#teenagers gonna teenage. and especially... teenage cishet boys are gonna teenage cishet boy

[lettucedloophole]

they didnt respond to this which i think is very telling! however i also responded immediately which exudes a level of chalance i am not proud of. because sometimes it does make me genuinely sad when cishet men are mean to me on video game. i need to learn how to reply later on to pretend like i don't care so i seem less pathetic ☝️

apex sesh going so atrociously i got hatemail

[damnfandomproblems]

"Gonna have to disagree with 5604…fandom was created by and for POC and queer people, so it’s understandable to be cautious around content that caters to cisheteronormativity. Some people take it too far I guess, but it’s valid to be protective of something you use to find relief from your oppressors, especially when said oppressors try to weasel their way into the spaces you’ve made for yourselves and others. Sort of like the “you don’t belong here, make your own space” but then “why are you excluding us” image."

As a queer "poc" (bisexual Tlingit/native "american"), fandom was created mostly by white moms and their teenage white daughters. Reading any fanfic pre 2016 makes this painfully clear. POC and queers, however, have risen in numbers in fandom spaces and make up a good portion of it nowadays and fandom now is one of the most inclusive places you can find. Most slash malexmale fics were written by white women, not queer poc. fandom was made by white moms sharing star trek fanfiction with their other white mom friends. fandom was popularized by white teenage girls writing and posting fanfiction and fanart to old now gone fansites, DeviantArt, live journal, ff.n, Wattpad, quotev, hell, even too YouTube in a slide format using a bunch of stolen fanart and screenshots with their fanfic captioning the images. Fandom, I would say, is the one of the very few places you can trust most of the white women/people in general to not be assholes/oppressive/bigoted/whatever word applies/[insert]/etc. They didn't weasel their way into our space, they made it, and offered us cookies when we came knocking on the door. Literally the only time I don't feel instant distrust of cishets white if if I see they're a fangirl/boy/etc

"Sometimes straight couples being depicted can be traumatic for queer fandom folks, and that needs to be respected. Don’t tell people to off themselves because of ships even if the hatred is valid, but also realize that queer people aren’t obligated to respect your cishet ships."

... this is bait, isn't it? that or you are horribly missing the term "traumatic" out of place of great ignorance. Is walking outside and seeing a het couple also traumatic then? Also, no one is required to respect anything? just don't be an asshole?? if you don't like something to the point even seeing is "traumatic", don't look/interact with it??

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[genderkoolaid]

advice on how to get over the fear that t is going to make me ugly? or that i’m going to miss “the old me”

i’m a queer trans guy and i’ve been questioning going on t for years now and i know i definitely want bottom growth, body fat redistribution and more body hair.

but im err on the side of face and voice changes. i’m scared of disliking my new voice and suddenly growing dysphoric over it (i dont have too much voice dysphoria now) and disliking how my new face will look. i’m kinda genderfluid as well so it’s complicated. but i don’t want to go my whole life without knowing what it’s like to be on hrt. but i can’t get over the fear of looking/finding myself ugly and undesirable and losing my community... which is ironic cuz i find other trans men attractive as hell. i discussed this in therapy and i still feel this way :/

i wish there was a way for me to start without telling anyone and then breaking the news when i’m experiencing changes and feeling more confident about it. i have my gender dysphoria diagnosis and i can start if i want to, but i need my family’s financial support. i don’t want to make it a big deal since it’s just something i’d be trying out to feel more like myself in certain ways.

sorry this turned into a long ass rant and you don’t have to reply but i’m just gonna kindly leave it in the ask box 💀

There's a post that goes like "all of life is irreversible. i cannot go back a single second" and I think thats something good to keep in mind when you are thinking through this. You are already living with a body that has changed and will continue to change in ways largely out of your control. You are already living in a post-irreversible-alteration body.

If you do go on T and find you don't like how your voice sounds: for one, you can stop at any time (& if you haven't checked out microdosing as an option, you should). But two: plenty of people live with a deeper voice than they want. Plenty of people live with facial hair they dislike. You can pursue the same therapies and procedures they do. Or maybe you don't, and you find ways to live with a voice or face you aren't totally in love with.

So much detransition fearmongering, especially directed at transmascs & assoc. trans people, heavily relies on the specter of the fallen woman, itself steeped in trans-misogyny & intersexism. The idea that, for one, a "woman" who has mixed-sex features is ugly and undesirable, and two, that a "woman" made undesirable is forever doomed to be miserable and worthless. The transphobic story of detransition keeps our bodies stuck in this moment of revulsion and regret, narratively preventing us as characters from being able to move on and live happy lives in atypical bodies. Even if you do regret/dislike some things about T, you are not forever stuck in that feeling. The story does not stop at that! You will just keep living and find new ways of dealing with your bodily feelings!

The social aspect of this is a bit more complicated but I also have some firsthand experience with it. Because, as mentioned before, there's a lot of transphobic misogyny/misogynistic transphobia that affects transmascs & others who go on T, who have to confront the feeling of losing your potential desirability. And then there's also the way many people are treated after going on T, facing a whole new area of bodily scrutiny: you may suddenly have people making comments about how someone needs to force teenage boys to shave because their facial hair is a personal offense. I went from being self-conscious about how high my voice was to being self-conscious about how undeniably trans my voice was. And, specifically, my facial hair, voice changes, etc. were all signs of my transmasculine desire, and I became self-conscious about how obvious it was that I desired being trans, I desired this body. I could no longer let everyone pretend I was a cishet girl at family gatherings and avoid confronting these issues, because I had essentially written I WANT TO BE A TRANNY all over my physical form.

This is something I'm still struggling with myself. I, like many other queer & autistic people, already struggled with feeling desirable or worthy of being seen alongside conventionally attractive cishet people who could act normal. Being visibly trans, and taking a huge step away from the desirable cis-perisex-girl body, can really open up that can of worms. Especially being genderfluid/genderqueer! Because we often cannot find a comfortable space for ourselves within the conventions of attractiveness for cis men, like some binary trans men are able to.

But ultimately, I don't regret going on T at all. I would have had body issues regardless, and I got a lot out of going on T. I think mentally preparing yourself to struggle with these things, and seeking out other transmasc people, is a big help. Again: all of life is irreversible. we cannot go back a single second. We are already living in imperfect bodies we struggle to love or see as worthy. If you know you want some of the things T can offer, and you don't want to go your whole life without knowing, then just do it. Dive in, and don't feel any shame if you decide to get out. Just keep living and finding ways to live better right now.

[crocheting-cupio]

"Do I Have A Crush?" Quizzes as an Aromantic

In a previous post I had mentioned that I love taking "do I have a crush?" quizzes as an Aromantic. What I didn't share in that post was all of my findings from taking basically every quiz on that topic I could find. This is gonna be a bit of a long one, but I hope it will be an enlightening one!

Being an aro and taking these quizzes is pretty interesting. Because I do get plushes, which for me share some qualities with crushes, but are a completely different experience as a whole. For lack of a better equivalent, I have used my plushes while taking these quizzes. This will become relevant later on.

Anyway, here are my findings:

1. The target demographic for these quizzes is teenage girls. Well, the majority of online quizzes are intended for teenage girls. But these ones are especially designed for teenage girls. It's often painfully obvious by the way they are written, the answers available, and the scenarios provided. About crushes specifically though, this makes sense. Most people have their first crush during their teenage years. So the next logical step is to be curious about these new feelings and take an online quiz to figure out what's going on. Why only girls, though? Hard to say. It could be because they assume boys generally feel more confident in their romantic interest and thus would have no need for such a thing. Worth noting it was very hard to find a TRULY gender inclusive quiz. There's tons of wlm and wlw, but almost nothing for mlw or mlm. And if you're nonbinary or your crush is nonbinary, good fucking luck. The vast majority of them rely on some sort of gender stereotype. So many of these are clearly written from the perspective that you are a cishet woman interested in a cishet man. In multiple quizzes I have actually found typos where instead of using they/them, they accidentally use he/him in one question, almost like it had been up for a few years, then someone edited it later and missed one. A freudian slip if I ever saw one.

2. Practically all of them assume you are currently attending high school I understand that this is the time when most people get their first crush... but there are people who only crush on celebrities and fictional characters until they are an adult. This is not an extremely uncommon occurrence. So as you can imagine, there are a lot of questions that ask about how you interact with this person at school. Usually the addition of "or at work" feels like an afterthought. Some quizzes I've come across don't even consider that an adult might be taking the quiz. Like the question just openly states that you are at school.

3. They frequently assume that your crush is NOT someone in your friend group. This is probably the most interesting one to me personally. Because I myself cannot get a plush on someone until I've known them as a friend for at least three months. And I know plenty of non-aro people that need to get to know someone as a friend before developing romantic feelings. It's just... such an oddly specific assumption, y'know? They don't even consider that maybe this person is already in your friend group (unless you are talking specifically "do I have a crush on my best friend" quizzes). They just doesn't consider that the way you feel about someone can change over time. It's love at first sight or you will never feel that way about that person, I guess. (I think this is more teenager shenanigans. Because "am I about to enter a relationship with an abusive guy" doesn't appear to be the concern. Just that both or either friend group might not approve...?)

4. They generally assume your crush is a stranger or someone you do not know very well. Related to the previous one, this one is kind of weird to me. I understand the concept of love at first sight, but these are "do I have a crush" quizzes, not "is this love at first sight" quizzes. Almost every quiz I took had a least one question that assumed you had fallen in love with someone you have never spoken to. And often for answers on other questions instead of including an "I'm on the fence for how I feel about this person" option in the answers, which would be pretty logical to include, they have an option that says "N/A because I don't actually know them." However, the "do I have a crush on my best friend" quizzes are an exception to this. Instead they often assume you are spending every single free moment of time you have with this person.

5. If you have a crush on your best friend, you have either terribly misinterpreted you feelings and theirs, or they will never feel the same way about you. Um, yeah... I guess some people just can't tell the difference between romantic attraction and just being really good friends. But an important note: I think in some cases there's definitely outside pressure saying that two people "should" be in a romantic relationship simply because they are close platonically. Making those people question how they feel. Hence the existence of these quizzes. I can definitely feel that pressure while taking them.

6. They assume that your friends are all a certain type of person and your relationship with them is very specific. So here's the common assumptions I found across most quizzes:

Your friends are the type of people that are very invested in the love lives of everyone in that friend group. (And also outside of your friend group...)

Your friends are the type of people that will tease you about your romantic interests instead of being supportive.

You talk frequently about your love interests, love life, or lack there of with your friends. (Before you say "What? Everyone does that!" Not everyone does that.)

You are the only person questioning your feelings, everyone else is certain you have a crush.

Thankfully a teenage friend has informed me that this is 100% a teenager behaviour that happens all the time. Although I have seen cases where women under the age of 25 can also do this. I would go into detail about each of those but I think how these are not good assumptions to make is pretty self explanatory. You don't know me, you don't know what my friends are like, stop saying your experiences are universal. I will say blindly trusting the quiz taker's friends is not as reliable of a choice as it sounds. Sometimes people will just call any fond feelings for someone, platonic or not, a crush. And they sometimes will insist that person has a crush even if they say that they do not have a crush and simply want to be friends. And after awhile it can get to your head and feel like the only opinion that matters.

7. They assume this person is someone who you know/you regularly see in real life. In every quiz I took they asked at least one question that I could not answer because the plush I was using for all of these is someone I only know online. Specifically, it was some variant of "how often do you stare at them?" I understand this is a defining part of having a crush for most people, but I was rarely even given the option to say that this person and I are not regularly in the same room. Okay, let's say a teen girl gets a crush on a boy on from another school during like a sports game. She cannot answer this particular question truthfully either because imagining how often you'd stare at someone you met once if you were regularly in the same room with accuracy is not easy.

8. They assume you have the biggest crush, as anything less could lead to negative results from the quiz. Because I do not experience the same feelings, sometimes answering these questions truthfully is very difficult because my options are usually like this:

Q. If your crush asked you to hang out, how would you react?

OMG YES YES YES!!!

Well, we hang out all the time (as friends) so this is just a normal Tuesday for us.

I haven't even introduced myself to this person so they literally cannot ask me to hang out.

I'd make an excuse to not go.

And none of this is even close to how I feel about my plush. Or even about my friends. I cannot answer this question with 100% honesty. Legitimately, I've felt like I've gotten "you don't have a crush" results for the simple reason that I am not head over heals for my plush. Often it was either "every thought in my mind is of them" or "they're alright, I guess." But you can see how only the first option, with the most intense feelings, suggests that you have a crush. The other three options are either completely neutral feelings or suggest dislike. And since that's what people are taking this quiz to figure out, almost everyone is going to pick the first option. It might as well be just "would you hang out with your crush if they asked you, yes or no?"

So these quizzes are built on the assumption that you do, in fact, have a crush. You just want those feelings validated.

"Okay that's great Snowy, but what results did you get from these quizzes as an aromantic?"

Well, I didn't write down exact numbers since there were so many quizzes I took over about an eight month period. Some of them I took multiple times months apart and got different results. But I'd say about 60% said I had a crush, or was likely to have a crush. And 40% said I did not, or it wasn't likely to be a crush.

The funny part?

When I took some of those I didn't have a plush on anyone at the time. I was just using how I felt platonically about a close friend as the "crush." And while this did sway the results, it was not by much. Turning it more into a 50/50 chance.

No plush, no sexual attraction, they are JUST my friend. And yet, the results screen tells me I am deeply in love with them about half of the time.

When I said they assume you do have a crush, I really meant it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, I have actually made my own "do I have a crush" quiz that hopefully avoids doing everything I just talked about. No assumptions about the person you may have feelings for, no assumptions about your friends, no assumptions about you, who you are, or why you are taking it in the first place.

It's password locked since I'd like to get results strictly from people who find this post on Tumblr (for now). So type in this word when prompted:

conformity

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. I spent a long time with all the research and writing so it means a lot to me. 💖

[puttingherinhistory]

Excuse me while I sound like a crotchety old geezer for a minute here

I've seen this attitude pushed more on social media that "kids and especially teenagers are naturally defiant and naturally want to upset and piss off adults and parents and teachers need to just accept this and deal with it" and tbh, I don't agree. I don't remember wanting to piss off or upset anyone on purpose for fun as a kid or teenager.

What I do remember is that when I was getting a budding sense of morality and justice I would stand up to misogyny / racism / homophobia or general cruelty from adults and/or peers and it would usually be dismissed as "oh she's just at an age where she wants to be rebellious for the sake of it, she just wants to defy adults for fun because she's at that age" and that logic was used to dismiss it.

Likewise the same logic was being applied to kids, I'm talking especially privilged kids like the white kids and the boys especially the cishet boys, with budding cruelty that was a result of unchecked privilege. Like boys being grossly misogynistic and homophobic, "oh he just wants to be rebellious and piss off adults, it's fine". Do you see the issue of brushing the behavior of marginalized kids who are developing a sense of justice with the same stroke of privileged kids being cruel and bigoted? Oh that they're both just being rebellious and trying to get a rise out of you and it's fine just ignore it don't try to actually address it or do anything about it?

I think kids and especially teens usually have more complicated reasons being their behavior than "oh it's hard wired into their biology that they just HAVE to be defiant for the sake of it at that age" and using that logic prevents adults from actually having to think about and address the root of their behavior.

It also lets adults off the hook from actually having to do something about dangerous behaviors kids and especially teens do, like binge drinking until they have to be hospitalized. "Yeah it's just normal and natural because they have to be rebellious and make stupid decisions at that age, it's just hard wired into their brains that they gotta" is just fucking lazy. When I was at that age I understood drinking until I blacked out and needed to be taken to the hospital was bad and should be avoided because adults in my life had taken the time to explain to me it was bad. I was actually capable of rationalizing "hmm, alcoholism and alcohol poisoning are bad and I should avoid those things" and being warned against it did not tempt me to go out and drink dangerous amounts. Why the fuck would it? That makes no god damn sense and is just a lazy excuse not to actually teach kids better in a way they can understand.

Also I mean sure, part of it is laziness, but I also think some adults are so scared of looking like the buzzkill killjoy to young people because they're afraid of aging and actually having to look like a grownup. A lot of this is our culture's worship of youth and demonization of aging, so a lot of people are really scared of looking "out of touch" from the youth and really want to look like the cool hip understanding adult.

But also part of this is privileged adults wanting to protect the behavior of privileged kids. Just rebranded "boys will be boys" if you will. Of course an adult man is going to say "oh come on he's just a teen, teens are gonna be stupid and want to break the rules" about a teenage boy behaving in a reckless and cruel way. Of course white adults are going to say this about white kids behaving in a reckless and cruel way. They got away with it when they were teens so of course they want the same for today's youth who share their privilege.

Anyway it's time to stop being lazy caregivers. Kids aren't a bunch of stupid animals that just have something hard wired into their brains telling them to break rules and be defiant with no deeper motivation to their behavior than some "rebellious defiant" hormone in their brain mindlessly controlling them. It's degrading to oversimplify their behavior like that, they are human beings after all. There are almost always going to be deeper reasons for their behavior, most often that they're an underprivileged kid with budding morality and justice, or that they have a privileged background that has resulted in their more reckless and cruel behavior going unchecked. If you're someone who is a guardian or caretaker over kids and teens you do actually have a responsibility to exam the deeper reasons behind their behavior and address it instead of just dismissing it at "oh well it's just their weird hormonal teen brains commanding them to break rules and be rebellious without any deeper reasoning, time to just ignore it and not take it seriously"

[awakefor48hours]

Aren't you a fan of Belos yourself? Or is liking him/ enjoying his character different from being a fan? Do you not like how others like him?

You know anon, you bring up a good question and because this is something I actually think about a lot, I’m gonna make this a proper post.

The quick answer to this is no. I’m not a fan of Belos like other people. I don’t call him a cringy old gay he/they man, I call him a fascist colonizer and that makes (certain) Belos fans mad for some reason.

Now onto the longer explanation.

As of late (if I had to guess, I’d say the past 6ish years), I feel like there’s been a HUGE change in how fandoms interact with characters who are just bad. I couldn’t put my finger on it until recently when I started stalking the My Hero fandom (yep, bringing My Hero into this but bare with me).

I’m not as involved in the My Hero fandom anymore, I’m so behind on the show and haven’t been in the fandom in years so I don’t know if things have changed but back when I used to live in the My Hero fandom, there were so many Bakugou fans would say that the real reason why he was angry all the time is that he actually had an anxiety disorder and lived in an abusive household. This caused him to be mean to people, especially mean Deku.

That is not true in the slightest.

Bakugou is just a teenage boy with the powers of destruction at his fingertips, that’s it. I’d say that if given the ability to make explosions like Bakugou, a solid 70% of my old high school classmates would be just as bad, if not worse, than Bakugou because teenage boy are awful.

He doesn’t have an abusive household, his mom isn’t toxic, once again, Bakugou is just a teenage boy and teenage boys are just the worst. (No offense to any teenage boys reading this. It’s not you it’s the fact that you're very hormonal and live in a society that actively encourages boys and men to be violent).

Now, why am I bringing up a completely different character from a completely different show into this? It’s because I feel what’s happening in fandoms is that people don’t want to accept and/or admit that they like morally bad characters. The need to find a way to weave a victim complex into a character’s narrative as a way to find the deeper meaning to their shitty behavior is getting to be pretty popular and I don’t like it.

I’ve seen people defend Belos because “he’s actually just battling internalized homophobia” and I hate this because not only does The Owl House demonize this exact type of behavior (and it’s demonized in the scene that Belos is killed) but it’s not an actual excuse to be a bad person. It just feels like the people who say“I can’t be homophobic, I’m a lesbian” wearing a wig. Additionally, Belos being anything but a cishet, white man defeats the purpose of his character. He’s the Christopher Columbus of the show.

If you like bad characters, just say it. Stop hiding a behind the excuse that they’re actually good but we don’t get to see it because they’re traumatized or battling some internalized homophobia, especially when it’s not even canon. It reflects poorly on your understanding of how the characters are written and how mental health works.

[dream-critical]

I was wondering what your opinion or full on analysis is about Sapnap and Quackity? also who are the banter guests with allegations? I've only ever seen the Antarctica one and one with Quackity.

Ok so this is gonna be kinda long so sorry for that anon.

I'm gonna be honest, I watched quackity before his dsmp era bc i watched the circle of Reddit react YouTubers he was friends with. But during the whole dsmp stuff I've only watched a couple of his streams and there aren't a lot of thoughts. I do think it's annoying how he still associates with the dreamteam though. He's a really smart and logical person, so he either genuinely does not believe the allegations, doesn't care, or has refused to get involved to the point where he doesn't know much about it. Idk which one it is. But all options are questionable.

If you have any opinions about him you're always welcome to send an ask though!

Sapnap though. Hoooo boy. I was a sapnap Stan before all this anon. I was hyperfixed. I would watch every single YouTube video I'd watch all streams. I'd watch compilations. I followed him and all his alts on Twitter. I even watched the Valorant streams even though I think Valorant is one of the most boring things to watch ever.

I'm gonna be honest I disliked dream already. I knew about the republican Reddit account. I knew about the whole supporting trump until mid 2020 thing. I disliked him but had to put up with him for the sake of my streamer ig.

Then the manatreed stuff happened. The KKK edit came to light etc and I completely dropped all of them entirely bc the whole thing made me feel sick.

As for an analysis of his personality. Fair warning, I haven't watched any sapnap content since the manatreed situation happened.

But I'd say he has the potential to be decent, good. He has shown to be a ride or die friend, very caring. But he also is very ignorant and uncaring on a lot of topics. He is harsher towards women. The insults he uses when angry can be homophobic sometimes, aka the use of "cocksucker" or the time he called MCC "aids". It's probably from being a gamer since idk when. The online gaming community is very bigoted as we all know, and it's probably from how he was raised as well? Idk.

But like he's an adult now. His community contains a lot of teenagers who aren't cishet white boys who like saying homophobic jokes and giggle about it. He's had the time to adapt or even notice the things he says or does are wrong. He can and should educate himself and the gamer thing is not an excuse.

It's obvious he's insecure about shit a lot. And being a streamer doesn't help with that, but he overcompensates by being loud and trying to be extra manly ig. At least that's how I read his behaviour. Of course this isn't 100% right I can't read his mind. But like. Yeah.

The ride or die friend thing also kinda doomed him in this situation bc like. Idk. I think if you think rationally about everything that has happened. Would you really stick with a person like dream. Idk. Leaving behind friends is hard, especially since they've been friends for over a decade iirc but it doesn't make me feel any sympathy for him, bc the shit his friend has done is not some mild stuff either.

In general uh his actions are ignorant and harmful, he knowingly ignores everything and backs dream up at all times.

If he drops the Dt and gets some better friends. And also educates himself. He might become better. But like. Yeah that's not happening lmao.

The banter guests,

First one is Lee Jung Jae. He's one of the squid game actors I'm sure you've seen him before. He has been arrested for assaulting people before, including a 22 year old woman. It was pretty long ago but still really weird they got him on as this stuff all resurfaced before the banter episode iirc

And Neil Degrasse Tyson, with the SA allegations as well.

[treesap-blogs]

Review for “Ophelia After All” by Racquel Marie!

Hello, Tumblrians! I’ll try to publish at least 4 reviews this week. If I go on another unpredicted hiatus, at least I can have all this writing to make up for my sudden absence? 

Real talk though, I’m sorry about the inconsistent schedule. I get pretty self-conscious about this Tumblr account (there’s a reason I don’t use hashtags anymore), and also I’ve been kinda exhausted in the last week. I already told you guys about South Carolina. (There was originally gonna be a 540-word rant after this but I cut it. That was definitely for the best!)

I really gotta set realistic standards for myself. I keep thinking I’ll be prepared to upload reviews for this account but then I get hit with anxiety paralysis and just never upload anything. It feels like a chore sometimes, even when I made this for fun. I know not many people follow this, because I stay out of hashtags and the people who actually choose to follow me ‘cause they saw my reviews somewhere and liked them leave because I’m inconsistent. I’m sorry for repeatedly disappointing you all.

Okay! Time to actually start my book review! 

Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie follows 17 year-old Ophelia: daughter of an Irish English professor and a Cuban immigrant, she’s spent her whole life being a passionate rose gardener, gossip lover, and hopeless romantic with a crush on nearly every boy she meets. But a few weeks before prom, when she undeniably falls for a female classmate named Talia, she begins to question the identity she’s developed over time���and how much of it was because she wanted to appease the people around her. 

I really loved this book! Ophelia was a realistic teenage protagonist, and especially liked the dynamic she had with her friend group (which was one of many relationships paramount to the story). They teased and supported each other, called people out on their shit, fought and later made up, like a lot of friend groups do. While I get that not everyone likes to read about teenage drama, it was resolved by the end, and it didn’t take the melodramatic approach. There was also an interesting examination of Ophelia getting used to being around guys and not necessarily liking them romantically! Maybe it’s because I’m gay but I appreciated that too.

Anyhow! Other things I liked: Talia and Ophelia’s friendship! Ugh the embarrassment in the middle though😬 (WHY OPHELIA). I did like that even after everything they maintained that platonic relationship, though. I was expecting for it to be a romance because a lot of the YAs of this variety I read typically are, this is the first one I’ve read where the MC didn’t get the girl and learned to deal with that! (Also, Talia was sweet.) The multifaceted discussion of Ophelia’s identity was cool too, mixing together discussions on heteronormativity, culture, and dealing with the future in a coming-of-age story. I also just really love queer contemporary stories! It’s something about the light, sometimes snarky but overall honest writing style of basically every single one I read that leaves me whizzing through several hundreds of pages in under a day.

And of course, you can’t go wrong with the additional rose anecdotes sprinkled throughout the story.

(Sidenote, though: I was reading this the same week I was reading and listening to Bianca Torre Is Afraid Of Everything, so there was this weird coincidence between the two where both MCs had Shakespeare-obsessed moms who named their children after lady characters from his plays, assumed they were cishet, and initially weren’t trusted in their coming out journeys lmao?!) 

Uhmmm I don’t know what else to add on, except for that I just really liked that although everything was resolved there were still consequences and (eventual) self-awareness, and this and Felix Ever After are probably my favorites of the “messy coming-of-age” queer contemporary subgenre! (Which isn’t actually a real subgenre, but it should be considered one, right?!) My positive reviews are always very short, lol. Just look at my When The Angels Left The Old Country one, I remember I was going in circles? So I’ll cap it off here!

Book rating: (predictably) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 Finished 06/07/23.

(Book content warnings: Homophobia, lesbophobia, racism, outing, mentions of aro/acephobia and islamophobia.)

-Paz, signing off! ^^

[dgcatanisiri]

So yeah, there's The Quarry finished.

In retrospect, me thinking that there might be a cure, an alternative to killing, probably got more characters killed than anything. Note for next run.

Aside from the mandatory heterosexual bullshit, which, let's be real, it's pretty much the price of admission for any media not 100% made for a queer audience, I'm exhausted but I'm used to this, I did greatly enjoy it, like I have all of the Supermassive catalog. Let me get my replays of Cyberpunk and Andromeda, and maybe a play of another game, I'll easily go back in and try again.

Though I DID make a quality of life choice and disabled the "Don't Move" checks. Those screwed me over enough in Until Dawn for me to not want to deal with their bullshit again. And next time through, I'll probably turn down some of the other choices as well - The idea for first time is to do it with no takebacks or particular foreknowledge. Now that I know how things will play out with only my intuition guiding me, it'll be time to go with guides.

On a character level, though, I will say that Emma was easily my least favorite character of the group. Like her whole thing is saying that she doesn't want anything more with Jacob, but... She not only actively tries to make him jealous, she also is actively and intentionally flirting with him as well, so it's just... Clearly you want different things here, he wants a steady relationship and you want things to just be fun and casual, and this can't be justified as "getting the point across."

On the flip side, I feel like the narrative is basically out to make Jacob a designated whipping boy, considering the way that he is both easily killed AND quickly forgotten about by the others (like no one even MENTIONS him after he leaves the group, when no one even really knows that werewolves are involved). Like, I know he's responsible for the group being stranded there in the first place, but the karmic kicking he takes throughout the rest of the game...

Okay, yes, full disclosure, I do think he's cute and I have a tendency to forgive things for attractive characters, but still. It seems excessive to me. Like, it feels like the game, in knowing that it's a send up of like campy (pun intended, by both me and the developers) eighties slashers, stories where a character like Jacob would be defaulted as the hero, so here he's not just responsible for the problems by the narrative, but he's also both punished for it AND shoved out of that hero position by the characters more likely to be the hero in a modern story, but I feel like the writing goes so far in flipping that script on its head that it turns around to abusing him for the crime of... being a dumb teenager with no way of knowing that he's been put in the middle of a horror movie.

Seriously, I want him to just embrace the fact that he's clearly a himbo and needs a nice boy to get over the girl with.

And... the gay content. What there is of it. Like, on the one hand, it's handled in a way where no one ever comments on it, and while this IS a horror game sending up slasher movies, so the characters CAN end up dead, that's true up and down for the straights, too, so that's fine. But it's WEIRD how, once Laura appears in the group, she's thrown together with Ryan and even other characters comment on their interactions being "sparks," especially factoring in that Laura's primary motivation is her BOYFRIEND. Like, I can't even say that it's trying to make him seem not-queer, because it doesn't even make sense for either character. It's just a bunch of weirdness, like the writers couldn't give these characters interactions without trying to add that spark (which, given that I'm gonna go out of a pretty firm feeling limb and guess that the writers were all cishet, could easily just be the case).

Like, going back to the feeling of Jacob being written as the eighties version of the protagonist thrown into the modern setting and getting taken to task for his behavior, this feels like the characters' interactions being pulled from another story where they're totally meant to be together.

I mean, y'all know me, I'll call out forced heterosexuality in video games all the time, but this one is just WEIRD because it doesn't even make justifiable sense in universe that these two would be flirting, and I can see TV Tropes has an entry on it, which means even THE STRAIGHTS noticed.

Anyway. On the queer scale, this is probably no higher than a four. Taking that scale and applying the standard "media is so frustratingly heterosexual" curve, I'd still put it in a solid 8 to 8.5 range. If you have played and enjoyed other Supermassive titles, you'll enjoy this one.

[euphoricfilter]

“And I think people forget that our sweet boys are at the very least ally’s with the lgbtqia+, they work with many people in the community, and we have no idea their sexuality, pronouns, or gender so who knows maybe a few of them could also be part of the community”

Please don’t let your insane projecting weird white queer followers gas you up. We know their pronouns and gender holy shit. No western celebrities have to deal with this insane behavior. Leave korean idols alone if you’re gonna treat them like your toys and dolls to project on instead of like a normal human being. What sane person would say “we don’t know drake’s pronouns or gender or sexuality” when he is so obviously a cishet man. You and your followers can see asian men and therefore the tannies as non men because you’re subconsciously racist to asian men but your not right. None of them have every gone by she/her or they/them. You know their gender and pronouns, you just don’t like seeing asian men as men. Simple as. If being ally’s means being signed up to being misgendered in the most racist way I hope k idols stop being allies to you freakish teenaged westerners. Go project genderfluidity on Lil baby. We both know why you and every other racist kpop fan wouldn’t though. Even though you “don’t know his pronouns gender or sexuality either”. Jungkook out of all of bts. is the most obviously cishet. Changing gendered pronouns when he sings latto’s verse. Only going by him. Having a female lead in his sexuality solo debut. So to do that to him is so especially sinister. Don’t let tumblr queers hype you up. You are being very disgustingly racist like most other kpop fans who are queer and friendless and see allyship as a door to dehumanize and objectify real people.

no one’s gassing me up 🚶‍♀️ i somewhat feel like you missed the major point of the conversation and every thing i’ve tried to say so idk what else you want me to do.

personally i never assume anyone’s sexuality, be a white, black, asian, etc artist, unless they come out make it a point to say what their sexuality is. it has nothing to do with bts being asian.

i’m not saying jungkook doesn’t use he/him pronouns, and as i’ve said, nothing i write is me saying that is what i perceive jungkook to be in real life. all i’m saying is, in a hypothetical reality, say jungkook was non binary, or gay or whatever he wants to be, that’s okay, it’s not my business, he doesn’t owe me anything. and what i’ve written, is not me projecting some insane agenda onto the poor guy who is just minding his business

not once have i ever seen bts as “non men” and if that’s how i’ve come across then i’m sorry about that, but it’s not true.

again, i’ve never claimed that any of the members of bts have exclusively gone by she/her or they/them pronouns. just to not assume, because who know, not me, not you, because we have to remember that south korea is a very conservative country. and let’s take your issue with pronouns away for a second, the topic of sexuality is always going to be iffy if we’re talking about them being bi, or gay or pan sexual. and none of them have, and likely won’t unless put in a safer space because of the limitations of where they live. which isn’t me saying they are, just that if they were there’s political obstacles behind the tidbits of lgbtq+ involvement with their work

again, no one’s hyping me up. i’m not prancing around my room giggling because a few people asked me if i’m okay or are sharing their own thoughts on the issue. nor do i feel like i’ve dehumanised any of the members of bts. i’m not stupid, i’m aware of my standing as a fan

[wonderneverlandsystem]

TW/CW// Brief mentions of Homophobia, Transphobia, and Islamophobia, Mentions of Abuse, Racism, and general fandom idiocy

If you replace a poc with someone else, lets say another minority, and it is obvious that they r a minority, like they r wearing pride flag stuff, they're wearing a hijab, etc. and something vague that someone says about that person, like. idk. about them not being the kinda person you should hang around with. and you would call that person homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, etc. for saying that about the person? It isn't bigotry. If the statement could be applied to anyone. Then it isn't bigotry.

Yes this is about Billy Hargrove. Also YOU GUYS HAVE NO CLUE WHAT CONTEXT MEANS AND IT SHOWS. Max literally yelled at Lucas IN FRONT OF BILLY. HE WAS LIKE 20 FEET AWAY WATCHING AND LISTENING TO THE FIGHT. She yelled at him that he makes her feel like shit/that he treats her like shit. And whether u wanna admit it or not, Billy does care about Max. And even if he didn't, he is forced to take care of her. He has to be the parent. SO WHY THE HELL. After hearing that this random boy he's never met, treats his little sister who he cares about and is forced to be responsible for, like shit. Would he NOT tell her that there are some people you shouldn't be around. And that that boy is one of them. And in the Byer house where he sees her with Lucas again, AFTER HE WAS JUST ABUSED BECAUSE SHE RAN AWAY, of fucking course he's gonna target Lucas and not one of the other boys. He hasn't seen them with Max, he has no reason to thing of them as being bad influences or harmful.

And fuck no it doesn't excuse his actions or make them okay. He still attacked a 13/14 (don't remember their exact age) yr old. But nothing about his words or actions are explicitly, outwardly, whatever word u wanna use, racist. And even if he is racist (which by the way, every yt person, especially/specifically in America has institutionalized racism at the very least which takes a long time, and lots of education to break down, which isn't gonna fucking happen when u live in an abusive household where you have other things you have to focus on so you and ur kid sister don't fucking die, especially in the 80's), Max never fucking says anything about it. Even if what he said or did was racist, Max never said or did anything. Obviously I could understand her not saying anything to Billy because she might think he'd get angry. But she never goes to Lucas trying to comfort him, apologize for Billy's behavior, anything.

While I'm on the topic I might as well bring up the fact that NO ONE IN THE SHOW. EVER FUCKING TREATS LUCAS WITH RESPECT OR UNDERSTANDING IN RELATION TO HIS STRUGGLES WITH BEING A BLACK TEENAGER IN THE 80'S. In season 1, he gets SO MUCH shit from the fandom for not trusting Jane/El. A random girl who showed up out of no where, who, through no fault of her own, brings a bunch of dangerous ppl coming after the group. And basically no one gives Mike any shit for doing the same thing to Max in season 2. In season 4 when he is trying to fit in, to not be seen as a weirdo, outcast, freak, etc. So fucking many people treated him like he's an asshole for that. He is a black 15 yr old boy in the fucking 80's. In a town that is predominantly white. Where all of his friends are white. Most of the people at his school, are white. Of fucking course he's gonna do whatever he can to "fit in" and stay with the popular crowd. Not doing that would put even more of a target on his back. I'm so happy they put in that brief moment at Benny's where the only other black person on the team and at the house comes over to tell him it will be okay after the police show up. That he's not gonna be in trouble. Despite a good portion of the fandom being really diverse, be it queer, poc, etc. so many of y'all put the cishet yt characters on a pedestal and either ignore or straight up shit on the few queer characters & poc characters.

That's the end of my fucking rant for now. I'm tired. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk. night guys.

[whysojiminimnida]

Love when people bring up things JK said (and sometimes was prompted into saying) about girls when he was barely into puberty as concrete proof that he is straight. My friend group and I are nearing 30... only in the last year have a few of us had breakthroughs about our sexualities and gender identities. I still haven't reached a 'conclusion' about gender and I will probably grapple with it for years to come yet. These things are a spectrum, and they can evolve. My brother was asking out girls at 17, and out as gay at 18 - whereas my best friend, who is in a long-term relationship and only ever thought she could be straight, realised this year she is bisexual. Compared to South Korea, we live in an incredibly liberal society, where we had the luxury of figuring some of this stuff out in the open.

Who are we to hold any of these boys hostage to what they said or thought years ago as if that was the last word on the matter? JK could indeed be as straight as they come. But people trying to prove that shouldn't take his 15-year-old self's word as gospel. It's a piece of the puzzle, sure, but not the whole picture.

Thanks, nice intelligent anon, and I apologize in advance because I am about to hijack your whole post and have a whole ass Come To Jesus Meeting.

I’m so disgusted with ARMY right now. Not you, smart anon, but ARMY in general and the transphobic, queerphobic Y/N fanfiction self-inserters whose homophobia is only overshadowed by their hate for anyone JK looks at sideways.

These people out here deciding that since a playlist was trans positive it cannot have been liked by their idol. But let him say boo to a girl - a teenage girl, not a legal adult yet - and she’s getting hate for existing.

No wonder Jimin avoids most social media. Holding them hostage indeed, anon. We really have done exactly that as a collective and that is so wrong.

As a queer person I’m incredibly offended for Jungkook. What if that Genderfuck playlist had been his? What if it WAS his and we’re just getting the oops narrative? Does a queer idol who is also a lyricist not have a right to explore thoughts and feelings related to gender or identity?

Or is gender only a construct if your idol looks pretty in a skirt and keeps their ideas and feelings and identity to themselves?

And then to add insult to injury they’re gonna paint him as a predator. 25 to 19 isn’t a huge age difference in the West but in Korea it is significant. Especially since 19 is not adulthood there. So let’s just make Koo a cishet EPHEBOPHILE because that’s better than being trans or trans-questioning? OH MY GOD.

I am nauseous. And I’m sorry, anon. Your points are well made and I agree with all of them. It’s only reasonable that a closeted idol living in a conservative fishbowl might find some answers in the lyrics of trans artists, and it wouldn’t be the first time. Kim Petras? “Do Me”? 2019, anyone? Jungkook has been toying with gender for awhile and I am amazed that we seem to have not noticed this or have ignored it for so long.

But nobody thought twice about that new Spotify account UNTIL the Genderfuck playlist showed up. If that was a hacker, good for them. Way to be trans-positive and educational while shining a light on the roaches in this fandom.

Also it’s a great playlist. Whoever this hacker or JK is, they have fantastic musical taste. I said it and I’m not sorry.

But to go straight *cough* from “My Idol Can’t Have Identity Questions Or Support The Trans Community” to “My Idol Clearly Is A Straight Man Who Fucks Minor Girls” is both libelous and horrific.

That is so egregiously problematic that it makes us ALL look gross and rightly so. We have let these segments of the fandom operate without censure or consequences for too long. We’ve said just ignore them, they’ll go away. NO THEY WON’T. My inbox is living proof.

ARMY, we have toxic pathological homophobes and transphobes in our midst. And TKKers don’t get a pass here. Y’all homophobic as fuck because you’re fine with gay as long as it’s between two hot traditionally-masculine men and you get to pick the man. That’s just Y/N fanfiction only you’re getting off to two dicks instead of one.

TKKers are problematic and toxic because they reduce JK’s queerness to something they can control. There is no support for his words, or Taehyung’s. There is only sick conspiracy theory and adherence to the rainbow font red arrow lies of their leader.

Yep, y'all TKKers sent that shit to a minor female who happens to be an ARMY JK stan. JFC kids. If I were Jeon Jungkook I would take my Jimin and my dog and my retirement fund and I would buy an island, move to it, set up weekly grocery delivery and disconnect the internet. Possibly forever.

[saeraas]

Y'know when misogynistic fans talk about Yuki as if she was the one that told Geto "kill those guys" and Geto is an innocent boi uwu who did nothing wrong and was influenced by evil Yuki? As far as I know, Yuki actually told Geto that killing non sorcerers was out of the question because she isn't crazy like him, and as far as I know, Yuki didn't try to kill teenagers

And y'know when misogynistic fans also treat Choso as an innocent boi uwu that is going to be betrayed by evil Yuki (as if Choso wasn't a special grade curse)? As far as I know, Yuki isn't the one who allied with Kenjaku and Mahito, and as far as I know Yuki isn't the one that helped to kill innocent people during the Shibuya incident

"woke" and "true" jjk fans are just as misogynistic as the cishet jjk male fans

I agree! You're exactly right! It reminds me of how someone went into a jjk streamer's chat room and asked him about how "Yuki will be the traitor because she manipulated Geto" and the streamers thoughts and he just said "She's not evil, you just don't trust/hate women". These people twisted that whole scene when that whole conversation between Yuki and Geto boiled down to Geto trying to validate his feelings and make an excuse for what he wanted to do later on and it annoys me when people try to say Yuki is evil for this when she literally starts off the conversation with her goal: eradicating the source of curses instead of constantly fighting them for eternity.

Yet these misogynistic fans love to, all of a sudden, strip their characters (Geto especially) of their agency (and struggles) and say "uwu my bby boi wouldn't think about doing this, it's all evil Yuki's fault. She manipulated him" even though she 1) didn't know what geto was going through at all, 2) told him the idea was crazy and not a good one and even the traitor theory doesn't make sense for her because Gojo even said it's someone higher up and Yuki is known to never be in Japan for the most part, due to her research + her goal is LITERALLY the opposite of Kenjaku. Yuki may be neutral, but nothing she does is malicious.

I've recently seen some theories* go around that Tengen may become a threat to the main cast that Yuki may have found out about (in order to break away from curse energy) and boy if it happens and people get mad at her for that but when these two said they were going to fight Tengen everyone was quiet, I'm gonna snap

[mellometal]

Hi, everyone.

I have something extremely important to talk about that is NOT fandom related. I really do hope this can reach everyone on here, especially since it's still Autism Acceptance Month.

A few quick questions for anyone who happens to see this before I dive right into this: Have you ever heard of Dhar Mann? If so, have you ever seen his videos? What do you think about them?

If you don't know who Dhar Mann is, he's a content creator whose main platforms are Instagram and YouTube. He makes these videos about various scenarios from a couple on the brink of divorce, to kids bullying one of their peers, even about Autism Spectrum Disorder. All of his videos have some kind of message at the end that really drives the point home. One of his most recent videos is about ASD, which is what I'm going to discuss today.

Personally, I think some of his videos are interesting, despite the concepts being reused and recycled over and over; however, how I feel about the video he made about ASD is the complete opposite. I'll summarize the video he made so you don't have to watch it. (If you really want to watch it to see exactly what I'm talking about, I'm not gonna stop you. Do what you need to do in order to form your own opinion.)

The video Dhar Mann made about ASD is about this boy who excludes his autistic brother from participating in activities with his friends at school. The boy bullies his autistic brother and does pretty much everything to make his brother's life Hell, even going as far as to pretend that he doesn't know his own brother. The boy "instantly regrets his decision" when their mom is called into the school to discipline her son for bullying his autistic brother. What his mother says is what REALLY upsets me. The message of this video in particular is this, WORD FOR FUCKING WORD. I wish I was kidding. But here's the message below:

How the video concludes is the boy reluctantly includes his autistic brother in every single activity, the boy sees his brother's potential, and they live happily ever after. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

As an autistic woman who works with disabled people for a living, that message Dhar Mann put in this video specifically is not only extremely ableist, but is also spreading misinformation about ASD.

News flash to all the people who still spread misinformation about ASD: Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school, nor is every single autistic person a young white man who's a Super Genius™️. (I could go on all day long about how the media stereotypes autistic characters and autistic people in general, but that's a whole other topic.) No autistic person is the same, meaning we all fall on the spectrum in different places and all that jazz. There's no "look" to autistic people either because no autistic person looks the same.

Autistic women exist.

Autistic girls exist.

Autistic nonbinary people exist.

Autistic BIPOC and AAPI exist.

Autistic people who are completely nonverbal exist.

Autistic people who are completely verbal exist.

Autistic people who are in the middle of being nonverbal and verbal exist.

Autistic people who require minimal to no support exist.

Autistic people who require moderate support exist.

Autistic people who require full support exist.

Autistic LGBT people exist. (Reason why I bring this one up is because the media almost always shows cishet autistic men and I don't see autistic LGBT representation very often, if ever.)

Autism isn't something you can "catch". People have this same mentality about ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome too, which, by the way, you can't "catch" either.

Autism doesn't "go away" when you reach adolescence or adulthood. Why? BECAUSE AUTISTIC TEENAGERS AND AUTISTIC ADULTS EXIST. Autistic kids grow into autistic teenagers, then into autistic adults.

You can't "cure" it either. Unless you can build a time machine and a device to go back in time to change how a person's brain develops, there is no cure. ABA therapy is a fucking shit show in itself that does more harm than good.

The title of the video is a real squick for me too. It's mostly because I don't particularly enjoy people using person first language (the "boy with autism" part). I've seen many other autistic people on multiple other platforms sharing that same sentiment and preferring identity first language (autistic person). There are also others who prefer using person first language and those who don't have a preference. That's all perfectly valid. Whatever you prefer people using when referring to you, or whatever you refer to yourself as, in this case, is totally valid and I love you. This goes for disabilities in general, not just Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Regarding the message in this video, here's my response to it! A quick heads-up, my response is VERY long and VERY passionate. I was VERY close to making a response video where I tear that video apart AND tear Dhar Mann a new asshole. Unfortunately, it worked me up so much that I was really struggling with what I wanted to say and I had to stop multiple times because I kept stumbling on my words. That's how angry this message made me. I'll try my best to explain whatever parts you have questions about. I put my response in the nicest way I possibly could, despite me seething with rage, wanting to go OFF on him.

(The first part of my response are the first three screenshots, and the second part are the last three screenshots.)

The first part of my response, I did forget to add that the message is offensive and disrespectful to autistic people as a whole. I apologize. My initial comment got way too long. I pretty much covered that when I told him the message is ableist. I wanted to clear that up before anyone asks about it.

The second part of my response is me opening up about my experience with being diagnosed with ASD, formerly known as As//per//ger's Syn//dro//me, at sixteen years old. I also went into how not calling ASD what it truly is (which is a disability) and calling it a "different ability" instead is extremely harmful and is treating being disabled like it's a bad thing.

By the way, saying that a disabled person is disabled isn't a bad thing. I'm disabled. It is what it is. Does it have its challenges? You bet. Does it help me with certain things? Hell yeah. I can really absorb information about my favorite bands, characters, shows, books, etc., and tell you a lot about those things. For example, I can tell you that Su can't ride a bike or read manga and she's okay with that. I can also tell you she can't tie her shoes very well, which is why her boots don't have laces and are slip-on and/or zip-up. But that doesn't mean my struggles are nonexistent or that I never struggle. I do, and it makes my life Hell at times.

The narrative that autism is a bad thing to have, every autistic person is somehow broken and they all need to be "fixed" is also super fucked up and not true. That's the narrative that I received when I was diagnosed by a therapist I had. I'm gonna be real here, I cried when I was first told that I was diagnosed with ASD. I felt like I was broken. I already felt like a total outcast. Being told about my diagnosis made me feel even more broken than I already felt. I was so ashamed of myself, despite me not doing anything wrong whatsoever, that I masked for SEVEN YEARS of my life. I masked for so long that I forgot I was even diagnosed with ASD in the first place. I wasn't taught how to really put my special interests into good use. I kinda had to figure that out on my own. I was pretty much under the assumption that me being interested in anime, cartoons, music, comics, theatre, writing, etc., to the point of obsession, was somehow weird and hurting people around me. You know, despite those things being harmless. Despite me being able to separate those things from other things that are important (like work, for example). Despite my only surviving parent, other family members, and the woman he was dating at the time completely overreacting and not bothering to see exactly what makes these things so special to me.

(By the way, having a disability does not completely make who a person is. There are a lot more things that make who a person is than that.)

It's kinda shocking that I wasn't able to come to terms with my diagnosis until this year. Considering that I masked for so long due to being ashamed of myself, plus being treated like a burden for being disabled, it's probably not very surprising. I initially thought at the time that it was the worst thing to have, as I was already struggling with enough shit back then, but came to realize it's not a bad thing. It doesn't change who I am. But I'm glad I came to terms with it finally nonetheless.

This is getting way too long, so I'm gonna wrap things up here. If you've read this far, thank you so much. I'm sorry this got so long!

If you watched the video, what are your thoughts on it? If this is your first time hearing about Dhar Mann, how do you feel about him? If you're a Dhar Mann fan, did this change your opinion on him in any way? Feel free to sound off in the comments!

Have a great day, everyone!

[ifyouseekay468]

what do YOU personally think the teenagers (mcr) lyrics are about my friend ? like i keep thinking about them but im not sure im going somewhere

okay, ive answered this ask twice on mobile and each time my phone deleted it, so here I go, the FINAL version of this post

It's been a hot minute since I listened to teenagers so I decided to do a quick run-through of the lyrics, and while Gerard&Co were raised catholic the lyrics seem to REEK of protestant trauma, so that's what I'll be going off of, but I'm pretty sure the two denominations overlap here. The first verse is about kids in youth group, Christian GirlsTM especially, who are put there to pressure you into being "normal" into "cleaning you up with the lies in the book" (bible), although the pastor is the one giving the teaching THESE are the people who will get you to BELIEVE, who will get you to lie to yourself, who will get you to church camps that on some level utilize brainwashing techniques, and will DESTROY you with the idea that you're "Just one of them, and just need to change everything about yourself and fake your way through every last sermon to be just a part of the gang",

The part about sleeping with a gun and keeping an eye on you is about two things: one, about the idea that God can see all your thoughts, that THINKING about "sin" (ie; fantasizing about sex) is as bad as COMMITTING sin (which is fucked up entirely on its own because fantasy is SO FUCKING DIFFERENT FROM REALITY and that is a CRUCIAL aspect of sexual expression in order to safely engage in sex), AND the fact that these kids will pretend to be your friend, will prod you into doing things with them, into telling them things about yourself all the while making you feel like "part of the group" when really they're just blabbing either to religious leaders, or are ostracizing you and bullying you behind your back.

"The drugs never work"

This in my opinion points to the fact that this song is specifically about being QUEER in a christian culture. It is common for trans people to turn to drugs or psychedelics in an area that has little to no access to gender affirming care, or acceptance because they both change reality and disconnect one from the body that is causing their dysphoria. It can also help burn away the guilt, so to speak.

The methods of keeping you clean is about two things: one, about purity culture, no smoking, no drinking, no friends who drink, no sex, no porn, no masturbation, no impure thoughts. The second, is the way they're able to subtly manipulate you into hiding yourself, into lying to yourself, into forcing yourself to the point of death into being cishet. They're keeping you clean not just from the vices of addiction, but the vices of the flesh, the vice you can't escape because it's a part of you from the day youre born. On a darker note, this could also be referring to c*nversion th*rapy, given this second interpretation of the lyrics

"Ripping your head and aspirations to shreds," Is again about two things in my opinion: both the idea of "losing yourself to God's will" that usually leads one to losing their identity and getting depression and fucked up mental health, and the "shift" that happens at church when you reach a certain age. You know the kind, right? You're four years old, and church is FUN! You get to go to this big room and sing and dance on stage with all your friends! You get to play GAMES! You get to talk to the ~cool teenagers~ who are ~Just like you~ and ~think youre a "cool kid"~, you have ~best friends~ who will be with you like Jesus and the 12! but then, one day, something happens, something SHIFTS. maybe the Sunday school teacher leaves, maybe there's a new family at church, maybe the church changes buildings. Maybe none of that has to do with any of it, all you know is that now things are forever different. Church isn't fun anymore. The kids classes are repetitive, they're bribing you into memorizing bible verses with money, they DONT reward critical thinking or analysis, but they do call you smart, that's because they dont want SMART kids they want OBEDIANT ones. You have no choice but to stat going to REAL church. Suddenly, your best friends are not your best friends. Suddenly they're avoiding you. Suddenly they're lying to you. Suddenly you're too... well they don't know the word yet but "gay" for them...

"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me"

This is what youth group does to you, it isolates you from your entire generation because there are few people your age and a whole lot older than you, and everyone is so much DIFFERENT from you for some reason, but neither of you know why, not yet anyways. This makes you distance yourself from teenagers, because you can't SEE yourself as a teenager, because youre nothing like other teenagers.

"They could care less as long as someone will bleed,"

This is the martyr complex that permeates youth culture like the smell of wine, the problem? these kids love to make a show of themselves and their martyrdom, but they're unwilling to martyr themselves, so what do they do? They throw someone else to the wolves and take the glory. They ostracize and eliminate the unique in the name of preserving their faith. They convert and convert and god help anyone who doesn't want to convert.

"So darken your clothes and strike a violent pose"

This is about deconversion, how the moment you leave the church you never want to see another cross till the day you die, that you want to avoid christians of all costs because you don't want them To drag you back into the pit that devoured you. So you do anything and everything you can to make yourself repulsive to Christians, which actually coincides with your indulgence of mundane activities previously considered as "sin"

"Maybe they'll leave you alone but not me,"

There's a different between a cishet ex Christian and a queer ex christian, and that difference is that a cishet atheist is more likely to be left alone than a queer one, especially a queer one whose whole demeanor screams "Christians be gone," that shit is like... it summons christians faster than free winter jam tickets! They swarm to you frothing at the mouth with holy water waiting to either convert you or exorcise you into purity, depends on if you want them or not. Again, you don't even have to be OPENLY gay, they can TRACK this shit. it's like fucking... INSTINCT or something.

"The boys and girls in the clique, the awful names that they stick, you're never gonna fit in much kid,"

as alluded to above, this lyric is about how, even from a young age, BEFORE youth group, this toxic culture kind of develops. ESPECIALLY around christian girls. They don't have the vulgarity of slurs, but they can make up for it with slang like "tomboy" "nancyboy" "too boyish" "a sissy" "Weird" etc, youre NEVER going to fit in, because the moment that "shift", from fun games and songs to Real Church, occurs, you have a target on your back.

"But if youre troubled and hurt what you got under your shirt will make them pay for the things that they did,"

This is probably a gun. But that's a tad too boring for my taste. If you were raised protestant you KNOW that being an ex protestant, after the craziness of evangelicalism, you would not hesitate to burn down your old church. It could be a secret tattoo, top surgery scars, hell maybe even nipple clamps. Whatever it is, it's symbolic of revenge. I know that anytime I wore my labrys necklace to church I would always hide it under my shirt. I hid books and CDs under there too. Again, it's about revenge, it's about breaking free, gun or no gun, the point is getting out and getting back at them.

and thats pretty much my take on the song. Again, this is not about artist intent this is just what the lyrics reminded ME of personally (as you can see from the over biographical bullshit I wrote), I'm always open to contradicting interpretations though as I always have like 2+ interpretations of a song or book! I never really saw the song through the lens of youth group specifically but when I went over the lyrics again in retrospect it all seemed to really click (pun not intended) well! Thanks for the ask!

[thedemigodfromravenclaw]

I'm not good at writing, especially if it's about my deepest feelings . So... it's gonna sound like more of a rant than a question but here we go :

I'm a cis woman who's turning 18 this month. I live in South Asia. In my country, no identity other than cishet is accepted or even talked about. I'm pretty sure that most of the people doesn't even know that identities beyond cishet exist and they wouldn't be able to understand in a million years how people can be non-binary or queer. It should be mentioned that my country is a pretty conservative country where majority of the population are Muslims.

So, as a girl, I get the usual "Marriage Talk" a lot. Whenever someone brings up this topic, I simply say that I'm never getting married . I've been saying that since I was 4. (Yes, people who I didn't even know existed a moment ago got really worried about my marriage cause I'm*not acting like a good girl* and nobody's gonna marry me if I kept acting like that. ) My fam is pretty chill about it though, every single time I said something like this they were like , "You're gonna definitely change your mind when you're older." Now that I'm older ( my family never thinks so ) , I have changed my mind.

Teenage girls usually LOVE to talk about boys. Naturally, in school, a considerable amount of gossip were about boys (mostly celebrities). I participated too. (Most of the time, I was just listening to them. I didn't feel comfortable talking about the specific topic with my classmates. They can be major bitches.) But I noticed how they sexualized them, fantasized about getting married to them, even having kids with them. It always seemed gross to me. How do you even think these stuffs about people you don't even know ? They were like , " I'll never be able to even speak with him. What's the problem if he's in my fantasies ?" A lot of them started dating. It was when we were around 12/13 y/o. (My country is a conservative place.Here, having a bf/gf is not acceptable at all. A lot of people finds the idea of even having a male friend disgusting.) I, on the other hand, didn't have this kind of fantasies. When I say that a guy is cute or handsome, I'm not having a crush on him. I'm simply admiring his good looks , the way I'd admire a painting. At present, most of my classmates are dying for a boyfriend. (Again, having a boyfriend here is NOTHING like having a boyfriend in the West.) I'm absolutely sick of seeing their posts about the pros and cons of being single, sad songs and.......I don't even know how to describe those.

Now, I'm sure that I'm a cishet female. But, I find the idea of having sex with strangers, barely-known person or even a person I just know- with whom I don't have any special mental bond repulsive. Also, when my classmates are desperately wanting a bf, I'm completely fine. A boyfriend kinda seems waste of time, money and energy to me. I'm young and I have lots of things to do now. Even though Twilight seems boring to me, I'm not unromantic. I kind of want to be with someone who really gets me ( in future). And I think I'll enjoy sex stuffs with the guy.(Ps. I like to love myself 😊) Like, I want a special person who'll love me for who I am and see through my false "I'm okay."

I'm wondering, do I fall anywhere in the Ace spectrum?

I have no one to talk to about it , and the internet has made me super confused. I just want to know myself better. ( And also to explain how I don't have crush on that super handsome guy to others )

Hope I used the hashtags right. I'm new on Tumblr.

💜💙💚💛🧡❤️🖤🤍