#you can’t have queer rights without being mindful of women rights

[seulszn]

Caitlyn is cannonically an Lesbian so don't headcannons her sexuality as anything other than that she's not straight. She's not bisexual she's a lesbian

Vi is cannonically a Lesbian don't headcannons her sexuality as anything other than that she likes woman, she's married to a woman in the LOL universe (Caitlyn). She isn't straight and she's not bisexual.

Ellie Williams is canonically a lesbian not bisexual, nor straight. All of her love interests in the show have been girls never men.

Like the amount of people trying to erase these characters queerness is insane if you can’t accept that character for their sexuality then that makes you homophobic . And who cares about people writing fem x readers about straight characters like hello did we forget straight is the default sexuality? Also just because a character has a partner of different gender doesn’t automatically make them straight.

The fetishization, sexualization of lesbian’s is absolutely sick. Woman can NEVER have a space without a man being upset about something. you guys have a SHIT ton of media out their that are directed to you. Like even lesbian porn, GL’s and Yuri’s are directed to men never the audience it is attended for which is woman.

And the transphobia that is happening in the community is also fucking sick trans women are women idk why this is another discussion that needs to be had in 2025. Writing Male X readers about Lesbian characters is a form or fetishizing which is overall very sick and homophobic and overall harmful. And getting mad and upset about something that is a very serious issue makes it seem as if you don’t see lesbians as humans but as a toy to your sexual mind.

Lesbian fetishization is the act of treating lesbians as sexual objects for the enjoyment of a privileged group, rather than accepting their sexuality. It can have real-world consequences, such as homophobic attacks and corrective grape.

And for all the men mad because Lesbians or woman in general are Men haters look at yourself and see why. You can’t respect anyone and then get so butt hurt when your called out for it. When people were speaking up about you guys writing Male readers about lesbian characters you tried to justify it when their isn’t any justification for your sick and twisted mindset.

If you maybe idk use your brain and realize why woman don’t like y’all you wouldn’t ask yourself “why doesn’t woman like me” like come on now look at the media, look at what is going on in this world right now for woman just existing. Woman in some countries can’t even speak in public without the fear of getting killed. You guys have so much privilege that it’s starting to make y’all think you are so damn superior. Its so tiring seeing discourse in the tags about something that shouldn’t even be discussed

If your a lesbian you like woman

If your bisexual you like both genders

If your straight your straight but at the same damn time it’s a default sexuality. Also majority of the characters y’all arguing about never once said or mentioned they was straight so y’all argument is pointless.

And another thing they aren’t real characters it doesn’t matter but the only things that do are their background, race, and sexuality

A space that is for woman respect it if a character is a lesbian respect it stop arguing about pointless ass shit and Men once again stop fetishizing lesbians and get a life.

Also another thing (I think the account got deleted) stop writing smut for Isha your fucking sick and twisted that’s a WHOLE ass child their ain’t no such thing as aging up a character. If you have to age up a child to fucking sexualize it you’re a whole ass pedo and need to turn yourself in. It is bizarre how many I’ve seen come up on my timeline like chat are people ok in the head? Like this is a repeat of the MHA fandom writing smut for Eri a whole ass child like it makes no sense that you looked and Isha and was like “I wanna write smut about her” like your weird and need to be called out about it.

Both the Arcane and TLOU fandom needs a cleanse and I mean fast cause this shit don’t make sense AT all like yall done lost y’all’s ever loving mind. (I sound like a black momma 😭)

Also one more thing my page is not a safe space for men I put it in my rules that I don’t want men interacting with my stuff because I am a lesbian and don’t feel comfortable with men interacting with my content and y’all don’t even listen to that so as I said before if a space is for woman don’t try to put yourself in that space if you aren’t the targeted demographic. Hopefully everything I said made sense.

[cosmicdahlias]

dude i need to rant for a sec

the red dead community on tiktok is so fucking toxic. it’s full of all the -phobics and -ists like i’m not even exaggerating. people post about l*nching lenny, calling javier slurs, calling bill the f slur, and saying that the racist guy in saint denis gained “+1000000 aura points”, and all kinds of shit. hell i can’t post a single goddam tiktok about being attracted to arthur without some cishet chud losing his mind that a fat trans person likes their favorite video game cowboy. i’ve literally gotten called the t slur like it’s insane. like it’s starting to put me off from posting shit on tiktok because every time i get a new comment notification i dread opening it.

and ik it’s not a problem in every community because the gravity falls fans literally have always been so kind to me for my ford content. i guess that just comes down to who the main demographic is. like gf mostly appeals to queer and trans folk whereas red dead (unfortunately) attracts white cishet males. afab, queer, trans, and bipoc red dead fans absolutely do exist because i’ve interacted with them and they’re all lovely but idk the gross straight men seem to be the loud majority.

what’s so painfully ironic is how little they understand red dead and it’s progressive themes. the gang practically lives in a commune, arthur supported women’s rights to vote, if you kill the racist in saint denis you literally don’t get a bounty, and the game encourages you to kill klansmen. plus roger clark literally said “trans people are people” and “terfs ain’t got no friends”. i understand that roger doesn’t speak for rockstar or what arthur would be written as supporting, but the fact that his voice actor went out of his way to support trans people should say enough.

i’m done i’m literally so fucking tired

[homunculus-argument]

hey there! this sounds like a bit of a silly question, but as a trans guy, you’re one of the few trans people i’ve been following almost since i joined tumblr, so based on your other anon ask and answer i figured i’d pop in and ask if you have any advice? if you want to answer, ofc :) — i foresee this being a bit long, so i totally get if not

so i’m also a trans guy, but i haven’t been able to take any steps toward medical transitioning before since i live with my parents. but i’ll move out soon, and i still can’t decide if i should take any of these steps even once i do. i’ve never felt like i particularly wanted to medically transition (i don’t really care about how my body looks + i’ve never really cared about changing any of it), but i would like to be seen a guy — i don’t mind if not so by strangers, but maybe so by like, my friends. but i can’t help but feel like i’d be laughed at for wanting that — i’m not naturally androgynous or masculine looking to others and i have never been mistaken for a guy, because i have really long hair, d cups, and curves. and without medically transitioning, i also kinda feel like i’m… betraying the trans community, since i’m not really putting the effort into my transition and so i’m just ‘pretending’, even though i do know i’m not.

so my question would be: as a trans person who has transitioned, socially and medically, do you think people are more understanding than i think they are currently? do you know of any trans people who don’t want to medically transition, and do you think it’s possible to live fulfilled that way? or even: do you think it would be easier for someone like me to just live a lie? i usually tell people i’m a lesbian, because they definitely would not look at me and assume ‘straight guy’, but also, as a trans person who doesn’t want to medically transition, i’m just always worried that i won’t be taken seriously. i feel like your experience of being trans and probably interacting with the community is much more than mine, which is why i ask this last one — i would try being open myself, but again, i’m still living with my parents unfortunately.

I'll be honest I don't actually really know much "community" save for former art school classmates. I've only known one trans person irl who chose not to medically transition - at the time, Finland's trans law was still shitty and required sterilisation for legal sex change, and all that. She didn't want kids or anything, but refused to engage in the process as her own little personal civilian protest. I don't want to paint some caricature picture of some Sharp Dommy Tall Scary Goth Trans Anarchist, but I was deeply impressed by the way she didn't do a single thing to try to seem smaller, softer, or in any way submissive or docile to be ~feminine~ the right, socially accepted way.

She wasn't just taller than most men but usually the tallest person in the room, and she stood out in a crowd of cis women like a crane in a chicken coop - a bird just as much as they are, but a different kind of bird. And I remember thinking that I could never do that, being so unflinching and unhesitant about standing out in the crowd because assimilating and muting yourself is beneath your dignity.

Honestly, I don't know what to tell you about being openly trans without transitioning medically, save for that it takes more guts than being able to just go stealth. I had physical dysphoria about the way my body was, and was desperate to get top surgery just for the sake of my own physical comfort, and I like the convenient anonymity of being able to just be Just Some Guy who doesn't attract anyone's interest or curiosity.

It's a smart move to not come out to your parents before you're out of their house and not relying on them for anything - this is something everyone should use their own judgement for, but I stress it to every queer kid to not take the risk if there's any chance that they'll react poorly while they still have power over you. But living your whole life in the closet - "living a lie" is a good way to put it - will corrode you from the inside.

It's better to live in peace with yourself and against the world, than in peace with the world against yourself. There is absolutely nothing in your power that you could do to change the minds of people who have already decided that they don't respect you, and if they try telling you that they would, if you only met their approved criteria, they are lying. That's bait they're dangling in front of you, and there's no "earning" the respect of such people.

Stay true to yourself and be good to people, and you'll have the respect of people who are capable of respecting you. Don't waste your time and energy on people who won't respect you, every thought and effort you spare them is wasted on them.

[charmingradiobelle]

If you really think about it, the ship where Alastor would be involved in that would most likely be canon so far would be Charlastor.

I mean, he despises Lucifer and sees Vox as not worth his time, so he's not gonna be throwing himself all over them anytime soon. Nearly everyone he interacts with besides the three women he's friends with, he's either indifferent, respectable or hostile to, but towards Charlie? This man has allowed her to touch him without permission, stated multiple times that he has faith in her beliefs and even handed her his source of power. Twice.

I'm aware he's doing all this with some underlying motive, but you can't deny he won't do all this for just anyone. I really can't imagine him all comfortably curled up in Angel's bed or getting handsy with Lucifer (He wipes his hands after touching him, man really doesn't like him at all). I support all ships with Alastor but if we're looking at this at a canon perspective, Alastor interacts with Charlie the most and will continue to interact with her as the show goes on, it's more possible to happen in a sense with Alastor.

Plus with all the romantic cues the show has (Unintentionally?) given so far, with the part where both Charlie and Alastor are laying on the heart shaped pillow but Charlie falls off the bed while Alastor remains on top off it, it seems that there could be a very small possibility that there might be an unrequited crush on Alastor's part.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but hey, he didn't have to lay in that bed. He could have stayed standing, looming over Charlie to show that he might be helping her but he still sees himself as above her and in control of the situation. But! Someone still animated him on that bed! They still animated him on that heart shaped pillow right beside Charlie! They didn't have to, but they still did and my minds still reeling after that fact.

No because you’re absolutely correct here.

Out of any of the characters in the series for Alastor to end up with, if he were to have a romantic subplot of any kind, it would be Charlie. They have the most potential together as a pairing and there have been so many little hints and visual cues that I’m honestly shocked that a romance plot isn’t where their relationship is going.

I genuinely cannot see Alastor ever engaging in anything romantic or physical with Vox or Lucifer in any way. And whenever I say that people like to excuse me of hating gay ships (which I clearly don’t. I am queer, and I love seeing queer ships that actually make sense and have good chemistry, and not just because they’re gay). It’s because he canonly hates men and is much kinder towards women—except for Vaggie lol. Yes, ship Alastor with whoever you want. It’s not my place to tell you if your ship is bad or not. I honestly don’t care because it’s your opinion and as long as you’re having fun with it, that’s all that matters!

But like anon is saying here, if we’re looking at it from a canon viewpoint, let’s think about it. Again, Alastor clearly doesn’t like men and can’t even be bothered to shake Lucifer’s hand without being disgusted. There have been three women who could be potential love interests. First is Mimzy, which I can see there may have been some flirtation here and there in the past, or even an unrequited crush on her part. But with her basically using him to get her out of trouble all the time, I can’t see them going beyond their on-and-off friendship. Then there’s Rosie, who he’s obviously very comfortable around and lets her touch and grab him as she pleases—which he wouldn’t let slide with any male characters in the show. And the Radiorose ship is cute I admit, but to me they’re a pair of gossip buddies who would maybe pretend to be in a relationship if needed, but otherwise their feelings don’t go any further than platonic.

And so that leaves us with Charlie. When I first watched the pilot I absolutely assumed they were going to have some kind of slow burn, not only because the idea of the princess of Hell and this feared Radio Demon falling for each other is so intriguing, but generally just the way they acted with each other. In like a span of eight minutes they were happily dancing together, with Alastor calling her one of a kind, tossing her around and making improvements to her dream hotel.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I found out they weren’t canon and weren’t going to be in the actual show. Like, I was legit going “🤨🤨🤨” and this was before I was even in the fandom lmao

And thank you so much for mentioning that scene in her bedroom because…

What is this. What do you mean the mfs making this show drew out this scene, carefully looked at every detail for the final product, and went “yup👍” if there wasn’t supposed to be something more going on here???

Like seriously if you’ve never watched this episode and you saw these two frames, what exactly would you assume is going on here? Be honest with me

But ya know, charlastor “isn’t canon” (so they say🙄) so the animators here were def trolling us lol

[ridiculoser06]

THIS FUCKING FILM BARBIE MOVIE *EUGHAHH*

Spoilers. GO SEE THIS FILM IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barbie movie review from someone who can’t string a sentence together without keyboard slamming or yelling.

How queer coded the discontinued/weird barbie’s are PAINS ME. THANK YOU GRETA MY GOD.

Allan is for the all the gender non conforming mfs but also he’s so ✨bisexual✨ HELP. Like he’s not barbie, he’s not Ken, he’s just in between he’s to kenly for the barbies and too barbie-y for the Ken’s so he’s like his own category please that’s my existence 99% of the time.

Like he’s not manly (kenough) to be accepted by the Ken’s but also the barbies don’t really pay much attention to him either???!? Who hangs out with Allan! Allan is ALONE. Allan has no one to relate to because THERE’S ONLY ONE ALLAN. He feels so fucking disconnected from both sides of the spectrum, he has no one to connect with, he’s just THERE. He’s just ALLAN. There’s only one of him he doesn’t have the same connection that the barbies have and the Ken’s have because they ignore his fucking existence.

Also I’m MAD about midge. Why wasn’t she in any of the film she and Allan should’ve been like power duo. Also barbies little sisters like do they exist. Also where do the Ken’s live? Do the live at beach? So many questions. (I think they’re gonna do a sequel, like- I’ve just got a gut feeling. I sense the sequel material yk yk.)

EUGHUAHHAH

Weird barbie? The experience of most queer girls. Excluded ✅ Called weird ✅ Funky hair ✅

Like she knows what it’s like to be cast as the dog and the dad in games of house. She did the man voices for the Ken’s because she’s just ‘better at them.’ She made her Ken’s leave for work trips so that the barbie bffs could stay in the dream house together. She put her barbies on her disco ball and re-enacted the Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball music video. She is me I am her. She took the faces off of her dolls with nail polish remover and drew them back on with sharpies and cut up their hair and gave them Ken’s leather jackets. I LOVE WEIRD BARBIE AHAKGAHA.

But also stereotypical barbie is such a good representation of what growing up is like tho. Being a woman is so fucking terrifying. Growing up is terrifying and this movie absolutely subverted all my expectations like I thought it’d be some “we have to not let this little girl grow up! Ah- she’s 13 now she’s getting rid of her dolls, no don’t grow up you’re still young, yippee we saved the day now we can all play dolls.” BUT NO! They respected the fact that we all grow up and at a certain point we stopped playing with dolls. BUT ALSO Gloria shows the fact that a love of playing with dolls doesn’t always end for women, we still have such fond memories to look back on and some even relive those memories when they have daughters of their own.

The Ken’s are so interesting too tbf. The alt-right pipeline is so dangerous for impressionable minds (like Ken’s) and so many men fall victim to it, be it intentional or not. The patriarchy does not just hurt women it hurts men to.

This movie is such a great explanation for feminism imo, feminism isn’t to put men down because no one benefits from the patriarchy except those in a position of power.

This movie tells the story of women, and how damaging the patriarchy can be to society and tells it in such a unique, fun and beautiful way. EEK I LOVE ITTTT!!!

P.s can you tell I had fun with the text colours AGAAGAHAGAG

[thecoolerliauditore]

Hi I might sound a bit insane here and feel free to not answer this cause it might get a little controversial but I was thinking about the Jimmy solidarity hierarchy system you’ve been hinting at and how it seems to be some sort of life series form of the patriarchy.

Cause ok essentially I was thinking about your labour edit of Jimmy and then trying to like understand the fact that Jimmy is a social person right like his strength is his social skills and his likability. However within the life series (and similar) series) his biggest downside is the fact that people are mean to him, like if we think first episode of Sausages’s sossmp he talks about how no one’s died yet and they talk about how Jimmy isn’t there and would have died but then Pix specifically points out someone would have killed him (around 5:20ish). But then like everyone is obsessed with Jimmy people want to be in strange romantic relationships with him, people want to be around him and they want him to be like the centre of attention. They crowd around his streams a lot but specifically to be mean to him, one time in another sossmp video (sausage episode 11 around like 3-4 minutes in) they meet at his house for like no reason. But that doesn’t mean they’ll acknowledge his house is nice or respect him in anyway they just want his attention and to use him and his stuff for themselves and their own gain. Sort of in the same way men see women as like these mythical attractive creatures that they want the attention of without respecting

I’m not exactly sure how to put this into words but yeah people like Jimmy but not in the same way they like people, you know. They like him like an object or comparing it to our world they like him like men like women. (See a lot of this has also been on my mind since I read this one fanfic that accidentally projected their own experiences with misogyny onto Jimmy without even realising that’s what it was but I can’t talk about that cause it was so clearly written by some kid in a rough situation who hasn’t realised it yet but yeah overtime I’ve realised it makes sense why Jimmy was in the place he was in that fic)

Also if you ever want to expand on your idea of the Jimmy solidarity hierarchy I am very excited to listen

NOYEAH THIS IS AWESOME you pretty much put into words alot of stuff I have trouble saying outright but yeah The Ecosystem as I've come to call it is dripping heavily with gender (in a bad way). This is pretty much what I was lampshading with things like the labour edit and comparing jimmy to characters like anthy and kotoko

If I may say something that may one up the controversial aspect of this post I do believe a lot of it comes from the inherently somewhat homophobic style of humour a lot of the (real life. content creators. including jimmy himself) esmp crew tends to indulge in with jimmy where there are constantly bits that pretty much boil down to. hahaha a MAN taking on the social role of a WOMAN is that not FUNNY AND STRANGE hahaha that shouldn't be happening!! (don't want to get too into this because I don't think they're like. evil or anything I just think most of them are basic straight men who think gay = funny and that does weird things for the very queer fanbase's storyline they've made up)

On a certain level it's also very. Men can't be hurt in the ways women can so it's okay to laugh-ish. Like imagine if the maid poledance sequence in sos was being done to say. Pearl instead. I'd argue it'd affect Me in the same way but I don't think anyone would have the balls to suggest she do that in a video in the first place.

So what we end up with, character-wise, is Jimmy essentially being the victim of this. prison-like ecosystem where he's constantly humiliated through this taking away of his masculinity (whether that's through literally making him crossdress and poledance or denying his authority, such as during esmp2) as the "bottom of the food chain" so to speak.

Women are kind of an untouchable because it's not "funny" when these things happen to women (see: how sausage treats people like pearl and false vs how he treats jimmy) so Jimmy has to kinda. fit that slot. And I do think it's fun when people play with Jimmy having complicated feelings about this (especially through stuff like transfem headcanons and such) but yeah it is very much a position he is continously forced into.

Also I'd argue I've read. quite a lot of posts projecting frustrations with misogynistic life experiences onto jimmy. I think it's like. comforting a little bit? Like in the same way women like boys love because it's divided enough from you as a person physically to be confronting about your own feelings regarding sexuality or whatever but you can still enjoy relating to the characters.

Anyway I'd love to expand on the jimmy hierarchy thoughts. I haven't because I honestly don't trust myself to talk about creators I genuinely dislike as creators which is most of the people most responsible for that but I do have thoughts, albeit ones I wouldn't trust myself with. But pretty much no single one of them is like. a complete monster. they just all have very strange worldviews and accept jimmy's dehumanization because it benefits them in some way.

[etaleah]

Not to be an old nerd on main but I really think more young people should go to classical orchestra concerts.

It is wild to me that classical music has this reputation of being elitist when in fact it’s easily the most affordable kind of concert you can go to. Classical music orchestras are desperate to get young people in the door because the majority of their patrons are elderly and when those patrons die, the art of live classical/instrumental music will die with them if younger folks don’t show up to keep the concerts going. If you are under the age of 40, there’s a good chance that your local orchestra has a discount for you, and possibly a steep one at that. If you’re a high school or college student, you might be eligible for a student discount, which could be even better. And if you’re bringing family or friends, there might be group discounts.

But even if there’s no special deal, these concerts can still be surprisingly cheap, in large part because many of them don’t make you buy through the greedy extortion clusterfuck that is Ticketmaster. I literally got a front row seat at an orchestra concert for just TWELVE DOLLARS and heard some of the best music of my life while doing it. Music that is so amazing it can move you to tears. And that kind of pricing isn’t unusual in my city. Hell, there are even some concerts around here that are FREE.

It kills me to see young people feeling like they have to miss out on the joy of live music just because they can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars in Ticketmaster fees when a much easier and more affordable option is right there.

Also? The idea that classical music is solely the domain of White men from the 1800s is not true. There are women and people of color in the orchestras, in conductor/director positions, and there are women and POC composers from a range of eras whose work gets played. I attend a lot of orchestra concerts and I’ve heard beautiful music from all over the world from composers and performers in all kinds of demographics. I’ve heard music that was composed within my parents’ lifetimes and music that was about being queer. And I never paid much for any of it.

It’s true that these concerts aren’t very flashy. There’s no special effects, big screens, dance numbers, or sparkly outfits. But that’s the point. You’re meant to focus on the music and the story it’s telling, with no distractions. It’s one or two hours of relaxing songs that allow you to just let your mind wander and imagine. It’s much better for people with sensory issues who get overwhelmed easily, and it lets you safely get the cheap seats without any worries that you’ll be missing too much because you don’t really need to see what’s on stage, you just need to hear it. And if the venue is any good, you will definitely be able to hear from wherever you are.

Anyway support your local orchestra and fuck Ticketmaster up its ass.

[ragingstillness]

MAJOR SPOILERS

Ok just finished the season here are my thoughts:

@/djenks fuck you man

No seriously, I love like 99% of what you do but killing Izzy? Fuck you man

I know it’s entirely possible he won’t turn out to actually be dead and season two will start with Izzy being like “you fuckers buried me alive without even checking?! I hate you all!”

I’m always afraid of stuff like this happening when characters are given so much development and love but really it feels so unnecessary I can’t accept it as a plot point like I don’t even feel sad now because I’m so numb

Certainly seems like we’re getting a third season or at least the set up is there

Ricky can fuck right off. I do kind of wish he had remained and become a sort of protégée for Stede from the beginning and someone else became the villain because the whole thing with him was clearly that he was meant to be a metaphor for queer people feeling safe to live their truth when they see other queer people do so and playing out that metaphor against the plotline of the season gets pretty negative

Not a fan of us not seeing if the rest of Zheng’s crew were ok

Not a fan of them just fleeing without acknowledging that the port is probably overrun by soldiers who are holding pirate captives still. In general I wanted a better idea of how many British soldiers were really there so I’d get a better understanding of how the plan worked

This is turning into a rant about the things I didn’t like but I’m gonna keep going, I’ll put the neutral and good thoughts at the end

Yeah Zheng’s ships got blown up but they seemed to still be on the water. Did they even try to fix them up and make them seaworthy again? Healing people?

During the fight where Stede and Ed reunite and Zheng is there I got a bad feeling that she was starting to replace Izzy as the “swordsman” character and I thought of how Auntie is acting an awful lot like how Izzy was developing when she was trying to be more encouraging to Zheng to be herself

If they were gonna have Izzy get gut shot I wanted more significance to it, maybe it’s over the only wound he has from being stabbed “in the right bits” and it was from Ed? Or smtg like that

Izzy’s death scene was way too short and no one was sad enough for me

Genuinely ridiculous for Ricky’s character to be faster on the draw than Izzy with a literal knife against his back

We never found out what happened to Ed’s red silk scrap and that was a bummer

Did the only person to acknowledge Izzy’s infamy really have to be Ricky? Give Izzy more respect from more people

Idk if this was on purpose, probably was, but the way Ricky was treating Jackie felt racially motivated to me. It’s rare the show gets explicit about that, mostly just in season one when that one officer called Roach a slave and got killed for it. It felt, like Izzy’s death, unnecessary, considering how much of this show is about joy and seems to dance nimbly around the discrimination that would have existed in that time period. Pick a lane. Is the world gonna have racism and discrimination or not? Because having just tiny moments feels out of place.

When something like “we get poison training in this family” exists why kill Izzy

Really I’m just pissed about that, he means a ton to me and to a lot of other people too. Con was the first celebrity I got to meet in person and hug and talk to. Ok the numbness is wearing off now I’m sad

Still waiting on Sam Bellamy to show up in this show

Not sure I love Izzy calling Ricky a cunt. I mean, I know I’m somewhat prescribing American sensibilities onto British language and that it seems like splitting hairs when Izzy has been calling everyone twat from the beginning but while I know this show is mostly about men being queer I wouldn’t mind less gendered insults against women

Izzy still never got a proper apology from Ed and that’s bugging me

Did Zheng not say she’d need Ed and Stede? How did they go from that to the two of them being inn keepers? Just odd and jolting

When did Ed and Stede take possession of that house where they buried Izzy?

Did the bird landing on Izzy’s grave symbolize Olivia or Buttons and are they implying that sea witch magic is gonna bring him back? Confusion symbols

The Happy/Neutral stuff:

“Finding family to kill for” - fuck me up Izzy that’s so sweet

“Being a part of something bigger than yourself” “the crew” “you have family all around you and they love you” dammit Izzy this is supposed to be the happy section

Auntie is my love she’s so good

This episode had all the slow motion badassery of my dreams

I totally knew Ed was gonna dive for his leathers, idk how I knew but I totally did

Ed reverting to a violent version of himself on the rejection of “pop-pop” is totally analogous to Ed turning to a life of piracy after killing his father and the fact that Stede’s letter/Stede’s love has always brought him out of that killing phase is beautiful to me

I had forgotten about the messages in bottles and that genuinely cracked me up

Finally we get to see the characters be really really cool. Like we’ve seen them be silly and incompetent but it’s refreshing and exciting to see them be genuinely awesome, makes me feel an odd sort of pride

Love that Zheng remained relevant for the whole season and wasn’t a one-off

I could literally feel the passion in Con’s voice talking about how the pirate spirit will survive I guarantee he was picturing himself giving a speech about queerness because the wording and delivery was very reminiscent of his commentary during conventions and especially the “vote the fuckers out” speech

Archie/Jim kiss wahoo we love to see it

Jim should wear a tricorn hat forever they looked so good

I am genuinely having difficulty remembering so many of the good parts because I’m so sad

I’m glad Ed said I love you first, it was beautifully delivered, that frigging Star Wars reference Stede you fucker

Lucius/Pete marriage fuck yeah

Wedding questions asked by the crew? Beautiful

Mateys - yeah Matelotage is a little clunky of a word to say without a french accent this is a good medium

Ok I legit can’t think of anything else I’m gonna see if I can get in a good cry before work in the morning sorry guys

[star-dot-net]

My thoughts & feelings on Loki

Thought I should give my two-cents given the debate occurring right now. I will discuss:

Sylvie

Kevin Wrong

Lokius

Sylki(e)

This is just my thoughts! None of this is objective (none of this is fact, necessarily) it is simply my take on the situation(s).

Sylvie

No sugarcoating it; they majorly fucked Sylvie’s character this season. The writing seemed off, and if you removed every scene with Sylvie in it, the story would still make perfect sense. I hate that, because I love Sylvie. First season she was so badass! She was a strong character. This season she was a filler. She did not have any development, which would be fine if they had written her as a static character this season. But they didn’t. They wrote her dialogue at the end as if she’d gone through some revelation of some kind, when in reality she was literally returning to where she had been at the beginning of the season. They wrote her like shit. I am very upset about it.

Sylki(e)

I would not call myself “anti-sylki.” However, I personally feel uncomfortable by the incestuous nature of the ship (they have the same parents). I am not uncomfortable with it because it “ruins my ship,” because shipping wars are fucking dumb. I can admit part of me just… doesn’t like the ship. That being said, there is something to be discussed with the Lokius vs Sylki ship debate; I have seen a few Lokius shippers being sexist about Sylvie. I have seen many more fetishizing MLM relationships. I hate that. You should not SHIP something and use your ship as an excuse to be a bigot or a creep. Another point I see some people bringing up is related to queerness. There’s this ridiculous argument that Lokius shippers are only wanting queer relationships; that they don’t like Sylki because it’s het. My question is: Is Sylki straight? Because, in my eyes, we have two bisexual genderfluid characters. That is, inherently, queer. Regardless, because of the presentation of the two characters as cis in the show, it also feels a bit like queer erasure. What I’m saying is: if they had explored the identities a bit more, the queerness of both characters? I still wouldn’t be comfortable. It just doesn’t feel right to me. Having said that: ship away! My discomfort should not (and does not) dictate your ship. Not when, in technicality, there isn’t truly anything harmful about Sylki. I may make an entire post discussing the queerness of Sylki, so stay tuned.

Lokius

Heads up— I’m a Lokius shipper. That being said, I also have the ability to go about an analysis without being too biased (I hope). Continue with this knowledge in mind.

I despise the MLM fetishization aspect of this ship. There are a lot of cishet girls doing this in the fandom. If that sentence makes you feel defensive, you might be one of them. Look into that.

Additionally, I want to stress so hard that Loki is not a man. He is genderfluid. Even Kevin Wrong confirmed that much. Lokius is still queer. It was always queer. It is, however, definitely not just MLM. Just wanted to point that out.

Continuing from the Sylvie sexism— while I’m sure some Lokius shippers are indeed being sexist, think about it the other way around, too. Why does Sylvie need a love interest? So many women in film and TV are cast simply as love interests. Sylvie doesn’t need to be. She doesn’t DESERVE to be boiled down to that. She’s powerful, and the writers took that away from her this season, and it makes me angry. Regardless of my feelings, the idea that she must be in a relationship with a “man” (again— neither Sylvie nor Loki are “men” or “women”, but for the sake of simplicity I’m just going to refer to them as such since Marvel&Disney can’t take their heads out of their asses). That idea— doesn’t that feel a little demeaning? Can’t she live her life without a romantic connection to a man? I don’t know. I just think the situation has much more nuance than “Lokius shippers sexist!11!!1!!1!”

Kevin Wrong

I don’t really have much to say about him, to be honest. “We can’t see inside Loki’s head” made me actually laugh out loud. What, in the everloving fuck do you mean by that, sir?! You are his thoughts, in a manner of speaking. You WRITE HIS THOUGHTS. It’s the most bullshit excuse for queerbaiting I’ve ever fucking heard, actually. Absolutely ridiculous. Again, however, this one’s biased because of my Lokius shipper status as a person. It just feels like a lame excuse for lack of representation.

Thank you for reading my word vomit!! Altogether, I loved this show. It’s just flawed, like most shows are. It could have been more inclusive, like most shows can be. Writers are people, too, though, and not everyone has as much freedom of speech in that field as you’d think they do— regardless of what the writers might have wanted, Disney’s S&P most likely would not have okay-ed the queer relationship. Kevin Wrong was one writer; keep that in mind. He’s one cishet writer in the writer’s room with many other people. He might just be a bumbling idiot, guys. He might just be.

ANYWAYS! Ship what you want (as long as it’s not harmful)! Don’t harass other people for their ships!!!!!! BE KIND. ETC. IT’S ALMOST NEVER THAT DIRE— FANFICTION EXISTS, HEADCANONS EXIST!!! I understand it’s disappointing if your ship doesn’t go canon, but sometimes you don’t get what you want. And that’s okay!

[malcolm-reeds-pineapple]

Okay so I hope you guys r ready for a long one because baby I’ve had an interesting week.

So on Monday I accidentally no-call no-showed to my second job. I only got the messages like an hour after my shift was supposed to end so like I really fucked up. The next day, I got an email asking me what happened and I was immediately overcome with anxiety and just didn’t respond. Then on Wednesday I was like okay I really need this extra income so I will deal with this. I’d had a great day sales wise at my Real Job (tm) so I was feeling jazzed enough to want to deal with it. I got home an immediately I was The Opposite Of Jazzed and send off my login information for my email to my best friend who dealt with it because she’s the best person on this fucking planet.

So then today, Thursday, I got into my Real Job and found out that my boss was recommending me for a full time leadership position. I was very pumped and still am. Then, after that shift, I hightailed it to my second job (the one I no-call no-showed at on Monday) and sat in absolute fucking agony for 30 minutes while I thought about what to say in the impending Corporate Meeting Regarding My Behaviour. I got in there and turns out I was going to be completely on my own for my first close and I was like cool great I don’t have to Have a Meeting.

Everything was going good for a while until I met my fucking supervisor: a middle aged man with a ponytail. Immediately the vibes were off but I was like Nah you’re just not used to working with men. My Real Job (tm) only has 12 men on the payroll company wide and my previous jobs have all been predominantly staffed by women/queer people so like I just don’t see many straight/cis men in the workplace.

Anyway I was right to have weird vibes about him because the ENTIRE NIGHT anytime we came face to face he was hitting on me. At one point I was trying to get him to come over without hollering over a customers head by making eye contact with him. He comes over and just said “oh sorry I didn’t think you wanted me to come over I just thought you were checking me out” and I just laughed uncomfortably because there was a customer right in front of us. He proceeded to get uncomfortably close to me and do the task I was trying to do completely wrong.

And then finally, it was time to close. This was my first time closing and I had no clue what the procedure was in the slightest. I get locked in a fucking cash office with him while he got uncomfortably close to me and we counted my till. At every other job I’ve ever had I’ve either counted my own till and had it verified by someone else the next day or just not had to deal with it. And normally I am not the type to feel anxious about being locked in a tiny room with someone because I know I’m fuckin safe but this dude?? Dog the only thing that brought me comfort was the fact that we both knew there were cameras in there. Like I know he was probably trying to be nice / funny and all but like he just gave me the creeps.

Anyway I’m counting down the days until I find out if I get that leadership position at my Real Job so I don’t have to go back to my second job ever again. A 30% discount on groceries is not worth it at this point what the fuck. Like I’d already lost patience with my second job pretty soon after I started but like this is just another nail in the coffin. I’m losing my mind because realistically I’m probably just missing a joke of some kind so I can’t really go to HR with anything cuz like he didn’t do anything but have pungent vibes and creep me out but also I don’t ever want to work with him again because I care about my own peace too much. I’ve got a light at the end of the tunnel so I’m just gonna avoid him until I can secure a full time gig at My Real Job

[redheadbigshoes]

Hey Stephanie, that other anon speaking about her mom made me want to just sort of vent/ask about my own parent. I’ve been dating my girlfriend for about a year, and I’m so happy with them. They’re my first serious relationship and by far I’ve felt more attracted to them than any other person. Before her, I’ve only ever had “crushes” or “dated” guys (who usually turned out to be queer in some way, and whom I never kissed or was physical with). I should mention that I’m 20 and living at home, also.

I’ve identified solidly as bisexual for a couple years now, but since dating my girlfriend, I’ve been seriously questioning whether or not I’m actually attracted to men at all. I’m not repulsed by the idea of sex with a man, but I wouldn’t say they turn me on and I have never related to cishet women’s descriptions of their attraction to men. Currently I kind of go back and forth, and I’m not solid on either label, but I’m not looking to have any sexual experiences beyond my relationship with my girlfriend so it’s not really relevant except for my own peace of mind.

Anyway, my parents are not religious, but I was terrified of coming out because my dad is more of a traditional type. He has lesbian friends and has no problem with gay or queer people usually, but I ended up coming out before I felt ready because I was talking to him about going to lunch the next day with my current girlfriend (who was then just a friend I had a crush on), and he said it sounded like a date. Things ended up getting and staying heated for quite a while, and though he didn’t stop me from dating her, it was clear he wasn’t exactly supportive.

This situation is complicated because I feel very confused and conflicted. He’s pointed out how much worse I could have it when we watch movies where the parents are not exactly supportive of their queer kids (i.e. Everything Everywhere All At Once) without realizing that he’s acted like them. He has at times been very kind and supportive, but then will say things like he hopes I’ll grow up and find a nice boyfriend someday, and how sad he is, and other hurtful things. He doesn’t understand how I could possibly not know if I’m bisexual or a lesbian, and views my potential bisexuality as a way for him to hope that I’ll find a man. If I am a lesbian, I’m scared to come out again and probably won’t want to.

It’s less of a burden now than it was when I first came out and started dating my girlfriend, and I mostly brush off these comments when they happen, but when I’ve tried to talk to him about how hurtful some of the things he has said are he says that I’m not allowing him to have his feelings and that I’m in the wrong because “if somebody doesn’t react the way you (I) want them to,” then they’re not “right” or something. I’m fine with him having his feelings, and he’s doing his best, but I can’t deny how hurtful this whole process has been to me at times. Is it worth trying to talk to him about this at this point? Should I just leave it alone? And if I do decide that lesbian suits me as an identity, do you think it would be worth it to risk undoing progress we’ve made in the past year?

Thank you and apologies for writing an essay in your inbox ❤️

First I’d like to say you shouldn’t apologize for venting here. My blog is a safe space for that.

About you questioning whether you’re a lesbian or bi: attraction is always positive, having neutral feelings, not feeling anything at all or having negative feelings when it comes to something romantic or sexual is not attraction. Whenever I see someone questioning whether they’re a lesbian or bi I always recommend watching these videos (you can find the others in the tag #source: patronsaintoflesbians). Also, you don’t need to understand your attraction right now, you don’t need to label it specifically if you don’t want to.

Unfortunately sometimes parents being friends with queer people (or seeming to be accepting of LGBTQ+) is not an indication they will accept you, at least right away. I think you should give your dad some time and space for him to get used to the fact that you’re not straight, sometimes all they need is time. I also think if you do end up realizing you’re a lesbian, it wouldn’t be good to come out again to your dad right now, he first needs time to get used to you liking other girls, and if in that time he approaches you and asks you about your identity, then I think you should tell him the truth.

[humanfluidscollector]

She is a WHOLE creature, a complex character, and my attraction to her is NOT because she is gay -? Queer, or a woman.

It’s because she IS who she IS. True attraction for me isn’t relegated to terms, labels, sexualities, gender roles, etc. It’s about the person and what is more undefinable and limitless than human beings? It is this feeling, this LACK of sexuality that validates and affirms my attraction. The things I like are not because of sex in the most animalistic rudimentary sense. I don’t feel attraction to a person because they have a penis or a vagina. I don’t fall in love with porn models. I don’t romanticize sweaty faceless bodies or isolated sensations of pleasure. The queer community isn’t a home for me because I don’t identify myself as lesbian or bi or even asexual. I don’t have any interest in belonging to any of these labels. I feel my MOST self when I just AM. Like all pronouns, I am unregulated to one side or the other. Bold of you to assume I would take sides at all. And I believe      She is the same. Her edges, her colors, the tone of her voice, the decisive will of her mind…She  refuses to be “anything” for anyone. She isn’t “butch” or “masc,” she’s HER. And that’s how I want to be. I want to be ME. And I want to feel love and attraction without forcing myself to pick a side or a label or belong to some group. If I can’t do it my way, I’d rather remain celibate for the rest of my life. Sex between men and women, sex with any group of either gender, does not fit my idea of love and attraction. It just doesn’t appeal, it’s not something I feel strongly for or against.

My idea of love and intimacy is about a release of strong feelings, it’s about sacrifice and vulnerability, it’s meant to be a joyous and otherworldly and skin-stripping shattering power. All of the sex in porn, every act, even the ones that seem exciting…they’re not right. To me. To my interpretation, relatability, translation, connection to sex between two people who love one another.

Real love and sex is an act taking place between two deities. It’s sacred, it’s cosmic, it’s about releasing your love as a physical dance with a transformative climax. And MOST, MOST sex between people is not like that. It has nowhere near the level of love and POWER that I believe exists between two individuals who were predestined to remain together for eternity. This has NOTHING to do with religious dogma, by the way. This is about my refusal to accept any false replacement of real love and real sex.

And now that I UNDERSTAND what real sex is, I can avoid being thrusted pushed into letting myself believe that sex is the disgusting perverted act between humans that resembles raping and impregnating one another.

Maybe that’s the trick of it. Maybe the reason I can’t find representation, maybe the reason I can’t find anyone who feels the way I do, who sees people the way I do is because love is something that cannot be explained, a unique experience unattainable by another. Maybe I cannot translate this irresistible, melancholy, barren, burnished sensation, this want, this miserable COWARDICE.

[heartslobbf]

why you should help enable saionjisweep

some say saionji doesn’t have pronouns, and they’re hypothetically right. saionji himself would insist, certainly in early canon of the show, that he does not have pronouns. however, unfortunately for him, he does have pronouns and we don’t let him fucking forget it. be a part of that. help us make the eggiest egg recognise The Truth.

for people who don’t know, saionji is perhaps the most pathetic and wormy character of all time and is collectively bullied by the entire utena fandom because. well. he deserves it. and it’s really fucking funny. but that’s not necessarily what’s important here; what is important is the fact that as a character, saionji’s entire character conflict is centred around gender anxiety.

but what do i mean by that? well, let’s talk basics: at the start of revolutionary girl utena (for those who don’t know, classic clusterfuck symbolism hellscape anime that is intricately concerned with exploring queerness and systemic abuse amongst other things) saionji fucking sucks. without getting too much into the nitty gritty, he basically performs toxic masculinity to almost parody levels to compensate for his own perceived inadequacy. he’s got a massive fucking inferiority complex and is obsessed with being better than everyone else, which in his mind would mean Being The Most Masculine (patriarchy moment).

unfortunately for saionji he is really shit at being masculine unless he’s being violent, which he does in such a brash and open manner that the status quo is just embarrassed by him a la ‘hey man look ok we love oppressing women but we’re more subtle about it, and also we aren’t fucking faggots’. saionji is gay btw, and yes he’s also embarrassing about that. ANYWAY, what’s important to extrapolate from this, as well as flashbacks we get to saionji’s childhood, is that this toxic manly masculine masculinity is not something that comes naturally to him by any means, he’s desperately shit at performing it, and the world around him doesn’t even really want him to do it (in the sense that he’s not doing it Right, and must be excluded and mocked).

so what do i mean when i say saionji’s all about gender anxiety? well, exactly what it would imply. he is desperate to prove that he’s a man to the world, because both he and the world seem to know that he’s not a man, or he shouldn’t be one, or he can’t become one.

over the course of the show, saionji moves away from his masculine manly aspirations because he gets disillusioned so many goddamn times, and when he does we occasionally see him acting in a manner that feels more authentic to who he truly is. but it’s not really this fun self actualisation arc, it’s actually. well. hard to explain without getting into the nuances of rgu but the trajectory of his character is to basically switch from one toxic gender norm to the other, ie masculine manly man to feminine womanly woman. he’d get so mad if i said that but it’s basically what he does because he’s unable to reconcile this inclination to femininity with his misogynistic ideals and becomes trapped in this in-between of wanting to do helpful things but feeling unable for all these gender-related reasons.

he’s just got so many pronouns and his central character conflict is entirely about the shame of repressed queerness and femininity (aside a couple of other things, but they’re more relevant to his character relationships). his character offers some really great commentary on the ways in which patriarchy frames, views and treats femininity, and interrogates the passivity ascribed to women closely.

also, there’s a scene where he wears a frilly apron with hearts on it and cooks a bunch of eggs (because she’s an egg) in a forbidden forest (queer metaphor). ummm final point in the earliest character designs that have been released he was meant to be a woman and he had great tits. ok godbless vote saionji if you love transgenderism

The Green Hair and Pronouns Tournament: Round 1, Match 17

[figmentof]

It didn’t even occur to me until anon brought it up, and now I’m going to make it everyone’s problem /lh (special thanks to @celestialsblues, @demolitiondyke and @transgenderpirate for helping me with this! ilysm)

If you are of the camp to believe in race-blind casting in that Ruibo Qian and Madeleine Sami (who are Chinese and Fijian-Indian respectively) are to play Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the same vein that Taika who is Māori plays Ed, please then also consider the lengths the show went through to make sure that Ed is explicitly a man of color. His backstory, the abuse his Māori mother suffered under his white father who he subsequently killed, his motivations of becoming a pirate is stated by Oluwande in 1x01 “[Jim and I] do this (piracy) because we don’t have any other choice”, the microaggressions that Ed clearly experiences from white people, and needless to say, the way Izzy treats him as nothing but a poster child of monstrous existence and even threatens his life when he dared to deviate from his violent persona-- all of this connects to him being brown.

If Anne and Mary were to be portrayed by two woc, then their entire story would have to be overhauled in the same way Ed’s was. But why bother going through all that trouble when Chinese pirates are part of pirate history? Why take yet another two well known white/western pirates and make them woc when Zheng Yi Sao is right there and has the same level of notoriety as Blackbeard in Asia? Now I’m definitely not insisting it has to be her, if the show wants to make Ruibo’s character an original Chinese pirate queen that would be splendid too! If we are to have lesbian pirates, why does it have to be the two women who we (and historians) have already heavily speculated to be sapphic? At this point it’s not about re-imagining white characters as poc but rather focusing on creating original roles for poc or incorporating lesser known pirates of color. This also goes without saying: all of the characters within the show are definitely informed by their race, poc or otherwise, so this sort of casting goes entirely against the message that the show has made thus far.

Now you may ask, but they re-imagined Ed (and to a lesser extent, Stede) so why can’t they do the same for Anne and Mary?

OFMD has been under valid scrutiny for using two existing historical pirates as their leads and subsequently making them not only queer, but deeply sympathetic people. This has lead to tone deaf behavior from fans who actively went to the graves of these two pirates who infamously participated in the slave trade to honor them. Their real life counterparts are racist, and in Blackbeard’s case, also a rapist. Regardless of how anachronistic OFMD is, and no matter how hard they’ve tried to distance their narrative of Ed and Stede away from the horrors caused by their historical counterparts, it’s still ultimately not the smartest decision David Jenkins and his writers could’ve made. Several bipoc have expressed that it would’ve been better had David said he was inspired by Stede and Blackbeard’s story and thus made original characters with different names if they really wanted to create a separate narrative. This is something that is constantly on my mind as a fan of color: the origin of this show wasn’t great. But what’s done is done, we just have to be cognizant of this fact as we enjoy this show going forward. One of the things the show did do right was actively create original OFMD flags as well as the new mermaid flag in s2 that clarified that the story they’re telling is a love story above all else (though that didn’t deter fans from getting tattoos of the Jolly Roger, sadly).

The show has made Stede to be an entirely original character that shares nothing in common with the real Stede aside from being white and born from wealth and abandoned his wife and kids. They have made it painstakingly obvious that despite us possibly witnessing Stede becoming more pirate-like in s2, he’s still not going to adhere to the traditionally toxic masculine norms that piracy has set and will do things in his own way (albeit he’ll be a bit more hardened and experienced compared to s1). Stede is obviously still white and the show doesn’t shy away from the fact that he has his own internal biases that he has to overcome as a white person, which is a huge part of his journey narratively along with navigating being a gay man. Compared to the villains (who are all white), he comes from a place of ignorance and learned behavior from the racist upper class society he was born in that he plainly aims to reject, which is one of the many reasons why he’s compelling.

Ed on the other hand, has this entire myth about him being this infamously vicious and terrifying pirate, but this legendary status is contrasted with the fact that he is a brown man. Now what the show chose to do with him is brilliant because we as the audience already have a preconceived notion of who he is based on our understanding of history. But then the show tell us, no, that Blackbeard you know is not this Blackbeard, our Blackbeard is a gay Māori man who truly does want to be a good person but is pushed into this role of violence. The show even made it clear that Ed hasn’t killed anyone aside from his abusive white father, and at the most only maimed people. He uses his wit and intelligence and the art of fuckery to make things happen for him, while the person who carries out all the dirty work (i.e. the violence) and builds upon the Blackbeard myth is Izzy, a white man. Ed despises the weight of his legend and the weight of toxic masculinity and senseless violence that comes with the responsibility of being Blackbeard.

Ed and Stede cannot and should not be disconnected from their races as it’s an integral point of the show, just as it is for the rest of the cast and even minor characters like the servants who are all poc. Taika constantly talks about how the show asks the question of “what does it mean to be a man?” and we’re getting more of that answer as the seasons progress. What if we had lesbian pirates who have a similar story but they’re not connected to western piracy? Instead have them have their own nuanced narrative that connects deeply to their ethnicity? In my opinion, making two woc Anne and Mary just seems reductive; and in a way, wouldn’t David and his writers be making the same mistake that bipoc have rightfully said they made with Ed and Stede?

[teenagemutantninjatrauma]

*sigh* 2003 turtles should’ve made a radio station

Did anyone see that one video of Raph and Mikey doing a podcast and answering questions? How neat would it be if they just… had a radio station??

Imagine, right, Mikey reads scary stories and he and Donnie are writing an episodic murder mystery story. Leo does mini-lessons in Japanese language and culture. Raph blasts absolutely banger music and gives updates on any new happenings New Yorkers should watch out for - ongoing gang wars, aliens on the loose, but also charity events outside of Oroku Saki’s work because. Fuck Oroku Saki lol

Whenever they get into trouble and can’t get to their radio station or are too busy fighting something, the few New Yorkers that listen to them worry, and as they worry, they talk, and so ironically anytime the station goes quiet, the awareness of it spreads. The turtles keep coming back to new listeners, and they make more stories, more little lessons, they share little censored bits of their life. Mikey does in-depth analysis of superhero comics and shows like Star Trek, and very often reminds his listeners to Be Fuckin Weird!!! Be you be fun be interesting, your interests and hobbies are so cool I promise you, your outfit is banger and your hair is stylish and you deserve to feel confident in yourselves!!

Donatello shares hacks to make putting together machines easier for yourself, especially encouraging women to not feel intimidated or ridiculed by men for never being taught stuff like car mechanics — once you know where to start and what things look like, it’s easy enough! He researches reliable resources both online and offline, and occasionally rambles about new breakthroughs and what they mean in the bigger scope of all things science.

Leo has little episodes about exploring the soul - learning to understand yourself, meditating on who you are and want to be, but also how to cope with dangerous or traumatizing situations (shoutout to the Ancient One). Lots of queer folk lightheartedly agree that they would come out to him without hesitance because he “would be so so nice about it I bet.”

Raph starts setting up interviews, at first with the humans he knows - the kind Mrs. Morrison, talking about the horribly unfair housing policies making her life harder, the Professor, to humanize the homeless, but then he gets a little braver and starts interviewing nonhumans that live in the city — Leatherhead first, and then Sydney and the other people from the Underground City. A stray Utrom that settled down here and opted to stay when their peers left for home. Professor Honeycutt, when he visits - that interview sort of cements that he’s not making these people up, because, well. Everyone had seen and heard the fugitoid during the invasion. He interviews superheroes, both those that work during the day, and those that work during the night (and yes, he does interview the Turtle Titan). He invites the Battle Nexus Daimyo for a visit. But the interview most beloved by the listeners… is one Raphael conducts with his dad.

They never mention they’re mutants, but I wonder how many people feel something click in their minds when Raph starts the interview by going “so. Just you and four kids, practically homeless, hiding in the shadows. How did you manage, those first few years when we were really little?” And they talk about being a single dad who was “barely an adult” (read: still learning himself how to be a mutant) and all the folks out there who maybe had to deal with having kids too early or at a time where they couldn’t properly take care of them as much as they wanted to, they all lean in, because this man sounds like he’s about sixty now - surely he’ll have some wise words of advice? And he does, Splinter talks about having to learn what kids are even like, never having had interacted with that many people in general before, he often had to guess at what was a serious ailment and what was simply a byproduct of childhood and later puberty, he talks about how visiting his few friends (the Ancient One, and the Daimyo) helped him remember that he’s not all alone to do this, he talks about how what worked for one of his sons didn’t work for the other three and how a parent should always remain flexible and open minded and accepting of change, as change is natural to life and inevitable especially during the early years. And they talk and talk and I bet a bunch of New Yorkers go “wait a minute.. four guys that live on the streets with a dad they occasionally call a ‘master,’ one of them constantly talks about machinery, they all speak fluent Japanese… could these possibly be the fucked up little guys that saved my ass that one time? Could this be the guy I punched that one time cuz I freaked out?’

Like. Just consider it okay. A turtle radio station.

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.