#normally they're trapped by societal convention

[princesssarcastia]

house and wilson's relationship in a nutshell

wilson: finally, someone I can be mean to without consequences house: finally, someone I can occasionally be nice to without them making it a Thing™

[gallusrostromegalus]

How're gonna go about making Chizuru Likeable? I'm guessing she's Tatsuki's ex?

Well. Uh.

I kinda stripped her for parts.

Here's the thing: besides being a pretty homophobic and creepy joke character, Chizuru... Doesn't do much in the plot, and I already have an enormous cast. It was easier to take her best qualities and assign them to other characters.

Chizuru's guts to be an openly queer minor in 1999? Now part of Tatsuki.

Chizuru's joy at finding a deep friendship with Orihime despite kind of being a little freak? A new facet to Rukia's personality.

Chizuru's ability to notice stuff and do plot exposition? Chad.

Chizuru's deep fascination with Tiddies? Hallibel.

Like an organ donor, the concept of Chizuru lives in in everyone else.

Last I checked, all the women in AEIWAM who are interested in sex are some flavor of sapphic because nearly the entire cast is what could be called Bisexual or Asexual. Though using those terms kind of buries the lead that the actual axis of attraction is not sex or gender, or that the asexuality is something much weirder than simple disinterest. I honestly kind of struggle writing characters with conventional sexualities like "gay" or "straight"! All I got is:

Characters who are attracted to one very specific thing regardless of the gender anymore exhibiting that thing might be

Characters whose sexuality is predicated entirely on emotional reciprocation

Characters with a profound sense of sexuality who don't get to express it because of societal bias like fatphobia, or situational factors like being trapped in another dimension

Characters whose sexuality is primarily defined by their trauma, sexual or otherwise.

Characters who don't know themselves well enough to even know why they find someone attractive

Characters that don't have a sexuality per SE, but they have other deeply intense sensory drives they use as sexualities because it's close enough

Characters who are wholesale unfamiliar with the concept of sex or attraction, even as adults

Characters who participate in sexuality because they feel obligated to do so, and end up enjoying it anyway

Characters who are into features that do not normally occur in organic beings

Characters who have sexualities but they're very inconvenient so they intentionally cultivate more advantageous fetishes

Characters whose sexuality is defined less by attraction to individuals so much as how different sex acts would effect the greater group harmony

Characters who are attracted to straight up philosophical concepts.

I seem to have drifted from the original ask.

[starmosaics]

Natal Sun square Uranus

I have this aspect in my chart and it's one of the most challenging ones I have so here's some things I've piled up from my own experience with this aspect and how its manifested within other people's charts;

Those with a Sun square Uranus aspect often experience a strong need for personal freedom and originality. This aspect gives one a drive to break away from the conventional road and way of living to forge something that is uniquely their own. As a result, conformity can feel uncomfortable and frustrating for these individuals. Most people with this aspect feel very drawn to seek out radical and original experiences, often finding themselves fighting against societal expectations and standards. These folks are not seeking conventionality, they're seeking radical and original experiences.

Because of this they can feel out of place a lot of the time. Their takes and opinions may be very outlandish to others because of their free thinking abilities. They may feel like the odd one out, feel like they stick out like a sore thumb, feel like they do not quite fit in, or feel like an outsider within in their environment. Sun-Uranus folks have a very hard time accepting their differences and the things that make them unique at first. Because of their crave for unorthodox experiences, this can lead to feelings of alienation. This can be particularly challenging when their innovative ideas or unconventional approaches are met with resistance or misunderstanding from others. Their sense of not belonging can become a battle within themselves, which could lead to suppressing their unique traits in an attempt to gain acceptance in worst case scenario. They can also end up pretending to be someone they’re not because of rejection from society/others.

This can make one a rule-breaker, an inventor, risk taker, a contrarian, defiant, a rebellion, scientist, alchemist, villain, etc. These people will refuse to do something if it goes against their beliefs or is unethical to them; they can be incredibly set in their own ways. They tend to do things with a different approach that works for them which tends to piss others off, especially those who like control. Often needing to do things differently than the common person, they may purposely take the harder route and go against the grain. This resistance to approach things in a conventional way can be liberating, but can also lead to conflicts and a lack of compromise with those who take more traditional approaches. People usually have a hard time figuring out those who have this aspect.

Those with a Sun-Uranus aspect thrive on innovation and variety. They are unpredictable and hate being told what to do. Their open-mindedness make them willing to try almost anything as they view most things an experience to learn and expand. Nothing feels normal to these folks. Sun-Uranus people are the types to act first, think later. They're also frequently changing things about themselves internally and externally. If stuck in one place for too long, they tend to feel restricted and restless.

Famous people who possess this aspect include; Doja Cat, Dennis Rodman, Elon Musk, RuPaul, Sky Ferreira, Mitski, Grimes, and Frida Kahlo. These people are known for their unconventional lives, innovative ideas, unique/distinctive styles, and refusal to conform to societal norms.

Some scenarios a Sun-Uranus person might experience:

Not trying at all in school because they know it won't be relevant to their future aspirations.

People having to compromise with them a lot because they tend to want to do things their own way.

Leaving their 9-5 job because they got tired of the same day-to-day tasks.

Facing issues in their personal relationships because of lack of communication.

Doing the opposite of what someone wants them to do because they don't like being ordered around.

Getting up and leaving one day without telling anyone because they felt trapped being in one space.

Deciding to do something last minute, neglecting their responsibilities.

Having issues with their bosses or other authority members.

Challenging rules and those of authority because they might believe certain rules don't apply to them.

Waking up one day and deciding they want to completely change their appearance/ways of living.

Creating a trademark for themselves whether it's through fashion, music, art, etc.

[drbased]

men on the right pride themselves on how they're the ones who are truly 'respectful' of women - but also, far-right misogynists despise 'white knights' for being respectful of women. this is because men intrinsically understand that how they treat women needs to be transactional; there are rules and structures for how you're supposed to treat women. conservatives believe that their way of treating women is honest: there is an honest transaction at play of the man 'courting' a woman, who refuses to give up sex until marriage thereby proving she is pure, at which point she gives herself wholeheartedly to him, and with her trapped into marriage and birthing children, both cruelty (rape) and kindness (affection) blur into one singular cultural institution representing righteousness itself. this becomes 'true masculinity', 'true femininity' and 'men and women having different roles'. this is how conservatives get away with presenting themselves as kinder to women that the left wing - with clear boundaries between public and private, and rigid structures that reduce paranoia and sexual jealousy of the woman cheating or leaving him, conservatives can freely present an image of themselves being respectful of women in public. additionally, they can claim that simply following the 'natural order of things' is being kind to women in and of itself - after all, all the romance propaganda has sold to women an idealised idea of marriage, so a culture where men are seeking marriage gets to lay claim to the idea of it being more in line with what women want.

white knights, meanwhile, are men who are seen as kind and respectful to women with no boundaries or social structure. it's especially noteworthy that the kind of respect they supposedly give women is exactly the kind of respect that a conservative would disagree with - that is, agreeing with her opinions, especially the political ones and especially the feminist ones. conservatives believe that a man should lead and the woman follow - so a man listening to a woman is a complete betrayal of nature. this is all a smokescreen, of course - as with all right wing politics, it's all just made up shit to justify the fact that they don't like women having power. but still, an ideology is constructed around this, and exploring its apparent contradictions is a valuable exercise in deconstructing it. left-wing men do not hold to the rigid societal structure that right-wing men do, so both their cruelty and kindness to women tends to be more public by default. right wing men despise this, because tradition and social convention disguise morality; calling something 'normal', 'natural' or 'how we've always done things' is a form of social rohypnol that disrupts people's empathy process - morality becomes something divorced from the very basic context of causing someone harm and instead reflects some external and nebulous concept of righteousness. religion is a perfect example of this; it is infamous how christianity allows for pedophilia but calls homosexuality evil, and this is achievable because what is 'good' and 'bad' is determined not by real-world harm but by an invented concept of spiritual harm, allowing for a very effective form of social control and the preservation of power structures. so, then, do conservative men despise left-wing men for how the disollution of power structures makes the actual harm caused by misogyny much more recogniseable. here, right-wing men are engaging in what I call the 'hypocrisy fallacy' whereby if someone has a politics or morality system that primarily signals to being a kinder person in some way, they are expected to 'go the whole hog' and any failure to do so will result in accusations that they are hypocrites, and this is always presented as being worse than being honestly bad. An example is of meat-eaters making 'gotcha' arguments at vegans not caring about exploited farmers. So too do red-pilled men see 'white knights' as hypocrites for not being truly honest about their intentions. but there's an irony in all this - conservativism is fundamentally dishonest in its treatment of women, but the honesty between conservative men is much more about recognition of the transactional nature of respect and kindness. they're not claiming that women deserve respect for being human; whereas a 'white knight' is giving her respect they believe she has demonstrably not earned. therefore they despise what this signals to other men; they find it unchivalrous. and on top of that, they are fearful of what it signals to other women; these men are planting the idea in women's heads that if men are capable of at least seeming to respect us outside of our relationship towards purity and marriage, then we might actually deserve respect as human beings. patriarchy 'hurts men too' because men put a lot of work into these convoluted societal conventions in order to have both a functional society and a foundation of misogynistic cruelty. right-wing men are obsessed with the idea of societal collapse caused by the dissolution of social roles and women gaining more rights, and the more far right you go the more you see that fear take centre stage.

interestingly, though, this paranoia provides a valid societal function for men in preserving patriarchy. left-wing men form a useful scapegoat for the right-wing. men as a class need to 'pass the buck' on rape - we all know rape happens, so to disguise male-pattern violence, men require an alternate form of masculinity. racism, classism and ableism have always been useful ways of achieving this - accusing other men of being more bestial, less civilised and less evolved have always allowed for rape to be seen as something 'less human' males do. but also, the right-wing beliefs of tradition, a clear separation of public and private, and strong social roles means they like to stake a claim on their version of masculinity being 'real, healthy masculinity', with the left-wing dissolution of social roles and power structures scapegoated as the actual source of rape. within this there is a tacit admission that without societal structure, men will rape with impunity, but this is treated less as a moral confession and more of a threat - after all, right-wing men are consider themselves much more honest in their belief about rape being 'natural' for men, which is why it must been contained within the privacy of marriage, where it can be successfully disguised as righteous and natural - this is reflected in how rape has been allowed in marriage according to law until very recently. if you think about how men see rape - as a destruction of their property, it makes sense that conservatives see raping with impunity as something causing the downfall of society, just as mass rioting and looting would. left-wing ideology is presented as more bestial, not-so-coincidentally in line with how lower class men and men of colour are believes to be bestial and their interests broadly considered to be left wing. and of course, let's not forget how the left wing engage in the exact same thing - the rhetoric of right wingers is so much more obviously patriarchal and also right wing men tend to be associated with higher class white men, so the reverse situation gets to be used for the benefits of left-wing rhetoric and its interest in power structures and their dissolution. There's an interesting mirroring effect here, a delicate balance on both sides that is mutually beneficial.

the more I've engaged with this kind of theory, the more I've come to these sort of tinfoil hat conclusions whereby certain social paranoias stay around because they're actively benefit the class of people who have them. Just how individual people will hold beliefs that are harmful to them because deep down it benefits them to have them in some way, so do societies reflect that; and male class solidarity is so intrinsic and powerful that men will hold these catastrophic beliefs about other men being so useless and evil that they will cause society to collapse just so they can say to other women 'stick with us and accept our version of rape, or society will collapse'. so too, then, do right wing women do the same (still looking forward to when I can get a physical copy of dworkin's right wing women because I can't engage with ebooks).

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

[princesssarcastia]

#there does not exist a person as carefully aware of social norms as wilson#who does not secretly want to be mean all the time#normally they're trapped by societal convention#unable to break the petty and not-so-petty rules that govern society#but house...house gives wilson an outlet for it#a chance to relieve the pressure#house of course is much simpler#he need someone he can care for and about#without it giving them hope he's secretly a different person deep down#without it giving them hope he can change#wilson KNOWS house is awful#its why he thinks its morally/socially acceptable to be mean to house#house md#gregory house#james wilson

house and wilson's relationship in a nutshell

wilson: finally, someone I can be mean to without consequences house: finally, someone I can occasionally be nice to without them making it a Thing™