#not that this is a tumblr-exclusive phenomenon by any means

[justanisabelakinnie]

Tumblr fucking hates women, I hate it out here.

gushing over magical girls ?

Gushing Over Magical Girls (Manga/Anime, 2019/2024)

Explain your reasoning in the tags!

[sgiandubh]

What do you think of the theme “we’re all adults here” starz is using

Dear Theme Anon,

That is a beautiful question and I think this is your lucky day: with a tropical night ahead (35C/ 95F - nope, that is not a bra size 😱🤣), we simply live at night, like Superman. So, while I am slowly cooking my famed (but tedious) Circassian chicken recipe for tomorrow night's semiformal dinner, it is with great pleasure that I am answering it.

Please excuse the length. I know what I am able to do when I really like a question and yours got me immediately interested. Thank you for that.

Funnily enough, I was just having a very enriching conversation this afternoon, with a very, very good friend, who is way more intelligent than I, so she has no desire to write any blogs on Tumblr. On the very same topic you raised, Anon. With her permission, I am going to sum up the gist of it (et merci encore à toi 😘😘).

Let's look at that pic again:

The Craigh Na Dun Fateful Dance of Love and Death is one of the most moving pivotal moments of the entire series. Tens of thousands of women have shamelessly cried all around the world, while watching this (haven't you? I know I have and did it with no grace whatsoever, but pinky promise: don't tell anyone else, please). And then watched and rewatched and rewatched to oblivion, with or without that Kleenex box and that Ben and Jerry icecream at the ready.

You know, it's exactly like Shakespeare writes in Romeo and Juliet's Prologue ( I hope I still remember it...): ' A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life'. Love and Death blended together is one of the most powerful narrative tropes that ever existed. So much so, that a guy named Denis de Rougemont even famously noticed that in French, a single letter separates l'Amour (Love) and la Mort (Death), with seminal implications for our Western World mentality, ever since the Middle Ages. For some mysterious reason, we seem to always be caught completely unguarded when exposed to such ultimate injustice.

Tragic magic. This is exactly what also made OL a cult series, irrespective of its (many) unjustified lengths, its (many) moments of uneven acting and its (many, way too many) bullshit pills thrown at an increasingly jaded and bitterly divided fandom. Life imitating Art was just an unexpected blessing and a curse, that much we shippers know, and I am not planning to dwell on it.

But how long can you continue to sell this product almost exclusively to women, all around the world, especially when you are faced with the prospect of a dragging/delayed merger & acquisition (never a good sign) and an increasingly dwindling number of subscribers (never a good sign, either)? I'd think not for too long, really, even if OL still is one of ***'s biggest success stories ever. How long can you pretend to sell a high-end content to 'premium women viewers', when you know very well that you chose to discard that famed 'female gaze', which turned the series' first season into an instant media phenomenon?

Riddle me that: how to sell this product for a profit and expand that fan base while, at the same time, trying not to lose your loyal hardcore viewership?

This is ***'s first answer - I bet this will be followed by some more things, but let's see what it might mean.

On that poster, the focus is still on The Mythical Couple. Selling that good old famed, surreal chemistry - remind those old fans of that moment they felt all those feels (awww....). At the same time, try and create a need out of thin air - 'you need more'. More of what? Sex? Violence? Sexual Violence? Intrigue? Politics? Political intrigue? Ethics? Dilemmas? Ethical dilemmas? All of the above? None of the above? Stupid poster won't tell, but hey: buy me and I'll speak. Buy. Subscribe. We'll think of a way to keep you hooked - at least for the next season and a half. After all, Season Eight is a study in freestyle. After all, we conveniently leaked the info that 'Erself wrote the finale's script (why risk GoT's epic #shitshow?), so all is fine and dandy.

On par with our Mythical Couple, we have that sword. Oversized. Symmetrically featured. Action, with an intelligent twist - that is a finely wrought blade, after all. Uh-oh: that spells a new, more inclusive target. Male audience. 25 to 75, to be more exact , because the only promise the poster makes is a sobering one: 'more than fairy tales'- color me surprised.

After all, 'we're all adults, here'. Key operating words: 'all' (more inclusivity) and 'adults' (not like in X-rated, but more like in 'serious shite').

Well, then. That would require narrative chutzpah and bold choices. That would require a faster paced script, less of those never-ending side stories and borderline neurodiverse focus on irrelevant details (I am still not done with that Fiery Cross and not even ashamed of it, at this point in time) that do plague The Books. And throw rotten tomatoes at me if you wish (I don't care), that would require the end of that horribly robotic directing - we all know what the hell that means.

Will they be able to keep that high-maintenance standard? One thing I am sure of: when you treat your fandom like shite and drag along endless spells of Droughtlander without as little as a bone thrown in for diversion for months in a row, you'd better hone that blade, darlings and go for a kill. Bring it on. Bring that addictive spice back, stat.

It is my humble understanding *** wishes to create an OL universe. Wanna bet the farm that somewhere in their cartons they do entertain the possibility of (at least) a second season of BOMB? S and C cameos could be a breeze to arrange, after all ( we consider this in theory - I happen to think it could be more complicated than that). The story could be duplicated to oblivion - is it way too outlandish to imagine a season devoted to Mandy and Jem's story through several timelines?

[pseudophan]

i know i’ve sent you two asks about the phandom racism and i’m certain others have also sent you asks, will you ever address it?

i’ve been thinking about this a lot recently with everything that’s been going on in the phandom, particularly on twitter although racism is by no means a twitter exclusive phenomenon and acting like everyone on tumblr is perfect would be disingenuous. i agree i can and should be doing more, and many years ago when i was less perpetually afraid of saying something wrong i was a lot better at it, but these days i find myself avoiding anything and everything that’s at all uncomfortable because i know i SEVERELY lack the emotional maturity to deal with it if i fuck it up. none of this should be about me but i’m painfully aware that the second i feel attacked in any way, usually doesn’t mean anyone is actually attacking me, i get obnoxiously petulant and suddenly it’s ‘well SORRY that i’m not PERFECT i guess i’ll DIE’. which is fucking stupid and embarrassing and not remotely productive. and then five minutes later i come to my senses and panic cause why did i say that? i know no one is actually attacking me, there is no reason to act like this. but in the moment i don’t have that reflection, and in desperately trying to avoid getting in trouble by saying the wrong thing i think i’ve gone too far the other way by not saying anything at all and now seem like i just don’t give a fuck. how i do or don’t come across is obviously not the issue at hand here, but i know i’ve got somewhat of a platform and it’s a shame i’m not using it the way it could be used, and i really do want to improve that.

the phandom often prides itself on being an inclusive and diverse space, and while that is true on the surface we don’t get to embrace that if we can’t even make sure everyone feels safe here

(please don't take this as my attempt to address the racism, this is all just me really poorly explaining why i haven't, if that makes sense)

[effemar]

hi are there any trc fics you would recommend? (saw your tags on that one fandoms with good fic post)

ohhhhh tumblr user after my own heart...

First of all, some of my thoughts on the subject. I love fanfiction -- both as a phenomenon and as a genre of writing. I have a deep and sincere appreciation for the earnest engagement with media it fosters, the creative potential it holds, and the way it can be truly and deeply bad. This being said, what I think makes a fic good is different from what makes a book or a movie good. To me, a good piece of fanfiction is simultaneously a story and a piece of analysis. It should respond to the work it's based on, even (or perhaps, especially) to the detriment of its functionality as a standalone narrative.

This is all to say that the fics I'm recommending here rely heavily on knowledge of the books, and their main merit is in how they engage with the canon narrative. So bear that in mind.

TRC has a lot of fic in a variety of niches and tones. I will try to give you a diverse sampling. That being said, the vast majority of TRC fic that exists is Adam/Ronan (because fandoms are predictable like that) which means the recommendations here are slanted that way.

In no particular order:

Son of the Nuclear A-Bomb -- This is the fic I recommend most among this selection. A clear divergence from canon, it nevertheless extrapolates perfectly on existing themes, to the point that it straight-up predicted several plot points regarding Ronan's family in The Dreamer Trilogy. It's the TRC fic of all time.

Out for Re-henge -- Among TRC fics, there's a surprisingly substantial percentage that are, simply and exclusively, about Blue and Ronan having platonic bonding moments. It's just two teenagers having unmagnificent adventures. Like, as a distinct genre. I've never observed this in any other fandom. You can find more of these under the 'Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent' relationship tag, with Gen checked as the work category. There's some real gems.

empire that runs on its own -- MIND THE TAGS. I said I'd give you diversity, so I'm giving you diversity. I hesitate to recommend this fic usually, as it can be unpleasant to read and has genuinely upsetting subject matter, but if I'm going to talk about how good TRC fic is, I have to pull out the big guns. It's genuinely incredible work. There's imagery and themes in this that still echo in my head, years after I first read it.

feels better biting down -- Everything by this author is incredible, but I enjoy this fic in particular because it's set in an unexplored bit of time before the series actually starts. It has a unique, lethargic tension that mimics the state of the characters' relationship at this point. It is almost pointedly unromantic, despite dealing with characters who we know have/will have a romantic dynamic during the events of the books.

my bones into your bones -- This fic frustrates me so much. It's incredibly emotionally intense, it has lines that are tattooed on the inside of my eyelids, and it's completely and unapologetically About People Fucking so I can't recommend it to anyone without paralyzing embarrassment. I skipped over this fic in the tag for like three years because of this, but eventually I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and gave it a try. When I tell you it's good, I mean that I felt like I'd been put through the fucking laundry.

Those are mostly pretty serious fics, so here's some light(er) runner-ups as palate-cleansers.

see you somewhere, someplace, sometime -- Ronan assholery, feat. Declan

Hey, Brother (PUNKBITCH) -- Ronan assholery, feat. Blue

in your manner of speaking -- Ronan assholery, feat. Adam (are you beginning to notice a pattern)

[maniculum]

hi can you check this post

tumblr (.) com (/) martianhare/743856863784878080

I envy your institutional access cause I just graduated

It's not fully inaccurate, I think, though I'm skeptical of it being traced back to a difference between West Saxon græg and Anglian greg. There is a tradition of gray/grey being used to denote a quality of light as well as (separately) a color; I'm just not sure that it comes down to which vowel is being used, or to an Old English dialect distinction. Most of the material I can find on this points to a more widespread phenomenon, with discussion of Old French vair as originally meaning something like "iridescent", and at least one author suggesting that the familiar phrase "grey-eyed Athena" is a mistranslation of glaukos and it should actually be something like "bright-eyed Athena". So yeah, grey/gray carries both of those meanings, but so do other words in other languages, and I really don't think our current spelling situation is likely to trace back to that.

I would also note that Bosworth-Toller, the definitive Old English dictionary, not only recognizes no semantic difference between græg and greg, but also that the usage examples it provides include græg being used both for the sea and for the fur of a wolf, which would undermine the claim that græg was exclusively for quality of light, at least during the Old English period.

I am cautiously open to the idea that in Middle English, this distinction was at some point by some authors clarified by using the two aforementioned different dialect words, though I'd need some citation from @helloelicia regarding that because I can't find any indication that this is the case, or examples of that distinction being drawn in a pre-modern text. The example given in the post doesn't work, because both graye and grey in that sentence are being used to describe eyes, which is a very common use case for the "quality of light" meaning. The distinction the author appears to be drawing there is not between graye and grey -- Middle English authors switch between different spellings all the time, it's not unusual to see the same word spelled two different ways in the same passage -- but between graye and blak grey. The adjective is the focus, not the spelling change. And in order to argue otherwise, you'd have to suggest that dogs' eyes are grey-like-the-color, which is not something I have observed. I would read that passage as saying that the eyes of both animals have a gleaming quality -- possibly referring to the tapetum lucidum -- but that those of dogs are being described as darker in some way.

Also, in my experience with Middle English, this kind of spelling distinction seems implausible to me. If Helloelicia does have a citation, though, then problem solved, done and dusted, why am I even here. Hoping they respond and clear it up.

Speaking of, here's my bibliography for this post. It's brief, because I meant to put aside the afternoon to work on my dissertation but I really wanted to do this instead, so I'm compromising by only allowing myself a limited dive into this topic before going back to work.

Kinney, Muriel. "Vair and Related Words: A Study in Semantics." Romanic Review, vol. 10, 1919, pp. 322-63.

Krieg, Martha Lenore Fessler. Semantic Fields Of Color Words in Old French, Old English, and Middle English. 1976. University of Michigan, PhD dissertation.

Moore, Arthur K. "The Eyen Greye of Chaucer's Prioress." Philological Quarterly, vol. 26, 1947, pp. 307-12.

[polyamorouspunk]

sleepover friday thing and im sorry if i've already sent you an ask about this, i have the worst memory in the world at the best of times. with that out of the way... how do i cope with my orientation doing a 180? my whole life, starting from when i was about 10, ive identified as a lesbian. i exclusively dated girls (or people who identified as girls at the time anyway) and non-binary people. i was only attracted to girls and non-binary people. when i thought about being married in the future, it was always to a woman or non-binary person.

then i met my soulmate and he was a man. i dont use the term lightly either -- im talking about love at first meeting, spending time together as often as possible, sharing secrets, the whole thing. i plan on getting a tattoo dedicated to him. i still called myself a lesbian, just with one exception, because he was the only man i ever loved. and then he went dormant and hasnt come back (hence the tattoo).

then i started noticing i sometimes got crushes on men but not very often. now it's a couple years later and it struck me the other day that i don't think i'm sexually attracted to women anymore. just men and non-binary people. and it really threw me for a loop. ive been a lesbian my whole life but now im not? i'm almost exclusively (sexually) xlm now. which is certainly hard to deal with since i'm dating someone who is woman-aligned.

this is really long im so sorry i didnt mean to ramble so much akskfkf but do you have any words of advice for someone whose identity flipped on its head and feels lost now

I doubt that I’m going to say anything revolutionary here, so I’m just going to talk.

Things change for everyone. Different things change for different people. I don’t want to discount the experiences of certain people like men who are attracted to cis women exclusively, women who are attracted to cis men specifically, men who are only attracted to men, women who only attracted to women, etc. When I say stuff like “sexuality is fluid” it’s in the same way you say “gender is fluid” knowing that for some people it 100% isn’t, but it CAN be.

Some people have a very hard time accepting that sexuality can be fluid. It’s been pointed out before that some people are all for playing around with your gender and calling yourself a woman as a cis man in drag or calling yourself a liquid because your gender is so fluid or going “none of the above” in those gender questions or any amount of things like that. But as soon as someone implies that sometimes you can be a lesbian and sometimes you can be a gay man and those things can coincide or change certain people get really up in arms.

Complicated sexualities and gender have been around longer than any of us, and certainly around longer than tumblr and the internet. Perhaps my own favorite example is talking about how bisexuals and lesbians used to fall under the same or at least a more similar label in Stone Butch Blues. Before the phenomenon of lesbian separatists.

Bisexual lesbians and pansexual gays and all those kinds of things, while perhaps POPULARIZED by social media, existed long before that. Why is the idea that trans people existed before tumblr not a novel idea but the fact that perhaps wlw were all lumped under the phrase “lesbian” because there were women with more complicated sexualities like might fit under the label “bi lesbian” today wild and unacceptable to some people?

The idea that you can call yourself a lesbian exclusively but have some exceptions or call yourself gay exclusively but have an exception or hell even call yourself straight but have an exception is not a new thing. I, personally, love straight cisgender male content creators who say shit like “I’m not gay but I would make out with that man”. Cracks me the fuck up. I want more of that shit. But suddenly if a lesbian says “I’m not straight but I would make out with that man” it’s like woah woah woah are you sure you’re REALLY a lesbian?

Plenty of people who are straight/gay/lesbian fully accept that you can ID as one of those things and still use that label if you have on exception or even a few. Some do not, and will say if your thoughts even stray from your assigned sex of attraction then you are not allowed to use that label.

There will people who will say you can’t call yourself a lesbian if you’ve had sex with a man before even if you didn’t enjoy it. Gold star lesbian mentality.

The idea of sexuality being fluid is sadly a controversial one, as is every facet of being “in the community”. But for many people it is.

I see it a lot like coming to terms that you are not in fact cisgender. You go your whole life believing, truly believing, that you are a cis girl perhaps, until suddenly one day you realize you are NOT. Maybe there weren’t “signs” that you were trans along the way. Maybe one day it just hit you like a ton of bricks. What do you do? How do you cope?

Well. How do you cope with any other thing that hits you like a ton of bricks? How do you cope with someone you thought loved you deciding to dump you and never speak to you again in a day? How do you cope with being fired from a job you felt so secure in and planned on being in for at least another decade? How do you cope with the unexpected death of a loved one?

Over time. You try not to stress it. You try and move through your days by keeping it in the back of your mind until time has dulled that immediate pain enough for you to reconsider. The pain isn’t going to go away. But it can become manageable. You cannot deal with things if you are screaming and crying and hyperventilating and throwing things. You need to wait until you’re not doing any of those things in order to deal with the issue at hand, for a vivid and extreme example.

What does it mean to you to be xlm? I call myself a bi lesbian. On this blog I call myself trans masc and mlm. On my main I’m a [girl] and a bi lesbian. To me that means I, Savanna, personally will have sex with people who have a vagina, as someone who also has a vagina. Be they trans men, trans women, cis women, nonbinary/other. I do not like the idea of having sex with an actual flesh and blood and cummy dick, HOWEVER I’m open enough to say “I haven’t really been in a position in my life right now where someone has wanted to jam their dick inside of me, so I haven’t really had to worry about that. If it comes to that point, I can’t say for sure that I’m going to be like ‘ew no a dick’ even though I do not like dicks. Depending on the person and the situation I might be willing to make an exception.” And hey. There are people I might be with who have a vagina that I might just be like hey you know what? I don’t want to have sex. For whatever reason.

Your partner is woman-aligned, so I’m sure in your mind that’s not something you’re aesthetically attracted to right now. But sexually might you be? Do you think you’re having another exception to your sexuality like you did before?

Try your best not to worry about it and try to come to any conclusions until you’ve given it some time. I’m not sure how long it’s been since you came to this realization, maybe it’s been a few days, maybe it’s been a few weeks. But take the time you need to not make an emotional response to it in regards to your current relationship. Do what you’re doing and talk to other people about it. When you’re ready, you should talk to your partner about it. Perhaps there’s accommodations and arrangements that can be made. I’ve said before even though I’m transmasc here like if a cishet guy wanted to date me only as his gf I would be willing to compromise on my gender expression for that most likely. My gender isn’t a huge deal to me. Things like that.

Take it slow and take your time. Don’t make any rash decisions. Talk it out. Don’t worry about feeling like you “made a mistake” or are “living a lie”. We wouldn’t tell someone who came out as trans things like that, so much as gender changes and/or is fluid so is sexuality.

[x0401x]

honestly, i don't even think it's tumblr specifically that's dying, as much as fandom itself is slowly withering away

like, obviously tumblr is suffering, specifically, what with interactions being down, and the anime community is especially dire with it. i barely see any post for anything outside the Big shows

but i just. i think fandom itself is slowly dying? people aren't allowed to do whatever they want anymore, and i feel like that's set a fear in people that if they somehow fuck up, or step out of line, or whatever, they'll be hunted down and get their lives ruined. it's stoked this fear of being 'cringe' and weird and yourself, and so people are losing interest

personally, i barely ever do anything fandom related anymore, since i'd much rather stick to original characters- primarily because those are safe. i'm not gonna get criticism or called out if i write anything a bit too dark for 'normal' people, and that's so much easier than risking my neck, yanno?

it's really quite sad

I'm not sure if that's quite the case. See, this is nothing new. The fear of being seen as cringe because of fandom is a phenomenon that has been going on since forever. And this is exactly why sites like Tumblr were created in the first place; it's so that you could be cringey all you want because you're anonymous here.

I think what's really happening is that people are forgetting (or worse, not even learning) that this part of the internet and this way of interacting online exists. Nowadays, it feels like everyone is out there to make a name for themselves and get clout. The internet has turned into a place where making yourself and your interests entirely public is the norm. And obviously, this doesn't work well for certain forms of creative content. Rather, it kills them entirely. People are forgetting to share other people's content, because being an "independent creator" nowadays basically means you only make your own content and pay attention to it almost exclusively. That's just not how places like Tumblr work.

And what doesn't help is that people are utterly obsessed with big things because they get more attention, so niche fandoms and interests are quickly disappearing. It's indeed very sad.

[moonlightsapphic]

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

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

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

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

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

[hobgayblin]

Happy 4/4 I finally sat down and wrote my 2000 word essay on Jhin’s gay coding and why he’s a gay gay homosexual gay

I think tumblr is still weird with links so I’m going to post it under the cut and also link in the comments.

IMPORTANT NOTES: 1. I am insane I know this thank you mwah 2. This is mostly unedited because I am tired so if things sound weird I’m sorry gdfhfs 3. This is not meant for argument I don’t care if you think he’s another sexuality but I don’t want to hear it on my post about why he’s gay. I will block you ❤️

The (Probably Unintentional) Gay Coding of Khada Jhin

Since his release in 2016 Jhin as a character has hexed and bewitched me, a humble homosexual. Jhin is to date still one of the most interesting characters in League of Legends in all aspects: design, theme, lore, and character wise. One thing that has also caught my interest about him in all my insanity driven frantic delving into his character is the very subtle gay coding that exists in the writings about him. Very subtle meaning of course, easy to ignore and in some cases perhaps not even canon any more, (such as background information that was given about him on old official riot boards that have since been taken down). The coding still exists, however, and I’m going to unearth it like an archaeologist driven by some divine madness to tell everyone why this pixel man is gay.

To start off, it’s important to understand what gay coding is as well as why and how it’s used. Gay– or the more general Queer-- coding is a type of subtext in media used to imply a character is LGBT+ in nature without explicitly stating it1. Historically it’s been used in times where creators are legally unable to confirm such things, or cannot otherwise because of moral taboos against queer people. The same is still true now, especially for big game studios like Riot who don’t want to confirm their character’s being gay due to queer content being restricted in some countries internationally. However, this phenomenon cannot be blamed by that alone, as it is still largely due to homophobia in League’s NA servers, and Riot’s cowardice. This is especially true for not confirming characters as gay men as opposed to the several lesbians and bisexual women riot has confirmed, but that’s a topic I’ll get into later. Now to explain how the gay coding works it’s very simple: Use tropes commonly associated with gay people. To explain how some of these tropes are used, we’ll look into Jhin’s actual character, quotes, and backstory.

Immediately looking into the backbone of Jhin’s character we find the arts. He’s very theatrical, even working in the theater for quite a while in his youth, and obviously obsessed with creating art. While these aren’t exclusive to gay people by any means, these are both interests that are highly prevalent in gay communities and used to make characters in media read as obviously gay. Theater and the arts are also seen as more feminine, flamboyant, and campy in nature, which is also tied to gay men. Obviously Jhin isn’t interested in theater like a character from Glee, but he certainly fits into the role of “flamboyant performance artist5,” just more nuanced and evil. Again, obviously not every man interested in theater can be typecast as gay. The flamboyant nature and tone of most of his voice lines and speech mannerisms2,6 that go with his theater background, however, make it very gay. I don’t even have a semi-academic or succinct way to describe how the tone and wording choices for Jhin read as gay (without taking 10 pages to discuss every line). I, as a gay man, simply look through or listen to the words he says and think “okay [SLUR REDACTED]” we get it, you’re gay. Moving away from the association with theater and flamboyancy as obvious gay signaling, there are some other bits of Jhin’s character that read as gay as well.

On his release or near it, one of Jhin’s writers did an AMA (ask me anything) about him and his backstory. Tragically, the original boards were deleted, but a summary of some of the points was made by a reddit user4 on a discussion of his backstory. Before getting into it, it is important to note that technically none of what has been said in the forums/reddit threads is official canonical lore, or could be easily retconned in future stories, but I will be discussing it anyway because I think it’s important to the character. In the thread the fact that stands out the most to me is Jhin’s strained relationship with his father. Even going so far as to say “his father never accept[ed] him for who he was4.” Which of course is probably in reference to a young Jhin’s budding fascination with death, but is also the most explicit, slap to the face instance of gay coding in his character. The exact phrasing of his father “not accepting him for who he was” is a sentiment gay men, and other queer people, can frequently relate to and is usually used in media to tell that a character is gay. Again it has the plausible deniability of being about Jhin’s interests instead, and being on a social media board instead of written into canon, but it’s some of the only information we have regarding Jhin’s younger life/relationship with his family at this point in time. Going along with that also there is a point in the thread about Jhin’s father forcing him to learn his method of fighting with chi-daggers as opposed to letting him learn his own way (and then him rebelling by learning his own way anyway)4. This point isn’t directly related, but it’s not unusual for fathers to try to force their gay/seemingly gay sons into more “masculine” activities (such as fighting in this case) as if that will steer them away from being gay. Moving away from the bits of technically unconfirmed backstory (for now), there’s more to explore in his canonical interactions as well. 

Up to this point in my analysis most of Jhin’s coding can be interpreted as a general sort of queer coding. Everything mentioned could also be applicable to bisexual men or any other form of queer man as well, but Jhin has something extra that really pushes him into the category of specifically homosexual, in my eyes. In almost every instance of writing Jhin has been in, whether it be the Zed comic, or his short stories, or even his voice lines in the game itself, Jhin has shown explicit disinterest in women. The in-game voice lines are the most subtle of them for sure, and could probably be taken as misogyny instead of a nod to homosexuality. With how he comments on Miss Fortune “needing a wardrobe upgrade6” and Illaoi wearing “too much gold6” it doesn’t just read as him being rude, it invokes a couple other staples of gay tropes: 1. Being a catty bitch, and 2. Having an interest in and commenting on people’s fashion choices. This isn’t limited to the women either, he also comments on Tahm Kench’s fashion choices in two separate voice lines, so he clearly has at least a passing interest in fashion (gay). In the comic and his short story, however, his disinterest is much more explicit. He has, on multiple occasions, referred to women as looking “boring”-- In both the Zed comic2, when he is talking about a woman Zed has a crush on, and also his color story The Man With The Steel Cane3, when he is referring to a woman at an inn he’s staying at. Perhaps he is just talking about how boring conventionally attractive women look, but in a world where every single character is made to be beautiful and conventionally attractive I doubt there would be any women he doesn’t find boring. And also given his highly theatrical character, “boring” seems to be one of the worst things Jhin could find someone; how could he make art out of something boring, something devoid of inspiration? This also sticks out as disinterest in women due to the fact that it’s been said more than once, in what is technically two-thirds of the written stories for him. One could argue he is also not interested in men or any other gender either, and in fact the same message boards that gave us some of his backstory would agree with that. However, I am gay and I make the rules.

Much of this coding as well as a couple other things could potentially point towards Jhin being asexual, or even both gay and ace. Unfortunately I cannot find a good source, but I remember another AMA answer floating around of Jhin being called “gunsexual” when one of his writers was asked about his sexuality. Now, ignoring the minor homophobia of making a joke out of his sexuality, this can be interpreted in a couple ways. It can be interpreted as Jhin being asexual, and disinterested in anything aside from his gun, the source of his artistic expression. Or, it can be interpreted as dodging the question of sexuality because Riot cannot/doesn’t want to confirm characters (especially men) as being gay. I find it important to note that this, while a joke, does point to him being queer in some respect though, as I feel a joke would not be made to keep his sexuality vague were he just simply heterosexual. Going back to a previous point, I think Riot is dancing around Jhin being gay because they know announcing a champion, especially a popular champion, as gay will receive backlash. Looking again at characters they have officially announced as gay there are a number of lesbians (Neeko, Leona, Diana, Caitlyn, Vi possibly Nidalee), and bisexual women (Rell, Nami, arguably some in the lesbian category), but only one gay/queer man (Varus). This is because of a double whammy of homophobia and lesbophobia, wherein lesbians are more marketable to their huge userbase of cis heterosexual men due to prevalence of lesbian fetishization, and also gay men are reviled and would be seen as “ruining a character” due to the rampant homophobia of the same group. Which is to say, unfortunately I don’t think Jhin will ever exist as gay outside of just his subtle coding. That is a whole separate issue I could go on about at length, however that is not the topic of this essay.

Looking back at what has been discussed, it is incredibly clear to me personally that Jhin is a gay man. Possibly also an asexual man; though I personally feel that would be, in a canon sense specifically, a bad move for Riot to make him asexual. I do agree Jhin can be read as asexual and I appreciate ace Jhin headcanons from other fans, however, in the context of canon sexuality I think it would be sweeping all of his explicitly gay coding under the rug and label him as anything but gay. That, again, is another whole conversation to have in a place that is not this essay. Looking at Jhin’s backstory, his interests and mannerisms, his several accounts of disinterest in women, and other smaller details of his character, I feel it is fair to say this man is absolutely homosexual. He may be too busy with his art and murders to seek a relationship, but this man loves other men.

References: (version with links attached in comments)

1. “Queer coding”, Wikipedia, last modified on 28 March, 2022, 

2. Shafer, Odin. Zed, Issue #2 (other issues referenced as well), Marvel Worldwide Inc, 2019-2020.

3. Shafer, Odin. “The Man With The Steel Cane.” 

4. @la_goanna."Jhin's Family/ Backstory." Reddit, 2020, 

5. TV Tropes.  Performance Artist.(See also: All Gays Love Theater) 

6. League of Legends Fandom Wiki. Jhin/LoL/Audio. 

[that-stone-butch]

What's a febfem? I tried searching the tag but got too many conflicting and/or incomprehensible posts to be able to make sense of it

hey, so going into this topic in-depth is going to involve a discussion of TERFs, transphobia, and transmisogynistic subject matter in general and specific. so, you know, heads-up on what is going to be a very unpleasant topic.

as is often the case with portmanteaus, there's some differing ways people spell things out. some people use 'febfem' to mean Female-Exclusive Bisexual FEMinist, but the majory of what i see is specifically a portmanteau of Female-Exclusive Bisexual FEMale. however, there's going to be some significant overlap between the two which i will bring up later on.

the general premise of Female-Exclusive Bisexual Females is, just that, bisexual women who, while identifying as bisexual, make the conscious decision to be exclusively into women, exclusively date women, etc. right off the bat, the practical conflation between the gendered terminology 'woman' and the sex-binary-dependant terminology 'female' in a space is, well, troubling to hear as a trans person. very frequently trans individuals might choose to use sex-binary-dependant terminology to describe *their own experiences* but the use of sex-binary-dependant terminology to label entire groups and/or others is...a red flag.

additionally, it's important to note that almost always the impetus for someone going 'female-exclusive' is as the result of mistreatment, often including sexual misconduct, perpetrated by men. i do not in any way wish to diminish the reality of these experiences. gendered violence, especially sexual violence, is a real and pervasive issue. no part of what i have to say on this topic should be construed as disregarding the severity of survivors' experiences.

however, it's important to look critically at the status of febfem as what at first appears to be a relatively innocuous premise (provided that you don't look too closely at the emphasis on gender essentialism. spoiler alert! gender essentialism is a huge component of this whole phenomenon :/). as we all know, personal sexual boundaries are fine and ought to be relatively inoffensive in a vacuum.

very frequently, when coupled with gender essentialism, the concept of sexual boundaries is politically weaponized. we've been over this a shitzillion times with TERFs acting irate that transgender lesbians....exist at all, frequently framing the passive existence of transgender lesbians as an attack (frequently throwing around the word 'rape,' 'rapist,' etc) on their personal sexual boundaries. by rhetorically coupling the concept of trans people existing with the concept of violating personal sexual boundaries, it becomes difficult to deal with this flavor of TERF rhetoric because you must first disentangle the concepts before you can argue with them (you shouldn't by the way, just block them and move on) people who have no interest in disentangling these disparate concepts will see a defense of trans people, especially trans women, as an attack on TERFs and lesbian sexuality as a whole, and are further radicalized against what they see to be a threat. this rhetoric validates the unfortunately widespread willingness to read trans people (especially trans women) in the worst faith interpretation possible.

(this phenomenon can be seen with Peak Trans rhetoric, which frames the moment a TERF became anti-trans as a result of trans people being icky and indefensible, making the impetus for being trans-exclusionary The Fault Of Trans People Actually, and further validating transphobic people's willingness to read anything trans people do or say with the worst possible intentions; validating what is widespread transphobia by blaming the victim of transphobia. it's wild just what will be used as peaktrans 'fuel;' one time a pretty mild post i made about frustration over how difficult it is for LGBTQ+ couples to adopt, made it onto a peaktrans compilation blog, because apparently if i, a trans person, have anything to say about wanting kids one day, it must be because i am Gross and Icky and a threat to Real Women lmao. honestly it's embarrassing and shitty behavior and if you need a compilation of literally any straws you can grasp at to prove a group of people deserves pervasive harassment, legal disenfranchisement, and physical harm, you're a hate group plain and simple)

now, you might be saying to yourself, 'wow, the topic of TERFs came up, why is that?' and it's because, dollars to donuts, you look at a febfem blog and you're going to find TERFs, reblogs/content from TERFs, and TERF rhetoric.

as it turns out, the group of people with a vested interest in defining all 'males' as having an essential gender, alligning that essentialism with a built-in moral negative, and basing their *political advocacy* on the premise of politicizing personal sexual boundaries, are often self-proclaimed TERFs/radfems. well if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, even straight-up says it's a duck sometimes, it's a fucking duck.

seriously, you don't have to scroll down far on most febfem blogs before you see shit about 'genderqueer identity taking away our butches' and 'can't a woman be masculine AND proudly feeeeeeeeeeemale for once?' like it's textbook.

now i will say again, since tumblr is NOT a hub of reading comprehension, that personal sexual boundaries are not a moral negative, nor are they transphobic. shit, i should hope that as a stone butch, you understand that i do not think personal sexual boundaries are inherently bad. but the politicization of personal sexual boundaries, and the use of personal sexual boundaries to define and condemn others, is a different matter entirely.

there may be people hopping onto the notes of this post, my inbox, etc. bringing up evidence of febfems who have nothing negative to say about trans people, never publicly making claims about trans people, etc. but that's a fucking deflection. gender-essentialism is baked into 'febfem' as a concept, and there's no deflecting that. ask a febfem what their definition of 'male' is, and who that includes. you're going to find transmisogyny.

[ganymedesclock]

So I've been gearing up to get back into the creative swing of things and start up a tumblr of my own (though by "swing of things," I confess it's more breaking out of the torpor of a decade long bout of creative burnout!) and something occurred to me that I'd like your thoughts on. Any particular opinions on that age old trope of "magic vs. psychic"?

The thing about basically any word we use to describe the fantastical is that it means exactly what we define it to mean. It has a weight and a cultural context- so you'll get people arguing with you of "that's not a wizard, a wizard is x, y, and z, and not a, b, and c"- but ultimately I feel like the most important thing with stories is to pick words that feel right to you, and then maintain a rigorous sense of their own definitions within a particular story.

To me, contextually, magic is a form of wonder-making or world-shaping; it is affecting the world around you, or yourself, through unusual means. The word invokes a sense of wonder, or a miraculous process. That's not to say it can't be used in a more rigorous or scientific context, but it can be connoted with a more 'whimsical' stance.

In general, all fictional magic systems, for your story to hold up rigorously, have to play by some kind of rules. Those rules need not necessarily be rigid physics or "realistic"-feeling rules. They can just as easily play by emotional rules. For example, in my setting Lorn, magic is a very unscientific phenomenon, but it is a very psychological phenomenon. When a character, Syther, turns into a wolf and back into a human, the properties and logistics of this are ruled by awareness and identity. It became almost impossible to maintain a human form during a period of time when Syther did not think he deserved to be human; conversely for other characters with these sort of shapeshifter curses, some of them have an extremely hard time (and a very nasty go of it) shifting, because they over-identify with their human form exclusively.

The word "psychic" generally invokes a sort of para-scientific notion and taxonomy that is very modern. Many people in our world today would be incredulous at the notion of a wizard; but there are plenty of people who are intrigued by the idea of psychic powers. It comes with a specific bundle of thematic implications.

Ultimately, I think there's no word for describing powers- bar actively prejudiced or harmful ones- that's actively bad? It's just a question of what tools to describe your narrative, because if there's a thing for all magic systems, it's that they live or die based on how you explain them. The explanation need not be complicated, but it does need to be effective- so if you introduce a crystal ball that shows you other places, you don't need to explain how it works, but you do need to be consistent on what it is and isn't capable of.

And, if you're wondering what system to apply to your story, I would always go for the idea of, what is the most important thing in your story? Adding a magical system to a political drama- imagine if magic in that world is based heavily around names and titles and the proper use of them, making all exertions of power another form of diplomacy, another form of "who you are and who you know is everything"

Ultimately, when we talk about magic, what we are describing is power or efficacy; so, thus, the ultimate thing to say about any magical system in writing is what are we saying about power? And that affects what words we use a lot, because every word has a context- if it doesn't have a real-world root or usage, then we're making one up.

[ocaledonia]

hello again, i think i understand your perspective a bit better and you seem like a reasonable person, thanks for keeping it respectful and i hope you'll forgive me for sending back an essay of my own (i wanted to reply properly to your post)

i fully understand that trans people are at risk in intimate male spaces like locker rooms, but i think the only fair solution is creating third spaces specifically intended for trans people because when they come into intimate women's spaces, they are just transferring the fear and vulnerability they feel in men's spaces on to the women in the women's spaces and i don't think that's ethical or fair. you could make the same argument that gay men are at risk in male spaces, but it doesn't mean they are entitled to women's. also, if women can't call out males in their intimate spaces without risking being punished for transphobia, they can't call out any males because transness is a self reported phenomenon with no objective test. if one male is allowed in, they will all come. regardless of whether you think it's hurtful or not, the majority of women are going to feel unsafe getting undressed or locked up with biologically male people, trans or not because of misogyny and that fear can drive them out of those spaces that are meant for them (or much worse in the case of prisons). i don't want trans individuals to be at risk of harm, but i can't accept them transferring that risk on to women

as to your point about HRT giving you similar secondary sex characteristics to women, i think you are right to say that trans people who are on a medical pathway have more complex medical needs than non-trans people which is a different can of worms. trans people can't be medically treated like non-trans men or women because their circumstances are too different.

i really do have to disagree with you though about 'fighting a strawman' when it comes to trans women forcing their way into lesbian spaces and trying to bully us into dating them. there have been more formal expressions of this, most notably the cotton ceiling conference from a few years back, but also trans influencers like contrapoints and riley j dennis have espoused this line and it is all over tumblr and other social media. others have made masterposts of receipts of this, i'll link a few here [X] [X] [X]

"lesbian" dating app HER kicks lesbians off who are honest about their exclusive same sex attraction and abused women on social media for disagreeing with the policy. this article that reported on the phenomenon received international backlash from the trans movement. and of course like i mentioned, it is now illegal to publicly host female only lesbian events in my country in the name of 'trans rights'. how is that not a legal invalidation of homosexuality? this kind of homophobia is absolutely the dominant viewpoint of the trans community, and is a big part of the reason i stopped supporting it.

i think we fundamentally disagree about what a lesbian is. like it or not, there is a minority of biological female who are only attracted to biological females and until very recently we agreed this is what a lesbian is. a female homosexual. we see homosexuality all throughout the animal kingdom, so it is not just a human social construct. by definition, trans women cannot be lesbians because they are not biologically female. i believe it is offensive to demand that lesbian women play along with a stupid pantomime that they might be attracted to a male person. it is very homophobic and i wish that trans people would understand that sexual orientation is not a choice or a commentary on their identity. not saying trans women don't deserve love, but by definition lesbians are not attracted to them and i wish people would stop trying to imply we just haven't tried the right dick yet.

i agree with you that lots of women in society are misogynistic, but the difference is that anyone who experienced male socialisation will reap some benefits of patriarchy regardless of transition status. for example, little boys are encouraged to play more freely than little girls allowing them to develop strength and early thinking skills, and are encouraged more academically which is key to lifelong psychological and emotional development.

i'm genuinely upset to hear that men sexually abused you and bullied you growing up, a core pillar of my belief system is that nobody ever deserves sexual violence and i hope you have been able to recover from that. they should have been punished for doing that to you. please don't listen to anyone who says this doesn't matter or laughs at it, they are cruel and wrong and i'm really sorry you had to hear that.

my problem with the 'lets play with gender' idea is that gender is a hierarchy and the traits associated with men are those of a master and those associated with women are those of a servant. that's why it is so important that men enforce gender roles on other men and why misogynist women gain social status from enforcing them on other women. i just find playing with aesthetics and language (what people see as 'gender') to be a silly response which has no effect on material reality (sexism). also, if nobody 'feels' womanhood the same way but we need to accept anyone's assertion that they are female, you would have to validate andrea long chu's notion of womanhood ("an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes”). going further, why then is it acceptable for being to claim to be another sex, but not another race based on stereotypes? is a white person who moves to japan japanese because they are taking on a japanese role in society?

i'm a materialist thinker, so when one side says a woman is a female human, a sex class with real political disadvantages and goals, and another tells me a woman can't be fully defined, i hope you understand why i am more convinced by the argument about material conditions. ultimately, if everyone tomorrow woke up feeling genderless, some of us would still be dying at higher rates in car crashes, medicines that weren't tested on our bodies, from punches from the opposite sex, and pregnancy.

i believe that a very small percentage of people do feel real sex dysphoria which they alleviate through medical and lifestyle changes, but you can't ever actually change sex, and trying to make society pretend as if you can just bakes in structural bias against the female sex by taking away the pathways and language to address it.

if we had the same problems, the solutions the trans movement is pushing for wouhurt women so much, but they do. i understand what point you're trying to make but i think we just disagree on the fundamentals of this issue. women are women and trans women are trans women and we are fundamentally different sociopolitical groups.

lately i've been doing a lot of thinking about why women are the main supporters of transgenderism, and i think i've boiled it down to three main elements

1. women are socialised to be more accommodating and accepting of uncomfortable situations than men are. this has been discussed at length in the radical feminist tradition and the gender critical movement, but it bears reiterating. women are taught from early childhood to disbelieve their feelings of fear, anger and humiliation for the benefit of men.

2. i'd argue that the description of physical dysphoria is one that almost all women empathise with, because of how alienated women are from their bodies by society, in a way most men are not. even women who would say they are comfortable with their bodies have complicated feelings about having a female body in our society, even if they don't have the framework to express it. therefore, when women are confronted with men who make claims about sex dysphoria, they relate and empathise and some can draw conclusions that this distress aligns them with femaleness (i would argue that all women experience sex dysphoria in a misogynist society like ours but i digress). i think there many women also find solace in the idea that someone else could possibly have their physical distress alleviated and want to believe it is possible to find a solution to it.

In other words, “The body has been made so problematic for women that it has often seemed easier to shrug it off and travel as a disembodied spirit.” - Adrienne Rich

3. women want to believe that male oppression and men aren't really that bad. to comprehend the scale of women's oppression, and to fully understand that the men you know and love are as complicit in it as any other, feels like balancing on the brink of madness. women are desperate for evidence that things aren't as bad as they suspect.

Andrea Dworkin says it best: “Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.”

that is part of the allure of the trans movement for these women in denial. breaking down the categories of male and female, and denying the social dynamics therein, means they don't have to grapple with the ugliness of misogyny.

anyone else have thoughts on this? i'd be keen to hear if others on radblr think

[gaogaigoatgrrl]

right, so i guess this is probably the appropriate time for me to dip my toe into bi lesbian discourse, happy pride month

some people get really mad about the term and as a result i've been really reluctant to use it (hence the "sapphic" in my bio) but idk what the vibes are like on tumblr so i might as well talk about it here

i genuinely cannot find another satisfactory label for my sexuality. i think i could describe its exact workings to two different people, and one of them might call me a lesbian affected by comphet, and the other might call me a bi woman affected by trauma relating to men, and you know what? i think both of them would be equally correct. to my knowledge there is currently no word in the english lexicon for that area of overlap and ambiguity, so i have to make do by smashing two existing terms together

the mechanics in question, by the way, are that i'm consistently attracted to women and rarely (and unreliably) attracted to men. i can't make universal statements about my attraction or unattraction to nonbinary people since there are so many ways to be nonbinary. but at any rate, whatever attraction i do feel for men flickers on and off, like a bad radio signal or faulty electrical current. when i think it's there, it vanishes; when i think it's gone, it sideswipes me out of nowhere

i know i'm attracted to women. but whenever i try to make definitive statements about whether or not i'm attracted to men, sooner or later experience comes along and smacks me upside the head one way or another, taunting me for my arrogance in thinking i had a handle on my own orientation. framing it as some kind of superposition helps to deal with this ambiguity, even if it means using two terms at once that seem mutually exclusive

i know that not everyone who uses the label uses it the way that i do, and i understand that some sapphics have specific criticisms of the term. i've seen lesbians say nonspecifically that it is harmful to them (i don't know how to engage with this statement when the nature of the harm isn't clarified), i've seen the claim made that use of the term will make men think it's ok to hit on lesbians (i think the men who would do that would do it regardless and that men who disregard lesbians' boundaries should be held accountable for their actions, not sapphics), i've seen it stated that bi lesbians simply don't understand that they can be bi with a preference (i do, and i still don't think that's an accurate descriptor in my case), and i've seen the accusation that the term constitutes bi erasure (how exactly isn't clear, given that you literally cannot use the term without acknowledging the existence of bisexuality)

i've seen such incredible rage over this term on other sites and never, once, have i seen that rage produce an argument against it that i found compelling, or indeed even attempt to examine the phenomenon bi lesbians are trying to describe rather than imagining what it "must" be and dismissing it out of hand. i know this isn't the most pressing matter affecting the queer community, or even the sapphic community specifically, but i am so, so exhausted and i get unreasonably fearful when it comes to disclosing the details of my orientation and that sucks! i don't get this kind of shit in queer spaces for being a nonbinary trans woman!

[woman-loving]

“The SAM” and its critics

I guess I won’t make it a whole thing, but here are my thoughts on the “split attraction model.” (NB: This perspective is based on my own recollections and interpretations, but I don’t know all things. Different versions of the story may exist.)

To begin with, the term “split attraction model” was coined circa May 2015 by critics who were trying to name a phenomenon they took issue with. Going forward, “critics” will refer to this group who first coined the term, but they are not the only ones who criticize the language, components, or universalism of the “split attraction model.” (Example from theacetheist with lots of links.) The particular criticisms I’m concerned with developed around the time that monosexism discourse was dying down, and a group that had been critical of “monosexism” was exploring new topics to complain about. (I was one of the complainers, to be clear; that is not a disavowal.) Here are a couple sample posts from May-July 2015: one, two, three, four. Note the anons mentioning they can’t find anything about the “split attraction model”--that’s because there was nothing else written using that language!

Grumblings were eventually arranged into the sequence of words, “split attraction model,” and that term took off among critics who used it as a vague gesture toward a set of grievances. As I remember it, one of the primary targets was the paired sexual-romantic identity format, e.g. naming one’s orientation as --sexual --romantic. Also as I remember it, criticisms were primarily concerned with its use beyond ace/aro people, focusing on what might be considered bi-range “mixed orientations” like “bisexual heteromantic” or “homosexual biromantic.” It wasn’t too uncommon to see people say that these paired identities could work for ace or aro people, but didn’t otherwise make sense.

I believe connections were also made between these identities and the creation and cataloguing of specialized identities that detailed to whom/what and how/whether one experienced attraction. The people who advanced or approved of these projects, and the approach to sexuality/gender that seemed to motivate them, were scorned as “mogai.” Although I too scorned “mogais,” I never looked too closely at any “mogai” blogs; “mogai” was a category based mostly on impressions. The use of other subtypes of attraction (e.g. sensual, aesthetic, platonic, which may have been previously popularized among ace/aro people) as the basis for orientation-like labels such as “heteroaesthetic” or “homosensual” also provoked consternation, although I couldn’t tell you if these labels were ever seriously adopted by a significant number of people. As I understand it, “romantic orientation” was also popularized among aces, although this and other concepts that took inspiration from it were being used on tumblr by a mixed and overlapping group of ace/aro/lgbtq people.

Sometimes when critics invoked the “split attraction model,” they were imagining all of this as a single model of orientation, in which (they presumed) a “complete” orientation (as they were used to thinking of it) would entail listing out --sexual --romantic --sensual --aesthetic and whatever other dimensions people created. But I think that often times critics would be thinking mainly of the paired sexual-romantic identity format, which was more commonly used.

The objections were many. A lot of these revolved around the way “sexual orientation” and --sexual terms were defined by people who also used “romantic orientation,” --romantic terms, and other parallel dimensions of orientation and identity.

Critics were used to “sexual orientation” and “sexuality” naming something that encompassed erotic/sexual, emotional/romantic (e.g. being “in love”), and social/kinship (e.g. dating, marriage) elements. Likewise, they understood terms like “bisexual,” “homosexual,” and “heterosexual,” as well as “gay” and “lesbian,” as inclusive of all these elements. And, in fact, this is the typical way in which these terms are used by gay/bi people and activists and by almost anyone writing about these subjects in a serious way. Gay/bi people have often had to demand recognition for the emotional and social aspects of their relationships and desires, or (alternately) for the sexual aspects, and so there was some significance attached to affirmation of their integration. Critics didn’t believe that all elements always occurred together, however. There's general recognition that sexual interest can occur apart from being “in love.” And while there’s more social skepticism over this possibility, many of these critics would have also agreed that you could be “in love” without sexual interest. (Some critics identified as ace and/or sex-repulsed.)

Critics sensed that when “sexual orientation” and --sexual terms were being paired/contrasted with “romantic orientation” and --romantic terms (and others), the meaning of the former were narrowed to only refer to specifically sexual and not emotional/social components. And I think you can, in fact, see that reflected in how "sexual orientation” is explained by some people who use both orientations (and others). A while back I compiled a sample of definitions of “sexual orientation” from a few college LGBTQ groups and compared them with a few definitions from AVEN and AVENwiki, and the difference is apparent. (Some of those entries have sense been edited in response to my post.)

So I think there was a real difference in how people were using “sexual orientation” and --sexual identity terms. The critics were using them in the broader, mainstream sense, while others were using them more narrowly. For record, I don’t think the narrower version is objectively “incorrect” or anything like that, and I can understand why some people would like to use it. But it is different from how the terms are usually used, and how a lot of gay/bi people and others would like to see them used. And reading “sexual orientation” in the narrower sense when it was intended to be used in the broader sense can result in a very loaded misunderstanding. The same is true for words like “bisexual” and “homosexual.” There was a lot of concern that calling oneself “bisexual” would be interpreted as exclusively sexual-related information.

The use of “homosexual” itself was also criticized. This was (with reason) identified as a stigmatizing term that a lot of gay people didn’t want to be called. But within the “split attraction model,” this term, in its narrower re-sexualized sense, seemed to be the “correct” term for gay people.

There was also concern about who was adopting “homosexual.” Critics who were coming from anti-monosexism circles tended to value solidarity between lesbians and bisexual women and didn’t see either group as privileged over the other. But they also accepted that there was a fairly clean boundary between these groups, and that keeping this boundary unambiguous was important. The “mixed” sexual-romantic identities such as “homosexual biromantic” blurred the distinction between gay and bi, and were thus unintelligible until they were translated as “just a gay person” or “just a bi person.” This translation could go either way. When translated as “just a bi person,” “homosexual biromantic” was perceived as bi people appropriating a gay identity, and a disrespectful one at that. 

A clear division between “oppressed” gay/bi people and “privileged” straight people was also a key point in critics’ social-political worldview, and this mixed identities also blurred this divide, resulting in potential “just a (homophobic) straight person” readings. A “heteromantic bisexual” could be a straight person who just used gay/bi people for sex, and was further obscuring their privilege and homophobic by presenting themselves as non-straight.

Unprocessed internalized homophobia and biphobia were seen as explanations for the adoption of these identities (for either “just gay” or “just bi” translations). The use and promotion of these terms (among advice blogs or through LGBTQ glossaries, for example) was also seen as limiting the ability for young gay/bi people to work through internalized homophobia and biphobia. Having doubts about whether one could have a sexual or emotional relationship with someone of the same gender were seen as common uncertainties among young and newly-out gay/bi people, resulting from the suppression of same-gender possibilities by a heterosexist society. There was a perception that questioning people were being actively encouraged to accept these uncertainties at face value as natural, enduring aspects of their orientation. Even simple exposure to these identities could set people back in their self coming out process, and some people reported how adopting these identities had been a roadblock on their own journeys.

In conjunction with all this, there was a perception that these models of orientation were gaining ground and displacing the models they favored. It seemed easy for current and past broader uses of “sexual orientation” to be overwritten with the narrower version, and thus have the speaker’s meaning completely distorted. I think part of this sense of threat was due to the paired sexual-romantic identities--and other specialized identities that were being developed--following a very empirical-sounding format. It seemed easy to read these terms as a cutting-edge classification of newly observed patterns of human “attraction” and “orientation.” Models that didn’t include them could easily be read as lagging behind and incomplete, their omissions attributed to ignorance rather than an alternate vision of what was meaningful and important to name. This all seemed to lean hard on on a “scientific,” essentialist model of sexuality. And actually, critics themselves sometimes drew on a similar model of sexuality to justify the divisions they saw as important (e.g. between gay and bi). Unfortunately, although critics saw these paired and specialized identities as a clear folly of “going too far,” I think they found it difficult to explain why these terms that sounded even more “sciencey” and comprehensive (= authoritative), were actually wrong.

Anyway, I guess that’s about all I have to say on it for now. Feel free to let me know if you think this story is accurate or inaccurate.

[illnessfaker]

Can you go off about your tangent the other day re: people only caring about ableism as it pertains to fandom

ooooooh boy. i was thinking abt this yesterday actually. kinda. if ur talking abt the warrior cats post my point was moreso "why are u directing so much energy into something ultimately meaningless when it comes to improving the treatment of disabled people irl" rather than "people only care about ableism in fandom" which kinda leads into what i was thinking abt

i search "ableism" on here when i'm bored and the results are mostly chock-full of posts abt fictional media and it's like...upsetting. the disabled people on twitter basically never talk about fictional media (and never talk about mcyt, god bless) and are instead raising awareness abt ableism in the real world that's seriously affecting real people every day.

like, i get it. i get why this happens. ppl on tumblr are always posting "making fandom ur whole identity is cringe/unhealthy" but not rly asking why so many ppl do it. i used to be just like these people when i was younger and my life was a special kind of hell due to being abused whereas now i'm pretty alienated from fandom spaces. i'm not saying that everyone uses it as a coping mechanism for abuse or smth but it's a phenomenon that i see as occurring because when we live in a bleak capitalist hellscape i can't rly fault people for getting super invested in fictional characters and worlds, then living vicariously through that because the current state of the real world is unfulfilling. that's why this happens

that doesn't mean it's okay for people to do offensive crap like interpret real-world, very serious issues exclusively through a fictional lens (white ppl in fandom often due this w racism) or anything else, and that doesn't mean i don't think ppl super-invested in fandom "discourse" shouldn't direct more of that energy in to real-life issues, just that i think it's not rly productive to tell ppl they're freaks and weirdos for centering their identity around fictional stuff bc it's produced by the isolation and monotony that comes w existence in a capitalist society.

most of these ppl are disabled themselves in some way and i'm not saying it's bad for them to criticize or vent abt ableism in their favorite media, even if it's...warrior cats...lol, but it's just rly something seeing most discussion abt ableism on tumblr generally being. incorrect or meaningless. any able-bodied ppl who talk more abt the ableism against "physically disabled characters" in warrior cats than they do abt ableism that happens to physically disabled people irl can get fucked though lol that's absolutely ridiculous.

[flecks-of-stardust]

now that it is not the middle of the night, to reiterate and elaborate on some things.

i say this not to cast blame on anyone, but to point out a phenomenon i find concerning. i've seen some people talk about downpour in ways that are unnecessarily cruel to the people who made downpour, or about downpour in general. obviously you're not obligated to like downpour; i have major gripes with some of it myself. but at the end of the day, downpour is an official DLC that was approved by videocult, and lots and lots of effort was put into making it.

i think it's valuable to air things you're dissatisfied with in any media you're invested in, but the way some people speak about downpour just... feels like they're ragging on downpour for the sake of ragging on downpour. and that's just mean. it's especially unpleasant when people main tag these sorts of posts, because rarely is it any sort of meaningful, discussion-provoking criticism on how downpour handles the lore or its writing or some other aspect. it's just plain hatred. not to say you can't hate downpour, and that's a valid stance to take, but to put these posts in a space where people who enjoy the media you're ragging on is, in my eyes, cruel. this goes double when some of the MSC team are on tumblr, and can see what you're saying about their work. you are publicly tearing down their work in a place where they can see it.

whether you like it or not, downpour's creation took years of work. it wasn't a slapdashed creation that they threw a price tag on*. and frankly, i doubt some of the things i've seen people say about downpour would ever be applied to fan made media of a similar scale, because people understand that it's rude. so i don't see why people should be allowed to do this about downpour.

on the flip side... despite downpour being an official DLC approved by videocult, i think a lot of people newer to the community are unaware of its history. it began as More Slugcats, an expansion mod that added five new slugcats into the game. its first iteration existed in 2017. that's 6 years ago; what are your fanfics from 5 years ago like? it was written to be fanwork, and it wasn't started with the intention of it becoming a DLC. and, really, how much of the community can say that they only ever stick to vanilla's lore, without ever deviating from it or changing some aspects to make their story work?

besides that, the MSC team themselves have said multiple times that if anything, downpour is more like an AU that was given an official acknowledgement, so like a fanfic that most people in a fandom have read that the original writers have acknowledged. if you want to use its lore, that's your prerogative, and it is a DLC after all. but to assume canonicity, especially on certain things that are exclusive to downpour, and to apply it broadly is, imo, a dangerous practice. this community existed long before downpour did, and people have been working entirely in vanilla's lore for literal years. not everyone uses downpour's lore for their work, and that is and should be completely fine. i think there needs to be more acknowledgement of this in the community, especially since downpour brought in a lot of new people.

so, really, downpour is only as canon as you want it to be, and you really cannot assume anything about someone else. this is a choice you and everyone else can make, and it's a choice that deserves to be talked about more. you don't have to use downpour in your work. you can deviate from downpour as much as you want. i think that's the ethos that led to downpour's existence in the first place anyway. don't let canon stop you, whatever canon means to you, but if you want to adhere to canon, go for it.

above all else, i think everyone needs to give the writers for downpour more grace. this is fan made. this was a story fans made for fun, because they loved rain world and because they wanted to contribute their own ideas to it. MSC just happened to get official recognition. it wasn't written with this degree of scrutiny in mind, and while i can't say it shouldn't get this degree of scrutiny, i just ask for people to be a little gentler with other people's work. downpour's history is already messy enough.

*when downpour became a DLC, its story was already finished. it was a finished product before andrewfm proposed the idea of it being a DLC. a finished product as a mod, which then got only a year to become a DLC. can you polish 5 years of work to a professional standard in 1 year when you are not a professional? there's a lot more i could say about akupara and what i've heard of the MSC team's experience working on downpour, but it's not my place to say this and frankly, i don't know enough of the details. my point is that they tried their best. in better circumstances, we might have got a better outcome, but blaming the MSC team for it is not conducive.

wholeheartedly and with as much gentleness as possible, i truly think there needs to be more discussion about downpour in the community as it is now. for a variety of reasons.