A Swarm Of Bees

System blog please be normal | I swear we actually use this I just get anxious

[bee-hive-sys]

This is a system blog!!

Bea 🐝 (they/she/he)

Main blog is @baby-bumble-bea

Ven 🌠 (any, masc leaning)

Coral 🐙 (she/her)

Sol♊ (he/they)

Siffrin⭐ (he/they)

Loop🌳 (they/them)

Kris 🍎 (they/them)

[emoji]rblg means they reblogged it. [emoji]txt is a text post or they said something in the tags. [emoji][name] usually means someone else mentioned them in something and we want to make it easy to see :)

"Hey you should know this too" means it was reblogged from my main

[bee-hive-sys]

Hey, I love you. Please don't forget about me?

[star-anise]

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

[shieldmaidenofsherwood]

#it’s so so important to remember that representation is not one-size-fits-all#what is empowering to one person might be exhausting and oppressive to someone else#some people need stories about having the strength to save themselves#some people need stories about being considered worthy of being saved#some people need inspiration for their independence while others need validation that they don’t have to be able to do everything themselves#before you lash out against something PLEASE stop to consider:#is this inadequate and/or damaging representation?#or is it just something I don’t personally relate to? [X]

[star-anise]

It’s been half a decade and I still haven’t found an articulation of the complexity of “representation” as concisely and precisely mindblowing as @hungrylikethewolfie’s here.

[pompombot]

Here goes my usual bla bla bla

[indigosfindings]

people online: hi hows it going

people irl: hi hows it going

marina diamandis if she wrote an extended version of how to be a heartbreaker where it's revealed tbat electra heart is a bee: rule number five/is you protect the hive/so that the queen can survive/and all your larvae can thrive

[dumgumgum]

* right, this is where we draw pictures, and don’t kill each other!

[bee-hive-sys]

I'm so over job hunting not even nepotism can save me now

[perishrepublic]

a vague sort of follow-up to my recent noelle drawing. i wanted to give kris a cute outfit too

[cheezydraws]

There's space for two

[mollybeenoel]

[baby-bumble-bea]

Just remembered that Simply Plural is gone next month and I have to get our Plural kit up to standards but bro idk how to do any of this actually and it sucks

How do people make cute layouts and implement them I genuinely don't understand

[astrmastr]

open wide

[tu0fu]

🪽

[feluka]

guy with depression: idk stories about time loops just kinda really resonate with me haha idk why

[incognitopolls]

Where would you place your gender on a scale from 1 (man) to 9 (woman)?

1 – exclusively boy/man

2

3

4

5 – both equally, OR neither

6

7

8

9 – exclusively girl/woman

I can't place my gender on this scale

I don't know/still figuring things out

Voting ended onApr 1

Obviously gender is more complex than a one-dimensional scale, but answer as best you can. This is asking only about leaning, not intensity. Feel free to elaborate in the tags!

–

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[radio-fry]

I've obtained a new hobby

[bee-hive-sys]

Bitches fucking love falling for people who have no interest or intention in dating them and then acting sad and shocked when they get rejected