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drarrily-we-row-along · 3 years

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Pride

Dear nonnie who requested that I write something for Pride month, I'm so, so sorry! Somehow this got lost in my inbox and I didn't see it until I started working on 'Bargain' this afternoon. Please accept this humble ficlet and my deepest apologies. <3

I'm kind of nervous about this one. I know coming out is a deeply personal experience and I'm not sure I wrote it terribly well. Please know that you are loved, valued, cherished, and accepted just as you are. I know for many people the struggle is so much greater than what I wrote in this ficlet. You are all amazing. <3

cw: Internalized homophobia, homophobic parents (happy ending)

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June 12, 1999

"Hey!" Harry said, bursting into Draco's room like it was his own.

Draco looked up from the essay he was writing, the last one he needed to finish for his eighth year at Hogwarts. "Hi," he replied and he couldn't help but admire the dimple that stood out on Harry's cheek as he smiled at him.

"Some of us are heading down to Hogsmeade for the pride celebration they're having there tonight," Harry said. "Did you want to come?"

His brow furrowed, "Pride? Like house pride?"

Harry laughed but not unkindly like it would have been prior to this year, "No, like gay pride. It's to celebrate people who are lgbtq+, to affirm their dignity and worth as human beings, you know?"

Draco felt his cheeks flushing hot, "I'm not," he managed through the way it felt like someone had closed off his airway, shaking his head, "I'm not gay!"

"Err," Harry said, scratching the back of his neck, "Right, I wasn't trying to imply anything. Just," he shrugged, "I think I'm bi, and there's GInny and Luna," he continued, stumbling over his words.

"But I'm not!" he protested

"Right," Harry repeated, brow furrowing, "We just thought..." he trailed off, "Ron, who's like as straight as they come is coming too, to show his support."

"I can't," Draco said. "I've got all this work to do, I just-"

"It's okay," Harry said, shaking his head and holding out a hand, "Totally fine, sorry to have bothered you," he added as he quickly fled the room before Draco could say anything else.

(Continue reading below the cut)

He stared after him, still feeling panicked and full of regret at the same time.

Malfoys aren't gay. Malfoys aren't gay. Malfoys aren't gay.

And in spite of the fact that he'd told Harry he needed to finish his essay, he spent the rest of the night trying to get his heart to slow down, his breathing to come easier, and his mind to stop spinning.

The essay remained untouched.

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June 9, 2000

Draco was having murderous thoughts.

They had a tradition on Fridays that everyone who lived in Grimmauld sat down together for dinner and if you were dating someone, you were allowed to bring them home with you for dinner. Draco never brought anyone home because the women he dated were so unattractive to him that he just couldn't bring himself to see them for more than a date or two.

Harry, on the other hand was always bringing someone home. He had men and women there with him every week. Usually, it was a different person every week and that didn't bother Draco all that much. But he'd been seeing Conor for six weeks now and the way the other man was always clinging to Harry, always laughing and batting his eyelashes at him; it made Draco feel ready to kill him.

"So I was thinking," Harry said when there was a lull in the conversation, "The Leaky is having a Pride Night celebration tomorrow. Maybe we should all go together?" he asked hopefully.

There were murmurs of approval all around the table and Draco dropped his gaze to his plate, his palms started to itch. Malfoys aren't gay. Malfoys aren't gay.

"What about you, Draco?" Conor asked, all toothy smiles as he rested his arm around Harry's shoulders.

He couldn't help but look over at Harry who was suddenly watching him in that way that made him feel like he was being held under a magnifying glass. People thought that Harry was oblivious but Draco knew they were wrong. Harry knew everything about Draco just from watching him.

Draco swallowed, "Yeah," he managed. "Yeah. I can come for a bit."

Harry smiled at him then, soft and sweet, his dimples showing, "Yeah?" he asked.

And Draco was fairly certain there was nothing he could have said no to when Harry asked like that, so he nodded.

"Great!" Conor enthused and the moment dissipated like fog in the sun. "It'll be so fun to have all of your friends there, babe."

"Err," Harry said, looking over at Conor, "Yeah. Totally." Then he turned back to look at Draco once more, "Yeah," he said again.

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June 10, 2000

Draco had made a mistake.

Malfoys aren't gay. Malfoys aren't gay. Malfoys aren't gay.

"Hey!" Harry said, appearing out of nowhere and wrapping an arm around Draco, "I'm so glad you're here."

"Me too," he lied.

"Come on," Harry said, "Let me introduce you to some people."

Draco spent the next hour meeting all sorts of people, he listened to people telling their stories, people who were claiming their own lives and destinies, and all he could feel was loss.

Every person he listened to felt like another stone tied around his neck, their joy and freedom made him feel even more trapped. Harry went to fetch drinks as he listened to a trans woman named Jocelyn talking about how difficult it had been to come out to her family. And it was the final straw, he lost it. Tears slipped from his eyes and before he could do anything, she was hugging him, "We've all been where you are," she whispered.

He shook his head and pulled back, "I'm not-" he covered his mouth, he couldn't quite force out the lie.

She nodded knowingly, "We've all been there, too."

"I've got to go," he managed, rising on shaking legs and making his way out of the bar as quickly as he could.

When he got outside he bent over, resting his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath.

"Draco!" he heard as the door opened and he wasn't ready for this.

"Don't," he said, standing up and holding out his hands to stop Harry from coming any closer.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, eyebrows furrowing in concern and Draco hated it.

"Malfoys aren't gay!" he exploded.

"What?" Harry asked as though his words hadn't been perfectly clear.

"Malfoys aren't gay," he repeated.

Harry tilted his head at him, "Alright."

"So you can stop this," he said, gesturing at the door. "I don't need help coming out. I'm not gay," he spat.

"I'm not trying to help you come out," Harry said, his voice measured and calm in a way that told Draco just how hard he was working at not getting emotional. "I just wanted to introduce you to-"

"Bull shit," he hissed. "Every person you 'introduced me to' told me about coming out."

"It's Pride, Draco. They're," he stopped and corrected himself, "We're celebrating coming out. We're celebrating not hiding who we are anymore. If you think it's about you, well," he shrugged a shoulder, "You probably have more in common with us than you want to admit."

"I'm not gay!" he shouted, shoving Harry away from him.

There was a flash of hurt across Harry's face before he put his hands on his hips and that fire that Draco so remembered from Hogwarts filled his eyes. "No one said you were!" Harry shouted back. "And if you were so afraid of having people think you are, why did you even come in the first place?"

"I guess I shouldn't have."

Harry took a step back away from him, shaking his head, "I guess not." He turned on his heel and stalked back into the bar, leaving Draco standing on the sidewalk, shaking as the adrenaline flooded through him.

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June 11, 2000

It wasn't quite morning when Draco heard a soft knock at his door.

With no small amount of effort, he reached for his wand and cast a spell to open it. Harry was standing in the doorway and Draco huffed, "I've already packed," he said. "I'll leave in the morning."

"What?" Harry asked, sounding panicked, "No!" he said, stepping across the threshold of Draco's room and moving to the chair across from Draco's bed. "No," he repeated. "Draco, please don't leave. I'm sorry. Alright?" Harry said. "I shouldn't-"

"You're sorry?" Draco asked, sitting up and staring at the other boy, "No, I'm sorry," he said, quickly. "I was awful and I didn't le-"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head, "It's my fault. I shouldn't-"

"I'm gay," Draco blurted and then realized what he'd just admitted. He covered his mouth with his hand and his eyes filled with tears.

"Hey," Harry whispered, climbing onto the bed next to him and pulling Draco into his arms, "It's okay."

Draco shook his head but couldn't manage any words around the sob that was choking him.

"It's okay," Harry soothed, stroking his fingers through Draco's hair and rocking him. "I've got you," he breathed. "You're safe," he said, "You're safe," he repeated. "You're loved and you're accepted," he told him, "I've got you."

Draco sobbed, all of the fear, and the guilt, and the shame was built up high in his chest and he felt like he couldn't breathe around it.

"Okay," Harry soothed, "Slow breaths with me, yeah? Just try to match your breathing to mine," he said, his hand rubbing soothingly over Draco's back.

He sucked in a deep, gasping breath that burned all the way down into his lungs.

"That's it," Harry encouraged, "You're alright."

He continued breathing slowly and Draco tried to mirror it until his sobbing was just the occasional hiccup and the tears were just trickling out of his eyes.

"Okay," Harry breathed. "Better?"

Draco nodded and pulled back, "Sorry," he murmured, then he caught sight of Harry's shirt covered in tears and snot and wished that the earth would open up and swallow him, "Salazar, I'm sorry," he said, reaching for his wand and casting a hasty drying charm followed by a cleaning charm.

"It's fine," Harry said, reaching out to still Draco's motions. "It's fine," he repeated. "Look, I didn't mean to pressure you into coming out," he said. "I won't tell anyone," he added hastily.

He shook his head, "It's eating me up inside." Draco wiped the tears off his face, "I'm going to die alone."

"Don't say that," Harry said.

"Well it's true!" he said, "What am I supposed to tell my parents?"

Harry took his hand, "It's up to you," he said softly. "I won't pretend to understand the challenges you're facing. My parents are dead."

"Oh, thanks. Play the dead parent card."

Harry huffed a laugh, "Shut up. I'm trying to say that I can't imagine how difficult this is for you. It's not an easy decision and I want you to know that I am here for you, that I support you, no matter what."

His eyes filled with tears and he let out a groan, "Stop it."

The other boy wrapped his arms around him, "No."

"What is this?" he asked, from where his face was buried in Harry's neck.

"Affection."

"Disgusting," he murmured.

"Want me to stop?"

He shook his head because when Harry wasn't hugging him everything felt a little too big and a little too close.

And he had no idea what he was going to do but when Harry was holding him it didn't seem quite so scary.

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A few weeks later, he and Harry had started dating in secret. Harry was very sweet, very patient as Draco struggled against years of deeply ingrained negative thoughts. Draco still felt like he was a bit of a burden but Harry always insisted he wasn't.

Just over a month after that, Hermione had figured it out on her own, Pansy had tricked him into confessing, and Ron had walked in on the two of them making out on Harry's bed.

And the world didn't end.

Slowly, over the course of the next seven months, they told all of their friends. Everyone was supportive. Everyone was happy for them, happy for him that he'd decided to walk in the truth.

Truth be told, he was happy too. His anxiety still got the worst of him some days and his fear was sometimes bigger than anything else but he got through those days and those days slowly became fewer and fewer.

He got comfortable with Harry; comfortable holding hands, comfortable with casual kisses, comfortable with bickering that turned into flirting, just comfortable in his skin.

One chilly March morning, he and Harry were out to breakfast and they were laughing and teasing each other, like they always did and Draco was happy all the way down to his toes.

He looked across the table at Harry, "You've got whipped cream on your mouth," he laughed.

Harry stuck his tongue out and missed completely.

"Here," he said with a laugh, "Let me," he added as he grabbed the front of Harry's jumper and pulled him close so he could kiss it off his grinning face.

He was pulling back to check that he'd gotten it all when he heard a gasp that he would have recognized anywhere. Draco would never be quite sure what his face and body language were saying at that moment but Harry was instantly on alert, scanning the room for danger. "Shit," he breathed.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy," his mother hissed. "What in Merlin's name do you think you are doing."

"Don't make a scene, mother," he said and even he was surprised at how calm the words came out.

"I don't think that I am the one making a scene, Draco."

"Mrs. Malfoy," Harry said, "Why don't we go somewhere more private for this conversation."

"Oh no," she said, "I don't think there is any conversation to be had. Draco, we'll be leaving. Right this instant."

Draco looked at her, at the woman who had dried his tears, who had sacrificed for him, who had given him life and his heart yearned for her. He longed to reach out and hold her hand like he had when he was young, to let her reassure him that everything would be alright. And it could be. He knew if he walked away with her today, he'd go back to living the life that had been planned for him.

But then he looked at Harry and all he could see was freedom. His heart expanded as he remembered the late nights talking over a bottle of wine, the early mornings as the sun filtered in through Harry's window and painted him golden. He remembered the cuddles on the couch and the evenings spent cooking dinner together. And he knew that he could never go back. He could never live a life of duty and obligation knowing that this one was possible.

"I love you," he said softly as he stared at Harry.

The other man blinked before his mouth curved up in a grin, his dimples showing, "I love you, too."

He reached for Harry's hand to ground himself as he turned to his mother, "You know that I love you," he said to her, "but I can't live a lie. I can't be the boy that you wanted."

"Draco you are being ridiculous."

"Maybe," he replied. "But I never knew what it was like to be free before these past few months with Harry and I won't give them back."

She cast a belated muffliato. "There are plenty of Purebloods who are gay, Draco," she said, keeping her voice low, "You still have your obligation to have a pureblood heir. Marry a nice girl and take a lover if you must, but you will continue your bloodline."

He laughed, it sounded a bit hysterical even to his own ears. "Do you hear yourself?" he asked. "The Malfoy line can die with me. I'm not marrying some woman just to please you."

"Draco-"

"No," he said sharply. "No. I can't do this, mother. I can't be what you want me to be. I'm done." He shook his head, "You can accept this, accept me or not. Either way I am done."

She straightened her spine and smoothed the emotions from her features and Draco knew the decision she had made before she started speaking. He clasped Harry's hand tighter in his. "Very well, then," she said. "Good day," she murmured before she walked away without a backward glance.

They sat in silence for a moment before Harry asked, "Are you alright?"

"I don't know."

"What can I do?" he murmured, squeezing Draco's hand again.

"Can we go home?"

Harry nodded, "Yeah, love. Of course."

He apparated them back and they spend the afternoon cocooned in Harry's room until their friends came to find them for dinner.

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June 9, 2001

This year it's Draco who asked about going to the bar to celebrate Pride.

Harry smiled and pulled him in for a long kiss before nodding and getting dressed.

When they arrived, Draco slipped his fingers through Harry's holding his hand tightly; proud of Harry, proud of how far they've come, and proud of himself for how much he's grown and how brave he's become.

Several of the people he'd met the year before remembered him and are quick to congratulate him and welcome him again. The night was full of music and dancing, of listening to stories and starting to tell his own, it's everything Harry had made it sound like.

And he thought he might be happy, in spite of that little bit of his heart that always ached for his parents.

They're about to head up for another round of drinks when Harry tugged on his hand. "Look," he murmured, pointing to the door.

Draco followed his pointing and saw that there was a woman standing in the door who looked remarkably like his mother. "What?" he managed.

But Harry was already waving to her and nudging Draco forward.

"What?" he repeated when he was standing in front of her.

Without a word she wrapped her arms around him, enfolding him in the comforting feel and scent of his childhood.

"Mummy?" he whispered.

"Yes, darling," she replied, voice equally thick with tears.

Harry cleared his throat, "I'll fetch us some drinks. What can I get you Narcissa?" he asked.

"Whiskey neat," she replied without releasing her hold on Draco.

He pulled back after one more moment, "What are you doing here?"

"Where else could I be?" she asked. "When we didn't see you for your birthday last week," she shook her head. "Well, I knew that I was making a mistake."

Harry returned handing them their drinks and nodding toward a table nearby.

They headed over and she sat next to Draco, "You're my child, Draco," she said. "And I love you more than you can imagine."

He nodded once but didn't say anything. This sounded too much like the start to one of the 'I love you and if you love me, this is how you should act' talks.

"Fortunately, your Mr. Potter has sent quite regular correspondence."

"What?" Draco said, whipping his head around to look at Harry.

He nodded once but before Draco could question him his mother continued.

"He invited me to come tonight," she continued, "To support you. And I've missed so much already, how could I say no?"

"This isn't a phase," he said. "I'm not going to change my mind or be cured one day."

She nodded, "I know."

"Does father?"

She hummed, "We're getting there." She took his hand in her's, "For now, won't you introduce me to some of your new friends?"

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Two years later, when he and Harry got married, both of his parents were there, sitting right in the front row and cheering them on.

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Thanks for the prompt! I don't quite know what you were hoping for so I hope this is okay! <3

#100 drarry drabbles in 100 days #pride #drarry #drarry ficlet #drarry drabbles #love #learning to love yourself #cw:internalized homophobia #cw:homophobic parents #happy ending #but read with care if you have triggers related to internalized homophobia or homophobic parents #you are loved-valued-and accepted

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riverdale-retread · 3 years

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Riverdale S5 E12 (Jaime/Hiram) - 5 Things I loved/ 3 Things to consider

5 Things I loved

1. The music selections for the Jaime to Hiram transitions were delirious and filled me with joy. I admit up front I’ve never heard any of these songs before, so if they turn out to be a horrible kind of misappropriation or desecration or something I will feel bad. In any case - Riverdale commits to giving you a dose of the surreal every episode. The difficulty with doing that in this episode is that the stories being told in it are unusually straightforward, even staid, for Riverdale. So they went to town with the sound track.

There’s a song (Demolicion by the band Narco) that sounds like it’s being sung by the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons on a bender - it’s just rawararwrarawrar. All these songs about Hiram ‘being bad’ and mentioning the ‘devil’ are so on the nose that the nose gets broken and pushed right into the skull (the title of the song is literally Devil Devil).

2. I love that Hermione Gomez wears huge 80s glasses that completely overwhelm her little face and yet Jaime hits on her and thinks the world of her. It helps to have that face, I grant you, but as someone who took the Dorothy Parker quote, Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses, very very personally back in the day, I LOVE that Jaime/Hiram has no such qualms. Did everyone notice the bust of Nefertiti that’s positioned right behind Hermione the whole time Hiram is successfully asking her out? I did and it cracked me up.

3. I loved that nothing in this story about Jaime Luna makes Hiram Lodge even a little bit sympathetic to me. Hiram is an out and out villain, and I love that. I’ve been sick of villain backstory narratives that are like, Bad Things Happened To This Man So We Must Identify With His Homicidal Impulses that keep coming out, but this episode didn’t do that.

a) Hiram is in so many ways a textbook abusive husband, and the only thing that distinguishes him from the more stereotypical abuser is that he doesn’t actually punch his victim (he just shoots at her using other people’s guns). Abusers blame their victims for ‘causing’ them to commit abuse. The same is true here. The story that Hiram tells Reggie about his life pretends to be about his father, but is actually all about the fact that it’s Hermione’s fault that he’s a gangster. She’s the one who likes the fancy clothes and the fancy car, the one who names him Hiram Lodge, the one who is turned on by Hiram working for gangsters, the one that goes to the gangsters (rather than his father or her mother or any other adult) to get Hiram out of jail. It’s all her fault and she owes him. This is in addition to his usual, You’re my wife and I own you.

I am right back to being very worried about Hermione.

b) Hiram pretends to be giving ‘life advice’ about fathers and sons to Reggie. Hiram has direct knowledge that Marty Mantle is a piece of shit, and that Reggie has a very trouble relationship with him, and that Marty absolutely does not respect Reggie at all whatsoever (“Reggie is a fool.”) Hiram uses Reggie and then ditches him when he’s done. Hiram makes Reggie an accessory to murder, which nets nobody anything at this point other than Hiram’s own blood lust - and possibly tying up loose ends because Vito is someone who can correct this yarn that Hiram is spinning about his origin - then breaks his heart. Marty Mantle is not only a dad who beat his son - he’s a dad that does not ask his son “Where did you get the money” when the son pays off a huge debt to a known criminal, and is only relieved that he’s no longer on the hook. He also tellingly asks Reggie, “That’s what you got from my story?” indicating that this is a story rather than a testimony.

4. I loved the very anti-straight men commentary the show keeps sneaking in. Like, straight marriage is the worst, especially the ones that produce biological offspring, according to Riverdale. Marty Mantle absolutely despises sex. He’s a guy who sells sexy cars to other guys for a living, and yet he hates talking about getting laid in one. He hates his beautiful sensual son, too, for being sexually successful and comfortable in his body. Both Reggie (described by the gay-bi Fangs as “very straight” even after kissing him) and Hiram (who is basically a Hermione-sexual at this point) have comically fetishistic relationships with cars and shoes, lovingly wiping down these objects at the start of each day. All the straight men say the word “shame” several times -I’m ashamed of you/ I feel shame/ so ashamed/ shame.

5. I continue to adore “I am not in high school any more” Reggie Mantle. Growing up to be a slightly sleazy car salesman is the one of the few character developments for Grown Riverdale that both makes sense and isn’t depressing. Core Four, Cheryl and Polly are all extremely depressing and supportable with logic. Toni and Fangs make out OK but they were also underdeveloped in the first four seasons. (I am too upset to talk about Sweet Pea). I was moved by his tearing up while very quietly confronting his father, and I was moved by his boyish attempt at trying to show his new boss that he’s not just the muscle. Oh and he’s so beautiful, did I say that already? There’s so much face in Reggie’s face - strong brows, deep set eyes, those cheekbones, that jawline, that MOUTH.

Three Things to Think About

a. Why is Jughead narrating this? Jughead is unusually wrong about a lot of things in his opening narration, and I assume this is intentional. Jughead seems to use the words hero and protagonist interchangeably, and also I guess hasn’t seen Joker because most villains and antiheros also always get their origin stories too. (There’s a theory that what we’re watching is the Betty Cooper serial killer origin story, for example). Has Jughead not watched “Citizen Kane” because he asks “What is his rosebud?” about Hiram, BUT WE ARE NOT TOLD. Jughead sounds jealous of Reggie, frankly, and he’s wrong when he says Hiram collects lost souls. What OTHER lost souls does Hiram have near him? And who the heck is S5 Jughead Jones calling LOST?

b. What Reggie really wants to do - and possibly also Hiram - is to wear a suit and carry a briefcase. It’s just very White Collar Aspirant that isn’t fully explored. Like, how the 50 shades of grey movie was really about sitting in a board room negotiating a contract and having pretty women in suits bring you tea - that was the erotic highlight of that movie. We live in capitalism, so getting to use the accoutrement of the Wall St capitalist is the true fantasy.

c. The point of this episode that the show is making to the viewer is this: A straightforward narrative, where gangsters act like gangsters, and fathers and sons have realistic misunderstandings and conflicts, is something we’re capable of doing. We just don’t want to.

#riverdale s5 #riverdale positivity #riverdale review #i did very much like the stuntcasting of making the Hiram actor's son play the young Hiram #i guess they had to do it but using hermione's original actress to play her mom does NOT work #that lady looks 100% front desk and not even a little bit housekeeping #this was a brazen fail of bechdel test for riverdale which doesn't do that great to begin with #ready for some high octane creativity and craziness from riverdale soon #SPOILERS #Hiram lodge #reggie Mantle #marty Mantle #hermione lodge

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soundsof71 · 4 years

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FIVE ALBUMS YOU NEED IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!

aka, My Top 5 of 2020, but I didn’t want to seem too retro!

Yep, I have a classic rock blog. Yep, I think that the best rock and roll in history is being made RIGHT NOW. And yep, ALL of it is being made by women.

(Shown at top, Nova Twins by Ant Adams [x] and The Tissues by Michael Espleta [x]. I was planning to make a collage of all my faves in concert, but not all of them were able to play in 2020. Both of these photos are pre-pandemic.)

There’s been quite a bit of movement on this list, and all five of these have spent some time at Number 1 as the year has done (gestures broadly) All This™. Anyone looking for rock and roll is going to dig any of these.

Rocking out is just the start of it, though. Wrestling with my bipolarity and schizophrenia is tough on a good day, and there haven’t been too many of those lately. The plague has also taken its toll around me, with two family members dead and a third who’s doing better, but will likely never be all the way back. (Mask up, kids!)

I’ve written plenty about how deeply Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers have moved me this year (and will do so again), but in those rare stretches where I’ve had enough spare energy to listen to music at all these days, I’ve mostly been looking for more than beautiful music. Heavy times need heavy lifting, and I find that in heavy music.

The five albums here have all helped carry me, pointing the way toward light.

1) BULLY, SUGAREGG

Alicia Bognanno is a force of nature as a guitarist, vocalist, composer, and producer/engineer. (While working on her degree in audio engineering at MTSU, she interned with Steve Albini, who remains both a fan and an admirer). A Nashville transplant from Minnesota, she’s still a natural fit in her home on Sub Pop: as heavy as Soundgarden, as hooky as Sleater-Kinney.

I was blown away hearing her searing honesty while working through her discoveries of her bisexuality and bipolarity (double bi!), and her triumphant roar lifts me out of my seat every time I listen.

“She sings the hell out of [these songs], her voice fraying to the point of combustion every time she launches to the top of her range. This is phenomenal music for converting anger and anxiety into unbound joy.” ~Stereogum, Album of the Week

Also, check this fantastic interview with Alicia in the New York Times talking about what she’s gone through to get here.

TURN IT UP!

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2) GANSER, LOOK AT THAT SKY

Ganser syndrome is a rare dissociative disorder characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions and other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual pseudohallucinations and a decreased state of consciousness. ~Wikipedia #it me

‘Just Look At That Sky’ doesn’t presume to offer solutions; it’s an honest document of what it feels like to wade through anxiety, day by day, not a survival guide or handbook of answers none of us actually have. Whether or not you pay attention to this, Ganser are simply one of the most invigorating, exciting new bands. ~Clashmusic

I saw one very positive review compare Ganser to a cross between Fugazi and Sonic Youth, but I think they hit much, much harder than either of those. And as you can surely guess, I also deeply relate to their themes of mental illness and dissociation while trying to make it through All This™. But my god, are they TIGHT. This is a BAND.

Ganser has two fantastic lead vocalists, and on “Bad Form”, bassist/vocalist Alicia Gaines wrote the song for the voice of keyboardist/vocalist Nadia Garofolo. Alicia also wrote a FANTASTIC essay on the strains that making an album during a pandemic puts on the mental health of the entire band at talkhouse: “Writing, recording, reaching out, balancing relationships outside and within the band, I found (and still find) myself under-rested and agitated to no particular end. More than not doing enough, I was not enough.”

(If you can’t relate to that, I can’t relate to you, tbh.)

This video also does a fantastic job of showing dissociation. TURN IT UP!

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3) THE TISSUES, BLUE FILM

“Blue Film” is a ten-song shot of dagger-twisting electro-(s)punk. It’s completely addictive from the very first listen. The tour de force is “Rear Window”, an art-punk masterpiece of slashing guitars and mad caterwauling. Copious doses of jaunty poetics and social commentary reward the earlooker patient enough to untangle Kristine Nevrose’s hysterical meowing about intergalactic salt shakers and hysterectomies, but I’m too emotionally invested to look under the hood.” ~ Sputnik Music

“Rear Window” is in fact my most-played 2020 track. TURN IT UP!

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4) GUM COUNTRY, SOMEWHERE

It’s not all heavy! But even when I’m looking for something light and hooky, I need a bite, and Gum Country has done it with the kind of swirly, feeedback-laden wall of sound that Lush or Yo La Tengo would make if they lived in LA. (Recent transplants to SoCal from Vancouver, I do think that the sunshine has gone straight to their heads, in the very best way.)

Indie music nerds will know guitarist/composer/singer/front woman Courtney Garvin from The Courtneys, and she really does throw up a glorious wall of sound. I adore this video too! Sweet, swinging, fun -- and yes, the drummer is playing keyboard with one hand while slapping the skins with the other!

I mentioned earlier that all five of these albums have spent part of the year at #1 on my list -- I think that this one might have spent the longest stretch there. Like all shoegaze, even as hooky as this, the truth of these songs is revealed in VOLUME. TURN IT UP!

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5) NOVA TWINS, WHO ARE THE GIRLS?

Now, THIS is heavy! Amy Lee (vocals, guitar) and Georgia South (bass) are fucking LOUD, and insanely intense. A mix of grime, hip-hop, metal, punk, and good old rock and roll, they’re a harder-hitting, more theatrical Prodigy, with a pyre of intensity that recalls the heaviest howls of Rage Against The Machine. Indeed, Nova Twins spent a good bit of 2019 playing heavy metal festivals and toured as openers for Prophets of Rage. (Tom Morello has been a fan and supporter from the beginning.)

As you may have noted in the photo at the top of this post, their musical audacity extends to visuals too: they design their own clothes, hair, and makeup, they art direct their own videos, and more. They impress the hell out of me, and I’ve been a huge fan since hearing their first singles in 2018. I’ll plant a flag and say that Georgia South in particular is the most innovative musician on any instrument in any genre right now, but they’re both absolutely monsters.

I’m honestly not at all sure that #5 is high enough for this, but I’m absolutely certain that after this video, you’re gonna need to rest for a little. LOL

“Taxi” is the story of two gleefully and creatively violent women shaking up the local crime syndicate as they use a vintage cab for their moving murder scene. This is the movie that Robert Rodriguez wishes he was making with Sin City, if it were combined with Blade Runner and The Matrix. And gangsters. And a snake.

I’m gonna take your crown I’m gonna, I’m gonna bleed you out We demand it by the hour We devour, control, power

I’m gonna burn it down Even the, even the royals bow

So not the same kind of therapeutic work being explored on this rekkid, but you know what? Fucking shit up is therapeutic too!

Definitely take this full screen, and for the love of fuck, TURN IT UP!

youtube

SO. Not done with the best of 2020 yet? I’m sure not! A lot of my favorite songs aren’t on albums (at least not yet), so for an unedited list of everything I’m finding, check out my Spotify list, 2020: Shuffle This List! 268 songs and counting, over 15 hours, and not finished yet. I’m still checking out everyone else’s Best of lists (including yours! Message me links to yours!!!), so will probably be adding to this for most of 2021, too.

And for more banging tracks by women from 2020, plus a few 2019 gems that I’m still grooving to, check out my more thoroughly curated Spotify playlist Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam. (You’ll see a couple of these tracks there!) I’m working on a YouTube playlist and an essay to properly roll that one out. I’m also still tweaking the ending, but the three dozen or so tunes there are definitely bangin’.

Tell me if you hear anything you dig here, and tell me what YOU’VE found! We’re gonna get through this together.

Yr pal, Timmy

#me #new classics #classic rock #women in rock #best of 2020 #bully #ganser #the tissues #gum country #nova twins #essay #youtube #punk rock #punk

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teenslib · 4 years

Link

IT’S FINALLY DONE! Every year, the Rainbow Book List Committee has more books to review, because literature is slowing getting queerer, and children’s and YA lit are at the forefront of that change. This year, our committee of 13 people had to review nearly 500 eligible titles, and 130 (well, 129) were good enough and queer enough to make the list. There were so many terrific books that we got a special dispensation to create TWO Top Ten lists--the first time the committee has done so! The Top Tens are below, and please visit the link above for the full list.

I’m proud of our committee’s focus on diversity--along lines of race, ethnicity, queer identity, and even genre. At least half of the Top Ten Books for Young Readers and seven of the Top Ten for Teen Readers are about characters of color, and most of those were written by authors of color. We also tried to feature as many different letters of the alphabet soup as possible. I’ve noted the racial and LGBTQIA+ rep for the books that I’ve read.

Here are the Top Ten Books for Young Readers:

Ana on the Edge by Sass, A.J. Ages 8 to 12. Sports Fiction/Figure Skating. MC is nonbinary and Jewish-Chinese-American. Ana is a champion figure-skater. She hates her new princess-themed program, but how can she tell her mother that, when it cost so much money? And why does it bother her so much, anyway? When she finds the word ‘nonbinary,’ she realizes why the program doesn’t fit, but she still has a lot of work to do repairing relationships that have suffered in the meantime.

The Deep & Dark Blue by Smith, Niki. Ages 8 to 12. Fantasy. One of 2 MCs is a trans girl, all characters appear to be Southeast Asian. A pair of twins flee after a political coup that puts their lives at risk. They decide to disguise themselves as Hanna and Grayce, two girls living in the Communion of the Blue, an order of weaving women who spin magic like wool. What one twin doesn’t know is that, for the other, being Grayce isn’t a disguise. This is a beautiful story about self-discovery, acceptance, and affirmation.

Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring by Burgess, Matthew and Josh Cochran (Illustrator). Ages 6 to 14. Biography. MC is a white gay man. This colorful picture-book biography traces the life and art of Keith Haring.

The Every Body Book: LGBTQ+ Inclusive Guide for Kids about Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Families by Simon, Rachel E. and Noah Grigni (Illustrator). Ages 8 to 12. Nonfiction/Health. Various identities and races included. Filled with self-affirming information, The Every Body Book uses inclusive language, illustrations, and facts to cover a number of important topics for young people including consent, relationships, gender, sex, puberty, and hormones.

King and the Dragonflies by Callender, Kacen. Ages 8 to 12. Realistic Fiction. MC is a gay black boy, his best friend is a gay white boy. King’s family–especially his father–have strong opinions about what it means to be a Black man, and they don’t allow for being gay. But King admires his friend Sandy for escaping an abusive home and living his truth no matter what. If King comes out, too, can his father learn to change?

Magic Fish by Nguyen, Trung Le. Ages 12 and up. Realistic Fiction/Fantasy. MC is a gay Vietnamese-American boy. A young Vietnamese-American boy literally can’t find the words to tell his parents that he’s gay, but cross-cultural fairytales help bridge the language barrier in this beautifully-illustrated graphic novel.

My Maddy by Pitman, Gayle E. and Violet Tobacco (Illustrator). Ages 4-8. Realistic Fiction. MC’s parent is nonbinary, MC and her parent are white. My Maddy is a heartwarming story about a young girl and her parent. Readers learn that not all parents are boys or girls; some parents are just themselves. In this young girl’s case, that parent is her Maddy, a loving, caring parent who lives outside the gender binary.

My Rainbow by Neal, DeShanna, Trinity Neal, and Art Twink (Illustrator). Ages 4-8. Realistic Fiction. MC is an autistic black trans girl. Autistic trans girl Trinity wants to have long hair, but growing it out is too itchy! None of the wigs in the store are quite right, so Mom makes Trinity a special rainbow wig.

Our Subway Baby by Mercurio, Peter and Leo Espinosa (Illustrator). Ages 4 to 8. Adoption Non-fiction. MCs are white gay men, the baby they adopt is Black. Loving illustrations help tell the story of how an infant abandoned in a NYC subway station was adopted by the man who found him and his partner.

Snapdragon by Leyh, Kat. Snapdragon. Ages 10 to 14. Fantasy. Haven’t read this one yet, so I can’t comment on its representation. Snap gets to know the town witch and discovers that she may in fact have real magic and a secret connection to Snap’s family’s past.

And here are the Top Ten Books for Teen Readers:

All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by Johnson, George M. Ages 14 to 18. Memoir. Author/MC is a gay Black man. “Memoir-manifesto” is a well-chosen label for this book, which relates stories from the author’s childhood and young adulthood and contextualizes them within a queer Black experience. Although the author’s family is loving and supportive, pervasive heteronormativity, queerphobia, and anti-Black racism threaten his mental, emotional, and physical safety.

Camp by Rosen, L.C. Ages 14 and up. Realistic Fiction. MC and his love interest are gay Jewish boys. For Randy, going away to Camp Outland is a breath of fresh air, a time to be exactly who Randy can’t always be at school. But this year will be different. This year, Randy won’t be the flamboyant theater kid, this year Randy will be exactly the type of bro Hudson would want to date. Changing a thing or too will be necessary for Randy to succeed, even if that means leaving some friends behind.

Cemetery Boys by Thomas, Aiden. Ages 13 and up. Paranormal/Romance. MC is a trans Latino, his love interest is a gay Latino. Yadriel accidentally summons the wrong ghost in an attempt to prove himself a real brujo to his family who struggle to accept his gender identity. Though he thinks he is summoning the ghost of his cousin, he actually summons the ghost of Julian Diaz, and finds himself with not one, but two, mysterious deaths to investigate.

Circus Rose by Cornwell, Betsy. Ages 12 and up. Fantasy. One MC is white and one is mixed-race, one is a lesbian and one is questioning. Ivory and Rosie are twins and half-sisters, born to a bearded woman who refused to choose between her lovers, and raised in their mother’s circus. After a long foreign tour, they come home to find themselves under attack by religious zealots. As tragedy follows tragedy, will Ivory be able to save her circus family?

Elatsoe by Little Badger, Darcie and Rovina Cai (Illustrator). Ages 12 and up. Mystery. MC is an aro/ace Lipan Apache girl. In this OwnVoices novel, Elatsoe is on a mission to discover who killed her beloved cousin, and why. If not for her cousin, then she is doing this for her people, the Indigenous Lipan Apache tribe. Elatsoe has the ability to raise ghosts from the dead, a tradition that has been passed down through generations. On this journey it will take vulnerability, wit, and the legends of her people for Elatsoe to understand all that is hidden in the small town of Willowbee.

I’ll Be the One by Lee, Lyla. Ages 13 and up. Realistic Fiction. MC is a bi Korean-American girl, her love interest is a bi Korean boy. Skye Shin dreams of becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and a reality TV competition may just be her chance. To win, she’ll have to deal with fatphobic beauty standards, fierce competition, and intense media scrutiny–as well as unexpected attraction to one of her competitors.

Miss Meteor by Mejia, Tehlor Kay and Anna-Marie McLemore. Ages 14 and up. Magical Realism. (I haven’t read this one, but I think both MCs are WLW Latinas.) Lita is a star – literally. After falling to earth several years ago, she’s now living life as a teenage girl. When the annual Miss Meteor pageant rolls around, Lita decides to enter – but will her ex-best friend Chicky be willing to help her? Will the pageant help her forget about the past and imagine a new future? Lita learns that winning isn’t about being perfect, it’s about showing your true self to the world – even the parts that no one else understands.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Johnson, Leah. Ages 12 and up. Realistic Fiction. MC is a black WLW (woman-loving-woman). In this affectionate rom-com, Liz Lighty finds herself an unlikely candidate for prom queen at her affluent suburban school. Shy, awkward, Black, and low-income, Liz has never felt like she belonged, and she can’t wait to leave for her dream college. But when her scholarship falls through, it seems her last resort is to win prom queen, and the scholarship money that comes with it. Liz’s plan is complicated when new girl Mack decides to run for prom queen also…and ends up running away with Liz’s heart.

War Girls by Onyebuchi, Tochi. Ages 12 and up. Science Fiction/Afro-Futurism. Both MCs are Nigerian, one is a WLW. In a not-so-distant future, climate change and nuclear disasters have made much of the earth unlivable. In the midst of war in Nigeria, two sisters, Onyii and Ify, are torn apart and face two very different futures. As their lives progress through years of untold violence and political unrest, battles with deadly mechs and cyborg soldiers outfitted with artificial limbs and organs, they are brought together again and again and must come to terms with how the war has impacted their lives.

When We Were Magic by Gailey, Sarah. Ages 14 and up. Contemporary Fantasy. MC is a white bi/questioning girl with gay dads, her friends are racially, ethnically, and queerily diverse. This firecracker of a novel follows a group of friends who attempt to correct the accidental murder of a classmate. When We Were Magic combines magic, friendship, and awkward moments to create a captivating story. Each character brings their own uniqueness to the strong group of friends, but despite their differences, their loyalty remains. Author Sarah Gailey has written another page turning novel, with the quirky strange content to boot.

#Rainbow Book List #LGBT literature #queer books #queer YA #queer children's books #Book Recommendations #we need diverse books

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birlcholtz · 4 years

Note

any bittyholtz headcanons👀

holster knows he’s big ok? and he realizes pretty quick his sophomore year that bitty is Not Great at handling large guys coming at him quickly. so out of consideration for this tiny frosh, who is cute but holster can also tell is scared shitless by ransom and holster being their loud selves, holster tries to be conscious of bitty and respect his space (and also not yell too much around him because who knows what specifically bothers him)

and the great thing about ransom and holster being best bros for so long is that holster doesn’t have to explain what he’s doing to ransom, ransom just kind of matches him and that’s that

and holster is delighted every time bitty opens up a bit more and relaxes a bit more around the team, and when he comes out to ransom and holster holster internally is like oh. oh of COURSE. of course big loud jocks who talk about hooking up with women all the time and check people really hard on the ice bother him. duh holster

but holster would NEVER hurt someone for being gay that’s a huge asshole move and he feels it is Very Important That Bitty Knows That Holster Would Never Hurt Him. why does he feel it’s so important?? that’s a question for later holster isn’t a whole ‘analyze my feelings’ dude

so holster actively makes an effort to be around bitty in a non-threatening way. by a couple of months into spring semester they’re very comfortable around each other, comfortable enough that bitty jokes about their size difference and at one point he literally jumps into holster’s arms (who catches him on instinct) and then holster is like oh my god i’m holding bitty. oh my god he’s so small but so muscular. oh my god his hair smells so nice oh god oh fUCK

there is literally so much more under the cut. (send me ur headcanons for rarepairs/qpps!)

bitty, for his part, was initially very wary of ransom and holster for exactly the reasons holster figured out. it also doesn’t help that ransom dresses like a preppy frat bro and holster dresses like a messy frat bro. they’re both frat bros and bitty takes a long time to warm up to them.

but what does help is the way holster always lets bitty know he’s there before he gets too close (sometimes bitty is in the zone in the kitchen and doesn’t notice things like his teammates entering), and the way he doesn’t friendly-punch bitty like he does ransom. or jack. or shitty. or even lardo honestly nobody’s safe. except bitty is.

holster is also definitely responsible for putting some of bitty’s favorite songs on the kegster playlist and bitty definitely finds out and his heart warms a little more

and once bitty’s come out to ransom and holster and they don’t treat him any differently or weirdly and still profess their love for him when he bakes things without a single no homo, bitty finds himself hanging around with them a little more?

ransom likes to study in the attic without distractions so that means that bitty and holster wind up spending a lot more time together and listen. bitty can’t spend that much time with holster without noticing that the guy is a) extremely tall b) ripped and c) has an excellent jawline. and bitty is only human y’all

when he plays music in the kitchen holster will always dance (and sing along if he knows the words, or enough of the words to get them wrong in a funny way because bitty’s laugh sounds like angels singing and okay yeah holster is smitten)

holster Cannot make pies because he cannot touch pastry, bitty forbids him from trying before he even asks because his hands are too warm and he’ll fuck it all up. (holster, internally, is pleased bitty’s noticed. bitty, internally, is like fuck was that too weird) BUT if holster is in there he usually gets dragged into stirring things or chopping things or handing bitty sticks of butter from the fridge and basically whatever he can do without fucking up the pastry

and a while after that holster is like hang on wait it’s been a while since i realized i had a crush on bitty and it has Not gone away should i like. i don’t know. fucking tell him i’m into guys or something like that?? that would be smart

this is more how they get together than a list of headcanons LMAO i always get distracted and this is so fucking long omg

so he’s like rans. how do i do this. and ransom is like you should blast gettin’ bi from crazy ex girlfriend and holster is like weird. i love it.

other things holster does to subtly let bitty know he’s bi: loudly discuss his plans for going to pride that summer, make a lot of bi puns and hope one of them lands, show bitty funny posts from the lgbtq+ samwell student group on facebook

eventually bitty is like . hm. holster is either a VERY supportive ally. or he is trying to tell me something. and after the 80th bi meme post from the facebook group he’s like holster. hon. are you trying to tell me something

and holster is like YES. I AM BISEXUAL and bitty’s like oh that’s great!! (internally: can i climb him like a tree yet)

and then bitty’s like well thanks for telling me! and holster is like uh yeah! (because listen he’s good at wheeling but he is SO bad at wheeling bitty because this isn’t just someone cute he found at a kegster u know??? it’s BITTY and holster kind of wants to sweep him off his feet but in like. a gentlemanly way that won’t scare him)

when holster relates this interaction to ransom ransom is like oh my fucking god holster you could have told him and holster is like yeah and i did not for some fucking reason???????? ransom. i’m dumb and ransom is like no you just caught feelings

(bitty, to shitty: hey so uh. if a guy aggressively hints he’s into guys for like. a month. and then when i ask him straight out he tells me he’s bi. what does that mean. and shitty’s like i mean i wouldn’t know unless i know the guy?? but i wouldn’t ask u to tell me bc like. hes gotta choose who he’s out to u know and bitty’s like yeah i mean u know him but maybe i’ll ask him who else he’s out to bc i need some advice and shitty is like hell yeah)

the next day, bitty’s like holster are u out to anyone else?? just bc the team seems kinda. hetero. except for me. and holster is like oh yeah rans knows and shitty knows. also johnson. and jack if he’s not stupid because i’ve definitely had guys stay over. but mostly just the guys in the haus yeah

then they go to murder stop ‘n shop and buy baking ingredients. holster carries a metric fuck ton of flour and butter and pretends he doesn’t notice bitty staring at his arms (but he might flex just a little more than necessary)

so bitty’s like EXCELLENT. and then he talks to shitty again and is like IT’S HOLSTER AND I’M SUPER INTO HIM WHAT DO I DO and shitty’s like hooooo boy. and then HE’S like well uh. holster doesn’t like. feel the need to formally come out to people usually like the way he told me was by just telling me about a guy he hooked up with last year with zero context or warning? like i don’t know holster as well as, like, rans, but he definitely wants you specifically to know that he’s bi.

and bitty’s like intriguing. i’m gonna go combust now. and shitty’s like cool catch ya later.

so then bitty decides there’s only one way to find out if holster’s into him. and it’s not asking him, what the fuck?? no obviously not. it’s wearing very short shorts and touching him a lot and watching him to see if he blushes or gets flustered. bitty may not be a blunt or forthright person when it comes to hitting on people but he can at least make it impossible for holster to try and hide any feelings he may or may not have.

so rip holster is what i’m saying. but he also observes how much bitty is still watching him-- usually when bitty is doing something like wearing very short shorts or dancing at a kegster or flinging himself into holster’s lap-- and he’s like HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. because also holster is like way more experienced with like. relationships in general? like he’s familiar with what someone flirting with him looks like. so he’s like alright well if bitty wants to make me suffer i’m going to make him suffer too. (’rans can i borrow your skinny jeans’ ‘is this so you can get back at bitty’ ‘yes it’s important’ ‘yeah sure whatever’)

holster knows he’s jacked, he just has to make sure bitty knows it. he also knows that bitty is comfortable with holster standing pretty close to him now so he’s going to use that to his advantage since holster is also tall as Fuck. (obviously he doesn’t do anything creepy like stand right behind him or smth but like. if they’re talking. holster is gonna get just a little in bitty’s space just so bitty has to look up at him a little. is this partially because bitty has really nice eyelashes? yeah)

basically what i’m saying is once holster decides to get back at bitty all hell breaks loose. literally nobody else in the haus can deal with the sexual tension when they’re in the same room. bitty is now pretty sure that holster is into him. shitty texts bitty saying ‘can you please bone for the love of god’. for good measure shitty also texts holster saying the same thing. he’s so tired but also this is hilarious

like it gets EXTRA. bitty and holster can both bend and snap and they DO. holster intentionally spills water on his t-shirt to make it cling more. when he sits at the kitchen table doing work bitty comes by and leans over his shoulder to see what he’s doing and if he brushes holster’s neck a little as he does it, well, that’s between them. at one point holster and bitty are both standing at the counter washing dishes and holster starts chirping bitty about not being able to reach the top shelf and asks if he wants to stand on a chair and bitty’s like hmm or you could just carry me. and holster almost has a conniption and it gets even worse when they finish washing up and bitty’s like oh great the counter’s all cleared off! and hops up and sits on it and that gets his face a little closer, vertically, to holster, who is suddenly aware that bitty is wearing very short shorts AGAIN, which like, seem to have become his uniform, and that when bitty sits like that holster can barely see those shorts, that’s how tiny they are, and it looks like bitty’s just sitting there in a shirt and nothing else and holster’s brain supplies a LOT of images once he thinks of that and hoo boy.

and holster’s like how can i get back at him. and bitty’s sitting right next to the hanging cabinets so holster grabs some of the plates from the drying rack that look dry enough and goes and stands *right* in front of bitty. like he’s not actually brushing bitty’s legs where they dangle off the counter but if he stepped forward like. half an inch. he would be. and they make eye contact for a second and then, without moving, holster starts putting plates away.

and bitty is like oh my fucking god WHAT else do i have to do (he doesn’t say this out loud) and then when holster’s done putting away the plates and it looks like he’s going to go grab more bitty just. wraps his legs around holster’s waist and pulls him in (and holster is like holy FUCK because he knew bitty’s legs were strong but not THAT STRONG HOLY SHIT) and at this point there’s really nothing else for them to do but make out at the kitchen counter and that’s what they do. (bitty does, in fact, climb that man like a tree)

okay so some actual headcanons lol. you thought you knew bitty was a clothes stealing fiend?? you were wrong. he absolutely is but you just didn’t know how much. does holster still have literally any of his sweatshirts? probably not honestly

the only way bitty will sit on the green couch will be if holster is sitting on the green couch and bitty is sitting in his lap because that way he can avoid any actual contact with the couch

when bitty makes anything with blueberries in it holster steals some but he also feeds bitty some because he’s mushy like that

they continue to go to extreme lengths to try and get each other flustered in public. shitty is so tired.

they share playlists constantly and even more of bitty’s favorites find their way onto the kegster playlist

when bitty moves into the haus holster is in his room c o n s t a n t l y. he just likes the space ok??? there’s lil reminders of bitty everywhere and of course if bitty is there too then that’s just the BEST

the puck bunny halloween costume physically murders adam birkholtz

#bittyholtz #fun with rarepairs #omgcp

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leahclearwaterdefensesquad · 4 years

Note

jessicajnp huge homophobe and ships jake x renesmee/is complicit in pedophilia/grooming in general

Hey anon, you are absolutely right! I just checked @jessicanjpa 's blog and WHEW. That's definitely one for the blocklist. Women who feel the need to point out they're "Christian moms" in their bios already set off alarm bells, for me at least.

I reblogged that post b/c obviously I want to spread the link to donate to the Quileute tribe, but I have deleted it now. There's other posts I can rb/make myself. You are so right, it's bad. I even took screenshots for proof.

TW/CW Homophobia, pedophilic shipping, being a complete self-centered bitch.

Proof of her supporting that nasty ass ship. jfc. I may come back and hyperlink these posts when I'm not on mobile.

And now for the homophobia. This is the ask she was sent where I think she first aired her shitty views.

"aNd OnLy tHe aCt nOtHiNg tO dO wItH tHe iDeNtItY" fucking dumbass karen is what she is.

"If you're enthusiastic about hateful ideology, please stay away from me" THE AUDACITY ON THIS BITCH LITERALLY ALL OF THIS MAKES ME ENTITLED TO SHOVE MY BOOT UP HER ASS!!! As IF homophobia in and of itself isn't already hateful!!!

"I prefer not to endorse or legitimize the act of homosexuality..." Literally everything you see from the link on the bottom does nothing to counteract this statement and Ik - I read the whole fucking thing.

I'll post the screenshots here so y'all can see the self-centered bullshit she calls an apology. Everything I underlined in red is more proof of homophobia or just outright stupidity. Then again, the whole thing is as well.

"... like I tried to explain before, I wasn't homophobic" I would like this @jessicanjpa to know that I am morally opposed to heterosexuality :////. I don't like to endorse it, I mean being str*ight??? What about the children!!! These ppl ship pedophilic ships for God's sake!!!! Their children get exposed to heterosexism and misogynistic gender roles as babies!!! I mean, I won't tell someone that is a cisgendered heterosexual - ugh, it makes me shudder just to say the words - that what they do is simply wrong, but it just - ugh, I just can't legitimize it. It's just too much for me!

... and I mean, if I were to force myself to reckon with the existence of heterosexuality and that I'm heterophobic, I would have to make it all about me and my journey of pseudo spiritual understanding instead of actually LEARNING that the views I still hold are monumentally stupid and harmful. And criticizing my jOuRnEy to understand the heterosexuality issue is just bullying >:(. Calling out and criticizing me out for being heterophobic is just. BULLYING!!! >:(((((

It's just that these people are so hateful!!! 😫 They try to pass laws to okay the discrimination of us gay, bi, and trans folks - look at the current news from here in the so-called Land of the Free! They still try to put us through conversion therapy and even murdering us for merely existing!! It's not like we do that to them - there aren't any laws forcing the str*rights to undergo conversion therapy or being told that they are influenced by the Devil (they are tho). Even though I'm trying to unlearn my heterphobia, I just can't get past these several things about even today's Heterosexual Movement😠!! I'm just me, after all!!! Why do I have to fear for my life in my own home just because they think it makes them proper Christians!!! 😓 I'm trying to unlearn y'all, I truly am!

One day, folks, I'll get there. I'll be able to not interact with a hetero and not cringe on the inside when they're affectionate in front of me. One day, maybe I'll reblog a hetero ship or fanart! One day, maybe I'll write Leah or Rosalie with a man instead of being a huge ole pussy slurping/girl dick sucking lesbian - actually no, that's a lie, that'll never happen.

If anyone doesn't understand why what I underlined (or anything else in those posts, for the matter) is homophobic, I'm not gonna hold your hand for you. Miss Jessica, you don't have to feel comfortable with us homosexuals (also, just say gay or lesbian for fuck's sake, and no, you don't deserve to be asked nicely), bisexuals, transgender people (including non binary ppl ofc), pansexuals, queer ppl, asexuals, or intersex folk. It's not your stupid journey that matters, it's that you think that being LGBT+ is wrong, no matter how you try to word it or what ignorant shit you spit up to justify it. Grow up, you conservative. We don't have time for your bullshit.

And I just want to thank anon real quick for letting me know the douchebag that I reblogged from. I never mean to purposely rb from the bigots so just lmk like anon did and I'll fix that. ❤

#jessicanjpa #personal asks #anon asks #homophobia tw #pedophilic shipping tw #please tell me y'all understand satire #long ass post #blocklist

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abanana · 5 years

Text

Clover Deserved Better

So I haven’t posted about this on tumblr since last saturday, but it’s time to put all my thoughts out on the table.

I was devastated when Clover was murdered. I was shaking, crying, and felt unwell the rest of the weekend. My stomach was super upset that night. I physically grieved him. I couldn’t and still can’t watch ANY part of episode 12 with Clover or Qrow in it, lest I start crying or get upset again.

As a bi woman, I had a ton of hope for both Clover Ebi to be gay representation and Qrow Branwen to be bi representation that has been sorely absent from RWBY as a series. There has been plenty for gay and bi women though subtle, which I do appreciate, but I was excited at the prospect of not only having more representation of another kind, but of my own and by a main character, especially one who was an adult.

Yes, Shipping fair game was a big part of why I loved Clover. He was such a nice, supportive, and gentle person for Qrow who was recovering from alcohol addiction and most likely depression, the second of which I’m also dealing with. I wanted so much for Qrow to get better, and having Clover by his side was the perfect way to do so.

Which is why when Clover was murdered, my hope for Qrow to recover was shot. I can only imagine that he either somehow miraculously picks himself up (thought I’m not counting on it when his only true adult friend and support figure died in front of him via his own weapon), he gets revenge and is killed, or just goes insane and stops being a main character.

Clover had so much potential as a character and felt like he fit with Qrow. Their semblances, color schemes, fighting types, so much felt like he was tailor made to be Qrows partner.

I found him incredibly out of character the entire episode. I wasn’t above the idea that he would initially side with Ironwood, but to go as far as not focus on the released serial killer over cuffing Qrow? Qrow also felt out of character even when he initially tried to reason with Clover. Teaming up with Tyrian of all people to take down Clover? no.

As for what I want from here-----------

I think no matter what happens in Saturdays episode - whether nothing about Clovers situation changes, or the Oscar time travel theory reverses things back - The writers of RWBY and all who were involved in the official tweeting and backing of Clover and Qrow should issue a formal apology and statement as to address what they did wrong and how incorrectly they handled the situation. They knew that Fair game was becoming popular and did nothing to stop that train from barreling right into a graveyard and I find that unacceptable.

I don’t care if it spoiled anything, or ruined the ship for some.

As an audience, we deserved better treatment.

Clover Ebi deserved better

#clover deserved better #fair game #rwby7 #rwby

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thecoleopterawithana · 5 years

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The next night Elliot [Mintz] took us out with a friend of his, Sal Mineo, and we all went to a gay cabaret/discotheque. John was oblivious to the gay ambience. He was curious about everyone's sexuality and liked to gossip about who was sleeping with whom, whether they were gay or straight. John made no judgements about homosexuality but was really curious about who was and who wasn't gay. He knew that his appearance at a gay club might start rumors about his own sexuality, and it made him laugh. He told me that there had been rumors about him and his first manager, Brian Epstein, and that he usually didn't deny them. He liked the fact that people could be titillated by having suspicions about his masculinity. Then I was the one who was laughing. "How could anyone believe a man who likes women as much as you do is gay?" I told him. After the show we went back to Mineo's apartment. I was thirsty, and Mineo told me to look in the refrigerator. There was nothing in it but one big bottle of amyl nitrite. Mineo told John that he knew Ava Gardner. "I'm a real fan of hers. I love Ava," John replied excitedly. Mineo went to the phone, called London, woke Gardner up, and told her that John wanted to speak to her. John took the phone. "Ava, is that you? Ava, I think you're beautiful. I've seen all your movies. Christ, is it really you?" They spoke for five minutes, then a thrilled John handed the phone back to Mineo.

In May Pang’s Loving John (1983).

[Once again, a million thanks to @eppysboys for sending over passages of interest.]

Elliot Mintz (born February 16, 1945) is an American consultant. In the 1960s and early 1970s Mintz was an underground radio DJ and host. In the 1970s he became a spokesperson for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and took on other musicians and actors as clients as a publicist, including Bob Dylan. [...]

Though not in a professional capacity, since the death of Lennon, Mintz has acted as a spokesperson for the Lennon estate. In addition, while sifting through Lennon's belongings, he discovered hundreds of unreleased tape recordings including half-finished new songs, early versions of famous hits, and idle thoughts. Beginning in 1988, he hosted a weekly syndicated radio series based upon these recordings called The Lost Lennon Tapes, which was broadcast for about four years. After the show came to an end, Mintz began hosting the spinoff radio program The Beatle Years. Mintz has appeared in feature documentaries about Lennon and Yoko Ono, including The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Imagine: John Lennon and The Real Yoko Ono. In 1985 he was a technical advisor on the television film John and Yoko: A Love Story. He also authored an essay about his relationship with them published in 2005 in a book entitled Memories of John Lennon. [Source]

Salvatore Mineo Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was an American actor, singer and director. Mineo is best known for his Academy Award-nominated performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Mineo also received a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Exodus (1960). A 1950s teen idol, Mineo's acting career declined in his adult years. He was murdered in 1976. [...]

By the early 1960s, Mineo was becoming too old to play the type of role that had made him famous, and his rumoured homosexuality led to his being considered inappropriate for leading roles. [...] In 1969, Mineo returned to the stage to direct a Los Angeles production of the LGBT-themed play Fortune and Men's Eyes (1967), featuring then-unknown Don Johnson as Smitty and himself as Rocky. The production received positive reviews, although its expanded prison rape scene was criticized as excessive and gratuitous. [...] By 1976, Mineo's career had begun to turn around. While playing the role of a bisexual burglar in a series of stage performances of the comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead in San Francisco, Mineo received substantial publicity from many positive reviews; he moved to Los Angeles along with the play.

Mineo met English-born actress Jill Haworth on the set of the film Exodus in 1960, in which they portrayed young lovers. Mineo and Haworth were together on-and-off for many years. They were engaged to be married at one point. According to Mineo biographer Michael Gregg Michaud, Haworth cancelled the engagement after she caught Mineo engaging in sexual relations with another man. The two did remain very close friends until Mineo's death. [...] While some have described Haworth as being nothing but a close friend and a "beard" to Mineo to conceal his same-sex partners, Michaud casts doubt upon this claim; he asserts that Mineo and Haworth's relationship was genuine, that Mineo fell in love with Haworth, and that Mineo regarded her as one of the important people in his life. [Source]

“Portrait of a Marriage really disturbed [John]. The book was an account of the fifty-year marriage of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson, both of whom were bisexual and continually unfaithful to each other, yet were able to evolve a relationship of great depth and longevity despite the incompleteness of their marriage. John was very distressed by the theme of sexual incompatibility in the midst of great emotional attraction and the fact that no matter how hard one tries, a marriage may always remain incomplete.”

In a 1972 interview with Boze Hadleigh, Mineo discussed his bisexuality. At the time of his death, he was in a six-year relationship with male actor Courtney Burr III. [Source]

BH: Who are those two girls you mentioned, for a double date?

SM: (Laughs.) Are you kidding? I got a girl in every port- and a couple of guys in every port, too.

BH: Do you think rumors about being bi have hurt you in your career?

SM: Maybe. . . Nah, I doubt it. Everyone's got those rumors following him around, whether it's true or not. Everyone's supposed to be bi, starting way back with Gary Cooper and on through Brando and Clift and Dean and Newman and . . . you want me to stop?

BH: Did you resent the rumors?

SM: Well, no. Because what's wrong with being bi? Maybe most people are, deep down.

BH: Shirley MacLaine has publicly said that.

SM: I think she's right- got a good noodle, Shirl does. But anyhow, the rumor about me, from what I hear, was usually that I'm gay. Where, like, with Monty Clift or Brando, the rumor was that they're bi. [Brando later publicly admitted to bisexuality.]

— Boze Hadleigh’s interview with Sal Mineo (1972).

“John and I had a big talk about it, saying, basically, all of us must be bisexual. And we were sort of in a situation of thinking that we’re not [bisexual] because of society. So we are hiding the other side of ourselves, which is less acceptable. But I don’t have a strong sexual desire towards another woman.”

Have you ever? “Not really, not sexually.”

One online satire imagined an affair between Ono and Hillary Clinton.

“It’s great,” Ono laughs. “I mean, both John and I thought it was good that people think we were bisexual, or homosexual.” She laughs again.

What about that old rumor that Lennon had sex with Beatles manager Brian Epstein (which was also the subject of the 1991 film, The Hours and The Times)?

Lennon himself said: “Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.” Later, Lennon’s friend Pete Shotton said Lennon had told him that he had allowed Epstein to “toss [wank] him off.”

“Uh, well, the story I was told was a very explicit story, and from that I think they didn’t have it [sex],” Ono tells me.

— in Yoko Ono: I Still Fear John’s Killer by Tim Teeman for the Daily Beast (13 October 2015).

Q. Have you ever fucked a guy?

A. Not yet, I thought I’d save it til I was 40, life begins at 40 you know, tho I never noticed it.

Q. It is trendy to be bisexual and you’re usually ‘keeping up with the Jones’, haven’t you ever… there was talk about you and PAUL…

A. Oh, I thought it was about me and Brian Epstein… anyway, I’m saving all the juice for my own version of THE REAL FAB FOUR BEATLES STORY etc.. etc..

Q. It seems like you’re saving quite a lot for when you’re 40…

A. Yes, there might be nothing better to do, tho I don’t believe it.

— John Lennon, interview conducted by/on John Lennon, and/or Dr Winston O’boogie, for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine (November 1974).

John: [...] I was trying to put it 'round that I was gay, you know– I thought that would throw them off… dancing at all the gay clubs in Los Angeles, flirting with the boys… but it never got off the ground.

Q: I think I’ve only heard that lately about Paul.

John: Oh, I’ve had him, he’s no good. [Laughter]

— John Lennon, interviewed by Lisa Robinson for Hit Parader: A conversation with John Lennon (December 1975).

Like other alkyl nitrites, amyl nitrite is bioactive in mammals, being a vasodilator, which is the basis of its use as a prescription medicine. As an inhalant, it also has a psychoactive effect, which has led to its recreational use with its smell being described as that of old socks or dirty feet. It is also referred to as banapple gas. [Source]

Popper is a slang term given broadly to drugs of the chemical class called alkyl nitrites that are inhaled. [...] Popper use has a relaxation effect on involuntary smooth muscles, such as those in the throat and anus. It is used for practical purposes to facilitate anal sex by increasing blood flow and relaxing sphincter muscles, initially within the gay community.

"If you trace the bottle of amyl (a type of alkyl nitrite) through late 20th century history, you trace the legacies of gay culture on popular culture in the 20th century”

The drug is also used or for recreational drug purposes, typically for the "high" or "rush" that the drug can create.

Poppers were part of club culture from the mid-1970s disco scene and returned to popularity in the 1980s and 1990s rave scene. [Source]

“A cable had arrived for him that very morning stating the obvious: ‘Come too quickly. Stop. Try again. Stop. Am waiting in Paris. Stop me if you’ve heard it. Stop. Stuff yourself with artichokes and live. Stop. Don’t stop. Stop.’ He knew it was from Amie L'Nitrate.”

— in John Lennon’s unfinished story about a sudden rendezvous in Paris. Published in “Skywriting By Word Of Mouth”.

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress and singer. [...] Gardner appeared in several high-profile films from the 1940s to 1970s [...] She is listed 25th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

Answered asks about:

John’s sexuality

Yoko and his sister Julia’s public statements about John’s sexuality

John "trying to put it ‘round that” he was gay

The Bob Wooler Episode

The Tony Manero Story

[Disclaimer: The answer to these asks represent my personal opinion at the time, which is liable to have evolved since then.]

#John Lennon #May Pang #Elliot Mintz #Sal Mineo #Brian Epstein #Ava Gardner #i'm not a homosexual or we could have had a homosexual relationship #it's only love and that is all #He could be a real soft sweetie #the lost weekend #johnny #1974 #quote #compilation #my stuff #(I added the links to other asks about his sexuality because it apparently is a topic of great interest)#(As exemplified by the number of asks I received about it)#(Ft. notions about sexuality being tied to masculinity and May not considering the option of bisexuality)#(And an emphasis put on John's curiosity about who was and wasn't gay)

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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1. It really bothers me people use LGBT people to deflect criticism. No spoilers, but The Last of Us 2 has story issues. A lot of confusing writing decisions and overall lackluster compared to the first. It's a disappointment for me. A group of people don't like the game because it has lesbians and trans characters. Those people are shitty. Problem is people group all critics of the game as those bigots when there is legit criticism from people who aren't those bigots.

Ngl, finding that balance is really hard. Like:

Me: Hmm. First 100% canonical queer character is the would-be murderer of her crush’s parents and uses those unrequited feelings as an excuse for her actions. That makes me very uncomfortable

Others: Oh, so you hate lesbians and bi women. I get it.

Me: I am a bi woman?? Which is why I’d like some representation that’s not all doom and gloom. I get that it’s a preference but it’s still a valid one. Not all of us want “problematic” rep but rather something more loving and stable. Like Blake and Yang. I think they could be really good moving forward

Others: They absolutely could not. Here’s an extensive list of every way that their romance has been “forced” on the viewers. They single-handedly ruined RWBY

Me: Okay Number One, there isn’t actually a canonical relationship yet so I don’t think we should be discussing their situation like there is--

Others: OH so you’re one of those aphobic critics who just ignore all the buildup and coding we’ve gotten. It’s not a “real” relationship unless you kiss, huh?

Me: No! I’m saying that RWBY hasn’t given us anything irrefutable, something to get the bigots off our backs. I 100% believe that the coding reads as romantic but if we never go past coding that’s going to turn into queer baiting, something we’ve been criticizing for years. This need for canonization doesn’t exclude the potential for any sexuality, including making one or both of them ace, but RT needs to have them come out in some way in order to solidify that rep. The “Dumbledore was always gay” argument isn’t enough for 2020.

Others: Do you have any idea how rare it is to have a lesbian or bi relationship in media?? Of course they need to kiss. You claiming they don’t just proves how out of touch you are.

Me: ...okay, can we just agree that it’s impossible for one ship to please everyone and this is why we need LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of representation so that two characters aren’t trying to shoulder the weight of everyone’s identity? We’re moving on. Number Two, Blake/Yang has been no more “forced” than thousands of straight ships out there. If we can accept a guy and a girl being madly in love after looking at each other once, why does a queer couple need a dissertation’s worth of evidence to “prove” that love?

Also Me, a Volume Later: Hey, I love Blake/Yang but they’re caught up in this whole “protagonists can do no wrong” theme which means that not only are they written as really co-dependent but that co-dependence has led them to making reckless choices without consulting others. Can we maybe let them talk to the other team members? Learn from their mistakes? The relationship - when we hopefully get it - will read as much more healthy and compelling if we let them grow as characters. Here I’m criticizing the depiction of a (potentially) queer relationship, not arguing over whether that relationship has a right to exist at all. Sure, queer characters have the right to be written “badly” just like their straight counterparts, but considering RWBY as its own, autonomous story, don’t we want the writing to be the best it can be? I don’t need to be a world renowned pastry chef to “justify” making a cake. The cake is allowed to be shitty. But wouldn’t I want to try and improve my baking skills if given the chance? Surely we can give queer characters the same pass straight couples get while also pointing out ways to improve their depiction?

Others: Ah ha! You do hate them!

Sadly it’s a lose-lose, anon. If you support queer ships you get backlash. If you criticize the writing of queer ships you get backlash. I’ve gotten angry messages about it all. All you can really do is listen when you feel it’s warranted, stick to your beliefs when it’s not, and block/delete at your discretion :/

(Also I’ve been meaning to play The Last of Us at some point so that’s something to look forward to now lol)

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #Anonymous

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butchbarbieagainstterfs · 4 years

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"Men calls us men hating lesbians because we won't suck their dicks" or you talk about murdering people would be funny and won't shut about being a "platinum star lesbian who has never breathed in front of a man" Like I'm a bi and I wouldn't date a lesbian who acted like that and as if a baby being male is gonna lead them to be satan himself

I’m a lesbian and I could never date a woman like that either.

Like 100% there are misogynistic men out there bothered by lesbians because they won’t date them and it’s horrible.

But by branding them all as Satan (along with trans women), you’re making them not want to support feminism because you’re enforcing the false idea it’s about superiority instead of equality and actively harming the cause. We need everyone on our side, not to alienate people, else we won’t get any further.

Not only that but this idea that cis women can do no wrong, and that extending as far as to even when they literally rape a child, is beyond disgusting to me.

And this whole gold star lesbianism mindset is disgusting too. Like some lesbians were raped. Some lesbians went through compulsory heterosexuality. You’re not better than anyone else just because of your past. Anyone with that mindset can fuck right off.

#anti terf #rape tw #my stuff

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cobieeliseforsh · 4 years

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I'm getting pretty annoyed with the amount of bullshit in the media right now. I just read an article about the "antisemitic" conspiracy theory Qanon. Calling Qanon antisemitic is like calling the KKK a group opposed to the career of Will Smith - technically true, but clearly a small subsection of a greater whole.

So, to remedy this...

COBIE'S FRUSTRATED GUIDE TO QANON FROM SOMEONE WHO LOVES CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND WISHES THIS ONE WOULD FUCK OFF BECAUSE IT IS BORING AS SHIT BUT NOT FIZZING WITH ENERGY, EVEN ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL, BECAUSE IT IS A DUMB AND LAZY REHASH FROM THE 80S OR EARLIER!

PART 1: DA FUCQ IS QANON?

Qanon is a grooming organisation for the Christian Far Right Death Cult that has held the Republican party in its sweaty hands since the ascent of Reagan in the 1980s. They believe in some bullshit I won't reprint here because I have no intention of spreading their ideology, but if you've heard of the Satanic panic, this is Satanic Panic 2: Now With Pizza!

Qanon is, by definition of their own supporters attacks on Muslim terrorism, a terrorist organisation. And, though it seems impossible, they're stupidier than ISIS ever were, because at least there was some twisted logic behind ISIS: poor young men fighting revolutionary wars against what they see as corrupt and immoral authorities and ideologies is nothing new. Qanon is literally the powerful declaring war on those without power out of fear that those without power (Satanists) live only to physically abuse their ugly, fat, prejudiced, stupid children. Despite the statistically most likely people to abuse them being them themselves, and there being plenty of evidence that many of these hypocrites have done that in the past (numerically many - one thing I believe Qanon followers on is that the majority are gullible Maud Flanders types, so statistically it won't be that many).

Donald Trump supports them over the "violent" Antifa (Antifa haven't killed anyone since 1993 (and that was a suicide), aren't actually an organisation, and are against facism, which Trump also claims to be against), despite Qanon followers carrying and firing weapons regularly, having shot up a pizza place in a terrorist act, refusing to wear masks, and other acts of violence designed to terrorise people.

PART 2 WHO DO THEY HATE?

Um... like, 98% of people.

Qanon is primarily an Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult. They believe in what they call SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) which happens at such a low frequency as to make it as serious a problem as being invaded by pookas. You might find anecdotal evidence here and there, but the majority of cases are hearsay spread by people who weren't there who were a part of or raised by people who were a part of the Satanic Panic. If you hear about it, it's likely bullshit. Just look at the West Memphis 3: accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse, they were sent to prison for wearing black clothes and being teenagers without any evidence. Now, whoever killed those boys is still loose, because Qanon, like all right-wing groups, is about being obeyed, not about justice.

So, with Satanic Ritual Abuse being fucking vapour, they can accuse ANYONE. And if there is no evidence, they cry COVER UP. There is no way, at all, to prove this mindset is wrong as it always self corrects, because being religious in origin, it is driven by BELIEF, not evidence.

So, whoever they believe is evil, is, as far as their reality tunnel goes.

Muslims? Evil child abusers. "But there is no evidence of that. In fact, the Muslim community is actually very protective of their children and other children. They're amongst the kindest people you can meet, even if their political leaders in their own countries are jerks." Well, says Qanon, that's because their community covers up the abuse. There wouldn't be any evidence. But my cousin went to school with a girl who was groomed by a Muslim. It's clear it is something all Muslims do. "But that's stupid. That's like saying that because Ted Bundy, a heterosexual white Republican, murdered loads of women, all heterosexual white Republicans want to murder women!" Now, says Qanon, you are just being silly. Besides, I believe Muslims are bad and Republicans aren't. You can't question my beliefs.

But we can, and we should.

Qanon followers use this vague structure to create complex webs that link up various conspiracy theories, but they aren't a complex web. They're just a list of petty grievances they have from living in their own personal echo chamber.

They hate women, they hate girls, they hate boys who don't conform to their expectations, they hate men who vote left-wing, they hate gay people, bi people, really anyone who isn't heterosexual, they definitely hate trans people (see: trans people want to use bathrooms to abuse children as merely an extension of the Satanic Ritual Abuse claims), they hate people with coloured hair, bright clothes, they hate Jewish people, they hate Muslims, they hate anyone from a fringe religion that doesn't look right, they hate foreigners, black and brown people... anyone they define as different. And to back this up, they claim to be "the majority" being dictated to be a "minority" - they aren't. They're a minority of gobby cunts, a Karen of Nazis (Karen being the best collective noun to describe these childish crybabies who were so desperate to remain in a state of childlike innocence they embraced both religion and then keep insisting their imaginary friend, Jesus, is following them everywhere, like a psychotic stalker ghost).

PART 3 WHERE DOES THEIR BULLSHIT COME FROM?

This is probably the most important part. Not what they believe, but where these ideas come from, and why they aren't new.

Qanon is a mixture of young-and-edgy YouTube/8chan influencer, white supremacist religious manipulation, pro-Capitalist Protestant religious "life is shit, embrace misery" ideology, pedophile hysteria, and "we hate the idea people have rights because we're power mad, but we're going to frame this as a backlash, normal people making their voices heard, a culture war, or whatever else we can rebrand PREJUDICE because even we don't want to admit we are bigots".

So, first of all, the angry white online teenagers: have always existed, will always exist. Their parents don't give a shit about them unless they cause trouble. So, they learn quickly that the best way to get attention is to cause trouble, which leads to kinship with other troubkemakers, forming an echo chamber of escalating troublemaking. But they're also angry, and often poor (in their eyes, or in actuality), so they're drawn to outrage, and like causing it. They're attracted to movements like this because they believe it's a chance to get some attention, someone to notice them.

And who notices them? White supremacists are always on the lookout for recruits. They feed their need for outrage and attention by misrepresenting everything. They take puff-piece news articles and shoddy journalism and further twist them into movements around positions that have no basis in reality. Vaccines? Designed to hurt you. "Uhhh, no," you say. "That's literally the opposite of what a vaccine does." I don't believe that, they say, and you can't question my beliefs. BLM? Terrorism. "No, they just want to not be shot." No they don't, they want to take over and put the Jews in power, and you can't question my beliefs! "You have no evidence!" COVER UP! they scream.

So it goes, so it goes.

Meanwhile, the Protestan work ethic of, "If you didn't suffer, you don't deserve it," goes on and on. They believe that shit things just happen, you can't stop them. Capitalism is founded on this very, very relugious principle: work should be pain for it to have value. This justifies promoting assholes, and making things difficult. But it also promotes the idea that you can't do anything to combat inequality, as that is natural, and you can't do anything to stop bad things happening, they always will, so why try? This lends Qanon a specific pattern: complain, do nothing, complain nothing is being done, still do nothing, repeat. It's wrong to intervene, you see. This allows them to say racism is bad, but God wants us to suffer so we deserve phony-heaven, a paradise they think is built on bricks of human misery... does that sound glorious to you? And if you have something, clearly you did suffer to get it, and so you are worthy, which is why Trump is a hero to them and they believe his every utterance of verbal diarrhea about him being persecuted (to be fair, he is, but he deserves it because he's lazy and incompetent).

Pedophile hysteria is also generally religiously motivated. Children should be protected, but they are not innocent angels. I've worked with children. Some are nice, some are sneaky, some are violent bullies, and so on. The one thing that unites all children is that they are ignorant. That's why we send them to school. And there are people who want to prey on children. The world we usually use to describe those who most often hurt, abuse and damage children is, "family". Promoting the idea of gangs of rampaging pedophiles snatching children into vans and harming them in shadowy rooms, or murdering them in some Satanic ritual, is laughable compared to the epidemic of children being harmed by those parents terrified the pedophiles are out there. Such fear motivates them to do untold harm to children, restricting their freedoms and their growth, teaching them that all sex is bad so they never enjoy it, forcing them to be things they aren't, and turning a blind eye to obvious abuse because those doing it are not the model of abuse being put out by the press and Internet communities. In that last way, Qanon is a driver of child abuse: it actively encourages Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult members to nit even ask the obvious question: if Epstein was abusing kids, and Epstein was hanging out with Trump, was Trump maybe involved in some way?

And then there is just the prejudiced crowd, most notably the American-exceptionalism delusional whack jobs. Let me be clear, all forms of exceptionalism are prejudiced, as they suggest that those who are exceptional are better and mire deserving than others, and the real world does not contain such hierarchies, just stuff that happens until it stops happening. A monkey may be the alpha, but one day they won't be. It's not a hierarchy, it's just a thing that happens that we project a power structure onto. Who knows what monkey culture is like? Maybe to them deference is more honourable and respected than being in charge. No-one has asked monkeys for their views of ideology or power structures.

This often manifests itself in ideas of, "We shouldn't be ashamed!" and that movements they don't like are, "Against us!" Well, if you're setting out to hurt people because you believe you are better than them, you should be ashamed. That queer Pakistani girl you keep out of college could have been the one to cure cancer! She might have had the unique perspective to make that breakthrough. And, yes, some of us are against Qanon, because Qanon is hurting people. That is the point of the movement: to harm its enemies, by denial if freedom all the way up to outright murder. It isn't a Pride parade or BLM demanding equality and an end to deaths, its a hate movement driven by a desire to punch down, and ultimately perpetuate the very system that isn't even working for those who follow its own ideology.

It's based on fear of the new, even if that new place is better than the old one, change can be scary. They think equality will hurt them, the way collective bargaining would hurt them. But we don't live in a system where resources are so finite you have to do without, we live in a system where resources are finite but we throw away an excess because capitalism couldn't make rich people richer by giving it to those who need it, so they dispose of it and introduce scarcity to drive up the cost. Working together would force them to stop doing that, which is why movements like this exist: to perpetuate a form of exceptionalism more like a cult, where only the leaders reap the rewards.

PART 4 WHAT IS THE END GOAL OF QANON?

It doesn't have one.

Qanon is a right-wing movement. Right-wing movements are about winning arguments now, and then feeling smug, even when the damage is undone later. It's about a sense of self-satisfaction, and not anything else.

Plus, Qanon has so many stake-holders who hate each other that the movement will eventually descend into cannibalism as all these things do.

Finally, being primarily religious in its design, it won't take long for many religious types to realise Q is kind if a God-like figure, a false idol, and when that happens, plenty if their leaders will become worried that their followers are so focused on Q they might "stray from the path" of donating all their money to their church.

Unless it turns out that Q is Q from Star Trek, in which case their end goal is to test Jean-Luc Picard.

PART 5 SHOULD WE FEAR QANON?

Nah. It's a group of fringe lunatics whose time in the spotlight will be fleeting. As I've already said, even their ideas aren't original - this is the Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult version of Fortnite stealing dances: everyone goes crazy about it for a bit, but it's so insubstantial in its original form, nevermind the cover band version, that almost all people with a lick of common sense will dismiss it. Plus, it doesn't serve any agenda: Trump could easily find himself on the receiving end of it, that one Qanon politician just elected will likely be marginalised the moment Trump vanishes, and having a single person won't sway any votes in such divisive times, which means they'll be proclaimed ineffectual soon enough, and with Epstein it is already showing that it isn't something which helps the powerful, meaning a lot of people who do have secrets will want it gone sooner rather than later lest it bite their own hands. Plus, they are actually harming people - and say what you like about the Republicans, they don't tend to respond well to the PR disaster of groups they side with directly attacking or killing people unless they are their own ACAB stormtroopers.

Plus, it's a bunch of saddos on the Internet. Chances are if you see someone screaming about Qanon and waving around a gun, they'd have done the same and screamed about lizards had it never got started.

PART 6 WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Stop giving them attention. This is one of the most BORING conspiracy theories ever created. Seriously, since 9/11, conspiracy theories have really gone downhill. They used to be about aliens and subterranean kingdoms, and now they're just attempts to misdirect pedophile hunters from the right-wing types who have covered up child abuse, and tie it to phony "think of the children" and "Satan is out to get us" religious hysteria.

With covid-19, the press is having a very slow news cycle, so they're desperately grabbing at anything that can drive search engine algorithm clicks to their sites, so they're covering Qanon because they've seen it trending. I doubt most people involved with it really believe in it, but it is so directionless that it wouldn't matter if they did. Qanon Con would descend into bloodshed fairly quickly because everyone would be angry and arguing that the tater tots are secret SRA code for cannibalising children or that it reveals that Hilary Clinton buries children beneath fields of potatoes. It's stupid, the people involved with it are stupid, and the bigger question is what they believe that led them to this:

Disenfranchisement. Having to respect the beliefs of others. Prejudice. Anger.

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. If these shitbags actually want to stop harm to children, maybe stop supporting gun rights so kids aren't being gunned down in schools, and black kids don't keep getting gunned down everywhere. Until you do that, Qanon, you're the child abusers.

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jeanjauthor · 4 years

Link

THIS.

This this this this this!!!

I couldn’t find the words to say why I’ve had a problem with the phrase “separating the work from the author,” since it was such an instinct-level thing. I tried to ignore my instincts because I couldn’t put it into words. (And frankly, as a bi genderfluid person, I’ve been gaslit so many times on this sort of thing, I’ve learned to doubt my instincts...)

But this is it. Mike (of all people, if you know the webcomic: content warning for other pages, contains murder, violence, verrrry dark humor, mature content, readers be advised the archive is HUGE, etc, etc) is hitting the nail on the head.

“I realized ‘separate the work from the author’ is easy for me to say when I’m not one of the people they dehumanize.”

That right there, folks.

That is the single most important thing for us as writers. Not just as readers. (Don’t get me wrong, that’s important too, but this is about writers writing.)

Our works & our personal opinions will bleed into each other.

Hell, I’ve read exactly 2 books of Orson Scott Card’s, and i could tell he had a homophobic hate-on, and particularly loved torturing boys & young men. The writing, the stories, those were intense, for the most part well-written...but those particular hateful scenes were disturbing, to say the least.

We put a little bit of ourselves into every book. Sometimes that little bit of ourselves is not a healthy or happy place. Sometimes, it is a very, very ugly place.

On the bright side, we can always strive to be better people. We can strive to be better people in our writings, too. Because while I’ve said that what we write, others absorb, internalize, and return to the world...this applies to us, too.

What we imagine, what we write, we ourselves read, absorb, internalize, & emit.

The character of Mike in Something*Positive started out as a shitty person. He has managed to grow into a much better person over the years. We can do that ourselves, and we can certainly do it better. We’re in control of our own thoughts, actions, and dialogue after all, and we don’t have to say things paced for hitting any 4 panel or per-page comedic beats.

I got my writing career based on the quality of my Harry Potter fanfic.

I cannot admire JK Rowling anymore. I will not tolerate her insulting women just because they had to discover they were women years after they were born. I loved Harry Potter (especially books 1-4), but...no more.

Now, I’m not perfect myself. I’m no angel. But the things I rant about are in support FOR my fellow human beings’ right to exist in peaceful coexistence with each other, without trying to harm each other. (*Nazis will still get punched, because you can stop being a Nazi at any time, as that’s a series of choices. I don’t have a choice about being genderfluid or finding more than one gender attractive. I do have a choice on whether or not to hate others!)

Give an author a chance to realize they’re saying some hateful shit, offer them the opportunity to change and grow into a better person.

If they not only double-down, but triple and quadruple and sextuple-down on a hateful position...well, electrons from all those ebooks are 100% recyclable, and so is most of the paper in physical books, too.

...Btw, I’m genderfluid, but I don’t consider myself transgender, because when I’m feeling female, I am cisgender in that moment, just as when I’m feeling agender (or, rarely, male), I am trans. But because of my fluidity, I get to walk through the world with a far higher level of privilege than most transgender folk. I have “passing privilege” because I don’t care about presenting in any particular way most days (agender being the equivalent of “wearing comfy clothes all the time, neither particularly feminine nor masculine” and I love wearing comfy clothes literally.)

However, I acknowledge that other nonbinary folks may consider themselves (case by case basis) as transgender, and I support that 100% for them. Just don’t try to force it on me, because I am acknowledging my passing privilege by not applying the label to myself. It’s not a pride-filled thing to acknowledge it.

And by acknowledging it, I am more aware of it, and how it impacts not only my life, but the lives of others.

Which is Mike’s point, if you take the time to think about it. I do have passing privilege, but not every non-cisgender person has that. Because of my passing privilege, I don’t seem like one of those people being dehumanized by all this TERF-y bullshit...and so I need to be aware of my privilege, so that I can use my seeming/occasional cisgender-ness to advocate for those who don’t have passing privilege.

We ALL need to be more aware of our own privileges as well as the marginalizations & dehumanizations of others.

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kissfaeries · 4 years

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sadly, I could possibly go to jail simply for being gay or even just 'promoting homosexuality'. I remember in 2017 a couple of college students went to jail for raising the gay flag at a concert (they now escaped to Canada thankfully). I am hoping to study abroad, then get the citizenship of wherever I am and come out to my parents when I am there then just stay there. but I find it hard to get over my religious beliefs as I have been taught that gay people will burn in hell and all that +

I find it hard to let go of all theses beliefs and I just feel like I can never come to terms with possibly being bi. what if I end up having a gf and go to hell? abandoning my religion is really hard and I don't know if I could do it. I will also have to deal with all the shame of losing my family and friends and possibly my hometown. I really want to do it but I am scared of hell and what I will have to go through if I really do come out.

also, your response really helped me realise wheather I am bi or not and I believe I am!! I started thinking about it and realized that I would love to one day get married to a woman. I also realized that my pervious hatred for marriage was just my hatred for the way het marriage is supposed to go. but when I think about possibly getting married to a girl, living with her and even adopting children I feel extremely happy. thank you for helping me out!! 💜💜

Anon, im so glad that i could help you figure yourself out!!! you don’t know how happy this makes me❤️ i just wanted to tell you, i hope you know that you deserve to be happy. No matter what, there’s nothing wrong with wanting happiness, with wanting to fall in love with a woman and be happy w her for life, and i hope you know that no matter what anyone else (in your family or your country) thinks, you DESERVE to be happy.

Your plan to come out to your parents once you’re abroad and safe is VERY CLEVER. seriously, you don’t ever have to come out to someone who you think could react in a homophobic way, but if you wish them to know, then knowing that you’ll be safe from their reaction is the best way to go. i am so, so sorry that you live in a country where you could get arrested for being gay or for simply fighting for gay rights/safety... but im glad that studying abroad and getting that citizenship is an option for you!!!!

As for religion.... let me tell you that I understand what you’re feeling. I was raised religious too, and though it wasn’t as extreme as what you’re describing, i also felt scared of going to hell, and i felt ashamed of loving women, i cried myself to sleep every night thinking that i was a deviant and that i’d go to hell. And it was hard, at first, to let go of those thoughts. But look where i am! I no longer fear religion, nor hell. I am an atheist, and i will not let religion make me feel like an abomination for being bi, when the Church has been committing more sins than i could ever hope to do.

I hope that one day you will let go of religion, because it is simply a harmful ideology that makes LGB people feel like we’re doing something wrong just for existing and for daring to be who we are and who we love. But i know how hard it is to just stop thinking that way when that’s all you’ve ever known since birth. Which is why im not going to tell you the easy answer, “there’s no hell, so don’t worry abt being bi, you won’t go there. it doesn’t exist”. Even though it’s true, because there’s no proof that such an awful place exist. I am going to tell you, that i don’t know if hell exists, no one does, but if it does exist, then it is a place where terrible people will end up going. Those who deserve it, rapists and murderers and pedophiles and abusers, those who have HURT others. But it is NOT where you will go, because you have done nothing wrong, regardless of what religion tells you. Remember this: love is not a sin. Accepting your innate sexuality is not a sin. And you will never cause harm to anyone just for being same-sex attracted.

It is normal to be scared of coming out, of losing your family’s love, of ‘shaming’ them. I support your decision, whatever it is. I just hope you know that you shouldn’t feel ashamed for prioritizing your happiness. Your family’s love should not come at the price of losing yourself, of hating yourself, and of condemning yourself to a miserable life where you have to hide yourself. Also... I can’t promise you that your family will accept you, but i CAN promise you that you will have friends in the future that will love you unconditionally, and that will love you and support you for WHO you ARE, not for who you‘re trying to be.

im sorry for the long answer, i just wanted to answer you properly bc you deserve it! Im so proud of where you’ve come, and im so happy you’ve realised, like me, that het marriage is simply not for you, and that marrying a woman would make you happy. again, you deserve it. much luck in whatever you decide to do in the end💞💞💞

#😭😭😭im sorry i wish i could help you more #anon #ask #[m]#homophobia #my thoughts

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secretgamergirl · 5 years

Text

A Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People

As a trans woman, I literally can’t go a day without encountering at least a dozen horrible bigots shouting disgusting things directly at me, which I’ve come to accept, but I notice every time it happens there’s this whole crowd of confused people who don’t have that sort of burning hatred for trans people, but do think they raise a couple good points. And people think this because nobody has ever taught them enough basic facts about trans people to recognize the most obvious lies. So let’s work on that a bit.

Trans women are men who wear dresses. - FALSE

This is THE most common lie that gets floated around. Before I even begin to address it, let me just hit you with a few photos of actual trans women to hopefully show just how far off the mark this is.

It should be pretty clear from looking at these photos that these are all plainly women, and as a bonus. I also wouldn’t describe any of these outfits as “a dress.”

So, how is this lie as popular as it is? Well, for a number of reasons I’m going to get into in more detail, it is very rare for the average person to see a trans person and realize that person they are looking at is trans (would you have guessed any of the women above were if I hadn’t said so?) and nearly every time you see a trans person depicted in the media, rather than hire or accurately draw/describe a real trans person, they just take some man and put him in a dress, or take some woman and put her in a suit. Since such portrayals are basically all you ever see when being told you’re looking at a trans person, that’s what you grow up thinking. But, no. Trans women are women, who just look like any other woman, and trans men are men who look like any other man.

Trans women are men who got a bunch of plastic surgery to look like women - FALSE

The photo set used above came from me doing a quick search for trans models, because it’s a lot easier to disprove the “costume” lie if I can show you women wearing clothes skimpy enough to show they aren’t stuffing their bras or concealing big burly hairy arms or anything like that, and I didn’t do any background checks beyond verifying that every woman pictured is in fact trans, so it’s possible some of these women may have had nose jobs or other minor cosmetic surgeries to achieve more idealized faces, but the “bunch of plastic surgery” referred to in this lie refers to some sort of comic book fantasy where you can somehow take someone who looks like Sylvester Stallone or something, bust out a scalpel, and somehow carve away flesh and bone to leave behind some sort of idealized specimen of womanhood like these. That just isn’t how it works. Such surgeries do not exist, and bodies like these women have are all quite attainable without any kind of surgery at all. Just be a woman, eat the right diet get the right sort of exercise and be lucky enough to have a pleasantly symmetrical face, and tada.

I’ve totally seen “before and after” photos of trans women which pretty damn well look like a man and a woman side by side - TRUE

Here’s a truly mind-blowing example from a friend of mine, in fact.

So what’s going on here? Well, the short version is, trans people are people who are actually of one gender, but for some reason, usually a hormone production imbalance or insensitivity, look like another gender until getting that treated.

The effects of this can be pretty damn impressive and dramatic, and some tend to be observable immediately from birth, so what typically happens is our parents attempt to just go off appearances, give us names based on how we look, and do their best to just raise us as that gender, stubbornly ignoring every sign, no matter how obvious the signs that they’re forcing the wrong identity on their child at best, and trying to force us to be what they want in some really messed up ways.

This screws with our heads badly enough that a lot of us go along with it for decades, just being utterly miserable and feeling like fake people for reasons we can’t necessarily articulate. It certainly doesn’t help that society’s overall ignorance about this keeps us from learning all we have to do is take some combination of cheap supplements/blockers for a couple years and everything will just fix itself. Even after hearing that this sort of hormone replacement is possible, and just from off-label usage of extremely well tested and common drugs, normally used for birth control, menopause, and acne treatment, most of us refuse to believe how effective this can be. Which is why I once again have to thank my friend Kiva for permitting me to link that amazing pair of photos showing just how dramatic the effects of fixing this sort of imbalance can be.

Trans people basically walk around in disguise and can make themselves look like men or women at will. - FALSE

I think I already covered this in the first of these, but just to reiterate the point, let me pull another photo off the stack.

Put a woman like this in a man’s suit and you just have what’s clearly a woman in a man’s suit. There’s no weird Cinderella/werewolf thing going on. Trans women look like women (because that’s what we are) all the time. Actually let me do one better. I have a trans woman in a suit right here.

Trans women have penises - SOMETIMES SORT OF TRUE

This is a tricky one to talk about because I try to keep this blog safe for work, and it’s hard to get this across without some sort of visual aid.

Here is a NSFW image in the form of a black and white sketch of human gonadal structure, as far removed and abstracted from looking at someone naked as I can find, but again, hedging my bets, click at your own peril.

You’ll notice, if you click, that this is the same exact structure. So, one of those things that the above-mentioned hormone imbalances tend to do is inflate this structure in women, and shrink it in men, making it appear that most trans women have penises and trans men clitorides (a few other things in that region are affected in similar fashion). This is the main thing that leads to us being miscategorized as babies. And the functionality can even match the size while the hormone issues responsible are untreated.

This too is treatable though. The same hormone replacement leading to Kiva’s shocking before and after photos have a pretty major impact, to the extent that having been on such for years now, if I were to attempt to indulge in self-pleasuring techniques in the fashion a man would, it just plain would not work Structurally, mechanically, texturally, it’s just not on the table. Grabbing a woman’s sex toy and using that accordingly though would work just fine. Now, if I posted a very intimate photo, things would look a bit weird (not manly really, it’s sort of a unique oddity down there), but there’s a surgery that can restructure everything and get it back to the standard factory settings most women have going on, with the exact proper appearance and functionality. It’s expensive, and there’s only like a dozen or two surgeons in the world who perform it (I actually have a full list on my desk somewhere). So some of us can’t do that because we don’t have the money or insurance that will cover it, or surgery is too dangerous, or we can’t reach those couple dozen surgeons, or we can and we’re stuck on waiting lists for years, and some of us don’t care about about standardizing our anatomy enough to want to bother with all that.

The idea that we’re effectively men from the waist down though is a sensationalist exaggeration though, and the notion that those of us who have things corrected have anything “chopped off” is a grotesque lie.

Trans women are fetishists and likely sex offenders - FALSE

I mean, t’s way more common than average for us to be lesbians or bisexual (I think the straight/bi/lesbian ratio is something like 30/40/30), which might qualify as some sort of “sexual deviance” if you’re some weird homophobe from the 1950s or something, but the idea that we get some kind of thrill out of the way we look or the clothes we wear is a total myth. I have a closet full of women’s clothes because I’m a woman. Those are the clothes that fit me best and look good on me. If I tried to put on a pair of men’s jeans or something it’d be really uncomfortable because like most women I carry most of my extra weight on my thighs and butt, and personally I have a good bit of that. If I put a bra on it’s because I need the support and/or don’t want creepy dudes trying to make out the outline of my nipples through my shirt. Nothing particularly sexy about any of that.

And on the predatory front, any stories about trans women being sexually aggressive pretty much just come from hatemongers. This is something they’ve even publicly admitted to. Statistically, trans people are way less likely than anyone else to commit any sort of sex-related criminal offenses, and even in consensual relationships we tend to be real real timid about approaching anyone. A lot of that is because in addition to being orders of magnitude more likely than others to be the VICTIMS of sexual assault, there’s this really horrifying state of affairs where if you aren’t in one of the yellow states, it’s a valid legal defense to murder a trans woman after having sex with her if you decide you aren’t comfortable with that. Or even if you just feel like one of us might be hitting on you.

An overwhelming majority of us just avoid the risk entirely by dating other trans people exclusively.

Trans women have to trick people into dating them - FALSE

This is a basic supply and demand issue really. We are super rare. Depending who you ask, the trans population is somewhere between 1 in 300 people and 1 in 50 people. We tend to look damn good, because years of being mistaken for the wrong gender tends to encourage putting a major effort into presentation to keep it from happening, and again, most of us just hook up with each other because people who decide we’re really exotic and want to hook up have a scary habit of fipping out after the fact (or during, or just before), or have their egos bruised when people bring in the baggage of all the lies covered above an picture them hooking up with men in dresses) and murder us to be sure we don’t tell anyone. And again, like the map above says, the court system buys into us being scary predators enough to give them a pass for that.

So the brave few trans women who put themselves on the market in non-trans dating circles never lack for willing partners.

Men can just self-identify as trans women and barge into women’s restrooms and changing rooms and exploit programs to hire more women - FALSE

Self-identification is a term thrown around in British law regarding trans people in the specific context that trans people are seeking the basic right they have in more enlightened countries to just tell therapists and doctors that they’re trans, and start down the long red-tape filled road towards proper medical treatment and legal recognition, as opposed to going to one specific singular clinic, the only one in the country, and prove that they are trans to the staff thereof. Which in addition to being a decidedly arbitrary barrier. People who aren’t trans don’t have an interest in altering their hormone balance to radically alter their bodies, and even if they did, the effect on their brain chemistry would mess them up severely (meanwhile, one of the most immediate benefits of HRT for trans people is fixing brain chemistry issues that allow us to think more clearly, feel emotions properly, and otherwise end years of feeling like some kind of broken fraudulent zombies, because our brains aren’t getting enough/getting too much of certain chemicals).

It also can’t be stressed enough how this is just the first step of a very long process, with tons of red tape. Here’s the 110 page international manual doctors and lawmakers all over the world follow.for this stuff, when they aren’t adding even more arbitrary hoops on top of this. Before getting that little F on my ID, I had to spend two years “living as a woman” at least a year on HRT, and have multiple medical professionals sign off, who all had their own months or years long requirements to deal with. And that’s in a country where self-identification is the law of the land.

A lot of people also use the term to make disgusting jokes like “I identify as an attack helicopter” or “I identify as black,” in an effort to compare trans people to con artists like Rachel Dolezai or generally paint us as absurd. So, that’s fun.

Trans women completely dominate in sports - FALSE

OK, just pick a sport. Look at the top level competitors and champions in it. None of them are trans. “OK but didn’t I hear about some trans woman running track and just crushing everyone?” No, you didn’t. You’re thinking of Caster Semenya. She isn’t trans. Bigots spread rumors that she is because there’s a long disgusting tradition of racists claiming black women “look like men,” especially black lesbians, and in particular, this one whiny little white supremacist started whining like crazy about how unfair it was that she finished every race behind a bunch of black women, and has been campaigning to have them all kicked out of the sport so she can finish 3rd instead of 6th.

It’s also worth noting that the BS ruling proposed to force Semenya out of her favored event wouldn’t actually affect any trans athletes, as legally qualifying as women already requires us to address hormone balance issues in a way that, if the effects of high testosterone levels weren’t decidedly exaggerated, would put all of us at a severe disadvantage to everyone else in a given sport.

There are actually a good number of trans people involved in various professional sports, none of whom really excel as an additional data point here. The closest thing to an exception is the story of a trans boy on a high school wrestling team who, thanks to poorly thought out rules put in place to preemptively keep trans girls from playing on girls’ teams by ignoring everything but birth certificates, was forced against his will to join the girl’s wrestling team. Something absolutely no one involved, least of all him is happy about.

There are a whole ton of new laws trans women are pushing for that would suddenly mean they were treated as women for purposes of walking into bathrooms and locker rooms and all sorts of other things - FALSE

The existing status quo already has us in such places, as it should, because, again, trans women are women and don’t actually appear to be anything else, and this standard has existed for decades. You’ve been in public restrooms and locker rooms at some point in your life with at least one trans person being present unless you actively avoid ever entering such. You didn’t notice, and there was no reason you should have cared. Because, again, what is there to be upset about exactly?

There’s a scary new trend of diagnosing young children as trans and giving them irreversible surgeries and hormone treatments - FALSE

If you haven’t picked up on it, nobody is proposing any sort of new legislation anywhere to expand the rights of trans people, outside of the aforementoned self-ID thing in England, which is just getting up to speed to where the rest of the world has been for decades.

And again, as previously covered, nobody gets “diagnosed as trans.” Bigots constantly talk up these hypothetical situation where parents who, for some baffling reason, want their children to be trans, take them to specialists for some sort of examination potentially giving them a label as such. Parents like that don’t exist. Specialists like that don’t exist. There’s no trans test. It’s just something you innately know about yourself and have to start twisting arms to get medical help with. And if there were such a test, I’m still not sure how running it on people would be a bad thing. It only makes sense if we’re acknowledging these children really are trans, but want to avoid any sort of official labeling or treatment in the hopes it can somehow be tortured out of them through conversion therapy (which for the record is proven not t work for anything but making those subjected to it suicidal);

Furthermore, we’ve already addressed that radical full body reconstructive surgery is not an actual thing, but even if it were, outside of immediate emergency treatments for failing organs, we generally don’t perform any sort of surgeries on minors. The WPATH standards I linked earlier are pretty clear on all of this as well.

Hormone replacement is also completely off the table for minors. Personally I don’t agree with that, and feel that if a child has worked out that they’re trans before starting puberty, the thing to do would be to start fixing their hormone balance at that age, so they properly develop alongside all their peers, but I’m not out there making a push for it, nor is anyone else I’m aware of.

Instead, the standard we have for such children is to put them on puberty blockers, otherwise typically prescribed for cases of precocious puberty, where children start puberty when they’re like 6 years old and there are potential health risks. These drugs don’t cause any sort of permanent changes. In fact, the entire point is to delay any changes that would otherwise be made by increased hormone levels during puberty, either putting it off until the appropriate age, in the case of the more traditional use, or in the case of trans children, preventing the hormone imbalance rendering them trans in the first place to flood their bodies with the wrong mix, which again, causes really horrible problems with brain chemistry and really undesirable effects like breast/hair growth etc. I lived through it. It was hell. And of course in the hypothetical event that a child was put on puberty blockers until they were 18 who wasn’t trans, the only effect it would have would be them not starting puberty until 18. Really not the end of the world, particularly since no child gets put on such unless they personally request it.

Otherwise the only thing done for trans children is encouraging those around them to use the correct pronouns and not be weird about policing what they wear, so they don’t have to deal with years of abuse, torment, and confusion when they age up to a point to get medical treatment, and get to live a totally normal life, without all their childhood friends having the wrong idea about what gender they were growing up.

Trans people are getting way more common all of the sudden, or only just came into existence recently - FALSE

Trans people have been around literally forever (and this is documented in historical sources should you be curious enough to look), and while, again, different studies disagree on exactly how rare we are, it’s because we’re rare enough that it’s hard to get an accurate count. We make up the same small percentage of the population world wide, with even distribution. We’re not contagious. There’s no “trans gene.” People don’t decide to become trans.

AWARENESS that trans people exist has been on the rise, but that’s just because horrific bigotry towards trans people has been on the rise. And that’s simply because all the people who spent the last couple of decades flipping the hell out over gay marriage have generally conceded defeat on that front, and on the front of keeping gay characters out of the media, preventing gay couples from adopting children, and otherwise keeping gay people out of public life. They felt they needed a new wedge issue to drive down support for LGBT+ people, and figured the total dearth of public awareness about trans people meant they could spread all kinds of scaremongering crap without anyone calling it out as hateful BS, and... yeah they’ve been pretty successful in doing that. Otherwise I’d have had no reason to write up this primer. It also helps that they’ve been so successful in painting a bunch of far-right religious extremists as scholarly left-leaning feminists, so it isn’t as obvious that it’s the same hateful crap coming from the same hateful sources.

But again, BS is what it all is. Hopefully I’ve linked enough reputable sources to make that clear here, and answered at least the bulk of questions you may have had about trans people. There’s one more though.

There are only two genders and the singular they is grammatically incorrect - FALSE

I’ve kept the vast majority of this focused on trans women, because the vast majority of hate and disinformation is focused on women specifically, but not all trans people are women. Trans men also exist. As I did above, I can easily show you a bunch of attractive models who are undeniably men.

I can give you another of those amazing before and after photos too.

And in addition to there being trans men and women, there are people out there who realize that being labeled as boy or a girl when they were wrong was clearly a mistake, but switching to the other label also doesn’t feel right, so they find another option to go with. The English language doesn’t really have any sort of terminology to cover that concept, and for whatever reason, Christian missionaries really did their darnedest to stamp out every culture that has the appropriate language and concepts. Again though, historical records on this go back forever.

Because English sucks for discussing such people, we generally throw them under the catch-all label of “non-binary” (since they don’t fit in with the binary choice of being either a man or a woman, see) and either need to work out new pronouns, or just refer to them as, well, them.

A lot of people who get prickly about this since, well, they’re big ol’ bigots, attempt to rationalize their discomfort with claims that this isn’t grammatically correct, but, it is. The English language has used “they” as a singular pronoun for longer than it’s used “you” as a singular pronoun.

In fact, even the people who raise such objections pretty constantly make use of the very thing they’re complaining about. It is hilariously commonplace for some bigot to get into this big huge speech about how they refuse to use the singular they, get into disparaging a hypothetical person using it, and start rambling about how they were taught to always say ‘he or she’ in such situations, and that they couldn’t possibly adapt, using the word, in that context, about as many times as I just did in this paragraph. It’s so natural nobody ever even realizes they’re doing it unless they’re actively trying to be a jerk about it.

I might edit this if there’s anything big I forgot, but tada. You are now less woefully ignorant about trans people.

#trans #transgender #transphobia #educational resource

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