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walks-the-ages · 1 year

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OP deactivated, and some of the links were broken/marked unsafe by Firefox, so here's a new compilation post of Leslie Feinburg's (She/her, ze/hir) novels and essays on being transgender:

Stone Butch Blues official free source directly from Author's website:

Stone Butch Blues, backup on the webarchive:

Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come, on the web archive:

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, on the web archive:

Lavender and Red, PDF essay collection:

Drag King Dreams, on the web archive:

(Also, if anyone ever tells you that the protagonist of Stone Butch Blues ""ends up with a man""........ they're transmisogynistic jackass TERFs who are straight up lying)

Please also check out your local public libraries for these books and see if they carry them, to help support public libraries! If you have a library card already you can checkout Libby and Overdrive to see if your public library carries it as an ebook that you can checkout :)

EDIT: another not included on the orignal masterpost-- Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or blue !

annnnnd in light of the web archive losing it's court case, here's a backup of both PDFs and generated epubs a friend made:

5/26/2023: hello! I am adding on yet another book of queer history, this time the autobiography of Karl Baer, a Jewish, intersex trans man who was born in 1884! Please signal boost this version, and remember to check the notes whenever this crosses your dash for any new updates :)

6/24/2023: Two links to share!

Someone made an Epub version of Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years, which you can find Here , as a more accessible version than a pdf of a scanned book if you're like me and need larger text size for reading--

And from another post I reblogged earlier today, I discovered the existence of "TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism", which has 10 issues from 1993-1995, and includes multiple interviews with Leslie Feinburg and other queer feminists / activists of the 90s!

Here's a link to all 10 issues of TransSisters, plus a 1996 "look back at" by one of the writers after the journal ended, you can find all 10 issues on the Internet Archive Here !

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8/28/2023:

"Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out", can be found on the web archive Here, for the 25th Anniversary Edition from 2015,

and also Here, for the original 1991 version.

Each of the above can be borrowed for one hour at a time as long as a copy is available :D

This is a living post that receives sporadic updates on the original, if you are seeing this on your dash, click Here to see the latest version of the post to make sure you're reblogging the most up to date one :)

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October, 25th 2023:

"I began to dawdle over breakfast during shift changes, asking both waitresses questions. After weeks of inquiries, they invited me to a demonstration, outside Kleinhan's Music Hall, protesting the Israeli war against Egypt and Syria. I was particularly interested in that protest. The state of Israel had been declared shortly before my birth. In Hebrew school I was taught "Palestine was a land without peo-ple, for a people without a land." That phrase haunted me as a child. I pictured ears with no one in them, and movies projected on screens in empty theaters. When I checked a map of that region of the Middle East in my school geography textbook, it was labeled Palestine, not Israel. Yet when I asked my grandmother who the Palestinians were, she told me there were no such people. The puzzle had been solved for me in my adolescence. I developed a strong friendship with a Lebanese teenager, who explained to me that the Palestinian people had been driven off their land by Zionist settlers, like the Native peoples in the United States. I studied and thought a great deal about all she told me. From that point on I staunchly opposed Zionist ideology and the occupation of Palestine. So I wanted to go to the protest. However, I feared the demonstration, no matter how justified, would be tainted by anti-Semitism. But I was so angered by the actions of the Israeli government and military, that I went to the event to check it out for myself. That evening, I arrived at Kleinhan's before the protest began. Cops in uniforms and plainclothes surrounded the music hall. I waited impatiently for the protesters to arrive. Suddenly, all the media swarmed down the street. I ran after them. Coming over the hill was a long column of people moving toward Kleinhan's. The woman who led the march and spoke to reporters proudly told them she was Jewish! Others held signs and banners aloft that read: "Arab Land for Arab People!" and "Smash Anti-Semitism!" Now those were two slogans I could get behind! I wanted to know who these people were and where they had been all my life! Hours later I followed the group back to their headquarters. Orange banners tacked up on the walls expressed solidarity with the Attica prisoners and the Vietnamese. One banner particularly haunted me. It read: Stop the War Against Black America, which made me realize that it wasn't just distant wars that needed opposing. Yet although I worked with two members of this organization, I felt nervous that night. These people were communists, Marxists! Yet I found it easy to get into discussions with them. I met waitresses, factory workers, secretaries, and truck drivers. And I decided they were some of the most principled people I had ever met. For example, I was impressed that many of the men I spoke with talked to me about the importance of fighting the oppression of gays and lesbians, and of all women. Yet I knew they thought they were talking to a straight man" Transgender Warriors (1996) Leslie Feinberg

#bold text #large text #transgender #trans #nonbinary #leslie feinberg #neopronouns #activism #no id #pride #essays #Karl bae #memoirs of a man's maiden years #bi any other name

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bill-the-dog-for-the-check · 3 months

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I want to go back to how things were.

I want to go back to when I believed that the progressives were on the right side of history, fighting against oppression in all its forms, and had critical thinking, honest compassion, and understanding in a way that the right--inundated with racist conspiracy theories and absurd lies--did not.

In many ways, I'm a perfect demographic fit in the pro-Palestine circles. I'm bisexual. I'm a young university student who's been progressive for as long as he knew what progressivism was, and I never experienced genuine economic insecurity or wondered if I'd eat that night. In another timeline, maybe I'd be there marching and shouting their horrible slogans. But there's one, teeny little thing that ruins it, which makes me fall through the cracks and renders me politically homeless, outcast by the progressive left and the MAGA right.

I'm a Jew.

And I'm trying so, so hard to hold compassion for the suffering of minorities who have not extended us that same compassion. I'm trying to maintain my progressivist urge to go out and help minorities in solidarity, but it's so hard when they make it clear that they hate us and want our state dead and gone. I supported BLM, but Al Sharpton, Leonard Jeffries, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, Jesse Jackson and many others either were or are wildly antisemitic, especially Sharpton and Walker, and so are the BLM movement's leaders, who openly sneered at Jews for being shocked by them by announcing, "I guess their activism was just transactional. How (((Zionist))) of them!"

And the queer community forced me out of their ranks for merely questioning whether the war in Gaza is a genocide, for pushing back against them saying that Hamas is fighting oppression. And spread antisemitic lies about me, claims of harassment and supporting genocide to my friends because I dared to question them. And they've chosen to side with those who would throw both of us off roofs for being queer. Cast out by the outcasts.

Like, what do I do? Our only allies are Hindus, Iranians, Kurds, Republicans, and Christian Zionists (respect to all of these groups for that... even you Republicans. This is one of our only points of agreement). That's literally it. No loud show of from indigenous nations supporting what is effectively the most successful anticolonial land back movement in human history. No push from "antiracist progressives" against rising antisemitism and genocidal terrorism from a reactionary fundamentalist group against a historically discriminated group.

And they aren't even just leaning back and being silent--many members of these groups are being actively antisemitic--especially the progressive left, which has morphed into the most antisemitic mainstream political movement since the Nazis. Instead, we're 'Zionazis' and genocidal colonizers who aren't even oppressed anyway, that's just evil Jewish Zionist lies designed to stoke sympathy for their unrelentingly evil nature, which we can't even help. The notion that Jews are intrinsically predisposed to evil acts and deception--never heard that one before.

So now, when I look at pictures of Pride Parades, a celebration of an identity of which I am a part and would have previously killed to attend--I wonder... would I be allowed to hold up a rainbow flag with a Magen David on it? If I asked any of their views on the state of Israel, what will they say? What about on Zionists who support its existence? Would all parts of my identity be respected, valued, and celebrated? Or would I be forced to leave the Star of David flag at home, pretend I don't notice their antisemitic views, and pass the litmus test of disavowing Israel before being accepted?

I feel suspicious and wary of the very community which I am 'supposed' to belong in. I feel uncomfortable. I hate, hate, hate that I feel this way. That I've become more closed, more cynical, more angry. Those of us who fall through the cracks, who hold multiple marginalized identities--queer and Jewish, black and Jewish, Indigenous and Jewish--we are ignored and silenced, our voices and experiences entirely spat upon as being a front for 'Zionist crimes' or whatever new buzzwords they create.

I've decided that first and foremost, I am Jewish. The me that was proud to be a part of the queer community is dead. I want to support the progressive causes of antiracism and social justice, but they hate us. They want us dead. They wouldn't view my participation as being a genuine gesture of solidarity, but an evil Jew Zionist seeking to con them and co-opt support in order to aid our evil apartheid genocidal settler-colonialist white supremacist illegitimate entity in a land that should really be given to Hamas anyway.

How am I supposed to hold space for other minorities when nobody is holding space for us right now?

#antisemitism #jewish #jumblr #leftist antisemitism #left wing antisemitism #jewblr #antizionism #progressivism

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yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere · 5 days

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❤️🤍💙 #RWRB #RWRBMovie #RedWhiteAndRoyalBlue

Casey being iconic-i just love Them so much!!

#CaseyMcQuiston

. https://twitter.com/ThisIsGSage23/status/1791335511728013403?s=19 .

"I just really wanted to explore both of those characters and I wanted to do it in a way that I hadn't really seen before, and also just like as a queer person I want to make queer art and that's what I'm drawn and that's what I'm interested in. So I kind of had these two different ideas, it was like one idea was that I would write a book about this rebellious first kid who's like figuring out that they're queer and what does that mean for their like political aspirations; and the other was about you know sort of a member of the royal family under all of this pressure to carry on this legacy and like what does that mean if they're gay. Um-And I'm just like kind of weighing these two different stories and deciding where I wanted to go and then I just kind of had this moment of like What If I didn't have to choose and it was the same story because they fall in love with each other? And-Um-You know in a classic bisexual fashion I was like I'm gonna have both, so I did!"

"It was really important to me that Alex was explicitly bisexual because like, you know, I really wanted the representation of like this bisexual character and then it was important to me that he was also Mexican like he is in the book and that he was played by a Mexican actor. (..) It was really important to me that, um, I didn't want any, I didn't want Alex or Henry, no matter how their stories were translated to the screen, I didn't want either of them to have any type of, um, like shame or resentment towards themselves for being queer, it was really important to me that the stakes of their lives and their like inner conflict was much more based on like the circumstances that they're in. It's like they don't hate themselves for being gay-or for being bi-they just wish that it was easier to be who they were in the world that they live in."

"..Taylor embodies that so beautifully. (..) I think he's just killer in that role. And Nick, I mean, if you like turned me upside down and shook me like he would fall out my brain as Henry (..) doesn't have blue eyes but they sure are sad eyes and that is exactly what they need to be."

"I see myself in Alex, tremendously, I'm very much in Alex, I relate to him so much, uh, truly, I think he's the most like me of all my characters."

"I very much would love screenwriting to become part of what I do, I'll say it that way."

youtube

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captainzigo · 2 months

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Welcome to me blog

If you are a mutual, DM me for an invite to discord server and subsequently to minecraft server

if you aren’t a mutual, you can send DMs and asks to my sideblog @snapewife-divorce-lawyer

that’s a bunch of pictures of my oc(/ponysona) Prickly Pear. she’s a cowgirl

FAQ below the break

i do take requests. i do not currently take commissions, but don’t be shy about sending requests. i can always say no. or fuck it up really bad.

this is my art blog. you can send me asks and DMs at my other blog @snapewife-divorce-lawyer any asks you send me should be like Strongbad emails. one paragraph. no attachments. unless you are sending me refs.

i reblog most stuff at my other other blog: @3amgaypotion

you are fine to DM me, but remember i am not obligated to respond at all.

in any interactions, please keep in mind that i am a stranger on the internet and act accordingly

i am autistic. i say this because representation matters, but also because i would like to ask that you please be very frank with me. i don’t even really need your patience. just say what you mean and we will get along fine.

you most certainly can draw any of my ocs. i’d love that acually. tag me

you can redraw, dub or do whatever to my works with credit. i expect credit to include clickable links. also please try to keep the spirit of the original work. don’t add nsfw subtext for example. don’t redraw a ship art as a ship with an inappropriate age gap, and so on.

do not post my art on other platforms. do not repost my art period. I don’t really exist on other platforms since I deleted Twitter. So if you see my stuff on other platforms, it’s not me.

i’m in my twenties. i keep my blog SFW as a strict rule. PG13 except i swear a lot more. i do not keep myself that way, and i have no aversion to that sort of content, but i keep all of my posts SFW.

in my opinion, all romance real or fictional should be between people who are not related, similar in age, doing age appropriate things, all with mutual consent. i am not interested in witnessing or interacting with anything outside of these parameters.

i am a trans woman. i am also bisexual. i am also poly and demi since im listing things. i am out online becasue i know how important it is to know that you aren’t alone.

if you follow me and you post art, regardless of frequency or perceived quality, i want to be mutuals. shoot me a message or something

do i take constructive criticism? NO 🖕👹🖕 FUCK YOU!!!!!!! GET BLOCKED IDIOT!! unless you are a marginalized person who feels i have unintentionally made you uncomfortable somehow with my art or otherwise. in that case i am sorry and you do me a great favor by calling me out. OTHERWISE FUCK YOU DUMBASS IF YOU DONT LIKE MY ART GO DRAW YOUR OWN 🖕🖕🖕🖕

i don’t have a DNI list, but i am pretty left politically so you can probably imagine what’s on there.

“i hate bronies” i don’t necessarily hate you if you self identify with that label. i like to make myself off-putting to keep creeps away

i don’t hold a lot of nostalgia for old brony stuff. infact it’s quite the opposite

i like all generations of mlp including the new stuff. gen 4 is just the one i grew up with

why is my header aurora, bori and alice from the best gift ever? well that would be because i hate them like a mother hates a child. like the sun hates the moon. like sickly victorian child hates the slightest morsel of bread.

i often draw stuff about cozy glow x flurry heart. this is with the understanding that cozy glow spends about a decade turned to stone. nullifying the age gap.

i am dyslexic. i spell stuff wrong all the time and i type weird. please don’t bother correcting me. wooptydoo your brain is wired normally. sending you a medal.

i’ve had the same username since i debuted on the internet. zigo is the name of an oc i made that i dont really talk about anymore. zigo is a fine enough nickname and at least one person calls me that irl

#prickly pear #my ocs

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stillarandom-radfem · 11 months

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This post is going to cause controversy here on radblr. I already know that, and I'm ready for it. But there is something that I've just got to get off my chest, here. It's been bugging me for a long time now, but for the longest time, I couldn't quite find the words to describe my feelings.

Here's the thing. It's not that female separatists are wrong, necessarily, with regard to their arguments about male violence. OSA women like myself are at a greater risk of interpersonal violence from men, intimate partner violence does make up the majority of domestic violence statistics, men are the most likely people to rape or murder us, and yes, living without men therefore probably would improve straight and bisexual women's lifespan/overall quality of life in most cases. BUT. The way many female separatists (who are most often lesbians) go about presenting their arguments is not only unnecessarily rude to women who have done nothing to deliberately harm them (and, when it includes such colorful monikers as "dick worshipper" and "cock rider" in it, reasonably comes off as an attack), but it includes many of the same tactics that homophobes use against LGB people to make their point. I'm sure that homophobes doing that stuff to you is hurtful, but I'm also at least 99% sure that heterosexual women who are radfems (or rad-adjacent, if you prefer) aren't the ones leveling those attacks, and don't therefore deserve to be responded to with such ferocity. Two wrongs do not, in this case, make a right. And it needs to stop.

For example, you ask?

Acting like heterosexual relationships must be purely sexual, with no actual love involved whatsoever.

I see LGB people complaining about homophobes doing this to them all the time. "You think our relationships inherently obscene or kinky because you can't picture us actually being in love; all you can think of is the sexual part! You think a sizable chunk of the population is incapable of love or human connection, and that is dehumanizing!" Yes, I have no doubt in my mind that it is. But then look at what you do when you try to call out heterosexual/bisexual women for being with men, and you are doing exactly the same thing to us. You talk about OSA relationships, and the first and, often, only thing you ever bring up is the sexual aspect of them. The word "love" almost never comes up. It's like it doesn't even occur to you that OSA women might actually fall in love with or have very deep romantic feelings for their male partners, not unlike you, as a lesbian, may have or have had towards any girlfriends you have ever dated, any women you have ever crushed on, or, if you're lucky, your wife. Now, do OSA women have sex with our boyfriends or husbands, if we have them? Of course we do! Have you ever had sex with your wife or girlfriend? Or, if you're single, would you, if you had one? Of course you would, and you know it! Does that negate your feelings for her, somehow? No? Your relationships are not purely sexual just because there is sex involved? Then why would you assume that sex being involved would make heterosexual relationships suddenly be only sexual? Also, news flash: vibrators exist. So do dildos. Or women (including het women) could just use their fingers or a pillow. There are many ways for a woman of any orientation to get off without a man if getting off is all that she's after. If she is choosing to be in an actual serious relationship with a man, it's most likely because she's in love with him. You are trying to convince her that there is something more important for her to consider, in spite of her feelings. So, perhaps instead of insinuating that she is some kind of sex-obsessed slut who is screwing over her entire sex deliberately for the sake of a few orgasms, you can start start there, instead.

Acting like other people's sexual orientations can be changed (not yours, of course, just, you know, everyone else's).

I see homophobes acting this way towards LGB people all the time, claiming that the sex(es) you are attracted to is a choice somehow, shaming you for preferring the "wrong" one (or the "wrong" one at the moment, if you're bi). Which, personally, has always struck me as kinda weird, because they never seem to apply the same logic to themselves. They never stop to suggest whether their own orientation is a choice or not. I guess it's pretty obvious why they won't, because then it comes down to two possibilities: if they are with strictly the opposite sex by choice, then it's very probable that they are actually bisexual, and behave as they do towards gay people due to internalized homophobia, whereas, if their strict opposite sex attraction is not a choice, then they have just admitted that their own orientation is innate, so why would they assume everyone else's not to be? It makes no sense. And incels will take it a step further, yelling slurs at lesbians for only wanting to have sex with other women instead of them. It's all pretty fucked up and illogical, and just for the record, I think you all deserve much better. Of course your sexuality isn't a choice. And yet... I mean, I can't even begin to count how many lesbian separatist blog posts I have read full of women acting as if heterosexuality is a choice. "Ew, moids are ugly, dicks are gross, what's wrong with you, why would you choose that?!" Newsflash, gyns: we didn't. That's just our sexual orientation, and we didn't choose it any more than you chose yours. We may still choose to be celibate in spite of our orientation, or, if we're bi, we might still decide to only date other women. But we will still always have the capacity to be physically attracted to/fall in love with men, and for those of us who are straight, we can only experience that with men exclusively. That's just the way it is. We can't control that; it's innate. Some of you, upon grappling with this fact, immediately jump straight to the incel way of doing things and begin slinging the aforementioned colorful monikers (ahem, sexualized anti-woman slurs aforementioned in this blog post) for only being attracted to men instead of you. It actually smacks of sexual harassment, and then you wonder why so many straight women stop following/won't follow you. Or, leap right into calling us lesbophobes because we don't want to take sexual harassment like that from anybody, man or woman alike. Call me crazy, but the last time I checked, a "lesbophobic woman" was a woman who hates lesbians for only being attracted to other woman, not a woman who simply refuses to date/sleep with you. What, you have a right to bodily autonomy, but straight/bisexual women don't?! And yeah, I know, I know. "Stop comparing us to incels! Lesbians aren't predatory!" Well, true, most of you are not. The vast, overwhelming majority of you are completely fine and normal. But I always give the side eye to any notion of an entire group of people (any people) being all perfect, pristine angels carte blanche (a scant few people in every large enough group are going to be creeps), and if a scant few of you don't want to be compared to incels... Well, then maybe you should stop behaving like them. Because, when you explicitly resort to their same tactics, even I get the ick off of a few of you, and I'm probably the least homophobic straight person I know. 🤨🤨🤨

They call you "c*rpet m*ncher", "qu**r", "f*g", "d*ke", etc., over your orientation. You then call women (who probably didn't even call you that!) "dick worshipper", "cock rider", etc., over ours.

Enough said. Do I even need to point out (again) that these are almost all just a bunch of sexualized, anti-woman slurs? Do you really think that this is going to bring women over to your side, as opposed to just driving them away? And do you actually think that your female separatist movement is going to have any kind of major societal effect if you would rather drive women away from it, rather than bringing them in? It won't have any impact that way; it will only die out. And, look, I don't think that homophobes should be treating you like that, either. They most definitely should not. I have no doubt that them slinging those slurs at you constantly over your sexual orientation (which you can't control) is extremely hurtful and probably even scary for you. You deserve so much better than that. But, again, last time I checked "lesbophobe" means someone who hates you for only being attracted to other women, not a woman who refuses to date/sleep with you, and, from what I can tell, radfems appear to be, by and large, very pro-gay. Even when we, ourselves, are not. So, it seems very unlikely to me that we're the ones calling you names like that (unless you can show me receipts or something, in which case, go ahead). Until that happens, it occurs to me that people of all sexual orientations are pointing fingers, accusing each other of being sex-obsessed perverts, and calling each other names because, idk, maybe the drama is more interesting to some people than minding their own business? Or they literally can't wrap their minds around being attracted to that sex, so they attack anyone who is? Idk, it all seems very juvenile, and I should think there would be better ways to tell someone that some aspect of their lifestyle is unhelpful to the movement and/or mentally unhealthy to them than merely resorting to often sexualized mudslinging attacks. Honestly, no matter what your views on female separatism or sexual orientation are, can we all just agree to a ceasefire on the relentless mudslinging on all sides?? Please??? This is middle school shit, and it's really getting annoying. Everyone. On both sides. You're like a pack of schoolyard bullies. Stop it.

Again, I'm not saying that female separatists' arguments against dating/sleeping with/marrying and/or having kids with men are entirely wrong. Male violence is a problem for a lot of women, and refusing to be in relationships with them probably would reduce it greatly. But acknowledging heterosexual and bisexual women as being capable of romantic love towards whichever sex(es) we are capable of experiencing attraction to, acknowledging all sexual orientations as something innate that can not be changed and not a choice, and refusing to resort to juvenile mudslinging attacks will not take away from those facts in any way. So, I guess I just don't see what the reasoning is for so many female separatists to refuse to even consider them?

#radfems please interact #radfems please touch #radfems do interact #radfem safe #proud radfem #proud radical feminist #female separatism #sexuality #lesbian #bisexual #heterosexual

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genericpuff · 3 months

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Hello, I am a huge fan of your work and I’ve been following you for a while! I am a gay Greek student at the History & Mythology department from Aristotle University. I had to do a lot of research and homework regarding certain subjects and one of them was Κρόκος (Krokos/Crocus). Crocus was in fact in love with a nymph named Smilax, but was never, in any valid story, involved with Hermes romantically. Contrary to popular belief, homosexuality was something that was condemned in the majority of most city-states of ancient Greece, especially Athens. In fact, they even had the derogatory term for gay people “kinaidos” (κίναιδος) and they were banned from participating in politics, banned from the Olympics, banned from participating in the war, banned from being priests and in worse cases, they were sentenced to death. :( “Αν τις Αθηναίος εταιρήση, με έξεστω αυτω των εννέα αρχόντων γενέσθαι, μηδέ ιερωσύνην ιερώσασθαι, μηδέ συνδικήσαι τω δήμω, μηδέ αρχήν αρχέτω μηδεμιάν, μήτε ενδημον, μήτε υπερόριον, μήτε κληρωτήν, μήτε χειροτονητήν, μηδέ επικυρήκειαν αποστελλέσθω, μηδέ γνώμην λεγέτω, μηδέ εις τα δημοτελή ιερά εισίτω, μηδέ εν ταις κοιναίς σταφονοφορίες σταφανούσθω, μηδέ εντός των της αγοράς περιρραντηριων πορευέσθω.

Εάν δε ταύτα τις ποιή,καταγνωσθέντως αυτού εταιρείν, θανάτω ζημιούσθω.” Translation: “If an Athenean performs this, he will not be allowed to become member of the 9 lords, he will not be able to become a priest, he will not be able to become an advocate of the people, he will have no authority inside or outside of Athens, he cannot become a war preacher, he will not be able to express his opinion, he will not be allowed to enter the sacred public temples, he will not be able to take walks happening in Agora. If he ignores any of these laws he will be sentenced to death.” - Solon Laws in book 5, chapter 5

Also, the term “Pederastry” actually meant “Mentoship” and it had nothing to do with sexual relationship between a male teacher and a male student. Many of the homosexual depictions regarding historical and mythological figures are created in modern times without any evidence to back it up. For instance, Achilles and Patroclus are often assumed to be lovers in modern media when in all actuality they were just cousins. Patroclus’ father Μενοίτιος (Menoetius) and Achilles’ father Πηλέας (Peleus) were brothers.

Alexander the Great was never in a relationship with his best friend Hephaestion as there’s no evidence to back it up besides him telling him his secrets and mourning his death.

The only historical figure that could be a legit bisexual was Sappho from the island Lesbos (which is why Greece now calls the island “Mytelene” to avoid any association with lesbians, despite it being the name of one of the cities there). She was accused of being a promiscuous woman who was sleeping with many men and that she was a woman-lover due to her poems, but this is still up to debate to this day.

The worst of all is that most pictures involving homosexual activity used as evidence to prove queerness have been modern remakes of an ancient artifacts depicting heterosexuality (or even the rape of women). Eros Kalos is responsible for many of these “queer copies”.

This deeply saddens me as I am a homosexual myself, but I don’t think Ancient Greece deserves credit for being “open-minded” on the subject knowing that they would treat me badly if I was born in my country in that era. I don’t feel comfortable with people trying to prove that it was gay when that’s not true at all. Anyway, I am very happy that artists like you exist and make their own fictional versions of the characters in ways that feel comfortable for us to look at. Stay amazing. <3

Wow, this was a super interesting read !!! Thanks for all the helpful info :3 It's sometimes difficult to discern what "love" between gods and mortals means in the translated texts, as sometimes it can mean romantic/sexual love, and other times it just means godly love, i.e. mortals who were "chosen" by gods to be their patrons (so just having a very strong spiritual connection in the same way the Christian God "loves his children") and I feel like sometimes those two things become conflated a lot in discussion around those stories, but that's why it's always important to listen to other interpretations and translations to try and get the most accurate recounting possible.

Mind you, I am not Greek so take ALL of my opinions on this topic with OLYMPUS-SIZED-MOUNTAINS OF SALT LOL

I actually had no idea about the Alexander the Great x Hephaestion thing, and upon searching it up, it brought up articles about a Netflix production? Would I be wrong in assuming that's what motivated you to clarify on that ? 😆 (or is it just a common sentiment these days? genuinely asking haha I'm not so sharp on my Alexander the Great lore these days 😔🤡)

I absolutely agree that Greece itself isn't exactly a pillar of LGBTQ+ representation or rights (it is, after all, predominantly Orthodox Christian and they just legalized gay marriage in this, the year of our suffering 2024) and it's important not to put on blinders or use our connection to the gods and myths to erase what's going on historically. It's certainly not a magical imperfect wonderland - no culture or country is - and the more people are aware of that, the more they can become aware of ongoing issues and fight for things like equal rights (as they should!) so they can move towards positive change.

I think there's definitely lots to be said about the fandomification of Greek myth as well, where a lot of people take fun in the cute / funny / easy-to-headcanon parts of the myths without recognizing where they come from, why they were written, and who they were written for. It's easy to be a non-Greek person consuming and engaging with all the fun parts of the myths, because we get the privilege of being outsiders looking in who can interpret the myths in our own way free of consequences or the reality of the culture these myths are from. And I say that as someone who's not Greek and absolutely falls into that camp! Some of us use that privilege responsibly, others... not so much. And again, that's something that can happen with any culture (though I can definitely name a handful that have become notorious for how fandomified they've become through pop culture cough Japan cough Korea cough Canada, yes I fucking said Canada-)

That said, as with any culture that becomes more popularized with people outside of it, as much as that can lead to harm and misrepresentation in many ways, it can also lead to a lot of joy and appreciation. I'm glad that so many people have found themselves in the myths and find their hope through them and reclaim their power through them even if they've had a messy history. I see this sort of reclamation thriving in Christian mythology as well, through those who want to reclaim the beauty of many of its stories and messages and express the joy and love and compassion in them, rather than using them for hate and discrimination as they're so commonly and systematically used. In that way I think you can easily have adaptions that aren't historically accurate, but are more reflective of the culture and hopes and dreams of the people who are retelling them in the modern day. I think it's important to keep both in mind.

IMO it's one of those "if we don't find joy in it and use it to spread love to others, that means the bigots get to use it for harm" type things, if that makes sense :'0 But that doesn't mean we should pretend like history never happened, because in doing so, we're doomed to repeat it. We should always do our best to respect where these stories came from, and do more to learn about them when we get the opportunity to do so, because not doing so is how we end up with adaptions and "retellings" that are so far removed from the source material - but still ingrain themselves so seriously without a shred of transparency - that they almost become erasure in and of themselves. As I say a lot here, balance is key, and we should always be making efforts to learn ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

#idk if any of this was actually worded well it's like 3 AM here lmao #ama #ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything

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iwanthermidnightz · 5 months

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“Anyone considering the whole of Ms. Swift’s artistry — the way that her brilliantly calculated celebrity mixes with her soul-baring art — can find discrepancies between the story that underpins her celebrity and the one captured by her songs. One such gap can be found in her “Lover” era. Others appear alongside “dropped hairpins,” or the covert ways someone can signal queer identity to those in the know while leaving others comfortable in their ignorance. Ms. Swift dropped hairpins before “Lover” and has continued to do so since.

Sometimes, Ms. Swift communicates through explicit sartorial choices — hair the colors of the bisexual pride flag or a recurring motif of rainbow dresses. She frequently depicts herself as trapped in glass closets or, well, in regular closets. She drops hairpins on tour as well, paying tribute to the Serpentine Dance of the lesbian artist Loie Fuller during the Reputation Tour or referencing “The Ladder,” one of the earliest lesbian publications in the United States, in her Eras Tour visuals.

Dropped hairpins also appear in Ms. Swift’s songwriting. Sometimes, the description of a muse — the subject of her song, or to whom she sings — seems to fit only a woman, as it does in “It’s Nice to Have a Friend,” “Maroon” or “Hits Different.” Sometimes she suggests a female muse through unfulfilled rhyme schemes, as she does in “The Very First Night,” when she sings “didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture / they don’t know how much I miss you” (“her,” instead of that pesky little “you,” would rhyme). Her songwriting also noticeably alludes to poets whose muses the historical record incorrectly cast as men — Emily Dickinson chief among them — as if to suggest the same fate awaits her art. Stunningly, she even explicitly refers to dropping hairpins, not once, but twice, on two separate albums.

In isolation, a single dropped hairpin is perhaps meaningless or accidental, but considered together, they’re the unfurling of a ballerina bun after a long performance. Those dropped hairpins began to appear in Ms. Swift’s artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America. They suggest to queer people that she is one of us. They also suggest that her art may be far more complex than the eclipsing nature of her celebrity may allow, even now.

Since at least her “Lover” era, Ms. Swift has explicitly encouraged her fans to read into the coded messages (which she calls “Easter eggs”) she leaves in music videos, social media posts and interviews with traditional media outlets, but a majority of those fans largely ignore or discount the dropped hairpins that might hint at queer identity. For them, acknowledging even the possibility that Ms. Swift could be queer would irrevocably alter the way they connect with her celebrity, the true product they’re consuming.

There is such public devotion to the traditional narrative Ms. Swift embodies because American culture enshrines male power. In her sweeping essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” the lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich identified the way that male power cramps, hinders or devalues women’s creativity. All of the sexist undertones with which Ms. Swift’s work can be discussed (often, even, by fans) flow from compulsory heterosexuality, or the way patriarchy draws power from the presumption that women naturally desire men. She must write about men she surely loves or be unbankable; she must marry and bear children or remain a child herself; she must look like, in her words, a “sexy baby” or be undesirable, “a monster on the hill.”

A woman who loves women is most certainly a monster to a society that prizes male power. She can fulfill none of the functions that a traditional culture imagines — wife, mother, maid, mistress, whore — so she has few places in the historical record. The Sapphic possibility of her work is ignored, censored or lost to time. If there is queerness earnestly implied in Ms. Swift’s work, then it’s no wonder that it, like that of so many other artists before her, is so often rendered invisible in the public imagination.”

— NYT OPINION: Look What We Made Taylor Swift Do

#that part #simply amazing points

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evanesdust · 5 months

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more than a maybe

written for- @sterekfests prompt: "Kiss me at midnight." @sterekweekly word: present @sterekbingo Christmas square: new years eve

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale Additional Tags: POV Stiles Stilinski, Childhood Friends, Secret Crush, Gay Stiles Stilinski, Coming Out, Bisexual Derek Hale, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, First Kiss, Getting Together

Summary:

…the one where Stiles thought his crush on Derek was unrequited. Spoiler: it wasn't.

"Have you seen Derek?" Cora asked, handing Stiles a glass of champagne. "There's only a few more minutes until midnight…"

Stiles rolled his eyes, ignoring her teasing grin as he took the glass.

"No, I haven't." Which was weird since they were usually attached at the hip, but Stiles was definitely going to look for him now.

Cora smirked and moved away to join the rest of the Hales gathered in the living room for the New Year's Eve celebration. Stiles had a sneaking suspicion that she knew about his crush on Derek. Hell, Derek probably knew, too, because sometimes Stiles caught Derek studying him—as if he were trying to guess what Stiles was thinking.

His scrutiny certainly never helped keep the blood from rushing to all the wrong places on Stiles's body, including his cheeks. That damned blush had been the bane of his existence ever since he realized that his feelings for Derek were far from platonic.

Because they were friends. Best friends.

And that was what made this whole situation a giant cliché. Stiles couldn't risk their friendship over an unrequited crush on his straight best friend, even if every fiber of his being was screaming at him just to tell Derek how he felt. It was safer to keep those feelings buried deep down, where they couldn't cause any damage.

Stiles figured Derek was probably hiding away from the noise and the crowd, staring at the stars. So he made his way through the party to where he was sure Derek would be, and sure enough, as he passed the large picture window facing the backyard, he spotted a familiar silhouette sitting on the deck, looking up at the night sky.

Derek.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Stiles stepped outside and quietly shut the door behind him. The crisp night air bit at his cheeks as he walked toward Derek, trying to think of something to say that didn't involve confessing his undying love.

"Hey. You okay?" Stiles asked as he drew closer, his footsteps echoing on the deck's wooden slats.

They'd practically grown up together, friends since elementary school, and Stiles could usually tell if Derek was broodier than normal. From the stiff way Derek was sitting, something was definitely bothering him. There was only a two-year age difference between them, even though Derek seemed more mature at times—like he was an old soul who'd seen it all and had the cynicism to prove it. But also like a protector since Derek always seemed to be looking out for Stiles, even when it wasn't necessary.

Derek glanced briefly over his shoulder. "Yeah, just"—he sighed—"got some things on my mind."

Stiles sank down beside him and dangled his feet over the edge of the deck, mimicking Derek's posture.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Derek sighed again. "I know about your crush on me."

It was said so suddenly that Stiles tensed beside him, barely breathing. Fuck. His heart hammered in his chest, and he couldn't look Derek in the eye. This was it; this was the moment that would change everything. Stiles had imagined a hundred different scenarios, but he never expected Derek to bring it up first.

"I…I…" Stiles cleared his throat. "I'm sorry…if that makes you uncomfortable, I mean."

That was the last thing Stiles ever wanted. Derek was his best friend, one of the most important people in his life. The fear of ruining that was paralyzing.

"It doesn't," Derek said, turning to face Stiles with an intensity in his gaze that Stiles had never seen directed at him before. "It's just...I didn't know how to bring it up. Or what to do about it. I've been trying to figure out my own feelings. And they're not as straightforward as I thought."

Stiles was sure his heart skipped a beat, or maybe it stopped altogether. "W-What do you mean?"

Because there was no way Derek meant—

"I'm…I think I'm bi." Derek's confession came out in a rush, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it seemed to resonate with the importance of a shout in the quiet of the night.

Stiles felt like his entire world had just shifted on its axis. "You think or you know?"

"I know. I know I'm bi," Derek answered with more conviction this time.

Stiles's mind was racing, his previous worries suddenly replaced by a burgeoning hope that was probably reckless to entertain. Just because Derek was bi didn't mean he had feelings for Stiles.

"Well, that's—you know you can talk to me about anything, right? Like if you have questions or…" God, Stiles had no idea what he was saying. He just wanted to be there for his friend. To support him, regardless of how this might turn out because that was what friends did for each other. So, instead, he blew out a breath. "So, how did you—"

"Know?" Derek finished. "It was you."

Stiles's eyes went wide, his head snapping back to look at Derek.

Me? he wanted to ask, but it was as if speaking were a foreign concept. His mind couldn't wrap around a single word to utter out loud. All of this time, he'd been so wrapped up in his own feelings and fears that it had never occurred to him that Derek might be grappling with concerns just as considerable, perhaps even more profound. That Derek could be struggling with the same revelation about his sexuality, in part because of him. That maybe, just maybe, his feelings weren't unrequited after all.

"If I'm being honest, I've had… I've had feelings for you for a while," Derek admitted, looking away from him. His throat bobbed as his confession hung between them, tangible and heavy in the cool night air. Stiles could hardly believe what he was hearing. It was as if Derek had just presented him with the key to a door he'd been certain was locked forever.

"You…you have? For me?" Stiles stammered, his voice a mix of disbelief and cautious optimism. Derek nodded, finally turning to meet Stiles's wide-eyed gaze.

"Yeah. For you, Stiles. I just didn't know how to say it, and I was scared it would mess up our friendship." Derek's voice cracked slightly with the vulnerability of his admission.

"But…" Stiles frowned, confusion mingling with the sudden burst of elation that was threatening to overwhelm him. "You just said that you knew I had a crush on you."

Derek let out a humorless chuckle. "I thought you might, but I wasn't sure. Not until now. And I was worried about how it would affect everything. Our friendship, the group dynamics, our families..." Silence hung in the air for a moment before he continued, "You mean too much to me to risk it all on a maybe. I love you, Stiles."

Was Stiles dreaming? The possibility of Derek returning his feelings was something he had never let himself hope for; it was too painful to even contemplate. But he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that when Derek said he loved him, it wasn't just as a friend. There was something deeper in his words, a resonance that couldn't be faked. Stiles's breath caught in his throat, and for a second, he couldn't find his voice. When he finally spoke, every word was laced with emotion.

"It's more than a maybe, Derek. It always has been," Stiles said earnestly, his voice thick with the weight of his own confession. With shaky fingers, he was brave enough to reach out and cup Derek's face. "I love you, too. I always have, and I always will."

Derek shivered and angled closer. Stiles's pulse blotted out the sounds of the nearby party and people counting down.

"Stiles," Derek breathed out, his breath hitching as their foreheads touched. "Kiss me."

So Stiles did.

Derek made a sound in the back of his throat—part groan, part sigh—as Stiles's heart galloped wildly. He was so afraid Derek would change his mind and pull away that Stiles reached out, tangling his hand in Derek's shirt and holding him steady. When Derek's tongue flicked against his, Stiles's entire body came alive, and he understood what this kissing thing was all about. It was breathy and heart-stopping and amazing.

They kissed for a long time, Derek's warm fingers gripping his neck and Stiles's twisted in his shirt, only breaking apart to catch their breath before going back for more. His lips were firm, his tongue was soft, and Stiles wanted to live in this moment and never come up for air.

But eventually, he did, panting softly against Derek's mouth, their foreheads still pressed together, eyes still closed.

Derek's hand, still on Stiles's neck, slid up into his hair, a gesture so tender that it made Stiles's heart swell even more. They stayed like that for a while, just breathing each other in, until the chill of the night reminded him they were still outdoors.

"Let's go inside before you freeze," Derek murmured, his breath warming Stiles's face.

"Yeah," Stiles agreed, voice hoarse from their intense kiss. "But, uh, what do we—"

"Tell everyone?"

Stiles nodded, wondering how the others would take the news. If Derek even wanted everyone to know yet because he wouldn't just be announcing that they were dating, he'd be coming out, and that was huge.

"Well, first I'll probably tell them that I'm bi. After that…" Derek took Stiles's hand, lifting it and kissing his knuckles. "We'll tell them we're…boyfriends?"

It came out more as a question than a statement, and Stiles's heart beat even faster—if that was possible.

"Are you sure?" he asked, not wanting Derek to feel pressured into putting a label on things too quickly. "We don't have to—"

"I've never been more sure about anything." Derek met his eyes, his gaze clear and steady. "I want to call you my boyfriend and have the world know that I'm yours and you're mine."

It was a yes—a resounding yes that seemed to echo in the quiet that followed, and a wave of relief crashed over him, mingling with excitement and a touch of nerves.

"Okay then, boyfriend," Stiles said with a grin that lit up his entire face. "Let's go inside and figure out the rest together."

Hand in hand, they walked back into the house, their future unwritten but promising. This was the start of something new, something real, and Stiles couldn't wait to see where it would lead.

#sterek #sterekfestsmidnight #sterekfestswinter2023 #sterekfests #sterekweekly #sterekweeklypresent #sterekbingo #holy shit i wrote something

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haupkmn · 5 months

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The version of Guzma from Pokemon Sun and Moon that lives in my head is so wildly different than the version that exists in game.

He's a grown man who spends most of his time on Urban Dictionary and accidentally getting scammed on different websites trying to buy vapes that look like Porygon and didn't know for most of his life that people typically come out as bisexual and it's not just the default. That man is completely sexless being but eventually short circuits when Plumeria steps on a cigarette mid conversation, uses he/him for herself and calls herself "Daddy" in a nonsexual way.

Guzma regularly asks the Alola Gang™ to bum a cigarette or a lighter forgetting the oldest of the five of them is in middle school and kind of his boss. He doesn't even smoke. Guzma watches vine compilations on a regular basis, but they're all dubbed in Kalosian and he doesn't understand and laughs out of habit.

For six months he didn't realize he was dating Kukui, Plumeria and Burnet in a polycule and just thought best friends had sex, got married and raised a kid together. He is banned from every Pokemon equivalent to Subway in Alola. He once confused a picture of Piers for himself.

If you told him to get hit by any Pokemon move he would do it as long as you either filmed it or gave him $10. He's been living on Hala's couch on and off for years. If you asked him his pronouns he would call Gladion and ask him.

#malasada break!#guzma #team skull #team skull guzma #pokemon sun #pokemon moon #home #guzma pokemon

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weirdmageddon · 8 months

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OK OK SO!!

First off!!! Hello fellow davejade enjoyer i see you. Second off—what sort of things do you wish you could’ve seen with these two in canon :0. Could be expansion on canon scene, arc direction, or just a new scene entirely. for me personally I would’ve loved to see some genuine fighting collaboration going on. I felt VERY teased with all the magic combo’s in collide.

Third! I know they do a lot of music collaboration in canon, and I’ve seen some things with them making a band together post canon. What sort of sound do you think they’d have/what artist do you think they’d sound like?

Thank you :))

okay god theres so much i wish was expanded on in canon with regard to dave and jade

this post is swan dive into homestuck meta and took me over a day to write. so i would appreciate feedback or discussion on this if you'd like, reblogs appreciated!

despite this question being posed as davejade related, my answers here are actually relevant for anyone interested in homestuck meta as well.

it’s just recently come to my attention that there are a a handful of people on twitter who are vocal davejade dislikers. i didnt know it was actually disliked until i looked it up on twitter, i honestly thought it was a joke blown out of proportion but no they exist! it surprised me a lot to see people think they "lack chemistry". not only because knowing what i know about them thats a ridiculous insinuation, but also i haven't seen the vitriol on tumblr. probably because we can actually poast about it on here in an unabridged manner which thus enables better, deeper critical analysis and engagement with the media. i think also people forget that dave strider is canonically bisexual and are too yaoipilled + facing the consequences of the epilogues to even give davejade a serious look/analysis. (dave dates terezi and karkat in separate timelines, thinks jane is hot, thinks roxy is a babe but shoves it down when he discovers she’s his ectomom lmfao. davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dated jade! but i'm going to cover that in more depth in this post since theres a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of that relationship in fanon.)

(as a side note according to what some people have told me in inbox and what ive seen lol i think that ive been inadvertently been getting people into davejade. it's all in my davejade tag here in chronological order if you'd like to get a Whiff. be sure to read the tags on posts in there too!)

even though theres a lot in this post as it is, it doesn't cover everything ive talked about wrt davejade, and i think it would benefit readers to have complementary posts alongside this for the full picture with stuff it doesn't cover. there's a ton about why theyre cute and why i think they work well together in that tag.

here's some highlight analysis posts, but be sure to check the tag because there's a more in there:

post a / post b / post c / post d / post e / post f (← one of my favorite ask responses ive ever gotten)

i think a huge chunk of the issue has to do with how the narrative handles dave and jade. one of the most damning things to me is how glossed over their canon interactions were in act 5 despite them collaborating on one of the most important things in the story. i haven't talked about this yet but i'm going to do so here. because they’re put on the backburner by the focus of the narrative during act 5, people who don’t read carefully will miss the implications that are there all along in canon but easily passed over.

under the cut ive separated it into multiple parts

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

this is an analysis examining apart exactly what jade and dave did while frog breeding. i wrote it while high which was extremely enlightening and it allowed me to comprehend it and hopefully explain it in an understandable way. i also discuss how shitty the lack of on-screen communication between jade and dave was for this part and the next.

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

ive discussed this one before on my blog so it's not as dense (see davejade tag). but i still sewed the gifs together and discuss how unfortunate this was to be be delegated to a banner at the top of mspa and the neglect of that whole arc despite the outcomes of it being reissued by characters thousands of pages later

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

i get into davesprite's head here and try to make his motivations about the breakup clear to the extent that i can infer because jesus fuck i love these characters way too much ive known them for a decade i understand their core personality structures and why they think what they do and what is most likely to happen when extrapolating? i also talk about how grimbark jade changed the way the fandom perceives their relationship, leaving davejade on a low note instead of a high note. and then hs epilogues had even worse consequences for davejade but i wont get into it because it was character assassination all around and doesnt deserve my time or yours. but if you wanna know what i think, here

4. The music question

where actually answer this ask like it's an ask and not an essay

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

i wish we could have seen what collecting frogs entailed for the two of them. what exactly were they doing? jade’s quest is one of the most interesting.

before i start i want to take a tangent and say the frog breeding reminds me of back in 2020-2021 when i would breed hybrid flowers in animal crossing new horizons to get a very specific gene sequence for these flowers to not only use to breed for hybrids, but to get known gene sequences that i could use to “check” the genes of other flowers. the goal is to get two parent flowers whose sequences when bred would make a specific phenotype 100% of the time.

this sounds complicated but here’s what i did for the lilies:

(“rare island” refers to one of the first acnh patches that removed a nook miles island from the pool that had hybrid versions of your native flower of very specific phenotypes for each color. i wrote out the breeding chains to get parents that would always breed that exact flower found on the rare hybrid nmt island that is no longer available.)

the cleanup ALL TO GET the white 2-2-2 lily looked like this. and after i got white 2-2-2 lily it was smooth sailing

after all that i could use the orange 2-2-0 lilies and white 2-2-2 lilies made in the black lily process and get rare island orange 2-2-1 lilies 100% of the time. in mendelian genetics these numbers (2-2-1) are quite literally RR-YY-Ww.

RR-YY-ww (orange) x RR-YY-WW (white) = RR-YY-Ww (orange: heterozygous Ww gene)

and all that effort into getting white 2-2-2 lilies enables me to get it over and over again now. i don’t have to repeat that process to get rare island pink lilies. all i need to do for the pink 2-0-2 lilies is breed two default bag red lilies (2-0-1) together. 50% will be red (2-0-1) lilies, 25% will be black 2-0-0 lilies, and the last 25% will be pink (2-0-2) lilies.

anyway sorry back to the main point. FROG BREEDING. it just reminded me of it. now that i think of it the frog breeding process also reminds me a lot of artbreeder back from when AI was only a fun little toy 4-5 years ago

ok so have a look at what kanaya says about what jade must do. this is the coolest quest imo because of how it progresses and how long it actually is

here’s how it works. remember back in act 2, when the wayward vagabond needed to tie a longer cable to descend down the ship (and refused to give up the ones that made up his mayoral sash)? he used the appearifier in the ship to appearify the extra cable across the gap to his location? that’s how the appearifier normally works when when it’s locked to the present. it’s very straightforward.

when jade appearifies a frozen frog, it shows us this exact thing. she appearified the actual frog itself (the same way WV appearified the actual cable across the gap) to her exact location. it can get the frog out of the ice in the way WV could untrap serenity from the amber. if something’s destiny wouldn’t otherwise be changed, it will not be paradoxified, it will just simply itself be warped to that location, with precise carving if it is somehow trapped inside of something else.

if you could appearify it to your location right now, you wouldnt be able to take it out the appearifier’s crosshairs in person later to alter its destiny because the object won’t be there at that time. it wouldve been with you the entire time. unless you decide to take the appearified item back to that location so that you could appearify it in the past, but that’s the most pointless time loop ever and doesn’t change its destiny.

for this icicle frog jade and dave weren’t capable of changing its destiny anyway, because it was completely encased in ice, and just didn’t bother to go after it. partially because it was with jade at the appearifier the entire time anyway and she can’t exactly put it back in there in the future. the point is, besides jade appearifying it to her location, the frog had no other possible routes of destiny. in that part of lofaf where she appearified the frozen frog from, the ice is too deep to get anything out of it (other than appearifying it) and i’m not sure the forge would have melted it in time before their reckoning ended anyway.

the goal of jade and dave is to target frogs on the appearifier screen and trust that their future selves follow through in altering the frog’s destiny. if so, then the frog’s paradox slime will appear instead and its genes would be collected in addition to creating offspring between multiple paradox clone frog genes. then, dave and jade would necessarily have to go out adventuring and find the frog so that they end up following through for their past selves.

if i understand correctly, jade is creating all the frogs on her planet that grow up with manually modified genes. these frogs must be genetically altered from their parents so that the frogs she creates don’t grow up to become one of their parents (as they’d be identical). the mutant offspring frogs “generation A” she ectobiologizes will eventually mature from tadpoles to frogs, assisted by dave’s time travel. then she will eventually target “generation A” with the appearifier to get their paradox slime to fuse with some other frogs’ paradox slime and create new slightly altered frogs “generation B” (and then follow through on altering the “generation A” frogs’ destiny so their slime and genes can be paradoxified by jade and dave’s past selves). repeat until the genes are fine tuned for the genesis frog.

this is why i compared it to my breeding in animal crossing. getting the genesis frog reminds me of the blue rose paths. i worked with the garden council back in the day and i used backwardsN’s “cesspool” method, except i honestly gotta say my white 2-2-2 lily thing was much more involved and carefully maneuvered in a way that i imagine frog breeding is more like. backwardsN’s “genepool method” was basically making a red-orange-black rose primordial soup and waiting for a blue rose to emerge out of it, just increasing the chances seeing a blue rose sprout the next day after watering with each generation of offspring. you KNOW my ass was using time travel, even if i happened to get lucky and got a blue rose without even finishing the big turtle plot. without time travel, most players (95%) will get their first blue rose before these # of days. (open up advanced tag)

there must be so many daves running around to help her going back in time all within the span of a few hours while still having their own linear, older timelines that are much longer than the “time stage” they’re actually functioning in. this sounds complicated but it’s not. think of this “time stage” as analogous to the 3 days until the moon falls in majoras mask. it’s the “time window” all the time travel takes place within, but link doesn’t become a day younger when he travels to a day ago. the timeline of his “self” is older but is kept within the confines of the 3-day timeframe. similarly, in tears of the kingdom, two master swords exist simultaneously for most of history, but the one on the light dragon’s head (who was above the cloud barrier before the upheaval btw) is further ahead on its own linear timeline: it starts as the other, pre-gloomed master sword → broken by gloom → sent to the past to be repaired → renewed over time, existing at the same time on the “time stage” as its own pre-gloomed past self but ahead on its own linear timeline

now imagine this but within the “time stage” of just a few hours within the same 24-hour period. kanaya says frog breeding ordinarily takes weeks. multiple daves can exist simultaneously because they’re operating in the same few-hour-timeframe but one can linearly be days ahead of another. it’s the exact same thing as breeding flowers in animal crossing for irl days but to your game it’s whatever date you have it set to. your irl progress isn’t lost if you go back a few days in settings. i’d often find a week in june to use as a “time stage” to loop through when it would rain at least one hour on each day of that week which would save me the hassle of watering my flowers every day before time traveling to the next.

it must’ve sucked for dave to hear jade say the same things over and over again. the novelty probably wore off pretty fast lol…… dave says he saw his future self fighting and dying to jack and knew that’s what he’d eventually have to do as well. every single dave at all points of his linear timeline understood that and it probably settled something horrible into his heart.

im imagining during the original run dave was thinking to himself: “im bored but cant alter anything about this without creating a doomed timeline. if i dont see my future self hugging jade then i cant hug her even though i really fuckin want to. note to future self: hug jade. aww shit look at me go guess i remembered. hell fucking yes cant wait for that to be me in a few hours” and gives a thumbs up

future dave pov, hugging jade and watching his past self give him a thumbs up from afar thinking to himself: “ahaha i remember exactly what i was thinking there” and gives a thumbs up

but anyway. goddamn. JADE AND DAVE. what did hussie do to you.

this is a goddamn atrocity.. what the hell man. i wish we could have at LEAST seen the text file jade sent to kanaya. we got to see ConversationWithAVeryStupidGirl.Txt but not daveisafunnyguy.txt?

i mean i GUESS the humor is delivered through this

and like, yeah that is pretty funny? but i feel like the single laugh this gives me is nothing compared to the joy i wouldve gotten out of seeing what dave has to say about the cloning apparatus for ants here and talking himself into circles about frog procreation enough to make not just gigglehouse jade laugh, but kanaya too

we spent so much time learning about the mechanics of the punch designix and hardly anything about creating the seed of the actual new universe. we learn about it through kanaya and karkat messaging jade, instead of dave and jade working that out through SHENANIGANS. even though this is JADE AND DAVE'S session. it’s fine that kanaya is helping them, as she should, but we’ve seen parallel pesterlog conversations before so i dont get why we didn’t get that here! jade and dave frog breeding is one of the most important events in homestuck, and yet it was terribly glossed over. everything in the story, their futures, are predicated on their success. not just in their unwinnable session, but the one they split up for 3 years and escape to.

at first i thought, maybe their lack of shown interaction has to do with hussie working out the intricacies of pesterlog/dialogue thing? as he once stated on tumblr:

shoshaumbay asked: In the intermission of act 6, it says that they get to talk. Does this mean that their guardians couldn’t talk to them before and that is why they left them notes all around their houses? The achievement badge only upgraded their ability to speak to each other as presented through the comic. I.e. it permitted them to speak to each other… WHILE WE WATCH! Do you think all the trolls were hanging out together, not talking at all? Or Dave and Jade were doing all that frog hunting without a single peep?? That’s ridiculous. On the other hand, abstraction weaves itself through the Homestuck reality, and it can be hard to pin down where abstraction is to be taken literally. The truth is, there is not much distinction between the layers of abstraction and the reality they are meant to stand for. John was both literally named on his 13th birthday, and not quite, because that’s silly. The guardians are both literally silent automatons, and not really, as there is indication through allusion they function as normal people too. And the kids went through a huge adventure, achieved immortal god status, and even then had to gain a few more levels just to gain the achievement of simple dialogue as a literal upgrade, as well as not literally, because that makes no sense. The reality is inseparable from the way the story is presented and the way the “game” is played. But those abstractions are also a facade for a more life-like reality beneath it as well.

then i realized, this is not only an arbitrary cop out that affects my enjoyment of the comic in retrospect because they wind up being able to talk later anyway and that makes me feel cheated in these moments, but also still actually awful within these parameters because hussie breaks his own rule here, proving he could have shown us dave and jade talking in person at any time regardless of needing the gift of gab achievement for us to watch them as readers. recall this is also the first time john and rose met in person (at least when rose wasn't asleep):

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

this is where i take out my frustration over this being delegated to a banner at the top to the point where readers forgot it occurred.

(also i want yall to take a moment to acknowledge this ^)

youtube

i wish their time on lofaf frog breeding and fighting with jack was front and center and wasnt just in the banner at the top of the page. it makes it seem not as important when it completely was, considering that characters brought up what had happened in that scene multiple times.

it is significant because it is at that point that jack noir has killed all of the kids at least once. the only one left being jade who he refuses to kill due to bec’s loyalty

THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE (foreshadowing)

jack noir killed john on his quest bed which allowed him to ascend to god tier. then he killed john AGAIN but it wasn’t a heroic or just death so john was revived

jack killed grimdark rose. john smooched rose’s corpse, allowing her to take over on derse.

jack killed dave by redirecting jade’s bullets into dave’s body instead. jade smooched dave’s corpse, allowing him to take over on derse.

after jade shoots him through jack, he’s down for the count. she kisses him and he wakes up on derse; all he and rose have left of “themselves” in an existential sense are their dreamselves. they didnt know they were going to ascend to god tier delivering the tumor. they assumed they were just going to die like for real and not come back which is why dave went with rose since he didnt want her to die alone.

it was also an important point since her time spent with dave on lofaf is the first in-person contact jade has had with another living human since she was probably 4 years old with her grandpa.

for jack noir, we got [s] seer: desend and [S] ==> (3696) which were hella impactful. seeing jade and dave essentially go through the same thing but with an extended battle sequence honestly kinda warrants a flash in my mind. (the sad thing is that unite synchronization was originally written with those pages in mind (the track was originally called redshift) but of course malcolm brown couldnt have known what was going to happen unless hussie commissioned him for a specific track for a specific story beat, probably like whatever he did to coordinate cascade’s music with toby ahead of the 10/25/11 release of the flash and publication of volume 8 on bandcamp)

i think one of the worst parts is that entire conversations were referenced, but cut or never written.

this is a real forgotten homestuck fact: jade was completely freaking out after filling dave with bullets until karkat had talked her through it. very easily forgotten since even though it being referenced twice we never actually saw the conversation. (i overrode the black scratch background so it's easier to read)

wow thats so crazy i as a member of the audience dont in fact remember! would it have killed to write it my guy

and we find out thousands of pages later dave was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die. if you even care btw

i wrote more about this here

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dates jade but breaks up because he feels inadequate at being the dave that he thinks jade deserves. NOT because they fought or anything. they were still on good terms. davesprite just felt inherently unlovable. john seemed more upset about the breakup frankly.

what davesprite did was because he thought it was in jade's best interest. there is nothing to suggest it was a fight / clash break up. they still seemed to be on good terms, davesprite asking where she went and all. jade says the breakup “is complicated” and “hes going through a lot of stuff”. given the context i think it's reasonable to assume that davesprite's thought process was: “we're coming up to the new session soon and youre going to meet up with dave again and i dont want to make shit awkward with you dating knockoff dave. you deserve to be with real dave instead so im gonna cut what we have going here in advance and distance myself from your life”

jade probably protested about saying how he's just as real as “real dave”, but davesprite made his decision already. im sure it wasnt easy for davesprite to break up either. with emotions running high (sadness, not anger) he probably just left to be alone and distance himself from jade, and seems to harbor guilt about it as we see in the log. that's probably why he wasn't at john's movie party. this is just speculation on my part but it doesnt seem in character for the breakup to be explosive because jade seemed more understanding than john. sad, but understanding.

i feel like a lot of people forget this. grimbark jade made it seem like davesprite did it to hurt her, or for this to mean that dave and jade are not actually good for each other, which is a wild mischaracterization of what happened but the one that stuck with the fandom nonetheless.

not only that, but davesprite's existence tragic and he's understandably depressed. after spending about a year in sburb (accounting for time travel) without john or jade, only to go back and give up your personhood to advance the alpha timeline and become forgotten is fucking crushing, and i think the breakup is also about davesprite coming to terms with that trauma, being okay with his existence as a sprite instead of being a bootleg stand-in for the dave that jade knew.

basically what vintagegamebro says,

it was such a tragic way for them to part for 3 years with no communication, and it was only proceeded by more tragedy because jade then had no one but davesprite to turn to, and davesprite needed anything but romance at that point

grimbark jade isn’t a good reflection of jade’s actual self. she pushed the mayor into lava for fucks sake which normal jade would never dream of doing, grimbark jade is straight up unhinged. i’m sure jade was hurt because all breakups hurt, but it was blown out of proportion (see how calm she was above a few days after the breakup?) because of Evilness. but also as @vintagegamebro mentioned it also felt somewhat … “off”? or out of left field? especially seeing what the nature of the breakup was from both sides in the above screenshots.

when dave says “theres no way i would have done that to you” i genuinely believe him. i have no reason not to believe him. look at him above asking for questions and clarification. thinking about how what davesprite did, a version of himself beyond his control and how it reflects on himself, i think it's obvious dave cares a lot about how jade feels about him

even after this confrontation in the game over timeline, dave laid down his fucking life to defend her corpse from the becs in he hope she could be revived by jane

and to think that after all this he still chose to save her, like always, probably knowing he had little to no chance, just because he cares for her, her life and who she is beyond this moment, really meant a lot for them. i really, really was mad that this would be the last time they would truly ever be together in a way that to me mattered

4. The music question

i wrote this post regarding instruments with this song in the back of my head if its anything. takes about 12 seconds to start after you press play for some reason

this too, closer to the “style”. i like imagining dave going apeshit on drums

#homestuck #dave strider #jade harley #davejade #homestuck meta #hs

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