#but I literally never imply that trans people on the whole are the issue like there are gonna be misogynists and bad apples in any group | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

onewholivesinloops · 1 year

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people saying wonder egg priority’s momoe is good trans rep offends me on a personal level because i STILL can’t grasp what her deal is even supposed to be. the trans boy isn’t either imo btw. he gets the most brutal backstory and his inclusion is very questionable when the whole egg thing is about girls so there’s nothing that justifies that other than the fact that he’s afab which IS blatantly transphobic. momoe’s thing is made even more confusing with all of the trans imagery (her bra literally being the flag and revealing itself when she comes to terms with herself had to have meant something) so is the egg system transphobic or not?? i feel like it only makes sense to read her as cis considering afab people are what count going by the track record, and she struggles with femininity and girls flirting with her (which is lowkey homophobic to me bc it implies sapphics will jump on any gnc girl) but this makes the trans imagery with her very weird. it’s like they associate her with specifically the trans colors several times during pivotal scenes only to throw in the trans boy counting as an egg so it's VERY muddled what they wanna go for...

being a cis woman who’s mistaken for a boy due to being gnc isn't a bad idea for a character concept, and i like the idea of her finding comfort and genuine love with a trans man who can relate to her experience. it's just SO dumb they go out of their way to code her as trans in the process of this, and not to mention the misery porn that ends up being the boy's storyline (the suffering in the show lowkey feels very fetishy especially when you look at the writers’ background i found out the main writer wrote a bunch of torture porn soap operas featuring teenage girls from this video and while i don’t think this subject matter is something that can’t ever be discussed and explored the show is so set on being miserable especially with him in particular), the aforementioned weird undertones of how girls treated momoe and the system just casually being transphobic with no real focus put on that. the system in general is miserable and fucked up and as much as i’d like to give it the benefit of doubt in that it’s the intent i don’t think the narrative thinks the gender essentalism and transphobia parts of it are actual flaws because there’s no real focus on that.

i also think the trans boy shouldn’t have been an egg character in the first place. he should’ve been a real world one. i can see the idea of a corrupt sexist and transphobic system that exploits the mental health of little girls using a trans boy for their experiments done well if it’s called out for what it is, but that’s never the case in the show at any point and it’s not something i trust these writers to tackle well. also don’t get me started on that suicide thing in episode 4 where acca and ura-acca go “women and men’s suicides mean different things; men are goal-oriented and women are emotion-oriented, and women are impulsive and easily influenced”. this misogyny and gender essentialism is, again, never called out or addressed so it’s hard to read this as anything but what the narrative and the writers believe/don’t think is an issue lol...

don’t even get me started on frill because idek what that robot girl’s point is even supposed to be. she’s even more nonsensical than momoe’s thing. the suicide disease or whatever the hell it was is the cherry on top that makes the show even more offensive because on top of condemning the girls for their suffering it feels like it’s also taking away their agency which is very dehumanizing.

#sorry for this rant something reminded me of wep's existence and i've been bottling this in for a while so i needed to let it out LOL #gamo.txt

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telekinetic-electronica · 9 months

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let’s talk about neo metal sonic.

Metal Sonic has definitely been a fan favorite over the years. He’s one of Sonic’s first rivals, next to Knuckles. He has been in many games. And Heroes, was to be honest, his big role overall in terms of story. I want to look at what his Neo form means, canonically and how people taken his Neo form within the fandom.

First, let’s start off with something, I’m gonna call Metal Neo from here on out. Neo, at his core, is honestly an insanely tragic character. He struggles with an identity crisis, the moment he has free will. He wants to be his own person so bad, but he’s still VERY much tied to Sonic. The purpose he’s meant to destroy and overcome.

And I also wanna say, a lot of Neo’s issues come from Eggman. I also wanna say, Eggman is nothing like his portrayal, fanon wise. This man is very selfish. He berates his creations, threatens to hurt them, and sees them as something he can use. Neo isn’t exempt from this. And before any brings up Sage,

I do like Eggman having a human moment with Sage, but just because an abusive parent is nice to one kid, it doesn’t mean he didn’t abuse his other kids. I don’t know where this whole “doting father” thing came from, but it’s fanon and something heavily Ian Flynn leans into, and it isn’t canon. (Like he literally blew that conch thing and just like. Messed up with the Zeti’s heads because they “disappointed him, and listed off things he’s “done for them”, Ik he’s a villian, point still stands.)

And because of this, it drives Neo, but at the cost... of a lot. It’s often hinted at that Neo actually really doesn’t fucking like Eggman and hates of the shit he says to him. Him failing to finally end Sonic. Him always being left to the side lines to just... die.

Sonic just leaving him, after the day ends. Or Eggman just leaving him there. Until he’s ready for the next mission, and whenever Eggman feels like it. Neo has no support system, and he’s just driven by this overall need to prove himself. To prove he’s not some unlovable failure to Sonic and to his creator.

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“I WAS CREATED FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF DESTROYING YOU. BUT I COULD NEVER SEEM TO DEFEAT YOU. THAT IS WHY I TRANSFORMED MY OWN BODY WITH MY OWN HANDS. BUT THAT WAS THE PAST. NOW YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A SPEC OF DUST TO ME.” “SEE ME AS I AM, NO LONGER AFRAID OF ANYTHING.” Like, it’s quite clear that Neo DOES have feelings. If he weren’t alive, in some way, he wouldn’t be able to use chaos control during his fight with Sonic and co. And I think we all know what he’s afraid of. Afraid of, what they implying and saying about him is right. The only REAL person to try and reach out to Neo is, Shadow. And guess who was also used as a living weapon?

(I know Sonic has done so as well, but let’s be honest, those moments are kind of rare?)

They both were. Neo, really doesn’t have, anyone. He was viewed as a heartless, monster, who is obedient to Eggman, no matter what. He had nobody, and let’s be honest, Neo definitely ran away from Eggman to develop his Neo form and Metal Overlord. He was alone and gone, for God knows how long, and I’m gonna be honest, I think this form was him having a mental break down.

This stage is literally called “Metal Madness.” And God, let’s talk about his Neo form, for a bit.

Neo broke away from Eggman’s control and is FINALLY taking action for his own life. Sure, evil purposes, but still to him, he’s freed from Eggman shackles, and can you really blame Neo for doing so? He was basically raised to be nothing but to do evil shit, and with no warm or kindness extended to him. Or it was really fucking rare. He had nothing but just bitter and anger to drive him, revenge to drive him forward, and it tore him apart. No emotional system, he was just left. Alone.

Neo is taking control of his own life and forming his own destiny. Neo means new. New Metal Sonic. Neo Metal Sonic. Which is why I think a lot of fellow trans people, (I’m a trans male myself), have been flocking to Neo’s, well, Neo form. Because he’s no longer conforming to whatever Eggman wants him to be. He created his Neo form on his own, it’s HIS identity, and Eggman can’t take that away from him. He’s Neo and he’s here to stay. Now, God, getting to this part, it’s always just... so sad to me, from Neo’s POV.

Sonic and co. finally defeat Neo, and we here him cry out. Now, they’re all happy and cheery, while Sonic taunts of him a rematch. He had put his all into these new forms of himself, he was so certain for ONCE, he was gonna win. He was gonna be able to prove he’s not some fake Sonic or a mistake. And when he did his best, he failed. Miserably so. “AUUGH! NO! WHY?! I HAD IT ALL!” when he says this line, you can just hear how... miserable he sounds. Because to him, he was finally doing something RIGHT for once.

“IT’S NO USE... BUT WHY CAN’T I DEFEAT YOU?”

I think, after everything I said, speaks for itself. And has he says this, he reverts into his base form and turns off. Omega holds him in his arms and Shadow looks somberly at him. The two people who were used as nothing but seen as living machines, also holding a fellow seen as nothing but a living machine.

It’s a very somber feeling, looking back on it all. The big question for Neo is: will he be free or just... stuck in a cyclical cycle of being defeated and just loosing?

I think his theme song: What I’m Made Of also just highlights his character perfectly, too.

#abuse tw #sonic the hedgehog #neo metal sonic #metal sonic #metal overlord #metal madness #sth #sth neo metal sonic #sth metal sonic #sonic the hedgehog analysis #sth analysis

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lilyliveredlittlerichboy · 2 years

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"men are, in fact, oppressed" is so controversial that you can't even say it in spaces where we often talk about transandrophobia. u literally can't even breathe it without being accused of misogyny

but it's true!!

here's a fun thing i noticed.

"misogynoir" is such a good word. describing the unique oppression Black women face, which is sexism and racism and both and more than both, different from how other ppl experience either, but derived from both. and we have lots, and lots of words for the kind of oppression women and queer people face.

like transmisogyny. homophobia. biphobia. lesbophobia. aphobia. and more.

but there isn't many words for the kind of specific oppression that men face.

is there a word for the intersection of racism and antimasculism that Black men face? or is that just called racism, even though all people of colour (including non-black ones and women) can & do experience racism?

is there a word for the intersection of homophobia, misogyny and misandry that gay men face? or do we just call that homophobia, even though lesbians and queer people of all sorts of genders and orientations also experience homophobia?

we have a word for the unique oppression trans men face, the intersection of transphobia, misogyny and antimasculism. our word for that rn is transandrophobia. and boy have we received stupid amounts of backlash. literally just for having a word.

i think it is part of the unique oppression of men to be silenced at every turn whenever you want to talk about your issues and oppressions. not even being allowed WORDS. and being called misogynist for literally just wanting to talk about how men are oppressed too.

transmisogyny doesn't imply trans men never face oppression, or that trans men are the people enacting this oppression. it's a word for how society in general treats transfemmes, it says next to nothing about trans men at all, cus it's not about them.

likewise, transandrophobia doesn't imply trans women don't face oppression, or that trans women are enacting this oppression. oppression is more nuanced than that cmon. transandrophobia isn't a statement on the oppression of trans women (whichever end you imagine they're at). it's not about trans women at all, and it doesn't have to be. it's about trans men and mascs.

Think all this backlash means we gotta keep at it. give words and attention to the ways men are oppressed. stop saying "this doesn't mean i think men are oppressed uwu! they're not obviously!" as a disclaimer when you talk about transandrophobia. stop acting like trans men deserve to be protected but cis men are still totes ok to be the laughing stock of the whole community, cus hey, they're not oppressed so it's cool right?

stop it. stop it. stop it.

men are oppressed and our feminism will not move on from terfery (bio/gender essentialism) and infighting unless we acknowledge this and talk about it.

I'm so tired.

#transandrophobia discourse #transandrophobia #misandry #antimasculism #transmisogyny #misogynoir #misogyny #homophobia #biphobia #lesbophobia #aphobia #transphobia #queerphobia #anti transmasculinity #i need a tag for my own rambles

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odinsblog · 1 month

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I’m sorry, but the fact that the U.S. government is treating Android users like they’re being discriminated against bECAUSE OF A GREEN FUCKING BUBBLE is objectively one of thee stupidest things and most colossal wastes of government regulatory authority I’ve seen in a good fucking minute

We can and should have meaningful discussions about Apple and whether or not it’s a monopoly (it’s not), or a monopsony (possibly), and yes, there is a discussion to be had on the accessibility and the predatory practices of the entire industry—not just Apple—but the fact that the whole “green bubble discrimination” framing even made it into the lawsuit is somewhere between funny and absolutely bizarro

I am convinced that that specific part of the lawsuit is something that Android loving tech bros (Linus Sebastian, Nilay Patel, Elon Musk, etc. etc. etc.) kinda talked up into being a serious thing ™

Listen, my father’s parents had 7 boys and 7 girls, and my mother’s parents also had 7 boys and 7 girls (yes they got married and had children; no, they didn’t all marry each other) — so my point is, I have a shit ton of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. We could probably start our own political party. We’re spread out all around the country, and we talk + text + FaceTime with each other ALL the fucking time. Literally never has anyone complained about being a fucking green bubble, and yes, many of my extended family are Android users and so are some of my siblings. It’s a non-fucking issue, a manufactured controversy

If we ever have problems with interoperability (rare) then someone just switches phones (because many people have both Apple and android devices), or we text, or we just talk (not every convo requires FaceTime or pictures), or everyone just switches over to Zoom. JFC, before Zoom, we all connected on something called ooVoo and stayed on that for hours the night that Obama was elected for the first time. This is not difficult people

Use whatever phone you prefer, honestly Idgaf

But I’m actually getting kinda mad the more I think about that foolishness being one of the things that the Department of Justice is wasting time arguing about

“The stigma and social costs of not having an iPhone”?

*blinks in Black Lives Matter*

There are multiple genocides happening around the world, American owned businesses are data mining and vacuuming up every scrap of our personal data, Black people + women + refugees + trans people are being, REALLY being discriminated against, and the Apple lawsuit has the audacity to use language that implies harmful social discrimination is happening? Because “poor” old android???

What’s next, will android users become a legally protected class?

Please be serious for 2 seconds

It’s a fucking insult to people who are REALLY experiencing true discrimination based on personal characteristics that we cannot change

This reeks of white people bullshit

Please GTFOHWTBS

#odin rants #apple lawsuit #iphone vs android #green bubble discrimination #white people problems #antitrust lawsuit #apple vs android #white people foolishness #blue bubble green bubble #manufactured controversies #dear white people #please get some real problems #please be serious #please #and i actually like lina khan

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 1 year

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You’re (Probably) Wrong About J.K. Rowling

So despite being a British person and writer with an adopted trans daughter (sort of), I never weighed in on the matter when British writer J.K. Rowling allegedly said a bunch of transphobic stuff. The reason I didn’t weigh in publicly was very simply this: I couldn’t find the tweet or statement that started it all- the root cause of people’s hatred. Everybody alluded to The Terrible Things J.K. said but nobody was super keen to say what those things actually were. Which naturally led me to suspect that the whole thing was storm-in-a-teacup bullshit- a notion that I also partially derived from the fact that Rowling is kind of a milquetoast who probably hasn’t had a strong opinion in her comfortably middle-class life. If somebody online claimed I’d said something offensive, I’d believe them, because I basically start a knife-fight every time I open my gob. But J.K.? Do me a favour. Of course, I didn’t look very hard to find out what J.K. said, because the other reason I didn’t comment was that I didn’t care all that much. I’m a grown man. My contact with the Harry Potter universe is nostalgically rewatching the films once in awhile and maybe, at some point, playing the new RPG that’s just come out, should I ever have videogame money again. It’s not like I’m super invested in that world on an emotional level, because I only have the normal number of fucks to give about wizard children and the people who chronicle their adventures. So, my plan was to just never mention any of this. And then I stumbled on the comment that started it all by pure fucking chance and it was… so dull and inoffensive that it actually amazed me to the point where I medically had to say something. Yeah. I am literally incapable of shutting my fucking mouth when someone does a stoopid, as it turns out.

“Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating sex is real?” (I think the implication of the question mark s ‘er, no thanks’, basically). And that’s it. Nothing even implying that trans women aren’t real women. Nothing suggesting that they shouldn’t be treated with respect. SEVERAL opening sentences reaffirming the rights of everyone to live how and AS WHO they like… and then a gentle reminder that physical sex is real and that some people have actually lost their jobs for saying so, which sucks, because you shouldn’t be fired for stating a biological fact (unless the biological fact is that you just shat yourself and you choose to share it, loudly, at an important shareholders meeting). That’s the whole thing. I mean, there are some follow up tweets about how physical sex-based oppression is a real thing and about how J.K. feels a bit hurt by the trans activist community for turning on women-born-women when they try to address that oppression in the employment sphere. But that’s it. Now, maybe she said worse things later down the line- but these are the tweets that got everybody to dogpile onto her and anything after that point has to be viewed in the context of a harassed writer getting increasingly fed up explaining herself to people who won’t shut the fuck up on the internet when she’d probably rather be doing literally anything else.

So yeah. That’s what everyone’s got their knickers in a twist about. And that’s really dumb. In a world full of genuinely hateful bigots, attacking someone for pointing out that biological sex is a real, separate issue to gender identity and that arseholes have gotten people fired over saying that seems… well, it seems like a waste of energy more than anything else. There are people out there who haven’t actually encountered the source of this lunacy and have just taken the word of Internet Peeps that J.K. is an awful person (‘cause getting to the bottom of shit is difficult and what’s a person to do? Not just parrot the last opinion they saw fart its way across social media?).

Look, folks, folkettes, moustachioed three-titted hermaphrodites and people who identify as attack helicopters (shout out to all my homies at the Rotary Blade Club), there’s a lesson here. And that lesson is that you shouldn’t believe someone’s good or bad because someone on the internet tells you they are. People on the internet are just people, and people almost never have the faintest fucking idea what they’re talking about. There’s also a really, worryingly high proportion of internet ‘personalities’ (so called because they don’t have any in real life) who like to stir shit for the sake of stirring shit. Sometimes these people are easy to spot, because they’re bugfuck-crazy right-wingers in tinfoil hats claiming that everything in the media is a plot to destroy traditional family values (the same ‘traditional family values’ that caused women in the ‘50s to overdose on amphetamines to get the cleaning done and fathers to try and beat the gay out of their children). However, sometimes, the shit-stirrers are just a teeny, tiny bit smarter and will use the genuine disenfranchisement of a group to which they technically belong to cynically elicit sympathy for views that would be obvious bullshit if the person spouting them couldn’t claim to be oppressed. Rule of thumb: beware of anyone who wants you to believe that they have it tougher than the slave who had to clean the poop out of Abraham Lincoln’s chamber-pot hat (Fun “fact”: that’s why Honest Abe’s hat was so tall: he used it as an emergency latrine while travelling and it had to accommodate the prodigious length of his turds). Even if the person is right and they really do have it that tough, the fact that they’re prefacing what they’re about to say by EXPLAINING THAT TO YOU REALLY SLOWLY AND EMPHATICALLY should really be a red flag- a sign that they’re attempting to obfuscate the flimsiness of the actual point they’re about to queef out their face-hole. That’s not always the case (duh) but it should put you on your guard.

I can, and will, go further: I have never had opal fruit on me! Oh, hang on, that’s a line from A Bit of Fry and Laurie. What I meant to say was, I can, and will, go further: you really shouldn’t care to begin with if a creator has iffy opinions that in no way impact their work. You shouldn’t even care too much if they’ve actually done terrible shit. Because at the end of the day, the only part of them that’s relevant to you is the work they’ve created. T.S. Elliot was one of the greatest poets to have ever lived… but he was also a raving fascist. Lawrence Olivier was one of the greatest actors of his generations… but also a barely-functional alcoholic who delighted in fucking with his old Cambridge university in ways too baroque and specific to detail here. Frank Miller: amazing graphic novelist; protest-hater and all-round tosser. Don’t even get me started on all the shit Thompson and Bukowski got up to (though not together… I’d love to see that buddy movie, but it wouldn’t accurately reflect reality). There isn’t a composer in the whole world of prestigious, important classical music who wasn’t, on some deep level, a really fucked up person. Francis Bacon rates as one of the greatest artists ever to have been spat out by an uncaring world, but he also systematically ruined the lives of everyone around him, including himself. My point is that you can’t demand your art and media comes exclusively from good people… unless, of course, you’re comfortable exposing yourself to a pitifully small sliver of culture and starving your brain into grey fucking wallpaper paste. Trust me, if you have to seriously consider your options on that one, it’s alarmingly close already. Allow the personal and private failings of creators to be personal and private- even if the creator’s an egotist who keeps bringing it up in public. Accept that, for you, the work is what matters because YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO MEET THIS PERSON OR HAVE ANY IMPACT WHATSOEVER ON THEIR LIVES AND THEY ARE NEVER GOING TO MEET YOU OR HAVE ANY IMPACT ON YOU OUTSIDE THEIR WORK.

This has been a PSA from the Foundation of Terrible Bastards Making Good Art. As both a terrible person and a great writer, I now give you my permission to fuck off.

ADDITIONAL: Okay, so having posted this, I decided I was curious enough to check out JK Rowling’s twitter feed properly. And, to my amazement, I might have jumped the gun when I called her a milquetoast. She actually has some pretty strong opinions,,, but none of them seem to be about trans people in general. She had a go at Nicola Sturgeon for putting a PENIS-OWNING RAPIST OF WOMEN IN A WOMEN’S PRISON PURELY BECAUSE HE CLAIMED TO BE A WOMAN, but that’s not transphobia, is it? That’s an issue of protecting prisoners without penises from being raped by prisoners with penises. The whole ‘is Prisoner A trans or not’ issue is just obfuscation being used BY A RAPIST to get into a situation where they will have the opportunity to rape more people. While JK’s phrasing might leave something to be desired (if you’re the kind of person who needs every phrase to be padded to sooth your ego), “don’t let physically strong penis-owning rapists near vulnerable vagina-owners in an environment specifically designed to make escape impossible” shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say- and has less to do with trans rights than it does with just... common sense, I guess. Look, I’m neither a TERF nor a trans rights activist, though I know people who are both vulnerable women and people who are trans. I am the fucking Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Romulans here, but could we please all agree that miminising the risk of rape in prisons shouldn’t be controversial?

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tailsrevane · 1 year

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my favorite queer relationships in media

this was another patreon-exclusive post that i'm posting here now because i'm not on patreon anymore. this one was a belated pride month post from july of 2022 where i listed my favorite queer relationships in media. i would probably list some of these in a different order today, but i'm just gonna share the post in its original form. enjoy!

what up, gay nerds!

today i’ll be talking about my favorite queer relationships in media. we’re talking couples, we’re talking throuples, we’re talking polycules, and we’re also talking non-romantic queer chosen family. this is obviously a topic that’s very near and dear to my heart, so i’m super excited to talk about it!

also, because of the relative dearth of queer relationships in mainstream media, i’m also going to talk about characters i ship. this will be in a separate section, though, so let’s start with the main event.

my favorite canon queer relationships

14. piper/alex (orange is the new black)

i’ve only seen the first few seasons, but yeah, at the time having actual gay relationships on a tv show i was watching was such a blessed relief.

there’s a line early in i think season 2? where piper and alex are being all domestic together and piper says, “this is so nice, and so gay!” and it more or less sums how i felt about the whole thing.

13. david/keith (six feet under)

six feet under is a very slice of life show, and the romantic relationships it depicts are accordingly presented with an aching realism. david and keith have their issues but they deal with them responsibly, engaging in couples counseling and doing their best to get better.

it’s a very healthy portrayal and it doesn’t seem like the show is going for brownie points or anything, they’re both just valued characters whose stories the show wanted to tell.

12. lady tohru/kobayashi (miss kobayashi’s dragon maid)

this would be higher, but tohru and kobayashi have never really been the main draw for me? i’m hella into the family vibes between the two of them and their adopted child kanna. kanna is just a gloriously adorable child and she’s so sweet and her family is so good and argh. feelings!

the show (and presumably the manga it’s based on) is so well-written, though. they always put kobayashi in a position to just be the sweetest butch mom and it’s so freaking good.

11. violet/allie (her story)

this was rather by the numbers, i get it, but seeing a trans girl in a healthy lesbian relationship helping escape from her abusive boyfriend was super life-affirming to me for… reasons.

actually, just seeing another trans person on screen was so what i needed at that exact moment in time, it actually helped light a fire under me to get started on hrt.

10. ivanova/talia (babylon 5)

literally the only thing holding this back from being higher on the list is that thanks to 90s homophobia it had to be largely implied, and that it ended tragically.

in her last appearance on the show, talia slept with ivanova, and in a later episode when everyone on the crew has to tell a deep, personal secret ivanova says that she loved talia. so it’s more than you might expect given the limits it had to work within. and ivanova is my favorite character on the whole show and always has been, so yeah, this meant a lot to me.

9. nomi/amanita (sense8)

the joy of seeing actual transgender people on screen in a mainstream streaming series directed by two trans people is matched only by the joy of that trans character getting absolutely railed by the best/prettiest doctor who companion with a strap-on in her first scene. fuck yeah.

and then their whole first arc is about nomi’s bodily autonomy being threatened and amanita coming to her rescue and she rescues her in the most emotionally satisfying scene ever and oh my gosh you guys it’s so good.

8. dev/lee (out of position) & volle/xiller (argaea)

at my first furry convention i discovered that there was a thriving small industry publishing specifically furry books. we’re not talking zines here (though those are also awesome in their own right), we’re talking novels, anthologies, short story collections, etc.

at the time i was still hella into sports, so i was immediately drawn to one that had a buff tiger in a football uniform hoisting a fox femboy onto his shoulder with one arm. ironically at the time i was a tiger (though certainly not the dumb jock musclegod dev is), and today i’m a fox femboy? funny how things work out.

anyway, turns out the author of that book is one of the most prolific (and definitely the most popular) furry writers, and i actually liked his argaea series even better than the football nerd one. argaea is set in a fanciful renaissance-ish world and full of palace intrigue and mystery and kidnappings and whatnot. very fun stuff there.

7. baz/simon (simon snow)

there’s been a harry potter-shaped hole in my heart for years now, so when i heard about this series i was immediately in.

the way magic works in this certainly doesn’t really square with how i think about it, but it’s definitely a creative approach. and i super approve of how these books handle the enemies-to-lovers romance of the two dumb gay boys, as well as how it depicts one of them having crippling depression and how they navigate the relationship difficulties this often results in. extremely good stuff here.

(also i’m almost done with the last book and i’m pretty sure there’s a couple of useless lesbians happening!!! exciting!!! there’s also one het couple in the last book if you’re into that kinda thing.)

6. galo/lio (promare)

what if we were a dumbass himbo and a powerful femboy and did an enemies to lovers thing to become an incredible anime power couple and just kicked all of the ass. all of it. what if that?

5. harley quinn/poison ivy (dc comics)

honestly the only reason this isn’t higher on the list is because i’ve seen very little of their actually in a relationship stuff, and that’s a me problem that i really need to fix asap. but i’ve shipped them forever, basically ever since that animated series episode. you know the one. so when i heard they were canon i squeed so loudly.

4. luz/amity (the owl house)

the owl house feels like it was made specifically for me. this show also saw the harry potter-shaped hole in my life and came along and was like “okay but what if we made something drastically better and more imaginative instead and also basically everyone was gay?” and uh, yeah! obviously!!

so obviously it’s being canceled because some dumbass homophobic executive had a problem with it and omfg disney is the fucking worst. can they please just stop.

but yeah i’m so glad kids get to grow up with stuff like this and she-ra and etc, but also i’m so glad i get to watch it too okay? witchy gay bullshit is entirely my jam.

but yeah amity and luz are the sweetest useless lesbians and i love how flustered they get around each other despite having no problem having badass magic fights and just ugh they’re so good i love them so much.

i also want to give a shout-out to lesbian wine aunt eda and her ex-enbyfriend/hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-ex-enbyfriend raine, i’m really rooting for them!!!

3. adora/catra (she-ra)

no big deal just the main hero and main villain of a science fantasy swashbuckling magical girls show who swordfight like literally all the time and are super blatantly gay for each other the whole time and have emotional turmoil over each other and constantly try to assert their dominance over each other.

also there’s a prom scene in the first season where the villain shows up in a messy tux and dances with the hero girl while verbally needling her and dips her really low and it’s so gay and i’m so jealous because i want a villain like that to be all homoerotic with.

and then in the last season of the show catra finally switches sides and apologizes to adora and then adora comes and rescues her and she has this badass transformation scene and it’s one of my favorite scenes in television history and ugh i am so gay and in the last episode they kiss and confess their feelings for each other and fuck i love these two and this show.

there’s also another canon lesbian relationship between netossa and spinnerella, and the series creator said rogelio, kyle, and lonnie are a polycule! and they’re all such good boys and one of them is a really hot lizard boy and aaaaaaa.

2. basically every relationship (dragon moms)

so uh yeah one of my partners is an author and basically all of her characters are queer (with a few exceptions) and a lot of them are trans or nonbinary and i love her writing so much, if you have similar tastes to me you’ll probably like it too. everything is just very emotionally satisfying and character-driven and just… she’s the best, guys. i’d be a fan of her writing even if i weren’t dating her.

anyway her most popular and probably best work is dragon moms which she serialized online but also published as an ebook with extra content and it’s so good and so gay and yeah, she also has a lot of other short stories and stuff on her website and a few other ebooks available and i unreservedly recommend anything she’s written she’s so good.

1. star trek: discovery’s queer chosen family

i’ve gushed about them a bunch in my discovery reviews so there really shouldn’t be any surprise here, but yeah. when lieutenant stamets and dr. culber were shown as a couple in season 1 of discovery it belatedly fulfilled an almost 31-year-old promise by gene rodenberry. in season 3 of the show, they also introduced gray (a trans guy) and adira (an enby) and made them gay for each other on top of that, and i love them so much, i would die for them. and on top of that they all came together as a surrogate family with stamets and culber just being amazing surrogate space dads and jet reno popping in every now and then as their weird butch lesbian aunt and i am so, so glad i lived long enough to see star trek get this gay, guys!!

while i’m talking about star trek i do want to mention that i didn’t forget about seven and rafi, and i do love them, but i don’t love that them getting together basically happened off screen? like they get plenty of screentime in season 2 but that was in full figuring their shit out mode and idk i just don’t like that all we got for them becoming a couple was them holding hands at the end of season 1 like it feels like you skipped the whole romantic part of their relationship and that kinda sucks?

queer relationships i ship

(cw: some of these characters will have canon age gaps and/or are minors in some canons, just assume there's an element of au-ification here. cool? cool.)

14. finn/poe (star wars)

look i don’t care about star wars anymore but wow how could you not make these guys gay come on.

13. bella/alice (twilight)

again i don’t really care but especially in the movies alice is literally the only person that seems right for bella like seriously their relationship is so much better than her relationship with either of the two boys.

12. kota ibushi/kenny omega (professional wrestling)

to be super clear this is very much about their characters, not them as a people, i don’t ship real people that’s creepy.

their characters have this amazing wrestling love story and i just want it to be even more explicitly gay than it already is, but also it’s already kinda explicitly gay??? and that’s amazing.

11. femshep/jack (mass effect 2) & pc/kaliyo (star wars: the old republic)

this one is moreso about two times bioware queerbaited me, like i met both of these characters while playing female characters and was immediately like “wow okay they are totally lesbian doms like you can tell me they’re bi and i’ll believe you” but i was just so sure they had to be romanceable for my female characters and then i found out they weren’t? and in both cases i was just like, what the fuck guys, this is cultural appropriation.

10. riker/worf (star trek: the next generation)

this started out as a joke but i’m kind of firmly committed to it at this point. there is at least as much reason to think that riker and worf are hooking up on the regular as there is that riker and deanna are, and riker and deanna got married later sooooo…

9. georgiou/burnham (star trek: discovery)

i mean, burnham has more feelings about georgiou than she does about any of her actual on-screen romantic partners, whether it’s for her gentle mommy domme prime universe georgiou or her badass mean domme mirror universe georgiou.

8. dick grayson/jason todd (dc universe)

i literally wrote fanfiction about these two when i read nightwing: year one and jason kept bratting the fuck out of dick to the point where dick literally tied him up.

jason is a bratty power bottom and dick is a service top. i will not be accepting questions or feedback at this time.

7. garak/bashir (star trek: deep space nine)

i don’t even give a shit about bashir when he isn’t interacting with garak. he might as well be a non-character.

i fucking love garak he is such an amazing bratty dom. i love watching him play with his food (his food being bashir).

6. legolas/gimli/aragorn (lord of the rings)

it’s that thing where you take a very homosocial book and add expanded roles for some of its female characters to make it less homosocial but you change exactly nothing about how emotionally intimate the homosocial relationships are and y’know whoops they’re clearly gay now, we decided.

5. bruce/clark (dc universe)

how is this not canon? there is so much blatant textual support for it, holy shit, look at literally any interaction they’ve ever had with each other.

4. neo/trin (the matrix)

yeah they’re on-screen canon, i just mean i headcanon both of them as enbies. so like. they aren’t actually queer in their portrayal onscreen (but like, come on, this is the gayest “straight” couple ever), but they are in my headcanon? if that makes sense.

3. tim drake/jon kent (dc universe)

yeah, they both have boyfriends who aren’t each other, but tell me you didn’t immediately think about these two cute superhero boys kissing the second you heard they were both openly bi. i don’t believe you.

2. flick/cj (animal crossing)

i actually questioned whether to put this as a canon relationship considering that the game frequently seems to stop just short of saying it and i’m reasonably certain that the creative team considers them an item. but i’ll leave it under this section because they don’t just come right out and say it.

1. sonic/tails/knuckles/shadow

i mean, this is a pretty obvious one right? i mean okay polycule shipping is pretty rare, but like, sontails is obviously correct and sonshad is obviously correct and sonknux is obviously correct and knuxtails is obviously correct and shadtails is obviously correct and i’ll grant you there isn’t as much on-screen evidence for knuxshads but still just put it all together and there you go. like i said. obvious.

please don’t ship sonamy it’s so creepy she’s literally a stalker it’s not okay. i mean do what you want but i’m judging you. my favorite interpretation of amy’s feelings btw is a comic i saw on twitter once where amy is coming out as a lesbian and she apologizes to sonic for being all weird and overcompensating by being over the top into him and he’s super understanding because he’s gay and he gets it and idk it just feels so real and good to me.

anyway, yeah! happy belated pride! i love gays and being gay.

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metalphoenix · 2 years

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Reacting to TLAT Reviews pt2

I saw Thor: Love and Thunder last night and my friend @marvelvibess just sent me these hilarious reviews of the movie. They are too good not to react to honestly.

{Image description: light grey text on a black background reading: WORSE marvel movie ever!!! Kirby Lee Ditko Steranko and the gang from marvel NEVER not one time created ANY character openly gay or announcing they were gay ..so marvel , Disney stop pushing this please. Create a character that is and so be it.

Korg is not GAY!!No Eternal was gay and in the printed issues I collect never will be. Btw fat man can’t tie his shoes much less be a superhero. This is ridiculous already. Make up your own stories and contaminate those characters. Don’t destroy something that will never be gay! You can’t change a written story for moneys liking. I worked with a gay captain for 11 yrs has nothing to do with pro or anti anything!!! end image discription}

I love this one just because of how wrong it is. A list of canon queer characters from marvel comics: Valkyrie, Korg, Maria Hill, Ayo, Aaron Fisher (Captain America of the railways), William Kaplan (Wiccan), Theodor Altman (Hulkling), Arnie Roth (Steve Roger’s best friend from the 40s and one of the the inspirations for Movie!Bucky), Tony Stark (never officially says but it is heavily implied, here is a good post on it) Yelena Belova, and those are just the 10 I can think of off the top of my head. In fact marvel has a comic called “Marvel Voices: Pride” that is all short comics about many of its queer and trans super heroes!

Also, the thing about Disney making stuff queer for the money really bugs me because its literally the exact opposite. Marvel is straight washing their characters for the movies because they’re afraid it won’t sell otherwise. Money and capitalism is why it is taking so long for us to get the good queer rep we want/need.

{Image description: at the top left there are 4 stars in a line one is yellow while the other 4 are white. The text is light grey on a black background and it reads: Definitely would not recommend for anyone who has free time to watch because it was a waste of my time and money. The overall story was all over the place because of the constant narrative cut scenes, and with propaganda littered throughout the whole movie of LBGTQ+ness it is another reminder of how superheros can’t just be super.

The different representations of the other gods was pretty sad of 2022, and with the whole conflict of the movie being about the “god butcher’ he should have left more of a lasting impression on the characters in the movie. Instead to me all i got was “boggie man” and that was a bit of a downer compared to other more well developed characters. If the original Norse mythology is on your radar there were a couple of fun quips referencing them. However, your beloved characters from Thor Ragnarok end up being drivers for the problems in this world and supporting it, and that is not my cup of tea. end image description}

Ok say it with me DIVERSITY ISN’T PROPAGANDA PEOPLE JUST EXIST. DIVERSITY ISN’T PROPAGANDA PEOPLE JUST EXIST. DIVERSITY ISN’T PROPAGANDA PEOPLE JUST EXIST.

#thor #thor love and thunder #marvel #mcu #reviews #valkryie #korg #canon queer characters #gay #pride #taika waititi

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anti-katsuki-lounge · 2 years

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wow, that other anon talking about how they talked with their friends about "the character derailment that plagues fanfic" or whatever made me feel an incredibly deep, visceral level of fury that i almost never encounter bc of dumb people online. is it okay if i respond to them here? if not, just delete this ask and dw about it

first of all, all fanwork is self indulgent. fanart, fanfic, fan music, etc, its all made bc the creature likes the original character or work and they want to see more content for it. specifically, they want to see content that suits their taste, whether its something that they can relate to more than the original work or if its just something they want to see more of. (like the dadzawa dynamic! i fully accept that it's not canon, but i love dadzawa fics anyways bc they just make me happy)

now, what really pissed me off was the implication that there's an "acceptable" level of trans representation that all fic authors should strive for. that level being, the one that suits YOUR tastes. if you dont want to read fic where the characters are trans in a way that effects the plot, their personality, and their day to day likes (read: a realistic portrayal of life as a trans person), then dont read it! but it's really messed up to say, or at least imply, that no one should write it/any fanfic that doesnt adhere to the canon characters' exact personalities. if people wanted to read the exact portrayal that canon provides, then they'd read canon! people read fanfic because they want different interpretations, not the same stuff over and over again!

i wont say that you're transphobic for saying that, because i dont think you are. i just think you're ignorant and wrong. also, it is literally so easy to avoid the minority of fics that have trans characters in them and just read the other million that are out there instead. i have no idea why you decided to bring gender politics up on an anti-bakugo meme page when you couldve (and basically did) make your point completely clear without it. sorry to continue to bring this stuff up, i dont want to start an argument about transphobia in fandom spaces on an anti-bakugo meme page, but it didnt sit right with me that that comment was just brushed off.

It’s ok. I’ll leave this here.

Also yeah, I have no issues with people adding traits to characters for fanfiction cause fanfics are meant to be self indulgent. “Don’t like, don’t read” comes to mind when I encounter something I don’t like or doesn’t interest me like Dadzawa. I personally don’t like how many fans like to make All Might into a shitty person while ignoring Shota’s faults, but I’m not going to do anything except complain on the internet in my own space 🤷‍♂️. If y’all like that sort of thing, I ain’t going to invade your spaces and judge you.

The trans thing however is obviously different as people use fanfics to write the stories they wish existed and to detail their experiences in a fictional setting. I think it’s great that people have found their voices through something like fanfics. It’s self indulgence at the end of the day. Wanna write a fic where nearly everyone is in the LGBTQ+ community and that’s the norm? Go right ahead. Hell, I even encourage it ‘cause despite the negative rep Fanfiction as a whole gets, I think it’s a really healthy medium to express the thoughts you wish to express. Fanfiction can help you find the communities you want to be a part of and help you put into words the things you wanna say. A fic that supports hate and/or something unhealthy is different, but trans/LGBTQ+ support fics are obviously not in this category.

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arctichotch · 2 years

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It's not because you support AH, its kinda how you talk when you do it. It's real easy to fall into radfem talking points because not all of them seem like radfem points at a glance. You seem genuine in your work to support the right causes, but it's the "why should I consider men in a women's issue?" stuff and because, despite saying you're aware men can be victims, when you speak of abusers, you've only mentioned men, and when you speak of victims, you've only mentioned women. (I may be wrong and missed it, but it's what I've seen so far, and I think this is where it's sending those kind of vibes.)

Stuff like this is subtle and loud at the same time, which is why it's easy to do on accident and unfortunately why just denying it doesn't seem to be enough to shake the accusations.

For one example, I saw one of your recent posts saying when talking about roe v wade that you don't talk about men in that because it directly affects women. On the surface, one might think that's fine. Men don't need abortions, it doesn't affect them. But when you consider that trans men usually also have uterus and will also be affected by the decision, that's where it starts to sound terf-y, because you've excluded them from the conversation or implied they don't count. Again, it's easy to make statements that sound terfy on accident. And I know it's an accident because I've seen you post in favor of trans rights.

Also, calling men "males" or women "females" has been known to be a terf dogwhistle. It's little stuff like that that's in a lot of what you post, that you don't even realize or mean it to be terfy, that sends the terf/radfem vibes

that’s fair. and i do want to clarify that it’s never intentional. i’m not gonna lie, i suck at talking. like i have no confidence at all so i sometimes just ramble on and on until i feel like i can move on. so anything i’ve said that comes out badly is not intended to sound like i’m being a shitty person and is more an oversight because i either don’t know that something could be considered from this perspective or i haven’t read over it enough to think from a different perspective. not to excuse anything cos im still sorry for anything that i’ve said that has given these vibes

and anything i’ve said that came off as being “women = victims, men = abusers” has also never been intentional. i don’t believe that. most likely any time i’ve said something that came off like that has been because while discussing it i was relating it back to depp/heard and then i ended up overlooked saying something i didn’t intend to.

with regard to the roe v wade thing. anything i’ve read (which tbh has not been much) has not mentioned how trans men can be directly affected by such things and has only focused on women’s rights. and so it’s not even something i had considered since i hadn’t seen it mentioned anywhere. which is on me. i should have read wider on the topic and considered different view points etc. that’s on me and i’m sorry for that. (also i’ve always been under the impression that being a terf is something that directly affects trans women more than trans men (correct me if i’m wrong) so that’s why i never considered why this would make people think i’m a terf)

the whole males/females things is literally just a consequence of my language tbh. like literally how i talk irl. not to make excuses but i’m so literal that that’s just how i end up talking sometimes, almost scientifically speaking even just in a general conversation. it’s something that therapists/teachers/family have mentioned to me before because i’m too literal and it can come off as rude or wrong etc. and i’ve been told so many times to fix it but like im autistic. that’s how i think and talk so i can’t just fix it and stop talking how i’ve been talking my whole life. but i will do my best to catch it before it comes out wrong in future. also i had no idea it was terfish to say male/female. but i’ll do my best going forward to avoid things like it

im new to being outspoken about any social/political issues. and certainly to detailing my thoughts in any real fashion that people can understand them. and sometimes i just make posts with no thought really behind it just to get rid of the thoughts from my head so i can move on. but i will do everything i can to make sure i’m not giving bad vibes on anything i post in the future. it’s never my intention to exclude anyone from anything i’m talking about, especially not with such delicate topics like abuse.

#ask #anon

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telafel · 5 months

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I finished reading that very questionable book the other day and I'm still so conflicted on it.

And here it is:

The book is 100% built around the ending and the ending makes some of the really ridiculous stuff and the gripes i had make sense, BUT then I have to wonder and doubt literally everything. But at the same time the ending also feels like a clever way to explain some of the sloppy writing earlier on in the book and not just for a real narrative reason.

I don't like that a lot of my complaints can be hand-waved by the twist at the end, because there's still a lot of egregiously bad segments and clunky writing earlier on in the book. I seriously resent how one of the main characters is treated constantly as thing punching bag for religious arguements because she has a strong sense of faith, but she is never forcing it on other or being judgemental. Then she is found to have a useful ability and she is *used*

And like the main character, Aranok, is just constantly played up to be so cool and selfless, but also this man that struggled through life for acceptance. But then you have out that while society doesn't have a high opinion of magic-users, he still had a mom and sister that love him dearly and he was sent off to this prestigious magic school. And in the sections that are his PoV show that, yes, he cares about people, but also has a maybe unintentional character flaw where he will reduce certain characters to tools and not have much thought outside of their usefullness (because he never gets to know much of these characters in any other capacity besides what they can do for him.) He gets shit from his girlfriend (one of the main characters) for not bothering to learn the name of a woman that died ostensibly because of him, but then he throws it back in her face when she learns the name of the horses they'll be riding on and not the stable boy....

Anyways.... besides the gripes, there is just a lot of Issues I have with the writing. All of the characters are very flat- for instance you learn one of the characters in the main traveling band is a pirate queen but that doesn't really matter much because the only way this manifests is how she sometimes thinks about the sea and she fights with two swords.... Yeah. All the characters behave the same too and the way their actions are written all feel like these big stage actions. I dunno when so many other details are lacking it all feels like these characters are on a very empty stage trying to make their actions come across to people far away. I'm very tired, im sorry if this doesn't make sense.

Also there is very little conflict in this story. Like stuff happens there are battles, but a lot of the side characters will just smile and agree and go along with things without a fuss.

The author really tries to diversify the story while doing it very half-hearted?? Like the same religious character that gets constantly challenged for her faith also has some obnoxious scenes where various characters try to matchmake her with this boy in their group making doll eyes at her, and when she expresses a lack of interest in sex or relationships she's challenged. Everyone is like "Well it's fine if you don't want sex, BUT you're REALLY MISSIN' OUT," which kinda feels shitty. Like is this ace rep or not? if it's ace rep then fine, but also don't have characters bug her about sex when she clearly expresses a boundary. But also the author implies towards the end of the book that no, she does experience attraction so she probably will get paired up eventually.... (with a side character that is heavily implied to be trans.) Also the whole attitude towards magic is almost an allegory for real life issues and hate etc etc. (I just found it kind of amusing that the cishet main character is like "They hate me for something I can't help!! i was born this way!!" when he can literally summon fireballs from thing air.)

But there are some genuine good points, like how the author can really spin together an interesting mystery through the story that really had me gripped to the end. I wanted to figure it out!!

Again there is this problem where like, at the end of the book you can't really trust if the gripes you have for the first 90% are legit or some weird play into the twist at the end, but let me tell you.... there is one part after the twist that I cannot really defend.

And I can't NOT talk about it because it bothered me so much, so like, Major Spoilers under the cut.

The twist is that the kingdom has had their memory altered en masse by a magic-user wielding a relic that greatly boosts his ability. He was thought to be minor but was biding his time during all the conflict and then struck and usurped everything. Basically he's put himself in place as king and altered everyone's memories so that they believe the true king is this demon-summoning necromancer and all this shit.

It makes some of the weird inconsistencies with characters make sense, and why there are people that will claim to have met the main character but he doesn't remember.

The weirdest thing about this twist is that Aranok and Allandria, the two first introduced in the book, are introduced as lovers. Their romance is *really* flat imo, but it's implied several times in the book that they have sex. BUT THEN when the mind-fuck is undone and they regain their memories it's revealed that they were never lovers, they were just close friends and for some reason they were puppeted into those rolls by the false king.

And like, i don't know that's really a Choice, because neither of these characters are consenting properly. It's consent under false pretense and it sits soooo sooo off for me. Especially when Aranok, not an hour later leers at her attempting to change and have some privacy because he thinks he can just see her naked because he did they they had their memories altered. It just... icks me out. It's not even unpacked really at all, they kinda just go "huh that's weird. Anyway-"

so yeah

#tel babbles #tel's book reviews

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mishafletcher · 4 years

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Are you a Gold Star lesbian? (Just in case you don't know what it means, a Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian that has never had the sex with a guy and would never have any intentions of ever doing so)

So I got this ask a while ago, and I've been lowkey thinking about it ever since.

First: No. I am a queer, cranky dyke who is too old for this sort of bullshit gatekeeping.

Second: What an unbelievable question to ask someone you don't even know! What an incomprehensibly rude thing to ask, as if you're somehow owed information about my sexual history. You're not! No one—and I can't reiterate this enough, but no one—owes you the details of their sex lives, of their trauma, or of anything about themselves that they don't feel like sharing with you.

The clickbait mills of the internet and the purity police of social media would like nothing more than to convince everyone that you owe these things to everyone. They would like you to believe that you have to prove that you're traumatized enough to identify with this character, that you can't sell this article about campus rape without relating it to your own sexual assault, that you can't talk about queer issues without offering up a comprehensive history of your own experiences, and none of those things are true. You owe people, and especially random strangers on the internet, nothing, least of all citations to somehow prove to them that you have the right to talk about your own life.

This makes some people uncomfortable, and to be clear, I think that that's good: people who feel entitled to demand this information should be uncomfortable. Refusing to justify yourself takes power away from people who would very much like to have it, people who would like to gatekeep and dictate who is permitted to speak about what topics or like what things. You don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to explain that you like this ship because this one character reminds you a bit of yourself because you were traumatized in a vaguely similar way and now— You don't have to justify your queerness by telling people about the best friend you had when you were twelve, and how you kissed, and she laughed and said it was good practice for when she would kiss boys and your stomach twisted and your mouth tasted like bile and she was the first and last girl you kissed, but—

You don't owe anyone these pieces of yourself. They're yours, and you can share them or not, but if someone demands that you share, they're probably not someone you should trust.

Third: The idea of gold star lesbians is a profoundly bi- and trans- phobic idea, often reducing gender to genitals and the long, shared history of queer women of all identities to a stark, artificial divide where some identities are seen as purer or more valuable than others. This is bullshit on all counts.

There's a weird and largely artificial division between bisexuals and lesbians that seems to be intensifying on tumblr, and I have to say: I hate it. Bisexual women aren't failed lesbians. They're not somehow less good or less valid because they're attracted to [checks notes] people. Do you think that having sex with a man somehow changes them? What are you so worried about it for? I've checked, and having sex with a man does not, in fact, make your vagina grow teeth or tentacles. Does that make you feel better? Why is what other people are doing so threatening to you?

Discussions of gold star lesbians are often filled with tittering about hehe penises, which is unfortunate, since I know a fair few lesbians who have penises, and even more lesbians who've had sex with people, men and women alike, who have penises. I'm sorry to report that "I'm disgusted by a standard-issue human body part" is neither a personality nor anything to be proud of. I'm a dyke and I don't especially like men, but dicks are just dicks. You don't have to be interested in them, but a lot of people have them, and it doesn't make you less of a lesbian to have sex with someone who has a dick.

There's so much garbage happening in the world—maybe you haven't noticed, but things are kind of Not Great in a lot of places, and there's a whole pandemic thing that's been sort of a major buzzkill? How is this something that you're worried about? Make a tea, remind yourself that other people's genitalia and sexual history are none of your business, maybe go watch a video about a cute animal or something.

Fourth: The idea of gold star lesbians is a shitty premise that argues that sexuality is better if it's always been clear-cut and straightforward—but it rarely is. We live in a very, very heterosexist culture. I didn’t have a word for lesbian until many years after I knew that I was one. How can you say that you are something when your mouth can’t even make the shape of it? The person you are at 24 is different to the person you are at 14, and 34, and 74. You change. You get braver. The world gets wider. You learn to see possibilities in the shadows you used to overlook. Of course people learn more about themselves as they age.

Also, many of us, especially those of us who grew up in smaller towns, or who are over the age of, say, 25, grew up in times and places where our sexuality was literally criminal.

Shortly after I graduated high school, a gay man in my state was sentenced to six months in jail. Why? Well, he’d hit on someone, and it was a misdemeanor to "solicit homosexual or lesbian activity", which included expressing romantic or sexual interest in someone who didn’t reciprocate. You might think, then, that I am in fact quite old, but you would be mistaken. The conviction was in 1999; it was overturned in 2002.

I grew up knowing this: the wrong thing said to the wrong person would be sufficient reason to charge me with a crime.

In the United States, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, clarifying that according to the federal government, marriage could only ever be between one man and one woman. It also promised that even if a state were to legalize same-sex unions, other states wouldn't have to recognize them if they didn't want to. And wow, they super did not want to, because between 1998 and 2012, a whopping thirty states had approved some sort of amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Every queer person who's older than about 25 watched this, knowing that this was aimed at people like them. Knowing that these votes were cast by their friends and their families and their teachers and their employers.

Some states were worse than others. Ohio passed their bill in 2004 with 62% approval. Mississippi passed theirs the same year with 86% approval. Imagine sitting in a classroom, or at work, or in a church, or at a family dinner, and knowing that statistically, at least two out of every three people in that room felt you shouldn't be allowed to marry someone you loved.

Matthew Shepard was tortured to death in October of 1998. For being gay, for (maybe) hitting on one of the men who had planned to merely rob him. Instead, he was tortured and left to die, tied to a barbed wire fence. His murderers were both sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. This was controversial, because a nonzero number of people felt that Shepard had brought it upon himself.

Many of us sat at dinner tables and listened to this discussion, one that told us, over and over, that we were fundamentally wrong, fundamentally undeserving of love or sympathy or of life itself.

This is a tiny, tiny sliver of history—a staggeringly incomplete overview of what happened in the US over about ten years. Even if this tiny sliver is all that there were, looking at this, how could you blame someone for wanting to try being not Like This? How can you fault someone who had sex, maybe even had a bunch of sex, hoping desperately that maybe they could be normal enough to be loved if they just tried harder? How can you say that someone who found themself an uninteresting but inoffensive boyfriend and went on dates and had sex and said that it was fine is somehow less valuable or less queer or less of a lesbian for doing so? For many people, even now, passing as straight, as problematic as that term is, is a survival skill. How dare you imply that the things that someone did to protect themself make them worth less? They survived, and that's worth literally everything.

Fifth, finally: What is a gold star, anyhow? You've capitalized it, like it's Weighty and Important, but it's not. Gold stars were what your most generous grade school teacher put on spelling tests that you did really well on. But ultimately, gold stars are just shiny scraps of paper. They don't have any inherent value: I can buy a thousand of them for five bucks and have them at my door tomorrow. They have only the meaning that we give them, only the importance that we give them. We’re not children desperately scrabbling for a teacher’s approval anymore, though. We understand that good and bad are more of a spectrum than a binary, and that a gold star is a simplification. We understand that no number of gold stars will make us feel like we’re special enough or good enough or important enough, or fix the broken places we can still feel inside ourselves. Only we can do that.

The stars are only shiny scraps of paper. They offer us nothing; we don’t need them. I hope that someday, you see that, too.

#queer stuff #lgbtq #gold star lesbians #long post #sorry #Anonymous

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theprideful · 2 years

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(this is kinda long, sorry. when i started typing this i did not mean for it to get this long. like i 100% understand if you dont want to post this but i just had some feelings)

like as an afab lesbian i understand that a some of the terfs who have hurt trans women the most are lesbians. not "most terfs are lesbians" or "most lesbians are terfs" because neither of these are true but like, a lot of terfs that trans women (especially trans lesbians) have had specific transphobic interactions with have been lesbians or people who use lesbian allyship as an excuse for their transmisogyny

but like people have GOT to understand that lesbian does not equal terf and terf does not equal lesbian. i guarantee you there are more non-terf lesbians than there are terf lesbians. there are more lesbians who love and support trans women and trans people as a whole than there are terf lesbians.

if you think a specific lesbian might be a terf, look at their blog, look at what they're SAYING and DOING to back up your claim before you go "sounds terfy :-/" to every lesbian you meet, and its especially :-/ to say that on a POSITIVITY POST about an actual homophobic stereotype that a lot of cishets ACTUALLY BELIEVE about sapphic women. there are still plenty of cishets who still firmly believe that sapphic women/girls and gay men/boys are inherently predatory because of their attraction and that is what that post was about. it wasn't saying "lesbians can't be predatory" which is what i guess some people were assuming- it was saying that "being a lesbian does not make you predatory"

if you think lesbians making positivity posts about lesbians is terf-like, or you think it sounds like terf propaganda, you are lesbophobic. also like.... a post like that could have been made with full inclusion of trans lesbians (who get, i would say, twice the reputation of being "predatory"), it could have been made by a young cis lesbian who was being groomed by terfs to their cause and those replies caused them to think "wow, i guess they're right, trans people do hate lesbians", it could have been made by a trans lesbian. assuming that lesbian positivity is automatically terfish helps no one.

yes literally this! you’re right and it makes me so frustrated to see people being blatantly lesbophobic and then saying “well im just trying to be an ally to trans people ://“ like how is that being a good ally to just accuse random lesbians of being terfs? like i understand why that person was a bit wary because a lot of terfs do use that kind of rhetoric (i.e. (cis) lesbians are pure and never violent) but that’s not what my post was implying, it’s not transmisogynistic to say that lesbians aren’t predatory, and it couldn’t even really be construed that way unless you’re like, terminally online and intimately aware of how terfs employ those kinds of tactics. idk im just really sick of the knee-jerk reaction to any sort of positivity or discussion about lesbianism being drastically taken the wrong way and assumed to be “terf propaganda”. we can’t ever really be liberated if we’re always avoiding talking about ourselves and our sexuality out of fear of either being harassed by people who think we’re terfs, or actual terfs who want to lump us in with them, which is like really fucked up considering how cishets have oppressed and silenced us in the past by saying we’re preying on the poor innocent straight women and we shouldn’t talk openly about our attraction. and also, focusing on blaming other minorities and using lesbians as a scapegoat distracts from the very real issue of transmisogyny, which is at the heart of it. we should be fighting transphobia, not each other. im over it tbh

#asks #inbox #long asks #transmisogyny #lesbophobia #anyone trying to debate the significance of lesbophobia owes me $10

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jiangwanyinscatmom · 2 years

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Look at the hypocrite, contradictory and b*polar shit you write and tell me how you don't get tired of your own fuckery

"it stops being funny when people are targeted over a literal fictional work (1) and you are not dropping the issue to play victim over the fake issues in a book (2)."

And then when you scroll just a little and are like (1):

"unlike you guys who stan a homophobe or x character who committed a family extermination because of their own negligence with thinking they're always righteous or just a fucking asshole who is jealous of getting his plaything taken away."

So that's (1) LITERALLY what your whole blog is about. You harass people over fu cking fictional character and talk as if they're supporting horrible things irl with how passionate you are about remarking x character is all that, just to point out to someone that they're staning such things as if it was all real???

And then (2):

Oh, and stop telling me I'm projecting on a fictional character, as a woman and a lesbian, this is fucking rude and annoying to presume when I have my own life (3).

play victim yourself telling others to stop saying things about you 😭🥺 while you're always calling people things based on how they enjoy that stupid overrated book so STFU. No, you don't deserve any respect when you don't give it yourself to others and also have assumptions about people's own life (3) over F I C T I O N. No one cares if you're a woman and lesbian when you're a lunatic, so look for help. Playing the minority card is disgusting, mainly when I doubt you care if some jc or jgy stan is, idk, trans/black/agender/victim of violence/etc when you call them things and imply they support homophob!a and genoc!de.

So you should even be grateful all they're saying about you is that you're projecting instead of the garbage you seem to be as a person (as far as you show here on the internet, I'll give you that. but that's why I really recommend to you to seek some help if showing this façade is how you deal with your problems irl).

You call me garbage but write out this? Are you upset with your own self? I have also never sent harassment online like you are right now, on anon at that, so maybe turn your words back on yourself since you are using the victim card, hmm.

Also, I stopped reading after the ableism with no self-awareness and mocking my issues right out the door. All the best to you though, I hope you find some semblance of happiness being in such an unhappy place in your life needing to write this essay that I do not care about.

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lil-gingerbread-queen · 3 years

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Sorry, I'm going to rant, but I need to get it out.

Is Sylvie x Loki biphobic? No, not in the slightest. Bi people are not bi only if they have date two different genders or are currently in a gay relationship. However, I still have an issue with this whole ship.

My problem with this whole relationship is the fact they're literally the same person from different timelines (if you ship them, please, ask yourself if you would still ship them if it was two Tom Hiddleston Loki), and also the message implied by this episode 4 of the series. Loki is shown to have this fear of being alone forever and, how does the show decides to prove him wrong? By giving him a love-interest! I hate it, it's invalidating for aspec people and it's unnecessary. This show doesn't need a romance, Loki doesn't need a romance and, by giving him one, the writers are showing me they don't understand Loki.

Loki is afraid of being alone, so he creates chaos to get the attention of others, often his brother. Attention Thor decided to stop giving him in Ragnarok (The elevator scene), which push Loki to change. Loki feels out of place and undeserving of love because of his lineage, because he was adopted, because of the way Odin, his father, treated him and favored Thor. Loki wants to be part of this family, he loves his family, and he's broken when he learned the truth. Loki deserves his brother. He deserves a family.

But no, Loki here is told he will finish alone unless he falls in love. And not with anybody, but with himself (this sounds like he's accepting he could be a good person and who he is, which would be a good thing, and not that he is literally falling in love with another version of himself) to show that nobody can love him (only romantic love matters /s) but himself and he will forever be alone in a way.

Also, Loki is genderfluid but only on paper. He's never with another appearance (when he has the power to) or referenced as another gender than male. And even Sylvie, which I stupidly hoped was AMAB like him but changed her name and appearance for more "feminine" ones, is, it seems to, be a cis woman. It's not transphobic, because genderfluid people are still queer even when they identify as their assigned gender.

Wait, I see a pattern here... The characters are queer, trans and gay on papers, but their actions and their relationship are cis and hetero...

This is not representation, but a joke of it, meant to appease the queerphobic audience while getting some bonus points from the "woke" audience. The crew of Loki is doing the bare minimum, and are a bunch of assh*les while doing it (celebrating on twitter that you made Loki officially bi when it's just one phrase, for example...)

We deserve better.

I also want to point out that I don't give a shit about the rhetoric "Loki f*cked a horse" because the MCU is a work of fiction inspired by Nordic mythology. Loki is not the deity anymore (in this context), he's a character. His story is not the one told centuries ago, but the one on our screens. He's genderfluid and bi like any genderfluid and bi people out there, not like a god who get f*ck by horses. Thank you.

This post is not an invitation to start a discussion, just a rant.

#loki #marvel #mcu #loki spoilers #loki series #anti sylvie x loki #anti sylki #biphobia #lgbtq+#genderfluid #queerphobia #transphobia #arophobia #aphobia #I miss thor ragnarok #tw queer sl*r

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emi1y · 2 years

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the whole point of transandrophobia is MEN experience MISOGYNY. Queen TERF joann wrote a whole manifesto on how trans men are just confused/crazy women who need to be saved with radical feminism. Transphobia ✅ Misogny ✅

but “men don’t experience misogyny,” and this isn’t transmisogyny even tho it checks both boxes because ??? girls only ???

The problem with transandrophobia are the people who think cis men aren’t oppressed by patriarchy. The entire point of discussing oppression in terms of systems or matrices is to direct attention to the policies, social anxieties, etc. that actually cause prejudices and bigotry to go unchecked. “Men aren’t oppressed” >> “Men are oppressors” Do you see how that is essentialist and TERFy?

The problem is this TERF rhetoric seeping into trans feminist spaces. The problem is people assuming the most logical root word is indicative of something that goes against the TERF rhetoric they’ve already ingrained. The problem is this requires them to unlearn and admit they were wrong. The problem is you.

the problem is ME? i literally agree with u. I've been saying that all day. sorry the original post implied i meant that only trans women experience an intersection of transphobia and misogyny, you're right that that's not accurate. the issue i take with the term transandrophobia is that it carries the implication that trans men specific experiences of transphobia occur because they are men, when the actual cause is that it occurs because society percieves them as women (to be clear what i mean isn't about whether individual trans men pass or not, just that the structures in society differentiating between how to treat men and women percieve the idea of trans men as a whole as part of the woman category)

yes, it's a subtle difference, but i believe it's worth pointing out because if we are going to work towards eradicating the root motivation behind that transphobia we have to name it for what it is, and its not any iteration of androphobia or misandry, it's misogyny. trans women and men experience that misogyny in different ways, because for trans women its a matter of society not wanting to allow them to enter into womanhood & for trans men its society not wanting to allow them to exit womanhood, but in both cases it is misogyny and the rigid ideas society has about how it wants to allow people to interact with the concept of womanhood. whether that means using transmisogyny to refer to both trans men and trans women, or naming something else entirely is a discussion that continues to be had in the trans community.

YES i am aware this IS semantics. but its not just me bitching over root words for no reason. even if We can agree that to use transandrophobia is to actually refer to the intersection of misogyny and transphobia that trans men experience, a huge portion of the population who uses the term transandrophobia are not using it to refer to that, theyre genuinely under the impression that the transphobia they experience IS due to them being men, when like we said above, it's really due to them being percieved as women.

you say that the point of discussing oppression in terms of systems is to direct attention to the social ideologies that cause that prejudice, and I'm saying that i agree, and that the term transandrophobia is not successfully accomplishing that. we can't just write off how many people use it for their belief that their oppression is caused by them being men. we can't just say that well they don't count because they aren't using it right when they're being as vocal as they are about their incorrect stance and affecting the rest of the community when we have to endure it.

i have never once said that men aren't oppressed, it's that they aren't oppressed FOR BEING MEN. the oppression men experience is due to the other identities they carry that are maginalized. and, sometimes the fact that they are men will cause the way they experience their other marginalized identities appear differently to how the women of that identity are treated. some of those differences might even seem like its worse than how the women are treated, especially when you look at statistics about violence at the hands of other oppressive classes. but there will also be differences in which the women are treated worse. and within the vacuum of just that marginalized identity, the men will be prioritized above the women.

yet society doesn't exist in a vacuum! so everyone is constantly experiencing overlapping prejudices and privileges all at once! but that doesn't mean that we should suddenly throw away all discussions of the privileges men, as a class, have over women, as a class. and in most cases, no, its not men who necessarily are the oppressors, its the structure itself placing men above women that is responsible for the oppression. but "the structure" isnt some nebulous indefinable thing, its the policies and ideologies held up by the culture, and those are determined within the government and the figures of authority within that government making those decisions, are men! or they're women whose ideology has been so shaped by the patriarchal society they were socialized in that they play a role in holding up that structure intentionally.

we can talk in circles about these concepts all day but my ultimate point is that you can say a word means whatever you want and it'd be ideal if everyone agreed, but that doesn't mean anything when the practical, concrete examples of its usage contradict what you say it is supposed to refer to. even if you say that transandrophobia is about misogyny and not actual androphobia, there will still be loud outspoken people who use the term transandrophobia complaining about how their mistreatment is the result of being men, and then extrapolate that into a belief that because men like them have struggles and prejudices against them, that somehow negates all other aspects of privileges that all other men (beating a dead horse at this point but: Men As A Class) have.

#ask #anon #long post #transphobia #emily and the terrible horrible no good very bad notes

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