#the kinsey scale has its issues

[ailelie]

The Cohort on the Kinsey Scale

Nora: 2 (but it's never been relevant, so she's not really explored it)

Ivy: 1

Gabriel: 4

Jonas: 3

Ambrose: 0

Fletcher: 2

Viola: X/3 (Viola has major trust issues and can't feel attraction for anyone she doesn't trust; once she trusts someone and has built an emotional connection with them, gender is irrelevant to her)

[diamondnokouzai]

isekai manga feminism ranking which goes from yuri isekai down to shonen harem isekai

[etirabys]

meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

[polaroid-petals]

Got bored, made an OMORI Kinsey scale. Mix of stuff known from canon, extrapolated from canon, and personal headcanons. More to the left is more attracted to the opposite sex, more to the right is more attracted to the same sex.

Some explanation for them below the cut

Headspace friends

Since Sunny gets to choose who his friends are in headspace, he often disregards what he knows about them and modifies them as needed.

The headspace friends, with Mari and Hero as an exception, were all designed to be infatuated with Omori and adore him and him alone deeply. As such, headspace Kel, Aubrey, and Basil are attracted to just Omori. However, they can stray from their protocol in some iterations.

Headspace Mari was designed to be with Hero, so she doesn't need to be attracted to anyone else. However, headspace Hero is in a unique position as both a headspace friend infatuated with Omori and intended to be with Mari, placing him smack-dab in the middle of bisexuality.

Since Omori is meant to be an idealised, socially accepted version of Sunny whom everyone adores, he was intended to be straight. However, with Sunny's struggle with his identity, Omori has very much been used to explore his attractions to the same gender, to the point where Omori himself has a male preference.

Lastly, Stranger should be exclusively homosexual as he is also a Basil and therefore subjected to being attracted to all things Sunny, but as he has more free will and he comes with the parts of Basil that Sunny has suppressed, a slight bit of bisexuality shines through that may rear its head once in a blue moon. Functionally gay.

Real world friends

Sunny, at the very least, has a viscerally negative association with the idea of being romantically involved with Aubrey. This can be interpreted as either not being attracted to just Aubrey, or not being attracted to women at all. But as every detail in a story has its function, and knowing Omocat's a bit of a fujo, the detail of his aversion to romance with Aubrey was most likely added to the game as an indicator that he's gay. He may never find the words to express this or define himself as gay, though, and go by vibes and feelings alone.

I like bisexual Basil because he deserves smooches from everyone. Slight male leaning, but not intensely.

Likewise with Aubrey, though she's a little more in the centre. Though she hasn't shown attraction or kinship that can be interpreted as romantic to any men in canon, I still like her as bisexual.

At this point in his life, Kel can best be described as a mostly straight but bicurious guy. However, as his life goes on and he gains more experience, he may migrate more towards the right as he strays from that image where the jock has a girlfriend.

Hero hasn't thought about love or sexuality since he was 15. In reality, he's probably slightly more centred, but after Mari, the very idea of starting a relationship with anyone makes him nervous.

Mari is a very simple case: she figured stuff out pretty early, but by the time she did, she already had caught herself a future husband and didn't date around. Slight male leaning.

Beta buddies

Rowan might be the most exclusively homosexual character on the chart. He owns his spot on there, and he's gonna either proudly and arrogantly embrace it or staunchly deny it without modifying any behaviour.

As for Omoriboy, while he will eventually come out on the exclusively gay side of the scale, he currently is dealing with a hefty dose of comphet.

(I don't know where to place Flower at all, hence why he's not on this chart. Every attempt to place him has made me go "but what about x?" Obviously likes Omoriboy, but also doesn't strike me as exclusively gay. Might be asexual?)

Sweetheart & co

Sweetheart is probably a centre bisexual because she has dated men and had no issue with the idea of dating women, albeit her own clones. However, since she has only ever volunteered relationships with men, I like the idea she has a sliiight preference towards male. She might just be so self-centred that she'll date anyone who inflates her ego.

I've put Spaceboy down as a balanced bisexual due to his infatuation with Sweetheart that just makes the idea of him seeking comfort with a man so much tastier. He doesn't really care about the gender of his partner per se, but Sweetheart scarred him, making him date more towards the male side.

And finally, Rococo I see as someone who thought he was bisexual but who's slowly concluding he's gay. Sweetheart was all he had, and he did genuinely love her, but maybe it was all due to his codependence. The grass seems greener on the other side.

[smalltestaccount]

okay i think ive come to the conclusion that i dont really fit in with most other trans women, like personality wise, and thats okay. Like i think recently a lot of trans women, not just on tumblr, have been making me think i have to be kinky and bizarre or something, be blasé about transitioning or gender roles, or even just like be okay with some borderline harassing behavior. Its okay if that is you (except the harassing behavior some of yall need to work on that), but like thats not really me. Acting this way just makes me feel bad. Just ignoring that Im a total straightedge, that im like a 1 on the Kinsey scale now. Ever since i was like 11 my biggest desire is just like being a normal cis girl. I always am happiest embracing basic American femininity, and i only just re-realized this after after it helped me get out of a depressive episode (along with antidepressants and an increased estrogen dose). I don't care if im "enforcing gender roles", because i fucking love female gender roles (in modern American culture) cause they make me feel like not-a-piece-of-shit. Also i don't strictly adhere to many anyways. And i just don't think terfs would have any issues with cis girls who love the color pink, flowers, being boy crazy, and dreaming about being a mother. So like why should I feel like its wrong to like that stuff? I don't think there is anything wrong with it. And you know if you don't have that relationship with gender that is fine, you need to do what makes you happy, that's why feminism exists. I'm just saying I don't want to pretend like my personality is something that really just makes me uncomfortable.

I dont like when people here imply being a trans woman entails being sexual cause like i just want to be normal and that stereotype is harmful, especially to transgender children who are really likley to be targeted for some kind of sexual abuse because theyre trans and being trans is already sexualized more than it needs to be. Adults can navigate that to some extent, but not kids; I couldnt really navigate that when i started transitioning in middle school and im lucky it only stayed online. Trying to even somewhat fit in with tumblrs idea of trans women has made me encounter tranny porn on my dash and whenever i post images of myself I'm followed by gross accounts that just reblog that stuff . A lot of trans women don't hate it, because sex work is very much as part of the trans community. But honestly, seeing trans women be treated in those ways just makes me feel bad for the actresses and sick about myself and very dysphoric.

Im not saying that you cant express kinkiness and hyper-sexuality, because I dont want to dictate how you act any more than i want you to be dictated on how I act. But I also want to encourage thoughfulness in what you say. Saying you, yourself, is kinky and weird, is not that same as saying trans *girls* are kinky and weird. In the same way I'm not going to reblog tradwife content, I don't think its productive to make an "all tgirls be kinky" post. You shouldn't try to paint that image of other trans women.

As its the first day of june I'll just tie it up by saying that not all trans people fit into one personality and if you want to show support its best not to suggest trans women all act a certain way, and please don't think talking about "gock" is a good way to show support. This isn't a "kink at pride" discourse post in the very slightest cause I don't, and never have, given any shits about that, cause I've never been to pride. This is just me talking about how I fit into the trans community.

Im Alexa and I'm going to reblog and post shit i like, not what other people like or expect. That Includes not doing tummy tuesday cause i really only briefly did it out of fomo and peer pressure. And please don't say things about me that you wouldnt say about other women

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

On a January day in 1948, a hefty book filled with turgid scientific prose, and scores of tables and charts, landed amid an unsuspecting American public. The tome reported, matter-of-factly and without judgment, that American men were up to all manner of sexual exploits behind closed doors, and that the minds of huge numbers of them were churning with taboo desires.

The book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, by biologist Alfred Kinsey of Indiana University, was an utter revelation for a populace living in a time when masturbation was frowned upon, oral sex (even between husband and wife) was illegal in some states, and homosexuality was considered an extremely rare, criminal deviance.

Overnight, millions of American men realized that they were not lone freaks for doing what they did.

Based on thousands of exhaustive, confidential interviews with churchgoers, college students, prison inmates and more, Kinsey reported, for example, that 92% of men had masturbated and half of married men had had extramarital affairs. A full 37% of men said they had had some form of homosexual experience at some point in their lives.

Five years later, Kinsey’s second volume — Sexual Behavior in the Human Female — came through with more revelations. A full 62% of women, for instance, reported they had masturbated, about half of the women said that they had engaged in premarital sex, and two-thirds of participants said that they had experienced overtly sexual dreams. The book was widely attacked as an affront to the dignity of womanhood.

Kinsey’s work did more than reassure people they were not alone: It highlighted a disconnect between certain laws of the land and actual sexual practice. “Everybody’s sin is nobody’s sin,” Kinsey once said.

Sex researchers say Kinsey’s biggest contribution was the sheer cataloging of variation. But his most-famous findings revolve around the issue of homosexuality. He devised the famous Kinsey scale — a numerical gradation of levels of homosexual orientation, with 0 representing those who were exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual. The scale is still used by researchers.

Kinsey also reported that 10% of the men he interviewed said they engaged in predominantly homosexual activity between the ages of 16 and 55. “That changed the thinking about homosexuality,” says Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York psychoanalyst. “If it was more common than people thought it to be, then perhaps it was what we would call a normal variation of sexuality rather than a form of mental illness.”

Perhaps above all, researchers say Kinsey’s work and the later studies it inspired showed social scientists, public health workers, therapists and geneticists just how much there was and still remains for them to study.

Based on work such as Kinsey’s and Evelyn Hooker’s, the American Psychiatric Assn. voted in 1973, after intense debate, to drop homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Today, experts believe that Kinsey’s precise numbers were inflated, partly because the people he interviewed to draw his conclusions — especially in the book on males -- were not nationally representative. A posthumous reanalysis of his massive dataset found that when interviews from prisoners and other sources likely to over-sample the number of homosexual participants were removed, the percentage of those with exclusively homosexual experiences fell to 3%; another 3% reporting that such experiences were extensive but not exclusive. Those figures are in line with more recent studies.

Kinsey, meanwhile, has been accused of, or credited with — depending on one’s point of view — doing more than laying the groundwork for a new field. He radically altered the way society thinks of sex, and ushered in far greater sexual freedom.

“His influence was tremendous — it opened up the field,” says Vern Bullough, founder of the Center for Sex Research at Cal State Northridge, and author of Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research.

Full article: "The Kinsey Effect" [Los Angeles Times]

[traceofexistence]

“all that hetero fic” the tumblr user complains about cononically bi/pan characters, in a universe where a character being bi/pan until proven otherwise is the norm. it’s also a world where expressions of gender are different, so identifying a relationship as “het” is more of a generalization than a rule

and I really don’t understand what you mean by people don’t know how to tag? I mean, it definitely happens that authors don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but I think this might be you, taking things out of context. I looked at your spreadsheet about what characters appear under the m/m, m/f, and f/f tags, and I don’t think your stats take into account the fact that the authors can pick as many of the gender relationship tags as they want when they’re publishing a fic. for example, if an author writes a fic that ships Astarion/Gale, Lae’zel/Shadowheart, and Karlach/Wyll, they could choose to apply the m/m, f/f, and m/f tags for their fic. therefore, you would see canonically male characters, like Astarion, showing up when you select fics with the f/f relationship tag, unless you know how to filter fics that exclusively use one relationship tag or another

have some sense of perspective, and if you’re really so uninterested in reading “het” fic, AO3 has plenty of tutorials on their social media pages and on their own website that explain how to use the tagging system to its full advantage

smells like astarion stan got offended about statistics that show the big issue in all fandoms ever, that tag everyone and their mothers in the fics and it is impossible to find fics about ships or character that are about them and are not just mentioned

also get your head out of your ass, I didnt include multi fics

so learn to not tag your fave in everything under the sun, when the fic is not about them

that being said calling me a tumblr user because I said hetero fics when they are fics about a cis guy and a cis girl

touch grass anon.

enjoy your fav and if you dont like what I showed you in the stats fucking block me

PS: I go by the kinsey scale that says bisexuality is about 80% in a population

you saying that I cant say hetero fics, means that I cant call hetero nobody ever again, because guess what 80% of the popularion is different shades of bi, whether they know it or not.

[theangryjikooker]

What is your opinion on Taehyung's sexuality? He is a very vocal supporter of lgbt cause. He is the only one with enough balls to go on a Vlive to recommend Call me by Your Name which is a movie that deals with homosexual feelings as the main subject matter not even as a subtext. I know RM recommended Demian which inspired BST but Demian had a spiritual context of attraction between two boys.

Taehyung not only recommends explicit gay movies and arts, he also pays special attention to lgbtq fans in concerts. Would it be a reach to assume he identifies with being queer? Do you see his support as something stemming from his support for Jikook, for any of his unknown queer friends, or as just him being a good person with narrow focus on this specific issue only?

I've been getting inundated with questions about Taehyung's sexuality, and I'm not entirely sure of the reasons behind the sudden interest (and it's usually always him, specifially)

CMBYN was a wonderful, beautifully made movie. It deserved its accolades from top-tier celebrities and filmmakers, from those who are known to be straight to those who identify as queer. In general, a person's interest in queer-centric media doesn't necessarily equate to a reflection of one's own sexuality.

That said, Taehyung has always struck me as someone who, like Namjoon, has a deep appreciation of art–whether that's traditional, film, music, etc. From the way he talks about certain things and cares very little for outside opinion, there are no boundaries for Taehyung. Just because he's in a position where his interests could affect the world's perception of him is null. If he likes it, he likes it. He's going to keep doing what he's doing, and if you don't like it–tough.

The same thing can be said for his sexuality, although I could never presume to know how he identifies because that's such a personal thing.

I would argue that Taehyung and the rest of the members pay special attention to all their fans, and the fact of the matter is that they don't exclude anyone. BTS' support for the queer community is because, fundamentally, they understand that people come from all walks of life and no one should be contained into a box that conventional societal pressures imposes. I think that much has always been clear.

This isn't to say that he or any of the other members aren't queer, and I would never undermine the experiences of a fan who relates strongly to any of the members, but I've seen this fandom use similar examples to "prove" their sexual identity, and it's not enough.

From my own experience with intakes and becoming intimately familiar with hundreds of different kinds of people, there are some cases where the stereotypes ring true, but more often than not, people are not so cut and dry. They never are.

I may refuse to talk about the boys' sexualities in depth, but my personal stance on sexual identity is this: it's not black and white, it's a scale (a modified version of the flawed Kinsey scale). I've had colleagues vehemently disagree with this, of course, but that's how I perceive the world's population. That includes BTS, and that's all I have to say about that.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

In recent years, the LGBT+ community has become more public than ever, causing it to grow, as more people feel comfortable expressing their sexuality.

Society still may have a long way to go before LGBT+ people are completely accepted into society, but, generally, people today are more accepting of the community than ever before. Still, for all its progress, one orientation in the queer community is still often overlooked: bisexuality.

When most people mention the LGBT+ community, the first thing that comes to their minds is either gays or lesbians, because people like to put complicated issues into simple boxes. Too often, bisexuals are seen as either “confused,” “just experimenting” or “not ready to come out yet as fully gay” by both straight and gay people. I myself have been told by both straight and gay people that eventually, I would have to “pick one or the other.”

While yes, I will eventually end up with either a man or a woman, that doesn’t make me any less bisexual. My sexuality, as well as the sexuality of anyone else that identifies as bisexual, is legitimate; it’s time to stop the negating the reality of bisexual people.

The pressure for Americans to put themselves into specific categories, whether in terms of sexuality, gender or race, is one of the main reasons that bisexual people are so easily overlooked. Sexuality is seen as a set thing that doesn’t waiver or have room for flexibility. This very narrow view isn’t true, and two of my favorite quotes on bisexuality, both of which help explain why such binaries are inaccurate, come from TV shows.

In “The L Word,” Shane, who is a lesbian, says, “Sexuality is fluid. Whether you’re gay, or you’re straight, or you’re bisexual, you just go with the flow.”

And, in “Orange is the New Black,” Piper, when asked if she is gay, replies, “You don’t just turn gay, you fall somewhere on the Kinsey Scale.”

The main reason I like these quotes is because they so perfectly describe a bisexual’s ability to be with someone regardless of gender. The Kinsey Scale is the perfect way to describe sexuality, because it covers a spectrum, ranging from completely straight to completely gay, with a lot of grey area in between. The Kinsey Scale is much more inclusive than traditional sexual denominations, and better fits a more modern understanding of attraction.

Bisexuals are often seen as too straight for the gay community and too gay for the straight community. This type of rejection can obviously be painful, but it also forces bisexuals to conform to one sexuality or the other in order to fit in.

I know this type of confusion firsthand. When I first noticed that I was bisexual, around the age of thirteen, and attempted to tell the people around me, I was definitely not met with an arms-wide-open acceptance. I may not have faced blatant homophobia, but I was told that I was “just confused,” “going through a phase” or “would figure out my true sexual identity someday.”

After hearing these phrases from the people who were the closest to me, I definitely thought that I somehow was in the wrong. I figured that I was too straight to be a lesbian, and suppressed my sexuality for many years. Although I was trying my best to suppress the way that I felt, there were definitely a lot of sleepless nights I spent wondering what—if bisexuality was not real—my real sexuality was.

It was a painful time for me, because not accepting myself for who I was felt like erasing a little part of me. It wasn’t until my sophomore year that I started to accept myself. I met other bisexual people who were confident in their sexuality, and it made me realize that I didn’t have to choose between being gay or straight; I was bisexual and didn’t have to live the way that others wanted me to.

The bisexual community is resilient; it is constantly fighting against exclusion from other groups. Activists, members of the LGBT+ community, allies and even celebrities like Cara Delevigne, who stood up for herself after her sexuality was questioned by a writer, are making headway in destigmatizing bisexuality.

“My sexuality is not a phase,” Delevigne told the interviewer from “Vogue.” “I am who I am.”

The more bisexuals talk about their reality, the more people will learn about it. Sexuality is fluid, and everyone should all have the right to love whoever they want without having to explain themselves or feel like they are being judged. No matter what your sexuality is, if you feel that way, then it is valid.

Life is short, and you shouldn’t have to change the way you are in order to please other people. It’s time for society to stop trying to erase bisexual people, and time for the queer community to remember what the “B” in LGBT+ stands for.

[ittybittytatertot]

This may be longer than necessary because I don’t have a good way to compose all my thoughts, so bear with me.

A lot of identities/labels that people in the LGBT community decide they do not like are treated as though they came from the outside (i.e. from cishet culture) and are invading or being forced upon the good LGBT world. Ex. rhetoric around ace, aro, queer, pan, etc.

This, of course, is revisionist. These words came from the vast Queer community (and yes I will use Queer as an umbrella term here. It is far more inclusive and concise than LGBTQIAP2S or any variation thereof).

Look at pansexuality. It was made within bi communities as a result of decades-long intelligent discussions about the different and nuanced attractions experienced by people in (to use modern terms) Bi+/m-spec communities.

I’ve said this time and time again, our elders, both those alive today and those no longer with us, were not stupid or oblivious. Just because they didn’t have the same words we have today doesn’t mean they weren’t comparing notes and realizing some people experienced attraction to multiple genders differently than others. 

I mean the Kinsey Scale, despite its issues, was made by a bisexual man in 1948. We’d been having these conversations, and we will continue to have them.

The misconception of pan being the only nonbinary/trans-inclusive sexuality comes from trying to explain m-spec labels to people who don’t experience any multi-gender attraction. It is a largely cis-led corruption of pansexuality that tosses aside its actual meaning and nuance in favor of simplicity, cishet-digestibility, and quarantining “the trans” to one sexuality so transphobes can feel a little more comfortable.

Pansexuality has always meant attraction to all genders, regardless of gender (which is literally why omnisexual: attraction to all genders, but not regardless of gender, was created!) Pan is not in opposition to or contrasting against bi. The two are not at odds. A fact made plainly obvious once you look at how there are m-spec identities beyond bi and pan.

So, if you see kids today repeat an incorrect, transphobic definition of pan, which they were taught from a labyrinthian infamously inaccurate internet, and you conclude all pansexuals must be biphobic/transphobic, you’re revealing your own lack of understanding of our collective history. It should not surprise you that 16-year-olds a few months out of the closet are not the authority on sexuality labels.

[rainbowlack]

hi !! im trenderwyrm from my main blog :) The Original ace flag was based off the upside down pink triangle (a nazi badge for gay ppl that a lot aren't comfortable reclaiming,) and the AVEN forum itself was Not super great to jewish ace people and also David Jay (a hetero/biromantic asexual) thinks he can say the f-slur. OFC, I'm not Jewish, so its not my place to tell you how to feel about the current flag, I've just seen a lot of discomfort surrounding it so I made a new one :)!

Alright, first off, and most importantly, DAVID JAY WAS NOT THE SOLE CREATOR OF THE ASEXUAL FLAG. It was a joint effort by multiple people on the AVEN forum to design a flag. The final design was made by a user with the username standup, and it used the colours from the AVEN logo. It has nothing to do with the pink triangle.

Quick note about David Jay, then moving on because it's not exactly relevant: if he is MLM, I don't see why he couldn't reclaim f*g. I've only seen one instance of him using it, in a joke comment he posted in 2003.

Yes, the AVEN logo, which was an inspiration for the flag's colours, is a triangle. Triangles are a basic shape, and there's no pink in the AVEN logo, so how is it a reference to the pink triangle? If you really must know why it's a triangle, the triangle in the AVEN logo was based on the Kinsey scale. While the concept of the Kinsey scale may be a bit outdated, it is not anti-Semitic. I can't find any information about AVEN being known for anti-Semitism.

Don't claim things are anti-Semitic when they're not. Anti-Semitism is a genuine issue, don't water it down. Derailing it to argue about triangles and symbols of asexuality devalues the conversation. (I'm using the general you here) Do you really care about Jewish people and anti-Semitism, or do you just want aspec people to be deprived of having pride in their identities? Or do you really just not give a shit about Jewish people or aspec people and just want to appear "woke"?

If you really are so worried about anti-Semitism, how about listening to Jewish people? Follow Jewish people on social media, keep up with Jewish people's activism, respect our holidays and observances, don't appropriate our cultures, and seriously, LISTEN.

[ashflynns]

☄〔 HUNTER SCHAFER, TWENTY ONE, TRANS FEMALE, DREAM TRAVEL 〕╰ ASHLEY FLYNN just came over half - blood hill . you know , the child of HYPNOS who was claimed two months ago ? i’ve heard chiron say that she is PLAYFUL & EMPATHETIC , but if you ask the aphrodite kids , they’d say she’s LAZY & TACTLESS . i’d say they remind me of sleepy smiles and under-eye bags, messy buns and an unmade bed, running from your problems with bare feet & trying to hard to keep your friends but losing them anyway, especially since she’s FOR THE NEW CABINS . ( ✎ joey , 24 , she/her , bst . )

*insert nice graphic here aka for the love of god someone find me a photoshop link*

hi! its your resident sea witch joey here ready to bombard you with an encyclopedic knowledge of the greek pantheon and uk criminal law?? i guess??? if u dont already know, i’m the one with six (6) cats. i combined my task and intro because im LAZY and bad at intros so i’ll use paige’s stats as a crutch whoops. ash is the lazy laid-back stoner friend everyone needs. she has no trauma because she DOESN’t DESERVE IT so maybe the real trauma will be the friends we make along the way.

𝕓𝕒𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕤 .

name :  ashley finn

nicknames : ash, whatever cute names u wanna give her

birth date :  4th february (aquarius squad speak up!)

gender :  trans female

pronouns :  she/her

ethnicity : white

nationality : irish american

hometown : ?? idk american towns SUE ME but she’s from SOMEWHERE in oregon

demigod abilities : sleep manipulation, dream manipulation, dream travel

cabin number & godly parent :  cabin fifteen, hypnos

how did their godly parent meet their mortal parent? :  hlhglkhg so i thought it’d be funny if they met when ash’s mum participated in a sleep research study. i think i’m hilarious.

𝕞𝕦𝕤𝕖 𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖 .

faceclaim : hunter schafer

height :  5′11″

hair colour : blonde

eye colour : blue/green.

dominant hand : leftie!

distinguishing features : her hair’s actually super curly she just straightens it a lot bc curly bedhead is a bitch to brush through in the mornings.

dress style : ugh this is gonna be hard to explain but like. you know those alt hippy stoner girls?? like that. likes baggy clothes and neutral colours. a lot of quote unquote ugly clothes with clashing prints. band t-shirts and whatnot.

𝕔𝕒𝕞𝕡-𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕 .

go - to  weapon : HAH implying she willingly participates in capture the flag. she’d go for a xiphos because it’s the most basic dfkjg

ambrosia :  garlic bread. yeah she’s that kind of bitch

favourite camp location :  zephyros creek!

their opinion of their godly parent :  really unbothered tbqh. but she’s a very laid-back person to begin with. a ton of her school friends had absent dads. if she hadn’t come to chb so early then maybe the whole ‘i have powers with no explanation’ would’ve caused some resentment but hey, he’s a god. he’s a busy man. and being raised by a single mum made up most of who ash is, so it’s not like she’d change anything.

age they were claimed :  this year baby!

how they were claimed :  look dad’s timing was off but as far as he was concerned he claimed ash when percy made the deal. ash kinda always knew it was gonna be him so it was no surprise.

stance on the new cabins : for  the  new  cabins.

their opinion on lyssa pentelute :   as far as ash is concerned, lyssa’s whole shtick is just an excuse to shit on the kids who don’t have to suffer the same way she did. so, uh, she’s kind of a bitch? i have this in a bit more detail down below.

quests :  i’m gonna tentatively put no for now (unless anyone else on quests decides they’d like to have dragged ash along!)

𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 .

positive traits : playful, empathetic, laid-back, friendly but not a pushover, patient

negative traits :  lazy, tactless, aloof,  spacey, struggles to express said empathy, lack of focus

mbti :  Iinfp-t, the mediator

alignment : neutral good

hogwarts house :  hufflepuff

kinsey scale : JUST ASK IF SHES A LESBIAN OKAY?? THE ANSWER IS YES.

archetype :  somehow she matched equally with the innocent child and the wise old man *insert so what is the truth meme*

what candle scent are they :  vanilla

goals & desires :  well this one was tricky bc ash is a simple girl with simple needs and really just doesn’t want anything to change. she wants a life without the pressures of work and commitment, but that’s just not gonna happen, is it? her short-term goals are to practice fighting that urge to stay in bed all day and try to be a bit more productive. it’s not going well.

fears : explained more below but basically she has a fear of destroying all her relationships due to a lack of connect with the world

hobbies : when she’s not napping? probably gaming, going on nature walks, baking treats.

habits :  biting nails is the worst one. spacing out. you know that thing where you just?? stop focusing your eyes?? but you’re still tuned in to the conversation? that.

𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪 .

so hear’s the short version kfjglkdfgjd ( for NOW ):

ashley’s mum, niamh, is third-gen irish immigrant. ash didn’t have a luxurious life or anything. they mostly lived off benefits or whatever niamh could pick up from her extremely lucrative dog-walking business. how she met hypnos was a literal joke. they met when she participated in a fucking sleep study and i guess they hit it off. typical story of dad fucks off/single parent yadda yadda. there’s no real ~~trauma~~ to ash. yeah, transphobia sucks and high school really sucked all but her mum’s been super supportive since she first came out and no one at chb has given her shit yet. niamh’s still around and ash goes back home every couple of months to visit her. they have a pretty good relationship. it’s all cool.

i feel cliche saying she was a ‘dreamy’ girl but dreamy or spacey really is the best word for it. mixed with your typical demigod adhd you get a kid who really struggled with school. well, it’s not like she struggled - ashley’s a smart gal - but the teacher’s struggled with her. i guess it was hard for them to understand that ash actually does her best thinking when she’s asleep.

struggles to keep friends - maintains a persona of aloofness and apathy but actually cares way too much. the narcolepsy hinders her ability to form proper connections ( although she’ll argue the sCiEnTiFiCaLlY pRoVeN fAcT that napping with someone for half an hour does more to build trust than anything else ). and no one’s really that fond of ash popping into their dreams. maybe they shouldnt have so much to hide, huh?

her biggest ‘’’ inner struggle ’’’ shall we say is the pressure to be productive. let’s face it, she IS a lazy bitch, and that’s pretty much an inherited nature. getting a job sounds like hell, she sucks at combat training, she really could NOT be bothered with camp politics and god wars and whatever else. why can’t she just sleep and dream walk all day? monster’s are out there man, she’s gonna die some point soon anyway. but that doesn’t mean  she doesn’t feel guilty about it all. it’s kinda hard not to.

so, moving on to the ISSUE AT HAND. so when you walk through dreams and you sleep for 20 hours of the day, it’s not hard to figure out who your dad is, even if he never turns up. like, seriously, who else would it be? so yeah, sure. she was only claimed a couple of months ago. but she wasn’t completely in the dark like some of her other campers, and she respects that, truly. she got the luckier end of the stick and its not hard to understand the resentment among the minor demigods and the unclaimed.

HOWEVER, she’s very much FOR the new cabins. as explained above, lyssa’s a bitch whose taking her mummy issues out on others. ash loves bunking with the hermes kids but she’d like a space of her own and at the end of the day who the fuck is lyssa to make that decision?

𝕖𝕩𝕥𝕣𝕒 .

pinterest! (its a wip there’s not much IM SORRY)

spotify (now this is the one thing i will never let u down on)

wanted connections coming soon!

[aces-and-aros]

Asexual Awareness Week, Day Six

Most of these are taken from the Wikipedia entry for “Timeline of Asexual History” With a few extra facts taken from AVEN’s wikia page, and other news sources.

Asexual History

1869: Karl-Maria Kertbeny uses the word "Monosexuals" to refer to people who only masturbate. While not really a distinction in modern asexual discourse, it is similar to other categories coined such as "autoerotic" and "asexual" people described by Myra Jonson in the 1970s, among others.

1896: A German sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, wrote the pamphlet "Sappo und Sokrates," which mentions people without any sexual desire.

1948:The Kinsey scale included a "group x" for those who did not feel sexual attraction, which was roughly 1% of those surveyed.

1974: Singer and composer David Bowie discusses asexuality in the Rolling Stone in the article "David Bowie in conversation on sexuality with William S. Burroughs by Craig Copetas in the Rolling Stone February 28, 1974"

1977:Myra Jonson wrote one of the first academic papers about asexuality as part of The Sexually Oppressed. Johnson mainly focused on the problems still facing asexual women as they were ignored, or seemingly left behind by the sexual revolution going on.

1979:In a study published in Advances in the Study of Affect, vol. 5, Michael D. Storms of the University of Kansas outlined his own reimagining of the Kinsey scale, using only fantasizing and eroticism, and placing hetero-eroticism and homo-eroticism on separate axes rather than at two ends of a single scale; this allows for a distinction between bisexuality (exhibiting both hetero- and homo-eroticism in degrees comparable to hetero- or homosexuals, respectively) and asexuality (exhibiting a level of homo-eroticism comparable to a heterosexual and a level of hetero-eroticism comparable to a homosexual, namely, little to none). This type of scale accounted for asexuality for the first time. Storms conjectured that many researchers following Kinsey's model could be mis-categorizing asexual subjects as bisexual, because both were simply defined by a lack of preference for gender in sexual partners.

1980: Writer and Artist Edward Gorey, Comes out as asexual in an interview. When asked ‘...the press makes a point of the fact that you have never married. What are your sexual preferences?’, Gorey responds “Well, I'm neither one thing nor the other particularly.” and goes on to talk about how his lack of attraction affects his work.

1983: The first study that gave empirical data about asexuals was published in by Paula Nurius, concerning the relationship between sexual orientation and mental health.

1993:Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians by Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brehony was released on November 17, 1993.

1994:A survey of 18,876 British residents found that 1% of the respondents “never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all”.

1997:First online Asexual Community appears in the comment section for an article titled “My Life As An Amoeba”

2000: A Yahoo group for asexuals, Haven for the Human Amoeba, was founded.

2001: David Jay founded the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), which became the most prolific and well-known of the various asexual communities that started to form since the advent of the World Wide Web and social media.

2004: The New Scientist dedicates an issue to asexuality.

2004: Discovery dedicates an episode of "The Sex Files" to asexuality.

2005: L'amour sans le faire by Geraldin Levi Rich Jones (Joosten van Vilsteren) is released. The first book on asexuality. Geraldin was at the head of the asexual movement, launching "The Official Asexual Society" in 2000 and performing asexual comedy shows. She also was a prominent face in the early '00's asexual media boom.

2005: A common symbol for the asexual community is a black ring worn on the middle finger of the right hand. The material and exact design of the ring are not important as long as it is primarily black. This symbol started on AVEN in 2005.

2007: Award winning Novelist, Keri Hulme, comes out as asexual in an interview, saying “It is part of who I am: the major impact is that I am not– and never have been– interested in sex. It was more a slow realisation that I was different from most people. By my mid-teens, I’d realised that what was of great moment and interest to other young people – their sexuality and relationships – didn’t intrigue me in the slightest.”

2009: AVEN members participated in the first asexual entry into an American pride parade when they walked in the San Francisco Pride Parade.

2010: A flag was announced as the asexual pride flag. The asexual pride flag consists of four horizontal stripes: black, grey, white, and purple from top to bottom.

2010: The New York State Division of Human Rights updated its discrimination complaint form to include asexuals in the protected sexual orientation category.

2010: Asexual Awareness Week was founded by Sara Beth Brooks in 2010. It occurs in the later half of October, and was created to both celebrate asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual pride and promote awareness.

2010: Fashion Consultant, Tim Gunn, says in an interview that he has identified as asexual since the 80s, saying  "Do I feel like less of a person for it? No… I'm a perfectly happy and fulfilled individual."

2010: Comedian Janeane Garofalo comes out as asexual while live on stage in Seattle. 

2011: The Documentary “(A)sexual” is released.

2012: The first International Asexual Conference was held at the 2012 World Pride in London.

2013: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th edition changed the diagnosis of Hypoactive sexual desire disorder conditions to include an exception for people who self identify as asexual.

2014:The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, by Julie Sondra Decker, was published; it was the first mainstream published book on the subject of asexuality.

2015: George Norman became Britain’s first openly asexual parliamentary election candidate.

2017: ‘Asexual’ is updated in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to include the sexual orientation.

2018: ‘Ace’ and ‘Aromantic’ are added to the Oxford English Dictionary, and ‘Asexual’ is updated to include the sexual orientation.

[foxauxmirror]

A stream of consciousness thing with a fair share of personal stuff about why write smut featuring two elderly Soviet dudes - aka Valoris

“I get what makes you watch this show for the eighths time”, my husband said, as we sat down to catch up on the two last episodes of Chernobyl that he did not want to watch while I was away for a month. “I don't get what makes you sacrifice your sleep for two weeks in a row to write about two elderly Soviet dudes having sex”. My husband is the biggest supporter of my writing and my most enthusiastic reader – he's also the one to discuss all of my (sometimes unlikely) ships with. To top it all, he's exceptionally cool with me, or anyone else, for that matter, sliding up and down the Kinsey scale, and occasionally takes a trip of his own, like that one time we were watching “The Death of Stalin” and the incredibly doable Jason Isaacs appeared on the screen as Field Marshall Zhukov: “Holy shit”, my husband said for the whole movie theater to hear, “I'd let him have it right here and now”. He doesn't, however, see anything sexy about Chernobyl-the-series. Come on, fellow fandom members, had anyone told you that you'd be shipping two 'elderly Soviet dudes' (and, chances are, find 'elderly Soviet dudes' smut hot as hell – can anyone bring a fan in, please?) before Chernobyl, would you have believed it? There are quite a few reasons why this show speaks to me on a very personal level. Some of them have to do with me being a Russian immigrant, currently in my third step-motherland of choice, - the series was quite a cathartic experience in my long-lasting quest to rediscover my national identity (I hadn't thought much about it until moving to the US at the age of 16 and being bullied at school for being a Russian. Since then, I have constantly been rediscovering what does it mean to me, being a person who was born in the USSR, raised mostly in Russia and who fled this country due to an assortment of disagreements between us. I have grown myself an identity called 'not that kind of Russian', having to constantly stress that I do not necessarily rhyme with stereotypes about my homeland, or its questionable policy, or whatnot).

Others are of the same nature that sweet @elenatria was so open about in her Hashimoto post. I have a bunch of medical conditions, including thyroid issues, and altogether they make my life rather shitty on some days, also dependant on some limitations to be followed for the rest of my days. It's not something you easily come to terms with, being chronically ill with no prospect of getting rid of it all, just trying to tame the condition down. I know that at least part of it is Chernobyl-related – the region I'm from was on the way of the radioactive cloud's trajectory, and we were also getting deliveries of poisoned food. Since that, the region has been scoring very high in the national ranking of thyroid illnesses, including cancer. I was four months when Chernobyl happened. I have never given much thought to that until the series was out. When it was, it took me a gallon of chamomile tea, a hot shower and a couple of shots of local fruit brandy after each episode to come round. During the first viewing most of what I felt was anger and frustration, letting myself think, for the first time in my life, of how my life could've been different was it not for... oh, but what's the use listing the reasons and being angry at something that has been cooking literally for generations to result in the biggest nuclear meltdown in history, affecting who knows how many lives for how long a time, right? @elenatria is so right in quoting Shcherbina: in a way, we've gotten off easily. Now, none of these were enough to move me towards shipping a certain nearly 70 years old Soviet bureaucrat and a certain not-too-much-younger bespectacled dorky Soviet scientist. It has to do with other reasons.

I've been around people who write slash fanfiction since I was 16. So many stories to witness, so many reasons why people choose to write all those alternative narratives. Of course, there is the sheer fun of it, and the joy of putting words together, and the wonderful not-aloneness of being part of a fandom. And then, for some of us, there are very dark corners of our souls that are packed with unwanted experience. Writing turns into therapy. One reaches for a similarly dark and sinister story, one takes two characters and one makes them... I was going to write 'find love' but that has a somewhat soapy ring to it, also doesn't really express what I mean. One takes two characters and makes them feel fucking alive – and yes, more often than not, it is through finding love. Doesn't matter, whether it's bromance, or domestic fluff, or the smuttiest smut – come on, it's still about love, all shapes and sorts of it. Though, at the bottom of it, it's about being alive. About being able to stick to life in the darkest of times. Like, exploded nuclear reactor dark, you know? Some of us have been there. Some of us are like vinyl records with a slight stutter that comes from a place that was damaged and now bears a scratch. Some of us bear the memory of what's it like, getting that scratch mark, and hear a slight echo of that memory when you see a damn good shown that features something unseen and yet deadly, something cutting your life in half, something capable of poisoning you pretty quick and leave a long-lasting impact of that poison. So, what do you do? You make life out of it. Like, drawing art or writing your own version of events that includes a big fat chunk of life, be it wrapped into a gift paper of chaste kisses and handholding, or fucking each other's brains out in a miserable hotel room, or anything in between the two extremities. By letting two people who are overwhelmed by fear, frustration, anger and desperation, discover their own vitality in a place like the surroundings of an exploded nuclear reactor, it is very possible to dance oneself out of a dark place into – oh, well, somewhere else. So, yeah, that's what makes me sacrifice my sleep for two weeks in a row to write about two elderly Soviet dudes having sex – it's my way of saying “Don't you fucking give in on living”. (Also, if someone can't appreciate the silver fox that is Stellan's Shcherbina being sex on legs, I feel sorry for that someone:) ). Dixi.

[archtroop]

So for you. What other fandoms are you in? When, how and why wincest?😁😍😎

Oh my, gird your loins, this is gonna be a long confession. 

LIFE:

I little background (This is all very relevant, because it had direct affect on whatever choices I would make, stuff I might like and my own personal evolution as a human, leading me to where I am today - including my on-the-side fandom life, which are a huge part of me).

Female, only child - I was born in 1990 in Soviet Russia/Russia (it’s a murky year for definitions) in the farthest eastern piece of land on the globe that still constitutes as Asia, a place where they learn Japanese as a second language instead of English. I’m Jewish on my mother’s side, my father is not. Our small family migrated to Israel in 1996. I was enrolled in a religious school, for the first two years of my education. Religious orthodox little girls are bitches. I suffered. I was 6, and a 100% language barrier. Then I was enrolled in a state-religious school for 4 years. Made my first 2-3 friends. One of them is my forever best like-a-sister-to-me friend since then. Still, it screwed with my head just enough - having a secular background and family and religious preaching at school fucks you up real good. By this time I had an actual artificially ensued phobia of males. Boy, man, horse. If it had a dick I was opting out in the opposite direction. It was also a very violent time, hits and punches, teeth and nails. Got suspended once, this other girl in my class broke a guy’s teeth, ended in a juvenile institute for girls.  

The next 6 years (12-18 years old) I spent in a secular boarding school, which, in Israel, are inherently patriotic in nature. These years were my most definitive and had the greatest influence on my preferences. Had my real-life heterosexual-life partner thing going for me, and the plan wast to graduate and move together. Never panned out.  18-20 - served my two mandatory 2 years (as a phlebotomist, of all things). This was when I eventually snapped and began actually maturing. By that time I still had zero interest i the opposite sex (or the same sex for the matter). At 19.6 y/o met my future husband and the future father of our now 2.6 y/o girl, began my B.Arch (took me almost a decade to finish because of pregnancy and financials). As of now, I am an Architect in practice, I work in a small but a very affluent in work firm/office. Waiting for my diploma to be issued.

So, I am trilingual (Russian. Hebrew, English), married+1, architect, artist on a hiatus, I have zero fear of needles and blood, love to read, love to interpret, love to translate. I also failed the Kinsey Scale Test twice. Until very recently in my life I couldn’t pick up on sexual innuendo at all, couldn’t identify if I was hit on, too.  Today I like sex just fine, but it’s not a prime need of mine, which lead to me and my (very sexual in nature) significant other to agree on an open relationship. 100/100 would recommend. 

FANDOM:

TV was a friend. I was 7-8 y/o when Pokemon hit the little screen in Israel. For technical reasons, I couldn’t watch the first episode. So I refused to watch the next ones too, until I’ll catch the first one on the saturday reruns. This marks my first exhibit of obsessiveness towards a franchise/media.  But Pokemon was for cool kids, and for boys, so I can’t enjoy it (unfortunately this is going to be a recurring theme). I absorbed Hebrew quickly, and found myself spending time in the library. TV, library, pencils and paper were all I cared for. I was about 10 when girls at school, who had access (early 2000′) were giggling about something called Sailor Moon. But they were the very cool kids. Can’t have that at all. I read Interview With a Vampire when I was 11-12. I then flipped the book and realized there was apparently a movie, too. It will be years until I’ll have the chance to watch it. I switched from teen books to adults fantasy and horror at that time. I remembering giggling through R.L. Stein’s stuff. It was like candy to me. I would read whatever I could find. I didn’t listen to music. Music is for the cool kids, and I am not allowed. There was no music at home, too.

About that time, I found Flowers In The Attic and drank it up. The things that lurk in school libraries. I was engrossed in the darkness, the horror. The pain and angst and the, well, horror. It was beautiful. Then came Dragon Lance, and I fell for the Caramon & Raistlin story. Fantasy, dragons, and two brothers against ll odds, the warrior and the mage, who are forever bound, and when they die, they join each other in the river of souls. I loved it to bits.  I couldn’t survive through Tolkien. loved The Hobbit, but 30 pages into the third book and he was still describing a forest - so I ditched it. Harry Potter was huge to me, I drank it up. But Harry Potter was for cool kids, so I couldn’t really talk about it. And then when I was 13-14 y/o a friend introduced me to manga. It was 2003-04, the Internet was becoming  prominent feature of life. My first manga was Gravitation. Of all things. But manga and anime is for really cool girls, I can’t have that. But now I had Internet access. 

That’s when I encountered Angel Sanctuary, and Kaori Yuki’s work. Gothic Lolita, Visual Kei. I’v found my niche. No one of the cool kids had any idea about those pretty things, I could hold them and have them for myself. It became one of my greatest inspirations. I read tons of manga online, combing the web for scanlation groups. Anime, too. I became very good at finding stuff. Like, real good. I even have two Angel Sanctuary fanart pieces.

Did you notice a theme already? I haven’t until very recently.

In 2005-6 (I can’t recall for sure) Israeli AXN release a promo of Supernatural. I recognized that “very good actor whose character(s) I really liked from Dark Angel”. It as all true but also I was THAT aloof about physical human beauty  and attraction. But I was interrupted watching the Pilot and begrudgingly decided to follow upon it on a saturday rerun, Guess what, I got interrupted again. And it was ON, TV be damned. I hit the Google, and piracy was it. I watched Supernatural with reverence. It was entirely MINE. I opened an account on  fan-wikia Supernatural site, which I lost and forgot about that was my first ever fandom-related interaction. By that time I also had a DeviantART page, which I kinda left as a storage unit as life took its course.  Basically, in August 2020 I will hit 30, which would mean Supernatural officially was by my side half of my life. 

I had no idea what shipping was, though. Until Teen Wolf, funny enough.  Teen Wolf was my first ship experience. I didn’t read fanfic until then. Sterek somehow managed to pull me in that world. It’s that palpable on screen. So I joined tumblr. It took me time to get accustomed to all this, because even fandom is for cool kids but OH I AM ANONYMOUS.

And I gradually became more aware. Of pretty much everything. With Supernatural keeping me alive through my degree studies, prompting my sexuality to emerge (it is still a fucked up sexuality. But it’s a start.). Worked through issues with Supernatural on my back-burner all the time. 

Then Supernatural hit 10 seasons. And I had to celebrate, and it was my first and only (so far) Supernatural fanart. I began reading fanfic. But so much of it wasn’t what I was looking for. So after some contemplation, I decided to try and write my own (EasyRush). And that was it for me, I essentially drowned in it, the wincest. Now that is had a name. As of today, it has become this thing that I can dig into to find me some solace after a hard day. 

I can’t even say that there was a specific scene. Or a why. It’s just IS. Like the John-finds-out fics: A gradual dawning realization. Looking back, it’s all the elements of whatever I consumed merged and acted out by very talented and compelling actors. 

It has the setting of Flowers In The Attic, the mythology of Angel Sanctuary and the charm of Dragon Lance, turned up to eleven. It’s Gothic Urban Fantasy, gritty and beautiful (I miss classic Supernatural aesthetic BADLY) and is a survivor.

On retrospect I begin to pinpoint moments that have subconsciously lead me to it. There was never any other option.

Wincest is never for the cool kids. It’s for people like me.

P.S.: I think there might be a part two. I need to go. This was a great walk down memory lane, it’s not even half of it.

[hcrryofwales]

𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐐𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄  /  𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘,  𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄  𝐎𝐅  𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒.

crownshqs  challenge  iii  /  character  study. word  count  :  2.8k   /  point  count  :  30.

001.  describe  your  characters’  relationship  with  their  mother  or  father,  or  both.  minimum  word  count:  150.

harry’s�� relationship  with  his  father  is  notably  strained,  their  tumultuous  ties  are  well  known  and  vastly  talked  about  in  the  english  court  and  likely  whispered  about  in  foreign  courts,  as  he  blames  edward  from  his  mother’s  departure  from  london  and  for  publicly  ridiculing  her  by  parading  his  jezebel,  isabel  of  york,  around  court  as  though  she  were  its  consort.  his  mother’s  final  years,  ravaged  by  illness  and  neglect  and  humiliation,  preyed  upon  his  young  mind  for  years  and  his  last  memories  of  her  have  soured  his  relationship  with  his  father  and  his  second  wife.  his  bond  with  his  mother,  although  highly  idolised  in  retrospect,  was  strong  ---  though  they  saw  each  other  seldom,  he  was  a  mama’s  boy  through  to  his  core  and  thus  his  memories  of  her  seem  sweeter  than  the  reality  was;  his  mother  was  indeed  quite  ill  for  most  of  his  life,  plagued  by  guilt  and  grief  over  the  death  of  her  third  child,  and  her  ability  to  truly  love  her  children  in  a  healthy  manner  was  compromised  by  the  acrimonious  and  eventual  public  collapse  of  her  marriage.

002.  what  are  your  characters’  most  prominent  physical  features?  what  is  a  feature  that  they  are  most  insecure  about?  what  are  they  proudest  of?

the  hair  is  obviously  quite  prominent,  even  if  to  his  chagrin.  it’s  symbolic  more  than  anything,  a  nod  to  his  joint  heritage  ----  the  braganza’s  fair,  coppery  colouring  (  as  his  mother  was  a  natural  red  head,  though  it  faded  throughout  the  years  )  and  the  plantagenet’s  strawberry  roots  (  noticeably,  edward’s  beard  retains  the  scarlet  tint  of  his  youth.  )  his  height,  especially  in  medieval  europe,  is  also  prominent.  harry  stands  at  an  imposing  6′3  /  190 cm,  and  is  considerably  taller  than  that  of  his  contemporaries.  this  is  likely  the  feature  he  is  most  proud  of  (  but  lbr,  he’s  an  english  king,  he’s all  about  his  #thicc  and  shapely  calves.  )  i  wouldn’t  say  that  he  is  particularly  insecure  about  anything,  most  things  that  come  to  mind  would  be  considered  attractive  by  medieval  standards  ---  namely  his  pasty  white  skin  and  the  inability  to  grow  a  considerable  beard.

003.  how  vain  is  your  character?  do  they  find  themselves  attractive?  what  is  their  worst  flaw,  and  are  they  aware  of  it?

i  would  say  harry  is  fairly  vain  ----  more  so  arrogant,  though,  and  that  neatly  ties  in  with  his  greatest  flaw.  he  thinks  too  highly  of  himself  and  assumes  those  around  him  are  of  the  same  mind.  it  isn’t  entirely  his  fault  though,  he’s  been  born  and  bred  to  view  himself  as  the  best  thing  since  sliced  bread  as  the  next  god  appointed  king  of  england.

004.  what  is  your  character’s  ranking  on  the  kinsey  scale?

3  out  of  six  /   bisexual,  equally  heterosexual  and  homosexual.

005.  describe  your  character’s  happiest  memory.  minimum  word  count:  150.

his  happiest  memories  are  all  rooted  in  his  childhood,  and  with  his  lady  mother.  the  welsh  countryside,  the  fierce  sun  drawing  out  the  freckles  on  his  cheeks,  reddening  the  tint  to  his  skin,  warming  his  limbs.  queen  eleanor’s  fingertips  upon  his  shoulder  blades,  working  into  his  developing  muscles  and  broadening  width,  her  touch  often  soothing,  at  other  moments  used  to  stay  him  and  keep  him  from  lunging  out  at  one  of  lord  warwick’s  sons  for  stealing  his  lance  and  capturing  the  dragon  before  him.  lady  isabel  neville,  wife  to  the  earl  of  shrewsbury,  is  there  too  with  her  young  step  children,  yet  ----  ignorance  is  bliss  and  childish  innocence  conceals  all  sins,  so  he  is  nothing  but  glad  to  see  her. 

as  festivals  are  planned  and  banquets  underway,  the  king  has  asked  the  nevilles  to  greet  queen  eleanor’s  portuguese  relatives,  and  harry  is  told  by  his  mother  that  he  will  soon  meet  the  woman  who  may  one  day  preside  as  consort  beside  him,  but  she  assures  him,  quells  his  immediate  displeasure,  in  a  way  that  his  mother  only  could,  by  telling  him  that  she  would  remain  by  his  side  throughout  it  all.  

and  that,  with  her  hand  on  his  shoulder,  puts  him  at  peace.

006.  is  there  one  event  in  your  characters’  life  that  they  would  like  to  erase  from  their  past?  why?  minimum  word  count:  200.

there  are  plenty.  his  mother’s  death,  isabel’s  coronation,  the  date  that  an  envoy  from  rome  arrived  on  english  shores  to  announce  the  pope  had  agreed  to  legitimise  his  half  -  brother  alexander,  the  day  of  edward,  his  full -  brother’s  death,  the  day,  even,  that  he  was  made  prince  of  wales  and  styled  as  his  father’s  true  heir.  they  all  tie  in  directly  to  the  humiliation  queen  eleanor  received  at  the  hands  of  the  english  court,  the  constant  scorn  she  was  subjected  to  as  rival  to  the  clever  and  wry  dowager  of  shrewsbury.

he  regrets  these  days  --  chiefly  --  because  he  believes  he  could  have  done  more  to  protect  those  he  loved.  harry  harboured  plans  to  avenge  his  mother  by  granting  her  the  title  of  queen  mother  upon  edward’s  death,  and  yet  as  we  now  know  that  day  never  came  and  his  hopes  were  miscarried  by  eleanor’s  death  in  1452.  since  then,  he  has  been  in  a  constant,  frenzied  war  with  himself  --------  unsure  if  he  fears  his  mother’s  replacement  or  alexander’s  place  in  the  line  of  succession  more.  harry  has  grown  manic  in  wanting  to  prove  himself  as  edward’s  true  heir  and  thus  condemn  the  nevilles  and  their  fitzroy  scions  in  the  public  eye,  by  securing  an  alliance  with  the  recently  crowned  trastamara  pope,  having  been  enraged  with  the  pomp  and  circumstance  they  were  bestowed  by  his  father  for  numerous  years.

007.  let’s  talk  favourites!  what  is  their  favourite  colour,  food,  and  season?   what,  in  a  modern  setting,  would  be  your  character’s  favourite  song?  

his  favourite  colour  is  likely  a  toss  up  between  red  (  a  rich  red,  the  scarlet  hue  of  a  burgundian  wine,  the  stain  of  fresh  blood,  darker  than  crimson  )  or  a  stately  blue  that  oozes  with  cool  regality  and  pairs  well  with  gold  trim.  anything  that  displays  the  wealth  of  the  crown.

008.  can  you  define  a  turning  point  in  your  character’s  life?

the  day  isabel  was  crowned  as  queen  in  westminster  abbey,  harry  shed  the  skin  of  a  boy  and  began  to  genuinely  work  toward  being  king.

009.  is  your  character  an  early  morning  bird  or  a  night  owl?  at  what  time  do  they  get  most  of  their  work  done?

neither.  he  wakes  up  at  an  appropriate  hour,  or  whenever  his  dalliance’s  husband  splashes  him  with  water  and  kicks  him  out  of  their  bed,  though  generally  retires  quite  late  as  he  is  expected  to  host  within  court.  i  would  say  most  of  his  work  gets  done  later  at  night,  as  opposed  to  the  early  morning  or  midday,  as  this  is  when  the  majority  of  his  public  duties  and  outings  have  drawn  to  a  close.

010  a.  what  other  character,  a  npc  or  someone  apart  of  the  rp,  is  your  character  completely  real  with?  who  knows  them  best,  has  seen  them  at  their  most  vulnerable,  knows  their  innermost  and  basest  fears?  

if  anyone,  probably  lianor  montagu,  and  yet  in  any  of  his  relationships  he’ll  tend  to  hold  back.  lia’s  understanding  is  unquestionably  greater  and  deeper  than  anyone  else,  but  she  certainly  doesn’t  know  everything  and  he  has  carefully  built  a  wall,  a  divider,  between  himself  and  others  to  avoid  being  picked  apart. 

011.  is  your  character  a  neat  or  messy  person?

i  think,  left  to  his  own  devices,  harry  can  be  a  bit  of  a  messy  person.  he’s  so  used  to  servants  picking  up  after  him,  all  eager  to  please  him,  that  it  doesn’t  cross  his  mind  to  keep  things  tidy.  that  isn’t  to  say  he  would  live  in  a  complete  pigsty  if  he  went  without  maids  and  attendants,  but  it  certainly  wouldn’t  be  the  most  organised  of  spaces.

012.  does  your  character  have  any  irrational  fears  or  phobias?

like  the  majority  of  his  contemporaries,  harry  fears  illness.  the  english  court  moves  from  palace  to  palace  to  flee  from  all  traces  of  it,  yet  having  contracted  something  akin  to  the  sweating  sickness  when  he  was  a  boy,  and  having  lost  his  mother  to  disease,  harry  has  developed  a  strong  phobia  of  infection  and  thus  limits  his  royal  outings  to  affluent  areas,  where  the  threat  of  plague  is  relatively  subdued.  likewise,  harry  will  not  receive  those  who  are  unwell,  and  will  not  sit  at  the  bedside  of  dying  relatives,  out  of  fear  of  catching  something. 

moreover,  harry  fears,  perhaps  more  than  anything,  anonymity  and  failure.  it  is  his  utmost  desire  to  preside  over  england  as  king  and  usher  in  a  glorious  era  for  his  kingdom.  standing  in  the  way  of  that  is,  obviously,  his  tentative  marriage  alliances  and  his  half  -  brother’s  induction  into  the  line  of  succession.

013.  does  your  character  have  an  underlying  passion  or  trait  that  influences  all  aspects  of  their  life?

of  course.  i’ve  touched  on  it  several  times  but  wanting  to  exceed  his  father,  in  light  of  the  shame  he  put  his  mother,  sister,  and  himself  through,  in  all  aspects  is  a  hugely  important  guiding  force  in  his  life  and  something  that  influences  --  or  at  least  should  influence  --  his  character  and  decisions. 

014.  what  might  your  character’s  ideal  romantic  person  be?

someone  who  understands  him  so  fully  that  he  doesn’t  need  to  explain  himself.

someone  who’s  beliefs  and  underlying  goals  and  desires  match  his  own  ---  that  their  personal  philosophies  align  with  his;  that,  when  disagreement  rears  its  ugly  head,  it  isn’t  over  something  deeply  critical  to  either  of  them.

someone  with  patience,  understanding,  and  an  understated  resilience  who  can  soothe  him  when  he  gets  overworked  or  his  temper  flares.  

someone  who  can  withstand  the  burden  of  his  infidelity  and  wandering  hands.

someone  who,  when  his  eyes  stray  or  his  mind  becomes  transfixed  on  matters  of  state  or  militaristic  pursuits,  can  ensure  that  his  realm  is  run  smoothly  and  will  act  as  an  upright  representative  at  his  side.

also,  whilst  i’d  say  he’s  probably  more  sexually  attracted  to  men,  women  tend  to  fill  his  emotional  needs  better  and  he  does  cling  to  them  more  as  a  result  of  some  pretty  keen  #mommy  issues.

015.  describe  your  character’s  hands.  are  they  small,  long,  calloused,  smooth,  stubby,  dexterous  or  clumsy?  do  they  wear  any  jewelry  and  would  they  wear  polish  in  a  modern  setting?

his  fingers  are  long  and  lean,  knuckles  slightly  reddened.  his  palm  is  wide  and  flat,  able  to  stretch  across  a  woman’s  bodice  with  ease,  and  his  grip  is  both  strong  and  dexterous.  he  uses  his  fingers  to  expertly  win  at  chess,  alert  his  stewards  of  his  needs  with  a  brisk  snap,   and  employs  his  hands  liberally  to  gesture  as  he  speaks.  the  pads  of  his  fingertips  are  calloused  and  worn  by  years  of  equestrianism,  jousting  and  fencing,  though  they  are  neatly  trimmed,  splattered  with  freckles,  and  generally  soft  to  the  touch,  adorned  with  an  emerald  heirloom  worn  upon  his  pinky  finger,  and  other  jewels  to  flaunt  the  plantagenet’s  vast  wealth  that  correspond  with  his  attire.

016.  how  does  your  character  smell?  what  is  their  favourite  scent?

whilst  he  prefers  clean,  crisp  scents  (  citrus,  particularly  oranges,  sharp  colognes  and  spicy  fragrances,  a  hint  of  mint )   on  a  day  to  day  basis  he  smells  earthy.

he’s  well  known  for  his  athleticism,  and  thus  quite  a  bit  of  his  time  is  spent  on  horseback,  darting  through  the  english  countryside,  weaving  through  woods  and  bathing  in  the  fresh  streams  that  course  through  his  father’s  lands.  hence,  his   personal  scent  verges  on  earthy  and  woodsy.

you  may  also  smell  ale  or  wine  upon  him,  or  the  lavender  soaps  that  his  footmen  supply  him  to  rinse  his  hair  with.

in  a  modern  verse,  his  favourite  candle  would  be  sandalwood,  and  he  would  wear  a  classic  cedar  chest  cologne;  a  slightly  spicy,  musky,  amber  and  vanilla - like  woody  aroma. 

017.  how  would  your  muse  describe  their  religious  beliefs?

in  the  eyes  of  the  public,  harry  will  be  a  consummately  catholic  king,  and  it  is  vital  that  his  future  wife’s  beliefs  correspond  with  his  own.  religion  has  long  been  a  tool  used  by  the  kings  of  england  to  appease  their  people,  but  indeed  ------  harry  is  a  spiritual  individual  and  regularly,  by  choice,  attends  service;  though  his  conduct  may  or  may  not  align  with  the  principles  mapped  out  by  scripture,  as  he  believes  rulers  are  allowed  to  float  above  them.  harry  knows  that  his  lady  mother  would  roll  in  her  grave  were  he  to  abandon  the  faith,  and  like  the  rulers  who  have  come  before  him,  he  believes  that  he  was  culled  and  hand  selected  by  God  to  claim  the  throne.

018.  what  rules  does  your  muse  live  by,  if  any?

harry  lives  by  the  rule  that  there  are  no  rules  ------  not  for  the  heir  to  the  english  throne.  he  believes  his  birthright  entitles  him  to  act  and  do  as  he  pleases,  and  he  has  little  hair  on  his  tongue  in  lashing  out  against  those  who  could  stand  to  crush  him,  having  no  fear  simply  because  he’s  his  father’s  son.

019.  does  your  muse  overshare,  or  are  they  more  private?

within  his  inner  -  circle,  harry  has  a  penchant  to  overshare  and,  well,  complain.  but  with  those  whom  he  is  unfamiliar,  he’s  a  closed  book,  and  one  that  may  seem  delightfully  intriguing  to  avid  readers.

020.  is  your  muse  a  gossiper?  are  they  more  likely  to  argue  with  their  fists  or  tongue?  what  does  their  voice  sound  like?

whilst  he  does  heed  talk  around  court,  and  is  likely  aware  of  courtly  happenings,  i  don’t  think  he’s  all  that  interested  in  spreading it,  beyond  idle  talk.  there  are  far  more  important  matters  for  the  prince  of  wales  to  attend  to,  and  if  one  gives  over  to  gossip  there  is  usually  no  end  to  it.  

harry  is  more  inclined  to  fight  with  his  fists,  but  this  should  not  lessen  the  obvious  prowess  of  his  tongue  ----  he  can  spar  with  either,  and  yet  the  fierce  lashes  of  his  tongue  are  generally  reserved  for  isabel. 

he  has  a  standard  english  accent  and  his  voice  is  quite  low  and  melodic,  with  certain  welsh  twangs  here  and  there  from  his  upbringing  in  ludlow.

021.  is  your  muse  a …  pessimist  or  optimist …  lover  or  fighter … believer  in  happy  endings …  believer  in  love  at  first  sight?

somewhere  in  between  a  pessimist  and  optimist  ---  a  realist,  with  lofty  aspirations  for  himself.  fighter.  not  a  believer  in  happy  endings  (  but  a  believer  in  the  endings  one  deserves,  the  endings  one  fights  for  )  and  a  believer  in  lust,  not  love,  at  first  sight.

022.  what  sense  of  humour  does  your  character  have?

a  boyish,  slightly  dry  humour.  he’s  fond  of  crass  jokes  and  will  often  make  them  himself,  yet  his  sense  of  humour  has  been  known  to  get  him  in  a  world  of  trouble  with  his  advisers  and  foreign  royals.  blame  it  on  a  slip  of  the  tongue.

023.  what  bad  habits  does  your  character  have?

gambling,  drinking,  womanising...  you  name  it.  in  a  modern  verse,  he’d  definitely  be  more  likely  to  dabble  in  recreational  drug  or  tobacco  use,  but  since  that’s  fairly ...  limited  and  /  or  outlandish  in  medieval  europe  i  don’t  think  it  would  present  much  of  a  problem  and  he  wouldn’t  be  at  risk  of  addiction.  also,  vapes  don’t  exist  in  1455  as  far  as  i  know,  but  you  know  if  they  did  he’d  be  smoking  that  tutti  frutti  !!

024.  how  does  your  character  feel  about  growing  old?

there  is  a  sense  of  opportunity  to  growing  older,   though  there  is  also  fear.  growing  older  means  becoming  king,  amassing  power  and  loyalty   -------   but,  though  he  may  be  king,  rulers  are  too  made  of  clay  and  subjected  to  mortality  as  any  other,  and  this,  without  a  doubt,  is  among  his  greatest  fears.  

the  idea  of  dying  without  achieving  anything  is  troublesome  to  harry,  and  much  of  his  desire  to  wed  stems  from  the  notion  that  his  heirs  and  daughters  will  carry  his  legacy  into  another  lifetime,  that  they’ll  be  used  as  politically  influential  pawns,  that,  if  he  should  have  a  son,  there  would  be  no  chance  for  his  half - brother  to  inherit  the  throne,  and  this  ultimately  soothes  his  apprehensions  to  a  certain  degree.

025.  does  your  character  prefer  adventure  to  safety  and  security?

adventure,  certainly,  although  as  i  have  touched  upon  before,  adventure  for  harry  is  not  the  same  for,  say,  a  noble  or  a  lesser  member  of  court.  there  will  always  be  a  safety  net  beneath  him,  so  while  he  may  leap  and  bound,  there  has  never  been  any  fear  that  he  would  fall  and  thus  it  cannot  be  considered  entirely  dangerous  or  even  adventuresome,  perhaps  more  calculated  than  anything.  thats  privilege  babey  !!