#Supreme Identity

[turiyatitta]

A Spiritual Journey with Paramahamsa Vishwananda

Ever since September 3rd, 2019, there has been one figure that repeatedly stands out in my memories, the guiding light that has transformed my life – Paramahamsa Sri Swami Vishwananda.The journey began at Trinity St. Paul’s in Toronto. On that fateful day, I was fortunate enough to receive darshan from him. For those unfamiliar with this term, darshan is the divine sight – a soul-touching…

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

Still think your vote doesn't matter?

[cerealforkart]

Stay winning King

[soullessjack]

i think perhaps another layer of autism in jacks character is that he’s fine with being different, but is always upset to be treated or perceived differently.

[cottoncandyopinions]

It's wild how on one side of my dash I see people talking about the real issues of transmasc erasure, "you're taking our lesbians away" terf rhetoric, and the ways that trans men are expected to accept ostracisation within leftist spaces without ever advocating for themselves...

Meanwhile on the other side, I see lots of "The MRA's are back, anyone that speaks about transmasc issues are transmisogynists, if you didn't immediately decide transandrophobia is an invalid concept then you're a bigot" type hysteria and it all just pisses me off.

Like trans men will spend their entire life til now perceived as women, expected to be quiet, expected to obey and be a resource to others without taking up too much space or having needs themselves. And upon realizing they're trans, finding their community, and thinking maybe this is a place they can find some modicum of comfort, the community says "no."

We don't want your voice or your struggles, because it doesn't fall in line with the rhetoric. It's not a part of the theory.

SJ theory generalizes, that's the nature of it. It's used to describe society as a whole, and how systemic oppressions operate. Broad academic theory isn't meant to for you to apply it precisely the same way to the individual.

That's what being intersectional is supposed to be about! You're not supposed to say "well systemically men are oppressors, so this man I just met is actively looking to oppress me" when you meet a homeless black man in a wheel chair.

I'm just so tired of the dynamic where in leftist spaces we can't share our stories and pain because they have to align with our ideas of who's the oppressor or not.

To this day, I feel terrified to open up about the fact that an older woman sexually assaulted me as a teen, because I'm so afraid someone will say I'm just targeting lesbians, or that my story promotes predatory stereotypes and shouldn't be shared. I can't talk about shit like that because I know that outside my closest friends, others in leftists spaces don't want to hear about that.

This is all over the place but I'm just so frustrated. Seeing people that have been boiling over, keeping their mouth shut, playing nice even when it's unfair to them, daring to open their mouths to speak all the while trying to be careful, only to still get attacked and made into bigots.

It's like there's no amount of bowing and saying your troubles are meaningless and insisting other people have it worse that will let you be "allowed" to talk about what hurts you.

We're supposed to be past one-upmanship and oppression olympics, it's not about who's had it worse it's about what we can fucking do about it TOGETHER.

And that means being able to drop your academic theory and shit to engage with the people in your community as fucking human beings. That means being able to seriously consider the validity of criticism instead of knee-jerk rejecting it.

Also please stop accusing literally anyone talking about intra-community bullying of talking over people being killed or shit like that, you know damn well that people are capable of caring about multiple issues

[sol-draws-sometimes]

I know everyone has complicated feelings about Valentines but shoutout to my fellow aro/arosepc people who forgot it was Valentines. Like I knew it was the 14, but I forgot that Valentines has festivities such as candy and dressing up in red/pink. Anyway, GO US!

[ninjaaa-go]

why am I getting so emotional about a little plastic ghost??? morro seriously has such a grip on me it’s insane

[stackslip]

lmao this clownish, hypocritical, farcical, vindicative mess of a country. this loony nation that will literally throw a whole tantrum, from government to media stations to randoes on the street, because it deeply believes that it is entitled to the spoils and fruits and suffering of the people it oppressed for centuries, as *thanks* for "civilizing" them. any backlash to that notion creates unprecedented fury and petty vindictiveness towards the nationals of said country. on one hand the new governments of niger and mali are "human rights abusing juntas", on the other any national from this country must be severely punished for their governments' refusal to bow down and lick the sole of france's boot like they're supposed to.

[notebooknonbinary]

Byler Week, Day 5: Secret Identities

This is outsider POV, i have invented a daughter and she's now My daughter (even though she's 15 in 2013 which means she'd be My Age). Also, based on This post I made a trillion, billion years ago—in November lol.

Emma is avoiding her homework. 

She’s got a mountain of an essay due on Monday, but writing has never come easy to her (not like Dad, amazing writer that he is, or her younger foster sister Alex, who is most definitely going to be a singer-songwriter). Both her foster dads are pretty cool about helping with stuff their children don’t understand. But Pops is the only one home with her right now, and he’s in his studio painting a commission. Even though she knows he wouldn’t care, she doesn’t want to bother him when he’s in the zone. She’ll ask Dad for help once he and her sisters are back from the store.

For now, she turns on the Xbox to play Mass Effect 2.

In the middle of recruiting Archangel, she gets a ping on her computer. Her friend Corgi has messaged her. It’s a row of question marks and a link to an article.

Identities of Award-Winning Artist-Author YA duo, Bloomfield and Blackmore, revealed in Tell-All Leak by reliable anonymous source. 

gengaratemycorgi Emmy, isn’t this your foster dads?

Shit.

“Pops!” Emma calls. 

There’s a distant clatter and splash, and then Will runs into the room. He’s got red paint splattered down the front of his shirt, making him look a little bit like he’s been stabbed. “What’s wrong Emmy? Are you okay?”

Normally she would tease him about the paint spill. Instead, she silently shows him the article and watches his face drop. He plops down beside her.

“Well, shit,” he says, reaching up to brush his hair from his face and inadvertently getting paint in it.

She's too worried about him to even giggle over it. “Are you and Dad gonna be okay?”

Will huffs a tired laugh. “We’ll be fine. The Lab’s NDA has expired. I’m honestly surprised we lasted this long under the radar.”

Emma can’t help but agree—her dads having so many different pseudonyms was bound to bite them in the butt someday.

“I’m gonna go call Mike, and then see about sorting this mess out.”

She’s not entirely certain if he’s referring to the mess of the leak, or the mess of paint all over him.

-

When everyone is back, she and her sisters sit in the living room—watching Mike and Will walk around, on the phone with their agents and the publicists of their book series’. Emmy feels a little bit useless, leaning her head on Rachel’s shoulder. Beside them, Alex has her earphones in and is journaling—conflict makes her anxious.

Eventually, her dads get off the phone and instead sit at the table on their laptops, typing out statements for the press and their social medias’. (And with all their names, there’s a lot of social medias to go through.)

Still feeling useless, and for lack of anything else to do, Emmy opens tumblr and scrolls to the new post made by her Dads’ official account.

-

BloomfieldAndBlackmore When we originally created ‘Elliot and the Other World’, we were required (legally) to publish under pen names. Thus, Bloomfield and Blackmore were born. We weren’t expecting Elliot and his friends to be as well loved as they’ve ended up being, though we are forever grateful for that. It’s thanks to fans like all of you that Elliot and the Other World is still going strong today!

Then, four years later, when we wanted to publish ‘Smalltown Boys’, we knew that our publisher would never allow us to publish a Gay romance under the same names as E&tOW, especially not back then. But Smalltown was too close to our hearts to set aside, so we created Lewis and Xavier Wakeham. (We flipped a coin on who got to be Xavier, and Mike is still the tiniest bit bitter that I won.). It was still a struggle to get it published, but we’re forever grateful that we were able to. 

Around that same time, we were beginning to foster. Our youngest at the time suffered from terrible nightmares (a plight we know well), so Mike and I would tell stories to help him back to sleep. Our oldest thought they were good enough stories to be published. We could have probably published those under Bloomfield and Blackmore, but that would have meant editing out that Prince Adam has two dads, and neither of our children would have ever forgiven us for that. So Oak and Rose joined the scene, publishing stories for kids like our foster children. It’s something that’s brought a lot of joy to our family.

Things began to get complicated after a colleague and friend, Ed Munson, wanted our input on a Dungeons and Dragons anthology he was creating. While he likely would have been fine with us using our pen names (as Elliot and the Other World is largely based on D&D), that would have required him to keep secrets about his own project. So out of respect for him, we used our own names.

We don’t know if that’s what led to this leak. The investigation into who tipped our names to the press is still on-going. To whoever it was, we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.

To our fans, we send our love. -Will and Mike

-

She scrolls through the reblogs.

-

BananananaAmanda “Required legally???????? Sirs ????? Were you in some kind of witness protection??????

DNDNotebook Amanda don’t be stupid, they probably had some kind of job that would have fired them for writing DnD books--it was like the 80s and people thought DnD was demonic.

BloomfieldAndBlackmore Well, actually, you’re both a little bit correct (though Amanda is slightly more correct, please don’t call them stupid). - Mike

BananananaAmanda My favorite author used the correct pronoun for me and also defended my honor im in tears rn.Also though, my witness protection theory has weight what????? Were parts of E&tOW Real??? ?????

BloomfieldAndBlackmore ..¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-

AllBimy5elf ‘we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.’ pffffft. Honestly iconic.

-

Lovepeace23 are we ignoring the fact that they’re gay ?? and yet they’re writing children’s books?? Keep that shit away from kids pervs

DNDNotebook hey asshat, the 80s called, they want their bigotry back

tydieandying i’m thinking about the fac that since they’re gay,  maybe my headcanon that Elliot is gay for Dave is true

Dendy7ever even if they -are- gay (which isn’t confirmed) doesn’t mean you have to push that agenda on to their characters. Dave is in love with Elliot’s twin sister Wendy. And Elliot is just growing slower than the rest of the Club because of his trauma. You’ll see when book ten comes out.

AllBimy5elf ‘isn’t confirmed’ after they talked about fostering?? They’re literally dads together?? Now who’s pushing sexuality onto people?

DNDNotebook lmao also the ‘in love’. bro goes out of his way to hold his bestie’s hand, but doesn’t like holding hands w Em when they kiss? Fishy.

-

BananananaAmanda ok but,,, since the main reasons Elliot & Other Worlds has never gotten a tv show is because the series was still on going, and the creators weren’t in the public eye…show?? Maybe???

AllBimy5elf ok yes I 1000000% want an Other Worlds show, but Smalltown Boys movie when???? I want to see my gay childhood friends to lovers happy ending On Screen

-

DNDNotebook said

Can we ask about your foster kids? You must really care about them if you wrote them childrens books. How are they doing in all this?

BloomfieldAndBlackmore Thank you for asking. Our two boys are grown now, but we’ve called them and they’re doing fine--no one has harassed them about it, if they’ve even made the connection. Our three foster daughters are doing as well as can be in the circumstances. Our middle daughter was the one who alerted us to the article (Hey Pumpkin, we love you!!). We’ll continue to try and keep them out of the public eye—they didn’t ask for any of this hubbub. -Will

LostimtheOtherWorld hey is your daughter @/DemigodEmmi98?

A jolt of anxiety has her shutting her laptop. She looks up to where her dads are still working and considers saying something. She gnaws at her nails.

“You okay, Em?” Rachel murmurs, shutting her phone and throwing an arm around Emmy’s shoulder. 

Emma leans into the hug. “I’m being stupid.”

“I doubt it, this whole this is fucking scary. Plus you’re like a baby. I’m eighteen and I’m terrified.”

Emmy scowls. “I’m fifteen, not a baby. And you won’t be eighteen ‘til March.”

Rachel laughs, which makes Emma feel a little less anxious.

She looks to Alex, who has moved on from journaling to just listening to music and staring out the window.

“I think Alex needs your worry more than I do, she’s barely ten.” She’s probably freaking out right now.

Rachel gives her one more squeeze. “You’re a good big sister, Em.” Rachel moves over to quietly talk with their sister. Leaving Emmy alone on the couch. 

She sighs and forces herself to open her computer back up, and scroll through her notifications. As she suspected, her followers have somehow made the connection of her talking about her author and artist foster dads, and somehow it’s escaped containment to Other Worlds fandom. She’s got a hundred and eighty-six asks and two hundred new followers.

Most of the messages are nice ones, asking if she’s okay, or ones congratulating her on her cool dads; but there are a few—maybe from the same person—that say that they’ll pray for her immortal soul for having two dads? What? It’s 2013, not the Middle Ages! 

She deletes those, and the ones asking for inside scoops on future books, then debates attempting to answer the ones left.

The thought makes her exhausted so instead she makes her own post.

-

DemigodEmmi98 regarding the influx of asks from anons and followers wondering if Mike and Will are the foster dads I’ve been talking about… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tydieandying Emmy is that a yes??

gengaratemycorgi lmaooo

-

Unfortunately that seems to immediately feed the fire, as she gets three more asks in the span of a minute. She opens up the message box from earlier today. 

-

Emmy: haha Immediate Regret(:

Corgi: u gonna be ok?

Emmy: ye, just. tired of tumblr right now lol, gonna jump offline for the next couple days til this all dies down. i’ll message u on snap. 

-

“Sorry about all this, Pumpkin,” Mike murmurs, when she tells him what’s happened. Emmy burrows into his hug. He’s been good at hugs as long as she’s known him—he and Pops make her feel so safe. 

“‘S not your fault, Dad.” She pulls back to grin at him. “Plus, missing school on Monday means I don’t have to turn in that bullshit essay I haven’t done yet.”

Mike snorts, scrubs his knuckles over her hair. “You are your fathers’ daughter.”

“Well, we all got doxxed, so I figure it’s our prerogative, right?”

Mike grimaced. “Maybe we should call your aunts in for a bit.”

“El and everyone are already on their way,” Will reports, entering the room again. He stoops to press a kiss to each other his daughters heads, before pressing one to Mike’s mouth. Then they’re both silent for a long moment. But it’s not a bad, scary silent.

They do this sometimes, Mike and Will--this thing where it seems like they’re speaking to each other with their minds. It could simply be that thing In-Love parents seem to be able to do, where they just know each other's minds (something her birth parents weren’t capable of). But, considering what she knows about their fucked-up childhood in Hawkins, she wouldn’t be surprised if it were powers. She could ask them, and they’d likely tell her the truth.

But Emmy thinks they’ve had enough secrets revealed for today, so she keeps her mouth shut and continues leaning against her parents.

[gunmaxism]

Can't stop my eyes from welling up with tears everytime I think of earthspark's Missed Connection. Nightshade and Tarantulas' talk of alt modes as an extension of self expression and Nightshade being so positively receptive to that. Their short but sweet time spent together being formative for the both of them, and still caring for each other even as they have their big climactic graveyard fight. Tarantulas' "It is a gift to know yourself so well so young, take pride in that." AUGH I'm gonna start crying all over again..

[imminent-danger-came]

Realizing that plot/world building is a distant second to characters and themeing for me

[vivi-scera]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

girl what? are you asking me, holder of a mere bachelor's degree in biology, to solve one of the biggest psychosocial debates in human evolutionary history?

[ofsavior]

nights like this making me look at Chifuyu like 🤔🌈❓

[bitchking-of-angmar]

I sometimes feel like I came into my queer identity... “wrong”?

When I read texts about historic transmasculine people, read theory or talk to other trans people in my local community, I always feel like I missed some steps in my development that are fundamental for the way a lot of other people experience trans-masculinity.

I keep reading, especially here on tumblr, that trans-masculinity cannot be separated from lesbianism or from lesbian gender-nonconformity. I keep seeing historical figures that describe experiences that are very similar to mine, that to me read explicitly transmasculine, described as lesbians and I keep feeling this disconnect.

I have always felt attracted to people of all genders and never once in my life identified as a wlw or any form of lesbian. I never even knew a lesbian by name until my mid twenties, I was never part of the community for any extend of time. I honestly feel more connected to cis gay or bisexual men then to the cis lesbians I meet. I know I’m not alone in this, a lot of my online trans friends have similar biographies to me in “skipping the lesbian stage” and most of them are exclusively attracted to men/masc people.

But being in contact with IRL trans communities makes me feel deeply weird about that, almost? As if I did something wrong? As if I could have had this important formative community experience among queer women and instead skipped that stage, leaving me now feeling 100% disconnected from womanhood altogether. Not sure what to do with that.

[zerachielamora]

My first dream of the year was Layers of Fear themed, so I replayed the original 2016 game tonight in honor of that

God I love this franchise

[bobauthorman]

Cultural Differences