#i dont understand youth culture at all btw

[freebooter4ever]

Hey thanks I thought I was the only one who didn’t like the joke. Everyone laughed yuck

Ahhhhh yeah :/ i thought the joke was definitely funny, but with that harsh twinge of sadness at just how normalized and accepted this sort of sexism STILL is.

' i was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes, i get older but your lovers stay my age '

And its not necessarily a damnation of the man himself - obviously rami is a favorite of mine but i dont think hes ever dated anyone over 30 and is veering towards jake and leo disease too, and i still think rami is one of the most brilliant character narrative builders in the business currently - but its a damnation of a culture that treats romantic partners not as equals but as disposable play things with an expiration date. Look, i got flirted with by much older guys in pittsburgh all the time - usually it was cute, they were friendly, very complimentary and flattering about it, and they never treated it seriously or asked me out. Then i came to LA and the difference was night and day. Older (rich) men here feel entitled to younger women in a way that is frankly scary - at one point in a bar when a guy in his 60s was hitting on me my muscular male friend had to physically step between us and scare the guy off to get him to go away.

And it doesn't help that im sort of in the 'one of the guys' category, so i've heard the way these super rich dudes talk about the models they date behind their back while hanging with 'the guys', and, ugh, its not nice. I will say one thing for sports dudes - i imagine guys like ja*gr have way more respect for young women who are passionate about health and fitness than computer science executives.

But there's negatives in the sports world too - yall know how much i adore taylor. But even i recognize that she's not 'sports bro hot' - she doesn't have silicone, her make up is understated, she doesn't have that social media defined 'hotness' that sports fan dudes expect their sports heroes to date. So while i was naively scrolling insta looking for cute snapshots of taylor and travis being all lovey dovey at the end of the game, a good half the comments were men complaining about her. Saying they cant understand why travis is dating someone so old, that she will never be able to give him kids, that she's already showing her age (both of them are 34 btw). So far travis seems to ignore these types of comments but it would be hard to judge him for giving into peer pressure because this stuff is just so prevelant and exhausting.

And it does effect us older women - while i was dating Pilot Boy i was absolutely hyper aware of the fact that here is this rich, handsome, successful, and extremely smart guy dating beneath him. Like we bonded over being literally the same age - we had mutual friends in college without even knowing it. But i was always questioning like what does this guy see in me - why isn't he dating a gorgeous 25 year old whose only goal in life is to live on the beach with him??? Like he was honestly more the type of dude i would be friends with while he dates hotter women, lol. So i really was not surprised when he ended things (i was mostly sad that we couldnt stay friends and continue geeking out on airplanes and history together LOL), it just felt like it made sense, of course he wouldn't be serious about me, a guy like him should be dating a fresh, youthful, less bitter and cynical 25 yr old blonde. Six years in LA and this is just the pattern i see repeating itself over and over.

And im the romantic - when i fall in love its ALL in. Usually it's personality, usually its intellectual - that comfort in finding someone who just understands how you think. I love being so close to someone that you know them better than yourself, that you can communicate wordlessly. Shared humor, shared experience. As i age im learning that i actually dont pay much attention to the signs of aging when it comes to attraction - who notices wrinkles when what you're in love with is that look in their eye when they smile at you? The mental connection between romantic partners is the most important for me in my book. For me this typically means someone within the ten year range plus or minus - though i prefer it even within a five year age gap.

[misterbitches]

hi @yeedak thank you so m uch for replying with what you did. YAY ADHD!!!!! ur partner sounds like she rocks >:)  as do u

i found it really illuminating and i agree with all of it. and god as much as i understand reticence when black people are interracially dating (it is so hard) i also hate it when people dictate it and also to a degree that it makes it extremely uncomfortable for the person themselves. to me it really is about a sense of control particularly if you are a woman. constantly trying to pick someone’s life partner for them instead of letting them find out if it’s a) something they want or even want to do b) something they can handle and c) their experience. it can purely cultural as well. my mom is a black american but my father is nigerian and that was basically a sin. however my father’s siblings? the women who had to marry extremely quickly and had to be with nigerian men or at the very least african? divorced. because they had to clamor for love for approval, pop out babies, and look what that got them. i totally understand you and  your mother. and you’re right about all of it.

the idea of a man whore is so funny to me too because it’s not about sexual liberation it’s literally about them wanting to use people as disposable which is why sexual liberation for women as well can be confusing. but all of this isn’t so we can develop our own imaginations and find out our own inhibitions. like you said in all of it and i found this part very very interesting and true, “youth is for sex and no mention of asexuality.” when you get older you are not sexual, when you are a child you are unsure about it, but there’s a time in our lives where we shouldn’t waste it, where it’s only acceptable in that window, where it’s dictated. tangentially i think it’s very funny that the people we sleep with also become a point of pride. let’s say if he is a man (as a bisexual~**~ gorl) but he’s ugly, i should be ashamed, too?

so much boxing in and pushing and dictating. they really are here to spread a message. and i know things ar ehard. i can believe people ask you that but it’s still so.....weird? i remember saying something about my sexuality once and it’s not like i knew the people but then they started asking me questions and i honestly felt embarrassed and like an outsider. i dunno.

and your analogy of a mirror was perfect woaaaaaaah that’s what im gonna say now thank you so much credit to you. gENIUS!!! as real life changes, what we see changes. but media doesnt come first.

also totally agree about watching what people consume and not falling into those patterns. and when “bad” things are shown i do not understand why shows are so scared to show them as they are or not romanticize. a real issue to introduce when it comes to age gaps would be why it is frequent in the lgbtq+ community. that is a real thing because when you have to hide yourself of course you can be stuck in a state of arrested development and trying to re-establish times you may never have. that’s a geniuine fear and concern, it’s understandable even if i don’t particularly care for it, but it’s like for these writeres there’s no reason to look deeply or put that into their story. so why are they doing it? and what is the message here? uGH. and what ur mother said makes so much sense we are just constantly absorbing all these messages and culture absolutely aids to it and you’re right about the generations. and sometimes things stop and start but i genuinely think (and know) that for us to continue forward and not have the constant backwards taht means we have to push to get there and demand and that also means we have to make an effort to end the harm we then see on screen. rape culture dictates these shows. it relies on it. it is disgusting but rape culture is the norm, the norm is the oppression so we have to attack it otherwise it sticks and htat’s exactly why we see what we see.

and the unacceptability of gender fluidity is what keeps the genre SO INFLEXIBLE sincerely. it honestly just pulls so heavily from patriarchy and the roles in which we have to follow to uphold that structure. 

it’s really just not enough to show us things any more wihtout taking it into consideration. and like ive mentioned there’s soooooooooo much media that has a lot to say that embeds itself. there’s this thing my friend linked me to on re-examining queerness in korean cinema (much like my dad’s country; patriarchal, more “conservative, anti lgbtq+, reliant on capital. africa is different because of the blackness component but the structures aided by colonialism absolutely remain and continue and that’s how we see such similarities. thse countries are more “overt” in this output but still you know. america. sucks) because we are trying to re-evaluate what it means to be heard and seen. the different ways and sort of the message that a lot of us as lgbtq+ can feel. you know, how we can get a feeling on if a person has our same experience, how we kind of have to learn to identify that. not sure if this makes sense...

your mom sounds really cool. and i’m fucking sorry. so many men do that. i live with both my parents but even then i see this power imbalance i can’t stand and you know i would have believed it was normal if i wasnt able to learn aand had to build up thinking skills. there was one day that it hit me that there are parts of my parents relationship i abhor, that are imbalanced, that make me find my father disgusting and make me ashamed of my mother. i don’t want that to happen to me or my potential children. if i have a male partner for life, which i am sure i will because offffffff heteronormativity and homophobia and being half black american half nigerian, he cannot recreate that. i am optimistic on what people can do without needing such grand structures or the support of the elite etc you know? that’s how we know there’s good work that exists and people we can find that arent with the status quou!!! 

and who want a better world. we have to know we can rally that together. i think part of that is constant demanding of things to do better. there’s a rage against the machine song called settle for nothing and it’s about 0 compromise. there’s a famous quote i dont remember by who that’s basically like there’s an idea that there’s a limit to asking for dignity and what you deserve because when people realize they can live better lives they want to cultivate that more and more but that means a loss of control and a sharing of power from the top. nothing is ever enough if it can be better and we are allowed to demand it (or take it.) we deserve the world, we are being told that we’re asking fo rtoo much. are we? really? 

i was thinking about the children thing as well bc...lmao i was so tightly contorlled as a child and it really messed me up but at the same time, like you, i honestly do not want my children watching drivel. like even with youtube. a friend of mine said that what she thinks she will do is try and hammer home how fantastical these things are, they do not reflect reality, and to get them to understand the spectacle. at the same time i’m like does a child really need to watch these dumb tiktok stars or jake paul? but then im like i really dont want to control them. but like what if ur kid asks u to go to some like fucking BL concert or some shit like what do you say to that?!??! I DONT WANNA SAY NO BUT AT THE SAME TIME UHHHHlmao but at the same time we have to give them tools to analyze and do the right things and follow their hearts

however,

as you know

LOL

tysm for responding, lovely talking to you and hearing your thoughts!!!

oh btw so u r from kashmar? that is very cool......VERY COOL

[normal-thoughts-official]

Spare opinions and headcanons on trans magnus

[cracks knuckles so hard they all break]

okay honestly there are always new trans magnus headcanons to be had but i was talking to kinkym and i realised i never said anything about magnus' transition so

okay so like. magnus knew he was trans ever since he was a kid and that was fine mostly. stepfather was a bit of a dick but he was fine. but because of his stepfather and some other ppl being kind of dicky, magnus started considering trying to change his overall appearance and body. also he already kind of had an interest in medicine/chemistry and he prolly studied a lot about plants' and animal parts' natural properties. he didnt go very far with that regarding his transition but it solidified his interest in related things which would help him later.

so once he started learning to get ahold of his magic, both before and after asmodeus, he started using that. Ive said in another ask that i think magic works like both a sense and a limb in sh lore. so he started using it to kind of try and understand the workings of his body better, you know? and with that he slowly learned how to make changes. and then when puberty started to kick in he noticed the changes in his blood and yeah, that's how Magnus figures out hormones on his own (im not gonna say he discovers it cuz like other warlocks probably already know and i would bet good money that other cultures had already figured this out before modern western did - that only happened in the first decade of the 20th century btw - but you know, he figured out magic by himself, so he's self taught on that department). and so he starts making adjustments on his hormone levels so his puberty is different. but that's kind of a pain, specially because theres such a delicate balance and hormones actually have a very complex self-regulating system (I SWEAR IM NOT MAKING COMPLICATED RESEARCH FOR THIS I ALREADY KNEW THAT I JUST WANTED TO PUT A SOURCE BECAUSE I LIKE SHARING INFORMATION) so what the fuck is going on, right? so he uses magic to study these relations between hormones, and figures out how they relate to each other and where they all come from - so then he just goes on and makes some changes in his adrenal glands and voilà, natural testosterone production + basically a degree in endocrynology at this point. that is why he has a flat chest, is tall and etc; he basically took self made puberty blockers and T because hes a small baby genius who loves science and has a deep liking for chemistry and relationship with nature and ugh im so emo about little scientist magnus

once he joins the warlock community he shares his findings with other warlocks and he is delighted to learn all they know about every subject as well - that's when he falls in love with physichs and starts his portals project, but thats another topic i have way too many headcanons about so lets leave it at that. for a while hes just deep into studyings of science and magic and how he can use them together - wait i said i would move on. fuck. shit. i fucked up. fuck

and like again warlocks are super cool about him being trans, again warlocks dont care about gender and know its all fake anyway, so do seelies - also considering seelies have an even deeper relationship with nature and magic he could also learn so much with them, fuck - vampires are kind of whatever, depends on when they were born really, so his environment is pretty chill when it comes to that. also, hes enby, plus for many years men wearing makeup and "feminine" clothing was perfectly normal and it kind of balanced out his super masc body because he wanted a little more of a mix. but mundanes were shit, so in his mundane life he had to hide most of the time. but look, trans ppl have always existed, and there was something of a queer scene ever since, well, queer expression started being repressed lmao. so what im trying to say is that he met other mundane trans kids and being the sweetheart serial adopter that he is, he not only took them under his wing and tried to protect and help them (with whatever; safe binding, finding a job, struggling with having to hide, the whole shebang, he had enough experience to have useful insight on pretty much any topic) when he met someone who was dysphoric or wanted particular changes in their body he just. secretly did it. like he would "feel" their organism's workings with his magic and just casually adjust some stuff and suddenly they were growing T/Estrogen and becoming more androgynous and wow, what gives? theres kind of a rumor that gets spread that this one bar has magical transitioning properties and it kind of becomes a hot spot for trans youth after that. and that's super cool, so they make the most of it and slowly a trans community starts growing there, with ppl helping each other ge away from abusive environments and housing and protecting other ppl from violence and shit like that. and it's just. an amazing thing that Magnus kind of started and got to be an active part of building and making. ugh im so emo.

and as the 20th century nears those just keep spreading, and magnus is so happy to see that these mundane kids now have something similar to what he has in the warlock/seelie community - a place where it doesnt matter and theres active solidarity and support. Ive already said that i think magnus was at stonewall helping protect the rioters about a million times so i will refrain from saying it again but i will say i headcanon that Magnus was good friends with Sylvia Rivera - an amazing, bisexual latina trans woman who fought to end prison and for queer liberation. ggghhhhhhhggghhh and okay that's what i have so far because every time someones like "hey do you have any thoughts about [subject i have a lot of thoughts about]" i immediately forget all my thoughts but, uh, hmu with more trans magnus questions lmao i live for that shit