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geeese420 · 1 year ago

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summer 2024 fandom check:

favorites atm (in no particular order)

lmk if we have any mutuals!!

DISCLAIMER: if any of these are problematic I either didn’t know that or like the art and not the artist. this is just for me to look back at and see what stays and to find people with mutual interests

music:

rock (including subgenres. don’t come for me):

three days grace

nickelback

arctic monkeys

northlane

better than ezra (more pop/rock)

cali reggae:

311

dirty heads

indie:

cosmo sheldrake

gregory and the hawk

yaelokre

pop:

chappell roan

sabrina carpenter

hozier

conan gray

olivia rodrigo

abba

rap:

ashnikko

songs:

(don’t make me choose 😭 this will be a long one)

pop:

soap by melanie martinez

unknown phantom by ricky montgomery

lonely dancers by conan gray

espresso by sabrina carpenter

FMRN by lilyisthatyou

I love the stars by the orion experience

love is embarrassing by olivia rodrigo

speed drive by charli xcx

lady hear me tonight by modjo

me and michael by mgmt

super bad mantra by JAWNY and christian blue

smile by lily allen

1980s horror film II by wallows

move by saint motel

my type by saint motel

softcore by the neighbourhood

anthony kiedis by remi wolf

after midnight by chappell roan

december 1963 by frankie valli and the four seasons

cali reggae:

indigo by dirty heads

sloth’s revenge by dirty heads

you’re gonna get it by 311

oxygen by dirty heads

down by 311

indie/experimental/folk:

kingston by faye webster

come along by cosmo sheldrake

state lines by novo amor

treehouse by alex g and emily yacina

paranoiac intervals/body dysmorphia by of montreal

little dark age by mgmt

dorothy by her’s

stone wall, stone fence by gregory and the hawk

harpy hare by yaelokre

fast car by tracy chapman

rock:

I miss the misery by halestorm

lonely day by system of a down

home by three days grace

airhead by honey revenge

teenage dirtbag by wheatus

can you feel my heart - mothica version by MOTHICA

echo chamber by northlane

crash and burn by maggie lindemann

recognize by better than ezra and dj swamp (more pop/rock)

she keeps me up by nickelback

porn star dancing by my darkest days et al

miss murder by AFI

rag doll by aerosmith

why’d you only call me when you’re high by arctic monkeys

hip hop/rap:

deal with it by ashnikko and kelis

worms by ashnikko

lemon by n.e.r.d. and rihanna

wet vagina by doja cat

manners by ashnikko

dna by kendrick lamar

DEAD RIGHT NOW by lil nas x

tv shows:

bob’s burgers

adventure time

midnight gospel

rick and morty

arrested development

the community

summer camp island

over the garden wall

attack on titan

youtube channels:

drawfee

moriah elizabeth

dan and phil

ethan nestor

etellan

dollightful

jarvis johnson

chad chad

try guys

drew goodwin

danny gonzalez

kurtis conner

webtoons:

hooky

love 4 a walk

everything is fine

movies:

crimson peaks

saw series

child’s play

baby driver

scott pilgrim

fantastic mr fox

beautiful mind

misc:

brain leak podcast

gretel lusky (instagram artist)

sonic the hedgehog

#fandoms #music #youtube #movies

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geeese420 · 1 year ago

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hey dudes. I wanted to share one of my favorite essays i’ve ever written. it’s about growing up bi/ace in a southern christian household and how being a part of two communities that notoriously butt heads affected me growing up.

I wrote this paper for a university english class on women, gender, and sexuality. I had to use sources from the class in my paper but I was kind of just letting the feelings flow, so if my citations seem kind of out of place that’s why.

for the sake of my privacy I will be editing this a bit, but if you take the time to read it, thank you!

hope everyone had a happy pride month

disclaimer: I have a deep respect for religion and religious people. I am even a bit religious myself to this day. I do not respect hateful people. there is a difference.

content warning: sexual abuse of a minor, religious trauma

please respect my privacy and beliefs if you choose to comment.

Bridging the Gap, by Jaiden M Goodman (creative work pseudonym)

The world is healing and growing in its view towards difference, but there is no denying that we have a long way to go. Modern American society, possibly one of the most accepting societies towards the LGBTQ+ community on Earth, is still incredibly founded in systemic homophobia and fear of difference. This stems largely from religion and the death grip it has on our world. From this grip, stereotypes and stigmas have blossomed like poisoned flowers. I would like to discuss the effect that stigma and growing up in a religious household had on my own coming out, and the way similar issues are addressed in the movie, “But I’m A Cheerleader.”

Before I begin, I would like to clarify that I am aware that arguing against homophobia by speaking on religion in a negative light is hypocritical. I do not take issue with religion. I take issue with the fact that certain groups of people will use religion as an excuse to be cruel, which defeats the purpose of religion as a whole.

I grew up in a very Catholic household. My grandparents and parents are extremely Catholic, I went to Catholic private schools K-12, and I went to go to church twice a week without missing a single time for eighteen years of my life. I always felt distressed, because I loved and still love my God and have had a very deep connection with them for a long time, but I also agreed with certain beliefs from other religions, an act I was taught could summon demons, and I was made to sit in a church twice a week where I was expected to fall to my knees in shame of my human nature and ability to make mistakes. I was told over and over that the God I loved was a hateful, masculine figure. That he created women to be beneath men, and that he hated gay people and people who are different, and that he created humans with the ability to romantically love just to have sex and reproduce in order to create more Catholics. I was also told that in accordance with my faith, I, a young girl, was expected to grow up and have a husband who I lived to serve. Everything I was to do would be to put him at ease. Him, a man I did not yet know. I feared growing up and entering into that kind of life. I feared womanhood. What was even more confusing for me was that I found myself seeing women and hoping for their touch, my gaze lingering on their soft curves and long, beautiful hair. My mother and other Christian women told me I simply wanted to be more like these women. I see this reflected on Megan in “But I’m A Cheerleader.” Megan sees girls and finds herself attracted, but her religious upbringing and parents have caused her to rule out the possibility of homosexuality altogether. She thinks her desires for women are “normal,” which in this context implies heterosexual. She has been conditioned to see the perfectly natural and beautiful homosexual thoughts she has as platonic desires (12:17). Growing up, my mother would tell me that she also looked at girls and admired their beauty, and that it was normal to appreciate women. I always knew my “appreciation” was something much deeper in the back of my mind, but being conditioned to think it was typical heterosexual admiration silenced my desire to explore my attraction and understand myself. In fact, I was raised around people who claimed homosexuality made them uncomfortable, and thus developed a homophobic mindset of my own. Like Megan, I was conditioned to see gay people as “unnatural” (8:07), “unhealthy,” and against what God intended (3:24). What is interesting to me, though, is what made my youth different from theirs. Since I was raised in the digital age, I had access to a lot of media involving gay people during my formative years. No one could really shield me from what they deemed “inappropriate.” My adolescence was during the peak of Tumblr and huge internet groups that bonded over support for homosexual “ships,” or fictional relationships, canon or otherwise. Having access to the internet during this time made me a lot more accepting of gay men. The interesting part is that I was still very lesophobic. Lesbians were much less represented in the media I consumed then, and I think being a young girl who had only ever heard of fairytales and fictional women being straight made me a lot less open to the idea that women can be gay.

My mother, who I see now is quite homophobic, though she tries and means so well, always insisted she could not be homophobic since her best friend growing up was a lesbian. I grew up knowing this woman and her now wife. They are both butch presenting lesbians, and my mother taught me that all lesbians dressed like men because they wanted to be men, since men were allowed to love women. I thought I couldn’t be attracted to girls because I didn’t want to be a man. My mom would also ask her friend not to kiss her then girlfriend in front of her or my family, but that rule did not apply to straight couples in her presence. I remember one time, when I was a bit older, I went to Disney World with my family, and there was a gay couple kissing and taking selfies in front of a fountain. I was happy to see a couple in love, especially since the right to homosexual marriage had been recently legalized and I was old enough to understand the importance of such a victory. My mother scowled and said it was disgusting for them to do that in public, and that just because it was legal now doesn’t mean they should flaunt it. Most of my family shares this viewpoint. They pretend to be okay with homosexual couples as long as they hide it in public and only express love for one another in complete privacy. They say it’s too sexual, and that children won’t understand it and they’ll be corrupted. I could never understand why it was any different from seeing a straight couple hold hands or kiss. How does the sexual orientation of the couple change the activity taking place? It was the exact same amount of sexual energy.

I realized as I grew old enough to understand sex that gay people are widely seen as hypersexual. I am not entirely sure why we are seen this way, but “But I’m A Cheerleader” displays this stigma as well. The opening scene shows cheerleaders jumping with closeup shots on their butts and chests (00:48), and when we meet Mary, the head of the camp, she describes lesbian desires in an extremely sexual and objectifying way (12:01). I think a lot of people hear “gay” or “lesbian” and automatically think of sodomy. To this day, I don’t understand why gay relationships are seen as purely sexual, but this made discovering my asexuality very confusing. I discovered I was bisexual at fifteen years old, the same year I lost my virginity to my abuser. I had so many sexual firsts ripped from me that sex had suddenly lost all its excitement and charm. I came out as bisexual to my parents before I came to terms with my asexuality. I quickly reassured my parents that I had a major preference for boys (though the opposite was true), but my mother’s first words back to me after “No, you’re not,” were “How will you have children?” I still think about this. Her first thought was of her sixteen-year-old’s future sexual endeavors. How my sex would be sinful because it was not “as God intended.” A similar concept is shown in “But I’m A Cheerleader,” as Mary has the campers essentially assaulted while she watches, saying it’s “beautiful” and “as God intended” (1:09:50). It sickens me that people fail to notice how much more there is to love than sex. If straight people can cuddle and hold hands without spreading their legs, so can gay people; and I guarantee God did not cheer every time I was coerced, and they do not weep when I wave my asexual flag.

After I was coerced for the first time, I was greatly confused as to why I didn’t enjoy the act of sex. It’s worth mentioning that I did not know I had been coerced until much later. Sex was such a taboo topic growing up, especially since I was raised on the “save yourself for marriage” philosophy. Not only was I overcome by religious guilt, but I felt like I had no one to talk to about my experience with sex. I eventually decided sex simply had been oversold to me and tricked myself into thinking I was enjoying it when in reality I would just lie there and let it happen, praying for it to end until it did. At the time I had never heard of coercion. As far as I was concerned there was only rape and consensual sex and no grey area. I was convinced I was completely consenting when I would say “fine, I guess,” after saying no and listening to my abuser beg and promise to be quick. It got so bad that once or twice they even offered to pay me.

After the relationship finally ended and I realized I had been abused, I found it very hard to find my place in the LGBTQ community. Bisexual media online was often very sexually charged, whether it was couples kissing or comic strips exchanging steamy remarks, I often felt like being bi meant I had to feel sexual attraction towards men and women the same way. I think what made me realize I was asexual was a post I came across on Instagram when I was about 17 years old. The post was an image of a scantily clad anime woman with a speech bubble saying, “twice the options, twice the fun.” I thought about this for a while and realized that sex with my first boyfriend had never once been fun for me. It had only ever been tiring or stressful. It felt like a chore. My then-girlfriend and I weren’t yet intimate, but I realized that I at least had some sexual attraction to her. I did some research and concluded that I was technically a biromantic homosexual, or just bi and ace to make things simple. Once I realized there was a name for what I was experiencing, I found my community right away. I watched videos about married couples talking about living asexually and I found online communities of people my age with shared experiences.

In college I entered my first somewhat healthy relationship with an AMAB person and learned of the term “demisexual.” Demisexual is a term under the ace umbrella that essentially represents the grey area in between a typical sex drive and being completely asexual. More specifically, it means that you only feel sexual attraction after having formed a deep romantic bond with someone, usually over a long period of time, and if you’re like me, you still don’t have a very high sex drive after that. These little specific sub-labels and niche parts of the LGBTQ community are a hassle to some people, but to me, having that extra specific relatability with a group of people is really special. I have never felt more comfortable with my sexuality. Sure, some people still hear I’m bisexual (I choose not to use the term “biromantic” or “panromantic,” though they are more accurate, so people understand what I mean easier.) and automatically think I’m just confused or a “f*ck-anything-that-moves” teenager, but knowing who I am and where I belong makes me care a whole lot less, and makes me love myself and the person God created me to be that much more.

My sexuality has not torn me from my faith. In fact, it has led me on the ultimate spiritual journey of my life. I have found myself so much closer to my spirituality than I ever was before because of the ostracization I faced from the people in my religious community. Feeling like an outsider in the Catholic Church led me to research and experiment with elements of other faiths from a variety of cultures and groups of people, and finding my place spiritually has had a very similar comforting feeling to finding my place in the LGBTQ community. Many members of the LGBTQ community are deterred from religion, and rightfully so, given the history of religion with queer folk, but for many people, finding a sound religious identity is extremely comforting and affirming. I hope for a future where queer folk can be openly religious if they choose, and be safe doing so, and I hope for a future where love is not assumed to be null and void without sex.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

source:

Babbit, Jamie. "But I'm a cheerleader." Universal City, CA : Universal Studios : 1999

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