#the foundations of how i became a lesbian

[witchofthemidlands]

i genuinely can't believe wizards of waverly place is coming back

#i am gnawing through the power cables <3 i am chowing DOWN on drywall 😨 this is THE show the show from my childhood #the foundations of how i became a lesbian #wizards of waverly place #manifesting bisexual alex #alex russo #justin russo #max russo #after both alex & justin were granted their powers max should get to come back as a villain for justin doing this #it is not even that much of a stretch to imagine max being an anti-hero seeing as he did in fact murder alex's girlfriend stevie

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

Blake: (giving a speech to a bunch of rowdy Faunus activists as new Chieftess of Menagerie and leader of the White Fang) While the past leaders of this organization and kingdom have done their best, I intend to build up on that foundation and make-

Deer!Faunus: Aren't you in a relationship with a human?!

Blake: My relationships do not affect my ability to-

Mouse!Faunus: How can we trust a leader who willingly became a humans pet?!

Faunus Crowd: (start muttering)

Blake: (grumbling mentally as she tries to think of what to say)

Yang: (blares through the crowd on Bumblebee 2.0 with a giant trailer hitched off to the back) Blaaaaaake!

Blake: (sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose) What is it, Yang? I'm a bit busy, and you just plowed through a bunch of Faunus activists.

Yang: (parks and pulls off her helmet) Yeah, sorry about that, but I'm in a pickle. (Hops off the motorcycle and opens up the top hatch of the trailer - revealing hundreds of freshly baked cookies)

Blake: ...........

Faunus Crowd: ...........

Blake: What?

Yang: Nora, Ruby, and I decided to get the Remnant World Record for the number of cookies baked at the same time. We used my semblance to bake, Ruby's semblance to mix, and Nora's sheer crackhead energy to get everything else. But now we have too many cookies!

Blake: ......Nora and Ruby can't just eat them?

Yang: They already ate 3 trailer fulls! (Projects picture of Nora and Ruby in cookie comas) I remembered that you had a public event thing and thought maybe attendees would want some!

Blake: (lightbulb moment) Actually, that would be amazing! Thank you so much, dear, for being so considerate.

Yang: (confused by the diabetic sweetness dripping from Blake’s voice and slowly shuffles up to the podium as a few Faunus that hadn't been assholes go up to the trailer and grab a cookie) Uh, did I do something wrong? I can leave if I'm intruding.

Fox!Faunus: Nope! (Munches cookie) You're good! Thank you, Dear!

Faunus Crowd: Thank you, Dear!

Yang: (severely confused) What just happened?

Blake: (covers her microphone before kissing Yang on the cheek) Apparently, a butch, golden retriever lesbian bringing homemade baked goods is all you need to calm a bloodthirsty crowd.

#bumbleby #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #rwby #rwby crack post #domeatic bees #butch lesbian brings home baked goods #butch golden retriever #blake isn't wrong #golden retriever himbos are a pure delight

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Ok so I'm curious about a historical tidbit and I thought I'd ask you. Am I remembering correctly that the name Calico Jack was coined by one guy after Rackham's death and if so was it the same guy as the guy who wrote it down for posterity that Anne Bonny and Mary Read were potentially a couple? Was that author just like "fruity Jack and his lesbian wife's whole crew was composed entirely of sodomites (derogatory)" and we were all just like "I have no evidence to dispute this claim" or do these claims come from different sources.

Your hunch is dead-on, same guy! Captain Charles Johnson and his General History of the Pirates.

In General History, Johnson laid the foundation for the claim that Bonny and Read were lovers - he tells this whole story about how Rackham and Bonny attacked the ship Read was sailing on while Bonny was dressed as a man, Read tried flirting with Bonny, and Bonny just starting stripping to show Read she was a woman. Tits out on deck. It's all meant to sound very shocking for a posh audience. Johnson really cared about telling these scandalous stories making famous pirates into ""sexual degenerates"" so it very much goes hand-in-hand with him kind of coyly gesturing towards Rackham like "ooh that guy's a bit fruity, isn't he?" (He did the same thing with lots of other pirates - went in SUPER hard with Blackbeard, too.)

And after that in popular history Rackham, Read, and Bonny kinda become a package deal, this guy with his lesbian wives, even though there's literally no evidence one way or the other. It all comes from this one guy who had a really bad habit of making shit up to sound cool and interesting for his audience of rich Brits.

One of the reasons I think this read became so popular with these three characters in particular is there are, like, almost no other primary accounts of these people. Literally the only actual information we know about Bonny and Read are: they sailed together, they both dressed as men occasionally but not all the time, Read died in prison in colonized Jamaica, and there's one account of this guy being horrified by how much Bonny swore. That's it. We don't even know how to spell their names for sure, or if Rackham's first name was John or Jack or if it was John and he just used Jack as a nickname.

[celepom]

Favourite Non-Fiction / Bio Graphic Novels of 2022

When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers by Ken Krimstein

When I Grow Up is New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein’s new graphic nonfiction book, based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish teens on the brink of WWII—found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar. These autobiographies, long thought destroyed by the Nazis, were written as entries for three competitions held in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, just before the horror of the Holocaust forever altered the lives of the young people who wrote them. In When I Grow Up, Krimstein shows us the stories of these six young men and women in riveting, almost cinematic narratives, full of humor, yearning, ambition, and all the angst of the teenage years. It’s as if half a dozen new Anne Frank stories have suddenly come to light, framed by the dramatic story of the documents’ rediscovery. Beautifully illustrated, heart-wrenching, and bursting with life, When I Grow Up reveals how the tragedy that is about to befall these young people could easily happen again, to any of us, if we don’t learn to listen to the voices from the past.

Finding Joy by Gary Andrews

When his wife, Joy, died very suddenly, a daily drawing became the way Gary Andrews dealt with his grief. From learning how to juggle his kids' playdates and single-handedly organising Christmas, to getting used to the empty side of the bed, Gary's honest and often hilarious illustrations have touched the hearts of thousands on social media. Finding Joy is the story of how one family learned to live again after tragedy.

Flung Out of Space by Grace Ellis & Hannah Templer

A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic,  The Price of Salt Flung Out of Space is both a love letter to the essential lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, and an examination of its notorious author, Patricia Highsmith. Veteran comics creators Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer have teamed up to tell this story through Highsmith’s eyes—reimagining the events that inspired her to write the story that would become a foundational piece of queer literature. Flung Out of Space opens with Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. A drinker, a smoker, and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing—what will eventually be Strangers on a Train— which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.   At the same time, Pat, a lesbian consumed with self-loathing, is in and out of conversion therapy, leaving a trail of sexual conquests and broken hearts in her wake. However, one of those very affairs and a chance encounter in a department store give Pat the idea for her soon-to-be beloved tale of homosexual love that was the first of its kind—it gave the lesbian protagonists a happy ending.   This is not just the story behind a classic queer book, but of a queer artist who was deeply flawed. It’s a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice.     Author Grace Ellis contextualizes Patricia Highsmith as both an unintentional queer icon and a figure whose problematic views and noted anti-Semitism have cemented her controversial legacy. Highsmith’s life imitated her art with results as devastating as the plot twists that brought her fame and fortune.

My Brain is Different: Stories of ADHD and Other Developmental Disorders by MONNZUSU

In this manga essay anthology, follow the true stories of nine people (including the illustrator) navigating life with developmental disorders and disabilities. This intimate manga anthology is about the struggles and successes of individuals learning to navigate daily life with a developmental disorder. The comics follow the stories of nine people, including: a junior high dropout finding an alternate path to education; a former "troublesome" child helping kids at a support school; a so-called problem child realizing the beauty of his own unique quirks; and a man falling in love with the world with the help of a new medication. This book illustrates the anxieties and triumphs of people living in a world not quite built with them in mind.

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Brad Ricca, Courtney Sieh, Nellie Bly

Beautifully adapted and rendered through piercing illustrations by acclaimed creators Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh, Nellie Bly’s complete, true-to-life 19th-century investigation of Blackwell Asylum captures a groundbreaking moment in history and reveals a haunting and timely glimpse at the starting point for conversations on mental health. “I said I could and I would. And I did.” While working for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper in 1887, Nellie Bly began an undercover investigation into the local Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. Intent on seeing what life was like on the inside, Bly fooled trained physicians into thinking she was insane—a task too easily achieved—and had herself committed. In her ten days at the asylum, Bly witnessed horrifying conditions: the food was inedible, the women were forced into labor for the staff, the nurses and doctors were cruel or indifferent, and many of the women held there had no mental disorder of any kind. Now adapted into graphic novel form by Brad​ Ricca and vividly rendered with beautiful and haunting illustrations by Courtney Sieh, Bly’s bold venture is given new life and meaning. Her fearless investigation into the living conditions at the Blackwell Asylum forever changed the field of journalism. A timely reminder to take notice of forgotten populations, Ten Days in a Mad-House warns us what happens when we look away.

So Much for Love: How I Survived a Toxic Relationship by Sophie Lambda

Part memoir, part self-help book, So Much Bad For Love guides readers with honesty and humor through how to spot, cope with, and ultimately survive a romantic relationship with a malignant narcissist. Sophie had always been cynical about love—until she meets Marcus. His affection and doting praise melt away her defenses. The beginning of their relationship was a whirlwind romance, but over time she finds herself on uneven footing. Marcus lies. He's violently angry and bewilderingly inconsistent. Yet somehow he always manages to explain away his behavior and to convince Sophie that it's all in her head. Sophie comes to realize that she's become trapped in a cycle of abuse with someone with narcissistic personality disorder. Once she gets out of the relationship, Sophie documents the experience in this bracing, hilarious, and empathetic graphic novel that's full of advice to readers who may be in similar straits.

#book rec #book recs #comic #graphic novel #manga #autobio #biography #nonfiction #books about real people #and real people are often flawed

[variousqueerthings]

one day i will actually try to explain how cobra kai functioned as a show, and it will be. difficult. because it's not like merlin was, exactly, and it's not like shows like teen wolf or the 100 were, exactly, and it certainly was (is for one more season) a nostalgia Brand more than it is real storytelling, which became clearer the more the showrunners tried to make it their own thing and revealed that... they're not good writers (i imagine/know that a certain amount was also definitely netflix, but that baby plot as far as i can tell was aaaall them)... but it is, and presumably will be post-s6, because fandom is a different beast to mainstream zeitgeist, genuinely, a really good time for me. i am really happy i watched it, got involved in this particular fan community, got to play with its bones, got introduced to the karate kid, which is just an actually great movie.

but as for the show... how it got so many passionate, wonderfully creative, thoughtful, deeply intelligent people in storytelling histories and themes hooked... i mean, maybe once in awhile a bunch of people will just flock to something that's a real fixer-upper. we'll take it from here guys, good effort, but you'll never get into the really good stuff if your target audience is angry 50+ year old cis straight white american guys online. it's cool, the bones are good, the foundations are solid, and even if your later architectural additions have some glaring flaws, those arches over there are not bad. we've got some hammers and a bunch of lesbians and trans people (+ everyone of any orientation who's horny for terry silver, i appreciate you so much), many of whom are excellent gifmakers, we'll sort this one out.

#wont tag it because idk if this counts as negativity #i honestly feel absolutely no real negativity towards it these days #(just after watching s5 oh booooy that was different) #but yeah i realised i was always in it for the fandom with this one

[ladyluscinia]

I have rewatched the mean lesbians episode in hopes I would like them more the second time, but I'm afraid I'm still not vibing with it. Credit that they tried to undercut the "lesbians who drop in to give our main couple therapy" with the whole reveal it was game and Mary's little rant about their relationship "losing the magic", but like... did they really? Do Anne and Mary not successfully tee up the really touching BlackBonnet airing of grievances and reconciliation? Laughing at them a bit for being dorky doesn't change that they really didn't do much sabotaging, overall, so it's not like they weren't pushing them back together.

I mean, even Mary's whole rant happens after Anne leaves the room. By the time they really start telling us how this couple has their own foundation cracks and issues (vs the veneer of just keeping it interesting) and aren't a longstanding example of a healthy relationship, Anne is literally offscreen making a grand romantic gesture that will solve Mary's discontent. I know they are fitting a miscommunication arc into half an episode instead of 2-3 seasons, but the end result just feels like speedrunning a knock off of BlackBonnet's issues.

And that along with the fact they function as BlackBonnet mirrors first and characters second, it all just feels very... underwhelming (?) to me.

Like why do I care about Anne and Mary? Is the face stealing gimmick supposed to have hooked me? They also, imo, really fucked up by ending on a hug - it just spotlights the fact that, for all the sex jokes, they don't really bother to sell physical intimacy between the two. They maybe bump shoulders at the shop, sit in separate chairs in every scene in the house... honestly the best they do is the offscreen knife flicking. Which funny metaphor but like. Why can't the lesbians be into each other without the metaphor? Or am I supposed to think that Anne "burn the whole house down the second her wife admits she doesn't like swamp life" Bonny didn't pick up that Mary was maybe unhappy when they entirely stopped touching each other and replaced it with murder attempts.

Even a repeat of the offscreen joke but this time imply they are hardcore making out as Stede and Edward slip away would have probably hit better? (I'm assuming for some reason kissing was off the table, otherwise even more wtf why not just kiss?)

(Can you tell I've been thinking about the sorry state of femslash?)

Also I'd be remiss not to tie my dissatisfaction with Anne and Mary to my dissatisfaction with OFMD's prevailing approach to female characters. Spanish Jackie's entire thing is being so awesome and desirable that she has 20 husbands that all work for her, which is super fun. Mary Bonnet became a widowed girlboss with a Doug, which was also fun. Then suddenly we're meeting Zheng Yi Sao who is a girlboss Pirate Queen better than any man, and her right-hand woman that seems like a more stable and competent Edward/Izzy parallel, and her crew of only hyper-competent women... do you see how this is getting a bit repetitive?

Now we add Anne and Mary speedrunning BlackBonnet parallels to teach them a grand gesture romantic lesson? So... doing Stede and Edward but Better™?

Zheng Yi Sao still has time to get more interiority that could offset the whole "girlboss" gimmick which would help, but until that happens the only real female character standout to me is Archie - a woman who has something deeply wrong with her but has so far just kind of slotted in as a equal crewmember instead of the Competent Woman Character.

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd 2x04 #i was really hoping to like these two but they *just* feel like blackbonnet mirror puppets #their narrative purpose has wholly eclipsed their chances of being compelling characters or relationship in their own right #this is the sorry state of femslash 😔 #anne bonny ofmd #mary read ofmd #zheng yi sao ofmd #archie ofmd #ofmd meta #my meta #ladyluscinia #parallels #ofmd critical

[reverse1999fics]

hello tumblr user reverse1999fics. i need to know more about your thoughts on the tooth fairy/madam z divorce.

YES!!! THANK YOU!!!

Okay so like, it's more of just a silly little headcannon I have about the two but I'm determined to actually make up this whole story about the two.

Madame Z and Tooth Fairy divorced lesbians!!!

I have a feeling the two might have been in the same class as a kid, they obviously know each other in some way. Their conversation in the car felt like they were very familiar with each other.

"But reverse1999fics, Madame Z didn't know anything about Tooth Fairy's brother and what happened to him, she said it herself during the car ride home" And? So did many others. Other than Tooth Fairy and possibly the Green Lake crew (Vertin, Horrorpedia, Sonetto, Blonney, Jessica), no one knows. How do I know this? The rumors, why do you think there'd be rumors about it if everyone were to know the truth, no?

Anyways.

I feel like romance would probably be forbidden in the Foundation, the first thing on everyone's mind should be stopping the Storm, so obviously romance and crushes should be left behind.

But young love never just gets left behind, and so Madame Z and Tooth Fairy had themselves a silly little wedding one night, just themselves and little paper miche rings that broke the next day.

Before Madame Z was promoted to the position she's currently in as of the main story, I feel as though she either worked out on the field or possibly had an office job of sorts, most likely the office job. She's very intelligent and knows her way around negotiations and most importantly, people. Madame Z has a way of figuring out how people truly feel in a short amount of time. It wouldn't surprise me if she was able to figure out Tooth Fairy and her monotone actions easily.

The two might have been in the same class, as I said earlier, but since they've got such different jobs that might not be the case. So perhaps the two met at the cafeteria, or at the others job. Madame Z could easily have gotten a migraine and go to the nurses office. Tooth Fairy could easily go to the offices and ask for some files of some sort, most likely on the children to know them better.

Since romance is forbidden at the Foundation, the two would have to sneak around, finding small moments to love each other. A passing brush of the hand, hiding in the forest and kissing, sneaking into each others bunk to cuddle. My favorite idea is Madame Z using the excuse of having a headache or migraine to go to the nurses office, spending time with Tooth Fairy behind the doctors curtains.

"They seem so happy, why'd they divorce?" They couldn't continue being together. As the days went by the two found it getting harder and harder to see each other without being in public, they couldn't even cuddle anymore. Madame Z was quickly promoted to her current position and Tooth Fairy was left behind. Madame Z became busy and Tooth Fairy was left sitting in her office chair, waiting for someone to walk in.

Since they didn't really have a ring, they sort of just tried to forget about it. Madame Z in the beginning thought they were still together, but after finally being able to see Tooth Fairy in the nurses office she realized her worst nightmare had come true. Tooth Fairy had 'fallen' out of love. Quote on quote, fallen, Tooth Fairy still loved Madame Z. But with Madame Z becoming so busy with her new status she couldn't spend time with Tooth Fairy. Tooth Fairy understood how important Madame Z's work was and decided that divorcing was for the best.

The two still talk from time to time, but very rarely. The conversation they had in the car on the way from Green Lake was the longest conversation they had with each other since they broke up.

I can easily add more to this but I actually just woke up so maybe another day. Please ask about it more! I love talking about these two ❤️❤️

#reverse 1999 #r1999 #r1999 tooth fairy #r1999 Madame Z #madame Z x Tooth Fairy #madame z #tooth fairy #divorced lesbians your honor

[darlingillustrations]

I'm Gay

When I was eight years old, I wrote my first poem. I remember the moment the words came to me. I was lying in bed at night, the lines rattling through my brain, startling sleep away. I turned on my pencil-shaped bedside lamp, grabbed my pink diary and huddled up underneath the little roses on my wallpaper to scribble the words down before they were lost to me forever. I re-read them over and over, letting them seep into my mind as I drifted off to sleep, so full of mystery and fascination at this new craft that had opened up to me.

The next day, I showed the poem to my mother. It was a love poem, and the only thing she said was, “Why is this written to a woman?”

I didn’t know.

In high school, I also didn’t know why I enjoyed turning around in psychology class to chat with the girl with the cool beaded purse who sat behind me. I didn’t get it why I was so tongue tied around the girl in college with the mousy brown hair and soft floral skirts. After graduation, I still didn’t understand why the scrawny girl with facial piercing who I worked with at the coffeeshop held such a deep place in my heart that I’d give anything to make her smile.

The day I nervously confessed to my parents that I no longer wanted to be in the Church of Christ, the religion they’d raised me in, and that I’d been going to an Episcopal church, they laughed in relief.

“We were worried you were going to tell us you were a lesbian,” they said, wiping tears of joy from their eyes.

It never occurred to me that I could be a lesbian because I was attracted to guys. I didn’t realize that bisexuality was a thing. It wasn’t until 2016 that I started to face the truth about myself. After the attack on the Pulse nightclub, I felt deeply and inexplicably unsafe, and after months of soul searching, I came to realize it was because the people who had been attacked, the LGBT men and women, I was part of their community. They were me. I was LGBT.

As part of my journey, I was asked to exhibit my art at the Pierce County AIDS Foundation. I wanted to share something that was representative of the LGBT community, and that’s how my Affectionate Animal series was born. I chose vintage photos as my source images because I loved the nostalgic feeling they evoked. I wanted to offer the feeling that being gay was a normal thing.

The funny thing is: when I painted these first nine couples, I didn’t yet realize my own truth.

Coming out to myself was about self acceptance. When I told Matt, he asked me what this meant for our marriage. I said it meant nothing: instead of choosing him over half the world population, it meant I chose him over all of the world population. But when Matt left me (for other reasons), some of my close friends whom I’d trusted with my secret blamed me for him leaving. “He’s been through a lot,” they said.

I was scared to tell anyone. For a long time I only told people who were gay, and I spent a lot of time online, on tumblr, living an invisible life, coming to terms with what my sexuality meant.

That’s where I met my first girlfriend. She flew cross country to visit me and I flew cross country to visit her. We fell in love with each other and each other’s kids, and I was going to fly out with the girls to spend Christmas with her, until she broke up with me suddenly and then blocked my phone number before ever explaining why everything was ending.

They say your first heartbreak after a divorce is the worst. When you get divorced, there’s too much other stuff in the way that inhibits the grieving process, so when your first heartbreak after divorce hits you, all that pent up grief rears its ugly head and devastates you. In short, that’s what happened to me. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I kept throwing up for weeks. I lashed out at people, then became disgusted with myself for acting like such a monster and fell into a pit of despair. My body felt like knives were stabbing me, raking my arms from the inside out. My chest felt cavernous. I felt beyond gutted. I felt like I was in tatters.

God bless my therapist, because she texted with me through the worst of it, assuring me that this is what grief felt like. I’d tell her I was scared of the depression. She said I was strong enough to weather a little depression. I took comfort in that. Deep down I knew she was right.

I started cleaning my house. It wasn’t much, but a little every day gave me a sense of normalcy. I signed up for the Motivated Moms checklist so that I wouldn’t have to think about what I was supposed to do. I could just do it.

On Friday, my checklist said to spend time on a craft or hobby. I spent more time scratching my head trying to figure out what I was interested in than I did playing my guitar once I finally remembered I liked to sing. On Sunday I was paralyzed by the suggestion to pamper myself. How does someone pamper themselves? I googled it and read dozens of suggestions before I felt inspired by the suggestion to give myself flowers.

I’d always thought that, when I was with my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day, we’d do some sappy romantic thing, and I’d post sappy pictures & let people draw whatever conclusions they wanted to about our relationship. Now that I’m single again, I guess I’m coming out of the closet anyways. I’m not doing it for another person. I’m doing it for myself. Because, at the end of the day, lovers come and go, but there is one person who will love me for my entire life, and that person is me. And it doesn’t take a parent or a husband or a girlfriend to validate my loveliness. I am loved. I am darling. And I am complete, just as I am.

I don’t know why God made me this way, but this is the way I am. I don’t fall in love with people because of what’s in their pants, but because of what’s in their heart. So, in closing, I’d like to share with you the poem I wrote when I was eight years old, long before I knew what the depths of my heartache might bring:

Beauty Your eyes sparkle in the moonlight, Your legs tremble fast, Your voice can sing the wonders, And your ears can hear me laugh, Your nose smells the flowers that I bring to you in prize, Your legs can run freely, And your hands can hold my thighs. But you’re the one in my mind, The wonders that I dream, For you are so beautiful, The wonders of my dreams.

I like to think that, maybe, the woman I’d written it for was, in fact, myself.

[ This essay first appeared on my blog on February 14, 2019, and it is how I came out publicly to my friends, family and the world. I want to repost it here to tumblr in the hopes that it might resonate with you. ]

#coming out story #queer stories #queer artist #queer art #im gay #well technically im pansexual and a few other lgbt terms but i like using gay as a signifier #most importantly #i am loved #thank you for reading along #queer poetry

[female-malice]

(archive link)

A foundational work of Chinese philosophy and literature, the Zhuangzi, traditionally attributed to the philosopher of the same name from the late Warring States Period (475-221BC), is a series of stories, anecdotes and parables that advocate independent thinking and freedom from societal conventions.

Lisa Lam Mun-wai, co-chair of the Gay Games Hong Kong – which will start on November 3, the first time the event has visited Asia – tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.

The first time I read it was as part of the school curriculum, in grade eight or nine. It guided me mentally and emotionally through challenges. This was around the time of my coming of age as a teenager, when I realised I was a little bit different from my friends.

I had these intense feelings for women – I had no words for it, and I felt quite lost. This was in the early 80s, and all you saw around you was that lesbians would have a miserable life or were lunatics or serial killers.

Among the many things Zhuangzi gave me was some space in my heart to look in peacefully and ignore what was going on outside.

He says that it’s not wise to give labels to things, and nothing is entirely either good or bad. We humans are limited by our perspective: something can be useful to me and completely useless to you.

Zhuangzi was very comforting to me at that time because the outside world was so nasty and unaccepting. I realised that it didn’t mean I was a lonely person who had to live a miserable life. It really gave me a chance to look inside, and space to breathe.

The first story I read from it was the butcher (Cook Ding, whose movements are so skilful that, as he explains while butchering an ox, he has not had to sharpen his knife for 19 years). As I grew older, I started to understand the symbolism of that. It’s in a chapter about how to nurture life.

If you look at the cow as your life journey, the knife is like your heart and the butcher is how you navigate through life: the whole story is about how you stay centred. For me, it was about how you preserve your heart.

Zhuangzi lived during a terrible time in Chinese history, and he was trying to show how despite suffering, you can still live a good life.

At the beginning of the chapter, before the butcher story, there’s an opening paragraph about how your life is limited but knowledge is unlimited.

I was 13 or 14 and had never thought of life being limited. I did a calculation: I thought I had about 20,000 days left on Earth. Do I want to spend them worrying how people think? It became crystal clear to me that I wanted to lead a meaningful life.

I go back to it from time to time, especially when I feel stuck or unhappy. Zhuangzi taught me how to be open-minded and not cling onto fixed views or ideas.

If he were alive now, he’d probably be an environmentalist. He constantly talks about how humanity is just one of many beings. We feel superior and try to fix things, not realising that there are lots of things we don’t know.

[blood-choke]

Since u r an artist as well as a writer I'm reslly curious as to what ur process for designing the ROs was like for this game. I would love knowing more about ur character design process.

oh this is fun! prepare for a long obnoxious answer for some questions you didn't even ask!

blood choke has been through a Lot in terms of the brainstorming process. Valentina was probably the first character i finalized, though originally she did not have a history with the mc, she was not a main character in the sense that she is now, and she was actually "the villain." the game was very different tone-wise, though it was roughly the same concept with an mc who wakes up with no memory, though originally they were a newborn vampire.

then i changed gears, decided i didn't want to make the game this way, and tried something else with a set mc & a single set love interest (this is Valerie & Angel, my ocs i post about sometimes on my personal blog.) but then i didn't like that either and i scrapped trying to make it an IF and just wrote a novel instead LOL

Valentina stayed around, she is very similar to Leda, who is an antagonist in that novel. but once i finished that i came back to still wanting to write a vampire IF.

there were a lot of ideas i didn't get to expand on in my novel, that i'm revisiting in blood choke. it's why i chose to genderlock all of the characters and make the mc a lesbian.

i knew i wanted the ROs to be very clockable as lesbians; i wanted there to be a femme and a butch and a stud.

i rewrote the foundation of the story; the mc would not be a newborn but they would have no memory of what they were or what happened to them. and Valentina became more ambiguous and less of a real "villain", i expanded on some previous ideas, and when i made up my mind on setting the mc as butch i decided to include a lot of that early butch/femme history in her backstory & their relationship. i wanted her to be a bit goth in appearance as well because i wanted her femininity to be subversive; she likes to wear corsets and leather and veils and likes how people perceive her as "weird." she's still feminine but in her own way.

and while Valentina is femme, i read a lot of Kitty Tsui's writing for Valerie (who is a Chinese butch) and that influenced my decision, along with the time period that i planned for, to make her Chinese.

“In the spring of 1988, Jill Posner approached me. She said, “By the way, I’m the photo editor for On Our Backs, and we’d really love for you to pose for us.” And I said, “Frankly, I don’t read the magazine, and I’m not really interested in taking off my clothes.” I’d later thought about it and realized that the stereotypes of Asian women are either that we’re very passive, docile, servile, nonsexual entities, or that we’re the very, the Susie Wong prostitute, fiery dragon woman. I decided that I wanted to pose for the magazine to show that not only are Asian women beautiful and strong, but that we are whole women. I realized that I had a butch side, I had a very butch side, and I also had a femme side, and that I could be all of those things. And I had an androgynous side.”

you can find more about Kitty Tsui here.

Hana came next, and again she was a part of the original story, and worked for Valentina when she was the "villain." i wanted her to have that sporty/jock laid-back kind of vibe, compared to Valentina's high-strung dramatics. i think Hana came out way more friendly and personable than i originally intended; i wanted her to be kind of stand-offish, hiding in her hood a lot, but she had other plans i guess. in the end i think she balances everyone out and i like her contrast with Valentina, and i like how much more weight her voice carries when she does get serious.

i knew from the start i wanted Hana to be Black and from america, because i really wanted that perspective included in the narrative i had planned. again, with the time period, i chose to make her Korean & African American. i looked at a lot of models when i first drew/designed her, mainly jenny park, who is Korean-Nigerian. i went for a more jock/streetwear look because i wanted her to be visible as a stud, which is a specific Black lesbian identity.

screenshot from The Same Difference.

then came Clear. i knew i wanted a human RO, and i wanted her to be big and butch cus i like subverting expectations lol. i actually based some of her design on corky from bound, mainly her hair and tattoos:

if you haven't seen bound, go watch it. one of my favorite movies.

overall i designed three characters that i knew i as a reader would want to read about, and i as a writer would want to write about. that sounds very obvious hahaha but a lot of this story is just me writing very specific things that i want to see as a lesbian author. butches & studs are one of the most underrepresented groups, even in queer media, and butch/femme is largely considered "historical" or "problematic." so i wanted my characters & this story to be very in your face & unapologetic about it.

#anyways thank you for enabling me with this question LOL #also valerie and valentina are genuinely a complete coincidence they are not alike at all. i just only know 3 names in the whole world #well valentina isnt her real name anyways. but. #ask #anonymous

[witchofthemidlands]

i am gnawing through the power cables <3 i am chowing DOWN on drywall 😨 this is THE show the show from my childhood.

#the foundations of how i became a lesbian #seven year old was never the same after being exposed to this masterpiece #alex russo #manifesting bisexual alex #justin russo #i NEED a cameo of one of tv's best dads jerry russo #wizards of waverly place #selena gomez #david henrie #kat’s thoughts 🍄

[narutodivorcearcreal]

Fight clubbers ranked by me based on how much i like them. very long.

1. Fem narrator - cuter than regular narrator (to me she looks the same except for the obvious). coworkers think shes a “mildly effete teenage boy” (via jacksprostate). she has acne from the copius amounts of foundation needed to cover her fight club bruises. she has a virgin mary complex (fears spontaneous pregnancy despite not having sex). she has a collection of 37831 kitchenwares because she doesn’t make enough money to buy furniture as a hobby, and despite this she eats mustard for dinner. if she ever had a pregnancy scare she would kill herself immediately. her morning routine is weighing herself and riding her exercise bike religiously. she’s sooo afraid of becoming a parent or married or pregnant. she has penetration anxiety. what’s not to love.

2. Fem Tyler - Looks exactly like tyler with crazier sideburns and boobs. doesnt have sex with marlon not because shes lesbian (shes not real idk i dont consider her or tyler to have any specific sexuality) but because narrators fear of pregnancy and penetration is so deep it extends to her. likes narrator more than m tyler likes m narrator but still throughly sick of her shit by the end. To me shes a coyote but she would LARP as a hyena. kind of wants to kill marlon but they’re still besties. worst boyfriend ever. Also shes very hot to me sorry.

3. Regular Narrator - The Guy of all time. truly a fascinating specimen. many many things deeply wrong with him. he took all his issues and made them into one guy. he is inertia personified. i think if he doenst kill himself post canon and survives until 2009 he has a blank grindr account where he scrolls through all the guys in the area without actually messaging any of them. but he probably is dead by then.

4. Regular Marla - I love her so dearly. Her in the book and narrator was so cute… so sad they cut out a lot of their closer moments in the movie. Idk she wants him to shove sleeping pills up his ass girl best friends forever objectively… and her calling narrator in the psych ward.. Her madonna-whore complex towards herself where she can only see herself as a human shitstain when she’s so tender… she lets tyler hurt her and she keeps coming back when narrators an asshole… she asks narrator to check her for cancer and tries to keep him awake and watches him kill a person and shes still there. what can i say it makes me ill. And she’s going to die young… everything about her is so tragic. She wants someone to love her……..

5. Male Marla/Marlon - tfw your best/only friend who semierotically puts out cigarettes on you was actually a split personality. when he’s walking with narrator through the gardens he assumes she got on meds or something because she doenst look like she wants to skin him alive anymore. as project mayhem grows he has to perform increasingly complex maneuvers to get to paper street house and narrator without getting his balls cut off.

6. Regular Tyler - “i could fix him” except “him” was also tyler and he could not, in fact, fix him. tried to get narrator to make impactful decisions and change but narrator imprinted on him like a baby duck and became totally dependent on tyler. like the idea that tyler is alive post canon but pretends to be dead because he’s so sick of narrator’s shit.

7. My fight club OC Brandon Pitchard - never actually joined fight club. tries to hook up with narrator in a gay bar september 9th 2001 and gets punched in the face. Buddhist.

#fight club #f fight club #fem fight club

[layingeggs]

Wow. I always thought the original Gundam was foundational to mecha anime specifically. I didn't realise that it was just foundational to anime.

I will discuss spoilers in this post but I'm not spoiler tagging for a show that's old enough to fulfill a lesbian fantasy about getting hunted by a cougar.

So yeh, anime. We've got kids becoming Akira. We've got Rei Ayanami and Anthy Himemiya. This show is crazy, it has everything.

And you know, we've all heard people saying that Neon Genesis Evangelion is a deconstruction of the mecha genre. I always thought that that was wrong, but I think I'm reconsidering!

I believe the popular take is that NGE is deconstructionist because unlike other mecha anime it highlights the harsh realities of being a child soldier.

So obviously that's completely wrong. Perhaps the biggest thing that Gundam focuses on is the harsh realities of being a child soldier.

But then you have Lalah. A beautiful mysterious quiet girl child soldier who is made to fight by an older male commander. She fights because she loves him dearly. He shares a gentle and affectionate side with her, where otherwise he is only ever seen being formal and withdrawn and rough, even to his own family.

The beautiful mysterious quiet girl child soldier and the begrudging hurt naive lead protag boy child soldier come into conflict with each other over this male figure. The former seeing the soft side and the latter seeing the rough side.

Eventually they come into an understanding with one another when their minds collapse into the singularity that human evolution is either rising or falling to.

It's Rei Ayanami, isn't it? *Points at her* Look! It's Rei Ayanami! It's her! It's Rei! It's Rei Ayanami!

I get this sense that Hideaki Anno watched Gundam and became fixated on her. That NGE is his fanfic where she not only takes on a more major role but the ending of her character arc, one of apotheosis, is shown with more detail and fervour. What is implied in Gundam is made textual in NGE.

He watched Gundam, and he understood the underlying ideas being put forward by Lalah's character, but still felt it wasn't properly done justice. And so he sets out to fix that, and show what Gundam really could have been.

NGE isn't deconstructionist because of what it has to say about mechs, it's deconstructionist because of what it has to say about young girls who are made to embody utopic ideals. And the way that the dream becomes the nightmare becomes the dream. The utopic and the dystopic collapse into each other. All of this is filtered through the lens of how the girl sees herself and how she is seen by others.

These are themes that Gundam itself touches upon, but never fully explores, at least in regards to Lalah herself.

And so you have the setting of Gundam being a catastrophic near future war because the story at its heart really is about us and about war.

But the setting of NGE is the extinction of humanity under a greater unpredictable threat, because the story there at its heart is about the self and the world and girlhood.

The core thesis of NGE as a work of deconstruction then is that Gundam doesn't talk about girls enough. An idea that I personally have some mixed agreement and disagreement with.

#Mobile Suit Gundam #Neon Genesis Evangelion

[stripedwolf88]

So I'm going to spoil the article for you. Kitty x Yuri is ranked #1 and I am so freaking happy about that and I agree. Yes of course I am biased because I am a lesbian and want the lesbian ship to be endgame but also the reasoning the article gave makes sense. I will say that I think that the Min ho x Kitty ship and the yuri x kitty ship are on similar levels but I hate how many people have blown Yuri off by saying she is toxic when Min ho is as well.

It just really is homophobia again at its finest. Kitty currently actually really likes Yuri and feelings can't always be explained. Her and Yuri connected the first time they met. There was chemistry there before the drama started and they figured out who the other was. We get to see a beautiful growth in both of them in just the course of 1 season as they allow themselves to get to know the other better. They were beginning to build trust and a good friendship that are beautiful foundations for a lasting relationship.

We have seen the Min ho and Kitty relationship before. I would claim that it dominates media. Honestly I don't want or need to see another one. I don't want to see another representation of the boy that dislikes the girl in the beginning, treats her like crap, and then suddenly realize he loves her. I don't want to see another representation of a girl discovering the rude guy's personality is just a mask and falling for him. I would love if they became supportive friends for each other but I don't want another straight romance like that. We have so so many of those already. And don't anyone take this the wrong way. Please. I am not shitting on straight people or men. I just want queer people, especially queer women, represented and celebrated more than they have been.

I will be honest and say I just really hope the writers end up having Yuri and Kitty be endgame. It would be a beautiful, complex love story for them to end up together which more shows need to do for queer characters. It would be amazing if Kitty ended up with her and they gave us the queer representation we really fucking need. So many shows with sapphic relationships at the forefront get canceled and I really want this one to be different. Show me growth and challenges. Show me healthy resolutions and perseverance of a relationship between two young women.

We need this representation and I am manifesting, praying, hoping that they do that.

#xo kitty #kitty x yuri #kitty song covey #yuri han #xo kitty netflix series #netflix #wlw representation #wlw romance #wlw relationship #representation matters #lgbtq+ representation #lgbtq representation #lgbtq media #lgbtq shows #netflix series

[homosexuhauls]

it's honestly terrifying how many gender conforming men there are on tumblr who call themselves butch dykes and make endless guilt-tripping posts about how lesbians who don't suck dick are genociding them personally. lesbians have such a huge fight to win against these men, because literally no one else cares about the grooming of baby dykes by these men. i was so ashamed of not liking penises when i thought it was transphobic. i thought it made me a bad lesbian, a fetishist, a terf. and i was like, fifteen at the time, i'd never even touched a penis or had sex before. but i already had adult men, who called themselves women, dictating my sexuality. and being a girl, then a woman, subject to female socialisation all my life and thus uncertain of my own judgement, i fully fucking listened to all of it. i believed these creepy fuckers and internalised their homophobic messages (pweeze touch my weenie, examine your preferences, don't be an evil terf cunt) and i'm still fucking working past all of that shit to this fucking day. i still feel guilty about being attracted to women, and i didn't even have internalised lesbophobia until i became a tra, i was just a carefree baby gay who was lucky enough to be raised in a loving, accepting environment. and despite that foundation, men who fetishise lesbians still managed to shame me into trying to like dick, trying to fix my faulty sexuality. i'm so angry that these selfish, predatory, woman-hating pricks are lauded and sainted by the modern "lesbian" community, because partnered lesbians and older lesbians who aren't these men's targets, are willing to throw the rest of us under the fucking bus

#lesbophobia #radfem safe

[scotianostra]

July 17th 1790 saw the Economist Adam Smith pass away in Edinburgh.

Adam Smith may be the most famous economist and economic theorist of all time. His theories have influenced the way economic markets all over the world have functioned for many, many years. His theories will continue to be studied by students of economics, perhaps for centuries to come.

Adam was an intelligent young man. In secondary school he studied writing, philosophy, mathematics, and Latin. At the age of fourteen Adam attended the University of Glasgow. At Glasgow, Adam studied philosophy and was taught by the famous philosopher Francis Hutcheson. After graduating, Adam attended Oxford University.

After leaving Oxford, Smith became a professor at the University of Edinburgh. It was at Edinburgh that he met the philosopher David Hume. Hume would become one of his best friends. Over the years, Smith and Hume would discuss economics and philosophy. During this time, Smith began to formulate the ideas that would make him famous.

In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. This book became the foundation of modern economics. It introduced and explained many economic concepts that are still used today. One of the things he explains in the book is that the wealth of a country isn’t in how much gold and silver it owns, but in the goods and services that the nation creates. This stream of goods and services is the “gross domestic product” (GDP) of a nation. Today, the GDP is widely used to determine the success of a nation’s economy.

Today, he is known as the father of modern economics. The Wealth of Nations is one of the most influential books in history. Most countries throughout the world today operate a mixed economy that combines the free market described by Adam Smith with some government intervention.

When I posted about Smith three years ago I had “ Scottish Chilean lesbian living in the U.S” commenting on the post about him and saying we should “tear his statue down”

Smith has also been called the Father of Capitalism, but don’t shoot the man down for this epitaph, capitalism, as with most theories over the centuries his view has been bastardised, you just need to look at communism to see how this can happen. Smith believed that the unexpected consequences of intended actions would always be to the benefit of society in general and not just for those at the top, so look into what Adam Smith advocated rather than the tag of father of modern capitalism. Indeed back in his day he was ridiculed and satirised by the Tories for his views. He talked of selfishness form the top down was needed for any enterprise to flourish, unfortunately not all his philosophies were adhered to, the capitalism we see nowadays is far removed from the one he wrote about, so before criticizing him and the Scots who honour him do your homework.

For a man as famous as Smith, a leading light in the Scottish Enlightenment it took us a long time to honour him with a statue, this was put right in 2008 when he took pride of place on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, just as you reach Parliament Square.

#scotland #scottish #economist #philosopher #author #the scottish enlightenment #history