I am very annoyed with everyone now reviving the “good omens (book/s1) was queerbaiting” debate. what part of “angels are generally sexless” and “crowley and aziraphale are canonically non-binary” and “‘I am THE southern pansy’” did y’all miss

Two things that are simultaneously true:

1. Gender and sexuality are complex and can be fluid. An identity isn't always fixed and can change with time for many reasons

2. It is not acceptable to force others to change their gender or sexuality and the mantra that they (queer people) can change if they only "try hard" is both cruel and homophobia and/or transphobia

WOAH, HE'S BIGENDER? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!

btw about Neil Gaiman I periodically agree with the 'Neil Gaiman is annoying' stuff bc I feel like both he and Amanda Palmer seem like people who I would go insane stuck in a room with bc we have very different ideas about art and suchlike. and I also do think that the career trajectory he's on lately is cynically redoing his greatest hits and pretending that was the dream all along when it clearly was not. which is at best meh.

having said which

as far as I can tell by far the most common complaint about Neil Gaiman is "Snow, Glass, Apples is problematic/gross/it's got incest and rape and frames the child as the aggressor"

which strikes me as a weird complaint to pull out of a 40 year body of work tbh when that short story is pretty clearly coming from a place of 'how far can I push this'. like you don't have to like the story. I don't really like the story. but it is. a horror story.

like and this is the thing with particularly 90s alt horror right? a lot of the interest is in transgression and sitting in the worst possible perspective and seeing what happens if you pull those strings. like I really like Clive Barker for example but there's a good chunk of his short stories that I'm like I'm not picking up what you're putting down Clive this seems Kinda Off. but that willingness to write some trite or Bad Message horror fiction that doesn't land is imo a side effect of being willing to try writing uncomfortable and unpleasant fiction at all. which is what horror is for, among other things, it's for creating discomfort as a form of catharsis or engagement.

like I am not a huge fan of the type of sex-horror that pops up in a lot of Gaiman's work and other contemporary horror writers - to me I don't find it upsetting or horny it just ends up feeling kind of edgy and tryhard - but I'm also a bit like. it does seem like a lot of people's beef with Neil Gaiman is that In The 90s He Was A Horror Writer

and this approach to Problematic Horror in Snow, Glass, Apples I find kind of microcosmic of how The Discourse often approaches art in this kind of 1:1 way. if you write a story which seems to line up with rape apologia it can only be because you agree with it. if you write a story about transphobia you're a transphobe. if you write a story that makes me genuinely uncomfortable you're attacking me.

but artwork, especially art like horror that's not necessarily trying to provoke enjoyment as its main response, is necessarily hit and miss. and if what you're shooting for is discomfort then whether it works, falls flat or goes too far incredibly depends on your audience. and making good art - as in art that makes its audience think, art that opens the audience up to discomfort and catharsis and sticks with them and changes them - requires the space to experiment and tbh the space to fuck up. like they aren't all going to be winners and they certainly aren't all going to work for you as a singular audience.

personally I don't see the appeal of Snow, Glass, Apples, less cause it's nasty and more cause it's hack. ooh an edgy monstrous version of a fairy tale where there's lots of rape and cannibalism? you're soooo original Neil. but like. that's fine. I don't really vibe with like 70% of Neil Gaiman stuff I've read but I still like Neil Gaiman because the stuff that works for me really works for me.

idk I think there's a lot of folk on this website who shouldn't interact with horror cause they clearly aren't interested in being horrified. that's not everyone who dislikes Snow, Glass, Apples, but it's a real undercurrent to a lot of the criticism and tbh this kinda vibe is shit for art. making standout art What Is Good also requires being ready to make art which stands out for the wrong reasons. sometimes they'll be the same art to different people.

names

breaking news: historians have theorized that this friendly neighborhood merchant and this mysterious stranger were Very Good Friends 

me: yeah i didn't project too badly onto taob haha *sees a quote from taob randomly on a tiktok webweave about girlhood*

watching space station videos for fic research and this astronaut is explaining how they sleep and that they dont really lie down because it always feels like shes still standing up anyway. she says "i dont have any sensation in my head that tells me im upside down so it doesnt matter"

i think thats what time sense is like. this thing in your brain that makes you able to orient yourself like in relation to, like, gravity? humans float in time like astronauts float in the space station. theyve got nothing in their brain telling them whats up and down.

and i dont know physics but like gravity distorts time along with space right? thats what they told me in world enough and time right? magic space hole, dont call the lift, cybermen problem

anyway i think thats what it's like. just like feeling gravitys effects on time? and then when it disappears or gets broken, which i hc happens with the master a bit after the timelords take away the drums and then relatively soon after that they regenerate very close to a black hole TWICE. TWICE AT ONCE. i think those things together mustve really fucked with their time sense i dont think the master can orient themself very well anymore, cant tell whats up and down anymore, just always floating

So at some point I remember you said aro/ace people kind of like find your fics.

And I read the tim fic and like a lot of your blog before I realized I was ace. It was like one the reasons it got on my list of things to do.

And boy did I not know about what the ace spectrum was. What could qualify as asexuality. But during the process of educating myself I was like…oh. Oh!

So basically what I’m saying is another one down for the count.

HAH! HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAH!!!!!!!!!!

Trying to determine if this means that I was a domino or red flag. I'll put it on the list of "sexualities I have aced" anyway. Yes it's been multiple people. It's great.

I find that the sentence that most helped me when I was trying to figure stuff out was: it doesn't have to be a permanent identity. You aren't married to it. You can call yourself ace now and have a different idea of yourself later. If you're worried that your depression/medication/etc is just suppressing your sex drive, then you can just change your mind later. If you have a discomfort/trauma with sex/sexuality and asexuality is what's most comfortable for you right now, go for it. I feel like asexuality is genuinely one of the harder sexualities to figure out, both because it's kind of obscure and confusing and because it's really hard to notice an absence of something haha.

I feel like when it comes to sexualities as identities, because we think of IDs as such an intrinsic part of ourselves we struggle with thinking of them as impermanent or potentially inaccurate. But like...you know, one of my identities is as a daughter (and a sister, and a best friend), but I won't be a daughter forever. Doesn't make me not somebody's daughter now. I have disabilities, but they're not part of my identity, they're just things I have. These can be the case with sexuality too. Relate with yourself however you want.

And yes it's true that almost everybody I talk to who's read a great deal of my fics are ace, especially aroace. I feel like the reason for this is honestly pretty straightforward: decent, long, non-tropey Gen can honestly be pretty hard to find. TBH I always feel as if it's less my writing and more just pure desperation on y'alls part lmfao. Any water in a desert, etc.

But I love this ask, it makes me very happy, haha. Sorry for the diatribe up there - if you feel 100% confident about the ace thing then ignore it, it's just smth I try to say to baby aces just bc it's such a confusing time in anybody's life.

i think if a transgender woman makes a self insert or fursona or whatever with massive boobies its her god given right and if you think its weird or creepy you have introspection to do

On the topic of Empyrean slander, I personally think Yarros missed the perfect opportunity to have Brennan transition after getting resurrected. What’s the point of “faking” your death and changing your name if you’re not gonna commit to the bit?

Violet: No offense Brenda, but you look a lot like my dead brother.

Brenda: Your dead brother? The brother who's dead? Inch resting ....

alright what do yall wanna see next? :3c

I AM DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE THAT I TRANSED THE GENDER OF EVERY! SINGLE! ONE OF MY STAFF! I FINALLY GOT THEM ALL!!!!!!!

You know those teen superhero/chosen one storylines where the parents are like "come on honey, you can tell me anything, i won't think of you any differently I'll love you all the same, you can be honest with me ❤️" and the teen is just like, no, not in this specific situation, you really would not understand and it isn't safe for me to tell you the truth right now. Or maybe they even consider it for a second, come this close to actually telling their parents the truth, but they just can't do it.

That's exactly how it feels to be trans that's exactly it

"Whatever it is I'll understand" "no, no you really won't." "I'll love you no matter who you are" "lying. Untrue. You don't know how much you won't love me." "You can talk to me about anything" "anything but this." Even like. Coming close to telling the truth before backing out. Seen that exact thing in movies and done it myself.

I always thought the kids were stupid for not telling their parents but by god I get it now.

Ngl I know nothing about MCR so when I suddenly saw half my dash to wild about GW all I thought was "isn't that the dude from the my immortal fic?"

SDFHSDJFGHSJFSD GFJS I MEAN,, HE IS-

anon please you don't even understand how funny this is after the night i've been having, thank you so much /gen

fob setlist inspired me to relisten to ioh im absolutely jamming