Vampires have taken over the world so everyone is a vampire. Except for 7 people. Now, that makes human blood incredibly rare, and of course, it's better than animal blood could ever be.

Vampire!Hob runs into a very pretty, pale vampire who is all ghotic and emo. Human!Dream has no idea how his new boyfriend hasn't figured out that he's human yet, but he's glad that for the first time, someone wants him for him and not for his rare blood.

- 🚒

(Bonus: Hob brings Dream the best, tastiest animals he can find to spoil him, and Dream has to figure out a good way of corpse disposal because the situation in his freezer is getting ridiculous.)

ASKDJFGJSJA I love this bc it's like a reverse on the usual vampire tropes, and also the idea that Dream just looks so fucking vampiric, no one would ever suspect him of being human!

Now, it is technically possible for vampires to drink from each other. But they have far less blood than humans, and it also just tastes really bad. So although Dream is sooo horny about Hob’s fangs and really wants to be bitten, he knows that Hob will never do it. So he has to resort to staring at Hob’s fangs and furiously wanking about it later. The fangs are just so sharp and shiney and Dream wants. Whenever he sees Hob snacking on one of those fresh carcasses, Dream can't help himself - he gets hard. And to think, he used to be a vegetarian!

Hob is a very doting boyfriend so he's always concerned about Dream’s health and eating habits. Generally Dream can get away with drinking something like red wine and Hob will simply assume that it's blood. But Hob does worry about him. See, Dream’s got all these little physical quirks. His heart beats so fast (normal for a human, worrying for a vampire!) and although he's deathly pale, he does tend to flush red sometimes. Hob worries about him, tries to feed him up and pamper him. He just loves Dream so much!

Eventually the truth comes out and Hob is honestly relieved - he thought that Dream had some kind of disease, so learning that he's just human is really a weight off his mind. Hob promises there and then that he'll never bite Dream, but Dream actually disagrees. He obviously doesn't want to be drained or turned, but he doesn't mind if Hob just has a little nibble now and then.

So, Hob still gets to pamper Dream. He doesn't bring quite so much fresh meat, but he still encourages his beloved to eat an iron rich diet. Its important, if Hob is going to drink from him. And really... Hob is the one being pampered, when it comes to meals. Dream’s blood is like the finest cuisine. Hob is genuinely in ecstasies every time he's allowed to sink his fangs in. Honestly he acts a little drunk afterwards, which is surprisingly flattering for Dream.

Plus Dream's greatest fantasies are coming true, and he gets to ride on his boyfriend's wonderful thick cock while being equally penetrated by the fangs at his neck. No more hiding his arousal - he fully intends to show Hob exactly how much of a turn on his fangs really are...

One well fed vampire + one horny human = happily ever after <3

raggle frabble

how are there self-declared progressive people Still using that one "yes" meme format like you cannot reclaim that one nor should you want to, the antisemitic white supremacist eugenics trash is Baked In, and that does not go away by just having the topic be something goofy and non-political? bc the meme format itself is so aggressively political? you can't actually make the Hitler Particles on it go away by just editing it to have "yes" guy say something woke, despite what people seem to think? and every time i see a variation of it i have to do a background check to make sure whoever thought it was funny to post is not just literally an actual fascist hiding behind memes? because that's literally how their dogwhistle meme shit is Supposed to work? bc now its everywhere and nobody thinks anything of it at all, except people who now have to wonder if someone posting this crap indicates true genocidal malice hiding itself, or just irony-poisoned dipshittery helping them hide

i thought we covered this years ago and i'm baffled it still hasn't quite gone away??? some of you guys really, really, really, wanted to use dogwhistles for.................. fun? i guess? alright. are you an asshole, or...?

or do we like? need to explain? again??? what it is you're doing? when you "reclaim" that particular meme? because what you're doing is this:

"here's a meme where i labeled you the ugly person who is drooling or upset with a weak chin and dark hair and beady eyes probably can't get laid (traits clearly indicating a person is slugbrained histrionic & wrong, with no further elaboration even needed as to why their opinion should be ignored, bc isn't it obvious why? look at what they are!) now, as you can see, the contrast is important, as i labeled myself as the handsome stoic white person with blonde hair and blue eyes and i will have NO trouble passing on my visibly aryan genes because i'm a gigachad who fucks (traits clearly indicating i'm enlightened and correct with no further elaboration needed as to why my opinion can be assumed to be objectively correct, bc isn't it obvious? look at what i am!). hahaha! take that! i love reclaiming neonazi memes rooted in fascist logic to even work for my own political purposes! because it's all about feeling like i was the one to turn a weapon against its master, finally wielding its power rather than examining it, how it works, and ultimately discarding it as a loathsome tool i don't need if trying to accomplish anything good. because i am very progressive, and a comedy genius also."

that is what that meme format is, from the ground up.

people should not be utterly indifferent about letting it remain in their communal repertoire for self-expression for any random opinion no matter how serious or trivial? if ~irony~ isn't a good excuse for an actual neonazi to be let off the hook for implicitly asserting the validity of eugenics in a public forum for dissemination, why is it an excuse for anyone else, exactly?

oh right.

i forgot how many people on here are white goy with white guilt that they want to be free of feeling the sting of ever again without ever truly confronting their own internalized racism, or their internalized sense of innate superiority that they clearly still ache to demonstrate to themselves and their peers via public displays of social humiliation and mockery of those deemed too Undesirable of Body and they especially don't want to ever confront the ways those things manifest when they genuinely think they're on to something good or funny and sticking it to somebody who 'deserves it'

UNHOLYVERSE CLOSING THOUGHTS YIPPEEEE YIPPEE YIPPEE

it’s 1am and I’ve finished it :)

the plot was fucking amazing as was the writing, it was like a really really good tv show, or maybe an amazing movie (pt1) and its slightly more deranged sequel (pt2 and 3). I think I definitely preferred all things unholy as a whole, but yeah the next parts really did feel very sequel-like, in that the first one was The Story and the second and third were building on that first core story, expanding the characters and world. which ummmm btw the lore is insane??? so much going on lmfao but I think it all worked really well. the fallout boy stuff was fucking wild though icl because WHAT 💀 I’m also obsessed with the idea of god talking to frank in the form of the cardinal dream, that worked soooo well and still leaving it open at the end is great. I’m so glad frank and gerard got a happy ending, I ship those stupid twats SO hard I’m literally clawing at the walls they make me INSANE RRAAHHHH!!! icl I really didn’t care about mikey and ray’s romance like at all but it worked as a source of conflict and was pretty cute

I kind of forgot it was meant to be mcr fanfic for a while lmfao, which brings me on to I guess the most important part which is my main takeaway on the whole rpf thing

as I’ve said in a post before, I really struggle to picture voices and faces accurately in my head when reading. well except when it comes to buffyverse characters, but that’s just because those shows are so deeply ingrained into my psyche forever that istg I could literally channel buffy summers at this point and just become her. lmfao but yeah I really struggle with that! so when I’m reading, I just kind of create a vibe, a vague mind’s-eye image of a character, it’s very hard to explain. so for me these frank, gerard, mikey, etc characters were subconsciously already way far removed from the real people, like I had to consciously make an effort to make them sound and look exactly like them in my head. but like I said, it felt like a real piece of media like a tv show or something, so to me the unholyverse characters are just that - characters. it really felt like mcr playing movie roles lmfao which I was perfectly happy with. the romance and other relationships were written soooooo well, the real problem was ofc the smut!

I don’t like smut in general, not in a judgy or censor-y way, I just get no joy or kick out of reading it and all it does is make me feel awkward. but with rpf smut, even though I see unholyverse frank and gerard as fictional characters, I can’t ignore the fact that THIS IS FULLY EXPLICIT WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY PORN BEING WRITTEN ABOUT REAL PEOPLE 💀 read it write it all you want, personally I find it uncomfortable and it just doesn’t do anything for me. made me think too much about the fact that it WAS rpf, yk?? got me thinking about the real frank and gerard and how fucking weird it would be to read smth like that about yourself idk, also the fact they have wives and kids…. 😟 gosh idk it was very very well-written smut, it just made me so icked out the more I thought about it

but anyway, OVERALL: I loved it. it was so good, will definitely reread, bookmark, and think about it for a very very very long time. possibly scream and cry and tear my hair out too, idk. part 1 was my favourite by a long shot, it’s so iconic, and feels pretty removed from parts 2 and 3 in a nice way that makes it feel like a movie and its strange sequel. I’ve discovered I like rpf when it’s good and when it’s a complete au and the people feel like original fictional characters in their own right. I don’t enjoy rpf smut, though, AT ALL, which isn’t a surprise bc I don’t enjoy smut in general, the rpf aspect just made it way more uncomfy for me personally. kind of feel the need now to bleach my brain out and consume normal mcr content just to remind myself of the disconnect between unholyverse frerard and the real people lmfao

OH ALSO THAT

I do NOT ship frerard irl, that shit’s fucking weird don’t do it. yes there is a difference between fic like this and saying two married friends and colleagues in real life are actually in love with and attracted to each other. I do for sure ship unholyverse frerard, as I’ve said they’re fictional characters to me

graduation day 🌸

It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.

The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.

The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.

The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.

The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?

also: I mostly switched over from saying "antipsychiatry" to psych abolition after I started to see more groups like CPA use it, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts on it.

antipsychiatry is a fundamental part of psych abolition for me, but i think my definition of psych abolition contains a lot more. first, there's a lot more things than just psychiatry that i want to abolish and transform--the whole mental health system and many different belief systems, types of providers, forms of treatment, and types of incarceration that are encompassed in that. i think it's important to name and identify the particular harms of psychiatry as a value system in the way it is the strictest example of pathologizing, medicalizing, and the strongest adherer to the purely biomedical model of illness and how this creates so much harm. but i think that there are also so many other harmful structures + belief systems within the whole mental health system. i also sometimes see therapists, for example, portraying themselves as alternatives to psychiatry, and while that's true in the sense that they are a different treatment option than a psychiatrist, they are often still harmful actors in their own rights and entangled with the state in an equally bad way.

second thing for me is that i think it's really important to intentionally build cross movement solidarity, especially with the prison abolition movement and to expand the way psych survivors currently support support people fighting for abolition of all forms of incarceration. (i drew inspiration from sins invalid and the 10 principles of Disability Justice). I see so many people in psych survivor spaces saying " I can't believe we were treated like prisoners on the ward" with the implication that it's fine if prisoners are treated that way, but it's bad when it happens to them. i think that's fucked up and i think that any psych survivor movement that doesn't actively support people incarcerated in prisons is a movement that does nothing to dismantle white supremacy. we need to be able to recognize the ways carceral logics operate in many different structures, and approach our activism as a shared struggle, where we constantly are led by those most impacted. so i think that naming what we're doing as "abolition" is important (with the important caveat that our organizing must then actually be abolitionist, and especially for white organizers, that we need to learn about the history of abolition, actively support the Black leaders and thinkers who have created the prison abolition movement and not center ourselves, that we actually have to be actively involved in supporting abolitionist work happening in your area, instead of just stealing the work of Black abolitionist scholars to use it for our own benefit without any credit or reciprocity, that we need to actively interrogate ways white supremacy culture and antiblackness are showing up in our movement places so that we aren't inviting our comrades who are people of color into spaces that are not safe for them, or exploiting our comrades of color by expecting them to do the work of dismantling the racism within our shared organizing spaces--don't call yourself a psych abolitionist if you still call the cops on your homeless neighbors, if your solutions to psych incarceration contribute to gentrification, if you refuse to support currently incarcerated comrades, for example.)

third thing is that antipsychiatry as a specific term is often associated with the sociologist theory from the 1960s, some of which i think is useful, some of which comes from antisemetic and racist psychiatrists who should not be given any legitimacy. antipsychiatry also often gets associated with cults like scientology. although i think that scientologists bastardize a lot of antipsychiatry stuff and weaponize it for their own ends, a lot of the public thinks of them if you say antipsychiatry, and it can cause misconceptions. also think that people sometimes assume antipsychiatry is inherently against medication and while i don't think that's our responsibility to clear up every time people misread our words on purpose, i think it's been a lot more helpful for me to talk about medication in the context of autonomy, harm reduction, war on drugs, and the ways that psychiatry creates issues to consent, autonomy, informed use, risk reduction, etc etc etc. and i think psych abolition helps me do that a little better.

i get in a lot of conversations with people who say "well from what i've seen you are just against institutionalization. why not just say that instead of attacking psychiatry?" and my answer is always if we want to end institutionalization, we have to end the structures, belief systems, and power dynamics of psychiatry--psychiatry is one of the logics that enables institutionalization to continue, and abolishing institutionalization without abolishing the structures that allow it to continue mean that it just pops up again in a new form with a new name (asylums to hospitals to group homes etc etc etc). so i think psych abolition to me is a clearer way to encompass the ways that all these systems are interconnected, and that when we're fighting for mad liberation, the right for mad/neurodivergent/mentally ill people to access care, support, healing on our own terms, to be free from institutionalization and violent treatment, and have the right to exist as mad people, whether or not we're "cured."

TL;DR: I switched to saying "psych abolition" rather than antipsychiatry even though there are many core ideas of antipsychiatry that I agree with. I think that for me, psych abolition helps clear up some misconceptions that people have about antipsychiatry, more clearly connects to prison abolition, and makes it clear that we need to transform more of the mental health system than just psychiatry.

will never not make me insane how mania broke the mold for fob albums in so many ways but most prominently perhaps is how it broke the mold color wise, and the symbolism of that. it took the red/blue alternating color palette and combined it to make purple, it took everything fob was and in doing so went in a full different direction- something that was so clearly fob and so clearly new all at once, at least to those that were truly listening. and then, so much (for) stardust is just black and white. devoid of all true color- the light/dark dichotomy of the album is obvious from that alone. its take what every fob album did before color-wise but stripping it down- wholly new again, nowhere near the red/blue from before, but purely fob, not dressed up, its all out there in your face, black and white. the symbolism of colors here feels so so intentional and important and is forever so insanely clever of them

something that is like the baseline of amys entire character to me is that shes lonely. shes clingy and physically affectionate in a way none of her friends really are, shes always getting pushed aside and left behind. yeah, she helps out people she doesnt know because shes a nice person, but also, she sees part of herself in them. she wont leave someone else behind because she knows the feeling —and more importantly, hates the feeling. if she doesnt have somebody to stand by her and be there for her, then shes going to be that person for everybody else. something something her obsession with sonic is really just like a manifestation of that desire for closeness with someone, and she thinks that romance is the only way to get that. idk... this hedgehog can have so many abandonment issues.

Thinking about Vulcans prizing “calm” over “happiness”. 

Like how humans look back on their childhood and remember how happy it was - joyful days spent running around in the sun, getting into a bit of trouble, laughing with peers and family - that’s how they know it was a good one. Meanwhile Vulcans might look back on their childhood and remember how peaceful it was. Quiet days spent studying, the warm glow of candlelit lessons in caves, getting along smoothly with ones peers - that’s how they know it was a good one. Humans typically chose their friends and romantic partners based on if this person makes them feel happy above all. The question of “Do you like being with them?” is interpreted to mean “Does being with them make you feel happy?” But since Vulcans don’t experience (or strive for) happiness there would have to be some other parameter. So I was thinking about like, what is a good relationship to a Vulcan? There’s obviously a big emphasis on ‘togetherness’ in Vulcan unions. The Pon Farr ritual Tuvok does with his [hologram] wife involves them committing to becoming “Two bodies one mind” and it’s stated that they give and receive from each other all that they are. There’s also of course the iconic “Never and always touching and touched”. This is all (as was said during T’Pol & Koss’ wedding) “The Vulcan heart, the Vulcan soul, this is our way.” Vulcans are also (ENT) expected to live together for at least a year after being married - I imagine so that they can bond with and get to know one another. In SNW T’Pring wants for Spock to honor the commitments he makes to her so in that case T’Pring values Spock keeping his word to her and placing her above other things. I see a bit of Tuvok in that, where he prizes his commitment to T’Pel over anything else to the point where he’d nearly rather die than break it: (Even though he eventually agrees to having sex with a hologram it MUST be of his wife and he lets Tom/The Audience know that he will NOT be making a habit of it. There’s no ironclad logical reason for him to react this way as a hologram is not a person but his commitment to T’Pel seems to take precedence and I believe that’s his reasoning. His bond with T’Pel is logical, sustaining and important to him and he’s loath to break it over some bodily need. some desire that will pass even if it kills him.) <- By this way of thinking, betraying T’Pel would be the emotional choice while remaining loyal to her is remaining loyal to his logical self. A strong emphasis on loyalty to one’s mate seems to be a common Vulcan trait. In the beginning this seems to be rooted in tradition but later on its probably assumed that the couple will be loyal to one another out of some sort of actual connection between two people as opposed to pure obligation. In ENT T’Pol says that a certain degree of “affection” is eventually expected to happen within a marriage (though the way she says it makes me think this doesn’t always occur and isn’t necessarily The Goal) and her mother says that she and her husband developed a “deep connection” to one another. All this makes me think that a connection and a sense of ‘togetherness’ or ‘compatibility’ would also be prized over more emotional things like a passion for one another. It’s a partnership above all and that would be prized over a romantic union.  It makes me think of Vulcans’ roots in violence and war. Maybe this commitment to a steady togetherness, two people who don’t know each other being able to work together so seamlessly they nearly become one, is a way to show they’ve moved beyond that despite the pon farr remaining. Vulcans are a naturally very emotional species. Someone who incites that would probably not be seen as someone you should spend your time with. Someone who makes your heart pound, sets you ablaze, fills you with passion - that sounds like a bad Vulcan time v_v  Tuvok says as much when he talks about how he was struck with “shon-ha’lock”. Humans wouldn’t see anything wrong with having a crush on someone (and indeed in that episode Tom only comes to the conclusion that it’s a shame Tuvok couldn’t act on these emotions) but it’s obvious that even a teenaged crush when uncontrolled can become a very big problem to a Vulcan. In one of the Star Trek Novels Tuvok even stops being friends with and talking to a girl because she tearfully admits she has feelings for him and he sees that her feelings for him cause her pain.  Instead of thinking “Oh, she really likes me, good! We’re close friends so maybe we can make this work.” or even “I don’t like her romantically but since we’re close friends we can work through it.”  Tuvok thinks “Oh, she really likes me. That must be causing her to become very emotional and I can see she’s clearly upset. I’ll remove myself from her life so my presence doesn’t incite those emotions anymore.” And while him flat out just cutting himself out of her life might seem weird and kind of cruel and a frankly hilarious reaction to someone confessing their love to you - I also think it’s something he thought of as a kindness. If his presence harms her (stirs up emotions in her) then he will remove himself to keep from harming her. Along that vein, calmness or the absence of strong emotions would be a good relationship and one worth staying in. Not that there can’t be any emotions (Tuvok and T’Les obviously care[d] deeply for their respective spouses) but that they must be controllable and able to be cast aside in the face of logic.  I also think that “knowing” the other person would be considered very important (after marriage of course). If you’re to operate as a partnership, a team, and especially if you’re both telepaths you should be able to know your spouse pretty damn well. I see T’Pring attempt to do this in SNW where she is constantly fighting to get to know Spock which Spock self-consciously discourages since he’s been told/shown that his human side is unappealing to Vulcans.  But yeah man idk...just picturing a Vulcan and a human talking for hours...walking along the beach...sleeping side by side...getting to know one another...and at the end of it all one says “You make me feel happy” and the other says “Your presence calms me” and it means, essentially, the same thing.

"Victory belongs to the most persevering" - Nandopoleon Alonsoparte

+ First Consul Nandopoleon

Wow look I finally drew him properly! This was like the 2nd or so AU I've ever made, but honestly I feel so strongly about it that it's really intimidating to try and make a satisfying explanation post for it. I want it to be perfect ah. But I will one day! Maybe a web weave or smth in the meantime. But I digress. Napoleon Bonaparte = Fernando Alonso, please contact @/skitskatdacat63 for details.

In this painting I drew the uniform Napoleon wore during the Italian campaign in the 1790s, bcs I think it's so pretty, and not just the typical Napoleon outfit everyone knows(tho dw I'm in love with that one too.)

Though I will say, it was a bit weird drawing Fernando in navy blue(is this a sign for 2025?), so I had to draw him in the bright red First Consul uniform, to return some order to the world y'know

I ended up picking "victory belongs to the most persevering" as the Napoleon quote to use, but that was really hard to pick tbh. I literally have a whole folder of Napoleon quotes that remind me of Fernando LOL. Some others, to give you an idea:

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."

"From triumph to downfall, there is but one step."

"Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am."

"It requires more courage to suffer than to die."

Etc etc., again: I have a folder ;;;

I don't think this drawing was nearly as complicated as the Seb one, but for some reason it made me suffer more. I think you just get into this really intense mindset after drawing smth super detailed, and it's very frustrating. But I like it! His face was very confusing to me(the angle of the eyes), and then it randomly hit me how to draw it so that was cool. Look at him face :) handsome boy

Also here's the process! I think I'm gonna try and draw something each weekend as a gift to myself after the school week(if I have actual ideas for it lol)

its 5am so this isnt a very coherent thought and i might not be phrasing it perfectly... but you know how That breed of cishet guy will say shit like "those stupid lgbts keep inventing new genders ummm newsflash liberals theres only TWO gender. man and woman. checkmate." but like those same guys will turn around and literally make up entire new terms for different ways that men present their gender to sort them into gendered sub-classes. like. idk it feels like maybe your relationship with gender is actually not that different, and the rigid binary isnt doing you any favors either, but youre not willing to actually free yourself from it. so you work within its parameters to try to create your own sub-label instead. like yeah youre not calling yourself stargender or something youre just calling yourself an epsilon male. which is no more "real" than the former, but you try to fall back on pseudoscience and the barnum effect to justify it.

but at the end of the day youre doing the same thing! youre creating a unique personalized label for your specific way of expressing your gender identity, and the way you navigate it and through your personal gender presentation. and again its based on working within the patriarchal gender roles, so its incredibly reductive, misogynistic, and does a lot more harm than good. even to the people taking on those labels. its like theyre doing the same thing but in a twisted way, because of the way they cant stop being sexist and transphobic. but part of me really does think that even the people who cling the heaviest to the patriarchal ideals of gender actually also want to be free from it, because the second theres an acceptable method to do so... they'll jump onto it too. but because theyre so obsessed w those patriarchal ideals, they have to also make it into a hierarchy to place others into too. so again whatever they do manage is still reductive.

Putting my iono and grusha here as well. They’re friends for streaming reasons

im happy my post is garnering discussion but honestly i wasnt around for 2018-2021 fandom on tumblr and i was mainly talking about how its kind of silly to get mad at people for portraying colonizer countries as mean, or calling it demonization and stuff. like its okay not to like personally portraying ur fav characters as mean or part of the state, but getting irritated at the fact that it exists or is popular imo kind of misses the fact that this… is the state and nation personification fandom. and its hard to say its not canon when canon did once portray the characters in uniform and at times involved in their state activities… like the early strips discussing western imperialism in china is literally ‘china being bullied by the allies’ ‘france wanting to grope china’ ‘china being treated like a maid’ etc etc like they were very much. the state LOL also china and japan’s canon relationship, as much as I have my issues with it, has an entire thing about china being stabbed by japan… i do feel like hetalia started out as a history nerd’s history exploration that blended humour with ‘what i find cute’ with satire etc etc, which inevitably involves illustrating the personifications as vessels of state and culture, and although the modern strips have deviated quite a bit… well, different people will approach this series for different reasons, right? Whether its serious or comedic content showing the characters as mean or imperialist or unpleasant, it’s not something that deviates too far from canon (if we take all canon eras into consideration) nor is it surprising given how history laden the topic is.

ok u accept nb people but do u accept amab nb people that present masc AAAND afab nb people that present femme???

I feel like gender nonconformity is often taken to mean like. presenting as the opposite of whatever your assigned gender is. like as an afab lesbian if I want to be gnc that means I have to dress super masc. but I think for me at least gender nonconformity is more about completely divorcing yourself from any expectations of gender presentation one way or the other. I can dress masc or femme or androgynous, I can wear makeup or not and shave my pits but not my legs, I can be whatever I want to be on any given day without regard for what I’m “supposed” to wear. when I first started really thinking about my relationship with gender there was a period of time where I felt to be valid I had to dress really butch or it didn’t count, and if I wore a skirt that meant I’d been faking it. but I didn’t WANT to dress super butch all the time. I didn’t want to be butch or femme or androgynous or or or or, I wanted to wear what I wanted when I wanted. ultimately I gave up trying to pin down and put a name on my gender identity. I said to hell with it all. my pronouns are what they are and I dress however I dress and I don’t owe it to anyone to define any of that. my gender nonconformity isn’t a nonconformity with femininity specifically; it’s a nonconformity with any sort of gendered rules of presentation. and that was a really freeing thing to figure out. and I think that in online queer communities there’s really this pressure to put a label on everything and to identify as a specific thing and to prove your validity within your identity. non-binary doesn’t have to mean androgynous. gnc doesn’t have to mean butch. and I guess this pride month I’m just really thinking about that, that really all that being queer is about is saying a big fuck it to it all and just…existing, however you want to exist. wear what makes you feel good. be whatever makes you feel good to be. to hell with it all.