#enby things

[theadhdgoblin]

[samijami]

Nonbinary lesbians, reblog if you agree

[aromanticduck]

The nonbinary urge to rip apart gender-essentialist memes with your teeth

[maudlin-queer-in-training]

my gender and sexual/romantic orientation are whatever the writers need them to be to make the bit work

[rustybutterknife]

Self care is being a girl-fag boy-dyke

[soupbtch]

I’ve been having a really tough time parsing through my feelings about this because they keep changing. It’s kind of silly, too, when you put it under a microscope. All love is, I guess. That’s what this is. And I’ve had a lifelong track record of loving things too hard. Not to say that it isn’t always worth it, though it’s hard to feel that way in the immediate aftermath of things coming to an end before you’re ready.

(Putting the rest of this under the cut because it is entirely too long and personal and self-indulgent. Yes, this is about the OFMD cancellation.)

I’m not a superstitious person, with the exception of talking about things I’m excited about. If I’m waiting for an offer letter from a new job, or to hear from someone, something to happen, I have the constant feeling that if I open my mouth and express my excitement out loud, put my intentions out into the world with my own breath and teeth, push it out with my tongue, it means the thing won’t happen. My words will shift the air and it will bite back. There is shaky, empirical evidence for this. I know that, logically. In my heart, though, the fear of vulnerability lives on. Of being known and seen and disappointed.

The last several years, I got better at guarding my heart. I built strong walls. I’ve kept myself from touching things I know will draw me in too deeply, avoided looking at things I knew would break me in half. Preemptive measures to avoid potential heartbreak. (A large reason for this, I’m sure now, was the long-term (bad) relationship I was in until 7 months ago, which demanded all of my attention and emotions to maintain to the point that anything more pressing to my heart would cause the whole house of cards to collapse around me.) I kept my distance from OFMD until I was sure it wasn’t queerbaiting, after season 1 finished airing. And even as I watched it and immediately after, I kept my mouth shut about wanting a season 2. I wasn’t back on tumblr at the time (another instance of me keeping myself from touching things that will pull me in with crushing force). I only had one real life friend to talk to about the show, and even then, I held back. Only let the words whisper out of the corner of my mouth, eyes shifting. I didn’t want to let myself slip. I didn’t want to show my heart for fear of it getting ripped out. I kept the walls up.

When the season 2 trailer dropped, I felt it creeping in, despite my best efforts. I craved it. With an affable hand, it was tapping on the gate to my heart that had been shut since I left the depths of fandoms in 2013. My bad relationship had ended just a few months prior to this. I was free-falling. Vulnerable.

Season 2 reached for my heart. Tentatively, I opened the gate. I invited it in. I dove towards it. I rejoined tumblr. The brainrot set in not shortly after, a familiar friend. The truth is, it could have been anything. It could have been Good Omens, had I opened the gate a few months earlier. It could have been fucking Doctor Who again. But it wasn’t. It was the gay pirates, the middle-aged men, the nonbinary actor playing a nonbinary character, the people of color, the music, the writing, the story, the actors.

Stede and Ed were experiencing identity crises and so was I. One of the reasons my ex cited for dumping me was that he wasn’t attracted to me anymore after the years of me slowly discovering I was queer and nonbinary while we were together. After I had top surgery, he didn’t love me anymore. He broke up with me during pride month. My identity was coming into focus gradually as the foothold slipped out from under me. Simultaneously, on my TV screen, I see Stede realize he’s in love with Ed. I see Ed lose his grip when his foothold slips out from under him, too; his shaky, fresh identity and bravery free-falling around him under the words “I should have let the English kill you,” spat at him for being soft and vulnerable. I see him lose himself in suicidal patterns, familiar. I feel unlovable, and I hear Ed echo my thoughts. I see him come back from the ledge, healing slowly. I see budding happiness. I see love and self-acceptance. I see the crew experiencing so much queer joy it makes my heart ache. I see the fandom experiencing queer joy around me, too. I experience unbridled queer joy for the first time in my life.

I start reading fanfiction again (a door I kept firmly shut and locked for a decade). I want more, to chase the high of queer joy as I read Ed and Stede finding each other and falling in love again and again, in a million different universes. I deepen my connections. I’m finding my foothold again. I form tentative friendships with other people in the fandom. We excitedly post about the season 3 renewal announcement we’re certain is coming. We laugh. We count down the hours together every day for the first week and a half of 2024. A shared delusion, maybe, but all signs were pointing north, and we were traveling there together. I stand up a little straighter. I feel less afraid of being vulnerable. I feel a little bit more lovable.

I let myself hope. I get excited, confident. I talk about the show and the impending renewal announcement with my own mouth and teeth and breath to anyone who will listen. I push the words out with my tongue as the walls around my heart are reduced to rubble against my ribcage. My heart beats defiantly for the whole world to hear.

We know what happens next. I’m free-falling again. It’s silly, right? I wrote all this out to help myself process my emotions, why the cancellation hit me like a wrecking ball, and I feel sillier for it. I feel silly for my heart being so large, for feeling things too much. I feel silly for letting my guard down and letting myself get hurt. For loving things too hard with no plan of how to let go. After a lifetime of this, I should know better.

This show doesn’t define who I am; I already had a pretty firm grasp on that before I ever hit play on the pilot. It’s not life or death. But it helped me find my tender heart again, the me from 10 years ago, the fearless one. It made me fearless again. It made me love again. And at the end of the day, season 3 or no, that means the most to me, and I am endlessly thankful for this heartbreak.

If we’ve never talked before, hi, I’m Danny. Thanks for reading this. I love y’all, crazy little gay people in my phone. I will keep talking about OFMD until the day I die. Hold my hand, let’s be fearless together.

[stompybootz]

my gender is gendering so hard rn

[averyweakgay]

Oh, my gender is what’s between my legs? Didn’t realize your mom was a gender

[clyde-and-co]

/gen question here…

I’ve been questioning my gender. I’m afab and for the longest time I thought I was a trans man but I’ve realised that perhaps I’m genderfluid. Can genderfluid peeps dislike femininity and despise she/her pronouns but still be genderfluid?

[liyazaki]

being called “she/her”- totally fine. feels neutral, normal, A-OK.

being called “they/them”- a kiss on the forehead, a spiritual hug. like being seen- really, actually.

[theadhdgoblin]

[thearoacemoon]

The order of the nonbinary flag colors:

ID [The nonbinary flag, four horizontal stripes of the same size, the colors are yellow (top), white, purple and black.] end ID

I'll teach you all the silly way I learned the order of the nonbinary flag colors:

First think about a fried egg 🍳: the yellow is on top and the white right bellow it.

Then you think about a purple shoe: the sole will be black, so purple first, black is the last!

That's it 😆

[aromanticduck]

Choosing a name

For boys:

For girls:

For nonbinary people:

[tatersgonnatate]

Is gender even a thing anymore or like... we're done with that nonsense yeah?

[galacticscrotum]

I feel like my sexual orientation and my gender identity are linked, at least sometimes. Either that, or I just feel like I have to change myself to others’ preferences at the expense of my own gender expression.

I’m abrosexual and genderqueer. I don’t shave my armpits or any of my body hair. When I hook up with someone, I feel this pressure to conform to feminine beauty standards and shave at least my armpits. So it makes me want to alter a form of my gender expression, my body hair, depending on who sees it. I want people to see me for who I am, but if there’s a hot straight guy who would be more likely to fuck me if I’m more feminine then I adapt. Ideally the hot guy would find me just as hot with or without the body hair, and like that I’m non-binary and not try to make me be a woman for them.

[soupbtch]

Ed Teach truly is the character of all time and whenever I remember Jes Tom saying Ed’s arc is a trans allegory I gain +10 years to my lifespan