#shitpost

this was so chaotic for no reason

i use this quite often and i think it’ll be helpful to y’all

a series

hi, sorry for not being really active recently! i’ve been caught up in personal things :(

your opinion is invalid if you can’t use them properly, no i don’t make the rules

helloooooo

are minecraft memes still relevant

i have an instagram with more memes if you wanna follow you don’t have to (melsmemes2)

i heard that they like… actually called him kyle but idk

ive been kinda craving mcdonald’s

who is she??

hi guys

the fact that fnaf memes are trending rn is wild. middle school me would be stoked lmao

juneacademia:

if halloween was a prose style it would be edgar allan poe

bringing this back for the spooky szn stay spooked.

okay but can you imagine how different things could have been if season 7 and 8 of voltron hadn’t sucked. like the death grip veracxa would have had on this fandom….

they let shiro be gay BUT he dies forty minutes into the movie

Hiiiiiiii <3 This post is the first in a series meant to consolidate my misc. musings about Gender in V:LR while simultaneously reassuring everyone that I’m still working on my rewrite LOL. Anyway. Hnngh… gemder. 

Why do I have all these thoughts on gender? Because gender is sort-of a plot point in V:LR, in that Shiro and Pidge (among other characters) are both trans and they talk and bond over it quite a bit. V:LR doesn’t revolve around gender and sexuality (it’d be cool if it did tho), but like… those things come up! Because I am gay and self-indulgent <3 Also I’ve been thinking about mygender lately and I am nothing if not predictable in how I choose to process things. This is my self-indulgent rewrite and *I* get to choose the projection!

Anyway: V:LR Shiro ramblings under the cut! And this post is so very, very long, and Tumblr formatting so very, very sucks, so you can also read this post in Google Drive.

BEFORE YOU READ: I use the “q-word” (q*eer) as an umbrella term for “gay/LGBTQ+” in this post. I also allude to Shiro/characters having experienced mild homophobia/transphobia, but I do not describe or depict any hateful actions or use any slurs.

Shiro (trans man, he/him/his)

Okay so disclaimer, in V:LR I project HEAVILY onto Shiro because of the very niche and specific trauma that comes with being queer, mentally ill, and Asian lol. Obviously I cannot kin him perfectly, as I am a 2nd generation Chinese-American lesbian while Shiro is a trans & gay Japanese man, but. I cannot resist the siren’s call of free therapy and working through my own unresolved issues LOL.

Anyway I’m making this disclaimer because in V:LR, Shiro has a kind of stunted relationship with gender and his identity specifically becauseof the way he grew up, and I don’t want people to think I’m simply indulging in the lazy stereotype of ‘all Asians are homophobic’ (though u should meet my extended family LMAO). 

• Shiro’s parents can only be described as ‘willfully oblivious cis heterosexuals.’ Do they think its sad when “the gays” experience violent homophobia? Of course! But beyond that, the queer community is entirely outside of their social sphere (and therefore sphere of awareness), and so they have the luxuryof being neutral.
• As a result, Shiro literally had no idea gay/queer people existed until he was like 12. And even then, his first exposure to the idea of “The Gays” was through some shitty, more harmful/stereotypical than not, played-for-laughs depiction of two men kissing in a TV show or something. Not that baby Shiro noticed the soft homophobia at the time, he was too busy having his mind blown by the revelation that Guys Can Kiss Guys. On a side note, it would be another year until Shiro discovered lesbians.
• (Confession: I found out gay people existed because of Glee. I truly had my shit rocked in 6th grade.)
• As a kid, Shiro was a fairly tomboyish “girl”, which his parents tolerated but didn’t exactly encourage. Shiro had a habit of immediately changing out of his school uniform as soon as he got home, and exchanging his skirt for a pair of shorts/pants. Something his mom like really hyper-focused on LMAO
• Okay I know I just said Shiro’s parents were neutral on gay people, but there is something so personal about Shiro’s mom being overly invested in figuring out whether pre-transition Shiro is a lesbian or not.
• Shiro gets his first boyfriend when he’s around 13 and at the time his mom is so relieved. Little does she know lmao!!!

Adult Shiro often thinks back to his childhood and is just like damn. Goddamn. I wish I could’ve been that little girl’s friend.

• Fast-forward two years. Shiro enters the Garrison at the age of 14, having only the vaguest conception of the LGBTQ+ community. At this point, he is only aware of the Gs and the Ls. Gender isn’t even on his radar yet. 
• Shiro actually starts going by “Shiro” before he transitions!! I believe in the Gender-Neutral Childhood Nickname to Trans pipeline.
• I’m not gonna bother with stating Shiro’s deadname because it doesn’t actually matter. Just imagine an exceedingly popular Japanese girl name, so popular in fact that like two other girls in Shiro’s year had the same name. To differentiate between the three of them, Shiro volunteered to go by his last name, Shirogane. But Shiro’s roommate was like noooo that’s way too formal, so the nickname of “Shiro” was devised as a compromise.
• SPEAKING OF WHICH Shiro’s roommate! Shoutout to Roomie, name TBD! She 100% kickstarted Shiro’s identity journey. 
• Random side-note: I imagine the Garrison as an international high-school to college to grad school pipeline, and because they’re an international institution, they encourage kids to mix by deliberately rooming people from different countries together. So Shiro is Japanese, and Roomie is insert any other non-Asian country here. And the two are very different people! And they don’t get along at first because both are incredibly Type-A competitive people.
• Anyway this ramble is important because Shiro and his Roomie don’t get off to a great start, but by the end of the year they are Besties. Best Friends. To the point that, right before break, Roomie confides in Shiro that she thinks she might be bi.
• And 14yo Shiro… is confused. Remember, at this point in time he’s never even heard of ‘bisexuality’ before. Or like, the little that’s been alluded to hasn’t always been positivein connotations. So he doesn’t really understand what Roomie is talking about, or why this is so important to her.
• And then break immediately starts, and the two go their separate ways. Roomie is slightly hurt by Shiro’s lack of understanding and puts their friendship on pause. Shiro has no idea why his friend his frozen him out, and so he does what he’s always done best: He throws himself into fixing the problem through research and interpersonal communication. 
• Shiro makes extensive usage of Google that summer. He basically reads any online material about bisexuality he can find (and then falls down the queer theory rabbit hole). He spends the entire summer using incognito mode in his browser. 
• Oh also at one point Shiro tries to ask his parents for advice about how to fix things with Roomie, and then abruptly realizes mid-conversation that he cannot bring himself to reveal the “Roomie thinks she’s bisexual” part, because deep down inside he knows he Cannot Have This Conversation With His Parents.
• baby shiro: i have a close relationship with my parents :)
• baby shiro, upon realizing his hesitation to discuss sexuality things with them: my parents have a close relationship with the child they think they had and who they think they know everything about. i have a close relationship with my parents once you take away any personal details that might conflict with the image of their ideal child they have in their head :)

Another tangent: Growing up, Shiro thoughthe was close with his parents. But he’s not actually all that close with them (their parent-child relationship was just his only frame of reference). I like to imagine that Shiro’s parents absolutely thought they knew everything about Shiro, when in reality they only superficially engaged in his personal life - enough to do a quick check-in, literally the ‘are ya winning son?’ meme but re: his well-being - and so Shiro’s double coming-out absolutely blindsided them. And after Shiro comes out, his parents are somewhat distant for a couple years– they never outright reject Shiro, but they’re very self-absorbed in how they process his truth. They view Shiro’s transition as almost a ‘betrayal’ if that makes sense. “We had all these ideas about how and what our child would be. Why are you killing the image of the child that we thought we had? Why are you doing this to us?”

See? Self-absorbed. Shiro’s parents viewed him more as almost an extension/reflection of themselves. Selfish and narrow-sighted.

ANYWAY the relationship between Shiro and his parents is a completely different post. But just know that eventually they DO pull their heads of their asses, take the initiative to sincerely educate themselves, and they work to rebuild their relationship with Shiro. 

(V:LR Adam fucking HATES Shiro’s parents. Like he’s civil with them and he does appreciate/recognize their efforts/growth, but he will always dislike them. Keith joined later in Shiro’s life when things had already started improving (and when there were rough patches, Shiro always shielded Keith from seeing them) so he has a more neutral/positive attitudes towards Shiro’s parents.)

• Anyway back to my info-dump. So again, 15yo Shiro spends his entire break between freshman-sophomore year researching LGBTQ+ issues. And at the end of the summer he messages Roomie and is like ‘I’m so sorry for my initial reaction, I just really didn’t understand at the time, but I’ve since taken steps to educate myself and I want you to know that I love and support you’ and it’s like 2006 or something so Shiro and Roomie get on Skype and fucking BAWL at each other. And agree to stay as roommates for the next school year.
• Sophomore year starts. Roomie has also spent the summer gaining more confidence and came out to her parents (who are supportive!!) who encouraged Roomie to join a support club for LGBTQ+ at the Garrison.

“Why does a military institution have an LGBTQ+ club in 2006″ BECAUSE I DREAM OF A BETTER WORLD. Also because I have an old OC, Miranda Stern, who in V:LR is the actual Captain of the Kerberos Mission and is the Darling of the Garrison and also got married to her wife in the Netherlands in 2005. And she came back from her honeymoon and was like (slams the table) You WILL support gay students. And the Garrison said yes ma’am!!!

• So Roomie joins Pride Club and Shiro also joins as her ~Emotional Support DEFINTELY STRAIGHT!! Ally Friend~ 
• (*the audience laughs knowingly*)
• And it’s through Pride Club that Shiro meets his LITERAL IDOL Commander Miranda Stern (who is the advisor of Pride Club!!) and Shiro is like omfg gay club rules

Miranda Stern: I am a teacher at this school. I am the most prolific pilot in the world. I am in-line to fly three hundred experimental aircraft in the next twenty years. I give five Ted Talks every year. I have a PHD. I have a wife. And I am also the loving and invested advisor of the Garrison Pride Club.
Garrison: Wow that’s a lot on your plate. Are you sure you want to be an Advisor of a student organization on top of all that-
Miranda Stern: Give me the keys to the Pride Club office.

• Shiro also meets Pr. Samuel Holt for the first time through Pride Club :’) Yes, THAT Sam Holt. 
• Oh, you thought this post was about Gender in V:LR? I actually wrote this post just so I could wax poetic about Sam Holt my friend Sam Holt my good pal Sam Holt the dad of all time Sam Holt omg <3 
• I headcanon Sam Holt as 100% straight. BUT he’s a member of the Garrison’s LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Community Network. My college had something similar. Straight professors would publicly identify themselves as Allies, so that queer kids knew there were supportive adults in the faculty. 
• Sam Holt has a rainbow sticker on his office door <3 
• I like to imagine Miranda Stern showed up to the Garrison in 2005 and was like we are LEGALIZING gay marriage in this school, who’s with me?! and Sam Holt shot out of his chair and shouted PRESENT!!!!!!!!!!!
• Miranda Stern inventor of gay rights and Sam Holt dad of all time my beloveds <3 <3 <3

Anyway this post is already stupidly long so let me summarize some of the next few years for Shiro (aged 15-17):

• Shiro and Roomie join Pride Club their sophomore year. As you can imagine, Pride Club reallyaccelerates Shiro’s exposure to + understanding of the nuances in gender and sexuality. 
• I like to think that Shiro, even during his ~yup i am JUST an ally~ days, knew there was Something up with him. Deep down, he knew he went slightly against the cishet grain. But he just wasn’t sure how.
• And so he spent quite a bit of time focusing only on the question/matter of sexuality. He tried a lot of different labels during this time, but he just couldn’t find a term that really fit. 
• Being called “heterosexual” somewhat chafed at Shiro. So he tried out biand, with Roomie’s encouragement, dated a couple of girls. And girls are nice, but he just wasn’t really attractedto them. But guys? Definitely hot, 10/10 would kiss again. And yet… Shiro also felt distinctly uncomfortable whenever he dated guys and it just. Didn’t make any sense. 
• (Later, he realizes that he doesn’t hate dating guys. It’s that he hates dating guys when they view him as their girlfriend.)
• When he’s 17, Shiro tentatively floats the idea that he’s bi/Not Straight to his parents and they… pull away from him. The relationship cools. And Shiro – well, he decides it’s in everyone’s best interest if he cancels his plane ticket to Japan and spends break at the Garrison instead. 
• Four+ other members of Pride Club also stay on-campus for break. You can probably guess why. And Sam Holt, Patron Saint of Queer Kids and also DAD OF ALL TIME, immediately opens his home to these wonderful kids and invites them over for dinner. Which sparks a new Pride Club tradition: Saturday night dinners at the Holt house.
• Also if you’re paying attention to the timeline: YES, THIS MEANS SHIRO MEETS PIDGE PRE-CANON!! She’s like five years old and a BABY and so. fuckign. LITTOL. 

Season 1 Pidge, meeting Shiro for the ‘first time’: ……. why is this guy so weirdly familiar

Season 1 Shiro: I’ve just escaped year-long captivity, and I am burdened by the knowledge that the universe is in danger. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I swear I’ll stop Zarkon. No matter the– oh my god is that baby holt??

God this post is so long. Also how funny is it that I’ve spent this entire time chronicling Shiro’s Queer Journey and I haven’t even gotten to the part where he realizes he’s trans yet. Whoops. I’ll save that for Part 2 of ‘gender in v:lr ramblings (shiro edition)

back in like 2018 i was convinced there was something wrong with keith. but i actually don’t even think that’s true anymore. which is way more disappointing