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littleoddwriter · 3 years

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Issues with Reader Fics

Okay, I'm probably going to be a bit controversial here. Yet, I'm asking you to hear us out, please. Fanfic writers, specifically those who write "x Reader" fics, please read this. My dear friend Jack has already made a post, where I and others have contributed our experiences and feelings towards certain issues with these fics. Those issues still prevail and therefore I've decided to make my own post, which is more of a PSA, I think. Anyway. You can and should read Jack's (@mlmxreader) post here, please. It is long, yes, but it is extremely important and will say a lot of things we will not talk about here again. Now, what this is mostly about is the tagging of those fics. Every single time, we (men and non-binary people) come across Reader fics and they're tagged with just "Reader", so, naturally we assume they'll be gender neutral then. Well, they basically never fucking are. Every time, in the first few sentences or in later paragraphs something like "baby girl, girlfriend, wife, she/her" will come up and it is frustrating, can be triggering (for trans people, like myself, especially because it can cause dysphoria), and is honestly just very excluding and rude. By doing that, you show us that you do not consider anyone but women to read those fics. Even though that isn't the case. Men who like men exist and we read fics. And we want to be able to read some that don't make us feel bad or excluded. We're not asking you to suddenly write Male!Reader fics. We're asking you to tag properly. If your reader is female, tag it as "Female!Reader" or "Fem!Reader". It doesn't take more than two seconds to do that. So, please for the love of everything good, take those two seconds and type in that one word, even the abbreviation is enough. But tag it! Please! Also, please, stop tagging "male reader" or "gender neutral reader" when it's a female reader. You won't get more notes from it. All it does is clog the tags and push down fics that are actually targeted towards those groups. So, don't do that, please, thank you. One thing I personally wanted to ask actually. Why do women read "Male!Reader" fics? This is a genuine question. Why do you, if you're a woman, read those fics? They aren't targeted at you, and frankly, I don't understand it. If I were cis and not dysphoric, I still wouldn't read "Fem!Reader" fics. They aren't for me, and I wouldn't be interested in it, even if those were the only fics for a certain character. So, if anyone could answer me this, genuinely, then I'd actually appreciate that a lot, I'm truly just curious, as I have noticed women reading my "Male!Reader" fics, too. Which is cool, as we've said, you may interact, as long as you're not creepy or fetishistic, but I still don't understand why you would read that in the first place. Now, onto what my two wonderful friends have said, when I asked them if they had anything to add to this issue, or perhaps overall, still: @iscariot-rising said, "It's just disrespectful for writers and readers alike to assume that everyone reading their fanfics is inherently female, to the point where for some it has become the standard that any fic has female reader - leading to writers not tagging their fics as female readers or mentioning in their descriptions that reader is female, instead only titeling it as "character x reader", before then three sentences in referring to reader as some sort of female term. This isn't just rude, it can also be triggering for people or make them dysphoric, if not just plain uncomfortable. Fandom spaces are something that is shared across all genders and sexualities and it is only courteous to respect this and tag your fics accordingly, since it doesn't take a long time and saves a lot of trouble for readers." And you know what? He is absolutely right and he should say it. You need to listen to us, please. @mlmxreader said a lot, too. For example, he's mentioned that there is a reluctance to even write Gender Neutral Reader fics, which is true. Even though it would be much easier, to be perfectly honest. Yet, people seem not to do it. Do y'all not want people of different genders to enjoy your fics without feeling excluded? He also said, "oh! yeah! there's also the whole thing about lingerie, too, like putting men in women's lingerie and talkin about panties and stuff, which comes off as extremely fetishising (when it's not written by mlm) as well as just... really gross bc like that stuff can trigger dysphoria and half the time it's not even tagged? Like it wouldn't be so bad if y'all tagged it; on top of that, there's also the whole fact that they assume that all mlm relationships revolve around sex and that that's all that matters. But then also using (m/n) standing for "male name" instead of (y/n), like, what the FUCK is up with that?? /gen" Again, he is absolutely right. Tag your shit, please. I know it can be tiring to pick out everything relevant, but trust me; you'll do a lot of people a big fucking favour when you tag your stuff properly. And frankly, I agree with him. I don't understand the whole '(m/n)' thing because if we're men, our names are automatically male because, well, we're male. It doesn't really make sense. That might just be a thing that personally bugs us, though, I honestly don't know. TLDR; Tag your fics properly, be respectful, don't assume everyone is female and therefore exclude everyone who isn't, just say (y/n)???, and yeah, that's basically it. Just be more considerate, please! That was it. I don't mean to personally attack anybody, but if you do feel attacked, that probably means that you're guilty of doing something I've listed here, and perhaps should consider changing that. I also wanna note that if you consider sending me threats or hate of any kind, I will delete it and not engage with it. If your first response to this post is something rude and hateful, you should take a step back and reconsider why you're about to do something so senseless. Does it help you in any way? No, it doesn't. So, what's the point, other than acting like a complete dick? Anyway, have a lovely morning/day/night; cheers!

#x reader #reader fanfiction #reader fic #reader insert #female reader #x female reader #x fem!reader #fic writing #fanfic writing #fanfic writer #this is genuine and comes from frustration rather than a place of hate #tag properly #same goes for content and trigger warnings #be more considerate #be mindful

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thealpacalypse-archive · 5 years

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A handy guide to avoid accidental transphobia

For cis people in the Druck fandom who write fic, headcanons or meta and don’t wanna mess up

Including questions like: Is David trans? Is he beautiful? Is he wearing a binder this whole damn time?? What’s his story?

hey everybody, I’ve debated making this post for a while now because I don’t want to seem ungrateful to the people who are already trying, and I know that there are other trans people in this fandom who are already doing a pretty good job educating people, but then again, why not share my thoughts as well.

In this post, I’ll collect a few headcanons, meta, and other discussions that i’ve seen around here and that made me personally uncomfortable - now be aware that i’m only one trans person and that other people can have other opinions on this, but also i’ve done trans activism for a few years now and i’m a gender studies major, so I definitely know what i’m talking about. also, a fair warning: this is gonna get long as heck. okay, let’s go.

Is David trans? The truth is: We don’t know yet. We only know that the actor who plays him, Lukas Alexander, is a trans guy. Now I’ve seen various people speculate if that automatically has to mean that David is trans as well, and obviously, no. David could be cis for all we know, and yes, casting trans actors in cis roles can be a pretty cool thing. However, if you’re cis, it would be cool if you reblog trans people’s opinions on this instead of shouting loudly about your own opinion, especially if it is that David should be cis for whatever reason. Why is that problematic? Trans activists are currently fighting for representation in media. There aren’t many trans characters we can look up to, especially not such young characters in a show that has such a big impact on a generation of young people. Many trans teenagers have never seen themselves represented in media, and many trans adults like myself are still craving for that good, good representation. Most of the time when we get trans characters, they’re played by cis actors - and because it’s mostly cis men who play trans women and cis women who play trans men, it perpetuates the idea that trans people are just especially well dressed up men and women who trick people into believing they’re ‘the other sex’. (ugh) Even though that’s a different problem, it links to this one as well, because trans stories in media are rare, and it’s even rarer to have them portrayed by trans actors. Yes, it would be revolutionary and gender-redefining if trans actors could play cis characters (or just characters whose cis or trans status is never brought up in the first place), but that’s one step ahead of the game in my opinion and tbh, cis people saying that they want David to be cis for whatever reason is just... suspicious.

Is David beautiful? Well, I’m sure we can all agree that this boy is a sight for sore eyes, and i’m pretty proud of this fandom for weeding out the transphobic assholes who called him ugly at the beginning of the season. I’m sure by now they’ve all seen the error of their ways because HECK, in levels of attractiveness, David is a king. Though it might not be the best to call him ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’ or other usually female-gendered words when you’re cis and describing him. Why is that problematic? Listen, there’s absolutely nothing inherently bad about calling boys pretty or beautiful or whatever - I personally am an absolute goner when it comes to soft boys™ and their aesthetics, and I also think that denying boys to be soft and pretty is misogyny in a way, because it’s implying that female-coded things are bad. However, there are many trans boys (and other trans and nonbinary folks who were assigned female at birth) who feel uncomfortable when these words are used for them because it can be linked to misgendering or remind them of times before they were out. Trans people are often highly aware of their body and looks, because the way we look is heavily observed, judged and policed by society, and most of the time, being seen the (gendered) way we identify is the only way we get respect and basic decency. We don’t know yet if David personally has a problem with being called beautiful or whatever, but we also don’t know how the actor who plays him feels about that, and there are a couple of trans boys in this fandom who’ve already expressed their discomfort with these words. So in order to protect them and make this fandom safe for them, it seems like a small price to pay to consider our choice of words more carefully when we describe David, and try to avoid female-coded words.

What about David’s chest? Now this one is tricky. I’ve seen discussions about it a lot: Does David wear a binder, did he wear it the whole time he was with Matteo, does he maybe not even bind, did he have a mastectomy? The underlying tone of these discussions is worry - we all want David to be safe and comfortable, and seriously, let me tell you once and for all: a binder shouldn’t be worn longer than 8 hours a day, it shouldn’t be worn when sleeping, and it shouldn’t be worn when doing sports (also relevant for our jock boy). It’s not safe and it can heavily damage the breast tissue, ribs, and lungs - it can be literally life-threatening. It’s perfectly fine to worry about this, but it still feels uncomfortable to watch cis people debate the state of a trans boy’s body in such detail. Why is that problematic? Trans people’s bodies have always been scrutinized and judged - by medicine, by the state, by society as a whole. We always have to prove ourselves and our bodies, and convince people that we’re not just tricking them into believing we’re someone we are not. A lot of ‘true womanhood’ or ‘true manhood’ apparently revolves around genitalia, at least cis people seem to think so. Which is why so many trans people (and let’s be real here, especially trans women) have to deal with the question: “Have you had the surgery yet?” - meaning, did they already undergo the one surgery among the various ones trans people might consider, that reshapes their genitalia in a way that is acceptable to society. Cis people often use these questions about our bodies and the way we change them to delegitimatize us and take away our status as a ‘real’ man or woman. Other than that, trans people’s bodies often get portrayed as something freakishly exotic by cis people; there’s a certain voyeurism about it, and it often gets sexualized - just look at the way trans women are treated in mainstream porn. Cis people examining our bodies, theorizing about what kind of operations we’ve had or haven’t had yet, and possibly sexualizing or belittling/dehumanizing us for it, that will always be very thin ice, because it comes with a lot of emotional baggage for trans people individually and as a community.

What’s David’s backstory? We’re all wondering that, especially since Druck is mixing up the whole Skam setting so much and we really don’t know what they have in store for us. Obviously I’m just as thirsty for theories as the rest of the fandom, but I’ve also read a few things that kinda irked me. Here’s what to avoid: Referring to David as a girl or female in any way, speaking about him in the past with “she/her”-pronouns or coming up with a deadname for him. Oh lord please don’t. It’s nothing but misgendering and it’s so, so wrong. If you’re cis, also please reconsider posting headcanons for his backstory that contain heavy transphobia. Not only can that trigger trans people in the fandom (please use trigger warnings for that stuff, okay?), but there’s also a long history of cis people taking trans narratives away from us and making them only about suffering and pain. Sure, dysphoria sucks, the discrimination sucks, but me, a trans person, complaining about these things is WAY different from a cis person fantasizing about a really painful, possibly violent life for a trans character. Sure I want realism and I want a platform where we can discuss the truly awful experiences many of us have because we’re trans, but I wish that cis people would boost trans voices for that instead of coming up with their own fucked up fantasies about how badly a trans character might have been treated. If you’re writing fic or meta and you want to find an explanation why David changed schools so close to the end of the school year, you don’t have to dig deep into the trans pain to explain it. It’s not that uncommon for trans people to change schools, work places, etc. once they’ve transitioned far enough to feel comfortable - a new start makes the stuff like name changes, new gender presentation, etc. easier. And even if David’d move is related to transphobic experiences, I don’t really need to read detailed descriptions of it. You wouldn’t want to obsess over someone else’s trauma in vivid detail in front of them, so please be cautious when writing about something that’s seen as traumatic by many trans people.

Other useful pointers: There are trans people in this fandom who voice their opinions - seek them out, listen to them, boost their voices, don’t speak over them when they talk about trans experiences. Don’t focus too much on the fact that David is (or might be) trans. Like sure, include that in your writing, but make sure you know that it’s not the only and not the most interesting thing about him. In most regards, he’s just a boy, and he has a lot of character traits that tell us just as much about him, like the fact that he’s really closed-off, competitive af, artistic, a music lover and a complete emo dork, seems to have an active flight-or-fight response,... you see what i’m getting at. Let’s obsess about David on these terms, and I’m sure we’ll get a whole lot of new and interesting meta and fic about him that all of us can enjoy.

#druck #david schreibner #datteo #davenzi #mavid #my posts

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clampisms · 5 years

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1, 2, and 8? Only if you’d like!! Thank you

thank you!

1. i id as an nb aroace lesbian, and it took me a long time to get there! they/them or she/her are good pronouns for me, although i don’t object to he/him

2. oof! this is a long one. i was never interested in sex or relationships like my friends were. they started dating in middle school, and i said, well, it’s middle school, maybe i’m just not ready to date.

my friends had long-term relationships in high school, and i picked a boy to like because it seemed like the thing to do. i was happy to let go of my “crush” when he started dating a friend of mine. whenever i fantasized about sex, it was with women, but i told myself that all girls thought about other girls like that.

i got to college and finally said, “huh. maybe the reason that i’m so weird about sex and relationships is because i’m not straight!” i called myself bi, like a lot of ace people do before they know that “asexual” is an option. after about a year spent listening to riot grrl music and reading feminist poets, i called myself a lesbian. that felt better than bi had, but i felt uncomfortable using the term when my attraction to women was so loose and nebulous and theoretical. i liked girls, but i didn’t want to date them or kiss them or have sex with them.

then i learned about asexuality, and finally, something that i could see myself in clearly! sex isn’t gross to me, and i enjoy smut as much as the next person, but i’m not sexually attracted to anyone and i have no desire to participate in anything myself. it meant a lot to know that there were other people out there like me, and tumblr was an important place for me when i was first identifying as ace.

i hesitated to id as aro because it felt final. even if i was ace, i thought, i could still be Normal and find someone to love romantically. admitting my aromanticism felt like closing the door on every single expectation society had for me, because it meant that i would never be able to point to a conventional romantic relationship and say, “look! i’m just like you!” (incidentally, this is part of why i hate respectability politics - i’m NOT Just Like Cis Straight People, and i don’t want to be) eventually though, i was able to move past my own reservations and embrace my aromantic identity.

in the midst of all this, i was also questioning my gender. i felt disconnected from the idea of womanhood. i was not what a woman was supposed to be - i was fat, i was ugly, i was hairy, i didn’t want sex, i didn’t want to be looked at by men. i had never been accused of being soft. i disliked the presence of my breasts and tried not to think about my genitals. they were part of my body, but they were not essential to me. it was five years from the first time i questioned my gender identity to when i finally started calling myself nonbinary. i dislike being called a woman because i dislike all of the societal baggage that comes along with that word. i consider myself woman-aligned, but i like my presentation to be as androgynous as possible.

the lesbian portion of my identity had been lurking in the background. i wasn’t sure that i had a right to the label because my love for women wasn’t strictly romantic or sexual. it was aesthetic, emotional, physical, emotional. it was important to me, but it was distinct from the “traditional” experience of lesbianism. i’m glad that i started calling myself a lesbian, though. it opened me up to being frank about my attraction to women, whatever form it takes, which is something i’d never allowed myself before. being able to say that i’m attracted to a woman while still knowing that i have no desire to act on any of that attraction was a really big, healthy step for me.

anyway, my identity is messy and difficult and i’m still learning about it every day! some of the labels that i use may change, and i’m okay with that. maybe i’ll find words that fit better, or maybe i’ll just... change. it’s all cool with me. i love who i am!

8. at work i tend to wear slacks, dress shoes, and button downs. i’d love to start wearing ties because it feels like it would be a power move. off the clock i’m a t-shirts fan and jeans/shorts fan. i started binding late last year, and it fuckin changed my life. highly recommended

#pride asks #original post #anon #Anonymous

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elvesofnoldor · 5 years

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im losing my entire fucking mind and i dont know anything abt myself anymore and why? why? all cause one day in undergrad, out of nowhere, i went “hey am i a woman?” like i was asking myself what flavour of cheesecake i wanted for dessert. That was like, right after i felt comfortable with the fact that im a lesbian. And the answer should have been simple and short: “yeah duh you dumb fucking bitch, why did you ask? why do you think asking this is fucking productive? forget about it!” But no, i decided to engage with the question and it opened a fucking pandora’s box, and this question latched onto me like a fucking parasite, because this question allows me to think about another crucial question im always afraid to ask myself: am i truly attracted to men? With lesbianism, i can answer this question with ease by saying, no, these flimsy “crushes” i have on like two or three boys when i was a child/teen were result of compulsory heterosexuality, boom, that’s it. simple! not to mention, i know that lesbians can experience attraction to men in the past and even had past relationship with men and still be lesbians, sometimes sexuality isn’t solid as a brick, and none of that should have mattered!

so yeah, lesbianism is the answer i LIKE, yet part of me is not satisfied with this answer! of course! why not! since when am i ever satisfied with anything EVER? over time, i started to want a “man’s body” when i see a cis dude with bare chest in picture, and it seems like i started to identify more and more with...masculinity and manhood...in general? even fictional men? at times? i dont fucking know! its a huge mess! and confusing! and my memories are all blurry and false and twisted by my current perception. sure i think i always kind of aspire to “androgynous looks”, but i like being a lesbian! At first, i was like, maybe im a non binary lesbian cause oh baby i know im not bisexual-- i dont want to be with men, but i want to be with women and that’s a certainty. And i know i had one real crush in life--sure it brought me nothing but misery but i know i had one true crush and it was a girl, a friend, from my high school-- whereas my possible feelings abt real boys or fictional men are very flimsy in comparison. still, part of me started to think that perhaps i can only process these feelings i might have for other men/boys in the past if i can...idk see myself as another man? i dont fucking know! Literally, it’s the most unproductive thing to think about! More importantly, i did not fall in love with any real man nor do i want to fall in love with any man! but i still kept questioning myself about this, cause i kept having these strong feelings abt, FICTIONAL MALE CHARACTERS. And idk, part of me was like, “maybe you’d be comfortable with your attraction to men if you...are a man?”, and yeah i actually engage with this line of fucking thinking. its so fucking embarrassing that MEN THAT ARE NOT REAL can have such ridiculous heavy impact on me, it’s fucking ridiculous and i hate it!!! Every time i started to get invested in some stupid story that doesn’t matter cause it’s a fucking fictional story, there is like, this ONE MAN, one fucking bitch, that i felt very strongly about and it didn’t feel entirely platonic. i knew i was not straight since a teen and it took me FOREVER to even seriously consider that im a lesbian even though i dread the thought of being with men for the longest time, precisely because i keep having these weird strong feelings about fictional men every once a while!!!!

makes no mistake i explored more rational options. during this time i made a rant abt it on here--i didnt want to! i tried not to make personal posts cause i dont want to bother strangers! but idk i guess my attention seeking whore ass just have to put my personal feelings out there eventually or i will die? anyways, a very nice mutual talked to me abt it, he was a trans man and as it turns out we shared a lot of similar experiences in regards to gender, and you’d think--hey maybe that helped? but no it fucking didn’t. it was nobody’s fault but it didn’t help, cause i clung on my womanhood for no apparent productive reason. i was still confused and, well, like a normal person i was like, let’s have human interaction! let’s actually explore my attraction to women! you don’t want to be with men so forget about them! forget what you might feel abt them! explore what you KNOW! explore certainty! so i did and ofc it ended up in shit, cause a girl who has a girlfriend (it was a closed relationship btw) asked me if i wanted to “hang out” on a dating app for wlws called HER and i genuinely thought it was a date? didnt know she has a girlfriend until AFTER we met. i wasn’t actually even surprised that she didn’t actually want to date me, because im ugly! im not attractive! im not even attracted to myself lol! plus she was very nice and cool and i was just happy that i made a friend with a fellow lesbian. but after that, i lost motivation to use that dating app, because one minor set-up and failure is all it takes for me to give up, its always like that with me. because im weak and pathetic, its always been like this.

yeah at one point i basically said im non binary on my bio, but i rather tell ppl im a lesbian and be done with it since im not entirely sure abt being non binary. Also, I know that non gender-conforming lesbians are everywhere, cis lesbians who are uncomfortable with gender identity exist! butches exist! they are here and they deal with it and they find community. but i don’t identify with...being butch? it was very nice to see gender non conforming, tom-boyish or butchy women out there, they gave me hope, they are my heroes but i just dont feel like...they are me? i dont feel like feminine women either, im attracted to feminine women but i dont identify with their look and their femininity. like i said, this is a huge fucking mess.

And now i have finally fucking done it, huh, dorian fucking p*vus, a gay male character. The clownery of it all! how the fuck, do i explain to ANYONE that i, a lesbian, have feeling that isn’t entirely platonic about a fictional gay man? yeah thats right thats why i romance him! i lied! ok! i fucking lied, it was cause i want to fuck him! ok! yeah, i know, ridiculous. i feel like im disrespecting him, that im , idk, fetishizing him, but i am not! i can’t be! i love him so much it hurts? it shouldnt be like that. i really shouldn’t. i cant make sense of this, its driving me nuts. still, this whole ordeal eventually got me thinking abt my gender, yet again, and it pushed me over the edge and i even told my dad that i want to transition this summer, that i am a man because i thought maybe i’d be much happier and less repressed if i can just accept that i like men-- if i can explore this possibility. i know i will NEVER accept liking man as a woman, and i know i already kinda have some sort of identification with manhood and masculinity, so why not! i was coming up with solutions! but i didnt even fall in love with a real man, and i was considering this serious level of transition in my life that requires time, money, and the process concerns health risk??? for what??? i was looking up all these info about transition, for WHAT? i gotta be out of my fucking mind! the most ridiculous thing is that while i always like a number of female characters, i would never feel as strongly about any of them in particular as i would, for that one fucking man. Even merrill, like, i love her and i genuinely feel like i want to be with a girl like her int he future but i dont feel as strongly about her as i would for dorian, for some, fucking, reason.

i headcanon the lavellan i used to romance dorian as a trans man, cause i was thinking, perhaps this would put things into perspective. and yeah, i wanna fuck dorian, but also i want to envision what my future CAN be using my lavellan as a proxy. things were simpler with my lavellan. he was handsome and had no body image issue, he was fit, transition was easy for him cause magic and he virtually spent no money on it, he was passing, his family and community fully supported him, he had a lovely girlfriend before he knew he was trans. sure, he has problems and issues to deal with but none are the ones i gotta deal with. he is not me, but he has what i wanted and what i wish i had: beauty, confidence, a girlfriend, easy FTM transition, and he is a man so he’s legally allowed to fuck dorian. but i did not transition, and im still a cis woman with long hair, and ppl looks at me and they probably still thinks im straight, im not straight but i AM a ugly cis woman and i dont think transition’d help cause i might just become a even uglier man lol. And if i dont become a beautiful, stunning man, then i dont want to become a man at all cause if things dont turn out perfectly for me, i dont want to do them and its always like that for me and its why im a fucking failure on everything right now. so many trans people are not passing, but they deal with it, not me tho! i can’t, cause im a pathetic baby!!! i cant deal with any minor inconvenience in my fucking life i guess!!!! And i cant help but to feel weird about having a trans man as one of my ocs. maybe i should make him cis instead? im so exhausted, i cant help but to feel that my trans mutuals want to just pull the trigger on me and unfollow me cause you all are silently judging me for having a trans oc when im still technically, cis. well judge me in my fucking face you fucking cowardly fucks! Am i cis? well idk, probably, maybe im just a hysterical crazy bitch of a cisgender^tm woman who is constantly uncomfortable with her gender, maybe thats all there is. who knows, all i know is that im burnt out, that i don’t know anything anymore and it was all a huge fucking mess that things dont matter. this is causing me nothing but pain and confusion and i dont want to be wrong myself. ftm transition is not, “oh geez lets just explore a option” kind of deal, its kinda fucking serious and its stressing me out. i dont know what i want, who i am, anything and i can’t afford to be wrong so i dont know!!!!! i just dont know!!!!!!!! i talked abt with a therapist actually but all therapist do is to LIE lie AND LIE and tell me things i already know, “you need to be careful with about transitioning! it’s a big decision” who pays you to say this garbage to me? “you are capable and beautiful and you can do this! believe in yourself!” as if ppl saying this shit is enough???? as if i still need to go see a fucking therapist if i am magically ok after i talk to somebody and they tell me lies that sound validating????i know they dont believe in what they said anyways. “you are ok! you are fine, you have no problem” BITCH I WISH I AM OK, BUT AM I OK? IM FUCKING NOT AND YOU ARE $60 RICHER THAN AN YOU ARE AN HOUR AGO! FUK YOU! LIES LIES LIES!!!!! men lie too, i put on some bad eyeliner and some random creepy dude came and told me im beautiful! beautiful my ass! im fucking ugly and i know it, you really think im fucking stupid you fuck? am i just being a special snowflake? are the things that i know for certainty actually certainty??? nothing about me feels real anymore, and maybe im just being dramatic but my self perception is non existent and i feel like im just lying to myself even though i thought i was being truthful and ppl keep telling me lies and nothing helps. im living on lies and it is festering

#yolanda talks #stories are much simpler. stories make sense and nothing complicates the narrative. but shits happen in life and things dont make sense #and you have to deal with it??? all the shit about yourself that makes sense? all that shit makes for shitty stories?#lmao............

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karak9 · 5 years

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Another stupid long post about how I don't know my own fucking gender

This is honestly just copied and pasted from a yt comment I made on an older vid and I figured I'd share it here bc tumblr loves this shit I guess lol. God damn I've been questioning my gender for so long and ik rn im prob not still in the best position to be thinking about deep life shit like where I am mentally and im dealing with a lot in my life and also very insecure about potentially being trans bc a lot of my friends don't seem like they would be very accepting and my bf is only really into girls. I asked him how he would feel if I was nonbinary or looked like a boy and he just said he wasn't totally sure but he's only attracted to girls :c he's the sweetest bf in existence and im honestly so afraid of losing him, so aside from obviously not wanting to deal with all the other trans shit, I definitely hope im not trans bc I don't wanna lose him. Anyways, ill start with my childhood I guess. I was always super tomboyish. My older sisters (im the youngest sibling btw) were always p tomboyish so maybe I kinda got it from them but I kinda felt like I was more tomboyish than them? I felt like I was the most boyish girl I knew, like even meeting other tomboy girls in elementary school I felt like I couldn't really relate to them or like they couldnt relate to me enough idk. I also remember once making up a song about being like so tomboyish that I was basically a boy or something along those lines and sang it to my best friend at the time who I copied like all the fkin time (it honestly wasnt healthy lmao I didn't have good parents, also I think I started making up songs bc she did that and I wanted to like impress her), but she thought it was stupid and weird so I just forgot about it and moved on. I was embarrassed to even enjoy playing with dolls or play dress up games online and was determined to play masculine games like runescape (even tho I ended up doing girly shit in runescape anyways lmao) and considered myself one of the guys. In 5th grade when I started needing to wear a bra I absolutely didn't want to, tho some girls in my class thought it was weird I didn't wear a bra when they found out and that made me more insecure about it, but since then I've p much only worn sports bras. I have bought some more normal bras bc I wanted to look attractive in them for my SO or whatever but I still highly prefer my sports bras and can't stand wearing the other ones unless I have to bc my sports bras aren't clean lmfao. I always hated talking about genitalia and breasts n shit but that could just be bc of how I was raised and how my family was always so strict and such radical Christians and anything sex related was a sin, idk if its dysphoria or not. I've never rlly liked my chest and hated showing cleavage like so god damn much and still do but maybe that's the same thing or maybe I just want smaller boobs and that's it idk??? Like I'd want to appear to have a completely flat chest at least, idk if I'd want to actually like have a guy chest or not? Also huge issue with ppl seeing me naked or touching my boobs but again idk if that's gender related or just a normal issue I have. Tho I had a friend in high school (a girl, a very weird lewd girl) who would occasionally grope my chest randomly and it wasn't a huge issue but kinda made me uncomfortable and more aware of my chest. I really like when I wear big hoodies or when I lean over so my shirt kinda poofs out and it looks like I have a flat chest underneath. Though im not super uncomfortable with my boobs, like normally ill want nothing to do with them but I don't mind my SO touching them especially if they're really into it. I wouldn't say im rlly dysphoric about between my legs either, like yeah I think its weird and I hate monthlies and stuff but I think that's normal. I think if i woke up one day and had a dick I would be fine with it, I'd prob even enjoy it tbh lmao. I once had a dream that i was, well, a male dog like,,, ya know, with a female dog, and not to sound weird af (hey we were both dogs ok) but I think i kinda enjoyed it? I don't really remember any other dreams where I remember actually having a dick or feeling it but I've had several dreams as a male person, but p much all of them were like, I was seeing through a character's eyes or smth, not really that I was a guy, so idk if that's normal. I have the same dreams about being other girl characters, I'd say its split about 50/50. Because of this game community im in, a lot of ppl assume im a guy, and a lot of people still think im a guy and I haven't really bothered to correct them but idk if I find it more enjoyable bc its funny or if I enjoy not being referred to as female for once. I'll admit I feel most comfortable referred to as they/them, like without a doubt, if I could go by only 1 set of pronouns for the rest of my life it would be they/them. But ik that's not enough to call myself trans. I definitely wouldn't want to be 100% male. Like if I imagine myself as a grown man vs a grown woman id prob choose to be a woman. I don't like my voice but I think that's mostly just bc I sound 10 years younger than I actually am, and wouldn't really want a deep/masculine voice. Like a "tomboy" voice would be fine if that makes sense? I don't want facial hair or want to have a masculine body, I like that I have curves and soft skin and small hands. Personally I like my hair long bc its soft and people love it, but sometimes I kinda wish I had short hair and could pass as a boy. Like I'd wanna be a typical cute kpop boy ngl lmfao. I like the whole cute androgynous/feminine boy look and wish I could pull it off. Tho I also like really girly things sometimes and am okay being seen as a girl, i just want to be cute and attractive. Ik whether im trans or not I like being a mix of feminine and masculine, tho I admit in the past I've been kinda insecure bc I used to be super sure I was nb and thought me liking girly things and wanting to still havd long hair and wear girly clothes made me seem like "not trans enough" or whatever. But i guess here I am questioning myself again anyways. If I am nb, it sucks that ill never really be able to be openly myself and all but I've accepted by now that I kinda have to pick a binary and choose what I want to be seen as for the rest of my life, and im ok with being female. There are some things I dont like about my body whether they're really gender related or not but I can't afford to transition and wouldn't like most of the effects of T and am afraid of surgery and not sure I want top surgery enough to ever get it anyways, but I think if we lived in a perfect world and I could magically change my body at will and I wasnt afraid of judgment or being unattractive or whatever, I'd probably want to look androgynous and itd be cool to be able to change my genitalia at will lmao. If I had to choose 1 genitalia over the over I honestly have no idea what I'd choose but I have no desire to ever get bottom surgery, at the same time tho I honestly wanna someday get surgery or w/e to never be able to get pregnant. I just could not handle pregnancy or giving birth and I don't even like babies and breast feeding sounds awful so if I ever have kids they will be adopted 100% and most likely be older and like not newborn babies lmfao, babies are honestly so weird to me and they stink and cry and they're so fragile and im so afraid of like dropping them when I hold them lmao. But I like my nieces and nephews and I like being the cool aunt (is there a gender neutral version of aunt/uncle?) who lets them use my art supplies and helps them do fun stuff even if I get tired of them sometimes lol. Idk if that's gender related either but yeah I guess. This if kind of a more recent thing but I often say I'd make a great bf kinda as a joke bc of how I am in relationships like being the stereotypical sweet bf type who makes things for their partner a lot and wants to be their knight in shining armor and their protector and all that, but again prob not rlly trans related lmao just thought I'd throw that out there I guess. So when I was 17 was when I really started getting into trans stuff, prior to that I mostly just learned from my parents that trans ppl were "against god" and all that bs, and eventually started realizing lgbt+ isn't as bad as my family said and later realized I was bi. But anyways I met an agender person online when i was 17ish and I'd never heard it before and thought it was really interesting and asked them how you know you're agender bc after hearing their explanation of it i thought it described how I felt, but ofc they weren't transmed and just described it as being like a deep feeling or whatever and since then i started calling myself agender (and switched between a few labels but basically nonbinary) until my transmed friend told me I was ridiculous and that I wasn't trans, and honestly he was a huge dick but im a huge pushover lmao and I thought well he's trans so he must know what he's talking about, and though I felt discouraged about it I stopped calling myself nonbinary. Then I began questioning it again after not too long and basically since then I've been questioning my gender off and on. I'm now 22 and god I fucking hope im cis but also I feel like a part of me doesn't want to be cis if that makes sense?? Idk if that's because I don't like being a girl for some weird deep reason I don't know about despite being pretty sure I've gotten a lot of my feelings and their reasons behind them figured out, or if it's because I am trans and dont want to force myself to pretend im a girl 100% forever. At the very least, whatever the fuck my gender is, I want to continue going by they\them wherever I can and pretending to be a boy to strangers online and I'd love to cosplay male characters and bind and occasionally just dress masculine for the hell of it and probably wear sports bras for the rest of my life. I feel like in a way I cang possibly be trans because I can live with all of those things and be fairly comfortable still being seen as female for the rest of my life. But idk, I have bpd and other mental shit so sometimes im not great with my feelings (tho I do try really hard to identify all of my feelings/emotions and stuff) but at the same time bpd can cause weird identity shit so maybe its just a weird mix of a bunch of crap and im not actually trans but just weird and tomboyish enough to question my gender for 5 years and still be unsure. Also I know a lot of ppl suggest talking to a therapist/psychologist/whatever professional and trust me I would love to but I can't currently and am unsure when ill be able to bc they're expensive and I live in the middle of fucking nowhere so finding a decent therapist around where I live rn is going to be very difficult. Also, I have fucking crippling social anxiety lmao like I'd be so afraid to open up about this stuff even to a professional. So if anyone could suggest anything online that could help that would be amazing

#Trans #nonbinary #nb #genderqueer #gender questioning #transmed #pls help me lmao I hate my brain sm #also im so sorry if this post is scuffed af #im on mobile #its 4 am I cba

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fitzonomy · 6 years

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Comics, Pornography, and Communication: also, a discussion of why *Men* suck.

First, notice how I typed out *Men* up there. It is capitalized. There are asterisks around the word. I don’t describe myself as a “social justice warrior” because the label, to me, signifies lip service, mob mentality, and a lack of critical thinking. Second, notice how I qualified that definition with “to me.” It’s subjective. It’s about my experience with the term and the people who’ve I encountered who use it as an identity. Do I think social justice is bad? No. Do I think wanting social justice, equity, and all those buzz words is wrong? Nope. But do I think the world is mostly grey areas? Heck golly gosh, I do.

*Men* (to me) is meant to signify major societal trends, norms, and expectations that are grounded in patriarchal, misogynistic, and ableist rules, environments, and scripts that are written for *Men,* by *Men,* between *Men,* and with *Men.* *Men* are those who think the world works a certain way, so suck it up because that’s just the way the world is. *Men* (In. My. Experience.) have zero interest in critical thinking unless it is done so in a way that benefits them and other Men. Often times, *Men* engage in the lowest threshold of critical thinking or want to employ rhetorical techniques/classical logic to whatever is being discussed. *Men* is not limited to cis-men. This is important but not relevant to the following discussion. I’M ONLY GOING TO BE DISCUSSING AMERICAN COMICS. YES, I KNOW THE FIRST RECORDED SUPERHERO COMIC WAS MADE IN THE 1800s SOMEWHERE IN EUROPE. So, let me tell you that this entire position that I’m about to present is NOT about:

1. The history, merit, or discussion of why Comix (different from comics, for historical reasons) is important. Underground Comix is important for many reasons. There have been dissertations written on the subject. I’m not about to do that here. 2. Whether or not the goal of satire was/is achieved with Underground Comix. 3. Whether Underground Comix is “problematic.” I.e. was/is it sexist, ableist, racist, bigoted, and whatever other problems they could have. Again, another dissertation topic. Again, again, aaaagain: this is about my individual experience working in a comic book shop. Don’t act like I’m drafting a treatise on some objective truth that’s floating aimlessly around in a vacuum. Go watch Netflix. Eat pizza. This isn’t that deep. It’s me griping about things from a particular point of view. Some background: I’ve worked at a comic book shop in a small, midwestern city for almost five years now. The shop has been here going on over 20+ years. It’s the only game in town when it comes to comic books. Historically, this wasn’t the case but other shops didn’t adapt so, uh, they died off. Comics is a strange business to be in because while it is technically a bookshop, the industry came from a place of fun and general absurdity that was meant to be throwaway material for kids (especially the target market, young boys) to waste money on (hence, why Golden Age stuff, any of it really, is usually worth a little something--the newsprint wasn’t meant to be durable, so kids would throw them away, use it for drawing paper, etc.). Comics had been around before the Golden Age, but yanno, it’s called a Golden Age for a reason--it is the era in which comics became introduced as “suitable” for mainstream consumer consumption. I mean, we could argue on other reasons but that’s neither here nor there. Comic books, graphic novels, and comic strip utilize sequential art. Sequential art is a specialized term. Within the definition itself, the requirement of narrative is implicitly built into the term. There is no room for debate here. If a story is not being told, a body of work can be classified as art but it is not sequential. Art can tell a story, sure, but a square is a rectangle but a rectangle isn’t a square. I run into a wide variety of people because of the strangeness of the product we sell. We’ve got readers (like myself), we’ve got collectors, we’ve got beginner readers, we’ve got artists (like me), we’ve got writers (like me), and we’ve got people who “haven’t been to a comic store in ages and, boy!, is it sure different than when I was young!” And, yes, we have the certified perverts. Once, I found out one of our customers was a registered child sex offender. I politely told my boss that if the person in question wasn’t banned from the store, I was quitting. As with all stores, as times change, so does business practice. One must adapt to the changes that are happening around them or they have to have a big enough, steady clientele to support them. This comic book shop, in particular, did not and does not have a large enough, regular clientele base that spends enough money for us to keep doing things the way it always had been. These are just facts. In the past, this store was ran in such a way that it was a dying business but the current owner would put their own money into it in order to keep it afloat. At that time, the store allowed some subscribers (note: to my knowledge, all cis-gender men) to order exclusively from publishers like Boundless Comics (publisher who specializes in “sexy, cool comics for adults”) with no advance payment. Which means if they never came to pick up their stuff, we were stuck with the responsibility to sell it because, well, we already paid for it. I don’t think I have to make a Venn diagram to convince anyone that the overlap between deadbeats (for our subscription service--basically, we never heard from someone ever again) and these men was pretty much two circles just a bit off-center from one another. These were not comics we could put out to be sold because they never would be. In over 20 years, our numbers have shown that Adult/XXX/Mature comics don’t sell well off the rack regularly. We do have one or two customers back from Ye Olden Days who still have subscriptions to mature comics, but they never look around. They never try out something new. They buy the comics they ordered because they wouldn’t get them any other way. Both of them are strongly against buying things on the internet, so my guess is we’re they’re only option. I wasn’t around during the time in which “boxes were kept under the counter” for “special comics.” Today: About a month ago, an older man (because all of the customers who ask for the “boxes under the counter” are older) came into the store. He looked around. He came up to the counter and asked me where the Underground Comix were. I showed him where we kept our collection of Underground Comix. He said that wasn’t what he was looking for. Did we have the “boxes under the counter.” Now, understand, I’ve been told about all of this because we don’t have it anymore but I needed to know the store’s history. Fair. I told him that we do not and have not in many years. But, when people ask me for Those Boxes, I know what they’re asking for. Not all of it was satirical Underground Comix. So, they usually stumble when I tell them that, no we don’t. This guy stumbled. I could assume a number of reasons as to why he did so, but it really doesn’t do any good. So, I try to ask a number of questions to find something else they might like to try. The conversation goes like this: Me: Are you looking for a comic or graphic novel with explicit sexual content? Him: Yes. Me: Okay, I can definitely suggest Saga and Sex Criminals.

At this point, I pull out the first trades of both and show the explicit sexual content in both. I mention the art, the story, and the writing. Sequential art is divided into four elements: design, drawing, caricature, and writing. Design, drawing, and writing are usually the most salient elements to a lay reader. Caricature has a lot to do with symbolic representation--how does one exaggerate an element of X in order to represent X? But some people lay people are interested in this element because of the comical effect it can play in a comic story. Him: No. Not like that. Me: What is missing from this then? Him: Something more adult. Me: Would you like explicit sexual content with more graphic violence? Him: Yeah, that sounds about right. Me: Okay, I’ve got Crossed.

!WARNING WARNING WARNING! THE LINK I’VE PROVIDED IS TO THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE WHICH IS ABOUT THE TAMEST RESOURCE FOR WHAT CROSSED IS THAT I KNOW OF. DO NOT LOOK INTO THIS COMIC IF EXTREME VIOLENCE, GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT, INCEST, BESTIALITY, RAPE, BLASPHEMY OF RELIGIONS, AND A WHOLE HOST OF OTHER THINGS REMOTELY BOTHER YOU. NOT EVEN TRIGGER--REMOTELY. BOTHER. So, yeah, I feel like I’d picked out a good contender considering. Him: No. Not like this. But, hey, wanna know something about Crossed? Everybody is a target for wanton humiliation, suffering, and all sorts of horrible things! Is this something I’m praising? No. It’s just a fact of the comic. And an important fact to know when guy says to me: Him: Well, the old Underground Comix I used to read were more sophisticated with the satire, like the sex in it was about humor with having sex with women. Me: So, you’re looking for comics about humorous sexual encounters that are also explicit? And as I start suggesting comics, he interrupted. Him: No, not like that. More like... *he pulls out a Robert Crumb collection we have and thumbs through it* that. The funny stuff, yanno? The picture in question (I won’t link it, because it is upsetting, as will be my description of it) is just in Crumb’s style--pretty distinctive--and it’s one panel of a skinny, naked man with a sizeable erection. He’s bent over backwards, his hips bent such that his back is practically parallel with the floor of the drawing and his erection (which, if I recall correctly is something like 1/5-1/6 of the height of the page) is pretty close to perpendicular with the floor. One of his hands is wrapped around a nude woman’s throat, the drawing exaggerating the woman’s body parts as if she were being squeezed through tube--the head is ballooned and her neck stretches out to her shoulders. her arms are ramrod straight leading down to outstretched hands. Her legs are equally straightened, bent ninety degrees at the hips. There are motion lines to indicate that the man is forcibly shoving the woman onto his dick over and over again. By her throat. He’s got a pretty happy expression. She does not. Please, read the part where I explain what this thing I’m writing is NOT. Because it is a grey area if you know enough about history and context. Divorced of context, it’s pretty disgusting. I’ll just say that outright. So, if we use the four elements of sequential art to think about what story is being told and how it’s being told, there are things I can understand. The design is good (lots of sharp angles). The caricature is good (Crumb is great with exaggerated forms, whether I like his style or not is irrelevant). The drawing is in Crumb’s style which I can understand why people like his art. So, that leaves the writing. It is wordless but there’s still a story being told. Me and this guy were have a disconnect about what kind of story he wanted to read. Cut to today, about a month after this. It seemed like he hadn’t internalized anything we’d gone over because he had similar questions. At one point, he finally picked up a book and bought it. Which led me to writing this humongous post for the last four hours (it’s been busy today!). Because the guy wasn’t asking for pornography. I’ve definitely straight up told people before we don’t sell pornographic material here. Besides, how we define porn depends on the era. To me, I define it as material that was created with the intention to arouse, stimulate, and to be used as an aid for sexual activity AND someone wants to consume it for said purposes. But, that’s not a definition that would fit all pornographic material. The guy was (again, my perspective. Why I have to keep saying that is important here in a moment) asking for satirical material where misogyny was humorous. Now, if you were to ask him to communicate what he wanted, I guess good luck on getting that answer. I’ve tried. I don’t think he could, to be quite honest because that’s how *Men* are (hey! I used it again). This guy is a *Man* and his answers to me when I probe are, “How it used to be, just how things are,” and the like. The comic book industry is usually fraught with the same problems regular prose books are, the big topics being censorship and purity politics. It’s not as bad as, let’s say, the 1960s and 1970s but there are still problems. Even books for readers of all ages come under scrutiny and are banned from some libraries and schools (Raina Telgemeier’s Drama, for example). To censor any material is a very murky grey area for me. To say that someone cannot create material because it contains material that I am not comfortable with is even murkier because, usually, I’m presented with these hypotheticals in the form of loaded questions (”So, have you stopped bad habit X?” which doesn’t allow me to engage in how I qualify my own habits); complex questions (”What is the legal age of consent to sexual activity?” assumes a LOT of things about legality, age of consent, consent, and sexual activity without consideration to context, to say the least); false dilemmas, suggestive questions, leading questions, and... *takes a deep breath* *exhales* Listen, there’s just a lot of things that make a lot of issues super murky and grey for me. That’s not to say I don’t have opinions and personal/societal biases that sway me toward one end or the other of a polemic (I’m human. We all do it).

When I say, “I hate *Men,*” it is hatred directed towards the skewed power dynamics and socialization that I’m cemented into (through no consent or fault of my own), that allows a *Man* to think (without a second thought) about showing someone the picture I described and not worrying about what he’s communicating. About what the comic is communicating. Let’s pretend that he knows the historical context and importance of Underground Comix. How does he know that I know those things? I mean, I do, but this guy doesn’t know that. “But, Ash!” you argue. “You literally asked him to show you an example!” My friend, there’s no shortage of Underground Comix either from Crumb himself or in similar style that showcases supposedly satirical humor where “battle of the sexes” comes into play. To show someone that image with no knowledge of what the other person knows is a little dicey imho But it sucks! I have to be okay with him showing me that! I asked for an example and I got it. In his mind, it was a smooth communicative exchange. Request for information? Information given! Because of *Men,* I have to watch the way I approach wanting to talk about this subject because I might become “emotional” or I might be accused of, gasp, showing bias! (Newsflash: we’re humans. WE ALL HAVE BIASES. If you aren’t willing to talk about and challenge them then THAT’S a problem. Another story for another day, I digress). And it’s a shame because I know this *Man* isn’t wanting to consume stories where rape is funny because he’s interested in engaging with content that is historically important but because it was created in the context of some socially-acceptable horrible crap there’s some interesting discussion to be had. No, my bet is the thought process looks like: “Heh. Yeah, I know that feeling. Sometimes you just want to have a girl ride you but she just doesn’t know how to slam that pussy down right, so you gotta help her!” “lol yeah sometimes you just wish pussy would magically work your dick into oblivion without you having to worry about the woman that’s attached to it! am I right, y’all?” laugh out loud satire right there someone give me my own netflix show (watch someone take this section out of context sigh) And, honestly, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I didn’t have a thesis or anything. Just me rambling. RIP moblrs

#long post #rip those of you on mobile #ash talks comics #it gets graphic #trigger warnings all around #in abundance #I mention #rape cw #violence cw #basically

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blackbearmagic · 6 years

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NB Tag Meme

Considering myself tagged by @edderkopper

Rules: Tag all the nonbinary people you would like, and answer all the questions you feel comfortable answering! If you see this cross your dash and you haven’t been tagged, then by all means, participate anyways if you would like.

1. What is your gender? What language do you use to express your gender?

I’m bigender, and use she/her and he/him pronouns!

What I like to tell people when they ask how to refer to me is “You will never be wrong if you call me female”. I’m AFAB and didn’t realize I was nonbinary until I was an adult, so being called girl/woman/ma’am/her/sister/daughter has always been part of my identity! I’m just also very, very comfortable being referred to as “sir” or “him”.

Sometimes I lean more towards one binary gender or the other, but for the most part? I just feel like I’m simultaneously male and female. I guess one way to say it would be that most days I feel like I’m a Man, with the body of a Woman, and that that’s how it’s supposed to be. Like I’m a Man, just with a female name and medically female reproductive organs and secondary sexual characteristics and hormones, but that there’s nothing wrong with that arrangement. I’m Both, at the same time, and that’s how I’m meant to be for me.

Having watched many of my trans* and nb friends struggle with dysphoria, I feel so lucky that everything is so clear-cut and easy for me to accept.

2. How old were you when you first realized you weren’t cis?

Haha... 26. Specifically, Feb. 15, 2018.

The tag “Bear’s ongoing gender crisis” on my blog has part of the story, but for about a year prior to that revelation, I would periodically have these instances where I would be mistaken for male and I was Totally Okay with it. And the idea of being nb never occurred to me, so it would throw me into this panic of “but I’m cis??” for like three days and then I would forget about it. And then I really started thinking about it, and people were helping me, and then I just... the penny dropped, I guess.

3. In regards to the NB Presentation Scale, which do you feel describes you, if any?

Probably somewhere between a fox and a stag.

I definitely have powerful eyebrows.

4. In your regular presentation, what are some “staples” to your style?

Men’s jeans are my new favorite thing, paired with a tight tanktop and either a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up (if it’s cooler) or a sleeveless vest with hella pockets (if it’s warmer). Sometimes a bandana around my neck. Back when it was cold, I was never without one of my personally-knitted slouchy beanies.

Fun fact: Because of the way I dressed, a kid on a school trip once addressed me, persistently, as “Mrs. Lara Croft.” He even wrote on his exit survey that his favorite part of the trip was “playing group games with Mrs. Lara Croft”.

5. In regards to the enby “archetypes”, which describes you, if any?

Woodpecker, for sure!

6. Do you headcanon any characters as nonbinary? Talk about them!

Not really? I’m a boring person who almost never headcanons characters outside of their canon identities or sexualities. Not against it, just never really do it.

7. If you know of any characters that are canonically nonbinary: Do you like how they were portrayed? Were they relatable? How did it feel the first time you watched or read about a canon nonbinary character?

So this doesn’t have to do with any media characters, but rather a character from the series I’ve been writing on and off with @captainoftheseaqueen since, like, 2011.

The character’s name is Yinny--specifically, Yineput--Reid. Her older sister’s name is Chickenfeather. The story is set in the real world, where everything is the same except magic is a Thing--and everyone else in the story around them has perfectly normal names, like Erin, Killian, Riley, Farra... Mrs. Reid just wanted to give her girls names that stood out. She gave her daughters “normal” middle names (Melissa for Chick, Sarah for Yinny), so that they could go by those if they didn’t like their names as they grew up, but it wasn’t needed. Chick is Chick, and Yinny is Yinny.

Yinny was meant to be a loose self-insert character, as her older sister Chick (who was written first, and is 21 years older than her) was based heavily on my older sister, MC. As Yinny came to life, the way all OCs eventually do, I realized that her gender was... not quite clear-cut. She was definitely okay with being identified as and addressed as female, but she preferred to be somewhat ambiguous and androgynous. It was around this time that I was first learning about nonbinary gender identities, and I thought “oh, I guess Yinners is nb, cool”. I had even drafted in my head her whole coming-out conversation with Chick.

Five fucking years later, guess who turned out to be nb? Yup, the person who Yinny Reid was based off of.

The kicker?

In hindsight, I realize now that, just like Yinny, the first person I came out to about my nonbinary identity was my older sister, because just like Yinny, I felt that my sister would be the most attentive and receptive to what I had to say, and would let me explain myself fully before she commented. And the conversation MC and I had was... eerily similar to the one Chick and Yinny had had in my head years earlier.

tl;dr, I apparently self-fulfilling-prophecied myself with an OC who talks to roadkill

8. If you’ve changed your pronouns or name since coming out, why, and how did that process go? If you didn’t change your name or didn’t change your pronouns, how come?

I didn’t change my name, and I really don’t see myself ever doing so. My legal name, Suzanne, just... fits me. It fits me in a way that I don’t think any ever name could.

Of course, the downside is that there is no way to make “Suzanne” even remotely gender neutral as a name--in fact, you can only make it sound even more feminine. But I don’t mind. It’s a great name, and the rightest name I can think of for myself.

When I came out to my sister and she told me to keep her up to date on any name or pronoun changes, she said “just let me know if you would prefer I call you Zayne or something like that”, and I toyed with the idea for about two minutes, because Zayne sounds kinda like Zanne, before she said “but seriously, please don’t call yourself Zayne, you can do so much better, that’s a terrible fucking name”.

So I’ll just continue to be a man named Suzanne, I guess. I’m cool with that.

As far as pronouns go, I somewhat recently added “he/him” as pronouns in my about section, so that’s a thing. I once asked a group of friends if they could refer to me with he/him pronouns intentionally during one of our gatherings, and it was nice, but of course... you don’t often use third-person pronouns when talking about someone who’s right there, so it wasn’t a lot, haha.

There is, though, something deeply cleansing and affirming to me about the thought of someone saying “I was talking to Suzanne and he said...”

As I said above, people are not wrong if they refer to me with she/her or female terms, so like... I’m not too fussed about it.

Oddly enough, unlike seemingly a lot of nb people, I personally don’t like singular-they pronouns being used in reference to me. People referring to me as “they” usually gives me a deep, visceral feeling of wrongness that I can only assume is what being properly Misgendered feels like. She/her or he/him please!

Consider yourself tagged if you wanna spill your guts.

#the Bear roars

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trinkets-and-spirits · 5 years

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26 & 27 for the lgbt+/pride asks!

26: What identity advice would you give your younger self?

Oh, this is a great question; considering identity was a huge struggle for me. :’)) Advice is a difficult subject for me, bc I don’t consider myself to be very wise. Ik a lot of stuff on certain topics; but I struggle to give concrete advice for others, and a lot of the time—I’m just straight up bullshitting my way through life; trying to comfort my friends, trying to comfort myself, trying to word things nicely & all.

But identity? FUCK ME ; do I know a lot & have a lot of advice on identity, lmao.

Cheesy as it’ll sound to other folks, my best advice would be to ignore what the people around you are telling you about identity, and I’m not just referencing the homophobic assholes who are just looking for any reason to claim the LGBTQ+ community are aggressive; violent monsters. I’m mostly referencing the young; controlling; bitchy straight girls—who were homophobic as fuck; until they found out about yaoi anime, and suddenly they were gay; trans; genderfluid; and everyone else was the same way. Cishet people didn’t exist, and anyone who claimed to be happily cishet (myself; at the time) was just lying to themselves. :))

At a very young age (10 ; 11) — I was pressured into thinking that I was trans, because these previously cishet girls were claiming it was cool; that they wanted to be men, but not for the purpose that transgender folks are actually trans. :’)) Nope! Instead of wanting to transition; or pass, bc that’s who they had always been, they looked at it as a couple of surgeries that would allow them to jack off. Have gay sex. Be the ‘uke’ (or sub; in BDSM-terms) to someone’s ‘seme’ (or dom; in BDSM-terms). And I was pressured to think the same way, despite still feeling cishet at the time; and not really understanding what transgender was.

I was also pressured to think I was lesbian/gay, whatever the terms we were using back then. Bisexual? Pansexual? Incorrect. How dare you be attracted to anyone, besides the gender I tell you to be attracted to. It was…a fuckin’ toxic situation. I only started learning about LGBTQ+ around the time I came out, and I…learnt quickly that I wasn’t trans; I had never been trans. I didn’t connect to either gender in an identity sense, but sexually & romantically? Yes. I loved & adored men and women, and I feel like I would have realised this sooner, had it not been for these girls—who were convinced that trans men were the only valid part of the transgender community; who were convinced trans men were only trans, bc they wanted to get fucked by men, jack off, and use he/him pronouns for the fun of it. Trans women were invalid in their eyes. Who would want to be a woman? :’)) It’s disgusting to think they quickly ditched the LGBTQ+ community, when they ‘grew out of yaoi’ — and now treat us like we’re a bunch of idiots, lol.

BUT ANYWAY!!

My two pieces of advice would be:

1) Never allow anyone, especially bigots, to tell you what your identity is. You want to be cishet? You do you, sweetie. You wanna be trans? Fuck yes, I’ll support you to the ends of time; as long as you’re comfortable with yourself. You wanna be genderqueer? HELL YEAH, BUD. I’d have told myself, time and time again, that I’m allowed to identify as who I am — and not as whatever a couple of cishet bitches demanded that I identify as; or I’m being ‘homophobic’ and ‘transphobic’ for not conforming. It’s not a sin to not identify as something, and you should never fucking force that shit. If you’re cis; you’re cis. If you’re trans; you’re trans. If you’re somewhere else; bless u.

2) You’re allowed to explore your identity, because it’s your goddamn identity. As long as you’re not hurting anyone w/ your exploration; then who the hell has the right to tell you that you’re betraying a community that you no longer identify with, but still cherish and respect?? No one finds their identity right away, fam. It’s totally chill for you to feel cis one day & genderqueer the next; as long as you’re not being an asshole about it. Life’s short, baby, feel free to explore; as long as you’re not appropriating or discriminating others.

27: What do you think of gender roles in relationships?

I’m…gonna assume that this is referencing the whole boomer argument of there needing to be a man & a woman in a relationship; that gay relationships will always consist of one masc. & one femme person, and…all of that bullshit. On top of the nonsense that I’ve seen relating to trans people in relationships. :’))

If not, then I naturally apologise to everyone out there; but baby—I’m literally the worst person to ask about gender roles. I’m genderqueer, so gender roles? We don’t know her. Personally, I think they’re total bullshit & aren’t a necessity for anyone out there, as long as you’re in a comfortable; consensual relationship, and are happy w/ the person (or p e r s o n s; to my beloved poly community) you’re seeing—I don’t really see the need for gender roles to come into things.

I’d never judge someone for thinking they’re important or relevant to things, tho, as long as they weren’t being transphobic or aphobic. But generally speaking?? Yeah no, miss me w/ that gender role shite. We’re here to love, not debate about anything besides light-hearted; wholesome things. Gender roles…aren’t for me, tbh, I just don’t really see the point any more. I just wanna love others, y’know?? Who cares about roles?? Unless they’re bedroom roles, rip me. But yeah no. xP

Yikes, sorry for the long ass post. I didn’t mean for this to happen, lmao.

#anonymous #answered #lgbtq #long post #txt

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