#I think there may have been a lesbian flag somewhere on it but they were being shipped

[maddiefriendlovesbilly]

Me making a new Katrina design? More likely than you think!

I’ve also decided that Katrina has a fake eye and nobody can stop me <3

She had a bunch of colors but the one she was wearing when she died was purple!

Close ups below the cut!

#vt katrina #vt aimee #vt amie #venturiantale #venturiantale pie #this is barely related but every time I draw Katrina I think of a drawing I saw on tumblr of Amie and Katrina #I think there may have been a lesbian flag somewhere on it but they were being shipped #and before that I hadn’t even considered the ship but as soon as I saw it I was like ‘op...your brain.. humongous’ #that one piece of art inspires me daily and I wish I remembered who made it #oh! they were wearing modern clothes too!! #it was super cute #jess draws

[marvelsdc22]

Pride At Camp Half-Blood

Intro: Hello, lovelies!! I hope you guys are having a good day/night!! Here’s another pride fic!! Just two more to go!! Hope you enjoy! :)

Note: Y/N and Annabeth try to go to pride, but monsters ruin everything, what happens when you mix pride with a bunch of demigods?

Word Count: 938

Oh shit I hope I have time and a space left for the pride requests, work has been keeping me busy. So may I request an Annabeth Chase with lesbian reader where they plan a pride at camp half blood because maybe they tried to go somewhere but got caught up with monsters. And they even create mini floats using the chariots :D and Annabeth gets to use her architect skills :3 oh oh oh and yn and annabeth wearing couple shirts ;_;  please and very thank you :D - @xxxtwilightaxelxxx​

You and Annabeth had been official since a few months after Percy introduced you two, you being his older half sister, you had been hanging out with Percy to help him get ready to move to his dorms and he had invited Annabeth there, as soon as you both met, you knew there was something between you and not just the fact you were both demigods, that had happened a little over a year ago, now the two of you were trying to go to the pride fest that New York held every year, both of you were excited to go.

Sadly, being a demigod meant monsters and monsters usually ended up having no fun, of course there were monsters at pride, why wouldn’t there be? “Do you think monsters have pride?” You asked as you and Annabeth headed up the hill towards camp, Annabeth staring at you for a solid minute before she laughed “You really are like your brother” she chuckled, shaking her head while you raised an eyebrow and cocked your head slightly to the side which she found adorable “What’s that supposed to mean? Annabeth!” You called when she ignored your question as she took off up the hill, laughing as she did.

When you guys got to camp, you noticed there were quite a few more campers around than usual “Must be some new people” you commented, looking at her when she nodded before you sighed “It just sucks that we couldn’t go to pride… I know you would’ve enjoyed it” you told her, her having never gone due to her busy schedule, especially with this past year being her first year of college “Who says we can’t go?” Annabeth asked, causing you to furrow your brows “We can make one here” she said, gesturing to camp and you stared at the camp, the hill giving you the perfect vantage point to see a good portion of it “Lets go ask Chiron!” You grinned, taking her hand and running with her to the Big House.

Once permission was granted, you and Annabeth recruited a few others to help your cause “Why are we doing this?” Nico asked, having only really come along because Will had dragged him over “Because, we can’t go to pride with monsters lurking about, so we can bring it to us!” You said excitedly, looking at Percy when he smiled at you “I’m in” he said, taking a seat in front of you as you wrote stuff down in a notebook “Me too!” Piper said, sitting down as well and shortly after that, you had a whole group of your friends and campers to help you organize this, this was going to be the best one yet!

It took you guys two days to get everything set up, but once you stepped out of yours and Percy’s cabin the day of the pride, you couldn’t help but smile as you saw all the pride flags hanging where the camp half-blood ones usually were, little kiosks that each cabin made up, filled with games and toys, even Mr. D seemed to be getting into it as he seemed to stay still in a chair long enough for a daughter of Aphrodite to paint a rainbow on his face “We did good” you heard Percy say when he came up to you, resting a hand on your shoulder “Now, lets go get breakfast and get started, huh?” He suggested before leading you to the dining pavilion.

After breakfast, you resituated your shirt, making sure it was wrinkle free, it being a couple shirt that you shared with Annabeth, yours saying Every Short Girl Needs A Tall Girlfriend with rainbow lines under every other word while Annabeths said Every Tall Girl Needs A Short Girlfriend with the same design, looking up you saw Annabeth with her blonde curls pulled back into a loose ponytail as she made her way over to you “Hey” she said, smiling at you as she kissed your cheek “Hey to you, this all looks amazing!” You grinned, taking her hand in yours, feeling her give your hand a soft squeeze “It does, you want to see the floats I made? Well, I had help, but I came up with them” she said, looking at you and blushing some “Lead the way, m’lady” you said, smiling as she led you towards the floats.

When you got there, you saw each cabin had their own float, the first handful were of each pride flag, while the others were covered in rainbows and pride words “Annabeth! This is amazing!” You grinned, staring at the floats in awe before you looked at her “You’re amazing” you said, giving her a soft smile which she returned with the hint of a blush on her face “Best. Pride. Ever” you said, smiling at her before you leaned up and pecked her lips gently “You took the words right out of my mouth” she smiled, resting her forehead on yours before you guys jumped when Leo interrupted “Uh, you guys may wanna get out here, there may be a tiny fire at the gazebo, that was totally not my fault!” He said before rushing away, the two of you sighing before you looked at each other once more “Lets go play hero” she said, giving your hand a squeeze before she led you out of the arena where the floats had been stored, the first annual pride fest at Camp Half-Blood going off without a hitch, minus Leo’s fires of course, but everyone could agree… This was the best pride anyone could ask for.

Permanent Taglist: @rianncreates / @natasha-danvers / @hopingforbarnes / @xxxtwilightaxelxxx / @mckennamayfairgoode / @mmmmokdok​

PJO Taglist: @imagine-lcorp​

End Note: I hope you all enjoyed!! The next pride fic will be coming in a few days!! If you’d like to be added to a Taglist, shoot me a DM or an Ask!! Have a good day/night!! :)

Requests Open

Pride Requests Closed

#annabeth chase x reader #annabeth chase x fem!reader #annabeth chase x lesbian!reader #annabeth chase x jackson!reader #annabeth x reader #annabeth chase imagine #percy jackson and the olympians x reader #percy jackson and the olympians #pride 2021

[eggy-tea]

Story time:

The thing about growing up in the 80s and 90s in a small, conservative place is that for the longest time I literally didn’t know there were options outside of straight or gay.

Like a lot of people my age, I heard the words “gay” and “lesbian” as slurs and playground insults long before I knew what they actually meant. That there were real people who actually identified that way.

It wasn’t until I went to university that I met my first out gay person. Of course there were people in my junior high, my high school, who were obviously not straight, but you didn’t dare admit it. Hell, the majority of my high school friend group has since come to identify as some flavour of queer, but at the time we were all of us “straight.”

I was female, attracted to guys, and it was easy enough to leave it at that. I’d already realized pretty early in life that I was a weirdo and I was fine with that, so anything I ever felt that didn’t mesh with “straight woman” I just sort of chalked up to me once again not quite fitting in. After all, I liked men. I found them attractive. I wanted to kiss them. So what if I sometimes felt the impulse to kiss some of my female friends? It was fleeting, and I clearly wasn’t gay; I literally didn’t know enough to think to question it beyond that.

(Was there also repression going on? Hell yes, of course there was. It was a conservative place 25+ years ago. Everyone was repressed.)

I met my husband at 23 and got married at 25. I have no regrets on that front. He makes me happy and I love him a lot. There are very few people in this world it doesn’t exhaust me to be around, and he’s first among them.

The thing is, it means I never really explored. When you’re happy in a committed, monogamous, heterosexual relationship, there are far more disincentives than incentives to questioning whether you might fit into other categories as well.

But the world has changed since I was a kid. Western society is a lot more open about a lot of things than it used to be. The internet has made it so much easier to compare my experiences to those of millions of other people.

When you’re growing up in a small place and you don’t quite fit in, you kind of internalize that it’s because there’s something uniquely off about you. It doesn’t occur that you might just be the victim of an insufficient sample size.

It’s thanks to the shared stories of strangers on the internet that I can say that I fall somewhere toward the ace end of the spectrum, instead of just being hopelessly confused and frustrated by my inconsistent and frequently lacking sex drive, despite the fact that romantic attraction’s never been an issue. Learning about the diversity of experience among bi/pan folks has given me the confidence to look at my own reactions again and realize that I was never really straight. And while I guess I still identify as a woman, gender has never sat easy with me, so that one’s on thin fucking ice.

But the fact remains that I’m still fairly early on in my journey of self-discovery, and I may never get the chance to conclusively test some of these theories. Like I said, I love my husband. He makes me happy. I don’t think either of us are built for polyamory, and it’s worth letting other possibilities lie if it means I get to be with him. So I don’t yet feel comfortable declaring I’m bi. I don’t even think I understand the nuances of pan well enough to claim it as my identity. (Fantastic flag, though.)

But queer?

Yeah. I think I’ve always been queer. And even if I do ultimately decide another label feels right, I will always be queer. Because growing up, I didn’t quite fit in the way I was “supposed” to, and as an adult that’s still true. And that much, at least, has always felt right to me.

#to be clear: of course i’ve had occasional angst about the fact that i apparently wasn’t able to be ‘normal’ #but i don’t remember feeling like i was *meant* to be more normal than i was. if that makes sense #i just remember feeling annoyed and frustrated that not being normal seemed to make life harder than it had to be for no good reason #personal #long post #why share this? stories from other people have been helpful to me #maybe reading this will help someone else #why now? because i haven’t been able to do words meaningfully in quite awhile but these ones wanted to come out

[darthkvznblogs]

Saw the new chapter, nice! BTW, how would the various characters celebrate Pride Month?

Apologies, I've been busy with last chapter's reviews!

Wowza, that's a huge ask - I've made a conscious effort to normalize LGBTQIA+ identities in my stories, so there's a lot of ground to cover here! There's also a minor issue in that most of the current stories are set in 2012, which is quite a different landscape in regards to the acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community compared to nowadays.

With that in mind, I'll try to go for the "ideal" celebration (and I'll throw in the characters' gender identities and sexual preferences, since I've already got those in my ongoing character database). Obviously, this only applies to the characters as portrayed in the Kryptonverse!

(This is a long one, so I'll add a "read more" thingy for the sake of those who aren't interested.)

- I think Luz would take Pride Month as an opportunity to more overtly explore her gender noncomformity; much like was showcased in the Grom episode, she might try on different outfit combinations, different pronouns - whatever makes her feel closer to her ideal self. I think her stint in the Boiling Isles would only make it that much clearer how truly silly it is for other people to try and dictate what she should look or behave like. Luz currently identifies as a bisexual, cisgender woman, but she has found comfort in identifying as nonbinary in the past, and there's really no telling how she might feel in the future.

- Kryptonian society had a great many issues, but a resistance towards gender variance and non-heterosexual preferences wasn't one of them - as long as you followed the strict life path set up for you by the Empire, of course. Kara is still confused about the human attitudes towards this subject, and angry that they affected Alex and Lena negatively in their youth. I think she'd celebrate Pride Month by pushing the Avengers to champion causes that protect the LGBTQIA+ community - not that they need much convincing. Think parades, lobbying for legislation, impassioned speeches, and million-dollar donations to worthy charities - whatever it takes to make sure people know where their heroes stand on this issue. Kara is a pansexual cisgender woman, Alex and Lena are lesbian cisgender women, Tony is a pansexual cisgender man, Steve is a (closeted) bisexual cisgender man, Natasha is an aromantic, bisexual, cisgender woman, Clint is a biromantic, heterosexual, cisgender man, and Rhodey and Bruce are both heterosexual, cisgender men (the Hulk himself is pansexual though).

- Not that Ben was against it before, of course, but I think gaining the ability to swap bodies (and genders, depending on the transformation) at will would give him a much greater appreciation for people who suffer from dysmorphia or otherwise don't gel with the body they were born with. I think he'd champion trans causes specifically during Pride Month - much to the anger of his parents, both conservative politicians. Ben is a bisexual, cisgender man, Julie is a bisexual, cisgender woman, Kevin is a heterosexual, cisgender man, and Gwen is a (currently questioning) bisexual, cisgender woman.

- It's kind of a spoiler to talk at length about Chloé's relationship with her own preferences. Suffice it to say, she would be very much opposed to Pride celebrations initially, but may or may not radically change her attitude as her journey goes on. Chloé is a lesbian, cisgender woman. Adrien is a bisexual, cisgender man (with GNC tendencies as he grows up), and Marinette is a bisexual, cisgender woman.

- Nico obviously didn't grow up in an environment conducive to the acceptance of his being gay. I think there's still a lot of internal self-loathing there, even as his boyfriend and his friends have greatly helped to coax him away from it, and that might manifest as his reluctance to participate in Pride celebrations. I think once he's convinced to attend a Pride parade once, though, it would make a world of difference going forward! Nico is a gay, cisgender man.

- Ellie has never given much thought to her own identity or preferences. She's felt attracted to all kinds of people, but never enough to want to act on it. It's possible that she's aro/ace, or somewhere on that spectrum, but even that feels like an ill-fitting piece of clothing. She is fiercely protective of Danny, though; poking fun or attacking him for being trans is a surefire way to make her go all out against you. She'll happily celebrate Pride with Danny and friends, too. Ellie doesn't currently subscribe to any romantic or sexual preference, but does identify as a cisgender woman. Valerie is a bisexual, cisgender woman. Danny is a heterosexual, transgender man.

- Pidge used to comfortably identify as a straight, cis woman, but her stint as Pidge Gunderson and the subsequent massive expansion of her knowledge of gender identities and sexual preferences due to her travels as a Paladin of Voltron have let her more solidly (ironically) identify as genderfluid and pansexual. She'd have a blast teaching Allura and Coran all about Earth Pride celebrations, and I'm sure she's eager to teach the people of Earth just how little they know about what's out there. Pidge is a genderfluid, pansexual individual (identified as female during Close Encounters, but don't let that fool you!).

- Saiyans have a weird relationship with gender and sexual preference. The average Saiyan is mostly free to do and be whatever the f*ck they want in this regard, but there is definitely a culture of male superiority, and a stigma towards trans Saiyan men, specifically - it's seen by traditionalists as "women trying to rise above their station", much in the same way as marrying between Saiyan classes is scorned. Caulifla and Kale don't have that kind of baggage, though, growing up on Xandar - their dithering about being with each other is just your classic awkward teenage romance, nothing to do with their both being women. Caulifla and Kale both identify as lesbian, cisgender women.

- Dipper may be a straight man, but he's the best damned ally you could hope for - fiercely protective of his pansexual twin and bisexual girlfriend. He's got every opposing argument memorized, and a counterargument ready to go - you do not want to debate him, and he will track your ass down if he catches you trolling/hating online. Mabel becomes even more of a living vortex of glitter and gloss during Pride - sweeping away the more muted Tulip, who'll happily settle for a little bisexual flag pin or sticker on her computer. Hard not to find Mabel's enthusiasm infectious, though! Dipper is a heterosexual, cisgender man, Mabel is a pansexual, cisgender woman, and Tulip is a bisexual, cisgender woman.

That was a lot! I hope it was an enjoyable read, though! @the-literary-lord

#ask box #kryptonverse #supergirl #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #danny phantom #trans danny #the owl house #miraculous ladybug #dragon ball super #gravity falls #infinity train #percy jackson #pjo series #voltron #vld #ben 10 #happy pride 🌈

[maxdark158]

Daminette Soulmate AU

Okay so when I talked about this with @chloe-bourgeois-is-big-gay @mindfulmagics and @2sunchild2 yesterday we went through a scenario where Marinette went to Gotham so I thought WELL WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER WAY AROUND which was mostly inspired by @let-me-perish ‘s Alternate Beginnings au

I am NOT writing more of this, but anyone else is open to continuing it for me in whatever way they want! Make it a collab!

@realrandomposts @ozmav

Enjoy

oooOOOooo

Soulmates are a thing in this world! Damian isn’t sure why that has to be a stated fact, but they are real. The majority of people have soulmates and that is as much of a fact as is the fact that he doesn’t have one.

Well, Grayson says not to lose hope but Damian doesn’t think he’s missing out on anything anyway. He doesn’t care that he doesn’t have some random stranger’s name on his body Grayson does, and he couldn’t understand it until he met the Tamaranean himself, he is not colorblind Todd is, but he hates it writing on his skin bears no results Drake is always writing on his skin, he and his soulmate good friends despite never meeting, he has no marks that will light up when he and a soulmate would first touch Father’s was on his chest somewhere and it lit up before Damian knew of him, he sometimes wonders who else shares it and he doesn’t feel any pain belonging to another person he and his father had been battling Poison Ivy when her soulbond was revealed by a bloody nose neither of them gave her, though he noticed how her and Harley’s injuries always matched the other after that.

Given that the only other soulbond is incredibly rare, Damian feels safe to assume that he simply does not have one. After all, hearing the thoughts of his soulmate would be a headache – both literally and metaphorically.

oooOOOooo

His class was on a trip to France. Paris, France to be more specific. A plagued with supervillains, much like Gotham. Of course, the mayor made sure to remind everyone that the villains were harmless – he likely didn’t want tourists to stop going.

Which is what, Damian realized, he and his classmates were. Tourists.

Well, sort of. They were actually part of an exchange program that all students who spoke French got to participate in. For one month, they would go to the highest-ranking high school in the area – the same one the Mayor’s daughter went to. Then they’d return to Gotham and write essays in French, and depending on the score they could opt out of finals for any other language classes they took.

Damian didn’t really care for the skipping finals part, and was originally planning to sit it out the trip. But Father insisted he go. Something about living life. And monitoring the situation in Paris to see if it needed any intervention. But living life too. For a month.

They had recently landed in the city of love ugh, gross and he and his classmates were at the hotel now. It was the mayor’s hotel, a lavish one at that. Well, appearing to be lavish, but Damian knew enough to know what was a good knock off and what was real when it came to expensive things. He’s a Wayne after all.

“We get our own rooms?” His classmate Charlette “Scar” Gamble sounded surprised. Damian was too. Their trip may only have fourteen students but even he expected to share rooms.

“Well we have three young men and eleven young women on this trip, and we wouldn’t be able to evenly have roommates, so single-use rooms were the best option.”

Damian saw Scar’s shoulders relax. He was glad their school was open to her situation and didn’t make her share with one of the boys. They weren’t friends exactly, but he didn’t hate her company.

Suddenly, a white-hot and burning pain hit him. He grabbed his head, lips pressed tightly together so he didn’t scream. All he could hear was ringing, high pitched like when someone dropped a microphone on full volume. His vision was spotty.

Oh kwami, that hurt. Ugh. I need to focus on this akuma!

What the hell was going on? Why was there a voice in his head? And why was it French?

Focus on the akuma! It’s probably doing this to you, it’ll go away as soon as you’re done, then you can finish your homewor-

Whatever just happened, it fizzled out. Damian blinked, the pain was gone just as quickly as it had arrived.

“Damian?” He looked up to see Scar holding him by the shoulders. “You okay?”

It struck him suddenly when his frie- acquaintance was shaking him down for an answer. The girl he heard in his head – those were thoughts.

He was part of the 3% that had a thought sharing soulmate.

oooOOOooo

“So are you going to lie to me like you lied to Miss Olivander?” Scar and Damian were sitting in the lobby, away from the mess of excited classmates that had taken over their section of rooms.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Damian replied, trying not to sound too stiff. He was on google, searching for everything he could about thought sharing soulmates. Apparently, there was always a distance limit, usually around 20 feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scar roll hers. “You’re my friend Damian. You can tell me! Though if you want me to butt out, say the word and I will.”

Damian turned to her. “Friend? I didn’t know we were friends.”

He panicked for a moment, worried he upset Scar but she just scoffed. “You’re the first person I told that I was a girl and you think we aren’t friends?”

“I thought it was just because I can keep secrets,” Damian grumbled back. So he’s a little socially inept, sue him!

“We eat lunch together often.”

“I thought it was because the asshats wouldn’t mess with you when you sat with me!”

“You helped me dye my hair and found hair dye that matched the trans and lesbian flag.”

Damian paused. “Okay so I probably should have connected the dots.”

“Yeah,” Scar was grinning. “You should have.”

Damian rolled his eyes.

“That doesn’t answer my question though,” Scar poked him in the shoulder. “What happened to you? Everyone was super freaked out.”

He pursed his lips. “My soulmate connection formed.”

Scar’s mouth dropped open. “Really? You have a thought share connection? I thought you didn’t have a soulmate!”

“I thought so too,” he replied dryly. “But it appears I was wrong.”

“Your soulmate is in Paris,” Scar giggled. “Literally the city of love!”

Damian made a face at that, and Scarlett laughed more.

oooOOOooo

Damian didn’t tell his father about his soulmate connection, resolving to figure it out on his own or leaving it alone. He didn’t want to have attachments like a soulmate connection to weighing him down, the thought scared him. But he couldn’t deny his curiosity.

If he heard her thoughts again, Damian would investigate.

Unfortunately, his fri- acqu- friend Scar declared that she wanted him to be happy and she would help him search for his mystery soulmate.

Damian was just glad she didn’t declare that in front of his other classmates.

Today they were heading to Lycee Francois Dupont. Seven of them would join one class, and seven of them would join the other. He and Scar both got Mlle Bustier.

When they arrived, Damian noticed that an Italian girl was outside the in the courtyard surrounded by her peers. She seemed to be crying about something, but Damian didn’t really care.

They went to the class early, the teacher settling them into their seats. There were a lot more than a typical French room, she explained, to accommodate all of them.

Damian was caring less and less as time went on.

Soon other students, this time ones who went to the school full-time, began to trickle in. A girl with curly red hair was showing a boy with a red baseball cap a video on her phone. A small blonde girl and a tall dark-haired girl were talking quietly to a large boy and another small blonde girl. And the Italian girl from earlier was approaching them-

Wait why was she approaching them?

“Hello,” her voice sounded sickly sweet, and Damian pursed his lips, “I was wondering if any of you could tell me about my Damiboo? He leaves so much out of his letters to me and I know you go to school with him!”

He blinked. He opened his mouth to say something. Scar beat him to it.

“What do you mean, Damiboo?” She asked.

“Oh, did he not tell you?” she put a hand to her mouth in surprise. “My name is Lila Rossi. Damian Wayne is my soulmate! His name is along my spine and mine on his thigh.”

Scarlett narrowed her eyes. “Bull.”

Rossi blinked. “Wh-what?”

“Bull,” Damian repeated. “Don’t you know? Damian Wayne doesn’t have a soulmate. He’s said so in many interviews.”

The girl did a dramatic sigh. “He must be lying to protect my identity! I can understand, but it still hurts.” She looked at them, the fakest of fake tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry for bothering you. I just wanted to know how my darling is doing.”

“You should be sorry,” Scar bit out.

The girl seemed shocked that her tearful act didn’t work. Before she could attempt to further guilt trip them, Mlle Bustier asked them all to go to their seats for roll call.

“She’s a liar,” Scar hissed once Rossi was out of earshot.

“No kidding,” Damian grumbled. “She attempted to lie about me but didn’t even recognize me?”

“Stupid, truly, she is,” Scar snickered.

“It appears Marinette is late again,” Mlle. Bustier sighed.

The French class seemed to mumble among themselves. The things they said were all derogatory and rude. Damian wondered why an entire class was ganged up on a single student.

It was then that Damian felt... Something. It was like a warmness in his head without any physical heat. It was… odd, to say the least. But at least there was no pain this time.

-late I’m late I’m so late! Ugh, I should have just not done some homework and slept more, I’m so-

Late?

Yeah! Wait who are you?

I could ask you the same question, person in my head

YOU’RE in MY head tho- wait are you my soulmate?

It would appear so. You’re still late.

AAAAAAH I’M LATE

Damian winced at the yelling, which made Scar turn to him. She saw him rubbing his temple, the slight squint, and grinned.

“Is it your soulmate?” she whispered.

Suddenly the door burst open, a girl with blue pigtails and bluer eyes having run through it, though she didn’t seem out of breath.

“Sorry I’m late Mlle!” She exclaimed.

She’s going to hate me if she already doesn’t like the rest of them hate me.

Why do they hate you?

Not important. How are you still within six meters of me?

20 feet

Shut up American- wait you’re American

“Marinette,” Mlle Bustier sighed. “In case you haven’t paid attention in my class,” giggled erupted from the French students.

As usual, they all hate me

I’m not laughing

Wait you’re seeing this? Ugh that’s worse

“In case you haven’t paid attention in my class,” Mlle Bustier repeated herself. “Students from Gotham Academy are spending a month at this school as an exchange program. Please take your seat.”

So I guess you’re one of the Gotham students?

Yes. I assume you’re the late girl, Marinette?

Gee, how’d you figure that out. But seriously I can tell you’re a guy from your voice and they’re only two guys in here that are American-

“Is your soulmate the cutie with pigtails?” Scar asked. “Because if not, dibs.”

Wait no you can’t call dibs on my soulmate

Who’s calling dibs on me?

Nothing. Stop listening.

No, you.

“You can’t,” he mumbled, and Scar lit up.

“I am going to be the best wing woman on this planet and possibly other ones too!” Scar said just a bit too loudly.

Wait no too loud Scarlett!

So I’m guessing that’s you then?

He looked at Marinette, who met his eyes. She smirked.

Found you.

#daminette #marinette x damian #damian wayne #damian wayne au #Marinette #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #miraclous ladybug #batman #batman fic #maribat #damimari #maridami #soulmate #soulmate au #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #anti-lila #lila rossi #anti lila rossi #OC #transgender character #lesbian character #trans lesbian #Scar Gamble

[palimpsessed]

The Welsh Red Dragon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Social Activism

The inspiration behind Shepard’s pins

(original post with full artwork here.)

So, I spent A LOT of time thinking about the kind of pins our good friend Shepard (from Omaha, NE) would have on his denim jacket. Like a lot. Like an obsessive amount of time. I made a list, which seemed appropriate for this fandom. And because I’m a nerd and this sort of thing really interests me, and I’m proud of what I came up with, and because I think some of these items open up the possibility for some good, good literary analysis, I decided to make a whole post dedicated to Shepard’s pins. You’re welcome.

First, a little bit about my thought process. How did I decide what kind of pins to give Shepard? Well, he’s a guy full of stories. Stories that he can’t wait to tell anyone and everyone. And stories that others (mostly Maybes) have told him, once he’s earned their confidence. So, I wanted his pins to tell a story, his story in particular. What is the story that Shepard wants to tell about himself? More precisely, what is the story he wants to tell his new magickal friends on a disastrous summer holiday? The story is that of his own magickal credibility. His journey to magic (his come to Crowley moment, perhaps?) (I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry…) and his trustworthiness as evidenced by all of the Maybes he’s met along the way. He’s gotten drunk off dandelion wine with a creek dryad, given a toothbrush to a Sasquatch. spilled the tea with a jackalope, midwifed a centaur foal. Shep’s journey is just as impressive as Simon’s, and while Simon has been collecting notches on his dead dark creature bedpost (that’s a weird fucking metaphor…) (and now I’m thinking about dark creatures and Simon’s bedposts…so, you’re welcome, Basilton), Shep’s been collecting notches of the friendly variety. (Shoutout to @adamarks who did some super lovely analysis on Simon and Shep as mirrors here: https://adamarks.tumblr.com/post/188046272067/ok-so-when-shepard-said-he-was-cursed-the-first). So, I decided that I wanted to use Shep’s pins as a way to show the notches on his bedpost, so to speak. (Okay, I’m really losing this metaphor, but I think you’re still with me.)

Let’s dive in!

(I’m working my way down one side of his jacket at a time, for those following along at home.)

RIGHT SIDE

Welsh Dragon: I made this one very large, and easy to spot on his right shoulder. Of all of his accoutrements, this one felt like the most important. Mainly, because of Simon. Simon is, after all, half-Welsh. (The Mage, may he rest in pain, came to Watford from Wales.) And, of course, Simon, just like the Welsh Dragon, is a red dragon. (Or in the process of becoming one? Or a half-dragon? Or a dragon kitten?…) And the dragon that Simon and Baz fought on the Watford lawn, when they first worked together, and first shared magic, was a red dragon. Of course, the actual dragon in question here is Margaret. Shepard would absolutely have a pin to commemorate his friendship with her. And since I was going to give him a pin with a dragon, I knew I was going to have to use the Welsh Dragon because it would perfectly capture his burgeoning friendship with Simon, as well. Now, I want to go on a slight detour here (this blog post will be its own Odyssey) and talk more about the Welsh Red Dragon. I took the design for the pin from the Welsh flag, which is the thing that first made me think more about Simon’s Welsh connection. I’m not really making a point here, I just think it’s fascinating! There’s a lot of Welsh lore about the Red Dragon (and Margaret herself calls Simon “Great Red” - that ‘R’ is capitalized, by the way, so this seems to be a proper name for the kind of dragon that she thinks Simon is). Full disclosure, I am not Welsh and I am not a scholar on any of this by any means. That being said, a cursory, and super academic, perusal of the Wikipedia article on the Welsh Dragon led me to a few different history websites that linked the symbol of the red dragon with Merlin and King Arthur (son of Uther Pendragon, literally dragon head). Merlin, one of the most well-known magical figures and Arthur, one of the most well-known Chosen One figures in literary tradition. I know very little about Arthurian legend, and Welsh history, and dragon lore, though, so I’m going to just say, do a little research on your own when you’re bored and feeling nerdy!

Resist!: Shep is a young black man (and reasonable human being) living in the U.S. during the [redacted] Administration. I should hope this one is self-explanatory.

Hoover Dam: At some point in his visits to see Blue, I’m sure Shepard stopped off at the gift shop and bought himself a souvenir pin to mark the incredible experience he had making friends with an actual river. (This pin design is based on an actual souvenir pin of the Hoover Dam I found on Google Images—along with most of the other pin designs. I think it’s vintage, which just felt even more like Shepard to me, because he’s the kind of guy who would appreciate stuff that’s got a past.)

Deathly Hallows: I mean, IF the Harry Potter books/movies exist in the Simon Snow universe (which hasn’t been confirmed, as far as I know, by our Queen) I’m sure Shepard would have been totally into it as a kid, and probably would have found greater significance in its magical lore once he discovered that ACTUAL MAGIC EXISTS! So, he would have a pin to show his belief in the magickal world, and maybe also as a nostalgic reminder of when magic was still just something fictional he could turn to for escapism (and not something that would result in being cursed by a demon…).

The Truth is Out There: So, I know virtually nothing about The X-Files (my sister was obsessed with it to the point that she wanted to become a FBI agent for a few years, but I never watched it), but I’m sure Shepard is a fan. If nothing else, the sentiment is awfully apropos.

So It Goes: This one is very hard to see. It sort of looks like a black teardrop with a bar on top of it (it’s supposed to look like a bomb). The pin I based this off of reads “So It Goes”, which from my very superficial research, is a line repeated in Vonnegut’s anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five every time someone dies. I don’t know anything more about it, other than that it is a Kurt Vonnegut-inspired pin available for purchase on Etsy, and Shep mentions that he wanted to get a Vonnegut quote tattoo, even though “everybody has those.”

Green Alien Head: You will never be able to convince me that Shepard does not 10,000% believe in the existence of aliens. If he were still in the U.S. during the Area 51 Raid, I’m sure he would have stopped by, just, you know, for science…(I’m thinking he was probably still in the UK, but I guess we’ll see in AWTWB.)

Centaur: This one is also hard to see, but I took the design from a pin I found of one of the centaurs (the blue-haired, blue-bodied one, if that rings a bell for you) from Disney’s Fantasia. (Fun fact: I was super into Fantasia as a littlun, and I attribute my lifelong love for classical music in large part to the centaur sequence and my latent lesbianism—I mean, it was ludicrously erotic. Watch it sometime and tell me it would not make an impression on a sapphic three-year-old.) Midwifing a centaur foal was probably a very emotional and formative experience for Shepard. Buying this pin would be his way of remembering that experience, and the excitement and gratitude he likely felt to have been entrusted with that kind of acceptance from the centaur(s).

Jackalope: It doesn’t help that this pin is almost the same color as Shepard’s jacket, but it’s based off a design of a jackalope’s head that, again, I found on Google Image search (honestly, I don’t know how I ever made art without it). We know that Shepard once got some gossip from a jackalope, who vented to him about magicians calling “themselves ‘magicians’”, like “they’re the only ones with magic”. (This is totally irrelevant, but I always think of Americans when I read this. I am an American, by the way. America is a continent, but those of us living in the U.S. calls ourselves Americans, like everyone else living in America doesn’t matter.) Anyway, the jackalope offered Shepard some valuable insight into the political workings of the magickal world, so it gets its own pin.

LEFT SIDE

Pansexual Pride Flag Pin: I mean, technically, canonically, we don’t know what Shepard’s sexuality (or asexuality) is, but I just get some vibes from him. Plus, if we take him as a mirror for Simon (who is somewhere on the bi-plus spectrum), it’s not a far cry to imagine he also identifies somewhere on that spectrum.

Pentagram: This is another symbol that I chose based on my interpretation of Shepard’s character, and not so much on a Maybe or a story that he mentioned. The pentagram, or pentacle, is typically associated with the occult and witchcraft, which is something that could potentially also be said of Shep.

Sasquatch: You don’t go backpacking—or not backpacking—and introduce a Sasquatch to the benefits of dental hygiene without getting yourself a souvenir of the hike.

I [heart] Mystery Spot: The Mystery Spot is a weird sort of phenomenon in California (my home state). It’s a place outside the beach town of Santa Cruz that boasts of a “gravitational anomaly” on its website. I went once, years ago, and while you’re there, it can feel pretty convincing. (Also, I was probably like 10, so…) People outside of California will likely never have heard of this place, but driving around here (at least in the Bay Area, where I am, which isn’t that far from Santa Cruz) you’ll see yellow Mystery Spot bumper stickers on cars everywhere. I’m not really sure what the thing is with the bumper stickers. Like, I’m sure not that many people actually think it’s legit, and maybe it’s like one of those things that Californians just do (like freak out and forget how to drive when we feel water falling from the sky). But yeah, these bumper stickers are everywhere. Anyway, Shepard drives around a lot. He knows about the Vampires of Las Vegas (how is that not an indie rock band?) and the Katherine Hotel, and the Next Blood. So, he’s probably made it past Nevada and into California before. And while he was there, it’s not a great stretch of the imagination that someone who chases after magic wouldn’t wind up at a place called the Mystery Spot and get himself a pin while he was there. (And maybe even a bumper sticker.)

Black Power Fist: Unfortunately, this one is also hard to see, because the fist is black and I didn’t have anything to go over the outlines of the fingers with, which I sort of didn’t think about when I colored it. This one also feels self-explanatory. Shepard is black. Blackness has long been treated in itself as a crime by non-black members of law enforcement, and just the general racist population of the U.S. Young black men are especially vulnerable to racially motivated violence. I’m sure Shep, who drives all over the country by himself and gets into high speed chases at night in the middle of nowhere Nebraska while hunting super shifty rando Maybes has had a run-in or two. Stay safe, Shep!

Every Pronoun Belongs Here [Trans Pride Flag background]: Also, super hard to see because the letters are too small to read. I found this exact pin in a basket by the register at my local bookshop. (Support local bookshops, people!) They were being sold as a fundraiser for a LGBTQ club at one of the high schools, and I loved the idea that I could help them raise money and add this pin to my own growing collection to show off my support for trans rights. (Support trans rights and trans people, people!) I decided to give Shepard this same pin, because I could imagine him having an almost identical book buying experience in a dozen other towns that he’s probably visited. And I love the simplicity of the message, because it’s one of belonging, which EVERYONE is desperately seeking, no matter who they are or how they identify, and Shepard, and every character in this picture, is no exception. (Plus, it seemed like a cool way to connect my pin collection with Shep’s. Maybe I should have mentioned the fact that I’m also a pin person at the beginning? I walk to work and on my lunch breaks, so I carry all of my stuff in a backpack. And I proudly display my random pin collection on my backpack. Including several Simon Snow-related pins.)

Don’t Panic: This was based off a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pin. I don’t really know anything about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (including if it’s okay to abbreviate it as HGG? THGTTG? whatever), even though I did watch the movie years back when it was on TV and I still lived with my parents who had a TV. But the sentiment felt appropriate, and Shepard is a sort of magickal hitchhiker. Apart from managing to hold down a job at Dick Blick, he appears to lead a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. He tells Penny, “the road is my teacher”, and if that’s not a hitchhiker slogan, I don’t know what is. (Ass, gas, or grass?)

Black Lives Matter: They do. Just sayin’.

Magic Troll Doll: When I was growing up, the Troll doll was all the (nightmare-inducing) rage. Trolls are one of those magickal creatures that are continually mentioned in the series. Shepard talks about lonely trolls under bridges. Simon talks about killing trolls. Agatha would rather kiss a troll. And Baz was kidnapped by numpties, who are sort of like trolls. I couldn’t not include a troll. And the Troll doll specifically felt perfect, because the full name was Magic Troll Doll. You can bet if Shepard had to pick a troll-related pin, it would be a magic(k)al one.

[Asshole]: This is another Kurt Vonnegut pin. It looks like a messily drawn asterisk (*), but it’s actually meant to be an asshole (taken from the preface of Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions, and drawn by Vonnegut himself). I just thought, why the fuck not? So, here. Have an asshole pin. (I should have put it on a buttonhole…)

HONOURABLE MENTION

Shepard’s Phone Case: Remember that line I quoted earlier, about Shep wanting to get a Vonnegut quote tattoo? Well, when I was trying to figure out what to put on his phone case, I thought that seemed like a reasonable place to start. So, I googled Vonnegut quotes, to see if I could find one that I thought Shepard would like. Here’s the quote: “a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” I just loved that for Shepard.

#shepard #from omaha #hi im shepard #im from omaha nebraska #my art #headcanons #carry on fanart #simon snow series #carry on #wayward son #any way the wind blows #rainbow rowell #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #agatha wellbelove #baz pitch #penny bunce #are not in this but i'm tagging them anyway #random british spellings for no reason #penelope bunce

[nicostolemybones]

Amber Valentine

Tw: minor character deaths (referenced), mentions of homophobia, ambiguous rejection (purposely left unanswered so the reader can choose which they want it to be)

Nico woke up. Nico didn't like that. He tried to sleep again but no, sleep was impossible, because today was a bad day and his brain hated him. He wanted compensation from life for waking him up today, on Valentine's day of all days.

He huffed, dreading the day more and more as the heavy weightlessness of sleep left his bones to be replaced with a dull ache. He didn't have the strength to get out of bed yet, and to be quite honest, he didn't really want to. 

So he opted to angrily stare at the ceiling like it personally offended him. The one time he wakes up before breakfast, and it's on the one day he wishes some kid would whack him round the head and put him in a coma for the day. He bet Will was already out on his morning run. He'd wake at the ass crack of dawn like a heathen and exercise like a heathen and glow like it didn't fucking give everyone a headache like a heathen.

But he was cute, so Nico forgave him.

Cute didn't really describe it. Will was a beautiful. Nico wondered what it would be like to wake up in the morning to the sight of Will sleeping beside him. He could imagine it- Will laying on his stomach with his head on his arms, golden blond hair fanning out onto the pillow, his skin glowing softly in the morning light. Nico wondered if Will had freckles on his back too, and if Will would let him paint them, like angel wings and constellations.

Stupid cute boy making him have emotions this early in the goddamn morning on the worst day of his life. Should be illegal. Nico forced himself out of bed and prepared for the day before opening the door- and the offending boy was stood nervously on his doorstep, freckles glowing a light yellow whilst his skin glowed soft amber. He had such a pretty smile and pretty eyes and Nico absolutely despised him for being so cute and making him blush in public by being so goddamn cute. 

"What do you want Solace? You see the sky? You see that giant orb of radiation and death? Yeah? Well that means it's way too fucking early to be awake."

"Nice to see our resident vampire is already in full brooding mode! That must mean you're awake enough for a hug!" Will beamed, and gods Nico couldn't breathe because… holy shit. His smile was so beautiful and he was glowing sunrise yellow and he had dimples okay and his nose was scrunched and Nico forgot how to breathe. He was so pretty.

"Don't you dare, Solace!"

"But hugs," Will pouted, his glow slowly turning sunset yellow as Nico tried to resist. Nico couldn't resist because his boyfriend looked like a kicked puppy and he gave good hugs. 

"Okay, fine, hugs," Nico relented with a sigh. Will's glow was back in full force, sunrise yellow with a warm amber undertone, and he was practically throwing himself at Nico, wrapping him up in a warm hug. Fuck, Nico was gonna die like this and go to Elysium, he couldn't function because the cute bastard was hugging him and he was warm and he smelled gorgeous, like lemons and antiseptic and cinnamon and sandalwood and sunshine and sweat and boy. Then Nico realised he hadn't been hugging back- he could tell by the way the heat from Will's glow changed slightly, nervous heat, that he was shifting back into a sunset hue, and that kickstarted Nico's brain to hug back, and Will's warmth grew comforting again. 

Nico didn't want Will to ever let go.

If he was honest, he was kinda touch starved. He may have been touch averse, but that didn't mean he didn't need affection from time to time, and Will's hugs made him feel safe and sentimental and fuzzy. And Will was taller than him so his face was met with a wall of muscle and fuck Nico could die because that was his man and he was a fucking snack. Between feeling sentimental and flustered, Nico felt overwhelmed- the touch starved side of him wanted to cry and the teenage side of him practically wanted to consume Will and the conflicting emotions were too much for him to process at once. 

He reluctantly let go, noticing Will's hesitation in the way his arms twitched as he let go, like his body didn't want to let go and Will had to fight it. Nico wanted to hug him again, but he knew if he hugged Will again he'd grow deeply uncomfortable and want to rip his flesh off. Sometimes physical contact was like that feeling when a bug flies into your face and you can still feel it twenty minutes after it's flew away. But ten times more intense and distressing to the point it made Nico want to scream and cry and rip his face off, but apparently, that isn't what physical contact felt like and Nico was being over dramatic so naturally everybody would pull him into hugs or headlocks and Nico would freeze or bolt. Except for Will. Will may have been very huggy, but he never tried to force Nico into physical contact. He didn't question it if Nico pushed him away sometimes and he didn't take it personally. 

"So uh…" Will began, his freckles a nervous pale amber, which Nico knew meant he was anxious. He didn't finish his sentence, picking at the bandage around his hand instead. 

"It's Valentine's day," Nico said quietly, and Will nodded awkwardly. 

"Yeah…"

"I already told you, I won't celebrate it."

"I know," Will said quickly, and the amber of his freckles was almost a dark chocolate gold, "I wanted to talk. Can we- can we go somewhere?" He looked just about ready to cry, and Nico's concern was able to quickly override his aversion to being seen. 

"You look terrified," Nico noted, and Will nodded, not moving. Nico started to walk, and Will followed him. Nico could feel the heat radiating off him, so Nico walked him to a far spot through the forest- walking helped anxiety by tricking your brain into thinking you were running away- fight or flight. And for a short while, Will seemed less anxious, but the closer they got to their favourite talking spot, the darker Will's glow got until he was a dark sunset orange. Sunrise colours were good- sunset ones were worrying. "Will?"

"I really wanna tell you something but I never talk about it and I'm scared to talk about it because I like running away from my feelings and I need to talk about it and I trust you the most to understand how I feel so can we talk about it?"

"Of course," Nico said gently, guiding Will to sit down. He looked on the verge of tears.

"I hate Valentine's day," Will said quietly, "I hate it so much."

"Glad we're on the same page," Nico said quietly, and he knew that Will would catch his meaning: I'll understand, you can tell me anything.

"You already know I'm from Austin, right? Well I come from a super nice area, y'know? My school had a gsa and the local church I went to as a kid was super accepting and had rainbow flags and funded a shelter for lgbt youths. My grandma was a lesbian and her wife made me my very first punk jacket when I was six. So uh… I grew up in a super nice place. So I knew quite young that I weren't straight, you know? I hadn't really had crushes yet but I remember we all used to play kiss chase at recess and I always wanted to kiss the girls and the boys. So I knew I wasn't straight. And I came out to my mom on Valentine's day because young me was making Valentine's day cards for all the boys in my class. Except for John. He was a cunt. I didn't like John. But anyways um- I ran downstairs and I yelled at the top of my lungs 'mama I'm gay!' And she looked really awkward and just replied 'that's nice, honey,' and I thought maybe she thought I was joking so I was like- 'no mama, I wanna kiss all the boys and all the girls,'- I didn't know what bi was, by the way- and she just gave me this really awkward look and said we'd talk about it later, and then she went to hang the washing. I didn't know if she was awkward because she didn't accept me or just the way I came out, and I still don't know and-..."

"Will?" He was crying by now, a sunset red undertone to his sunset amber glow, pushing the ball of his palms into his eyes to try and stop the tears.

"I never got to ask if she was okay with me being gay because a few minutes later I heard scary noises so I hid under the kitchen table and the scary noises sounded like a really big lion and I heard mama scream so I went out and I screamed because she was dead and bleeding and eaten and then it tried to eat me too but a goat man grabbed me and ran and took me to camp, and that's why I'm an all year round camper…"

"Will…" Nico began gently, before reaching out and holding him in a strong hug. "I wish I could tell you if your mom accepted you or not… and I wish I could make all your pain go away…"

"I always thought mama got killed because of me. Because if I didn't say I was gay she wouldn't have gone outside. So I didn't wanna tell anyone I liked boys ever in case they died, and I spent all these years so sure that she rejected me that day because she looked uncomfortable and sad and I felt like nobody loved me if my mama didn't love me and Valentine's day reminds me of all that and… it hurts… rejection hurts..."

"How long have you been holding all that in for," Nico asked softly, rubbing comforting circles on his back and gently carding his fingers through his hair. Will's hair was dry and floofy but it never seemed to knot. 

"Since forever," Will sniffled, "and I felt bad because I could never celebrate Valentine's day without being real sad and thinking about rejection."

"Please don't feel bad," Nico said softly, "it's okay. We never have to celebrate it, it reminds you of your trauma."

"I didn't think anyone would understand…"

"My mom died too," Nico said quietly, pulling away from Will so he wouldn't overwhelm himself too much. "I watched her die too. But it wasn't a monster, it was Zeus."

"I- I didn't know, I'm so sorry," Will whispered, and Nico shook his head.

"I lost a sister about two days before Christmas. Bianca. Which is why I got upset when you wanted me to wear the Christmas jumper. But- my point is I understand how it can ruin a holiday, and I want you to know that I understand, and you're not alone because I relate."

"I'm sorry," Will said quietly, "I'm really sorry." Will moved to hug Nico, but Nico gently pushed him away. As usual, Will didn't protest or try again.

"I hate Valentine's day because I was outed," Nico began after a deep breath. Will's glow was sunset orange and yellow with concern. "I was outed by Eros to Jason. I had a crush on Percy in the past, and Eros made me tell him. Jason, I mean. He shot me with an arrow and everything. I wasn't ready to come out- I hadn't accepted myself yet. I wasn't comfortable. When I was a kid being gay would have got me killed. And after Eros made me come out it felt like suddenly everyone knew. And I even accidentally outed myself to an entire Roman Legion thingy. Then when you made me come to the infirmary I felt obliged to tell Percy. All my life I'd seen myself as creepy, and everyone else thought I was creepy, so I felt like I had to tell him. Like he had a right to know. I still wasn't okay with myself and I didn't want anybody to know, and I still struggle sometimes with internalised homophobia. Or at least a fear of being outed or being seen or being attacked. I can't handle hearing slurs or judging looks or bigoted preachers without breaking down in tears because I didn't ask for this and it feels like I'm constantly being punished when I didn't even do anything wrong. I'll just be minding my own business and some asshole tries to ruin it, because somehow, people just know."

"I understand that," Will said softly, but Nico felt scared- Will had an angry sunset red undertone to a near white yellow sunset glow. He thought Will was mad at him for being a coward. "I'm gonna smash every last Cupid statue and heart card I see dotted around camp. You shouldn't have to have your triggers and your trauma shoved in your face any day."

"Will don't," Nico said softly, reaching for Will's hand, and a sunrise orange began to seep through the darker undertones, like he was trying to reassure Nico that it was alright. "They don't know, and I don't want to ruin their day. I was gonna stay in my cabin, but… I'm glad I'm out here with you. I feel safe here with you."

"I feel safe with you too," Will said softly, and his glow radiated a warm sunrise amber with yellow undertones- fondness, golden. 

"Maybe we should reclaim Valentine's day," Nico said quietly. "Make it ours. As a fuck you to all our trauma, y'know? Avoid all the traditions and just snog the fuck out of each other until we both turn blue then do whatever the fuck we want. We have each other now."

"So… celebrate Valentine's day to spite Valentine's day by making it our own? Not romantic, just spite?" Will seemed amused, a thin smile on his lips making one of his dimples prominent where the corner of his mouth turned upwards to form a lopsided smile. 

"I'm powered by spite and I'm tiny so yeah," Nico replied, bumping shoulders with Will. "Hey… maybe one day when you're ready for answers, I can summon your mom," he suggested gently.

"Maybe," Will replied softly, "I love you."

"Ti amo."

So they kissed, and they kissed until Will's glow was golden and bright and encompassing Nico in warm rays, and the shadows were dancing around Nico and holding Will close. They kissed until they felt fuzzy and hot, and they kissed until things would have got real awkward if they would have continued. When they pulled apart, Will's cheeks were a ruddy pink to the tips of his ears and blotchy, and Nico was sure he was puce. Fuck Cupid and fuck manticores too. Nothing could take this love away from them.

#solangelo #nico di angelo #nico di angelo x will solace #will solace #nicohasahappymeal #nico x will #will x nico #will solace x nico di angelo #solangelo fluff #solangelo fic #solangelo fanfiction #solangelo fanfic #pjo #pjoverse #pjo fic #pjo fanfic #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #trials of apollo

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

#my post #text post #tf2 #medic #heavy #heavymedic #long post

[takaraphoenix]

Kanvers + 47

47: a kiss…out of spite.

--

Kara loved Gotham City.It was so weird. Her favorite place however was Kate's bar. The barwas amazing and Karawas so proud of hergirlfriend and what she had achieved. Kara, Nia, Alex and Kellyregularly came here to drink. They occasionally ran into Sara and Avathere, on the rare occasions that the Legends were in their time.Even Jefferson's daughter Anissa, after he had introduced both hisdaughters to the Super Friends, had visited it before. Everyone lovedthe superhero theme. And while the pride-flag capes had been free onthe first night, they were now sold as merchandise at the bar (allmoney made with them went to a charity helping LGBT youth in need).Pictures of the out and proud superheroes were framed on the wall andKara couldn't believe how much those meant to the young patrons ofthe bar. Most of the time, Kara lovedbeing at the bar, it had come to feel like home (also, Kara lovedwhen Kate was behind the bar... the visual).Sometimes, it was annoying though. Sometimes, someone – mostly men– looked at her and accused her of just being there to 'admire theview', like everything was about them.

“Honey, this isn't aplace for straight girls”, commented one of them. “This is aspace for us.”

Kara was used tobrushing them off, but Nia next to her got annoyed. And Karaunderstood it. It was easier to brush it off when it was aboutoneself, but friends? And Nia was fiercely protective.

“Three things. Firstof all, no one owesyou their identity”, stated Nia with a glare. “Absolutely no oneis forced to wear a flag to show they have a right to be here. Secondof all, as a heterosexual trans woman, I very much still belong here.Stop thinking the community is just about gays.”

“And what's the thirdthing?”, the guy had asked, looking only mildlyembarrassed.

Kara smiled cheerfullyand waved Kate over, who was manning the bar tonight. Oh, she lookedso good in thatdress-shirt with the first three buttons popped and those suspenders.

“Yeah, babe?”,asked Kate as soon as she was within reach.

Instead of answering,Kara grabbed her by the suspenders and pulled her over the bar andinto a kiss. Not a quick peck. A deep, slow, lasting kiss. Longenough to make the two guys uncomfortable. Kate looked a littleconfused but mainly pleased by it before returning to work.

“Thirdly, I'm theowner's lesbian girlfriend”,supplied Kara after a moment. “Because not everyone has to weartheir sexuality on their sleeve. Not all lesbians are butches orfemmes. Stop thinking that there may be an undercover straight girlwatching you, not everything is about you.”

With that, she grabbedNia and the two went to take a seat somewhere away, both of themgiggling.

Send me a ship and a number from this list!

#Kanvers #Superbat^2 #Kara Danvers #Kate Kane #Nia Nal #Batwoman #Arrowverse #DC Comics #Phoe's Tumblr Drabbles #Fanfiction #kimmycup #Supergirl TV

[irinanonyme]

The whole stupid "Carole and Tuesday VS Yuri On Ice" thing (I'm kind of angry and it's long but if you have like 10 minutes you're welcome to read)

Hey, so I've seen a bunch of people throwing shade lately because "Carole and Tuesday doesn't have as much popularity as Yuri On Ice did and it just shows what kinda people those fans are."

People saying that just because it's not on Netflix yet it's not an excuse and then they compare it to Violet Evergarden.

Frickin' Violet Evergarden people.

Which is like, the worst example you can give. You're talking about an anime who was hyped up since back in May 2016 and released 2 years later in January 2018 not to mention that it's made by goddamn KYOTO ANIMATION. It ain't Bones my friends, yes Bones is great but Kyoani is just up there somewhere. Did you see A Silent Voice? Did you see Hibike Euphonium?? The trailer for Violet Evergarden has almost 4 million views while the trailer for Carole and Tuesday was released 3 months ago and it has like 400k views. Until now some people didn't even know that the anime is direced by Shinichiro Watanabe, the guy who worked on COWBOY BEBOP and SAMURAI CHAMPLOO.

Also it's not about "not knowing how to use kissanime", some people just want to support the official release financially and legally. Also some other people who already have Netflix accounts got excited when they heard it was coming to the site but now they learn that they have to wait 6 more months until it's fully released. You might love the anime to death and pirating it doesn't mean that you want to disrespect the creators but you sure aren't helping them now are you? I'm not trying to shame people for pirating, hell, I think that everybody on the internet has already pirated something at least once in their life. But please don't look down on people who have the money and are willing to help studios/creators financially. If they want to wait 6 months and binge watch it let them wait 6 months and leave them alone.

Also please don't get started on that whole "fetishizing" thing. I know this is gonna piss of a lot of people but here's the "hot tea" like tumblr users would say: LGBTQ people want to get accepted into a society where about 90% of it are straight people (which is completely fair and they *should* in fact get accepted) but whenever those straight people approve of a same sex ship it's fetishizing? So wait, when a straight girl ships a wlw ship "it's fine and hey girl you might be bi 😉" but if she's shipping a mlm ship it's suddenly "eew you disgusting bitch, fricking fujoshi I bet you jack off to that stuff, huh?" That's just effed up guys.

YOI got popular only after episode 7 because of the kiss, it was so incredible to the point where most people couldn't believe it, some still thought that it was maybe only a hug because it's rare having mlm and wlw relationships in an anime without the "yuri" or "yaoi" tag. It was also because for once a mlm ship wasn't shown in a bad light like having the taller guy rape the shorter guy then ending it up with "haha, omg I actually liked it haha. Now that you forced yourself on me I like you."

Or it being borderline incest like "Wow, even though he's my not-blood-related brother I have feelings for him."

Or having a huge age gap making it a borderline p*do thing like "He's a divorced adult and I'm only a high school student!! Oh gee what shall I do!!"

YOI became popular not because it was fetishized but BECAUSE it was in fact shown to be a healthy relationship by the creators themselves in a different setting than just "school/slice of life" it was a sports anime and there was no indicator of them becoming a thing. Many thought it was like Free where the guys are gonna have "gay undertones" the whole story but never actually get together. From my experience most "YOI haters" are salty people who still remember the stupid 2016 Crunchyroll awards who didn't mean a thing.

Also keep in mind that tumblr is not the whole internet and it doesn't represent everyone and everything. Even if there are surely some who really do fetishize same sex ships I don't think that most of them are YOI and/or Carole and Tuesday fans. People who really ship wlw and mlm ships are most and for all people who accept the LGBTQ community whether they're part of it or not which is already a big step onward for many. There are still some countries out there where you can get killed or sent to prison for being homosexual so when I see people supporting this type of content I get really thrilled. Not to mention that you can't really "accurately" tell who is "fetishizing" those relationships. You might look at a few reblogs and tell yourself that "Yup, this guy/girl is definitely a creep" but the truth is that you don't know. You have no idea who the person behind this reblog is, who's that person behind the screen. Maybe they're like 15/16 and they're not sure of their sexual orientation yet? Do you need to add a lesbian/gay/bi/trans,etc flag on your profile pic for you to be part of the community? No.

I'm honestly kinda tired of this "tumblr culture" where whenever you have an opinion it has to match others' opinions so you don't get hate/death threats by either kids or adults who don't have a grasp on reality and don't tell themselves that maybe "Hey, that person might actually be depressed and she/he might really kill themselves if I send them this so even if I don't agree with them I probably shouldn't."

People starting their posts with "here's the hot take/TED talk, I've been thinking about it for a while but was scared of talking about it" then it turns out that this "hot take" is 80% of the fandom's opinion and the sheeple in the comments somehow seriously think that it's controversial and are like "OMGG SPILL THE TEA SIS YASSS💖"

Or "Thank. You.👏👏 I was actually scared of saying it so I'm glad you did."

Or even "LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK SIS!!❤"

We're talking about a site where when you *actually* have a *real* "hot take" people will try to personally murder you and browse through your entire blog during 3 days just to find a stupid thing you said like 4 years ago to write a "call out post" on you with the meme "I'm about to end this man's whole career lol" then they be like "lol you fuckin' (insert bad thing here) supporter! I bet you're (insert mental illness/something that means "sick in the head" with a clever twist on words.)"

Then when you like a certain character or ship you have to make a 5k word explanation post where you start off by saying that you do understand that your "fav" is "problematic" and then you proceed to explain why and then you have to be a victim who was either bullied or taken advantage of in order to make people feel bad for sending you death threats and guilt tripping you so that they can forgive your different tastes and just call it a "coping mechanism" or saying that it's fine if you support that character/ship because you're mentally ill. Oh, and don't forget the apology post where you explain to people that just because you said something stupid when you were 14 on your blog it doesn't mean that you still think that way and that your views changed and yada yada yada.

Like?? What the actual fuck people?

Can't we just have a good time on this site for fuck's sake? Carole and Tuesday has only 5 episode right now which is not even 25% of the story since the anime is supposed to have 24 episodes. It's not available on Netflix yet and some people like binge watching series. Give it time, surely it's gonna get recognition soon and we're here to spread it too. I decided that no matter what I'm gonna have a good time watching this amazing anime and I support both CarDay and Victuri and any other healthy wlw and mlm ship, all LGBTQ people and anyone in this world who isn't a serial killer/terrorist/anything bad (obviously)

Thank you for reading the whole thing (hopefully) and if you don't agree and are about to write something really mean about me don't even bother please, you'll be talking to a brick wall and I only accept civilized conversations👌

#carole and tuesday #carole & tuesday #yuri on ice #carday #victuri #tumblr

[the-queer-look]

Bee Yourself

When viewed from outside, the LGBTQIA+ community, is portrayed as a single, homogenous culture, with a few socially accepted experiences which cisgendered, heterosexual society expects use to conform to. In reality, the LGBTQIA+ community is an umbrella term for a multitude of distinct cultures, united by shared commonalities. This narrow view of what it means to be a part of our community can be extremely damaging to those looking to find themselves.

The Queer Look seeks to explore the identities and experiences of people within the LGBTQIA+ community. To show the many facets that make up a person, and the ways in which we express our identities physically.

The Queer Look aims to show that just because someone does not follow a traditionally accepted path to their identity, and does not conform to all stereotypes associated with that identity, that their experience is not less valid. A gay man who comes out in his forties is no less gay. A Lesbian who has had several boyfriends is no less a lesbian. A trans woman who does not want to wear dresses is no less a woman. And a trans man who refuses top surgery is no less a man.

We are here. We are queer. And we are as unique and distinct as the colours on our flags.

p.s. True to form, I was so excited about the first interview/photoshoot that I forgot to set up the recording equipment. Luckily, Bee took the time to answer a questionnaire that I sent after the fact, hoping to recapture the questions and answers received on the day.

Preferred Name: Bee

Age: 21

Location: Lewisham

Occupation/field of study etc: Receptionist, Arts - History/Gender Studies

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Gender: Non Binary

How would you dress yourself on an average day?

On the day-to-day I pretty much have a uniform! You will always find me in high waisted jeans, a white graphic tee and maroon Doc Martens. Some days I wear a binder but some days I don’t, depending on my dysphoria and level of laziness… I also always have colourful socks on because even if you can’t see them in my Docs I still love them.

At what point did you realise that you were Bisexual?

I think I properly realised when I was at college in university. I was sitting at the dining table with a friend and we were going through my tinder which had all genders selected (although tinder was still pretty binary then…) and we were both commenting on how hot we thought everyone was. Another friend came and joined us and asked what we were doing, to which we of course answered: “oh we’re just looking at hot girls on tinder”. I asked her what she thought of the girl we were currently looking at and she said “oh no I’m not into women” I ended up asking her again because I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what she meant… and in response she said “I’m not really attracted to her because I’m straight.” I think at that point I was like, oh…. I thought everyone was just attracted to everyone??? Which in retrospect I can only eyeroll a bit at my poor baby self… because it really did take me way to long to put it all together… So even though that was the exact moment, I think that was more like the moment I discovered the label applied to me rather than the moment I realised.

At what point did you realise that you were Non-Binary?

I think it was probably a similar experience to discovering I was bisexual. I realised over a year ago now when I was in USYD Queer Revue in 2018. Being around a community of trans people was something I’d never had before and listening to everyone talk about gender and how they felt made me realise that I had a lot of the same feelings… I bought a binder during the show and trying it on I just felt so like myself? I still sometimes feel insecure that I don’t have the classic narrative of knowing I was non-binary since I was a child, because it’s the narrative a lot of mainstream media likes to use for transness. But I think I needed the time to be experiment with femininity before I finally was able to put a name to how uncomfortable I’d been with it for most of my life. I think realising I was non-binary was a lot of putting pieces together rather than a moment of instant clarity. But I’m glad it took me awhile to experiment and figure out what identity fit me.

Have you noticed a distinct change in the way you present yourself from before these realisations to after? How has this changed since?

Definitely!!! I guess the first thing is that I stopped wearing things that make me uncomfortable! When I first came out I tried so hard to fit into the “traditional” narrative of being non-binary, which for afab non-binary people boils down to “if you’re not masc you’re not non-binary”. I wore my binder constantly, I lovvvved button ups and I wore a lot of low-waisted pants and baggy jumpers. After awhile I realised that it didn’t make me as happy as I thought it would, because even though I wasn’t being forced to perform femininity, I was still performing my gender. Now I think what I wear lies somewhere in the middle of what I used to wear before and after coming out. Before I came out I definitely tried as hard as I could to be the “perfect woman”. Lots of femme cut tops, dresses, skirts, heels (which god I hate wearing… just like so much…) and make-up. I still have a few of the clothing pieces I wore back then, but almost all of my wardrobe is completely different. I still wear elements now of what I used to wear – I have always been a jeans and graphic t-shirt person - but I now style them in very different ways.

I’ve also started to reclaim some of the things I vehemently rejected when I was in my masc phase. When I first came out I vowed I would never wear make-up again. But now I’ve come to love wearing make-up as a form of expression when I’m going out or to a party. I still feel pretty dysphoric wearing it day to day, but wearing colourful and bold make-up is something I’ve come to love again. I’ll also very occasionally wear a dress if I feel like it, but I tend to just wear the things that make me comfortable. Now basically all I wear is high-waisted jeans, they don’t give me a very masculine silhouette but when I see myself in photos or in the mirror I look like myself. I joke a lot that I wear a lot of dad fashion, and I think that’s maybe what I’ve become most comfortable in, knowing that people are probably still going to read me as a woman no matter what I wear (thank you heteronormativity…) so I may as well wear what makes me happy and for me that’s feeling like a fancy ass dad.

Do you believe that there is any weight to stereotypes about the way people dress based on their sexuality/gender? e.g. bi people tuck in their shirts, lesbians wear flannel etc. Do you believe that there are inherent differences in the way that lgbt+ people present themselves that make them more visible to other members of the community?

Oh god as someone who adheres to all the stereotypes (eep) this is a hard question! But yes, I think so. I think it really depends on the generation and identity. But I think a lot of people do wear things to make ourselves visible to each other. Whether that’s subtle things like adhering to stereotypes or more overt things like wearing activist or identity shirts.

But a lot of it just comes from LGBT+ culture. There’s an obvious style, way of talking, relating, and expression that LGBT+ people have developed historically and that almost all of us continue to participate in. I think a lot of it comes from musicians, particularly drag or music videos, historical figures like Bowie but now from lots of different singers like Janelle Monáe, Troye Sivan, Kim Petras, King Princess etc etc. I think stereotypes have developed because our culture is so prevalent, and most LGBT+ people adopt stereotypes unconsciously because we surround ourselves with people who express themselves in certain ways and are inspired by them. So, while sometimes we actively try to become visible to each other, I think it’s more that we’re all just hopelessly and lovingly enthralled in our own culture.

Do you feel that a lack of lgbt+ representation in media contributes to a more narrow, shared understanding of lgbt+ fashion, when compared to cis/het counterparts?

Oh god yes. Yes yes yes. Coming out as non-binary I think a lack of representation was so much of what contributed to me struggling with my identity. Before I came out I knew only ONE famous non-binary person… Ash Hardell I’m looking at you. While knowing about Ash was really helpful to me and representation of any form of expression is so important, the overwhelming narrative for afab non-binary people is that if you’re not masc presenting you’re not non-binary. For awhile that meant I tried so so hard to validate my identity by presenting as masculine as I possibly could. I cut my hair, I wore a binder every damn day, I wore joggers and button-ups, I wore hoodies constantly (because apparently to me that was the height of masculinity??). But after doing that for awhile, I realised I was just as unhappy eradicating every ounce of femininity from myself as I was when it was all I expressed. I think going through that process of experimentation was really important for me to realise that instead of trying to fit into what cis/het culture expected non-binary people to look like, I needed to just be myself first and wear what I love and want to wear and know myself that being non-binary is still part of who I am. And a HUGE part of that process was also finding femme presenting non-binary people, especially afab femme enbies. For me it helped enormously in accepting my body and realising that I didn’t have to hate it as violently as I was because it didn’t fit into the definition it was supposed to. Finding people like Dorian Electra (omg please do yourself a favour and look them up they are the epitomy of my gender), Alok Vaid-Menon, Tillett Wright, Sasha Velour etc etc made me realise that there are more ways to be non-binary than just one. Which is what is so damaging about having less representation – it only validates one path, so either you have to bush-bash yourself a new one (which is insanely tiring, emotionally exhaustive and scary) or you have to squeeze yourself into the one path that is provided for you to claim validity. Honestly, I could go on and on about representation but yes it’s so goddamn important. So Mark Zuckerberg and inc. if you’re reading this like I know you are FIX IT YOU HAVE SO MUCH MONEY PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FIX IT.

When you are in an exclusively lgbt+ setting, do you feel pressured to “play up” your queerness? If so, does this heightened queer exterior feel more true to yourself?

Yes, I think there are still definitely elements of performance to being in a queer space. Sometimes they can be negative, which generally come from the part of me that is still insecure about my identity and worried about how valid I am. I think a lot of queer spaces still hold at their core a performance of queerness that can be a bit exhausting? As cliché as it is, watching Hannah Gadsby’s Nannettereally helped me understand that. Because part of being queer is finding ways to survive, and so much of queer culture revolves around making jokes about our experiences that sometimes are so limiting in how they allow us to exist. We are all just so starved of space to talk about queerness, that when we can I think we all tend to fall into the trap of performing our identities as much as humanly possible. I’m really curious about how other queer people feel about it, but I think for me there is definitely an element of performance that I still struggle with a little. However, I am still so indebted and so in love with queer spaces and queer people. I always feel so at ease being around people who share a way of thinking. And I mean hey, I’m queer, performing is in my blood.

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#thequeerlook #queerlook #the queer look #queer #bi #bisexual #bivisibility #lgbt #lgbtqia #lgbtqiaplus #nonbinary #non binary #pride #gay #pan #photography #portrait #portrait photography #identity #interview

[frighthouseofalighthouse]

All wlw.

HEY YO THANK YOU FOR THIS.

1: are you single or are you in a relationship? if you’re in a relationship, how long have you been together?

Single right now. My last relationship lasted just over 11 months. I have a tendency to look for my validation in others. I have no idea how to love and validate myself, and I need time to be single and figure out how to see myself as complete all on my own.

2: what’s your idea of a perfect date?

We get coffee and then go to a bookstore. Wander around, pick out things for each other. Then we get pizza for dinner and hang out and talk. If we have time the pizza goes home with us and we watch tv and chat.

3: do you prefer to identify as butch, femme, or neither?

I think I’m more on the femme side, but I can really go either way.

4: do you have a crush on anyone? if so, and if you want to, go ahead and describe your crush :3c

I do have crushes and I’m not going after them for a couple of reasons. A) just because I’m single all of a sudden doesn’t mean I need to fall for someone else. I could never put someone in the position of being my rebound. And B) Like I said in my answer to the first question, I really need to be single for a long while and do introspective healing on a lot of levels.

5: would you consider having a long distance relationship with someone?

I’ve done it twice and while I would do it again if I loved the person enough, I would prefer for my next eventual relationship to be with someone I can see in person more.

6: do you have a “type” you usually fall for? if so, what is it?

Kind, soft-hearted nerds who are also protective and cuddly and like crime and paranormal stuff. Me. I fall for people like me.

7: what is your favorite love trope/cliché to read, view, or write about?

I die for savior tropes. Like when person A is in great danger and person B saves them and patches them up and takes care of them...

Earlier this year I read this amazing Frankenstein retelling set at a Victorian medical school called Cadaver & Queen by Alisa Kwitney, and the main character dived in front of the love interest to take a bullet for him and she almost died and then he had to perform surgery and remove the bullet and then he stayed by her side watching for infection and it was LEGITIMATELY the single hottest thing I have ever read. I’m also currently writing a short story for my Sherlock Holmes series where something like that happens...also something angsty and similar happens in every single book in that series ngl, I’m a slut for medical angst.

8: do you like stuff like cottage core or farm core or do you prefer fantasies involving busy city life?

I’m more of a cottage core girl myself. Not really farm core but like...forage core? Is that a thing? Like I don’t want to grow the fruit I just want to go out wandering and pick the fruit in my basket.

9: red or pink?

Both. But not together.

10: do you like soft pastel aesthetics or darker, punker aesthetics?

I like both but I think I lean towards darker.

11: are you the type of wlw with a great fashion sense, or are you more of a fashion disaster? or are you somewhere in the middle?

I POSSESS great fashion sense, I just can’t...afford it, so realistically I’m more in the middle.

12: favorite emoji(s) to use when talking about girls?

☺️😌😉😍🥰😘🤗🙌👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩✨💫🍑🌻🌸🌹❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤💕💞💓💗💖💘💝🏳️‍🌈

13: when did you realize you were wlw?

I really realized it at 13, but apparently I was a very self aware toddler because one of my aunts told me when I was 3 I told her I was going to marry a girl.

14: have you come out, or are you still closeted? (either is 110% valid)

I’m 100% out and proud and never going to hide it again! Although when I was younger it may not have been as safe for me as it is now, so I’m glad I waited until I was 17.

15: have you been to pride? if so, how many times?

I actually just went to my first pride at the end of August! It was awesome!!!

16: have you ever gotten a crush on one of your friends?

Alllll of my crushes have been on friends. (How would you even have a crush on someone you aren’t even acquaintances with like how would that work???)

17: do you have a pride flag? do you wear things like pride pins, shirts, and/or jewlery in public?

At pride this year I got a lesbian flag that I have hung in my window as a curtain, and it’s great because during the day it makes everything glow pink. Also I wear pride merch in public so much and I love it!

18: kissing or holding hands? snuggling or playing with your s/o’s hair (or having them play with your hair)?

Holding hands and having them play with my hair (though I do love kissing) 🥰

19: since it’s october: what is your favorite “monster”? (ex. vampires, werewolves, ghosts)

Ghosts and vampires. I’m also partial to Medusa if you wanna be specific. I wrote a whole ass eloquent poem about her inspired by #metoo in order to kick off my mythology series!

20: tell me some things you love about girls 💞💞

EYES HAIR CHEEKBONES LIPS VOICES SINGING NECKS COLLARBONES BOOBS ARMS WRISTS HANDS HIPS LEGS THE WAY WE PROTECT EACH OTHER THE WAY WE GO AFTER OUR FRIENDS EX BOYFRIENDS CUZ THEY AINT SHIT THE WAY WE SHOW OFF POCKETS IN OUR CLOTHES AND TELL EACH OTHER WHERE WE GOT OUR CUTE CLOTHES IN CASE WE WANNA GET MATCHING ONES AND THEN ~MATCH~

I JUST FUCKING LOVE GIRLS

#a series of essays anonymously published #wlw

[bleachedjam]

Rambling on sexuality. Apparently you can't do a cut on mobile? Sorry then. Pretend there is one here and scroll past this.

I've always tried to find a label that fit me. I had never felt liked I liked anyone in the traditional sense. Girls and boys were on an even playing field for me. No one set me a flutter. There was no lust at first sight. But the way my peers discussed it made me feel...odd. Displaced? Like I was missing a joke everyone else got. So I faked it.

In elementary school, 5th grade, all the other girls picked a celebrity boy they had a crush on. I remember being confused how they decided. So I picked Aaron Carter, I think because I liked his song, "I want Candy". I mimicked what they said about their crushes, "he's so hot!" Another girl also liked Aaron Carter, but as I was a bit of an outcast we never discussed it. (His picture was on her binder.)

In middle school I tried to take up drawing. I had a sketch book I filled with drawings of both men and women. I gave the women large breasts and revealing shirts. My mother looked through my sketch book, and one night I heard her telling her friend, "all the breasts are so large, what if shes a lesbian?". And I considered it. What if I was? I had no idea. I felt the same way about men and women still. My friends were branching out and dating and talking about crushes on boys in school. I picked a boy I was friends with and pretended to like him. I even faked a journal entry and left it out so a friend would see.

In Jr. High I briefly dated a boy who was friends with a boy my friend was dating. He was crass and kind of a jerk. Someone asked me why I was dating him, because he, "looked and dressed weird". I tried to figure out which features were desirable, but all the guys my friends liked were so varied.

High school hit me hard. Something was wrong with me I was sure. I decided to just date whoever liked me. Less choices on my part. In October we held a Octoberfest carnival thing. My anime club, yes I was in anime club, had a booth were we sold churros. I met a guy a year older than me who ended up liking me. So I "liked" him. We dated until February. He rarely showered and never brushed his teeth. I always felt gross when we hung out. In February a friend admitted to liking me. I broke up with the other guy for obvious reasons and accepted when the new one asked me out.

Things seemed fine at the start but this guy would go on to mentally and verbally abuse me for 5 more years and torment me for a year after that. I confided in him how I never liked anyone and never had crushes the same way others did. This was the first of many things he would use against me. He convinced me to have sex with him, because once I did I'd like him and be attracted to him. And when that didn't work, well I'd already done it, so I had to keep doing it. Then when I doubted things and didn't like being with him, he'd play on my various insecurities. "You'll never really like someone, it will always be fake. Might as well stay with me." "No one will like you if you can't feel the same way back, your lucky to have me." "I'm the only guy you can ever get." And beyond that to, "No one else would want a depressed sack of fat like you. I'm doing you a favor." "There's so much wrong with you, how can you ever expect to do better?" "Your so ugly and fat I can't believe I stoop to your level." And worse and worse yet. It was a slow descent over almost 2 years, but when he had me where he wanted me, he started to cheat on me. I couldn't leave, I wanted to die. The years with him were the worst of my life. And I trace it all back to not understanding how to tell if I wanted to be with someone.

We graduated and he moved into my house. The abuse only got worse. I developed fibromyalgia and other chronic illness, believed to be from "trauma". His abuse escalated after that. I couldn't escape him. And why would I want to? No one would ever take a broken piece of shit like me. He was doing me a favor.

He ended up leaving me. I never had the strength to leave him. He left me for, in his words, "a healthy girl with no problems". For the next year or so he'd get drunk and contact me. Eventually I stopped all communication. I ended up getting a tattoo he had forbade me from getting. It was freeing.

I tried the online dating scene for awhile. I desperately didn't want to be alone. But I couldn't connect with anyone. People would send me messages and I'd see pictures but I never met up with anyone. No one ever stood out. I didn't know what or how to pick someone.

My sister had a friend from Canada she played games with online. I played with them a few times and he invited his work friend to play to. I won't say we hit it off. My sister and her friend logged off and then me and the other guy were left alone. We talked, he seemed nice. After a few months the two of them got invited down to our house for a gaming convention in the area. The friend and I had grown close and he decided he liked me. I knew this time, I did not like him.

But as it goes, that didn't matter. He came down, stayed at our house and asked me out. I said no. He pushed and guilt tripped me until I said yes. He stayed a week. Everything was a guilt trip. He bought me something so I owed him. He came all this way, so I owed him. I said yes, so I owed him. When he went back home I broke up with him. He staged and gave me a play by play of a suicide attempt. His tactics relied on guilt. I wasn't used to that, so it was hard for me to let go. I didn't want to hurt anyone. Eventually I finally got away from him.

During that time my other sister asked if she could invite a guy she worked with to play league of legends with us, as he was very good and we wanted to win an event or achievement or something. He played with us and we did it.

Him and I talked. I told him about the guy from Canada. The suicide attempt. Most recently he had gotten the bill from the ambulance I sent to his house and said I needed to pay it since it was my fault. I refused and tried to quit talking to him. The new guy and I got close. He was someone I would call my best friend. When the Canada guy started more drama, he asked if we could hang out in real life, because up until then we had only talked online.

We did. I went to his house. We got teriyaki and played Mario cart. Something about this guy was different. He was a best friend but something else. Like our hearts were talking. We connected on a different level, something I had never felt with another person before. On the way home I made a stupid joke about not believing he never had a girlfriend. He asked if I wanted to be his. I said yes.

I gave him a hug goodbye. I kissed him on the cheek. He tried to kiss me on the cheek too but I moved and he missed and we had our first kiss. Everything was right in ways I never felt before.

Today we're set to be married, living together and have an amazing daughter. I couldn't imagine life with anyone else. I can confidently say, he is the first person I've actually liked. Romantically for sure. Sexually? I still don't know how that works.

I throughly enjoy sex with him. I desire the intimacy and connection and obviously it feels good. But honestly, what the hell is sexually attraction? Because I enjoy it does that mean I'm attracted? I don't know. I've never looked at anyone and gotten any...sexual feelings from looking at them.

I enjoy drawn porn and porn comics from an aesthetic point. The art is beautiful. The human body is wonderful. But it doesn't do anything for me. I like the art, the shapes, the aesthetic of porn. But it doesn't make me feel anything or make me want to do anything.

To masturbate or have sex I have to focus on the sensations alone, or how my partner feels. I've never found porn that works for me. I don't get horny from visuals at all. Half the time I forget he does. I'll be changing and he makes a move and I'll just be confused as to what got him in the mood. I feel a disconnect between it all.

There was a while where I called myself asexual. Seemed close. But the more I tried to fit in with the community the more I felt odd. Not outcast, because the asexual community is amazing, but more like I was fitting an oval peg into a circle hole. Close, but not quite.

When I consider it, men and women are almost equal to me. I think I may be more drawn to women at least visually. If I hadn't met my fiance I would have loved to date a woman. I enjoy the female form more from a aesthetic stand point.

So lately I've been wondering if maybe I was pansexual. A friend of mine is pan and she posted a quote about being attracted to the person, not the body. It felt more right and more like me than anything I had seen from the asexual community. But at the same time, my sample size of people I've liked it only at one. So I have no idea.

I also wonder, does it matter? I'm going to be with the person I am with forever now. I don't need to find anyone else, so it doesn't matter which gender preference I have or don't have.

I guess with Pride month I've been thinking about it a lot. There is a lot of talk of, "fly your flag high and have pride!" But what if you don't have a flag?

I feel queer. That's about as far as I've gotten. I don't know if I'll ever find something past that or not. Right now queer feels fine, just unsure. I guess I'm somewhere between sexuality is fluid and still figuring myself out. Who even knows what attraction is.

So happy Pride month everyone.

#queer #LGBT+ #lgbt pride #pride #asexual #pansexual #unsure #musings #rambling #blogging #life

[procyonarkadios]

Some Clarifications

Over the past year or so on tumblr, I’ve had a few people get rather upset with me about some of my posts. Personally, I’d like to give most of those people the benefit of the doubt, and think that most of the contention comes from misunderstanding. So, with this post, I’ll explain my views on some various topics for others to see. If you think I’m missing something, r you’re curious about it, let me know.

1: Gun Control “America has a Gun Problem!” It’s a statement I hear a lot, and while I certainly agree that it’s carries some truth, the statements that usually follow it often seem idiotic to me. I’m Pro-2A, and Pro-Gun Control, which is something it doesn’t seem most people think can happen. I believe the 2nd amendment is there for the protection of not just ourselves, but our rights. It’s how the founding fathers intended it, and it’s the only way the people can break away from a government that may become corrupt. I also recognize the need to address the mass shooting that seem to happen every other week. 

While most proposed regulations (and I’m not going to explain the “Confiscate all Firearms” ideas, You know it’s impossible, I know it’s impossible, the Government knows it’s impossible.) call for even tighter background checks, and banning of certain rifles, I think a slightly different approach should be taken. Instead of simply making background checks for firearms more intense, change the subjects that are considered. Take a higher focus on mental disorder, family status and history, and medical records. 

Currently the Background checks are based primarily on immigration status, and criminal history, and though they do evaluate mental disorders, the bar is set very high, meaning that fewer than 32,000 have been denied, despite over 4 times that many being denied for having a single drug possession offence. Another flaw in the system is the method in which the database is maintained. New regulations need to be put in place to make certain that people who should be barred from firearm purchase don’t slip through the cracks due to unclear documentations, slow processing times, and incomplete data. 

As for people who can by guns, I think the way it is (In most states, at least.) is fine. If you qualify for a license, you should be allowed to purchase any gun that license qualifies you for. Also, get rid of the tax on suppressors. That’s just bullshit.

2: Abortion I think I can say how a feel about this quite plainly. Overall, I’m Pro-Choice, but I’ll break it down by trimester.

1st: Abort away. You don’t want it, feel free to get rid of it.

2nd: Give it some thought. I’d say keep it, unless a situation arises wherein you cant be capable of raising the child, or a medical complication would occur if you were to continue. Still, If you don’t feel you’re ready, go ahead.

3rd: Only if you have to. Unless there is a medical reason, or an unexpected change in your lifestyle (Father dips, you unexpectedly are broke, stuff like that) makes you incapable of raising the child. I know this one is similar to the 2nd, but the main change is how serious the reasons need to be. (2 drawing that line at “I’d rather not” and 3 at “I can’t”)

3: Race and Sex Oh boy, this is where I gamble with pissing people off. I’d like toe preface this by saying that I am, as per the dictionary definition of the word, not a Racist or Sexist. I do not believe that any one race or gender has any innate superiority or inferiority compared to another. I’m gonna be more general with this, but if you want to know more, let me know.

I also don’t believe that people of European Heritage or Men need to pay reparations, or “atone for their past” by any other means. I don’t think that Minorities or Women need affirmative action programs to succeed. Both of these undermine the integrity of their success. It’s like the government saying “It’s okay, we know that you’re not good enough for the job, so here’s a boost.” Most will counter this by saying it’s to combat racist and sexist employers, and if it were still the ‘60s or ‘70s, I’d agree, but at this point, most employers simply don’t care, so long as you do your job. And if someone would rather hire a less-competent employee, that’s their own problem. You can almost certainly find some other employer with any intelligence.

As for sexism particularly, while I don’t exactly believe that either sex has it’s “place” in society, I absolutely recognize that each sex has common inclination that differ from each other, and that both sexes have both psychological and physiological differences. Men are, on average, objectively stronger than women. Women are, of average, considerably better caregivers than men. There are also certainly women who are much stronger than many men, and there are certainly men who are better caregivers than many women. 

4: LGBT To start, I have 2 lesbian moms. I was born to my Mom and Dad, and when I was 5, they divorced and my brother and l mostly lived with our Mom and Step-Mom. I also have plenty of LGBT friends, both for sexuality and gender. I know some gays, asexual, transsexuals, and even a non-binary individual. At least, I believe that person said that  were non-binary at one time. I’ve never actually had a conversation with the individual about it though, as it really doesn’t matter. And the last part of that sentence really covers how I feel about it. 

I think there’s 2 genders, and people are somewhere between those, whether it be in complete opposition to their sex, or they lie somewhere in-between. I do not, however, think each measure of the spectrum is a whole new gender. It’s simply spot on the spectrum. Similarly, I think there are 2 ends of the sexuality spectrum, and people are either somewhere on there, or aren’t on their at all (Ace Folks). And as for people who incorporate their sexuality into their gender to create some new gender, I think that whole notion is absurd. Gender and Sexuality are their own things, trying to fuse the two only makes things confusing.

5: The concept of “Dangerous Ideas” Have you ever read Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf (1925)? Neither have I, but I’d like to. Have you ever read Joseph Brian III’s The Sword Over the Mantle (1960)? I have read that one, and it’s a fantastic account of what how someone who was a descendent of Confederate Troops of the US Civil War viewed some of the nations history. It was Sympathetic, but never bitter. 

It’s exactly the kind of book that should be read in high school. It’s not a very long story, It’s interesting and engaging, and it provides an understanding of how people with a family history that lies with the south may feel about the war, and how objects such as the Confederate Battle Flag, or statues of some of their most famed leaders are important to them. Most of these people are not racist, nor does J. Brian III think that America would have been better had the south won the war, but none of the ideas in this novel are dangerous.

I believe any idea, no matter how extreme or absurd it may be, deserves to not only be heard, but understood. A lot of people nowadays only look at what people think, and not why they think it. Yes, there are certainly ideas which are absolutely terrible. The Holocaust, for example is immeasurably vile. Mein Kampf, however, is not in and of itself, dangerous. Understanding the way Adolf saw the world, and how he came to his conclusions, and why he handled Germany the way he did, can be used as a means of learning. It can show us which ways of thinking may lead to harmful results. 

That’s all for now. I originally had more topics to talk about, but since I’ve started writing, I’ve forgotten them. I’ll add to this post as I come up with ideas, or if you suggest any for me to cover, or add detail to.

[morfiction]

Lot’s Wife

Bringing the Mind to Peace

and Removing it of Sin.

By

Mara The Sorrowful

Genesis 19:6

6 But his wife looked back from behind him,

and she became a pillar of salt.

http://biblehub.com/genesis/19-26.htm

So was the fate of Lot’s wife as she witnessed the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah. The place had been a place of sin and so great was the sin that God had it destroyed. All she did is witness its destruction, she is punished for it.

The mind, body, and soul of deeply religious person in today’s society is equal to that of a pillar of stone. Their hearts and minds are hardened to armor them against the love that is God’s Love for them. Against the love of their fellow man.

The teaching of Jesus upon the Sermon on the Mount were many wise and well considered words. They will be a cornerstone of this book. But I do not wish to preach to champion the Christian Faith. Rather, I use these words to comfort the soul of all men & women upon the earth.  You may find solace in them if you are or are not a believer in him.

I will begin with a most important concept.

Matthew 5-7 (King James Version)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=MATT%205-7&version=KJV

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Jesus isn’t saying you should be a nudist. He’s saying DO NOT judge people by their clothes (aka “raiment”) if you think wearing your Sunday Best or an expensive piece of clothing gives you a higher place in Heaven than a bum wearing rags, you’re dead wrong, buster.

To whom is Jesus speaking? Who does Jesus truly believe will follow him into Heaven & get their just rewards? You and me, my friend. God doesn’t judge you harshly for being gay or lesbian or bi or transgender or even heterosexual. He doesn’t care how you express your sexuality or gender. He made you different because he loves you and wishes to give you strength to stand up against your oppressors and say “NO!”

Be happy with who you are. I’m not here to pressure you to join any group you don’t entirely want to join. I wrote this document to give you hope for your future. Shine that light of yours that God has given you. If you’re LGBT, wave that Pride Flag high! If you are not, then speak no more sinful assertions against your fellow man or woman who are.

Now let’s back up a bit.

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=MATT+5-7&version=NIV

“Matthew 5-7

King James Version (KJV)

5 And seeing the multitudes, he (Jesus) went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”

And is when Jesus spoke the words “falsely, for my sake” he predicted that a series of new religions would spring up which claimed to be inspired by him and his sacrifice but ultimately were just a continuation of the practices of the Temple he sought to overthrow.

“12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” And great the reward shall be…”

http://facu.proboards.com/thread/139/goals-website?page=1&scrollTo=246

Let’s step outside of preaching mode for a moment so I may explain. I am referencing Jesus, but I am not speaking only to Christians. Jesus is speaking to those who have been outcast or teased or bullied. Whether or not you admit it, if you have been set aside because you are different, you have been persecuted.

http://facu.proboards.com/thread/139/goals-website?page=1&scrollTo=246

If you have been told you’re too tall, if you’re too short, or too this or too that. If you’re not good at sports, if you stutter, if you have ADHD, whatever… and people are using your difference from the norm against you, Jesus is looking right at you and giving you a promise towards salvation.

http://facu.proboards.com/thread/139/goals-website?page=1&scrollTo=246

Jesus isn’t going to save the bullies. The bully can go to church every sunday and swear on a stack of Bibles all he wants, and Jesus isn’t fooled by this deceit. Bullies threw stones at Jesus, the whipped him, and they murdered him. He will have not that person in Heaven beside you.

“14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.“

A little opaque in the delivery, but Jesus is saying do not hide or feel shame for your gifts and God-given talents. If you can sing, sing. If you can draw, draw. If you can write, write. Do all the creative things you wish. Do not let the bullies and naysayers tell you to stop being you. Those who do so are jealous of you and your gifts, they wish to poison your mind against you so that they may feel satisfaction.

“20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.“

He’s saying that those who have been bullied & scorned are far better than those who do the bullying & scorning.

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.“

Now I know the word “sue” gets a different meaning now than Jesus had meant. The word should be “request.” He means in these passages that you freely give of yourself to others, especially those who are poor or harmless who ask for help. That you should go beyond that, even, give the person roughly twice the help they request.

Now I’m not saying give someone twenty dollars just because they want ten. If you cannot realistically afford to give money, give them kindness. Be that person’s friend in the very least. By adding value and self-worth into their lives adds value and self-worth into your own.

http://facu.proboards.com/thread/139/goals-website?page=1&scrollTo=246

“44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;“

Need I explain? (smiles) Do not seek vengeance, but try and ask for God to forgive them.

“6 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.“

http://facu.proboards.com/thread/139/goals-website?page=1&scrollTo=246

Fascinating. Jesus actually predicted mega-charities springing up! Don’t let them fool you, most of the money you give to these places to “feed the poor starving African children” doesn’t go entirely towards feeding them. A large portion of it pays for the salaries of paid actors & high production values… goes into the pockets of people who become wealthy thru this subterfuge.

http://facu.proboards.com/thread/139/goals-website?page=1&scrollTo=246

Jesus doesn’t pass the collection plate. If you worship somewhere that expects you to DEFY Jesus’s above proclamation against public charity, then do not go there. Don’t let them convince you they are serving his will, don’t believe the lies! This is the first of the crimes organized religion has made against him and the most telling example of their falsehood.

“5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.“

Okay, not literally in your closet. But in Jesus’s time there were only synagogues. But if Jesus were alive today, he’d tell you not to go into a Church either. Any building that says it is “God’s House” and exists only to profit off of people seeking enlightenment is a place of sin.

He is saying your prayer should be a private thing between you and God, that God will see you pray and will hear your words no matter how secretly you do it. In fact, you don’t even have to pray at all. He’ll read your mind, he will know what bothers you and will do his best to give you happiness but he cannot give everyone instant gratification for there are so many other people in need.

“7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.“

Jesus is specifically saying do not form your prayer as a routine thing you say. Don’t say Grace, don’t say The Lord’s Prayer before you go to bed. God will hear your words and ignore you. And back to the mind-reading I said earlier. Sweet.

“9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.“

This passage is invalid because it contradicts his edict against “vain repetitions.”

What have we learned? We have learned not to value Organized Religion’s doctrines above our own self-worth. We have learned not to make a show of charity or prayer. We have also learned to not structure our prayer in the form of a prideful speech. We have discredited the tools that the bullies use to oppress us.

This is the end of the first part of my narrative. Be well. See you in Part Two.

[illusoriy]

Tumblr Safe Mode: How Do?

so what’s up with tumblr safe mode, anyway? 

Inspired by @the-son-of-dathomir who posed the very valid question “so just how bad is the new update anyway -- can anyone provide actual sources instead of the same screenshot over and over?” Given our (tumblr users’) known tendency to reblog first and fact check never, I decided to find out for myself!

I created a brand new account where I listed my age as 16, which I’ll call BB for Baby Blog, and a sideblog from my main that I flagged as explicit. I turned on safe mode for my main to see what sorts of things got flagged and then set off to explore. 

Note: there were some things (posts, blogs) that were NOT flagged on BB that other users have been saying got flagged for them (for example, both @sapphic-sex-ed and @positive-lesbian-vibes have had users saying the blogs were flagged for them, but neither of them were on BB), so it’s possible that we each get our own, individualized, terrible safe mode algorithm. If someone else wants to test stuff too, please link me! The more info about this SNAFU the better. 

Second note: safe search CAN be turned off in mobile for adult users, they just did it oddly. On iOS you need to go to the general phone settings, not the tumblr app -- you scroll down in settings to tumblr settings and you can toggle safe mode on/off from there. 

Results under the cut!

BLOGS

Of blogs I follow, @swpromptsandasks was flagged, so I used them (SWPrompts Moddy, hope you don’t mind!). The icon is pixelated out, like this:

pixelated safe-mode version of swpromptsandasks’ icon]

[swpromptsandasks’ original icon]

If you click their blog to view in dashboard, you get this page:

However, if you go to their actual url, you can view it just fine. I was able to follow from BB and can see what looks like pretty much all their posts, including a drawing of Jabba the Hutt in tighty-whiteys which I WISH had been flagged. [gagging noises]

I also tried to follow Explicit Blog from BB and was able to do so using tumblr.com/follow/[explicitblogurl]. Explicit Blog’s icon (one of the default tumblr ones) is also blurred out, which is kind of funny looking since it’s one of those generic shapes with eyes.

POSTS

I actually had a hard time finding flagged posts in my dash. This might be because I don’t follow blogs that post a lot of nsfw content, but I don’t actually know. The first one I found was a post reblogged by @demonicvulcan, a short kirk/spock comic where kirk is shirtless (as usual). So, not exactly ~sensitive content~ but whatever, other users have already established that their algorithm sucks.

This is what it looked like in my dashboard on my main:

And this is what it looked like on BB’s dash: 

So if you’re an adult account that has safe mode on, you can click the button to see it anyway, kind of like a normal, functioning blacklist. If you’re a minor it taunts you with the knowledge that there IS content there somewhere, but you’re a tiny baby so you don’t get to see it. Ha ha.

So that’s an example of a wrongly-flagged sfw post. Next I made two posts on Explicit Blog, one that sounded like a badly malfunctioning sex robot trying to dirty talk (“PENIS! SEX BOOBS! HOT!” and so on) and one explicit image that was reblogged from one of the pornbots following my main (I guess they’re good for something once in a while?). BOTH THE TEXT AND THE IMAGE SHOWED UP IN BB’S DASHBOARD.  So, shirtless Kirk is Too Far but a girl in the nude photographed immediately after performing oral is a-okay, apparently (??????)

TAGS AND SEARCH

I tried terms ranging from totally innocuous to nsfw, and looked at each both as a tag and a search result. For the normal searches I mostly focused on things that could, reasonably, be a non-sexual thing a minor would want to look at that I’ve heard tumblr has been flagging (think lgbt stuff, sex education). 

#lesbian: completely different results on main vs BB because all the results on main were porn. 😑

“lesbian” search: completely different posts, same blogs at the top for both main and BB. Had different results for “most popular” even with “hiding sensitive content” picked on my main, which was weird. 

#lesbiansafe: mostly the same posts. A poem by starlightglimmer and a post about being a popular lesbian blog by tenderqueerbutch that showed on main didn’t show on BB.

“lesbiansafe” search: the same when sorted by most popular; a post by terfs-are-evil about corrective rape and a post by ribbontxt about being drunk and wanting to hug a girl didn’t show on BB.

#trans woman: mostly the same results for main and BB. the one post that didn’t show up on BB was explicit porn.

“trans woman” search: mostly the same results for main and BB. ditto on the one porn post in the tag not showing up on BB.

#sex ed: no posts found on BB, lots of posts on main (about half were actually education and the other half were just porn). If you misspell it as #sexed, all one word, you get about half the results on BB that you get on main, mostly with porn as the half that doesn’t show.

“sex ed” search: no results for BB, loads of results for main. Erika M0en was the first blog suggested under the search on my main, which, okay then. :/

#girl on girl: no posts found for BB. On main, it was about a 1:2 ratio of selfies/sfw images to porn.

“girl on girl” search: totally different posts from main and BB. when searching on main with safe search, there was one trans girl positivity post from dateagirlwhosweird that did NOT show up in BB’s search results but did for my main.

#nsfw: no posts found on BB, lots of porn on main.

“nsfw” search: no results found for BB, lots of porn on main.

TL;DR: tumblr’s safe mode algorithm is completely fucking useless and may also be different from user to user. Things were and were not flagged/blocked at complete random and, while not blocking ALL sfw LGBT content, the algorithm definitely did block some of it. 

#safe mode #tumblr safe mode #lgbt #lesbiansafe #tumblr update #safety mode #tumblr safety mode