#especially from ppl who are supposed to be part of your community your SAFE SPACE to engage in discussions of queer issues and topics

[likedbyuarmyhope]

queer armys could literally just be like “as a queer person many of the themes and symbols bts use prominently in their art feel very familiar, personal and comforting” and would still get jumped by cishets/bootlicking lgbt armys calling them freaks. Oh wait  that literally does happen

[shoezuki]

cracks knuckles. i promised to elaborate and i will.

the one common perspective that everyone seems to be able to agree on is that techno / sbi + schlatt + tubbo + ranboo are just genuinely funnier than the dteam, and honestly yes it's because if the popularity. if you go back and watch the dteams older (im talking before 2-3mil subs) videos they are funnier than their current ones and i think it's because they're trying to shift their humor to a broader audience?

the minecraft community has always been mainly queer/poc/ndv kids because it was exiled away from "acceptable society" for so long that only the people who had already been "exiled" continued to enjoy it. I, as an example, stopped playing when it became a cringy thing because I was so worried about being seen as weird. now that ive discovered, come to terms with, and enjoy my queerness, i realize that if i had known i was queer back when mc was exiled i wouldve continued to play because i alrwady would have known what it was like to be part of that seperate society. (Please keep reading i promise I have a point)

but then minecraft came back. minecraft became mainstream again, and it came back HARD. watching it go from something that you would be bullied immensely for to something that you would be bullied for not doing was an extreme experience. in all honesty im still angry about it, but that's another topic. when minecraft became mainstream it brought with it all of the people that hadn't been part of the exiled societies yk? including... the dream team.

dream blew up. we all know how much he blew up. i personally dont believe he cheated on the speedrun but to each their own (although after reading your stuff and becoming more critical of them im realizing i might need to reexamine that), and the speedrun controversy brought even more people to his base (cough drama loving straight white girls cough).

when they were brought into the fanbase that's when it started to go downhill. they shifted their humor to fit that, or maybe their humor was always that and they just got more confident in showing it after they had gotten a fan base to back them up. which is also why techno / sbi + schlatt + tubbo + ranboo (who ill refer to just as techno&co now because he's the main one but also that's long as hell lmao) are funnier than them!

for one, their fanbases are smaller. now 5 mil is by no means a small number, but compared to dream's 16 mil? yknow. especially with techno's wack upload schedule he's never had to worry about having a stan fan base because the only people who stay are people who genuinely enjoy his content the way it is.

two, techno&co are mostly ndv. techno has adhd, tubbo has dyslexia, wilbur had and maybe still has depression, ranboo has anxiety, tommy hasnt confirmed or denied his adhd but im betting he at least has borderline. i am in no ways saying that being part of one minority (in this case ndv) gives you free range over another (queer), but all minorities have this understanding about what it is to be part of an exiled community (if that makes sense).

philza and schlatt, not so sure if they're ndv, but they're also older and generally more mature and esp in philza's case, theyve had their chance to make their bad jokes and pull stupid shit and theyve grown out of it (if they ever had that phase at all). techno&co have that understanding and even if they dont know where the boundaries are they know that queer humor (and all humor! other than techno, sbi doesnt really make gay jokes) going to have boundaries, and they respect that.

three, techno is the funniest bitch because he has adhd. i dont take criticism on this point because im right.

i probably missed a lot, probably got some stuff wrong, but all in all i think i hit my mark. i can come off anon to chat anytime if youd vibe w that. no pressure to respond to this! have a good day, etc etc, it was fun getting to tear into the dteam in a safe space. respect for them and their fanbases, their humor is a little off but i still gotta respect how well theyve done. btw i woke up and rolled over and started typing I haven't proofed this at all so yeah. :) - andy

And your brain is fucking massive yo like u must got chronic back pain too from holdin up all these Thoughts in ur head

I really like. Minecraft fans is So varied cuz like u said it was so very 'cringe' before. I got into mc again n playin it w my siblings years before it Popped Off again entirely cuz i stopped Giving a Shit that it was 'weird' or any a that. N sbi have been goin strong through it So Long both when it was hotshit and when it was "cringe"

N definitely like minecraft ive always noticed has a Massive ndv community. I dont know entirely what it is like definitely part of the 'cringe' factor like u said and also cubes make our brains go brrrr? The aspect of self expression in it? I dont know but we Been Here

I do think dteam's content and shit like. It obviously moved in sync with perceptions of mc to garner a Big General audience. Dream blowing up entirely had to do w the Trends and how mc got popular. Therefore hes audience is Huge and Varied

In contrast w techno n like. He has blown up quite a bit too. But i feel its fair to say he Hasnt altered his content significantly. Or at least like. How its presented, what he does, etc. For fucks sake he doesnt have a stream schedule. And although his content is Still garnering a Large and really varied audience it feels more like. Isolated and homogeneous almost

Like. I can go into the technocord right now and say 'dont forget to take your meds' and at least 20 or so ppl would be all like Oh Fuck Whoops. Theres SO many of us adhd ppl in there. I always goof bout techno jus sayin pspspsps and the neurodivergents crawling up from the floorboards but honest to god. His content and jokes and i suppose Personality jus appeals to us So Much. Same goes for sbi pretty heavily honestly altho i feel its most evident in techno's most Dedicated fans

Also. Lbr. The people who stay through technos schedules and content Droughts are the ones who be hyperfixating Abskfvdkdsjsjsl

BUT going into sbi as a Group like. They are friends. And together they are fucking hilarious. N i feel it strongly like. The fact theyre all such Varied people of different ages and such helps w that shit. It Works So Well.

Long story short being neurodivergent makes you funny as hell letsgo

[normal-thoughts-official]

Do you have any hcs for Magnus taking ppl to pride for the first time? I kinda feel like he’d act as a guide for others, making sure everyone feels safe and happy during their first time. Like, I can picture him bringing daylighter Raphael out for the first time, showing Meliorn around (bc even though they’ve been around for a while, the Seelies don’t really do human stuff) and holding Alec’s hand while he looks around in amazement.

well surprise surprise this got very long. bet y’all never saw that coming

ok so i particularly love this ask because like, the idea of meliorn going to pride for the first time is a riot and i adore it

like seelie society has developed completely independently from mundane society in every way, hell, it existed before humans did. so there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that their culture even has the concepts of gender of sexuality, and believing that it would be the same as modern western ones is just straight up anachronistic tbh

so like personally i hc that seelie society has no gender (and therefore no concept of sexuality in the way that we see it), so the idea of pride- doesn't even make sense to them, cuz there's no concept of these identities, much less a history of oppression that would bring forward the need to celebrate their resistance like there currently is

so meliorn would want to go just to like, see what that's like and what's it all about. and the whole time they're just following Magnus around and like, taking notes. hm, interesting, what is this trans thing again? ah yes, people who dont think their personality matches the one mundanes believe would be brought by their genitals. hm. fascinating. and Magnus is just like, laughing loudly and it's the best pride he's ever been to, because he knows how ridiculous queerphobia and cishetnormativity are, but meliorn can make that so clear in their words in a way thats just, like, fantastic to hear, you know? and they dont even mean to, but it's great all the same

plus meliorn actually does feel good because a lot of people look at them and smile broadly or even wave, especially younger people who are just like, in awe of them and Magnus, who are so unapologetically gnc and indisputably beautiful, and looking at them is just like, inspiring, you know? and Meliorn has never felt this admired and appreciated and they dont even fully understand why, they're just walking around in their usual clothing and leaf makeup and everyone is just like, in love with them. and it's nice. they can tell there's an edge of sadness to the whole thing, like how their normal everyday existence seems to be so shocking and refreshing for these people, but mostly they feel good about it

later they bring their findings to the other seelies - you know, the ones who dont usually leave the realm and are way less familiar with mundane culture(s) than they are - and the others are like. shut up. there's no way this is real. the shape of their genital defines what wavelength they are supposed to find appealing? this makes no sense. and meliorn's like "idk what to tell u buddy i literally physically can't lie" and they're like surely this is an elaborate prank

but anyway it's fun and nice and they enjoy it greatly and ask Magnus a lot of questions, and Magnus loves going with them more than anyone else because its just so fun and the way this is completely unnatural to them feels refreshing - Magnus doesnt have to explain why he feels the way he feels, for once, but rather he has to explain why people dont get that, and thats a good change tbh

okay onto other ppl im sorry for this tangent djdndjdndk RAPHAEL YES. god i just. okay i love the mental image of Magnus taking Raphael to pride aaaaaaaa

like okay first of all so many layeRS to make this emotional, okay. the fact that he's now a daylighter and can enjoy being out in the sun, the fact that this is a bright costumed parade and it kinda reminds him of the día de los muertos parade and makes him feel at home, the fact that he gets to celebrate and meet other ace ppl - just, so many good things going on here dundidmdi

and Raphael was kinda unsure about going because 1- pride can get pretty sexual at times, and while he gets it and doesn't mind other people's business, he doesn't want to be hit on or participate in that; 2- big crowd makes senses go craycray and it can get very overwhelming and he's scared of overload, plus it's just not his scene in general with huge parties and such. but a part of him does want to go and he's torn, so of course Magnus is immediately like "oh dear, don't worry, i can take you, i'll make sure it's good" and Raphael is like okay

so Magnus takes him and it's :') nice, because as always he’s just so attentive. disclosure i’ve only ever been to the São Paulo pride so i’m gonna go with how it works in here but im assuming it’s not that different in like, other places. also São Paulo currently has the biggest pride parade in the world along with NYC so you know, i think it’s influential at the very least

anyway so he finds a section that’s led by ace pride groups, one that’s considerably small (in number of ppl) and spacious, and it’s. nice. very nice. magnus makes it a point to paint the ace pride colors on raphael’s face (we deserve raphael in makeup tbh) and raphael is all like “it’s fine, it’s not like i’ll want to draw a lot of attention” (like he isn’t wearing the ace flag colors already) and magnus is like hush, let me have this, i want my boy to have a good pride experience. so raphael lets him and hides his smile and lets him, and it’s. cute okay

also idk why but i have the mental image of raphael seeing some other latino guy with some sign like. “i’m not your fetish” or something of the sort, and kind of tearing up because his whole life he’s been seen as this kind of sexual fantasy that couldn’t not be about sex, much less not be interested in it, and he feels seen. and it’s nice, okay

and as promised it’s not too overwhelming in matters of like people, tactile issues and such (there’s little magnus can do about the noise other than spell raphael to decrease his sensitivity so he doesn’t get overwhelmed, which is not ideal because it makes communication a bit harder between them, but he does it anyway if raphael asks him to), and if raphael gets tired, they can always turn into a corner and take a portal back home and cuddle the post-crowd jitteriness away. so it’s a success. and raphael hugs magnus later and thanks him and says that it was so great, that he’s missed this, the energy and the colors and the sun, and he never thought he’d get to have it again, and he did thanks to magnus. and magnus hugs him back and tells him “anything for you, my boy,” and it’s the sweetest thing okay im emo

also okay this still falls under Raphael and Meliorn but the POLYCULE okay, or at least saiaphaeliorn. like sign me the fuck up for the 4 of them together at pride, meliorn and magnus helping make some cute pride-themed makeup on the other 3, just aaaaaaaaa. maia looking absolutely gorgeous with her face framed in the bright bi colors, maybe a sunny dress with the trans flag colors? just because i think she’d look so cute in like, a mostly white dress with baby pink and blue details, okay. simon just paints the pan flag on his cheek but it’s still vibrant and cute and it suits him. and ghhghghghg meliorn delicately painting raphael’s face with colorful glitter..... effervescent, okay. just beautiful

and they get to hold hands in public and laugh and crack jokes and simon loves the music and the festival and raphael smiles fondly at him and maia singing along (him and meliorn definitely don’t know what the fuck they’re singing, but it’s okay because they’re clearly happy and that makes the two of them happy too) and just duahsdiahdaiuha soft okay. also they all get to experience meliorn’s takes on the whole thing and it’s fantastic and as usual meliorn gets raphael to laugh until he almost cries, and simon smiles brightly at the sight and gives meliorn a peck for their efforts, and just aaaaaaaa

in short they’re SOFT and i’m SOFT. and look yes i know that usually parades esp big ones are super crowded (lord knows the SP pride parade is an experience) but if in SP with 5 million ppl parading i could find sections with less people where you had enough space to walk holding hands and hear each other and not be overwhelmed, then i’m sure they can too, especially with magic and powers at their disposal. so i’m going to have this

also like. as much fun as this is for magnus (and it definitely is, it’s very nice to get to enjoy to be himself openly, and to bring kids there for their first time, and you know), it’s also bittersweet because like. he was there at stonewall, he was there for the first pride, you know? and apart from the obvious part where he lost so many friends who were there, there’s just. the very bad memories of the riots, because as important as they are and as much as he obviously doesn’t regret them, riots are hard, they are the language of the oppressed. he’s had to magically protect people from being shot by the police, he’s had to withstand trial by the Clave for using magic to shield the people from the tear gas and risking being seen, he’s had to save a lot of lives and he’s failed at it sometimes, too (i’ll always hc that he’s the reason neither Marsha nor Sylvia died during the riots and you can pry that away from my cold, dead hands). and he’s also seen it be whitewashed and lose some of its resistance and meaning, he’s seen Sylvia be booed at a later march when she spoke against imprisonment, and he’s seen so much be lost

and in that sense going to pride with alec later on might be his favorite, because it’s not like, a first time where he’s trying to get everyone to have the most fun they can and shit, you know? plus alec loves watching more than he does participating, he feels way too exposed in the crowded streets with so many openings and whatnot. but watching from a rooftop, where he has the best view, can still hear the sounds and enjoy the colors and the beauty of it from a distance? that’s perfect for him, and it’s a different experience

and magnus sits by his side as they watch, hand in hand, and reminisces about everything that he’s experienced after so many years, all the changes he’s seen, how he feels pride but he also feels loss and he feels old, and he fears what happens if pride’s history is forgotten, you know? and alec listens to him, listens to his version of this story, playing with magnus’ fingers and just enjoying the sound of his voice and the sight. and it’s nice. alec is always super attentive and enjoys hearing him talk and magnus can get lost in his memories unapologetically, you know? and it’s good

but that’s later on, of course, when they’ve already attended plenty together. for alec’s first pride he probably wants it to be like, perfect, so much so that alec has to tell him to slow down again, because of course magnus wants alec to have The Full Pride Experience, but alec would rather soak it up slowly than participate in a lot of stuff, anyway. magnus paints the rainbow flag on his cheek (one of the only occasions alec lets magnus put glitter on him, then promptly complains for the next three months because i swear that stuff is still on my skin, magnus, the other day i found some on my shoes! and magnus laughs at his antics as always and alec is forced to laugh too and can’t even be mad) and they kind of stay more by the end, and alec is kind of smiling in disbelief to himself the whole time as he watches all the colors and the unapologetic way people express their pride, and magnus can’t stop looking at him and grinning, too. and they walk hand in hand and it’s cute

(later, magnus says, see, mundane culture isn’t so bad, is it? and alec looks at him with a way more serious look, full of joy and happiness, and says, no, it isn’t. and kisses him and thanks him for everything, and it’s sweet)

also I'm soft thinking about Magnus reminiscing about planning the first pride along with "his dear friend Brenda" to Alec and/or Raphael, them putting their arms around his shoulder as he tells them the softer stories, too, the good things they did

small bonus: Magnus plays 2 truths and a lie with Simon regarding his memories of past prides, and Simon gets it wrong every time and is all wide eyed by the end, which makes both Magnus and Raphael laugh :)

[incarnateirony]

as an emerging lgbtq+ (i'm 'BT') guy i am so glad you're making the point you made in your last post. I've always gravitated towards Dean because he is so 'imperfect' in his queerness, like me. but he's not a uwu soft queer so apparently that bothers a lot of ppl on here? Especially younger queer women, I've noticed. But a lot of guys, cis and trans, struggle with being attracted to men so much in a way that is simply different (not better or worse) than (1/2)

being wlw, especially depending on one’s generation and region, etc. basically what i’m saying is a lot of the few queer men that there are in the fandom stay quieter as it is almost completely queer women dictating what is and what isnt, and not quite empathizing with the unique struggle many queer men have with internalized homophobia/being Unmanly for being attracted to men. hope this wasn’t too all over the place, ive had this on my mind for a Long time and i’m glad you brought it up. (2/2)

ps: I’m not trying to put down queer women for being a significant part of the fandom. I just really wish the environment of the fandom felt more like somewhere queer men’s voices can be heard better, considering the largest pairing is, needless to say, mlm

Well, first of all, welcome Nonnie. I take it you’re addressing this untitled post addressing intersectionality, representation vs tokenization, represented demographics and just general motivations of those in discussion, yes? (x)

You’ll find this is a longstanding topic of my blog, be it excavating creator commentary people have buried for their own motivations and talked down and around, or dual faceted issues. 

(If you haven’t read the crosslinks on the post you’re addressing, you may want to read The Problem With Dreamhunter (x) It discusses exactly this issue, even if it was written over a year ago at that point, showing just how cyclic this issue is. It talks about MLM/WLW intersectional issues, migrating goalposts, a bunch of show stuff and some of Bobo’s sociopolitical commentary from 2003 about advancing LGBT representation through moderate incremental methods being proven effective at expanding the media presence/platform exponentially above liberal, or more severe/extreme styles)

But when it comes down to it, basically: Yeah, you right.

I didn’t just arbitrarily develop this opinion. I didn’t… just magically tune in to what the LGBT men that literally dodge fandom, for exactly the reasons you say, and know it’s because of the reasons you say – like that didn’t manifest. It came from leaving fandom (un)”safe” spaces. It came from engaging a great variety of LGBT males in real life, many of which engage the content. From observing how they spoke of the content in multifandom servers, or even *why* they chose to avoid speaking up.

And no, I personally didn’t get a read of you, like, insulting LGBT women for their part in fandom. Women engage social media for primetime TV fandoms at an exponential rate above men, so it’s almost unavoidable and it’s nobody’s fault really, but that says nothing for the perpetual habit of drowning out their voices to the fact that– well, they literally abandon engaging.

I’ve seen it enough times it *hurts* me. I shouldn’t *have* to pull my gay writing buddy out of holes to face this, and him still hide silently. I shouldn’t *have* to be the vein of news and information on the show to the bi male friend I have that refuses to touch this fandom. I shouldn’t *have* to even speak up about this. I really do want *you all* to speak up about this, because I can only speak so far, because you’re right: OUR JOURNEYS ARE DIFFERENT.

Hell, even a cis lgbt male vs a trans lgb(t obvious) male have entirely different journeys even though they’re both validly men. These battles are not the same. One community can speak up to defend another, and help hold them up and amplify them if there’s just not enough of them to project the way they need to, and this is something *greatly under respected* in this fandom. Nobody’s holding up the LGBT male voices when actually talking about representation. And you’re right, it’s mostly women, and you’re right, our path is different and our struggles and needs and wants and lives are different. But unless you take a considerable amount of time talking and sharing and learning personally the perspective of the LGBT male community, you’re not… really… helping them speak.

And let it be said, “holding up LGBT male voices” does not and should never equate to “despite having multiple LGBT men saying one thing, I found the one LGBT male saying the thing that matches what I want, who may or may not even actually be in the targeted demographic set of the character we’re discussing representation about, because it’s more than just being bi, it’s entire lives, paths and challenges– but you know, I found the ONE, so fuck the others.” That’s using your friends as tokens and cards. If you want to genuinely add to the conversation, what you do is you introduce your male LGBT friend to the other male LGBT friends and let them have a long conversation to talk out the sources of their disagreements before engaging in conversation.

But drawing a pretty base line collective from all people in the represented demographic, respectfully learning the majority wants and needs and struggles, and helping voice those is pretty key.

Women can sit here all day, and pass around things they’ve been told by other women are woke points, or things that sound progressive and good, and often sort of decontextualized from their purpose (be that the dresswear mentioned shortly hereafter, or what LGBT want/expect/SHOULD want or expect – but in the end, if you’re not sitting down and having dialogues – not just with one, or two, or even three LGBT men – but large handfuls and subsets, able to actually critically examine the differences in LGBT males of gen X, Y, or Z and their lives and stories – if you’re not doing that… If *that* isn’t the core of your discussion values, rather than pass-along buzz vibes– then you’re really not talking representation. You think you are. But you’re not.

There’s the uh. Thing. You noticed. About how women expect the men to engage.

When it comes to young queer women, I’m going to risk pissing some people off, but the long and short of it is (I could probably dig up the link but it’s been an eternity) a while ago they ran a psychological study to figure out why young women were attracted to yaoi, and gay porn, especially what is essentially stereotypical force-role type gay porn. It has to do with blooming attraction, primal fear, and trying to make the men more appealing in a way that does not intimidate them. 

This later manifests into feminizing them, setting twink/bear roles that go beyond into top/bottom, and conflating it with penetration, position, power, dom/sub, fork/spoon, sometimes served with a dose of internalized misogyny being projected into the vessel of whatever twink/sub is positioned, and generally— like, kink culture. Often this is passed with narrowly progressive-masked arguments of “Men should be allowed to be feminine if they want!” rather than a genuine answer to, “Why do you perpetually heterosexually resize, or reframe, and enforce heterosexual structure onto characters that do not meet this mold, and why is that a personal gain to you?” because in the end– it’s a personal gain. And again, at that point it’s not about representation.

Now again, I’m not… shaming anyone for having a kink. But kink/fetish needs/wants have blurred themselves in as if to hedge on equal territory to discussing canon content. Or sprinkling the quite literal fetishized art (power to you if that’s your thing, I guess, even if I do bear discomfort over fetishization of any LGBT demographic, even by another LGBT demographic) and reasoning with dialogue that implies it as being representative, and inserting that into the representation discussion, which *literally* just makes the entire bog muddier, makes the LGBT men trying to speak more easily dismissed in a vat of “just women/fetishists”, it just– it’s Not a Good. I’m… personally not a fan of it. Like at all. A lot of it makes me angry tbh. So I don’t engage. I don’t browse fanfiction. I look at very little art. 

Hell most of the people around here don’t even realize it’s actually a *minority* of LGBT men that choose to engage in penetrative sex, but it’s become a topic of outright obsession around here. There is so much simple… lack of awareness and discussion of the lives LGBT men lead, even by LGBT women because again – we don’t have your path. We can only listen to you. (And BOY have I gotten earfuls from my LGBT male friends absolutely going apeshit banana bonkers over fandom’s obsession with penetration culture, gender role enforcement while feigning it as liberation, and all kinds of other stuff. And that’s what I base most of my talking points on.)

Because if I’m going to talk representation, I’m going to talk about representing the demographic the character is supposed to represent, not molding him into a tokenized wash-over of every single person’s wants. If you’re an LGBT woman that can resonate with Dean Winchester, that’s great. Sometimes representation can be shared. But a character’s origin determines what demo he represents and not all of any given representative’s character’s attributes, methods, functions, anything – not all of it is going to meet any one person’s goals collectively, but the target demographic is inevitably closer to it.

Another point to raise is that it feels like people have lost track of *what* the representation battle is about. It isn’t just about any one person attaching to any one character. It’s about developing a TVscape that looks more representative of the real world, with a fair presence of PoC, of women, of LGBT people of all types, of the disabled community, of people that are even more than one of these, of people with different stories: people. About, well, normalizing it, because it should be normal. About saturating television enough that one day, and that day will not just be tomorrow per convenience, that people won’t be desperate for representation even vaguely in their wheelhouse, that they can turn on and see people of any intersectional type and go– wow, the world finally realizes we’re real. And that in that wide, realistic menu, yes, being able to turn a channel and eventually see someone *just like you*. A day when any show turned on has at least *someone* in your wheelhouse because every show eventually should have some sort of realistic spread, but if you find the *right* show, *there you are.*

That’s how it’s built. We don’t start by footstomping and tokenizing everyone to be vaguely representative of everyone or it doesn’t count because it didn’t work for *them*. We start by sharing truly diverse narratives, each unique to their own, just as diverse as straight stories are, maybe even more. That’s the only way you’re actually going to end up with a TVscape full of The Gays, and full enough to find *explicitly yourself* in there.

Deleting normalized, non-sensationalist text for lacking either visibility or flavor, even if you weren’t the intended demographic for it to speak to, is quite literally contrary to the entire fight.

and tbh?

This shit is why I hate shipping culture.

And I say that as someone who presumably “ships” Dean and Cas, if it’s shipping to address canon bullshit happening in front of you and just watch the show as it folds out without going into denial for *whatever* personal reason. 

There’s a lot of well intended people, most shipping fandom is full of good beans, but as a collective group – skewed by sociopathically manipulated dialogues we can literally track the origins of – have been driven into much of the above while genuinely believing they were doing the right thing, in a long chain of being told this was what and how to fight for, without really stopping and critically examining the nuance of the conversation. Because why would you? Seems to be the popular gay thing to do – while a lot of bisexual people currently hide their commentary via reblog hashtags or hedge awkwardly into an anon box sideways.

That all said, it continues to be my focus. It will never change on this blog. I will never surrender to being pressured, be it by antis or bitters or people just wanting to argue, into pretending things that were text are subtext. I will not move that goalpost. You are real, and you are valid, and you are welcome in my inbox any time, Nonnie, confidentiality guaranteed. Like, DM too.

but lmao like shit, dawg. There’s a reason the LGBT guys I’ve had as writing partners as Dean literally refuse to play with another Cas. That’s not just because I’m a *super aweSOME auTHOr*, it’s because they recognize I do not come from the wing lost to fanfiction, to troll wars, or even to shipping culture, love of a ship be damned. I don’t try to force gender roles on them. I listen when they speak, and often, surprise many with the angle I ever enter discussion or listening from to begin with, because of spending so many years listening to begin with. It’s an intrinsic understanding of why they resonate with the content, not what I can pull some transformative art stuff on or wanting to *make* it into anything else to fit *my* molds. It’s because of being someone engaged to the male perspective, without the need to twist or change a character to be content with it, and being WILLING to hold those challenging conversations.

Listen first. Talk later. But never in front of or over the people you claim to be talking for.

[cs-discourse]

sugar, homophobia, and everything in between

very long. lmao. but hear me out for a moment.

i know this salt blog is a mess but uhh big sugar for the general cs community, or at least who's here. i used to be part of another community and they'd literally shut me out and protect homophobes/bigots, saying that everyone, even -phobes, was "entitled to their own opinion". it took a big toll on me knowing they allowed bigots to freely oppress lgbt+ without repercussions, and it was even more taxing for people to tell me I was toxic for simply saying that, hey, we as lgbt+ have feelings too, and being discriminated against in what was supposed to be a safe and public space for everyone just feels like suffocation. they'd say i was against straight people, and "why are you so against cishet ppl but you're wanting equality?" and i just. why don't you understand that all i want is to feel proud of who i am without having people trampling my pride or taking it away from me? the straight people have had and always will have it good, but maybe let's give this time to the lgbt+ community, y'know? (i'm not against straights for the record; my boyfriend is straight and i love him dearly and never take his sexuality against him. it's just that there are so many straight people who just don't get it, like. sit down and listen to our woes for a moment.)

i want to apologize if anyone found me being kind of harsh, especially with the recent discussions. i just think it's highly unfair that we aren't being given the love and respect every human being should be given, just because we're being discriminated for who we are. being part of the lgbt+ isn't some fad or guise to get attention, it's who we are and i don't understand how hard it is to fathom that. i just feel down whenever i see people putting the lgbt+ in bad light for literally just asking bare minimum. i feel even more down when people say i'm asking too much.

i also want to apologize that i stirred up drama in what was supposed to be old art; i had thought it was recent considering there were some recent comments above mine and i didn't bother checking the OP before my comment was already recorded. maybe it's what lostfairy said: maybe it's not what it seems. maybe they've changed. i don't know and at this point i don't bother to know bc i'm sick of them and i'm done interacting with them. but next time in your vent art, maybe don't blatantly draw protesters with signs of "love us/equality/respect us" if you don't want to stir things up, yeah? esp if you're homophobic. it'll rub people off the wrong way if you hint things like that, trust me.

so anyway, on to some more sugar: i can't express just how much support i've been seeing recently from yall, it's such a fresh breath of air to not be screamed at for "being so against straight people" or whatever bs. this salt blog is still one fucking mess but at least yall got some of your morals right. never stop supporting the lgbt+ community, we definitely need equality and support now more than ever!! never let a few bad apples ruin who you are, you go raise your own flags and you raise your flags PROUDLY.

anyway phew that's all. hope this doesn't stir up anything more, i honestly wanted this as a closure for myself in the recent drama. if you still want to talk more (though im bad at convos pls) you can DM me on CS or discord! skarmoury#9386 is where it's at.

okay yeah. love yall. peace.

- f1owercrown