#though ngl

[deergravity]

Wow, okay so this post just articulated something for me that I've been wrestling with for a few months at least.

I have always hated the narrative that bisexuality is a 'stepping stone' to a 'real' queer identity (ie high school bi girl turned college lesbian, etc), while accepting that for some people, that is their path. My issue is with the assumption that everyone in the quote unquote middle position is necessarily not finished with their journey.

A similar narrative exists around nonbinary people: a stepping stone to being 'really trans', a kind of self-deceit, a non-serious identity people can just interpret however they feel most comfortable. And I will admit I have a huge chip on my shouder about this, it's the reason I never came out to my parents or at work and why I hardly ever introduce myself with pronouns. I'd rather not know if someone is going to disappoint me in this regard.

Despite my reluctance to be confrontational about it, every insinuation of the immateriality of nonbinary-ness made me dig in harder. It felt necessary to hold the line, at least internally, against the idea I was simply 'trans-lite' or a snowflake, etc etc.

And that all made it really, really difficult to recognize and then admit when things did change for me. Which is so silly, because my overarching gender identity has always been genderfluid, just a really slow moving fluid, and if I can understand that my childhood and my young womanhood and then my non-binary young adulthood, with a little wiggliness in my preferred presentation along the way, was all part of that same continuum... why was it so hard to acknowledge another shift happening?

Well, precisely because I was deeply resistant to anything that would 'prove' I was just secretly ftm this whooollleeee time and I lacked the courage or self-knowledge to see it. This is not the first time in my life I have considered if I am a guy, but it is the first time the answer is pretty uncomplicatedly "Yes". Which, yay, exciting!

But I definitely waded through so much more mind gunk than necessary to get here, bc every time I tried to think about it my reflexes would parry me like, "you dont have to be a man to be trans" and "i can have a similar experience to someone and describe it differently". These aren't untrue statements, either, it's just the intensity with which I trained myself to fall back on them as a result of our culture not treating nonbinary people right ended up holding me back.

In closing, I do still conceptualize myself under the nonbinary umbrella, specifically the genderfluid zone, with a slow rolling fluid that has, at current, sloshed around to the "man" area. I'm sure it will keep moving, slowly, throughout my life, but that is a future transition to worry about. Who knows how far down the line it will be, anyway? But I can say this: I don't consider myself "ftm" and not just bc I find the concept of agab intersexist, but bc the proper term would be more like "nbtm" or "ctftnbtm" if you wanna really get down to it.

So, he/him please, though he/they is sitting okay too, and please donate to crips for esims for gaza in lieu of flowers :)

[fermented-writers-block]

Thinking about it, man would it be bizarrely but funnily fitting if the two following characters got a moment of being foils to the other later:

With a series whose most prominent theme is change and moving forwards, it would be fitting for the main antagonist of Amphibia to be an ironic embodiment of doing whatever it takes to find new ways of prolonging the past -and probably including outdated or horrific traditions/views- far beyond any reasonable due date. Or in essence, the Core’s whole premise reeks of the themes of stagnation and regression.

And where Andrias fits quite well as a compliment to the Core’s brand of antagonism with his unwillingness to let go of his friends’ ‘betrayals’ and his desire to bring back his ancestors’ interdimensional empire, Hop Pop strangely offers the strongest thematic counterpoint to the Core out of the entire cast with the growth that he’s had over the series.

I mean, he started out as THE most concerned character about adhering to tradition and the old ways, so much so that much of the lessons he learned in early S1 was to start learning how to embrace change and the new. And funnily enough, Sal’s conversation with Hop Pop in Little Frogtown even ends with what could be considered an inverse of the Core’s perversion of advancing technology to preserve Newtopia’s greatest minds.

“Turns out if you embrace change instead of clinging to the past, you get a say in what the future looks like.”

In contrast, it seems like it would be applicable if the Core is a depiction of clinging to the past so hard, the only significant changes it likely embraces is trying to force the future to look more like the past/what it wanted in the past. It’d be like if Sal, instead of adapting to the times and finding a new niche for his sauce for everyone to enjoy, had done whatever he could at any cost to force people back into eating his traditional sandwiches with his sauce like used to be in the past, even if they didn’t want to.

As such, it wouldn’t surprise me if Hop Pop/‘s influence on his kids is meant to be building up towards him playing a part in the conflict between those ideals, where the Core symbolically refuses to let go of its tight grip on the past, whereas Hop Pop’s side has learned that it’s okay to let go of some pieces of the past and that sometimes it’s possible to still bring other pieces along going forwards.

At the very least, even though he may not be able to directly fight against the Core, he could still find a way to indirectly help or inspire the trio there in a particularly significant manner, and like my friend @mira-blue would probably say, man would that be a fascinating way to tie in his growth to the rest of the series.

Especially when one considers stuff like the potential point of thematic connection in Hop Pop’s pursuit of his dream to be an actor, particularly between its appearances in A Caravan Named Desire and Holloywood Hop Pop compared to other episodes.

There, Hop Pop had gotten so sucked into the allure of his dream coming true that in the former, he almost sacrificed his morals to keep performing even after finding out the plays were a distraction to rob folks until his morals reared their heads at the last second. And in the latter, he was so attached to the allure of continuing to become a gigantic star in Earth’s acting industry with the movie role that he indirectly was putting Polly and Sprig at risk of discovery from Mr X by extension the more he tried to chase after said dream.

And in that second episode, he had learned to focus more on protecting what truly mattered in his life after finally getting a taste of what he had wanted for so long rather than continue chasing after something he didn’t have, a kind of self-release from one’s dream that I have the feeling the Core would be very hard pressed to match.

[magical-girl-coral]

Catwoman: Hunted IS 👏SO 👏 GOOD👏

Except for a bit of wonky voice acting and a few moments of awkward animation, this movie is one of the best Catwoman adaptations I have ever seen. The only real issue that bothered me made sense by the end. God, I love it when a film explains its plotholes without being loud about it

Also, what was all the noise about Talia’s appearance? She was literally there for less than five minutes, would you guys chill?

[planet-fanatic]

Procrastinating on my homework and exams so bad im cleaning my entire room just to not do it.

[katpissnevernude-blog]

Ugh i love when logic owns mith shippers. These kids just keep living in a fantasy world where somehow that relationship isn't fake as hell and all the glaringly obvious PR team work is ignored. Like how can you be so naive? Anyway high five bb.

this this this this this

I don't understand why they want to believe it, like how can anyone be THAT DUMB OMG???

Maybe it's a defensive thing, that they have to defend their ship even though it doesn't have a credible leg to stand on idk and thank you :)