#and i love you lesbians who also feel ostracized

[possamble]

Do you have any headcanons or thoughts about Falin having a crush on Marcille pre-canon? Especially during her later years at the school/the years she was with Laios.

Just full on "awkward and slightly gnc teenage lesbian has a massive crush on the touchy-feely girly girl straight best friend" tropes everywhere. Even better bc it's the "best friend is also the popular girl while lesbian is the slightly ostracized quiet one" dynamic in school. Falin gets so so so good at not having a heart attack every time Marcille gets in her personal space. But she's so resigned to never saying anything bc why would a girl as blinding as Marcille ever like her back. She also doesn't make an effort to get over it either, she's just content to be trapped in that stable dynamic of silently being in love with Marcille while getting to enjoy CLEARLY being Marcille's favourite person. She gets so used to it that it's almost just background noise most of the time-- it would have to be, unless she wanted to be freaking out 24/7 bc Marcille is so goddamn affectionate.

Her feelings also definitely change throughout the time that they're in school together-- at first it was this "whooaaah pretty older girl" puppy crush that you can clearly see developing in the flashbacks we get (I think she doesn't even like... realize her fixation on Marcille is romantic at all until years after it starts, when she's 12-14 ish and all the other girls around her are talking about crushes). But then they get closer, over the years Marcille starts getting really attached and letting down her guard, and Falin gets to see the ridiculous side of her. She gets to calm her down from her tantrums when experiments don't work out, or help her clean up when something explodes in her face. I feel like the progression of her feelings from "schoolgirl infatuation" to "unrequited love" probably almost exactly corresponds to how slowly Marcille goes from trying to keep Falin at a polite but friendly distance (like she does with everyone else) to her facade completely eroding as she becomes her cheerful and ridiculous self again for the first time since her father died.

That's probably the saddest part: Falin knows that she's clearly Marcille's favourite person on the surface level, but she doesn't quite fully grasp the enormity of what that means to Marcille. She doesn't get that she's the person who made the world colorful again for Marcille, that she is the first person outside of Marcille's family to really and truly make her laugh. She just thinks she's the beloved but dinky little short-lived sidekick, one of many that Marcille has had and will have.

Part of it is that, despite Marcille becoming such a clingy and affectionate best friend, I think her initial demeanour already did its damage. You see Falin being super adventurous and weird at first, bringing Marcille berries and other stuff, only to be rebuffed by Marcille exasperatedly saying she's working or looking kind of put off by it. And by the time you see her a little older, shes already quieter and better at masking -- and I'm not saying that that's entirely Marcille's fault (being the weird girl at an all girls academy for almost the entirety of her teenhood must have been brutal, my god) but she definitely learned that she's a potential nuisance to Marcille if she doesn't tone herself down. She learned that Marcille most likely sees her as a weird little kid following her around bc she has no other friends. And for the most part, she was never given any reason to unlearn any of that.

And that all very very smoothly transitions into Marcille being her "first love that was never meant to be anyway" when she leaves the academy. Chapter closed in her mind: she loved and pined from a distance and that was that. Every now and then she'll see another woman with Marcille's build or her shade of hair and be like ":( I miss her..." But then just kinda move on with her day. Same with when she's going through her own spellbook and finds a note that Marcille left her/correction that she made-- she'll smile fondly and reminisce about how much Marcille doted on her, and then move on.

Sometimes she thinks about contacting Marcille but convinces herself that it's too late (she spent too many months focusing on getting Laios healthy again and didn't mean to go no contact, but ah well). It's only when she has a practical reason to be reaching out that would also benefit Marcille ("Marcille is studying dungeons and we need a trustworthy mage to go with us to the dungeons") that she feels like she's allowed/that it wouldn't just be 100% a nuisance.

I almost think she didn't expect Marcille to reply at all, only to get a telegraph (or some in-universe equivalent of express mail, maybe magical pigeon carrier) that's like. EN ROUTE TO ISLAND. LETTER TO FOLLOW. and she freaks out like AAAA LAIOS SHE SAID YES WE HAVE TO CLEAN UP NOW.

I do think getting a response accidentally sparks a little hope in her, judging by the way she acts in the chp 57 flashback-- she's pouty that Marcille sees her as a kid, gets really worked up about being presentable, and then tries to play it cool when she actually meets Marcille (as if she didn't freak out and force Laios to shave while rambling a mile a minute about Marcille). She's an adult now, really and truly, and she's seen and survived things that her 18 yr old self would have never even imagined-- then all of a sudden, the person she was in love with since she was ten years old appears, and she's so desperate to be seen as mature and competent. She's trying soooo hard to impress Marcille with her newfound combat and dungeoneering experience...

Only to fall right back into their old dynamic. RIP. At least she gets the girl eventually, even if it takes dying twice and being the core catalyst behind an almost-apocalypse.

[kingofanemptyworld]

Rin, identity issues, and the complications of being an isolated, alienated teenager

It feels sort of weird to say but I generally don’t head canon characters as having particular sexualities. Whatever people go for in fics is usually fine with me - gay, lesbian, bi, pan, something more general like queer. As long as it makes sense for the story they’ve built and the character they’ve shaped to fit it, I’m good. Unless you’re ignoring a canon LGBTQ+ sexuality, in which case, yeah, I’ll take issue with that.

But anyway. Rin.

I’ve got my personal ship for him (BonRin my beloved), but regardless of the pairing I see him as bisexual. He’s so open with his infatuation with Shiemi, and okay, sure, fandom likes to ignore the love interest in shounen for the most part because we’ve got gay ships to peddle. But I don’t see the point in that unless it really reads like it’s a front, or a result of a character suppressing themselves for one reason or another. And with Rin, I think it’s pretty clear his affection for Shiemi is sincere. You technically have the in-universe evidence of the demon that brought out his true desires to back that up, but even without it, Rin likes her. It’s complicated because of Yukio and Shiemi’s own inexperience with romance, and yet I never once doubt he really likes her.

That being said… he’s very appreciative of the guys in his life, too. (Peddling my gay ship here) Bon in particular, considering he’s often admiring how cool he thinks Bon is, that his haircut suits him whether it’s the blonde rooster look or the undercut. If you don’t want to see it as romantic interest, that’s your prerogative, but to me Rin comes across as seeing cool and cute as different traits he finds attractive (in Bon and Shiemi respectively).

I also think his bisexuality would fit neatly into his narrative struggles to “pass” throughout the early parts of the series. Rin has grown up as the neighborhood problem child, ostracized for being violent, and eventually he decides he’s fine with just his brother and his father — and the rest of the monastery, presumably — for company. (Except that’s absolutely not true and clearly he’s starved for friendship and support.) People looked at him and saw a monster, even before his demonic heritage made an appearance; why would he bother giving them even more ammunition when it comes to reasons to hate him? So no matter when he figured out his attraction to guys, he’s not going to lean into it, because he also likes girls, right? (Ignoring for a moment that bisexuality is a lot more nuanced than that.)

Rin likes girls, Rin is human — that’s what’s going to get people to like him, or at the very least tolerate him. That he likes guys, that he’s half demon, he can shove that shit down and pretend it doesn’t exist. Lock up any stray thoughts and keep the sword sheathed around anyone who doesn’t already know.

(Excuse me for being amused by Rin wielding his humanity and supposed heterosexuality as a sword and shield.)

The problem, of course, is that he can’t keep up the facade forever. The narrative won’t let him. Rin has to embrace his demonic side, because it’s the only way to move forward and to continue to help his loved ones. And once he’s moved past the issue of his friends being upset over the deception, when they understand he’s still Rin despite what he’d hidden from them, Rin is finally allowed to be himself. He uses his flames, he lets his tail move freely in the open around the Cram School kids. Rin still doesn’t like this side of himself — it’s inextricably tied to every moment of pain and isolation he’s dealt with his entire life, including the death of Father Fujimoto (and, y’know, his mom). But he is moving forward, he’s trying to adapt.

And isn’t that some great fucking subtext for his bisexuality, too?

[rick-riordan-official]

Hi Rick, thank you so much for writing your books the way you did. Thanks to you and your books I grew up with knowing homosexuality is normal, so now I could just skip the "I dont like boys, is that normal?"-part and just feel comfortable about being a lesbian and accept it as a part of myself.

Thank you so much for making my life better 🫶🏻

(Also I loved The Sun And The Star. Solangelo forever 🏳️‍🌈)

People like you are why I write my books in the ways that I do. I don’t want people who are apart of your wonderful LGBTQIA+ community to feel excluded or ostracized. You’re wonderful people.

It makes me glad that you’re feeling included. I’m also glad that you can feel represented and know who you are. I don’t want people to feel like there’s something wrong with them.

[velvetvexations]

I'm going to try answering multiple asks in one posts to cut down on hitting my limit and declutter lol

I believe they were hyping themselves up for being a transfem ally who got to clapback to transmisogyny in a way that was totally epic and cool and they want us to fuck them so bad

What annoys me even more about this is that they still call baeddel a slur even though it was brought back for the first time since literally the Middle Ages by a group most agree were completely fucked up, and it's like, hey, shouldn't other people be able to use baeddel in that retaliatory way then? Why can't they have their justice slur?

We understand. One of us identifies as as cis woman and another as a cis man, although funnily enough, while the trans woman and two non-binary members also have physical dysphoria, the cis man is is probably the one who feels it the hardest including wanting giant knockers. We're a strange bunch. It's okay for systems to have a complicated relationship with their body.

We love you, all of you, and we hope she feels the solidarity. <3

Honestly I'm really tempted to next time I shave just because of how good I've been feeling about my butchness lately because of Velvet Nation, and also wanting to triple dog dare transradfems to say I don't look feminine enough to be a trans woman.

tpwrtrmnky 🤝 JK Rowling

creating a series beloved by queer people only to unfortunately have your brain poisoned into obsessively perpetuating transphobia

huge W for trans women though because she speedran that shit

I still don't think we need to be questioning her claims about being ostracized and I'd seriously prefer we stop doing that. It is, however, extremely weird she's still ranting about this like a week or two later, it's pretty clear she bare minimum has a problem with melodrama and should probably limit her engagement with the internet until she can get herself together to not collapse like this when people gently point out something she said not vibing.

Sometimes it feels like transradfems who act like egg jokes are vitally necessary to liberation have the exact same mindset as cis lesbians obsessed with "losing" AFAB people to being trans.

yeah, well, maybe so, but looking like a woman is a privilege and you're a gender traitor

I literally quit Reddit and came back to Tumblr because it drove me fucking insane that the D20 fandom kept calling a high schooler a nepo baby because her dad was a real estate agent.

High fashion, honestly.

Yes.

the thing you have to understand is that being a masculine man is bad but so is being a feminine man, being a man is just bad, that's why trans women are transitioning out of it

I'm so cool and sexy

Thank you anon!

Radical feminism, trans or trans exclusive, is in fact a cult, including frequently attempting to isolate minors away from outside support networks. TERFs and transradfems are the most miserable and sickening mirrors of each other.

[alexxncl]

‼️NIGHTBRINGER HDD CH. 4 SPOILERS‼️

masterlist | events | ch. 3

do we really not get to kiss them ??? not even during hdd???

...i'm in here complaining like i'm not a lesbian but MY POINT STILL STANDS ‼️

ofc asmo has something with "aphrodisiac" in the name. like what if it was actually an aphrodisiac ???

ik he wouldn't do anything like that against mc's will but however, in the instance that it was consensual, would your nails even dry fast enough before the shit started to kick in ?? like what if you're too horny to function before the polish dries ??? then what

imagine being such a bad cook that you fuck up sandwiches. LUNCH. MEAT. SANDWICHES. are you not embarrassed?

also how is mc getting from place to place to place so fast ??? teleportation ???? bc in the og timeline it kinda makes sense, though i feel like they'd be more tired than they are rn. in nb though? it makes no sense at all considering the fact that their powers are consistently weakening. which makes me think that this is either the og timeline or some undisclosed au

uncontrollably sobs. curls up into a ball and dies. implodes into a black hole.

i love sappy sentimental satan I LOVE CHARACTER GROWTH. the thing is, this can be said about the satan from either timeline. nb satan was more mentally and emotionally unstable, but that doesn't mean satan from the og timeline(s) didn't feel just as isolated as this satan did, if not even more so

imagine still not feeling like you belong after living with your "brothers" for millenia? having to act like you're ok and fine with constant isolation and ostracization from the people you want to love, the people which want to love you, but being unable to find common ground and pushing each other away even more than before

THEN SAY I LOVE YOU BACK 😐 i hate this man but i also love him but i also hate him but i also. more on this here bc i rambled too much

i couldn't NOT add my man like c'mon

maybe he clings to them so much because he knows they won't judge him offhandedly like his brothers do? bc they won't assume the worst of him at first glance? idk i feel like, other than the obvious reasons, there's more behind why he busts into mc's room unannounced all the time. being alone with self-deprecating thoughts is hard, and having someone else to fill the silence and the negative space with something positive does help

or maybe i'm reading too far into this and being biased bc thats my man

even if the throne wasn't based around bloodline, unless they become immortal, they wouldn't be able to be next in line anyways 😭 mc is nawt passing those trials diavolo went through either. no ma'am

the king's crucible ?? is that what it was called ???

honestly i can't lie, mc being the center of the world bc they're the center of the boys' world is cute. corny, but cute

damn they're that sexy ??? bringing everyone who meets them to their knees

minus luke obv

i wanna meet michael...i'm tryna see sum

and bring god and the demon king down while you're at it too...🫣

[gh-0-stcup]

My last post got me thinking a bit more on how one might interpret Willow's relationships in the early seasons when coming at it with the perspective of her being a lesbian, rather than bisexual.

Willow had a crush on Xander from the start. Xander is her oldest (and possibly only) friend. They've known each other their whole lives, they always have fun together, and they love each other to death.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it is very easy to conflate this kind of dynamic with romantic/sexual attraction. You know you want this person to be in your life forever - isn't that what romance is? Wouldn't it be so nice to just marry them?

Let's put it this way. So you don't have many friends. The other girls are all really mean to you, so you hate them about as much as they hate you. You haven't had a close relationship with another girl since before puberty (if ever). You missed out on the slumber parties and other little moments of closeness with girls that could have clued you in that you're attracted to them.

Because of your social ostracization and general tendency to stay inside studying, you may be going into your second year of high school without ever having felt attracted to a single real life person.

At the same time, you know that everybody else is feeling it. They talk about it all the time. You must be feeling it to. You see guys on TV and think, "Oh, he's nice to look at." You always feel happy and comfortable around your best friend. That's it, right? That's what the buzz is about?

Another huge thing I don't see brought up too much anymore is the way Willow's pre-Tara relationships center almost entirely around validation.

Willow wants to be loved. She wants to be valued. She wants to be seen as attractive. Xander is constantly talking about how hot other girls are. Why can't he see her that way? Why can't any guy? Xander would see a girl he hates as an object of sexual desire before Willow.

The desire to be seen, to be desired can easily warp into a sort of obsession. But wanting to be wanted by a person is not the same as being attracted to them. And herein lies much of the trouble between her and Xander. She wants to be wanted by Xander, but does she want him? No, says season 3.

And now we come to Oz. This is another relationship that is almost entirely focused on validation for Willow. It's a big part of what makes it really, really fun to watch. From the second he first lays eyes on Willow, he's hers.

Oz is like everything Willow ever wanted. He's a cool attractive senior who's in a band and has a van. And he really, really wants her. He's also very smart, easy to talk to, and fun to be around.

It's a very low pressure relationship in terms of the physical. Oz craves meaningful connection, sees sexual activity as an expression of that connection. He encourages her to slow down, to not force it. He's chill. He'll wait. In short - it's not a relationship where passion is a requirement.

They go on several dates without Oz ever kissing Willow. Willow's first attempt to kiss Oz has him rejecting her because he can tell she's just trying to pacify her Xander-induced insecurities.

In his speech, Oz expresses openly how much he wants to kiss Willow. How he fantasizes about her in class. How much he wants to be the object of her desire as well. And Willow melts.

But her reaction is focused around (finally) being desired. It doesn't have much to do with Oz and who he is. She wants him to want her. That he's a cool guy she can brag about to her friends is a great bonus.

And don't take that last bit in the wrong way - it's wonderful Willow got to have that. It was innocent and sweet. The kind of guy she never imagined would be interested in her falling head over heels? It's pretty much every dorky girl's fantasy. Of course she's flattered and flustered and excited.

And what does Willow do when she has her dream guy? She cheats on him. Her affair with Xander can be seen as her being overwhelmed by this powerful attraction she's felt to him for years. Hormonal teenagers being idiots.

Many have suggested the thing with Xander can't align with lesbian!Willow. I disagree. Under this lens, Willow can't tell the difference between her feelings for Oz and her feelings for Xander because they aren't meaningfully different. She is able to cheat, depsite it being pretty against her character, because neither relationships carry the emotional weight they should.

The fling with Xander was a meaningless indulgence of a childhood fantasy. It was largely powered by (apologies for the repetition) wanting to be wanted. Xander, who's always overlooked Willow, was fucking up his relationship with Cordelia goddamn Chase to make out with Willow. That'd be pretty addictively validating.

Even after it blew up and Xander was single, there was never a choice between him and Oz for Willow. No conflict, Oz all the way. She felt dumb for even jeopardizing it.

But she did jeopardize it. Possibly an indication that even though their relationship was literally everything Willow could have asked for, there was still something missing?

Their sex life is also somewhat removed from sexual desire. When she attempts to initiate sex, it isn't about her attraction to him. She wants Oz to know she loves him, that he's special to her.

When they do have sex, it direct follows Willow's speech about there being so much she wanted to try after high school and how she's scared she might never get to. It isn't passion between the two characters that motivates the consummation, but Oz giving Willow the only thing he can in that moment. The chance to have a new and important experience.

Willow enjoyed it. They cuddle happily in the afterglow and Willow describes the experience as "nice."

Let's take a leap forward to Tara. Due to network restrictions, there's more limits on what the viewer is able to see of their relationship. The magic substitutes the physical, especially in season 4.

Those moments are intimate, sensual, very intense. They're deeply passionate.

Their connection is powerful. And it's entirely about each other. It's everything that was missing from Willow's relationship with Oz.

[starcanwrecked-confessions]

mspec anon from a couple of days ago elaborating since you asked.

it's just some little things that probably are fine to other mspec people but are weird to me. some of it is how some people talk about mspec. like "this m/f pairing is bi4bi" but not suggesting any attraction, celebrity crush, childhood crush, whatever, they could have or could have had. makes it feel like bisexuality is treated as straight but queer bc straight is bad and queer is good. not saying that attraction = action, or that a mspec person who hasn't dated someone of the same gender is invalid, just that they do have to have or have had attraction to someone of a gender like their own. not saying m/f bi4bi is bad, i write a lot of it myself, just a pattern i sometimes notice.

on the flip side, canon bisexuality is treated as gay but with a different word. there are absolutely m/f ruth fics, but there are more f/f ruth fics. this isn't bad in itself, i love it when ruth gets the girl. and there's a woeful lack of femslash generally. this isn't me saying ruth being with one or several girls is bad, i love it. but i feel like a lot of those don't address that she is attracted to men as well.

i think certain people, when they're doing m/m or f/f relationships with characters without canon/semi-canon queer identites often make them monosexual. not everyone and not a majority. that can feel invalidating bc it feels like it's saying "you can't really be attracted to more than one gender". or sort of "you don't like the same gender as much as a fully gay person can if you also like the opposite gender". not on purpose, i'm sure, i don't think people are actually being biphobic or whatever. it just is an implication that kinda hurts.

sexuality discourse for this next part. like the rest of it hasn't been sexuality discourse.

also bi steph is weird to me. generally. most of the time. people can headcanon characters how they want, always, but i find it uncomfortable when mariah says she's pan, and has said that a couple of times, but people see her as bi because of the vibes or something. bisexuality and pansexuality aren't the same, but they are similar, and i don't think that people who view steph as bi have a real reason for differentiating those two identities other than "edgy popular girl means bi". i understand that's not where most people are coming from, and it's certainly not intentional. from my outside to them perspective, it feels like sexuality defined by personality traits and not just... who they are.

that and i really didn't like that anon about "an angel getting it's wings ripped off". i get it's fandom language, sure. but that's really evocative language to suggest. grace is a lesbian and max is gay. which is fine, excellent headcanon!! see them that way, go for it, (/gen). but it felt like behind that was they can't be queer if they're bi. i'm probably reading too much into things, and i know that, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt. i think you can have headcanons without going that far.

again i do want to reiterate: i'm not saying people are being biphobic. i'm not saying that your headcanons or ships are invalid. all i'm saying is, as a bisexual, these little things that probably mean nothing to no one ever build up and make me uncomfortable from time to time. and i sent that anon at one of those times. i get that i'm being overly sensitive, i get that other people with different identities (including sexualities) in fandom feel ostracized for different reasons. this is just my pent up experience.

thanks for reading, i am so sorry if this launches a bunch of discourse. or brings up discourse again? i just thought you wanted an explanation so here it is.

~~~

[rollercoasterwords]

I don’t have anyone else to ask, so here I am. What do you think about the term “boy lesbian” ? I just saw a TikTok where a person said they were a boy lesbian not a woman lesbian? I got the same vibe from that as when a lot of people on TikTok tried to say identifying as lesbian was excluding an it should be called non men loving non men?

well my short answer is that i think boy lesbians are cool + sexy + i wish they would all come over 2 my house so we could kiss w tongue <3 however i am sensing from ur message that this is perhaps a concept that u are a bit wary or skeptical about (? might be reading tone incorrectly but that is the vibe i'm getting lol) so i will put a longer answer under the cut:

so i feel like what you're asking when you say "what do you think about this" is essentially "do you think people should be able to call themselves 'boy lesbians'" which. is a source of online discourse that i typically try to avoid because i think discourse about who's "allowed" to identify a certain way in the queer community is basically pointless and does more harm than good. like, at the end of the day, there's really no use in policing who's "allowed" to call themselves what, because people can literally identify themselves however they want and you can't control that, because identity is an inherently personal and subjective experience. and so anytime people do start trying to strictly police identity + draw clear boundaries around who's "allowed" to use which labels, usually the result is just alienating and ostracizing other queer people who we should be in community with, as we share overlapping political struggles.

but. looking specifically at the term "boy lesbian" (and terms like it). i know a lot of people immediately get up in arms going "the whole point of lesbian is that there's NO BOYS!!!!!" but. personally i do not think that's true. every label currently used by the queer community is historically and contextually specific; most labels like 'gay' 'lesbian' and 'trans' are umbrella terms that include broad and varied communities of people who do not all share exactly the same identities or experiences. and the label 'lesbian' as an umbrella term has not always been used + conceptualized historically the way it's used today; it has also not always been 'exclusively women who aren't attracted to men' or whatever other definition people try to claim. many lesbians, especially gender nonconforming lesbians, have complex + nuanced + fraught relationships to gender + womanhood, and there has specifically always been a lot of overlap in (using today's terms) transmasculine and lesbian communities. leslie feinberg's stone butch blues comes immediately to mind as one example of lesbian experience that does not align simply or perfectly with womanhood and is much more nebulously transmasculine. at the end of the day, it's impossible to draw strict definitional boundaries around umbrella terms like "lesbian," because to do so will always inevitably fail to account for certain people who do identify with the term--and what right does anyone have to tell someone else that their personal experience of identity isn't "allowed?"

like - defining lesbianism as either centered around womanhood or positioned against manhood both inevitably devolve into gender essentialism. if you say "lesbians are women who love women," that requires you to provide a strict definition of "woman," something that is essentially impossible without resorting to gender essentialism. if you say "lesbians are nonmen who love nonmen," then you run into the same problem with defining "men." this is because both "men" and "women" are also historically + contextually specific umbrella terms used to define social categories of people, and not some sort of pre-existing inherent natural identities.

so then you might be saying--but wait a second, if all these labels are so fluid and nonspecific and personally defined, then what's the use of labeling anything!!! aren't you just saying that none of it means anything?!

no, not at all! what i'm saying here is that trying to draw strict boundaries around labels that have to do with gender + sexuality is at best pointless and at worst harmful, because gender and sexuality are inherently personal experiences and you can't police someone's own sense of self, nor should you try to. but there are three areas where labels are useful and do matter:

1 - personal value

labels are useful for individuals trying to understand themselves and how they relate to the world. people can find comfort or joy or simple understanding by labeling themselves in relation to the world around them; this sense of labeling is deeply personal and up to each individual in terms of how/to what extent they want to partake in it

2 - community

umbrella terms like "woman" "lesbian" "man" "trans" etc are all useful in socially specific contexts for identifying shared experiences + building community. if i say to someone "i'm a lesbian," and they say "oh i'm a lesbian too," i'm not going to assume that we have the exact same experiences of gender + sexuality that fit some made-up set of rules, but i am going to recognize that this person has certain experiences which overlap with my own, and we can build a community around those experiences. this is the way that basically any label works in a social context--if i say "i'm american" and someone else says "oh me too," i wouldn't just assume that we've had the exact same "american" experiences, because america is a vast country with a huge diversity of people + lifestyles + environments etc etc, y'know? social labels like these are useful for identifying broad overlap in experiences, but because they encompass such broad groups of people it's silly to try and make strict rules about who's "allowed" in the group--especially if your goal is to build community

3 - identifying + naming political struggles + oppression

this follows along the same lines as point 2 -- basically, most queer labels function as umbrella terms meant to bring together people of varied experiences + backgrounds who share common sites of oppression + common political struggles. like, historically, this has been the center of queer community-building--the fact that we are all being oppressed by the same people in overlapping ways. when i tell you "i'm a lesbian," that sentence does not tell you all that much about my own, individual, personal experience of gender. but it does tell you a lot about how i am politically positioned in the world and the kinds of political struggles i might face, and that's what makes that label so socially meaningful. like, the purpose of these labels is not to give everybody insight to the nuances of personal identity; it's to build community + identify our shared struggles with each other.

and i think one reason this discourse gets so heated in online spaces is that people get really angry about the idea of, like, "well what if someone calls themself a lesbian to infiltrate lesbian spaces!!!" which. i mean a lot of that fearmongering is rooted in transphobia quite honestly, but. at the end of the day, if someone is identifying themself as a lesbian, i'm going to assume that they have a good personal reason for doing so, and what matters to me will be knowing that we share a political struggle. i trust that if i encounter someone who's just trolling and "pretending" to be a lesbian or whatever i'll be able to recognize it and just....choose not to interact with that person. but honestly i don't even really think that actually happens--like i said, i think a lot of the fear that drives people to try and create strict definitional boundaries around the term "lesbian" is rooted in transphobia.

and i think something else driving a lot of this online discourse surrounding queer labels is like....this emphasis on identity labels as primarily a personal identifier rather than identity labels as primarily a community-building tool. like, there seems to be an emphasis particularly in online spaces + amongst certain groups of queer people to really want to micromanage identity + create specific rules + definition for each label so that, like, you're getting as much personal information as possible about someone who tells you that label, because you know they're following these detailed rules. but like. a) you truly are not entitled to personal information about anyone's individual experience of gender and/or sexuality and b) that's not the point of these labels!!!!! like i promise you it is so much more important to just accept that these are umbrella terms with nebulous boundaries so that you can take a step back and evaluate the social context in which they're being used in order to then build community. it is okay if there aren't strict rules and definitions! what matters more is being able to look at a specific contexts + the way a broad term can be applied differently in those specific contexts.

anyway. last thing i will say to this whole point is that i personally am someone who identifies to a certain extent with terms like boy lesbian or boydyke, in that my own sense of gender is much more centered around dyke than it is womanhood and i don't necessarily experience lesbianism as something centered around women/womanhood. my lesbianism feels more closely tied to gendernonconformity, genderqueerness, and overlaps a lot with experiences i've heard transmasculine people speak about. but lesbianism is still central to my identity, as i am politically positioned in society as a lesbian and it is the best umbrella term to give people a sense of my identity at a glance, and thus generally the best term for me to position myself within queer spaces + to seek out community. so i understand on a personal level why people might identify as a 'boy lesbian,' and hopefully from this personal anecdote you can understand why someone might too! if u have any questions or anything feel free to shoot me another message; i'm trying to cover a lot of ground in this response so i didn't fully expand on like. every single point bc that would have taken forever lol

[daeneryseastar]

Honestly, I think the Alicent stans are gleeful about what the show did to Alicent's character because now they can fully indulge in their dislike of Rhaenyra (all Targaryen women because apparently, they're all evil whores who don't fit into the image of a perfect Westerosi Lady), prop up Alicent's "suffering" as something aesthetically pleasing, and fixate on Alicent being a repressed lesbian "betrayed" by her crush and how Rhaenyra is a spoiled brat who abused poor baby Alicent. Don't even get me started on the constant comparisons they make between Sansa Stark and Alicent Hightower. "ALICENT WALKED SO SANSA STARK COULD RUN!" The theme is not only worrisome but nauseating.

that seems to be the case, doesn’t it anon? i think it feels vindicating for them, due to the whole ‘she spent her entire life suffering in the name of duty and honor, she deserves a conciliation prize’ like you mentioned (maybe there’s some deeper trauma that needs to be looked into for some of them idk) as if said 'prize' doesn’t end up costing her her entire family. the way they’ve written her in the show just screams the glorification of abuse. she’s allowed to physically, mentally, and emotionally abuse her own kids in their eyes bc she too was abused, every misdeed she commits is because she was abused, etc. she isn’t allowed to just want her son on the throne despite the set-back it would do to women, she has to have some sort of sob story to make her seem more sympathetic bc women can’t just be against other women without reason (eye roll) or be antagonistic in general without reason. the queer plot-line was also not needed seeing as it was doomed to fail from the start and its existence dives deep into queerbaiting and even racist territory; subsequently, they decided to make the velaryon’s black and then completely sideline laena, rhaenyra’s actual queer love interest, in order to uplift and pair the sad white woman with her instead (which is strange since it seems like most rhaenicent shippers loath rhaenyra, but i digress). she’s not a complex character; she’s one-dimensional, inconsistent, AND the result of hypocritical writers not being able to understand that victimization doesn’t automatically mean interesting.

it also feels like half the time her stan's can’t decide if all of her suffering is bc of the men in her life, or if it’s *somehow* all rhaenyra’s fault that she was put in that position. the show has attempted to switch the power dynamics at play by aging alicent down and rhaenyra up, but it doesn’t work simply bc alicent still has more power than her as queen consort (and still spends around 10 years without otto's influence bullying and ostracizing rhaenyra, which is not how a mother terrified for her children's lives would act in the face of their would-be murderer). furthering that, the lack of critical thinking skills is blatant in this fandom and shows when they attempt to vilify the targaryen's (especially the women, yikes) because they only do so to uplift their own boring favs. show!alicent, and by extension, both media's versions of helaena, are passive characters who conform to and uphold the patriarchy, they’re the perfect type of women for incels and pick-me’s to glomp onto to ‘prove’ they’re not misogynists (see? we DO like women! (only if they’re submissive and don’t fight back ofc)).

the only comparisons between sansa and alicent would be their show characters. only the latter half of got for sansa makes any since comparison wise. she too was a character that was further victimized to make her seem more interesting and righteous in the show writers efforts to make her qitn (and also to further the bullshit mad queen dany plot line). sansa is still quite a compelling character without adding in an unnecessary rape plotline, but if they hadn’t included it the only similarities between these two women are that both are apparently redheads (nope) and bastard-phobic (debatable). that right there is where any and all similarities end. in reality, alicent is the cersei to rhaenyra’s sansa, not the other way around.

the fact that many consumers (especially the women) seem to like the adding of an abuse storyline to these characters is so gross, and really telling of how the media has construed the reaction one should have to gender-based violence (or benevolent sexism). they condemn and pity these characters for what they go through, but in the same breath, praise the writers for adding ‘nuance’ to these women’s stories. worrisome indeed.

[henrysglock]

Honestly these anons seem like chronically online Gen Z queer people to me. I say this as a Gen Z queer person who is ALSO very online, just THAT online. Bigotry, biphobia, etc. obviously exist, but when their core argument is essentially that a tumblr blogger saying a character is gay = biphobia, and not only that, but is somehow "one of the most wildly bigoted things" they've ever heard, that's... wow.

Tell me your entire sense of identity is shaped by TikTok discourse, Twitter battles, and fictional ships without telling me. Tell me you don't experience rl bigotry without telling me. I'm GLAD this is the post HS-world and things are better for lots of LGBTQ+ teens, but it also often just creates whatever... this is. It reminds me of this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/15nabrt/how_do_you_add_this_clouds_background/

It also seems like they expect ST to follow modern 2024 zoomer ideals instead of being a show set in an 80s context with specific narrative intentions. They wanna make the show into their own image instead of actually looking at the show and accepting what it says.

How are they not exhausted? Also, why do they care if you believe Henry is gay? No one's stopping them from believing otherwise.

Ate and left no crumbs.

Also, why do they care if you believe Henry is gay? No one's stopping them from believing otherwise.

Half of them seem to think that me saying Henry is gay takes away from Patty and her narrative importance, and that I'm doing so because I'm racist and misogynistic/I hate black women/etc.

What they don't seem to realize is that my actual point is: Patty is so much more than her relationship to Henry, and that her relationship to him is far more complex than "boy loves girl", just like Henry's relationship to Patty is more complex than "boy loves girl".

It's a whole thing that like...I don't think they understand that in their arguments against Henry as a gay man, they're tokenizing Patty as a black woman and she's the token "interracial rep" to them, just like Henry would be the token "bi rep" to them. Or if they do understand all that, they're being intentionally obtuse about it.

By using her relationship with Henry as a talking point they're reducing her down to her relationship with the white boy. In doing that, they argue in favor of Patty being nothing more than Henry's girlfriend/"I can fix him" therapist-y role. I'm not sure they realize exactly how destructive a narrative like that is, especially for a woman of color in relation to a white man. In reducing Patty to Henry's girlfriend, they're also erasing Patty's own queer coding, specifically her lesbian coding, as well as her struggle to use her "normal" relationship with Henry to find a place where she fits in/is accepted and where she can also gain autonomy from her controlling white father in a racist, heteronormative, patriarchal society that wants her to be as white-assimilated, "normal", and wife-ly as possible. She's seeking safety, rebellion, and emotional connection in a boy who "matches her freak", so to speak.

Henry, as a sweet, lonely, nerdy, gay white boy, is a golden goose. Patty, as a pretty, nerdy, ostracized weirdogirl, is Henry's golden goose. Supernatural aspects aside, they're each other's life rafts in a society that would condemn the "real" them.

But sure! Let's ignore all that for "he was a boy, she was a girl...Can I make it any more obvious?"

On top of that: I would still feel the same way about hentty and gay Henry if Patty was a white girl, which is evident in my feelings on Mike, El, and miIeven.

The other half re: bisexuality...well. We've been over that.

[broodwolf221]

sera meta!

i love her soooo much - if not for solas, she'd be hands-down my favorite character from inquisition. so it's long past time i did a meta post for her <3

this is gonna be long and i added a lot of her relevant dialogue to it

meta overview: sera is young, traumatized, has deep-seated internalized racism, and has never had an opportunity to be vulnerable or to safely express herself. she's also autistic af imo

part 1: her past

she was presumably born into an alienage, and as @skip-the-clumsy-dragon reminded me recently, city elves are expected to get married and have children. this is a realistic thing for them to prioritize (and dalish likely have the same priority) given the fact that they're an endangered culture. however, sera's a lesbian - to grow up in a society that tells her that she has to marry an elven man and have his children would've been incredibly ostracizing to her. the elves made her feel broken, directly or indirectly, and i think that's something a lot of queer people can relate to.

while only the last part is related, this bit of banter between her and solas is interesting in terms of her being a lesbian:

Sera: (shivers) Weird. Solas: Sera? What are you feeling? Sera: Ugh, here we go. It’s nothing, it just feels like I've seen this. Exactly this. It happens. Solas: Not to everyone. Sera: It’s not an elf thing. You’re not shaking. Sera: I suppose now you’ll switch to how I’m the same but different? Solas: You are different. You are the furthest from what you were meant to be. Sera: Well I’ve definitely heard piss like this before. Hmph!

she was adopted by the lady emmald, which looks fine at first, but as we're shown during the cookie scene, emmald didn't really care about sera. more than likely, she cared about what sera could do for her (a sort of live-in, unpaid servant in a child who she 'saved' from the streets) and the social esteem she'd get for 'rescuing' a 'poor elf' - lady emmald was the racist one, and the user, not the baker she blamed

Sera: I got caught stealing when I was little, yeah? You get alienage or worse for that, but the “Lady Emmald” took me in. She was sick and couldn’t have children. I had no parents. It worked out. Anyway, she gets a year sicker, so I ask about her cookies. Because mums make cookies. I can pass that down, or something. Turns out, she couldn’t cook. She missed that talk with her mum. The ones she “made” she bought and pretended. Aw, right? Well, no, she was a bitch. She hid buying them by keeping me away from the baker. She did that by lying that he didn’t like me, didn’t like elves. She let me hate so she could protect her pride. I hated him so much, and I hated… She looks away again. Sera: Well, she died, and I hate pride. “Pride cookies.”

"I hated him so much, and I hated... [being an elf]" is the obvious conclusion. and again, it makes sense - her people wanted her to play a role she couldn't, and wouldn't, play - and her adoptive mother allowed her to hate and hate so that she could protect her own pride.

Inquisitor: I don’t understand. This Lady Emmald was just trying to be good to you. Sera: She hurt people. Inquisitor: It was just cookies. Sera: It was not just cookies! Lie to herself? Fair play, only hurts her. But she made me think there was something wrong with me! And the baker! I made his life shit. Why not? It seemed like he deserved it. I mean, “if you don’t give a child a cookie because of appearances, you’re a monster.” Stupid, pride-whore noble. She pauses. Sera: I know, I said it was stupid. That’s why I want to get rid of it. I want to make better cookies.

she keeps calling herself stupid. she's angry and hurting and trying to be vulnerable, and when her vulnerability isn't supported she immediately resorts to calling herself stupid, making her feelings smaller, insulting herself before she can be insulted by the inquisitor, someone she's grown close to

Inquisitor: It is stupid. You dragged me here to bad-mouth a sad, dead woman. Sera: It’s not about that. Feelings are hard, all right? Inquisitor: Not for an adult! Sera: Bullshit! And I’m trying to say I like it here! I thought you’d want to know that, and eat my shitty cookies! / Sera: I just thought you’d want to know that I think you’re pretty great! That I made you shitty cookies!

"not for an adult" - sera is by far the youngest companion. and she's never had the opportunity to even begin unpacking her own trauma, until maybe haven/skyhold, depending on how your inquisitor treats her. but she is still an adult, and while this argument shows a lot of her feelings, it was really hard to even read thru 💀

part 2: red jenny

after emmald, she ended up on the streets again. she was taken in by the red jennies. by this point she has personal cause to dislike elves and elven culture, and to dislike nobles - but she doesn't really hate humans, which is understandable considering that she's surrounded by them. she sees that they get treated like shit sometimes, too. her alliances are not and have never been along racial lines, but class divisions: she looks out for the "little people", which in her case means the poor, the unhoused, or those in servitude.

the fact that she doesn't live in the alienage means she's surrounded by human faith. i've discussed this before in prior metas, but in thedas, andrastianism or however it'd be spelled is likely not optional - it's presumed and absolute. christianity was like this too, in medieval times, the church was the core of cities and everyone was expected to be faithful. theres' an immense sociocultural pressure towards religious conformity that everyone is exposed to even if they don't personally go to the church/pray/etc. - it's just baked into the culture. the chant is everywhere. and people internalize stuff they're surrounded by, that's natural

so she's out here angry, bitter, finally able to be 'just' sera with the jennies, not expected to breed for them or to take their shit, allowed to be exactly who she is... and at the same time, she's immersed in chantry culture. she wants a parent, she wants someone who cares for her no matter what. she keeps hearing that it's andraste and the maker who will care for her.

Inquisitor: Odd that you’d ask Andraste over your own gods. Sera: “My” gods? Whatever. They don’t talk any more than she does. Not like she’s supposed to. I know what happened to you, or what everyone here thinks happened. It seems… I don’t know what it seems.

part 3: her behavior

she's outwardly callous and irreverent a lot of the time, but that stems from a mix of things, primarily: humor as a coping mechanism and having seen so much shit in her life. she talks about food a lot, but this bit of banter with blackwall explains why really clearly:

Sera: Hey, do you think they'll have pie when we get back? I could use a pie. Or three. Blackwall: That's... a lot of pie for one person. Sera: You'd understand if you've ever been hungry. In your bones hungry.

she also has a really grounded view of mages. it's not perfect, she's very afraid of magic - as she's been taught to be. i think people get caught up in the mage freedom angles the games have been showing us and forget that within the games context, mages are fucking scary and people are scared of them. i'm staunchly pro-mage, but it's useless to ignore the context they exist within

Sera: I knew a funny boy in Denerim. Started fires with his eyes. Templars nabbed him right quick, so he's better now, I guess? Dorian: Better? Do you know what your southern Circles are like? Sera: Meals and training? So he wouldn't starve or get stomped by a mob? I've seen both. Dorian: (Sighs.) You're sadly right.

circles are bad but also? she's right. training, room and board... when it's living in a circle vs. being killed on the street, i think most people would choose the former, even with all the inherent difficulties and the oppression of it, the abuses by the templars, all of it. because at least you're alive. and the training is important. it's all kinds of wrong the way it's structured, but mages do need training, there's no denying that - even in cultures that don't lock up their mages, they still need to test them, to train them

and she has a very practical, very grounded perspective on nobles and who would suffer in a massive revolution. when solas starts recommending guerilla warfare tactics to her, she shuts him down - not because his ideas are wrong, but because she can see ahead to all the harm it'd cause the exact people she's trying to protect

Solas: Once you have the aristocracy weakened, Sera, you will have to redirect your lieutenants. Sera: Oh, this again. All right, what am I doing? Solas: Some of your forces, valuable until now, have no interests beyond creating disruption. Chaos for its own sake. They must be repositioned where they can do no harm, or removed if necessary. You replace them with organizers willing to build a new system and carry out the ugly work that must be done. Sera: What? Why? What ugly work? Solas: That is up to you. Do you wish to disrupt the nobility, secure a title? Or change the political structure entirely? Sera: None of it! I don't want any of that!

Solas: I do not understand you, Sera. You have no end goal for your organization. Sera: Nobles get rattled, and people get payback. I play in the middle. Solas: Why not go all the way? You see injustice, and you have organized a group to fight it. Don't you want to replace it with something better? Sera: What, just lop off the top? What's that do, except make a new top to frig it all up? Solas: I…forgive me. You are right. You are fine as you are. Sera: You hurt my head sometimes, Solas. Solas: Yes, I have been known to do that.

conclusion:

sera is one of the most important characters in dai specifically because of the perspective she brings to the table. she's the average person. she's scared of mages and magic. she's scared of templars. she's scared of the grey wardens. she's young and tries so hard. she lived through the blight. she's traumatized af. she feels like she has no culture that will accept her as she is. the first people to accept her, to just see sera, are the red jennies, and she happily joins them. she offers herself to the inquisition despite being scared of it because a part of her wants to help and another part wants answers - but is scared of getting them at the same time.

Herald: But where do you stand on the war? Sera: In the frigging middle, with everyone else. Sera: You know what I hear about mages? Nothing until one goes all demony. Know what I hear about templars? Nothing, until they take “maybe-mages.”

she's a queer city elf who's expected to marry another elf and have his children. she's a poor elven child who's supposed to be grateful that she was offered a good life by a noble. she's never had a space where she was able to work through all her issues, or even begin looking at them for real - but when she does have that space, she is surprisingly vulnerable with people. the cookies are important because it's her biggest show of vulnerability - she's revealing her past and one of the things that haunts her most, and she's actively trying to change the context, to disrupt a childhood trauma with new, better memories

[lawlightautismtruther]

All I ever hear when talking with the girls (am I 100% girl? No, and that might be why I feel the disconnect here) is the following

- he’s so tall and big and muscular and deep voiced and UHHHH I WANT HIM TO RAIL MEEEEE

And I’m just like “good for you. Where’s my 5’5” 110 angel of a male, whom I want to carry around princess style to our king sized bed” and they all just look at me like

😨

Like are yall not aware that not EVERYONE is like you??!!!

Like I have no problem with how other people experience sexual attraction, obviously I don’t. That would be hypocritical as hell because people tend to have a problem with how I experience it (note I live in the evangelical American south and the internet is the only place that gets me) but I wish (and I’m the 10000000th person to express this, which goes to show how behind we still are) that women/women-adjacent people were ALLOWED to be masculine and be attracted to femininity without being ostracized and made to feel embarrassed. Especially for lesbians, but also for people like me. I feel like people around here can actually conceptualize a sapphic relationship better than the type of relationship I seek (but they accept neither, unfortunately).

I fear what would happen if they learned I was bi 😩

I’m not emotionally attracted to women (it’s a sexual thing), so I’d end up with a man anyway, but the JUDGEMENT I would still receive from these prehistoric brained people is CRAZY. I feel especially for lesbians and gay people because I know it’s 1000000x harder on them, even if people can conceptualize them better, they hate them even more.

Like, I constantly receive the “well if you’re so attracted to “sissy-boys” why aren’t you just a lesbian?” Which is SO stupid because it implies two really fucking idiotic ideas

1. Sexuality is a choice (specifically, gay people choose to be gay)

2. Being attracted exclusively to femininity = (or at least should equal) being attracted exclusively to women (and the inverse, which is often used to invalidate masc attracted lesbians as jaded straight women or something stupid like that)

WHEN WILL THESE PEOPLE GRASP NUANCE AND VARIANCE IN SEX/GENDER EXPRESSION AND EXPERIENCE.

I know a lot of it is the Bible and Christian culture (which is barely even in the Bible at all), but they break the rules and conventions of it EVERYDAY and find a way to justify it. Yet they can never justify people like me who aren’t harming ANYBODY

Which is proof it’s not 100% about religion, even if they’re consciously convinced it is. It’s about prejudice and ignorance.

what I’ll never understand is the motivation a lot of these people give me for being so obsessed with gender essentialism and policing others “the death of masculinity and femininity in men and women respectively will lead to the downfall of society”

LIKE BROTHER SOURCE PLEASE?!! WHATS YOUR SOURCE HELP

And for the love of God, don’t say the Bible. I’m a Christian myself, actually. But I am fully aware that the Bible was never supposed to be a source for ANYTHING. It’s simply a collection of relevant  documents to the history of our faith. That’s it.

GIVE ME A SCIENTIFIC STUDY AND MAYBE I’LL TAKE YOU A LITTLE MORE SERIOUSLY FOR ONCE (but that will never happen, so by default I will never take these people seriously. Also because if gender variance were an issue, God wouldn’t have made me (and millions of others) the way I am. There are actual problems in this world to worry about, so stop trying to convince me that by “acting like a man” and preferring men who “act like women” I’m contributing to the destruction of society. To be honest, I hope I’m contributing to the downfall of society, because this one stinks). Instead, target the rapists, the murderers, the pedos, the human traffickers, the child exploiters, the money hoarding ultra-rich, the fascists, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, the supremacists, the nazis, the liars, the cheaters, and the media that promotes them. But most of these people are too far gone to see what’s wrong with the above. So I’m ranting about it all here in this echo chamber. I have no choice.

[redtail-lol]

Is there a full/bigger version of yr pfp?? I fckn love lgballt sonas and I need to see yours for scientific purposes. /nf

Yeah and a flag guide that I'll provide but keep in mind it hasn't been updated in a while and I'll have a new one soon

Term Definitions because I can. Some definitions are personal to me and not general definitions

Woman/Girl: A gender identity that is connected to femininity and the female sex

Cisgender: Someone who's gender identity is congruent with their AGAB

Cisconfusgender: A cis person who often is unsure of their gender but always comes to the conclusion they're cisgender. I didn't coin this term but I made the flag based on a description of it

Quoieuphoric: Someone who isn't sure what gender euphoria feels like or if they feel it. I coined this term myself!

She/her/hers/herself: Someone who would appreciate if you referred to her by she/her pronouns

They/them/their/theirs/themselves: Someone who would appreciate it if you referred to them by they/them pronouns

Femme: Someone who presents femininely

Aspec: Someone on the ace, aro, or other a-spectrum(s)

Arosespec: Someone who is on both the aro and ace spectrums

Acespec: Someone who is on the asexual spectrum

Arospec: Someone who is on the aromantic spectrums

Asexual: Someone who doesn't feel sexual attraction at all (personal use definition)

Cupiosexual: Someone who doesn't feel sexual attraction but still desires a sexual relationship

Demiromantic: Someone who experiences romantic attraction exclusively to people they have formed a strong emotional bond with

Cupioromantic: Someone who desires a romantic relationship even in the absence of romantic attraction (personal use definition)

Angled Aroace: Someone who is on both aro and ace spectrums but isn't fully ace, aro, or either

Lesbian: A feminine, neutrally, xenically, or unaligned person who is attracted, usually exclusively, to other feminine, neutrally, xenically, or unaligned genders. This is a definition I came up with that I think accomplishes what the nonmen definition attempted to describe and doesn't exclude multigender/multialigned people and acknowledges the common exclusive use of today but doesn't exclude historical use. (personal use definition)

Aurora Lesbian: An all inclusive alt flag. An aurora lesbian can be considered an all inclusive lesbian

Lunian: An mspec lesbian

Bi lesbian: Someone who's bi attraction is also simultaneously lesbian attraction because it's only towards people who are considered part of lesbian attraction (personal use definition)

Sapphic: WLW, doesn't have to be exclusive.

Midnight Sapphic: A sapphic who feels othered and ostracized from the greater sapphic community for their identity

Omni lesbian: Someone who is attracted to all genders considered part of lesbian attraction (personal use definition)

Bi lesbian with bi- as a modifier: Someone who primarily identifies as a lesbian, and sees being a bi lesbian as a subset of that lesbian attraction

Neptunic lesbian: A lesbian who is also neptunic

Closeted mspec lesbian: An mspec lesbian who is closeted about being an mspec lesbian in at least one aspect of their life

Acespec Mspec Lesbian (yeah apparently it's not just the acespec lesbian flag oops): An mspec lesbian who is acespec

Neptunic: Someone who is exclusively attracted to all non-masc genders

Bi: Someone who is attracted to multiple genders. Commonly used to mean not all genders and with gender as a factor, but because of its history, it can refer to any mspec attraction

Multi: Someone who is attracted to multiple genders. An umbrella term for bi/pan/poly/omni

Mspec: Someone who is on the multispectrum

Bi-Gay: Someone who considers their attraction bi and gay (gender neutral)

Stellian: Someone who considers their attraction mspec and gay (gender neutral)

LGBTQ: Someone who is not an allocishet

Autistic: I'm not yet diagnosed and I'm working on it but I believe I am on the autism spectrum/have autism spectrum disorder. You can use person first or identity first language I don't mind either.

Queer: Someone who reclaims Queer as an identity. Not all LGBTQ people will be queer, because we should acknowledge that is has been used to harm people and they may still have trauma with the word queer.

Inclusionist: Someone who includes all good faith identities and seeks understanding before calling something nonsense.

Lykoi Lesbian: A lesbian inclusionist group that passively fights exclusionism by being inclusive.

[prozac-shaped-urn]

Good god. When will I ever hear the words “That’s valid” in response to me saying I find a man attractive without wanting to fuck him instead of “Okay but maybe you’re bi”? Even my therapist went, “So you’re not a lesbian, you’re queer.” Like NO BITCH I AM A LESBIAN! I’m a fucking DYKE. I’m not bisexual. I do not want anything to do with a penis. Being biSEXual would require me wanting something to do with a penis. That’s a hard pass. Get over it.

Why can’t anyone just fucking validate me having a type and finding that type attractive indiscriminately regardless of gender or sex? It has nothing to do with genitals. And yeah sure the horrible, uncomfortable, weird and traumatic experiences I had with guys might have colored my attraction HOWEVER!!!!! HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE FACT I AM NOT ATTRACTED TO DICK MIGHT BE THE REASON?????????

Like I get why she was trying to wear me down with the whole “Maybe. Maybe. Mmmmaybe you’re bi” shit but fuck’s sake. Fuck’s fucking sake. Wearing someone down when they’re trying to explain something very simple just doesn’t make sense. LISTEN. IT IS YOUR JOB TO LISTEN. AND NOT JUDGE. AND NOT NEGATE. Thinking that if she wears me down into reconsidering my sexuality in the wake of me explaining why I find Kerry attractive she’ll uncover some deep grave of shame and embarrassment for something I cannot control is absolutely valid in most cases, but not mine. I’ve done the work on this. I got to know myself very well because of my constant questioning and trying to find the answer to why I was fighting so hard to convince myself that I wanted dick. It’s connected to my upbringing and the safety net of assumed bisexuality I created for myself so I wouldn’t be completely ostracized from the community I grew up in. If there’s a shred of embarrassment and shame connected to my sexuality IT’S FROM THAT OKAY?????? Jesus fucking Christ.

I’m so heated over this. I’ve gone down this road before trying to figure myself out in my 20s. I figured it out. It makes sense now. I don’t question shit anymore. I need someone to listENNNN and accept this thing that I know about myself without trying to make me unsteady in my identity.

I feel gaslit. I’m so mad.

And the thing is I TOLD HER GOING INTO THIS CONVERSATION THAT THE ONLY RESPONSE I GET IS EXACTLY THE RESPONSE SHE GAVE ME!!!!!

Why? Why. Whyyyy. What the fuck is the point of therapy if I can’t explain myself without feeling judged? ISN’T THAT WHAT IT’S FOR????????

I mean we ended the session on the same page and she did eventually agree that I can find a dude attractive without being attracted TO HIM, but not without me repeating “But I’m not though. 😊Iiiiii don’t think I ammmm. 😑 Dick is not something I want. It’s an instant turn off ☹️” about 20 times.

“But what if the penis was attached to a person you were in love with?” Then I would be happy to have them in my life without fucking them. Also I’m nowhere near close to falling in love with anyone so slow down.

“What if Kerry hits on you?” Then I’ll decline politely and offer to be buddies.

“Why do you think you’re a lesbian?” Because I do not have a single fantasy that involves a penis.

“What does your sexuality have to do with your identity?” Jack shit. Next question.

“Like, it’s a spectrum, right? People can be anything on the spectrum.” Yes but I’m not anything but a lesbian.

“And who is anyone to say differently? Like who are you to say I’m something I’m not?” Yes exactly. Just like you did just now with the “Mmmmaybe you’re bi” shit.

She’s a hard ass which is exactly what I need because I’m also a hard ass, but good lord. Just shut up and accept what I’m telling you without gaslighting me.

And maybe I should’ve phrased it differently. Maybe I should’ve just flat out said, “This is the response I do not want you to give me. Give me an affirmative statement instead of a questioning one or don’t respond at all.” But where would that get me? Nowhere but her asking me why I’m defensive about someone making me question something about myself that I’ve figured out a decade prior? BECAUSE I FIGURED IT OUT LIZ THAT’S WHY!!!!! It’s offensive to me that I cannot state something very simple without feeling like I need to be ashamed of what I’m explaining and therefore be ~open~ to the possibility that I’m something I’m not. I’ve been open to it. I was open to it for a solid 27 years. It’s not who I am.

And now I feel like shit because I’ve had to defend myself to the person who isn’t supposed to make me feel defensive. Terrible, terrible, terrible job today Liz. Absolute garbage.

Aight imma go get bread and talk to Lynn about our project. I need some good news. And then I have rehearsal at 6 so I’ll be distracted from this bullshit, thank god.

[blueskittlesart]

Never thought about it before but goddamn you're right, Betty would be a MUCH better song story-wise if it was sung by a girl like "Then I saw you dance with him" hanging out with your best friend that you've been pining for for ages and she's dancing with a guy and you can't stand it, can't help how the assumption she doesn't like girls makes you so bitter and angry, but you can see the way she's looking at the guy she's dancing with so you ditch her and go have a fling with another girl, ignoring every time she tries to talk to you, refusing to tell her what she did wrong the entire summer, but the truth is she's always on your mind and you're doing both Betty and this other girl that you refuse to even name wrong in using her to replace Betty, and it also removes the shitty cheating aspect of the song to make it about a repressed, closeted lesbian (Betty) and a less repressed but very frustrated lesbian (the POV character), still sucks for the unnamed girl though. But anyway lesbianism would improve the story part of it so much (I don't mean this in a way of shitting on the original song because it's one of my favourites, it's just lesbians would make it even better)

sorry im going to act insane for a second i PROMISE i am not one of those lesbian taylor truthers i am just a lesbian who loves to relate to music ok please remember this as you read this post i promise i am normal

BETTY IS ABOUT LESBIANISM TO ME. "you heard the rumors from inez, you can't believe a word she says most times but this time it was true" inez knows the speaker likes girls and can't keep her mouth shut about it. the speaker desperately tries to discredit inez's rumors to everyone EXCEPT betty, who she WANTS to know on some level. "I saw you dance with him" is the inherent pain of being a girl in love with your best friend and watching her dance with a guy and knowing you will never be enough for her. she will always want something you can't give her even though all you've ever wanted is her. the speaker tries to replace betty with another girl and ignores her and betty is suddenly jealous in a way she doesn't understand. while the speaker spends the summer trying to replace betty with another girl and pretend like she doesn't care, betty spends the summer coming to terms with the fact that their friendship meant something more and that she likes girls too. "the worst thing that i ever did is what i did to you" has 2 meanings in my mind, one is the intended meaning of the speaker leaving betty without ever telling her why, but if the speaker is a girl it goes deeper--befriending her & loving her in the first place was the worst thing the speaker ever did, because it leaves her with only two choices: leave betty without explaining and hurt her, or tell betty how she feels and, if betty feels the same way, risk being ostracized by their peers for being gay. (there are lines that allude to betty being under some pressure to not date the speaker--"in front of all your stupid friends," specifically, but "switching her homeroom" could be switching AWAY from the speaker so that she won't be tempted, depending on how you want to interpret it.) one more line that i think is very lesbian is the whole "right now is the last time i can dream about what happens when you see my face again." like. maybe this isn't EXCLUSIVELY a lesbian experience but i think most of us had a tumultuous almost-relationship friendship that never got closure and so we daydream about seeing her again and telling her everything that went unsaid. right. im not the only one who does that right

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

(belated) reading update: may 2023

upon realizing I was over a week late on my book report for May I considered just waiting until the end of June and rolling the two together, but thing is that I have a Theme for June (spoilers: it's the very predictable theme of only reading books by and/or about queer people) and lumping them together will really throw that off, so! onwards we go.

I should also say that this will be a real shorty, tied with March for the LEAST amount of books I've managed to finish in a month so far this year. in March that was because the month mostly revolved around a weeklong vacation to crash at my mom's place on the beach with a gaggle of friends, which was very fun but seriously cramped my time to read for pleasure. May ALSO saw a very exciting weeklong trip to a brand new city (WHAT'S UP NEW ORLEANS) as well as genuinely some of the shittiest and most harrowing events of my adult life so far so. can't blame a bitch a bitch for slipping!

ANYWAY.

what have I been reading?

People From Bloomington (Budi Darma, 1980; trans. Tiffany Tsao, 2022) - a strange short story collection set in the Bloomington, Indiana, where the Indonesian Darma studied during the 1970s. these stories take the mundane drama of Americana and turn it on its head, crawling deep into themes of alienation and ostracization and the ways they turn people against themselves. over and over again Darma tells tales of lonely boarders driven to obsessive and antisocial behavior by the loneliness that eats them alive amid pleasant-looking suburbs. the prose is overall a little on the dry end for me to really love it, but I do think about how fucked up these protagonists are, like, constantly.

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (Jessica B. Harris, 2011) - a delight! an absolute gosh dang delight! Harris is a PUN FULL INTENDED delectable writer who takes you on the most unexpected tour of how African foodways have shaped the culture of US cuisine. beginning with the obvious roots of the transatlantic slave trade and journeying on to America's first Black restaurateurs and sit-ins at diner counters, there's no facet of culinary life too small to be interwoven with Black American history, and Harris eagerly explores them all while painting a vivid picture for her readers. this book will absofuckinglutely make you hungry, so it's a good thing that recipes are included in the back.

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out (Jeremy Atherton Lin, 2021) - a heady powerhouse of a read, seamlessly blending the historical with the editorial with the personal. Lin's on a journey to resurrect the history of the gay bars that shaped he and his husband's intertwined lives - from their roots before his time, the state he found them in as a young man searching for a place in the queer scene, and their apparently dwindling status in the 2020s. Lin's writing is dreamy and grimy, unflinching and romantic, horny and bored all at once. this isn't an uncritical glorification of the gay bar but an interrogation, the pressing question of what community even means and where on earth it's going.

D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding (Chencia C. Higgins, 2022) - that's right, still on that kick of reading one romance novel a month. if you spend any amount of time perusing lists of LBGT book recs, particularly LBGT romances, it's inevitable that you'll run into D'Vaughn and Kris. this book has so much #representation that it's pretty much catnip for list compilers: both leads are Black lesbians, D'Vaughn is fat and not yet out to her very Christian mother, and Kris is a butch Afro-Latina (and also part of the most marginalized community of all: influencers). but what about the story, is that actually good? straight up no, not at all; I feel pretty comfortable saying this is maybe my least favorite of the romance novels I've read so far. totally aside from lackluster writing, clunky exposition, and slapdash plotting, this book is uninterested in engaging with its central premise - Kris and D'Vaughn meet on a reality show where they are paired up to plan a wedding in 6 weeks without letting their families figure out that their relationship is a sham - to such an absurd and infuriating degree that I have to wonder why Higgins even bothered.

that's all for now, June will hopefully be MUCH more full considering I've already finished three books and still have nearly three weeks to go + a whole heap of queer books checked out from the library! xoxo