#this has the same energy as the down with cis bus to me

[leighlew3]

Are you open to giving your opinion on The Girls On The Bus?

IMHO take away the swearing and the occasional s*x scene, you can tell people of the CW were involved. And so many other things that I don’t want to spoil in case not everyone has see it but I wonder how you (a professional) sees it.

Okie dokie. So.

I've had this Anon/Answer as a draft for a while. Was torn on whether to discuss it. But now that it's cancelled, I don't feel like this would be discouraging anybody from tuning in and thus harming the show or those involved in any way.

Keep in mind, I'm entitled to my opinions -- yes even without having watched it (yet?) because it's all tied into why I ultimately didn't watch it in the first place.

Early on, I remember being... wary about the creative direction of the show overall and saying to somebody what I bet each character would wind up being about/representing, what the show would likely focus on and the various dynamics between the characters, and how the representation would be treated. I'd hoped to be wrong in terms of the predictability factor, alas...

From what I read of reviews and saw in fan-posted clips, it turned out that I was (unfortunately) pretty spot on. For me personally -- that makes a show difficult to tune into if something else doesn't outweigh it. If I already know exactly what to expect and it involves less than flattering predictions regarding superficial feminism + overdone tropes and cliches + an overall concept that feels like a beat down with IRL non-stop coverage of political insanity the last 8 damn years? Thaaat's a hard one for me.

As far as cast though? Benoist is an exceptional, underrated, incredible talent. And some of the clips of her performance seemed Emmy-worthy (though sadly that didn't happen for her this time). Gugino is also fantastic, and an icon. Meanwhile Elmore is profusely enjoyable and talented and Behnam is such a break out and refreshing energy. And all together, they seemed to have amazing chemistry on screen and formed bonds IRL that are lovely.

Sadly though, the show's feminism seemed to be the equivalent of a "girl boss" tote bag. Superficial at best. Characters and the show constantly ragging on men and the double standards of men vs women, yet ultimately still centering men and the influence of men in and even over their lives when it gets down to brass tacks. My whole thing is: everything doesn't have to be a feminist statement. But don't yell about how your show is all about "girl power" and then -- do the opposite, in many ways. SGCW used to do that all the time. And since many of the same people were involved here creatively... well...

The show even hung a huge focus of its initial marketing on "omg we have a shirtless 50 year old white man that white millennial women were in love with in the early 2000s hehehe" -- which was so utterly bizarre and cringe. And having their invited influencer group for the screening be a group of privileged, mostly straight, cis, white Millennials and Gen Z women from TikTok was a red flag.

Yes, straight cis white Millennial and Gen Z women deserve to see themselves too, 100%. But, c'mon. And yes, not everything is always for everybody. And that’s fine! But then they should’ve better considered the casting and what audience they were automatically bringing in from day one. Between Benoist, Gugino and Tala — that’s built in queer wlw fandoms right off the bat that would (and tried to) show up and champion the series if they had true reason to. Instead the show had limited, and as always ancillary, queer rep that apparently goes nowhere and ends rather badly, from what other fans have indicated. Drop me a line if that's incorrect though.

Look, yes, many queer fans were making jokes and expressing valid frustrations about the lead character giving QUEER AS HELL vibes all over the place yet being presented as seemingly straight, but what else is new from some of the creatives involved here.

It was further disappointing to see TPTB do a group interview where they said how they a.) tried to figure out who should get pregnant while on the campaign trail and need the abortion pills and ultimately decided on Sadie and b.) joked that they then debated "Well, Sadie HAS to sleep with SOMEBODY." to get there. Which just means the core "love story" they attempt to create for Sadie around not liking the guy at first other than as a hookup and then suddenly expressing deep feelings for him and bearing her soul a few episodes later wasn't exactly organic nor earned in conception nor execution.

It sounds like they just had a checklist of "issues" to address and then wrote around that, shaping characters to fit the story, instead of the other way around. So what might've worked better for the characters was pushed aside to complete the 'statements' they wanted to make. SGCW used to do that also. They were always trying so hard to make the characters fit the plot rather than the plot work alongside or even due to the characters -- which is why it so often fell flat, felt empty and had characters being poorly written, contradictory, etc.

On this front btw, someone had complained to me that for one big ep, Sadie was going through it, and whereas one would think she would normally go to her mentor and friend Grace (or one of the other girls on the damn bus, hello), the ep kept 'em apart so she could open up to a guy she previously rejected and it further their relationship. Once again, it's always a tiresome tactic when you have to keep women apart to prop up a man or a male/female dynamic because you know a character would have been more likely to go have that breakdown and emotional moment elsewhere, but you've gotta forcibly shove in the "development" of a hetero relationship at the expense of so much else.

Next, having a Black woman represent a political party that has built itself upon racism, homophobia and sexism and then using her and those arcs to play up the "both sides have good people" angle right now is tough to stomach for the kind of fans who were tuning in for Benoist, Gugino and others. It's not "enlightened" to say "Let's be pals with a bigot who wants women's rights stripped away because -- humanity!" I mean, we're all human and can't just quick and easy cut people out of our lives who have different beliefs, even if those beliefs are absolutely painfully awful -- but I don't think anyone is really exploring these issue deeply and appropriately enough yet.

I mean, "Aw, Kimberlyn drove Sadie to her abortion, thus showing that even if she personally didn't agree with it, she still cares and they can still be friends." is a sweet sentiment, in theory. Until you dig a little deeper and remember that Kimberlyn is not only voting for but actively helping promote and put power in the hands of people who stripped Sadie of her rights to have that abortion in that state in the first place! Stuff like this is so irritatingly disingenuous... or else just tone deaf and clueless. Pick whichever.

I will say, in closing, that it seemed a big portion of the apparently limited audience that was tuning in -- were queer fans who followed Benoist from Supergirl, and Tala from LoT, and who love Gugino, etc. And this is where it is so damn important know your audience based on who you're casting and what fans they're bringing to the table. Most discussion of the show on Twitter for instance, had been around queer Sadie edits and even a crackship with someone from another show + fans thirsting after Sadie's queer vibes and outfits, etc -- and those fans generated more interest around the show / buzz than anybody, yet there had been no direct acknowledgment nor gratitude by anyone involved with the show for tuning in and creating fan content and edits and art and gifs and hyping a show that otherwise has very little interest. And all that told those fans is: this show isn't for you, and we don't care if you're our only audience, we were aiming for something else. And hey -- aim for whomever you want! Tell your stories! But then don't be surprised when no one cares in this climate. I mean, LGBTQ fans and creators have to deal with this constantly when trying to "appeal to mass audiences", so, welcome to our world.

Additionally, TPTB were not even hyping the canon rep they did have, in Lola, ffs! Instead, everyone just focused the occasional praise from mostly straight white journalists giving it the obscure positive review, or family and friends pushing the show out of personal support.

It was so exhausting to see, because it involved a lot of the same creatives who previously also ignored LGBTQ fans carrying other previous shows with organic marketing in the past. Ignoring what limited audience you have will never be a recipe for long-term success. And with many of the people involved coming from The CW, and many at the top actually part of the LGBTQ community themselves -- you'd think they'd get that by now. Alas.

Anyway, I think most people involved in this show meant well, and worked hard on this one. And I hear they did do a couple great things -- like with Lola's family dynamic and background exploration, some of the humorous moments, etc. And kudos on getting a show made and on air -- because now more than even that is a damn near miracle. But because it's so hard to make happen now, that's really why I tend to be a little more discerning as well as having heightened expectations that representation be as fully developed and organic and self-aware as possible, and that talent not be wasted on cliches and superficiality. Audiences and actors deserve better, IMO.

In closing, I'm sure in the future I'll break my own standards on a project, whether by accident or by order from above, and people will feel I've flopped or been hypocritical given my current and past takes, and that's fine. I'll try to hear people out, adapt and grow and/or fight harder, where needed. But to see the same people get the same opportunities to make the same kind of things that get the same disappointed reactions/flop -- and never learn? Is tiresome.

Especially when the cast, fans, etc deserve better.

The end.

[fiadhaisteach]

My spouse & I straddle the Gen "X"/Millenial line (He's the very definition of a Xennial & I'm 4 years older).

13 years ago, I was pregnant and we were both laid off during the '08/'09 recession.

12 years ago we had run through our savings, had an eight month old, were on TANF, receiving SNAP & WIC benefits, & living with my mother in a different state. (We also, later, ended up filing for bankruptcy as our new income would never get us out of the hole we'd gotten into, trying to stay off assistance... don't do that. Use the benefits you have access to.)

We did some math and decided whichever of us found a job first would be the breadwinner and the other would be the homemaker, because there wasn't a job in our rural area that would cover the cost of daycare, let alone a second vehicle.

We were extremely glad we'd done the math and kept a parent at home, even though our house, now, is walking distance from highway bus stops, because it turned out that both kidlets (when we later added a 2nd) would need the extra care. (Frankly, the only reason we were able to buy a house, 7 years ago, is because I'm a disabled veteran in a rural area willing to buy in an "undesirable" location at just the right time so there was zero initial cost and mortgage/taxes/insurance came to about the same as rent. Couldn't do it now.)

I "won" the draw and it actually was pretty good. The prior owner was a shitty boss/supervisor, but an excellent employer (he had to be to retain employees). He provided raises that kept up with the cost of living, plus a little, & offered okay benefits. 

When his health failed and he sold the business, the new owners kept all the old employees on, though our benefits were considerably reduced, and in my case, workload near doubled because they didn't see the need for an outside bookkeeper and the old owner's workload was split between me & the new manager, but hey... steady employment. However, within 3 years I was the only one of the "old guard" left and in 6 years have received one, small, raise.

Now, my health has been deteriorating for a couple of decades, but has been getting significantly worse over the last 5 or so years and I'm finding that most of my energy is taken for "work" with very little left for the family, even as I'm falling further and further behind. So my spouse started to make a concerted effort at finding employment.

Even as a white cis-man who has two degrees and a winning personality, with a decade of stay-at-home parentness, it took three years (covid was a factor too), but he was able to find a job (and he does deserve it, never doubt) which should have minimal impact our take-home pay, while allowing me to expend my limited energy at home... and he'll have job/career mobility, where I had none (really, less than none since my wages have been effectively going down vs. cost of living).

Could we, technically, be "better off" if I kept this job? If you only considered income... sure. My spouse can, and will, bus to work (so I can have the vehicle for doctor appointments and picking the kids up from after school clubs), but if I kept working I'd still have no energy left for the family, my spouse would have less simply by virtue of working out of the home, the kids would have to give up after school activities, & everyone would be spending their free time doing all the household things that wouldn't be getting done during the work/school week... so no... not really.

Are we fortunate that we are able to have one parent at home? Absolutely! Though some of that is trade-off, not living where we'd prefer to live (we're both city mice living in the country), and limiting our mobility to a single vehicle & rural public transit. I realize some don't have even that much option, but it's still a choice we had to make.

We also had family to fall back on when we hit rock bottom (a mixed blessing I won't get into here) and used our government benefits to get back on our feet (late, but better than never).

Is there a point to this? *shrugs* Generational crap is crap. The Joneses are probably also trying to keep up with the Joneses, so just do the best for you. Fuck capitalism. Use the benefits you pay for. Take care of your health as best you can. Hair dye is cheap. Count your blessings.

[satanfm]

hello! this is my smol messy child with a heart of gold lux !  i’m very excited to rp with all of you beauts, so pls give me all of your affection & plots 🥺 lux is twenty-three, a singer and professional nuisance to record companies, managers, collaborators, exes, and basically anyone who’s ever met her. positive traits are often overshadowed and forgotten due to the intensity of her negative traits.

chicago’s very own lux santana has been spotted on madison avenue driving a range rover , welcome ! your resemblance to sofia jamora is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty third birthday bash . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re aggressive , but being confident might help you . i think being a leo explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be being soft and stone cold at the same, broken guitar strings, & singing songs under her breath. (lux doesn’t want children, so when she got pregnant she had an abortion and lied about it to the father by faking a miscarriage) & ( cis female & she/her) + ( hailey , 19 , she/her, cst)

— “ basics ! ’ 〉

full name. lux santana. 

nicknames. friends can her lux, and enemies call her satan. 

age. twenty-three. 

date of birth. july 26. 

occupation. singer/songwriter. 

sexual orientation. pansexual. 

birthplace. chicago. 

zodiac. leo. 

spoken languages. fluent in english, spanish & some french.

— “ backstory ! ’ 〉

satan ... i mean lux santana was actually born delilah humpries and raised in chicago. her father is one of those important political bigwigs and...all she knows about her mother is that she’s never known her mother.

her dad was the typical rich successful man who showered his child in all of the presents and money that she could ever ask for in order to make up for the fact that he was always too busy working to ever spend any actual time with her and instead left lux to be raised by a revolving door of nannies

from a young age it was obvious that lux had a talent for music & ofc her dad was willing to pay for her lessons so long as it kept her occupied so she started with singing and piano but moved on to learn a few other instruments including the guitar and even began dipping her toes into songwriting. by the age of 14 she had written and recorded a whole demo album in her bedroom and once it was done, she started sneaking out at night so that she could go hang around the local big name recording studios in the hopes that she would catch a producer leaving for the day and hopefully convince them to listen to her demo

she never did

sis really tried though. now ofc her dad could’ve paid a record company to just hand her a contract and she knew that, but dammit. lux wanted music to be her lifelong career and she wanted to earn it herself. she knew that she was genuinely talented even though her demo album was probs lowkey garbage lmao and she knew that she could be successful, and she didn’t want anyone to be able to say that she didn’t truly work for her career

she was so determined that she spent y e a r s relentlessly hounding record companies but no one would give her the time of day, so she developed a different strategy after seeing some flyers around the city and at the age of 16 she joined a local bar band who happened to seeking a lead singer...and got kicked out like two weeks later for being absolutely fucking insufferable

join local band in need of a lead singer. attempt to overhaul said band and push all of the other members into the background. face resistance from said other members. get angry, lash out, get kicked out of the band, repeat. it was a vicious cycle that went on for a couple years.

it was while she was in the midst of this vicious cycle that she met her (now ex) boyfriend and they were...whew. A WHOLE MESS. he was the frontman of a different band that was gaining more and more popularity by the day. he was older and he seemed so cool, and so ofc lux fell for him hard. they got together and appeared to be madly in love, but all was not perfect at all.

they were veeeery on and off, the type of couple to get in a screaming match and “break up” over nothing only to get back together like ten minutes later. this guy also wound up getting lux hooked on drugs, getting her arrested, getting her name plastered all over the tabloids for everything except her music, which was something that she still hadn’t quite found her footing in yet

until finally at the age of 19 she landed a record deal and, at the age of 21 after a lot of delays that had to do with her perfectionist nature and tumultuous relationship her first album was released and turned out to be a major success with all of the singles charting, lots of streams and airplay and a sold out debut tour that would unfortunately get cut short

so basically what happened was her bf showed up after one of her concerts and ofc they got high together, but then lux started to overdose. she passed out, but her bf thought she was dead and ofc he freaked out so, uh...he ran. literally bolted out of her tour bus and lux has not seen him since

fortunately she was found by someone else in time and rushed to the hospital. of course the rest of her tour was cancelled so that she could recover and she subsequently did the obligatory few months in rehab only to get out and immediately go back to using. that was over a year ago now and since then she’s been working on her second album aaaand it’s almost finished! people are starting to wonder what’s taking her so long and the answer is honestly just the fact that she’s nearly impossible to work with tbh

— “ fun facts / headcanons ! ’ 〉

lux is lux, not delilah. she uses the stage name in order to a) be pretentious and b) distance herself from her family name as a way to shut down the argument that it’s the only reason why she’s famous/successful. as for where the name came from? but yeah. lux, not delilah, or she’ll get all huffy.

pan af, has dated & hooked up with people both before and after her disaster bf and sometimes while they were “broken up” for all of ten minutes. tbh she kinda...gets with people solely to use them as songwriting material and then just dumps them when she’s gotten some material out of them? yikes! so she can be a bit of a heartbreaker.

since music is really the only thing in her life that she takes seriously, it’s what most of her energy tends to go into and it’s why she can be so impossible to work with. she’s always full steam ahead and she always thinks that she’s right, which doesn’t really pair well with the fact that she’s also very stubborn. recording studio employees have literally quit on her in the middle of a song more than once before bc they just couldn’t deal with her anymore. she’s that bad.

she’s quite intelligent and empathetic and genuinely talented but unfortunately her stubbornness and perfectionism and short temper often overshadow her best qualities and become all that people are able to see when they look at her. lux, surprisingly, doesn’t seem to realize that dialing back the attitude might help her in her quest to be just be taken seriously for fuck’s sake

she is the embodiment of ' 5′1 but attitude 6′2′.

can be v reckless, willing to try anything once.

she's v free spirited but can be flighty, never wanting to settle, always on to the next thing, whatever it may be.

big on living in the moment, future who?

— “ wanted plots ! ’ 〉

some potential wc i’m terrible at thinking of these so please don’t feel limited by this list!

best friends

step siblings

cousins

perhaps someone from her mom’s side of the fam

attempted good influence

exes ( she probs has a bunch who hate her )

former / current hookups ( again, she probably has a bunch )

ex friends / bridges she’s burned ( probs has more of these than anything else lmao )

straight up enemies

other singers or musicians who have tried to work with her

people she’s written songs about!

[rontra]

ANONYMOUS ASKED:

i really like mwot and was wondering, do you wanna talk/loredump/etc about mwot during this blessed month of pride? (if not that's totally cool!!! i really like the au and am curious about it!)

REPLY:

YES!!!!

umineko spoilers below and LONG POST KSDJDKSKD i really went infodumping......you got me right in an infodumping mood....

also im being very casual in this post so if something is like weird or vague its probably because i got tired of thinking about it and skipped ahead. SKJDSJD

mwot is an umi au and its very gay and very trans because i, a gay trans, decided it was TIME to INDULGE

LIKE A MOUNTAIN WIND FALLING ON OAK TREES also known as MWOT, MW/OT, Mountain Wind + Oak Trees, MW+OT, or literally any combination of its parts, is an eva/natsuhi au, set in a vague modern big city setting

https://rontra.tumblr.com/tagged/mountain-wind-oak-trees

it’s a comedy, mostly? it has elements of backstory transphobia and  stuff like that but that’s not really the story i want to tell with it, so  i don’t go too deeply into it in the main fic. it’s mostly comedy and Self Care: The  Story (once these nerds get around to acknowledging that self care is  good, anyway!!!!)  

Eva is 20, nb lesbian (though she doesnt know half of it to begin with). generally a bitchard at the beginning but also deeply craving that Validation. Invested in making the fic harder to write due to pronoun shenanigans (shoutout to the lengthy section of intimate emotional scenes that uses no pronouns at all for eva but is narrated by them in 3rd person)

Natsuhi is like 21 i guess because im a sucker for her having like an annoying 1-3 years on eva bc eva would get mad about it. Also she’s trans, gray-ace, hopeless romantic, generally full of “quickly raising your eyebrows and looking away while sipping your drink and thinking Yikes” energy. weaponizes indifference but is no stranger to harder means. she’s a smart cookie

Sayo is also 20, gender clown car living her best life. Presents differently depending on mood and whim

krauss is like 22 or whatever. for housekeeping’s sake, rosa and rudolf are too young to matter (8 and 10, or something like that). dont even worry about it

honestly the weirdest part of the au is eva and sayo being the same age

also this au is the origin point of me & my friends using akikaze as nat’s maiden name. the more you know!

-

USHIROMIYA GOLD dishes up that yellow metal like you wouldn’t believe. led by kinzo whos so fuckin good at sniffing out that sweet sweet gold people are half convinced the man has psychic powers. Any piece of land he’s got his eyes on, he WILL get his hands on, no matter who owns it right now.

the land kinzo wants At The Moment is owned by the AKIKAZE FAMILY who have been notably on the decline recently. they’re in the economic shithole so this land is basically all they’ve got right now, so when kinzo wants it and it suddenly Has Value, they’re like “oh, shit,

anyway the deal basically shakes out that like, he gets the land and all the gold that may or may not be in it. he offers his eldest son in exchange for this land, to marry their daughter: in the bonds of marriage graciously ensuring a part of the winnings will spill over on them, while keeping them under his control without money coming into the picture.

Everything’s working out great and coming up kinzo. the deal is closed and everyone’s happy (i guess). until ONE DAY, just a few narrow weeks before the akikaze girl is set to move in with the ushiromiyas,

KINZOS

OLDEST

SON

DISAPPEARS

!!!!!

Krauss dislikes being told what to do, and his father’s ideals never lined up with his own. He thinks this entire thing is sort of fucked up and can’t live under his dad’s thumb anymore. That's why, immediately following Kinzo’s agreement with the Akikaze family, Krauss disappears. He’s just kinda left for greener pastures, to unfold his own life and pursue his own interests independent of the Ushiromiya name. He leaves behind a letter explaining it & basically he forfeits both name and inheritance, and Kinzo’s incredible deal is suddenly in jeopardy.....

obviously this is kinzo though, and all of his solutions are like, 20 times more complicated than they have to be? he’s DETERMINED to have this land so he’s like “i need an eldest son. shit rudolf is only like 9. fuck. well okay i have an eldest daughter with a deeply complicated need for validation and success entirely driven by her overall neglect at my hands“ and the rest. as they say. is history (???)

Ushiromiya Eva always saw Krauss as unworthy of the inheritance, and to her, his disappearance confirms this. She grew up always being made to feel inferior to her older brother, usually being ignored in favor of him, and it's bred a complex need for validation in her. Her values and strengths are more like Kinzo’s than her brother’s, and Kinzo recognizes this in the wake of Krauss’ disappearance.

basically he concocts this really wild scheme where eva has to pretend to be his oldest son and marry this girl or whatever so he can seal this stupid gold deal and she’s like “well lol if i get to be family heir” and hes like “yes that’s what im saying” and shes like “awesome let’s do it”

all of the servants are in on it too of course. specifically kinzo enlists SAYO who works there as normal staff and isn’t otherwise tangled into this family’s mess in any way whatsoever. she’s just here to serve tea and looks. anyway he’s like “you work on this with eva--i mean evan, my son, you must have misheard--and eva you have to listen to whatever yasuda says” and eva is like “that last part will not be frustrating for me at all”.

Yasuda as reigning Household Gender Presentation Expert is like “i think i just got orders from the master to bully eva?” and eva is like “i wish i could fire you but my dad just banned me from doing that” and then gradually...over the course of the project......they become....friends.........

(the au is tagged eva & sayo for a reason. they become FRIENDS!!)

mostly its just various combinations of shkanon dunking on eva and its all VERY good.

during all these shenanigans we make some startling realizations like “gender euphoria is a hell of a drug” and stuff, which is extremely harrowing for everyone (note: not for everyone. just for eva, who makes 10,000 realizations every day, and should not have been counted.)

(ok sidenote did anyone else put on their first binder & go like “hmmm. i live here now” because. mood. im projecting entirely into this fic)

Gender Clown Car yasuda (currently as lion) is like “you know there’s like more than 2 genders” and eva’s like “you fucking wehat”.

i also make a REALLY INVOLVED JOKE ABOUT CASTIGLIONI GOLD, THE RIVAL COMPANY, and how BEATRICE’S KID LOOKS A LOT LIKE LION, and EVERYONE thinks this is all VERY funny

(i would like to see it. also kinzo owes beatrice castiglioni $20 and she’s never let him forget it.)

now wrapped up in this stupid impostor scheme AND full of big wild nonbinary energy AND!! WITH AN INFURIATING NEW FRIEND!! IN THE STAFF!!! this one funky ushiromiya is all ready to get in on an arranged marriage or whatever. provided NO ONE EVER FINDS OUT that they’re faking it and replacing the Actual Heir, which would no doubt ruin the scheme AND bring kinzo’s wrath on everybody involved, of course.

-

AKIKAZE NATSUHI IS READY TO PUNCH HER FIANCE IN THE THROAT IF HE EVEN LOOKS AT HER but she understands what’s happening here. she knows she didn’t have a say in this from the very beginning. that the deal was sealed for her as soon as the name “ushiromiya” was said. she knows her family married her off quick in a bid to get rid of her. if she’s humiliated by this ordeal, she is far too proud to show it. she packs her bags and walks into the mansion with her head held high........and immediately has this exchange with her fiance

and this one

so that’s kind of the energy we’re going for with these two.

(natsuhi’s line in the second cap was going to be removed for being Way Too Intense, but everyone i talked to said it was too hot to cut, so i decided to indulge us all. blame the lesbians)

they IMMEDIATELY don’t get along but they kinda agree to like, mind their business, since neither of them are interested in playing house here. if they can get the wedding to go off without a hitch they can basically go back to never talking to each other again.

natsuhi’s entire angle here is essentially: her family was not that good, and this family likely won’t be better, BUT here she has a chance to build something new for herself. she’ll be out of her parents’ house. She needs this deal to stay for her own sake, but she has to get out ahead of her husband and set up a dynamic that favors her. when she meets evan she essentially gauges the kind of person she’s dealing with and picks her approach accordingly: this is not a soft man, and she has to be hard in turn to avoid being steamrolled.

and its VERY hot

anyway some stuff happens and it eventually they both sorta get each other’s secrets. eva is not the firstborn son and natsuhi is not the card kinzo thought he was pulling from her family’s hand and theyre both toast if word hits the public. directly after the wedding they establish a tense alliance of keeping each others’ secrets....

and then they.....fall...in l

there’s some fun tensions and realizations. eva is like “so im quickly catching on that no praise i ever received from dad was on my own merit and he’s kind of a dirtbag all around and his validation is kind of not worth it” and nat is like “word our parents are chains” & they run kinzo over with the down w cis bus. it’s fine. they get postcards from krauss sometimes. he has a motorbike now.

DID I MENTION THE PRACTICE KISSING

BC THEY HAVE TO PRACTICE! FOR THE!! PUBLIC WEDDING!!!!

and thats mwot i guess. it’s my au where natsuhi’s accent color is red and some other stuff happens too. happy pride month

[cavehags]

Life comes at you fast, but rapid-onset gender dysphoria comes at you faster. I didn’t have much time to think about it, I’ll admit it; the trans women leaning out of the unmarked van were shouting questions at me so quickly I couldn’t exactly make out what they were saying, and I didn’t want to admit I’d said “Yes” without knowing what I’d just agreed to. Plus I wanted to make sure I collected my rewards points. They definitely said something about rewards points.

It was sort of like the bus from Speed, I think, because they couldn’t slow down. I mean both the van and the rate of transition. I think that’s probably why trans people tend to go around in groups, either in windowless vans or broken-down schoolbuses, because as a group it’s a little harder to run out of steam than on your own. Get a trans person alone for long enough and it’s like one of those cars that run on French-fry oil: smells good, and a lot of fun to drive, but when you break down all by yourself in the middle of nowhere, it’s awfully hard to find the energy to keep going.

I tried asking them about it later. They were nice, the van girls. “What do you get out of this? Personally, I mean, driving around in a big van all together and asking cis teenagers if they want to become men. What’s in it for you?”

One of them shrugged and popped her gum. “We don’t tell a lot of people this, but usually they let us keep their old clothes afterwards, so it’s a great way to get more band T-shirts.”

Easier than buying the band T-shirts from the band’s website, or going to one of their shows and stopping by the merch table?

She shrugged. “Oh, no, definitely not. And, you know, a lot of the time we’re not even the same size, so sometimes we just have to throw the T-shirts away, or try to see if Buffalo Exchange will pay for them. But even then they offer you something ridiculous, like twelve bucks for a whole garbage bag full of clothes or twenty bucks in store credit, so of course you take the store credit just out of spite, even though you could have really used the cash.”

“It’s not a great scam,” she added. “But what can you do? It’s such an entrenched part of being a trans woman. You transition, some girls show up in a van, and then you ride around town trying to convince cis teenagers to get mastectomies and start their own catboy YouTube channels and…that’s pretty much it. No one knows why it has to be older trans women talking teenagers into becoming trans men; that’s just how it’s always been. Helps you feel like a part of things, you know? And the one-in, one-out policy, of course,” she added.

I said I thought that made a certain kind of sense. For me it’d just been like – the last straw, maybe. My hair had looked weird that day, and I’d been fighting with my mom again, and being a lesbian doesn’t seem to get under her skin anymore the way it used to, which was so annoying, and I don’t even think I have a safety school when it comes to college which means I’m either getting into all of them or none, and they’d all looked so glamorous and relaxed and they had so much gum. So when one of the girls leaning out of the van said, “You coming or what, kid? We got a lot of other anxious rising juniors we could sex-change today, you know,” I threw my backpack into the gutter and climbed in. I didn’t think much further than getting a ride to Chris’ house. And honestly, if you want to be anybody at Vaginectomy High, you really have to have at least one or two e-girls who can vouch for you, and everyone knows all the coolest e-girls are trans.

They talk really fast, you know; sometimes it’s just a matter of wanting to keep up and not admit that you didn’t catch something. A friend of mine said yes to a double mastectomy thinking they were signing up for AP Chem. “I mean, I wound up enrolling in AP Chem after all,” they said when pressed for comment, “so in that sense everything ended up working out fine. I just didn’t realize the top surgery thing was a separate question. I mean, if I had it to do all over again, would I have just gone through AP Chem and kept my breasts? I don’t know. I did feel more aerodynamic when I was studying afterwards. I guess it did cut down on wind resistance, which is nice when you’re trying to remember all those formulas. But I don’t think you should have to get top surgery to take AP Chem.”

I’m hoping I don’t have to take Chem next year – I’m pretty sure one of the girls mentioned something about being able to opt out of you score enough rewards points, and I know a bunch of stressed-out eight-graders I think I can talk into HRT.

[21stcenturymen]

Listening & Ceding Space

RATING: Everyone

I could publish a weighty tome featuring nothing but pics of white guys taking up space. Having conversations in front of doorways, slacking in the center of escalators wide enough for two, walking four abreast on a sidewalk, spreading their legs on transit, or operating Audis at all. And I think driving is probably the best analogy I can come up with to talk about why ceding physical space or time to listen doesn’t diminish our lives.

Think of highway driving. When you're cruising down the road and encounter a slower driver, you move over to the lefthand lane to pass, but that car slides over as well. Or they speed up. In any case, they don't want you to pass. Your need to get somewhere doesn’t impact their life at all, and yet they take umbrage at your existence and attempt to inhibit your need to pass anyway. You know they'll still have their part of the road after you pass, and you know you're not trying to take that away from them, but they're behaving as though being passed will be of grave consequence. You getting to where you’re going means nothing to them, yet somehow it’s a race. To where? For what purpose? You have different lives, goals, destinations, and yet for that moment, you seem to be locked in a death match… for no discernible reason.

This is what cis white men's fear of women, people of color, and the LGBTQIA community having the same rights as us looks like. It is literally no impact to us if they are treated as equals, and yet, we slide over, speed up, and refuse to cede space when others weren’t trying to compete with us in the first place.

We can expand the metaphor a bit further to examine how it’s funded. Everyone’s tax dollars go to make that road drivable, and yet that one jerk thinks they have more rights to it than we do. Ridiculous, right? Why not let people pass, get to where they need to go, and participate in the pavement they also contribute to? Remember, this is a metaphor, so it’s not intended to drive a discussion about road funding, but you do have to concede enough about how public funds are used for the public good to acknowledge the metaphor’s validity. Do you drive on roads? That’s a trick question, everyone does. Do you pay for them yourself? Obviously, you don’t pay for it yourself, and you do drive on them, so let’s acknowledge sharing is mandatory.

So what about non-physical space? What about time and energy? Turns out, men do this in conversation as well. We think women talk longer and that we’re doing well at listening, but - in general - they don’t and we’re not. According to numerous studies, men take up far more space in meetings and other formal settings than women do. Physical and verbal space are culturally synonymous. Says Deborah Tannen, “When choosing a seat at a theater or on a plane, most of us [women] will take a seat next to a woman, if we can, because we know from experience that women are more likely to draw their legs and arms in, less likely to claim the arm rest or splay out their legs, so their elbows and knees invade a neighbor’s space. For similar reasons, when they talk in a formal setting, many women try to take up less verbal space by being more succinct, speaking in a lower voice and speaking in a more tentative way.”

I’ve seen it many times in meetings myself. Women will be interrupted by a man who insists on explaining something before he’s even listened to what she has to say. Frequently, if he’d listened for 10 - 20 more seconds, she would have explained precisely what he was wondering about. Instead, he blathers on for minutes on end only to have the woman roll her eyes and say, “As I was saying, _____” where we then hear the Reader’s Digest version we could have been blessed with in the first place.

In one meeting I actually interrupted a man who’d beed doing this to say, “Excuse me, but I want to hear what she has to say. Go on, please, Janice.*” The room went silent and the man’s jaw gaped open as if he’d never been so accosted in his life. Interrupting a woman was just second nature to him, but being interrupted was a grand offense. He’s seldom spoken to me since. So what does it say about male fragility that a man considers an act perfectly acceptable when employed on a woman, but a gross injustice when enacted upon him?

PURPOSE: Breathe. Is another person talking? Yes? Then don’t interrupt them. Children get this training from a very early age. When did we forget it? I understand we all struggle to be heard, but whether you realize it or not, you’ll get your chance. Respect other people’s right to be heard and listen when they speak. Particularly when someone says something you have an opinion about, let them finish before responding. They might just address your objections, but if you interrupt, you’ll never know because now you’ve created a combative environment. Let people finish their thoughts.

Take your space - and only your space. Let people pass. They may not even have the same destination and life’s not a race anyway. I promise you no one is trying to take your personal space from you. Keep your legs closed on the bus, stay to the right on escalators, don’t jam up doorways with your conversation, and for the love of God, if you own an Audi, don’t drive like you own an Audi. There are too many other people on the road for you to stretch your fancy car’s legs as if you’re a racecar driver.**

Next Up: Special guest writer - Personal Responsibility

*Her name was not Janice.

**You’re not.

[nerdgasrnz]

This is so stupid and frustrating bullshit bc like... I'm VERY new to navigating concepts of gender and sexuality from a new, non cis/het lens. There's terms and history I need to learn. That I'm STILL learning.

But then there's these super popular posts with all this Ace Discourse word soup that is just hard to decipher. WORSE for people who lack even more energy and patience.

Posts whrre I'm not fucking sure if I'm actually surrounded by people that support me, or just see me and others like me as a "special snowflake" trying to fit in, wanting to be oppresssd. Adding to the confusion about if I have enough "gold stars" on my queer card to qualify me to get "in."

Those posts with tens of thousands of notes talking about how """Exclusionists""" deserve to die. The "logic" for who they mean and why is needle buried in a 7 paragraph haystack.

On that side, you have the Intellectuals™ who flower up their bigotry at the length of an SAT Essay so they can fool impressionable people** into into thinking that what they're saying is worthwhile. But when they talk about "Exclusionists?" You don't know if they actually mean ignorant people excluding all Aros/Aces from what it "really" means to be queer, or if they're saying "all those filthy gays should die along with their allosexual* bretheren"

And then those people get mad when it's explained MULTIPLE TIMES how a word is horrible, because it lumps queer people with cis/straight people? Does that really sound like it makes sense? That is why "Allosexual" is an actual not good word!!! like sheesh just trust us on this one okay? "Non-Ace" works fine as a distinction.

So on the other side, you have those **Impressionable People who are blown away by these big words that don't actually make sense together.

"BUT HEY the post has a lot of notes, so they must be right! Now, let's throw together some similar-sounding words on topics where I actually don't know my stance. Let's contribute to a volatile, negative discussion to feel Valid™!!!"

So then, this leads to not just excessive use of the word "Allosexual" in reference to people that donot want to be categorized the same way as cisgender, heterosexual people: You also get people throwing around "terf" like it's just a quirky, acceptable tumblr insult.

But those people don't know that a "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist" is actually a gigantic warning for other peoples' safety. Transgender safety. Because RadFems like them want to oppress everyone they don't consider "real women" Like transgender people.

(re: the "Kill All Men" mantra, which to them, includes and misgenders Trans/Nonbinary people under the guise of "Womens' Rights" lmao)

With Buzzword Bigot's popularity, and naïve Mob Member #476, you get this Ace Discourse garbage: where you can't really tell which side hates you? Or if both sides hate you? Do THEY know why they hate you? You'll never know, because nobody will SAY WHAT THEY MEAN IN PLAIN LANGUAGE!!!

That's not just Acecourse, that's the minority experience!! When it used to be easier to tell who hated you, by whoever punched and spat on you!

But now everyone tries to duck and weave being (rightfully) accused of being a bigot.

I do not blame ANY queer person for standing up against blatant homophobia and transphobia and kicking people out of their spaces. When some fucker, who HAPPENS to be Aro and/or Ace, has a lame-ass agenda to create a shitstorm for publicity, yeah, you need to gtfo!!! Nobody fucking cares if you "deserve" to be at the VIP venue, or if you "paid your dues" to be there: if you're disruptive and destructive, the bouncers are kicking you out because of the damages you're causing!!!

I do not blame ANY queer person for hating people from MY spectrum of sexuality: because people from MY community are repeating toxic, hateful behavior and ideas that already wreaked havoc on queer people's safety. Because then you get shit like an "Ace-centric," apocalyptic, Young Adult novel pitch where "people die if they're physically intimate" sounds like a good plot; but that was already a thing in real life called the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. Which mostly plagued queer people. But yeah talk about it like it's just fiction because "those dirty allosexuals will die from that gross intercourse!"

If you're cis and on the aro/ace spectrum, and you're spouting shit that misgenders people, then yeah, trans people have every right to exclude you.

When you talk about gay bars with disdain, wanting "G-rated" alternatives, as if Queer people and Gay Bars are ALWAYS sexually explicit and never "turn it down"; you probs don't know how much you sound like one of the police officers that would arrest a queer person just for minding their fucking business.

If you don't experience attraction to the same gender in ANY way, and you're on the aro/ace spectrum, but you repeatedly talk about anyone/everyone who has interest or experience with sex like they're filthy, cursed, or diseased? Then yeah!!! Queer people don't fucking want you here!!!

Because you sound like every homophobic speech deliverer that we've EVER heard who goes on about "purity" and "innocence" and "virginity" as if they're the most sacred thing on the planet, as if lacking those things makes us "unworthy" of a happy and full life, or whatever!

Even aro/ace queer people don't want you here, because you're throwing us under the fucking bus too and you fucking know it!!! Don't pretend to feel "betrayed" as if you didn't know that Asexuality and Aromanticism are NOT cookie cutter experiences? There's sex repulsed people who aren't virgins; aros/aces that have sex. People with STD's who are WAY more pure and kind than most of us, who are putting effort in these stupid, divisive concepts on this hellsite.

If any of us wanted to experience the shit that you goddamn homophobes/transphobes were serving, we'd go crawling back to the cis/het people that already made our lives miserable! We'd listen to the family that already doesn't accept us! The public speakers that used their platform to tell us we deserve misery and death for the "debauchery" we live! We'd go back to the peers that always harrassed us!

We don't give a FUCK if you're Aromantic or Asexual spectrum; if you're gonna be hateful and not examine yourself to fix it, Queer people have every fucking reason to want you fucking gone! And it's NOT because of your sexuality or lackthereof, it's because you're just like all the other assholes that have been in our lives!!! So fuck off!!!

[syntaxeme]

Name: Natalie “Nat” Cordova

Callsign: Estrella Flux (formerly Firefly)

Species: human (mutant)

Age: 19

Gender/sexuality: cis bi girl

Ethnicity: Mixed Latina. Her father is Mexican, and her mother is Cuban (grew up in America; her parents immigrated before she was born).

Alignment: Chaotic Good 

Body: 5’ 7”. Medium brown skin, notably darker than Myles as she spends more time in the sun. Her freckles aren’t as numerous as Myles’s, but they’re there if you look closely. Pointing them out or complimenting them seems to embarrass her, because she knows it means you are looking closely. She’s slim, almost lanky, like her brother, but with more muscle; think gymnast. She doesn’t have much going for her in the T&A department, but it doesn’t really concern her. She feels like her body fits her perfectly. She has numerous scars, all earned in various ways but for the same reason: her overconfidence outmatched her skill/control. She kind of likes them, though. The only one she doesn’t like is a particularly nasty gash down her left temple and cheek, and she’s always used her bangs to try to cover it up.

Body language: What’s the opposite of “ladylike”? That’s what Nat is. Maybe it’s intentional, maybe it’s subconscious, but she can often be seen taking up as much space as possible, stretching her legs out open instead of crossing them, lying out full length and taking up two seats on the bus, etc. Her stance is very firm, not to be shaken; as previously mentioned, she is incredibly self-confident. She has no qualms about making eye contact and will not back down if pushed. The only time she may not be quite so immovable is during an especially manic spell; for that period of time, she’ll become more hyper, restless, almost jittery, and she’ll feel she needs to constantly be moving.

Hair: Thick, black, wavy. Since disappearing out of her family’s life, she’s cut off practically the entire length of it, something she didn’t dare do while in school. The sides and back are buzzed short, but the top still has some length so she sort of has bangs to hang over her forehead. 

Eyes: Very light, very bright blue; they mark her as a mutant right off the bat to anyone who knows what they’re looking at, especially when the rest of her is so dark. When they moved schools in the seventh grade, she started wearing brown contacts so people would stop staring and teasing her. They’re deep set and slightly narrow.

Powers: Energy manipulation. Her control applies to several kinds of energy: potential, kinetic, thermal, radiant, and electric. To be clear, these are the types she’s learned to work with; it’s possible she may learn to do more in the future. She’s tried to work with sound and found that she can’t; that’s Myles’s territory. Because energy can’t be created or destroyed, she’s only able to transfer and convert the energy in question. This means she’s able to transfer live electric energy from one device to another or sacrifice heat energy to create light, etc. The larger the conversion, the more concentration it takes from her. She does have a great deal of stamina, however, having built it up over the years, so she’s capable of some pretty impressive feats when (let’s say) fully-rested. Because her abilities are so versatile, it would be very easy for them to become dangerous in the wrong hands. Nat tries her best to prove that she’s worthy of them and that she can control them. She does, however, question whether that’s true herself.

Background: Since the age of thirteen, Nat has been doing hero work with her parents and her twin, Myles. She was advocating for them (her and Myles) to join in the hero stuff since they were ten, and their parents insisted that they weren’t old enough (heroes can’t become officially sanctioned until they’re legal adults). They changed their mind about that when the twins were captured by an enemy and held hostage. This was when Nat got the scar on her face. She tried to fight their captors, using her powers, but since she had no training and not much experience controlling them, she pretty much got the shit kicked out of her. But she kept Myles from getting hurt, which was the important part to her. After their parents rescued them, it was clear to everyone that they needed to be taught how to defend themselves. That quickly led into them becoming involved in the work itself.            Nat took to hero work easily, as it gave her an outlet for her practically-boundless energy. She did have some extracurricular gymnastics to occupy her, but learning MMA from her mother was even better. Learning to control her powers was also very intellectually stimulating for her; it led to her developing an interest in physics, which entailed a lot of research on her part. Through study and practice, she’s gotten very good at precisely controlling her power. The idea of justice is also very appealing to her; she can’t stand to see people get less (or more) than they deserve.            At around sixteen, Nat began experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia: she started to see and hear things that others didn’t, started to perceive others (outside her family) in ways that weren’t accurate, and developed the powerful believe that she was “supposed” to be enacting justice where it hadn’t turned out naturally, that it was what she was made to do. She was diagnosed at age seventeen, but she had a mortal fear of medication for it. They were told that her condition could be managed, so her parents let her choose to do so.            She doesn’t hallucinate “normal” things, like everyday conversations or images that could easily be real; they’re almost always fantastic enough to make her question them right away. This leads to her often asking those around her for reality checks, e.g. “are you seeing this happening right now?” Her auditory hallucinations are usually very clear and easy to understand, most often insulting her decisions and telling her that other people can’t stand her. They don’t really have distinct, recurring voices that she’s noticed.

Personality: Outgoing, playful, confident. She’s a bit cynical, a bit sarcastic sometimes, but rarely in a way that’s meant to be hurtful. She doesn’t see any reason to be rude to others unless they started it. She’s generally very friendly and likes attention, likes making friends. For the most part, she’s pretty open about her mental condition and doesn’t mind talking about it. If people look at her funny when they find out, she doesn’t care; she does want to be liked, but some other person’s approval isn’t worth lying about who she is. Ever. It’s not uncommon for her to have mood swings that are difficult to explain to other people (not that they happen for no reason, but the reasoning wouldn’t make sense to most others).

           She has a habit of speaking and acting without thoroughly considering the consequences; she sometimes needs to be reminded or informed of a potential problem with what she’s doing/saying/planning in order to rethink it. Sometimes she listens, usually if it’s in regards to other people’s safety or wellbeing. If her own ability is being questioned, however, she instead feels the need to prove that she knows what she’s doing. She rarely worries about her own safety, as one of her persistent delusions makes her feel like she’s pretty much invincible. The only time she really questions herself is when her naysaying voices are being especially persistent.

Misc.:

She’s fluent in both English and Spanish. I think she prefers Spanish, and she probably has several Spanish-speaking friends. Usually if she’s speaking privately to someone in her family, it’s in Spanish.

Nat is as contemporary as one can possibly be. Her pop culture interests are all 100% modern, and she doesn’t really care for “deep” shit that has to be deciphered. She wants music that’s fun to dance to, often with sexual and/or aggressive lyrics (Ke$ha is one of her favorites), she wants movies that are fun and engaging to watch (art films and anything depressing are o-u-t), and she has an easier time getting engrossed in a comic book than in a novel. Comics led her to manga, which led her to anime, so she likes that, too.

She uses the words “schizo” and “psycho” to describe herself on occasion, usually in a negative way. However, she will not stand for the word “crazy.” Hearing it in passing (e.g. “the traffic here is crazy”) bothers her, but hearing it directed at a person, especially herself, makes her absolutely furious, which quickly leads to her being aggressive and physically violent toward the person who used it. “Loco/loca” will get a similar reaction.

Clothing:

Civvies – Cut-off shorts, crop tops and bralettes, sneakers, whatever allows her to move most easily. She has no issues with showing skin. She hates dresses and skirts. Just. Hates them with a passion. They inhibit her movement and make fighting difficult, especially long ones, so she avoids them whenever possible. She likes boots and jackets. She likes the colors blue and green. And she loves galaxy print. Or anything to do with stars.

“Work”

Her theme color is cobalt blue. She wants to look cute and flashy, but functionality comes before anything else. Meaning nothing strapless, nothing restrictive (like tight leather pants), nothing she’ll have to worry about slipping or coming off, etc. For some reason, peplum shorts are really speaking to me. And a ¾ sleeve crop top. Maybe with some fun sheer details.

In order to leave her fingertips and palms to be exposed (for whatever energy-based purpose she may need) but not cut up her knuckles, she wears knuckle guards like one would use for boxing.

Her mask is the opposite of what most heroes wear; rather than covering her eyes, it covers the lower half of her face (from her nose down). When she’s working, she doesn’t bother with her contacts (unless it’s a sudden, spur-of-the-moment thing), so her eyes don’t look the way they normally do, so she figures this is okay. 

Visual refs: 

[thedeadflag]

I've been thinking about something - would love your thoughts on it. Is it transphobic for cis women to walk around with "pussy power" signs? I have, and I don't claim to speak for all women when I do. I know not all women have vaginas. But for me, my personal brand of womanhood has a lot to do with the fact that I do, and what that means. Do you have to speak for all women when protesting as a feminist? I want to be inclusive and also speak out about my subjective experience of womanhood 1/2

2/2 I also get that only ever preaching about your own issues and experiences is not intersectional, and not cool. I definitely will and do show up for my trans sisters as well. I’m just wondering where the line is drawn. When I’m speaking from my unique experience of being a woman (a white, cis, lesbian woman, in my case) and when I’m being excluding. I want to know so that I can do better, if I need to. If you feel you have the time, as I said, would love to hear your thoughts!

I mean, the big issue with things like protests, marches, etc. is that there’s no actually detailed dialogue happening, no nuance. And depending on demographics, it can be easy for a themed march to take on a certain message if enough people present it in their one-liners, slogans, etc. they have on their signs and clothes.

That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, of course, but it can pretty easily erase the more marginalized who are made less visible or invisible by the others, or whatnot.

So is it transphobic for cis women to attend Women’s protests/marches with “Pussy Power” signs? A few? Probably not. A majority? Yeah, probably.

That can, of course, be potentially moderated by also carrying or wearing things that visibly (as in, not a tiny pin or some shit) fight the cissexist reaction to equate vulvas/vaginas/etc. to womanhood. 

Like, you could have a sign that says “Pussy Power” on a backdrop of the trans flag colours. Or display the trans symbol somewhere visibly. Anything to complicate the general cissexist message that would otherwise be sent loud and clear.

Like, again, you asked:

“Do you have to speak for all women when protesting as a feminist?” 

That’s how protests work. A group of people gather under a unified banner and present a message (or a few messages). If one of those messages, due to volume alone, equates vaginas and co. to womanhood, then yes, that is the message that the group and all of the participants will be sending, regardless of individual intent or beliefs. 

Outside of the context of protests, it’s a lot easier to be clear and nuanced about your views, and when you’re speaking as an individual, and the ways your body has shaped your experiences of womanhood, etc.

In protests, you’re just a statistic, no one cares about any of that, and chances are, no one will see/hear any of that nuance. They’ll see the result of the whole. 

Like, take, for instance, back in the 00s, when ENDA was trying to be passed, and Barney Frank insisted that he had to drop trans people’s protections from the bill so that cis LGB folks could get protections. Communities country wide would talk about this, and many would end up taking a certain stance on it. And a lot took the stance that yes, Barney Frank was right, rights for some is better than rights for none.

That, of course, sent a message that trans people were expendable, and were an acceptable sacrifice. Maybe some individuals who supported dropping the T did understand us, and love us, and want to fight for us and thought this was the best way. Didn’t matter. In the end, we got silenced and thrown under the bus, and apologies or individual clarifications yelled down at us from inside of the bus, while we’re stuck under the wheel well? Not really going to fly.

It’s a common issue that we were very critical of across the years, because… despite promises and pleas for forgiveness, that “we’ll come back for you! Support us getting our protections, and we’ll have so much energy and more power to help get you yours!”, that literally never happened. Ever.

Like, Canada won Same Gender Marriage in 2005, and we’d heard all of those promises leading up to its legalization. That our cis allies would make a hard push for trans rights across the country right after, to use that momentum we helped fight for to get us our protections and freedoms.

That never came. Since mid 2005, the only rights and protections gained by trans folks were purely due to trans people fighting for our rights. LGBT-wide support for trans folks collapsed whenever our issues were raised, so we had to do it ourselves.

Same in the states. Same Gender marriage passes, and then suddenly the HRC and GLAAD and all the major LGBT+ orgs are incapable of effectively fighting for (and raising awareness of) trans rights issues unless cis LGBT rights are also at risk (in which case, a huge deal is made, and all the major orgs pull out all the stops, and there’s the usual backlash of “drop the T” in blaming us for their rights being attacked).

SO when we hear the same sort of angle from cis women regarding women’s rights and women’s protests, that it’s okay for us to be silenced and erased by the volumes of cis women focusing on “cis women things” (which are rarely cis women things, but things that many many people experience), we are usually rightfully wary. Especially given how pervasive and unchallenged cissexism is in society, and in most feminist and women’s spaces. 

Like, I’ve met a hell of a lot of cis women who don’t think trans women’s reproductive rights are attacked. I’ve met less, but still a significant amount, that believe trans women aren’t sexually assaulted due to our bodies or misogyny. I’ve met a significant amount that think trans men are justifiably more welcome than trans women because they feel that trans men are female and trans women are male, if not fully, then at least when it comes to bodies (which is still wrong). I’ve heard a lot of cis women assert that trans women don’t face a widespread issue of healthcare access like, say, the issue of obtaining accessible and affordable birth control (when, like, our access to puberty blockers and HRT and GAS/GCS is still intensely gatekept via sexist and misogynistic controls and policy, which in turn often keeps us from being able to be recognized as real and legitimate by our governments due to them requiring we go through these steps to be seen as valid/real, etc. etc.). Among a plethora of other cissexist misunderstandings.

I’ve met a tremendous amount of cis women who make this ideological separation between “is” and “identifies as”, that distances trans women from womanhood, as if we’re not full women in body and mind, as if cis women experience the whole range of womanhood, and trans women only experience what overlap we have with cis women, with all other experiences simply being “trans-related”. And that’s just false. Just like the notion that, deep down, trans men are really just women playing as men, or that NB folks are really what they were assigned at birth, etc.

A trans man’s genitals are male genitals. Doesn’t matter what they are. A trans woman’s genitals are female genitals. Doesn’t mater what they are. Non-binary folks’ genitals are their genitals, regardless. Most folks haven’t come around to that truth yet.

Like, by default, trans and NB and intersex folks get erased and invalidated and misgendered. That’s the default status quo, and even if you as an individual are aware that trans folks exist and whatnot, and understand us, that does not mean the majority of people do in any meaningful, accurate way. And so it’s important to challenge cissexism when provided the opportunity, to not let trans, NB, and intersex folks be acceptable sacrifices for cis women’s convenience during events.

But also that outside of major events, that you challenge cissexism, and educate people about cissexism, because people generally have no clue what it is, so they won’t be able to recognize it, and if they can’t recognize or understand it, they can’t fight it. And if they can’t fight it, things will always be shit for us.

tl;dr: If you’re part of a larger group, you’re not speaking for yourself, you’re just one cog, and together as a whole, you produce certain dialogues. Some of these might not fit with your individual views or experiences, but it is what it is.If you’re in a one-on-one, or in a group speaking as an individual, or online within the context of personal experience, etc. then yeah, that’s you.

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTES: Time to move forward with the plot. I know it probably seemed like there was barely any plot, just fluff-fodder, but I swear I was building to this all along! Really!

"You seem a little distracted."

Looking up from my bongos, I blinked at Steph for a few seconds. "Was I not playing my part? I thought it sounded… like the song. Y'know."

"It's not that. You just aren't focused." Putting down her zither, she picked up her aloe drink and chugged it for a minute. I tried not to make a face of pure disgust. "Like, I can sense it even though you're playing fine, if that makes sense."

"What, with my chakras or some shit?" But again, she was impervious to my acidity. "Fine. But I don't wanna talk about it."

"You and Knives?"

"Don't wanna talk about it."

"How's that going?"

Sighing, I ran my hand down my face and gritted my teeth against my irritation. I knew by now that yelling at Steph to shut the fuck up and leave me alone made little difference. But to be honest, I was in a good enough place with Knives that I wasn't even that irritated.

"Nice. Now, can we get back to practice?"

"I thought you were worried about, like… the lesbian thing."

"Not really. Just…" Should I tell her about Knives? It didn't seem right, for reasons previously stated; that was Knives' information to share as she saw fit. Maybe she wouldn't care, but maybe she would. You never can tell how people will react; I couldn't even tell how I would react before I was told. I decided it was easier, safer, to maintain my vow of silence. "I dunno. It's good. She's really…" I ran out of words.

"Good? Nice?" My grumpy face turned grumpier. "It's okay, I just like seeing you doing better."

"Better than what?"

Another of her usual casual shrugs. "Before."

"Fine." Then I threw my bongos aside and stood, glaring at my current bandmate. "She's great. She's completely changing how I see life. Everything is perfect, especially her. Birds suddenly appear every time that she's near, alright? Fuck."

"Saying that in a sarcastic tone doesn't necessarily mean that it's not true." But I ignored her and went off to pee.

While I was in there, I came to a sudden realisation. Knives wasn't just a girl, wasn't just my girlfriend. Wasn't just a trans girl, either, whatever that meant; I was still kind of working my way through that along with the 'girlfriend' part. It hit me that she was just about every letter in the ever-expanding LGBTQIPA acronym, if you looked at it all in certain ways. Lesbian, for dating me. Gay, for being a person with a dick who didn't mind dating people with dicks — and I know it's not the same, but the sex would be. Bi, for dating me and Scott. The "T" is obvious. Queer because she's more than one letter, since that's kind of what that means as far as I can tell; it's the "gray area" checkbox. Maybe not the "I", since I'm fuzzy on that one, but if she was that would be cool, too. And as for the A…

Okay, so I did some reading at the library. I don't have internet at home, so I go there for email, to print resumes, boring crap like that. But I also have been doing a lot of research there lately. About Knives, about me… about all of this. Trying to wrap my head around a lot of new concepts that are still space alien type shit to me. And the "A" seems to stand for "asexual", which… I was starting to wonder if that was Knives. Or me, even, since I've gone without for a LONG fucking time and didn't really care until I connected with her. Maybe I do care more now. But she's fine if we don't bang, and thought humping my leg was good enough.

So like… I guess what I'm saying is, I'm trying to get comfortable with the idea that she might never want to have any sex. Or not a lot, or not for a while. Somewhere in there. If me literally getting naked in the kitchen — which, in Wallace's battle plans, sends the message that I'm dessert — didn't faze her, then maybe nothing would. And that's alright if it's what she wants. God will I be thirsty, but I'd rather just buy a new vibrator than ever make her uncomfortable again. It's the same shit in the end, right? If she was a normal- wait, no, wrong word. If she was a cis woman, then we'd be buying vibes, anyway. Acting all personally offended that she doesn't want to use a dick I didn't know existed a couple weeks ago to part my pussy lips doesn't seem like a wise use of my energy, does it?

Anyway, the point here is, I was realising that Knives Chau was all of those things, and she was also some kind of Chinese ninja, a college student, way too good at Mario Party, and an adorable little bean that could almost always find a way to stay positive. She was special in about a dozen ways. On top of being hot. And for whatever reason, she wanted to be with me.

Why would anyone like her settle for some failed musician, some misanthropic pessimist?

Someone who could come so close to hurting her just because of a little alcohol?

So when I came back out of the bathroom, I looked about as shaken as I did when I went in. I wasn't crying this time, thank God, but I was stumbling and distracted. Not long passed before Steph came over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder to hold me still.

"Kim… what's up? Seriously, this has to be more than just worrying about being gay."

"Not gay. Bi. Probably. I don't know." Then I cleared my throat. "I want to be… fuck, nevermind."

"Come on, Pine. Out with it."

Another minute of silence passed. I expected her to roll her eyes and walk away, annoyed at me for not responding. She didn't; she just fixed me with an expectant look. Finally, I blurted, "She deserves better than me."

"What?"

"I suck. Even when I'm trying, I'm pathetic. This girl is so…" I wasn't used to praising people. At all. "Good. She's everything that's good, Steph. And I'm everything that's not."

She was quiet for a moment, thinking, before she asked, "You're worried about disappointing her, aren't you?"

"Worried? No. That would imply that I thought it might not happen. It's a matter of when."

"Kim…"

"No, Steph. I'm a frigid bitch and… she should find someone else who knows how to have 'fun' like she wants. Who can do this right instead of blundering around in the dark. But how do you tell somebody they need to go the fuck away for their own good without making them feel like it's their fault instead? Because I can't hurt her. That's not allowed."

"Hey." Her face was full of pity, and I hated it, I wanted to deck her to the floor to keep that look from existing. Wanted to deck myself, but that's pretty hard to do. "You're not a bad person."

"Yes, I am."

"You are n-"

This time, I did push her away, backing toward the front door. My heart was pounding a million times a minute, and I wanted to scream a million things, but they were mostly at myself and she didn't deserve that headache.

"I'm gonna split. See you later."

She was trying to tell me something as I left, but I blocked it out, I ran. All I could see was the pity in her eyes, the pity in my girlfriend's when she saw how guilty I felt about Julie's aunt's. I wanted to drink to forget, but I couldn't let myself get that drunk ever again. What if next time, I did something worse? I'd be no better than the guys I had dumped who got too handsy.

I'd be no better than the guys who dumped her for something she had no control over. Who didn't see just how great she was.

Halfway to the bus stop, I collapsed. Curled into a ball on the grass and cried, but it wasn't the same kind of cry. This was… something else. I don't know, but I wanted all the pain to end. Sure, I wanted to be better, but I didn't see a way to make that happen, so I just wanted it all to be over. For Knives to find someone who could treat her like a star, give her moonbeams in a jar, and to forget about that asshole she briefly thought was "cool".

Which all sounds way over the top and emo. I know. My brain couldn't quite process that I was in love with her and that was why I wanted to give her everything. Guess one of the shapes love can take is self-destruction.

                                              ~ o ~

Young Neil was the one who found me and brought me back to the Nordegraf home. He was walking home from the bus stop, so of course we would cross paths. When he first saw a statue curled up on the grass, he probably thought somebody had really fucking odd taste in lawn ornaments. But I mean, he hung around with Sex Bob-omb while we practiced for a long time; he recognised my face. Then somehow managed to drag me the couple of blocks back to her house from there.

Steph was still shocked when she saw me as a stone figure again, despite it being the second time. She called Stephen, who came over right away with one of those bottles of Soft. But this time…

"It didn't work."

That was all he could manage to say at first, eyes round and jaw agape. Steph and Neil had been pacing back and forth behind him, but once he said that she bent down and squinted at my face. "Shit."

"This… I don't know, why didn't it work? Wake up, wake up, wake UP!" He punctuated the last part by slapping my face, which I couldn't feel. "OW!"

"Don't be dumb!" Steph hissed, standing back from my perch on the couch. "What do we do?"

"No idea, but we can't leave her like this forever, right? I mean… look how upset she was, look at her eyes!"

Neil shrugged as they panicked. "Didn't you say this happened before?"

"It did, but we had Soft, and we got to her quicker," Steph told him, smoothing her hand over my hair. Just as unyielding as the rest of my body. "It was about two hours after she left here that you found her, I think…"

"Shit," Stephen breathed, hand pressed into his mouth. "This is a nightmare."

"We have to call Knives. I mean, she's really important to Kim now, we can't-"

"Knives?" Neil whispered, shocked out of his usual silence. "Oh…"

Both of them looked toward him, but it was Stephen who snapped, "What? This isn't as important as whatever your deal with her was, is that it?"

"N-nah, nevermind. Just call her." He sounded faintly embarrassed, but I couldn't see him from my vantage point so I didn't have the visuals to confirm that.

So they called Knives. Now I felt even worse than I did before. The whole reason I was a statue in the first place was because of my guilt over not being able to give Knives everything she deserved, and now here I was putting her through an even worse ordeal. Along with all of my friends. I used to really think that everyone else was the problem, that they all just sucked. But it was me. I'm the weakest link in the chain.

I heard some pleasantries exchanged at the door, quick ones due to the crisis. Once Knives got to the living room, she gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

"Yeah. We don't really have an idea of what else to do." Glancing over at Stephen, who only shook his head, Steph shrugged and went on, "You probably don't, either, but… we thought you should at least be here."

"Thanks for calling. God… my poor Kim…" She dropped to her knees next to the couch and caressed my face, and I would have given anything to actually be able to feel it. "And you said Soft didn't work? I have more…"

Stephen shook his head. "Don't know, but it really seems like it doesn't. We can try another bottle but I hate to waste it if this time we know it's not going to work…"

"Do we, though? Do we know it won't work?" Steph's hands were on her hips as she glanced between the two of them. "Seriously, I'll dump a dozen bottles on her head if it's going to do the job."

"No… I think I know what we need. Do you see that?" Her finger was pointing to my stomach, just barely revealed by my shirt riding up before it turned to stone along with the rest of me. "That's the key."

Everyone watched Knives stand up after that announcement. Including me, since I really didn't have any choice but to watch, given that my eyes were frozen open by concrete. After a few seconds, Neil hesitantly asked, "Um… what?"

"We need to go see my father."

                                              To Be Continued…