#i could talk a lot about queer identity actually.

[ham1lton]

you said u read ao3 fics! what are your f1 recs?

ahhh!!!!! this is the best question you could have ever asked me like ever i love you so much. i’ve been dying to talk abt this for a hot minute. i opened myself up to any sort of ship mostly because i cared more abt the fic quality then the ship you know? kinda glad i did it because my fav ones are not necessarily ships i am a fan of. it’s really long so i put it under a read more!!

okay so number one has to be the fic that was my first fav f1 fic. this is steal the air out of my lungs (make me feel it). now this has a lot of elements that i love. guy who’s in his own head vs other guy who’s also in his own head but pretends he isn’t. also idk why but i’m always a sucker for a good medical au and this one fucking delivers!!! another maxiel fic i read was three rounds and a sound which has coffee shop owner daniel w/ stressed out student max. a lot of introspection but it’s also unfolding while the romance is. idk i just love this. it’s so good. last maxiel fic is come on, star boy which is a alt universe where daniel is the american guy he always wanted to be and max is the new transfer to his small town’s football team. it isn’t just incredibly written but everyone feels so real and vivid. i can visually see this in my mind everytime i read it. i listened to a lot of ethel cain while reading so that helped. i love this so much and the brocedes in the background?? you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves youuu 🗣️

i’m not really a landoscar girl, i’m gonna be honest. however, where i am going is right where i am, is just incredible. alt universe where the drivers live on a street version of stars hollow? brocedes that influence everything even though they’re long over? charles being insane over max? pierre hating on esteban every second that is possible (i was laughing every time he would just cuss his ass out unprovoked) and annoying george being their street’s version of gilmore girls’ taylor?? what more do u need in ur life?? also oscar in this fic is just my dream man. i think a croissant from him would fix me. actually i read a lot of this author’s landoscar fics and they’re so cute i was sending kudos as much as i can. like almost home! just want to bite them both and put them in my pocket. they’re so obviously in love i want to shake them down and scream and smoosh them together. lawyer!oscar i love you. check out their profile!! incredible writer :)))

i’m also not a galex truther but the two of us, in sympathy is so cute!! rich boy!george with broke junior doctor!alex. george attempting to court alex and just absolutely failing. i love it. they’re such a mess i need them in my life. also this loscar future fic is so intense but incredible. i’m really bad at describing but i binged it on my train home and i was really glad i did - i promised to forget you now.

the reason i even got into f1 aka brocedes. this fic i think was one of the first i read. on the faultline which is just amazing. i can’t recommend it enough. read it if u can. another fav is a brocedes threesome with their toxic fucking each other via proxy aka new money, and it’s all cash. cute brocedes!! nico thinks lewis is his sworn enemy but everyone knows otherwise. roseberg’s vs haminkton. this was so cute and funny. cause why was nico saying lewis, the owner of a tattoo shop was stealing business from him… when he owns a florists… he’s so dramatic i want to tuck him in my pocket. this job will take my sole has the same premise but they’re both shoe shops which makes a lot more sense. i just love stupid rivalries and dramatic nico.

now back to my sweethearts, the lights of my life, the fires of my heart - sewis. all of these fics have past brocedes just for context. every tongue should confess talks about religion and queer identity in such a nuanced and delicate way? i adored this fic. transmotion which is another alt universe with fashion designer!lewis and footballer!sebastian both figuring out their careers, themselves and their relationship. maybe together we can get somewhere - this is an mpreg fic which usually isn’t for me but it’s about seb and lewis going on a road trip for an abortion and it’s so good. honestly the ending line of ‘it’s a good feeling, to know that sebastian’s outstretched hand is right there.’ it just stuck with me. i loved it. the numbering at bethlehem which is thee sewis fic to me. professor au?? this was made for me. like perfectly moulded. everything about this is art. i could do a full essay on this fic. just read it, it’s incredible. just amazing. sebastian as the child prodigy who has nowhere else to climb?? i love them both in this fic so much!!! tnab sewis get behind me!! i’m gonna protect u!!

okay i’m sorry this is so long. i just love art. i love writing. i just love the work these authors’ have spent putting together these masterpieces for free!! check them out!! leave kudos!! comment!! <3

#im always open to new recs!!! :D #and if u read these and wanna chat abt any - my asks are always open :D #ao3 fic recs #sewis #maxiel #landoscar #brocedes #anon ask

[autistic-robin]

more dynamics i need to see in st5 for my mental wellbeing

1. el and dustin. that’s it send post. they were genuinely so sweet in season 1 and i miss their mad scientist/test subject vibe immensely. i know el and lucas are going to be paired up this season because of their shared connection (polyamory) to max, but i would love to see more scenes between dustin and el— maybe some lighthearted bonding over their matching leg injuries or daddy issues.

2. mike and robin. i don’t think you understand i need this like i need air. will has already had his gay awakening he doesn’t need a queer life coach!! mike on the other hand is out here in the TRENCHES. this man is down critically horrendously morifyingly BAD for will but is convinced el needs him and that will could never reciprocate his feelings. he needs robin’s gay intuition and advice if anyone does.

3. steve and jonathan. HELLO??? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELLO???? i know this is pretty much guaranteed to happen in st5 because full-circle character development and hammering in themes and blah blah blah but i’m still gonna talk about it because listen. steve got his shit rocked by jonathan one (1) time and immediately decided “fuck my idiot friends” developed a moral conscience and SHOWED UP AT HIS HOUSE to apologize. he wasn’t there for nancy he had no idea nancy was there!!! he bought jonathan a new camera!!! he was so respectful of nancy and jon even when nancy dumped his ass a season later!!! yet we never get closure between him and jonathan or even a conversation and i’m PISSED about it. matt and ross duffer rectify this or else.

4. hopper and jonathan and will. you see the vision. these kids have never had a stable father figure who truly understands them (i love bob but he was only there for st2 and was sweet but naive) and everything they’ve been through. jonathan DESPERATELY needs to be de-parentified and released from the emotional burden of constantly putting will and joyce before his own needs and dreams, and hopper desperately needs to feel like he can protect his family instead of “cursing” them. will needs a loving father figure who supports his queer identity, and hopper only had a fire lit under him in s1 when joyce mentioned it could have been a hate crime. this is like textbook recipe for healing and closure for these characters.

5. joyce and karen? i just think it would be neat. we know karen’s getting more involved this season and i think she should get to be a little gay for joyce as a treat. we had crumbs of their dynamic in s1 and on a more sincere note i honestly think joyce could help give karen the courage to leave ted or demand better from him moving forward.

6. nancy and mike. if they don’t have a genuine conversation i’ll actually be fuming raging pulling my hair out. i get it i get that they’re both emotionally repressed but GOD i wish we had more moments with them talking about their trauma or empathizing with each other’s survivor’s guilt and crippling savior complexes. all the “max and mike are the same character in a different font” business is very valid and i agree madwheeler is like ten shots of espresso injected directly into the bloodstream HOWEVER, nancy and mike’s traumas and emotional issues are so so similar please let them talk about it!!!!

7. steve and robin???? please for the love of god????? literally what the fuck was happening in s4 they were NOT given enough screentime together. not cool. i want them BACK on their queerplatonic bullshit in s5, fully codependent disgustingly clingy like god intended.

8. jonathan and el. i just want them to be siblings together!!! we got a lot of willel sibling vibes in s4 and some sweet jon-and-will moments, but i would love for them to delve into jonathan and el’s dynamic. this girl is a big reason why will was saved in s1 and we just… never really see the byerses address that? jonathan has a lottt of self-blaming tendencies when it comes to will and i’d love for el to help remind him he isn’t responsible for protecting and saving his brother all the time. conversely, i’d love for jonathan to remind el that she’s just a kid and that the weight of the world shouldn’t be on her shoulders. they’re both really soft-spoken and sweet characters with hard veneers and i feel like they’d pair well together for more emotional scenes.

9. literally the entire byers-hopper family they are the heart and soul of the show and i will never forgive the duffer brothers for losing that in s3-4 in favor of expanding the scope of the story. i miss them.

10. steve and el. i would maim and kill for this dynamic actually. both of them are involved in love triangles and have arcs centered around independency and platonic/found familial love, and steve has his whole mom-of-the-group shtick that could be really endearing paired with el’s plucky weird-little-girl vibe. idk i just think they would be a cute team, maybe paired with dustin or lucas.

11. stoncy and robin. literally give me this team or give me death. i miss stoncy’s iconic end-of-season-1 monster-hunting trio dynamic SO MUCH i would give anything for them to go on a sidequest and really just hash it all out with each other. and robin could offer steve moral support and comic relief— while we’re on the subject i would also kill to see her and jonathan interact!! like they are so similar in that brooding-noncomformist way and i feel like they would either immediately gravitate toward each other based on values OR immediately clash due to their personality differences. jonathan is all quiet and avoidant and robin can be… A Lot (said with love) when she’s not masking like s3. i just think they’d be funny together.

12. this is devolving quickly so scott clarke and the party. no i will not elaborate. thank you for your time

#stranger things #st5 #mike wheeler #will byers #el hopper #st the party #willel #jonathan byers #steve harrington #stonathan #stoncy #byler #< target audience

[chansgender]

unlabeled is a valid sexuality guys btw. in case you didn’t know

#like. do you KNOW how hard it is for some people to find a label? broooo #i spent years trying to figure myself out. and i JUST got there. and sometimes i still question it. i do know for a FACT that i am queer #and that’s enough #ive gone thru a lot of labels. eventually i settled on one i liked #but sometimes you just. never find it #there are a lot of labels out there guys. just go with ur gut #sometimes you don’t know your gender or who you like or if you even like people at all. and that’s okay!! #you dont have to KNOW yourself in and out to know that ur queer #like all the discourse makes me so pissedddf #bisexual lesbians? go wild actually. it’s all just words #but hating on people WITHIN the community??? not okay #aro people are queer #ace people are queer #i could talk a lot about queer identity actually. #but the discourse confuses me because why are you hating on another queer person for a label you dont like. we are a COMMUNITY #im having a very hard time putting words together. #its okay to be confused like WOW it’s very hard to know #some people are born knowing and some people will die not knowing. doesnt make you less queer #i didnt realize i was trans until uhhh sixth grade? i mean i knew i never fit in but i never had the words to say it #bro i am RAMBLING. but who cares actually this is MY blog. i post what i want #dont let people discourage you. especially not people who say ‘oh youre just confused’ uhh yeah. 1: im confused why its ur business #and 2: this isnt easy. it is Hard to look inside urself and try to figure it out. #its okay at the end of the day if u dont know who u are. if you feel like you dont fit in? you dont conform to traditional gender roles? #congrats! ur queer! #and i love the word queer. its so all encompassing of everything ive ever felt #i am strange and i am gay and trans and autistic and all of this makes up ME! i am queer and i am queer and i know this about myself #i do not fit into a lot of spaces so i make my own space. and i’ll let people in because i know how hard it is to have nowhere to go! #any kind of queer person is welcome here #i dont care about controversy i dont care if other people dislike the way you label yourself i dont care if you dont know yet

[spacedustmantis]

sigh. yet another incredibly improtant self discovery that i won't be able to tell my parents about....

#god #i wish i could actually see my parents as like #people who i am close to #who raised me and sheltered me and will love me no matter what #and it's not like they didn't do that #but to me they're just #two people who live in my house who i'm on fairly good terms with most of the time #i think the main reason it feels like that isn't even the neglect or abuse #i think it's that they just #don't know me #not really #like. they know things about me #more now than they ever have in the past i'm pretty sure #but still #i haven't told them about the possible autism #and i haven't been able to tell them about my complex queer identity #and i can't really talk to them about my interests bc they do not care about the same stuff i do #and i won't tell them about probably having npd either #it's incredibly alienating to have no one in your close proximity that actually knows what you think about ever #oh wow this turned out to be a lot more venty than i planned #buggy thoughts #buggy life #buggy vents

[eeuwigestilte]

how much fear and slander of the label lesbian can one take of a dear friend who is questioning

#friend i love you and i am so patient with you #but if you are not a lesbian that's fine #if you are that's also fine #if you're afraid of the label or it makes you uncomfortable don't use it #but maybe it is time to stop approaching it then #and telling me every time that you freak out about the word #do i know if that is because you're dealing with internalised homophobia or not? #i can't know sorry #i'm here for her always but maybe today i don't wait to hear that the label 'lesbian' is scary and makes one freak out #whether she is or isn't one that strong reaction is kind of painful #i am a lesbian and i love being a lesbian #i love other lesbians #i find community with other lesbians #discovering that i am a lesbian saved me #it made me love myself again through loving women #it made me love my body #love myself entirely for who i am #today i don't want to hear that the label is scary #sorry rant #i do care for my friend so so much but maybe today i don't want my identity to be harmed #and also i wish i had lesbian friends in real life #it's incredibly lonely actually to be the only lesbian amongst queer friends #i love all my friends but i do experience lesbian loneliness a lot #i could talk about this for hours #lesbian loneliness

[kii2me2ii2]

I love calling people cis adjacent. Trans card revoked without straight calling them a trender. Good work boys.

#cis-adj and trender mean different things #trenders are actually traditionally very NOT cis adjacent #gnc and cis adjacent are not antonyms/ tho they usually dont mesh super well together #cis adjacent mostly refers to someone who does not take any active steps towards transition #which is why i think its a helpful and sensical term??? if they are literally. not. taking steps to TRANSition. they are cis adjacent #listen. cis adjacent trans people are good. or/ better than cis people at least. #they can have a lot to say about what it feels like for them to be trans. but they should also have a lot to say about being cis adjacent #intersectionality means so much more than just Oppression/Oppression it is subtle experience/subtle experience #and the difference between being visibly trans and not even wanting\needing to take transition steps is Not Subtle #even tho they both theoretically could fit within all the same identities and intersectionalities down to being trans #a subtle difference is something like not wanting vs not needing to take those steps #idk im jus rambling nonsense at this point i didnt think id end up full hearted defending the term cis adjacent #basically. nobodies getting their trans card revoked that was obviously a joke. #cis adjacent is kinda like the term straight passing for bi people. #it can be used horribly and it can make you feel bad but imo? it has its use #sometimes people are straight passing and sometimes people are cis adjacent. #the biggest problem seems to be how broadly people apply these terms #a lot of bi people literally cannot pass as anything but queer and the way a lot of monos act like #bi people are just like a monolith of fem women and masc men is very fucking weird????? and that is objectively biphobic #i dunno what im talking about anymore

[meliohy]

Meeting more queers IRL makes me so happy 💕

#Mel rambles #finally met the two trans women friends of my friends who they talked about so much #it feels so comfortable being with other queers somehow #even if I'd actually hesitate coming out. even tho they might already know because our common friend rambles a lot #is it weird that I'm happy to meet queer people? i just feel like I only know the online community and not the real one #and the only irl friends I feel comfortable talking about my identity with are all cishet #and they're really cool about it!! I just wish I could discuss stuff like that with queers you know?

[faggy--butch]

sorry to ramble in your inbox but its kinda fucking me up how "trans man with a cishet boyfriend who misgenders him behind his back" is like seen to be a person to make fun of in the general queer tumblr space instead of a person who is in a vulnerable situation. i know that there is trans men who are also women and there are trans men who are genuinely okay with dating a cis man who considers himself straight but people talking about these hypothetical couples arent talking about these situations but rather about "haha stupid trans man doesnt realize hes dating a bigot"

theres this attitude that the hypothetical cishet boyfriend is actually a conservative so it should be obvious to trans man that he doesnt respect his identity but i feel like its less "oh its obvious that this specific man is a bigot" and more "obviously cishet white men are bigots" and its weird how people laugh at this person instead of acknowledging that even if you are dating a bigot its usually not a big win for you personally. like the bigot cishet boyfriend isnt going to be okay with his trans man boyfriend starting testosterone. like we can sympathize with emotional abuse happening towards other groups but when its gay and mspec trans men its like "oh he should have known that would happen" or "its his fault for dating a bigot"?

of course people have the same making fun of the victim narrative with afab nonbinary people who date cishet men who misgender them [and im sure this bleeds over to affecting all nonbinary people if people arbitrarily decide theyre afab if the nonbinary person refuses to tell them personal information about themselves but the larger narrative always specifies that this is an afab person] and its almost like a "this is what you get for being attracted to men" sort of thing.

and also i theres something to be said about warning people for signs their partner or potential partner doesnt respect their identity but considering i imagine its a common anxiety among trans and nonbinary people who are into that sorta thing to wonder "am i ever going to find someone who loves me and is also accepting of me for being [insert gender here]?" its sort of fucked up for it to be common to basically claim "yea if youre dating a cis man who said he was straight before he started dating you but says he respects your identity hes probably just straight up lying to your face" and then laugh at the person getting misgendered for not knowing they were being misgendered.

anyway sorry for this big ramble i cant even remember specific instances of this to reference so i might seem like im making up a guy to be mad at but i swear this is like a general attitude and almost running joke i see around. anyway. have a good day.

I absolutely see that too, and I think it's a mixture of straight up victim blaming, because oh noo how dare you WANT to date *gasp* cis men

but it come with an intense transandrophobia and exorsexism because there's a lot more sympathy when it comes to cis women dating cishet men "poor things uwu" but when it's trans men or in this case non binary people assumed to be women, it's always "see I told you so" smug superiority. (cis women get this too, because of misogyny obviously, but it's different and worse for trans men) People are just waiting for a chance to be misogynistic and trans men are an acceptable target. This is honestly extra fucked up when we remember that trans men experience some of the highest rates of domestic violence and rape in the community though.

being trans is such a vulnerable place to be in, and a lot of people, trans or not are insecure or just want to be loved, that's normal. A lot of people are willing to accept certain behaviors from their partners that are bad, because of those reasons as well, victim blaming, and ESPECIALLy telling trans men to toughen up or "what did you expect" is apart of the toxic expectations that get placed of trans men as well. I could honestly go on for hours about this. good ask,anon

#transandrophobia #asks

[mellifera38]

Bruh. As much as we talk about how funny and wacko the early era of tumblr was with its mishapocalypses and so on and so forth, I like tumblr a LOT more now. Like, if you were ace, you did NOT wanna look in the asexuality tag back then like holy fuck. It was a hostile battleground in there every day. The idea of being "aphobic" was in and of itself a joke. It was a perfectly valid stance on here. People would straight up make fake ace blogs just to say super cringy shit so ppl could screenshot and use it for an example of our attitudes and behavior. It was so fucking exhausting to be on here sometimes. Every day I had to block blogs I had followed for ages and legitimately liked and I remember being so upset All The Time like bitch I'm just existing here what the fuck man. Eventually I just kinda backed my ass right back into the closet and blacklisted any and all ace content. Just said fuck it I can't look at this shit anymore I'm done i dont even care what I am.

I glanced in the ace tag today bc it's ace day and was so relieved. Like I know it probably hasn't been bad like it was for awhile now but I'm still just like always expecting the worst from the internet. I still subconsciously stay removed from my own identity most of the time and take pains not to bring it up unless I'm with my close friends, and even then not very often. I still cautiously hesitate to say I'm part of the queer community even tho most people it seems are on board with the A in LGBTQIA being for Aspec. It could just be that with the tiddy ban most of the remaining perpetrators left or something but either way I'm really glad this place has become legitimately ace-positive. I wouldn't have believed it possible back then there was SO much vitriol aimed at us. Even if this site is actually just an echo chamber of aces shouting positivity at each other today, I'll still enjoy it. They didn't really let us do that back then. They invaded every tag we tried to make for ourselves. So happy Ace Day. Don't forget to appreciate every positive post that shows up on your dash.

#asexuality #international asexuality day #ace day #saw it trending on twitter too but I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole

[leidensygdom]

The ways in which being asexual feels isolating

I've been pondering whether to post this or not, but I figured out I wanted to explain a bit of this experience.

So, I could go on a very long tangent on how being asexual is usually a lonely experience, and how much I've been otherized here and there- Specially in real life. How the same people that claimed to be queer (or allies) had been much weirder about my asexuality than they were about me being bi/pan or whatever.

But I think I wanna talk about how something like that bleeds in every aspect of socializing, even down to something like fandom. I stay away from fandom usually- I like to look at cool fanart and that's about it. I hate discourse, I hate drama, I hate reading people getting worked up because they're treating fanon as canon. But there's one thing I've noticed, over and over, that just sends me off my rails.

And it's how fandom tends to treat asexuality (or aromanticism). So, you get a character in some piece of media that explicitly, unequivocally, states they're either ace, aro, or both. "I do not have interest in a partner", "I don't desire to have sex nor do I enjoy the topic", whatever. And as an ace person, I do appreciate being able to see myself in media- There isn't many chases where something is established that bluntly.

Now, you decide you want to check some fanart for that. Fandoms have this tendency to make absolutely everything about shipping, even when the media they're basing it in does not revolve about that (and it's annoying, because a lot of times people aren't interested in the actual themes- It's all reduced to shipping). Suddenly, you notice people treating the aforementioned character as anything but aro or ace. It's all about shipping. "This person interacted with this other person in a way two friends would, but we gotta make this their entire personality now". Some people may instead go for "well, maybe the character is not having sex, but they're probably an absolute freak about it, studies it extensively, has encyclopedic knowledge about it-"

Now, there's of course sex-favourable aces, and that's completely valid, but it's already straying from what, canonically, the character had mentioned. Asexual or aromantic characters aren't really allowed to exist as themselves. People often see them as a blank slate to fill, to change, to fix. I could talk forever about how people react to real life aces like that. I've had people asking me incredibly invasive questions because they saw my lack of sexual attraction as something broken, something they could fix.

And I hate that! I think I'm allowed to say that I hate that! It's hard and unusual for media to cement an aro/ace character, because they're defined by the lack of interest for something, which is often hard to show. But when it does- No one seems to care. It's all shipping, it's all "well, he's gay in denial", "well, she's probably super repressed". If you took a canonically gay character and made them straight on a fanfic, you'd get angry people. Which is bound to happen when you erase representation that people identify with. But aro/ace characters are NOT even seen as queer, they're not even seen as "representation" by most people. You can erase that bit of it, put some god awful shipping on top, and people will applaud you. And it sucks!

I wish people would see being aro or ace as an identity worth respecting, not an identity that needs overwriting. It feels a bit too close to how people often treat aro/aces irl, and it sucks. It reeks of this sort of exclusionism, where "aro/aces are technically queer but it's queer lite at best, it's less interesting than being gay, and we kinda don't want them near us anyhow". Again, I've had far worse experiences about being ace than I have about not being straight.

Sorry if the post got long, but I hope this experience may at least resonate with other people who have been struggling with this, too. It has always felt just kind of lonely to be ace, and see how little people do even consider it an identity, even when it comes down to something like fandom.

#lgbt #lgbtq #asexual #asexuality #aromantism #aro #ace #aroace #aromanticism #queer #long post

[captainjonnitkessler]

I understand if you want to stay out of it but I’m curious as to you’re thoughts on this discourse

https://www.tumblr.com/dappercat123/737173649266737152/your-arguments-sum-to-in-my-perfect-world-there

Anon, I'm going to be entirely honest with you. I have been waiting for an excuse to put my thoughts about this down. Forewarning that this is going to be long and take a dim view of organized religion.

TL;DR: I think everyone in that thread is maliciously misinterpreting evilsoup's point, which is basically that they think Gene Roddenberry was right about what a post-utopian society would look like re: religion. And you can agree or disagree about whether a post-religious utopia is likely or desirable, but to say that anyone who thinks it is is actively calling for and encouraging genocide is a gross misuse of the term (especially coming from at least one person that I'm pretty sure is currently denying an actively ongoing actual fucking genocide).

@evilsoup can correct me if I'm misinterpreting their points, but as far as I see it there are two main points being made:

A) In a perfect utopia with absolutely no source of oppression, marginalization, or disparity, religion would naturally whither away with no outside pressure being applied.

B) This would be a good or at least a neutral thing.

As far as A) goes - a lot of the responses evilsoup got were basically "well *I* would never choose to be nonreligious, so therefore the only way to create that world would be by force, and therefore you are calling for literal genocide". But aside from the fact that evilsoup was very, very clear that they thought this would be a *natural* event and that trying to force people to be nonreligious would be evil - we're not talking about (general) you. You can be as religious as you want but you don't get to make that choice for your grandkids, or your great-great-great grandkids, or your great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandkids. Just because religion is an integral part of your identity doesn't mean it's something you can pass down, and if you're not comfortable with the idea that your kids might choose to leave your religion, you shouldn't have kids.

I personally don't foresee religion disappearing entirely, but it is pretty consistent that as a country becomes happier, healthier, and wealthier, it also becomes less religious. Religiosity is inversely correlated with progressive values. And the more democratic and secular a nation is, the less powerful religious authorities become - In the 1600s blasphemy and atheism were punishable by death* in Massachusetts and today I can call the Pope a cunt to his face** on Twitter with no repercussions whatsoever. Political secularism is an absolute necessity for true democracy and it necessitates removing power from religious authorities, which has and will likely continue to lead to a decline in religiosity - not just a decline in how many people identify as religious, but also a decline in how religious the remaining people are.

*Blasphemy laws and death penalties for blasphemers/apostates are still VERY much a thing in many places. It's hard to see a path where those places become more democratic but don't become more secular and repeal those laws.

**Well, to the face of whoever runs his Twitter account, but the point remains.

I also believe that many religious communities have been held together for so long via coercion - either internal coercion like blasphemy and apostasy laws, shunning, and threats of hell or other supernatural punishment, or external coercion like oppression from the majority religious group or ethnic cleansings. In a perfect utopia, neither form of coercion would exist and I don't think it's crazy to think that religiosity would drop severely and become a much less important part of people's identities, in the way I think the queer community would not exist in a world where queerphobia didn't exist.

ANYWAY, all this is actually kind of moot. It could happen, it could not, nobody is calling for it to be forced so we'll just have to wait and see. The real point of disagreement is on B).

I'm gonna be honest - I think a lot of the responders are rank hypocrites and are really hung up on the idea of cultural purity, which is something I'm wildly uncomfortable with.

First of all, the idea that a deeply-held religious belief could be diluted until it's just a cultural thing that nobody really remembers the origins of isn't some evil mastermind plot evilsoup is trying to concoct, it's just how cultures work. There's tons of stuff about American culture that are vaguely rooted in what were once deeply-held beliefs and are now entertainment. Halloween is rooted in sacred tradition and now it's a day to dress up and get candy. Christmas is one of the most sacred holidays in Christianity but nobody bats an eye if a non-Christian puts up some lights or decorates a tree just because it's fun. I have no doubt that every culture on Earth has traditions that used to be deeply sacred but are now just fun family traditions. People in Japan use Christian symbology as an "exotic, mythical" aesthetic the exact same way people in the West use Eastern symbology. And if you're okay with it happening to Christianity, why wouldn't you be okay with it happening to any other religion in the absence of oppression?

And there's the idea that if a culture fails to get passed down *exactly* as it is now, it's a terrible loss and the result of malicious outside influence. But . . . cultures change over time. No culture is the same now as it was two or five or eight hundred years ago and I don't believe that change is inherently loss. The things that are sacred to you may or may not be sacred to the people of your culture in the future. That's just the way things work, and I don't think it's inherently good or bad.

And finally, people keep accusing evilsoup of "just wanting everyone to assimilate to your culture", but it absolutely does not follow that a lack of religion means a lack of diversity. Different nonreligious cultures are every bit as capable of being diverse as different religious cultures, so it's weird to insist that evilsoup wants there to only be one culture when they never said anything to indicate that.

#me still nursing the burn i got from touching the Discourse Stove last week: well surely it's not still hot #time to hit post and then log off for the night #atheism #skepticism umbrella

[alastors-antlers]

Being someone who sees a lot of talk about shipping Alastor (sexually, romantically) in fanworks, I just want to take some time to talk about both sides of the issue. It's long, I know - please, please bear with me until the end, and I hope you'll understand what I mean in a bit.

I hope this helps someone, but as an aroace person who understands the frustration and hurt, this is often how it feels to me:

Alastor, being one of the limited cases of aspec rep that I've seen and one of even fewer which I actually enjoyed, means a lot to me.

That being said, his canon rep establishes that he's aroace but not much about how this factors into his life or relationships at all -- and when there's a gap in canon, I turn to fanfiction, which tends to spotlight characters' queerness even when the source material doesn't or can't. Don't we all want to see ourselves in the media we engage with?

When I pull up AO3, there are already a good number of fics about him. Great! Some of them are definitely incredible; but as I read on, it starts to seem like a lot of fics I see acknowledge that he's asexual or aromantic in some way but don't really factor that into the story. It reads like you could have written the story without keeping his queer identity in mind, and it would've come out the same.

Even when representation that does resonate with me exists, it starts to be exhausting to pick through the slash tags to see which ones are written in an aspec-coded way, so I wonder if it would be easier to not read anything with slash at all. On the other hand, when you filter ships out completely, only a tiny fraction of the fanworks are left.

People often respond that aspec people can have relationships, and I think we tend to know that. They can have sex, some can experience sexual attraction in select situations, they can romance others beyond romantic attraction -- any combination of things. But some aroace people don't want either, and sometimes we're struggling to see ourselves in how Alastor is typically portrayed.

Out of all of the fics, sex-repulsed, totally aromantic Alastor isn't seen much. And when Alastor's limited canon seems to be pretty supportive of a reading where he is those things...

Sometimes, you start to feel lost. If fics were evenly distributed along the aroace spectrum of experiences, wouldn't you expect more fics of him being the "totally uninterested" brand of aroace? But there aren't. People seem to have a preference toward seeing him in relationships. Even if they mean well, it can make you think: what does that say about how we view asexuality/aromanticism as a whole?

Is there something less interesting about Alastor, when romance is taken out of the picture? Do others find him less appealing as a character if they can't see him dating, or in love, or having sex or wanting it? Why do we need romance, when romance is already everywhere else, when it doesn't even feel like he was originally really interested? It brings to mind a struggle to be societally accepted, even today.

Even when it's not technically wrong to write Alastor as you see him, being told that we should all be able to ship him however we want can feel like this:

It brings to mind people who try to swing in with misinformed good intentions, telling us "oh, you're aromantic? but you can still have romantic relationships, right? so you can still be normal." when all we want is to be okay outside of the normal.

Or trying to find a partner who can be with us, out of everyone who tells us "I know you don't enjoy sex, and that's okay, but I can't have a romantic relationship with you without it." and being so tired of hoping for someone who gets it.

Or talking with peers, and hearing them all commiserate and fawn over their experiences with love, then telling them about someone you like non-romantically and getting "aww, it sounds like somebody's got a crush!" but not being believed when you tell them it's not like that at all.

Alastor is not a big deal, not really, not in the grand scheme of things. But in an allonormative world, it can feel like a sudden splash of cold water when we were expecting a warm fire to sit around. Even within this ecosystem, we squint to see ourselves reflected.

Society isn't built for us. It can be exhausting to be reminded of that.

~~~

I hope to support people writing Alastor as any variation of aspec, or not even aspec at all. At the end of the day, I think that fanon is really whatever you want it to be, and everyone has their own reasons for writing what they find enjoyable. They should be allowed to do so, and I want to believe that people do what they do with good intentions.

They want to imagine scenarios with the templates of characters they love, and that's okay; even beyond sexuality/queer identities/etc., fan interpretations of characters can be incredibly, wildly different from who they really are in the story anyway, and that's what I try to remind myself. But still, I also can't help feeling disappointed about the aroace representation we could have seen.

(Is Alastor canonically sex-repulsed? Uhh, maybe. If I had to guess, that'd be my top guess, but this might be a hot take: I wouldn't really say there's enough to go off of considering that this view is supported by Angel propositioning him both times, and it's not like Alastor is a particularly big fan of Angel at those points anyway lol)

To my fellow aroaces struggling with Alastor's fandom rep: if you need a break from it all; if you need to block the tags that you hate; if you need to talk to someone about how you're feeling; that's okay. It makes sense that you'd want more representation in a way that helps you feel seen and validated and less alone. I can't speak for everyone, but I think I get it.

I don't have any solutions for how you're feeling, because sometimes I'm feeling the same way. I understand that you want others to get your position and you have the right to express your feelings, but even if you're correct, often being angry or frustrated won't help change others' minds, so let's try to save our energy and take care of ourselves.

Something that helps me to think about is that even now, asexuality is gaining more visibility. We're gaining support. Real change is happening in the world that's helping incredible amounts of aspec people feel freer to be themselves. And maybe one day, we won't be reaching to protect our scraps of representation.

Let's fight until that day together <3

#seriously I appreciate everyone who's out here posting about alastor I love being in the radio demon fanclub lol #just some thoughts that's all and maybe it'll resonate with others #please let's be patient with each other though it's rough out there already #alastor #hazbin #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel #asexual #aromantic #asexual alastor #aromantic alastor #aroace alastor #alastor hazbin #ace #aro

[actualhumantrashcan]

I can understand a silly workplace comedy about pirates not being everyone’s jam but I really can’t understand the amount of queer people I see hating on ofmd.

like for one thing most of the debates turn into gatekeeping queerness (which I think has a lot more to do with the ages of the main couples than actual concerns about authentic representation but that’s another post) and the rest are just hateful because it doesn’t directly name or label it’s queer characters but like why do we need that at this point?? listen I love heartstopper with all my heart but it is exhausting to watch them explain queer identities sometimes (even though I do think it’s super useful for younger audiences I’m just not the target demographic!) and ofmd is an explicit, violent, adult show that doesn’t NEED to explain it’s character’s identities.

queer people past their 30’s are usually very well aware of their queerness and have had (hopefully) plenty of time to go through the arc of discovering that. so why would we need to see Stede or Lucius or Ed going through turmoil because they’re attracted to men when they have already come to terms with that at this point in their lives?? i for one find it so fucking refreshing to watch a show where the characters being queer is not their main arc, they just ARE queer and life is still happening to and around them. maybe that’s just the millennial gay in me talking, but it gets emotionally exhaustive to watch show after show where the queer character’s arc is overcoming homophobia. yes obviously homophobia still exists and yes obviously if ofmd was trying to be historically accurate these characters would be living in a very dangerous time to be queer but it isn’t trying to be accurate!! it’s trying to be fun and diverse and kind!!

and also, they aren’t pretending homophobia doesn’t exist!! it’s just addressed in a different way. Stede was emotionally abused by his father for his entire life for being “soft” and then was chased down by his homophobic childhood bullies, one of which explicitly told him that he “defiled” the great pirate Blackbeard by simply falling in love with the man behind that name. Meanwhile Ed was forced into the world of piracy at a young age and developed the entire persona of Blackbeard (who fits the toxic, violent masculine stereotype of the time) to hide the fact that he’s actually an incredibly sensitive and deeply queer man! and is told multiple times by male figures in his life that sex with other men is fine but it is absolutely unacceptable to be in love with a man. both of their arcs contain homophobic rhetoric that is still present in society today, but its never presented as a problem that they have to wrestle with. they don’t have to come to terms with what it means to love each other, they just have to overcome some trials that go along with the complicated lives they both lead as a pirate and former aristocrat. the homophobia in ofmd is woven into the backstory of each and every character, it shapes them into the people they are at the beginning of the show when all of their walls are up and they are performing the “pirate” roles they are supposed to play. and then we get to see them grow and realize that they are in a safe space, part of a community not just on the ship itself but in the life of piracy (which in the show is pretty much explicitly an allegory for queer lifestyles.)

anyway, I could rant about this all day but just truly why do we have to tear people down for enjoying something? why do we have to find reasons to hate something so obviously created with sensitivity to it’s queer audience and with so much queer joy? if historically inaccurate gay pirates going on silly adventures and falling in love are not your thing, fine! but perhaps just let people enjoy things and find your own things to enjoy.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 #our flag means gay

[fandomsandfeminism]

Every time I sit down to read about queer history, I'm always struck by how deeply sexuality and gender and gender expression used to be interwoven. (And for many of us still are.)

These days, I see people arguing that straight cis drag queens and GNC folks aren't "actually lgbt+" (one of the limits of using lgbt+ rather than queer), and acting like trans/nonbinary/genderqueer folks are a wholly separate group than lesbian/gay/bi/etc folks. People, lgbt+ people, talking bad about xenogenders and neopronouns because they are too weird, just for attention, giving us all a bad name, etc.

But this separation between gender, sexuality, and presentation is *new*

Looking back at history, especially within US and Western Europe, and either you were a heterosexual man/woman who presented accordingly, or you *werent.* That was the divide. If you transgressed on any 1 of those things- you were transgressing on ALL of them.

Being gay/bi inherently called your gender into question. Being gender nonconforming immediately reflected upon your sexuality. There wasn't a divide between these concepts. They were one and the same. You were *normal* or you were queer. And of course, not all gay/bi/lesbian folks were crossdressing (how else did one stay in the closet?) , and not all people in gender nonconforming clothing had a sexual interest in the same sex. But these ideas were constantly melding together. To be a man was to be straight and dress "like a man." To be a woman was to be straight and "dress like a woman." They defined each other.

In much of the country, you could be arrested if you weren't wearing at least 3 pieces of "correctly gendered" clothing. That's the rule that got a lot of folks arrested in gay bars- regardless of sex or gender. Even after same sex dancing was technically legalized, crossdressing would get you beaten and arrested by the cops. Cops would "inspect" bar patrons to ensure they were dressed in the "correct" clothes when raids occurred.

And that's not to say that the community was ever fully free of assimilationist/exclusionist factions. There have always been groups, generally of cis/gender-confirming gay, lesbian, and bisexuals who argued in favor of respectability and fitting in and showing a willingness to leave the crossdressers and drag queens and butches behind if it meant they could keep their white collar jobs. If it meant social tolerance and safety for *them.*

But we should be able to recognize that the heart and soul of queer Liberation is in unity and embracing the weird, not shunning it. That we are strongest when we stand together.

I don't think it's WRONG for us today to distinguish gender, sexuality, and presentation as different aspects of identity. But I think we should be very very careful to not let that nuance lead to exclusionary or over-compartmentalized thinking about queer issues.

#queer #pride #lgbt #queer history

[drdemonprince]

Your post about "transitioning to escape gender but then there's more gender" has been rotating furiously in my mind since I saw it. When I first realized I was trans at age 15, I identified as agender, but I knew I wanted to go on T and get top surgery so I decided it would be simpler to tell everyone I was a trans man and that just kind of became the truth. Now 10 years later I'm sorta starting to feel like I wanna actually be agender again, but the idea of an identity shift like that at my current age is terrifying and idek who I'd tell, or how I'd do it, and I don't think I wanna stop using he/him exclusively, and I have no idea why I'm telling *you* this other than that I'm scared to talk to anyone I know about it because it feels like somehow admitting that I was wrong about the gender I fought like hell to become, even though i don't really think that's the case I think my sense of self might just be continuously evolving... but I just wanna say you talking about having a gender shift like once every several years is helping me process this rn and feel like I'm not faking anything now AND wasn't faking anything before.

Dog i am right there with you. As a kid I always thought gender was bullshit, the coercive nature of it disgusted and scared me and I rebelled against it the best that I could. I loathed being assigned to any gender category, I never identified as a "girl", but I didn't really identify with any other category either. Puberty terrified me (and of course, it does most young people, but it felt like it would only more deeply entrench the category that I was assigned to in other people's minds, it made it more difficult to escape). I had trans friends as a teen but it did not occur to me to transition because there was really no end goal that I wanted to head toward, I just knew what I wanted to avoid and not experience. I coped mostly by degendering my body with a fairly androgynous style and way of presenting myself to the word and mannerisms, but also by starving myself which was not so great, and not sustainable. I considered transness for myself, even trying on a friend's binder and presenting masculinely at certain queer events, but it seemed to me at the time like just another way in which to obsess over gender, a foolish coercive socially constructed thing that i was trying to avoid.

In my 20s, I learned more about nonbinary people and figured that explained things pretty well. I was enamored with the transition journeys of some other trans people, largely trans women more than trans masculine ones (with some trans-effeminate faggot boy exceptions), but I still didn't want to take on all the expense and uncertainty and hassle of navigating the medical system for myself. I didn't think that the pursuit of being happy merited taking on so many risks or fiddling with myself so much. I saw it as an extravagance I didn't deserve, I guess, and I also couldn't locate a target outcome that seemed desirable enough for me. I was still dealing with an eating disorder and recovering from some trauma and didn't really think about my life in the long term. I guess I still don't, haha, whoops.

Eventually I came out as nonbinary, and nobody really gave a shit. There is a lot of useless, solidarity-breaking discourse that happens online about essentially who is "more" oppressed, binary trans people or nonbinary people, and a lot of that fight amounts to the two groups shouting about the ways in which they annoy one another without there being any cogent analysis of power and where oppression comes from (let alone how much those two categories overlap).

But I will say that being a they/them was far more difficult than being a trans guy socially and institutionally, because your identity is completely illegible to every system around you. "binary" trans people struggle under this too, but i have found there are some immense benefits to having a socially and institutionally legible target gender. nobody would fucking actually they/them me. not anyone. not even other trans people and queer people. there were no public gendered spaces for me. there were no spaces for me. there was no way to move through the medical system, professional life, and other public institutions as a nonbinary person. i was still just a cis woman in everyone's eyes. including the people who claimed to support me. and it was massively frustrating.

and so i think ultimately, i took my frustrations with not being at all able to escape coerced gendering as a nonbinary person and combined that with the affinity i do feel for queer men and the general sense of misery i was still experiencing in my life and decided what the hell, i'll round myself up to being a trans guy. i upped my T dose, i dressed more masculinely, i eventually got a super masculine hair cut that really squared off my jawline and got me gendered correctly, and i started more consciously inhabiting queer men's spaces.

and it was pretty dope. for a while. i felt the rush of having gotten away with something. when people effortlessly gendered as male i felt freed at last from the pressure to be a woman. i was no longer being coerced into being something that i was not. i had escaped the enforced category so much that people couldn't even see the history of that category being pushed onto me. there was relief.

but then. as always happens. people made little comments about my handshake being too weak for a man. the hypermasc dudes at the leather bar rolled their eyes at me and all the other effeminate dudes swanning around the bar. the people who picked me up off the apps or at the sauna would always let it slip, eventually, that they had a lot of experience with trans guys, or had most recently been dating all trans guys, and it would make me feel like a stock character to them, yet another category into which all kinds of assumptions had been projected. a type not a person. a few people said my haircut made me look like i was in the military or described me as actually masculine, which was equally jarring because it was so incorrect. people tried to affirm me by saying i was such a dude, i was such a man, i was such a fag, i was such a gay bro, pawing all over me leaving the mark of all their assumptions and oversimplifications behind. i had tried to run away from gender and there i was just BASTING all the time in everybody's goddamn assumptions about gender. trans people didn't talk about it any less than cis people did, they were just as fucking confining to be around.

it honestly feels really dirty. when people try to affirm your gender constantly and can't stop talking about it, when people look past you and see only your body, your history, or the role they have typecast you in, when people use your body as an outlet for their own gender or sexuality explorations, when they keep trying to measure every single facet of existence up into being masculine or being feminine or being toppy or bottomy or any other gendered type, it's claustrophobic.

as a trans man i tried playing this whole gender game and the second i started winning i began to feel even more disgusted with myself. it wasn't a victory or an escape, it was a capitulation. exploring with my identity and presentation has brought positive things into my life and my health has gotten better as a result, and i've made wonderful friends who, like me, are disaffected by this coercive gendering system. so i don't regret any of that. but trying to make myself legible under the existing gendered system was a fool's fucking errand. i wish i hadnt done it to myself and i wish i hadnt had it pushed onto me. to be clear, it was cissexist, binarist society that forced it onto me; even when other queer people coated me in their gendered assumptions that is obviously a byproduct of societal conditioning, and it's conditioning that ive reinforced in my own behavior and outlook toward others plenty of times too. we all do it, and we are all wronged by the existing coercive gender system.

i dont even care how i fucking identify anymore and i have no intention of changing pronouns again or anything, i'm so bored of it, i just actually want off this fucking thing. im not interested in trying to make others understand what i am anymore or in who i am even being simply categorizable, i dont want to obsess anymore over how i am perceived or to attempt engineer my appearance and mannerisms to broadcast an identity to anyone. i dont even want to fuck anybody right now at all because im so sick of how much that's a gender pantomime for people. i want off this fuckin ride man im so done.

it's kind of freeing, to hit this point of complete gender apathy, and i think it is a pretty common stage of identity development for a lot of queer people who have explored multiple identities and roles over time. there is no category that i actually am, or that anyone is, there are just the frameworks that society has given us to work with to understand ourselves, and the ways in which we flatten who we are to be able to make sense of the world using those frameworks. but who i actually am is so much more contextual and mutable than all that. i am a different person in the classroom than i am on the train platform than i am in the bedroom than i am cuddling on the couch than i am when i'm working out than i am when curled up on the floor crying than i am at a big furry convention. who i am continues to change as new people come in and out of my life and age and change and my body alters and as the weather turns. who fuckin knows man it's nothing and everything. i want to let it just be

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

1: Magic is a Metaphor < 2: Morgana is a Lesbian < 3: Merlin is Gay < 4: Arthur is Bi

Do you remember when you were bullied in middle school? Because if you're reading this, I think it's fair to assume that you were. And your parents would say to you, 'that boy is just being mean to you because he likes you'. That's what this is.

Arthur is just so repressed. He has really bad daddy issues, and he doesn't know how to express his emotions, and he's really uncomfortable with physical intimacy, especially with other men, especially with Merlin. And this isn't me trying to psychoanalyse away his heterosexuality. It is a very evident part of his character.

And another big part of his character is that he has inherited all of these bigoted ideas about magic from his father that he has to work to overcome. Because, of course, Arthur himself is born of magic, but his dad is so ashamed of it that he hides the true circumstances of his birth from Arthur. Honestly, I don't know exactly how that would fit into this whole metaphor. I do have a half-formed theory that it could be interpreted as an allegory for intersex identity, I know that a lot of people headcanon Arthur as trans, so idk there could be something there. But regardless, it is only through his relationship with Merlin that he is able to overcome this magicphobia, because he realises: how could it be wrong when everything about Merlin is so right. And I just feel like there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Of course, I have to mention this iconic quote from the audio commentary of the final episode: when the executive producer refers to Arthur taking off his royal seal to give back to Guinevere as passing over "the last vestige of his heterosexu- oh sorry, I mean his marriage." So, they knew exactly what they were doing.

I also thought I would just draw your attention to the fact that at one point Arthur says, "I only care about my men, they're more than friends, more than brothers." Now, I think we can all agree that out of context, that is a very gay thing to say, and yet somehow the context is even gayer, because Arthur is pretending to be talking about the Knights of the Round Table, but he's actually talking about Merlin, how Merlin is the only person he cares about, more than a friend. And then Merlin responds, "I understand. I wish I didn't, but I do." It's barely subtext at that point. This of course, brings me to my final argument:

Arthur risked his life to save Merlin at least eight times. It could be more than that, I genuinely lost count. And you have to keep in mind that Arthur is the King of Camelot and he doesn't have any heirs. It is quite important that he stays alive. And yet anytime that Merlin is in the slightest bit of danger, he will just drop everything to protect him.

And it's really only in those moments where he's faced with the thought of losing Merlin that he shows him genuine emotion. Such as in this scene (which was cut out of 4x02 purely because it was too gay) where Arthur is planning to sacrifice himself to protect Merlin, again, and he gives Merlin his mother's sigil, the only thing he has left of his dead mum and he wants Merlin to have it as something to remember him by. Also, apparently in medieval times giving someone your family crest was basically a marriage proposal, so that's pretty gay.

You know what else is pretty gay? Telepathically communicating with Merlin and then immediately leaving Gwen in the middle of an active war. This is literally the last time that Arthur and Gwen ever see each other. Poor Gwen.

In conclusion, Merlin is the story of gay sorcerers and bisexual knights getting into love triangles. Everyone in this show is queer and you cannot tell me otherwise.

#because I realise this is the first post you'll see on the dash: this is all taken directly from a tiktok I made over a year ago #my thoughts on this point especially have developed a bit since then. and this is written for a more entry-level tiktok audience #so it's very lukewarm takes to my fellow soldiers in the trenches #but I'm not expecting this to get much notice and idc/idk how to articulate my thoughts better so just take it for what it is #arthur pendragon #merthur #bbc merlin #merlin #merlin meta #the magic of metaphor