#it was the typical 'watch a video and identify how this person fucked up'
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begging the people who make harassment prevention trainings to understand that you can just say “Black woman”
#i'm sorry but the editor in my brain yelled at 'this worker has protected characteristics of gender and race' lmao#say what you MEAN#also the implication is that men don't have a gender and white people don't have a race?? what?? lmao#this is for my volunteer position at a science museum#it was the typical 'watch a video and identify how this person fucked up'
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tuesday again 11/8/22
two days before my birthday problems
listening
Arrival At The Library from the Escape From New York soundtrack (1981, dir. and also scored by Carpenter). this is one of my favorite tracks bc of how tense it is-- so much music theory has been written about this score but i like it bc i like short fast repetition. makes me feel like i am inside computer as i do my little computer tasks.
youtube
the tracks on this thing are so short and mostly blend into each other, so it should not be startling that a thing i like so much is a hair over a minute long but i'm startled anyway.
unrelated to the music but related to the movie: let me lay out a scenario. a friend's partner (neither active on this site) was recently gushing about kurt russell's performance in this movie (same) and like. i know this man knows what bisexuality is. me saying "oh yeah have you seen big trouble in little china? suzee pai is so hot in that" got NO nibbles bc he immediately started talking about the women in the trucker episode of cowboy bebop.
i cannot outright ask this man for reasons of basic propriety if he is also bi. i can't even do the little signalling hey-im-bi-are-you-bi signalling dance bc 1) doesn't work on guys and 2) only works in real life and not the online. this isn't a problem to solve i'm just nosy and want to know if my vibes are right. also this would bump up the total of bi guys i know but have not dated to a grand total of three.
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reading
one of my favorite grad students, a nuclear anthropologist, was briefly quoted in this middling article about bitcoin's survival in the event of a nuclear war (no). i do not know this guy in real life but i do have a parasocial relationship bc we used to run in the same physics/astro twitter circles before i had to use twitter for work and stopped using it personally for my health.
this is more of an excuse to talk about one of my favorite patreon structures, where it's just Some Guy doing his thing with a three dollar a month tier or something. i don't particularly care about new or exclusive content, or the perceived value thereof, i like the cut of someone's jib and want to throw a couple dollars for groceries their way. i want a handy spot to find, say, all the articles someone's written and been quoted in all in one place and nobody keeps their fuckin CV or portfolio updated and i'll be fucking damned before i use twitter again. because of my own personal choices, i am going to whine about how it is very hard to keep track of some of you people's work and what you're up to. inoreader only does so much, especially with twitter in an upheaval.
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watching
this teardown of two of those automatic cocktail makers was very fun, got passed around the makerspace discord a bit. spoiler: it's pretty gross in there. this host is just a nice jersey boy who's lightly exasperated, which was of course extremely compelling to me.
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in the original test run of these machines, he does what i value most in a critic but for food-- identify what is happening flavorwise, if it's typical or atypical for the drink, and break down exactly which flavor notes clash and why. i do not think i have every really thought about What Alcohol Flavors I Like other than knowing i have a light mint allergy and a dislike for tannins so this was a fun brain exercise.
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playing
so there's a goofy little claw machine pie dispenser in the video game Fallout 4 that does not actually dispense pie. well, depending on a complex series of factors but mostly my luck stat (1) it would take about a hundred and fifty tries to get a slice of pie, across hundreds and hundreds of hours of playing this frankly disappointing game. but the sims is a little too scary and the settlement building here scratches a brain itch.
so when i got the fuckin pie in a shed in a DLC i shrieked out loud in real life. this was before i googled the stats to include in this post and found out this location is bugged and always gives you the pie. so it FUCKIN goes. i briefly considered building a museum to it, but i'm still going to put it in a display case in my player housing so none of my companions eat it.
i don't even have a pic of it in the machine bc i wasn't fast enough, it's more like a little ritual gesture than actually expecting to get the pie at this point.
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making
a friendly reminder that my birthday is thursday :) and i am making a bigger fucking deal out of it than usual bc quite frankly i should not be alive. in lieu of commemorative gifts, donate to your local food bank or Native American tribe. more info here!
went into some sort of fugue state last night and wrote twenty pieces of mail. are the most overdue replies in the mail yet? heavens fucking no. usually outgoing mail goes in the toucan, but not this fat sheaf, which was very satisfying to hold. no fancy fanned-out pic bc many are going to beloved mutuals
and woe! more red lentil soup be upon ye (do not @ me. the lower shelf is full of various frozen meats. also do not @ me about the margaritaville shrimps. they were two dollars). square containers when these fake tupperware die, i think, although it feels like soup should always be in a round container.
#tuesday again#tuesday again no problem#it is 11:06 PM of a monday and i have not slept since 8:40 AM sunday morning#hope this is something! sorry too busy feeling weird about getting older!#Youtube
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vii. the one between six and nine
yesterday i realised that not revealing my gender and sexuality was never in my plans. i want to talk about all the love i have felt, my desire. oh, i'll bring up the avant-garde 1970s pornos i've been watching and happily tag that as nsfw, but not today. on the 30th i have a story stored. one of these days, another one.
today, i'm short on time. i wouldn't say i've been procrastinating, i've thought about starting this and it just hasn't come up (it being the act of writing). i've been busier than i expected myself to be, and by busy i mean i've been watching a wizards of waverly place binge-watch recap video. five and a half hours for part two, though i watch it between 1.5 and 2x speed. tl;dr, it's almost nine pm.
yesterday i went on and on about anonymity, my prose stronger than days before and days like today, because it was natural and more confessional than a statement. it was like that other personal essay of mine, day three, i believe, but more natural. and i want to use my anonymity to confess, because i've been meaning to confess, i've been considering going on some type of anonymous confession website, because let me go back to being alone and no one wants to listen to me—
i'm gay, right? i'm gay. men make me go crazy. typical homosexuality.
but i like women, also.
still gay.
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my experience with my sexuality is complex. it interacts with an experience with gender that i will never talk about, because i'm tired of talking about it, and fuck gender. i hate gender. so we'll talk about sex; i love that quote, "everything in the world is about sex, except for sex. sex is about power." my experience with sex is also complex, but i don't think i want to reveal that, either; it will absolutely influence readings of my writings. it influences the interpretation of all those around me, so fuck me if i'll let those away from me make me smaller in the same way.
i've identified as bisexual since i realised i wasn't straight, at twelve. i identified as bisexual from twelve years old until sixteen-seventeen. my attraction to men was always crystal clear to me, and my attraction to women felt like the answer. i blew it out of proportion for the first few years. after a couple years, i was old enough to find other queer kids, and i kissed boys and girls alike. after a couple years of that, it all went down the drain.
for a few months, no boys wanted me. for a few months, i went on several dates with a few girls, and none of them went anywhere. i couldn't understand why; they were lovely. well, i could, actually. the one i got along with wasn't a great kisser; the one who was a great kisser i didn't really get along with. and there were other things, but i just didn't feel anything for either of them. i thought i did; on paper, i was excited. but i couldn't feel it. i couldn't want them.
since then, i have not kissed anyone. i've not talked to anyone, gone out with anyone, or had a shot with anyone. i think i talked to one girl, i don't know if she was actually interested, but still it was the one chance i had. and she was beautiful, and we got along great, but i kept keeping myself from meeting her in person, from taking that other step, and i couldn't understand why. i liked her, right? so what was stopping me from taking that step?
it was the last thing that made me realise maybe i was gay. and i am. during the pandemic, i didn't want to say anything for sure. i wasn't seeing real people or being in any social situations, so how could i know for sure that i didn't feel any attraction towards women? i knew i was gay, but i didn't know for sure. i started telling people (two people) i was questioning my sexuality around one and a half years ago, mid-2021. online, to my online friends, that is, i already talked about being gay, because i knew, i did know.
this year, going back to normal or seminormal life, things clicked into place and i now know for sure. i know i'm only into men, i only have a future with men, and while i feel a little bad that my life experience with bisexuality makes it seem like a phase because it was a phase for me, it's just my experience. i'm losing myself in my words. bet that i won't proofread this, either.
... confession time! put me in front of the cameras and give me a script.
a part of me doesn't want to talk about this, because it is information that will reveal more of me than i want to, and it will influence everything, but no one's reading this, so so what? plus, i think problems exist more in my head than in real life. fuck it. it doesn't matter. i can edit or delete this if i have to. everyone makes mistakes.
...
...
...
i got to the conclusion a little while ago. i am aesthetically attracted to girls. they're pretty! they're pretty in all their pretty clothes and they're pretty without them. but they're not hot. i am aesthetically and sexually and romantically attracted to men. i want to kiss them and fuck them and i want them to tell me i'm pretty and they love me and they want to listen to me, spend time with me, hold me in bed and be there when i wake up.
... oh, sex is complicated. i've gone on and on enough. i want to fuck a nice, strong, hairy guy. and sometimes i want to kiss a girl, but i don't. never. and i'll turn down pretty girls if they ever ask, and this is something i'm too lazy and tired and swerving from social situations to deeply elaborate on, but i will always say i'm gay even if i want a girl because being something is now public, and i have led too many people on by being bi with a lean to not be gay and into girls.
2022.12.27 + edits
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I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol
Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...
Honestly, it makes sense!!!
I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...
c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.
THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP
And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*
And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.
My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.
And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.
There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.
Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.
Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.
I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.
In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.
Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.
Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"
And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.
SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.
So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.
And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.
Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.
So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.
REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.
Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.
SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.
AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,
"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."
Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....
Because of SBI focused animatics.
Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.
And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.
But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.
And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.
And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.
However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.
I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!
LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.
And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.
Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.
It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.
IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.
TLDR;
SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.
#asks#anon#dream smp#dsmp#dsmp analysis#dream smp analysis#dsmp meta#dream smp meta#my analysis#long post
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Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL
I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating.
As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.
(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)
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Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.
In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.
A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).
So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is:
(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational.
(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.
(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there.
Think I’m overreacting?
Examples:
Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)
Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King
Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts
Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'
Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”
Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”
Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”
Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks
Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church
Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy
Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church
The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed
The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources
Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized
Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple
I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community
The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions.
That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer.
Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked.
Inequality defined.
For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?
Well those days are over.
-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1
#Hell#dantes inferno#Christianity#lil nas x#Country Music#Black Artists#Music Business#Music Industry#social determinants#ProfessionalSinger#Rapper#Entertainer#The Black Church#Conservative Media#Jerry Fallwell#The Moral Majority#Bishop Eddie Long#Andrew Caldwell#COGIC#Bernice King#Homophobia#Transphobia#misogynoir#Erasure#aids#HIV#bart ehrman#MIsquoting Jesus#bible reading#Biblical Inerrancy
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hello hello hello! and welcome to Season 12 of Supernatural.
I admit that initially I STRUGGLED WITH SEASON 12. I LOATHED the British Men of Letters (other than Lady Antonia Bevell; her hot working mom energy can get it); I have...mixed feelings about Mary; overall it was not a stellar season for me the first go-round. HOWEVER I shall now give it a second chance, and look for the subtext within the bad (and if my theory tracks, there will be much subtext as...there is much bad). Maybe I’ll even develop Ketch appreciation. **ONWARDS ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, MY FRIENDS:
When we last left Dean, I neglected to mention that Amara brought his mom back (this is how much I repressed Mary Winchester I guess?) We cut to Mary, confused, in a nightgown (I get this is part of the character and that’s why she is wearing it sO wE kNOw iTS rEAlLy MaRY WinCHEstEr because of her nightgown and not Sam Smith’s exquisite face, but honestly WHY - LIKE DID SHE WEAR THE DAMN THING IN HEAVEN THE ENTIRE TIME TOO?).
DEAN [breathing heavily]
Mom. Listen to me. Your name – your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, okay? You were born December 5, 1954, to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for, uh, work, and you bounced right along with him, and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas.
MARY
How do you know all that?
DEAN
Dad told me. March 23, 1972, you walked out of a movie theater – Slaughterhouse-Five. You loved it, and you bumped into a big Marine and you knocked him flat on his ass. You were embarrassed, and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So, you went to, uh, Mulroney's and you talked and he was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that – that you met –
MARY
John Winchester.
DEAN
August 19, 1975, you were married... in Reno. Your idea. A few years later, I came along, then Sammy.
***DEAN DESCRIBING EVERY DAMN DETAIL OF THIS HAS MURDERED ME. Also, I know John Winchester “told him the story,” but something about this retelling - these are NOT John Winchester’s words (other than maybe “big Marine”). The emotions, the feelings, the “you talked and he was cute” Dean is describing is Dean’s retelling, the version he created in his mind of this damn meet-cute, this little love story he played over and over in his head, and that makes me feel warm and tingly and also want to ingest sharp knives.
***Everyone already knows about the damn Zeppelin reference but just in case you wanted to be tortured, please recall that later on we will get
THIS FUCKING SHIT
Nothing to see here other than Dean using a reference from this LOVE STORY on Cas. I HATE it here in super hell. Next rounds on you, Sam.
Anyway, Mary has caught on:
I paused here just now because I had a tHoUGHt. This season is all about exploring Dean and Sam in their role as sons (this is discussed at the SDCC panel prior to the season; btw they are all free on Prime and I recommend watching before you start each new season for little “reveals” behind some of the plot lines). We know Sam has no relationship to Mary really, he was a baby when she died, but Dean was a little boy - with a personality, character traits, identifying characteristics that his mother probably knew like the back of her hand. That’s why my first run-in with Mary left a bad taste in mouth during this season - LIKE THIS IS YOUR KID, and there is NO inkling or recognition until THIS moment? In a show that just spent an entire season exploring the “unexplained connection” between Dean and GODS SISTER, there no immediate “OH” from his own mother?!
But then I realized why she only connected at this very moment. This particular moment - and not the moment where he lists the factual details about her before the story of the night she met John. That little story with all those cute details - that’s the part of Dean that Mary knew before she died - when that part was ALL of Dean. Before hunting, before John’s quest for revenge turned him into the person he is today, before he saw himself as a blunt little instrument. That’s why initially Mary has no recognition that this is her son - because the Dean she knew was sensitive, and kind, and OPEN, and liked love stories, and laughing, and warm hugs and maybe flowers. Because if you think about it WE DONT KNOW THAT DEAN. We only know Dean AMD. (After Mary’s Death).
*****************************************************************************************************
So maybe Mary represents Dean Before Mary’s Death, and whatever part of that Dean remains, no matter how deep he has been buried. The part that connects with people; the part that doesn’t want to be alone. The part that helped Amara. The part that loves Cas. And that’s why Amara brought her back.
*****************************************************************************************************
Ok, if I think of it this way, I may like Mary a little better now.
BUT ALSO MY BABY:
Cut to Cas.
[THE MAN WALKS OVER TO THE EDGE OF THE CRATER MADE BY THE LANDING AND SEES CASTIEL PULLING HIMSELF OUT.]
MAN
Holy mother.
[CASTIEL STANDS UP AND LOOKS AROUND]
CASTIEL
Where am I?
MAN
Uh...Earth?
CASTIEL
No. How far am I from Lebanon, Kansas?
MAN
Uh... Th-three hours, maybe. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who – What are you, man?
[CASTIEL WALKS TOWARDS THE MAN AND TOUCHES HIM ON THE FOREHEAD. THE MAN DROPS TO THE GROUND. CASTIEL LEAVES HIM THERE AS HE DRIVES OFF IN THE TRUCK]
***I spy a Season 11 random parallel
And Cas says, “Earth -
***Also, I often wonder if in his mind’s inner GPS, Cas bases distances on how far he is from Dean.
In the meantime, Bad Things Are Happening to Sam.
***Toni Bevell, don’t join the British Men of Letters you’re so sexy hahah
Other than noting that this is yet another too oft- repeated Sam, the Victim, Always Gets Tortured scenario, I see no point in recapping these parts.
I will just continue to post Toni Bevell hotness for these portions of the episode. Ok? Ok. You’re welcome.
BACK TO THE BUNKER:
I already posted this sweet baby reunion in my final Season 11 analysis/recap, but lets see it again at another angle and from Mary’s perspective CAUSE CLEARLY she has...*thoughts*
Poor Cas had no idea he was about to MEET THE PARENT
It melts my little heart that Dean uses Cas’s full name to introduce him to people. Especially members of his family who are trying to kill him.
Anyway, then we get a much longed for gem of typical Cas deadpan:
(*I still miss Casifer a little bit though*)
And then we have
A MOMENT OF CONNECTION!
At the SDCC panel, Misha specifically noted that both Mary and Cas are outsiders, so this tracks.
They head to the garage:
[Exhaling sharply, Mary walks towards Baby. She runs her hand lightly over the car.]
MARY This was John's car. Oh, she's still beautiful.
DEAN Hell, yeah, she is.
MARY Hi, sweetheart. Remember me?
[MARY LEANS DOWN AND LOOKS INTO THE CAR SMILING. SHE STARTS LOOKING AT THE FRONT SEAT BUT HER EYES AND HER THOUGHTS LINGER ON THE BACK SEAT. DEAN LEANS DOWN LOOKING AT THE INTERIOR OF THE CAR WITH PRIDE. DEAN LOOKS AT HIS MOM AND REALIZES SHE’S HAVING VERY SPECIFIC MEMORIES OF TIME IN THE BACK SEAT. DEAN LOOKS AROUND THE CAR, AND LOOKS AT HIS MOM.]
***this is where you truly see that Sam Smith is a genius because she took those directions and put them all into THIS:
And then THIS:
DEAN
Oh…
[MARY LOOKS UP AT DEAN. DEAN REALIZES HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN CONCEIVED IN THAT CAR, STANDS UP QUICKLY AND LOOKS OVER THE CAR. DEAN SWALLOWS HARD, AND GLANCES AT CASTIEL WHO GIVES HIM A QUIZZICAL LOOK.]
DEAN
We should go.
***At this time I would like to remind everyone that Cas is also generally in the back seat of this car.
MOVING ON
Meanwhile-
Back at the bunker, Cas is Continuing to Connect with his boyfriend’s mother:
[EXTERIOR DAY; INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS AND THE NOISE OF VIDEO GAMES ARE HEARD. THE CAMERA PANS TO MARY WHO’S WATCHING THE SCENE. CASTIEL IS PICKING UP COFFEE.]
CASTIEL
Thank you.
[CASTIEL TAKES THE COFFEE TO MARY AND SITS DOWN.]
CASTIEL
This must be difficult for you. I remember my first moments on Earth. It was jarring.
MARY
One word for it. I grew up with Hunters. I've heard of people coming back from the dead before. But to actually do it... after 30 years. A lot's changed.
[MARY LOOKS AROUND.]
MARY A lot.
Cas:
This is usually a look Reserved For Dean, so its interesting Cas is looking at Mary here [they also weirdly joked about Cas hitting on Mary at the SDCC panel and now I'm giggling because if Mary represents the soft part of Dean this all makes PERFECT SENSE).
BONUS
Actual footage of Sam in super hell
The Cas/Mary bonding worked BTW:
[INTERIOR: GREGORY IS SITTING IN FRONT OF HIS DESK WITH CASTIEL, DEAN, AND MARY STANDING BEFORE HIM.]
DEAN
So, you dug the bullet out of his leg, no questions asked?
GREGORY
She offered me 100 grand.
MARY
And you took it?
GREGORY
Student loans were a bitch, okay?
[ANGRILY CASTIEL STARTS TOWARDS GREGORY.]
DEAN
Cas! Cas! Cas! Don't hurt him. Not yet.
**Disclosure: I do not accept the “Cass” spelling and take creative license to change it in the script whenever it appears**
GREGORY
All right, look, she didn't give me her name. When we were done, the driver bailed, I got paid, and then some other chick shows up, and they all drive away.
MARY
And that's everything you know?
GREGORY
(insincerely) Yeah. Totally.
****Um, Mom that’s my boyfriend you don’t order him around like tha-
Oh, well, ok then.
***This is important, because Cas doesn’t obey anyone (other than Dean) blindly ever since he invented free will and all that. Hence Dean’s surprised/impressed look to Mary above.
Meanwhile:
I recall that I spent most of my first watch of Season 12 gushing over Toni Bevell, so I’m glad to know this won’t be changing. You’ve been warned.
Next up, Sam is again sex tortured, Cas is a Helpful Boyfriend, and for some reason, Rick Springfield.
#spn#spn meta#spn analysis#spn recaps#season 12x01#season 12#supernatural#destiel#dean cas#spn fandom#toni bevell#sorry this is long af#but not really sorry bc its mainly due to the additional pics of Toni bevell#and you need her in your life#myspnmeta
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So, I had this idea, but I'm not really good with writing Harringrove, so I thought I could share it with u. A modern au where Steve nd Billy are streamers in L.A. Like, maybe Billys a gaming streamer nd Steve is a v chill streamer nd basically half of their live streams consist of Steve sitting in Billys lap nd the two of them cuddling while just talking nd one day they get a donation question like, "Are the two of u dating wtf" nd they just go "duh" also. femme/nonbinary steve
I love the idea of Steve being jenna marbles-esque, just like sweet and kinda weird and super loved.
And y’all know my love for nb Steve.
Based loosely on this post. Mainly just the gif.
Watch me make up twitter handles lol
This is v soft and includes many of my headcanons for these two living their lovely modern lives.
-
“Bill!”
Steve was yowling like a damn cat out in the kitchen, interrupting Billy’s stream. “Billy!”
“Stevie! I’m streamin’, Baby!” Hear could hear Steve’s feet plodding down the hall. The chat started going crazy as they appeared in the stream behind Billy, wearing a too-big sweater, thick wool socks on those perpetually cold little feet. Their hair was a fucking mess, and they were wearing their glasses, the big ones Billy loved.
They climbed on Billy’s lap, settling their face into his neck.
“What’s up?”
“Just wanted some lovin’.” Steve’s voice was soft, but they always put their face on the side Billy’s headset mic was on and the audience would go wild over the quiet things they said. Billy rubbed their back before going back to his game.
“Everyone welcome Stevie to the stream.”
He kept playing as usual, Steve a warm little puddle in his lap.
“Okay, Babes. I’m signing off for today, Steve is definitely asleep on me right now and I gotta put them to bed. Love you all, stay safe.” He had to awkwardly shuffle Steve around in his lap to turn off the stream, picking them up to take them to the room across the hall.
They had gotten a two bedroom when they were still friends, pretending they weren’t fucking in love with each other. They had moved into the bedroom formerly known as Steve’s, setting up Billy’s old room for streaming and video editing.
Steve snuffled as Billy took off their glasses, sliding into bed behind them.
-
Steve was sitting on the floor, laughing at the monitor.
They had been doing a series of Quarantine Madness videos, doing crafts and silly makeup tutorials.
They were currently trying temporary hairdye, had their hair sticking up in all directions.
“This is so fucking stupid, oh my god.” They had electric pink in their hair, Billy had gotten roped into it with dark blue.
“If you destroy my hair for YouTube hits, I’m gonna cry.” Steve had their thin fingers in his hair, rubbing the dye in.
“Oh, worse comes to worse you get ridda that fucking mullet.”
“You love this mullet. It’s my trademark.” Billy’s hair wasn’t supposed to be a mullet, was originally a shag that had grown in weird, but Billy had become known for it, and he had kinda grown to like it.
“The whole premise of this video is to get you to shave your head.” Billy laughed. “Okay, so we gotta wait like twenty minutes and then we gotta wash it out.” They looked at memes while they waited, figured Steve would edit all this waiting out of the video anyway.
They washed the dye out in the sink, scrubbing at one another’s heads before getting in the shower to clean off the patches on their skin.
They ended up getting a little distracted in the shower.
Steve had blow dried both their hair to see the color. The pink was subtle in Steve’s dark hair, the highlights they had gotten a few weeks before quarantine picking up more of the color.
Billy’s hair was bright fucking blue, and neither of them could stop laughing at it.
“I kinda, kinda love it on you, Bill.” Steve was brushing their fingers through Billy’s hair, making him lean into the touch like a damn cat.
The video ended up being wildly popular.
-
“So, you all tweeted us some questions, and we’re gonna answer them over live stream. We each picked a bunch to pose to one another, so yeah.” Steve shrugged. “Billy, @.DustinHendy wants to know why you’re such a little bitch.” Billy cackled, planting his face into Steve’s shoulder.
“Tell Dustin he’s a little garbage human.” Billy winked at the camera, making the comments along the side of the screen go crazy. “Um, I thought this question was interesting, @.llittlebug says: you two are so touchy. Are you together, or are you just close friends? We’re gal pals, actually.” Steve laughed, loud and bright.
“Two bros chillin’ in the hot tub, five feet apart ‘cause we’re not gay.” Steve sang, making them both crack up.
“Yeah, we’re very much in a relationship, have been for four years now.” Steve was giving him that soft smile Billy loved so much. He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to that sweet little mouth. The chat was going insane, people sending comments along the lines of I knew it! and so happy for you both!
Steve’s cheeks were flushed.
“So, uh @.bigyikes asks, how did you two meet? Well actually, we went to high school together, and fucking hated each other when we first met, got in a big fight, worked our shit out became friends, moved in together, and fell in love like big dumb losers.”
“So bold of you to claim I ever hated you. I literally was fucking in love with them from the first time I ever saw them but I was, uh, going through a lot, and was kind of the worst back then.” Steve’s arm was on his shoulder, playing with the long hair by his neck.
“You’ve gotten so much better. And I’m proud of you.” Billy planted a kiss to their forehead.
“Next question before I fucking cry, @.imaloser wants to know our sexualities and gender expressions. I mean, you’ve been plenty open about all that.”
“Well, yeah. I’m pansexual and agender, which is under the nonbinary umbrella, but I like to typically present femme. And I use they pronouns, most of you know that, of course. I’m pretty open.” They turned big eyes on Billy.
“These days, I just identify as queer. I’ve always identified as a gay man, but I haven’t dated a guy in a long fuckin’ time.” Steve curled into his side.
“It’s been a learning process for both of us. I mean Billy’s the first person I dated seriously after I came out, and there was just a part of me that felt lowkey misgendered every time he said he was gay.”
“Oh, there was a lot of learning in those early days for sure. And I think we’re both still doing that. I hope I am.” Steve poked his stomach.
“You’re good to me, Bill.” There was a slew of sweet comments in the live stream.
“@.folks asks when did you get into makeup?” He turned to Steve.
“Growing up, most of my friends were girls, and I just always loved playing dress up, and getting make overs. When I was like, fourteen I think, I started playing with makeup myself, learning from YouTube tutorials, and just like, messing around with stuff. I always loved just feeling really pretty, so that’s why-” they gestured at themself, one of Billy’s shirts tucked into old worn out jeans, soft white cardigan. They had put on a full face of makeup for the stream.
“I think you’re the prettiest.” Steve laughed, headbutting Billy’s shoulder.
“Okay, so @.imstruggling wants to know who’s a better cook.” Steve turned dramatically to the camera. “Me, bitch!”
#yikes writes#harringrove#modern harringrove#steve harrington#billy hargrove#steve harrington x billy hargrove#billy hargrove x steve harrington#harringrove fic#harringrove ficlet#harringrove drabble#nonbinary steve harrington#nonbinary!steve#modern au
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may I request a break up but then they make up situation with haechan/jeno? angst to fluff? AAA thank you i love ur writes sm
of course you can, love! thank you so much for requesting and for your kind words, i love you 🤍
Lee Donghyuck
You’ve been fighting all day.
He hates it. He hates having to be serious and to sit down, and he hates the way his temper gets the best of him sometimes. Haechan cannot bare to see the tears in your eyes, but when you gather phone and keys so you can go out to get a clear head, he begs you not to. He begs you to stay and take a nap and then you’ll talk about it in the evening, but you only mumble a small “sorry”, and then you’re out the door.
What Donghyuck also hates is when you spend time with his members after you guys were arguing. Sometimes, he tends to forget how close you and Jaemin are, even though you got together because of his matchmaker skills. So when he sees the snap Jaemin sends to the Dreamies groupchat where you’re sitting on a bench and eating ice cream, Donghyuck shouldn’t be seething, but he is.
He can’t believe you’d talk about your relationship problems with Na Jaemin. The thought drives him so far up the wall that he loses his temper the second you come back home, Jaemin’s hoodie covering your small frame.
Donghyuck hates the way his anger controls him during moments like this. It hadn’t helped when he and Mark and fought three years ago, and it certainly didn’t help now. You snap at each other back and forth, and he lets the words slip without even meaning to. The second they leave his mouth, he already regrets them, but he can’t take them back, they’re already spoken.
“Just admit you’re cheating on me already. I can’t stand to see you with guys who could provide you with much more than I can and I don’t want to be the stand-in until the right guy comes.”
Your mouth had fallen open at that.
There was no reason, no reason at all for him to have said that. You had argued this morning because of a guy that had gotten too flirty yesterday at a party, but it wasn’t like you had flirted back. Donghyuck had told you to stand up for yourself and atleast tell the dumb guy that you were taken. You retorted that being taken couldn’t have been more obvious than you holding his hand.
“Hyuck,” you had said, and there are tears forming in your eyes. His heart hurts so fucking much. That guy from yesterday just couldn’t leave his head - Donghyuck wished so desperately to tell the entire world that you were his and his alone, that you were his soulmate, that he wants to make you his wife someday. But he can’t, because he’s an idol, and he doesn’t even belong to himself. How can you be his when he’s never gonna be yours? “Hyuck, what are you on about?”
“Let’s break up, (y/n),” Donghyuck said. The room fell silent, and his heartbeat seemed to be loud enough for you to hear it. “I’m setting you free.”
You hadn’t stopped him from rushing out the apartment. You didn’t follow him down the many stairs leading to the street and you didn’t come to the dorm after to try and fix it.
Why should you? After what Hyuck had done to you, he couldn’t even look into the mirror.
He may have left that apartment, but his heart was still with you. Without it, he felt so unbelievably hollow. He tried to fill it with junk food and alcohol and the affection of his members, wandering from bed to bed so someone would hold him when he’d start crying in his sleep.
It didn’t help.
After three days, Donghyuck is awoken by something crashing loudly in the living room. His eyes snap open, and he raises his head to identify the commotion. The door to his and Johnny’s room is closed, but the noises only grow louder until they reach the door and someone turns the knob.
You tumble into the room, wearing not Jaemin’s hoodie, but his.
He moves to stand up, but you’re quick, falling into the bed and straddling him so you can give him a bone-crushing hug. He doesn’t even care about the fact that he can barely breathe like this. Haechan’s arms move on instinct to cradle your body lovingly, burying his face in your neck and breathing in deeply. This, this is what was missing, and he realizes that no food in the world could ever chase away that empty feeling.
You pour all your love into it instead.
“Baby,” Haechan whimpers, “My sweet baby. I’m so sorry for saying that. I was out of my mind. It’s just that I’m always so scared of loving you because I can’t give you what any other boyfriend can...”
“Hyuck,” you disrupt him. He whines loudly when you push him away, in the typical bratty way, but you shut him up with a hand to his mouth. “Don’t say dumb stuff again. I don’t want what anyone else would give me. I want you and I want to be yours.”
His heart soars at those words. It makes him giddy, a smile tugging at his lips, and he attacks your face with kisses, biting your cheeks and soothing it with a sweet peck after. “You always were.”
You giggle. It’s his favorite sound in the entire world. He apologizes over and over, but kissing him until he’s breathless does the trick.
(You later explain that the loud commotion in the living room was Jaemin trying to sneak you into the dorm, even though he didn’t live at the 127 dorm. You ended up scaring Doyoung and had resorted to running to his room. The entire house hears Donghyuck laugh about that.)
Lee Jeno
Jeno and you have been broken up for a long time, but it still hurts.
It hurts so much that you get breathless every time you see him and his group on social media. His voice drives daggers through your heart when you listen to him during interviews, and no matter how much you try to explain to your battered heart that it’s over, it still hopes for him to come back.
Loving Lee Jeno was as easy as breathing. Who wouldn’t adore him, with his kind smile and cute pick-up lines? The simple beauty of watching him rap, or having the air knocked out of your lungs because of how passionately he kissed you. His kindness, his attentiveness. It all drew you in and locked you into his heart.
And then he had pushed you out.
Not on his own accords, though. The dating ban was pressuring him, and SM was always uneasy with your relationship. No matter how much Jeno tried to convince them, in the end, they forced his hand and made him break up with you.
The fact that it wasn’t even his own decisions makes your heart bleed.
It’s an open wound that no one wants to irritate. Your friends don’t mention Jeno, and you never talk about him again. All the memories, the stolen kisses, the many up-all-nights where you shared secrets and life experiences, you hid it all away, never to be seen again.
You suffer in silence for a long time.
Exactly one year later, you see him on TV. His music video is being displayed on one of the flat screens that were positioned in the café you were in, and your friends hurry to hide your sight, but it’s too late. A sad smile makes its’ way to your lips - he looks so beautiful. You remember his shy smile after telling him that he looked stunning, just for him to whisper back: “You’re way more pretty, (y/n). The prettiest and most precious person in my life.”
Your friends quickly pay for your coffees and then tug you outside. You feel bad for burdening them, but they tell you that they love you and this was not burdening them. They’d always take care of you.
Unfortunately for them, they run you right back into Lee Jeno’s arms.
You squeak in suprise as you stumble, but strong hands hold you up. He’s gained muscle, is the first thing you notice, and his hair is dyed is blonde. The second thing you notice is how soft his gaze gets as he recognizes you.
“Hey,” Jeno says. His hands haven’t left your waist.
“Hey,” you whisper back, your eyes never leaving his. He’s heartbreakingly beautiful. Sharp jawline, eyes wide at the sight of you. You want to kiss him. Coughing awkwardly, you step back, and his hands drop to his sides. You want to apologize, but your friends are already tugging you along, cussing out Lee Jeno as they go.
He doesn’t even get to tell you how much he had missed you. Missed you so much he almost begged you on the spot to take him back.
Later that night, you receive a text message. Your heart almost jumps out of your chest. You thought you’d never see his name pop up on your screen again.
[07:26pm] lee jeno: come down
You don’t even lock your phone before storming out of your apartment, and you also barely remember to take your keys with you. You almost fall down the damn stairs trying to get to the street.
Lee Jeno waits for you, the biggest bouquet you’ve ever seen in his hands. He has your favorite smile on his lips, his shy one, the one you were shown everytime you gushed over him. You wrap him in a hug and tug him down so you can hide your face in his shoulder, and his lips find your temple.
“Lee Sooman is going to kill you,” you deadpan, but you still hold on to him to make sure he doesn’t disappear. Jeno doesn’t even answer, instead resorting to tilt your head and kiss you so many times until he’s sure your mind is fuzzy.
“I’ll tell him it’s not my fault,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re too cute. I ... want to give us a chance. Because I love you, and I think I’ll love you forever. Can I be your forever?”
“There’s no forever if Lee Sooman assassinates you,” you tell him, but it’s not like you can reject him. So you nod, hands cupping his face. “I want to be your forever, too.”
#jeno’s part ended up being a little bit shorter :(#i’m sorry love! let me know if i should just this rewrite this in a seperate post#thank you for requesting 🤍#lee donghyuck#lee jeno#nct dream#lee jeno x reader#lee donghyuck x reader#nct dream x reader#nct#nct x reader#nct 127#nct 127 x reader#nct angst#nct fluff#nct dream angst#nct dream fluff#nct 2018
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I kinda just wanted to make a rant, to lay out why I feel so iffy about trans women and hopefully get a better understanding of my own feelings and what the fuck is brewing under that surface. There has to be a reason. This post is analytical drivel, not a debate, but by all means, feel free to respond or otherwise talk to me about this.
Let's take it from the beginning and then go from there.
Part 1
Detransition:
So, I began detransitioning roughly 2 years ago. That's where my feelings about the trans community as a whole began to shift, and with that my feelings about trans women. At that time, I was still active in a truscum group and came out as detrans there, after having been known and looked up to as a trans man there for over a year. At first I was accepted, but when I started having doubts about wanting to get rid of my beard, and felt like I wanted to embrace my body hair and deep voice... people there started acting like shit towards me. They told me that my biological sex still being female did not matter, that I was essentially a man and had to detrans medically to be considered a woman again. That hurt badly.
Shortly after that, I was also told that because I was medically transitioned, trans women were "more female" than me. That was like the last drop that made the goblet pour over. Fuming, I started saying that I'm more of a woman than trans women can ever be, even if I keep a full beard, because they'll never be truly biologically female, no matter how much surgery they got. I was hurting by their cruel words, so I stuck it where it would hurt them the same. (I’ve always an “eye for an eye” sorta person.) That's when people started telling me that I hate trans women, but I felt like that was a misunderstanding. That I was just acting out, out of sadness, grief, anger, panic, and having my gender denied for the sake of validating trans women's genders.
But were they right?
Part 2
Gender critical thought:
Over time, I got exceedingly gender critical and fell into radblr. I also read/watched content that "exposed" transgenderism as a scam, most of which was articles and youtube videos from conservative right wing people, and Christians. I had joined an fb group for detransitioners, and the creator, a "born again" Christian detrans man, happily shared all the many sources he had on how transgender was all a scam from the start of its movement. I felt somewhat sick consuming those links, but probably equally intrigued. But at the same time, I kept a foot in the trans community, starving for attention, even though I was never good enough for them anymore, unless I lied and said I'm not a woman. What a sick twist of fate, I felt.
Part 3a
Sexuality, from a lesbian view:
Sometime around that, I struggled with my sexuality and after a lot on inner search, I came to the conclusion I was a lesbian. I felt as though I was only attracted to the same sex as myself, including trans men, but felt nothing worth praising towards males, including trans women. That led to yet another rabbit hole that I tumbled down into. I became convinced that majority of trans women were lesbophobic predators, and I had some shit luck on dating apps. Most people who approached me there were gnc males; transvestites and trans women. I almost went on a date with a good-looking trans woman whom I had mistaken for female, because I felt guilty for having lost attraction to her the moment she told me she's trans and post-op. Luckily she canceled our date for unrelated reasons. I felt like because she was attractive to me before I knew she's trans, but felt completely uninterested in her after the fact, I couldn't possibly be attracted to trans women.
Part 3b
Sexuality, from a bisexual view:
That, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. But I kept asking myself why. Especially since I realised my error in my sexuality calculations, and upon correction discovered I'm actually bisexual after all. I still find women and transitioned females attractive, and in addition to that also men in general, and some vaguely transitioned males. Except from trans women. That odd little inconvenience stood out as a sore thumb which I couldn't stop scratching. Why? I kept asking myself. Why not trans women?
My question dug deeper than just to attraction. I don't think I feel iffy about trans women because I'm not attracted to them. I think it's the other way around.
I never had to convince myself to be attracted to trans men. I discovered early on in my own transition that some other trans men were really hot. That was it. I later on dated a trans man whom I was head over heals in love with. That confirmed it. I've been questioning my attraction to standard men and women far more than I ever questioned my attraction to trans men. It was that obvious, that clear. However, when it comes to trans women I was always the complete opposite. That no matter how I twisted and turned it, I only ever felt revulsion at the thought of being sexual or romantic with a trans woman. No matter how well or badly they passed, no matter how aesthetically pleasing or how charming their personalities.
I wanna clarify that I'm not at all forcing myself to be into trans women. I'm just trying to understand why, so that I'll no longer feel bad about my lack of attraction to them. Because I cannot accept things which I do not understand.
Part 3c
Sexuality, digging for answers:
At first I thought, maybe I'm just not all that attracted to femininity. It's not like I typically get super into hyper-feminine natal women either, and fake tits and faces with a ton of plastic surgery has always made me queezy. No, I seem to have a strong preference for masculinity in partners, regardless if they're butches, other masc bi women, trans men or kinda standard masc natal men. So then it just kinda makes sense that trans women, whom are often hyper-feminine, just don't fit that image. Except... that one trans woman I almost went on a date with... she looked like a butch. I mistook her for a natal woman partly because she had short hair, no makeup and wore what looked like men's clothing, but I could see she had hips and tits, and her face looked naturally female. But I still wasn't into her, because she's trans.
Then I thought... okay, that one checks out, but maybe I'm just creeped out neo-vaginas? Yeah, that must be it! I'm almost equally creeped out by neo-penises too, but most trans men don't get bottom surgery anyway, so it hasn't been much on my mind. But then I thought: okay, but what about trans women who choose to not get bottom surgery then? I am attracted to dick. Nope, still uneasy at that thought. I started comparing men who are just very feminine, to trans women, and noticed yeah I don't actually feel half as iffy about men who are just feminine. A man in a dress and makeup can actually be very hot, to me. And I've always preferred long hair on men. But I prefer them still looking clearly male underneath that, although I don't mind a few androgynous features here and there. But I’m only into it if they don’t act like their affinity for femininity makes them women or non-binary, or if they’re feminine in a way that mocks or sexualises womanhood. So I’m not into tacky transvestites in over-sexualised lingerie. At least try to be tactful and elegant, please.
So, it’s not male femininity per se that puts me off. If there’s any femininity I’m actually into, it’s male femininity. Because gender non-conformity is attractive to me. And I love the idea of being a strong female protector and girlboss of a gentle, delicate, feminine man. At least I like fantasising about that. (But enough about my daydreams.)
Part 4a
Womanhood, biology and identity:
Somewhere after having gotten that far in my digging, I started getting close to finding my sore spot: trans women's view on womanhood.
As for myself, my own view of womanhood is completely detached from femininity. I'm just like... I can even have a full beard and bass voice, a flat and hairy chest, and still be a woman. Because I'm simply bio female. Trans women tend to very often think that they need to "pass" and with that comes a certain look: high voice, no facial hair, no body hair, big breasts, curvy hips, etc. All of which are features that I'm dysphoric about having on my own body, but admire in other natal women. But on trans women, it's like I feel uncomfortable about those kinda features on them. Like to me being a woman is just dealing with having developed that way, or not dealing with having developed that way. Where as for them it seems to be actually striving for developing that way, and I guess that causes my brain to short circuit. Cannot comprehend.
Part 4b
Womanhood, fragility and validation:
My womanhood is kinda fragile. I admit that. I'm quite insecure as a woman, because of my transition and masculinity. I feel like most of my womanhood has been lost, which although I'm fine with, I still grieve. I grieve it because I was a bit of an idiot when I first transitioned and had not yet processed my trauma - not because I regret looking like a man. It's complicated, but basically... I feel as though my womanhood is hanging by a thread, which is my genitals, reproductive system and chromosomes; all of which are either mostly hidden or always invisible.
I'm often met with disbelief and disagreement. People either saying "You're not a woman because you can't possibly be female. You look too male." or "You're not a woman because you medically transitioned. You having a uterus is not enough to make you a woman." and it gets to me. And then there are trans women... some of whom do not even need to put on a wig to be instantly validated as women by just identifying as such. Others thinking that because I look like a man, they refuse to think of me as a woman. And that... pisses me off.
There have been a few trans women who in some utterly failed attempt at being supportive of me have said I'm like a nonbinary person who is half male and half female. That's not a lot better, but thanks for trying... I guess.
Part 4c
Womanhood, dysphoria and misogyny:
I think that might be what gets to me about trans women. All of it. This entire list of things. That some of them are lesbophobic predators and have absurd claims of what being female is, that others mock womanhood, and yet others view themselves as somehow more female than I am. The genital factor and the slight creepiness of plastic surgery. Their view of womanhood as an identity and my view of it as a biological sex.
I keep ending up in fights with trans women about these sorta things. I can't keep a lid on my frustrations no matter how hard I try to just see them as people with dysphoria and opinions that are different from mine. I cannot find any fucking solidarity between myself, as a dysphoric natal woman, and trans women. I feel like they're making mockery of my sex, my dysphoria and my struggles with misogyny, as well as making me feel like shit about something that I love about my body: my transition. I have no common grounds with them, and whenever they try to find solidarity in stuff like misogyny, I feel like they don't even know what the fuck they're talking about.
I have a huge bone to pick with them, on multiple levels, and I don't even know where to start or where it ends.
Part 4d
Womanhood, jealousy:
But a lot of it comes from jealousy. And I think it's mutual. I'm jealous of their ability to access female only spaces despite being male, which I cannot access despite being female. I'm jealous of their ability to be accepted as women. And on the other side, I think they're jealous of my reproductive ability, and my female socialisation, which I'm not like super hyped about myself, although I do love my pussy (she gives me great orgasms.) I'm jealous of their ability to claim womanhood without even trying to pass as female, because people are quicker to accept the woman-gender-identity than the woman-bio-sex. But likewise, ironically, I sense that they're jealous of that I can claim the "woman lane" despite looking convincingly male, because I'll always be biologically female, no matter how insible my sex is.
They cannot see me as a woman, because of my transition, without looking at themselves as men, no matter how far they transition. And I cannot see them as women, no matter how far they transition, without labeling myself as a man, because of my own transition.
I think that about nails it.
Part 5
Conclusions:
I don't think it's true hatred, but rather insecurities both from myself and from them. Because we cannot both exist as women under the same ideology.
One of us has to be considered a man, and neither of us is willing to fold on that. Ultimately... I am a threat to their womanhood, as much as they are a threat to my womanhood.
And that tension is so thick... not even a knife could cut it.
I guess the sad thing is though, that I think that tension is unnecessary. I am so unlike trans women that we could potentially bond based on how different we are. Because there is a lot of similarity in those differences, if you really think about it.
But no, I do not wish them harm in any way. Despite the vast array of insults I sometimes hurl their way. That is really just in response to them insulting me. I do not think they're doing anything wrong by transitioning, or even necessarily by identifying as women. I think, if they had just been more like "I can see you as a woman despite having transitioned, because deep down you like being female and having a pussy... kinda like I'm a woman because I wanna have a pussy, despite having been born male" I would have been much quicker to embrace them. Because that, I could get behind; but they can't.
So, there is no solidarity. It remains an endless fight. But I feel like it's not just on my part. I have tried. I do try. But they're not willing to meet me halfway, and that makes me go to attack in self-defense, which makes then go to attack in self-defense.
#my stick up my arse about trans women#its hurt not hate#rant#analytical drivel#gender critical#radfem safe#detransition
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Mass Effect Trilogy Tag!
I was not tagged by anyone, I just really wanted to join in. If you see this and want to as well, please do! I've been loving reading through everyone's :)
I am a fan since… 2011ish? Definitely at least a year before ME3 came out. I remember watching my brother play ME2 and thinking it was so cool. While he was away it was a huge comfort for me to play it in his room, kind of like a bonding or cathartic experience for someone who wasn't there at the time.
When ME3 came out, me and him went to the midnight release at a gamestop like 40 minutes away or something, wearing clothes we threw together to kind of fit the N7 color scheme. Even though we don't talk anymore, those memories are still really precious to me. Also, the nostalgia of playing ME1 after-school or on the weekend, running to get my easy mac from the microwave during a cutscene, stuffing too hot mouthfuls while speeding the Mako towards the conduit on Ilos.
Favorite game of the series: It's a tough call between ME1 and ME2, but I'd say ME2. It's the game I get the urge to replay the most.
MaleShep or FemShep? Femshep all the way. I only play MShep when I want to do his exclusive romances. No offense to BroShep, but ME was the first game I ever played that let me not just be a girl, but customizable. Not just to be the already generated token girl character in a pack of boys. And not only can you play Femshep, but every game you are surrounded by smart, funny, tough women as squadmates. It was such a huge deal to me, and still is. Femshep represents so much. As Jennifer Hale put it, FemShep was a military grade boot to the video game industry glass ceiling.
Earthborn, Colonist or Spacer? I personally tend to lean spacer in-game, but I tend to use Earthborn when I'm writing fics.
Paragon or Renegade? Usually Paragon, but Renegade playthroughs can be really interesting, especially if I have a detailed background about why Shep is the way they are. My first Renegade, Krystle, is pretty bigoted and anti-alien until she meets Liara. Krystle is naturally guarded and quick to anger, so meeting someone who seemed to accept her and listen to her without judgment really opens her mind.
By the 2nd game, she wakes up in the cerberus lab with new biotic powers, having previously been a regular foot soldier. This makes her seeth, having someone completely take her agency, agreeing with the illusive man on the surface but plotting against him the entire time. She starts to lean more Paragon, if only to piss him off. She has the biggest smirk on her face when she blows up the collector base.
Biotics or Tech? Oooh, this is hard. Maybe biotics just the tiniest smidge because of Jack/Samara biotic bubble throw during the suicide mission. I don't know if we'll ever get a screen adaptation but THAT is a moment I would pay to see done with a big SFX budget behind it.
Favorite class: Sentinel! I don't know how much this reflects on my class preference in gaming in general, but I love the 'jack of all trades'ness of it. By the time I get an assault rifle, I don't really feel the need for anyone else to make up for something I lack. Also, tech armor in ME2? Where your shields regenerate automatically when it breaks, and the cool down is when you initially active it, instead of when you detonate it? Chef's kiss. I understand why it was nerfed in 3 but I'm still mad.
Favorite companion: Ho boy. This is obviously very difficult to choose but I'm gonna say Miranda. I've always loved and identified with her character, I love the accent, and she's always useful on missions. I was so happy when I learned she could be a squadmate in the armax arena.
Honorable mention to Ashley in ME1. Her character is rarely used to exposition lore, so she just gets to have her personality fleshed out. I don't always agree with her but she does seem genuinely willing to listen. ME3 tosses her out the airlock though; partially because her content was bugged and never restored, leaving her inclusion feel half-baked, and partly because Ash and Kaidan have to be able to serve the same plot function as each other and it negatively affects her character more than his. This could also be intentional on bioware's part, to try to flesh out kaidan's personality and tone down Ashley's as a response to criticisms of them from ME1.
Least favorite companion: Also difficult, because I don't really hate anyone as much as I am just less interested in some. I didn't like Zaeed for a long time, but I think he's much better and really funny in ME3. James was pushed on me too much at the beginning and it made me really dislike him, but I think he's greatly improved and also pretty funny in Citadel DLC. I'm also pretty indifferent to Jacob; I don't think he's a bad character, just disappointing because there was a lot of potential.
Not that every character has to go on and do some grand quest to be interesting, but I don't feel like Jacob every really got a big hero moment like everyone else. He is a very calm and introverted person (imo) who doesn't really share his feelings, so it's always been hard for to to connect with him on anything.
My squad selection: Depends on the game, but it usually involves Garrus lol. Typically it's Liara/Garrus in ME1, Miranda/Garrus for ME2, and Liara/Garrus again in ME3. I am very boring and predictable! If you have any suggestions for me to try out and mix things up, let me know!
Favorite in-game romance: Also depends on the game. ME1 it's Liara, hands down. It was the first game, really the first piece of media, where I was told two women could fall in love and be happy and that was okay. The amount of enlightenment and comfort in figuring out that I was bi these games brought me is kind of wild to look back on.
ME2 is a toss-up between Garrus and Thane. They are both wonderful but in completely different ways. I tend to now romance Thane on characters I don't plan on importing to ME3, or if I do, to just have a really depressed fucking Shepard lol. I hate how much Thane was brushed off, especially if you romanced him.
Other pairings I like: l love Miranda so much, but I'm a gay girl so I ship her and Femshep. Same goes for Tali, Jack, Ashley... damn I'm just really gay for straight girls huh :/
I don't really have any other ships for non-Shep related pairings.
Favorite NPC: Shiala is really cool to me, I wish we got to see her in 3. Emily Wong is also cool, also wish we saw her in 3. There's probably a lot more that when I come across them next I'll be like, "you! I love you! You're my favorite."
Oh also Joker! And EDI! But not together. Idk I feel like ME3 threw a curveball at me with "do you support organic/non-organic relationships?" Like m'am please don't ask me, I accidentally drank turian liquor last year, I'm not qualified to be an expert on this.
Favorite antagonist: Tbh I really dig Saren. I think his reasoning is super fascinating, both to set up how someone who's indoctrinated can rationalize to themselves that they are still in control; and as a foil to Shepard, to show what can happen when you become too isolated and the ends justify the means. I think his VA does a great job of walking the line between desperate survivor and madman. He's also the only antagonist in the trilogy that we ever fight 1 on 1 (ignoring squadmates) and it feels more personal. I think he's such a fantastic foe for the first entry in a trilogy and I don't think he gets enough credit.
Favorite mission: Is it cliche to say the suicide mission? It's honestly close to perfect. The stakes, the sequencing, the cinematics, the score. Everything works so well.
Favorite loyalty mission: Kasumi's and Tali's are really cool, as we all know. Samara's is also cool because it is entirely non-combat based. Shepard has to prove they can accomplish what seems impossible without a gun or biotics.
The confrontation at the end with Morinth always haunts me a little, because they are both right in their own way. Morinth's final line, "and they say I'm the monster", as you let Samara kill her, watch her scrambling backwards in fear... I know that she's a remorseless killer, but it gets me every time.
Favorite DLC: It's Citadel, obviously. Turns out what I really wanted was quality time and a party with all my friends. I love mass effect for many reasons, but simulating friends and affection when I had none has always made me bond to this series like other games don't. Is it sad? Sure! But I don't think love and affection for fictional characters should ever be shameful until it makes you hurt other people.
Control, Synthesis or Destroy? I'd say destroy. If the other options were presented earlier and we had time to stew with it, maybe I'd be more split. But all of this in 5 minutes? It's not like the collector base where the implications are obvious and the choice is just down to what Shepard believes. The 3 choices all seem like space magic out of nowhere, and none of them seem to really offer any insight on what Shepard should believe. So I say destroy, just because it's what Shep has intended and is most consistent with their character and their admiration of Anderson.
Favorite weapon: The spectre level assault rifle in ME1. Never have I felt more powerful.
Favorite place: Idk why but I just thought of the creepy lab with all the scientists during the leviathan DLC. I really love when Mass Effect leans into the Lovecraftian horror aspect of things. Talking to Sovereign and Vigil in ME1 gave me goosebumps my first few playthroughs.
A quote I like: I have hundreds, but the one off the top of my head is, "After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began." I have a poster of it up on my wall right now!
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For anyone who's been bullied:
Ignoring bullies never works. If people keep telling you to just ignore bullies and it'll stop, I need to tell you something right now:
IT'S A FUCKING LIE.
Here's a bunch of bullying myths below:
https://www.bullyonline.org/old/schoolbully/myths.htm
A few of my favorites being debunked below (On a side note, spellcheck doesn't recognize British-English spelling, my apologies for the edits to American spelling):
Ignore it
Never ignore bullying; bullies use provocation to elicit a response from their target and if you ignore it the provocation will get worse. When people say "ignore it" they mean "don't engage and don't respond". When bullying starts, recognize it immediately, keep a log of events, do your research, and get your parents and teachers involved. Be persistent. You have a right not to be bullied, harassed, assaulted or abused.
Stand up for yourself
It's funny how people who simply say "stand up for yourself" never, ever, tell you how to stand up for yourself. Even adults find it difficult to defend themselves against the onslaught of bullies, especially a serial bully.
Victims of bullying don't know how to defend themselves verbally or physically
Society, parents and schools do not teach children the skills of physical, psychological, emotional and verbal self-defense. This is because most adults don't know how to do this.
Victims of bullying typically do not retaliate
Children have it drummed into them from the moment they are born that they must not hit, punch, kick, bite, scratch, pull, push, poke or use any form of physical violence. Children are often punished - sometimes brutally and humiliatingly - for exhibiting any form of violent behavior. Some adults then criticize children for not using violence when faced with a thug. Child targets of bullying also know (better than adults) that if they retaliate physically, the bully will feign victimhood (often with a convincing flood of tears) and the responsible adults will be fooled into believing that the target is the bully and the bully is the target. The (real) target is then punished by the adults whilst the bully looks on, enjoying every moment. Once the adults turn their backs, the bully starts on their target again. Targets are also people with high moral integrity, a well-developed sense of moral values, and a clear understanding of the need to resolve conflict with dialogue. This is how we teach children to behave and how society demands that children behave. We should therefore not be surprised when targets of bullying display their maturity by going to great lengths to resolve the violent acts committed towards them with dialogue rather than with fists or feet. Trying to resolving conflict with dialogue is a hallmark of integrity and strength of character. Bullying is a hallmark of lack of integrity and weakness of character.
Bullying toughens you up
Bullying is in the same league as harassment, discrimination, racism, violence, assault, stalking, physical abuse, sexual abuse, molestation and rape. It causes trauma and psychiatric injury and can, if untreated, cause a psychiatric injury of sufficient seriousness to blight a person for life, resulting in a lower standard of educational achievement, causing a poorer standard of health, preventing them realizing their potential and thus being able to contribute less to society than would otherwise be the case - including paying less in taxes throughout their life. The symptoms of psychiatric injury caused by bullying are consistent with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Victims lack social skills
It is bullies who lack social skills and who are emotionally immature. Only emotionally retarded people who lack social skills need to bully; no-one else needs to.
Victims are afraid to go to school
This is a correct observation, but is a consequence, not a pre-existing condition. Most targets of bullying like to study but are prevented from doing so by the thuggery of bullies who enjoy causing harm to others. When a child is forced to attend school (under threat of sanction and prosecution of parents if they don't), and is forced to endure violent assault, intimidation and threat on a daily basis whilst the responsible adults repeatedly fail in their duty of care, it's hardly surprising that fear enters the equation. A child's self-protective instinct is often wrongly diagnosed as school phobia - a diagnosis which is incorrect, offensive, and tantamount to professional misconduct and collusion with the bullying.
Violence on TV makes children violent
A lot of people watch violence on TV but only a handful of people are violent. Therefore, TV violence is not a cause, otherwise everybody who watched TV violence would be violent, which they are not. Claims and calls to ban violence on TV make a good soap box for gaining attention for the person making the claim but it won't solve the problem. If you ban TV violence, violent people will still commit violence; all that will happen is that they will modify their chosen expression of violence. It should be noted though that repeatedly watching scenes of violence can desensitize people, especially young people in their formative years.
Playing violent video games makes children violent
A lot of kids play violent video games but only a handful of children are violent. Therefore, violent video games are not a cause, otherwise everybody who played violent video games would be violent, which they are not. Claims and calls to ban violent video games make a good soap box for gaining attention for the person making the claim but it won't solve the problem. If you ban violent video games, violent children will still be violent; all that will happen is that they will modify their chosen expression of violence. It should be noted though that repeatedly interacting with violent games can desensitize young people, ie those at whom video games are targeted.
You'll never get rid of bullying so let's concentrate on teaching victims how to assert themselves
It is sensible to teach everybody strategies of self-defense, however, this must not be used as a smokescreen for encouraging bullies by failing to hold them accountable. Any anti-bullying scheme which omits accountability for the bullies is likely to have only limited success, and often no long-term success. It's likely we'll never completely get rid of harassment, discrimination, racism, abuse, molestation, pedophilia etc but we must never give up trying. Problems like bullying are solved by identifying and dealing with the cause, not by trying to hide, suppress or reduce the effects. Unfortunately, many people - and especially the responsible adults who are abdicating and denying their legal obligations - like to focus exclusively on the targets of bullying, thus distracting attention away from the source of the problem.
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Be you: Morgan Yu (a name so fitting Yu might forget you're not You) scientist extraordinaire, catchin’ some z's in your penthouse apartment. Got red in the eyes, and needles in the brain. Big Bro Yu calls to say how excited he is to stick more needles in Yu. we can roll with that. ride a helicopter to see the Title, press some buttons, move some crates, watch the doctor get eaten by a big ol’ black spider. typical day at the offi-
Be you: Morgan Yu, scientist extraordinaire, catchin so- wait, wtf is going on? Who moved the cereal. also that’s one fake ass helicopter, and now a calendar is talking to Yu, and all the apples and coffee mugs are actually spiders, and your penthouse is a space station. this sounds like a job for the trusty wrench. Wait, did i accidentally click on System Shock…
become the paranoid monster you were always meant to be, and smash every inanimate object between Yu and that office. Stick with the disembodied voices, they’ll know what to do. Big Bro is happy you’re alive, but says Yu need to get your shit together and embrace your potential as the ultimate hybrid Cyberpunk alien god. expectations are high, but anxiety is higher. Calendar says fuck that, blow shit up. sounds like a plan. go meet calendar in person... err, machine, and realize it's you. Not Yu, you. Just you. Not to be confused with other Yu, or other you. You tells Yu that Yu were you, and that you said 'blow up everything', but other other you says run away. Wonder what Yu thinks?
hit snooze on your introspective personality crisis slash moral dilemma, cause it’s time to recycle. luckily people materials come in three easy to identify color coded cubes, and alien materials are a bouncy purple ball. Yu’d think this technology would be hard to come by, but luckily theres a cube n’ ball machine around every corner like its fucking Starbucks.
now the spiders are people, and the people are dead, and the dead are everywhere, and so are the spiders. adopt 'scream and run away' policy as a legitimate strategy, while trying to collect enough cubes and orbs to make more of the needles that got you here in the first place. hard to learn from history when JFK didn't actually die, and also oh right you have no M e M o R i E s
its a spider, its a wrench, its a SHOTGUN. oh how the turn tables have tided. feel unstoppable for all of 30 seconds until the floaty bois arrive and all the ammo is gone. fuck TriOptimum…. i mean Transtar, and their shitty ammo distribution. id almost rather fight plagues and rats with a foldable sword...
INTERMISSION
oh shit wait Yu GET TO FLOAT IN SPACE WITH A JETPACK, MOTHERFUCKER, NEVER MIND I TAKE IT ALL BACK. it’s the one mechanic to save them all. nothing screams spacepunk dystopia like looting a mutilated corpse in the void. Glide around for about an hour to see all the locked doors at your disposal, get bored cause space is still just space, and now it’s time to get your boots back on the ground to sAvE tHe WoRlD or whatever You, Yu, and other You keep going on about. But first have an apple and a nice refreshing bottle of - GOD DAMMIT WILL YOU STOP RIPPING OFF FACES EVERY 5 SECONDS
Big Bro and the calendar are at it again. yes yes, fate of the human race… brainwashing, needles, convoluted plots, evil experiments… got it got it. Pretend to be listening while you hack into every god damn email ever sent on this space station. oh shit you have an ex girlfriend and shes still alive. maybe you can get something out of all this bullshit after all. hopefully she has a kink for needle marks
up the non-elevator to turn on the elevator, to go back down another elevator, to the other elevator, that leads back to the first elevator that takes us to the door we were already at that needed to be opened to begin with. It’s almost like the physical maze of the space station is a metaphor for the complex labyrinth of morality for an individual with no true past and the fate of a species in their amnesiatic hands……..
maybe if there was as much ammo as there are loading screens on this fucking station we could have actually stopped this before space satan took over everything.
and now there are glowy cobwebs everywhere sending mysterious premonitions that make it more obvious than ever that the disembodied voices are lying to Yu. shocker.
grow some apples, play some dnd with dead people, unearth a black market smuggling ring, and participate in the best lesbian revenge plot since The Handmaiden. rescue Javik from his own stupidity and emotional distress cause Mozart is the key to happiness in the space apocalypse. Inevitably run out of side quests and cubes and orbs and needles and realize it’s time to get this whole saving the world business over with, so Yu can get some fucking sleep, and I can play SOMETHING FUN
The voices all agree Yu need to reboot the station. Oh hey it’s your nearly dead ex who controls the power button. Isn’t that convenient “have you tried turning it off and on again?” THANKS. DIDN’T THINK OF THAT. GLAD THAT DEGREE IS REALLY PAYING OFF. NO WONDER WE BROKE UP
turn it off and on again. oh... guess that worked.
Help your ex score some drugs to cure her Space Diabetes, only to find out that you (not Yu) murdered her dad for Science™
Now the fuzz is here via a series of bad decisions on everyones part, most specifically your parents for ever giving birth to Yu, but also other reasons such as: corporate evil, and plot holes. zap a bunch of flying robots and the guy who owns them cause honestly why have a difficult boss fight when literally every encounter has been. a. fucking. boss. fight.
Finally meet up with Big Bro to get the kaboom key, get the biotic god pitch once again, continue to not speak to anyone and pretend you’re in a simulation (>.>) get interrupted by the ultimate eldritch horror. *see: 'scream and run away'
Back on the elevator for the hundredth time. God, I hate this thing. Check your ammo: empty. Check your health: dying. Check your brain: needles. Classic. Get out. Immediately come face to face with your own waking Nightmare. Jump back in the elevator. God, I love this thing.
Watch you and other Yu get into it one last time and finally decide to blow everything up or control Space Satan.
Roll Credits
WAIT ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS, I JUST PUT LIKE 30 HOURS INTO THAT GAME, YOU CANT JUST CUCK ME WITH SOME 10 SECOND ENDI-
Be Yu/You???: strapped in a chair with Big Bro and the robo squad looking down at you. Verbally break down your choices almost like they were a morality scale in a convoluted and heavy handed video game. Realize your arms look like spiders. Realize you’re space jesus. #worthit
Big Bro offers you his hand so you can ask yourself one last time:
"Who are Yu?"
#prey#prey game#arkane#chris avellone#bethesda#video games#dishonored#gaming#morgan yu#alex yu#typhon#transtar#survival horror#stealth game#horror#yu#so fun#and terrifying#and grueling
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The Journey Continues
As an individual who is constantly trying to figure out who I am and where I belong, is the biggest journey I have undertaken. I was never taught that I had the choice of gender, or that there was a possibility of living outside the gender binary. This self-exploration so far has been challenging, overwhelming, dark and scary at times, yet it has helped me understand myself better: with my thoughts, feelings, actions, and insecurities.
First off, you may ask what is gender binary? According to Psychology today; it refers to “the notion that gender comes in two distinct flavors: men and women, in which men are masculine and women are feminine. Men are male sex, and women are the female sex.” It can affect the clothes we buy, maybe the barbershops we go to, men's restroom vs. Women’s restroom. In fact, one of the first things you learn about your child is their sex at birth, which is typically assigned by their sex organs; girls have vaginas and boys have penises. Wait! The gender binary doesn’t end there; it affects maybe the color of their nursery, the clothes we purchase for them as well as the terms we use to describe them. Societal norms label boys as strong, tough, or handsome; while girls are labeled sweet, gentle and kind.
Quick history lesson, the gender binary is actually a fairly new concept; however, due to Christian colonization, we think that the binary has existed since the dawn of fucking time. When missionaries recognized that majority of indigenous cultures had three or more genders (known as two-spirit), the idea of extinguishing their beliefs and practices was a must. The Navajo call them nádleehí, in Siberia Chukchi are tribal shaman whose third identity designates them as spiritual leaders within their community. The Maori culture in New Zealand are known as wakawahine and in the Democratic republic of Congo, individuals are referred to as bangala.
How does this all fit into my journey? Well, I guess this is really just another coming out, a new discovery that was waiting to be explored, to be found, and eventually to be lived. I have been going through this narrative in my head for quite some time; let’s just say, once I became nutritionally stable during my stay at Rosewood Ranch. I am a person who questions, who wants to learn, and wants to understand more than anything. When it comes to myself, this drive is pushed into overdrive, because hey I want to be able to know these questions about myself and not feel so insecure all the time about understanding who I truly am. Since 2012 I have been out as a Transgender man. I thought that is all it took, to know that hey If I didn’t feel like a biological female, didn’t want my genitals nor my reproductive organs, and living my life socially as a female didn’t seem possible; when I thought about the idea of being a woman, a sister, a mother, a grandmother all that left a bad taste in my mouth, physically nauseous and lightheaded. I knew that if I wasn’t a woman the only option that I saw at the time was man. I whispered dad, brother, grandpa in my ear and the bad taste slowly subsided but always lingered. Something was off, but again something I couldn’t grasp or even comprehend an Idea outside the binary; when I didn’t even know such a thing existed.
Fast forward to 2020, there was still so much for me to learn beyond this label, and what transgender actually meant for me. Picking it apart and putting it back together. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be transgender? Do I fit somewhere along this binary? Is there something beyond the binary? I kept on that struggle bus for 8 years up until recently. Once I returned home from residential, I consumed as much information about gender and the binary as I could. I talked with to so many people in and out of treatment who Identify on the binary spectrum as well as not on the spectrum. Many conversations of how they knew this is who they are down to their core. It’s hard to feel like you know who you are and after 8 years you realize that this has only been just the beginning of my transition. I have learned that I want facial hair, body hair, no tits, I don’t want my vagina or reproductive organs. I thoroughly enjoy having a lower voice and not too sure about bottom surgery still going back and forth with procedures. I also learned that having all these qualities can help you identify as a man (if you are on the spectrum) as well as not, just like myself. All these physical traits represent how my brain identifies my physical appearance that makes me feel more connected; at peace with myself. Being transgender to me means not identifying as my biological birth (AFAB-Female assigned at birth). I think just knowing that takes so much weight off my shoulders at times. I have spent the last 8 years of my transition forcing myself into a box literally that I can’t conform to. I have spent the last 15 years being forced into a box in every aspect of my life that has left me weary of myself worth, and at many times still had me questioning the existence of my life. You know the toy when you were a kid where if it was a square you had to put it in the square hole. I have been trying to shove/bash/fit/mold myself into a square hole when I do not even have a shape to put in, and yet I couldn’t see it all along. The idea of gender and keeping myself in this normal box has caused so much pain/trauma/hurt in my life and yet has kept me silenced for many years due to rejection/hate that I have experienced so far since starting my physical transition in 2012. When I think about what it means to be a man, I can give you qualities/traits/morals/values of a typical “biological male” I could go on and on and on, but when it comes to relating to myself and asking myself, what does it mean to be a man, Wyley? Everything goes fuzzy/blank because I try to figure how to fit myself into this binary that society has molded for me and I can’t do this anymore.... the idea of living a life inside the gender binary doesn’t fit who I am down to the core. Now this doesn’t mean I am invalidating anyone who is living a life within the binary, I just don’t Identify anywhere on the gender binary and that confuses the fuck out of me. So, the question exists in my head quite frequently, what does this mean for my gender identity? As per usual, I researched, messaged some folks, and watched tons and tons of videos. Here is what I found that profoundly fits with how I identify my gender; which is non-existent. The Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines Agender as “a person who has an internal sense of being neither female nor male or some combination of male and female. An article from an individual by the name of Adrien Converse which sums up my brain:
“I'm no gender expert. In fact, I don’t even have a gender. You’d be better off calling me a No-gender expert. Expert? Still not accurate? That would be like calling a tree a tree expert. It’s a tree. It knows what it’s like to be a tree, and it can thrive as a tree without being an authority on the science of trees. Agender is the world for a person without gender. Like me. So, this tree has had to learn a lot how to explain its existence, how it functions, and the fact that trees aren’t imaginary.”
What does it mean to be Agender? Agender is an individual who identifies as someone without gender. They can appear androgynous, like myself; Some can have bodies that appear more masculine or more feminine. Some people use gender neutral pronouns such as they/the, Ze/ZIr (such as myself) and many others. Some pursue hormones and some don’t, some get gender affirming surgery and some are completely happy with their biological makeup. In all honesty, a person's physical characteristics does NOT define their gender and, there is not one standard to be Agender or any gender really. Navigating society can be a challenge for folks who identify as not having a certain gender. Almost every interaction is gendered in some way; from clothing to mannerisms. You would be amazed at how much of everything we do revolves around gender. If your gender is part of the system, it’s easy to not notice.
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Chosen
Pairing: Avengers x reader, (Later on) Natasha Romanoff x reader
Warning: Endgame sadness, multi-verse-mind-blowing-shit, bad science, every Marvel fan's dream.
Summary: The reader is a senior in a local high school, watching Avengers: Endgame in cinemas when something absolutely mind-blowing happens.
A/N: This was just something I wrote up, I think it'd be so cool if anything like this ever happened. Hope y'all like it!
Part 2
———————————————————————
You tried to suppress your sobs, tears streaming down your cheeks and falling onto your lap. Your hand was clapped over your mouth, eyes never leaving the big screen that currently rolled the end credits of Avengers: Endgame.
You couldn’t care less about people judging you as you had a breakdown seeing Tony Stark’s clips in the past movies. Robert Downy Jr’s signature appeared slowly and gracefully onto the screen, your sobs becoming more cracked and broken.
Your favorite heroes were gone, and it didn’t feel like “just fiction” to you. It felt like a part of your soul was ripped out, mourning for your fallen heroes as if they were real people.
You stayed longer than you should after the films went off, everyone had already left. Afraid that someone would come in to rush you out of the cinema, you stood up in the now empty screen 03. But as soon as your weight shifted onto your feet, everything went black in a millisecond. You were already out cold by the time you hit the ground.
“Are we sure we got the right person? She looks so delicate.”
You slowly started to regain consciousness but was still unable to open your eyes. They were as heavy as lead, and so were the rest of your body. You felt paralyzed, but you could hear faint voices that sounded a bit muffled for whatever reason.
“She should be the Y/N Fury was talking about.”
“This whole multiverse thing was a little too big of a step, what if she freaks out?”
“Okay yeah, but like, can you believe that there’s a world where we’re not real?”
“Unbelievable. Very... Unreal.”
“Very funny, Stark.”
Fury? Stark? You must be dreaming. What a nice dream, though... You haven’t dreamt such a realistic dream about fictional characters like this.
"Y/N!" Your eyes shot up at the voice that could only be identified as Nick Fury's, suddenly attacked by the bright LED light.
"Glad you could join us."
You blinked a few times, eyes slowly adjusting to the room. Your eyes grew wider and wider as your gaze moved from all the techy stuff in the back, to the Avengers in their casual clothes, to Nicholas J Fucking Fury.
"No fucking way." Your hands gripped the cotton bedding, the slight scratch of the fabric on your skin ominously real. You had silk bedding you snatched from a feral girl during black Friday, nothing like this. It was like you were really feeling the material in real life.
"Hello, Miss Y/N. And yes fucking way." Your eyes looked like they were about to pop out of its sockets as you backed up, Fury taking two steps closer to the bed.
"You're scaring her." Steve Rogers... Or Chris Evans? The guy that looks like Captain America remarked, looking down and shrugging as if saying that he could do better. The gray V-neck shirt fitted him perfectly, reminding you of a photoshoot that Chris did, and that's when you had a bright idea.
"You guys... It's not funny! Am I being filmed?" You figured that the cast was doing some PR for the movie, pranking a fan... haha. You glanced around the room, looking for a hidden camera.
"She thinks she's being tricked." Wanda Maximoff- or Elizabeth Olsen, appeared from behind Natasha, her hands glowing with the scarlet energy, strands of her hair floating in the air.
"This is awesome! How are you guys doing this?" You almost exclaimed, so excited to see this in real life. You'd always thought that this was CGI.
"This isn't a joke, Miss-uh, Y/N. We, um... pulled you out of your universe?" Bruce spoke up from beside you, stopping his fumbling with the machines you were hooked up on. "You know that multi-verses exist. We're- real, Y/N."
You couldn't form words at that, your mind unable to comprehend how this made sense. For all you know, this could still be a prank, and you could be dreaming.
"She's still skeptical." Wanda was now suddenly somehow beside you, the flowing ribbon of energy connecting with the side of your head now.
"You have been... chosen. Yes. Chosen. By the freaking universe, you get that?" Tony Stark, now took a step forward, patting down on the snow-white comforters as they made a deflating sound. He pointed at the ceiling, speaking as if it was the most spectacular thing in the world.
"I don't understand-" You stuttered, beyond confused.
"We found the multi-verse after the snap. They brought me and Nat back from those separate worlds. And we kept on working, you know, on this multi-verse thing." Tony rambled, but you heard every word. This did not seem like the typical prank videos that you see on YouTube.
"And then we found you." Tony's finger now pointed at you, creating goosebumps on your arms. Like something had just happened, you just didn't know what it was.
"You see, Miss Y/L/N, you were disrupting the order of the multi-verse. You weren't meant to be born there. You're the only person in the whole multi-verse to be born into the wrong world." Fury leaned on the edge of the bed, looking into your irises with a stern look on his face.
"This is your real home, but if you want to go back, we understand," Natasha said calmly, smiling at you understandingly. "We are asking you to throw away your whole life, everything you've ever known... to come here."
"You guys are all I've ever known. Yes." You soon found yourself agreeing. All you were ever going to do in your life before was go to college and get a job. Your life was dull and high school was crap. It made sense. Oddly, everything kind of made sense.
Part 2
#avengrs#avengers imagine#avengers x reader#avengers x you#avengers x y/n#avengers aou#Avengers infinity war#avengers endgame#tony stark#nick fury#Steve rogers#wanda maximoff#Natasha romanoff#bruce banner#thor#thor odinson#mcu#mcu imagine#marvel cinematic universe#Marvel Comics#marvel endgame#natasha romanoff x fem!reader#natasha romanoff x you#natasha romanoff x reader
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Madi Lou (and trans+ artists, too!)
Playing off the idea of "T4T" (trans seeking trans, typically associated with the terms found on the app Grindr) I wanted to compile a playlist of trans/nonbinary/gender non-conforming artists that are present in a variety of genres and gender expressions/presentations/labels.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/52OZ896qRkAM2oqUwbtd5P?si=OQpd8kqSRnGGKcWe6XLcSw
"Maker - Acoustic” by Anjimile
Anjimile is a “queer and trans songmaker/lover boy with a heart of gold” based in Boston, MA
"Emasculate" by Dorian Electra
Dorian Electra is a gender-fluid pop musician who likes to become a “genderless clown” in their extravagant makeup and campy aesthetics.
"800 db cloud" by 100 gecs (Laura Les)
Laura Les, part of the duo 100 gecs, is a trans woman previously known under her project Osno1 (I felt it personally prevalent to include her song “How to Dress as Human” but could only find the link through Youtube)
"Heartbreaker" by Ah-Mer-Ah-Su
In her 2018 album STAR, Ah-Mer-Ah-Su wanted to tell the story of her black trans identity--a story typically connected to struggle and coping with extreme opposition from society at large. “For me, this album simply means that I’m a black girl with something to say. I have a story, and I’ll tell it through my music.” (billboard, August 2018)
"HRT" by Girls Rituals
Devi McCallion has worked in a number of projects centered under her label blacksquares. Her trans identity is touched on in such projects as Cats Millionaire/Mom, blackdresses, and Girls Rituals.
"Trans Femme Bonding" by Tami T
Originally starting her glittery electronica sound under the name Tami Tamaki, Tami T describes many aspects around the love for/between trans femmes // “So fucking brave, so fucking femme”
"Nonbinary" by Arca
Alejandra Ghersi, better known by her stagename Arca, came out as nonbinary and goes by she/her and it/its pronouns.
"Bitch Pudding" by KC Ortiz
Rising in the Chicago hip-hop scene, KC Ortiz wants to be known that she is no different than any other rapper. “I cringe when headlines say ‘Trans Rapper.’ That ain’t me...The only times that even crosses my mind really is when I think about because I’m trans I gotta be dope.” (Art Music Fashion Life, June 2020)
"Faceshopping" by SOPHIE
Sophie Xeon made her breakthrough in Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, becoming a known name after producing for artists like Charli XCX. She is very reclusive and has a smaller public image, contrary to her Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2020 appearance. (I have also discussed her imagery/lyricism of this song in 5th Avenue’s podcast--you should give it a listen to hear about other great queer artists!)
"Unkillable" by Katie Dey
“I was born inside this body and I’m stuck there/I’m a storm inside a rotting false construction” (Transition from “solipsisting” into “stuck” on Katie Dey’s debut album Asdfasdf)
"I'm Not 'Supposed' to Be Anything" by She/Her/hers
Emma Grrrl (and the occasional appearance of her friends) describes herself as sad grrrl pop-punk. “When I hear that a trans teenager shared one of my songs with their parents and it helped them to understand their experience, I just can’t imagine anything more validating or fulfilling than that.” (arena, June 2018)
"Gotta Gimme Your Love" by Sateen
Sateen is the band formally made up of the lesbian power couple Miss Sateen and Exquisite. Originally famous and sensationalized as a “hetero drag couple,” Exquisite came out as a trans woman and shifted the projection of their music and relationship into making disco for a new generation.
"TRANSylvania" by Kim Petras
Known famously on German television for medically transitioning in her teens, Kim Petras’ assertation in her identity as a trans woman gave her much of the internet presence and platform to successfully kick off a music career. “I hate the idea of using my identity as a tool...It made me the person I am and that’s a big part of me, but I think music is about your feelings and your fantasies and it goes deeper than your gender or your sexuality.” (billboard, 2018)
"Breakdown" by Torraine Futurum
Making waves in the fashion industry before walking in New York Fashion Week, Torraine Futurum says she aims to “do whatever the fuck I want to do on this Earth -- and it’s going to be excellent.” (them., 2018)
"I Am America" by Shea Diamond
“I knew at a very young age I loved to sing. My voice was effeminate and I remember feeling afraid to sing in the church choir...Desperate to find the financial means to transition to my true gender, I committed a crime in 1999 and was sentenced to 10 years in a men’s prison. I was afraid that I could possibly die in a prison system designed to ensure correctional jobs over human lives...I began writing ‘I Am Her’ as a statement to a world that said I shouldn’t exist.” (TEDxKC, 2018)
"Body and Soul" by teddy<3
Teddy Geiger has known many lives in popular culture from teen idol, romantic lead, to sought after producer. “I didn’t know anyone who was trans...I had very little connection to that, so it wasn’t really until maybe three years ago I started actually painting my nails and going out. Nobody cared if I was femme.” (Rolling Stone, 2018)
"Genderqueer Love Song" by Schmekel
“Schmekel means little penis is Yiddish, and is a play on the fact that all four members were born female but ow identify themselves on the masculine side of the gender spectrum. It’s an appropriate name for a band that started as a laugh.” (New York Times, 2011)
"Queer Kidz" by Ashby and the Occeanns
Ashlynn Barker is a trans/nonbinary musician based out of Chicago. They write songs about trans issues, queer identity, mental health, and video games.
"Cis Girls" by Dyke Drama
Sadie Switchblade of the band G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit) came out with this “transparent” side project. “It’s pretty transparent...The songs are either about trans girl problems or dykey lesbionic friendships.” (Pitchfork, 2016)
"Femme Bitch Top" by Tribe 8
“When the trans-dyke neofeminist rabble-rousers known as Tribe 8 make music, not even heaven is safe.” (SF Gate, 2006) The San Francisco LGBT Film Festival entry “Rise Above” is a rock-documentary anomaly I highly recommend taking the time to watch.
"They / Them / Theirs" by Worriers
“You’ve got a word for one, So there’s a word for all. // The smallest things have become Which side are you on? // What if I don’t want something that applies to me? // What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything, anything?” The trio of gender-neutral pronouns
"Gender Nightmare" by Art Projects
“That’s not my face on the license picture // You call my name as it is on paper // As it will still be // When they write me up a eulopy” (Genius Lyrics analysis you want to click in on)
"Male Gynecology" by Shoplifting
A revival of riot-grrrl manifestas, the album Body Stories “brims over with precisely the kind of heartfelt, politically-charged fervor that’s far more likely to save rock. (Pop Matters, 2006)
"Third Gender" by Good Asian Drivers
“Sometimes my gender is chilling out inbetween, but most of the time my gender is FUCK YOU mind your own business!” → Please please please listen to the lyrics of this song, this is a wonderfully politically charged bop carried with heart and bass and punk spit.
"True Trans Soul Rebel" by Against Me!
Laura Les came out with her release of the album Transgender Dysphoria Blues and furthered this message in Against Me!’s album Shape Shift with Me. She was one of the first trans people I saw openly continue to pursue a passion despite previously having works “pre-transition” out in the world.
"If I Were You" by Claud
“Sometimes it’s more important to write from a perspective different from your own in order to touch on important things. People always tell me that I’m brutally honest and I think it’s because I don’t hold back on anything...it’s refreshing to hear something said that you want to say yourself, but just couldn’t.” (Popsugar., 2019)
"If You Knew This Was About You, You'd Deny It" by Wargo
A trans woman solo-acoustic based out of Virginia, Wargo’s sound is directly influenced by the punk scene of the east coast. She likes to call her style “Appalachian Power Pop.”
"I DONT TRUST U ANYMORE" by Left at London
Coming to a place of internet recognition through such vines as “hahaha I do that” Nat Puff’s indie pop project Left at Londed (shorted as /@/) dives into the heart of “what it means to navigate the current political world as a queer person, while still remaining accessible to the general public.” (“About” on /@/ website)
"Body Was Made" by Ezra Furman
“My body was made this particular way // There’s really nothing any old patrician can say // You social police can just get out of my face // My body was made” (Body Was Made music video is a quirky and fun stylistic retelling of these lyrics) Ezra Furman identifies as trans and bisexual and uses he/him and she/her pronouns.
"Complicated" by The Cliks
Lucas Silveira shared that the band’s name derived from two ideas; using The like iconic bands The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and Cliks as a portmanteau of the slang terms clit and dicks. (In The Life interview, 2009)
"Upper West Side" by King Princess
“Although [Mikaela Mullaney Straus] identifies as a genderqueer lesbian, King Princess doesn’t necessarily want her music to be placed in the ‘queer pop’ box.” (MTV, 2019) Who isn’t bored of the heteronormative narrative?
"Make Me Feel" by Janelle Monáe
“I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker. I want young girls, young boys, non-binary, gay, straight, queer, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you.” (NewNowNext, February 2020)
"body cast" by Dua Saleh
A Sudanese refugee, Dua Saleh nurtured their love for poetry in the beginnings of their Minneapolis music career. They came out as nonbinary while in their second year at Augsburg University but have said “I always been on gay shit.” (them., May 2020)
"Mercury" by CJ Run
“With a deep understanding of pop sensibility, and enough hooks to last a lifetime, CJ Run’s music is the inner monologue of a black queer 20 something in the 21st century.” (Propelr)
"Dancing With Stranger" by Sam Smith
“When I saw the word non-binary, genderqueer, and I read into it, and I heard these people speaking, I was like, ‘Fuck, that is me.’” (Vanity Fair, March 2019)
"SkindeepSkyhighHeartwide" by Lawrence Rothman
Lawrence Rothman is a gender fluid artist, musician, and producer. Looking into their Google Image results yields the visual evidence of the nine personas Rothman refers to as “alters, each one offering a different lens for their creative use.” (NPR, November 2018)
"Extended Vacation" by Ryan Cassata
Ryan Cassata is the first openly transgender musician to perform at Warped, winning the Ernie Ball Battle of The Bands contest twice (both in 2013 and 2015*). He has spoken out about American Idol attempting to exploit openly transgender people to pander to a broader audience banking on new forms of media “diversity”.
*I saw him in Mountain View, California in 2015 and you have no idea how happy a newly out genderqueer 16 year old was to stand on stage behind a proud trans man singing on a bumping stage.
"Let My Baby Stay" by Amandla Stenberg
This entire article is great in explaining why Amandla’s openness on their pronouns outside of this website might have harmed them for the future of their career.
"Dolla in My Titty (Part 1)" by Peppermint
Best known as the 2017 runner up on the ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Peppermint made her musical debut in Head Over Heels becoming Broadway’s first out trans woman to play a lead roll.
"Gender Bronoun" by Human Kitten
“What is unstable And what is real // This is a question that i ask myself on a daily basis // Are my emotions genuine Or are they just the result of my neural passages sending my chemicals back and forth” → “Caught i’m between two completely separate identites Who Can’t agree on anything // And i can’t even decide on which one’s me”
"Wow in the Now" by Honeybird
Honeybird is a musician and composer based in Bologna, Italy. Their mission is to listen to intersectional LGBTQ+ community voices and transform the daily struggle into songs.
"I Don't Love You Anymore" by ANHONI
“My closest friends and family use feminine pronouns for me. I have mot mandated the press do one thing or another...I think words are important. To call a person by their chosen gender is to honor their spirit, their life and contributions. ‘He’ is an invisible pronoun for me, it negates me.’” (Flavorwire, November 2014)
"Robert Frost" by Mal Blum
“Now I’m looking at the ground because I don’t want you to leave // I know it’s co-dependent But I think it’s kind of sweet // Out of every person in this city I could ever meet // Leaving feels like losing But I’m learning what I need”
"Dysphoria" by Saint Wellesley
“Binding my chest and biting my tongue Wearing boxers never fixed anyone” → “And this is the last time I’ll allow my ribs to be swollen // And I’ll grow out my hair And pretend I don’t care And maybe my ribs are broken” → “Dysphoria’s a bitch I wanna kick her in a ditch // It’s not fair to wanna itch All of the places that don’t fit”
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