#like queerness is awesome but I don’t think it’s in the same category

[lesbianboyfriend]

can i ask for lesbian book recommendations 🥹🕺

yeassss ofc my love <3

erm and obligatory disclaimer for any who might read that i don’t think “queer” or “lesbian” is a necessarily coherent category of books or adequate descriptor for a novel which is why i’ve also provided the actual genres here (sorted into which ever one i felt best fit) and descriptions. and these books have much more going on than just being about lesbians. however all books are undeniably awesomer with lesbians so yayyyyy

FANTASY:

-the salt grows heavy by cassandra khaw: fantasy horror; murderous mermaid and plague doctor come across a cult of children (could be read as not lesbians bc one character is nonbinary but i choose to read as. lesbians)

-the empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo: political fantasy; monk unravels the tale of exiled empress’ rise to power

-when the the tigers came down the mountain by nghi vo: political fantasy; monk unwinds the tale of a tiger and her scholar lover to prevent other tigers from eating them (stand alone sequel to empress of salt and fortune)

-ship of smoke and steel by django wexler: ya fantasy; girl has to steal a ghost ship to save her sister’s life

-the mermaid, the witch, and the sea by maggie tokuda-hall: ya fantasy; pirate falls in love with one of the ship’s hostages, a girl being sent to an arranged marriage against her will

-tremontaine created by ellen kushner: political fantasy; there’s a lot going on in this one okay just trust me that it’s really good esp if you love political intrigue (this was released serially and is easiest to acquire an electronic version)

-the deep by rivers solomon: fantasy/spec fic; African slave women thrown overboard gave birth to mermaid-esque descendants. one holds these traumatic memories for her whole people and must grapple with that pressure

-wild beauty by anna-marie mclemore: ya magical realism/fantasy; a family of women who can create flowers and whose lovers always tragically vanish fight to keep their land and to unravel the mystery of a strange boy who appeared

-siren queen by nghi vo: historical magical realism/fantasy; girl’s rise to stardom amidst the monsters of hollywood back in the days of the studio system

-gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir: sff; um. how to explain briefly. gideon wants nothing more than to leave the ninth house, but her nemesis harrowhark needs her sword skills to pass the emperors trial and become immortal. sure. (caleb i know you’ve read this just adding for any other viewers yayyy)

HORROR:

-white is for witching by helen oyeyemi: horror fantasy/magical realism; a house with women in its walls calls to miranda silver while the people she leaves behind struggle to make sense of what happened to her

-plain bad heroines by emily a. danforth: historical horror; when filming a movie about the macabre history of a boarding school, its past starts to become the reality for the stars and author of the novel it’s based on

LITFIC:

-girl woman other: contemporary litfic; the intersecting stories of Black british women told in verse

-nightwood: classic literary; i feel like i can’t describe this one well but nora and jenny are obsessed with robin, whose penchant for wandering and inability to commit drives them crazy. toxic dyke drama at its best

-the thirty names of night: lit fic; transmasc syrian american unravels the history of artist laila z who encountered the same rare bird his mother saw right before her death and realizes their pasts are intertwined

-under the udala trees: historical lit fic; coming of age set against the backdrop of civil war in Nigeria, two girls from different ethnic communities fall in love

-everyone in this room will someday be dead: contemporary lit fic; that moment when your ocd lands you a job at the catholic church even though you’re an atheist and also your relationship is falling apart

-stone butch blues: historical lit fic; butch lesbian realizing and grappling with her identity throughout the 40s-70s

-the color purple: classic lit fic; story of two sisters separated in their youth—one is forced into an abusive marriage and falls in love with her husbands mistress, wondering what became of her sister

-oranges are not the only fruit: semi-autobiography with slight fantasy elements; exploring growing up lesbian in a deeply religious pentecostal sect

SCI-FI:

-the weight of the stars: ya sf romance; aspiring astronaut is forced into friendship with a girl who waits on the roof every night for radio signals from her mother in space

-the seep: sci-fi/spec fic; what if aliens invaded and formed a hive mind of everyone and also your girlfriend turned into a baby again. wouldn’t that be fucked up

-the stars are legion: political science fiction; an awakes with no memory amid a group of people calling themself her family who claim she is the only one who can save their world

-not your sidekick: ya sci-fi; superheroes are real and they fucking suck

SHORT STORIES:

-sarahland: contemporary/spec fic short story collection; various stories about people named sarah

[genderqueerbird]

How can you be aroace but also gay t4t? I'm genuinely curious. Please assume I know nothing about aspec community (because I really dont, other than asexual means someone doesnt like sex, and aromantic means someone doesnt like romance). I don't know what allo is even?! I haven't used Tumblr or any online social media for many years due to a mental health/personal crisis.

Also the reason I follow you is vaguely related to my mental health issues in a way? Bare with me.

I was trapped in a house with nothing but conservative people as my "support," and recently I broke free. And I mean FINALLY FUCKING FREE after 26 long years. My family actually broke me, and I didn't even see how bad it was until recently when I finally started to think for myself again. To make a long story shorter, I'd like to broaden my horizons by listening to more marginalized groups of people in general and changing who I am. :D

Thanks for listening 😎 I think you're awesome.

So aro & ace exist on spectrums. I’m fully asexual , and aromantic-spectrum. I don’t label myself other than “aro” tho, bc I don’t feel like using microlabels.

But, aroace people often engage in relationships despite being aroace. Some of us get into queer-platonic relationships or enter relationships and do not assign them labels.

I’m the second. I’ve been in a relationship 4 years now, but do not assign it any label side from “queer.”

And the official definitions are actually this; asexual - little to no sexual attraction & aromantic - little to no romantic attraction. Romantically, I fall into the “little” category. Sexually, I fall into the “no” category.

& “allo” is short for alloromantic & allosexual. Those words just mean “not aro” and “not ace.”

“Queer platonic” just means a committed, intimate relationship between two people that's not romantic in nature, but can include romantic components.

Tbh, I’m REALLY bad at explaining stuff :,) so id definitely check out the #aroace and #queerplatonic tags

And it’s important to remember each aroace persons position on the spectrum & experiences are different, so no two of us will have the exact same answers!

Also it’s super cool you’re free & trying to learn shout different groups! I definitely wish you luck on that journey !!

I grew up in a super conservative household, too. It was a horrible time.

[duckprintspress]

Five “Top Fives” with Adrian Harley!

We sat down with Adrian Harley, author of Many Drops Make a Stream, their debut sapphic fantasy novel (pre-orders are open now!), so we could learn about five of their favorite things in five categories!

Read on to learn some more about Adrian—who knows, maybe you share some favorites!

Five favorite queer books

The Locked Tomb series, by Tamsyn Muir

Rust in the Root, by Justina Ireland

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, by Akwaeke Emezi

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, by Ashley Herring Blake

The Teixcalaan Series, by Arkady Martine

Five places you love to write

Here’s where I admit that I am very boring and write in one of two places: 

My favorite chair inside the house

Out on my porch

But someday I’ll change that! To round out the list, three places I plan to write:

The cafe attached to the bookstore downtown

Overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway

The forest park near my house

Five writerly goals you have

I’d love to write an epic high fantasy someday—one of those sprawling epics that goes for 500,000 words at least.

I want to publish more books in the same universe as the Droplet series. I have a few drafted and many, many more plotted.

I would like my readers to be inspired to write fanfic. If my fiction ever gets requested at Yuletide, I’ll know I’ve made it. If my fiction ever gets too big for Yuletide, I don’t even know what I’ll do.

I’d like to write faster! Ideally, I’d like more hours in the day, but given the impossibility of time travel, I’ll settle for more words per fixed 24-hour day.

I would like to always incorporate weird animal facts in some way.

Five works that inspired you to write Many Drops Make a Stream

The Animorphs series, by K. A. Applegate

Leverage (TV series)

The original Abhorsen trilogy, by Garth Nix

Thief of Shadows, by Elizabeth Hoyt, was the most direct inspiration. The romance channel in my slack group kept calling this book Regency Batman, and we’d discuss shifter romances, so the logical mashup of Shifter Batman popped into my head.

Following on that, I think my fifth spot has to be the entire shifter romance genre, for making me go, “but why would you have them turn into just one animal?? You could have every animal! Why limit yourself?” This is before I realized I was nonbinary.

Five ideas you have for future books starring Droplet

One of the first things in my notes for Book 2 was “BABY HEIST.” I’ll let you all guess what that means.

Azera starts [Many Drops Make a Stream] having been jilted by her rich fiancée. At some point, that rich fiancée is going to need Azera’s help…

Droplet’s old organization has been scattered across the world, but many of them are still working to take down the rich and powerful. An old friend will show back up in future books.

There will be at least one murder mystery.

Business people will learn more about shapeshifterkind, and nobody will be happy about this.

Thanks for your time, Adrian!!! And, dear person reading these awesome fave fives, don’t forget to check out the book!

[rotationalsymmetry]

So, basically, I think if your political values are within the Democrat window — you think Medicare for All and student loan forgiveness are pretty good ideas, but you’re the kind of person who says “you mean defunding the police, right?” when I say I’m in favor of abolishing the police,

Who thinks that Dreamers should get a chance, but adult immigrants and refugees really should make sure they have their paperwork in order,

Who thinks a strong America is a good thing,

Who thinks poor countries are poor because they just don’t have as much technology or ingenuity or something, rather than poor because of colonialism,

Who thinks that disadvantaged teens should spend more time in school so they have a better chance at upward mobility (and should definitely not be throwing their future away by getting pregnant),

Who thinks that feminism is mostly about getting women to enact traditionally male roles rather than traditionally female ones,

Who thinks that we can resolve climate change by taking public transit and recycling a bit more often,

Who thinks that it would be a bad thing if people didn’t have to exchange labor for money,

Who can’t imagine how housing would even work without the existence of landlords,

Who thinks that the optimal amount of military spending is within an order of magnitude of the current amount, or who thinks the main problem with “military spending” is that it costs American taxpayers money,

Who thinks that 9/11 was the worst things to happen in the world or in American in that month,

Then yes, you and people with your beliefs should vote. (But you already knew that, right?)

[vaspider]

'only tenet of TERFism is transmisogyny' EXCUSE ME NO ITS ALL TRANS PEOPLE. They don't want any trans person to exist. What the hell.

Some people just gotta center their own suffering always, even when they're hurting other people by doing so. I've seen this a lot in younger queer folx of all stripes, this need to be the one that hurts the most, you know?

There's a reason the phrase Oppression Olympics exists, and it's because it's a common behavior or phenomenon in oppressed communities. I see it in the disability community, too.

What I think is important to understand when we talk about how trans people suffer under transphobia is that different groups are targeted differently. I'm not the first person to say this, of course.

Now, like, this is very rough sketchy stuff, and each person's individual experiences will vary, but in my general experience, the rough breakdown of the way in which transphobia lands on trans people kind of breaks down like this:

Binary trans women tend to suffer under a lens of hypervisibility. Everything they do is seen, analyzed, and torn apart. Their struggles are generally the ones centered in the arguments of allies, "allies," and transphobes. Even when trans women are the focus of helpful attention, that hypervisibility can cause exhaustion, because they need to perform perform perform, and be perfect, all the time. It's hard for trans women to just be without feeling like they're on camera, all the time. A lot of the time, they are on camera, because trans women's bodily autonomy and right to privacy are just never respected by transphobes (and often by supposed "allies" who feel free to ask the most invasive questions and get upset when trans women won't answer them), and even if they're not literally on camera, they're supposed to perform as the best examples of transfemininity, because if they don't, then they become the next 'look at this bad trans, all trans are this bad trans' example that TERFs point at and use as a broad brush to paint all trans women. If they're not perfect all the time and have a day where they snap at someone while someone is recording, or make a mistake, or anything, it has a horrible tendency to go viral. You can think of at least three instances right now off the top of your head, right? Right.

Binary trans men tend to suffer from hyperinvisibility. This comes from inside and outside the community -- a lot of trans men talk about being told they can't lead in community because they've 'got male privilege,' that their struggles are discarded, that they're talked over and unable to discuss the things they face, which means they don't get the support they need. Now, there are TERFs and transphobes who absolutely do focus their attention on trans men to the exclusion of or to the deprioritization of the oppression of trans women -- that's where we get Tavistock and Irreversible Damage and Fourth Wave Now and all the other bullshit which focuses on the idea that trans men are "transing the gay away," specifically "transing our butch lesbians" and "stealing butches." But again, generally speaking, trans men face harmful levels of invisibility where trans women face harmful levels of visibility. That's why transmascs in general have issues like lack of understanding even by supposedly trans-competent doctors as to how HRT affects our bodies, why trans men (and transmascs in general) report things like transphobes attacking them with transmisogynistic comments and assuming that every trans person online is a trans woman, etc.

Non-binary (here used as an umbrella term for all identities outside of binary man/woman, to include agender, genderfluid, non-binary, and infinite other identities) AFAB people tend to suffer from a different, very specific form of hypervisibility, unless they start to appear too masculine, and then they slip into hyperinvisibility. This is where we get things like "women and non-binary people" that codes all non-binary people as "AFAB people I can sort of squint and view as women," and people who fall into this category tend to get a lot of attention, a lot of derision from all sides of the spectrum. This is the "blue-haired tenderqueer" sneering that we get from both within and without the queer community, where there's an assumption that these people are just cosplaying an identity, that they're not really trans, etc. Having been in the visibility category and slipped into the invisibility category within the last, oh, year or so, and having two binary trans women in my family to compare notes with, the experiences are unnervingly similar. The difference between the experience that those women have had and the experience that I have had is that according to transphobes, I'm a traitor to my womanhood and performing femininity wrong and taking on a fake identity to escape female oppression because I'm not strong enough to bear up under it, but too cowardly to become a trans man, or... something, whereas they're taking on a fake identity to sneak into women's spaces because they're perverts.

Non-binary (umbrella identity etc) AMAB people tend to suffer from their own very specific form of hyperinvisibility, unless they start to present "too feminine", and then they slip into the hypervisibility which affects binary trans women, but with a little different fuckery in which everyone just assumes they're a trans woman, and therefore they get misgendered by everyone across the spectrum of queer/non-queer/etc. Non-binary AMAB people are generally treated like they don't exist, and when they are spoken about, are often discussed in the context of 'they should just admit they're trans women or gay men,' or if they present 'too feminine,' are subjected to the same sort of horrific attention that trans women get.

Again, a lot of this is very simplistic, and doesn't add in a lot of other complicating factors like race, disability, class, etc. Trans men of color, for example, can run into a different sort of hypervisibility because as they move further through their transition, they begin to be seen in the world as a man of color. It's not really mine to speak on beyond that, but I don't want to neglect saying 'this is really really simplistic and there's more to it than that' over and over.

I really hate breaking it down this simply because it feels like creating another binary (our society does like a binary!) for non-binary people, but like, I can't really talk about my shared experiences with other trans people without putting some framework around it. Someday, I'll be able to do that without categories. Wouldn't that be awesome?

I think we do our entire community a huge disservice when we talk about transphobia as if it's a single snake trying to take bites out of only one part of the community, and not a many-headed hydra, able to attack us from multiple different directions. I also think that focusing on one form of oppression keeps us from forming meaningful solidary and coalitions; the more divided we are, the easier it is for the people who literally want us all to stop existing to pick us off one by one. We see this all across the queer community and it's only ramping up as the attacks on our community escalate from without; people tend to turn on the ones closest to them when they get really scared, and to blame the person standing next to them for the pain they're suffering. It's the "close enough to hit" phenomenon, and it's why we see ridiculous things like "bi women make cis men think that lesbians can be won over," rather than acknowledging that bi women aren't the ones causing that: cis men are the ones causing that. The bi women in that case are close enough to hit. Transmascs are close enough to hit. Trans women are close enough to blame for the problems of transmascs, which makes it possible for TERFs to lure transmascs in and attempt to detransition them, subjecting them to gaslighting and manipulation and then using them as sock puppets.

TERFs do focus a lot on transmisogyny. They focus a lot on transmisandry, too. Debating which one is more prevalent and 'worse' not only misses the point, because transmascs and transfems face very different and totally rotten attention from cis society as a whole, including cis queers. We need to like, not do that anymore: we need to give each other the space to talk about our unique circumstances, but we also need to work harder on looking at each other through a lens of solidarity and trying to see that our struggles are different but not unrelated, and that if we keep downing on each other like this, we're not going to get anywhere except in a much more difficult situation as the people who don't want any of us to exist keep picking us off.

[musclesandhammering]

Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

[quicksandblock]

MCYT Demographic Survey Part 2 RESULTS

IT’S TIME!!!

Once again, thank you so much to everyone who participated! 1,654 people total responded to this - about four and a half times as many respondents as the first survey. It’s honestly incredible. I’m so happy the rest of you are as interested as I am in this stuff :D

The increased turnout is also why these results are being posted two days later than I’d intended. I want to give a HUGE thank you to my friend @quincepastey​ and my sibling @orestes-swimming​ for helping me out, and by helping I do mean they did basically all of the technical stuff for me, because my knowledge of spreadsheets was not up to the task. So thank you to Cupid for organizing all the data from questions 3 and 4 into something comprehensible for me, and thank you to Kal for making the charts! They are absolutely the MVPs and everyone reading this should go check them out. Thank you guys so much <3

Reblogs of this post are very appreciated. It would be awesome if the info about the results could reach everyone who submitted a response, so if you reblogged my first post about this survey, please consider reblogging this one as well!

For your convenience, here’s a link to the results of the first survey I did six months ago. Now - on to the results!

Question 1: What is your age range?

Compared to the results of the first survey, we can see that things have changed a bit! Specifically, the fandom has shifted just a little bit older. The solid majority of the fandom is still in the 15-17 year old range, but it’s gone down from almost half to closer to 40%. Almost a third of the fandom are ages 18-20, up from close to a fifth six months ago. 21-25 year olds have increased from about 10% to about 14%. And the youngest segment, 13-14 year olds, have gone from almost 20% of the fandom down to 12% - the sharpest change of all.

Finally, nearest and dearest to my own heart, there are now 26 whole people in the fandom aged 26-30 and 9 people aged 30+. Old Squad is growing, folks. We are... the 2% 😎 Special shoutout to the person who said their 15 year old kid got them into the fandom. I hope you know just how cool you are.

These results are interesting, but it’s also impossible to say how accurate the data is. This survey and the previous one were only posted on my blog, and they only reached a wider audience through the reblogs of my followers. So do these changes reflect actual changes in the demographics of the fandom as a whole, or is it just that my followers (and the people who follow them) have shifted older? To try to avoid this bias in the future, I may reach out to some well-known younger bloggers and ask them to reblog the next survey I do so that I can reach a more even audience.

Question 2: What is your gender?

Apologies for the small text, but there were so many unique write-in answers that I wanted to include them all. You may want to open the image in a separate tab for better quality.

In contrast to the age question, the gender spread of the fandom has remained pretty much the same. About half the fandom is still female, the nonbinary crowd has increased from 20% to 25%, 7% of us are male, almost 7% are genderfluid, and about 5% are agender. Just like last time, most of the write-in responses fell into the vague categories of either genderqueer or questioning.

No surprises on this one! The fandom continues to be overwhelmingly female and queer. Next time I think I’ll include genderqueer and questioning as options to try to catch some of those people into a formal category. All y’all are so valid, especially the person who wrote in their gender as “soup” <3

The results for questions 3 and 4 will be under a cut, because I don’t want to completely destroy people’s dashes.

Before I get into the last two questions, a couple notes. First, I want to explain how I came up with the list of creators, since a lot of people were either excited or disappointed by the fact that a few different people were on there.

On the last survey, this question was a write-in, and I had to transcribe and collate all the answers by hand to come up with the actual number of people who followed each creator. For this survey, I simply took the list that came out of the previous one and pasted it in! I also added a few people who no one wrote in six months ago but who are much more prominent now (Ranboo being the biggest example). So if you were excited to see your favorite small creator listed as an option, they were there because someone wrote them in last time! And if you wrote in your favorite small creator here, they’ll be an option on the next survey. The list is entirely crowdsourced and it will expand with each survey.

That said, the same also applies for more controversial creators. Specifically, I’m talking about CallMeCarson. Several people questioned my decision to keep him on the list - and to be honest, I considered taking him out. But in the end I decided to leave him in as an option for the sake of completeness and consistency with the previous survey. I want to emphasize that this is not me condoning his actions. But for the sake of the data, I felt that it was best to leave him in.

That said, let’s move on to questions 3 and 4!

Question 3: What creator(s) do you primarily follow?

So, it’s harder to compare with the previous survey on this one, and that’s purely because on the previous survey I didn’t have the help I did here. The chart I was able to make for the results back in October was frankly trash. Also, the fact that I split “followed creators” into two questions - primarily and casually followed - definitely throws things off. However, we can still do a certain amount of comparison!

The most obvious change is Ranboo. He straight up was not on the previous survey at all - I think he’d been streaming for less than a month at the time. Now, about 55% of respondents listed him as someone they primarily follow. The Dream SMP itself has also jumped dramatically. Previously, about 5% of people wrote in Dream SMP. That has increased to over half. Quackity has gone from less than 2% to about 30%. Karl has gone from 4% to 30%. Phil has gone from about 8% to a little under 50%. The SBI have jumped from 11% to over 40%.

Techno has gone from about 50% to over 60%. Tommy has gone from 45% to over 55%. Wilbur has jumped from 43% to 55%. Tubbo has remained steady at about 38%.

Dream has apparently dropped some of his following percentage-wise, falling from 50% to about 35%. However, George, Sapnap, and the Dream Team itself have all jumped from 10-12% to almost 30%.

I’m not going to go over the rest of the list, because that would just get way too long. However, I will drop a link to the spreadsheets of data for this survey and the previous one, so anyone who wants to can do some comparison of their own!

Question 4: What creators do you casually follow?

I won’t do as detailed of a comparison on this question, because there’s nothing to compare it to - this question wasn’t on the previous survey. However, it’s interesting to see how many more people follow Fundy, Nihachu, BadBoyHalo, Captain Puffy, Eret, Awesamdude, and Jack Manifold casually rather than as a primary favorite. Out of the top twelve, Karl, Quackity, Phil, and Tubbo are the only ones who don’t have a major discrepancy between the amount of people who follow them casually versus primarily.

I would be curious to hear people’s thoughts on why that’s the case! Personally, I would guess it’s a combination of each of their approaches to lore on the Dream SMP, the frequency and times of day that they stream, and the people they tend to make content with and be associated with by the fandom. I may go into that more later, but this post is already very long, so I’ll hold off for now. Here’s a link to this question’s spreadsheet for anyone who wants to take a closer look!

...And that’s a wrap! Good grief, this got long. Kudos to anyone who actually read the whole thing because I know my attention span would be challenged. I’m already thinking about the next survey - a couple people suggested that I add in questions about orientation and nationality, and while I want to keep the survey pretty tight in its scope, I am considering it. It would be even more data to process but it would be interesting to know!

I would love to hear people’s thoughts on these results! I’m only one person, so I know there’s interesting stuff I must have missed. Please, please feel free to reblog with your thoughts and observations! A lot of work went into this (both from me and from Cupid and Kal! Thank you guys again!), so I’m really hoping to hear what people think about it :D

I plan to reblog this and reply to some of the things people wrote in at the end, so stay tuned for that. And once again: thank you all for your interest in this project of mine <3 See you with another one in six months!

[uncommon-etc]

This was going to be called ‘a useful guide to writing LGBT+ characters in historic fiction’ but...

This now applies to everything over 30 years old, because of the drastic changes we’ve collectively gone through, and all of the progress that’s been made.

It’s awesome that there’s a renewed interest by writers of all stripes in filling the gaping void in literature where more queer fiction should be, but as someone who has encountered a huge amount of misconceptions and over-simplifications myself in researching how to accurately depict queer characters outside of a contemporary setting, I thought I’d put together three top-tips for other aspiring writers.

1. Dates of decriminalization are only half the story 

Here’s a map of decriminalization by country. Seems like exactly the kind of useful tool you might use to inform your writing, right?

Such maps should be taken with a pinch of salt, because they don’t show when anti-sodomy laws were introduced to those countries in the first place.

For instance, this map would imply that decriminalization was a fairly recent development in India, when the reality is that India didn’t have any laws against it until it was colonized by the British, and while the country doesn’t officially permit same-sex marriage, records of same-sex Hindu weddings go back centuries. Marriages between people from different castes were actually treated as more scandalous than same-sex relations between people in higher castes, and those who fall into the ‘third category’ (which includes trans, nonbinary and intersex people alongside effeminate gay men and butch gay women) were often given special status in pre-partition India. 

Colonizers usually failed to keep accurate records of the relationships and marriage practices they observed among those they colonized, except to remark on how barbaric and backwards they thought certain acts were, but there are always exceptions. Despite the high legal penalties for homosexual acts in the gulf states and across much of the Arab world, T. E. Lawrence kept detailed diaries during his travels in the middle east in the early 1900s in which he mentions witnessing not only sexual acts, but blatant gestures of romantic affection between the young Arab men he fought alongside. So, please don’t fall into the trap of thinking ‘my story features an Arab character, I need to make them very homophobic/uncomfortable around same-sex relationships.’

Polyamory and its role in Pacific Islander communities is frequently erased from history by those who sought to portray it exclusively - if at all - as one guy lucking out by having multiple wives. The reality is far more complex, with  Marquesas Islanders practicing Polyandry as well as Polygamy (i.e. women could have more than one husband.) Pre-contact indigenous Hawai’ians were probably one of the most sex-positive societies on earth, and while it’s important never to over-sexualise any minority group; ‘Sex between uncommitted individuals, paired individuals having lovers, liaisons, polyandry, polygyny, homosexual patterns of behavior, and such were all accepted practices (Malo, 1951, p. 74)’ 

Even in after Christianity spread to Europe and the Roman and Greek attitude to same-sex relations (which is a whole other essay I’m afraid) were drastically altered, certain practices are often overlooked...

In Sweden, in the early to mid 1800s, it became fashionable among the upper-classes for young unmarried people to take a same-sex partner, as a way to practice marriage without the risk of getting anyone pregnant. It’s part of the reason Hans Christian Andersen, (yes, the one who wrote the fairytales) got away with basically being openly bisexual. If he was seen kissing another man, people simply reasoned that he was being ‘childish’.

There’s a long-held joke in Finland about all Swedish men being gay, but it’s rooted in the fact that when Finnish women were sent to Sweden to learn domestic arts, attend high-society events, and eventually find a husband, they wrote home about how weird they thought it was that their new husband already had a ‘husband’, for practice.

In my mind there are far too many tragic same-sex love stories set in Europe around this time, won’t someone please write a charming rom-com about two guys who get away with it despite being increasingly more overtly gay because of weird customs like this?

I use the term ‘anti-sodomy law’ rather than ‘anti-gay law’ to keep things historically accurate, because the vast majority of European law in relation to homosexual acts never applied to women (something that was beautifully portrayed in the most recent season of Gentleman Jack), so if your character is a lesbian, her single biggest fear, from a legal standpoint, would be either being diagnosed with hysteria, or losing custody of any children she has from a previous relationship. There are no records of women being put to death on the grounds of having same-sex relations unless it was tied up in accusation of witchcraft. 

2. But in case you think the past was actually a rosier place to be gay than its usually portrayed...

So there was this one scene we all loved in the first season of Torchwood:

Basically, Jack and Tosh travel back in time to a tea-dance during WWII, where Jack meets the man whose identity he assumed when he left the time-agency. Even though he knows the other Jack will die the next day, the two of them have a connection, and they end up dancing together, in front of the other shocked guests, before the rift re-opens, returning Jack and Tosh to the present day.

The thing is, it would never actually happen.

It pains me to say it, but overt declarations of queer love in that era were few and far between, and when they occurred, they were severely punished. Many gay men with convictions for ‘public indecency’ in the 30s, 40s and 50s never did anything indecent, they were dobbed in by neighbours, colleagues, and jealous ex-lovers.

In fact, if you were a man of means, with a preference for other men in Britain before the outbreak of WWII (and before the nazis started raiding gay-bars) your safest route to not being arrested was to travel to Berlin, where hookups between men were generally ignored by the authorities amidst all the other chaos that plagued the Weimar republic.

If you want to write dramatic PDA moments between queer characters in pre-decriminalization times, be my guest, but don’t make them inconsequential, don’t cheapen the memories of those who were brave enough to risk arrest and literal torture through chemical castration by implying it’s not a big deal.

Quiet, subtle moments of affection can be just as effective, and far more believable. In order to write well-rounded, smart-thinking characters, it’s vital that you make them assess and contextualize their own relationships, and find ways around the obstacles of their times, rather than acting like it doesn’t matter.

A lack of appreciation for subtlety is part of the reason so many people missed the relationship between Captain Klenzendorf and Fred Finkel in Jojo Rabbit being intentionally queer-coded. Think about it, you’re two dudes who clearly have something going on, but you’re constantly surrounded by nazis, what are you going to do, french-kiss? Their constant close-proximity to each other, coupled with the little physical touches, and the moment one of them almost feeds the other one an iced-bun, make it pretty clear they’re more than just friends and colleagues. 

My hero Tove Jansson and her life-partner Tulikki had a secret passageway in the attic between their two studios in Helsinki, so that they could visit each other late in the evening without arousing any suspicion, but during their summers, they lived on an otherwise uninhabited island out in the gulf of Finland, where they were free to do as they liked.

If you want your characters to be free to be openly and unreservedly affectionate towards each other, take them out of society for a little bit and put them somewhere beautiful where there’s no-one else around. It’s part of the reason rural scenes in films like God’s Own Country, and Brokeback Mountain are so effective, they remind modern audiences that the relationship is not the problem, other people’s attitudes are.

3. Get your terminology right, even if it’s going to irk a modern audience

No-one would have called themselves, or anyone else ‘gay’ pre-1950s, unless they meant happy. No-one would have had access to the latest dictionary of acceptable terms and monikers for different LGBT+ identities. In an official context, gay men were separated into ‘inverts’ and ‘perverts’ (non-practicing and practicing homosexuals, though the invert label was generally only applied to those who sought help to ‘cure’ themselves, so it was pretty subjective). Pre-1950s terms in English were mostly innuendos (’he’s a friend of dorothy’s’, ‘he reads walt whitman’ and ‘he wears sensible shoes’ were all popular, alongside more well known ones like ‘he swings the other way’ or ‘he bats for the other team’). 

The term Bisexual was first coined (in the English speaking world) in 1859, but it wasn’t originally used to refer to those who experienced sexual attraction to men and women. Instead, the anatomist Robert Bentley Todd used it to describe those with primary or secondary sex characteristics that contradicted their assigned gender, and who would go on to be labelled hermaphrodites before we had much understanding of intersex people.

Please, I’m begging you, don’t write a novel about a magnificently bisexual Victorian dandy who goes around calling himself bisexual, not only is it not historically accurate, he’s going to get some funny looks and a possible ban from his local ‘gentleman’s club’. There’s a reason Lazlo Cravensworth in What we do in the Shadows, despite being one of the most bisexual characters ever written, never actually uses the word. You don’t need to, ‘show, don’t tell’ as the saying goes. 

Though the term ‘asexual’ is older than most people think (as is pansexual) it isn’t realistic to assume characters without access to the internet or the complete works of Alfred Kinsey will know or understand any of the terms we use for mspec identities today. If they acknowledged attraction to more than one gender, (or in some cases lack of attraction entirely) they would have been more likely to use ‘queer’ as a catchall, because the line between acceptable and deviant was squarely drawn over the perceived gender of the person you were said to be having relations with.

I see plenty of discourse regarding Arthur Conan Doyle’s work claiming Holmes and Watson have a queer-platonic partnership, I don’t disagree, but they would never have called it that.

One of my perpetually unfinished WIPs features an asexual character, and much as I desperately wanted, for my own sanity as a representation-starved ace, to have him say the word right from his introduction, it wouldn’t have been realistic, or contextually appropriate in the late 90s, so I had him discover the term twenty years later, as I did with most of my other LGBT+ characters.

This doesn’t mean a character thinking ‘I feel so broken and ostracized from everyone else, what’s wrong with me?’ it may just mean that although they know exactly who they are, what they want, and what they are or aren’t into, they don’t know there’s a word for it yet. H.P. Lovecraft remains a controversial figure in fiction, mainly down to the overt racism of some of his horror-stories, but his relationship history is interesting in that he married, but never had kids, then eventually separated from his wife who by all accounts he wasn’t very interested in. Because the word ‘asexual’ wasn’t ever used in biographies written in his life-time, I remember one introduction to his works describing his sexuality as ‘lazy’ which I found hilarious.

If you want to write non-binary characters, but are understandably aware of the fact that having someone state their pronouns in an interaction with another character wasn’t the done thing until very recently, here are several tips that could work in your favour:

- give that character a nationality/language background which uses gender-neutral pronouns as standard. If your character is Finnish for instance, and someone tries to say ‘he’ or ‘she’ they can correct them by saying ‘your language is so ridiculously gendered, I don’t like it, I’m sticking with ‘han’ for now’ (there are no gendered pronouns in Finnish, ‘han’ applies to men and women)

- take your cue from the way Jim is written in ofmd, A+, 10/10 splendid portrayal of an nb character in 1717. It feels natural and organic to their character development, without seeming forced or shoe-horned in as a ticked-box for representation.  

- give them a title that they worked to earn and are quite rightly proud of, the first few times they’ve corrected someone using the wrong pronouns by swapping in that title, the other character (and by extension the audience) will get the message.

- since the first use of singular ‘they’ in the English language dates back to the 12th century there’s nothing to stop you using it, but it would work better and be more believable on a character whose gender presentation is deliberately unclear or androgynous. For trans people prior to modern developments in gender-reassigment pronouns would have been chosen, like everything else, to pass as well as possible, because passing could be a matter of life and death.

None of this is designed to stop you writing joyful, blatantly queer love stories about all of the different ways, throughout history, that humans have formed relationships and experienced attraction. I have no desire to rain on anyone’s parade. As stated, we’re more likely to be written out of history entirely than we are to be written badly, but if, like me, you care about historic details and want to write the best, most believable story you can, please do you research.

[wearequeer-andwearehere]

Hi i hope you dont mind but somethings been bothering me for a really long time. so i have my name (rowan, it’s in my user), but idk i feel guilty for using it? It didnt take long for me to choose it, and ive heard of ppl taking months or even years to find a name, but i was lucky and the first time i opened a baby naming site, i saw it , and it felt *right*. i still made a list of a bunch of names, but all in all the process wasnt diffficult like ive seen it was for other ppl. but now i feel guilty, was it too easy? am i not valid?

Hey! Read this: https://wearequeer-andwearehere.tumblr.com/post/664210139362050048/i-see-so-many-younger-queer-people-on-here-asking

All trans people are not the same. I chose my name in a day and kept it. I have trans friends who took no time to choose their names. I have trans friends who’ve taken/are taking a long time. Trans people don’t all fit into one category!!! We’re all different and that’s what’s so awesome!! We have such diverse experiences!!!!

Your experiences are valid, because they’re yours and they happened.

Validity is something a lot of us aim for but what you should aim for is being happy and being yourself (where and when it’s safe ofc!!)

You like the name Rowan! That’s fuckin awesome mate!! Rowan’s such a cool name!! And it’s yours!!!

You don’t need to ask a stranger on the internet if you’re valid, just like, learn to be confident in yourself. Stop giving a shit about whay others think. You don’t need to ask some stranger on tumblr dot hell if you’re valid, you’re you and that’s what matters!!

[thedreadvampy]

Hey I appreciate your post about the shit going on in the UK. I also recognized, that you use the g-slur while describing the second bill. Could you please tagg it with a tw or change the wording? That'd be awesome. Have a great day!

I don't trigger tag as a general rule, but I can, yeah.

I want to expand a bit on why changing the wording isn't something I'm comfortable with under the readmore

The reason I used the G word there is that it's a self-descriptor that a good number of the people talking about this bill do use to describe both themselves and their communities, so I'm not comfortable changing the wording in the same way I don't think that cishet people should feel the need to censor the word queer when eg expanding out LGBTQ.

I think I only did use the word once, in order to expand out the acronym GRT - GRT is a term developed by the community, to my knowledge, to encompass the intersecting identities of Roma, Irish Travellers, New Age Travellers and other nomadic people, several of which groups additional to Roma have also got a long history with the G slur (especially Irish Travellers). I wanted to expand the acronym because I don't think it's in wide use outside the UK and Ireland (may be wrong there). In this context I didn't censor the word because I'm following the lead of GRT organisations' comms and press releases aimed at mainstream publication (eg Friends Families and Travellers, who are one of the bigger GRT advocacy organisations in the UK, whose site URL is gypsy-traveller.org and whose campaign work uses the word very heavily)

I would be very uncomfortable referring to anybody as a [...], I think even if asked to - it doesn't seem like a word that belongs in my mouth as someone who's got no GRT connections or heritage. But it seems to me almost as disrespectful for me to ignore people's clear wishes about how to refer to a community, so while I won't call anyone a [...], I will call the community GRT (which, my understanding is that that's the best term in terms of combining the experiences of currently nomadic people of all backgrounds with the experience of racism against Roma or Irish Travelers, even when settled) and I will expand it out by way of explanation.

I'm happy to be corrected on this by GRT people (preferably British-based GRT people just bc this is a cultural context question) but it seems like whether or not the G word is unstable is very culture-dependant, and after GRT (which obviously expands out to include it) it seems to be the most common self-descriptor for a lot of GRT people, and one which gadje and non-Travellers are often invited to use in talking about campaigns or community issues. I think the thing is that in America, Travellers is often used as a general term for all nomadic people, thus sidelining the need to use a word that's often been an extremely unpleasant slur, but in the UK and Ireland, Traveler refers to a couple of very specific ethnic communities (Irish and Scots Travellers) and not all GRT people fall into the categories of Traveller or Roma. In terms of slurs, I think its use here at least send to be more analogous to queer than to the n-word or the r-word that are universally perjorative and not suitable for use by people they don't apply to - it absolutely is used as a slur but it's also used as a community identity. And as someone who isn't part of that community I'm more comfortable using the language that people suggest use of themselves than trying to talk around it (although as I say - I actually wouldn't feel ok referring to the G[....] community despite that being the commonly used self-identifier which is why I use GRT. however I think it's kind of inaccessible to never expand out that acronym if it's being used outside a context that people are familiar with it)

[goodguydotmp3]

two questions: why don’t you like harry and do you really think harry villanized the weed video or do you think that was the people attempting to court him (azoffs)

Whew, this is a long one folx!

Why don’t you like Harry [Styles]?

Let me preface this response by saying that I’m a pretty new “fan” if one can still call me that. I got into the One Direction fandom in the summer of last year, and much of my opinions of the boys where shaped by fan reactions. After gathering more and more information however, I realized that the fandom and I were wrong about some things, and over hyping others. 

Still, it wasn’t until this year that I actually broke out of the Harry-centric bubble to realize that the shady goings on where much worse than I originally thought. Add to this my realization that Harry’s music really doesn’t withstand the test of time, and that his persona is pretty Stagnant, and I’ve come to feel rather bamboozled.

Of course I know that the entire point of his PR team is to sway public opinion of him one way, and if I ate it up that was part of the plan. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. It also doesn’t mean I feel any less hurt about it. It also doesn’t mean that I like when other people fawn over him, as quite a lot of what I’m going to say has been public knowledge, and some of it before I was even a fan.

A. Music

 Actually getting to a big part of the problem here, his music isn’t good. Well, not long term like I said in the preface. He doesn’t really have much of a vocal range despite being a singer for more than ten years. He does not care and acts like he does, often leading to him sounding like he’s screaming instead of singing. He’s lyrics are boring and flat, and his melodies are fine, they just don’t make up for his unmemorable lyrics. I personally think that the cause is him more heavily relying on song writers to fill in more in more, but that’s mostly because I don’t want to believe that the same person who wrote Happily and Olivia also wrote At the Dining Table and Treat People With Kindness, because that would just mean he’s getting worse or putting forth less effort. 

Of course one could argue that I’m not a professional, I don’t have the necessary Jargon to correctly critique, and I’m no longer a singer so I can’t even do what he does. But to that I say fuck off. I know what sounds good! I know what I like! 

Even more than that though, If you bought a product (non food), and you could only use that product for the first two weeks you bought it, you’d say it was a shit product! You’d scream from the rooftops that no one should ever buy this product because it’s crap! Well guess what? I pre-ordered Fine Line just to listen for two weeks and never pick it up again except for golden, she’s a funky tune every couple months. 

Besides the test of time, there is still the subject of actual talent/listenability if you will. I feel there’s four main categories when I listen to music that makes it worth listening to

1.Amazing voice

2.Awesome lyrics

3.Funky/ cool ass melody/Beat

4.Catchy as hell

Now, a song doesn’t need to be all four, however the more they have the more likely I am to like the song. Also, I’ve said “main categories” because I’ve definitely had songs were I just through the beat drop was cool, or maybe the bridge was sick as hell, or maybe I just liked the pacing or the way the singer/singers stressed a note. Alternatively there is a sweet spot for me of super depressing lyrics but a melody/ that makes you want to dance. See: most of After Laughter by Paramore, Lola By Mika. But in general, those four usually make me love a song long term.

If it’s an album, it usually Just has to sound like it belongs on the same album/ tell a story. Like I really don’t like albums that sound like it’s just a playlist of songs personally. I should be able to listen to a song and go “oh yeah, that’s off --- album” or I didn’t like the album as a whole. An album is a bit like an outfit to me. It’s not going to be all tops, nor does it need to be monochromatic, but it does need to go together

For Example, I love Four as an album. I thought it was amazing. I still hate Spaces and Illusion. I hate both of their melodies, I don’t like the Illusion intro, I’m not to keen on those lyrics, and they’re definitely not catchy, I skip every time. 

So taking that logic to Harry’s music, I think HS1 works very well as an album, almost all of the songs sound like they’re supposed to be there. And I hate every song but Kiwi. The lyrics are boring/don’t make a ton of sense, the melodies definitely don’t make up for that, he doesn’t have the range, and none of them are catchy! And then you get to Kiwi and she’s got that vibe you know? She’s a pop punk bop and I cannot fucking believe that Harry has one pop punk bop among unmemorable pop rock album.

Going to Fine line, It’s not as great as an album. There are some songs that don’t really feel like they fit? Like just going through the album, cherry doesn’t have any business being there? Like the lyrics fit sure, but what is that weird intro and outro? It probably would have been fine If the song didn’t have those two, but having them there upset the pace a bit I felt. And then there was Treat People With Kindness, which was really Jarring and doesn’t feel like it belongs on the album at all? It  actually feels like it’s trying to be Kiwi - it’s loud and garish, and the lyrics are trying to be carefree, but! It just doesn’t work! TPWK sounds like Hippie music! Kiwi sounds like Brendon Urie could sing it and people would be like “good ol Panic!”. And then the album goes back down into Fine line the song, which again is Jarring because you’ve had this TPWK monstrosity right before it.

Then, looking at the overarching theme of his music, It’s whiny piss baby music He hates to take responsibility for his actions! It’s all in his lyrics! And don’t get me wrong, I love Honest lyrics, but not if the person is an asshole! LIke I fucking hate confessions by Usher specifically becasue he’s talking about how much he’s a piece of shit in the most whiny and piss baby way, making it all about him and no the people he hurt. I also really hate that one song that Zayn did with Usher and Chris Brown, because you have these awful men completely misunderstanding what it means to write a love song, and then you have Zayn at the very end all like “actually I really am in love tho…” Esp Chris browns verse! It boils down to “Hey I know I was a asshole seven billion times but I miss you tho :(“ GIRL BYE! 

Harry sounds the exact same though, Except he can’t even blame himself for his own mistakes, and just wades through self pity about how the object of his affection won’t love him even though he didn’t even do anything except it wasn’t his fault and why are you still mad it wasn’t even his fault and he was young and reckless and drunk and horny. Like??? WRITE A NEW SONG TAYLOR SWIFT 2.0! There’s only so much you can repackage the same narrative before it becomes stale no Cinderella does not count keep that shit coming. And It really jumps out in his writing, even through 1d, although I will say there were some catchy beats, and awesome lines to keep him afloat back then. Although wtf was Walking in the Wind??? Choke!

Then there are the melodies I’m talking post wondee here which often give this 70’s pop rock vibe. Which fine I guess, it’s his brand, but that doesn’t make it interesting. Or new. Or fresh. Or an interesting take. 

Now I completely understand relying on nostalgia to boost people’s opinion, but you could at leas have the decency to actually have good music. For Example, Miss you by Louis Tomlinson has a very distinctive pop rock feel, but it’s also an amazing song. Great lyrics, amazing voice, catchy liddle diddy that happens to be reminiscent of that 2005- 2010 punk pop/emo pop feel. Sour diesel has that like,,,basey 90s pop feel, and it fucking works with the lyrics, and of course his voice is beautiful. When Walls dropped and Lou put out that playlist of songs that were an inspiration, you can hear the influences when you listen to the album, but they’re also really good songs in their own right, with amazing lyrics, and Louis’ distinctive voice. Comparing that to Harry, it seems like he’s mostly relying on people’s nostalgia rather than actually good music.

Okay so this last point I’m making on music is a little petty but it’s been like a week and I’m still pissed about it so I’m saying it now. Someone said that Harry Styles is the best pop rock artist right now???? Just admit that you don’t listen to pop rock tf. Louis Tomlinson is right there. Brendon Urie is right there. Mika is right there. Haley Williams is right there. Janell Monae is right there. I don’t listen to a lot of pop rock lol but i feel my point has been made

B. Public Persona

He get’s so much clout! SO MUCH CLOUT! For doing the bare minimum (this is not specifically about the fandom, that’s for later)! People will write all these glowing reviews of him for him??? Being polite??? Like okay and? Just because a person is polite doesn’t mean they’re fucking Jesus??? There’s a million and one stories so i’m not fucking looking them up but there’s the pizza story and the fish story and the plane story and the snl story and the Stormzy story and the WS story on and on and on! Stop giving this man brownie points for basic human decency. “I didn’t expect him to be like that!” okay is that because of their perception of what a rock star is supposed to be like? Because in that case we need to start holding people accountable for being assholes. Or is it because he seems like an asshole. Cause valid.

I also don’t like him leaning so heavily on the queer image thing. Like! If that’s how he likes to express himself, Fine, But so much of it is just...so manufactured! And I Know I’ve heard people say oh well he wore the one rainbow on his lapel that one time or he wore the shirt or he wore the Keith Harring.

1. That Rainbow pin is sus as hell I don’t care what ya’ll say It absolutely screams set up, if he wanted to not be seen he would have not been seen 

2. That goes for literally every other time. I can’t believe it’s not a set up to push a queer image. (that he profits from!)

3. If he actually did his homework on Keith Harring he’d know that the man was a predator, and he wouldn’t have worn those shirts. It seems so performative! To add to that, does he know now? If so, why isn’t he using his platform to correct his mistake? Why didn’t he come out and let people know not to buy Harring’s stuff??? He knows the pull he has! He absolutely could have been like “I’ve made a mistake, if you are looking for queer artists to support, here’s some” But he fucking doesn’t

4. To add on to that last part, It is actually sus that he gets to profit off of this queer image, and yet the only queer voices that he’s propping up are white gays. And then not even directly? Not a “queer artists, esp queer artists of color are important and need their voices boosted because they are the back bone of society” but this wink nod type of deal, where again, he mainly boosts white gays.like??? One queer black woman that doesn’t work for the Azoffs, and then a bunch of white gays. Like?? That’s not racist to anyone else???????Just me? okay.

Now from a professional point of view, it’s even worse. I’m not saying that artists can’t be campy or blurr gender lines, or imply that they ‘re queer subtly. But I think it’s fucking disrespectful to play both ends. Like, he profits off of using the queer image, all while Dancing around the subject, but then on the back end he never says that Homophobes/Transphobes aren’t allowed in his fandom. He gives this empty ass tpwk and then washes his hands of it. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am always upset when people who have lots of queerphobes in their fandom bullying and harassing the actual queer people never say anything to let queerphobes know they’re unwelcome (clearly money is better than morals) but for me it’s an extra kick to the gut for it to literally profit Harry to seem queer. Look at that time that  gay company sold out shirts in less than an hour,because harry was wearing it and tell me people aren’t throwing money at him because they feel he’s queer. 

C. Fashion

This one is a really rough one for me because this is partially what drew me into Harry in the first place. But he’s really not all that in terms of fashion. He’s expensive certainly, but sometimes, the things that are more expensive are worse. Even When He’s not looking like a grandparent out on the town, his style is very dated, and yet he gets paraded around like he’s the freshest new thing?? Like who is his team paying of for him to get that many articles about how he’s fashion’s biggest star. And the thing is, his style is even dated for the mainstream. There’s already a post about how he copies prominent pop/pop rock stars of the 70s, which means that his style is 50 years old for the mainstream. Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s totally fine if you’re addicted to seventies wear. I don’t think he should be heralded as this huge fashion star if his wardrobe is this dated

Even more than that. Gucci???? The Gucci with a history of Racism?? The Gucci with the child labor??? The Gucci with the 14 hour days Gucci??? Ugly ass Gucci????? Soulja Boy don’t even fuck with Gucci no more and he fuck with Gucci since like 2007. (although that was because of the racism, not cause it’s ugly)

I think that bothers me the most though. Like it’s not enough to exploit people, you also have to be tacky ugly and expensive???? For what??? @Gucci cease to exist please.

If Harry wants to be tacky ugly and expensive, that’s of course his rights to do so! But don’t act like he’s at the very pinnacle of fashion every time he does. 

I’m actually always very conflicted about that. I personally prefer a style that’s very loud and campy and avant garde but like,,,,that ain’t it. Maybe it’s something you got it or ya don’t??? Like for example Billy Porter could wear a trashbag and make it work. The expensive sweaters and the slacks? The suits? Not a good look on one Harry Styles. Maybe it’s because they’re expensive sweaters and slacks and expensive suits. What are you, Ted from accounting??? Grow up.

D. Treat People With Kindness

Ugh this is the thing that pisses me off like the second to most. This phrase is so fucking empty. You could not have made up a more corporate mandated phrase if you fucking tried. It stands for nothing! Just like him!

Let’s break it down. “Treat people with kindness” is, at face value, a call to action. It’s asking you to do something. But it doesn’t actually tell you what to do!! So it’s pretty inoffensive! You don’t actually have to change your behavior in anyway for two main reasons:

1. What the hell is Kindness??? This phrase never actually says what it is??? It’s just this short little punchy thing that assumes you know what kindness is! What if you didn’t actually know? What if you have differing ideals of what is considered kindness? I mean to my mother, Misgendering me is kindness, but I don’t think that’s kindness. To my father, not letting his children have autonomy is kindness, but I don’t find that kind. And yet they could both use that phrase and feel confident that they go around treating people with kindness. After all they cooked dinner didn’t they? They smiled at Janice from public relations didn’t they? That’s kindness right?

2. It also assumes you know what “people” are. Queer people are people. Queerphobes don’t consider queer people, people. Racists aren’t going to consider some people, people. So they can continue their harassment and dehumanization of them and still be treating people with kindness, because they never harmed actual people (to them)

E. Harry bots

Bitch?? Corporate spies?? Tf ??? That’s not weird to ya’ll ?? I think the thing that shocked me more than someone from Colombia records admitting that he manufactures the hype around people signed to Colombia, is the fact that the Fandom been knew!!!! Ya’ll been knew and ya’ll wasn’t gon tell me???????? I just found out last week wtf????????

Another thing I don’t like about them Harry bots, is it’s one thing to hype up Harry, but why tf do they need to shit on the other boys??? Is it because they’re more talented, good looking, and charming??? How about you get good!!!! I esp hate that it’s usually Louis. What is Corporate’s obsession with putting Louis down like? What a bunch of fucking weirdos?? It’s not enough to be a Harry fan and live up his ass, I gotta hate Louis too?? You lost yo damn mind. If you reading this and you a spy? Die.

F. Capitalism

Honestly that should be the end of it but here the fuck we go I guess. Now I get that there is going to be some capitalism involved when you get music, especially mainstream music, there are tones of articles out there with people who used to be in the industry telling you about how fucking awful it is, all in the pursuit of money. (Which isn’t fucking real by the way! We made it up! People out here getting traumatized! Belittled! Bullied! Married off! So some corporation can make all the money! The Imaginary Credits! That we made up! I hate it here!) 

But it’s another fucking thing to participate in a capitalist system? He invested into that one sleep app, even going to do one of the voice sessions (So you could have Harry Styles themed sleep paralysis) and you pay for that! He makes money off that! It’s not enough that you buy his mediocre music or his ugly ass merch, you also have to give him money through the sleep paralysis app. 

Then there was that Google Camp for Rich People Only! I don’t even want to fucking hear that it was on Climate Change oh wow all the rich people took helicopters and Yachts to a resort with manicured lawns??? To talk about how they treat the environment? That’s not at all Counter intuitive! Not at all for show! Fucking disgusting.

Oh and the Covid Shirt! Really bitch??? You need to Profit off a deadly pandemic? Are you profiting off of AIDS next you fucking bastard. And he can of course get a tax write of for his “ charitable donation” fuck off.

G. Racism

This! This is the thing that gets me the most! YA’LL CAN EXCUSE RACISM???

No, I’m not talking about the Native American Headdress thing, that was plenty despicable on it’s own, No I’m talking about the on going racism. The whole, using black people for clout and then dropping them and never returning the favor when they sing his praises thing. Specifically I’m thinking of Sis the activist, Stormzy, and Lizzo. 

The Lizzo thing pisses me off the most actually. I think it’s very fucking convenient that Harry started taking interest in Lizzo after there was uproar from black fans noting his hypocrisy of performing for Pepsi (Notoriously racist) and Having BLM sticker on his guitar. So he shows up at one of her concerts dressed like a senior citizen that got lost on the way to the retirement home bathroom. She looked fucking amazing and he couldn’t put forth the effort to at least not look senile. Then there was the covering of her songs, and then there was the cuddling up with her at the awards show. Funny how I haven’t seen any interaction after the fact! And Of course everyone forgot about the Pepsi concert! Fuck all the way off!!

Also! Are we just never going to talk about the fact that he didn’t comment on the blm protests earlier this year until his team could gauge whether or not it would be profitable to do so by DATA MINING HIS FAN BASE???? And then when he actually did he got the most praise for it, truly fucking hate it here. Also when he marched with those protesters he made sure we knew it was him. There were posts flouting around everywhere on how to best cover up to make yourself completely unrecognizable should you wind up on camera or fucking worse, get attacked by the police. Funny how Close Sprouse could follow the advice and not Harry? Also supper funny how he got the hell out of dodge before things got super bad and I have not heard anything on the matter since. Guess what Harry??? We’re still out here fighting for the rights to exist! Still wanna have a photo op while our own government tries to squash us with force????? This is like that Jenner Pepsi ad but with sunglasses and a pandemic.

H. Fandom

I think I would hate him less if I didn’t have to hear about him every hour of everyday. Stop Hyping this man so much. Even after unfollowing and blocking a bunch of Harries and Larries he’s all across my dash. And twitter. And insta. KURTIS CONNER FUCKING LIKES HIM I JUST WANTED CRACK CONTENT AND NOW LOOK. 

I. Conclusion.

After writing all this I think the running theme is that Harry Styles isn’t even a person, he’s a brand. I do not like or trust brands! And I definitely don’t like being advertised to! Just like It’s fake as fuck when Absolut is all about queer rights, it’s fake as fuck when Harry does it too. Just like I know Target doesn’t actually care about Black lives, I know Harry doesn’t either. People are always like “oh he’s so nice!” no! He’s polite! There’s a difference. Zayn Is a truly kind person. Liam is a truly kind person. Louis is a truly kind person. It shines though so brightly all the time, and yet people are really out here worshiping the Brand Harry Styles. 

Do I think It was Harry or The Azoffs throwing Zouis under the bus. 

Truly doesn’t matter! Whichever one did it, Harry was totally fine with it! Which tells me that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He’ll go along with anything as long as it gets him to the top, and that’s fucked up on one million and one levels

[grannyfucker111]

hii so i wanted to set some boundaries, if u wanna follow me or already do please read :D /srs

1. maria is my favorite way of being refered to online. if we are particularly close u can call me toya (emphasis on close). any other nicknames u come up with are fine too :D

2. im agender. any pronouns are fine but my favorite ones are they/fae/pan. nonetheless, ur not misgendering if u use any other pronouns.

3. for lack of better wording, please don't use any "female" gendered words (girl, queen, etc). ¡any other words (like dude, bro, bestie, love...) are fine!

4. if you are racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, anti-semitist, islamaphobic, fatphobic, zionist, or actively support the oppresion of/oppress minorities; you are not welcome in this space SHOO LEAVE.

5. this is mainly a anti-hp hp acc (mostly marauders), marvel acc and anime acc. however, i also post a lot abt random life stuff, taylor swift, bts, halsey, a:tla and love for other stuffs bc life is fucking awesome.

6. tw // homophobic comment , colonized catholicism

¡im a spiritual person but not catholic or particularly religious! i respect any and all religions, but PLEASE do not force your beliefs unto me. i do not want to hear abt how i will go to hell for being queer, idc. even if its true i already shower with boiling water so i think i have enough practice to eat boobz in peace for the rest of my life.

7. tw // eating disorder

i have an ed past and still struggle daily with negative food thoughts from that time, since i am still in recovery. so please do not come to my page speaking about diets, dieting, loosing weight bc of internalized fatphobia/from a place of self hatred, etc. im fine with videos/pictures of food, mesurements, recipies, food talk, etc. but diet talk, ed talk, calorie counting, among others, are still quite triggering (although they arent all inheretly bad, its a personal thing). if you do, for some reason, bring these up ¡add a cw!

8. if you are a cishet abled cristian white person, you are welcome as long as you are a genuinely good ally. i specify this bc i find that a lot of people who fall under these categories, per say, can often have many internalized issues that when confronted with they deny. i will not accomodate for you, nor will i stop making "gringo" jokes bc of ur white fragility, boohoo :(

9. ¡i am open to being educated! do not hesitate to tell me if i have crossed your boundaries or have done something hurtful; i will not hesitate to do the same either. ¡i want this to be a safe space and will always try my best to come from a place of love!

10. lastly, i just wanted to say that if you agree to respect my boundaries and keep other things stated in mind, i really hope we can be friends and ¡im glad that ur here! i love you and i hope you have a life as amazing as u are; thank you for being MWAK <3

[tuiyla]

She-Ra’s like, really good, people

It’s been over a week since She-Ra season 5 came out and I binged it and this is not going to be coherent but I just want to rant about it a bit before writing some more structured metas. I deffo wanna write about Catradora and how I think SPoP is the true spiritual successor to the Avatar.

But first, let me just scream about how good this show is. I already started rewatching it, pretty much straight after finishing it, and I don’t rewatch tv shows often. The exception is Avatar (seen it like 15 times) and sitcoms. But She-Ra is so layered that I felt like I needed to watch it again just to appreciate the dynamics even more.

I already enjoyed the first season but it kept getting better and better. I’m not in love with the art style and it’s definitely for a younger demographic overall than my other favourite animated shows, but like any good kids’ show it balances tone well. It doesn’t talk down to its target demographic but also includes more traditionally mature themes in a digestible and entertaining way. Not all the jokes landed for me but as the series went on I learned to appreciate the tone and the type of humour She-Ra goes for.

It’s funny to me because this is definitely the type of show I would have rejected as a kid, with all the princesses I would have deemed it “too girly” and therefore not for me because screw gender roles. There’s a degree of internalized sexism to that, for sure, a rejection of the feminine because it’s always been seen as less somehow. But there’s also a truth that, at least in my childhood of the late 90s and early 00s, children’s media targeted at girls often had a poor quality to it, at least when compared to “boys’ stuff”.

She-Ra is not only a clever, heartfelt, complex story, it also transcends that binary of having to be either for girls or boys. I know most of modern animation rejects that as well, but She-Ra embraces so many traditionally feminine qualities while also going beyond gender roles and even the gender binary. This show is so queer, man, and I love it. It’s especially impressive when you consider the source material that was literally just the girly version of He-Man. I have no beef with 80s She-Ra, haven’t seen much of it, but this is such an upgrade.

That being said, I would have loved to watch She-Ra as a kid. I’m so incredibly envious of kids, aged around 10, who get to watch this show as they’re growing up. But I am so, so, so happy for them and for the future of animation that shows like She-Ra can be made now, that they’re being made. I’m going to go into spoilers soon, but just before that: She-Ra’s a perfectly enjoyable show in many aspects. I think the worldbuilding’s pretty cool, the story feels coherent and planned out, it’s lighthearted and so genuine. That’s the word that I ultimately choose to describe the series: genuine.

I feel like so much of TV aims to be dark and gritty nowadays, animation included, and though that’s slowly turning to dark comedy or a balance between fun and serious, it’s still the norm. At some point in the last decade, creators became terrified of being judged as cheesy. Even something like the MCU bathes in bathos to avoid being cheesy. But She-Ra proves that creators shouldn’t be afraid of being genuine, of basing characters and storylines on the simple power of love. Like, it’s such a cliché trope but I think that’s mostly because it has become stale.

Noelle Stevenson has talked about the importance of love in her story and I’m so grateful for that. Through, She-Ra, she’s truly proven how powerful love can be in a story and how it doesn’t have to be cheesy. It’s just so unabashedly genuine. The power of love and friendship literally saves the day several times but it’s always so genuine and more importantly it always makes sense that it doesn’t get boring. If the foundation wasn’t there, then I’d say “well this is just super cheesy”. But the show makes a point of building relationships and making them the focal point of the story.

Alright, so, spoilers because I need to talk about character arcs and THAT KISS and just everything. I really need to write more in depth about Adora and Catra and their relationship but for now I feel like it’s so important to appreciate how they’re developed. Everything from their shared childhood to their trauma with Shadow Weaver and the finding their way back to each other, it’s just *chef’s kiss*. It’s so well-written and believable. Ngl, I do have some minor issues with Catra’s redemption arc. Let’s just say that on a scale from Kylo Ren to Zuko, she’s definitely closer to Zuko. I also appreciate Shadow Weaver’s death scene and how it allows them to move on. I didn’t see that one as Death as Redemption and it shouldn’t be. Again and again the show made it clear that she was abuse towards both girls and nothing will negate that.

From what I can tell, the fandom really latched onto Catra, even when it wasn’t clear whether she’d get a redemption arc. I think that’s important, because unlike some characters in animation, Catra’s actions were almost always framed appropriately. There was always an understanding as to where she’s coming from, how she’s acting from a place of hurt, and yet her actions weren’t justified. They weren’t suddenly all okay just because she’s hurt, too. I especially loved in the season 3 finale when Adora was allowed to finally say no, to say that Catra’s actions were not her fault. That season as a whole was beautiful, like, episode three when Adora’s struggling so much and Catra has the opportunity for a better life but she still fails to choose her own happiness because she’s too bitter over SW and Adora? It’s poetic cinema. I love that angst, so well done.

It would be so easy to misfire in Catra’s storyline and either a) write off all the awful things she does because she’s just “misunderstood” or b) irredeemably stuck in her abusive environment with no hope of escape. They balanced quite well there and managed to handle such a complex character with delicacy. I’m quite happy with how Catra was portrayed because on the one hand, she’s painfully relatable to me and I assume to many others. The audience can see their own mistakes reflected in her character because we’ve all been too stubborn, done things out of spite, refused to acknowledge that we were wrong because we were hurting so much. At the same time, I always felt like the show gave me enough space to judge Catra’s actions and acknowledge that she was in the wrong. I honestly think I would have been a better adjusted teenager is if saw this show just before my angsty years, lol.

I’m going to write more about Adora at some other point but I love how vulnerable she’s allowed to be. Protagonists never used to be my favourite characters because they all seemed the same, with two major categories: the stereotypical male hero who can do no wrong or the angsty boi who can be shitty and the text still frames him as awesome. It’s only recently with series like The Legend of Korra and She-Ra that I go “damn, protagonists can be like that, huh.” Adora is a dumb jock who tries so hard and she deserves all the hugs in the world.

Also, Catradora? Breathtaking, amazing, groundbreaking. No doubt She-Ra needed shows like Adventure Time, LoK, Steven Universe and the likes to pave the way but still, it went there. I saw people be anxious about whether they were gonna be queerbaited, but I always, idk, knew? Trusted? That She-Ra would follow through. I didn’t wait six years for Bubbline to happen for Catradora to not get their big damn kiss. The series has been so effortlessly queer from the get-go that it just made sense that they were always heading there. I did see a gif of the kiss before watching s5 and ngl, that spoiler kind of bummed me out in a way that I wanted to be surprised. But even before I saw that I wasn’t worried. And the context of their journey in season 5? That cannot be spoiled by a simple gif. You have to experience that to fully appreciate it and that is the marker of good storytelling.

I understand that, though this should be the norm by now, Noelle Stevenson still had to be smart about how she approached the execs and she wasn’t sure this could happen. I cannot tell you how happy I am about what she said regarding how Catradora was so integral to the story that the execs couldn’t not allow it. That’s so brilliant, and it feels so natural in the story. Queer love saves the day and it’s not ambiguous, it cannot be censored because you lose a part of the story without it. You did it, Noelle, you funky little lesbian, what an icon. I can’t wait to see more stuff from her.

In other news, I appreciated other characters as well, like how all the princesses got to be different and awesome in their own unique way. Season 5 was great for so many characters, Mermista got so much to work with and Spinnerella and Netossa got so much more characterization than in previous seasons. Glimmer continued to be the third most important character in the story and I’m happy about all the relationships that also got to be canon. Good characters and dynamics all around, no wonder since the show is built on that.

Such a satisfying conclusion and one that makes you feel like this is just part one of a much bigger story. Such genuine, heartfelt moments, well-developed characters, complex themes explored in a respectful and digestible way, and such an unapologetically fun show. Melissa Fumero as a side character? Yes please. Catra’s new haircut? Heck yeah! She-Ra’s new design? Oh my.

I’m not even like, super into She-Ra, and I usually don’t write so much about things I only watch casually. But this show is so good and important that I had to rant. And I will write more about it eventually, but for now I needed to get all of this out. I’d give it a better structure but if I really get into I might never end up posting it so for now here, have this ramble of love. She-Ra, of all shows, deserves that.

[fisstech-and-succubi]

Here’s my second update to the list of common squicks, triggers, and DNWs.  I thought I’d put in a little bit of an explainer on this one even though I think mostly people understand what I’m doing with this list.  It can be a little daunting when you’re faced with a blank signup sheet that says “tell us everything you don’t want to see in your exchange work!” I think that everyone is entitled to set their own boundaries, rather than having the event set boundaries for them, but sometimes it’s nice to have some suggestions handy, so what I’ve been doing is scrolling through the DNWs that people have added to their submission forms, and picking out the broad categories of things people have said they don’t want.  That way you can take a look at this list when you’re signing up, and it might job your memory that you don’t like X or Y thing, that otherwise someone might put in their fanwork.  Because the other thing to note here is - almost everything that someone has said they don’t want to read, is something that other people in fandom think is really great.  And honestly, that’s what’s so awesome about fandom, is that we are able to take source material, and turn it into so many different things that appeal to so many different people!

Updated List of Common Squicks, Triggers, and DNWs

Formats & AUs

Song fic

X Reader, x Original character

First person narration, second person narration

Crossovers & Fusions (eg Harry Potter fusion or AU, Supernatural fusion or AU)

Modern AUs (eg bakery AU, coffee shop AU, florist AU, tattoo parlour AU, mob AU)

Canon setting; accidental warlord AU

Fluff

Angst

Hurt/comfort or hurt/no comfort

Comedy

PWP

Major character death

RPF

Character-bashing; particular characterizations (eg “good dad Vesemir”, “Vesemir’s A+ parenting”, etc)

Biology stuff

Omegaverse, D/S-verse, soul mates, soul bonds, soul marks, daemon AUs

Pregnancy or mpreg

Graphic descriptions of bodily fluids (blood, semen, urine, feces, vomit, spit, breast milk, etc)

Body modification, amputation, nullification (consensual or non-consensual)

Necrophilia

Animalistic traits, bestiality, puppy play, animal play

Medical scenes

Social stuff

Current political events, coronavirus, plagues & pandemics generally

Nonconsensual sexual content (rape) or any other kind of nonconsensual behaviour (eg kidnapping, torture)

Detailed violence

Incest or child sexual abuse

Physical abuse, emotional abuse, manipulation, negging, gaslighting

Kidfic

Weddings

Underage or age play, daddy kink

Fuck buddies or friends with benefits

Somnophilia

Cheating, infidelity, breakups

Jealousy or possessiveness, whether or not portrayed as romantic by the narrative

Sex work

Modern BDSM etiquette or props in a non-modern setting

Polyamory, monogamy, established relationships

Specific characters or NOTPs

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion stuff

An editorial note on these, first - obviously, many of us are coming to fandom to look for and create the kind of representation we aren’t seeing for ourselves in canon, whether that’s as queer people, trans people, people of colour, disabled people, people of faith, etc.  But the flip side to this is, people in marginalized groups are not all the same as one another, and sometimes have competing needs with others in the same group as to what is triggering for them and what is not.

Transphobia (externalized or internalized)

Gender-swap, cisswap, sex-swap

Weight issues, eating disorders

Alcohol or substance use; alcohol or substance addiction

Cisheterosexual characters

Ableism (externalized or internalized)

Ship the Two White Guys

Self-harm

[hoe-doroki]

Alright, friends, your local demi is going to take one last bow before ace week is up.

I’m going to talk about myself, because I the lived experience of ace and acespec people isn’t talked about enough and, well, this is the week to talk about it!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s bring in a good ol’ frame of reference:

78% pure. For those who don’t know this is the rice purity test, where high scores mean you haven’t participated in many “racy” activities and low scores mean you have.

First, let’s state that I don’t want to put too much stock on this test. Only 3/4 of the questions are about sex and dating while the remaining 1/4 is about alcohol, drugs, and illegal activity. (Part of the reason my score is so high is because I, unrelated to being acespec, don’t drink or smoke.) But, like I said, it’s a place to start.

Stats. I’m a 24-year-old woman. I am cisgender, straight, and demisexual/demiromantic (not asexual or aromantic). I have never had a boyfriend, I have never enjoyed kissing, I have never had sex.

Oof, and right away, I’m embarrassed saying that.

And that’s the whole problem.

(This post clocks in at ~1.6k, so the rest is under the cut. Trigger warning for suicidal ideation.)

Well, not my whole problem, haha, but it is why I’m bothering to talk about this instead of keeping it secret, like I prefer to. I want to dispel some myths that harm the way I view myself and keep me from being honest with others. Because I fear that when people look at me and hear “24-year-old virgin” they assume things about me that just aren’t true.

First thing’s first. The fact that I’m a virgin means nothing except that I have not had sexual intercourse with another person. There are no other assumptions to be made.

It hurts when people are surprised by this. I happen to fall mostly into the barbed categories of American conventional attractiveness, so when people hear that I have never had a boyfriend or that I’m a virgin, they assume there’s something wrong with me. Or that past men I’ve been around have missed an opportunity or something.

This is shitty on two levels. One, the assumption that my stats are the way they are because of some failure sucks. All it should be is a reflection of my agency and the fact that I am the queen of saying no. (In fact, it was my first word.) But then people are assuaged by the fact that I have, in fact, been approached for sex, as though that confirms for them the value that they assumed I had. As though that’s where any of my worth should be coming from.

Two, these assumptions, when flipped, imply that it would “make sense” for me to have my stats if I looked different or was less neurotypical.

Media--as it does--has played a role in these assumptions. I think about the characters who are “later-in-life virgins” and I think of Emma Pillsberry from Glee, who deals with extreme OCD and germophobia. Or Sheldon and Amy from The Big Bang Theory, the former of whom might very well be acespec and is likely on the autism spectrum as well, but who is shown to be very antisocial with many difficulties forming interpersonal relationships and the latter of whom comes from a very conservative family and a mother who ensured she couldn’t learn social skills until well into her thirties. Or the “what if” episode of Friends that basically asserts that Monica would have been too fat to get laid. Or The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which I don’t wish to talk about. (Oof, all such problematic examples)

And yes, these characters are all white (I am not) and that’s a discussion for another post better made by someone who is more of a media expert than me.

These characters are all portrayed to have something that “explains” why they haven’t yet had the privilege of having sex. And we see in movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, or a whole host of teen movies, that virginity is something to conquer--especially for male characters.

I don’t look how people expect virginity to look. I’ll be real--I have high self esteem. I think I’m awesome inside and out and I don’t see any reason why I should be shy about that. I know that if I wanted to have sex with a stranger, I could do it tonight (covid notwithstanding--be safe, friends).

And even if I were a different person who had less self confidence or looked different or came from a different background, that wouldn’t mean that I “deserve” to be a virgin or whatever it is media is telling us. Virginity still wouldn’t have a damn thing to do with the other things that make up a person.

So, louder for the people in the back: being a virgin doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with me.

Next point. Being a virgin doesn’t mean that I’m innocent, a prude, or that I’m “waiting for marriage.”

Gosh, I’ve been asked if I’m waiting for marriage too many times. Two things. 1. No. I’d rather know my sexual compatibility with a partner before marriage and 2. I’m an atheist. So no.

Also, I am not innocent or a prude.

My lack of experience makes me feel infantilized. It does. That’s a personal issue of mine and, ya’ll, I don’t have many answers for how to overcome it. But I have done what I can to change that.

Guys, some of the best choices I’ve made in my adulthood are the things I’ve done to reclaim my sexuality (meaning sexualness not orientation) for myself. Not gonna get super nsfw here, but I’ve invested in about a dozen sex toys and I intend to buy more. They always makes me feel so much more adult and sexy. And I’ve done things with them that I feel pretty confident that many of my sexually active, allosexual friends haven’t done. This kind of thing isn’t for everyone acespec, but it helps me reclaim my worth as a sexual being, without needing a partner to validate that.

I’m also fully valid to write erotica! I love erotica and it’s another way I take back my sexuality. It is just as valid for me to write as it is for anyone else. I am capable of research--both on my own body and from resources, experts, and classes. I don’t need to have had sex for my opinion to matter.

Oh, and being acespec has nothing to do with my sex drive. It seems that I have a libido that is either average or slightly above average--I’m also a person that the more I’m engaging with my libido, the higher it gets.

This often feels like a curse. I, unlike many, but not all, acespec people, strongly desire sex. Like, I’ve bundled up a 35-pound weighted blanket on top of myself whilst engaging in self-pleasure just to try and make the activity feel more partnered (pro tip: that didn’t work.) The truth is that I’m really sick of having to take care of my libido by myself and would much rather have a partner.

But it’s not easy.

I’ve tried online dating, guys. Many times. I can’t do it. That’s not true of all acespec individuals, but it is for me, at least right now. For me, my demisexuality means that the idea and experience of going out, even on a casual date, with someone I’m not already interested in is nearly intolerable. And my current lifestyle, for many reasons, doesn’t lend itself well to me naturally forming crushes.

I’ve only had one major crush in my life. And it was 10 years ago. So you understand the difficulty.

I hate being demisexual, guys. I do. I wish that I could write this post with the intent of spreading pride and positivity, but I can’t. That’s not where I’m truthfully at yet. I’m lonely to the point of suicidal ideation. I’m too young for it, but I’m already making contingency plans for freezing my eggs or trying to imagine a future where I could be a single mother and...I can’t yet reconcile it. I know that part of this is my dreams being created in society’s image, but all I’ve ever wanted is to be a wife and a mother. And it’s hard to see that future when I can only look at my past and see images of silicone and sexual repulsion.

Remember when I said I’ve never enjoyed kissing? I’ve had more stage kisses than “real” kisses and, I have to say, the staged ones were more enjoyable because at least I wasn’t forcing myself to do them. Forcing myself to try to kiss someone so that I could feel “normal.” Forcing myself to kiss someone just because I was curious about what it was other people were talking about. My first “real” kiss was at 20 years old and it was a night where I forced myself to do a lot of things for the sake of catching up with my peers and I’ve been deeply uncomfortable with that experience ever since, and I can only be grateful that I stopped it as early in the evening as I did.

Everyone’s experience is so different, ya’ll. I haven’t heard a story like mine before, so in no way can I claim it to be an experience that widely represents demisexuality. It certainly doesn’t represent asexuality, nor how queerness (or many other things) intersects with either of those things.

But, at the same time, I’ve never heard a story like mine before. Do you know how helpful it would have been to have been able to see a story like this a few years ago? Ten years ago? It would have been life changing. Because even though, in the middle of all that self-confidence I spouted off about paragraphs ago, there’s this kernel of self-hatred stuck in my teeth, I would have felt validated. I would have felt seen. I would have been able to DM someone who could have told me, hey, it hurts and I know no one seems to understand you, but I do.

That’s to say, if anyone is going through something similar and wants to talk about it, my DMs are always open. I’m no expert, and I bet some of the things I’ve said here aren’t going to hit some people right, but this is my experience. This is the most intimate part of my life. It is a privilege that I’m sharing this with you all, so please, hold it with care. I hope this means something to someone.

Happy ace week, ya’ll.

Oh, and the rice purity test doesn’t mean shit. It’s good fun if you want, but if it makes you feel any kind of way because your number is too low or too high, throw it away. That’s not where any part of your value comes from.

[jamiebluewind]

Bi Erasure

I know we in the LGBTQIA+ community all joke about being gay. Even I do and I'm an omnisexual! But something that has always bothered me is when we have a fictional character who has had attraction in canon to more than one gender and the MINUTE they start dating someone of the same gender, they get OVERWHELMINGLY characterized as gay. That's just... that's not how this works! That's not how any of this works! Regardless of the gender of the person we date (or don't date), we are still [bi/poly/omni/pan]sexuals. Those of us in this group have all dealt with something in the "pick a side" genre. A LOT of people think that when we get in a relationship, it negates our previous identity because we were "just going through a phase" (if dating the opposite gender) or our identity was "just a stepping stone" (if dating the same gender). Far too many straight/gay partners push us to pretend that we are the same because otherwise, they worry we will run off with someone that's the opposite gender of them. It's a big ol' mess yall!

I know none of yall mean any harm. It's always GREAT to see LGBTQIA+ representation in the media and we just get so freaking excited when it happens. It makes my heart happy too! I'm just asking that yall acknowledge ALL that awesome rainbow community that we are a part of (that includes my awesome allies too!) and lift EVERYONE up with all the support and love in your heart. ^_^

***

Crash Course In Terms

Note: This is by no means a comprehensive list, but should give more of you the words to define characters other than straight or gay/lesbian. Also, all identities automatically include trans people because duh.

WlW: A woman who loves women (lesbian/gay, bisexual, polysexual, omnisexual, pansexual,...)

MlM: A man who loves men (gay, bisexual, polysexual, omnisexual, pansexual,...)

Gynosexual: People (of any gender) who are attracted to femininity

Androsexual: People (of any gender) who are attracted to masculinity

Hetroflexible: People who are attracted to the opposite gender 95% of the time, but has a limited number of exceptions to this rule

Homoflexible: People who are attracted to the same gender 95% of the time, but has a limited number of exceptions to this rule

Androgynesexual: People who are attracted to people who are androgynous, genderqueer, have no gendered traits, and/or have both masculine and feminine traits.

Bisexual: People who are attracted to men and women (or masculine and feminine). Some prefer the definition of attraction to the same and other genders (and that's okay!). Bisexuals who do not have their attraction perfectly split between genders are still valid!

Polysexual: People who are attracted to multiple genders, but not all genders. Polysexuals who do not have their attraction perfectly split between their preferred genders are still valid!

Omnisexual: People who are attracted to all genders, but for whom gender still matters and can be attracted to people based on their gender. Omnisexuals who do not have their attraction perfectly split between all genders are still valid!

Pansexual: People who are attracted to other people based on their personality regardless of the other person's gender or sex. They are often called "gender blind".

Queer: Non-hetrosexual people who find that they either don't easily fit in a category or prefer to not have a label. It can also be used as a way to just say "not straight". Originally a slur, it was reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community.

Demisexual: People who require a deep emotional connection to feel attraction. Once in a relationship, they tend to still only feel attraction to that person. They can be sex favourable, sex neutral/indifference, or sex repulsed (or a mix of the three). Demisexual includes all genders unless used as a prefix to define another identity (like demi-androsexual or demi-biromantic). Part of the asexual spectrum.

Gray Asexual: Person who either rarely feels attraction or feels it at such a low level that it could often be ignored. Nicknamed "grace", it includes all genders unless it is used as a prefix to define an identity (like gray-polysexual). They can be sex favorable, sex neutral/indifference, or sex repulsed (or a mix of the three). Part of the asexual spectrum.

Asexual: People who feel no sexual attraction to any person whatsoever. Nicknamed "ace". They can be sex favorable, sex neutral/indifference, or sex repulsed (or a mix of the three). Some also feel romantic attraction. Part of the asexual spectrum.

-romantic: The non-sexual attraction a person feels for another person. It includes things like cuddling, hand holding, emotional closeness, love, and sometimes kissing (depending on the person). Most people have the same romantic attraction as they do sexual attraction, so it is implied. Others have split-attraction where their romantic and sexual attractions are different (like biromantic asexual). Any prefix used for a sexual identity (like homo-, hetro-, bi-, a-...) can be added to define it.

Aromatic: People who feel no romantic attraction to any person whatsoever. They can have split-attraction (like aromantic bisexual) and are nicknamed "aro".

Sex favorable/positive: People who enjoy sexual acts or the concept of sexual acts, but may or may not experience sexual attraction.

Sex neutral/indifference: People who have no strong feelings about sexual acts or the concept of sexual acts. They might do stuff for their partner (just like one might do the dishes to help them out) or for procreation, but have no desire for it at all.

Sex repulsed/negative/averse: People who feel disgusted or revolted by either sex acts that involve them or just the idea of sex acts in general. The degree of disgust or revoltion varies as well as what the person is averse to.

***

PS: I still love you guys. I PROMISE I'm not attacking anyone in particular. It's just something I've been seeing a lot lately from the fandoms I'm in (such as Fantasy High) and I wanted to point it out because I imagine most of yall have no idea that something like that could bother someone. Don't feel bad if you did it! Nobody is perfect *hugs and lots of platonic love* ^_^