#ESPECIALLY those who are marginalised in other ways too

[preposterousjams]

My opinion on the Latino Jason Todd headcanon

While I do understand ppl's criticism of the latino Jason todd headcanon and how its kind of racist to make the kid with parents with drug problems as the latino one, to me its more of a reclamation BECAUSE of DC's racism.

Read any 80s/90s batman issue that covers gang violence and drugs, most if not ALL of the criminals are poc; black people and latinos visibly make up the majority in the poorer neighbourhoods in Gotham. Aside from the caricaturist way they r drawn/speak, its not THAT weird cause its a reflection of irl big cities where immigrants and marginalised ppl are often forced to live in such situations, (like most of my dominican family lives in the bronx... it aint racist to say dominicans tend to flock there), BUT...the weird part is when the second a sympathetic character comes from that area, he's white and has a name thats "too fancy for the streets".

Obviously, Jason was created to look like the old robin, so I can't say that the whole "diamond in the rough" situation was purposely a tad bit racist, but its still a lil weird (especially with bruce's comment).

If Jason were a part of the overwhelming demographic in his area, the good-kid-in-a-bad-area trope has less connotations. DC is currently trying to fix this trope is by making crime alley whiter, which isn't bad but they could've just yk... humanised the non-white residents.

I also feel like the messed up way Jason was treated post-death is what makes him so relatable to latino readers. His tragic story of dying while trying to save his only living relative is turned into a lesson for newer vigilantes. Jason's particular disdain for abusers on a few occasions was twisted (by both writers and characters) into him always being dumb, reckless, cocky, angry and disobedient, always violent, never having been able to get over his upbringing. None of those things were true (he was a normal level of reckless and cocky like every other robin, not more), but its an easier narrative to digest compared to how it was in reality; a kid who worked so hard and loved even harder, died to save a woman who couldn't care less about his existence. He was an emotional AND smart kid who wanted so bad to help others get better but was remembered as too emotional (in a bad way).

THIS is the reality for many latino diasporas in day to day life; Theres no question that Latino culture is passionate and emotive, but people from other cultures assume that it is followed by instead of logical. both can coexist. emotion does not mean u have no logic. Emotions can be irrational but they aren't inherently that way, and I wouldn't say that the moments where Jason lashed out as a teenager were irrational (in og runs, not rewrites post red hood), they were mostly done to protect someone (going crazy on abusers, disobeying batman to save sheila, that time he got into a fight at school to defend his friend).

A lot of euro-centric culture is OBSESSED with the idea that rationality is separate from feelings and emotions, but not crying at a funeral doesn't mean you're better than those who do. Emotions are the basis of human ethics and morals, they define the way we interact as a collective and ignoring them does not mean they are not there. Theres no winner to a contest of who can feel the less. And the way Jason's emotions are treated (pre-rh, hes definitely unhinged afterwards lol) is so in line with how white culture tends to punish those who aren't ashamed to feel.

I TOTES UNDERSTAND that some ppl who headcanon Jason as latino are doing it for the complete opposite of reasons, like "oh here some angry emotional guy with druggie parents, haha must be latino". Its weird. I dont like it. And its only brought up so he can swear in spanish in some rlly bad text post where his emotions are getting out. But to me there's so much potential for metanarrative and commentary on how latinos are treated in media that can be exemplified through the way his character is treated. Being latino would add SO MUCH DEPTH to his character and his dynamic with the others.

[plaidos]

Still the anon from the trans men male privilege thing. I don’t think we’re going to agree but alas, i’m going to give my last thoughts on this. No, I don’t think trans men are the same of any other marginalized kind of men, because they are a different sex (or sex at birth based on how far along their transition is) and sex and gender are the basis on which the patriarchy works. It does not recognize trans men as men, imo. It recognizes any other kind of man as a man, because they are male, and that is a requisite. If it wasn’t, a lot of misogynistic laws wouldn’t be based on sex. I don’t see how you can be directly targeted by a system, and also be the person the system is made for. It doesn’t happen for any other group of people, and imo, it doesn’t happen to trans men, either. Who you truly are and your identity doesn’t matter to the patriarchy, or we wouldn’t live in a transphobic world. Being a man under the patriarchy requires being male and having been born male (and also obviously fulfilling that social role which trans women don’t do). No other men is suffering from misogyny every day, and will until they die, no matter the marginalization. The notion that the world and especially the patriarchy does not see trans people as the gender they identify as is commonly understood, so how is it that there is the assumption that trans men are just like any other man under the patriarchy? Aren’t those two beliefs in direct contradiction of one another? The difference in sex is incredibly important when it comes to understanding how trans men are treated under this system, because the system cares about it a lot, to the point where it’s based on it (not just on it, to be clear).

I’m not saying the exact opposite thing happens to trans women, I see and hear how horribly you girls are treated, and I’m not going to explain why because obviously you already know. Trans experiences aren’t the opposites of one another. No trans bodies are treated well under the patriarchy, period. And it doesn’t benefit any trans people at all, because no trans people fulfill all the requisites to have male privilege, only cis men do.

Either way, disagreement is not the end of the world. Thank you for your time and I hope you have a nice day.

i just need you to know that the conclusions you are reaching are the opinions of terfs. you can’t just add “and gender” to the phrase “sex is what the patriarchy is based around” and strip it of the terf stuff: that’s not true, and trying to define it this way will only necessarily exclude trans women.

furthermore, if you think that somebody has to be “recognised as a man” to receive any kind of male privilege, i’m sorry, but you must be white to think that, right? because that isn’t how men of color are treated. non white men are in fact pretty much NOT considered “real men” in a way very analogous to how society sees trans men. disabled men are also not seen as “full men” — that doesn’t mean they aren’t men.

and like i’ve said a dozen times now and you keep ignoring — no. trans men are not recognised to be “exactly like other men” but that doesn’t matter: the patriarchy fundamentally values trans men higher than trans women. you’re totally reaching your conclusions backwards by DECIDING what the patriarchy thinks based on vibes rather than actually comparing the material conditions of these two groups. (spoiler alert: the gap between trans men & trans women‘a housing/employment security is reflective of the men/women of other marginalised groups too, wow, it’s almost as if trans men are men.)

you need to stop taking transphobes at face value. every time you say something like “well trans men are just seen as female so they don’t get any of the benefits of the patriarchy” what you’re implying is “and trans women are seen as male and therefore they do” — it doesn’t matter if you actually even think that or not because that’s fundamentally what you are saying whether you mean it or not.

every single one of your arguments comes back to “well trans men are basically just seen as female exclusively and thus reap no benefits of the patriarchy” and it’s just totally totally detached from any kind of reality in a way that makes me think you don’t know many trans men who are actually transitioning IRL?? what you’re describing here is basically not true on any level.

And, finally, I need you to know that the things we are disagreeing on here are not a “small deal”. If I met somebody who was saying what you are saying in real life, I would avoid them, and tell other trans women to avoid them too, because you are fundamentally parroting a TERF analysis of gendered oppression. you literally even outline “sex based oppression” as the basis of the patriarchy and that is the fundamental lie at the centre of the gender critical movement. these are not small “agree to disagree” things, I do not think trans women IRL are going to feel safe around a trans guy repeating terf talking points to prove why he doesn’t have privilege over trans women.

[blackpilljesus]

Maturing is realising that women aren't that much better than maIes - they just lack power because when they have power they're also violent & abusive.

For example women who treat service workers like crap because they wont face consequences, women who pimp out their daughters to predators online, women who set up other women to be raped by moids, women who mock other victims of maIe violence + side with their abusers, racist women, female bosses that abuse their power to bully female subordinates, women that are physically violent to smaller women & girls, groups of women & girls ganging up to bully a woman or girl, those aunties (if you're a woc you'll know what I'm talking about) that wouldn't try that attitude to boys or white people, etc I'm sure y'all know.

There is no solidarity between women because women as a collective have no power. There's no interest to the average woman to defend another woman to the end because they dont see much benefit from it. Women are nicer to maIes even when they dont want to be not because women have endless empathy but because they lack power, if more women could physically rock moids shit they would do it.

Also, many women are sellouts and will be quick to throw other women under the bus for crumbs of power so you can't blindly trust women because they're women. They would be quiet on moids dirty laundry but a woman makes a small mistake and they become town crier.

Now i'm not exonerating moids of their evil but telling women (y'all) to look out because as it'll be more effort for women to fight against maIes, you will be a target if they perceive you as weak/easier to overpower. Usually when these topics are brought up it's a disingenuous attempt to pretend maIes are in danger because of women to detract from the conversation about maIe violence. However, as a woman it's important to be aware of how other women are threats especially if you're marginalised because if you try this feminist kumbaya shit in real life you're going to be burned. If other women sense weakness from you they will exploit it & you will be a target even if you dont provoke them. I dont care for a backstory overall for their actions; point is they are also a threat to be watched out for.

Also the fact that women turn their aggression to the powerless instead of those that generally hurt them should say it all. This is not an attack on women. The comparison is not between maIes & women behavior per se, it is about how women treat maIes & females. It's a hard pill to take down but it's essential for your survival to do so. This notion that of women being inherently good is something that gets exploited by sex traffickers (many of whom are women). Yes maIes are generally dangerous & in the end I'd rather physically take my chances dealing with an antagonistic woman than maIe but don't assume womens innocence either.

I stopped feeling bad for many women when I realised this. Women dont have better morals, women will gladly use others without a second thought to advance themselves, they'll happily punch down on others to secure what little status they have in society. They'll use the power they have to make other women & girls lives hell. I'm not saying women have to be overly empathetic, perfect or innocent to acknowledge how messed up misogyny is. In the end women are human too & most some humans suck. But it's misleading & dangerous pushing the narrative that women are these overly empathetic angels who do no wrong unless "influenced", when they are not that. Long story short, personally watch your backs and assess women on a case by case basis.

Edit: On the human side of things, this behaviour isn't just limited to women. Several marginalised people are this way including maIes which is something that made me stop caring about activism. Most people dont care about inequality, they care about being on top of the unequal hierarchy. There's a belief on the left that marginalised people = more moral and that's far from the truth. In nigeria people are usually harsh to their workers & poor people, at first I didn't understand why but when you're nice to them or help them out they see you as an idiot & screw you over with whatever advantage they have. This isn't to say don't help, but just be wary of others even if they seem less privileged.

[heytemporary]

Oh goodness gracious

Tumblr please understand that just because I post critics of bnha does not mean I want to see posts about the show UNLESS its about slandering them.

I switch to For You for one second thinking I was going to get a fresh feed of media I genuinely care about. But no its flooded with shows I’ve slandered being praised one way or another.

Quite frankly idgaf about the general census fandoms portrayal about the show. Not the inside jokes, fanart, fanfic, headcanons, fanon portrayal, ships or controversial discourses surrounding themes like (allegations for) marginalised identities & oppression because who are we kidding thinking Horikoshi did a great job at it when he himself never even faced such things.

For example there’s no point of me caring about ships like togachoko when the canon itself couldn’t even handle it right. Because from what I could tell it didn’t know if it wanted to be portrayed as positive or toxic. Don’t care about its fandom discourses like if Oochako is suffering from comphet, if Oochako deserved Toga from Izuku, if Oochako’s bisexual, if this and thats the fourth.

And I’m saying this as a (Asexual) Lesbian who does genuinely care about representation. Same thing can be said for other aspects but I don’t want to get too ahead of myself and possibly alienate myself.

If you genuinely believe Horikoshi did a good job at portraying lesbians like that then 🤷‍♀️ All I’m saying is theres no point emotionally exhausting yourself in those fandom discourse if the creator themselves has shown time again to fumble even their own canon representation. You honestly deserve better than that.

Heck, I don’t even want to see fanart /fanon from my supposed favourite character Hitoshi Shinsou. Only canon screencap/manga panels and slander off him. Miserable fucker is not even getting a smile from me.

And I also do not care to emotionally invest myself with the canon anymore. Cba to care about the vigilante, movies, sideplots or whatever. Don’t want to actively see that unless its just canon posting without any bias comments.

The only thing I want to see from the mha tags is criticism, slander, and better reimagines.

Yes ik I sound miserable. No I would not go out of my way to deliberately shit in the fandoms tags and ruin it for everyone. Yes I get some ppl are emotionally invested in this series. No I don’t want to see any positive praises on my feed especially if its bias driven.

I’ve got to start actively cultivating my feed. I didn’t want to block bnha / mha tags because thats just doing too much. But now you leave me no choice Tumblr

((Tbh this can be said for other shows I once used to be a fan of that I’ve grown to hate. i.e Miraculous, Doctor Who))

[drownedinapond]

I've been seeing mutuals or people I follow get hate for liking Regulus, and in an effort to not hijack anyone's post, I'll barf my thoughts out here to get them out of my head. Stuff gets stuck circling around there for weeks if I don't. Will get a bit political cause I'm me.

I don't want to rehash the points other people have made because they put it very well. I will include a summary though, for anyone who hasn't seen this stuff on their dash:

Death eaters are the magical version of members of Nazi or fascist parties, obviously. Pure blood supremacists are Nazi and fascist supporters, even though they're not directly members of the party. Why wouldn't they be if they agree with their views? It's a big undertaking, people view politics as a waste of time on any side of the political spectrum, it's risky to attach your name to anything official etc.

Walburga and Orion are clearly pure blood supremacists in the canon and if you don't think so, please work on your reading comprehension.

Real people are immensely influenced by their environment, especially as children; characters are supposed to be representations of real people; Regulus' unique mix of nature + nurture made it so that he is too afraid to disobey what he has been taught until he reaches his limit, and didn't have any support to spur him in the right direction, unlike Sirius.

I want to add on to that by talking about headcanons and their impact.

Firstly, headcanons, specifically in the Marauders fandom, are mostly treated as canon since we have so little to work with, and many of us disrespect the canon on purpose because fuck jkr. There are a bunch of headcanons that the majority of us agree on, such as Dorcas being in Slytherin, Regulus' animagus being a black cat etc. People that like Regulus, don't agree with or are ignorant of Canon Regulus, the very little that there is of him at that! They either like Headcanon/Fanon Regulus who makes a sincere effort to right his wrongs OR they are fascinated by Canon Regulus as an interesting character, which doesn't mean they endorse his actions (can't believe that needs to be said). Same thing applies for Evan and Barty.

The Fanon version has the amazing ability to show what circumstances might lead to someone having violently bigoted beliefs, and in some cases, what it takes for them to shed those beliefs and take accountability for their actions. In my opinion, it's incredibly important to show that narrative, especially as written by people with no financial stake in what they convey, because of the times we're living in. The USA is a good example.

The circumstances that majority of the citizens in the United States were raised in implanted bigoted beliefs in them, some more subtle than others. Those circumstances persist and even get worse. That does not mean Americans deserve punishment, isolation, belittlement or ridiculisation. Those things make bigotry worse. They need new thought models and to be shown that unity and diversity make life better and safer for everyone. It takes people of the global south and marginalised groups in their own country to liberate the average citizens from themselves and then their government. Punishment for the sake of punishment doesn't resolve anything, though some people might interpret responsibility and necessary violence as punishment.

That being said, Regulus might not be compared to an average citizen, since he was so rich, but I think many people that grew up in bigoted environments can see themselves in him, even if they don't fit his story beat by beat. If you reduce Regulus to his worst parts, what does that imply about their hope that they can make a difference? If you wish Regulus' character and those similar would be collectively hated by everyone in the fandom, what does that say about them? Still, in a way, people that reduce Regulus to his worst parts add to the poetry: you can choose to do good in spite of the fact that you will always be viewed as evil, and that good still counts more than everyone else's opinions of you. (Hello Wei Wuxian)

I know people's hurt feelings aren't our focus in the cause of global liberation and I agree, victims should definitely come first, but hurt feelings lead to action. We could use all the manpower we can get, therefore it's better to make allies rather than enemies. And allies are made with understanding and patience. Not everyone has the strength of character to go against everything they've ever known on their own, as exemplified by Regulus.

So I do think that people bashing others for liking him are getting on a moral high horse and losing the bigger picture. If you categorise characters as good and bad, it's a sign that you have the tendency to do that with real people too, which is dehumanising. You can change though, like Regulus did 👍

*you can be part of a marginalized group and still hold bigoted beliefs, obviously...

**I'm not speaking out of my ass on real world comparisons, I've been reading books on political and social issues for years.

***I've been debating if I should tag you as a show of support, @messingwithmoony, for literal hours at this point, so I will choose to do it in hopes that it's a nice gesture, BUT if you are uncomfortable with it in any way, please dm me and I will remove this part! There are absolutely no hard feelings whatsoever!

[the-apocalypse-is-upon-us]

Okay, I think Im getting what you're saying. Thanks for assuming good faith in my ask. That sentence about Nagito being very very obsessed with the Ultimates. I think that's another case of people relying on their old memories of danganronpa (if they even played the game) + fandom mesh + fandom characterization. It bugs me too when people treat their vision of the characters like the "real" one, the only one, and especially- like you said- if they cant be bothered to research what theyre talking about.

Yeah, lool! And, don't worry, i understand which sentence you mean! Still seeing that characterisation prevail even today, even amongst so called 'fans' of him, is pretty frustrating and one of the main reasons of me making that post. I think Nagito mostly suffers from pathologisation, meaning the fans see his extreme beliefs and the fact that he is definitely supposed to be some flavour of neurodivergent/ mentally ill and they make it all about how "it's soo sad how poor Nagito has only those beliefs to give meaning in his life 🥺" completely ignoring that 1. No, he doesn't, 2. Believing that literally takes his agency away, making so all his perceived 'flaws' are just him being 'brainwashed' towards the system (all the characters are, he just lays his beliefs more openly than others in a way that could be taken as 'unerving') and 3. He wasn't created in a vacuum, and i think in some cases it's helpful to examine the creator's own biases when it comes to their works, especially when it's about a marginalised identity (people with mental/neurological disorders) he has misrepresented before, e.g. Toko and Syo as an example of D.I.D. I also think that a lot of it has to do with the fandom desperately trying to fit Nagito within an established 'archetype', whether they like him or dislike him, which is an imoossible task considering his complexity in almost all his aspects, but usually within his 'fans' the archetype i see most of is 'poor, mentally unwell baby who doesn't know what's best for himself other than manipulating others, and needs big alpha Hajime to protect him and coddle him 🥺' which is... Not only an insulting fucking take but I literally can't see where the poor, inferiority complex Nagito is coming from other than like...ableism, like at this point they havent played the game lol. Anyway, I'm glad i could clear things up, and if you want to continue talking about certain character takes and whatnot, feel free to keep sending asks or even dm me! I am always happy to have a convo about these things! :⁠^⁠)

[maxdibert]

Do you think feminism is imperialist from the West and is at the core of keeping capitalism alive? That it forces its way upon other cultures in the East like Iran etc. (saying their way of living is wrong, so they should live differently) and isn’t actually about women, but just an ideology? (One person, who's a communist, said this to me. They said communism is anti lgbt and anti feminist - mere political western ideologies according to them - and pro Russia. Do you have any experience with these opinions?)

I’ve encountered this kind of discourse before (in Spain we call them “bolchonazis” o “commumachos” and I believe it’s important to unpack it with nuance, especially given how it often distorts both feminism and anti-capitalist struggles.

To begin with: feminism is not a monolith, and yes, there is a history of Western liberal feminism being instrumentalised to justify imperialist agendas, especially when it’s used to “save” women from non-Western societies, without listening to those women or engaging with the political contexts they live in. This kind of “feminism” is rightly criticised by feminists across the Global South, including in the Middle East. But it would be a mistake to assume that this is what feminism is.

As someone who works within an intersectional, anticolonial, and anti-capitalist feminist tradition, I want to be very clear: true feminism doesn’t impose itself on other cultures: it listens, it supports, it creates space for women and queer people to speak for themselves and lead their own struggles, whether in Iran, Palestine, or anywhere else.

In fact, some of the most powerful feminist and queer resistance today is happening in so-called “non-Western” societies, often in spite of both Western imperialism and local authoritarianism. Think of the women leading protests in Iran, or queer communities resisting criminalisation and state violence across Africa and Asia. They are feminists too, not because the West told them to be, but because they are fighting for their lives and dignity.

As for the idea that feminism and LGBT rights are merely “Western ideologies”: this is a deeply ahistorical and frankly dangerous claim. It erases centuries of gender and sexual diversity across the globe — including Indigenous, Black, Arab, South Asian and East Asian traditions that recognised more than two genders, or practised forms of social equality that challenged rigid hierarchies. It’s not feminism or queerness that is foreign — it’s colonialism and capitalist patriarchy that often erased those traditions.

Now, regarding communism: there are and have been Marxist traditions that are deeply feminist and queer-inclusive, from Alexandra Kollontai and Sylvia Pankhurst, to today’s transfeminist socialist organisers. Stalinism and its legacy, with its repression of LGBT people and rigid gender roles, are not representative of all communism. In fact, many Marxists, myself included, explicitly reject Stalinism for its authoritarianism and betrayals of working-class and marginalised people.

So when someone tells you “is anti-feminist and anti-LGBT,” they are either misinformed or supporting a specific authoritarian strain that has been widely criticised by Marxists themselves. And when they suggest feminism is simply an ideological tool of the West, they are ignoring the lived experiences and leadership of feminists and queer activists across the world, often in conditions far more hostile than anything in the West.

ISo in short, feminism, like any liberatory movement, must be self-critical and aware of its histories, but dismissing it altogether as imperialist is not just inaccurate, it’s complicit in silencing the very voices who are fighting for justice in the most precarious conditions.

[bonesandthebees]

Hi!

I don’t have any friends irl or online who knows anything about this whole mess of a situation, so I hope you’ll allow me to mull this over here or just scream into the void.

I just find the whole broader context of this whole issue fascinating in a deeply disturbing way. I was going to try to understand why dream acts the way he does, but I think I might drive myself mad doing so. Anyway, I think it’s very apparent the happy go lucky time of progressiveism online is over. Obviously, there has always been bad shit online and marginalised communities have been under fire for a long time. What I’m trying to say is there has been this illusion of progressive attitudes, which has eroded away and people are just saying the quiet part out loud these days.

I don’t know if dream is publicly shifting to draw in a right wing audience or if he completely lacks the ability to empathise with/is too stubborn to recognise other people’s feelings and perspectives. Neither options would surprise me tbh. I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil my evening and your whatever your time time of day is. Idk, weird guy.

Anyway, I hope you are doing well! 2025 have been a lot this far, huh? I watched eternal sunshine of a spotless mind this weekend, which made me read Alexander Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard and I finally got the title to World Forgetting. That fic is my all time favourite fic, so I have no idea why I didn’t look into the title before. That’s on me!

(I hope you’ll allow me the moon as a sign off. lol that reminds me that I need to put my tarot cards in the window just in case the full moon decides to show up)

– 🌕

hello welcome to the anon club!!! I shall call you full moon anon :)

it really is getting scary to see the backwards steps we're taking culturally right now. like with all the social media tech billionaires cozying up to trump and the way people are caring less and less about things like calling others slurs and of course the entire tradwife/hating on feminism/i'm just a girl tiktok bs. but I do try to remind myself that backwards steps like those are usually in response to progress. we've seen a huge positive shift in attitudes towards the queer community over the past decade and a half alongside other social issues like racism and feminism, so it's kind of expected that we were going to swing backwards at some point. the reason this is reassuring though is because it's a reminder that it's cyclical, meaning we will push forward again and make even more progress next time. we just have to (unfortunately) wait this out and keep trying to push forward.

ok now as for dream talk I am going to put this under a read more because I do not need to subject my followers to thoughts on what's going through his head unless they wanna see it

yeah, trying to understand dream's whole thought process here is really enough to give you a migraine. it just doesn't make sense because he is objectively making himself just look like a terrible person to work with to outside ccs (will leak your private dms if you ever have a falling out, might go on a huge essay length twitter rant about you if you ghost him, etc.) while also just annoying everyone who isn't part of his core audience. also, I feel like if you're trying to get a more right wing male audience I don't know if openly discussing how you're autistic is going to help you there given... yknow. how those people tend to be in regards to neurodivergent people. like I could be wrong but to me that just doesn't seem like the best strategy if that's where you're trying to shift.

so I'm inclined to think it's the latter: that he's too stubborn to recognize other people's feelings and perspectives. that seems to be where his head is at when he talks about his gripes with tommy and tubbo, especially when he calls tommy disingenuous for... not having the same opinions he did when he was 16? idk man I don't want to understand dream too much

2025 has been so much though. like what the hell.

BUT YEAHHHHH eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!! I hope you enjoyed that it's literally one of my all time favorite movies. and yeah that line from Eloisa to Abelard just hits so hard both in the context of the movie and just in general, so when I was writing a story about amnesia I knew I wanted to tie it into eternal sunshine somehow

[lyinginbedmon]

So hey, it's St Patrick's Day, the most quintessential Irish holiday the world round. And it's the first of its kind since I've started trying to embrace my Irish heritage, so what are my thoughts?

Let's start with the obvious: I'm teetotal, introverted, and was raised English through and through. So my actual first-hand experience of St Patrick's Day is predominantly derived from another calendar event that happens on the exact same day: My Irish mother's birthday (yes, we agree that this coincidence is funny, her favourite colour is also green). She, likewise, was raised in England, so really it mainly boils down to "mum's birthday" for me.

So essentially for ease of comprehension, we're going to start from a null value. I have never attended a parade, or a festival, or more or less anything associated with St Patrick's Day. I've gone to plenty of birthday dinners and such for my mum, but that's it.

This more or less means that my thoughts on St Patrick's Day today are dominantly drawn from my very-recent efforts to better appreciate that heritage. And so a lot of the classical popularised elements of it (copious green, leprechauns, heavy drinking, and god-awful accents) come across to me as outright offensive. This is a family history I'm taking great care to appreciate and understand and treat respectfully... and suddenly it's also a marketing ploy to make the local pubs some extra cash.

It's a bit hard not to feel a bit slighted at that.

However, in much the same way as St George's Day (the English national day) is here in England, my recollection of St Patrick's Day celebrations is fairly that there aren't really any. Yes the pubs have their special offers, but we don't really do any parades or host any big communal parties. We certainly don't dye any rivers green.

So from where do I hear about all of those clichés and tropes? Answer: The Irish diaspora.

I've only fairly recently gotten to talk about this stuff with friends descended from Irish immigrants to other countries, especially the US, and they have a very different take on it all than even my Irish grandmother does. This I attribute to us having been raised in an environment where "the old country" is an hour away by plane at any given time, whereas for their predecessors it's been the far-removed uniting factor between their communities in a land that was foreign and frequently actively hostile towards them.

I'm also told that America in particular goes big on more or less all celebrations, which is doubtless also a contributing factor. As a result, St Patrick's Day celebrations farther abroad are far more energetic, bombastic, and above all LOUD.

The only point of comparison I really have for it, as a member of the LGBT+ community, is Pride. Similarly, Pride serves as a moment each year where a marginalised community gets to come together and make a lot of noise about their identities and continuing perseverance in the face of adversity.

And given that framing... I get it.

Yes there's people going super hard purely for the sake of making an easy buck, just as there are companies that trot out a dusty rainbow flag every June to do the same. But for the people who pursue the festivities for more than just a cheap drink, it's an important signifier of a thriving culture surviving against the odds.

And really, much as it might rub me the wrong way at this point in my journey, is it worth me getting too upset over how people so far from home try to keep its memory alive?

[xx-k4nd1-1n-cyb3rsp4c3-xx]

Your opinions on tone indicators can be a sign you have some internalised ableism to process. /srs

If you follow me you might have seen I was part of a reblog chain where I was calling out what I believe to be internalised ableism against autistic people, from someone who's also autistic, who's blog I used to follow. I'm going to delete it I think, because the conversation didn't go anywhere. I'm going to include screenshots here, as a jumping off point for an issue I've noticed ever since the popularisation of tone indicators.

If you don't know, these are tone indicators:

They're a system for conveying tone through text, you add them to the end of your sentence to show how you meant it to come across.

They're 99% used online, and mostly by neurodivergent people. This has made them gain a reputation for being "chronically online cringe." This is cringe culture. This is "this is bad because it's weird." Unfortunately, things can often become "cringe" due to their association with marginalised people, and I don't think this is an exception. I fully believe tone indicators are only as hated as they are because of their association with neurodivergence. And as autistic people we are often primed to play into this! An autistic person is almost more likely to fall into this mindset because of not wanting to be "one of THOSE autistic people." Marginalised people often fall into the trap of finding a "lesser" kind of person to feel superior to, the same way their oppressors feel about them, as a source of validation.

So if you're reading this post as a neurodivergent person, I want you to question what any negative feelings you have about tone indicators might say about how you view other autistic people, most likely people with higher support needs to you or with different needs to you.

Before we get into the screenshots I want to talk about, I want to go through a small list of valid criticisms of tone indicators:

"They're overly complicated!" Yes, they kind of are. You can probably find an infinite amount of them. You can make up your own. Keeping track of what all of them mean can be difficult.

"I don't want to memorise what they all mean!" Completely fair. Especially when you have memory issues or a learning disability. But if you're just not bothered, that's fine too. What I will say, is that you've likely already learned so much internet slang and abbreviations and acronyms that this really isn't any different. I'd watch out for ableism in the fact that you might've learned what things like "TTYL," "BTW" or "LMAO" mean, and likely know hundreds more similar examples, but you aren't willing to learn what these abbreviations mean. I'd just question why if I were you.

"They're ineffective!" Yes. Many people are not familiar with this system. It's relatively niche. What good is it to a neurodivergent person if someone's using a tone indication system they're completely unfamiliar with? Miscommunication will happen regardless if that's the case.

"The abbreviations already mean something else!" True. This can be confusing. But it's usually clear from context what they mean. Sometimes context is hard for people, so I completely get this as a reason for you not to like or use them. But it's still very much possible to grasp that "nm I found it!" means "never mind I found it" and "could you please pick up your laundry from the floor? /nm" is the "not mad" tone indicator.

"There are better systems!" There are! Some people just don't abbreviate the tags. Some people like the parentheses system (tumblr meme). Some people just elaborate with more context. I personally favour tone indicators because they're just faster to type.

Now for some screenshots. I am censoring URLs for a reason. Do not seek out anyone involved to harass them. Sending a random internet user hate mail for disagreeing with you will never be productive. I do not condone harassment. This is not a personal attack on anyone involved.

this is the original post. I responded to. Here's my response.

I definitely think I could have worded this better. This was very in the heat of the moment. I assumed this person was not autistic themselves since I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume ignorance over malice. I couldn't quite believe "you really need to work on yourself" could be a response from an autistic person to a common symptom of our condition: not understanding sarcasm or tone in general.

I didn't think I had to explain why this is ableist. But as the reblog chain played out they refused to acknowledge this at all, and that was very disappointing to me. I think it highlights a wider trend of lower support needs autistic people often minimising the struggles of higher support needs autistic people because they don't experience those struggles themselves. Autism is such a broad spectrum. There are autistic experiences you will never understand. You have to accept that there are people like you who's lives you will never be able to relate to, even when they have the same diagnosis (including self diagnosis) as you. In a way, it's understandable, because neurotypicals often use the caricature of a higher support needs autistic person to bully us. But you have to realise, those people actually exist. People who are non verbal exist. People with extreme sensory issues exist. People overwhelmingly hyperfixated on weird or disturbing things exist. People who cannot socially interact normally exist. People who's stims are "embarrassing" exist. For every stereotypical autistic person you can think of, however malicious the caricature is, there is a real person out there who has similar traits and faces struggles you have never known because of it. So to you, "not understanding sarcasm" is a harmful autistic stereotype, which it can be, but many many autistic people face this real struggle. I get it, you've spent your whole life running from this stereotype, but you can't throw the people who actually have that struggle under the bus for your own validation.

The next reply and my response. I will repeat, being autistic yourself does not make you immune to being ableist.

now this is where this conversation stopped having any hope of being productive. You can personally find this system infantilising. Those are valid feelings, and a valid reason to not like or use this system for yourself. But nowhere did I ever demand people to use this system. Especially not in this reblog chain. You would have to really dig and cherry pick to find examples of people demanding everyone to adopt this system, I won't say they don't exist because they do, but they're by far not the majority of tone indicator users, and they're not an excuse to talk about them with ableist language.

What I find really insensitive here, is the comparison of people who like tone indicators to dogs... blatant dehumanisation of autistic people, BY AN AUTISTIC PERSON. I refuse to accept that this is OK, that this is not ableist. If that's how they personally make you feel, that's valid, but this is being said in a discussion about how calling them useless and unnecessary as a whole is not OK! How do you expect other autistic people who use tone indicators to feel upon reading that?!

And lastly... I believe this last point is comparable to victim blaming. As I said in my response, we all have a story about how we asked a genuine question with no malice and had a neurotypical blow up at us for being rude. Why do you think we wouldn't want to start asking questions to clarify?! Like no, I'm not saying you shouldn't advocate for yourself, I'm saying starting fights over miscommunications constantly in your everyday life is exhausting and not worth it! This can be traumatising, or retrigger old trauma. I don't like this implication that if an autistic person doesn't understand something and doesn't ask for a clarification, whatever happens after is their fault and they don't deserve grace for it, when we literally all have a story of asking the wrong question at the wrong time and getting treated horribly for it. Is it really so bad for us to just want systems to avoid the misunderstanding in the first place rather than having to constantly go through this anxiety inducing experience of asking for clarification and not knowing if this is going to spark some kind of huge conflict?

I want to go through an ask this person received after this interaction.

I'm not a helpless permanent victim. I'm using tools that make my life easier. What about anything I've said suggests that? And sometimes, believe it or not, people are victims of ableism. Yeah, it hurts to be reduced to that. I hate it too. But denial isn't going to help. Especially not for higher support needs autistic people who have it way worse than we do. You growing up autistic in the 90s is not an excuse for holding on to the ableism for higher support needs autistic people that was so prevelent at that time.

I think these replies from someone else really get to the heart of it.

Acknowledging that you are disabled and that you have different needs to most people is not infantilising. Me finding tone indicators helpful is not infantilising myself. I think this just reveals that you view higher supports needs autistic people through an infantalised lens.

I really really just want to encourage everyone to find understanding for the disabled people who aren't like you. To not use your own issues as an excuse to turn your self hatred onto us. I am not an animal or a self imposed helpless victim because I choose to acknowledge my disability and find tools to manage it, even when those aren't the right tools for you. ESPECIALLY if you're lower support needs, I want you to genuinely have a think about whether or not your feelings around tone indicators show you have deeper issues to address about how you view other autistic people. For some reason this is what snags most people's internalised ableism and gets them to make unhinged comments like these when normally they are decent people who view other autistic people with compassion.

[pop-culture-witchcraft]

Pop Culture Entity Post: Sonic

Media: Sonic

Type of Character: Main Character

Description: Sonic is a blue headghog which can run extremely fast. He is the main character of the Sonic franchise and appears in multiple medias, most recently in the time of making this post, the Sonic movies and Sonic Rumble.

Domains

♤ | Speed

♤ | Heroism

♤ | Friendship

♤ | Teamwork

♤ | Change

Epithets

♤ | The Hedgehogs

♤ | The Fast

♤ | The Ring Keeper

♤ | The Hero

♤ | The Other

Things to work with them on

♤ | To Learn how to move quickly: whether in thought or physically, Sonic will help learning how to help manage their speed. He can also help with ADHD management (other then professional help).

♤ | To Become a Hero; Saving the day is not a grand adventure, but it can be helping people or yourself to get through this life.

♤ | To Explore One's View; not only on themselves but on the world around them and especially with relationships and friendships.

♤ | To Learn Magic In a healthy way, from the basics to the advanced.

♤ | To Learn to Worship/Honor without giving up your own agency and power. And, how to use that relationship for everyone's benefit.

Associations

Color: Blue, White.

Elements: Air and Fire

Tarot Cards: The Chariot, The Fool

Food: Most foods especially snacks (Donughts are appreciated, Juice too)

Herbs: Salt, Pepper, tree leaves

Animals: Hedgehogs

Crystals: Quartz, Carnelian

Incense: Light musky incenses

Devotional Acts

♤ | Sports/Running/disability friendly sports; moving your body or your mind is a great way to connect to Sonic. If you can, running is great, if you are disabled and in a wheelchair or unable to run, moving quickly in a car (safely or in racing spaces) or a shopping cart (safely).

♤ | Shadow Work is a great way to explore yourself and your connections to herosim and friends.

♤ | Helping the Marginalised in both the huge ways and the small, stand up and give voice to those who cannot do it for themselves whether through small donations or educating others online or in real life.

♤ | Learning his game history; exploring his source is a great way to connect to him.

♤ | Spending time with friends; Sonic is a team player and connecting to your own friends online or physically is a great thing to do for Sonic.

♤ | Magic in the most basic form in still an act of devotion to him if it is intended as such and he respects and appreciates both ritual and offerings.

[fayes-fics]

Hello!!

I was going to read the new When the world I free till Friday, but I couldn't wait sooo here I go with two things one from this new and from the old.

Starting with the old, there is a song from Miss Taylor Swift that reminds me so much of them (the universe couple). The song is called Labyrinth, and it's for some things:

First, there is a line that says "You know how scared I am of elevators Never trust it if it rises fast It can't last", and it's probably a metaphor, but ai will take it literally, and it fits for the first chapter, because reader is scare to go in the elevator, and I found it funny while rereading it for this. And the song has this dynamic that is like

"oh"

"oh"

Kinda moment; and it's so like them, cause the phrase in the song that goes "oh oh, I'm falling in love" is Benedict and reader is "oh no, I'm falling in love again", and I know that technically she did not love Stanley, it was more of a caring feeling, but at first (on how I took things) it might confused her a little on this.

And then there are a couple of verses (I know there is a word, I'm lazy to translate lol)

"It only feels this raw right now

Lost in the labyrinth of my mind

Break up, break free, break through, break down

You would break your back to make me break a smile

You know how much I hate that everybody just expects me to bounce back

Just like that"

And this goes hard for them cause she is confused and sad about how her family is reacting, but at the same time, she feels like she can count on him, even though they are still half strangers. So I thought the song was so them for this reason.

Then, with the new part, I like a detail that is often in the more romantic aspects of your stories, that it's describing the ring while the other is doing something.

In this new one shot was when she first took him on her mouth, and it's such a moment of softness, and it's not in every story, but is a detail that I find it to be so yours, it's beautiful, sweet and realistic, it shows the most humanly part of the relationship, cause it weights something, a bigger meaning of just married, it's the symbol of them being for life together.

It's quite the long ask, I hope this is interesting to read, I finally used my (almost) degree in literature useful 😃

Hi lovely! 🫶

Thank you so much for this message. It's so wonderful to get messages like this. 🫶🥹

I must admit that I only know a little about Taylor Swift and had not heard of this song until you mentioned it. I'm always humbled if people are reminded of my fics when they listen to songs. I'm also always surprised when people remember snippets, like our reader's fear of lifts/elevators in the first chapter of When The World Is Free.

But YES, the whole "Oh" "Ohh..." dynamic is a very central theme to this fic. From the moment they clap eyes on each other, to their first kiss when dancing, to the moment they get married, to the moment they are intimate, to the proposal. It's all about them discovering themselves and the depth of their feelings for each other.

Definitely, they become each other's rock without realising it. That verse about breaking is very true: he has her back in a way her family never did. The phone call back to her parents, she clung to Benedict; I think subconsciously, that was the moment she had a new family, a new home for herself with him and the Bridgertons. It's part of what I love about The Bridgerton family - how much they all adopt the spouses brought into the fold and become a unit. They are a truly welcoming bunch, especially to those who have been marginalised or ostracised.

Yes, my referral to their wedding rings in the latest one-shot (and the main fic) is very intentional. At this point, though they are just getting to know each other, it's obvious they are both already hopelessly in love but too scared to admit it to themselves, let alone each other. Their wedding rings become almost talismans of that secret they are not yet brave enough to share with each other. They are always touching their own ring or noticing the ring on the other.

One thing I strive for in my smut writing is a sense of realism within the moment. I'm so pleased you found it in this one. I wanted it to be romantic and tender, but yes, not shy away from details about the physicality.

I'm honoured you would apply your degree in literature to my content. I'm not kidding when I say this sort of feedback is what keeps fic writers writing. We aim to evoke emotions in people, and when we do, it's the best feeling in the world to hear such. It's the only "payment" we receive for all our efforts. This message made my week. So thank YOU 😁���🧡

[heartofstanding]

How do you specifically view the discussion surrounding Edward II's sexual orientation?

Look. I think it's an important thing to discuss, especially relating to the ways that homophobia has impacted discussions of Edward's character and his sexuality. I certainly think Edward can be regarded as a queer figure in history, regardless of whether we can prove he definitely had sex with men. There has been some really good scholarship that have focused not so much on discussing Edward's sexuality but discussing the way that the narratives around his sexuality. But I think we are at the point where debate about his sexuality - the big was-he-or-wasn't-he-gay question - has become pointless. The best commentary on this debate is by W. Mark Ormrod, who called it:

both anachronistic and futile: anachronistic because medieval attitudes to sexuality were so different from our own, and futile because the nature of the evidence makes it impossible to tell what Edward actually did – let alone what he thought himself to be doing – whether and when he engaged in emotional and physical contact with women or men.

We know Edward had intense, emotional relationships with men. We can't prove or disprove whether these were romantic relationships, whether he was sexually attracted to these men, much less whether he had sex with them. We know Edward's marriage to Isabella of France was functional for most of their marriage, but broke down in the end. We don't know whether they were ever "in love" or even that they actually liked one other. It was first and foremost a political and dynastic match, not a romance. We know Edward had sex with at least two women, Isabella and the unknown mother of his only known illegitimate son, Adam. We don't and can't know why he had sex with them. He may have been sexually attracted to them, he may not have been. There would have been significant societal, dynastic and/or cultural pressures for Edward to have sex with women, and sexual behaviour does not necessarily prove sexuality.

Same-sex intercourse was heavily stigmatised, bundled into "that utterly confused category", sodomy, and rendered as a sin too dreadful to be named. This would lead to the suppression and marginalisation of same-sex behaviour, meaning that evidence of same-sex behaviour is rare and that it often comes from hostile sources. Additionally, this stigma would lead to significant pressure on those who were attracted to members of their own sex or gender to conform to the norm of male/female sexual relations. It may not be nice to think about it but it is a reality that many people in the past and the present have had sex in ways that don't align with their sexuality. In our own time, closeted homosexual men and women can have outwardly successful, happy and sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex, whether it's because they're still figuring out their sexuality or because they're trying to live up to the heteronormative ideal. Similar situations no doubt existed when same-sex behaviour was subject to far greater stigma and condemnation. To assume that these individuals aren't or couldn't be homosexual but must be bisexual on the basis of the unreliable measure of documented sexual behaviour and outward appearances is incredibly reductive.

And that's all we have with Edward II - an outward appearance. We have even less than that, owing to the limited surviving evidence. We don't have access to his thoughts and feelings to know why he slept with Isabella of France or the mother of his illegitimate son, Adam. We don't have the intimate details of his marriage to know if he was ever "in (romantic) love" with Isabella. It involves a lot of assumptions to come to the conclusion, as Kathryn Warner does, that he could only have been in a long term sexual relationship with Adam's mother that could only have occurred because he was sexually attracted to her. We don't even know her name.

This isn't to then say Edward must have been exclusively attracted to men because we don't and can't know that. Any claim about Edward's sexuality rests on our suppositions and assumptions about both Edward's sexuality and what sexuality looked like in the Middle Ages. Our suppositions and assumptions are, of course, informed and driven by our own biases and beliefs. Barring a truly extraordinary discovery, we're never going to know how Edward experienced sexual attraction and what his motivations for having sex were.

My point is much the same as Ormrod's. The debate about Edward's sexuality - was he gay? straight? bi? - is anachronistic and futile. Our modern ideas and categories of sexuality would be alien to him. The assumption that if he was alive today or if he just knew about modern sexualities that he would identify as gay or bi or straight carries with it the assumption our categories of sexual orientations are some kind of universal truth and thus we know better than Edward and any other person from the past about their sexuality. It also carries with it the assumption that modern sexuality is a ternary - one of three options - which excludes and denies other sexualities like asexuality and pansexuality.

As I've said, the evidence doesn't allow us to go beyond the facts I outlined above. They don't tell us very much. To continue debating Edward's sexuality, as if we will divine Edward's One True Sexual Orientation if we keep going over and over and over the little evidence we have, is not only pointless, it's tedious.

I'm going to address some extra points.

Firstly, Kathryn Warner would no doubt complain that I'm ignoring the possibility that Edward had a sexual relationship with his niece and that he definitely hired a house for the purpose of having sex with someone who could only be a woman. I've talked about both these points here. In brief: I don't think the evidence for his incestuous affair is remotely credible enough to take as a certainty and I think Warner's "sex house" argument is so incredibly wrong that it's flat-out absurd.

Secondly, I am not condemning any and all discussion of Edward's sexuality. There have been a lot of interesting scholarship on Edward's sexuality and the narratives about his sexuality that I would love to see more of. I absolutely think it should be discussed, It's the "was he gay or straight or bi" debate, which treats sexuality either as an universal and timeless binary or ternary, that I have no patience with.

Thirdly, none of this to excuse the homophobia that has often been at play in discussions of Edward, whether it's nitpicking the evidence for his attraction to men out of existence, using his sexuality as a barometer of his morality (if he's gay, he's evil, so if he's good, he can't be gay), using his sexuality to stereotype as either a camp, effeminate fop or a martyr for his sexuality, or depicting him as a depraved gay villain. When I say we don't and can't know whether Edward was sexually attracted to men and whether he acted on this sexual attraction, I'm not saying it's impossible that he was and did but that it's impossible to prove this "beyond reasonable doubt". Edward should certainly be considered a queer figure - as W. Mark Ormrod's essay points out, there's good reason to believe he was considered a queer man in his own time, even if we can't be sure how that queerness manifested and whether he would agree with how others viewed him.

Finally, this is all from a historical perspective. I'm not talking about Christopher Marlowe's Edward II or any other fictional depictions of Edward. Writing historical fiction very often involves making up the answers to the questions that the historical record can't answer. I think it's silly to get mad at people who casually refer to Edward as gay or bi, and have no patience for people who complain about Edward being depicted as gay or a gay martyr as though it's a gross inaccuracy, especially in relation to stories that are very actively engaged in talking about modern homophobia, like Derek Jarman's adaptation of the Marlowe play.

If i was writing a story or a novel about Edward, I would likely write him as sexually attracted to men or to both men and women. That's because I find that the most interesting option. In reality, I think I'd depict him as gay, bisexual or pansexual. This not because I think that's what he "fundamentally was" but because my understandings of sexuality are derived from modern categories of sexuality and that's where I would naturally turn to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of both Edward himself and medieval sexualties.

I hope this great, long essay makes sense.

[snaggletoothedbastard]

I'm posting about autism again.

Because I've seen a couple of posts making the rounds that I've had some Feelings about but I only just managed to put them into words.

The posts are something along the lines of "neurodivergent people are making jokes about neurotypical people and Clearly this means neurodivergent people think neurotypicals aren't real". Or, to shorten it slightly: "neurodivergent people are oppressing neurotypicals by making jokes about them".

I have made a post already in which I semi-comedically argue against this idea, but I thought I might as well write an essay about it too just to make sure I'm being completely clear.

For a little bit of context, here are the kinds of jokes neurodivergent people make about neurotypicals (taken from pins in my autism board on Pinterest) (just to clarify, neurodivergence is not limited to autism and covers a whole bunch of different disabilities; the reason these jokes are mostly about autism is because I got them from my autism board. I'm sure people with other disabilities have made similar jokes.)

Obviously there are other examples but these are my favourites. Especially the last one, it's hilarious.

Why do we make these jokes?

Because they're funny

To parody the kind of mocking we get from neurotypicals by turning it back on them and showing how silly it is

To let off steam after a frustrating social interaction

Probably more reasons because I don't speak for everyone

Very rarely do I see a neurodivergent person make a joke that is specifically meant to hurt, harass or alienate a neurotypical person. However, those are all common reasons that neurotypicals make jokes about us.

You can apply the same logic to basically any marginalised group. For example, we see a lot of queer people make jokes about straight people, right? Always silly sarcastic things like "straight people have no fashion sense". Why is this a common joke? Because it's a very common stereotype that queer people, especially gay men, are fashionable and wear pretty clothes. Also, we get a fair bit of confusion from straight people about popular gay fashion. So making this joke is both a response to the confusion, and often judgement or piss-taking, and a reclamation of a stereotype that has been used in a derogatory way.

It's a very similar concept with neurodivergence. Many symptoms of disabilities, for example, autistic special interests, have been commonly seen as something bad that needs to be changed, and have only recently been reclaimed by the neurodivergent community as a good thing that brings joy. Special interests are still made fun of by people who don't understand them. We get called obsessive, annoying and childish. So if we make a joke like "I guess neurotypicals don't have interests" in response to this, it is not to make all neurotypicals feel bad, or to separate them from us, but to point out and laugh at the ridiculousness of telling us off for something that 1. we have very little control over, and 2. is not even a bad thing.

I don't know if neurotypicals are under the impression that neurodivergent people can't be sarcastic, but if that's the case it would explain rather a lot, because they seem to always take everything we say really seriously. Whereas if they say something about us that is actually hurtful and damaging, and we call them out on it, we have to listen to them call us overdramatic snowflakes and tell them that yes, we can in fact take a joke. The difference is that what they're saying is rarely actually a joke. Because they believe it. For hundreds of years, they've learned and been taught to believe that we're some kind of alien species, that we don't even count as human beings, that we either have no feelings at all or we express our feelings too much, that we need to change everything about ourselves to live up to their standards, and that we should never have existed at all. And when we retaliate, they tell us we're hurting their feelings. They say, "you know neurotypicals are still people, right?" and it's exactly the same thing that straight people do to queer people, that cis people do to trans* people, that white people do to POC, that men do to women, that any privileged group does to any marginalised group as soon as they show the slightest bit of resistance. All of a sudden you're the victims and we have to be reminded that you're People and you have Feelings and you can't take even a little bit of criticism because if you do you'll spontaneously combust. You're the ones who have been dehumanising us for as long as you've known about our existence, but sure. We could stand to be taken down a peg or two, right?

I'm reminded of James Acaster's stand-up routine in which he took the piss out of other comedians like Ricky Gervais for making transphobic jokes.

"I'm An EdGy CoMeDiAn, It'S mY jOb To ChAlLeNgE pEoPlE! Yeah because you know who's long overdue a challenge? The trans community."

I'm just going to leave that here. Feels like its fits.

[thegirlmirage]

I look up to all trans women. But finding queer heroes can be tricky to navigate because fame is inherently poisonous, and a lot of the way discourse is shaped online it's very easy to condemn people.

I myself suffered from a broad attack from a community I was in that started with me speaking out about being misgendered and mistreated, and it got turned into "well don't believe Rose because she's a bad trans person we have trans friends to prove it."

And I've ran into this issue with trying to identify with other known trans content creators. There will come places (especially with whiteness and wealth) where criticism of those privileges becomes ignored. It would be easy to say that they're resistant to criticism because of always being criticised but I think that it just comes down to not knowing and not feeling like they need to know better, which is how those privileges behave anyway.

To me, my oppression has always linked me to other oppressed people. The poor and the embattled and the weird and ostracized will always be my family more than someone with it all figured out. There is a social cost to thinking like this.

So I end up feeling quite disconnected to some trans people. Perhaps it's foolish for me to expect just because someone has overcome the brutal imperialsm that keeps us from feeling safe to be ourselves, that they would be able to see the other oppressive junctors in the world and act accordingly.

Bringing it back to condemnation, any personality online will at some point have to deal with a snap group judgement, and for marginalised people this is often constant, scaling with intersectional marginalizations. People who have survived this world may struggle to fit with a society that demands adherence to stricter social rules, especially because we are here because we survived. We are often quite badly harmed by what we've been through, and we will struggle often to fit a narrow view of what's considered expected behavior. We are human. We won't have perfect responses, we can be wrong. It's therefore easy for us to suffer more when the judgement arrives.

If I'm looking for someone trans to admire, it's not uncommon for me to hear why it's not a good choice. And there are legitimate reasons to question them, because of course, fame is evil, it's more a miracle that people come out of it balanced at all, but also there is tighter judgement on those people for their marginalization such as being trans.

So it leaves me with this feeling almost, like I can't trust my own kind. If I'm following blogs are they inclusive of other ethnicities? Do they believe in fat liberation? Would they look on an unfortunate person with compassion or indifference?

So I have to temper my feelings of admiration. I have to remind myself that realistically, placing anyone on a pedestal is dangerous. I have to deal with my disappointment that trans women are just human too, they're not just angels. They shouldn't need to be exceptional to be worthy of my praise.

But it's more complicated than that. Certainly putting even more pressure on trans women to behave better is just more of the same. I think about how rife eating disorders are among us and how even with my most femine looks I do not feel I am girl enough societally to do things like buy groceries.

And we do need uplifting too. I had been in such a gender euphoria haze that once things settled I was horrified by just the extent of my mental health when times weren't in boom. So we do need someone to see our qualities and praise them, and to love and adore them not in spite of what we are but because of who we are. But I think that person is me.

I wish of course that every trans person would rush to embrace me and we would see eye to eye and celebrate our joint survival but... not everyone wants to do that. For all the thousands of images of celebrating skinny trans women with 3 wives doing DJ sets there's so many more people who are just desperately trying to fit their gender into the world they already have. People who might not seem exceptional or have big projects to their names.

I think about how I was regarded when I didn't have HRT. I passed zero percent. I thought I was ugly and I couldn't see how I could possibly change anything about that. And I think there's a tendancy for queer spaces to sometimes even outright reject people like that, especially if they subscribe to any ideas about being anti what they perceive to be men.

It's those girls who need the princess treatment. It's they who we should be elevating and celebrating and caring for.

[marveltaughtmetoread]

Not trying to directly shade anyone but saw a post recently which was anti Taylor Swift because 1) she's overplayed and mediocre, 2) she doesn't deserve her awards because the awards ignore marginalised groups, 3) 1989 sucked and 4) releasing is giving her another chance to 4a) shame a closeted man for being 4b) a womaniser 5) there was also an underlying message towards her not being political in the right way throughout the post

And I just wanna weigh in because Taylor gets a lot of unbridled hatred for what amounts to not being everyone's cup of tea and being popular, like you don't have to like her but so you have to hate her to this extent???

So let's break it down

1) Yeah Taylor Swift is probably overplayed, but that doesn't mean she's not talented, as a fan of hers, her inescapable presence currently is a bit much for me, like no artist deserves this much attention

but she's still a good artist, you don't get to be this big by not being talented, look at all the celebrities who tried to break into music and just weren't good enough, she has to have been talented to get where she is, doesn't mean you have to like her, I hate Nicki Minaj but I also have to admit that she is massively influential and clearly talented to have that influence

2) yeah, the academies are bigoted, and they do ignore marginalised talents, especially those who are vocal about their politics, but this doesn't actually have anything to do with Taylor, like you can argue that she should be bringing attention to the issue and uplifting smaller artists but you can't blame her for the awards being rigged against the marginalised, also she still has to be talented to win the awards because there are a lot of white cishet able-bodied musicians out there, and she still beat them

I get your point and I too hate the awards being bigoted but why are you blaming and holding one artist responsible for this systematic issue, why is Taylor your punching bag for this

3) 1989 isn't my favourite album of hers but once again it not being to your taste doesn't make it a bad album, like Demi Lovato's early work isn't to my taste so I just don't listen to it

4a) who the hell are you to assume Harry Styles' sexuality, Harry is openly gender nonconforming, he openly dates women, whether or not he identifies as queer is none of our business and feeling entitled to him being queer is messed up, do you know how many celebrities have come out and talked about how harmful it was for them to have the public assume their sexuality and have the public decide that they were secretly closeted or in Kit Connor's case act like he was queer baiting the audience for his assumed straightness

You do not have the right to act like you know anyone's sexuality, get off your high horse

4b) Taylor Swift writes songs about her life, she uses her songs as a journal, all of her public relationships have been attached to songs she wrote, she herself actively tries to avoid attaching any particular ex with her songs, she used to encode their names into her songs when she was a smaller artist and a teenager but she stopped doing that as she got bigger and the public scrutiny around her heightened, 1989 specifically alludes to trying to keep her relationships out of public eyes, and being hunted by the media

the media attention on her relationships is not something she enjoys and the speculation around who she dates is something she actively tries to shut down, she's not trying to ruin any of her exes

This I think we can contrast rather clearly with other artists who have written songs attacking their exes and inspired mass public backlash against them, such as Olivia Rodrigo whose hatred was so palpable in her songs that people wrote her ex and his new partner death threats and harassed them even as Joshua Bassett was in hospital with a failing heart, and when you listen to the actions Olivia describes it's not worth it, when you contrast Olivia and Joshua's songs it reads as a teenage relationship that broke up making the death threats fucking ridiculous and disproportionate

Taylor Swift songs have never inspired that same level of backlash, despite describing what sounds like abuse or at least being taken advantage of in some of them, because she doesn't write from a place of anger, her songs tell stories, and give a more balanced view of relationships, people hate her exes for what her songs reveal about their actions but she's not inspiring mass hatred, you have to be actively listening to the lyrics and a massive fan to care about her exes, and, when she performed Dear John on the Eras tour, she prefaced it by essentially saying 'I don't need you protecting me, don't go after him', trying to prevent exactly the reaction Olivia Rodrigo's songs inspired

Back to the shame over being a womaniser, Harry has said he felt flattered by her songs and it was Taylor whose reputation was bashed for dating too much, because, in our sexist society, it is mostly the women who get vitriol aimed at them for who they date not the men, so I don't know how you could think to level this argument against her, like she was very clearly the one being shamed over her body count not Harry??

Also, Style is the only song which alludes to (the man everyone's assumes is) Harry even slightly being a womaniser because he's seeing other women but can't stop thinking about Taylor, which is followed up by Taylor saying "I've been there too a few times" which feels to me like they're both guilty of not moving on even as they are seeing other people, so how is Taylor shaming him for it????

5) Taylor not being political in the right ways is a fair criticism, a lot of people are disappointed in her lack of involvement in politics, what little involvement she does have is shown to be left wing, but it's rare, breadcrumbs scattered across albums and events

I think she's actively trying not to use her influence to be involved in politics because she wants us to be involved, to vote, but she doesn't want to have the power to influence us on her politics and I can see why this is not enough for a lot of people

I personally don't mind, I agree with her trying to not get involved in shaping her fans politics because a person of Taylor's influence getting involved in politics scares me

I don't want every celebrity under the sun giving us a political opinion because they're just not qualified for it and I think Taylor recognises that, so uses her influence sparingly but if you do want your music to be political, it's okay to dislike her for this