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jerepars · 3 years

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Back again lol. Even though the writing just hasn’t been the best this season, I’m not really that mad about the way they’ve portrayed Jeresa. Just looking at this logically, I feel that they gave us 5x02 as our Jeresa episode early on and there really was a lot of sweet moments. Now, inevitably we had to have angst in between. But it’s been constantly cemented that James is in love with Teresa, and strongly implied that she loves him too. They can’t just build that up and leave it unresolved. Plus, with TV shows in general, a couple being together early on in the series just leaves it open for unnecessary conflict and the ship just loses its intrigue. If they give us the Jeresa ending we’re hoping for then it makes sense to have not got them together any episode earlier than the final 2. And despite everything, I think the writers have been a hell of a lot better than others in keeping their ship alive and not causing a irredeemable issue between them. I probably shouldn’t defend them before seeing the next two episodes, but I am hopeful. All that being said, there most definitely should have been more scenes and dialogue between them. We should’ve had a Tony moment between them (I’m so mad about this, especially since the writers acted like it was such a pivotal part of the season and then only showed Pote’s ‘grief’). I’m very sorry for rambling, just wanted to hear your take.

Oh, yes hello, back again, I see. Your ask made me sigh because I think it opens me up to be honest and critical of this season’s writing, and that kind of opinion may not always be favored around here, and also because it requires a response of essay length. But I’ll do it for you, anon, I will. Okay. So you want my take on the portrayal of Jeresa in season 5. Here we go. After the jump:

Let me preempt this by saying the show isn’t too serious (try and tell me this is still a serious show after the kerfuffle that season 5 has been), so you shouldn’t take this too seriously either. I have an opinion but I’m just…me. I encourage everyone to stick to their guns about what they feel about QOTS; what you like about it, what you love about it, what gets you excited, what you think has been done well, what is worthy of praise, etc. etc. etc. I go in pretty hard on the show in the next several (LOL, yes, really) paragraphs. But I am in no way the ultimate authority on all things QOTS.

I don’t think Jeresa would have unnecessary conflict and I don’t think the good ship Jeresa would lose its intrigue. In lieu of conflict, we’ve gotten…*crickets* nothing. No conversations of real value, no meaningful exchange of ideas, no arguments, nothing. If anything, the conflict between Teresa and James that is necessary had been absent. In seasons 1-3, there were always disagreements between Teresa and James. There was never a point reached where it created too much conflict, or unnecessary conflict. It created tension, which is like the very essence of Jeresa, and it showed the dynamic they have that made so many of us fall hard for Jeresa as our ship, as our OTP. I don’t think making them a couple or having them together early on in the season would create unnecessary conflict. I think it could’ve created different conflict than what we’ve seen before, and wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing, to have seen them evolve and deal with each other in ways we haven’t seen before?

So, related to what I said about different conflict, as far as intrigue goes…I don’t think presenting Jeresa as a couple or in a relationship would ever make them flat or boring. When I think back to season 3, when we got Jeresa in 3x05 and 3x09, I wish we’d been offered the chance to see them succeed and see what happened with them if they tried. Like I said, it’d be a different kind of conflict, a different kind of challenge for them to face and have to face together. That sounds so opposite of lacking intrigue to me, anon. That’s a side of Jeresa I would have loved to see.

You’ve pointed out that, in general, on TV shows, getting a couple together too early usually means doom and gloom and failure for them. One of my favorite shows ever was Veronica Mars, the first two seasons especially. When the showrunner, Rob Thomas, has talked about the first kiss Logan and Veronica have, he refers to it as being earned. For QOTS, and for Jeresa, I really felt that when they shared their first kiss in 3x05. It took so much and they went through so much to get to that moment. It was earned. So, with that idea—of the earned kiss, of the earned get together, of the earned relationship—in mind, to me, there is no point in season 5 that would have been too early for Jeresa.

Talking about TV shows and how they usually go in general leads me to my next point: as a viewer, is that what I want and is that what I should expect, to be given more of what’s typical? Maybe the writers and critics and people much smarter than me will tell me it’s my fault, I’m the fool, for wanting to critically engage in media that’s not meant to be consumed that way. Maybe I’m just supposed to accept and enjoy and be happy with what I’m given. No one claimed this wasn’t going to be typical. So okay. It’s on me. It’s my bad. But here’s the thing. If I’m supposed to accept and enjoy and love this as it is…well, give me something to love. I’m not asking for a revolution or anything life-changing here, just something I can appreciate (and this season, in my opinion, has really lacked things that I can hold on to and appreciate). So as for typical TV…I’m not down with merely accepting that because things usually go a certain way, that’s how they always have to go.

Why do Jeresa have to fail if they got together earlier in the season? Why is it so out of the realm of possibility that they might succeed together? Are they so emotionally stunted, do they lack so much compassion and understanding of each other that it would be impossible for them to listen and move forward together? What if they could discuss their issues, tell each other how they feel, stop hiding, and try? Who says there wouldn’t be angst and tension between them as they try to work through their issues? What if they’re actually supposed to be together and it would make them stronger—individually and as a couple?

Now, forget everything I just said. LOL. Let’s say we have to go by TV in general and typical TV rules. Let’s assume if Jeresa got together early on, then we’d see them struggle and fall apart and break up. Fine. Okay.

Here’s how Jeresa could have played out after the first two episodes:

5x03 banging honeymoon phase, probably

5x04 arguments and frustration with each other as T embraces being the white queen

5x05 J finds out about T’s coke usage and has to walk away from the relationship because he can’t stand to be complicit and stand idly by while she destroys herself

5x06 classic Jeresa angst and tension

5x07 KG’s death leads to T’s breaking point and J is there to support her

5x08 honesty hour, where it’s made clear that these two mean so much to one another and they’re running out of time to let each other know that, so they tell each other

5x09 one last united mission + they hatch the plan to get out and be free + a farewell with the promise and intent to see each other in another life

5x10 reunion in another life

Are these all headcanons? Of course they’re headcanons. Of course I would never expect the show to go exactly how I thought it would or with my own ideas. My point is that if they would’ve gotten together early on and we’d been given a glimpse of what that would be like, even if they failed, it doesn’t mean it would’ve been impossible for them to ever find themselves together again before season’s end.

“There’s not enough time,” the writers said. “It’s an action packed season,” the writers said. Okay. Why? There was enough time to spend on backstory of minor insignificant characters. There was enough time to introduce characters, tell us a bit about them, only to see them dead by the end of the episode. There was enough time to focus on Kote’s story, over multiple episodes, with not just a baby plot but a kidnapping one as well. So why? Why was there no time for Jeresa? Forget about them getting together and kissing and sex. If that was what it was (and it was) they wanted us to not have, then fine. Some of my favorite Jeresa moments were in the first two seasons, when Jeresa getting together was very much not a thing, when tension was high. So if it was just the portrayal of them not being together, if we still got the scenes of tension and them having no choice but to communicate, that would be completely fine. Like I said, I know I’m never going to get exactly what I want, my headcanons are mine, so that’s okay. Oh. But…no. Oh no. There was not even enough time for Jeresa to have more than short, throwaway, blink-and-you’ll-miss it conversations? Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

“It’s a Teresa-centric season,” Dailyn claimed. Like I’ve said before, James is a big part of Teresa’s journey and story. If you’re going to have a Teresa-centric season, it’s hard to accomplish that without shedding more light on James and Jeresa. This isn’t a Teresa-centric season. This has become the Kote show. Teresa is the main character but her journey has been pushed aside, diminished, and downplayed in order to make way for Kote ultrasounds and Pote grunting and Kelly Anne thinking “positive” and hopeful that Marcel will come to a party at the safe house. Instead of getting conversations that would offer insight into Teresa’s relationships with those in her family, we got an extended deep dive into the most chemistry-lacking relationship we’ve ever seen on the show. Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

“It’s Queen of the South, not Jeresa of the South,” the writers will insist. If by that they mean it’s Kote of the South. Imagine for a second that it actually was a Teresa-centric season but they were adamant about keeping James in this minor capacity. Okay. It would still be different than it is now because we’d be in tune with Teresa. We would’ve gotten a glimpse into her thought process. Was this not, at some point, meant to be a story about a strong woman? I can even extend that question to Kelly Anne. Was this not, at some point, meant to be a story about strong women? Then why do we keep seeing them make asinine decisions? Why are their most extreme actions in reaction to what the men have done?

Moreover, if this show is about the people in the cartel, in Teresa’s inner circle, rather than just the Kote side plot becoming the main plot, there’s no way this is the James we would be getting. James, our beloved reluctant assassin…who we know nothing about. He can’t even get a backstory on a show on which he is supposedly one of the main characters. Five minutes—five seconds—couldn’t even be spared on James and how he came to be who he is, how he got where he is. But Isidro Navarro? By all means, I need to hear his life story. Who’s Isidro Navarro, you ask? Right. Exactly. Apparently we don’t deserve backstory and explanation and conversation and introspection from our protagonists. But a character who is there for ten minutes or less on a single episode and will never be heard from again in any significant manner? Of course he needs his screen time. Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

“This is not a romance show,” the makers of season 5 said. Honestly? Fuck that noise. Fuck that sentiment. Fuck that ignorance. When has Jeresa ever been about romance? Where do the people who make this show get off saying something like that as if we are so stupid we don’t know that? A romance story and a love story are not the same thing. Jeresa is love. God forbid Jeresa ever experience love within a successful relationship. God forbid Teresa and James ever become mature enough to use love as strength rather than weakness. But pile on all the Kote. Focus on them and emphasize how Teresa and James can barely even look at each other. Well. It’s the writers’ decision. They wanted it that way.

So now here we are, on the cusp of 5x09. We got a spoiler in the last promo trailer. We know, after 7 episodes since their last conversation that actually meant something, after the writers missed the mark and didn’t have Jeresa interact in a way that was significant and necessary over the course of the season, that there is at least one kiss. They might even have a conversation. They might even share more than one kiss that leads to more (but also, don’t be surprised if we get a mere few seconds of a kiss and nothing more before fade to black). This is going to make us so happy because finally, finally, they’re giving us what we wanted. And then what? What does it mean if those things are true? Is everything forgiven? Is the instant gratification of seeing our ship sail for a scene or two enough? Does it make up for the character assassination of the characters we love? If we somehow get the ending we want, or at least one close to it, is it even believable anymore? Is what has been broken all season so easily fixed?

Listen, I already know the counter argument. I’m going to be told I’m crazy, that Teresa has to be on her own, that it wouldn’t be interesting, that it would diminish the payoff for Teresa and Jeresa in the end. I get it. Typical TV rules, right? We have to go with what people know, what they’re used to. But what have we gotten, really, to preserve these ‘rules’ for TV in general? Teresa has been dumbed down and is now lacking a lot of the intuition and street smarts she had before. She makes bad decision after bad decision and she doesn’t see what’s coming. The actions she takes are in reaction to those bad decisions. James hates so much of what he’s been made to do but for some reason he keeps going along and carrying out Teresa’s orders; he’ll just stew over it quietly in a corner without saying anything. Teresa and James don’t talk to each other, at least not about anything important, and when they do talk, they give each other heart eyes but never scratch the surface—how could they when they talk for like 10 seconds at a time? So. Has this been a good portrayal of Jeresa? You tell me. If it’s fine with everyone else, then I guess it’s fine. I’m probably the wrong person to ask.

#answered #qots #queen of the south #teresa mendoza #james valdez #jeresa #i have opinions they are unpopular #unfollow me block me do what you gotta do #queen of the south season 5

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blu-joons · 3 years

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DATING A⇴Z HEADCANON ⇴ Kim Hyojong

A ⇴ AFFECTION

Hyojong is incredibly soft around you, he loves to be able to cuddle up to you and often uses his affection to make sure that you feel loved as that’s his number one priority. His affection will always be close and meaningful with you.

B ⇴ BEFORE DATING

The two of you met when you were working at the studio that he was rehearsing at. You weren’t quite sure what it was about you both, but the two of you just instantly seemed to click. You spent the whole day chatting away to each other and getting to know each other, finding out about all the things that you had in common with each other.

C ⇴ CONFESSION

It didn’t take too long for Hyojong to confess to you, he enjoyed your company, and there was no way that he was going to risk losing you to someone else first. He confessed one evening when the two of you went out for a walk, he sat you down on a bench halfway through your walk, taking a tight hold of your hand as he tried his hardest to remain calm and tell you everything that he wanted to say to you.

D ⇴ DATES

Hyojong always made time for you, at least once a week the two of you would have a whole evening where you’d just be with each other, with your phones switched off. He knew he was busy a lot, so he’d make up for plenty of lost time with your dates. He would make sure that every date the two of you had was special and made sure that it was something you’d remember. He much preferred your dates to be quiet and relaxed then anything too overwhelming, his main focus was just being able to talk to you.

E ⇴ EXPERIENCE

He didn’t care what anyone thought about the fact that he was in a relationship, he wanted to put his own happiness first, regardless of what anyone else thought. He knew what he had to do in order to go about things in the right way, having learnt from previous experiences, but if anyone was to tell him no, then he’d definitely go ahead and do the complete opposite. He was his own person, he didn’t need his company to tell him what he could or couldn’t do, his career would always be important to him, but so was love.

F ⇴ FIGHTING

The two of you didn’t tend to fight often, but if you did, it would usually end in something pretty big. The two of you were stubborn, and firmly believed that you were right in any disagreement that the two of you had. It would usually take for one of your friends to nudge the two of you back together and encourage you to talk things through. As much as you hated to fight with each other, you both knew that arguments were natural in relationships and that no one expected to live your lives always on the best of terms. Eventually, the two of you would always talk things through and carry on like nothing ever happened.

G ⇴ GETTING TO KNOW HIS FAMILY

To begin with, Hyojong’s family were quite protective, it took a couple of visits for them to really warm to you. It certainly made you nervous for a while, but as you gradually began to feel that you were accepted as a part of his family, it definitely made life easier for you, and put you in a much happier position with Hyojong.

H ⇴ HOME

Hyojong didn’t want to rush your relationship, he wanted to work at a pace that was comfortable for you both, but as he began to work a lot more, he was keen to move you in after a few months so that he could spend more time with you. He didn’t want to wait for days to see you anymore, he wanted to see you when he got home instead.

I ⇴ “I LOVE YOU”

He was the first one to say, ‘I love you,’ when you surprised him at a concert. He hadn’t seen you for a couple of weeks because he was working so hard, so when you had the chance to head over and see him, you took it in an instance. He didn’t have time to think when he saw your face for the first time, he just found himself letting you know that he loved you.

J ⇴ JEALOUSY

Around other people is often when Hyojong will feel most insecure. He knows that others think of him as a bit of a unique character, so when someone else tries to compare themselves to him, he’ll often shrink back into his shell. Just the feeling of your hand holding onto him will usually be enough to convince him that he has no reason to get jealous, but for the rest of the night he’ll definitely be a bit off the ball until the two of you can finally leave and he can go back to being in a more comfortable environment.

K ⇴ KIDS

Starting a family was a huge deal to Hyojong, he wanted to complete that family dynamic whenever the time was right for the two of you. You knew at the start of your relationship that his career was the priority, but as your relationship became more serious, that focus tended to shift more to trying to find a balance of making his career work, but also looking towards a future with you, preferably with children too.

L ⇴ LAUGHTER

You loved the many quirks that Hyojong had, he was unique, which was what you loved the most about him. There was never a day when he didn’t make you laugh, even if he was busy at work, he’d send you a dodgy selfie or send you a silly joke that he knew would put the smile on his face. He didn’t care how much of a fool he looked around you, if it was enough to make you laugh, then it was good enough for him. You would never not find yourself smiling around him, you just couldn’t help but enjoy Hyojong’s company.

M ⇴ MISSING

Now that he was travelling alone, Hyojong was more desperate to have you with him than ever. He’d try and work his schedules around you too so that you could take along and he could show you a bit more of the world. If you weren’t there, touring and promoting would feel very lonely for Hyojong. Not having you by his side was hard for him, especially if time zones meant that he wouldn’t be able to call you every day or receive a text from you. Whenever he came home from tour, he didn’t let you go for a very long time, he knew he had a lot of time to make up for, and despite your protests, he’d refuse to let you go.

N ⇴ NICKNAMES

When you first started dating, Hyojong mentioned to you how he loved when you called him ‘jongie,’ so that was what stuck for you both. Any time he heard you say it, it was a guarantee that his cheeks would turn bright red.

O ⇴ OBSESSION

Hyojong is obsessed with your heart, he loves what a pure and kind person you are, it’s the exact type of person a personality like his needs.

P ⇴ PDA

Whilst he’s not over the top with his affection, Hyojong isn’t afraid to be affectionate with you in public. When he tells you that he doesn’t care what other people think, he means it, if he wants to show you off and hold you close to him, then he will. He never fusses or lets other people’s stares bother him.

Q ⇴ QUESTIONS

He’ll ask you a lot of questions, as he loves to strike up conversation with you. A lot of his questions are random, but that’s something that you’ve come to expect over the years, you never quite know what he’ll say.

R ⇴ RANDOM FACTS

Whenever he’s away on tour, Hyojong will carry a bracelet with him and wear it for his shows. It fits in well with the other bands around his wrist, but when you see it on his wrist, you know that he’s wearing it because of you. In interviews or segments, he’ll often fiddle with the bracelet to make a point of making sure that the camera focuses on it so you can see that he’s playing with the bracelet especially for you.

S ⇴ SEX

He’s incredibly soft when it comes to intimacy, he loves to make sure that you feel loved and special around him. Out of the two of you, he’ll tend to be the one that dominates a little more, he still likes to be the man and be the one to put in all the hard work, but if you mention to him that you want to switch, then he definitely won’t turn you down. Ultimately, all Hyojong ever wants is for you to be happy with him.

T ⇴ TEXTS

Texting is not something Hyojong is a fan of, if he wants to get in contact with you, he’ll usually call, just so he can see your face. Even if it’s only for a couple of minutes, just being able to see your face is a huge relief for him.

U ⇴ UNIVERSE

There were many times when Hyojong was left feeling pretty misunderstood or like an outsider, but around you, he really knew that he could be himself. You made him feel safe and protected, which was all he ever wanted.

V ⇴ VACATION

Hyojong loves the fact that he’s the one who can show you the world, he loves to take you to new places and give you as many new opportunities as possible. Even if it’s just a quick stop on a tour or for a promo, he’ll make sure to show you around so that you can explore and open your eyes to a whole new world.

W ⇴ WHINING

If he doesn’t have your attention, there are definitely times when Hyojong can get quite loud to make sure that you know he’s in the room and wants you.

X ⇴ XXXXX

He’s incredibly affectionate, and with that, he loves to kiss you. His kisses vary a lot, sometimes it will just be a light peck on the cheek, other times he’ll love to tease you, either by allowing his lips to linger against your skin or nibble gently against your skin. The feeling of you squirming as he presses his lips to you is exactly the reaction that Hyojong craves, all he wants is for you to be on your toes when he’s around.

Y ⇴ YOU

You were the one that understood exactly who Hyojong was, which he loved.

Z ⇴ ZZZ

When you slept, it became a bit of a habit for you to start tracing Hyojong’s tattoos. He loved feeling your hands dance along his skin, often coming up with new designs too against whatever exposed skin you could find.

---

Masterlist

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elriel-oblivion · 3 years

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Okay here's the thing.. I respect everyone's opinions and they can ship whoever they want but like... For Elucien and Gwynriel... I literally cannot even see how. I would gladly ship them if someone gave me a valid reason. Elain avoids talking or even being in the same room as Lucien, and Azriel had one polite conversation with Gwyn. Az is just nice to her. As nice as he would be to any female. Elriel has foreshadowing & chemistry- The roses painted on her drawer and the rose necklace...👀

Strongly agree with all of this!! My main problem with anything that's not elriel is that a lot of anti-elriel shippers completely ignore or erase Elain. With these ships, it's always what benefits Elain does or doesn't bring. It's so misogynistic, people just ignore everything she's mentioned about her own heart and how she doesn't want a mate or the bond, she doesn't care for it, but oh Lucien's had such a hard life, he deserves his mate!!!!!

😒😒😒

Surely he deserves someone who wants him as much as he wants them, no?

Non-elriel-endgame with the canon we currently have would mean Elain's choices are stripped once again since she'd have to give up/lose the love she actually wants in favour of one she doesn't want that's attached to some cultural concept that means zilch to her and her human heart. I mean, sure sjm could spin it so Elain catches feelings for Lucien and they end up happily mated. But then what is the point of having Elain constantly avoid him for three books? That's not even setting up for a good relationship bc every time they interact/meet, the communication just gets worse.

While I can honestly see the potential of gwynriel bc platonic interactions can later become romantic, I still don't ship it bc it doesn't feel right the way elriel does to me. I can def see gwynriel becoming a strong healthy friendship, but if it's endgame then Elain ends up with Lucien, whom she visibly shrinks from and has been avoiding since acowar. She doesn't feel seen by him at all - as much as I love Lucien and truly do want him to have his own HEA, we can't deny that he's really just pursuing (I use pursuing in the loosest way since he's very respectful about it 😅) Elain bc of the bond. If we take that away, there's nothing between them imo and he probably wouldn't give Elain more than a passing glance for her beauty and that's it bc she's not the type of girl he's into.

But people don't wanna think about how that makes Elain feel. This girl who previously felt seen by only one person - who then rejected her bc of that bond itself - and craves someone to see who she truly is, is being courted by someone who doesn't actually like her for her, but just the idea of what a relationship with her would entail. He's only trying bc of some divine belief she doesn't share. That must suck like hell. It's almost objectfying, the bond. And again, I don't blame Lucien at all, not even for trying bc it is something that's important to him and his culture, but it's not a mutual thing. If it were important to Elain too and she just wasn't cooperating bc of some stupid shallow reason, then I'd be angry at her. But that's not the case at all.

But with Azriel, the first person to see her since Graysen, there's so much potential for growth - for both of them. They make each other feel seen. And for all that antis say neither has grown in the time they've known each other, how did Az pluck up the courage to almost kiss Elain after having not done anything with Mor for five centuries? How did Elain initiate that kiss - ie have the courage to follow her heart again after having it torn and shredded by Graysen? And anyway, weve never seen into Elain's head so we don't know what she feels has changed within her; we can only detect subtle changes from other povs, but there might be some huge changes in her learnt from Azriel, maybe about her outlook on life/strength, that she's just keeping hidden for the time (or that no one has bothered to see bc Elain is invisible 😭). Same with Azriel. One little chapter isn't gonna tell us everything he's been thinking the past two years.

But either way, we know now that they both have feelings for each other. Why is a mutual healthy relationship shut down so quickly, one where both partners' choices are taken heed of? If Elain had said no in that moment, Azriel would've stepped back instantly, no questions asked. He probably would've have some huge internal conflict about his own self worth but he wouldn't have gone further without Elain's consent. He's already shown he respects her, he said they've been sharing looks and touches, and these are things fandom eat up, so I don't understand why it's suddenly wrong or unwanted just bc Elain makes up half the ship.

And there's so much foreshadowing/symbolism that antis seem oblivious to, which, fair enough, interpret the text how you want. But even if somebody doesn't see the spark or blooming feelings between the pair throughout the books (how do they explain away all the stiffness whenever one of them is mentioned or is in the same room or something though? Genuinely curious here), there's a lot of plot foreshadowing. The Blood Duel has now been mentioned twice, as has the idea of breaking the bond, maybe more. There's the issue with Koschei and Elain not being able to see things related to him past mist and shadow. There's all this potential conflict that could arise between the Courts if elriel pursue their love, and conflict is the driving force of any novel.

If gwynriel were an IRL couple, I wouldn't care if there were never any conflict, but if I'm reading their story, I want more than just them falling in love and having internal conflict about whether they should kiss the other or not. Especially if the backdrop is a fantasy world on the brink of war with many players. I saw a gwynriel post mentioning Merrill once and while I do think she has the potential to be a running antagonist, I don't see her as anything but a subplot/crony for/associate with another stronger villain. I don't think she could carry a whole novel at the moment. So Gwyn is tied to nothing in the overarching plot. Same with Az. Not to mention all the theories about the Koschei/Swan Lake/firebird folklore that is potentially inspiring this new series in the acotar world. Of course, this could all change as we get more info about the next book/s and all, but compared to elriel certainly, I don't think there's as much conflict with gwynriel.

Ultimately, I don't claim knowledge of the next books' content, so I don't really care what people ship, but the main thing I take issue with is how they treat Elain in the midst. A lot of gwynriel arguments I've seen portray certain acts in a romantic/positive light for Gwyn but either completely ignore or erase any semblance of romance for Elain or tear her down. Like, we shouldn't push the narrative that Gwyn as an SA survivor can't have healthy meaningful sex in the future (yeah, of course I agree), yet some of the same people who say that are also people who judge and make fun of Elain and call her too vanilla for Az without having a clue what her bedroom habits/preferences are 🤯 This is just one of many. There are so many double standards I've seen for gwynriel against elriel and I'm just tired of it. And even if they're not doing any of that, they simply hate Elain and don't want her to be with Az and so ship gwynriel as the next best alternative. Like, can they not push down Elain in favour of Gwyn, please? That's so misogynistic 🤮

For all that this fandom flaunts the series being feminist with strong female characters, they sure do a good job in tearing down females who don't fit their definition of strong, despite even Feyre stating and acknowledging multiple times that Elain has a different kind of strength 😒

Gahhhhhhh. *exhales deeeeeeeeply* Sorry this is so damn LONG!! 😅😅😅😅😅 I did not expect to write a whole bloody essay lol but I hope it was fun/comforting to read at least 😅😆 I know I fall back on elriel posts when the ship war gets too intense bc I actually enjoy shipping elriel. They've become my otp, and I absolutely adore both characters of the ship; I think most of us elriels do. I haven't really seen any elriel stans who dislike/don't care for Elain and her welfare so it's nice being in this corner of the fandom where we can appreciate both Az and Elain equally. And of course, the other characters with their due respect. I truly do want Lucien to finally get his good life, but I don't think that's with Elain 😕

#elain archeron #elriel #azriel acotar #elain x azriel #Acotar #Acosf spoilers

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hellomynameisbisexual · 4 years

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As a nonbinary bisexual, I’m no stranger to people erasing me and telling me that I’m something I’m not. With the rise of terms like “pansexuality” and “omnisexuality,” many people unfamiliar with the true nature of bisexuality now think that it’s transphobic or otherwise binary — some go so far as to claim bisexuals only believe in two genders.

People assert that, while bisexuality allegedly means “attraction to two genders,” pansexuality and omnisexuality, unlike bisexuality, denote “attraction to all genders.” It’s easy to think this way if only examining the terms at face value, but this comparison is an outright lie. Some others say that new labels were a response to transphobic exclusion from the bisexual community — this is similarly not the case. (I’ll be compiling a piece on the history of the “pansexual” label at a later date.) Using this “reasoning” to separate bisexuality from these other terms is woefully inaccurate and disrespectful to bisexual and transgender people.

While there are cissexist definitions of bisexuality, that holds true for “gay” and “straight,” too. Bisexuals have also described our orientation as attraction regardless of gender¹ for decades — at least fifty years or so — and we still do. Before words like “transgender” and “nonbinary” came about, bisexuals still often saw themselves as attracted to people beyond gender.

Androgyny and gender-nonconformity are also a staple in bisexual culture. Major bisexual icons throughout history explored and embraced it. Look at bisexual chic, especially the glam rock era. Some bisexual activists and organizations have historically included and allied with transgender and nonbinary people, and many of us are transgender or nonbinary ourselves.

Below are just a few examples of the hidden secret of our gender-expansiveness. (Including a quote here does not equal my approval of what was said. Keep in mind the times during which they were recorded as well as the footnotes.)

Sources without links can be downloaded for free from ZLibrary, borrowed from the Open Library, or found wherever you purchase or borrow physical books. Sources without a year next to them are those for which I could not find the publish date.

“…the very wealth and humanity of bisexuality itself: for to exclude from one’s love any entire group of human beings because of class, age, or race or religion, or sex, is surely to be poorer — deeply and systematically poorer.”

— Kate Miller (1974)

“It’s easier, I believe, for exclusive heterosexuals to tolerate (and that’s the word) exclusive homosexuals than [bisexuals] who, rejecting exclusivity, sleep with people not genders…”

— Martin Duberman (1974)

“Margaret Mead in her Redbook magazine column wrote an article titled ‘Bisexuality: What’s It All About?’ in which she cited examples of bisexuality from the distant past as well as recent times, commenting that writers, artists, and musicians especially ‘cultivated bisexuality out of a delight with personality, regardless of race or class or sex.’”

— Janet Bode, “From Myth to Maturation,” View From Another Closet: Exploring Bisexuality in Women (1976)

“Being bisexual does not mean they have sexual relations with both sexes but that they are capable of meaningful and intimate involvement with a person regardless of gender.”

— Janet Bode, “The Pressure Cooker,” View From Another Closet (1976)

“A sex-change night club queen has claimed she had a bizarre love affair with rock superstar David Bowie. Drag artiste Ronny Haag said she lived with the bisexual singer while he was making his new film, “Just a Gigolo,” in Berlin. […] Ronny says: ‘I am a real woman.’”

— Kenelm Jenour, “I Was Bowie’s She-Man!”, Daily Mirror (1978)²

“[John] reacted emotionally to both sexes with equal intensity. ‘I love people, regardless of their gender,’ he told me.”

— Charlotte Wolff, “Early Influences,” Bisexuality, a Study (1979)

“On Saturday, February 9, San Francisco’s Bisexual Center will conduct a Gender/Sexuality Workshop. ‘We will explore the interrelationships of gender feelings and sexual preference… We will discuss sexuality and whether we choose to play out the gender role assigned to us by society or whether we can shift to attitudes supposedly held by the opposite gender, if those feel good to us. We will deal with the issue of the TV/TS [transvestite/transsexual] in transition and how sexuality evolves as gender role changes. We will attempt to present a summary of the fragmented and confusing information on gender and sexuality.’”

— The Gateway (1980)

“J: Are we ever going to be able to define what bisexuality is?

S: Never completely. That’s just it — the variety of lifestyles that we see between us defies definition.”

— “Conversations,” Bi Women: The Newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network (1984)

“Bisexuality, however, is a valid sexual experience. While many gays have experienced bisexuality as a stage in reaching their present identity, this should not invalidate the experience of people for whom sexual & affectional desire is not limited by gender. For in fact many bisexuals experience lesbianism or homosexuality as a stage in reaching their sexual identification.

— Megan Morrison, “What We Are Doing,” Bi Women (1984)

“In the midst of whatever hardships we [bisexuals] had encountered, this day we worked with each other to preserve our gift of loving people for who they are regardless of gender.”

— Elissa M., “Bi Conference,” Bi Women (1985)

“I believe that people fall in love with individuals, not with a sex… I believe most of us will end up acknowledging that we love certain people or, perhaps, certain kinds of people, and that gender need not be a significant category, though for some of us it may be.”

— Ruth Hubbard, “There Is No ‘Natural’ Human Sexuality, Bi Women (1986)

“I am bisexual because I am drawn to particular people regardless of gender. It doesn’t make me wishy-washy, confused, untrustworthy, or more sexually liberated. It makes me a bisexual.”

— Lani Ka’ahumanu, “The Bisexual Community: Are We Visible Yet?” (1987)

“To be bisexual is to have the potential to be open emotionally and sexually to people as people, regardless of their gender.”

— Office Pink Publishing, “Introduction,” Bisexual Lives (1988)

“We made signs and slashes. My favorite read, ‘When it’s love in all its splendor, it doesn’t matter what the gender.’”

— Beth Reba Weise, “Being There and Being Bi: The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights,” Bi Women (1988)

“…bisexual usually also implies that relations with gender minorities are possible.”

— Thomas Geller, Bisexuality: a Reader and Sourcebook (1990)

“Many objections have been raised to the use of [“bisexual”], the most common being that it emphasizes two things that, paradoxically, bisexuals are the least likely to be involved with: the dualistic separation of male and female in society, and the physical implications of the suffix ‘-sexual’.”

— Thomas Geller, Bisexuality: a Reader and Sourcebook (1990)

“Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have ‘two’ sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders.”

— The Bay Area Bisexual Network, “The 1990 Bisexual Manifesto,” Anything That Moves (1990)

“Bisexuality works to subvert the gender system and everything it upholds because it is not based on gender… Bisexuality subverts gender; bisexual liberation also depends on the subversion of gender categories.”

— Karin Baker and Helen Harrison, “Letters,” Bi Women (1990)

“I tell them, whether or not I use the word ‘bisexual,’ that I am proud of being able to express my feelings toward a person, regardless of gender, in whatever way I desire.”

— Naomi Tucker, “What’s in a Name?”, Bi Any Other Name (1991)³

“Some women who call themselves ‘bisexual’ insist that the gender of their lover is irrelevant to them, that they do not choose lovers on the basis of gender.”

— Marilyn Murphy, “Thinking About Bisexuality,” Bi Women (1991)

“Results supported the hypothesis that gender is not a critical variable in sexual attraction in bisexual individuals. Personality or physical dimensions not related to gender and interaction style were the salient characteristics on which preferred sexual partners were chosen, and there was minimal grid distance between preferred male and preferred female partners. These data support the argument that, for some bisexual individuals, sexual attraction is not gender-linked. […] …the dimensions which maximally separate most preferred sexual partners are not gender-based in seven of the nine grids.”

— M W Ross, J P Paul, “Beyond Gender: The Basis of Sexual Attraction in Bisexual Men and Women” (1992)

“[S]ome bisexuals say they are blind to the gender of their potential lovers and that they love people as people… For the first group, a dichotomy of genders between which to choose doesn’t seem to exist[.]”

— Kathleen Bennett, “Feminist Bisexuality, a Both/And Option for an Either/Or World,” Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism (1992)

“The expressed desires of [female bisexual] respondents differed in many cases from their experience. 37 respondents preferred women as sexual partners; 9 preferred men. 21 women had no preference, and 35 said they preferred sex with particular individuals, regardless of gender.”

— Sue George, “Living as bisexual,” Women and Bisexuality (1993)

“Who is this group for exactly? Anyone who identifies as bisexual or thinks they are attracted to or interested in all genders… This newly formed [support] group is to create a supportive, safe environment for people who are questioning their sexual orientation and think they may be bisexual.”

— “Coming Out as Bisexual,” Bi Women (1994)

“It is logical and necessary for bisexuals to recognize the importance of gender politics — not just because transsexuals, cross-dressers, and other transgender people are often assumed to be bisexual… […] I have talked to the bisexual practicers of pre-op transsexuals who feel they have the best of both worlds because their lover embodies woman and man together.² Is that not a connection between bisexuality and transgenderism? […] Some of us are bisexual because we do not pay much attention to the gender of our attractions; some of us are bisexual because we do see tremendous gender differences and want to experience them all. […] With respect to our integrity as bisexuals, it is our responsibility to include transgendered people in our language, in our communities, in our politics, and in our lives.”

— Naomi Tucker, “The Natural Next Step,” Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions (1995)

“The first wave of people who started the Bi Center were political radicals and highly motivated people. The group was based on inclusivity… for example, in the women’s groups, anybody who identified as a woman had the right to be there, so a lot of transgender people started coming to the Bi Center.”

— Naomi Tucker, “Bay Area Bisexual History: An Interview with David Lourea,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“[B]isexual consciousness, because of its amorphous quality and inclusionary nature, posed a fundamental threat to the dualistic and exclusionary thought patterns which were — and still are — tenaciously held by both the gay liberation leadership and its enemies.”

— Stephen Donaldson, “The Bisexual Movement’s Beginnings in the 70s,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“If anything, being bi has made me hyper-aware of the sexual differences between [men and women]. And I still get hot for both. But I do experience something that is similar to gender blindness. It’s this: being bisexual means I could potentially find myself sexually attracted to anybody. Therefore, as a bisexual, I don’t make the distinction that monosexuals do between the gender you fuck and the gender you don’t.”

— Greta Christina, “Bi Sexuality,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“[A]nd too / I am bisexual / in my history / in my capacity / in my fantasies / in my abilities / in my love for beautiful people / regardless of gender.”

— Dajenya, “Bisexual Lesbian,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“The bisexual community should be a place where lines are erased. Bisexuality dismisses, disproves, and defies dichotomies. It connotes a loss of rigidity and absolutes. It is an inclusive term. […] Despite how we choose to identify ourselves, the bisexual community still seems a logical place for transsexuals to find a home and a voice. Bisexuals need to educate themselves on transgender issues. At the same time, bisexuals should be doing education and outreach to the transsexual community, offering transsexuals an arena to further explore their sexualities and choices. Such outreach would also help break down gender barriers and misconceptions within the bisexual community itself. […] If the bisexual community turns its back on transsexuals, it is essentially turning its back on itself.”

— K. Martin-Damon, “Essay for the Inclusion of Transsexuals,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“As bisexuals, we are necessarily prompted to come up with non-binary ways of thinking about sexual orientation. For many of us, this has also prompted a move toward non-binary ways of thinking about sex and gender.”

— Rebecca Kaplan, “Your Fence Is Sitting on Me: The Hazards of Binary Thinking,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“And so we love each other and wish love for each other, regardless (to the extent possible) of gender and sex.”

— Oma Izakson, “If Half of You Dodges a Bullet, All of You Ends Up Dead,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“Similarly, the modern bisexual movement has dissolved the strict dichotomy between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ (without invalidating our homosexual or heterosexual friends and lovers.) We have insisted on our desire and freedom to love people of all genders.”

— Sunfrog, “Pansies Against Patriarchy,” Bisexual Politics (1995)

“In the bisexual movement as a whole, transgendered individuals are celebrated not only as an aspect of the diversity of the bisexual community, but because, like bisexuals, they do not fit neatly into dichotomous categories. Jim Frazin wrote that ‘the construction and destruction of gender’ is a subject of mutual interest to bisexuals and transsexuals who are, therefore, natural allies.”

— Paula C. Rust, Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics: Sex, Loyalty, and Revolution (1995)

“Is bisexuality even about gender at all? ‘I don’t desire a gender,’ 25[-]year-old Matthew Ehrlich says.”

— Deborah Block-Schwenk, “Newsweek Comes Out as Supportive,” Bi Women (1995)

“One woman expressed the desire to elide categorical differences by reporting that she finds ‘relationships with men and women to be quite similar — the differences are in the individuals, not in their sex.’ Others expressed their ideal as choosing partners ‘regardless of gender…’”

— Amber Ault, Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The Case of Bisexual Women (1996)

“Most conceptual models of bisexuality explain it in terms of conflictual or confused identity development, [r-slur] sexual development, or a defence against ‘true’ heterosexuality or homosexuality. It has been suggested, however, that some individuals can eroticize more than one love object regardless of gender, that sexual patterns could be more variable and fluid than theoretical notions tend to allow, and that sexual desire may not be as fixed and static in individuals as is assumed by ‘essential’ sexual categories and identities.”

— E.Antonio de Moya and Rafael García, “AIDS and the Enigma of Bisexuality in the Dominican Republic,” Bisexualities and AIDS: International Perspectives (1996)

“I’m bi. That simply means I can be attracted to a person without consideration of their gender.”

— E. Grace Noonan, “Out on the Job: DEC Open to Bi Concerns,” Bi Women (1996)

“BiCon should accept transgender people as being on their chosen gender, this includes any single gender events.”

— BiCon Guidelines (1998)⁴

“The probability is that your relationship is based on, or has nestled itself into something based more on the relationship between two identities than on the relationship between two people. That’s what we’re taught: man/man, woman/woman, woman/man, top/bottom, butch/femme, man/woman/man, etc. We’re never taught person/person. That’s what the bisexual movement has been trying to teach us. We’re never taught that, so we fall into the trap of ‘you don’t love me, you love my identity.’”

— Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook (1998)

“Transsexuality and bisexuality both occupy heretical thresholds of human experience. We confound, illuminate and explore border regions. We challenge because we appear to break inviolable laws. Laws that feel ‘natural.’ And quite possibly, since we are not the norm or even average, it is likely that one function we have is to subvert those norms or laws; to break down the sleepy and unimaginative law of averages.”

— Max Wolf Valerio, “The Joker Is Wild: Changing Sex + Other Crimes of Passion,” Anything That Moves (1998)

“From the earliest years of the bi community, significant numbers of TV/TS and transgender people have always been involved with it. The bi community served as a kind of refuge for people who felt excluded from the established gay and lesbian communities.”

— Kevin Lano, “Bisexuality and Transgenderism,” Anything That Moves (1998)

“A large group of bisexual women reported in a Ms. magazine article that when they fell in love it was with a person rather than a gender…”

— Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward, “What is Gay?”, Now that You Know: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding Their Gay and Lesbian Children (1998)

“Over the past fifteen years, however, [one Caucasian man] has realized that he is ‘attracted to people — not their sexual identity’ and no longer cares whether his partners are male or female. He has kept his Bi identity and now uses it to refer to his attraction to people regardless of their gender.”

— Paula C. Rust, “Sexual Identity and Bisexual Identities,” Queer Studies: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Anthology (1998)

“Bisexual — being emotionally and physically attracted to all genders.”

— The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, “Out of the Past: Teacher’s Guide” (1999)

“There were a lot of transvestites and transsexuals who came to [the San Francisco Bisexual Center in the 1970s], because they were not going to be turned away because of the way they dressed.”

— David Lourea, “Bisexual Histories in San Francisco in the 1970s and Early 1980s,” 2000 Journal of Bisexuality

“Respondent #658 said that both are irrelevant; ‘who I am sexually attracted to has nothing to do with their sex/gender,’ whereas Respondent #418 focuses specifically on the irrelevance of sex: I find myself attracted to either men or women. The outside appendages are rather immaterial, as it is the inner being I am attracted to. […] Respondent #495 recalled that “the best definition I’ve ever heard is someone who is attracted to people & gender/sex is not an issue or factor in that attraction.” […] As Respondent #269 put it, “I do not exclude a person from consideration as a possible love interest on the basis of sex/gender.” […] For most individuals who call themselves bisexual, bisexual identity reflects feelings of attraction, sexual and otherwise, toward women and men or toward other people regardless of their gender.”

— Paula C. Rust, “Two Many and Not Enough: The Meanings of Bisexual Identities,” 2000 Journal of Bisexuality

“Giovanni’s distinction between what he wants and who he wants resonates with the language of many of today’s bisexuals, who insist that they fall in love with a person, not a gender.”

— Marjorie Garber, Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life (2000)

“The message of bisexuality — that people are more than their gender; that we accept all people, regardless of Kinsey scale rating; that we embrace people regardless of age, weight, clothing, hair style, gender expression, race, religion and actually celebrate our diversity — that message is my gospel. I travel, write, do web sites — all to let people know that the bisexual community will accept you, will let you be who you are, and will not expect you to fit in a neat little gender/sexuality box.”

— Wendy Curry, “Celebrating Bisexuality,” Bi Women (2000)

“But really, just like I can’t believe in the heterosexist binary gender system, I have difficulty accepting wholeheartedly any one spiritual tradition.”

— Anonymous, “A Methodical Awakening,” Bi Women (2002)

“But there are also many bis, such as myself, for whom gender has no place in the list of things that attract them to a person. For instance, I like people who are good listeners, who understand me and have interests similar to mine, and I am attracted to people with a little padding here and there, who have fair skin and dark hair (although I’m pretty flexible when it comes to looks). ‘Male’ or ‘female’ are not anywhere to be found in the list of qualities I find attractive.”

— Karin Baker, “Bisexual Basics,” Solidarity-us.org (2002)

“Bisexual: A person who is attracted to people regardless of gender (a person does not have to have a relationship to be bisexual!)”

— Bowling Green State University, “Queer Glossary” (2003)

“The bisexual community seems to be disappearing. Not that there won’t always be people around who like to have sex with people of all genders, the community, as I’ve discussed in this book, is a different matter altogether.”

— William Burleson, Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community (2005)

“Although bisexuals in general may or may not be more enlightened about gender issues, there has been, and continues to be, in most places around the country a strong connection between the transgender and the bisexual communities. Indeed, the two communities have been strong allies. Why is this? One reason certainly is, as I mentioned earlier, the significant number of people who are both bisexual and transgender.”

— William Burleson, Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community (2005)

“Amy: […] But my friend’s question got me thinking: given the fact that so many bisexual friends and community members reject the idea that gender has to have a relation to attraction and behavior, why should I reject the bi label? Why did her question even come up? How relevant is gender to the concept of bisexuality? If bisexuals like me don’t care about gender the way monosexuals do, why would my identity label exclude my lovers’ gender variations?

Kim: …Like you, I’m a bi person who sees gender as fluid rather than fixed or dichotomous… I’ve also felt outside pressure to reject my bi identity based on the idea that it perpetuates the gender binary: woman/man. However, this idea reduces bisexual to ‘bi’ and ‘sexual’ and disregards the fact that it represents a history, a community, a substantial body of writing, and the right of the bisexual community to define ‘bisexuality’ on its own terms. Most importantly, this idea disregards how vital these things are for countless bi people. Identifying as bi doesn’t inherently mean anything, and it definitely doesn’t mean a person only recognizes two genders. However, to assume that bi-identified people exclude transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC), and genderqueer people also assumes they are not trans, GNC, or genderqueer themselves, when in fact, many are.”

— Kim Westrick and Amy Andre, “Semantic Wars,” Bi Women (2009)

“The [intracommunity biphobia] problem is very serious, because bisexuals, along with trans folks, are the rejects among rejects, that is to say, those who suffer from discrimination (gays and lesbians) discriminate against bis and trans folks. It is for this reason, at least here in Mexico City, that Opción Bi allies itself with transsexuals, transgender people and transvestites, and works together with them whenever possible. It seems to me we are closer to the trans communities than to the lesbian and gay ones.”

— Robyn Ochs, “Bis Around the World: Myriam Brito, Mexican City,” Bi Women (2009)

“I introduce myself as bisexual, because I am attracted to people, across gender lines, and ‘bisexual’ comes closest to explaining that.”

— B.J. Epstein, “Bye Bi Labels,” Bi Women (2009)

“Bisexuality is not some kind of middle-ground between heterosexuality and homosexuality; rather I imagine it as a way to erode the fixed systems of gender and sexual identity which always result in guilt, fear, lies[,] and discrimination.”

— Carlos Iván Suárez García, “What Is Bisexuality?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)⁵

“To me, bisexuality is a matter of loving and accepting everyone equally — seeing the beauty in the human soul, rather than in the shell that houses it. Being transgender, I know firsthand that love between two people can transcend — even embrace — what society regards as taboo. Bisexuality is a mindset of revolution, a mindset of change. We’re creating a brave new world of acceptance and love for all people, of all the myriad genders and methods of sexual expression that this world contains.

— Jessica, “What Is Bisexuality?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“Bisexuality (whatever that means) for me is about the ability to relate to all people at a deep emotional level. It is an openness of the heart. It is the absence of limits, especially those that are defined by the other person’s sex.”

— Andrea Toselli, “Coming Out Bisexual,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“Considering my personal preferences, calling myself ‘bisexual’ covers a wider territory regarding my capacity to fall in love and to share the life of a couple with another person without taking into consideration questions of gender.”

— Aida, “Why Bi?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“I’m sure I’m bisexual because I can’t ignore the allure and loveliness of a wide spectrum of people — differentiating by gender never seemed attractive or even logical to me. […] For me bisexuality means I don’t stop attraction, caring or relationship potential based on gender; I can have sex, flirtation or warm ongoing love with anyone (not everyone, okay? That part’s a myth). […] And we have enough trouble splitting the human race into two halves, assigning mandatory characteristics, and then torturing people to fill arbitrary roles — I consider that a wrong and inaccurate way to understand human potential, and that’s also why I’m bi. Men and women are different? Honey, everyone I’ve ever met has been different. I think being bisexual lets me see each person as an individual.”

— Carol Queen, “Why Bi?”, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“But to hell with respectability: the real point about being bisexual, a friend pointed out, is that you’re asking someone other than ‘What sex is this person?’”

— Tom Robinson, “Bisexual Community,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“Being bisexual… allows us to love each other regardless of our gender…”

— Jorge Pérez Castiñeira, “Bisexual Community,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“‘Hello, my name is Jaqueline Applebee… if you want to see me later, or just want a kiss, let me know as I’m bisexual, and you’re all gorgeous!’ […] I have loved men, women, and those who don’t identify with any gender.”

— Jaqueline Applebee, “Bisexual Community,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“[T]here’s nothing binary about bisexuals. Bi is just a provisional term reminding us, however awkwardly, that when it comes to loving, family and tribe, margins and middle intertwine.”

— Loraine Hutchins, “Bisexual Politics,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“My bi identity is not about who I am having sex with; it is not about the genitals of my past, current, or future lovers; it is not about choosing potential partners or excluding partners based on what is between their legs. It is about potential — the potential to love, to be attracted to, to be intimate with, share a life with a person because of who they are. I see a person, not a gender… I demand to be free to legally marry anyone without regard to their gender.”

— Rifka Reichler, “Bisexual Politics,” Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition (2009)

“To me, being bisexual means having a sexuality that isn’t limited by the sex or gender of the people you are attracted to. You just recognize that you can be attracted to a person for very individual reasons.”

— Deb Morley, “Bi of the Month: An Interview with Ellyn Ruthstorm,” Bi Women (2010)

“Q: Which gender person does a bisexual love? A: Any gender she wants.”

— Marcia Deihl, “Do Clothes Make the Woman?”, Bi Women (2010)

“While the bisexual manifesto being written following a workshop at London BiCon is still being worked on, the tweeters set to work on a shorter, snappier alternative… ‘Love is about what’s in your hearts, not your underwear.’ […] ‘We aren’t more confused, greedy, indecisive or lustful than anyone else. We like people based on personality not gender.’ ‘[W]e believe that lust is more important than anatomy.’ ‘What you have between your legs doesn’t matter. What you have between your ears does[.]’”

— Jen Yockney, “#bisexualmanifesto,” Bi Community News (2010)

“As briefly mentioned above and interlinked with the notion of ‘importance of individuality’, the binary concepts of gender and the stereotypes surrounding these is a notion which each of the [bisexual] women interviewed fundamentally reject. The participants here were keen to distance themselves and their experiences of romantic relationships from any notion of hetero-normative gender boundaries, although they did agree that unfortunately these gender boundaries still exist in contemporary society. Most participants do not link gender boundaries with concepts of romantic love; it was stated that although sometimes gender boundaries can be seen in romantic relationships this is primarily down to socialisation and the unnecessary importance that hetero-normative society places on gender roles. Therefore, gender boundaries seen in romantic relationships are not constrained by gender but instead are a product of gendered socialisation. For these women, claiming their bisexual identity and their romantic relationships illustrates the futility of binary concepts of gender as it is about individual preference or style rather than gendered norms values and expectations.”

— Emma Smith, “Bisexuality, Gender & Romantic Relationships,” Bi Community News (2012)

“And anyway, I’m generally not sexually attracted to men or women. I’m into all sorts of things, but a person being a man or a woman isn’t a turn-on. Certainly not in the same way it’s a turn off to a gay or straight person. I’m never going to think “Wow, Zie is really sexy, shame they’re a ____” because what turns me off isn’t gender.”

— Marcus, “What makes a bisexual?”, Bi Community News (2012)

“I am bisexual. That does not depend on my dating experience or my attraction specifications. It is not affected by my dislike for genitals (of any shape). All it describes is how gender affects attraction for me: it doesn’t. I am attracted to people regardless of gender, and I am bisexual.”

— Emma Jones, “Not Like the Others,” Bi Women (2013)

“I’m generally okay with ‘attraction to more than one gender’ [as a definition of ‘bisexuality’]. I think that the ‘more than’ part is important because there are definitely more than two genders. Some people like the definition ‘attraction regardless of gender’ and I like that too because it suggests that things other than gender can be equally, or more, important in who we are attracted to. I like to question why our idea of sexuality is so bound up with gender of partners. Why not encompass other aspects such as the roles we like to take sexually, or how active or passive we like to be, or what practices we enjoy? Why is our gender, and the gender of our partners, seen as such a vital part of who we are?”

— Robyn Ochs, “Around the World: Meg Barker,” Bi Women (2013)

“It may sound crazy but I’d never thought that carefully about the ‘bi’ part of the word meaning ‘two’. I’d always understood bisexuality to mean what Bobbie Petford reports as the preferred definition from within the UK bi communities: changeable ‘sexual and emotional attraction to people of any sex, where gender may not be a defining factor’. […] Participants in the BiCon discussion rejected the ‘you are a boy or you are a girl…binary’ (Lanei), all arguing that they were not straightforwardly ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.

[…] Because they discarded the dichotomous understanding of gender, participants rejected the ideas that they were attracted to ‘both’ men and women, arguing that they did not perceive gender as the defining feature in their attraction. Kim said: I don’t think actually gender is that relevant…gender is like eye colour, and I notice it sometimes, and sometimes it can be a bit of a feature it’s like “oo, that’s nice” and I have some sorts of gender types, but it’s about as important as something like eye colour.

[…] As I came to realise that you can actually be bisexual…your desires and your attractions can wax and wane as time goes on, I realised that there was a parallel to gender: you don’t have to clearly define, you don’t have to cast off the male to be female and vice versa. Despite the fact that the conventional definition of the word ‘bisexual’ could be seen as perpetuating a dichotomous concept of gender, being attracted to both sexes, Georgina concluded that it could challenge conventional understandings of gender…”

— “Bisexuality & Gender,” Bi Community News (2014)

“My fellow bisexuals… I stand before you as an unapologetic, outspoken, bisexual activist who has intimately loved women, men and transgender persons throughout my life span of 72 years…”

— ABilly S. Jones-Hennin, “If Loving You is Wrong, Then I Don’t Want to be Right,” Bisexual Organizing Project (2014)

“Coming out as bisexual in the late 80s, when I first came across the label pansexual it didn’t involve any kind of gender nuance: it was how someone explained their bisexuality feeling interwoven with their Pagan beliefs. Back then the ‘bi’ in bisexual didn’t get talked about as having some great limiting weight of ‘two’, it was an “and” in a world that saw things as strictly either/or. As I was pushing at boundaries of discussion around gender and sexuality with people in the 90s I’d sometimes quip that I was ‘bisexual, I just haven’t decided which two genders yet’. When I started to come across people saying that bi was limiting because it meant two, a bit of me did think: oh lord, were they taking me seriously?”

— Jen, “Bi or Pan?”, Bi Community News (2015)

“Pansexuality is sometimes defined as attraction to people of all genders, which is also the experience of many bisexual people. More often than not, however, people define their pansexuality in relation to bisexuality. In response to the question: ‘What does pansexual mean?’ I’ve seen countless people reply: ‘I’m attracted to people of more than two genders. Not bisexual.’ The implication is that bisexual means binary attraction: men and women only.

Since I came out in the late 90s, I haven’t seen one bi activist organisation define bisexuality as attraction solely to men and women. Bi and trans* issues began to grow in recognition at the same time. When I use ‘bi’ to refer to two types of attraction, I mean attraction to people of my gender and attraction to people of other genders. […] …it’s so upsetting to see internalised biphobia leading many pansexuals, many of whom until recently identified as bisexual, telling us we’re still not queer enough. Gay and straight people aren’t being pressurised into giving up the language they use to describe their attractions and neither should they be. As usual it’s only bisexuals being shamed into erasing our identities and our history.

The most frustrating thing to me about the current bi vs pan discourse is that it’s framed as a cisgender vs genderqueer debate. This has never been the case. In reality, many genderqueer people identify as bisexual… To say bisexuality is binary erases the identities of these revolutionary bisexual genderqueer activists, and it erases the identity of every marginalised genderqueer bisexual they’re fighting for.”

— Sali, “Bi or Pan?”, Bi Community News (2015)

“Currently some pansexual people argue that bi is ‘too binary’ and that bisexuals are focused on conventional male/female gender expressions only. This is then taken to mean that bisexuals are more transphobic, whereas pansexuals aren’t locked into a binary so they are open to all gender expressions. However we believe this is not the case since bisexuals: ‘… do not comply with our society’s imposed framework of attraction, we must consciously construct our own framework and examine how and why we are attracted (or not) to others. This process automatically acknowledges the artificiality of the gender binary and gendered norms and expectations for behavior. Indeed, the mere act of explaining our definition of bisexual to a nonbisexual person requires us to address the falsity of the gender binary head on.’

We do not deny that in actuality some bisexuals are too bound by traditional binary gender assumptions, just as many gay, lesbian, and heterosexual, and some trans people are too. Bisexuals, however, have been in the forefront of exploring desire and connection beyond sex and gender. When anyone accuses bisexuals, uniquely, as more binary and more transphobic than other identity groups, such targeting is not only inappropriate but is also rooted in biphobia — a fear and hatred of bi people for who we are and how we love.

Confusing the issue are the definitions in resource glossaries defining bisexual, most surprisingly in newly released books including textbooks. [...] These definitions arbitrarily define bisexual in a binary way and then present pansexual as a non-binary alternative. This opens the doorway to a judgment that pansexual identity is superior to bisexual identity because it ‘opens possibilities’ and is a ‘more fluid and much broader form of sexual orientation’. This judgmental conclusion is unacceptable and dangerous as it lends itself to perpetuating bisexual erasure. The actual lived non-binary history of the bisexual community and movement and the inclusive nature and community spirit of bisexuals are eradicated when a binary interpretation of our name for ourselves is arbitrarily assumed.”

— Lani Ka’ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins, “Bi Organizing Since 1991,” Bi Any Other Name (New 25th Anniversary Edition) (2015)

“Herself a bisexual woman, [Nan Goldin] found that drag queens, to her a third gender, were perfect companions. By transgressing the bounds of the binary, they had created identities that were infinitely more meaningful.”

— Alicia Diane Ridout, “Gender Euphoria: Photography, Fashion, and Gender Nonconformity in The East Village” (2015)

“It is the job of those of us with links to children to continue to promote the language of bisexuality and validity of attraction to all genders — especially when that attraction changes over time.”

— Bethan, “Practical Bi Awareness: Teaching and LGBT,” Bi Community News (2016)

“The persistent use of the Kinsey Scale is another issue. Originally asking about the genders of people you have had sex with, more recently it gets deployed in more sophisticated ways which distinguish between sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and sexual activity. Nonetheless it is woefully inadequate in accounting for attraction to genders other than male and female — a key part of many bisexual people’s experience.”

— Milena Popova, “Scrap the Kinsey Scale!”, Bi Community News (2016)

“Robyn Ochs states where the EuroBiCon also stands for: bisexuality goes beyond the binary gender thinking. There are more genders than the obsolete idea of two: male and female.”

— Erwin, “Robyn Ochs: ‘Bisexuality goes beyond the binary gender thinking’,” European Bisexual Conference (2016)

“I call myself bisexual because it includes attraction to all genders (same as mine; different from mine).”

— Rev. Francesca Bongiorno Fortunato, “Label Me With a B,” Bi Women Quarterly (2016)

“Loving a person rather than a man or a woman: this is Runa Wehrli’s philosophy. At 18, she defines herself as bisexual and speaks about it openly. […] She believes that love should not be confined by the barriers put up by society. ‘I fall in love with a person and not a gender,’ she says. […] Now single and just out of high school, she is leaving the door open to love, while still refusing to give it a gender.”

— Katy Romy, “‘I fall in love with a person and not a gender’,” Swissinfo (2017)

“I’m bisexual so I can’t really come out as gay. When I’m gay I’m very gay. And when I’m with men then, you know, I’m with men. I don’t fall in love with people because of their gender.”

— Nan Goldin for Sleek Magazine (2017)

“I use the word bisexual — a lot / I’ve marched in the Pride parade with the Toronto Bisexual Network / I post Bi pride & Bi awareness articles all over social media / I’m seeking out dates of any and all genders / (not to prove anything to anyone, but simply because I want to)

— D’Arcy L. J. White, “Coming Out as Bisexual,” Bi Women Quarterly (2017)

“BISEXUAL — Someone who is attracted to more than one gender, someone who is attracted to two or more genders, someone who is attracted to the same and other genders, or someone who is attracted to people regardless of their gender. […] Other words with the same definition of bisexual, though they have different connotations, are ‘pansexual,’ ‘polysexual,’ and ‘omnisexual.’”

— Morgan Lev Edward Holleb, The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality: From Ace to Ze (2018)

“In the heat of July [2009], and finally equipped with a word for “attracted to people regardless of gender”, I bounded out of Brighton station with that same best friend. At the time, I didn’t know that we bisexuals have our own flag…”

— Lois Shearing, “Why London Pride’s first bi pride float was so important,” The Queerness (2018)

“Being bisexual does not assume people are only attracted to just two genders. Bisexuality can be limitless for many and pay no regard to the sex or gender of a person.”

— “The Bi+ Manifesto” (2018)

“I realized I was bisexual at age fifteen, but although I am attracted to folks of any gender, I’ve always had a preference for men.”

— Mark Mulligan, “Fight and Flight: ‘Butch Flight,’ Trans Men, and the Elusive Question of Authenticity,” Nursing Clio (2018)

“Bisexuality just became, to me, about that openness — that openness to anything, and any potential to any type of relationship, regardless of gender. Gender is no longer a disqualifier for me. It’s about the person.”

— Rob Cohen, “Where Are All the Bi Guys?,” Two Bi Guys (2019)

“Oh no, Mom. I’m not a lesbian. Actually, I’m bisexual. That means that gender doesn’t determine whom I’m attracted to.”

— Annie Bliss, “Older and Younger,” Bi Women Quarterly (2019)

“A bisexual woman, for example, may have sex with, date or marry another woman, a man or someone who is non-binary. […] If you think you might be bisexual, try asking yourself these questions: …Can I picture myself dating, having sex with, or being married to any gender/sex?”

— “I Think I Might Be Bisexual,” Advocates for Youth

“Although it’s true that people have all kinds of different attractions to different kinds of people, assuming that all bisexuals are never attracted to trans or genderqueer folk is harmful, not only to bi individuals, but to trans and genderqueer individuals who choose to label themselves as bi.”

— “Labels,” Bisexual Resource Center

“My own understanding of bisexuality has changed dramatically over the years. I used to define bisexuality as ‘the potential to be attracted to people regardless of their gender.’ […] Alberto is attracted to the poles, to super-masculine guys and super-feminine girls. Others are attracted to masculinity and/or femininity, regardless of a person’s sex. Some of us who identify as bisexual are in fact ‘gender-blind.’ For others — in fact for me — it’s androgyny or the blending of genders that compels.”

— Robin Ochs, “What Does It Mean to Be Bi+?”, Bisexual Resource Center

“… bisexual people are those for whom gender is not the first criteria in determining attraction.”

— Illinois Department of Public Health, “Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Youth Suicide”

“Bisexuality is sexual/romantic attraction to people regardless of sex or gender.”

— “Bisexual FAQ,” Kvartir

“Please also note that attraction to both same and different means attraction to all. Bisexuality is inherently inclusive of everyone, regardless of sex or gender.

In everyday language, depending on the speaker’s culture, background, and politics, that translates into a variety of everyday definitions such as:

Attraction to men and women

Attraction to all sexes or genders

Attraction to same and other genders

Love beyond gender

Attraction regardless of sex or gender”

— American Institute of Bisexuality, “What Is Bisexuality?,” Bi.org

“This idea [that bisexuality reinforces a false gender binary] has its roots in the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment philosophy that has ironically found a home within many Queer Studies departments at universities across the Anglophone world. […] Bisexuality is an orientation for which sex and gender are not a boundary to attraction… Over time, our society’s concept of human sex and gender may well change. For bis, people for whom sex/gender is already not a boundary, any such change would have little effect.”

— American Institute of Bisexuality, “Questions,” Bi.org

Gender-expansive (or -fluid, or -blind) descriptions of bisexuality are nothing new — and with the exception of the Getting Bi quotes, the above compilation is just what I was able to find online. Arguably, the concept of excluding genders never even crossed the mind of many twentieth-century bisexuals — not just because “nonbinary genders hadn’t entered the mainstream” — but simply because many bisexuals understand bisexuality itself as “beyond” gender. Go to any bisexual organization and they’ll tell you bisexuality is broad and can include anyone.

Of course, the above quotes do not reflect the beliefs of every bisexual — no single quote can do that. These quotes were certainly not the only variation of bisexual-given definitions of bisexuality. I’m only pointing out that the “both” descriptions are similarly not the only ones that exist.

Even then, before wider knowledge of and language for nonbinary identities, attraction to “both” men and women was attraction regardless of gender. “Both” does not purposefully keep anyone out; it only (mistakenly) assumes how many groups there are. Gender not being a make-or-break, or not caring about gender in general, doesn’t depend on how many genders there are.⁶

Not to mention, all sexualities automatically include some nonbinary people — “nonbinary” isn’t merely a third gender. The mere notion that someone could just “not be attracted” to nonbinary people as a group completely misunderstands nonbinary identity.

Some bisexuals “see a person, not a gender,” while others, like me, see a person with a gender (that doesn’t stop us from finding them attractive), if they have one. Being bisexual has made me see people in more gender-neutral ways. Our experiences are far too vast to pin down, and there’s immense beauty in that vagueness.

Also, while bisexual activism and transgender activism have frequently overlapped, plenty of cisgender bisexuals are transphobic. But this is because all sexualities have transphobes. Even if we coined a sexual identity that only transgender people could use, some identifying with it would still likely be transphobes. Why allow transphobic bisexuals to erase the attitudes of all the bisexuals before and after them?

I find it incredibly odd that people now task bisexuals with proving our inclusivity considering that, for decades, we never had to. We had always (i.e., consistently throughout history, not as in every bisexual) been warping gender norms, but it was never to debunk a myth or make ourselves look good; it was just how we were. That hasn’t changed.

One of the predominant stereotypes is still that we’re indiscriminate sluts willing to sleep with anyone, but somehow there’s a new wave of folks insisting that we require our partners to obey the gender binary. I have a severely hard time believing this conclusion is based on reality. Almost all attempts to redefine bisexuality as binary come from people who don’t identify as such.

Imagine if we performed this revisionism with the word “gay.” For this example, I’ll use “gay” to describe gay men in particular.

“Gay” only means exclusive attraction to men, so the people who use that word only like cisgender men. I’m androsexual, which means I like cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary men.

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? So why do we only apply this rhetoric to bisexuals? (It couldn’t possibly be because of biphobia, could it?)

While it’s obviously unrealistic to say that no bisexual person has ever been transphobic, bisexual orientation is not, and never has been, about exclusion. Considering that bisexual activists were seldom (if ever) focused on the prefix in the word “bisexual,” this recent fixation people have on trying to find a way to use “two” in its definition is misguided.

Begging to differ is ignorant and arrogant, contradicting not only history but many current bisexuals who understand bisexuality as all-encompassing. Acting like it’s uniquely binary or inherently limited in any way is indisputably false and biphobic. Please stop speaking over us and erasing our history. It, like the bisexual community itself, is bountiful, beautiful, and never going away.

Here’s one final quote that, while a bit unrelated to the rest, I particularly enjoy:

“I understand bisexuality not as a mixture of homosexuality and heterosexuality as Kinsey did, nor as a particular sexuality on an equal footing with homosexuality and heterosexuality, but as a holistic view of human sexuality, in which all aspects related to human sexuality are taken into account.”

— Miguel Obradors-Campos, “Deconstructing Biphobia” (2011)

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emerald-amidst-gold · 3 years

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Okay, I need to rant because I’ve had this thought of “Why isn’t Solas a bi option in DA:I?” for so freaking long. However, I didn’t really think more about it other than, “Well, maybe because it’s going for a specific aspect of forbidden love. A softness and gentleness that wouldn’t work with a male Lavellan.” But no. The more I think about it, the more that explanation doesn’t make SENSE!

So, as you play, you talk with Solas, you get to know Solas, he gets to know you and blah blah. BUT, have you ever noticed that NONE of the conversation voice lines change depending on your gender? Solas never once points out a direct correlation about your gender. The man studies SPIRITS, who, for all intents and purposes, have NO gender. So, the whole argument of “Oh, well, he’s from the time of Arlathan. It was probably a very traditional minded place that would frown on same sex relationships.” Now, that I can understand since most of Thedas operates the same way, but our dear wolf is the god of REBELLION. Do you think even for one second that Solas would have given a damn about what others thought of him and his decisions? Especially when he, in various moments, tells Blackwall, Sera, whoever, that he was hot headed and young, that he thought he was right about everything. Yes, that more or less foreshadows the things he ended doing with the Evanuris and the Veil, but the principle is the same for his own personal choices.

So, taking that concept into mind, let’s go back to the perspective of the Solavellan romance. While the voice lines never change depending on your gender, the options of how your Inquisitor responds do. However, only to FLIRT. Literally. That’s all. That is all that changes. And while I do like the flirting options because “Oh, hello, Mr. Smooth. How you doing?”, sometimes I don’t pick them even when I am a female Lavellan because they feel..hollow to me. Why? Well, for one, they seem to come at very inopportune times. Like for example, when Solas is discussing the identity of spirits and how they’re not considered people because they have no physical form, you can literally just disregard anything of what he just said in favor of flirting. I dislike that. It comes off as you aren’t interested in what he has to say because your mind is fixated on the physical qualities behind those words; something he just more or less said shouldn’t matter! So, I, depending on my Inquisitor, always choose anything BUT the flirting option for that conversation. It’s more meaningful to me that your Lavellan interacts with Solas in a heartfelt way rather than a sexual way.

So, that leads me back to why I think Solas should have been a bisexual option. Since the conversations don’t change, the major scenes don’t change, and your overall bond with Solas doesn’t change, why should it matter that your female or male? My current Inquisitor, Fane, has just as much of an attachment to Solas as a male than if he were female. Granted, I have taken liberties with headcanons and fanfiction to shape a deeper relationship between the two (I’m sorry. I’m a sucker for past lives AUs), but if most people, not just me, can think in such a way, then why couldn’t the developers? What? Is Male Lavellan too base for Solas to offer to take away the vallaslin? Is a possible romantic relationship too scandalous, even though we have various same sex relationships in the series? It’s not like I’m angry and kicking my feet like, “Why can’t we have the kiss scene as a male? It’s not fair!”. Hell, with Fane’s story, Solas and he don’t even kiss until after the Temple of Mythal! I’m serious! Maybe not even then! Why? Because, one; Fane isn’t an overly affectionate person; he’s subdued, but mostly confused of what he’s feeling. And two: I freaking LIVE for relationships that are centered around an EMOTIONAL connection; not physical. Fane and Solas were in an emotional relationship centuries before Inquisition; mainly, when Fane was still a dragon. So, that relationship simply continued once Fane regained most of his memories and Solas stopped being all, “You deserve better than me.”. Well, it wasn’t THAT simple, but you get the point. Fane and Solas grew close through learning about each other and overcoming prejudice that the two had about each other; not through physical actions.

Anyways, back to the main point, Solas should have been bisexual. I see the romance as a spiritual connection; not a physical one, despite the kiss scenes because even those are very reserved, very subdued, and very careful (Except for the first one. HO!). Even so, they didn’t even have to integrate those animations for the male lavellan model to placate people. No, I would have simply been happy that it was ACKNOWLEDGED in game that you were in relationship with Solas; kiss or no kiss. There are asexual people, you know? Just a thought.

Anyways, thank you for coming to my ted talk, even if it is a little scattered. My thoughts like to jump a lot. However, this isn’t me bashing Female Lavellan or anything. I just feel like a lot of people were robbed. Gender doesn’t adhere to emotions or ideals. Love is love; no matter the form someone takes. You love a person for their personality, not their hair, eyes, or what they have biologically. You love a person for their spirit, their mind, their way of thinking. The physical aspects are simply bonuses that allow you to see the person for which their personality embodies. THAT is what the Solavellan romance is to me, and that’s why I adore it so much and why I thought it could work for either Lavellan because nothing changes to make one gender more preferable than the other.

#dragon age #dragonage #dragon age inquisition #solavallen #solavellen hell #solas #inquisitor #lavellan #ted talk #I'm a ranter #don't hate me pls

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sokkastyles · 3 years

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Of Leis and Fruit Tarts

I’m about to discuss the sexual lives of teenage characters so if that makes you uncomfortable, then don’t read it. This is a post discussing what’s in the show for the purposes of analyzing the relationships between two couples who are vaguely implied to have had sex in book 3, Sokka and Suki, and Zuko and Mai.

So a lot of people before me have already pointed out the innuendo in both of these scenes. First I want to talk about “The Southern Raiders,” in which it is heavily implied that Sokka and Suki had a romantic tryst which is played for laughs when Zuko interrupts them, however it is also implied that they did eventually get together as the next morning we see Sokka like this:

The reason for this random shot of Sokka with a flower necklace seems to be a visual gag about how Sokka “got lei’d.” And it’s easy to believe that Sokka and Suki did have sex because they’re a pretty well-established couple and they’re both teenagers about the right age to experiment with sex. Sokka is fifteen and very interested in girls throughout the series, and Suki is confident enough in herself and her relationship with Sokka that they have the most mature relationship of any couple in the series. Google says that Suki is between sixteen and seventeen, which is about the right age to be thinking about sex. I don’t necessarily think that 15-17 is old enough to be ready for a sexual relationship, but it does happen, and it’s not necessarily unhealthy. Really, as long as everybody is consenting, it depends a lot on the individual.

Zuko and Mai, on the other hand, are the most physically close of all the couples we see in the show. In their scenes they seem to be all over each other. And again, this is not very surprising. Zuko is sixteen and Mai is either fifteen or seventeen, according to google (I’ve seen different interpretations depending on how old we think Tom-Tom is, as the best indication of her age seems to be what Ty Lee says about how she was an only child for fifteen years.) And in “Nightmares and Daydreams,” it does seem to be loosely implied that they might have had sex. They get pretty close on the couch at Mai’s house, they’re alone without any parental supervision, and they seem to be still on the couch when we see them in the morning the next day.

The subtext of Mai asking Zuko for fruit tarts can also be read as a euphemism for sex, although it’s much more subtle than the “lei” gag with Sokka and Suki. But given how physical their relationship is, it’s easy to believe that they had sex.

However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that either couple had sex.

This is where I get into comparing these couples. Teenagers in a first relationship might experiment with sex, but they also might not, and as common as it is for teenagers to make poor decisions about sex, I also think we need to give teenagers a little bit of credit. Sometimes young people decide that they aren’t quite ready to go all the way, and it’s important for young people especially to be able to decide what they’re ready to do with a partner. With Sokka and Suki, I think we can interpret that they had sex, but they also could have easily just had a bit of a make out session. Sokka and Suki are actually the most well-written of the canon ships because they communicate well with each other, their relationship is not built on conflict or “will they or won’t they,” and the conflict with regards to their romantic subplot is that they’re often separated by circumstance, but after their initial rocky first meeting, there’s no ambiguity about whether they actually like each other. Sokka and Suki also actually have a conversation about consent in “The Serpent’s Pass,” in which Sokka wants to kiss Suki but gets cold feet because of the loss of Yue, and Suki says it’s okay. Then, at the end of the episode, they do kiss, but only because they’re both ready. Therefore, it’s easy for me to believe that 1) Sokka and Suki are mature enough to decide whether or not they want to take their relationship to the next level, and 2) they’re mature enough to realize that they might not be ready, and 3) if they did decide that they are ready, it would be in a healthy way.

In contrast, Zuko and Mai do not communicate well, and seem to use physical intimacy as a replacement for emotional intimacy. Mai often is the one initiating kisses and touches while telling him not to worry when Zuko is trying to express his insecurities, and in “The Beach” Zuko tries to put his arm around Mai after they have an argument and she slaps his hand away. Then Mai does the exact same thing at the end of the episode and puts her arm around Zuko and says she cares about him but they don’t ever talk about what broke them up in the first place. In the scene where they are on the couch, even the fruit tarts seem to be a metaphor for their dysfunctional relationship. Zuko wants to impress Mai and make her happy and he does so by showing off the luxuries he has as prince, but that kind of life is one he ultimately is dissatisfied with. An entire tray of fruit tarts does not make up for a lack of meaningful connection, and whenever they actually talk about their relationship they argue or talk around their feelings, and their relationship is used in the narrative to distract Zuko from the things he actually should be caring about. Therefore, it seems to me both more likely that they did have sex and less likely that they were ready to.

The shot of Sokka with the lei is actually pretty interesting because the creators didn’t choose to have him look happy or blissed out, but he doesn’t necessarily look upset, either. He looks very contemplative, like he’s thinking about what this might mean for his relationship with Suki, and given how we know his feelings about it are complex, that makes sense. You could interpret it as either they did have sex the night before, or that Sokka is thinking about moving their relationship to the next level.

#sokka #suki #zuko #mai #sukka #anti maiko #atla meta #the southern raiders #nightmares and daydreams

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fymagnificentwomcn · 4 years

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t’s truly something how all princes/sultans in tmck are so pressed…I get their life isn’t easy, but all that blaming & truly how it can affect everyone’s perception. Murad even accused his mother of faking an assassination attempt on her life, incredible *sarcasm of course*. And Atike was just his cheerleader most of the time, ugh. All that blaming by people who even weren’t there. Thanks for writing that piece!

Aww thank you so much! This piece is my magnum opus I guess lol (Link here:https://fymagnificentwomcn.tumblr.com/post/610970504341405696/no-she-isnt-the-whole-evil-k%C3%B6sem-thing-isnt )

Murad’s angry 24/7 & gets so ridiculous with blame-shifting – he would need a good anger management therapy LBR.

And there’s one scene that portrays his character in nutshell:

Doctor: you cannot drink anymore wine, Your Majesty.

Murad, literally 5 minutes later: Yusuf, bring me wine!

Murad in 1 minute, another example:

Kösem: Don’t marry Silahtar to Atike, you also have another sister and if you do it, it will end in tragedy!

Murad: No worriez, I’ve thought about Gevherhan, I will marry her to Kemankeş ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I mentioned a lot of blame-shifting in my previous posts, but he even at moment began questioning his mum about Gülbahar and whether she truly committed treason (and Gülbahar herself admitted to it).

Even when Atike asked him for permission to take children with her & Kösem to vaqf, he was totally okay with the idea, but later after kidnapping snapped at his mother that it was HER fault for gaving taken his sons there & began threatening her with exile far away. Charming as always.

Honestly, he’s like a broken record. In all his arguments, while Kösem has her logical arguments, his only argument is usually “I’m the only/rightful owner of Ottoman Empire, “I’m the shadow of God on Earth. Like dude do you realise how boring you are???

Don’t forget how mad he got when Kösem wrote to Kemankeş to have a backup plan if Murad died and Bayezid wanted to take the throne, which could have meant danger for other Kösem’s sons. After all, she didn’t take it from nothing, Gülbahar told her about assassination attempt to come & it actually already had happened by the time Murad received the letter. Yes, dude you are not immortal, you could have been killed, and life goes on you know? It doesn’t mean your mother doesn’t love you or is not going to mourn you, but she also needs to take care of your brothers and state ffs. He’s truly obsessed with this idea that after his death life will (unfortunately in his view) go on – which is also meaningful since Kösem reminded him like two episodes earlier that state was going to remain even with both of them dead. And well we all know the “masterful” idea he conceived just before his death.

And it’s clear how even some of his siblings fear him – Gevherhan was scared immediately following the announcement of Kösem no longer being a regent (especially since he did in a way to put blame on his mother for recent events to prop himself up, and he was also engaged in state matters at that point). Kasim also immediately fears being locked up in kafes or even executed. Judging by their conversations, despite problems going on, last 10 years were a peaceful time for their family.

As I said, out of all Kösem’s opponents only Handan and Derviş weren’t worse than her, and she was the only main player that never engaged in mass slaughter – Safiye, Halime&Co., Gülbahar&Sinan, Murad, Turhan - all did.

Same with Atike – she was a baby when when her father died, didn’t even spend her early years locked up as Ibrahim…. she’s honestly so blind it’s painful. The scene where she jumps at Kemankeş for trying to talk sense to Ibrahim not to appoint Genie Master as chief judge… please your brother is now acting contrary to Imperial law and it’s asking for further disaster if Cinci increases his influence among ulema by bringing people who pay him into it & it’s good Ibo is controlled in this way… nah, it’s actually necessary. And how you jump from this to your mother I have no idea either. A true performative “activist”, who talks about protecting her brother, but all is limited to talking & exposing her moral superiority, while it’s not supported by any real actions helping him.

Well, you got your revenge on your mother for killing the husband who despised you, acted against your youngest brothers at that point, and likely was only praying you wouldn’t follow him also into afterlife.

I also forgot to mention one more example of Mu/rat manipulating the narrative – when he tells Atike following the failed dethronement attempt & Kasim’s death that their mother had lied to her and tried to kill him – he was after all put in kafes, he should be aware nobody planned an assassination attempt, bah he KNEW the whole plan from Sinan… and yes, Kösem being so adamant that nothing can happen to Mura/t cost her Kasim in the end.

Atike herself was aware that Mu/rat would have killed her brothers even if the dethronement attempt had not happened as she told him to his face after Kasim’s death and she stated that he had made the decision long ago. Later however she got the letter from Murad informing her who killed Silahtar and she even released Traitor No. 1 Sinan to spite her mum 😂.

I suppose princes at this point led the hardest existence because they were closed in kafes, unable to get decent education&experience or have families (maybe they were allowed to have sex with cariyes, but contraception had to be used or even abortion if the concubine of a sehzade has got pregnant) but at the same time they weren’t certain whether they wouldn’t be killed because the switch to anti-fratricide was pretty new&the times were turbulent. Osman clearly broke Imperial law by getting fetva from military judge to kill Mehmed, and Murad killed the biggest number of Ahmed’s sons obviously (yeah more than in the show because not all princes appeared in MYK, though we don’t know the exact number of Ahmed’s sons, Murad definitely also executed Suleiman, most likely his full brother). I laugh when people go about “rule-breaker” Murad. Wow by getting back to law that has already began to run its course, clap clap.

Murad was king of hypocrisy and it’s also a historical fact. As Halil İnalcık states in his book Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age: “ The tyrannical Murad IV was a habitual drinker and at the same time the most ruthless supporter of the prohibition againt alcohol”. Mu/rat tried to make use of religion in his attempts to drill absolute obedience, but he wasn’t a religious person himself & definitely tried to take from religion what it most suited him, while ignoring other things, e.g. he kept decreasing zakat, aka income tax that goes to charity. A small bit of trivia: apparently he was a big fan of Machiavelli’s The Prince, there were even some rumours that he translated the book himself (we can only imagine he also took from this book what he wanted 🤪 ).

Similarly Turhan manipulated the narrative, also in a hypocritical way – remember her going like: “how many padişahs you killed?” and she was the main force behind Ibo’s death… the moment Ibo told her that she “was a coward who hid behind his mother’s skirts”… it was clear he was doomed. There was explicit anger on Turhan’s side here. Not only because she felt insulted by him, but also because she felt a need to prove both to him and the world that she was capable to be on top without Kösem’s support. Not to mention all her actions leading to Ibo’s situation, also her ordering Mehmed to sign his dad’s death order was so chilling “I don’t want dad to die”. Well, now let’s play morally pure, especially while murdering elderly (very elderly lbr :p) Haci in again a brutal way, including twisting his neck. It’s not even that she removed a padisah – she actively worked to make him crazier and for his rule to be total failure, it wasn’t even about her, Ibo or Kösem – whole nation suffered because she was impatient to take power into her hands./BTW pity we skipped the time period when they were both Valides and we know both tried to get rid of each other, without harming Mehmed/ And frankly even with Kösem it was a terrible & undeserved backstabbing because also Ibi criticised Turhan for this saying his mother always “loved and protected her, did so much for her” and I doubt Ibo was biased here considering that he was also on bad terms with his mum at that moment.

Later the situation truly calmed down & later princes could live much more peacefully because the practice of killing truly went out of style and also later there were less and less restrictions on princes and they could for example travel abroad with the reigning padişah. For example, Sultan Abdülaziz took princes for a European trip and they even had a chance to meet Queen Victoria.

And I laugh when people blame Kösem for “failing to protect the princes” instead of you know, blame the actual killer. Ahmed truly replenished dynasty, while Murad axed a number of his brothers, at the same time of course used his own propaganda. It is true that Murad executed the favourite of princes, Bayezid, during celebrations following the successful Revan campaign. Similarly, when Kasim was executed someone spread rumours about the prince impregnating a number of concubines & it was before the Baghdad campaign when even setting out on it Murad had to display his “splendour and glory”.

Show-wise I legit one read that Kösem killed Ahmed because she spared Bulbül following Safiye’s attempted coup lmao. It’s not like Ahmed wasn’t there when she made the decision & it’s not like it wasn’t Hümaşah who after all got Yasemin in, and I doubt anyone could oppose an Imperial princess anyway – she would have found another servant. And Bülbül later saved Kösem’s kids, so… scapegoating truly is in some people’s blood lmao.

I love how MYK played with the idea of historical representation & creation of narrative, how people “see” and how different factors might influence their perception & creation of narrative. And also how S2 put into different perspective some stuff from S1. I admit there were some things that back during first watch of MYKS1 made me go WTF? that I later understood when compared/contrasted with MYK S2. It’s clear that they truly planned a lot of the whole show back in S1.

It’s sometimes interesting how narratives may be created and repeated even without evidence supporting it - there is no historical evidence that Kösem took part in Osman’s dethronement, yet it is something that often pops up even in “historical articles” for example. People deduce since Kösem later became Valide quite soon because Mustafa’s (or rather Halime’s) reign didn’t last long, know Şehzade Mustafa’s (Suleiman’s son) story, and some rumours about what Ottoman women did to secure throne for their children, so they see getting rid of one’s stepson to claim throne for one’s child as logical and usual in Ottoman system, even when there is no proper evidence backing it up. Because it seems natural and logical, so why not make it more spicy? We know next to nothing about Mahfiruz, but there is this “Betty vs Veronica” trope, so suddenly we learn that Mahfiruz was Kösem’s opposite, not politically involved or ambitious, but gentle & sweet, and even details like light hair pop up as opposed to Kösem’s dark hair (sometimes of course it is also extended to good vs. evil). Taken from where, other than fitting a known trope? Or when she’s presented as some sort of Mahidevran vol.2 as having as close relationship with Osman like Mahi did with Mustafa, perfect prince and jealous stepmother Kösem. I know some of the stuff is also derived from Western, orientalist plays, but those are obviously not sources and should not be treated as truth. And sometimes it it even repeated by historians. For example Uluçay, who was very against Sultanate of Women & pretty much propagated a lot of rumours (and new approach to the period truly changed a lot of how academia writes about these women now). Let us look at this quote:

Taken from: Necdet Sakaoğlu, Famous Ottoman Women.

It’s clear what narrative Uluçay chose for his research.

It’s common practice to sometimes fill in the blanks (and sometimes even change stuff) with known cliches, tropes, and narratives.

It is truly a topic for an extended discussion, so I will stop for now, but when it comes to Ottoman history I do recommend Daniel Piterberg’s Ottoman Tragedy. History and Historography at Play, which shows how the same event may be even differently presented in historical works depending on chosen narrative that is often rooted in current context.

#magnificent century: kosem #muhtesem yuzyil kosem #muhteşem yüzyıl kösem #kosem sultan #murad iv #answered #mods opinions #yeah again slowly restarting blog #I hope you missed my ramblings yhy #idk what's happening with read more cut ffs #so #long post

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anxiouslyfred · 4 years

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Love After Exile - Rejection

Summary: Virgil loved Remus and Deceit long before they fell out. Now he’s dating Logan after beginning to recognise similar feelings. Roman works on matchmaking and finally talks to Remus about it all, and Dukeceit try to make their move for Logan and Virgil

Authors Note: Yeah it’s been forever since I updated, but the main thing I want to add is there’s almost a chapter worth of writing I’ve cut out of this where Virgil and Patton bake together. It didn’t really fit the story given how little a role Pat has in the story so I just summarised it.

Formatting: There’s a shifting POV, anytime you see Bold starts of a paragraph then there’s been a perspective shift.

Pairings: Analogical from the start, eventual Analoceitmus

Warnings for this part: suggestive talk, some sex references (Remus being Remus)

/\/\/\/\/\ Part One /\/\/\/\ Part Two /\/\/\/\/\ Part Three /\/\/\/\/\/\Part Four

Virgil knew change like it was a scent in the air. He could sense it was coming closer and closer currently, but nothing had been said that suggested what it was. Instead of speaking up about it,he worried; worried over if it was change in Thomas or change for himself, worried about how his family would react to the changes, simply worried about change disrupting his relationship with Logan or his tentative friendship now growing with Remus and Deceit once more. Above all of that he worried that Patton would fight whatever changes were happening.

He'd felt the echoes of concern coming from Morality when the other sides first heard Remus talking about His people. Everyone knew of Patton's distaste for the Deceitful side, even though they'd proven that he could tell the truth easily and often did. Virgil just didn't want that friendship to break down once more, not with how closely the emotional aspects of their roles had proven to be.

After the discussion of polyamory, a few days had passed with no appearance from either of the hidden sides, not that that meant they wouldn't pop in whenever it took their whims. Virgil decided to use the time to catch up with Patton, leaving Logan engrossed in rereading something that Roman had to have written given the cover.

After their afternoon baking and chatting Virgil knew that Patton would have a lot more thinking and introspection to do. He had hope some of the hostility to the others would reduce. It might not be enough to avoid another questioning of roles if something actually ended up happening with Deceit and Remus, but it was a start.

Thomas had been in a bit of a creative block this week, or at least that was Roman's excuse if any questioned why he was heading into the hidden commons to visit his brother. Of course Deceit would see in an instant that was a lie, and Remus would probably know fairly easily, but Patton and Logan would accept the excuse.

He actually wanted to find out where Remus was in regards to Virgil's feelings now. It had become clear that the pair were more focused on understanding Virgil since the day Roman learnt about his feelings, but their intentions were harder to discern. That's what brought him to knocking on Remus's door and decidedly trying not to think about the scratches and stains over it.

“Princey! What brings you to the forbidden side? Looking for a proper fight tonight?” Remus cheered as he opened the door, ushering Roman through while grabbing his morning star.

“Or perhaps some inspiration from unexpected places.” Roman rolled his eyes, easily batting the weapon back down.

The scoff that received was entirely expected. “Yeah, the other one has a cockring on it, much more fun to play with than whatever you're trying to pull.”

“You're just as polyamorous as I am but where is your attraction falling currently?” Roman easily switched subjects as soon as the door was shut, ignoring his brothers comments, and squaring his shoulders.

Remus froze at the abrupt subject change. He really had been expecting it to involve fighting as Roman's visits usually did, either him having an injury or just wanting to fight someone he didn't control for a while.

“Trust me, feeding into the urge to matchmake just ends up in arguments and losing friends, Ro. Don't try it with me.” He warned, suddenly serious in a way the others often forgot he could do.

“How do you think Mr I-Don't-Have-Feelings and Trust-No-Comfort got together? Thomas having accepted his attraction makes the attempts to matchmake a lot easier I would believe.” Just the subject would of course touch on the one thing the brothers avoided talking about, but Remus hadn't expected the role of looking after Thomas's attractions to change as much as the words he heard implied it had.

He shook the thoughts off with a wriggle. “Still misses out all the juicy stuff. Ya need me for the fun times.”

“I have my own methods for the fun times and definitely don't need you for them. I do however need you to answer my question. Who are you attracted to, trash panda?” Roman crossed his arms at the attempt to divert the conversation. Remus could see the urge to fight already growing behind his eyes, the chaos and lack of order frustrating the accepted creativity almost as much as the opposite made him antsy.

“You know you can't just trap me with them Roro. That's not how we work, and much as I like seeing people tied up, all that would make me do is cause a spectacle. Blood can be a wonderful paint you know.” He was trying to suggest things that would cause Roman to reveal whatever his intentions were without acknowledging who either was talking about. At least until there was a way to ask who Roman had in mind. “Just who are you suggesting I like anyway, Brother Dearest?”

Well, there goes subtlety, Remus always was bad at it, but at least Roman was now spluttering, somewhere between admitting who and vehemently denying he had anyone in mind. “NOBODY! Well, of course there's somebody or I wouldn't have decided on asking you instead of picking someone that doesn't constantly attack me, but Nobody.”

Deceit had seen Roman come in, heard the beginning of their chat and felt the lies resonating in him. He knew whatever the brothers were talking about had to seem important, at least to the prince, just as much as that Remus would want a way to recognise the truth.

Neither had decided on a good way to approach Virgil or Logan even now they knew most of the sides were polyamorous, and perhaps the romantic side could help with that. The shutting of Remus's door indicated a wish for privacy though, rather than an open invitation.

All the dark sides respected those signs, at least amongst themselves. Deceit still decided to use his role to help his partner, leaning against the wall of Remus's room, drawing lines with his nails as lies shuddered down his spine from things said within. Quietly enough that only people who knew this method would hear the sound as anything meaningful, but clearly an indication, he carried on doing the sign for ten minutes before any feeling of lies coming from within ceased.

Roman only glanced at him for a moment as he left, about half an hour since any lie had been told although Deceit was still curled up on a cushion he'd summoned to sit on while leaning there. He just smirked at the curious glance, waving the light side goodbye or rather in an obvious hint that he should leave more rapidly.

He still waited for a moment before joining Remus in the room, hearing a few snickers breaking out. “Dee-dee. He wants to matchmake for us.” Remus was crowing, rolling on his bed that had definitely been made by the prince given the sheets were now being methodically messed up once more.

“With who? Does he suppose us to be novices in the fields of love because he controls Thomas's romantic desires?” Dee sighed, letting the arms reaching for him become an embrace.

“Logan and Virgil of course.”

Logan had assumed that Roman would try matchmaking soon after he realised that Virgil loved Deceit and Remus. He had assumed that if the pair figured that out themselves they would soon be approaching Virgil. He had assumed a lot of things about love and romance incorrectly, especially regarding the other sides reactions to it.

Three weeks had passed since the start of all the chatter and still there was no change to the relationships of Thomas's mind-space except perhaps, Remus and Deceit properly getting together. Logan was content with that. It meant he could continue the comforting relationship with Virgil for longer and hopefully predict when it would be brought to an end by the pair Virgil loved.

He couldn't see that Remus claiming him as one of His People would particularly alter what would occur. So when Roman came asking for some grounding for an idea he was struggling with bringing into a possibility for a video of course Logan would agree, following him into the imagination. Virgil getting invited along too just made it all the more likely they would succeed in assisting.

Remus and Deceit already being present in the idea room was mildly concerning. Too much creativity could inhibit an ideas effectiveness and Deceit would be more likely to comfort them over issues than suggest real solutions.

“What idea needs both sides of creativity to form it?” Logan had to ask, immediately honing his gaze on Roman as he shifted uncomfortably.

He noted the glance and nod shared between Remus and Roman, as well as the dismissive wave Remus gave. “One that's actually mine but we don't want Patton to veto from the start. He's going to go fight the dragon witch or something while we talk it through.” Remus explained then, pulling about 20 loose sheets of paper from somewhere.

“You hate when I give input so why don't I just go with Roman?” Virgil's hesitance stopped the exit Roman was clearly trying not to make obvious now, but Logan understood. He'd heard about how Remus used to work through ideas when they got together.

The reaction wasn't expected. When talking about what they wanted to say and how Roman had suggested asking Virgil and Logan to join their relationship Deceit forgot to consider how they'd previously acted together.

A glance showed that both Creativities were lost over how to react in such a way that Virgil might stay and Logic was simply considering something so Deceit reacted instead. “Remus is ever reluctant to listen to amendments to his ideas, but we're working on it. I had hoped you'd be able to aid me in the attempts. If you're too scared of his madness though, by all means, go with Roman.”

There were a lot of things you simply shouldn't say to anxiety if you class him as an ally or friend, that sometimes made him easy to manipulate. Thankfully bringing up fear always did make him determined to face whatever he was wary about and the steel rearing in Virgil's gaze confirmed it had worked again.

“Show us the stupid idea and lets get this over with then!” Virgil growled out, already reaching to take the papers from Remus.

Letting one of the pair see what they'd actually written was not part of the plan but as Deceit watched Remus happily handed them over. “I do love it when you get all controlling Thunderclap, just makes me all tingly and excited.” Suppressing the sigh that came from Remus giving into his impulses was difficult now.

Deceit had double checked to make sure at least 2 of the pages were actually about an idea they might feasibly want Thomas to see that Remus had thought up but the majority were actually about their emotions, and reactions leading them to want this relationship. Now he would have to delay Virgil getting to those pages until Roman actually was out of the area.

“While that's all well and good, Dear, perhaps you'd like to tell Virgil and Logan about your idea? An actual battle to defend our ideas definitely needs some work to make it feasible.” He began, bringing their focus back from whatever thoughts Logan and Virgil were trying not to react to.

“Just because of editing. I don't see why we can't do it. It's not like any of us are actually going to get hurt. Thomas just acts all our roles out and he's already done me attacking Roman so why not an extra step further.” Remus was interested in the reactions he was getting now.

Virgil had looked taken aback at the innuendo and just what he'd suggested before Deceit brought their cover idea up. Logan had tilted his head, analysing something although whether that was the words or looking for any intent behind them wasn't for Remus to figure out. Deceit was the one in charge of that bit between them.

“Come on guys, there could be bloodshed, and Logan can finally get out all that pent up anger in a way other than throwing things at people. We can all be screaming and have warnings not to watch with headphones in.” He could ramble for ages about the fight idea, even the things they could use it to settle arguments about which was basically everything, and glancing to the edge of their gathering Roman had already disappeared.

Now he was just rambling, occasionally letting Logan interject with a thought over what opposition their team might have to trying to do a video like it and the technical difficulties they could face, eyes actually honed into the pages in Virgil's hand. The first page had already been passed over to Logan to look at and as soon as that second page was moved Remus was going to change the conversation on a 180degree turn. Perhaps he could literally do that with his head?

“This is definitely not your battle scenario.” Damnit Remus, getting lost in weird thoughts meant you missed the page being handed to Logan. Virgil was now staring, almost fearfully at the page which focused on Logan's many gorgeous attributes.

“But isn't it so much more interesting, Vi-vi? Just imagine what the four of us could be together! How much pleasure could be brought to you by three sets of hands instead of just one?” Sex always worked to get people to date you, even Logan had mentioned in in the valentines episode so that must be how you normally get a boyfriend.

Judging by Deceit's amused cough and Logan's raised eyebrows it might not be.

This was finally happening and Logan was shocked that he was being included in the proposition.

“Can I have some clarity? Are you asking for both of us to join your relationship or just suggesting Virgil dates the two of you in one relationship and myself separately to that?” He had to speak up, unclear over how he was included in the situation.

His inclusion could all be there for the open and healthy communication they'd discussed in regards to polyamorous relationships.

“We want to date both of you. All of us together.” Deceit confirmed, inclining his head. “How could we not with your intellect and Virgil's sharp wit. You both have us entranced although I wouldn't mind Virgil being a little less silent over his feelings now.”

That was when Virgil started a reaction Logan would never have predicted. Given all the emotions he'd been told about regarding the pair it was easy to believe Anxiety's function wasn't affecting him as much now as it had before he left.

Except the pages were being scrunched up and thrown on the floor even as Remus began speaking again. “Yes! Yes, logie, teacher, Mr Sir, Please, pretty please, ice cream covered pork chops please will you and Virgil date us?” The words lost no energy as everyone registered the reaction but Logan could see everyone's growing confusion and focus centring on Virgil.

Virgil glared at the question that had been asked and everything written on the pages he'd been holding. He took in the confused blinks from everyone including Logan. “I've already been through the pain of screwing up too much for you before. Why the hell should I open myself up to it all over again?”

He was vehement about protecting himself now. Logan had confirmed and reaffirmed that he'd always wait for Virgil to be ready to talk even before they got together. Deceit and Remus had done the opposite the day they tried to force him to speak and he couldn't take that again.

Of course he loved them, so fiercely and strongly that it was a battle to just reject them but not again, he couldn't go through that pain a second time.

Virgil saw Remus about to speak, and Deceit clearly thinking over what he could say to rectify the situation and couldn't take that either. He turned and walked out of the castle, past the boundary Roman usually made it difficult to sink out from behind and back to where he could curl up under all his blankets in his room, or maybe Patton's or Roman's someone he could get away with not wanting to talk about emotions immediately after going through them.

Silence fell as Virgil left, and not even a stray thought was in Remus's mind. His Person had just rejected possibly everything.

/\/\/\ Part 6 /\/\/\ Part Seven /\/\/\ Part Eight /\/\/\ Part Nine /\/\/\/\

#Analogical #analoceitmus #virgil sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #creativitwins #roman sanders #deceit sanders #sanders sides fics

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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You know what America needs? More mirrors for princes—the Renaissance genre of advice books directed at statesmen. On the Right, we have many books that identify, and complain about, the problems of modernity and the challenges facing us. Some of those books do offer concrete solutions, but their audience is usually either the educated masses, who cannot themselves translate those solutions into policy, or policymakers who have no actual power, or refuse to use the power they do have. Scott Yenor’s bold new book is directed at those who have the will to actually rule. He lays out what has been done to the modern family, why, and what can and should be done about it, by those who have power, now or in the future. Let’s hope the target audience pays attention.

The Recovery of Family Life instructs future princes in two steps. First, Yenor dissects the venomous ideology of feminism, which seeks to abolish all natural distinctions between the sexes, as well as all social structures that organically arise from those distinctions. Second, he tells how the family regime of a healthy modern society should be structured. By absorbing both lessons and applying them in practice, the wise statesman can, Yenor hopes, accomplish the recovery of family life. (Yenor himself does not compare his book to a mirror for princes; he’s too modest for that. But that’s what it is.)

…

You will note that this is a spicy set of positions for an academic of today to hold. You will therefore not be surprised to learn that Yenor was the target of cancel culture before being a target was cool. He is a professor of political philosophy at Boise State University, and in 2016, in response to Yenor’s publication of two pieces containing, to normal people, anodyne factual statements about men and women, a mob of leftist students tried to defenestrate him. Yenor was “homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic.” (We can ignore that the first two of those words are mostly content-free propaganda terms designed to blur discourse, though certainly to the extent they do have meaning, that meaning should be celebrated—I would have given Yenor a medal, if I had been in charge of Boise State.) They didn’t manage to get him fired (he has tenure and refused to bend), but the usual baying mob, led by Yenor’s supposed peers, put enormous pressure on him, which could not have been easy. He still teaches there; whether it is fun for him, I do not know, but it certainly hasn’t stopped him promulgating the truth.

…

Yenor begins by examining the intellectual origins of the rolling revolution, found most clearly within twentieth-century feminism. One service Yenor provides is to draw the battle lines clearly. He does this by swimming in the fetid swamps of feminism; I learned a lot I did not know, although none of it was pleasing. He spends a little time discussing so-called first-wave feminism, but much more on second-wave feminists, starting with Simone de Beauvoir, through Betty Friedan, and into Shulamith Firestone, this latter a literally insane harridan who starved herself to death. The common thread among these writers was their baseless claim that women had no inherent meaningful difference from men, and that women could only be happy by the abolition of any perceived difference. This was to lead to self-focused self-actualization resulting in total autonomy, and a woman would know she had achieved this, most often, by making working outside the home the focus of her existence. Friedan was the great popularizer of this destructive message, of course, which I recently attacked at length in my thoughts on her book The Feminine Mystique.

…

After this detailed examination of core feminist ideas, Yenor suffers more, slogging through the thought about autonomy of various two-bit modern con men, notably Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls. He analyzes the dishonest argumentative methods of all the Left, in general and in specific with regard to family topics—false claims mixed with false dichotomies and false comparisons, what he calls the “liberal wringer,” the mechanism by which any argument against the rolling revolution is dishonestly deconstructed and all engagement with it avoided. The lesson for princes, I think, is to not participate in such arguments, and to remember what our enemies long ago learned and put into practice—that power is all.

Yenor describes how the modern Left (which he somewhat confusingly calls “liberalism,” but Rawls and his ilk are not liberal in any meaningful sense of the term, rather they are Left) uses the law to achieve its goal of the “pure relationship,” meaning the aim that all relationships must be ones of free continuous choice, that is, without any supposed repression. This leads to various destructive results when it collides with reality, including the reality of parent-child bonds, and more generally is hugely destructive of social cohesion. From this also flow various deleterious consequences resulting from ending supposed sexual repression; this section is replete with analysis of writings from Michel Foucault to Aldous Huxley, and contains much complexity, but in short revolves around what was once a commonplace—true freedom is not release from constraints, but the freedom to choose rightly, to choose virtue and not to be a slave to passions, and rejection of this truth is the basis of many of our modern problems.

…

Finally, Yenor turns to what should be done, which is the most noteworthy part of the book. As he says, “Intellectuals who defend the family rightly spend much time exposing blind spots in the contemporary ideology. All this time spent in the defensive crouch, however, distracts them from thinking through where these limits [i.e., the limits Yenor has just outlined in detail] point in our particular time and place. Seeing the goodness in those limits, it is necessary also to reconstruct a public opinion and a public policy that appreciates those limits.” Thus, Yenor strives to show what a “better family policy” would be.

This is an admirable effort, but I fear it is caught on the horns of a dilemma. The rolling revolution does not permit any stopping or slowing; much less does it permit any retrenchment or reversal. Our enemies don’t care what we think a better family policy would be. And if we were to gain the power to implement a better family policy, by first smashing their power, there is no reason for it to be as modest as that Yenor outlines—rather, it should be radical, an utter unwinding of the nasty web they have woven, and the creation of a new thing. Not a restoration, precisely, but a new thing for our time, informed by the timeless Old Wisdom that Yenor extols. The defect in Yenor’s thought, or at least in his writing, is refusing to acknowledge it is only power that matters for the topics about which he cares most. But presumably the future princes at whom this book is aimed will know this in their bones.

Yenor himself doesn’t exactly exude optimism. Nor does he exude pessimism, but he begins by telling us that “we are still only in the infancy” of the rolling revolution. This seems wrong to me; in the modern age, time is compressed, and fifty years is plenty of time for the rolling revolution, a set of ideologies based on the denial of reality, to reach its inevitable senescence, when reality reasserts itself with vigor. This is particularly true since every new front opened by the revolution is more anti-reality, more destructive, and more revolting to normal people, who eventually will have had enough, and the sooner, if given the right leadership.

…

For most purposes, what Yenor advocates would be a restoration of family policy, both in law and society, as it existed in America in the mid-twentieth century. I’m not sure that’s going back far enough for ideas. You’re not supposed to say it out loud, and Yenor doesn’t, but it’s not at all clear to me that even first-wave feminism had any virtue at all. To the extent it is substantively discussed today, we are given a caricature, where the views of those opposed to Mary Wollstonecraft or John Stuart Mill are not told to us, rather distorted polemics of those authors about their opponents are presented as accurate depictions, which is unlikely, and even those depictions are never engaged with. But we know that most of what Mill said about politics in general was self-dealing lies that have proven to be enormously destructive, so the presumption should be that what he said about relations between men and women was equally risible.

…

Penultimately, Yenor addresses such new frontiers being sought by the rolling revolution, with the implication that the rolling revolution might, perhaps, be halted. Here he talks about the desire of the Left to have the state separate children from parents, particularly where and because the parents oppose the revolution, but more generally to break the parent-child bond as a threat to unlimited autonomy. He says, optimistically, “No respectable person has (yet) suggested that parents could be turned in for hate speech behind closed doors.” But this has already been proven false; Scotland is on the verge of passing a new blasphemy law, the “Hate Crime and Public Order Law,” and Scotland’s so-called Justice Minister (with the very Scots name of Humza Yousaf) has explicitly noted, and called for, entirely private conversations in the home that were “hate speech” to be prosecuted once the law is passed. A man like that is beyond secular redemption, yet he is also a mainline representative of the rolling revolution. The reality is that discussion does not, and will never work, with these people, only force. Still trying, Yenor presents a balanced picture to his hoped-for audience of princes, such as discussing when state interference in the family makes sense (as in cases of abuse). However, such situations have been adequately addressed in law for hundreds of years; the rolling revolution is not a new type of such balancing, but the Enemy. Discussions about it will not stop it. No general of the rolling revolution will even notice this book, except in that perhaps some myrmidons may be detached from the main host to punish Yenor, or to record his name for future punishment.

Yenor ends with a pithy set of responses to the tedious propagandistic aphorisms of the rolling revolution, such as “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” And, laying out a clear vision of a renewed society based on the principals he has earlier discussed, he tells us, “In the long term, the goal is to stigmatize the assumptions of the rolling revolution.” No doubt this is true; cauterizing the societal wound where the rolling revolution will have been amputated from our society will be, in part, accomplished by stigmatizing both the ideas and those who clamored for them or led their implementation. How to get to that desirable “long term,” though, when their long term is very clear, and very different from the long term Yenor hopes for? He says “Prudent statesmen must mix our dominant regime with doses of reality.” Yeah, no. Prudent statesmen, the new princes, must entirely overthrow our dominant regime, or not only will not a single one of Yenor’s desired outcomes see the light of day, far worse evils will be imposed on us. Oh, I’m sure Yenor knows this; it’s the necessary conclusion of Yenor’s own discussion of those eagerly desired future evils. He just can’t be as aggressive as me. I’m here to tell you that you should read this book, but amp up the aggression a good eight times—which shouldn’t be a problem, especially if you have children of your own, whose innocence and future these people want to steal.

#charles haywood #the worthy house #book review #scott yenor

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sevensav--d-archived · 3 years

Text

@darkrevels sent 💘 + bird volcano xoxo

send me 💘 + A SHIP and i’ll tell you—

where they first met and how

At UA after classes. She was a couple days from actually starting school proper (she and the other transfers had to do some supplementary lessons) so they met one night when she was leaving campus. He was just hanging around with Dark Shadow and a smoothie and he accidentally spooked her. They got to talking and she sort of made the decision right there that she wanted to be his friend! *Note: Our first interaction was going off the idea that the transfers started after the Dorm Move which is no longer canon, but their conversation basically remains unchanged.

how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved

They did the friends to lover dance, so they didn’t really have a flirting phase. If anything, it started after they decided to date.

who fell for who first ( if applicable )

Fukumi did. She was so impressed by his skills as a fighter and she found him to be such an interesting person. She loved talking to him and learning from him. She started to take interest in his life and interests, and somewhere between him helping getting over her fear of the dark and finding out he wrote poetry did she start to think that it was more than just a friendly thing.

where their first date was and what it was like

Their first real date happened after they made the decision to get together. He took her to a quiet little cafe with a sort of dark vibe (a place that he liked) and although she felt a little out of place there she had a lot of fun. After the cafe they went for a walk in a park until it got dark and then they stargazed for awhile.

who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? )

It was a sort of... Okay, so it was his birthday and she got him some really meaningful and sweet presents and FIRST of all, he hugged her real big and her heart went WOOSH. After that they went outside to talk a bit more and Fukumi eventually ended up confessing that she had a crush on him, and he immediately came back at her and expressed it was mutual. And it was pretty nice and effortless and sweet.

who proposes first

Tokoyami proposed.

if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away

Not really. Tokoyami is a private person by nature, but if asked, neither would really deny that they’re together. Fukumi told her friends right away. But no, their relationship is by no means a secret.

where the proposal happens and how ( kiss cam at a baseball game? on a hillside surrounded by ducks? at a disney park? )

Okay, look at Fumikage Tokoyami and tell me to my face that he wouldn’t do an absolutely stunningly romantic and dramatic. It involves him giving a very personal and loving speech that reads like poetry. It took place when he was visiting with her family in Hawaii when she took him to a black sand beach.

if they adopt any pets together

I think that once they have kids, they end up with some sort of pet. Like one cat, or one dog. Nothing too crazy. Fukumi grew up with a cat, but I see them more leaning in the dog direction.

who’s more dominant

I think they’re pretty equal. She is more... Loud, I suppose so she a bit more forward and commanding, but they really do just... they’re equals. Romantically, Fukumi takes more initiative.

where their first kiss was and what it was like

See their ask out story. Fukumi made her point about how much she liked him by giving him a kiss. He can’t exactly kiss in the same way that she does but he did what he could immediately following.

if they have any matching couples stuff ( mugs? sweaters? pillowcases? )

I mean. They have the same pillowcases because they’re from a set? I don’t think having matchy stuff is really their style, but they do wear each other’s merch.

how into pda they are

Fukumi is more into it, and Tokoyami isn’t into it as much, and she is very understanding of that. They most they’ll do in public is hold hands for a moment when they first see each other in a place or something. Sometimes he’ll put his arm around her waist while standing with her. It’s pretty chill.

who holds the umbrella when it rains

Dark Shadow, of course.

where their usual ‘date spot’ is ( if applicable )

Outside in the UA courtyards. They love to have little picnics out there, or go stargazing together. They sometimes go back to the little cafe the ywent for their first date, but nothing beats cuddling on a blanket under the stars.

who’s more protective

I think it’s a pretty equal standing, especially after everything they’ve been through. He is more emotionally protective and she is more physically protective. But at the end of they day, they’d each take a bullet for the other.

how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ )

They didn’t share a bed consistently until they got their first apartment after graduating. They’d napped in the same bed before (usually during visits to the other’s house when not in school) or the odd occasion where they’d fall asleep while hanging out on a bed in the dorms.

if they argue about anything

Hmm not that much honestly. I think that by the time they’re adults and living together they’ve been through so much that they really are just in sync with each other on serious issues. They might bicker about music tastes or whether or not it’s appropriate to listen to All I want For Christmas is You in June. And maybe when their kids are born there’s a bit of concerned arguing about parental things, like differing approaches to things. But they have a lot of respect for each other and can handle arguments well.

who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. )

Fukumi and no I will not elaborate further. (Don’t ask Tokoyami what that mark on his neck is he will be unable to speak for the next hour and a half.)

who steals whose clothes and how often

Fukumi definitely takes a lot of his jackets or sweatshirts. She has one in particular that she keeps trying to return to him but he keeps giving it back to her. She doesn’t NEED to borrow his stuff, she’s never cold... But they smell like him and they make her happy... Despite the fact that most of the borrowed clothes are somber and black.

how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? )

Typically face to face. Fukumi likes to see him when they cuddle. She’s snuggle up close to his side and stroke his cheek.

what their favourite nonsexual activity is

They have a few. Playing music together, playing DND with friends online (or in person) or just. Reading. They sit together and read. Sometimes he’ll read passages to her and she’ll get excited about what she’s reading... They just like to enjoy each other’s company while reading.

how long they stay mad at each other

Not long at all. Neither of them are the type to stay angry. Tokoyami is probably a little bit more... Uh? Angry? But it’s not by much.

what their usual coffee / tea orders are

Fukumi gets something with caramel in it, and Tokoyami usually gets something that comes with a straw, but he does get special Apple Ciders in the fall.

if they ever have any children together

YES, these are their twins:

They’re fraternal twins. Hoza is the younger twin and he has some breathing problems. His quirk is having the ability to breathe fire and smoke. His quir kis called Phoenix Breath. Mitsuko is the older twin and her quirk is basically a Dark Shadow type being, but it’s made of fire and it thrives in the light. The twins are very close and eventually go to UA like their parents.

if they have any special pet names for each other

Fukumi calls him Tokkun. She always has, always will. She also calls him ‘babe’ or ‘bab’y later on in their relationship. He calls her “Darling” and “My Love” when they’re home and alone.

if they ever split up and / or get back together

I’m gonna say no. They’re so solid.

what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? )

It’s a really nice house. It’s pretty big and well furnished. It has a pretty gothic aesthetic but it also features a lot of warm colors. It’s well kept (they have a house keeper) and it’s a pretty private residence. Despite the nice size, they don’t often host people.

what their first christmas / hanukkah / etc as a couple was like

They’d been together for a couple months, so it wasn’t TOO crazy, but she was pretty sad about not being able to leave for Christmas to be with her family, and he was very sweet to her for it, giving her lots of attention. He’s a holiday boy, so he treats her real nice.

what their names are in each other’s phones

She is simply “Fukumi” in his, practical so he can find her easily in his phone. He is listed as 🖤Tokkun🖤

if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? )

They go pretty hard for Christmas and they each get the other an ornament for Christmas (as well as normal Christmas presents) and that’s primarily what they use to decorate their tree.

who falls asleep first and who wakes up first

Fukumi goes to bed earlier and wakes up earlier. He’s a night owl and she’s an early bird. But they’re both okay with this arrangement.

who’s the big spoon / little spoon

Tokoyami is little spoon mostly for utility reasons. Beak on the back of the neck? Not always super pleasant.

who hogs the bathroom

Fukumi, but she doesn’t really have an issue if he’s in the bathroom doing what he needs to while she showers or whatever.

who kills the spiders / takes them outside

They are products of their friendship with Nomiko and neither kill spiders. Whoever finds the spider either just leaves it or takes it outside.

#**He Was Pointing At The Moon And I Was Looking At His Hand || Fukumi & Tokoyami | darkrevels ||

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newtgeiszler · 4 years

Note

You don’t have to believe it but I happen to care about and respect your opinion specifically since I’ve been following you a long time. I’ve seen all of your fandoms. Pacific Rim, It, One Punch Man, My Hero Academia, TFTB. I was honestly asking you to convert ME by helping me understand your experience better and I offered my perspective but I guess that doesn’t appeal to you either which is fair enough since I’m anonymous.

you know what? maybe it's because some time has passed since you first came here but i respect that... a little. i think you definitely could have approached me a lot more respectfully. even if your tone wasn't intentionally rude it ended up being rude anyway. it's very difficult to respond to walls of text through the tumblr inbox, especially on mobile, where i can't look back on your message and reread it so i can more easily respond point by point.

if you're being genuine then i will be a little nicer, but the comparisons i made to being "skeptical" of other marginalized weren't for nothing. every argument a terf makes, no matter how convincing it is from a certain perspective, is just as backwards as any other right wing bigoted hate speech. think of how easily people can be convinced that immigration is bad despite how ridiculous that seems to a seemingly rational person. you know how they spread ideas like that? cherry picking, the favorite strategy of terfs everywhere. if ever seen a 100 link post showing incidences of trans people being evil and think "damn, what a good argument." wrong! and no, not just because it hurts trans people's feelings, it's objectively wrong. collecting a bunch of sources that agree with your opinion is not an intellectually honest way to prove a point. there could very well be just as many sources that prove the opposite point, your sources could have a right wing bias, there could be repeats (this is something i see a lot in those terf megalink posts) and most of the time it doesn't even prove the point on a basic level. like for example, you could give me 300 articles of trans women committing rape and they could all be unique stories and honorable journalism. what would that prove? you can't use that to extrapolate that trans women commit rape more often than cis women because you're not presenting a comparison. this is literally the kind of shit you learn in high school.

now i know what you're gonna say, "but i'm not saying trans women are rapists, i'm asking you why trans people are the genders they say they are" which is fair and i'll get to that but the reason why i even bring this up is because bigotry is always bigotry. i don't think there really is a quintessential difference between saying "trans women aren't women" and saying "trans women are rapists." they are both saying that trans women can't get the resources they need from feminism despite the fact that they provably have a high rate of suffering misogynistic violence.

culture changes. at a certain time, trans women might say "i am a biological male but i'm a woman" and they may tack on "spiritually" if they felt that way about it. or maybe "socially." but now some trans people will say our sex is already our gender. why? because they both exist on spectrums--which is something i hope you're already aware of--and are, as a result, both constructs. this is where a lot of "skeptics" get lost: "sex isn't a construct, it's physical. it's your genitals, your chromosomes, your secondary sex characteristics etc etc." exactly, right? so if your sex is a series of physical characteristics why do people--like you, who just said this--say "sex doesn't change" when all of those but one (chromosomes--and most people aren't that interested in changing that and there isn't much purpose to anyway) can change. how is changing almost every single characteristic of your sex not changing your sex? simply because i can't change the one characteristic that absolutely no one can see--except a geneticist who i may or may not ever consult in my life! really, when your only thread of saying i'm for sure female is getting my chromosomes analysed that's not much of an argument for material reality is it. no i mean think about it like a human being, not a computer or something. i'm "not technically male" because i've got xx chromosomes the same way i'm "not technically human" because when you think about it i'm really just atoms. "but it's not the same" you say "being male and have xx chromosomes are mutually exclusive, being a human and being atoms are not." kay why? everything has meaning because of what people ascribe to it. why is being a human a meaningful distinction from being a clump of atoms? why are my chromosomes meaningful when they will never do anything in my life? why am i not a male when the whole world's perception of me is colored by the gender they see me as and vice versa? but those chromosomes will never be on anyone's mind unless they are a bigot (or i guess a geneticist if i ever need one for some strange reason)

kay, this is a lot, this is so much. this is a huge conversation with a lot, a LOT of ground, especially at 4:30 am and i haven't slept. especially publicly. it's not easy to put me on the spot and be like "defend your right to be seen as how you perceive yourself." i can give you a lot of answers that are backed politically, sociologically, and scientifically--and maybe i will a little later, but that's really hard right now because that's so much to parse--but the shortest and possibly the best answer because it's the nice thing to do is to just take trans people's understanding of ourselves at our word. i know i'm not the nicest person, i often wish i was a lot nicer than i am. it can be very difficult to be kind to people when life is so frustrating and complicated. but being skeptical of trans people because you personally don't understand it is a particular cruelness. why am i a man? because i can look in the mirror and say, and KNOW, "i am happier with the word perceiving me as a man" and no, mysterious stranger, by that i don't mean "i would be happier if i didn't experience sexism or have periods" because unfortunately, i still do experience sexism, and while i don't really have periods, i do get dysphoric. i am happier being CALLED a man, i am happier being given a man's name by my mom, i am happier having changed that name legally, i am happier with a little "m" on my driver's license, i am happier with a family where every single person who i see regularly respects my gender--calls me their brother, their son, their grandson, their nephew. i am not in a relationship but i would be happy to be called a boyfriend or a husband. i am happy considering myself a part of the mlm community. and for every single one of those things i would be miserable to have it any other way. i lived that life. i know which side makes me happier. it's very easy for me to see that i am a trans man, and it's something a cis person would never understand. but i don't understand what it's like to experience a lot of things. doesn't mean i have any right to be skeptical those experiences exist. again, the parallels to other bigotry are inescapable. mras will say misogyny isn't real because they don't know what it's like to experience it. lack if empathy is not a valid argument

i am trying to wrap this up so i'll just end it on one more thing: i hope i've given you something to think about, but if you don't change your mind, that won't mean i'm wrong. i never claimed to be the best debater in the first place, but in any case, i watch a lot of leftubers, a lot of debunking anti-sjw vids, a lot of prageru debunking vids, etc etc. i've seen the insane levels of gish galloping some leftists have tasked themselves with debunking for a fucking job. i know that 99.9% of the time it falls on deaf ears. it sucks. maybe this huge wall of text will be another one to fall on deaf ears. maybe it won't. but for now if i still haven't convinced you i would at least like to ask that you watch some leftubers. pretty much any leftuber. there's loads of great ones. some controversial ones but i like a lot of them too. pretty much all of them, from the feminists to the marxists to the anarchists, are all pro trans. being anti trans is pretty out of fashion for all but two groups of people: right wingers and terfs. like, if i made a comprehensive list of everyone with public opinions on trans people you'd see a lot more dogshit on the transphobe side than the ally side. you ever think it's maybe not a good thing if right wingers are doing it?

i hope this brick shithouse of a post finds you well. try not to be an asshole in the future. peace ✌

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taetaesbaebaepsae · 4 years

Text

Astrology Compatibility (MX)

for @nightofthehunternoalibi with Hyungwon and Wonho! These were both really fun to do!

Hyungwon

Your sun signs in Gemini and Capricorn would likely make you initially think this won’t be a good match. You might find him a bit standoffish for your tastes, but if you actually get to know each other, your moon signs in Scorpio and Pisces are actually considered among the most compatible in the zodiac, a soulmate pairing. So after a few conversations and a few pitfalls, the two of you would have a meaningful and very sweet connection.This wouldn’t be an instant attraction, though, but more of a slow burn. It could even be an enemies to lovers, you feeling like he doesn’t like you at all because of how quiet he is but in reality he’s a bit enamored with how you jump from subject to subject and how you challenge him. However, when I get to his Venus sign, you’ll see that’s the only way this pair could last, anyway.

Your mercury in Cancer and his in Aquarius will often butt heads - again, at first. This compatibility is really interesting because it’s kind of a push and pull - a back and forth that has the potential to slow burn into something really wonderful and meaningful. Mercury is your communication placement, so you’re probably pretty sensitive in conversations, maybe having a hard time expressing yourself without focusing on your emotions, whereas his Aquarius is the opposite but just as sensitive. He’ll be curious to know what makes you tick, though, and want to find out how to communicate better, although convincing him that maybe he’s not right in an argument could be a Herculean task.

Your Venus signs also confirm that push and pull, with yours in assertive Aries and his in steadfast Capricorn. You’ll be the one pursuing him, and he’ll be more wary, wanting to make sure he’s got the right match before making a move. You’re even likely to make the first move sexually, which he’ll absolutely love. Aries can be too aggressive for Capricorns, but I don’t think so in this case, because given your other signs, you won’t get to the point of courtship until you’ve already gotten to know each other.

This is doubly so with your Mars signs, with your fire sign Leo and his again in Capricorn, you’ll do a lot of the initiating in the bedroom even though he has a bit of a dominant personality, given all this Capricorn. Capricorns are also curious, though, and he’ll be down for just about anything you are. When you argue, you’ll do the talking and he’ll listen, and you might be frustrated with how long it takes him to understand your problems. He’s likely to be more actions than words, pulling you into a hug or taking your hand rather than saying sorry, and Leo Mars will love that, as they tend to be really comforted by touch and attention more than words.

I was a bit surprised to see Hyungwon’s Aries Lilith placement, given how he is onstage. This is a very assertive, aggressive, dominant placement, so he might flip things on your Leo Mars and take the reins a lot, Aries being down for almost anything as long as you let them be on top once in a while. Your Pisces Lilith is also surprising given your more dominant fire placements, so at the end of the day, you’ll love this aspect of each other, because Pisces inherently wants to be taken care of and dominated.

Overall, this is the enemies to friends to lovers with fire sex pair of everyone’s rom com dreams.

Wonho

You and Wonho have a similar bumpy first attraction - Your Gemini and his Pisces won’t quite understand each other at first. Gemini is bubbly and talkative while Pisces can be a bit shy and reserved, at least at first meeting. Gemini’s tend to say what’s on their mind for the most part, and Pisces is a bit sensitive and might get his feelings hurt. However, given your moon signs in Scorpio and Taurus, you would have an almost instant physical attraction. Scorpio and Taurus are the two most sensual signs and have a deep need to be physically attracted to their partners first and foremost. This is a pairing that’s likely to hook up before they know each other well, and then have a bit of a bumpy ride.

Your Mercury in Cancer and his in Pisces is a perfect match, you are both sensitive to the words the other says, and each of you understand each other on a deeper level, both being water signs. He might be a bit more flighty than you are, you’re set on your goals and what you want to accomplish in a conversation whereas he might flip flop on opinions a bit, but overall this is a very compatible communication.

You share a Venus in Aries and WOW does this double that instant attraction your moon signs have. When I said you’re likely to hook up first? Absolutely. When you both feel that attraction that you have because of your moon signs, it’s ON. You’ll pursue each other relentlessly, and thus will always both feel wanted and needed by the other. Aries Venus is also extremely honest about their feelings, and neither of you are thin skinned about romance. Think fun dates, both of you knowing exactly what you want to do and where to go.

In astrology, your Leo mars represents the sun while his Cancer Mars represents the moon. They’re considered the king and queen of the zodiac, and so this pairing in terms of arguments means that you’ll likely argue like an old married couple. It also means you’ll be sexually compatible, comfortable with each other, have a good handle on what the other wants and needs.

You share a Lilith Pisces, which only furthers the sexual attraction and compatibility you two share. Pisces inherently knows what the other wants sexually and emotionally, and together you’ll have some of the most satisfying sexual experiences either of you have ever had.

I don’t normally mention Nodes in compatibility, but I think it’s interesting that you two share a north node in Sagittarius. What this means is that you both strive to want adventure in love and life, want to travel the world or try things you’ve never tried. You’ll each have a wanderlust and a need to keep stimulated, and this will only make your relationship better.

#monsta x astrology #chae hyungwon #lee hoseok #wonho #hyungwon #mx #monsta x #kpop astrology #wonho mx #hyungwon mx #astrology commission

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blu-joons · 4 years

Text

Dating Mark Tuan ~ GOT7 Headcanon

Getting Together:

He had been excited all night to walk over and introduce himself to you

His eyes had been on you since the moment you walked into the restaurant with your friends

With the help of boys, he introduced himself with the perfect line, complimented by his smile

It didn’t take long before you’d agreed to go on a date with him – what did you have to lose?

There was something about you that brought out a confident, louder side to him

You try to make him laugh as often as possible as you love the sound from the get-go

Very romantic but simple first date, he wants to keep the conversation flowing

A date night by the Han River was exactly what the two of you would enjoy, the scenery and the company

Tends to be quite handsy, he’s always touching against your leg or your shoulder

He’s not been on many first dates, but he knows he’s excelled himself with this one

Even the boys were very quick to notice just how happy he was to be dating you

Most nights he’ll ring you with Milo by his side just to check in on you

It’s impossible for you not to fall for him a little more knowing he has Milo too

It wasn’t long before your dates began to include Milo, adventuring more around the city with each other

Even his family were made aware of you pretty soon, mama tuan could tell very quickly that something had made her son very happy indeed

He was in no rush to make things official; he wanted to take his time and make sure you worked at a pace that was good for you

Your first kiss was something to never be forgotten, a few dates in Mark arranged a romantic night for it all

He’d decked his apartment out with plenty of things to make your evening cosy and homely

One night as the two of you finished a walk, he stopped you, taking a hold of your hand in his

Milo was barking to carry on walking, but for once, all his attention was on you

Instantly you knew that something was going on as you noticed the fear in his eyes

Feeling the squeeze of your hand in his gave him the confidence to finally say what he wanted to say

“I can’t really remember what my life was like before you came into it, which is why I felt like now would be the right time to ask you to be my girlfriend?”

Seeing how nervous he was, you thought you’d play around with him, taking a while to respond

“I’d love to be yours Mark, and Milo’s of course, too.”

He brought you back to his place that night so the three of you could stay together

There’s was no way he was going to let you be alone on the night he’d finally made you his

His arms were firmly wrapped around you whilst Milo laid at the foot of the bed between you both

A lot of little kisses were shared that night as the excitable side of Mark came back out

Being In A Relationship:

Behind closed doors Mark was very affectionate and cuddly with you

He’d always be laughing when you were around, which would always make you chuckle too

Best of all he loved that finally the jokes had stopped with the boys that he was getting old and needed to settle down

Any day when he doesn’t get to see you, he rings you, that tradition never goes away

A lot of late nights, that’s when he likes to talk to you most about how he’s feeling

Usually these times are spent with his hands running through your hair, it always helps him to relax with you

Not many people expected it, but Mark is very romantic, he’s been brought up old school, the perfect gentleman

Whenever he’s writing he likes to have you with him for when he’s searching for that little bit of inspiration

It’s pretty clear to everyone that his soft raps are written about you and how you make him feel

But when it comes to talking openly, he’s a lot more reluctant, he likes to keep a lot of the two of you private

His tracksuits very quickly became sharable, you were always stealing his jumpers when he wasn’t wearing one

It’s often how fans notice you when you creep around his streams trying not to interrupt his games

Speaking of games, Mark gets a great deal of satisfaction out of teaching you how to game, sitting you down in his lap and showing you the controls

But don’t ever talk about the one time you beat him, to this day he refuses to acknowledge that it actually happened

Most of your nights can be found in his gaming room, where you’re often restricted to the sofa

You’ll always be a part of his family group chats; they want to see you in every single call

Even though you were yet to meet Mark’s family, you very quickly felt like you were a part of it

Cuddly sleepy Mark is also one of your favourite things, when he holds you tightly at night to keep you safe

He loves adventuring and finding thrill seeking activities so be prepared to do a lot of fun and wild things with him

Behind your back he’s always finding something fun for the two of you to do

The first time he took you to meet his family was an overwhelming experience, but luckily, they all quickly fell in love with you

Whenever he’s away on tour he’ll find ways for you to join him, or for him to go back home, even if it is for a couple of hours

And we know how quick he is to leave the studio so prepare for him coming home earlier than you expect him to most nights

His home is filled with lots of photos, to begin it was just his family, but now there are many of you too

He enjoyed watching his home to change to suit you more and become a place for the two of you

If you’re sick, he’ll have you at his home and laid in his bed until he decides that you’re better

If a day off of work is what it takes to get you better, then he’ll do it in a heartbeat

He’ll always be the one to drive you around, showing off that he’s got a tier 1 license

Most mornings it’s a mission to find your makeup bag as Mark loves to hide it and keep you natural, his favourite look on you

If he’s really bored, he’ll help you with your hair, curling, straightening, whatever you want him to do, he’ll give it a try

He can’t promise it will end well, but it’s the thought that counts right?

Whenever your name is brought up in an interview, he turns shy and coy leaving the boys to speak up for him

There’s not much that he shares, but he makes it clear to everyone he’s in love

So in love he decided to get you to help him pick out his next tattoo as he trusted your judgement

When the fans spotted it for the first time, they fell in love with you even more seeing how much you meant to Mark

He didn’t tell you often about the way he felt about you, but on those nights when he’d had a drink or two it was impossible to shut him up

It could be three in the morning, yet he’d still tell you how he’d never met someone like you

He’d always remind you how beautiful you were, especially when you least expected it

After a long day Mark always knew the way to cheer you up and make you smile

He’ll lay back and let you play with his hair whilst you talk off your problems

That was until Milo decided he needed your attention more than Mark did and started climbing all over you

He often calls you, ‘mummy,’ to Milo knowing there’s no chance you’ll be going anywhere

From the start he’s pretty transparent about the fact he can see a future with you

Slowly he stands back and happily watches his life revolve around you more and more

And he always makes sure to show you with actions and words how special you are

Affection/Skinship:

Prepare to cuddle Mark for most of your days to keep him at his happiest

Depending on his mood he’ll either be the big spoon or little spoon

In public he tends to just hold your hand so that he knows you’re still right by his side

If he’s feeling down or needy, he’ll sneak a few kisses to make sure you know that he wants attention

He’s a very attentive lover, he’s good at reading people and knowing what they want

Somehow, he always knows what you need and what can make you feel good

More often than not he’ll be the dominant one, but if you want to be dom, he’ll happily sub

If he’s feeling low or exhausted, he’ll happily let you be the one to put in most of the work

Don’t expect him to be too vocal in the bedroom, but he’ll always let you know when you’re hitting the right spot

He loves the intimacy of sex and holding your body as close to his as possible

Cuddly Mark peaks after sex, he refuses to let you go, even for just a few moments

He’ll often be much more vocal too, he’s full of praise and admiration for you

The two of you are equals when it comes to sex, both of you are happy to give and receive to keep each other happy

He’s very much a boob man though so prepare for his hands to often be around your chest

When he’s getting close, he’ll keep his hands against your cheeks so that he can kiss you through his high

He loves it when you play with his hair, especially when he’s working down on you

Whenever the two of you are intimate it’s a massive turn on for him to see the effect, he’s having on you

He likes to keep sex for the bedroom where the two of you are most vulnerable and romantic with each other

It’s a meaningful thing, don’t go expecting too many quickies, Mark enjoys taking his time with you

Arguments:

It’s well known that at times Mark can have quite the temper on him, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys arguing with you

He tries his hardest to keep himself calm and not kick off

As soon as the two of you argue he’s full of remorse, for some reason he just can’t stay mad at you

Time is a great healer for the two of you after an argument, giving each other plenty of space

Mark will usually be the one to step away first when he can feel him getting frustrated, so he doesn’t take too much out on you

But as soon as he comes back to you, he’s quick to apologise and work things through

He’s not great at being open with his feelings which is where most of your triggers lie as you try to figure out what he’s thinking

It’s something he works hard to improve upon to make your relationship a lot healthier, but it doesn’t mean it always happens

As the two of you worked through your argument did Mark finally tell you how he felt so that you could understand him

Yet it did take a lot for the two of you to start an argument as you were often so relaxed with each other

You’d been known to spend days apart during some of your biggest arguments to work things through

A lot of what was said would stick with Mark as he realised the terrible things, he said to you

Both of you knew what happened in the heat of the moment, and afterwards forgive each other

He’d never take his argument to work though, these were things privately that the two of you worked through

The boys knew he had a temper on him too, so when they sensed something had happened, they’d try and step in

The younger members would check on you, whilst the older members would talk to Mark about what was going on

Ultimately you knew it was his schedule that took the most out of him and made him struggle

Which was why you’d always spend time after an argument relaxing and calming yourselves down again

Your Relationship With The Boys:

Just like Mark you were quite quiet around the boys at the start as you figured them out

But they very quickly warmed to you seeing how happy you made their eldest member

Jinyoung was the first member you grew close to as he’d often check on you and take care of you

Similarly, JB tried hard to bring you out of your shell and integrate you into the group

Yugyeom would always do the same, including you in all his jokes and pranks

Seeing how much time Milo and Coco spent together, you and Youngjae soon bonded over animals and your other interests

BamBam always made time for you too, if you wanted to meet for coffee or talk to a fresh face, he was always there

And finally, Jackson, as reluctant as he was to let Markson go, he knew you were the perfect replacement

They all made you feel so welcome and treated you as if you really were a part of Got7

Plus it gave them something new to tease Mark about, when he was going to put a ring on it

The Future:

When it came to putting a ring on it Mark was in absolutely no rush

But one thing he did know was that he wanted his family and future to be with you

Already having his nieces he was desperate for kids, and seeing how well you bonded with them only made him more desperate for a family

As the group began to break and the Korean members started entering the military, Mark decided it would be the ideal time to settle down whilst work was less busy

But nothing important happened for the two of you until all seven members were together and able to bask in your love

No words could ever truly tell you how appreciative he was to have found you

Masterlist

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