#this isn’t even getting into the intricacies of them being trans or nb or anything

[samdeancrimespree]

perhaps a controversial opinion and like. no hate to anyone who likes femsamdean because i like it too but. there is some distinct element of samdean that relies on them being dudes. like….. if they were girls (esp afab girls) do u know how much they would have to be doing to warrant the same “why are they so close… that’s weird” reaction?? the amount of casual affection that girls/girl passing ppl can get away with is insane compared to guys that look like sam&dean. they could be walking about arms linked, kissing each other on the cheek and saying cute nicknames and ppl wouldn’t find it Suspicious. there’s something so jarring (esp in smalltown, usa) about seeing two giant muscly Dudes be touchy with each other. if hunters heard that there were 2 sisters that were badass hunters and their relationship was weirdly close they’d be falling over each other to beg for a threesome. but no. sam and dean are huge and scary and could crush any hunter with one hand. AND they make lovey eyes at each other and sit way too close and live together in their 30s. and no one can say a damn thing about it even tho it’s fucking WEIRD. and that’s what makes it so GOOD. but if they’re girls that part is so diminished. don’t even get me started on how the dynamic with john would be jfc

[ridasverkisto]

who are your top ten black clover characters and ships (romantic, platonic)? talk about them!

Oooooooh. This is gonna be a long one so buckle in. I’m also splitting the answer into two—so this is top ten ships, and I’ll do top ten characters in a separate post, because this is long. 😅

Before I get going, I’m just going to say this is in no particular order—I’m listing them in the order they come to mind, as I love all of these pairings for different reasons so it’s hard for me to rank them. I’ll also preface that for most of my pairings it usually doesn’t matter much to me whether it’s romantic or platonic, so long as they’re not. Y’know. Actual siblings/family/etc. Also for the purposes of this ask, I’m leaving out stuff like...the Black Bulls as a platonic ship tag. They’re found family, it’s sort of a given, so this isn’t going to focus on that. And before anyone asks, yes, I have crackships. I am not apologizing.

[If this needs a page break to keep from clogging tags lmk, btw]

1. Magna/Luck (and/or Magna & Luck, it’s the same to me)

What can I say? I’m a sucker for two dumbass best friends who share a brain cell living their best lives. Their dynamic is fun and interesting—Luck literally views Magna as fun and interesting and he loves bothering him because of how he reacts, while Magna started out hating it but grew incredibly fond of Luck’s antics.

They’re dumbasses, but they’re loveable dumbasses who bring out both the best and worst in each other, and I just love the way they interact. It’s great and I love them both so much 💕

2. Finral & Langris

Okay okay so. I know there’s baggage here, because Langris is an entitled little asshole trashbaby, but hear me out. Finral gets to be an older brother, exasperated with Langris and trying super hard to be a good sibling, while Langris is still a trashbaby but a softer one. Like.

They are Peak Sibling Energy, because I can see Langris insulting Finral because “polite interaction with my loser brother, how tf?” But the moment someone else tries to insult Finral, Langris gets annoyed. It’s the younger sibling Rights, only the sibling gets to insult the other siblings and if you try to get in on that fuck you. Meanwhile, Finral learns to be the responsible older sibling to Langris, and steps into being more responsible in other parts of his life while repairing his relationship with Langris.

Not going to lie, a lot of my love for this ship is because I’m probably projecting my own relationship with my own brother onto them to some extent, and my love for proper Sibling Energy has no bounds because that shit’s hilarious when done right.

Let Finral and Langris develop the weird half-unspoken language of siblings, let them reference embarrassing things and blackmail each other over stupid shit like “who’s going to go refill the teapot” or something!! Let them be petty and loving and protective as they learn to be siblings again, because growth!!!!

3. Julius & Yami & William

Why yes, I am a polyshipper. But mostly what I really like about this one is the history and the dynamics between the three of them.

On the one hand you have Julius, who’s hugely respected by the other two, basically mentored/parented them both, and loves them both a hell of a lot. (You can’t look at the way Julius looks at Yami and William and tell me that’s not love, fuck you)

On another, you have Yami; he’s the outcast, loner, stranger in a strange land who was given a support system and place to belong by Julius. He also struggles to understand the less forthright William, and is fiercely loyal. Like. This man loves and respects Julius so fucking much, and it’s shown through such small gestures, it’s amazing.

And finally, there’s William—who couldn’t chose between Julius and Patry, yeah. Who’s a coward and a troll and hides behind his words and masks, but has made the choice to atone for his mistakes. He feels a lot, and is so clearly trying to be better it hurts.

The way the three of them interact has a lot of history and intricacy behind it, and even with current events in the series, I really really love their relationship with each other. This isn’t a ship I love for fluff, but for the tension and aching weight of history and growing up that lies heavy on it. It’s got this lovely sort of pain to it that feels like nostalgia in the summer heat, knowing nothing is ever going to be like it was once and still deciding to hold onto what you have with both hands.

I never said I ship for fluff and romance—I’m here for dynamics, and these three have amazing dynamics. (I will note for this one that it’s one that I can’t see as romantic at all. Not the least bc Julius was literally in his twenties when Yami and William were like 15, bc ~fuck that shit~)

4. William/Dorothy/Rhya

Is this a crackship? Yes!

Have these characters barely if ever interacted on screen? Yes!

Am I probably the only person who thought of this ship and wants to see content for it? Yes!

Do I give a fuck? No!

Not gonna lie, I know this is a crackship of massive proportions. But I’m here for the dynamics and the dynamics here have the potential to just be so damn cathartic, okay?

If I go on a deep tangent about this ship it’ll end up being an entire essay, so that can wait for another day, so I’ll just...give you this: these three have a lot to give each other to challenge and help each other grow. There’s a lot of potential, and tension, and catharsis here. The contrasts and dynamics between the three of them would be interesting and immensely entertaining.

I’ll also shamelessly admit that a good portion of this is also fueled by my personal head canons of William being a trans guy, Dorothy being feminine presenting nb, and Rhya just straight up being pan and attracted to strong people. What can I say? I know what I like lmao ��

5. Yuno & Asta

I’m a sucker for good friendly rivalries. Especially ones full of so much mutual respect!!! Like, they both respect each other and care so fucking much is amazing ❤️

And don’t get me wrong, I get the people that ship them romantically and I’ll read it; but I see their relationship as more sibling rivalry/platonic than anything else.

You can’t look at Yuno being a Dramatic Bitch to get on Asta’s nerves and tell me that’s not Peak Sibling Energy, because I tell you I have done the exact same to my own brother. Let them be dorks and friends and brothers, bc it WORKS.

6. Rill/Charmy/Langris

Yes, yes this is another crackship. No, I do not care! And yes, i am aware it will very likely never be canon.

I just really like the image of Langris being reluctantly folded into the dynamic of two cinnamon rolls who could probably flatten him if they really wanted to. And Langris slowly coming to the realization that he actually really likes them and cares for them, even if he is a bit tsun-tsun about expressing it sometimes.

Plus, y’know, Rill and Charmy won’t indulge his asshole-ier behaviors, and if he pisses Charmy off he’s very likely to get his ass kicked.

I can’t really explain it more than that other than I just really really like the dynamics with this trio and I hold it very close to my heart 💕

7. Finral & Vanessa

Let them be friends!!! Let them be platonic best friends!!!! I love their dynamic, esp if you expand on it and take a look at how Finral and Vanessa can play off of each other. BEST FRIENDS.

8. David & Letoile

I know everyone likes to think of them as the chaotic one and the no-nonsense one, but consider: Letoile getting wrapped up in David’s shenanigans bc they’re just as ride or die as Magna and Luck are. Everyone thinks of her as the other holder of the Golden Dawn’s self restraint, and she sort of is, but her standards of what should be restrained is very different from Klaus’s.

9. Julius & Marx (can also be Julius/Marx, but only prior to the whole deaging thing)

Wholesome ship! It’s already obvious that they care about each other a lot in canon, so let that be expanded upon and developed more. It also adds the fun bit that the issues with Julius running away from his paperwork become even more comical with the added context. It starts to feel less like a subordinate yelling at their commandeer and more like an old married couple or something 😂

10. Leopold & Asta & Yuno & Noelle

Three competitive dumbasses and the exasperated one who makes it worse. I love them all and I think they make the best fucking quad friend group;; let them be friends, please. Please. Just the shenanigans they would get into makes me cackle with glee.

[monsterfuxxxxer]

When I was young, trans ppl fled the bi community because it was super transphobic. To be fair, all communities were transphobic. Look up lesbian separatists and other anti trans groups of the late 90s, early 2000s. Panphobes are right when they say pan was created to mean cis and trans ppl, but they're wrong about the reason. We created pan to mean cis and trans, to prevent the transphobia from spreading. So that you literally cannot be pan and transphobic at the same time. We have some fetish pans, and some pans who think trans ppl are different genders from cis, which is really bad. But the pan community has always been trans allies.

This response ended up being LONG wow

While I see that you have good intentions, it’s important to point out that no one is immune to transphobia based on identities alone.

I see that you are aware that it’s a problem when pan people draw a line between transmen transwomen and men and women, but you also said that pan was created to include cis and trans people. I want to expand on this because the line of logic here is what people are having a problem with:

I would disagree with “panphobes are right when they say pan was created to include cis and trans people” because bisexuality already did that. We can’t go saying that pansexuality was created to include trans people because that’s the transphobic problem that pan critiquers are pointing out.

The thing that by very very simple definition alone that differentiates pan and bi are the roots of the words, as I explained in the response post. Bisexuality has always included men, women, nb and any genderqueer people. That being said, it makes sense for young people to not know this when looking at definition alone and without knowledge of the bi communities intricacies, to create the pan label to include all genders.

HEAR ME: BI PEOPLE ALWAYS INCLUDED ALL GENDERS, BUT ITS VALID TO HAVE CREATED PAN TO DO THE SAME THING AND ITS VALID TO ID AS EITHER.

To hear more on that, skip to the “I want to draw a line between actual lgbt+ ideas and terf mentality” section

I have a couple things to say before that though:

The mentality that you can id as pan and that means you’re not transphobic is the big issue here. The pan community has to stop spreading this mentality because it isn’t true. Pan people absolutely can be transphobic, as can anyone in any community.

Pan people are being targeted rn because of saying things like “because I’m attracted to men women AND trans people, I am immune to transphobia.” We have to stop letting people believe that transmen and transwomen should be classified differently than men and women, and that being attracted to trans people makes you immune to transphobia.

This exact mentality is why pansexuality is being attacked rn.

We’re wasting time arguing over whether bi or pan is the one true valid identityTM when the truth is theyre both great. The difference between them is either small or nonexistent but matters to some people and that’s fine! They can coexist! It’s wonderful and beautiful! They’re FUNCTIONALLY synonyms but as I said, it’s preference!

What we should be spending time on is spreading info to help people avoid falling into terf mentality.

I want to draw a line between actual lgbt+ ideas and terf mentality.

The bisexual people you knew that excluded trans people? Probably affected by terf mentality.

They were young and unless they came from an lgbt+ positive family, had an education system that taught them about trans identity, or were magically never affected by problematic mainstream ideas, terf mentality probably bled into their ideas.

Pan people that say being attracted to transmen and transwomen makes them different from bi people? Terf mentality.

At some point in everyone’s lives, we were led to believe that transmen and transwomen are different from men and women. We were led to believe that bisexuality mean an attraction to two genders, and that those two genders were the binary of men and women. At some point, we were all led to believe these things and through community support, NOT faceless tumblr attack posts, unlearned them and grew as people.

I believe that it was somewhere in this miscommunication in which pansexuality was created to include genderqueer people that don’t fall into the men/women label. it is mostly young people identifying as pan and it is mostly young people that only have the words they hear and their interpretation of them to give meaning to. Even if they stumble upon the real bi mentality that bi includes all genders, it’s still valid to id with the pan label, or to change and feel more comfortable with the bi label, or the omnisexual label or literally anything it doesn’t matter and it’s harmless and we should support them.

So to the people spreading pan hate: if your goal is to divide the community, keep it up. If your goal is to stop transphobia, there is a more effective less harmful way to do that which also saves you from dividing the lgbt+ community

Spread information about how bisexuality includes all genders too, and the matter of preference between identifying as bi or pan is just preference.

Doing this will stop people in the pan community from getting the idea that “bisexual means two genders” to begin with.

And keep spreading information about transmen and transwomen, what it means to be trans, transphobic people and blogs to avoid, and how to avoid transphobia all together. Share resources that educate people about bisexuality, pansexuality, and the trans identity.

Alright that was probably much longer of an answer than you wanted but if you read all that, thanks!

[skywillsometimeswrite]

NB Awareness 2020 Day 2

Coming to terms!

TLDR: After years of coming to terms with myself, I am incredibly proud to be who I am, and labeling myself as nonbinary has been a huge help in that.

So my “gay awakening” as I call it was in 7th grade (around 12 years old) when I met who would end up becoming my first girlfriend. I was very much terrified of the idea of being gay and everything, and that is its own story, but as I came to terms with my sexuality I also began to come to terms with my gender... kind of.

I was doing a lot of exploring of myself and research on places like tumblr and various areas of the internet. I thought I was pretty comfortable calling myself a cis female, but as time went on I felt less and less comfortable with that label.

I played around with the idea of being genderfluid. I didn’t understand being nonbinary and it didn’t feel right at the time. Even so, genderfluid didn’t feel all that right either.

I think it was when I met who would become one of my closest friends did I start to truly understand what gender meant for me. See my friend is trans but when I met him I didn’t know this. We were put in a group together for a field trip and I wanted to try and talk to him but I didn’t even know how to address him. He looked truly androgynous and at this point I didn’t know about they/them pronouns. So I just... didn’t really interact with him. Or not in a way that made it obvious that I didn’t know his name or his gender. It made me start to think.

Around this time I was still going by genderfluid, and I would refer to myself as “Sam” as a more gender neutral name because Sophia didn’t make me feel comfortable. It was very feminine and back then I thought I needed to present myself as non-gender conforming to be accepting or believed that I wasn’t cis. Even so, I was being called Sara online usually as that was my “online persona” that made me feel more confident and she was very much a cis individual. At some point along this trend I found the name Sky and I gripped onto it. Sky became my identity for a while. They were the androgynous vision I wanted so desperately.  

I often refer to Sara (she/her), Sky (they/them), and Sophia (me/I) as these three separate entities because to me they kind of are? It’s really hard for me to explain. Because they are all the same person, they’re me, but also not?

I usually say that Sara is one part of Sophia, who is really me, while Sky is everything I want to be. But even I’m not totally sure if that’s true or not anymore. I guess I haven’t paid too much attention to it lately.

Anyways, I gripped onto and became Sky online and inside as best as I could. I wanted to be them, this confident and passing androgynous person that wasn’t dragged down by this doubt of themself. This doubt about who they are, if they were really genderfluid, if they were faking, if they were actually just straight or just gay or if they were really this or that.

By the time I enter into high school Sky has absorbed these doubts and fears and worries and slowly but surely isn’t really the Sky I wanted to be anymore. Sky has formed their own narrative in my mind and has become this entity that has just absorbed and housed my seemingly endless anxiety about myself, my academics, my family, and anything that really “attacked” me and my mind.

So I went back to Sara for a while. Sara felt comfortable. Sara felt safe. Sara felt... normal, I guess. I was still so against being Sophia that I just latched onto a personality that could cover and hide all that I was. It didn’t last very long.

I have these other characters/personalities that I often turn to a lot as my “editors” as I call them. Just sections of my personality and me. Kind of like an “Inside Out” type situation I guess. Sara was the leader of that for a long time, was the control freak of the bunch and everything had to be exactly as she said. Sky came in and really janked that up, was forced into that leadership position even though they didn’t know what they were doing. 

I was basically trying to force myself to be this person that I wasn’t, despite the fact that I really, really wanted to be them. I had been doing this for years. I didn’t even realize it.

Sara and Sky were just escapes for myself. Escapes that Sophia could jump into and get comfortable in and not face the realities that lay ahead of me. I guess it kind of worked for a while, but things started happening that I couldn’t just throw Sara or Sky at.

I had to start deciding who I was going to be. Sara and Sky started looking to ME for guidance more than me to them. And I slowly started to realize something.

The incredible @raindovemodel put in words the feeling that I didn’t realize I needed to hear.

I am I.

I am Sophia. I am a culmination of all my creations and all my experiences and all of my convictions and every person I’ve ever come into contact with.

So what does this have to do with my gender?

I think the simple answer is that I don’t care about my gender. When I realized that I was me, and I was so happy being me, the intricacies of myself didn’t matter. They were more fascinating than anything. I was more interested in what I wanted to do and be as a person, I was more concerned about the happiness of the people around me that I didn’t care what I was seen as.

I defined myself, once and for all (maybe), as nonbinary because that felt the most correct to me. It felt more me than genderfluid did. Because I wasn’t switching or feeling different from day to day or month to month like some genderfluid individuals. I felt stagnant in my gender and my identity, but not in a bad way. I was just... me. 

In the end, the label became a reason to be proud of myself. Of how far I’d come. I was happy to be me. And the word nonbinary just reminds me that I am I. I am Sophia.

And I don’t want to be anyone else anymore.

[tumblunni]

Ok so.. I feel really ungrateful as fuck saying this.. but it kinda bugs me how much perrin being nonbinary just.. isn’t really shown at all.

At least, in what i’ve seen so far, yknow? I watched the first ep of someone else’s let’s play to see if i was gonna like this game, and i like this game SO MUCH that I stopped right there and am downloading it at the speed of light yo!!! My hype is maximum and I really don’t want this to be seen as a hate message or anything, it's just a mild opinion piece about something that bummed me out a little, as a nonbinary person.

Ok so.. again, this makes me sound like an ASSHOLE but I have to say it.. Perrin looks like a boy. 100% of all LPers I have seen have assumed they were a boy. I, a nonbinary person, assumed they were a boy. (And felt like absolute shit afterwards, man I still have to work on my internalized gender stereotypes!)

Now in real life I absolutely wouldn’t go around being some douchebag who tells other NB folk they aren’t dressing ‘right’, or whatever. In real life people can feel very different ways about being outside of conventional gender norms. Some people feel like “both at once” or “neither” or “something else entirely that doesn’t touch either side of our society’s current binary stereotypes”. And regardless of whether you’re agender/bigender/genderfluid or any other type of genderqueer person, your fashion sense doesn’t have to fit any strict rule to “prove” it to people. Some people try and dress in androgenous stuff, some people try to mix parts of both gendered fashion worlds, some people like to wear very neutral baggy stuff as a different way of being androgenous, some people like to wear wild and fun stuff that never had any gender stereotype in the first place/because it helps them feel confident in themself if they have a big brave kind of fashion, yknow? (that’s why I dyed my hair at least, and why I think a lot of lGBT people do) And of course, some people just prefer ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ clothes regardless of not being that gender, and if we can accept that cis women can enjoy ‘tomboy’ fashion then we should accept that trans people don’t have to fit into even more rigid fashion rules in order to ‘earn’ their gender.

BUT this isn’t real life, it’s a videogame

We have a lot more context here, with the context that this is a character designed within a fandom whose previous attempts at NB representation have kinda started setting up a trend. In that context, this is a bit worrying that it’s happened again, and maybe future fangame creators are feeling like they have to do it, or something?

Like the NB protagonist Pluto in Pokemon Uranium.

They’re still someone I deeply love, but their design looks incredibly masculine aside from a side ponytail. If anything their design communicates more that they’re a younger option compared to the other two, or something?

And the two NB protagonist options Ari and Decibel in Pokemon Reborn

Their designs look like more traditionally masculine and feminine-leaning ways of being nonbinary, ykno? And that wouldn’t be bad on it’s own, but let me try and explain what I mean...

A similar issue occurs in the unrelated dating sim Hustle Cat:

Which is generally incredibly progressive and actually the first dating sim I’ve ever seen that lets you play a nonbinary protag! But you still get only two character models to choose from.

Like it’s great that they had two options to aknowledge how not all trans people are the same, but it starts to look a bit.. odd, when those two options are ‘feminine and masculine’ and no form of androgenous is ever an option. or even like.. someone with a ‘masculine’ body build but a ‘feminine’ fashion sense. That would be kind of a stereotypical way to depict a trans character but it wouldn’t just be making a random design that could fit amoungst the already existing gendered protags and then just saying they’re trans. And a lot of people found it weird how these ones seem to be drawn as like.. both on the far masculine end, just a cis man and a trans man.

Like.. even as a nonbinary person myself, I wouldn’t have known these characters were nonbinary if you hadn’t told me. And that leaves me feeling horrible about myself that I judged them on first sight, but I mean this is within a genre of entertainment that’s literally never had any Me in it and i’ve got used to being all ‘no you’re just reading too much into it’ whenever i headcanon anyone as genderqueer...

And just.. I feel like if you’re gonna just draw another two masculine and feminine looking characters, or just a second masculine one (or a weird two masculine ones that’re labelled male and female with no option for in-between...) then couldn’t you have saved time by just letting us choose our pronouns for the two you already had? like I already play a lot of games headcanoning the protag as just a masc-fashion version of my enby self, I feel like kinda the point of adding a third design would be to make it something the others aren’t already delivering. Look at it this way, you already HAVE two nonbinary characters who look masculine and feminine, just like the player could also play them as a trans boy and trans girl. Pronoun selector box is the greatest invention of our time! So what I’m really saying is not “don’t have super masc NB protags” but just “can we have another option too?”

Oh, but then that’s also been done not-so-well by certain games too.. Awesome amazing multiplayer party game dating sim Monster Prom let’s you choose your pronouns!

...except these are your only character options! All of these are very clearly intended to be read as masc or femme, you’re probably gonna feel dysphoric as heck if you play them as trans, and none of them work super well as nonbinary either. I think pretty much every NB player has always gone for Oz (yellow one), cos he’s the one that’s most capable of fitting that headcanon just by virtue of being perpetually shadowed. Tho still his default is “he” pronouns, his fashion sense is masc and his voice is masc. Still I’m really fuckin proud of the fandom for collectively latching onto NB Oz and using “they” all the time in fanworks, and then the developers being okay with it, like holy shit man you healed my goddamn heart... <3

Still, it makes me feel a lil like this would have been easy to fix? like I’m not saying redraw everything to have them all change bodies/fashion style depending on your pronoun choice, but like.. maybe just not draw them with such super disparate body styles in the first place? like in this style every girl is hourglass and has weird legs out arms out pose, and every dude is a chunkfest with twice as big hands and feet. Like you could have maybe just made two of the characters be a very curvy girl and a very buff boy, and then the other two be more neutral in appearance but still retaining the same designs. Like I think if you just gave the blue girl a baggier shirt that doesn’t highlight her boobs and hips so much, she could easily be my favourite ‘most NB-able’ design! maybe also tone down the eyelash and lipstick effects?

I think probably a similar thing could have been done with the Reborn protagonists? like there’s nothing inherantly feminine about wearing a tanktop and having a fancy undercut hairstyle and such, its just the way they drew Ari that makes them look feminine. I guess maybe that’s a necessary evil of fangames, since they usually use edits of already existing characters from the games? Then again the games have plenty of androgenous characters already, even if nobody is canonically confirmed as LGBT. *shrug*

Anyway

I absolutely am not trying to nitpick and attack the game for not being perfect in this one aspect. i’m still super excited to even see someone like me in a videogame at all, and I’m definately not one of those people who’s like ‘I’d rather have nothing than have something flawed’. I already admire you greatly for what you’ve done for the inclusivity of this fandom, and I hope that my discussion of this stuff doesn’t discourage you from continuing.

And I guess my point is, in summary

What I mean is not “there are no nonbinary people who prefer to dress masculine instead of androgenous”, but instead that when you’re designing a nonbinary person as the only option a nonbinary player gets or the only nonbinary person in the game, with no playable option, it would probably be a little better to draw them androgenous.

Like, you’ve put that NB character into the role of representing all nonbinary people ever, to the hypothetical audience of people who’ve never heard of the concept before and aren’t super educated about the intricacies of gender presentation. And then also rather than using traditionally gendered outfits to aknowledge that NB people have many ways to present themselves... you’ve given us less ways to present ourselves.

Also it’s a little bit odd that you have an NB rival but said “we’re not ever considering an NB player option in the future”. Sorry but I cannot understand the logic? Like.. you know NB people play your game if you wanted to put NB representation in it, but you didn’t put it as playable because... reasons?? I hope maybe that interview was just taken out of context and you meant something more like “it’s not planned for now because it’s a lot of work and the game is still in its demo stage”, which is absolutely an understandable reason and how Uranium and Reborn did it. But Uranium and Reborn were kinda odd for being a world where literally nobody else aside from you could ever be NB, so I am really grateful that your game did add an NB character. And one in a big role!! This is what i mean about how grateful I am and how I feel awful that my bad internet typing skills are making this post come off as more aggressive than intended.. *sigh*

OH and also maybe a tip for Periin? just.. like.. mention their pronouns. It’s really frustrating to watch everyone doing let’s plays of this thing and constantly assuming Perrin is male because their design is very masculine. Even me! Even me was assume! :( So like... maybe just have Perrin actually tell the audience that they are nonbinary at some point, during this introduction? or have the protagonist’s inner monologue mention it, or another character mention it on the way towards meeting Perrin? like I dunno, maybe a Perrin fan npc?cos it would seem a bit more natural to talk about gender if it’s someone saying “wow I admire Perrin’s androgenous fashion sense” rather than like.. a stranger saying “i can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl from your face”.

I can understand how it can be tricky to figure out how to introduce a LGBT character’s LGBT-ness without having them go around saying it to every new person they meet, it’s something I’ve had to fix in the editing process even as a trans person writing trans characters. But just having their gender only be mentioned on missable promotional material outside the game means that a lot of players won’t ever hear about it, and it like.. has zero impact of actual inclusivity on the game. It’s why people were angry about DUmbledore only getting revealed as gay after the series already ended. Him being gay missed all of its chances to make gay readers of the series feel welcome, or have any part of his character be informed by his sexuality. like the plot between him and grindlewold could have been way more effective if it was him losing a boyfriend to the dark arts, just sayin...

anyway whatever, bunni is bad at writing coherant posts in summary thanks for perrin and sorry for whining about perrin, aaaaa

[residentwhatever]

Hey! Just wondering your thoughts on asexual people? You've reblogged a lot of posts sort of teasing ace people, which is fine because usually they're the ones being dumb in them, but I was just wondering your thoughts on asexuality? Thanks :)

Hi! This is a fair question, because I get that I might have been Vague or weird about it in the past.

When it comes to Ace Discourse, I generally try to avoid it. I don’t really fall on either side. For starters, I support ace people and their right to be asexual (in any place under the umbrella) and/or aromantic. I knew my sibling was ace before I even knew I was nb, so (since we’re really close) that perspective has always been there as I’ve becoming increasingly aware of social issues and become more politically active. I know that they’ve struggled with it and I know that it comes with its own problems, and that people who are asexual or aromantic are often made to feel that they’re broken or incapable of love somehow. I 100% believe that asexual and aromantic people deserve to live happy, full lives and shouldn’t have to face any of the discrimination that they do.

That said. A lot of posts on the ace side are… yikes, to say the least. One problem is that there tends to be a lot of homophobia in ways that the posters don’t seem to realize are blatantly homophobic. There’s a lot of demonizing of SGA people and things like calling them (well, us, but I’ll say them in this post for convenience) ‘goblins’ and ‘trolls’ and things like that. There often seems to be a sort of atmosphere of superiority over those who are ‘dirty’ and ‘sinful’ enough to be SGA. 

I think that a lot of the problem comes from a fundamental misunderstanding and, from that point, polarization. For example, ace people wanting to be included in the LGBTQIA+ community. I support it, because they’re people who are marginalized or othered for their non-harmful sexual or romantic orientation (sorry if that seemed Overcomplicated i wanted to make sure pedophiles and whatnot couldn’t insert themselves in there somehow). But there is some (somewhat reasonable) backlash from other members of the community, because it was a community fundamentally established to protect against blatant crimes like violence, police brutality, and things like that, which isn’t an experience typically shared by the asexual community. 

The bigger problem is the use of the word “queer.” Personally, I use the word for myself, because I find it to be a great umbrella term and a lot easier than trying to explain the intricacies of my identity to straight people. I have the privilege of never having had it used against me as a slur, but there are other people who have, and often in violent ways. If those people want to reclaim it, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s great too. But a problem comes along when people try to reclaim that word who were never part of the targeted group. Even if you are part of a community with that group, if you are not part of that group then it is not your word to reclaim. For example, a brown person cannot use the N-word if they are not black, because that is not their word. It was a slur that perpetuated violence against the black community, and it belongs solely to the black community to reclaim or not reclaim as they decide. Since this word is sometimes used to mean the entire LGBTQIA+ community, some cis ace or aro people have found comfort in using it to describe themselves, but that’s pissed some people off because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not their word.

i think part of it also has to do with a general societal struggle to understand that discrimination can come in different forms, ways, and levels (I hesitate to use that word bc it has all these connotations of ‘oppression olympics’ but, uh), and it can intersect. Thus some ace people attempt to match their experiences exactly to those of the SGA community, when those experiences aren’t the same. The communities have very different histories, and the commonly shared narratives in the ace community aren’t going to be the same as those in the SGA community. And that’s fine. That’s genuinely, really fine. They don’t have to be the same. So some hackles are raised because some ace people are trying to expand their sense of community by melding into the SGA community, which is meant to be a safe space for SGA people. 

I think some of it (for me, at least) is also the idea that just like. Ace discourse is so all-encompassing in the LGBTQIA+ community that it seems like every time I look into the notes of a queer positivity post it has somehow become ace discourse and !!!! sometimes my gay ass just wants to be gay and celebrate women kissing their wives!! so I tend to get a bit irritated at the whole thing.

tldr; it’s Complicated. I support asexual people 100%, but acknowledge that community and its actions have Real Problems (just like any other, I know). I try to avoid Ace Discourse bc it’s a Hell Pit, but I follow people on both sides so I see it a decent amount anyway, so I’ve seen plenty of different nuances.

Disclaimer: I’m really not trying to piss anyone off or start any discourse. I’m sorry if my wording is unclear or weird or offensive; I tried to avoid that kind of thing because this is a really sensitive topic, but I’m also really bad at guessing how people will read or react to things bc I’m not NT so I’m sorry if I messed up. Also, I didn’t talk much about trans people in this explanation bc Ace Discourse tends to be primarily ace vs SGA, and trans people can be ace, SGA, or straight, and I’m not aware of any particular general trans perspective on the matter. Also, I know that being SGA and ace or aro aren’t mutually exclusive but I’m trying to talk in the general terms of the Discourse.

To Anon: sorry if this is way longer and more complicated than you wanted, but u always have to be On Guard for that Discourse

Also, if anyone for any reasons needs to ask questions or have anything changed for accessibility, feel free to shoot me an ask.