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autumndiesirae · 6 years

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Response to @bigmeangatekeeper’s ‘Why I’m Exclusionist’ Page

So recently I came across by far one of the most bigoted exclusionists I’ve seen in a while, that being @bigmeangatekeeper. Normally I block and ignore these sorts of people but given the exceedingly harmful and frankly disgusting rhetoric espoused on this person’s blog, I felt it was necessary to make a formal response, even if the person in question isn’t going to listen to reason or care.

I’m going to be mentioning @herefortheace and @justaphobethings in this post for their reference, as the arguments presented here are common exclusionist rhetorics and also to share my resources with more inclusionist blogs.

DISCLAIMER: This is not intended to be a ‘callout’, not is it intended to call upon my followers/anyone to attack this blog. This is merely a response to tired old exclusionist rhetoric by an asexual who is sick of people legitimately trying to act like their gross views haven’t been time and time disproven. I also won’t be addressing this blog’s status as a truscum as that isn’t relevant to this post.

TW FOR RAPE/SEXUAL ASSAULT DISCUSSION AND RAPE APOLOGISM.

PAGE LINK

First thing’s first. While I do not automatically exclude LGBT aces, I exclude cishet aces AND homo/transphobic or homo/transphobia apologist aces. It’s not just about the cishets. It’s about so much more.

As stated hundreds of times before, there definitely are homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, sexist, and racist asexuals. There are also apologists for these asexuals. Absolutely no one is arguing that these are problematic people. However, exclusionists like to pretend that the occasional ‘bad’ asexual is somehow a representative of the entire community, to which I respond ‘how then do you feel about TERF lesbians or biphobic gay men?’ Because if a few bad members of a sexuality are enough to warrant that entire community being removed from the LGBT community as a whole, then this rhetoric should be applied to every single sexual orientation or gender identity. Yet, asexuals and aromantics get singled out for this time and time again. It’s almost like exclusionists are unwilling to admit that they just want to remove asexuals as a whole and are only grasping for excuses so much that they will use the occasional problematic ace as a gotcha to push forward their ideologies. It’s funny because half the time what exclusionists define as ‘homophobic asexuals’ are often either blatantly obvious trolls or minors simply making jokes or having fun with their identity.

Also, thank you for including SOME aces! We appreciate you soooo much for driving a wall between our community! /s

The standard of “SGA and trans” as requirement for entry to the LGBTQ community is used nowhere outside of aphobic tumblr, and it seems crafted specifically for the purpose of excluding aces, aros, NBs, intersex people, and others not deemed “gay enough”.

There are also many “SGA and trans” aces who are against the gatekeeping and feel that they are hated by these aphobes.

You’re not protecting me by being an ace/aro exclusionist.

What we hear when you say “I only support SGA Asexuals/Aromantics”

my favourite thing is when aphobes try to tell me that their aphobia doesn’t apply to me / affect me because “[i’m] queer for other reasons”

okay, you wanna know why I’m for including all aces in the LGBT+ community?

Why your acephobia and arophobia is really just bullshit

it really annoys me when I see Discoursers say they support LGBT+ aces, just not cishet ones.

when you say “i accept sga and trans aces and aros but not cishet aces/aros because they’re straight”

Suffering! Suffering?

when people ‘accept’ sga/mga/non-cis aces and aros, but not others, what it actually means is they accept the part of you that isn’t directly tied to your asexuality/aromanticism

if ur gonna fuckin claim those four letters cover them & the whole damn community, they sure as fuck can cover aces as well

“Ace discourse” is really a Tumblr-only thing

I’m a lesbian ace and I’ve never felt more worthless and disgusting than this ace discourse

The reason even trans and bi/gay/pan/etc asexuals get defensive when you talk about cishet aces/aros not being part of the LGBT+ community is because you’re erasing a part of our identity??

If you talk shit about aces/aros with the disclaimer “cishet” it still affects all aces. Saying “notably cishet aces should all go die” still makes all ace/aro people feel like they are being called out.

Your “discourse” is harmful to all asexuals. And PS, your rhetoric is literally indistinguishable from TWERF rhetoric.

It’s about the blatant homophobia, transphobia, and serophobia in the ace community.

Again, this may exist in some members of the community, but that does not magically erase the status of the community as being LGBT. If it did, TERFs lesbians would have caused the lesbian community to be no longer considered LGBT.

It’s about there being no consistent definition of asexuality, thus allowing literally anyone regardless of relationship status, libido, etc to claim the ace label, and thereby try to shoulder their way into the LGBT community.

There is a consistent definition of asexuality. It’s ‘a lack of sexual attraction’. Libido, relationship status, etc, do not have any role in the asexual label. This has been the definition of asexuality for years. Looking up ‘asexuality’ on Google literally explains this:

I found these in one quick search. What’s your excuse?

The reason there appears to be ‘no consistent definition’ is the fault of non-asexuals and exclusionists pushing their own definitions of what asexuality is so that they can later pretend that its the asexuals who are changing the definition. The idea that asexuals never have sex was a misconstruing of the description of sex-repulsed asexuals. The idea that asexuals don’t have a libido also came from this. Asexuals can and do masturbate (for pleasure or stress relief), have sex (for pleasure or to have children), etc. These are not related to the definition of asexuality.

Additionally, if the fact that there isn’t a consistent definition of asexuality bothers you, then why not address how bisexuals and pansexuals don’t always have a consistent definition for their sexuality either? Some bisexuals claim the bi label is only for men and women, some say it includes nonbinary people, some say bisexuality is a transphobic label compared to pansexuality, etc, etc.

It’s about asexuals telling traumatised people/mentally ill people/dysphoric people/autistic people/CHILDREN that they’re ace rather then encouraging them to consider other reasons why they might feel sex repulsed.

Telling an individual ‘have you considered you may be asexual’ is not the same that saying ‘you are asexual, no arguments, you just are’. A person suggesting a label is not forcing anyone to co-opt that label. In addition, sexualities are fluid. I know many people who identified as ace at a younger age and then identified differently at an older age. I know many people who are the reverse. Are there individuals who identified incorrectly as ace at one age and feel upset or angry about it? Absolutely. But that is not the fault of any asexual who suggested the label. And, again, sex repulsion is not the requirement for being asexual.

It’s about asexuals not understanding that asexuality is not comparable to other sexualities bc it’s about how you feel attraction instead of who you feel attraction to

“Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, erotic, physical, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied over time, it lacks a precise definition.” From Wikipedia

A Definition of Sexuality

Sexuality is no longer just about ‘who’ you experience attraction to.

It’s about asexuals hypersexualising all other sexualities (most particularly gay people) and making us out to be fucking sex craved deviants

Citation fucking needed. Also, yet again, a few asexuals doing this (not that I have ever seen any aside from one extremely obvious troll doing this) is not somehow a representation of the entire community.

It’s about asexuals pushing the toxic and harmful split attraction model even though it’s been shown time and time again to allow people to explain away their internalised homophobia/biphobia, and encouraging microlabelling that just confuses people more and causes divisiveness in the community

What we call the split-attraction model was first described by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a gay advocate from the 1800s, as “disjunctive uranodioning”. (source) (credit to this post)

There is absolutely no evidence aside from exclusionist rhetoric to uphold the idea that the SAM is homophobic or toxic. Additionally the SAM is used by non-ace and non-aro people regularly - I am familiar with many people who make that distinction in their romantic and sexual orientations, such as one friend who is pansexual but heteroromantic (in that she will have sex with all genders but prefers to romantically date men). It seems your bigger issue is the existence of microlabelling, which while that is a debatable problem in this community, at the end of the day it really isn’t any of your business. The only real source of divisiveness in this community is gatekeepers like you.

It’s about asexuals erasing gay history and literally just fabricating false stories for asexual representation, usually at the expense of gay people

Citation needed, once again.

Asexuals recorded as “Group X” in the 1948 Kinsey Reports

What is asexual history? The 19th and 20th century

From The Westminster Review, a political magazine, in 1907; an essay by Helen Fraser called Women’s Suffrage, on how if women got the vote, butch and ace women were gonna dominate the whole thing and screw it up for all the Real Ladies.

The Spinster Movement, and how they were treated as queer

From “Feminism,” by Correa Moylan Walsh, 1917

the “aces/aros were part of the bi community until they very recently chose to split off, so stop telling them that they have never been queer or that they don’t belong in ‘the LGBT community’” masterpost

asexuality existed before David Jay and AVEN

“Where were you when…?” A History of Asexual Inclusion (Part One)

“Where were you when…?” A History of Asexual Inclusion (Part Two)

It’s about asexuals stealing autistic terminology, and creating false axes of oppression that make literally everyone who isn’t ace their oppressors

The ‘actuallyasexual’ tag supposedly being stolen from the ‘actuallyautistic’ tag was never proven to be a legitimate claim. Autistic people have repeatedly come forward saying that this was never the case. Since I am not autistic, however, I won’t press on this particular point. If anyone is autistic and has some information on this, please DM me.

It’s about adult asexuals literally acting like children and using the ‘uwu im a pure ace’ response

Citation needed. I’m sensing a trend here.

Any asexual who partakes in, excuses, or explains away this behaviour in the ace community is dangerous and could easily cause harm to the LGBT community.

Once again - TERF lesbians, transphobic gay man, etc. should also be included under this rhetoric if you’re going to treat asexuals this way, otherwise you’re just being a hypocrite.

Asexuals are not oppressed under homophobia or transphobia. The LGBT community was not built just to combat oppression, because that would mean women and POC would automatically be LGBT, which is absurd. The community was developed specifically so that SGA and non-cis people would have a place to get away from societal homophobia and transphobia, and to push back against legally instituted oppression, like fighting for gay marriage, and to get laws put in place that protect us from hate crimes.

Firstly, SGA (same-gender attraction) is a term that was used and is still used in Mormon conversion therapy, so as one can understand,a lot of people are very uncomfortable being labeled with this description.

Secondly -

“The LGBT community has always been about fighting homophobia and transphobia/we came together to fight homophobia and transphobia”

“Homophobia and Transphobia”: What does the LGBT+ community fight for?

The modern American movement was first known as the “gay community” when cis gay men refused to even accept lesbians, then the “gay and lesbian community”. (Good reading on the subject.)

“After the elation of change following group action in the Stonewall riots in New York, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, some gays and lesbians became less accepting of bisexual or transgender people. Critics said that transgender people were acting out stereotypes and bisexuals were simply gay men or lesbian women who were afraid to come out and be honest about their identity. Each community has struggled to develop its own identity including whether, and how, to align with other gender and sexuality-based communities, at times excluding other subgroups; these conflicts continue to this day.” (source)

“From about 1988, activists began to use the initialism LGBT in the United States. Not until the 1990s within the movement did gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people gain equal respect.” (ibid)

These are scans of a gay magazine from 1999 showing that 48% of those surveyed did not believe that trans people should be a part of the gay community.

The community’s boundaries have always been in flux

Insisting that LG people have always been accepting of bi and trans people is incredibly revisionist and does a great deal of injustice to those who have been excluded.

While I agree that asexuals go through some discrimination, ‘aphobia’ is not an axis of oppression because it is not institutionalised. The discrimination asexual and aromantic people face is based within rape culture, toxic masculinity, traditionalist values, and misogyny.

You sound like transphobic sexists who claim trans men do not experience transphobia that is specific to trans men (transmisandry) much in the same way that trans women experience transphobia specific to trans women (transmisogyny).

First of all, what do you use as the definition of ‘institutionalized’?

Second, why are you acting like asexuals are seen as some ‘other’ group rather than a part of the LGBT community when institutionalized discrimination is being discussed?

Third, ‘institutionalized discrimination’ was never a requirement to be LGBT. By that logic, a gay man who lives in a country/state where gay marriage is legal, conversion therapy is banned, and who has never experienced any form of anti-LGBT discrimination in his life is straight. That’s an asinine proposition.

For some examples of asexual-specific discrimination -

“My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”

“My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”

“My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”

“My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”

“My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”

“My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”

“My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)

“My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)

“My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”

“I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”

“My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”

“My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”

“My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish - which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”

“I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”

“The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”

“I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”

“I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”

“I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfishand childish.”

“I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfishand childish.”

“I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfishand childish.”

“No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”

Dr Gordon Hodson wrote this about his 2012 study:

In a recent investigation (MacInnis & Hodson, in press) we uncovered strikingly strong bias against asexuals in both university and community samples. Relative to heterosexuals, and even relative to homosexuals and bisexuals, heterosexuals: (a) expressed more negative attitudes toward asexuals (i.e., prejudice); (b) desired less contact with asexuals; and © were less willing to rent an apartment to (or hire) an asexual applicant (i.e., discrimination). Moreover, of all the sexual minority groups studied, asexuals were the most dehumanized (i.e., represented as “less human”). Intriguingly, heterosexuals dehumanized asexuals in two ways. Given their lack of sexual interest, widely considered a universal interest, it might not surprise you to learn that asexuals were characterized as “machine-like” (i.e., mechanistically dehumanized). But, oddly enough, asexuals were also seen as “animal-like” (i.e., animalistically dehumanized). Yes, asexuals were seen as relatively cold and emotionless and unrestrained, impulsive, and less sophisticated.

When you repeatedly observe such findings it grabs your attention as a prejudice researcher. But let’s go back a minute and consider those discrimination effects. Really? You’d not rent an apartment to an asexual man, or hire an asexual woman? Even if you relied on stereotypes alone, presumably such people would make ideal tenants and employees. We pondered whether this bias actually represents bias against single people, a recently uncovered and very real bias in its own right (see Psychology Today column by Bella DePaulo). But our statistical analyses ruled out this this possibility. So what’s going on here?

If you’ve been following my column, you’ll recall that I wrote a recent article on what I called the “Bigotry Bigot-Tree” – what psychologists refer to as generalized prejudice. Specifically, those disliking one social group (e.g., women) also tend to dislike other social groups (e.g., homosexuals; Asians). In our recent paper (MacInnis & Hodson, in press), we found that those who disliked homosexuals also disliked bisexuals and asexuals. In other words, these prejudices are correlated. Heterosexuals who dislike one sexual minority, therefore, also dislike other sexual minorities, even though some of these groups are characterized by their sexual interest and activity and others by their lack of sexual interest and activity.

This anti-asexual bias, at its core, seems to boil down to what Herek (2010) refers to as the “differences as deficit” model of sexual orientation. By deviating from the typical, average, or normal sexual interests, sexual minorities are considered substandard and thus easy targets for disdain and prejudice. Contrary to conventional folk wisdom, prejudice against sexual minorities may not therefore have much to do with sexual activity at all. There is even evidence, for instance, that religious fundamentalists are prejudiced against homosexuals even when they are celibate (Fulton et al., 1999). Together, such findings point to a bias against “others”, especially different others, who are seen as substandard and deficient (and literally “less human”). “Group X” is targeted for its lack of sexual interest even more than homosexuals and bisexuals are targeted for their same-sex interests.

From news coverage of a recently published study (2016):

What should the average person take away from your study?

Since I first became interested in the issue, I have come to conclude that U.S. society is both “sex negative” and “sex positive.” In other words, there is stigma and marginalization that can come both from being “too sexual” and from being “not sexual enough.” In a theoretical paper, I argued that sexuality may be compulsory in contemporary U.S. society. In other words, our society assumes that (almost) everyone is, at their core, “sexual” and there exists a great deal of social pressure to experience sexual desire, engage in sexual activities, and adopt a sexual identity. At the same time, various types of “non-sexuality” (such as a lack of sexual desire or activity) are stigmatized.

For this particular study, I identified thirty individuals who identified as asexual and asked them first, if they had experienced stigma or marginalization as a result of their asexuality, and, second how they challenged this stigma or marginalization. I found that my interviewees had experienced the following forms of marginalization: pathologization (i.e. people calling them sick), social isolation, unwanted sex and relationship conflict, and the denial of epistemic authority (i.e. people not believing that they didn’t experience sexual attraction). I also found that my interviews resisted stigma and marginalization in five ways: describing asexuality as simply a different (but not inherently worse) form of sexuality; deemphasizing the importance of sexuality in human life; developing new types of nonsexual relationships; coming to see asexuality as a sexual orientation or identity; and engaging in community building and outreach.

I hope that average people would take away from this study the idea that some people can lead fulfilling lives without experiencing sexual attraction but can experience distress if others try to invalidate their identities.

Some of the social isolation we aspecs experience comes from religious communities. Indeed, the popular myth that religious people revere aspecs is very much NOT TRUE. For example, read “Myth 8″ from the VISION Catholic Religious Vocation Guide:

MYTH 8: Religious are asexual

Question: What do you call a person who is asexual?

Answer: Not a person. Asexual people do not exist.Sexuality is a gift from God and thus a fundamental part of our human identity. Those who repress their sexuality are not living as God created them to be: fully alive and well. As such, they’re most likely unhappy. All people are called by God to live chastely, meaning being respectful of the gift of their sexuality. Religious men and women vow celibate chastity, which means they live out their sexuality without engaging in sexual behavior. A vow of chastity does not mean one represses his manhood or her womanhood. Sexuality and the act of sex are two very different things. While people in religious life abstain from the act of sex, they do not become asexual beings, but rather need to be in touch with what it means to be a man or a woman. A vow of chastity also does not mean one will not have close, loving relationships with women and men. In fact, such relationships are a sign of living the vow in a healthy way. Living a religious vow of chastity is not always easy, but it can be a very beautiful expression of love for God and others. Religious women and men aren’t oddities; they mirror the rest of the church they serve: there are introverts and extroverts, tall and short, old and young, straight and gay, obese and skinny, crass and pious, humorous and serious, and everything in between. They attempt to live the same primary vocation as all other Christians do: proclaiming and living the gospel. However, religious do this as members of an order that serve the church and world in a particular way. Like marriage and the single life, religious life can be wonderful, fulfilling, exciting, and, yes, normal. Yet, it also can be countercultural and positively challenging. It’s that for us and many others. If you thought religious life was outdated, dysfunctional, or dead, we hope you can now look beyond the stereotypes and see the gift it is to the church and world.

NOTE: YOU CAN BE A GAY CATHOLIC PERSON BUT NOT ASEXUAL, BC ASEXUALITY DOESN’T EXIST (yet somehow we’re also “most likely unhappy” and “oddities”). I sincerely hope and believe that not all religions characterize us aspecs this way. But here are some personal accounts I found on a reddit site answering the question “Do any religions have a negative stance toward asexuals?”:

Please note that the Christian pastor in the last example was fearful (or something?) that an asexual was helping to lead a youth group and kicked them out of the church as a result.

(Not to mention that there is now a published dissertation with a whole chapter dedicated to understanding why a-spec people have been erased from history and virtually invisible up until recently, which is a very real issue in this debate that cannot be ignored).

This argument is as tired as the rest of the ones you’re putting out. And since i know you’re just going to ignore this with some backhanded commentary -

If we give primary sources based on lived experiences (which is the basis of qualitative research, which founded so much of the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and more, and is still used today as a very common research practice), such evidence is dismissed because it’s not academic or in a news publication. Never mind that this practice of citing tumblr blogs for personal experiences is similar in practice (if not as rigorous) as netnographic research (a practice developed by Rob Kozinets, whose book on it has close to 1500 google scholar citations, and whose seminal article on it has over 2000).

If we give articles from press outlets, they are dismissed as commercial and therefore not acceptable. (I could find a lot more of this, but look, it’s happened a lot and not main point here).

If we give academic citations, such as the study that was published a few years ago (what I’ve seen referred to as’ the Group X study’ by discoursers), they are dismissed (read, not ‘debunked’ because that is a different thing) because popular press such as psychologytoday.com dared to cover the story, or because they don’t believe the need for such study exists, and because someone hadn’t read the original research so felt free to critique it’s methods (????). Slightly more legitimately, I’ve seen it dismissed based on the use of convenience samples (though I can’t find the link), but it’s worth pointing out that the actual research also used a sample drawn from the general public. And if you’re dismissing a study based on the use of a convenience sample, you can also throw out about 90% of academic research done in psychology and related fields in the past 40 years. Almost all research uses convenience sampling, and this study actually went beyond that anyway.

(For the record, that study also goes a long way to explain why intra-community aphobia exists, if you read the full article, and finds that the more biased people are also more right-wing authoritarian and endorse social-dominance orientation, basically meaning they “endorse dominance and inter-group hierarchies”).

Source with more information

Literally every argument for ace oppression, like corrective rape for example, is not ace exclusive. On the other hand, gay and trans people face specific pointed prosecution for being non-cis or SGA.

“The term ‘corrective rape’ was coined by South African lesbians and should only be used by lesbians”

No one means any disrespect to lesbians or other victims of corrective rape, but this is not a correct statement.

“We’ll Show You You’re a Woman” describes the violence directed towards LGBT people in South Africa, stating, “Negative public attitudes towards homosexuality go hand in hand with a broader pattern of discrimination, violence, hatred, and extreme prejudice against people known or assumed to be lesbian, gay, and transgender, or those who violate gender and sexual norms in appearance or conduct (such as women playing soccer, dressing in a masculine manner, and refusing to date men).” It goes on to say, “Much of the recent media coverage of violence against lesbians and transgender men has been characterized by a focus on “corrective rape,” a phenomenon in which men rape people they presume or know to be lesbians in order to “convert” them to heterosexuality.”

The Wikipedia article on corrective rape in South Africa states that, “A study conducted by OUT LGBT Well-being and the University of South Africa Centre for Applied Psychology (UCAP) showed that “the percentage of black gay men who said they have experienced corrective rape matched that of the black lesbians who partook in the study”.”

It is not only lesbians, but also bisexual women, transgender men, gay men, and gender non-conforming people in South Africa who experience corrective rape. This is not in any way meant to minimize the horror of the epidemic or shift attention away from lesbians, but other victims, including asexuals, deserve attention as well. Do not silence or speak over victims of rape by policing their language.

And regarding ace-specific discrimination, I provided a wall of it, if you’d like to scroll up and read it again.

I’ve been beaten bloody while called a fag and a tranny and left for dead. I’ve had a guy rape me while aggressively misgendering me and telling me what a freak cuntboy I was. Those attacks were specifically because I’m trans and gay. Ace people are attacked because they won’t have sex, not because they’re ace. It’s just good old fashioned rape, there’s no hate crime element I guarantee it.

I’m very sorry that happened to you.

I was repeatedly molested by my first boyfriend because he told me that “wouldn’t be ace anymore when he was done with me”. I’ve been punched, thrown to the ground, and had my nose broken because I wore an asexual flag pin on my backpack, with people calling me a disgusting queer. My girlfriend of five years, the person I intended to marry, cheated on me with a mutual friend because I was asexual and ‘didn’t validate her body’. And, as I already shown, my experiences are commonplace for asexuals. Your trauma, as horrible as it is, does not give you any right to say that an asexual who is raped and told “I’ll fix you” is not ‘good old fashioned rape’.

Please read this and tell me about how there’s no hate crime element to it:

“‘I just want to help you,’ he called out to me as I walked away from his car,” she explained. “He was basically saying that I was somehow broken and that he could repair me with his tongue and, theoretically, with his penis. It was totally frustrating and quite scary.”

Sexual harassment and violence, including so-called “corrective” rape, is disturbingly common in the ace community, says Decker, who has received death threats and has been told by several online commenters that she just needs a “good raping.”

“When people hear that you’re asexual, some take that as a challenge,” said Decker, who is currently working on a book about asexuality. “We are perceived as not being fully human because sexual attraction and sexual relationships are seen as something alive, healthy people do. They think that you really want sex but just don’t know it yet. For people who perform corrective rape, they believe that they’re just waking us up and that we’ll thank them for it later.”

“There is a real fear even among the asexual community that people who identify as anything other than heterosexual will be harassed and assaulted,” wrote “Angela,” a self-identified aromantic ace. “They have a reason to be upset and a reason to be afraid, it has happened to many people before.”

In response to the post, an anonymous user wrote, “[A]sexuality is not a thing. You are just ugly and no one wanted to date you, so you made up a thing to cuddle your lonely self as you cry into your pillow. Also, I hope you get raped. It has a dual benefit, you’ll get laid finally AND put you into your place as well.”

The comment triggered a firestorm, with some asexuals speaking out and sharing their own experiences involving sexual violence.

Asexuals and ace activists say the conversation about sexual assault in the asexual community is part of the wider societal discussion about rape culture generally and about corrective rape in the queer community specifically. They also say it speaks to a bias and an invisibility that asexuals face in everyday life.

Source

Asexuals and aromantics are notoriously homophobic, transphobic, and serophobic in their arguments. I personally have seen them say things about inclusionists like ‘I hope they get antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea and crabs in the same week’ (actual quote), I’ve been told ‘you probably have aids’ because I’m a gay man, I’ve seen them argue that non-ace people can’t be raped because we constantly want sex and have had my own assaults denied, etc. This wasn’t just one incident, it’s a pattern. Over and over ace people wish violent sexual threats on non-ace people. They call us disgusting. They call us filthy. They call us ‘the oppressive monogays’ and ‘filthy allos’. I’ve had them go so far as to fling homophobic slurs at me, and say we deserved the aids crisis. Sorry, but any group that is totally fine with even some of its members being that actively, unabashedly homophobic has absolutely no place in this community. I wouldn’t let my grandfather who called me a pathetic fag into the community either, no matter how much sex he did or didn’t have.

I like how you say ‘actual quote’ and yet do not provide a single link, screenshot, or even falsified anonymous message as proof of this.

For the 100th time - the behavior of a few asexuals does not represent the entire community, otherwise TERF lesbians, transphobic gay men, biphobic trans people, etc, would mean their entire community are no longer considered LGBT.

Would you like a glimpse at some of the behavior exclusionists that are ‘real LGBT’ bestow on asexuals?

Comparing aces and aros to Trump (and pretending this is funny)

Comparing aces to Pence

Comparing aces to Ronald Reagan (and pretending this is funny)

Comparing aces to a literal slave owner

Making fun of aces not being accepted by their parents and of aces finding this upsetting (making it into a crytyping “joke”)

Making aces feel shitty/shaming them for telling their parents they’re ace because it’s supposedly “unnecessary”

Saying if we tell family about being ace, it’s no wonder if they send us to therapy

Doing their best to sexualize the orientations of aces, in so many cases. The link before these two is also connected to that. They treat our orientations like (graphic) details about “our sex lives”, frequently acting like if we want to talk about them ever we’re gross/creepy

This one is also “nice” re sexualizing aces (one of many examples of ppl also engaging in sex-shaming while they’re at it, saying only one’s partner should know anything about one’s “relationships with sex”. Except this person goes kinda even further)

More sexualization, when I say this freaks me out as a WoC, I’m told this white person gives no fucks and wants me to be miserable

Another person who says the identities of aces but also of aros need to stay between them and their Partners because they’re “TMI” and inherently sex-shaming somehow

Oh yeah did I mention, much the same with sexualizing aros and ppl frequently link our identities to misogyny and to using people while they’re at it

Making light and fun of ace WoC asking to not be sexualized because don’t we know aces have done Bad things and so we deserve it/don’t get to complain

One of many examples of white people who hate aces+aros talking over PoC and trying to erase us from our communities (+usually when we call that shit out they don’t care. This is actually one of the more cordial responses I’ve come across despite the lack of apology lol. [Eta: my wording here was misleading before, they weren’t talking to me - I’d also called them on this but they ignored me. Sorry for the confusion!] Also, I have a tag somewhere with several non-black/white ppl who made Rachel Dolezal comparisons to shit on aces/aros). Another example of talking over us here complete with condescendingly lecturing a PoC about racism

People like this saying outright they hate aces

Saying sex ed shouldn’t teach about asexuality

Outright stating they think being ace/aro gives people privilege (because supposedly aces+aros both benefit from conservatives pushing for abstinence)

Outright invalidating the identities of aces (who don’t have the attitude towards sex they think they should have)

Calling asexuals demons

Outright calling aces and aros a “plague” and saying aces/aros regardless of other identities all need to be kicked out of the LGBT+ community.

Erasing the identities of people who speak out against anti-ace/aro shit to declare them “straight” or “cishet” …or saying that treatment is what they get for being “traitors to their own community”

Ignoring the boundaries of aces/aros who have them blocked and don’t want to be vagued to make fun of them …

…or even to continue sexualizing them after they have made it very clear that shit freaks them out (cheerfully doing this to a WoC)

Someone saying asexuality does not exist and “encourages slut shaming”

Spamming the ace positivity tag with vile hate (ppl have talked a lot about how this harms and endangers especially mentally ill ppl)

“aces are embarassing“ in the positivity tag

Posting nsfw content in the ace positivity tag and being completely unapologetic, apparently using the reasoning that our identities are inherently nsfw anyway (see the “TMI discourse” aka people sexualizing our identities)

Calling aces and aros a “sexuality fandom” while pretending we’re a group full of people with every privilege imaginable, bored of being accepted by everyone and of having no Actual Problems in our lives. This kind of nasty erasure constantly goes on and is a big tactic in this mess tbh

Wanting aces to be “exterminated”. For good measure putting this in the ace positivity tag

This disgusting vile shit that I don’t even know how to sum up but it includes wishing death on someone

Talking about wanting aces/aros dead after somehow misunderstanding(?) a post that was very clearly not about asexuality or aromanticism

Graphically telling aces to die

Specifically telling ace kids to kill themselves

Did I mention that many people in this mess have wished death on aces and aros and that they often put it in positivity tags. Some of the most messed up shit I’ve seen is missing because I didn’t reblog/respond to it at the time or can’t find it right now

And I know anons don’t count as hard “proof” for anything but have the less graphic one of the death/rape threats I got in my inbox for speaking out against anti-ace/aro shit (still kinda eerily detailed though. Not linking the other one because it is extremely graphic)

Comparing aces to a literal white supremacist (in the positivity tag)

Again someone invalidating the identities of aces who don’t have the attitude towards sex they think they should have

Sexualizing aros again, not caring about how it affects particularly aro PoC. And here two other ppl sexualizing and demonizing aros, like in posts further above claiming (non-ace) aros just use people for sex (said on positivity post).

Someone sexualizing aces again and engaging in sex-shaming at the same time, as usual with the claim that literally no one but a partner “needs” to know our orientations

Those Rachel Dolezal comparisons I mentioned made by non-black/white people who want to use antiblackness for what they call “ace discourse”?Yeah here is one white person doing it and here is another, even worse example where a white person goes “this is like if I pulled a Rachel D. and put on blackface and used the n-word…” (paraphrasing here). Here is the latter person utterly dismissing me being upset by their antiblackness (because black ppl’s pain only matters when it’s useful)

[For ppl who don’t know: Rachel Dolezal is a white woman who pretended to be black and built her career on it. White people sure as hell do not get to compare this shit to anything that is not antiblackness and use black people’s pain for their own purposes.]

A white person using antiblackness as a weapon against aces and aros in general (aka “ace tumblr”), acting smug regarding how supposedly we’re all so racist and “get triggered” by black people existing. (I am so tired of white ppl using racism as a cheap “gotcha” against aces and aros - groups which include PoC. And who then ignore or belittle PoC who call them out)

White person randomly informing WoC aces/aros can have white privilege

Again someone claiming ace privilege exists and here another person doing it adding to the post further above, claiming aces/aros have privilege for being ace/aro and that this is the case bc people who don’t have sex are privileged (wrong definition of asexuality… also of aromanticism??… and also no. No.)

What I mentioned about ppl telling us asexuality/aromanticism are not orientations but only ever modifiers? It’s happened a lot but here’s one example. And here’s someone outright saying aro aces don’t have an orientation but only modifiers.

Here’s the same person who said aro aces don’t have an orientation later turning around saying the orientation of aro aces is determined by how they behave and who they have sex with.

Another person putting nsfw shit in the ace positivity tag (link is to nsfw text)

And people try really hard to justify despising aces and aros by pointing to shitty people who share our identities/orientations. Honesty is secondary in this. Here you have someone taking a shitty post from an obvious nasty troll blog to say this is why ppl hate aces, and later when having the troll thing pointed out to them saying they already know. The post got over 3k notes.

“asexual shouldn’t even be a way people identify themselves”, with a second person in the thread agreeing

If you’re interested, some way back I also made a link-less post that is important to me talking about how nasty and harmful the racism and erasure of ace and aro PoC in all this has been

These are not even referring to more recent horrors that the exclusionist community has forced down our throats.

They don’t have a coherent definition of asexuality. Literally there’s no cohesive definition. None. Some of them say it’s people who feel no sexual attraction, some say it’s people who feel no sexual desire, some say you can have and enjoy sex and still be totally valid uwu, some say you can only have sex to please a partner, some say you have to be sex repulsed, the list goes on and fucking on. If we let in a group that has a definition that’s this fucking loose, we are opening the door for literally anyone to shoulder their way into this community.

I’ve already addressed this. There is a consistent definition. One Google search gets you that definition.

And even if there wasn’t, or if certain people reframe the definition to better mesh with their own personal experiences, why are you not extending this same rude-ass rhetoric towards bisexuals and pansexuals who constantly argue over the definitions of bi- and pansexuality? Why are you not extending this towards cis lesbians who argue if trans women can or cannot be WLW? Why are you not extending this towards cis gay men who argue if trans men can or cannot by MLM?

No one is ‘shouldering’ their way into any community. The asexual community is already a part of the LGBT movement. They’re not leaving just because you make rude posts like this.

Almost every single exclusionist I’ve spoken to has thought at some time or another that they were ‘demisexual’ or ‘grey-ace’ or some other bullshit ‘aspec’ term.

Exclusionists who do identified or have identified as asexual are not some sort of ‘gotcha’ for how the asexual community is bad. Once again, ace people expressing their experiences and suggesting to someone ‘you might be ace’ are not somehow homophobic or forcing people to be LGBT any more than the people in my life who told me I may be trans or agender were transphobic or forcing me to be trans or agender. If someone no longer identifies as asexual because of any given reason, that isn’t the fault of the asexual community for expressing that the option exists.

Have you ever spoken to an asexual who first found out about the definition of asexuality? Let me share my experience - when I first discovered the definition of asexuality and realized ‘oh, that’s me’, I sobbed tears of joy and relief for hours. I spent ages pouring over asexuality resources and participating in forums and embracing my new identity. And my experience isn’t some one-off thing - if you look into asexuality forums and websites, this is something many of us experience. In a world so overcharged with sexuality and people constantly telling us ‘you’re broken’, ‘you’ll find the right person’, etc, etc, an allosexual will never ever know what it’s like to have this feeling of relief that an asexual experiences when they first find out that’s an option.

Asexuality isn’t a spectrum. You either want sex/feel attraction to some degree (non-ace) or you don’t (ace). You don’t need a label for not wanting to fuck strangers. In fact, most people don’t want to fuck strangers. Demisexual is the norm!

“Why is there no coherent/consistent definition of asexuality???”

“Here is my (wrong) definition of asexuality! If you disagree with it you’re a homophobe!”

And that’s why the ‘asexual community’ should never be allowed in bc it’s an excuse for cishet people who don’t like hookups to invade spaces that were specifically made to get away from cishets.

We’re already allowed in. The ace community isn’t some out-group trying to get into the LGBT community. We’re here, and we’re staying, even when whiny exclusionists like you try to make these gotcha-style posts. Asexuals aren’t cishets, no matter how much you cry about it.

“Straight” isn’t a sexual orientation, it’s a position of power.

A-Spec Identities are Not Secondary.

Invisibility is Not a Privilege.

“passing privilege” is not a real thing.

Straight-passing privilege: a myth

Bad arguments against allowing a-spec to identify as queer

Having your identity erased is not a privilege.

asexuality, like bisexuality, is deliberately misunderstood by out groups in order to exclude us.

ace/aro people don’t “only” experience attraction to the ‘opposite gender’ or any other. that’s the point. we also experience a lack of attraction, either romantically or sexually, and that lack of attraction is part of our identity.

Straight is not default.

How many straight people do you know that want to kill themselves because of their orientation?

The closet is not a privilege

On that point—you can absolutely be ace and cishet. First of all, you can be asexual, cisgender, and heteroromantic (or aromantic, cisgender, and heterosexual). That’s pretty obvious. If you can have gay ace people, you can have straight ones. But that’s not even the most important point.

Yes, you can be a ‘cishet ace’, in the contexts you described. The reason people despise being called ‘cishet ace’ is because it’s being referred to in the traditional ‘cishet’ context of ‘non-LGBT person’. Some het aces identify as straight. Some het aces don’t identify as straight, they identify as asexual, and it’s not your place to label them against their will. There is no world in which aroaces, people who experience no attraction to anyone, are straight.

Let’s talk about the marginalised sexualities in the LGBT community. Prior to the introduction of the wholly unnecessary, toxic, and damaging split attraction model (I’ll get into that on my next point), homosexual meant homosexual and homoromantic. The sexual suffix designated the sex of people you’re attracted to. Homo meaning same, thus, same sex attraction, because that’s how Latin works. Same for bi. Same for hetero, even. Asexual is the only one that attempts to redefine this system. It should mean a- (meaning none, or lack of), therefor attraction to no sexes. It’s pretty simple. But the pure aceys saw the sexual suffix and immediately thought ‘oh that means fucking right?’ And decided they had to change shit.

Once again, citation needed. Stop trying to redefine asexuality and speak on behalf of asexuals. Asexuality IS ‘attraction to no sexes’. You’re so desperate for material that you’re pulling shit out of your ass to pin on ace people.

The split attraction model is massively harmful. It encourages internalised homophobia and compulsive heterosexuality. My gay ass for AGES was like ‘I’m grey-ace homosexual biromantic uwu’ because I thought I couldn’t just be a filthy homo, I had to be special somehow, I had to make myself available to women in some way even if it wasn’t sexual availability. The SAM causes LOTS of developing LGBT kids to struggle with denying their own identities under the guise of embracing them through microlabelling. Among teenagers it’s almost like a damn contest, like who has the most obnoxious, convoluted label. It’s stupid and damaging.

Can you provide any non-tumblr sources about the SAM being problematic? Because I have only ever seen exclusionists on this hellsite trying to claim this. Additionally, your experiences are not universal, they are not a ‘gotcha!’ for the ace community, and they are not a valid argument. I spent 5+ years believing I may be transgender, before establishing I likely was not. I do not in any way blame the transgender community for making me think that way, because it was not the fault of any trans person for providing resources for me and supporting the possibility. Healthy exploration of one’s sexuality and gender is OKAY. It isn’t a bad thing, despite what exclusionists like to claim. If you identified one way for a while, and then no longer identify that way, that is HEALTHY EXPLORATION AND GROWTH, not internalized homo-/transphobia and not the fault of any asexual.

Also, the SAM is only commonly used amongst ace and aro people anyway, since it offers a chance for us to distinguish what kind of ace we are. If you can acknowledge that ‘cishet aces’ exist who are heteroromantic and asexual, then you shouldn’t have any issue realizing that biromantic, panromantic, homoromantic, etc aces also exist and may, you know, want to acknowledge that part of themselves? I am romantically interested in men and women - should I ignore the SAM and just call myself aro/ace anyway even when that isn’t an accurate description of who I am? Am I hurting myself by giving myself a more specific label?

Another serious topic I need to discuss: Ace advocates encouraging children and teens to identify as asexual. Literal children shouldn’t be experiencing sexual attraction. I’ve seen ace people telling a TWELVE YEAR OLD that she was asexual because she didn’t feel any interest in sex. She’s a child. Of course she didn’t. I was told when I was 14 that I was ace and I, being a vulnerable child, embraced the label and carried it til I was 17.

No one ‘encourages’ children and teens to identify as asexual, ESPECIALLY not children. Once again, someone saying ‘you might be ace’ is NOT forcing that label onto someone. YOUR EXPERIENCE IS NOT UNIVERSAL. YOUR HATRED FOR THE ASEXUAL COMMUNITY IS NOT A STANDARD.

I was 14 when I discovered asexuality. I was ruthlessly mocked in school for not having a boyfriend. Many people in my class were discussing how they had lost their virginity and the sexual endeavors they took part in. Yes, at FOURTEEN. 13+ year olds are not innocent children who do not experience any form of sexual attraction or libido. It is far more damaging for teenagers growing up to NOT know there is an option to be asexual and force themselves into dangerous and harmful sexual situations to ‘fit in’. The number of asexuals I know or have spoken to who were forced to have sex, send nude pictures of themselves, or otherwise been put in a sexual situation they didn’t want to be in, simply because they didn’t know that being asexual was a valid option that existed and thought they were broken, is immense. THAT is a unifying asexual experience that an allosexual will never understand.

The reason you can be too young to identify as asexual and not too young to identify as lesbian/gay/bi, is because LGB people experience attraction of ALL sorts to the gender(s) they are attracted to, and romantic attraction develops much earlier than sexual attraction (that’s why we have puppy love and not puppy lust). Asexuality as it is defined presently is purely about sexual attraction.

I thought you said there WAS no coherent asexuality definition? Can you at least try to have a coherent argument?

By your logic, 12 year olds who feel they are transgender and go on permanent body-changing hormone blockers/HRT that they may eventually regret are more valid than a 15 year old using the label of asexuality that they may eventually move away from without any damage. That is asinine.

Honestly it’s far more creepy that way exclusionists constantly talk about minors and sexuality. You guys are more obsessed with it than any asexual who suggests or acknowledges the existence of asexuality to someone.

Lastly, asexual and aromantic people absolutely deserve a sense of community, a sense of belonging. They absolutely need a place where they can interact with people who are like them! The problem is, LGBT people and ace/aro people don’t have that much in common. At all. We don’t face the same issues either. If LGBT people could make our community amidst serious legal and social ostracisation and oppression, without the help of the internet, ace/aro people can absolutely make their own community in the cyber age that is relevant to the issues they face so that they don’t talk over the serious topics the LGBT community discusses.

You cannot in one breath say “Asexuals are valid” and in the next deny their experiences. Spend five minutes in the community and you will see testimony after testimony from aces describing their abuse, their sexual assault(s), the countless times people have called them confused, broken, wrong, mentally ill, inhuman, sinful, and how these experiences have left them feeling hopeless, alone, alienated, subhuman, depressed, and suicidal. Almost every asexual out there will tell you a story of how their orientation has caused them pain and struggle, and you can’t call them valid while at the same time calling these experiences invalid and nonexistent.

Bonus: This is a list of all the mainstream LGBTQ groups that include asexuals.

Also, we do have our own community, because every letter in the acronym has its own community and yet is still part of the acronym, and yet you fucking shits won’t stop sending us hate and bombarding us with shit meant to trigger and harass us.

I genuinely don’t expect you to read or attempt to acknowledge any of this - that’s simply the way exclusionists are. However, you are wrong. You are not helping anyone by being an ace exclusionist. You are simply a vocal minority and a bigot - nothing more, nothing less.

A full list of resources and information can be found HERE for further reading.

#mine #aroace #ace discourse #acecourse #aphobia #herefortheace #justaphobethings #tw rape #ask to tag

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takaraphoenix · 6 years

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Hellooo I read some posts of yours under the hashtag “Riordan Critical”, and I really liked your opinions. I was curious, what do you think about Magnus Chase’s serie and, more importantly, about representation in his books?

Warning: The following text will contain high levels of salt that will make the dead sea seem sugary.

This turned out longer than intended, so I decided to shorten it here. Klick and read all of it, but seriously, I am overly salty in this, as a heads-up.

Well, what I mainly think about Magnus Chase is that it’s a cash-grab.

Riordan had one really huge hit with Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

He wrote the Kane Chronicles about the Egyptians and they were… not as popular as that. So he decided to crossover and tie-in and essentially try to convert PJatO readers into “Look, here is your Percy! Check those stories out and discover that you might like Carter so you will buy my other books!”.

Then he tackled the Romans, but straight-up went sequel to PJatO with that, because he saw that non-Percy material wasn’t working as well.

And with the Norse he essentially clickbaited.

“Magnus CHASE. Look at that name! What could it mean? Is it perhaps next gen about Percy and Annabeth’s son? But oh why would he have Annabeth’s last name? Oh, I simply NEED to know!”

That… is literally the only purpose that Magnus being Annabeth’s cousin fulfills. To make really-very sure PJatO readers would also read Riordan’s new series.

There is virtually no other reason why those two are cousins. It would have splendidly worked if it was just about Magnus Hunt, or whatever kind of alternative last name you might like. Just something that doesn’t tie it together with PJatO.

So, that was kind of a turn-off for me.

Additionally, as you did notice due to reading my other Riordan Critical posts, I’m not exactly a fan of Heroes of Olympus. It had a lot of potential, but the author didn’t feel the need to explicitely write even half of said potential. It also showed that while Riordan was great at writing kids and dealing with them, he flat-out sucks at teenagers because inexplicably all they seem to care in his mind is romance.

So the idea of a book-series where we right away start off with teenagers already gave me a mighty migraine caused by Riordan’s shipping history.

Another turn-off.

Lastly… please call back your bald eagle and roll up that star-spangled banner, Riordan, America is not the center of the universe.

PJatO was written during a time where yes, America was very centric and even respected. 90s and early 2000s, yes, I agree, America was basically the center of the world. So to have the Greek gods move there, okay. I’m buying it.

But to have the Greek gods live in New York City and then tie the Kane Chronicles also into the same universe and also have the Egyptian gods sit in Brooklyn, New York…

And then add the Romans, who - hey, wow, San Francisco and not New York! What a shock. Such surprise.

Yeah, no, that’s still the US. You could have, at the very least and to make it at least a tiny bit realistic that you’re retconning Romans in, have them be seated in Europe. Instead of also the US. Because sure, totally, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans never-ever run into each other while they all got their home-base in the same damn country.

And now, what a shocker, the Norse gods also moved to the United States of America.

Newsflash: America really actually isn’t the center of the universe and, this might come as a surprise, America is not that popular anymore either.

The sheer egocentrism of having Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Norse gods all abandon their original continents to move to the US kind of makes me nauseous at this point.

No. No, America is not that great. No, not all the gods of the entire world want to move to the country where trans people aren’t allowed to use restrooms anymore, where unarmed black people are shot by the police, where children have to march for the right to not be shot at school, where women have to travel to another state to maybe get an abortion.

No, your country is not that great, Riordan, please stop acting like it.

It’s quite frankly very insulting that Riordan treats Europe like a pesky, underdeveloped little thing that’s not worthy its own gods attention.

I could buy one pantheon moving on the US. I don’t buy four.

If you want to write US centric god stories, how about you give native Americans some rep and start writing about their gods. Who, you know, would thus also just stay in their own country for a change.

I just really can’t accept the fact that he now also moved the Norse gods up to the US and that oh my such coincident, Frey fucked the sister of Annabeth’s dad so now the Chases attracted two different pantheons.

That’s just too much bullshit, click-baiting and things that make me weary from experience with his last series.

So. Yeah. I haven’t read it and nor do I have plans of reading it, because literally not a single thing about it seems worth reading and all the things I just listed make alarm bells go off in my head.

Also, just one more salty add-on: Personally, I think that his representation in Magnus Chase is also click-bait. He realized there is a huge audience for LGBTQ+ characters when he made Nico gay so he is now focusing more on representation for popularity’s sake.

Look, I know that last part in particular is really very bitter and everyone who reads the books and is happy about the representation given in them should. Of course. We don’t get enough rep in YA novels.

Nico di Angelo was handled horrendously. In my opinion.

I loved House of Hades and the plot of Nico coming out to Jason. Don’t get me wrong, not everything Riordan does is awful, obviously I also like a lot of his stuff, otherwise I wouldn’t have read it.

I one hundred percent believe that Nico was intended as gay from the get-go, because the evidence for his canonical love for Percy is all over PJatO. It was good writing. It was a brilliant set-up.

The level of angst Nico dealt with in HoO was good. Realistic, especially for a kid from the 30s.

But then Blood of Olympus ended and Riordan, I don’t know, panicked. He completely rushed and butchered everything that he had been setting up for years now and it is... At its very core, this was the moment where he lost all of my trust, really.

When Nico flippantly confesses to his feelings for Percy in public. A week ago, he couldn’t even admit it in front of Jason and a god, even with high stakes, but all of a sudden he has the confidence to confess not just to being gay but to his feelings for Percy.

And then this utterly rushed job of “Well, he was in love with Percy for years, but over the past five days, he totes 100% got over it and now he has a crush on Only Other Gay, whom he spoke a total of about 5 sentences to”, just because Riordan can’t live without shipping.

Nico had been through so much. Give the boy time. Yes, okay, let him bond with Will, but there was no need to rush the “suddenly over Percy” shit and the coming out of the closet thing.

Riordan’s middle-aged straight man was showing hard there and as a lesbian, who went through the spiel of denial, hiding and coming to terms myself, I felt... I was genuinely emotionally crushed for weeks by what a shitty job he did with Nico’s coming out.

It’s not even about the ship. I never expected Nico and Percy to get together at the end, I’m not an idiot, I know he’d never break his OTP up.

It’s solemnly about the fact that Nico coming out to Percy was handled like a fucking joke. Flippant and fun and “You’re not my type haha now I’m off with Only Other Gay”.

He could have had Nico bonding with Will. He could have had Nico getting over Percy. He could have had Nico confessing to Percy.

But it all needed more time. The book was ending though, so he rushed through it and slapped a shotty, shitty ending to Nico’s coming out arc and it still makes me so intensely angry.

There is just no way that Riordan didn’t know he’d force another sequel outta those books. So there was absolutely no reason to rush it all.

He could have just had it end in the infirmary. Even with Will making his comments and even with Nico being flustered. But end it there.

Give us a Nico who is more settled at Camp Half-Blood and who is more settled with his sexuality and who would have then come out publically and confessed to Percy. Months after that book, in the next series. Time that would have given Nico the chance to fully embrace himself before opening up to others.

But that’s not possible for Riordan. Riordan needs a happy ending and both PJatO as well as HoO proved that happy endings only work with romance. The great happy ending of PJatO was less about the end of the war but had to be celebrated in an overly cheesy underwater kiss between his OTP. The great happy ending for HoO was that Piper and Jason were happy, Frank and Hazel were happy, Percy and Annabeth were planning to go to college together wtf how is that even possible Percy just missed an entire year of school he ain’t graduating high school any time soon, Nico and Will were going off into the sunset together and the grand finale was literally Leo and Calypso flying into the sunset together. Not a single friendship or family based happy ending. It’s all about the romance and everyone has to be in their one true love best by the age of 14 because that is so wildly realistic.

Riordan has so completely lost my trust over the course of Heroes of Olympus that I can’t help but wonder about the actual motivation behind the things he chose to do there, because many of his past decisions really can just be tracked back to money and popularity.

Many of his decisions made in Heroes of Olympus themselves, for example, directly reflect him rolling over onto his back to try and please his readers (-> spoiling the finale of HoO over a year prior to the final book being published by tweeting how none of the Seven will die in the finale. Thanks for taking out all of the suspense). It’s a habit of his and it keeps getting worse and I’m just… not there to stay and witness.

I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t want to continue being dragged down by something when it’s shitty. When something loses quality so drastically, I do the healthy thing - and quit. And I quit after Blood of Olympus and I have absolutely no intention of ever touching another Riordan book again, unless it’s PJatO for rereading purposes - because that was still actual quality.

Now, lastly, on the matter of representation. Well. It’s a bit pathetic?

I mean, PJatO had Charles Beckendorf, who’s black, and Ethan Nakamura, who’s Japanese, and… literally every other character who was in any way or shape important, was white. And the only two POC were killed off during the Titan War.

Then he wrote the sequels. Leo - Latino. Reyna - Latina. Hazel - black. Frank - Asian. Piper - native American.

It was… Let’s be real, it felt like he was trying to cram as much representation in there as humanly possible to make up for how white the first series was. But I wouldn’t particularly call it representation, because aside from stating their ethnical backgrounds, he didn’t really do a lot with it. It had very little effect on the books and on the characters themselves.

There was like one tiny scene of Piper in a flashback with her grandpa and for a second there I thought he was using that to set up the next spin-off books about native American gods, tied in with Piper’s family, but that didn’t happen.

Reyna being Puerto Rican only… came into play when they were in Puerto Rico, but that was also… not really of actual importance. Like, the scenes as they were could have as well happened in Miami with a white girl.

The thing is, I recently watched One Day at a Time and it’s about a family with roots in Cuba and their Cuban heritage is important. They’re by no means reduced to being Cuban, but it’s integrated into the story. It’s important to the plot and it’s important to the characters’ personality. Now that is what I would call representation.

To actually go and do something, work with the ethnical backgrounds you give your characters.

Traditions, language, pride in their heritage. Cultural clashes, maybe.

Like for Hazel, who is a black girl from the 40s and from whom I would have liked to see more wonder or maybe even anger upon what has changed and what hasn’t changed since her childhood. Riordan teased it, a little, in the flashback about Hazel and Sammy, but in the end, that was only mainly for more love-drama too because it wasn’t enough that this 13 year old girl had Frank in love with her and Leo crushing on her, no, it was vital to add some past romantic drama for her.

And that’s just not something Riordan does. He slaps an ethnical background onto the characters and that’s kind of… it. He writes romance novels by now, where everything else has gotten rather secondary.

I can’t speak for Magnus Chase because I haven’t read it. I’m aware there is a Muslima lead, a genderfluid lead and a character who is mute or deaf, I’m unsure about that one I just know ASL is represented in the series in some way.

All of those can be good. If he actually does a good job with it. If it’s just sub-plot stuff that’s tagged on and not worked with, well, that’d be a shame. Personally, I don’t trust him to prioritize any of those things over his shipping, but I’ll hope that it’s good and at the very least, it seems satisfying enough.

Then again... I don’t read too much critical thinking in this fandom and too much blind love for “Uncle Rick” who can’t do no wrong, so... I don’t trust that to reflect how the books really do.

#Riordan Critical #I mean this takes the critical part to a new level I guess #salty as the dead sea #roseateblossom

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transamorousnetwork · 3 years

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How To Overcome The One Thing Creating Sucky Lives, Trans or Trans-attracted

A common experience among newer Transamorous Network clients is “split energy”. Here’s why resolving split energy is not only important, it can be a joyful process and create a life worth loving.

But first, let’s look at what split energy is, why it happens and why so many transgender and trans-attracted people don’t know about split energy and thus struggle with it.

What is split energy?

Split energy happens when belief and desire conflict with one another. It can also happen when a person stands in two different, opposite stories at the same time.

For example, a trans-attracted man might want a transwoman as a partner. That’s a story creating certain desires and impulses. But that same man might have a story saying transgender women are actually men, or, that being attracted to transgender women makes him gay.

He might also believe (a belief is a story) that giving up his marriage (to a cisgender woman) in order to be with a transgender woman would be too great a burden to bear.

^^Split energy means having a foot in two different story camps, or telling stories that conflict with desires. Split energy often feels like confusion, uncertainty and anxiety. (Photo by Sherise VD on Unsplash)

One client, for example, believes transgender women are not serious about having a serious monogamous relationship, so he only meets transgender women matching that story. Meanwhile, he believes his wife can’t live without him and if he divorces her, she’ll fall apart. It’s no wonder he feels anxiety, stress and indecision about his trans-attraction, born of split energies of wanting a transgender woman, believing they’re just fantasies, and needing to stay with his wife.

Those examples show how a man might have split energy. What split energy might a transgender woman have?

She might have a story that she wants to be with a man, yet believes all men who desire her are perverts, scum, or “chasers”. Or she might have the story that she can’t get a job because she’s trans, but also wants a job. So the men she meets are perverts and scum, and she remains unemployed, struggling and alone.

It should be obvious split energy also happens when someone has a desire they don’t believe is fulfillable. They don’t think their desire can happen. Desire existing alongside disbelief creates split energy too.

Why it’s a struggle

Many people struggle with split energy while not knowing they’re struggling. They think negative emotions indicating split energy – confusion, feeling uncertain, anxiety, insecurity and more – are just part of life.

But life is supposed to be fun, easy and filled with desires that fulfill themselves. Actually, that’s what’s happening all the time, even for someone with split energy.

But a person with split energy creates over and over, the reality containing and reflecting back to them, the combination of their split energy. That’s why nothing seems to change for the person, or why things change, but often stay the same or get worse.

In other words, life SUCKS when split energy dominates.

It’s more common than you think

Many popular communities generate split energy situations. Religions are a major culprit. Religions as sometimes practiced, contradict beliefs that are normal, wholesome and good. But some people in these organizations, especially trans-attracted and transgender people, but not only such people, create split energy when their natural, normal, wholesome desires contradict religious doctrine.

My clients who are Christian or Jewish struggle with stories taken from their religion. Their religious upbringing keeps them feeling unworthy, fearful, in shame, and in self reproach because religious teachings do not allow or agree that certain desires are natural, normal, wholesome and good.

^^A major source of split energy are religions combined with an authentic self at odds with religious doctrine. (Photo by Dejan Livančić on Unsplash)

I know some people practicing religion-inspired beliefs do not have that experience. I’m not saying that religion is bad across-the-board. So if you are a believer, a Christian or a Jew, and you’re happy, then enjoy your happy life. 😌

People who do come to me seeking what I offer, who also have backgrounds in religion, struggle at first with split energy generated from their desires and their religious beliefs.

You are god in a human body

For example, it’s very difficult for a Christian or a Jew to believe they are God in a human body creating reality as they move through life.

It’s difficult for some Christians to accept that they can fulfill all their desires, especially desires Christianity tells them are sinful or bad or will send them to hell.

Clients brought up in religion literally have one foot in their religious beliefs, and another foot testing the waters of something they know holds promise. They want their desires, but their religion says their desires are “sinful”. That’s split energy born of conflicting stories.

My mentor adds a beautiful dimension to all this:

"Continuing to tell stories of [for example] shortage only continues to contradict your desire for abundance, and you cannot have it both ways: You cannot focus upon unwanted and receive wanted. You cannot focus upon stories about money that make you feel uncomfortable and allow into your experience what makes you feel comfortable. A different story will bring different results: My thoughts are the basis for the [fulfillment] of all things that I consider to be good, which includes enough money, and health, for my comfort and joy."

Other split energy sources

Religion isn’t the only source that can create split energy. Beliefs adopted from one’s parents or one’s culture often create split energy.

One of my client’s parents, for example, raised her to believe a woman must serve her family to the exclusion of her own desires. She is a powerful woman and is embracing this new approach I offer. As a result she is moving quickly through soothing these old beliefs.

^^My client learns how good it feels focused on oneself.

^^An example of how good it feels cleaning up split energy.

And yet she finds it fascinating how much her old beliefs cause resistance in her which feels like a “struggle” to her. Her old beliefs tell her serving her own selfish desires is bad and wrong. In fact, there’s no better way to be in service to others than when one selfishly pursues one’s desires.

Why selfishness is good

Putting both feet in the “taking care of me” camp results in maximum connection to one’s Broader Perspective, that part of us that knows everything we want, where it is and how to get it. And it is that maximum connection that allows all that one desires to flow effortlessly into one’s life experience, including impulses that, when followed, put you squarely in a fulfilling desire’s path.

“Taking care of me” creates a life experience of joyful exuberance. One sees life experience shaping to the new stories, morphing from the old one and becoming the source or the foundation of a blissful life.

The blissful life leads to self love. And when one loves oneself, it is simple, easy, and joyful loving others. And being selfish, you become the most generous person anyone knows.

Integrating one’s stories so they all reflect what one wants creates wonderful epiphanies, seemingly amazing coincidences. Clear indisputable manifestations are so convincing, you get that life is meant to be fun.

Joyful non-resistance

Split energy resits fulfilling desires. Releasing resistance by cleaning up split energy uncovers every human being’s natural joy. The more a person stands with both feet in that joy, the more blissful their life gets. All of my clients experience this to one degree or another.

The Universe stands ready to deliver to anyone a life consistent with their goodness, their worthiness, their natural connection to the joy of being.

Everyone experiences the joy of life. Bogus stories mask that experience. Split energy results. Cleaning that up starts with wanting to clean it up. The rest happens automatically.

#transgender #transamorous network #transattracted #transattraction #transamorous #transamorous men #transamory #m2f #sexy tgirl #tgirls do it better #transgirls

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kimabutch · 7 years

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Revolutionary Girl Utena Headcanon Survey: Results!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who responded to my survey! There were a few troll responses, but those have been deleted. The results are below. May be spoilers — proceed with caution!

Other responses:

Queer

is into women, not sure if bi

Lesbian, but society have influenced her to view men as attractive (princes) as shown by how she forgot Anthy through the change in the "fairy tale".

Series: Kinsey 2—predominantly heterosexual, but she does seem to have feelings for Anthy. Movie: straight-up Kinsey 3 bisexual.

Other responses:

Bi, but prefers girls because men tend to abuse her

ace lesbian

Too hard to say without seeing her after being out of abusive situations for a while.

I dont think it is knowable, to herself least of all.

Bisexual but also, bisexual is Not the same as pansexual. Pansexual is liking all genders. Bisexual is liking same gender + other gender, ie a person can like the same gender + nonbinary, but not male/female, thus making them Not pansexual. They're two completely different orientations so please don't erase bisexuality/pansexuality by combining them

Utenasexual

Demiromantic/demisexual

Series: demisexual/single-target sexuality on Utena; movie: bisexual/pansexual

Questioning but def into girls

Other responses:

Lesbian. She has never been attracted to that blue haired manipulative sexual harassing senpai of hers.

Demisexual

Other responses:

Not straight but Very Confused

Ace lesbian

Demisexual

Nanami seems a bit too immature to know her own sexuality yet—see: Nanami's Egg

Other responses:

Queer

She does what she wants

Bisexual, not pansexual.

Straight, but totally willing to make out with a girl for attention

Other responses:

Some flavor of queer -- I see her as falling heavily into compulsory heterosexuality without realizing it

She's gay but it's gonna take her a few years to figure that out

not sure if straight or bi

Bisexual, not pansexual.

maybe bi-curious?

Other responses:

Heavily closeted lesbian

Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Bi

bitch

Other response:

Bisexual. It's heavily implied that she was the previous Duelist before Utena. She might have had a relationship with Anthy, which makes Anthy hate her even more after because she chose Akio.

(Neither Tokiko nor Keiko have any other responses.)

Other responses:

Queer, but mostly uses sex for power and not intimacy or gratification

Scum

who the fuck cares

asshole

Yes.

Hedonist

Pansexual but abusive/pedophilic. Is attracted to people not for their gender but for the extent of control he can wield over them.

rather than "no preference" can i put "no orientation" whatsoever because he is a bad manipulative man and attracted to revolutionary power alone

the devil

Toxic masculinity—sexuality is a weapon that he uses against women and men alike. I don't think attraction or orientation has anything to do with it. So maybe aromantic and pansexual?

Evil

Queer

Bad

Power that can be gained from their partner. Either over the partner or because of the partner.

He'd describe himself as Heterflexible

Biromantic asexual. He acts sexual throughout the series due to Akio's manipulation, not of his own desire to attract others sexually.

Other responses:

Queer

Hatefucksexual

Bisexual, but for the same gender attraction, he's very closeted and insecure about it.

Frustrated

Other response:

Mikage = Gay / Nemuro = Straight

Other responses:

Straight trans man

Trans lesbian

Greysexual

hyper-repressed trans lesbian

gay trans girl!!

Other responses:

He's Just A Kid Dude

He's prepubescent, so it's hard to say for certain

Other responses:

I Don't Even Remember This Guy

Likes girls, at least, but is so weird in approaching this that might be trans.

Other responses for the survey in general are under the cut!

I think that the entire purpose of trying to fit these characters into specific sexualities goes against a lot of the point of the show. I see the show as very much a queer (and queered) narrative, and a lot of the characters would fall onto the queer spectrum, and it seems almost incompatible with the project of calling into question pre-received categories of self that the show itself has to even have a survey with questions like this.

I only gave their sexual orientation based on the interactions I saw during the series. All of the men are straight because I didn't see (or remember) them interacting with other men in a romantic/sexual way. I didn't base their sexuality on their appearance or their(especially touga's) flamboyant personality.

A lot of the heterosexual relationships in this show are explicitly shown to be Fucked Up so like, idk. Like, I don't really have a hc for Tsuwabuki bc his romantic involvement with Nanami was just Bad and I don't really see it as indicative of an actual preference and more of like, a vulnerability to manipulation? And I feel like that's true for a lot of the characters, like their really manipulative or abusive relationships can't be taken as like an actual indication of preference. Especially the incestuous ones.

chu chu is gay

I love my gay dueling kids

Some of these people's orientation is 'bitch/asshole' if you ask me.

Chu Chu is clearly gay. Come on.

???lol utena isnt straightttt

fuck akio ohtori

Literally everyone is bi in the Utena universe. Nice and simple. It allows for ease of storytelling, being able to explore gender/sexuality themes without getting all label-y in a narrative that doesn't really use (or need) labels. I like Utena specifically because it focuses on the more interesting storytelling aspects of romance and heterosexism without unnecessary diversions of "am I gay or straight? oh no I can't decide!" (But then again some people think of that as the driving question of the whole series! I think everyone just pulls out themes they relate to.)

this show made me realise i was a lesbian. also dont ever ask me abt chu-chu's sex life again

everybody thats a douche is straight i don't make the rules it actual canon

Chigusa Sanjouin - bi

Shaddow Play Girls - sexualities indiscribable in our lowly human language

We Are All Wlw

you fool. chu chu is the Ultimate gay representation

chuchu is bi too

It's odd how I just assumed some of the characters e.g. Tatsuya and Keiko are straight just because they don't show attraction to anyone of the same gender in the show but honestly I don't care

Aro/Ace should be a modifier and not it's own category

Although I marked some down as straight, no one's really straight on this show. I can see everyone make exceptions, although they're still primarily what I marked them down as (as far as headcanons go)

I imagine that Utena, Shiori, and Saionji are on the closeted side of things at the beginning of the series.

STOP CHU-CHU ABUSE (also juri and miki are both aroace and platonic soulmates bc not everything has to be about romance i think)

Chu-Chu's orientation is frog.

What about the Shadow Players??? (Kidding)

Bisexual and pansexual are two completely different orientations. Please do not erase the two by combining them.

utena is very much in the closet and by the end of the series she comes to terms with being a butch lesbian thanx

Everything is lesbians

lesbean

Chuchu is chusexual (attracted to frogs).

nanami's orientation feels more complicated than straight but i feel like she'd live her life that way and say it as straight to simplify for people (and herself)

Didn't ChuChu date a frog?

honestly i dont really have an orientation hc for keiko either i was just really aware of the fact that i hadn't put "straight" for any of them and i was like "yea she's probably a straightie" but you dont need to factor that in to your results or anything its just a fun fact, a piece of trivia i chose to share here :-)

fuck i love these gays

chu chu is gay and i love him

#revolutionary girl utena #shoujo kakumei utena #rgu #long post

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theonyxpath · 4 years

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Because, honestly, after this last week, diving into a world where problems can be solved with magic sounds pretty damn sweet!

So, I’m not going to have much mind-space to write my usual faux-Stan Lee kind of editorializing and rah-rah this week. In fact, I’m pretty much going to skip all that and just post the topics our Monday Meeting crew discussed today:

Black Lives Matter

As much as it shouldn’t need to be said, it does.

The Legendlore Kickstarter starts tomorrow, and we talked a lot about the various Actual Plays that will be showing up on Twitter, including two that are detailed below in the Onyx Path Media section. We’re hoping that folks give them a watch so they can see how the characters and setting interact.

TC: Aberrant art of Bene “Bounty” Manata by GONG Studios

We reviewed the M20 Technocracy Reloaded Kickstarter that ended last Thursday and were really thrilled by pretty much the whole thing, although it ended oddly with a reoccurring glitch on the KS side. Really not much we can do there with the whole “technical difficulties” thing outside our control, as it may well have been out of KSs.

Scion Companion art by Chris Bivins

We reviewed the plans for the Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention, which is ready to start on June 12th -14th to “provide fans and players of tabletop roleplaying games with a uniquely online convention experience. Onyx Path Gaming Con will be completely digital and accessible to anyone with a laptop, computer, or cellphone, allowing fans and players of Onyx Path games to connect with one another over their favorite game”. Check out more details below in the Conventions section of the Blurbs.

TC: Aberrant art of Pratima Splash Basham by GONG Studios

We decided to investigate further as to whether there are accessibility issues with some projects.

Aaron Voss continues to get up to speed with our project scheduling set-up, and with getting books to press and out to KS backers and distribution, so there were questions and answers reviewing each of the projects headed to press right now. Since we have added Studio2 as a sales link to distribution and thus into stores, we also now need to be sure that they have the info they need to solicit distributors once books are ready to go on sale.

Titanomachy art by Shen Fei

Tomorrow we have two more Developer Town Hall gatherings, and we reviewed who has indicated they are coming and when. Reminder- it’s your last chance to send me any questions in the Comments that I can ask the attending devs.

TC: Aberrant art of Ricardo Carambola Montoya Bernal by GONG Studios

OK, folks. Please stay safe, and we sincerely hope that this thing we do can provide you a break during these times.

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

This Tuesday, June 2nd at 2pm Eastern US time, return with us to The Realm of Legendlore!

Grab your friends and escape to another world!

You’ve found an enchanted portal — a transition point — between worlds. The portal, called a Crossing, takes you to a world you thought only existed in novels and films: a magical land where dragons roam the skies, orcs and hobgoblins terrorize weary travelers, and unicorns prance through the forest. It is a world where humans join other peoples such as elves, trolls, dwarves, changelings, and the dreaded creatures who steal the night. It is a world of fantasy — of imagination.

It is the Realm.

It is Legendlore.

Onyx Path Media!

Our crew sit down with all the Exalted creators they can for a no-holds barred Exalted Roundtable! What’s coming for 3rd Edition and Exalted Essence? How soon will Exigents be ready to Kickstart? Answers to these and many, many, other questions to be revealed next Friday!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

This week is all about Legendlore, which is why we’re excited to announce not one, but two Legendlore actual plays commencing this week, with a third starting the week after! You’ll really want to follow us on twitch.tv/theonyxpath and tune in to Friday’s first session run by the game’s developer, Steffie de Vaan, and stick around for the evening slot where Legendlore: Lost in the Crossing commences with character creation.

We’re very excited about all of these actual plays, but let’s highlight Lost in the Crossing for a moment. We’re pleased to announce that Jen Vaughn of Haunted Vault Studios is running this four-part campaign for us, that it’ll take you into some of the real meat of the Legendlore setting, demonstrate a lot of the fun system and world elements of the game, and introduce you to a wonderful assembly of players.

Here’s the crew behind Lost in the Crossing:

Kikka Delarose Pronouns: She/Her Bio: Kikka Delarose is a tabletop player, representation panel coordinator, and creator of A Lonely Haunt RPG ( https://kikka.itch.io/a-lonely-haunt )Twitter handle: @KikkaVO

Teo Acosta Pronouns: He/Him Bio: Teo Acosta is an award winning Cinematographer, Storyboard Artist, and Sequential Artist. He is the co-founder of Haunted Soup Pictures and avid Tabletop Enthusiast! Check out Teo’s comics at http://www.wizardsandcuteshit.com and his other work at http://hauntedsoup.com IG/Twitter: @teo_acosta @HauntedSoupPictures

Logan Timmins Pronouns: He/him Bio: Logan is a queer, Aussie, forest-loving, tattooed, trans NERD. He is passionate about tabletop roleplaying games and the improvised storytelling that they create which is nothing short of magic. Find Logan at: https://breathingstories.itch.io/ & @Ink_And_Stories & @StrikeOut_TTRPG Twitter: @Ink_And_Stories

Bones K. Leopard Pronouns: They/Them Bio: Bones Leopard is a twin and nonbinary writer and artist who currently resides in Los Angeles. Their projects include the twice successful Kickstarter project [SUPER]NATURAL ATTRACTION, and their webcomic MR. HARE & MR.BEAR. In 2018 they successfully funded the kickstarter PANDORA’S BOOK OF MONSTERS which led to writing PANDORA’S LEGACY for BOOM! Studios. Bones is currently working on launching their next webcomic, a D&D based fantasy comic: ReDux this year! Check out their comics work here: https://www.bonesleopard.com/ Twitter: @BonesKLeopard IG: @BonesLeopard

Jen Vaughn Pronouns: She/they Bio: Jen Vaughn is cartoonist and narrative designer for video game company/space cult Very Very Spaceship. She runs a weekly Twitch show on Tuesday nights featuring a new RPG every month on the Big Dun-Jen Show (@bigdunjenshow) and plays D&D with the all-women fam-friendly podcast, d20 Dames (d20dames.com). Find more of her RPG adventures and comics at www.hauntedvaultstudios.com Twitter/IG: @thejenya

On Lost in the Crossing, the intrepid players cross over into East Azoth to discover that fantasy is not all unicorns and sweet mead. They’ll encounter the Garbage Pit of the Children of the Highlands; Earthly relics – that some might called trash – left from previous waves of visitors; help return lost relics to their homes; and learn about the dangerous beauty of the Nightlands lunar cycle all while making friends with the Realmborn people. Will the players be able to make it back to Earth and do they even want to return? Find the answers to all these questions and more on Fridays in June, 7-9pm PT on twitch.tv/theonyxpath

It’s an excellent crew and we’re looking forward to seeing what they have planned!

We shouldn’t depart from our Twitch coverage without highlighting that this week also sees the finale of Changeling: The Lost- Littlebrook Reunion, which Chris (the Primogen) has diligently and excellently ran for us since near enough when we started our Twitch streams in earnest.

Thank you so much, Chris, and see you down the road!

We’ll be back with our YouTube (www.youtube.com/user/theonyxpath) coverage and profiles of other actual plays, reviews, and interviews next week, but before we go, here’s the always amazing Occultists Anonymous with more Mage: The Awakening:

Episode 102: Witching Hour The cabal takes a late night trip to the now-empty cemeteries to investigate who might be behind this and why, then prepare an old-fashioned stakeout… with some magical assistance. https://youtu.be/qJmFpBvGQa8

Episode 103: Lives On The Line Facing off against antagonist Mages, the cabal try to talk with them first, but are quickly drawn into a Duel Arcane with their lives at stake. Red Dread is called in to officiate outside of the bounds of the New York Consilium. https://youtu.be/vcO_wtfh5co

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This week we dig up the Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire advance PDF! On sale on DriveThruRPG on Wednesday!

Buried Bones is the ultimate guide to creating in the Realms of Pugmire. Whether you’re making your own products for the Canis Minor community content program, want to make your personal Pugmire chronicle as accurate as possible, or are just interested in some of the behind-the-scenes details of the world, Buried Bones is the book to read! It includes:

The writer’s guide shared with all Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau creators

A number of blogs related to the Realms of Pugmire, rewritten for this edition

A handy guide to help people convert material from the 5e OGL to Pugmire or Monarchies of Mau

Answers to frequently asked questions about the lore of the world and the mechanics of the RPGs

Also this Wednesday we will be adding a fantastic new Art Pack for Scion: Hero to the Storypath Nexus Community Content site to add even more amazing and evocative art for your community content projects!

Conventions!

As I mentioned above, we are holding the first-ever Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention on June 12th – June 14th!

Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention focuses on all our sci-fi, fantasy, and horror tabletop RPG settings and systems. This three-day event will consist of virtual organized game sessions, actual plays of your favorite game lines, and TTRPG industry professional workshops, along with panels featuring audience favorite content creators and game developers. Onyx Path Publishing is partnering with Gehenna Gaming for tabletop RPG fans to connect with each other and industry professionals to explore old favorites or discover new games. Some charity proceeds will go to The Bodhana Group.

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Scion Titanomachy

Tales of Aquatic Terror

WoD Ghost Hunters – KS final art: One more piece coming in still.

Aberrant – AD’d.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – Dividing up among current artists.

Legendlore – Ready for the KS.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon – Waiting on art notes.

Masks of the Mythos – Reviewing art notes and considering artists.

Scion: Demigod – Reviewing art notes.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – Art is arting.

TC: Adventure! (KS) – Cover art finishing.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma

V5 Let the Streets Run Red

Pugmire Adventure

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – New artist taking care of finishing missing art.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Finishing Backer PDF errata.

Contagion Chronicle – Corrections are being input.

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet at Paradox/WW for approval.

At Press

Night Horrors : Nameless and Accursed – PoD proof books were sent to me by the person who received them through a shipping mishap.

Scion Companion – Backer PDF out to backers for errata.

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – Prepping PoD files.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Files at press.

Creature Collection 5e – PoD files uploaded. Tradional files sent to printer.

Pirates of Pugmire – Prepping files for press and PoD.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Prepping files for press.

Duke Rollo Book – PoD ordered.

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire) – Advance PDF on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG.

Scion: Hero Art Pack for the Storypath Nexus Community Content site released on Weds.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today in the birthday of our very own Ian A. A. Watson! Ian is, of course, the person who created both the extremely useful unofficial White Wolf Wiki, and who continued the online dialogue about the Trinity Continuum through the dark years until I was able to bring the setting to Onyx Path. He has also been the unsleeping helmsman keeping us on course on our social media sites. Ian also emphatically agreed to sharing this space with another Reason to Celebrate, which is that today marks the beginning of Pride Month, when the world’s LGBTQ communities come together and celebrate the freedom to be themselves.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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