#or just manspreading because shes gay and she needs a woman in her life

[marukfe]

Was just scrolling through my screenshots, and then I just saw and noticed in one of them MOON IS SPLITTING??? HELP???

[ladychlo]

Hii Chay,

how are you???

my thoughts are a bit muddled so this might not be all that clear. sorry for that. i saw you answering that gender queer anon and gave me a little push to type this out. you've always been really kind and amazing and cool so i felt a little courage to come here and you so nicely wanted to hear if anyone wanted to rant so i guess here goes hehe.

Anyway, i'll come to the point. for months, i've been kinda questioning my gender identity. (wow this is so weird to get it out in the open. lol i feel like squealing.) the thing is i've been questioning do i really feel like a girl? a woman? but what even is it to feel like a girl? i mean there are some days i don't feel girlish/feminine and i like what i see in the mirror when i put my hair in a bun, all pulled back, dressed up in stereotypically masculine clothes, manspreading when i sit and have that stupid strut in my steps and that puff in my chest. and i get so pissed when my mum mentions these are boys clothes or these are girls clothes. and then me and my sister both scoff at her like what is this boy-girl?? clothes are clothes. and she doesn't mean anything by it like she never says we shouldn't wear it or it doesn't look good or smth. we wear what we want. for her, she's just pointing it out coz that's what she knows. and that's when i ask myself, is my annoyance because of this general classification of binaries or is it something i feel personally for myself regarding my own identity. like is it merely because i know there are people who exist outside of these binaries and these classifications are stupid??

and that's what i don't know how to differentiate. like me behaving a certain way or wearing certain clothes is even a classification in the first place due to stupid stereotypes and i am just the way i am as a girl or am i identifying with a different gender identity? and even saying this phrase out loud, 'i am a girl' feels weird sometimes. but what if it is due to my own internalised misogyny that i don't wanna say i'm a girl coz people inherently will assume i'm weak or cannot handle something?? because obviously that has happened even if not outright and i am a fucking overachiever so what if it is that influencing my thinking??

i don't know lol, suffice to say i'm confused. anyway sorry for this utter mess 😭

Hello love 🌼 its not a mess! I'm so glad you guys feel comfortable to share stuff like this with me, always makes happy to help with anything even if just listening!

Anywaaay, you know these whole questions you're asking are absolutely legit and not confusing, its actually good to wonder how we perform our gender bc at a point we dont know if we preform what we feel as our gender or what we just are supposed to preform. And I always remember a saying by Tede Mathews (he was a gay liberation and anti-war movements activist), he said "we are all born naked and anything anyone wears is drag" which is to say, like drag, what you wear can be a performance but also a self-expression. Whatever we wear is an expression of our gender, the materialization of it in real life.

What you wear doesn't determine your gender ofc ik you know this, but it is a way to articulate what we feel as our gender, I for so long identified as a girl but always wore what was considered masculine clothes but then it was like a way to question my gender identity as a whole bc starting with what you wear it helps you understand how you identify and how you express it are two different things but complimentary as well. The possibility of you ''playing'' or creating a fluidity around your gender can actually start from what you wear bc it is as I said a material part of our gender and how we want to be perceived. Also, you can still identify with your assigned gender but you can express it away from the norm or what is your cisness suppose to look like.

the classifications are predictable, bc gender is one of the oldest systems of power, people need these classifications to situate themselves according to these dynamics of power, you can't escape these classifications but you can choose not to abide by them or follow them and they can so strange to you and foreign and they can be your source to be creative with how you express your gender. but yeah no, never limit yourself, and never let these feelings of confusion stop you from exploring how far you can get with your gender. on the contrary, these confusions will give you a sense of yourself and once you go there you can have a sense of control and understanding of who you can be and who you are, I always say that it feels like a none ending process, you can always keep questioning your gender and its totally fine, that can be it, constant self-expression that changes, always, but yeah, you're doing alright! if you wanna talk about it more or a specific thing I'm here, mwaaaah xx

[fmdyaebin]

Whoa, is that KANG YAEBIN? I love her! You might know her as BINNIE. She’s the LEAD VOCAL AND RAPPER of FUSE, and she’s a ‘96 LINER! She’s one of my favorites under GOLD STAR MEDIA. Don’t you think she looks a little like LEE SAEROM?

AH, when I tell you guys I’m so frickin’ excited to be here, I’m not lying!! Hello, I’m Alex (they/them)! This is Yaebin, also known as Binnie when she’s promoting with Fuse. She’s my baby and I’ve been brewing her up in my mind for weeks now, and I’m finally able to bring her in! You can check out her profile and stuff over here. I don’t have a plots page, but I will be putting a few connection ideas at the bottom of this intro, so stick around to the end! If plotting with me tickles your fancy, tickle that like button and I’ll DM you! Or you can add me on my discord - jeongyeon's maid#0828

Yaebin was named after her mother who passed away during childbirth with her due to complications. Her parents were both a little bit older than parents tend to be when having a child, her mother being two months from forty and her father being forty four. Her mother already had two sons that she had when she was twenty-two and twenty-five respectively. She desperately wanted to have a daughter, despite how much she loved her two sons. Her husband, however, wanted another son. 

He didn’t love Yaebin any less or treat her badly (at least not intentionally), but he raised her exactly like he raised his sons. He put her into sports at an early age, cut her hair really short so he wouldn’t have to style it, and gave her her brothers’ old toys and sports equipment. He even had her dress more boyish, not allowing her to wear dresses or skirts unless they were going to church or an event. AND he’d call her really boyish nicknames? Like champ and sport, e.t.c. 

Her father was an ex professional athlete lol I forgot to toss that in there. That’s a reason why he pushed her so hard into sports. 

So she became known as the Tomboy™. She had a good mix of friends, both boys and girls, but she quickly grew to realize that boys wouldn’t look at her the way that they looked at other girls. They only saw her as “one of the guys” and that much was made clear when she approached her crush on Valentine’s Day when she was fifteen and tried to confess to him and gift him chocolates and a teddy bear. He ended up turning her down and telling her that he couldn’t be with “one of his bros”. 

When she was fourteen, she wanted to try out cheerleading instead of sticking with soccer. Her father shot her down, and made her feel belittled for even asking. He said cheerleading wasn’t a real sport and that they’re just scantily glad eye candy for the men and athletes at games. She just wanted to do it because it looked like a lot of fun.. And because she was starting to realize that she was starting to find girls a lot more prettier than she should lol what better way to hang out with a bunch of girls than to be a cheerleader, right? 

She’s sixteen (in 2012) when she becomes a trainee at Gold Star, thanks to her cousin who forced her to audition with them. 

She thought that since she would be debuting in a girl group, she would finally be able to try something new with her look, but Gold Star made her stick with the tomboy image for a long while. She had her hair cut short (think Jeongyeon during Twice’s earlier years or Hyebin from Momoland during Bboom Bboom era. Saerom obviously hasn’t had her hair cut that short though, so I’m invoking my creative license and all of our imaginations lol) for years, her hair slowly but surely growing out over the eras. 

Because of her upbringing around men, she does tend to have what people would refer to as “boyish” habits. She “manspreads”, she’s lowkey obnoxious when she laughs, she’s the “greasy” one in Fuse (meaning she flirts with the members as fan service, think of Sana flirting with Twice but more boyish). Fans even go so far as to call her “oppa” (a la Moonbyul, Seulgi, Jeongyeon, e.t.c.) 

During their Red Flavor era when they gained even more success and momentum, Yaebin gained her very own saesang! How exciting, right? 

This dude won’t leave her alone for shit. He’s been on her ass since 2017 and he’s showing no signs of backing off. It started with him showing up at every Fuse event, then popping up at the airport when they were boarding their flights, then he started sending her shit to HER APARTMENT when she moved out of the dorms. She’s terrified now that he knows where she lives, and sometimes she can’t stand being in her apartment alone when she gets too paranoid and scared, so she calls a friend to come over or she asks if she can come to their place. 

Like Joy, she’s the giant of Fuse (I tweaked Saerom’s height a bit to make her 5′8″, which wouldn’t be unrealistic because she looks tall lol), but she likes her height and she’s extremely comfortable with it. 

She’s pan but she’s gay as hell. Guys are great and all, so are penises, but girls? Say less. 

Connection Time~~~~~

Exes! Good terms, bad terms, mutual, one initiated it, anything. (OPEN)

People she calls when she wants to come over or wants them to come over when she’s feeling unsafe in her apartment. (OPEN)

The person who teaches her all about makeup and fashion. She didn’t really start dabbling in it herself until recently because she just allowed Fuse’s stylists to do all the work, but she wants to start learning! (OPEN)

A best friend! The peanut butter to her jelly, the Lee Dongwook to her Gong Yoo, the IU to her Yoo Inna. (OPEN)

People that helped her through her time as a trainee cir. 2012 - 2014 (OPEN) 

People that she’s shipped with, both men and women! (OPEN) 

Flings, on/off again, will they/won’t they, crush type plots? Throw ‘em at me! (OPEN) 

Yaebin listed them as her ideal type (OPEN)

They listed Yaebin as their ideal type (OPEN)

A woman older than her that’s sort of like a guiding light for her? She never really had an older woman figure in her life, so she really needs that. A big sister type of relationship. Older than a ‘96 liner. (OPEN)

Yaebin and this guy (or masculine presenting person) used to be really close friends. Then netizens started speculating that they were in a relationship and their company (or companies if they’re under different labels) told them to stop seeing each other because it’ll mess up their images. They still text and talk over the phone, and very rarely see each other in person. It sucks, but they do it because they don’t want to give up their friendship. (OPEN) 

Friends with benefits, enemies with benefits, exes with benefits, acquaintances with benefits, throw ‘em all at me~ (OPEN) 

Yaebin’s bro gang. A few people that she can hang out with where she can embrace her “boyish” qualities. People that’ll say “niiiiiiiiice” when she burps for ten seconds straight. (OPEN) 

Opposites attract - friends edition (OPEN)

[melonoverlord]

ABCs for our good good Granny

A: Aptitude

1. what are your oc’s natural abilities, things they’ve been doing since young?

She’s known her way around people since she met her adopted family, since they grew up in a farm town where all the neighbors knew each other.

2. what activities have they participated in?

She’s been in a girl band since she was a young woman, and she’s been performing in her band until about ten years ago, but now she just performs solo because most of her friends have since passed.

3. what abilities do they have that they’ve worked for?

She had a lot of difficulty learning how to maneuver around and keep active when she started getting older. She was always a rambunctious and rowdy child, so when her joints and bones started disagreeing with the types of movements she was doing, Granny had to learn how to calm 

4. what things are they bad at?

Her impulse control is shattered. She is the type of person to cut all the sleeves off her shirts because her friends were gone for the weekend. She is also the type of person to dance shirtless at a bar because someone told her to. She and Xo would either get along swimmingly or get in a fist fight while they’re both drunk.

5. what is their most impressive talent?

She is possibly the best mandolin player in the world. It was her first love and even now one of the only things keeping her tied to her past.

B: Basics

1. what is their hair color?

Silver. Her natural color is dark red though. She’s just old.

2. what is their eye color?

Bright green

3. how tall are they?

3′0

4. how old are they?

Somewhere around mid 70s to early 80s. She lost count, but always says 75 as a counter.

5. how much do they weigh?

85 lbs

C: Comfort

1. how do they sit in a chair?

Manspreading with one arm propped up on the back of the chair (if she can reach that high). If she’s too short to reach the top of the seat, she just folds her arms.

2. in what position do they sleep?

On her stomach with her head on top of both arms. She also doesn’t move at all when she sleeps, so sometimes people worry if she died in her sleep.

3. what is their ideal comfort day?

Chilling at her farm with her younger brother and bandmates while just fucking around with instruments.

4. what is their major comfort food? why?

Pumpkin scones. It was one of the fanciest things her family could afford when she was young.

5. who is the best at comforting them when down?

Her best friend Carmilia, who also lowkey ruined her life. Other than Carm, her younger brother Percy.

D: Decoration

1. how would they decorate a house if they had one under their name?

Now that Granny is an international superstar, she could afford anything she wanted, but she would probably like a “plantation” style home- big farm without the implication of slavery- so she could have a room just for music, another just for partying, and one just so she could say “This is my thinking room.”

2. how would they decorate their child’s room?

She never wants kids, but she would make a room for her brother or friends’ kids if they ever came over. And you know it would have its own chocolate fountain.

3. how do they decorate their own room?

Granny’s room at home was very simple since they lived on a farm, and even after she got rich and famous, they were always on the road so she couldn’t have a fancy house of her own.

4. what type of clothes and accessories do they wear?

When she was younger she’d wear a lot of trousers and comfortable blouses. Now she more opts for riding pants, stylish sweaters, and vests.

5. do they like makeup/nail/beauty trends?

She loved makeup when she was younger. It’s one of her favorite parts of performing (besides the actual performance) and now that it’s hard to do makeup, she just tries to do lipstick.

E: External Personality

1. does the way they do things portray their internal personality?

Granny is and always has been a rowdy, party-loving girl so she doesn’t have a lot of her personality to hide.

2. do they do things that conform to the norm?

Granny was one of the first international superstars, so she’s been breaking norms since she was first found by her adopted parents.

3. do they follow trends or do their own thing?

Granny has been a trendsetter since she could toddle.

4. are they up-to-date on the internet fads?

She tries to be but there are so many fantasy memes these days that she can’t keep up.

5. do they portray their personality intentionally or let people figure it out on their own?

She lets people figure it out on their own because she doesn’t really care about what people think of her.

F: Fun

1. what do they do for fun?

Compose music, partying, and playing with Mordred.

2. what is their ideal party?

One that she doesn’t remember the next morning.

3. who would they have the most fun with?

Her band, her brother, and probably Nugget once she got to know her.

4. can they have fun while conforming to rules?

In theory yes, but really it’s much more fun to break the rules.

5. do they go out a lot?

After a show she always throws an afterparty.

G: Gorgeous

1. what is their most attractive external feature?

She has really pretty light green eyes and when she was younger, she had gorgeous dark red hair.

2. what is the most attractive part of their personality?

She just exudes self confidence and fun.

3. what benefits come with being their friend?

There will never be a boring moment, she will start a bar fight to defend your honor, and she will play your favorite music to make you happy.

4. what parts of them do they like and dislike?

She loved every part of herself when she was younger but now hates that she looks a couple feet in the grave. She just wants to be young again.

5. what parts of others do they envy?

She is slightly jealous of Nugget’s youthful and boundless energy because a bitch be tired.

H: Heat

1. do they rather a hot or cold room?

She’s used to sleeping in the cold more, because her family’s farm was near the mountains, so cold.

2. do they prefer summer or winter?

Summer by far. She is a rowdy girl who loves to have fun in the sun.

3. do they like the snow?

She thinks its really fun to do cannonballs in the snow.

4. do they have a favorite summer activity?

Swimming

5. do they have a favorite winter activity?

Making cookies

I: In-the-closet

1. what is their sexuality?

Tied for best aroace in the history of aroaces.

2. have they ever questioned their sexuality?

When she was younger, she tried to see if she had a crush on anyone, but she was always more of the type to go party hard than to have sex.

3. have they ever questioned their gender?

No, she’s always been comfortable as a girl.

4. would/was their family be okay with them being LGBT?

Her family was very rural, so while they wouldn’t completely understand (except her brother, who is gay), they would accept her.

5. how long would/did it take for them to come out?

She came out when she was about fifteen, asking why she didn’t feel any romantic love for anyone.

J: Joy

1. what makes them happy?

Playing music, being around people, and generally being rowdy

2. who makes them happy?

Her little brother, and her bandmates.

3. are there any songs that bring them joy?

‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ by the Angels

4. are they happy often?

Lately she’s been feeling more glum because she’s old and alone with just Mordred. But when she was younger, she was extremely happy.

5. what brings them the most joy in the world?

Playing music and her goat son, Mordred.

K: Kill

1. have they ever thought about suicide?

No, Granny’s already afraid of dying because she’s old.

2. have they ever thought about homicide?

She doesn’t necessarily like fatal violence, but there’s a particular asshole that needs a good asswhooping.

3. if they could kill anyone without punishment, would they? who?

The asshole that needs a asswhooping because he ruined her life.

4. who would miss them if they died?

She knows her family and friends, but the thing is that she doesn’t even know if they’re alive. Mordred of course would be a devastated lil goat. And of course her adoring fans.

5. who would be happy they died, anyone?

Literally there is one person she knows that would revel at her death.

L: Lemons

1. what is their favorite fruit?

She fucking loves anything pumpkin flavored.

2. what is their least favorite fruit?

Cranberries taste like someone tried to make a fruit but weren’t really sure what they’re supposed to taste like.

3. are there any foods they hate?

She can’t stand any mushy textures, so mashed potatoes or oatmeal.

4. do they have any food intolerances?

She’s allergic to tree nuts.

5. what is their favorite food?

Pumpkin scones.

M: Maternal

1. would they want a daughter or a son?

If she haaaad to have a child, she would prefer a son since she grew up with a brother and has more experience dealing with a male child.

2. how many children do they want?

The only kid she wants is her goat son, Mordred.

3. would they be a good parent?

She 100% thinks she’d be an awful parent, but she’d be a great aunt/older sister/grandma. 

4. what would they name a son? what would they name a daughter?

If she had to have a child, she would name a son Percy or Arthur, and daughter Elaine or Alya.

5. would they adopt?

She ain’t having sex, so yes.

N: Never Have I Ever

1. what would they never do?

Kill someone (other than the asshole that ruined her life). She’s killed animals, but she doesn’t like the concept of death for humanoids.

2. what have they never done that they want to do?

She never thought she’d be on the run trying to find a way to get her life back.

3. is there anything they absolutely can’t believe people do?

Spend four hours skinning a yeti.

4. what is the most embarrassing thing they’ve done?

A couple years ago, she got really sick and was put in a nursing home for a while. It was the first time she felt useless for being old.

5. have they done anything they thought they’d never do?

Get old.

O: Optimism

1. are they optimistic or pessimistic?

She can’t afford to be pessimistic. That’s just a ticket to an early grave.

2. are they openly optimistic, throwing it on others?

She tries to be. Her bandmates were always generally optimistic too, so it was just a lot of happy friends.

3. are they good at giving advice?

She’s good at giving advice when it’s someone she knows really well but she’s fucking awful when its someone general.

4. is there anyone in their life that throws optimism on them?

Right now it’s her funky little goat son Mordred, but when she was younger, it was one of her bandmates that was one of the most optimistic people she knew.

5. were they always optimistic?

She’s been optimistic for most of her life. She had a really bad bout of depression about ten years ago, but she’s trying to get her happy attitude back.

P: Personality

1. what is their best personality trait?

Optimism.

2. what is their worst personality trait?

Reckless.

3. what of their personality do others love?

Nugget loves Granny’s “loud happy” which is just Granny’s sense of humor, her brother loved her big sister energy and big heart, and her friends loved her magnetic energy.

4. what of their personality do others envy?

Her brother was jealous of her endless optimism and energy, her best friend who was a half-orc was jealous on how fast Granny made friends with people, and Nugget envies her ability to say what she needs to because Nugget just can’t.

5. do they hate anything about their personality/about other’s personalities?

She can’t be friends with anyone who is boring or doesn’t give a shit about emotions and focuses more on logic.

Q: Questions

1. do they ask for help?

She doesn’t like asking for help because she wants to be self sufficient, but when push comes to shove, she’ll ask for help.

2. do they ask questions in class?

Nah she usually wrote music in class.

3. do they answer questions that make them a little uncomfortable?

She’ll answer all questions except about two, and if those two questions come up, she will distract the other person and evade the question.

4. do they ask weird questions?

She loves getting a rise out of people, so yes.

5. are they curious?

Oh yeah, she loves adventure.

R: Rules

1. do they follow rules?

She was a pretty rebellious child, so while she listened to most of what her parents said, she would do her own thing a lot.

2. would they be a strict or laid-back parent?

Definitely laid back. She doesn’t want to be the discipline parent. She wants to be the vodka aunt.

3. have they ever been consequenced for breaking a rule?

She was sometimes grounded by her parents for sneaking out of the house when she was like 11 or 12 with her younger brother, but it wouldn’t last for more than a week.

4. have they broken any rules they now regret breaking?

Not necessarily a rule, but she regrets going against advice that her band gave not to go to a specific town where her life was ruined.

5. do they find any rules they/others follow absolutely ridiculous?

Anytime she hears that a child has extremely strict parents who don’t let them go anywhere or only hang out with people they approve of, she gets angry.

S: Streets

1. are they street-smart?

She’s learned to be street smart over the past ten years or so.

2. would they give money to someone on the streets?

Absolutely. She has more than enough money to survive.

3. have they ever gotten in a fight on the streets?

She fought a yeti and some wolf-things. She roasted the yeti with sick beats.

4. has anything happened to them on the streets?

Basically everything that’s happened to her since she met Nugget and Elara.

5. are they cautious when out?

She acts like she isn’t, but she’s always on the lookout for trouble.

T: Truth

1. are they honest?

When she was younger, she was extremely honest, not really giving a shit about people’s opinions, and although now she’s nicer, she’s still pretty blunt.

2. can they tell if someone is lying?

Now she’s a little more paranoid about people, but when she was younger, she tended to trust people on their word unless they were really suspicious.

3. is it obvious when they’re lying?

She’s charismatic as fuck. She’s learn how to lie over the years.

4. have they lied about anything they regret lying about?

She’s really only lying about two things, and both she never wants to let the truth be known.

5. have they told truths that have been spread against their will?

She hasn’t told truths that’s been spread, but there was a truth that she wasn’t aware of that got spread.

U: Underdog

1. have they been bullied?

She’s been the victim of passive elder abuse of managers trying to con her out of money, or scammers pretending to be family members that she knows for a fact aren’t real.

2. have they bullied anyone?

She gently bulled whatever-the-fuck-his-name was just because he was objectively awful. She became vegan just to spite him.

3. have they been physically attacked by a bully?

She was stalked during her early part of her 20s but that was a long time ago.

4. have they ever been doubted?

A lot of people thinks that she’s past her prime because she’s old but dammit Granny’s here til the day she dies.

5. have they surprised people with being good at something?

She surprised her family being good at music, and even surprised herself by being good at a shortsword.

V: Vomit

1. do they vomit often?

Granny has impeccable alcohol tolerance, given that halflings are partiers. That being said, once she hits about 7 drinks, she is down for the count and is throwing up for about four hours straight the next morning. Luckily she doesn’t party that much anymore to get that bad.

2. do they get lots of stomach aches?

That being said, she doesn’t get sick that often

3. are they good at comforting someone ill?

She’s been a big sister for a big chunk of her life, so she’s good at comforting her friends and brother.

4. what do they like as far as comfort goes?

Although she’s great comforting other people by rubbing their back or stroking their hair, when Granny’s sick, she wants absolutely nobody and no one touching her or she will barf.

5. do they burp, cough, or hiccup most when nauseous? when vomiting?

She burps a lot. And since she’s so small, she usually has a little jump associated with the burp.

W: Water

1. do they drink enough water?

She maybe drinks a little too much ale for her consumption of water, but water is also very important for keeping the throat showstopper ready, so she drinks enough to keep herself lubricated.

2. have they learned to swim?

Granny lived near a lake when she was younger, so it was one of the first things she learned how to do. And it was also one of the first things she 

3. do they like to swim?

She doesn’t do it as much now because it’s hard to pull herself out, but it feels relaxing on her joints, so whenever she has the opportunity to take a dippity dip, she does.

4. can they dive?

Definitely not anymore, but when she was younger, she could. Granny was more a fan of cannonballing though.

5. can they swim without holding their nose?

Yes, she was quite a good singer.

X: Xylophone

1. what is their favorite genre of music?

50s and 60s girl bands and artists. She loves that classic girl rock.

2. do they have a favorite song?

Dream a Little Dream of Me by Billie Holliday.

3. do they have a favorite band/artist/singer?

Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Angels, and Aretha Franklin. Granny loves old bops by female bands and artists.

4. can they sing well?

She was part of a girl band a long time ago where she sang and played mandolin. She is an amazing singer.

5. can they rap?

Rapping was after her heyday, but if she really took the time to listen to rap music, she’d be able to learn how to rap.

Y: You

1. how old were you when you created them?

19

2. what inspired you to create them?

When I went through my dnd character making spree (in which I made Talia as well), I decided to make an old halfling grandmother. And that is when Granny sprang into existence.

3. were they different when they were first created?

Absolutely. Before I made her official background, my plan was for her to be a disgraced singer who was making her comeback tour because her grandchildren told her that no one cares about her anymore. But now she has a better backstory that I love.

4. do you enjoy writing them more than other characters?

It’s a shame that the campaign fell through, because Granny is a phenomenal character and I love playing her. Her voice, although ruins my own vocal cords, is extremely fun to do.

5. what’s your favorite thing about them?

Despite being rough and tumble and kinda an egoist, she still wants to protect the people she’s with. And she would die for all of her friends.

Z: Zebra

1. what’s their favorite animal?

Lions. Big, fiery, and badass.

2. do they like animals?

Because she grew up around animals, she loves them, but not enough to make a career taking care of them.

3. cats or dogs?

Dogs. She had a lot of dogs growing up and loved running around with them. Her favorite was named Jasper.

4. what’s their dream pet?

When she was a child, she had horses and really misses them. Someday she’d like a horse, particularly the black ones.

5. do they have any pets at the moment?

She has her pet goat Mordred who she’d die for.

[unkorkd]

https://www.welovegoodsex.com/why-im-not-a-feminist-anymore/

Here is a rant piece that I came across today written by Lucie Blush, a former feminist who directs and sometimes performs in adult films. The write-up covers extremism which has contaminated a transformative movement that once aimed to transpose oppression for liberation but instead became a fanatical hotbed of hateful antithetic rhetoric. Due to her frustrations with being associated with this new erratic attitude that is permeating within feminism the socially conscious pornographer decided to depart from the community. 

 I’ve seen many disheartening shifts infiltrate doctrines that were meant to uplift the disenfranchised. It’s the reason why I have either distanced or completely denounced philosophies that I once condoned. I still am an avid supporter of feminism. I would suggest that she reevaluate her objectivity and remain connected to the true essential purpose of feminism. I don’t agree with everything that she says here but I do understand her anger. Below are some profound and fiery excerpts that definitely will rouse the reader. Click the link to proceed to the full article.  

“Basically, saying things has become a weapon and feminists keep on blabbering about fake issues likemanspreading to keep women from realising their true power”

Talking about her genre of pornography: “It was feminist because I paid male actors as much as female actors (porn is one industry in which women are paid far better than men)”

“today’s feminism is definitely not the same as my grandma’s version of it.”

“nobody knows who they’re supposed to be now. Are you gender-fluid, gay, non-binary, bisexual, cis, pansexual…? Come on, think about it, which box feels cosier? All these fake new concepts and words. 76 genders. Just new names for new problems”

“Our womanhood has become both our shackles and our anthem. We promote it and condemn it at the same time”

“women are dependent on the fashion industry to find self-worth, that all they should think about is what they wear. How come we don’t teach little girls about child labor, because nobody seems appalled by the fact that slave children make these clothes for us”

“Women. Everybody talks about us. Fantasizes about us. Sells to us. Everybody seems obsessed with women. Saying that we are equal to men means nothing”

“Imagine a woman who walks into a restaurant and makes most men in the room turn their heads towards her, bewitched by her beauty as she slowly walks to her table. Is that sexist?Or is that the proof that this woman has been given great power? Would she go on rants and complain about these men’s creepy staring? Or would she be aware of her power and use it to make the world a better place?”

“I had come to think that men were just looking to takeadvantageof me and it clouded my intuitive judgment,so a long-time partner of mine would suddenly transform into an insensitive macho pig and I wouldn’t be able to analyse thesituation clearly. It just created problemsout of thin air”

“Yes there is sexism at work. But it goes both waysnow and if you still don’t like it, then you don’t need to be a corporate slut anyway. Is our goal as women to prove that we can also be greedy CEOs?”

“I stopped thinking feminism was an incontestable way of life. Our mission today is not to post angry tweets about instagram removing a picture of our tits. We were made so self-conscious about ourselvesthat weare now craving validation and then getting pissed for receiving dick pics on Tinder”

“Making banners and shouting about how guys are dicks will not help you become an assertive woman. It will not teach you how to fend for yourself, how to make a man or anybody listen to you and takeyou seriously. It will just tell you that you should complain about how unfair things are like an angry little girl”

“This is fake generosity, fake concern, only to conceal thesaddest, most bitter women out there.”

On feminist porn:  “I realised that sex and feminism were simply used as a marketing tool, adding a cool new look to the same old patterns, still paying men less than women, tweeting about manspreading, pinking up their logos and fattening up their bank accounts”

“You’re the only one who has the power to make yourself free. Anything that comes too easy is not to be trusted. Feminism, likeall isms, is a cultish ideology.”

“This whole new social justice thing is a trap. It’s just a way to get us to fight each other. Pick your side. Are you with the blacks? The feminists? Or with the racists and sexists? Because it seems these days that if you’re not one, you’re automatically the other.”

“Something has shifted. Up is down. Left is right. Black is white. Men are women. Women are men. Feminists make porn while 13-year-old Russian girls becomesex slaves.”

[if-this-is-a-woman]

Rebecca Solnit: if I were a man

By Rebecca Solnit, www.theguardian.com

View Original

August 26th, 2017

Growing up, the author joked she was the perfect son: intelligent, ambitious, independent. How different might her life have been?

06.00 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 20 September 2017 05.26 EDT

When I was very young, some gay friends of mine threw a cross-dressing party. My boyfriend at the time, with the help of his mother, did so well that a lot of straight men were unnerved; they needed to know that the lust-inspiring, simpering siren in the tight slip was not compromising their heterosexuality. I was not nearly so convincing as a Rod Stewart-ish man with charcoal five o’clock shadow, and I was a little taken aback to realise that, to me, impersonating a man meant manspreading on the sofa, belching and scratching personal parts, glowering and cursing. There was a sense of not having to please anyone and not having to be likable that was fun, but it wasn’t necessarily someone I wanted to be.

I am old enough that girls weren’t allowed to wear trousers to school until midway through my elementary school education; that I remember a local newspaper columnist arguing in a grumpy panic that if women wore trousers gender would vanish, which he saw as a terrifying thing. I have worn jeans and shoes that are good for rough terrain for most of my life, along with lipstick and long hair, and being a woman has let me walk this line between what used to be considered masculine and feminine. But I have wondered from time to time what life would be like if I were a man. By this I don’t mean to aspire to, or appropriate, or suffer from gender dysphoria and the deeper issues around bodies, sexuality and sense of self that trans people contend with.

I like a lot of things about being a woman, but there are times and ways it’s a prison, and sometimes I daydream about being out of that prison. I know that being a man can be a prison in other ways. I know and love a lot of men, straight and gay, and I see burdens they’re saddled with that I’m glad not to carry. There are all the things men are not supposed to do and say and feel; the constant patrol on boys to prevent them from or punish them for doing anything inconsistent with conventions of heterosexual masculinity, those boys for whom, in their formative years, faggot and pussy – being not straight or not male – are still often the most sneering of epithets.

Back in the 1970s, when some men were figuring out how their own liberation might parallel women’s liberation, there was a demonstration at which guys held a banner that said, “Men are more than just success objects.” Perhaps as a girl, I was liberated by expectations that I’d be some variation on a failure. I could rebel by succeeding, while a lot of white middle-class men of my era seemed to rebel by failing, because the expectations had been set so very high for them. That had the upside of more support, sometimes, for their endeavours, but the downside of more pressure and higher expectations. They were supposed to grow up to be president, or their mother’s pride and joy, or their family’s sole support, or a hero every day – to somehow do remarkable things; being ordinary, decent and hardworking was often regarded as not enough. But success was available to them, and that was an advantage – and still is. We still have wild disproportions on those fronts; the New York Times reported in 2015 that “Fewer large companies are run by women than by men named John”. Among the top firms in the US, “for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James”.

Back when my mother was alive and well, I used to joke that my problem was that I was a perfect son. What my mother expected from me was, as far as I could tell, profoundly different from what she expected from her three sons. I used to joke that they were supposed to fix her roof; I was supposed to fix her psyche. She wanted something impossible from me, some combination of best friend confidante, nurturer, and person she could dump on about anything at any time – a person who would never disagree or depart. She lived about 20 miles north of San Francisco, where I’ve lived since I was 18, and I was willing to show up regularly, including holidays, Mother’s Day and her birthday, bring gifts, listen, be helpful in practical ways, while carrying on with my own life (I’d left home and become financially independent at 17).

As it was, she resented the opportunities I had that she felt she had not, starting with college, which she was not encouraged to go to, unlike her brother. This resentment is common, I think, between her generation and mine, and in some ways she saw my career as disrupting my proper role as her caregiver, or as a caregiver generally. I knew that the acceptable escape from being devoted to her was to devote my life to some other people – to get a husband, to have kids – rather than to be unavailable because I was working and living my own life. When I was young, she would recite to me the couplet “A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life.” In her expectations was an undertone of: I have sacrificed my life to others; sacrifice yours to me.

I’m not a sacrifice, but my work was a source of conflict for others as well. I started college early, graduated early, went onward to the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, where I took a degree just before I turned 23, worked for a magazine, left the magazine and inadvertently found myself a freelance writer, which is largely how I’ve earned my living these past three decades. I published a book at 30, and then another one – 20 to date.

Photograph: John Lee for the Guardian

Early on in my friendship with an older feminist writer who has written many influential books, we used to laugh about the guys we met who were upset that we had published so much. They seemed to feel that they had to be more successful than whoever they were attracted to; that somehow our creative work was an act of aggression or competition. I don’t think women approach men the same way (though a novelist once told me his ex-wife made him feel like a race horse she was betting on). We joked, “If I knew I was going to meet you I would have burned the manuscripts.” Or as I’d laugh later, “Do you think this book makes my brain look big?” Boys can be stigmatised as nerds and geeks, but they can’t really be too smart. Girls can, and a lot of girls learn to hide their intelligence, or just abandon or devalue or doubt it. Having strong opinions and clear ideas is incompatible with being flatteringly deferential.

What is confidence in a man is too often viewed as competitiveness in a woman; what is leadership in a man is bossiness in a woman; even the word bossy, like slut or nag, is seldom applied to men. A few decades ago, I knew a woman who was a world champion martial artist. Her husband’s family was disconcerted by the fact that he could not beat her up. They did not suppose he wanted to, but they presumed he was somehow emasculated by not being able to, by the fact that she did not make him feel mighty in this abominable way. He himself, to his credit, did not seem to give a damn.

As a girl, I would have liked to have my intelligence and intellectual labours regarded as an unmitigated good and a source of pride, rather than something I had to handle delicately, lest I upset or offend. Success can contain implicit failure for straight women, who are supposed to succeed as women by making men feel godlike in their might. As Virginia Woolf reflected: “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”

I have met a lot of brilliant men whose spouses serve their careers and live in their shadows, and marrying a successful man is still considered the pinnacle of women’s achievement in many circles. Some of those women flourished, but not a few seemed diminished by their role as helpmeet and handmaiden, and if they got divorced, they divorced the identity they’d helped build and maintain. There have been so many women who stayed at home and raised the kids while men went off on adventures and pursued accomplishments. There still are. These straight men with brilliant careers and families – no one asks them how they manage to have it all, because we know: she’s how.

Ms Magazine’s first issue in 1972 published a landmark essay titled Why I Want A Wife. It’s an appalling list of all the things a wife might do for her husband and children, of a woman as a sort of self-managed servant. Even recently, one of my best friends told me he’s taken aback at the smiles-and-compliments response to his going about in public with his new son, as if taking care of his kid is some sort of optional special credit he’s earning. It’s as though everything fathers do, economics aside, is bonus; nothing mothers do is enough. This is one of the reasons why a woman might want to be a man (and why choosing to have children can mean something entirely different for a woman than a man, unless she has that still-rare thing: a partner whose commitment to the work is truly equal). Were I a man, or had I a woman as partner, I might have made very different choices about marriage and children.

Photograph: John Lee for the Guardian

One often hears statements implying that it’s generous of a man to put up with a woman’s brilliance or success, though more and more straight couples are negotiating this as more women become principal breadwinners or higher earners (and Leonard Woolf was exemplary in his support for his wife’s work, which outshone his own). But growing up, I knew that I was supposed to be the audience rather than a participant, or the centre of attention.

I’ve written before about men explaining things – about that dynamic in which some men assume they know when they don’t, and that the woman they’re talking to doesn’t when she does. A 2008 essay I wrote on the topic never stopped circulating, apparently because it resonated for so many women and maybe some men. The word mansplaining now exists in more than 30 languages, according to an article this year, and I realise that built into the idea is a dynamic in which women are eternally the audience. There are no signs that mansplaining is going away. An acquaintance recently told me, “A man once asked me if I knew of the Bracero program [for Mexican farmworkers in the US], and when I said, ‘Why yes, I wrote my undergrad thesis about it,’ he replied, ‘Well, I’ll tell you about it.’ I said, ‘No, I’ll tell you, fucker!’ And then the dinner party got weird.”

Like most women, even after the age when strangers demanded I give them a smile, I’ve had complete strangers come up to me to unload their theories or stories at considerable length, without reciprocity in the conversation, if conversation is the term for this one-way street. We know the reality of this from studies about how boys are called on more in school, and grow up to talk more in meetings, and interrupt women more than men.

In the 1990s the artist Ann Hamilton gave her students lightweight 4ft by 8ft sheets of plywood to carry around everywhere they went for a week. The exercise made them conscious of navigating space; they were awkward, forever at risk of bumping into people and things, probably offering up a lot of excuses. Success sometimes seems like that for women, an awkwardly large thing that is supposed to be in other people’s way and for which you might need to apologise periodically. The phrases sometimes used for men who partner with successful women – taking it in his stride, not put out by, OK with, dealing with, cool with – are reminders that female success can be regarded as some kind of intrusion or inappropriate behaviour.

What would it feel like to have a success that does not in any way contain failure, that is not awkward or grounds for apology, something that you don’t need to downplay, to have power that enhances rather than detracts from your attractiveness? (The very idea that powerlessness is attractive is appalling – and real.) Ann Hamilton has had a tremendous career, and some of it came from the sheer scale and ambition of her work from the outset, which seemed exceptional when she appeared on the art scene in the late 1980s. I remember all the women art students I met in that era, who made tiny, furtive things that expressed something about their condition, including the lack of room they felt free to occupy. How do you think big when you’re supposed to not get in the way, not overstep your welcome, not overshadow or intimidate? Ann wrote to me when I asked about that plywood assignment long ago: “I am still trying to break the habit of apologising for myself – even though I have little hesitation in asking for help on projects – asking for myself brings out the old, ‘Please excuse me.’”

Hillary Clinton during the presidential debate. She has talked about facing hostility at law school from men. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP

I know things are changing, and younger women have different experiences, but women older than me have horrifying stories to tell, and we are not out from under that shadow. Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says of her arrival at law school in the 1950s, “The dean then asked each of us in turn to say what we were doing at the law school, occupying a seat that could be held by a man.” Hillary Clintontold an interviewer a few years ago about meeting with similar opposition in the 1960s, from the young men who’d shown up to take the law school admissions test at Harvard when she did. One even accused her of being homicidal in her ambitions: “If you take my spot, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.” He didn’t imagine she had a right to compete; or that the place that neither had yet won was no more his than hers. It’s not just trouble at the top: women plumbers, electricians and mechanics have told me about being treated as incompetent, intrusive or both in their field.

It isn’t hard to find contemporary horror stories of women who can’t wedge a word in edgewise at meetings, have their ideas taken up by others, don’t get promoted as they might if they were men, who get harassed and groped or, in the white-collar world, not invited to the executive bonding sessions. This year Silicon Valley has been haemorrhaging workers’ stories of sexual harassment and discrimination, and the gist of many is that the tech companies tolerate harassment more than they tolerate people who report it. Even this month a Google employee, in a now infamous screed, insisted that the deeply unequal landscape of Silicon Valley’s white-collar jobs is due to nothing more or less than men’s superior capacity.

We still have a long way to go. A young woman enrolled at a women’s college told me this summer she was thrilled to be in an intellectual habitat where no shining young men were going to dominate the classroom conversations the way they had in her high school; walking home across campus at 3am without thinking about safety was another pleasure. (Women do engage in sexual assault, but in numbers that are minute compared to those of men.) Women are targets in the online world, too; in a little experiment on Twitter last year, the journalist Summer Brenner borrowed her brother’s profile picture and turned her first name into initials – the harassment she had experienced online dropped to almost nothing. Women may aspire to be men just to be free from persecution by them.

If I were a man… I didn’t want to be someone else so much as I wanted, from time to time, to be treated as someone else, or left alone as I would be if I was something else. In particular, I’ve wanted to be able to walk around alone, in cities, on mountains, unmolested. You can’t wander lonely as a cloud when you’re always checking to see whether you’re being followed, or bracing yourself in case the person passing grabs you. I’ve been insulted, threatened, spat on, attacked, groped, harassed, followed; women I know have been stalked so ferociously they had to go into hiding, sometimes for years; other women I know have been kidnapped, raped, tortured, stabbed, beaten with rocks, left for dead. It impacts on your sense of freedom to say the least.

A small part of my consciousness is perpetually occupied by these survival questions whenever I’m outdoors alone, though there are a few places I’ve been – Iceland, Japan, extremely remote wildernesses where bears were the only menace – where I felt I didn’t have to think about it. Solitary walking is where a lot of writers – Wordsworth, Rousseau, Thoreau, Gary Snyder – got a lot of their thinking and composing done; I have, too, but it got interrupted both from outside and from this internal monitor, always thinking about my safety. I know that my whiteness tips the balance the other way with this; it lets me go places that a black person can’t, and the short answer to what my life might be like had I been born black would be: different in nearly every imaginable respect.

There are many stories of people cross-dressing not as self-expression, but for practical purposes, just as there are of people of colour passing as white. Deborah Samson and Anna Maria Lane are among the women who fought against the British in the revolutionary war dressed as men, and more women did the same in the Union Army during the civil war. The novelist George Sand used a man’s name to traverse the literary world of 19th-century France and then men’s clothes to traverse Paris. She wasn’t just hiding out from harassment, but putting away the treacherous shoes and yards of fabric that made it hard to walk through a city that was rough-surfaced and filthy. She traded those fragile things in for solid boots and sturdy clothes in which she could roam confidently in all weathers and times of day and night, and loved it. Sylvia Plath, born a century later, wrote in her journal when she was 19 that, “Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked at law school what she was doing ‘occupying a seat that could be held by a man’. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Not a little of the stuff women wore, and still wear, is an impediment and a confinement. Some women evacuating the World Trade Center on September 11 did so barefoot, lacerating their feet because their shoes impaired their mobility. What is it like to spend a lot of your life in shoes in which you’re less steady and swift than the people around you? Some women wear tight clothes that hamper free movement, fragile clothes, clothes you can trip over. These garments can be fun and glamorous, but as an everyday uniform they’re often incapacitating.

Trans people have been remarkable witnesses to how differently the world treats them when they transition. I have read many stories of a woman finding that she no longer has the right of way but will be bumped into on the street; a man finding that he is no longer interrupted. Gender shapes the spaces – social, conversational, professional, as well as literal – that we are given to occupy. Who we are, I realised as I co-created an atlas of New York City, is even built into the landscape, in which many things are named after men, few after women, from streets and buildings – Lafayette Street, Madison Avenue, Lincoln Center, Rockefeller Center – to boroughs – nearby Paterson, Levittown, Morristown. The nomenclature of the city seemed to encourage men to imagine greatness for themselves as generals, captains of industry, presidents, senators. My collaborators and I made a map in which all the subway stops in New York were renamed after the city’s great women. Last year, when I discussed it with students at Columbia university (named after Christopher Columbus, of course), a young woman of colour remarked that she had slouched all her life; that in a city where things were named after people like her she might stand up straight. Another wondered whether she would be sexually harassed on boulevards named after women. The world is an uneven surface, with plenty to trip on and room to reinvent.

I like being a woman. I love watching and maybe smiling at or talking to kids I run into in parks and grocery stores and anywhere else; I’m confident no one will ever take me for a creep or a kidnapper, and I know that it would be more complicated if I were a man. There are more subtle advantages about the range of expression I’m allowed in my personal relations, including in my close, supportive, emotionally expressive friendships with other women – and, through all my adult life, my friendships with gay men, many of whom who have boldly, festively, brilliantly broken the rules of masculinity and helped me laugh at the gaps between who we are and who we’re supposed to be. Liberation is a contagious project, and growing up around people who took apart and reassembled gender helped liberate even a straight woman like me.

So I don’t wish I were a man. I just wish we were all free.

[ai-doration]

She silly <3

Was just scrolling through my screenshots, and then I just saw and noticed in one of them MOON IS SPLITTING??? HELP???