Sexualized Saturdays: Finding Solace in #queerselflove

Our community here at Lady Geek Girl and Friends is a tight-knit one, and as a majority queer group, we were shaken to our core by the horrible tragedy that occurred a week ago in Orlando. Our deepest sympathies go out to the victims and their families, and we urge those who can to take an active role in responding to it, whether through blood donation, financial aid, or political activism. In the wake of the shooting, the LGBTQ+ community has responded with vigils, with calls to action, and with affirmations of self-worth. Notably among the latter is the #queerselflove hashtag, started by Welcome to Night Vale actor Dylan Marron on Twitter.

I am a soft-spoken brown queer man who wears his mother's pearl earrings. And I love my queerness. Let's start a #queerselflove hashtag

— Dylan Marron (@dylanmarron) June 15, 2016

The hashtag quickly took off as the wounded queer community took the time to reflect on what made us special and important. In response to a hate crime, we told the world that if it was not going to love us, we were still going to love ourselves. I contributed my own personal #queerselflove to the tag on Wednesday night, but today I’d like to talk about a few of my favorite happy LGBTQ+ people and pairings in pop culture. We’ve spent so many posts recently condemning the treatment of queer people in fiction and this post isn’t meant to erase or negate those. Indeed, the importance of meaningful queer representation is more important than ever in a time when the gays we’re burying are no longer fictional. Queer people need to be able to look to something and see ourselves being happy.

Fanfiction Fridays: Those walls I built didn’t even put up a fight by Azalee

A note before we get started: this post (and the fic I’m reccing in it) contain massive spoilers up through the final pages of the final book in the Heroes of Olympus series, aka the second set of Percy Jackson books. Please consider yourself spoiler-warned.

Last time we talked, I’d just finished rereading the first quintet of Percy Jackson books. The last time I’d read them, the Heroes of Olympus series didn’t even exist, and now it’s completed, so imagine my excitement at being able to jump right in and tear through the next five. I finished The Blood of Olympus on Monday, and, while relatively satisfied with the ending, I had a particular itch that needed scratching, and fanfiction was the only cure.

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Religious But Not Spiritual

A while ago Stinekey wrote a post about people who call themselves spiritual, but not religious. What people generally mean by this is that they do believe in a “something more”, but they’re not attached to a specific religious belief system. While pondering a topic for my own post I considered that the opposite, things that are religious but not spiritual, are also a common feature in media.

What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that different forms of media often use religious figures in their stories without showing any spiritual aspect of said religion. And while I think this happens across faiths, a lot of pagan pantheons get this short shrift more often, probably because the general public doesn’t usually think of Greek or Egyptian or Norse deities as being worshiped in the modern day.