#But also as someone who is afab and considers herself a girl that shit was uncomfortable

[elegyofthemoon]

🫠

[caestoexist]

(excerpt from my film + lit analysis class essay on afab gender nonconformity in film specifically about she's the man 2006 and tomboy 2011)

"She’s The Man is a romantic comedy designed for an adolescent audience, and therefore starts with a high energy montage of the main character, Viola, playing soccer on the beach. It is overlaid with bright, colorful graphics showing the title credits, and set to the song “No Sleep Tonight” by The Faders. Viola, while not stereotypically feminine, is clearly a girl. She is shown to like sports, and is uncomfortable in dresses, but also wears a bikini top and short jean shorts in the opening montage, and has long hair. She only comes to the decision to present as a boy in order to impersonate her brother, Sebastian, so she can play on the boys soccer team, after the girls team is cut.

At the end of the film, she reveals herself to be female, wins the game, and goes back to living as a girl. In fact, the second to last scene shows her onstage, in a dress and makeup, making out with Duke, a fellow soccer player and her former roommate, who first met her as Sebastian.

She’s The Man has something I call ‘The Mulan Effect,’ where a film represents a character pretending to be the opposite gender without actually tackling transgender topics. In these types of films, the character has external motivation, usually hiding from, or impersonating someone, or trying to gain access to something. A key feature of films that demonstrate ‘The Mulan Effect’ is the crossdressing character returning to their original gender presentation after achieving their goal."

i think it's an interesting phenomenon because on the surface a film with the mulan effect seems to be trans or trans adjacent in nature, but when you think harder about it, it's usually not as related as it would seem. of course it's somewhat related just due to the feature of a character acting and dressing as the opposite sex, and often has loosely feminist undertones (woman just as good at fighting war as man!! gender win!) but it's about a mostly gender conforming, usually straight character (in fact, if the character isn't straight, it kinda falls into a different category than the mulan effect imo) simply putting on a disguise.

it doesn't touch on actual gender nonconformity or transgenderism beyond very superficial features of it, such as being considered strange, ugly, or wimpy by those around you. its much safer than a film actually about trans or gender nonconforming topics, because it can almost fully avoid homosexuality or transgenderism other than a sort of parody/joke on those things (this straight woman falls in love with a boy, but he's secretly a girl! must be awkward for her!). it's kinda like the bury your gays trope in that it depicts the undepictable but in a way that doesn't justify being gay or trans.

it's also like the bury your gays trope becsuse people will still identify with it when that's the only representation they're given. like if all the gay stuff you can read ends with the characters dead, you're still gonna read it just for the gay shit. if the media showing gender nonconformity and transness only shows it as either temporary (the mulan effect, the trope of a tomboy growing out of it as they get older, usually influenced by meeting a man they're attracted to and realizing they're a Woman and gotta Act Like It) or evil (all the trans serial killers, who are mostly trans women, sometimes trans men who are gangsters, mob bosses, or criminals) you're still gonna identify with the characters just because you don't have anything else showing someone who does what you do.

in a lot of media trans women are represented as evil and perverted and trans men are often not represented, or represented as a temporary issue, something done as a result of external pressures, or something that you grow out of. trans women are often ugly, strange, aggressive adults and trans men are children, also perceived as ugly and strange but overall more sympathetic. i think it's interesting and wonder how much this broad societal representation affects the way we perceive those groups even without realizing it.

it's also interesting how the way we see women vs men plays into this, as trans women are "too manly" making them adult, large, aggressive, etc. trans men are sometimes also seen as too manly, because nobody takes them seriously as a boy to begin with, so they're judged as a girl. if they are seen as a boy, they're wimpy, small, childish, and more likely to have pity taken on them. trans women embody "man traits" like thinking for themselves and making decisions, like an adult, whereas trans men embody "woman traits" by just not even being taken seriously on the same level as trans women (who are more likely to be portrayed as actually trans women, as opposed to trans masculinity, often portrayed as confused or traumatized little girls) and also being shown more often as children. they are then able to be saved by a man, and only then are able to be happy as a woman. the transphobia is just the first layer of these types of bad rep, the deeper you dig the more it seems to be misogyny. like "trans women are men so they're powerful and aggressive by nature, trans men are women and therefore they don't know what the fuck is going on, even with themselves. they need a man to come set them straight, it's not their fault". it starts to seem really fucked when you think about it.

i'm saying this after having gone thru every pre-2012 representation of trans characters in television and film (according to wikipedia) and finding Some Patterns.

i don't really know what the conclusion of this post is, but basically. trans women and trans men are both affected by misogyny. misogyny is at the root of so many things. if you're against misogyny you should be against homophobia and transphobia too. period.

[kalcium-yippee]

Breaking off Friends with a Homo/transphobe

I recently had to break connections I had with two close friends of mine due to bigoted beliefs. Though this happened recently I still feel like I have learned a decent amount from it.

For some background info (this will be a little long bear with me, skip to the 'things I learned section if you don't care lol'): (all names used are fake and any correlation to real life is coincidental) We'll call the first friend Cypress, and the other one Ginger. (also recurring friends I'll call Anne and Coin). A few years ago, I was in secondary school, I was decently young and hadn't discovered much or anything about my gender and sexuality, that was when I met Cypress. We got along instantly and stayed friends for years. In my personal life I had been wrestling a lot with my sexuality and then got hit in the face with my gender identity. Sometime in the following year Ginger joined my school and my friend group. This group consisted of me, Ginger, Cypress, Anne, and Coin. This was my first ever friend group. I was later on in my discovery journey, a journey only Anne being queer herself knew of, some red flags started to appear.

Cypress saying she was on the right side of the political spectrum (I don't necessarily discriminate by political views but as a queer leftist, most of them don't like me), that she felt discomforted by trans women sometimes (pulling the argument that she 'knows they are girls but it is just a personal thing'), and a few other mildly bigoted statements against the queer community. I thought to myself that I could just wait it out, she would come to her senses, that it didn't matter. Eventually Ginger started talking about 'not agreeing with the LGBT community but still respecting it'. At this point I was closeted and didn't want my friend group to fall apart, especially considering Coin had a deep relationship with everyone. I ended up coming out to Coin, being that he is queer, that went well. And then I accidentally came out to Ginger, and she responded with 'I don't necessarily agree with it but I will respect you and your identity'. It was kind of exhausting having to constantly correct her on my name and pronouns and knowing that part of me deep down thought she saw me as a girl (I identify as agender and am afab btw). A week later, I decided to text Cypress coming out and saying I preferred He/She pronouns. She immediately asked if she could still call me she/her. I said no obvi and she just said ok. She then said she 'respected my decision'. It was hard.

She didn't respect those pronouns and multiple times felt more comfortable using an old nickname than my name. There were some other things but that is the gist. Despite the fact that I was tired of having to constantly remind people of my identity. But I kept saying that they are my friends, they will come around. They never did. Anne continuously told me that they would never respect my identity, and I agreed but still waited it out. I don't know what I was waiting for.

Then a few days ago, I made a joke about Ben Shapiro of all people, someone you'd think we all would at least agree is a piece of shit on all levels. But my one friend jumped to his defense as if I murdered his child lol. And in this it was revealed by Ginger that she did just see me as a girl and thought it was crazy that anyone could be otherwise. And knowing Cypress shared the same opinions I had all the answers I needed. I wasn't going to come to a middle ground with who I am.

THINGS I LEARNED

I learned in this time that I deserved more than waiting for respect. While being friends with these people for so long was lovely, I just had to think to myself if I wanted to play this game forever. It was hard. You always want to see the best in people, especially people who you know have good hearts. Cypress is such a kind soul, and it sucks to see her with such opinions. Ginger is such a fun loving person, and it breaks my heart to part ways. But I was just tired of having to explain why there is not 'middle ground' to who I am and that my identity is valid. And obviously seeking validation from outside sources isn't the best, inside validation should be all you need, but when it comes to your gender identity, it hits entirely different.

Ultimately, the final straw of just saying 'I can't be around someone who doesn't think my identity is real' was one of the most freeing moments of my life. Just letting go of 'she'll come around' and 'it's just opinions' and having the gall to respect myself. Being openly queer is a statement, politically, personally, respectfully, and disrespectfully, I wasn't gonna let who I am slip through my fingers like sand.

It was about coming to realize who I am personally matters more. I needed to also realize Coin's friendships with them shouldn't get on the way of what's best for me. Ultimately, Coin backed me up through it all, and while he isn't sure what to do with himself and Ginger and Cypress but it's a work in progress. I hope if anyone who was in a similar predicament to me can finally find a way to find freedom. Though preferably not through an argument about Ben Shapiro lol.

I guess this is note to all the people who are in a similar situation as I was, let go of the rope, and heal the cuts and burns caused from holding on for so long.

-Kal x

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[reanimatedmagpie]

It's just infinitely funnier to introduce Volk's story as "just 10th century slavic t4t couple things" also yeah, man's got three names, but it's not like modern transmascs are any different at all Sche'nok starts out as a wee village child that after some thinking and a very gender euphoria summer celebration ritual [one of our gods calls for a very specifically afab young person to represent him] he ends up kinda snapping at being told to 'finally start learning girl things from the other girls' as he didn't have a mom to teach him sewing n' shit. He ends up kinda causing a scene and running away, which got the attention of the village volchv

Now, volchv were a position to communicate with the gods and also... called for someone who had 'balanced feminine and masculine qualities' so y'know, very specifically a queer role.

Naturally, the volchv had followed him into the forest where he'd run off all upset and sees Sche'nok face to face with a bear obviously, the dad that just caught up panics, the volchv is about to try and coax the bear away but The kid looks the beast straight in the eye and with unprecedented hubris calls the bear not by the name of the bear among the common folk, not by 'медведь' which is the nickname by which people call it not to call it on the village but by the actual proper word bear

and it listens now, because the kid's clearly no girl, because holy shit you made a bear go away, and because bears are also a primary symbol of Veles, the god of night, winter, and all that is wild and unknown - the god to which volchv answer to first the volchv takes him apprentice [the old volchv is a gay man that's big and hairy because will I pass up an opportunity of having a character associated with Veles look like a bear? no]

The dad's kind of upset, less so because hh trans people, since transphobia is a modern invention, and more so that great, he had a son, after all, that could help him out with the blacksmith trade, but no, he has to go learn how to talk to the gods instead

The Sche'nok name that's given to the boy by the volchv means 'puppy' says 'we'll see if you grow up a dog or a wolf' Sche'nok doesn't protest, it's a fine name, and boy does he know who he is yet either

he studies all matter of things, does it well. It's not so much strictly healing that's up to them, that's more the job of the village witch, as much as making sure the village people have good means to talk to the gods, be it holding holidays, seeing how and when to give them gifts, what they have to think about mortals, and what goes on with nature these days protecting the place alongside with witches, in ways seen and unseen, from dangers seen and unseen

as he grows older, bit more rebellious, gets called Vol'chok [wolf pup] jokingly by his mentor more often he keeps on hearing whispers of the major warring city-states squabbling near the village, grows more resentful of the essentially helplessness of the situation should one of those attack One day that does come and as the village people worry as they've got little weapons and fewer battle-ready people Vol'chok slips out into the forest unseen with a desperate plan

people say if you stick a knife into a stump of an old tree and jump over it spinning you'll turn a wolf

[wild ik russian myths just be like that sometimes]

And so he did, donning a wolf's pelt for the night, and being a beast scaring off the enemies away it came with a price though, as, if no one is to bring him back and make him human again soon a werewolf he'd forever become

A village maiden had tried having found herself interested in him romantically, but, ultimately failed and forever now he'd be a man-wolf though if that's bad no-one's to say a village guarded by a werewolf is a safe one still, the enemies would keep coming and he alone would not be enough sadly with one day, Volk's mentor dead and him wounded he was running away to heal but hadn't considered the ice on the river still being fresh and brittle

he fell through and met face to face with a puzzled rusalka

rusalka are spirits of drowned women, often of heartbreak and tragedy, and often they lure men into rivers to drown them but Volk's a peculiar case

He's a little different not a woman nor quite a man, a human but not, living but not quite, not really mortal but no god either, just like Rekah herself so curious she had cracked the ice underneath those chasing him and brought him ashore unlike the human woman she could see what he saw the life to be, she, like him found a place in the world in being an outsider and had found it nothing short of comfortable

so she agreed to help drown the rest of the enemies in a flood if he takes her for a wife because wolf boy cute and why wouldn't you marry a furry

so yeah! t4t couple :)

Very much a finding place and fulfillment in being an outsider to the mortal realm the story :) I'm very much having fun w/em because it's really refreshing to write trans characters where they wouldn't really be under a pressure to transition or pass

[charlotteu]

⟨ SON CHAEYOUNG. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ⟩ though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, CHARLOTTE TAM is actually a descendent of H E P H A E S T U S it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY TWO year old CIVIL ENGINEERING/BUSINESS MAJOR from SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA has taken after their godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite PRECISE & TENSE.

heyheyhey girls gays & they’s. my og’s remember charlotte and how deeply i love her also the looming promise that i’d bring her back. and here are we so ✌️ if any of you don’t know, i’m dakota, i’m nineteen (19), i live in cst, and i’m a part time barista along with a full time political science major. i’ll have some vague wanted connections at the bottom of this but my dm’s are always open both on here and on discord @ wet ass politics#6969

trigger warnings: death

full name & nicknames :

charlotte chunhwa tam / lottie & lola

major :

civil engineering & business

sexuality :

lesbian

gender idenitity / pronouns :

cis - female / she/her

age / birthday :

twenty - three, december tenth, nineteen - ninety - eight

zodiac :

sagittarius

personality :

charlotte is known to find literal scraps of anything and manage to make something gorgeous from it - whether it’s food, metal scraps, or a nearly - ruined picnic table - it’s a skill that she takes great pride in. she constantly tries to bring her loved ones together in one form or another, which results in quite a lot of last - minute plans and “family dinners.” because of these two traits, if someone just happened to forget to plan a birthday party or a baby shower and needed it thrown together within a day or two (maybe that is on her bucket list, maybe not,) charlotte is your perfect person. regardless of this, charlotte is still considered that friend that never has their life together and has an extensional crises every few weeks. family wise, their relationship with their siblings is something that they take very seriously. even the ones that give her stress acne are still very much able to feel the affection and love she’s has for her family. she constantly checks in on all of her siblings and regularly makes an effort to be as involved in their lives as possible.

when it comes to school work, charlotte is perfectly organized. a well - planned and well - filled out academic calendar is always in her backpack and she has a few dozen notifications on both her phone and her laptop to remind her of class assignments. she is well - known at the tutoring center for her near constant sessions to ensure to that she is totally, a hundred percent getting the assignment. her math classes is where she thrives, and she has a record of taking several math classes during the summertime to further her knowledge. charlotte’s known for the immense pride that she takes in her work along with the very long academia career that they wish to have.

myers - briggs, vice, & virtue :

entp, temperance, & distrusting

hobbies :

welding, drawing, sculpting/general crafting, trivia games, meditation, going into nature & finding animals, 

powers :

sensing faults in metal ores, technokenesis, and pyrokinesis. charlotte considers her technokenesis powers to be the stronger of her abilities now that she’s taken the time to work on it since her break. she uses it to help both students and professors on campus deal with their I.T issues and to make small devices to help her friends in their way to help with their daily life. she plans to use her sensing abilities to help with her career choice later on in life, so she continues to work on improving them to help later on. with honesty, she doesn’t use pyrokinesis beyond helping her forge things or as a cute party trick. they have very few plans to ever venture beyond the walls of a protected area ever again so her ability to control whatever flames she makes under pressure is virtually nonexistent.

backstory :

         tam chaewon, aged thirty, had just finished her blacksmith apprenticeship abroad in the netherlands when she decides to go to a bar to celebrate with some friends before trying to find a job when she’s approached by a man claiming to overhear her accomplishment. eager to talk about her future, the two of them end up talking for three hours about it along with the various paths open for her to take. maybe it’s the willingness to sit and listen to her or maybe it’s the legitimacy in his interest that drew her in, but the two ended up spending the night together; they spend only two days together before he leaves with an address for chaewon to write to him if it’s needed. and she does, approximately two months later when she learns she’s pregnant with a baby girl. he writes back nothing but an apology, money to help with the expenses, along with a separate letter to give to the child when she turned ten. 

(trigger warning in the paragraph: death specifically during child birth.)         fast forward through a tornado of eight months and chaewon is visiting her parents when charlotte was born prematurely in seoul, south korea in chaewon’s childhood bathroom. there’s a complication with both chaewon and charlotte shortly the birth and the paramedics sped through the streets to pick up the two, doing their best to keep the two of them alive during the ride. the woman’s family races behind them in the family car, barely able to find the room the two are in to see the nurses rush ahead of them. (no one can tell charlotte what the complication is, but her mom stays alive for an gruesome day and a half, straddling the border between life and death. she’s declared dead on december eleventh at 12:18 pm, 1998.) legend has it that silence ran through the waiting room that the family was in, an unearthly wail leaving charlotte’s grandmother as she realizes what she had to pay to receive her granddaughter. no one wants to touch the child, let alone raise her. their family is faced with a choice when they’re handed the death certificate of their daughter, the birth certificate of their granddaughter, and their granddaughter herself.

           her uncle is the one that ends up taking her in that day. the oldest sibling to her mother by six years, he had been an entrepreneur bachelor his entire life up until that point. so it’s whiplash, to say the least, to completely upheave his life in seoul and move to the small town of parga, greece to raise charlotte. the transition period between being a bachelor to a single father is hard, but he does his best to not give up on it. along side the lack of support from his family, it makes it all such a draining process. when she turns six, her uncle hires the first person to help the family: a highly recommended local nanny by the name of phoebe who would stay with the tam family until charlotte turned eighteen. it’s around this time that her uncle begins to drift away more, trying to keep his business on track, but he always comes back with an elaborate apology and an equally elaborate gift for charlotte to make up for the digression. 

          when she turns twelve, she starts to develop ... slightly unusual powers that always came as a shock but were immediately chalked up to scarily accurate guesses. it’s a fun party trick she uses at classroom gatherings, guessing where faults where in desks, trying to figure out what was wrong with technology, etc. and it didn’t go much beyond that for a very long time. it’s a rainy summer day when her uncle sits her down with a strange man who explains to the both of them that she’s a ... demigod. it takes a whole afternoon to convince charlotte of this fact while her uncle looks at her like a monster. she promptly declines any move to go to a camp (much to her uncle’s dismay) and the next six years of her life is promptly laid out. a life lived in a private plane, tucked away from the world to live out of a few suitcases and bought time from others.

          this quiet life sealed away from the outside world leaves her doing whatever she can to keep busy. building whatever she can, trying to stay as occupied as much as she can. it results in a suitcase full of little trinkets by the time she’s six months into home schooling. the next few years of her life pass her by in a terrible haze as she does everything she can to catch up to the life that has been set out for her. her life begins to slow down when she gets into college at the age of nineteen, where she finally finds a safe haven amongst people like her. however, at the beginning of 2020, charlotte finds herself catching deep feelings for one EILILDH GALBRAITH. a fiery, vibrant, and resistant spirit immediately draws charlotte into deep feelings for her. the relationship happens for several months before the relationship comes to an abrupt halt in the end of october. unable to come to terms with her first major breakup, charlotte cites a personal, family matter to switch to online classes before coming back to in person at the end of finals shortly before the evacuation. 

wanted connections :

DREAMLAND / a v simple plot with room for extreme nuance! someone that charlotte can help bounce ideas off of and vise versa. enable each other’s terrible ideas but do it with much love and a camera on hand at all times. ( 0/2 spots taken )

HIT DIFFERENT / some type of fun flirtatious relationship. maybe they’re just friends, maybe they’re party buddies (for the rare parties that she goes to,) or maybe they just happen to keep meeting. hopefully it’s very relaxed on both ends. ( 0/1 spots taken, must be afab )

ALWAYS GOLDEN / best friends, ride or die type shit. can we get some friend group for it tho because i always love a good group dynamic ( 0/5 spots taken )

I DIDN’T FALL / some kind of missed love, like those missed connections on craiglist. maybe the two of them grew close during charlotte’s time away from university or maybe they almost dated before charlotte was out, either way there’s still some mixed feelings of resentment for not making a move, the deathly “what if’s?”, and mayhaps some feelings that still linger. ( 0/1 spots taken, must be afab )

SPORTS / someone who helped navigate charlotte through her own experience of coming out and how that fits into her cultural identity along and her career field. i have a decent idea of her coming out process but i’m definitely flexible with it ( 0/1 spots taken )

[ghostcrows]

Skee Possum Ghostcrows’s analysis of the film Lady Bird which i watched in my english class and want to talk about to someone starts Now. nobody asked and i delivered ;)

it’s not like i think it was super groundbreaking or anything but it just made me think. films that make you go hmm

will tag as long post but i am not putting it under a cut sorry

first i’ll talk about things i didn’t like because i like to end on positive notes

cons:

- very straight. very heterosexual. there’s a gay guy in it and he’s actually treated fairly well, though we don’t delve deep into his story, but watching lady bird go to town on guys was an unpleasant experience that luckily the screen being too dark saved me from the worst of

i understand WHY they did it, it’s a coming of age sort of story, she’s learning and leaning into her sexuality, that’s fine, but i’m hopelessly heterophobic so i can’t help but detract points for this

- the ending was way too abrupt....i didn’t expect to see lady bird’s entire life story unfold but i feel like we needed at least a scene or two more to end on a note that didn’t feel so lacking...i kind of get it though like not everything is perfect loose-ends tied and we don’t get to see everything all the time but...it felt lacking.

- i don’t like that she went back to using the name christine. maybe it’s just the transed in me but i thought her asserting this name, this identity that she carved for herself, was really cool, and i can see how it might be considered her being “ashamed” of her name or her trying to be someone she isn’t, but....it was clearly special to her. it just. it would have been more powerful, i think, to me at least, for her to keep the name lady bird. it’s an interesting name

- speaking of her name, we never really get to know why she goes by lady bird. maybe i missed something, but i don’t think we do. i would have liked to know what significance that name had to her. maybe it was like, the dream of flying far away like a bird, that sort of thing, how birds symbolize freedom and all that. maybe that’s part of why she went back, when she realized her town wasn’t all bad. but still. just personally i think she shouldn’t have gone back to christine

neutral things:

- it was kind of weird how she was talking to that guy at a party about not believing in god. i kind of got the impression that the catholic church had made her disillusioned. it’s not necessarily bad that she still had faith (or seemed to based on that conversation), it’s just strange. maybe that was to show how she was thinking back on and regretting being so cold to her surroundings? still.

- not so 2000′s it’s sickeningly in your face but it was just 2000′s enough lmao. like, the bell bottom jeans and the flip phones and just the all around vibe...yeah

- i felt kind of bad watching lady bird leave julie to try and get in with jenna and kyle and their crowd. she didn’t seem like the type to do something like that. i can kind of understand though, peer pressure and all. and she went back in the end, so she did learn her lesson, which is good

- sometimes she would start to make a point to her mom or the church like she was stickin it to em, like the abortion assembly, but then she swerved and ended it weird. like she had us in the first half i’m not gonna lie lmfao

good things/noteworthy things:

- i thought the shots were pretty good. i mean, i don’t know a lot about the technical aspects of film (despite spending two years of high school in AVTF) but it just looked good, the colors looked good, they made sacramento look really gorgeous. which really made you ask, why does she hate it here of all places? “wrong side of the tracks” my ass...

but see, i can still understand that. i think that, when you find yourself in a bad position in life, when you’re going through a rough time, you tend to lash out on your surroundings. i did that myself with my own hometown. sometimes i still do. i think it’s a boring, stagnant place and on my worst days i think it’s a literal hellhole. but it’s not, really. i’m the hellhole. the hellhole is me. and that’s why it was a shock for her when she went to new york and kind of just did the same reckless things she was doing before. it doesn’t matter where you go, you can’t escape your problems just by moving to a different place. you can’t leave your brain in your hometown and fly a hundred miles away and be happy. you have to work on you first. a change of scenery might help but ultimately, you gotta fix you

- i found it contradictory to me in that it was really relatable while also being pretty unrelatable. when i look at lady bird as a character, i see myself. but not all of myself. not even myself as i am now. more like a piece of myself. a piece thats still in me but that largely got left behind in high school. which makes sense bc thats where she is during the course of the film

i found it relatable in just, the ways they showed the audience the experience of being an adolescent afab person. not completely, but in a lot of ways. i saw my ninth and tenth grade cis girl self a lot. 

what was unrelatable was mostly the way that while i sat around and daydreamed about being this rebellious teenager sticking it to the world, she actually went out and did it. it’s like seeing an image of who i might have been, had i acted out on my desires. and i’m not saying i wish i had done that or that i’m glad i didn’t. it’s just an observation more than anything. it’s like, my wild girl self if she had “flourished” (if you can call it that, and yeah she wasnt TOTALLY wild but like. the amount of wild, the amount of fun and rebellious that i’d wanted to be then)

- the way they talk about sex is very real, which i like. it’s funny and not too prudish or too vulgar (though i dont really have standards for too vulgar lmao). that was just cool

- i’m glad that danny was a character. yeah he was just a side dude and they didn’t touch on him being gay in depth but they didn’t really need to? like. i’m just glad it was the way it was. he didn’t die or get punished or have everyone turn against him, he just upset lady bird because he was pretty much cheating and her feelings for him had been more real than his for her. she tried to use it as an insult briefly but i don’t think it was out of real animosity, just being hurt because she’d felt betrayed. and when he broke down and cried and she stood there and held him that almost made me tear up in class oops

- this is a big huge one. the way lady bird and her mother’s relationship operated was so. SO fucking resonant with me. and i wish it wasn’t. it’s like looking in a mirror and hating what you see. i’m glad i saw it, but i hate that it’s true to me too. y’know?

the way her mother is constantly overly criticizing and making comments towards her and lady bird tries to defend herself or come back at her, the way she subtly (or overtly) suggests that lady bird will never amount to anything great and she should just settle for mediocrity

the way her mom refuses to speak to her when she’s begging her to just say something, anything to her

the way her mom acts when she takes her to the airport

the way she shames her for being financially dependent on her and assumes that she’s ungrateful when she’s just. frustrated with the situation (i understand why her mom feels that way, i understand why MY mom feels that way. but you still can’t make your kid feel like shit for costing so much to raise when they didn’t ask to be born lmao...) the scene where she says “give me a number. give me a number so when i get rich i’ll pay you back and more and never have to speak to you again” and her mom’s reply that she’ll probably never get that far? that was so real it KILLED me. that was EXACTLY something that would happen between me and my mom

and oh . ohhhhhh my god. when she’s in the changing rooms and her mom can’t come up with a nice thing to say about her dresses...and lady bird says “do you like me”

“lady bird, i love you”

“yeah....but...do you like me.”

and her mom had nothing to say

that was PAINFUL. PAINFUL...because that’s...the way i feel with my mom too

- the way that financial stress can bring emotional turmoil to an entire family was really resonant as well, which ties into that last part. i could understand her parents’ struggles and sympathize with them, but i still leaned towards siding with lady bird because while yeah she was kind of extra sometimes, and she tried to act like she was one of the rich kids bc she was ashamed, and i get how that would hurt her parents....overall she was just. frustrated with the situation. frustrated with her relationship with her mother, frustrated with her school, afraid she might not get where she wants to be, CONSTANTLY discouraged by her family and told to aim lower....whatsa girl ta do yknow?

- i loved that lady bird went to prom with julie. it was really sweet. and it’s a reach and a half but bisexual lady bird confirmed

- i think ultimately its good that she kind of realized, oh...yknow...maybe its not the town i hated. i think i actually quite like my hometown. it was just my situation. and there’s a lot about sacramento that i can appreciate. i think that was good. BUT i don’t think it should end with her going back and settling just because she made that realization. you can come to that conclusion that maybe things weren’t so bad with the place you lived, without giving up completely and moving back home. i don’t like the implication that she was wrong to want more, wrong to change her name, wrong to try and carve a place and a name for herself in the world. i don’t like the idea that her family was right all along. and it doesn’t end outright saying that, it ends super abruptly and is up to interpretation, but i really like to think she made it in new york. or at least that she made it somewhere. and that maybe her relationship with her mom got better with time. it’s what i hope for me and my mom too

and i think that’s it. thanks for listening if you liked this video smash that like button smash that subscribe button and hit the little bell so you never miss a notification. until next time!

[prairiepow]

outlast 2 was a little bit... weird?

It was heavily leaning on religious cues, that's for sure. I think it was a little weird but it broke tropes in my book and also shown light on the guilt that comes with sexual harassment and loosing a friend. I actually was surprised at how calmed I felt by the end and how much it touched on those themes without sexualizing things, or making it into theatrics like some games do. Idk. I have always loved how outlast handles sexual harassment and moral obligations--more so than any other horror game I have ever played. And I. Have played. A LOT. It had a different taste than the first game and the DLC. But even whistle-blower has a different feeling and theme than the first game. Red barrels is exploring a lot and in my opinion They're doing great for Exploring. What weirdness it did bring to table was so Jarring I think it helped the creep factor. I don't think it was too confusing either, and I have heard the comics Bridge the gaps. While I'm at this. I kinda just wanna talk About the game. Have a small review. Plot wise I feel like it scared me more because I came from a heavy Christian background so some of the notes found around the town were Literally echos of things I was taught as a child. It might be less scary to someone who was never very Close with borderline-cult religion? OR it might be more scary because it's not normalized.I appreciated THE HELL out of how many women/fem People we got in this game. We have this horrid sexist (and v regularly pointed out as WRONG) narrative about how this Town works and what the goal is of their religion and this extremely crude religious text, and even in the midst of all that we have Lynn kicking ass best to her ability and never really once was she actually saved by Blake LMAO. Lynn was the reason they were there, Lynn was ambitious and drove herself through the plot. In fact, without Lynn, Blake would have had little reason to continue like he did.Jessica was also such a real look into depressive childhood Especially when in A church. I say that because I was a depressed Afab in the church and boy..... Let me tell you. You get told shit like 'if you're feeling depressed, you're not Praising God enough ' which is just. Just. BLEH. Anyway. Despite what happened to her she is shown as a brave little girl and she's trying to fix her own issues as much as like a what, 10 year old girl can. It was good to see that and not demonize it, I Think.And mother fucking Marta. I have never been so scared of an 8 foot Amazonian woman hurtling towards me with a fucking pick Axe. I also have never been so Blessed to see an 8 foot Amazonian woman hurtling towards. Me with a pick axe. The girl is freaking RESPECTABLE AS FUCK. And gives a nice balance we have strong Females/fem presenting on all fronts.Val is fucking untouchable that is all goodnight.I will say the 'true face' speech was kinda like if a middle aged suburban Christian white woman took my hand and sympathetically said 'oh honey I'm so Proud of your journey and your truth :)' but hey they can't all be top Notch one liners.I will say some people might not be happy about how a lot of the female cast had a bad end, but I excuse this only because uh. Its a horror game. And I don't think anyone came out of that having a nice time.Plot wise loved It, what complaints I do have aren't crucial enough to voice. Game play wise. There were so Many holes. So Much corn. Red barrels give me a map or something please God. It felt like some of the hiding spots had neon signs that said 'CLICK HERE TO KILL BLAKE'. Why with the water barrels. This game is basically left run with none hide. I am very well acquainted with Martas face now considering I run at 1 mph and she HULKS FORWARD AT 65 RUNNING AT THE SPEED OF THE 90S.Thats all.

[worldofthrea]

Info Dump

What I have so far for my ficitional country, (Threa)

It is Post-America, but its a post america where we have resolved all issues of race, gender, money, and pretty much anything else, so now all people can complain about is clothing, and in response to the newest form of hate, the gov (needs a new name[bols?{like bolts of fabric}]) has decided to seperate everyone based on what clothes they wear. This idea soon spread to the other parts of the world and most countries have joined in Threa (To be exact, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, UK?)

So essentially there is a seperation between punk, scene, pastel, boho, vintage, and so on. Also for each subculture within the fashion, there are different places of living. Kind of like apartments.

If you want to move in a different sector if you are a minor you have to sign papers and go through a huge and very long interview process to try and find a host family to take you in. If you are an adult you have to send a notice of leave to the sect leader, and the sect leader will send you a note with a signature and a seal of the sect, then you are able to leave. But finding a new place to live in the sect you are moving to is a huge pain in the ass.

There is a police force (I may call them seq [sequins]) and they should be kind and caring police force (Should is always the key word) If you are a minor going to a new sect the police will approach you and take you to your host family so that you arrive there safely. If you are wearing clothes of another sect and are not visiting another sect, you will be approached by police.

On the outskirts of Threa there is a sect called The Mix, honestly the name of the sect states what fashion the sect is, its a mix of different fashions. People either go there to live, or to sell clothes so visitors can wear the clothes of whatever sect that they are visiting or moving to, or they can live in the mix and wear whatever they feel like. People who live in sects other than The Mix think that people who live there are horrendous (mixing clothes is looked down upon)

There is conflict betweeen sects, but mostly its just in the form of name calling, no physical violence actually happens.(Or at least thats what the Seq and Bols have the people believe{Cause the media loves not showing certain things)

Since the only type of hate is towards other fashions, its more widely accepted for Cas to be genderfluid.

The internet is still a thing, and is a part of every sector, no matter how the sector dresses (Even Vinta has the internet){even Pas}

My OCs all met through Topis and began a friendship, they formed their group after Iris took in Aphris, Thalia is the leader of their group.

My OCs are Cas, Aphris, Sophitia, Iris, And Thalia, and Bree

Still need to ask other people to make OCs

Where each one of my OCs belongs originally Cas= Fae Aphris= Gree Sophitia= Hau Iris= Gree (Lives with Aphris, Aphris moved to Gree from Pas {a small inner sect of Vinta}) Thalia=Punk (She takes in Cas, Cas is 17 so still a minor) Bree= The Mix

Some names I've come up with for Threa Threa= What this Nation is called Seq= Police Force Bols= Government The Mix= Place on outskirts when people can mix fashions, also where people can buy clothes for either moving or visiting Fae= Pastel sector (basing the name on the word fade, which is what people think pastel is, fading colors) Gree=Bohemian sector, very hippie-ish. Pas= subsector of Vinta, trying to recreate the way back fashion of Ancient Greece Vinta= (No not trying to make a dragon age reference to Tevinter{that would be really bad/stupid}) Vinta is the Vintage sector, it has many apartment like structures due to how diverse it is, actually one of the biggest sects, most labor comes from there and Gree. Topis= What we now call the internet Hau= High fashion sector Al= (pronounced 'all') Al is the Alternative fashion sector, and their subsections and divisions within those subsections almost rival Vinta in terms of number. Reb= The punk subsection for sector Al, has a great deal of divisions in it, like cyreb {cyber punk} and faereb {pastel punk} these divisions are not seen as a mix, since they were a fashion of their own in the before time [US] Cyreb= Cyber punk Faereb= Pastel punk Mim= Place for cosplayers of all kind

Backstories for my OCs.

Cas: Cas was born into sector Fae, they were afab, but they always felt like something wasnt right about them, one day they were on Topis and researching genders and sexualities and that was how the found out that they were genderfluid. They came out to their family and their father instantly accepted the fact that Cas was genderfluid, and Cas's mother accepted it but acts very awkwardly around her child. At the age of 16 Cas had started to notice that they weren't comfortable with the clothes they were wearing. Cas informed their parents, and though initially their parents could not accept this, their father understood and started to help Cas in filling out the necessary paperwork to move Cas into the Reb subsector of the Al sector. They had trouble in finding someone to take Cas in, since in the Reb sector not many adults were seen as responsible enough to take care of younger people. Cas one day complained about it in the group chat they and their friends had made, and Thalia pretty much said "Seriously? Twerp you could've just told me, I live in the Reb subsect." So after that Thalia started the paperwork to take in Cas. The paperwork was finished and Cas was approved to move to Reb. Cas said goodbye to their father, their mother now wanted nothing to do with them. Cas went to Sector Al, and Thalia was there, ready to take Cas to their new home. Thalia had a room and clothes for Cas ready. One day when Thalia was out, Cas went snooping through her things, she found some pictures of a girl and a letter that said "Bree is still doing well, stay silent and good and nothing will happen to her." Later when Thalia came home, Cas asked her about the letter and picture, initially Thalia flipped her shit and yelled at Cas for going through her things. After two days of not talking through each other, both Thalia and Cas had apologized for their actions. Thalia then explained about her past and about Bree. Cas was shocked at the news, she had thought that everyhing was perfect in Threa, Thalia made Cas promise to keep what she had told Cas a secret, and Cas agreed. Cas now knows more than she ever wanted to know about Threa.

Aphris: Aphris was born into Pas, one of the inner communities of sector Vinta. Her name is a mix of the Goddesses Aphrodite and Artemis (I am considering making her last name Apstus, based on Hepheastus and Apollo) Aphris was born into her sector and raised among those who wanted to see one of the old ways of life restored to its former glory, she eventually came to not like how her life was, so she wanted to move and change fashion. Aphris had looked online and decided she liked the fashion that belonged to sector Gree. She informed of her parents of her decision to move to a different sector, and they were very much upset... They forced Aphris into staying in her home and repeatedly abused her. Though little did they know that while they slept Aphris had started the process of moving online and, once all the paperwork had been finished and Aphris had found a resident of sector Gree to take her in, she informed the Seq of what her parents were doing to her. The Seq then came and arrested her parents, and Aphris went to live with Iris, she still has many mental health prolbems and flinches a lot if anyone raises their voice to her.

Sophitia: Is a resident of sector Hau, she has lived in a life of sophistication (Her name did not come from the word sophisticated, it honestly came from a video game) and class, on the outside she is the perfect representation of a resident of sector Hau, but she frequently goes to The Mix, she loves dressing in a mix, but knows if she were to tell her family they would be devestated and disown her.(need to write more and flesh her out more)

Iris: Iris is Trans and is a resident of Sector Gree, she has lived a generally easy life, thanks to the problems of the old world being outdated, she works as an herbalist and helps in making medicines for all of Threa. She was contacted by Aphris when Aphris was looking for a place to live. Iris gladly accepted the younger girl into her home, and helped her heal the wounds and scars(physical, mental, and emotional) left from her old home. Aphris sees Iris as her true mother, and Iris has happily accepted her role as mother to Aphris.

Thalia: (Ah my mental state, the one who has seen me through all my bullshit){you done yet?}(Yes) Anyways, Thalia is the oldest member of the online group, she is a resident of subsector Reb in sector Al, she has lived her life alone, save a few one night stands, until Cas contacts her and asks for Thalia to be her caretaker. Thalia finds it interesting that someone from the Fae sector would want to make such a drastic change as to move to Sector Al, even more so that they would want to live in subsect Reb. Thalia accepts and takes in Cas, though Thalia may seem rude (read: shes a bitch){love you too twerp} she's caring and extremely protective of Cas pretty much wrecking anyone who dares to call Cas a "dolly" though Cas insists its fine and that Thalia really doesn't have to defend them, Thalia doesn't listen. Thalia wasn't always alone, dhe once had an entire family, but that was before the sectors were a thing, initially her family was against it.... the Bols didn't like that and took Thalia's parents away, when that happened her twin was upset and he soon got taken away as well, her baby sister was taken so that Thalia herself would'nt rebel either. She is convinced that all of her family is alive, at the least Bree has to be alive, since the Bols send Thalia pictures of Bree to keep her updated on her little sister. She not so secretly hates the Bols, and is very very secretly trying to do something about getting her little sister back from the Bols and Seqs. She secretly thinks of Cas as a younger sibling, but will deny it if anyone asks her.

Bree: She had seen her parents being taken from her at a young age, and not even a year later she saw her brother taken from her. She was then taken from her sister to ensure that her sister kept up "good behavior" Bree hasn't lived an easy life, and she also hasn't been living the life that was told to her sister. Bree had escaped from her captivity a long, long time ago. She had taken refuge in The Mix, no one in the Mix knows who she truely is, they only see a little orphan girl. The pictures that the Bols send her sister are pictures of a different girl. She does want to return to her sister, but knows if she does she will just be taken from Thalia once again. (Need to change this later)