iâm bertie (he/they), aka professor homestuck, aka coldairballoons, aka any number of things. iâm a graduate student, short fiction writer, accidental poet, horror theorist, dashcon 2 panelist, and occasional artist based in texas :)
in case you havenât guessed, this is a side blog wholly dedicated to compiling things for my research. since a bunch of my work surrounds fandom, fan involvement, and accessibility, i figured this could be a good multimodal approach to sharing scholarship!
iâll go more in depth⊠at some point, but for the time being, you can find more on my youtube channel and website :)
proud victim of the tumblr accent. it's fading out of public consciousness as the tik tok accent takes precedence; a linguistic evolution that makes the tumblr accent 85% funnier to unsuspecting civilians. it's like releasing a disease on a non-inoculated population. coughing baby versus hydrogen bomb.
Historically, many major figures from queer history were criminalized for expressing their identities, and court records are in fact how we know about many queer people from history.
This fact should inform queer peoples relationships to polices and prisons. We should know better then most that being criminalized is not based on morality, and we should use that knowledge to work in solidarity with communities experiencing the same or similar criminalization.
as a person under the agender/nonbinary umbrella I actually think the recently increased focus on a nonbinary personâs agab is insanely fucking uncomfortable and blatantly exorsexist. Stop trying to sort NB people into boxes of amab vs afab, transfem vs transmasc, tma vs tme, etc etc. It is not praxis or activism to keep attempting to binarize people whose entire identities are built around the fact that they DO NOT ADHERE to a binary. You are just being a fucking tar pit #sorry
tma and tme are to describe one's relationship to transmisogyny. it's similar to describing a relationship to anti-blackness by "creating a binary" of black and non-black (which includes white people, latino people, asian people, etc). tme includes anyone who is not transfeminized (such as cis men, cis women, trans men, etc). just because there are two categories of something doesn't mean you're getting forced into a gender binary. ignoring your relationship to transmisogyny by refusing to understand what tme/tma means is exactly the same as ignoring your relationship to anti-blackness by saying "i dont see color", because sure, you can ignore that there's a structural & systemic issue regarding a specific demographic, but it doesn't mean its not there!
nigga did your white ass really just come onto a black personâs post to try and lecture them about not knowing their own relationship to antiblackness
number one check yourself. Number two comparing TMA/TME to anti-Blackness is a false dichotomy and I need white queer people to stop trying to compare themselves to Black people every single chance they get. oh my god
The two are NOT similar. If you really wanna play the game of equating race and gender, then the equivalent to âBlack and nonblackâ would be transfem/trans woman and non-transfem/trans woman, not TMA/TME. I can assure you that NO black person is going around saying âantiblack racism affected vs antiblack racism exempt.â Because That Is Stupid.
EVERYONE is affected by antiblackness, because of how deeply itâs ingrained into our entire societal structure. You cannot write off specific demographics as not being affected by certain forms of oppression or discrimination, because the nature of living in a white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy is that ALL of these systems are INTRINSICALLY connected with each other, and affect EVERYONE to some degree. There are countless historical examples of antiblack legislation directly impacting poor communities of other racial groups- including white people. There are primary targets of discrimination, obviously, but nobody is truly âexemptâ from any sort of oppressive system unless they are at the VERY top of the damn food chain.
In the same vein, the intersection of transphobia and misogyny is ALSO deeply ingrained into our society. And because of that, nobody is truly âtransmisogyny-exempt.â Even people who arenât the primary targets are still directly impacted and negatively affected by transmisogynistic systems. I find TMA/TME to be useless in terms of categorization because it directly posits that everyone who gets sorted into the latter group just doesnât experience any oppression or discrimination derived from transmisogynistic bases at all, which is ridiculous, because that happens All the time.
A trans man or enby whoâs mistaken for a trans woman and is assaulted for it, a cis man whoâs belittled and attacked on the basis of being Too Feminine, a cis woman whoâs publicly shamed, derided, and transvestigated for having testosterone levels that are âtoo high,â are all examples of non-transfem/trans woman groups being negatively affected on the basis of transmisogyny.
Poor white people being affected by legislation meant to target and attack Black populations and the massive trend of colorism throughout Asian communities are examples of nonblack groups being negatively affected on the basis of antiblackness.
You cannot sort people by what oppression they do and do not face, and attempts to do so are inherently exclusionary and are bound to lead back into denying people of their lived experiences, just because they line up perfectly into these specific categories of âthis genre of person goes through thisâ vs âthis genre of person doesnât go through that.â
I believe that TMA/TME was coined with the best intentions, but the problem is that itâs a clumsy dichotomy and the way a lot of people tend to use it ends up leading back into the same issues of being binary (âamab trans people experience this, afab trans people donât experience thatâ) and then THAT leads back into a whole heaping mess in and of itself
Talking about the way transfeminized people are targeted by transmisogyny is not a bad thing in and of itself! But like, you can just say transfem/non-transfem- or even just transfeminized to describe that oppressors will often place people into in order to enact transmisogynistic violence against them- instead of directly trying to state what different groups of people Do And Donât Experience. you can say âprimary targets of transmisogynyâ without directly implying that certain groups are exempt from it all together.
THAT is my issue at hand when it comes to TMA/TME. It is an awkward framework to describe oppression, because oppression doesnât work like that in reality
i love explaining the etymology of the word "rickroll" because the story starts with "ok, so at one point 4chan applied a filter to everyone's posts that changed the word egg to duck"
We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune is a queer sci-fi novel about an elderly couple on an end-of-the-world road trip.
WHATâS IT ABOUT
Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together theyâve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.
Now, the world is ending for real. A rogue black hole is coming for Earth, and in a month everything and everyone theyâve ever known will be gone. Don and Rodney race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before itâs all over.
Art by @meruz.
Read an excerpt from chapter one below.
Chapter 1
Don switched off the television. Heâd spent the morning in the garden, those pesky weeds returning with a vengeance. All that spring rain, he thought. And for what?
His husband, Rodney, sat in a recliner a few feet away. At seventy-eight, Rodney was a gruff and quiet man, his bushy eyebrows doing most of the talking for him. Forty years together, and Don could tell what he was thinking without a word between them.
âI know,â Don said. âItâs time.â
Rodney grunted in response, leaning forward in his chair, hands on his knees. His back was bothering him, though he wouldnât say as much. But Don knew. Of course he did. He knew everything about Rodney. Rodney, who looked over at Don, expression softening.
âYou all right?â
âNo, I donât think I am.â
Rodney nodded and stood from the recliner, groaning as he did so, knees popping. âStay right there,â he said.
Don did, staring off into nothing. He didnât know how to feel. Frightened? Oh yes. Angry? Perhaps; a little spark that whispered how is this fair?
But mostly, Don felt relieved, and oddly so. Not over the fact that the entire world would be gone in thirty days, give or take. No, he wasnât the type to revel in the misfortune of others. His relief came in knowing how it would end.
Getting older meant he was running down the clock as it was, thoughts sometimes straying to darker corners:
Would it be the colon?
The heart?
A little pop in a blood vessel of the brain that caused one to drop dead?
The human body was a miracle that was not meant to last. He felt it in the stiffening of his joints. Stretch wrong in the morning? That was a weekâs worth of discomfort. Get a blood test? Ooh, what could be found in that?
Now, though. Now, it was different. Now, the mystery of deathâwhen, how, whyâwas solved for everyone.
Rodney returned. Don didnât know how long heâd been gone. He carried a small box with himâoak polished within an inch of its life, a brass keyhole in the front. Roughly the size of a jewelry box, it wasnât large nor was it heavy, but Rodney was careful with it.
He said, âIf weâre going to do this, we have to do it now.â
Don lowered his head. âI know. Itâs . . . You always think thereâs going to be more time.â
âWe have enough,â Rodney said. âThatâs what counts.â
Don looked out the window. Clouds in the sky, wispy clouds that stretched above a green forest. The sun, shining. Birds singing. And if the people who knew about these things were right, all of it would be gone in a month. Either the planet would be cracked apart, chunks of rock being pulled toward infinity, or it would be stretched and stretched and stretched until the entire world was a thin, straight line, unable to support life.
The cause? A rogue black hole. A one-in-a-trillion chance, theyâd been told breathlessly. There was a one-in-a-trillion chance a black hole would find its way to our little corner of the universe. Astronomical odds, and yet, now a reality.
Which meant chaos, of course. Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened. Theyâd known about the black hole for close to a year, and in those early days, more things were aflame than not. When backed into a corner, an animal could be dangerous. Humans were animals, and deadly ones at that.
Over the last year, theyâd proven themselves as such. In Arizona, a group of people had doused themselves in gasoline. As a horrified crowd looked on, someone flicked a lighter, and up they went in fire and smoke, all in the name of leaving the world behind on their own terms. In Nebraska, thirty-four people attempted to take the capitol, but ten of them were shot before they could get inside. Six died from their injuries. In Paris, massive crowds filled the streets, storefront windows shattered as people looted everything that wasnât bolted down. In Cape Town, hundreds of people walked into the ocean and drowned. Some held children. Others assisted the elderly. In Chengdu, dozens of people leapt from the tops of skyscrapers while others looked on with blank expressions, waiting their turn. In Denmark, a self-proclaimed prophet said that before the planet was destroyed, Heaven would open up for the chosen, and they would rise into Eternal Glory. He amassed crowds in the thousands, his voice carrying over a packed field. During one of his pulpit sessions, he was stabbed to death by a woman who cried as she raised and lowered the knife again and again. No one tried to stop her until it was already too late. The prophet died choking on his own blood. The womanâolder, shouting and screamingâdid not resist when the crowd descended upon her.
âWeâll be careful,â Don said, gaze going back to the chest in Rodneyâs arms. âTake the back roads. Avoid major freeways.â
âWhen?â Rodney asked.
âTomorrow.â
And so it was decided.
When theyâd retired ten years ago, itâd been unexpected. Both had planned to work a few more years, but then life happened, and both were pulled away in a direction they hadnât expected. Rodney had worked for the state in a thankless role, filling out endless reports for any little thing the government could think of. Don had managed the office for a physical therapist, doing so for damn near fifteen years. And then . . . well. An ending, of sorts, one they had both expected and dreaded in equal measure. Cut off, like a limb had been removed without discussion.
Seven months in, Rodney had bought an RV.
Don had not been pleased.
Their friendsâall olderâhad been excited. RV life was a different breed, they said. Why, buying their own RVs had been one of the best decisions they had ever made for themselves. A hotel on wheels! Sure, you had to find a place to park for the nightâavoid Walmarts if you couldâbut there were so many places made for RVs. Hell, there were thousands upon thousands of retirees whoâd done the same and hadnât regretted it.
Yes, it would be grand, except the RV was an ugly thing: old, with dented siding and rust around the wheel wells. White, with a fat dirt-brown line down the sides. Not one of the overpriced RVs that looked and traveled like a bus. No, this one was more akin to a camper slapped onto an old truck. But its worse sin was a set of hideous brown-and-pink knitted blinds that hung in the small bedroom. Don was not a fan of those blinds.
Small wonders, the RV ran, belching out thick black exhaust from the tailpipe. Registered, passed inspection (barely), and guzzled gas like it was an endless pit. But Rodney was charmed by it, saying he thought they could get on the road, taking in sights and people theyâd never had the time to see before. Don had never really considered himself an RV person, but he could picture it in his mind: long summer days with nothing but the open road, the sun setting in the distance, making the sky pink and red and orange. An audiobook on the radio, one heâd always meant to get to, but hadnât had the time.
He often thought about that: time. How interminable it could be, and then in a blink of an eye, years have gone by.
Oh, the places theyâd gone: To Montana and water so clear, the deep lakebeds looked within armâs reach. To Arizona, standing before the Grand Canyon, the rock burnt red, the air sizzling hot. To the Appalachian Trail, hiking a good eight miles before calling it quits. To Wyoming, the Grand Tetons rising in all their majesty. To Utah and the Painted Desert, the petrified forest, rocks in impossible hues. To Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, trying to reach the top of Mount Le Conte.
Years of travel, years of doing what needed to be done. And now, at last, the trip theyâd been putting off because that made the distance real, something theyâd long avoided. They had no other choice.
#every time I read this phrase the same thing happens#I read it as shittable and go wait that can't be right#oh right they were talking about public benches that makes more sense#but public bathrooms available without fees should also be a thing tho#cities should definitely be shittable#it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME
i just. when owen tried on isabel's magic dress and maddy blushed and smiled and hid in her hand. the intimacy in how she drew the symbol on the back of owen's neck. an out lesbian showing those feelings for a closeted, pre-transition trans girl who doesn't even seem to know that's true of herself yet. knowing her before she knows herself. don't speak to me i'm literally dust on the floor
Do you have and recommendations for Black centered horror movies. I donât care for gore or torture, I prefer more psychological thrillers, but itâs not a deal breaker
Fun, frightening, and resonant movies like Get Out, Eve's Bayou, Candyman, and Blade.
While I would take Rotten Tomatoes' opinions with a grain of salt (Tales From The Hood is an excellent CLASSIC, thank you) here's a list. I always mention Juice; Juice is a horror movie to me.
Horror movies from a black and African-American perspective, poking fun at racial stereotypes and film genre cliches and conventions.
Here's a very long list of Black Horror Movies, aptly named website, created by Mark H. Harris, one of the authors of The Black Guy Dies First.
There's so many horror games about having to try to weed out and deal with inhuman imposters, but I want one where the script is flipped. You are something inhuman, you are an imposter, and if you want to survive you have to blend into a world that is trying to hunt you down and destroy you. You aren't human, but you must masquerade as one and infiltrate their world, or you will die.
I actually think we need to start inverting more Horror premises/tropes.
Like "You have to venture into the scary insane asylum!" VS "You're a patient who was admitted by force to an asylum, and you are very clearly in real danger, but everyone is pretending that you're just deluded, and are essentially leaving you to die because they don't really see you as a person."
I feel like there's a lot of Horror tropes built off of the fear of the other, when in reality it's actually often the other who is in danger. Maybe we could start recognising that more.
Interesting how the first half of the post has picked up popularity while the second part, which perhaps clarifies the idea of the original post, hasn't.
It's been interesting to see what media people are recommending based on the first post alone. A lot of recommendations for games/franchises like World of Darkness, Carrion, Kill All Humans, Among Us, etc. It's interesting because these are games that put you into the shoes of the violent other that has to infiltrate, without actually challenging the idea that the other is a threat. They actually parrot the ideas of the other as violent.
Funnily enough, the people recommending the comedy game Octodad understand the post much better than most of the people recommending horror media. A few mentions of Am I Nima, which isn't finished yet but does look like it could be what I am describing, so brownie points to the people recommending that.
But everyone saying stuff like "This is just being Trans/Autistic/Etc" really gets it, like really really gets it. Horror always communicates the fears and anxieties of the people who create it, this post was basically: "What if instead of communicating the fear of the other, we communicated the fears of the others, which are actually vastly more legitimate than the dominant groups fear of the other. We should recognise that it is overwhelmingly the others who are the ones who actually suffer and die, all for the perceived "saftey" and "comfort" of the dominant group."
This idea is about transphobia, it is about ableism, about anti-imigrant rhetoric and white supremacy, about queerphobia, it's about all of it. It is horror from the perspective of minority groups. It is the twisting of a trope built upon reactionary fears and narratives in order to critique them, it is a direct allegory for all those experiences you are describing.
Overall, it's just interesting to see who gets it and who doesn't.
If you are transmasc, specifically an angry transmasc, specifically specifically an angry artistic/creative transmasc who likes horror, you should read The Church of the Mountain of Flesh by Kyle Wakefield.
CotMoF follows a trans man named Sole as he navigates life in a small medieval Italian town perched on seaside cliffs. After his life is torn apart by an earthquake, a religious uprising (that he started), and the death of his childhood sweetheart, Sole makes a deal with God - rebuild the church, in return for the body of a man.
The story is full of body horror, religious overtones, and some of the most painful and nuanced depictions of dysphoria I've ever read (/pos). I have a full review I've written for Casual Obsession Horror Podcast's website where I get into the nitty gritty of my feelings on that, but in the meantime I urge other people to (after reading the content warnings) READ THIS BOOK!!! 1 part cautionary tale, 1 part wish fulfillment, 3 parts devastatingly well-written character study. Read it pls.
Get a copy or search The Church of the Mountain of Flesh for more, non-amazon purchasing options.
As the clock strikes midnight at the dawn of Halloween, I come bearing spooky books! Check out these cool recs for horror and paranormal novels by transfeminine authors that'll make your day a little darker đ€
