#something I and many other queer people living outside the US would relate to would be having to grapple with the

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Girl help why is a fantasy setting using modern American gender terminology

They could've already bounced off of the existing term aqun-athlok and show the gender culture of the North largely adopting Qunari concepts as part of cultural exchange resulting from the literal hundreds of years of war with the Qun. The only openly transgender characters we know of are from Tevinter anyway! They already wanted to show the Qun in a more positive light in Veilguard, having Thedosian queer culture be primarily influenced by the Qun would be a great way to do exactly that

[collaredkittyboy]

Well it's come up multiple times today so I'll make a post about it.

I think the popularization of the word "twink" has ultimately been really bad for people in general.

I know it's hard to track the positive and negative effects of language but I don't think it's hard to see how creating a word for a group of people wherein the most consistent qualifying trait is "being skinny" is healthy for people's self image. Obviously people have lots of ideas about what it means to be a twink- gay, lacking body hair, feminine, beautiful, young, white- but the most consistent descriptor I've seen is "skinny." Hell, it's even a body type on Grindr; the size below "average."

So it kind of functions as a code word in the gay community: anyone can say that they're only interested in twinks and they don't have to look shallow by saying they only like skinny guys. It's such an accepted attitude that no one really bats an eye when they hear it.

I'm not even going to get into how it's become part of the larger issue of people turning "top" and "bottom" into gender roles 2.0, but that is closely related, because people with any internalized homophobia can look at a skinny, feminine man and turn off their fag alarms by viewing him as a woman or not a "real" man, and it makes twinks more acceptable to society at large.

No, ignoring all of that, one of the biggest issues is that gay men are taught by society that they are only attractive while they are skinny. Just having the label "twink" reminds a boy that people are looking at his body and judging it. There were countless times when I was growing up that people would tell me, "You're such a twink," or argue about whether or not I qualified as a twink because I had body hair. People around you, unpromted, judge your body and give you a label based on it, and that label has a large influence on whether or not you're seen as objectively attractive. I know many other gay people who say they wish they were a twink so they could be more attractive to guys.

So think, you have all these kids growing up being told whether or not they qualify as a twink, and then we have the gay community as a whole where it's completely acceptable to say you're only attracted to twinks. I think its because of all of this pressure to be a twink (in other words, to have a below average weight) that many of the gay people that I interact with struggle with a negative body image or eating disorders.

I mean, people talk about "twink death" like it's an actual event that makes a gay man much less attractive, and no one thinks that, maybe, it's harmful to tell a guy that the very day he stops being young and thin and pretty, he will stop being attractive and celebrated?

I'm not qualified to speak on fatphobia in physical queer spaces because I don't have the ability to frequent them where I live, but I can't imagine that these aren't issues at social gatherings as well. I also can't speak on my own experiences with weight discrimination because so far in my life I have had a naturally thin body, but I have experienced a lot of outside pressure to be thin that have caused me to pick up unhealthy eating habits to reduce my weight in fear that I could become fat later on. Thankfully that is something that I've mostly been able to work past. I'm not an expert, but idk, I just wanted to rant on my silly tumblr blog.

Obviously it's impossible for a word to be inherently bad. I'm not trying to imply that saying "twink" is a magic word with evil powers. Obviously the real issues at play here are fatphobia and harmful beauty standards and body shaming. But in my opinion, the popular use of the word twink has made it much easier and acceptable to express fatphobia, etc, in the gay community by turning "skinny person" into a "type of guy that you should try to be so you can be attractive."

[sunny-day-jack-official]

URGENT! Stop KOSA!

Hey all, this is BáiYù and Sauce here with something that isn't necessarily SnaccPop related, but it's important nonetheless. For those of you who follow US politics, The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate yesterday and is moving forward.

This is bad news for everyone on the internet, even outside of the USA.

What is KOSA?

While it's officially known as "The Kids Online Safety Act," KOSA is an internet censorship masquerading as another "protect the children" bill, much in the same way SESTA/FOSTA claimed that it would stop illegal sex trafficking but instead hurt sex workers and their safety. KOSA was originally introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass. and Bill Cassidy, R-La. as a way to update the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Act, raising the age of consent for data collection to 16 among other things. You can read the original press release of KOSA here, while you can read the full updated text of the bill on the official USA Congress website.

You can read the following articles about KOSA here:

EFF: The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online

CyberScoop: Children’s online safety bills clear Senate hurdle despite strong civil liberties pushback

TeenVogue: The Kids Online Safety Act Would Harm LGBTQ+ Youth, Restrict Access to Information and Community

The quick TL;DR:

KOSA authorizes an individual state attorneys general to decide what might harm minors

Websites will likely preemptively remove and ban content to avoid upsetting state attorneys generals (this will likely be topics such as abortion, queerness, feminism, sexual content, and others)

In order for a platform to know which users are minors, they'll require a more invasive age and personal data verification method

Parents will be granted more surveillance tools to see what their children are doing on the web

KOSA is supported by Christofascists and those seeking to harm the LGBTQ+ community

If a website holding personally identifying information and government documents is hacked, that's a major cybersecurity breach waiting to happen

What Does This Mean?

You don't have to look far to see or hear about the violence being done to the neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities worldwide, who are oftentimes one and the same. Social media sites censoring discussion of these topics would stand to do even further harm to folks who lack access to local resources to understand themselves and the hardships they face; in addition, the fact that websites would likely store personally identifying information and government documents means the death of any notion of privacy.

Sex workers and those living in certain countries already are at risk of losing their ways of life, living in a reality where their online activities are closely surveilled; if KOSA officially becomes law, this will become a reality for many more people and endanger those at the fringes of society even worse than it already is.

Why This Matters Outside of The USA

I previously mentioned SESTA/FOSTA, which passed and became US law in 2018. This bill enabled many of the anti-adult content attitudes that many popular websites are taking these days as well as the tightening of restrictions laid down by payment processors. Companies and sites hosted in the USA have to follow US laws even if they're accessible worldwide, meaning that folks overseas suffer as well.

What Can You Do?

If you're a US citizen, contact your Senators and tell them that you oppose KOSA. This can be as an email, letter, or phone call that you make to your state Senator.

For resources on how to do so, view the following links:

https://www.badinternetbills.com/#kosa

https://www.stopkosa.com/

https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

If you live outside of the US or cannot vote, the best thing you can do is sign the petition at the Stop KOSA website, alert your US friends about what's happening, and raise some noise.

Above all else, don’t panic. By staying informed by what’s going on, you can prepare for the legal battles ahead.

[jesncin]

Hi! I'm sorry if this an inappropriate question to ask, but I was wondering if you had any advice on how to accurately portray characters of color? I'm White and my creative fiction includes a lot of diverse characters, and I don't want to just ignore how their races impact their stories but at the same time being a racial/ethnic minority isn't something I've personally experienced and I don't know how to walk the line between good representation and some White dude telling stories that aren't his place to tell. Do you have any advice on how to accurately present characters of color without appropriating?

Luckily I have time today so I'll give my 2 cents! For one: there is no such thing as "accurate" portrayals of POC. Our experiences aren't a monolith. Something personal I would write and pull from my lived experience might not be relatable to, say, another queer Indonesian. And characters I write that are outside of my identity (Black, disabled, etc.) are inevitably going to be less authentic compared to someone of those identities tackling those characters. That's just something to make peace with- we can only do the best we can with the perspective we have.

With that: the usual platitudes are "do your research" and "listen to POC", I dislike both of these sayings! I get what they mean, but I don't love the insinuation of "doing research and listening" as a means of personal creative benefit. So instead I encourage different mindsets:

Instead of "do your research" (where identities can be treated as subjects to be learned and not people) I prefer "expand your perspective". Art is so cool because it's self expression. Stories are awesome because it's a shortcut to a person's deepest feelings. They get you fascinated and invested in a life so unlike your own. I can't stand "I only read queer books" people because it's an admission that they refuse to engage with identities they can't relate or project onto. There are so many important stories out there outside of your bubble. Get into the habit of earnestly learning about perspectives outside of your own. And not with the mindset of "this'll make me a better writer if I consume the identity and can become them" but with the mindset of getting to learn about a new friend. I think people take "stay in your lane" too literally sometimes where they focus so much on writing about their own experiences that they miss out on empathizing with other people.

Instead of "listen to POC" (I hate this one. Because our opinions aren't a monolith, it essentializes all of us to being media critic savvy experts, and white people tend to cherry pick the POC opinions they like instead of looking at the wider conversation) I prefer "improve your media criticism skills, and supplement with different perspectives". Not only should you "expand your perspective" as my last point said, but you should also be critical of things you read and learn! Learning about how ableism, racism, classism, etc. operates in life helps inform your opinion of how an identity was portrayed in a story. Recognize that earnest, and well intended attempts at representation can still be flawed or performative (the amount of times I'm told "I'm sure they weren't intending to be racist" like I truly believe the writer is a mustache twirling racist villain is too much). It's important to be opinionated! Do the work to find different perspectives to inform your own.

Lastly, don't ask for labor from marginalized people haha. I know that's what you're doing now (and this always happens to me whenever I voice a critical opinion of race representation) but I happen to have time (I'm still waiting on my editors to get back to me, such is the life of publishing). Most people don't, and are exhausted with explaining themselves. I don't bother my other marginalized friends whenever I write perspectives outside of my own. I do as much of the work reading articles, history, criticism, art etc. first. Especially if it's going to be a published work, then find Authenticity Readers and pay them for their labor. Avoid asking general, easy to google answers y'know? A lot of people have done the work writing thought pieces in their own time about a variety of perspectives.

[that-one-kiddo-in-the-back]

Slurred speech... Queer bad.

I've been wanting to talk about this for a pretty long time

Props to her for putting content warnings. This is her. "I hate the word queer so everyone else should" video. For the purpose of this post, I'll be saying Queer since no one else has a problem with it besides me. I'll go into saying I don't like the word Queer because my conservative boomer parents use it as a slur, and I've only ever known the word to be used as a negative. So I'm not too keen on being called Queer. However, that doesn't mean I'll yell "ThAt'S a SlUr." When someone else in the LGBTQ+ uses it. Free speech and all that.

We start the video with an SU mention and how people weren't too keen on her calling the word Queer a "slur" when it's been reclaimed for quite a while now.

Anyway, she brings up how there are two arguments towards using Queer A) who want to use it as a self identifier for their own reasons and B) who want to use it as an umbrella for the community as a whole because the community is to specific and it needs to be all-encompassing and guess what side she hates the most. if you guess B, then you'd be right. Here's the thing I think that the LGBTQ has way too many letters, and some people don't fully know who they are, only that they aren't straight or cis, so to use Queer as an umbrella to get the point across that the person isn't cis or straight isn't that bad of a thing but this video isn't about telling cis straight people they can't use Queer this is telling people in the community they can't say Queer.

Something bonkers about this video is that she compared the use of the word Queer to the nazi word degenerate, saying they are one in the same. Which lily not all things relate to the Nazis.

Rocky horror is the Bain of Lily’s existence. She brings in her straw man (Billy), who asks the important question of "isn't it's history as an LGBTQ term important to consider?" To which Lily sets that wicker man on fire by bringing up Rocky horror. I'll confess that I have never seen Rocky horror, and at this point, I refuse to watch it simply because Tim Curry (It's because I don't like gross horror that involves SA), but regardless. Since I haven't watched Rocky horror, I'll be skipping over it. Other people would have better takes on it anyway. I will say that she thinks that SU, glee, and RuPaul's drag race are just as gross as Rocky horror... which how? I don't know shit about Glee, but how is drag racing gross?

Billy brings up how Queer was reclaimed, just like how black people reclaimed the N-slur, which Lily says isn't the same thing. Now I can blend in with snow, and I'm not gonna tell black people what they can or can't say, but Lily is "native," so it's fair for her

So sorry, black people, the pertendian has spoken you can't use the N-slur. 🤷

She says how no black person uses the N-slur to another person... which, like from experience of being outside and around others, I can personally tell you that black people are definitely calling other black people the N-slur. I used to live in California, and the N-slur was the most common thing you will hear when you're in the lunch line. Lily, you can tell people in your own community what they can or can't say but for the love of Freya stay in your fucking lane and don't tell other cultures what they can or can't say because that makes you just as bad as the people who try to silence them.

Back to the main video. Lily goes on a rant about "how dare the younger gays say Queer when people in the 60s were beaten to death while Queer was being yelled at them or the people who were called Queer as a slur and is disgusted that some idiot kids would have the nerve to say that everything is okay now" which people aren't doing no one is telling a person who has been called Queer to shut up and deal with it because it's reclaimed. I feel like Lily has confused the word Queer to the F-slur, which is far more dangerous than Queer.

The whole video is just Lily whining about Queer bad questioning good throughout the whole video it made it seem like people reclaiming Queer are gonna move onto the F-slur and force LGBTQ people to use that which isn't what's happening no one is being forced to use Queer as an identification of being in the LGBTQ. She brings up Queer studys as something that a gross person would study completely, ignoring the study itself.

Whether you like it or not Queer has been reclaimed, and you can either swim with it or drown.

[erme-maererme]

so i’m watching black sails, and i’ve been having thoughts about s1-s2 and why they feel different from each other and how it serves the narrative.

so, the first impression from s1 was that somebody lied to me and the show is just your average one. like you see the characters who act a certain way, but you can’t tell why the hell they are doing what they are doing. see, eleanor, flint, they say what they’re doing it for, but it’s not what actually drives them, as we discover later. but in the beginning it still feels shallower and simpler than it is. even the relationship between eleanor and vane seems to have a completely different power structure (at first, the viewer is lead to expect the usual toxic dynamic with vane as the abuser, but i’d argue that eleanor has always had all the power, whenever she was with him, she used it for her political ambitions). or ned low who we expect to be the villain of the season and then he’s very quickly decapitated (bc he isn’t not the true villain of the story). there are many examples, but the point is that the viewer in s1 (and partly in s2) is an outsider to the story, is making assumptions based on what we are used to seeing in media, on the expectations and tropes we all subconsciously know and naturally employ to interpret situations when lacking information and later hold these interpretations as the ultimate and indisputable truth. and then they start debunking all that. the viewer begins to learn the truth, begins to immerse into the story.

and this experience of the viewer is necessary to the following dismantlement of the idea of “civilization”. this is the word being thrown left and right in s2, and it’s no coincidence that right until miranda is dead even flint still wants, desperately, to make peace with it, to be a part of it. discourse is a power structure, it is desired, everything that is spoken exists within it and according to its logic, like the concepts of good and evil, men and monsters. and if in the beginning to flint the purpose was to somehow make himself, his family, nassau, worthy of being a part of it, he later realizes that this will never mean freedom, so he tries to build a world outside of the reach of the empires, outside of the discourse.

because that world was never going to accept flint, a queer man, even though we see in his face before miranda speaks up that he would go through with peter ashe’s plan to tell the whole truth. because that world never existed for us, and i relate so much to it, the entire season is the pinnacle of the queer experience.

to sum up, the parallel that is drawn here is that in both cases the viewer is reminded not to trust the expectations we have of the world, not to expect what seems to be the truth to actually be it, that what you are being told is all lies and bullshit. because when miranda says that nobody but her knows why flint is doing it [trying to destroy the fort], we should believe her; because when we see the flashbacks with james and her, we should not assume automatically that the affair is between them, as it was only stated as a fact by other people like eleanor’s father, because it was thomas that james was in love with, because it was all the “civilization” needed to destroy their lives, because we, the lgbtq+, have always been pushed aside, into the shadows, from which captain flint as a persona was born; because when they, the empire, claimed then that this persona is the essence of the person, they did so to excuse the damage they’d inflicted, to hide the fact that the pain brought into the world was caused by them.

* i’d like to add something about the idea of the western world as a discourse (i’m including imperialism, patriarchy, queerphobia here as the basis of the power structure, hence the generalization), in the show it’s not just the word “civilization” that is used, it’s also “reason”, “society”, “rationality” and so on, bc they belong to this discourse. a very illustrative scene is the negotiations between jack rackham and that captain about sharing the prize like “reasonable men”. where it turned out that reasonable ≠ fair, that it meant that the one with more power was to have everything, according to “reason”, and the other one to end up with nothing. it’s a detail, but everything is connected in this show and so fuck the discourse :) fuck the empire :)

[isitisitearlymichael]

I think there’s a mentality in the Stranger Things fandom, or certainly outside of Byler spaces, that Byler is just another m/m ship.

What do I mean by “just another” m/m ship?

We all know there’s a long history of shipping male characters together when the show they were in clearly had no intentional romantic subplot.

M/m shipping has existed since the days of Star Trek - and it’s existed for many different reasons. But over time, it’s developed a bad reputation because fans of those ships were reading into things way too much and had so much hope that something might happen to those characters, only for them to end up incredibly upset and frustrated by the end.

There has also been a lot of accusations of fetishisation.

Some of this is also because especially in the early 2000s/ 2010s, these shows used to play on those hopes and have a lot of fun exploring “bromances”, where the writing would be intentionally stirring the pot, but not crossing the line enough for there to be any real plan to take things further.

What’s really important here is that Byler are NOT that kind of ship.

There would never be this much animosity if Will was Mike’s female best friend from childhood.

Yes, there would be a Byler vs. Milkvan war. That would never change - but the excuses as to why Byler have no possible chance of being together would be entirely different. Because yes, their arguments can currently include that Mike’s in a long term relationship, or that the 1980s environment would make it difficult for them to be together, but that’s about as realistic as the arguments have been.

Compare the circumstances to other canonical unrequited love stories

Take away all of the analysis about why Mike might be gay or Bi or even interested in Will in the first place, and just look at the plot in its bare bones state.

Will is canonically in love with Will, and Mike is canonically unaware of this and in a relationship with El.

There are SO MANY examples of this sort of love triangle in fiction, and most importantly there are more scenarios than there aren’t of this love becoming requited. It’s so normal for an audience to see a scenario like this and wonder if this is going to be one of those stories.

What’s happening instead is a lot of heteronormativity.

And that’s either down to the environment that Stranger Things fans find themselves in (people still live very unexposed lives) or they are just generally ignorant about anything that isn’t really in their face or what they want to see.

So there’s a heck of a lot of fans who didn’t even recognise that Will is gay, or just disregarded their assumptions and played up the “slow to grow up” narrative because they were more comfortable with that kind of story, or could relate to it more.

And so from their point of view, because they didn’t see anything, it couldn’t possibly exist. Bylers were seeing things and making them up. Now, after the Duffers and Noah confirmed things, they’re finding a lot of comfort in instead taking some of this fandoms bigger reaches (don’t mean to offend here, sorry) and using them as ammunition instead, e.g. Finn glancing at Noah’s lips for a millisecond during a take.

But the main point I’m getting at is that people who are dismissing Byler are not recognising that this is a traditional love triangle premise.

Now compare the canonical story to previous m/m ships

So because there are some similar activities happening in this fandom to what has been seen in those previous famous m/m ship fandoms, many Stranger Things fans are dismissing Byler as an imagined ship.

But how many of those old ships were able to boast about actual confirmed feelings, albeit one sided, with time left to explore things further?

There is absolutely no reason why the Byler ship resembles any of those “bromances” or queer baiting storylines in previous franchises and fiction.

This isn’t me saying that Byler will 100% become a couple

What I’m saying is that if nothing happens between them in season 5, that doesn’t undo the fact that Byler are a legitimate ship. It doesn’t undo the fact that Will’s feelings for Mike are canonical and that their storyline follows the premise of a traditional love triangle story.

There are people out there who are already trying to make Bylers feel stupid or ashamed for even exploring the potential of the ship, and all they’re doing is showing us how incredibly ignorant they are.

But that’s not to say that lessons can’t be learned from those previous m/m ship disasters

The one thing you should take from them is that people did get really attached, and so being let down by the show really hurt. It’s fine to speculate about Byler, but please don’t set your heart on them and let it break.

If we start to get legit info or confirmation that the ship won’t be requited, please don’t let yourself fall down the rabbit hole of conspiracy and set yourself up for disappointment.

But we have no legitimate reason to rule out Byler right now

The set up is there, the filming looks positive and the Duffers haven’t said anything to dispute the ship’s potential. Speculation is more than allowed - it’s normal and an inevitable result of season 4. So let’s have as much fun as we can and know that we’re doing nothing “deluded” or wrong.

[axel-tiredstudent]

OC MASTERPOST WOOHOO ⭐

Although there's still a lot to plan and do before this story is anywhere near done and I don't even have a first draft yet, I really wanted to talk about it and share who my OCs are (since i keep talking about them in here).

This story (called Ewordis) is one of necromancy, otherness and isolation, but it's also about love, saving and connection!

The main character is Absalom García Medina (much to his own dismay). He is 22 years old and studies fine art in university. He's also a drummer in a band with his two closest friends. Absalom comes from a long line of necromancers! He doesn't really understand or control his powers, but he's set on his goal of finding his mother's spirit, which he has never been able to do!

Almudena is Absalom's grandmother, who raised him when Alma (her daughter), passed away. They are both also necromancers. Almudena taught Absalom how to use his powers until she died when Absalom was 12. She's still with him as a spirit.

Alma died in labor. Not only was she a necromancer, but she also had prophetic visions, something not common in their family. Neither Absalom nor Almudena have ever found her soul.

Angel is Absalom's best friend since they were in higschool. They take care and support each other through everything. Angel has a beautiful voice and she can play many instruments. She's the singer, songwriter and guitarist of their band.

Naomi met Angel and Absalom when they were looking for a bassist for their band. They became close soon and shortly after he started dating Angel!

Percy is Absalom's ex boyfriend. Their relationship was rocky and difficult, which really affected Absalom. They still see each other sometimes, but Percy doesn't seem to be willing to change for the better as a person, which is why Angel dislikes him and wants him to stay away from her best friend.

Ozzie is a non human creature that Absalom meets in the realm between life and death. Ozzie doesn't remember anything of his life before appearing there and he can't go to the living realm, so he and Absalom decide to find out what he is.

Victor also comes from a line of necromancers. He meets Absalom in a graveyard, after many spirits warn Absalom of a creature eating their corpses there. That would be Victor! Victor was brought back to life by his necromancer abusive father and now he's forced to feed on human flesh to not become a mindless "monster".

The Knight of Death is one of the Horrors. No one really knows of their existence, but necromancy powers are related to the Horror of Death. How is it related to the Medina Family? What will Absalom do when faced to this Knight?

LONGER EXPLANATION BELOW THE CUT

As I said before, Absalom comes from a long line of necromancers, this gift/curse always passes down to one person in the family. He got it from his mother, Alma, and she got it from hers, Almudena. Alma died in labor so Absalom was raised in a small close-minded village by his grandmother. Since it was little, Absalom has been able to see and communicate with the dead. Almudena taught him how to use his powers and insisted that this is a gift that makes them special. Nevertheless, she also taught him to hide it to avoid rejection from people outside their family. Even with their powers, there was something neither Absalom nor his grandmother were ever able to do: find Alma's soul.

When Absalom is 12, Almudena dies and Absalom, unable to find her either and suspecting her dead is related to the necromancy, blames their power for it. And so he starts seeing this power as a curse instead of a gift. Something that he doesn't truly control nor understand, something that scares him and isolates him. Absalom goes to live in a bigger city with his uncle. It spends a few rough years feeling alone and othered until, at 15, he meets Angel! They bond over their mutual love for music, being rejects in their school and their queerness. During their teenage years they both join a few bands and, finally, at 19-20, they decide to create their own music band, with Angel as the songer-guitarist and Absalom as the drummer. They are on the look out for a bassits when they meet Naomi. They quickly click and Naomi becomes the third member of TTT (Tres Tristes Trigres). A few months later, Naomi and Angel start dating! Playing with them is one of Absalom's favorite things in the world, and he trusts them more than anyone else. Nevertheless, he never tells them about his necromancy but they do notice weird, worrying things about him.

At 19-20, Absalom meets Percy after bumping into him a few times in campus and in local concerts. They hit it off immediately and start dating shortly after that. They're both interested in music and art. At first, their relationship seems perfect. Absalom (who's in the aro spectrum) falls in love for the first time and he feels really happy and loved, something he has truly struggled with for all his life. As time goes by, their relationship starts to get rocky, they fight and argue a lot, but they always go back to each other. Their relationship ends up beng really toxic on both sides. Percy is manipulative and cheats on him and Absalom is jealous and desperate for this idyllic love and comfort they had at first. But, thanks to Angel and Naomi's support, Absalom breaks up with him after dating for a year and half. During the time they were dating, Percy started noticing a few odd things that surround Absalom, like weird aggresive energies around them after they fought. No matter how many times Angel warns Absalom against it, sometimes, when it feels lonely, it goes back to Percy, looking for momentary comfort.

Regarding the necromancy gift/curse. Its origins are uncertain to the family but what does it exactlty allow them to do? The Medina family (or at least those that inherit it) can see spirits in their daily life and communicate with them (spirits may appear everywhere and they mostly can tell when someone is able to see them so they may follow necromancers around, there's more spirits in places like graveyards tho; they don't really have that much consciousness, except for the spirits of necromancers, like Almudena, who Absalom will be able to find at some point). Thanks to this power they can also search for (and most of the time) find the spirit of a specific person (but still, Absalom is never able to find Alma, which tortures him). Another thing that they can do is enter Ewordis.

Ewordis is the realm between life and death (but closer to death, as no living creatures can enter it, except for some necromancers). Ewordis is a inmense white space full of mostly nothingness and some spirits where time doesn't really exist. Absalom hides there when he gets too overwhelmed by real life, thinking that avoiding reality helps him. When he enters Ewordis, his real body is frozen in time, so he can stay there for days or weeks without truly noticing. But time itself doesn't stop. This has lead to his friends worrying after not hearing of him for days in more than one occasion. Isolating himself in Ewordis like this is something that Absalom does to cope when he is really really bad and he tells no one about it. He doesn't really understand what this realm truly is, nor where does it lead. What are the secrets that hide beyond this seemingly vast white empty unreal territory?

One day, after Absalom's mental health worsens and he goes back to hiding in Ewordis, he meets, for the first time, a demon-looking huge guy! Absalom is shocked, because he did not know of the existence of creatures like him. This "demon" tells him he remembers nothing of before being in Ewordis and that he himself doesn't know what he is. They keep bumping into each other when Absalom enter Ewordis, and it notices that this demon must be lonely. They talk a lot and become friends, and Absalom tells him about his life in the living realm. He ends up naming the demon Ozzie, after one of his favorite movies: "The Wizard of Oz". They decide to try and find out what Ozzie is.

After many spirits start following Absalom around and telling him about a monster eating their corpses in a graveyard, Absalom decides to investigate and get rid of all of them. Not really because he wants to help them, but because he wants to be left alone. He goes to the graveyard at night and he founds a thin young man crying next to an open grave. When he sees Absalom, he runs away. This young man is Victor. Victor also comes from one of the few necromancers families left. Their powers are different to those of the Medina family tho, since they are more related to the pyshical body and flesh than to the spirit. He was alive many years ago and he lived with his two siblings and his abusive father. Victor killed himself to escape his father but he brought him back, mixing his body and soul with those of other corpses. Now Victor is forced to feed on human corpses to keep their conscience. Victor loathes his father, who keeps him locked in their old mansion and forces him to keep himself alive. Thanks to his powers, his father has kept himself and his children alive for many many years.

Necromancy powers are directly related to the Horror of Death. There are many Horrors related to different aspects of existence. The Horrors are cosmic entities beyond human comprehension. More ancient that everything. They are neutral entities, not bad nor good. They just exist and keep balance. They have no human morality or feelings. Or at least, that's how it should be. So why can't Absalom die? Who protects him and why? Where is Alma's soul? Who are the other Horrors and how do their existence affect the characters lives?

[paladinbaby]

i feel like it’s potentially relevant i keep track of these all in a discord channel called nettle spiralling. family portrait of nettle nolastname

@july-19th-club / my nieces is probably the reincarnation of shirley jackson, cj hauser with notes / all about love, bell hooks / where angels fear to tread, e m forster / antichrist, the 1975 / elisabeth hewer / haunted epistemologies, laura westengard / letters to a young poet, rainer maria rilke / sam sifton / the anthropocene reviewed, john green

[Image Description: Ten pictures of text.

1: “simply cannot resist what i call the little mermaid or the tin man or the pinocchio plot, the one about a character who is either inhuman or human but outside in some way, constantly searching for whatever it is that they consider to be the quintessential proof of humanity, preoccupied by it so deeply that they fail to realise the proof is in the act and fact of the search itself”

2: “”What does it mean for the structure of your life to feel menacing? To be imprisoned within it? To feel like it might kill you?”

Haunting is an act of care, care is an act of haunting. Haunting is formed between the trauma, mothers inflict on their daughters.”

3: “We can never go back. I know that now. We can go for-ward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago, when we were little and had no voice to speak the heart’s longing.” The first three sentences are highlighted in red.”

4: “I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it - and I’m sure I can’t tell you whether the fate’s good or evil. I don’t die - I don’t fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I’m just not there.”

5: “And I swear there's a ghost on this island / And his hands, all covered in blood / And my wife inquired of understanding / But of course, my dear, you can't

She said, How can I relate to somebody who doesn't speak?/ I feel like I'm just treading water

Is it the same for you? / Is it the same for you?”

6: “I want to be eaten alive. I want / to feel wanted.”

7: “cultural anxieties and desires, allowing”for a whole range of specific monstrosities to coalesce in the same form.” The excesses of monstrosity and the hybridity of the living dead help visualize naturalized oppressive structures, making those structures uncanny and therefore intervening in the architecture of oppression. Both haunting and sadomasochism appear in queer thought as expressions of queer temporality that expose a particular type of traumatic temporality. Haunting manifests the swirl-ing, fractured, intersecting temporality of ongoing low-level trauma, not just a single event popping through into the present but a disorienting and overwhelming storm of traumatic intrusion.

The traumatic gothic shadow cast on queer theory is not always made explicit however.” The initial sentence fragment and queer temporality are highlighted in blue. The penultimate sentence is highlighted in purple.

8: “You must realise that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hands and will not let you fall.”

9: “Above all, cook for someone else. Take a moment to prepare food not simply because you’re hungry, but because cooking is an act that makes others feel better. And making the lives of others better is why we are here.”

10: A photo of a page of a book, some lines are highlighted in yellow throughout. “would like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world.

I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.

It can sometimes feel like loving the beauty that surrounds us is somehow disrespectful to the many horrors that also surround us. But mostly, I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass.

But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing.”

End ID.]

[be-fae-do-crimes]

Intro Post

You can call me Bac (not my real name)! I use fae/faer or it/its since I'm not out to enough people irl to hear those a lot.

Not an 18+ only blog but I am an adult and it's a blog about my experiences, so if I ever post anything iffy I'll tag it #mdni.

Labels I'm vibing with currently:

Otherkin/kintypes: faekin, shapeshifterkin, mycanthrope/funguskin

Paratypes*: lives that I lived for a long time as a shapeshifter (see below)

Otherhearted/kithtypes: lives that I lived briefly as a shapeshifter that were still meaningful (see below)

Copinglink/copingkin: I'm aware that my identity is largely a coping mechanism via intense autistic special interest

Quoiluntary: my experiences are somewhere between voluntary and involuntary

Otherkinnity: This blog is mostly about my otherkin journey. I'm still early in my awakening, plus being a shapeshifter makes things confusing, so things may change.

I'm a faerie made up of mycelium who used to be able to shapeshift. My theory is that most of my memories were being held elsewhere in the mycelium, so I have limited access to them now that I'm in a disconnected human form. As I got older, I tried to stay in each form for longer periods of time and fit in with families of animals to collect information. I call these periods my "lives", even if they were only for short periods. They're categorized further by whether they're my kintypes (core to my faekin/shapeshifter/mycanthrope identity), my paratypes (lives I lived for long enough that they're inexorably connected to my kintypes), or my kithtypes (lives I lived for a short time but still identify with enough for them to make the list).

Lives I've lived (roughly in order):

Mycelium in a mycorrhizal network - kintype

Shifting mushroom (still connected to the network, but then disconnecting myself to become more mobile) - kintype

Constantly shifting being (figuring out my shapeshifting powers) - kintype

Catnip plant (briefly, introducing myself to a pack of smilodons) - kithtype

Smilodon - paratype

Sea otter - paratype

Harbor seal - paratype

Cat-sìth (large black cat with a white spot on the chest) - paratype

Snow leopard - paratype

Eurasian magpie - paratype

Cheetah cub with something similar to wobbly cat syndrome (which also caused some more erratic shapeshifting) - kithtype

Human (stuck without shapeshifting) - current form

Lives I'm questioning:

Canada lynx

Whale

Some sort of plant that I lived a full life as

In between these lives, I would travel back to the fae realm to be my true self for a bit. I would also use this time to store the thoughts, memories, and instincts that weren't needed in the mycelium of my community. I've used the analogy of backing myself up to the cloud.

Gender and Sexuality: I don't have an exact word for my gender since it is outside of human comprehension. Whatever mushrooms have going on is what I'm supposed to be. I've (mostly) happily settled in a human form though, and so in my more human life I call myself a queer man.

DXs: Autism and OCD, physically disabled

Fandoms: TTRPGs, furry fandom, Nimona (comic and movie), Psychonauts, Steven Universe, many others but those are my biggest interests atm.

*Definition of paratype: "an identity facet that only exists in relation to a preestablished identity"

[elilelibeli]

Happy Pride!

Happy Pride to everyone.

Happy pride to people who are struggling, who are scared, who are confused, who are mad.

Happy pride to people who live in homophobic countries and communities. I wish I didn’t understand what you are going through but unfortunately I do.

Today my government introduced a bill against LGBTQ+ community. The bill is long and ridiculous and very very angering. Apart from other horribly detrimental parts, It goes to existents of censoring any lgbtq+ related scenes from media and art. So Happy Pride to us I guess.

I had completely different attitude towards being part of the community last year, than I have this year. 2 years ago when I was asked something about my sexuality I felt uncomfortable and hesitant. Now, just couple weeks ago I was telling a story to people I had just met through a friend and when they asked about it I answered without giving it a thought, I realized afterwards how far of an attitude change it was within me. I have come a far way, tho that doesn’t mean I don’t have days when I am scared or confused. Just the other day I had a good mental breakdown over stuff, one of the reason was existing as a bi person in society. Remember even people who are way more “openly out” will be experiencing those mixed and negative feelings. You are not alone.

Last year in June, concert organized by LGBTQ+ community was raided by far right extremist group in my city. The concert was outside of the city where you couldn’t even accidentally end up if you didn’t go specifically. So the attack was organized in advance. They raided the festival grounds and I watched my friends evacuated with hidden busses to safety. Police didn’t stop it, nor punished people for extreme aggressions, destroying private property or physically abuse. With times like this, it is hard to stay positive. Or to be anything but angry and scared.

And even if we are living in utterly hateful world, And even if our governments, communities and people who are supposed to protect us or at least be decent human beings are doing opposite of just that, Pride month is reminder that we are not alone.

Queer people exist everywhere. Some have struggled with same issues as you did, some are still struggling now, some have other problems some have the same. And not even despite but actually with those struggles they are still brave, they are still colorful, they are still here to exist and to love. Imagine having so much powerful love within you to keep loving even if the whole world is against you.

If you are not out, if you are scared, confused, angry, if you are still deciding on where or how you fit, if you just need a little bit of courage from a girl who just rambles on social media please know this: bravery and courage exists alongside the love you have within you. I wish we didn’t need courage to love and be ourselves but we do and most importantly we have that.

You are what you want to be even if you don’t really think you fit anywhere. You can be what you want to be even if you are not there yet. If you say you are attracted to more genders than one but haven’t done anything with other genders than one, you are valid. You are valid if you haven’t done anything queer. You are valid if you do things quietly. You are valid if you are scared. Please remember this, there’s no straight road of becoming queer, I mean we aren’t straight, why the fuck would a journey of queerness be straight. The correct way is your way, way that makes the love you have within you shine.

Against everything ugly that comes with homophobia, there are so many beautiful things about being a part of LGBTQ+ community. There’s always unmeasurable strength of being yourself. Loving someone. Having queer friends. Boobs. (authors note: sorry for a long rant about boobs, that’s about to come lmao) Loving boobs on someone else and not loving them on you. Having no boobs. Boobs under binder. Nobody’s boobs ever near you. Everybody’s boobs near you. (these were a joke to lighten my own mood but you get the point) And so much more mesmerizing things that comes with being queer.

I so so strongly wish and hope that each and every one of you will get to see a beautiful side of being queer this Pride Month.

There are many people who are much better advice givers or know more about being lgbtq+ than me but please know that if you ever need to talk to someone I am always here.

[your-dads-top]

I'm in a weird space right now

I've been thinking a lot about dropping out of teacher's college/my B.Ed program. I'm not happy with my fellow teacher candidates in my stream after an A.I. plagiarism incident (that my group members pulled for an assignment). If I was doing this when I was 22, maybe I would feel different and more energized, but at 30 I cannot handle these Zoomers and the way they want to cut corners. I hate the fact that my faculty liaison for any issues related to being gay and going into education as a field is an enby-identified lesbian and that the group there hates any sort of "negative" talk. As a gay man, I have valid concerns about what my place is going to be and how to navigate it. I can't relate to women in education, because they don't deal with the same risks.

I'm also not happy with the placements I've had. The first one was at a high school where both my associate teacher and her department head made an underhandedly homophobic comment about another teacher in the board. They were talking about a comment he made to the department head about how he would trust her to sub in his class (he's Franco-Ontarian, teaches French Immersion, and has high standards) and they brought up his husband for no goddamn reason. If you thought his comment was rude, fine (it wasn't rude). But what the hell did his husband have to do with it?

On the same placement, I also dealt with my associate teacher being passive aggressive as hell. She would not explain to me the logic of her grading process. At first, when we came to a disagreement, she would say my way was "interesting" so I would just defer to her and try to understand her criteria (which was entirely vague and seemed to just be based off of feelings). By the last week of the placement, I would ask her how she wanted to grade certain assignments (so I can't help you) and she would fuck off for 30-40 minutes during the prep saying she was in the bathroom.

On this second placement, I felt the need to call Children's Aid because a kid was threatening to kill herself and cut herself. She had also said that her father was unjustly punishing her for things and getting randomly angry. I was able to get my associate teacher to take her to the office while I tried to make the call. He and the principal are now pissed at me for doing it because I should have followed the internal rules (that no one fucking told me). I went by how i was taught by the faculty. We had it reinforced to us to make these calls, otherwise our future licencing will be on the line. Oh, and despite me telling the case worker I wanted to be anonymous, they (teacher and principal) told the kid's father.

I'm just exhausted. I don't feel like I can go to the local gay bar because they decided in taking over the 'queer' bar that they would have go-go boys. Good for them, but it means the space is off limits for me due to the potential for cameras (both official for the bar as well as random people's social media). I've had to pull my face picture off of Scruff, too. I have no means of connecting with other gay men and I'm left feeling drained.

I've sacrificed so many years of my life to get to this point just so I have the opportunity to be in a place where I'm making enough money to live on my own and actually have any shot at life. The thing is, I regret it.

I'm in debt, most part-time jobs have no interest in hiring me because of my schedule even outside of placement, I'm completely demoralized, and I just want to die

I don't remember writing "I just want to die." I had just gone back to add something in, but fuck me if that isn't the truth right now. I hate being in a position where I'm at the behest of other people. I miss being in positions of independence and control.

Part of me wants to fail just so I have an excuse to leave, find work, pay off my debt, and move out. But not completing this program means that my current plans for grad school in the future will also shoot me in the foot because it will make me overqualified in most people's eyes. I hate that it took me until my late 20s to find something that I'm passionate about and I hate even more that it's something that is only considered valuable in this one context.

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @waysofink

Who You Are:

El || They/them

I'm a creative writing graduate from Poland. A slavic witch, a solarpunk & an overall creative & crafty goblin. I write fantasy, mystery and lately I've been dabbling in horror. Nowadays also an avid audio drama enthusiast!

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Fanfic, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Poetry, Sci-Fi. New Adult and Adult

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

It's a split between fantasy and mystery. I feel like I like writing a story that is both. Can't live without dragons, but would also like to shroud the dragons in some mist, make them not so obvious in their dragon ways. Fantasy appeals to me so much because we can mold the aesthetics that acompany a setting we create and make them mean something, be a message, a metaphore, an echo of something from our world. I find that very cool. Mystery however sticks out to me, because secrets are enticing and I feel like many of us can relate to that feeling of "just wanting to KNOW". It's a good itch to adventure, following a lead of a mystery, it draws you right in and allows to explore puzzles of life.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

Romance. Simply because I am greyromantic and I honestly could not write a convincing plot that only revolves around a romantic relationship. I do write romance in my stories, don't get me wrong, but they are usually a subplot amongst the rest of the story.

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

My fellow queer people, my fellow anarchist and socialist people, my fellow neurodivergent people, my fellow nerds. I don't think a straight white capitalist man who hates science and D&D would like my writing very much 😂

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

Recently I've been focusing on the theme of change. I can't say I have a library of themes I reach for, but I'm pretty sure that one has always been quite universal in my stories. When it comes to tropes I like a lot of the popular ones - grumpy/sunshine in relationships, magic as extension of the self and tool for self-discovery. I write a lot of ensambles, I recently notices. So I like the trope of a community fighting, learning and growing together. Kind if should have see that coming.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

The Born Sexy Yesterday trope. Its the misogyny, your honour.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

I'm currently writing an audio drama! Been working on it for maybe 2 months now? I just finished writing episode 1, I am quite proud of that :D

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

It almost seems like I was born a storyteller and I have to write, because I have too many stories in my head. It might be the adhd tho, I don't know xD.

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

I've been writing since I was 12, but I was a storyteller well before that. My mom used to say I was making up characters as soon as I could talk. I know she wasn’t literal, but I'd like to think my first sentance was a story about a duck.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

Inspiration is everywhere, but my main destillery of scene & story ideas is music. I'm sure many writers can relate to envisioning scenes or scenarios in their head while listening to a particularly brain-sceatching song. My current peoject is a combination of that and my discovery of a different medium through which i can tell stories - podcast. Blame Rusty Quill shows and many others for what I'm about to put out into the world. It's all their fault.

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

Ask me in a year, maybe my answer will be "this audio drama I wrote and produced!". For now, I am only proud of having many, many fun & cool ideas I haven't finished yet 😅

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

I haven't publish anything finished, not really. I hope to do it this time. 🤞

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

The thrill of a finished project seems appealing, but I wouldn't know. The closest I got was publishing a fanfic on ao3. Getting kudos, getting positive feedback tho… that's quite a nice feeling. Least appealing would probably be marketing. I hate it, I don't know how to promote my stuff and that is probably why a lot of my projects end up unfinished - the lack of interest doesn't help the dopamine flow. And talking to people and promoting yourself is hard.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

Coming up with ideas, worldbuilding and shaping up the characters. That's the best. Worst would be the process of actually wrangling your ideas into a cohesive plot and putting them down on a page. A nightmare, truly a nightmare.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

I work in spurts of energy, driven by dopamine, seratonin or spite. I'm a chaos incarnate and I am constantly ashamed of it, but I also love it and stand by my brain's ways. The vibes just gott be right. The music might help, or might not. Sometimes I just have to sit down and hype my story up to myself to write it - moodboards, playlists, all that jazz. And sometimes I simply sit down and hyperfixate on writing and voila - one chapter in a day.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

6 years it seems. I joined looking for likeminded folks, in search of stories and community. I did find a lot of good here, but I also learned how my brain can get really oversaturated with long posts and long conversations, so. I've been less active for the last 2 years for sure.

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

@drabbleitout is one of my favourite writers on here, I love their style & the way they write their androids. The wonderful @zonnemaagd (please verify that @, I am not sure if I spelled this right.) who enchants me with her words in her stories. @henrikedoeswritingsometimes had me at hello with their timeloop story. I freaking love time loop stories. More please.

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

Community? I only see positivity on here tbh. Though I have not wondered across the corners of the writeblr universe. So maybe its just that my little bubble is very cozy.

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

I tried to answer this question many times before - and I honestly don't know.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I don't contribute much these days. I wish I could do more. But life wants orherwise.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

silly posts, event posts, posts with writing references & snippets

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

I used to like sharing my writing snippets and wip intro posts, but soon there was too much pressure to publish more and more. and I just don't write things consistently enough to do that.

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

@waysofink on all other socials (that mostly Twitter & tiktok these days)

[mysteriesofmarcy]

Genuine question. Please explain to me, why is being queer a sin? Neither consensual homosexuality nor transgenderism hurts anyone. It does no harm and there are a lot of peer reviewed scientific studies (which I cannot currently link because of media links being turned off but I would be happy to find for you if you are interested) that show queer people who are accepted by themselves and their community tend to live longer and happier lives than people who are not accepted. I am admittedly not christian (although some of my family is) so I don't have the best grasp on religion as a whole and I'm genuinely curious to hear your perspective. Why is something that only seems to benefit humanity as a whole considered a bad thing?

NOTE: I'm going to jump around a bit here, so bear with me.

First, yeah, you don't have to prove that people who are accepted by themselves and their communities tend to live much longer and happier lives than people who aren't. That's true of anyone, regardless of who they are or what they believe.

But contrary to popular belief, you are not "born gay/lbt-whatever else". Nobody is. Why? That's not how God designed us.

Here is a little background information on that last point:

God designed marriage to be a union between one man and one woman for as long as both of them are alive. The relationship between a husband and a wife is meant to be a mirror of God's own relationship with the church: God protects His church, just like a husband protects his wife. God gave His life for us, just like a husband is supposed to give his life for His wife if the need arises. And God went to prepare a home for us, just like in ancient times a man would go prior to his marriage to prepare a home for his bride.

But you asked specifically why being queer is a sin. Although homosexuality is mentioned numerous times in the Bible, including

Romans 1:18-32

Leviticus 18:22

Genesis 18:20-19:24

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

1 Timothy 1:9-11

Galatians 5:19-21

Revelation 21:8

Revelation 22:14-16

Matthew 15:19

Mark 7:21

And many more,

The reason that it's a sin is more the fact that it is intellectually dishonest to consider yourself as such. Because like I said, God created humans to be male and female, and to mate one man to one woman. That is what's in our nature.

You may note that some verses only refer to "sexual immorality." In this case, the context of the other verses tells us that this term includes any sexual relations outside those of "one man and one woman married to each other for life."

P.S. in case you don't feel like looking up all those verses above, I've linked this handy explanation for you.

And, I will add that I'm not an expert by any means. This is just a simplistic version of my views.

[wafultheawful]

Thinkin about gender and spirituality

Preface: I don't have a real point to this. I just remembered you can basically post anything to tumblr.

My ex-mother in law said something to me the first time we met. "I've never understood queer relationships. You need the masculine and the feminine to balance eachother out... But I suppose that's why gays tend to have one masculine partner and one feminine partner."

This woman was a huge name in the druidic community of the UK. She is polyamorous. She told me that she remembered past lives and regularly saw the dead, animal and human. But she couldn't wrap her head around the idea of something outside of heteronormativity.

And she wasn't the only one in my life like that. I was basically raised a little heathen but I still grew up white in the US. Christian overtones policed my thinking and the thinking of those who influenced me. Most of my non-male partners have been feminine in their gender expression, and in turn I acted more and more masculine. I tried to fit a role based on expectations rather then what I (or even my partners) wanted.

Now I'm with someone I expect will be for life. They are 'masc' in that they are Butch. Not divorced from their womanhood even if they do not embrace that part of themselves the way someone who really enjoyed more 'typical' femininity would. Meanwhile I just bought two skirts for the first time since middleschool and I'm becoming even more comfortable with the term 'agender'.

I'm still a spiritual person, more now then when I knew and had access to people with connections in the 'neo pagan' movements. And yet every fucking time I see people talking about spirituality I still see people stumble over the ideas of the 'masculine' and the 'feminine' in nature.

My ex-MIL also said once that I should be careful not to anthropomorphize things. That my experience with a specific tree feeling safe when I was a child in need was probably just me projecting.

On this one thing, I actually agree with her. We project a lot of bullshit onto the natural world. And onto ourselves. Especially in the spiritual community. What is masculine about the sun? What is feminine about the moon? Nothing. They are objects in space with mass and gravity. Why would that make them any less magical? They still have a huge impact on our lives. The sun's impact is generally more overt. The moon's is more subtle. We can talk about these things in how they relate to us, I don't think that's unreasonable. You can't experience the world except from your own perceptions. The sun is hot and brings life but also can cause damage and death. The moon and night is cold but gives us the tides which effects us just as much but usually in ways we either live far from or don't directly think about/see.

The problem really comes in, I think, from how we don't just say 'the sun is masculine and the moon is feminine' it's how that inevitably leads us to imposing that duality onto people. People pose anthropomorphized ideas onto things that are not human and in turn try to use it as a mirror or a measuring stick to hold up against themselves or other humans. And not all cultures even believed these things or have lines drawn this strongly, I know. But I can only talk from the experience I've lived. The presence of strict ideals that specifically Christian-fascism (current and historic) have given us are so pervasive in people like me that they go completely unquestioned. Every book I read, including my ex-MIL's did nothing to question it, and in many cases actively reinforced it.

It's really no wonder that there is a fast and ugly pipeline of 'witch' to 'right-wing' if the people who position themselves as outside the mainstream culture are still just recreating it in the spaces they make.

[genuineformality]

I am not, when it comes to it, a particularly "woo" person. My religious sensibilities are informed heavily by a Jewish-come-cult-member parent (who, over the course of my childhood, joined 2.5 cults in a desperate attempt to find belonging) and a catholic-come-wiccan other parent, and all of the various and varied religious trauma that came from that upbringing*.

For various reasons and through various mechanisms, I started reading tarot** and discovered that I'm both pretty good at doing readings for other people and also that I find a certain amount of meaning in reading for myself - not as a fortune telling mechanism, but as a method of stepping outside myself and getting some additional perspective.

Because of that, I started collecting novel tarot decks, backing interesting looking decks on kickstarter and indiegogo, and occasionally frequenting little headshops where one might peruse and acquire more and more weird decks. My current collection numbers around 70ish decks and I bought a little bookshelf just for them.

I don't often admit this to people I know socially, because when people hear that you're into tarot, they will make certain assumptions about you that, in my case, are so far from the truth as to be laughable, but I live in terror that a certain type of Woo Person will learn that I'm into tarot and I will regret ever letting anyone know that.

ANYWAY.

One of the things that I find tarot useful for is as part of a mindfulness/journaling practice to get my brain out of its current (very difficult, problematic) ruts.*** Having little flash cards with cool art that hits Some Archetypes to contemplate is good for making Good Brain Chemicals and Brain go BRR-BRR over outside stimuli that isn't just How Angry I Am About a Situation.

I've had a number of favorite decks that I tend to go back to, but for this current situation, I wanted something I hadn't really worked with before. So I cracked open my Fifth Spirit Tarot Deck (backed on kickstarter awhile ago) which is super fucking queer, ethnically diverse, has a bunch of disabled rep - and is the most gently direct deck I think I've ever worked with. It's a deck that says, "Hey, you're not okay. But maybe you could be?" with the loveliest, kindest, most direct tone. It reminds me of the best therapist I ever had.

I'm not terribly woo. I don't vibe with a lot of woo stuff. I'm not about a Deep Connection to My Inner Goddess or whatever. I'm really here to get some extra perspective. I'm sure this deck would probably be good for nonbinary woo people. It's probably not for everyone. It's probably not for most people.

But gosh, this is a good deck for me, right now, in all my woo-less, nonbinary, needing perspective-ness. Thanks Charlie Claire Burgess. You're helping this queer, jewish, atheist enby a lot right now.

-=-=-=-=-

*If I were to describe my current religious tendencies, I would describe myself as a Jewish atheist who has a chavurah and davens on friday nights only, throws a rager of a party for passover, tolerates a lot of christmas, likes yule, and occasionally remembers when the other holidays are, while eating pork and shrimp, preferably together. So... take that with as many grains of salt as you like.

**It was for a LARP. And then, like many LARP related things, went wildly out of control.

***I am actively mad at how well my brain responds to this. I had stopped journaling for awhile because I was in a good spot, then was in a Very Bad spot for a bit, and when my therapist asked, "how's your self care routine going?" I was like, FINE. I'LL START DOING MY STUPID JOURNAL AGAIN. And then within two days my brain stopped being an asshole to me. What the fuck.