#very cisgender of me probably but I can’t really afford to think about that for more than 5 seconds so.

[tarn-ati0n]

I think I look a lot more androgynous than I give myself credit for.

[ephemeronidwrites]

I mean, I have a lot of complicated thoughts about Anders's relationship to his rural upbringing and how that interacts with his other experiences in life, and I'm not even sure how many of them are fully supported by canon and how many of them I just cooked up in a fever-brain fugue in a headcanoning frenzy I had one random day. But I do think this one defining mental image of his life, of Anders’s father being glad to hand him over to the Circle as the templars led his twelve-year-old ass away in handcuffs, while his mother wept oh-so tragically yet so conveniently helpless in the background, probably explains more about his psyche and his gender issues than I ever could in a full-on meta essay that no one ever asked for.

But will that stop me from trying? Not really.

The weird thing about Anders and his personal relationship to gender, I feel, is that I feel like he isn't macho in the obvious, stereotypical way many men are… where they are very invested in the maleness of their identity, but also feel insecure to various degrees in whether other people acknowledge this about them.

Just going through the DA2 roster, I think you see this in various degrees wrt characters like Carver (whose gender complexes are pretty self-evident, I feel) or Fenris (whose lived experiences probably give him lots of valid reasons to be insecure about whether people will give him even the most basic respect about core parts of his identity, gender absolutely being included).

With Anders, I feel like the opposite is really the case, on both counts. A lot of people seem to headcanon him as being in touch with his feminine side, or feeling some kind of ambiguity when it comes to his gender identity, and that discourse does bring a lot to the fandom and I welcome it all but also I do have to admit that I just personally don't see Anders this way. The way I personally see him, I don't think he lives with an ounce of doubt in his mind about being male, being masculine, cisgendered, having a dick, whatever you want to call it.

And I feel like that's part of the thing about Circle politics, and especially Circle gender politics… that the utter lack of privacy and dignity afforded to anyone there does in a weird way foster a certain lack of prudery that can mimic a culture of open-mindedness. And I see how that can ping on the genderfluid / queer-friendly / feminist vibes for a lot of people, but I also do feel like those sorts of vibes really are just that and don’t hold up to the barest bit of logical scrutiny. You can’t have a real culture of sexual liberation and egalitarianism inside an environment that is repressive in every other way. And I feel like a lot of the relational behavior that Anders had modeled for him in the Circle was a certain kind of performative promiscuity that may in certain ways mimic sexual emancipation, but in reality is much closer to sexual entitlement, aggression or even outright predation… not just from templars towards mages, but probably from senior mages towards junior mages, taking advantage of the power dynamics that must exist there.

Along those lines, I also feel like the Circle is an environment that really forces the people in it to make early commitments to being whatever they can be—quickly, accessibly, immediately—rather than what they might ultimately blossom into if they'd been left to explore themselves in a more genuine way. On their own terms, without duress. So I feel like there’s probably also an extra performative aspect to gender identity in Circle life as well, something you pick as a badge of belonging quite early and consciously in the way you pick a fraternity to join—Aequitarian, Libertarian, Isolationist, etc.

That being said, I do also think it's very significant that Anders was twelve years old when he came to the Circle. Still a child, undoubtedly, but in the medieval-tech-stasis world of Thedas, it's not actually that young… the boy in Athenril's Act 1 quest whom Hawke / the player may choose to liberate from his obligation to the smuggler gang is living a fully adult life with adult dangers and responsibilities at a barely older age, and children like Alistair and Sebastian are also routinely forced into adult commitments they are barely ready for, at the same age.

Basically, Anders already had about as full a childhood as anyone in Thedas probably gets, before being shipped to the Tower. I say this not to downplay the tragedy of Anders being torn from his family and the only home he’d known up till then in the way that he was, but actually to highlight that that very home life and family background were likely formative influences for him in a way they aren't for other Circle mages. Which is why I do feel like a lot of his conditioning, his familiarity with misogynistic patterns of behavior, might indeed come from growing up in what was probably an impoverished rural community, and likely an immigrant rural community at that, which would probably make it even more isolated and therefore put the women in those communities at more risk for all the social factors that tend to reinforce and exacerbate misogyny.

But unlike with people like Fenris or Carver or Alistair, I also feel like Anders's specific life trajectory after leaving that very community probably gave him a basis of comparison by which to contextualize some of what he grew up with. And I think those experiences probably led him to decide that—even if he misses his home and misses his mother—when it comes to the heternormativity of assuming a certain role from women and another one for men, and putting people into certain boxes based on what the larger community needs from them… he doesn't really want any part of that, not anymore.

At the same time, I can't imagine that those lived experiences of his—Circle gender politics with its open relationships and free-for-alls, existing on the outskirts of society while being a runaway apostate, likely doing survival-level sex work—would have done much of fuck-all to teach him anything about what it means to actually do better than what he decided to reject. To give him a workable model to go off of, when it comes to reconstructing a healthier way of handling power dynamics when it comes to other people in his life and especially to women.

Sorry in advance for Anders romance/predator discourse.

I feel like if Anders were actually a predator, he would be targeting like his patients or the Circle mages he’s helping liberate, ie. the people who he interacts with that he actually has power over, instead of trying to mack on Hawke who has a mansion and a job with the Viscount and the power to toss him out on the street and cut him off from their shared social network at any time.

But I do think it’s interesting that he seems to, like, borrow the language of abuse when talking to hawke (and f!hawke in particular). I wonder where he learned it from? The possibilities are really vast between a childhood in rural poverty in an immigrant community, the Circle, and the Wardens.

It’s something I like to think about despite knowing that his writer was basically just writing her own abuse but within a power fantasy where she had unlimited power to curbstomp the perpetrator. Like, idk, writer sends mixed messages that undermine her overall point, but the results in the text itself are quite fascinating.

ETA: Just so we’re clear, the things I’m talking about are like- Anders issuing ultimatums, ie. ‘if you really loved me/were on my side, then you would do x no questions asked’, doing things to drive away the rest of Hawke’s friends, ie. antagonising and chasing Merrill out of the estate at the beginning of the act 3 friendmance, or weaponising his suicidality and that Hawke (presumably) cares about him to avoid the emotional discomfort of Hawke’s anger, ie. ‘hurt/kill me or don’t be upset with me at all’. And there’s no way I can find the meta posts now, but I know other people have catalogued the places in the f!hawke romance where Anders attempts to weaponise misogyny. These are the kinds of controlling behaviour I’m talking about. (And, again, I think Anders would pick another target if he was sincerely interested in finding a partner he *could* control, but clearly someone or someones have taught him that this is what love looks like.)

[chocolatte-and-despair]

Hello,may I have a match up?

(I'm bisexual) im a girl,I'm mixed between Brazilian and gayana,I'm average height(for now) I move if I feel/must move but I love cycling ,my hair is very very curly.

I never really thought about having a lover but here I am so-

I'm akward around new people but if I want to be friends I just stick around ,don't talk don't look just have an excuse to be around like petting my dog or reading a book around but I get attached too easily but I also get unattached if they ignore me

I love affection but I don't ask for it most of the time if we want to be gf and bf or gf and gf,we would have to get aproval of my family members if not..get ready to get friend zoned:/

I'm a little manipulating but when I am it's just something small like a very cheap clothe or snack (like fruit and stuff)

My schedule is very messy sometime I sleep at 2:00 when on phone but If I have a very interesting book..till I pass out or when someone tells me.

Also I hate manipulative people so you could say I would want to be in a healthy relationship with whoever they are

I hate arguments ,if it's not about me I ignore it ,if they are screaming at my face I burst in tears but if they explain everything calmly I would say yes to mostly everything And I also hate being left out like a dog left at home,if they leave for a little to long I think I would go on a walk or I would make myself a challenge like go to the market and buy them a nice gift without them being home yet or something like that

If you dont it it's alright if you do it Awesome!

After thinking for a little bit, I decided to give you ... Frisk (Undertale Frisk)! Here are a few reasons why! Sadly, almost everyone I muse is manipulative to a point, so, you can’t really escape that, seeing as they are yanderes. It’s also very hard to have a healthy relationship with them, seeing as again, they all are very yandere. But here ya go.

Frisk is a calm person, who will always approach any issue with a cold tone. Meaning, that if you two would end up in an argument, she would calmly explain everything. If you are at fault for the argument, she will not give in. She knows her facts, and she knows that she is right, so she will fight until you agree she is right. For an hour, day, week, month, or even a year. She will fight as long as needed until you admit that she is right. And if she is in the wrong, she would ask you to present the facts and ask you to tell her exactly what you think she is doing that is wrong. If you are unable to present your facts in a way that she would agree with them, then in her view, you are the one in the wrong, and she won’t stop fighting you until you agree with that.

Frisk is the ambassador of monsters, so she wouldn’t always have time for you. she would make it very clear, and probably get you a pet, so when she’s not around, you wouldn’t be as lonely. And if that isn’t enough, and you keep annoying her when she told you to stop, she would just take away all your technology, and lock you up in a room with books, food, and water, and keep you there until she comes back home.

If your parents wouldn’t give her permission to date you, she would easily write up a check for them for a million or so, so she could date you without a problem. If that isn’t enough money, she would give them as much as they want. The fact that you think your parents not agreeing is going to stop her, is very naive.

If you would leave the house without telling her or would use her money without telling her, she would punish you after finding the gift. If you would use your own money, she would probably take the gift, before throwing it out when you are not around, seeing as she is quite rich and anything you can afford is out of her league. 

* Their age: Human age: 27 years old. 

* Their  height: 5'5 feet

* Their  yandere type: Manipulative yandere

* Their  dere type: Kuudere

* Their  Sexuality:  Cisgender female Demisexual Biromantic

A . How would they show their love and affection? How intense would it get? - Frisk has a hard time showing her affection. She usually just gives gifts and hopes that you understand that she loves you. If you are into physical affection, she will allow you to touch her, but chances are that she won’t start touching you first, seeing as she isn’t used to all the affection. 

B. What type of future are they planning with their lover? - Frisk is planning on getting married to you as fast as possible. She already paid your parents to be able to date you. Paying them to be able to marry you isn’t going to be hard. And of course, she would ask if you wanted to get married, but if you reject her too much, she would need to force herself on you.

C. What is the scariest moment with them? - The fact that she quite literally owns you. She bought the privilege of dating you. Meaning, that you aren’t free to leave her without your family getting in huge debt, as they would need to give back all the money that Frisk gave them. Frisk has so much money, that she can ruin anyone’s life. 

D. How do they usually act with their lover? - Frisk is very cold and distant, but once in a while, she does have her moments, where she acts very sweet and loving. Those are the moments after she makes you cry or something else happens. She wouldn’t want you trying to rebel against her, now would she? 

E. How would they court their lover before? - Frisk wouldn’t really bother doing much. She is busy with her life, and if you don’t fall for her immediately, she will just buy your love. Easy as that. There is no point in her wasting her time when she could just end it soon with money. 

F. What's their favorite memory/thing in the relationship? - Frisk loves to watch you sleeping. You are always so quiet, and cute when you sleep. She doesn’t need to worry about you then. It’s relaxing. She could watch you sleep for hours without ever getting tired. 

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: A Little Romance

Dorothy and Blanche are surprised to learn Rose’s new boyfriend is a little person, but Rose is the one really struggling with it.

Picture It...

Sophia is packing for a trip, stuffing clam sauce into her suitcase. She’s supposed to visit her son Phil for her grandson’s college graduation, but doesn’t trust his family to feed her. Rose enters, dressed to the nines for a date, and offers to drive Sophia to the airport. Blanche and Dorothy want to know who her new squeeze is, and she says he’s a psychiatrist at her grief center named Jonathan Newman. She’s strangely evasive when the other Girls ask when they can meet him.

BLANCHE: Dorothy, I’ve just discovered a great new way to meet more men. SOPHIA: More men? You’re gonna need a turnstile in your bedroom.

Some time later, Rose is furious with Blanche, who invited Dr. Newman to dinner at their house without discussing it with Rose first. Blanche says Rose kept putting it off, which Rose denies before stomping out with a scowl. While setting the table on the lanai, Blanche tells Dorothy that how Dr. Newman analyzed her dreams and deemed them “sexual.” What a surprise. There’s a ring of the bell, and Blanche initially mistakes the person on the doorstep for one of the neighborhood kids.

The bell rings again, and Dorothy answers this time. Now the caller gets to introduce himself: Dr. Jonathan Newman. Dorothy’s initially disconcerted to see he’s a little person, but quickly composes herself. Blanche, however, thoroughly embarrasses herself by accusing Rose of hiring a little person to “teach her a lesson.” (Apparently not one in sensitivity.) Dorothy takes Blanche away to collect herself, and Blanche is determined to be a good hostess from then, but flubs it when offering Jonathan shrimp. Jonathan, for his part, says he looks forward to teasing Blanche.

DOROTHY: Why don’t we just start dinner? JONATHAN: Oh good, what are we having? DOROTHY: . . . short ribs.

Later that night, Jonathan entertains the Girls with anecdotes after dinner, and impresses them with his positive attitude. Blanche inadvertently makes another bad joke, and Jonathan teases her about it. He tells her not to be self-conscious in front of him, as he’s perfectly content with who he is. He goes into the kitchen with Rose to fix coffee, and Blanche and Dorothy express their approval.

Sophia unexpectedly returns home: Phil’s son failed, so there was no graduation to attend. Jonathan enters and the Girls introduce him. Sophia says, “I hope this doesn’t sound rude,” which leads to Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy preemptively cringing in horror. But she just says that she’s very tired, so won’t be up for socializing, and asks Jonathan to excuse her. Jonathan departs, asking Rose if they can have dinner the next night. Rose drops the bomb: She thinks Jonathan is going to propose marriage to her.

They ask how she feels about that, and Rose admits that she’s embarrassed about his height, and she’s not sure she can get past it. Blanche tells a story about being in a relationship with a man she was forbidden to date as a young lady in the South. Dorothy assumes Blanche’s date was Black, but no: He was from New Jersey. Rose, meanwhile, still doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She goes to her room, and the other Girls leave her alone. Rose falls asleep.

Cue the dream sequence. It’s Rose’s wedding day, and Blanche and Dorothy go to fetch her from her room. Rose is still not sure about whether she should marry Jonathan. Blanche and Dorothy profess they’ve never noticed Jonathan’s size, while Sophia enters in a priest’s outfit, as she’ll be performing the ceremony. Then someone else arrives (from Rose’s closet, apparently): Rose’s late father. Rose is surprised to see he’s a little person, and Daddy Lindstrom says this is because he’s making a point about love. He tells Rose to follow her heart, as no one can predict the future.

ROSE: Wherever we go, people stare at him. DREAM!BLANCHE: Maybe they’re staring at you, honey. ROSE: At me? DREAM!BLANCHE: Oh, only a good friend would tell you this, Rose, but that color you dye your hair? Honey, that hasn’t existed since they discontinued the Ford Falcon.

Blanche suddenly announces that there’s someone at the wedding who can: Psychic Jeane Dixon, making a cameo appearance. She proceeds to spout some predictions about the future that, as of 2021, are not likely to come true before being hustled offscreen. Jonathan enters, and says that he and Rose can face any problem together. Rose makes up her mind and agrees to marry him. The other Girls come in to wake her up, and she tells them she’s decided to keep seeing Jonathan.

The next night, Rose and Jonathan have dinner at a French restaurant, and Jonathan tells her they need to talk about a problem with their relationship. He says that, while he cares about her, he doesn’t think their relationship can go on without acceptance. Rose protests that she doesn’t care about his height. Jonathan, on the other hand, meant something else: He can’t see Rose anymore because she’s not Jewish. Rose flips out, shouting at Jonathan in view of the restaurant, until he cracks a joke that has them both laughing. She apologizes and says she’s going to miss Jonathan, and he’ll miss her too. A waiter then comes over and asks precisely the wrong question:

WAITER: How was the shrimp? ROSE: Unfortunately, I’ll never know. You see, he’s Jewish and we can’t see each other anymore.

“May I take your height-- HAT?”

Let it be known that, when it comes to episodes of the show that cover minority issues, LGBTQ topics, or people with disabilities, I will do my darnedest to find reviews or analyses of them from people who fall within those categories. For example, there’s a lot of material from the gay and lesbian fandom regarding the episodes that showcase gay and lesbian characters, and I’ll link to and quote their work in the respective recaps rather than attempt to insert my own opinions for the most part.

This is because I realize that, as a non-disabled, heterosexual, cisgender, white woman; I am not in a good position to review any of these issues. My voice on these topics counts for very little.

That being said, I scoured the internet looking for a review or analysis of this episode by a little person, and I couldn’t find one. If you know of any analyses made by anyone with better knowledge on the topic than I have, please send them to me in a DM and I will happily revise this recap.

So yeah, this episode pretty much revolves around Dr. Jonathan Newman being a little person. It’s the sole source of conflict from Rose’s side in their relationship, and it was at the root of most of the jokes. To the episode’s credit, most of it is at the expense of Blanche and Rose, rather than Jonathan himself. If this were made in a perfect world, his height wouldn’t come into play at all, but the episode tries its hardest to mitigate any accusations of ill intent by making him such a lovely character.

Jonathan is surprisingly gracious and good-humored about the Girls’ less than sensitive remarks, teasing Blanche to help put her at ease. While Rose’s concerns about their relationship are portrayed seriously, the episode makes it very clear that she’s the one with the problem, and not Jonathan. I would have liked to have his religion foreshadowed a bit earlier but at least it adds a little depth to his character. Even Sophia, whose whole B-plot this week is basically just “Phil’s family is weird” is polite to him.

DOROTHY: Ma, why are you taking all this food to Phil’s? SOPHIA: Because the only time your brother’s wife goes into the kitchen, it’s to get a cold beer. DOROTHY: Ma, she has no time to cook. She works all day. SOPHIA: Welding. My son married a welder. Too bad she didn’t weld his zipper shut. They got ten kids they can’t afford.

In fact, he’s almost too good. It’s as though, even at the time, the writers wanted to counterbalance the reliance on his height in the jokes by making him one of the most perfect men ever. He’s interesting, funny, positive, well-educated (he mentions going to Harvard), and most importantly, he assuages everyone’s fears about making any comments about his height. It’s as if the writers are giving themselves permission to make the jokes by making the character around whom they are based as wonderful as possible.

That’s not to say the episode handles it subject matter in a completely inoffensive manner. The most tasteless joke of the episode, I think, is the “How was the shrimp?” line, but a close second is probably this one from Sophia, when she comes to check on Rose after her dream and sees Rose clutching her pillow:

SOPHIA: What’s going on? BLANCHE: Oh, Rose has decided to keep on seeing Jonathan. SOPHIA: Fine. *beat* We’re all adults here. Let the man out of the pillowcase. We don’t mind if he sleeps over.

You know what’s really weird? This is not the first time Rose has referenced dating a little person. Remember that pin I put up a few episodes ago? Let’s take it down and address Rose talking about Eddie. While Sophia is the only person to refer to Jonathan by an offensive slur, they use it liberally in this clip, so consider it a trigger warning:

It’s beyond weird to me that they have this whole joke about Rose dating a little person that they play completely for laughs, only to take it seriously a few episodes later. That’s a very specific scenario to repeat -- especially since Rose says she didn’t reject Eddie because of his size at all, but because she couldn’t date anyone in show biz. So what changed, huh, Rose?

There is one thing about this episode that bugs me irrespective of Dr. Newman’s height: Rose thinks Jonathan is going to propose to her even though they aren’t yet seriously dating and (if her last line of the episode is any indication) haven’t even slept together. This is something that I find weird about these ladies’ relationships. Kate got married after only six months of dating, Blanche was prepared to marry Harry after only one week, and now Rose thinks her beau of three weeks with whom she’s only been on five dates wants to marry her.

I mean, were the 80s really that different? Did people really go to the altar so fast that this seems plausible to anyone? I’m genuinely asking because, for all I know, this was common at the time.

I love how weird the dream sequence is in this episode. It made sense, in the way that some dreams seem to follow some kind of recognizable sequence, but there are really weird parts too. The fact that Sophia and Mr. Lindstrom enter the room through Rose’s closet, Blanche and Dorothy speak in chirpy voices, and there’s a weird celebrity cameo. It definitely feels dreamlike to say at the end of the scene, “WTF was Jeane Dixon doing there?”

By the way, it’s too bad none of Dixon’s predictions will come true. It would have been very interesting to see Brooke Shields and Lady Diana in a Broadway musical comedy.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰🍰 (four cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite part of the episode:

You really can’t beat Blanche’s awkwardness.

[elvesofnoldor]

im losing my entire fucking mind and i dont know anything abt myself anymore and why? why? all cause one day in undergrad, out of nowhere, i went “hey am i a woman?” like i was asking myself what flavour of cheesecake i wanted for dessert. That was like, right after i felt comfortable with the fact that im a lesbian. And the answer should have been simple and short: “yeah duh you dumb fucking bitch, why did you ask? why do you think asking this is fucking productive? forget about it!” But no, i decided to engage with the question and it opened a fucking pandora’s box, and this question latched onto me like a fucking parasite, because this question allows me to think about another crucial question im always afraid to ask myself: am i truly attracted to men? With lesbianism, i can answer this question with ease by saying, no, these flimsy “crushes” i have on like two or three boys when i was a child/teen were result of compulsory heterosexuality, boom, that’s it. simple! not to mention, i know that lesbians can experience attraction to men in the past and even had past relationship with men and still be lesbians, sometimes sexuality isn’t solid as a brick, and none of that should have mattered! 

 so yeah, lesbianism is the answer i LIKE, yet part of me is not satisfied with this answer! of course! why not! since when am i ever satisfied with anything EVER?  over time, i started to want a “man’s body” when i see a cis dude with bare chest in picture, and it seems like i started to identify more and more with...masculinity and manhood...in general? even fictional men? at times? i dont fucking know! its a huge mess! and confusing! and my memories are all blurry and false and twisted by my current perception. sure i think i always kind of aspire to “androgynous looks”, but i like being a lesbian! At first, i was like, maybe im a non binary lesbian cause oh baby i know im not bisexual-- i dont want to be with men, but i want to be with women and that’s a certainty. And i know i had one real crush in life--sure it brought me nothing but misery but i know i had one true crush and it was a girl, a friend, from my high school-- whereas my possible feelings abt real boys or fictional men are very flimsy in comparison. still, part of me started to think that perhaps i can only process these feelings i might have for other men/boys in the past if i can...idk see myself as another man? i dont fucking know! Literally, it’s the most unproductive thing to think about! More importantly, i did not fall in love with any real man nor do i want to fall in love with any man! but i still kept questioning myself about this, cause i kept having these strong feelings abt,  FICTIONAL MALE CHARACTERS. And idk, part of me was like, “maybe you’d be comfortable with your attraction to men if you...are a man?”, and yeah i actually engage with this line of fucking thinking. its so fucking embarrassing that MEN THAT ARE NOT REAL can have such ridiculous heavy impact on me, it’s fucking ridiculous and i hate it!!! Every time i started to get invested in some stupid story that doesn’t matter cause it’s a fucking fictional story, there is like, this ONE MAN, one fucking bitch, that i felt very strongly about and it didn’t feel entirely platonic. i knew i was not straight since a teen and it took me FOREVER to even seriously consider that im a lesbian even though i dread the thought of being with men for the longest time, precisely because i keep having these weird strong feelings about fictional men every once a while!!!! 

makes no mistake i explored more rational options. during this time i made a rant abt it on here--i didnt want to! i tried not to make personal posts cause i dont want to bother strangers! but idk i guess my attention seeking whore ass just have to put my personal feelings out there eventually or i will die? anyways, a very nice mutual talked to me abt it, he was a trans man and as it turns out we shared a lot of similar experiences in regards to gender, and you’d think--hey maybe that helped? but no it fucking didn’t. it was nobody’s fault but it didn’t help, cause i clung on my womanhood for no apparent productive reason. i was still confused and, well, like a normal person i was like, let’s have human interaction! let’s actually explore my attraction to women! you don’t want to be with men so forget about them! forget what you might feel abt them! explore what you KNOW! explore certainty! so i did and ofc it ended up in shit, cause a girl who has a girlfriend (it was a closed relationship btw) asked me if i wanted to “hang out” on a dating app for wlws called HER and i genuinely thought it was a date? didnt know she has a girlfriend until AFTER we met. i wasn’t actually even surprised that she didn’t actually want to date me, because im ugly! im not attractive! im not even attracted to myself lol! plus she was very nice and cool and i was just happy that i made a friend with a fellow lesbian. but after that, i lost motivation to use that dating app, because one minor set-up and failure is all it takes for me to give up, its always like that with me. because im weak and pathetic, its always been like this. 

yeah at one point i basically said im non binary on my bio, but  i rather tell ppl im a lesbian and be done with it since im not entirely sure abt being non binary. Also, I know that non gender-conforming lesbians are everywhere, cis lesbians who are uncomfortable with gender identity exist! butches exist! they are here and they deal with it and they find community. but i don’t identify with...being butch? it was very nice to see gender non conforming, tom-boyish or butchy women out there, they  gave me hope, they are my heroes but i just dont feel like...they are me? i dont feel like feminine women either, im attracted to feminine women but i dont identify with their look and their femininity. like i said, this is a huge fucking mess. 

And now i have finally fucking done it, huh, dorian fucking p*vus, a gay male character. The clownery of it all! how the fuck, do i explain to ANYONE that i, a lesbian, have feeling that isn’t entirely platonic about a fictional gay man? yeah thats right thats why i romance him! i lied! ok! i fucking lied, it was cause i want to fuck him! ok! yeah, i know, ridiculous. i feel like im disrespecting him, that im , idk, fetishizing him, but i am not! i can’t be! i love him so much it hurts? it shouldnt be like that. i really shouldn’t. i cant make sense of this, its driving me nuts. still, this whole ordeal eventually got me thinking abt my gender, yet again, and it pushed me over the edge and i even told my dad that i want to transition this summer, that i am a man because i thought maybe i’d be much happier and less repressed if i can just accept that i like men-- if i can explore this possibility. i know i will NEVER accept liking man as a woman, and i know i already kinda have some sort of identification with manhood and masculinity, so why not! i was coming up with solutions! but i didnt even fall in love with a real man, and i was considering this serious level of transition in my life that requires time, money, and the process concerns health risk??? for what??? i was looking up all these info about transition, for WHAT? i gotta be out of my fucking mind! the most ridiculous thing is that while i always like a number of female characters, i would never feel as strongly about any of them in particular as i would, for that one fucking man. Even merrill, like, i love her and i genuinely feel like i want to be with a girl like her int he future but i dont feel as strongly about her as i would for dorian, for some, fucking, reason. 

i headcanon the lavellan i used to romance dorian as a trans man, cause i was thinking, perhaps this would put things into perspective. and yeah, i wanna fuck dorian, but also i want to envision what my future CAN be using my lavellan as a proxy. things were simpler with my lavellan. he was handsome and had no body image issue, he was fit, transition was easy for him cause magic and he virtually spent no money on it, he was passing, his family and community fully supported him, he had a lovely girlfriend before he knew he was trans. sure, he has problems and issues to deal with but none are the ones i gotta deal with. he is not me, but he has what i wanted and what i wish i had: beauty, confidence, a girlfriend, easy FTM transition, and he is a man so he’s legally allowed to fuck dorian. but i did not transition, and im still a cis woman with long hair, and ppl looks at me and they probably still thinks im straight, im not straight but i AM a ugly cis woman and i dont think transition’d help cause i might just become a even uglier man lol. And if i dont become a beautiful, stunning man, then i dont want to become a man at all cause if things dont turn out perfectly for me, i dont want to do them and its always like that for me and its why im a fucking failure on everything right now. so many trans people are not passing, but they deal with it, not me tho! i can’t, cause im a pathetic baby!!!  i cant deal with any minor inconvenience in my fucking life i guess!!!! And i cant help but to feel weird about having a trans man as one of my ocs. maybe i should make him cis instead? im so exhausted,  i cant help but to feel that my trans mutuals want to just pull the trigger on me and unfollow me cause you all are silently judging me for having a trans oc when im still technically, cis. well judge me in my fucking face you fucking cowardly fucks! Am i cis? well idk, probably, maybe im just a hysterical crazy bitch of a cisgender^tm woman who is constantly uncomfortable with her gender, maybe thats all there is. who knows, all i know is that im burnt out, that i don’t know anything anymore and it was all a huge fucking mess that things dont matter. this is causing me nothing but pain and confusion and i dont want to be wrong myself. ftm transition is not, “oh geez lets just explore a option” kind of deal, its kinda fucking serious  and its stressing me out. i dont know what i want, who i am, anything and i can’t afford to be wrong so i dont know!!!!! i just dont know!!!!!!!! i talked abt with a therapist actually but all therapist do is to LIE lie AND LIE and tell me things i already know, “you need to be careful with about transitioning! it’s a big decision” who pays you to say this garbage to me? “you are capable and beautiful and you can do this! believe in yourself!” as if ppl saying this shit is enough???? as if i still need to go see a fucking therapist if i am magically ok after i talk to somebody and they tell me lies that sound validating????i know they dont believe in what they said anyways. “you are ok! you are fine, you have no problem” BITCH I WISH I AM OK, BUT AM I OK? IM FUCKING NOT AND YOU ARE $60 RICHER THAN AN YOU ARE AN HOUR AGO! FUK YOU! LIES LIES LIES!!!!! men lie too, i put on some bad eyeliner and some random creepy dude came and told me im beautiful! beautiful my ass! im fucking ugly and i know it, you really think im fucking stupid you fuck? am i just being a special snowflake? are the things that i know for certainty actually certainty??? nothing about me feels real anymore, and maybe im just being dramatic but  my self perception is non existent and i feel like im just lying to myself even though i thought i was being truthful and ppl keep telling me lies and nothing helps. im living on lies and it is festering 

[lesbianau]

I'm a trans mtf gal majoring in LGBT/queer studies so I'd just like to add something! English isn't my first language rip so I apologize for my grammar. But there was so much misinformation being promoted yesterday and from what I could tell the op's of these posts were mostly cisgender? Which is so so uncomfortable. The idea of these messages from cis people on gender being cemented in this fandom as the acceptable way to talk about gender is a bit distressing. And from what I can(...)

tell from following you is that you’ve been very respectful about this topic from the posts you reblogged so overall I feel comfortable sharing this message with you. Since it seems like others who tried to do the same thing were met with hostility and anger. So to get to the point, I’d just like to say that from where I stand, with both academic and personal experience with this, er, discourse, is a few things. A lot of people have already said this and for whatever reason(…)

it’s been rejected. Which is bad! Let me make this clear: gender exists as a mental, emotional, and physical spectrum. It’s incredibly complex. A queer person’s experience with gender is their own to put into words. No one else can. This goes for gender identity and gender expression. The reason why it’s such a sensitive topic is because the idea of gender we know know comes from a misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic society. When you assign gender- that is, categorize(…)

(I’m putting the rest under the cut, but this is a very interesting read i highly recommend)

anything at all as either feminine or masculine- you are by default perpetuating those standards. Pink is not feminine, blue is not masculine, sewing is not feminine, woodwork is not masculine, certain manners of speech or dress or walk or physical features- none of these things that are gendered. Society assigned them genders and decided to shape us around it. It is through this idea that queer people experience oppression, shame and violence. It is because of it. And as(…)

long as we continue to live in this society it’s an influence that we cannot escape. It shapes us, our perception and our beliefs on a subconscious level whether we like it or not. To change it would mean undoing centuries of social conditioning on a global scale. It just can’t be done. What we can only do is decide for ourselves our own feelings with gender, sexuality, etc. We weren’t born with the perks of falling into every societal standard demanded of us. As a result(…)

we are forced to examine our identities and try to make sense of what makes us feel a disconnect with the identity we’re told we must have. For some it’s a journey away from those societal standards entirely. For others it’s about finding a more comfortable spot within those norms. There is no invalid way of experiencing this. For gender specifically the experience is even more nuanced, confusing and delicate. This is because the further away one strays from gender norms(…)

specifically the greater the danger. There can be fatal consequences to simply existing as a trans individual. Both from violence and suicide. Because this is what our society perpetuates. So the second any of us project something born from discrimination and hatred onto anyone or anything other than ourselves, we are are honoring what it was meant to do. As a trans woman my experiences with masculinity have been very unpleasant and as such I’m very sensitive about conversations(…)

involving femininity and masculinity. For me womanhood is something I associate with femininity and I can’t break free from my feelings about it. However not all women feel this way. There are masculine women who are joyous in their womanhood and they are valid in their experience. It does not and would never affect my experience nor would mine affect theirs. Unless I came up to her and told her women can only be feminine or she came up to me and congratulated me on(…)

being a feminine man because we would both cause each other a lot of pain. Even if she meant to be nice to me I would be experiencing depression for weeks even though she meant no harm and even if she apologized to me right after. Another example is if someone told me they loved how feminine my demeanor despite having no hips I would probably burst into tears right there! I can’t help but have a very traditional view of gender in regards to my own identity. I’m a feminine woman(…)

who thinks everything I am and do is feminine. But because I can’t afford to transition I feel that I have to be more loyal to societal norms of gender in hopes I can be more passing. I see a feminine woman when I look in the mirror without makeup or my wig. But the world doesn’t see that. I go to sleep a masculine cis man according to society. Hell, I’m a cis man crossdressing in a wig to my neighborhood Kroger when I groceries. Someone might say that to me as a complement(…)

but hearing things like that nearly drove me to suicide in my teens. I can’t think of a more clear example of the harm in societal gender norms. It is a one-sided word. I walk towards the handle and I am given security. I love being a girly girl and wearing pink and wearing padded bras and a wig because I feel feminine and when I feel feminine I feel like a woman. If I were to take all that sitting at the tip of my sword and walked right towards a trans man what do you(…)

think would happen? It’s a terrible thing! If I waved around my sword out in the open- gave my view of gender and interpreted the identity of gender according to my experiences- what do you think would happen? It’s dangerous! And what I see every day with Harry is a lot of sword waving. Yesterday it was an outright sword fighting! When people were saying what made Harry masculine and feminine the only thing they were doing was promoting every homophobic, mysogynistic and transphobic(…)

and traditional societal standard of gender. Harry’s feminine because of this, followed by a statement that is meant to contrast the previous one regarding why he is masculine because of something else. The excuse is that they’re appreciating how multidimensional he is. But what they do is very blatantly categorize these traits as paradoxical. That there is something about the things being mentioned that are different, complex and unharmonious. And(..)

in a way that is the most harmful they make the implication that this is something he means to be. Harry has made a connection with gender and himself and it’s very simple. Masculinity, femininity, womanhood and manhood. The context has always been lighthearded and it has always been consistent. There is ironically no complexity at all. By simply wearing a leopard print suit he became Shania Twain according to his friends. He thoughtlessly talks about being pregnant without(…)

commenting on his gender or biology. So I find it strange that others try to make him out to be so deeply complex when he talks about himself so bluntly! The only way to speak on gender identity and gender expression is to take cues from the other person and stay true to respecting their identity. This is never seems something that’s given to Harry in the way people talk about him. It is the only way you can refer to someone’s gender identity ever. When he is taken apart(…)

and categorized into what is and is not comparable it directly opposes how he talks about himself. This isn’t something that doesn’t do his character justice or undermines what a complex and multifaceted human being he is. I’m a complex and multifaceted person and I only connect with one gender! I don’t like how this always used as an excuse or even something that comes into question. The only way to talk about gender and everything that falls into it is by mirroring(…)

the comments of the individual and those closest to them who are already doing the same. By not doing that you’re stepping into the minefield that is societal gender norms. It’s no wonder the people at the forefront of yesterday’s discourse were met with an entire onslought of outrage. This is how it will always be and honestly should be. People need to learn compassion and understanding and distance if they are trans or not. The great irony is the fight to establish(…)

Harry’s masculinity and the guilt that is demanded from those who don’t mention it the way they do. Not being masculine is one of the rare things Harry’s been very vocal about. Yesterday’s discussion should’ve never escalated the way it did. This is much bigger than fandom. Because what is shared is what you are being told is oksay by the person. If they compare themselves to women and use female pronouns then take cue. If they says they are not masculine then take cure. If(…)

the person shares with you a comment involving themselves within the gender spectrum then this is the only thing it’s okay to repeat. To speak generally is to place your view of gender onto a queer person who will always be listening and who will always disagree. Reading through some of the things from yesterday broke my heart in two. I don’t ever want to see such reckless comments on gender in a fandom full of so many queer people ever again. Wasn’t the outrage and pain obvious enough? I(…)

just can’t believe it could happen when the person they were arguing about has, to me, been more than clear about how they are comfortable being spoken about in their relationship with gender. If my opinion is of any value to people then I hope they listen and make an effort to at least think about something I said in the giant essay I didn’t meant to send you initially rip I apologize for that Kaleigh! I didn’t mean to send as many messages as I must have after all these hours(…)

I couldn’t help but get this off my chest. At least a trans person has had a say in this in a way outside of yesterday’s debate and maybe people will be more understanding of what really went so wrong yesterday. Anyway thank you so much for giving me this space Kaleigh! I hope I worded myself well enough and didn’t accidentally miss the anon button 😭 Have a lovely day ❤💙💚💛💜

hello darling! thank you for sending this to me because while i know a lot of what was being discussed was making me uncomfortable, i also didn’t feel comfortable speaking on it because i didn’t feel educated enough to do so. i’m sorry people made you uncomfortable and you’re so strong for reaching out to educate people who happen to read this. gender/identity is so personal, and people trying to “disprove” certain aspects of someone’s expression just to fit their personal narrative is so horrible and in no way okay in an lgbtq+ space. i love you a lot and i really really appreciate these messages ❤️

[hollowedrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, BEC! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Alastor Moody. To be honest, I was so so so worried about applications for Alastor. Frankly, with a character as multi-faceted as Alastor, there were so many ways it could have gone wrong, but reading your app was like a giant sigh of relief. Not only did you completely understand who Alastor is, but you even convinced me into parts of your app with your characterization (I never thought Alastor could have been a Hufflepuff, but boy was I wrong.) Do me a favor and keep convincing me into things; you’re right on the money. 

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

Name: Bec

age: 26

preferred pronouns: She/her

timezone: EST+10 (AEDT)

activity: Ok, so I do work fulltime and often that entails 10 hour days but I’m often able to get on when I get home for a couple of hours. I might not be able to get on every single day, but I should be able to remain within the activity requirements!

are you applying for more than one character?: Nope :)

how do you feel about your character dying?: I mean it’s definitely plausible when it comes to Alastor considering how headstrong he is. He would absolutely die for a cause that he truly believes in (getting the fuck rid of Voldemort is certainly one). Let’s hope I don’t regret saying so in the future, but I think I’d be okay with him dying. I generally love causing my characters pain (I know), I basically breathe for in character drama.

anything else?: I just wanted to say that this place is beautiful, and I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on here whether I get accepted or not! Thanks for the opportunity!

ic details.

full name:  Alastor Moody

date of birth: July 19th, 1947.

former hogwarts house: Hufflepuff

There is no question that Alastor could have fit in at any Hogwarts house. Sure he’s ambitious and some would say that he would just about do anything to achieve what is necessary. However, Alastor lacks the need for notability as a direct result of his actions. He carries out what is necessary because it is simply that, necessary. There is no doubt that he is clever, but knowledge is not something that he seeks merely for his own desire or curiosity. Frankly, he would have had no joy in solving that silly riddle each and every time he had to return to the common room, far too impractical for his liking. He was almost placed in Gryffindor. He’s certainly brave and determined, but once again, his actions are never designed to seek his own means. He’s brave because the situations he’s placed in simply demand it, in his eyes, he has no other choice. Despite what many believe, Alastor  lacks much of the impulsion that other Gryffindor’s harbor, instead he’s much more calculative. That left him with Hufflepuff. A house that helped level his impatience over the years, and establish that good does exist. Being placed in Hufflepuff is largely what saved Alastor. A teen who was so fragile when he first stepped into Hogwarts that it took him years before he started to open up.  

sexuality: Heterosexual

gender/pronouns: Cisgender male. He/him

face claim change: Michiel is a God.

more.

how do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

It’s probably safe to say that Alastor, he’s had it tough. Growing up he was always told that emotions were not made for wizards like the Moody’s, that they’ll only make him weak. And weakness is not something that a great Auror can afford to have. Despite now knowing that this is not always the case, Alastor’s always been a little silent. As a teenager his silence often came across as brooding, as an adult it’s matured with wisdom. He’ll only speak when necessary, not the sort to fill the air with words of flair and uncertainties. While Alastor does know how to smile, his need for constant vigilance often means he’ll be the last one to loosen up at a social gathering. He possesses an inflexible will, ever pushing forwards with what must be done, his purpose always clear and forever at the forefront of his mind. This might mean that he may be a little brash with you at times but you can’t always take his curt mannerisms to heart as he only does so with no partiality and only when necessary. He possesses a zeal so great that his actions are often misdiagnosed as those of impulsiveness, but he is anything but. Every action has been carefully premeditated.

+ Pragmatic: At his very core Alastor is a pragmatist. He doesn’t allow himself to wander too deep into ideals and what might be as this leaves him open to the possibility of failure. At this point in the war, failure is not an option. His pragmatism is largely attributed to his upbringing. Gone are the days of believing that fairytales exist, that someone else will come in and save the day. While he certainly doesn’t believe himself a hero, Alastor is a firm believer that only he can shape his own future, and perhaps the future of their world too.

+ Committed: Alastor has already sacrificed so much to the order and has every intention on continuing with the same zeal. In his opinion, it’s not sacrifice if the cause is one that is a necessity to fight for. If they stop fighting who will take their place? He spoke an oath, wand to the sky, hand over heart. An oath of the aurors that he does not plan to break. He won’t rest until their world is exonerated by the evil that threatens, he won’t hide away as thousands of muggles, half-bloods and their defenders are slaughtered.

- Distrustful: After years of emotional and physical abuse alike, it’s hard to not let some of that filter through. When the two people in the world who you’re supposed to be able to trust wholeheartedly betray you beyond repair, how are you supposed to have faith so easily. Alastor has a hard time trusting people. The easiest way to judge a person’s character is to not let them close enough to find out if they have good or bad intentions. Perhaps this isn’t a healthy train of thought, but for the most part it’s kept heartbreak at bay. He’s managed to find methods of coping with what some would call an issue, and that is with keeping himself occupied. Alastor’s almost always constantly busy, on his toes working, a rather well welcomed distraction if he’s honest.

- Guile: Alastor knows how to navigate a bad situation to make it the very best that he is able to. Sometimes his methods can erre on the side of manipulation but he will usually try and avoid as much collateral damage as possible. He’ll only use his guile methods when absolutely necessary, and in situations when he’s got to think quick on his toes.

how has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

Alastor feels as though he’s been in a constant war almost all his life. He’s been involved in this particular war since the very beginning and has since allowed it to consume every aspect of his life. He’s never had a serious romantic relationship, despite often receiving interest from various women over the years. It’s not that he’s oblivious to the attention, but more so that he believes that there are higher things at stake. Is there really a point in getting attached to someone when the future’s so uncertain? When tomorrow may not even be an eventuality?

Alastor has become particularly good at mastering his emotions. It’s perhaps the one skill his parents taught him, for better or for worse. It’s made him function under pressure better, hard decisions are made by him with more ease.

where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? Why?

He knows that they’re currently sitting ducks just waiting to be fired at one by one. That they must act sooner rather than later. Hiding doesn’t fix anything, hiding doesn’t reverse the lives lost or guarantee that no more will be lost. In fact, hiding in Godric’s Hollow means guarantees that thousands, if not more, innocent lives will be lost. They’ve already wasted far too much time in Alastor’s opinion.

extra.

Mock Blog: https://amoodymood-mock.tumblr.com

Character questions:

How have the setbacks the Order has faced affected Alastor?

Alastor already feels as though they’ve wasted time. He’s truthfully disappointed in many of the members in the Order who are happy to take a backseat. He believes that no matter what they believe, pretending that they’re in a safe bubble doesn’t change the reality that the more time they spend at Godric’s Hollow twiddling their thumbs, Voldemort is only re-charging his strength and gathering his forces. Each minute they spend in hiding he only grows stronger. With each day his patience wanes, and with it he’s losing more and more control over keeping his anger at bay. His irritation is becoming more evident with the occasional unwarranted snipe at the wrong people. He can only hope that they understand, but only Merlin knows how much of it they’ll be able to take.

What does he think the Order should do next?

Alastor wants to continue with recruitment. He also wants to continue gaining intel from his internal informants amongst Voldemort’s ranks.. He also wants to attack. Moody knows that now is the time to strike, the Death Eaters are at their weakest point too. They also has those Order members still in captivity and those that are missing on his conscience. Alastor knows that they’d been far too careless the first time that they’d gone in, with more wands ready to fight, they might have a better chance at saving their fellow members. That is, if they aren’t already too late.

[scifimagpie]

Solidarity and Other Dreams

One of the most subtle and painful things about the internet age - perhaps any age - is finding out that someone you admire has acted in a far less-than-admirable way. Reconciling that with continued affection can be tricky. For example, I've heard some mega-questionable things about Amanda Palmer, wife of Neil Gaiman - who has been thoroughly castigated ad nauseam in public and private. And so it goes for many celebrities and important figures around the general Leftist/leftist/liberal community. You can probably think of someone you like who's done or said something insensitive, ableist, transphobic, racist, homophobic, misogynist, or otherwise disappointing. Someone who didn't take a strong enough stance, or too strong a stance, or said something that made your skin crawl.

Have I been this person? Probably. I try to hunt down and deal with my own mistakes, relying on the trauma-survivor skills of micro-self analysis. I count my sins and errors and mistakes like pre-reformation Scrooge with his money. I do not forget or forgive myself. This is not necessarily a character strength, either, nor something I recommend to others.

And of course, many of us do that with others.

But recently, after ditching a friendship that was bad for me, I went to my "blocked users" list on Facebook and really had a look at this. I remembered most people on it. Some were casually encountered, but some had become friends - who had, at one point or another, said something I really, really didn't like.

And I considered...is it really worth keeping someone blocked if you can't remember the exact nature of their infraction?

What makes someone unsafe?

I've seen my share of panicky, touchy arguments on Facebook, including one where an activist I looked up to accused someone else of "gaslighting" them for having a different opinion about interpretations of a Steven Universe character's race. I've been in those arguments, too. (Not that one in particular, but similar situations.)

Part of the problem for those of us on the left is that calls for solidarity usually result in a backlash of people saying, "we have to work with those we don't like? But that means supporting abusers!" Well - sometimes it doesn't. It's tricky to talk about abuse, because those of us who've survived it in various ways tend to be extremely gun-shy - sometimes excessively or even unhealthily so.

And in the moment, it can be hard to tell if someone's comments about, say, a given woman or actress represent their feelings about All Of Womanity, or anything else.

Do we tolerate mistakes?

This is such a tricky problem. Obviously, as a white woman - even a queer, plump, neurodivergent, partially disabled one - I have a giant swath of privilege that affects how I'm coming at things. I'm cisgender, and I'm white, and even femme - all things that can, in certain circumstances, give me a free pass that would not be afforded to others. Obviously, kyriarchy - hierarchies and power that exist outside of patriarchy - is a thing that exists. Dealing with it sucks. Some people get forgiven for their screw-ups a lot more readily than others, and the people forgiven are usually white. The people who don't get away with things are usually black, or other people of colour; men also tend to get away with more than women. BUT - there are also times when we have to question whether conflicts or errors are as important as the general need to fight for our rights. And perhaps we need to be more honest about how dangerous or not-dangerous specific people are.

As one of my found-family siblings, Iskara, put it,

The left are collectivists and the right are individualists. We know this. But you can't use those traits to compete with others who have the same trait, you're pretty equal. So to establish a hierarchy within their respective groups, they use the opposite approach. The left will attack individuals who are below them to prove that they are the wokest. The right will attack entire groups of people who don't have the right values as individuals. Therefore, the right is willing to unite with people it disagrees with because those disagreements are part of the life of an individualist, but collectively they hate this other group more and they have that in common. Meanwhile the left is trying to figure out which single persons belong in or out of the collective which makes us far more likely to attack our allies over trivial matters, because we consider the purity of the person beside us to be a reflection on our own purity.

The hidden rules

The thing is - and trying to put this politely is difficult - white people who are queer tend to engage in this purity-testing a lot more often than others. Black people and people of colour, and those with multiple intersections of disability, are already used to forgiving others a lot or gritting their teeth and bearing things. As members of a visible majority in North America, we feel confident in our ability to reject others and replace them as need be. We're inherently comfortable, a lot of the time, in the belief that someone else will come around and fill the empty seat, because there are just so many white and queer people. This can be less true for transgender people, but the squabbles I've seen online suggest that the sense of white social complacency is still basically applicable.

This is not to excuse myself. When I was a teenager, and even in my early twenties, it seemed a lot more important to be strict about whom I interacted with, within the left, and how they perceived things. As much as micro-aggressions and macro-aggressions both matter, and as much as both can grind us down - those of us with the emotional resources and privilege to do so need to be aware of our padding. (That's not just a pun on my own weight, but hey! I can't resist a punchline.)

Forgiveness and calling in

Since our family expanded to a third person, our housemate and queer-platonic partner Kit, we've had a lot more small discussions about being offended and annoyed. Honestly, instead of making fights or tension worse, it tends to disperse them. Anyone who lives with someone else will be familiar with the struggle of doing dishes, making food, handling laundry, cleaning the house, dealing with work duties, and arranging transportation. But being clear yet tactful about one's feelings can handle conflict far better, and keep it from becoming "a thing."

The same is true of our long-running D&D group and some of my various friend groups. Learning to filter my communication to people, talk to them after the rush of emotions, and avoiding that ever-so-tempting duel of witticisms that is the Facebook philosophical fight, have all been really good for both myself and the people around me.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves - what are we trying to accomplish? If the answer to that is "protection of people's human rights," then the only people really worth kicking out are trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), sex-work exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs), and people who have exhibited a pattern of abuse without repentance.

Everyone else? Well, maybe we need to be honest about our hurt feelings, cool off a bit, and try to talk stuff out in private.

Does that mean we need to forgive abusers?

Ooof. Even with a counselling degree and many years of sad-violin life experience, I don't know if I'm equipped to answer this one. Apart from saying, "it's a case-by-case basis, but worry about the people who aren't just rude, but really dangerous," I'm not sure what to recommend.

Maybe we just need to stop sanctifying and demonizing people, and present them - both celebrities and individuals - as complex people with tokens on both the good and bad sides of the scale.

I do think that there are cases where people can reform. I hate to be mealy-mouthed or seem indecisive, but if internal politics were easy to handle, the left wouldn't be falling apart like an improperly-chilled gelatin dessert.

Ultimately, all I can recommend are emotional self-validation, politeness, patience, and forgiveness with each other. We are stronger together, and since we, in multiple countries, have to fight to maintain our very existence, we need to defend each other's existence.

Maybe this means forgiving someone you're still mad at. Maybe this means going to apologize to someone. But with actual far-right activists, neo-nationalists, anti-choice activists, and violent racists and transphobes in the streets, and more active and internationally validated than ever, we simply can't afford the ephemeral and impossible luxury of complete ideological purity.

Does this mean allying with people we disagree with? Well, as long as they're not advocating for killing us...maybe yes. But again, my tired and beleaguered siblings and family, those of us who are white need to do the work on this. Reach out to others. Offer comfort. Give forgiveness - after you're done being mad. Sleep on things.

Nobody else is going to fight for our lives.

***Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime, housemate, and their cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and nightmares, as well as social justice issues. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. The mailing list * Books on Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram *  Facebook * Tumblr * Blog

[margot-bargot]

Listen, fam. I'm coming out.

Look, I've been working on the best way to do this for a while. I had a whole long thing typed up & I kept re-writing it for months. But I think I'm just gonna get to the point. I'm coming out. I identify as pansexual. What is pansexuality, you ask? Well, it basically means that I feel attraction to anyone, regardless of their gender. Cis men & women, trans men & women, agender folks, demigender folks, etc. If you've never heard of pansexuality before, lemme hit you with that Wikipedia link real quick to help you out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexuality . Pansexuality is pretty adjacent to bisexuality & often gets confused for it. However, the two are slightly different in that bisexuality is attraction to two or more genders & pansexuality is attraction to anyone of any gender. A couple things to note real quick before we continue: 1. Pansexuality doesn't mean that you're attracted to EVERYONE you see. It simply means that your capacity to feel attraction isn't primarily based on gender. 2. If you make any jokes about having sex with pans, you're officially a cornball. I'm just giving you a heads up, is all. Sorry but I don't make the rules. So the thing you might be wondering is how I figured this out. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how I could go 29 years without knowing this about myself. But every time I think back, there is one element of my past that explains why it took so long. Growing up in a predominantly conservative christian home, the idea of being gay or anything close to it was a non-starter. It was a sin & a heavily condemned one, at that. As a result, any time a "gay thought" would pop up in my head, I tried to get it out of there as quick as possible. It became an instant reflex to keep that kind of thought out of my head. But I still would feel guilt for the thought, as well as guilt from "lusting" for women. My teens were a confusion time where I was discouraged from even considering an attraction for another gender while also being told I was TOO attracted to the "right" gender. Not a great situation, emotionally. Unfortunately, I suspect it's not an uncommon occurrence for kids growing up in strict christian homes. That said, I felt more comfortable exploring attraction & affection towards cisgendered women (even if it led to "sin" or whatever ugh) mainly because it was instilled in me by conservative christian culture that being gay was worse in the eyes of both God & the church congregation than sleeping with a woman before marriage. If you did that, the church congregation would murmur about you for a bit & engage in some form of slut-shaming hidden under the guise of "asking god for forgiveness." If you were gay? That was a disease. A sinful disease. You'd be quarantined, or ostracized, from that community unless they had the "grace" to help you get therapy to pray the gay away. So, being a massively horny but perpetually nervous teen, I chose to guiltily explore attraction to cis women & push everything else out. In college, my views on both religion & sexuality became more liberal. I no longer thought of being gay as a sin disease (although Sin Disease is a good name for a metal band, now that I think about it). This trend continued after college & beyond, to the point of total acceptance & support for the LGBTQIA community. Folks were gay (including several friends of mine) & that's cool. But I never thought about it for myself. I never allowed myself to really consider the possibility that I could be attracted to anyone else because I always struck the thought down when it popped up in my head. Even though I was no longer religious, I still carried that reflex I learned as a child years ago. The reflex that conservative Christianity taught & encouraged within me. I guess what I'm saying is that religious suppression is a powerful thing. And that only started to unravel for me late last year. I can't point to one thing that started the unraveling process because it really was a culmination of a bunch of different things (such as talking with some cool queer folks about their experiences & finally allowing myself to let in/process non-heteronormative thoughts). It was in late January where I first admitted out loud to one of my roommates that I was beginning to think that I wasn't actually straight. It was really hard for me to find the words for how I felt. None of the established labels (gay, bi, etc) felt 100 percent accurate for me. She actually helped point me toward the idea of pansexuality, which seemed closer to how I felt (I would later talk to some cool queer folks who helped verify some information about pansexuality, where it fit in the rainbow, etc). And a weird thing happened that night. I felt a weight lift off of me. It happened almost instantly. It was like a weight that I never knew was there. And I started crying. Was this what I was carrying with me for 29 years? Was that reflex to kick the idea of anything queer out of my head keeping this weight on me? Even now, with the large amounts of stress/worry that I feel on a day-to-day basis, I think about all of this & it feels like a bright spot in an otherwise dark world for me. Like, the world is going to shit, but I finally figured out this important truth about myself. Anyway, that's a lot of words up there. And I'm not done! I still need to tell you why I'm saying all of this! But I know this has been a long read, so feel free to run to the bathroom if you need to. It occurred to me that I might not be the only one in this situation. If conservative christian culture was able to burrow that repressive reflex that deep into me (so deep that it lasted years after I left the church), it had to do the same to other folks. Maybe there's someone reading this that hasn't even allowed themselves to consider their sexual identity. Maybe someone's reading that's just starting to ask some questions about their identity. If so, I want to tell you that it's okay to question & explore that side of yourself, even if you don't really have a name for it yet. I certainly didn't know what to call myself at first, other than "not straight". You're 100% not alone in this. I'm out here with you, grasping at bits of truth, filling in the gaps, & trying to find answers but feeling so much more free in the journey than I ever did in the comfort of what I knew. If you are in that situation, there are a lot of good resources to help you fill in the gaps & answer some of those lingering questions. If you have a friend in the LGBTQIA community, don't be afraid to ask them about their own experience. Talking with folks who had an experience coming to grips with their own queerness helped me quite a bit, even when our experiences were different. It's just nice to know you're not some unsolvable mystery & that this this thing (whatever you end up calling it) is a very positive thing. If you live in a big enough city, you probably have an equality center that provides resources, access to affordable counseling, support groups, & social events (where you can meet other folks within the community). If your city doesn't have something like that, there are online resources that can help as well. Here's a link for the GLBT National Help Center, in case you're in that situation: http://glbtnationalhelpcenter.org . Hopefully that ends up being helpful to anyone who needs it. It's 2018 & while there have been massive strides in LGBTQIA rights/visibility, there are still many ways in which members of the community are harmed & discriminated against (spearheaded largely by our current administration). We're not in a time where everyone everywhere can feel 100% safe openly exploring their sexual and/or gender identity. I'm a huge dummy in many respects, but if some of the information in this post helps someone feel less alone or points them in the right direction, then it'll be worth it. I realize that there are folks I know who hold more conservative views. They'll probably read all of this (or like, just the first two paragraphs lol) & decide I'm heading straight to hell. If they're being generous, they'll say that they're "praying for me" & pity me as another lost soul. Which, whatever. I'll be fine. If anything, I feel more free than I ever did repressing such a big part of myself. Plus, these are people who voted for Trump (& if they didn't, they are still largely okay with the gay-hating coward Mike Pence). So we're not gonna see eye-to-eye on this no matter what. 🤷‍♂️ Also they can fuck off. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ I guess that's all I have to say. If you stuck around & read all of this, I appreciate you indulging me as I tried to fumble around explaining myself. It's been about 5 months since I first came out to my roommate & I'm happy to finally share the good news with y'all. I'm going to my first ever Pride parade soon. It'll be my first time around a large gathering of queer folk. I normally don't really like being out in large groups (nor do I love highly corporate-sponsored events, which this surely will be). That being said, I'm really excited! I seriously can't wait for this. Probably because it feels like finally being united with a group you never knew you were a part of. It's an event specifically celebrating the idea that it's cool & good to be queer, to be part of this rainbow. For the first time in a long time, it feels like I'm moving in the right direction.

[haunthearted]

I wanted to recommend a very good website, especially to my trans, dysphoric or dissociative followers.

Gender Analysis is a very well researched, well-sourced website about the trans experience. I take whatever opportunities I can to write polite, good-faith, educational replies to people on Reddit who don't "get" trans things, and I always rely heavily on GA because whatever the topic, there will be an article filled with the original scientific papers rebutting transphobic viewpoints. It can also be useful for supporting conversations with parents/friends, because it has the primary research right there. For example, today I learnt that all the concept of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria ("my kid got a tumblr and now she says shes transgender because of peer pressure!") originated on three anti-trans websites, and despite its official-sounding name, has no research behind it. I knew that intellectually, but it's powerful to have the evidence clearly there for you.

Zinna Jones is one of the key writers there, and you may know her other work as she's been a prominent internet trans human for many years (how she has the courage and spoons for that, I will never know). One of her key experiences of gender dysphoria was depersonalisation: a weird, fuzzy, not-quite-thereness. On beginning hormones, it cleared up immediately: she had an "I didn't know what wrong felt like until I started feeling right" experience, as well you might if feeling oddly absent is your normal day-to-day experience. Because it wasn't a focus of how dysphoria was written about while she was coming up, she's done a lot of writing and research on it at Gender Analysis: describing what it felt like, researching comparable experiences in other trans narratives, and most recently trialing an anti-dissociative drug to see how it affected her.

Many of us come to ghosthood due to experiencing similar things to Jones - a not-quite-thereness, an oddness, a sense of timelessness and dislocation. Some of us very clearly associate it with trauma, a mental illness, or gender dysphoria; for others, it's just part of the fabric of life. I would like to recommend reading her posts on this particular topic to anyone who experiences something similar.

Now, if you relate to what she writes it doesn't mean you're transgender - don't panic - as varieties of depersonalisation can be a symptom of all sorts of other things - especially trauma and trauma-related conditions like BPD/CPTSD. But you might still find her descriptions useful.

On the other hand, if you are identifying as transgender and wondering if hormones are for you, you might find it validating or helpful.

(and because the world is horrible, there's no small chance that trans people are also traumatised. There's a great pair of posts that I'm sure you've already read, "That was dysphoria?" - but also her follow up, in which she re-experiences some of those symptoms as a depression.)

Finally, a recent post series explored an anti-depersonalisation drug, which you might be interested in exploring as an option for yourself. I had no idea there was such a thing!

In short, I was re-reading the archives this morning, and it occurred to me that a great many followers here might appreciate or find these posts useful. Make of them what you will, and best wishes to you all x

A tonne more thoughts after the cut:

This isn't meant to be "a trans blog", so I'm not going to focus on this too often. But certainly for me, Jones' posts really spoke to me and my experiences. I think there's a real danger in underselling how weird gender dysphoria feels. One sort of expects or assumes gender dysphoria is "I hate my breasts because I am a man"; there isn't so much written about how it can be "I'm tired, I don't really care, everything seems hollow and false, but I can't imagine life being any different because it's what I've always known, and it's not clearly anything to do with gender". That's been my experience - and it's incredibly hard to spot. I've been through six diagnoses since I was a teen (OCD, depression, anxiety, BPD, ADHD, autism), because while I've always been clearly unwell, it's hard to pinpoint gender dysphoria when it just manifests as brainweird, especially when that brainweird is you normal, as it was for Jones.   For example, I've never really recognised my own face in the mirror. Weird, but whatever. When I was considering hormones last year, I decided to take up weightlifting as part of my experimentation process. It would allow me to see how I felt about developing a more masculine body, in a controlled way, and as someone who *hates* exercise, it would also be a useful test of commitment: was I dysphoric enough to motivate me to go to the gym? Because if not, I probably was not dysphoric enough to transition either. Well, I went three times a week and followed the correct food recommendations for building muscle until I could no longer afford either; and then it happened. I looked in the mirror and it was like a visceral, immediate shock of recognition. And now I can't unsee it. Every time I look in the mirror, my brain immediately pings back "nice Robert Plant vibe you got there man", which is ridiculous; no one else on the planet would see me and think that. But that very small amount of muscle, and slightly-more-masculine-shoulder/arm-profile, was enough to make my brain recognise itself for the first time.

Sometimes you don't understand what "wrong" feels like until you have "right" to compare it to.

(I think those of us with early experience of abuse might also relate to that; the way that being loved and respected by a good person later in life can be both shocking, and bring on a period of processing and heavy reflection because it illustrates how very wrongly you were treated before. Even if you know it intellectually,  just the experience can be profound. Certainly, I've got a few experiences of not-being-taken-advantage-of which were absolutely shattering, like I was being taught how to love myself for the first time.)

And as you might expect, I'm also feeling very reluctant to pursue transition. This sort of nebulous dysphoria is, well - . I envy very much the "I knew I was trans from the moment I hit puberty because I hated the gender I was living in" people, who clearly see gender as their problem. It's very hard to contemplate something as life-changing as transition when its motivated by an increasing certainty that the only cure for my incurable mental ill is a different hormone balance, and as many days I have where I ask myself why I didn't transition 5 years ago already, I have others where I know I'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming through the process as my last resort.

Like, a few years ago I was at a "Even if I am transgender, I think I'd rather live as a woman [for reasons]" point; and now I'm at a "I would still rather live as a woman, but I am desperate to have enough disposable income to buy a really nice set of towels and maybe transition would make me well enough to not only work, but have a real career, and maybe I could buy a car, and go on holiday, and start buying tailored clothes instead of charity shop, and maybe redecorate my house in faux-Victorian style, and I really don't care if everybody hates me and I no longer have a coherently cisgender body, I would do anything to be able to afford unusual cheeses and teas rather than subsisting on stew" point. It sounds so shallow, but there it is; because so many of the problems I have don't feel dysphoria-related, because I'm only understanding them as dysphoria-related because nothing else has made an impact, my focus is increasingly on the little things in life I want to achieve, and maybe could achieve if my brainweird was fixed. I'm now fairly sure that if/when I do transition physically, I'll continue to recognise myself more, and realise how much of an impact physical dysphoria was having.

But it's what I know. And like Hamlet says, easier to bear the struggles we know than fly to others that we know not of.

Sidenote:

Intermittently, you'll see approaches which try to set up trans or mentally ill people as enemies to otherkin people, like the two experiences cannot co-exist, or like otherkin people ought to take the fall for the way transphobic use them as an anti-trans "gotcha". I personally find this very frustrating: I prefer approaches which are open, rather than closed off. Many/most of my followers here are either trans, mentally ill, have trauma, experience dysphoria or some other unspecified bodyweird/brainweird. In real life, I have four otherkin/therian/furry friends - and they too all meet that description. {There are also many otherkin who see their history as spiritual or religious, who aren't trans/mentally ill/traumatised, or who don't really know the source of their experiences - all of which is also OK!}.

I would always prefer to take a holistic and compassionate approach to the way experiences can overlap, rather than a combatative/competitive/polarised one; any hostile or fightin' talk messages/replies will be ignored, blocked or deleted as appropriate, because that's not a value I have for my online space. Although I'm open to discussing or exploring it, so please don't hold back if you want to talk about your experiences in good faith.

In short, there is a fairly significant overlap between people who come to identify as transgender/dysphoric/mentally ill, and those who come to identify as otherkin, or who might temporarily identify with one of those experiences while figuring things out  - and this post is for them. Politics makes things sound so simple and clean-cut, but people are messy and complex, and I'd much rather help individuals navigate and explore their experiences - even if they are contradictory, or don't support my political goals. Trying to figure out brainweird and bodyweird is challenging enough, without making people tread on eggshells during the process.

[alltheworldsrpg-blog]

WELCOME TO ROSWELL, ZARA RHODES!!

ADMIN CAMERON: What caught my attention about Zara was how carefully she was written, The Halogen’s past can go south very easily and you were able to handle that with grace. The plot section of your app really gives me confidence about her future growth as a character, and her dynamic with The Pulsar is everything I was looking for and some. 

You’ve been accepted as THE HALOGEN with the faceclaim of JESSICA DE GOUW. Please follow all rules and regulations as laid out by the Roswell Town Council, especially concerning any non pre-approved biologic. All UFO’s outside of city limits must be stickered or will be towed. Enjoy your stay in the first city of extraterrestrials.

OUT OF CHARACTER.

NAME/ALIAS + PRONOUNS:

Riley, he/him

AGE:

18+

TIMEZONE + ACTIVITY:

GMT. I don’t know about numbers, but I’m usually active every couple of days at least. I might not always be on tumblr because it’s blocked at work but I tend to write in notepad then post when I get home during quiet spells, and I’m off on Wednesdays and weekends.

TRIGGERS:

Removed for privacy. 

ANYTHING ELSE?:

I like sci-fi, superheroes and social justice. And I love this rp.

IN CHARACTER.

SKELETON TITLE:

The Halogen

FULL NAME:

Zara Rhodes – Zara means to blossom, I chose it because she’s only just starting to figure out who she is and developing into that person. Her motives might have been selfish and not entirely pure but she’s still growing. I chose the name Rhodes because I liked the sound of it and it summons images of loftiness and pretentiousness in my head.

GENDER + PRONOUNS:

Cisgender female, she/her

SEXUAL + ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:

Panromantic Pansexual

DATE OF BIRTH + AGE:

26 years old, July 13 2033, I chose Cancer as her star sign because they’re described as being inconsistent, difficult to predict, and seeking adventure but also security and that they keep others guessing and that’s how I picture her character.

OCCUPATION:

Law student

FACECLAIM:

Jessica De Gouw

BIOGRAPHY:

London has always been a city of immigrants, home of people from all backgrounds and walks of life, but the London Zara was born in fostered a different kind of immigration. She shared playgrounds with alien children (from the other side of the park, at her mother’s insistence), and she sat near them on the train (only when there were no other seats left, and even then her father would shield her as if she were some kind of fragile thing). From childhood, Zara knew two things; that aliens were part of life and that this was a bad thing.

She was eleven when her famous, wedding photographer father was all over the internet headlines because he’d famously refused to photograph an alien couple’s wedding. To Zara, it wasn’t such a big deal. It was his business and he should be allowed to run it the way he wanted. Her parents were business-people and it was their right to refuse those who weren’t technically human. After all, human rights laws didn’t exactly cover them. Her parents sheltered her from mixing with them as best they could, but that changed when she moved away, went to the United States for college.

Zara had lived in her dorm for only a day when her room mate casually dropped the fact they were a Centaurian in conversation. Zara was less than pleased. She made no attempt to hide her anti alien rhetoric, with slogans on shirts and posters on walls that could be classed as hate speech. She attended anti alien rallies, even tried to get them kicked out of school. She would get irritated when her room mate didn’t recognize her photographs at the campus gallery shows, even more irritated that they could hardly enjoy her work at all. After all, she was the human, and wasn’t this supposed to be all about her?

It would have been so easy to switch rooms. Her parents could even have afforded a fancy little apartment for her, and the room mate never moved either, intent on being ‘tolerant and understanding’. Zara’s motivations were less pure. She was determined to show her alien room mate a better way of life, to ‘tame’ them, and so it was almost ironic that she was the one who ended up being the student and the Centaurian the teacher. It took weeks, months, even years of debates, philosophical conversations, compassion and understanding that Zara probably didn’t deserve, but eventually it started to sink in. Aliens were a little different, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with them. They could be friends. They could even be people you fell in love with, and boy, did Zara fall hard.

She was ashamed. She felt an intense need to make up for her actions, her blindness. Zara switched her major, choosing to pursue criminal justice as a pre-requisite for law school instead of the photography and artistic focus she’d held at the behest of her parents. Her parents didn’t take too kindly to it, especially when they discovered her reasons. She got the impression they thought she would grow out of it. But she never did. Zara used their last name to get some galleries interested in her photography and began selling it to make up for the money they were no longer so keen to send her. She even started her own online store. She wanted to be important in a different way, like her room mate was. She wanted to be an activist.

Zara never got the chance to truly share her feelings with her room mate even when graduation turned into summer turned into them renting a place together as ‘friends’. There might have been some flirting and some drunk confessions, but Zara pretends not to remember. For now. She doesn’t want to rock the boat on their living situation, and she tells herself that having recently been accepted into law school means she doesn’t have time for a relationship just yet anyway, but it’s all just an excuse. Really, she’s just waiting for the perfect moment, and she has no idea that the moment might not turn out to be perfect after all. Because the world isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s pretty broken, and Zara has yet to see just how deep the cracks go.

MUSING + HEAD-CANONS.

HEAD-CANONS:

I imagine Zara to be kind of like that activist with the best of intentions but she’s still learning. She’s come from a place of privilege with well-off human parents, upper middle class, white, and for most of her life she didn’t acknowledge or think about that. She’s only just starting out on this new journey. She’s growing as a person but she’s still in that sort of awkward stage where she doesn’t know when to talk and when to listen, and she also kind of turns her activism into a display, with social media posts etc.

Is a total pinterest ho and she loves those studyspo style pics.

Kind of a hipster.

But good intentions and has a lot of room for affection in her heart, even if it’s currently misplaced.

Zara was loved and a little spoiled as a kid. She wasn’t raised to have responsibility. She wasn’t punished for messing up and she didn’t have many rules. Who she is now is a result of the effect this can have on a child and their development so that its even affecting them as an adult in their mid 20s. Responsibility is starting to catch up with her and I find that a fascinating theme to explore. You can’t go through life as a free spirit not caring about anything in the long term, because then when you care about something completely, like Zara does now with Pulsar, then it’s kind of like a sensory overload that she doesn’t know how to handle, and now that she’s learning, for lack of a better term, social justice, she’s sort of diving in at the deep end and doesn’t really realise it takes time to be a good ally.

Her favourite color is blue, but she also likes blacks and greys. She likes pastel colors and a soothing aesthetic from her surroundings. She likes things to be neat and in order.

She still keeps up with photography, but primarily as a hobby. Selling her photos sometimes earns her a bit of pocket money and she still has her online store, but she doesn’t do much new photography for profit any more. Saying that, she’s happy to lend a hand and take snaps for the student paper or websites at local protests etc.

PLOTS + CONNECTIONS:

I want to explore the balance between responsibility and the impulsive artistic nature she has. She’s creative and intellectual, she believes so deeply in fate and chances, in a way that could something her mind used in the past to absolve her of her responsibility. She goes where her heart and impulse tells her which can be a dangerous way to live and that I feel has kind of come back to bite her now that she’s only just learning how to be a responsible adult.

The problem with being ruled by your heart and not your head is that it can get you in trouble, as you’re living a life without balance. If she’s taking her balance and the idea of morality from Pulsar that means it could be seen as a co-dependent relationship, which isn’t healthy either, but there’s also something about her and Pulsar that’s very pure and real too. Basically she’s a mess of contradictions. I love when characters have such realistic faults and they’re all rounded characters. She’s a free spirit and yet also has this dark side to her that’s capable of jealousy and insecurity and bitterness. It just feels like the realistic faults and struggles real people have, so I want to explore those.

Right now she doesn’t have any awareness of the fact Pulsar doesn’t feel the same way about her. She’s got a kind of confidence and sort of detachment from reality that she hasn’t picked up on any subtle cues that might have been dropped, but also the skeleton implies Pulsar might be leading her on a bit, which gives a few various avenues to explore when Zara actually finds out about it. I can see her reacting in a few different ways. She’s probably initially going to be pretty angry and upset. She’s going to be jealous of anyone Pulsar might be spending time with, but she doesn’t want to push the issue so she would instead focus on being angry that Pulsar wasn’t honest with her from the beginning.

I think it’s important not to fall into the trope of “I became a better person for you, so you owe me your love” especially as in this situation, Zara is sort of in the position of the oppressor, but I do think it might take her a bit of time to accept the reality of the situation because she’s so used to people fawning over her and thinking she’s fantastic. I want to try and find a balance between her disappointment and her spoiled attitude but also the fact she does respect Pulsar as a person and their free will.

I’d like to see her be exposed to some of the resistance people and be a little shocked and have her eyes opened about what a different form of activism looks like. It can be dark and gritty. It isn’t always sitting in a classroom learning about alien rights laws and spouting philosophy.

I’d also like her to come into contact with the anti alien people who she used to pal around with and who she turned her back on when she started listening to Pulsar and fell in love.

Those are the sort of connections I can see her building too. She’s kind of in an interesting position being that she’s touched on and has the ability to be part of both worlds. She tries to stay clear of the anti alien people now, but it would be interesting for some of them to try and tempt her back in, and especially if they do it to sort of take advantage of her being upset after she learns about Pulsar not reciprocating her feelings. Contrast to that, the types of aliens or alien supporters who use a more radical form of approach than Pulsar does I’d love to see her interact with and see how she responds to that.

WRITING SAMPLE:

Removed for privacy.

ETC:

https://ru.pinterest.com/mccluskry/zara/  Pinterest for her

http://vigilantwriter.tumblr.com/tagged/insp%3A-zara and my muse tag for her including some edits (its a queue so the tag will get bigger as my queue posts them)

[orangepunkwitch-blog]

Okay guys, if anybody can interpret dreams, I’d like your help.  However, this will be an 18+ post because of what’s involved, so... Gonna have a “keep-reading” thing involved.  (Sorry for posting this here, but I don’t know where else to turn, and no site that I google answers my question.)

Some of you might be aware that my dream environments either change or they’re only set in the house I grew up in.  However, when privacy becomes an issue in my dreams, it’s always set in the house I grew up in.  I’m going to give some backstory on said house to avoid some confusion.

The house I grew up in was built in the very late Victorian era and was meant for a landlord and a tenant to live there.  This is why there is a kitchen upstairs and downstairs, etc.  Both floors are also a loop-around, meaning I could walk into the front door and stand in front of the staircase, walk to the right and walk through a bedroom, through another door to end up in the living room, go left and end up in the hall way, keep going down the hallway and I’m back at the staircase (with some other rooms, but they’re not required to be trekked through to complete the loop-around).  The loop-around upstairs goes through my old room and the upstairs bathroom.  This means that both my old room and the bathroom have two entrances.  Both sets of doors can be locked from within their respective rooms and not from the outside.

Now, onto the dream part that’s 18+...

My mind has been obsessed with sex since I first masturbated as a damn teenager.  After the first couple of years of masturbating in my life, a recurring theme happens in my dreams: there is no such thing as privacy when I try to basically go fuck myself.  And it’s goddamn irritating.

Before I continue with the details as to how I get no privacy when doing this, I’d like to expand a bit on my relationship with my parents regarding privacy.  When I was REALLY little, my mom somehow found out some of the wrong things I did as a child and I got in trouble (this stopped being a thing before I became a teenager and was far more careful; the times I’ve mentioned of mom finding shit out, I was super damn little, so I was probably oblivious to my surroundings and shit).  One time in gradeschool, I got into a fight with my dad about something and tried to hide in my room so he wouldn’t beat my ass.  I locked myself into my room, and he kicked the door open, so the door wouldn’t properly lock (but it did stay closed) from the hallway into my room.  And that was it.  Those were the only times I had any real serious privacy invasions.  But these dreams didn’t start up until college and on an almost constant (even now) basis.  (I graduated high school in 2007, I’m gonna be 28 this month; just giving you an idea of a timeline here.  Also, yes, I have anxiety, but can’t afford to see a professional about it, and I think my anxiety is circumstantial rather than chemical.)

‘Kay, so.. the dreams..

Regardless of whether or not I have the same genitalia I have now or I magically grew a damn penis (I’m cisgender, and the genital part doesn’t bother me in the slightest), all I want is to get relief.  This in and of itself can stem from the fact that I’m obsessed with the topic of sex, sometimes masturbating IRL almost any chance that  get just because that I want to.  (Sorry for TMI, just trying to help dream interpreters out with as much info as I find relevant.)  So when I want relief in my dream, I either go to the bathroom or my bathroom.

The doors won’t stay fucking shut.  Or they shrink to where they’re laughably small and it’s like “why have doors at all if they’re gonna be so dam tiny like that?”  And when the doors come open again they go back to their original size.  Even locking them does not help.  Putting objects in the way does not help.  And the times that they do stay closed?  It’s either my parents or an unknown person just barges in and gets all up in my business wanting to know what i’m doing or about to do.  Like, fuck off.  I just wanna fuck myself.  But I cannot find the words to even say that.

Thing is, here in my adult life, even in college, I had all the privacy in the world.  And it didn’t become so damn common in my dreams between living in the dorms and living in my own apartment with my husband.

And this isn’t my own privacy issue in my dreams.  If I have to pee, privacy disappears.  If it’s in the bathroom in the house I grew up in, the toilet becomes small, non-existent, or some ceramic hole in the floor that I can never squat properly over (and again, doors won’t stay fucking shut).  But most of the time, it’s a bathroom stall in a location I cannot name (because that detail slips from memory, of course).  The bathroom stall shrinks before I know it, hugging me tightly and coming up to my waist and the toilet becomes the size of a polly-pocket.  And I’m also naked, for whatever goddamn reason.  And I don’t even have anxiety problems when I fucking pee or anything IRL.  And there’s always a fuck ton of people in the public bathroom.

But, of course, most of my dreams are me trying to masturbate and never getting any privacy, despite how shameless I am to speak of masturbation.  And the latest trend is when I vocally go, “why won’t the doors stay fucking shut”, my guts will be in a fuck ton of pain.  No idea why on that, but lately I’ve been bitching about the doors not staying closed in my dreams, and this results in me feeling pain.  Lovely.

So, dream-interpreters who happen to be reading this, what do you think?  A friend of mine things that this is some deep-rooted anxiety issues, but wasn’t able to help much beyond that.  I agree with her, but the symbolism can speak volumes and add onto that.  My sex life while living in the apartment with my husband was very frequent (damn near every night) and very enjoyable.  We don’t have it much as of late because we’re either too hungry (’cuz we’re poor at the moment) or one of us isn’t feeling very well (thanks to life stresses).  So it can’t be an unsatisfying sex life, or else this would’ve been a recent couple of years thing.  My husband doesn’t have a problem with me masturbating, and I even text him a heads up when he’s on his way home from work so he can give me privacy, and he’s totally fine about that.  So I know it’s got nothing to do with him.  I don’t know if it has anything to do with my parents, especially since they don’t barge into my room now that I’m an adult.  *shrug*  

Sorry, I didn’t know where else to turn after searching the internet for answers.  :/

[piratefalls]

posting because my friend @ampersandy doesn’t have facebook anymore.

this is what i took from my experience at my local women’s march.

--

When I debated going back to college – a luxury I am lucky to have, especially with the knowledge that I will not be accruing new debt – I struggled with where I wanted my education to go. I had no idea what area of study I wanted to fall in, having too many interests that rarely intersect to decide on just one department. I applied anyway, knowing that at least being accepted gave me more options than I had as someone on the outside looking in. Most of the classes I was interested in were full by the time I was allowed to register, and one of the only classes left that I had any interest in was a Gender and Women’s Studies course titled: “Queer Lives, Queer Politics.”

After yesterday, I don’t believe that this was in any way a coincidence.

All semester long I learned about power structures, both social and legislative, that put certain groups of people at a disadvantage the further they are from that power source. That power source, generally speaking, is a white, able-bodied, straight, cisgender male. Are you a person of color? Take a step back. Are you employed? If you are, stay put. If not, take a step back. Are you poor? Take another step back. Are you disabled? How’s your access to healthcare? Higher education? Take a step back for every one of these things you do not have at your fingertips. That is your relationship to power and the people who have the most influence. I want to make this post, and my experience at yesterday’s Women’s March on Champaign-Urbana, about those power structures.

Yesterday, I stood in a muddy park on an unseasonably warm, beautiful January afternoon, surrounded by women of color, of different ability, of different socioeconomic status, of varying levels of education, women who are transgender, and I listened. I was given a reminder that I desperately needed.

This is about more than just fair wages, but I want to break something down here really quick. I know everyone gets tired of hearing the phrase: “for every dollar that a man makes, a woman makes $0.79.” This is both true and misleading. For every dollar that a man makes, a woman does make less. The year after President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act (2010), the statistics broke down as follows:

White men: 100 Black men: 74.5 Hispanic men: 65.9 White women: 80.5 Black women: 69.6 Hispanic women: 59.8

Wage discretion is real, but it is more real for people of color than it is for me.

This is about more than just sexual assault and rape. Now, if you know me at all, you know that violence against women is an issue I hold close to my heart, for reasons that don’t need to be rehashed here. But when we think about sexual assault and rape, what is the kind of person who comes to mind when you think of a victim? If you pay attention to the media at all, you probably imagine a white woman in her 20s. What they don’t tell you is that while 80% of all victims are white, minorities are somewhat more likely to be attacked. This breaks down as follows:

All: 17.6% (approx. 1 in 5) White: 17.7% Black: 18.8% Asian/Pacific Islander: 6.8% American Indian/Alaskan: 34.1% Mixed Race: 24.4%

And that doesn’t even include rape and sexual assault committed against men. Yes, women can be rapists too. According to a 2002 NCVS report, one in every eight rape victims were male. When we have a conversation about sexual assault and what needs to be done to end rape culture, we must include ALL victims, not just women. This also does not include rape and sexual assault committed against members of the trans community, which most studies reveal a whopping 50% will experience sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.

This is about more than reproductive rights. This is about access to life-saving healthcare. Viagra and vasectomies are covered by insurance plans, and no one bats an eye. When women want access to birth control, suddenly everyone is in a tizzy. You see what I’m getting at here? Dudes want to prevent pregnancy and that’s fine, but when we want to take control of our ability to get pregnant, suddenly we’re making irrational choices and need the government to intervene. Never mind the fact that the pill is not prescribed SOLELY to prevent pregnancy, but is also used in treatments for endometriosis, PCOS, and adult acne.

Also, please do actual research on Planned Parenthood, because they really are an incredible organization that provides sex education, whose goal is to reduce teen pregnancy through education, and provide women – a good portion of whom are low income and cannot afford hospital visits – with quality preventative healthcare like pap smears, mammograms, cancer screenings, and STD testing. If you can’t do it right now, that’s fine. In the meantime, let me give you a short primer: taxpayer money does not pay for abortions because Title X exists, abortions are 3% of their total services, and someone getting an abortion is none of your damn business anyway.

This is about more than just an Electoral College-elected leader we feel does not represent us. Or, at least, represents some of us. “How did this happen?” we kept asking ourselves on November 9. “Aren’t we better than this?” I thought we were, too. But, again, that’s my privilege speaking.

However – and this is something I find incredibly interesting – the exit polls of this most recent election tell a very interesting story. Most of the people I saw on Facebook after the election who were angry, or saddened, or just lamenting the fact that we’d elected probably the least qualified individual in recent history to our highest government position, were predominantly white. You want to know who put him in office? Predominantly white people. Exit polls in CNN show that 62% of white men and 52% of white women voted for Trump, with only 7% and 5% voting for neither candidate or not voting at all, respectively. Everyone else – black men and women, Latino men and Latina women, and other minority groups – overwhelmingly voted Clinton or didn’t vote for either/vote at all. I’m still trying to parse how I feel about this one, honestly, but I’m sure I’ll let you guys know when I figure it out.

I wanted to believe that we were better than a person who sought to divide us under the guise of making this country great again. America is, and can be, great, despite the fact that its history has not always been great. I know, I know, “We weren’t part of slavery, so why do I still have to defend myself against it? I didn’t kill all those Native Americans when Columbus sailed the ocean blue!”

First of all, DUH. You were born in 1993. This is hardly something I can put solely on your shoulders. BUT - and this is the part we struggle with - these terrible things ARE part of this country’s history, and we DO have to own that. Do we have to be proud of it? No. In fact, I’d encourage you to not be proud of it. However, as a historical moment, are we not supposed to learn from it? Are we not meant to arm ourselves with information so that we do not repeat what’s been done? That is why these conversations still take place: because we keep forgetting.

What this is about is togetherness. This is about recognizing where your place is in this world and using it in whatever way you can to lift up those who are not as fortunate as you. This is about the importance of mobilization. It is about feminism that is not limited to just white women, but is inclusive of all people regardless of gender expression, sexual orientation, race, creed, socioeconomic status, and physical ability. This is about the importance of knowing when to speak and when to sit down and listen; the importance of me, as a white woman, knowing my place at a table that is not designed to make me feel comfortable, or congratulate me for finally catching up with everyone else, but rather teach me how I can be better even if it involves hearing hard truths. My job, as a white woman, is to listen, to get educated, and to amplify the voices of women and men throughout history that our textbooks have silenced for far too long.

This is about learning the meaning of true ally-ship, that not all things are about you, but are about others and how you can do something that benefits them. Being an ally is hard work, and it’s supposed to be. We must not let our sisters be swept aside because of their skin, or their queerness, or their religion or ability or the life she chooses to lead. We must embrace them, encourage them, raise their voices when they are not being heard. True equality cannot be achieved until we are ALL equal players on the same field, in all facets of life, status, and government. We do not yet have these things.

Being brave is not about convenience. Being brave means stepping up to the plate even when it’s hard, when there’s nothing in it for you, when it scares you. Being brave is a lot of things, but it has never been, nor will it ever be, easy. I will be the first to admit that I have not always been brave. But I am going to try. I’m going to get more involved. I’m going to be a voice, a mouthpiece for other women who need to be heard much more than I do.

Whether you believe it or not, as a white individual, you ARE privileged. Having the luxury of not noticing that privilege is something women of color, trans women, poor women, and disabled women do not have.

At the end of all of this, all I’m asking is that you think about where you stand in this world, and the power you hold simply by existing. Have you ever gone to sleep wondering where your next meal will come from? Have you ever gone to sleep cold because you couldn’t pay your bills? Have you ever missed out on important moments in your kid’s lives because you had to work to make sure they were fed? Have you ever been followed around in a shopping mall because someone decided that YOU were the sketchy person they needed to police that day? If you haven’t experienced these things, you might be privileged.

The question is: what will you do with it?

[suiciderealestate]

I hope you’re doing well at a time when so many of us are not. I have to admit I didn’t think Hanna’s party would be the last place I would see you. I should have had more foresight, and even when I left without saying goodbye I knew I had made a mistake as soon as the door closed behind me. I should have known how precarious my situation was and how little time we probably had left together. I think you knew it and I knew it, but I was in denial of it. I became angry with you that night because one of the first things you said to me was that things would be ok if I left, that I could have the last of the two photographs of us from that night on Halloween before everything went to shit. I know you only meant to be reassuring, but it felt like you were rushing me out the door. I was reminded that in some way your kindness was a favor to me, based probably to some extent on a sense of pity you feel toward me. You didn’t need the keepsakes of our time together because you felt, maybe rightly, that they would mean more to me than they could ever mean to you. You didn’t need me. I was the only one who needed you. Any affection between us was a favor you were doing for me, which you made clear to everyone during the pregame to my "gone" party. And so I lost it, and I made such a scene when I should have instead recognized that you’re just a sweet, stupid boy who knows not what he does. You plod blindly forward and do your best to make people happy, and for me maybe your best would never be enough. I left New York two weeks ago. With the pandemic outbreak that followed I guess my timing was pretty good. There are a lot of cases in the Nashville area, too, but it feels safer here. 

Last night I had a dream about you, that we were together at work and having fun, that you knew I loved you and I knew I loved you and that it was just ok. I find myself missing you and wishing you missed me. You never once have messaged me first, ever in the course of our relationship, which is more telling than any empty words we ever exchanged about our connection, and so this deluge of sentiment feels all the more futile. If you won’t text or call me during a quarantine, when would you ever? You wouldn’t. But today I was watching a documentary on Netflix about Ivan the Terrible, the Nazi gas chamber sadist who gleefully murdered thousands of jews at a death camp in Poland. In the documentary they showed pictures of the piles of bodies and one of the bodies had a face that looked like yours. That sent my mind reeling what with all the news coverage of the pandemic and the rising body counts that only seem to multiply after the hospital beds run out. My mom told me a 25-year-old man in New Jersey with sandy blond hair who was handsome and had been a lacrosse player had fallen into a coma because of the virus. Once again I thought of you, and my quiet panic became a little louder. I was going through pictures the other day and found some I took of you during the Halloween party. Our relationship was good then, and I am reminded frequently that I ruined it. 

That being said, I wrote the following letter to you shortly after I confessed my feelings for you in their entirety on Sammi’s birthday, because my timing is always so incredibly dramatic. I kept the letter to myself because I knew it would put a strain on our relationship and I figured that at least the process of writing it would be therapeutic. You wrote your letter to Hanna. I wrote my letter to you. But when I had my little outburst at Hanna's party I nullified any preservative effect keeping this letter from you would have had, and by now my need for an elusive catharsis has only grown. You seem perfectly content to let me float away because maybe you have rightly determined that there is really nothing you can do for me. Your stated goal is not to love me but to help me, because what you harbor for me might most accurately be described as a simple kind of good will, and though you might have called it love once before out of a sense of obligation, I think it probably more closely resembles guilt. Since I don’t really see a scenario in which we will exchange easy communication at any point in the future, I have decided to let you have access to this letter. I am afraid to let you see the ugly extent of the length of my thoughts about you and how all of this ties knots in my mind, and so I am doing it in spite of that fear.  Even four months later most of the sentiments expressed here still hold true. I love you very much, David. As the world boils around us, I think of you every single day. If I ever see you again, I pray it will be under better circumstances. I still don’t know what those circumstances could possibly be, but if you ever find that you need me, I will be here for you until the day I die. Maybe after. 

- Mark

Dear David,

I am writing you this letter now because I have nothing else to lose, and it may be that I decided to leave Pier so I could write you this letter without any perpetuated emotional consequence. In writing this I only intend to share with you a truth that is often too difficult to voice, although we have already had a conversation in person that, while it devastated me because of my own frailties, gave me a newfound clarity that I think will allow me to say what I really mean. I still run your words through my mind like a comb over and over again. “I love you. You’re my best friend. We’re perfect for each other. I’m straight, and that’s where the wall is. I’m sorry.” My body is once again my greatest enemy.

You have always expressed a willingness to accept other people for who they are, and so I am going to do my best to tell you who I am, to get it all down here without the risk of sobbing uncontrollably into the crook of your neck in the pouring rain. It’s hard to get these thoughts out sometimes in a way that doesn’t feel self-indulgent. Sometimes I sit and talk to myself in the shower, talk to a version of someone else sitting there with me, sometimes me, sometimes God, sometimes other people. Today I sat and talked to you, and I guess it wouldn’t be the first time. Under the water, the words come more easily. I don’t know what it is about warm water that allows me to say anything I want to without difficulty, but as soon as I try to channel those thoughts afterward, it feels clunky and masturbatory, like I’m writing to appease something hungry inside of me that doesn’t know what it wants or simply can’t be sated.

I have come to understand life as a series of outer illusions that can ultimately be synthesized into a fundamental inner illusion. Physicality sets the parameters of our waking experience, the rules and guidelines by which we conduct ourselves in our mad spiral into oblivion, but I believe that the material world is carefully designed, and sometimes the design is specifically intended to obscure certain truths, or at least engender an experience that wouldn’t be possible if everything were made to be obvious. For me, the dichotomy of every human can be haphazardly reduced to body and spirit in a variety of fluid combinations that are rarely understood as they are. At our most basic physical levels, we are male and female, and our compatibility is governed by the nature of our spiritual and physical magnetism. 

I have lived my entire life as a cisgender man, meaning a man who presents himself as a man to the world, as by now you well understand. But for me, on an emotional level, our conventions of sexuality and gender are painfully reductive. Emotionally, I experience myself more within the feminine archetype, perhaps not as a female per se because my body is male and at this point we’re dealing mostly in the semantics of sex, but as a spirit who would maybe feel more at home in a female body and the conventions afforded to it. Emotionally I understand myself as female. Physically, I accept that I am male, but I don’t think it defines me or my compatibility with other people. I am also aware that I cannot impose my own conceptions of my personal eligibility for unconditional romantic love and affection onto other people.

When I confessed the extent of my love for you on Sammi’s birthday, you showed me real compassion. You are such a sweet boy, such a kind man, and I think that’s what makes me love you so much in the first place. I thought your emotional depth and kindness would allow you to experience me as the person I am, but you insist that you are heterosexual, a label that continues to mystify me, perhaps because I am so removed from it. Sexuality, for me, is more about intimacy than it is about penetration or anything else, but I admit that up to this point in my life I have also had a preference. To be honest, there is a part of me that understands where you’re coming from when you call yourself “straight.” Sex between a man and a woman makes perfect sense, whereas everything else sometimes seems like a misguided physical improvisation, as you often alluded to with your jokes about “fudgepackers” and whatever else. But when I feel that way, I remind myself that the most important element of sex is emotional intimacy. Sex isn’t just fucking. Sometimes it’s just stripping yourself down and being physically and emotionally naked with another person. I think I emotionally denuded myself around you, and to some extent I feel that you reciprocated. To me it just seems strange that two people can be completely naked with each other in one way and not in another. The disconnect doesn’t make sense to me, and it is that disconnect that has brought me so much sorrow.

I can continue to wax poetic. I can continue to wax academic. The ultimate problem is that words are never enough. They’re just little boxes that can only ever be approximations of true meaning — an apt analogue to so many other things — but sometimes true meaning can only be conveyed instinctively, telepathically, empathically. Throughout all this, I guess I just wanted you to see me and experience me as I see and experience myself. I felt like that was within you. Maybe you only ever wanted the same courtesy from me. I’m sorry if I fell short. I know you have strong ideas about who you are and who you’re planning to be. I don’t want to dictate your future. I only ever wanted this present moment with you, to love and worship you as the man I adore so much. You may have shortcomings, but they never distracted me from your essential manhood: your work ethic, your reliability, your deep ability to step outside of yourself and be vulnerable and emotional with other people. I loved you for everything you are, and nothing in the construct of your being seemed flawed, only human and worthy of love.

People spend a great deal of their lives wanting to live up to a version of themselves that they aspire toward. I wanted to worship that hidden part of you that lives beneath it. I wish that through my love I could make you feel more like a man, but I fear that you see any prospective intimacy with me as a subversion of the man you want to be. I’ve seen this complex for my entire life, and by staring into that void I think I’ve developed my own complex from it, reliving the rejection I suffered when I was younger over and over again, perhaps on purpose.  I’ve known deep connections with several men, some that manifested sexually, some that didn’t, but the meat puppet my soul resides in has never measured up to the vision they have for themselves, of who they’re supposed to be. It has happened repeatedly, but it never fails to break my heart every time. There are only so many times a person can break before they become broken. I had to leave Pier because every time I looked at you I felt those deep cuts. I felt how close we could have been. I love you and I believe you love me, and all I really wanted was a chance to validate that love and let it have its moment. How long that moment would have lasted is another question, but I don’t think real love can be measured by time.

The politics of identity that are put upon us as a society preempt those visceral connections far too often. When you pulled me in and held me and let me kiss your neck in the pouring rain, almost insisted on it, I could feel the way you are at war with yourself, just as we all are in some way or another at war with ourselves. Not whether you’re gay or straight, but whether or not your manhood could be eclipsed by the expanse of your emotional debt to other people. You want that same intimacy. You need it. You just don’t want to be gay. I don’t think you’re gay. I don’t even really know what it means to be gay. Gay is just one more word we get lost in. I don’t find myself attracted to most gay men. I don’t experience a fatal attraction to penises. The reason I identify as gay is because it makes it easier to conceptualize myself in a way that is simply more convenient for everyone. The reason I don’t identify as a  trans woman is because I don’t think I should have to change my body or the way I dress for my inner feminine vibration to be validated. Womanhood is too often dictated by the standards of our patriarchal society, and I was born with a gift that exempted me from those standards. And yet, perhaps the fetish of most men is adherence to the rules or an assimilated distortion of them. It is a fetish I cannot fulfill. 

I think the only wall between us lives in your mind. I think you have an idea of who you are and who you are supposed to be, and I think you would go to great lengths to protect that idea, because it’s all you know and it’s what you have been raised to know and it’s what you feel safe in. You are not your father. You are not just a product of your environment. You aren’t just a regular, typical white boy, as you’ve described yourself so many times. You are so much more and I feel it so much within you. Words and bodies and conventions are certainly walls that exist between us, but they can and should be broken down. The essence of the material world is spirit, energy, and the resonation of that energy. That is what sex and love really are. Not a 10- or 20-year plan. Not a haircut you can lean on for the rest of your life. Not a place to hide in New Jersey until the world burns. Not a stable woman who is only stable because she has had the unparalleled luxury of being able to be at rest in her body. I would never ask you to plan your entire future around me. I just hoped that one day you would let me love you without restraint. Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe what we’ve already had is enough. You told me that maybe in the next life we could be together, and while I believe in the scientific and spiritual precept that energy and by extension matter cannot be created or destroyed, I don’t know how our energy will transform when our bodies die. All I know is that we have this energy now. We have this connection now. Now is truly all we have.

I will always be your friend. Of course we’re friends. You’ve done me no wrong and have only ever been intoxicatingly kind to me, and I’m sorry if sometimes my resentments become evident, maybe painfully so. I resent the world we live in. I resent the language our society bestows upon our bodies and how they relate to who we are. I resent the conventions that kill so many easy connections between people. I resent the walls that are built around us, that we build around ourselves, yours and mine. But beneath all that resentment, I love you very much, and I think you love me, too. I hope that never changes.