#this post was brought to you by your local trans guy who used to be a he/him lesbian and is now coping with the memories of it all

[pluto-boy]

i think more people need to talk about how their past identities echo into the present and how sometimes it's good to embrace those memories with open arms. i am a cumulation of every lived experience i've lived through; i am shaped by memories

[coochiequeens]

Shadows told the undercover agent that he was 31 but a “middle,” which Shadows described as meaning that he identified as a 12-year-old girl.” This guys can come up with labels for anything

An adult male who identifies as a lesbian teenager has pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to entice a minor into sexual activity after being caught in a law enforcement sting targeting child predators. Scarlet Moon Shadows, also known by the screen name “Dragongurl69,” of West Rutland, Vermont, entered his plea last month.

Shadows, born Randy Emillion Goodreau, admitted in court that he attempted to entice and coerce an individual, whom Shadows believed to be an 11-year-old girl, for the purposes of sexually abusing her. The charge brought against Shadows was based on an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Jenelle Bringuel, who specializes in investigating the sex trafficking of minors. 

In the affidavit, Bringuel described how Shadows began exchanging messages with an undercover agent posing as a child in December of 2021, and another agent whom Shadows believed was the girl’s mother, while using the screen name “Dragongurl69.”

According to court documents reviewed by Reduxx, Shadows discussed “teaching” the child about sexual activity with the undercover agent he believed was her foster mother.

Shadows told the undercover agent that he was 31 but a “middle,” which Shadows described as meaning that he identified as a 12-year-old girl. 

According to the affidavit, on January 15, Bringuel sent Shadows several photos of an undercover agent that had been digitally manipulated to make her resemble an 11-year-old girl. 

Later that same day, Shadows suggested having sexual contact with the child and “having her date me” and requested to speak with the child. 

Shadows texted the girl saying her mother “wants me to teach you sex stuff” and added, “But up to you to lol.” The next day, Shadows sent messages establishing his age as 31 and urging the “girl” to keep his communications and the relationship confidential.

“We have to keep the relationship a secret. So to the public im gonna be your nanny but wen we are home we are girlfriends. Its just so we don’t get in trouble then when your not a minor we can express our love in public, Ok? (sic),” Shadows wrote according to the affidavit.

During the initial conversations, Shadows sent the 11-year-old several sexualized pictures of his chest.

While some of the messages began innocently enough, Shadows quickly began fantasizing messages describing imagined sexual abuse of the girl, which he said would be “more than kissing.”

In one conversation with the undercover agent posing as the child, Shadows explicitly details what the proposed sexual activity might include, listing oral and penetrative sex and advising the girl that he still has a penis.

On January 26, Shadows travelled from Vermont to Warren County, New York with the intention of having sex with the child. When arrested, Shadows had an engagement ring, condoms, and gifts for the child on his person. During questioning, he claimed the sexual texts were nothing more than “roleplaying.”

A press release put out by the Department of Justice detailing the case referred to Shadows using she / her pronouns and gave no indication that he is male or that he identifies as transgender. According to the DOJ, the investigation was conducted by the FBI and its Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including the Colonie Police Department and the New York State Police.

Shadows was active on Facebook prior to his arrest, and made multiple posts utilizing the trans pride flag and calls to “cherish trans women.” He also uploaded his own poorly-drawn artwork to his account, some of which featured disturbing themes. 

In one pen-work picture, Shadows shows what appears to be an older man with a much-smaller girl. 

“We will never brake, not even from our darkest sin. The devil is no longer in charge. We are the new rulers of hell,” the picture reads.

Among his other disturbing artwork, Shadows has drawn several illustrations which appear to depict violence against a woman, whose likeness is consistent across multiple images. Some depict her decapitated, and another shows her strung from the ceiling and being beaten.

Shadows is scheduled for sentencing on August 25, 2023. He faces a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison, as well as a term of post-release supervision of at least 5 years and up to life, and a fine of up to $250,000. Shadows will also be required to register as a sex offender for life if he is ever released from prison. 

Once imprisoned, Shadows will be under the jurisdiction of the federal Bureau of Prisons, which currently has a gender self-identification policy in place for housing transgender inmates. 

On January 13 of 2022, the Bureau of Prisons revised its Transgender Offender Manual, which included guidelines previously scrubbed by the Trump administration with respect to gender self-identification for federal inmates. Under the Trump administration, inmates were housed based on biological sex as a sole consideration, but the Biden administration renewed Obama-era guidelines requiring gender identity be considered when making housing assignments.

There are currently 1,500 federal inmates who identify as transgender. According to Keep Prisons Single Sex USA, almost 50% of trans-identified male federal inmates are in custody for sex offences. This is compared to just 11% of the non-trans male federal inmate population.

By Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

[cetaceanhandiwork]

Nonbinary Testament was an unambiguous poggers moment for me, but I'm finding that, despite also being broadly satisfied with the latest Bridget news, I'm processing it in a more contemplative rather than celebratory mood.

Because, okay. It feels like even classic Guilty Gear really wanted to play with weird gender stuff and gender nonconformity, but somehow became convinced that it had to bend over backwards justifying that it was doing so. Testament was always somewhat GNC, but they also got majorly surgically altered when the PWAB turned them into a Gear, which I recall being used as a hand-wave for their androgyny at the time. Meanwhile, Bridget was famous as being "a boy who looks like a girl", but that character design was backed by a dumpster fire of a backstory (tl;dr "raised as a girl" to avoid getting killed or exiled due to a hometown superstition about identical twins).

Revisiting your old story decisions, especially when they needlessly jump through imaginary hoops this way, and finding a better way to articulate them, is good, I think. That's part of why I liked the Testament stuff so much; it was always there (albeit apparently phrased in Japanese "third gender" terms that the US localizers could easily misunderstand or ignore), and the redesign and rearticulation and retranslation just turned the subtext into text.

But so much of the existing situation surrounding Bridget is not a matter of "things as they are" (the fictional historical facts within the story called Guilty Gear), but rather, "things as they have been made to be" (our world's creative decisions & cultural hangups that gave rise to & contextualize that fiction). In particular, at least on the English-speaking internet and as I remember it (and with the caveat that my memory is far from perfect), almost the entire reaction to Bridget as a character has been inextricably entangled with the "phobia" part of transphobia - the irrational, feverish fear of "what if I think I'm attracted to a woman but I'm 'really' attracted to a man 🙀" around which most transmisogynistic rhetoric ultimately accretes. Critically, this reaction was a product of the twenty years between Guilty Gear X2 and today when Bridget wasn't portrayed as trans; that simple fact is, I think, part of how "his" case got so many people saying the quiet part loud. For example, Bridget might not have been the first character to be called a "t--p" but was certainly (at least as I remember it) the most-publicized one, and that's a word that's become a slur for trans women broadly. Others, in response to their own reactions to Bridget, constructed elaborate theoretical models to redefine heterosexuality in a way so as to include same-sex attraction to a sufficiently feminine man, because it was the only to avoid the terror of thinking of themselves as even infinitesimally "gay" (there's that "phobia" bit again). And there were, admittedly, also a few folks who, having already begun to understand gender as something more complicated than a booean guy or gal, saw Bridget's situation as a liberating example that gender identity and gender expression don't actually have to align - that one can, for example, adopt femininity without needing to have femaleness as well.

But the sum of all this, I think, despite the things as they are handwave of Bridget's situation, is that we end up with a things as they have been made to be which brought to the surface pretty much the same reactions as a canonical trans girl would've, except without the option of describing the situation in "trans" terminology or bringing "pre-op/post-op" into the conversation (as, for example, discourse around Street Fighter's Poison was fixated upon in the same time period).

If you're the auteur here, what do you do with that? What does a revisit look like?

If the subtext out here in the real world is Bridget as a cipher for all the messy ways people think about trans women, then the advantage of making Bridget a trans woman is that it brings all the ugliness and confusion and self-reflection of that IRL discourse up to the surface for the discursers to see & consider more seriously. Yes, it makes "things as they are" a little less exotic, a little simpler; in theory, there's something interesting and valuable about a character that's GNC in the way a male Bridget was. But in practice, for most people, it was never able to really be about that, because it got caught up in this more general difficult topic. In which case, I think there's also a lot of value to going back and thinking about it, to asking "all those things you said about Bridget... are they any less valid if Bridget decides that she's a girl after all?"

...yeah, the answer is occasionally "yes", and the most unfortunate case there is that, for some folks, it was really valuable and inspiring to have a character with Bridget's old "male but feminine" thing going. That's the one real casualty of this twist in the story, I think.

But as for, for example, the arguments that Bridget's story plays into the whole idiotic talking point of "kids getting raised into thinking they're trans"... I don't think it applies. After all, Bridget wasn't raised as a girl, not really, but rather as a boy who needed to pretend to be a girl, having been (if I understand the backstory correctly) explicitly briefed on the topic by dear old Mom and Dad. It hurts to be denied something you've been told is good, that you've been told you should have had as your birthright... and this is a world where maleness and masculinity is sold as something both ultimately desireable and incredibly contingent (think of all the things that are said to disqualify a "real man"). I can see why it'd take decades for Bridget to even consider whether - given a truly unencumbered choice - maleness was actually what she wanted.

That's also an important thing to dig into, isn't it? The deferral of a trans arc because you've been made to think that your CAAB is what you should want, and that you need to fight to get it somehow.

So in short, yeah it's cool that a character's gender nonconformity is getting a respectful and supportive revisit by the narrative. But in this particular case, it's a revisit that gives us a lot to think about... and I think part of the benefit of Bridget's egg cracking after 20 years is precisely that it gives us a lot to think about. So that's the mood I seem to be in on the topic!

[victorian-nymph]

your post about oc sounds like there are more stories about him, enough for a few tomes to fill. are there some other ocs who he has adventures with? pls tell us

(this is a very long post lol)

First of all thank you for asking about them this has made my day anon :) I write of my ocs as like a weird little family chronicle and that Percy exists as part of like the second gen of the story? My guys start out in 1918 just after the celebrations of world war i, there's sort of four main characters of the 1920s who form the base of the interconnecting relationships of everyone, so i'll give brief sort of rundowns here below the cut

Percy's parents, respectively are Ernest Andrew Ulysses Wentworth and Princess Vera Pavlovna Solovoyna, they met in Russia after Andrew travelled to Russia prior to his service in world war I where she was mysteriously found at a train station and he offered to take her to France, where her parents had successfully escaped to during the Russian Revolution and subsequent Civil War, they happened to fall in love during that trip and married in 1919, having Percy barely a year later. Andrew's a prolific poet, writer, and actor but the racism of the 1920s unfortunately prevented much of a career in Hollywood. Vera, previously a noblewoman, was mostly a homemaker, but was a copyist for her husband and did like the stage, and the wild parties of his friends. Vera's not one of the core four, but she is an important figure in the narrative as Percy's mother. and for other reasons...

Sadly, both of Percy's parents would die before his 18th birthday, his mother died in childbirth in 1924 having his younger sister, and Andrew was killed in West Hollywood in 1932. As a result, he was primarily raised by his mother's parents.

Other character also include

Minette, full name Henrietta Chun Florence Tempest Kelley nee Holiday, Percy's godmother and aunt by marriage is one of my absolute favourites, she's a deeply hedonistic and flamboyant flapper and heiress who drinks way too much champagne, has countless affairs with various actors intellectuals and prominent figures of the 1920s and cannot for the life of her drive her Rolls Royce correctly.

Dr Ambrose Apollo Tempest-Kelley, Percy's godfather and uncle by marriage, is a gynaecologist-obstetrician (also sexologist), he's a charming whore, but has a lot of views that are ahead of his time in terms of birth control and views on sexuality and trans people. He's also the bastard child of a catholic priest insanely.

After Vera died, Andrew married Ambrose's sister Violet, pictured, a local schoolteacher and former nurse in world war i, also a whole ass byronic heroine;

and so the four became all affiliated by either marriage or status of in laws, also a thing I wanted to add was that Henrietta and Ambrose, because they were brought together by being Percy's godparents had him as the ring bearer at their wedding :)

Also part of Percy's life is his first (left) and second (right) wife, Mabel Verde and Mimi Villarreal. Mabel was a childhood sweetheart who he met at a playground in 1929 when he was nine and she was eight and they married just prior to the war breaking out... it ended badly though, for reaosns i'll explain later probably. His second wife Mimi is a WHOLE can of worms in of herself but i'll mention briefly she lived in occupied france during world war ii, was a press assistant at percy's office and studied to be an attorney, like a 1950s Elle Woods.

There's a lot of other characters as well like percy's sisters, a couple of his friends like Frederick whom he met in a pow camp in the 1940s, and the lives of the elder four's parents that i have spent like countless hours researching the complicated history of, but like there's some quick information :)

[willymywonkers]

The Factory (5/5)

Summary: It's been a few weeks since the Factory tour, and Maude is much happier than she ever was. Charlie comes over, and tells her about his experience with Willy. She finds that he rejected Willy's offer. However, she gets a surprise visit from a familiar stranger.

A/N: the final chapter baby!!! I know it's this series was short, but I promise I will still be posting other stories with Maude and Willy, I've just got some major school shit to work out. My Masterlist should be up tomorrow.

Tagged: @holdmeicant @wonkasmissstarshine

It was a mid February day, and things seemed to be getting better for the Buckets. Harry Bucket had gotten a new job, with much better pay, and Grandpa Joe was much better.

Maude was back in school teaching. Charlie couldn't be happier to see her face again.

Maude even started a class teaching kids the chemistry behind making candy. She loved hanging out with the kids, but there was something missing in her life.

Despite being much cheerful, she couldn't get her mind off Will. She noticed Wonka's sales had been dropping. The newspaper began spreading rumors about him, but, of course, they weren't true.

The soft buzz from her door distracted her from her thoughts. Maude smiled, already knowing who it was.

Charlie smiled back at her, wiping the snow off his boots.

"Hello, Charlie." Maude chuckled, inviting him in.

"Hello, Ms. Figgle. Here, I got some extra tips from shoe shining, and I wanted to split this with you." Charlie handed her a Wonka bar from his pocket.

Maude smiled, taking the candy bar. "How thoughtful of you, dear."

She took a piece, but it didn't taste the same. It had a bitter taste, but it wasn't the chocolate. Chewing on the candy suddenly made Maude's good mood shift to a guilty feeling.

"This doesn't taste right." Maude said. The candy didn't have its velvety texture like it used to.

Charlie took a bite of the bar, and agreed.

"Did something happen with you and Will on the trip?" Maude asked, slightly concerned.

"Well, Mr. Wonka offered to give me his entire factory, but he wouldn't let me ever see my family again." Charlie explained.

Maude looked, slightly confused. "Really?"

"Yeah. I thought he was really nice at first. I guess he only cares about himself." Charlie sighed, disappointed.

Maude sighed, just as disappointed.

"Did he ever mention me? At all?" She asked.

"No, I don't think so." Charlie replied.

Maude's heart began to break. Of course, this was expected. She didn't expect Willy to remember her, and how she was his biggest influence in his life.

The cold sad guilt started to consume her once again.

Willy Wonka found himself in an odd situation. Ever since Charlie turned down his offer to live with him, he had been feeling odd. He felt guilty somehow.

This feeling greatly affected his chocolate sales, and he just didn't know why.

Childhood memories started coming back to him. It drove him nuts. He remembered the constant bullying. How he was an outcast to the other children.

Wired Willy is what the kids called him. They would pebbles at his house, taunting him.

God, how he hated his childhood. Willy sat his desk. His mind was clouded, and he could barely focus on his work.

"Check out loser Willy." The kids shouted. "He's like a turtle, slow and cowardly."

Willy couldn't stand it. He was so helpless. He remembered the kids pushing him to the ground and kicking him hard in the stomach.

He gulped hard. It was hard to make him cry, but those memories were enough to push Willy to his limit.

"Hey ASSHATS." A young girl cursed. "Leave him alone or I'll dissect you lot."

Willy remembered the appearance of a girl with messy pigtails and dirt on her face.

She threw some dead things at the kids, and all the kids ran off, terrified of the girl.

Willy wasn't terrified. In fact, the young girl was his savior. He remembered how she loved to chew gum.

"Maude." Will whispered. He felt upset saying her name out loud. She wasn't around anymore, and he hadn't spoken to her in years.

He sat with his supposed 'therapist'.

"I just don't understand." Willy said. "Why am I thinking about her now? I should be over her."

The Oompa Loompa nodded, writing something down.

"I just feel like there's something missing." Willy said, thinking. "I've been feeling terrible, so the candy's terrible. So, how do I fix that?"

The Oompa Loompa shrugged.

Will sat up. "Maybe I'm feeling this way because of my past actions lead up to Charlie ejecting my offer, and I should see things from outside my own perspective." He smirked over at his 'therapist'. "Oh, you're good."

The next day, Willy took a trip into town, wearing all black, in hopes of finding Charlie. He parked his large flying glass elevator in the most convenient spot, and saw the boy shining shoes.

As the boy went on a bit of a break, Willy took a seat on the bench and flipped through the local newspaper, conveniently covering his face.

Charlie kneeled down, and began to work on Willy's shoes.

"I hear that guy, Wendell Walters." Willy began to speak.

"Willy Wonka?" Charlie corrected.

"Yeah, him. I hear his chocolate hasn't been doing well. It seemed to he's a bad egg who deserves it." Willy said.

"Yeah." Charlie agreed.

"Have you met him?" Willy asked.

"I did once. At first, I thought he was nice, but then he wasn't. He also has a funny haircut." Charlie replied, trying to antagonize Willy. He caught on from the moment he sat down.

Willy tossed the newspaper down. "I do not."

"Why are you here?" Charlie got up, and crossed his arms.

"I don't feel so hot." Willy snapped. He sighed, frustrated. "What helps you feel better when you feel down?"

"My family."

"Ew." Willy winced.

Charlie started to get slightly upset. "What do have against my family?"

"It's not your family. It's the idea of-" Willy seemed to struggle on the right word.

"Parents?"

"That." Willy sighed. "And, something else."

"And, what's that?" Charlie asked. "Whatever it is, you should face what's troubling you. My teacher tells me that."

"Well, that sounds like a bunch of baloney." Willy scoffed.

"It's not. She's very smart." Charlie said.

"Then, maybe she should help me." Willy said, sarcastically. Then, he thought for a second. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Do you think you could show me to her?"

Charlie nodded. "Sure."

Willy smiled wide. "That's great! You know, I actually have trans-"

He ran into the glass elevator face first. "I should really be careful to where I park this thing."

Willy walked into the elevator, with Charlie following behind. He pressed a single button, and they were off.

Maude was in her bedroom, playing the violin. Her fingers danced over the strings as the bow shifted back and forth, playing a calming tune. The smoothness of the instrument brought her temporary peace.

It had been a while since she touched the instrument, since she only played it when she was particularly sad. However, in this moment, she felt contentment.

It did hurt her knowing that Will completely forgotten about her, but she wasn't going to let that guilt follow her into the bright future.

Maude heard a soft knock at the door. She placed the instrument down, walking out of her bedroom.

It was Charlie, of course.

"Hello, dear." Maude smiled.

"Ms. Figgle, there's someone I want you to meet." Charlie said.

Behind him was a stunned Willy Wonka. He gulped hard, nervously smiling at Maude.

She stood there, baffled. "Come in." She spoke softly, gesturing the boys in.

Willy nodded, putting his coat and hat down.

The three of them sat in the living room. A silence consumed the room, as Will and Maude stared at each other for a few minutes.

"Hi Willy." Maude said, finally. "How are you?"

Willy smiled, slightly. "Hey Maude. I'm fine."

"Would you like some tea?" She asked.

He nodded. "Absolutely."

Maude drifted off to the kitchen. After a few minutes, she came back with tea and cookies.

Charlie looked over to Willy, and nodded.

"Ms. Figgle, do you know where the restroom is?" Charlie asked.

"Down the hall, and to the left." Maude said. Her eyes were still locked with Willy's.

Charlie took this opportunity to leave the two adults alone.

"So, you're a teacher now?" Willy reached for his tea.

"Yes, but I teach the science of candy making." Maude said, grabbing a cookie.

"That's great." He smiled. "You know, candy making does require a lot of smarts."

She chuckled. "Yeah."

Willy's smile slightly faded as he looked down at his tea. "Say, uh, would you ever want to get back into candy making again?"

She smiled, chuckling again. "Well, I would. I loved working with you in the factory."

"You did?" His puppy dog eyes were too much to bear.

Maude nodded. "Of course."

His smile soon faded. "Would you ever forgive me, Maude?"

"For what?" She asked confused.

"For coming between you and Ron. I know how much you loved him, and I just got so jealous that I pushed you away." Willy looked down at his tea, stirring it slowly.

Tears poured softly down Maude's cheek. "That's not true, Will."

Willy looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Ron pulled me away from you." She sniffed. "I didn't love him."

"You didn't?" Willy repeated.

"No." She scoffed. "I loved you."

His eyes widened. He clenched his gloved hands, and gulped. "R-really?"

Maude nodded, wiping off any tears with a piece of paper tissue.

He leaned over to her. His gloved hand hovering over her wet cheek. Will placed a soft kiss on her quivering lips. Maude gave into the kiss, gently.

They pulled away after a minute or so.

Will cleared his throat, and chuckled, slightly.

Maude smiled, holding his hands in hers. She placed her head against Will's chest. Willy embraced the hug, holding Maude in his arms.

"I think I loved you too, Maude." He said. "Do you think you'd still might wanna live with me in the factory?"

She chuckled. "Only if Charlie says yes."

Behind her, Charlie was smiling brightly at the two.

"Charlie?" Willy Wonka began. "Would you and your family like to live in the factory with me?"

Charlie nodded. "Yes, of course."

He hugged both Maude and Willy.

Finally, it became clear to Willy about what he was missing.

This became the start of something beautiful.

[cartoonfantic8]

LGBTQ+ Percy Jackson Headcannons Part 2

ToA spoilers, Jason’s not dead!

Link to Part 1 - https://cartoonfantic8.tumblr.com/post/627758351057616896/lgbtq-percy-jackson-headcannons

How the fuck did I get so many likes!? Thank you to everyone who liked it or rebloggged. I want everyone to know that your are loved and accepted. Fuck what anyone tells you otherwise, they don’t know how you feel. Being anywhere on the gender spectrum, you are not “sick” or “ill”, that’s what you feel comfortable identifying as, then you are. You are loved and accepted.

- Percy’s a demiboy

- He uses they/he pronouns but mostly uses he.

- Sally is so supportive of him, and will easily switch pronouns. Paul is a little weary of it at first but after learning a lot more and slowly accepting it, he’s proud of Percy for expressing how he feels. Annabeth is also pretty supportive and loves him all the same. Everyone is camp loves him no matter what and accepts him.

- Their friends still love them. Once in a while Jason will slip up pronouns and being the extremely nice guy he is will apogizie so much thoughout the day. Like he will feel so bad all day, and Percy will be like “Dude it’s fine, you don’t do it on purpose”

- Nico never states he’s gay, he’ll just wait for someone to say something homophobic and be “Oh you think that about gay people, well bitch I’m gay”. Then he’ll make the person flustered and embarrassed and Nico will just walk away.

- Will loves him for it. He introduced Nico to She-Ra and at first Nico hated it but then he started to low-key like it. He heavily related to Catra, Nico and Will 1000% ship Catrdora. They also watched the Owl House and defently ship Lumity.

- Mr.D is fiercely protective of the trans campers. He dosen’t show it much but he will care about them so much. He will easily switch pronouns and call them by there preferred name, he’ll get them binders or make them feel more comfortable.

- Chrion is high-key one of the most accepting people ever. He will literally die his hair and tail rainbow, he wears rainbow clothes. He will literally organize small groups of demigods going to Pride togther, that way not many monsters attack and they can have more fun.

- Anyone with homophobic or transphobic parents, stay year-round.

- The rule used to be “two people of the opposite gender, can’t be alone in a cabin togther”, then Chiron changed it to “ two people can’t be alone in a cabin togther” to be more inclusive. Then some of the campers who are in a polyamous relationship are like “Ha we don’t have to follow the rule”. Chrion was like fuck it “anyone in a relationship can’t be alone in a cabin with there significant other/others.

- Conner has tried breaking this rule and sneaking into the Athena Cabin and has gotten caught several times by the harpies. Malcolm being the little smartass he is, stole Annabeth’s invisibility cap and successfully snuck into the Hermes cabin several times.

- Aries kids go to pride parades to support the LGBTQ campers and will curse out all the homophobes protesting.

- Hephuetus Cabin making weapons for the LGBTQ+ campers. Lesbians get swords, gays get glaudius, bisexual get battle axes, demisexuals get daggers, pansexuals get poleaxes, aro’s get longbows, non-binary’s get nunchucks, ace’s get maces, trans gets tridents, ect. (Pretty much that fanart but in the PJO world) They become honorary weapons and save them in case a homophobic and transphobic army comes to camp, they’ll be prepared.

- The Flower Crowns the Demeter Cabin made can never wither or die.

- During Pride Month, the Big House will put pride flags around the edge of the roof. The Iris cabin encourages all cabins so put some rainbow somewhere outside there cabin. Most people put flags but the one that takes the cake is the Hades Cabin. Apparently the night before June 1st, Nico di Angelo with the help of Will Solace painted the entire cabin rainbow. This kinda surprised everyone.

- Drew isn’t straight at all. She was really just a closeted lesbian who had so much internalized homophobia because she had a homophobic dad growing up and lived in a homophobic environment. After a while she slowly starts to accept that part of herself and comes out of the closet like literally.

- Drew waited one night after dinner to tell her Cabin, she went into the closet of the Aphrodite cabin, put on a lesbian flag as a cape and did her makeup the lesbian flag colors, and just came out of the closet. The campers were in shock but loved her all the same. Drew became so much more open and showed more of the real her.

- She ended up dating a water nymph and loves her so much. The nymph brought a more kinder side to her and Drew became so much kinder and everyone knew it was because of her girlfriend.

- Drew teaches trans girls how to do there makeup.

- Lavinia Asimov introduced her girlfriend Poison Oak to Pride. They went to the nearest parade by Camp Jupiter.

- Poison Oak is defiantly a cottage core lesbian, you can not change my mind. Lavinia just gives me the Lesbian Artist Vibe.

- Both of them are in the LGBTQ+ support group at Camp Jupiter with Hazel.

- Hazel and Lavinia went on a shopping trip to the nearest mall, they both got plain white Vans and decided to paint them. Lavinia painted them the lesbian flag colors, Hazel painted them the pansexual flag colors.

- In New Rome, they will have Pride Parades all June. They’ll schedule it and decorate the place rainbow. They’ll put a shop and put flags, pins and stuff like that. The LGBTQ+ campers in Camp Jupiter go.

- At the Waystation, Jo and Emmie decorate a lot. They will have Pride everywhere and support anyone. They practically adopted Leo, Calypso and Lit.

- Lit’s kinda confused but Jo and Emmie teach him. Emmie makes rainbow cookies and they all go to Pride.

- Artemis is pretty much all the hunters adoptive mom. She accepts if two hunters fall in love with each other and leave the hunt. She’s still on good terms with them.

Feel free to add more!

@yjbatfamandmarchingband

@kittyplayz1cantmsg4somereason

@just-a-local-enby

@mariesunflowerchild

@la-folle-a-l-orignal

@loverofmazeandthrones

@hazellpjo

@aurelle

@spazshipping

Dedicated for all the people who wanted part two!

[0ceanoflight]

My thoughts on Gaya Sa Pelikula now that I've watched all 8 eps.

Cause I need to write down my thoughts and Twitter's character limit just isn't enough so thank you tumblr. This is gonna be a rant

Also, just wanna say this is from the point of view of a gay trans masc enby, aka me.

First impression

Gaya Sa Pelikula is just.... Wow. It's hard to describe. I originally watched it cause some moots on Twitter kept talking about it and they recommended it to me. It doesn't take much for me to watch a gay show, so of course I checked it out. At the time I think maybe 2-3 eps were out.

I knew nothing about the plot. I had no expectations for it. Just hoping it didn't have any problematic stuff in it, hopefully some cute stuff, same as any other gay show. It was just some show to watch to pass the time. I was wrong. It's so much more than just a good show. It's rare for me to get THIS emotionally invested into a show.

From the first ep I thought "Oh, this is pretty realistic lol. I've said stuff like this", referring to Vlad's lines. That continued as I watched the remaining available eps. Later my moots mentioned that it was written by a gay man and I understood right away. GSP is a gay show with the intention of being very realistic. It wasn't just gay for entertainment's sake. It was gay for the sake for real gay people.

Characters

The characters are so well written. They are flawed. They're not perfect. They all have their own struggles that you wouldn't know until you sat down and talked to them. Their lines and personalities are real. They feel real. I've met people like that. I have friends like that. I see myself in them. Also the acting is incredible. Really brought it to the next level.

The Music

A golden sound track. Every song just fit. It felt like the songs were made for that scene. The lyrics, the vibe. There were so many times when I thought that lyrics perfectly fit the scene in a way that would make me connect even more to what was happening. Really couldn't have been better. 10/10.

The visuals and plot devices

The way everything seems to have a purpose. Everything seems to be interconnected. There were so many things that were mentioned earlier in the episode, or I'm previous episodes that you originally didn't fully understand, then they would come back and suddenly *mindblown*.

The lines in the first prom dancing scene in the first ep. The ghost stories (still blows my mind). Vlad not liking his hair being touch which wasn't explained till later. The keychain. The theme song test. The movie they were watching about the imaginary beach (I forgot the name). The reason behind Judit's seemingly fake/weird ally speeches. The reason why Karl always seemed so stiff and awkward. The closet. The orca. The remote. Ect.

All of that came back later in the show and added so much depth. The metaphors used seemed to almost add extra explainations. Like... they didn't just give more layers of complexity, but it gave us a stronger understanding of what was going on. Or at least it made it more emotional. Idk. I was just one of he people who read posts of others dissecting the show cause I'm not as good. Lol.

Also there were beautiful scenes visually. Karl's dance scene. Beautiful. The film scenes outside, looked gorgeous. The use of mirrors and the TV. Great. Awesome

Connections

There were a lot of things I connected to.

Vlad's lines like I mentioned above were among the first. I've personally said or thought very similar things. Or even those exact things. I was actually shocked at first. By how real that felt for me.

Vlad being lonely, but faking it. Aha. I'm an introvert, and people know it. As much as I need space, I get lonely very easily as well. And friends online sometimes aren't enough. It's not the same as having someone there. With covid, and the fact that all of my friends live far away or are normally too busy to meet up, I very rarely am actually with friends. It almost hurts tbh. Especially since I'm a very affectionate person. Also the gay yearning hours are real and powerful.

Karl's dance scene, letting out the inner femininity. So I'm a bit different. I never came out as gay. I'm a gay trans guy. People already knew, or assumed, I liked men. However I did have the struggle of inner femininity. I hated fem things up until I was maybe 15-16, maybe almost 17. I didn't know why I hated it, I just did. Clearly now I know why. However my evolution to being a fem guy from hating fem things happened around the same time as discovering I'm not actually a girl. It was confusing 3 years (yes it took me about 3 years to piece everything together, a bit longer to settle). My point is, once I opened up to fem things, it was beautiful. It really really was. I felt more comfortable. I felt freer. I went from "ew makeup, skirts, leggings, pink. I hate it". To wearing makeup, wearing leggings, liking pink, often painting my nails. I've worn pretty short shorts with a loose t-shirt and a cardigan. Peak fem. Felt great. I want to wear a skirt, but I'm too afraid to do that. I may feel better with being fem, but society is still society and I might get looks cause "wtf, a man wearing a skirt?". Maybe one day. Uhhh anyways. The times I've grown to become more fem felt like how watching Karl dance felt like. Just like that.

Karl's struggle with his sexuality. Ok again I can't relate on the gay part, cause my coming out was coming out at trans. However yea. That was an adventure. I remember being so confused in 8th grade & 9th grade. God that was.... something. At first I thought I just wanted to be more tomboyish, more androgynous. So I found androgynous girls with short hair and said "I want this". Everyone was confused. My friends said "is there a reason you cut your hair so short?". I was afraid of that question. At the time I didn't know why I was so afraid. I don't remember exactly what I said, but tbh I was pretty defensive. Of course I later realized why I felt that way. I remember finally figuring things out after I settled into knowing I was trans, I didn't know how to come out. I couldn't say it directly. In fact, I never did. To my friends I just said "he/him, they/them pronouns" when asked at events, and of course they knew, but didn't ask more. In fact one friend found out cause I wrote "agender" on a form cause he looked over my shoulder. For my family... I just dropped a big hint, and they understood something was up. I wasn't able to explain it well then either. It took another 2-3 months till I couldn't take it anymore and did my best to explain it better so they would take it seriously. I was afraid. I couldn't say it directly. I actually didn't come out to my my high school. I was too afraid. I had friends who were out and I was jealous. I was jealous of their bravery. Same as Karl to Vlad. I was out to friends, but couldn't be open in the real world, much like Karl. I was only out within the space of the GSA, and of the local lgbt center. That was my "apartment". It was only until after i graduated where I promised myself I would live my real self.

The prom dance scene. I missed my high school's prom too. I wasn't brave enough to wear a suit. That would be like coming out and I wasn't ready. So I missed that. I wouldn't have been able to be open of course. I went to the senior dinner. I guess that was the start of me trying to be open. I went in a suit. Tailored men's dress pants too. I went with friends.

Wanting to write my own stories. That's a big one isn't it? I never really do see myself in films or tv. An autistic mentally ill gay trans masc enby? Yea, not a thing. Not a popular role in hollywood, will never be. I'm not a writer, I wanted to be as a kid, I was going to go to uni for writing, but I'm not really good enough for that. I really really do want to see more of myself in media. I wish I could be able to create such things for other people as well. Cause things like Gaya Sa Pelikula are truly magical. It literally made me cry whenever something I related to happened.

[evieveevee]

What We Lost: Returning to Tumblr in 2020

On December 17th, 2018, Tumblr banned 'adult content' across the site, marking the end of an era. The ban was the result of a cavalcade of issues which reportedly made maintaining NSFW content unfeasible for Tumblr. Now, it's 2020. I'm back on Tumblr, and I can't help but meditate on what we've lost both on Tumblr, and across the globe in 2020.

Part One: Tumblr and Adult Content

*Things we lost to the flame Things we'll never see again All that we've amassed Sits before us, shattered into ash

— Bastille, "Things We Lost In The Fire"*

A bit of personal history: Tumblr was the primary community I used in various forms from 2012 onwards, associating with various fandoms, doing what I could to design interesting things. The various communities I was involved in intersected with social justice communities, and eventually I dug into those further and tried to learn to better myself in the process, starting along the path to becoming the person I did.

Part of that process was also learning to love my own body, a thing I was not particularly good at and still struggle a bit with nowadays. One of the ways I did this was by making 'adult content', or more plainly, pornography. It was a unique opportunity to experiment with femininity and sexuality - something I'd been very closed off from as part of my upbringing - in a supportive, fun environment. Experimenting with my self image first in this way, in semi-private, led to me experimenting more publicly and eventually embracing aspects of that as part of my day to day life. That's right: making pornography was part of what led me down the path to figuring out I was trans and embracing that part of me.

Making porn on Tumblr was a great time; the adult content creators and consumers community on the site was largely supportive of queer people and sexuality, different body types, all manner of things. It was - in my experience - a healthy and fun place to be, and certainly one of the better places you could be on the internet for a visual medium like pornography. Tumblr's format made it easy to share both adult content you made yourself, and stuff you were curating. Vex Ashley wrote that "this sharing was so desperately vital for women and other marginalised people whose sexualities are often overlooked or infantilised in media about sex in preference for the tastes of the traditional porn consumer – the straight white guy" in a eulogy and love letter to Tumblr's adult content communities.

Tumblr's format remains novel to my knowledge as well: the notion of having a large image-focused feed which also allows for easy sharing and curation, gorgeous, high resolution pieces and photos to be uploaded with relatively little compression, custom arrangements of photosets, and personalized theming of your blog. There was, and remains, lots of potential for expression on Tumblr., and its focus remains unique. Twitter and Mastodon's focus is on what's written, Wordpress doesn't have the sort of interlinking of blogs that Tumblr does, and Facebook is... Facebook (read: evil).

I think the novelty of that format is what made the announcement of the ban on 'adult content' so impactful. Even looking back at the framing of it is gross: the post posits that 'adult content' is something which is negative, and says that removing it is working towards a 'more positive' Tumblr. There appears to be an attempt to try and strike a balance in allowing conversation about sexuality and such, but this is the killing blow. A huge portion of the community, including countless queer and furry artists, needed to find a new home online.

3 months after the ban had hit, traffic had reportedly dropped off 20%. Recent data from SimilarWeb, the outfit which published that initial data, shows that visits to the site have dropped off a little bit more, but have stayed otherwise pretty consistent. August 2020's data shows about 317 million visits. [1] In other words: any hope that this move would allow Tumblr was dashed. A massive portion of the userbase deleted their accounts after archiving them; Tumblr and the internet at large had lost a massive, vibrant chunk of community, and it was completely in vain.

I lost contact with a bunch of those folks I was following on Tumblr for years. The mass exodus left both people who wanted to find and share artwork and adult content and the people who made it completely adrift. Years later, some artists are still picking up the pieces. Archaic policy like SESTA/FOSTA being brought into the picture has left very few standing when it comes to adult content, Twitter included. Who knows how long that will last? If something happens to change the way that Twitter handles adult content, for example, what options do casual creators like myself have?

Fortunately, platforms like OnlyFans exist. But even those are at potential risk from legislation like the EARN IT Act, not to mention the danger this poses to Twitter and to the internet at large. OnlyFans and its ilk, as they exist right now, are fantastic for sex workers because they offer pay-gating and a variety of features to make sure sex workers get paid. But they leave those of us who want to be able to curate the content they enjoy or casually create their own content freely without real options, and without real community.

We stand to lose a lot, and as always people in the margins will be the ones most impacted: the queer, the people of color, the disabled; all will suffer greatly if adult content is found without a home. Media dealing with queer themes is enough to be considered "adult content" by some and it's not hard to imagine what we could be staring down the barrel of here.

What have we lost in eliminating platforms like this?

Part Two: 2020 and the World

*These are the things The things we lost The things we lost in the fire, fire, fire.

— Bastille, "Things We Lost In The Fire"*

Meditating on what we have lost seems to be a running theme for the year 2020.

January: New Year's Day. In Aotearoa New Zealand, smoke covers the skies from a fire a literal ocean away. The Australian bush has been on fire, part of one of the most and it has turned the skies of a nation not it's own orange at midday, across thousands of kilometers. What did we lose in those fires? What stories and history? What wildlife, what species? What will remain afterwards? What will grow anew?

April: Aotearoa New Zealand hits the peak of COVID-19 related lockdown with the entire nation moved to Level 4, meaning that nothing except truly essential services, such as roadworks, pharmacies, and supermarkets were open. During that time, I thought a lot about how some of my favorite small shops were doing; the bakery with astonishingly good pies, the charming dollar store which always has a few things that catch my eye, the coffee cart near one of the local parks every morning. As a nation, Aotearoa acted early to deal with COVID-19 with a strong hand, and it was risky for all of those small shops across the country. What would we come out the other side of the lockdowns having lost, both in terms of human cost and cost to the places around us?

May: Following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, massive protests against police brutality, racism, and white supremacy break out across the United States of America. Daily protests have continued to the time of writing in some cities. George Floyd is one of 781 people killed by police in 2020 at the time of writing in the United States alone [2]. 1099 people were killed by police in 2019 [3]. What incredible lives and stories have been lost in the process? Are those stories being told now? How do we prevent this from happening again? (Hint: defunding the police will be a start, and supporting the cause now is a good choice too.)

It is now September: The incompetence of the US Government has allowed COVID-19 to spread beyond control, leaving tens of thousands of deaths in its wake; lives and stories which must be remembered and their stories carried on by others. The western coast of the United States is on fire, blanketed in smoke and ashes. Massive west coast cities like San Francisco gain an apocalyptic feeling as the skies turn orange, like they did for me in January. Friends of friends lose everything in small Oregon towns. The costs of the prolonged fires will be paid by people all up the coast; it's their health outcomes which will suffer. What will we lose as a result of this in the future? What can we do to make things better?

I want to be clear: this is not a comprehensive list, and is centered around the things that me and my social circles have been aware of and talked about. Even with that consideration, we have to reckon with massive, ongoing, and far reaching concerns. The loss felt as a result of all of the above issues is staggering, and far reaching, and we must fight to ensure that loss is not in vain. Voting alone is not going to solve these concerns, and there's more to concern yourself with than any one person should have to cope with. There's not a magic bullet to solve all this stuff though.

Rather than pretend that I have one, I want to propose a couple things to close this out: one bit of advice, and one plea for yourself and others.

The advice: pick your battles carefully. Pick issues you want to focus in on, and fight for those things to make things better where you live, and in your social circles. Choose things to care deeply about first. Keep caring about them.

The plea: think carefully about the questions I've asked throughout this piece, and think about the things in your life and communities that you have lost. Think about how to make sure those losses are taken with you and learned from; to take lessons learned and better yourself and the people around you. Think about the things you don't want to lose, and how to fight like hell for them.

Move forwards to something, and some place better than where we are now. Stand united with the people around you, and press on.

*Do you understand that we will never be the same again? The future's in our hands and we will never be the same again.

— Bastille, "Things We Lost In The Fire"*

If you enjoyed this piece and want to support my work, please contribute to my Ko-fi. If you are interested in re-publishing this piece on another site, please contact me either here or via my business email.

References

[1] Data provided by SimilarWeb; accessed on 15/09/2019 at 5:30am. (https://www.similarweb.com/website/tumblr.com/)

[2] Data provided by Mapping Police Violence (https://mappingpoliceviolence.com); accessed on 15/09/2020 at 4:08am NZT

[3] Data provided by Mapping Police Violence's (https://mappingpoliceviolence.com) database, downloaded on 15/09/2020 at 4:08am NZT. Count obtained using the following formula:

=COUNTIFS($'2013-2020 Police Killings'.F:F,">=1/1/2019",$'2013-2020 Police Killings'.F:F,"<1/1/2020")

[recurring-polynya]

So, I did it, I protested.

I’m writing this post, not to brag, because to honest, I feel like I am doing a literal minimum of what I should be doing, but because people writing about their experiences online is really, really helpful to me, and if I can make even one person feel better about protesting, I want to do that.

Whatever you may have gathered from my online persona, I am actually a pretty shy and nervous person IRL. I hate confrontation, but at the same time, I believe that I have a moral imperative to stand up for what is right. This makes me sound much tougher than I am, but mostly it has always resolved itself into speaking up in work meetings when I think something is a bad idea, or pushing back against unrealistic deadlines, especially when it regards people under me in the management structure. This has always been incredibly stressful for me because it’s hooked right up to the anxiety part of my brain, so I have always forced myself to do it, and is part of the reason I am currently taking a break from working.

If you spend a lot of time on Twitter (and I am trying to do just enough to stay informed without getting bogged down in anxiety and depression), you are probably reading a lot about prepping for protests by covering your tattoos and locking down your phone and how to flip a riot shield or stare down a police horse. As I was leaving this weekend, I asked my husband to top up my water bottle for me, and he joking replied, “Stay hydrated! You know if you tell them you have to go before you do it, they can’t arrest you for peeing in a cop car!” I’m grateful for people sharing wisdom, I guess, but it also builds protesting into his huge, scary thing that can seem very intimidating.

I live between two major cities, and I have been doing a lot of handwringing over whether I should be going to the major protests, even though I have never been to a protest and getting into either city is a nightmare at the best of times and there’s a pandemic on (my county has a high incidence of Covid and only came out of lockdown last week and we are still being encouraged to stay home) and also I am a huge weenie coward. I kept saying that if there was a protest in my town, I would go. WELP, I went on Facebook (I only go on Facebook for local and school stuff) and saw that some local high schoolers had organized a march on Sunday. So I had to go.

I did not want to take my kids, which meant that I couldn’t make my husband go with me, so I started hunting around for a protest buddy. I texted my neighbor who went down to the Women’s Protest after the election. She wasn’t able to go, but she said she was proud of me. My sister, however, was able to go, and furthermore, there was a candlelight vigil in her town on Saturday evening (20 min away and I used to live there), so I agreed to go with her if she would go with me.

The candlelight vigil was a really good warm up for the march. My sister’s town is a Depression-era planned community and it is populated almost entirely by old hippies. Have you ever been to a white person drum circle? That’s basically what it was. It was in the little historic town plaza, where the credit union and the coop grocery are. It was probably 90% white. There were a lot of old folks, some with canes and walkers. There were some kids, including a toddler. My sister saw some people she knew from her neighborhood Star Trek watching group. There was drumming. A priest carrying a small, fluffy dog gave an opening prayer. The mayor, an incredibly young black guy (he said he was born the year of the Rodney King riots and I crumbled into dust) came out and gave a speech which included what the town was doing and what work needs to be done at the state level. There was more drumming, which included doing some chants. Now, I go to an Episcopal Church, so I am used to old people awkwardly clapping. I guess we were supposed to bring our own candles. A lady had brought a bag of extra little LED ones, and she gave us some. We lit the candles and dispersed along the main road and hung out with our candles until about 9. It was overall pretty small, but both the mayor and the drum lady who had organized it thanked everyone profusely for coming and said it was way bigger than they had expected.

The march in my town the next day was waaaaaaay bigger. As I mentioned, it was organized by some kids from the high school, and most of the publicity had been on Instagram, although after they got permission from the city, the city PR promoted it on Facebook and Twitter. It was in a park a mile or two south of my house. They had rented the grandstand. Overall, they did a great job organizing-- water, snacks and masks were provided, although most people brought their own. They had a sign language interpreter. Someone handed out signs; I’m not sure if that was organized or just someone did that one their own. The one thing that wasn’t great was that the PA system wasn’t loud enough and I had a lot of trouble hearing. I believe it was mostly students who spoke-- they were very passionate and I wish I could have heard better. The mayor (who is white) was there, but didn’t speak, which I think was great, actually. There was one douchebag who showed up with one of those Blue Lives Matter flags that’s an American flag with a blue stripe. He got up on stage at some point, but I have no idea what he had to say because everyone was booing him. The crowd was probably 75% black. I saw a significant number of signs like “Black Trans Lives Matter” and “Gay, Black and Tired,” which made me happy. We ran into my priest and her wife (they are in their 60′s/70′s) along with some other people I knew from church who are about 10 years older than me. After the speeches part, we marched up and down a major street which had been closed to traffic for the purpose. There was a lot of shouting that seemed pretty organic-- someone would start up a chant and lead it for a minute or two. I am a pretty good shouter, because I play hockey, but my voice was very tired by the end. There were cops along the route, and people would almost always start up a chant when we passed some cops, but it was very... cordial? I guess? The cops just stood there stoically and took their criticism. Afterward, the city police Facebook page issued a thank you to the protesters for a peaceful protest and the city posted a lot of pictures and positive messages about it.

I guess I’m telling you this story because I was pretty scared to go protest, but I did it and it wasn’t scary. I saw a lot of old people and people with canes and people who had brought small children. I didn’t know what I was doing, and that was okay. I wasn’t the only white person there. I made signs, and some people asked to take pictures of them. Maybe these were just local protests, but local protests matter, too! I am incredibly proud of the turnout for the one in my own town, and I was pleased to see various organizations around town endorsing it. The Historic Society is asking people to donate signs because they are devoted to documenting history as it happens. I am really grateful to my sis for going with me and to all my friends, online and irl, who are examples to me and make me want to be better (including @grindel-works and @unohanadaydreams ) and I feel better now about doing more of this in the future.

[transthaumaturge]

trans asks: 3, 19, 40

and bonus chosen without looking at the question: 27

--- Sorry I was a few days late to answer this, @foxoftheasterisk! I just re-reblogged the ask game as of the middle of the day on 12/24 so that it’s easier to see what I’m responding to. Responses under the cut so that this doesn’t dominate anybody’s dashboard.

Ask 3: Do you have more physical dysphoria or more social dysphoria? I’d say probably more social dysphoria. I have enough bottom dysphoria that I don’t like looking at myself in the mirror while I’m in the bathroom, but the biggest source of trans-related discomfort for me is not knowing whether I look or sound feminine to other people when I’m interacting with them in public. I’ve learned two important things from having a lot of social dysphoria: 1) You probably notice the nuances of your voice and appearance much more than any random person you’ll meet on the street--especially when it comes to cis people. I spend a lot of time thinking that my voice doesn’t sound natural, or that my face isn’t “feminine enough” (whatever that means), but people notice a lot less in general than I think they will. If you’re trying to pass, whatever that entails, you’re already doing a great job ^_^* 2) Passing is a shit metric for trans people to be judged on, and a shit metric for us to judge ourselves on. I’m just as much a lady now as when I had a full beard shadow two years ago, and I’m much happier with my no-makeup appearance nowadays than I was when I tried to dress hyperfeminine every day in my first year as myself. Give yourself a break. I still get anxious over my voice and appearance, but I don’t let it convince myself that I’m “failing at being a woman” anymore. I am a woman. If some rando on the street thinks otherwise, it’s their right to have terrible opinions. Ask 19: Would you ever go stealth, and if you are stealth, why do you choose to be stealth? I’m fully out in my day-to-day life, and that includes in my job as a high-school science teacher where I have a trans pride flag on my desk and co-advise the school GSA as an “LGBTeacher”. I like being visibly trans, especially to the kids that I work with, because it makes me a “possibility model.” It shows trans kids that they’re safe being themselves around me, and that there’s a real possibility that they’ll grow up happy as their true selves. But would I ever go stealth? I suppose I would if I felt like it was a matter of safety, and I’ve done so in the past for that reason. In the summer that I was interviewing for teaching jobs back in 2018, I had been out to myself as trans for several months but made the choice to pretend to be a cis man for all of those interviews and also for a full year into my teaching career. I knew that if I came to my interviews in a dress, I stood less of a chance of being hired and couldn’t afford to be jobless. And I knew that if I presented as a woman in my first year of teaching, it might introduce an element of danger into my life that I didn’t need while I was still working on coming out to those around me and building a support network. I took a calculated risk to go from being stealth to being out in my daily life because after a while, it was just too painful to not be my authentic self. But that took a lot of work. I spent a lot of time working with the local teacher’s union to make sure that I had someone to protect me when coming out to the district and school administration. And in my personal life, I waited until I had my own health insurance, my own car, and a handful of other things before I came out to the dad who threatened to take all of these things away from me if I wore women’s clothes in public again. If anybody reading this is trying to make that same decision of “when to go full-time”, I would strongly suggest that you do what you can to make sure that you have resources available to you if the worst happens afterward. You may not be as lucky as I was with the timing of my coming-out, but make sure that you have something to steady yourself with. A place to go if things get ugly at home, some money or possessions stashed away where the people who want to control you can’t get to them. At the same time, don’t let family manipulate you into waiting and making yourself miserable for years and years because “it’s just not safe right now”. My dad tried to do that once he realized he had nothing on me anymore, and I saw it for what it was. Nowadays, if I went stealth, it would be to pretend to be a cis woman rather than a cis man. I think that I could do that, but only if I was in an interaction where people knowing I was trans would put me in danger. It would particularly suck because I wear a kippah wherever I go, but I would even take that off if I needed to. I’m not so self-sure that I don’t realize there are places in my own country, some not too far from me, where there are people who want me dead. My goal is to make sure that I never end up in those places if I can help it, and if I do, to fake it until I make it. Ask 40: How did/do you manage waiting to transition? In this respect, I was luckier than most because I slowly came out to myself over the five years that I was in college and away from my parents, and wasn’t fully out to myself until I was 23 and about to get a job that I could use to support myself. I know that it’s not that easy for a lot of people, especially because my relative privilege helped me to get into a stable, independent living situation after school. But even with all of that, I still spent an entire year pretending to be a man while I taught my first year of high school science and waited to complete my full social transition. It was really hard. On the days that I wore a button-down shirt and dress pants to school, I felt trapped; on the days that I wore a school t-shirt and loose jeans, I felt like I was falling apart. Using my “guy voice” made me flinch almost constantly, because it didn’t feel like mine. I had to constantly remind myself that I was a woman, and that I would get through this. It’s difficult, when everyone around you is using your deadname and misgendering you. Here are the three things that helped me the most: 1) I built a support network for myself in my personal life. When I was looking for a house to move into, I made sure that my housemates were okay with me being trans and that they wouldn’t be uncomfortable with me being myself at home. Coming out to strangers like that was difficult, but I couldn’t bear another year of only being myself when I was in a locked bedroom. I was also lucky enough to have a queer community center in my town where I attended weekly trans support group meetings, which gave me a way to dress authentically and be seen and affirmed. I’m not lying when I say that I looked forward to those support meetings every second that I wasn’t in them. If you’re in a pre-coming-out situation and don’t have a physical queer community space right now (or that space is closed because of quarantine), online spaces are also amazing places to seek out affirmation and be seen. Discord, Reddit...just make sure that any Facebook groups you join aren’t marked public or everyone you’re friends with will be able to see your posts and comments from that group on their feeds. I learned that the hard way, thankfully long after I came out. Many queer community centers, if you live relatively close to them, are also doing weekly online support meetings right now to try and keep those affirming spaces alive during covid. 2) I started saying daily self-affirmations. Mine went “My name is Rachel Tikvah [Lastname], and I am a woman. I am a sister, I am a daughter, and I am enough.” I set phone alarms to say it in the morning before work, in the afternoon after work, and I also whispered it under my breath anytime that I felt like I just couldn’t take pretending any longer. Not only did it help me in the moment, it helped me to get used to my new name while my deadname was still being regularly used. If the above affirmation doesn’t feel like it would work for you, I have no doubt that there are plenty of trans self-affirmations that you can look up online and choose from. 3) I focused on the approaching milestones. I got through my first autumn by building my wardrobe and picking out my new first and middle names. By then, I had decided that I would start hormones on my birthday in February and counted down the days until then. Starting hormones brought a bunch of early transition milestones with them that I could focus on, and I worked out a deal with school administration that I would come out over the summer and start my second school year as a woman. That gave me an ultimate goal to work towards. Every step I took, every accomplishment I made, brought me closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. Knowing that kept me strong, and it kept me hopeful for the day when I would never have to worry about pretending to be a man ever again. If you’re currently in a dark place and not sure when you’ll be able to transition medically or socially, figure out what those milestones are for you and focus on what steps and amount of time it will take before they’ll come true. If you don’t have any milestones to look forward to, try to create some for yourself. Order some trans gear to start wearing if you have a safe way to do so! Work towards choosing a new name for yourself if you want a new one! Celebrate the anniversary of coming out to yourself with your friends each year! Whatever you can think of, put it on your mental calendar and look forward to it while you wait. Bonus Ask 27: What do you do to validate yourself? The self-affirmations that I mentioned in ask 40 really helped, and I still say them almost daily now that I’m out. They’re especially helpful when I’m feeling particularly dysphoric. As someone who is also very proud of my Jewish identity, I also say the blessing “thank you god for creating me as a woman” when I take my hormones or when looking at my body makes me smile. Those are beautiful moments that I thought for the longest time would never happen, and I want to sanctify every one of them. The Hebrew for this modified blessing can be found on this blog post: https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2012/03/on-bodies-blood-and-blessings.html Apart from that, one of my big refuges is clothing. I have a wardrobe full of cute clothes (there’s something beautiful about coming out of the closet and then filling it with dresses) that I’ll wear if I need to feel extra-feminine or sure of myself. I’ll put on makeup before going outside, and if I need it, I’ll take a picture of myself and post it to one of the queer discord servers I’m part of with a request for positive affirmations about my femininity. Knowing that I’m being seen by people that I care about and that they think I’m beautiful always means a lot and helps me feel better if I’m having trouble chasing the dysphoria away on my own. Between positive self-affirmations and being seen and cheered on by friends, I’m usually able to make myself feel better if I need that extra boost of validation. I should also mention that while it doesn’t come up a lot now that I’m not being regularly deadnamed, I used to ask friends to use my chosen name more in conversation than they would otherwise. Hearing it more chased away the intrusive thoughts, most of which at the time were my brain saying my deadname to me whenever there was a moment of silence. My brain was quieter when my friends were using my real name regularly. Okay, I hope that that gave you a little bit more insight into me and my transition! I am living proof that trans people can come out to themselves in adulthood and turn out alright. Gender is a galaxy, and I’ve remade myself out of the stardust. I hope that any trans people reading this have been/are able to transition safely as well. You’re all amazing, and you deserve happiness.

[arethereanyoriginalusernames]

Spooky babbles about RENT (the Broadway Musical (about assholes ))

We all have our guilty pleasures, or at least enjoy things that we acknowledge are bad. I’m sure that you and I can both name examples of these things specific to us.

It’s also likely that, like me, when someone makes a compelling video essay about something that you’ve never seen, that you agree with that person. Only to become exposed to more of it, and then you realize that “hey some of this is pretty good”, but then you become super conflicted bc you know that it’s bad, but you still enjoy aspects about it.....

I’m just making this about me, aren’t I? Welph, let’s do this proper and make another essay, bc I totally have time, and I totally won’t regret this later when I have a million things to do:)

.... oh quarantine, what have you done to me~?

... so, Lindsey Ellis. I consume her content regularly, and I would absolutely say that she’s probably one of the best YouTubers nowadays. You might remember her from her nostalgia chick days, but since distancing herself from that character, she makes video essays on several topics, a lot of them pertaining to popular shows and stories. If you write stories or enjoy creating characters and whatnot, I would make her channel a must to check out.

She also has a podcast on Spotify called “Musicalsplaining”, which I would also recommend you check out. It’s a podcast she does with her friend Kaveh, who dislikes musicals. They both watch a musical, and have a discussion over it, and it can get pretty funny due to their discussions being unscripted banter between two buds stuck in quarantine.

Lindsey has done both a video on a musical called RENT, and she and Kaveh covered it in their podcast. If you want a more funny coverage of it, I’d say listen to the podcast, as both Lindsey and Kaveh basically bond over their mutual rage, which is honestly beautiful. For a more in depth look at how RENT misrepresents the AIDs crisis, the lgbt+ community, and is just a bad story in general, check out her video essay on RENT on YouTube.

As you can probably guess, I’ve listened to both the video and the podcast. At least 8 times each (seriously, they’re really good). Now, I had never watched Rent before, nor had I listened to the soundtrack. The most I did was read the synopsis on Wikipedia. And I still haven’t watched the musical... but I currently have over half the soundtrack downloaded on Spotify.

So.... yeah. And after listening to the soundtrack, I have some thoughts. I don’t disagree with Lindsey’s take on Rent, honestly I still 100% agree with everything that she said, but now... something’s different. I see potential in Rent, and I see some gold hidden in what is basically a steaming pile of narcissism masked as “being artistic”. And that actually makes Rent that much more frustrating for me.

I’ll assume that despite my recommendations, you might not feel like listening to Lindsey’s coverage of Rent. While I still recommend you do so, since she explains the issues better than I ever could, I’ll do my best to give you as brief of an explanation as I can.

Rent is a rock musical loosely based on the opera La Boheme. It follows a group of “struggling artists” attempting to survive in New York during the AIDs/ HIV crisis. It’s one of the first popular Broadway musicals that featured LGBT+ characters, and it was rather successful when it was a new thing. Then years past, people forgot about it, then a terrible movie adaptation was made. Said movie caused a lot of people to realize that maybe Rent wasn’t actually that good.

The heroes of our story are as follows.

We have Roger, one of the more decent people here (which isn’t saying much), who’s a former drug user who’s trying to stay clean from drugs. He lost his last girlfriend to suicide, and he’s currently dying from AIDs. He’s trying to write one great song before he dies so he can leave some kind of legacy.

Mark is a wannabe filmmaker who exploits people’s misfortune for his own passion project (without their consent). He likes to film and romanticize the plight of the homeless while doing fuck all to help. He’s struggling financially, so he considers it fair to not pay for anything bc he’s an artist and being poor is admirable or something. Also, not only is he a privileged white kid with rich parents who could help him, but he refuses to contact them, he also quits a decent job bc he can’t express himself artistically. I wish I was kidding.

Mimi is a stripper with a drug addiction and AIDs. She’s also the love interest for Roger. While logically, it’d be a bad idea for Roger, someone who is trying to be clean of drugs, to not get involved with Mimi, the story wouldn’t have you believe that. She tries to get him to do drugs with her and “live”, and the story tries to do a thing by having her fake die by aids, only to be revived and cured by Roger singing. I wish I was kidding.

Maureen is a narcissist who gaslights her partners, has a weird job as a performance artist, and is bisexual so of course she has to be super slutty and flirtatious, and dance around the idea of cheating on her gf, Joanne, who’s this super smart, serious gal who leads protests for social justice.

Collins and Angel are the local maybe adora-gays, maybe adorable trans x cis person couple. (It depends on the adaptation and audience interpretation whether Angel is a drag queen or trans). Angel takes in an ailing Collins to live with her, and she also gets super rich by killing a dog. Collins is an anarchist currently fighting the aids epidemic. They’re a cute couple, but then Angel dies of aids bc we need a sad, and then Collins starts robbing atms in memory of his dead lover. I wish I was kidding.

Yes, I skipped over some stuff, but kids, this is a Tumblr post, and we’re already dealing with an essay here. And Wikipedia is right there. Basically, all you need to know is that Rent is a musical about assholes justifying their behaviour by being like “oh, but we’re artists!!!”. Oh yeah, and there’s also a guy called Benny who’s a former friend, and the only decent person here despite being portrayed as a bad dude, but I honestly don’t think I can remember anything beyond that for the life of me.

So, clearly Rent isn’t perfect. But, it’s hard to deny its impact. After all, it featured a main cast where half of the characters are POC and LGBT+ . Mind you, it was written by a straight man who “knew some gay people”. But, at the time, it was at least better than nothing.

And one aspect of Rent that people still appreciate to this day are the songs. And honestly? The majority of it is pretty great. A lot of people might recognize Take Me as I Am and Seasons of Love, two iconic songs brought to this world by Rent. And the rest of the soundtrack is great.... well, it’s better if you can make yourself forget the context of the songs, and look over some poorly aged lyrics. Light My Candle and I’ll Cover You are pretty cute songs, Goodbye Love has some great vocals, Another Day fucking slaps, and la Vie Boheme is a fun listen despite some weird lyrics.

While listening to the soundtrack, I realized something. A lot of these songs are great.... out of context. Another Day is great, until you remember that Roger is being portrayed as unwilling to live life bc he’s trying to stay clean of drugs. Yes, he likes Mimi, but there’s a pretty legitimate reason why he shouldn’t. And yet he’s in the wrong for... being concerned about his health? La Vie Boheme is soured when you remember that the cast is doing this entire performance after the restaurant owner begs them “no, not tonight, please!” Like, the guy’s doing his job and trying to run a business, but fuck him, let’s piss off people who don’t agree with us! And Take Me Or Leave Me is basically Maureen accusing Joanne of being too controlling and not accepting, when Joanne is taking issue with how Maureen is flirting with others constantly and is dancing around the line of being unfaithful. And Maureen’s logic is, I shit you not, “oh, but I just can’t resist temptation, and I’m attractive, and as long as I’m in your bed and not someone else’s, it’s ok!”

This... made me think. Maybe all Rent needs is a rewrite. An update. Something like Rent can probably work, but the misunderstanding of how poverty, aids, and societal unfairness works ultimately drags it down. Most of all, I think that Rent is an example of how a Broadway show can have great music, but that’s only part of it. If you fail in story and characters, the music won’t save you.

Let me know what you guys think about this.

I apologize for wasting your time,

- Spooky

[lifewithchronicpain-original]

Long post ahead, but I need to address this so I can move on.

Over ten years ago, I was really into atheism and debating theology on an atheist forum, and became popular as their first female member and eventually rose to moderator then administrator, setting up a lot of rules that they still have up posted in my username. I always find that funny.

I felt like I had met a great group of people with leftist politics and all that. I felt special because I was basically their token female until the forum gained more popularity. And then the owner added a kudos system to rate someone’s popularity and I was given many kudos for being able to argue against religion, mostly Christianity, so well and I even met up with the owner at Dragon*con one year.

Then a thread got into the topic of sexual objectification and this spiraled into an unpleasant discussion about rape culture. The same men I thought who appreciated what I had to say just didn’t listen anymore and I was viewed as being ridiculous. One was so offended he started putting typical MRA jokes in his signature. Also the guy I met decided he was now libertarian and whole heartedly believed regulation caused the 08’ crash. :/ I remember another guy on Facebook from my local atheist group agreeing with those men when I brought it up; and then said “oh come on, I’m an atheist, you know I’m not sexist!”

I was now facing the fact that this group of people I had enjoyed spending my time with online for about two years might praise me now, but when I would tread into territory that could make men face how they treat women, I was shut down and told a woman in a mini skirt is Just like a rich man with a visible wad of $100s in his back pocket. I was quickly understanding for the first time why there aren’t more women and POC in these “new atheist” groups. They thought their lack of religion immunized them because they blamed religion for racism and sexism. Conveniently ignoring they also believe religion was created by men and thus promoting their already established views of women and other races. Funny that.

At the same time (we had a few women on board but they were avoiding that conversation) a woman joined and spoke up. They ripped into her. I had the comfy cushion of my status, she had none. She was given all the negative kudos and when I talked to her privately I found out she was also a survivor.

I was facing so many arguments I knew were wrong but couldn’t fully articulate. That’s when I discovered what rape culture, as well as the Just world theory. That’s when I changed from becoming a feminist in label to a feminist in deeds and thoughts. I learned the responses to their arguments and then I learned I also don’t want to waste another minute on these men. I posted my goodbye explaining their responses have caused a lack of trust I can never get past because they refuse to even see how their so-called reason left the room when they started dealing with sexism.

The only man who defended me was the lone Christian who for some reason liked hanging out there. There was also a trans women there, she was very happy to agree with the men’s victim blaming and I never understood that. But it also taught me you can’t expect to know someone’s full politics just because you happen to agree or disagree on the issue of god, or really on anything.

I learned that belonging to a group of people on the surface doesn’t mean we’re all lock-step in ageeememt over every issue. I learned I can’t trust anyone who treats relationships and sex as something they deserve and not something you enter with mutual respect for boundaries. I’m not denying it hurts to be rejected and people can be rejected on prejudicial biases, but it’s still a situation that requires mutual consent and you can’t force that on people by calling them bigots. Shaming a woman into having sex with you because otherwise you’ll call her out, is essentially forced consent which is rape. I can’t say it plainer than that.

My consistent insistence that a woman’s boundaries are to be respected, that our sex lives are not political statements to be commented on, and that lesbians owe no one anything has ruffled a lot of feathers.’A lot of people don’t like that. I have seen this from MRA’s to variois online factions of bisexual and trans people (And to be very clear, not all, I don’t like painting a group with one brush) acting like lesbians not sleeping with them is an act of cruelty, a prejudice that must be corrected. In other words, “how dare you not let me get off this is a violation of my civil rights! Lesbians must be so privileged for dating other lesbians!” It’s really fucked up and everywhere on this site. And no, trying to dress it up in woke language like “you should really examine why you don’t like penises” isn’t better. Rather it betrays an obsession with getting penises into lesbians. Not all trans women have one, but that’s too pesky a detail when you’re obsessed with getting dick into a lesbian. And trust me as a lesbian, this is an obsession many people have.

I am seeing the same things that played out before playing out time and again in online spaces, where there’s little cost to being an asshole. People decided an issue is pivotal to their identity or whatever, and do everything they can to “other” people who don’t agree. They use their online social capital to try to shame people. They knowingly post call outs to attack decent people they just don’t agree with. If they can’t chase someone off the platform they’ll make it hell for that person if as much as they can. And they will resort to nasty sexist slurs because to these people nothing is worse than woman with a mind of her own. I’m no longer 25, I don’t seek the approval I used to, I can deal with online anxieties by not engaging. I know to block people and turn off anon. It hurts to be targeted for sure, but ten years later people trying to slander me online is more like water to a duck. But I’m not everyone and ten years ago this kind of online drama could be a suicide inducing event. But they don’t care.

I’m gonna let you in on a secret, the majority of political disagreements are not worth burning down the house and destroying every relationship over. Not only will you have no true friends, you will never challenge your beliefs, your beliefs will stagnate and you will never grow, never learn.

People might read this and assume that because I don’t think sex with a lesbian is a civil right that I must hate trans women. I don’t, that’s not who I am. I know what it’s like to question my gender, I suffer from mild disphoria. I can’t imagine what severe dysphoria is like and I don’t presume to assume what is right for everyone suffering from this. It is terrible, and no one deserves to be treated like shit for it. But that also doesn’t give some people (I emphasize, this is not every trans person’s doing) the right to attack women for talking about sexism, their vagina, pregnancy, or being a lesbian. I couldn’t give a rats ass if a lesbian and trans women get together, I have no right to judge or police that, but it’s okay to police lesbians? That’s fucked up, and let’s not pretend the same standard is applied to gay men, because it 100% is not.

Everyone, no matter the gender, is susceptible to sexism. Calling that out is not me saying I hate trans women, or I want to fight against trans advocacy or anything like that. I just want to talk about sexism and how it affects me as a female lesbian woman. No matter how hard you try, you can’t ID your way out of sexism, just like I, as a white person, cannot ID myself out of the racial bias I was taught from birth. These things are no different to me and has no bearing on me respecting pronouns and promoting issues of trans disability on this blog.

This one issue has painted me as a TERF, when my radical feminism (which I’ve never 100% agree with, one example is bathrooms, just let people pee! When people start monitoring bathrooms I get questioned because I’m GNC) has never been about misgendering and denying the painful realities of dysphoria. I believe and trust we can better understand transmisogyny when we better understand traditional misogyny. If one gender wasn’t so overwhelmingly oppressed I can’t imagine people would have such a knee jerk hateful reaction to trans people. I might think male socialization is a thing, but unlike other people, I don’t attack trans women for our disagreement on this one point. I’ll never make a call out post because I couldn’t make a trans women say what I wanted. I will never ever call anyone a slur either, while I’ve been called a bitch and cunt.

This blog is about disability. All I care about is promoting disability justice, information, and social support. I will always be open to discussing disability as it effects any minority group: POC, female, poor, trans, gay, etc... I’m more than happy to reblog posts regarding trans disability especially with regards to HRT or surgery can effect that. This blog will never be about attacking people and trying to tear them down. I might disagree with people but I won’t try smear someone’s reputation because of it. In recent years I have striven to disagree with people without resorting to insults and assumptions. I’m not perfect but I try.

I have talked before how there are zealous aspects to all groups. You won’t have me denying that radfems can be just as nasty. I condemn any radfem who has treated anyone the way I’m being treated right now. I personally don’t believe that because one trans women did something wrong that it’s okay to misgender all trans women. I am not like that. I’m not so bitter and hateful that I can’t separate one group of assholes from a minority group.

I’ve always been about being the better person, not for the people you hate but for yourself. Holding on to all this hate and negativity, attacking women for daring to state their mind, encouraging people to attack that person, that must be aweful. I can’t, and I won’t be like that. My own mental health couldn’t take it when I did participate in some of these behaviors on my early tumblr experience. Then I realized it was tearing me apart, and that the person on the other end is a human too. I don’t have to like them, but I can respect they have feelings and a world view that wasn’t built just to attack me.

Whether or not you agree with me on a lesbian’s right to bodily autonomy, does that really warrant a response meant to tear a disabled woman down? Are the only people entitled to their own opinions the ones that agree with you?

This matter truly is about sexism whether you believe it or not. I do not actively discuss trans issues on any of my blog. I was targeted for guilt by association (because I can’t follow people I don’t 100% agree with I guess) on main and when asked I said I got nothing against trans women I do have problems with rhetoric that treats sex with a lesbian as a civil right. I was then called out. That is exactly what happened and why I had to shut down questioning and take a break.

This post is to let you all know, I’m back, I’m okay, and this blog will continue with its mission to support disabled people. If you think a disabled women like me who only ever wants to help others, deserves this, then please unfollow. I don’t care how many people follow, I care that the people who do, want to follow me. If you’re a trans woman uncertain if you can bring an issue to me, of course you can. I’m not here to judge anyone, I’m here to give whatever disability advice and support that I can.

So yeah if you can’t understand that disagreements don’t warrant tearing down a person, especially someone who is disabled and has mentioned suicide attempts, then I can’t help you and the unfollow button is right there. If you do or don’t agree with me but think it was fucked up to get called out for, welcome. This blog will return to disability issues and this is the last I’ll be addressing this issue. I’m just going to delete and block people who think calling a disabled woman a cunt is top notch activism. You will not ruin what I’ve built here. You will not cower me. This bitch has been through too much to let anonymous trolls take me down.

Much love to all those who have supported me, it has meant a lot. 💕

[livefrompittsburgh]

Happy House / Garbitch / YGSLRHSTFUT

11.22.19 // Los Angeles 

This post is a little late and a little unconventional for this blog. 

For starters, I was far from home. I had found myself in Burbank for an animation convention and managed to make my way to LA to check out the local punk scene. 

And the LA punks did NOT let me down in the slightest. 

My getting into the venue was interesting. The Smell’s entrance is in an ally which I didn’t know about until 10 minutes after I was standing in front of the very back of the place waiting for doors to open. Rookie mistake I bet. 

The show was a lot more than just the bands too. The first person to take the stage was Braxton. He talked about his time in the punk and metal scene as a black man and all of the racism that he faced and still faces. It’s a very important perspective to keep in mind. Punk is hailed as something inclusive and has had many incredible and iconic black musicians to rise to popularity in the scene, however a majority of punk and metal is still incredibly white. It was a lot to think about, especially coming from a scene myself where I’m mainly surrounded by white men. I was lucky enough to talk to Braxton too before I left, he was super down to earth and chill and I hightly recommend his hardcore band, Shred Bundy.

The next act was the first band up, Happy House. To my absolute delight, the mosh pit started almost instantly (Braxton actually shoved me right into the pit getting everything started. What a dude.). Happy House went hard as hell and made my heart so happy that someone so cute with cherries in their hair can get up on stage and absolutely fuck it up. Not that appearances matter, but I’m still so used to mediocre 30+ year old white guys it was so refreshing to see someone of that caliber up there.

The next speaker was J, a non binary Asian sex worker. They were giving tips on how to stay safe in the world of online sex work as well as how to get started. A big conversation was what sites to go on for work, how to protect your identity, and most of all make sure you’re getting paid right for your services. Another big point they made was how much less work/retweets you will get a someone who’s non-white with a different body type in the industry. 

The next band up was Garbitch. They brought it all to the stage. The head vocalist had a pink dildo on them at the beginning of their set and I just knew it was gonna be magical. They threw out plastic pig masks into the crowd and encouraged us to wear and destroy them to our hearts content as they sang a song about beating up cops. There were also a lot of teens present in the audience. The vocalist called them out, happy that their message is reaching and influencing the younger generation. One of the teens even asked me and some others to help her crowd surf. Near the end of their set, in the spirit of the classic riot grrrl movement, Garbitch made a call for all non-binary and trans people to come to the front. It was in that second that I felt truly a part of something. I felt seen for who I was, despite no one there knowing me. Garbitch is not only an incredible queercore band, they represent a community and a call to action. They make trans people feel safe and free to let out their emotions and frustrations in that pit. 

Then there was the fashion show. I was stunned. I was spoiled rotten. A mother fucking fashion show. They had brought in a local fashion designer, Audey Thunders (who is on Etsy), to showcase her newest works. The models came in all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders. The clothes were made out of old 90′s bedsheets turned into outfits. There were even some available for sale after the show. Unfortunately I didn’t get any of the clothes but I did snag a cool studded choker made from zippers. 

Last but most definitely not least was You Guys Suck Like Real Hard Shut The Fuck Up Thanks (or YGSLRHSTFUT for short). You Guys Suck had a way of commanding attention from the audience. They let everyone know that they would be heard and we would listen to every word. The very first song was called Fat, Black, and Trans which was a testament to the lead vocalist. She sat in the chair the whole time but that didn’t diminish the power of the set. You don’t have to thrash everywhere about the stage to be a punk. She talked and sang about everything. About her blackness, her transness, her homelessness. She told us all how LA is funneling more money into police than into taking care of the exceedingly large homeless population. The overall message and sound of You Guys Suck was the most powerful and impactful I’ve ever heard. Their final song had us chant along with them names of black women unjustly murdered by the hands of police. The loud and just fury of every single person in that room was so fucking powerful. Everyone was sent out with a call to action to combat the injustice that runs rampant in our streets killing our black population. 

There was one more act that night that I only caught a small glimpse of, a burlesque dancer. Unfortunately I had to dip because it was late and I had to catch an Uber back to Burbank. Had I stayed longer, I know I would have nothing but good things to say.

That night was hands down the best punk show I had ever been to. It opened my eyes and showed me that punk isn’t just white. Punk isn’t straight, or cis. Punk is so much more than the stuff that lies on the surface of the scene. That night I got to be a part of something. I got to be around people who are making an impact and causing change in the scene. I hope that some day I get to see anyone from that night again. I encourage every single person out there to check out these bands if you have the means. 

And to anyone who may have read this the whole way through: I love you. Thank you. 

[morganapengdragon]

An English guide to fanfic 1

So I've read a lot of fic set in England lately, by writers who don't have anyone to 'brit pick' what they've written. But everyone deserves to be able to write stuff set in this hellhole of a country so if you don't have/want a brit picker but still want some general advice I'm gonna make a series of posts which might help with making your fic sound a little more natural. I'm gonna start with education because that's the one I've seen people have most problems with.

This is a long post so be warned

Education

There are 3 main parts of the school system (for comprehensive schools in England, I know it's different for rich people and people in Scotland/Ireland/Wales).

Primary school:

Primary school spans ages 4-11 and the years are

Reception: ages 4-5

Year 1: ages 5-6

Year 2: ages 6-7 (some schools make a split after this point, with the younger years referred to as 'infant' school and the older years referred to as 'junior' school)

Year 3: 7-8

Year 4: 8-9

Year 5: 9-10

Year 6: 10-11

A couple of information tidbits:

A lot of schools teach sex education in year 5 and 6. They tell you what sex is and what periods are. The year is split into boys and girls. They don't really talk about gay people, trans people or contraception.

It's not very common now but some schools will do a SATS exam in year 6. The grades go from 1-5 with 5 being the highest. They mean nothing but we all used to get stressed about them anyway.

Kids can also choose to do an 11+ exam if they want to go to grammar school. I never did it so I can't help you there. Some places in the country put more emphasis on the importance of grammar school than others (looking @@@ Kent) and some places don't have any grammar school at all.

Hard hitting insults when I was a kid were things like 'nerd' and 'weird'. We don't really use 'geek' much. 'Damn' and 'hell' aren't swear words here and kids will sometimes say them.

Most primary schools have uniforms

Secondary school:

Secondary school ages are 11-16 and the years are

Year 7: 11-12

Year 8: 12-13

Year 9: 13-14

Year 10: 14-15

Year 11: 15-16

There are 4 MAIN types of secondary school (afaik)

Comprehensive schools (like the one I went to) are your standard school. You just kind of have to live close to it to get in.

Grammar schools work kind of like comps but you have to pass the 11+ exam. Not everyone takes this exam (I never did, my closest grammar school is fuck off miles away). Apparently you get a better education there or something. Idk man but they like to make fun of the local comprehensives.

Private/public school. You have to pay to go to these types of school. I don't really know the ACTUAL difference between private and public but from what I can tell, public is more expensive and fancier. I think their version of primary school is called prep school?? All of the years work differently and every time a public school kid tries to tell me something about their education its gets more confusing. Rich people.

Boarding school. This is basically a private school but you live there and it costs more money than all of my possessions put together. There are quite a few, with some of the most famous being Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc. They are usually either all boys or all girls schools (those three are all boys schools). Rich people.

More detailed infos:

Year 7-9 is referred to as 'lower school' with 10 and 11 being 'upper school'

The exams taken in year 11 are usually GCSEs. These used to be called O-levels for some reason and lots of older people will sometimes call them that by mistake.

Kids choose which GCSEs they want to do at the end of year 9, and start learning the material in year 10.

Maths, science and English are all compulsory and make up 5/6 GCSEs (one maths, two English, two or three science).

Most people do about 10 and can pick from all of the other subjects what they want to do.

We don't really have a 'locker room' culture????

It's quite common for people to go to all girls or all boys schools.

Schools here are nowhere near as big as American schools. We probably won't have high budget theaters or particularly large sports areas.

I've never heard anyone talk about 'funding'???? Just assume nothing is funded, arts and sports alike. We do lots of fundraisers for anything expensive like rugby tours or school productions.

We still have that weird culture thing where like if you're smart then you can't be popular or play sports???? Strange.

Sitting at a specific table at lunch time isn't really a thing. Actually most people brought lunch from home and then would just sit somewhere outside. A lot of the buildings would be closed during breaks.

Not many people really drive to school.

Sixth form/college

After you finish secondary school most people go into either college or sixth form (or a sixth form college). Years are

Age 16-17: sometimes called year 12, sometimes called lower sixth, sometimes called first year

Age 17-18: year 13, upper sixth, second year

Sixth form:

Some schools have an attached sixth form. A variation of the school uniform is often worn, or students will be asked to wear smart clothing or something

There are also sixth form colleges which are a bit more informal, less of a school environment. Students usually tend to wear their own clothes and call teachers by their first names. They're usually viewed as well.

The qualifications earned at the end of year 12 are called AS levels. They count partially towards your final A level grade. Students usually do 4 and drop one at the end of the year. You can do more if you want tho (I did five and died). You can do whatever subjects you want. Like. Literally nothing is compulsory. You wanna do art, music, dance and anthropology? Fuck it why not?

The highest AS grade is an A. B and C is a pass. D and E are fail marks. U stands for ungradable i.e you got so few marks that your exam isn't even worth a grade.

At the end of year 13 you do A levels. You need 3 to get into uni. Some people do 4. They always regret it.

Grades for A levels are the same as AS but they go up to an A*.

Some schools do a thing called the International baccalaureate. I don't understand what it is and frankly it scares me. I don't know how it's graded or what you need for uni. It's a mystery.

Sixth forms can be comp/grammar/Private/boarding same as secondary school.

College:

You can do a bunch of different types of qualifications. Most popular are usually B-Techs and Diplomas.

You usually only study one subject as opposed to four.

From what I gather, the point in doing a B tech is it's more practical and less theoretical and aims to help you get the skills necessary to go straight into the work force.

Unis kind of have to evaluate B-techs fairly, but they don't like them.

Nobody thinks very highly of B-Techs unfortunately bc they're considered to be less academic and easier. Idk if that's the case but there you go. People will sometimes refer to shit versions of other things as 'B-Tech'. For example, Pepsi is just B-Tech Coca Cola. Boris Johnson is a B-Tech Donald Trump.

I know nothing about the grading system for either of these qualifications im sorry.

In a sixth form college there will be people doing A levels and also people doing B techs all in the same building.

University:

I won't go too much into detail but basically you get a degree at the end of it and degrees usually take 3 years to complete. Years are first year, second year, third year etc.

Some courses are longer and some people will do a year in industry in their third year, making their overall degree time 4 years.

Tuition is currently £9,250 per year. I have never met anyone who hasn't gotten a loan for this.

Most people also apply for a maintenance loan. You get money proportional to your family income. The highest is about £8,500 per year. Idk what the lowest is. Some people choose not to take out this loan and their parents give them financial support instead.

The pay back plan for these loans is super lenient, doesn't affect your credit score and is wiped clean after 35 years. Most students think of their loan as more of a tax than a debt (tho we all still cry about it).

People don't live in dorms. We call them halls of residence (or halls for short).

Most people don't live in halls after first year, they leave and find shared housing.

Most halls aren't catered.

Most halls don't have shared rooms.

Because we study so few subjects at A level, we do have this system in the UK where you take a bunch of different unrelated subjects in your first year and then decide on your major later. Instead you apply for a programme already knowing your major. So when I applied to university I applied to the BA French and German Linguistic Studies course at a number of universities.

Different courses have different entry requirements. So it's easier to get into uni to study History than it is to study Maths.

Each 'class' is referred to as a module, and all of your modules are usually related to your main degree title.

Stereotypically STEM students think that humanities students are dumb. Humanities students think STEM students are arseholes who don't know how to read so if you wanna have that kinda jock/nerd type rivalry but in uni then humanities/STEM is quite a good one.

We call all of our lecturers by their first names. Sometimes we go to the pub with them. I watched a documentary about gay porn with one of them. It's chill.

I've never seen anyone show up to a lecture in pyjamas. People would think it's weird.

We refer to clubs as 'societies'. I love being part of the Musical Theatre Society. It's sounds so much more impressive than club.

The English version of Ivy League is Russel Group. The most prestigious Unis outside of Oxford and Cambridge tend to be: Durham, St Andrews (Scotland), Imperial, LSE and Warwick.

Slang and Groups

We don't really use the word 'jock'. In my school we called those guys the 'Rugby Lads' because they all played rugby.

We don't really use the word preppy/peppy whatever because I literally don't know anybody who is like that.

Try 'Drama kids' instead of Theater kids.

The kids who do drugs and don't come to school are called road men. Even the girls. To do road is to deal drugs but you don't really hear people say that much.

If we can't be bothered to say a teachers full title we will usually call them 'sir' or 'miss' but not really ma'am.

'Hall Pass' isn't a thing.

Our school did have prefects but fuck if I know who they were. They didn't really have any extra responsibility or power.

School uniforms are a thing in most schools. The things people did to make themselves seem cool were things like rolling their skirts up super short, wearing the rugby ties on match days, trying to get away with shoes that don't TECHNICALLY break the rules but are deffo not allowed, wearing as much make up as they could get away with, without teachers noticing. Our school was p strict on uniform tho in comparison with a lot of schools in my area.

If your accent doesn't fit the standard for your area it will affect you in some way (depending on your accent).

Homeroom is called registration

Gym is sometimes called the sports hall

People don't really go to school matches unless they're dating sb bc we don't have bleachers.

Home ecenomics was called Food Tech and Textiles in my school

Woodshop or whatever is called DT (design and technology)

People don't get as involved in extracurriculars in school (but they do at uni).

We DO have houses and we get points given to out houses like in Harry Potter but unlike Harry Potter literally nobody gives a fuck. In my school they added a whole new house and moved everyone into new houses and literally nobody noticed and nothing changed.

There is a BIG difference between comp schools and all of the other kinds in terms of culture. I didn't know this until I went to uni and started joking about the time some kid started throwing chairs in RE (religious education) or when so and so tried to set our French teacher on fire and literally all of the grammar school kids were like O.O WTF.

Slang and school culture will also vary a lot depending on where you live. I live in East London which is not a very well off area but it IS in london so my experiences would match with that.

Everything is completely different in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so like.... Sorry.

[everythingisgreenandsubmarine]

Netflix's "Queer Eye" Is the Perfect Feel-Good Reality Show for Everyone

I am not someone who tends to enjoy reality shows. Except for the occasional Gordon Ramsay show or old re-runs of Ghost Hunters that I watched when I was a kid, I tend not to watch any reality television simply because I don’t tend to like it. The main reason I dislike reality television is because it feels fake. As a filmmaker, I can tell when emotion is being elicited or edited in, rather than organically integrated. American television is especially guilty of this. Yet here I am, about to praise and laud a reality show for being both honest and realistic.

Queer Eye is not the kind of show I would seek out on my own. When I was introduced to it by my girlfriend and our friends I was initially skeptical. After all, I don’t like reality television and I really don’t like makeover shows — they’re just not my thing. Yet Queer Eye approaches these genres with a fresh eye and an exciting amount of energy that makes it infectious to watch and impossible to skip. While it adheres to a specific episodic formula (as most reality television does) every episode is imbued with its own personality, often based on the subject the Fab 5 are tasked with assisting.

Most importantly, what helps set Queer Eye apart from other reality shows, and other television currently airing, is its genuine heart and the five affable men who star in the show. Whether they’re helping an older guy who likes making redneck margaritas and going to car shows, or helping a trans man become more confident after his top surgery, they approach each person with honest endearment and affable joy, so much so that it is compelling and heartwarming.

That’s a core part of what helps make Queer Eye a great show for all kinds of people, no matter where on the sexuality spectrum you find yourself. Every member of the Fab 5 brings a unique perspective to each episode and to each person, elevating the show above the typical “reality show” feel and injecting heart and engaging humor in a genre that is often lacking both of those qualities. More importantly, each member of the Fab 5 is drastically different and unique — and did I mention they are all genuinely friendly and loving? I’m actually speaking from personal experience here: I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Antoni Porowski before an event at a local college, and he is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I have ever met.

I think if I was going to come to a general thesis of this blog post, it would be simple: Queer Eye and its team uses the reality television formula and aesthetic to communicate the love, joy, and happiness they want to spread into the world. That’s part of what helps separate it from other shows in its genre; it’s not trying to use misleading editing to create drama, nor is it listless and devoid of meaning — far from it. Rather, Queer Eye (which only releases 8 episodes a season) approaches every person without judgment and with the sincere desire to help. In a time where cynicism seems to be around every corner, that kind of optimism is desperately needed.

In an early interview, after the first season dropped on Netflix, the Fab 5 did an interview (which I will link below) where they discussed both the show and their approach to it. Tan, the fashion perspective on the show, brought up an interesting point that gets at the heart of what I’m trying to say (it starts at 0:53 for those who are interested in watching).

"The original show was fighting for tolerance, and it was different to our show because of this: the original show, it was at a time when the audience wasn't ready to hear about the intimate lives. They wanted the glossy version of what gays are, and that's all that America was ready for. That's all the world was ready for. Times have changed. We don't want you to just think that we're a bunch of gay guys who can make something pretty - that's not the case anymore...We want you to accept us as your kin. We want you to accept us as the people we are. We are just men who are out to help, and do the best we can to help everybody that we meet."  -- Tan, FOX 5 DC Interview

No matter what your sexual identity or orientation is, I can confidently say you should give Queer Eye a shot.

More important than that, though, I can promise you that you will not find a more enjoyable, uplifting, wholesome, or optimistic show on television right now. The lengths that this team goes to to make both the heroes (as they affectionately dub the folks they help) and the fans they meet happy and feel loved is unlike anything I have seen on television before. It’s something everyone can connect to, whether you are straight, gay, bi, trans, asexual, or anywhere in-between on the sexuality spectrum.

Give it a shot. Watch an episode or two. I have a sneaking suspicion that you won’t be able to stop, just like I wasn’t able to.

[absolutewifey]

I have no sympathy for straight (or gay) people who exclude trans people.

Story Time?

As a bi/pan "pi" (still kinda figureing that out) girl I have come to notice that litterally every time I come across a transphobe it's a monosexual person. "Hard Gay" and "Hard Straight" is the slang my circle of friends has come to use.

I myself have never brought it up- specifically I have never initiated the conversation -I only hop on my soapbox/shamingcube when someone ELSE mentions something along the lines of "I don't think I could ever date a trans person."

I am Mom Friend. And I am a Mama BEAR when it comes to my trans and non-binary friends. I WILL embarrass you in the bar or at the potluck or at the fuuuucking baby shower, KAREN. And I will not hesitate to call you out for being transphobic.

In 2017 I was working a summerstock job with a theatre in Illinois. There were a handful of local bars and the compamy was having a party at one of them. In the costume department (where I worked) I had a non-binary co-worker and two of the "hard gay" actors were asking me about them (my co-worker was absent from the party). They kept ranbleing, I kept lisening, and got to the subject of trans people. One of them gave the classic "I Don't Have Anything Against Trans People BUT-". I had been working with these two guys for about 6 or 8 weeks and at this point I knew both them. So the hypothetical (and this is a very specific not quite realistic hypothetical) I then gave to two "Hard Gay" men was something like this:

So you've met a guy, maybe it was at the mall, maybe it was at a club, but you've met this guy. He is AMAZING. They two of you are just SO GOOD together. You're happy when the other is around, you might have a debate every now and then but you NEVER fight. And the sex? Is AMAZING. About a month into your relationship he gets very serious and explains to you that he was AFAB. Assigned Female At Birth. He was lucky, his parents supported him from a young age, but with some of the attention (wanted or not) that trans people are getting in the present day he wanted to tell you, his significant other, about his past. He maybe shows you pictures from when he was transitioning, but that's not the important thing. What's important is that he is confident, or at least hopefull, that you will still love him after learning about this.

Guess what these two guys said? That their post-op, hypothetical trans boyfriend should have introduced themselves as such. Which I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. We don't expect people to give their whole life story when we first meet them. I have a lot of issues with my father (that, granted I am I am very open about) but I'm not going to unload 13+ years of grief and trauma to a person the first time I meet them or in the first week of knowing them. Why do cisgender monosexuals think that trans people are an exception to this?

Most of the time when someone poses an opinion that I don't relate to I can at least follow the logic behind that opinion. But NOT WITH TRANSPHOBES. I do my best, as a cisgender girl, to call out my other cis peers when they are saying something hateful or ignorant because it is often (unfortunately) safer for ME to do so than it is for a transgender person. Sometimes it's as simple as "you realize what you said is, like, shity, right?" And if they don't understand what I mean I'll give them a crash course in "don't be transphobic around me I WILL kick your shins."

I don't remember where I was going with this but I have a final question

Hey, monosexuals. I'm just a polysexual bitch, standing here, asking- no -Begging You.

What The Fuck???