#anon i promise you that you are not forcing your way into queer spaces | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

olderthannetfic · 2 years

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(masc4masc anon) I think it also shows how divorced from lived realities a lot of the people worrying about this are. Queer people in real life (men, women, nonbinary) label ourselves as tops and bottoms. If you try to tell us in real life it's "not progressive enough" most of us will just laugh in your face. It's just a quick identifier to convey to potential sexual partners your preference to gauge/predict compatibility. It's not going to be the downfall of our entire community, I promise, especially because depending on what space you're in top and bottom and verse could mean different things, but it all just boils down to personal preference. It's not that serious. I and every person I know have encountered one of those masc4masc guys in the wild, and I don't know if all these people realize they're using the exact same talking points.

Because then you get into the social politics of who is masculine. By whose definition? Is this only limited to body type? Levels of femininity or masculinity? Then you get into dominant or subordinate masculinities. Personality type? Ethnicity? Race? Nationality? Then you run into the problems of ethnocentricism and homonationalism without any self-awareness. Then, Black and Latine men are too masculine. Asian and Indigenous men aren't masculine enough. White men and masculinity is the ideal, which then turns into "It's our (White) job to hyper manage/tame Black and Brown men and to emasculate/subjugate Asian and Indigenous men." But they already do this in fandom when they say "Everything Japan/China/Korea/Thailand does is backwards. They need my (White) stamp of approval to improve themselves and I will enforce this any way I can by using my Western identity as social currency to talk over others who are different." It's all just neocolonialist rhetoric hiding under a faux-progressive veil to enforce social norms on people who didn't ask in the first place.

Also, some people are just attracted to feminity and masculinity. Some masculine men are just attracted to masculine men, feminine men to feminine men, Masculine men to feminine men, and vice versa, and the same for women and nonbinaries. Trying to force yourself and others to fit into these specific boxes will never be good for anyone. Why force yourself to like something in sex and fantasies that frankly has nothing to do with anyone else?

Bottom line, if tagging doesn't matter to you, that's fine, but understand that some people are trying to find specific things and the tagging system is literally made for that. And for the nouveau masc4masc people out there, what exactly is it about feminity in men that bothers you and why do you equate bottoming to being "the woman," if that's the case. If it's just because it's not your preference... tagging would help you avoid it so you can just block or exclude the tags to never read it again. Problem solved. If it really doesn't matter to you, then why complain so much about it? Either way, women and femmes are damned if they like masc4masc and damned if they don't.

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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 4 years

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Last year after little introspection, I realised I am bisexual, though signs were pretty much present all these years. I'm 26yrs now. I come from an extremely homophobic and heteronormative country. Though it's legal its much bigger taboo than cheating. I know im attracted to women. But i find it so difficult to see myself in a proper relationship with a woman even if I moved to a different country. Also I find it so difficult to connect with queer culture and feel as its part (Continued)

Part2 I hate myself for this internalized homophobia. Is it just a phase during self discovery about sexuality? Does it change with age and I can be comfortable with myself and connect with the people who are just like me.... Self acceptance is so much more than just stating i'm gay or bisexual.... I've been following your blog for a while and have sent you fandom related questions. The way you talk about the queer culture always leaves me in awe. The history is so brave, strong and patient.

(Part3) Also I would like to apologize for my English, please forgive me if I offended anyone. That wasn't my intension.

****************

Oh anon - I want to send you so much love (and emphasise that you don’t need to apologise for your English - particularly not to someone who only speaks one language!)

The most important thing I want to say is please don’t judge yourself for the way you’re living in a homophobic society. I personally don’t like the phrase ‘internalised homophobia’. If people find it useful then I respect that, but so often (and I get the feeling with you) it just adds to the pressure and makes people feel ashamed that they feel shame.

It’s incredibly normal for queer people not to be able to imagine a future for themselves. You don’t feel that way because there’s anything wrong with you. You feel that way because the society and world you live in has stripped you of what we all need - the opportunity to see people like us live full and happy lives, both in the media and in your community.

Everything your describing I’ve experienced and still carry to some extent. And I also felt that it was a sign of something wrong with me, that I was doing queerness wrong. And I’m so greatful who told me over and over again in different ways that far from a sign I was doing it wrong that was the lesbian experience.

You’re doing amazing anon - I promise you. You’re doing amazing at navigating a homophobic society and figuring out how to live. The difficulties and pains that you feel are the result of the ways the world is wrong, not a sign of any problem with you. Can you practice saying that to yourself? Even if you don’t quite believe it? ‘I’m doing amazing’, ‘What I’m feeling is part of the queer experience, not a sign that I’m doing it wrong’ ‘isn’t it shit that hte world makes me feel this way - shit world’.

I have also felt alienated from queer culture and queer spaces in different ways at different times in my life for all sorts of reasons. I think it really helps not to think of ‘queer culture’ as a monolith that you should engage with as a whole, but to find what does speak to you. There have been lots of queer people doing things in all sorts of different places and times. If you don’t connect with a particular part of queer culture, don’t try and force it or think that there’s osmethingn wrong with you. Instead keep looking for what you do connect with.

So much love to you anon. I promise you again that you are doing amazing.

#<3 #so much love #Anonymous

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shysweetthing · 7 years

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A bit late and possibly more than you want to deal with, but I suppose I just want to get it out of my head: Barring my therapist, no. I don't have anyone telling me I deserve love, and even if I did, I wouldn't believe them. I'm still struggling with the concept that I deserve *life.* Love's a bit much.

Hey anon, first, I don’t know where your head is right now, but if you’re anywhere near that point, please call a suicide prevention line (here: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/) or if you need it, an LGBT centered one (here: https://www.ostem.org/crisis-hotlines).

It is okay to take baby steps with your mental health. It’s okay to start by convincing yourself that you deserve to live, and then moving on to bigger things. I don’t know where you are, but I can promise you that staying alive helps, a lot.

I don’t know who you are or anything about you, but as a statistical matter, I am almost certain to be older than you are–I see people calling themselves “tumblr olds” who are dozens of years younger than I am–and while that certainly doesn’t make me any smarter, it does mean that I have a little more perspective.

I have always had cyclical, deep depression–starting from the time I was about ten–which left me so dark that it scared me sometimes. When I was younger, I didn’t know why I was such a bad person, and why I had those thoughts. (It didn’t help that my parents raised me in a very conservative religion and I was absolutely queer.) I was utterly miserable, and for the most part, I never told anyone how bad it was–I didn’t start talking about this thing I didn’t understand until I was 19 or 20.

I remember telling a friend that I felt like I was in an elliptical orbit around hell, that every time I thought I was getting farther away, I got pulled back in. I didn’t think it was possible to get away. And my friend–who was, like me, an incredible dork–responded that I needed to remember that if you want to achieve escape velocity from an elliptical orbit, I needed to accelerate when I was going down.

For years, that was the thing I pushed for: escape velocity. I was going to reach escape velocity. One day, I was going to push hard enough, and do the right thing, and I would escape this thing that kept coming back to me and clouding my mind. When times were bad, I worried about the opposite: that this time, I would come crashing down. It would be irretrievable. I wouldn’t make it.

(At the time, I didn’t have a name for this thing; nobody I was around talked about mental health, and it never occurred to me that I had a real issue.)

So I pushed. I tried hard. I tried everything I could. And there were times when all I could try was to just keep living another day, so I did that. I had about fifteen years of my life where all I could think was that maybe next time I wouldn’t get out.

But here’s the thing. Every time I went down, I learned something new. I didn’t know I was learning it, but I was. I learned coping skills. I learned how to least fuck over other people when I dropped the basket containing all the eggs. I learned how to take care of myself. I learned how to exist as myself, and not anyone else.

It got better. It got familiar. I discovered that the thing I had had a name, and that I wasn’t just an incredibly bad, stupid, lazy person. I tried every last thing I could find on a list that had been clinically proven to alleviate the symptoms of depression, and my list of coping skills got even longer. I learned to be nice to myself (a little), to give myself a wide margin, and to trust that even though I would never achieve escape velocity from my depression, the cyclical nature of my orbit meant that it would ebb and flow. The patterns became familiar, and I learned to trust myself to navigate through them.

My depression has never gotten better, but I have. I am not stronger than my depression, but I know how to work with it, how to carve out a space that is me and recognize my right to exist and be happy in a framework that is hostile to my existence.

Sometime in the last five years or so, I’ve came to another realization. I have friends who are neurotypical, ones that I went to college or grad school or whatever with. They’ve all been working stable jobs doing adult things for their entire life, and I… uh, I have not been able to hold down a so-called adult job for more than three years at a time.

(It’s okay, it’s still possible to make money and not be an adult.)

I spent the last weekend at a reunion for one of the groups I was with–highly intelligent, highly successful people who have pretty much universally reached the pinnacle of acclaim. And then there is me.

I sat with friends I knew twelve years ago when I was starting over after another devastating bout of failure, and they were fresh-faced and new. They’re all hitting their midlife crisis. The one where they realize they’ve been working at this thing forever and they’re making money and they have a big home and a garden and blah blah blah and what the hell is all of this for, anyway?

I try to talk them, gently, through my coping skills. Have you considered switching jobs? Have you considered working just part time? What about learning something new just for the hell of it? What if you took two weeks off and just slept? What if you binge-watched a brand new show? I highly recommend Yuri on Ice, you should watch it, do!

To a person, my friends look at me in bafflement and say, “I can’t do that, how could I do that? I think I just have to shrug and keep going.”

I’ve spent most of my life learning how to exist, how to be happy, in crises mode. They have never, ever had to figure that out. I have had to be flexible my entire life; they’ve become brittle to the point of being unable to bend. I used to ask myself, “What could I be if I wasn’t depressed?”

I pretty much know now. If I wasn’t depressed, I wouldn’t be happy. Not the way I am. My happiness is my most important coping skill. Before I do anything, I have to ask, “Is this going to make me miserable?” I’ve learned through experience that I cannot handle any degree of misery, not for any length of time.

I have been forced through the crucible of my depression to seek delight. When I was younger, I thought I would never, ever be happy. I kept going, and I kept believing it was possible, and even though right now, I am on the gentle upswing of one of the worst depressions I have experienced in a decade, I am, deep down, happy.

And I was surrounded by people this last weekend who were subtly jealous of me.

I wouldn’t wish my depression on anyone. I wouldn’t. Depression is terrible and impossible.

But I promise you, that if you keep going, you will learn coping skills. You will gradually discover things that help. You will build up an arsenal of self-protection.

And thirty years from now, you’ll be talking to the friends you envy now for their ability to function in a normal way, and they’ll all tell you that they wish they could do what you do, but it’s just not possible, it’s just not possible.

And you? You’ll have been living with the impossible all your life. To you, the impossible will be easy.

I don’t know if this will be helpful at all. I’m not a counselor. I don’t know how to help someone in crises.

All I can say is that I have lived in crises all my life and it gets better. I wouldn’t wish my depression on anyone, but I’ve reached the point in my life where I am delighted to be myself. Every decade of my life is better than the last.

You deserve love. You deserve happiness. You deserve life. Even though I don’t know you, I know these things are true. I’m here from the other end to tell you to please stick it out, because even if you don’t believe these things now, one day, you will.

#tw suicide #tw mental health #asks #anonymous

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queercapwriting · 7 years

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Hey! I know this is queer girls but I was wondering if you or someone else could write a fan fiction where Alex is non-binary/genderfluid (slightly on the masc side taking low dose T) and they fall in love with Maggie. I'm not trying to take way from what you do but it would be nice to find representation in something for enby people. Like they (Alex or just an enby person in life) still get the girl and have a queer relationship.

This piece by an amazing Anon is more brilliant thananything I could ever do, but hey, I figure, even more positive rep can’t hurt?http://queergirlwriting.tumblr.com/post/158177950334/promised-word-vomit-featuring-nbalex-its-not

Also, random note: I replay their first bar scene togetherin this, and since Alex is already out (in accordance with the wonderfulprompt), I figured I’d take some other liberties and have Maggie not be datinganyone when they meet. Artistic license, okay? Okay.

It was a relief when they chopped their hair off.

Sure, it was because J’onn – well, Hank at the time (Alexwasn’t the only one who’d gone through some identity clarifications in the lastcouple of years) – strongly recommended it because their training wouldn’tnecessarily work too well with long hair.

But it was a relief nonetheless, even if they wouldn’tacknowledge it as such at the time.

Even if they wouldn’t let themselves acknowledge why themirror made them feel like they were crawling out of their skin, like they hadto drink into a stupor nearly every night to force it down, to forget, toerase.

To want girls?

Bad enough.

To want girls and maybe not quite even be one?

Worse.

But it hadn’t been bad, and it hadn’t been worse. Notreally.

It had actually been… good.

Because J’onn had smiled his “of course I knew, I’m psychic”smile and pulled them in for a hug, and Winn had asked if it was still okay ifhe called them “dude” or if it made them uncomfortable, and James had huggedthem and kissed their temple, and Kara?

Kara had wept because she thought it was her fault it hadtaken Alex so long to realize and be okay with such important things. But sheswallowed it quickly enough, because it was about Alex right now, and shewanted to hear everything.

And now? On the extra low dose of T that they got from thelocal clinic – they didn’t want to change their body that much, just a littlebit, just enough – and with everyone at the DEO using the proper pronouns forAgent Danvers and J’onn, Kara, James, and Winn all threatening to destroyanyone who intentionally didn’t, Alex had never felt more alive.

And then some cocky NCPD detective showed up at their crimescene, and they knew they were screwed.

Because coming out to family had been one thing.

Dating? Now? Or like… ever?

No no no.

T or no T, supportive family or no supportive family, AlexDanvers was not exactly good at the flirting thing. At the being good withpeople thing.

Except the strangest thing was that Maggie Sawyer didn’tseem to think so. Because Maggie Sawyer trusted them enough to take them to thealien bar.

To touch them when they reached for their gun.

Alex couldn’t remember when the last time was that they weretouched by someone who wasn’t family, and the touch wasn’t violent.

“How do you think she learned English? She’s my ex,” Maggiewas saying, and Alex’s eyes were wide, because god, god, god, the cute girlwith the dimples and that voice and those eyes and that hair is queer, she’squeer, she’s queer.

But their stomach dropped almost as quickly as their heartrose.

Because she’s probably exclusively into girls.

God dammit.

“I don’t exclusively date aliens, though,” Maggie wassaying, and a lump rose in Alex’s throat. “Or women, not exactly,” shecontinued, her eyes sharp and her voice a little low and her gaze locked bothtentatively and headily on Alex’s face.

“Not exactly,” Alex repeated questioningly, never more awareof their T-lowered voice than they were right now.

“I mean you’re pretty cute, wouldn’t say no to aperson like you,” Maggie had said, and Alex had promptly spilled their drink.

And Maggie hadn’t rolled her eyes or pointed and laughed.She’d shot up from her seat and she’d picked up the bottle and she’d grabbedthe towel off of Darla’s passing shoulder and she’d patted down Alex’s hands,their lap, their chest. Her fingers brushed their collared shirt, the tightnylon of the binder underneath, and Maggie’s breath hitched and her eyes lockedwith Alex’s.

“Hi,” she gulped, and Alex just stared, because their brainhad stopped working.

Girl, pretty girl, smart girl, badass girl, close to meand not disgusted and looks a little turned on by just… who I am, by beingclose to me, what do I do what do I do what do I –

“Sorry there, Danvers, I didn’t mean to get all up in yourspace,” Maggie said as she backed up. “Darla, can you get them another beerplease?”

She said nothing about how or why it had spilled, justoffered Alex a soft grin and pressed the towel into their hands and padded backto her seat across the table.

“So this is where you get all your intel,” Alex tried tosteer the conversation back into terrain they knew, terrain they were confidentin, terrain they could excel in.

Maggie tilted her head and squinted for a moment, like shewas trying to figure out if Alex was flustered or just disinterested.

Alex wasn’t quite sure what conclusion Maggie came to, buther reply was light, banter-y. Maybe even a little flirty.

“Well, when our labs are about as effective as Easy-Bakeovens, we make do with what we’ve got”, Maggie scoffed and nodded her thanks asDarla set down another beer.

“Thanks,” Alex offered Darla, a crooked grin on their face.“And hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to be a jerk out there. I just get protective ofmy crime scenes.”

“Please Danvers, it was my crime scene.”

“Wanna bet?” Alex asked, smiling, because now they were sureMaggie was flirting, because those eyes, that smile, couldn’t mean anythingelse.

Alex felt like they were flying as they stood and grabbedboth of their beers in one hand and offered Maggie their other, nodding towardthe pool table.

“You say this is where your informants go? No better placeto gather intel than at the pool table, right?”

Maggie squinted up at them and licked her lips and accepted their hand. Electricity crackled and Alex’s heart soared.

“A fed who knows how to play. Better every minute, Danvers.”

And Alex had never seen a more perfect smile, or felt more perfect in their life.

#sanvers #sanvers minific #nb!alex danvers #nb!alex #sanvers fic

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