#epochryphal

[io-archival]

@temparchive @radiomogai

wait shit

the obvious word coinage

quoigender:

as with quoiromantic and quoisexual:

someone who finds the concept of gender identity, or of existing gender words, to themself to be inaccessible, inapplicable, non-sensical, &c

can mean someone for whom the experience of gender is confusing, someone who cannot tell if they experience gender or if what they experience is indeed gender (except, perhaps, through extensive abstract analysis)

can be used instead of “questioning,” which indicates an ongoing search for a better term; quoigender instead indicates a troubled history with gender words/identities, and perhaps a frustration with searching, or finding such a search unhelpful; instead using quoigender as a more permanent, stable, unchanging, fixed point

also: throwing up one’s hands and saying “ugh, what gender even. forget this.”

this is not exclusive of having non-binary pronouns, of having social dysphoria or other kinds of dysphoria, of some gendery words being better or more accurate than others – just as being quoisexual is not exclusive of having sexual preferences, limits, boundaries, trends, &c

[burnvictimpornography]

Vexed to Normal (sorry, Yeats)

No Second Coming at hand

The falcon chose not to land

having seen the center's been depleted

The blood-dimmed tide has risen

far beyond the limit

of whatever's left here to receive it

Lead-cast calf in gold leaf

thinks itself the rough beast

twisting gyre wider than it reaches

Slouches, Bethlehem-bound

prideful, tipping, unsound

Epochryphal history repeated

Capital's Spiritus Mundi:

A shape with man's head and body

starves while feasting, begs to be unseated

Age beholds no man

Stony face in sand

The entropy of anarchy will even

[neopronouns]

sorry if this is annoying but i sent in a request for paper, stone, and paper mache/paper maché flags with resource links from the coiner epochryphal and i'm thinking it maybe got eaten? would you mind checking so i can resend it if so? if you're not comfortable doing the request this is also fine, i'd just like to know so i don't double request by accident!

looks like it did! though after taking a quick look at the terms, i have made flags for stone and high on my nsfw coining blog (which i need to get back to. i prommy it'll happen lol) and would prefer to post flags for these terms there for consistency!

[aceadmiral]

epochryphal replied to your post “So, I have a lot of feelings about @fuckyeahasexual‘s tweet storm...”

i think the twitter thread is attempting to address the (singular? primary?) stereotype-spectre of what a “tumblr ace” is, and it’s one that i’ve seen raised a lot (and do feel targeted by, as nonbinary, queer, interested in microlabels and unnatural hair colors, etc). i agree the thread inadvertently reinforced the idea that that is indeed the only/main type of ace on tumblr by focusing on the respectability politics of dismissing that stereotype

I’ve definitely also seen that stereotype a lot (and have certainly had it applied to me) and that’s kind of what gets me about it? The people to whom it applies are not exclusively on tumblr, and not all those on tumblr even want anything to do with the asexual community. Paring down “tumblr aces” to those people who were involved in those “accomplishments” listed erases not only the histories of other tumblr-based activists, but also the quotidian hopes and fears and dreams of a lot of aces on tumblr who deserve to be remembered as well. I dunno, I can’t say I’m objective about this sort of thing, because I have certainly had plenty of bad run-ins with people who center their own circles and neglect everybody else. But regardless of the intent (which I do think was genuine), I can’t escape the conclusion that it was poorly done, and in intra-community conflicts the how is often way more important than the what.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Very very delayed (over 2 months later) responses here:

@ciaran:

huh, i sort of took for granted that that’s the appeal of non-monogamy when it comes to ships? one of my favourite poly tropes is “established couple gets attached to a supposed-to-be-temporary third”—maybe it’s also bc i really enjoy that kind of imbalance where two people have a pre-existing dynamic and a newcomer has to navigate that, a dynamic which can be configured in multiple ways

So, I do love this sort of thing, absolutely (the two as-yet unattached points of a V coming together, partly on the basis of shared emotional investment in the third person, soooo often gets me). But I'm actually talking about something slightly different here - not triads, but just putting one character in multiple relationships at once, and feeling compelled to do that specifically when they're already attached to one person.

Like, I had a discussion awhile ago with some Hannibal fandom colleagues about Will Graham multishipping, and it's made me realize that the Will Graham multishipping scenarios that my mind most instinctively concocts are, in fact, post-canon scenarios. And the entrenchment of Hannigram during that time period is exactly why - it's a reason to get him involved with more people, not a reason not to. Embracing Hannibal fully, and by extension embracing the long-suppressed parts of himself, just seems like it could naturally be followed by him having further erotically violent entanglements with other people! And I am invested in those dynamics reflecting back on Hannigram in some way, because they triangulate with everyone, but I am absolutely not invested in them developing into full-blown, codified triads. Hopefully that clarifies what I mean!

@epochryphal:

exactly exactly exactly! not “frequent and easy” but rather “rolls into further exploration, such that stopping feels artificially curtailed, even if few POIs are actually found” — and it’s terribly interesting to play out different unfoldings of multiships without a long lingering on the very first connection, so there’s momentum, impetus, energetic movement even

@ducktoothcollection (I can't tag you for some reason!):

ooh, yeah, I relate to that but had never really managed to articulate it before! It feels like a natural extension of “the sky is bluer and grass is greener because I’m in love”. (for me it tends to translate less into nonmonogamy and more into “monogamy plus five unrequited crushes” bc I’m a horrible introvert but y'know)

I'm really glad to know other people can relate. It's not a POV I've ever seen articulated before in specific. "Frequently attracted to people" and "not seeing being in a long-term relationship as a barrier to having other relationships" are articulated all the time, of course, but "specifically being motivated to seek other relationships with I'm already with someone"/"feeling attracted to more people more easily when I'm already interested in one person", as the direct inverse of what some monogamous people report feeling, less so.

Thoughts on nonmonogamy and fandom -

I think part of the shape of my own inclination towards nonmonogamy is that - I see some monogamous people say that they just don't feel much attraction towards other people or inclination to be involved with other people while they're partnered up. And I honestly feel like the direct inverse of that - it's much easier for me to be attracted to people in general if I already have one point of interest established. Because it puts me back in that mindset, and gets me more in tune with that possibility. This is why I find the framework of monogamy restrictive - because so much of how I feel attraction is about expansiveness, something that goes beyond that specific person. Exclusivity in a relationship would feel like clipping my wings, putting a cap on the joy I feel.

(This has sort of created a frustrating "entry level job/3-5 years of experience needed" learning curve to be hurdled for the past 2+ years, honestly, because after several false starts I just haven't been able to muster that kind of crush-like investment in someone that would rekindle that possibility more broadly and generally. Which is fine, as I'm more content directing my social energies elsewhere for the time being, but it does feel hard to explain, since most people associate nonmonogamy with being very easily and frequently romantically interested in others.)

But anyway, I've come to realize how much this informs my approach to fandom. My impulse is very often to explore my multishipping scenarios for a member or members of the main couple after they're together. Because it just seems natural and intuitive to me that of course being settled and happy with one person would make a person want to explore other similar connections, and because romances are most meaningful to me when they awaken some sort of erotic potential within the self that extends beyond the bounds of that specific relationship, and grants new context and shape to other connections. And it can be... alienating, to get struck with the reminder that many other people equally intuitively conceive of endgame coupledom in the opposite manner, and take it for granted that partnering with someone is the end of the line and indicates being fulfilled in only that person.

[intersex-ionality]

so i was probably born perisex, but have transitioned into a decidedly altersex body (vaginectomy + no nipples on flat chest + super low natural hormone levels), which i usually describe as being physically my gender + physically non-binary. this has caused some healthcare access issues, but is not really an intersex experience. i’m trying to figure out if saying “have” or “USED to have perisex privilege” makes more sense? i still do in ways for sure, like the health records stuff... thoughts?

As a general rule of thumb, privilege is so conditional that moving away from visible normalcy strips you of it. You might still have some of the internalized beliefs that privilege granted you, but I struggle to see how someone looking at you, seeing your body disagrees with their idea of the sex binary, and then making your life more difficult (whether actively or passively) could ever constitute being seen or treated as “normal” by an oppressive structure.

I can’t decide these things for you, only you can. But it sounds to me like the past tense is much more accurate here.

And, this kind of circumstance is exactly why terms like parasex (anyone who is intersex or has otherwise become alienated from perisex privilege) were created.

Life isn’t binary. Being perisex privilege isn’t binary either.

I wish I had a more eloquent response for you, but–and I cannot emphasize this enough–I’m really on the fence about the entire concept of “perisex privilege” being applied to trans people at all.

I’m not sure it works that way. Very few people actually think of trans bodies as having “normal” sex characteristics. It’s literally the reason why trans people, trans women and transfems in particular, but all trans people to a degree, have such a high risk of murder/violence from their sexual partners compared to cis people.

I’m trying to pin down my exact feelings on the matter, and explain them coherently, and that essay is drafted, but man. Man I am treading into some dangerous territory by making claims such as, “intersex and trans people were historically considered members of the same social group with unique sub-identities (fucked up over gender roles), similarly to how gay, bi and ace people are considered members of the same social group with unique sub-identities (fucked up over relationship standards). Maybe that was a good thing, actually, and we should re-acknowledge the amount of intense overlap happening here?”

Neither trans nor intersex queer theorists love that kind of thing, tbqh. But I can’t shake it, you know?

[adventures-in-asexuality]

rowan.... rowan; “i mean yes of course i have been in dangerous bell situations” - Rowan

look. look! there are a lot of dangerous bell situations you can get into! even the smallest church bells are still several hundredweight, so that’s several hundred pounds of metal you’re trying to control.

like, okay, batbetbitbotbut mentioned the issue with full vertical ringing is that you don’t want to break the stay, which is the bit of wood that prevents the bell from just going round and round and round and round and ROUND AND ROUND until it has exhausted all its kinetic energy. you go round one rotation, stop the bell just before it reaches the stay, rotate back the other way, stop the bell, etc etc etc. it works well. you don’t die. you control the bell.

but the stay is just a piece of wood up in a church tower; eventually, even if you’re a perfect ringer and never ever tap the stay when you’re ringing (that’s why you stop just before you reach the stay, so you’re not wearing the wood out faster), it will break. when that happens, the first thing you learn when you’re ringing is that you let go. you let go of the damn rope, you let it go up into the ceiling, you look ashamed and awkward while everyone else stops ringing and figures out what to do. otherwise, that rope is climbing towards the ceiling with all the stored energy of a several-hundred-pound bell and it will take it with you.

this is why, by the way, your belfry ceiling should be low. I learned at my grandmother’s church - and I should say, I was never more than a learner; I didn’t visit my grandmother often enough to get good, and I could only ring occasionally at my own church because I would’ve needed to be in the belfry ringing at the same time as I was getting robed up for the choir - but at her church, the belfry ceiling was maybe seven feet at most. it was a small room, and the holes which the rope disappeared through were sometimes unsettlingly near, but when someone broke a stay, or had any other misfortune, at worst they would have been dragged up a couple of feet and slammed into the ceiling. you should still let go, but that’s a good precaution.

now, at my church, the belfry ceiling was far distant. I think it was actually the floor of the room that the bells were housed in, and it was, god, it was so high that I cannot even estimate it. look at a church tower. divide it in half. yeah, maybe that high.

so, obviously trying to perfectly control the ropes up that height was a problem, so they’d put in a sort of metal framework; little circles where the ropes should go through, and a few struts connecting each circle.

first off, obviously, if you break a stay and don’t let go, you’re in trouble. at the very best, you’re hitting the metal frame ten, twenty feet above you. if you don’t manage to stop then... well. up the tower you go. it wasn’t safe. I didn’t like it.

the other thing about this setup was that, as I was always a learner, I was often having some amount of trouble controlling the bell. as I’ve said a lot, it’s several hundred pounds of bell, and the ringing system is set up so that you personally are not moving all several hundred pounds, because we’re not weightlifters. what this does mean is that you have to be really in tune with everything else in the mechanism, or you’ll lose control of the bell as it starts swinging to its own tune.

now, that’s possible in all places. I’ve lost control at my grandmother’s church enough! but there, well, the rope is going through a small hole in the ceiling seven feet up, and then it’s going through more rooms and more small holes and... you get the idea. even if you fuck up - and you can and will - it’s a lot easier to recover there.

my church, though - well, the metal circles, like I said, were a) quite large and b) a long way above us. and above that, there’s nothing until you hit the ceiling. losing control of a bell there was always terrifying, because suddenly this rope is leaping around like a live fish in your grip, and you’re trying desperately to hold onto it and get it back into place so that you can continue ringing and not break a fucking stay, but none of the design of that goddamn belfry worked with you in any way whatsoever. terrifying. (the floor of that belfry was also a lot bigger, so it wasn’t like someone could just quickly set their bell to rest and help you by moving over two feet; they’d have to do that and get across to where you were and deal with the furiously angry rope. terrifying. and, yeah, honestly pretty dangerous. the worst I’ve been hurt is rope burns and pulled muscles, which honestly is pretty par for the course, but - yeah. make your belfries safer! have fun ringing and not worrying that you will be pulled into the infinite darkness of the tower above you!

[solipsistful]

epochryphal replied to your post: lmfao i love that i write a grumpy “atheists face...

Salutes. right how much conscious effort is necessary to properly Distance from christian culture. also hey is pillowfort any good, i live in fear of the “no suggestive drawings appearing under 18” rule and also on my phone’s apps

yeah idk. i lean towards seeing use in the term “cultural Christianity” in the sense that US culture is, y’know, super influenced by ideas in Christian theology in ways that go beyond “do you believe in Jesus y/n, do you celebrate Christmas y/n” -- but i get that’s gonna be a hella fraught thing for survivors of religious abuse, and it sucks if it gets used to say basically “you can’t/shouldn’t disidentify with this thing that hurt you”. 

i think there’s a matter of here of, like, how much you want to attribute “<feature of mainstream American culture>” to being a Cultural Thing vs. to being a certain type of religious thinking, and if it is a Cultural Thing, do you want to still call it “Christian in the sense that mainstream American culture is Christian” when that still may be covering... very non-Christian people. (and then the issue of calling it “Christian culture” when there are a looot of approaches there, usually people mean a kind of white Protestantism; “Christian” as shorthand for a lot of things, really). where are the boundaries of “religion”, is i think the question, which lmao don’t ask me -- that’s never been an object in my life. :V

of course i spend half my time reading people like Foucault, whose whole thing was “psychiatry is from the ground up super influenced by Christian ideas about sin, authority, mind/body dualism, therapy-as-confession etc.” so like... those connections to theology can run deep, theoretically, but i wouldn’t call anyone who uses psychiatric models adopting some aspect of Christianity. i get more :/ at the specific idea -- or at least how it feels from the outside -- that people who have converted to another religion are more exempt from interrogating that stuff, because they’ve adopted things that can “fill in that blank”, while ex-Christian atheists are easy enough to generalize as Christian-Lite.

anyway

i generally like pillowfort. largely, it’s interesting having some connection back to discussions on asexuality and aromanticism after, y’know, tumblr. also, privacy features?? it’s slow though, which means we don’t spend that much time on it, which means there’s even less activity. :V but hey, i think their invite system is now causing more activity again.

i know there was that whole issue, and the kinda-retroactive banning, but i wouldn’t really be the person to ask how it’s affecting things -- i at least haven’t heard of any further Issues like that. though the mobile website kinda sucks, if that’s an issue lmao

- ace

[io-archival]

[PT: ilyagender flag musings /end PT]

Ilyagender is a gender that is tangible and definitely there, however it is not man, woman, neutral, or agender, nor any combination or derivative of any of these genders. It has no connection to any of them. It has no neutrality, femininity, masculinity or lack of gender about it, and that is what defines it.

ilyagender flag musings

There are only eleven or so “basic” colors: white, black, grey, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown.

Rule out pink, red and blue for the gender binary. Rule out purple for its use in other flags to mean androgyny.

Rule out white and black for their use in other flags to mean a lack of gender. Rule out grey for its use in other flags to mean partial gender or partial attraction.

That leaves orange, yellow, green, brown.

Incidentally, these are colors that appear in the coining post for outherine and the outherine flag. They both also use a sort of brick red and a slightly purple shade of grey, and the greens it uses are very different from the one on (e.g.) the neutrois flag.

I don’t want to have as many stripes as the outherine flag, though. Orange, yellow and brown are also very similar to one another, particularly orange and brown. That tells me that we have a yellow-green-brown flag, or perhaps yellow-green-orange or orange-green-brown.

The etymology of ilyagender (”there exists a gender”) makes me think of the ∃ symbol, which means “there exists” in mathematics. Perhaps this symbol could appear on the flag in white.

[antirealisation]

epochryphal replied to your post “Hello who wants more “Serpent processing his own shit talking about...”

ooo. this makes sense to me (though i dunno that johnny Has to know what purple means Explicitly rather than a vague inkling he’s obfuscating from self) (but yeah mm the fantastical symptoms and the getting worse)

I like it the more aware of it, or the possibilities, he is, lol. Like, if the whole idea of Trauma & Denial is that he’s having these weird images of being stalked by a monster cuz he can’t fully handle the image of how threatening his guardians were, sure, That’s Trauma For Ya, but if that’s not an aspect of it that he actually struggles with, if he can say “yes this is because of my awful upbringing” -- or, with the “purple rain” thing, try to make those connections as much as possible, even in a contrived way -- and yet it doesn’t transform the “fantastical” symptoms into more obviously posttraumatic, the way it should...

If that makes sense? I dunno if that makes sense. Having a frustratingly hard time collecting and articulating thoughts lately, just in general. :/

What I’m saying is, the times I say, “Look I’m triggered by references to domestic violence cuz the body’s parents had an unhealthy relationship” can feel so contrived, trying to use it to explain situations where it’s a bit more of a stretch (“... alcoholism is meant to be Chaotic, right?”, purple rain) not actually believing it myself, still resulting in a lot of impossible images no matter how much I try to believe it or how much “sense” it might make if contextualised to the body’s history.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

thoughts on things the state is good for, if any

I feel like I would need more details on what “the state” encapsulates here, because it’s a word that for me is made up of postmodernist abstractions (hello Foucault). But assuming some kind of centralized government, I think it’s good for fostering autonomy. This idea that in an ideal world we would all rely on community and mutual aid makes me extremely nervous, because i suspect that would inevitably lead to more popularity contests, except this time what’s at stake is survival and having basic needs met. 

I do actually agree that fostering more community and interpersonal networks is good, and that loneliness and isolation are major problems in our society as it is. (This is actually why I’m not fond of takes like “maybe we’ll all be working from home in the future! there’s actually no need to have offices!” because hooo boy is your goal to just isolate people further and cut off any means of meeting and interacting with people, something that is already difficult as an adult? Not to mention that not everyone is, in fact, more productive at home... but we’re getting off topic.)

Point is, while I’m in favour of mutual aid, I think that leaving people at the mercy of community support without any kind of centralized, bureaucratic support is seriously over-optimistic and not taking into account how vicious communities can be.

[raindrop-cake]

epochryphal replied to your post: younginhumans: hey guys here are some actually...

really impressive how op never uses the word bi in the post or tags while listing bi/queer/pan/etc artists but specifying wlw and lesbian and also implying the creator of ‘girls’ is straight (she’s bi and has been harassed over this backlash). and by impressive i mean transparently biphobic

i’m sorry i didn’t know that at all about ‘girls’, i haven’t actually heard it. also i didn’t realise that about just using wlw instead of mentioning bi or pan but that makes a lot of sense and i will try to keep an eye out for it in future. thank you for telling me.

[qanoor]

epochryphal said: 

it can make you afraid and trip associations like Withholding without that being a thing you believe or think is true; i think there is a very difficult and ill-addressed balance issue around the emotional reality and natural response to being told no - for all it’s def reasonable to focus on respecting a no and not being entitled, that actually isn’t that simple emotionally inside, especially with intensity and reduced future sense and […]

[…] and both realities and Narratives about abuse and withholding sex, yknow? anyway. i think being scared of it being gone, and it being a Need you have - and with this specific person - but never owed or demanded - is actually tremendously hard and painful. not to Act Responsibly, sure, but to deal with emotionally as an intense person

thank you for these comments, cor <3 i really always appreciate your insight!

since riva did respond with a clear(er?) no, i am trying to deal with the disappointment & sadness of that, and i hope that at some point i feel able to be friends with them without this coming up for me all the time. i hope i can see them again in person soon. i am so afraid that they regret what we did have, though. i don’t know, though, because they never really answered that question, though in earlier conversations they did say that maybe we shouldn’t have slept together the first night we saw each other in so long, so i don’t know.

also, thanks for your comment on my most recent post, too, about wishing people would just tell me the brutal cruel things directly. i thought you would understand

[khemi]

epochryphal replied to your post

sflkjdgfdlnbglkb so cute still STILL EVERY TIME NEWLY DIE

[intersex-ionality]

hmm do you know if there’s any good differentiation between “atheist as in no supernatural exists and all can be explained scientifically” (your definition) and “atheism as in no conscious supernatural entities aka gods exist, but maybe supernatural forces do” (me!)? i tend to use “atheist witch” to help convey that but yeah, i feel kinda alienated from both atheism and witchiness individually because they tend to be Science vs Gods

Yeah, there’s actually between 5 and 12 “types” of atheism, including atheistic mysticism, which is where the belief in supernatural entities or forces that do not function as deities would come in. It may or may not be functionally distinct from spiritual atheism, which is the belief that all systems in the universe are interconnected in such a complex way as to be incomprehensible and thus functionally indistinguishable from other systems of interconnected spirituality.

In both cases, this leaves room for an atheist witch such as yourself to engage with the indescribable complexity of reality in any number of fashions that can, collectively, be referred to as magic or energy work or what have you. For example, we know the placebo effect works even if you tell someone that the medicine they’re being given is a placebo, and while that can be chalked up to the power of the human mind to override the human body, that override still requires the placebo to occur. So, how is that functionally distinct from believing that the placebo itself is the cause of the change, rather than believing the human mind’s interaction with the placebo is the cause of the change? In both cases, the placebo is necessary, after all.

There are all kinds of philosophical distinctions to be made, yes, but at the practical level there’s not that much to be done to distinguish, “I’m giving you this placebo because the magic of it will help your brain overcome your body’s limitations and speed up healing or control symptoms,” and, “I’m giving you this placebo because the material of it will help your brain overcome your body’s limitations and speed up healing or control symptoms.”

It’s not entirely a semantic difference, as anyone who has ever been caught in a conversation between a scientific atheist and a spiritual atheist can readily attest there are many minute differences, but it edges terribly close, given that the practical in both cases is the same.

[adventures-in-asexuality]

epochryphal replied to your post “what resembles the grave but isn’t: dropped kerbs on only one side of...”

oh my god. okay firstly that is apparently a britishism so i initially was like... kerns... of corn...? for crows...? only eaten on one side of like a road divider...? ominous... but weird... then i was like “okay kerbs is making me think kerberos and THAT’S wrong” and looked it up, and then “that’s such an adorable, like, evocative spelling, soundways. aw. anyway like the grave - hm, because disappointin—OH BECAUSE DROP YES I SEE AA” and anyway i thought this was a fun jaunt

this is a fun jaunt! though I would add that: like the grave but not because I was so incredibly startled and jostled out of my pre-9am bleary state into ‘oh god can I actually get up this kerb?!’

alternatively, it resembles the grave of accessible design.