#living in the year gay marriage became legalized in the US

[margareturtle]

My new theory is that Cassie doesn’t want to write contemporary period books anymore and that’s why she had to wait till 2026 to release book 1 of twp bc by then TLKOF is historical fiction as 2015 was over a decade before.

[roboticchibitan]

I remember when same sex marriage was legized in my state (3 years before obergefel vs Hodges which legalized it nationwide). It won by a very narrow margin.

People who had taken care of me when I was young, people who were like second parents to me, (along with half the other people I knew) were saying it was the end times because I could now get married. And I couldn't help but wonder... would those people have protected me, cared for me, let me play with their children, if they had known I would grow up to be queer?

I came out in 2011. I was lucky. My parents were accepting. My mom was clearly uncomfortable at first but she made it clear she loved me no matter what.

Except.

My dad didn't care if I was queer and assured me that didn't mean there was anything wrong with me (in a speech I didn't need to hear but I think he needed to say). But he still said "that's gay" and "that's faggy" anytime my little brother showed vulnerability.

And I was a lucky one. My father used homophobic slurs around me regularly. He turned the word gay into a slur with his homophobic mouth. And I was a lucky one.

When I came out publicly, my grandmother stopped speaking to me for a while. I'm lucky that she changed her mind. I'm lucky that my grandparents let me bring my girlfriend with me when I went to visit them in October. October of 2022 and I still consider myself lucky that my grandparents let my queer partner into their house. My other grandma likewise visited with us, and was polite and friendly, but she still refused to call my gf anything other than "your friend." Still lucky. Incredibly lucky.

People don't understand just how bad things were as much as ten years ago. When I came out at school, I was lucky. No one bullied me. No one shoved me into lockers or called me slurs. They all just stopped talking to me. I became invisible. I went to a small school. I was the only person who was out. Exactly one person talked to me the rest of the year. And I was a lucky one.

When I was in middle and highschool, the go to insult was "that's gay." I heard it constantly. Every day. Sometimes people said it to me to insult me, long before I even knew I was queer.

I was lucky because the worst that happened to me was social isolation and people using slurs around me or turning my identity into a slur. No one called ME faggy. No one beat me up behind the school bleachers. I was incredibly lucky.

I have experienced the word "gay" used as a slur far more than I ever heard the word "queer" used as a slur. Young "queer is a slur and only a slur" people need to know the world you live in is not the world the rest of us live in. Why is "queer" a slur but "gay" isn't? My homophobic father thought the word "gay" conveyed just as much offense and disgust as the word "faggot." So why is queer the horrible word that can never be reclaimed but people say "that's gay" as a compliment now? The loneliest I have ever felt was in a room full of teenagers who thought my identity was the height of insults. So why is gay fine but queer isn't?

I am a fat butch queer and I do not hide that. My shoes have a pride flag on them. I have a masculine haircut and wear men's clothes. I look queer.

And I am afraid. I dress like this anyway, because I want other queer folks to know I am a safe person. I dress how I do partially because I like it but also partially so any queer person in the room, no matter now closeted, can see me and feel a little bit safer. Because I will protect other queer people with my life if need be.

Because I am openly and visibly queer and live in a world where being queer can get you killed. Because it can. Gay bashings still happen. The alt right are getting bolder in their violence, and that includes homophobic/transphobic violence. There are organizations in the US that are actively pushing to make homosexuality punishable by death in Africa. They know they could never accomplish that here. But they would if they could. People want us dead.

Young people need to understand that. And they need to understand that the people who did the most work to free us from criminalization were queer. They identified as queer. And they weren't the perfect law abiding queers toeing the line of what's acceptible. Because being queer itself was illegal. You could end up on the sex offender registry for being gay. In fact, there are queer people who are STILL registered as sex offenders just because they were queer in 2001. Pride wasn't a permitted parade with wells Fargo floats. It was angry queers illegally marching down the streets, screaming "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it."

Being openly queer is a radical act. It is still a radical act.

I did not live through Windsor vs the united states, the referendum 74 debate, my father punishing my brother for being human with homophobic slurs, and the pearl clutching fearmongering about "the gay agenda" (that was a go to phrase for 2012 homophobes) for some LGBT kid to come at me with TERF bullshit they got off tiktok about how my identity is a slur and I'm a horrible person for using it.

I was a lucky one and I'm still saying "no, absolutely not" to this bullshit.

Queer is more inclusive. Queer accounts for any possible fluidity because people change. Identities change. Queer is there for people who know they're Something Different but are not sure of the details yet. Queer is intentionally vague. When you're young you want everyone to know exactly who you are but as you get older you realize actually my identity is none of your business. In fact, sometimes when you tell someone your identity, you're handing them a bludgeon for them to hurt you with.

If you have trans classmates, you do not understand the world the rest of us grew up in. Trans people were not a public topic. They were not even acknowledged as existing by most people. I didn't know what being trans was until I was like 17. I'm nonbinary now and consider myself trans 10 years later.

And I didn't even have it that bad. But you know what? It still sucked and it was still hard and I can't imagine what it was like to grow up a decade before I did. I had it easy compared to most people.

If you can jokingly say "that's gay" when someone expresses queer love, then you can fucking handle people using the word queer as their identity.

The infighting and policing each other has to stop. You're oppressing queer people with this bullshit. It does not matter what words queer people use to describe themselves when there are people actively killing us. What are you doing? For fucks sake look at the bigger picture. Direct all that rage at our oppressors and the people who mean us harm. Queer people and he/him lesbians and bi lesbians and people who use neo pronouns and whoever else is the discourse of the day do not deserve this kind of treatment. Punch a homophobe and maybe you'll feel better.

[wendynerdwrites]

A Measured Response: A Measured Response

Above please find the video I'm responding to, "A Measured Response" by James Somerton. If he deletes later (and I suspect he may), I will reblog with an embed of a copy of the video.

Also note: Much of this is taken from comments I made on his video. But I believe he may be deleting them. Or I got caught up in the spam filter because I commented more than once out of sheer frustration with what I was hearing.

James,

Okay, I am going to start off with a couple things I will give you credit for:

1) Acknowledging the shitty effect nuking your channel had on Nick's career and prospects. That's actually something that hasn't been discussed much and it is genuinely good of you to volunteer that to your audience. As someone who once had her own portfolio nuked by former partners, that's a good thing to bring up. No notes there. That was a good move.

2) You actually used the word 'plagiarism' this time.

I would also like to say that I am glad that you are safe and I am glad you are still alive.

I'm hearing lots about insurance, and your mental health struggles, and the move YOU chose to make "disrupting everything" and your mom's death, "not citing things correctly", how ADHD apparently made you plagiarize, and how hard things are for you. And how people harassed and doxxed you. How you totally want to prove yourself!

Here's what I'm not hearing about:

1) The harassment campaign you launched against your accusers that literally caused them to go into hiding. Sorry, but you don't get sympathy points about death threats and doxing without at least expressing remorse when you did that to others. You haven't mentioned it once. you also falsely accused OTHERS of sending harassment your way and have not acknowledged it.

2) The multiple transphobic and misogynistic lies you told.

3) The tangible impact of queer erasure YOU ENGAGED IN. You barely mention any of the people you stole from. Believe it or not, James, but those people? They also had lives, and jobs, and obligations. Some of them also had dead parents. Then there are the queer people you erased the identities of, slandered, and insulted. Becky Abertelli had to deal with YEARS of the same sort of harassment you're complaining about because of people calling her straight. And even after she was FORCED OUT OF THE CLOSET, you perpetuated that lie again. And yes, YOU DID, JAMES. PUTTING HER IN THE 'STRAIGHT AUTHORS' CATEGORY IS CALLING HER STRAIGHT, JAMES. THAT'S HOW CATEGORIES WORK. Then when she briefly corrected you, you lied about her repeatedly and inserted nasty little vague comments about her so that you could bait your audience into asking about it and claim she harassed you on twitter for not liking her show (which never happened once. She didnt even bring up you straight-washing her on twitter. It was in your comments section.). So not only did you lie, you went out of your way to create opportunities to lie about her more.

4) The outright dangerous rhetoric you engaged in. Such as:

a) You lied about the AIDS epidemic and generations of actual queer activists who you claimed didn't care about employment discrimination and just wanted to have "big gay weddings" because they were "boring. This is a false and dangerous retelling of queer history, not only isolating new generations of queer people, but also erasing the tangible benefits of the legal benefits you enjoy now, James. THEY WANTED MARRIAGE SO THEY COULD HOLD THEIR DYING LOVERS' HANDS AS THEY PASSED AND ATTEND THEIR FUNERALS, JAMES. THEY WANTED MARRIAGE SO THEY WEREN'T KICKED OUT OF THEIR HOMES AND STRIPPED OF BENEFITS DURING A HEALTH PANDEMIC, JAMES. THEY DID FIGHT FOR EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS, JAMES. THAT'S HOW SEXUALITY BECAME A PROTECTED CLASS. Lying about and downplaying the legal rights these valiant "boring" people fought for misleads current generations of queer people into caring less about their history, the people who have done the most for them, and protecting the legal rights so desperately won.

b) All the gay Nazi shit. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain why inventing facts about all the Nazi secret police and youth counselors being gay and extorting people for sex under the Reich is so insanely dangerous and disgusting, but here's a hint: it casts your own community as being the vile, perverted criminals that THE ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO WANT YOU DEAD (you know, homophobes? Not people on the internet who noticed you plagiarized the Celluloid Closet) perpetuate in order to sell their draconian policies to the masses.

c) all the misogyny. I get it, you want to erase the discrimination against women (and people you claim are women) have faced, especially as queer women. You wanted to pretend Radcliffe Hall was allowed to "carry on with her happy little life." You wanted your audience to believe that. You wanted your audience to shit on women for moral panics you made up. You wanted to erase the queer identity of a woman who had already been through Hell and then pass it off as justified. With the rising tied of renewed misogyny,, incel attacks, and reproductive rights being stripped from us, you really, really wanted to sell the message of women being whiny, jealous bitches who get handed everything, never deal with consequences, and hate people for not liking their work. (TBH, it feels a bit like projection on your part) thank you for spreading so much incel rhetoric and transphobia and making your audience ignorant of the great contributions women have made to LGBTQIA history.

I'd respect you more if you would just own up to the obvious biases you clearly have.

That's not all, but my hands are getting tired.

5) That you were caught lying about the contents of Hbomb's video in your initial patreon response.

6) The worth of the people you stole from.

7) Using Nick's asexuality as an excuse for your acephobic AF bullshit about how ace people apparently never dealt with institutional oppression when they're the most likely to be sent to conversion camp and have had corrective rape used as a "treatment" throughout history. Like, holy shit, James.

8) How you tried to lay blame for your shitty, stolen work on your own audience because "you didn't wanrt to make them and they were patreon requests." You didn't have to keep video requests as a perk. Those people paid over $300 to you for those wids only for you to throw them under the bus.

9) Your complete refusal to update your Telos backers on anything besides announcing new projects that you were using to replace the projects you promised them. You could have gone on Patreon, Indiegogo, Twitter, or your channel, and explained things. Things like this happen. But instead you ghosted and gaslighted.

10) The shit you pulled about Nebula.

11) The shitsquillion dollars you spent on cameras you didn't need when you were also claiming to your patrons about being on the verge of homelessness.

"It's a documentary, no opinion just cited facts." James, you've cited "facts" like "15% of the Hitler Youth counselors were gay", "Radcliffe Hall didn't get punished for writing a book about lesbians", and "there was no fight against employment discrimination" as "facts."

Then there's the part where you're still insisting that the people who told you that you can't make a short film on 3K were wrong. You insist it's possible because you intended to use non-union labor. then two minutes later you admit a movie you put together ended up going way over-budget because you didn't realize how much things would cost.

So the Telos nay-sayers had a point, James. Why are you still acting like they were wrong. Do you just not want anyone to find Dan Olsen's tweets about your finances?

The fact that you think you have any business coming back when all you've ever managed are lies and theft is so hilariously conceited. I get it. You want to be able to "carry on with your happy little life" (the way Radcliffe Hall DIDN'T). You want to go back to being a big youtuber and for everyone to admire you once you manage to go a whole video without stealing from anyone. That's not how this works. You have no credibility. You have caused a huge amount of damage not just to your immediate audience, but also the queer community overall.

You hurt a lot more people than Jessie Gender, James.

"We weren't trying to lie about things." BULL FUCKING SHIT. YOU NOT ONLY LIED ABOUT BECKY ALBERTALLI MULTIPLE TIMES. YOU EVEN MADE AN INDIRECT DIG AT HER SO YOUR AUDIENCE WOULD ASK ABOUT IT SO YOU COULD LIE ABOUT YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH HER AS WELL. YOU LIED ABOUT WHO ACTUALLY WROTE YOUR VIDEOS. YOU LIED ABOUT YOUR CREDITS. YOU LIED ON PURPOSE. AND YOU LIED IN WAYS THAT HURT PEOPLE.

You also lie in your video saying "in the beginning, I thought it was enough to put people's names in the opening credits." No you didn't. You started using those opening credits well after the accusations came rolling in. You even admitted on twitter that in the beginning you weren't "citing my sources yet."

Do I believe much of your bullshit was pure laziness? Certainly. But there can be more than one reason for it. There's no way you knew who Radcliffe Hall was and actually thought she face no repercussions. No one who has ever heard of The Well of Loneliness DOESN'T know all the prints were destroyed. It being a lesbian book that was destroyed by the courts is THE STORY.

You lied when you said you didn't call Becky Albertalli straight. EVEN THOUGH YOU ADMIT TO PUTTING HER IN THE STRAIGHT CATEGORY.

You lied about your "adaptation" of Evil Queens and tinker Bells and the citation and schedule of when you got approval. You got approval after the fact and claiming you got it from the beginning. your own email screenshot proves it.

You lied saying the Evil Queens video was "a direct adaptation of the books" despite half the video being plagiarized from completely different works. You lied about your plagiarism accusations and HBomb's video rehashing old "debunked" accusations on Patreon. You lied about Alexander Avila. You lied about reading/watching a bunch of the media you were "critiquing." you lied about when you started with your opening credits.

These were ALL LIES YOU TOLD ON PURPOSE.

You don't "research", "write", shoot, edit, and post a video with shit like that in it and say it wasn't malicious or intentional. You put these videos out there with scores of lies, many of which were directed at various marginalized groups, and CHOSE to never check if anything you said was true. You don't invent entire fake moral panics "by accident." You don't plagiarize by accident.

Please don't spend forty minutes reciting excuses and then claim "these are not excuses." You're not fooling us.

Also - Leave your poor mother out of this. She already had to die of cancer. Let the poor woman rest.

But thank you for linking your new patreon and telling us all about your upcoming videos! I am glad you have your priorities straight. (that was sarcasm)

Just leave the internet, James. Not LIFE, OBVIOUSLY. Stay alive. But your time as a content creator is done. You have no viability in that area. The fact that you think you can just do this is equal parts entitled and delusional. That you think you can come back so soon makes it even worse. Tell you what: you can try again after it's verified that the people you stole from have been compensated and you properly apologize for everything else.

I will not believe you're truly sorry until you can actually apologize without caveats, excuses, and, yes, lies. Saying you're sorry for "not citing things correctly" is not apologizing for what you did. It's cushioning the actual facts and downplaying your transgression. You have not apologized for the misogyny, acephobia, or transphobia, which, yes, YOU DID. I don't care if you want to claim it wasn't intentional YOU STILL DID IT. You haven't apologized for harassing and slandering your critics.

So no, James, I don't really believe you're sorry. I think you're sorry this blew up and that you have to make a new patreon. I don't trust that you won't continue being misogynistic. I don't trust that if you ever see this comment, that you will actually read it instead of crying homophobia and cancel culture and "wanting you dead."

Admit that you harassed people and that it was awful. Admit the extent. Admit you lied about Becky Albertalli and apologize to her. Admit that, yes, YOU HAVE SOME REAL ISSUES WITH WOMEN and that you are ready to confront them.

I don't trust you to do the right thing here. But maybe this comment will be read by someone who might have otherwise fallen for this and it'll be easier for them to see through manipulation like this in the future.

Just log off, Bro.

[personal-progress-dropout]

The Rainbow Sheep

(Yes, I know, very original and creative title, but it gets the job done. Get ready for personal stories and too many parenthesis.)

In my childhood, whenever gay people were mentioned, it was with the same tone you’d use for someone with terminal cancer. It was a tragedy. They were lost, they had distanced themselves from God, and they were grieved like the dead. Sometimes it felt like people would rather their gay brothers and sisters be dead instead of gay. Of course, we should always be kind and welcoming, love the sinner hate the sin, etc., but honestly, it felt like you could never truly be accepted if you were gay. There was a distance, and it was always the gay person's fault.

For example—on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all fifty states. I was thirteen years old. That Sunday, there was a special meeting at church to discuss the new development and reinforce The Family Proclamation. I remember very little of what was said, but I remember what I felt. I remember that the atmosphere felt like the greatest of tragedies had occurred, and I remember being told that we had to defend traditional marriage. We had been given the duty of defending the Family, something that the world wanted to destroy. (I use Family with a capital F because it always seems like we’re defending an unreachable ideal instead of the messy, glorious reality.) Nobody ever used that language directly, but I certainly felt the implication, and the language they did use drew up a stark divide of ‘us vs. them.’ 

I wholeheartedly believed this, and I was going to do everything I could to strive towards the ideal. I was going to get married in the temple and start my own eternal family! There was just one problem with that—I didn’t see men as romantic partners. My future husband was a faceless doll set in the life I wanted to have: my vision for the future included kids, a house, pets, and a job, but I had no idea where a husband was supposed to fit in my life. The ‘crushes’ I had as a kid were a fun game of pretend because girls were supposed to crush on boys. The older I got, the more exhausting the game of make-believe became. Looking back on my high school years, I realize that I was never actually attracted to the boys I wanted to date; I simply wanted to hang out with them. If they were attracted to me, that would be nice, and it would definitely stroke my ego, but I didn’t want them. I wanted to be wanted.  

I’ve always gravitated to women more than men, even as a child. It’s a running joke among queer women that when you see a beautiful girl you don’t know if you want to be her or be with her, but I’ve always been able to make the distinction. Women were easier to develop crushes on than men. I could differentiate between attraction and admiration, and after I came out it was incredibly frustrating to hear people say I was confusing the two. I was enchanted with the sway of a classmate’s hips, the bark of her laughter, the passion of her voice. If I had changed the pronoun to ‘he’, everyone would assume I was in love. 

I realized I was queer when I was sixteen years old, and it was terrifying. Gay people were the ‘other’, they were either set on destroying the Family or they were expected to live out a solitary life in the hope that they would get a heterosexual happily-ever-after in the Celestial Kingdom. I didn’t want to destroy the Family! I didn’t want to die alone! There were certain men that I found handsome, so I determined that I was attracted to men (in theory) and therefore nobody needed to know. I could go through my life with nobody the wiser, and I would never have to risk the alienation that comes with coming out.

And it's a risk. Parents will tell their children that they will always love them and there’s nothing they can do to change that. This is simply not true. I grew up with these same reassurances, but I was never specifically told that I could be gay and my parents would still love me. I’m incredibly lucky. Despite the way my parents were raised to regard LGBTQ+ people (which in all honesty was pretty mild compared to some of my friends' parents), they valued the commandment to love God and their neighbors over anything else. It was still one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life because I was walking into unknown, potentially dangerous territory. In the end, I’m so glad that I did. My parents and I understand each other better now, and I don't have to carry the weight of secret-keeping anymore.

Of course, there are still misunderstandings and miscommunication. I was frustrated because my parents didn’t want me to come out to my sisters until we were older. I felt like a dirty secret, and it felt like there was a layer of separation between me and my sisters. There are moments when I feel othered—when I know I can never come out to certain parts of my family, because they would never look at me the same way. (I might someday. Who knows.) When I see legislation that forbids talking about LGBT in schools and how gay literature is being banned from libraries, and how members of my family don't see a problem with this, because aren't they a bit young for that anyways? (I wasn't too young to be taught that I should marry a man in the temple and have children that I should raise in the faith, but that's besides the point.)

I get annoyed when I hear my orientation referred to as a ‘trial’ and something that will be made right in the afterlife. I don't consider it to be a trial--I think it's an aspect of who I am, and the trial comes from people who have a restricted view of the world.

I love my faith. I love the assurance that comes with knowing I'm a child of God, and I love how we as a church believe that we can become greater than we are through living gospel principles, but it should come as a surprise to nobody that the church is an institution made up of imperfect people. We have a long way to go, but I have hope. Look at me! I went from a deeply conservative teenager who believed that gay marriage was a sin (I'm not even sure I knew trans people existed at the time) to someone who accepts their identity as queer and tries to make the world a more accepting place. I can change, and I like to believe that the people around me can too. We can become greater than what we are today.

[serpentface]

Hibrides and Brakul having the world’s saddest booze-fueled girl’s night, probably a few months before the start of the story.

Anyway here's an extensive rundown of their shared history.

Hibrides Uryashta was the eldest daughter of a chancellor of the imperial city-state of Erubinnos (his lordship Erub Uryashta). She was brought up with great privilege and security, but (like most daughters of noblemen) was destined to be used as a bargaining chip in a political marriage arrangement. She was taken from her friends and family and moved to the city of Wardin at the age of 16 to complete her pledged marriage with Janeys Haidamane, the failson of the trade magnate Haidamane family. Janeys spent about a week poorly attempting to behave like a husband, and then took the first excuse to flee and engage in a petty military campaign against raiders on the Yellowtail trade route. She found herself left alone in his villa for three years with only hired servants for company. She made a few attempts to break into the city's elite social scene, but was quite shy and failed to make any headway.

Brakul had just spent a year and a half in a bit of a whirlwind. He was brought into a skirmish at the behest of an allied clan, who had been raiding the Yellowtail route and now was under attack by combined forces of an enemy clan and Imperial Wardi mercenaries. He killed one of the mercenary commanders and was captured as a prisoner of war, but was spared at Janeys' behest (who fucking hated that guy thought it was awesome that he got killed with a rock) and was ultimately recruited into the group. He had a chance to go back home, but actively chose to deadbeat dad out on his wife and child to be with his newfound lovequest, Janeys. He spent a year and a half as a mercenary, bonded closely with Janeys and swore brotherhood with him, and was eventually brought home to the city of Wardin with him. He found himself in the odd position of being simultaneously scorned as a foreigner and 'heathen', and the legal kin of one of the richest families in the city (and effectively the secret male concubine of their only male heir).

It was in this context that the two of them met, with Hibrides now being 19 and Brakul turning 27.

The two were initially wary of each other (Hibrides was particularly put off by his 'heathen' status) but bonded very quickly, partly due to their mutual states of being unmoored from their old lives, but in large part being just a natural chemistry. They had a lot of common interests and enjoyed learning from each other. Hibrides introduced him to traditional verse poetry (of which she was very fond). Brakul taught her how to ride khait, and even gave her a gelding from his own collection as a gift. They became very close friends over the next couple of years and spent much of their free time together.

A big part of the dynamic was that both of them are gay in a cultural context where there is no concept of Being gay, marriages are usually arranged and always between a man and a woman, and having children is a societal expectation. Each of them began to see the other as an ideal husband/wife, ie "if I had to marry why couldn't it have been him/her?". For Hibrides' part, Brakul had all the traits she would want in a husband: he was a pretty good friend and easy to get along with, he seemed like he'd do an excellent job of fulfilling expected roles as a husband and father (she didn't know about the wife and kid for a while), he treated her as an equal, and, most of all, had no interest whatsoever in fucking her. They were both in a sort of platonic emotional affair, and grew to love each other deeply.

Hibrides was pretty quick to catch on that something was going on between Brakul and Janeys, and found it strange and offputting but ultimately none of her concern. Her husband only being interested in his sworn brother and leaving her to her own devices suited Hibrides just fine, and Brakul always just kinda being There meant she was living with what had become her closest friend.

The stable state of this Feelings Triangle began to change in the wake of the brilliant plan to get Janeys (gay) (probably infertile) children he could pass off as legitimate via a Brakul/Hibrides pregnancy. It was something all three agreed to as a necessity; it was already drawing scrutiny that Janeys and Hibrides had been married for several years without a pregnancy, and producing heirs is a societal expectation and a central point of an arranged marriage between wealthy elites.

It was especially critical in this case, given Janeys was his family's only male child and only hope of continuing the family line, given both his golden-child sister Faiza and black sheep half sister Couya were Odonii, and thus sworn virgins and would never marry. (There's also a level to this that Janeys was regarded as a complete disappointment by his parents, and his mother made damn sure he knew that his only value at this point was to produce a better male heir to inherit the business. So this was a big fucking deal to him, and to Brakul by extension).

This was also not a route any of them wanted to take on any personal level, least of all Hibrides. She consented to the pregnancy and everything it entailed, but it was inevitably a painful and distressing experience all around. She had never wanted to be a mother to begin with (though had long accepted it as an inevitability), and now found herself with an infant daughter, which only meant it would have to happen again (they needed a male heir after all). And it would be utter social suicide and a profound shame upon her if the child's illegitimacy was discovered, which only added to the stress.

To make things worse, her first pregnancy shifted the entire dynamic with her husband and brother-in-law/best friend. Janeys changed from completely indifferent to actively spiteful and hostile towards her, and things had become extremely uncomfortable between Hibrides and Brakul. It only got worse with Brakul (the only one of them who actually WANTS kids) (kind of haunted by skipping out on his first child) finding it unbearable to be so close to HIS daughter and having to keep up an act that she was not his own, having no direct role in the kids life. He desperately wanted to be a father.

Hibrides, who was going through a fucking lot, started to become vindictive towards him for his role in things. She resented him more than Janeys, because Brakul insisted he cared about her and would desperately try to pretend things were normal, while consistently siding with Janeys against her wishes, including in preventing her from getting a divorce. (His excuse is that the children's legitimacy would be interrogated in a legal setting, which Is likely and Would be absolute social suicide with very real consequences. But the real reason on his part is that if she got out of the marriage, he might never see her or the children again). Hibrides began to do everything in her power to prevent him from having any relationship with his bastard children, even in secret or under the guise of a relative. Sort of an “if I have to suffer to keep up this facade so should you” thing.

They had two children in a span of three years, two girls (ruh roh!) named Erubi and Livya. By this point, Hibrides and Brakul were both experiencing what we would now call Clinical Depression and Alcohol Use Disorder (especially in the latter's case). Hibrides started to have affairs with both men and women, which she was sure to be very obvious about to insult Janeys and Brakul, but was mostly out of loneliness. Brakul turned his complete focus to Janeys and started avoiding Hibrides entirely, in hopes that she would become desperate enough to be willing to make amends (shockingly, this did not happen, and the rift only deepened).

In the present, their relationship status is: fucked. Both of them do still love each other on some level, but this is probably beyond repair. What little time they've spent with each other in the past year is sitting around being miserable and getting plastered. And now Hibrides, Janeys, and Brakul are all forced into the public eye on the pilgrimage together, and with a third child on the way. So that's probably going to be everyone's problem.

[lowkeyed1]

just some thoughts on living in the US right now, specifically as a visibly queer adult but yanno... you can extrapolate to your particular marginalized group probably. so... i registered to vote on my 18th birthday. as a republican, so i could vote in their upcoming primary. i wanted to vote against pat buchanan. i thought he didn't have a strong chance of being the nominee but... he was an explicit christian nationalist. he proclaimed, loudly and frequently, that america was just for christians, should be run by christian values, and that other religions, foreigners, and especially gay people needed to get the fuck out or if they died that would also be fine. also that gay people were all child molestors, would give you aids, and were the cause of natural disasters in the US because god was mad that america had so many of us. honestly he was scary shit then, idk if you'd even notice him now anyway, in 1996 (when i was 18), gay marriage wasn't a thing. a few cities in california had created domestic partnerships that were legally recognized. some companies had non-discrimination policies against sexual orientation. clinton signed the DOMA act, which prevented the federal government from recognizing same sex unions. which is to say at age 18 i already knew that a large part of the country didn't see me as a full person, thought i didn't deserve rights, and would probably be happy if i just died and stopped being a pain in the ass about that stuff. things changed a lot in the last 28 years. definitely more than i expected, and it was gratifying! but i never lost that awareness that a lot of people were not okay with it, and would probably still be happy if i just died. even as being gay became more accepted, more normalized. even as conservatives started to learn that they were turning off voters when they kept harping on it. even as i knew they just had learned to pick their audience instead of thinking the way they thought was general currency. it was a relief to not hear it all the time, at least! so, long story short! i lived then and have always lived and will keep on living now to SPITE those motherfuckers. i will do everything i can to fight for every scrap of love and joy, to SPITE them twice as hard. i will take care of anyone else i can, just to spit in their fucking eye! and i hope you will, too. you were made to live, so live. and as long as you're living, you should be kind to yourself and to others, and make things and do things that make you feel good. there is no greater meaning in life, no higher calling, than to fight against the forces that want to drag you down. please, won't you join me?

[cosmicfalls-au]

I have a hankering for Cosmic Falls. Can you tell us about some things and facts about it?

Hell yeah I can. Here's a lot of basic/need to know stuff and some miscellaneous stuffs (if you have specific questions you can always ask hehe)

I'll be honest I didn't know what kinda facts to share so I'm just spewin as many as I can offa the top of my head

The timeline that this blog covers primarily is the GOOD timeline, but there is in fact a BAD timeline that exists

Dr. William Hellstern is Bill Cipher from the actual show's canon, but he is POST theraprism and was given a second chance to live a life as a better person!

He's transgender and unlabeled (holy shit) and so is Dipper, but straight! Mabel is AROACE (just has a habit of trying to get into relationships out of social pressure)!!!! Ford and Fidds are very gay, Lee is Bi. :) The Entity is whatever tf you want it to be

Fiddleford and Emma-May were in a lavender marriage and had a kid to get their parents' off their backs, but the moment a country close to them legalized gay marriage (canada cough cough) they got divorced and hitched to their besties

When in the mindscape, Bill's soul appears to still be that of a euclydian's due to his past life!

Bill was reincarnated in a world where another Bill Cipher (commonly just called The Entity or Cipher) already existed/manifested!

The Entity harnesses his power from literal black holes, and is technically a sentient black hole himself.

The Entity is more powerful than Bill on a technicality

Bill is approximately 8 years older than the Stan twins

Bill became pretty good friends with Fiddleford and Stanford in college

The Entity actually manipulated Bill into causing the death of his parents on purpose because he wanted to isolate Bill from loved ones, and he pretty much drove him and Ford nuts for the same reason (wanting to put them against one another in order to isolate them)

Ford had Fiddleford jerry-rig a metal plate into his head in order to deter the Entity. Because Fidds ain't no doctor, Ford has a scar on his temple that is usually hidden by his hair (Bill also has a metal plate but it was done more properly)

When Ford was younger he tried to remove his extra fingers so he could feel more normal (it did not work obviously and just scarred him)

Bill is goofier post-portal than one would expect

Bill is also very very clumsy

Bill may or may not still have his powers

The Entity dies. There is no chance for theraprisim. Genuinely FUCK that guy he just dies

Bill is friends with specifically that fucking teddy bear Rick Sanchez.

Bill has 47 exes in this lifetime.... dude has a bad fucking streak with keeping partners for some reason

Idk Bill had a complicated off-screen friends-with-benefits situationship thing going on when they were in college + working on the portal????????????? I don't know how else to explain it

The Entity is WORSE than canon in every way

[elalmadelmar]

Is there any hope for us? I'm trying, but I feel like my life might end in November, and I'm scared.

Of course there is hope, anon. There is always hope; things may get bad, but they will get better.

When I was a young adult, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. It set off a conservative bloodbath. Newspapers were printing articles about how the evil gays were coming to rape your children, and how same-sex marriage opened the door to zoophiliac marriages and other wild forms of sexual degeneracy. States formally encoded legal or even constitutional bans not only on any possibility of same-sex marriage but also any ad-hoc legal arrangements that might mimic marriage, such as adult adoption. The wave of hatred and homophobia was terrifying. It was a very frightening time to be a young queer person.

But that wave of attention brought with it the seeds of its own destruction. As the issue got pressed to the eyeballs of folks who'd never given it a moment of thought before in their lives, many of them started to push back. They started to ask, why is it any of my business if two guys want to build a life together? At that time, "Love is Love" wasn't the slogan of tepid ambivalent assimilationist-gays-only, it was a vivid rebuttal to the common homophobic claim that queer people were not capable of healthy, loving relationships.

It was a dark and scary time. Watching state after state ban any hope of a normal traditional adult life for me, at the very moment when I was just getting this adulthood thing off the ground, led me to profound despair. But the very act of drawing so much attention to conservative homophobia carried the seeds of that homophobia's defeat.

The same is true now. It may feel hard to believe, but just as there were plenty of people 20 years ago asking "Why is it my business if Adam and Steve want to throw a party and pick out china patterns and argue over whose turn it is to take out the trash?" There are plenty of people today who will ask "Why is it my business if Joey wants to wear a dress and go by Joy?"

Your life, my life, many lives will get a lot harder in November if Trump is elected, this is true. But we can live through hard times. Just like a thunderstorm, the harder it hits, the shorter it will last. People will recognize the self-destructive hatred for what it is.

And in the meantime, you can take action to keep yourself safe. In the US, states have a lot of power to determine their own living conditions and what is or isn't legal within the state borders. If you live somewhere that is or is likely to become unsafe, I encourage you to work as hard as you can to get yourself somewhere safe. If you're a college student or college bound, look into universities in states like Maryland, Minnesota, California, and New England. If you're an adult, explore relocating to one of those states. Moving is hard but the change to your quality of life can be immense.

Above all, remember that no storm lasts forever, and progress is always moving. We will get through this, you and I.

[nerdygaymormon]

I guess as a straight up liberal that you're happy that the left is stealing this election from President Trump by pushing loser Biden out of the way in an undemocratic way, talk about a threat to democracy

Firstly, I'm not "straight" anything, I'm gay, but you are right that I am happy the former president's poll numbers have been dropping, because he & his VP pick seem to want the antithesis of basic American values.

JD Vance talks about people who don't have children as a moral failing and as a danger to the country, and listed Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg as examples. Kamala is a step mother who by all accounts seems to be a good mom, and Pete & his husband adopted twins, so no, they aren't childless, they are parents, just they didn't become parents in the "right" way for people like JD Vance.

JD & his crowd want to force people to have families in the way that they approve of. They would do away with abortion, with IVF, with birth control & family planning, with gay marriage, with divorce & remarriage. His ideology doesn't want people to have the freedom to choose how to live their life and to be with whom they love and pursue happiness in the way they choose.

Did you see the Republican Convention with Hulk Hogan and Dana White? I think it's not a coincidence that these examples of a certain type of hyper-masculinity is who Donald Trump wants to be associated with. They talk about men and masculinity being under attack and make fun of feminism and the #MeToo movement (remind me, which presidential candidate was found liable for sexual abuse). They use trans people as a punching bag to indicate they're for traditional understandings of gender and gender roles and not for letting people have the freedom to live outside of those understandings.

The promises they are offering aren't about how they'll make life better for everyone, or how they'll help fulfill the promise of the constitution by fighting for everyone's rights, or even freedom for people to pursue happiness in a way that works best for them. Instead, Donald Trump still talks about the 2020 election as though it was stolen from him because there were more votes for his opponent (speaking of a threat to American democracy), and he signals that if elected he'll use government to prohibit people from the types of gender identities and roles that he is uncomfortable with.

As a gay American, I spent most of my life under laws that made sex between two gay people illegal. The possibility of me getting married became a legal reality less than 10 years ago, it was 2020 when it was no longer legal to fire someone simply for finding out they're gay or trans. These are basic human rights.

I'm not saying all Republicans are bad, in fact I have never voted only for Democrats, I always find Republicans to support. But when I speak about equality, freedom, or rights for all, people assume I'm not a Republican and that's a problem I hope they fix.

[maxellminidisc]

I've said this for years but the way the community absolutely has an undiscussed dislike or idk disregard for closeted people has bothered me for years. Yeah theres that sheen of being understanding but I've seen and had to have so many conversations with people to have more empathy for closeted people, especially closeted partners because I understand full well how complicated that is. Btw I'll be using gay as an umbrella term for most of the following cause I'm sometimes uncomfortable with using the q word too much, please respect that.

Like it got especially bad after gay marriage became legal here in the US and most of Western Europe and like every mostly white gay living in liberal areas started acting like everyone should be out already and if you weren't you were idk probably ashamed of yourself, or worse someone faking it. You become some kind of half baked gay person who their behavior implied couldn't possibly connect to queerness in the right way.

But like it doesn't work like that. Some of us very much live in unsafe places to do that and we also don't have the financial privilege to leave to safer states/countries or move out of homophobic/transphobic households. I can't imagine especially how disabled and closeted members of our community feel trapped by these kind of circumstances.

Plus some of us live in cultures where the emphasis on family and community is an essential tenant of our makeup and learning to separate ourselves from the abuse present in those communities towards us is difficult, much like any abusive relationship. There is so much nuance, especially outside the lense of whiteness, that out people sometimes seem to forget or even dismiss instead of helping to foster relationships or community to help the people in their lives who are closeted find refuge safely.

And it really comes to a head when out people I know date closeted people. They seem understanding enough at first but then start questioning if the person they're dating "actually really loves" them if they're not willing to out themselves and the conversation can at time turn progressively meaner as if closeted people are all inheritly selfish. Yes it is a romantic notion for someone to risk everything to be openly with you, and its something frankly all of us deserve including closeted people, but life is far more dangerous and complex than that and I think some people have forgotten that.

And look, I even empathize with open people in that kind of circumstance cause yeah the pressure of having to keep something that incredibly special to you under wraps can be very daunting. But often I've found, most open people have a chosen community to fall back on and talk about it with because they're not as inhibited or cut off from the larger, while closeted people often dont have anyone except their partner because being closeted has severed most pathways of finding the community. Their partners are usually their first connection to the community.

I even sometimes think this sort of mind set extends into how white people perceive gay poc as inherently closeted too. We're either not open enough or being closeted is weaponized against us. Like we could be out and white people still presume we're not and act like were straight lite and we could talk about how we're closeted and white people, again, think it's ok to treat us like straight lite. This is especially evident when we say something that makes them uncomfortable and angry. Like the only time they take cultural nuance into account is to use it to dismiss us, as if all of us must be in hiding and cant be as gay as them.

Point is, being closeted is complicated and frankly miserable as someone whose got one foot in and one out lol and although some peoples only space to be open is online, it doesnt makes them fake, doesnt make them less gay or trans, or less part of this community. It doesnt make them less worthy or deserving of love and community despite their circumstances.

[babyblender]

I can’t get jeopardy Steve off my brain, but what if he uses his winnings to fund Eddie’s music career.

Long story short with the help of the money Steve won on jeopardy the Corroded Coffin boys were finally able to get their feet on the ground and inevitably make it big in the metal scene.

Once gay marriage became legal, of course Steve and Eddie get legally married and of course Eddie posts about it on his own and the offical CC account.

Thousands of people flood the comment sections asking if he married Steve Harrington the guy who was on jeopardy all those years ago. People all over are comparing photos of Steve when he was on jeopardy to their wedding photos trying to figure out if he is who they think he is.

Once asked about it in an interview, Eddie chuckles and confirms that yes his husband is Steve from jeopardy. He finds it hilarious to say that jeopardy is the only reason they made it but suddenly made a whole lot of the public invested in the their personal lives.

[meatcrimes]

Nineteen years. That’s almost two thirds of my life you’ve been gone. I’ll never forget the hot pavement on that sunny, unusually humid July day. I forgave you for this years ago, but if you had known your death would have been a catalyst for so much trauma and pain for your entire extended family, would you have been more careful?

Look at us, those of us who are left. Look at your brother, your daughter, your surviving son. Look at what they’ve overcome in the past nineteen years. Look at me, your niece, and my brother, your nephew who you never got to meet. Look what we’re still trying to overcome. I no longer blame you for the actions of other people done in the wake of your death, but the timeline shifted that day, and whatever track we were on before veered into the wrong lane at 100mph and ever since we’ve been picking up the pieces. I can’t say we would have been better or worse off if we hadn’t lost you, but I can say we all wish you were able to walk your daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Walk your foster son down the aisle at his wedding, because it became legal in 2015 for him and his husband to marry. You had no idea he was gay, did you? Neither did he for many, many years. And the trauma he experienced from your death influenced his own death in his early thirties. Now, you both left widows behind. You have more in common now than you ever did in life.

Look at your daughter, you probably won’t even recognize her, and not just from the weight loss. She’s now a devout Catholic, in a loving marriage with a man who values and respects her, with five beautiful step daughters that call her “mom”. It wasn’t easy for her to get there. She went through far too long of believing herself unworthy and unloveable, and far too many boyfriends who saw her the same way.

Look at your biological son. He’s in the national guard now, making something of his life and what has been left behind. He simultaneously never grew up and grew up all too fast, a lot like me. He doesn’t remember what your voice sounds like, and I wish I could transfer my memory of your voice into his mind. It isn’t fair that I remember your voice and he doesn’t. Really, none of this is fair, never has been, never to anyone. Your generation may have said “Life isn’t fair” with the connotations of “so there!”. Often a justification of their mistreatment of others. But us, we hear it in a different pitch. We hear “life isn’t fair” with “but with compassion and community we can bridge the gaps, even if we can’t close them”.

I don’t remember where I was going with this. I’m sitting in my old room at my dad’s house that he owns, that he bought with money he earned in a career that didn’t exist nineteen years ago. We live in a small town thousands of miles from our ancestral land, in a climate my body will frankly never get used to. I was built for the desert, biologically designed for the Great Basin region. Last time I went back, my anxiety was nearly gone, my acne cleared, my hair didn’t need any styling or products beyond a brush and shampoo. My thyroid condition was getting better at a faster rate than it was before. I thrived in Nevada. I am a Western Shoshone woman. You were a Western Shoshone man, no matter how much you or anyone else ignored it, or explained our genes with ancestry we didn’t share. Las Vegas is haunted ground now. My father plans on never going back, because it reminds him so much of you. And me? No matter how badly I want to return home, it’s not home anymore. It hasn’t been since we lost you. And I don’t think I can rebuild what was destroyed.

[davekat-sucks]

https://www.tumblr.com/davekat-sucks/708789316518838272/what-does-nu-fandom-mean this post is so fucking retarded i cant even

Sexual puritanism is very old, it has always been part of civilized society until very recently

in the early 2010's, many homestuck fans and fandom in general were accepting of lgbt people

you cannot be puritan and progressive at the same time, im talking about real puritanism, not the kind anime watching basement dwellers made up

being gay was fully legalized in the United States in 2002, long before homestuck came out

I thought it was in 2015 that gay marriage was legalized in United States. Maybe in 2002, it was legalized in some states, but it wasn't ALL of them until Obama made it official. That's why people praised Steven Universe, a show that aired in the years 2013-2019. They were airing in a time when the fight for it and success had come. They had pushed LGBT themes in the show or at least, try to hide it but then became vocal as time went on. Yes Homestuck fans were accepting of LGBT, but you also forget the same fandom also lived in a time edgey humor was a thing that not even people of LGBT minded. They can casually use the word faggot to describe someone being an idiot, not as a slur to actual gay people. Do I need to bring up Karkat again?

True real puritanism is mostly based from religion such as Christianity. Like how people thought entertainment was a sin that they had to destroy all music and paintings in order for everyone to focus on God. It can be like this even today. I should know, my family is Jehovah Witnesses. My aunt has never ever ever seen a Disney movie, read any other fiction book, watched a show, or listened to other various music genres. But if we were to be fair, we might as well call this whole movement then MODERN puritanism. Instead of religion, it's more based on things like trying to appear as morally good person. Part of it is trying to over-correct or erase the past mistakes. It all for the sake of boosting one's ego or greed while trying to paint themselves as the righteous person.

[unapologeticallygay]

Anne Lister, the lesbian diarist dubbed "the first modern lesbian"

L by Joshua Horner (c 1830), R by Mrs. Turner of Halifax (c 1822)

Anne Lister lived from April 3, 1791 - September 22, 1840. She was an independent landowner from England who was noted to always be dressed in black and not partaking in typical femininity. She became well known after her death when her diaries were discovered and decoded. The diaries were written from age 15 until her death, parts written in code, and detailed her history of attraction and relationships with women.

“Burnt Mr Montague’s farewell verses that no trace of any man’s admiration may remain. It is not meet [meant] for me. I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn my heart revolts from any other love than theirs” 29 Jan 1821 – written in Anne’s journal [reference SH:7/ML/E:4]

She did not appear to be ashamed of her sexuality as she would openly court women she was interested in and had many lovers. Her first love was a pupil and roomate at the Manor School in York when she was 15, Eliza Raine. It was with Eliza that she developed the code she would use in her diaries to write notes back and forth with. The first entry in Anne's diary was "Eliza left us." Her second named lover was Isabella Norcliffe and she remained an occasional lover through the remainder of her life but rejected her as life partner, perhaps because of disagreeing with Isabella's drinking. Isabella then introduced Anne to the woman that would become the love of Anne's life, Mariana Belcombe. Mariana married a man even though it upset Anne but they continued their affair for a while after. She eventually told Anne that she was ashamed to be seen with her due to her masculinity and they parted ways. Mariana would later try to get Anne back when Anne inherited a large amount of money and the Shibden Hall but she rejected her. She went on to marry (as a church blessing, not legally recognized) Ann Walker because she met her social standing. This would be the first gay marriage in England. Anne passed away six years after their marriage.

Her wearing all black everyday was a public statement to others of her being different, as at the time young unmarried women typically wore white or lighter colours while black was reserved for mourning. Men would yell and shout at her things like "are you a man or a woman?" and would follow her when she was in public. Because of her looks her nickname from the public was "Gentleman Jack". She largely didn't respect men as she believed to be more educated than most who only studied one subject.

“I know my own heart and understand my fellow man. But I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say that I am like no one in the whole world” 20 Aug 1823 – written in Anne’s journal quoting Rousseau [reference SH:7/ML/E/7]

Anne was adventurous and liked to travel. She was the first woman to ascend Mount Perdu and the first person ever to ascend Mount Vignemale. At the time conventions called for women not to travel alone, they had to at least have a male companion to protect them. She did not abide by this and often travelled alone and later on with her wife. It was during her and her wife's visit to Russia that she was bit by an insect and succumbed to fever. She was 49.

Her diaries were originally first found by a relative of hers, John Lister, in 1890 but because John was also gay and feared his sexuality being found out if he broadcast her diaries, he reburied them. Later they would be found and translated in 1983 by historian Helene Whitbread. A section of her diaries remain lost.

"Writing my journal has amused & done me good. I seemed to have opened my heart to an old friend. I can tell my journal what I can tell none else." From Anne Lister’s journal entry of 16th September 1823.

Sources

https://www.annelister.co.uk/

https://museums.calderdale.gov.uk/famous-figures/anne-lister

[petervintonjr]

"Juneteenth is much larger than me; I'm just a small part of it, and I appreciate people's thanking me about designing the flag, which represents something much larger than itself. It's a flag about humanity. It's a flag about people who accomplished a lot, even though they went through a lot. It means an awakening."

Meet "Boston Ben" Haith, artist, activist, community organizer, and original designer of the Juneteenth flag. Born in 1942 Connecticut, Haith graduated from Stamford and travelled first to Ohio and then to Los Angeles. A short stint in the U.S. Army led him to Europe and then to New York, but he ultimately settled in Boston, where he not only married and raised a family, but also opened an advertising agency and became a community activist.

Naming the Blizzard of '78 as his starting point, Haith was incensed by the city's unannounced dumping of snow in a park in his neighborhood, and organized neighbors and other locals to raise formal objections. From there his talents found their way into community anti-crime initiatives and he became an outspoken critic of overreaching law enforcement. He ran for office in 1983 and again in 1985 for a seat on the City Council (District 7, a primarily Black constituency); and also as an advocate for the elderly, and also as a case manager at the New England Center for Homeless Veterans.

As a thought-provoking contrast --and perhaps doubly important to note in that Juneteenth also takes place during Pride Month-- Haith is also on record as having (at least, at one time) been staunchly opposed to any form of legalized same-sex relationships. In 1983 he published several editorials criticizing a gay couple who were operating a foster home in Roxbury; drawing sufficient attention in the press that then-governor Michael Dukakis intervened and removed two children from the home. Such was the intensity of Haith's op-ed pieces that the Roxbury Highlands Neighborhood Association took steps to distance themselves from him. In more recent years Haith's position on same-sex marriage would appear to have shifted somewhat; in a 2022 interview he opined that "Sometimes you've got to get out of the way of it, so that's what I've done. I'm not in the way of any group of people trying to improve their lives. I'm trying to improve the lives of people impacted by violence, that's primarily what my interest is right now. When you move on in life, things change, so maybe I've become more philosophical than I used to be."

In 1997, while still living in Boston, Haith came up with the original design of the Juneteenth flag --which would later be tweaked and adjusted by illustrator Lisa Jeanne Graf. Featuring a Lone Star at its center (representing Texas, the very last state to formally end slavery), the flag's color scheme favors the familiar red, white, and blue, but also incorporates an added "nova" effect, symbolizing a new day of freedom. Haith was present when the flag was first flown in 2000, at Boston's Roxbury Heritage State Park --in a ceremony featuring performers dressed in period costume as Harriet Tubman and the Colored Ladies of the 54th Regiment (Massachusetts Glory Brigade). In 2007 Graf added the significant date of June 19, 1865 to the flag's design. Both Haith and Graf are founding members of the National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation.

[weirdocvnt08]

ROTTMNT x SR:US Crossover Human AU: Basics Intro

Bruh I keep making drabbles and oneshots within my own rottmnt x samurai rabbit human AU but never post any actual info or “lore” but it’s cus idk how to start?? Soooo I guess this’ll be like the concept plan? Idk I’ll just try to make this look organized so I can introduce the world I’m always writing about ε-(´∀｀; )

AU Name: Crazy Little Thing Called Life

AU Summary: Take Rise TMNT and Samurai Rabbit into a crossover world where they’re just normal human people with no magic or mystics, just living and experiencing this crazy little thing called life (hehe) and just go through normal human things.

Characters (Older Adults): Splinter (Hamato Yoshi), Big Mama (Adeline Desir), Baron Draxum (Berry Powell), Usagi’s Auntie (Shimada Noriko), Hueso (Jacinto Gerrero-Vazquez), Foot Lieutenant (Fukunaga Kenji) Foot Recruit Brute (Tsuchida Kazou)

*sidenote that bc I’m making all the non-humans, well…human (:p) I’m giving them full names bc I’m extra like that so what’s in parentheses is what their names will be in my fanfics*

Characters (teens/young adults): April O’ Niel, Cassandra “Casey” Jones, Sunita (Sunita Modi), Gen (Murakami Gennosuke), Chizu (Ogawa Chizu) Kitsune (Shimada Kitsune), Yuichi Usagi, Frida/Venus (Frida Hamato), Raph, (Raphael Hamato), Leo (Leonardo Hamato), Donnie (Donatello Hamato), Mikey (Michelangelo Hamato), Mona Lisa (Mona Keke)

Race/Ethnicity

Bruh so this is kinda embarrassing but my brain got scrambled really bad every time I tried to organize it so I’ll just tell you guys in paragraph form (´ω`)

Starting off on the ROTTMNT side, the Hamato kids are blasian but only Raph, Mikey and Frida are half Haitian since I’m making Big Mama Haitian but Donnie and Leo aren’t since their bio mom was born in the U.S. Splinter is still Japanese lol and Draxum is Native American, specifically Cherokee. Hueso is Mexican and born in Yucatán (I will not elaborate any further or else I’ll never post this thing bc I’ll over complicate my answer), Casey is wasian with her mom being Japanese and her dad being a white American and Foot Lieutenant and Brute are her gay uncles and they’re Japanese too but Brute’s been in the US way longer than Lieutenant, April stays the same as a Black American and Sunita is blasian as her dad’s also a black American but her mom is Indian. Mona will also be in and I’m writing her as Polynesian Hawaiian.

Now with the Samurai rabbit side. This is pretty easy since they’re all Japanese BUT Chizu is half Filipino, Gen has Polynesian roots from his dad’s side and Kitsune is Ainu which is a small indigenous group in the north side of Japan. Usagi, his aunt, Hana and Kiyoko are mainlanders so they’re pretty “average” I suppose you can say even though it feels icky saying that given Japan got their issues when it comes to people they don’t deem as Japanese

Relationships

*adding deets on Splinter and his relationships bc it’s relevant for my new fanfic so I’m his is the one I’m only gonna reveal for now. But also I have another fanfic that’s set within this AU brewing in my head actually so what I wrote for Lieutenant and Brute is for future use*

Yoshi/Big Mama (past)

Legally married for nearly a decade but close to the end of their marriage they (more so Big Mama) opened their relationship so they could see/be with other people if they wanted to (Yoshi only saw 1 person and it led to Leo and Donnie to be conceived lmao)

Biological parents of Frida, Raph, and Mikey

Met the same way as they did in canon

Few years down the road Big Mama would later became Splinter’s boss for a bit since she got a huge promotion to be his manager (she’s just that girl ✨💵✨)

Were on bad terms for a while but for the sake of the kids learned to be civil with each other so they could healthily co-parent

Yoshi/Draxum (Current)

Started off as just a professional relationship as Yoshi hired Berry to be his personal chef since he was pretty much on his own taking care of the tots and cooking wasn’t really his specialty (spoiler, Berry wasn’t good at it either) and one thing lead to another and somehow Berry just stuck to the Hamatos since the tots saw him as their 2nd dad

They don’t want to label what they got going on but they do be cuddling each other most sometimes in bed

Homosexuals indeed

Yoshi/Dona (Past)

Had a rough introduction at the library after accidentally bumping into her and making her spill her coffee onto her shirt. She didn’t like that at all that it took nearly 2 months for her to forgive him

Started as just library buddies until she invited him out clubbing and then after series of events ended up in a friends with benefits type relationship

They were 30 and 29 when they had Leo and Donnie; Dona would’ve also been 30 if she hadn’t died a month before her birthday :( (yes I’m evil)

A lot of their hangouts consisted of them staying inside Dona’s studio, drink wine or smoke herb and vent about their childhood trauma with Depeche Mode or The Cranberries playing in the background

Yoshi didnt know Dona was pregnant until five months into her pregnancy when she finally confessed to him because she initially didn’t want to keep them but had no choice because she didn’t know she was even pregnant until she suddenly felt really sick and after a trip to the doctors found out she already close to her 2nd trimester already so she couldn’t get an abortion even if she wanted to.

There’s a lot more drama with them but I’ll just reveal that stuff in my future fics

In conclusion. Yoshi just has a thing for pretty and intelligent people who are mean to him and I think he’s so real for that 👍

Foot lieutenant/Foot brute

Met at a underground rock show in New York, (brute made the first move lol)

Moved into a studio together 3 years down the road and dated a year later

Initially took Casey in for a bit when she was 6 due to her and her parents rocky relationship but would officially gain guardianship over her 2 years later she threatened to run away if she went back with her parents

Younger couples included in this AU so far

April/Casey/Sunita

Raph/Mona

Donnie/Kendra

Donnie/Jonathan

Leo/Usagi

Kitsune/Chizu

And that’s pretty much it for now, geez I can’t believe I had this drafted for a whole 4 months :;(∩´﹏`∩);: