Tag: text

there is one valid criticism about the term allo is that, conceptualising romantic or sexual attraction as a binary thing where you either have it completely or not at all is completely flawed

the thing is though… ace and aro people aren’t pushing it as a binary at all. it’s aphobes who are doing that damage.

I’m hearing shit like, ‘everyone’s a little bit demi, so why even have a word for it?’ pretty much constantly. actual ace-spec people aren’t the ones saying grey-aces are confused and need to pick a side.

a lot of exclusionists say, actually by /your standards/, (our horrible mogai standards), i’d be ace spectrum, but i choose not to use the label because calling myself ace is #problematic, or i’d be ace spectrum but I don’t like microlabels so i refuse to use one.

they’re actively shunning all the microlabels that are amazingly useful in breaking down the idea of an ace/allo binary. they’re shunning any orientation that doesn’t fit into those two categories and calling it progress

some of them are #cringing at the very idea that it is a spectrum, saying oh god mogais, not everything has to be a spectrum! when the first complaint was that aces and aros… weren’t allowing for a spectrum and were slotting people into the allo category by default

and that post that went round, that said being ace = good, calling yourself ace = bad. that’s the kind of shit that haunts me when i sit down to think about labelling my attraction. and the idea that a teenager IDing as ace is sexualising their peers, because the existence of a single ace kid automatically labels everyone else in their school as allo. somehow. which is the most amazingly black and white thinking i’ve seen in my life. people aren’t saying ‘i’m ace compared to all the dirty sexhavers around me’, they’re just saying they’re ace. ace in relation to nothing but themselves. and aphobes have called that a #pedophile grooming tactic.

i have no idea what my romantic orientation is, i have no idea at all if i’m alloromantic, or to what degree my mental illness even clouds the whole concept of romance. but i have felt no pressure at all from ace and aro people to pick a side, i haven’t been labelled alloromo by anyone against my will. I haven’t heard ‘you’re either with us or against us’ from anyone on this side. it’s pretty much just aphobes pulling this crap

and if i ever do pick a romantic orientation, im damn sure the only thing that fits is going to be the most obscure microlabel on the planet. and i’m still going to be a gay girl as well. and i don’t feel like i can even pick one until this godawful discourse is finally over and microlabels stop being this ultimate enemy people are making them up to be… they’re words people are using to describe themselves. I really can’t, comprehend the psychology involved in being against people having words that fit them

clitcheese:

callout post for myself, @clitcheese 

  • has had consensual sex without first disclosing that they are possibly on the aro spectrum somewhere
  • cishet ace
  • has clitoris in their url, quite possibly a terf
  • no really, exclusionists have said both those last ones to me
  • when i had trans lesbian in my bio
  • i’m a Very Allo Lesbian guys i’m not even ace
  • can i make it any more clear that i’m a lesbian who feels sexual attraction. i have the sexual desire to fuck girls and nonbinary people. do i need to say im allo in my bio or something so people stop assuming i’m Not A Real LGBT
  • also doesn’t tag the Q slur :/

i have a terf criticising me as a header image. if u can’t even,, be bothered to hover ur mouse over my url then you should give up on the Discourse tbh

like………. it’s the word clit. my url is in protest of terfs trying to claim a monopoly on the clitoris. i am a trans girl w a clit, lads
#reciepts

freifraufischer:

Okay, some fandom history, why show writers and authors say “for legal reasons” the can’t read fan fic.

Back in ancient times in the 1970s there was a show called Star Trek the Animated Series.  It was on the air as fandom culture around Star Trek was really taking route and there were many fanzines (things on actual paper that people bought) being published and the first conventions to attend.

David Gerrold was a writer for Star Trek the Animated Series who had also written one of the most famous episodes of the original series The Trouble with Tribbles.  While he was around the production office for STtAS he was introduced to a couple of fans who proceeded to tell him all about their ideas for an episode–essentially a sequel to his famous episode–which it so happens he had already written a script for.  When that episode aired he received a letter from one of those fans lawyers demanding “credit”.  It so happened that he could prove that the episode existed before the meeting but the involvement of lawyers and a threat to sue became widely known.

Marion Zimmer Bradly was, before recent horrifying revelations decades after her death, a titan of fantasy writing.  She also welcome fan fiction and published it in anthologies and in a magazine she published.  One day she opened a story sent to her and the plot of the story was essentially the plot of a a novel she had nearly finished writing.  More than a years worth of her work was now unpublishable because it was provable that she had read this story with this similar plot and she couldn’t prove the work on the novel existed before she saw the story.  She stopped publishing anthologies and fan fiction and in particular the MZB story is the one a lot of professional writers know as representative of the dangers of fan fiction.

So when a writer says they can’t read fan fiction for legal reasons it’s that their own lawyers are protecting them from outside lawsuits.

And this is why knowing your fandom history matters.

sadhipstercat:

sadhipstercat:

New d&d dice proposal called lucked or fucked: a d20 but ten sides have 1s and ten sides have 20s, so you crit no matter what but it’s always a guessing game for which way it goes. To be used on really important, make-or-break-the-campaign rolls

Ya I know you could use a coin but listen. It’s not about the outcome, it’s about the Drama™

callout post for myself, @clitcheese 

  • has had consensual sex without first disclosing that they are possibly on the aro spectrum somewhere
  • cishet ace
  • has clitoris in their url, quite possibly a terf
  • no really, exclusionists have said both those last ones to me
  • when i had trans lesbian in my bio
  • i’m a Very Allo Lesbian guys i’m not even ace
  • can i make it any more clear that i’m a lesbian who feels sexual attraction. i have the sexual desire to fuck girls and nonbinary people. do i need to say im allo in my bio or something so people stop assuming i’m Not A Real LGBT
  • also doesn’t tag the Q slur :/

At least two possibilities

coolseemer:

The first is that the Death Star trash compactor had been used so rarely or that the station had been serviced so little that an ecosystem had begun to develop inside the trash compactor and who knows where else in the Death Star and a large tentacle beast had grown in this would be womb deep inside the most destructive weapon in the galaxy

The second is they just threw a tentacle monster in the trash

Every time an aphobe complains about aces wearing merch to show their pride, I automatically begin purchasing a shit ton more ace merch. I will wear my ace ring and ace pun shirt if I god damn want to. Fight me.

transfemcore:

justaphobethings:

Me if I had money and wasn’t afraid of telling people I’m ace

and i also casually remind ppl that i do wear non-ace merch lmao so ppl who use these arguments also clearly have some rly unfair double standards going. unless u wanna claim transmisogyny isn’t real cus i wear trans pride symbols, dont say that sorta stuff is an argument for why aphobia aint a thing.. people standing forward and coming out and being themselves isnt evidence for lack of oppression.. the fact ppl even need to do that is a sign of marginalisation like 99% of the time.

lieutenant-sapphic:

victorian-sexstache:

lieutenant-sapphic:

johns-posh-boy:

I HAVE NEVER HEARD SUCH ROMANTIC DIALOGUE IN ANY BOOK, MOVIE, OR TV SHOW AS I HAVE IN “SEARCH FOR SPOCK”

-“the noblest part of myself”

-“some of our dearest blood”

-“We were separated…he couldn’t touch me.”

-“eternal soul…as if it were my very own”

-“the cost would have been my soul”

god and have you heard the SOUNDTRACK

Oh please explain the soundtrack, I would pay you if I could 😍

ALRIGHT HERE WE GO. THIS IS GONNA BE LONG.

in Wrath of Khan, there is a one-minute track called “Spock” that plays when kirk comes into spock’s meditation zone, around where the line “i have been and always shall be yours” is said. That melody is spock’s melody; it essentially follows him throughout the movie and it plays when he dies.

In Search for Spock, as kirk goes on Sadness Walks™ around the enterprise, saying he’s left the noblest part of himself down there on that newborn planet, spock’s melody plays – spock is haunting him, even in the soundtrack. spock’s melody also plays in spock’s cabin.

When sarek mindmelds with kirk, spock’s melody is very very strong, showing how present spock is in kirk’s thoughts. The melody is more present in kirk’s mind than it was in spock’s cabin (or any other place) aboard the enterprise.

What’s interesting is that musical tracks between lovers often are heavy on the strings (violins in particular). The music that plays between kirk and spock when they are reunited on Vulcan uses strings and a Vulcan horn. The spock melody comes back just as spock comes back (that’s the bit on the Vulcan horn) and the backing note is violin.

This is all well and good, but NONE OF THESE LITTLE FACTS ARE MY FAVORITE BIT. (okay, maybe the part about the spock melody being in kirk’s thoughts make me a little emo. but anyway.)

What i want to talk about next is a bit subtle and required some digging; it’s about the ten-minute jazz piece that plays in the bar scene early in the movie. it lacks lyrics and may not seem significant, but when you look at the lyrics to the songs it is composed of (”That Old Black Magic” “Tangerine,” and “I Remember You”), they foreshadow the events of the movie. Let’s look at “I Remember You” first:

“I remember you; you’re the one who said you love me true”
and
“When my life is through and the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all, I shall tell them I remember you.”

The song is about remembering a loved one; that is – surprise – the entire end scene of the movie. Spock remembers, saying “Jim… your name is Jim,” and “I have been and ever shall be your friend.” (which incidentally reminds me of an old Indian wedding vow which includes the lines “we may ever live as friends.” But that’s beside the point… or is it?)

“Tangerine” is a pretty standard bar love song. So is “That Old Black Magic,” but there is a couplet in there that really jumped out at me.

“You are the lover that I’ve waited for, the mate that fate had me created for.” 

And that’s pretty damn perfect for their relationship, isn’t it?

If you want to know what James Horner (the composer for both Wrath of Khan and Search For Spock) has to say about all this:

“What was most important to me as a storyteller was the relationship between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. (…) I set up this relationship, this bond between these two characters and that was the key to Star Trek II. (…) What has to be brought to the surface more in the storytelling is the deep affection that occurs between these two characters, Spock and Kirk, and that’s really what I focussed on. It ended up fortuitously working to set it up that way because it cemented something that wasn’t in the first movie; it cemented something on a big scale that wasn’t in the television series. It was always implied. I tried to nail it in the movie (…) It was all about that relationship.” (x)

So, you know. Make of all that what you will, but it all seems damn romantic to me.