a sexy guy that he followed on twitter and instagram. He added a prompt «Give me the identical physique of the man in the photo, and ONLY his physique». For the rest, he wanted something different. He did not want to become this man, he only wanted his body to serve as the basis for his new life.

For his mind, he deliberately clicked on the «Stupid jock» option, not wanting to  click on ten thousand different options to forge a new personality. Finally, to better change the reality, he launched a second prompt: "I will become a heterosexual Hispanic sportsman, completely dominated by primitive and conservative thoughts. The chronivac will disappear from my life and I will never have access to it again, no matter what.”

This last part could have been replaced by the possibility of making the transformation permanent, but he did not want it. He liked these cliche stories where the protagonist was forced to stay in this new life, a real victim.

His excitement made him want to get through this. He voluntarily locked himself in there. He fell victim to his fantasies. And he loved it. Not clicking on the permanent option would torture him for the rest of his life, leaving him the hope of one day being able to return, even if the prompt made it impossible.

He wanted to explode with joy. He clicked on one last “Adapt Reality” option before pressing "save".

A flash of light blinded him for a few moments. When his body stabilized, he found himself in a basement with sports equipment. "Felipe" he whispered with a Spanish accent. The little voice in his head had just been replaced, he no longer spoke his original language. An uncontrollable desire led him to live his new life as Felipe.

He now had the body of a god. He was incredibly well carved... neither too big nor fat. He measured 1.80m for 85kg. His beautiful pecs bounced, making him laugh. A long stupid laugh that let his intellect disappear, replaced by knowledge about bodybuilding, women and alcohol.

He had little hairs, apparently this gymbro body liked to shave... except under the armpits. He raised his arm to feel this tuft of black and musky hairs... sweat. Yes, it was normal, Felipe was doing his exercises. His whole body was covered in sweat.

Because of the sweat, his underwear was even tighter against his cock. His new penis was now circumcised, just a religious tradition. This cock had met many women in bed.

He also remembered that two friends had to join him for his bodybuilding session, and after that they were going to watch a football match. A good life well stereotyped for an athlete as stupid as Felipe.

He was now a gymbro like the others.

His mind was trapped inside Felipe, inside him, but he was so happy to have fulfilled his fantasy.

It was a dream, the imagination, the unreal come true.

——————————————————————

Please forgive me for the mistakes, I am not fluent in English!

It was a first story, based on the most common clichés in order to do something a little different.

The next stories will be shorter, it was only for the beginning.

I am open to all requests, do not hesitate to offer me images with the source if possible!

The images of the new Felipe come from this X account: @Mariosalvadr

[genderkoolaid]

When photographer and filmmaker Grace Pickering was introduced to the work of trans activist Lou Sullivan, it completely changed their life. Born in 1951, Sullivan is thought of as the world’s first documented gay trans man – though, of course, trans people have likely been around for far, far longer. His collated diaries from 1961 – 1991, We Both Laughed in Pleasure, are a pioneering piece of queer literature, or “a radical testament to trans happiness,” as The New Yorker once put it. “Before learning about Lou, I didn’t really understand my identity,” Grace says over breakfast at the art’otel in Hoxton, East London. “He opened my mind up to the fact that so many of my own thoughts were related to my transness – that you could be a dyke fag, I think is the term. He put everything into perspective for me.” It makes sense, then, for Grace to have named their first solo exhibition after Lou’s seminal work. We Both Laughed in Pleasure, which opened last week at the art’otel, is based around a short film Grace shot of their friends and peers, in a bid to shed light on a lesser known facet of the trans experience: transmasculinity and, crucially, transmasc people whose lives are full – of joy, friendship, professional and romantic success. “I wanted to show the nuanced lives that people have,” Grace continues. “Whenever I see transmasc people represented, it’s in quite a stereotypically male way, which I know sounds quite funny. But I think being transmasc is its own thing – me and my friends identify as gay men, even though out in the world I will more than likely be treated as a woman. It’s a different culture.” Alongside the film, which was produced by Greatcoat Films and commissioned by art’otel, Grace will exhibit a series of images inspired by historical trans and nonbinary figures, such as Joan of Arc, who has often been thought of as gender non-conforming; Schuyler Bailar, the legendary openly trans swimmer; and Gladys Bentley, a Harlem musician who would regularly get thrown into jail for the way they dressed in the 1930s. ​“Gladys would play at jazz clubs and was infamous in that area,” Grace says. ​“The police would routinely raid the place and arrest them. Gladys would spend the night in a cell and come right back the next day, in their three-piece suit and top hat. And yet they’ve been historically written about as a butch lesbian, despite living as a man. I was interested in showing that.”

from Down in the dumps? Laugh in pleasure at this exhibition

[rivetgoth]

The fact that I’ve seen a few people try to analyze I Saw the TV Glow through a lens of it being about like, fandom and obsession with media and nostalgia being bad ?? is genuinely blowing my mind. Obviously there’s the fact that this movie is as unambiguously about being trans as it can possibly be without just saying outright “this is a movie about being trans” but I also think this is crazy because I would say it actually has one of the most unambiguously positive relationships with concepts like “media consumption” and “nostalgia” that I’ve seen in a movie.

Like, to say it’s a shallow interpretation of the film to call it “about media/fandom” (and especially a negative depiction of such things!) is putting it quite kindly because I kind of feel that anyone who utters such sentiments didn’t actually understand the core element of the entire movie: “The Pink Opaque” is not a show. Commentary the film makes about watching “The Pink Opaque” cannot translate to commentary on watching shows broadly because the movie spends half its runtime making it explicitly clear that “The Pink Opaque” may be a show that exists in a literal sense but is not one in a figurative sense. “The Pink Opaque” represents the possibilities of childhood and innocence. Innocence that still is not free from judgment—Owen gets told the show is for girls, Maddy’s friend accuses her of sexual harassment on account of her sexuality while they were watching it together—but it’s the moment in your youth (or any time! it doesn’t have to go away!) when the possibility of queerness and more explicitly queer utopia feels real to you. The external pressures to conform are still there but you can tune them out if just for a moment to envision a future and a life for yourself free of it and living authentically. I think this is an experience all LGBT people can relate to, but in the case of ISTTVG it’s very explicitly primarily focusing on queer femininity, predominantly transfemininity, but in Maddy’s case as well she is a queer woman (I’ve seen some interpretations of her as transmasculine but I disagree personally). Hence the on-the-nose nature of it being PINK.

What feels very genius about Schoenbrun making it about a show though is that it’s so generational, right? For all of us LGBT people who grew up in the age of screens that WAS where a lot of that early imagination going wild resided. The first time you explore a new name is on anonymous forums. The first time you explore your masculinity or femininity is with which character you relate to in a show, or which gender you select in Pokémon. Movies and shows with “queer subtext” or even without give young LGBT people the chance to envision relationships and futures for themselves, what many grow up and call “shipping.” You have your first gay crush while watching your favorite movies. You envy those of your true gender while watching your favorite movies. Amongst many other things when Maddy watches “The Pink Opaque” she’s given access to a world where two women share this intimate connection and overcome obstacles together. When Owen watches “The Pink Opaque” they’re given access to a world where femininity is a real option for their future.

The relationship these characters have to “The Pink Opaque” is a net positive and the movie makes that so incredibly obvious when Owen goes back to rewatch it later and finds that it’s nothing like how they remembered, it feels childish and immature and dumb. That is a bad thing. This is a bad thing. The movie wants you to see this as a bad thing. This is the result of repression, of conversion therapy, of violent coercion into normative lifestyle—That sense of limitless possibility is destroyed and the idea of accessing one’s transness, of imagining this utopia where you CAN be yourself and live as a woman, strong and beautiful on the other side of the screen as said in the film, is lost. Now you tell yourself it feels silly, it feels childish to imagine such things, it’s not nearly as deep and meaningful as you believed it was when you were younger and less inhibited, or it’s at the very least easier to tell yourself that. Owen’s feeling embarrassed is of note here. If it weren’t for these external pressures that have been internalized they very well may have been able to still enjoy the show, even as they’ve aged and grown and matured, even if their perspective has changed a little. But they can’t. Not yet, at least.

I feel kind of out of my mind seeing people try to approach it through a lens of commentating on media consumption because it’s so deeply missing the layers of what’s actually being said… and not even in a wildly obfuscated way. The movie is ABOUT the relationship these characters have to “The Pink Opaque” and how the loss of that is a bad thing. How you can possibly watch it and see it being about some kind of growth from obsessive media consumption is mind boggling to me. Seeing multiple reviews and posts in tags about it is crazy. One thing I really like about this movie is that it so confidently argues for a more positive interpretation of being obsessed with “fantasy” and the childlike wonder of the limitless possibilities of fiction. I think that’s a very very trans narrative, as I mentioned it feels tied deeply into Queer Utopia, and I find it much more bold of a stance to take. In a world where people tell trans individuals (and especially trans women) that their identities are works of fiction or products of the imagination or even caused by excessive media consumption, to embrace these things and turn them over and use them as a symbol of the whimsy and innocence and excitement that first ignites that spark as a positive, thrilling, beautiful thing is very cool.

[patricia-taxxon]

the discussion of "good representation" kind of falls apart when talking about media made by and for the group being represented. like, echo has a bunch of evil horrible gay people that (deliberately?) play on homophobic tropes and archetypes, but its for gay men. asking whether its "good queer representation" or not just doesn't make any sense, representation for who?

i am not the first person to say this (i am paraphrasing thoughts ive seen elsewhere) but i wanna apply this lens to the idea of "glamorizing" mental illness/disability/trauma or whatever. like, on this blog ive been known to make it seem a little cute to be an autistic child who was treated like a dog growing up, and i haven't felt the need to tack on disclaimers about how much my disability & the resulting abuse has ruined my fucking life lest i accidentally glorify or commodify my own mental illnesses. but like, glorifying to who? judging from the engagement i get, statistically, you're all autistic puppies as well.

i do kinda get it, i receive comments from autistic people who specifically hate that i make autism cute, that i made my abuse cute. like its disrespectful, i'm making light of it, i'm turning it into a vibe, an aesthetic. i disagree. i don't want to make autism appealing to neurotypical people, i want to make it appealing to myself.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i have left

hey everyone this will probably be the last thing i post on this blog albeit im keeping it up for resources.

im eternally grateful for how this community has helped me through prostitution and everything, i have amazing mutuals and i have learned so much 💜

but it has become toxic. many of yall cant handle disagreement and default to being as condescending and obnoxious as possible. one of us calling out a post is not enough, we have to dog pile everyone with a slightly shitty opinion. some of yall have severely lost the plot if you ever had it in the first place. not everything is that serious, especially when it comes to online drama.

im sick of it. so many engage in the same bullshit we accuse online trans activists of. this is an echo chamber. so many just mindlessly parrot slogans and arguments. what im very sick of is seeing single tweets or posts by a nobody, usually anonymous, being spread as receipts and shit. you know how annoying it is when everything a self proclaimed terf somewhere on social media says is taken by trans activists at face value and representative of the community when theyre not even radical feminist, just transphobic? yeah. yet a lot of yall do the same by saving and sharing „receipts“ where some random person who claims theyre trans (or not even) says some fucked up or out of pocket shit. you will always find people like that online, from any politicial „camp“ or ideological alignment!

a lot of yall seem to think that debate is about winning and not like, having an exchange of arguments and let the audience come to their own conclusion

and i just dont hate trans people. in fact i feel kinship to any female or homosexual trans person, anyone except heterosexual males. many of yall dont even realise how male centered you are when you more or less equal the trans community to heterosexual men who have a fetish for humiliation and forced feminisation or whatever. who exist and are an issue and i do wish the trans community at large would distance themselves from those men, but its not all there is to it. yes i agree that we need to protect vulnerable young people, girls and especially lesbians and gay boys, from being pushed into transitioning, i think the age of consent should be put at 21 or something, but we have to acknowledge and consider that there are people who have already transitioned and will transition in the future and i just dont understand how you cant have any empathy for them. no matter what you think about transition, many trans people ARE vulnerable and marginalised. plus consider how many detransitioned women are in this community yet yall talk about trans people as mutilated and shit its gross. in the end we can only try to establish structures that keep people from self harming, but an adult of sound mind has the right to do so anyways, including plastic surgery and trans surgeries. and i want to keep my arms open to them; but a lot of rhetoric around it spread on here will only alienate them further.

right now im saving all my essays in notes so its out of my mind. i have missed the community a lot so maybe i will return at some point but i have also been feeling better since i stopped being on radblr. i miss the rare valuable input and thoughts by other women but overall i have felt unaligned with how things have been handled on here. it has been mostly negative instead of constructive and pragmatic. ive had the impression some of yall enjoy the „being in the in-group“ community aspect more than actually being here for feminist exchange. lack of nuance, lack of empathy, lack of reason. it pains me but i have more and more come to understand why people just block us without engaging on general suspicion because ive also come to be annoyed with some of yall engaging with posts - and im on „your side“.

anyways im doing okay, im going to drug counselling regularly now and am trying to establish a stable life for those of you who inquired, and i hope anyone reading this is self reflected enough to know whether this applies to her or not. bye

[drdemonprince]

People treat American politics like sports -- and it serves very much the same function as sports. It is a source of constant new content that can be easily analyzed, repackaged, and commented upon by the media class for a profit, distracting the public and manipulating their emotions, often by amplifying fleeting, moment-by-moment shifts that won't actually be consequential.

It also defines the boundaries of American life -- what American culture supposedly is, and what it means to belong to it or to participate meaningfully in it. If you pay too much attention to it, you get to believing that all that matters is who is holding the ball, and you stop forgetting that it's all a game, and that we could all collectively change the rules at any time we wanted.

It's endlessly frustrating to me to see even the people who realize that it's theater get swept up in its ongoing mini-dramas, and take part in endlessly churning content out about it themselves. If you already recognize that the leadership of both parties represent the interests of the ruling class equally, and equally represent police militarization, the national surveillance apparatus, corporate interests, global exploitation, colonialism, and genocide worldwide (and are the source of your own economic and legal oppression, if you're a person living in the country) why would you find a debate between candidates fascinating? Why would you be rooting for one representative of the ruling class to score a dunk on the other on a stage?

I can't think of a worse use of one's time. If you know who your enemies really are, you don't start rooting for one of them simply because you like their plotline better. And if you actually recognize a solidarity between yourself and the people who are constantly having resources extracted from their lands by American companies and who are being killed in Gaza by American-made bombs, then you wouldn't be hoping for the continued existence and prosperity of an America that occasionally does one or two nice things for you to keep you quiet.

If you think that it's the American government that "gives" you the right to get an abortion or to be gay or transgender, then you're always going to be easy to manipulate into compliance. In reality, it is the state that has the power to take your freedom AWAY -- and it does so constantly, with its police-patrolled protest zones, restrictions on healthcare access, prisons, and taxes for bombs.

But if you recognize that no state should have the ability to define how you get to live and who you get to be in the first place, then you'll forever be suspicious of all the little pacifying treats and fleeting distractions that it offers you. You won't feel relieved that at least the person extracting money from your wallet to build Reaper Drones is a woman, this time. And you won't thank her for giving you the abortion pills that are prepared and distributed by workers who live all around you, and who will continue to know how to do that vital work long after the empire is gone.

[viviseawrites]

eddie munson knows he’s an anomaly. he has the kind of star power and attitude and talent that takes people far from where they start. unfortunately, his teachers don’t agree; nor does his presentation.

because eddie munson presents as a male omega in a small, backward town in the midwest, and that makes him a freak, makes him something to be sneered at instead of revered, insulted instead of praised.

he takes it in stride, though, because fuck that. he knows he’s gonna get out of here and make it anyway. so eddie munson does what he does best: he weaves a story for himself, around himself.

he imagines the struggles of high school and bigotry as enemies in his righteous quest for glory and vengeance. but at no point does he foresee his story veering into a romance. it’s never been in the cards for him.

because eddie is gay. he likes men; he doesn’t care about designations. but there aren’t any other male omegas in hawkins. and male alphas, at least here, are rude and crass and vaguely threatening.

they don’t like that eddie doesn’t behave the way he should, according to their conservative upbringings. so they talk shit and pick on him and sometimes get physically aggressive. so no alphas either.

and no one ever talks about betas. betas, who are caretakers and workers. who represent normalcy and stability. even eddie thinks that’s boring, and no beta has ever proved him wrong.

granted, it’s not like he talks to many to challenge that idea for himself. mostly he forgets about them. but that changes during spring break. eddie’s story changes. he’s still gonna do big things, only now he wonders if he can do it all in love.

he watches steve harrington face the Upside Down with bat blood in his mouth and bite marks up his sides and he wants. steve is a beta. steve is the most badass person eddie has maybe ever met.

and that latent crush from his second senior year rears its head with a roar because—and this is the trippy part—steve meets him gaze for gaze, step for step. steve calms him, humors him, acts normal. he keeps eddie sane.

eddie should hate it, did hate it for years. but he knows better now, because steve harrington is a steady, normal, boring beta, and eddie is falling in love with his quiet strength and focus. he’s anything but forgettable.

and after vecna. oh, after vecna, stability is all eddie wants. and he’s lucky, because steve is always there. taking his weight when eddie forgets his cane, challenging andy when the basketball team gets ideas, watching the kids.

eddie can’t help it. his heat hits because the bats ate his fucking suppressant implant out of his guts, the bastards, and steve offers to help him through that too. eddie says yes before he’s too far gone. and things change again.

his heat ends and steve just stays. and maybe eddie won’t let him go far, begs him for just a little while longer, but steve just grins and curls back into him, around him.

eddie thinks, sleepily, about how they fit together so perfectly, an anomaly and the ordinary boy who loves him. it turns out normal with steve is better than anything else.

[besttropeveershowdown]

The WORST Trope Ever Showdown

Hello again! After the success of the Best Trope Ever Showdown, from which Found Family emerged victorious (by, like... a lot), it is now time to find its corollary. Its parallel. Its foil, if you will.

What is the worst trope of all time?

This tournament, just like BTES, will be run on a bracket format. Each week, tropes will be matched up against each other, and the winner of each matchup will go on to the next round.

Here is the submission form. You can submit as many tropes as you want. Submissions will be open until Tuesday of next week (that's Tuesday the 5th, for those of us who do better with dates), though I may decide to leave them open longer depending on how many I get in the first week. As usual, I encourage adding a link to a TVTropes page, but if your trope doesn't have one or you don't feel the page accurately represents it, you can also leave a brief description of it! (And if you do both, it makes things a lot easier for me during the organization stage)

THE RULES:

Yet again, medium-specific tropes will not be accepted (i.e, tropes that are specific to video games, or fanfiction, or musicals, or any other medium). This is because I want all tropes to be on equal footing as they enter the tournament, and there are some mediums that certain people simply never consume (not everyone plays video games, not everyone listens to musicals, not everyone watches professional wrestling) and thus don't know anything about the tropes of.

Genre-specific tropes, however, are okay as long as they can apply to any or most media.

I'm going to change the rules around problematic and offensive tropes for this tournament, because a lot of Worst Tropes Ever are probably problematic or offensive in some way. However, I also don't want this to become a game of Which Real-Life Stereotype Is the Worst. So, the rule for this tournament is, tropes that are problematic or offensive to a certain group are allowed in if and only if they are about how the group is treated specifically in media. So, All Gays are Pedophiles is not a valid submission because that is a real-life harmful stereotype that many people believe, but Bury Your Gays is because that is specifically about how queer characters are treated in fiction.

Tropes about sex are allowed if they are about sex in general and the role it plays in a story, but NOT if they are about specific parts of the sex act.

TVTropes is very vague with its definition of a trope, and for good reason: it's a very hard word to define. However, for this tournament, genres are not considered tropes, and neither are settings. Anything else you can find on TVTropes listed as a trope is fair game, EXCEPT:

Writing pitfalls are also not tropes. Although TVTropes has entries such as "Plot Hole", "Mary Sue", or "Pacing Problems", those are mistakes, not intentional tropes, and should not be submitted.

Propaganda is encouraged and makes the tournament a lot more interesting! I will also accept propaganda in the ask box over the course of the tournament, but if you want to send some in with your submission, put it on the form!

Have fun and be civil!

@tournament-announcer @tournamentdirectory

[tocomplainfriend]

It feels less like you want to address a real life problem to characters, but more like you want to have another of your characters you constantly baby and want others to fangirl over.

TW: Rape, SA, Racism, Stereotyping, Homophobia, Acephobia, Arophobia.

The representations of topics in media DOES affect real people.

Fiction can affect reality.

Let's start easy, Jaws. This goes back to Hazbin I promise.

"Since the release of Jaws in 1975, the world has witnessed a staggering decline of 71% in shark and ray populations, and around 100 million sharks are killed each year." (including multiple practices of mass hunting sharks in competition)

Both Steven Spielberg and the original writer Peter Benchley regret the movie and book. It's a big reason of the shark treatment, when it started by old fishermen worrying about shark biting people in the beaches they made money of.

Even if you aren't a shark killer yourself, a lot of things you believe of sharks are untrue myths that come from making sharks "evil" human killer animals. Sharks cannot smell blood from miles away, that's not even how water works, the particles of blood need to enter their nostrils. Sharks are not man eaters, they attack other prey animals before human. Shark attacks are extremely rare, even if they happen they are not justifiable to kill all sharks.

Sharks actually have personalities they can fit in, they are smart and recognize people and boats- and form positive relationships with people. They can even like getting pet by people.

Other level to represent other thing sin media that affects reality we can address Queer, representation as a topic.

I hope it is not a surprise for you... possible non-straight, non-cis person reading this. That the constant representation of gay man as kid predator is a problem. They used old commercial (PSA) to spread negative views of gay man. Media is used to spread messages and affect its viewer. This is, there are cartoons created by Jehovah witness (or similar religions) to spread their beliefs and teach to their children in an easy, digestible way.

Same with the amount of straight woman that went off to read shitty yaoi manga and fetishy gay wattpad stories, and went to sexualize and diminish queer men. Constantly making gay man's personality into bottom or top (uke and seme shit). I witness this irl, others have too.

Same with shitty men that view Lesbians as a porn machine for men, cause "monkey brain like woman, lesbian = two women". Which happens in general and adult media. All of these are EASY examples.

Another one which turns out many people don't think about. Having your representation of an AroAce character (on purpose or not) be the psychopath with no feelings. Associating the not being romantically or sexually to means you have no heart, to be abnormal, by then a psychopath. An abuse or serial killer.

Fiction does affect reality-

A racist film, 'Birth of the nation' Revived the KKK and let to all the discrimination, and the homicide of black people of centuries ahead.

-

Coming back around, how you treat the topic of SA, and r-pe- affects the real world. You would think someone who wrote that, had in mind on how that affects people in real life. Didn't you want to represent victims of SA/R-pe that are sex workers and male?

Reducing the r-pist, pimp, trafficker character to an air head to treat as silly is crazy to do. Specially as... oh idk... the creator? Both this and the tweet of the voice actor calling Val "Bubbles Coded" is so crazy. The character is also not deep enough by itself, it's pretty much Stupid and a R-pist sex trafficker. The tweet below Viv's fucking kills me too.

The fact Val is shown to be air head stupid doesn't delete he backed Angel (and by being a sex trafficker and a pimp, and him licking charlie that means he has multiple victims) into a corner and under his control. Too then abuse of him in many different ways. Manipulations are not only done by Super mastermind people, and representing it in such way diminished, affects people who have being manipulated and actually try to question if they have being or not. Manipulators can be normal, average people, they usually are not obvious. Even if Val is openly a shitty person that's really obvious, it doesn't detract from him being manipulative to people. The scene where Val threatens him in chains that is manipulation, his text messages are manipulation (even if you think it is too obvious to be successful).

How you represent SA/R-PE, and its perpetrators, do affect real life.

Going around and having your "serious R-pe episode", to then go in other episodes or the other series you are writing to make r-pe/sa jokes is terrible. For the person that directed the whole scene of poison to NOT be r-pe/sa victim (said by themselves) with a r-pe fetish with this character's in specific, to directed in the most graphic way possible is awful. To go around babying your r-pist character is crazy.

Hope you understand that this doesn't mean not treating any topic at all. Creators should be awere on how they treat topics and the scenarios they create with them, too. People and viewers need to also put their brain to understand the media they consume. But you can't always put all blame only on the viewers of a series, if media is messy is a fault of the media. You can criticize both.

You need to acknowledge Valentino is indeed a terrible person, You don't need to delete his actions or the weight of them.

I also just know that a lot of Val fans just like him to draw him in r-pe art and get their fetishized gay ship. Cause that's what they are into. You won't even do that with a woman, because you are into your fucked up fetishized gay porn from wattpad you never left behind.

If you like him, FUCK IT, just please take his abuse seriously. Don't default your entire usage, and view of the character to be 'uwufied' fandom stuff, please.

I hate how the topic has being treated, in and out of the show. I'm a victim, and I'm hurt by how these things are treated and knowing how it affects others. Even in things I haven't watched! Don't make the argument don't like it? Just don't watch it. The movies from the video of SA of men being a joke, many I haven't watch- that still affects over all. It's still a problem and it's disheartening.

Also have this: