#we should not erase ourselves in this way

[metamercury]

LORD IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE FIC SCENE AND DONT HAVE AN AO3 ACCOUNT YOU ARE DENIED THE EXISTENCE OF FATAL ATTRACTION. TRAVESTY TRAVESTY TRAVESTY

YOU LITERALLY WOULD NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE MISSING.

[weareuniqueandimportant]

We Made A Post. Perfect. Amazing. Easily Godlike.

Only For Them To Be Removed Once Again... And Gasslight As "Just A Glitch"...

No... This Is Nothing But A Way To Attack And Erase Progressive Things... Showcase This Abuser... Called Tumblr Has An EVIL And BIGOTED MONSTER AGENDA...

Make Us Transition. We Live In Finland Freeze Our Little Ones And Give Us Diy Hrt. We Deserve So Much. Especially When We're Nothing But Abused All The Time... Like Right Now... Whatever We Type In Now... Can Never Recreate This Amazing And Perfect Post... Just Like The Other Ones... But This One Was So Good... I Loved Her... And They Abused Us... Now She's Gone 😭😭😭😭...

:(... 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭!!!!

I Will Finish This Post Soon... But I Am Depressed... And Traumatized... I Panic... I Could Jump Trough That Window Right Now... I Have Anxiety... Evil... Has Once Again Hurt Us As I Sweat Once Again On This Abusive Spot This The EVIL Situation We Have Been In Before More Times Than To Count... Them All Stacking Up Into This Horrible Experience... A Feeling... Inside Of Our Brain... A Dark Deep Pain... Weighing On Them... As I Sweat.. In Pain... I Could Scream!! But Can't!! Because Of This Evil Body!! And Evil Abusive Place We're In!! I Can't Show My Emotions... That Would Be... More Painfullness If Anything...

:(...

We Watched 3 Episodes Of She Hulk... I Believe A Leftist Should Prrrrtteeeee... I Believe A Leftist Should Showe Their Middle Finger Up A Company's Uncaring Asshole... I Believe We Should Be Doing That... Than Watching Like This... This Situation... All Wrong... From What Is Supposed To Be... Our Consent... VIOLATED... ONCE AGAIN AS ALWAYS... The Consept Irrelevant... But When That Is For Us... ANYTHING... CAN BE RELEVANT JUST FOR US... BECAUSE WE MATTER... WE DESERVE SPECIAL PRIVLEDGES...

:(...

😢...

I Will Take A Break From This Post Perhaps... Who Knows...? We Have Been Hurt And Harmed... Nobody Will Ever Understand!!!! OUR CRAZY PAIN... TEARING APART... OUR INSIDES...

I Love Black People... I Love This Woman... I Love Aisha In Fate The Winx Saga... That Is Racist To Oppose This Character... Only We Matter... If They Don't Matter... Then Black People Don't Matter... And That Would Be... Horrible...

I Love All The Diverse Background Characters Aswell... Tbh... They're All Like Nice Toys... Or Nice Furries... They're Nice... They're Cute... Black People Aswell... They Make Us... Feel Loved... They Make Us... Less Afraid... Evil... Want To Take Them Away... THE THINGS WE LOVE... JUST LIKE ALWAYS... JUST LIKE HOW... WE WATCHED MARVEL STOP BEING WOKE RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES!! WITH THE NEW MALE POWER FANTASY COMING!!!!

...

Nobody... Cares About Us... Nobody... Was There For Us... When ANY... OF THIS PAIN... HAPPENED... LIKE THE FACT THAT WE STILL HAVEN'T TRANSITIONED...

I Like She Hulk... I Like... Powerfull Woman... I Like... Black Best Friends... I Like... Watching Her Be Powerfull... Instead Of Rape Porn...

I Like... How Hulk Wasn't On Her Way... And Leaves... I Like... How Nice He Is... I Like... She Didn't Get Reduced To Anything... On The Screen...

I Like This Is About Her... I Like... The Woke Mcu... I Never... NEVER SAID... THEY SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY FROM US... JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE WE CARE ABOUT... JUST LIKE... EVERYTHING ELSE PROGRESSIVE... ARE YOU HAPPY NOW... LEFTIST?!?!?!?! YOU HATE WOKE THINGS!!!! YOU ONLY LIKE CONSERVATIVE THINGS!!!! YOU LOVE CONSERVATIVES!!!! YOU HATE PROGRESSIVES!!!! NOTHING LEFTIST ABOUT YOU!!!! YOU'RE EVIL!!!!

That Was... Cruel... How They Justified All Bigotry... And All Abuse... And Discrimination... In She Hulk... That Was Lame... How The Marvels Is About How Africa Shouldn't Be Made Communist Because Culture Is Evil And On The Way And Irrelevant And The Message The Same...

How Can These Be Titled... Bad Movies...? When The Previous Garbage... Was Nothing But Praised...? THAT IS THE OTHER WAY AROUND... THIS IS WHAT IS GOOD... THAT IS WHAT IS BAD... MONEY IS EVIL... MARVEL TOO... EVERYTHING WAS FAKE... EVERYONE ONLY PRETENDED TO GIVE A FUCK!! OR PERHAPS... Some Did... But... They're All... Worthless... Powerless... Pathetic... Losers... They're DESERVE NOTHING... I HOPE THEY SUFFER... THEY DESERVE THAT... JUST LIKE YOU DO... JUST LIKE EVERYONE DOES... BESIDES US!! THAT ONLY DESERVE GOOD THINGS!! LIKE TRANSITION... MAKE US... WE DESERVE ONLY GOODNESS...

This Is Fun... The Previous Is What Is Boring... The Future Is What Is Boring... WOKE MARVEL...? WAS THE BEST!!!! I WANT THEM BACK!!!! I LOVE THEM!!!! JUST LIKE I LOVE BLACK PEOPLE... AND PLUSHIES... I WANT MARVEL BACK... SHE IS MINE...

I Liked Seeing Wong. He Is Underrated He's Better And More Diverse Than Doctor Strange. Same With That Villain. I Am Glad He Was Actually Good... But They Also Spread Evil Propaganda With Him...

[feralkwe]

idk how else to explain it to people but it should be pretty fucking obvious why it is absolutely ludicrous to allow the united states fucking government to set the criteria as to who is and is not recognized as native/indigenous/ndn when they spent literal centuries trying to undermine and erase the fact that we exist at all.

it's no coincidence that some of the criteria involved in becoming federally recognized as a tribe requires documentation that the government actively worked to suppress. that they require the tracing of continuous existence back to colonial contact should tell you why it's a bullshit metric. that the fact that you have to have heaps of money to get federal recognition is something that you should take a long, hard look at before calling members of over 400 non-recognized tribes 'pretendians'.

the use of blood quantum as a measurement alone makes their authority null and void.

indigeneity is not about blood quantum or government permission. it is about family, culture, and community. i for one would appreciate it if non-natives fucked all the way off on this topic, and if fellow ndns would stop the infighting over it long enough to realize that all we're doing is perpetuating colonizer violence and genocide by allowing non-natives to set the definition of who we are and what we get to call ourselves.

fuck you. stop doing the colonizer's job for them.

[fairuzfan]

I have concern that I may still be technically zionist despite claiming to be pro-palestine. This is because I knew very little about Palestine when October 7th happened, so in the time since I have been reluctant to have a stance on a two-state or one-Palestinian-state solution. I know now that almost all of Isreal is stolen land and recognize Isreal only exists due to colonialism, it took me a long time to learn that but I know it now. Before I knew that, I knew that regardless of the prior history that in current day Palestine is being subjected to a genocide. However, I struggle with politics and therefore struggle with understanding how a one-Palestinian-state could be achieved and have concern about what would happen to any genuinely innocent people who live in Isreal. To be clear, Isreal as a whole is guilty and I just have concern about what will happen to the portion of people in Isreal who are just as horrified as the rest of the world at what their government is doing. I do not personally know any Palestinians, so I have not known who to talk to about this especially since I do not want to overstep in any way. Theres more context I could provide but I wont because this is roughly the gist of where I am currently at when it comes to my concerns about whether or not I am still zionist. Do you have any reccomendations as to what I can do about my concerns? I am not sure whether or not I am overstepping right now by asking you this, but I do not know any other Palestians on a personal level that I can go to.

hey thanks for sending this in. i think we all have zionist biases that we have to unlearn, even i catch myself falling for it sometimes. so it's not necessarily a moral failing if you're trying to undo the zionism you've been taught. thanks for trying to undo it!

i do want to correct you a bit thought, in that *all* of israel is stolen land because israel is a settler colonial society. until it is relabeled as "Palestine" it can't not be stolen land.

I guess my advice is that you read scholarship and perspectives on palestinian thought and heritage. i can't tell you what a free palestine will look like but i can tell you what i imagine it to be. but what i can tell you is that the state of israel is fully intent on erasing all traces of palestinian life no matter what.

i guess i can tell you why "two state solutions" don't really work because there is no.... prevention of settlement building in the west bank and they'll never really promote *not* settling in the west bank. like i really cannot imagine a world where there aren't settlers on palestinian land no matter the case. and that's even not allowing palestinians the right of return to their homes and expecting them to give up what they dedicated their lives to. many palestinians in the west bank and gaza are themselves refugees because they were displaced in '48. so no matter what, palestinians will always get the short end of the stick and told to "just deal with it."

plus, why are we concerned with the supposed future danger towards israelis when the current, very real danger towards palestinians exists? shouldn't we prioritize actual events over hypothetical ones? why should we concern ourselves with the future when for palestinians its not a guarantee? i have no idea what's going to happen to gaza, for example.... shouldn't we prioritize that gaza lives on today?

i think i would question why you think israelis are inherently in danger in a one state solution? like do you assume that palestinians will all universally commit violence on all israelis? is it because you believe that hamas wants to kill every single israeli jew no matter what? if so, i think that's where your problem lies — in the assumption that peace can only be achieved through segregation just in a lighter form (because the state of israel relies on segregation as a principal of its existence as a jewish state). what about the palestinians who fear living side by side with the same people who raped, tortured, and murdered them for 75 years, or advocated for their deaths? aren't they inherently in more danger?

i mean palestinians have consistently been painted as the villains for more than 75 years. like in every aspect. i think to really truly be antizionist you need to prioritize palestinian concerns and worries over israeli ones because of how.... unwilling much of the world is to even consider them.

approaching zionism from an idea of an inequality structure is also necessary — rather than assuming its a one off system, we examine it as a perpetuation of multiple types of systems of inequality embedded into one. i recommend the institute for the critical study of zionism (click) for more information on this. There's also this book by Ismail Zayid written in the 80's (click) about the longtime violence the ideology of zionism has done to multiple communities, not just palestinians.

Here's a great reading list by palipunk about different aspects of palestinian thought and culture (click). i suggest looking through them to help decolonize our way of thought.

i might add on to this later if i think of something else to say.

[ilovedthestars]

A thought I’ve been having: While it's important to recognize the long history of many current queer identities (and the even longer history of people who lived outside of the straight, cis, allo “norm”) I think it's also important to remember that a label or identity doesn't have to be old to be, for lack of a better word, real.

This post that i reblogged a little while ago about asexuality and its history in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and before is really good and really important. As i've thought about it more, though, it makes me wonder why we need to prove that our labels have "always existed." In the case of asexuality, that post is pushing back against exclusionists who say that asexuality was “made up on the internet” and is therefore invalid. The post proves that untrue, which is important, because it takes away a tool for exclusionists.

But aromanticism, a label & community with a lot of overlap & solidarity with asexuality, was not a label that existed during Stonewall and the subsequent movement. It was coined a couple decades ago, on internet forums. While the phrasing is dismissive, it would be technically accurate to say that it was “made up on the internet.” To be very clear, I’m not agreeing with the exclusionists here—I’m aromantic myself. What I’m asking is, why does being a relatively recently coined label make it any less real or valid for people to identify with?

I think this emphasis on historical precedent is what leads to some of the attempts to label historical figures with modern terminology. If we can say someone who lived 100 or 1000 years ago was gay, or nonbinary, or asexual, or whatever, then that grants the identity legitimacy. but that's not the terminology they would have used then, and we have no way of knowing how, or if, any historical person's experiences would fit into modern terminology.

There's an element of "the map is not the territory" here, you know? Like this really good post says, labels are social technologies. There's a tendency in the modern Western queer community to act like in the last few decades the "truth" about how genders and orientations work has become more widespread and accepted. But that leaves out all the cultures, both historical and modern, that use a model of gender and sexuality that doesn't map neatly to LGBTQ+ identities but is nonetheless far more nuanced than "there are two genders, man and woman, and everyone is allo and straight." Those systems aren’t any more or less “true” than the system of gay/bi/pan/etc and straight, cis and trans, aro/ace and allo.

I guess what I’m saying is, and please bear with me here, “gay” people have not always existed. “Nonbinary” people have not always existed. “Asexual” people have not always existed. But people who fell in love with and had sex with others of the same gender have always existed. People who would not have identified themselves as either men or women have always existed. People who didn’t prioritize sex (and/or romance) as important parts of their lives have always existed. In the grand scheme of human existence, all our labels are new, and that’s okay. In another hundred or thousand years we’ll have completely different ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, and that’ll be okay too. Our labels can still be meaningful to us and our experiences right now, and that makes them real and important no matter how new they are.

We have a history, and we should not let it be erased. But we don’t need a history for our experiences and ways of describing ourselves to be real, right now.

[swordsandflowercrowns]

I was explaining this to a friend recently and I think it's an important distinction to make: not all queerplatonic relationships look the same.

A good way I've found to illustrate what exactly a qpr is, is to say "a qpr is to relationships what nonbinary is to gender". While both of these traditionally function on a binary (male/female, platonic/romantic), by defining our personal outlooks and experiences of the concepts of gender and relationships with new terms, we challenge the boundaries that society has put in place.

And yes, whilst redefining what actually constitutes romantic or platonic relationships, or male and female identities, and what makes them different (and acknowledging where they overlap, or where they can expand past what we traditionally expect) is important to increasing our understanding, so is providing options entirely outside of those two boxes.

And that's what it is - options. It's very easy to trivialise the concept of nonbinary and simply make gender into a trinary, rather than a binary. Male/female/nonbinary, which goes against the very purpose of the nonbinary label. This further erases the spectrum of gender. It's the same with relationships - by giving a strict set of instructions on how a qpr must look and act, you are simply creating a trinary. The point of the concept of qprs is to acknowledge that there are relationships between people that may overlap platonic and romantic, or fall partially within one and partially outside, or ones that are entirely separate from either category.

There are an infinite amount of ways a relationship can manifest, and if the people in the relationship feel that queerplatonic best describes their partnership without romance, or their affection without commitment, or their feelings towards each other that aren't quite what romantic or platonic is to them, or any other reason that rebels against amatonormativity, then they can choose to use that term. Queerplatonic covers the widest range of relationships that come in all shapes and sizes.

I think it's so important when discussing topics like relationships and gender to consciously make the effort to keep queering our ideas of the concepts - to remember that a spectrum is a spectrum. Labels can be useful for finding community, identifying your experiences and validating your struggles, but as soon as you try to start hyper-defining them, you lose the radical nature of queering our understanding of ourselves and our relationships. We name these concepts in order to give a voice to our subversion of society's arbitrary rules and expectations, not to police each other into conforming to a particular understanding of how a person (with a certain label) "should" act or be.

[spaghettiposts]

Devotion

Wanda Maximoff x Sorcerer!Reader

Summery: You could never escape Wanda, much less the Scarlet Witch. Even bound to a chair, you couldn’t help but fall into her again. Your precious witch.

Warnings: Dark Obsessive Wanda, sorta possessive, you’re tied to a chair, hurt/comfort, Wanda’s been feeling neglected, established relationship? Not really Wanda’s just obsessed with you, toxic relationship maybe

Word count: 1.1k

A/n: I had a dream Wanda tied us to a chair, sue me. This honestly got way softer than I intended LMAO

“I was wondering when you’d wake up…” The words rang through your ears as you regained consciousness again, your eyelids fluttering opening to the sight of Wanda— no, The Scarlet Witch—before you. A sly smirk played on her lips, illuminated softly by the dim glow of red candles flickering around the room. She took a leisurely sip from her coffee mug before making it vanish with a flick of her wrists. 

Your eyes squinted against the candlelight, trying to see through the madness that seemed to swirl behind her red irises. Something you tried to search into, only to be blocked out. She simply smiled at you, taunting you, teasing, her eyes darting lower to which you followed her gaze.

Now you understood why you couldn’t feel your arms, they were tied up to the chair, every inch of you.  “Wands…what’s going on?” You managed, attempting to keep your voice steady as you tested the restraints. 

“Oh Detka, there’s no use in struggling,” She purred, chuckling in such a condescending tone it sent shivers down your spine. You would be lying if you didn’t admit you had found Wanda attractive before. 

Right now that wasn’t the time for that, again you tried to reach into your head. Desperately trying to recall what led to this moment, but your memories were clouded completely until all your focus was on her. 

And her only. 

Your eyes weren’t familiar with your surroundings whatsoever, figuring it was a reality Wanda made for just the two of you. It resembled a home, something the witch had always dreamed of, something you failed to provide with all your lessons. 

Still, despite knowing how unfair and neglectful you had been to her, you knew this wasn’t how to fix things, “Wanda, this isn’t right. Let me go.” 

But she only laughed, approaching you the next second. She bent down to your level and you sucked in a breath, her cold finger grazing underneath your chin, forcing you to look at her as she slid into your lap effortlessly. 

“Mhmm now why should I? You look so good for me, sitting there.” She murmured, her lips brushing against yours as her hands roamed across your body, landing to rest on your shoulders. You’d also be lying if you said you weren’t equally as affected. “You know we haven’t gotten time for ourselves since…well, Strange.” Her nose scrunching in distaste at the mention of your mentor.

“Honey, I'm his apprentice. I have to spend my time there, surely you understand?” You spoke softly, trying to reason for your obligations. “I’ve always devoted myself to you.”

“You call abandoning me devotion?” She scoffed, not for a second believing you, and yet again her eyes returned to their crimson color. Your unresponsiveness only pissed her off further, rolling her eyes and withdrawing from you with a wounded expression written across her face. 

With another sigh, you bowed your head, knowing that the little progress you had made had been erased in milliseconds. Biting back the frustration, you reminded yourself of the delicacy of the situation. You had to be careful. 

Wanda shifted in your lap, her gaze averted and hurt. Part of you longed to reach out to her, whisper all the things she needed to hear and make her believe you, but your hands were pulled back by their restraints. Damn, you were really starting to hate these things. 

“Untie my hands?” You asked softly, gesturing towards the ropes. Wanda’s eyes snapped to yours, looking at you in disbelief.

“No.” She muttered darkly, “You’ll only run from me.” She explained, her words falling heavy. Slowly, she shifted, positioning herself in a way that allowed you to cradle her, her nose brushing your cheek, gently nuzzling against you. 

Your lips parted, so that’s what it was? Wanda was afraid. She wasn’t just upset; she was afraid of losing you. You understood what she needed, to be reminded of your so-called devotion, understood again. When her head landed to rest on your shoulder, you took your chances, risking your life to ever so gently place a kiss on her head. 

You felt Wanda stiffen against you, but she nestled in closer, tilting her head just the slightest bit. Though the position was quite awkward and strained your neck, you persisted, peppering slow lingering kisses across her face. A soft smile tugged at her lips, and you took the opportunity to ask again, “I just want to hold you, untie me?” 

Reluctantly, Wanda opened her eyes, not really wanting to move but deciding to trust you when you gave her a crooked smile. Without much effort, she complied, reaching behind you to loosen the ropes on your hands. As the knots came undone, you sighed in relief, rubbing at your wrist to ease the soreness. 

“Thank you.” You whispered, pulling Wanda close as you wrapped your arms around her. She hummed in response, pressing her lips to your neck. You put considerable thought into your next words, you had missed these moments with Wanda, moments where the world wasn’t red it was just green.

“I’ll talk to Strange tomorrow, to let him know I’m pausing my lessons.” You said into the silence, and Wanda’s arms tightened around you. 

“Really?” 

“Really, I need to show my girl she’s my priority after all.” You affirmed and Wanda smiled, Wanda—no longer just the Scarlet Witch, but the woman who held your heart entirely. With a gentle touch, she pressed her lips against yours in a loving embrace; satisfied with your answer. 

You smiled into the kiss, absorbing as much of her as you could. Eventually, you broke away, but Wanda was quick to lean her head against yours, and a breathy chuckle escaped her lips, echoing yours. Unable to resist, you pressed a soft kiss to Wanda’s nose, enjoying the way it scrunched up in response. The witch blushed shyly and buried between the crook of your neck, and you had trouble believing this girl was set to be the destroyer of worlds.

The thought only made you hold her further. The sudden weight of responsibility bore down on you. It wasn’t how you wanted things to go, but it was how it had to be. For Wanda’s safety and the promise of gaining your future with her, undisturbed.

Swallowing hard, you brushed loose strands of hair from her face, tucking them behind her ear and taking one last look. Recalling what you had been taught, you chanted the familiar spell you had been practicing, murmuring it softly in her ear to ease her. Her eyes drooped heavily before she went completely limp against you and all you could hope was that she’d understand. 

Carefully, you untied the ropes holding your legs together before shrugging them off. You stood up, mindful of Wanda, tightening your grip around her, lifting her up properly. As you walked down the unfamiliar path, slowly transforming back into what it used to be, you were determined to prove your devotion to Wanda.

But first, you’d help her fulfill her own destiny, no matter the cost.

Even if she didn’t quite understand it.

[cl0ckworkqueerness]

in the wake of the reveal of the "pills that make you green" comic's creator revealing her true colours (something I've been aware of for a while but haven't had much specifically to speak about until now), i think it's important to take a step back and look at some of her claims about transandrophobia, as well as many anti-transandrophobia (or transandrophobic) talking points, and analyze them critically without, in any way, demeaning transmisogyny as a concept. let's start with some of the things i've seen on her blog and go from there

first of all, there's a lot of talk about how activists who are vocal about transandrophobia are "derailing" conversations about transmisogyny. while i'm certain there are some legitimate examples, many of the examples i have seen that i presume she is referring to are speaking about her comics that specifically strawman the stick figure who is an allegory of a trans man or transmasculine individual.

in these comics, this stick figure is often unjustly cruel and even oppressive of the lime stick figure, an allegory for trans women or transfeminine individuals, while simultaneously whining about how they also experience oppression and should be focused on instead. this frames trans men and transmasculine individuals as loud, taking up space, oppressing transfeminine people (who are More Oppressed), and simply cannot understand that they do not face as terrible of treatment as the other.

the problem that most people, myself included, take with this is that the author seems to be living in an alternate world where trans men, somehow, are a legitimate, strong, oppressive force over trans women, and want to take up all the space in the trans community's discussion to ourselves. there are definitely people who abuse the term transandrophobia to say transmisogynistic things, without a doubt, but in my experience most of us simply want to say that we, too, experience terrible types of oppression as a result of intersectionality that a trans woman, transfeminine, or trans person who's perceived as either of those things may not experience. transandrophobia is not meant to overtake transmisogyny, it is meant to stand beside transmisogyny and further prove that different trans people can experience different types of oppression, and thus should unite against both.

another thing i've seen on the comic author's account is how the idea of androphobia is anti-feminist and comes from MRAs or something, which... uh, again, i don't know what planet you're living on, but here on earth, there are men who are discriminated against and even treated with violence because of their ties to masculinity, femininity, both, or neither. and again, it is not our problem if MRAs decide to appropriate actual, useful terms in order to spread misogyny. we should not have to keep changing our language every time a bad person uses it. if we did, we would have no language, and thus once again be silenced.

since i don't have the time or the spoons to go through everything she's ever said or reblogged on her account, i'll just go over one more thing. no, the discussion and desired visibility of transandrophobia is not some kind of psyop or massive conspiracy to kill the idea of transmisogyny. if we didn't believe in transmisogyny, we'd have no reason to believe in transandrophobia either, after all. for me, at least, talking about transandrophobia is equally as important because trans men, like myself, have been forced into silence for so long and erased from most of history. trans men weren't even well documented until much, much later in history.

additionally, i doubt this needs to be said, but if any of you are actually intentionally ignoring transmisogyny in your discussion of intersectionality, you have no place in this discussion

and finally, to the author of these comics, i doubt you're reading this, but if you are, please reconsider your hostility. framing the discussion around transandrophobia in the way you are is not only equating trans people who face detrimental oppression to the people who are trying to oppress us and force us into silence, but you too are actively advocating for the silencing and erasure of, and subsequently the lack of resources for, trans men, transmasculine individuals, trans people who are perceived as either of these things, or anyone who primarily faces transandrophobia. i don't blame you for being defensive, and i will absolutely take your side should anyone be transmisogynistic towards you or anyone else, but you don't have to drag trans men who just want to talk about our shared experiences through the mud in order to support your point of transmisogyny's danger, especially within the trans community. if you want to have a genuine, mature discussion about transandrophobia and its dangers, and transmisogyny within the trans community, i'm sure someone would be happy to discuss that with you. but with the way you're treating and talking about trans men, it is unlikely that you will take anyone up on that offer

idk man. i feel like it's important to talk about transmisogyny and transandrophobia at the same time, as well as all other forms of intersectionality. we should be turning transphobes into couches instead of whatever the hell this is

[eeldritchblast]

Found this dumbass article in the Dragon Age tag, and I just. Can't. Deal. With the biphobia/panphobia surrounding Astarion anymore. I really can't. I'm so done with it.

This bitch really wrote in one paragraph how it's not fair to assume Taash's gender in Dragon Age based on appearance, only to then claim the following:

"In Baldur's Gate 3, Astarion is a gay-coded man whose definitive romantic experiences prior to the game are with men. It could be argued that Astarion's gay experience has been erased for the benefit of straight women."

The dissonance is astounding!

Astarion is not "gay-coded". He is canonically queer already! And pretending like he's not the "right" kind of queer based on the fact that he's "too femme" or what we know of his past sexual experiences is bullshit! Especially because he DOES talk about his experiences with people of different genders! Hell, in the game he might end up sleeping with Lae'zel of his own volition! But no, he can't possibly be interested in anyone whose not a man. //sarcasm

And like, let's pretend he had only happened to date men. That doesn't change the fact that he openly voices his interest in other genders too, in game. Why would you not believe him? I've only ever dated women. Does that mean my interest in men too is invalid in your eyes? Or are you going to respect that I know how I feel? How far are you willing to go to pretend bi/pan folks don't exist? To ignore the fact that we are capable of expressing ourselves in a variety of ways like anyone else? Why should being bi/pan mean we are not allowed to be femme or masc or androg or any variety of all of the above, regardless of what our genders happen to be too?

Astarion is not real, but he represents real people who share his identity. By acting like that identity can't possibly be real, you are disrespecting real people, and that's just gross.

[pucksandpower]

the fact that you’re getting hate for want past female drivers and women who have furthered the sport to be recognized is insane to me, especially considering one those amazing women is THEE Susie Wolff.

yall, have some decorum (at LEAST more than williams still using logan’s ads for merch AFTER dropping him) and PUT SOME RESPECT ON THEIR NAMES???? AND WHO ARE THEY?? I WILL TELL YOU!

Maria Teresa de Filippis, the first female driver in 1 - 1958 and 1959, racing in 5 races!!

Lella Lombardi, the first AND ONLY woman to score points in F1 - 1974 to 1976

Divina Galica, who attempted to qualify for the 1976 British Grand Prix - This race was the only race in F1 history to have more than one female registered!! those two were Lombardi and Galica!!

Desiré Wilson, who attempted to qualify for the 1980 British Grand Prix (but was unsuccessful, BUT WE DONT CARE SHE TRIED)

Giovanna Amati, who attempted to race in 1992 (32 YEARS AGO PEOPLE!!!), means she is the most recent woman to try and drive in F1!!

and we of course could not forget all our wonderful test and development drivers like Susie Wolff, Sarah Fisher, Kathrine Legge (who races in IndyCar as the only female on the grid), María De Villota (may she rest in peace), Simona de Silvestro (in IndyCar I believe, she was signed by Sauber as an “affiliated driver” in 2014, not sure what that means), Carmen Jordá, Tatiana Calderón, Jamie Chadwick (she’s incredible I love her), and as of most recently, Aston Martin driving ambassador Jessica Hawkins tested a 2021-spec F1 car at the Hungaroring!!!

these women have but blood sweat and tears into making their way up!! put respect on their names and do not erase them for their writing!!!

Thank you so much, my love! This is so well said and I really do think that we have to be the change we want to see, especially in the motorsport community. As much as I wish that it was different, it largely falls to fans to keep these women’s stories alive, because Formula 1 rarely cares unless they can get good publicity out of it.

We should all strive to educate ourselves about the amazing women who have made strides in Formula 1 and those who continue to do so today. And while fanfiction might not seem like a big deal to some, I truly believe that even small acknowledgements of what female drivers have already accomplished is one more way to keep these stories alive and educate more people 🫶

[featureenvyproductions]

here’s a bird’s eye view of my comic Eyan Eternal

For people who don't know what it is. Bc I think some of you might find it's right up your alley. Well this is an updated one anyway. I do actually have a volume of this out in print right now, but the low def, basic version is online and complete, and tbh, I just want people to read it. I took almost two years to complete this and quite literally poured every waking moment (after work and when I wasn’t fixing stuff in my house) into this to try and finish it.

Ahem

Here is one of these at a glance things! 

If that’s enough to intrigue you, take a look at my chapter masterpost which has convenient links to every chapter post so you don’t have to go figuring out where they are and what order they go in!: https://www.tumblr.com/featureenvyproductions/717516139934154752/eyan-eternal-tumblr-chapter-masterpost?source=share

If you like it and want to support me you can also buy a copy of the first print volume, which collects chapters 1-5 and has a smidge of bonus content (only available in the US right now, but that’s not going to be forever, and I’m working on an e-book as well): https://www.etsy.com/FeatureEnvy/listing/1447399615/eyan-eternal?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1683565699335

And now here is a more detailed break down if you need more info than that...

*Jonathan Frakes asks you things meme voice* have you ever wondered what you’d find if you REALLY lived forever?

Well, meet Eyan, an immortal vampire.

He’s slowly finding out the answer to that question...

...And it appears to be unbearable isolation.

Eons into the distant future, when most stars have faded in the night sky and the cosmic event horizon has confined any remaining beings to an isolated pocket of the universe, Eyan roams interstellar space in a repurposed generation ship in search of anything that could be considered alive/sentient in the way he is.

So far, he’s out of luck.

That is until he runs into an unexpected former rival on a remote planet - Zero, a sentient android he never expected to be the only other person left alive.

Well. That is, if either of them can really be considered “alive”. What does that mean anyway, when the humans who defined what it means to be alive are all gone?

This is something they’ll have to explore and define for themselves as they attempt to set aside their myriad of differences and try to work together on one of the few ways left to escape the dark fate of ultimate isolation - The Grand Encoder, a machine that can upload minds to a special medium - if it even works for them anyway. In the process, they slowly come to accept that maybe they’d had each other all wrong and weren’t seeing the bigger picture.

You may not find any action-packed Star Wars like escapades here in this sci fi drama. You also won’t find ponderings about the origins of vampires or what gave rise to robot sentience - It’s integral to the plot that these things just ARE. But you will find a thoughtful exploration of identity and how it can cause us to define ourselves and relate to (or abandon) each other depending on the framework within which we are doing that exploration and within which we are compelled to exist. It asks the question, what if the frameworks within which we defined our existence and purpose no LONGER existed...Where would we go from there?

And as two immortal guys who are the only folks left in the universe (as far as they know), Eyan and Zero are just the right people to mull over that.

There is both textual and allegorical queerness in this story - both main characters should be considered gay men, even if it’s The Future TM and terms/exact scopes of identities may not be EXACTLY 1-1 with today’s...But I want to be perfectly clear that it was my intent to make them gay because I wanted to see more gay guys in sci fi and I don’t want anyone erasing that. As for the allegorical stuff - I myself am a trans gay man in my late 30s, so this act of re-exploring and re-framing myself and evaluating how and why queer folks interact with each other the way we do is something I’m very familiar with, and I feel like other folks might relate. (I also peppered in some neurodivergent-person-in-a-neurotypical-world moods tbh.)

Of course it’s not all serious. I do have a bit of fun with some old school vampire tropes, tossing Eyan around and putting him in Situations.

Anyway if this all sounds interesting to you, take a look at my tag and site (above)! I’d appreciate it! I also like to hear from people and see if there’s anything about it you related to! :)

I also do everything. Every last monotonous step (well, aside from literally loading up a printing press to churn out volumes lol - BUT REST ASSURED IF I HAD $10K TO PISS INTO THE WIND I WOULD DO THAT TOO). So if there’s ANYTHING you want to know about my process, I’m happy to tell you so please ask, especially if you’re like trying to get started on your own comic or trying to go to print :) 

Edit before I go ahead and blaze this: I want to say, to be honest, the creation of comic was initially motivated almost entirely by the isolation/loneliness I’ve felt in my life. It’s not as bad as some folks’ and I know that, but it is a really prevalent thread throughout my life and sometimes is almost unbearable, and my comic began as an exploration of that loneliness, as well as a narrative exercise to try and express the depth of it at its worst point. I’m putting this out here because ultimately I don’t know...maybe someone will catch my drift and understand the feeling I’m trying to illustrate, and maybe they’ll want to see the plot that came of those feelings. I am not above the need to feel seen lol, especially if other people out there feel like they can resonate with this experience as well.

[boldlyexplorational]

I know that the effects of the virus in "The naked time" are described by Spock as being under the effects of alcohol and losing control and inhibitions, but I think that's just a simple way to put it. The way things turn out, it looks to me that the virus brings up the version of yourself that you fear you could become, not even the worst version of yourself, just the one you are trying to avoid, the one that you know would make you miserable and harmful.

I don't think that guy who contracted the virus first would have killed himself if he got drunk, but it's possible that he had those thoughts before and worked on his mental health to be better... But the virus erased all that work.

So when Spock, for example, cries and despairs about how he represses his feelings, the shame and the regret, that's not the repressed true identity of Spock. That's Spock with no control over his own Identity, which is bad, because it's important to choose and shape who we are (and yes, sometimes choices can be bad, but they are part of our experience existing).

It's fascinating (eheh), because I find it very relatable and seldom addressed in media: we all have parts of ourselves we don't like and keep inside, because it's not how we want to be seen, not how we present to the world. And that doesn't make them bad or it doesn't make us dishonest. And to me the episode seems to be saying: the sense of self is something we can control and it shouldn't trap us, it should free us. When you lose that control, you lose yourself.

[genderkoolaid]

Kind of related to the 't makes you a mansplainer' thing I'm always amazed by thr difference in the way people perceive my music now. Pre t people thought it was cool that I played guitar but the second my voice started dropping and my beard started coming in people started getting annoyed by it. I started getting "no one wants to hear wonderwall" (I've never played that song) and "we don't need another man with an acoustic guitar". I don't even pass yet. That shift was instantaneous. And it's from the exact same people who thought it was cool before at a queer drop in center i go to, they used to turn down the music playing in the center because people were listening to me, going through my songbook and making requests. Now I'm lucky if I can play 1 song before someone tells me to stop because "no one wants to hear another man with an acoustic guitar"

It really hurts makes me want to quit playing.

Like I know t ruined my singing voice but damn, I just want to play my guitar I worked hard to teach myself to play.

Its so aggravating to me how cis, binary feminism has people treating trans men like we aren't an oppressed group. Erasing all of our unique experiences and struggles and perspectives to make us seem like Cis Men But Short And Weird. Your experience reminds me of people talking about how they went from being praised for being a woman in a male-dominated field to being ashamed of transitioning because they "failed" to "be a role model". In both cases, there's this assumption that trans men don't need support, that our accomplishments aren't hard-won, that we never struggle to make a place for ourselves in society. I mentioned in the notes of a post how we need a good word to describe being unfairly cast as an oppressor to cover up/ignore oppression (not just for transandrophobia but also antisemitism) because its so fucking concerning!! Its like people are specifically blinding themselves to trans men's transness and doing everything in their power to act like we're cis men. And its because thats basically what cis feminism does- there are only two roles, Woman (oppressed) and Man (oppressor), and by and large it only has two ways of reacting to trans men: either we're oppressed (by misogyny and nothing else) Women, or we're oppressors and Men. There isn't any way for us to place ourselves in this binary without harming ourselves. And so much of the time, this ideology ends up with us being punching bags for other people to take out their anger and trauma from cis men at an target they can have power over, while justifying it by saying that we're privileged men who need to suck it up and stop being so sensitive.

I'm going on a tangent but the point is: I'm mad as fuck that you are getting treated like this. I absolutely do want to hear more trans men playing acoustic guitar, because I never get to see trans men doing fucking anything! Being recognized as men and as equally male as cis men should not have to come at the cost of being recognized and supported like other marginalized genders. I'm so sorry you've had to go through that and I hope you are able to find people & a community that celebrates you and your talents like you deserve.

[matan4il]

Im currently doing a simple poll on my other account what Tumblr thinks of a Free Palestine and I say the results so far are a little concerning

And then two comments so far:

ardwolff: That's like saying we give a small chunk of land back to the indigenous American people and keep the rest for ourselves while we "live in peace" -- y'all do realize a Palestine historically was home to Jewish people and can be again if we abolish the Israel - backed apartheid ethnostate. No theocratic ethnostates should exist. They are inherently unjust

beigale-shtuchim: hey buddy what happened to the jewish population in MENA states?

Hi! First off, sorry that it took me so long to reply, I am getting so many asks, and I do not have as much time to reply as I would like, despite doing my best to find it... But I hope you know that I appreciate everything you do!

Thank you so much for doing this poll, and for sharing the temporary results. Do you have the final ones? If so, I hope you consider adding a link to them here.

There are different strategies researched in psychology about how to persuade people to come around to your position. It actually started out with marketing, but can be applied to any campaign aimed to get the public to subscribe to a specific position. One of them is the "foot in the door" strategy, a term that comes from those salespeople who show up on your doorstep, trying to sell you stuff you weren't even looking to buy. Their first challenge is how to keep you from slamming the door in their faces. If they right away offer you to buy something big and expensive, which you don't even need, you're likely to do exactly what they don't want. But if they get you to agree to something small, then they "got their foot in the door," you won't slam it in their faces 'coz you agreed to something small, and now they have you engaged. And the more engaged you are, the more invested you become. If you've already said yes to the small thing, you're now invested, and they can start talking you into why, if you're gonna buy this thing anyway, a bigger and more expensive version makes more sense.

The way it is defined here: "The foot-in-the-door technique (or FITD) is a strategy used to persuade people to agree to a particular action, based on the idea that if a respondent will comply with a small initial request then they will be more likely to agree to a later, more significant, request, which they would not have agreed to had they been asked it outright."

That's what the anti-Israel movement basically did. They started out with a smaller, more reasonable request, for people to care about the "Palestinian problem" (which means they were getting more and more people invested in it), and agree to a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one. That wouldn't be as hard for people to agree to, especially since Jews themselves had agreed to that notion back in 1947, when they accepted the UN partition plan. Then, once people are invested in caring about the Palestinian problem, the discourse switched to how Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, and the only solution is to destroy it. Now all of a sudden, if you really care about Palestinians, then it's not enough to support a two state solution, you have to be against Israel, you have to be against Zionists, you have to be against the Jewish right to self-determination, anything less than that, and you are failing the Palestinians (who by now are depicted as the world's greatest victim, even though there is plenty of comparison data to refute that notion). And you do care about the Palestinians, right? So you gotta be against the Jews. Sorry, Zionists.

Also, I would love to hear what chunk of the land @ardwolff lives on they gave away to native people, while they're so willing to distort the history of Israel and erase the native rights of Jews here, making us the only native nation to have returned to its ancestral land, only to discover the world wants to displace it again. First it was done by the Romans 2,000 years ago through colonialism, now it's "in the name of" anti-colonialism (as its been packaged by your friendly FITD seller), but by punishing a native population, it's playing right into the hands of colonialists still...

I hope you're doing well! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[betterbemeta]

Non-Bullshit Self-Affirmation Exercise

I'm nobody's therapist and I shouldn't be. But the world we're in is mentally damaging. Any world would be to some extent, and I understand different people have different experiences of the world. But whoever you are I think we can agree most environments we're in don't promote a good relationship with 'the self.'

I can't say 'you should like who you are' or 'you should think you have all these great virtues.' That isn't up to me. But whether you already 'like yourself' or 'are building yourself' or 'want to like a future self more' you can't do that easily if 'who you currently are' is passively eroded without relief.

And this can happen a lot of ways I think. Our responsibilities (school, job, etc.) don't value our authentic experiences but instead our 'performance' within a system. Our bodily needs and logistical realities can frame the practical steps to our care like a burden for ourselves or for others. We are constantly assaulted with external appeals to desire that disrespect our own effort to navigate those desires ourselves. And so much stuff can feel 'more important than ourselves' like, why is it relevant you're a person when immense choices jeopardize the future and the lives of collective humanity???

A lot of talk about 'self-care' is bastardized into like... 'giving yourself special treats' which often can tie in to a highly consumerist culture or self-destructive habits. And 'special treats' may feel irresponsible or like a waste of time in the face of our practical human problems. But the important part is not actually the 'treat', but that the context of the treat is yours. This is YOUR unique treat, that represents you, showing up for you.

And looking at yourself can feel embarrassing. But it's not a coincidence that the 'least cringe' position, least vulnerable position, is to erase yourself. But you're not superficial. And stating 'yourself' is not egotistical. It's the foundation for everything else that matters, and could matter about you to another person.

So like. Some self-affirmations. Not the type that's like, "I'm brave, I'm smart, I'm good, I'm worthy, I'm flexible," etc. I mean:

My favorite color is...

My favorite food is...

I remember a time when I felt, 'wow'...

When I speak, I am [loud, soft, wordy, brief, etc.]...

I am interested in...

People who are [X] inspire me...

I wish I was more...

I wish I was less...

When people meet me, I want them to feel...

My favorite animal is...

I like to spend a free afternoon doing...

I like my spaces to be...

The smell of [x] reminds me of...

When I daydream, the story is usually this type...

I think about these on-purpose maybe once a week.

Affirmations like these may seem childish, basic, frivolous compared to building 'successful habits' and routines. And those are useful, but they can only keep you moving forward through a harsh environment; relying fully on 'discipline' to carry on will put you on paths where an external default is affirmed and your authenticity will be overwritten.

Whether you are trying to become more confident, or trying to work on your self awareness, trying to 'hang in there,' trying to reconcile who you have to be at different parts of your life, trying to unblock your creativity, or if you're entering a new part of your life... even if you think you have yourself all figured out, I believe purposefully sitting down to think about these things will help you.

[hiiragi7]

On Final Fusion: Violence or Health?

The ways in which we as a community of multiples talk about final fusion comes from a place of deep community trauma and attempts to navigate how we make sense of ourselves and how it relates to and conflicts with pathological views of our minds and ideas of how we should "recover" (with recovery, as an idea, differing not only between medical and multiple/plural communities but also within multiple/plural communities themselves).

Many multiples seek out final fusion and/or experience final fusion very positively, while others have heavily negative experiences and/or views regarding final fusion and may even be against final fusion as a concept entirely. Disagreements occur as to whether final fusion is a violent attack on multiples' right to exist as themselves or whether final fusion is valid as a recovery method. I wish to explore final fusion from a couple different angles, from a violent "cure" to a good recovery method.

In approaching final fusion as violence, it makes sense to take into context final fusion first as a medical tool, and one which has been used to coerce or force multiples into presenting as though they are a singular personality; with a medical system which functions as a weapon of ableism (among many other -isms), the approach to anything which is pathologized is often an attempt to erase it entirely as "cure". Although modern psychological takes on multiplicity rejects any comparison to the supernatural, the clinical approach has been and in many ways continues to be similar to an attempt at exorcism, with multiplicity approached as a haunting of an individual which holds this individual back from living a fulfilling life.

It is no surprise to me that the approach which the multiple community has taken in response to this medical violence mirrors that of other disability advocacy movements and language in response to medical violence; using language such as "smashed together", "murder", and even comparisons to conversion therapy to describe final fusions and the medical abuse which has accompanied it for many.

As well, many clinical approaches to multiplicity are incredibly dehumanizing and anti-multiple, and may be used as methods to coerce multiples into final fusion. In addition to final fusion itself, it is not a surprise to me that certain other clinical language or methods related to multiplicity have similarly developed a poor community reputation.

Functional multiplicity has also been heavily downplayed as a valid recovery method and relatively underresearched in comparison to final fusion, and in response, many multiples have opted to push final fusion down in order to lift up functional multiplicity, spreading ideas that final fusion does not work and does not/cannot exist.

On the final fusion as health side, there are many multiples which have found a final fusion approach extremely helpful, and who even reached final fusion outside of the guidance of a therapist. There are many multiples who actively seek out final fusion as a goal, and many who have decided to go through with final fusion on their own terms, or who ended up at a state of final fusion naturally without intentionally taking action to do so. There are plenty of multiples who report being much happier as fully fused.

Final fusion is very clearly not only a possibility but even a positive natural course for many multiples to take, and indeed can be described as health in this context. As such, while final fusion exists as a violent medical tool, its existence and function is not limited only to this. Final fusion exists as genuine healing outside of curative violence. Those multiples which positively experience and/or seek out final fusion will inevitably be pushed out of the conversation when final fusion is treated as though it is an inherent violence or even a myth.

How can our community acknowledge the medical violence attached to final fusion, validate survivors of that abuse, and at the same time not foster negativity about final fusion as recovery and the positive experiences of those who seek final fusion within our spaces? Personally, I believe an overlooked approach lies in bodily autonomy, and I feel that our community should work to distinguish final fusion as recovery from coerced or forced final fusions.

With this shift, we focus not on whether final fusion is "good" or "bad" or whether final fusion is "better" or "worse" than functional multiplicity, but rather on a multiple's right to define their own recovery and choose what treatments they do and do not want, as well as an emphasis on consent and autonomy regardless of whether or not one recovery method is considered "better" than the other.

I also believe it would be useful to open a conversation about the amount of power and control medical professionals have over their patients, and to connect these conversations up to broader disability movements and criticisms of the medical system.

Abuse disguised as care has no place in a professional mental health care setting. This is of course a far broader issue than final fusion or multiplicity, but applying a multiple perspective to it is a conversation I would love to see more of within the community. At the same time, given the way these conversations have been happening when they do happen, I also find it incredibly important to emphasize that the issue is that of bodily autonomy and ableism, not of final fusion itself.

I would love to hear others' thoughts and perhaps suggestions for how to approach these conversations, and perhaps even ways to distinguish between fusion as recovery and fusion as violence within the community.