#that logic just really gets to me

[bullywug-n-mugwort]

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idk why people just decide they get to invalidate someone else's identity when they are not the one with that identity and therefore don't know what they're talking about. just saw someone i otherwise respect reblog a post about how bisexual lesbian is an invalid term because each term has changed over time and claiming it's lesbophobic and biphobic to use the term [something something mutually exclusive experiences]. i usually call my orientation "queer" but i often use "bi lesbian" to make sense of my own experience. the tags of this post were full of people dunking on all imagined reasons someone may call themselves a bi lesbian, none of which reflect my own experiences and reasoning.

not that i should have to defend myself, but a lot of these comments were very fixated on the experiences of "liking only women" vs "liking both women and men." these categories obviously have social significance, but to me personally, romantically and sexually, these categories aren't super helpful. i cannot isolate traits of manhood or womanhood i find attractive. i'm into femme traits until i see a hot butch. i like certain chests, certain facial features, and any genitals. these traits don't map onto coherent binary genders very well. not to mention my attractions shift with my fluid gender. if i'm looking for a consistent pattern, i'm into gendernonconformity if anything. i guess i'm far more into women than i am men unless the man is a flamboyant twink but at the end of the day i'm not into either as much as i am a very specific weird collection of queer gender markers. (and pansexual had never seemed to fit the bill, because there are also many gender expressions and markers i am certainly unattracted to.)

does that really make me a biphobic bisexual? i wrestled with more shame at the idea that i was a lesbian, a stereotype threat for the bisexual community i love. the twink i married turned out not to be a man at all. i was struggling with worries about comphet for years because i loved them but our marriage didn't feel "right," and now that we're both practicing genderqueers it does. to me, that experience made bisexuality feel less like home than it had before. at the same time, finding like two men attractive excludes me from the lesbian community. is it such a sin to have found home in a term that made coherent my knot of comphet and dysphoria?

i realized, as many lesbians with comphet do, that i would probably never be happy in a relationship with a man, as in someone who self- identified as a man and embraced manhood. i also find astarion bg3 hot as fuck. i fail to see how these are mutually exclusive experiences.

can i guarantee that no biphobia or lesbophobia has wormed its way into my brain? of course not, but it is so strange that embracing both those terms brands you as someone who hates both. it's also strange to exclude people from terms on the basis of internalized shame. why care if some people call themselves bi lesbians? does it feel invalidating to you? that's your own work-- same as women who think afab nonbinary people are really just women who are ashamed of being a woman and therefore should continue living as "women". (ie it's not my job to choose an identity that you approve of or think is free of shame. you figure it out.) are you worried it invalidates us in the eyes of the heteros? i simply don't believe in policing our own terms to make cishets see us as more valid or understandable. it's disguised respectability politics, plain and simple.

all these terms for our identities are best fits and best guesses, grasping for connections under this big lovely queer umbrella. the person who reblogged that post is a nonbinary lesbian. why do the same people who accept the concept of a nonbinary lesbian-- a thing that should be impossible if the term "lesbian" has actually calcified as the post claims-- insist that "bisexual" and "lesbian" are concrete, immovable, and mutually exclusive identities? to be extremely clear, i support nonbinary lesbianism. it's valid. and it's a weird fucking line to draw, saying that the gender spectrum can support loosely-gendered lesbianism on the side of the beholder but not the recipients.

there was also a historical argument claiming that people are misinterpreting contexts in which bisexual lesbian was used circa early 20th century. and like... okay??? i found the term in a pdf zine from the 90's which interviewed self-identified bisexual lesbians, gleaning a bunch of different reasons for the label. some fell into the assumptions of the aforementioned post, eg bisexuals who were basically political lesbians. (i don't claim to support this stance, though i do still insist people can call themselves whatever they want.) many more summarized complicated stories like mine, people who did not fall neatly into either "mutually exclusive" category because, it turns out, gender is a fluid weird spectrum. bi lesbians whose attractions are bi and gender is lesbian. bi lesbians who were literally only into women except for one "man". bi lesbians who were trying to untangle comphet and so weren't sure which label, if either, fit. bi lesbians who liked to fuck any gender but only fell in love with "women". so anyway, fuck outta here with "history doesn't work like that" narrow target practice.

and even if that's true... again, words are evolving all the time. we've made words like sapphic and achillean to make some sense of gender. "lesbian" has on-off been used as a gender term for decades. we've invited nonbinary people into lesbianism and many understandings of gender into bisexuality. bi lesbian is another evolution of our language, and people have been shitty about it since at least the early days of DTWOF-- bechdel's characters struggled with all of the above since the 80's.

and what's the point of terms? to find community, self- identity, and sometimes practical utility, eg in the dating world. were i to date again (yikes), "bisexual" would not be a helpful self-descriptor for finding a romantic partner. lesbian would. if i wanted to hook up, bisexual would be more helpful than lesbian, and i'd have to root through lots of gender expressions anyway. so in terms of my self identity and finding communities of similar folk, "bi lesbian" is a super helpful term. if you are a bisexual or a lesbian and feel frustrated or confused by my term, that's because it doesn't apply to you. maybe just realize this isn't your thing and leave our community to explore our experiences. love you, see you later in the sapphic tags where we have things in common.

so anyway, i think it's pretty silly to see a term, imagine reasons you dislike for why someone may use it, and pitch a fit. my identity's legitimacy has no bearing on yours. leave us alone.

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[deoidesign]

My comic is so pretty...

The hiatus is letting me take a little extra time on these episodes, and I'm definitely putting it to good use!!!

[shepscapades]

Why does Ren have 4 ears? Are they all real or is one set fake?

Hehe I’ve gotten this question a lot actually! They’re all real— I like to think hybridization isn’t always a clean balance of traits, so Ren just unfortunately ended up with two sets of ears— his Dog ears being much more receptive to sound, naturally— and sometimes when the extra intake of sound is too overwhelming, I imagine he wears earplugs in his human ears to help adjust :> it’s a bit weird, but idk! i like to make designs funky and nonconventional! I liked the idea that Ren had hearing struggles due to wonky hybridization and just kept the concept :>

[happi-dreams]

still trying to figure out how to exactly draw these lil guys so more doodles wahoo! ( plus oc woa- )

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about marriage/women's rights on Vulcan Some may think that T'Pring not being allowed to divorce Spock was because he was going through the pon farr but if she were allowed to divorce him at all she probably would have done that a long time ago, confirmed by T'Pol when she's speaking with Koss, who isn't suffering from the pon farr. She says that he can choose another mate (without invoking a fight it seems: note the difference between a 'mate' and a 'challenger') and after he makes it clear that nothing she says will change his mind about marrying her, she finally threatens to declare a kal-if-fee. It's clear that Vulcan women cannot divorce/refuse to marry a man they've been betrothed to under any circumstances if A) He himself doesn't consent to ending their marriage or B) She doesn't have someone else waiting in the wings to be given to in his stead. Though, if the challenger she selects fails to win the fight, she'll have to marry her betrothed anyway unless (again) he decides he doesn't want her after the challenge. That seems like an incredibly unfair system, heavily biased towards men. SNW is an alternate universe in many obvious respects but most egregiously in that T'Pring has a lot of non-canonical agency over her relationship with Spock. It's interesting to me that Vulcan society has women in many positions of power and treats women as equal to men from what I've seen despite these laws. We don't really see Vulcans exhibiting a misogynistic attitude towards women in general but in TOS (perhaps because of its general writing style but it's still interesting to note) both Sarek and Spock take on patriarchal attitudes specifically regarding wives. Amanda says that 'of course' Sarek commands her because "he is a Vulcan and I am his wife." It's worthwhile in my eyes to note that she specifies 'wife' instead of attributing this attitude to women as a whole. Again, with TOS' writing style it wouldn't be out of place for her to say "he is a man and I am a woman." Spock, while in a pon farr induced irritation, states that it's "undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn't hers" - again implying that there's something specific about being a Wife in Vulcan society which is different from being a woman in general and demands subservience to a husband. This could perhaps stem from the extreme sense of ownership that Vulcan law has permitted men to have over women. A woman legally cannot point blank refuse marriage. There is no option which guarantees she won't have to marry her betrothed other than death. When T'Pau speaks of T'Pring she refers to her as being 'property' and Stonn, before being interrupted, states he's made 'the ancient claim' - we don't know what this is because he gets cut off but it's obvious they're both using the language of Vulcan law. Men are permitted true freedom to choose. If a woman wants to choose someone else to be with there is no option available to her other than the kal-if-fee which might result in the death of the one she wants to be with. And, if her lover fails, her husband can still just decide he wants to marry her and she'll be forced to. T'Pring gives two scenarios: One where Spock 'frees' her and one where he doesn't - it's still ultimately his decision which is clear when he ends the conversation with "Stonn, she is yours." This again isn't just because of the pon farr as T'Pol also goes through this. Koss can choose another mate and when the option is talked about there's no implication that this would result in any sort of fight (both by the casualness of its mention and by the fact that there's no formal word for it unlike the kal-if-fee.) Also, the fact that Koss does eventually grant T'Pol a divorce and it's all fine means that T'Pol isn't lawfully required to have another man waiting if her HUSBAND doesn't want her. It's ONLY required if SHE doesn't want her husband. Tradition must take precedence over individual desire UNLESS!!! You're a man. Then it's fine. Like, your parents might not be happy but legally you're golden.

[hmsdoodlin]

I think we as a society need more Heart and Soul interactions. They have a lot of potential to be really interesting in BOTH fluff and angst.

Idk y’all but positive Heart and Soul dynamics are really nice. They deserve to be friends and love each other and bond.

They share the same night sky.

[sunny12th]

I don't think we need a monologue or explicit statement from Dany renouncing the Targaryens of Old Valyria for owning slaves and the Old Valyrians for spreading slavery through Essos. She never thinks about them, she doesn't have them on a pedestal in her mind. She has a favorable viewpoint of her immediate family, mostly Rhaegar, that she was taught by her brother. I dont think we need to see Dany explicitly state for the readers that her slave owning ancestors were evil and she disagrees with them because her actions show this.

[sittinginsunflowers]

my favorite part of the mayor logic twist is that it really is such a reminder that a lot of things can falsely present as logic. Mayor Logic wasn’t in it with the DA, or in the mob’s pocket, he was just a reflex pretending to be more important than he is. What your brain presents as “logic” isn’t always actually logical and logic can so easily be clouded that you can mistake the two for years. And that doesn’t make you a bad or unintelligent person, just because you have reflexes, habits, or triggers, that interfere with that logic.

It seems so small and superficial, but it means so much to have it reinforced by a story you love, that logic isn’t always what it seems and sometimes it takes some work to piece together what’s right.

[puppyeared]

learning abt friendship decay and "not reaching out to your friends for months at a time unprompted is not neurotypical behaviour" has me feeling a certain way

[vaguely-concerned]

walking through lucanis' mind prison. the tam lin of it all

[cdroloisms]

one kind of funny phenomenon I think in dreblr spaces is that we’ve spent so long arguing some things that sometimes we end up writing c!Dream sharing our viewpoints and accidentally make him like. Uhhh more woke than he actually is LMAO. c!dream isn’t arguing against punitive justice as redemption he made that shit . He put himself in a box

[al-luviec]

juvie buddies

[quisters]

Arthur must constantly be passing out with his frankly atrocious lack of blood at this point

[manynarrators]

Armand has the worst prophet Cassandra vibes to him. He says things, people say “oh no, I don’t like that” and then he’s right!

Like, in the books he says to Lestat that he and Gabrielle will come in ways to resent one another, that they will separate, etc. Gabrielle and Lestat say “maybe eventually, but no that won’t happen in the short term”. And then literally pages later, Lestat is forced to go like “okay so maybe Armand was right” when he and Gabrielle do inevitably go their own ways because they want such polar opposite things!

Armand warns for when Lestat’s fledglings come to hate him, and what do Claudia and Louis do about few decades down the line??? They try to kill him.

Armand in the show says “what will do about this book? When the vampires of the world read it and come to besiege the apartment?” And what happens at the end of s2??? The book gets published and Louis challenges then to come to the Dubai apartment.

[lucabyte]

transfem loop + siffrin... you agree

i does agree.... i does in fact ... write a 7k word essay on the subject..... if you would like to perhaps click that link and read it if you were not already aware...... kisses u on the forehead......... sorry its that long but i had to cover all of my bases you know how it is with textual analysis when you're trying to draw a distinction between "headcanon" and "reading of the text" because those are different things.... to meeeeeeee.......