#which is why i can only say ‘i’m sure such lesbians exist irl but i havent seen them’

[menalez]

you're both pointing at each other and saying "no YOUR problems are online and MINE are real. so if lesbians / bi women say something mean, that's bad but it's probably in retribution."

lesbians IN REAL LIFE have called me a "dick riding spicy straight" or told me that they hope a man abuses me when they found out i'm bi. i've seen bi women IN REAL LIFE call butch lesbians gross and mannish or bring up that fake DA stat to claim lesbians are predatory. acting like either of these are only online, or only in response to the other side being so much worse? it's just straight up false, nothing is so black and white.

you worded that post in an extremely loaded and inflammatory way and then are using people getting rightfully peeved as "proof" to back up your claim that all bi women are actually homophobes. it's not conducive to a productive discussion.

amazingly what i have said is terms like “cumguzzlers” being spewed by lesbians and goldstar discourse are things ive only seen online, not that no lesbian ever has ever said discriminatory things about bisexual women irl 😭 but i’m glad after several posts where i said i don’t doubt theres lesbians who have prejudiced beliefs about bi women irl, you decided to overlook that to get offended at me calling goldstar discourse and terms like “cumguzzling handmaiden” online things 🤗

[baeddel]

Please. Please can you tell me what a baeddel is and why people (terfs?) used it in a derogatory manner on this website for a hot minute but now no one ever uses it at all

you asked for it, fucker

[2k words; philology and drama]

baeddel is an Old English word. i have no idea where it actually occurs in the Old English written corpus, but it occurs in a few placenames. its diminuitive form, baedling, is much better documented. it appears in the (untranslated) Canons of Theodore, a penitential handbook, a sort of guidebook for priests offering advice on what penances should be recommended for which sins. in a passage devoted to sexual transgressions it gives the penances suggested for a man who sleeps with a woman, a man who sleeps with another man, and then a man who sleeps with a baedling. so you have this construction of a baedling as something other than a man or a woman. and then it gives the penance for a baedling who sleeps with another baedling (a ludicrous one-year fast). then, by way of an explaination, Theodore delivers us one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Old English corpus: "for she is soft, like an adulturess."

the -ling suffix in baedling is masculine. but Theodore uses feminine pronouns and suffixes to describe baedlings. as we said, it's also used separately from male and female. but it's also used separately from their words for intersex and it never appears in this context. all of this means that you have this word that denotes a subject who is, as Christopher Monk put it, "of problematic gender." interested historians have typically interpreted it as referring to some category of homosexual male, such as Wayne R. Dines in his two-volume Encyclopedia of Homosexuality who discusses it in the context of an Old English glossary which works a bit like an Old English-Latin dictionary, giving Old English words and their Latin counterparts. the Latin words the Anglo-Saxon lexicographer chose to correspond with baedling were effeminatus and mollis, and Lang concludes that it refers to an "effeminate homosexual" (pg 60, Anglo Saxon). this same glossary gives as an Old English synonym the word waepenwifstere which literally means "woman with a penis," and which Dines gives the approximate translation (hold on tight) male wife.

R. D. Fulk, a philologist and medievalist, made a separate analysis of the term in his study on the Canons of Theodore 'Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore', collected in Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, 2004. he analysed it as a 'sexual category' (sexual as in sexuality), owing to the context of sexual transgressions in the Canons. he decides that it refers to a man who bottoms in sexual relationships with another man. i don't have the article on hand so i'm not sure what his reasoning was, but this seems obviously inadequate given what we know from the glossary described by Dines. Latin has a word for bottom, pathica, and the lexicographer did not use this in their translation, preferring words that emphasized the baedling's femininity like effeminatus, and doesn't address the sexual context at all. Dines, however, only reading this glossary, seems to decide that it refers to a type of male homosexual too hastily, considering the Canons explicitly treat them separately. both Dines and Fulk immediately reduce the baedling to a subcategory of homosexual when neither of the sources to hand actually do so themselves.

by now it should be obvious why, seven or so years ago, we interpreted it as an equivalent to trans woman. I mean come on - a woman with a penis! these days I tend to add a bit of a caution to this understanding, which is that trans woman is the translation of baedling which seems most adequate to us, just as baedling was the translation of effeminatus that seemed most adequate to our lexicographer. but the term cannot translate perfectly; its sense was derived from some minimal context; a legal context, a doctrinal context, and so forth... the way Anglo-Saxons understood sex/gender is complicated but it has been argued that they had a 'one sex model' and didn't regard men and women as biologically separate types, which is obviously quite different from the sexual model accepted today; in any case they didn't have access to the karyotype and so on. the basic categories they used to understand gender and sexuality were different from ours. in particular, Hirschfield et al. should be understood as a particularly revolutionary moment in the genealogy of transsexuality; the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft essentially invented the concept of the 'sex change', the 'transition', conceived as a biological passage from one sex to the other. even in other contexts where (forgive me) #girlslikeus changed their bodies in some way, like the castration of the priestesses of Cybele, or those belonging to the various historical societies which we believe used premarin for feminization [disputed; see this post], there is no record that they were ever considered men at any stage or had some kind of male biology that preceded their 'gender identity.' the concept of the trans woman requires the minimal context of the coercive assignment at birth and its subsequent (civil and bio-technological) rejection. i have never encountered evidence that this has ever been true in any previous society. nonetheless, these societies still had gendered relations, and essentially wherever we find these gendered relations we also find some subject which is omitted or for whom it has been necessary to note exceptions. what is of chief interest to us is not so much that there was such a subject here or there in history (and whatever propagandistic uses this fact might have), but understanding why these regularities exist.

a very parsimonious explanation is that gender is a biological reality, and there is some particular biological subject which a whole host of words have been conjured to denote. if this were the case then we would expect that, no matter what gender/sexual system we encounter in a given society, it will inevitably find some linguistic expression. if, like me, you find this idea revolting, then you should busy yourself trying to come up with an alternative explanation which is not just plausible, but more plausible. my best guesses are outside the scope of this answer...

anyway, all of this must be very interesting to the five or six people invested in the confluence of philology and gender studies. but why on earth did it become so widely used, in so many strange and unusual contexts, in the 2010s? we're very sorry, but yes, it's our fault. you see apart from all of this, there is also a little piece of information which goes along with the word baeddel, which is that it's the root of the Modern English word bad. by way of, no less, the word baedan, 'to defile'. how this defiled historical subject came to bear responsibility for everything bad to English-speakers doesn't seem to be known from linguistic evidence. however, it makes for a very pithy little remark on transmisogyny. my dear friend [REDACTED] made a playful little post making this point and, good Lord, had we only known...

it went like this. its such a funny little idea that we all start changing our urls to include the word baeddel. in those days it was common to make puns with your url (we always did halloween and christmas ones); i was baeddelaire, a play on the French poet Baudelaire. while we all still had these urls a series of events which everyone would like to forget happened, and we became Enemies of Everyone in the Whole World. because of the url thing people started to call us "the baeddels." then there was "a cult" called "the baeddels" and so forth. this cult had various infamies attatched to it and a constellation of indefensible political positions. ultimately we faced a metric fucking shit ton of harassment, including, for some of my friends, really serious and bad irl harassment that had long-term bad awful consequences relating to stable housing and physical safety and i basically never want to talk about that part of my life ever again. and i never have to, because i've come to realize that for most people, when they use the word baeddel, they don't know about that stuff. it doesn't mean that anymore.

so what does it mean? you'll see it in a few contexts. TERFs do use it, as you guessed. i am not quite sure what they really mean by it and how it differs from other TERF barbs. i think being a baeddel invovles being politically active or at least having a political consciousness, but in a way thats distinct from just any 'TRA' or trans activist. so perhaps 'militant' trans women, but perhaps also just any trans woman with any opinions at all. how this was transmitted from tumblr/west coast tranny drama to TERF vocabulary i have no idea. but you will also find - or, could have found a few years ago - i would say 'copycat' groups who didn't know us or what we believed but heard the rumours, and established their own (generously) organizations (usually facebook groups) dedicated to putting those principles into practice. they considered themselves trans lesbian separatists and did things like doxx and harass trans women who dated cafabs. if you don't know about this, yes, there really were such groups. they mostly collapsed and disappeared because they were evildoers who based their ideology on a caricature. i knew a black trans woman who was treated very badly by one of these groups, for predictable reasons. so long-time readers: if you see people talking about their bad experiences with 'baeddels', you can't necessarily relate it to the 2014 context and assume they're carrying around old baggage. there are other dreams in the nightmare.

the most common way you'll see it today, in my experience, is in this form: people will say that it was a "slur" for trans women. they might bring up that it's the root of the word bad, and they might even think that you shouldn't use the word bad because of it, or that you shouldn't use the word baeddel because it's a slur. all of this is a silly game of internet telephone and not worth addressing. except to say that it's by no means clear that baeddel, or baedling, were slurs, or even insulting at all. while Theodore doesn't provide us with a description of how we can have sex with a baedling without sinning, and it may be the case that any sexual relations with a baedling was considered sinful, sexuality-based transgressions were not taken all that seriously in those days. there was a period where homosexuality within the Church was almost sanctioned, and it wasn't until much later that homosexuality became so harshly proscribed, to the extent that it was thought to represent a threat to society, etc. and as i mentioned, there are places in England named after baedlings. there is a little parish near Kent which is called Badlesmere, Baeddel's Lake, which was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book (as having a lord, a handful of villagers and a few slaves; perhaps only one or two households). it's not unheard of, but i just don't know very many places called Faggot Town or some such. it's possible that baedlings had some role in Anglo-Saxon society which we are not aware of; it could even have been a prestigious one, as it was in other societies. there is just no evidence other than a couple of passing references in the literature and we'll probably never have a complete picture.

[sazandorable]

About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

[purplesunrisefanfic]

A long-ass defence of the unsexy sex scene between Abby and Owen.

(No pictures of it are included here because gross)

So, at the risk of alienating pretty much everyone who follows me, I actually think **that** scene with Abby and O🤢🤢n is a worthwhile storytelling element, and I see why that scene was included but not a Dina/Ellie one. (Even though “I wish things were different.”)

With Dina/Ellie, they love each other, they have a fairly healthy relationship, they have chemistry. Everything that, story-wise, needs to be shown can be (and was) shown without needing a full sex scene. Yeah, I would really like to see a sex scene between them, for sure, but I can’t pretend that because I think there’s vital story elements hidden in there. Not at all because, let’s be honest, we KNOW they had great sex. No one who wants that scene wants it because they’re wondering if they had good sex or not, we want it because we wanna see some great sex.

You‘re not seriously doubting that I’m good in bed, are you?

I’m not dissing us for that, representation matters, and I think Neil made a HUGE error of judgement when he spoke about a sex scene in a context where we’d all assume it was Dina/Ellie. (And that was a moment of terrible judgment that I would be classing as queerbaiting has it not been for the SO FUCKING MUCH groundbreakingly excellent representation in Part 2. In this case, I think it was an example of how even when you work really hard at things you can still make mistakes, still be thoughtless to how much impact you can accidents have on a representation-starved group. And yeah, it’s not easy to let him off the hook for something that important to me, but I do think he’s done enough overall to earn an assumption of good faith here. Not least because I don’t really don’t think anyone’s purchase actually hinged on whether we saw a Dina/Ellie sex scene vs a make out scene and a well-developed queer relationship, and the whole point of queerbaiting is to manipulate us into buying or consuming things we otherwise wouldn’t.)

But to get back to the main point, I think it’s important to recognise that we don’t wish we’d had that scene because we feel like there’s something vital to the story that we don’t know for not seeing it. We have good reasons for wanting that scene, but thinking that we missed out on some vital characterisation, relationship or story elements isn’t one of them.

Now, the sex scene that we do see is very different. First thing I wanna say is that this isn’t a sex scene that only lesbians or people who dislike Owen find to be uncomfortable. I’ve seen some critiques where I feel like a gulf might have opened up with that. Where it’s maybe kinda of assumed that if you are into that type of sex and don’t hate Owen, then that’s an equivalent to the Dina/Ellie scene that we didn’t get, and it’s NOT. Dina and Ellie having sex for the first time is a situation that opens a door (a door which then walk through with them in other ways, such as the small moments of love and bonding that we see portrayed so beautifully) while Abby/Owen having sex for the last time is a scene about reaching a dead end. It’s about realising that the past is a dead end. It’s a scene that I’ve not seen anyone, even people who didn’t find it uncomfortable, describe as sexy.

Abby has dwelled on the past for four years. She trained herself up to kill Joel. She took no notice of what she was doing and who she was becoming in the present because all she thought about was the past. She ended up “top Scar killer” without really noticing (though that point is more my subjective opinion than the other points here, but I see no evidence she was proud or that or even really trying to achieve that). She killed kids and parents ruthlessly without paying any mind to her own morals or whether she even wanted to be a Wolf at all, because she was living in the past, getting whatever the job in the present was done without asking any questions because her head was never there. Everything she did as a Wolf was just a means to survive long to find Joel and be in a position to kill him when she did.

Eventually, as we know, she does find and kill Joel, and the experience doesn’t give her any of the closure she imagined. Her friendship groups fracture, her self-image is damaged, and she’s now both without closure and without purpose. But she still hasn’t quite figured out why. She hasn’t yet realised that dwelling on the past is the problem. Her ex is still in the picture, an ex that she lost “because of Joel” (in the sense that the main tensions we see in their relationship are linked to Abby’s dedication to revenge).

So caught up in revenge through 4 formative years of life, she’s not had the space to develop in ways she likely would have otherwise. She hasn’t moved past the idyllic childhood sweethearts idea, she’s not moved on to thinking about what she actually wants and needs in a partner. She’s not even noticed that her friends have moved on to more adult relationships, relationships where you might settle down with children, until she’s shocked into that realisation by the news that Mel is pregnant. (This is similar to a point Druckmann has made in an interview.)

Even then, the way she talks about suggests she’s still struggling with seeing the present clearly. She talks about it (especially to herself in Jackson) as if they are still teens, as they are 16ish and should have been more careful. There’s ample evidence, in my interpretation, that Abby’s ability to notice the present, to notice change, and to grow up herself has been near-stunted for the 4 years between Jerry’s death and Joel’s death.

So when she has sex with Owen, it’s another way of looking back. It’s another attempt to look for a future in her past, and I think that to really see and understand just how much she has tried to find a future in the past, and how much that has led her to betray her own values, betray her friends, and to be blinkered to the consequences of her own actions and how she finally realises all of this herself, we need to see the sex.

Because the sex is like the receipts. Like the death certificate for the long-overdue passing of her idea that her future can be made good by a fixation on the past.

Say they had had a shitty kiss instead. Well, that could be Owen holding back because he’s torn about Mel. They could be Abby holding back because she’s torn about Mel. If they do anything less than completely betray Mel, then there’s still room for Abby to believe that, if Mel were to suddenly never had existed or whatever, that her and Owen would be 16yo idyllic sweethearts forever.

So they have to totally betray Mel, they have to have clearly and totally disregarded her, for us (and for Abby) to see their relationship clearly. So it has to be sex. And for us to share in that process in Abby’s mind, the realisation that life has moved on, the realisation that her love for him is based on assuming nothing much has changed in 4 years when it has, the realisation that the past is dead end, we have to be with her for that.

Then we can see how she’s gotten to where she is and how she finally realises that there’s nothing that the past can give her. And then, she’s finally ready to see the present for what it is. She’s finally ready to see that what she does in the present matters, that she can chose whether or not two children live or die, and that she should focus on that. She’s ready to see that Owen was a guy she loved 4 years ago, not a guy she loves today. She’s ready to “Let It Go!(sorry, couldn’t resist!). She’s ready to question whether she’s actually this person who wants to be “top Scar killer.” We’re able to see just how much of herself has been lost on her revenge journey, how she can get on a better path, and why we think she’s worth having that chance. I don’t think that story could come together so richly without the visceral discomfort and the layered realisations that seeing her having (imo terrible, some folks have gone as far as “mediocre” and I’ve genuinely seen no-one rate it any higher) sex with Owen.

Abby: I’d rather watch 10 live amputations and have my own arm amputated than ever have sex with Owen again. In fact, I’d struggle to choose between sex with him and sex with the Rat King at this point.

Yara: I think you should try your luck with fucking the Rat King, can’t be any worse, can it?

Side point: This argument also touches on why I don’t believe that Abby is categorically canonically straight, because her whole arc relies on her being too stuck in the past to consider who she’s actually attracted to in the present. Normally, it’s kinda on the people making the media to show us queerness and not expect us to be satisfied that “well, they could be bisexual because we’ve never said they aren’t,” but I think TLOU does enough in terms of active representation to merit an exception, especially when there’s a strong storytelling reason why we never see anything of what she’s into beyond her childhood sweetheart. (I’m not saying she’s def bi, just that I think saying she’s canonically straight is dicey and that, unlike with almost any other form of media where I’m with y’all in the “straight until otherwise proven” approach, with Abby specifically I find it does give me some of the bi erasure feels that I get all the time irl when people describe her as canonically straight.)

I’m gonna pick Lev up from Scar Island, then find myself a hot woman who likes big arms, boats, and my precious adopted children.

[buddiewho]

What’s it to you?

*Long post ahead

There is something on my mind. It’s called Occam’s Razor. The definition I know is, or rather the interpretation in my head is, it’s a gray area, a fine line. So for example, when it comes to Buck and Eddie, I do believe they play right on the Occam’s Razor. The fact that they could be this or they could be that, riding that fine line, which one is true? 

Picture this and imagine you’re seeing jealous Buck:

Option 1: Jealous Buck idea pushes the razor to the more romantic, buried feelings thing we Buddie clowns are thinking about. 

Option 2: If you don't view it that way, you could then simply see Buck maybe panicking because of his abandonment issues. For example, Buck’s reaction face becomes more like heyo Eddie doesn’t just get to so easily partner off with another firefighter outside the 118 like that [in this case being him or Hen as Eddie’s only option Buck accepts] until they finally ease into helping the 126 with these fires, Buck himself even. 

Option 3: We’re speculating our asses off no matter if you believe in option 1 and/or 2, and we do not yet know what’s going on in this scene...

Therefore we’re split down the razor’s edge. Then I also think of this video. The fact that Buck and Eddie fall under the “just let the bromos be homos?” category. They have the cooked up potential for something more and not to just remain a “healthy male friendship.” When we have proper queer representation in combination with “healthy male friendship” then we can talk about the latter. I’m trying to rack my brain for healthy male friendships, but I come back to that video and the laundry list of mlm couples in the just let the bromos be homos category. My brain wanted to say FinnPoe from Star Wars as a healthy male friendship, but then that’s still part of the same category and all I can hear is Oscar Isaac praising the notion that these two characters could be falling in love during wartime...but apparently Disney/the world isn’t ready for that...? 

The problem is I cannot think of any representation for healthy male friendships. I keep thinking Shawn Spencer and Burton “Gus” Guster from Psych, but even then there were definite issues surrounding their friendship...if you watched that show. Now, with that show I did believe that Shawn Spencer is bisexual, but I don't headcanon that his awakening happened with Gus. It just happened and he’s known about it for most of his life (like since 18 probably) and Gus knows it too. But again it’s never explicitly made so, it’s always hinted at though. Also, don't get started on Teen Wolf if you’re thinking about that one. I don't pay any attention and maybe it’s because I may not be seeking it out...but I cannot think of a single thing I’ve watched with healthy friendships, save for perhaps in Thor Ragnarok the trio that is Hulk/Banner, Thor and Valkyrie when they’re not fighting each other. Though, there is the case of Gary and Miranda in the BBC show called Miranda. They could’ve had a good run as just friends, but clearly it wasn’t unheard of to think of a hetero pairing starting off as just friends to become more, obvi. Back to 911...

As we teeter this Occam’s Razor, all I ask for is explicit admittance from Buck that he is bisexual. Just for him to say it to close friends and family.  For him to feel okay with the fact that he likes boys too. So yes, he has little or no experience, but he can’t help but feel attracted to men as well. Banking on the South America exploration/runaway to expound on this some more. That yes, Buck has known about his bisexuality and does know how he truly feels, but for whatever reasons he’s not ready to show/tell those true feelings to anyone else. For whatever reasons he had to build/hide behind the chaotic sex addicted punk persona that he named Buck 1.0. 

I also don't believe that everything needs to be boxed into a corner. 911 was the show that sparked a procedural TV drama to life and thus it created 911 Lonestar as a way to probably showcase a different state and how they handle these emergencies/fires. Who the hell knows, perhaps it’s just for more money? It’s just I don't think it’s a matter of 911 is the mostly “hetero show” whereas 911 Lonestar is “the show for the gays” because it has the canon gay couple. Well, for the record 911 also has a canon lesbian/gay couple; Hen and Karen. What I mean to say is that irl there are LGBT+ folk everywhere, therefore more of them can appear as characters in 911, or even in Lonestar as well. LGBT+ people live in CA and TX; sometimes 911 did the peripheral gay couples who found themselves caught in an emergency situation (the boy with the crush outside the coffee shop, that couple in which one of them had tapeworm and Buck nonchalantly just yanked that thing out...and then of course the older couple who were so graciously paralleled to Buck…). Oh, you can’t forget Josh in 911, who also seemingly thought Maddie was once setting him up with Buck. Also note it wasn’t written as Buck denying Josh on that thought. He just ran with it, no qualms, and we didn’t have some unnecessary “no homo” backlash which leaves room for us to say wait, a gosh darn minute? Are we still leaving room for Buck figuring something out and/or coming closer to accepting himself? Ps. It also wasn’t written for Maddie to decline the notion either. She of course jokingly said her brother wasn’t good enough for Josh and honestly, I think we got {Oliver playing} Buck as a bit offended by Maddie doing that. 

Buck is also a double edged sword. So is Eddie. You have two men presented as so strong, so masculine that the instant it’s thought they might like men, it’s damaging to their masculinity somehow. That’s called toxic masculinity which is something Buck and even Eddie occasionally fall into. I think they’ve definitely grown out of that with the help of others and each other even, but I think this is why us crazy shippers wanting Buddie and/or Buck revealed as bisexual is so jarring to others- Toxic masculinity? Fragility? The fact that if men like Buck and Eddie are viewed to be gay/bi then it hurts this notion of what it means to be a strong man. But let’s box it into a corner because 911 Lonestar is the gay show and thus we think less of the characters TK and Carlos because they are gay- not all equivalent in strength to the “healthy male friendship” that is Buck and Eddie? When in fact the four of these characters have similarities? TK and Buck are so very reckless, dive in no questions asked kind of thing and it seems to me that Eddie and Carlos would be the take orders kind of men. They will fall in line with the occasional reckless decision...so therefore they have more similarities than just the four of them belonging to the LGBT+ community...or regardless of if they do all belong in that community together- the whole point is that in real life the Buck and Eddie dynamic of a friendship (or the possibility of something more, as one or both characters coming to terms with their sexuality) exists in the same world with relationships that are similar to TK and Carlos’. So the two supposed bromos (just friends) exist in the same world as the homos...therefore unboxing the shows from their corners entirely.

Another thing that I think this thing around Buck is falling prey to, is that bi guys are just faking it. It’s one stop on the way to figuring out that “they’re actually just gay.” Except no that’s not the case with bisexuality. For some people, it could be, but from what I see with Buck it’s not that at all. He’s bisexual, that’s that. 

Also, most everyone thinks those who ship Buddie want Buck revealed as bisexual to only be with Eddie and to see two sexy men get it on. Honestly, 911 Lonestar did provide sufficiently with that, because them TK and Carlos scenes are downright drool worthy, but that’s not all I came for. Anyway, I clocked Buck as possibly bi in season 1- the full moon ep, where yes he’s getting closer to Abby, but damn does he get on well with that gay guy who had tapeworm. Well, shit. Then after Eddie’s introduction they go on to parallel Buck to that older gay couple...anyhow, it’s just why keep putting Buck in a queer space and then not run with that? Yes, sure there are strong straight allies to the LGBT+ community, but Buck doesn’t read heterosexual ally to me, it feels more like the LGBT+ community is where he belongs. I’d say Eddie Diaz belongs there too, but he’s like a mystery on this front. I think he understands his feelings/attractions towards men and he’d respond like yeah, sure, they’ve been there, but I haven’t done shit about them and I haven’t labelled them [gay/bi]. What’s it to you? And if eventually this involved Buck, he’d be like yeah, so I’m head over heels for that smart and lovable reckless idiot, what else do you want me to say?

[aphroditeslesbian]

I'm not sure how you can even call yourself a radical feminist when you're saying that being "bored and horny" is a reason why lesbians and gay men would sleep with the opposite sex. This is exactly how homophobes say that gay people have exceptions and how sexuality is fluid.

First of all this is not radical feminist discourse, this is lesbian discourse. But if you wanna talk about that, I don't know how you can call yourself a feminist and believe women are marked for having sex with men. That having sex with men could be so relevant to a woman, it could actually change her sexuality. That's misogyny 101. As well as homophobia.

And oh I've never heard of lesbians being bored and horny and sleeping with a man, and I did not say that anecdote applied to lesbians, nor did I imply it. I was talking exclusively about gay men, because they're the ones I've known to do this.

Gay men do feel freer to do whatever they want and still be sure of their sexuality. I know gay men in my personal life who only date and get involved with men but have actively chosen to have sex with women. No one forced them, they just wanted a hole to fuck and they don't respect women so they did what they wanted and later retold the story as though it were funny and meaningless. My point bringing this up is not that these men are not bisexual. My point is that no one has questioned whether these men are gay. They are allowed to "self declare" and, independent of their behavior, no one is questioning them. There is no relevant discourse about this.

Maybe they are bi. Maybe they're misogynistic and treat women like sex toys as much as het men do. My point is that no one is making them question their every decision and behavior.

Unlike y'all do with lesbians.

With the goldstar discourse I was very obvious from the beginning that the circumstances in which a lesbian may sleep with a man are not willy nilly circumstances. This happens before they know they're lesbians. This happens because they feel some sort of pressure from society. This is not something they enjoy (obviously), this is often traumatic.

No actual lesbian would say lesbians can sleep with men casually, as part of their lives, forever. But lesbians can (and do) have a past of trying to conform.

What strikes me as homophobic is the implication that performing an action, even if the action is sex, would change or define someone's sexuality. Biologically and physically lesbians would be able to have sex with men. Societally, this is expected of them. Psychologically... I can only imagine how fucked up that is.

I am not talking about women who currently and continually have sex with men, and I've been very clear about this. I'm talking about women who have tried to conform, found that it was wrong for them, and never did it again, because they know they are exclusively same sex attracted.

I know at least one lesbian irl who literally said "people kept questioning me, so I forced myself to be with a man to see if I had been wrong about my sexuality. I hated every second". That woman allowed herself to experience the very violating experience of being with a man because people do not understand that women can exist outside of men, outside of dick. She loves and only loves women, though. What part of her desire to only ever be with women, her ability to only ever love women, screams heterosexual attraction to you?

I've been clear as well that I think the ideal world would be one where no lesbian ever sleeps with a man. But we do not live in a perfect bubble. Lesbians are constantly bombarded with the idea that they will never be full members of society unless they act heterosexual. I don't know how it's so impossible to conceptualize that someone can be pressured into consenting to something they don't actually want.

I've thankfully never been with a man, but I grew up in a conservative, relogious environment, I know that if I hadn't questioned everything I used to ake for granted, I could have wound up in a bad situation myself. I don't consider myself more sexually pure or clean than women who have been with men.

Sexuality is defined by attraction. Sexuality is biological and immutable. Nothing can change it. You are born as your sexuality, but society does try to change that if you're homosexual. You can try to change it yourself. But that won't be possible.

Also... having sex is not all there is to sexuality. Romantic love, being able to care for and about someone, is very much a huge part of sexuality. If one would never be able to love, to care about, to be involved in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex... They are not opposite sex attracted.

There is no split attraction model. Either you're all in, or you're not attracted to those people.

[akari-hope]

i think a lot of liberal or left leaning adults who were extremely online as children view efforts to curb the amount of noxious shit kids are exposed to online as “puritan pearl clutching” because “they turned out okay” after being mostly unsupervised as kids, but then a lot of them are miserably depressed and suffering long term emotional and psychological damage from the fucking avalanche of bigotry they were exposed to on 4chan or reddit or kiwifarms or encyclopediadramatica or whatever.

2/2  like putting aside that the online ecoystem is TOTALLY different now and it is a lot easier for kids to just suddenly end up on nazi youtube than it was for you as a kid to navigate the labyrinth of late 90s/early 2000s internet, a lot of you VERY CLEARLY did not turn out okay, and that’s not even getting into the fact that other adults like you who were extremely online like you are the ones who are radicalizing teenagers now! where do you think they absorbed all of that propaganda, actually?

hey, i agree with you! the ecosystem IS completely different now. it’s much easier for kids to find things! bc most everything is very clearly labeled! meaning if you are old enough to be on the internet, you are old enough to curate your own internet experience. it is up to you to use features like blacklist/mute, and determine what content you ARE or AREN’T ready to see.

now, points to you anon. everyone else bringing this up was always talking about nsfw content. so props to you for instead accusing me of exposing the children to RADICAL RIGHT-WINGED BIGOTRY. i needed a laugh, thank you! now, i had a lot of negative experiences online as a kid, but uhhhhhhh bigotry was not one of them actually! i never went on any of the sites you mentioned! dunno whose experience you’re talking about! but you don’t know me! so kindly, think for 5 seconds before making wild assumptions about people with zero evidence. i know that requires using the braincell, but i PROMISE it’s so worth it so you don’t embarrass yourself like this.

since you clearly don’t know anything about me, allow me to share! i am a nonbinary lesbian. i am a leftist. i was raised in a mormon household. if you are not american, or otherwise blissfully unaware, the mormon church is a cult. my exposure to right-winged bigotry was DIRECT, not via the internet. which, shocker, is much worse! i didn’t have any choice in that matter. and i’m very lucky that i had the internet and lived experience of being in a fairly liberal area in order to radicalize me and keep me from getting entirely brainwashed by the church. needless to say, if i am accusing someone of “puritan pearl clutching”, i’ve actually got a basis for what that is! and tbh, any time someone uses “think of the children” as an argument, odds are whatever their argument is is actually just evangelical christianity in drag.

now, let’s make something clear - i am in favor of de-platforming fascists, nazis, white supremacists, or any other name they go by. i don’t know where you thought otherwise! but this blog firmly supports punching nazis! HOWEVER. i am NOT in favor of eliminating all trace that something exists. now, i know, critical thinking is hard, so this might seem like it’s contradictory. but let’s use examples to help us!

trump is a fascist. that’s a fact. a powerful and loud one! twitter banning his account, though late and purely performatory, IS good. his individual influence was huge, and it’s beneficial to not have him actively spouting harmful ideology. the active push to get white supremacist and nazi groups off of social media platforms is good, as it does help limit their influence. but, even doing that, these ideologies do not cease to exist! the concept in history does not cease to exist, and neither does the fact that these nazis will disguise themselves and their arguments in order to seem less dangerous, and to avoid filters. that is why it is important for EVERYONE to have access to educative material about fascist ideology. you must UNDERSTAND what it is in order to protect yourself from it!

now, sure, you might say it wouldn’t be a problem if it was completely gone from the internet. but...it still would be. the real world exists, a fact you seem to have forgotten, anon! bigotry, fascism, nazism, it exists in the real world. and you will NEVER be able to shelter children from everything irl. they’ll go to school with baby fascists. they might have teachers, mentors, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents who are fascists. sure, it’s unfair! it’s unfair to kids that they can be exposed to horrible shit like that, especially unwittingly! especially bc fascists PREY ON UNINFORMED YOUNG PEOPLE. it is EXACTLY for this reason that you need to give them the knowledge, support, and resources to protect themselves. THAT is the job of adults online. THAT is how we create safe spaces for minors. “safety” does not mean “coddling”. safety means an environment where we can discuss and educate on serious, even upsetting, even dangerous topics. it means telling kids a) what things are and b) how to avoid them if they wish to.

so, pray tell, anon - what in any of that is evidence of me “radicalizing” the children to bigotry? can you tell me, in honesty, that it’s better for kids to live in a bubble, to be uninformed and vulnerable? bc i sure can’t! i didn’t have all these resources as a kid, and i sure think it’d be a shame to deprive kids nowadays from them bc things are “bad”. but i know, i know, it’s too hard to think beyond “thing bad” :( the world only exists online, there’s no real-world consequences for any of this stuff. wish that was the world i lived in! you seem very content to condemn total strangers for absolutely nothing from your virtual soapbox.

are we square now? :)

[illnessfaker]

[ cw: f-slur, rape mention ]

no reblogs pls. this is a long vent.

haha not to be a hysterical faggot crippled shut-in freak or anything but the way ppl talk abt the defensiveness around the f-slur that some gay/bi male users (and some transfem users) on here as if it's some kind superiority pissing contest thing and not primarily about...respecting the boundaries and experiences of those gay/bi male (and transfem) users. like...being on this site as a fag-adjacent person (i say that half-jokingly because it sounds silly on one hand but on the other that's the most accurate descriptor of my gender identity, lol) is becoming increasingly draining and upsetting with how "progressive" homophobia against gay/bi men is apparently becoming, like, a meme among lgbtq people and that's acceptable somehow bc lgbtq people aren't cishets or because it's "only online" and therefore doesn't matter.

like idgaf abt ppl who aren't gay/bi men (or transfem) using the f-slur in every single context possible. if they're affectionately referring to their gay/bi male (or transfem) friends with that word (so long as said friends are comfortable with it) that's one thing. who cares. i even rb'd something where a cis butch (iirc) lesbian was talking about a gay man she knew who she was affectionatly calling a faggot and the things she said warmed my heart. if they're throwing it around at every opportunity or using it as an edgy insult against random strangers on the internet, that's another. the users on here who do the latter also regularly display behavior that like...shows a pretty clear disdain for gay/bi men (or transfem ppl) not apart of their online or "irl" circlejerks and echo chambers, and that is in no way disconnected from their love of using the f-slur, lol.

the "it's only online and so it's unimportant uwu go outside" thing also really feels like such a spit in the face as someone who both lives in a rural area full of cishet white men with guns that might try to kill me if i walked out of the house in drag (not to mention i live with my bf and his family and his parents are homophobes themselves i'm sure), and is also someone with health issues that usually keep me at home and in bed when i'm not working. i didn't always live here but even in my hometown the only "lgbtq space" i had was the high school GSA which didn't do shit other than the day of silence and was attended by people i did not feel safe around (e.g. my ex-friend who was very emotionally manipulative and ended up raping someone.) i don't have any other lgbtq spaces to go to other than online ones. if i never joined tumblr i might still be a self-hating cishet girl, or i might be dead, who knows. like, i've accepted at this point that personhood isn't something i'm allowed in (outside of my whiteness) so fuck me i guess if we need to but the idea that other young, impressionable, and/or traumatized lgbtq people who only can meet other lgbtq people and learn about lgbtq things online for whatever reason don't deserve to have us make an effort on cultivating internet spaces that are as accessible and safe for them as possible, or that their experiences and feelings are somehow unimportant is just...vile. like ofc not everyone needs to "pander" to "logged on" disabled fags like myself maybe but if you have any kind of large following on social media maybe consider that the things you say and do on said social media have like...an actual effect on other people instead of pretending that it's "just online" and therefore consequences for your actions either don't matter enough (to you personally) or somehow don't exist.

but going back to the fag thing, most popular lgbtq tumblr users on my dash i see nowadays just...simply do not give a shit whatsoever about gay/bi men, to the point they're normalizing "progressive" and "acceptable" homphobia against us bc they've convinced themselves due to the bigotry some gay/bi men (often cis, white, and wealthy mind you) exhibit we are "the cishets of the lgbtq community," despite horrific violence still being committed against us every day and despite other lgbtq people being capable of engaging in that violence themselves. ppl make thinly veiled jokes and memes where the punchline is men having sex with each other or effeminacy as if those things aren't primary avenues for gay/bi men being abused, assaulted, and killed (including acts of abuse and assault of a sexually-driven nature), as if said jokes and memes don't serve to normalize the mentalities that drive homophobic hate crimes. it's not like...a coincidence that most lgbtq people who makes these jokes aren't gay/bi men (or transfem). this doesn't even get into how things like homophobia and anti-effeminacy can pretty much boot certain gay/bi men from manhood...or womanhood...or any place in gender altogether.

call me exlusionary if you want but i think it's fair to say that the chances of people who aren't gay/bi men (or transfem*) facing the repurcussions of those mentalities in any meaningful way, the chances of these people actually having lived as or going to live as "faggots" is any meaningful sense is slim to none, and that's why they're so comfortable participating in this shit, and that's why i'm triggered(tm) by them "reclaiming" faggot (which doesn't really involve reclamation bc calling random strangers on the internet or gay/bi men you hate a slur isn't reclamation you morons), because frankly if you're not apart of either of those groups, you're just not a fucking faggot. it's not your word just because some rando on overwatch called you it for picking hanzo in comp. period. end of story. it's also just extremely absurd to try and claim faggotry as something you experience while...readily and happily engaging in homophobia and fag-hate (which isn't synonymous with the former term but i'm talking abt ppl who probably seldom ever engage which discussions and theory surrounding how homophobia instrumentates itself in society - or at least that which doesn't conform to their worldview). within the gay/bi male community there's plentu of masc "straight-acting" gays who weaponize this shit against fem gays and they (should) get held accountable in the same way. you're not special.

and god, being told my gendered experiences as a fag-adjacent person where (white) cafab women are fully capable of engaging in social forms of "oppression" against me and other fags in undeniably gendered ways is somehow an outlier and therefore not reflective of broader social by (white) masc urbanite tbros with definitively more social standing than i'll ever have in my life, as if i somehow developed this understanding of gendered violence just based off my own life and not...the reported and sometimes even recorded experiences of countless other fags who get mocked and silenced because anything that deviates from a watered down, shoddy cis feminist take on gender is fake news(tm) or bordering on saying misandry exists (like no it doesn't exist but acting as if homophobic shit like anti-sodomy laws, for example, has zero to do with gay/bi men's manhood is just nonsensical). convos on here abt gender being mostly dominated by (white) cafab women or sometimes (white) masc trans guys is such a mistake lmao.

anyway i'm tired and stressed and pretty done with having "acceptable" homophobic shit shoved in my face on a daily basis both online and offline but nevertheless i must persist because i'm not lucky enough to have anywhere else to go, really. just...think critically abt ur actions regarding gay/bi male sexuality and gender-stuff pretty please. please.

( *disclaimer just in case that i definitely don't see transfems as some "type" of gay/bi men. there are transfems who identify with gay/bi manhood and/or faggotry. there are transfems who don't. that's entirely up to them. thank u. )

[gendercynicalgrantaire]

A little bit ago I saw you make a comment about how radfems fail to realize there are trans normies. I've been thinking about it and I wanted to ask, other than yourself, do you know very many trans people irl who are normies who don't have any explicitly homophobic or misogynist ideas about gender and sexuality? I know they exist. But I've been disappointed by more than 1 transman who I thought cared about me and respected me as a lesbian when we really got into discussions about sexual orientation. Like I try not to become jaded but its really hard when I have trans friends I trusted for a long time and then they tell me same sex attraction is harmful or that gender roles are innate (ie: "I know I'm not a woman bc I don't vibe with xyz stereotype that I believe is true for every other woman I meet unless she identifies otherwise". I don't think every trans person is a actively toxic or anything but I feel like homophobia and misogyny is so rampant and explicit from the trans community in current year it's really hard not to be jaded as a defense mechanism.

Hi! So I found the post you were talking about. The intention I was trying to communicate wasn’t so much that normie trans people are unproblematic in their views of gender, but more so that there are trans people out in the world just trying to live their lives who aren’t narcissistic manipulators like a lot of internet TRAs might come off as.

When I call trans people “trans normies,” I’m defining that as trans people who are mostly not online and mostly not involved in trans discourse. And trans normies, like other kinds of normie, sadly tend to have some unexamined assumptions about how things work based on the dominant culture they were raised in.

Most of the trans people I know irl fall into one of two categories: the ones I meet at PFLAG meetings or trans-centric spaces, and the very rare ones encountered out in the wild. I’m going to hazard a guess that most trans normies are the latter-- they tend not to run in circles with many other trans people, and they also tend to be more interested in passing to blend in, both of which make them more difficult to find. They, like me, tend not to really run in the “trans community.” And admittedly, it’s even rarer that I meet a visibly trans person in the wild that I grow close enough to that I learn all about their gender philosophy, because I too have internalized assumptions about other trans people’s feelings that make me jaded against them (I’m trying not to fall into the idea that I’m “not like other troons” lol), and I’m trying to work through it to find and see if there are ones who have gender philosophies I can vibe with.

Most trans people whose gender philosophies I have heard, then, are the ones I meet in PFLAG and trans-centric groups. So probably a little less normie, but there are still normies mixed in there. And I’m not gonna lie, some of the ideas I hear make me cringe a little or feel like they would quickly fall apart if poked at. I don’t know if there’s a single trans philosophy out there that’s going to satisfy the gender critical community. But what I can say for trans people is that the vast majority of them that I have met irl believe in the following (paraphrased):

- If someone’s sexuality/dating pool excludes me, that’s their business. It can be a little disheartening knowing how small my dating pool is, but trying to convince people who don’t want to date trans people to date trans people is not a solution. I want a partner who loves me for me, not one who pretends to love me for woke points.

- XYZ stereotype does not mean that someone is a man/woman/nonbinary. (Insert just about anything in the XYZ. The trans and nonbinary people I meet in real life are also some of the most pro-gnc-cis-people people I know.)

- I am consciously aware of how I make cis people uncomfortable, and I make a conscious effort to mitigate that discomfort to the best of my ability while still living authentically and keeping myself safe.

- Cis women can have their own spaces. It doesn’t concern me.

- Obviously there are issues that only impact natal females and ones that only impact natal males.

- I understand that I have the biology of a certain sex. I might be uncomfortable with having a body of that kind, maybe even to the point where I don’t like to use the anatomical terms to describe my body in contexts where I can avoid it, but I’m obviously different from a [cis man/cis woman]. If I didn’t understand that, I wouldn’t be calling myself transgender.

I make these points because of their relationship with gc discourse. It’s inconvenient for gendercrits and radfems to acknowledge that there are trans people who feel this way. It’s even more inconvenient to know that the number of trans people who feel this way is not insignificant and thereby easy to dismiss.

In particular, I want to focus on the second point: stereotypes do not a gender make. Because honestly, most of the trans women at the PFLAG meetings aren’t talking about how they played with dolls as kids or how they just love being expected to wear make-up (often in an effort to pass, because unfortunately our gendered society does turn make-up into a tool for reading as female), and the trans men there run the gamut from hyper-masc to fairly feminine. There are a variety of trans philosophies I’ve listened to that stray away from the idea that simple gender stereotypes make a gender.

More often the story is one of alienation -- alienation from one’s body, from one’s appearance, and/or especially from society. And this alienation usually disappears (or at least fades into background noise) once transition has been undertaken. The trans person in question might not always have a satisfactory explanation for why that is -- and again, I don’t think any explanation fits the radfem/gc ideal -- but it is distinct from the rhetoric “wigs and dresses don’t make you a woman,” “lack of those things doesn’t make you a man,” which trans people are generally well aware of. This is what I hear most often from other trans people regardless of sexuality, mental health history, class, or any other dividing lines that gendercrits like to use to explain trans people away as simple, easily dismissible categories (think Blanchardianism).

Hmm...I hope that answers your question? I know I probably went off the rails there. Again, I can’t claim that trans normies can’t be problematic, or even that most of them aren’t problematic. Most normies in general are problematic because they tend to live less examined lives. But I also know there are trans people out there willing to listen to and calmly discuss the other side of things, especially if their viewpoint is just parroting what they’ve generally heard from the mainstream side of trans discourse.

In that regard, you’ll have the most luck with passing trans people and trans people who’ve been settled into their identity for a while. Non-passing and newly-out trans people tend to be defensive and self-conscious in a way that more seasoned and socially integrated trans people just aren’t. That’s another post in and of itself though. If a trans friend of yours says something along the lines of “I know I'm not a woman bc I don't vibe with xyz stereotype that I believe is true for every other woman I meet unless she identifies otherwise” (if they use that wording -- not sure if that second part is what they actually say or just the implication you’re picking up on, but chances are they don’t think every woman vibes with it and just need that pointed out) but they also seem like a chill person and you feel safe doing so, don’t be afraid to calmly and casually bring up a point of disagreement. It might not be something they fiercely cling to or have even really thought through all that much.

[transrightsjimin]

I'm asking as a confused trans and gay person regarding some of your recent posts saying aphobia doesn't exist, etc. Do you consider asexual people to be inherently LGBT even if they are cisgender and straight (heteroromantic)? I don't want to discriminate at all, I'm just confused because I see people fighting on here all the time about whether aces are part of the LGBT community or not. Do you have some insight for me as an ace nonbinary person? Thanks in advance!

no it’s fine lol dw!

i’m not sure how to explain this w/o being too extensive in what i say bc i’ve talked about this before but more in private conversations (and maybe some rants in tumblr posts) nd i tend to ramble abt it.

first of all i do not actually like the common conception that there is one way to define LGBT or the idea that everyone should fall within that category term or not, for example because the English language is colonial and rigid and does not reflect on experiences of all cultures, bc being gay or trans are not distinctly different experiences everywhere while they would be divided into different categories. so whereas i was more insistent on saying ‘you must be gay / bi / lesbian / trans to be LGBT / suffer from homophobia or transphobia’ i’ve come to realize now that this argument is rather exclusive of many gender diverse identities that do not correspond to all experiences or cultures. so i will stay away from using that argument.

however, i am speaking from my experience with online LGBT and asexual communities and have seen how the latter has tried to force itself into the other. i think a large issue with the asexual and aromantic communities is that they are partially based upon the creation of AVEN, an online forum founded by a homophobic and antisemitic man, and partially (though related to the former) by just blatantly made up statistics and history. not once have i seen a good argument or research or even personal accounts that illustrate very well why aphobia is a thing. i am asexual myself but do not want to take the lack of discrimination i faced for it as proof. there have been accounts of ‘aphobic’ discrimination that are either 1. much more a general concern with the OP facing misogyny and girls being sexualized, 2. someone making a remark based on a misconception of OP’s experiences or 3. misappropriation of terms and applying them to asexuality, e.g. ‘corrective rape’ was coined to refer to (African) lesbians who were assaulted under the presumption that it would turn them straight. asexuals have appropriated this term years ago to claim asexual people face rape on a large scale because perpetrators try to force them into liking sex. some people don’t even know the original meaning of the term because of this. i’m also not a big fan of this new interpretation of the term anyway, because legit sexual attraction is not the main reasons people commit rape; it is to seek power. this kind of mindset of asexual people being inherently vulnerable to sexual violence due to lack of feeling sexual attraction is seriously harmful; in the crime show Law and Order SVU, a suspect was let off because some main character said the suspect was asexual and this couldn’t have done it. people can be and sometimes are raped by an asexual person, because it is about taking advantage of someone and not attraction. the sole fact that so many authors of overly fetishistic fanfiction are asexual should prove this much, but instead the lack of attraction is used to distance oneself from the harm one can still cause.

and yes, asexual people can face discrimination, especially if you’re a girl you’re expected to be sexually submissive, which is pretty horrifying on its own. but this is not the same as targeted discrimination on a mass scale or institutional whatsoever. we are not thaught as we grow old that asexuals are disgusting, are a joke, or need to be violently murdered. my biggest issue with the asexual and aromantic community that we (as i have removed myself from it years ago) keep telling it that anecdontal accounts of being mildly discriminated is nowhere near the same as risking being kicked out of your house, being violently attacked due to the way you appear or having a partner of the same gender, being systematically discriminated by all sorts of institutions in society and being thaught that what you are is bad from an early age on. and then the counterargument is that LGBT is more recognized but asexual and aromantic isn’t, so ‘ace / aro’ people deserve to be included because they are underrepresented in media. but that is not the case at all. the speed at which asexuality has suddenly been incorporated and included into LGBT spaces, also offline, has been ridiculously fast. nowadays when you see a bunch of LGBT flags you see the asexual one being included a lot, sometimes in 3 different versions, while the lesbian flag is nowhere to be seen. lesbians are consistently excluded from their supposedly own community and they are not included in LGBT due to a need to change underrepresentation or lack of awareness, but because they face their own version of homophobia. the most mind-boggling thing about cis / cishet asexual and aromantic people being told that they are not oppressed, is that the response is not relief (’oh i’m glad i don’t face systematic oppression for this thing’) but anger (’how dare you not let us into your group!’). LGBT is seen as a fun party that is unnecessarily mean to anyone it gatekeeps, as if it is not actually necessary to keep out cishet people who benefit from their privilege and can use that against the rest in the group if they join.

my largest issue with the asexual community however, and i’ve touched upon this a bit before in the post, is that it victimizes itself, to such a degree where it puts itself oppositional to ‘allosexuals’. the whole idea that people who experience sexual attraction to another person are inherently privileged over abd hold power over asexual people is just not true (and the same goes for this rethoric for aromantic people). this idea is so wrong and the whole concept of the ‘allosexual’ as oppressor collapses once you consider that people who are attracted to the same gender are actually in danger and oppressed for their very attraction. not only are those who experience attraction (that isnt platonic) to other people portrayed as oppressors, but also as perverted freaks. once i decided to stop associating myself with acearo people and instead interact with LGBT people with other experiences, i realized just how much stigmatizing abd frankly, homophobic and transphobic bullshit i’ve adopted within the spaces i used to be in and that i still see gather a lot of traction (now their harmful points are also used on twitter and IRL in the public domain). the community has a huge issue where it teaches you to be puzzled and grossed out by people who want to date / kiss / have sex with other people, and this results in GSAs that now include asexuals to prohibit kissing your partner per request of asexual / aromantic members, asexual people showing up at pride with ‘can we just hug?’ signs, the common serophobic jokes (’at least we dont get hiv!!’ blergh), and for me it led to a great discomfort with kissing and sex imagery and it wasn’t until i left the community that this was in fact subtle homophobia because so much content on here is lgbt themed and to combine that with the increasing aversion to romance or sex without critically looking at that is... very toxic to say the least.

so where it’s standing right now, i don’t think including asexual or aromatic people in LGBT spaces on the basis of those identities is a good idea. one community advocates for the acceptance of sex, whereas the other is stigmatizing it and painting off those who are in fact oppressed for their transness or homosexuality, as the oppressors. it clashes and it doesn’t work. the ‘ace / aro’ community (quote unquote bc i see ‘ace’ being used a lot to imply superiority over ‘allosexuals’ like, theyre being the ace at something) has too many issues, which it is largely based on, to figure out. it can be a community on its own and i do not think you need to join LGBT to have a valid identity that has something to do with sexuality or gender and deals with a form of stigma.

it woukd be a rant, i warned you lol

[werevulvi]

Have you met other lesbian transmen irl? Been kinda wanting to label like this which really takes me aback because even pre-everything (years ago) i swore i had no ties with lesbianism and wanted nothing to do with that. I'd get mega-angry if anyone confused me for a lesbian so yeah, total embarrassment and inner shock over my new pov. It doesn't help that my few friends are "twaw tmam" type and i get the feeling that if i do it things will get ugly and maybe i'll end with no support net.

Not that I know of, but then I also don't really have much of any irl friends at all. I live most of my life online, and have for many years. The only people I actually hang out with irl are my family, my girlfriend (although we're long distance), my therapist and a few libfem/TRA acquaintances that I don't know well. I can almost guarantee none of those acquaintances are lesbian trans men, nor would they likely like it if I said that's how I identify.

I mean, I barely even know of any lesbian trans men online. Only one as far as I know for sure, but I've also come across also a few straight-identified trans men in random trans spaces online who cherish having positive ties to lesbianism (although more so in a past tense kinda way), and I'm also in a facebook group for lesbians that's created by a trans man, or if they're a butch on T, I'm not sure, but that's like the one lesbian space I feel truly welcome in, aside from radblr. So although lesbian trans men exist, it's either very rare or only a few are open about it, it seems.

I'm mostly only open about it with my girlfriend and online, and my family knows I'm lesbian and that I'm planning on going back on T and considering another name change, but I haven't talked to them about being a lesbian trans man specifically. I think they wouldn't understand, and I don't feel up for trying to explain it. I'm exhausted enough just trying to explain to them why I like being hairy, lol. Because apparently even that is beyond their scope of understanding. My therapist doesn't give a rat's ass one way or another, as she's really ignorant on trans stuff, but happily accepting of literally anything.

I haven't told my gender therapist about it yet, but I'm sure it will come up at some point, as she's also my sexologist. That'll be interesting...

Online I dare to be more open about myself and how I identify. It's easier for me to communicate freely in the form of writing, and I wouldn't like not being able to explain myself as I'd like to, due to being confronted about it irl. However, if someone (even crazed TRA's) would ask me about it, I'd tell them. I'd say I'd be willing to calmly explain why I identify that way, and be open to discuss it in a civil manner, but that I would not tolerate being berated for it in any way. If they'd have a problem with that then, that's their problem.

It can get ugly. I'm not gonna deny that. I've been berated for it online on several occasions, and even once totally dogpiled by a whole group of angry transmeds/truscums (mostly some 5-6 "straight" trans men but it was led by a "lesbian" trans woman) who wanted my blood (figuratively) for daring to say trans men can identify as lesbians if they so wish, but don't have to, and that I personally feel best viewing myself as a lesbian and as a trans man at the same time. That was definitely ugly, and it upset me for several days afterwards. However, I actually made peace with the trans woman who led that dogpiling against me. She apologised (seemed very sincere) and I don't hold grudges towards her anymore. Although she has very different opinions than me, so a friendship is probably not on the table. People are generally less nasty in terms of discourse irl, though. But that's not saying it can't get ugly with irl friends, especially if someone feels trust has been broken, or... if someone's gender/sexuality got invalidated.

I do have at least a few trans friends online who are totally okay with me being a lesbian trans man, though. Some of them are transmed and some leaning gender critical. One is even a trans woman who considers herself a gay male and is married to a gay man, and she has very similar views to me. Most of those friends who accept me are new, and some I've known for years. So, if your current friends don't accept you, I'm sure you'd find better friends who do.

It was kinda similar for me, although pre-transition I swore I was bisexual despite I on some level deep down knew I wasn't attracted to men. So I didn't have any ties to lesbianism back then, even before I decided to transition, when I briefly tried to date other girls, as a "bisexual girl" in my teens, while trying my hardest to ignore my ever-increasing dysphoria. It wasn't until my (attempted and failed) detransition a couple of years ago that I realised I'm only into the same sex and decided to actually face that once and for all. With that grew a connection to lesbianism. Despite I was already transitioned. Then going back to being a trans man, I didn't want to leave behind lesbianism which I had worked so hard to embrace about myself. So I decided to take my lesbianism with me.

Sometimes it does feel like I'm hanging onto lesbianism by a thread, though, I gotta admit. Especially irl. Being open about it irl is really difficult because passing as male means other lesbians are more likely to wanna pepper-spray me in self-defence upon telling them I'm a lesbian too, than to casually bond over some lowkey homophobia or give each other advice somer heartfelt about good lesbian movies. Even online I get accused of being a creepy "straight cis man" sometimes. Oh, if there ever was a bane to passing, lol!

But also, because I already have a partner, and am monogamous with her, I'm not in the dating scene. Which means my sexuality just isn't of that much worth for other people to know about, nor is it really their business, unless I'm trying to plead my way into a lesbian space or wish to connect with other lesbians in a non-dating kinda sense. As lesbian trans men seem to be really scarce, it tends to be the easiest for me to connect with butch lesbians, detrans lesbians and otherwise dysphoric lesbians. They're not exactly the same as me, but I tend to have a lot in common with them, both in terms of gender and sexuality. Which is also a big reason why I bond so easily with my girlfriend, who is gnc and dysphoric, just opting out of transitioning.

Despite the social hurdles, I feel good being a lesbian, especially with my girlfriend, and I feel like that's where it matters the most. Then it doesn't (or shouldn't) matter if the whole rest of the world views me as a straight man, and has to be argued into believing otherwise. I mean, being proud of who you are doesn't necessarily mean telling everyone about it, unless you want to. It can also just be a select few who you find to be worthy enough to know you that well.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

I don’t want to reblog the thread for... quite a few reasons, tbh, but my take on the “classic millennial sex pickle” thing (lord, what a dreadful combination of words) is this- 

In my very early queer discovery days, fantasizing about having a bisexual boyfriend was pretty much the first internal manifestation of my queerness, particularly on an affective level, rather than an “intellectual curiosity” level. I also often imagined myself in a poly dynamic with two bi men, and generally existing within a larger social group of queer people (who were, in fact, in this scenario, mostly queer men, because I’ve never felt particularly drawn specifically to lesbian communities.) 

I know now that I’m also bi, and, more importantly, that I’m nonbinary, and that that kind of identification with male bisexuality stems from my own experience of gender. And I’m not saying that’s necessarily what’s going on with this woman, but I will echo some of the sentiments in that thread that feeling deeply alienated from heterosexuality, to the point of wanting to pursue bi guys on grindr, is really not typical behaviour of a straight, cis woman. (In fact, even some of the nastier folks upthread pick up on that, given the “this isn’t really as common as she’s making it out to be” observations.) And I really wish that the person who responded to that letter were more versed on how trans/nonbinary sexuality can manifest, so they’d at least been able to suggest that possibility to her. 

(*I’m also not sure why people are assigning political lesbianism to her, both in that thread and in another thread relating to that letter that I’ve seen. She never says anything about wanting to date women. And even if “politically opposed to heterosexuality” could be taken as invoking some sort of separatist “battle of the sexes” rhetoric, I think it’s pretty plausible that it could be taken as feeling put off by heterosexual frameworks of relating, and feeling more at home with queer sensibilities, especially since she’s pretty clear about wanting to date men. Which - even if she is completely straight and cis, I’d consider that a good thing! Wanting to be more deconstructive and challenge the heteronormative assumptions that go into how we think about relationships is something I’d encourage in anyone, regardless of orientation!)

(**It’s also worth noting that “only wanting to date bi men (and not straight men)” is extremely common among bi women. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard over and over from bi women I know irl, and that I’ve seen echoed a lot on here. I’m not saying this woman is a closeted bisexual, or that she necessarily has any attraction to women, but the dismissiveness towards that preference felt like it was edging very close to biphobic rhetoric, and the idea that relationships between bi men and women don’t “count” as queer.)    

[terfslying]

I got about 8 asks from one anon who was very thoughtful, and I want to reply to them but not clutter the dashboard, so they’re below the cut. For reference, anon stated they are a trans woman radfem who prefers radfem communities to trans communities on tumblr.

Sorry about the dot points, it helps me keep my thoughts organised.

I understand that those examples you are mentioning are super not ok (e.g. telling people they deserve rape/abuse + dehumanising them), but it seems incredibly naive to think that black/white us/them thinking is more specific to 'transblr' than 'radbler'. I've seen plenty from both sides, having been around both sides over the years. In terms of online behaviour, neither is really any better than the other. The difference comes in with real world actions.

It's fair to say that radfems are silenced within the irl and online LGBT communities when they make themselves known. But I think the silencing is entirely justified. I can see why it would drive rad-aligned people to feel persecuted, but the reality is that LGBT people have a right to protect themselves from the real-world damage that TERFs regularly do and have done in the past.

Examples include physically attacking trans women lesbians at events those women organised, set back legal rights for trans people and especially trans women, set back medical support for trans women in the USA especially, openly assault and dox trans women even within lesbian and radfem communities... I know that it isn't a thing that you necessarily support or encourage, but the fact is the anti-"TRA" radfem group is thoroughly hateful and has done a LOT of real world harm.

It's also fair to say that there can be issues with acknowledging trans men's issues in some trans-feminine oriented spaces... but I don't think that blanket applies to all pro-trans communities. I rarely if ever see it through my participation in this site, and for a good period of time I did consider myself transmasculine during that.

There is hypocrisy on every side in every issue, but I definitely feel that the hypocrisy on the radfem side is a lot more damaging than trans hypocrisy.

There's no reliable (modern + peer reviewed) evidence that radfem activism prevents harm to women. Radfem groups specifically agree to take money that cannot be used for pro-choice activism, purely so they can hate on trans women more. That's the highest level of betrayal of your own ideology, as far as I'm concerned as a radfem. Obviously, again, this isn't necessarily something you're involved with, but your safe radfem space for yourself does not exist in a vacuum unfortunately.

The whole "you only get through to people with kindness + not dehumanising them" is very true. But it's important to remember that trans people are the minority and the oppressed group here, not radfems. It is not trans people's responsibility to be unfailingly kind and patient to every single person on the internet who feels the need to post about how they'd like to take legal rights away from them. However, I do agree with you that it takes kindness to break the cycle of hate. That's kind of why I try and do this - although I'm more privileged than a trans woman being targeted by TERFs, that also means I am safer (from doxxing, threats, Sui bait, etc.) doing this than a lot of trans women might be.

I've probably made it clear by now, but I STRONGLY disagree that “GC” radical feminism is "the lesser of two evils". Both communities can be toxic, but one rallies behind activists improving the lives of trans people, and trans-exclusionary radical feminism rallies behind fear-based, non-factual anti-trans 'academic studies’ which have long since been disproven. One does actual harm, and has harmed an estimated hundreds of thousands of trans people in the US alone through applying political pressure to remove coverage of transition treatment from insurance in the early 80′s. The other basically has only done harm through being associated with weirdos/creeps who may be trans (e.g. Yaniv) or may not be (e.g. the 250 bullshit crimes list from the link above). Compared to all other medical and psychological treatments, transition has a high rate of helping people and a low rate of regret and harming people (and that rate is growing lower as transphobia decreases over time, according to many studies on the topic).

Don't worry about sending so much or feeling passionate about this topic. I disagree with you about the balance of harm-vs-benefits in the groups, but you're not being rude or horrible at all.

I'm hesitant to accept "real liberal feminist support abusive / incestuous relationships" as just a statement of fact. "Liberal feminism" isn't something I have ever seen someone claim as their viewpoint. It sounds like you encountered a real whack job, but I don't think they represent this idea of "liberal feminism" which is popular in radfem spaces.

The asks seemed to swerve off into SWERF territory and I'm not sure entirely what you're saying here so I'm going to go ahead and say that my view is that criminalisation doesn't work to protect anyone no matter how they were financially pushed into sex work. The strongest predictor we have that women in sex work will be safe is if they are working legally, because that gives them "greater negotiating power with clients and better access to justice" according to research.

[the-worst-fe-player]

Tell us about your summoner oc pls!!

Just want to say thank you so much for this ask its made me really happy and also please dont judge to harsh iv never made an oc before and I dont really know what I'm doing lol. Also the idea of how it works is that when he is in the world of heroes time stops in his world. So he can spend 5 years in askra come back to his world and no time has gone past. Also I'm so sorry for grammar or spelling mistakes it's the dylisxc sorry.

Name = Taylor

Gender = male

Age = 19

What they do in there own world = studying to become an physiotherapist in a university london(because I'm from England and I dont know how other countries school system work sorry) but also works part time in a tesco

Personality = easily attached to poeple so dispite being quite intelligent on the battle feild he has done some stupid things to make sure they stay safe. Get extremely angry when it comes to poeple getting hurt (physically and emotionally)which sometimes isn't a problem but sometimes this means he has given away locates when the group is trying to be stealthy, which has put them in even more danger at times. Is out going and confendnet when around strangers and friends but this is a bit of a mask, as he feels like he has to put of that face because of him being the summoner. Close friends will known that he is quite nervous with a very strange sense of humour (at least to them)

As a unit = after the events of book 1 he started to try and become a healer. While he cant defend himself very well only able to do light magical damage he is a very skilled healer. He rides a horse into battle

Realship with the heroes = close friends Donald it started with him asking him why he wears a pot into battle and there friendship took off from there. Laslow, laslow was just being laslow and flirted with him and to humor him taylor flirted back and they had tea together and became good friends, especially as laslow understood the whole hiding behind a more confident persona. Est, she reminds him of his little sister so he feels the need to protect her (that need that she needs protecting changes when she takes down a Duma that would have killed him) but they often go out to the market to buy supplies as she easy to talk to.

And with the heores oc =(also for the sake of idk how to write them in the veronica, bruno and loki bunny alt dont exist in this one I'm sorry)

anna = as a broke uni student he respects her money loving ways. They can be caught scheming ways to get some extra money

Sharena = she saw right through the persona he put on so she was able to see the real him very quickly. They have shared eachother darkest secrets and so they trust eachother completely and get on very well. Also the only person to get his sense of humour. She was the first person he came out as bi to which was followed by her coming out as a lesbian to him. Helped her and fjorm get together.

Alfonse = at first they only talked while working together because of alfonse fear of not wanting to get close to Taylor but he saw Taylor stressing out after he thought everyone had left the war councils meeting. They both had a heart to heart Taylor admits his fear of not doing well another and faling and alfonse explains why he fears getting close to poeple. The only person he has taken into his world has alfonse was curios so he showed him the day to day life. A customer was rude to taylor in Tesco and let's put it this way alfonse is banned from all Tesco.

Fjorm = extremely good friends with eachother and he feels guilty about her dying believing that it his fault dispite her saying that it's not and she doesnt regret what she did. Wants to try and make her last years alive as happy as possible. Beause hríd couldn't stop crying (he gives me those big brother vibes you cant change my mind) Taylor walked her down the aisle at her and sharena wedding.

Gunnthrá = the big sister he never had, just like with fjorm he feels guilty for what happend to her and cant forgive himself. She took him to nifl once and like good all English men he was freezing to death within the first 5 minutes.

Hríd = talk about there sister together a lot as Taylor has 2 and love them to peaces like hríd does with his. Hríd has basically adopted him and whenever Hríd is deployed he always looking behind him to make sure no arches are amining at Taylor. He taught him how to ride a horse

Ylgr = she always messing about and playing pranks so he uses her powers for evil good by setting her on heroes that are annoying him. Dispite her being very strong especially for her age he can never use her in battle out of fear of what will happen. But he has taught her to yell yeet when throwing her daggers.

Laegjarn = not exactly friends but they respect eachother. Dispite being in charge and never abusing his power over her and laevatein unlike surter she has a new resolve that once she goes back to her world she going to take laevatein and leave surter as she now knows theres a better way of life and that theres poeple that are willing to give her a second chance.

Laevatein = pretty much the same as laegjarn but Taylor also teachers her how to ride a horse after finding out she has a interest in them

Helibindi = is trying his best to summon his sister. He is suspicious of his outgoing nature and is sure there something going on underneath but doesn't know how to get through. Is one of the few that notice when Taylor is struggling with something even if it something small, so he often get stuff of the top shelf for him because Taylor is a bit short.

Eir = not close yet but he was the one that gave her a hug and stayed with her after hel death.

Random info = 5'5, middle child oldest brother is 23 youngest sister is 13, bi, allergic to cherrys, has a dog called robin.

I just released how much I wrote and I'm so so sorry but thank you so much for the ask I was sad because of irl stuff but this really cheered me up writing this so thank you so much. I'm going to use a picrew to show what he looks like because I cant draw and idk how to describe well

[evesbeve]

~All. Of. Them.~ ☺

99 gay-ish asks

… you know WHAT.

FINE.

I’LL DO ALL OF THEM.

LONG ANSWER UNDER THE TAG, HA V E FUN-

1. how tall are you?

I am 159cm aka 5′3ft!

2. what is your body type?

According to the first Google Image result I got, it’s between “Banana Shape” and “Apple Shape”. I have no idea who came up with these terms. But there you go.

3. what is your favorite part about your body?

My nails-

4. is your current hair color your natural hair color?

My hair is brunette, which is also my natural hair color!

5. are you more outgoing or more shy?

I’d like to think I’m outgoing, but we all know the truth rip

6. are you more femme or butch?

Depends on the day-

7. are you tol or smol?

I definitely wouldn’t call myself tol, so smol, I guess!

8. wine mom or vodka aunt?

Sober Mom

9. weird habit?

The door has to be either fully closed or fully open. Don’t fite me on this-

10. favorite meme?

Too many to count, but this is one of my favourites right now-

but also like, most of my faves at the moment are actually memes with pictures of me and my friends XD

11. do you sing in the shower?

Hell yes!!

12. ever used a bow and arrow?

Yep!

13. are/were you a theatre kid?

(Answered here)

14. have you ever seen a broadway musical?

Nope, but I’ve seen Aladdin’s counterpart to broadway in London! So it’s like, the exact same thing, but in London XD

15. do you think musicals are cheesy?

Yes. Do I think it makes them less enjoyable though? Nope.

16. have you ever been a part of a protest or a march?

It’s a complicated story, but I have!

17. favorite Cards Against Humanity Card?

Gooood, it’s been so long since I’ve played CAH! I have no idea ;;

18. last movie you watched?

I think it was Far From Home!

19. behind the camera or in front of it?

I’m usually the one taking pictures and filming my friends (they better thank me in 10 years) but to be honest, I wish they’d take some more pics of me to look back to too. I do enjoy filming though, so I guess behind!

20. favorite tv show?

Right now, it’s definitely The Umbrella Academy!

21. meaning behind your url

My name is Evelina, and I am online

22. reason you joined tumblr

To follow a project I used to like on YouTube ^^

23. who’s your closest tumblr friend?

I mean, @clumsinessinperson, @xxwhisperapplexx, @hollsheadcanons and @spinharmony started out as tumblr friends, but now we’ve known each other for more than a year and they’re my best friends in the world ;w;

24. what’s something most people love that you hate?

Olives. Peas. Crocs.

uPDATE: i READ THAT QUESTION WRONG, I THOUGHT IT SAID THE OPPOSITE, I LOVE ALL THESE THREE THINGS

I do hate BBQ sauce with PASSION though-

25. have you ever taken narcotics?

I mean, only when I got my teeth extracted XD

26. have you had sex?

Nope.

27. have you ever gotten caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?

I’ve never sneaked out before, so nah. My phone caught me on my phone at 5am once, does that count?

28. worst/funniest lie you’ve ever told?

(Answered here)

29. describe your passion without mentioning it.

The ocean’s waves clash at the coast. They drown in themselves. They help the boats move. But sometimes, the ocean is quiet.

30. describe your best friend.

Nearly impossible to describe a 100 people in one sentence, but none of them have braincells.

31. give us one thing about you that no one knows.

NOT AGAIN, ANSWERED HERE.

32. how do you feel right now?

Energetic!!

33. what is your biggest fear?

Dying

34. what’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

(Answered here)

35. what is the best decision you’ve made in your life so far?

Honestly, uploading my stories.

36. have you ever tried your hardest and then been disappointed in the end?

MANY TIMES. But hey, that’s life. And that doesn’t mean that it’ll always disappoint you. Keep trying, everyone!

37. something you fantasize about.

MEETING MY ONLINE FRIENDS IRL ;W;

38. last time you cried and why

This morning because I had a fight with my mom lmao

39. what was the last thing that made you laugh?

Me.

40. do you really, truly miss someone right now?

Sure do *dabs*

41. who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

@xxwhisperapplexx​, @clumsinessinperson​, @aesthetically-bitching​ and my other irl fren who doesn’t have tumblr but he is a dumbass!!

42. the last time you felt broken?

SEE 38, RIP (I’m okay now tho, dw!)

43. are you starting to realize anything?

I wanna be a director or a scriptwriter or something!! Just work in the movies!!

44. are you more dominant or more submissive?

Dominant, but I can be just as submissive!

45. i’ll only date you if _____. (fill in the blank)

I’ll only date you if I love you?? Why would I date someone I don’t love?

46. do you prefer to date people the same age as you, younger, or older?

Uhhh look, I’m 16, so the same age, lol. And even if I was older, age doesn’t matter as long as it’s not creepy and predatory, you know?

47. describe the person you’re in love with/have a crush on in great detail.

I don’t have a crush at the moment, thANK GOD.

48. do you have any kinks?

Bye.

49. first thing you notice in a person?

(Answered here)

50. how can someone win your heart?

Step One: Stan Ben Hargreeves.

51. been rejected by a crush?

Nop. Never confessed-

52. have you ever had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back?

Yes.

53. would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?

No.

54. is trust a big issue for you?

I mean, I wouldn’t trust someone I just met with my life, but I do have faith in people ^^

55. did you hang out with the person you like recently?

I do not,,, have a crush,,,

56. is confidence cute?

Everything positive is cute.

57. what would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy?

I don’t like someone right now but if it were to happen, I wouldn’t say anything? It’s their life.

58. would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh?

Everyone makes me laugh. I must hate the person then XD

59. does the person you have feelings for right now know you do?

I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH AAAAA

60. ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

Yes, like a bazillion times.

61. do you want to get married

I’m open to it!

62. worst thing you’ve ever done?

Honestly, I was trying to think of a serious answer, I PROMISE, but then I remembered that when I was little my parents had pissed me off so badly, and I quoted a Barbie movie that said “You’re ruining my life!” like an angry toddler.

Then they threatened to never let me watch Barbie again because it was a bad influence, anD I MEAN. It was what it was XD

Note: They never banned Barbie.

63. three things that turn you on.

How did you know I was an android.

64. who do you hate?

Hate is a strong word, lmao.

65. favorite term of endearment?

Unironically, it’s “boo” XD

66. who was your celebrity/fictional gay awakening?

I WAS WONDERING IF THERE WAS A QUESTION LIKE THAT, honestly I do not remember. Probably someone from Winx.

67. intimidating girls or kind girls?

Both are valid.

68. what do you look for in a possible partner?

I don’t look, they hit me in the head.

69. do you tend to like more masculine, feminine, or androgynous girls?

All. All the girls.

70. are you good at flirting?

Yes, actually XD

71. who was the first person you came out to?

Probably @aesthetically-bitching​, I think!

72. do you have any friends who are wlw?

yeet

73. is your crush wlw?

don’t have a crush, but used to-

74. last person to make you reconsider your sexuality?

I have no idea, I’ve known I was bi since 6th grade.

75. write a short love poem to your crush/self?

Not all the steps you walked on are stableBut that’s okayReaching the top requires a few

76. do you fall in love easily?

I’ve only fallen like in love twice. Crushes are way different, and I’d say kinda…?

77. is there something that happened in your past that you hate talking about?

Yeah. But I hate talking about it.

78. are you good at hiding your feelings?

Yep. If you notice I’m sad, I want you to notice I’m sad.

79. are you a forgiving person?

Mhm!

80. what is your “type?”

Ironically, Eudora Patch from The Umbrella Academy is a very good depiction of my type. (Note: Personality wise. Looks genuinely don’t matter to me, everyone is BEAUTIFUL.)

81. fall asleep in her arms or rub her back until she falls asleep in yours?

I am a little spoon inside and out-

82. tall girls or short girls?

Doesn’t matter-

83. hugs or kisses?

Hugs!! kisses kinda make me uncomfortable most of the time to be honest

84. twirl her around or get twirled?

b O T H

85. tummy kisses or thigh kisses?

Tummy-

86. hairline kisses or neck kisses?

Hairline,,,

87. play with her hair or stroke her tummy?

Hair!!

88. making out or soft kisses?

Soft kisses, definitely. Not that I’ve kissed anyone before, but oh well XD

89. hugs around the neck or hugs around the waist?

Neck…? I’d say neck.

90. how confident are you in your sexuality?

It took me a while, but I am very confident in it right now!

91. when you like someone do you blush or get butterflies in your stomach?

Butterflies™

92. have you ever liked a friend as more than a friend? did you tell them?

I have, and I told them absolutely nothing

93. how old were you when you realized you were into girls?

*shrugs* young XD

94. most embarrassing thing you’ve done in front of a cute girl?

All girls are cute girls. So many things.

95. do you have a favorite lesbian ship? is it canon?

THIS QUESTION IS STRESSING ME OUT, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO CHOOSE. Honestly, Alphys and Undyne are a hard one to top, aND ALSO CANON

96. what is the most aggravating thing someone has said to you about your sexuality?

“You’re just confused.”

97. when was the last time a girl made your heart flutter?

… I don’t know what to tell you.

98. what is love to you?

Love is complicated.

To me, it’s not about having a partner. Actually, loving someone regardless of romantic feelings is way more important, in my opinion. These things can co-exist, and loving a friend is just as important loving a lover.

The lack of it can hurt, especially being forced out of it. But feeling love? I don’t know. It’s one of the most beautiful feelings ever. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by it.

I really love this article on it! It’s about the 8 types of love the ancient greeks had, and as I greek person myself, I think highly of it. I highly recommend reading it!

99. ask me anything. (bUt since no one specified, I’ll ask myself: Why do this and what did I learn from this?)

I did this because I am stubborn. Also I genuinely liked the questions XD

What I learned from this experience is that I really love answering questions, oops-

If you made it this far, I don’t know what to tell you. You deserve a golden star, my dude.

ANYWAY, NEVER AGAIN.

[writhe]

I don't think you or most trans men have ill intent to trans women for speaking about how you experience misogyny/gendered oppression but it will have negative consequences for trans women from cis people, even LGB when it gains traction. I know you and a few trans men will speak on our behalf but I've been rejected/ejected from too many queer women's spaces while trans men sit silent in those spaces/groups so I don't have much faith the majority of trans mascs will speak up on our behalf. 1/3

“Ya'll act like it never happens but every trans lesbian or bi woman has lived through being rejected or ignored in queer spaces/groups that welcome trans men without a peep from the trans guys in them much less them leaving with us in solidarity. I know ya'll don't control that but ya'll seem to have no problem being in spaces that reject us so words of reassurance that we're a community in solidarity don't mean much when many trans mascs have no problem interacting with transmisogynists. 2/3You're a trans guy and as such your priority is trans guys so I understand you're gonna do what's best for trans guys but trans women advocating this will be de facto advocating for even more alienation from cis women, even LBQ women. Just don't act like this isn't going to be weaponized against trans women because it will. Crypto TERFs are already popping up in posts about this. 3/3”i honestly mostly agree with you i think in an ideal world these conversations would be easy. the thing is, the misogyny & transphobia trans masc people face does need to be talked about because it’s traumatizing. it’s oppressive. there is no benefit to ceasing conversation around it. i’m sure you didn’t mean this in a way to say “stop talking about this”, but it just feels complicated being told that what i say will be weaponized because it leaves me wondering if i should say nothing at all which feels even less productive. What i think this really does is shift the dialogue to ask - how can we have these conversations in a constructive way? how can we make these dualities understood?but again in this ideal situation, these ideas would be received and understood without people trying to translate it into a zero sum game of “if X group experiences Y in this way, then Z group is incapable of experiencing Y at all.” it becomes a matter of asking “how can I talk about this in an accurate way that will do no harm?” it sucks but yeah, a cis audience is a complicated one to reach, given their inability to relate & understand on a fundamental level, much less in empathetic way i speak a lot from experience here, too. many of my trans friends IRL are trans women. I really only know a few trans men (lots of NB friends though). i feel incredibly lucky to be around people where solidarity and support seems to be the foundation. I wish everyone could have thisI also don’t prioritize trans men in my politics, I just talk about it a bit more since i can speak to my own experience it would feel performative now for me to say some sort of call to action along the lines of “trans men!! cis people!! support your sisters!!” because while I do wholeheartedly believe that intracommunity solidarity & love is, like, the very best thing that we can do for one another these words fall short of making waves. everything you’ve said already is a call to action for trans men to support trans women, and you’re not even the first one to say it. but as per your message, i don’t see a benefit in acting like this solidarity doesn’t exist when is does very beautifully sometimes. i understand why it falls flat when it’s not the case for everyone but here’s to hoping, and here’s to doing what i can where i can. i hope this response makes sense. i tried to address everything that i could. thanks for this conversation & please feel free to respond/add to this because it’s important