Several weeks ago, I became frustrated with the failure of words like ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ to encompass relationships of non-binary people. I coined the term dionysian to describe non-binary relationships and attraction, which are neither ‘opposite gender’ nor necessarily ‘same gender’. You can read the original post and the elaboration in the provided links.
The term itself, referring to a hellenic deity of trans and intersex people, was met with justified criticism. In response to ensuing debate, a channel was started on Discord and promoted on tumblr for NB people to come and help decide on a new word to fill this lexical gap. After a solid week of hard debate, the dozens present narrowed our work down to two terms and then held a poll on tumblr.
The results of the poll favored diamoric as the replacement term for dionysian.
The best place to read about the definition of diamoric is in the two links in the first paragraph. Simply substitute the old term for the new. The definition provided for dionysian still accurately describes the spirit of this term.
The Definition
Diamoric is an intentionally flexible, loose term.
It came out of recognizing the failure of binary terms like “straight” and “gay” to be useful or accurate for many NB people. NB genders vary so vastly that even two non-binary people in a relationship may not feel that their relationship is accurately described as “same-gender” or “gay”, and can even feel misgendered by the implications. For example, my own relationship as an androgyne with an nb trans boy can only be construed as a gay relationship if you reduce us both to our genitals. A non-binary person in a relationship with a binary man or woman is at an even further loss. Their relationship is far from “straight”, but it’s not technically “gay” or “same-gender” either. So what is it?
It’s diamoric.
The Etymology
From the greek prefix “dia-”, meaning “passing through”, “going apart”, and “thoroughly/completely” and the latin “amor” for love, diamoric literally refers to love, attraction, or partnerships that pass through, go apart from, or completely encompass the gender spectrum.
The use of this word includes all types of love, romantic or not.
The preferred pronunciation is [ ,daɪə’mɔɹɪk ], or “dye – uh – MOR – ik”.
A diamoric relationship or attraction is one that involves at least one non-binary person.
A genderfluid person’s attraction to a woman is diamoric.
An enby’s hook-up with an androgyne is diamoric.
A man’s queerplatonic partnership with a demiboy is diamoric (and could also be achillean if they chose to use both).
A genderfluid woman’s romance with a genderfluid man is diamoric (and could also be gay, sapphic, or achillean depending on how their genders line up in time.)
A bigender person’s marriage to an agender person is diamoric.
A triad between a woman, a demigirl, and an agender person is diamoric.
A man’s attraction to an enby is diamoric.
A lesbian dating an agender person is a lesbian in a diamoric relationship.
A diamoric person is a person who centers NB people and NB partnerships in their life.
Only non-binary people may use diamoric as an identity. Only NB people can call themselvesdiamoric. Technically, any NB person who seeks partnerships of any kind with any gender could call themselves diamoric, but it’s most useful and meaningful for NBs who wish to proclaim their prioritization of other NBs.
An NB person who is most interested in, happiest, and most comfortable with other NB people may find it a useful self-identifier; they are diamoric. Even if they would be content dating men or women, but they don’t want to define themselves by that, and would rather define themselves by their love for NB people and for being NB – they are diamoric.
Diamoric is not meant to replace existing words.
It is meant to give language to people who feel they have none.
If you’re an NB lesbian and your sapphic attraction is your priority, you may never feel inclined to use diamoric, and that’s fine. But if you’re an NB lesbian who wishes to emphasize your NB identity in addition to your love for women, “diamoric lesbian” might be a label that you like.
If you’re a demiboy who loves men and ‘achillean’ is all you need, more power to you. You don’t have to use this word if it says nothing about you that achillean doesn’t.
This word is a supplement to existing language that is free to use by NBs who want or need it. It is not a word to be imposed on NBs who don’t need it.
Fun things:
I’m so gay? More like I’m so dia 😉
Calling your NB partner your diamour!
Want to include diamoric in your sexual orientation? How about dia-bisexual! Dia-pansexual! Dia-gay!
okay so i know most fics are written from the perspective of “bitty has huge, he-thinks-is-unrequited crush on jack” because that’s what we saw in canon but personally??? i LIVE for ones with jack having a huge crush on bitty first!!! just!!! this poor goober of a boy completely head over heels for this ray of sunshine that showed up suddenly and not knowing at all how to deal with it!!! awkwardly trying to compliment him but not knowing how!!! “your hair is very…yellow, bittle.” yes it is jack but he doesn’t know that’s your favorite color!!! please save this awkward, hopelessly-in-love doof from himself
honestly i am not entirely convinced this is not actually how it happened, especially given that bitty says “chirping and flirting are variants on the same idea.” on twitter and then he proceeds? to document? all of the chirping? jack throws at him? like, bitty… buddy… c’mon… open your eyes….
like. jack “i’m going make it so we can get into the same seminar and also i’m going to carefully plan everything so you have to help me on the big project because of course it involves baking and you’re a baker” zimmermann is 100% head over heels for bitty before bitty has his “never fall for a straight boy” moment in the kitchen during the previously mentioned big baking project, and i will stand by this for as long as i live
Some eaiser variations of push ups to help you build the strength to do a traditional one!
I don’t generally reblog ‘fitness’ stuff but gaddamn could I use some more arm strength.
Push-ups are my worst nightmare. I can only do 44 before I pass out on the floor.
“I can only do 44” hahaha omg I can’t even do one.
yes good
I was always frustrated how my P.E. teachers wanted all of us to go “all-or-none” and basically hurt ourselves without letting us build up from square-one like in the first gif. Then they’d fuckin yell at us for not doing it right >:|
Knee-pushups is not square-one.
When I got my first personal trainer, she had me doing push ups almost standing upright in the weight lifting bars so that I could do 15 reps and 3 sets of them. It’s more about the technique of the push up, and if you’re pushing too much weight, you can’t exersize the correct muscles within their tolerances. This post is pretty important tto know cause of that.
2009: homestuck launches, riding on the wave of problem sleuths success. pretty big for a webcomic but still very niche overall. fandom is basically nonexistent outside of the mspa forums. mostly straight men and programming nerds
2010: hivebent happens. hetalia fans, tired of being in a big, widely-disliked fandom and drawn to the promised land of a fandom with a large cast and its own shipping system, migrate to homestuck en masse. the fandom gets its first major boost in popularity, more than doubling practically overnight. new fans are mostly young women
2011: fandom steadily expands over the course of the year.
ben nye literally sells out of grey body paint prior to comic-con. vriscourse comes to a head and people continue to argue about her death for months after. cascade drops in october, enough to crash multiple flash and download sites, and act 6 begins in november. by the end of the year its near impossible to use tumblr without being exposed to homestuck somehow.
2012: homestuck fandom peaks. this is the last year that homestuck is published regularly (the only hiatus lasts for about a month, before the dancestor intermission). homestuck is everywhere on your tumblr dash, on reddit, on 4chan. hussie has a tumblr and post and tweets regularly. in september the homestuck kickstarter begins, meets its $700k goal in less than 2 days, and finishes in october with nearly $2.5 million. this draws the attention of a few mainstream publications – pbs, wired, cnn, huffpo, etc. dante basco becomes a homestuck fan.
2013: homestuck fandom begins to shrink. first, in april, when the comic goes on a month-long hiatus. around this time, several other fandoms gain popularity – attack on titan starts airing in japan, off and dangan ronpa have just received english translations, welcome to night vale is finishing up its first season – thanks to homestuck fans looking for something to tide them over during the hiatus. when it comes off hiatus, homestuck resumes updating (much more often than most webcomics, but not nearly at the multiple-pages-per-day speed it had maintained prior). in october, hussie announces hes putting the comic on indefinite hiatus to work on the game, and that it will return with one final massive update containing the rest of act 6 and the entirety of act 7. namco high is published in late december to a resounding “meh”.
2014: homestuck remains on hiatus for nearly the entire year. the website only updates to announce new merch. paradox space launches in an attempt to revive the fandom, which has some success, but not nearly enough to compensate for the loss of interest over the hiatus. behind the scenes, whatpumpkin is wrapped up in legal drama with the odd gentlemen over stolen money and failure to adhere to a development schedule, finally severing their contract at some point over the summer. (hussie vaguely refers to “innumerable unspecified problems” in an mspa blog post, but due to a nda the full story doesnt become public knowledge until summer 2015.) hussie still tweets (but not regularly), but he nukes his tumblr. homestuck does eventually come off hiatus in october, hussie announces that the “one giant update” plan has been cancelled and serial updates resume. [s] game over stirs up the fandom
2015: updates continue regularly through january, at which point another hiatus begins that lasts until 413. on the same day that homestuck resumes, paradox space goes on an indefinite hiatus which continues to this day (”cancellation” would probably be a better word). a6a6i5 begins and, accordingly, the vriscourse comes back with a vengeance (although the fandom is now much smaller). davekat is canonized and surges to become the most popular ship in the fandom practically overnight. homestuck continues updating for a few months, with page after page of huge blocks of ponderous dialogue, reaching an emotional climax at the end of the summer with [s] terezi: remem8er. homestuck goes back on indefinite hiatus. early this year, steven universe finishes its first season, and near the end of it, undertale is released, both popular with ex-homestucks. at some point this year, hussie clears his twitter account.
2016: in february, hussie announces that homestuck is Ending, Seriously, For Real This Time. updates resume in late march. homestucks remaining fandom gets worked up, estranged fans rush to catch up, and ex-fans wax nostalgic. [s] collide drops to resounding applause and approval. opinions on homestuck are overwhelmingly positive up until act 7 drops and homestuck officially ends. the ending is almost universally considered a disappointment and the fandom works through the five stages of grief. there is a brief stirring of excitement when volume 10 is published in june, but it doesnt last long. fandom is lukewarm and disparate at best all the way up til october. hiveswap finally gets a trailer at the beginning of the month, and weeks later the credits drop. in spite of homestuck being “over” a canon jewish lesbian wedding is enough to interest a small number of new fans and revive the old ones. snapd8s keep interest high through the end of the year
2017: hiveswaps “for real this time” release date comes and goes with nothing but an announcement of another delay. snapd8s grind to a halt. nothing happens on 413 but some flaccid attempts at pr by whatpumpkin and promises of development updates we have yet to receive. its mid-may. no gods, no masters, no hiveswap. we are all gay and were eating each other alive over vriska and dirk
just moving along like everyone else 