#stop throwing the term transphobe as if it means nothing

[strawberry-graveyard]

being mentally ill is not a prerequisite to being bad or abusive. yes there will always be mentally ill people who are bad, but not every abuser has a mental illness and not everyone with a mental illness will be an abuser.

hurting someone is a choice, and it has nothing to do with how your brain is wired, how high or low your empathy is, none of it. especially on the empathy front. plenty of people who have high empathy are complete assholes. plenty of people who feel a lot of guilt after hurting someone will wake up the next day and choose to do it again. meanwhile pretty much everyone i’ve met with low/no empathy has been the kindest person alive, because lacking empathy doesn’t mean you don’t know right from wrong.

you are taught what hurts people nearly every day of your life. some you learn when you’re little and some you learn as an adult. but you are taught right from wrong, and what makes you a bad person has nothing to do with things you can’t control. it entirely has to do with waking up in the morning and choosing whether you’re going to do things that hurt people or not.

and more often than not the people choosing to hurt others are entirely neurotypical. so stop trying to explain away other people’s horrible decisions with mental illnesses you know nothing about. you are not a therapist, and your therapist knows nothing about people they do not counsel. you and the people in your life have no say in whether your abusive ex is a narcissist. no say in whether your racist qanon uncle is delusional. no say in whether your transphobic aunt is paranoid.

because when you claim these things with no knowledge of what you’re talking about you deflect from the real issues at hand. you continue to push away the term emotional abuse when you call your abuser a narcissist. you continue to push away systemic bigotry. you continue to push away weaponized loneliness. weaponized incompetence. the lack of critical thinking skills, or the decline of media literacy.

none of these have any link to mental illness, you just want an excuse to hurt others. in fact you’re the perfect example of the choice to be bad, because you choose to be ableist every time you throw mental illness around as an insult, as something inherently tied to being horrible. so i implore you to choose to be a little bit better today. at least choose to try.

[hindahoney]

Tbh even at my synagogue there's so much anti orthodox sentiment and it makes me really sad. We're liberal/progressive which of course means we generally don't always agree with typical orthodox values, we would go to an Orthodox synagogue instead of this one if we did, but I hear a lot of talk among our community that I find really disrespectful of Orthodox Jews! Things like blanket accusations of homophobia and sexism which just...isn't true if you even glance in the direction of all the queer Orthodox Jews that exist. I swear people just like to say "Orthodox is bad to gay people!!!!" and all the gay Orthodox Jews are like "uh no it's not, we're actually a huge influential part of the Orthodox community, you can't just ignore that we're here, and youre choosing to ignore all the work that queer Orthodox Jews have put in to make our spaces safe and accessible" and then others still go "it's so sad how no queers can thrive in Orthodox spaces :(( sometimes it's like I can still hear their voices"

It's very much not the same thing but for the sake of analogy, it reminds me of American queers who say shit like "The southern states are so homophobic there's nothing there for us this is so sad <\3" while completely ignoring that the south is actually full of queer people, some will live their whole lives in those places and aren't any less queer or influential there than elsewhere, and it's super homophobic to make statements like that. Like sure just go ahead and assume gay people in the south are all completely trapped and powerless and tragic and nonexistent instead of acknowledging that there are thousands of fully realised queer human beings there whose experiences shouldn't be swept under the rug to accommodate the popular narrative that South Bad.

Im not saying Orthodox communities never have issues with things like racism, homophobia, sexism etc, but like?? So do Reform and Liberal communities??? Stop pretending we're absolutely perfect while being so grossly antisemitic *to other Jews*. I've had encounters with transphobic Jews at my synagogue and while I was able to sort it out and get them to a place of understanding my upset and showing remorse and changed behaviour, it feels like people just want to ignore that this shit can still happen in progressive spaces, because it doesn't fit their narrative of Reform Good Orthodox Bad.

I considered going down a conversion route to become Orthodox a few years ago and didn't go through with it, but I did get to engage with my.local Orthodox rabbi and hoooooly shit it's been so saddening and eye opening the way every Orthodox Jew I've spoken to has, very early on, gone "don't worry I'm not sexist I promise!!" because they KNOW people are going to make horrible assumptions about them just based on their culture. Like fuck it tells a sad story about the way people including other Jews must treat them. Straight up antisemitic

I promise not all Liberal, Reform, progressive etc Jews feel negatively about Orthodoxy, it's just irritatingly common and I really heavily sympathise with all the shit you must have to go through. You aren't without allies but I don't blame you for feeling alone when this is how you're often treated.

(ik this isn't my blog but @ goyim: comment on this and i will bite your head off, this is a threat.)

Thank you for sharing your story. I by no means am saying I don't have my own qualms with orthodoxy, and things that I disagree with my community about. But that's okay, it's encouraged to disagree.It depends on who you ask whether they would call me orthodox or not, certainly more liberal Jews would view me this way. But out of respect for the orthodox community, I don't feel comfortable taking on that identity yet, but ultimately that's the goal. For right now I feel comfortable calling myself "frum."

It's incredibly painful when I see Jews throwing other Jews under the bus, because I take the term "tribe" seriously. When Cain asks HaShem "Am I my brother's keeper?" the Torah, and as consequence, the Jews, answered unequivocally yes. A Jew across the world that I've never met is, in my eyes and my entire soul, my family. So when I see my family fighting with each other over complete misunderstandings that could be solved if we just listened more, it hurts.

I feel like when people see me they assume I'm socially backward, as if there's no way I can square my religious beliefs with acceptance of LGBT+ people (as if I myself don't/can't identify as queer), or with women having a more involved role in services. They just assume we are a monolith, as if we're a group of worker ants that all operate and think the same exact way.

There are queer orthodox Jews who have made their space in orthodoxy. There are women who feel like they thrive in orthodoxy, who are NOT "ruled over" by their husbands, and are not forced to dress modestly, but choose it for themselves because they feel more comfortable that way.

[emptymasks]

i guess it’s that time of year again where everyone says good omens is queer baiting because crowley and aziraphale haven't expressed physical affection and desire and so it’s that time of year again where i mention how much this representation means to asexual and aromantic / aspec people and saying that having two characters (i refrain from saying men as crowley is confirmed genderfluid by the way, which people tend to ignore, i don’t know how you can call a show with genderfluid and non-binary characters ‘nothing but queerbaiting’) have to kiss or have sex to be queer is actually pretty hurtful to people in your own community. crowley and aziraphale not kissing doesn’t make them less queer, also he hasn’t confirmed that there won’t be a romance and keeps saying ‘wait and see’ because 1. he doesn’t want to spoil the show 2. he  likely cannot spoil the show legally without getting into trouble

every time i think the fandom is past this, you’re not. and i understand, i understand what it would mean to have a show like this have two leads played by actors of the same gender kiss. but a lot of the fandom who throw around the queerbaiting term (which means something was set up and not followed through on which isn’t true by the way, there’s plenty of room to interpret aziraphale and crowley as platonically in love) always seem to ignore the aspec people who talk about how much this representation means to them and there’s even less aspec representation out there and queer-platonic-partner representation in mainstream media than there is gay romances. and unless some kind of deal with amazon prime is stopping him, if anyone watched gaiman’s other show this year, the sandman, i think it’s safe to say he doesn’t care about cramming as many gay, lesbian, bi and non-binary characters as he wants into his shows. perhaps if he’s not putting a romantic/sexual relationship with aziraphale and crowley it’s because he doesn’t feel it’s right for those characters to express their love that way, they are his characters after all, and maybe they are in love romantically, but they’ll never have sex, or never want to kiss, but they’ll say their i love yous in season two.

it’s a little silly to accuse a show of queerbaiting when the show isn’t out yet, we don’t know what will happen, and containing accusations of queerbaiting and homophobia towards neil gaiman because of good omens despite the release of the sandman tv show and the representation in that show. i understand the want for more on screen queer kisses, but i don’t think it’s accurate to accuse the show of queerbaiting. maybe use that term for shows that have actually done that and had harmful representation, homophobic representation, transphobic representation, shows that have actually caused actual hurt to real lgbt+ people, not just shows that have made you really want two characters to kiss and then disappointed you even though the characters have still been confirmed to be in love, just that love works differently for them than it does for us, and that at least one of the characters in canonically not-cis and the other might be as well. the first show with genderfluid representation that yes could have been more explicit but god it could have been actively transphobic like a different fandom show, the first main fandom show i’ve seen to have characters with they/them pronouns, with neopronouns, just.... i get that good omens means a lot to people, it gave us a lot of hope, but this isn’t he show to go cancel culture on because it hasn’t let the two characters having the slowest long burn of history be ready to kiss yet, or even have to kiss to prove they’re in love

this is just my opinion as a gay trans aspec person who definitely relates to aziraphale taking thousands of years to realise he’s in love and decades later still not be ready to kiss the person he’s in love with. i love my partner, we’ve been together close to a year, and i’m still not ready and comfortable to engage in kisses nor sex yet, and some aspec people will never be ready for that or never want that at all, so yes aziraphale and crowley can be in love and not be ready to smooch yet and it doesn’t make them any less in love. it will say i would like the i love yous to be said i the show and not just on twitter, but then again maybe they’re not ready to say it out loud yet.

queerbaiting would be if he said ‘yes omg they’re gonna be so gaaayy’ and then the show comes up and they aren’t gay at all. kinda like idk some big superhero franchise keeps doing. that’s actually queerbaiting. but if doesn’t say they’ll be any romance between them and then there isn’t... that isn’t queerbaiting. subtext and setting love up between them in season one, doesn't mean it has to be romantic or sexual love and i know so many hurt lgbt+ people got their hopes up that this ship would kiss on screen but.. them not kissing.. doesn’t make it queerbaiting, because we weren’t promised that, it just seemed more likely than in other shows given that we know gaiman is alright with putting queer characters in his media... and given we know that idk how anyone can call him a homophobe of transphobe

but who knows. i don’t. and you don’t. because the show literally isn’t out yet. so perhaps given that it isn’t out yet, we can’t and shouldn’t accuse it of anything until it’s actually out otherwise we run the risk of looking very silly

[art-forlater]

rant:

i think ppl who think you’re always supposed to put your partner before everyone and everything are ppl who enable abuse. when you’re making a narrative they’re more important than anything, you should never be okay with ppl “saying bad thing” about them, basically never question them you make them doubt the ppl around them when they get worried about serious things like abuse or cheating. im not saying you should listen to every word ppl say but is it really insane to consider they’re not perfect or when you’re getting told the same red flag by many ppl it might be there. also tho that narrative helps isolate ppl and makes it easier for a toxic relationship to occur. like my friend listened to ppl like that so when ppl say bad about her partners she just ignores it bc they could do wrong so when her ex strangled her, she didn’t listen and went back and he did it again. thankfully she realized and left but even that took too long bc she was convinced he loved her and that when someone loves you they won’t hurt you bc she listened to ppl who said that shit. now she’s with a racist homophobe, despite being mixed and bisexual, and ignores his homophobia/racist shit bc “he doesn’t mean it like that, esp not at me” like when you raise ppl to prioritize romantic relationships over any other relationship in their life, you raise the chances of them being in shit relationship. and quiet fucking honestly i’m sick of ppl getting upset when you say you shouldn’t prioritize or hold romance above all else, esp when they get pissy they don’t have any real friends bc they alienated them for someone they barely even knew, then they get stuck in a long term thing with no escape. seriously, ppl need to value other relationships in their life more. i wish i could find ppl around me that do, it’s so annoying and lonely seeing your friends constantly date douche bags, cut you off bc you call it out, then expect you to pick the pieces up when they finally realize. im always gonna care but tbh i’m losing some empathy. why do you expect ppl to stick around, esp when the asses you date disrespect me too. im trans and the girl with the racist homophobe lets him be transphobic and doesn’t stop it and she misgenders ppl when with him so now i’m wondering if when she talks about me, she’s misgendering me and now i feel like i can’t trust her bc some man who disregards her wants and needs, from the very beginning, is more important than our life long friendship. i know i should walk away but she’s basically isolated herself, again bc of who she dates. i hate throwing that away but also she doesn’t seem to values friends. im sick of watching ppl ignore obvious red flags, ignore warnings about red flags, and getting surprised when exactly what i said would happen, happened, and then expecting me to, honestly care. like i genuinely don’t and i feel like a tool for it bc abuse is complicated but it’s like if they keep doing it and nothings helping them, it’s like waiting for a train wreck and i don’t wanna watch anymore crashes. idk. i hate it all. people just suck. at least where i live. i wonder if there are ppl out there who get it. if one day i don’t gotta live watching everyone around be used and abused. i hate it

[gay-otlc]

to preface this ask: im not trying to be rude or disrespectful, im just trying to learn/see where you’re coming from.

how can someone identify as a mspec lesbian? the definition of lesbian is non-men loving non-men? if someone is mspec, it implies that they are attracted to men. the whole point of lesbianism is to not include men. someone can’t be a lesbian if they are a man or attracted to men, can they? i understand that sexuality is fluid, but if a person is currently at a point where they are a non-man loving only non-men, then that person could identify as a lesbian. is it not lesbiphobic to imply that lesbianism has anything to do with men, when the entire point of it is that it doesn’t involve men?

I'm not an mspec lesbian, but I've been researching and involved in discourse for about a year now, so I'll give it a shot. @bi-lesbian has a lot of good information on faer blog if you want to check that out.

(1) The non-men loving non-men definition is... not something I'm a fan of. That throws the complexity of gender out the window and comes off as equating nonbinary lesbians to Basically Women. This definition leaves out multigender lesbians (like me!), nonbinary lesbians with a partial connection to maleness, or genderfluid lesbians who are sometimes men. The definitions I like that are more inclusive are "queer attraction to women" or "women, or those with some connection to womanhood, who love women (or those with some connection to womanhood)."

(2) The "whole point" of lesbianism is NOT to not include men. The "whole point" of lesbianism is ✨women✨. I don't want to define myself around men, full stop. I'm a lesbian because I love women and whether I'm attracted to men or not has nothing to do with it. Not everything has to be about men, jfc tumblr. (Anger is not necessarily directed at you, anon, just the partriarchy that taught us we have to talk about men all the time constantly).

(3) See point (1) for someone identifying as both a man and a lesbian, and as far as being unable to identify as a lesbian and also being attracted to men... pre-1970s, the term lesbian included all women (and transmasc/nonbinary people though the terminology wasn't quite there yet) who loved women. Bisexuals and other mspecs, totally included. Then, radfems- because it's always radfems- decided "eww man icky" and pushed anyone associated with men out of their community. Bisexuals were excluded from lesbian spaces and had to form their own community, but lesbian used to include all WLW (functionally how we might use sapphic now) and some people want to reclaim the historical definition.

(4) Sexuality is fluid, and complex. Much like dividing gender into "men" and "non-men" doesn't work, dividing attraction into "attracted to men" and "not attracted to men" doesn't really work either. The split attraction model (different romantic and sexual orientations) allows for the possibility of someone being biromantic homosexual or bisexual homoromantic- both bi and a lesbian. There are also forms of alterous attraction- sensual, aesthetic, queerplatonic, etc. Orientation is typically defined around sexual/romantic attraction, so if someone is a lesbian in those attractions but is alterously attracted to men and other genders, they could fall under mspec lesbian. It's also possible to be unsure if you're attracted to men and include yourself with both communities, or feel attraction to men so little the lesbian experience resonates with you, or feel attraction to men but only form relationships with women. Like I said, you really can't divide it into attracted to men or not.

(5) Mspec doesn't necessarily mean attracted to men, either. Polysexuality is being attracted to many but not all genders. So by your definition, non-men attracted to non-men, lesbians can be attracted to all genders that are not men. Which is a lot of genders, if you're not transphobic and think nonbinary is Basically Woman. A woman who loves women and nonbinary people is attracted to multiple genders (mspec) and attracted to non-men (lesbianism), so your own ask already confirmed that this is possible.

(6) It's not lesbophobic. It's just people living their lives and describing themself in the terms they think fit best. No one's saying all lesbians have to be attracted to men. The entire point isn't that it doesn't involve men, the entire point doesn't surround men at all. The entire point is loving women, regardless of the inclusion or lack thereof of other genders. It's much more lesbophobic to force lesbians to talk about men in every aspect of our identity than to let lesbians like men or not like men or just live our lives loving women.

Hope this helps, and taught you something

[ephrom]

Are Lily Orchard's Stalkers In The Room With Us Right Now?

Lily Orchard has a surprising amount of stalkers. Not only that, but she's really good at determining who is and isn't a stalker on the spot. Here is her declaring two anonymous people on her tumblr stalkers in the last week--because they both called out her constant mention of vague "stalkers" as the reason everything bad happens to her in life.

Now, I'm not going to say that Lily Orchard has never been stalked. However, Lily has such a vague definition of "stalking" that the term is basically meaningless. Back in the day (notice how I am admitting this was years ago), she used to label ForNoGoodReason a stalker--make no mistake, he was a dumbass and a creep, but not a stalker--for the crime of making videos talking about her. However, making videos on somebody--even obsessively and constantly making videos on somebody--is not stalking. Under that definition, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were stalking Richard Nixon by covering Watergate for The Washington Post. This is a behavior Lily began engaging when I stopped watching her, and has only gotten worse since. Take this video Orchard posted three months (notice how I am very clearly saying when this video came out) at time of writing.

In this video, she lists six people as stalkers--none of whom she says by name, by the way. Yeah, despite this video serving the purpose of "drawing attention to her stalkers," she doesn't actually allow people to know who these people she wants to draw attention to are.

I'm still fairly new to the Lily Orchard drama sphere all things considered, so I'll break this down the best I can by telling you what she names these people and who they really are.

Karen is @britts-galaxy-brain

Carol is both Jess and Zena

Katie is @segasister

Ellie is Lizzy Orchard, her ex-fiancé

Skylar is Patchwork Hearts

Val is Cypher from @whyyoulyinglily

Mark Twain once said that no man has a good enough memory to be a liar, and Lily is such a liar she is unable to remember her own story from paragraph to paragraph. Within the same minute, Segasister I mean Katie I mean Segasister hates Lily both because she said Voice of Reason was wrong regarding My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and because she called out pedophiles in the brony community. Jess and Zena I mean Carol I mean Jess and Zena are grifters trying to content farm her one minute, and the next they're nothing more than aggressive Vaush fans.

Of course, if anybody knows even the basic facts about these situations, we can find that Lily is just lying at various points. For example, the content farming Jess and Zena I mean Carol I mean Jess and Zena were engaging in actually amounted to two videos before this came out.

Meanwhile, Brittiany I mean Karen I mean Brittiany is so transphobic that when they were friends Brittany was actually encouraging Lily to pursue a transgender identity despite fears that actually becoming a woman would be unrealistic. Oh, also, Brittiany began talking about her experiences with Lily between five and six years ago--I'll admit, I can't remember exactly when--not eight years ago, I know, I was there when it happened.

This isn't even getting into the number of claims she makes without the slightest amount of evidence--again, because the nature of the video demands she not use any or else risk shining a light on the people she made this video to shine a light on. For example, she claims out of nowhere that she has a hunch that Patchwork Heart I mean Skylar I mean Patchwork Heart was celebrating her being raped in 2018. If this claim were true, that would make Patchwork Heart I mean Skylar I mean Patchwork Heart a terrible human being--and Lily just throws out this guess without giving it any kind of support. (For reference, I have since talked to Patchwork Heart and she does not seem like the kind of person who would celebrate somebody being raped.)

However, what have these six stalkers done with all their years of harassment? Not much, according to Lily. You see, despite being obsessed with her to the point where they want to show up to her house, Lily has to admit that these people have done nothing to her other than stress her out. She even says she can't sue them for defamation because they haven't done enough damage to her. Remember, it wasn't one of her stalkers who found her address, it was a fan who did that to send her a Nintendo Switch.

Side note: This video is great because Lily spends basically the last seventy five percent complaining about her stupid and obsessive her fanbase is. We all know that if her critics acted like this, she would talk about this constantly. Meanwhile, the people who criticize her are supposed to be the biggest sources of stress in her life?

In fact, can we just talk about how Lily talks about her fanbase in this video more generally? This is a topic for another post, but Lily saying her fans "can't take no for an answer" just shows you what kind of community she fosters. Lets not forget that this is the same woman who said that she told her fans she was fine with NSFW art of her OC because she thought that would mean they'd make less of it.

This should go without saying, but if you have to play reverse psychology regarding sexual boundaries--that's not exactly a good thing. Again, why is it that Lily keeps talking about the damages her critics keep doing--which she admits are basically non-existent--when her fans are doing shit like this?

In another post, she says that her fans are morons who cannot do the most basic forms of critical thinking and expect her to figure things out for them.

It's funny that in that video, she says that online cults cannot form. Even ignoring the fact that this is just wrong, it seems like a good chunk of her fans want a cult leader.

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this post--so here's a funny tweet from Nezziemonster, somebody with a very funny Twitter that you should follow.

[thenumbersgameif]

Omg??! I love the fact that u made the entire team ND, its so great to see because ND people need more rep honestly. I'm not throwing shade at anyone because a lot of IFs are very inclusive and amazing with good representation, but unfortunately there's still a lot of IFs that feel very able-bodied, white, cishet and neurotypical with little to no inclusivity of neurodivergent, transgender, disabled, acespec and touch averse individuals and its kinda sad to see. I do love the fact that some authors nowadays are being more inclusive in terms of representation. I also really love the fact that you address the issues in the if community, its really sad that authors still get harassed by shitty anons who have nothing better to do with their time. Also the fact that some authors are getting harassed for being more inclusive towards minority groups like wtf?? Like the ammount of transphobic/acephobic/ableist anons people are terrible. I'm personally happy we are seeing more groups and communities being represented in IF because I remember back in the day when wayhaven was the standard and there were barely any non binary, transgender, disabled, neurodivergent, acespec or touch averse ROs and when a lot of the characters of color who were included, it was just for they sake of diversity points and they read awfully white to me personally as a POC. All in all what I'm trying to say is although I'm glad that more diversity is being included I do feel like it's still in the minority and I do hope that more authors incorporate more diversity not only in terms of race but also in terms of disabilities and sexuality. I was initially kind of scared to send this I'm not gonna lie because the if community kind of scares me since there's a lot of people who aren't really that open-minded let's say. I mean there's also a wonderful community of diverse people who seem very kind and supportive as well as open minded of course and I really enjoy that part of this community and its honestly what has kept me here because all the transphobia, acephobia, racism, whitewashing and ableism is not cute. Also I'm a big fan of your work and can I just say I love the way you write, your characters feel so human, the emotions you convey through your writing are so raw and it feels like you're there experiencing those emotions yourself. I also absolutely love the rep. in your work. Also the surnames read backwards thing just adds so much uniqueness and charm to your work and your character creator is literally so inclusive like??!? I literally played it twice in a row because seeing so much diversity made me so happy. I know it's a little thing but I loved it!! And also the hair options for POC omg?!? There are so many and I'm living for it, I loved it!! Thank you sm for being so inclusive and I will definietly be supporting both your current and future works, you seem like a genuinely lovely person and you're incredibly talented. I wish you all the best! 💖

Your entire message made me go !!!!!🥰🥰🥰💖💖💖 

Definitely, ND people need more representation—it’s so rare for general media as well as IFs to have good representation of neurodivergency (and mental illnesses in general), and it’s even more rare to have the option for the MC to display any ND traits. As I’m ND, I want to always include the ND rep in my writing, because 1) I know it’s hard for NDs to truly connect with neurotypical characters 2) we’re just so misrepresented and underrepresented it hurts.

In general, I feel like there’s not a lot of really inclusive, diverse IFs. There’s very few that include and properly handle things like touch aversion, disability, or being trans, non binary, ace, aro, and so on. There is a number of IFs which are inclusive and diverse, of course, and do a wonderful job, but I think it’s not a reason to stop pushing for more diversity and inclusivity in writing. I feel like there’s enough of games and stories entered around white, cis, hetero, able-bodied neurotypical people too, yet somehow there’s still some people who are outraged that an IF might be “too gay” or not have enough of “straight” options like kjhfhd 

I’ve been in few ‘creative communities’ in my life, and I know that they do not change if people inside won’t address the problems and issues in the community, so I try to speak up whenever I can/whenever I feel like I can add something to the conversation. Also I just can’t stand bigots, so there’s that. 

Honestly the hate-anons remind me a bit of book fandoms, like acotar or grishaverse, etc., because there’s always this part of the fandom that will break their neck trying to justify their misguided and/or bigoted feelings. Because the IFs and books allow for the reader to imagine the characters however they want, when they’re confronted with the fact that their version of the character is different, it makes them angry. Though thats my theory, and I’m kind of sick rn so idk if it makes sense.

I hope those waves of hate don’t discourage other authors, though, and there’ll be even more inclusive and diverse IFs. I’d love for our community to become more open minded, and safe for all minorities—not just for myself and my friends, but for everyone, truly. There’s not a lot of creative communities that offer something like IFs do; IFs allow for readers of all backgrounds to engage in a story that can help them feel represented and seen. 

I think I’m starting to come off as kind of preachy so I’ll stop at that khkjfh but I’m just really happy that you’ve sent this ask in, I agree with everything you’ve said and I’m just flattered honestly that in the end you felt comfortable enough to send this, and spend your time on it! (Idk if it makes sense but I just really appreciate this) and I’m so happy that you enjoy my work, that’s honestly the best compliment an author could ever get; I wanted to add as many options for different hair types as I could honestly, because I know and I’ve seen many people talk about the lack of diversity in hair styles, textures etc., in IFs, and as I mentioned before, I want to make my games be as inclusive as possible 💖 

I hope you’re staying safe and healthy, and I wish you a lovely day, anon! You’ve made my day 💖 

[possiblealien]

Your PSA to PLEASE remember that respecting trans people goes beyond just using the right names and pronouns and saying how much you hate terfs. It also means understanding that every trans person is different and you cannot assume what they are comfortable with, even if the present this way or that way or their gender is x, y, or z. It’s understanding that while terms like tits, cock, pussy, what have you are 100% gender neutral, you still have to ask a trans person what they are comfortable with! It’s respecting trans people’s decision to or not to transition. Holy shit, stop assuming medical transition has anything to do with appearing cis! That’s not every trans person goal and people can still be happy with medical transition even if they never appear ‘cis’! And while you are at it just throw the concept of appearing ‘cis’ away because with how varied cis people look, it literally means nothing. And please get it through your thick skulls that there is no such thing as a ‘nonbinary’ transition and a ‘binary’ transition, both nonbinary and binary people can have so many different goals. I don’t care how progressive you think you are and how many ‘fuck terfs’ post you reblog. If you can’t learn to respect trans people beyond the basics you are just being transphobic. Even if you are trans yourself.

[sapphicgarden]

you're a transphobic cunt who needs to read a goddamn queer history book. Bet you don't even know that 'lesbian' used to mean any female identifying person (so yes, trans women, dipshit, because trans women are women and attraction isn't about sex) who had any amount of attraction to othe female identifying people. So bi, pan, and homosexual women were all 'lesbians'. That only changed because radfems went "actually if you like icky gross men at all or anyone who's AMAB (aka trans women) then you're a traitor and scum". So congrats on aligning yourself with transphobic history built on being a pretentious, gatekeeping twat? Please read more actual history (we have actual books now, get off tumblr and read a book) and educate yourself on our history and how not to be a shitstain on the community.

lesbian doesn’t mean “female identifying person�� . It’s female homosexuality and same sex attraction. It’s been that way ever since the conception of that word ( make some effort to look up female homosexuality in ancient times in countries like Greece, Egypt etc.)and this is something that is not up for debate since it is an unchangeable fact.  No one said that sweetie, stop making up dumb stuff in your head. Women being attracted to amabs is perfectly normal and great, and there is nothing wrong with being a bisexual woman. For someone who preaches all the time about how being bi is great,y’all sure don’t want to use the term and will instead steal the label of another oppressed group which you are not entitled to. “queer history book “ i know enough about lgb history and science to call out homophobia when people like you think you are entitled to the label or emotions of lesbians just because you feel “validated” in it. YOU need to learn to fucking sit down and stop acting like a child throwing a tantrum when you don’t get what you want  cause “muh transphobic muh queer history”, its clearly you who needs to get off tumblr and educate yourself on lgb history, science and some fucking manners. Find a better job than calling minor girls on the internet “cunts” (but ig thats easy to do when you’re a coward and hiding behind the anon tag)  and keep crying about it like the pathetic piece of homophobic garbage you are 😊

[rpbetter]

"writes dubcon therefore is a freak who should be bullied off the site" ho boy i'm fed up with people acting as if consenting adults writing [insert "problematic" fictional thing here] is the worst thing in the world. seen way too many people justifying harrassment of REAL PEOPLE by "they write thing that triggers me". ok, and? mute the tags or don't follow! "it triggers someone" is not a valid reason to ban a topic. piano music triggers me yet i don't go around demanding everyone stop playing the piano.

Anon, not only is everything you said absolutely valid, but also, thank you for demonstrating that triggers are incredibly varied and as such, we cannot predict everyone's triggers. Making the entire "point" of banning for possible triggers invalidated as hell.

We should be aware of things like the most commonly occurring phobias (things like arachnophobia and coulrophobia that are, additionally, easily triggered by imagery) and tag them. We should be aware of very obvious triggers, that are, again, easily set off by imagery, like blood, eye trauma, and depictions of domestic violence. And we should always read and be aware of our writing partners' stated triggers so that we can tag them appropriately or even decide that it isn't going to work because our muse, canon story, or interests are going to present an unfair situation in this partnership.

But triggers can be highly unusual, as well as activated differently (even at different times) for everyone. I'm not triggered by seeing hotel rooms in pictures or movies, I'm not triggered by writing scenes that take place in them, but I'm triggered to some degree by being in one. It's outrageous oversimplification to act like all triggers are the same, they all display the same way, they're all going to trigger someone on the same basis, everyone's going to react the same to their triggers. There is absolutely no way to prevent 100% of possible triggers for 100% of the population, 100% of the time.

Add to this that way too many people trivialize triggers by throwing around that term to justify the banning of something that makes them uncomfortable or that they take a personal, moral issue with. "I don't like this" and "I'm grossed out by this" and "this makes me feel uncomfortable" is not being triggered. It's just a good way to weaponize the better nature of other people so that they comply.

Most people legitimately do not want to trigger someone, especially if they have triggers and know what it's like. Just like no one wants to be accused of cruelty towards trauma survivors in general, or be designated a pedo, rape apologist, or fascist. They're all things to weaponize in order to isolate, shame, and control. And that's really fucking gross. These are serious, real things that have no business being trivialized to police content, win internet arguments, or garner popularity.

The potential for someone to be triggered isn't a reason to ban anything; we have tags, we have blacklist.

While I'll be the first to say that tumblr's blacklisting can be as shitty as everything else on the site, the primary issue with running into content you don't want to see comes down to two factors: no one tagging/tagging correctly and actively exposing yourself to that content. Going through people's properly done tags and blog warnings about their content in order to "call it out" is actively exposing yourself by choice. You actual walnuts.

Calling people on on their "problematic" content is bringing those topics to the attention of other people. That's the whole point of this gross behavior: look at the freak pedo abuse apologist I found, they write dubcon!! Don't look if you'll be triggered uwu

Buddy, pal, my guy...you just put that on blast for anyone to run across. Maybe their blacklist catches those words in your callout post, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they think you're a safe space because you promote yourself that way, so they click it anyway. Point is, you just willfully and irresponsibly exposed people because it's more important to you to demonize a rando on tumblr RPing something you take issue with. Good job!

Furthermore, dubcon itself is such a hilarious issue to take. Do they realize that isn't always sexual, or? Not? I'm thinking not. Funnily enough, one of the oldest posts I've been working on for this blog is about exactly this topic, the myriad situations that are dubious consent. That doesn't have to be sexual, and neither does it have to be intentionally predatory. You can come up with some amazing character development with a lot of muses in the RPC with dubcon because almost everyone's muse has some manner of trauma that might negate their perception of their own consent...and what do you do then? Is it removing more agency from that muse to shut them down, or is that always the better option? Can you separate your opinion as the mun from your muse's natural reactions? How does this impact the muses involved not just that moment but the next year?

Point is, dubcon isn't always some rapey situation. Even if it was, even if someone is writing it that way, it's literally not your business or your problem.

There's one mutual-in-law on my RP blog that really bothers me. They write things that I find fetishizing, incredibly rapey, all around shit that bothers me. I don't want to see it, some of the things they write makes my damn skin crawl. This person doesn't know it, we certainly don't speak and I don't think they like me very much, but I've repeatedly defended their right, specifically their right as a person with some long-term callouts on them, to write what they want to. I have them blocked and their urls blacklisted so I never have to see my mutual reblogging their threads. It's not a problem because I don't click "show anyway." Why would I, if it genuinely bothers me so much?

That's how you handle things that bother you; you use the tools available to not interact even by accident. Not by launching a morality crusade.

If any of us want to write what we enjoy, we have to allow others that same freedom. It's always a matter of time before this policing grows to include more and more topics, it's been used multiple times to get well-meaning people who don't fall into the general demographics to police queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups off of platforms. We've been fortunate in most of the RPC that it implodes on itself before it gets all the way there, but even so, you can see it.

It starts with things that produce a visceral reaction in the great majority of people, positions this with a repeatedly condemned idea presented as solid fact that fiction is reality, and you've got the start of something awful. Today it's something you don't like, maybe even something that triggers you, so you either support it or you quietly allow it to happen. Who needs to write that "freak shit" anyway, can't they just be gross privately? Six months from now, it's something "problematic" that you enjoy like violence that's canon-typical for your muse, or your OTP because they're gay and that's fetishizing, they're cis male and female but one or both is bi and that's bad representation, or they canonically have a rocky relationship so that's romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

If you can't care for any other reason, you really should care about how it is going to impact you sooner or later. In an environment like this, you can stay in your space, put warnings on your blog, and tag properly and you're still going to get a callout if the wrong person finds your blog. Just takes a single person with more time, energy, and skewed ideas of justice than they have reading comprehension or common sense.

Again, I cannot encourage people enough to give warnings, but it's difficult to ignore why those warnings are slipping; they're a way to be found, designated as a Problem, and called out. Look, it's another reason why callouts actually make things worse, not better! People put that shit in their rules so you can avoid content, they're being responsible and interested in promoting a safe RPC. Let them do it, damn.

You can't tag everything, and if you've never experienced what a giant series of repetitive tags is like on a screenreader you probably should before you tag seven paragraphs of possible issues. You can tag for visuals, you can tag for the obvious things, and you can tag for what's in the rules you agreed to when you followed/followed back. But you should also warn people that you write "dark topics" on the tin, and expand on that in your rules for specific things like graphic violence, toxic relationships, dubon, and addiction.

That's how responsible adults, not over-aged children, make better decisions about their mental health and general comfort. Not by appointing themselves the watchdogs of the damn RPC, here to protect you whether you want to be or not, find that incredibly insulting or not when you're in one of their categories of people who must be protected, by forcibly banning Problematic Everything. Problematic, of course, being entirely in the eye of the content police.

It's fiction. No one and nothing real was harmed. It's great that you are so invested in the fictional world and people that make you happy, but take a fucking big step back into reality. The real people you're harming with your bullshit had every right to peaceably exist. If what they're writing is triggering to you, stay. away. from. it.

Without any coincidence whatsoever, that's how you get from the base-point of Problematic Material to Problematic Mun. Yeah, it's just fiction, it's just RP, but I also took something out of context OOC or was upset by their tone on their own blog or couldn't exercise the minimal adult logic to remove myself from their presence OOC as well. So, now, you've got OOC behavior being added to the callout, if it wasn't already. Everyone is now ableist, transphobic, racist, and a misogynist because it lends that visceral reaction to the callout and ups the game from just being "y'all so gross you aged up a cartoon character to ship" to "this is REAL and it won't be tolerated! OP is actually a pedophile, they told a sexual joke in a discord server with a minor present and I have the receipts!"

What are the most storied callouts in the entire RPC? I'm absolutely certain the same names came to mind no matter what fandoms you're in, and one of them was "Matt." Another was probably "Ares/Snow". They're all successful and keep being brought up out of the closet anytime people are bored enough because their primary punch is the mun themselves being a predatory threat to the community. The mun is verified to be a bad person. Well, of course, that's got to be repeated, it worked. (Even if it did not, at all, work and only made it harder for people to avoid any of these muns.)

Are there people in the RPC who are legitimately a problem? Absolutely, yes. We're all supposed to be adults, however. Part of being an adult is having and acting upon one's agency. If someone is coercing you into things you are not comfortable with, shut it down. If you have difficulties being certain of those situations, run it by a trusted, honest friend or available, impartial source in the RPC for a second opinion. If you can't handle any manner of confrontation, there really are situations in which it's perfectly alright to block someone without any discussion. It's just the internet, you're in control of your space. Own it.

Minors are a whole other can of fucked up worms I'm not even getting into right now except to say that because a minor exists in a space they were told to stay out of does not mean we ban all topics inappropriate for their consumption.

tl;dr: banning shit doesn't work anyway, the whole idea is predicated upon some incredibly problematic takes IRL, and no, there's no justification for it outside of intense personal problems with one's own importance. That energy would be infinitely better spent volunteering one's time to help real people in crisis or after surviving one, or even oneself in developing some healthier approaches and thought patterns.

[thefirstknife]

you have a personal vendetta against other blogs bc you keep tagging them asking why they're not talking about this or that issue. essentially, you're policing them about what they should or shouldn't post about. for the record, this isn't a jem defense ask, and you dismissing criticism about your behavior by saying "you sound like someone who only reads jem's blog" is incredibly disrespectful yikes.

I only ever tagged Jem, once. I replied once before to an already existing post, but that's about it. No clue which other blogs you're talking about as being tagged out of the blue by me.

I wondered about Jem in particular because she vagued about the drama and called everyone performative activists who are dogpiling an artist for woke points and I found that very strange because I've seen Jem telling people they're ableist and sexist if they're talking about a theory about Osiris.

No idea how to make this as clear as possible, but I'll give it a try, under the cut because long:

Jem said that certain fandom behaviour is ableist and sexist, which means that Jem understands that fandom behaviour about certain characters can be harmful. She posted about this, called people out as being sexist and ableist and also noted that if Bungie goes with that theory, she will support dogpiling the devs about being sexist and ableist.

Yesterday we discovered whitewashed art and pointed it out, but there's been an incredible amount of backlash saying we're all armchair activists posting for woke points by calling out whitewashing.

What's the difference? Why is Jem acting like her takes are legitimate activism, but other takes are just "hashtage woke"? Why is calling out whitewashing not a legitimate fandom issue to her?

Whitewashing is a legitimate issue in fandom and online spaces in general. It should be pointed out. It should also be noted that it can happen accidentally and that we should give the artist the benefit of the doubt to fix the mistake. Which I've done and I'm still willing to do.

You're absolutely only taking this from Jem's side and her post, which she thought I wouldn't be able to see due to me being blocked, but I can see it. Which is why I can tell that you're coming from her post.

This incident is documented here. As stated, Jem used a derogatory term. Jem was notified about using a derogatory term by another user, she DELETED their warning and made a separate post to apologise for using a derogatory term. I find that pretty hashtag woke (to use Jem's terminology) to appear better in other people's eyes instead of replying directly to the user who pointed a derogatory term out and apologising directly.

Pot calling the kettle black (instead I do actually apologise to people directly, I don't delete their replies to make myself look better). I'm glad she apologised for using the term, that's good no matter what and I respect it. I don't respect framing the apology in this way. I don't respect deleting a comment from the person who pointed the derogatory term out, ignoring that person and making a separate post without crediting someone who called you out.

It doesn't help that the same person is the one who pointed out whitewashing and has been getting transphobic attacks from the very people who are reblogging and supporting Jem's post. Basically, Jem evidently does not want to be called out on her mistakes and does not want to acknowledge them.

I also want to address the following:

Nice gatekeeping language with the "ever since you got here." It seems to me that before I got here, some people in the fandom were never challenged on their posts, or they were and they were promptly dogpiled and blocked. Since the incident I linked above, numerous people came out and said that Jem has been a menace in the Destiny community for a very long time.

I am so eager to find out which blogs I've been digging through looking for dirt and ripping out context. Because the only ones I've ever addressed are people are actively engaging in bigotry in the fandom. Bigotry that makes other people unwilling to engage with the fandom, talk and socialise. Bigotry is making the fandom space unsafe for a large amount of marginalised groups in our community. I will KEEP pointing out bigotry in the fandom. I don't even have to dig, because some people in the fandom keep their dirt on the surface, but if I have to dig to prove that there's bigoted ulterior motives, I will.

I want marginalised groups and minors to feel safe in the community. I want bigots to feel unsafe. Not the other way around. Call it performative all you want.

Already addressed this pile of crap. Jem swung here but ultimately missed by a mile. She gave it a try, but unfortunately she doesn't really understand these things very well, which isn't a surprise considering she picks which battles to take by throwing darts on a board and considering she doesn't care who supports her as long as it's support. Post where I explain mentioning anxiety and original post where I mention it. Please try to read through these on your own and engage critical thinking and then compare it to whatever the hell Jem has going on in this paragraph.

The only liar and truth-twister here is Jem. And according to other people in the community, it's nothing new.

Since people aren't clicking links: I got anon hate telling me to do real life activism instead of posting on my Destiny blog. I explained that this is a tumblr blog about Destiny so you can't tell whether or not I'm doing real life activism based on my tumblr blog. I jokingly added that due to having anxiety, I am capable of caring about multiple issues at once. I did not use it as an excuse in any capacity, but Jem has nothing else to attack me for so she had to scrap the bottom of the barrel to find something.

Please read something other than her horrid takes.

Another tragic miss from Jem, who has worse accuracy than me in Trials. I have so many friends to vent to and I've been venting to them this entire time. They're all sending their regards.

This is like a billionth time that I'm saying that I don't support anon hate and that I do not have physical control over other people's devices and tumblr blogs so I can't stop them from sending anon hate. I said it multiple times: don't send anon hate in my name.

I am not sure how Jem wants me to enforce this. But I also received anon hate and so have other people who participated in this discourse so, pot kettle.

Jem is heavily projecting her own reasons for causing drama and thinks that everyone does it for the same reasons as she does. Weird slip.

Anyway, you can tell Jem that I've seen it and that I say: Bye!

[normal-thoughts-official]

With a little help from your friends (the help is praise kink and the friend is your boyfriend)

Who would have thought that fucking your boyfriend senseless cures dysphoria.

Alternatively: being a dom is actually something that can be so gender,

Fandom: It Lives (Visual Novels)

Pairing: Andy Kang/Tom Sato

Additional tags: let's see, mild mentions of transphobic and racist comments, Comfort Sex, the filthiest comfort sex uve ever seen but WHATEVER, dom andy kang, sub tom sato, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Dom/sub Play, Collars, Praise Kink, basically someone says transphobic shit and then tom rides him and talks about how wonderful andy is, except tom has also been in denial for a few days and he's super horny, and andy gets in domspace and everything is great and nothing hurts, Fluff and Smut, Humor, cuz u know these two are incapable of taking anything too seriously, Established Relationship, oh they're both in college and they go to the same college cuz i said so, set after the events of it lives beneath, that's it I think, trans author if that matters to you

Read it on Ao3

Andy isn't having a great day. It's not a terrible, clawing-at-his-chest-trying-to-deal-with-dysphoria kind of day, but he's been trying out this "not comparing everything to the worst possible scenario" thing his therapist has been talking about, so still, not a great day.

The thing is, he thought college would be easier. And it is, in a lot of ways. For starters, there is no evil monster spectre trying to kill him, which gives college at least 5 points over high school. And his uni has a pretty solid queer club, so he knows other trans people there. Some of them are even non-white. Some of them he even actually, truly likes. And most of the time, he feels like he has a place to turn to, and people to support him. He's not alone. He has people who get him. And that makes all the difference.

But basketball is still a nightmare, and his knee still hurts when it's cold, and winter is officially starting now.

People still hesitate to pass the ball to him, and it's frustrating, because Andy fought so hard to earn his old team's trust and now he's back at square zero. And well, Andy has been gaining this team's trust, because he's good, goddamn it, and his team owes at least the last three victories to him. He's not hesitant to say that, especially because otherwise no one will. And he can see that they look at him differently now - nod at him in the hallways, at least, talk to him in the locker room, pass him the fucking ball if his position is very, very open.

But if he weren't trans and Asian, he wouldn't have had to work so hard to get all of that - or well, just that, really. He has a full sports scholarship despite the fact that he had a broken leg, had to retake his last year of high school, and doesn't even have the body type for basketball. If he weren't Asian, if he weren't trans, his team would have assumed his greatness from day one. Instead, he has to show it to them time and time again only to get them to reluctantly admit maybe he's not bad. No one calls him "triple threat" anymore, but he still has to work three times harder than anyone else, and it's frustrating.

And usually Andy can deal with it, but right now his knee hurts, and he can't afford that because he'll lose everything he's worked for if his teammates know that his fucking knee hurts. So, he braved training and then he got the fuck out of there without even changing so no one would see him wince. Which means he's still in basketball shorts, which are short, in the cold, which means his leg hurts more.

At times like these, he's thankful he never got the chance to go through with his promise to break his other leg kicking Noah's ass. Because he would have, and then both his legs would be hurting right now, and two legs that hurt every time it's cold is just too many legs.

No comparing to the worst possible scenario, he tells himself. Therapy is so hard. If he had known there would be homework, he would have thought twice about going.

And that's, apparently, the cue for his phone to go off. Andy smiles, knowing who it is even before he opens the message, because only one person messages him during class, and it's the only person he wants to hear from right now.

Tom <3 sent you a message

Grinning like a fool, he opens it.

Tom <3: dude, im horny af rn. the fuck

Finally, good news, Andy thinks, smiling. Then he remembers why Tom is so horny, and suddenly this day is great, actually.

He quickly types a reply.

You: who wouldve thought that 3 days of denial would make this happen

Tom <3: ill have u kno i was very good at holding it together before today

You: yeah, dw. soon u wont have to hold it anymore ;)

Tom <3: that flirt was terrible, dude

You: said the guy whos calling me dude for the second time in this conversation

Tom <3: what else should i call u? 😩

Andy thinks for a second. Tom and him do longer-term denial every once in a while, but they aren't in a 24/7 relationship. Does Andy really want to go there right now? Yes. Well, that was fast. Okay then.

You: how about "sir"

Tom's reply comes fast as lightning.

Tom <3: Yes, Sir.

Andy smirks at himself.

You: uve been hoping that id say that, havent u?

Tom types for just a little longer this time.

Tom <3: Yes, Sir.

----

Many things are wrong with the world, and Andy doesn't mean to make light of the other things, but the fact that Andy can't simply go and fuck his boyfriend whenever he wants is definitely one of them. It should be, like, financial compensation or something. We're so sorry the school environment is transphobic, here, have a free sex pass. Sounds fair to him. But instead, he still has two hours of classes to go through, and Andy is a better guy than he wishes he was, so he tells Tom to pay attention to class instead of sexting him, because he doesn't want Tom to struggle even more with his course when he had already had to leave it once. God damn true love or whatever.

The point is, by the time classes are finally over, his day is back to not being that great; he's tired, and his leg hurts. He gets to their car after Tom does, and Tom takes one look at him, and says, "I'm driving".

Andy crosses his arms. "Why?"

"Because your leg hurts," Tom answers, rolling his eyes and taking Andy's bag from him and putting it in the trunk.

Andy looks down at his legs. He wasn't limping. There aren't any bruises. How the hell-

"It's cold and you're in shorts. I'm not an idiot, dude."

Right. Yeah. Right. Of course. Tom knows. It's… It's alright.

"Bad day at training?" Tom asks, slowly, sympathetically, and Andy feels himself settle in his skin a little bit.

"The usual," he answers, getting inside, and, as always, Tom gets the hint.

---

Their uni's dorms are gender-segregated because these guys have still not gotten the memo that people of the same gender fuck; and Andy wasn't willing to deal with cis college guys' bullshit, much less cis college girls' bullshit; and the uni wouldn't let him simply pick Tom as his roommate. So, they rented out a beat up apartment right next to it instead. It took a little longer to get there, but it wasn't a lot longer, and well, it was worth it.

Tom gets inside, still carrying Andy's bag because he's transphobic and unfair and had taken it and bolted up running so Andy wouldn't have a chance to argue with him. And Andy can't run after him with his leg hurting, which kind of proves Tom's point that he should carry Andy's bag. All in all, Tom is the worst, and he turns up the heat as soon as he gets inside and sits Andy down on the bed, kneeling in front of him to take a look at Andy's knee.

He's silent for a while, massaging his knee until Andy sighs and throws his head back, before Tom plants a little kiss on his knee and looks up at him. Andy's knee always stops hurting when Tom kisses it better. It's a little embarrassing, if Andy is being honest, but still- nice. Really nice.

They stay for a little longer like this, Tom humming and massaging his knee and Andy not meeting his eyes, until the question inevitably comes.

"What happened?" Tom asks, not letting up with the smooth movements of his hands, his eyes big and sincere with worry.

"Nothing. Just the cold. You know how my knee gets."

"I meant, for you to leave practice without putting some warmer clothes on."

Andy looks away. "It was nothing."

"Dude, are you expecting me to go, 'okay, yeah, that totally makes sense and I believe you', or…?"

Andy laughs, despite himself, and throws his good leg up in an almost-kick to pretend he's retaliating. "Don't be an ass."

"I'm not. Come on, Andy. You know you can tell me."

"It's nothing, it's just- Kyle-"

"Oh boy."

Andy laughs. "Yeah." But then he grows serious, "the thing is, he doesn't mean any harm, you know? I know he's not saying it to hurt me, and so that just means that, like... that it's true."

Tom's hands stop their movements, rubbing soothing circles around his knee instead. "What did he say?"

Andy doesn't look at him. "He asked me why I didn't stay on the women's team. Said that I could have an advantage, cuz Asian people are androgynous anyway, so no one would notice that I was taking hormones."

Tom just stares at him in shock for a moment.

"And I was like, 'dude, I've been on T for three years, I'm pretty sure they would notice the changes'. And he was like, 'yeah, but you still look like a lot of Asian girls with short hair, you could write it off if you wanted', and I just…" He trails off.

Tom waits in silence for a second, seeing if Andy finds his words, before asking, "Is Kyle, like, okay?"

Andy scoffs. "I didn't try and fight him, if that's what you're asking."

"No, I mean, does this dude have a screw loose or something?"

"He's very bad at figuring out what is or isn't offensive, yeah, but it's not like he really cares, he just won't go out of his way to antagonize me."

"No, I just- Andy, even when you were a little kid with huge pigtails, anyone would have to be crazy to see you as a girl."

Andy bites the inside of his lip. "You're just saying that."

"I'm not. It's just wrong, man. It was so obvious that it was wrong. Anyone could tell. There's nothing about you that says 'girl' to anyone who's looking."

Andy sighs, finally risking looking at Tom's eyes. There's overwhelming sincerity there, and Andy instinctively looks away. "I guess. Maybe. I don't know. It just got me thinking... Maybe T didn't change anything. Maybe I look exactly the same, maybe it was just hopeful thinking that had me thinking it would change anything, maybe it's just- pointless to even try-"

"No, no, come on," Tom says, and the interruption is so sudden it makes Andy look at him again, just in time to see Tom shaking his head vigorously. "There's no way you believe that. What about this bad boy over here?" He smiles, reaching out softly to caress Andy's neck. "You have more of an Adam's Apple than me, dude. And we both know you don't need T to be a guy, but thinking it made no difference is just crazy and you know it. What about those dry pecs? These broad shoulders of yours? Your voice, I mean, come on. You even smell different, man. How can it be pointless, if even your scent is different?"

Andy looks to the side again, but he can feel himself smile. "Well, when you put it like that..."

Tom gets up, but stays close, putting his hand on Andy's cheek, slowly, as if testing the waters, before turning him slightly to look at him. "Andy. Kyle is an idiot and a transphobic racist who's too damn lazy to realize how fucked up he is. And you shouldn't have to deal with that, and I'm sorry, and I will set him on fire."

Andy laughs. "You can't keep threatening to set every shitty teammate I have on fire."

"I can, because it keeps making you laugh," Tom says, smiling. Well. Andy can't argue with that. "My point is, you wouldn't listen to a word this dude says if it were about anyone else, so don't listen to him when he talks about you, okay? T or no T, you're no girl, and you don't look like a girl, and regardless of whether or not Kyle's dumb ass noticed it, your transition has been doing you good. Remember when your voice started to crack and get all weird? I've never seen anyone be that happy about it."

Andy laughs. "It was pretty awful."

"No, it was great, 'cause you loved it. Do you want me to pull out the 'before' pictures we took in case this happened? Look at yourself, dude. You fit so much better in your own skin, you know? And like, you've always been gorgeous, but-"

"Come here," Andy interrupts, pulling him down because Tom is standing and Andy is sitting and Andy is already height-challenged. And Tom goes willingly, carefully straddling Andy's lap and meeting him in a kiss. Finally, Andy thinks.

Tom kisses him softly, slowly, one hand resting on the back of Andy's head and the other draped lazily over his shoulder, as he usually does, all gentle and a little hesitant, and Andy is having none of that. So he grabs Tom's hair and deepens the kiss, bringing him closer until their chests are flushed together and he can feel Tom's hips mindlessly making little circles against Andy's belly.

They separate - or well, stop kissing, really, because Tom is still as close to Andy as physically possible, and Andy feels about ready to shoot anyone who tries to push him further away. Tom's a little breathless, and his hips are still making these almost imperceptible movements against Andy, and Andy realizes that he's still grabbing Tom's hair and that he's a little breathless, too.

Tom looks down at him for a second, as if debating something with himself, before saying, "and like, not to be horny during a serious moment, but since we're talking about the effects of T... Andy. Andy. Your clit. Fuck. It's so huge now, and it's got a visible head and you can fuck my face and everything, and I could sing it praises for a week and probably will if you don't stop me right now."

"Hmm, but I like it when you sing me praises," he smiles. "Keep going."

"God, I was hoping you'd say that. Do you have any idea how much I've been thinking about it today? I didn't hear a single word anyone said to me, all I could think about was you fucking my face, pulling my hair, making me worship you and beg to be allowed to suck you off, I wanna serve you like you're my God." Tom's hips start to jerk up, more visibly this time, shameless, and see, this is why Andy's been really, really liking this whole denial thing - Tom has only started to explore his subby side recently, a little ashamed of it to admit it to anyone, even himself. But when he's horny enough, he gets shameless and desperate about what he wants, and god, nothing is more beautiful than Tom when he asks for what he wants. He feels something growing inside of him, not sure if it's warmth or heat, but seeing Tom like that, wanting him, needing him, definitely makes him feel so much better.

"Yeah?" Andy asks, tracing a finger over Tom's shoulder, close to his neck, just to give him goosebumps.

"Fuck yes, I want it so bad, and you deserve it too, Andy… Sir. You're the best Sir I could ask for, I just want… Want you to use me, want you to cum on me, want to kiss you all over and worship you and pleasure you, you're so gorgeous..." He hides his face in Andy's shoulder for a bit, but his hips don't stop moving. He whines, "Andy..."

"Address me properly," Andy snaps, feeling the edges of worry clear from his mind and giving way to that wonderful feeling of clear-mindedness, of power, where nothing matters but his own pleasure. "And maybe I'll give you what you want, if you earn it."

Tom nods, hips full on thrusting now, and Andy snaps again. "Stay still."

And he does, immediately, without question, biting his lip and keeping his eyes shut with effort. Andy can feel his thighs clenching and spasming over his, trying to keep himself from moving, trying to be good. He hums in appreciation, but doesn't praise him for it, not yet.

"I'll get you ready," Andy explains, before reaching to Tom's hair, and starts to undo his bun, as slow as possible, just to watch him squirm. He gets so impatient when Andy undresses him, which is why Andy never misses a chance to drag it out.

He begins by removing Tom's jacket, sliding his hands slowly over his shoulders, then down his back, feeling the firm muscle there, digging his nails just a little bit so he can see Tom's eyes flutter in bliss. When the jacket falls to the floor, Andy begins circling the hem of his shirt, sliding until his hands are back on front, fingers just close enough to Tom's cock for him to feel Tom tense in his hands, so damn sensitive to his touch, so needy. God, he can't get enough of this, but he pretends that he doesn't notice, lets Tom try and keep himself together as Andy's hands slide over his belly, then chest, over the shirt, collarbone, wrapping and resting on Tom's throat just so he feels the threat of it, before Andy finally grabs the back of the shirt's collar and tugs, taking it off. Then he slides his hands back down, making sure to run a finger just over the sensitive spot where his pecs end, then lower, over his ribcage, belly, hips, next to the bruises where Andy had grabbed him the night before, then back to the middle, just over the bulge in his pants, and Tom finally breaks and jerks up slightly, letting out a little moan.

"Sir," he whines, "please, please, I-" Andy continues to circle the head of his cock with his finger, "please!"

"Patience," is all he says, before going back to his painfully light movements, imagining Tom's needy cock twitching under his fingers, imagining the effort Tom makes not to thrust up or keep begging for more, just because Andy told him not to. "You know how much I like playing with your pretty little cock. You said you wanted to serve me, didn't you?"

"Yes- yes, Sir."

He hums, noncommittally, not looking at him. "Good." He teases the tip of his clothed cock some more, enjoying the way his mind zeroes on that, the way he feels like he has all the power and the time in the world. Finally, he pats Tom's thigh once. "Get off, and take off the rest of your clothes. Get the lube and a condom."

Tom gets up, a little shaky, and does as instructed, while Andy reaches down to the drawer under the bed where he keeps his dick's spine and a few of their toys. He gets the spine, then adjusts his packer briefs so he can put it on - best purchase of his life, really, those briefs. So much easier to use than a regular strap-on and it makes the packer sit over his clit just right, making a little suction and pressure. Andy couldn't be happier that he was already wearing them.

Tom gets back with everything he asked right in time for Andy to finish making his dick hard, and goes on to put the condom on and cover Andy's cock in lube with the kind of attention that makes Andy hold his breath. Tom's so careful, yet eager, and adoring, about it. Andy feels like the hottest guy in the world.

Once he gets permission, Tom sits on his cock, slowly, getting adjusted to it - admittedly, Andy went a little overboard when he bought his first cock. Andy waits until Tom is fully seated, littering his neck with little kisses and praise for how well he's taking him, how pretty he looks, until Tom looks fully comfortable and ready to start complaining if Andy doesn't start fucking him in earnest soon. That's when Andy shows him the other item he pulled from the drawer - Tom's favorite collar.

Tom's reaction is instantaneous. He throws his head back, moving over Andy's cock as he lets out a breathless, almost choked moan; the hands he had resting on Andy's shoulders suddenly squeezing full force in his need.

"God, you're such a whore," Andy says, casually, and Tom nods, even as he flushes. The collar is just a simple black one, with a little hoop for the leash, but inside they had it engraved with the words Andy's whore, and it left visible marks that could be seen for a few hours after they took it off. It never failed to drive Tom crazy, so it always drove Andy crazy, too. "Stay still," he warns, and Tom nods, breathing heavily, gripping Andy's shoulder as tight as he can as he stays frozen in place. Andy slowly puts it around his neck, checking with his finger to make sure it's not too tight, and the second he clasps it in place, Tom's whole body relaxes, a content little sigh escaping his lips, his face slack and blissed out. He likes being owned, so much. Andy can't get enough of it. "Good?" he asks, just to make sure it's not too tight.

"Perfect," Tom answers, the words leaving him in a sigh. Andy then ties the leash to the headboard, making sure that they're just far enough from it that he'll be feeling its pull the whole time. Tom lets out a moan. "Thank you, Sir."

Andy smirks. "Now, here's what I want you to do," he says, "you're going to ride me, just like that, and you're not going to come until I tell you to. You're definitely not going to come before I do. If you come close, you'll have to tell me. I want to hear you scream, so make as much noise as you want. Do you understand?"

Tom nods again, almost dizzyingly quick. "Yes, Sir."

"Good, then get to it."

Tom doesn't need to be told twice. He starts riding him, slowly at first, trying to find the perfect angle for Andy - not himself, Andy notices, pleased. Once it's perfect, Andy orders, "faster, slut,” and Tom obeys, as always, working up speed as he tries to keep himself upright, feeling the tug of his leash with every movement, moaning the whole time. “Good boy,” Andy says, and Tom’s responding whine is high pitched, embarrassing, needy. He gets even faster then, starting to babble as he keeps on working, and Andy just stays casually in place, not having to do a single thing while Tom works to give him pleasure.

"Fuck, you're so perfect, did you know that?" Tom asks, quickly sliding down on Andy's cock, making sure he puts all this weight in the end so Andy's cock will press down against his clit just the way he likes, making sure to go as deep as possible, "I've been dreaming of your cock for days, god, Sir, nothing's better than this," he hides his face in Andy's shoulder, speeding up even more, thighs shaking with the effort, and Andy puts a fist in his hair and pulls, watching as Tom throws his head back and lets out a scream, working even faster on Andy's cock. "Sir!," he whines, "oh, thank you, thank you, feels so good, oh my god, please, I'm gonna-"

"No, you won't," Andy interrupts, "I'm not even close to coming yet. Keep working, slut."

"Y-yes, Sir," he whines, going faster, deeper, and Andy makes it harder for him, keeps pulling at his hair to expose his neck, litters kisses and bites on his exposed throat, grabs his thigh and squeezes hard enough to bruise so Tom remembers he's his, his whore, his toy.

"I love it when you get like this," Andy says, doing his best to keep his tone even, even as he's a little breathless from pleasure, from power, "I bet you want to come so bad, don't you? If I'd just give you the word, you'd be making a mess of yourself, coming on my cock right now-"

"Fuck! Yes, yes, Sir, please, I'm so close."

Andy smiles. "No."

Tom whines, so cute, adorable, and Andy is nice enough to leave a little kiss on his shoulder, grounding, calming him down. Before going right back to torturing him, "no, you don't get to come for a long time yet. I want you just like this, on edge, tasting it…" Andy grins. "Tell me how close you are, baby."

"I'm- I'm so close-"

Andy slaps him in the face. "You can do better than that."

"Fuck, I feel like I'm going to explode, I'm so close, I want it so bad, and you feel so good, God, you have no idea what you do to me, Sir, your cock is so perfect, it hurts, I need it- need to cum on your cock, Sir, please-"

"No."

Tom chokes on a moan, and starts to go even faster. He lets out a little whine, something Andy thinks was supposed to be a word, but doesn't come close.

"See," Andy says, "this is why I won't let you come. Look at you - every time I tell you no, you get so desperate, so obedient - it's what you want, isn't it? You want me to keep telling you no, you want to know your pleasure doesn't matter, that you're just here to serve me."

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes-"

"Good, then keep going. And beg all you want- I like telling you no, too."

Tom does. He begs, and he says thank you when Andy denies him, again and again and again. Thank you, Sir, thank you for using me, for putting me in my place, I'm yours, I'm yours. And he keeps on praising Andy, praising his cock, his body, the way he fucks him and uses him, no one else makes me feel like this, no one deserves to be worshipped and served like you, Sir, I want to make you feel good-... Until even the clear-minded state of domspace begins to crumble and Andy feels nothing but pleasure, and confidence, and power, and he cums to the sound of Tom praising him and begging, once, twice, three times, until his head is clear again and everything, even the need to chase his own pleasure, is gone, and he just feels perfect.

"Stop," he orders Tom, who's still babbling more and more incoherently, endless praise and worship, and Andy finds that he worships Tom right back. "I want you to get my cock as deep inside you as you can, and stay still. I'm going to play with your dick for a while, and when I tell you to, you can come. You did well today, baby."

Tom nods, suddenly struggling to use his words. "T-thank you, Sir," he says, already frozen in place, thighs clenching with the effort not to move and also shaking with all the effort he did before.

Andy coos. "Poor baby. You were so good to me today. Let me take care of you."

"You always- always do, Sir," Tom replies, and Andy smiles.

He gives Tom a long, slow handjob, making sure Tom stays still through it, enjoying the way his thighs shake on top of Andy's, the pressure of Tom sitting tight on his cock, the way his arms also shake with effort where they rest around Andy's neck; Tom's pretty, exposed throat all marked up around his collar, his breathless little whines as Andy makes sure to do it just the way he likes it, makes his cock turn red with need; watches Tom bite his lip, because when he has to keep still he becomes so quiet and needy, even as the little whines go through his lips… Until Andy finally says, "come for me, baby," and Tom screams through an orgasm that lasts almost a minute, hanging on to Andy as tightly as he can to keep himself anchored through the pleasure.

And then Andy holds him, and Tom holds him back, and they hold each other.

----

A while later, they've cleaned up Tom's cum so it doesn't get all sticky on Andy's chest, and Andy's finally taken off those damn briefs - they're great for sex, but get pretty tight when you wear them for a long time - and Andy holds Tom against his chest. He's humming, contently, and if anyone had told him at the beginning of the day that he'd be comfortable enough to have someone close to him while he's fully naked, he'd - well, probably assume they meant Tom, but still be skeptical.

"How do you feel?" Tom asks after a little while, finally opening up his eyes and saying hello to the world.

"That's supposed to be my line," Andy laughs.

"I feel great. Perfect. Next time, I wanna do it for longer. A week? Let's try a week. Or two weeks…?"

Andy laughs. "Let's not make too big of a leap yet."

"Fine. A week sounds good. Great. And now that we've established that denial is totally bomb for me, how are you feeling?"

"Honestly? I'm feeling great, too," Andy admits, playing with a little stray of Tom's hair, swirling it around his finger, "I think I needed that, a little bit. Who'd have thought that having you ride me and praise my cock cures dysphoria."

"Every trans top on every forum I've ever visited."

"Let me have my moment of realization," Andy mumbles, faux-annoyed. Tom just laughs, holding him closer.

"I'm just glad I could help," he says.

"Please tell me you didn't ride my cock just to help."

"Well, no, in case you hadn't noticed, I was horny as fuck. I just tried to, you know. Use that to give you a little push. Since you wanted to. Y'know. Also, it was all true. So..."

"Thanks, love," Andy says, earnestly. "I love you."

"I love you more."

They bicker about it, and Andy's smiling the rest of the day.

[zo2paintedlady]

LGBTQ+ Novels/Memoirs

Here is the book list from my LIS 618 class. The links will bring you to their Goodreads pages.

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (2017) *based on a true story* "One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter. One moment that changes both of their lives forever. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight."

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Saenz (2012) "Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be."

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson (2016) "Two boys. Two secrets. David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl. On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…"

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender (2020) "Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle...."

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (2019) "In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere."

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver (2019) "When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents' rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school. But Ben's attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan's friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life."

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert (2017) "When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse."

The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg (2019) "IMax: Chill. Sports. Video games. Gay and not a big deal, not to him, not to his mom, not to his buddies. And a secret: An encounter with an older kid that makes it hard to breathe, one that he doesn't want to think about, ever. Jordan: The opposite of chill. Poetry. His "wives" and the Chandler Mall. Never been kissed and searching for Mr. Right, who probably won't like him anyway. And a secret: A spiraling out of control mother, and the knowledge that he's the only one who can keep the family from falling apart. Throw in a rickety, 1980s-era food truck called Coq Au Vinny. Add in prickly pears, cloud eggs, and a murky idea of what's considered locally sourced and organic. Place it all in Mesa, Arizona, in June, where the temp regularly hits 114. And top it off with a touch of undeniable chemistry between utter opposites."

Odd One Out by Nic Stone (2018) "Courtney "Coop" Cooper Dumped. Again. And normally I wouldn't mind. But right now, my best friend and source of solace, Jupiter Sanchez, is ignoring me to text some girl.  Rae Evelyn Chin I assumed "new girl" would be synonymous with "pariah," but Jupiter and Courtney make me feel like I'm right where I belong. I also want to kiss him. And her. Which is . . . perplexing.  Jupiter Charity-Sanchez The only thing worse than losing the girl you love to a boy is losing her to your boy. That means losing him, too. I have to make a move. . . . One story. Three sides. No easy answers."

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy (2017) "'Ramona was only five years old when Hurricane Katrina changed her life forever. Since then, it’s been Ramona and her family against the world. Standing over six feet tall with unmistakable blue hair, Ramona is sure of three things: she likes girls, she’s fiercely devoted to her family, and she knows she’s destined for something bigger than the trailer she calls home in Eulogy, Mississippi. But juggling multiple jobs, her flaky mom, and her well-meaning but ineffectual dad forces her to be the adult of the family. Now, with her sister, Hattie, pregnant, responsibility weighs more heavily than ever."

Rethinking Normal by Katie Rain Hill (2014) "Have you ever worried that you'd never be able to live up to your parents' expectations? Have you ever imagined that life would be better if you were just invisible? Have you ever thought you would do anything--anything--to make the teasing stop? Katie Hill had and it nearly tore her apart. Katie never felt comfortable in her own skin. She realized very young that a serious mistake had been made; she was a girl who had been born in the body of a boy. Suffocating under her peers' bullying and the mounting pressure to be "normal," Katie tried to take her life at the age of eight years old. After several other failed attempts, she finally understood that "Katie"--the girl trapped within her--was determined to live."

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (2017) "On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day."

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (2013) "New York Times bestselling author David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other."

We are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (2016) "Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year. Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him. But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever."

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson (2020) "Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it's okay -- Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor. But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down . . . until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington. The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She's smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?"

[clownsnake]

femboy in current meme context just means a feminine boy lol. this kinda reminds me of how gay panic was an actual term used as a defense for murder, and then the gay youths saw that and went "don't like that. mine now. new meaning"

I don’t want to start an argument but unless you’re transfem yourself you have no right to determine if this word can be used divorced of its original context. I don’t either, so I’m gonna err on the side of caution & treat it as a shitty word I can’t just throw around for no good reason.

Saying f*mb*y should be turned into a meme for feminine boys and seen Only as a term for feminine boys is like saying tr*p should be used for.. ‘trans trickster’ characters that ‘are Actually the gender they’re assigned at birth’ just because a bunch of Redditors use this word in that meme context already. They don’t understand the og context of the word, and I doubt most people memeing f*mb*y understand the og context either.

f*mb*y has been used to categorize trans women as feminine boys, so applying that term to actual boys.... doesn’t do anything to STOP transphobes from categorizing trans woman as f*mb*ys, because they see these two groups of people as the same kind of person.

Also, I don’t think the “gay youths” saw the term gay panic and intentionally changed it into a meme. Source: I am a gay youth. I used to use the term gay panic in a fun meme-y way. When I learned about what gay panic REALLY means, I stopped using it because it made me wildly uncomfortable. 

Gay panic is still used as a defense for murder, by the way. (Same goes for the trans panic defense) gay youths using this term for fun is an accident that kind of.... really gets in the way of Anyone raising awareness back to this real issue of the gay panic defense, which is Still affecting people.

And that’s fucked up! I want others to know about these terms, because we can’t just ignore the actual harm they’re causing right now. We should talk about why they’re bad, and maybe when they stop hurting people for real we can play in the meme space with them.

Looping back to the f*mb*y term — anon, I understand where you’re coming from. I get wanting to separate shitty words from their original contexts to take power away from them. That method works in a lot of contexts! I use queer, and if anyone’s gonna refer to me as queer in a derogatory way, I won’t be hurt by it! Because it’s my identity! 

but using f*mb*y for feminine boys (Cis boys specifically) is NOT going to make transphobes stop using this term for trans women. they currently see trans women people as f*mb*ys, they will continue to lump trans women in with feminine (Cis) boys, and reaffirming their belief that f*mb*ys are all just feminine boys? Does nothing to stop them. 

I hope that makes sense. I don’t know how to more clearly explain that seeing a word which means ‘feminine boy=trans women’ and turning it into ‘feminine boy’ literally just normalizes a term & harms trans women more. Like, if someone’s making a meme abt f*mb*ys and they’re a transphobe, but their post is literally indistinguishable from a post about actual feminine boys, will you be ok with hundreds of gay teenagers liking that post? Do you want to let people create a space where someone can use a derogatory term about trans women, and then a bunch of well-meaning cis people take in that persons ideas without ever realizing that it’s harming trans women?

it’s better to just stop using it altogether. It’s not that hard, you can just call feminine boys.... malewifes or something. figure it out.

Tl;dr: f*mb*y is still used to harm trans women, the gay & trans panic defenses are still being used to get away with murder, and associating them with memes hurts people more than it helps us.

[spineofdeathwing]

Ignus Silverdreth

As the tumblr handle implies, I had to make a tumblr to post this. Not to hide my identity, but because I literally don't use tumblr. However this situation has personally escalated to the point that a post needed to be made so here we are. Do remember upon reading, i'm not trying to tell you/anyone what to do. However I think the rp community is one that should look out for one another, and to promote a healthy environment of co-writing and support. Part of that is informing the community when there's a habitual and consistent problem  or a problematic individual who continues to dole out harm oocly. Which is where we begin today with Ignus. I'll provide all the screenshots I have. I have not yet decided while writing this but all screens may go to an imgur album due to the sheer size. This has been a situation that has been taking place over the course of weeks. Months even. I thought to go over it from beginning to end but I'm afraid that would be a post too long and that it wouldn't get red. As a result, here are the finer points and cautionary information. -Ignus took the ic into the ooc and claimed I lied to him about my character when this was profoundly untrue, he has not changed this claim although he did make an attempt to apologize for the behavior, which doesn't mean much when he continued to lie thereafter. He indicated that I never told him about my character's culty vibes which I had done oocly when he and his group first asked and my character himself warned Ignus icly about things. During this time rolls were not taken and I was essentially godmoded until Ignus called for backup from his group and I had a really nice conversation and roll duel with one of them. Ignus being passive aggressive and angry all the while. Removing me from groups and being generally insulting. -When a friend attempted to mediate the situation above, Ignus got incredibly toxic to that friend, being insulting and demeaning to them. Even cutting contact off with them oocly for perceivably having taken my side. during that conversation (screenshots provided) he personally attacked that friend, myself, and another rp partner. -Ignus blocked an officer of another guild for being a male oocly, and has made several disparaging remarks regarding the lgbt community (Names have been removed from those screenshots to preserve identity, as those that informed of as much do not wish retaliation as he is known to be volatile and hostile oocly.) -Ignus has several within his group, Menoside/Tydiz who uses the term 'gay' negatively and disparagingly. As well Ignus has a member in his group Kath, who has previously been removed from a guild for making (Trigger warning) rape jokes. 

-Ignus has been noted to godmode icly. As well as some of his group. He will engage in combat and have his character accept all manner of injury, only to appear ten minutes later as if nothing had happened at all to repeat the process. His method of rp is incredibly disruptive, and there are multiple accounts of others experiencing the godmoding and general meta gaming. I myself experienced this when his rp disrupted my own for aproximately eight hours as I was involved in an arc with his rp and another group, and he would continuously attack then mysteriously heal to full only to attack again, and would send ooc vaguely ominous messages before swarming people with those he's convinced to join.

-Ignus once attempted to approach me regarding these issues, and after I replied to him did not say anything and logged off. He then indicated that I never responded even though I did, and in my response (Screenshot will provide) I indicated I did not want contact with him. When others started to confront him with his behavior he made an effort to reach out to me. I accepted the contact thinking there would be a resolution. I was sorely mistaken. He lied about me not responding and cut his own screenshots off so my response wasn't visible. And during that conversation aside from being hostile and volatile he was more interested in discovering the identity of those that had reached out regarding his transphobic behavior. Making several statements that further lead me to believe he simply wanted to attack those individuals. When I further iterated that I did not want to speak with him and that I had desired not to have contact with him he continued on until the point that I had to block him from Discord. Today he's already began the in game harrassment by throwing some manner of fruit/vegetable at me. I'm unfamiliar with the item.

I know a bulleted list doesn't quite catch every nuance of what has happened here, and I also know i'm not the only one with experiences regarding this issue. The arc he was previously a part of has been stopped and others are now beginning to speak out. I hope with my bulleted explanation and with the screenshots provided that it is enough that everyone can make an informed decision about interacting with him. Which again, my purpose here isn't to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do. But to inform, as I believe that as members of the community we have an obligation to keep one another safe, and to point out potential hazards as we see them. I do hope everyone has an excellent day, and is excellent to one another.  (All screens grouped below, sorry they're out of order) https://imgur.com/gallery/NMXjeuL If there is a need for further screenshots, which there are, or any other questions or concerns please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I will try to check this tumblr daily, as work and time permits. 

[angrybell]

Here’s the tweets in text form:

Look at Chicago and understand this is every city, every town, under Democrat rule. If you're a working middle-class American, you're fighting for your life in the 2020 election, and voting Democrat is suicide. Abolish the Police is the only issue and they're on the wrong side.

Don't let Joe Biden's handlers convince you he's some kind of "moderate" who just wants "reforms." The Democrat Party is 100% run by extremists now. They are VERY insistent that when they say Abolish the Police, they mean exactly that.

The core ideology of the radicalized Democrat party requires dissolving the rule of law. This is baked into everything they say, every policy they push. They think impartially enforced law is racist, sexist, transphobic, etc. "Justice" is the antonym of "law" to them.

That's why Dems shriek like banshees against the presumption of innocence, a core concept in the traditional American understanding of law and justice. Their ideology is all about presumed GUILT. Every policy is based on politicized notions of identity and grievance.

Everything from Democrat speech codes to economic policy is based on variables of grievance and entitlement, not absolute principles that apply equally to everyone. What you're allowed to say and do, what you're allowed to own, depends on your class, race, and politics.

This radicalized concept of law as a political instrument is cooked into every single policy on the Left. Some people just have more "rights" than others. No rights are inalienable. Everything, right down to the words you're permitted to use, is calculated based on your identity.

These riot-prone blue cities are just the most vulgar example of what will happen everywhere in America if Democrats take power. It's ALREADY happening everywhere because they have so much power over media, and especially over education.

Once you throw out the rule of law, the presumption of innocence, and inalienable rights, you're lucky if the worst thing that happens is local officials deciding your family and property don't deserve police protection from looters, or the privilege of defending yourself.

That's the key word right there: PRIVILEGE. The Left's obsession with that word is very illuminating. They think everything is a "privilege," nothing is an inalienable right. Privileges can be revoked. The term conveys a sense of unfairness that needs redressing.

Understand that the radicalized Democrat Party thinks even the basic duties of government, like protecting lives and property rights, are actually "privileges." They hate police because they see them as racist mall cops enforcing the unfair privileges of the middle class.

The Democrats are hell-bent on taking those "privileges" away: your money, property, liberty, and security. You're not even allowed to refuse to participate in their ideological crusades. They loathe middle class "privilege," which they rhetorically disguise as "white privilege."

If you want to keep a shred of the traditional, REAL American ideals of equality, opportunity, security, and lawfulness, vote against Democrats in November like your life depended on it. They will sacrifice every shred of law on their altar of "justice" unless you stop them. /end

This is one of the best summaries I’ve read recently. The Democrats want revolutionary change. They want to create an elected tyranny free from the constraints of a Constitution. As the author points out the presumption of innocence is what’s at stake. Without that, we are presumed guilty and can be treated as such.

The presumption of innocence is a powerful brake on governental power. It means that no matter what, the government must first prove you have committed a crime. That you retain your rights until the government proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you have committed a crime that allows them to strip you of your rights.

The current form of the Democratic Party has become increasingly revolutionary. They do not want to wait for change. They do not want to respect rights. They will happily tear down every statue, destroy every cultural norm, destroy society in an effort to create a new utopia. The problem is, the means by which they will do this, authoritarian dictates and coercion to gain compliance without limit, will be the tools for all future rulers. What Democrats should be asking is whether they would ever want Trump to have the powers they indicate they want.

Until the Democrats change, a vote for them is a vote the destruction of America as we have known it in favor of some progressive tyranny.