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stargreen-fan · 1 year

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Kit an American Queer Icon

Reading one's self into material can also be a survival mechanism for LGBT individuals- Marlene Bellissimo

She resembles a Barbie doll more than all the other American Girls, with straight, light blonde hair and blue eyes. It’s not like I really needed a Kit Kittredge doll, I had the movie which came with three others for only $10.75 from Amazon, but then I read her book and that magical thing called resonation happened. But Why would Kit resonate with me so much? I have more in common with Josephina, having grown up in New Mexico, and lost a parent (My Dad) as a child, even though I’m White like Kit. It scares me that that is the reason Kit resonated with me… But there’s more boundary-pushing about Kit’s gender expression than all the other American Girls—a warning for massive spoilers ahead.

I have been struggling with my Gender Identity for a while. At first, it boiled down to the Psychotic breaks I have had, but gender is a social construct, and Psychosis has a blatant disregard for societal norms. Finally, I got well enough to tell my Mom I was Nonbinary in 2019, all I had to do was pick a Nonbinary Identity from under the umbrella, but I am a boy now.

But, back to Kit. Kit Kittredge is the only doll bought entirely with my own money. I connect with Kit loving Robin Hood. Most of the stories I loved until I was 13 stared male leads. Valerie Tripp says of Kit "Kit was not a flouncy girl." She then describes how “Out of place” in her pink frilly bedroom. “Out of place” implies a queer, or rather strange, sense of unease, which makes it sound more complex than just hating pink in a feminist way. Kit and I love baseball. With this setup, we have still a lot to establish about the Great Depression, which the next two books cover really well, nothing remarkably Queer gender-wise happens. Maybe something happens to her sexuality wise though. In Kit’s Suprise, Kit admires Amelia Earhart, the scene was made into a song for the Circle of Friends musical.

When I saw her up there on the big silver screen,

It was the most exciting thing that I’ve ever seen.

Amelia, you’re my hero, you’re my ideal.

You’re not a silly princess – no! – Amelia, you’re real!

How does it feel to be Amelia Earhart?

How does it feel to know that you can fly?...

But nothing can stop you, no one can top you.

I want to be like you

Flying solo,

Solo,

It all goes to show how far a girl can go,

Flying solo,

Solo.

I have memories of admiring Mary Martin flying in Peter Pan, and the verses I copied express my six-year-old literal thoughts about her, which I later realized was a crush! My cruses on Gorden Ramsey, President Obama, and Buddy Ebsen were what I was taught to recognize.

When Kit gets a new flour sack dress for her birthday, she’s excited about it, because it’s the first hot weather clothing she’s had in months. It makes Kit feel “Cool and light and airy” according to Valerie Tripp. It makes sense to put practically over dysphoria, when dealing with small things in the world, like getting ready on time. That’s the reason I need top surgery, binders are slow to put on, and my Cerebral Palsy makes it even more difficult, (Which is why Medicare should cover my Top Surgery.) so I can’t wear them as much as is necessary, so when under time pressure I toss on a dress. What I’m trying to say is wearing gender-conforming clothing is not a sign of the absence of dysphoria.

In fact, Kit Saves The Day, the very next book takes the opposite approach. It starts off by innocently mentioning that the overalls Kit is wearing are hand-me-downs from her brother. Now two books ago, in Kit’s Surprise, the family is threatened with eviction, and three books ago, in Kit Learns A lesson Dad was getting donated groceries from the soup kitchen, after losing his job in Meet Kit. The family is too poor to care if Kit can conform to gender norms by book five out of six! When Kit goes on an adventure to the Hobo Jungle and ends up riding the rails, and gets caught, the railroad bulls assume she is a boy, despite Will’s hat not covering up her feminine bob. Then it happens the hat falls off, and she is found out. Transphobes say they can always tell someone’s birth sex, but these railroad bulls couldn’t, because of a cap! This is where the background of hating the pink room and liking Robin Hood makes it feel different than Addy, who wanted to wear fancy dresses in freedom, dressing as a boy to be safe while liberating herself from slavery. Although Will does give Kit the hat to make the railroad bulls think she’s a boy to protect her in jail. Safe from What? My Adult mind can hypothesize

.In Changes for Kit there is a sign of acceptance of Kit’s possible Queer identity as Mother and Miss Hart and Miss Finney give her a coat made from her Dad’s old one with a hat and mittens made from Charlie’s old sweater. For the full end-of-the-story spoilers see the Meet Kit Kittredge video from American Girl, It’s a lovely ending, that does not have to do with Kit’s Queerness.

While I did not have an American Girl doll as a child, the deep connection people feel to them is very personal and is something that kids of all genders and sexualities deserve. If you are reading this article, in a news publication it means Kit and I share a dream.

#american girl #kit kittredge #queer history

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wolf-queer-discourse · 3 years

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Adventures in Aphobia #3

My last two Adventures in Aphobia both took on similar flavors of eye-rolling at shameless, obvious bigotry to anyone willing to look or care. But today, I found a different type of aphobia, and I’m actually eager to talk about this one. Have a read of this first.

Look, the bar of respect for ace people is so low it’s all the way in hell, but I mean, to many people, especially allosexual people, they may look at this post and think, “No, this isn’t aphobia. The poster wasn’t blatantly cruel.” But what some fail to realize is that politeness can be the thinnest of veils over the ugliest of takes. Polite bigotry gaslights the victims into thinking they can’t be upset about this.

So what’s the deal with this post?

PARAGRAPH #1 starts off innocently enough, saying ace discourse wouldn’t exist if people recognized complex relationships to sex and relationships. Even taken on its own, I do not agree with this. Ace discourse ranges all the way from outright denial of asexual existence to the strong hatred for and exclusion of aces from the queer community. Nearly everyone recognizes people have complex relationships to sex...that...that doesn’t mean ace people won’t be discriminated against. In fact, it’s an argument aphobes use constantly to try and gaslight ace people into erasing themselves. Ace discourse comes from a lot of places, but at the end of the day, it all stems from people’s refusal to acknowledge ace people and their unique experiences. This poster absolutely does not get to say “IT’s CoMpLicAteD”, and expect ace people to just disappear. Honestly, it’d be better and more honest if they said “Lol, ace people should go fuck themselves and hop to the back of the line with everyone else.”

PARAGRAPH #2 and #3 are not very objectionable on their own. Everything said is true. Society has very complicated views on sex, and life happens to all people. The ugly part of this is that the poster is setting up an argument here in which they will hand wave ace people into the “everyone else” crowd and pretend as if we’re all just too similar and no labels should even exist.

This is literally what enby-phobes do. They say “Well, gender is COMPLICATED”, which is true, but then they say “So like...aren’t we all really nonbinary when we think about it? Why should enby people label themselves?” I swear we’ve all seen this. The poster is agender. This argument could easily be whipped in their face. Different forms of bigotry can share very clear overlaps, and it’s very important to acknowledge where these arguments come from and why they exist. It exists as a way to shut people up. It happens to bi people too! Every day, people come out as bi and someone tells them “pff, everyone thinks girls are hot. I had a crush on my best friend once, that doesn’t mean I’m not straight! All people are like this!” Let’s call out this erasure where we see it. It’s not the same thing, and if anyone saying stuff like this truly believes what they’re saying, maybe they’re the ones who need to reevaluate their own identity.

PARAGRAPH #4 dips its ugly toes straight into blatant aphobia, having the gall to call ace and aro people “obsessed” with pretending their relationships with sex and romance are wholly unique and different. Nah, fuck right off with that bullshit. The poster even goes on to say ace people have created entire new social classes. Uh...WHAT? Is there some secret ace society with a caste system living in the shadows?? What is this person talking about?? I suppose you can’t be a true bigot unless you have some vague grievance to weakly hand-gesture at that you couldn’t prove given 20 years to do so. For the love of my sanity, just say you hate ace people! It’s okay! (I mean, not actually, but Jesus Christ does it save us all some time). They also say things like “somehow excluded from”. Replace asexual people with nonbinary people and take a joyride through this section, because the arguments are scarily similar. What would it take for this poster to acknowledge ace and aro people have their own experiences? Seriously, what? What holds you back from doing this?

It’s also funny to note the actual lack of substance to this argument. The poster is not giving any specific examples or even bringing up what being ace and aro mean. Yes, there is a pretty noticeable difference between feeling sexual attraction and not feeling sexual attraction. How many “allo” people do you know that say they’ve NEVER experienced this? Come on. The poster reduces asexuality and aromanticism down to allo people’s, in their own words, hyper-specific contexts where they don’t want sex or love. At least the poster admits any circumstance that allo people are comparable to ace people are extremely specific. But for real, are we hinging a whole argument on a few very specific examples of allo people having some similarity to ace people?

“Nothing about your relationship to sex or love makes you more or less LGBT. If you are gay and don’t want to have sex, ever, you are still gay. “

Mini strawman alert for the idea any ace person thinks you’re less gay if you’re also ace. And bonus points for an aphobe who refuses to use the definition of asexuality: not experiencing sexual attraction, and instead goes for “don’t want to have sex”. For the last. Fucking. Time. Not wanting to have sex and being asexual are NOT the same. Don’t make me pour gasoline in my eyes every time I see this.

After this, the poster goes on a tangent, which by the tone, seems to think it's very inspiring, and says no matter how you want to have sex (including only certain days of the week), you’re still straight! It’s so fucking condescending and gross to talk ace people out of their own identity like this.

“EVERY person who is heterosexual is different in how they perform or experience.”

Oh. My. GOD. THEY DIDN’T EVEN SAY STRAIGHT. THEY SAID HETEROSEXUAL. WUGGYUEGYUG. God help me. Can one be both bisexual and heterosexual? No…? Okay. So then. How is one both asexual AND heterosexual? What single brain cell in this poster’s head was responsible for this Chad of a sentence? I—

*deep breath*

So. It’s interesting how the poster says “perform or experience it”. Asexuality is an identity. It is not a performance, and it is not defined by your actions. A straight person not having sex does not become asexual. And sure...people with the same label can experience their sexuality differently, but...to a point, guys. You can’t experience your sexuality out of the DEFINITION of the label. Heterosexual: Sexual attraction to the opposite gender. Asexual: Sexual attraction to no one. If a “heterosexual” isn’t sexually attracted to anyone, they are by definition, not heterosexual. It takes insane mental gymnastics to make this argument, so A for flexibility, I guess?

“Gayness, straightness, and bisexuality are not defined by HOW you do or don’t want sex or HOW you do or don’t want to date, it’s just defined by WHO you want to be with.”

The first part of the sentence is correct, but it also defeats this person’s entire argument. Ace people AGREE with this. Being asexual is not the act of not having sex!! It’s not experiencing sexual attraction! You can google this! The second part of the sentence is mostly correct, depending on your interpretation. The issue is in part with the words the poster used: gayness, straightness and bisexuality. These words are not all equivalents. Gay could refer to sexual and or romantic orientation. Thus an ace gay person. Straightness is not actually an equal word to gayness. This is because straight is an exclusive term for a normative sexuality (in society’s eyes) in terms of sexual and romantic attraction. Some ace people DO call themselves straight, though it’s inaccurate. Ace people can be heteroromantic, but because being straight is so exclusive, you need to be both sexually AND romantically attracted to only the opposite gender.

The post basically ends telling ace people they’re all actually straight and were just confused the whole time. Lovely. And an erasure of gay aces too! Believe it or not, gay ace people do not like having their ace identities erased. Who’d have guessed?

Honestly, if anything this post is just kind of sad. A sad reflection of what people believe and how they truly do not see their own bigotry. They believe they’re freeing ace people from an incorrect label. They’re the heroes.

They’ll say “it’s okay, you’re not asexual” as if they've like...lifted a burden off of ace people. Like, “Oh, you think I’m not asexual? Cool, cool. Glad you cleared that up for me!” It’s sad how aphobes think, some very genuinely, that asexuality is just some high school party that went off the rails, and we’re all just coming out of the drunken haze, ready to go home. Ready to all laugh about it later, tease one another about how wild and silly it all was.

Having your identity erased like this is fucking horrible, and I hope people like this can take a look in the mirror and see themselves clearly. All ace and aro people have a right to their identity, whether gay, bi, heteroromantic or anything else. End of story.

#discourse #queer discourse #LGBT discourse #Adventures in Aphobia #ace discourse #asexual discourse #aphobia #ace #ace discrimination #asexual #asexuality #aromantic #aro #LGBT #queer #rant #why does this post think it's so intellegent #why did this post try so hard to sound nice at first #it's still aphobia

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yurimother · 3 years

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Growing up Yurijin: My Childhood Experience with Lesbian Anime and Manga Part I

This article is the first in a two-part personal essay about my childhood experiences growing up around Yuri in an environment where LGBTQ+ identity and culture were normalized. The article was original released exclusively on Patreon in February 2019. You can read Part II on the YuriMother Patreon.

I was recently reading an article by one of the people I admire most in the world, LGBTQ+ manga tastemaker and lesbian icon, Erica Friedman, a person who, in my hubris, I sometimes compare myself to, qualitatively, of course, their achievements far exceed my own. In the essay I was reading, Friedman describes their struggle to find literature that reflected their queen identity in the 1980s. At this moment, it also occurred to me the Friedman had previously spoken about how they discovered anime and manga, which included lesbian elements, more commonly known as Yuri, in adult life, and found an affinity with the genre. Friedman went on to become one of, if not the pioneering individuals in the world of Yuri. As I reminisce on these facts about a person who I so deeply admire and am lucky enough to consider a friend, it occurred to me that, while they adopted the Yuri, I was born into it. Although, funnily enough, my existence as a Yurijin (lit. Yuri Person, an inclusive term for Yuri fans) likely would not have been possible if not for Friedman’s support and love of Yuri, more on that later.

I am rather young. Depending on who you ask, I am either one of the last Millennials or one of the first members of Generation Z, although, like most labels, I find using either one of these titles arbitrary. However, I am always aware of how immense of a blessing my youth is. Yes, being young is fun and dandy, but I am referring to my upbringing's social implications. From a very early age, since before I could even talk, I was exposed to homosexuality as normalcy. I did not think anything of it until I started to grasp the more significant history and circumstance around terms such as “gay” when I was about nine years old. My godmothers are gay women, as are my brother’s. I remember attending their second wedding in 2004, shortly after same-sex marriage was officially legalized where we lived, and I thought nothing of it.

As previously implied, around late elementary school, I discovered that being gay was a distinct identity and had a more serious and complex history around it, one which I learned about but never experienced. I think more than anything, my blessed lack of conflict around sexuality has been my greatest asset. Growing up in a progressive era and the late ’90s and early 2000s, I was never harassed, bullied, or attacked for being queer or talking about LGBTQ politics and media. To this day, I still never “came out” because there was no need to, although I admittedly have never been much of one to put labels on my sexuality. I was always just, queer, and there was never an assumption otherwise. On a side note, there is no possible way for me to express the breadth of my gratitude to the generations who fought for LGBT rights.

The reader needs to understand that, just as I was fortunate to grow up in a bubble that treated where homosexuality normally, so too was I luckily able to experience Yuri at such a young age. By 2010 we were well into Yuri’s third major movement, a period I often refer to as the “Current Era” of Yuri, although “S Revival” may be a more apt description. Sailor Moon had already dominated both Western and Eastern culture (a craze I was ever too slightly young for), brought Yuri into the independent comics market, and exposed audiences to one of the first positive portrayals of a lesbian couple in Yuri.

Additionally, Revolutionary Girl Utena had smashed its way into the anime world, cementing itself as one of the most acclaimed and influential anime works of the 1990s and legitimizing lesbian storytelling in the medium. Most importantly for me, Oyuki Konno’s Maria Watches Over Us light novel series revived the Yuri genre's earliest tropes, known as Class S. Elements of S fiction, such as all-girls catholic schools, piano duets, and temporary lesbian-ish love would permeate the genre for the coming decades. These themes were eventually adopted and intensely exaggerated in the work that set me on the path of Yuri and transformed me into the “Holy Mother of Yuri.”

Furthermore, when I was in the early stages of life, Yuri was beginning to make its way Westward slowly. This expansion was thanks to the publishing arm of Erica Friedman’s organization Yuricon, ALC Publishing. ALC was founded in 2003 and started to publish the first Yuri manga in America, including the Yuri Monogatari series and Takashima Rica’s Rica’ tte Kanji!? A few years later, Seven Seas Entertainment started to published Yuri manga, such as The Last Uniform and Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Around this team, thanks to the internet and anime’s growing popularity, anime and manga were more accessible than ever. Although Western Yuri publishing did not take off until the late 2010s, there was just enough of it readily available to create the perfect storm for my Yuri infection.

Shortly after I started to gain awareness of LGBTQ+ rights, identity, and… existence, I was exposed to my first Yuri, although I did not recognize it as such. My middle school library had an extensive collection of manga, including the Tokyopop adaptations of Strawberry Marshmallow. I never read them, but a friend did and talked with me about them. Curious, I went home and searched the title online and found that there were anime videos uploaded to YouTube, with each episode separated into three parts (this event was before I was aware of what piracy was and how harmful it is to creators). I watched all of them with my brother, and we had an absolute blast. To this day, Strawberry Marshmallow is one of our favorite series to watch together and have a huge laugh at.

Although Strawberry Marshmallow had subtle Yuri elements (this was before the 2009 OVA, which contained an actual kiss), I did not recognize them. However, this series led to my brother and I showing each other different anime series, in one of which I was very clearly able to see lesbian representation. I do not remember the exact year, but it must have been about 2010 when, sitting in our mother’s office waiting for her to finish with meetings, my brother pulled up an episode of Studio Madhouse’s Strawberry Panic anime and changed my life forever.

Part II of "Growing up Yurijin" is available to read as part of The Secret Garden series. The Secret Garden is YuriMother's exclusive series of monthly articles, available only for Patrons. If you want to access it and help support Yuri and LGBTQ+ content, subscribe to the YuriMother Patreon.

#Yuri #article #patreon #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#queer #gay #lesbian #personal #wlw #education #essay #yurijin #the secret garden #anime #manga

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ectonurites · 3 years

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Are they- are they really going to make Tim gay

I forgot to answer this the other day but its pride month now so I figured I should give my thoughts on the subject taking recent things into consideration:

I am a cynic at heart, and have very little faith in DC to do things I want them to do in general, so my first instinct is to say 'no of course not'. But then I do say 'okay calm down edge lord' and revise it to a 'probably not but it's also probably more possible now than it ever has been before, and a lot of the groundwork for it is there if a writer wanted/was allowed to pick up on it'

I'm gonna talk from a soulless marketing perspective here for a sec so just bear with me and i'm sorry in advance: but personally out of the batkids (at least the boys) I feel like Tim is probably the lowest-risk highest-reward to confirm as LGBT in some way. Others have said it to me before in my inbox, i've been saying it for a while to some of my friends, but like... considering he's not headlining anything right now but is still a very well-known character, he's a relatively safe but still significant choice for DC to do something like that with. It wouldn't immediately effect sales if poorly received by the less pro-lgbt fans, but he's a big enough character it would likely get a decent amount of media hype. It would make DC look good to the LGBT crowd, rainbow capitalism and all that, while probably not pissing off too many of their more conservative fans they also still want money from. Ya know?

Then Tim as a character has also been kinda struggling to find his own place recently ever since the attempt of giving him a new identity with Drake just completely backfired. I've talked before about why I don't think double Robins is a good idea (at least not for Tim as a character) long-term. The descriptions for his Urban Legends story read to me like they're moving in a direction to at least address some of that stuff:

(from DC's June, July, and August solicitations)

Based on phrases like 'new purpose' 'new chapter' etc it feels like they're possibly going to start breaking him away from just being Robin (again, hopefully with better success this time)... which feels like it would also be a good time to make other changes to his character if they are going to, things like confirming a sexuality, ya know? Bringing out some parallels between finding a new superhero identity and figuring out what labels he identifies with, especially if they go at it from a sort of 'coming of age' angle... I could see it! Especially because Meghan Fitzmartin the writer has specifically mentioned focusing most of her writing for the 14-24 age range, coming of age type stories of self discovery are like... big there.

Also a lot of us have kinda locked in on that 'hear something about himself he never knew' phrasing, because that could... be implying something about his identity and not just the superhero one if you know what I mean. Especially considering Fitzmartin decided to bring back Bernard of all his civilian friends, ya know the one who introduced himself to Tim like this:

(Robin #121)

How to make friends at Louis E. Grieve Memorial High School: spot guy you don't recognize and circle him while checking him out and commenting on his appearance and deciding you are now his best friend. It's just a funny choice, he appeared in literally like 6 issues, his character traits were 'flamboyant, kinda bitchy, called Tim's step mom hot' he's basically a blank slate they can do whatever with which is... interesting. Could go in a lot of directions.

Also a step further back from just the Urban Legends story, I feel it's relevant to mention that Tynion, who is one of the people primarily in charge of the Batfamily's direction right now, is openly bi, likes Timkon, and Tim is one of his favorites. His biases like that can't make major changes to the character without approval from higher up obviously, and he's not currently writing a Tim story that we know of, but having someone in a position like that who does have those preferences definitely doesn't hurt.

So yeah. I just wanna constantly say not to get your hopes up, like I don't think it's all that likely because DC is not great with this kind of thing, but it's definitely not impossible.

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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i really thought hange was non-binary bc the one who said hanges gender was up for interpretation was kodansha us but isayama asked for gender neutral pronouns right?

here!

I’m gonna answer all of the gender asks in one go because for one, I don’t think I wanna flood my own feed and my own tumblr with the same arguments.

I think a lot of the questions on Hange’s gender and the topic of gender and sexuality overall are kinda intertwined and I feel like for anyone who actually reads my stuff, it’s better understood as one big wall of text.

So I was wondering, is that song the absolute proof about hange's gender?

No. I think the interpretation of the song which people are using to prove that Hange’s nonbinary is very western centric. I actually did research around this song and knowing what I know about Japanese culture, I actually interpret the song as a way for Japanese people to break out from gender norms.

For people who are not aware, Japan is incredibly strict with gender norms. The LGBTQ community is not as progressive as it is in Western countries (I mean gay marriage isn’t completely legalized yet). And just looking at it from the stand point of gender roles and gender expectations, despite the progressive thinking, there are a lot of things Japanese men and women have to conform to just to be respected in everyday society. Because in Japan, the community has always been more important than the individual and it’s honestly the same for most asian countries as well.

A lot of the pressure of living in Japan, working with Japanese people is the pressure to conform and I’ve seen my friends do it through small things like getting bangs (because all Japanese women have bangs apparently), wearing make up when going out (because this is generally an accepted for all Japanese people) and always dressing your best because in that manner women are held to an incredibly high standard in Japan. And this goes similarly for men who are constantly pressured to be the breadwinner in the family. If your wife is making more than you, be ready to hear people talk. I know these expectations exist in a Western setting too but Japan is incredibly stiff as a society and this is one reason why, despite having numerous opportunities to moveto Japan myself, I am not at all entertaining that possibility. I have worked in a Japanese company and I hated it and moved to a western company right after six months. I have completely accepted the fact that there is no mobility career wise from a non-Japanese (and a woman at that) in Japanese society.

In conformity, hierarchies etc, Japan is its own monster. That’s why when songs like Jibunrashiku, Hitchcock (by Yorushika) or Shisoukan (by Yorushika) come out, for one it’s in Japanese so I wouldn’t approach the songs from an English and as a Japanese speaker and someone who is pretty familiar with Japanese culture, I can’t help interpret that song as a social commentary for the shitty parts of Japanese society and how they tend to shoot the concept of an ‘individual’ down.

But does that mean I completely shoot down the idea that Hange is NB?

NO. Yams said so himself, Hange’s gender is unknown. But at the same time, Yams recognizes the fact that in the anime and in the live action, Hange is a female. If Yams were that adamant to make Hange NB, I think he would have at least made more of an effort to police how she is depicted in the anime and in the live action.

His exact words were:　「ハンジは彼（彼女）みたいな、ちょっと浮世離れした、枠にとらわれない自由な感じで描きたかったんです。」If I roughly translated it to English, “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender.”

Tbh, I wanted to avoid these gender asks altogether but I’ve seen the environment in twitter and the ways many people approach gender, particularly ‘nonbinary’ or genderfluid and it really just doesn’t sit well with me. For one, what’s up with all these rules on how to approach our nonbinary and LGBTQ friends? What’s up with all these accusations that if we don’t follow them to a T, then we’re suddenly transphobic or homophobic?

The fact that we’re creating all these rules on how to go about her nonbinary gender for one, just defeats the whole purpose of Hange being a free bird in the first place who wouldn’t have cared and who wouldnt’ ever have been confined to gender in the first place.

I mean the establishment of set rules and social norms on how to navigate gender, sex, sexuality and gender roles is the reason why we had heternormativity in the first place. And what I can see, yes, we did get progressive, we did start recognizing other genders, other ways of thinking but the danger in all this is that, we’re once again creating frameworks and norms about how people that identify as these genders are supposed to act. And this defeats the whole purpose of why we recognized concepts of other sexualities, other genders and breaks from gender roles in the first place.

We wanted to show these people that their feelings are valid, that the way they’re navigating their relationships and their identities are valid and the heternormative society we’ve lived in that has been condemning for so long, was flawed, was wrong.

But the thing is, with the establishment of all these social norms on how to navigate our relationships with LGBTQ people and how to navigate our own gender, sexuality, sex and role is just making us regress back to that shitty heteronormative society of a hundred years ago. Because suddenly, everyone is questioning once again ‘How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m nb?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m trans?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m LGBT?”

And we’re creating these abstract ideas of how exactly, being genderfluid is supposed to feel like. Am I really supposed to be going by ‘they?’ Am I supposed to be uncomfortable with CIS pronouns?

And If I don’t go through this process… If I don’t feel this way then maybe I’m not NB? Maybe I’m not Trans? Maybe I’m not LGBT? And if I don’t conform to this clear cut idea of what NB is which people set up for me, god forbid I might just be transphobic or homophobic.

And Here’s the thing, everyone’s journey to self discovery is unique and there is no exact way to go about your gender or identity. I find it terrifying actually that creating all these clear cut rules have built misconceptions in so many people already on what they are supposed to feel like when they decide to identify with a certain gender which is no different from long ago when people had to hide the fact that they liked people of the same gender because god forbid they might just be persecuted for being gay.

Creating these frameworks, these incredibly strict rules on how someone is supposed to navigate relationships with LGBTs and their own personal identities is only making it all the more dangerous for people who are in the process of discovering themselves.

Back in college, I used to accompany a friend to a clinic when he was starting HRT treatments and before he started them, he had to consult with a doctor and the consultation lasted months. Before all that, they gave him a checklist of ‘feelings,’ which if he does experience them, he checks it and if he does check enough of them and agrees with a huge chunk of them, then he might have gender dysphoria and maybe the HRT treatments and sex reassignment was for him. It was a hundred item checklist, pages full of waivers, warnings and questions about his own experiences with his gender identity. And the fact that he had to consult for months after on that? There must be a reason.

Maybe because the academe realizes, maybe because those adept on the field on gender realize that gender is too complex of a subject to have been boxed into these categories in the first place.

And this whole discourse or I wouldn’t say discourse more of like, this ‘pushing of agendas’ as to say, ‘this is how being gender fluid or non binary is supposed to feel like’ this is how being transgender is supposed to feel like and if you don’t fit it to a T then you’re not transgender or you’re not nb. Or if you don’t fit it all, maybe you’re just transphobic is dangerous for many reasons. Either it gatekeeps people who want to explore their gender further. Or it forces people to have to conform to these and force themselves to ‘feel’ all of these things in the first place.

And god, this is just the gender issue, I haven’t even explored the sexuality, gender roles or biological issue.

i mean pronouns are important but they don’t really reflect someone’s gender??? like there’s people who use he/they, she/they or all pronouns(? they just don’t conform to gender binary ahaha

Given the environment on twitter and having witnessed the bullying first hand that came with one writer who is active on twitter using she/her pronouns for Hange, I feel like my own writing and my own POV on how I go about my writing and how I approach the gender of Hange (since I strictly use she/her) might just be a ticking time bomb and I might find myself at the end of whatever hate war or ‘education’ or as I like to just refer to as bullying, one day.

I believe though I at least have enough knowledge and awareness of the LGBTQ situation and I think I did put a lot of thought already into this before I made my decision to use ‘she’ to refer to Hange.

(And tbh, you can be nonbinary and you can be female at the same time and I’ve written about that multiple times already BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. And creating this mutual exclusivity between being nonbinary and female just kinda invalidates a lot of those people who are still deciding where exactly they fall in this complex web of identity discovery)

As someone who generally mainly hangs out with LGBT people and i have been doing this since high school by the way, and as someone who has tried all the sexualities on the spectrum, I talked to my asexual friends about possibly being asexual, I have experimented with women and sometimes, I just had dry spells and it just so happened that in the end of all these, I fell in love with a guy but I really believe that gender is such a flexible thing and even though I am with aguy right now, I still simp over lesbians, gays, ciswomen, transgenders because simping isn’t about gender.

And these set of rules on how to navigate genders is just invalidating the experiences of people who are flitting in between the two identities and it just hinders the process of self discovery for a lot of people.

Anyway, the point is, there is only one statement I found fundamental when approaching my relationships with the LGBT community and my own perspective on my self identity.

Recognition of someone’s feelings and their journey to a gender identity and the pronouns that come with it are important.

Then someone might go “THEN WHY DON’T YOU RESPECT HANGE’s NON BINARY PRONOUNS. Because just because someone is nonbinary doesn’t mean they automatically go for they. Just because someone is non-binary, doesn’t mean I have to use every single pronoun on the spectrum. The only one who can tell me what pronouns they want used on them is the person in question.

(I actually read an argument somewhere that going for ‘they’ just because someone is NB is transphobic lmfao. Assuming someone’s pronouns is apparently transphobic too lmfao.)

AND HANGE IS FICTIONAL. And we will never hear about which pronoun she would have wanted in the first place and I think the great ‘nontransphobic’ in-between is just letting people interpret characters how they want to interpret characters in this fictional world (And Hange can be both interpreted as nb and female). It’s the policing which makes the whole process of self discovery, the process of navigating genders all the more difficult for a lot of people.

And policing how exactly people should navigate gender and sexuality is just gatekeeping. Hange is everyone’s character. The only gender and sexuality identity people have complete jurisdiction on, is their own. And this policing of what exactly certain journeys to discovery are supposed to feel like is inherently harmful for those who are still in the process of deciding for themselves where they stand.

And going back to what Yams said “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender/sexuality/gender roles.” I agree with that.

Because even though I do use ‘she’ with Hange, I do not firmly believe that Hange is a cisgender heterosexual female either. I just believe there are so many more layers to her whole identity and I believe similarly for every single person. Just concluding for one’s self that Hange is nonbinary with a very narrow minded view of what non binary just generally defeats the whole purpose of being ‘free from the confines of gender’ and hinders a lot of discourse and analysis on Hange’s identity over all.

I mean, I don’t know if people agree with this but in the decades I have spent with my close friends figuring out their gender identities, changing pronouns, transitioning, coming out to their parents, here is one thing I noticed. They weren’t asking for a celebration of their gender or sexuality, they weren’t asking for all these policing on how people should approach them. All they wanted was for their feelings to be validated, normalized as an everyday occurrence. I think the point of all these LGBTQ discourse (and by extension race and sex discourse) were all there to just make all these different identities normalized and to completely eradicate the concept of a negative bias or an other which was generally plaguing society for a long time.

And as their friends, I have never approached them as this champion who would make sure EVERYONE RESPECTED THEM IN THAT WAY IN TWITTER THEY BELIEVE LGBTQ PEOPLE SHOULD BE RESPECTED. All these nonverbal rules I have set up for myself on how to go about being friends with them is because I wanted them to be happy and comfortable in their shoes. And what were the types of things they appreciated? Me hiding it from their parents until they were ready to come out, me helping make their relationship work with their partner, me respecting the pronouns they requested for themselves, me accompanying them to HRT when their parents refused.

And you know what, that was only a facet of our friendships. My friends’ gender identities and sexualities never dominated discourse. None of them were the ‘token gay friend,’ the ‘token lesbian friend’ or the ‘token asexual friend’ or the ‘token NB friend.’ They were all people I genuinely care about who just happened to have fallen in love with someone of the same gender. They were just people who just happened to be uncomfortable with their original sex. But I would never just describe them as just that. My friend who just so happens to identify as assexual makes a great companion on a night out drinking. My friend who just so happens to be trasngender is really great with logistics and planning and was super helpful and I was eternally grateful when we worked together on that one project. My friend who just happens to be a lesbian has the cutest picture of her girlfreind on her phone screen.

I will memorize their favorite orders, what makes them tick, what makes them such a great companion, their talents, capabilities more than I will remember their gender. And that’s the characetr song in question is called “Jibunrashiku” or in English “just like me.” Because in the end a strict society which creates all these maxims of what exactly people of a certain gender should act would of course birth songs like “Just like me” A society which puts so much emphasis on gender and sex as an identity instead of other things like personality, preferences, skills etc.

And I don’t know if it applies to everyone. But my friends appreciate it because this journey to whatever gender identity they chose wasn’t rooted in some sort of strict framework on how they should be treated according to twitter. It was rooted in their own experiences and how these experiences made them feel.

Do they feel weird in a woman’s body? Do they just don’t feel any romantic attraction to the opposite gender?

Just treat them as how you would treat anyone else you respect. Just be a decent person. Just be a good friend.

Respect their requests for their own personal pronouns. If they need help, help them to the best of your abilities.

And here’s the thing, the approach I use with navigating identities, sexuaities genders are rooted in one very simple concept which can be applied to the race discourse, the feminist discourse etc etc.

Don’t be an ass. Respect people. Don’t reduce people to one facet of their identity. And by extension, when faced with such a dubious situation, think, discern for yourself what’s right or wrong. When there are people educating you, policing you on what is right or wrong, process that information objectively.

All I have here right now is my own opinions on the gender discourse on Hange and my own opinions on the discourse overall.

If you don’t agree with it, then have a nice day and I hope you find something else that will convince you to be more openminded but...

UTANG NA LOOB HUWAG LANG KAYO MAMBULLY NG TAO POTA. MAGHANAP NALANG KAYO NG IBANG PWEDENG GAWIN SA BUHAY MO.

ANG DAMING NASASAKTAN ANG DAMING NATRATRAUMA ANG DAMING NAWAWALANG GANA MAGSULAT KASI DI KAYO NAG-IISIP. PURO TIRA LANG.

Okay thank you for listening. Do what you want with the information up there but I have said my piece.

#hange zoe #hanji zoe #commander hange #commander hanji #meta

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mueritos · 4 years

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You know not all transmeds are bad people, right? Yes you may not agree with their ideologies, but not all of them are like Blaire or Kalvin. Not all of them push their thoughts onto others or ignore a person's pronouns simply because they don't agree. They still try to be polite. At the end of the day, you're generalizing them, just as some transmeds tend to do as well.

I’ve had this ask in a while now and at first I was mulling over it and now I just look back and laugh. This is the equivalent of Trump saying “there are good people on both sides.” Here’s the thing: I recognize that on each side of an issue the people that comprise them are individuals. What I don’t recognize is the fact that the ones with harmful rhetoric are excused for not being as open or as assertive about it as others in their community. This lengthy so I will insert a read more. Not proof reading this so if there's spelling mistakes just get over it.

There is a spectrum to bigotry from violent and genocidal fascists to white women who clutch their purse just a little bit more tightly once a brown man enters the elevator with her; the point is is that it’s still bigotry. Here's the amazing thing about bigotry: we all perpetuate it. Yes, that means even the largest of saints are still capable of backwards thought. That’s quite clearly the point. For example, its not enough to say you’re not racist, no, because saying that gives a person enough feelings of validation to feel like they don’t have to examine their own internalized thoughts/feelings/ideas. What SHOULD be hailed as correct is to say you are ANTI-racist. The addition of the word ANTI signals two things: 1, you are AGAINST racism, and 2, you are working to be AGAINST racism. This includes keeping up with current events, listening to others’ experiences, learning when to be quiet, etc.

So how does this relate to the idea that all transmeds are transphobes? Well, we’ve already established that everyone is and are capable of bigotry on various levels. I feel I’ve already explained why transmed ideology is already transphobic before, but just to summarize why I personally do not subscribe to it: I refuse to partake in neocolonialism. Transmed ideology is a direct erasure of indigenous trans and gender variant identities/peoples by the assumption that trans or gender variant identities are rooted in medical diagnosis/treatment, and also by the assumption that gender dysphoria is a byproduct of transness when really its a byproduct of a Eurocentric society. Essentially, colonization sucks and is the reason why trans identities are so controversial in the first place (literally one of the first things that Christopher Columbus did when he set foot in America was round up all of the Two-Spirit people and set his dogs on them).

Okay, so I said my opinion with a bunch of fancy words, so what? The issue here boils down to neocolonialism. What europeans did to America (yes America and not THE AMERICAS, people seem the forget that north and south american are literally ONE continent) is obviously still evident today. In other words, what colonization did to the world is still evident today, and I think it’s incredibly important to be aware of how it’s still being perpetuated today. Rigid ideas of gender are just not true and to think that they were always so is just so false...”It was something of a historic coup to enforce the notion of two fixed, idealized genders that we now consider natural. Speaking in strictly physical terms, many perfectly healthy people are born intersexed, with male and female physiological characteristics, showing that these categories exist on a fluid continuum” (Anarchy Works, Peter Gelderloos). I’m not sure if you can understand the GRAVITY of the quote above, but this is not just online discourse, my friend. Trans identities have always existed, you see this in native Two-Spirits and in los Muxes from Oaxaca, Mexico, and biological variation is a natural and healthy phenomena that occurs in ALL species (and in fact is necessary for species survival). Concepts and ideas of “otherness” originated from colonizers with fucked up religions and capitalist greed. When we refuse to accept experiences other than our own (non-dysphoric/poc gnc trans ppl/mogai), when we refuse to listen to science and history (biological variation, indigenous trans identities), when we refuse to own up to the fact that evidence and science changes (”gendered brains” has been disproven yet still heralded as evidence for transmeds, etc), we are not only denying our perceived reality, we are perpetuating centuries of violence.

Do I believe all transmeds are bad people? No, and I never said that. I just said transmed is transphobic. I am someone who believes in change as I have seen it occur in people I never thought possible. My father called my uncle a f*ggot for marrying late and today he is unlearning the years of hate instilled in him by a society that teaches to oppress and colonize. My mother told me no one would ever see me as a man, and today she calls me her son. Their comments were bigoted, but they are working to not be so. THAT is what matters. I let my thoughts and my ideas and my research be presented publicly in hopes that someone may question something they were taught to be true, or in hopes that someone may learn to understand others better, etc. I focus my efforts on those are trying to understand, not on the ones who are just “polite” and sit on the sidelines watching with disgust in their minds. You may not necessarily be a “bad” person for subscribing to transmed rhetoric, but one should not deny the fact that transmed rhetoric is transphobic/racist/colonialist. If you are not working to be against bigotry, you are part of the problem. Decolonize yourself.

I hope this cleared things up. If I have some information incorrect, pls let me know. If you also have additional information, please add! If you would like additional reading/viewing:

Anarchy Works:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works (Ch 1. Human Nature)

Los Muxes:

https://youtu.be/iiek6JxYJLs

https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/mexico/articles/a-brief-history-of-muxe-mexicos-third-gender/

Two-Spirit:

https://kitschmix.com/two-spirit-spiritual-concept-gender-native-tribes/

https://www.ihs.gov/lgbt/health/twospirit/

http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.gen.004

#pittsanswers #trans stuff #anti transmed #anti truscum #decolonization #transgender

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l0chn3ss · 4 years

Text

l0chn3ss update

I feel like the last time I ever really active on tumblr was in the year 2016, so i want to address my absence between 2017-2020. Part of it is because I feel like I owe it to my friends and mutuals who I just basically left on read and another part is because I’ve always treated this blog as a personal blog that documents my life and my growth. I put off writing this for a long time but now that I have a huge paper due, now is definitely the time.

You are welcome to skip but I will address a few hard hitting questions I feel should be answered, especially since I feel like I departed like an anti-hero of a bad tv show.

Where I am currently: I am in grad school to obtain a master’s in library and information science. I have a full time job at different middle school libraries, though I work from home now. I also tutor kids on the side to pay for my tuition because I basically make minimum wage. Quarantine messed with my head at first, but now I’m feeling much better and I’m trying to reconnect with friends and close a lot of loose ends.

TLDR: I took an extended break because tumblr mobile sucks and my laptop needed serious repairs. I made a huge migration away from social media in 2018. I prioritized my education and in-person connections, which fell to shit because of my fandom involvement in the past. I did not like the direction of the main fandom I participated in and knew that many of the people I once respected did not respect me in return/ Us versus them mentality. I recognized that I treated my life on tumblr too seriously and took petty drama personally. I am sporadically on tumblr now because I genuinely enjoy the social connection and because I still like running fandom events.

Yes, you can reblog this. I’d love for this narrative to be heard.

Long version: To preface this, this post is being written to give myself closure and because I really am procrastinating on my final big paper of this semester. I’ll be tackling on the points in the tldr in a longer narrative that will appear to be in an expository fashion, which I recognize will be a source of contention, but my intentions are to throw it onto the table so that I can be freed. I can let it go and move on. I’m no longer a 20 years old who cared too much of what other people think and will think; I think differing perspectives are important and I want to give myself a chance to say my piece. That and I recognize that I lost the audience that I once had, so I doubt this will be an issue at all. It’s been 4 or what ever years, let’s just not.

Back in 2015-2016 there was a huge back and forth between three groups of people in the SE fandom. The reason why I’m not listing out the name is because I don’t want this to show up in the tags. I’d say that the three groups could be seen as quite literally the soma shippers (mostly white, demi sexual girls), lgbt centric bloggers (very kid or star oriented, very fed up with soma), and the people who were deemed as alright to soma shippers (c r ona, ste inm arie, jac k im centric people). There was a constant (and understandable) tension between the first two groups while the third was like the weird cousin that everyone in the social circles liked because they sprinkled in soma for the masses. Don’t argue with me on this-- this was literally how the fandom was in 2015 and you know it.

The main issue was that one group felt that they were being inclusive towards identities and sexualities while the other felt that they were not. I remember that one of the arguments was that soma WAS an LGBT ship because people headcanonned the members to be demisexual. However, the other side of the argument was that it wasn’t good representation of a gay pairing. Now that we can look back at this 5 years later, I have two things to say: 1, I now very much understand why the argument broke out because of how heated the topic is, and I do believe that I lean more towards the “other side” now that I’m not wearing rose tinted glasses, but 2, I need to make it clear that demi people are lgbt, but a headcanon is not fact and ship diversity was the main question at hand, not the ship itself. This argument lasted for weeks, destroyed my friendships, and no matter what I felt I did in the moment (which was to mend the fandom), it was taken as an insult.

(Side note: Somethings that I remember was being in someone’s DM’s to encourage them to participate in the large fandom events more, but once they twisted my intentions and rallied their friends, I became their enemy. I also became the mods’ enemy but then again, when was I not? I was made fun of for saying “queergender,” a term that is now currently being widely used, quite openly by someone I wanted desperately to be friends with. I was outwardly mocked by popular users who only apologized behind closed doors but didn’t bother to clear things up with their followers. Adults who were in their 30s quite literally attacked a 19 year old. It was in that moment that I realized I would never become friends with either side, and not because I didn’t want to.)

I bring this up because as I begun to stop writing soma fics, I also begun to see and understand why people moved away from it. It wasn’t the ship itself, it was the culture surrounding it. However, on tumblr we have the ability to connect intensely with the content we produce. Therefore, the ship itself began to be connected with the shippers and their attitudes towards outside pairings-- that attitude being tied into elitism.

I say this with every ounce of love I can because I once had the exact same mannerism. When you become so tied into one pairing to the point where other ships appear to threaten the existence of it and you react negatively towards it, you become rancid. The popular tag “everything is soma” takes a very dark turn. Even if readers consume another pairing’s work, they will be obliged to say “I ship soma more BUT that was cute.” They will read an entirely different topic and wonder why soma wasn’t inserted into it in the background. They will reject pairings that separate the two as if breaking them up is sin and an insult.

The only reason why I stopped writing my soma fics in 2016 was because I saw a real need to fill in the gaps of other pairings. I took what people were saying to heart and I wanted to change my ways and my perceptions. I saw the animosity of the ship culture and rejected it. I wanted to use what little influence I had to make the fandom just a bit more accepting. In 2016, I don’t think the fandom was ready for it. In 2017, they still weren’t ready for it. In 2020, I see hope, but I wonder sometimes if it’s masqueraded pity because of previous treatment.

In the middle of it all, I went from being the soma angst master to becoming the weird person everyone once knew. I was the friend that people excluded from group chats and I just “wasn’t the same.” Cliques grew extremely large in power in 2017 and exclusion hurt like a bitch.

The straw that broke the camel’s back and completely shut me down was in 2017 when I was graduating as a bachelor. There was a fandom event that I decided to go all in to. For context, there used to be a huge debate on how many times a person should enter in an event, but in my mind, the more exposure the better. My graduation and the event took place at the exact same time, which was cool, but what hurt me was what happened after.

I was lucky enough to be accepted into field school (when you travel to do outdoor excavating) for my major. I’m an anthropologist-- it was an honor. I didn’t plan in advance for it, and if anything, I thought that I would be committed completely to the events and my 5 or what ever entries at the time. I’ve always prided myself in communicating with others, so I made sure to let my partners in the event know what was going on. I was so excited to be going on my first ever excavation and no one at the time said anything otherwise, in fact, they all seemed incredibly supportive.

What I didn’t know was that I would be called out by name in the event feedback response by one person who felt that I didn’t take the event seriously enough and that I should’ve prioritized my time accordingly. Two of the mods let me know because it referred to me directly, though the name of the submitter was not included. It was not only a slap in the face, but a dumbfound moment that reminded me that wow, fandom content really is someone’s life out there. My enforced silence because of lack of internet in the woods actually upset someone and made them believe that I wronged them, because I put my real life ambitions first before a fandom event.

It was then when I woke up and I remember very clearly thinking to myself: I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to treat my fandom life seriously. I want to participate in fandom for fun, not out of duty. I don’t want to prioritize this life because in the end, if I am hated for putting my work and education first, then I don’t want it.

(For context, I suspect that it was the same person who made a 200 note call out on me during the fandom tension. I respected this person immensely, but I also treated them like the flawed person I believe everyone is. I’m sure because of this, I’m pretty much trash in their eyes, which is totally fine. They have really cute cats so they can’t be all too bad. Don’t look into it too deeply.)

Once my month long field school was up, I was already used to not being on the internet or any of my social media accounts. I didn’t play my mobile games for a month. I didn’t read the news for a month. It was like going cold turkey on the internet, which reshaped my habits entirely. The only time that I had online within that time span was during the weekend, but I spent my time working on my projects and catching up with friends instead of being on apps.

I was also completely fed up with tumblr’s mobile app at the time, so one by one, I deleted my apps. Good bye to tumblr, snapchat, what little I used of instagram, twitter, everything. The only thing I kept was facebook, which was because it is the main platform that I use to message my boyfriend. That meant that any friends I retained from the fandom (who I still contact now) were also friends who had the chance to add me on facebook.

This was the cause of my 2 or 3 year hiatus on tumblr, and therefore the fandom. I occasionally checked back every 6 months to do a few fandom events, but I have several unopened messages and notifications that I haven’t been able to get to. I open my instagram for a few days once a year, and I only go onto twitter if my friends tell me (through facebook) that they dm’d me a post there.

When I left my online persona behind, I quickly strengthened my in person connections. New drama that erupted every other day became replaced with starbucks and boba runs. Reality TV shows replaced fanfiction. Text messages replaced the tumblr activity feed (which still doesn’t work on mobile BTW). I study at cafes unironically with friends instead of typing alone in my room. Overall, it opened my world considerably.

I still like making fun of myself and I try not to take myself seriously. I still make self depreciative memes to send to friends but then double up with kermit heart pics. I’m still a plot bunny, I still write my fics, I still watch my anime, I still play video games, I still sleep at 4am, I still take my depression medication, I still love potatoes, I still use my voice for people who can’t find theirs yet. But I think I’m in a much healthier mindset now, even if I still make stupid shifty posts calling out bad behavior.

Nowadays, I’m working on my Master’s degree in secret. My parents don’t know about it because my mom doesn’t like that I want to go out and do unladylike things like getting an education. I tutor kiddos and I’m really good with younger children, but I’m not going to do anything with kids because I just don’t want to. Instead, I want to work at an archive or a museum to bring my library interests and my anthropology background together. If I had my dream job, I would be a marine archaeologist; however I love my boyfriend of 8 years whom you probably all remember and I really came to terms with my grandeur dreams. I’m extremely happy with living in a small town with loved ones now, and I don’t need to move somewhere far away from my parents to be content. It’s a huge realization.

From 2018 to 2020 I got into actual drama in person while I was job hunting. Adult people suck and honestly it’s kind of embarrassing how ill equipped some people are. Even so, I currently work in middle schools as a media assistant. One of those realms is the library, and honestly it’s like fulfilling a prophecy. As much as I love the social aspect, public schools are an absolute train wreck.

I’m going to wrap this up now. This post is meant to help me close the past and move forward because the fandom culture feels different now. Things from several years ago don’t need to resurface. I want to enjoy my life fully, and fandom life is one of those aspects that I truly did enjoy. I’m going to keep using my voice and act like a fool, but I’m also not going to be losing sleep because of this. People are going to talk about you no matter what, whether positively or negatively, and it’s important to not take it personally.

Idk, go enjoy yourselves. Do things for yourself. It’s more fun that way.

#nessingaround #this was cathartic #huge thank you to my friends who stuck by me and to my friends who welcome me back with open arms #big shout out to my disney girl gang and another big shout out to 'ma girls'#another thank you to my sweethearts on google hang out #and thank you especially to the group of se lgbt users from 2016 who truly did open my eyes to the severity of the fandoms actions #even tho u still hate me and have me blocked hahaha i consider this growth

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robotpals · 3 years

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hey! idk if you're still taking questions about mhc, but i'm committed to mt holyoke for this fall and still not 100% sure. i kind of have a lot, so answer as many or as few as you'd like lol they're in order of priority

completely honestly, how much do people still call it a "women's college"? it was a really big factor for me that mhc was gender diverse, and since visiting has been kind of funky this year, it's been hard to tell how committed the school actually is to trans allyship (full disclosure, i'm a cis girl) and how much the students try to respect that

related to how welcome men and nonbinary folks feel-- when i show up on campus, are like 99% of the students going to be women (trans or cis), or am i being overly pessimistic about the remaining emphasis on women?

sustainability is a big focus for me, and was a factor that actually had me leaning away from mhc (most of the other schools i applied to were shooting for carbon neutrality years before 2037, and had more options for composting and such). the actual question part is: how hard would it be to try to be low/zero waste on campus (esp. plastics)? would the dining halls be able to accommodate that (outside of COVID years)? are there any significant obstacles i might run across?

i'd also like to get more politically involved in college, are there a lot of opportunities for that? (like, protests, or mutual aid, or politically oriented clubs)

how hard is it to get the classes you want? how many classes did you personally take at the other consortium colleges? (or if you're not comfortable with that, what might the average be?)

thank you so much! i'm sorry if this is too much or my tone is weird, and feel free to redirect me for any of this

Hello! Congratulations to you as well -- whether it’s where you end up or not, you should know that I’m proud of you for applying and being accepted! I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be for some of your questions, but I can certainly try to answer them. I’m putting a read-more because I have a feeling my answers may be long!

As to your first question, MHC still is a women’s college -- though a gender diverse one (I know that isn’t a helpful answer, but I think it describes the culture best!). Maybe the best way to think of it is that Mt Holyoke’s history is deeply steeped in what being a women’s college means: a lot of the traditions and details of the school can be traced back to its days as a women’s seminary. The fact that it was a place for women to get an education in a time when typically women couldn’t is something to be proud of, and definitely something that students celebrate -- though of course the category of “woman” who could be educated in the college’s early days was very limited to white affluent women. Something that I appreciated about MHC was it felt like nearly all of my fellow students were as social justice oriented as I am -- so there were always discussions about recognizing the college’s failings and history of discrimination, as well as celebrating those students who pushed for diversity and opened the doors to students who wouldn’t have been admitted in the college’s early days. That doesn’t mean that mhc is perfect, and as a white woman I’m not the best person to talk about those issues, but in general I thought the student body was willing to have hard discussions and advocate for critically examining mhc’s past.

I think my years there were interesting because my first year was the year the college announced it would accept trans women (the first of the “seven sisters” / historic east coast women’s colleges to do so!), though prior to my arrival trans men (those who applied still closeted/questioning and then came out while a student) were enrolled. I should disclose that I, too, am a cis woman! So any thoughts I have on what it’s like for trans students is based entirely on conversations with trans friends and not personal experience. Basically, though MHC is a women’s college, I think the large population of lgbt students means that gender/respect for trans students is more at the forefront than it would be at some other schools. I’m currently a student at a Big 10 state university for a masters program, and I definitely think that MHC was way more accepting of gender diversity than here -- asking about pronouns and respecting people’s gender identities were totally commonplace at MHC seven years ago, but undergrads I know at this university have said that there are lots of students who treat discussions about respecting pronouns as a joke :/ -- I hope that MHC has only continued to improve its treatment of gender diverse students since I was there.

That being said, there are definitely transphobic students -- and unfortunately, old and bigoted staff members. I remember when I was a student, the college released a memo for staff/faculty that said that emails to the student body shouldn’t use gendered language (like saying “Hey girls” or whatever LOL) and while every student I talked was in support of that, there were definitely rumors of some older professors throwing fits about that. I don’t remember any terfs on campus -- thank god -- but there was a “young republicans” student group that was super obnoxious (they only had three members LOL but they complained CONSTANTLY about how other students telling them to shut up was infringing on their first amendment rights).

I have no idea what the numbers are, but when I was a student, it definitely seemed like the vast majority of students were women/women-aligned (cis, trans, or nb) or nonbinary, so if you really want a campus with more men, MHC may not be a great choice.

As far as sustainability: I really don’t know. I know that a big discussion when I was a student was divestment from fossil fuels, and MHC refused to make any promises to divest. When I was a student, there were a couple student advocacy groups dedicated to challenging the college to be more sustainable, so if you want to learn more, I would try to find info about those organizations and ask them. Sorry I don’t know more! For some reason I thought MHC composted, but I don’t know for sure -- I know that when you finish eating, you just put your plate on a conveyor belt and there are dining hall staff who sort through what’s what. Again, you could reach out to dining and ask! And if you end up at MHC and they aren’t composting, I think that would be something they might be open to implementing -- advocacy is key.

For political involvement, I think there are lots of opportunities! MHC is in a fairly rural location, but students on campus when I was there organized marches, walk-outs, and protests for the student body. There are advocacy groups for different interests, as well as cultural groups that organized events around specific issues. It’s definitely a campus where you can get involved with issues that are important to you. Again, I don’t know what the culture is like at other colleges, but in comparison to my graduate program, activism at MHC was far more robust.

For classes, I never had trouble taking the classes I wanted! But to be fair, my majors were uncommon enough that that isn’t too surprising (religion and ancient studies LOL). Among my friends, no one seemed to have trouble getting the classes they wanted -- the only class that I remember people having trouble getting into was a class on the history of witchcraft in the gender studies department! Which is SO mt holyoke LOL.

I only took one class outside mhc -- which in retrospect I regret not taking more -- it was a class on Icelandic saga literature at umass amherst. It was a really fun class, and I enjoyed getting the glimpse into what life would have been like if I had gone to a big state school for undergrad! Overall, I thought the process for taking a class off campus was super easy and the only downside was the bus ride was like half an hour.

I hope my answers make sense! I feel like I should disclose that I’m finishing up my grad school program this week (!) so I’ve been particularly nostalgic for undergrad recently -- I’m stressed about exams, so my rose tinted glasses are ON 🙃 but I hope this has been helpful! I think that so many people make it seem like college is the most perfect wonderful time ever, but in actuality it’s pretty weird -- people living away from home for the first time, trying to figure themselves out, exploring their interests and passions, etc. ... so I would encourage you not to think of college as a perfect place, but a place where you will have room to grow! I definitely had times where I HATED being a student at mhc, but I certainly would have had those times anywhere I went -- and in the end, I’m glad I chose mt holyoke and I think it was a place I was able to grow and flourish into who I am today!

#wahhh this is long sorry!!!#mount holyoke #anonymous

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bisexualsforprompto · 4 years

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Miraculous: Reborn Chapter Three

Ao3

First Next

Marinette had been miraculously brought back to life six years earlier. Truth be told, she didn’t remember much of her resurrection. When she was brought back she didn’t have any scars, not even the one she cherished so dearly, the first injury her soulmate gave her. It seemed odd or silly to celebrate such a thing, but she did, and now she never could again… Although she didn’t remember much of her resurrection she did remember her mother holding her and crying but that was about it.

Everyday for six years she was protected like some giant secret. In a sense, she was. She wasn’t allowed to go outside, attend school (she was homeschooled by Sabine), or talk to anyone. It was more boring than being dead, Marinette remarked one day when she had breakfast with her parents.

They promptly explained to her that they were only trying to keep her safe. What would the outside world think if the dead Dupain-Cheng child mysteriously showed up out of the blue? People had watched her die. It would be a witch hunt if they found out she was alive, her parents feared she’d be experimented on, but for some reason that made Marinette feel unsettled.

Not because she was afraid of being experimented on, but because it seemed like her parents weren’t being completely truthful. Marinette grew wary of them and that night marked the first day she snuck out.

Her parents were working in the bakery, and Marinette knew they wouldn’t be up to check on her for at least two hours. She put on sunglasses and a hat and made her great escape.

The world was so much more beautiful than she had remembered, but she had been cooped up in her room for three years before she even dared to venture outside. The only thing Marinette wasn’t impressed with when she left her house were the Parisians. There was even a man who was about to be run over by a car and no one did a single thing.

No one but Marinette, she sprung into action and pushed him out of the way. She ran back home as fast as she could after she made sure he was okay, that act would bring attention to her and her parents could not know under any circumstances that she decided to sneak out.

Oddly enough after her dinner that same night there was a black box with scripture she couldn’t recognize in her room…

Ladybug was her only freedom, that was why she got along so well with Chat Noir. They had both lost their freedoms in different ways, Marinette of course didn’t tell him the whole story, only that her parents were overprotective and she was homeschooled. She and Chat were best friends, inseparable. It reminded her of her relationship with Nino.

Nino...It broke her heart so much when she found out he was akumatized. He was one of Hawk Moth’s first victims and it was all her fault. Nino was akumatized into a villain who could raise the dead, after an insensitive classmate inadvertently brought up Marinette. Luckily for the red clad heroine, she was able to purify the akuma before Nino got to her grave (the Dupain-Chengs made one for show after Marinette was brought back to life). Part of her always wondered what would’ve happened if he got to her grave and realized she wasn’t buried there.

Although Marinette wanted nothing but to laugh with her best friend again she knew she couldn’t reveal herself to Nino, for her and her parents safety, but more selfishly, because she thought that he could never accept her, she’d basically lied to him for the years she’d been alive without telling him.

She made it a point to check on him as Ladybug every so often.

Her freedom was stripped of her though, when she and Chat Noir defeated Hawk Moth. She almost cried, she should have been happy Hawk Moth no longer wielded his miraculous, but it just made her empty inside. When Hawk Moth’s identity was revealed Chat Noir revealed his identity as well so he couldn’t be seen as an accomplice to his father. Marinette was really the only one who stayed out of the spotlight, she didn’t tell a soul, not even Adrien. After all, she was legally dead, what would Paris think if their hero’s life was a lie?

Although it had already been an excruciating month since Master Fu took the Ladybug miraculous away from her, Marinette couldn’t help but reach for her earrings ever so often. Sometimes she’d even open her bag to talk to Tikki, only to find she wasn’t there.

The month without her freedom had been so hard to bear that Marinette snuck out in her disguise once more. Only, there was a strong wind that day and Nadja Chamack was passing by when Marinette’s hat blew off her.

Careless, she remembered scolding herself when she got home. She hoped Nadja wouldn’t recognize her, after all she still had sunglasses on, but when her parents came up to her room in a furious rage she realized that she wasn’t so lucky.

Sabine yelled at her and Tom lectured her about going out. It was all a blurry haze of swirling emotions, she could barely recall what her parents yelled at her. She remembered the moment that broke her heart though.

She could still hear Sabine’s words in her ear, “Pack up, you’re going to live with your uncle in Gotham. It’s no longer safe for you here.”

Marinette understood, she really did. She didn’t harbor any resentment against her family either, they were just trying to help. She knew her parents loved her, they even acknowledged they were sending her to the crime capital of the world, so they sent had her uncle enroll her in a private school far away from Gotham. Her parents told her that it would take a while to get to school each day, but it was all in her best interest.

She believed them.

What a mistake that was.

Marinette was excited for her first day at West-Reeves. She could live as Mari Dupain without anyone remembering the girl who was a mere ghost. She hadn’t been to school with other people for awhile but she surely wasn’t expecting such a big fanfare.

The moment she arrived in the office she was whisked away by a cheery half-Guyanese girl with a green jacket and LGBT+ patch. Marinette surveyed her surroundings with suspicion, something she’d gotten used to as Ladybug. She hadn’t had human interaction outside of being the heroine for six years, the only way she knew how to act was how she acted as Ladybug. She even instinctively touched her earrings only to find her ears bare. She almost sighed, but she didn’t have time for her tour guide was dragging her to her homeroom.

At that moment Marinette realized she hadn’t really been paying attention. She was focused so much on the small details, or what would’ve been useful for her as a hero (emergency exits, possible defensive weapons) that she had missed pretty much all of what her tour guide said.

She scolded herself and tried to pay more attention. There wasn’t much to pay attention too however, before Marinette knew it, she was outside a room which her tour guide started to open slowly as she said her goodbyes.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Marinette said as she shook the girl’s hand for the last time. “No prob!” Said her guide shooting finger guns at Marinette as she scurried off to class.

Marinette chuckled to herself lightly before gulping and entering the room. She hadn’t been to school in a while, sure, but she wasn’t expecting the reaction she was given.

Everyone’s eyes were on her as soon as she set foot in the classroom. She stepped in the front of the room, choking back her nervousness. She was greeted with a bombardment of two blonde girls who looked like...Chloé.

Marinette wrinkled her nose at the thought, one of her last memories was Chloé telling her off, saying she wasn’t good enough. ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ Marinette rolled her eyes as she brushed past them.

The two blondes gaped at her as she rudely shied away from them. Marinette walked to the back of the classroom, friendly waves thrown at her (besides the two girls she shook off) as she tried to find an empty seat. She felt confident that if more than two people could fit at a desk someone would’ve invited her over, or maybe they already knew how unnatural she was…

Was it possible the waves and smiles were out of pity? Marinette entertained the thought before pushing it away and moving to the very back of the class.

“Oh my god, she’s gonna sit with the Ice Prince!” Marinette heard a juvenile voice snicker. “Serves her right.” Whispered one of the blondes under her breath in a very Chloé like fashion.

“You think he’ll yell at her?” Whispered a voice too low for Marinette to hear. “Nah I bet he’ll start throwin’ punches!” Exclaimed a burly and immature jock.

Marinette didn't understand who the so-called ‘Ice Prince’ was or why they were being so mean about him. She decided immediately that she didn’t like any of her fellow classmates.

Marinette slid wordlessly into the only empty chair, towards the back of the room. An alluring boy with tan skin, green eyes and black hair that complimented the navy blue uniform the school had was sitting with perfect posture while reading a book. Marinette was actually relieved he didn’t talk to her, she was able to enjoy some much needed quiet time. She never had this much attention when she came back to life, although the only time she really got out of the house was as Ladybug.

Marinette and the boy sat in silence for a while until the teacher hurried into the room. The woman stood in front of the class and clapped her hands, “Okay class! We will get started in just a few minutes, but as you might have noticed, we have a new student!” Marinette felt all eyes flicker to her. “Could you introduce yourself sweetheart?” Asked the teacher kindly.

“Sure,” Marinette said as she stood up, hand rubbing the back of her neck, “I’m Mari Dupain. I come from France, specifically Paris.” She had guessed that the teacher would ask her to introduce herself, Tom and Sabine had been drilling her over and over again so she didn’t slip up and reveal her real identity.

“It’s a pleasure to have you Mari! Why don’t you come up and get your copy of Animal Farm. Everyone had to read it yesterday, and we will discuss it, but it’s okay that you haven’t read it yet.” The teacher said sweetly motioning towards a book at the front of the class.

“A-actually I have read it.” The boy next to her raised an eyebrow as she continued, “When I was homeschooled my maman- I mean mother made me read it in English.” The teacher gave her a blinding smile which made the class roll their eyes, another try-hard. Marinette walked down to the front of the class to grab her copy anyway and walked back to the boy in the back who had set down his book.

“Alright! Let’s dive right in then!” The teacher clapped her hands as she sat on the desk. “What do you guys think Animal Farm is an allegory for?”

It was so quiet Marinette could hear a pin drop, she wanted to raise her hand but was nervous to. When nobody did the teacher remarked, “Ok, raise your hand if you read the book.”

Marinette and the boy beside her were the only two who raised their hands. The teacher sighed and rubbed her temples, “One more than last time.” She mumbled. Sitting up straighter she asked, “So Damian, Marinette, can one of you tell me what Animal Farm is an allegory for?”

“It’s-“ Marinette began.

“Russia under the reign of Stalin and communism.” The boy- Damian interrupted. Marinette gaped, she was about to say something why did he start?

“Well technically not communism.” Marinette muttered under her breath. Damian raised an eyebrow, “How would you define it?” He asked with a slight bite underneath it.

“Damian-“ the teacher started.

“Totalitarianism.” Marinette gulped, “Because communism was they wanted to achieve but it's impossible because of human greed.” The class almost hid under their desks, prepared for the next war. They motioned to Marinette to stop but she hadn’t seen it.

“Hmmm. Interesting point Dupain.” Damian said, Marinette beamed at him sweetly, she enjoyed having a conversation with someone else interested in academics.

She hadn’t had that in so long.

She hadn’t had human connection in so long.

#soulmate injury au

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billykaplan666ya · 3 years

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What is it, to be a hero?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBXXOVOJJpM

Okay soooo Marvel stans, this. I want to talk about the importance of this video. More than the video, the words of Karen and the other characters. I think that these words are the most important words ever spoken in the MCU and, in general, in the whole Marvel universe. We can think, while listening to this, at almost every single story ever told in the comics and movies. The first the pops in my head is for sure Spider-man, ‘cause even tho I love Billy, the Young Avengers and the X-men, my fave will always be Spidey. And the reason why I think of him first is because he’s just like us. I never read of any other hero as relatable as Spider-man ‘cause, if you think about it, no matter how hard he tries, he will always have that sadness with him. He had Gwen and lost her in a fight with Goblin; he had a marriage with MJ and lost it to save May when she was shot after Peter revealed his identity; he finally had his own Parker industries and lost that too. But after all of this, he always stood up. There’s a part of Karen’s speech where she says: “because a hero is not someone who lives above us, keeping us safe. A hero is not a god, or an idea. A hero lives on the streets, among us, with us. Always here but rarely recognized”. This line in particular does make me think about Peter Parker, but it can be extended to almost every other hero in the Marvel universe.

But now I want to talk about every single one of my fave sentences from this video. 1) What is it to be a hero? Look in the mirror and you’ll know: this is so fucking powerful. How many times we looked for a hero outside the comics/movies but never found it? And I am not talking about people with a cape or a mask saving us and fighting bad guys, even tho they’re our favorites. I am talking about that someone who could help us escape the everyday life. The one to be ourselves with. The one to be the real us. ‘Cause too many times we’re there with someone who always makes us feel like we’re not enough, not beautiful, not capable of doing something. I always felt this way, especially in my family. I mean, they for sure love me but too many times happened that some comment from them about me teared up my whole day. Especially when I was still in the closet ‘cause I had to listen to all the things they said about gay people and people from the LGBT+ community in general, and it made me always feel so wrong. Until I couldn’t hold it anymore and I had to tell them, so I did it first with my mother and then the others. But then thanks to a book that we both love, I met the person that now I call my best friend. We met on the internet almost 6 years ago and since then we’ve been inseparable. And she helped me make me realize that sometimes the hero we deserve is in front of us if we look closely in the mirror.

2) It’s too late for me, but not for you. This is your chance; a chance to earn that look in your daughter’s eyes. To become the hero that she already thinks you are: okay this is, maybe, one of the best quotes of the entire Marvel universe and not only the MCU. I don’t have much to say about this, but I want it to write it down in this post ‘cause it’s just so powerful. The fact that Scott (this line is from Ant-man) did everything for his daughter, to become indeed the hero that she always thought he was, is simply amazing. Especially ‘cause in the comics (and for sure it will be like this even in the movies) she wants to become a hero because of her father Scott, and she became one then and joined the Young Avengers. Is so freaking inspiring.

3) It’s not about saving our world, it’s about saving theirs: this instead, made me think (especially) of the X-men. How many times they fought for the people that rejected them? How many times they fought but without anyone giving them credit for saving the world, and still they fought. I always think about the fact that the Mutants are the comics counterpart of the LGBT+ community, ‘cause they are feared just because they are different. Even tho I think that we (gay people ecc.) have nothing different from the straight people. I don’t think that the fact that I enjoy sex with people the same gender as me makes me different from a boy who does sex with a girl. But this is just the world we live in, and if you are not like everyone else then you’re an outcast. This about the Mutants can be extended to a lot of different people, like: “you’re not right because your hair are like that”; “you can’t come with us ‘cause you’re black or chinese”; “you can’t go to that bathroom ‘cause is for boys and we don’t care if you feel like a boy, you’re just a freak”; all this stuff I heard my entire life and I am just so tired because I have learned that sometimes the best people are the ones that society tells you to not look at. So what I love about the mutants, the X-men, is the fact that no matter how many people hates them, they always fight for them. Even tho #cyclopswasright

4) Look into your own eyes, and tell me you are not heroic. That you have not endured, or suffered, or lost the things you care about most: this can relate to what I was saying in the first dot. But speaking about the characters, this can relate to every single character. Just like Stan Lee always said: “superheroes with super issues”. And it’s true. Spider-man lost his uncle and girlfriend, and a lot of other things too. All the mutants who discovered their power by killing someone accidentally. Cap who lost Bucky only to meet him in the present day as a killer controlled by someone. Still, every single one of them kept fighting against everything that came their way. Because that’s what a hero does. There’s a line in the Young Avengers saga called The Children’s Crusade that says: “There are no guarantees. There are no happy endings, but you show up anyway. you don’t give up. You never give up. Maybe that’s what it takes to be a hero”. And I think that this, simply, is one of the best descriptions of a hero.

5) Whatever comes our way, whatever battle we have raging inside of us, we always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. It’s the choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what’s right: This one if I’m not wrong is from The Amazing Spider-man (the first one) and I think about it almost every day. Maybe the fact that is directly from Peter Parker, for me, makes it more important for me but he’s right. We can always choose what and who we wanna be. And whatever choices we make has an impact in everyone’s life around us, so we must always think about what we do, how we do it and why. I think that this is what it takes to be a decent human being.

6) He’s my friend. So was I. This one just broke my heart again so, well, go on.

7) Everything that happens now is in your hands: this I wanted to write it down just to talk about Magneto and how an amazing character he is. I love how he wants to do everything to defend his kind, even tho most of the times the methods are not so, ehm, right? But what matters is that in the end he’s always there for Charles, even in the comics. In the comics now he’s not a villain anymore, or at least not like before. He did stand with Cyclops when everyone was against him, ‘cause he knew that it wasn’t him who killed Charles but the Phoenix force. And if Erik, who’s the best friend of Xavier, is with him then why is not everyone else? In the end, eventually everyone forgave him and a lot of people was on the street with signals saying “Cyclops was right” ‘cause even him embraced the same thought that Erik has, that is they will never be accepted the dream of Xavier will always be only that, a dream. I know that this line from Charles in movie is said to Mystique and not Erik (at least from what i remember) but always makes me think of him.

8)A hero is not someone who lives above us, keeping us safe. A hero is not a god, or an idea. A hero is here, on the streets. Among us, with us, always here but rarely recognized. Look in the mirror and see yourself for what you truly are: I know that I’ve already write it down before but I want it to end with this. How inspiring this is. With this last one I just want to say that we know nothing about the people we meet in the everyday life. You might see someone walking down the street as normal as you, but he may be one the greatest person in the world. Not everyone, this for sure, but I am sure most are. Once I read a quote that says: “every person you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always”. This line goes well with the end of Karen’s speech. We just need to learn and try to be kind with everyone, and if this one ends up to be a douchebag then it’s not up to us but only to them. Be kind.

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bluewavenewwave · 3 years

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Can I get this off my chest? Back in 2016-2017 I was a sophomore in high school, I was taking a government class in school, and it was the 2016 election. My family has always been very conservative, and I’d always just gone along with it, but I was never actively into politics. Because of the election and my government class, I got really invested into politics. Blindly following my family’s politics, I supported Trump, started obsessively watching conservative YouTube videos, and exclusively watched Fox News. I would get home from school, get on the computer and watch about 4-5 hours everyday of videos from people like Paul Joseph Watson, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannopolis, Mark Dice, Steven Crowder, Students for Life, and Live Action. And then we’d all watch (either baseball or) Fox News during dinner and before going to bed. I was literally obsessed with being conservative. I became extremely pro-life and anti-abortion, even though I was very pro-choice in middle school and freshman year. Never in my life have I ever wanted children, or really even liked kids. But to add substance to my pro-life stance, I pretended I wanted children, and told people I wanted to have kids when I was older, even though I knew I didn’t. I’ve been an atheist (and anti-theist) since I was six, but because I was so determined to be a good conservative, I started reciting the “under god” line during the pledge of allegiance in school for a few days, even though I never had before. I even tried to convince myself that maybe I could follow some form of religion. I believed in aliens, why not god? That didn’t last for more than a few hours, but I was so obsessed with trying to fit in as a conservative, I was willing to try anything. For the end of the year essay in government class, I wrote about the “popularity of the conservative movement” (yikes). My life literally revolved around politics and my entire identity was conservative. I was completely brainwashed and I didn’t know it. The thing is, in middle school and freshman year, I lived for music and celebrity/Hollywood news, and I spent most of my time fangirling over my favorite artists. My life was music. Then in 2016 none of my favorite artists were putting out new music/content, and I just got bored and looked for something else to obsess over. And I chose politics.

My life in middle school and freshman year revolved around music. It may seem a bit pathetic, but my entire life revolved around One Direction and Taylor Swift. My life had structure based around the routine music and content I’d get from them. Every year I’d get a One Direction album in November, and every other year (on the even numbered years) in October or November, I’d get a Taylor Swift album, and every year there was at least one tour. And then in 2016 there was no One Direction tour and no Taylor Swift tour. November 2016 was the first year in a long time there was no new One Direction album. 2016 was also the first even numbered year in her career that Taylor hadn’t put out a new album. It was November 2016, my structure was gone, I was bored, and I had no new music to obsess over. But there was an election. And thus my new obsession began.

In middle school and freshman year I never truly identified politically one way or another, but I knew deep down I was liberal. I just would never admit it out loud to anyone because of how conservative my parents were and how much they always said they hated liberals. But in middle school and freshman year, I was liberal, I was a feminist, I was pro-choice, pro-environment, and pro-LGBT. The only politics I ever cared about or got involved in were LGBT issues. I would write LGBT essays for school, or even just for myself. I’ve known I was bi since I was 10, and LGBT issues have always been my #1 political focus, even when I thought I was conservative.

I didn’t switch to conservatism until November 2016. I even said to myself at the time “I know one day I’ll be liberal again”. In reality, I always was liberal, I was just desperately trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I was conservative.

It got really bad in 2017. I spent the entire year watching conservative YouTube videos and Fox News. I think I watched so much conservative content because I was trying to make sure the brainwashing stuck. I think deep down I always subconsciously knew that I didn’t agree, but when all you consume all day everyday is conservative views, you’re going to convince yourself you do agree. I convinced myself I was conservative, I convinced myself I didn’t really care about the environment, I convinced myself I was pro-life, I convinced myself that I wasn’t a feminist, I convinced myself that I was panphobic and transphobic. I brainwashed myself completely and I still hate myself for it. I had a daily journal notebook and almost everyday in 2017 I would write something about politics, or Trump, or the videos I would watch. I think I was trying to write it down as much as possible to try to convince myself it’s what I believed. I was brainwashed but I was still trying to subconsciously fight the side of me that knew those weren’t my true beliefs. Maybe it was because I knew my parents had a habit of going through my things and reading my journals and I wanted to convince them I was conservative.

For my birthday in 2017 in November I got Harry Styles’ debut album, Niall Horan’s “Flicker”, and Taylor Swift’s “reputation”. And I got really back into my fandoms. In 2018 I made a One Direction/Taylor Swift fan account on Twitter, and I was constantly getting content from all my favorite artists. Harry, Taylor, and Niall had tours, and Liam and Louis were putting out singles.

In 2018 I still considered myself to be conservative, but every time I’d watch a conservative YouTube video I realized, and admitted to myself, I wasn’t agreeing with any of it. Every time I’d try to watch a video or Fox News, I’d be rolling my eyes and disagreeing. So I stopped altogether. I completely ignored politics, I stopped watching political YouTube videos and politicized news. I spent most of my time being involved in my fandoms online or watching baseball.

In senior year (2018-2019) I became pro-choice again, and a feminist again. Part of me felt like I was lifting a horrible weight off of myself, and another part of me felt like I was admitting defeat. I’ve always been stubborn, and after two years of being brainwashed into believing I was conservative and hated liberals, it was hard to admit that I myself was in fact liberal. So I held onto the panphobia and transphobia. For a brief period of time in 2019 I was a pro-LGB panphobic bisexual terf (and yeah I hate myself for that, too). I had my beliefs but I never got involved in politics. Senior year in English I wrote my essay on LGBT issues and rights, and I don’t think I would’ve done that junior or sophomore year. During the summer of 2019, I watched MTV’s “Are You The One?” season 8 (fluid season) and it all just clicked. It was literally overnight. I stopped being panphobic. I stopped being transphobic. I stopped being a terf. My sudden switch back to liberal views really does prove to me that I always was liberally minded, and once I stopped trying to brainwash myself into thinking I was conservative, I was able to truly admit it to myself.

I never posted my conservative “beliefs” anywhere online or told them to anyone at school, or left hate comments anywhere or discriminated against anyone. They were just thoughts in my head, and occasionally in my journals.

I wanted to post this because I’ve spent the last year or so trying to desperately erase all evidence that I ever identified conservatively. I scratched out/covered up all my political journal entries from when I was conservative, tore up and recycled all my old school papers where I’d mentioned I was conservative, and painted over some conservative quotes/names/references on a collage my sister gave me for Christmas (that one I feel bad about, but I couldn’t bare to see those things represent me anymore). I even ripped out journal entries where I reflected on overcoming being conservative, and how I feel so much better believing in and supporting what’s right (or, well, left… get it?). I wrote that the highlight of my decade was becoming liberal again, supporting communities I’d turned my back on, and becoming a better person. I ripped out and threw those pages away because I wanted to forget I ever thought I was conservative. I want to stop pretending it never happened, acknowledge my faults and mistakes, and recognize my growth. Because I’m proud of that growth.

I wanted to create this blog to focus on politics in a healthy way, and share ideas that help people, rather than hurt them. This is not a liberal blog run by someone who has only known liberal politics and grew up in a liberal household. This is a liberal blog run by a liberal who grew up surrounded by conservative politics and has spent time analyzing both sets of views, both sides. This is a liberal blog run by someone who knows just how bad conservative brainwashing can be, someone who experienced it first hand. This is a liberal blog run by a liberal who wants to stand up for what’s right.

#do you think i need therapy?#mine #my post #bluewavenewwave

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des-draws · 5 years

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it's officially July but I'm still on pride mode!!! can't stop won't stop

Here are my lgbt+/queer hcs for class 1(g)A(y)!!! Here's what they are in case you don't recognize all of the flags (bc let's be real before I started coloring this I wouldn't recognize at least a few of them either ;^; ), strap in bc it's going to get l o n g:

(also they’re listed in the order they’re shown in the deviantart post rather than this one oop)

- Ojiro is trans!! I feel like he prefers being stealth but still celebrates with all his classmates because it's such a special occasion :') - Tooru is pan and a demigirl!!! It's her first pride and she's hyped!!!! And full of love!!!!! Love Is Stored In The Tooru!!! - Todoroki is a gay demiboy!! His trauma has made his experience with gender rather vague and blurry but he's still happy to have a label to somehow describe himself!! He's using End*vor's credit card to buy all of his friends pride merch!! - Midoriya is bi and trans!! He's been so happy to see his friends discover themselves and even more so to see them celebrating :') - Iida is bi!! As the second of the three members of the Rich Kids Club, he also wants to support and reaffirm his friends by buying them pride stuff!! - Kirishima is gay and trans!! I hc that he's been basically the class' go-to for gender identity/sexuality stuff bc he's been out-and-proud since Day 1 until pretty much everyone had a big coming-out ("I'm gay!" "Cool! I think I might be bi! :0c" "I...might...not be a girl???" "I'm pretty sure I'm [ace/genderfluid/etc.]" "What's that?" "Oh, it's [...]" "...might have to look into that. I think it might fit me too?" " :'D !!!!! " ) (he probably cried bc he was so proud of everyone) and then things calmed down a bit . He's a tinsy bit sad ppl no longer come to him for it but he pushes it down because he's just so!!!!!! happy to be surrounded by so many ppl like him!! - Bakugou is gay, trans and demisexual!! The last part was the hardest for him to figure out and he spent a lot of time being confused at other people, it was when Sero shared his own orientations that he thought maybe he wasn't as alone as he had thought :') - Uraraka is bi!! She's spent years thinking her crushes on girls were just her being jealous/wanting to be friends with them/not as important/stong as the crushes she's had on boys. She's getting over that internalized stuff now and I'm proud of her!! - Tsuyu is a trans girl and a lesbian!! She's been very open about wanting people to call her "Tsuyu-chan" because she chose that name herself!! And she's so happy that everyone here is supportive of her and each other!! - Yaomomo is also a lesbian!! This is her first pride, she's so excited to see all these people with different identities and experiences come together, and while she could easily create pride merch herself she much rather prefers supporing the indepentent LGBT+/Queer creators selling their own! (Hence why she bought two different variations of the lesbian flag for both her and Jirou!) (and probably many more of the stuff you see everyone wearing lol) - (Speaking of,) Jirou is also also a lesbian and also nonbinary!! Her only connection to girlhood is her love for other girls, but other than maybe updating her wardrobe a little she doesn't mind presenting femininely. - Sero is asexual, demiromantic and genderflux!! He's v. chill about everything, he probably found out and was like "Oh. Ok cool. I'm hungy" like he has a very laid-back attitude abt his identity/orientation but he Will defend his friends' to hell and back. Group mom heck yea - Kaminari is bi and nonbinary!! He was scared shitless to the point of losing sleep when he started figuring out that he miiiight like boys too, and even more so when he realised he might not even be a boy?? Thankfully being surrounded by so many supportive people (and having Kirishima as one of his closest and more trustworthy friends) helped him accept himself :') - Mina is pan and trans!! She's always been very open about being a Romantic™ but rather than being the Disaster Pan that gets flustered around everyone, she's the Disaster Pan that flirts shamelessly using Terrible pick up lines ("If we were dating...heh.....let's just say horses wouldn't be called horses anymore ;) " was the first ever thing she said to Kirishima, which earned her an extremely confused and somewhat flustered "I'm????ga y???? ???????" (it was the first time he'd admitted it out loud so he kinda thanks her for that) ) - Tokoyami is bi and trans!! A while back I read a fic that happened to have trans Tokoyami in it and was like "You know what. Yeah I can see it!" Emo culture is probably what helped him realize, with it playing around with and disregarding gender stereotypes and everything. - Aoyama is transmasculine, genderfluid and aromantic!! For the longest time he'd much rather have people mistake him for a feminine/gnc boy rather than a girl. It took him a while to come to terms with his aromanticism, since pretty much everyone expected him to be gay- he kinda expected it himself too, since he never liked girls that way, so?? But when he found out about the term "aromantic" it was like a weight lift off his shoulders. - Shoji is netrois and androsexual!! He knew he liked boys early but he's avoided dealing with figuring out his gender out of fear that he'd be disappointed- he's only ever seen nonbinary/genderqueer people depicted as androgynous and much smaller in stature than himself, so he thought he'd never fit. Seeing everyone else come out (especially the other nonbinary classmates of his), he stopped hesitating and starting working on coming to terms with himself!! - Satou is asexual and panromantic!! I don't really have much reasoning for this, I never really thought about it (or Satou himself) but when the time came to draw this I was like "Satou likes baking.....and puns are ace culture......FOOD PUNS!!! OF COURSE!!!" I'm sorry glkjhklhfdlkhj; - Koda is a trans boy!! He's had trouble recognizing it at the start because he's always been soft-spoken (almost nonverbal) and timid and kind, and """"those aren't traits of a boy""""" but he was so happy when he hit puberty and started growing So Much in stature due to his genes and people started "mistaking" him for a boy!! He came out to his parents almost immediately bc compassion and kindness seems to run in the family and he knew he'd be accepted even if they didn't completely understand!! He was more scared to come out to his classmates but when two, three, four of them come out and are accepted for being trans boys, he knows he'll be safe with them too. - And finally, last but not least, Aizawa is gay and trans!! He might act somewhat aloof about this stuff, but secretly he's very happy that his kids students all have eachother's support, and most of them their families'. Part of him is a little bitter and wishes he had the same kind of support system in their age, but he's going to be there for them if they need him nonetheless. He has his own support system now, and that matters a lot, too.

But wait!! There's M O R E !!!!! - I always love love LOVE how fanartists/editors give some of the characters more animal-like features, so I did that too!!! I went Full-on-Frog with Tsuyu (and I'm rather proud of how she came out (lol) ), but also I gave Mina some Sharp Chompers and a Fluffy lil' tail bc It's What She Deserves, and Ojiro a lil' toof poking out and ears that sharpen a lil bit at the tips? I hc that as he grows, other than his tail he'll start growing more animal features like that- sharper teeth, longer ears, claws and also, get ready.....pawbeans........the last ones give him Heck when they start growing out, and he needs his palms massaged at least once a day while they do :'( His legs get weird too and they end up looking more like a wolf's back legs :0c - I gave a lot of them freckles!!!! bc I Love Freckles!!!!!! also, as my sister very eloquently pointed out, I gave Uraraka "A R M S,,,,," bc. let's be honest. the girl got martial training she's not a twig - Sero is holding the polyamorous flag behind himself, Kaminari and Mina bc.. u guessed it,, they're all dating each other,,,,, lotsa smooches and cuddling and shenanigans bc there's only maybe one(1) braincell between the three of them and most of the time sero has it - Todoroki, Midoriya, Iida, Kirishima, Bakugou, Tsuyu, Yaomomo, Koda and Aizawa are also autistic. Yes all of them. No I won't explain. (unless you ask in good faith and want to share your own hcs pls ask me then I'll explain everything and you can expect it to be as long as this description!!!!!) (I might draw something about it when it's April again maybe *thinking emoji* ) - Oh!!! and Tooru, Kaminari and Mina are ADHD. Kirishima is also dyslexic. - Bakugou has been losing his hearing ever since he entered U.A.- sure he's always used his quirk but never freely to that extend and with so much power behind it, so getting into fight after fight with such close proximity to explosions that big really did a number on his ears. He can hear a little better with the right one than the left, so Kirishima has gotten used to walking by his right side before his custom hearing aids came in, and then just stuck to that. Bakugou's custom hearing aids block out any noise above a certain volume bc let's assume technology has advanced to do that. When he and Kirishima started thinking about working together as heroes even after they graduate, Bakugou requested custom ear protectors with similar block-out features as his hearing aids for Kirishima so his ears aren't damaged by working so close to Bakugou (Kirishima cried). - I'm actually quite flexible on which of the two I hc as trans, or if I hc both of them to be. The "both gay + demi Bkg" is pretty set in my interpretation of them, but I find it interesting how their friendship/relationship could manifest and grow somewhat differently depending on if both of them are trans or if only one of them (and depending on which one of them it is). They're still the same loud rowdy boyes we know and love but there's different conversations to have and difficulties to tackle between them based on that factor alone, and frankly? I Adore It.

Okay that's all!!!! I think. Thanks for reading, if you did!! And if not, I completely understand lol

I hope you had a great pride month!!

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escapekissed · 4 years

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Lucky do you have any favorite pieces of media from the psychological horror genre? Feels like its a genre that matches ur interests very well 👉🏽👈🏽

there are a couple that really speak to me!

first is rule of rose, which is a game that is incredibly formative to me. in a time where i was looking for representation as a young gay person and REALLY into looking up wiki pages for horror games, rule of rose showed me the symbolic trauma of puberty and toxic ‘love’ between girl children and the violence of patriarchal figures that i was looking for. it showed such cruelty but also such strength in its main character, and the symbolism? exquisite.... it also just has such a creepy atmosphere and the fact that the game is near impossible to play along with its shitty graphics for the enemies makes it so. peculiar and creepy in a very special way to me.

catherine is another atlus game near and dear to my heart, tho i dont think i’m ever going to be playing full body for that exact reason. it’s a game basically about eugenics and misogyny, about gods&devils thinking of women as only reproductive objects and the men in their lives that ‘waste their reproductive time’ being tortured and killed for it, taking away a woman’s choice. i always thought it would be so interesting to do trans and lesbian takes on this game, and i have never really? stopped thinking about how this game is so thrilling in its themes of entitlement and stopping people’s freedom to love as they wish. this is also one of the only horror games in which the ‘human element’ actually interests me. so many horror games give u terrible people and i dont give a FUCK ABOUT THEM. but the way this game shows u just snippets of his life as a ‘break’ from the excruciatingly scary (to me, because time limits scare me LOL), stressful as hell puzzles. and u get to figure out the mystery of what is going on in people who would otherwise be boring to you, but in this game are shrouded in just enough mystery that ur actually interested in their boring day-to-day lives. its so satisfying just to drink with ur buds. its like really great gameplay to me tbh. i also just love katherine and catherine and they frusturate me so much and that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do which i LOVE. extremely effective atmosphere setting and worldbuilding, basically.

the lighthouse is my favorite horror movie tbh because it does suspense so well. the movie is literally themed around suspense, the suspense of not getting sexual satisfaction to completion, of being touch starved and lonely and repressed, of being able to hold ur boss but never kiss him, of being fed lobster but it tastes flavorless and bland and u can smell ur boss’s farts the whole time while he prattles on with disturbing sailor’s tales and barks out orders until he’s lulled into his drink. i honestly love this movie. and the acting is brilliant and unhinged

there’s a few indie games i really like that have been either formative to me or i just??? really like their vibe and i can basically tell from them i would like every game in the ‘genre.’

pocket mirror to me is like, this beautiful game about your own inner toxicity and escaping from yourself. i love indie 64-bit games like this, the background art is so beautiful, and while i’ve never played all the way through it because it scares me too much---i love ib and all the games in the ‘ib’ genre LOL.

doki doki literature club i know is a very strange game to like, but i enjoy it for letting the women be actual characters with their own thoughts and feelings. the pychological horror movie ‘i’m thinking of ending things’ is the exact opposite of this game.'i’m thinking of ending things’ is a backwards approach to feminist horror in my opinion. it’s from a male’s perspective of his hallucinations of a girl that once didn’t give him a second glance and his violence towards her in these fantasies. it takes itself painfully seriously. it pretends to deconstruct something that the director helped soldify (the manic pixie dream girl trope) in the public eye. doki doki literature club on the other hand, the passive character who ‘things happen to’ is the man. the active roles all go to the women in the game and what they do to themselves in order to be loved by not just a man, but the player, and in doing so they often become the all-knowing god of their own prison. like tell me that’s not the dopest thing u’ve ever heard of!

twilight zone is a big one for me but 5 episodes in particular have shaped how i view horror forever. ‘to serve man’---where the greatest, scariest thing in the world is not being able to understand the language another person is actually using and for them to manipulate u using ur own, actually wishing u harm as they placate you with your own interpretations. the episode where a rich man’s last will and testament is for his vain, selfish relatives to wear a mask until midnight that reveals symbolically how ugly they are to him. they bicker all night with petty squabbles, and then at midnight he reveals the mask has permeanantly shaped their faces to reveal who they really are and the abuse he suffered under them. the cornfield episode still scares the shit out of me as someone with an entitled younger brother whose entitlement and anger is often enabled by those around us, and i’ve always thought that it was such a good show of like, how patriarchy enables little boy’s violence. the episode ‘all the time in the world’ where an abused man with a shitty life is finally the last man on earth and he can do anything he’d like to do and all he wants to do is read but then he breaks his glasses. and finally! the episode where toys in a box come to life and bemoan their fate as they realize they will be trapped there forever in clothes and identities they do not recognize. these episodes always scare the shit out of me LOL.

besides that i really like. low-budget passion project indie games. the first that comes to mind is ‘the path’ which is about a family of four sisters of various ages all inspired by little red riding hood who stray from the path and are hunted by the woodsman. and then the game that YOU my dear myers! showed me! that haunts me to this day. basically a tape talks to you about the areas of a house and then starts to talk about the house as a living creature. and the living creature is hungry, without you inside it. the living creature is tired of being alone, it’s tired of being abandoned, it’s tired, and it’s eyes are empty with no one in the windows, and it’s mind is blank with no one in the bedroom, and it’s hangry there’s no one in its basement to feast on, to torment as it has been tormented by disuse.

last but not least, i really enjoy the book ‘sharp objects.’ which is not technically a horror novel. but it is about a serial killer, and about women and abuse and it has some of the best writing ever. so i highly recommend it AND the miniseries (watch the miniseries first then read the book bc the miniseries is like. directed better? but the novel is written and characterized better. it’s also very short u can finish it in like a day and a half).

honorable mentions for horror In General (not necessarily psychological horror) are: 1) the birdcage. i honestly consider this movie entirely unsettling. robin williams failing to portray a man that is actually attracted to nathan lane, which could be because they have simply been married so long but also is just awful to me in general bc it makes me feel like even our outwardly gay but still more masc gay men can’t love and be attracted to femme camp gays even when they’re married to them. the fact that both these men that could be so in love, that were so in love at one time, you can at the very least imagine, are told by their only son that they need to go back in the closet to impress some old ass republicans, giving the message that no matter how succesful you are in the gay community, no matter how bright and wonderful a presence you are, no matter how loving you are, no matter how much you love, no matter how interwoven you are in lgbt-ness, the straight people you love most will still try to change you to impress the wold. horrifying.

2) coraline. its children’s horror but that’s still horror baby! i think lately about how much the movie talks about mothers and birth. coraline calls whybie ‘why born’ and i just think about how much she thinks about creating a new life with a new mother, and how going through that small door into a long tube... it’s like crawling into a new womb and being reborn to a new mother that loves you. and that’s horrific from a feminist perspective in and of itself---that your child would feel so unloved and unimportant to you that she would literally... rather die in this life, technically, rather be ‘unborn’ to you and born anew to someone, someone just like you but better, someone just like you but what SHE wants a mother to be, feminine and skirted and smiling. and then there’s the fact that coraline only gives this up when she realizes her other mother basically wants to change her more to suit her liking in ways that would cause her pain, at which point she realizes this whole fantasy is a lie, not real, something meant to entice her and control her and make her ‘perfect’---the same way she wants her mother & father to be ‘perfect’ in a way that causes her to act out and hurt them. it’s psychological horror that’s technically not psychological horror in the best way, something you can really dig your teeth into, something that has so many layers to it. and the animation! gorgeous!

3) finally i have recently watched annihilation. and it kind of changed my life a little bit.... so often we’re used to viewing monsters as either 1) malicious or 2) romantic/sad/sexy. but the monster in this movie is literally a metaphor for cervical cancer.

to me, the monsters and the corpses and all the beautiful scenery in this movie, in every color u can think of, a muted rainbow of flowers and nature at its best and most bizarre and sprawling. i often say that monsters are beautiful, but tbh, i feel like... somehow i always mean that in a way that is near-fetishitic, somehow self-depcrating way, where i want to consider what other people think is ‘ugly’ is ‘beautiful to me’ because what i am also ugly to other people as a monster to the cishet white patriarchy. there are things i consider beautiful, certainly, purely beautiful. but when i talk about monsters being beautiful, it is in the way the sublime is beautiful. it scares me, it haunts me, i love it, i want to possess it as part of me, a totem to carry in my back pocket to make the strength in my own ugliness stronger.

when i saw the monster in this movie (SPOILERS) i was immediately unnerved at this bad cgi abomination that bloomed from the most beautiul cgi cancer death cosmos imaginable. it scared me and i had to sleep with a light on for 2 days after LOL. but i was also moved by its gentleness. by the fact that the cervical cancer alien, when it tried to hurt you, wasn’t trying to hurt you at all. it was simply copying your movements. in the movie, it says that the creature wants nothing. it was simply copying. it was simply changing. it’s a prism of nature---and it corrupts yes, and it can hurt people and things and turn them into scary but still terribly unique and beautiful things that also kill---but the movie says that it wants nothing. it simply exists. it’s a part of nature, same as us, a part of the same universe and cosmos, despite being alien to us and stange and hurting us sometimes in ways that it doesn’t understand.

i don’t know. if i quite believe the movie when it says that, though. because i think if you copy someone, like a child would, you are trying to understand them. you are trying to understand yourself. you are trying to form yourself in another’s image when you have none, and you are failing at that, and hurting people and creating monsters in the process, but you are trying as best as you can to be whole and beautiful and sane like the lovely creatures you’ve met on this earth, or this body. to be part of something great and beautiful. to be part of another world.

maybe it doesn’t want anything. but do WE want anything as children, when we copy adults? why did the bear and the alligator try to eat our heroes if they were not hungry? did the bear and the alligator not WANT to eat? i think everything wants to live, and everything wants to grow, and if it can learn to live better and grow better it Will learn even if that is not its explicit intention. does the alien have feelings? does nature? do we have to personify things to understand them? no. does personifying things make us understand them less? no, yes, sometimes. we ask animals and nature to copy us, follow us, so that we can understand them better. the relationship in between----from the hurt, from the pain, from the droughts and the food shortages and the hurricanes and the fireworks---forms from our kindness and understanding. that our crops are useful, and the man-made mutation of our crops and the help of the ran and the sun is also useful. that our animals may not love us, but they need us, and we love them for putting their paw on our thighs to be pet, for following us into the bathroom even when we just wanted a moment alone.

regardless of its intentions, the alien, cancer, every creature, every human, they simply want to grow. in copying others---in trying to touch, to change, to understand, and be close---we learn to live in the same body, learn to live in the same world. the togetherness--the new sight the prism brings---it’s beautiful. it is beautiful to copy, however poorly. it is beautiful to try. we all shape others to our own standards---we sometimes forget we too, were made in own own perception of others’ image.

#ooc: replies #this took me all day to answer because i had to go to COSTCO in the middle. LOL #destructiveglitch

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readersguidetotheuniverse · 4 years

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TOP 10 PRIDE EDITION

June is LGBT pride month internationally, a very needed celebration to remind everyone that LGBTIQ+ people exist, their feelings are identity are valids and they deserve the same rights and recognition as anyone else. Today is the day chosen in many countries to celebrate the Pride and, also, today marks the 50th anniversary of the very first Pride parade in New York City, after the Stonewall riots in 1969. A very special day in an already very special month. So we thought, what better way to honor this beautiful celebration than to share some of the best LGBT young adult novels of recent years?

I don’t consider myself LGBT, but I do love reading LGBT stories. I personally believe it’s important to read stories of/by people from different backgrounds and going through different struggles than our own. It’s important to educate ourselves, especially considering how f*cked up the world is and how slowly we advance in terms of human rights. Reading these stories may help you understand the way other people see the world and how the world sees them. And we could do with a little more empathy and kindness these days, to be honest.

So far, I have mostly read stories with gay/bisexual male characters, so I will focus on that for this post, but I will continue educating myself reading stories with trans characters, lesbian characters, non-binary characters, etc…

Here’s my TOP 10 gay YA novels:

#10: Autoboyography, by Christina Lauren

Christina Lauren are great just in general so a book of theirs is always a great choice. About this one, I just loved it. Very well written, one of those books you just want to keep reading and when you get to the end you wish you would’ve gone a bit slower so it wouldn’t be over so soon. I love that the main character is bisexual, cause these books mostly include gay men but very rarely bisexual men and they deserve representation too!

#9: Captive Prince, by C.S. Pacat

This series is not for everyone, let me warn you now. It does touch some very delicate, controversial issues (rape, slavery, abuse…) but I promise you, it is way better than it sounds and I’m sure it’s better than you imagine. It’s dark and intense and passionate but tender at times, especially around the third book. You’ll have to wait for romance but it’ll be worth your while. If you give it a chance, keeping an open mind, it may surprise you.

#8: Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan

Today it’s very easy to find amazing LGBT YA books but a few years back it was way harder, simply because there was no market or opportunities for them. This one I consider a classic among these great new LGBT novels for teens or young adults. A good story that really gives visibility and history of LGBT people the importance that they deserve. I also recommend checking out other David Levithan books, he’s got many great novels!

#7: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, by Becky Albertalli

You probably heard about this one already, considering how well its movie did: Love, Simon. So well that they’ve done a TV show inspired by it, too! This is absolutely one of the must reads on coming out and finding your place in the world. Simon and Blue are cute as can be and the rest of the characters are also great, some even got their own book! You’ll love all of them and will root for Simon and Blue from minute 1. The movie is also really good and funny!

#6: Heartstopper, by Alice Oseman

This comic series (or graphic novels, however you wanna call it) is the cutest I’ve ever seen, I swear to god. It will warm your heart and will have you smiling through the whole thing and you’ll just wish for more. The characters are so relatable, their story is just adorable and the drawings are so lovely. Even if you are not into graphic novels, this one is almost a must. There are three volumes out, volumes 3 and 4 are expected for 2021 and 2022, and I’m already desperate for them.

#5: Red, White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston

This is the most recent one of the bunch. A really good, fresh, modern story that defies classic values and the status quo and just makes you happy. This book has been so well received, has won many awards, and I’m so happy about it, because it’s rare to see LGBT books being recognized as romance novels and not in their own separated category. And it’s time to recognize that romance is romance no matter who you are and appreciate good stories. She’s got a new book coming next year and I just can’t wait to have it.

#4: They Both Die at the End, by Adam Silvera

This is not your typical LGBT story. Well, I don’t think this is typical in any sense, and that’s the appeal of it. In case the title is not enough for you, I can assure you this story is very original and well written. This is not a love story per se, this is a story about life, and love’s a part of it. The characters are so cute and realistic. You’ll wish page after page that the title got it wrong. If you like it, I also recommend checking out other Adam Silvera books like History Is All You Left Me and More Happy Than Not. They’re unconventional and great, too!

#3: Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell

This is basically Harry Potter if Harry Potter was gay. Kind of bordering gay Harry Potter fanfiction. And it’s magnificent. The magic and fantasy of the Harry Potter world with the inclusion that modern world craves and lovable characters you won’t get enough of. A bit of enemies to lovers as well, which I just love. If you like fantasy, this is definitely for you. I promise you, you’ll love it. It has a sequel I’m dying to read and there are more on the way!

#2: HIM, by Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen

This is possibly the most mature book on this list and one of my absolute favorite books ever. For starters, I love their writing style. Also they give us both characters’ point of view so we get a full picture of the story, which is great. We can see two young adults figuring themselves out, what they feel, who they are, in a sports world where LGBT people are not usually welcome. And it’s just fantastic. The sequels are also really good.

#1: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

This, right here, is one of the best books I have ever read. Period. Nothing I can say will suffice. The story is so human, the characters are so real and go through so much and you feel every little bit of it. So relatable, adorable, painful sometimes, but mostly just pure emotion. The only thing I missed in this book is more pages, I just want more and more. I just couldn’t stop reading so it was over too soon! But no worries, there’s a sequel in the making!

Happy Pride! Whoever you are and whoever you love, happy reading!

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