#like yes i have come across queer people with a very interesting identity but i could never...

[ingravinoveritas]

After seeing all those stories of Georgia going shopping with David (I'm honestly surprised that David knows how to drive, I don't know why), I think David is fed up with so much video.

@electronic-chocolate @victorianlonging Okay, so...I have indeed seen all of the stories that are referenced here, and I think a couple of things can be true at the same time. But let's first get the visual up for anyone who hasn't seen it (all in one video, for ease of viewing):

The first thought that I had is how reminiscent this was of what we've seen recently, with Georgia filming David when he seemingly really doesn't want to be filmed (such as at that festival last month).

What also came to mind is something I think at least several of us thought of (if my DMs are any indication), which is that David is clearly, visibly annoyed. There's no real way to not notice it, with him looking incredulous in the car (though I did laugh when he said "I'm not dressed for this," given how adorable he looked without even realizing it), and then when she sets the tone by immediately using the word "content." There's no question that that's what the objective of this was: To have content of/with David that Georgia could post to garner attention.

Once they're in the store, we see him balling up the shopping bags in his hands, which to me came across as a sign of anxiety. And given how non-confrontational we know David is, it's almost amazing to hear him respond to Georgia's "Say hi!" with an immediate "Nope." And the whole thing sort of becomes what you might call a self-narrating zoo exhibit (or "self-paparazzi," as I recently heard someone aptly describe it) where David is literally just trying to shop for groceries while Georgia is sticking a camera in his face.

We also notice that at one point, David is recognized by some fans and stops to take a picture with them, which when you think about it is likely a regular occurrence, since he has one of the most famous faces in the country. But because that is the case, you'd also think he would feel a sense of relief when those interactions are over and he no longer has to be "on"...until he goes back to Georgia and she is filming him. And as good-natured as David is, there's no doubt that it must get a little tiring after a while.

All that said--and in the interest of providing a balanced perspective--it is possible that David was playing things up, to an extent, and perhaps even exaggerating some of the annoyance that we saw. And there was something else about this that stood out to me, and that deserves discussion: His shoes...

Yes, David was wearing gay pride Doc Martens. GAY PRIDE BOOTS, ladies and gentlemen and those of other gender persuasions. And when we realize this is the case, everything about this vlog/series of stories starts to gets very interesting. Because while the shoes were by no means the focal point of the Insta stories, Georgia had to know that David's eagle-eyed fans would clock them right away. And clock them they did (and I also noticed this pair of Pride-themed Doc Martens, and would not be at all surprised to learn that David owns a pair of those as well).

Leaving aside the fact that no straight man on this Earth--no matter how strong an ally--would wear those boots (I mean...come on), I almost saw this as a callback/follow up to Georgia's story from a few months ago where she appeared to use "their" pronouns when talking about David (rather than he/him). Much discussion was had at the time of this being a way to "test the waters" for David to start being more open about his sexuality/identity, and this almost feels like a continuation of that.

Having heard from queer followers of mine who are not fully out to their families/friends, it seems that it is not uncommon for folks in that position to wear things to drop little "hints" around people they are not ready to disclose to yet. And when you think about the number of "hints" from the last few months--the nonbinary pin, the pronoun Insta story, David getting emotional talking about Pride Month on that podcast, and now these new Insta stories wearing those boots--it makes you wonder if it's all building toward something.

Whatever the case may be, it's still difficult to overlook how uncomfortable David looked at times in those videos today--even if he was playing things up. For my part, I would genuinely rather never have Georgia post anything about David again than see him in her posts knowing that he is uncomfortable with it. I also agree that her hunger for content seems to be increasing, but I would also like to hope that if David did seriously ask Georgia to stop filming--for any reasons--that she would do so.

So I suppose we'll have to see what (if anything) this all leads to, and what will happen if/when she films him again. Happy as always to hear others' thoughts in the comments...

[prefernottosay-research]

Hi Tumblr! My name is Molly O'Reilly-Kime (they/them) and I'm a PhD student at Lancaster University in England. I research how Non-Binary people use social media to express identity and build community.

Why are you in my house?

I've been a tumblr user for around 400 years and I didn't want to doxx myself by sharing my research on main. Tumblr is a cornerstone site in the Queer social media ecosystem and I want to be able to freely talk to the people who might be interested in what the research community is up to. Lifting the curtain on academia is really important, especially in marginalised communities where we are sometimes talked about more than we are talked to.

How do I know you're a real person?

Here's my institution profile! If you study or work at LU you can also come and look at me in real life (please email me first).

What's your research?

I'm a sociotechnologist and my field falls under the HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) umbrella. I study Non-Binary users' interactions with social media in a Computer Science context. It's a very niche and new field that doesn't have a great deal of research behind it, so there's plenty to do!

Are you researching me right now?

Nope! All my studies are conducted with the informed consent of participants, and subject to ethical approval from my university. I won't use this platform to conduct research without explicit disclosure. This includes any polls I post or share.

What if I WANT to be researched?

Then you can be!! I am running two studies at the moment for your perusal:

Queerphobia Online Reporting Form

If you have come across queerphobia on social media, send me a screenshot (or a description) of the post and how the platform responded. You don't need to be Non-Binary, or any flavour of LGBTQ+, to use the form!

Non-Binary Social Media Co-Design

What does your ideal social media site look like? Wanna share your ideas? Maybe even design the social media of your dreams? If yes, you can sign up to participate in a co-design workshop using this form! No design or software experience needed. If you're outside of Lancaster, you can attend an online session!

What's your header image?

A deeply unrelatable meme about trying to conduct lit review searches when everyone uses different terminology.

Intro post last updated 22/01/25

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Movie Analysis: Henry's Seclusion and Perception-Part 2

A little follow-up of this post after I realized something while watching Henry flinch after Alex tried to hold his hand during their Paris date.

This is more up to interpretation but in the same way Henry was isolated in a space without any sort of moral support during the week after the email leaks while Alex wasn’t, I think the same could be possibly said with their view on public displays of affection.

I’m gonna preface by saying that even in the RWRB Movie verse, both UK and USA are evidently mostly LGBT+ friendly. Alex’s US kind of goes without saying, while for Henry, given the sheer amount of people that ended up coming to support him all across the country, I think the same could be said for his UK.

So given that their big environment is LGBT friendly, the difference here is their own circles.

Before President Claremont was elected, Alex was just like any of us, as he put it himself, “an anonymous working class kid”. His socializing circle wasn’t really limited. On top of that both of his parents are democrats. Even before he figured out his own bisexuality, he was definitely exposed to LGBT communities and individuals, colourful queer people who showed off their gender, sexuality and relationship/partner proudly. Besides, from his interaction with Nora, his mom, even Henry during the NYE party, Alex is clearly a physically affectionate person to begin with. He is used to displays of affection, and has see queer public displays of affection.

So when he starts to fall for Henry (which I firmly believed started properly since the state dinner), he doesn’t really register displays of affection as something to be hidden despite now being in a homosexual relationship. This aspect is not that different in his mind. The only times we see Alex really make an effort to conceal it is when they want to… do dirty things, like the polo match (Matthew/Prime release the full scene please) and the DNC hotel visit, which in any case is something that one would make effort to hide even for a bit.

Look at the movie again. Alex reaches out to hold Henry’s hand in Paris, Henry flinches. Alex steps forward to kiss Henry at the airstrip after the night in the V&A, Henry stops him, even if it’s private airstrip with only Henry’s staff. The one sentence Alex said that sent Henry spiralling and trying to break things off was “We could walk through Austin holding hands, and it won’t even matter if anyone sees us.” (which is one of my favourite lines in the book by the way, granted used in a different situation) Alex finds public displays of affection towards Henry very natural.

Henry doesn’t.

However much he loves touching and kissing Alex in private behind closed door throughout the entirety of their relationship, he was never comfortable, or confident for them in public settings, even if there’s actually no one except their own professional secret service/ personal staff there.

And I think one of the contributing reasons is unlike Alex, he never really got to see queer people be openly proud of their identity and partners.

Henry, as the prince, has his social circle and travels limited. You’re not gonna see him on the subway or walking through Trafalgar Square. He’s not gonna be able to walk the streets and just see queer citizens out and about the way Alex did. Given the context clues in the movie, I’m guessing he’s limited to causes the crown wants to serve (veterans, climate, diplomacy, which all have their own values as social issues but doesn’t suit Henry) and unlike the royals in our world (yes I pay some attention to the irl royal family) he couldn’t even choose topics that interest him, that he wants to serve, like arts, LGBT, and mental health (there’s a sequel idea!!! Henry getting to choose how to use his title for causes he’s part of and care about), plus it’s clear his family, the king at least, had no interest in getting involved with LGBT issues, so he didn’t have any chance to approach the community while on duty either. Considering his grandfather warned him against pursuing relationships when he was 18, he probably was forced into some sense of shame or fear regarding any possibility of having a public relationship, which was also part of his argument during the Kensington confrontation. Seeing as Nick and Matthew decided Paris was Henry’s first time with someone he actually had feelings for, I’m guessing past hookups in said “English Boarding School” were done out of sexual frustration and some degree of rebellion, but even then it was more on the sexual side instead of anything truly affectionate, and that was still extremely secretive with stacks of NDAs.

So on Henry’s part, he was secluded in a almost forcefully heteronormative environment, never really got to see people like him in real life, in front of his eyes (reading queer history and news about LGBT rights is very different from seeing it yourself), and was told that this was something to be ashamed about, something he can’t do, something impossible. That’s why he never felt confident enough to ask for touch or touch Alex in anywhere remotely public. (He was drunk at the karaoke, and I think most of the Texas vacation was on the Claremont-Diaz’s private property, so those don’t count)

Until the palace pride protest, where thousand of people like him came to storm the palace with their rainbow flags and banners, their support, and their own identities display.

Faces with this massive display of queer pride right in front of him, Henry, maybe for the first time, sees so many people like them, and he sees that it’s okay for him to be gay, that there is nothing selfish, shameful, repulsive or unacceptable about who he is and who he loves. They’re here for him. They’re just like him. They’re proud of it. They show it.

So this time, in front of his family, a window away from the outside world, it’s his turn to ask for Alex’s hand, held between his. He’s finally confident enough in everything so tell Alex, through a wet smile, “I love you.”

Both of them look out, at the sea of colourful love and pride. Alex, who has seen this many times before in his life, but probably the first time he sees this knowing he’s part of that sea. Henry, who gets to see the crowd be proud of something he’s tried so long to conceal and hide.

Henry can be proud of his sexuality too.

And he shows it, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, with thousands of people cheering for him and his boyfriend. 

[iwanthermidnightz]

Hi iwhm! I have been a long time follower (and fan!) of your blog (and you). Hope you're doing well <3

I'm hoping to learn about fashion, pertaining specifically to the LGBTQ+ community. Any tips on where I could start? (I have ZERO fashion sense and want to revamp my wardrobe)

I remember you expressing your interest in fashion, so I was wondering if you have any tips/resources on how I could begin my journey. Any help is appreciated!

Also, what a time to be alive!! THEY WERE PUBLICALLY IN THE SAME ROOM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SIX YEARS! Thrilling indeeed!

Sending lots of love from across the globe <3 thankyou iwhm! ♡

Hi sweet anon! Thank you for following me, I hope you’re having a lovely day where you are! When I said I love fashion I meant that keeping up with designers, models, runways, photoshoots, red carpets and trends is something that I enjoy (and I really love that following Karlie’s career for so long has taught me a lot about those things).

But since you asked specifically about lgbtqia fashion, I will of course share a few resources I’ve found informative when it comes to learning about lgbtqia fashion and signaling. The first step is having a basic knowledge of our history. It really helps in understanding the context of how we have used fashion and accessories to signal to others who may be “like us” for decades.

Now as far as modern day fashion, it really a culmination of all of these historical aspects and eras. I believe we as queer people (umbrella term) all have to experiment to find what works for us, style wise.

I think in your case it really is down to trying different things that you may not have thought to before… if you are super femme maybe try a few pieces that are more androgynous? There are ways to do this and still find middle ground. Again, its kind of hard to explain because I would never want to tell someone how to express themselves. You are valid no matter what you wear! I hope this helps a little!

And yes what a marvelous time! The last few weeks have been totally insane in the best way! 🥰

Below is a TikTok user that I’ve found very informative specifically about lesbian/sapphic fashion history. She’s a historian! And dressingdykes.com is her website! She even posted a video (during lavendergate) explaining how lavender has been historically used by sapphics.

Other links: A Queer Fashion History, Lesbian Fashion History (video), Lesbian Fashion: Stereotyping the Signal, A Queer History of Fashion: From The Closet to the Catwalk

These are just a few resources. It’s my hope to one day put together a masterpost/archive of all things lgbtqia history with resources, books and videos etc. But this would be a long term project!

[masterjedilenawrites]

I'm honestly so happy your one of my favorite blogs I came across a star wars blogs that was not so accepting of any LGBTQA+ involving the clones last time I sent a headcanon I was scolded so I'm glad your ok with it if I do step on the toes let me know and I will stop

Now one to the Headcanons

I always pictured some of the clones being Bisexual pansexual and Demisexual

Especially Fives he gave me BIG bisexual vibes he would seem like the type to see a cute dude and go all heart eyes

I just imagine Jessie and Fives at the 79s and Fives nudges Jessie and he goes "you see what I see" and Jessie nods "oh yeah she is beautiful" and Fives makes a face amd goes "what no I mean the guy next to her excuse me I think I'm going to try my luck" and in the end Fives is grinning waving the paper of the guys number while Jessie cheers him on

I also feel like Echo maybe pansexual? He just seems like the type to get to know the person before he determines if he is attracted to them just imagine a friend's to lovers trope with Echo it would be so cute and I feel like it's what he deserves

Also I just love the idea of Echo being the batches mom or motherly in a way like imagine Hunter and Crosshair arguing and it starts escalating and Echo comes in and goes nope and puts them both in timeout and makes them write apology letters to each other (personal experience my dad would make me and my brother write apology letters to each other it was mostly a sneaky way to trash talk each other at first then admire each other)

And in that same breath if Fives was there he would 100% not let crosshair go to the Empire like the end of season 1 Fives would go "Crosshair get your ass on that ship now or I swear to the galaxy I will drag you myself" and of course no one thinks Fives is for real but they are all horrified (especially crosshair) that Fives picked him up and is straight up dragging him back on the ship scolding him and saying he could be Emo on the ship AWAY from the empire meanwhile Echo is like "yeah Fives you show him"

What?! Someone scolded you for queer headcanons?? 😢 That makes me so incredibly sad. I'm sorry you experienced that, anon. Please don't let someone else's phobias deter you from enjoying the fandom and finding more accepting friends here 🙂

But yes... on to your headcanons!

Bisexual Fives honestly just makes sense. Chef's kiss, 10/10 headcanon 😘👌🏻 I love that mental image of Fives and Jesse at a bar making heart eyes at different people. I could even see Fives looking at both the guy and the girl and arguing with himself over which is hotter 😂

Also thank you for noting some of the clones would be demi, too. I only recently learned about this identity and found so much of myself in it, and it's just so comforting to think of other characters being the same way when it comes to attraction and relationships. I can see Echo, Crosshair, even someone like Cody being demisexual.

Yes, Echo being the Batch's mom is pretty much fact at this point. 🤓 Just look at what happened as soon as he left them. All that bickering and poor decision making wouldn't have happened if mom was around...

That's an interesting thought though, about what Fives's dynamic with the Batch might have been. I could see him as another chaotic brother when they're on regular missions, but he likely would've been much quicker to want to save Crosshair than the other Batchers were. Look at the lengths he went to to save Tup! He would've tirelessly worked toward getting Crosshair freed from the Empire's control. So yeah, if Cross then turns around and insists on pouting on a platform by himself? Not happening. He is getting his ass on the ship and being grateful for it, thank you very much.

[kookiecrush]

https://www.tumblr.com/kookiecrush/730903589855379456/being-jk-bias-what-were-the-clues-that-made-you I'm also Jungkook biased, and I've always been confused about why people think he has this super "straight" image because I've been in the fandom for a long time and never saw that, I didn't see much of an interest in girls at all, and I remember how he openly supported queer art/artists, maybe even before Tae became the most vocal about it. Choosing to cover Fools by Troye Sivan in 2015 still feels like a very bold move to me, and of course he absolutely knew what he was singing about and had seen the video, Bang Si-hyuk even tweeted about it. But his "official" playlists often featured queer songs/artists. He also seems very unconcerned with gender norms at all, famously quoted in Vanity Fair "Where whatever you want regardless of gender.", happily agreed when a fan asked him to be their girlfriend, said he'd make a great housewife. But one thing I can't get over is his "I'm Still Me" artwork. He posted it on their Twitter account in March 2019. He also quoted it in Festa 2019 when asked to describe himself, which was filmed in February. It's a quote from the movie "Love, Simon". "Being gay is your thing. There are parts of it you have to go through alone. I hate that. As soon as you came out, you said, 'Mom, I'm still me.'" https://twitter.com/BTS_twt/status/1109115268905627649

I think stereotypes play a big part in people perceiving Jungkook as "super straight." Some people still expect a gay/queer man to be very flamboyant or effeminate and can't picture someone like Jungkook being queer because all they see is the masculine side of him with his tattoos, the way he dresses, his muscles, ect, but none of that necessarily has anything to do with sexuality, and Jungkook actually comes across as someone who is very intune with his feminine side to me. Maybe people ignore that side of him because it doesn't fit the image they have of him in their heads. I personally love how he's been expressing himself more freely lately with his CK and Vogue photoshoots.

Yes, I think people forget that it's not just Tae who has supported and recommended queer art and artist, but Jungkook, too. Covering "Fools" was definitely a bold and very intentional move from him, and I have no doubt that he knew the lyrics of the song he was singing. Jungkook has made no secret of his appreciation and support for Troye Sivan, who is an openly gay artist, I remember he's brought his name up in interviews multiple times.

And of course, his "I'm still me" artwork! How could I forget that? Jungkook quoting that phrase when asked to describe himself is a really big "clue," in my opinion. That film obviously resonated deeply with him, a film about a closeted gay boy coming to terms with his identity. It must have left a lasting impression on Jungkook for him to incorporate it into his art. I imagine when you're in the closet there's a fear that people will see you differently or no longer love you if they knew the truth about you, and even though Jungkook can't be completely open with us, I'm sure he still wants us to know that regardless of sexuality or anything else, he's still him. He's still the same Jungkook.

[marvellovelacevt]

:D

YAY!!!! I'm glad I didn't cross any boundaries/hurt you/talk over you in anyway, first off. I often get worried when I bring up how I may relate to something, or how I understand someone, can be interpreted as making it about myself or speaking over the original speaker. That's anxiety and autism for ya! Haha. ; u ;

THANK YOU for all the insightful discussion! I learned so much. It's intriguing how the queer community has gotten more narrow over time, especially in light of the separatist movement and TERFs (though it unfortunately makes sense). I agree that perhaps going back into the era of fewer labels, of more fluidity and overlap of identities and definitions would actually be more affirming for a lot of people!

"it's really interesting that it feels strict to you and makes me wonder how you personally define it!" [in reference to pansexuality]

Truly, I don't know if I have a personal definition! The general definition as you demonstrated works "well enough" to get the idea across to someone who's wondering, but somehow, for myself, it's like I need a definition that's a step beyond that. I guess like you, it's like "yeah that works, but it doesn't feel quite right either"! It's kind of funny, because I didn't really realize I truly felt that way until you began discussing it!! XD That's why these discussions are important~ (Which you point out!)

"people want strict and clearly defined definitions of labels for experiences that are wholly unique from individual to individual. while yes, having a definition can be helpful, i often feel that we use these definitions as a crutch and end up narrowing the scope of a label in ways that really harm the community.

for example, the obvious and most widespread consequence of this is transmedicalism; the belief that you have to have dysphoria to be transgender and that you have to transition into a binary gender for your gender to be valid. that you have to pass as a binary gender and perform as that gender in order to make the overall trans community look good to outsiders."

Hard, hard agree here. Like, I agree with this so hard that I feel like there needs to be a global campaign about this. Too many people probably hide and feel invalidated about their experiences because of this very notion of being "truly trans/trans enough" and I feel so, so bad because I imagine there are millions of people who feel this way, that they're trans but won't ever feel like they can come out because of the "requirement" to pass as a binary gender, transition, etc.

"transphobic cis people will not take any of us seriously, and the binary, fully transitioned transgender person is pretty much the same as the blue-haired cat/catself nonbinary person as far as they're concerned. we're all delusional in their eyes."

THIS^^^^ This hits so HARD and it's basically the reason why transphobic people will lump transwomen, drag queens, people at Pride events, etc. all under the same reaction: "you're delusional and I don't like you". You're totally right that it doesn't even *matter* if you pass the "trans litmus test" of passing properly as one gender or not—transphobes will *still* come after you. Bluh.

"but regardless, i think discussing the impact and consequences of labels and the commodification of LGBTQIA+ community is a really valuable discussion and i really thank you for giving me the opportunity to elaborate on my experiences and have these sorts of discussions!! it really makes me happy to discuss this with other people. i often feel like i can't talk about the thoughts i have on this and other topics because of the risk of annoying people or people going "it's not that deep, don't think about it so hard." because that sort of lack in critical thinking and intellectualism is killing the ability to have constructive discussions!! we should allow ourselves to be unlabeled, for our identities to be messy, for them to not fit neatly in a convenient word, because convenience where there should be nuance leads to confusion and discontent. it's what makes people go "but none of these labels fit me. what if there isn't a word for how i feel?""

What can I say, you say such great stuff!!!!! I LOVE these discussions, and I'm so glad you shared your experiences and thoughts!!! We *need* discussions like these to surpass our own limitations either caused by society, the groups we associate with, or our own understandings. We can always go so much further than what we have today to make tomorrow even brighter and clearer!! You can always talk about what's on your mind, and I'll totally support it!! And I know other followers will, too :D.

Long text XD

totally understandable!! i'm the same way; the easiest way to relate to other people is through anecdotes but i also really feel guilty about it even though it's how my brain works! but yeah, no feelings hurt, and you can't have a dialogue if it's only one party participating! then it's just a monologue, and usually i do so much monologuing that it would put shakespearean actors to shame.

but yeah, i'm glad you found this to be enriching and even happier to hear that i helped you learn stuff!! i was really scared that no one would be interested in what i had to say at all but getting to have this discussion really made me more confident in speaking my mind. i feel a whole lot more motivated to do stuff now!! so once again, thank you for the opportunity to get this out into the ether. i'm definitely going to refine what i shared a bit more to put them into a more coherent form to use as a script or something similar somewhere down the line. maybe i'll write another introspective rant on another topic to share and discuss!

i think i'm discovering that discussions like this are where i feel like i'm in my element.

[moonlightsapphic]

I can’t disagree that that was divisive of me to put it the way I did, so I do apologise for that. To be clear, I wasn’t being too serious and I don’t think young folks should be bullied at large by any means. I also don’t think users who are reblogging this want to pick on young queer folks. As a gen z I am also just shy of being a “young queer”. Most of the queer folks I am in community with are young.

But the gender essentialism-oriented separatist movement and “political lesbianism”, as well as the new exclusive definition of the identity “lesbian” (which was once used the same as the term “sapphic” to describe all WLW), all have a cultural starting off point in the ’60s, historically speaking. By definition, it’s not at all wrong to say that some shifts are contemporary phenomena. Have gatekeepers always existed? Yes. Do they sometimes exist on a larger scale, which speaks to the culture of the time? Also yes. Sapphics in the ’40s were more likely to know about the versatility of butch/fem than sapphics in 2025 might. Social media (in itself a modern phenomenon), while being an awesome resource to access diverse knowledge, has also fueled a misinformation trend where people will sometimes base their opinions on Tiktok videos and Tweets that don’t have sources. I would recommend everybody to watch the video and read the essay that I have cited as secondary sources to learn more. They’re super interesting and accessible, and they have many primary sources listed in case I have made a mistake anywhere!

In my country, not even queer adults have rights or visibility, though they might have some financial independence from their families. (That is also precarious because there are no legal protections for queer folks in employment.) It’s way more socially acceptable to be homophobic/transphobic than to be an ally, and even the word feminism is tabooed. The default is to stay closeted forever. I genuinely don’t even personally know any older queer folk, not even millennials (other than like, a couple of super lowkey public figures), in my country. I assure you I personally don’t need to be reminded of the vulnerability of young queer folk, but I appreciate the context added for users who come from countries that have more LGBTQ+ rights. I’m always glad to see older queer folks exhibit fierce protectiveness. I certainly did not have access to mentor figures like that when I was younger, but I try to get involved and do my part as an adult now.

At the risk of doubling down: Young people are as naïve as they are revolutionary, and that is just humans nature. My country has had some awesome sociopolitical changes led by youth and also some dumb as fuck ones. People of all ages have their quirks, some of which are, for better or for worse, generalizable. (Twenty-somethings like me, for example, unnecessarily meme on Tumblr about how exhausting young people can be, which is silly and egotistical too.) I haven’t really come across the queer youth hate train on here but I assure everyone my blog isn’t the place you’re going to find it. (Though you might find some desi millennial hate here and there if you’re into that, LMAO. I promise it’s justified and not that serious either.) It’s also … not very kind to knee-jerk mansplain a user you don’t know on a relatively non-inflammatory meme post. But I understand that the intention was positive and totally agree with everything said!

I learned a lot today from Obviously Queer’s video essay “FEMME: Lesbian History, Identity, Politics and Invisibility” and femmebis’ “The “Lesbian-Only Term” Myth: A Comprehensive Historical Essay on ‘Butch’ and ‘Femme’ ”.

[uncanny-tranny]

What to say to somebody if they have a queer identity you "don't agree with":

Nothing

No, literally. Nothing.

[martyfromgiant]

like many, a league of their own has become my new hyperfixation and obsession (bc how could it not) but whenever i get attached to a show like this, it fills some sort of void within me by giving new representation, but for some reason leaves another behind.

aloto was amazing in that it was a new kind of representation we have never gotten before, so many queer leads, black queer and trans rep, a story told by and for queer people, relationships we deserved and didn’t have to wait a whole season for. i could talk about it all day long, about how groundbreaking this show is, about how much it means to me, and dreaming of possibilities and stories to be explored in a new season.

thankfully with aloto, there wasn’t a soul crushing ending. people were happy, max and esther were living their dream, carson and greta ended on a beautiful, bittersweet note. yes charlie saw it but doors were left open. no one died, no one got sent away. with queer people writing the show, i can’t imagine carson being put away, i imagine she leaves charlie if he doesn’t accept her (as i’ve seen in a lot of fan fics that i wholeheartedly agree with).

this contrasts endings like killing eve and the haunting of bly manor, but for some reason, a hole is still left. after killing eve and the haunting of bly manor, i felt empty and sad and cried my eyes out. it felt like i lost a piece of me seeing someone that represented a part of me dying and seeing the aftermath. there was none of that with aloto. the ending made me happy, people were happy, they formed so many beautiful relationships and the ending felt right.

i genuinely don’t know why i feel the way i do. am i sad i have to wait so long to see the characters again? am i sad i don’t have a support system and connection to my community like so many of the queer characters in the show did? am i jealous? am i mourning the fact that i won’t see more of this and that it wasn’t actually someone’s real life i saw play out in front of me? am i sad i’m not a part of the world? i mean it was fucking 1943 with the war and homophobia running high? i genuinely don’t know. what is happening to me??? i’m so confused.

it doesn’t help that i have no one in my life that strongly relates to me. sadly the population of lesbians my age in my suburban town is small. very very small. no one else seems to want to talk about these issues, talk about the new queer media and everything about it. my life in my queerness is not close to the worst it could be by any means. i have accepting family and friends and i’m in an area that is more or less accepting. sure i come across a few assholes but who doesn’t? but no one my age wants to spend hours and hours talking about aloto and killing eve and other groundbreaking queer media. the losses i feel when my beloved characters die, i face alone. i can scroll through tik tok and twitter and tumblr but it’s not the same as talking to someone about everything. someone my age who has the same interests i do. sure i don’t experience homophobia but not having fellow queer people and lesbians who want to dive into these worlds is so difficult. tumblr has become my only real connection to people like me who could talk about these little gay shows for hours and hours. a place where i can share my feelings and be passionate without a fear of judgement from the people around me. it’s nice to know other people get obsessed like i do. it doesn’t change the fact, however, that i have no tangible connection to my lesbian identity where other people feel the same as i do (don’t get me started on how much of a pain ass it has made dating). so i resort to pouring my head and soul out on this platforms in my silly little blog posts feeling my heart explode with each like, comment, and reblog i get, showing someone out there feels the way i do. there’s truly nothing like it and makes my obsession and passion feel a little more validated and my connection to the queer community a little stronger.

[lorenfangor]

I heard that #40 was super homophobic :/ so I skipped it. But now your fic is making me want to give it a try. How problematic is it? Are the characters worth it?

Okay.

Okay.

Let’s talk about #40.

The plot of The Other (a Marco POV) is that Marco sees an Andalite on a video tape sent in to some Unsolved Mysteries-esque TV show, and he assumes it’s Ax and hauls ass to save him from being captured. Ax, being Ax, has videotaped the show, and they pull it up and Tobias uses his hawk eyes to figure out that it’s not Ax, it’s another Andalite - one without a tailblade. Ax is appalled at the presence of this vecol (an Andalite word for a disabled person) and we find out that he and others of his species have deep ingrained prejudices against at least some kinds of disabled people.

Despite this, Marco and Ax go looking for the Andalite in question because he’s been spotted by national TV, and they meet a second one, named Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad. The vecol is Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, a former fighter pilot with a reputation and Gafinilan’s coded-gay life partner. The two of them have been on Earth since book 1; they crashed their fighters on the planet and have been trapped there thanks to the GalaxyTree going down. Gafinilan has adopted a human cover, a physics professor, and they’ve been living in secret ever since.

Thanks to that tape, Mertil has been captured by Visser Three, and he’s not morph-capable so he can’t escape. Gafinilan wants to trade the leader of the “Andalite Bandits” to the Yeerks to get his boyfriend back; he can’t fight to free Mertil because he’s terminally ill with a genetic disorder that will eventually kill him, and (it’s implied that) the Yeerks aren’t interested in disabled hosts, even disabled Andalite ones. Despite Ax’s ableism, the Animorphs agree to work with Gafinilan and free Mertil, and they’re successful. Marco ends the book talking about how there are all kinds of prejudices you’ll have to face and boxes that people will put you in, and you can’t necessarily escape them even if they’re reductive and inaccurate, but you can still live your life with pride.

So now that I’ve explained the plot, I’m gonna come out the gate saying that I love this book. I love it wholeheartedly, I love Marco’s narration, I love Ax having to deal with Andalite society’s ableism, I love these characters, and as a disabled lesbian I don’t find these disabled gays to be inherently Bad Rep.

that’s of course just my opinion and it doesn’t overshadow other issues that people might have? but at the same time, I don’t like the seemingly-common narrative that this book is all bad all the time, and I want to offer up a different read.To that end, I’m going to go point by point through some of the criticisms and common complaints that I’ve seen across the fandom over the years.

“Mertil and Gafinilan were put on a bus after one appearance because they were gay!”

this is one I’m going to have to disagree with hardcore. I talked about this yesterday, but in Animorphs there are a lot of characters or ideas that only get introduced once or twice and then get written off or dropped - in order off the top of my head, #11 (the Amazon trip), #16 (Fenestre and his cannibalism), #17 (the oatmeal), #18 (the hint of Yeerks doing genetic experiments in the hospital basement), #24/#39/#42 (the Helmacrons’ ability to detect morphing tech), #25 (the Venber), #28 (experiments with limiting brain function through drugs), #34 (the Hork-Bajir homeworld being retaken, the Ixcila procedure), #36 (the Nartec), #41 (Jake’s Bad Future Dream), and #44 (the Aboriginal people Cassie meets in Australia) all feature things that either seem to exist just for the sake of having a particular trope explored Animorphs-style or to feature an idea for One Single Book.

This is a series that’s episodic and has a very limited overall story arc because of how children’s literature in the 90s was structured - these books are closer to The Saddle Club, Sweet Valley High, Animal Ark, or The Baby-Sitters’ Club than they are to Harry Potter or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mertil and Gafinilan don’t get to be in more than one book because they’re not established in the main cast or the supporting cast, I don’t think that it’s solely got anything to do with their being gay.

“Gafinilan has AIDS, this is a book about AIDS, and that’s homophobic!”

Okay, this is… hard. First, yes, Gafinilan does have a terminal illness. Yes, Gafinilan is gay. No, Soola’s Disease is not AIDS.

I have two responses to this, and I’ll attack them in order of their occurrence in my thought. First, there’s coded AIDS diseases all over genre fiction, especially genre fiction from that era, because the AIDS epidemic made a massive impact on public life and fundamentally changed both how the public perceived illness and queerness and how queer people themselves experienced it. I was too young to live through it, but my dad’s college roommate was out, and my dad himself has a lot of friends who he just ceases to talk about if the conversation gets past 1986 or so - this was devastating and it got examined in art for more reasons than “gay people all have AIDS”, and I dislike the implication that the only reason it could ever appear was as a tired stereotype or a message that Being Queer Means Death. Gafinilan is kind, fond of flowers, and fond of children - he’s multifaceted, and he’s got a terminal illness. Those kinds of people really exist, and they aren’t Bad Rep.

Second off, Soola’s Disease? Really isn’t AIDS. It’s a congenital genetic illness that develops over time, cannot be transmitted, and does not carry a serious stigma the way AIDS did. Gafinilan also has access to a cure - he could become a nothlit and no longer be afflicted by it, even if it’s considered somewhat dishonorable to go nothlit to escape that way. That’s not AIDS, and in fact at no point in my read and rereads did I assume that his having a terminal illness was supposed to be a commentary on homosexuality until I found out that other people were assuming it.

“Mertil losing his tail means he’s lost his masculinity, and that’s bad because he’s gay! That’s homophobic!”

so this is another one I’ve gotta hardcore disagree with, because while Mertil is one of two Very Obviously Queer Characters, he’s not the only character who loses something fundamental about himself, or even loses access to sexual and/or romantic capability in ways he was familiar with.

Tobias and Arbron both get ripped out of their ordinary normal lives by going nothlit in bad situations, and while they both wind up finding fulfillment and freedom despite that, it’s still traumatic, even more for Arbron I’d say than for Tobias. And on a psychological level, none of the main cast is left unmarked or free of trauma or free of deep change thanks to the bad things that have happened to them - they’re no less fundamentally altered than Mertil, even if it’s mental rather than physical. And yes, tail loss is equated with castration or emasculation, but that doesn’t automatically mean Mertil suffering it is tied to his homosexuality and therefore the takeaway we’re intended to have is “Being gay is tragic and makes you less of a man”. This is a series where bad shit happens to everyone, and enduring losses that take away things central to one’s self-conception or identity or body is just part of the story.

Also, frankly? Plenty of IRL disabled people have to grapple with a loss of sexual function, and again, they’re not Bad Rep just because they’re messy.

“Andalite society is confusingly written in this book, and the disability aspects are clearly just a coverup for the gay stuff!”

Andalite society is canonically sexist, a bit exceptionalist and prejudiced in their own favor, and pretty contradictory and often challenged internally on its own norms. In essence, it’s a pretty ordinary society, and they’re really realistic as sci-fi races go. It makes sense from that perspective that Andalites would tolerate scarring or a lost stalk eye or a lost skull eye, but not tolerate serious injuries that significantly impact your perceived quality of life. Ableism is like that - it’s not one-size-fits-all. I look at Ax’s reactions and I see a lot of my own family and friends’ behaviors - this vibes with my understanding of prejudice, you know?

“Mertil and Gafinilan have a tragic ending, which means the story is saying that being gay dooms you to tragedy!”

Mertil and Gafinilan have the best possible ending that they could ask for? They are victims of the war, they are suffering because of the war, they get the same cocktail of trauma and damage that every other soldier gets. But unlike Jake and Tobias and Marco, unlike Elfangor, unlike Aximili? Their ending comes in peace, in their own home. Gafinilan isn’t dying alone, he’s got the love of his life with him. Mertil isn’t going to be as isolated anymore, he’s got Marco for a friend. Animorphs is a tragedy, it’s not a happy story, it’s not something that guarantees a beautiful sunshine-and-roses ending for everyone, and I love tragedy, and so I will fight for this story. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it deserved better. But it’s not less meaningful just because it’s sad. Nobody is entitled to anything in this book, and it’s just as true for these two as it is for anyone else.

“It’s not cool that the only canonically gay characters in this series don’t get to be happy and trauma-free and unblemished Good Rep!”

This is one I can kind of understand, and I’ll give some ground to it, because it is sucky. The only thing I’ll say is that I stand by my argument that nothing that happens to Mertil and Gafinilan is unusual compared to what happens to the rest of the cast, and that their ending is way happier than Rachel and Tobias’s, or Jake and Cassie’s. But it’s a legitimate point of frustration, and the one argument I’ll say I agree has validity.

(Though, I also want to point out that I think there are plenty of equally queercoded characters in the story who aren’t Mertil and Gafinilan - Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all get at least one or two moments that signal to me that they’re potentially LGBT+, not to mention Mr. Tidwell and Illim in #29 and their long-term domestic partnership. There’s no reason to assume that the only queer people here are those two aliens when Marco’s descriptions of Jake exist.)

“Marco uses slurs and reduces Gafinilan’s whole identity to his illness!”

Technically, yes, this is true, except putting it that way strips the whole passage of its context. Marco is discussing the boxes society puts you into, the ones you don’t have a choice about facing or escaping. He’s talking about negative stereotypes and reductive generalizations, he’s referring to them as bad things that you get inflicted upon you by an outside world or by friends who don’t know the whole story or the real you. The slurs he uses are real slurs that get thrown at people still, and they’re not okay, and the point is that they’re not okay but assholes are going to call you by them anyway. He ends by saying “you just have to learn to live with it”, and since this is coming from a fifteen-year-old Latino kid who we know is picked on by bullies for all sorts of reasons and who faces racism and homophobia? He knows what he’s talking about. He’s bitter about what’s been said and done, he’s not stating it like it’s a good thing.

Yes, absolutely, this speech is a product of its time, but it’s a product of its time that speaks of defiance and says “We aren’t what we’re said to be,” and in the year this was published? That’s a good message.

tl;dr The Other is good, actually, and Mertil and Gafinilan are incredible characters who deserve all the love they could possibly get.

[raydaug]

Does kirari love sayaka? I don’t see a lot of information about this and I just wanted to know since I’m really curious if she does :))

(I got two virtually identical asks on this so I'm going to answer both here)

I’m tempted to just post some panels from the Tower of Doors and call it a day, but instead I’ll be blunt.

I think it would require a deliberate and borderline malicious misreading of the text to come to the conclusion that Kiari doesn’t hold a great deal of affection for Sayaka.

Love? I would say so, yes, even if she might not fully grasp that herself. And I’ve spent a lot of time breaking down the language and symbolism present in the Tower of Doors to support that conclusion. Not to mention the light novels and even Mahjong Souls corroborating this. Though, personally, I don’t take these kinds of “secondary” sources into account when doing serious analysis of the series.

I think there’s a much more interesting question here, though, that’s broader than Kirari or Kakegurui. It’s about expectations, and how we manage those expectations across media and especially in media that originate in cultures different from our own.

Western audiences, and especially American audiences, are conditioned for the explicit, both in our social interactions and in our media. We see forwardness and direct expressions of intent as unequivocally good things, and are disappointed when media fails to meet the standards of explicitness we expect.

(Full disclosure, I am not Japanese and I have never lived in Japan. My knowledge on this subject comes from personal research including talking to Japanese people.)

The rules of romance in Japan are very different than they are in the West. Group hegemony takes precedence over individual desires, and upsetting the status quo is frowned upon. People complain about queer couples in anime and manga never being allowed to be physically intimate in mainstream media, but if you notice, heterosexual couples are often just as chase, because the social norms around displays of affection are different in Japan. Likewise, explicit love confessions most often come at terminal points in the story, like death (see; Sayaka) and graduation, because to do otherwise would upset the status quo of the relationship. That’s where there’s so much pining and misunderstanding in Japanese romances.

In his video essay on Yuri!!! on Ice, Youtube James Somerton asks the question “How gay is gay enough?” At what point will an audience accept that what they are seeing is queer without being explicitly told so? When are queer characters simply allowed to be, without having to "come out" for the audience?

For all of it’s bombast, Japan can be very subtle as a culture, down to the language, which relies heavily on implied subjects. When you aren't tuned to the cultural codes and context, it’s easy to weigh your expectations too heavily and feel like you’ve been baited. If you don’t know about Natsume Soseki and how important he is in the history of Japanese culture, then it’s easy to miss the significance of Yumeko mentioning how beautiful the moon is. And missing that cultural reference means that you are missing something that is explicit to the native, intended audience.

All that being said; come on! Just look at them!

That’s from the official colorization of the manga (currently only available in Japanese), by the way. 

[maggiecheungs]

hello ! Sorry to bother But I was wondering if u had any 90's Hong Kong movies that you could recommend me ? I'm researching them for school and I usually get the most interesting and gutwrenching sinophone movie recs from your blog so I thought I should ask if u had any ! Thank u ❣️

Hey you 🥰 this is probably waaaaaay to late to be of any help with your research (sorry!) but I'll answer anyway just in case <3 (also, it got. a bit long 😳 so sorry about that lmao)

I'll start off by addressing the elephant in the room, a.k.a. Wong Kar-wai: the director you really can't avoid mentioning when talking about 90s and 00s Hong Kong cinema, and for good reason. I won't mention all his films here, but his best known are probably In the Mood for Love (which is regularly hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, which. yes); Happy Together (a staple of queer cinema starring Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung caught up in a fever-like, destructive love affair in Buenos Aires); Chungking Express (another classic beloved by many, many people); Fallen Angels (a stylish and chaotically seductive about eccentric figures inhabiting Hong Kong's nightlife).

Another director from this period who I think is worth highlighting is Stanley Kwan. He's probably best known for Rouge, which is from 1987 but which I’m including because it’s a classic; it stars the wonderful Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui as the principals in a doomed, decades-spanning love affair, featuring sumptuous visuals, ghosts, and time-slippages between the 1930s and 1980s. His other most notable work is probably Center Stage (1991); it's a very meta biopic of the 1930s actress Ruan Lingyu, who is portrayed by Maggie Cheung, and Kwan uses the film to draw parallels between the two actresses living decades apart. And I'll also mention his Lan Yu (2001), a gay love story set against the backdrop of Tiananmen Square and its aftermath (it's probably weird to admit that this is one of my comfort films but shrugs).

Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996) is an absolute favourite of mine, about immigrant identity, missed chances and lives you could have led, human connection under capitalism, and the love story between two people whose paths keep crossing despite everything--all of which is topped off with fantastic performances from Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai.

Farewell My Concubine (1993) was a Hong Kong-mainland co-production and is probably one of the best known films on this list, starring the fantastic Leslie Cheung in one of the defining performances of his career (tbh it would be worth watching for his performance alone). Coming in at just under 3 hours, it's a cinematic epic in pretty much every sense of the word.

Speaking of Leslie Cheung: Viva Erotica (1996), in which he plays an arthouse director whose Serious Films keep flopping, so he has to turn his next film into an erotic movie financed by a triad boss. It’s funny and big-hearted and has some unexpectedly interesting things to say about filmmaking and cinema as both an industry and as an artform.

Ann Hui is one of the few female big-name Hong Kong directors of the 90s; I'd recommend her 1990 film Song of the Exile--a film about generational conflict, immigration, cultural alienation and family ties, which takes place across the UK, Hong Kong, and Japan, and stars Maggie Cheung in the lead role. (Another prominent woman director from the period whom I've been meaning to watch since forever Mabel Cheung--really looking forward to finally seeing something of hers soon.)

Takeshi Kaneshiro and Kelly Chen had quite a few collaborations which are rather nice. Their Anna Magdalena (1998) is a quirky but poignant love-triangle story that inexplicably turns into a delightful steampunk romp. Lost and Found (1996) is another quirky-but-poignant love story, albeit a little more sedate.

For action films, there's the legendary John Woo, whose films are pretty quintessential action flicks--Hard Boiled is a pretty good example of his filmography. There's also The Heroic Trio and Executioners (both 1993): an action duology starring Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui as a trio of ass-kicking vigilante superheroes. It's sooooo much fun, peak cinema, marvel could never, etc. etc. I'm also going to mention Infernal Affairs (2002), starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau, because it's one of my favourite action thriller films of all time.

Wuxia: a lot of the most well-known titles of the genre are from the first decades of the 2000s, and because of their scope they tend to be international productions, but often had veteran Hong Kong actors in main roles (for example, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004)--all of which I would recommend, btw). But there were also quite a few wuxia films that came out of Hong Kong in the 90s, including New Dragon Gate Inn (a fun 1992 remake of the 1960s wuxia classic, starring Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Maggie Cheung); The Green Snake (1993), a retelling of the traditional Legend of the White Snake that doubles as an interesting deconstruction of lots of the main tropes of the wuxia genre; Wong Kar-wai's 1994 Ashes of Time, which has an insanely star-studded cast and is pretty much what you'd expect a wkw wuxia film to be like.

.......aaaaaaand i'm going to stop there, because this is already a Lot😅 but hopefully there's something of use in here--if not for your research, then at least recommending a new film to watch <3

[the-ghost-of-jason-todd]

right! so. i got a message in my inbox, i've screenshot it just because i'm not sure this person would want to be interacting with me based on their DNI and as we all know DNIs make me anxious as all fuck. IN ANY CASE, the message still brings up an interesting point!

i ran across another post in the murderbot tag that i lost in my likes somewhere that i think is interesting and related to this. basically what it said was "a lot of people in the text of the series use it/its for murderbot, and murderbot has never corrected them, ergo, murderbot MUST use it/its"

which is a valid take, but it isn't the only one there is. because i don't honestly think i could claim to know what pronouns murderbot prefers just based on the fact that there's been no pushback thus far with it/its (though my memory is definitely dysfunctional, someone correct me if there is actually a preference stated) (also yes i DO know that in fugitive telemetry there's that scene where murderbot marks their feed intro thing as basically gender=N/A, which isn't the question here, because you can use any pronouns for any gender and it all comes down to preference).

the reason i don't think murderbot not telling people to stop using it/its is a definitive answer is because as a trans non-binary person who would exclusively use they/them if i could, there are still a LOT of circumstances where i don't speak up about people using other pronouns for me. i exclusively use the pronouns associated with my agab at work, for instance. and yes, you could argue that people using those pronouns still misgenders me, but if i don't correct those people and they have no reasonable way of knowing that i don't really like those pronouns, then hey, can i really blame them? it's very possible murderbot is in the same boat--we know how much anxiety is packed into that construct, and also how little human conversational aptitude is in that same space, so the pronoun thing could VERY EASILY be a case of "murderbot doesn't care enough to correct the humans about this thing in particular when there's so much other shit to worry about"

aside from that, one thing that i DO know about murderbot is that identity and personhood are big, complex, and interesting themes/issues when it comes to the character arcs and interactions we've seen. we can have so many fascinating discussions about queer characters and how queerness relates to humanity relates to identity, and i think the fact that the murderbot diaries raises a lot of questions in that vein is, frankly, awesome. i have a lot of personal opinions about how murderbot's arcs might go moving forward, and yes, one of them is that [they] will eventually realize that the extra distance from humanity the it/its pronouns gives [them] is unnecessary. of course this won't be the case for every bot (sorry miki, i think i only referred to you with they/them once but maybe i shouldn't have), and of course not everyone who uses it/its is trying to find distance from humanity, but in my personal world i find it very comforting to imagine murderbot using the pronouns i myself use and as of right now, there's nothing particularly explicit in the text saying i shouldn't.

and as an aside... this is getting very long already, but there's also the fandom factor here. people have all kinds of headcanons and all kinds of reasons for supporting/using/talking about them. when i use they/them for murderbot it does not change the actual text of the series. if you find the way i interact with this series and/or interpret the text to be grating, then don't interact with me. it's okay to block me. it's a good thing in many cases to raise these sort of concerns, because yes, there ARE shitty people who misgender others intentionally or out of ignorance. but in this particular case i'm going to say that i'm not necessarily wrong, and even if i WAS it might be more productive to just block me than to continue to interact with me. at the end of the day, murderbot is a fictional character, and it doesn't hurt the construct to use they/them over it/its.

[kalorphic]

As a ace person its kind of weird seeing every ace character in ifs sex repulsed. Just checking to make sure you understand it means "i get excited thinking about sexual situations not people alone" and not "i would never have sex because its disgusting". Most ace people are not sex repulsed and being sex repulsed dont necessarily mean you're ace.

Idk, ignore it if you want, but i hate this stigma around ace people that we dont have sex drive and we hate sex. Like, asexuality is the most misunderstood sexuality out there. Like, we are still ace even if we love sex.

As nb I have a problem with nonbinarity in ifs as well cause authors treat it like a third gender (sometimes even as third sex). But that's a totally different discussion to have.

Anyway i look forward to the demo and i hope my words seem genuine to you ❤ i'm just kind of tired people dont understand queer identities but are willing to write about them anyway. Idk, feels a bit like if authors just copy what other authors write and dont think about it twice.

Anon I’m fully aware that not all asexuals are sex-repulsed and that some can even enjoy it. I personally identify as demisexual, which is on the ace spectrum, but means that I can experience sexual attraction and like sex with someone who I have an strong, emotional bond with. It’s also what I’ve written as K’s sexuality. So yes, thank you, I understand.

Luisa as a character is not sex-repulsed, she’s had it, wasn’t that fussed by it, and isn’t interested in doing it again. Which from the research I did, and from talking with a friend of mine about their own experiences, seemed like a fairly common thing, and spoke to me most in regards to her. I’m sorry if you feel that Luisa should have a sex drive and love sex, but it’s not going to happen.

As for treating nb as a third gender, Cody identifies as both masc and fem, with a preference for masc. They’re not trans or intersex, they don’t feel like they were born in the wrong body, they just don’t feel as though they fit neatly into the binary-genders and therefore choose to identify as nb instead.

I get that your words probably were genuine, but it all seemed very passive-aggressive to me. I’m sure there are people who agree with your stance, just as I’m sure there are people who don’t. Everyone has their own unique experiences and identities, I’m not saying, and never have said, that the way I’ve characterised Luisa and Cody is the same for everyone who identifies as asexual or non-binary. I’m sorry you don’t feel as though I’ve done well enough with the rep, but this is what I thought was best for my characters.

I’m sorry if this isn’t very coherent or comes across as me speaking on behalf of asexuals and those who identify as non-binary. If anyone else has any concerns about this, or wants to put their opinion forward, drop me an ask. But please leave the passive-aggressive tone out.

[asexual-society]

Asexuality and Me (It's Kind of a Long Story) by @darcyshire

I had my first boyfriend when I was in my early teens. He was a good friend, we got along very well, and he remains to this day very special to my heart. We were together for just a few months — not so uncommon for a junior high relationship — and I broke up with him because I was pretty sure he was going to try to kiss me. Not anything more than that, nothing “too far” for a pair of 13-year-olds, but that was too much for me. I apologized profusely, and he was upset because he didn’t understand what the issue was — because I couldn’t tell him. It sounded so dumb.

I had a few more boyfriends in the next couple years, and every time it was the same: if I felt that things were moving past holding hands or hugs, I ended the relationship. I was a serial dumper, never the “dumpee”. 

When I made it to high school, I had a group of friends, some of whom identified as lesbians. I was intrigued by the comfort they had in their relationships with other girls, so I wondered, “Am I maybe gay, and that’s why I keep breaking up with boys?” I thought about it and realized that no, I did often find myself having crushes on boys I knew well and enjoyed the company of. I also had those feelings for a few girls I knew well. I toyed with “bisexual” as a label, and used that privately, in my own head only, until I came across the term “pansexual” online, which I felt was a perfect description of the feelings I was having (minus the sex part). Gender didn’t matter when it came to crushes; I liked who I liked, and that was that.

When I had my first “real” boyfriend, I was 15. He asked before he kissed me the first time, and it turned out that I didn’t hate it. I did hate when he brought up sex. At the time, I was involved in my church, and I was opposed to sex outside of marriage, so the idea of going against that was upsetting. I wanted him to stay with me, so I went along with some of what he wanted — and it made me feel disgusting. Same thing with my next boyfriend; I dreaded anything to do with sex. I thought about whether it might feel different if I was with a girl instead, but with my involvement in a fairly conservative church community, I felt it wasn’t safe to try. 

When I met my now-husband, I felt none of the pressures I had felt before. He quickly became my best friend, and we got along incredibly well. He and I had similar values when it came to saving sex for marriage, so I didn’t have to worry about that aspect of our relationship. We dated for 4 years before we got married, and I was absolutely, 100% sure that marrying him was what I wanted, and what would make me happy. Our pre-marital counsellor had asked if waiting for sex had been difficult; my husband said yes, and I said absolutely not. I truly spent no time thinking about it. As our wedding date approached, however, I started to get very anxious. So much so that my own therapist suggested not “doing the deed” on our wedding night, to take the pressure off and make the experience less nerve-wracking. (I ignored her recommendation, and everything went mostly fine.)

For the first few weeks of our marriage, I was pretty indifferent about sex. I wasn’t interested in it, but my husband was, so I participated at his request. It wasn’t exciting or enjoyable for me, but it wasn’t something I was terrified of until a few months later, when I started having feelings of deep distress afterwards. I would wait for him to fall asleep, and would go out into our living room and cry; sometimes I had thoughts about self-harm or suicide. I became deeply depressed (more than I had ever been before, as depression has been a part of my life for many years), and my husband noticed that I was never initiating intimate experiences. We were married in August 2019, and the last time we had sex was February 2020, because I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t stop asking myself what was wrong with me. What was broken? Was it because of my previous relationships? Was my depression making me frigid? (Of course, I never considered the fact that sex had been of no interest to ever, even when everyone around me was thinking about it constantly). 

[This is a long story, so my apologies that it’s a bit rambling. Now to the good stuff!]

I was scrolling Tumblr in the early months of 2020, and I came across the term “asexual”. I’d not really heard much about it before, but from the short description, it seemed like it fit my experience. I did some online searches, and came across a document from AsexualityArchive.com called “Asexuality: A Brief Introduction.” I read the whole thing in an afternoon and found myself literally crying, because I felt so relieved. I learned that day that there was nothing wrong with me, that there were other people who also had no interest in sex — some were even repulsed by the very idea of taking part in sexual experiences, like I was. I told my husband, fearing he would leave me, and he was incredibly loving, gracious, and accepting. He loves me for my personality, not for what I can offer him sexually.

I started using the label “asexual”, (‘ace’ for short), and felt really comfortable in that. When I learned about the split-attraction model that many aspec folx use, I changed my labels to “panromantic/asexual” (pan-ace), because that fit even better. When I began to question my own experience of gender and sexuality, and got involved with the rainbow community, I decided that “queer ace” was the best fit of all, and that’s where I’m at today. I’ve come out to my family as queer, and was unfortunately outed to my husband’s (conservative Christian) family before I was ready, but after the fact, I am glad the people closest to me know that being queer is am important part of my identity. 

Only my husband, my mom, and a few close female friends know about my asexuality (outside of the online queer communities I’m a member of), because I’m tired of hearing people say things like, “maybe it’s just your depression”, or “you should see your doctor about that”. Plus, it’s mine and my husband’s private business how we conduct our sex life, not anyone else’s. I didn’t know there was a word for people like me until early 2020, but I’ve been ace my whole life; looking back on things now, I can find many indicators of asexuality starting from before I was even a teen. 

I’m now 24 years old and a proud member of the queer and aspec communities. I hope that my story might give hope to others who have been asking themselves why they have so little interest in sex. It’s not a defect — it’s just the way we were made. As a person of faith, this realization has meant the world to me.