#why think about gender and humanizing other people as they apply in your personal life when you can just think in Theater Metaphors

[protect-namine]

I have a whole essay in my head on how kisa and neji are the same people with the same problems but in different fonts... but I have to wait until I actually do neji's route (which will be... a while) in case the game throws something at me that debunks this

but like. to me. they are the same though. kisa just has more People Skills and doesn't get the benefit of being seen through an outsider's perspective (unreliable narrator kisa my beloved, forced to be a self-insertable otome protagonist) (neji would also be an unreliable narrator if we're in his pov. but we aren't)

[annabelle--cane]

I guess the thing that makes me not so fond of Jon's addiction allegory is that it's only coherent to a certain extent? Like I think people sometimes forget that he's actively violating these people

anon, through no fault of your own you have accidentally hit upon my sleeper agent trigger phrase. I have layers of answers to this.

so first off, yeah, it's not a 1:1 direct metaphor, it's a soupy dream logic fantasy plot device with flavors of a lot of different things. there's quite a lot of addiction in there, there's some abuse of power, there's some cyclical nature of trauma, there's a dash of disability, there's a few notes of gendered violence, there's a good bit of just. violence violence and being kind of a motherfucker because goddammit it feels good to be an active agent about something in your life, even if it's just choosing to be a worse version of yourself than you strictly need to be. a lot of tma's worldbuilding is very allegorical, but apart from aspects of individual statements nothing really matches up quite 1:1 with a real world counterpart, and if more things did then it probably wouldn't be a fantasy show anymore.

secondly. okay to contextualize this answer a little bit I have a kind of hypothetical video essay project about vampirism and addiction that I like to spend a few hours thinking about every so often but am almost certainly never going to make because the full research burden required is a lot higher than I actually have the time to properly do. but because of that I've spent a lot of time sorting through why framing vampires as addicts really works for me in a way that it doesn't seem to for everyone, and I think a lot of my thoughts on that also apply to jon. there's going to be a bit of a detour here before we get back to talking about tma, but we'll get there, I prommy.

I've seen a lot of people take issue with various paranormal addiction allegories because, a lot of the time, the act that is meant to metaphorically represent the act of use itself is something that is directly and inherently harmful to others, e.g. drinking human blood, handing over power to your hedonistic Evil alter ego, holding the cursed amulet and going crazy going stupid, slurping trauma out of the head of some guy you ran into on a boat to norway, etc., and yeah, I do get that. substance use is not inherently harmful like that to anyone except sometimes the user themself, and addicts are not inherently fucked up and destructive people; those are dangerous stereotypes that often lead to the demonizing of a whole group of sick people.

here's the thing for me, though: those are definitely truths I want explored and represented when it comes to portrayals of non-allegorical actual addicts, but fantasy fiction isn't for showing the world as it is, it's for showing a subjective fun house mirror version of reality where certain aspects are minimized and magnified depending on how it feels to live through it. and yes, absolutely in real life drug use is not an inherently evil act and it does not make you an inherently evil person, but... doesn't it kind of feel like that? sort of? absolutely no one is living their best life nor on their best behavior while experiencing any kind of major mental illness episode, and when it comes to addiction you've got a very clear tangible symbol of when The Episode is happening that it feels like you have much more control over than when it comes to other illnesses. it's also a thing where people are a lot more likely to be openly angry and distrustful of you if they find out it's happening. so you mix together the ideas of "I know I get worse as a result of doing this one specific thing" + "I act less like myself when I'm using, it rearranges my priorities and I care less about hurting people because that's what happens when you're experiencing The Horrors" + "society at large/people directly around me are pretty quick to say that doing this is evil," and you get the subjective emotional result of "I hurt people by using and it makes me monstrous." I tend to respond to those kinds of paranormal allegories like they're just cutting out the middle man of those subjective fears. "using makes me monstrous" -> "using is monstrous."

anyway. jon archivist.

don't get me wrong, I totally understand if this aspect of metaphor doesn't gel for some people and they only like taking it exactly as far as the text explicitly makes them, but I really get a lot out of reading jon's connection to the fears as addiction precisely because he does genuinely awful things to people as a result of it. he's a person in a very bad physical and mental place with little to no support who is constantly being told by both allies and enemies that he's already a monster just by being alive, and he copes with that by secretly falling further and further into an compulsive act of consumption that skews his priorities and makes him care less about hurting people because at least sometimes getting to be the cause of pain makes him feel a little bit less powerless when he has to be the subject of pain the rest of the time. then he's found out and is made to stop, and he has to grapple not just with the physical toll of withdrawal but with knowing there is a not insignificant part of him that will excuse any act of malice if he knows he'll feel better afterwards.

the end of tma is very explicit in the fact that the rules of its world are shaped by the subjective worst fears of those who live in it, it's "an exercise in unreliably reality" as jonny sims put it once, and I think that principle extends backwards in some ways to apply to the rest of the show. I don't think the fact that there are only entities of fear and not hope or love is meant to be a full commentary on the total nature of the real world, it's a reflection of what fear and suffering can make the world feel like. eric and melanie both go to really harsh extremes to extricate themselves from the fears and live peaceful lives, and in both cases something happens that foils their plans (getting murdered + the apocalypse, respectively), but I don't think the intended message is to say that is definitively how real life works, they are metaphors for the limits of individual agency in larger systems and represent two types of worst-case-scenarios. similarly, I don't think reading jon as an addict implies that addiction inherently involves violence or that the reactions of those around him were completely unjustified, it's just a subjective exploration of the kinds of fears that can come with addiction dialed up to 100.

[transmascpetewentz]

A Short Guide To Writing Gay Trans Men

So a few disclaimers before I start:

I'm not going to talk about anything sex-related here because 1) people have made other guides and google is your friend & 2) I'm not very comfortable with it.

I am just one person, and due to the fact that I am white and thin and perisex, I will definitely have blind spots. If you want more information about intersections that don't apply to me, ask someone who it does apply to!

I did get lots of messages from trans guys giving me advice on this, but nonetheless I do not speak for absolutely everyone.

There will be very little info here on how to accurately write medical transitions because that's not something I've experienced. Google is your best friend on this one.

This is not a complete post. I will keep adding to it as time goes on. If you're seeing this post reblogged by someone else, click on the original to see if I've made any additions or corrections before you send me that anon hate and/or comment telling me to kill myself.

What Not To Do

When there is a trans male character written by a cis person, especially a cis man, there's a very solid chance that he is going to check off at least 9 of the following boxes:

Thin

White

Able-bodied

Neurotypical or LSN neurodivergent

Binary

No nuance given to his identity and expression

Sexuality not specified or elaborated on

A cis person's love interest

2 dimensional transmasc stereotype

Usually small and feminine, but not actually femme

Gay transmasc characters written by cis people are very difficult to find because cis authors will often not specify the sexuality of the trans man dating a cis man or elaborate on his connection to the MLM community. This is because many cis authors believe that writing a gay trans man is just writing a woman but switching one of the genders. This is, of course, not true, and there must be more care taken to provide nuance and create a more accurate (and non-dysphoria-inducing) representation.

Moving Past The White Twink Stereotype

This is one of the most basic bars to clear for a cis person writing a gay trans man, and yet so many continue to fail at this very simple task. Ask yourself: is your gay transmasc character a white, hairless, thin person? If the answer is yes, that's not inherently a bad thing, though it may be good to reflect on why you want to create a character like this if this is the only type of transmasc representation you write.

The biggest thing you need to do here is to give him a set of defining traits. Not physical traits, not even gender expression traits. Just personality. What kind of person is he? How does he cope with the transphobia in this world (unless you're writing a fantasy universe without transphobia)? How does he act towards strangers? How does he approach people of different genders? What is his outlook on cis people? Once you have the basics, it's time to think about his physical appearance & expression and how that has impacted his life and his personality.

You also want to avoid the trope where a gay trans man's personality is undeveloped and he is treated as an object for cis men to help them advance their character arcs. It's fine for trans men to serve a purpose like that in the story, but they need to be their own individual humans.

Writing Sexuality

If your trans male characters date men, and I cannot reiterate this enough, make them be open about their homosexuality or bisexuality. Give them a sexual orientation and make them be proud of it. Of course, not every gay trans man is going to identify heavily with a masc/fem role in gay male relationships, but you should seriously consider whether or not your character would.

Additionally, don't follow the flawed line of logic of "trans man -> vagina -> bottom -> fem/femme." It's fine to make your gay trans male characters fem but please, I swear to god please give them a good reason for being so. If you do make your character femme, be very cautious to use language that doesn't trigger actual trans men's dysphoria. Don't constantly point out the character's physical features that may be associated with femininity unless you're making a point either about his dysphoria or about how society treats him or maybe about how he comes to accept his body. However, please be extremely careful with the last one as this trope has been used in so many transphobic portrayals.

Have your gay trans male character exist in gay spaces with other gay men (both cis and trans). Have him be open about being a gay man specifically. Give him cis gay male friends. Give him trans gay male friends. Don't allow your reader to ignore the fact that he is very much a gay man.

Dysphoria

For the love of all things good, please do not write your gay trans male character's dysphoria as "from the day I was born, I knew I was born in the wrong body. I have had no internalized shame or guilting into making me doubt my transness, and it was obvious that I was not a woman." That's not how anyone's dysphoria works, even if they did know from a young age that they were born in the wrong body.

For gay trans men specifically, most of us end up realizing we're trans around either age 12 or age 20. This doesn't mean he has to be exactly that age, but that's generally the safest age to have your character's egg crack. Of course, you can sprinkle in signs that he's trans since he was a young child, but I know a lot of gay trans men and I have yet to meet one who has known since birth and has had no doubt in his mind about it. However you can and should write older gay trans men, even some who find out they're trans in their 40s or older. Representation of older trans people is seriously lacking compared to how many there are.

Don't make your character the stereotype of a straight trans man who doesn't face the specific intersection of being trans and gay. Facing this intersection does affect something even as personal as dysphoria. Many of us will have self-doubt, believe that we're disgusting fetishists of gay men, or simply exist as women in gay spaces for a time. You also have to take into account gay beauty standards & your character's upbringing to figure out what they're likely to be most dysphoric about.

hi :3

That's it for now. I'll keep adding to this post as I get feedback and suggestions. If you want more advice, feel free to send me an ask. When I get enough asks about things, I'll make an FAQ post answering some of them.

[thescienceofdeductionn]

Nonverbal Communication Conundrum

Finally, here we are. For a long time, I wanted to talk about NVC.(Nonverbal Communication) After seeing @studies-in-the-art-of-deduction and @theconsultingdeductionist posts about NVC, I decided to share with you what I think. Get ready because you will hear what most people don't say. (By the way, don't let it shape your judgments in both ways.)

Basics

When you first start reading about NVC, authors make you think that you can read someone like a book if you read a book and practice for a while. (Which is very far away from the truth.) I am not against these books because they can give you the basics that you need. You should know how people could act when they are under stress. You should know some examples of liars and honest people so you can use your data bank when you make deductions.

If you have been practicing NVC for more than 1 year, maybe you have started to realize that something is missing. There are some problems with that.

How can we think that we can read someone like a book? What is the proof? Why can't we spot psychopaths after reading about psychopaths and their body language? (We know that the rate of psychopaths in the population is %1. So, there is a high chance you already met with a psychopath in your life so far.) Because humans don't function the way we think they do. It is not an equation like A=B or even A+B+C=D.(Closed gesture+Palm Hiding+Fidgeting+Disgust Micro Expression=LIE)

So, let's see how we can go deeper on NVC.

Context

In deduction, the most important thing is(no, I don't exaggerate)THE CONTEXT. You have to eliminate everything extraneous and work with what you have. This is important when you analyze NVC too. You have to be aware of the environment and the people around you so that you can deduce what NVC means. If you don't, then you will be biased and won't be able to achieve the right conclusion.

External and Internal Factors

When you see 2 people watching the same thing and one of them claps, leans forward and smiles while the other person stands still, what would you think? From the NVC and according to the books we should be able to say that one of them is excited about what they watch and the other person doesn't want to watch. Let's analyze some possibilities:

1-Hiding

What if the second person hides the excitement? We don't see any excitement on NVC but that doesn't mean there are none. What if there is some fidgeting(fidgeting happens because they are suppressing the excitement)and you read it as nervousness or lying?

2-External Factors

What if the weather is too cold and that's why they don't want to move a lot? What if that's the reason why they sit with closed arms and you read it as not being receptive?

3-Internal State

Let's say, they watch this show with their siblings but last month, they lost one of the siblings. Now, they are watching it with another person and they are thinking about the sibling. Would that mean they don't feel any excitement or would that mean the internal state affects the NVC?

As you can see, there are a lot of possibilities as to why they don't show any excitement.(Other than they don't feel any.) Now we understand that we can't just read a book and apply it directly to the person. We have to consider a lot of factors.(We will talk about those in the future.)

Some factors to consider:

-Environment

-Internal State

-Past and Future(What happened in the past and what will happen in the future?)

-Gender, ethnicity, race etc.

-Psychological Factors

So, what do you think? How can we go deeper on NVC? How can we change our perspective about NVC? I will talk more about this topic in the next posts. Especially about Micro-Expressions.(Wait for it. You will like it.) That's all for now. See you later.

[bengiyo]

Don't Care for an Old Man's Underwear! Ep 2 Stray Thoughts

Thanks again to @isaksbestpillow for making this watch possible.

Last time, we met Okita Makoto, a middle-aged supervisor of a copier sales company whose toxic masculinity has let him down in his professional and personal relationships. He regularly offends his juniors (especially the women on their team), his kpop stan wife, mangaka daughter, and queer son. An unlikely encounter with a self-assured gay man led to the start of a new friendship, and Okita has promised his son that he will work to update himself so he can connect with his family and peers.

I am a little sad for this man that the opening sequence was a dream. As off-putting as he is, I do think he genuinely cares for his family.

Mm, ruined it immediately by being rude to Moe.

Oh, Okita. You can't walk it back right away like that. You're going to kill the trust of your team. You just said that people have a right to their breaks.

Oof, that was painful. Growth is not easy and not a straight line.

Wow, finally a show captures the constant pressure heteronormativity places on you when you don't fit in with it. That was an excellent sequence when Kakeru hesitated at the door.

Genuinely, this show is doing really well so far. It's putting in a lot of empathetic work on a man whose position allows his bad behaviors to cause issues for other people. I like that the show doesn't demonize him, and shows that his actions come from a believable human place. I also like that they use the wise gay child to ask the big question: Do you want to connect with others, or have you given up on people altogether?

Bro, you really should not have opened her mail. Even if you were concerned you broke it, you should have just called her down. This is not cool.

I actually like this junior's explanation of why he wears a bra. I'm glad it wasn't a gender thing or even an expectedly queer thing. He just wanted to feel like he's supported and that's enough.

Okay, I'm very excited about Okita Makoto going to sell yaoi at a fan event. I hope he brings Igarashi Daichi with him.

This flashback for Moe was also so good. We all make flippant comments about things we don't like or understand all the time. We won't remember it, but the people around us might. In this case, Moe knows her father will never understand her passions and can't share them with him.

Yes, Daichi!!

Everything about this con is excellent so far. Makoto may be getting shock at everyone's outfits, but he picked up immediately at how determined everyone is and appreciates their discipline.

I love Apple.

Daichi doesn't know what a fujoshi actually is? There's something interesting here about a self-actualized gay not even participating in this part of fandom.

Okay, I'm alright with it. He has the right attitude.

"People who love something are strong." He's beginning to believe.

Yes, Daichi, go on your date!

I teared up when Moe got emotional about Makoto selling the books, and love them ending that moment with her scream about him looking inside the work as a way to check on Kakeru.

I'm glad Makoto only observed that moment between Daichi and that guy, and has to confront the practical reality that Daichi is gay, and not just some magical youth that helps him. Daichi has a life.

Ending on Makoto seeing Kakeru as he wants to be is an excellent way to end this, because he's forced to see that people find strength in passions outside of his experience and must apply it to the people in his life.

This show is so good. There are quite a few characters, and the way they're weaving them into the narrative of the episode is truly special. In this episode we had Kakeru struggling to leave the house because he can't feel safe being seen as he is, while Moe is fighting to get out of the house because she needs to be seen by her people. Makoto is trying, but he's still not ready to see everyone the way they are. This is so legible. I am rooting for everyone.

[willknightauthor]

about your last repost, how do you think DE deals with it? good or may be better?

Are you talking about this?

Anything in worldbuilding is relative. So like some worlds will be way out there, with tons of justification for new economics, religion, philosophy, even biology. In that case not putting a similar amount of thought into sexuality and gender is really noticeable.

With something like Westeros, the world is basically just a historical reskin for ancient and medieval Europe, and it exists mostly to give George RR Martin an excuse for his plotting and characters, which are where he shines. The gender politics in Westeros are frustratingly inaccurate to medieval times though, they're more a negative stereotype than anything, which itself reflects the fact that a lot of the medieval history people learn is about the male warlords and no-one else. (As goofy and purposefully anachronistic as it can be, "Catherine Called Birdy" feels more like medieval life from a woman's perspective than GoT.)

Disco Elysium is an interesting case because it's going for this liminal space between the hyperreal and the surreal. Elysium is like someone's dream of our world. It seems too recognizable, but the more you focus on any part of it the more alien it becomes, even down to the laws of physics. It's our world through a funhouse mirror, which also makes it perfect for allegory. You have to explore it like some alien land, but what you discover reflects back on yourself, so you can view your own world as an outsider. The same applies to sexuality in DE, I think.

In the small slice we get in DE we don't see a lot, but it's clear it's not like our world now or in the past with homophobia. At least as far as Martinaise, homosexuality seems to be an understood thing that people don't flaunt but they also don't hide, even though the fascists are definitely homophobic (in line with their sexism and hatred of love and pleasure). Part of it's that the world is very neoliberal, so understandably gender relations will be very neoliberal. It's one of those worlds where I think because it's trying to reflect back our own world to us in an alien way, I don't expect anything too adventurous. (So "good" I guess?)

It's when there's magic and completely alternate economics and history that it feels weird to not think about sexuality. Personally my biggest gripe is that people seem to refuse to worldbuild the family. How family works has changed so much across human history, but there's no thought about that. At most you get some poly fantasy of how a polyamorous society would work.

You can immediately tell whoever's writing it doesn't have kids, because the question of children is completely glossed over. How do your kids compete or not with their siblings, half-siblings, cousins, other kids, and why? How do people balance their kids and their partners, and how does gender play into it? Who raises the kids? Who provisions the kids? Etc. It's completely glossed over.

People fought whole wars with their brothers over land rights, exchanged kids with their cousins to ensure diplomatic ties, turned their bastards into advisors, or owned their husband's children as slaves. The regulation of gender and sexuality grows out of this intimate morass. Because people can't theorize the family, they can't theorize sexuality or gender. It's at that basic level that reproduction and gender distinction initially happen, and begin to take on the political and economic significance that creates shit like patriarchy.

Yet the supposedly worldly and open-minded speculative authors can't envision how the world works for the next generation. All of humanity is just childless adults. It's as though societies simply pop out of the ground ready made, and never die. Kids get raised and survive, it just works itself out, and no-one in-world seems to care.

Disco Elysium has similar family structure to ours, based on similar political economy. The reason I don't mind is because it feels like a deliberate choice, not just them being lazy. They're trying to do something with it, not just wave away a part of the world that they don't want to spend energy on.

An example of it done well would be this banger post.

[ikebanaka]

One Piece sexuality/gender headcanons:

Luffy: aroace (captain is a gender, right? Oh, it’s not? Well, man sounds good)

Zoro: gay when he bothers to care but mostly indifferent (cis man but like, slightly to the left. He got lost on his way to Enby Island, ended up on Dude Island, and went ‘yeah okay this works’)

Nami: lesbian (cis woman)

Usopp: bi (trans man)

Sanji: bi (possibly a cis man but the uncracked egg vibes are strong. Genderfluid is also a distinct possibility)

Chopper: who knows? He’s a reindeer with no intellectual reindeer peers (trans boy. Yes female reindeer have antlers)

Robin: still figuring out her identity now that she has the leisure to think about it, but leaning towards pansexual and Ambiguously Woman

Franky: technically a cishet dude who is honestly kind of disappointed that men do nothing for him and that he doesn’t care for the idea of making his body look female. What a waste of his awesome skills and attractiveness! But every trans person he knows has decided that transhuman counts as trans, so he’s a cisgender trans guy

Brook: cishet by preference, but occasionally a mature man will catch his eye

Jinbei: elder gay (cis)

Vivi: bi (enby but identifies with the female experience and uses she/her)

Iceberg: gay (cis man (I see your fancy lipstick sir, you’re rocking it))

Ace: aroace but loves the concept of romance as applied to others (he raised himself in bar fights where guys said men were strong and Ace was strong therefore he was a man, never bothered to question it because he had the man parts. Once he learned more about gender he shrugged like yeah okay but I like all this man’s pride and older brother shit so why change)

Sabo: aromantic bisexual, leaning towards women. Feels honored when someone loves him romantically, and is sincerely sorry that he can’t reciprocate, but sometimes life is pain (cis man)

Law: bi, leaning towards men, whenever he remembers that sex etc is a thing (cis man)

Penguin: straight (trans man. Keeps his severed tits in a Tupperware container in the fridge for shits and giggles, courtesy of Law)

Doflamingo: I said gay but he canonically had a thing with Viola so upon further reflection, bi (cis. Human garbage)

Corazon: bi leaning towards men (cis)

Roger: bi except it came as a total surprise to him because he thought he was gay until he met Rouge (cis)

Shakky: bi but mostly into women (trans)

Rayleigh: bi but mostly into men (cis)

Coby: gay (trans)

Alvida: lesbian who hasn’t figured it out yet (cis)

Buggy: gay but dear god men are awful (gnc cis man)

Shanks: pansexual but only ever seems to be romantically interested in men (cis)

Marco: bi, leaning towards men sexually but women romantically, badly hidden romantic (cis)

Izou: gay but at what cost (cis)

Thatch: straight??? But like, sometimes a guy can work it (cis)

Mihawk: being gay is suffering, so it’s a good thing that’s his whole brand (cis)

Perona: girl you are a lesbian get it together (cis)

Lola: bi, leaning towards men (cis)

Honorable mentions: Yamato and Okiku, the canon trans people that I think are bi and straight respectively, Ivankov our queen who defies labels, and Inazuma, the canon genderfluid character who I think is bi

[thronelessking]

Relationship headcanons I was tagged in, double feature just for Soma bc i could

name; Eileossayd

nickname; Ellie

gender; Dragon. He calls himself a man because the word is fun for him to say.

romantic orientation; shrug emoji, he's only ever fallen in love with one singular person and never found himself loving anyone else ever again.

preferred pet names; if Rae ever gave him one its lost to the long flow of time.

relationship status; widowed, he's working on fixing it.

opinion on true love; the concept of it isnt beyond him but he views it in a very clinical light. Some things simply bond and stay together for life and to him that's just biology. No he does not realize this applies to him and Rae’s relationship. Why do you ask?

opinion on love at first sight; see above

how 'romantic' are they?; his idea of romance is showing up on your doorstep and telling you about the cool stuff he learned and showing you.

ideal physical traits; unfortunately if you aren't Rae, then the next runner up to his favored appearance is his own. He finds nothing special nor interesting about people physically otherwise.

unattractive physical traits; he's gained a poignant disdain for the color white and shades of blue that don't match his own. “Is this how you're going to reveal that he thinks his son looks bad?” Yeah.

unattractive personality traits; He has no time or patience for anyone who lacks any respectable intelligence in his eyes.

ideal date; doing experiments, a while afternoon of theological debate, quiet research with a partner, teaching and or being taught something. Nerd.

do they have a type?; Rae

opinion of public affection; does not pay attention to nor participate in it.

Bonus feature for Mirb:

name; Mirabelle. This is a stolen alias, all of his names are. Good Luck.

nickname; Mira, but only one person gets the ability to use that.

gender; weird shapeless thing playing at being a vaguely tangible human shape.

romantic orientation; opportunistic, he'll be anything you want so long as it gets him what he wants.

preferred pet names; he doesn't have any but he thinks it'd be real funny if he was given one.

relationship status; whether or not Cornelius and Mirabelle are aware they're married to each other is up to scholarly debate

opinion on true love; doesn't care for it as a concept, that's not his domain of power nor area of interest. Love is an exploitable tool that should be taken advantage of.

opinion on love at first sight; see above

how 'romantic' are they?; depends on your definition of romantic. He thinks it's romantic to be doing whatever he's doing to Cornelius but also Cornelius does actually like to get stabbed and made out with all while bleeding out so like y'know.

ideal physical traits; he has no preferences, every trait is a good trait because he's just as likely to steal and wear a lover's face as he is a strangers. He thinks Cornelius’ soft and pliable fleshwarp body though is exceptionally charming.

unattractive physical traits; see first sentence above

unattractive personality traits; he despises people who espouse the virtues of mercy and kindness. While he has no issue with taking advantage of such people, he'd rather not be around them; his faith thrives off cruelty after all.

ideal date; on a dinner date that you foot the entire impossible bill for. Alternatively, a date that's too graphic to be displayed in public.

do they have a type?; Cornelius 

opinion of public affection; enforces it because he thinks it's very funny for Cornelius to endure the swathes of rumors that come from the fact a hot guy made out with him in public and yet they're still not married.

tagged by: @crimsontroupe hey guy

tagging: taps you with the magic stick that lets you just do this.

[genderkoolaid]

Another reason why I dropped gender abolition:

Red isn't inherently an angry or lustful color. it's a shade of light, it can't feel rage or desire. we associate it with those things largely because we associate red with heat, and anger and lust make you physically feel hot (and flushed with blood, which is red). But red doesn't have emotions, and it isn't intrinsically tied to any human feelings.

Yet, I think it would be pretty stupid to try to abolish color theory and say that we should never use colors to symbolize emotion because colors can't have emotion.

Now, if you say that you can apply the color red to things that are angry or lustful, or blue to things that are sad, that would be pretty stupid as well. Because, hey, those are colors, they aren't tied to any emotion by virtue of existing. Colors can have a lot of different meanings depending on your culture; red is associated with luck in some places. Black means death and mourning in the West but others associate white with those things. So trying to be "color essentialist" is stupid because colors aren't inherently anything and their meanings shift a lot based on the social context they are in. Hell, even the colors themselves are constructed to some degree; what's the border between pink and red? Why do group so many shades into the overall category of blue? Because we decided to.

But again, just because colors aren't inherently any emotion doesn't mean using them to describe emotions is bad. If we tried to completely disconnect color from emotion, 1. it would be insanely difficult and result in very little material good, and 2. it would really dull (literally) our art. No more "the curtains are blue" symbolism, no more bisexual lighting, no more use of color to explore people and feeling and culture and life.

That's how I feel about gender. Yes, clothing isn't inherently gendered- it's stupid to act like they are! And gender roles can vary wildly between cultures because they are constructs, and rely heavily on social context. And when they are constricting, it's extremely harmful.

But we really are throwing the baby out with the bathwater by saying that since gender roles can be constrictive, gender itself needs to be done away with entirely because it's all bad all the time everywhere.

I like that suits are masculine and dresses are feminine. Because that means I can play with them! I can wear a suit and makeup or a skirt with facial hair and it's playing with meaning and expectation. I frequently use abstract art with lots of color to express inexpressible emotions, and I do the same when I perform gender. I use red and black and yellow and white to turn into visuals what I feel; I use shirts and lipstick and skirts and boots to do the same.

Masculinity and femininity are concepts we made up, there isn't anything inherently masculine about suits or short hair, or anything feminine about skirts and long hair. If you showed a painting full of pinks and reds to someone, they may not think it's expressing affection, because those colors don't inherently mean affection or love or desire. But that doesn't make the painting meaningless. The painter used color to express emotion, using the social construct of those colors to communicate something.

I very much feel like an artist when I'm putting together my daily gender performance; I'm asking myself, what do I want to express to others? What do I want to communicate about my internal feelings? Patriarchal gender roles constrict expression by saying that only some people are allowed to communicate some feelings through certain gender performances. Gender abolition, to me, also restricts expression by saying that it's bad to try and express these things at all. Must our gender performances be hyperindividualistic, completely detached from social context?

I don't want to paint with clear water. I want to paint with color, and I want my painting to be inextricably tied to myself as a person and the cultural context I am painting in.

[kslenvs3000w24]

The Last and Final Blog

Over my past 4 years here at the University of Guelph, the environment has been at the center of my focus. Immersed in this for 1460 days has truly shaped me into who I am as a person and defined what my ethics and values are. For every job I applied to, the question I always got asked was, Why is this something you want to pursue? My answer is always the same; By being a student who is immersed in this knowledge and knows the complexities of the environment down the molecular level, I feel that it is my moral duty to relay this information and educate others. As an interpreter, my personal ethics encourages me to help educate people on ways they can learn about their impacts and how to help. It is important to look back on the daily decisions you make to see how you are either contributing or helping the environment. Some situations can be exempted. For example, they say you should buy electric cars, however, CTV News reported that the average price for an EV vehicle has reached 73,000$ (Bickis, 2023). When the price of a car is this high, you cannot blame individuals for using their gas cars to get to work so they can put food on the table for their families. Understanding that not everyone is as privileged to live a fully eco life is one step closer to stopping the blame and a step in the right direction for education on how you can become environmentally friendly with your living status. Being taught about the imbalances in the environment as a result of human disturbances and the effects they can have is very scary. Constant exposure to this kind of content every day can seriously impact your thoughts and beliefs about life and the world. In my case, it became very motivating. It drives me to want to help educate others and contribute to organizations that are focusing on the preservation and conservation of our earth. 

This course has been a very pivotal experience for me. Although I love taking courses about the environment which includes biology and chemistry, this course forced me to look beyond just these numbers and the analytical lens. It forced me to think more intuitively regarding interpretation and environmental science. Understanding the needs of our earth and how much we impact it starts with admitting to yourself that there is a problem whether created by you or someone else, and that it needs to be addressed. Today, there has been lots of greenwashing which tends to turn people away from wanting to advocate for the Earth. There is such a divide between the general public knowledge and students/scientists. I can't tell you how many people have said to me “Oh, so you want to save the Turtles” when I told them I was in environmental science. This statement right here goes to show the lack of understanding between preservation and protecting the planet. Environmental science falls under a huge umbrella. It encompasses so much that goes beyond just implementing reusable or compostable straws. 

When I have conversations with people who are out of touch with reality, I feel nothing but sad for them. That they are not as fortunate to know what I know or that their motivations might be driven by something else. But I cannot blame them, knowledge is power but it's also money. I believe it is my right as someone who holds this kind of knowledge, to help people understand and become engaged and involved with the environment. However, I do also believe as people of this earth, it affects us all, and doesn't matter what your social status, race, gender, etc. is, it is something we should all be working towards understanding. Let's just put it this way, a hurricane doesn't care if you're a billionaire with a nice house. Beck et al. (2018) state that there are immense educational benefits associated with acquiring knowledge that can result in “an enjoyable and enriching experience” encouraging a more meaningful relationship with the topic of interest. It doesn’t matter who you are, you will be affected directly or indirectly and therefore I believe we all have an innate calling to preserve and protect the earth not only for us but for the generations to come.

Nature has been a huge component of my life whether it was in the classroom or my own personal outlet. I was taught from a very young age to appreciate nature in all its glory. Over the years I have become increasingly empathetic towards the environment. When I read about things in the news I can’t feel anything but sad. It's so disheartening seeing our earth become hurt and have to constantly rebuild itself. I constantly ask myself when. When will we learn? How long does it take for us to make a change? What brutal disasters need to keep happening for us to stop? Going back to first-year environmental science, we talked about nature having intrinsic value and I couldn’t agree with this statement more. Just like we learned in this course, even if we do not gain any materialistic value from nature and it does not directly or indirectly benefit us, it still has a purpose and is still valuable on its own (Rea & Munns., 2017). Many people are motivated based on economic return and unfortunately, the environment is at the centre of those decisions. The understanding of intrinsic value is based on an ecocentric standpoint which is developed from having a serious concern for the environment, something many people lack (Rea & Munns., 2017). This concern can come from upbringing and experience that shape how one views the world. For people who are struggling to put food on the table, the state of the environment is not typically their biggest problem. Effective interpretation as described by Beck et al., (2018) involves building new knowledge, values, and beliefs. Being open-minded to adopting new concepts can truly work wonders.

Finally, I feel it's my responsibility as an interpreter to educate. Social media is a very powerful tool in today's age and being able to raise awareness about situations regarding climate issues is a great way to expose the general public. I just hope we can create a sense of unity when it comes to caring for our planet and that it gets the attention it deserves because we only have 1, but 1 is enough if we do it right! 

Thanks, everyone for a great semester I enjoyed reading all your blogs! 

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage: For A Better World. SAGAMORE Publishing, (pp. 42). 

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage: For A Better World. SAGAMORE Publishing, (pp. 91). 

Bickis, I. (2023, October 22). EVs are getting easier to find -- but with price tags out of reach for many Canadians. CTVNews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/evs-are-getting-easier-to-find-but-with-price-tags-out-of-reach-for-many-canadians-1.6612044 

Rea, A. W., & Munns, W. R. (2017). The value of nature: Economic, intrinsic, or both? Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 13(5), 953–955. https://doi.org/10.1002/ieam.1924

[i-am-church-the-cat]

Oh there’s a comment on my werewolf!Alex/vampire!George post

Oh that’s nice, I’m glad other people can see it and it’s not just me being weird. Actually, I-

Wait a second.

What’s this?

Oh @twinkodium. Oh poor unsuspecting soul that has somehow stumbled upon my blog. If only you knew the avalanche you have unknowingly brought upon yourself.

For you, twinkodium, and those of you who have only started following my blog recently, hello. I’m Church, a genderfluid autistic person, whose special interest is wolves with a specific emphasis on werewolves in media. And today I’m here to tell you why Alex Albon could totally theoretically be a werewolf.

DISCLAIMER: I know a lot about wolves and werewolves so my knowledge of Alex Albon is minuscule in comparison. I am more than happy to accept criticisms on the "Could Alex Albon be a werewolf?" debate. However, if you wish to disagree with my knowledge of lycanthropy, you will have to fight me with your own bare hands in the Florida Everglades. Hugs and kisses <3

That being said, let's get into it.

First of all, anyone can be a werewolf. That’s kind of the whole thing. You never know who around you could have a different side, a side they can’t control and might be totally different from the side they show you. But, that’s not what this is about, so let’s get into the actual details, shall we?

1. Lycanthropy has often and continuously been used as a metaphor for transformation.

The reason why I and many other transgender or gender non-conforming people relate to the story of becoming a werewolf, is because there is a fundamental motif of change. Your body changes, your mind changes, even how people perceive you changes. And from this change comes an increased level of awareness of yourself and your place in the world.

For example, it is a common trope in werewolf media that being turned into a werewolf heightens your “natural instincts” and the personality traits that you already showed as a human. A lot of feelings or ideas that were not as prominent in your human form suddenly takes a new presentation that is unavoidable and must be acknowledged (similar to how a lot of the times when people transition, they act in different or more pronounced ways because they now “feel more like themselves”).

Now, how does this apply to our dear friend and case study, Alex Albon? Well, I present you with two occasions in Alex’s public life where a large transformation took place:

A) his transition from F2/Toro Rosso to F1/Red Bull. Alex was a standout driver in Formula 2 and in his rookie season, this is of course why he got promoted. However, the shift from a high-performing car (when he started in Red Bull) suddenly brought to light a lot of small intricacies in Alex’s driving, some good and some bad (much like how transforming from one species to a more powerful one brings out a lot of traits that you could hide/did not seem as large before).

B) The second transformation is Alex’s change from Red Bull to Williams. The thing about lycanthropy is that even in “human” form, you still retain a lot of lupine traits. And taking that as a metaphor for Alex’s driving, you can see how Alex’s progression in Red Bull and his adaptation to high performing cars makes him out-drive the current Williams car.

HOWEVER. I don’t actually think Alex’s driving career has as much to do with why he’d be a werewolf as the simple fact that: Alex himself loves the act of transformation. All F1 drivers have some level of appreciation for change to do what they do, but not only does Alex transform himself to specific situations, he also just transforms himself for fun (re: dying his hair on a monthly basis).

Okay now on to criteria number 2:

2. Wolves are intrinsically shaped within a pack structure and need constant connection with their species to prosper. In that same vein, there is often a lone wolf vibe to werewolves in media because they are expelled from both natural human and wolf societies as a stage between the two.

Not only does Alex Albon have a big ass family (I say big but it is of course relative, but wolves do live in family structures made up of 5-9 members) but he has an entire zoo of animals (I am actually not even sure how many but at least in the double digits). This man screams pack structure. And this is not only shown in his actual family life, but also in his interactions with his teammates and friends on the grid. Alex Albon is a social animal and that's what wolves are.

Now, for the "lone wolf" aspect, of course Alex is in a very self-centered sport. But, drawing from my own experiences, being of mixed race can also feel very lonely. You're not 100% one or the other because there are always going to be aspects of yourself that depend on the fact that you're both. Alex Albon is both British and Thai and has said himself that it can be difficult (for example: "when I'm doing well I'm British and when I'm doing poorly I'm not British").

A large part of the overarching lycanthropic story is trying to find connection when you've constantly been isolated. For Alex, I see this most in the change from Red Bull to Williams. Red Bull is a lone wolf structure and Williams is a pack structure and we all know which one Alex has thrived more in.

Moving on to criteria number 3:

3. Werewolves in media have their senses dialed up to 11 and they often emote more and act in certain ways that feel more instinctual.

I don't feel like I have to say much about this. Alex Albon is the king of emoting. It's impossible for him to hide his emotions, when he's annoyed he looks annoyed, when he's happy he looks happy. And often this shows itself in strong ways (the iconic meme of him yelling "George").

HOWEVER! (I've been saying however a lot but still, however) a big big big thing in the overarching werewolf story is control. You have to have control to be palatable, to not outcast yourself or give yourself away. That's why I think even though Alex doesn't blow up like Yuki, or have his emotions literally bursting out of his body like Daniel, he's still a really good representation of how lycanthropy can (hypothetically) make you present your emotions in a very large way.

Bonus Criteria: Looks

I have focused on personality and storyline for the most part of this post and for a reason. However it must be said:

Does this man not look like a werewolf?? I mean, honestly, idk what y'all think a werewolf looks like, but this is it. The wider, flatter nose, the shaggy hair, the eyebrows. Even his chin man, idk how to describe it.

Anyway, this is where I rest my case. If this gets any attention, I might attempt to do a post on why I think vampire!George is totally realistic, but I am much more a werewolf enthusiast than a vampire enthusiast so we'll see. If you got to the end, congratulations, you deserve a cookie.

Werewolf!Alex Albon forever.

[oldguardleatherdog]

let me start by saying, I'm okay to agree to disagree on this, and I respect you greatly as my queer elder. I hesitate to even send this because I don't think this cause is worth dogpiling (and not even the fun way) on anyone against and , like , I will continue to follow and admire you as a mutual who has been through a lot of the hell that I'm going through right now and got to a place I want to someday be. (for context, I am currently housing & food insecure and am trying to live in a queer-accepting city)

Posting will never be praxis, you are my brother in arms no matter what you call trump or cops or whatever. There are some fat liberation blogs that take issue with calling cops "pigs" for a lot of the reasons I bristle at calling Trump a fatass, and like, if someone is actively fighting cops who can and will actively hurt me and my found family, I don't care what names they shout while doing it. So I see where you are coming from and I'm glad you fight for me. I fight for us too, in what little ways I can while I keep me and my found family afloat. I do better work in the community just by existing around people as a living breathing transgender than I could do in a million posts on this website.

I do think that this is a valuable conversation to have, though, even though you are completely right that this is a trivial thing and not at all the bigger, more real issue at hand. I think it's still important, on online platforms such as this, to talk about how we refer to the other people on this planet.

Think about why you didn't call Trump a "retard". You certainly could have, it doesn't *not* apply to some of his behavior. I know people of our generations once used that word a lot, and we don't anymore. Why and when did we change that? I honestly don't remember. For me, my aunt was medically classified as "retarded" and she was the best person I'd ever met, so I decided that word shouldn't mean bad things. The first time I ever hit someone was over them using that word in a derogative way. it wasn't about "mental illness positivity" it was about humanizing the people that word has been used against - people who have been stigmatized and oppressed with that word.

Right now, hopefully, the same thing is happening to the word "obese". Fat people are less likely to be hired, granted loans or secure housing. they can be kicked out of airplanes and fired from their jobs because of their body size. There have been laws proposed to take fat children away from their parents and "treatments" proposed to wire children's jaws shut and starve them to make them thinner. They are often medically mistreated and misdiagnosed. I once went to a doctor with an ear infection and instead of antibiotics, he prescribed me *bariatric surgery.* I have been refused transgender top-surgery because of my BMI, which keeps me at a passively higher risk for self-injury and worse.

I do not care about body positivity. Honestly, between being fat, trans, and poor, I'm at a point where I've given up on ever feeling good about my body again. All I care about is getting jobs and meds and keeping a roof over my family's head and food on our table. Normalizing the idea that fat is a bad thing that anyone can change continues that stigma. When you use Fat as an insult, you are saying fat=bad. Fat is a neutral thing that some bodies can be, like short or tall or lean. The revolution needs to be intersectional, and body size is another axis of oppression that needs to be acknowledged, just like sexuality, gender, race, class, disability, etc.

If you've gotten this far, thank you for hearing me out. I'm sorry that others are just performatively parroting the same things over and over. Civility is bullshit, and if you still want to use body shaming as one of the ways you fight against bigotry, it doesn't really matter to me. Just as long as you acknowledge anti-fat bias as part of that bigotry too.

Thank you for writing and sharing your life experiences with me, and for your solidarity as well. You're striving to make your way as part of a despised minority in a world that's turned unspeakably harsh toward you in an aggressively mean way seemingly overnight, and I admire you for the life you have lived, for your courage and perseverance during this difficult time where resources are scant and your housing and food security is uncertain at best.

(FWIW, after I was bombed out of my Lower Manhattan home on September 11th, my income went from six figures down to nothing overnight, and I was homeless and destitute for years. Twenty years ago, I was where you are now, and I can tell you that what you're enduring today will not last forever, that there is light and hope and blessing in your future, that you're not as alone as you might think, that you must never give up.)

What more can I do to make the point that "fat" has nothing to do with this? As I've said, I grew up obese, and it wasn't until I enlisted in the Army at age 17 that I was able to free myself from my violent and abusive family and unlock the potential of the body that had been hidden under layers of fat and shame all my life. I know that my path is not for everybody, that many others are not so fortunate, and I ceased long ago to think that fat equals bad or lack of character or any other pejorative attitude that society has attached to it for generations. I hope I've made that clear and that you take my word as truth.

I am not saying "let's fat-shame Donald Trump to make him feel bad." I am saying that I'm deeply troubled by the LGBTQ+ community prioritizing hurt feelings over the very real damage that's being done to us right now all over the country by Trump, his minions, his proxies, and his cult of bloodthirsty followers and worshippers. Trump's accomplices in Congress and state legislatures and Moms For Liberty are taking over school boards all over the country, banning books and emptying library shelves and harassing teachers and librarians to the point where they're being run out of town, where the State of Missouri has defunded its entire public library system rather than follow a court order to restore books banned just for featuring LGBTQ+ characters.

DeSantis and Abbott have put in place policies that are unspeakably brutal, that are forcing trans people in Florida to slowly and brutally revert to their pre-transition state, that have given health care providers in Florida the right to deny treatment to you and me and all LGBTQ+ people because we are gay, lesbian, non-binary, trans... but God forbid we should call Trump mean names!

We've seen what happens when we buy into the "when they go low, we go high" fantasy pipe dream. This is not the way the world works, it has never been, and we need to put this loser idea in the trash bin where it belongs once and for all.

We're being attacked and harmed in unspeakable ways that are happening now. This is not theoretical or hypothetical. It's happening to us, to those we love, this minute and every minute of every day. And worse is in the pipeline - they're writing laws that will place us under virtual house arrest, that will regulate where we're allowed to go in our own cities and towns, when we're allowed to be seen in public, when and where we can shop, how we're allowed to dress, even what we're allowed to say and SING, for Christ's sake!

And I'm supposed to be concerned about some minuscule hypothetical percentage of my own people being OFFENDED because I'm somehow being insensitive and violating some trivial picayune social justice warrior philosophy, because there's a possibility of some fragile flower taking it personally, and that I should shut my mouth and let the MAGA nutjobs run roughshod over us? Oh, come let Daddy kiss it! while our brothers and sisters are suffering in real time. Sickening.

Anyone who has a problem with my stance doesn't have to follow me or emulate my proven effective tactics as an activist with 37 years of successfully defending our rights under my belt if they're so dainty and delicate and easily bruised. Everyone else that sees this for the strawman bullshit it is, get ready to hit the streets with bullhorns and whistles once again. We've got work to do.

Your arguments are strong and well-reasoned, and I accept and acknowledge everything you're saying. We can disagree on this, certainly, and still work together to turn back the progress that the MAGAs are making, restore our rights, and protect ourselves and each other. But that will require the snowflake contingent among us to get their collective head out of their collective ass, stop whining, and get with the damn program. Calling me names and telling me I'm being a bad gay activist is a waste of time and energy that should be spent fighting the fascists and the haters who are out to kill us.

And to you, my friend and fellow traveler with a radiantly beautiful soul and spirit, I urge you to hang in there, to keep the faith, to keep caring about life, to work with me to secure our own future and the future of our kind. I send to you my very best wishes, energy, and prayers that you will find your way to a place of health, security, stability, and love for yourself and for this precious community to whom we've both dedicated our lives, who mean the world to us.

Yours In Service, Animal J. Smith

[fever-dreams-at-dawn]

Tbh, as a polyamorous person, I love thinking about how it would be to be in a relationship with the people from shows and stuff. Like the one's in a relationship or I ship together. For example, Kira and Odo. C'mon, need I say more? Think about it. How fun, neat and healthy it would be to be in a polyamorous relationship with those two. You would literally never feel unloved.

Kira would be more bold then Odo, greeting you with a kiss and a 'hi honey!:D' every time she saw you. She would def give good morning cheek kisses and good night mouth kisses (Cause morning breath). Odo, would be more subtle with his love. Gifting you and Kira little things he thinks you two yould like, keep an eye on you both to be sure you're safe. Of course you and Kira absolutely let him know he's loved, and he gets so soft in private with you both. If Kira is overwhelmed with her duty, Odo is down in his insecurity, or whatever is making you upset, no person in that relationship would be left un-comforted.

Odo and Kira are protective of you in their own ways, and those lines meld together at violence. They will not shy away from violence to keep you safe. You and Kira are protective of Odo, You and Odo are protective of Kira, and they are of you. Nobody's getting hurt in this relationship if the other two have anything to say about it. Communication is a key element in you threes relationship, that's why it works out so well. You three would be the dream team, literally. The three of you together? Unstoppable.

You guys want kids? Here are some scenarios. (Also you're going to have to work with me here, because I'm pretty sure Odo doesn't have a weninei (dick) and if he did, that means he'd have to study it in order to replicate it, I think.)

For female or those with a uterus: Odo is going to be upset that he doesn't have the right...parts, or at least, his parts don't work like a humans parts so that they may impregnate you and kira. (Assuming you're of a species akin to Kira, or a species that can mate with other species.) Will you and Kira reassure him? Oh fuck yeah. In more ways then one~ ANYWAYS. Tbh he would probably research a tone of shit to see if their was a slim chance he could knock you and kira up lol. However, it's a good thing you three are perfectly content with adopting!

AFTER ODO BECOMES HUMAN: Odo is happy he can bow provide you and Kira with a larger family. Even if you can't get pregnant by another species, assuming you're an alien that can't crossbreed, Kira will happily have the children (this applies to if you don't want to bear children. They will not hold it against you). I can see maybe three or four kids? Four at the most, two at the least.

For male, or those with a weninei (penis): Now. You may think, 'oh! Odo might be upset that only you can get kira pregnant!' and I'm shutting that down. A baby that's a mixture of the two most important people in his life? SIGN ODO TF UP. Kira is on board with this, 100%. (Again, assuming if you're a species that can procreate with other species.) Once again, if you're not able to reproduce with Kira, adoption is always on the table.

AFTER ODO BECOMES HUMAN: Kira is happy is can now bear both your children, so is Odo. I think it would be a pleasant suprise to see one of the children come out looking like you and Odo, or a mixture of you three. (Eggs can be fertilized by two men and grow up looking like both of them.)

For those with no gender or ✨parts✨: ADOPTION! A D O P T I O N.

AFTER ODO BECOMES HUMAN: CONGRATS! YOU THREE GORGEOUS PEOPLE ARE HAVING KIDS!

Now then, I think Kira would be the type to want children. No matter how, I think she'd wanna be a mom. I don't think Odo would mind not being, or being a dad.

~~~~~~~

I could expand a lot more on these two, but I didn't sleep last night and it's already 2:04. So yeah. Bye!

(LOOK AT THEM😭🥺♥️)

(I WANT THEM)

[drbased]

Time for another major take-down

This is a Big One. I'm going to analyse I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.

Part 1

Let's get into it. Firstly, the note at the start: I hate how it's become commonplace to write something online - a literal public space, accessible to anyone - and then when criticised immediately back-track and call it 'private' and 'a diary entry'. This applies to radfems on tumblr, or anyone tbh. If you want something to remain private, write it privately.

Correlation, meet causation.

Yeah, there's a reason the phrase 'correlation does not equal cause causation' exists. But this is the primary tool of human narrative-making and exactly why it is so easy for trans-identified people to discover past 'evidence' of their gender. Occam's razor is thrown out because the dull reality feels much less significant than the constructed narrative.

Ever the magical thinker, I tell myself that if I wish out loud one thousand times, I will wake up with long hair in cute pajamas with a different name — and maybe freckles.

One might consider it a minor nitpick, but here lies the primary issue: the gender essentialism that people internalise as children is not discarded as sexist nonsense, but instead the sunk-cost fallacy works its magic. Of course, the author might be using some flowery language to merely evoke the image of 'girl' in the reader's mind - but the mere fact that someone in this culture is able to communicate the exact concept of biological sex by referencing sexed roles/expectations shows just how ingrained these beliefs are in our society.

The next part, at eight years old, is especially sad. Causation and correlation definitely have a rocky relationship here. He describes getting on with mostly women. Something as basic as being friends with and admiring the females in his life is seen as 'proof' of his female identity. But of course, you're a transwoman in the closet. How many of these 'women' you like and admire, are actually women? You say you think divorced, tattooed, Catie's mum is cool - what if that person is actually a man? Or if that feels like a cheap argument, do you think that all these women especially like you, above all other 'boys' your age? Do you think they can tell?

When I ask to sleep over at my friends’ houses, I am told I am not allowed. Boys are not allowed. My friend Caitie’s mother argues about this on the phone with my mother. I realize my mother is not on my side.

No sarcasm here - I don't really get this bit. Did you mean to write that girls are not allowed? Because historically, parents are fine with boys having sleepovers together - it's typically cross-sex sleepovers that parents find an issue with, for all sorts of reasons. Not allowing sleepvers with other boys would be a concern of your mum specifically; nothing to do with gender. And speaking of your mum, your takeaway is that she's not on your side? What a strangely powerful conclusion to come to from one minor thing. Parents give their kids all sorts of weird and stupid rules. She might have her own reasons to not let you go to sleepovers - have you, say, asked her?

I love everything my sister loves, but I will not admit it. I know she and her friends will make fun of me. I know my parents will chastise me and correct me. I am learning the rules, and I am learning that boys liking girl things is a very high stakes issue. I am learning that adults react the same way to my interest in makeup as they do to my interest in matches and lighters.

Oh, you're learning the rules, are you? Did you ever want to un-learn them, maybe question them a bit, at least wonder for a second why the rules are that way? I once asked a trans person in DMs if they'd wondered why certain gendered expectations exist, and they responded 'to be honest, I hadn't really thought about it'. Remember, trans people are supposed to know more about gender than cis people. I've known trans people IRL to obsess over the details of their passing with zero questioning of the status quo. The fact that we're supposed to consider this rhetoric to be truly radical is telling.

As if maybe, by being what I am, I might burn down something very important to them. Something that makes their life more comfortable and easy.

The reason that following gender expectations makes life comfortable and easy for 'cis women' is exactly the same as it is for you: because it means that they don't have to feel angry at the world, that they can accept that everything they learned during childhood is natural and healthy and they don't have to hate their parents, peers and other adults for demanding certain things of them, and now as adults they retain certain 'perks' for conforming. You're only fractionally better because you're rejecting one set of expectations in favour of another - but in another way you're a whole lot worse because you're literally a member of the oppressor class wearing the costume of the oppressed class and thinking that makes you privy to their experiences. You're the one with a privilege so important to you that women's freedom and liberation would burn it down.

I am jealous of my sister’s clothing. One day, home alone after school, I sneak into her room and pull on her Tinkerbell Halloween costume. I slip the elastic straps over my shoulders, then the tights along my legs. It fits.

Ah, the classic. The charitable version of me acknowledges that many trans people have been perfectly willing to admit (especially pre 2016) that they're dysphoric over sex and will accept these surface-level associations purely to help them relieve dysphoria. And I understand that. But this man claimed at the start that correlation = causation, here. And you cannot tell me that everyone who has read this will be thinking as deeply as I am - many people are fully happy to admit that this has nothing to do with sex and entirely to do with gender i.e. gendered roles and expectations. To many people, that Tinkerbell costume is synonymous with 'female'. It makes you wonder why we decided to say that vaginas are female sex organs at all, if gender can be summed up with long hair and cute pyjamas.

[rottenbrainstuff]

IWTV s2 ep4 - a lot of thoughts before the plot comes sweeping in

(I am delighted to report that my daughter watching the show finished the end of season 2 and was extremely emotionally compromised by it, and I can now send her all the Rockstar Lestat and devil’s minion memes I've been saving up.)

This is the obligatory plotty setup before the really cool shit hits the fan (ep 5 withYoung Daniel which I have been itching to watch for weeks and weeks) but this is still a good ep, it's all good eps, this show is so good.

Did I ever talk about how cool I think the vampire plays are? Like, unironically, I think the way they use animation and projection is really fucking cool. I want to research and see if this was based on anything that was actually a thing in avant garde theatre. If it was, that's really neat and I'm a bit grumpy that we didn't look at it in the film/animation class I took, and if it wasn't, then wow that's a really cool and smart thing they made up for this show? I know Claudia is not having a good time, but I love her play, it's so fucked up and weird.

Madeline. Ok you assholes. Before I watched the show, I'd seen a little bit of discourse about her in the tags, and the way you guys were talking, I thought she was going to be a nazi sympathizer that was helping out the nazis while they were in Paris or something, honest to god. Imagine my surprise to learn that the whole deal is, she slept with one single german soldier one single time. And it appears that's it, that's all. (if there's more later on, I take back this entire paragraph and apologize) THIS is where the discourse comes from? You know what, I don't like you guys. I don't like you as a person. I don't like how you boil the complicated issues that happen in life down to binary "good/bad" categories. You seem to understand that gender and sexuality can be a spectrum but you don't seem to be able to apply that understanding to a single other thing. (why is that?) Life and people are complicated and messy and if you require everything to be categorized into good and bad because you can't deal with that uncomfortable unclear area in between, let me give you this warning right the fuck now, kiddo: you are going to be deeply, deeply unhappy older adults, either lying to yourself constantly in order to fit your worldview into your narrow binary, or else wondering why, after cutting out everything "bad", you have nothing and no one left. Also, I think this story in general is not for you (and I don't want it to be either). This is a story where all the bad people are compelling and all the protagonists do awful things and everything is complicated and sad and a thorough exploration of the borders of humanity, and crossing that border. If you want something with clear and comfortable morality, go watch cartoons (although it seems people even have a hard time with that these days) and leave this beautiful story and its complex characters alone.

Anyways I love Madeline, I love how the war and her life experiences have made her blunt and unflinching, how her and Claudia flirt by insulting each other, it's so weirdly charming and honest. If you haven't read the book or seen the old movie, Madeline is a very different character, really barely a character at all. Instead of a kindred spirit / lover, Madeline connects with Claudia because she has lost a daughter and thinks she can replace that with Claudia, and Claudia recognizes (being five fucking years old in the books) that she needs someone to help her out, if Louis is going to leave her for Armand, and this woman will probably always be loyal to her and never leave her behind. It's definitely an interesting idea, this vampire mom and daughter, and the mom is actually the fledgling and the daughter is actually the older one, and it's kind of sad as well, Claudia seeking out a mother figure she has been missing... but Madeline is not an interesting character, barely a footnote, and I actually remember very little about her at all. So this is great and I love her a lot.

This show is doing such a good job of taking things from the books and changing them, reinterpreting them, and updating them. I continue to really dislike Bruce and Antoinette. Compared to the other characters, they feel so, so flat and pointless. I wish they had taken this first draft story and pretended that this was the book, and they looked at these two characters and thought ok what spin can we put on it to make it more interesting?

So, Armand is a terrible character, dangerous and manipulative, but damn he's so sad too, they all are. He's so.... pathetic. He's very old and very powerful and very good at what he does, sure, but he's also this hauntingly sad lonely boy who has never had anyone want him for anything besides his body, he loves so intensely and obsessively and can't understand why no one loves him back the same way. He's so strong and powerful, can control people so easily, and he takes Louis to this museum to show him this painting and he flays himself wide open to show to Louis, pleading for him to understand, so vulnerable and simple. This 500 year old eldritch horror that's just... this is my sad backstory, please love me? Armand was always my favourite character from the books, and this show does SUCH a good job with him, and Assad is absolutely amazing, absolutely perfect.

So this is the ep where Lestat eats the photo. So. I had seen clips of this, a lot. It was one of the things that made me go "what the fuck is even happening in this show, I need to watch this". Even so, I was unprepared for the context of how the clip exists in the ep, which is.... there IS no context. There's... just... I... I dunno, I thought it would... I thought... there would be something happening, I thought there would be some explanation, but like lmao... Louis... he doesn't even REACT, it's just...

You know, you're having a conversation with the comfort hallucination of your ex soulmate, as one does, and you know, you're talking about your photographs, and you know, he just, eats one. He eats it. Munches right on it. Louis doesn't even SAY anything or acknowledge this is happening! Yeah he's eating a photo, he just does that sometimes. No biggie. Lmao. Somehow that makes it even funnier????? Aw man. Laughed so hard.

It's interesting how important this comfort hallucination has become to Louis, it really is like a companion, so much so that he feels he has to formally break up with it. (the physical effect of the dissolving in the rain... dunno if that quite worked for me, but I liked the idea behind the scene and as always they succeeded in cutting my heart out) Makes me sad. Poor lonely Louis. Poor lonely everyone.

I know that Santiago is only being nice to Claudia to trick her into revealing more information, but man. I want to imagine an alternate universe where circumstances are different and they end up being wicked snarky besties. There's just something about their interactions that I love, some kind of camaraderie, some kind of common wavelength. If Santiago wasn't jealous and trying to plot Louis' downfall, I feel like he and Claudia could have got on. Dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. I do love Santiago though, like I love all the characters. I love how he's visibly the oldest but apparently the youngest in vampire terms, (an interesting flip of Claudia's situation?) I love the fucked-up situation with his sire dead / in torpor and the corpse / ashes / whatever kept in the basement, I love how we don't get it explicitly explained how he feels about this, obviously he feels a great big pile of SOMETHING about it but we are left to decide what exaclty that is, I love his nasty bitter jealousy towards Louis for taking Armand's attention and Claudia for taking the audience's attention. Chef's kiss, just like everything in this show.

Anyways. Perfection as always, and now I have ep 5 to watch, yay!

[aronarchy]

https://immaturity.carrd.co

Immaturity as an identity

MATURE

1. (LIKE AN ADULT)

Mature people behave like adults in a way that shows they are well developed emotionally:

He’s very mature for his age.

A mature decision is one that is made after a lot of careful thought:

Upon mature reflection, we find the accused guilty.

2. (PHYSICALLY GROWN)

completely grown physically:

a mature adult

sexually mature

Mature male gorillas have silver-grey hairs on their backs.

mature oak trees

IMMATURE

1. (disapproving)

not behaving in a way that is as calm and wise as people expect from someone of your age:

Stop being so silly and immature, Chris!

She’s rather immature for her age, don’t you think?

not having much experience of something:

politically immature

2. (BIOLOGY • specialized)

not yet completely grown or developed:

While the animals are still immature, they do not breed.

Cambridge Dictionary

What’s wrong with maturity as a concept?

Maturity has a clear biological meaning—completed growth, an advanced stage of physical development. This meaning is often put as secondary in dictionaries, and the primary one is not so clear. Maturity encompasses a set of stereotypes, applied to adults: calm and evenly paced speech, beliefs and ethics that are seen as reasonable and wise by the society, rational and cautious acts.

Young people are believed to be lacking these traits because of their biology. Together with them, women, oppressed ethnic minorities, queer people, trans and gender-non-conforming people are frequently accused of acting immaturely. When a national supremacist or a cis straight queerphobe is promoting bigotry, they are often calm, because they have their majority status and their privilege to protect them. Targeted minorities that respond to them in an emotional, impulsive manner do not have that privilege: it is their lives that this conversation is about, and this bigotry puts them in direct danger.

Often how calm and rational you are in the conversation depends directly on how safe and in control you feel. Maturity becomes a measure of your life stability—or your success at faking this stability, and this is why both children who are used to more freedom and respect from adults and children who suffer abuse and learn to mask their stress are called “mature for their age.”

Immaturity in any meaning that is not biological and physical is a tool of dehumanization. When people want to strip anyone of their rights and agency, they compare this person to a child, because this is how our society treats children.

Why reclaim immaturity?

I want to reclaim “immature” as a political identity, akin to “queer,” “freak,” [or] “bitch.” First of all, I do not believe that my age should put me on the opposite side of the barricade, against the youth—I do not see myself as fit to govern another human being just because they are young and I am older, and I want to undermine the supremacy of other adults. Second, I do not think I owe the people who oppress me (cis straight homophobes, transphobes, ethnically prejudiced members of the local national majority) a calm and respectful debate about whether I should have human rights. Both these positions make me unwise, not in line with what the establishment wants from me.

There may be other reasons to reclaim immaturity. The youth, who are called immature derogatorily and “mature for their age” as a compliment, would benefit from solidarity with their peers, instead of throwing them under the bus for adults’ approval. Social expectations, imposed on adults, are often emotionally suffocating as well. If you ever had to defend why you, as an adult, do something considered “childish,” you can consider embracing it instead.

What to say instead of ”mature” and “immature”?

There are plenty of much more neutral words that convey the same sentiment, when you want to give someone a compliment or a piece of criticism. Consider:

✓ Rational, reasonable, knowledgeable, good at getting the point across, experienced, capable, mindful.

✓ Ignorant, aggressive, irresponsible, clueless, insensible, tactless, entitled, unfit, unprepared.

Immaturity is nonconformity and rebellion.