#talking about gender stuff is weird for me but i have been openly like

[gatorbites-imagines]

would love love LOVE to see some invincible x ftm!reader stuff, our ppl are in a drought </3

Mark Grayson x ftm reader 

Headcanons 

You didn't specify which Mark, if it was OG Mark, an alternate Mark, or the petvincibles. And, I wanted to write something more stand together, so here ya go.  

We have been so focused on alt marks on this blog, I felt OG mark needed some love. 

Honestly? I don't think Mark cares too much about you being trans. Unless you guys started dating before you came out, and you had to come out to him. 

Then, he wouldn't fully understand the experience, but Mark has always felt like a very understanding and standup guy.  

Though, he will have a moment where he's wondering if you guys need to break up now, cuz he's always just assumed he was straight. And breaking up would be most respectful for you, right? 

But Mark still loves you, and after a long conversation with William, as he's his like, information point when it comes to LGBT stuff, Mark realizes maybe your gender doesn't really matter if he loves you. 

He wouldn't be comfortable labeling himself just yet, but Mark knows he loves you, and that's all that matters. Now he just has to put up with William laughing and saying that he knew it. 

Hes also a very busy guy, with all the hero stuff and if this is during the time hes still in college. But Mark would still find time to try and research it. 

Expect him to go on reddit or other forums to be like “hey yall, my boyfriend(your age, ftm) just came out to me, and I(19M) wanna be supportive, what can I do to help?” cuz he just wants to do it right. 

No matter how you express yourself, Mark wouldn't be embarrassed about it either. Be if you are fem presenting, masc presenting, neither, or both. As long as you are happy, then Mark would look at you with those most loving puppy eyes. 

Mark also isnt scared to square up with anybody who disrespects you, or other members of the community. Hes always been a big supporter of William, and now he has you, and has just become a lot more aware of the community and how they are treated. 

No cops at pride, only invincible (and the rest of teen team/the guardians if they are at that point). 

Mark is also a big sucker for his partner wearing his clothes I think, no matter what way you present yourself. He would also try his best to help out, if you want help in being more masculine. 

I also don't see Mark as the type of person to struggle with saying he has a boyfriend. The first couple of times might feel weird in his mouth, but that's what you are, and that's how he will describe you. 

Mark openly having a boyfriend will somehow end up with him and Rex becoming friends quicker, because Rex is my bi/pan icon and hell yeah, now they can talk about chicks and dudes together. 

If anybody tries to be gross about it, Rex is the kinda guy to go “we literally wear colorful tight spandex suits, but your problem is that invincible has a boyfriend?” and Mark just goes “yeah man, what the fuck?” 

Mark would get you an invincible themed binder if he can, because you “gotta rep your boyfriend, right?” and cuz hes a damn nerd. There is also a seance dog binder somewhere. 

Mark would somehow get the GDA to pay for your top surgery if you wanted one, like, he does a job for them and is like “only if your best guys do my boyfriends surgery”.  

And like, top surgery has to be one of the cheapest payments they've been asked for. Top surgery paid for by the American government. 

[genderqueerdykes]

Hi. Here's a lot of words that y'all don't have to read and I have a question that y'all don't have to answer. I think you all make a lot of great points. I'm sorry if this is on the blog already.

I think I might be what you call an egg. I just try not to think about it. I'm going through a lot of stuff right now that needs processing and I can get to the gender thing when I can get to the gender thing. That said, I'm trying to let myself exist in queer spaces and it feels like everyday women are bashing men without batting an eye. Actually, that's happening not just in queer spaces. Nobody says anything except to agree. Even people that I've known for a while and know that I'm married to a cis man whom I love and respect (and who actually got me interested in feminism). I told one friend that I was uncomfortable by her comments and she flipped it around, pouted exasperatedly, and said, "I thought you were a safe space!" I didn't know that there was a safe space for sexism!

What the fuck do I say to people? I'm autistic and have an extreme sense of justice and can't just let things go but I want to be at least somewhat respectful-sounding because when you yell at people they shut down and think you're wrong/the problem. I also don't want to talk their ears off/write paragraphs like this. 😬

🌀

jesus, i'm so sorry people are treating you like that. it really hurts my head to see people do this. you don't deserve that kind of behavior, you're not a shitty person for trying to figure out your gender. you're not shitty for being happily married to a cis man. i have so many words so i hope i won't give you a reply that's too long to parse

no matter what people's beliefs are, everyone is reinforcing that women need to hate men. like you're right it's just everywhere. not just queer communities. it's weird. it's like, i get it, the way we force men to act is absurd. we need to focus on helping men snap out of the shitty things we force them to do and support them in growing and changing. also like i don't get how people dont see how terrible it is to openly admit that they see trans men, queer men, gay men, bi men, disabled men, men of color, intersex men, multigender men, and so on. there are so many groups of men affected by this i dont get why people don't care

this "safe space" thing has gotten abused to hell and back. it's out of control, now it's being used as a gatekeeping tool. it's weird to me but people are defining things like this:

general lgbt/queer communities = women's safe space

lesbian community = women's safe space

nonbinary community = women's safe space

butch, gender non conforming, genderqueer community = women's safe space

genderfluid, bigender, multigender communities = women's safe space

bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, & polyamorous communities: women's safe space

like it's gotten way out of control. people think that every experience that doesn't outright say man is a women's safe space. and even then, we see entitlement there in the transmasculine and trans man communities as well. the thing is is like. these are intended to be communities. not safe spaces. like

women's groups exist. there are groups dedicated to providing safe spaces for just women, irl. a lot of the time they're based out of crisis and sexual assault survivor clinics, but there's also ones for homeless women, and so on. like i honestly guarantee you that if you googled "women's safe space" you'd find some local, brick and mortar places designed to be there for women and only women. like. those. exist.

we don't have to turn the entirety of queerness into a women's safe space. i feel like women who have been hurt by men are running to the wrong place a lot of the time. or they expect every other queer person to have the same trauma as them. like i think people in general are very queerphobic and assume that most queer people are women, for some reason?

i don't know why people view this as the "running away from men club". that's how terfs define the lesbian community. if you want to show people why this is dogshit, it's because that's literally how terfs define lesbianism. that's how rad fems define lesbianism. the "we hate men, we never want to be around men ever again, men are inherently dangerous" club is the lesbian separatism club.

people often say "why is there a lot of talk of lesbian supremacy lately?"

it's because so many people got indoctrinated into rad feminism without ever realizing it. queer communities are not the "we hate men" communities. those are rad fem communities.

so many queer spaces need to involve men, because men are very important in so many queer experiences. erasing their experiences and denying them the right to be in those spaces isn't helping anyone. if people want to be in all woman groups, they need to search specifically for that. if someone defines "lesbian" as "women's only safe space," they're looking for a women's space. honestly, maybe people just need to be nudged in the right direction. maybe not enough people know there are literal all woman safe spaces irl that help women with homelessness, sexual and domestic abuse, childcare, substance abuse, mental health, and many other resources.

sometimes there are behavioral health and crisis centers that accept just women. some psychiatric hospitals have spaces for just women. it really is possible to create, nurture and participate in womens only spaces. people are just trying to take over something they personally don't belong in, and it's insane that that's the norm right now. people are obsessed with going backwards in terms of progress in accepting diversity in queer lives.

anyway, i hate this shit, so i hope things improve for you soon, people are just. so proud of being mean right now. people are proud to be assholes and they take it out on disadvantaged men. isn't that sad? people are pissed off about patriarchy, the establishment ABOVE us, so they attack poor, mentally ill, disabled, neurodivergent, intersex, trans, queer men and men of color, as if that'll solve anything.

[jinbeisluffy]

Me and my friend hung out for a few hours yesterday and yapped about op way too much so now i wanna contribute more sexuality hcs but for side characters instead of any specific group. you can have ur own hcs these r just mine

ace - TRANS TRANS TRANS TRANS TRANS you will believe in transmasc ace agenda. he is so trans, what are you doing walking around shirtless CONSTANTLY if not to flex your top surgery scars. he’d beat up anyone as a kid who called him a girl hes known this for a WHILE. sexuality wise hes gay, hes gay and theres not a hint of asexuality in him because hes a freak and unapologetically loves men openly. gay icon in the op world

law - i havent seen law being shipped with a woman once and i find that really funny and telling of what people think of him. and theyre correct, hes a gay man. difference between him and ace is that he’d rather die than admit he even likes people so yk. cis but he did ace’s top surgery

sabo - i have never before seen a character so very much be aromantic without being an implied aromantic character. hes not repulsed by romance its just that hes preoccupied with overthrowing the government and supporting his brothers at all times, he has other things to worry abt. gender, could be anything and could honestly fluctuate depending on the day. at the very least, he fist fights transphobes on the daily and in a modern au would hangout at iva’s drag bar and fight anyone who acts weird

yamato - if you dont think yamato is a transman i want you to get away from my blog okay thanks. that isnt a hc, thats a fact and ppl who disagree are weird in my eyes. sexuality wise, he could honestly like ANYONE, but he just finds himself drawn to men more often than not (ace) so if you were to ask him he’d just say “oh men are cool, women are pretty but you know i cant find myself drawn to them” and he thinks hes normal get a load of this guy

kaku - most proudly bisexual guy to exist. i think he started to think more to himself about things during his time at water 7. he could also be okay with it and live his life that way without any shame because he wasnt an assassin working for the government there, he was kaku so yk, he could actually openly be with whoever he wanted. gender, cis man but if you talk about him using they/them only he’d just laugh and not correct you

lucci - hah gay. him and kaku probably got married in water 7. cp9 questioned kaku for marrying lucci, meanwhile pauile just questioned to himself how things would work cause of the pigeon. lucci is such a gay man, he fucking trans too dont ask me how i know i just know. Ai can sniff out my fellow transguys from a mile away alright

kalifa - oh i love it when women hate on men but the second a woman shows up she acts all flirty and confident. totally heterosexual of you kalifa. no but shes such a man hating lesbian, she always has been and could probably be due to men’s treatment of her during childhood which made her really not like most of them. i need to write out a backstory for her damn. oh and shes trans trust me on that one

koby - sometimes a lot of op characters will be inlove with luffy and never get their feelings returned, and one of those people is koby. yeah hes gay, and asexual he just kept discovering stuff like that when training under garp cause garp is so okay with everything, and then we incorporate more moments between him and helmeppo like in the live action where they sit and talk about stuff. koby realises hes gay and sighs. “that explains a lot…”

buggy - gaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy he doesnt like women he cant bring himself to he had his first tragic yaoi relationship as a teen and never looked back. gender is whatever you want it to be baby. freaky as all hell my GOD every time im reminded of the cross guild and what they do to buggy i just know. theyre so freaky

shanks - bisexual icon but hes been hung up on the same ex (buggy) for so many years that other romances are less prioritised cause “omg what if buggy comes back:}” get over it man he aint coming back for u. trans man, look at him and his pussy yeah thats a trans dude hell yeah

Said friend i yapped with is —> @brooks-heart-sunglasses pookie 🤞

[grumpyghostdoodles]

Got bored and started thinking of your utdr au and how much I love your art, frisk and chara are so very gender to me and I was wondering if you could share some more facts about the au? (　＾▽＾)

Yes hello, I was stupid and read the ask wrong, and wrote a full page of facts about the dreemurr kiddos on my au. So now i have that XD

And im so glad that Frisk and Chara are so gender!! I adore drawing those goobers so much.

Have some random dadyrus au facts!:

• Papyrus is a good cook!!! And Kris will eat anything, so they never minded if his dad experimented with food, they’d always eat it.

• Kris hates their eyes. They’d rather have their face in their face than to show them.

• Papyrus tried to read a bunch of parenting books, but Kris is so genuinely goddamn weird that he still doesn't know exactly how human children work.

• As a kid, Kris once cached a gigantic grass hopper, and begged to adopt it. Pap’s doesn’t know how to take care of grasshoppers, so he lied and said that the grasshopper had to go to their own home bc their wife and baby grasshoppers were waiting for it. It worked, so shh

• Papyrus almost fainted when Kris broke their arm. Its incredibly horrifying and uncanny for skeleton monsters to see broken bones.

• Kris has no friends, they only hang out with their cousins. And lately, they have been going out of their way to avoid them.

• Papyrus is very worried for his kid. They used to be so curious and eager to play, but ever since they’ve gotten closer to finishing highschool, Kris just stays in their room, or going out alone, they stopped openly communicating with their dad. Something is wrong, and Paps doesn’t know how to fix it.

• Kris loves his dad so much. Pap’s has always been the best dad ever.

• Both Papyrus and Kris are autistic!

• Mettaton already thought papyrus was super cute, and once he realized he was a DILF, it was all over, hes head over heel for papyrus.

• Frisk has taken notice of how Kris is avoiding them. Frisk has also taken notice that ever since Kris has started hanging out with Susie, the timeline started to feel...weird. Almost as if the player is back…

• Papyrus adores Susie, she reminds him of Undyne, so hes extremely glad that Kris made friends with her.

• Susie basically started to live at Paps and Kris house. They already had a pullout mattress for when the Dreemurr cousins stayed over, so it was as if it was made for her to move in XD

• Chara taught Kris to play the piano! And Chara also babysat Kris a lot growing up.

• Papyrus has to keep a spray bottle with water when he bakes, to spray his kid away, bc otherwise Kris would eat whatever raw dough he was making with animalistic fervor and get salmonella. AGAIN.

• (Yes, Kris has gotten salmonella. No, they don't regret it, that coconut cake batter was so good) (Yes, they ate the whole bowl) (Yes, they threw up)

• Papyrus and Kris do puzzles together, so Kris really likes doing puzzles, just lilke their dad!

• Kris learned about Sans legendary sock stunt, so they superglued a suck to the floor of their room to prank their dad. Newsflash, superglue glues stuff, so they cant remove it without damaging the wooden floor, so now Kris permanently has in their room a sock superglued to the floor. Papyrus was not amused, Sans thought it was hilarious and drove them to mcdonalds as a prize.

• Something is happening to them. Something is making them talk, making them move. Theyre scared...But, that something is also making them a hero, just like their cousins and his amazing dad were, what they wanted to be all their lives…

Let me know if you also want the Dreemurr kids facts list, and ill post it as well XD

[saturn-canine]

🌙✨Dogbitch Intro Post ✨🌙

DO NOT DM ME. I DO NOT CHECK DMS OR MY INBOX

(aka: me rambling about myself because why not, let’s get weird with it)

• 🦴 THE BASICS 🦴 •

Pronouns: Bitch/They/She/It/Woof/Yip/Growl/Freak/Dog/Mutt (or anything canine-related, really. bark at me idc).

Gender: Bitch. Literally. I’m a girl in the way a female dog is a girl. There’s an asterisk there, but it’s written in paw prints.

Species: St. Bernard. Big, gentle, loyal, and a little clumsy. I’m the friend who will barrel into your life like a fluffy avalanche, ready to love and protect you with everything I’ve got.

• 🐾 THE THERIAN STUFF 🐾 •

I’m a dog. Always have been, always will be. I’ve tried to reject it, to pretend I’m just a Human™, but it always comes back stronger. My soul is a dog’s soul, and that’s that.

Species dysphoria is a bitch (ha). Where’s my tail? My real ears? My sharp senses? I used to pray as a kid to wake up as a dog, and when that didn’t work, I learned to lucid dream just to feel like myself.

My Mate’s a cat, which is hilarious because we’re opposites. He’s aloof, mysterious, and you can see his brain working but never know what he’s thinking

• 🐕 THE HUMAN STUFF 🐕 •

Disabled: I use a cane, will need a walker, and eventually a wheelchair due to a degenerative disease. I’m pissed about it, but I’m also pissed about how society treats Black women and women in general when it comes to health.

Medication: 5-6 pills in the morning, 1 every 6 hours, and another 6 at night. It’s a whole thing.

Incontinent: I’ve been since childhood (bladder issues) and wear diapers. I talk about it openly because I refuse to be shamed for something I can’t control.

Mental Health: Schizospec, Borderline, and a whole alphabet soup of other stuff. I’m insane, but in a fun way.

• 🦴 THE FUN STUFF 🦴 •

Style: Eclectic, RainbowVomitCore, or “dress-up doll puppy.” Clashing colors, patterns, and chaos make my brain happy.

Personality: I’m hot, cool, funny, and I love myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t have off days (or weeks), but I’m not gonna pretend I’m not awesome just to make others comfy.

Interests: Coffee, lavender, and being the best damn dog I can be.

• 🐾 THE DRAMATIC BACKSTORY🐾 • Growing up, I knew I was a dog. My family thought I was insane (and I am, but for different reasons lol). I didn’t have friends or siblings, so I spent my time with the farm animals. Dogs, horses, you name it. They were my family.

I’m kink-friendly, queer, and a leftist. If you’re cool with that, we’ll get along great. If not, well… growls.

Anyway, that’s me. A St. Bernard in a human body, trying to make the best of it. Woof.

🌙✨ Paws up if you vibe with this ✨🌙

Common Tags

#Dogbitch -> general me stuff. Just vibing generally lol

#Dogbitch Irl -> Selfies, me just talking ab real life stuff

#Dogbitch In Nature---> Selfies of me outside/talking about being outside

#Dogbitch eats --> Me eating/pics of food

#Dogbitch cooking -> Food stuffs :D

#Dogbitch Loves Blackcat --> Me mooning over my Mate

Creatures in my life

BlackCat: My Mate, the love of my life, my honeycat, my cakey

Otter/SeaOtter: My bff/ Platonic soulmate

Kits: My other BFF! i love them!

[cowboyjen68]

hi jen, just wanted to say like many others thank you for being so openly queer and sharing your time with us on here - i've been back and forth for a while now about whether i think i'm butch and/or a lesbian (weird relationships with gender and love/attraction) and tbh it's all still up in the air, but regardless - your words and stories about being butch and living queer life have been really comforting and bring a lot of joy, so thank you <3 i hope the coming year is kind to you

I off loaded Tumblr from my phone to clean my cashes so I was not getting notifications. I am sorry if this is a bit delayed. Thank you for reaching out and letting me know that my tales of love and butchness and life help you in some way,

The advice I would have given to my young self is to clear away all the things the general public (ie straight world)is telling me about how lesbians are or supposed to be. We don't have to fit the narrative of what they think a woman is, how lesbians should look or act or their assumptions about butches. Over time I have learned that often the "weird relationship" many of us talk about has very little to do with US and lot to do with the mixed signals and crappy information the culture we live in tells us about what roles and rules we are "supposed" to follow to be "the right kind" of whatever.

At the end of each day we have the absolute right to be with ourselves and love and embrace ourselves just as we see fit to exist. Let the outside stuff stay out there in the opinions of others, especially those who can't possibly understand your experiences as a butch or as a lesbian, and embrace your reality. Perceptions can affect us and form our stories but we don't have to allow them to change what makes us happy.

[whatshereforme]

Since watching the new season of heartstopper ive been playing around with labels again (which I haven’t done since a friend I trusted basically shut me down and told me I can’t just be something without having “tried all my options first” ew). I’m always scared to relabel or try identifying as something other than what I’m comfortable being because I feel like I owe everyone consistency

When I was 15 (I’m 21 rn) I came out as lesbian and honestly I was so comfortable with that and how people perceived me and I kinda loved how my male friends (which I had a lot of back then) treated me. The downside was how the black community treated me, I was mostly in the closet to them but the closet was very much transparent (they could always tell I wasn’t straight lol)

The year I turned 18 I started identifying as bisexual, largely because I thought I might like my male best friend. I proposed the idea and he asked me out almost immediately. We dated for exactly 7 days before I realized I wasn’t really into him like I thought. Downside to this era was the comments my male friends would make about “bisexual girls” to me. The only thing was that I was too scared to start identifying as lesbian again because I had come out to all my friends as bi already.

So I carried that label until now (a few people I know still think I’m probably lesbian still lol). The reason I felt comfortable in this label was because I had just turned 18. I went clubbing and did some excessive drinking for the past few years and being bi gave me an excuse to drunkenly make out with random men on nights out. I still don’t know how I feel about men to this day I guess (I’ve always known I’m romantically attracted to women but I’m always on the fence about men, it’s a bit weird)

My trouble came with the fact that I’m not keen on hooking up with people. No matter their gender I’m just not super excited about the concept of “intercourse” or any of the stuff that comes with it. When the last season of Sex Education came out I watched it with a friend and offhandedly made a joke about being ace in reference to one of the characters and she went “you can’t be ace you just haven’t had sex yet” and that literally sent me spiraling for days and I just pushed the feeling down and ignored it

Earlier this year though I was having one of my late night talks with my little sister because we had a sleepover in the living room. I made a joke about how I’m probably never gonna be in a relationship ever because I don’t really wanna have sex and she asked me if I was being serious. I said yes and she said “there will definitely be people out there that will be with you even if you don’t wants sex, you need to stop being such a dramatic bitch lol”. That was obviously really reassuring to hear someone I love tell me it’s ok to not want sex, even if that person is my straight 17 year old sister.

I’ve been very afraid of being openly asexual because I’m scared no one will love me if I can’t give them sex but also I know I’m capable of loving people without them giving me sex but that’s only because I don’t want sex in the first place. I just feel I will personally be unlovable.

Anyway back to heartstopper. Imogen’s journey with comp het was very much relatable for obvious reasons as I had gone through all that by that age (and am still deliberating to this day if I just crave male attention, which is sad I wish I was still as confident as I was at 16 to know but life took over lol) and of course Issac’s journey with dealing with the affects of being aroace in a world that revolves around romantic relationships and conditions us to believe we need to want sex and romance. I had already read solitaire, Loveless and Radio Silence when I was in secondary school. Radio silence was the first time I felt so utterly seen in a character. That being Aled Last (mostly relating in our similar relationships with our mums). And then I read loveless and it literally put me off kilter of months. To see Georgia’s journey had me reflecting on everything I was taught about relationships and sex and friendships (but then I had exams and graduation and had to put that self revelation on hold lol)

All this to say, I’m deciding from today that I want to identify as Asexual. I know labels can be limiting to some people and they have been to me for that past few years as well but I think being ace is something I have to go to be true to myself. I’m definitely not coming out of the closet anymore I’m too tired of thinking I owe that to people but I’m going to try be honest with myself.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Anon Advice Asks - May 6

m/m anon (new), poem anon (new), outlet anon, catholic guilt anon, therapist anon

m/m anon (new)

hi cas :)

i’ve seen your advice posts and you honestly seem really nice and idrk who else to talk to about this thing that happened the other day, because it’s sort of been tearing me up a little bit.

so on thursday, I was in my physics lesson next to my friend T, and we were sort of chatting like usual. T likes to consume a lot of m/m romance, fanfic, anime etc and asks me for recs but she’s straight and a christian. I didn’t really have a problem with this, bc I find the whole ‘straight women reading gay stuff is morally wrong!’ kinda weird and tbh I don’t get it so idk I was happy to chat to her about this stuff.

now i’m pretty openly queer & transmasc, and i’ve never had any issues about it from her. i’ve never actually heard her use my preferred pronouns and she’s only used my chosen name a few times, even tho I did explicitly come out to her, but I was sorta giving her the benefit of the doubt yk since I takes some getting used to.

so anyway at some point in the conversation i made like a silly joke smth like ‘oh imagine being straight couldn’t be me!’ and we kinda giggled and she said kinda jokingly ‘you can’t say that it’s against my religion’ and then I sort of. like froze up a bit? and I asked her to expand on that, which made her look kinda uncomfy. she was like, ‘well yoy can’t be gay and christian, being gay is a sin! god said to go forth and be fruitful, and gay people can’t have kids.’ (gay people can have kids wtf?) so I asked her well what about straight people who can’t/choose not to have kids. what about people who adopt, right! and then she sort of looked really agitated and i felt bad for pushing her and she said ‘well idrk it’s just what my mum tells me’ so I just dropped it. because I didn’t want to upset her.

but then I was sort of upset and kinda only half responding to her for the rest of the lesson. we haven’t really spoken since, and I feel really guilty, but also a really upset woth her. when I got home, I literally started typing out a very long message about christianity and homophobia and started like citing sources etc but I never sent it bc I was too scared. it’s still in my notes app and i’m actually considering just sending it to her.

and also, teh fact that she thinks gay people are sinning but reads m/m stuff really icks me out. and also the fact that she didn’t really have much justification other than ‘my mum told me’ bothers me because if you’re having homophobic opinions, at least be able to justify them yourself.

the thing is I know I can’t really change peoples beliefs if they don’t want to, and T is honestly so nice, and an amazing person. my general attitude towards religious queer phones has always been, ‘well i think it sucks that you think this, but u can’t change that, so i’m just not going to talk to you more than u have to’ but I really don’t want to stop being friends with her.

like really, this is the first time she’s ever brought this up, but i’m so uncomfortable around her now and it’s just. not great, like how am I meant to just ignore that she thinks my existent is sinning you know? idek what she thinks on trans people, but now i’m too scared to ask her. because I don’t think she understands that you can’t separate my from my gender and sexuality. it’s just a part of me that I didn’t choose.

and I just really want to at least try to change her mind, because I don’t know what i’m going to do if I can’t. anyway, I just really really needed to vent, and didn’t want to upset anyone else ik irl who also is friends with her, so I would really appreciate some aduce from you as well :)

Hi!

I can totally see why you're frustrated. Honestly, in my experience with people similar to this, arguing with them/trying to prove them wrong isn't helpful though. It just kind of makes them more determined to believe what they believe. But I think you're well within your rights to ask questions- why is she still friends with you? does she see you as who you are, or your agab? why does she read m/m fanfic? Don't ask in a rude way, just like...a curious way.

And if she's mean about who you are, even if she's nice in other instances...idk, it depends on how you feel, but I'm not sure I could look past that, personally.

Keep me updated!

____

poem anon

omg im literally so gay for my best friend (ill call her L) its sort of embarrassing. like, earlier today when i was texting her (we were sending each other reels on insta (i downloaded insta to talk to her)) she was like "IF YOU WROTE ME A POEM I WOULD BE SO HAPPY" and then i... wrote her a poem. i was lowk scared that it wasnt good, but she loved it. i think she likes me too, but im also kind of in love with one of my other friends(ill call him B), and i think he likes me too. L is poly, and hopefully might be fine with me dating both of them, but im not sure about B. Idk man, im not sure, ive never been in love like this. im way too scared to confess to either of them, but i have been sort of hinting at it, like they are to me (i think), and i really love them both. any ways, i just needed to get that off my chest. ill send you the poem in another ask. thanks for reading, Cas.

Hi!!

Okay so based on the poem you sent, I feel like she has to know how you feel and also probably feels the same way bc like...it was an amazing poem and also very romantic. and she liked it so...it seems like she must like you too? I'm not sure how much that helps when thinking about B, but I feel like it's a good thing overall, right?

___

outlet anon

hi hon!

I'm NOT disappointed <3 this is a HARD thing to deal with and many people struggle with it for years and years. I promise, I've been in a similar position before, and I am NOT judging you. I believe in you, though, and I know you can keep working to find healthy coping strategies.

And as far as your more recent ask-- what about like online chats or something? If I'm pushing too much, let me know, I just want you to have something when I'm not able to check my inboxes, you know?

___

catholic guilt anon

Hey, Cas!

Catholic guilt anon here,

I have been trying to see my faith and religion as my own relationship instead of what others think of my relationship, and I think it’s been going pretty well! Honestly? Really well, I’d say. I feel my Higher Power’s presence more often, I pray earnestly more often, I feel Him more often, and it’s pretty cool. And the thing about the “self exploration” has gotten easier. It’s not as guilt-focused and more “why” focused. Like “maybe this isn’t inherently bad, but what it can lead to is bad. How can I prevent myself from doing bad things, when doing this morally neutral thing?” And I think I’ve gotten better at it,

So, thank you for being a listening ear :)

Have a blessed day <3

Hi! I'm so glad you're feeling good about your faith!!! That makes me really happy <3 I hope you have a great day as well!

___

therapist anon

Hi cas! Therapist anon here ans I just wanted to tell you that I got my shoes! They're the green campuses ans I love them so much theyre so perfect and have that fresh shoe smell!

Only problem is now I have to wear them :/

Yay, I'm glad you got your shoes! And wait, is that a problem because you don't want to ruin them?

[fordtato]

Gffan has done the following:

-Letting people comment transphobic stuff on his Server

-associating with a reddit mod whos known to be transphobic

-openly showing weird distaste for the Dipper being Trans headcanon (didn't he also say: "I hate the Dipper Trans Theory" to us once?)

He also believes there’s only 2 genders

Hello. So. I do not normally respond to anonymous discourse like this in my inbox as a rule (especially given this site's proclivity for seeing anon callouts weaponized against trans people and women and people of color), but I felt it was important to do this in this case, since I am publicly working on a project with ThatGFFan.

I have known GFFan for over a year now now (in an exclusively online capacity), and in that time, he has not only never misgendered me (a nonbinary trans person, someone outside the "2 genders" framework) but has also actively corrected people who have misgendered me. I have witnessed him speak against transphobia in the fandom and against transphobic content creators. The idea that he "believes there are only 2 genders" is inaccurate by every account I have of him.

As for other accusations in this ask, such as him "associating with a reddit mod who is known to be transphobic" I don't have any evidence for this presented to me, and even if I did, association in a public online space is not the same thing as sharing transphobic sentiment. There is room in any online space for a conversation about the optics of this kind of engagement, but if I had to apologize for every person I've ever engaged with civilly who I later learned was problematic in some way, I'd be here all day, and that would be an unproductive use of my time, and would not undo any harm done by that person.

Lastly, I hope ThatGFFan will not mind me saying this, but he is a young person (younger than you think, I assure you). If he has engaged with unsavory people in the past, or has indicated any kind of transphobic sentiment (neither of which I have any evidence of) it is my belief that we need to allow people to grow, especially when I have actively witnessed that growth firsthand. And in that case, I do think (and maybe I'm putting my faith in the wrong person here, so I hope this doesn't bite me one day), that he has made an active effort to learn how to do better, even if he makes mistakes in that process.

What you have done, anon, is entered my inbox with accusations against a person of color, half of which have no evidence behind them, and the other half that I personally know to be demonstrably false. Nobody who is a victim of this transphobia has come forward, at least that I saw, and if they did, that would be up to ThatGFFan to respond to - not me, a trans person unrelated and far-removed from whatever incident you are talking about (an incident that likely occurred when ThatGFFan was a minor, in any case).

I don't have a big platform. I am a small creator (much smaller than ThatGFFan), and a trans Palestinian person. Why am I being called upon to answer for a cis person's (alleged) missteps as they grow into an adult? Why am I being called upon to publicly shame and renounce a person who has shown me kindness and allyship? Is it so I can prove my dedication to the fight against transphobia? My entire blog, my entire body of work, my entire existence, has been an active fight against transphobia.

I mean, by God, all I can do is hope I'm doing the right thing here, but I vouch for him. Or I at least vouch that he is trying.

(p.s. I hope this goes without saying, but someone disliking a specific queer headcannon does not indicate one's political beliefs, and this is not going to be an accusation that I really engage with, because it sets a bad precedent. This is not a moral wrongdoing. This is an opinion you are suspicious of.)

[elysianstars]

Part of being a fan of the Fell Xenologue, is frantically trying to come up with explanations for weird stuff the plot does.

Why do some people confuse both Alears, despite the gender swap? Why does Rafal not seem invested in Ivy's attempt to revive Sombron? What was Sombron actually trying to achieve with his heir/legacy nonsense, and how did Rafal expect to do that properly without understanding it? Why was Nil, the weaker and less useful twin, getting sent off to battlefields without Nel? Why could Alear only sense something strange about Nel's dragonstone, and Zelestia identify that as Sombron's magic, after it was shattered? How did Sombron, the world's worst parent, manage to spot the difference between Nil and Rafal? Why are Nel and Rafal not doing anything during Chapter 21 of the main story, if you have them recruited at that point? When did Gradlon sink during the Xenologue timeline, and if it was after Sombron's first defeat then where were all his surviving offspring hanging out for the next thousand years?

I've got elaborate headcanon answers for the majority of those, which let me sleep at night, but literally every time I replay, more questions manifest to torment me. Here's the latest set.

1. After the battle in Firene, why does nobody ask how the Bracelet of the Brash General came to be awakened with Fell power? Obviously 'Nil' knows, because he did it. Nel suspected the royals were Corrupted, and it would make sense that whatever Fell sibling was responsible for that would have woken the Bracelet at the same time. So she's got a working theory that she'd rather not discuss yet. But neither Alear nor Zelestia suspects that, so why do they never question who's going around messing with these Emblems, without actually stealing them?

2. I always had the strong impression that Nel and 'Nil' ditched their family a long time ago, and were living in Lythos for most of the thousand year peace. But in one of Zelestia's supports with Madeline, she claims the twins didn't appear until Sombron 'showed signs of returning'. Which makes far less sense, since where does that place them for the last several centuries? In a Gradlon which may or may not have been underwater? Surrounded by hostile siblings, who only learned not to openly talk about murdering 'Nil' because Nel slaughtered the last group who did that? Choosing to deal with an atmosphere like that for centuries? Or were they just wandering the world minding their own business, in which case why is that period never referenced, and why bother ever showing up at Lythos? It doesn't give Nel much time to fall in love with Xeno Alear either, when it's said she felt that way for years.

The other possibility – and I've never considered it before, but the Xenologue is SO agonisingly vague with timelines that I suppose it can't be fully discounted – is that Nel and Rafal aren't actually thousand-year-old dragons born during the first war, they're only teenagers born during the second war. But that also doesn't make sense, since it would have necessitated Sombron being around for at least a couple of decades after his return, plus where did the mothers of these brand new children come from? Were they just floating around in possibly-underwater Gradlon, waiting a thousand years to be impregnated while having no ambitions of their own? Or did they get resurrected alongside him in a package deal?

...I really don't think any explanation works, aside from Nel and Rafal being long-term residents of Lythos.

Nel says she cut ties with Sombron during the last war, but you could interpret that as either running away, or openly fighting against him. Sombron, in the flashback that seems to be placed shortly before Xeno Alear kills him, says it had been 'some time' since the twins betrayed him, and that Nil died 'long ago' (yet isn't it the Bracelet of the Three Houses he's shown with, and wasn't that in Divine Dragon hands, so it could be sealed in the Somniel?). Rafal refers to his residence in Lythos as an 'age of lies'. Everything is 'for a time' and 'not long after' without giving numbers, and those phrases become increasingly vague when they're being spoken by individuals who measure their lifespans in thousands of years. We don't even know how long the Divine Dragon has been dead for – months? Years?

'Showed signs of' is another unspecific phrase. You can show signs of something that doesn't actually happen in full until many years later. You can show signs of something you've already been doing for many years in secret. I don't have the energy to compare the JP text and see if there's any differences. Sorry Zelestia, I'm going to have to ignore your single obscure comment as either a mistake by the writing team, or just you being forgetful because you're so old.

Otherwise I'd have to rewrite around 100,000 words of fanfic as not being canon compliant enough, can you imagine the pain of that.

3. In one of Rafal's bond conversations with Emblem Celica, he asks if her warp magic could be used to travel between countries. But isn't that exactly what he does, after showing his true colours in the Xenologue? How else does he transport an unconscious Alear from Elusia to Solm, seal them in the desert ruins, then race all the way back to Elusia in time for Nel to be none the wiser? His later warping has a stronger basis in the game's mechanics (abducting Nel in a way that's similar to an Entrap staff, then blinking over to the Somniel because the previous Divine Dragon must have given him the blessing). But that particular cross-country event? If he can do it regularly, it would also explain how he can rampage around Corrupting the entire world's royals without Nel realising, but hello, where does this power come from? And where does it go, once he's recruited and just has to walk places normally like a loser.

Additionally, I do enjoy when characters say things which are painfully ironic in hindsight. Zelestia saying in an early chapter how it's so fortunate Nel and 'Nil' never lost their other half, and 'Nil' is just like yeah, haha, that sure is great isn't it...

Sadly I will continue to try and deal with Fell Xenologue's problems forever, because it gave us the gift of not one but two hot murderous bisexual dragons acting completely unhinged, and to me that's worth digging through any number of plot holes for.

[longing-for-rain]

Genuine question but how do you have dysphoria and don’t seem like you are trans? How does that work? Isn’t trans the cure to dysphoria?

My situation is complicated, to say the least, but I guess most people's are. The short answer is no. Long answer...buckle up because I'm half dead from adrenal insufficiency and it's honesty hour. Don't read this if EDs/body image/SA stuff bothers you.

So I did have gender dysphoria along with other body image issues, and still do. However as of right now, it's hard to define exactly how I feel about my body because my hormones are so fucked. Right now I either feel like an ogre or a wisp of smoke depending on the day. Today is a wisp of smoke day.

About the gender dysphoria, I've had this most of my life, waaaay before I knew the words to describe it. I always liked "boy things" and thought "girl things" were stupid. I wished that I was a boy, and because I couldn't be a boy, I distanced myself from being "girly" as much as I could. I was basically a tomboy with an inferority complex. It got way worse with puberty because that drew even more attention to the ways I was different than boys. Especially me with my huge boobs (not bragging, I actually hate them). Over the years, I've identified as pretty much everything including "demigirl" and "nonbinary" and "transmasc." I was sexually harassed a lot and nearly assaulted as a teen. At 18 I actually was assaulted. At 18-21 I was sexually abused online, and at 22 again in person. Believe it or not, it was this very fandom I was sexually abused in. The abuser was good at hiding it; "let's talk on voice call so there's no evidence" she told me. So naturally this person (who was like 11 years older than me and wayyyy more chronically online/involved in fandom communities) manipulated the situation to make me look crazy and turn everyone against me. She had me convinced the way to be a good woman/girlfriend was to have men abuse me. Her friends would openly brag about the depraved shit their men did. I saw women talk about themselves like they were dirt. I saw a conservative christian younger than me talk about how she looooved sucking her boyfriend's unwashed dick (her words) because it made her feel like a good woman. I was made to feel crazy for thinking there might be a problem here, and for a while, I really internalized that.

Sheesh, that was a lot. All that to say: I truly hated being a woman. That was my ugly exposure to how the world views women and how they view themselves, and I wanted no part of it. During this time, I attempted suicide twice. In those moments, just before I pulled myself back, I believed I was better off dead than living as a woman. If all those disgusting, horrible things I was exposed to were what being a "good woman" meant...I would rather be dead. To be completely honest, last summer, I was fully prepared to and the main reason I applied to law school was to give myself a new goal to work towards. Without that, I probably would have gone through with suicide.

BUT don't worry, I very much do not feel that way anymore. At the end of last year, something unexpected happened. I found out I had a brain tumor. As it turns out, since about 2020, this small tumor had been pumping out excess cortisol and testosterone without me knowing. I originally was diagnosed with "severe PCOS" because of the testosterone, which I noticed when I started growing a beard. That wasn't the only body change though. This disease made me gain a ton of weight, gave me a weird fat distribution that made me feel literally like a hideous ogre, gave me acne, made my hair fall out, put me at risk for diabetes and heart issues, and made me feel constantly exhausted, anxious, depressed, irritable, and paranoid. I also couldn't sleep properly, which only made these problems worse.

Needless to say, all that shit brewing during the worst years of my life (2020-2024), was an interesting development to my dysphoria. I actually liked some of the androgen effects at first. I grew facial hair, excess body hair, and my voice deepened. Made me feel manly, and I liked that. What I didn't like was the prediabetes and mental health nightmare that came with it. The tumor made me realize something. I wanted to be a muscular hot man, not the bald fat man it was making me. That's the thing about hormones though, as I had a painful crash course in. Hormones don't just control cosmetic type characteristics; they are signaling molecules interconnected in a complex feedback system. They influence our entire bodies, and a disruption to this balance is disaster. I'm still reeling from it, and it's been going on for so long I don't remember the feeling of "normal."

But more importantly, another realization I had, the image of the "me" in my head was unrealistic, and what it really represented was my desire to by admired for my strength. Same thing with how my past desires to be thinner were a reflection of my desires to be appreciated and praised by family members who constantly degraded themselves and other women for their weight. I felt wrong in my body because the world around me made me hate it. And if you want to change your body because you hate it, you'll never be happy, because that standard you hold yourself to in your head is a fantasy. Reality never compares to fantasy, so chasing that standard didn't solve my problems.

As of right now, I'm finally in recovery. I feel drained because my body is detoxing cortisol and learning how to function again, but there is a good feeling in knowing I'm healing. I'm not saying I'm glad that I had this disease, but the experience of having it gave me a new perspective on life. It taught me a lot about myself and about the world.

So to finally answer your question, no, I don't desire to transition for the reasons I explained. I still am dysphoric and some days wish to have been born a man. But I already got a taste of excess testosterone, and I saw what it did to me. Like I said; wasn't turning into a muscular pretty boy like I wanted to, was turning into a fat balding man. Not to mention the other health problems on top of that.

What I've found works best for me to manage my dysphoria is to stop putting myself in boxes. I don't need to identify as anything or be in any kind of club. I'm just me, and that's it. My dysphoria tells me I need to be a man so I can be strong, powerful, and respected, I tell my dysphoria that I can be all of those things regardless of what I am. Not going to lie, being naturally tall helps me a lot, but I also work out to feel and look strong. I've been working on being more assertive and practicing public speaking. I'm pursuing a law degree. I'm eating a clean and healthy diet. I'm picking up old hobbies. I'm learning musical instruments. I'm learning art. I'm cleaning and organizing my space. I'm doing all of these things because I can, I love myself enough to give myself an enriched life. And now, I don't want my identity to be what I am; I want it to be who I am. Because there is only one me.

Also, I found that stopping the focus on looks so much...actually helped with looks. I've lost most of the weight I gained while I had my disease. I have buff biceps. My skin is clearer than it has been in years and my hair is growing back. All that happened because I focused on my health (and got the damn tumor out) out of self love. I still don't look like an "after picture" but I still love myself and I feel great. I'm finally starting to feel how I felt before my disease, and it makes me appreciate health more than I ever could have known I would.

Rant over! I'm going to pass out now.

[broodwoof]

venty/negative and kinda fandom critical. not exclusively about the da fandom but just fandom in gen re: queer characters

re: the krem post i rbed earlier... i don't even know what ppl wanted from that scene 😭i still think it holds up well in 2024, but even ppl who seem to appreciate his inclusion will always add caveats about how it could've been better, how there were uncomfortable parts, etc etc

and i'm just confused. like what did they want? fr? bc what we got was something that, to me, felt earnest and sincere. it did not feel like a tumblr post explaining gender, but a person's real experiences and the inherent complexity of them

idk. yelling into the void. but i just always think about how critical fans can be of any queer rep and it feels weird sometimes. like everything that ppl point to as This Was Bad Writing doesn't feel that way to me and i don't think i'm a super weird outlier or anything and i'm honestly tired of conversation around krem's inclusion always coming with these caveats

this isn't @ the person who wrote that post or @ any individual person who has said these things. they're fine on their own. they're always valid points! and obviously i do rb them. what bothers me is the frequency of seeing these takes. it feels like the only krem posts i don't see them on are silly short ones, but if it gets remotely serious the caveats come in, the "it could've been better but-" comes in, the "it was good for the time," comes in

or put another way:

krem's inclusion, or the inclusion of any openly trans character in a videogame, is a political statement. but liking krem, talking about him online, talking about his character, should not have to couched in politicized language. like after a certain number of times seeing it, it just starts to feel weird, yknow? i'm a trans man and krem was really important to me. but now it feels a little... off-putting, because it feels like he's being used - by fans - to make a political statement whenever he's talked about

and i'm sure there are blogs out there who don't do this stuff who i just don't follow bc idk them. like my pov on tumblr is limited, naturally, and that's a factor that needs to be considered. but esp knowing that trick weekes wrote krem, and that weekes is nonbinary, it's like... i've just been thinking all day long about the extremes fandom holds queer characters to, especially if they're written by someone who isn't explicitly queer (at the time!) and how horribly and regularly that backfires on the creators. how so many creators have been forced out of the closet because people thought they were being offensive by writing someone or something queer, when in fact they were writing from their own experience (not even getting into how cishet people can write queer characters and should be allowed to, that's a whole post to itself)

i just think there's an underlying issue, and not one exclusive to the dragon age fandom, about treating queer characters like they need to be perfect and infallible and somehow represent every kind of queerness in one person and how, failing that, they need to be dissected and examined and the work they come from dissected and examined. but yeah, all i can say is that it's gotten to a point where i'm kinda uncomfortable posting about krem despite the huge impact he had on me as a fresh out of the closet trans man bc it feels like there's an implicit need to write a political essay about gender when u talk about him and i'm tired i just wanna yell about my blorbos sometimes

[gemandthesnots]

Hey just wanted you to know I feel you with your last post. I’ve never told anyone I knew in real life about my fetish and I honestly don’t think I ever will. It’s just so deeply embarrassing and I just can’t bring myself to share it with anyone

I've been pretty open about it with people in the past few years, and generally people have seemed cool about it, but it's always come with the feeling that I can't just talk about it openly like other people can with their kinks, because it's too weird or gross or unlikeable, you know? I get your hesitancy, and I don't want to encourage that shame but, the fear is real. It's a vulnerable part of us. I think it might be the most "me" I ever am. Before I knew my gender or my sexuality or any of my other preferances or identity, I knew I liked sneezing.

I actually never intended to tell anyone, but when I was 17 I was playing truth or dare with a few friends and aquaintances from school, and my friend's boyfriend asked me what my biggest kink was. Everyone thought it was hilarious and wanted explanation. It was eh. But later my friend told me about her weird kink and we bonded about how we were both weird. That was okay. For the first time I shared something deeply intimate about myself, and I wasn't hated for it and I wasn't alone.

A few years later I told a few close online friends in private about my kink. We had a small kink server, with five of us, just to talk about adult stuff because our other friends were still in high school. They openly shared about all sorts of stuff they were into. I felt simultaneously very tame and boring with my one kink and (at the time) very very low interest in "real" sex, and also like the grossest person there. They all liked a lot of the same things. Obviously nobody else liked sneezing. Opening myself up was hard, but one of my friends was curious and very accepting towards me. Everyone else shared very personal things, shamelessly meant for mainly their enjoyment only. I shared some art I made and one of my friends said "ewww." They later told my boyfriend about my fetish without my permission. I thought it was fine at first because he was cool with it, and also told me his weird fetish. But then my boyfriend told a bunch of our other friends as a joke, and one of those friends brought it up as a "gotcha" in another bigger server.

I met some new friends in a kink server so straight off the bat they knew about my kink. One of them thought it was so funny that xe invited me to xeir personal server and immediately put me in the nsfw channels, introducing me by my kink. I was happy to make friends and be included. I found out someone else there also had a sneezing fetish, and I didn't really know how to feel. They were super super nice to me, but I felt too shy and put on the spot by them. A few new people joined the server and we met in VC, and I was instantly introduced by my weird fetish. I felt the energy drop and become awkward, and I felt like I was in a zoo for display. I talked about my kink far less than anybody else talked about it in regards to me. I didn't want to be known for a part of me that felt shame.

I met my (now ex) girlfriend, and eventually I told her. She boasted about how great she was at sex and how forward thinking and accepting she was. She didn't reject me outright, but she clearly thought it was gross and wanted nothing to do with any of my kinks. She would make a point to hide her runny nose from me.

My other girlfriend was happy to learn something that turned me on and was excited to try, sending me videos of her inducing, but she wasn't able to do it. But I appreciated that it was the first time someone I liked tried doing something for me, just because I liked it, since I had internalized that it was just so weird and unlikeable that nobody would want to.

Since then I've told a few other friends, but I've been more closed off. It's like reopening a small wound and waiting to see if someone will poke it or give me a bandaid. It feels like such an unloveable thing to share. Even when I experience blinding acceptance and even genuine interest or participation in my fetish I feel gross and sick (in the bad way) and shameful and dirty and weirdly guilty. Like I'm imposing some burden on them. Like I'm a monster. And the past rejection always follows me, even to spaces where people are just like me. I can't pretend I'm normal without closing a piece of me away. Even surrounded by hundreds of people who probably feel or have felt the same way.

I hope things change, I hope we don't have to feel like we're forced to be private and hidden away someday. It kind of seems dramatic to phrase it that way, but you know right?

[gutsfics]

can you give specific examples of what happened to help people understand what happened

this is non-extensive, just the ones i think are the most egregious of what shes done and said

i'm not sure how much of this is stuff she's deleted, as these are all from screenshots i already had on hand, but i would like to say that deleting a post doesn't necessarily mean you no longer agree with what was said in it, especially if you double down on what was said when you're called out for it. which she has done Plenty of times

and for the record, this is not something i enjoy doing. part of the reason this took me a few days to post is because this is stressing me the fuck out and ive been trying to spend as little brainpower on this as possible

First point: queerphobia in the form of homophobic jokes, sharing panphobic rhetoric, and talking for transgender people on a topic she (as far as i am aware) has no

the pelicansexual "joke" was told at the expense of Ethan and Tobias during the "Ethan Bisexuality Canonity" argument she & i got into in June (which btw i would like to apologize for starting that up, i was frustrated w pb's coddling of the cishet part of the fandom & i was having difficulty phrasing it bc of how upset i was w it. i did not mean to attack the fandom specifically but intent doesn't cover for outcome)

the pelicansexual joke was a since-deleted tag on one of her posts which went something along the lines of "my Ethan and Tobias are now pelicansexuals, which means they have to break up with [her characters] as they are not pelicans". i dont have a screenshot of this unfortunately, but i do have a screenshot of her response to an anon calling her out on it.

in case you don't understand why her "joke" was homophobic, before gay marriage was legalized in the US in 2015, a common anti-homosexuality talking point was "homosexuality being legalized is a slippery slope to bestiality being legalized". while it is good she deleted her "joke", its frankly worrying to me that when called out on it she doubled down on how she was joking when she said it, instead of listening and learning. her bisexuality and queer activism do not mean that she is incapable of saying and doing homophobic things.

the panphobic rhetoric & her talking for transgender people are, if i remember correctly, both part of the same incident wherein she reblogged something panphobic and then, when called out for it, said something that something that most trans people consider transphobic isn't actually transphobic at all

screenshot 1: bisexuality and pansexuality are two very similar sexualities, with the main difference between the two coming down to personal preference for what term you feel like best. while bisexuality does mean "sexual attraction to two or more genders", some people prefer a term that focuses on the "or more" part. neither sexuality excludes transgender people. pitting queer people against each other because theyre not the "right" kind of queer does nothing but damage the queer community as a whole

screenshot 2: agreeing to delete the post, but doubling down on what she said and refusing to listen to anon simply because they're anonymous

screenshot 3: the highlighted part is what we're focusing on here. "We don't consider cis gay men who only date the same to be anti-trans". hi, I'm a trans gay man. Yes We Fucking Do. i don't understand why she thinks she has the authority to speak on this. what "we" is she referring to here?

Second point: lack of respect or understanding of boundaries in fandom spaces, including both blocks and simply not wanting to interact with someone

i'll be honest, i'm a bit unsure if the above paragraph is the right way of describing what i mean, but she has a bit of a history of being.... openly weird about people who have blocked her for "no reason", and not only that has stated she thinks that not wanting to take place in an event run by someone you are uncomfortable with is childish

i believe the first one is about my friend Jay, who has her blocked for similar reasons that i do. while it is perfectly fine for her to assume whatever she wants about the reasoning for a block, her phrasing of "all i ever did was be supportive" in a public post about it allows her to victimize herself over a boundary being placed. speaking of Jay, Elsa has, knowing full well that she's been blocked by xim on the "peonyblossom" blog- which, again, is a boundary that has been placed- decided to message xim on the choicespride blog xe runs

the second one is specifically about a tumblr user who i do not know personally and do not wish to drag them into this as they have left the open heart fandom. she was sent an anon about this user blocking her which, yeah, is really weird and suspicious. but this isn't about that, this is about her response to learning she's been blocked. she refers to herself as this users "biggest fan" and says that it "isn't normal" to block your biggest fan. once again she is victimizing herself over a boundary someone else has placed, only this time she has done it in a post talking about a person with their username in it. when you have a blog as big as hers, people are bound to go after someone in the name of defending the person they feel was slighted

& here's her essentially calling people childish bc they might not want to interact with someone who causes them harm. iirc this was either about certain event blogs in the fandom not disclosing who's running them bc they know full well that some people might not be comfortable interacting with them (hiding ur identity will not help with that) or about people choosing not to participate because they know that the person running the event is someone they don't want to interact with. this ones just bizarre to me. no one has to interact with anyone ever, and calling them childish for it is, frankly, childish

Third point: her callout post for Jeremy and her non-apology

to get it out of the way: i'm friends with Jeremy. i'll try to keep this as unbiased as possible, but i am deeply deeply upset and frustrated with everything thats happened to rain. also, just so yall know, Jeremy gave me permission to talk about this. i'm not just dredging up old drama for drama's sake here.

first- the callout post

the thing that started this was a post to the playchoicesconfessions blog where an anonymous user said- and i'm copy/pasting it here- "Ethan said he and Tobias were like brothers. Weird how many people in the fandom want to get with their brothers.’" essentially, this anonymous user accused people who ship Ethias as being into irl incest which..... we will not be getting into all the ways thats problematic here.

(as an aside, Elsa did at some point reblog and then delete this post, but her commentary was focused squarely on "ship and let ship" which is a sentiment i agree with but she completely ignored the blatant homophobia in this post. here's a version someone reblogged from her in case you're curious as to what she said)

Jeremy reblogged this confession post and added "i genuinely hope this person and others who think like this eat a fucking bullet holy shit" specifically in reference to the anon insinuating incest. in turn, anons on rain's blog assumed rai was referring to people who don't ship Ethais and sent rain nasty messages, which rai would respond to and get more anons who saw the latest response and again assume rai was talking about not shipping a ship they ship and not the actual genuine fucking homophobia from the original confession post.

one of these anons sent screenshots of rain's posts to Elsa, without the context, and told her rai was talking about her. rai was not. not until the post where rai (rightfully, ihmo) called both Elsa and another blogger (this one who also got a similar ask about being blocked by the user i mentioned earlier but who decided to put it in the open heart tags instead of keep it on their blog the way Elsa did. that's the only props i'll give to her in regards of that- yes it was shitty she posted it in the first place but at least she didn't tag it) for complaining about and villainizing someone who blocked them.

tldr version is- Jeremy was venting about anons that were being homophobic to rain, another anon sent screenshots of those posts to Elsa without the context who who rai was talking about and said they were about her, and Elsa, without bothering to verify in any way, decided the best course of action would be to publicly call rai out, painting rain as a bully who has been targeting her specifically and once again victimizing herself. on her blog with a bunch of followers. many of whom also chose not to verify, and instead just heaped more hatred onto Jeremy's blog.

this went on until September, when they talked to each other at first with a third party go-between, and eventually person-to-person. Jeremy explained the context of the vent posts, Elsa explained that she was getting the screenshots with no context from an anon and admitted she should have verified them herself instead of going full nuclear, and they both agreed to apologize publicly

all good, end of story, right?

no.

while in Jeremy's post, rai took accountability for their side of what happened in this awful game of telephone and apologized for rains part in the whole thing. if you want to read it, here is a version of it.

Elsa, on the other hand.... well she apologized, but to be honest I'm not quite sure what for.

she says there's been misunderstandings on both parts led on by one or more anonymous sources (no arguments here), says she understands that the posts that were sent to her were not actually about her (okay good) and says that its a tough world and that she's deleted her posts.

okay.... but that doesn't specify what she did at all to need the apology. which was publicly call out Jeremy on her blog with.... well, i'm not sure how many followers she has, but i do know that she's got the most well known blog in the choices fandom. by publicly calling out Jeremy in the way that she did, she (whether intentional or not) set her followers out to attack rains blog. she did not apologize for this. asking people to stop sending hate to rains blog is not the same as taking accountability for sending those people to rains blog in the first place

so. yeah.

again, non-extensive list, but i dont wanna mention things she's done without having screenshots or links to show proof that she did it, and i dont feel like finding more of her bullshit bc this just. really fucking stressed me out.

also this isn't me saying "shes a terrible person forever and i hate her and nobody should like her ever" this is me saying "hey, shes done/said some hurtful things in the past and it sure would be cool if she acknowledged any of it" but i think coolsville sucks or whatever.

also also most importantly: its possible for queer people to say and do things that are queerphobic. being queer yourself does not give you a shield from people calling you out for that. neither does real life activism. its great that she's done real life activism! but pointing back to things you've done in the past, or for a different group of people than the one youre in does not exempt you from the harm youre causing today, to the people you're interacting with.

i dont have a proper ending to this

thanks for reading i guess

[fipindustries]

my experiences with transphobia.

this will probably make me look a bit unlikeable because its going to ammount to "not that many tbh i was insanely priviledged", i am very well aware of the struggle that my community goes through every day all over the world, specially in the last few years where republicans and terfs and conservatives in general have seemed to drive themselves into mouth foaming frenzy out of disgust, and where intra community fighting seems to get more bitter every day.

but i do want to share my experience all the same and hopefully this will help give some hope in the current bleak state of affairs that not everything about being trans is constant suffering all the time.

winding back the clock all the way to me being a kid, i was very much bullied, from kindergarden to high school. my experience in the education system was twelve solid years of being called names, being pushed around, being ostracised, being made fun of and being excluded. i had people trick me into accepting food the offered and then telling me they had spit on it before (my response to that was to keep eating it all the same and made sure to enjoy it in front of them). ive had people beat the shit out of me, and i had people point at me on the hallways and laugh every time i would walk across them.

none of this was over any gender stuff, mind you, but because i was just "the weird kid" i was very openly nerdy and neurodivergent, i had been raised by cartoon shows and i would insist on behaving as a cartoon character irl. also because i was not very social, i was awkward and because i tended to keep to myself.

besides that i lived in a small town with no nerdy scene at all, my family (especially on my dad's side) just plain didnt get me. noone seemed to share or understand my hobbies and my dad would constantly critcize me for the way i behaved, the way i dressed, the way i talked, etc.

out of all this my response was to say "no, its the children who are wrong". i resolved from a very young age to just be myself and if that made me an outsider and a weirdo and an outcast then whatever. if some came to make fun of me or criticise me for just being me then they were in the wrong and their opinion was automatically discarded. i was not going to compromise myself for the sake of others. i never really developed a sense of shame over being who i was.

this of course was in part a bit of a trauma response which ended up with me having the maladaptive trait of being too self centered and too inconsiderate of other people's needs, i had a really bad tendency to see any criticism, no matter how valid, as an attack to be ignored, to this day i still have trouble measuring myself and noticing when im hurting others, i still have a hard time prioritizing other people's needs over my own.

but, tragicomically enough, this attitude proved to be actually rather useful for when i transitioned. i am more or less impervious to weird comments or outsiders eyes. as soon as i came out of the closet i was going out in full drag like, literally three days after. i was walking outside, going to the corner store, doing groceries, running errands and stuff ouside in the street with fake boobs and my face caked in make up i still didnt fully know how to properly apply. i had a bunch of kids yell faggot at me and my only thought was that those little shits should get taught some manners.

it also helped me brush off really unpleasant comments from a close friend with regards to my transition, like her saying she was sure i was going to end up detransitioning or that everyone thought i looked like a fake caricature of a woman. my first reaction to those comments was "she is just saying that to hurt me, opinion automatically discarded". it helped me stand uo to my dad who outright refused to call me by my pronouns or treat me like a girl so i just immediatly stopped talking to him or visisting him until he changed his mind. it took a year but he eventually did and now things are great between us.

but that is only half of the story. im telling you all this because it sounds cool and because im genuenly proud of it but the truth is also that, i just didnt have to put up with a lot of hardship in my life in general, i grew up in a nice house with a loving caring mo and step dad, i went to college, i lived a lower middle class lifestyle generally. once i got out of high school i managed to get some actual friends. and i live in a more or less stable country.

all of my friends and immediate family were instantly cool about my transition. my uncles, my grandma, my cousins, my mom, my sister, my step dad. i was immediatly accepted with an "ok, cool, you are mandy now". all of my friends immediatly accepted me with open arms as well. if there were ever any weird social games about "being excluded from girl spaces" or people treating me different or whatever im probably too socially oblivious to notice them.

on top of that i live in a genuenly very trans friendly country, in a seemingly trans friendly city. so generally goberment institutions, health care institutions, private bussineses, the companies i worked for, they all went out of their way to use my prefered pronouns and name, even before i changed my documentation to reflect this.

i dont think i ever was scared to come out of my house or walk down the streets of my city, even at night. and let me tell you, there are times where the sun hits the wrong way or i forgot to shave or all my clothes were dirty and i had to essentially boy mode, and none of that deterred me from going outside and doing my bussines without even sparing a second thought to what strangers on the street might think. other people on the street are just non-entities for me, they might as well be painted on the walls, i just cannot bring my self to care about what they might think.

i keep thinking back to that scc article about people living in different circles that seem to either automatically insulate them from or automatically draw them to abuse from others.

people are generally nice and normal and reasonable around me and i dont know if this is because i have an "anti-transphobia" field or i am just incredibly innatentive, where its happening all the time and i just dont notice it, but it has certainly made my life easier.

[olderthannetfic]

Instead of death of the author, how about death of the fan(on)? This is tongue in cheek btw. Take it with a grain of humour. I read a lot of LGBT stories in recent times, especially canon same-gender couples. We already covered the topic, but stuff like top/bottom vs switch, or masc/femme/gnc-categories and people being against what they claim is heteronormative, or just don't like in terms of queer rep.

In the fandom corners I've been some people are really weird about eg M/M dynamics that are top/bottom for example. It's the easiest one to talk about without needing to be into fandom, and there's already been a cover of this topic here so I think people already come decently prepared.

So parts of the louder fandom is very set on trying to make them switches, even though canon is pretty clear about the fact that they are just top/bottom. No problem, we have our preferences. Where a problem happens, is when these people take canon and only pick like random quips, references or other small sections to build the entire argument of "THEY ARE SWITCHES", and then treat it as canon, at the same time disavow actual canon. Basically they're cherry picking canon to create their fanon, then call it canon above the actual canon. So at the same time they ignore the very same canon that does very clearly and openly show them as top/bottom, and much more in your face and even claim people are variations of homophobic/heteronormative for preferring the (canon) dynamic of top/bottom.

Add on weak logic for fanon and ignoring canon, since it's often a difference between "them being switches is canon because the MC asked to switch their dinner plates" vs straight up "MC said he only likes being bummed up the bum."

Now death of the fan(on) could be when you see a fanon being treated as the canon, but the actual source story supports basically none of it. When you basically just ignore the cherry picked fanon, because neither the story, nor the intent within the story supports any of it. You're saying this fanon is actually canon or asking if I've even read the book?* Sorry death of the fanon, but I did not catch any hint of that when actually reading the book. If I gotta know fanon to catch it, then your intent to claim it as canon just really didn't translate into it. Your fan-intent when creating that fanon is just too weak for me to find any strong proof of it when reading, especially when the canon is constantly rubbing in my face over your claimed fanon. Oh your intent with the fanon was to fight heteronormativity? Sorry but your fanon actually reads as you being conditioned towards cishet-normativity because you try to ascribe a heteronormativity to canon queer characters in a very much gay relationship. Sorry but your intent with this fanon is just so weak I gotta call death of the fanon on that one. *actual question I got after talking about a canon part of the book because it went against fanon.

lol anyway, this is just a bit of tongue in cheek, and just to vent a bit of my frustration with certain fanons trying to erase canon, but still use that very same canon to prop up their fanon above the canon.

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