#well im not a lesbian so this should just generally be a thing no matter what

[alicentsgf]

What do you like in rhaenicent? What attracts you to them as a couple, and what attracts them to each other in your opinion?

i was so tempted to just respond with 'im a lesbian' but imma bite. prepare yourselves.

the basic cornerstone of it is i love women and i really really love tragedy, so this pairing is Perfection. on the most basic level, episode 1 rhaenicent was just cute like anyone who denies that just hates joy i guess. i was at least a little invested from scene 1.

you've got these two girls who have such different temperaments but then theres this undeniable element of sensual intimacy and chemistry. to me it seemed obvious even without the comments from the cast and crew that alicent and rhaenyra were in love with each other (in some way) as girls. they start off so comfortable with each other, reaching out for each other at every opportunity. rhaenyra even admits, however flippantly, to wanting alicent (and freedom) to the detriment of everything and everyone else. she would leave it all behind except alicent. but this means the dream dissipates with alicents disproval. rhaenyra is All desire, whereas, for better or worse, alicent tempers that because she is All duty and shes been raised to perform it without question (initially for rhaenyra as her companion, then later for her king/husband and their children). the biggest themes in the story are brought forth by rhaenicent's dynamic and by ways in which they act as foils for each other: loss, betrayal, duty vs desire, generational curses, motherhood, the madonna/whore dichotomy and its impotence, and the inevitability of a tragic ending.

they loved each other so deeply because growing up they were each others everything. i honestly think alicent only ever experienced unconditional love with rhaenyra, which is why she clings to the memory of it so desperately, (whereas rhaenyra had aemma perhaps?). alicent and rhaenyra were never without each other in their formative years, and they probably thought they never would be. in some ways they were torn out of each others lives with the same amount of violence and resulting mutilation as aemond losing his eye. they had molded themselves into each others empty spaces, making up for what the other lacked. they're incomplete without each other and deep down they both know that, and its why even after everything, with all the reasons they shouldn't care about each other anymore, they still find themselves desperate for reconcilation. and alicent still wont see rhaenyra dead, even when shes a possibly lethal threat to alicent's family. otto sees the truth of it, forcing alicent to acknowledge it too - even at the peak of their estrangement a world without rhaenyra is a world alicent cant make sense of.

and heres the really delicious part: they're going to destroy each other. its inevitable and it always was, because the world they live in would never have let them do anything else. its the curse of the targaryens meets the curse of westerosi womanhood. idk maybe at this point some people might wonder 'well then why bother having them love each other at all, if it ends with them alone and afraid and hating each other?', but isnt that the point of tragedy? love matters even if it sours. it matters even if it cant save anyone. theres catharsis in acknowledging the cost of human frailty and not doing anything to suggest things should or could have happened differently, but just encouraging us, very simply, to indulge our own ugly, stupid humanity.

the truth is the moment their relationship first truly gripped me was actually episode 6. i loved young alicent and rhaenyra but it was seeing their older versions so at odds with one another in contrast to their past that captured my interest. which is why i feel 'shipping' is just... not the right term for what where my brain is at with them. i feel it implies i want things for them as a pairing that i dont: i dont want them together, i dont want them to be less resentful, or to reconcile, and for all the jokes i dont even want them to be physically intimate. i want them to hate each other and i want them to hate how much they still care, i want it eating them alive, i want them unable to deny it because its the love, grief, and betrayal thats at the root of their resentment.

for me it seems like the reason grrm and the development team okayed this change is because whilst a 'history' book like fire and blood doesnt need an element such as this, the change in format to an intimate portrayal made it almost necessary. rhaenyra and alicents dynamic anchors the plot whilst also critiquing the nature of the shows own source material for its inaccuraces and misogyny. as a result the story of the dance becomes not just a story of targaryen entitlement and the resulting retribution, which i would have been a fan of anyway, but the tragic love story of two women who fell victim not just to the unforgiving nature of the world they were born into, but to their own human frailties. and im honestly just basking in it because this is so much more than i could have hoped for.

so i guess my point is that rhaenicent are barely even a 'couple' to me lmao, im studying them like a live specimen under a microscope and im not afraid to prod them with sharp implements.

#ask #anon #hotd #alicent hightower #rhaenicent #rhaenyra targaryen

[askthebutch]

This may sound stupid on my part because I’m still new with being sapphic and getting to know butch and femme space culture . also English isn’t my first language, that’s why the grammar seems off or weird.

I find myself very insecure with my gender expression when it comes to dating and being sapphic in general, like I’m still struggling with it till this day. I feel like I have to compromise my gender expressionism with the liking of my masc/butch crush who prefers masc in general (this person doesn’t know that I’m sapphic, I’m not out of the closet just yet, I live in a homophobic household and country)

But here’s the thing I don’t mind being both masculine and feminine, but it feels like I have to forcefully express my masculine gender identity to the max so my crush would like it? Or at least for someone who is lesbian to notice me because I suffered a lot of ‘ you look straight’ comment it doesn’t also help that I look like a teenager even as I’m reaching my mid 20s.

I feel like I need an older bucth’s perspective on this matter of gender expression. Since I’m coming in terms on being femme it just further complicate things as I’m not too femme myself, I don’t like frilly clothes that much, im not into the color pink, but I don’t wanna call myself a masc/butch because I don’t follow with that label as well. It’s just a bit confusing (if you’re confused as well then I can’t blame you) I like make up and looking cute in a dress but I also like dressing up masculine , or should I say teenage boy style. I like both masc and femme but I feel like I have to choose so it won’t be so confusing in my future dating life.

Anyway thanks for reading this butch person, it means a lot if you read it (or even reply it) hope you’re doing well! 💙💙💙

First of all, your English is very good. You communicate clearly and eloquently.

Your gender identity, or expression, comes from exploring who you are and trying new things. That's especially hard for you because of the homophobia surrounding you. I'm from a very homophobic place too. It was difficult for me to come out, and to express myself as butch. It still is sometimes.

When you suppress your truest self for the sake of survival, any chance to express that part of you feels coming up for air from deep underwater.

Meeting another available gay person can be so exhilarating that we overlook signs of incompatibility. It just feels so good to be seen. Even if you have to change or close off a part of yourself.

But when we do that, the hidden part of ourselves remains and that weighs on us over time.

It's like living in a house and never opening a certain door. The space behind the door will always be there. And some days you won't notice. And some days you'll have to remind yourself that if you open the door, if you access that hidden part of yourself, then what you find might be so extraordinary that you can't shut it again. You're afraid that you'll find nothing at all. Or you're afraid you won't know how to explain what you've found. You become afraid that people will leave. But it's your goddamn house. It's your life.

Nobody's attention is worth shutting out all that you can become if you allow yourself to explore. Open the doors. Build an addition. Knock down some walls. It's your house. Your home. Your life.

#ask the butch #lots of metaphors today but that's ok #lesbian #butch lesbian #femme lesbian #wlw #wlw community

[gamergirl929]

Anon that keeps claiming “Ali is speaking volumes by not saying anything” she literally hasn’t said anything on it. ALI has been the one who has tried to be an adult and move on. ALI has been the one who put her team first. When the news first broke she was supposed to have a press conference, said conference was then cancelled by both Ali and the teams manager because they both care about the team and knew damn well that that press conference would turn into the “what happened? What went wrong?” gossip column instead of focusing on the team and their games. Ashlyn fans can’t grasp the fact that some of us who have been following Ashlyn since her UNC days know that Ashlyn is problematic. YOU Ashlyn fans and some of the Ali fans are the problems. Ashlyn has chosen at every possible turn to make it seem like she did nothing while Ali has been focusing on herself, THEIR kids, and her family in general. Ashlyn continues to make herself out as the victim when Ali has not said one word about her or posted anything about her. The real and true problem is Ali shouldn’t have to tell the fans to back off because if she never mentioned the divorce and Ashlyn or someone close to her did that’s on them and they should have known better than to reveal that information before one of Ali’s biggest weekends.

The heat that Ashlyn is getting is of her own making. You want to get a divorce? Fine. You want to date Sophia Bush? Fine. But the fact is there are pictures that were posted and the internet is forever you can’t just delete things and assume they aren’t circulating elsewhere. Ashlyn has and will always be an adult child because she doesn’t understand that when you do stupid things you get even stupider rewards. This is not the first time where Ashlyn has been accused of cheating by fans.

Ali not speaking on it is not a problem nor will it ever be a problem because the news 1. Did not come from her 2. Of the two parties one was still on the team while the other was literally becoming irrelevant 3. Ali posting she’s in her lemonade era is a sign she was moving on and unaffected 4. The fact that teammates who have literally been on a team with Ashlyn sided with Ali that shit should speak volumes right there 5. Maybe Ashlyn should think twice before posting similar quotes with her new girl and lastly 6. Ashlyn could have pulled the plug on the news and apologized for the timing in which it came out And made a statement that was sincere that the information was not leaked from her nor did she know that it would come out and guess what she didn’t.

So if you want to blame Ali for not saying anything go ahead but she literally does not have to if she herself didn’t release this information to the public. As for the fans they take everything to the extremes anyways so why would they even listen to her. As for me personally I used to like Ashlyn and then she had some really fun lesbian headlines before her and Ali became official, that sort of turned me off and then well her personality turned me off, but I could never be Ashlyn because whomever I marry will be treated like an absolute queen if she’s an athlete I will be the number one fans all day everyday, anything she needs I got her but if we get a divorce im sure as hell not going to let that shit be released before a big game no matter how mad we are, no matter what the situation, her and her team come first. Ashlyn should have just gone radio silent for a while but noooo she couldn’t do that for herself and let everything die down.

Sorry for my rant but we are absolutely not going to act like Ali has to say something. Nor will I sit here and listen to the Ashlyn Stan’s pretend like Ashlyn has never done terrible things before.

I couldn't have said it better myself, rant away anon, rant away, because you hit the nail right on the head.

[ghosttwinkdigifag]

musings on the nature of gender, the language of transition and the nature of self.

several lengthy paragraphs of stream of consciousness Gender Theory under the cut.

can i riff?

im struggling to word what i want to say. i have literally done years and years of research on this subject because i exist in the world as a trans person and my opinions on the matter have only become more firm over time. please forgive me if this is extremely long-winded and a bit difficult to follow, but i am trying to explain every step of this thought process as clearly as i can.

socially-speaking, it's true that gender roles are constructed. if binary womanhood and manhood as they're ascribed in a euroamerican society were inherent truths then all people would be heterosexual, and we know that isn't the case. this is a truth that is obvious enough for most people to be at least passively aware of. (though, there are still some who question the existence of gay people. i digress).

it's more difficult to prove to a large number of people the ways in which some part of gender must be inherent, outside our widely accepted ideas of biological sex, especially without implying falsely that all parts of it are. LGB+ trans people are an important part of this conversation - if every part of manhood and womanhood is purely rooted in social expectation, or if the state of being trans is intentional and related entirely to social conformity, it should not be true that someone in a westernized society can be transgender and not also heterosexual. there are some mental gymnastics you could do to try and justify why such a large number of genuinely heterosexual, cisgender people would choose to give up both of these social privileges, but i have yet to hear any that are convincing. it must be true that a sense of gender is inherent and not social, otherwise the existence of LGB+ trans people would have no reasonable social explanation. (the idea that trans lesbians have an easier time in society than cis lesbians is provably false and rooted in ignorance on the part of those who believe the experience is analogous with living as a straight man). this isn't the only matter at hand, but i think it's an important sidenote to cover. my main point is that in asking any trans person how they know, their answer will boil down to "this fits better". you're sure it's true because it feels undeniably correct, even in the face of explicit denial. it's hard for people to grasp this unless they feel it for themselves, but it's similar to how you can innately identify what kind of food you are craving at a given time. even if it takes you a moment to specifically pinpoint, people can generally just tell what kind of food they want. even if, say, you make food and realise you don't actually want it, you still realise that you don't want it. i think this is a particularly good analogy, but i am autistic, so maybe it is not. to me, asking how someone knows they are trans is a bit like asking a pregnant person how they knew they wanted to eat peanut butter and pickles on rye bread specifically. your body is generally good at nudging you forward when it needs something. this is all well and good, but where does it leave us in terms of separating the inherent and social aspects of gender? the more you break the two things down, the more they feel like disparate elements, like totally different things. i think a lot of this cognitive dissonance comes from a struggle to pinpoint the right language.

because, if your internal identity as being a man or a woman is something that is part of you inseperably, a true facet of your sense of Self (which, again, i believe it is,) then how is it not biological? if it originated from you and exists physically within your mind, how is it not biological? we have no specific, hard evidence on whether it is physiological or neurological, but true mental processes only exist within biological beings. instinct is a biological phenomenon that inanimate beings do not possess. they may have set training or programmed parameters, but not true instinct in the way that a jellyfish or flower possesses - the ability to act based on innate knowledge in order to "think" without even having a brain or mind. everything that lives possesses some sense of instinct, and every human possesses an innate sense of self regardless of how it specifically manifests. scientific research on the sense of self is fascinating because we've found plenty of evidence to suggest that it is a tangible thing, one that manifests physically inside the brain (though we haven't decoded exactly how). parts of the brain associated with a sense of self are closely linked to areas associated with emotional regulation, physical sensation, and how you interpret the world around you. it's been suggested that humans have both an embodied and disembodied sense of self, which would mean we are capable of having 2 separate concepts of self relating to the body and the mind, both of which are considered to be partially static and partially fluid. the fluid aspects (the collective self) are said to be impacted by things like memory and social perception. the static aspects (the individual self) are the things that are just true about you. both of these factors impact how you feel and operate on a day to day basis. this is possibly evidenced by body dysmorphia, and may be an explanation for the nature of gender dysphoria as sometimes intensifying over time without treatment, while still existing absent outside influence. this is true for things like your taste in music; you can listen to a song 100 times and eventually learn to appreciate it, but you can also listen 100 times and still dislike it. while one opinion may be based on longterm experience, both are positions you are predisposed to holding based on nothing more than who you are as a person and how you operate. again, i am aware that fMRI technology to determine brain activity is a theoretical science, and i'm not interested in determining exactly how people become trans because that type of thing never leads to good outcomes. but the theories that are available align fairly well with my personal experiences in life, and also seem to apply to general concepts outside ideas of gender. these concepts, to me, are applicable to things from gender identity to your sleep schedule to whether or not you experience depression. the logical explanation would be that this aspect of self develops in the same ways that other aspects of self do, based partially on life experience but mainly related to predisposition and brain chemistry.

so, again, i ask; how is this not biological? regardless of how or why these things occur, all the evidence we currently have available to us says that they do occur. without knowing the exact details, we can say firmly that biological sex is made up of a number of factors which are not always neatly aligned in a predictable way, and that the self in general is observable and must include some static elements to account for differences between people, even those with extremely similar life experiences. twins often have different tastes in clothes, food, and activity despite spending their formative years in the same situations. they are verh capable of developing differently despite developing in the same womb from the same egg. why is it then such a leap to treat gender this way? why is it such a leap to say that an internal sense of gender is likely, in fact, an aspect of biological sex which is capable of differing from the rest at some point during development like any other? if gender identity were learned then gender conversion therapy would be effective. (take it from me; it is not). even the fact that some small portion people detransition citing a change of heart is proof that even those people do have an innate internal sense of gender, which they are not capable of altering through outside influence even if they are determined to do so.

calling this concept a sense of gender is the easiest language that we have, but it also ties it to social gender roles in a way that leads to confusion, argument and in-fighting. calling it something like mental sex is technically correct, but conjures images of misogynistic pseudoscience that states that women are inherently mentally inferior due to negligible differences in brain matter composition that are likely specifically related to this "sense of gender" and not skill-related traits. (the idea of the slight differences in brain composition between cis men and women being related to gender identity is supported by studies of trans people's brains showing distinct composition that is not entirely aligned to either binary cis gender. this is not exactly relevant but something i find very neat).

so. like, seriously - what do we do here? the word transgender feels needlessly confusing, if it is necessary to separate social notions of gender from biological concepts of sex as described above. but the word transsexual seems to imply that a person has changed sex, rather than having merely aligned their physical sex characteristics to their sex as it relates to their innate sense of self. i think i personally still prefer transsexual, since it does technically feel more accurate, but i wonder whether or not we might eventually start using a different word entirely to describe these things.

#queer theory #trans positive gender theory #i mean it boils down to a lemgthy post about language

[nyahuaisang]

oh nooooo is poor baby upset that something they like is inherently queer in nature 🥺🥺🍼🍼

Notice how I'm really just discussing the themes presented to us by the anime and yet they're acting like im screaming in their face. They don't do this to other people discussing other aspects of the series in the comments, only to me, because I was discussing a topic they didn't want associated with the series. "Wokism knows no bounds" and "calm down" as if i was acting deranged instead of doing what everyone else is and adding my own thoughts about the series like everyone else is doing. Classic "paint the queer as crazy so people wont listen to them" tactics..

I've mostly been talking about heavenly delusion in the context of it being excluded by other queer fans but there are tons of queerphobes who has and will try to push back against this series being queer as well because let's face it. It's an amazing series. It has a great plot, great characters, great animation, great soundtrack and most importantly, it doesn't have that oh so helpful "genderbender" or "yaoi" tag that would help them differentiate the "normal" media from the corner that all queer media is pished into, so of *course* the bigots will try to insist that it's not queer. Because they can't love something that's queer, so they need to make it cishet.

Even people who may say they're not queerphobe or has 'shown their support for the yaoi and yuri genres and the fujoshis and fudanshi will most likely not address the queerness in this whatsoever and dismiss it with wordings like "it's really more of a bodyswap" or "i support the lgbt+ but this doesn't really fit into that" or "not everything is queer and this isnt even really queer" or "it would be a disservice/offensive to tbe lgbt+ community if i were to call this queer" etc...etc...because why?

Because they like it. And because it doesn't stay in the nice little corner labeled "uhh woke gay stuff" where they push anything queer into and pretends to uplift it but they only uplift it because it's in that little convenient corner away from all the "normal good" stuff.

Do not and I mean DO NOT let them do this. This is not just a one off lesbian kiss that never comes back, it does. Kiruko's transplant into a girl's body is not just for fanservice or romance shenanigans, it is written into the plot. Maru does not rescind his confession after learning that Kiruko is a boy, in fact, he outright states he's still in love with him. Maru also immediately asks if he should stop referring to him as "Sis", to which Kiruko says he can still use. There will be blatant and direct intersex characters. It's not just a one-off thing that happens, no, the queerness is literally BAKED into this. It may not be the main focus like other queer series such as shimanami tasogare or my lesbian experience or miyano and sasaki but it is still there and unrefutable.

Don't let the queerphobes take a series that is inherently queer in nature and overshadow that queerness with their cisheteronormativity.

The fact of the matter is that kiruko is set to be the main romantic interest of Maru, a boy, and there is just no way to frame that in a way that it is both cis and hetero, which, in turn, makes it QUEER.

"Queer enough" is not just in issue with truscum but its also something queerphobes will try to use to reject queer media.

Don't let them take this from us. We already don't have much as it is and what we do have all end up being removed from the general audience and pushed into that little "queer corner".

#heavenly delusion spoilers #heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #天国大魔境

[genderqueerdykes]

So like, I’m not a lesbian, or even a girl (transmasc bisexual) but could I still call myself a dyke? I’ve known I’m trans for a while but I’m still only pretty new to genderfuck and all that and I’m not really sure what’s okay and what could be considered offensive. Thanks.

hey, that's a good question im glad you took the time to stop by and ask ^ _ ^

generally speaking, the slur dyke should be reserved for lesbians, nblw/wlw, drag kings, and transmasculine people, as these are the people targeted by it. i would say generally speaking it should be reserved for people who identify as lesbians, however, transmasculine people of all identities have started reclaiming recently it due to how often we get called the term due to society not really understanding that trans men exist currently. this is kind of an "at your own discretion" thing, as many trans women and transfem people also reclaim the term fag freely, as it has affected them greatly in their lives as well. it just depends on if you feel it's appropriate for your situation, i guess.

i would say yes, since you are transmasculine, it is okay to reclaim the term. that's just my take on it, of course, you're ultimately in charge of what you do and how you identify, but that is how i personally see that sort of matter at hand. hope that helps, take care

#asks #answers #dyke

[menalez]

Y'know when reading this discourse about bisexual women and lesbians I was inclining more towards understanding and agreeing with side that puts lesbians over bi women but it was your own shitty ass behavior that made me reconsider everything.

"There was just one woman who called bi women as cocksuckers"

No, there are plenty of lesbians who have done that and y'know it (your lovely bestie desisapphic excuses it too). They are generally not radfems but they do exist.

Stop saying bi women getting concerned over such remarks is "harassing lesbians".

And please pretend that you guys don't perpetuate rape culture at all but one of your mutuals legit reblogged one of your posts about bisolationist (who's a bi male csa survivor) saying that he's lying about his rape. As a csa female survivor I was appalled by this behavior. These are the feminists I am supposed to look upto?

And a lot , a lot of homosexuals love to say that bisexuals lie about their highest rates of r*pe and ipv even though every study done on it proves otherwise.

Idc if you believe biphobia isn't real or not. But there is a widespread form of prejudice that bisexuals face at the hands of both homosexuals and heterosexuals.

And every fucking time you guys just love to say "well it was just ONE of us" when it's so many fucking of you.

Bi women on this app have been continuously calling that out but you don't care. They're just lying no?

Bi people may or may not have privilege over homosexual people. But they sure as hell aren't privileged in general. Straight people don't treat them like royalty ya know? Actually try listening to a bi person who has overcome their internalized homophobia and the way straight people have treated them.

Bi women who identify as lesbians are bad evil lesbophobes. But straight people who identify as bi are not evil. No it's the stupid bisexuals that are the "spicy straights" right? No matter what the case it is always bi women's fault. They aren't affected by any other community at all! Right? Bi people don't go through any actual struggles (again in the words of your bestie desisapphic).

And have you guys ever thought that us lesbian women, as and straight women too don't have to firsthand experience to know what bisexuality is and that we should at least not police what it is like to live in a homophobic society as a bisexual? Like I generally don't see many known bi radfems here make lesbophobic comments. The only ones I have come across are eldopoism somebody and femaleinsight.

And lastly maybe maybe just consider that some of those bi women who seem lesbophobic go through internalized misogyny or homophobia which makes them shit on their own ssa and entertain moids more. That they're nothing but victims of patriarchal mindset too. It might change your perspective a lot.

weird u think not tolerating lesbophobia is putting “lesbians over bi women”.

“plenty of lesbians have done that!! and ur bestie desisapphic excuses it” just sounds like “all lesbians i disagree with form a unit and are best friends and never disagree” to me lol but im nearly sure i never argued only one lesbian in the entire world has ever uttered those words. im pretty sure my argument was that lesbians aren’t anymore likely to say such things than any other group and that it’s not enough of lesbians to justify stereotyping lesbians and being lesbophobic. but interesting how u twisted that!

“stop saying bi women concerned over such remarks are “harassing lesbians””

even tho i never said taking issue with such remarks is lesbophobic or harassing lesbians. i myself have taken issue with such terminology, but again it doesn’t mean im gonna accept lesbophobia in response to it either. it’s such a double standard that u think lesbians responding to lesbophobic OSA women by using misogynistic language is bad, but responding to that same lesbian with lesbophobic comments should be given a pass. both are bad. that’s where i stand and that’s why you wrote me this long ass message whining at me.

“please pretend you don’t perpetuate rape culture at all but one of your mutuals..”

weird. we’re mutuals now? based on what? bc i thought mutuals were supposed to be people that follow each other, but now mutuals are just people who reblogged my post that i didn’t agree with or respond to or ever interact with myself? also love how u just pretended like i can’t possibly be a victim of CSA myself lol.

i read thru the rest of ur rant but it was more of u putting words in my mouth, making assumptions, and insulting me for arguments i haven’t made bc u don’t know how to read. also acting like i said bi ppl get treated the exact same as hets (weird bc i said the exact opposite of that) or like i said only one gay person has ever said anything bad about bi people (weird bc i never claimed that) or that gay ppl can’t have prejudiced ideas about bisexuals (weird bc i said biphobia as in an individual prejudice is possible and some gay ppl do display it) and more just to get mad at me that i don’t look past lesbophobia. cry more about it ig or maybe take it up with the ppl u actually take issue with instead of putting words in my mouth & then whining random people are my best friend or mutual even when that isn’t the case whatsoever to justify ranting at me.

[laundryandtaxes]

Any advice on dealing with people in my social circle who dont support genital preference? This girl (who ive had sex with and is my best friends roommate) told me she thinks a cis woman who refuses oral sex from a trans woman would be transphobic. i feel like thats extremely entitled and rapey and im definitely not going to have sex with her again but she's very in my social circle and I don't want to cut her off. Should i just avoid all discussions abt trans politics with her?

I would try to separate this from "trans politics" entirely. There are political issues regarding the question of how we can maintain the ability of trans people to live full lives that are as healthy as possible, and the general organization of society around men and women's differences and the need specifically to have some safeguarding for women because they are generally smaller and less strong than men and men commit enough sexual violence against women for that to be a consideration taken into that structuring. Those are political issues because they deal with how we are going to structure society.

So firstly, this is not trans politics. If anything it's gay politics. There are only two relevant questions here. One is whether homosexuality exists, or whether it doesn't. This is the most fundamental, but you might need to circle back to it and start with the second question, because many people who toe this party line have functionally convinced themselves to just ignore sex in any instance where everyone isn't happy to have it acknowledged. Either homosexual people are lying about our sexual orientations (and, despite some people crying on the internet about how homosexuals are being cruel by being homosexual in public, many of us didn't figure our orientations out easily and quickly at the age of 4 and never ever question or investigate it) or we are incorrect about them. This is the only logical way to address the existence of people who say they experience only attraction to the same physical sex, and the existence of people who think that's a hate crime- we must simply be mistaken if we aren't just bigots, and I have seen some especially egregious people say they think lesbians were just making up the notion that whether your partner has a penis or not is relevant to what sex acts you two engage in. Certainly I would try to sus out the nature of this woman's opposition to the right of homosexual women to sexual agency, because a lot of the whole mess of how we got into this is that a lot of people have been willing to just say things that even they don't actually believe but have never thought about. I would say that the relative clarity in my inbox is proof that, no matter how many times someone wants to piss themselves on the internet about it, the majority of people who identify as any variety of LGBT, at least at this point, have a very hard time rationalizing away the notion that some people are homosexual and that that is in fact allowable. And the majority of people who are not some variety of LGBT find this whole thing abhorrent and ridiculous. No amount of telling women to not even discuss this in private has actually kept them from doing that, and most people, I think, have come to the realization that it does in fact matter to most people what genitalia their sex partner has, and it's fine that it does.

The second question is what bodily autonomy for women means, and in what other instances she's okay with bodily autonomy being so severely limited. I might try to start here if she is generally progressive. Women are not unfamiliar with coercive rhetoric that is intended to change our own actions to suit the desires of others. She's absolutely encountered this reasoning before and hopefully she's been able to see through it. She might initially feel uncomfortable with this question and recoil instantly, resorting to, "Well lesbians don't have to do x BUT-" and it is at this point that you can remind her of all the "buts" she's already encountered wrt women's autonomy. I would offer up a few thought exercises intended to get her to consider what autonomy really is. For instance, some people believe that women should be able to get abortions so long as the circumstances leading to the pregnancy were sufficiently bad- this is conditional granting of autonomy. Rape abortion exemptions highlight that the question for these people is not whether women have the right to not be pregnant with a fetus they don't want to carry- apparently the answer to that question is yes, but only if she earned the right to have an abortion by first suffering enough. You'll see a lot of similar language around this issue. Sure, some women have been traumatized by penises- darn, fair enough! I guess those women are just prevented from being able to be good and normal people who are able to see past their own sexual orientation bigotry. This is not unprecedented for women. It might be helpful to highlight for her that any time you say women can do x BUT, it places immense pressure on women not to do that thing because we have been socialized to do as asked. People who push this line know that it is especially effective on women because female socialization is basically the practice of making someone painfully compliant.

[sparklestardesigns]

Saying people can't be pansexual and bisexual at the same time is homophobic, as well as bi-/pan-phobic. I understand that you're young, but saying these things (especially without sources - i did google the word "bipan" and nothing about queer people up, let alone why the labels are "bad") reflects badly on you.

okay im going to first apologize to the people who may not want to see this cause i know this blog is for fun. not for discussions like this. so again, i apologize for responding to this and bringing it up yet again.

now, onto the topic at hand, i'm gonna explain MY OPINION on it, even tho i did politely ask to refrain from asking about topics such as this. but in the future please do not ask anymore of these questions. i've had to delete three already!

firstly, i am pansexual and i DISLIKE this term BECAUSE in my eyes, it's panphobic and biphobic. it's something that i believe is erasing both sexualities and just combining them for simplier use because people think "they're the same thing" regardless of being two terms for two different things.

secondly, as someone who was formerly bisexual before discovering pansexual fit better for me, i don't... think that people usually use "i'm bisexual and pansexual" to explain their sexuality? i understand confusion within sexuality and this stuff in general, which is perfectly normal and okay! it's just more common for it to be used as "i'm either bisexual OR pansexual" which, i am perfectly fine with.

i know i mentioned bipan lesbians, which is where it originated from which is even more icky than this. i have a little thread of why bipan lesbians is harmful, https://twitter.com/hilanard/status/1214091448439726080?s=20

another amazing source that goes more in depth about it and erasure of the terms when they're combined as such, https://communistsans.tumblr.com/post/621662792324415488/bipan-lesbian-is-not-a-term-you-should-use-let

lastly, this can reflect badly on me yeah!! but it's my preference of comfort, i would prefer if people who use this sort of term to just not interact with my blog. i'm not going to be hunting them down just because of it, but i will stay away from them if i do notice it. id just prefer to not get called panphobic because of my opinion on this matter!

i hope this answers your question anon, and the other several anons who've been asking. again, do not ask anymore questions about this. if you support them or anything listed in my DNI, you can unfollow or block me i don't care what you do. i'd just prefer to not talk about this on a SPARKLE CAT BLOG nontheless.

any further discussion about this topic or topics related to this will be ignored & deleted. please do not submit any more of these sorts of asks.

#very sorry about having to talk about this yet again #but something about getting called panphobic as a pansexual made me very upset so had to say something : #i will not stress this enough but seriously. do not talk about this to me in my inbox nontheless #had a very similar ask to this but thought it would be fine to delete #guess not apparently???

[blacktinnedpeaches]

ok i thought i was having an unexplainable & mysterious depressive episode HOWEVER ive suddenly realised this morning it’s textbook obsessive-compulsive, just... worse than normal :| but suddenly it all makes sense tbh lol, the hyperfixations and the round-and-round thinking and the black and white ‘you are a terrible person’ and the obsessively looking up stuff about how to forgive yourself after cheating on a spouse (which again ive never done! but one of the major OCD avenues for me is my relationship with ben so yea, ofc it makes sense that i would get obsessive about how people rebound from what is imo one of the worst things you can do to your partner bc it makes me feel better that ben could “forgive” me for being terrible - bc i HAVEN’T cheated on him!)

one of the worst things about ocd is how it just latches onto whatever is most important to you and just like ... goes about attempting to dismantle everything good about it lmao :( im feeling currently like i don’t “deserve” ben (when even if that was true it has very little bearing on relationships generally tbh so it shouldn’t matter one way or the other) and feeling very guilty about it, and i thought this was just like depression-guilt but NO i am 100% sure now it’s OCD again!!! fuuuucks sake!!!!!! i should have immediately recognised the thought patterns tbh but oh well

anyway i feel good about this realisation bc suddenly (as ive said about 5x) it all makes much more sense and i feel like it’s something im much more used to dealing w/ than like surprise despression for no reason. i dont usually get the obsessions about my own behaviour but ive certainly had them about a) ben as a person b) am i a LESBIAN?? c) whether or not i am going to cause a house fire d) whether or not i am going to be responsible for the cat’s untimely death... etc... the ones about ben are always the most distressing so yes: this tracks that id be so devastated about another batch of OCD bullshit about how ben deserves better than me lol

#i do think to a certain extent this is just How I Am tho bc i have been like this since birth #and then having my mum bring me up entrenched all this shit #but yeah i dont really know what to do when it gets bad ill be honest #gonna tag this cautiously w/ #OCD #to see if anyone has any incredible tips

[booasaur]

hi. im very sorry if this is weird but i saw your post about greta from generation coming out as ace and when i watched the show i saw so much of myself in her character and im just confused because i identify as a lesbian but im starting to think maybe im ace too. but the thing is i dont want to be. like ive had two gfs and i didnt really kiss either of them but honestly i didnt want to? but i Do want to be intimate with someone in the future like i really really want that but when ive had the chance to do so i just find myself not wanting to. im not sure if its because i was with the wrong people or if im ace and just denying it and i am so confused and im like how am i supposed to ever feel fulfilled in a relationship if i dont have sex and im just freaking out a bit ok sorry

Okay, anon! I’m sorry it took so long to reply, I was gathering my thoughts.

First, whatever you want is genuinely going to be defined by whatever you want. That is the key here. I’m sure you’ve already been asking yourself "Do I want to be intimate with someone because I feel I should or because it’s something I want?” and don’t have the answer yet, but you don’t need to answer right away! That’s the fun part, nothing here has to be on anybody’s schedule but yours. 

And that includes the definitions that come with labels. There’s that saying, right, labels are descriptive, not prescriptive. Your desires and boundaries come first, they decide what you want and do, not the label. Maybe one day you’ll know and you’ll find relief and freedom in picking it, and yet, you may also change your mind the next day. That’s fine! 

Maybe those were the wrong people, or the wrong time, or anything all, and you’re not ace. Maybe you are, or a shifting point on the ace spectrum. You don’t have to decide now, there’s no deadline, no age by which you have to submit out a form. 

When you say “How am I supposed to ever feel fulfilled in a relationship if I don’t have sex?”, it’s not a requirement. Those are other people’s rules, and a decreasing amount at that. When we talk about society’s expectations, there are a LOT of people who would define, say, adulthood by drinking. If you haven’t done that, you’re missing out, they say. There are some cultures that focus on that to a weird degree. Well, I’ve never drunk a drop. But you’ll say, I dunno, that example’s a bit of a reach, it’s not relevant to relationships. Fine, but you know what are? Marriage and having children. For a LARGE number of people, a Full Real relationship has to have those. And yet, you would agree, right, that people without them can have fulfilling even life-long romantic relationships?

I can talk about people who are perhaps too elderly or unable to have sex, are they not in relationships? But you actually don’t need a reason. You can just not want it. Or want some forms of intimacy. It’s really up to you and your partners to decide. As long as you communicate and are open about it, THAT is the thing you need for fulfilling relationships. Any kind, whether or not sex is involved.

Another thing to think on is that until we got the final reveal in the last ep of the season, a lot of people speculated that Greta might be demi. If you saw a lot of yourself in her, maybe that’s what you related to. Not to say that this is necessarily some kind of loophole where you can be like, ohhh, thank goodness, that’s me, I’m “normal” after all. Not at all! It’s just another option. Just focus on yourself and not what other people think. For me, when I was going through my own “am I a lesbian” era, it was tough not because I had any kind of conflicting feelings about it, I was surprisingly fine about it, it was just the thought of how difficult my life would become. It was everyone else I was focused on. But in the end, they don’t matter enough to decide my comfort.

I just can’t reiterate enough that in this, what you want is the only thing that matters. It doesn’t matter what your friends, girlfriends, siblings, or parents say. If you don’t want sex, there is no relationship worth forcing yourself. If you’re not comfortable with it, how can it be something you really want, you know? There’s such a huge difference between wanting something and thinking you want it. Take a deep breath and remember there’s absolutely no pressure to do anything here, to have sex, to decide a label. Just take your time with it.

#replies #femslash related stuff #sent on 20210711 #Anonymous #5 #generation hbo #the way I have to tag that because it might inadvertently spoil someone lol

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

Hi, same anon from before (i would have replied in the og post but i dont want people insulting me on my blog, sorry). I have been reflecting for a long time actually and i know that my thoughts are wrong. The sad thing is that I didn’t use to think this way. Ironically this started after i started questioning my own gender identity and im mad because if i was not going to be 100% cis then *at least* i could be a trans man. I hate this stupid middle ground that im stuck with (which funny enough, is similar to my experience with bisexuality since i’m “mostly straight” or heteroflexible).

I dont think by any means that trans men are “confused lesbians” or anything of the sort. I didn’t want you or anyone else reading this think that I believe that bullshit. Trans men are men and im jealous of them for being men, as in that way they’re able to escape misogyny and lots of other benefits. Im angry because they were born with the same genetic configuration as i was and yet they get some of the benefits that cis men are born with. And yes, i resent men in general but I don’t believe they’re evil and I DEFINITELY know that women are not saints. I have tried to get away from these sort of posts, but yeah on twitter women i know (former highschool classmates) are constantly sharing stories of rape, murder and abuse perpetuated by men against women. They don’t directly say “men are evil” but they do perpetruate fear of men and in this pandemic that has really affected me (it didnt use to before)

Whenever i bring this to my therapist she tells me to think of something else which is a temporal solution but it doesnt help my problem. I don’t think she understands but also i cant change therapist.

I hope i could have made myself more clear in this :( i dont wanto be a bad person

And no, unfortunately im not transmasc. Im comfortable in my body as it is (whenever i dont think that because for what i look like im more likely to get r*ped)

Honey, I don't know how to say this without sounding like I am telling you what your gender is. Of course that's up to you. But you have just found so many ways of saying that ~unfortunately you are not transmasc~ that I can't help but get the feeling that... maybe... you are?! You know... me as a cis woman, I don't feel sad about not being a man. I don't envy men for their gender, I don't envy trans men for """escaping womanhood and misogyny""". Which, as Tiger pointed out in their reblog, isn't even true - transmascs are also often subjected and targeted to misogyny because transphobes are misgendering them as they please.

I also think you are soaking up way too many things about sexual assault, if that's so present on your mind. That's not healthy. Yes, rape is something that happens in this world and we should talk about it and try to prevent it. But a) rape is never the victim's fault and no matter what someone's identity is that doesn't make it any better or worse. and b) if this topic upsets you so much that you are literally worrying about it all the time then maybe take some time off. Log off twitter for a while, use a blacklist to filter out the topics that upset you so much. It is not healthy for anyone to constantly worry about how "likely" it is that you will get raped. I don't know if you have experiences any sexual trauma but whether you did or not - if this makes you so anxious then maybe that's also something you need to deal with. And if your therapist isn't helping you then maybe you need to find a new one (one who is also specialised in queer and gender things, if this one isn't?)

It's another aspect of radical feminism to paint a """universal female experience""" that consists of suffering and inherent victimhood and I feel like you are somehow paddling in that stream as well. The thing is that for many woman, myself included, this is totally unrelatable. Yes, misogyny is a thing that exists and it affects different people in different ways. But it's not on my mind 24/7. The fear of being raped isn't on my radar at all, unless I find myself in a situation where someone is actually harrassing me. I don't feel shackled by my existence as a woman when I just live my life and I certainly don't experience my statistical likelyhood of being sexually assaulted as an inherent part of my gender. That is all to say that: what you are experiencing and what you are attributing to your (apparent) connection to womanhood is NOT a universal experience and you can break out of that. You are not doomed to view womanhood that way because this is a narrative - one of many - and you can choose to rewrite it to your own liking.

Whether you come out of that as a non-binary person who may or may not be woman-aligned. Whether you realise you actually are transmasc or maybe """just""" a gnc cis woman.... that doesn't really matter at this point in my opinion. Because you have so much negativity associated to literally any gender option that I think you gotta try to clean the slate and rebuild a more positive or at least neutral look on things.

"yes, i resent men in general but I don’t believe they’re evil" is not a healthy or even at all reasonable way to think. Why resent men in general? What justifies that? If you on principle despise half of the human population then this has got to take a toll on your mental health so please try to figure out a way to dismantle what makes you think like that and learn to think more critically about blanket-statements that are being made about men (or any gender).

Maddie

[mueritos]

hi sorry can u explain to me the d slur thing? /gen like i don’t understand why it’s bad for the person to callout a nonlesbian to say the slur -🧜🏽

To be honest Im not too keen on the current idea thay reclaiming queer slurs are only meant for specific sub groups within the community. For the most part, these slurs have been weaponized against most LGBTQIA folks regardless of their identity (because for the most part, bigots can only call us generalized slurs since they are awful at clocking us, but now not so much). This is why we get issues when it comes to reclaiming certain slurs, like the F slur. While historically used against gay men, saying that it can ONLY be reclaimed by gay men doesnt sit well with me since the slur has been used against the ENTIRE community. Same with the d slur, while it has historically been used against lesbian women, there are instances of it being used againsg other LGBTQIA folks (tho prolly not to the same extent as the f slur).

A note i want to make is that queer slurs are VERY different from racial slurs in terma of reclamation. Racial slurs and queer slurs should only be reclaimed by their specific community, but we do not see the same level of reclamation gatekeeping in racial slurs than queer slurs because if youre BIPOC, theres no doubt that you have a historical connection to those slurs. But if your queer, your specific identity shapes your experience with the world, so theres a chance you may even have been exposed ro certain words or slurs, maybe not even have any weaponized against you.

That being said, I appreciate the take of “if it has been used against you to marginalize your marginalized status, you are free to reclaim it” in the context of reclaiming queer slurs. This does not mean that reclaiming a slur means it is not part of your initial vocabulary, no, it may just mean that you recognize the power of the word that you reclaimed as now your own. Also, certain slurs have already BEEN reclaimed, and therefore it is not my place to use another word for a person who wishes to be called by it. If a lesbian wants to be called the d word and is proud of it, I will refer to them as such because I recognize the power that word brings them. Keep in mind that not all queers are young, and many elder gays use “slurs” and old terms to decribe themselves, like “transexual” or “dyke” or “transvestite”.

We also need to understand the context of these words. When we call each other these slurs when around each other as a community (and it has been established that these words are okay to use for each other), they are either reclaimed or simply words, because you could argue that many of us never saw the words as anything negative in the first place, regardless of its misuse. In this context, these words bring power and community. But if someone is weaponizing that word to target a queer persons marginalized status, then that is being used as a slur. Therefore I dont think it’s appropriate to call it out within the community unless specific parties are uncomfortable with it and we DO see it as intercommunity marginialization (like maybe a lesbian that hates gay men?? i know its weird but theres a lot of hate even within the community). And yes, it is completely valid to feel uncomfortable around certain words and their use, but have a conversation about it if you can first before trying to shut down its use in someone (unless, like mentioned before, the person is literally bigoted).

I think its more meaningful to ask why certain queer people use certain words instead of telling them to stop. We need to understand that decades ago, it didnt matter whether it came out of a butch or a gay’s mouth, what mattered is that is brought community. This language discourse is a clear indicator of the lack of queer historical knowledge within contemporary queer society. I highly encourage yall to look into notable queer activists, and if youd like to start to understand the historical power “dyke” brought to the community, search up the “Gays for Dykes” movement.

This was very brief but I hope that answerwd ur question and im open to conversation about this topic! Be aware that I only have the experience of a nonbinary gay transmasc whos a white latino and all of these factors affect my view on this. Either way, I hope it helped!

#pittsanswers #queer history #lgbtq #lgbt #lgbtqia #hopefully my take is not a bad one but ive seen a lot of older gays share the same opinion #also i wrote this on mobile so if there are mistakes sorry

[meerschweinchen-archive]

Ah what is the thing about dating as a play act you mentioned in one of the tags? It sounds like i would like to read it if you can find it!

i did have two pieces in mind when i wrote those tags, one of them being this bloodknife article which has reached infamity by now and the second being the answer to a question about how, a lesbian wirter on here, could write attraction between men so convincingly if she herself did not feel any attration to her subject matter herself which i Knew i should have safed but didnt and thus cant find anymore (if anyone would like to help out...pls) anyway thats not really what you asked and i have to dissapoint you there im afraid bc the 'dating as a play act' thing was my own train of thought (though im sure it has been written about by minds more eloquent than mine) its... that modern dating culutre feels a lot like.... auditioning as the role of attractive stranger hoping to get promoted to viable romantic partner to then land a gig and act out the role of "girlfriend" "boyfriend" until either a long term contract is agreed upon or the other person becomes dissatisfied with the performance and you get fired.... of course this is a borad generalization but its just. So weird to me that there are ""rules"" about romantic dating that go beyond like. treating the people you love with care and respect. and speaking of love.... is it even part of modern dating life the way its advertized? how do we define it? how can it be possible if 'dating' for a large part is based on keeping the other person from knowing you... on keeping up a perfomrance that you can only dare to drop after youve sealed the deal with marriage... the whole 'well im married now so i can /finally/ stop doing x performative thing'... like its just so??? disingenuous. how utterly depressing and joyless :/

#if youd like to come back and add your own thoughts youre more than welcome! #and seriously if anyone know which post im talking about...blease blease

[hamliet]

when does a relationship become queerbaiting? theres a book that i really like and the 2 male leads characters have a lot of storylines and arcs where they get closer and i think some of the tropes used can be similar to the typical romantic tropes, neither of them end up with anyone at the end of the story since its more about found family and the long journey the whole cast goes through. they even get shipped by another character as a running gag. personally i always saw it as being open to interpretation but recently the revised edition of the original novel came out and there were several lines those 2 characters had about each other that were kinda toned down, i didnt think much of it but i saw a post about how it was clearly baiting and the author was being homophobic for toning it down. i didnt think it counted as baiting since as far as i know, the novel was never advertised as anything with romance and the author never pretended they were gonna end up together. i am definitely a little weirded out by the decision to change those specific lines but a lot of the story stayed the same, including a lot about their relationship so idk what to think.

i guess im more confused on if it counts as baiting, or even substext??

Sooooo I am not the best person to ask about this, because I’m a cis woman who has thus far in life only been attracted in a romantic sense to cis men. I can talk a bit about baiting as a general concept in fiction, but you should definitely take it with some grains of salt. 

Baiting, for me, is like deliberately playing up an aspect writers have no intention on delivering on. Usually this is done for ratings, to tease fans, fanservice, etc, but without payoff, it is just bad writing. Red herrings are good in writing, but only can be successfully used if the actual result is more satisfying than the herring. This applies to writing in general, not just to romantic ships. However, when the baiting involves historically underrepresented groups for no reason other than to get fans to spend money consuming the story, I think we can all agree that becomes something more grotesque than just bad writing: it’s insensitive, socially irresponsible, frankly hurtful. 

Some common examples are Bridgerton which has a gay character, who is extremely minor, yet they played up this character in advertising. Also, Rizzoli and Isles I think actually had its producers mention deliberately playing up the lesbian subtext to hook the audience without ever intending on following through. 

That said, context also matters. Like, there are aspects of the culture of the work’s author, the target audience, and such that come into play here also (so like, romantic tropes differ by culture. For example, enemies to lovers is common in Asian stories but less in the west, and the “girl who pursues a guy” is extremely common in Japanese shonen in particular, while it is very much a cringe trope that almost never results in romance in American fiction. So if a writer reads, say, tropes that are common in America into a Japanese work and says it’s baiting, that’s quite possibly not the intent even if it may have been the experience of the reader. So even if there was no intent, there can still be hurt, and that hurt can be real, if that makes sense. 

The definition of what constitutes ‘baiting’ varies. I do think that, in true Tumblr fashion, the term gets thrown around a lot and loses its intended meaning, or is so rigidly defined that creators can meet the letter of the “not a bait” requirement while ignoring the spirit of it.

To start with the latter: regarding something hitting the letter of what most wouldn’t consider baiting yet not really the spirit, let’s look at The Rise of Skywalker. This movie had a genuine lesbian kiss in it... between two characters we’d never seen more than a glimpse of while others are celebrating around them. Since it has a kiss, it’s not baiting, right? Well... the director deliberately said in the lead-up to the film that he included it because he “wanted LGBT people to see themselves in the film.” If “see yourselves in the film” is like a nanosecond of background, then, like... idk. Baiting or not, it feels icky, and I know some people consider it baiting and some don’t even if they don’t like, love that representation. But I think this is more queerbaiting than like, Nobara and Maki, who don’t have explicit romantic coding. 

Going back to the former, in terms of ‘queerbaiting’ losing its intended meaning... I think there are a lot of really poorly written romantic ships out there, often het, while a lot of same-gender relationships are really well written regardless of whether there’s romantic coding within the text. The main emotional energy in stories with 90% male characters (as frankly many if not most stories are, great job world) is probably between two men. There’s just so much more potential with well-written characters who share a lot of screen time, so of course people are going to ship them. In my opinion, this does not inherently make it baiting, but it certainly creates an environment that lends itself to baiting even if the writers aren’t intending to do this. 

Like, you could say the main emotional energy in BNHA is Bakugou and Deku. However, Bakudeku is 100% not queerbaiting. It’ll never be canon romantically (I don’t even ship it lol). There has been nothing to imply romance between them even if the main emotional message can be seen in their development. Deku/Ochaco is likely to be canon, but there is a significant lack of genuine emotional energy between them (the story’s plots and themes don’t coalesce around their relationship), so it’s probably going to feel forced. In contrast, Naruto/Sasuke had an actual kiss in canon, which while played for laughs is a lot more direct romantic coding than anything between Bakugou/Deku. I actually don’t think the majority of Narusasu is baiting, but I definitely think that one moment in chapter like 3 was really poor fanservice for yaoi fans, and has not aged well at all. 

It is also the case that fans can confuse headcanons with what is actually in the text, and that just never ends well. For example, Clover and Qrow’s ship in RWBY: a lot of people read Clover as gay, which led to “bury your gays” outrage when he died. A member of the crew stated explicitly they had never intended for Clover to be a love interest for Qrow, and truthfully here was nothing strictly romantic in their relationship--nothing like a kiss or a declaration of love or a parallel to another romantic couple. Hence, I don’t personally consider it queerbaiting or bury your gays, but a lot of fans felt that it was and their pain is legitimate even if I think textually the argument isn’t there. The one thing I do think is true about this in particular is that there was also no strict platonic coding, which encourages headcanons. Clear writing, yo. It can help. 

Note the word “can” not “will,” because strict platonic coding doesn’t always fix things, either. In what was probably a reaction to the outrage over Clover’s death, you had extremely blatant platonic coding of Ruby and Penny’s relationship this season leading up to Penny’s death. Ruby refers to Penny as “our friend” three different times, wherein “friend” sends a platonic message and “our” sends an even stronger message that it’s not about the two of them despite the fact that their friendship is one of the sweetest and most interesting in the show. A lingering Ruby-Penny hug then is followed by a lingering Penny-Weiss hug, then Yang, then Blake, etc. The writers went out of their way to hit people over the head with “platonic” and yet they have still gotten accusations of bury your gays and queerbaiting because people will see what they want to see in a story. 

Seeing what you want to see in a story also isn’t inherently bad. People who are underrepresented are going to have to read themselves into stories because Lord knows writers ain’t incorporating them well enough if at all. It’s why “Mary Sues” are common in fanfiction, which is primarily written by people who are not straight white men: because where the hell else are we to see ourselves in fiction? So essentially the macrocosm of culture creates this problem, both in terms of baiting and the misuse of the term, and the only fix is a shit ton more good representation.

#ask hamliet #writing stuff #Anonymous

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

i hope this isn't weird but I've decided I like how you interact with this show (not something I can say for a lot of fans) and now I wanna hear what you have to say about Eric and Jenny's friendship. I have this image in my head of the two of them dying her hair pink in a VDW bathroom (Lily thinks they should've gone to a salon but that's no fun). feel free to talk for literally forever I'm actually obsessed with them ~ily

not weird at all! that's really sweet of you to say, actually. whenever i get qns like this, often the first place my mind goes to is fic, so if that's not something you were looking for, feel free to ignore the next 2 paragraphs, lmao. 

a lot of my jenny and eric feels are in these fics that i've written: "a remedy for bland sweet potatoes" (sort of like, a fix it but it doesn't fix anything - it's canon compliant and jenny & eric discuss some of the things jenny's done), as well as "the lights that stop me (turn to stone)" which is a post-canon blair/jenny fix-it in some ways, but is also a character study of jenny as a whole & there's a lot of j&e feels in there (jenny and eric are housemates! they look out for each other and defuse derena tension together LKHFKLDHG).

other fics that highlight some great jenny and eric feels (both of these are kinda sad KLHDFKLH) are "withdrawal symptoms" by lunasol28 and and "fell from grace (it left me in this place)" by @vanderwoodlings .

now i’m actually gonna answer your question........ putting it under a read more, ‘cause it got long!

anyway, to answer your question as much as possible - i have a lot of feelings and i'm not sure how best i can do them justice - i have so much to say about jenny & eric. @mysteriesofloves said this thing once about how jenny and eric's friendship sort of parallels blairena friendship, in the sense of like - you love this person so much and no matter how much you hurt each other, you find your way back together, and i think that's extremely true of them both. in a lot of ways, i feel like jenny and eric are each other's most important person - best friend, support system, family, all of that. unlike dan and serena, when jenny & eric find out about rufus and lily they're actually excited to be step siblings which i find incredibly cute.

there's also - i love the fact that during their first meeting eric tells jenny pretty much everything about how he's in the ostroff centre and why he's there, and jenny doesn't judge him or treat him any differently - instead, she shows up at his room later with board games, just to spend time with him. we see things like this at various points, i feel, where jenny & eric's lives are sort of unstable or at a low point in some way and they're both able to just be there for each other without having to do any sort of grand gesture.

there's also definitely, uh... while i see the blairena friendship parallels, i'd make my own danessa friendship parallels. much like dan and vanessa, jenny and eric are incredibly lonely, and also, deeply different. they're not like their peers at st judes/constance! they struggle to make friends, and they have to navigate that. in a lot of ways, the only real friend either of them has is each other, despite the fact that there are instances when they've let each other down or hurt each other.

@nocakesformissedith made a post that i don't have the spoons to find right now - one of her jenny masterposts - that's basically an image of eric and jenny and it's like, "don't ask gay people how we know each other- we know each other from being gay". and i feel like eric and jenny absolutely and totally had that specific intimacy of like. being queer and knowing you're queer and having sat with it for a long fucking time, in high school, when nobody else around you really gets it. to me, my lesbian jenny headcanon explains a lot of the jenny & eric closeness - it's like, when you're young and gay, your One Gay Friend feels like the ONLY person who understands you.... sort of because they are! navigating any form of queerness in high school is terrible, and i'm just glad that they had each other when they did have each other.

it’s so notable to me that like - even though j&e spent so much of s3 at odds/fighting, when jenny’s gone in s4, eric goes through a major downward spiral, with the whole damien thing and everything else. jenny was his anchor! she was the one person who made him feel a little less fucked up about everything, and a little less lonely. and as for jenny with eric - i feel like jenny’s really comfortable and open around eric, and unlike with other people, for the most part, doesn’t try to be someone else around him. part of why eric feels so alienated by jenny’s behaviour in s3 - other than the fact that she was mean to him and jonathan - i feel is just that the way she was behaving with him was fake, and whoever else jenny was fake around, she’d never been like that with eric before. this is more like my interpretation, though, it’s not necessarily stated by canon or anything.

anyway this got depressing!! i do have fun jenny and eric feelings, i promise. i bet they listen to music together and when they’re studying together, they draw in each other’s textbooks. they probably wasted time doing online quizzes together, and there’s definitely a trash tv show that is Their Garbage Show (probably much to dan and serena’s bemused annoyance in the sense of like ‘do you HAVE to quote that again?’). jenny and eric dyeing jenny’s hair together sounds like something they’d do!! (incidentally, in a script of the pilot that didn’t make it, eric had BLUE HAIR. it could’ve been canon and i am so sad that it was not!!! we came so close to getting it. blue haired little eric lives in my head rent free.) 

i think jenny and eric’s friendship is so special because it is SO normal, and literally nothing else in their lives is normal (im pretty sure i said this in some way/ form earlier) - in the sense of like. family issues. kids at school being mean. their own mental health being challenging. their lives are so complicated and heavy, both of them often end up needing to be more mature / adult than they actually are (lily comments during e’s 18th that eric has always been so “serious”, and i always think of how JENNY went to hudson and brought alison back because rufus & alison couldn’t resolve their marriage without their 14 year old daughter’s intervention, apparently). so yeah i do think they’d do all those bestie things - like, sleepovers, friendship bracelets, buying  matching clothes together, sending each other pictures of things like “should i buy this” - wrong generation, but if they were gen z kids they’d definitely have the biggest snapchat streak ongoing, and not in a performative way - they would genuinely talk to each other THAT much. 

also, for your consideration: imagine jenny and eric baking together!!! i think they’d be really serious about it, and they’d also have so much fun.

#anon #jenny humphrey #eric van der woodsen #meta #i guess? #i hope this is a sufficient answer! i have so many feelings abt them #but they're hard to write about LKHFLKHG #fic rec