#youre telling me 'normal' people all experience attraction/gender in this ONE particular way? for real? youve gotta be lying to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qqueenofhades · 3 years

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So this is probably a dumb question and there is probably something wrong with me but I’m going to ask anyway. Have you ever fallen totally, madly, and deeply in love with a fictional character and all you do is think about them and it hurts to think about them but you really just want to talk to them and tell them things and hear their take on things? And you then form a weird attachment to the actor, who you are not in love with because you love the fake character, not the actor, because the actor is kind of a jerk, but since the actor played the fake character and you think they are hot now you are semi-in love with the actor by proxy since they played that stupid fake character that you’re aching to talk to/be with and they also look like them. So now you are in this stupid place where you are both in love with a fake being and in by proxy love with a jerky actor and you are hyper-fixated both on this stupid character that isn’t even real but you have real achy pains of longing for them AND the hot disaster mess that you clearly are because you’re in love with a fake character. Meanwhile, you need to get out more and make friends but you can’t because now you have a sort of real broken heart over a pretend nonexistent romantic relationship with a made up person and a proximal, nonexistent, your face is hot relationship with the sack of skin that played them. Does this ever happen to other ppl or is it just me?

Okay look. I have NOT for the life of me ever been able to find this post again, or remember the name of the category (I think it starts with the letter i, but that is all, and my attempts to Google search for it have, of course, turned up nothing but porn). But some while ago, I read a definition of a subsidiary sexual orientation called something like "ideosexual" or "imagosexual" that turned me into the DEFINITION of "I came out to have a good time and I'm feeling so attacked right now." Because the list included, among other things, experiences/feelings like:

Being primarily attracted to fictional characters, celebrities, or other people who don't exist in real life or exist only far away from you, so that you're fantasizing about them from a safe distance rather than engaging them as a real person/actual relationship;

Enjoying fictional depictions of sex/smut more than you're drawn to seek out actual sexual experiences in real life, no matter your primary orientation or the gender of the people you're attracted to;

Being mostly satisfied in experiencing these imagined or idealistic relationships, and finding fulfillment in them.

This fell somewhere on the demiromantic/asexual spectrum, where you felt sexual and romantic attraction, but for a person who was not somebody you ever expected to actually be with or who might not even be real. You enjoyed fantasizing about them and experiencing fictional sex through them, whether of the written or visual medium, but didn't really feel particularly drawn to do so in real life. As a strongly ace-spec queer and fairly nonbinary person who has a very complicated relationship with my body/a dislike of close physical touch/no particular need to have a real partner of any kind, I was a bit like... wow, that sounds a lot like me. We've all had deep crushes on characters before, we're all aware that boundaries in fandom can get confused, some people write fanfiction about real people/actors (which I find.... deeply off-putting and mystifying, to say the least, but you know, each to their own, they have their things and I have mine), and it in general creates a semi-fictional erotic space that relies heavily on personal fantasies and curated imagery. But all people do this. Even people who aren't in fandom do this. You fantasize about strangers or you watch porn or you find a celebrity hot and have an intense parasocial crush on them. Humans are inherently visual creatures who LOVE stories. It's no surprise that sex, one of our other big preoccupations, is one of the chief sources for this.

Anyway, that is to say: there's nothing wrong with you, most people on Tumblr can probably relate to this experience in some way, and the fact that you're able to set clear boundaries (this is the character, this is the actor, this is real, this is not real, this is what I feel for one, this is what I feel for another, I recognize this is confused and mixed up but I'm not sure what to do) is a very good sign. It would be much more of a problem if you weren't able to make all those distinctions, and while it absolutely does suck, the upside is that a fictional character (especially one that you have extensively created through your own headcanons) will always be with you. Real partners come and go, and this isn't to say that you only ever need fictional characters, but you don't need to completely disavow them either. If that's a secret thing you have and which you really feel, it's okay. We've all cried buckets over fake people, whether for happy or sad reasons. We all have that one character death we'll never get over (or several). And you know, I like that. The fact that we can get so invested in fake people (in a way, frankly, we should get more invested in REAL people) shows our empathy and our willingness to engage with others apart from ourselves, and that is rather lovely.

The age of social media has allowed people both to freely share their personal fantasies and private thoughts, and to be judged for them, which is a bit of a mixed bag. We're all here on Tumblr reminding ourselves that these are technically our blogs (and they are) and we can say or enjoy whatever we want, but we're all wary of some random jerk coming along and judging us for it, since we have put it into the public sphere to be consumed. This is the case even though it's placed/framed in a way where we are supposed to understand that is just one's own personal opinion. There are some truly miserable people on the internet who are on an apparent never-ending crusade to serve as the latter-day Comstock Police, but those people have existed throughout history, and they just have more tools to do it now. And guess what? I'm pretty sure those people have secret fantasies too, but they can't talk about them now because they would likewise put themselves in a position to be judged, and they don't want that.

Anyway. There's nothing wrong with you, and you're not dumb. This is a deeply normal experience for many people, and that is the truth. <3

#anonymous #ask

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tigerdrop · 3 years

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hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

#asky #careposting

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fuckyeahisawthat · 5 years

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I think one of the reasons Good Omens hit me like a ton of bricks is that Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reads to me as such a spot-on depiction of this one particular thing, that’s very hard to put into words but was instantly recognizable to me. It’s the Queer Best Friend Zone of Ambiguity.

And the thing is, if you know this thing then you know it. It’s that friend, of the same gender (or same gender presentation) as you, that really close friend that you’ve known for a long time, that you just really click with, that you have sleepovers and go on vacations with, that you want to be around even when they annoy you, that you think is ever so beautiful and talented and amazing. (Those are totally normal things to think about your friend, right? Right??)

And yes, obviously, people of all sexual orientations fall in love with their friends. But because we live in a heteronormative society, there’s a way in which best friends of the same gender who are maybe also in love with each other can just...get away with living in this indeterminate space for much longer. There are many fewer assumptions that you’re a couple--although there may be some, to which you can always say, if you choose, oh no, we’re just friends, and that will most likely be accepted without question. Of course you’re friends and not a couple who hasn’t realized it yet. Because we live in a society where two people who appear to be of the same gender as each other having lunch together are much more likely to be read as friends, while people of different genders are much more likely to be read as couple, it’s that much easier to sustain the routines of friendship even if one (or both) of you is slowly dying inside because you’ve realized that, yes, you love this person as your friend but you also love them in that other way. The whole world supports the idea that you’re just friends, even it feels increasingly like a fiction to one or both of you.

And, if you’re in the business of self-denial, it is much, much easier to pretend for much longer that you’re friends, just friends, and that sure, you love each other, as friends; you’re not in love with the other person, in a romantic way. You’re just very good friends. There’s nothing wrong with being very close and loving friends, right? And there isn’t!! But it can be a way to cover up the other thing, for other people, or for yourself if you don’t want to see it.

And, if you’ve ever fallen in love with a best friend, you know it can be terrifying. Because of the fear that you’ll damage the friendship if they don’t feel the same way, or that you’ll change the nature of the relationship and it won’t work out and then you will have lost both a best friend and a romantic partner. And in a queer world of chosen families those close friendships can be a real serious lifeline for emotional connection and many other things. There’s a lot of pressure to not fuck up what you have together, as friends, even if you realize you want something else too. The Zone of Ambiguity can look really attractive for all these reasons.

I’ve tried to be very conscientious throughout this post about saying things like “something else” instead of “something more,” because I absolutely don’t believe in some hierarchy of meaningfulness of relationships with romantic love at the top. Maybe you, the person who may or may not be in love with your best friend, believe this too, which is another reason to tell yourself you just love them as a friend, because that’s not a lesser relationship; close friendship is as meaningful as any romantic or sexual relationship; that should be enough, right? It can get very confusing when you try to sort it all out. Staying in the Zone of Ambiguity is much safer.

I think that’s also why I was never bothered by the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale only ever call each other friends. Best friends. Because they are best friends. And in their world that’s transgressive enough! If you see them as close platonic friends, everything about the story still works absolutely just as well as if you see them as lovers or as asexual romantic partners or as anything else you want to.

But if you do see them as best friends who also have some romantic attraction to each other, there is just something that to me feels so agonizingly real and true about the way that relationship plays out. It’s in the way one of them will occasionally get brave or desperate and do something that seems very much like it can only be read as an explicitly romantic gesture, and the other one will haltingly almost half-acknowledge it as such, and then they’ll both get scared and retreat back into the Zone of Ambiguity. It’s in the way that you can choose to read the ending, if you want to, as them deciding to step away from the ambiguity to something defined in a more clearly romantic way, with the knowledge that they both finally feel safe enough to do that and are able to be happy about it. It’s just...so exceptionally well-done and feels real to me in a way that very few more explicit, conventional romances in media do, and it feels like a reflection of something in the queer experience (or at least my queer experience), in a way that goes deeper than the characters’ gender presentation. It’s...idk, it means a lot to me in ways I’m still trying to parse out.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #queer stuff #long post #zone of ambiguity #no cut tags we vomit our feelings like men #or something

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fuzzyface · 5 years

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“You make your own fairytale” - Jester, comphet, and realizing you might not want what you thought you did

It’s no secret to anyone who follows me that I headcanon Jester as a lesbian and have enjoyed pointing out the not-so-straight moments she’s has on the show every week. Until recently, I wasn’t any more invested in this than I usually am in my lgbt headcanons - which is to say it’s fun and meaningful to me but I don’t think it holds much weight outside of my own imagination.

However…

These past few weeks finding “evidence” for this headcanon has felt like less a treasure hunt for subtext and more like just… watching the show. It’s been very easy lately to read Jester’s behavior as that of a closeted lesbian or bi woman, to the point where I’ve started questioning whether it even makes sense to continue calling it a “crack theory” or “conspiracy”. If you’re willing to entertain the belief that gay readings of characters don’t always have to be purely self-indulgent, please enjoy this long-winded explanation as to why I think there’s a legitimately good chance that Jester is canonically in the middle of figuring out her sexuality.

To start I want to say that, no, I don’t think this is something that was planned from the start. I don’t have a portal to the inside of Laura Bailey’s head, but if I had to guess I’d say that she probably left Jester’s sexuality “undecided” at the start of the campaign, but defaulted to having her like men. Even then I didn’t see her as straight, but there were decidedly less ‘moments’ early in the campaign to support that. This actually lines up fairly well with my theory, which is that Jester’s arc is one of self-exploration. But more simply, I think the idea probably just wouldn’t have occurred to Laura when she was busy just trying to get a feel for the basics of her character. I don’t consider any of the early campaign to “contradict” anything I’m going to say next, I just know somebody would bring it up if I didn’t address it first.

(I have some friends who do very firmly believe that Laura is playing the full long con with Jester and has been slow-burning her sexuality crisis since the start of the campaign, and they’re valid, but I won’t really get into that here since that’s not my personal interpretation. If Laura wants to prove me wrong on a Talks episode sometime in the future, I will gladly eat my words.)

Jester did start out as a character who ostensibly “liked men” but even from the start I thought her way of interacting with that attraction was… interesting. She had an idea in her head of what an ‘ideal man’ was like and projected it onto nearly every man she found attractive, regardless of their actual personalities. All the men she likes are dashing, they’re all handsome heroes, they’re all suave and they’re all definitely interested in her. She thought she wanted a fairytale prince, and so she saw fairytale princes everywhere she looked. It was also really interesting to me that she never made an effort to pursue most of the men she was ‘attracted’ to. With the notable exception of Fjord, she only commented on the appearance of men after she was already distanced from them. Even Nott - the married woman - made more actual passes at men they met than Jester - the romance obsessed one - ever did. Jester seemed to care more about using her attraction to men as a way to gossip and bond with the rest of the party than she did about using it to actually court anyone.

Speaking of Fjord… boy, he’s a whole thing in of himself. Fjord was the first man she ever befriended outside of the very small bubble of people she knew growing up. He was nice to her, they trusted each other, their meeting probably felt like fate, and because of that Jester thought she was in love with him. The fact that Jester was in love with the idea of Fjord rather than the real him was something I had been speculating for a LONG time, but now that Laura has outright confirmed it I can talk about it without having to use any sort of disclaimer. Jester took a very short amount of time to decide that she was “in love” with Fjord, and almost all of the instances where her attraction was most obvious were prompted not by anything he did, but by things that reinforced Jester’s own beliefs on what romance was supposed to be like. She bought a cheesy smut book and started comparing Fjord to the protagonist because of course he’s exactly like Oskar - he’s a man and he’s handsome, isn’t he? Another woman flirted with Fjord and Jester got sick with jealousy because he’s supposed to fall in love with her, isn’t he? When the two of them were free from expectations they were cordial friends with no particular tension between them; it’s when Jester was reminded that they’re ‘supposed to be’ a love story that she got anxious, upset, or started putting on an obvious front.

A lot of this could be argued away as Jester just trying to take things too fast, but what really stood out to me was that Jester never seemed happy about her crush on Fjord. She wasn’t giggly and bubbly when talking about him, and with few exceptions she didn’t seek him out to spend extra time with him or confide her desires in him. The three times she openly addressed her crush - to Nott, the Traveler, and Caleb respectively - she was anxious, confused, or outright upset. Her talk with Nott seemed like she was trying to get reassurance that she was “normal” and that she was having the “correct” feelings in response to Fjord kissing her, which is extremely easy to read as Jester starting to realize that she might not have the feelings for men that she “should” have. Her conversation with Caleb was equally distressing, because by that point she was starting to see her fantasy was falling away. She asserted that she was “stupid” for believing it in the first place and openly admitted that she’s no longer sure her feelings still exist now that the idealism is gone. From that point forward all of Nott’s attempts to set her and Fjord up only caused her more anxiety and distress. The couple of times they were forced to be alone together they were stilted and awkward - a far cry from their original easy friendship - and after a point, Jester started to turn down offers to spend time with him altogether. “No, he’s not flirting with me,” she said, no longer even able to pretend she’s excited by the prospect.

The thing about Jester is, so much of her outward personality is based on appearances. She acts happy and cheerful and confident all the time because she thinks she has to, and she’s an accomplished liar who doesn’t like other people to see her upset or doubtful. Only in drastic situations does Jester willingly let someone see her vulnerable. It would have been incredibly easy for Laura to play Jester as her usual, cheerful, ‘no problems here’ self during her conversations about Fjord if we weren’t supposed to interpret her as being obviously and deeply conflicted. Something in her head felt very, very wrong when Fjord kissed her for her to be able to tell Nott that the only thing it made her feel was “not dead”. Something in her mind didn’t click right when she finally got what she wanted for her to be able to tell Caleb that she wasn’t even sure her crush was real.

The slow resurgence of the bond between Fjord and Jester recently made me wonder if I was wrong about my interpretation, if maybe Jester had just been sulking because she thought Fjord didn’t like her, and now she was convincing herself again that he did. But Laura confirming on Talks that Jester was mostly over her crush on Fjord solidified for me that her arc was intentionally about learning how to move on from unhealthy infatuation. So if it’s undeniably canon that Jester’s only real crush on a man was based on her misunderstanding both the situation and her own desires, and it’s canon that she is moving on from that attraction and starting to learn what she actually wants, that leaves us with the question: Where is Jester going from here?

I’ve talked a lot so far about Jester’s relationship to men and how so much of it mirrors the experience of a woman dealing with comphet; performatively talking about attractive men without pursuing them, idealizing and projecting ‘ideal’ traits onto crushes instead of developing them naturally, convincing herself she’s in a fairytale romance because a man was nice and nonthreatening towards her. But being a wlw doesn’t ‘require’ comphet, and regardless I can’t - and wouldn’t - build a gay headcanon just around her feelings about men. So let me talk now about Jester’s relationship with women.

Jester has been naturally complimentary of women since the start of the campaign. She’s quick to call them cute, call them pretty, compliment their clothes. I don’t necessarily think - until more recently - this was meant to be read as ‘not straight’. If anything I think it was just another example of Jester’s naturally flirty personality - she likes to compliment people, she likes to tease. However, the difference in how she approaches women and men has been extremely blatant recently and I genuinely don’t think it’s an accident. The ways that she - and Laura while playing her - acts around characters who are beautiful women isn’t the same ‘casually complimentary’ demeanor she had towards all genders since the start of the campaign. Jester calling Lady Olios ‘beautiful’ no less than three times in a single meeting and being noticeably flustered isn’t usual Jester behavior, Laura repeatedly asking Matt what the Bright Queen is wearing only so that Jester can be visibly awed by her beauty isn’t usual Jester behavior. The fact that she compliments women to their face, while with men it’s always an offhand comment after they leave, also stands out to me. It’s the little moments too that I notice, the times where there’s no reason to even make a comment in the first place unless you’re trying to make a point, like Jester telling Caduceus that the Wildmother is hot, or mentioning how attractive Yasha is in the middle of an unrelated conversation. It all adds up.

I’m aware of my biases in viewing these scenes as a lesbian, but completely outside of headcanons it’s obvious that Jester has an established fixation on beautiful women, and it’s obvious that this has come up more frequently now than it used to in the past. It’s the fact that this overlaps with her realizing that she’s no longer sure what she wants - that love and romance and attraction aren’t what she thought they were - that feels deliberate to me in a way that Jester’s earlier offhand comments about women never did. If Jester’s feelings towards women are meant to be entirely platonic, then the insistence on highlighting them - sometimes even interrupting scenes to do so - seems strange to me. It’s not played for comedy, it’s rarely relevant to the scene at hand, so why does it come up often enough that my friends and I keep a running joke that if there’s a beautiful woman in a scene Jester will comment on it at least once? (Play that game yourself when you’re watching new episodes, you’ll be amazed at how rarely you’ll be wrong)

So where’s this going, if Jester is being played as in the middle of discovering her sexuality? She gets over a major crush on a player character just to flirt with random attractive NPCs? Is Jester’s gay awakening supposed to be centered on her occasionally thinking powerful and unattainable women are hot, or would Laura have the logical sense to plan such a serious character decision around something that would have an actual impact on the party? Well, let’s be honest, you probably knew this part was coming eventually…

Jester’s relationship with Beau is one of the closest and most stable friendships in the group. The two of them have an intense love and trust of one another and are both verbally and physically affectionate on a greater level than any pair in the party. I’ve talked myself to death about these two already and I’ll do so plenty in the future, so I’m not going to give an entire summary of their relationship (if you need a refresher, here you go). Yes, I ship them. Yes, I’ve talked plenty about what I think of Beau’s side of the relationship. But it’s regardless of shipping or the potential of mutual feelings that, for the purposes of this essay, I say there’s a good chance that Jester canonically has a crush on Beau.

Hear me out.

The two of them had an ostensibly platonic relationship for the majority of the campaign. There were some charged moments but nothing that could really and truly be read as explicitly romantic or sexual without shipping goggles on. Then Episode 46 aired. Jester was directly in the middle of her crisis about her feelings for Fjord, Laura was clearly playing her as starting to realize that she didn’t feel the way she originally thought she did, the group had just been through a tremendously traumatic experience that made Jester question whether she could trust them… and then Beau hugs her, and talks about their shared childhood trauma, and tells her she’s beautiful, and tells her that she loves her. I can’t say for sure that this would have been the moment that Jester fully developed feelings, but I do know that if you were already planning for your character to have an arc about learning what she wants from love, this would feel like an awfully convenient moment to build off of. And I can certainly observe the ways that Beau and Jester’s dynamic has visibly changed in the episodes since.

We already know what platonic friendship between Beau and Jester looks like; we watched 40+ episodes of it. What we have now is Jester blushing and giggling when Beau blows her a kiss, Jester asking Beau if she’s secretly in love with her, Jester stepping in to counter every derogatory thing said about Beau with showers of compliments, Jester asking to look down Beau’s pants, Beau offering to let Jester watch her make out with another woman, Jester approaching Beau and only Beau to discuss her thoughts about love and romance. These are often explicitly flirty interactions that we genuinely never saw between the two of them previously, and given how it directly lines up with Jester falling out of love with someone else and clearly having romance on the brain, it feels oddly perfect to just be a coincidence. Even the more ‘dubiously platonic’ moments between them are more frequent and more tender. Jester doing things like giving Beau a massage to help her fall asleep (a scene she logically shouldn’t even have been awake for), pulling Beau aside to ask her to commit some vandalism for her, or repeatedly complimenting her when she shows any sign of insecurity. The fact that Jester immediately chose to stay roommates with her - in a house with so many rooms that the only other people bunking up are a married couple - at the very least confirmed for me that Jester has been prioritizing Beau in her life in a major way lately.

The little comments, the encouragement, the way Jester seems to almost hover over Beau for any sign that she needs to be comforted or reassured… it all adds up to something big in their relationship having changed and there is absolutely nothing contradictory or unreasonable in viewing it as Jester having developed romantic feelings for Beau. If Jester went up to someone the very next episode and told them she was in love with Beau, everything that’s happened between them would feel like a perfectly natural progression up to that moment. Call me crazy, but when you can draw a line that easily from A to B using only what’s available to you in canon, I think at the least you usually call that an entirely plausible theory.

So what’s my point here? Am I saying Jester is for sure being played as a closeted gay woman who’s secretly in love with Beau? Of course not. I don’t claim to be any more certain of what Laura Bailey has planned than anyone else. I’m also not trying to say that Jester is “coded” as gay or anything like that. But I can look at the storybeats that I correctly predicted due to my own headcanons (Jester questioning and ultimately abandoning her feelings for Fjord, Beau and Jester growing closer and having more non-platonic interactions) and follow it to its logical conclusion.

If all these things have been correct so far, and Jester being gay is an easy and logical interpretation that contradicts nothing and explains a lot, then why not assume it might actually be what Laura is intending? At the very least, why not stop treating it like a wild fringe theory that could never have solid supporting evidence?

Jester is gay, tell your friends

#critical role #jester lavorre #cr jester #beaujester #minor spoilers #fuzzy tries to be meta #i'm so sorry if the read-more doesn't work on mobile #i can't fix it

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malachi-walker · 4 years

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Rhythm & Blues Worldbuilding: Magicats

Since I finally got the rock star au up here and I'm working on the next chapter, I thought I'd share some of the worldbuilding ideas I've incorporated or plan to incorporate regarding how a world shaped by hybrids in addition to plain old humans would differ from our own. And since Catra of course is the protagonist along with Adora, it'd behoove me not to start off with the Magicats. ;) Though I do plan on making a post later covering the other kinds of hybrids as well (also for the love of God, crew-ra, please give me names for their individual races so I don't have to come up with shit like "lizard-kin". I'm begging you.)

World building goodness under the cut.

Quick note: although I do draw some indirect inspiration from real world cultures (specifically the clusterfuck that was colonial condescension to anyone who wasn't them) I do deliberately try to avoid taking customs from any real world culture. Because that has... Unfortunate implications. So most of what I discuss here is stuff I came up with on my own, but if something does match up with the real world it is unintentional on my part and feel free to let me know.

Standing with the other races

Out of all the hybrids the Magicats tend to be the most isolationist and closed off to outsiders, partly because they have a very small population size to begin with and partly because they along with the lizard-kin got hit hardest with the animal/predator comparisons. Although the current world has mostly gotten over that bullshit apart from some racists (note: I specifically use the term racist instead of speciest because writing speciest makes my memories of my editing teachers screech in the back of my head, but also because a running theme in the rock star au is that hybrids are still PEOPLE and should be treated as such, and drawing attention to it with words like "species" kinda defeats that purpose.) the average person on the street still doesn't know a whole lot about Magicat culture, and most of what they do know likely comes from old stereotypes or really suspect sources rather than actual Magicats. This is improving as more Magicats make their way into the public sphere and the internet has opened up new pathways for their voices to be heard, but it is still a work in progress.

Biology

General rule of thumb for Magicats for me is finding good middle ground between cat characteristics and people characteristics. Good example is that unlike cats, Magicats can eat chocolate, but too much of it in a short amount of time can build up to toxic levels. There are apps available that let them keep track of how often they can indulge. Same thing with alcohol; alcohol and Magicats is similar to a person with a very mild, non-lifethreatening allergy, i.e. they can get shitfaced very quickly on a comparitively low amount and it takes a bit longer for their body to metabolize out of their system. This is actually based on personal experience with my dad, who only drinks once in a blue moon and is thankfully a very mellow/happy drinker, so watching him get sauced on one-and-a-half rum and cokes is a pretty fun time. XD

Other dietary considerations: they're not complete carnivores, but they do have a greater meat to other food groups proportion than humans. Like sixty-forty percent, and heavy carbs and starches make up the smallest percentage of their diet because it's harder for their digestive system to process. Their front two molars are pointed like a predator's but their back molars are flat like humans'.

Like Catra has demonstrated in show, they possess phenomenal reflexes and agility, as well as heightened senses of smell and hearing--the hearing in particular is their primary dominant sense alongside vision. Speaking of vision, like cats they are red colorblind and shades of yellow are washed out compared to what we would see, but they see the rest of the color spectrum just fine. But like humans, they have a sharper clarity of vision than a cat would and aren't nearsighted.

Oh, and while it probably won't come up in the series itself, they do experience a heat cycle about once per year, but unlike in most fanfics they are still fully in control of their faculties and decision making capabilities. A Magicat in heat is no more likely to be sexually attracted to someone than they would be outside of heat, and it really pisses them off when people imply otherwise. It's kind of like when a human woman has her period but also feels horny. So if they don't want to get with a partner they should be left alone or treated like any loved one dealing with a rough period: patience and warm blankets.

Cultural Stuff

We're getting into the fun stuff now, though some of it will be saved for a future fic where Catra takes the time to learn about her own culture during her three years of homelessness. (Also please note that a lot of these are just general touchstones and actual viewpoints may differ from Magicat to Magicat.)

1. Magicat culture is an interesting mix between interconnectedness and individuality

And by that I mean that as a culture, Magicats do consider themselves to be an interconnected unit and to have a responsibility towards one another to assist as needed. However, they also have an emphasis on the individual as a complete being in and of themselves. This shows up most prominently in interpersonal relationships: unlike humans, who place a great emphasis on things like monogamy and marriage and the solidity of family units, it's not uncommon to see Magicats who are single parents of any gender, or never have kids, or maybe have a lifelong partner but never get formally married. That's because their culture makes it clear that one person is already whole on their own, and while having a partner or family is always nice it's not a requirement. It's up to each individual Magicat to decide what they want out of their lives, and there's usually no judgment whether they decide to get married and have kids or just stay single for their entire lives.

With that said, if a Magicat decides to get formally married (as in making an actual declaration of "this is the person for me") it is a BIG DEAL. Because again, culturally speaking it isn't a requirement, so making that commitment is a huge deal for them, and they often make that permanent. So if a Magicat decides to settle down completely with a partner, they use freeze branding to permanently turn a section of their fur white in a way that look similar to a quarter sleeve tattoo in a very distinct geometric pattern*. That basically tells every other Magicat on sight that this person is wholly dedicated to their chosen beloved. Younger Magicats will also use cold branding to replicate tattoos like other races, but the marriage brand is always distinct, both due to the particular geometric design work and because it is always on their dominant arm, to signify that they are offering their strength to their beloved for the rest of their lives. If their partner is another Magicat they will also get a matching brand, otherwise it depends on the particular race (humans typically get tattoos.)

*My personal mental image of what this resembles is similar to Maori or Pacific Islander forearm tattoos, but not a 100% match because 1) cultural appropriation is gross and 2) the logistical practicalities of doing that via freeze branding would be insane. So that general vibe but simplified. Feel free to flex those imagination muscles.

And before anyone asks... This may or may not come up later in the au. ;) ;) ;)

2. They have certain social rules dealing with other Magicats.

These will be explored in greater depth during the fic, but basically a lot of Magicat etiquette centers around who the other Magicat is to you and stuff like location. For example, they'll typically use honorifics to refer to Magicats who have been teachers to them or assisted them in some way as a show of respect.

The most obvious rule of etiquette to outside observers is that whenever two Magicats meet for the first time and wish to demonstrate respect for each other, the one who approaches the other will come forward slowly until they are just a bit beyond arm's reach. They will then take a half step forward with the leg that corresponds to their dominant hand and then offer that arm to the other. This is the cue for the Magicat being approached to mirror the pose regardless of what their dominant hand is (up until then they will remain in a straight and relaxed position and wait for the signal.) Once this is done, the two will clasp forearms and briefly dip their heads forward into the other's space for a single shared breath before breaking apart. This is a sign that they are now free to move closer to one another and can now interact in a way that is indistinguishable from what outsiders would consider normal conversation between new acquaintances. The purpose of the greeting is for the one approaching to demonstrate their respect for the other and ask to be let into their space; telegraphing which arm they favor symbolizes showing someone a strength of yours and is a sign of trust.

Again, this doesn't apply to all Magicats and the younger generation in particular tends to eschew or pick and choose what etiquette they follow, but in general they do like it when the old traditions are observed, especially by younglings. They don't use this system of etiquette with other races and usually instead adapt their behavior to the person they're interacting with.

Other Misc. Details

I was originally going to have Catra be a motorcycle lesbian because duh, but while doing my due diligence in researching motorcyle safety I ran into a few reasons why that isn't a good idea.

The first is that part of the reason why motorcyle helmets work in the first place is because the evenly curved surface provides an equal distibution of force when striking something. This is why novelty helmets like ones with cat ears or stuff of that type are considered dangerous; they break up that curved surface and thus can't redistribute that force as evenly. So not only would a motorcycle helmet like ours be uncomfortable for a Magicat and disabling to one of their primary senses, trying to design one to accommodate their ears would increase the danger to them in case of an accident.

The second is that I've already established in the au that overheating is a constant concern for Magicats, and proper protective clothing for human motorcyclists already carries a huge risk of overheating us without the added consideration of having fur. So it would be a trade off between solid protection at heavy risk of personal discomfort and overheating or eschewing that protection and increasing the chance of serious injuries. And yeah, Magicats have good enough senses that they could probably backflip or throw themselves clear if they're about to crash, but just getting off the bike isn't gonna do much if you then smack into another vehicle at 60 mph.

And that's kind of a shame, because otherwise Magicats would be ideal safe motorcyclists. Their spacial awareness and sense of balance is phenomenal, and they'd be great at anticipating and reacting the movements of other drivers. I just couldn't make it work with rock star!Catra because she's a lot less reckless. Canon!Catra I could see taking the risk. Don't get me wrong: if you wanna make Catra a sexy, motorcyle riding catgirl you have my full support. I just couldn't justify it in this au.

Honestly, there'll probably be more later, but I'm tapped for now. Would love to hear what if any of you have any thoughts. And of course, if you like what you've read and haven't already, check out my rock star au under the Rhythm & Blues tag or the masterpost list. ;)

#my fics #worldbuilding #rhythm & blues #the catradora rock star au #magicats yo!#mildly nsfw?#in the sense that we talk about sex from a biological level #did I just write an entire essay on fanfic worldbuilding?#yes. because I wanted to and it makes me happy.

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lettucetacoboatsix · 4 years

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Like hurt me, but make me feel safe: Non-Consent Fantasies and Shame

Anonymous asked:

Fear: my sexual fantasies. I get aroused by rape fantasies and thoughts about my physical pain. It makes me feel like a slut and I hate it.

Content warning: Those who find discussions of rape and sexual assault may find this article triggering.

Hello friend,

That sort of fear has the potential to shake you to your core. Our sexuality and sexual identity is something so intrinsically tied to the self and to privacy that when it shows us something that we fear, we begin to question our very being. It’s easy to get lost in that initial reaction of self-loathing and disgust. We can’t always control which dark corners our minds will wander to, just like we can’t always control our physical arousal response to stimuli. Those responses do not make us gross or slutty or evil. Really, all they show is that we are human and that we are alive. Especially if you are still able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Sexual fantasies run the gamut because personalities and interests do. They range from outlandishly unrealistic to entirely plausible. Maybe you fantasize about a trans witch, her anthropomorphic dinosaur lover and a sentient motorcycle with a human head (yes, that’s a real thing. Seriously, the rabbit hole of self-published erotica available on the internet is a glorious exploration of the human condition). That’s totally okay! It’s probably never going to happen, but role playing can be a lot of fun.

The fantasies that you mentioned, though, are often more realistic and play on our sense of safety and control. I do want to caution how we talk about them, though. While easily recognized as a “rape” fantasy, a more accurate term would be a non-consent fantasy or a forced sex fantasy. Rape is, by definition, sexual violence—a violation of the body and mind. Your sexual fantasies, while they might include elements of saying “no” or being bound or even physical harm to your body, are your fantasies, and are therefore empowering to your sexual identity. Sexual fantasies let you explore your sexuality. They are what allow us to find self-gratification on those cold and lonely winter nights without WiFi. We get to recall our fantasies through roleplay scenarios to make our sex lives even more fulfilling. This type of fantasy plays off of our feelings of sexual shame (if we’re saying we don’t want it, it’s not our fault when it happens and we enjoy it), and, because of that, we generally do not talk about it candidly. Rather than releasing ourselves from that shame, we internalize and we are disgusted by our own thoughts.

But this type of fantasy is incredibly common. A 2017 study (and seriously… PubMed is an amazing database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics) showed that between 31% and 57% of women have fantasies in which they are forced into sex against their will. For 9% to 17% of those women, non-consent fantasies are their go to deposit in the spank bank. Another study, showed that 62% of women had had a non-consent fantasy at some point, and 14% reported that they had such a fantasy at least once a week. The cultural narrative would tell us that men fantasize more about domination than submission, and, while research does anecdotally support this, socialization isn’t absolute, and a person of any gender can embrace that desire to let go—to be seduced against our will or to be forced to have sex. It is a completely normal fantasy to explore.

It is understandable if those statistics make you uneasy. In real-life contexts, non-consent is deeply traumatizing. It is not at all sexy to feel that we have no sense of agency or safety in our daily lives. It is an intense violation that causes high levels of mental anguish and anxiety. It seems like there is some serious cognitive dissonance that we would use violent sex and non-consent as the basis for our sexual fantasies – but so many of us do.

It’s absolutely vital to note that while non-consent fantasies are common, this does not mean that anyone secretly wants to be raped. There is a huge difference between acted out role-play, imagined scenarios, pre-negotiated scenes and real-life experiences. No one asks to be raped, no one deserves to be raped, and how common forced sex fantasies are in no way justifies unwanted sexual contact of any nature. It is impossible to know exactly what these fantasies entail, because, they are going on in someone else’s mind. If you do choose to engage in a scene of consensual non-consent, pre-negotiation is absolutely mandatory and a safe-word must always be respected. Acting on these fantasies in real life requires an intrinsic trust with one’s partner and a thorough discussion before anything actually happens.

For some, fantasies of forced sex steered away from experiences that would be close to reality. Rather than lines of consent being crossed by friends or bosses, we fantasize about high drama situations in which we are forced to have sex to survive, entering into sexual contracts rather than having our right to consent taken away from us outright. We might share the relatively common fantasy of being kidnapped and held hostage, then having one of the guards forcing us into sex to survive, or we might fantasize about thieves breaking into our house and being so overwhelmed by our presence and attractiveness that they have to have sex with us against our will. In both of these relatively common scenarios, we start out by resisting the advances. Then we begin to enjoy the sex midway through, as pain and terror give way to pleasure. It is this relinquishing of control and giving in to desire that is the turn on, rather than the very real trauma of real-life sexual violence.

For others, though, these fantasies are more true to life. It may not be about feigned struggle, but imagining consent and control being ripped away as a major turn on. Why are so many of us aroused by forced sex when we’d be horrified of it in reality? Why do we find the idea of rejecting sex then being made to do it anyway a turn on? There are a few theories.

One theory is that it is an echo of the dominant narratives shown in our media-saturated world and masculine-controlled pornography. Our culture sells sex, and that vision of sex is a masculine man being dominant and losing control around a meek, diminutive and submissive woman or multiple women or parts of women or women acting as furniture or other objects. Our fantasies of non-consent are just an extension of that narrative—an internalized misogyny. Personally, I get that this might provide the framework, but it really seems like more is going on in those fantasies.

Another theory is that fantasies of non-consensual sex can be boiled down to lingering guilt and shame around sexuality. Young people are taught to hide sexual feelings or encouraged to fit narrow gender stereotypes of the acceptable ways that sexuality can be expressed in society. This leads to feelings of deep-rooted guilt and shame in expressing one’s own sexual desire. Being forced in the fantasy allows freedom since what happens to us and what we enjoy are not our fault with that added level of narrative. It’s not us, it is a fantasy version of us that doesn’t have a choice. We can’t be ashamed if we don’t have a choice.

If it seems like I am belaboring this point, please recognize how important it is to be clear here. Just as having fantasies about being abducted by an insectoid alien queen and being penetrated by her ovipositor to become an incubator for the next generation of our future overlords doesn’t mean you want to quit your job and become an astronaut, fantasizing about non-consensual sex does not in any way mean that you want to experience sexual violence in real life. It does not make you less human. It does not make you a slut. All it does it make you aware of this particular branch of your sexual fantasies. One more time for the folks in the back: people who have fantasies of experiencing sexual violence do not want to experience real-life rape. Fantasies are not permission to do such a thing, and what people find erotic in their minds can be deeply distressing when played out in reality. Having fantasies about being raped also doesn’t make you a terrible feminist. It doesn’t mean anything about who you are as a person, other than that you’re a person, who occasionally fantasizes about non-consent.

You are also no more likely to experience non-consent fantasies if you are a survivor of sexual assault or rape – fantasies can come up for anyone, at any time in their lives – and, if you are a survivor of sexual violence, it is incredibly important to note that experiencing non-consent fantasies does not mean that their real-life experience was in any way less traumatic. While renegotiating a scene on your terms might be a very therapeutic way to process and heal from a traumatic event (whether through role reversal or putting yourself in a submissive role by choice), having a fantasy at a later date is not indicative that what happened to you was somehow less traumatic. It’s important to understand your own feelings around fantasies of forced sex. If you’re enjoying them and are free of any guilt or discomfort, you don’t need to worry – fantasies of being forced to have sex are entirely normal and very common. If these thoughts feel intrusive, out of control, or distressing, though, then they’re no longer fun sexual fantasies – they’re an issue which needs resolving. Echoes of shame and guilt can often be addressed through open communication and understanding. But with that being said, though, if in the moment of fantasizing these fantasies are causing you distress, please seek professional help in the form of an understanding therapist. Fantasy is a tool for exploration. It is nothing to be ashamed of. If you’ve established that your fantasies are just that – sexual fantasies well within your control, that you find arousing, not distressing – you should feel free to enjoy them.

It’s entirely normal to find something arousing when it is played out in the safety of your mind but upsetting in real life. It’s normal for your own mind to push the boundaries of your comfort zone, and it’s normal if being out of that comfort zone makes you uncomfortable. Don’t panic, and bring a towel. Don’t judge, and treat your mind as a safe space to explore your sexuality in whatever way tickles your fancy at a given moment. If you do want to role play, have that discussion with your partner(s) as openly and honestly as possible. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Especially a sexy, sexy mind. So treat yourself. Let go, and enjoy.

With love, friend.

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shkspr · 4 years

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hey do you have any advice on figuring out your sexuality? I don't know what your experience has been but im struggling

anon, i am deeply sorry that it took me so long to answer this. it’s a combination of the fact that you can’t edit a draft of an ask on mobile (wack) and the fact that i’ve been trying to figure out how to say what i want to say (normal, i feel). anyway, this is what i’ve got, and i hope it helps.

first off, due to the nature of the things i’m discussing here, i want to state unequivocally that i am a lesbian who is open to relationships with trans women because i am attracted to women, and trans women are women. if anybody touches this post with their transmisogyny i will cast the evil eye on them.

for what it’s worth, my experience with my own sexuality has been a long, hard process, and it’s been heavily, undeniably affected by my simultaneous journey with my gender identity, my personal identity, my childhood trauma, and my mental health. pretty much from the ages of 13 to 19 i was in a constant state of questioning everything about myself as a person. the only reason i even considered i might not be straight was bc i had friends who were not straight and i admired them. you can see how that would be confusing to a small teen who is already insecure about being a poser and a fake in every other aspect of life.

once i really examined what i was feeling, and talked it out with some of the aforementioned friends, i could admit that i wasn’t pretending, and that’s when i began identifying as bi. i wove in and out of different terminologies for a few years, burned thru several nb identities and several aspec identities, but the bottom line was that i was attracted to my own gender and other genders, and that was solid for a while.

when i was 18, i began thinking that i might be a lesbian bc, shock of shocks, i had made some very cool lesbian friends whom i admired. and i pretty much pushed that idea out of the way for a bit, telling myself it was not the truth, that i just wanted to feel special and cool, i just wanted to fit in. but then, shock of shocks again, i talked to some of my cool lesbian friends and they were very understanding and accepting and explained to me why all the reasons i thought i “couldn’t” be a lesbian were actually bullshit.

so then i was a lesbian! and i spent a long time exploring my relationship with sex and found that i wasn’t asexual; some people are, and that’s cool! but my experience wasn’t a lack of sexual attraction or desire, it was a fear of vulnerability and a traumatic history with sexual content. i still had (or have) a complex experience with sex, and a muddy picture of gender, and a deeply flawed concept of interpersonal relationships, but i am a lesbian. and i’ve been comfortable with that for a while now, and i don’t foresee myself changing how i feel about that, but unexpected things can happen.

and even though i’m comfortable with being a lesbian and calling myself a lesbian, there are always going to be things that give me pause. the thing is, the main way that i’ve changed and grown in this regard, is that those things don’t make me seriously question myself anymore. i’m secure enough in my sexuality to know that comphet, genderfeels, societal bias, etc etc, doesn’t make me less of a lesbian, even though it might feel like it sometimes.

that’s what it’s been like for me. my experiences are not universal, but i do happen to know that some of them are fairly common. but there’s also no right or wrong way to find yourself. there’s no rush, there’s no requirement. it is confusing and difficult more often than not, in a lot of different and scary ways. that being said, if there’s one piece of advice you take away from this post, it’s to always remember that your experiences are your own, and nobody else can decide for you what they mean or what to do with them.

it’s like this: you know when people say “everyone’s a little bit bisexual”? that’s not true, obviously. but i think there’s a truth hidden underneath it, and i think it’s a common experience that erroneously leads some people to that belief. no matter how you identify, there is almost always going to be something - compulsory heterosexuality, personal trauma that makes sex or romance uncomfortable, past relationships, one (1) very attractive man, whatever it is - that makes you think you’re wrong. even if you know you’re right. there’s always going to be something that could at any moment cause you to stop and think: wait, am i lying to myself?

and some people are not as vulnerable to those thoughts! some people go thru their daily lives and very rarely, if ever, consciously question their sexuality or their perception or performance of it. but other people are more susceptible to the thought spirals and the self-doubt and the confusion, and society at large feeds that and feeds upon it. for every lesbian you meet, there’s seven people giving twelve different reasons why they can’t be a “real” lesbian. for every bisexual person you meet, there’s a handful of thinkpieces about bisexuality that contradict their experiences. and so on and so forth. and that’s enough to cause a lot of indecision and anxiety.

but it’s also very freeing to take that thought and follow it to its necessary conclusion: that nobody on earth can tell you what your sexuality is. sure, if you’re a woman who feels genuine attraction to men and wants to pursue sex or relationships with them, you’re not a lesbian. that’s just because words have meanings. but you get to decide what “genuine attraction” is to you, and you get to decide whether you’re comfortable pursuing those relationships. and that’s just one example; the same logic applies broadly.

the bottom line is really that agonizing over labels and definitions just means you miss the forest for the trees. in a practical sense, in real life, who would you want to date, marry, kiss, have sex with, etc.? without thinking about what you should do, what you should want, what you’d be able to do if you had to, what you did last week, internet discourse, a dream you had when you were 12, whatever, none of it is relevant except insofar as it informs your current feelings on the matter. you’re not obligated to choose a label, and if you want one then there’s no deadline to pick one, and once you do you’re not locked into an identity for life.

which is all to say that no, not everybody is a little bit bisexual, but nobody is 100% anything, in this or any other facet of life. and that doesn’t mean that people’s sexualities aren’t valid; they are valid, but they aren’t objective or concrete in the way we would often like them to be. they’re helpful labels for explaining something that is actually unfathomably complicated. so whatever you do, whatever you decide: you don’t need to be sure, you don’t need to be right, you don’t need to be a certain kind of person, you don’t need to be anything in particular. you just need to be comfortable.

#Anonymous #long post ---#ok to rb #gd this is a doozy

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ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is · 4 years

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1\ISFJ/INFJ anon here! Thanks – your response made me consider attributing quite a few of my behaviours to Ne, a link I’ve never made before. Some of what you said aligns with my experience: I’m quite generous in giving benefit of the doubt and haven't related to the INFJ trait of making scarily accurate predictions without much to go on; I chose physics over biology for the same reason you did, and civil over the other engineering types because I understood the more tangible topics (kinematics,

2\dynamics) better than, say, electromagnetic induction. Calendars: yep, I was referring to always having my schedule at the back of my head (‘detail’ extending to colour codes, but not much else), not blow-by-blow. Hence monthly calendars, because daily/weekly is too high resolution for me and too much effort to keep up, although occasionally when I’m stressed and have many things to do, I might make an hourly to-do list just for that evening, to rotate between the work and schedule in breaks.

3\That said, I still like spontaneity/breaking free of structure in other aspects, like food (I’m not picky, so I don’t mind going for weird, unconventional choices that nobody else would try) and travel (I like the idea of discovering gems in the unassuming, rather than going to predictable places and taking all the recommended scenic shots, even if it might be wiser to follow experienced advice). In school, I’ve never liked asking seniors for tips, preferring to figure stuff out myself.

4\What made me consider high N: I love reflecting on my life, the trajectory of my growth and the people who’ve shaped it. I think about coincidences and random patterns that appear in my life, what subjective meaning they hold and what lessons I can draw from that. But I thought these were abstract the same way I thought sociology (examining unspoken social contracts and how they subconsciously influence collective behaviour?) was abstract, so maybe I’m just not even clear what abstraction is?

5\Also what made me think low Se was my aversion to caring too much about appearances. I know that sounds like a poor understanding of Se but one specific way this manifests is an inhibition towards dance. I’m in a studio with a giant mirror and the aim is to execute movements but also to look good doing it, and something about that intentionality of that physicality rubs me up the wrong way. Head knowledge tells me that dance is Performing Arts for a reason, and I enjoy watching other people do

6\it, so this irrationality stands out to me. In the same vein are bold fashion senses/make-up which I know must be a matter of personal taste, but I can’t seem to shake my discomfort at putting oneself out there so… much. But maybe I’m just uncomfortable in my own skin. I’m not sure if this clarifies or really value-adds to your original typing, but I’m happy to hear what you think. Is the new information still in line with high Si? On the whole, though, ISFJ seems reasonable. Thanks again.

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ISFJ/INFJ anon,

So I’m primarily focusing on the stuff you said about high intuition:

Some of this is abstract, some isn’t, but none sounds exclusively high intuition to me. I think self-reflection is a normal process, and I think in particular most people with some interest in MBTI are going to be self-reflective (people with no desire for self-knowledge aren’t really attracted to typology for themselves).

Patterns are part of both Si and Ni processes; it’s more whether you think of patterns as made of details, or overarching themes (and even then, it’s a much blurrier line because we all deal in both the abstract and concrete, we just have a preference for one over the other, and most patterns share both these aspects).

Sociology, to me, also has a lot of both the concrete and abstract within it. Social contracts aren’t tangible per se but they are real. These rules can’t be touched, but they aren’t mere concepts either and they have very tangible effects (I like to think about it the way I think about gender, or days of the week. Like, our concept of Sunday is arbitrary, but also the bank is still closed). Which I guess is true of most concepts so my point is really that an interest in them can come from either side. I think of sociology as a very applied study but that could be my own bias. And finally subjective meaning is true of any introverted function, so Si or Ni, and Ti in your case, would contribute there. Basically if this were on its own I wouldn’t be as definitive about Si/Ni but I wouldn’t use it as clear evidence of one vs. the other.

I think you’re right about the dance studio - I think that’s just within the normal levels of self-consciousness. It’s pretty typical that people find the sound of their own voice or pictures of themselves to be weird because they mess with our own experience of the self and it’s more complicated than just certain types feeling a certain way.

So with all this in mind I think ISFJ still fits; ISFJs I’ve known are pretty introspective.

#mbti #isfj #infj #Anonymous

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

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Somewhat of a heavier question: what do you think of the way we tend to view murder in fiction? Like, in RWBY the majority of the villains are mass murderers by this point, but we view someone like Adam with a particular loathing because he's an abuser, while someone like Mercury still gets the 'oh protect my sweet summer child' treatment. What gives? Both are directly responsible from the little girl Qrow ran into in Mistral losing her mother, among MANY others, and this still baffles me.

Look at me finally answering this! Let’s chuck out three big possibilities:

The old concept that one death is a tragedy but a thousand deaths is just a statistic, applied to various types of bad things. Meaning, Adam’s atrocities towards countless minor characters mostly off screen just doesn’t have the emotional impact of one main character, Blake, suffering at his hands. It’s a pretty normal response both in fiction and in real life. Hearing about a mass fire that killed hundreds is objectively horrible, but you’ll probably forget about it once you turn off the news. You won’t forget a fire at a friend’s house at all. We’re more protective of our faves, the characters we relate to, so until someone like Mercury cuts off an arm he has more “leeway.” His atrocities are more easily ignored because they’re a few steps removed, i.e. helping Cinder reach Pyrrha instead of being the one to shoot an arrow through her chest. We focus on the latter, not the former, even though both hold responsibility.

The fact that a lot of these characters are hot guys. Yes, RWBY complicates this fandom trend a great deal (Cinder, Neo, and Emerald are all defended too; Ozpin is demonized), but we can’t escape that reality entirely. There are very real connections between how we’re posed to view a guy on a TV show vs. how we view a guy we see on the news. We live in a culture that continually tells us about how a young, affluent, white, conventionally attractive man has done [insert horrific thing here] and then we’re bombarded with commentary about how he still has his whole life ahead of him. He’s really a good guy and this one horrible deed doesn’t reflect who he actually is. He dealt with [insert hardship here] and thus deserves all our sympathy. He, a 20+ year old, is “just a kid with his whole life ahead of him.” That’s the narrative and it’s been the narrative for as long as we can remember, so it doesn’t surprise me at all when that thinking bleeds into our readings of fiction. If the husband who abused his wife is really just a Sad Boy in need of some tender forgiveness, then Adam must be a Sad Boy too. If the college guy who raped a girl is just a kid who shouldn’t have his whole life ruined by this one ‘mistake,’ then why should Mercury have his whole life ruined for his own mistakes? If we’re not seeing consequences for real horrors why would we assume that mere fictional characters should experience them? Again, I’m by no means saying there aren’t other gender issues at play here—there certainly are—and I’m not talking about the fans who are interested in the story grappling with true redemption—that’s different than ignoring the character’s actions entirely with the ‘sweet summer child’ treatment—but we can’t ignore that this is a very specific and currently very prevalent mindset within all forms of Western media, both real and fictional. If the character is a good-looking guy people are primed to forgive almost anything.

A lack of critical engagement—and I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just a simple fact that a lot of viewers aren’t trained to/interested in doing anything other than watching a series for passive enjoyment. Much of what makes a villain truly horrible might slip their notice or be forgotten as a series continues. My mom is like that. I’ll mention hating a character, she’s surprised, I give a list of the horrific things they’ve done as well as the implications of some other actions and it’s, “Oh. I didn’t even think about that.” Because she watches everything once when it first airs and then moves on with her life (can you imagine? lol). Even people who are immersed in analysis/fandom forget stuff. I was chatting with a friend about Lucifer and mentioned how hypocritical something was. Wait, why is it hypocritical? Because of this thing in season two. OH YEAH totally forgot that happened. Keeping six volumes of material in your head is no easy task, so if we just watched a scene where Mercury gives an impassioned speech about his abuse it’s hard for us to remember that this is the same guy who gleefully filmed a school being destroyed and its students killed. Then, if someone reminds you of that—and if Mercury is a fave—we’re back to point #1 and #2. But I like him and I identify with him and it’s easy to excuse behavior that happened years ago and mostly off screen, so I’m just going to keep simplifying him into the abused boy who just needs a hug.

Which you can do. It’s fandom. Everyone gets to engage with the characters in whatever way they’d like. God knows I’ve had my own faves with my own indulgent headcanons of, “But if they just had a friend who loved them things would be better.” That can be a whole lot of fun. The key is in not attacking people for hating a character for legitimate (canonical) reasons, no more than you’d want them attacking you for liking the character for personal reasons.

#rwby #rwde #(maybe?)#mymetas #rape tw #valasania-the-pale

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flying-elliska · 5 years

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You said it feels cool to have a specific identity but isn't that exactly why we are seen as the special snowflake generation? Not to mention wasn't the whole point to be free from stereotypes and dress however we want, love whoever we want etc? And yet there's now so many identities, labels, flags which create an implicit pressure to define yourself so you'll be included. Idk I think your french friends are right,it still feels like we're pushing people into boxes; they're just woke boxes now.

Hey anon ! Thank you for this very interesting question. I hope you’re ok with getting a mini-essay as a response (that’s kind of my brand now lmao)

So first of all, if you don’t feel like you personally need labels, you are totally valid. And so are my friends. I think you have to find out what you’re most comfortable with. It’s true that labels can be used to exclude, esp in the LGBTQ+ communities. I think we focus our activism a little bit too much on words and online stuff and media representation nowadays, as opposed to practical political action, and that’s an issue. And we focus too much on people not having the correct, latest approved terminology and labels as a way to show you’re a good person, as opposed to what people are actually doing and their lived experiences, and who is authorized to use what label and those debates often just exasperate me to the highest point. It’s like, don’t you have anything better to do ? It becomes very clique-ish, school courtyard drama at times. There should always be a place for questioning, fluidity, no labels, a place for discovery and uncertainty, shifting identifications, multiple labels at once, words changing, and questioning what place they take in our lives.

But, on the whole, I still like my labels, and I’m going to try and explain why.

Labels are words right ? They have the benefits and drawbacks of words. A rose under any other name would still smell as sweet, of course. But we are a fundamentally social species, and words are a way to create bridges between people, between our experiences. It signals that you are not alone ; it’s a way to make visible things that are usually invalidated, ostracized or just plain erased by the mainstream and the status quo. The development of a vocabulary for the queer community was what made their political struggle and pride possible ; before it was “the love that dare not speak it name”, all euphemisms and shame. It honors, too, the struggle of those who came before us ; it places us in the continuity of a history ; it says we have been here before, it gives us memory and context. Of course words are going to betray us, because they can never retranscribe the fullness, complexity and confusion of lived experience. But they’re a conversation starter ; they bring people together ; they create spaces of freedom.

I’m going to give you a personal example : a few years ago I fell in love with a girl for the first time ; after that I seriously started thinking of myself as bisexual. There had always been a thing there but because I had been mostly attracted to boys before, I’d swept it under the rug. But finding the ‘bisexual’ label made me realize - no this is a thing, this is valid, and it made me look back at all those instances in the past of having weirdly intense feelings for some of my girl friends, of being obsessed with certain actresses, etc…that back then I didn’t understand, I just thought I was weird…and I always thought that bisexuality was something that something Hollywood starlets did for attention. But finding a community behind that word that was seeking to reclaim it from the stereotypes and being proud about what it meant, it was so healing.

After that I immersed myself more in my local LGBTQ+ community ; and in particular I volunteered for the European Bisexual Convention - that one in particular was incredible because it felt so…liberating. In the general LGBTQ community, people expect you to be gay until you say otherwise. In the student association I was in, it was cool, but it was also…very normative in a way. Lots of stereotypes about how we were expected to be, what we were expected to like, behave like. So for Eurobicon, to have all of that lifted, it was amazing. And it was also so much more inclusive - of disabled, neuroatypical, transgender ppl, different body types and ethnicities, like you could feel that they had made an effort. I also met several nonbinary ppl for the first time of my life and I was like…oh wow there’s something here that feels very important and real. We shared experiences that we did not have a space before, that were specifically bisexual and that tend to go unheard in general queer spaces because they’re not part of the dominant narrative : the daily hesitations, the lack of visibility, the much higher rates of staying closeted, feeling like you are not really part of the community, but also the really cool aspects too - there was this incredible energy of fluidity too of thinking, here is a space where everyone can potentially be into everyone, there aren’t as many barriers as we usually have to think about. And there was this one party and we were all dancing and flirting in a very sweet kind of way, people of different ages and body types, gender presentations and configurations I hadn’t thought about before, a girl in a wheelchair swirling around and being treated like a queen, guys in corsets and cool butches and just some beautiful people - and there was this euphoria in the room, of recognition and kinship, and it felt so…normal, not freakish like I had been led to believe it would be. Nobody was putting on airs or trying hard or whatever, they were just being themselves. And I was like, wow, this is something I need more of in my life. And this freedom was made possible by people coming together under a certain label, recognizing that certain people have specific needs and experiences. Especially after growing up in environments that never tell you that those things are possible, finding the right label can be like coming home.

I have other labels for myself I am less public about because I don’t want to deal with the social aspect of it, or I’m like this is none of anybody’s business, or I want to give myself the time to figure it out on my own. But they’re tools for self-knowledge, they allow me to think about things, to conceptualize, to research (and lol I’m a nerd so…). And to be less hard on myself sometimes, and to stand up for myself in a ‘I know who I am and it’s okay’ kind of way. Because society tends to pathologize, ostracize or demonize the things it doesn’t understand, and labels can protect you against that.

In an ideal society maybe we wouldn’t need labels - to have a right to exist or survive, and that’s definitely a goal, but I think we would still make some, because that’s who we are as a species, we need to classify certain things in order to think about them. The problem is when those boxes become cages instead of like, beautiful pots to grow seeds in, like art or poetry. And of course deconstructing the boxes we don’t want remain important. But I don’t think we can ever be box-less, it just to me doesn’t compute.

I just wanna come back to the ‘special snowflake generation’ thing. If you don’t want labels, like I said, that’s fine. But I hate hate hate that term, and I don’t want to define myself in reaction to it. To me it’s used by a) bigots who just hate the fact that natural human diversity is becoming more recognized and discussed, and want to put us back in the artificial, stifling boxes that dynamics of power, patriarchy and imperialism have made us believe were normal when they really weren’t. And b) older people who are uncomfortable with increased levels of emotional intelligence and lability among younger generations. It’s a thing I’ve noticed over and over again ; people used to talk so much less. When they had feelings in general, or experiences out of the norm, they were taught that stuffing them down and sitting on them and repressing the shit out of them, was the noble/normal/grown up thing to do. So they did and they suffered in silence. And maybe some of them now feel bitter, or at least bewildered, by younger generations refusing to do so and inventing and or reclaiming all those new ways of talking about their experiences out in the open. And so they’re like ‘it’s too much ! you’re spoiled !’ because they want to believe that their sacrifices had a point. They don’t want to realize they could have done things differently all along. It’s very sad. But I don’t think it should be a barrier to us using them like…just as we shouldn’t refrain from using washing machines because our grandmothers suffered to wash everything in a bucket…There’s nothing entitled about wanting a better life than previous generations… And to me, having more words and more space to express myself will never be a bad thing.

#pride #labels #bisexuality #bi pride #lgbt

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