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callmerainman · 3 months

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Alastor with a pure hearted s/o

a/n I'm fully aware that Alastor is aroace. My scenarios are meant to be interpreted as a deep, unconditional love, not necessarily romantic. I'm not aroace but I'm all for educating myself, so please if something's off let me (gently) know. Hope you enjoy :)

TW! canon typical violence

being a twisted person is not a requirement to reincarnate in Hell. Sins depend on religion, culture, societal norms. You were more of a victim, in fact.

you never got used to being in Hell. Surviving not only the Extermination but also the inhabitants becomes harder and harder every year.

it's kill or be killed, but you just can't bring yourself to do any harm to anyone, even if it means risking your own life.

as soon as you hear about princess Charlie Morningstar's new hotel for souls who want a second chance, your bags are PACKED

it's not like you really need redemption, you are pure hearted already. it's more a matter of understanding the reasons why you ended in Hell and coming to terms with them. maybe then the gates of Heaven would open for you. it's also a safer place for you to be.

Charlie welcomes you excitedly; Angel Dust, Husk and Vaggie aren't that friendly at first since your personalities don't match, but they eventually grow fond of you

and then there's, well...the Radio Demon.

you never met an Overlord before, and Alastor was supposed to be gone for years. But his presence wasn't frightening. A big smile spread across his face, he welcomed you like a gentleman.

you heard stories about his lifestyle and even previous murderous acts as a human, but for some reason you just can't bring yourself to fear him.

at first you were kinda pathetic to him. so naive, out of touch with the evils of Hell. he didn't dislike you. just thought your life was so easy to throw away in a society like that and that you wouldn't last long.

it seems like you two don't have much to share. he just wanders in his den, while you spend time in your room. you greet each other and have small talks, but nothing more than that. that's until he hears jazz music play behind your door.

he mentions it during dinner, and you start talking about your interest in 30s jazz music, especially the one of the Roaring 20s. you come from a later era, but you're very much cultured about jazz and its forms and that's enough for Alastor to develop an interest in you.

he has so many jazz artists recommendations, and you share some of your favourite pieces with him through your gramophone.

without even noticing, Alastor starts spending hours in your room just listening to music. some time even practicing swing dancing. and talking about jazz culture all around the world, and entertainment in general. he has many fun facts about the history of radio too!

the others at the hotel notice your growing bond and low-key support it, in their own, weird way. Angel Dust is especially convinced that you two are hooking up, as Husk not-so-kindly explains that it's more likely for Alastor to ascend to Heaven than express interest in sex.

you would start to open yourself up a bit to the Radio Demon. he doesn't understand why, since it didn't ask or never showed much empathy. but he just can't bring himself to tell you to stop. he wants to listen.

you manage to make him talk about some glimpses of his own life and thoughts. you knew that he was the complete opposite of you. incline to Evil, an enjoyer of all things that made your stomach clench. but he's still the one person who spends hours with you just listening to both jazz and your fears.

one day, Alastor decided that in no way you are walking around the city without him. it's just too dangerous for you. he tries to teach you how to use weapons and demonic powers to defend yourself but he doesn't feel like you can make it into Hell by yourself.

you like strolling through the streets with him, arms intertwined, chatting and laughing even if demons around you are shitting their pants just by seeing the Overlord walking around.

but one day, Alastor can't find you.

you're not in your room, or in the Hotel hall. No one saw you that morning. He starts to feel something he never felt in his life: fear.

he darts out the Hotel, trying to find you. that's when he sees you just a few streets away.

a group of animal-like demons is encircling you. you are on your knees, arms over your head to protect yourself. A lion-demon is holding a knife over you and your arms are covered in cuts. you hold something close to your stomach.

that's when Alastor realized that he had feelings for you.

when he threw himself between you and the demons attacking you.

it's the first time you see Alastor without a smile. his teeth are gritted, face full of unprecedented violence and will to kill, breathing heavily in and out in a sort of animalistic way, but there's no trace of his characteristic smile you love.

his body starts to morph into his full demon form. his horns grow exponentially, his body too as it hovers menacingly on top of your aggressors as they start to feel a pure fear they never felt before.

in a matter of a second, they are gone. Alastor has always been a calculated, elegant killer, but this time he only felt a raw, ferocious instinct to kill.

as he's done, he turns around towards you. he doesn't want to, but he snaps.

"W̶̞̐H̷̻͒Y̷̰̅ ̶̠͛D̸͕́I̸͔̍D̴̿͜ ̷̯̇Y̶̭͌Ỏ̴̬U̵̖̍ ̷̛͎Ģ̷̕O̸̩͑ ̷̹̈́O̶̮͆U̸͍̇T̴̙͆ ̷̧̀W̴͓̅I̷̞͑T̸̗͒H̴̹͒O̴̺̓Ṷ̵̂T̵̺̚ ̵̢́M̴̜̅E̶̬̋?̸̻͋!̸̦͂"

you flinch, you never saw Alastor lose his composure. he was always so calm and collected. his voice was static, choppy.

the tears that were cornering your eyes start streaming down your face "I-I..."

"Ţ̶̈Ḧ̴͙́Ė̵̩Ỳ̷̳ ̷̳̒Ã̸̡L̷̛͚M̶͇̚O̸͈̔S̴̜̎T̸͚̊ ̷̤͝K̷͊͜I̵̺͝L̵͚̎L̴̤̆Ẽ̴͖D̶͍̈́ ̵̻͝Y̵̰̑O̸̜͘Ù̶͍!̵̻͝ ̸͓̾D̴̯͒O̶̅͜Ṉ̶̌'̷̹͒T̵͎͋ ̶̺́Y̴̹͂O̶͍̅U̴̘͌ ̵̘̾Û̷̪N̸̩̊D̵͎̋Ȅ̴͜R̵̮͂S̸̰̄T̸̝̅A̵͓͘N̷̩͂Ḏ̴̀?̵̗̍!̸̭̎"

suddenly, your bleeding arms fall from your head. you expose what you've been protecting all along.

a vinyl, a really old record from Alastor's favourite jazz artist. a rare find.

"I-I know but...tomorrow it's your death anniversary and I wanted to give this to you...as a surprise. I'm sorry"

Alastor's face immediately softens. Eyebrows raised, smile still not seen. He's just surprised and...moved.

He doesn't say anything, he just picks you up in his arms and takes you back to the Hotel where he bandages your arms.

Feeling guilty for putting yourself in danger, you ask Alastor to come to your room in order to apologize to him.

As he closes the door behind him, he says that there's no need to apologize.

"I'm...glad that you are still in your room. Listening to jazz, alive"

words didn't come easy, but he did feel the need to say it. you smile at him.

you propose to put his gift on the gramophone and so you do. music starts to flow between the small space you shared with the Radio Demon.

that's when you and Alastor start slow dancing. his arms around your waist, yours encircling his neck. his smile is back, but soft and...almost loving.

with his silent agreement, you reach for his cheek and graze it.

"Thank you for saving me, Alastor. Even if you are everything I distance myself from in this life...I'm glad you are the person that you are with me. In my next life, I'll make sure to be a sinner again if it means dancing with you like this"

Alastor now understands his feelings. It's something deeper than care. It's love. But not the same love you reserve to a friend and not even romantic. It's something deeper, more visceral.

He doesn't answer, just closes his eyes and leans in to press his forehead against yours.

you later fall asleep on your bed to the quiet sound of the gramophone playing, hands intertwined on Alastor's chest.

#alastor #alastor the radio demon #radio demon #hazbin hotel #vivziepop #alastor x reader #alastor x reader headcanons #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor fanfiction #writers on tumblr #headcanons #hazbin hotel fanfiction

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jessicalprice · 7 months

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I think the thing that most Christian atheists who are rebelling against authoritarian Christian backgrounds don't get is why Jews remain Jewish.

Like, I get it, you engaged in your practices because you were told that God would punish you if you didn't, because you're told you're supposed to fear God.

(Incidentally, we don't even use the same language about this. The term that gets translated in most English bibles as "fear" is, like many classical Hebrew words, a lot more multivalent than the English term, and has more of a connotation of "awe." (See, for example, the Gilgamesh dream sequence: "Why am I trembling? No god passed this way." A god is something in whose wake one trembles.) It's what one feels when one is faced with something bigger than oneself, something overwhelming. For some people that may be fear of being harmed. For others it may be wonder or even ecstasy, standing outside oneself.)

But in 2023, Jews have the option (and, indeed, still the cultural pressure) to completely abandon Judaism. Very easily. We can, in fact, do it quite passively. If we're not actively trying to engage with it, it will very much drift away from us.

And it's not fear of divine punishment keeping most of us engaged.

The thing is, if you proved to me tomorrow that God doesn't exist, I'm not sure anything about my life or my practice would change. (I'm already agnostic, so *shrug*. I don't believe in a God-person. Sometimes I believe in a unity to reality, a life and a direction to it. Sometimes I don't. I just don't have the arrogance to think I understand definitively the way the universe does or doesn't work.) I still would celebrate Shabbat, I still wouldn't eat pork, I still would have a mezuzah on my doorway.

I do all that stuff because I'm Jewish, not because I think God will get mad if I don't. I do all that stuff because it's part of a cultural system that I see as wise and life-giving and therapeutic and worth maintaining.

And the thing is, the cultural system that Christian antitheists want us to assimilate into, under the guise of "getting rid of religion", is very much a white Protestant culture. It's not culturally neutral. It has practices, and it has a particular worldview, and it has cultural norms that are just as irrational as any other culture's.

It's also very telling that Christian antitheists purport to be harmed by Jews continuing to be Jewish. Why? We don't impose our norms on anyone else, and we overwhelmingly vote (and organize, and engage in activism) against the imposition of Christian "religious" norms, such as the curtailing of reproductive freedom, blue laws, etc.

So you're only "harmed" by our continued existence in the same way Christians purport to be harmed by it: by claiming that the very existence of a group that doesn't share your worldview and practices is somehow an act of oppression against you.

Which is, you know, white supremacist logic.

You're still upholding the logic of Jesus's genocidal, colonial Great Commission even though you supposedly don't believe in the god that ordered it anymore.

That's gotta be one of the saddest things I encounter among my fellow humans.

You took down all the crosses in the church of your mind and chucked them out the window, but you still refuse to step foot outside the church building, contenting yourself with claiming it's not a church, and firing out the windows at the synagogue and mosque down the road, the same way you used to.

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familyabolisher · 5 months

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you said that you don’t take lines of questioning / thought about “romanticizing” dark topics (SA, incest, etc.) seriously. would you mind elaborating on that? what does it mean, if anything, to romanticize? i think i get why it’s a fundamentally reactionary (or just silly?) thing to be concerned about, but would you mind elaborating on why?

thanks! your posts have been very illuminating on this sort of thing.

okay so let's talk about "romanticise" as a literary discourse for a second because there are a handful of things happening with its usage:

is the assumption that there exists a state of non-'romantic' discursive matter from which something 'romantic' is being created, and the content of the text in question is the process by which that creation is happening;

is the use of 'romantic' to describe something that appears to the viewer as desirable and attractive, thus obscuring the ways in which it is harmful/abusive/violent/&c.;

is the idea that this 'romantic' state represents something morally odious due to the ideas it might impress upon the audience about the nature of the discursive matter made 'romantic' in question.

i think it's worth breaking each of these assumptions down because i don't believe that any of them actually hold water, and i find that they in fact telegraph some pretty reactionary paradigms around literary criticism.

first is the idea that there exists discursive matter that is not "romantic," here to mean suffused with cultural narratives that render it desirable, and that the matter in question only takes on these desirable qualities after undergoing this process of "romanticisation." by this logic, the matter is in fact prediscursive; the onus of constructing a “romantic” discourse lies solely with the cultural response. when in practice, normative cultural assumptions and the media that interacts with them exist in a feedback loop relative to one another, and it surely makes more productive sense to engage with the apparently objectionable material not as an object that creates or even necessarily reifies a normative cultural standard, but that interfaces with that standard in what could potentially be any number of variant forms. this widens the scope of our response as an audience—we might well say that a depiction of XYZ was tasteless, clichéd, voyeuristic, lacked interest in the interiority of its subjects, &c. &c., just as easily as we might say that it engaged with extant cultural narratives in compelling, thoughtful, meaningful ways. we're not taking the cultural object as the didactic “creation” of a social norm—we're situating it within the norms from which it already emerged.

the second is the idea that this ‘romantic,’ aesthetically desirable construction must necessarily obscure the ways in which the subject matter is harmful (however we define ‘harmful’). i find this position v condescending, towards creator and audience alike—one way of crafting horror that can be really exceptional when done right is the total sealing-off of the narrative from any didactic intervention, any suggestion that what's being depicted is morally “wrong.” the dissonance between subject matter and audience—and/or between subject matter and creator—can be brilliant when you can have faith that that dissonance exists. audiences aren't little babies who learn our morals from our media; we're prepared to critically engage with and respond to a discourse presented to us. as i said above, doing away with this whole “romantic” sheen as an obfuscator of violence opens us up to new, more precise, more compelling readings.

the third – and imo, the most damnatory – is the suggestion that the narrative itself represents a potential site of harm due to the underlying ideology that it imposes on those who engage with it. like, we're still adopting this approach whereby we construct and engage with narratives for instructive purposes; if we see a depiction of sexual abuse that renders the abuse pleasurable, aesthetically pleasing, desirable, then we absorb this idea that sexual abuse is pleasurable and aesthetically pleasing and desirable and thus covet the position of the subject in question. i don't think this is necessarily true! i'm obviously not suggesting that we don't absorb and reproduce our cultural narratives in media – as i said in the first point, there exists a feedback loop between the two – but i think we as audiences and critics ought to think more highly of ourselves than to imagine that we are incapable of seeing some fucked up shit given an aesthetic gloss without asking why the aesthetic gloss is being used, how the creator is making use of perspective, how we might respond to it, etc. and i just don't think narratives ought to be instructive or didactic; nor do i think creators bear responsibility for how their work is received to the extent that they are obliged to orient their discourse towards a presumed impressionable individual for whom every action or aesthetic contrivance is a categorical imperative. this is the oldest and honestly the most boring debate in the book; the question of "moralism" in fiction has been done half to death by now, and i don't see any use in rehashing it to any significant extent. suffice it to say that the “moralist” approach is stultified and limited and intellectually dull.

note that nowhere in this did i say that there are never narratives that ought to be called into question for their depiction of X, Y, or Z; just that i think we need better, more precise language to defer to do when we do so. simply put, i think it's possible to make a piece of art that holds these “romantic” qualities, and doesn't have a guy walk in midway through and go “by the way, abuse is Bad/age gaps are Problematic/mental illness is Unsexy,” &c., and still greatly compel me wrt its subject matter. & that is a statement which exists in straightforward contradiction to the idea that the term “romanticise” communicates anything necessarily and inherently condemnatory about a text, so, i don't use it.

#ask

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bioethicists · 10 months

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beer killed my father . he had a disease which destroyed his body and strained his relationships with his wife, his friends, and his children. Alcohol destroys everything it touches, theres a reason you see so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods. don’t be fucking obtuse. Prohibition obviously doesn’t work, but I wish alcohol was taxed higher. And i want the CEO of Heineken on the guillotine right after Jeff Bezos.

before anything, i want to let you know that i am incredibly sorry about your father. alcohol has decimated entire generations of my family, played a crucial role in the neglectful family structure i spent the first 19 years of my life suffering under, + played a minor but not insignificant role in my brother's death. i would never undermine or dismiss that in anyone.

i used to feel very similarly to you, in large part because my mother is a recovering alcoholic who raised me to believe that alcohol is a magic poison which turns people into monsters + i, being her child, probably inherited a disease which would also turn me into a monster if i chose to drink. it's a deeply painful + understandable response to the pain that alcohol can cause.

my first question is, does alcohol really "destroy everything it touches"? are there not millions of people who engage with alcohol, in varying degrees of recreational use, who experience minimal or no negative impacts? or do you believe that everyone who drinks alcohol in any capacity is experiencing severe destruction in their lives as a result? does the existence of people for whom alcohol enriches their lives (or is a neutral presence) at all invalidate your experience, or your father's?

my second question is, you've identified that there are 'so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods' (i would add there is a lot of alcohol in rich neighborhoods, just distributed in less stigmatized ways, like boutique wineries + fancy bars), do you think that companies are strategically attempting to create alcohol dependencies among poor people, or do you think that poverty creates the pain, hopelessness, + desperation which can fuel an alcohol habit (which is then exacerbated by intergenerational trauma + community alcohol culture).

i feel no allegiance to liquor companies- they absolutely do make the bulk of their profits off of people who are drinking in a way that is destroying their lives (unsure if i trust the exact scope of the research in that link but i trust the gist). however, liquor companies love the disease model, because it exempts them from responsibility. if alcoholism is truly a genetic disease, then liquor companies, bars, package stores hold no fault in the development of destructive drinking habits + community norms (natasha Schüll discusses this in her book about gambling addiction)- the people were already sick + would be getting it somewhere else, anyway, right? but as you have correctly identified, liquor companies help create the structures which turn alcohol use into an accessible + normalized mode of self-destruction.

my third question is, will taxing liquor help the real problem? yes, it reduces alcohol consumption, but does it reduce addiction? or does it make cheapskates like me say "i'm not fucking paying for that" while individuals who consume alcohol compulsively either eat the cost or turn to more illicit ways of obtaining alcohol. or, rephrased, is the problem that alcohol is too accessible? is alcohol a magical poison which turns 'normal' people into 'alcoholics'? alternatively, is alcoholism a genetic condition, unrelated to any outside circumstances, which is triggered by drinking?

or: is alcoholism one of many ways in which people who are experiencing hopelessness, pain, grief, poverty, trauma, etc use to numb themselves, harm themselves, + make life feel more bearable? at this point, i do believe there is at least a temperament factor which makes people more likely to use substances over other forms of escape (hence why my brother used substances while i turned to anorexia + do not struggle with substance use). are we actually addressing the problem if we make it more expensive (thus, mind you, further impoverishing people with alcohol addictions!)? or are we shifting the pain these people are experiencing to either other avenues (opioids, other drugs, totally different ways of coping which are often just as destructive) or an unregulated, underground alcohol market.

the way you are viewing alcohol, alcohol is a unique substance which is manufacturing or feeding illness in people in order to make them behave in ways which destroy their lives + the lives of others. the way i am viewing it, alcohol is a presence which can fill a void that is being created in people's lives as a response to structural, communal, or social suffering. when alcohol is painted as the cause of this pain, we are able to look the other way from a which world is structured to cause an immense amount of people to suffer needlessly. at the same time, the common sense observation that many of us engage with alcohol in ways which do not destroy our lives, as well as the knowledge that prohibition does not work, prevents the erasure of alcohol from public or private life.

who benefits from the belief that alcohol is a uniquely corrupting substance? what lessons did we actually learn from prohibition- is trying to do it to a lesser degree (make alcohol less accessible) actually going to do anything? when the price of opioids went up due to dea crackdowns, did people stop buying opioids or did the market flood with cheap + deadly fentanyl? is the problem that people are drinking or that they are suffering?

#substance use #harm reduction #drugs //#alcohol //#death //

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genderkoolaid · 6 months

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Intro to Anti-transmasculinity (ATM)

(also ft. an about me section)

Defining ATM:

Anti-transmasculinity refers to the systematic oppression of transmasculinity. “Transmasculinity” refers to the concept of people seen as female having a masculine or manly gender or gender expression*. Other terms used for this are transandrophobia, transmisandry, and transmascphobia.

In 1963, feminist Betty Freidan described misogyny as “the problem with no name,” illustrating how at the time, women’s language to understand, describe and communicate their oppression was underdeveloped. Anti-transmasculinity has been, similarly, a problem with no name; transmasculine people have not had the language or framework to understand, describe, and communicate our oppression. Transmasculinity suffers from erasure, often called “invisibility”. This does not protect transmasculine people from violence; it silences us to prevent us from speaking out against, or realizing, the violence done to us. It alienates us from our history, our brothers, siblings and sisters, and ourselves, by preventing transmasculinity from being seen, heard, discussed, or considered. For more posts of mine and others that help expand on the theory of anti-transmasculinity, see my #theory tag.

*This is not my definition of transmasculinity as an identity. This definition is for the form of transness targeted by transphobia, which is based around the idea of "female/woman trying to be male/a men." My definition of transmasculinity as an identity is any form of masculinity or manhood that is trans* in nature, regardless of presentation or assigned sex. I make this distinction because a GNC man assigned male could see his manhood as trans, but be targeted by transphobia based around the idea of a man trying to be a woman.

Who can be affected by ATM?:

Anyone can suffer from anti-transmasculinity, regardless of gender, sex or sexuality. Anti-transmasculine violence targets perceived transmasculinity, which means anyone perceived as transmasculine can be victimized. That is not the extent of how people are affected, though; people who perceive themselves to be transmasculine, consciously or unconsciously, or who have traits associated with transmasculinity can also be affected by witnessing anti-transmasculinity.

(TW: transphobic murder)

People who are associated with transmasculinity (such as partners, friends, and family of transmasculine people) can also be affected, not just through emotional pain but targeted for physical violence. As an example, Italian cis woman Maria Paola Gaglione was murdered by her brother to "teach her a lesson" after she got engaged to a trans man.

Who can be anti-transmasculine?:

Anyone can be anti-transmasculine, regardless of gender, sex, or sexuality. It is a systemic way of thinking that is spread throughout society and culture, and reproduces itself constantly in people's thoughts and actions.

Who benefits from anti-transmasculinity?:

In the grand scheme of things, everyone suffers from the restrictive nature of transphobia. However, in general, only cisgender, gender-conforming people systematically benefit from anti-transmasculinity. Other trans* people do not; trans* people do not systematically benefit from each other’s oppression.

* *trans is a way of writing “trans” that emphasizes it as a broad umbrella term inclusive of everyone who trangresses gender and sex norms

Is ATM caused by “misandry”?

In transunity theory, “misandry” is used to refer to the way that gender roles around manhood/masculinity are weaponized to harm marginalized people, (in this case) specifically trans* people; trans* people are viewed as having the worst traits of both masculinity and femininity, as well as the inherent negativity associated with androgyny. In this sense, anti-transmasculinity does involve misandry, as do anti-transfeminity* and exorsexism**. However, all of these also involve misogyny and misandrogyny***. Which one of these is more dominant varies between types of transphobia, as well as the individuals doing the violence and the ones experiencing it.

To quote this article, "Misandry [...] can never reliably be prevented from collapsing into transphobia."

*i use anti-transfemininity (ATF) as a companion to anti-transmasculinity, as an alternative to “transmisogyny.” This is because, as I explain, my philosophy on transphobia is that all transphobias are inherently misogynistic and all trans* people experience the intersection of misogyny. Additionally, transunity theory frames transphobia as being the intersection of many forms of gendered bigotry, so using the “anti-” terms lets me talk about these transphobias without having to specify it by only one kind (like -misogyny or -androphobia)

** exorsexism refers to oppression of people who violate the gender or sex binaries; it includes intersexism, but also oppression against non-binary people.

*** misandrogyny is the hatred of/bigotry against androgyny, a companion to misogyny and misandry. “androgyny” here refers to anything outside the exclusive male/female binary; examples of misandrogyny are violence done when someone cannot tell someone’s gender/sex, and the idea of nonbinary and genderqueer language as immature, annoying, and pointless, while binary language is considered mature, normal, and useful.

Evidence of ATM:

I have the tags #examples of transandrophobia and #experiences with transandrophobia; the first is posts showing transandrophobia in action, and the second is people describing the transandrophobia they have experienced or witnessed.

I also keep the Archive of Violence Against Trans*masculine People, which keeps a record of events of anti-transmasculine violence. This includes murder, rape, abuse, physical assault, harassment, and the suicides of transmasculine people. Also on this archive is a list of academic research & writing related to anti-transmasculinity; the studies provide more objective evidence of the systemic oppression transmasculine people face, and analyses which can help with understanding how anti-transmasculinity works.

You can also look at @transandrophobia-archive which collects examples of anti-transmasculine Tumblr posts.

Info on Me:

I’m genderqueer, transsexual, and a transvestite; I am a man and a woman and neither (all of which affect each other), and identify with both transmasc, transfem, and transother. I’m also aromantic + greysexual. My sexuality is everything everywhere all at once.

Originally this blog was just made for me to process and deal with my own internalized anti-transmasculinity, but then people liked what I wrote and now its a place where I talk about queer issues & related things I find important.

I’m multiply disabled (both physically and mentally) and I struggle with answering asks; if I don’t answer you for a while feel free to just send your ask again, I will not mind. Also feel free to ask me to explain anything in plain language if you have difficulty understanding something. I don’t mind educating people or helping people find resources, as long as you are respectful and are in good faith and all that.

I am going into philosophy and sociology with a focus on religion, and run @transtheology where I collect posts on trans-affirming spirituality and religion. If you have any questions or want advice related to transness and spirituality/religion (or madness & spirituality/religion) I’d love to help you the best I can.

If you would like to support me, here’s my kofi

Further Resources:

""Transandrophobia" Primer" by nothorses

"As a transfem, what's your insight on the way transmascs are treated when talking about their experiences?" by cipheramnesia

"This is just your regular free-of-charge reminder that when people argue that transandrophobia does not exist, or that its not important enough to talk about, they are explicitly saying they don't care about sexual assault victims or victims of suicide (among other things)" by nothorses

"Transandrophobia Posts Masterpost- 2022" by transgentlemanluke

Pinned post with links to discussions about transandrophobia, baeddelism, and other issues by nothorses

"What is transandophobia actually?" by transmasc-pirate, with additions by doberbutts and psychoticallytrans

"Transandrophobic Fundamentals and the Intersections of Trans Masc Marginalization" by none-gender-left-man

"Hello, I apologise if you've already received questions like this, but can you explain why you would say that transmisandry/androphobia is distinct from misogyny?" by transfaguette

"I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out." by Jennifer Coates

This conversation between doberbutts and folly-of-alexandria

Transandrophobia Explained carrd, by myself

Transmisogyny is not the intersection of transphobia and misogyny by luckyladylily

This post on misogyny, misandry, and transandrophobia by thorne1345

"tumblr can make fun of Blizzard’s Oppression Calculator all they want, that’s exactly how people act with discourse poisoned queer discussions" by cardentist

Invisible Men: FTMs and Homelessness in Toronto by the FTM Safer Shelter Project Research Team

On Hating Men (And Becoming One) by Noah Zazanis

There is a hidden epidemic of violence against transmasculine people by Orion Rodriguez

“Irl we just kiss”: ‘transmasc vs transfem’ discourse & reactionary ‘boys vs girls’ politics in trans spaces by S.L Void

Making Sense Out of the Murders of Trans Men by Mitch Kellaway

Collateral Damage: mathematical odds & the sum of survival. by S.L Void

Op-ed: Trans Men Experience Far More Violence Than Most People Assume by Loree Cook-Daniels

How the Criminalization of Testosterone Attacks Gender Variant People by Adryan Corcione

A Tale of a Trans Man in Pakistan by Ikra Javed

Not transmasc invisibility, but erasure: intricacies of transmasc invisibility, and the fallacies of strictly gendered transphobia by S.L Void

Girlboy Boygirl Blues: antitransmasculinity as a denial of individual history & more by S.L Void

The r/transandrophobia subreddit

#m.#finally a new pinned post #transandrophobia #transmisandry #anti transmasculinity #transunity #experiences with transandrophobia #examples of transandrophobia #theory #transmasc history #transmasc art #transmasc media

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calebwittebane · 10 months

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alright can i just say something.

can I just voice my opinion can I be heard. this post Bovvers Me. now i know this is a joke post. but in reality, in practice, as it has been released into the world, its a half-joke-post. it gained so much traction because people really do think like this and not for entirely self-deprecating ways--though that would be bad too. listen, when it comes to LESBIAN GAY BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER sex, being submissive is more readily accepted in the culture that is afraid of sexuality, because to a certain degree it appears to remove involvement and intent (which of course in reality it really doesnt, and the idea that it does has been used by predators to obscure abusive dynamics, but i digress). being dominant, being horny without guilt, initiating and "leading" the scene, it involves a level of earnesty that many people are scared of. it is Cringe to them even tough they crave it, but what they want is an oscar worthy performance that hits all the unspoken levels of subtleties and post-post-irony, done by someone without feelings or boundaries or different levels of comfort, who is just here to act out someone elses fantasy and leave. it is a dreary picture of gaysexhavers SO afraid of being earnest, so intent on needlessly judging and policing others all because they do it to themselves first and foremost. a pursuit of joy and understanding gets trampled over by the need to appease The Shame and The Voyeur and The Peer Judgment and to conform to norms even in privacy. the notion that its shameful to be horny, that wanting things is predatory, that youre making a mistake and committing a sin to even be doing this in the first place. the need to have someone to project anxieties and shame onto, the need to look at someones "right" to have a sexuality, unspoken social currency, self-policing. moreover, when a person is designated inherently less deserving of normal things like safely expressing desire, kept perpetually afraid of unknowingly becoming a predator due to some intrinsic quality of theirs, their boundaries are more easily trampled over and their safety is not as readily taken into consideration. not to mention that such pathologizing of agency and expression mirrors the same old dehumanizing patterns found in wider society, as it ends up harming those most marginalized within lgbt spaces--POC, especially Black people, trans women, very gnc people, disabled people, and so on.

TL;DR - people will think and talk like this and then be like "where are all the doms..." this and "no one wants to top..." that

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maquet591 · 6 days

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We need to talk about the Watcher "fans".

These are the top comments on Shane’s IG post. Just look at the number of likes.

“Steven Lim is a greedy, manipulative evil CEO that twists his white co-founder's hands and forces the said co-founder into his will!!!” – this narrative is being prevalent in this fandom since April 19. People harassed him all across social media on every platform. People wrote nasty comments not only to his social media accounts but also to his wife and friends.

People made a Change.org hilariously dumb petitions to have him leave the CEO post.

People gleefully demonize and tear down his reputation. Twist his words out of context in to something vile. Weaponize the years old inside jokes his friends made on camera.

“This is not racism!!!” they say. “These are just the facts!!!”

No they aren’t. And here’s why:

because this

is the same as this:

Covert racism in language, or coded racism, is the deployment of common stereotypes or tropes to elucidate a racially charged idea. Rather than expressly perpetuating racist tropes, covert linguistic racism is seen as rational or "common sense", and many are not aware of its impact.

Racial stereotypes. Racial or cultural stereotyping refers to generalizing a group based on a simplified set of norms, behaviors, or characteristics.

The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror, the Yellow Menace and the Yellow Specter) is a racist color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia[a] as an existential danger to the Western world.

Fu Manchu is a fictional character created by Arthur Ward, a music hall writer and journalist in London in the early 1900s. Writing under the pseudonym Sax Rohmer, Ward had absolutely no knowledge of Chinese culture or Chinese people – but his invention of a Chinese supervillain struck a chord in Victorian Britain and became a smash hit.

Fu Manchu was the original fictional Asian villain, a trope which became embedded in popular culture and Western psyche spawning spin-offs, spoofs, pop songs, video games and even consumer goods. But how damaging is Fu Manchu and how much can he tell us about modern Asian racism?

Ward wrote Fu Manchu as the personification of the so-called Yellow Peril threat: exotic, alien and inhuman, a mastermind boasting degrees from top universities. Using sinister powers to control minds, he aimed to undermine Western civilisation.

"This led to the idea that the Chinese were deceiving – they weren't being honest, they weren't revealing who they really are as people. This spawned into stories of Chinese as cheats and liars and deceitful – never giving you the truth, always fabricating."

Seven Lim being labeled as “greedy” “evil” and “manipulative” (of his white co-founder) is rooted in Anti-Asian racism. Whether people admit it or not.

Racism is not always derogatory slurs or white hoods. Racism is also casual micro-aggressions and putting people of color in the metaphorical boxes of harmful stereotypes. Racism is twisting the narrative and shaping it into a vile stereotype straight from the 19th century.

Also, let's not forget that people are happy to jump on Ryan in the similar way for the same reasons.

#watcher #watcher entertainment #steven lim #watchertv #watcher tv #shane madej #ryan #ryan bergara #tw racism

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scintillyyy · 20 days

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also the ideas of "the way comics have been written and the fact of child sidekicks being placed on equal ground with their adult heroes and being there for emotional support of the adult character often leans into textbook parentification and it can be interesting to view the way that can affect the characters and their relationships and their mental health based on real world cultural norms and how that would affect real children" and "the reality is that in the nature of a medium such as comics, child hero characters being capable of being on equal ground and listened to and taken seriously by the adults around them & being able to meaningfully be considered by and helpful to the adults around them is part of the nature of a power fantasy story for children and a lot of the emotional support provided by child characters/parentification that you see in comics is a result of this desire of children to be able to be seen and taken seriously by those around them in children's stories and you do have to suspend disbelief and believe that in comics children are probably capable of some emotional complexity, maturity, and understanding beyond what they would be capable of at those ages in real life in order to even be able to do the job of heroics to begin with" can and do coexist.

(note: this is NOT me saying that they should be treated as or seen as adults as a result of this and is NOT me saying they're 100% on equal grounds. because they're children & absolutely should be acknowledged as children. however it's more like. yes, tim provide a lot of emotional support to the adults around him. it can be interesting to play with how that affected him (and i think it did) but also genre conceits do mean that you gotta swallow that it's not *quite* as harmful as it would be in real life because otherwise none of these people would be fit to do any sort of vigilantism.)

#does this make sense i hope it makes sense #i want child characters to be treated with the sensitivity of being children don't get me wrong #but we are also in the beats up bad guy genre here u do need to be able to accept that #while realistically there are interesting considerations under which to view the stories #u are playing in a world where an 8-14 year old is capable of overpowering an adult #the rules have to be bit different there

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kdinjenzen · 1 year

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The fact that so many articles paint “gender dysphoria” as only something trans people experience is ridiculous.

The concept of societal gender has, and continues to, harmed cis people for a very very long time and causes cis folks to suffer similarly to their trans siblings.

While, yes, trans folks on average may have a greater sense of (and reaction to) gender dysphoria - a lot of that comes from actually understanding what that feeling IS and knowing how to combat it in the way they need.

Cis people, however, will sit there and be uncomfortable while not knowing WHY and when they are told “that sounds like gender dysphoria” they will say “no, that’s only for trans people” - and then… continue to suffer.

Additionally “Societal Gender Norms” depending on where you are in the world you are and what is “Girl” and what is “Boy” can change DRASTICALLY depending on where you are from or the culture you grew up in.

This is to say that, overall, people attempting to adhere to the “American Societal Gender Norm” as some “Universal Standard of Gender” are far more likely to be depressed over their gender presentation than in most other countries and societies in the world.

Why? Well… our standard of “Boy” and “Girl” is not only the YOUNGEST acting societal standard but it changes SO OFTEN that if you look at “The Standard of Beauty for Women” and “The Standard for Manliness” across the last 100 years you will see such dramatic shifts EVERY 10 YEARS which can cause increasing amounts of dysphoria as time goes on because:

1. The standard you grew up with and idolized is NOT the standard you live in NOW and you feel “out of sorts” with your gender.

2. The standard you WERE considered “Womanly”/“Manly” in has changed DRASTICALLY with time and now you are no longer considered that DESPITE not changing how you present your gender.

This is to say… cis folks and trans folks deal with a lot of the same issues, and by breaking down barriers between statements like “YOU CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND (X TYPE OF PERSON)” we can realize that AS PEOPLE we are all more alike than things appear.

Be that by gender, color of our skin, sexuality, spirituality, or ANYTHING!

We are all human, we all suffer, we all grow, we all learn, we all cry, we all smile, we all are people among other people.

Kindness and learning about yourself and others helps everyone in the end.

#trans #transgender #gender dysphoria #gender #long post #text post #long text post #BE KIND #BE NICE #LEARN #BE BETTER

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self-loving-vampire · 1 year

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I feel like not only are a lot of people more tolerant of abuse than you might think, so long as said abuse is portrayed as either necessary or deserved, but also that "abuse" is more narrowly defined in the average person's mind than it probably should be.

For instance, 90% of the world's children live in countries where it remains fully legal to forcefully undress and spank them as "discipline". Acceptance for the practice remains extremely high in countries that allow it.

This is an action that is very unambiguously harmful according to research as well as unacceptable based on a consistent application of the same principles you would apply to humans in general. It also happens often that parents use it as an outlet for anger.

Legally, you can be arrested for sex crimes if you did the exact same thing to an adult that many parents do to their children without a second thought and full social acceptance. Many of them brag about it openly in their social circles because they think it is a sign of being a caring parent and believe not hitting children as correction is negligent and bad for society.

It is not seen as abusive or damaging, but as a tool to keep children from becoming "spoiled".

To people like this:

Emotional abuse is generally not treated as real. In fact, a lot of authoritarian parenting is often based on deliberately breaking a child's will as if this was a desirable and necessary thing. Just something normal that you do to ensure your child will grow up right.

Physical abuse refers only to extreme and unprovoked violence, like hospitalizing your children for no reason. If it is "mild" or if there is some kind of discipline-related justification then it's acceptable even if we know from research that it still leads to long-term harm.

Sexual abuse is generally real but things like forcefully undressing your child and spanking them in what is generally considered a sexual body part doesn't count even though it would if done to an adult.

Their model of what qualifies is often as misrepresentative as people's models for sexual violence in general. They tend to imagine unlikely "horny strangers hiding in the bushes" types of situations and don't even think of examining themselves and their own actions.

A lot of these same parents are also now redefining sexual abuse to mean stuff like "queer people existing where children might notice them" or "being supportive when your child is not cishet".

Cultural norms around parenting are rotten.

#familia delenda est #abuse #child abuse #100

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drdemonprince · 3 months

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As a straight woman reader I feel very jealous of your sexual exploits because I don't feel like I could ever safely have those kinds of encounters with men. I had a lot of casual sex in my youth and unfortunately I've found that straight men tend to treat women's receptivity to casual sex as a green flag to treat us disposably and ignore boundaries (and that's just standard vanilla sex - I don't want to think about how some of the kinds of anonymous/blindfolded encounters you've talked about would go even though in a vacuum they sound fun as hell). And it's so dumb because they could all be having way more sex if they would just act right instead of letting misogyny horribly infect everything.

I also think it is important to point out that queer men have very deliberately created the spaces that allow us to have anonymous, kinky, sometimes risky sex with one another while looking out for one another, and that we had to do that due to structural homophobia and the AIDs crisis.

The fact that I can have wild, masked sex on a bed in the dark in a bathhouse with a blindfold on and condoms spread beside me is because I know am in a space where employees are monitoring the halls continually, prophylatics are freely provided, testing is freely provided on site, trans people are welcome explicitly by policy, an explicitly sexual atmosphere has been created, and a whole culture of norms and nonverbal signals have been established. This has taken a lot of money and decades of work to build and maintain.

Gay and bisexual men have had to build places to have sex with one another that are both private and secure, and that bring a large number of us together -- due to structural homophobia making it illegal for us to even have sex until the early 2000's. We have had to respond to the AIDs crisis and Monkeypox and numerous other sources of danger and violence within our communities by promoting harm reductionist sexual health policies and by learning to look after one another.

Straight people do not have such comraderie. Misogyny is absolutely a major factor -- but the privilege straight people have and the immense isolation that comes with it is a factor too. Queer people have had to pool our resources to create the spaces we need as an oppressed sexual minority.

Now, there are hardly ANY such hookup spaces for queer women because they do not have the money and resources and structural power that men, including many queer men, do, and because women's sexual agency is so absolutely neglected and penalized by our culture.

And I do think straight men unwittingly fuck up their chances of getting laid by being inept and/or predatory -- if they hadn't been so shitty as sexual partners I might not have ever transitioned! and I recommend transition to anyone who wants to have better sex with men and finds doing so appealing. But ultimately things are as they are due to structural issues.

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hyperlexichypatia · 1 year

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"Long Adolescence" and Disability Liberation

Cultural discourse around infantilization of young adults, particularly when justified with spurious "brain science," is a disability issue.

Even in disability spaces, I see the argument made that 18-25 year olds aren't "real adults" yet, because "science proves" that "the brain doesn't fully mature" until age 26. This concept harms not only young adults, but also disabled and neurodivergent people of all ages.

To get the basic facts out of the way: The brain does not "fully mature" at age 26, or any other age. The human brain changes continuously throughout the lifespan. There is no point at which the brain stops changing until death. There are certain brain changes that commonly occur in the mid-twenties, but declaring these changes "full maturity" is completely arbitrary.

So why has the "Brain fully matures at age 26" myth taken off, and what is the impact of it? Mostly, to justify economic and cultural norms. It just so happens that this myth of "brain maturity" happened to take off during a period of economic downturn, especially for young people newly entering the workforce. But it's okay, mainstream media outlets tell us, that young adults are increasingly unable to afford to move out of their parents' homes, to access healthcare independently of their parents, to get married, or to have children of their own -- in fact, it's a good thing, because young people are too neurologically immature for these things anyway.

A context in which I've recently had a lot of arguments on this topic is the claim that young adults are too young to consent to romantic relationships with older adults, or that such relationships are "pedophilia" or inherently unethical. This is an argument that has a lot of traction in social-justice-minded spaces, because it's ostensibly about sexual abuse but it's actually about infantalization, and it has deeply harmful implications that go far beyond your squick at May/December relationships.

"BUT HYPATIA, YOU HEARTLESS LIBERAL, older people who preferentially date younger people (especially older men who preferentially date younger women) often ARE fetishistic and abusive!"

Yes, they are. So are lots of people from privileged groups who preferentially date people from marginalized groups. It's a problem that needs to be addressed, but the assumption relationships that are "mixed" along a privilege axis, or that marginalized partners cannot consent, is still far more harmful, because it has implications beyond relationships.

"BUT HYPATIA, YOU HEARTLESS LIBERAL, we're protecting young people from abuse!"

No, you're not. Young people often enter unwise relationships -- relationships they KNOW are unwise -- because it's their only recourse for escaping the control of their parents. Normalizing the idea that young adults should still be under protection and control of parents or guardians ensures that young adults have fewer safe options for escape and autonomy. This creates a ripe opportunity for abusive, manipulative, and exploitative people to offer young people freedom from parental control. The harms done to young people by attempting to "protect" them from their own decisions are far greater than the harms young people can cause themselves by making unwise decisions.

"But people don't magically become mature adults on their 18th birthdays! Shouldn't there be a transitional period for young people to gradually assume more adult rights and responsibilities, with support, guidance, and scaffolding, and protection from predators who would take advantage of youthful inexperience?"

Yes, that's exactly right! There should be a transitional period! That is, in fact, the purpose of childhood. And adolescence. The fact that an 18 year old is not significantly different in maturity from a 17 year old is not an argument for giving the 18 year old fewer rights; it's an argument for giving the 17 year old more rights.

Adult rights and responsibilities should be gradually rolled out, over time, with support and guidance, and special protections in place due to the inherent vulnerability of youth. But the 18th birthday should be the end point of that transition, not the beginning. Because although the brain never stops maturing, rights are important, and the allotment of them should not be delayed any longer than absolutely necessary.

What does all this have to do with disability?

A lot. First of all, any time the argument is made that a group of people should be denied rights based on the structure of their brains, neurodivergent people are affected. The argument that young adults should be denied full autonomy because they're often financially dependent on parents/family also has implications for disabled people -- many disabled people will never be "financially independent," no matter how old we are. There are more specific ties to disability, too. Part of the justification for restricting the rights of young adults is that certain psychiatric disabilities are, or are presumed to be, more prevalent in, or originally manifesting in, young adults. Forcing young adults into involuntary psychiatric treatment is justified because, after all, they're too neurologically immature to realize that they're neurologically defective.

Another premise in the argument that young adults aren't fully "real adults" is that young adults are often college students, while "real adults" are out of school. This is, first of all, factually untrue -- colleges are increasingly recruiting students of all ages, and students older than 26 are far from rare. When I was arguing with someone who claimed that a romantic relationship between a young adult and an older adult was wrong because the younger adult was "probably still in school," I pointed out that most college classrooms are a melting pot of ages, and, in fact, many older/younger couples meet in the same college class! More specifically to disability issues, though, the assumption that "student = still basically a child" disproportionately harms disabled people who, for a variety of reasons, may take longer than "average" to graduate. The entire framing of higher education as a "life stage" is a centering of a class and ability experience that is far from universal.

And look, I don't really care if you're judgmental of May/December romances. Fine, judge them. No one is making you approve.

I care that universities consider it appropriate to notify students' parents about health information, and that states are making it easier to involuntarily commit 18-26 year olds, and that underpaying or not paying at all younger workers is justified because "They're not really old enough to be independent anyway," and that people with fallopian tubes aren't allowed to have tubal ligations until they're 25, and that transgender people aren't allowed to access gender-affirming surgeries because of "brain maturity," and that disabled adults are denied civil rights because they supposedly "have the mind of a child." And all of those rights violations are enabled by this pervasive myth that people can't become "real adults" until they've financially succeeded in a bad economy, or until they've graduated an inaccessible higher education system, or until they reach some arbitrary level of "brain maturity" that some neurodivergent people will never reach. That's a harmful premise, no matter how well-intentioned.

#ageism #youth rights #stop being ableist #ableism #neurodiversity #brains are weird #liberation #mad pride #capitalism

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