#reject gender roles

[eros-elove4]

I highly recommend that fellow queer people try out Robert smith’s makeup because I did and I feel very androgynous! Doesn’t even matter if you listen to the cure or not.

[celebrate-lesbianism]

"Beauty is pain"

I'll stick to being handsome then

[osm2]

[pinkribbonsblog]

The most beautiful thing a woman can do for herself

[nantokanarusaa]

Ao no Flag (SERIES FINALE SPOILERS!!)

Seriously, don’t read this if you are planning to read Ao no Flag. That being said, go read the manga now!!

Finally finished reading Ao no Flag and I have so many feelings. Non-coherent, rambly, messy feelings. I was looking at reactions online and what mainly boggles me about the reactions to the final 2 chapters is people being “how is Taichi suddenly gay??” My friend living on this big planet he never was (he’s bi). He most likely just realized it later in life. Did the events of his 3rd HS year help him figure it out? Heck yes. Is he suddenly bi? No.

Not all queer people pop out into this world and instantly know they are queer. Heck, it took me 23 years to figure that out. It’s not like Taichi instantly realized he likes Touma and started dating him. He knew Touma mattered to him somehow, but it took him multiple years to realize how, as evident by him maybe starting his relationship with Touma after 5 years when Touma contacted them all. He gained life experience and grew.

People go through a lot of learning, unlearning and growing. Especially if you are outside of societal expectations and norms. Taichi grew up learning to and wanting to blend in with society. “Be normal, don’t stand out too much”. Add to that low self-confidence and you feel stuck. Feel like there is only black and white. only one right answer to life. It can be very difficult to look out of this dark box, trust me, I had a tough time and sometimes still do. But it feels like Taichi thought and thought and pondered even back in high school and came to the decisions that he did.

And isn’t that what the series is about? growing as a person, making mistakes, learning, allowing yourself to be visible and vulnerable, and eventually, making choices, even if they don’t make sense to anyone else, and continuing to do so?

These two pages really hit me hard and I was wondering why. And then it hit me. This is possibly the happiest I’ve seen Taichi be since his childhood. Like genuinely happy. He’s reached max happiness points and is sharing those with Touma. He’s made his choices, and he’s happy. You can and are allowed to choose what or who makes you happy.

That’s all that matters.

[myhousewifedreams]

A PSA to everyone, but mostly men:

I am not on here to find a husband. I am not on here to encourage the sexualization of traditional values.

I just enjoy posting about femininity and homemaking, neither of which are inherently sexual. If you'd like to message me to chat about those topics, I welcome the conversation! Otherwise, don't bother.

[uranium]

this show is kind of making me have a bit of a gender crisis. if i may be real

[divinemackerel]

genuinely fascinated by the idea proposed in my notes that Dean Winchester would be a transman or transwoman. Because that guy always has struck me as painfully cis but in a boring way. He is in the valley of our inverse bell curve transgenderism chart, the perfectly cis guy who calls himself an ally but is weirdly uncomfortable with trans people because they can vaguely challenge his sexuality/position as a straight guy.

[letheslullaby]

Coping mechanisms for the mentally disturbed: debating on writing out several academic-style mla-cited explorations of various fanfic tropes that people either 1) don't really care about or 2) are aware of because everyone only ever hears about that trope for the absolute batshit insane kink shit

[banished-away]

feeling slightly vindicated watching an RAS interview bc keep getting this feeling from the drizzt books that theyre very italian-american (as in, i see a lot of things i recognize from italian culture in it, but influenced and changed by american culture) and he said that he based off the culture of menzo partly on his hometown and then the sopranos/godfather which confirmed it to me

also he pronounces menzoberranzan the way i used to before someone else corrected me JKNDSKJFKDS

[goodluckclove]

hii do u have any advice for someone looking to get into playwriting?

Hey! I recently realized I didn't have Anon asks on! Now I do! Hopefully I won't regret this, maybe!

Uh so I've pretty much exclusively written plays that I then produced and directed. This means my perspective on playwriting is super specific and heavily biased by the three plays I produced from like 18-20.

This is going to be long so here's a read more.

(The website is not great but apparently it has samples of all three of the plays I put on. The monologue from Unhappy People made a LOT of people cry.)

I mainly produced through a local art festival in San Jose, California. Most cities have festivals like these, they're usually held in some downtown street where artists rent out spaces to set up canopies and usually sell their wares. Sometimes they do discounts for performers - I think I'd pay like less than a hundred bucks for the weekend, maybe. And then I paid for a canopy. You might not need that, though. I would put out a donation jar and put up signs around the block with the two "showtimes". Both times I think I made enough to pay for my space, plus a bit extra.

All the money I made went straight into the next show. I did not make any profit for myself. I did make the right connections to do a show inside, on an actual stage. If you're ever in San Jose, catch a show at the Art Boutiki. It's super cool and I left my troupe's signature on the wall of the green room.

Producing plays was, in my experience, more accessible than I thought it would be. Not profitable, certainly - but fun, and extremely validating. If you're willing to send emails and have conversations that are a little vulnerable, you can get surprisingly far. And when you direct a story into a cohesive, collaborative whole, it's an incredible feeling. When you see the way an audience reacts, it's even better.

You need a play to do all that first, though. So what have I learned from writing plays?

Dialogue is usually a crucial element. if you're familiar with absurdist and experimental theater, you'll know there are plays with little to no actual lines. Samuel Beckett's "Breathe", for instance, a real play that exists and can be produced. Of course I'm personally of the belief that before you deconstruct the expectations of a medium, you should know how to build something. So if you hate dialogue, if you think it's lame and dumb and avoid it at all costs - I won't say don't write theater, but I'd love to talk to you and find out why you're drawn to it as a concept.

How do you write dialogue? I'm not - certain, really? I'm sure there's several paths to get to the same place. I'm sure it doesn't hurt to read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies and plays - all of which from different eras and genres whenever you can. Just absorb a vast spectrum of different ways people talk. I think this is like my one form of writing advice across the board. Eavesdropping and people watching are also super useful - I usually do this at busy coffee shops or parks.

Early on I got a lot of use out of reading my dialogue out loud. Having it sound "real" is remarkably less important than making sure it sounds the way you want it to sound. Sometimes dialogue in writing isn't supposed to sound the way people actually talk. Sometimes people speak in poetry. Sometimes they rant in riddles (Side note: I couldn't remember Sarah Kane's name but she is the first result if you Google women playwright eating baby which absolutely says a lot about her type of vibe). Theater brings an allowance of abstraction. For some reason, when writing dialogue made specifically for people to hear spoken to them in person, an audience tends to not question when it doesn't sound like how people actually talk. It's weird.

There's a lot of limitations in theater. Even more so when you have a super limited budget. At the same time, there are a ton of workarounds that do way less and yet paint the same effect. Lights, sound, basic set pieces - all of these things can imply grander elements when you can't actually depict them. It's a tricky balance, though, so I personally tend to stay super simple. Most of the plays I've written don't require anything other than chairs and a table or two.

If you have a table and some chairs you can absolutely just move them around and use dialogue and a few props to establish you're in an office, or a restaurant table, or a kitchen nook - whatever. It's implication and illusion. An audience is able to fill in the gaps. It's like playing pretend when you were kids - you had nothing in terms of effects, but you all understood where you were.

I would also say keeping things vague in the stage directions of a written script is also super valuable - for me, at least. You'll see varying degrees of specificity depending on the playwright - Tennessee Williams leans meticulous, using paragraphs just to describe the set of a play, while Tom Stoppard give very little in terms of character direction and fucking nothing in terms of set pieces. There's a clear spectrum here.

The less you explicitly write, the more is left to actors and the production team. I think this is cool, so while I write a decent amount of stage direction I like to phrase it in a way that allows multiple interpretation. Instead of taking a dramatic scene and describing how the character trembles their lips and releases a sob, then crumples into a chair, head in hands before slumping to the floor - I would probably just say she breaks. That can be seen in a lot of different ways depending on the actor, which I enjoy. It's cool in theater to open yourself up to the collaboration other actors can bring to enhance your story in ways you never would've predicted.

A few more things that are also kind of my own opinion, but I'll say them anyways. If you get the chance to direct your own work, even just for a reading, don't refuse to cast a role purely because it doesn't fit the Exact Mold you had in mind. Consider different possibilities! You might be blown away by the atmosphere created by making a casting choice you didn't initially intend for. Collaboration is a beautiful part of theater. Writing and producing end up so much better when you don't work from a place of blatant ego! This is totally not referring to specific people I used to know and collaborate with!

Anyways this was a huge ramble but I'm happy you asked and I'm happy to talk about it. Feel free to hit me with more anons if you want to know anything else!

[clove-pinks]

Pictures I use to scare Javert after the Flamin' Hot Cheetos fail to have an effect on him

[unpleasant-angel]

ARE YOU FEMINIST ICON GIRLYPOP YES OR NO????!?!??!!

-🧠🎧

i won't comment on the girlypopness of my existence but i can tell you

every gender is to be pranked equally

[osm2]

[musings-by-rae]

I've spent years feeling more and more uncomfortable with the identity I've been assigned. There are many labels that might be a better fit. I might use all of them. I might use one. But I need somewhere to get my thoughts out. So here I am.

[deathbringer]

maybe this is too niche an idea, but it seems a shame to me that no ex-Protestant TMG fan here on tumblr (as far as I can tell) has ever used held under these smothering waves / by your strong and thick-veined hand / but one of these days / I am gonna wriggle up on dry land for an art piece about leaving the church. I know I am not the only one whose baptism did not sit right in their soul.

(if anyone suddenly decides the idea is up their alley to use, well, you're welcome.)