#which anyone can be vulnerable to even queer youth

[beneathsilverstars]

You've established that Odile has rather unhinged taste in people. Do you have further headcanons on that topic?

Hm... Most of the adjacent headcanons that I could talk about here would require a lot of psychological and cultural context. So let's just talk about that context!

As a child, Odile was disconnected from her peers due to heritage, temperament, and latent transgenderism. As lonely children sometimes do, she decided that she didn't need or want friends anyway, and even if she did, it wouldn't be any of these losers! They were always wasting their time on fun and social useless things that she was too weird smart and special to be invited want to do. She studied very hard and excelled in school, did a couple extracurriculars that didn't require much teamwork, and at some point during adolescence realized that unfortunately the Vaugardians were correct about the changing genders thing.

Ka Buan philosophy encourages people to understand themselves, refine themselves, explore different facets of themselves — but not change themselves, because fundamental characteristics simply cannot be changed. Accordingly, gender-noncomforming fashion and binding/padding and nicknames are fine, hormones and surgery/bodycraft and declaring yourself a different gender are not. But Odile wasn't one to let social mores stop her, so once she reached adulthood, she left her hometown and showed up at the city as Odile. And not just any city, but one with a reputation for cutting-edge craft research and certain countercultures.

You can't just show up and ask around for where the illegal bodycrafting is, though. You have to meet people, win their trust, let them introduce you to other people, repeat. Odile... honestly wasn't that great at it. She hadn't had much cause to practice social skills, so she wasn't very friendly or persuasive! But she was determined, thorough, confident, passionate, genuine in her intentions, and newly hot — and you can get away with a certain amount of blunt arrogance when you're hot. You just have to let people assume you're too cool and busy for humble niceties, which Odile did quite easily, because she's always thought of herself as such. So she found her way through the right queer punk circles eventually and completed her physical transition!

And she liked those circles. The people she met and the topics they discussed and the things they did were all so much more interesting than she had assumed any peers of hers could be! But she still considered herself more competent and correct than anyone else around her, because why would that change just because she moved? Her success in transitioning just further proved that she could do anything if she tried hard enough, that she was right all along in assuming her social failures were due not to lack of skill but last of interest. So she ended up in this dynamic where she was impressed by the people around her and wanted to have fun with them and learn more about them, but also thought herself better than them and above such things as kindness or friendship.

And she was in that "holy shit I'm surrounded by dykes and I'm a dyke now too" stage that some queer people experience after they come out.

So, she wasn't interested in boring. She wasn't interested in nice. She wasn't interested in regular people with regular concerns, like the peers who excluded her in her youth. She wasn't interested in romance or committed relationships or being emotionally vulnerable.

And, she wasn't put off by annoyance, because people annoyed her as a whole anyway. She wasn't put off by danger, because she was sure she could handle anything. She wasn't put off by clashing personalities, because it wasn't like she was planning to go on long walks on the beach with any of her partners anyway.

Thus, she found herself drawn to the most exciting people in the room. Interpersonal drama, emotional outbursts, poorly-thought-out-choices, intense obsession, risky hobbies... it was all oh-so thrilling! Of course, she did realize that the people she was attracted to had major, glaring flaws. But Odile was determined, thorough, confident, passionate, genuine in her intentions, and newly hot. If she couldn't fix them, who could?

We know from Odile's optional sidequest that when she sees something suspicious, she dedicates herself to solving the mystery. We know from her presence at Mirabelle's side that when she sees a problem, she steps in to help, because if you want something done right you do it yourself. The one major exception? The topic that has her backing down, giving up, confessing incompetence?

Emotions.

She has long since learned that she is not actually very good at fixing those.

[eatmangoesnekkid]

I have a mostly heterosexual readership but my number of queer readers are growing exponentially by the week. I am grateful for any human soul who adores the frequency I channel from and feel expanded in any capacity by my work.

I do not try to fit it with the heterosexual community because I am not a heterosexual person in my thinking, perceiving, or feeling. I do not care to fit in with the queer community either because I don't sense myself queer. The queer community is too wounded in oppression, locked into the mortal mind, and generally moves through the world too victimized for my taste and archetypal texture, not in full ownership of their divine power and light, which can also be said for the conscious black community. I have never felt aligned with the Western word "queer" as I feel more undefinable--which means-- indigenous and rootsy, a frequency where "sexuality" wasn't rigid and had a natural range, depth, spirit, and viscosity, a primordial mother so lighthearted and sensitive to subtle energy that she could make passionate love to the universe and repair her aching knee joints with the provisional light received. There is a great gift in not defining, boxing, or organizing every part of us into a system of language. Thank you, Mother Sobonfu Some, for courageously authoring range and clarity in your divine work.

I am merely who I am, and that person, that playful, creative, dancing, beautiful, womanly spirit in female form, a medicine woman and sensual Priestess, is enough.

I have lived in a 3rd lane for most of my life because I generally do not feel inferior to anyone or any system, which assisted me in unplugging the limiting programming and dogmatic thinking from my tissues and building more real grounded confidence in myself and my unique imprint without having a whole entourage around coddling me along the way. I didn't need to be part of the "feminist" crowd. The "witch" group. The LGBTQIA crowd. The conscious Black crowd. I participated in everything that I wanted to without any labels attached to my personhood. I was free. I still am.

The more anonymous you walk around, the brighter you shine.- Mother Caroline Myss

I care deeply about what's real--true love, the brightest expression of the power of God/creation running through our bodies, lives, and experiences.

I have dedicated myself to embodying love imperfectly. I am devoted to the chaotic and vulnerable journey of living full and plump and loving innocently. And it is a journey because all the programmings and conditioning baked into my mind, body, and psyche, and even the TV shows and movies I watched in my youth, have to come undone. And it can be chaotic because you are literally letting go of everything, shifting your perceptional field, changing frequencies, growing consciousness, growing new tissues, and evolving your mind. True chaos is the structure of the divine feminine. Surrender is key.

I also care about real nourishment and lubrication/hydration. And a range of intimacies and passions. And real human emotion. And authenticity. And relaxation, playfulness, and groundedness. And truthful, thoughtful, vulnerable relationships. And regeneration.

I am a Lover Archetype through and through.

I care about how to inspire people to love themselves (their cells) better and to love other people (and the cells of other people) better. And the only way to know love is to muster the courage to move through addictions, obsessions, shadows, and other blockages to love.

My desire to always be myself and not fit in if the harmony was not truly there has also been my superpower that has kept my body ripe life force energy, that juicy love, innocence, and aliveness. It has also kept my mind sharp and clear. I was never meant to fit in. And I am willing to bet that neither were you.

—

Trust the ones who don't try to fit in.

The ones who seek to evolve into new imprints.

The ones who weave the deep magic of full body sensual explorations into practical life.

The ones who come out from the limiting programming of ancestors and heal unseen kin. The ones who harness the courage required to live their best lives.

The ones who tread through the mud of race, class, sexuality, and gender and stack river rocks as offerings to nuanced femme Gods.

The ones who do not shrink in order to make other people feel comfortable.

The ones who descend into the underworld, slough through discomforts, and come back with otherworldly solutions and next step directions.

The ones who burn with flames so red hot that their mere presence, without words or the any need to profess, illuminates.

The ones who dare to dream so big that they appear brilliantly naïve and beautifully childlike.

The ones who know that their knowledge is only a fraction of the whole truth.

The magical ones with soft strength and deep vulnerability, heat and humility, love and compassion, and drive and kindness. See them. Welcome them. Honour them. And most importantly, recognize them in you.

None of us are not supposed to do this work alone. --India Ame'ye, Author

[fatatoes]

M’kay I have some thoughts about the witcher and wlw representation in the Witcher book series!

CW for sexual abuse and spoilers

Tbh when I had just read the Last Wish and half way through the first book I just gave up on the series. The women were just written so weirdly to me. Ciri was so innocent it was almost fetishised and the long and meticulous description of Triss and her sexual history was really unnecessary.

IN FACT when Triss’ “experiments” with women were mentioned it was almost explained as like ‘she tried EVERY deviance. EVEN *gasp* the THAT’ :| it was weird.

That’s not to say the writing didn’t get better later, like I guess Sapkowski spoke to a woman since finishing Blood of Elves.

BUT. He insisted on pointing out gay people exist in his world. Which is fine. He also insisted on telling us how people of his world felt about gay people. Also fine. You can write homophobia in your stories, not the worst thing I haven’t been warned about.

But in the entirety of the literature I’ve read from the Witcher series, I haven’t come across one i think more about than the Mistle and Ciri sex paragraph.

For anyone wondering how they’re supposed to feel about this: NOT GOOD. It was a not good thing that happened :||

Mistle took advantage of Ciri’s vulnerability and fear and, yes, practically raped her. But it was written???? As if it was a good thing???

I didn’t expect any better from Sapkowski having read the previous Witcher books, but I still feel like this is a fascinating part of Ciri’s story.

Were I not more aware of tone armour surrounding this event in the book, I would’ve said it was an interesting study on queer youth because IT COULDVE BEEN RELATABLE.

From my own experience as a queer woman: as a teenager, finding a queer friend group with people who are actually interested in you was everything! Even if those initial friend groups are full of lying and manipulation and violence and yes, sometimes even sexual harassment, you finally feel safe, why would you ever give that up?

I feel like a lot of my friends ended up being dragged into problems with vandalism, drugs, sex addiction etc exactly because they stuck in the environment that raised them to be used to that as a price of love of their chosen family.

Mistle and Ciri are a toxic couple. Ciri WAS just a child when she joined the Rats and having peers who harness her skills and treat her as one of their own was a treasure to her. Even if that family came with drug abuse.

I have no doubt in my mind Ciri loves the Rats and that she loves Mistle, just as I have no doubts Mistle loves her just as much. But they are hurt queer kids in a homophobic world that feel like they have nobody else, who else would they love?

I am SO SURE Sapkowski didn’t write them in with this in mind tho pffff. Honestly? The Rats feel like an afterthought in the books.

If I were to write the Rats arc into the Witcher series, honestly I WOULD have the Rats survive, but Ciri to still be taken away. Them dying might’ve felt like a resolution to some people, but I would argue that having Mistle survive to break up with Ciri would’ve been a better resolution.

I’m not done with the book yet but it seems as though they are going for a familial love angle where Ciri will not take any of her remaining love interests, but it would be so cool if she were to face her sexuality and admit the toxicity of her past choices.

Idk sounds like a *lmao libtard* kinda ending, but it seems to me like Sapkowski just wrote that relationship in there to be able to say he has a bisexual character in his books so I’m no more shallow than that kind of thinking.

Also also

This is kind of why I would’ve loved to see the Netflix version of this story. As much as I hate how much they changed the story, as a standalone piece of media, it isn’t that bad. At least it has more believable women. Were they to adapt the wlw relationship with Ciri and Mistle though, I’m sure they would’ve sanitised it, which isn’t the BEST adaptation but at least one that doesn’t make me want to die

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

EP22 - Tumblr Trans - with Helena Kerschner

Helena (age 23) identified as non-binary and transgender throughout her teenage years, transitioning with HRT from the age of 18 - 19 before detransitioning. In this episode, she reflects on the social and online influences that led her down the path to transition. 

Aaron Terrell: So we are hoping to talk about the cultural aspect of transgenderism or transgender ideology, and more like the social justice -- what we commonly know in academic circles as like queer theory, but as it's applied in more like online youth realms, more commonly known as basically like social justice theory, or a social justice framework, and how that's probably the primary driver in so much youth transition today, or even 20-something transition today. And Helena knows that stuff inside and out, so she has joined us to shed light so thank you very much

If you want to introduce yourself for the people who don't know you, which I doubt is anybody but, yeah, introduce yourself.

Helena: Well, if anyone has not seen me rabidly go off on the timeline yet, I'm a de-transitioned woman, I'm 23, and I started identifying as trans when I was 15 after getting very involved in Tumblr fandoms. And with that came obviously, the social justice stuff which I believe played just a huge, huge part in my trans identity and eventual decision to transition. When I was 18, I went on testosterone, and I was on testosterone for about 17 months before I desisted, and after I desisted I kind of identified as non-binary for a few months. And then eventually I just said.. I'm a girl. So, yeah, that's the short version of my story.

Aaron Terrell: It seems like for a lot of people, the non-binary identity is either kind of like sometimes an on-ramp or an off-ramp from full-on trans identification.

Helena: Yeah, and I think like, I know we'll definitely get into this more, but I think the reason for that is because when you're immersed in these social justice spaces, that's a very strict, almost like moral code with your peers that basically says that if you're privileged, then you're responsible for all of this pain and suffering and wrongdoing in the world. And for someone like me, who at the time was a cis, straight, white girl from a middle, upper-middle class upbringing, I felt a lot of guilt about all of this privilege that I had. And obviously you can't change your race, you can't change your sexuality, you can't change where your family comes from, but one thing that you can change is your pronouns. So it's really easy for girls who are in the situation - or boys too, I think especially boys, who are young, they're not socially adept - and they're faced with this very strict, kind of unforgiving moral framework. It's so easy to just to say "you know, I'm gonna try going by they/them pronouns" and then you get this positive feedback loop.

So, we'll probably talk more about that, but that's my opinion on on that.

Aaron Terrell: Well, we can even talk about it now. What I've noticed, slowly over the last few years, kind of clued into, is it's almost if you don't choose to identify as non-binary, it's almost like you're actively choosing to be an oppressor, to participate in these oppressive structures where you're on an upper ledge. It's almost like there's - it's so much farther beyond peer pressure - that you you feel compelled to adapt a trans identification in some way. And like you're saying, this is often people in your kind of demographic range: white people, typically middle or upper class, where you have this guilt, and this lack of an existing cultural kind of community to identify yourself with. And so it has this twofold appeal is that it comes with this sense of personal differentiation and a community to belong to, as well as getting you out of the oppressive class you exist in, if you're cis and straight.

Helena: Exactly, and I think teenagers are already in a state where they're so vulnerable to social rejection and so when you've already been rejected a lot of the times just for being more introverted, or more nerdy, or having autism, or being gay, anything like that - when you've already kind of been rejected from your in real life social circles, whether that's your community or your school, and then you seek refuge from that in these online spaces, and then you're hit with "once again we will reject you unless you change this, or unless you fit into this, some kind of oppressed group in some way.” Not that it's explicit, but it's very much the cis, straight, white people are the ones who are constantly the butts of very negative jokes. You'll get told, you have no right to speak on this, you have no right to be depressed or struggle with anything, because you're so privileged. And so I think that's an incredible incentive.

Aaron Terrell: There's a lot of cultural forces and incentives to adapting it, and then it seems like - and I don't think this was your experience as far as when you started testosterone, but something that I've seen that seems to be the case in a lot of that kind of understanding - is that transition is almost seen as  something that you do to demonstrate how committed you are to the trans moral code. It's not so much that you feel like there's a problem with your body that you need to fix, but more like by transitioning, it's like you're demonstrating a commitment to this moral code. Is that something that you saw?

Helena: I do relate to that, and I think it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with having body image issues. I think that it's kind of like eating disorders, you know, where it's like someone with an eating disorder is going to have genuine torturous angst over their body and disliking their body, but at the same time, there's also the socially contagious communal aspect where it's like you want to be the sickest, you want to be going the furthest, you want to be showing your commitment. So I think that does exist almost in a direct parallel in some of these young FTM or non-binary circles.

[...]

Helena: So I just pretty much from the get-go started using Tumblr a lot hours and hours and hours a day, and anyone who's been on Tumblr knows that pretty much as soon as you get involved in any kind of community, you see the social justice kind of posts popping up. So, in between everything, you have with whatever you're interested in, your fandom, you'll see posts just all over the place talking about social justice stuff all the time. And a lot of the times it's very emotionally charged. It's not just some kind of educational post, it's like "white people need to shut up," just really emotionally charged stuff.

I remember seeing this kind of stuff and at first - I had one friend in real life at this point, and he was a gay boy using Tumblr as well and I remember we would be calling each other late at night and making fun of these social justice warriors, because we just thought it was kind of ridiculous. And then I had a falling out with that friend and we kind of stopped talking. So then I was just left to Tumblr. And I remember just always having this kind of deep resentment of like, why are you talking such shit about cis people, what's wrong with being cis, what's wrong with not wanting to transition or be trans or think I'm a boy, there's nothing weird about that. I had this intense resentment of that.

But over time that resentment I guess. turned into okay fine, I guess I need to not be cis. Like, a subconscious process, this wasn't like a decision to like, I'm not going to be cis anymore. But I think it was a subconscious process of just giving in and being like, look I don't want to feel this resentment, I don't want to feel like I'm constantly the butt of every joke, I don't want to feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells because if I say anything, a billion people are going to come at me because I'm cis and I have no right to talk. So, I remember there was a few days where I kind of mulled over it, and then I was like, you know what, maybe they/them pronouns do feel better than she/her pronouns. I've never felt connected to being a girl anyway - what does that even mean?

So, I made my little post being like, I'm just trying out they/them pronouns to see how it feels. And then obviously immediately everyone was like, oh that's so awesome, that's great, we'll call you they/them, we accept you, blah, blah. And so I was like, cool. And it just kind of kept going from there where I would acclimate to the they/them pronouns, not doing any of this in real life, this was all on Tumblr, but then again my mind was all on Tumblr too, I wasn't really connecting with the outside world at all.

I would acclimate to the they/them pronouns, and then I would be like okay, well you know what, I think I'm actually a demi-girl, that's my gender identity. And then I would kind of acclimate to that. People would be like, yay, so proud of you. And then I would say, you know what, maybe I'm agender. And then people would be like, yay, yay, congratulations. And then I would acclimate to that. And then I'd be like, well maybe my pronouns are xie/xir - I remember I used that at one point. And again, everybody is like super happy about it.

And yeah, it took me from feeling like, oh I've been rejected in real life and now I'm getting rejected again, and I'm really angry about it and but I don't feel I don't have the confidence to just continue being myself so I'm going to change myself. And then when I changed myself, there was all of this social reward.

Aaron Kimberly: That's the point that I was picking up on in your story, right, is every time you announced a change in identity, you were getting the reward of the approval, and the support. And then it makes me wonder, that really reinforces a constant changing of identity, because I could see a person getting - especially if a person is really isolated - this, if every time you change your identity you're getting that kind of hit of that reward, it does seem to - it makes sense to me anyway, that that would lend itself to people kind of experimenting with a lot of different identities and constantly shifting identity.

Helena: And another thing is that, obviously when you're first learning about all this gender identity, pronoun stuff, it seems like this massive world of stuff that you've never considered. And so I think that when in your real life you feel like people don't accept you, but then in this alternate reality of Tumblr, you feel like people accepted you for they/them, you start to think like, could I push this further, could I test to see how much people accept me based on how intricate my pronouns and gender become. I'm sure you guys have seen this online where people write in their bios or in their card or whatever, they'll be like, my pronouns change depending on blah, blah, blah, blah, and my gender identity is different depending on blah, blah, blah, I'm a girl during the full moon, and I am an androgene agender, blah, blah, blah when it rains. People kind of do that.

And I think that, at least for me, because I didn't go that far but I did use the xie/xir pronouns, and stuff like that. I think that it's kind of like you're feeling acceptance for the first time, and that it's conditional, but you're so hungry for that feeling of acceptance that you keep changing things and making them more complicated and digging the hole even further, to test if people will continue accepting you. And they always do, because it's not real acceptance, it's conditional, and they just continue cheering you on. And it's so easy to get your perception warped that way.

Aaron Terrell: Do you think that there is some social currency in that worldview where you're essentially separating yourself further and further from like, mainstream understandings? Is that where the praise is coming from, that you're kind of distancing yourself more and more from like, cis-het society?

Helena: Absolutely, I think that it's there on like the political level where in the worldview it's like, cis heteronormative, post-colonialist, white society is this evil, horrible institution that's killing people and blah, blah, blah. And then so, what you want to do in response to that is to separate yourself. And in this particular worldview, a lot of that is done through identity and through language, and so you want to separate yourself from that, you know, cis, heteronormative, white hegemony or whatever they want to call it. So, there's that.

But then I think there's also just the kind of normal teenage tendency to - for some teenagers - to want to be part of an alternative group, an alternative lifestyle. So, I think there's that too. I remember feeling that way when I was in high school, when I had to go to school and interact with the normies, I would just kind of cope with the fact that I wasn't fitting in by being like, these idiots, they don't even understand that we live in a cis, hetero, white patriarchy, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that was just kind of my way of not having to really come to terms with the fact that I didn't have many friends, or that I wasn't fitting in with the normal people. I think that's pretty normal for certain teenagers, but there's definitely that at play too.

[...]

Aaron Terrell: So, you also had a really interesting experience at that clinic, because as I recall, you're telling Sasha and Stella on "Gender: A Wider Lens," you basically told them, oh I've got big boobs and big hips, and therefore I need extra testosterone, and they're like, oh yeah, totally that sounds legit.

Helena: Literally, I shit you not, that is what happened. So, usually they start you off on a dose, from what I've heard from other women who have been on testosterone, usually 25 milligrams is kind of where you get started out. I've heard from a much smaller group of people that 50 milligrams is where they started out, but usually it's somewhere down there.

And so I originally was getting prescribed 25 milligrams - and this is a week - and I expressed that I was concerned that it wasn't going to have any effect on me, because I feel like I produce more estrogen, because I have big hips, not even big hips, big thighs and big boobs, which is crazy to me every time I tell this story, I'm like what the, why did she listen to me? You can look at me, I don't have abnormally large boobs or thighs, what the fuck?

But yeah, basically she was just kind of like, okay so do you want to go up to like 50 milligrams? And I was like, I might need it to be higher. And so she was like, okay so where do you want to start at? And I was just like, what's the highest? And she said, usually we don't go over 100 milligrams. And then I was like, can we do that? And she agreed to it, and so that's what she prescribed me. I have the records and everything.

Aaron Kimberly: Just to put that in perspective, I'm on 65 every week. Have been for years.

Aaron Terrell: I started at 25 and was on that for six years, and I've been on 50 for the last four. It's interesting when you talk about the kind of mental turmoil, the emotional roller coaster that you went on, it makes a lot of sense when you realize how just how much testosterone was flooded into your system.

Helena: With no gradual build-up to it. It was just one day I had normal female levels of testosterone, and the next day I was injecting 100 milligrams into my flesh.

Aaron Terrell: It's likely about 50 times what your body was used to, somewhere between like 30 to 50, I would say.

[pashterlengkap]

Hate group says nonprofit is “deviant and abusive” for trying to save LGBTQ+ lives

The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization serving LGBTQ+ youth, has been called a “deviant and abusive pedophile” group by Mat Staver, leader of the Liberty Counsel (SLPC), a Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC) designated anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that opposes any expansion of queer civil rights. Staver targeted the organization in his recent rant against the Equality Act, legislation that would enshrine LGBTQ+ protections into pre-existing federal civil rights law. Staver claims the law would offer legal protections for “over 550 sexual deviancies — including pedophilia.” It doesn’t. Related: LibsOfTikTok linked to Russian disinformation campaign to stir outrage over LGBTQ rights The account’s founder has pledged to do even more to threaten LGBTQ lives in the future. “Liberty Counsel is fighting the Jezebellian evil attempting to corrupt our children and culture,” Staver wrote in a March 22 post filled with dishonest distortions and mischaracterizations about TrevorSpace, the organization’s youth chatrooms. “Instead of promoting lifesaving ideals, the Trevor Project promotes extreme sexual deviancy,” Staver added, noting that the anti-trans group Gays Against Groomers has called the chatrooms “a pedophile’s paradise.” LGBTQ+ news you can rely on Keep track of the ongoing battle against bias and for equality with our newsletter. Daily * Weekly * Good News * “The Trevor Project[‘s TrevorSpace] chatrooms bills itself as open to any 13–24-year-old, thus putting minor children together with adults to discuss sex,” Staver claimed. “Trevor Project does not verify age, and thus anyone of any age can, and does, participate in the chat rooms meant for troubled and vulnerable children and teens.” Staver is correct that anyone of any age can access the site even though it requires users to enter their birthdate. However, he then mischaracterizes many of the themed chatrooms in TrevorSpace, falsely stating that they’re all geared toward sexual activities. (TrevorSpace’s policies explicitly forbid unlawful, obscene, sexually explicit, and “otherwise objectionable” content, and the site has moderators and reporting policies to stop such content.) Staver wrote, “Trevor Project chat rooms include things like a Polyamory Club for people who have multiple sexual partners; and a ‘Furries United’ club for people who dress like cats, dogs, and other animals to act out bestiality fantasies with a human partner. Also included is a ‘Regressors Space,’ where people take sexual pleasure from pretending to be or be with a young child; a ‘Guilt and Secrets Club,’ where users share and discuss shameful sexually explicit encounters; and the ‘Gay Men Club,’ which bills itself as ‘for gay men only!’ — which reveals its pedophiliac intentions with the headline ‘Let’s talk about boys!'” Polyamory refers to people who have more than one romantic attachment; the term doesn’t refer to sex. Furries are people who pretend to be animals; the practice is playful and isn’t inherently sexual. Regression refers to people who explore different states of mind associated with being younger, usually for escapism and stress relief; regression practitioners explicitly state that the practice isn’t sexual. As for the “Guilt and Secrets” and “Gay Men Club,” neither one is specifically geared towards sexual conversations, and”boys” is a widely used slang term that refers to males of any age. “[If] the ‘Equality Act,’ passes, children will be fair game for The Trevor Project or any of the other deviant and abusive pedophile organizations,” Staver falsely claims. “That’s because [the Equality Act] specifically protects participants in sexual deviance — including pedophiles. The bill specifies that it protects members of the “LGBTQ” community. The ‘Q’ in LGBTQ refers to ‘queer,’ which, by definition, includes about 550 sexually deviant paraphilias — including pedophilia.” The Equality Act makes no mention… http://dlvr.it/T4cbPC

[intersexcat-tboy]

Respectfully, do not reblog me erasing intersex violence, shut the fuck up. You believe the "beef" to be "experiencing additional transphobia" which... Wow lmao. I don't even know how you got that.

The point being made is it will not protect THEM from bigotry.

Why do you think those with innate differences in their bodies are safe from harm? Do you not realize how absolutely absurd that sounds? This is like those w mental disabilities claiming if it were physical they'd have more support, or people would treat them better, taken seriously.

Just because you may not face bigotry does not mean the rest of us don't. It is well known intersex are of some of the most vulnerable in the entire queer community. 1 in 4 intersex youth from the US have faced physical harm in the past year (via Trevor Project). But yeah sure intersex violence doesn't occur 🙄 22% of intersex respondents in the EU have faced (physical/sexual) violence in the past 5 years, and 42% faced harassment (17% and 48% for trans) in the past year.

"it's very much treated differently than transness" then why is it one of the most common misconceptions we face? Why do multiple / advocacy / groups / have a page discussing the differences or mentioning how they're confused?

Intersexism and transphobia are two different concepts with a lot of overlap. "Less likely to physically attack" ... refer back to previous paragraphs.

Yes, in some places violence against intersex individuals can be argued to be a hate crime based on sex, but not always. Plenty of places have a ban on gender identity related discrimination. Very few explicitly mention intersex. It took the US nearly a decade after gender identity was added to protected classes to confirm intersex traits fell under sex discrimination.

"this issue is more complex than you may be led to believe" is so grossly undermining of my ability to comprehend and witness. You even acknowledge exogenous causes are also still super stigmatizated

Do you genuinely think bigots are going to care about the law? Assault is assault. Trans panic isn't a named law or anything, it's a strategy, and could very well be used against intersex individuals.

"'Panic strategies' are those strategies that try to explain a defendant’s actions […] based upon the knowledge or discovery of [actual or presumed protected class] or associates with a person/group with one or more of these characteristics."

"Essential to the claim of trans panic is the argument that the average heterosexual man would've been provoked into a heat of passion if he'd discovered that the person with whom he'd been sexually intimate wasn't a 'real' female, but a person with male genitalia pretending to be a woman."

"[…] the defendant's violence may be motivated by the defendant's extreme discomfort with gender nonconformity. His act of killing reflects a desire to enforce prevailing gender norms that align sex with gender". These are from Trans Panic Defense Revisited.

"a disgruntled sexual partner could point to 'ambiguous or noncongruent sex features' and claim they had been deceived regarding the 'true' biological sex of their intersex partner." From (Trans)forming the Provocation Defense

Besides... Defendants in the US are charged with homicide ~83% of the time between 1970 and 2020 when using a panic defense, from the Williams Institute.

#also anyone who pits the trans and intersex communities against each other instead of focusing on the source of intersexist and transphobic #violence... (aka perisex cishet people) cannot be trusted as intersex advocates. #least destructive south park fan award for op good job turning your directionless rage into misdirected rage.

No one is pitting communities against each other, and perceiving a request for thoughtful consideration of how ones actions can affect others, and respect for our experiences, says more about you than it does about the OP

You are literally spreading misinformation. YOU cannot be trusted as an advocate

PLEASE STOP TELLING PEOPLE YOU HAVE A TESTOSTERONE/ESTROGEN DEFICIENCY IF YOURE A PERISEX TRANS PERSON. not only is it becoming a mainstream “excuse” for a lack of passing, meaning it’s not very effective, but it also contributes to stigma against intersex people and our… everything, really. you’re basically saying that intersex people are medical anomalies and that our struggles are comparable to the trans experience (some are, many aren’t).

sincerely, an intersex trans man who grew up with people mocking my intersex characteristics, only for some ppl to use them to their advantage transition-wise.

[pbscore]

Y’all know that like…the conservatives in Texas didn’t just suddenly start ‘attacking’ queer people because of terminally online ‘kink at pride’ discourse, right?

Like, y’all are aware of the fact that this reactionary conservatism was already on the rise for the past 10 years or so, right? And that whatever squabbling on the internet that this community has been doing with one another literally is not the reason or basis as to why emboldened conservatives feel comfortable toying with our basic human rights…right?

This is literally why I have been such a proponent for active and inclusive spaces for queer people of ALL ages… which absolutely includes minors. Which is something that (depending on your region) has been a common thing in many queer spaces and even during pride where you will find various events such as inter-generational lunches and youth camps.

Now, we are seeing these super conservatives use one of the most vulnerable and easily impressionable groups of people in society to project their horrific ideologies onto in the name of their ‘safety’ while y’all…are too busy complaining about how kids don’t ‘deserve’ to be at pride. Do y’all not see how this was a missed opportunity to create better community opportunities for kids and teens, especially if they’re queer/trans? Do y’all not realize how important the youth in any community, but especially in minority communities, and their education and (physical/mental) safety are to making sure the future of that community can continue?

This is the nuance that has been consistently missing in these conversations about pride and community, overall, and it’s genuinely baffling to me how y’all only give a shit about your personal adult endeavors being affected by this wave of conservatism. As if everything else, especially the autonomy of minors, is some kind of pit stop in the grand scheme of activism when it’s literally the bedrock of so many current social issues that we are seeing and experiencing today.

Everything is connected. Everything. So, if your ‘queer activism’ doesn’t even include the health, safety, and education of minors…then it’s genuinely worthless. I don’t care if you want kids or not because that’s not what the point of this post is about!

Your personal hang ups with your parents regarding children has nothing to do with the bigger picture of needing to create a better society for the future generations of human beings who did not ask to be here, like the rest of us. Y’all have spent far too long seeing the forest for the trees and that’s what’s been putting so many ‘leftists’ on ice when it comes to actually organizing and making real structural change.

Some of y’all may not like hearing this but we do have a responsibility to be just as supportive and compassionate towards children and teens as we are towards anyone else in this world. Think about your own foundations as kids and teens. Wouldn’t it have made your life easier knowing there are communities of adults and peers you could trust? Wouldn’t it have saved you some anxiety to just know that you could have more than one or two people to reach out to when you were in pain?

NOTE: yes this can be reblogged, but if you respond with some annoying ass ‘uwu but I don’t like kids’, you’re getting blocked.

Also: THIS POST IS NOT FOR ‘PRO PARAPHILIA’ CREEPS! STAY OFF MY POSTS!

[sn33z3s]

stan’s indulgence, kyle’s reliance

revisiting the “unrequited” question, talking about kyle and his soft underbelly and stan’s assertiveness, or lack thereof (once again, this is a twitter thread i’ve turned into a tumblr post. pardon my mess)

kyle rarely willingly exposes his vulnerability to anyone except stan. kyle wants to prove himself in front of as many people as possible, but only seeks approval from stan. that is, stan’s approval, specifically, indicates success for kyle. of course, there are times kyle is pretty clearly in the wrong

a fanon view i struggle with is the portrayal of stan as a pushover; pitiful and neglected by kyle. now, there is a difference between having a weakness and being a pushover, but i’ll elaborate on that under the cut

stan often does not let up when he feels wronged by kyle. in the Console Wars, in The Fractured but Whole, in the Vaccination Special, after kyle fucks up, kyle is dejected, folding faster than stan to regain stan’s well-regard:

in my first post about stan and kyle’s consistent character traits, i talked a little bit about kyle’s excessive idealization of stan. kyle has a desire to see stan reach his full potential and becomes frustrated when stan falls through the cracks. (i’ve also discussed certain parts of YGO & Assburgers, including those which i feel are focused on in a way that exaggerates why the episode goes down how it does.) whether kyle is coming from a “good” place or not is up to the viewer’s definition, but regardless, kyle needs stan as much as stan needs kyle

stan’s dedication - weakness, habit, call it what you will - to kyle is often read as the indicator that their friendship is uneven, that stan puts more into the dynamic than kyle, who does not reciprocate stan’s feelings in turn (or reciprocates less of them, or is unaware, and so on). here’s me linking a thing i made again; this time, it’s the video of kyle expressing his affection for stan

cartman has a line from the Vaccination Special (to Stan): “I don't know why you don't stand up to [Kyle] more, it's really disappointing.” here, cartman is half a stand-in for the audience and half speaking uniquely, as a character, out of resentment. narratively, cartman’s line was inserted partially to build the “surprising” moment of stan doing just that: standing up to kyle, culminating in the broship’s deterioration 

so it’s clear that stan follows kyle happily most of the time; he can easily be described as very puppy-like. kyle is skilled at getting what he wants out of stan. at the same time, though, stan asserting himself is not really anything new

stan, the empathetic type, the person on the other side of kyle’s red string, simply wants to be there for the mercurial kyle, only desiring kyle’s companionship in return. however, stan is also the protagonist, and arguably the the character of the main four that goes through the most meaningful arcs, while kyle is reactionary. this is very important when considering how stan and kyle fight and how their best friendship has gone from representing youth and inseparability to the realism of growing up

in episodes like You’re Getting Old, Assburgers (will i ever shut up about them), and even Guitar Queer-O, i find the initial “wronging” was on stan’s end - though i stand by my interpretation that neither stan or kyle are better or worse during the YGO arc at least. the order of events in those episodes reads to me as stan going to kyle before vice-versa. however, when stan and kyle are on opposite sides of a thing, almost any thing, stan does not always ask kyle for forgiveness first

i’ve talked in decent length about how i see neither stan nor kyle as more dependent and instead just dependent in different ways. i think the places stan and kyle come from are misconstrued when not individualized. in my opinion, stan runs on empathy, responding accordingly. in contrast, kyle pointedly runs not on empathy but on sympathy instead and the ability to eventually recognize what is objectively correct. in other words, kyle occasionally struggles to put himself in other people's shoes. however, he'll often know what is morally right. stan can quickly put himself in others' shoes and is likely to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it's never guaranteed that he will - and when he doesn't, he removes himself

so, from the same angle, i see stan being kyle’s keeper (his protector, his vassal, we can get fancy with this) as the prelude to how much kyle needs stan. the show expresses this frequently and parallels that in their Stick of Truth dynamic, post-YGO arc. kyle’s position as the one who relies on stan is not insignificant. if stan is the knight, then it’s critical to note that a king will injure himself without his retainer, the person who could defend [kyle] with his own life

kyle’s goal is to be an upstanding individual, but stan is the one person whose validation matters deeply to kyle. ultimately, it’s a validation he would have no reason to worry over if he did not need stan just as much as stan needs him

[unbridgeabledistances]

prompt: domestic gallavich/being intimate in a nonsexualway bc there’s like 3 weeks til the next episode 😐

your wish is my command, anon!<3 i decided to tie this into next ep bc i simply cannot HANDLE mickey’s outfit/big gay metamorphosis & i needed to create the scene that inspired it so i wrote this

a one-shot bridging 11x06 and 11x07 in which ian and mickey talk about “gay friends,” ripped jeans, and do a bit of processing along the way

tw for brief mention of homophobia/abuse (bc terry lol)

--

“How come we don’t have any, like, gay friends?”

Ian looked up from where he was laying on the ground, breathing heavily after a series of push-ups, a nightly routine that he was trying to keep intact even though he and Mickey were practically driving the entire circumference of Chicago every day to make weed deliveries from dawn til dusk, leaving them both exhausted. It had been a week since all the shit with Terry, and a month or so since he and Mickey had started the security gig; while months ago their evenings would be spent sitting side by side on the bed in a brittle silence while Ian read or scratched in his notebook and Mickey played games on his phone blasting at full volume in the pajamas he’d been wearing all day, these days the evenings in their bedroom were softer and warmer— like they were settling into the space together, like they were both on the same team instead of constantly clashing and butting heads while trapped in a too-small space. These days, after having dinner in the clamor of the crowded kitchen, he and Mickey would head upstairs and change out of their uniforms, and Ian would work out while Mickey mostly just lounged on the bed, sometimes making commentary and watching him bob up and down with a pensive smirk or scrolling through his phone.

But tonight, Mickey was quiet— his eyes flickered to the curves and edges of Ian’s torso every now and then as Ian broke a sweat, but otherwise he wasn’t playfully poking and prodding like usual.

Mickey had been a lot quieter in general this week, after all the stuff with Terry— Ian knew seeing the source of all of Mickey’s trauma in a wheelchair immobile from the neck down, the most vulnerable Terry could have been, felt worse than someone repeatedly twisting a knife in Mickey’s abdomen. But beyond the initial shock and the almost-murder and lugging him up the stairs, having Terry in a wheelchair twenty feet away did something deeper to Mickey. This whole situation shifted something solid that had been lodged in the pit of Mickey’s stomach for years— Ian could see it, and he fucking hated it. He hated Mickey’s glassy contemplative eyes as he looked out the car window while they drove to a new dropoff location, lost in his head when he thought Ian wasn’t looking. He hated the tightly wound tension between Mickey’s shoulder blades as he slept, curled into himself and twisted in the comforter, facing away from Ian on the other side of the bed. He hated the tight smiles Mickey gave him as he made some offhand joke about Terry when they could hear him cursing and shrieking through the open front windows, smiles that were trying to prove something outwardly but showed the barbed pain stinging at Mickey’s insides. Ian poured out what he could in soft touches, in skims of fingertips at the breakfast table and in an arm over Mickey’s waist while they slept; but he could only give as much as Mickey would take, and for most of the week Mickey had shut everyone out with iron walls.

Ian couldn’t imagine what was stirring in Mickey’s mind; he’d seen some of Mickey’s trauma firsthand, sure, and some of the stories about Terry came slipping through the cracks when Mickey’s guard was down— mostly on those late nights when they both couldn’t sleep and Mickey whispered into the crook of Ian’s neck as they were curled into each other, cradled in the dark silence of their bedroom. But Ian knew there was deeper shit that he hadn’t heard about, and he could see the constant fear of Mickey’s adolescence hanging heavy around his neck all these years later. But Mickey didn’t need anyone to push his walls down— Ian knew he’d open up when he was ready.

Which is why this random question, the most direct statement Mickey had really made to him all week, caught Ian off guard. He sat up, folding his arms over his legs and staring up at where Mickey was slouching on the bed, propped up by a pillow he’d shoved between his back and the wall. “Gay friends?” he asked, more than a little confused.

Mickey cleared his throat. “Yeah, gay friends, y’know. Like all your youth center queers that came to the wedding or whatever.” He suddenly looked down and picked at a fraying thread on his shirt sleeve, not meeting Ian’s eyes.

Ian raised an eyebrow in curiosity. This was random, sure, but Mickey wouldn’t have brought it up if something wasn’t weighing on him, bubbling up after all the events of this week.

“I don’t know— I guess since the pandemic and stuff, I haven’t really kept in touch with Geneva or any of those guys who came to our wedding. We only really talked after I got out of prison because of all the Gay Jesus publicity bullshit, but after you got out I wasn’t really thinking about that as much.”

Mickey blew out a breath, so quietly Ian barely noticed it. Ian stood, wiping his sweaty forehead and plopping down on the bed next to Mickey, folding his legs so their knees were almost touching— but still giving him space, still letting him breathe.

“Why’re you asking?”

“Don’t know, really. Just thinkin’.” Mickey picked at his shirt sleeve again, then flickered his gaze up to meet Ian’s eyes, two clear pools of glassy blue. “Thinkin’ about what life could’ve been like. If I wasn’t scared shitless of who I was for so long.”

Ian felt something twist in his gut, the same queasy pang of pain that always resurfaced whenever he saw Mickey like this, whenever he was reminded of all the unspeakable agony that Terry had put him through.

“It’s fucked up that you didn’t get to be who you were for so long, Mick,” he breathed, knowing that statement didn’t cover the amount of things that were fucked up about this situation.

Mickey ran his teeth over his bottom lip, like he was concentrating. “Yeah.”

Ian let them sit there for a second. It seemed like Mickey wanted to say more, but something in him was frozen solid. After a moment, Ian tried to break the tension.

“Hey, for the record, I’ve had lots of gay friends and you aren’t missing much. There’s lots of PC bullshit that’s important but took me fucking forever to learn— and even then, I never really felt like I totally belonged.” He gently nudged Mickey’s ribcage. “I guess that’s why I forgot about everyone, between work and getting to be with you all the time— I’d rather eat pizza in the mall food court with you than go to some boujee fucking café with the youth center people any day.”

The corner of Mickey’s mouth ticked upwards slightly. “Yeah. Guess you’re right.” His fingers went slack around the threads on his shirtsleeve he’d been picking at. “You don’t… miss it though? Bein’ around people who’re like us?”

Ian paused for a moment, imagining the youth center crew in the same room as Mickey— it would be fucking comical, like people speaking two different languages, like astronauts trying to communicate with aliens on Mars through gestures and confused looks. But that was just because Mickey didn’t know how to speak that language— he’d been kept shrouded in an abusive household with daily death threats for years, and then stowed away in prison where he didn’t have the chance to go to fucking brunches and clubs and education events like Ian could. Ian got the chance to learn all that shit— it wasn’t Mickey’s fault that he never did, and if it was anyone’s, it was all Terry’s.

Ian’s eyes flickered to Mickey’s face— he looked vulnerable and split open, like he was drifting away in all the possibilities of what could have been. When he answered, Ian spoke softly, carefully.

“I mean… I guess I do. There were nice parts of going out with people, or even those after-parties back when I used to work at the club. There’s something nice about being with your people, where you can make jokes about stuff or talk about deep shit and everyone’s on the same page. It’s hard to find that around here.” Ian tentatively crawled his hand over the blanket, letting it rest on Mickey’s knee. “S’there anything else going on?”

Mickey raised his thumb to his mouth, biting at a hangnail contemplatively. “Dunno, man. Just thinking. How it might be nice, to have friends like us. I used to be scared of hangin’ with other queers, but I think that was just some deep bullshit with Terry.” He looked up to meet Ian’s eyes. “It’d be nice to stop… hating that part of myself, or whatever.”

Ian smiled, reaching to intertwine his fingers with Mickey’s and tracing a pattern with the thumb that was free from their grasp on Mickey’s inner thigh, a soft touch of validation that Ian hoped would soak into Mickey’s skin.

“I think so too.” Ian watched the corner of Mickey’s mouth curve upwards. “I can definitely hit up some of the people I used to hang with, and see if they wanna get coffee or something? With the two of us? Only if you want.”

Mickey nodded— then chuckled a breathy laugh, like he was relieved. “Fuck it. Yeah.”

Ian couldn’t help it; Mickey looked so fucking sweet and so relieved that he had to press a kiss to the top of his head. Mickey squirmed underneath him, bristling like a cat that didn’t want to be pet like he did with most of Ian’s soft touches— but Ian just grinned and doubled down, pressing another slower peck onto Mickey’s temple. Mickey blew out a slow breath.

“Don’t know what I’d fuckin’ wear to a brunch with a bunch of Northside do-gooder gays,” he said after a moment, his voice wavering so slightly that no one except Ian would have noticed.

Ian rolled his eyes fondly, giving Mickey’s hand a quick pulse of a squeeze. “Mickey, are you kidding? Wear whatever the fuck you want. You don’t need to change yourself, that’s kind of the whole point.”

“Yeah. Fuck. Guess it is.” Mickey was quiet for a moment, but still chewing on his bottom lip, like he was building the courage to say something more. Ian could tell— he let the comfortable silence hang between them, knowing that Mickey would break it when he was ready.

“D’you think it’d be stupid if I, like, tried to… jazz up my look a bit?” He darted his eyes nervously to Ian’s face, down to their clasped hands, and then back to the covers again. “Like, uh— I don’t know. Maybe wore some shit that didn’t have holes in it. With patterns, or whatever.”

Ian felt his face split into a grin. Patterns, or whatever— god, he loved his dumbass husband so fucking much. He pressed another kiss to Mickey’s cheek— this time Mickey didn’t flinch away, his only resistance a forced roll of his eyes.

“Mick, I don’t think that’s stupid at all. I think you should dress however makes you feel good.”

“’Kay.” Mickey pursed his lips, like he was still hesitant. Ian rubbed his thumb over the back of Mickey’s hand, their fingers still clasped and hanging limply in Mickey’s lap. The silence was hanging again, and Ian could still feel the tight waves of anxiety bouncing off of Mickey. He took in a breath.

“I could… help you, y’know. If you wanted to dress a certain way. At the very least I could gas you up and tell you how hot you look.” Ian paused, smirking and running his eyes over Mickey’s torso. “But I could also help you pick shit out, or whatever. We could order some stuff online.”

Mickey looked up at him, his eyes oddly relieved and open in a way they hadn’t been in days. “Yeah?”

Ian softly smiled. “Yeah. Only if you want to. You’re you, and you don’t have to pretend to be anyone else. I love the way you look— hell, it drives me crazy, Mick. But— if you feel like you aren’t dressing the way that makes you feel the best, or like you’re putting on an act for other people and you don’t want to anymore— then we can figure this out.”

This time it was Mickey that initiated affection, lifting their clasped hands and pressing a quick ghost of a kiss to Ian’s wrist. Ian smiled in acknowledgement, then playfully raised his eyebrows. “You wanna look online now? I’m done working out and more than happy to help you gay up your look.”

Mickey unclasped their hands, playfully shoving Ian squarely in the chest. “Fuck you.” Then, in an uncharacteristic move from the way Mickey had been flinching away from his touches all week, Mickey leaned in closer to Ian’s chest, nestling his back on Ian’s sternum and reaching for his phone that was discarded on the blanket beside him. “Alright, hot stuff. Where’re we fucking shopping?”

Ian grinned and snapped the waistband of Mickey’s sweatpants playfully, shuffling underneath him and getting comfortable.

“’Kay, let me think. I used to order a bunch of shirts and stuff from Primark when I was going out with the youth center people. They have good denim, too.”

Mickey’s bottom lip was caught between his teeth again while he listened. He hesitated for a moment, his thumb hovering over the phone’s keyboard— then, in an automatic movement, he quickly shoved his phone into Ian’s hand, cheerfully wriggling back into Ian’s chest. Ian smirked and unlocked the phone, happy to take the reins— online shopping for fashion was clearly lightyears out of Mickey’s comfort zone.

Ian navigated over to the Primark homepage, plastered with torsos of toned models wearing striped button ups and ripped jeans. His thumb pressed down onto the “denim” tab, and he started to slowly scroll through the rows of options, holding the phone so Mickey could see.

“I don’t know what you really want, but they’ve got pretty cheap pants and shit that’re good quality…” Ian let his voice trail off, speaking softly to where Mickey was lying on his chest in a voice that he knew was tickling the shell of Mickey’s ear. Mickey almost seemed… nervous, or at the very least paralyzed by the wealth of options. He raised his thumb to his mouth, anxiously biting the hangnail again.

“I guess those ripped ones don’t look too bad.”

Ian clicked on the picture Mickey was referring to. They were black jeans, a dark wash and skinny cut, with patches ripped on both knees. Ian felt something well in his chest, probably an overreaction to a pair of jeans— but these jeans were perfect for Mickey. They weren’t too much, weren’t overly fashionable, but they still felt more clean-cut than the baggy pants Mickey usually threw on. These jeans were badass, and totally aligned with Mickey’s don’t-fuck-with-me vibe, but they were deliberate. Stylish. Like they were saying here the fuck I am.

“Yeah?” Ian knew Mickey could tell he was smiling from his voice.

Mickey smirked, craning his neck and turning to look up at Ian. “Yeah. Think I can pull ‘em off?”

Ian pressed his lips together. “Fuck yeah. You’re gonna look so good.”

Mickey just gave a satisfied smile, and nestled back against Ian’s chest again. “Let’s get ‘em, then.”

[princesscolumbia]

I'm a sex positive parent, meaning I am very open with my daughter about sex simply being a part of life for a lot of people. This was introduced within the framework of, "There's things we can discuss when you're age x, y, and z but not before. If you have questions that drift into any of those age-gated things, I will tell you as much, give you as much information as I'm able to now, and we can revisit the things we couldn't talk about now when you reach those ages." I have adjusted this when I learn she has been exposed, in some fashion, to some of the concepts that I was going to talk with her about later. I just found out last weekend she binge watched Helluvaboss during the pandemic lockdowns, which has a LOOOOOT of references to sex related humor that has pretty solidly scrapped a lot of the age-gating I'd already established, so we've started discussing those topic now instead of waiting for her to be 18.

I'm not her only parent, and her other mother is an actively practicing conservative mormon who honestly, genuinely thinks that the pamphlet put out by the church called "For the Strength of Youth" is all anyone ever needs to know, ever, about sex-ed and everything related.

I'm not kidding.

I, at the age of 23 while she was 27, had to teach her about sexual activity that wasn't strictly "penis owner on top." Even ten years after we got married I was stumbling over gaps in her knowledge that I learned in sex-ed class in high school.

You can guess which mom our daughter goes to for things like, "How do I know if I'm a member of the queer community? Am I even someone who wants to have sex or am I ace and how do I know for sure?"

I'm the one that teaches her things like bodily autonomy and 'the Harkness Test' and yes, you can want to wear a tux to the prom and still think of yourself as a girl, but if you're genderfluid that's okay and nobody can tell you that you aren't. I tell her that if I find out she's looking at porn in any context I, as a responsible parent, will have to restrict her access to said porn until she's 18 as there's questions about when a minor should be exposed to that sort of thing. I also tell her that if she is consuming porn and wants to ask me about something she saw or read then so long as she doesn't tell me she found out about it from smut (even if it's obvious she can only encounter the topic from smut), then I'm an EMT in a Swiss Bank. You can bring me whatever you want to ask about as long as you are honest with me about your question. I'm not a cop and I don't want to know where you got your stuff, I just need to know what we're dealing with so I can address it correctly, and I'll never, ever tell a soul you asked me.

I do all this because my first exposure to what we'd now call "T4T porn" came about when I was 13 when I found a porn catalog on my walk home from school. (We obviously didn't call it "T4T porn" at the time, and I won't use the term the catalog used because it's considered offensive in some circles now) My parental figure at the time was what we'd now call a TERF. Even then I knew better than to ask a TERF about why I got really aroused when I saw T4T porn. This was the 80s, so I had no Internet to ask about it, and my exposure to the queer community was zero. My failure to understand my own sexuality and gender would lock me into a path that would keep me in my 'shell,' closetted, and married to a woman who doesn't understand that she's vulnerable to being gaslit and manipulated by her homophobic family. Even if my daughter can't do anything about it until she's of the age of majority, even if she winds up being cis-het and living in a monogamous relationship that makes her happy for the rest of her life, I want her to be armed and armored with the knowledge she needs to make informed choices, know her own boundaries, be aware of her bodily autonomy, and understand that she doesn't have to 'settle' with 'what everyone else is doing' because she just doesn't know any better.

Kids sometimes need to get their information where they can, and when that's the only way they can, do it. Don't tell me anything I'd have to report to a parent, I don't want to know if that's what would have to happen if you told me. Learn Internet safety, learn stranger danger, learn to NOT PUT YOUR GODDAMN AGE IN YOUR BIO, and learn how to lie, lie, lie about your A/S/L (That's "Age," "Sex" - a.k.a. "sexuality and gender presentation," and "Location" to all you people born after 9/11) so you protect yourself online. Medical research is your friend. Look up the Harkness Test and what 'consent' means. Don't stick things without a flared base in places where a flared base is needed. Don't transfer fluids between mucus membranes and for goddess' sake wash your damn hands like it's still 2020!

When kids have to do all that, the parents and other adults in their life failed. End of. This is a sex-positive mom giving you permission to take any guilt or shame your non-supportive parents hammered into you and drop it like it's one of those jellyfish that can kill an elephant with one sting. That's your parent's fault, not yours.

So I’m a minor (16 to be specific) and I frequently watch and read stuff with explicit sexual or 18+ content in it. I live in an extremely conservative Christian household and things like explicit fanfic are pretty much the only option I have for learning about sex that isn’t abstinence only. I do feel bad about it, especially when I see adults online say stuff like “oh i watched lots of inappropriate things as a teen that i really shouldn’t have” and it makes me feel like I’m ruining myself in a way that I won’t realize until I’m an adult? Right now I don’t see what the big deal is but i get the feeling that when i’m 24 or something I’ll wake up one day and be ashamed of this for some reason i’m not mature enough to know yet. Should I just stop and wait until I’m 18 to continue or what?

hi anon,

okay. I'm gonna hit you with something:

turning 18 does not actually change the way you feel about porn or sex or anything. the difference between being seventeen and 364 days and being 18 is nonexistent. there's not a magical switch that changes you as a person; that comes from lived experience. if you're 18 and your experience is still that porn and smut and what have you i something that you should feel bad about, it's still going to feel that way and a birthday won't change that.

look, the whole notion of "I saw [x] that I shouldn't have when I was young" is like. okay. so you saw something that was a little mature for you that you didn't quite get? awesome. did you die? no. most people's hangups about sexuality don't come from seeing a rogue titty when they were a teenager, they come from the culture that person was raised in that made seeing a rogue titty feel like something to be ashamed of instead of a completely natural part of life.

story time! when I teach my 4th-6th grade OWL classes (Our Whole Lives, great human development program) I always start by holding a meeting with the kids' parents. I've been doing this for seven years, and every time without fail some of the parents will recall seeing porn for the first time as a kid. these guys were kids when printed porn magazines were still a thing, so they were discovering them in all kinds of places - the bedrooms of their parents or their friends' parents, at bus stops, in the woods, once even stowed in some farm equipment. and they remember it feeling illicit and exciting, sure, and possibly making them confused or even horny for the first time in their young lives, but like... that's it. none of these people are irreparably damaged by seeing porn. in fact, they've grown up to be the kind of people who go out of their way to make sure their young kids are enrolled in a queer-friendly, body-positive, diversity-embracing sex ed class to counter stereotypes and misinformation they might receive elsewhere.

looking at things that arouse you is morally neutral. it can be a great way to help you learn about what turns you on, and even if it's not the best source of factual, realistic depictions of sex, it can still help you discover things - hell, I only figured out what the clitoris was by reading Young Justice fanfic (shout out Snaibsel).

you can't ruin yourself, at any age, with the media you like to consume. what makes you uncomfortable and anxious is the attitude you've been taught to have about that media, which is something that has to be actively unlearned, because it's certainly not going to just disappear on its own when you become a legal adult.

tl;dr obviously no one is making you watch porn and you shouldn't if it makes you uncomfortable, but if you drop it right now and come back when you're 18 don't expect to feel any different if you haven't done any more unpacking re: the conservative Christianity of it all.

[cto10121]

Does R&J Play With Gender Stereotypes?

So I came across this piece of meta by @hamliet that rather intrigued me:

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

Let’s break this down.

“the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine.”

Romeo does indeed call Juliet the sun, but Juliet never calls Romeo the moon—or likens him with anything symbolically feminine, come to think of it. The closest she or the play gets is a small but clear association with night: Romeo has “night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes” and Juliet implores “loving, black-browed” night to give her her Romeo. Even then it is so that he can “make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Instead, Juliet consistently uses the same love language of authority as Romeo does with her, calling him her lord, husband, knight, “day-in-night,” “mansion of a love,” “god of my idolatry,” and, (my particular favorite), “tassel-gentle” or “falcon.” “Pilgrim” is the lowest social rank she uses, but of course she is following Romeo’s pilgrim-and-saints flirtation and its wink-wink bilingual allusion to his name. Romeo’s use of “sun,” then, could be viewed in the context of both lovers conferring cosmic/earthly authority, beauty, ownership, and sovereignty to each other—the Elizabethan equivalent of calling each other wife/husband. And of course they begin doing that immediately after they marry.

Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one.

Definitely not. Romeo is plenty decisive and bold���making the first move in wooing Juliet, climbing the orchard wall, showing himself to Juliet, immediately agreeing to marry her, nearly killing himself when he thinks Juliet might not take him back and, er, actually killing himself for her. I wouldn’t say he is impulsive, either—though he makes decisions fairly quickly, it is almost always with some deliberation beforehand (“Can I go forward when my heart is here?” “Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?” and his monologue after Mercutio’s exit) and of course there are instances in which he restrains himself (“I am too bold” and his monologue after Mercutio’s death). The most accurate description of Romeo is that he is a risk taker—at least when he is well and truly motivated. And even then it does not rob his deliberation or even his wits.

He is also not flighty. In fact, he proves just as loyal as Juliet—as soon as he meets her, he forgets about Rosaline and leaves her clear behind. He doesn’t once waver in his conviction that Juliet is for him and makes plans to die with her (and does!). His love for Rosaline is clearly framed by the narrative as shallow, performative, and passive, and the verse bears this out. He was never in any kind of relationship with Rosaline—his love was an unrequited crush that he was at perfectly liberty to have ditched, frankly. After that, it’s Juliet, Juliet, Juliet until he dies.

Also, once more, Romeo is no crybaby. He explicitly cries a total of two times—one even before the events of the play, when he pines over Rosaline under a grove of sycamore, and another when he’s 1) seen Mercutio get mortally wounded, 2) killed Tybalt, 3) learned that he is banished from the city, and 4) mistakenly believed that Juliet no longer wants him (the Nurse’s reply is vague enough to be misinterpreted); at the very least he is devastated to have been the cause of her pain. Anyone would break down in those circumstances. Juliet herself breaks down on hearing the news and arguably is more verbally vehement than Romeo—namely, that even the words “Romeo is banishèd” are worse than if herself, Romeo, her parents, and Tybalt were dead. She ends that monologue with a passive suicide threat: “And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” How anyone can argue Juliet isn’t as lovestruck as Romeo is beyond me.

What Shakespeare was most likely aiming for was showing the mutuality of R&J’s love with parallel scenes and even language. Both have chances to act strong, decisive, and bold, both show vulnerability and great emotion and passion, both are lovestruck. Both demonstrate so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits, which is almost always culturally-and time-based, anyway. There are only a few key differences between the two—almost all of the above traits, however, they both share. It’s almost as if…Shakespeare understood that no man or woman had all masculine or all feminine traits.

Moving on to the conclusion:

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit).

You just opened up 200+ years of fandom wank, OP. I’ll just do a quick sum-up.

The Sonnets are a complete mess. They are contradictory as hell, there is clearly more than one persona speaking, there is evidence that Shakespeare edited and revised them, evidence they were published with his permission, quite a few sonnets are based on pre-existing sources, and, most damnably of all, none of the most likely candidates for the so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady fit the narrative of the Sonnets perfectly or even satisfactorily—if there is even a clear narrative to these things to begin with. Sonnets were artificial works whose clichés and conventions were heavily satirized in Shakespeare’s own works—Berowne’s own rant-y sonnet swearing he would never believe in love sonnets comes most readily to mind. They were usually not meant to denote an actual real-life relationship, although there was a kind of “game” in trying to figure out which parts are true and which ones fiction. At least one sonnet sequence had a completely fictional addressee (Fulke Greville, I think).

Shakespeare’s sonnets do break a lot of these rules and conventions, and radically, and as they seem to have been compiled over many years, they lend themselves to autobiographical speculation. But, as a bit of a poet myself, I feel this: No one writes 154 sonnets—plus a whole narrative poem!—to one lover or even multiple lovers. Poetry is much less personal than laypeople think. Outside the sonnets, Shakespeare is not linked to any man romantically, and, besides his wife, only to two women (unnamed citizen’s wife and Jane Devanant).

Even if we assume Shakespeare’s bi, though, that doesn’t mean R&J is a queer narrative, which brings us to…

It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society.

A queer narrative that has its lovers express their love through the language of heterosexual marriage (husband, lord, wife, lady, pilgrim/saint), and commit suicide by a chalice-and-blade symbolism that mimics heterosexual sex (Romeo drinking a “cup” of poison and Juliet stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Freud couldn’t have done it better). If Shakespeare was thinking “gay allegory!!!” he would have had to at least change or erase the symbolism (straight coding?) of the double suicide, or have Juliet attribute to Romeo explicitly feminine imagery. He would have to have done some major plot rejiggering. He would have had to, in short, change the whole story.

(Unless by “queer narrative�� you mean “anything that has an emotionally constipated male lead who doesn’t growl sexily and a female lead who doesn’t cry/faint at the drop of a hat.” That’d be most every narrative, lol.)

Also, I’m hard-pressed to think of love romances that are 100% patriarchal narratives, and those that do (Casablanca, maybe?) are not really true ones, anyway. Patriarchy inherently opposes all romances of love and sex, including heterosexual. It demands that men be raised as soldiers to kill enemies, slaughtered, and discarded, and women as chattel and land to be bought and sold. Marriage was that transferral of property. Having children is necessary, not out of love and care for them, but to propagate the species and create even more future warriors and womb incubators. It grudgingly accepts only (mostly straight and like maybe 1 or 2 gay) love narratives that can be subsumed into this narrow paradigm, but the tension of interpretation is always present. Ideally, it prefers to ignore, diminish, scorn and mock, or even suppress them. I suspect most people’s problems and discomfort with R&J stem from this pathology, this deep-seated unease over anything that touches on human experience patriarchy can’t quite control or subsume.

Shakespeare was obviously no lover of patriarchy (in his personal life, though…well, it’s debatable). His plays resist it greatly to various degrees, and R&J is no exception. R&J hews much closer to the reality of heterosexual love and love in general, which are informed by, though are not inherently tied to, patriarchy (as are gay relationships, sadly). Shakespeare is just being a good writer in throwing most of that rotten apple away; it doesn’t apply to what he was trying to do, anyway. R&J’s challenge to patriarchy, though, is heterosexual in nature.

And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

True dat.

[stargazetheseries]

OPEN CASTING CALL FOR STARGAZE: “THE PILOT” EPISODE & TRAILER VISIT: https://stargazetheseries.com/casting-call/ FOR DETAILS OR READ BELOW: A Borken Creative Production Sept 27, 2021 STARGAZE is a queer campy sci-fi adventure short-form adventure series intended for OTT. Executive Producers: Jill Golick, Carrie Cutforth Director: Regan Latimer Writer: Carrie Cutforth Union: ACTRA TORONTO (NEW MEDIA) Shoot: The pilot will begin shooting for 5 to 6 days between October 25-Nov 17th, 2021 Location: Toronto STORYLINE: A disparate group of rookie oddballs join an elite squad commissioned to save the Queerverse (from itself) only to discover the STARGAZE program is a sham make-work initiative to keep the crew from rocking the boat by sending them out on a fool’s quest (led by two elder queer chaperones who despise each other). Think: A 2SLGBTQIA+ The Facts Of Life meets The Breakfast Club in space! *BIPOC STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY **MUST BE 18+ TO SUBMIT EVEN IF CHARACTER IS LISTED AS YOUNGER THE STARTGAZE RECRUITS: SAF RON (she/her): Character is 20, cisgender woman, lesbian, open to all ethnicities; some physical comedy required. LEAD. Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, Saf joins STARGAZE with high expectations. If the adults won’t save the day, she will… and finally get the credit she deserves! But can this lone wolf learn to connect with others, stop being a control freak, relax her unreasonably high expectations of others (and herself), and step into the leadership role for which she is destined? First, she’ll have to stop seeing anyone getting in her way as a mustache-twirling villain, learn to see her crewmates’ value, accept help, and open herself up vulnerably. Gets apoplectic when mad; Has a knack for creating very convoluted protest chants that no one can follow. WHIT SPRINKLES (he/him): Character is 19, cisgender man, gay, open to all ethnicities. Must be able to walk elegantly in high heels. LEAD. A social media influencer famous for his snarky and bitter ’reads,’ charismatic Whit has developed a parasocial relationship with his stans. Living life performing in the spotlight from a very young age, Whit has no idea who he really is, what his real interests are, or his beliefs outside of what his analytics tell him: “My fans are gonna love this!” Only joining STARGAZE under pressure from his stans, his inability to forge true intimate connections is exacerbated by his relationship with his mother/manager Mumsy Sprinkles, a talentless hack/narcissistic stage mother living her dreams through her kid. If Whit was a meme he would be: ‘Bitch, I dun give a fuck!’ But he does, indeed, give a fuck. ESSA T. HATCH (they/them): Character is 18, non-binary or agender, asexual, demiromantic, neurodivergent, open to all ethnicities. LEAD. Adorkable Essa is an introvert who doesn’t really ‘get’ people. The explorer among the crew with an engineering mind and a love of mapping places and spaces, they know every nook and cranny of the ship and are usually the first to forge ahead (i.e. wander off) on every expedition. Essa mostly wants to be left alone to their own devices because they actually prefer their own company (neurotypicals can be so exhausting!). This normally wouldn’t be such a problem except Essa was pressured to join STARGAZE to make friends and widen their social net out of parental concern (‘We won’t be around forever, Essa!’). Loves to knit, make Venn diagrams of relationships; speaks in emojis when emotionally drained. LEW D’SHUS (he/him): Character is 21, transgender man or transmasculine, pansexual, open to all ethnicities. LEAD. When babelicious Lew looks at you with his rapt attention and dreamy eyes, you feel like the only person in the ‘verse until his short attention span snaps away and he forgets you’re there. “Good vibes, only!” Lew will gladly give you your Tarot card reading, but not before taking the negative cards out first. With his strict ‘the universe is love, we are love,’ mantra, Lew never wants anyone to feel bad even when they are deadass wrong! His philosophy of

appeasement can cause conflict amongst the crew and his inability to take sides in crucial moments will often put them in danger. No, we cannot just hug everything out, Lew! CHRYSTRAH SNU (she/her): Character is 17 (must be 18+ to apply), cis-gender woman, identifies as ‘queer’ but just figuring it all out. LEAD. Chrystrah is a fresh-off-the-belt queer who has arrived with big expectations: ‘I’m here, I’m queer! Direct me to my spot on the rainbow carpet!’ The trauma of her homophobic upbringing has left Chrystrah without any real sense of self; her identity loosely held together like a fragile cracked egg. Any criticism, no matter how gentle, feels like an attack, causing Chrystrah to act abrasive, territorial, and defensive. She is always overcompensating in big bombastic ways because she feels so inadequate for not knowing the right words, behaviours, and codes. She is jealous of Saf (some might say obsessed) who does seem to get it all right. Fiercely loyal, Chrystrah is the first to run headlong into danger to save someone. She has a steep learning curve ahead. THE ELDER QUEER CHAPERONES: BAE TORGA (she/her): Character is late 30’s-early 40’s, cisgender woman, bisexual, bipolar, open to all ethnicities. PRINCIPAL. A war hero (or war criminal depending on who you ask), Bae sees STARGAZE as an opportunity to redeem herself in the eyes of former mentor and friend Oracle Cain. She is someone who struggles with self-loathing and self-doubt even though she’s spent her adulthood righting her past wrongs and reining in her bipolar disorder, which contributed to her past rash and reckless mistakes. Possessing a tough, gruff demeanor, Bae is outwardly sardonic but really a bleeding heart who holds back out of fear that any demonstration of affection and empathy will be seen as a commitment. ORACLE CAIN (she/her): Character is middle-aged or older, transgender woman, ambulatory wheelchair user or wheelchair user, open to all ethnicities. *Note, as this is sci-fi, younger than middle age may apply. PRINCIPAL. A founding figure of the Queerverse, Oracle has done her service, done her duty, and now she’s done. She wants a peaceful existence to guard her limited energy and manage her physical pain. Instead, she’s pulled out of retirement to command a ship full of bickering youths. She also has to contend with spoiled brat and former colleague Bae reminding her of the past that Oracle is trying hard to forget. But duty is duty and it’s not like complaining ever got her anywhere. Talking to Oracle can feel like playing a chess game where the aloof commander is always five steps ahead: you never quite know where you stand with her. ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS ELP WHIPP (they/them or xe/xem): Character is middle-aged or older, gender-fluid, open to all ethnicities. Leader of the coalition of non-profit planets (each with its own conflicting Gay Agenda) that rule the Queerverse, Elp Whipp is a career bureaucrat/bean-counter who often gets caught in the trappings of their own political web — meaning much of nothing ever gets accomplished and progress is never made. Elp will appear throughout the series in that ‘Dean of the school’ role, occasionally showing up to demand overdue reports, warn the crew that their funding is at risk, and generally throw a wrench in the works. CARDIGAN JACK (she/her): Character is 30s, cis-woman, lesbian, open to all ethnicities. Cardigan Jack is a ‘pussy-hat’ wearing neo-liberalist feminist with a pirate vibe. She is the ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ of TERFs, and Saf Ron’s nemesis. TO SUBMIT: Borken Creative is committed to diverse and inclusive casting. For every role, please submit qualified performers without regard to disability, race, age, colour, sexual orientation or gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by law, unless otherwise specifically indicated, subject to legitimate casting directives. DEADLINE: Oct 8, 2021 EMAIL: casting@stargazetheseries.com. SUBJECT LINE: Character(s) Role, Performer’s First and Last Name, pronouns. BODY OF EMAIL: Please provide contact info including phone number.

Please confirm you are 18 or over in the body of email if applying for a Stargaze recruit character. Submit headshot and resume as attachments to casting@stargazetheseries.com. Resume should be in a scannable text file format (such as .doc, .pdf, .txt). First round selects will be invited to submit either a video clip audition or zoom audition invite. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

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[dragynkeep]

So I couldn’t bring myself to watch the new special but there’s this great YouTube channel by a trans woman named Jessie Gender if you or anyone else wants to see a different perspective who talks about it. I did however see a few clips here and there and hmmmm it’s not great.

Kay so at one point apparently chapelle compares trans vagina’s to vegan meat substitutes. That is obviously disrespectful as hell and once again this weird fixation on trans genetalia what is with that people are more than what goes on down there. Can transphobes stop being weird please.

At some other point he apparently complains about lgbt rights progressing faster than black rights. Which is a very American take (I say as an American) and is ignorant to the many barriers and discrimination lgbt and trans folk deal with in housing and healthcare and job opportunities and how they’re more likely to be made homeless in their youth. And in many countries it is still sadly completely illegal to be gay and if they’re caught they get violently tortured and even killed. Not to mention it’s just so horrible to throw a tantrum “how come this marginalized community gets all these protections before us.” Like this isn’t a race! It just sows more division to other lgbt people. I don’t know if this is 100% but some people in some comments section are claiming based on his delivery he sees being gay as a white people thing and doesn’t believe in poc namely black peoples being queer. I don’t know much about that but if it’s true oh my god I can’t even imagine the fans he’s hurting and disrespecting by erasing their existence like that.

And then he says something about how we all come out for a woman. Which I guess is his way or uniting everyone together. Except that’s terf rhetoric which erases trans men and non binary people who have had children and is also rooted in sexism because they once again attaches womanhood to motherhood and women are only women when they have kids which ignores women who choose not to have kids and those who can’t because of infertility. Why can’t it be we all bleed the same blood, especially in the fight for civil rights we all fight that battle and come out with a few cuts and scars.

Like this guy is toted around for being socially conscious and intelligent on social affairs but clearly not. This dude is a multimillionaire worth $50 million. And with all that money he couldn’t afford a class to educate him on trans rights and history? Couldn’t even look one up for free on YouTube? Rent a book or fuck even speak to a few trans people? There are plenty of funny jokes to be made that don’t revolve around their nether regions or how they take up space for more important people to advance when trans people aren’t even scraping the barrel. He can’t even claim ignorance there’s no excuse with the internet and his money gives him all the resources in the world.

I just feel so bad for trans people who are once again the butt of the joke and not being respected by dumbass cis men who choose not to do better. I’m sorry if this is uncomfortable for you guys but this makes me angry and I hope this doesn’t hurt you. Much love to you both 💖💖💖

People have always made us the butt of the jokes, and given that we are some of the most vulnerable minorities, you’d think other minorities would at least understand what it’s like. But I guess not, lmao.

[gillianthecat]

I'm writing up a whole long thing on my reactions to this film, and how I would adapt it to be queer, but that's taking a while, so here are my thoughts on casting

BL Castings for The Apartment: 

Korea

is my first instinct based on the actors I thought of. And based on their non-bl dramas, I feel like they could get the mix of darkness, humor and cleverness right. I’m not sure their BL industry is there yet to do it justice, and 2/3 of the actors I choose probably would never do a BL proper, but since this (I assume) isn’t even on anyone’s radar to get made I feel like I’m allowed to go wild with it. This is how I worked through it in the comments of this post:

I don't know that the Korean BL industry could handle it, but I kind of want to send it over there for the actors. Maybe Ji Sung for the boss? I feel like the character needs the charisma and sex appeal to explain why the Shirley McLaine character is in love with him, which is inexplicable in the original. Although in queering the film you could keep him just as unappealing and find other ways to make that make sense. Maybe the actor who played Seo Joon in To My Star? For either the Lemmon or the McLaine role actually, I could see him as both and I think he can do comedy. Hmm... now my mind is turning. I don't know the third one yet. He's even less of a BL actor but the one who just came to mind for the third part is the actor who played Vincenzo and the lead from Reborn Rich, I forget his name. I think Seo Joon's guy as the Lemmon role and Vincenzo's guy as McLaine's role—he has this watchful stillness that I think would work well, and obviously he can do comedy. If we want a slightly less overtly sexy but still charismatic actor for the boss, perhaps the older lead from Beyond Evil? (I'm basically running through all the Korean shows I've seen with actors over 30, which isn't many. I'm sure there are others I'd pick if I'd seen more.)

So to sum up: Son Woo Hyun as Baxter, Song Joong Ki as Kubelik and Shin Ha Kyun as Sheldrake. 

At 37, Song Joong Ki is perhaps too old for the role, but a) he can look much younger than that, and b) I actually think it adds an interesting pathos to the story to have him as still trapped in this deadend secret relationship even into his late thirties, maybe having given up on finding anything better. Son Woo Hyun can do pining, he can do self-deprecating comedy, he’s gorgeous but I still think he could be convincingly everyman. 

As for Sheldrake, I ended up going with Shin Ha Kyun of Beyond Evil over Ji Sung (The Devil Judge). Mostly because I think Ji Sung is too gorgeous for the part. I think the character needs more sex appeal than Fred MacMurray gave him, but Ji Sung has too much, although I’m sure he could handle the role very well. I’ve only seen Shin Ha Kyun in the first couple of episodes of Beyond Evil, but my instinct is that he would be excellent at balancing the sleaze and bluster with enough charm to make it work. 

Taiwan

I feel like could do the best job with the story, characters and tone, but I haven’t watched enough Taiwanese shows (BL or otherwise) to know for sure, or who to cast. I don’t think I’d cast anyone from the three BL’s I’ve seen so far. About Youth—all way too young. Plus and Minus—I honestly remember almost nothing about the actors. We Best Love—hmm, I could actually see Lin Zi Hong in the Shirley McLain role, he can do a mix of charm and vulnerability that would work well. And he’s a good enough actor that he could handle Jack Lemmon’s part as well. Shu Yi’s dad could handle Mr. Sheldrake, we know he can play an asshole, and he’s got charisma that I think would help. But there are probably better options available.

Any thoughts from those who know Taiwanese BL better than me?

Thailand

seems to be what you were thinking about, @aliceisathome, but I think my instinct is to cast older than most of the Thai BL actors that I know. @alt-drama, Ohm Pawat and PP Krit are both amazing actors, but they both feel too young for me. And I haven’t actually seen Mew in anything, so I have no opinion on him.

Hmm. Well, if I give up on older actors, I think War Wanarat could do a good job in the McLaine role, he also has a combination of vulnerability and strength I think it needs. I was thinking about Saint for it too at first, and while I feel like he could do any role and be good at it, I think I’d rather see War. Perhaps just because I think he’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, but the more I think about it the more fitting he seems. @placetneplacet also mentioned Mark Siwat, but I haven’t seen him in anything, so I can’t opine on that either.

And Baxter… for some reason this seems the hardest one to cast for me. I’m intrigued by placetneplacet’s idea of Off, although I’m not sure he has the comedic timing for it. He can do lovelorn and pathetic as well as charming flirt well, and those are the other important qualities.

oooh. Nanon. He also has that kind of everyman feel that Lemmon has and the character needs. I’ll pick him. And he can handle the comedy and the pining. Yes. Ohm perhaps could also be great, but I’ve only seen him as Pat, and the character feels so different that it’s hard for me to picture him as Baxter.

As for Mr. Sheldrake, the sleazy/asshole boss, while Saint can do anything, I really would like to see someone older in the role, because I feel like that’s a crucial part of the dynamic. Unfortunately I don’t know many older actors - since all the Thai actors I’ve seen so far are from QL dramas their playing parents and teachers and I’m generally not paying them much attention. The only one that has stuck out enough for me is the actor who played Mon’s stepdad from GAP, who MDL tells me is named Wo Jirawat Wachirasarunpat and is 60 years old. Which is actually more of an age gap than I was thinking, but what I liked about him was his air of charm and friendliness, which is something I want in the character, to make more sense of why the Kubelik character falls in love with him.

To summarize: Nanon as Baxter, War as Kubelik, and Wo Jirawat as Sheldrake (though he’s kind of a placeholder). With those two, I've kind of talked myself around to thinking younger actors could work.

Japan

I’m honestly having trouble envisioning this as done by Japan. Who knows, they could do an excellent version, but their style somehow seems so different to the tone of the original. (I’d love to hear the thoughts of those who know Japanese dramas and films better than me.)

Likewise, no actors stand out for me as right (probably because I’ve seen so few Japaneses shows), but, given that I’m looking for older actors, I am curious as to what Takeda Kōhei and Kimura Tatsunari (Nozue and Togawa of Old Fashion Cupcake) would do with the parts. I think I’d give Takeda the Lemmon role and Kimura the McLaine. Or perhaps Kusakawa Takuya (Minato from Coin Laundry) as Kubelik and Kimura as Baxter? None of them are exact fits for how I picture the characters, but they’re all such good actors that I think they would do something interesting. Takeda can do awkward charm and everyman appeal, I’m just less sure about that specific sort of Wilder comedy. We know that Kimura can handle the pining from afar and up close as Baxter (although he may be too pretty for the character), and I can see him doing the undertones of nihilism and angst of Kubelik as well. And I suspect he can handle to comedy well. Kusakawa is more of a guess, but he’s beautiful enough for Kubelik, and has the acting chops in general, given the difference between him as Minato and as Rokkaku in Cherry Magic.

As for Sheldrake, probably many of the older actors I’ve seen in supporting roles could do an excellent job, but I haven’t paid enough attention to them to pull one out.

I just saw someone talking about the sublime Billy Wilder film The Apartment on Twitter and am now thinking it'd make a fantastic workplace BL. But who would you cast? We'd need the Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine characters plus the sleazy boss (that's an easy one - I'd cast Mew!). @placetneplacet @heretherebedork @thequeenofsastiel @absolutebl @gillianthecat @clairificusrex @weekendatennuis

[trilies]

an argument for AO3

So I’m in a conversation with someone who is kind of in the “against AO3″ camp, and they asked me a couple of questions. Namely, who wouldn’t be uncomfortable with pedophilia? Isn’t it sketchy that a beta website is asking for so much money despite reaching its goals?

And my answer became so long... I figured it might as well become its own post. Please bear in mind that this is cut from a whole conversation.

But here it is.

------

No. It doesn't seem sketchy to me at all. Why would it? I know we make jokes about how much money tumblr has cost the various sites which purchase it like Yahoo, but there's some truth there: it's really expensive to host a website to thousands and thousands of people. It's why we see so many tumblr owners trying to shoehorn in ads or make people buy services, or why Photobucket tried to pull that truly atrocious bullshit a year or two back. Without image hosting capabilities (tumblr and photobucket's big thing), the strain isn't as huge.... but AO3 is MASSIVE. It is hosting literally thousands of accounts, millions of stories. That's massive on a server scale alone, ignoring all the other work they do. Yeah, it's in beta... but that's because it's trying to reach a goal of being as good a fanfic archive as they can be, and they don't believe they've reached that goal yet. Being in beta means they can better listen to their uses on shit like tagging systems and make those changes. Not to mention, again, they are INCREDIBLY transparent. If you are worried about where the money is going, you can go on the site and they have all their stuff up there.

As for the pedophilia subject matter.... Please give me a moment. because there's honestly a lot to say on that particular issue, if nothing else. This will take a while, so if you see this and there hasn't been a reply yet.... I'm still typing lmao.

To start with, of course people are uncomfortable about pedophilia. However, there are a lot of problems with how pedophilia is viewed or *used* as an accusation in the current fandom climate.

For example, in honestly EXTREMELY recent times, I was told I was "defending" pedophilia because I disagreed that a character (an immortal food gijinka) was "minor-coded" or "designed as an underage teenager". (As a note, an argument for this view was that the character's breasts were too small.) When I pointed out, hey, that's kind of a fucked up accusation to throw at a complete stranger, especially as I am a CSA survivor, I was told "You have to be lying about that, then, because a real CSA survivor would understand."

c o o l

That's just my personal experience that happened within a couple of months. Other people have talked about running into people who think that a character turning 18 means they're a pedophile for still dating a 17 year old. Or running into people who think a 40 year old dating someone in their 30s is pedophilic. Or believe that even SHIPPING characters who were not yet 18 was pedophilic if you yourself were over 18.

(Of course, you also have the kinds of people who try to use Moral Purity as a way to bash ships they don't like. I once saw someone try to claim that a popular mlm ship, A/B, was pedophilic because one half of the equation looked young.... when some other artists drew him... Of course, on the side, this person liked to also get angry that *their* favorite ship, a dude/chick ship composing of A/C, wasn't more popular. So. You know.)

So that's one half of the problem: the word "pedophile" being so warped that a lot of people now have no idea if the person using it has a genuine concern or if the accuser is trying to smear someone who doesn't ship the same thing. FFnet and Tumblr have gone with the "burn it all down" approach, which hasn't actually helped anyone and is, to boot, sloppily moderated. So we know from history, from experience in cases like mine, that it doesn't help in that area.

The other half of the problem is... How far is too far?

This is where "anti" culture begins to find similarities with the whole Warriors for Innocence thing. If you completely and blindly block an entire tag, or anyone associated with it, you have to ask: who are you hurting? Warriors for Innocence hurt actual rape victim, and queer folk, and a whole lot of others. Far as I can tell, anti culture is on the route to the same thing, because I have yet to see appropriate answers to a lot of issues.

If one says "anything with underage sex in it is bad and should be banned", what about fics that tackle it in a serious manner? The young adult novel "Speak" deals with rape of an underage girl and how she works through that mental trauma; are fics with stories equivalent to that allowed? Do fics with underage sex have to focus purely on how it is Horrible And Bad to be allowed? Does only a chapter have to be allowed? A paragraph? An author's note? A tag? Or are we allowed to never explore dark subject matter?

Is fic with underage content in it only horrible if it's someone over the age of eighteen who writes it? Can a teenager write smut (terribly written as it may likely be) between teenage characters? Can a teenager write smut between a teenage character and an adult character? For the record, i did in fact, over the summer, run into someone who said that teens/minors "shouldn't even know about NSFW", which is asinine to me, because Abstinence Only is a terrible thing to put in schools, and somehow worse in a way when you try to put that into effect in fandom. If the answer is 'yes', what are you going to do, demand to see people's birth certificates in fandom?

(As a note, I think this is a terrible message to put into fandom for teenagers because I believe it will inevitably lead to self hatred and a warped view of sex. If you make the extremely simplified black-and-white statement of "teens and sex should never go together ever in any way", that's going to mess up teens who are starting to experience arousal in their bodies. The message, whether intended or not, ends up as "NSFW things are bad, which means my brain which thought NSFW thoughts is bad, and my brain thought those thoughts because my body had these feelings". )

(This is bad for any average teenager. This will be especially worse to CSA and rape victims, along with queer youth who, in a lot of places, are still struggling with their bodies and/or feelings because the world is still pretty damn queerphobic.)

Speaking of CSA and rape victims, what about those of them who write/read underage ships or dark content as a way to cope with what happened or Just Because? That's a thing lots of us do, especially those of us who don't look like the Perfect Victims people can use as an excuse for whatever crusade they're waging. I've heard anti types go "Well, it's an unhealthy way to cope" or claims that CSA/rape victims who write such dark content are "just as bad as their abusers"... But are they psychiatrists/therapists? Are they the psychiatrists/therapists of *those specific people*? Will you moderate this kind of content by forcefully interrogating CSA/rape victims to out their trauma to a complete stranger? Will you demand to speak to their therapists? Over fanfic?

When I was a teenager, I wrote all sorts of stuff. I wrote dark dub-con fic, because I liked to explore those dark feelings in the process and the aftermath separate from myself. I wrote a fic with a fairly young teenage girl (what age was kh2 kairi? who even knows, I sure didn't) falling for a MUCH older man built like a brick shit house so that there was never any doubt to him being an adult, even giving him her first kiss, because they were my favorite characters, I wanted both of them to have a moment of happiness (that i promptly ruined but hey), and, *in this fic*, I knew it would be alright. I knew the girl would always be in control, she'd be the one making moves, that the guy was nonthreatening and kind and protect her and work alongside her.

(and then I began the process of killing him off in the next paragraph through him saving her life, but, like. Drama (tm), baby)

This was all good for me. At an age where I was young, vulnerable, and figuring out weird shit like arousal and romantic feelings, it was *invaluable* to have a space where I could explore all of that while relatively safe from actual danger, even if the stuff I wanted to explore was a little messed up. This whole thing against AO3 wouldn't have helped me, and I'm pretty sure it's not helping a lot of other people too.

There is an issue with underage people and sex stuff- not just in fandom but in culture at large. We have Hollywood dressing up young girl actresses in super slinky or revealing clothes. We have schools saying girls basically should never wear shorts, and capitalism fucking this up further by only selling SUPER SHORT shorters. We have media of all sorts giving us adults, whether in real actors or character design, in the roles of young people. (See: "how do you do, fellow kids") We should probably take more care about fandom spaces, so that people of all ages don't feel pressured to engage in sexual shit they're not 100% game for or into, or just have it shoved into their faces without consent. It's a complex issue... and it's not stuff that can just be 'banned' and have that fix it.

AO3 has on its plate a very complex problem that will, if we're all honest, never have a perfect answer. It has given us the best that can possibly be asked for. It obeys the law by not having actual child pornography on it (aka visual proof of actual real children, defined by us law as such), which is closest to "objective" we can get at the current stage in humanity and state of fandom. It has a very comprehensive and moderated tag system, so that people can post warnings along their fic so that people don't stumble onto shit they don't need to, and so that people can moderate their own reading experience to some degree.

If some people aren't comfortable with AO3, that's fine. However, most of us are getting annoyed not with those people, but with the people who just blindly say "AO3 supports child porn and is probably stealing money" (statement simplified for the purpose of this post). It shows an ignorance of the fandom history that lead us here, no understanding in either AO3's practices or how expensive it is to run a site, and no consideration for how complex this problem can really be. It would be great if this was a black and white issue, if there was an easy answer as just "banning" certain kinds of content... but there isn't. And that's where I am.

[itsclydebitches]

Why do you like Lore Olympus? I'm genuinely curious because I've seen a lot of harsh criticisms toward the comic, from its inaccuracies regarding its use of Greek Mythology to the plethora of harmful queer stereotypes. I tried reading it myself but honestly, if you took out all the Greek Mythology references and naming, it just seems like another "far older man courts a barely adult woman" love story with bad queer rep thrown it.

Happy to explain! Let’s tackle what’s perhaps the most complicated aspect first. 

As a former Classics major I can tell you that there is no “Greek Mythology.” Meaning, there is no singular Greek Mythology that can be referenced and consulted in any uniform way. Which is a really difficult thing to conceptualize in an age of print publications and careful record keeping. Unsure about whether Harry ever cursed Draco with such-and-such hex? Re-read the Harry Potter books to find out. Want to claim that Sherlock was horrible to Watson and frequently insulted him? We can comb through Doyle’s shorts stories and novels, tally every insult, and find out. These are canons and, as messy as the term “canonical” has become with more adaptations and transmedia storytelling, most characters have a set, fixed existence that we can return to and use as evidence. Not so with Greek Mythology. Born of oral storytelling, there are a hundred different versions of every myth, some changes more stark than others. Some of those versions were written down. Then written down again (differently). Then written down again (differently still). Then we realized they were almost all being written down by men and huh, I wonder if that has any impact on how they framed the story (spoiler: it absolutely does). And all of this doesn’t even take into account the issue of translation. Regardless of what Ovid may have put down on the page, you’re going to get a different experience depending on whether you read Melville or Gregory. There’s a reason why everyone was so excited over Emily Wilson being the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English. Her perspective and her experience as a woman by default changes the way she approaches the text. Even something as simple as a single description can have a HUGE impact depending on how it is translated. Take this excerpt from a NYT article: 

“The prefix poly,” Wilson said, laughing, “means ‘many’ or ‘multiple.’ Tropos means ‘turn.’ ‘Many’ or ‘multiple’ could suggest that he [Odysseus] is much turned, as if he is the one who has been put in the situation of having been to Troy, and back, and all around, gods and goddesses and monsters turning him off the straight course that, ideally, he’d like to be on. Or, it could be that he’s this untrustworthy kind of guy who is always going to get out of any situation by turning it to his advantage. It could be that he’s the turner.”

Is Odysseus a poor victim turned around by monsters and fate, or is he a schemer capable of turning it all to his advantage? It all depends on how it’s translated and whoever wants to make a case for Odysseus being a “good” or “bad” guy can point to this translation as evidence… or another. Or another. There are just too many versions for anyone to definitely say what these gods and others are “really” like. 

I put so much emphasis on this because the biggest criticism I’ve seen leveled against the comic is the characterization of Apollo. He would never rape Persephone! How dare you twist his character like that! Except Apollo isn’t a character that exists in a fixed canon. He belongs to an overwhelming corpus of complicated, contrary, contrasting myths… and yes, in some of those he raped. Arguably. It, again, comes down to translation and interpretation. Take this excerpt from Nancy Rabinowitz’s paper “Greek Tragedy: A Rape Culture?” 

Creusa, raped by Apollo years ago, conceived a child and abandoned him… For the purposes of this paper, I have to address the question of whether Creusa was in fact raped by the god. Hermes mixes the terminology in the prologue; he asserts that the god Apollo “yoked the daughter of Erechtheus in marriage (γάμοις)”, but he also says “by force (βίᾳ)” (10-11). Ion later (1524-25; cf. 341, 325) wonders whether Creusa was really raped, or whether she was just alleging that the god took her by violence to cover up an indiscretion of her own – a similar situation could be imagined in our own day, where false allegations may arise from young girls’ fear of confessing consensual relations to their parents. Lefkowitz argues that women tend to cooperate in their seduction by a god. While it might seem obvious that Ion is simply wrong, there is the further implication that though Apollo raped Creusa, she also desired him” (11-12). 

So if we’re looking for evidence that Smythe’s interpretation of Apollo is the “correct” one, it exists… depending on what you read and how you choose to interpret it: whether a mortal woman can ever truly give consent due to the power difference between her and a god, whether it was safe to say no, whether she might have lied to protect herself, whether it was something a part of her desired but perhaps didn’t entirely want, etc. It’s that last bit in particular—those difficult questions—that Smythe explores in her comic. Persephone wants to explore her sexuality. She wants a way out of her virgin obligations. But she’s also pressured into sex by Apollo. He doesn’t stop when she expresses discomfort. She doesn’t feel safe asserting herself and telling him to stop. It’s rape, but it’s a far more complicated situation than the rape scenario of “Evil man forces himself on woman in the back of an alleyway” and Smythe treats the tragedy with nuance and respect, even in a comic filled with so much humor. 

The people I see most upset about Lore Olympus are those who talk about the gods and their associated mortals as if they’re characters out of a book. They read one version once—or maybe two—and, as is natural in the 21st century, decided that This Is How The Story Goes. Even though every academic would be losing their mind over such definitive statements as, “Such-and-Such would never do this.” That’s simply not how records this ancient, sporadic, political, and downright messy work. So as someone with some knowledge of how Greek Mythology functions, I’m not at all put off by the comics’ “inaccuracies.” Because they’re simply not inaccuracies, just interpretations. Not liking those interpretations is fine, but that doesn’t mean Smythe was wrong for providing them. 

As for the rest, I’ll try to limit myself to bullet points: 

The age difference between Persephone and Hades is definitely A Thing and I admittedly didn’t realize that was the case when I started reading. I assumed that Persephone, like most of the cast, was hundreds/thousands of years old and just had a child-like personality. I basically realized around the time Hades did that she’s so young. That being said, the issue of age differences changes for me once you reach such insane ages. That’s why I still ship Ozqrow: Ozpin is hundreds of years older than him but at that point he’s going to be older than everyone. Always. Limiting his ships to only those who are close to Ozpin’s age means you can’t ship him at all (unless you ship him with Salem post-grimm pool and… no). It’s a similar situation with Hades. Yes, there are plenty of gods his age that he could date (and indeed he does) but he is always going to be thousands of years older than Persephone. She can literally never catch up to him, so if someone has an issue with the age gap then they have to accept that it will simply never go away. They can never be a couple in which case yeah, then the comic just isn’t your thing. 

Really, I think the bigger issue is not the gap itself but Persephone’s age, period. Again though, I appreciate that Smythe treats the situation with a great deal of respect. This isn’t a story of a much older man hunting a younger woman. It’s the story of a much older god who, like me the reader, assumed he had fallen for a slightly younger goddess… and then freaked out when he found out he was wrong. He’s called out for his ignorance. Others are incredibly protective of Persephone. They both try to stay away from one another and find themselves struggling. Which, to be frank, is an interesting dilemma to me. And it’s one I’m more interested in with gods as characters as opposed to humans. Because it feels less predatory to me. A man going after a much younger woman is threatening in part because we’re mortals who have so much to lose, including our youth. If you enter an abusive relationship that alone is horrible enough, but it also means you’ve lost all those years and all that experience to toxicity. When a god goes after a much younger goddess… they’re kind of static. They have eternity stretching out before them. Persephone potentially “losing” ten years to a relationship with Hades just isn’t the same thing as a mortal losing ten years to a relationship of their own. Gods, though they seem quite human, simply aren’t and thus for me questions of morality and what’s ethical in any given situation changes. We have a cast who, when Eros gets upset and murders a whole bunch of humans, Zeus shrugs and says they’ll just make more. Their concept of right and wrong differs from ours and it invites the reader to apply that to every situation: is it as wrong for an older god to go after a 19yo goddess as it would be for an older man to go after a 19yo woman? Many readers may decide it is—to some extent the text decides it is—but the story still possesses ambiguity and invites the reader to grapple with it. That’s compelling. 

Connected to this, I like how much agency Persephone has throughout the series. She’s very much a character who defies expectations, particularly when it comes to her sexuality. Far from being a meek, vulnerable woman who is preyed on by Hades, she is making constant, active decisions about her own romantic and sexual encounters. Even if that decision is just acknowledging how unsure she still is: does she want to remain a virgin? Does she want Apollo? Does she want Hades? Is it okay to make out with Ares? Wear this very short dress? Get drunk? Explore a city? Invite this person over? Have feelings for your boss? Persephone is grappling with a lot of questions that don’t have easy answers and the fact that the story gives her the room to do that grappling is fantastic. I’ve spoken before about my dislike of the Strong Female Character—someone who is not just physically intimidating but who also never, EVER hesitates. She knows precisely what she wants and she’s going to take it! Which is a great portrayal of one kind of woman… but I’m not that kind. I hem and haw and am anxious like Persephone. So for me it’s refreshing to see a story that paints uncertainty as strength. She’s allowed the space to be unsure and confused and is never belittled for that. 

Honestly I’m not sure what the issue with the queer rep is? Beyond the fact that Lore Olympus doesn’t seem to have any (unless I’m forgetting some. Very possible). Which, admittedly, is far from great, but if I dismissed every story due solely to a lack of queer characters I would limit a lot of my potential media. So for me, personally, that’s not a deal breaker. Taking a stab in the dark, I’ll make an assumption that people are upset about certain characterizations like Eros? Which, fair. But we also have the flip side that effeminate, flamboyant men do exist. It’s another complicated, touchy subject, but there’s a fine line between enforcing stereotypes and acknowledging that those stereotypes often do arise out of something. Some people hate the media image of the queer kid decked out in rainbows. Other people look at their own wardrobe and backpack and go, “Actually… yeah. That can be accurate.” For me stereotypes are primarily an issue given their prevalence. It’s an issue when that’s the only way queer characters are portrayed, but Lore Olympus doesn’t have that problem because, again, it’s focused on het relationships. Eros might potentially be a (non-confirmed?) queer stereotype… or he’s a battle-hardened warrior who also likes to gush about gossip while baking, the sort of complex gender portrayal that people claim to want. It depend on how you approach it. So no, Lore Olympus isn’t breaking any ground with queer rep but, as said, I do appreciate how it treats sexual assault—among other sensitive, relevant issues. It’s a trade-off. No piece of media is going to be perfect. I could say the same thing about so many great stories. The Mandalorian doesn’t have any queer rep! No, it doesn’t, but it is giving us a fantastic story about a bounty-hunter turned dad that challenges a number of Western gender assumptions so… trade-off. 

I likewise enjoy that characters call one another out on shitty, toxic behavior without completely losing who those characters are. (Again, supposedly who they are based on the lecture I gave at the start lol). Meaning, it would be kind of weird if Zeus wasn’t a womanizer. That’s what we expect of him, so changing that would likewise change one of the most fundamental aspects of what makes Zeus-Zeus in the general public’s perception of him. But we still have scenes of Hera and others calling him out on that shit, so it’s a balance between modern sensibilities and character expectations. 

The characters overall are just wonderfully complex. Persephone doesn’t seem so at first glance, but that’s partly the point: she’s nothing like what everyone assumes she is and it’s those assumptions that she’s learning to push back against. But overall Smythe has a real knack for emphasizing the human (or god) complexity. We hate Eros for helping Aphrodite punish Persephone. Then we feel bad for him because of his sob story. Then we pull back because he’s called out for being a dick and making himself look like the victim. Then we come to the realization that his side of the story was still accurate in many ways and finally end on… he’s flawed. He’s just a flawed person. He’s not a saint. He’s not the devil. He’s a guy who screwed up one moment and did something good the next. Perhaps it’s just me coming out of the nonsense that was Volume 7 of RWBY, but it’s refreshing to read a story where that complexity is emphasized and (most) flaws are forgiven while still being acknowledged. 

Overall I just find it to be a fun, entertaining story! lol. The artwork is beautiful. The humor is great. There’s a nice balance between plot and introspection. There are issues with the series, sure, but none thus far have kept me from enjoying the experience of reading it. I fully support anyone’s right to go, “Nope. Not for me.” For any reason. But I also feel like Lore Olympus is a good example of Tumblr’s recent emphasis on pure media: it must be PERFECT. Otherwise chuck it in the bin. Lore Olympus does a lot of the things that people on this site call for. Respectful depictions of assault. Emphasis on mental health. Storytelling from a woman’s perspective. Numerous types of woman characters. Being careful about who engages with sensitive material and how (each chapter that contains such issues has a trigger warning at the start, impossible to miss). Lore Olympus does a lot right… and some things wrong. Which is what we would expect of any good story. So it feels disingenuous of me—if not outright dangerous—to paint it as worse than I actually think it is. I want media to continue to improve, but I also don’t want to scare off authors from even trying because they were raked across the coals for not creating perfection. Smythe, to my mind, is definitely trying and that should be acknowledged.