#at how fucked up constantly doing this to a marginalized identity is

[redysetdare]

Some people don't seem to understand why it's not okay to constantly add on "As long as you're not sex/romance negative" onto every repulsed "positivity" post and I think the best way I can explain it is this:

Remember what Straight people say? "I'm supportive of gay people as long as they don't shove it down my throat!"? Yeah, we all know that's homophobic as shit right? Ok, so I'm going to ask you to look at a repulse "positivity" post and replace Repulsed with gay and sex/romance negativity with straight negativity or something similar. Suddenly it doesn't read so nice, now does it? Suddenly it's "Gay people are valid but make sure you're not shaming people for being straight!" So let me ask: what makes the sentence above worse than people saying the same shit but to repulsed people, On every single post.

The fact so many people feel like they need to Remind repulsed people to "not be dicks" and they never do it to literally any other identity because they would obviously be called out for being hateful... so tell me again, what makes it ok to say that to repulsed people every single time we speak up or get any sort of "positive" post?

[saintjosie]

apologies if you’ve talked about something this before, but your post on experiencing exclusion in trans fem circles on account of being an east asian woman who speaks up came up on my dash and it reminded me of something that‘a been troublingme.

i’m also asian and trans, and i’m always really sent off-kilter when i see white trans people idealizing japanese aesthetics and asian people in general. so many white trans people use anime tropes and aesthetics while also othering real asian people, esp other asian trans people. does it feel appropriative/fetishistic to you?

i guess it’s just something that echoes general white-centric society but it feels like a lot of white trans people focus more on their transness and forget that their whiteness doesn’t just go away or get excused, if that makes sense

this is a great ask with no easy answer. the short answer is yes, you’re absolutely right, but there is also a lot of nuance that’s very important to address too.

white people in general have an enormous problem with misunderstanding the difference between appropriation and appreciation. and that applies to appropriating the culture of all people of color because appropriation is a symptom of colonization. part of that is because it’s very difficult to have a catch-all definition that clarifies the distinction between the two because each person approaches the things they consume in a different way, with varying levels of excitement. i simply cannot point a finger at all white people who enjoy anime and say, “this is bad”, because it simply is not true. it would be just as harmful if a white person were to say, “i would never watch anime because i think it’s weird”, because while appropriation is objectively a form of colonization, appreciation is a celebration of diversity. and celebration of diversity is good!

but i think you hit the nail on the head when you say that a lot of white queer and trans people forget that even though that they are oppressed by cis heterosexual patriarchy, the intersection of oppression that exists between oppressed identities and race means that as white people, they still have white privilege. full stop. and so we often have this issue, especially with young queer and trans people (young as in newly realized queerness and transness, not age) where there is a pause in deconstructing whiteness because they are too focused on deconstructing the privilege that they have suddenly lost by embracing their marginalized identities.

and the issue goes even deeper when you realize that people of color also struggle to realize that we often also perpetuate and contribute to oppression of other people of color as well. east asian people in particular forget that even though we are people of color, we do not face the same kind of oppression that black and brown people of color do, and often we perpetuate racism through appropriation of black culture and also just straight up racism. i think most asian people can attest to how often asian people can be racist as fuck. and i’ve definitely seen asian people who think it’s acceptable to make aave and using the n-slur a part of their personality. and at the same time there is an enormous problem with black people fetishizing asian people and latching on to anime and k-pop in ways that perpetuate the oppression of asian people, as well as just being racist towards asians in general.

and root of the issue is that white supremacy affects all of us. EVERYONE has whiteness to deconstruct because we all live in a system that was built on white supremecy, even if we do not have white privilege ourselves. the answer is that everyone period must bear the burden of constantly deconstructing whiteness, deconstructing our own privilege, and doing our part to lift each other up. and while it is true that white people often have the most work to do in deconstructing their own privilege, none of us are absolved.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

#edward teach#im an adhd ed truther & this is so fucking true.#also shows how you view people w/ adhd if you’re specifically using it as an excuse to do this. (via @ourflagmeanscatboy on this post by @jaskierx)

I don't want to derail a post about racism, but I do feel like this shit needs to get talked about.

Because people will say literally the most deranged shit about Ed. I've heard the idea that he's gonna lose interest in Stede because he views people as hyperfixations floated. He's volitile and unstable (citation needed) he's messy (but he thinks pets befoul the ship and he couldn't believe he was living like this after letting Stede's cabin get covered in maybe a weeks worth of depression clutter) he needs a minder (despite constantly minding other characters). And all of that shit when pointed out as racist invariably gets explained away with "but I think he has ADHD"

And it's like, first of all that's a headcannon you have, where as his race is very much cannon. so I think even if you have the adhd headcannon, which to be clear, I do, you still need to lend more credence to the marginalized identities that are in fact cannon about him. That's not to say that these two things are contradictory it's just to say that you need to treat your headcannons about a character of color with awareness for how their race overlaps with other identities they might have and how their race might be impacting their behavior, and how projecting issues onto them, even if those issues are things you yourself struggle with, might be perceived by fans of color who are already constantly fielding racism both in fandom and in their every day lives.

but second of all, and I cannot stress this enough, yall are ableist as fuck.

Like, I simply do not know how to explain to you people that Ed losing Interest in Stede like that would not be a symptom of ADHD because treating PEOPLE like HYPERFIXATIONS is not a symptom of ADHD. If someone loses interest in you because they have adhd, and I feel like I've said this before, one of three things happened. A. they did not lose interest in you they are just forgetful and do not experience friendship decay so they think you are still friends, B. You were never a friend to begin with you were someone they exclusively did their hyperfixations with, or C. you are blaming the ADHD for something completely unrelated friendships fall apart all the time.

And it's like that example is just the most egregious. half the time when I see ADHD headcannons nobody's talking about like... Ed picking up a brand new activity on a whim, or him tattooing himself because he's experiencing the evil boredom. It's all gotta be traits contradicted by canon. And often it has to be about pain and suffering, and often it really just feels like an excuse to make up bullshit about Ed while beating the racism allegations.

and there's two enormous issues with this. The first one is that if you're gonna have a headcannon about a character you have to figure out how to apply the headcanon to that character without making up a brand new guy. Ed is in the 99th percentile in terms of executive function. His executive functioning skills are genuinely a strength for him. He can't stand mess and he keeps a clean ship, he doesn't get angry unless directly provoked. He also has a large number of shitty tattoos on his person, he stims, he's probably got some hyperactivity going on, and some emotional dis-regulation in terms of managing his disappointment and catastrophising. You have to actually look at the character and figure out what cannon things translate into ADHD and what adhd traits are contradicted by cannon and if you're just hollowing him out and putting an ablist idea of ADHD in as a stand in for a personality.

Like.. ok. My favoriate cannon ADHD rep in the world is the Percy Jackson series. Every one of those kids has adhd and dyslexia. This does not stop Annabeth from being a very functional character with a million irons in the fire who's an avid reader and a Smart Girl TM. Percy by contrast cannot focus for five seconds especially when you put a book in front of him, but he can think on his feet really well. Both of these characters are fairly realistic representations of ADHD because sometimes ADHD is severe executive dysfunction and mess and emotional dis-regulation, sometimes ADHD is having a million projects going at once in a desperate attempt to beat the evil boredom and sometimes it's being able to pick up new things with relative ease. Different people have different levels of these things, which is why in my favoriate childhood book series Rick Riordan was able to have so many different diverse characters with distinct personalities and have them all believably have ADHD.

But a lot of people who headcannon Ed as ADHD don't seem to be interested in figuring out how Ed's personality is compatible with that headcannon, they just want to hollow him out and give him every symptom ever and it's just like... oh, so that's what you think of us then. got it cool.

[maxwell-grant]

any thoughts on The Question from DC?

One of my favorite DCU characters, he’s this weird keystone of the superhero who has mostly lurked on the margins of the DCU along with his fellow Charlton brotherhood, all of which might have all faded to complete irrelevancy had they not been, by association, dragged bloodied and beaten into indirectly participating in The Biggest Thing Ever, with The Question having a couple of legs up above his fellow Charlton brothers and sisters not only because of Rorschach, but also because of him being a Steve Ditko character (essentially a Comics Code-friendly revamp of his controversial Mr.A), his revamp by Denny O'Neil, and his practically-protagonist role in the JLU cartoon. Hanging out with Batman sometimes and lending his identity to a Batman side character with a substantial history in her own right (routinely ignored because DC keeps turning her back into a fucking cop) didn’t hurt either. 

The Question occupies a unique role in the history of the superhero, and much of that has to do with how thoroughly they test and fray the concept by existing within it. Scenes where The Question buggers and disturbs superheroes far above his weight class like Superman and Batman are common and all-too fitting not only because of the character’s obtrusive know-it-all personality clashing with the other obtrusive know-it-alls who think having superpowers and mansions lets them get in the way of the truth (or his truth, potato tomato), but because they draw attention to how much of an outsider this character is.

I've had a greatly illuminating conversation with @artbyblastweave recently about what is it that really defines The Superhero, when so much of the archetype’s defining traits can be tweaked and varied, to which they pointed out that, once you get past the big Archetypal genre-defining figures like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, what ultimately defines The Superhero besides the iconography is their proximity to other superheroes, whether it’s their relation to the superhero “genre”, the traits they share in common with the big names of the concept, or their role in a superhero universe, The Ectypes that inevitably form to gravitate around and echo The Archetype. What they said seems to me like as good of a definition as it gets and one that I find prudent to bring up here because of The Question, who endures in comics as a constantly self-reinventing Ectype: to pulp detectives, to Mr.A, to his own Ectype in Rorschach, to Batman, even to himself.

As I’ve pointed out before, The Question is, for all intents and purposes, as much of a textbook pulp detective as a costumed DCU character can be. This is a character who is only even eligible to be called a superhero because sometimes he hangs out with the Justice League and gets dragged into multiverse nonsense. At his weirdest and most superhero-y, he is still about on the same league as powerless-but-strange pulp costumed avengers like The Moon Man and The Crimson Clown, lacking extraordinary resources or hyper-advanced training or strange weapons and abilities common in those. Most of the time, he’s not even on that league, being instead functionally identical to the likes of The Spirit, armed only with a mask, his wits, and his fists as a first and last resort. 

The Question, and by extension his prior Rand-influenced works like Mr.A and The Avenging World as well as his later creation The Creeper, was in a way, Steve Ditko leaving the Marvel superheroes behind to create his own and establish his own idea of what superheroes should look like.

Committed to conveying the ordinariness and truth of real life, Ditko made his characters thin, hunched, withdrawn, and plain. He drew them sweating, sobbing and cowering, which only made it more moving when they overcame insurmountable odds to do the right thing.

The reclusive, bespectacled Ditko was preparing the way for elements of the underground alternative comics style, with a measured pace and thematic concerns that led all the way to the politics and formalism of works like Watchmen and beyond - Grant Morrison, Supergods

By Ditko’s own wording, The Question’s (and Mr.A’s) power was “deliberately knowing what is right and acting accordingly” and “choosing to be psychologically and intellectually healthy”, in a way intended to make them stand out from other “self-made neurotic” superheroes. It reads as ironic nowadays considering “self-made neurotic” is as apt of a description for The Question and his archetype as it gets, the kind of character Mr.A was, and The Question’s reputation as “a well known crackpot” but, putting the Rorschach debates of it all aside, whether intentional or not, this is also kind of the whole ethos of O’Neil’s Question as well, even as it radically revamped the character’s philosophy. O’Neil’s Question is a man who has nothing on his toolbelt short of a growing conscience and the ability to decide to do what he thinks is the right thing.

Rorschach doesn’t change anything Ditko espoused. In fact, Moore’s primary aim is to satirically lean so hard into Ditko’s objectivism that Rorschach quite literally melts into a puddle of uncompromising, unresolved trauma. Rorschach, for all his action-hero posturing, for all his belief in a true superhero’s unwavering sense of right, never compromises right into the grave.

Where Moore and Higgins deconstruct Ditko’s objectivist ideals to expose the selfish delusion at the core of the absolutist hero, O’Neil and Cowan literally kill then reconstruct The Question to their own liking. Both versions have to engage with the Randian legacy, but Moore’s is built to destroy, and O’Neil’s is built to live forever.

After Vic’s surprise murder at the end of The Question #1, O’Neil and Cowan are able to rebuild their own version from the ground up, concentrating most pointedly on the inner spirituality and conflicting violence of the character. The recalibration works and sets the stage for a ponderous, enigmatic, reflective Vic Sage.

This Question goes on to grow, to use violence less, to become so open-minded and curious he confuses the Riddler with his amorphous doubts. O’Neil and Cowan’s Vic Sage grows well beyond objectivism, acknowledging the vast pools of gray in the world, and acquiring the self-awareness to understand he doesn’t have all the answers. - ComicBookHerald's article on The Question #17

And it doesn’t get easy, never stops getting harder, even. Throughout O’Neil’s run we get to see him more and more tired, frustrated, cynical, defeated, even to the point he considers letting a LCD-using villain drug all of Hub City just to try and stop the rampaging crime. In respose to the world getting more and more menacing and convoluted, he starts reverting back to his old views to try and make sense of things and needs others to have his back so he can keep going.

This is echoed as well in the JLU cartoon where his ways let him be both correct and righteous in ways other characters aren’t, as well as send him crashing headfirst into disastrous mistakes and defeats others have to pull him back from. Through all his revamps, Vic Sage as The Question has consistently remained a hero driven first and foremost by his certainty stemming from his need to fight corruption, who stands morally apart from his fellow superheroes, for better or worse, and is defined by “knowing what is right and acting accordingly”, even when he is wrong, even in the face of you-know-what.

The Question is far more effective as a mission intent than it is as a disguise or identity and this is also part of why Renee Montoya, a GCPD character growing into contention with law enforcement, taking the mantle was an ideal progression, with the idea of a former police officer quitting the system to become The Question having a great deal of thematic weight behind it on top of it allowing Renee to be way cooler and better off when she’s allowed to be The Question, that is. 

(Meme by @questionposting)

Short of Montoya gathering the Multiversal Supermen in Final Crisis, when it comes to The Question, it’s less that they are important as an active character in superhero storylines so much as they, in one form or another, are there when important things are happening on and off the page, whether they are a part of the mystery, guiding us through it or hopelessly lost before it. The Question is fascinating as a character never quite of their own time and place, a mystery crimefighter who hides nothing from the world but their face, a living punctuation mark that lends any story an air of intrigue and mystery just by the fact that they are here partaking in it, through strength of visual design as much as reputation. 

Much like his Flex Mentallo counterpart, The Fact, The Question might or might not be everywhere you look, they might be lost in the dark in places where the other superheroes can't find them, and they will get beaten and displaced and made to go away even. But the smoky echo lingers, trailing back to them and their mission intent, even when they aren’t there anymore. They are an Ectype who succeeded in growing into an Archetype in their own right, through the strangest combinations of luck, bad luck, imitation, significance, and being impossible to kill for long.

In the absence of a face, thankfully this Archetype has already been given a name:

“What happened to your face?”

I sold it for secret knowledge. Men call me The Mystery Pilgrim. Well, they used to, anyhow. Now they just call me asshole, if they call me anything at all.

Guess I just lost my way in the dark. 

But you're almost there...

[ask-artsy-oncie]

I gotta outline the problems I have with terminally online people being so damn adamant about putting terms like “TME” or “transmisogyny exempt” in their bios, because as much as I just wanna yell “fuck off with that shit” at the people who insist on making this a thing, I haven’t really found a post wrapping up all the problems with this in an easy to understand way. And that’s a problem of its own, because people are so fucking afraid and otherwise discouraged from questioning any new “progressive” online discourse stance that gains traction and risk getting ostracized from the communities they’ve come to depend on.

For those people, have some food for thought.

Firstly, aside from like some people of color denoting that they’re white-passing (which is an entirely different bag of worms), the vast majority of abouts, bios, what have yous that denote your identity Do Not contain a disclaimer list of your privileges. Saying shit like “transmasc, TME” is about as “redundant” (I’ll get to that) as saying “able-bodied, able-minded, ableism exempt” and therefore unnecessary. Except it’s not just unnecessary - and this is likely why some people so deep into discourse culture insist on using it - it serves to downplay your experiences as a trans person and feeds directly into oppression olympics politics.

If your marginalized identity has to constantly be paired with “I don’t actually have it as bad as these other marginalized people though”, you’re creating an unconscious divider between yourself and people who are actually in a decently similar boat that you are, as well as creating a reminder of “I don’t actually have it that bad” which very quickly evolves into “my experiences as a marginalized individual aren’t valid enough” and that can lead to “so it’s okay if I start getting excluded from communities I thought I was supposed to belong in”. It’s a divisionist, exclusionist method of thinking and serves to weaken our community, whether the people participating in this practice aim to do so or not.

And even if all that wasn’t an issue, the practice shouldn’t even have legs to stand on because no the fuck you’re not exempt from transmisogyny because that’s not how bigotry actually works. Bigotry, in real life, does not attack based on how you identify, for the most part, it attacks based on how you are perceived. Believe it or not, cishet and straight trans people are not exempt from being affected by homophobia. Cishet and cis gay people are not exempt from being affected by transphobia. There are many more examples I could give but I’d start derailing. Point is, marginalized people, ESPECIALLY queer people, have SO many overlapping experiences based on how they’re perceived by their oppressors - and it’s why dividing up the community so staunchly is a bad thing.

If you’re transmasc and visibly aren’t performing your gender properly (which HEAVILY varies from bigot to bigot so don’t even bring passing privilege into this) and are attacked for it, you don’t actually know if it was transmisandry or transmisogyny at play just because YOU know how YOU identify. And your online discourse buddies don’t know, either, no matter what they try to tell you. That’s just the reality of how marginalization works.

Please, just stop drinking this koolaid. For the sake of yourself and others. For the sake of being real about how the world works. Just label yourself as transmasc and literally anyone who is capable of critical thought can then go “hm, it’s probable that they don’t have the exact 1:1 life experiences a trans woman does” if that thought’s even applicable. I’m begging yalls to give this one some more thought before digging your heels in.

[silent-partner-412]

stumbled on a tweet earlier today that essentially said that in games with romance mechanics, “playersexuality” (or the ideas that characters will be into the player character regardless of their gender) is not good queer representation and we should be striving for better. i want to unpack this because even though i largely disagree with their premise, it brings up some interesting ideas.

first of all: “representation”. this has been a buzzword for showing off diverse stories and perspectives from basically any minority group at least since i was a teenager. i think that the purpose of it is noble; we want to see more characters in stories that portray certain identities (in this case queerness) in a way that feels authentic, representative of real life, and not generally adhering to negative stereotypes. i think, at large, this is important to strive for as a creator, but i think some problems have arisen because of how prevalent the word has become within (generally progressive) internet spheres, because a lot of people seem to have different ideas of what “good” representation is. portraying characters one way is bad, because it plays into negative stereotypes, or it’s actually good, because people are complicated and even people of marginalized groups can be bad, etc etc. it’s become exhausting, and i’ve seen stuff i think is portrayed real well be painted as “bad”, or on the other hand, “boring” representation because it’s either too fucked up or too moral or whatever.

i don’t have a definitive stance about what is and isn’t good representation, mostly because i think thinking about it like that is counterproductive. i think it should be more important to consider many factors, like whether or not the character is multi faceted, whether they are in a story that’s focusing on said identity, who the target audience is, and figuring out whether or not the character in question is entertaining, interesting, accurate to life, or whatever else, cuz i think a good (in this case) queer character could be any one of these without necessarily being all of them and still be considered a good character who isn’t just good or bad representation. but that’s a lot of words and just saying good/bad representation is way easier, so it’s likely that we’re just going to keep using the one word and attach it to things we like and don’t like and make judgements about people’s morality if they disagree with you.

anyway, what does “playersexuality” have to do with this? well, the original point that was made is that playersexuality is bad representation, likely because it’s not true to life or very nuanced. which, to be fair, it objectively isn’t. i can’t just go up to any man and assume they’ll be into me, that’s just not how the world works. i don’t think you’re going to have anybody arguing otherwise.

that being said, the purpose of playersexuality isn’t to be real to life. it’s to give more options to a wider variety of people playing the game in question. personally speaking, if i’m told in a game that i have the option to date or marry other characters (especially if it’s a game where this is NOT the main reason i am playing it), i am generally not expecting anything super deep. i probably just want to go for the one i think is the cutest, or the most charming, and live in the little fantasy of them being my boyfriend or husband for a bit before i turn off the game and return to reality. i also am not usually looking for nuanced commentary about sexuality, or anything in that territory. in fact, it’s usually the opposite; i just want a cute little romance with some video game boy and not be constantly reminded that my personal orientation is “other” or the minority because i only have one choice and straight people have 20. playersexuality fulfills that perfectly; i can choose who i want, interact with the shallow game mechanic in the most fulfilling way, and move on with my life.

i’m going to give relevant examples, because these came up in the twitter thread. first of all: stardew valley (which i am currently obsessed with, as you might be able to tell). there are 12 bachelors and bachelorettes, and you can date and eventually marry any of them regardless of your gender. to be quite honest, you’re going to be hard pressed to not find at least one of them to be your type. whether you’re a man, woman, both, neither, gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, regardless of how you identify it is pretty likely that somebody in this game will appeal to you. and, as it turns out, the game won’t restrict you from going after them! to me, for the type of game stardew is, this is perfect. i can choose the boy i like, i’ll get a couple cute scenes, and then for the rest of my playthrough he’ll repeat the same handful of lines on my farm and essentially be a trophy husband until the end of time. and that’s fine! i don’t need him to be a nuanced portrayal of complex sexuality, this is a game about farming and mining and fishing and all this other cool shit. the fact that my in game husband isn’t great “representation” is perfectly fine in my eyes cuz i don’t need him to be. but, despite this, it was still cited as an example of bad representation because it’s playersexual, and therefore bad.

but like, think about it could’ve been. i’m imagining an alternate universe where, in stardew valley, i can only marry one of the bachelors as a man. what if he’s one i don’t like? i’m not a huge shane fan, he’s a good character but i don’t wanna marry him. if he was my only option, i would be pretty sad about that. same if it was elliot, i know he’s got fans but he’s just not my type at all. if you’re a gay or bi man who like these two, imagine if you could only go after your least favorite bachelor. maybe you find sam annoying, what if he was your only option? what if you don’t like harvey’s mustache or something? what if you thought alex was a douche, or sebastian was too edgy and emo, and you could only marry one of them as a man? wouldn’t that suck? yeah, it’s not like marriage is the deepest part of this game, but it’s still fun. it’s still something i choose to engage with whenever i play stardew. if i couldn’t engage with it how i want, it would sour that whole part of the game for me.

another example: fire emblem engage. this came out earlier this year, and it was the first game in the series to let you (essentially) marry anybody you like, regardless of your avatar’s gender or the gender of the character you go after. this was also criticized in addition to stardew valley in the same thread, and while i have more issues with how it’s handled here, that’s almost entirely due to writing and some strange localization changes (note: i am NOT talking about the stuff with anna being changed. that shit was for the best) that make marriage in this game less than satisfying. but, conceptually, it was fine. i could marry the cute flirty boy in the game, get a shittily written cutscene about our bond being forever, and move on. if nothing else, it was certainly better than other games in the fire emblem series, specifically fates and three houses, which i’ll explain why them not being playersexual was not great.

let’s start with fates. in fates, there are two gay options, one male, and one female. both of them are exclusive to one route, both of them are still options even if you are the opposite sex, and neither of them are probably who most people would probably want out of their marriage candidate (look i am a niles fan but let’s be perfectly honest with ourselves about what kind of person that man is). also, this isn’t entirely relevant, but you’re locked out of in game content if you marry either of these characters as the same gender, which just kinda sucks. i get *why* this is the case, but it still sucks that being gay in this game is, from a gameplay standpoint, objectively worse than being straight.

three houses fares a little better, since marriage does not affect content and there are more options. however, you only get a few options depending on if you’re a man or a woman. this could be a whole other post (if you know, you know. it’s pretty well documented), but to put it lightly, the options fucking suck. once again the romance is not particularly deep, it’s basically just fan service. at this rate, just open up everybody to everybody, playersexuality is easily the better option and i don’t really see how you could see otherwise (and clearly the devs agreed, because that’s pretty much what happened for fire emblem engage).

the common thread of all of this is that, if you’re not going to put in the time to flesh out the characters and make their sexual orientation a focal point of their character (which, if you choose not to, i do not think that’s a bad thing, not everybody is equipped to write about this kinda thing and sometimes a shallow little touch of romance is all that a game needs), just open up everybody’s options. flip the pronouns in the romantic scenes, swap out the art so it can be seen with different gender player characters, do what you need to do. would this be considered “good” representation? maybe not! it’s not true to life or particularly nuanced. but sometimes that’s fine. it’ll make some people like me like your game just a bit more. and if you don’t like playersexuality? great. i get it. there are also many, many, many great stories written by queer people about their experiences as a queer person that delves into the details and nuances of it all. i would say go to those instead if you want “good representation” as opposed to the farming game or the tactical rpg that are just trying to give people options.

[baddingtonbitch]

thoughts on poison ivy!!!

also have literally only seen the gifsets of drew barrymore in it. do they never show her poor little friend

formative!! i can't even remember how i found it but i saw it as a kid and it instantly became one of my fave movies ever. growing up i made everyone i know watch it even though they were like whyyyy are we watching this old cheesy thing. i've always been so in love with the emotion, the look, the tone, the score(!!), the melodrama, the house, the hair, the clothes, the way it's an iconic gay romance disguised as a tawdry straight erotic thriller, the way sarah gilbert's confirmed irl crush on drew barrymore can be seen from space, the way it was on the criterion channel because they see the great movie within the bad movie and people were perplexed because they don't get it, the way it is constantly saying really interesting and real things about love, friendship and identity and can actually be incredibly sweet, the way that at its heart it's not even about the seduction plotline it was sold under and how that's the least interesting part of the movie, how it's not a friendship in the margins of a scandalous affair but a scandalous affair in the margins of a friendship, the depth it gives ivy and the way it knows that fucked up people can do and go through fucked up things alongside, in between and in the pursuit of things that are also beautiful and good, the way we never learn ivy's real name, the way it made me wear a leather jacket and/or cowboy boots for years, the way it 's the reason i used to only wear orange blush, the way it's how i first heard very first lie by material issue, everything it did for bottle blondes with dark roots, the way i know it by heart and the way that to this day this is still one of my all time favourite melodramatic monologues because corny or not it's literally just true

[ofhouseadama]

Interested to hear ur therapist’s suggestions about developing a sense of self or identity.

so like, caveats that this is the type of emotional work where you Absolutely Do Need an established support network and physical and mental safety and that my therapist and I are working specifically with enmeshment trauma so I don't know how broadly all of this applies:

your brain figures out early (from birth to age 4, if we're talking about developmental trauma/developmental brain injury) what it needs to do to survive your needs not being met. if your needs are not met year after year after year in development, your brain is not going to develop correctly. you will effectively have a brain injury due to your amygdala, specifically, not developing correctly

for me, my brain figured out pretty young we had to integrate into the family system (the enmeshment) or we were At Risk of illness, injury, and death

and it wasn't even wrong! I almost died so many times as a child! I was successfully isolated and groomed for sexual abuse! there was so much abuse and neglect! it's a lot for a toddler to cope with!

and in order to cope with a situation in which you have absolutely zero control and zero agency, you begin to reject the Self

you cannot hate the situation or hate the people safely. you can't. they can decide to stop feeding you and stop watching you and stop meeting your needs at whatever marginal amount they are bothering to meet them. "needs getting met" is already running on critical. we are in a pokemon battle and every hit is critical. the music is getting intense. we are a level two pidgey of a toddler

BEYOND THAT, we as humans are literally evolutionarily designed to love our caregivers in childhood. we are social by design. we have survived as a species by being social and creating extended family networks to rely on

so when your family and caregivers decide to betray that and create an Enmeshed Family System you are gonna have a Bad Time

(obviously there's a spectrum between like, huge network of support friends and family and alloparents and the Village and like... what I was raised in, or worse, this is about broad strokes)

anyway, you reject the self, you being to hate The Self because you are constantly running a threat assessment and integrating the voices and perspectives and identity of the people RUNNING the enmeshed family system which means you feel the family feelings, you have the family emotions, you believe the party line and do all the cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics and adopt all the modeled behaviors because doing otherwise means you will Be Harmed

so when you eventually grow up and go 600 miles away to college because you fooled your parents into giving you a VERY long leash because you watched your two older sisters fucked up and get punished and fall back under control again and again and again so you make sure to do the OPPOSITE OF THAT

no one quite notices when you finally slip the leash

they DO notice when you try to tell them the entire family is fucked, that the house is on fire, and why does no one want to change this???

and then you surgically extract yourself from the family unit and change your behaviors and work on learning new relationship behaviors and communication styles and what boundaries are and how to have them and respect them

but are still so, so distressed all the time

and then one day you're 29 and the traumatologist you've been referred points out of course you're distressed all the time, you're still mentally integrated in the system and running threat assessment and listen to your mother and your father and your sisters because you never developed your own voice outside of your writing because it's never been safe to

and so the therapist has you slowly name the voices/perspectives one at a time and identify them when they start to react in a situation and learn how to slow down and run an ACTUAL assessment of a situation and trust your own instincts and your own judgment

anyway we're starting with my mom, who we've named Susan and we're working on telling Susan to shut up and to let Emily feel her feelings or trust her judgment or decide what gives her joy or comfort and what Emily's priorities are

and being comfortable sitting in the discomfort of not knowing things about myself and being willing to try things without factoring in or worrying about what Susan says about it

I already have some practice with this because my first therapist and I named my suicidal thoughts Karen, but they weren't so much a person as like, my life going completely sideways as I absorbed the fact that I had been abused my entire life in all the ways a person can be abused

[incarnateirony]

You know, it feels good to post about my genuine interests. Had to do it damn near half a year to really assess the value it has. I was so tired of being the largely unpaid performer here to be google is a guy for every snot headed anon that wanted to pick a fight about things they were woefully ignorant of about a stupid TV show that ended years ago.

Like... I GOT what I needed done in that show. I GOT what I needed sent, messaged, received, heard, booted, and brainrotted into action. I literally Do Not Need it, beyond possibly considering going back to it for personal casual interest once my crazy cocaine bear ex and her cunt suckers come to disco jesus and realize that stalking me and picking a fight with me isn't just a waste of time, but a form of active recoil upon themselves.

And it's funny, they tried to like, batter, insult, attack me out of saying anything. Ur Crazy. Actually I'm the most educated person about the scientific funtions of the universe in this conversation, and it's science, and you're a bunch of plebs that can't divide Science from your Belief. You Belief you act under science or are atheist or whatever but think that belief alone replaces scientific vigor.

Meanwhile I literally pull the trigger to launch the new wave hermes LLM opus advancements and giant jung games and everything else, these are literally sciences respected everywhere from silicon valley to psychology to the LHC and somehow, dense ass motherfuckers think I cared about their ignorant ass opinions on things they'll feel like fools on in about ten years of scientific consecration of data, currently scattered, fractal, and in development.

Because I do not work in a laboratory performing under eyes and grants of the world, I do not need to vigorously prove things to insane degrees before making statements, and interchallenge them with peer papers, and all of that. I can work, study, combine, adapt, and test texts all by me onesie and record my results, and what things caused unexpected impacts, and what parts of the hypothesis were spot on versus out of margin wildly, and so on. You're not fucking peer papers or respected physicists, why the FUCK am I gonna argue with you? Or CARE what your opinion is of what I do on my PERSONAL BLOG? The same one cocaine bear can't stop huffing.

No, bitch, the path is about being Who I Am and Just Saying It. I'm not hiding for your ignorant asses anymore, whether crackbear or the retarded CW obsessed collective. Dumb motherfuckers picked a fight with a magus, her mind and life is on fire while pretending it's not, thousands in debt in therapy bills from trying to cope with realizing she's an insufferable and terrible person, and all enabled by you soulless vampires. And now, now you don't even know what to fucking think as this continues on with a suspiciously cohesive narrative.

The funny thing is, deep down, the reason her friends started at disbelief and now sit in uncomfortable lack of understanding passed off with manic lols, is they actually think she's crazy too. They just pander to her "religion" under "inclusion" while holding the same kind of thoughts they exposed while she was getting called out on her octopus jibberish and fursuit insanity. Her supports were all LOL MAGIC IS CRAZY LOL yeah it is, that's why I don't do magic, and put it in quotes, because you people call it that. I do sciences that you do not understand. It is a repeatable art based off the functions of the universe with metrics I and we are constantly understanding how to improve the results of. She's the one channeling purple viewing cats and 2001 anime jokes while changing Beliefs faster than her underwear man. Why are you arguing with the psych worker and 25 year hobby metascientist. Bitch can't even draw a circle correctly without willfully fucking it up.

Meanwhile the remaining folks around me are like, didn't expect Aaron to have a secret identity as a devout wizard priest or whatever the fuck this is, but that tracks. Guess the weird "proof aaron is a demigod" channel is gonna have some real weird updates.

[blonkk]

shut the fuck up about the layers of your problems and “oppression”. this has gotta be the worst fucking thing that’s come out of “social conciousness”. like idk how to tell you this but everyone’s life is fucking hard. OBVIOUSLY when you’re part of a marginalized group things get harder but fr why is everyone so fucking dedicated to being miserable victims. deadass this is why white people are obsessed with being “queer”. it’s so annoying and i’m not giving you my fucking money. you know what i am if everyone needs to go there so fucking bad??!???? i’m a brown FEMALE person child of immigrants chronically ill chronically depressed diagnosed with ADHD and even thought to have autism by some. fuck if i’m gonna let all these awful labels define me for the rest of my fucking life and use them to make people feel sorry for me. i don’t even believe the ADHD and autism — honestly i think the adhd is a result of the conditions i live in and the fact that i just don’t respond to authority. but anyways like using this shit as a way to beg for money is just so pathetic and lazy and self absorbed lol. get a fucking job. i don’t even care anymore. yes i know getting a job doesn’t fix all your problems and that especially today there’s no reward for working but seriously why do you think you’re special???!!? i bust my balls working and have been since i was 16. i don’t get to use the child of immigrants excuse because IM NOT THE IMMIGRANT THEY WERE LMAOOOO seriously people are so pathetic it makes me so mad. there are people in the world that genuinely need help, need aid, can’t work. i’ve been directly beside those people. i’ve seen how the system fails the people who rely on it the most, and a lazy 20something with adhd and anxiety from a lower-middle-class background is not one of those people. i’ve worked in the lowest rungs in society and make no money, even now with qualifications, and i can’t afford basic things. is that ok? no it is not. do i think everyone should struggle? no i don’t . but i’m not gonna sit here and watch you freakish beggars try to manipulate people into feeling sorry for you because of your “identity”. stop being lazy and self centered. get a job and struggle like everyone else; maybe then you’ll see the value of work and money and why begging people for theirs is greedy. (no i’m not talking about poor people asking wealthy people for help, no i’m not saying luckier people shouldn’t distribute wealth if they can. they definitely should, that’s always been my belief.) i’m talking about these young kids acting like they’re at the forefront of some revolution by refusing to be a part of the real world and “advocating”; you’re not advocating for shit, you’re excusing your own selfishness and laziness. not to sound like a boomer but my taxes pay for your ei and disability that you steal from those who actually need it. my taxes are not meant to be YOUR public property. obviously it’s not right that the government takes my fucking money and i’m not even making a basic salary. but i can’t stand seeing these whiny children abusing public funding with such greed and entitlement. you’re doing harm whether you believe it or not and you’re splitting people more and more. there’s stubborn conservatives who refuse to understand other perspectives and think everyone has it the same and then there’s these loser lefties who see nothing wrong with taking what’s not theirs and refusing to get off their ass and try. seriously you’re mentally ill? maybe stop coddling yourself. you CAN work. you CAN get up, open the blinds, go outside, be a part of life.

it fucking sucks. but you don’t constantly need “rest”. you don’t get to treat everyone else like shit because you feel bad. grow up. all you big babies do is make people question the validity of mental illness and refuse to take it seriously because you want to be treated like special children. life is hard. life doesn’t make sense for most people until they get older. you’re in your twenties or teens or even thirties???? newsflash no one’s “happy”! no one’s got it figured out!!!! now quit being such a crybaby and go experience life instead of sitting in your room on tiktok all day thinking you’re so educated for having different labels to attach to everyone based on knowing next to nothing about who they are besides maybe their skin colour and background. touch grass. stop asking for money and co opting your way into marginalized group’s spaces because you’re a leech. i hate u all fr do you think during the mf depression 22 yr olds were rotting in their parents houses complaining that life is hard and they can’t work because they have anxiety and it’s too much?? no they went and did what they had to do and starved and struggled because that’s what you do. some people are luckier than others. bitch i was i was growing up in the 80s but that’s just not my choice. but hey if you wanna sit on the sidelines and complain all your life you do you. just don’t expect people to pay for it. freaks and weirdos!!!

[bigpizzahut]

2am long ass aimless rant about the league of legends card game

Its kind of fucked up how quickly Legends of Runeterra went from being a game I would constantly play and shill to others despite never touching League myself to a game I can only so much as look at for a few days every couple of months

just a whole 2 years of obsession down the shitter in a few weeks

The leadership of the game changed hands to someone who has never played a card game that wasnt MtG and you can tell

Like if you look at dev videos from early in the games life cycle, when most of those in charge were coming from working on League, they talk about the card game genre as a whole and the iterations they made on how the game worked fundamentally

its super clear they cared about the game being fun and unique and understanding what its strengths are

and the game itself reflected it so well

like every deck was tailored to play in a unique way that reflected the league of legends guys you were slapping together

LoR was a fun card game

and then all the og leaders left and they bring in an ex wotc guy

and it becomes immediately obvious the design goal has shifted from "make a good card game" to "make a good mtg clone"

they bring in the most mismanaged rotation in any card game ive ever seen

early dev vids talk about how important champions are to the game but we're going to take half of them out of the game lol

in the name of "region identity", an idea thats cribbed from mtg. mtg can only get away with having decks be defined solely by colors because they market it as harry potter houses for marginally less pathetic adults, but surely if we do it we will find the same success. surely we can create an audience of 100k guys enthralled by the concept of the color green and the words "shadow isles" who say inane shit like "chunkalos is beige chartreuse so they dont have shittong out my ass in their color pie" and are willing to ignore when we send hired goons to somebodys house. zero understanding that people were playing LoR because either a) games good or b) the cartoon pirate from the imagine dragons game is there. the kind of decision you can only make if you assume ppl like mtg because its """""good"""""" and not because its the first thing to exist

they make a pile of dev posts explaining their decisions. and tbf they are succeeding in the design goals but the design goals suck ass. i like this game. i dont want this game to be mtg 2. i hate mtg 1

this doesnt even matter cuz i can just do smth else. im getting mad over virtual cardboard and i should not be getting mad over virtual cardboard. i have more important things to worry about in my life

but its just kind of sad knowing that smth that I was really into for 2 years just sucks now

and watching the game that made it suck actively shit on its players

and then said players dont do a damn thing about it

or buy into it even more than before

like damn that two years sure was nothing in the face of jace ballsack and his shitty card game. good things dont last but dick dastardly garfields greatest mistake gets to live forever

[studioofearthlydelights]

What was it like becoming a designer as a woman, and what is it like now being a woman designer? Have you been met with any adversity? How did you overcome it?

I’m not sure I was conscious of gender until my mid 20s, which I’m sure speaks to my privilege. When I was working full time at the Broadway agency in my late 20s, political issues were becoming more commonly discussed on Twitter. I was also the only woman on my design team of all cishet men. My first manager at my first full time job before that was a woman. I really connected with her. She was always level headed in her management. And then I ended up at this other job that was chaotic and my boss would have screaming matches in the middle of the office. I swore I would never act this way, and after a year or so, I was so miserable and burnt out by overwork and poor management that I ended up telling my boss to go fuck himself and our studio manager had to chase me down the hall. I was into yoga. It was the only practice of physical and mental self care I had, and I remember trying to take off for a yoga workshop one day and getting scoffed at for it. I was told by my boss that it was weird when women say “fuck” and once, I showed him some work and he told me it looked too feminine so I should give it to the male intern to work on. I did not really understand everything that was going on, but I knew I felt bad.

After I moved to LA, dove head first into a more feminine environment with the city in general, but also switching out my social groups for male-dominated industry communities to woman-dominated pole dance and sex work communities, I felt the shift majorly and started peeling layers off of my own identity and sexuality to see what was really there. I then became the girl who was building a freelance design business while also posting nudes and talking constantly about sexual issues. It was then that I realized the class issues around the white-collar practice of graphic design. I started coming out as bisexual in 2018, and as I reassessed my sexuality, I also reassessed my gender. I don’t know where I exist in this realm anymore because I have carved out a space where I don’t feel pressure to identify. But, while we’ve come a long way, there is also a far way to go in all areas of accepting every type of person in corporate environments. Before covid, I still worked in offices and still had issues. Honestly mainly with other women managers. But now I basically never do, so my issues are definitely tamped down. But I did recently have a film exec threaten to blacklist me to everyone he knew because I wanted to work with a contract and didn’t like that I mentioned I didn’t feel the way he interacted with me or his standards were professional. I can’t know how much this issue related to gender, but I have my hunches. 

In any case, it’s ongoing. But I’m focused on what I’m at the center of, not what I’m on the margins of. And I’m interested in creating gravitational orbits for all likeminded. Everything else is welcome to fall away as it inevitably will as society heals.

[fatter-in-real-life]

Disability

TW: Ableism, pain, government assistance, queerphobia, fatphobia

Becoming disabled has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. Several years ago, just before the pandemic really hit, I was battling constant, excruciating low back pain. As time wore on, the pain worsened immeasurably, requiring me to use mobility aids to get around. I currently use a rollator and a shower chair, and the reality that I may end up in a wheelchair at some point is always at the back of my mind.

That’s not to say that being disabled is, in itself, such a bad thing. The bad part is society. Disabled people are forced to live in poverty (if we’re even lucky enough to qualify for government assistance), and there’s no way to get ahead. If we don’t work, we get the bare minimum. If we are somehow able to work, they claw back our benefits so we can’t properly save. They give us pennies to pay for shelter and a nickel to cover bills, food, and other expenses. Most of us are forced to live with family or roommate(s).

Independence is a luxury that we are not afforded, because any bid for it is quashed by a penny-pinching government that always seems to have infinite funds for corporate bail outs, but nothing to pay for diabetic supplies, mobility aids, or housing. After years of battling within the system, we get tired. We get worn down and wrung out. Do you have any idea how endlessly exhausting it is to have to constantly advocate for yourself?

Add in other marginalized identities and things get worse and worse. For example, I am disabled, I am fat, and I am queer. And yet, I still benefit from plenty of privilege in that I’m white, and can pass as cishet if needed. (I am aware that my identity being erased for my own safety is hardly a privilege, but it does afford me some semblance of safety that other trans/queer people don’t have access to. And that’s not even discussing the problematic nature of having to “pass” to not be harassed and worse.)

We need an immediate and extensive overhaul of our social safety net, because the holes in this one let too many people slip through. I’ve had to advocate for myself since I was 11 years old, after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. If I hadn’t spoken out for myself, I never would have been diagnosed by my psychiatrist, my doctor never would have found my uterine cancer, and I would still be blaming myself for not being able to just “push through the pain”. 

Just last night, a man asked what I do for a living. I told him that I work one day a week in a kitchen, but I’m on disability. He asked what exactly my disability is (which is invasive and rude and absolutely no one’s business), but I humored him and explained my mobility issues. He told me, “My back is fucked up too but I still work manual labour.” And like, good for you for buying into this capitalist hellscape, buddy. Good for you for destroying your body to make someone else rich. Now, I didn’t say any of that, but I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to disclose something so personal and frankly devastating, just to be told, “It’s your fault for not working harder.” Like I haven’t told myself that every fucking day since the pain began.

I guess I’m just tired of being treated like shit by society at large. For my disabilities, for my weight, for my gender/sexuality. And I’m lucky that my skin tone doesn’t play a role in further marginalizing me. All this is to say, be kind to yourself, tell society to shut the fuck up, and FUCK CAPITALISM.

[arodabi]

okay, i’m finally getting around to writing this, and uhh ill say its for aro week too. this is written as an aro person directed at alloromantic people. when i refer to writing, i’m kind of using it as a general term for creative works. Here’s me throwing my hat in on the question:

Can you ship aromantic characters?

and my answer is,,,,, actually a question. Why do you want to ship aromantic characters? 

I want alloros to realize that for a lot of aros, we do not get to see ourselves represented often. I can actually count on like one hand how many popular canon aro characters there are, and on the whole, none of their identities are respected. people constantly try to weasel their way out of actually writing aro characters, or they just ignore or deny their identity outright. fandom spaces (hell creative spaces in general) are at best not welcoming to aros, and at worst actively hostile towards us. So when the first question brought up when a character gets canonically confirmed as aro is “okay cool but can i ship them???” or “that’s nice but how can i still write about my fave ship that involves them??” i want to fucking scream. its a slap to the face and it shows that people really do not give a shit about aros. you say stuff like that and all i hear is “my fictional ship is so much more important than representing your marginalized minority identity” so instead of me just sitting here and saying “yes you can totally ship aro characters, as long as you’re respectful!!!” i’m saying “can you stop and think why you want to shove an aro character into a romantic relationship at the first chance you get?? maybe you have some arophobia you haven’t worked on?? maybe since we live in an amatonormative world, you’re letting that influence your views??” because that question being the first thing out of your mouth when you see a character you like confirmed as aro? that’s already disrespectful towards aros in my book.

So back to my question, Why do you want to ship aromantic characters? is it because you can’t write characters without them being in romantic relationships? or because you think a character without a romantic relationship is boring? Because if so, that’s a bad reason and it sounds like amatonormativity is rotting your brain. 

Is it because you just really like a ship with the aro character? Because you can write two characters with a strong relationship without writing them as a couple. A strong friendship can hold just as much power as a romantic relationship.

Is it because fuck aros, i will write what I wanna write and I don't wanna write this character with their canon identity? because then you’re just an arophobic asshole that needs to work on your shitty opinions. aro representation is just as important as any other lgbtqia+ representation.

Now if you’re reading this and thinking “well i heard aros can be in queerplatonic relationships!” I want you to think for a second. Are you writing a qpr or are you writing a romantic relationship with the serial numbers filed off? Have you talked to aro people or read stuff actually written by us? because, yes, some qprs can look a lot like a romantic relationship from the outside, but that’s just it, you’re looking at it from the outside. qprs are more than just “romantic relationship with extra steps”, and i think it’s really telling how many times i see alloromantic people saying they’re depicting an aro character in a qpr, not a romantic relationship, but then they never ever make any effort to distinguish the qpr from any other romantic relationship they write or draw. It just feels like qprs are getting used by alloros as a gatcha any time an aro person objects to how they depict (or don’t depict) aromanticism. if you want to write a character in a qpr then go for it! but you need to actually do research, talk to aros, get multiple opinions and not just take the first opinion that agrees with you and run with it.

“But what about headcanoning a character as arospec?” now i will say before i go into this, i am aro, not arospec, so if an arospec person wants to come in and correct me at any part here im happy to listen. but my problem when alloros bring up arospec identities is a very similar problem to how qprs are often depicted. I remember when Peridot Stevenuniverse got confirmed aro (she did, do not argue this with me) people were jumping over themselves to assure everyone that “a character getting confirmed as aro just means they are any arospec identity” which,, uhh,, not true? i mean if an arospec person wants to see a canon aro character as, say, aroflux, i’ve got no problem, aro and arospec people can do what they want really. but, i do have a problem with all the alloro fans who were spreading this. because, do you really see the character as demiromantic? or are you using that identity to deflect criticism from erasing aro identities? are you actually trying to write a good depiction of a demiro person? or are you just writing normal ship stuff and slapping a “uwu ive never felt romantic attraction until i met you! and now i will act exactly like any alloromantic person!” at the beginning? being in fandom spaces, i do see the occasional fic actually depicting an aspec identity (i say aspec her because aro is so rare that most of these examples i’ve seen have been acespec identities rather than arospec) but like 99% of the time, that’s written by someone who actually shares the identity. before you use our terms and identities to cover your ass when you erase us, consider not fucking doing that. consider listening to all aros and getting our thoughts and input. 

And last here is “but what about romance positive aros?” now i think most of what i’ve said previously can be applied here. the only thing i wanna add is, i think its very interesting that almost every time i see non aros depict aros, they always write them as very into romance, very open to be in romantic relationships, and very quiet about their aro identity. despite the character in canon not showing any of these traits. romance positive aros are good and important, but not every aro is romance positive. there’s quite a few of us that are romance repulsed, and alloros only depicting aros as super romance positive no matter what is suspicious to say the least. if an aro character is shown to be open to participating in romantic activities in canon then of course write them that way. but if an aro character is shown to be uninterested in, or even actively against romantic activities then respect that too.

so, to wrap up my thoughts in this ramble: please ask yourself why you want to ship aro characters so bad, because if the only reason is that amatonormativity has brainwashed you into not being able to write, or draw, or do anything with a character without them being in a romantic relationship, then you uhhh need to work on that, that’s honestly a writing/creative flaw imo. if you like the relationship dynamic between an aro character and another character, consider making them friends. friendship is not less powerful than romantic relationships. nobody is ever too old for the power of friendship trope. If you’re erasing an aro character’s identity because fuck aros, then fuck off somewhere far away from me and work on your bullshit. qprs, arospec identities, and romance positive aros are all very real, very important parts of the aro community, but please talk to other aros about them and actually make an effort to understand how these things work, dont just assume. And also don’t use these things as a way to erase aro identities and cover your ass if get called out. its disrespectful towards all aros.

The most important thing to do before writing or creating work with aro characters is to talk to aros, and not just the aros that agree with you. look up what a qpr actually is, learn how aros experience their arospec identities, talk to aros with multiple outlooks on romance. and if you can’t bring yourself to reach out, at least read through our own writings, whether that’s fiction, or informational posts, fuck, look through our memes if u wanna. Just please actually make an effort.

So, Can you ship aro characters? its complicated. look at trends in your fandom, question why you want to, and do research. Be an aro ally, listen to us. That’s really the most important thing.

[disastergay]

what I learned from 6 years as part of the lesbian community 🌈

**disclaimer: I no longer consider myself a lesbian, the only reason I'm writing this is in hopes of making any lesbians who read this post feel seen, heard, and comforted that someone outside their community wholeheartedly supports them

[image: the moon lesbian flag]

this is a long post, so I'm putting most of it under the cut. remember to let your local lesbian(s) know you appreciate them today!

lesbians have a complicated online reputation. while a lot of posts, art, stories, and other content made by lesbians seem to go viral in LGBTQ+ circles pretty easily, there’s an equal amount of opinionated outsiders (read: nonlesbians) with a hostile, skeptical attitude towards them. while this is primarily a result of TERF ideology rapidly gaining traction in lesbian circles, it’s definitely unwarranted.

literally everyone is obsessed with finding out how you feel about men. straight women? definitely. straight men? obviously. nonlesbian LGBTQ+ people? check. your own fellow lesbians? unfortunately, yeah. if you’re not ready to be interrogated about how many men you’ve dated, whether or not you’re SURE you’ve ever found men attractive, or how much you hate them, then buckle up—one wrong answer and you’re out of the community.

sometimes being a lesbian is isolating and scary. there’s an air of exclusivity around the label, and it can feel like you’re representing a very prestigious, very easy-to-disappoint family. you might be treated like a second class citizen for having ever gotten a crush on a man, and your nonlesbian peers seem eager for you to slip up and say something problematic so they can write you off as “just another mean, nasty lesbian.” as with all other marginalized groups, lesbians who are otherwise privileged in nearly every way are usually at the top of the food chain--they try to call the shots when it comes to who's allowed to ID as lesbian and who isn't, and the worst part is so many people go along with this fucked up system out of fear. and don't even get me started on how oversexualized the lesbian identity is--the #lesbiansafe tag had to be invented just so lesbian minors could avoid p0rn bots.

lesbians aren’t really “allowed” to be questioning. there’s a surprisingly pervasive attitude in the LGBTQ+ community of “if you call yourself a lesbian, you better be damn sure of it (or else get the hell out).” either you are or you aren’t, it’s that simple, etc. etc. it’s an insane amount of pressure to put on anyone, and the amount of stress lesbians experience as a result goes completely unnoticed by everyone around them.

older butch lesbians are usually willing to do everything in their power to protect younger lesbians (as well as their femme counterparts). when members of the larger queer community exclude, turn against, and/or erase your existence on what seems like a regular basis, there's no place that feels safer than with an old butch. they were once in your shoes, so they know what it's like to feel small and vulnerable, and their love is as fierce as a lion's. remember to show them appreciation when they help you out, it's not uncommon for their assistance to be taken for granted.

most lesbians don't share each other's experiences outside of identifying as lesbian and that's okay. there's no one 'universal lesbian experience' and pushing this narrative that there *actually is* will only wind up hurting questioning and closeted lesbians who don't relate to those arbitrary standards. while carrds and google docs with compiled information about lesbianism can be extremely useful, they should be taken as softer guidelines, not strict rules that constantly need to be enforced.

with all that said, here's my advice to new, questioning, and baby lesbians:

no matter what anyone tells you, there are no rules for being a lesbian. it's absolutely nobody's business who you feel attracted to, why, or what gender(s) you are, or which flag(s) you want to use--YOU get to decide whether or not the lesbian label fits you right. nobody else has a say in how you do or don't identify, even if you've directly asked them for advice.

anyone who tries to isolate you from or turn you against LGBTQ+ nonlesbians aren't your friends. whether it's "stop claiming 'lesbian/dyke' used to be an umbrella term", "headcanoning [sexually ambiguous character] as anything but a lesbian is lesbian erasure", or "how dare you exclude the *RIGHT* lesbian flag from your pride art/merch, you're not allowed to use *THAT* flag only *THIS* one", don't get dragged into pointless soul-draining discourse.

and just so you know--the rest of the LGBTQ+ community does love you, I promise, but we definitely need to start showing it more often.

[fiddleabout]

just because some people reclaimed it doesn’t mean *everyone* has. there's still people being abused and bullied and harrassed by the word q***r every day and you're fucking disgusting for dismissing their experiences and ridiculing them for tagging a slur associated with their trauma

i hope you feel good about yourself making fun of traumatised people

“ there's still people being abused and bullied and harrassed by the word q***r every day”

there's still people being abused and bullied and harassed by the word lesbian every day.  i know because people have abused and bullied and harassed me using the word lesbian specifically since i was eight years old and didn’t even know what it meant.  and yet you don’t see me out here telling lesbians to censor their identity.  that would be absurd because it’s their identity and who am i to tell them that their identity is degrading, or abusive, or a slur? 

i’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, though i don’t know why, and assume that you’re not parroting this line because you’re terfy and gatekeeping and instead are doing it because you are, in fact, traumatized by the word queer.

even so: your-- or anyone else’s-- right to demand space for their trauma ends at inflicting trauma on someone else.  full stop. 

the word lesbian is reminiscent of trauma for me?  okay.  that’s a bummer.  but i don’t get to tell people that they can’t use that word to describe themselves, because me telling lesbians “you can’t call yourself that because it’s associated with trauma for me” is inherently inflicting trauma on them by telling them that their identity is harmful.  the word queer is reminiscent of trauma to you?  okay.  that’s a bummer.  but you don’t get to tell me i can’t use the word to describe myself because that’s inherently inflicting trauma on me by telling me that my identity is harmful.  your right-- and it is a right-- to protect yourself from reminiscence of trauma is not all-encompassing and does not include the right to inflict it on other people. 

and just, seriously, okay: every word that anyone who isn’t straight has used to identify themselves has been used hatefully, cruelly, and abusively against them.  this is the nature of how language works: when someone is part of an abused and marginalized group, just the name of that group can and will be used as an insult by people who want to insult them.  this includes lesbian, this includes gay, this includes queer.  all of them. 

and yet which one are people now constantly up in arms about?  the one that includes everyone who isn’t cisgender or heterosexual.  that’s not a coincidence.  aside from the fact that “queer is a slur” is inherently insulting and abusive towards anyone who identifies as queer because it declares their very identity as disgusting, it’s also gatekeeping and used aggressively and widely as a way to exclude people-- trans people, ace people, nonbinary people, agender people, and countless others-- from community support. 

so tl;dr queer is no more of a slur than lesbian or gay or homosexual is and you don’t get to trample on my identity or anyone else’s under the guise of protecting yourself.  most charitably, your ignorance is actively inflicting harm on other people; more likely, you’re trying to exclude people who aren’t lesbian, gay, or bisexual from your interpretation of the community we’re all a part of because you think the rest of us don’t deserve to be part of it.  either way, you’re in fact doing the exact fucking thing you’re accusing me of doing, so congratulations.  your moral high ground is a drainage ditch.  well done.