It's always, like, mildly annoying when people see a het trans couple and go "all that work just to be straight?" like... one, you don't know if they're straight and two, trans people don't owe you a queer sexuality to "make up" for the fact we're trans. Transhet people aren't a subtype of trans people, they're members of the trans community, and the queer one if they so desire!

Something that I need people to understand, especially on this hellsite. Is that oppression does not depend on who you actually are.

It depends on how the world sees you.

If the world sees you as X identity. They will treat you as X identity, whether you are or not. If the world sees that you are not X identity, but they can use the oppression of X identity as a cudgel to make you act the way they want you to? They will use it.

Oppression is NOT dependent on who you actually are. It depends on how the world sees you. It depends on how people see you and what they decide to put on you because of that.

Oh. And when someone experiences a form of oppression that is NOT based in the reality of who they are? It's still that kind of oppression. It's not "misdirected"- it is still that kind of oppression being leveraged to maintain the current social climate.

ive been thinking about this for a while and y'know. there isn't actually a big difference between someone asking you not to refer to them as human and someone asking you to use gender neutral language for them. ive seen fellow queer people (mostly on twitter) whine and scream and shit their pants over being asked to not call someone human, as if that is somehow different from a transphobe throwing a fit about being asked to use singular they for someone? how often does that even come up? do you seriously refer to others often enough with the word "human" that being asked not to is a major inconvenience? I don't know how to finish this post but you get the idea it's hypocritical and annoying

I just want to say, that I agree with almost all of your Critical Role takes and you have 1000% better and more nuanced takes than all of Twitter and I greatly appreciate it! The takes over there regarding Liliana and the gods are just wild and you bring some much needed sanity to the content I see

Thanks! I hope you don't mind because I've been thinking about this re: the Twitter takes but the thing about Twitter and Liliana specifically that I've seen is that there's this really bizarre fetishization of like, the fact that she is a (white) southerner (this also weirdly happened for Birdie though to a much lesser extent, and the person who spearheaded that wasn't even American so I have to assume this is a specific corner of Twitter Culture At Large). And like, here's the thing. It's true that fantasy tends to be very British in its accents, and it's also true that accents in a fantasy world are used to convey the same things we'd assume in our world - RP British for educated, southern American for rural, Cockney for rougher types, etc.

It's also true that laying the exact socioeconomic parallels from our world onto, say, Liliana and Orym (who reads to me as non-regional but I, like Liam, am from the Northeast originally) is a recipe for disaster. Or rather, it's not, but it is going to reaffirm your own biases, some of which are dangerous to reaffirm.

There was a popular post on Tumblr a while back, probably not long after Trump was elected, of someone talking about how they were convincing a relative with the confederate flag towards socialism by appealing to the idea of "isn't in unfair how uneven wealth distribution is and how a small group has so much control" and a number of people were rightfully like "uh, maybe you should focus on the racism" or "hey OP ask your relative who they think that small group in control is because I'm getting a really bad feeling they're going to say it's The Jews." And I feel that a lot of the empathy for Liliana from those spaces feels like that OP. Or in other words: I get that you see your relatives in Liliana. Unfortunately, I cannot help but see me and mine in Orym.

You see someone trapped by circumstance and desperation in a dangerous ideology. I see the fact that I haven't gone to a synagogue in easily 6-7 years without there being a security guard present and usually, the doors locked with someone looking through the window to let you in, and then in the sanctuary there's been an installation so that you can quickly bar all the doors in case an alarm goes off or you hear shots in the lobby.

I think there's a great case for seeing yourself in Imogen, who is in a painful struggle with the fact that her mother does love her very much but is in dangerously deep and has done a number of incredibly terrible and harmful things. That latter point is important, incidentally; I get that cult members sometimes rise through the ranks but all but the leader are being manipulated. But the fact remains that a brainwashed person can still commit atrocities, and in this story, they have, many times over. It's especially true because like...sure, plenty of people are like "I lost my relative to a cult and I just want them back and I couldn't harm them," but also, as we've seen, this cult can and will harm Imogen! Plenty of people are also like "yeah I gotta cut them off, it hurts but unfortunately my horribly bigoted and violent relative, while a victim of brainwashing, is a threat to me too." It's not even the full picture of the Temult side of things, let alone the picture that includes the Vanguard's victims.

I also think the Southern gatekeeping is unhinged because it's like. guys there's QAnon members and other cults across the country; the Confederate flag example above was actually notable in that OP wasn't even Southern so you couldn't even write the flag off as deeply misguided heritage but rather was explicitly being used as a hate symbol. It's awfully presumptive to assume all southerners have the same experience (especially since the Temults are portrayed, physically and in accents, as white southerners, not that the experiences of white southerners aren't also incredibly varied). It's awfully presumptive to assume that people find Liliana threatening because they have no personal experience with people like her; often, it's because they have all too real experience with people like her, and it says something even worse about you if you can say "but you guys, I see me and my family in Liliana" when people are telling you that they see them and their families in Orym. I would not, personally, publicly admit that one's empathy extends to the people who remind you of your family but runs out before it reaches their victims. Nor would I publicly admit that I assume everyone who disagrees with me clearly has never had personal experience with this topic.

I should also note that, as I've noted a number of times before, that these are fictional characters and not real people. Twitter seems to be really fucking bad at grasping that. Like, yes, this is the other thing; I do not think that OP should kill their Confederate flag-toting relative, whereas if Imogen did so to Liliana I'd be like "hell yeah." The former is a real person who I do hope gets deprogrammed, just, you know, maybe adjust those priorities; the latter is a fictional character in a story.

Every ✌️🏳️‍🌈💖queer vocab as gaeilge 💖🏳️‍🌈✌️ infographic I see has like aerach, maybe ait, and then the same list of terms that were directly translated from English by USI in like 2016. Cowards. Tell me the slurs.

Be My Favorite is rewiring my entire brain istg... just unraveling those brain wrinkles and resculpting them in exciting new shapes and patterns

seeing all this fellow travelers content… feeling Intrigued… Looking Respectfully……. can i ask what it is & would you recommend?

HELLO!!!!! Okay yes I would recommend, I thought it was a great watch, I enjoyed myself! I have more thoughts on it but I'll save 'em cause spoilers--generally: It follows a number of queer relationships / characters over the course of the Lavender Scare through the 1980s. Its primary focus is the relationship between Hawkins, a WWII vet and midlevel govt. bureaucrat; and Tim, a congressional staffer fresh out of college. They meet during the height of the Lavender Scare and begin a fraught romance as they struggle with their own careers in DC, political complicity, and identities personal and public. The show covers about 30 years of their lives together (and apart). Go into it expecting solid performances (incredible Jonathan Bailey vehicle, at the very least) and (imo) fun if slightly uneven structuring, but also know (I don't want to sell it as Fun Gay Love Story!) by virtue of time period and what it's most interested in, story spends most of its runtime trying to show how national attitudes and even seemingly very localized political machinations impacted the lives of queer and especially queer Black people.

I’m so confused… you use he/him ?

yuh ♡

.

COOL. IM NOT FROM TEXAS OR EVEN AMERICA. I HAVE NONETHELESS ADOPTED YOUR VOCABULARY AS IS FIT FOR MY NEEDS AND BELIEFS. IMAGINE

At this point, gender nonconformity is about what the person says their experience is.

If a woman with a beard or a man with lipstick and a mustache says they're gender nonconforming, then they are! If a woman with short hair or a man with long hair says they aren't, they aren't! And that's not even getting into the awesome nonbinary, abinary, genderqueer, intersex, and general genderfuckery that may both be and not be conforming.

So much of what is even considered gender conforming or gender nonconforming is based on a world of exclusion. When we start defining one's conformity with whether they fit into white cishetero perisex standards or not, we play into the idea that there's only a very narrow window of what is considered worthy of time and thought.

honestly i cannot explain the gender feelings i get sometimes. like i see a picture of a man and i think "god i wanna be him" or "god that's so me" but not like. i don't want to look exactly like him or be percieved as a man at all (like not even in a butch or gnc way i skew pretty femme most of the time)... but it's like if i was that man but also a woman that would be epic... or if that man was a woman he would be so me but also if he was still a man?? what is gender.

Hi Rachel,

In some of my writing I’m beginning to notice more and more that certain characters (not all) remind me of myself lol. And I hate it, I go back and rewrite them. But I’m interested if you relate to any of your characters as well so—Out of the characters you’ve written (Lonan, Reeve, Harrison, etc..) who do you think is the most like you? And what’s your take on writers seeing themselves in some of their characters?

feel about seeing reflections

Hahaha I used to HATE writing characters that were like me, and it took a while to realize that actually, they ALL are me in some iteration. To answer your question about writers seeing themselves in their characters—if writing characters that are “self-inserts” makes you joyful, DO IT!!! If writing characters who aren’t self-inserts but have attributes to you makes you joyful, DO IT! Or if you’re not into it—that’s fine too! Life is too short! Have fun with what works for you!

My experience below, this gets kind of intense as a warning! CW: suicidal ideation, disocciation

Aligning myself with my characters has been an intensely life-saving experience. I’m not sure I’d be here if it were not for Lonan… 16-year-old Rachel WAS him, and also needed him because literally nobody else “understood” where I was at except for him (undiagnosed autism for BOTH OF US??).

There was a time of my life where I couldn’t emotionally regulate at all, and in moments of stress, would often dissociate and quite literally converse with this man (looking back now, this was just a coping mechanism—confirmed by my doctor btw!—but for a couple years he was a genuine part of my psyche, like moved out of just character territory). I think I talked about this years ago, but I have a really distinct memory of disconnecting so much I quite literally thought he was THERE next to me, which I needed—he really became an externalization of the things I couldn’t deal with (or didn’t understand how to deal with). I needed to see myself reflected in the eye of someone else and for a really long time that was Lonan for me. Actually screaming crying that’s so cute.

And Lonan is similar to me in a lot of ways! This is a side tangent but when I was first diagnosed as autistic it made me wonder if I’d inadvertently written any autistic characters & it struck me way back then that the person most similar to me (Lonan lol) is probably also autistic. I was like—sensory issues?? No emotional regulation?? Speaks a bit oddly?? We are THE SAME. Haven’t really confirmed this in canon lol but I’ve been thinking about it since 2021.

Funnily, now that I have that diagnosis, my life is a lot more stable so like… I’m not currently the most like Lonan lol. But me at 16-19??? Absolutely him.

Unfortunately, I am currently HARRISON, which isn’t ideal but just like he’s a 21-year-old experiencing horrors I’m a 21-year-old experiencing horrors (which is why BB is sometimes painful to write cuz I’m like oooooh I’m feeling this… too much). To be fair, I’ve always said I’m the introverted version of Harrison (because I am lol our personality types are the same, not that I believe in those but since I was like 13 I’ve said this). But just like Lonan, Harrison has helped me now process some tough things this year that I’m not sure how else I would’ve survived. It’s important to me that I have fictional vessels to explore my own life with because it can help me identify problems & then learn to empathize with myself by empathizing with a character first.

Of course they’re also separate from me—they absolutely didn’t start as ME but as time goes on I start seeing myself in them particularly (Reeve sometimes too—our kindred spirits with processing toxic relationships <3). Maybe it’s because I am autistic, but I find it useful to understand my experiences via someone else. I love seeing the ways we can inform each other.

My TL;DR is I’m Harrison if he was Lonan so I guess I’m BB Harrison. Love this for me so much. But also add autism. Which is probably already there because: Lonan. LMAO and a dash of Reeve’s compartmentalization skills. And we have me!

Whether you believe Gob is bi, gay, or some other queer identity, at least we can all band together on the fact that, whatever he is, Gob is certainly not straight.

People will bring up that one line about friendship from the narrator and ignore literally everything else about the character shown before and after that one comment.

“The narrator said it was just friendship!”

The narrator was also confused immediately after making that comment as to why they agreed to have sex on Cinco when they could’ve just avoided it altogether. He was under the assumption that they weren’t attracted to each other and, by them agreeing to just talk that night instead of sleeping together right then, it meant they were trying to avoid it...only for them to excitedly plan to sleep together on Cinco a second later. They wanted to sleep together; they just also liked each other as people.

Also, friendship doesn’t rule out feelings of attraction. Gob wasn’t emotionally invested in any of his other relationships but he genuinely cares about and likes Tony. And, even if it was purely friendship at the time(which I don’t believe it was, but for the sake of the argument let’s say that was the case), is it impossible for him to develop feelings and realize he’s attracted to Tony later?

Also, Gob slept with him and said it confirmed to him that his feelings were real and that he was truly in love with him. I don’t- I don’t understand how you could interpret that as a straight man who is mistaking friendship for romantic feelings.

“He wasn’t shown to like men before Tony so it doesn’t make sense for him to be gay now!”

Hmm…It’s almost like he was a repressed queer man with internalized homophobia and comphet and a toxically masculine father and was hiding it in fear of what his family and the world would think, which was, like, a major part of his S4 and S5 arc…

A fun little thing I like to do when watching TV is take new information that is revealed to the audience and see how that shines a new light on a character or situation that we may have understood as one thing and now, because of that new information, we now understand was something else the whole time.

So, when given new information regarding his sexuality in seasons four and five, behavior in the first three seasons that wouldn’t necessarily be indicative of him not being straight can be looked back upon with this new information and we can understand what was truly going on the whole time.

Also, that’s just not true. He’s said himself and has been implied to have slept with men in the first three seasons.

Gob likes men. Does he like only men? Or, does he also like other genders? Some other third option that’s applicable here? We may divert on this path but what we can say is that Gob likes men. That, we know.

nobody really talks about how isolating it can be to be both Christian and Queer :(

both communities can be Loving & Accepting but also sometimes people from either side can spew Hate on the other .. not that Christians are Oppressed in the (Western) Queer Community or that Queer people making Anti-Christian jokes amounts to any Violence that “Christians” may carry out against Queer people - but it can be very Isolating to know that sometimes you are seen as an Enemy to your Queer Family and as a Degenerate to your Christian Siblings..

To those Loving & Accepting Christians.. you are doing the Lord’s Work and He looks fondly upon you. To The Welcoming Non-Christian Queer Community towards Us… Thank you. ❤️

Post it post it post it

no i am the switzerland of dtblr <- a joke