[thehotgirlproject]

Defeated

[becausebirds]

and that was all she wrote.

[tokyo-fashion]

Ran into Mitsuwa on the street in Harajuku after this weekend’s Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade. Her look includes an Angelic Pretty dress, a HeartE wings backpack, and Yosuke platform sandals.

She’s also carrying a Pansexual Pride Flag (thanks to those who commented clarifying that).

[prokopetz]

I’m not ace myself, so I’m coming at the whole acephobia thing from an outsider’s perspective, and as such, it’s not my place to speak to the experience of those on the receiving end of it.

However, as a bisexual dude, I can observe that many of the arguments that are employed to establish that ace folks have no place in the queer community are strikingly similar - indeed, at times practically word-for-word identical - to the arguments that were for many years (and in some circles still are) employed to establish that bisexual folks have no place in the queer community.

It’s enough to make a guy suspicious on general principle, you know?

[prokopetz]

I’ve gotten a few messages asking for (well, in some cases more “demanding”) elaboration, so: here are a few of the primary areas in which I’ve observed that arguments against bi inclusion and arguments against ace inclusion tend to exhibit significant overlap. There may well be others - these are simply the ones I’ve run into most frequently.

The Passing Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks don’t have any grounds to complain about discrimination and violence suffered in relation to their orientation, because a bisexual person is able to pass as straight simply by choosing partners of the appropriate gender. Therefore, any discrimination and violence that a bisexual person does experience must be construed as voluntarily undertaken, since they could have passed, and freely chose not to.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that being ace poses no particular barrier to seeking a partner of a socially acceptable gender, so any failure to do so must likewise be construed as voluntary.

The Performativity Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from queer communities because sexual orientation is purely performative; i.e., being gay is defined in terms of currently having a sexual partner of the same gender.  A bisexual person who has a partner of a different gender is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person, and must therefore be regarded as straight. Conversely, a bisexual person whose current partner is of the same gender must nonetheless be regarded with suspicion, because they could “turn straight” at any time simply by leaving that partner.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that their orientation has no discernible performative component; an ace person is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person who simply isn’t involved in a sexual relationship at that particular moment, so ace folks must therefore be regarded as straight by default.

(An astute reader may notice that the passing argument dovetails neatly into the performativity argument: those who choose not to seek partners of a socially acceptable gender may be dismissed because any violence and discrimination they experience is a consequence of their voluntary failure to pass, while those who do seek such partners are performatively straight and therefore to be shunned. It’s a neat little system.)

The Mistaken Identity Argument

It has been argued that, while bisexual folks may suffer discrimination and physical and sexual violence, they’re not targeted by such acts because they’re bisexual. Any discrimination and violence a bisexual person suffers in relation to their orientation is suffered because they were mistaken for a gay person. Any effort on their part to discuss such experiences is therefore to be regarded as appropriative, in spite of the fact that they personally experienced it. In short, a bisexual person’s own experience of violence and discrimination doesn’t truly “belong” to them: it “belongs” to the purely hypothetical gay person their persecutors allegedly mistook them for.

This argument is applied to ace folks practically verbatim - no particular adaptation is necessary.

[nadadoll]

I have nothing to add except my gratitude for this

[zedasaysdudealot]

Not to be forgotten is Erasure and Denial. For bisexuals, the argument that bisexuality isn’t real because being bi means that you’re confused, afraid of admitting that you’re gay, or attention-seeking. For asexuals, it’s that asexuality isn’t real because you just haven’t found the ONE or the GOOD DICK yet, you must be afraid of sex or inexperienced [and therefore need to go out and get laid], or emotionally immature.

[ladyyatexelart]

Acknowledgement | Restrain

I had to hold in all in.

When I was young, I picked up a video in a store that was a comedy about gender.  "Dad, doesn’t this sound funny?“
“No, it looks disgusting.”  "Oh. Yeah.  You’re right.“

I admired the artistic punk kids in the upper grades.  Though they were never in any trouble, nor had they hurt anyone,
he said they were delinquents and tried to make me afraid of them.

A friend showed my dad a story they had written.  When my dad saw that the main character was bisexual, he screamed at them and
then refused to speak to them again until they had written several letters of apology and acknoledgement that they’d done something
inappropriate.  I decided it was safer just never to show him anything.

I made paper people for stories with my best friend.  They had lives and families and adventures and lived in a way I could not.
They were art that I had made and were a great source of joy and fun. I carried a bag of them with me almost everywhere I went.  
He threw them away when I was at my mother’s for the weekend.

“The reason no one likes you is you intimidate them,” my step-mother said.

Every piece of clothing I cited as a favorite went missing in the laundry.

“What do you like about her?” The therapist they sent me to asked them of me.
“Nothing,” they said.

I learned to hide everything I loved, share nothing about my preferences, because it would be used to hurt me or be taken away.  
I contain everything to this day.
It hurts me to contain it, it stabs me, holds me back, keeps me afraid of others, and prevents me from being authentic,
but I still evaluate that pain as lesser than the pain that could be inflicted if someone targeted the things I love again.

This is part of series of self-portraits I’m creating in order to make the emotional and psychological abuse I suffered at the hands of my father and step-mother into a visible and tangible form.  Even if they won’t acknowledge what they did to me, I aim to have them outnumbered by people who do.  

It’s okay to reblog these, but no porn or fetish blogs.  

The series is collected here.

[jazzypizzaz]

Ezri and Jadzia are both so thin… if they’ve got a big ole slug in their belly pouch, where are their organs?? Before being joined was it just empty space, like their belly caves in a whole bunch instead of looking normal? Where is there room for a baby? Does the baby cuddle up against the symbiont, can they sense each other? What happens when the baby kicks???

[adestroy]

I TEASE BECAUSE I LOVE.

[raylangivins]

wolf 359 aesthetics // doug eiffel

-can you be serious for three seconds?

-pfft. keep dreaming, lady.

[did-you-kno]

A painter in Los Angeles kept missing his exit for the I-5 on the 110 highway, so he did his research, climbed up the overhead sign, and changed it himself without anyone noticing.

This is Richard Ankrom. He couldn’t find his damn exit, cuz it wasn’t properly labelled.  

So he took life by the balls, like any self-respecting Californian would do, and used his sign-painting expertise to fix it himself.

He called it ‘guerilla public service.’ Even got himself an outfit to look official. It worked, obvi.

Caltrans investigated, but the sign was actually up to code. They left it there for 8 years before they made an updated sign.

Source Source 2

[nancybotwinning]

Originally posted by the-reactiongifs

[asgardreid]

You can do anything if you’re wearing a hi-vis vest and hard hat.

[killbenedictcumberbatch]

chaotic good

• GARAK: Perhaps I should say hello after the game.
• BASHIR: That's Gul Dukat's daughter, and I can't think of anyone in the galaxy who hates you more than he does. Besides, Ziyal is a friend of Kira's. I wouldn't play around with her if I were you.
• GARAK: I simply thought it would be polite to say hello. But clearly, you think I'm incapable of conducting any kind of pleasant discourse without some kind of nefarious ulterior motive.

[thesylverlining]

If you ever suffer under the (worryingly popular) illusion that Elim Garak is cool/smooth/anything but an absolute Drama Disaster Lizard ™, I am here to inform you that in the (excellent) book A Stitch In Time written by his actor, Andrew Robinson, he:

• Gets jealous that Julian (who he calls “Julian”) is having lunch with Miles and not him
  
• For “the umpteenth time.” Fine! If Julian wants to ask him to lunch, he can damn well ask him! (direct quote. I don’t do the HUFF justice tho.)
  
• Storms off - making a concerted effort to “control his temper”
• While “controlling his temper” a man rudely bumps into him and this is just the final straw. So he - very calmly of course - follows this guy for some distance, and trips him, sending him crashing into 3 or 4 innocent bystanders, taking them down in a multiple-person pile-up, causing what is later described as “a situation” on the Promenade
• Ducks into Quark’s to hide/escape/skitter-lizard off
• Has the actual thought “wow, wasn’t Julian shooting me in the neck in the holosuite GREAT, that was amazing - but why didn’t he go further, what went wrong?? WHY DID OUR RELATIONSHIP END?” (another direct quote by the way)
• Did you get that. Garak is upset. That Julian. Only. Shot him in the neck. At this point I do not even think this is a Cardassian flirting thing, I think this is just an ‘Elim Garak, You Have Very Deep Issues’ thing, which ASIT, you know, supports
• …But it is also definitely a jealousy thing because, I mean, please just read this incredibly bisexual book (I mean, like, canonically, hell yes) - ANYWAY - 
• Odo comes up a minute later to ask if he caused that “situation” because that was not at all as subtle as you thought it was, Garak, it was in fact the biggest huff anyone has ever thrown in recent memory. Get jealous and mad about lunch so push many people over, then zip away, sounds reasonable
• Nope that was an accident, completely. No idea what you’re talking about. BY THE WAY ODO, I’M THINKING ABOUT LEAVING THE STATION, BECAUSE *CLEARLY* THERE IS NOTHING KEEPING ME HERE!!! (*Jealous Huff*)
• Odo’s like “I never told you how sorry I was about Ziyal’s death.” (It’s really sweet actually.) “But at least you and Dr. Bashir still have a strong bond.”
• “Not really. I’m afraid whatever I had to offer has run its course. It’s certainly no match for darts.”
  
• I could not make that up. And I don’t have to. It’s in the actual book. :D
• This entire “Situation” happens in a single scene, over like 5 minutes
• In short, Garak is a Disaster Lizard and we have a book by Andrew Robinson #confirming this, and sometimes we just really do get good things