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kalenvs3000w23 · 2 years ago

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The Role That Privilage Plays in Nature Interpretation

I think that privilege refers to the advantages some individuals have over others, that is for the most part out of their control.This can refer to things like race and gender. Unfortunately discrimination because of race and gender does exist. I am a white woman and therefore I am fairly privileged in this sense. I have never had someone treat me in an unfair manner because of the colour of my skin. However, I do believe there is a little bit of privilege that comes with being a man over a woman. However I do think that progress is being made in this sense, and hopefully continues to be made. Privilege can also include things like financial well being. Many kids do not grow up with the same opportunities simply because their families can not afford these opportunities. I was very lucky that my parents were fairly well off when I was growing up and I got to experience a wide variety of things like going to camp, going to our cottage, going on trips in various countries and learning to do various outdoor activities like skiing and wakeboarding. These experiences have helped me grow into the person I am today and helped foster the relationship I now have with nature. Mclntosh believes that, “ privilege, dominance, and power are not earned, they merely exist by virtue of being born White, male, heterosexual, and middle class” (Mclntosh, 1989). She goes on to say that things like religion, education, geographic location etc… can also have a significant impact on the privilege that people have (Mclntosh, 1989) I believe this supports my definition of privilege where I say that it is not something that people have control over, it is something people are born with, and it seems to be purely related to the circumstances each individual was born with.

In class we discuss how everyone has an invisible backpack that essentially holds things that come with our privilege. Some people have backpacks that are much heavier than others due to varying privileges. My individual backpack contains money to pay for my education. I would never have been able to get to my job that is 30 minutes away from my house if I was not able to borrow my parents' extra vehicle on a regular basis. This is a huge privilege that not many young adults have. In my backpack I also have my Canadian passport that contains stamps from various locations I have traveled to. I have been privileged to come from a family that values travel and is financially stable enough to take me on trips when I was growing up. In my backpack I also carry my highschool diploma. I was able to get this because I come from a country where education is a high priority, and I come from a family that did not need me to work full time to support us.

I think that privilege impacts nature interpretation because an important part of being a nature interpreter is considering your audience. Various people who have had different experiences and experience different levels of privilege will likely need a different approach. For instance many people will not have the same relationship with nature as the nature interpreter has. Not all people get to build a strong relationship with nature for various reasons. My relationship with nature has been fostered through things like going to camp, going to our cottage, traveling to different countries, going to the beach. All of these things were acquired due to the privileges I have. Financial privilege allowed my parents to afford to send me to camp and afford to take me on trips to different countries. Geographic location privilege allowed me to be within walking distance from beaches and be surrounded by beautiful hiking trails. Not everyone gets to have these experiences, and therefore they may be starting at a different spot in their relationship with nature. In the textbook they discuss the importance of trying to get to know your audience a bit before beginning (Beck et al., 2018). This way you can gauge things like where they live and if they have been to that location before, as well as why they chose to have this nature interpretation experience (Beck et al., 2018). I also think it is important to approach most nature interpretation in a way that tries to account for various privileges, even if you do not directly know the privilege each audience member has. I think if this approach is used it is more likely that everyone will have a good experience and everyone will be able to take something from the nature interpretation. Perhaps those who have not yet had the chance to develop a relationship with nature will feel like they have made a big step in fostering that relationship.

References:

Beck, L., Cable, T.T., & Knudson, D.M (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage or a Better World (1st ed). Sagamore Venture.

McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, 10-12.

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neqeyam · 4 years ago

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Dilucxreader and kaeyaxreader hc’s

Let me start off by saying: THIS IS NOT KAELUC,,, I DON’T SHIP THEM AND IF YOU DO STAY FAR AWAY FROM ME.

with that out of the way, let’s get into some hc i have about everyones favorite siblings!

some of these may be a little NSFW, but for the most part they should be SFW.

Diluc is gentle with it where as Kaeya can go rough or be gentle.

Diluc is a dom, and a very good one at that.

Neither of them are straight, Diluc gives me closeted Bi vibes, Kaeya is definitely Pan & Proud(TM) (Kaeya’s reasoning is “if you catch my eye, you catch my eye”)

Diluc also gives me confused about his gender vibes, so I’m thinking that once when he was little he tried on a dress and loved it so much he wore it for like three days straight, his father was a little concerned but figured it wouldn’t hurt to let the boy have his freedom while he could. Kaeya got in on it and the maids ended up requesting tailored dresses for them.

Kaeya often wears dresses, he loves them.

This is also one of the reason they keep their hair long, that and for their s/o’s to braid n such.

speaking of braids, Diluc is a MASTER braider, but kaeya can’t so much as do a fishtail, my guy couldn’t sit still long enough for that.

Diluc’s idea of a date is taking a stroll (or carriage ride) through the hills and cliffs of mondstadt at night.

Kaeya’s is kinda similar but he’ll take you via horse back, but he has a specific destination in mind. (probably dawn winery to steal wine from diluc)

Diluc may hate the wine industry but my man learned all the secrets to the trade and make a KILLER cocktail (idk anything ab alcohol pls)

Kaeya loves giving his s/o and friends piggyback rides, idk but I feel like that’s his form of PDA lol

Diluc HATEEESSSS PDA, at most he’ll hold your hand but anything else is a no go

diluc adopts diona. no i do not take criticism, he saw how Draff treats her and stole his child right out from under his nose. with the promise to Diona that he’d cut off her father from a supply of wine the best he could. He also beats the absolute FUCK out of those creeps at the Cat’s Tail that hit on her.

same with Barbara, -you know what, fuck it, diluc adopts all the teens/kids of mondstadt- they all eat well, sleep comfortably, and are well dressed bc of Diluc. (razor doesn’t know he’s been adopted tho, diluc sorta let’s him roam. he has youngest sibling privileges)

klee doesn’t rly spend much time w him but that’s okay bc diluc knows she has Albedo and diluc, for the most part, trust albedo not to fuck up a perfectly good kid.

kaeya has to beat up that mf that stalks barbara daily, he takes great joy in it.

no matter who kaeya is dating, he is always also dating Albedo, those two come as a pair (sorta- more like kaeya drags albedo into things with the promise of knowledge and experiments)

bennett has no shame in calling diluc dad and as many times as diluc has told him “i am not your dad” bennett never stops, and diluc never goes further then simply reminding him that he is not his dad.

diluc listens to all of fischl’s stories without the need for Oz’s translations, fischl loves him and stops by Angels Share every time she comes back from her home world with more stories.

diona and klee have a table at Angel’s Share that is reserved for them at all times, especially during school so they can do schoolwork where Diluc can keep an eye on them.

Kaeya taught bennett how to wield a sword. end of discussion, he did i was there i saw it.

diluc has taken to teaching razor how to use a claymore since Varka (is that his name?) is ‘away’ (probably dead lol)

kaeya leaves little trinkets in the woods near wolvendom for razor, razor doesn’t actually know who kaeya is but he thinks he’s neat nonetheless.

diluc and jean dated during their time as cadets, then realized they were better off as friends. then jean came out as lesbian and started dating Lisa. Kaeya will not let him live it down.

KNIGHT IN TRAINING BESTIES!!!!!

jean obviously had the most potential of the three of them, she was a quick learner and set herself to impossible standards. there were some younger (mostly male) knights who HATED that she was the Gold Star cadet, and often times tried to make fun of her. cue buff late teen Ragnvindr siblings who aren’t afraid to get mean.

once diluc gets his claymore it’s all over for the people of mondstadt. my guy comes back JACKED and HOT and Donna is the only one brave enough to call it like it is. (fuck donna tho shes SO annoying lmaooo #donnakinnie)

kaeya’s favorite pass time is poking fun at diluc.

diluc still knows how to wield a sword, mainly bc kaeya forces him to spar with him once in awhile, it’s mainly for kaeya’s benefit but at least diluc stays sharp with two weapons.

kaeya tried to teach diluc how to be flirty when they were teens but it,,, didn’t work LMAO

kaeya is a fucking MASTER of hide and seek and tag. my guy is so competative for NO REASON. he refuses to lose those two games. once a lot of the people of mondstadt got together to play a game of freeze tag,, it took kaeya a little under 2 hours to tag everyone and win the game.

kaeya tries to teach klee how to stay in jeans good graces so she doesn’t have to be in that mf room all the time. kaeya also breaks her out of that room often and just lets her go ham on some trees outside the city walls.

recently, whenever klee feels the need to blow something up, she asks kaeya to walk with her to a special spot in dragonspine albedo showed her and kaeya acts as a chaperone and mediator for her ‘bomb tests’

wow theres alot more here than i though LOL,,, this is it for now ig

#diluc x reader #diluc #diluc headcanons #diluc ragnvindr #kaeya #kaeya x reader #kaeya headcanons #kaeya alberich #not kaeluc #pls for the love of god #it's midnight #i'll probably make more #this is all for now #dadluc

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soulvomit · 3 years ago

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stuff with gender anguish about not fitting in with today’s current gender constructions

From another post I made: I need to talk about 20th century gender norms at some point as a living breathing 20th century fossil and how different it was. To most straight people, being gender non conforming meant gay, trans was on the far end of the gay spectrum, and gay was associated with being socially Not Normal at a time when you had to be Normal to get a white collar job. (The whole Normalhood thing im gonna talk about is VERY connected to mid-late 20th century construction of the white middle class.) Apropos of gender specifically... I’m not sure how 90s/00s genderfluid/genderqueer map to NB, or whether they do. It’s a big reason I am weird about IDing as NB - because it seems to mean something else than my particular understanding of my identity as it was formed in the 1990s. (Another thing is my social world being more people over 45 at this point and also I’m in a hetero relationship.) Part of 90s GQ stuff was that you could identify as a man part time, a woman part time, you could contain multitudes. “Woman-identified person with a male side” was a legit identity within that, so was “man-identified person with a female side.” You could be one person in the streets and another in the sheets. You could be several people in the sheets, especially if you were aligned with kinky culture. (And for a long time... I was.) There was a greater sense in the 90s and early 00s in genderqueerness culture that you could be GQ for no other reason than wanting to be and it wasn’t assumed to be bundled with physical dysphoria or even desire to change your public social identity. Some spaces - like West Coast geek culture and goth culture - had enough flexibility baked in that we didn’t really need to go to LGBTQ culture to explore our identities, and there was a whole geek queer sensibility that was evolving alongside of the broader LGBTQ culture that was definitely its own... thing. And while people *say* that NB doesn’t mean any one particular thing or any of these things, that’s not always the message I get when visible NBs on TV/in film are almost always at present one very specific image or “type” of person, and that doesn’t resemble me. NB representation on TV amounts to presenting NB as a third gender with very specific codified behaviors (androgynous AFAB person who binds and has body dysphoria). The message I get is that whatever my experience is, is better described some other way. Also the discourse around relationships with NBs is that a relationship with an NB is necessarily a queer relationship yet having been in relationships in and out of LGBTQ culture, I’m not really sure how to distinguish “a queer relationship.” My relationship is non-traditional in lots of ways and we’re both gender non-conforming in lots of ways though it doesn’t parse to most people because it’s along the lines of stuff that shouldn’t have ever been gendered in the first place. What my partner does not ever question however is his actual gender identity. The thing is, actually publicly identifying as anything but a woman would create weird problems in my life in terms of social dynamics, and other stuff, and probably an unpredictable series of ripple effects downstream. But - that... just means I’m closeted, right? And closeted doesn’t mean your identity doesn’t exist or isn’t as unreal as someone who isn’t? And what if - as a “shapeshifter” - my relationship to myself within my relationship *is* part of that shapeshifting? One of the things is that I’m in a heterosexual relationship. My relationship *is* one of my few spots where I’m happy in my skin, let alone happy in the world and I have no complaints with how I’m perceived in this relationship, and part of it is that practically every assumption about my gender is true, or has been true at some point, including the fact that I’m fine with being seen as a woman in the context of my relationship. It’s in other spaces besides the intimate, that gender stuff makes my skin crawl. My deep interior gender identity is “pixels floating in the ether, which can assume any shape or form.” My gender identity among other people in non sexual friend spaces is “friend.” My partner identifies as a cis het man. I don’t feel like my relationship has any special quality that’s different from queer relationships I’ve been in, other than identities people have. If my partner doesn’t feel our relationship is queer then I don’t feel it is, either... though it’s not exactly *traditional.* I don’t feel like our relationship is different from our hetero neighbors’ relationships regardless of whatever history I have. I have no way of knowing what my ostensibly-female ostensibly-heterosexual neighbors’ interior identities really are, or what their history is. And because we’re monogamous, it just never ever comes up. Our social world is about half queer and half not so nothing has changed. After decades of only dating people who had LGBTQ identities, and having a particular social world, now I’m with a cis het man from that same social world and nothing really has changed about the shape of my life. I’ve moved between different spaces my entire life, sometimes I perceived myself as a boy in a girl’s body, but sometimes I didn’t, and don’t. And gender is one of the spaces in which I feel like a chameleon. There seem to be a ton of gender expression based communities that disappeared since the 90s that either disappeared or were erased from discourse and that makes this weirder/harder to talk about. Another thing is that a lot of the discourse around pronouns (if pushed I’ll say I’m she/they but I am literally comfortable in anything, depending upon context) makes me really uncomfortable. Even in LGBTQ spaces it makes me uncomfortable. There’s the me that my friends know, and some of my family knows, and it’s a big enough world to contain that part of me at this point. I would rather not put my identity under a microscope in any space that matters. It’s weird but I wish I could just be “they” in the work, creative, etc, spaces, without the loading of what “they” means. I wish it meant nothing about the people who love me, or who I love, or how I love, or how I live my life, besides what pronoun I use. But it doesn’t mean nothing. That is why I hope more cis identified people will actually identify as they in the public sphere. There are plenty of spaces in the public sphere that I don’t think should be gendered at ALL. My wanting to be a “they” is in some ways more about wanting public anonymity and having formed my sense of self - at a tender time - online, than about my gender identity. Which means I’d be potentially appropriating “they” from people for whom it IS a deep identity, and yet... haven’t I spent half of my blog talking about how I’m not exactly the gender identity I advertise?? Haven’t I spent a long time up to now advocating for “they?” Isn’t feeling like a they, evidence that I’m a they? And the thing is, this is such a YMMV issue and the problem is that EVERYONE has competing access needs with EVERYONE ELSE. Anything one queer person wants or needs seems to oppress some other queer person, and it sucks. But sometimes I wonder if I even need to just recognize how cis het passing my life is and acknowledge my privilege. The thing is though at that point... is it how much oppression we’ve experienced or are currently experiencing, that alone makes our identity? That’s as silly an idea as saying I’m less of a Jew because I haven’t personally experienced a hate crime. And yes there’s a lot to shared oppression experiences forming group identities, but I’m not talking about group identity. I’m talking about personal feelings of identity.

#My chest stopped bothering me after my reduction #like - the relief was profound and being a size where I could go toward any expression I wanted based on a change of clothes - was enough

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ibelongtowrath · 4 years ago

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I am so happy to meet another Satan lover such as I, if you dont mind i have an request where Satan and MC gets a kitten together and they raise it together, GN mc is appreciated, but ignore me if this is to weird :)))))) thanks love your work ❤❤❤💕💕💕

Thank you so much for the request! I hope you love it! I kind of focused a bit on their relationship, so I hope you don’t mind.

Adopting A Kitten With Satan - Satan x GN! Reader

Warnings: references to depression, so much fluff, do I even know how to write fluff?! Reader is gender neutral (no descriptors/pronouns), Satan refers to them as “kitten” a few times.

“You’re serious?!”

Satan laughs, loud and boisterous. He reaches a hand forward to cup your cheek before sliding a finger down the length of your face softly, a grin spreading across his handsome face as he watches your eyes widen in both surprise and disbelief.

“I’m serious,” he tells you. “We will visit the shelter tomorrow.”

You jump from where you’re perched on the bed, practically tackling the demon into a hug as you screech happily. He laughs once more, drinking in your elation, reveling in it. Strong arms wrap around you in a tight embrace, a tear falling from your eye to drip quietly on your cheek. Satan notices, softly stroking the expanse of your back with one hand, moving the other to caress a thumb across your face, catching the small drop on his skin. Lips press softly against the now slightly-wet spot, a reassuring touch, and your eyes close happily, eternally grateful.

“I didn’t think it would be possible to love another being as much as I love you,” Satan murmurs, “but this kitten is going to be a very close second.”

“Mm… what kind of kitten do you think will fall into our laps?” you ask, turning your head to look up at him, a shine in your eye.

Satan chuckles softly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before pulling you into his own lap and running his hands down the sides of your body. You press yourself against him, back to chest, the rhythmic serenity of his heartbeat kissing your skin.

“Hopefully, one that’s equally adorable as the one that’s in my lap right now,” he teases, pressing featherlight kisses into the back of your neck. “Of that, I’m sure. Though, that might be difficult to achieve...for the actual kitten, that is. Not my otherworldly beauty.”

The laughter that sounds from your beautifully soft lips fills the still quiet of Satan’s bedroom. It rings out like a wind chime in the soft, cool breeze of a summer day, the lilting notes being carried swiftly, drifting to your ears. Satan closes his eyes, reveling in it, relishing every last second until it fades, quietly praying he’ll get to hear it again soon.

“Satan…,” you say suddenly, turning your head to face him. “Thank you. I-... thank you. I’m so excited.”

I need this.

The words didn’t form, didn’t fall from your lips, but Satan knows exactly what you were going to say. He knows why you felt the need to cut them short, though he wishes you didn’t feel the need to hide your emotions.

“For once, you’ll have to thank Lucifer, not me... he finally agreed to lift the kitten ban,” Satan answers, kissing the top of your head and running his fingers through your hair, lightly scratching your scalp. “It was relatively easy...with a hard promise to not have a repeat of the last time, of course.”

“I’m surprised you managed to convince him, even so.” You tilt your head up to press a soft kiss to the underside of his chin. “I’m going to have to check your coat and every single pocket before we leave, though; otherwise I imagine I’m going to hear several suspicious meows coming from questionable places.”

The beautiful sound of your laughter rings out again. Satan squeezes you just a bit harder, burying his head into your hair. It’s a sound he wants to revel in as long as possible, wishing he could manipulate time, expand those beautiful few seconds just a bit longer. With a sharp inhale and another kiss to the top of your head, he pulls back, placing a few fingers under your chin to tilt your shining eyes towards his.

“A very tempting idea, my love,” Satan murmurs against your skin. “But having the privilege of loving and doting on two beautifully adorable and cunning kittens is far more than enough for me.”

A small smile plays on your lips as he gazes into you, lost in the beauty of love, of each other; the kind of look painters and photographers struggle to capture the sheer emotion of. It comes easy for him, for you. No, love is not always butterflies flitting nervously in your stomach, hearts pounding heavily behind chests. It is the comfort of a safe place in their embrace, the anchor holding you down when a storm surges the waters beneath your feet. A sense of overwhelming adoration and affection, knowing you are each other’s peace, serenity, home .

A few more moments pass and, reluctantly moving his eyes from yours, Satan lifts you off of his lap, placing you into the bed before climbing in next to you and wrapping an arm around you, pulling your head into his chest.

“Come now, darling,” he says, pulling the sheet over you. “Get some rest. I need that pretty little mind and those beautiful, enchanting eyes sharp for our big day tomorrow.”

“Okay,” you giggle, settling against him.

Satan’s heart beats gently through his chest and your eyelids flutter as you focus on the rhythmic lull, coaxing you to sleep. Soft kisses press into the top of your head, “I love you”-s murmured in a low, soothing voice against your skin. Your eyelids grow heavier, struggling to keep them open, barely managing to whisper a single “I love you, too” before succumbing to the sweet siren song of slumber.

He stays that way for a while, not quite willing yet to drift off. He’s content to simply hold you for a while, stroking your hair. Blue-green eyes study your peaceful features, the softest, most gentle snore sounding from your nose; he smiles softly, heart swelling with adoration, more and more with every beat.

Was it possible for a heart to burst from too much love? For once, Satan didn’t know the answer, and he didn’t care. If that was his fate, then a happy fate it would be indeed. Every day, it grows with the way you roll over in his bed, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, yawning a good morning greeting. It swells each time you smile, hearing every musical laugh, the flutter of your lashes and the way you blush when he tells you that you’re beautiful. His heart grows each and every day, beating for you, more than he ever thought was possible.

It breaks a little when you cry, face streaked in tears running down your cheeks. It shatters when he sees how helpless you feel, so fragile, so broken. How he wishes he could take the pain from you, seeing the way it bears down on you, the look in your eyes when it all becomes too much. He holds you until the teardrops dry on your face, eyes and cheeks swollen from crying, kissing each one away, until you fall asleep in his embrace, your safe place. His arms are your home, your peace, your serenity.

Amidst another struggle in your battle with an invisible enemy who wreaked its havoc on your mind, Satan’s heart breaks into a million pieces as he watches you endeavor, feeling helpless himself. And so, he ran to Lucifer, despite his own pride, pleading with him to relent on his ban. He knows it won’t instantly heal you, but damn, if he wouldn’t do everything in his power to make it known you are never alone, no matter what evil your mind speaks to you.

Unsure of exactly how much time has passed since you fell asleep, Satan feels his own eyelids grow heavy. Face buried in your hair, so soft, the weight of his lids like stones dragging them down over his eyes, murmuring one last “I love you” against the top of your head before succumbing to the sweetly dark embrace of sleep.

---------

Hearing the kittens before you can even see them, your hands clap excitedly as the shelter guide leads you and Satan into the room. Some sleep, not even stirring when your shriek of excitement echoes throughout, others playing and mewling sweetly, running up towards you and the volunteer. Some pad slowly from across the room, silently observing, hesitant.

Your eyes take them all in, an overwhelming excitement washing over you. Sinking slowly to your knees, you happily reach a hand out, scratching the nearest kitten to you gently behind the ears: orange and white stripes, sweetly meowing, purring so loudly his small body practically shakes with it. You pick him up and cradle him to your chest, looking up at Satan, eyes filled with adoration.

“I was worried about you leaving here with all the kittens hidden in your pockets,” you laugh, “but I think I should we should be more afraid of me doing that.”

There it is again, the musical chime of your laugh. Satan can’t help but to laugh with you, overcome with unbridled love as he reaches down and ruffles your hair gently. You beam a smile up at him before turning your attention back to the kittens, setting the one in your arms down next to you.

Suddenly, you feel the soft padding of a paw swat at your arm, and you laugh again, looking around to find the culprit. In your lap lays a beautiful black kitten, rich, fluffy coat shining in the light, eyes the color of peridot. Feeling your breath catch in your throat, the kitten presses himself to you, placing his paws on your face gently. The sound of his purrs fill your ears, his small body vibrating. Tears pool at the corners of your eyes as you pick him up, cradling him into your arms and pressing your face to his soft back, the soft rumble of his purring against your cheek. Turning your tear-filled eyes to shine up at Satan, you smile sheepishly up at the demon.

“Oh, Satan … can we take him home?” you plead, standing slowly, stroking the kitten’s soft fur. “Please?”

“You already know the answer to that, my darling,” Satan chuckles, scratching the little kitten behind his ears. “I’ve already signed the papers.”

Squeezing your eyes shut, tears filled with happiness and gratitude fall, trailing slowly down your cheek and onto the kitten’s fur. He opens his eyes, blinking slowly before settling back into your arms, happily purring away, as though he knows. Satan gently brushes your tears with a thumb, a loving gesture, before pulling you into his arms, kissing the top of your head. Like a little family . Smiling softly, you kiss the kitten’s head, offering him up to Satan. The demon takes the kitten into his arms, cooing at him, and your own heart swells with happiness and emotion and pure love.

“What should we name him?” you ask, wrapping your arms around Satan.

“Hmm…”

Satan debates a few moments, before smiling cheekily down at you.

"How about Luci?” he chuckles softly. “The perfect way to show our gratitude to my dear older brother, and annoy him at the same time.”

Your laugh rings out again, scooping the kitten into your arms from Satan’s embrace. The demon wraps his arms around you once more, kissing you deeply. His kiss feels like love, excitement, peace, tranquility, home .

“Come, kittens ,” Satan beckons with a wink. “Let’s get you to your forever home. There are plenty of kisses and cuddles to be had for the both of you.”

#obey me #obey me satan #satan obey me #obey me fluff #Satan shall we date #satan fluff #obey me fanfiction #obey me fandom #shall we date obey me #obey me shall we date #swd obey me #obey me!#obey me swd

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scraregenrecs · 4 years ago

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SC Tropefest Fest Rareships/Gen Roundup!

There were so many rare and gen fics in @sctropefest – 26 to be exact, or 31.91% of the total works! We've compiled them here for your reading pleasure, and also spotlighted some honorable mentions at the very end that were primarily David/Patrick, but featured rare sideplots. Happy reading!

A Whole Lot To Gain by yourbuttervoicedbeau, Ted/Alexis, Alexis & David, Patrick & Alexis (background David/Patrick), G, 1,721 words

A story about identity, gender, and coming out.

and my task’s but begun by treepyful, Twyla & her mother, T, 16,109 words

Twyla was seven years old and missing a front tooth when her father left.

A look into Twyla's stories.

Budd is a dud! Vote Sands. by samwhambam, Stevie/Twyla, T, 7,718 words

Her and Twyla are friends. Not great friends. But friends who get high together at parties and have known each other for a long time. And up until right now, she thought they were better friends than a shitty, mean campaign slogan.

The enemies to lovers fic where Stevie and Twyla are both running for the same seat on town council.

(but if baby, i'm the bottom) you're the top by doingthemost, Alexis/Twyla, E, 3,681 words

Alexis knows what people assume about them.

They see Twyla's bright café smile at work, and listen to how readily she agrees to whatever her customers want. They watch how Twyla hangs back during get-togethers, freeing up room for Alexis to take the spotlight and captivate the crowd. They notice how Alexis towers over Twyla in her heels, and how she's always one step ahead of her steady, cautious girlfriend.

But they don't know what it's like when they're together.

OR: Five times Twyla tops Alexis, and one time she lets Alexis top her.

Captive on the carousel of time by designatedgrape, Stevie/Twyla, Gwen & Twyla (background David/Patrick), T, 11,156 words

The predictability of Schitt’s Creek and the routines of the people who live here have always been a comfort to Twyla. In a life that has been full of uncertainty, she appreciates that there are things she can always count on. So when Jocelyn walks in at 3:07, it isn’t a surprise. At least, not at first.

“What can I get for you, Jocelyn?”

“Oh, I think I’m going to need an extra-large coffee to get through the rest of the day, Twyla. I’m headed right back over to the school to set up for tonight.”

Twyla nods and turns to start making Jocelyn’s coffee. “What’s tonight?”

“Graduation.”

Twyla pauses and looks back at Jocelyn. “Um, I think you might be a little confused. Graduation was last night.”

come home to my heart by davidbrewer, Ted/Alexis, G, 1,822 words

“Oh, my god — Ted?”

Her own voice echoes in her ears and she’s suddenly standing, dumbfounded, outside Cafe Tropical almost seven years ago. Watching Ted step into the bistro felt eerily similar to watching him step off that motorcycle for the first time. It’s the kind of shock that makes the sparkling restaurant tile quake under her Louboutins.

Except, this time, the feelings bubbling to her chest are now far more nuanced than she knows how to process — no amount of personal growth or number of self-care retreats with Oprah could’ve prepared her to suddenly come face-to-face with the first person she ever loved more than herself.

OR: Alexis has a blind date. It's not what she EX-pected.

Deadpool Strikes Back! How One Merc For Hire Sticks It to an Army of Goons, One Annoying Narrator, and The Worst Villain of All: Self-Doubt by doingthemost, Stevie/Ruth, T, 1,340 words

WAZZUP!?@ 🤯 If you're reading this, you're probably thinking, "What the hell? Stevie's Deadpool?!"

The answer's YES! 🤗 And she's pissed, and not just 'cause a bunch of goons hijacked her girlfriend. 🤬 No: the worst thing of all is the narrator she has to deal with all along the way. 🤡 Buckle up, buckos, it's a bumpy ride!

AND DON'T FORGET TO LISTEN TO THE PODFIC!! AND OOH, DID I MENTION THERE'S ART?!

didn’t ask for this--you freely gave it (so now i watch your mouth for both of us) by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland, Alexis/Twyla, T, 6,371 words

Alexis chops her name down to three letters like it's nothing.

Twyla thinks about it a lot.

everyday the hold is getting tighter (and it troubles me so) by budd, Stevie/Ruth, M, 1,228 words

Stevie and Ruth end up sharing the last bed at the newest addition to Rosebud Motel Group.

Gonna Watch You Shine by yourbuttervoicedbeau, Johnny & Stevie, G, 1,127 words

Found Family Feelings: The Johnny & Stevie edition.

heaven is a place not too far away by doingthemost, Alexis/Twyla, Ted/Alexis (Previous), Alexis/Mutt (Previous), Alexis & David, Alexis & Moira (background David/Patrick), T, 8,267 words

"Oh, but soulmate marks are real." Her mother's expression softens. "Always one-sided, unfortunately. So difficult to know when you've truly met your soulmate without a matching indicator on the part of the other person, or other persons, if you're following." Her mother winks, and Alexis makes a face. "Your father was the exact same way. The poor little lamb couldn't carry a tune until he met me!"

"So you and Dad..." Alexis' head is spinning. "You guys are, like, actual soulmates."

"Very much so." Her mother appraises her carefully. "And you must have met yours, too."

"Yeah." Alexis blinks, stunned to find that she's short of breath. "I guess so."

OR: Alexis' soulmate mark – the ability to sing – triggers when she moves to Schitt's Creek.

i always felt i must look better in the rear view by davidbrewer, Alexis & David, Alexis/Twyla, David/Patrick, Alexis & David & Johnny & Moira, T, 13,152 words

“I have everything I need right here,” Twyla says, and something very fond stirs in Alexis’s chest. “I don’t need to wish for anything else. But you… You have big dreams, Alexis, and… If anyone deserves to have their wishes come true, it’s you. I want you to have it.”

OR: When her family's past stands in the way of a career opportunity, Alexis makes a wish that completely upends their lives all over again... but is it really what she wants?

If Hell Had a Creek by High-Seas-Swan, sonlali, sunlightsymphony, Gen, T, 9,139 words

After losing everything, the Roses are forced to move to their only remaining asset, the town of Schitt's Creek. Also, the town is on the Hellmouth, and Alexis is the Slayer.

If You Could See The Other Side Of Me by yourbuttervoicedbeau, Stevie/Alexis, Stevie & David (background David/Patrick) T, 3,473 words

Stevie has a teeny, tiny little celebrity crush.

It doesn't mean anything.

In The Running by floosilver8, Stevie/Twyla, M, 3,587 words

Stevie and Twyla run against each other for Town Council.

No Dress Rehearsals by kindofspecificstore, Patrick & Ted, Patrick/Rachel, Miguel/Ted, Patrick/David, G, 3,770 words

Life Happens to Ted and Patrick, and music is one of the things that helps them through it. Discovering a mutual love for the Tragically Hip forges a kind of friendship neither of them had before.

Or, just two boys talking about their feelings in a Tim Horton's parking lot.

putting roots in my dreamland by lilythesilly, Alexis/Twyla, G, 4,078 words

“Are roses your favorite flower?” Twyla asks, setting it down.

“Mm, no, but they’re kind of my brand?” she says, picking it up to snap a picture on her phone. “And as cute as it would be to have a peony in my logo, my company isn’t named ‘Alexis Peony Communications.”

“So, Alexis...Rose?” Twyla puts together, the name sounding vaguely familiar. Alexis nods, taking a photo at a different angle. “Well, I’m Twyla. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Twyla,” Alexis says slowly. Twyla loves the sound of her name in Alexis’s voice. “Nice to meet you.”

a twylexis flowershop au

Rollin’ With the Homies by doingthemost, Alexis/Twyla, Stevie/Ruth, Ted/Miguel (background David/Patrick), T, 9,917 words

So I know it seems like I live in this, like, super privileged world. Or maybe, like, a rip-off of The O.C. – or even worse, Laguna Beach, ugh! But I swear, I have a totally normal life!

Alexis Rose is just your totally average 16 year old with two annoying older siblings, David and Stevie, and a totally normal crush on her best friend, Twyla Sands. It's completely chill. She isn't, like, totally buggin'.

AKA: the Clueless AU.

Taste of a Poison Paradise by lilythesilly, Alexis/Twyla, M, 15,107 words

“Where have you been?” Stevie yells, kicking someone in the face and sending them over the railing.

“Stealing fireworks,” Rachel grunts, grabbing a stray piece of pipe off of the floor and bringing another one of them to their knees before delivering a swift roundhouse kick to their face.

“Oooh, these are fireworks?” Alexis grins with a small shimmy. “Love that for us.”

Green vines encircle the railings and Twyla jumps over it a second later. “I got the cane plus some other stuff,” she says, tossing it and another bag to Alexis and wrapping one of the ones around a guy trying to climb the railing to get up to them, dropping him onto the floor. “Let’s go.”

Be gay, do crimes but make it a Harley Quinn AU

The Blouse Barn Divorce Ranch by Amanita_Fierce, dairaliz, danieljradcliffe, DelilahMcMuffin, doingthemost, fairmanor, fishyspots, foxtails, GodOfLaundryBaskets, hagface, High-Seas-Swan (FangLang), hullomoon, Januarium, KiwianaPods (kiwiana), middyblue (daisyblaine), nontoxic, RhetoricalQuestions, roguebaby, schittposting, ships_to_sail, singsongsung, SparklesMagicLightLove, sunlightsymphony, thetomkatwholived, yourbuttervoicedbeau (kiwiana), Alexis/Twyla, Jake/Rachel, Ted/Miguel, Stevie/Ruth, David/Patrick, M, 26,226 words

Hello, I am Wendy Kurtz, proprietor of the Blouse Barn Divorce Ranch, the world’s premier spot for couples looking to get a speedy divorce and connect with other soon-to-be divorcees.

I’d like to highlight the stories of five couples, who rearranged into five other couples, from some past summer. These ten people came to the Blouse Barn Divorce Ranch with the intention of ending a marriage, and got that and so much more.

I could recount their journeys with 100% accuracy, but where’s the fun in that? Let’s let them tell us themselves.

OR: One crazy summer in Las Vegas brings the heat and then some.

The Devil’s Work is Never Done by doingthemost and schittposting, Alexis or Stevie or Twyla/Reader, Gen, 68 words

If you were faced with temptation, what would you do?

The Guestbook of David and Patrick Rose-Brewer, by sonlali, Gen, T, 900 words

“A home isn't always the house we live in. It's also the people we choose to surround ourselves with.” — The House in the Cerulean Sea

A look through the entries in David and Patrick's wedding guestbook

Through Someone Else’s Eyes by yourbuttervoicedbeau, Alexis & David, T, 1,351 words

It's all Mr Hockley's fault.

The tea was supposed to get him high, not make him wake up in his sister's body.

To the end of the reckoning by dinnfameron, Patrick & Ronnie, T, 1,308 words

He should get David a coffee. He could deliver it to the motel, see how he’s doing. His arm is raised halfway to flag Twyla down when he catches himself. David doesn’t want to see him right now. He may never want to see Patrick ever again. The thought makes him sick.

“Brewer.” Patrick turns at the sound of his name. There aren’t many people in this town who call him that, and sure enough, there’s Ronnie Lee at a table near the front. He’d missed her, somehow.

“You look like shit,” she says.

[art] you know what they say: better late than never by budd, Alexis/Twyla, G, 274 words

While unpacking her boxes to move into Alexis' apartment in New York City, Twyla finds a stash of her old business cards from when she wrote a column for young members of the LGBTQIA+ community in The Advocate.

You’d be the love of my life by doingthemost and sonlali, Alexis/Twyla, M, 6,650 words

Alexis needs a date to a last-minute Interflix party on Valentine's Day so she can make Zac Efron jealous. Naturally, she asks her best friend and crush, Twyla, to pretend to be her girlfriend for the event. What could possibly go wrong?

BONUS CONTENT:

We wanted to also highlight some fics that are David/Patrick centric, but also include a rarepair side plot! These could be a great place to start for those who haven’t dipped their toe into rarepairs yet, but are intrigued by the idea.

I Waited My Whole Life by agoodperson, David/Patrick and Stevie/Twyla, T, 23,402 words

David is just going to have to come up with something, because there is just no way that he can let Patrick Brewer catch him going to another of the town's many weddings on his own.

Wheel of Fortune: New York Edition! by middyblue, David/Patrick and Alexis/Twyla, T, 10,521 words

Patrick spends his evenings with his new roommate Stevie watching NY1's Wheel of Fortune spin-off hosted by Johnny and David Rose, until one day he accidentally bumps into David Rose himself on the train and starts to fill in some of the blank spaces in his life.

You Happened by lilythesilly, David/Patrick and Stevie/Twyla, T, 54,271 words

David Rose is many things: talented, creative, fashion-forward, well read—the list can go on, but at the very top of that list is Extremely Rich. So he doesn’t understand why his father is making him work at Rose Video—or why Patrick Brewer, a boy he's had virtually no interaction with since they were twelve, is suddenly always around.

An enemies-to-coworkers-to-friends-to-lovers high school au.

You Look Like a Movie, You Sound Like a Song by fishyspots, E, David/Patrick and Stevie/Twyla, 18,683 words

David has often wished, at first seriously and then more cynically as he grew older, that his life was a rom com. It takes longer than he'd like, frankly, but the universe calls his bluff.

You’re the star at the top of my tree by schittposting, T, David/Patrick and Alexis/Twyla, 10,392 words

Patrick Brewer comes to Schitt's Creek with a goal: drive Rose Apothecary out of business so Christmas World can take over its space. He's not counting on falling for its owner.

Happy reading friends! x

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hphmmatthewluther · 3 years ago

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Pokémon AU, Part 1: Matthew Ventures Forth

(Note: Sorry I haven’t been posting much recently, trying to get my head round being back at school. Will try to post more often again!)

The door of the Sparrow Town Laboratory creaked open, letting in the bright sunlight and a rather tall shadow. It was a beautiful summer’s day, and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky (unless you counted the wings of a Swablu, that is). Some of the other Pokémon craned their necks to see the stranger walk in. Professor Lillian Miller noticed that their attention had been caught by something, and, pushing back her flowing, black hair, stood up to see what it was. In front of her stood a teenager with long brown hair. He was taller than her, but the way he was hunched over meant they were around the same height. But it was when Lillian took a closer look at this boy that she began to worry. For she recognised the energy...no, aura, that this boy gave off all too well.

“Um, hello,” the boy began, “Sorry, I-”

But before he could say anything else, Lillian had sprinted away out a back door, leaving the Cutieflies she had been taking notes on looking rather confused. Matthew Luther felt his stomach curl in on itself. It turned out there were worse things to do than say no. He was wondering if they had a policy on age limits. After all, it had been five years (and a few months) since he was meant to get a Pokémon on his tenth birthday. But he hadn’t. And so he had remained in school here in Sparrow Town, feeling utterly isolated. Everyone got their Pokémon when they were ten. Everyone except him, that is. But, somehow, he had worked up the courage to walk across town in the blazing heat to the Pokémon Laboratory to try and ask about the whole thing. He was already starting to regret his decision, but seeing Professor Lillian, the “nice one” of the two Professors who worked here, run away from him, he saw no hope for himself.

Before Matthew could continue down the train of thought he had gone down several times, however, one of the Cutieflies had flown up towards him, fluttering in midair in front of him. It chirped, before spinning around him. Then, another one flew up to him too. “Uhmm...hi...uh...” Matthew stammered as more and more Cutieflies swarmed around his head. Matthew had almost forgotten why he’d come here when he heard a door slam and footsteps march down the stairs. “GET OUT OF IT, YOU YELLOW CRETINS!” the voice yelled, sending them back into their designated area. Matthew gulped, for before him was Professor Atticus Miller. The “grumpy one” was much shorter than Matthew had been expecting, but was scowling at a clipboard in his hands with a face the boy had seen many times in documentaries. He had black hair like his wife, Professor Lillian, but what Matthew really noticed were his eyes. They seemed awfully familiar for some reason.

“Right, ahem.” Professor Atticus cleared his throat, flipping through the papers on his clipboard before stopping on a page with a script on it. “Welcome to the Sparrow Town Pokémon Laboratory. I am Professor Atticus Miller, and it is my privilege to answer any and all questions you have about the wonderful world of Pokémon. How can I help you today?” Matthew took a deep breath. “Okay...um, first of all, huge honour to meet you, your work on Elemental Energies is...groundbreaking...And, um, I was...well, I was wondering if it was...too late for me. To um, to get a Pokémon.” Atticus blinked. This boy, whoever he was, clearly had not got a Pokémon when he was 10. But why on earth did he think he couldn’t get one later? He had seen his wife run out of the room claiming she “wasn’t dealing with that”, but was this what she was so worried about? But as he took a closer look, at his eyes which were strangely similar to his own, he understood. Sort of. It was still quite an overreaction in his opinion, especially for Lillian.

Atticus noticed that Matthew was getting nervous again, and cleared his throat. “W-well, of course not! ” Atticus exclaimed, “You can get a Pokémon at any age after 10, my boy.” But he stopped short of asking him if he would like one. If his theory was correct, he didn’t want to force things a certain way. More to the point, his guest was looking at the Pokémon in the lab and fidgeting with his hands, as if keeping himself from petting them. He had formed a hypothesis that he wanted to test... “O-oh...okay, brilliant!” Matthew said. “S-so, um...if that’s the case then...” he looked up from the ground at Atticus, as if waiting for him to interrupt his constant stammering. But he didn’t. “Is it possible for me to...um...well...you know...get one?” Atticus smiled. He was fairly certain what the boy had been through, after all, he too had got his first Pokémon later than most. “Absolutely. Follow me.”

Atticus led Matthew upstairs into his office. The boy with brown hair couldn’t believe it. He was getting a Pokémon! And the so-called “grumpy one” didn’t seem that bad after all! Nothing could keep him down! At least that was what he thought, for as he entered the office he found a huge ghostly figure looming over him, covering him in darkness. “Leave off, Dusky.” Atticus said nonchalantly, “he’s a friend.” The Dusknoir nodded, gave a small bow, and returned to stacking books. Atticus sat down behind a dark oak desk with various Ivory carvings of Legendary Pokémon as well as maps and books made before Matthew was born. “Sit down, please,” Atticus said, gesturing to a chair made of the same dark oak. “Now, before we get the Pokémon out, I need to ask you a couple of questions. Just a standard procedure, you know?” When Matthew nodded, Atticus pulled out a drawer on his desk. Inside were some sheets and a purple Pokéball with an M on it. Atticus looked up at Matthew and loosened the restraint on the Pokéball, and pulled out the questionnaire, before leaving the drawer ever-so-slightly open.

“Right, away we go: Please state your current gender or genders.” Atticus said. “Male.” Matthew replied. “And your full name?” Atticus asked. “Matthew David Luther.” “Birthday and age?” “Um, the 16th of February, and 15.” Atticus quickly did some mental maths. “You were born...during the Raven Festival, yes?” Matthew nodded. Atticus tried desperately not to look at the ancient script on his desk: “He who was born when the moon shone blue...” “Have you had any previous experience with Pokémon? Any at all?” “Um, my Dad works with a Gurrdurr which I see sometimes, and my mother has a Liepard when I see her. Oh, and there’s the Meowth at the Sparrow Town School.” Atticus nodded. “Have you had any negative experiences with any starter Pokémon which means you would rather not be in front of one?”

Matthew shook his head. Atticus looked up at him. “Have you had any negative experiences involving any Pokémon?” Atticus could see Matthew biting the inside of his teeth. “Um...y-yeah, uh...” “You don’t need to go into detail if you don’t want to, but anything you want to avoid, just let me know.” Matthew sighed heavily. “I, uh...I’d just...prefer nothing...Psychic.” Atticus nodded “A soul kept down by the tampering of the mind”. The words on the script practically glowed at him. “Of course.” Atticus said. “This isn’t a problem at all. I would tell you to be sure not to be...ah, against Psychic-type users, but I’m sure I won’t need to worry about that with you. You seem wise enough to see the stupidity in that.” “Well, yeah of course,” Matthew said, “I mean, just because...a move can be used a certain way...doesn’t mean every Pokémon with that move will use it like that.”

Atticus looked up at him and smiled. Genuinely. “Well said. You’ll make a brilliant Pokémon Trainer.” Matthew’s eyes widened, and his smile grew too. “Y-You mean..” “I do,” said Atticus. “If you go back downstairs I’ll be back with the Starter Pokémon.” “O-oh, alright, thank you, yes!” Matthew said, getting up and side-stepping past the Dusknoir again, leaving the office. Atticus sighed, and pulled the drawer open again. “Thank you, old friend,” he said, holding up the Pokéball. “I sense things are in motion once again.” He clicked the ball shut and put it back in the drawer, before heading out into the back of the laboratory. He wasn’t sure where Lillian had ran off to, but he was confident she would be alright. He knew what sort of Pokémon was protecting her. Atticus returned to the task at hand, and, looking around the laboratory, readied 3 Pokéballs.

Matthew was staring at a Slowpoke when Professor Atticus returned, a tray of 3 Pokéballs in his hands. He placed them on the table in front of him and stood to the side. “Right, now, here’s what I have for you, Mr Luther:” Atticus declared, as all three Pokéballs opened at once. Now on the table was a black-and-red Pokémon with whiskers, a blue and white one which was holding a yellow seashell, and what looked like a sphere of feathers with two green leaves on its front like a bow tie. “So, what’ll it be? The Fire Cat Pokémon Litten, the Sea Otter Pokémon Oshawott, or the Grass Quill Pokémon Rowlet?” Matthew stepped forward and looked at each of the Pokémon. The Litten wasn’t even looking at him, and was more focused on licking its paw. The Oshawott was waving its shell around wildly, making “swash” noises as it did so. And then there was the Rowlet. It turned its face vertically, studying Matthew, before spinning on the spot and cooing gently. Matthew smiled. Rowlet smiled back.

“Alright, I’ve decided.” Matthew said, “I’d like to choose this Rowlet, if that’s okay.” Atticus beamed at him. “Very well. Here’s your Pokédex and a set of Pokéballs too.” The Professor grabbed a device and a bag full of spheres and handed them over to Matthew. Rowlet, clearly having understood the decision, grabbed its own Pokéball by the talons and fluttered towards Matthew. “O-oh, um...you can stay out of your Ball if you want, I-I don’t mind.” Matthew reassured the creature. Rowlet hooted happily in response to this, dropping its own Pokéball into Matthew’s bag. “So then, Matthew, I leave Rowlet in your care.” Atticus said, offering another rare smile, “Good luck, and thank you for looking after them!” “Th-thank you! It’s been amazing meeting you!” Matthew called, as he left the laboratory with Rowlet. Atticus sighed, before collecting the two other Pokémon into their Pokéballs. But something stopped him for a moment. A chill down his spine. Atticus ignored it, and was about to take the Balls away when he heard a voice from inside his head.

Wait, it said, another is coming. Do not return them yet. Atticus scowled. “And how do you know?” I have foreseen it. Someone is coming. Your wife knows them. “Lillian’s involved?” She knows all too well that she cannot escape fate. The boy, Matthew, will send the second trainer here. Atticus sighed, rubbing his temples. “Fine. Whatever. Like I care.” Atticus, I can literally see your thoughts. “FINE!” Atticus stormed out of the laboratory and into his office. He stared at the carved figures of the Legendary Pokémon on his desk, hoping for a clue. He got it when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something through the window. In the far distance, darkening the clear blue sky, a conglomeration of clouds.

A storm was brewing. (Lillian Miller was created by the wonderful @camillejeaneshphm !)

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #pokemon au #matthew luther #atticus doherty #lillian miller

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bellafarallones2 · 3 years ago

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a/n: t-rated indruck fluff from #21 on Veronica Bunch's college au prompt list: I get stuck with a late class that doesn’t end until 9pm and I’m always anxious about walking across the campus to the dorms, so you offer to walk with me and one night, I find out that it’s in the exact opposite direction that you need to go in

Duck had signed up for Performance Studies because he needed arts credits and because the meeting time, seven to nine in the evening Tuesdays and Thursdays, worked well with the rest of his schedule. He was less happy when the professor emailed out the homework for the first day: a reading that examined the question “what is performance?” for thirteen dense pages without managing to come to a conclusion.

By the time he showed up to the first class, he barely remembered any of the points the reading had made. Most of the other students already seemed to know each other, and were talking in groups when he arrived. Only one man, a tall guy with silver hair whose black roots suggested he’d spent an evening bent over a sink for it, was sitting alone and silent.

“Anyone sitting here?” said Duck.

“You?” said the guy hopefully. He was wearing jeans and a soft beige cardigan over his white shirt, and there was a small rainbow-flag patch on his black backpack.

“I’m Duck,” Duck said. “And my pronouns are he/him.” He still occasionally got read as a butch lesbian, and it was better to establish the pronoun thing right out of the gate.

“Indrid. I also use he/him.”

That was all they said before the professor showed up and class began. The professor genuinely cared about the material, which made the whole thing more interesting, though Duck was still distracted. Indrid had very nice hands, nails painted chipped black, and he doodled the entire class, filling a whole page with spiky fractals.

Finally nine o’clock arrived. The sky outside was pitch-black. “I’m not really looking forward to walking home this late,” Duck said as he stood waiting for Indrid to finish packing up. “Wish I had your punk privilege.”

“Excuse me?” Indrid looked amused.

“You know. You’re tall and you have piercings.” As Duck said that, Indrid stood up, revealing that he was even taller than Duck had previously thought. Jesus, this guy had Slenderman legs. “You look like you could throw a punch.”

“I could use my punk privilege to walk you home, if you’d like.”

“I’d appreciate it, if it’s not too out of your way - I live on High Street next to the REI.”

“Yeah, I’m going that way.”

Duck held the door as they left the building and walked together down the half-lit street. The planes of Indrid’s face looked almost unearthly in the streetlights.

“You an art major?” Duck asked.

“Visual arts and math. I needed to take something in theater or music as a distribution requirement and this was the least theater or music class I could find that was also after noon.”

Duck laughed. “Yeah, I’m in the forestry program and I had to take something artsy.”

Indrid nodded. They walked in silence for a while, but Indrid didn’t seem to mind, his hands shoved into his pockets and his face turned up.

“This is me,” Duck said when they reached the REI. The door to the apartments above was almost unnoticeable next to the brightly-lit storefront.

“Alright,” Indrid said as Duck fiddled with his key. “See you on Thursday!”

“Goodnight!” said Duck when the door swung open, looking around. As soon as Indrid saw that Duck was inside, he turned and walked back the way they’d come. Duck wondered vaguely where he lived; this block didn’t have many students. Ah, well. A question for another day.

On Thursday before class Duck stopped at the snack bar for dinner and spotted a familiar head of silver hair. Indrid was drawing, his head tilted at an odd angle so he could both look at the page and drink from the straw on a sixteen-ounce cherry slushy.

“Mind if I join you?” said Duck.

Indrid looked up and his face lit up. “Of course! I don’t mind, I mean. Please sit.”

Duck realized then that what he’d assumed was art was in fact math, that Indrid was taking notes out of a slim, intimidating textbook. Duck recognized a couple of integral signs and that was about it. “Math, huh?”

Indrid nodded.

“I had to take Calc 2 for my major, I wish I’d known you then so you could have helped me with it.”

Indrid laughed, tapping his pencil. “I’d have been happy to. Certainly numbers make more sense than people do, sometimes.”

“Probably more sense than that performance reading.” Duck leaned forward. “I don’t suppose you’d be down to walk me home again?”

Indrid shrugged. “You’re good company.”

Duck met Indrid again at the local park that weekend. Their homework for the week was to record themselves performing in a way they did in their daily lives, and Duck didn’t feel like getting into gender, so he’d decided to show how he performed when giving a nature talk, and he’d asked Indrid to help film. (He’d offered to help film Indrid’s performance in return, but Indrid had politely declined, joking about performance anxiety.)

It was less awkward than Duck had been expecting. He walked around the park, pointing out the fungus on a tree trunk and a frog sitting with just its eyes over the surface of the water. Indrid, filming on Duck’s phone, smiled encouragingly whenever he met Duck’s eyes, and it was all Duck could do not to break his train of thought to grin back.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said when he was done.

“Thank you for the free nature walk!” said Indrid as he handed Duck’s phone back to him. Their hands brushed against Duck’s smooth phone case. “I come here to draw sometimes, but I’ve never noticed all that before.”

They watched everyone’s videos in class that week. Most of them were pretty boring. Duck cringed through the playing of his own video, though Indrid had done a good job with the camerawork, and a few of the music majors in the class had recorded themselves playing their instruments, which was at least nice to listen to. And then it was Indrid’s turn.

The video opened on a close-up shot of Indrid’s face. I am an artist, the voiceover said, Indrid’s own voice booming across the classroom. Sometimes I even look like it.

The Indrid on the screen bent his head - he was looking not at the camera but at a mirror behind it, putting on heavy eyeliner and spotty mascara. He switched out the subtle studs along the shell of his ear for something heavier, flashier, chain running between the holes. Then he stepped back from the camera and shrugged on a black leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders. A punk jacket. He posed, self-conscious, and as he started laughing the camera cut sharply to his face, again large.

I had an internship last summer with an insurance company calculating risk. He rubbed the makeup off his face with a makeup wipe, his eyes reddening slightly at the contact. He removed the jacket and folded it carefully before placing it out of frame. And then he picked up a pale blue button-down and buttoned it carefully down over his undershirt, and tied a tie in a perfect Windsor around his neck. He removed the bar from his eyebrow and the chains from his ears, which looked rather naked without them.

I perform to look like the things I know I can do. He dabbed concealer over the rosy maple moth tattooed at his neck, one wingtip peeking over the collar of the shirt. Then he held his hand out for a handshake, a business handshake, and sure, he looked like the kind of person Duck would trust to sell insurance. But there was something about his smile, something Duck wondered if anyone else could see. Something that lingered no matter what he wore.

Duck probably should spend less time thinking about his mouth.

“So my lease ends in January,” said Duck casually as they turned the corner onto his street. “And I’ve been having trouble finding other places that rent to students in this neighborhood, so I was wondering how you found your place.”

“Oh,” said Indrid, sounding guilty. “Well, I don’t know how much help I can be. I live up by the corner of 16th street and Broad.”

Duck did some quick mental geography as he climbed the step up to the front door. “That’s completely the other direction!”

“I know.” He was dressed like neither an insurance salesman nor a metal punk, today, with gold studs glittering in his ears like grains of sand and a soft, oversized sweater falling off one shoulder. The black roots of his hair had grown since the beginning of the term.

“You told me the first day of class that walking home wouldn’t be going out of your way! You know I don’t need walking home, right?”

“Of course. I just. Uh. I wanted to spend more time with you. I’m sorry for misleading you, we can stop if it makes you feel weird.”

Duck looked down at him. Indrid stood silently, awaiting judgment. “How about you come in?”

Indrid looked up. “I don’t mean to impose, it’s no trouble to walk home -”

Duck held out his hand. Indrid took it and followed him up the stairs without letting go. “You aren’t allergic to cats, are you?” Duck said when he finally had to take his hand back to unlock the door.

“Even if I was, I’d happily resign myself to sneezing.”

Duck opened the door and, as soon as Indrid was inside, crowded him up against it. Indrid slowly lifted his hands, trembling, and rested them on Duck’s shoulders. His gaze beneath his glasses flicked from Duck’s eyes to his lips and back again.

“Can I kiss you?” Duck said.

“Yes please.”

Indrid’s mouth was warm and soft and yielded so easily to Duck’s tongue, fuck, they should have done this sooner. Class would have been so much more bearable if he could have been looking over at Indrid’s lips the whole time knowing that as soon as class was over he could drag him out into the hallway, into one of the gender-neutral bathrooms in the arts building and kiss him silly.

“You don’t have any morning classes tomorrow, do you?” Duck asked when he finally pulled away enough to speak.

Indrid shook his head.

“Want to watch a movie and make out?”

“That sounds perfect.”

#indruck

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piracytheorist · 4 years ago

Text

I watched and react to Lindsay Ellis' 100 minute long "apology" video so you don't have to

First of all, the word apology is in quotes because she herself on that video mocks the whole concept of an apology video, which is fair cause truly that whole concept is fucked up, but I didn't want to call it excusing either because that's not what she does either... for some parts. Long post ahead.

So into the video, homegirl starts by saying she was recently in a restaurant. Recently. Restaurant. I'm not gonna make a deep research to find out where she lives, she mentions she's from Tennessee but idk if that's where she lives now, so unless she's somewhere in like Australia or New Zealand or any other place with significantly low numbers of covid cases... what is she doing, not only going into a restaurant during a fucking pandemic, but also telling it to her entire 1 million subscribers specifically and the whole world in general? I think it shouldn't be said it's irresponsible as it is, it's also a bit insensitive considering so many of us don't get to have that kind of luxury as it is now, either as customers that don't get to enjoy an evening/night out or as restaurant owners that watch their businesses collapse. Small thing to complain, but still.

That said, personal note, because I know some of my followers live down there in Australia or New Zealand; I'm happy for you, but I'm also jealous, and in a weird way right now being in a country with few covid cases is kind of a privilege. So enjoy that for yourselves.

Ok, second, introducing the concept of cancel culture, she goes on to talk about some cases where two white people made some well-intended but overall insensitive jokes and she talked about how their behaviour was, particularly, white privilege. Ignoring the fact that she's showing her own privilege by saying that she went at a restaurant during a pandemic, she says it all in the whole meaning of how cancel culture focuses on targeting, bullying and verbally lynching a person who acted on their privilege instead of looking out to tell them "Yo what you did was shitty but look out to do better" and how that either originates or is strengthened by nazis who pretend to be cool progressive lesbians of colour on twitter (that latter part is my own description, but similar to what Lindsay said). And the whole point about cancel culture is valid - she the use of the ol' "Listen to voices of POC" and that it is not valid because behind those "Queer progressive POC" accounts hide nazis... but she ignores the fact that another way to see that is "Are you white? Have you considered shutting the fuck up?"

And I say that as a white woman myself. I am very well aware that there are topics I cannot touch upon. Like, I have my thoughts, ok? About all races, religions (at least the major ones), sexualities, gender expressions. I can't help the thoughts... but I try my best to control my actions. There are times that I think something and I go like "Wow, can you realize how much the internet would drag you if you said that on a post?" so I shut the fuck up because a) I recognize my privilege and b) I'm mostly uneducated on most things I may have problematic thoughts on. Lindsay... idk exactly how educated she is, I know she has degrees, but in this case that doesn't seem to matter because she doesn't seem to have the concept of Shutting the Fuck Up White Person. That's what the "Listen to voices of POC" started for. Because historically POC have been the ones to be silenced and ignored by white people. So it doesn't matter if you're a woman, if you're bisexual, if you're educated, whatever whatever. If it's not your area, learn to shut the fuck up. And it's there that the problem begins, that Lindsay doesn't seem to get that idea.

Later on she says that a person on twitter compiled a thread of Lindsay's "sins" aka screenshots of problematic (or not) tweets, and though she (tbh rightfully so) considers making that compilation weird and creepy, she goes on to address every tweet on that thread.

I'm not gonna go down all of them cause from my judgement, some were legitimately very far-fetched to make her look problematic. And look, I don't think she's problematic. It's just that she has a lot to say and sometimes it feels like she has a need to say it all.

At the beginning, she mentions that twitter is garbage. Which, agreed, I've hateposted about that hellsite tons of times. But she's been knew it was. She had people bully her about her tweets before, and she kept at it, white person speaking, and like at some point you're like... is it fucking worth it? You know twitter is garbage. Is the clout you'll make on it worth it? You know people will judge you. You know they will take your sayings out of context. You know there are people obsessively following your page just to spot the tiniest piece of stuff you didn't think three hours on before posting so that they can crucify you over it. You been knew, we been knew. So I'm asking again, is it fucking worth it?

She even said it wasn't the first time she was cancelled, it's just that this last time has been the biggest one (... yet). So... why are people fucking obsessed with that fucking site? I'm a former bully victim, I detest and oppose bullying of any kind, but after a point, when you see a minefield, you gotta know that if you go skipping around without a second thought... ya gonna get hit. I may understand some people staying on twitter out of spite and/or in the hopes of "fixing" it... but again that's kinda hopeless and we all know that. There’s a saying in Greek that translates to “No matter how sugar you pour on it, shit won’t turn into lokum.” And that’s exactly what twitter is. Shit that people try to make functioning. It won’t.

I know the Shut The Fuck Up may be a bit excessive but... we all have opinions, yeah? It's a bit frustrating too considering she makes long videos that clearly have a lot of thought put into them, and then she goes on twitter and posts whatever the fuck comes up in her mind like... you should know better. In a way, Shutting The Fuck Up is also a way to avoid being seen as a bigot when you're not. Let oppressed groups do the talking for you, 'kay?

On another "receipt" she admits she was wrong, quote: "It was insensitive and careless. I definitely should not have said that." At the same time she says that she was influenced by her environment, and she also doesn't actually apologize. In a way she's sincere because a good sociopath would have searched and found that a good apology includes the words "I'm sorry" or some variation, and not trying to explain yourself by the circumstances surrounding you. So, it's sincere, but it feels a bit void. No-one cares what brought you to do this, we only care to see if you’ve changed from that.

I'm also putting the word receipt in quotes because I just think the whole concept of "receipts" is fucking weird, and as I said, some of them are completely pointless and taken out of context to make Lindsay look like the next Hitler. But I don't have another word for it so I'll go with that.

The next "receipt" is about her tweeting about the film The Prince of Egypt and mentioning the scene of killing the Egyptian first-borns, and being accused for anti-semitism because of it. First of all, your problem there ain't the film, it's the Bible, a work that was created by people who thought that a woman is a man's property, and then later on translated and modified by people with similar or worse problematic ideologies. The Prince of Egypt is a film that is inspired by the book of Exodus but at the same time... it doesn't fully excuse the plagues. They're portrayed as a necessarily evil, but whether that bothers you or not depends on whatever your relationship is to God and the fact that he allows covid to be a thing right now. But on the video, Lindsay talks about the portrayal of the plagues and how they're excused so that the Jewish people can be free.

But... it feels a bit... maybe she hasn't watched the full film in some time, and considering she doesn't really like it, I understand why she's making the mistakes on thinking it does. Yes, the film shows the plagues as a necessary evil. But the whole song The Plagues is about Moses being torn in two about the whole thing. "And even now I wish that God had chose another. Serving as your foe on his behalf is the last thing that I wanted." When he warns Rameses about the last plague, the "camera" shows the depiction of the previous massacre of the Jewish children... and Rameses' son is at the bottom of the children being dropped in the water.

It not only foreshadows the boy's death, it also compares the two massacres. It's like "Your father did that to the Jewish people, so the God of the Jewish people will do the same to your people." The scene where the Egyptian first-borns are being killed is haunting. It's dark, without music, eerie... you're not supposed to be happy about it. So I don't see how all that's excusing. In a way, to a people that at the time was enslaved and even now still faces discrimination, it could feel like vengeance. There's a big talk about morals that can be done there but again; WE'RE WHITE. We should consider shutting the fuck up. At least on our own, if talked about with someone who’s part of Jewish culture, that’s another thing.

Lindsay also says that in the film it looks weird that from the moment we see Rameses lamenting the loss of his son, the film cuts to the Jewish people singing about Miracles. And like... again I guess she hasn't seen the movie in some time, cause that's plain out wrong. At the time Moses sees that the son is dead, he already looks depressed. When he hears the cries of the people crying for their children, he breaks down and cries too. When the Jewish people walk out and sing for not being slaves anymore, that's when he starts smiling a little, and more when they're finally out of Rameses' kingdom. And again, it's about the liberation of an enslaved people whose culture we're not presently a part of. Like, the death of the Egyptian children was a bad thing - in retaliation of the same thing happening to the Jewish babies - but whether it’s being excused or not has context behind it.

I'm also talking a lot about it because she mentions she likes the film Noah from 2014, and she shows a small clip from the flood scene where the people on the Ark are depressed (that's not the right word but I can't find it right now) because they witness the deaths of the people who weren't on. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know how much that impacts the survivors later, but she's completely ignoring the fact that The Prince of Egypt also frames the death of the first-borns as tragic and that also Moses breaks down over it.

On my own opinion; I'm agnostic and anarchist af so while I also disagree with the depictions and the actions that God took to free the Jewish people... it's a fucking fantastic film. Animation, voice acting, music, directing... But at the same time, I've watched a bit of her videos and I may be a bit sarcastic here but I don't trust the taste of anyone who watches Treasure Planet and only refers to it as "Disney's space pirate flop" instead of the underrated masterpiece that it is. But I'm also mentioning it not-so-sarcastically, because underappreciated as it is (because Disney deliberately made it flop by the way), Treasure Planet has not had a widely massive impact. Speaking as someone who adores Treasure Planet, it has had a huge impact... to those few who've watched it. So while I meh'ed at her calling Treasure Planet what she did, it was just that; a meh.

But The Prince of Egypt? It has had an impact on ME, an agnostic anarchist. I cannot even begin to imagine what impact it has had on the millions of Jewish people worldwide. So when someone who has studied Media (or whatever, I'm not gonna search through the "Lindsay Ellis is cancelled" results on gοοgle just to see what she has studied), and decides to make a... while a bit understandable, not so well-studied critique on a film with that kind of impact... Have you considered Shutting the Fuck Up? She says that on twitter, she got responses on said tweet where people talked about how important that film is to them. Is that what she needed, to learn about this film's impact? For her to not know that... it's a bit hard to accidentally be that blind about that aspect, especially with her studies.

It's once again difficult territory to wade through - and she deliberately placed herself in it. And as I said, her problem is with the Bible. Not with the film.

So... yeah. I don't think it was anti-semitism on her part, but definitely not a good, well-thought move to make.

Next is her talking about the time she wore a niqab in a non offensive (I guess) way on an old video. She mentions she addressed it on a stream where they laughed about how... cringe-y of the time the whole concept of the video was. And again, the "Not thinking before acting" as well as White Privilege comes out, both in the video and in the way she presents the circumstances behind it. What inspired her to do it doesn't fucking matter. What matters is that she didn't think. Though she says she regrets it, she seems she only does so because she got responses from Muslim followers that told her "Please don't do that." Again, the fact that she needed someone else to say it... that's uninformed. And honestly, when you have such a following, you have a responsibility to know better. Money from patreon and youtube ads carry that. She does say she regrets it though.

Next, is her being called out for her "Dear Stephenie Meyer" video. In it basically she talks about how a lot of the earlier hate for Twilight was because of the fact that society hates teen girls and hates what they like and consider it inferior, and since a lot of teen girls like Twilight, the society had to hate Twilight. At the end of the video, she even said "I'm sorry" towards Meyer. That's a very quick summary and she had some good points, but this is Stephenie Meyer we’re talking about.

Oof. There's a LOT to unpack here.

For those of you who don't know, Twilight as a whole franchise has a ton of issues with racism, particularly against indigenous people and the very real, existing Quileute tribe. Lindsay says that at the time she made that video (2018), the backlash on Meyer was not so much about said racism. And boy, that's plain out wrong. She just didn't do enough research for it. And again, it's not deliberate. I'm not accusing Lindsay of racism. But Twilight was problematic (and even I as a semi-follower of the Twilight Rennaisance, as well as most of the fellow fans I've seen, admit that openly and we hate Meyer for it), and as I had watched that video, I know she did research on it. I find it outright impossible that a search for "Twilight criticism" wouldn't turn up some mentions about the Quileute racism, especially in 2018 with the fandom’s resurgence. There's an entire page from the Burke Museum in Seattle talking about the misconceptions of the tribe in the books and how little benefit the tribe has seen from having their culture appropriated by a white woman. Saying that it wasn't a common criticism is either a poorly put lie or an open confession that she didn't search much. Maybe she only searched about Stephenie Meyer and misogyny. I don't know.

Look, it is true that at the time of late 2000′s, the criticism was what Lindsay said; all about hating teen girls. I'm sure that there was criticism on the racism, but it was either less promoted or was trumped by the former type. But ignoring it completely, when at the time she made that video the criticism on racism was already getting more and more recognition... just why, Lindsay?

So again, I don't think it's deliberate. But it's poor pre-thought, poor work on it, and again when you have such a big following (and while Lindsay keeps saying how she's not that much famous on youtube, when you have a million subscribers and ten thousand patrons... ya ain't unheard of either) you have a responsibility to know better and research better before you do anything on it. Youtube is Lindsay's job, and she doesn't do a very good job at it when it comes to recognizing her white privilege and working beyond it.

Then she says that she talked with some indigenous (she doesn't mention they're Quileute btw) people about it; some said they hated the depiction, some said they liked that they were represented. Although why you would like to be represented by Jacob in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, I have no fucking clue. In any case, it feels like because there were indigenous (no mention of Quileute talking with her, again) people who were okay with the inclusion, she felt that it was okay to make the whole Meyer apologia video without a single mention to the racism fact.

She also showed a video of a Quileute woman talking about how after Twilight, they were able to get back land that was taken from them. Given back by Obama, by the way. And... including this clip feels like... an excuse. Saying that Twilight, despite being racist, was somehow okay because it brought attention to the real Quileute tribe, and I hope y'all see why that is messed up. Meyer could have handled the issue better, and included the characters with much more respect and given them credit and some idk money from the millions she made appropriating their culture (though Lindsay mentions that last thing), but Lindsay thought that apologizing to Meyer anyway for being against her due to internalized misogyny in the late 2000's was the right move. It is true that at the late 2000's little of the known criticism was about the racism, but it's still a big fucking problem and purposefully ignoring that to apologize to Meyer... not a good look.

Again, blind due to white privilege, and acting without trying to see the whole picture. She says that Meyer, a white, rich, Mormon woman does not deserve the harassment she got, and again I'm against bullying but like... Meyer fucking sucks, and we ought to at least recognize that. She's not the one who deserves an apology - the Twilight fans *cough*me!me!me!*cough* who just wanted to enjoy the books and films (horrible as they were) in peace are.

By the way, the Quileute tribe has a fundraiser so that they can move their land to a higher ground where they won't be affected by tsunamis (and to her credit, Lindsay mentioned it and shared the link, but she said that another youtuber brought that to her attention, and again, where's the fucking research, Lindsay, pretty much every Twilight Renaissance post I've seen about the anti-indigenous attitude mentions that fundraiser and you're telling me it didn't come up in your searches) so if you can donate you definitely should: mthg.org

I mention around how Lindsay doesn't say "I'm sorry", and while as most people, I'd rather have no apology that a performative apology, it feels a little icky, that while she recognizes some of her screw-ups... I'm not sure if she recognizes that said screw-ups that-veer-towards-but-are-not-exactly-or-intentionally racism, ableism, anti-semitism, and transphobia... that shit is the shit twitter nazis thrive off of - and not to cancel people, but to build their own bigotry and take the attention away from actual hate crimes happening. And as a youtuber with a million subscribers and ten thousand patreon supporters, again, she should recognize her privileges a little more. Am I blaming her for nazis using her poorly thought tweets? Should she be super duper careful and spend a lot of time on her tweets to make sure nothing remotely problematic is on them?

... I mean, why the fuck do y’all think I hate twitter?

Next, she mentions being called out for "saying" that "trans-men are less oppressed than cis women" which she says is not what she said, but instead that "she's spoken to trans men who told her that they experience less misogyny after coming out". She even openly mentions it as "anecdotal" in her original tweet. And while I get that, my question is.... what's your fucking business about it? You're cis, shut the fuck up, let trans people talk about it.

Like, fuck. We haven't reached a time where acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people, is at such a high that cis people by themselves can openly discuss about the experiences of trans people. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Just show your support for trans people, let them do the talk about their lives and experiences, and share their content if you want your followers to know about trans experiences. If trans men experience less misogyny after coming out (and like, I understand why that would happen in some cases), that's not your area to gather twitter clout from. Think before you tweet.

TW: suicide mention, skip to after the ~ symbols if you want to avoid.

Next one is not problematic, it's just proof that Lindsay has no filter on twitter... which is probably the core of all the issues on this post. So condensing the whole thing; a Zack Snyder fan said "I don't like when people say that Zack Snyder hates his mother". A film critic was discussing with Lindsay about Snyder fans, and Lindsay, having never seen any Snyder fan actually say what the fan above said, responded in an obviously sarcastic way "I have it on good authority that Zack Snyder hates his mother." The next day, Zack Snyder's daughter killed herself, and twitter flooded to hate on Lindsay. Of course by the video, Lindsay seems to be upset by the whole thing and how bad the timing was for the post she made - and it is irrational to blame her on that. But! Zack Snyder's mother died in 2010, btw, from what I saw, and like... I think that some discussions around celebrities should be kept private, and this specific conversation between Lindsay and the film critic should have been private. Again, not problematic, but seems to show how Lindsay doesn't think before tweeting.

Next, she admits she was wrong about defending yellowface on the film Cloud Atlas and saying that it wasn't as bad as blackface. "My bad", no "I'm sorry". Again I don't know if an apology is what I "wanted", after all I'm also a privileged white woman, but idk some recognition that stuff like what she said are what twitter nazis thrive off of would have been nice. Because again, the good intention is there, especially by acknowledging how bad blackface is.

Anyway, some final thoughts, no I don't think she's problematic, or racist, or transphobic, or anything the twitter nazis like to label her as. I just think she's bad at tweeting (like many many people including yours truly, twitter sucks we've established that), and that as a youtuber with such an audience, she should understand her privileges a little more. Though she said she’ll step off from twitter and only use it to promote her books and other creators, so she did learn something from that.

As I said, we all have problematic thoughts. We all think of stuff that, if given a bit more thought, we’ll go like “why the fuck am I like this”. Our actions, on the other hand, is something fully on our control. And twitter thrives on people not putting too much thought on their actions, and letting their quick thoughts control them.

In conclusion, know your privilege, fuck twitter, and STAY THE FUCK AT HOME (except for you, Aussies and Kiwis, go all out - literally)

#Lindsay Ellis #tw: suicide mention #suicide mention tw

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jcmorrigan · 4 years ago

Note

001 - Tales of Zestiria?

Favorite character: It's a tough call between Maltran and Symonne, and Lunarre is trailing right behind both. I tend to call them the "Heldalf Squad," but make no mistake, Heldalf himself isn't part of it. I just like his swagalicious minions. The dry and sarcastic political manipulator, the sadistic and wordy theater nerd, and the flamboyant cannibal who hates everything. Yes. LOVE. But I have to give a shout to my boy Dezel on the hero side! Angsty/stoic characters are very hit-or-miss with me, but Dezel is the flavor I love - obvious soft spots and quirks, and slowly he builds from being antisocial to showing how big his heart is. When he stops the woman from leaping off the Guinevere tower...that's one of my favorite scenes in the entire game, because you can see when the switch flips, when he realizes that he CANNOT stay aloof any longer when there's a stranger's life on the line. He's still a grump about it but a compassionate grump.

Least Favorite character: Heldalf. His backstory is really clever, and I like the curse on him. But he himself just feels like Ganondorf but more boring. I kinda hate that he's so vanilla when his three lieutenants are in my arsenal of pet villains from the vastness of fiction. Also shout-out to Chancellor BART in the opening Ladylake act, because I distinctly remember liveblogging this to a friend, and I played Zestiria *after* Berseria (I'd loved Berseria and that's why I eventually sought out Zestiria) so here I am just comparing up the corrupt church in Ladylake to the Abbey's suave rogues gallery like "Yeah no BART has nothing on Lady Teresa Linares." Thankfully BART was never seen again.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): DezeRose, SorMik, Symonne x Coco Atarashi (The World Ends With You), Alisha Diphda x Sergei Strelka, and...I swear you have to bear with me here...Zaveid x Anna (Frozen). I also kinda wanna note a couple ships I'm on the fence about for my other favies - those being Maltran x Ebony Maw (Marvel Cinematic Universe or Marvel Ultimate Alliance) and Lunarre x Arkham (Devil May Cry).

Character I find most attractive: Dezel. It is a scientific fact that guys with pointy teeth are just hotter.

Character I would marry: Maybe Dezel, maybe Sergei. I wouldn't want to take them from those I see as their wifeys, but at the same time, they are husband goals, both of them.

Character I would be best friends with: Catch me clinging to Maltran's train and she drags me along annoyedly as I yell "PLEEEEAAASE LET ME HANG OUT WITH YOU GUYS" and Lunarre is losing it laughing while Symonne rolls her eyes

a random thought: So I toyed around with basically every accessory I picked up, and I decided to put the sideburns on Rose because fuck gender roles. Well then I just got used to seeing her with facial hair in every cutscene where her 3D model was used, and now I headcanon that she does get it. Maybe nonclassical CAH intersex? Like, I don't necessarily see her as trans (but I support everyone who hc's her as such) but moreso "a cis woman, but I grow this stupid damn facial hair like a dude and I don't get why." And this is why you shouldn't let me play with customizable accessories on RPG characters because I can and will abuse my privilege to headcanon.

An unpopular opinion: That this is actually a very good game. Listen, I think I get it - the initial marketing promised something far different. And that's disappointing. But coming back to it several years after its release, after the release of its PREQUEL, when I never had that hype building up...it actually exceeded my expectations. I held off from it for a while because I thought Eizen's fate would make me too sad, but that didn't end up the case at all. I actually had just come off playing a more recently-released triple-A game that was hyped up for years, and I completed it to my satisfaction in 20 hours. $80 for 20 hours. Zestiria gave me my money's worth in comparison; it took me about 60, and I loved just how MUCH story it had to offer me. I honestly like Rose better than Alisha anyway (Rose was one of the biggest aspects that interested me about playing it in the first place). I've also seen complaints that the characters weren't well-developed enough? Which I just kinda take to mean "They didn't angst enough." Listen. There are PLENTY of games out there if you want angst and sad stories. I don't really like sad stories in my games. I like adventures where the party is a goofy foundfam that jokes around with each other and helps each other work through shitty situations, and that's EXACTLY what I got. (And Berseria really worked on me too because it kinda started at the bottom of the angst barrel, then worked its way up through "The edgy and tortured protag has gained a party of idiots and oh noooooo she's learning friendship and happiness.") Dezel's death is one of the few game deaths that just made me SATISFIED to watch instead of depressed because of the closure he got and the themes tied into his final moments and sacrifice. I loved going on this adventure, I loved the idiots who I went on it with, and I loved seeing what Glenwood had to offer me in world design the further I explored.

my canon OTP: There's not much for canon romance in this game, come to think of it. Just subtext and some flirting. So I'm blanking on if there actually were any canon couples at all.

Non-canon OTP: DezeRose! Which maybe can be considered almost-canon based on the amount of subtext, but still. It's adorable. (And it's the exact same dynamic as EiRoku except M/F and a thousand years later. I need these four to double date...the dual-wielding goofs with their edgy, grumpy Reapers...)

most badass character: Rose! Not only able to wield the Shepherd's Armatization powers, but also to be a dang good assassin on her own, able to hold her own against Heldalf before she even had her eyes opened to seraphim! Though a shout-out goes to Edna because her armatization was my favorite to play with. There's something just satisfying about bashing the enemy in front of you with a pair of GIANT FISTS

pairing I am not a fan of: RoseAli. To be honest, it was at one point something I kinda enjoyed as a third-tier ship for Rose (Dezel first, then Lailah in second). But then...Alisha's Story. I didn't actually purchase it, thank goodness, just watched it on YouTube, and it was the most grating addition that anyone could've made to this game. First of all, I can sum up the issues with Alisha's Story by reminding everyone that it canonized a secret entrance to Camlann that was much easier to get to and wasn't protected by Muse's sacrifice. But the real thing that hurt to watch was how far down they had to knock Rose and Alisha's friendship to get them to rebuild from scratch. Rose claiming she was never Alisha's friend because she's grieving Sorey? The two of them getting into a PHYSICAL FISTFIGHT over it? Nope nope nope. That's not my Rose. Even less my Rose is that whole scene where she...you know...pounces on Alisha to dress her in the silly noblewoman's dress, and it's framed like...let's just say it's really uncomfortable to watch if you don't know the punchline is just a silly outfit. Even though Alisha's Story isn't canon in my head, it still really killed any buzz I had for RoseAli. I will also say I'm not a big fan of Eizavie - first of all, EiRoku or bust in this house, and second, I have a little bit of a hard time seeing Zaveid as mlm due to how much he goes on and on about The Ladies(TM). (Though I could see Eizen as having a tiny crush on him, though. Just like "Oh no he's hot but he's connected to Aifread's disappearance help")

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Mostly just in Alisha's Story. I was mad about the aforementioned Rose stuff, but also...like...they undid Lunarre's original cathartic death, they did so to team him back up with Symonne and then do a whole fakeout that they had Maltran with them too, but Maltran is just an illusion and immediately after this, Lunarre and Symonne just decide "Yeah, we're not gonna work together anymore, have a nice life." Why does Maltran need to stay dead if LUNARRE somehow survived EXPLODING? And just...look to next question for more clarification:

favourite friendship: I just want to imagine that Maltran, Lunarre, and Symonne were weird evil friends. The kind who'd take artistic selfies and caption them "Murder and mayhem with my besties!". Maybe they even had a sibling dynamic. They were all pretty dang jaded, so I like to think they sat around sometimes talking about the things in this world that did them wrong. The reasons they were drawn to Heldalf. Heldalf himself wouldn't have cared, he would've kicked them around like disposable tools, but the three of them were too entrenched in his dogma to see it. Maybe if they met up again after he was off the board...then they'd sing a different tune. Realize they're all three better than this, and now they're gonna do things THEIR way, because remember when they made a three-point attack on Glenwood and Sorey was barely able to keep up with them wrecking Lastonbell AND Pendrago AND Glaivend? Remember when Lunarre and Symonne had each other's backs the night Dezel died? Now they can do what they want on their terms! And I just - I have many MANY feelings about these three.

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: Okay silly self-insert time but the thing is, Archibald Snatcher (The Boxtrolls) and Roman Torchwick (RWBY) are my two favorite parental f/o's (and also my OTP to end all OTPs), and I have this thing about how they'd be PERFECT crime dads to Symonne in particular because she's like a little, more theatrical Neopolitan. So there's a universe in my head where Symonne is basically already my little sister, and I look out for her - well, okay, she's a seraph with powerful Artes and I am a powerless mortal so really she looks out for me because "I suppose SOMEONE has to make sure you don't die" and I am grateful to her for it.

#tales of zestiria

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romancingromanoff · 4 years ago

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Pride and Joy (Natasha x f!reader)

Author’s note: Pride is first and foremost a celebration we are privileged to have because of the bravery and sacrifices of so many. It was black trans women that lead the Stonewall Riots back in 1969 and yet black trans women remain some of the most vulnerable in our community. We need to step up. I’ve linked some petitions and places where you can donate at the end of this post so please, please, please, don’t ignore them.

Plot: Two gay girls head to Pride and you end up gaining some attention. Also this one is super cheesy but I’ve just got to accept that cheesy is my go-to style ugh. I also used she/her/hers pronouns for this one but if you’d like for me to do gender-neutral or use any other sort of pronouns just let me know and I’d be glad to do so :)

The cafe door swung open again and two new voices came under her radar.

“I’m telling you, every year this is THE spot to pick up cute femme girls.”

“I’m sorry, but did you miss the group of straight white frat boys obnoxiously ingesting natty light across the street?! They’re completely killing the vibe. Honestly, it should be a crime for the straights to show up here.”

“No, that’s the point,” the first person began to explain before lowering their voice to only a few notches above a whisper. “Brad and Chad over there hit on the stray femme girls with the whole ‘Oh, you just haven’t been with the right guy yet’ spiel and then try to convince them that they can change their mind. That’s when we step in, put them in their place, bruise their masculinity a bit, and ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, you’re the hero and you get to sweep her off her feet.”

“Jen, you’re a genius.”

“I know that’s what I’ve been telling you! Now buy me some iced coffee cause I’m broke.”

It was an solid plan that the pair of friends obviously didn’t want anyone else to overhear. Fortunately for them, Natasha couldn’t care less. As she continued to sit there sipping on her tea, no one would suspect that she was a former assassin casually eavesdropping into every individual conversation going on. It was technically her day off, but hey, she had time to kill while she was waiting and not much to entertain herself with. So Natasha silently applauded the two and continued on with her crossword puzzle.

The parade wasn’t normally her scene, but the redheaded avenger knew she just couldn’t say no to her girlfriend who was ecstatic about her first Pride.

“Nat, pleeeeeeeassee???” You had begged her all the way up till the night before to go with you. “I was kidding with the matching shirts. You don’t have to wear it, just please come.”

“Fine,” she gave in with a playful roll of her eyes. “But just so you know, it’s going to be crowded, loud, and you’re going to get pretty sweaty. I know you want to wear those rainbow slip-ons Bucky got you for Christmas but please don’t. They offer zero support for your arches.”

Natasha then continued to lecture you on safety 101. Don’t put your phone in your back pocket, blah blah, don’t wear a backpack, blah blah blah. It was a lot to follow just to make sure your paranoid girlfriend didn’t have to worry about you, but you knew it was all out of love. Unfortunately, the one thing you’d forgotten about before leaving the house was going to the bathroom, which is why the two of you had made a pitstop at a small corner cafe.

“The girl who just came out of the bathroom,” the voice that belonged to Jen almost caused Natasha to jolt. “See what I mean?”

“Yeah, she’s cute,” the other one woefully confirmed that they were, indeed, talking about her girlfriend.

You were dressed down in a white “Love is Love” t-shirt that sported two rainbow stick-women holding hands under a rainbow. It was supposed to go with Natasha’s matching black one but she was very against supporting capitalist corporations that sought to make money off of Pride Month merchandise. The rest of your outfit’s ensemble consisted of your favorite pair of shorts and some comfy white sneakers but the real show-stopper was your hair. It had taken hours of braiding to weave your hair so intricately into the flower crown that had taken even longer to craft. You were excited to show off your DIY project you’d had pinned on Pinterest for the last few years even if Nat hadn’t understood the hype.

“Sweetheart, you’re putting hours of work into this thing. I know you like doing it but we can just buy you one and save you the trouble.”

“That’s not the point, Nat,” you sighed never looking up from the hot glue gun you were trying to wield. “I get that I might not be super gifted when it comes to creative things like this but I’ll just feel proud of myself knowing I did it when it’s all put together.”

And right now, Natasha was really wishing she had pushed back harder and gone with the store-bought crown because you were standing there looking like a woodland fairy princess with your bubblegum lipgloss and GODDAMNIT why did her girlfriend have to be so freakin adorable all the time!??

You were still searching the crowd as Natasha’s blood began to boil. Jealousy urged her to march straight up to you and begin making out, claiming you as hers in front of everybody. Then the two of you would storm out of there, confront the gross heteros that would undoubtedly hit on Y/N, she’d beat them up and it’d be a solid victory for the badass super spy. A possible bonus could be that you get too frazzled and end up going home early.

But then she hesitated thinking that maybe you wouldn’t appreciate that. “No,” she thought to herself and calculated a better plan. “That’s possessive, gross, and directly from the straight male playbook. I love Y/N. I respect her. And holy fuck I guess I really am just gonna do this.”

Nat’s eyes ironically enough lit up at that same moment when you finally spotted her and waved eagerly with a giant smile on your face. She wasn’t too ecstatic about what she knew she had to do, but she knew it would make you happy.”

“Hey babe!” you greeted her with your full attention. It was clear from your demeanor that you were oblivious to the fact Jen and quite possibly many others were checking you out. “I’m ready to go now.”

“Actually, I think I might have to go too, but wait here,” Nat casually mentioned before slipping into the bathroom. That caught you off guard and you figured something was going on. Natasha never had to go to the bathroom. I mean, she did have to go, obviously, but it was never random and certainly never in public restrooms. Your anxiety began climbing as you went through all the scenarios in your head. Could it be that something was about to go down? You were sure that she had it handled but it bothered you slightly that she hadn’t told you ahead of time. Unless it was something more serious and urgent? There was that one time you two had gone on a day cruise but ended up getting airlifted out of the ocean when Nat ran into some Serbian gun traders. Your stomach was doing flips out of fear that you all might be in danger as you hesitantly knocked on the door.

“Nat, is everything okay?” you shook. “I don’t want to stress you out if you have some important stuff to do, but I am a little worried that-”

Door swung open and there she stood: Your gorgeous girlfriend, NOT suited up, but in fact wearing the matching black t-shirt.

“Seriously?! You know that you almost gave me a heart attack over here!” you half cry half beam with joy at the sight of your girlfriend laughing hysterically at you.

“I know and I’m sorry babe,” she kissed you sweetly on your forehead. “But these girls over there were checking you out and I had to make a quick change into this.”

“But you actually brought it? Sam didn’t have to do like a fly-by and drop it off to you in super stealth mode?”

Her reaction to your question was too good. “No, of course I brought it. We used the same bathroom right? You know there’s no window in there. How would Sam even be able to-”

You interrupt her with a quick peck on the lips. “Shut up and stop making me feel dumb, I’m just touched that you brought it and have it on now. We’re gonna get such great couple photos!”

“Oh shit, they’re definitely together,” Natasha could overhear Jen’s friend comment from across the cafe.

“I mean that sucks but also they make such a cute couple!” Jen unknowingly complimented the two which made Natasha laugh quietly to herself. She really had no reason to feel threatened or insecure about her relationship. Y/N was an amazing girlfriend and if there were any areas of improvement then they’d probably be on Natasha’s side. The spy then made a mental note to show appreciation for her more before remembering another detail.

“Actually, do you mind going out the back door? There’s just a sleazy group of straight guys out there hitting on women that I don’t care to run into.”

“Ew, let’s definitely do that,” you agreed wholeheartedly. “You know guys like that deserve to be put in their place.”

“Don’t encourage me,” Nat bit her bottom lip, ever-so tempted. “Because I was considering that at first.”

“No,” you grabbed her arm twisting her back around to you. “We should go over there and see if they actually have the nerve. And if they do, you beating them up honestly sounds super hot right now.”

“Wait, I thought you didn’t condone violence,” Nat raised an eyebrow at your proposition.

“Normally I don’t. But you’d look so cute doing it in our matching t-shirts!”

Nat rolled her eyes, smiling, thinking of how proud she was of her girlfriend.

LINKS

Petition for Justice for Tony McDade: https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-tony-mcdade

GoFundMe for Tony McDade's Funeral and Family: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-tony-mcdade

Petition for Justice for Dominique Fells: https://www.change.org/p/philadelphia-police-department-justice-for-dominique-fells

GoFundMe for Dominique Fells' Funeral Costs: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dominiquefells

Petition for Justice for Riah Milton: https://www.change.org/p/liberty-townships-board-of-trustees-justice-for-riah-milton-womanmurdered-in-liberty-township-ohio

#natasha romanoff #natasha #natasha x reader #natasha x you #reader #reader insert #the avengers #black widow #fanfi #fluff #cheesy #pride #i'm not that good of a writer

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flying-elliska · 5 years ago

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i’m seeing a lot of people angry at her so I want to come back to what Alexia said, because she’s introducting a very important point that I think will be a key aspect of the season. It was just worded very poorly.

Attraction is socially constructed. That doesn’t mean that who we are attracted to is entirely determined by society but it still plays a huge role. Society in general teaches us that people who are attractive in general are those who are : thin, white/pale skinned, have symmetrical features, look like they are middle class, and are yes, non-disabled (and also the right gender, etc) These are the people who play the love interests, who are given the main spots in any stories, are presented as morally worthy and desirable, play the heroes, chosen as representatives, etc etc...of course this trickles down in collective mentality. Meanwhile people who are not these things are generally presented as weird, non-attractive, are often the villains, that being attracted to them is a joke/unfortunate, at best they are comedic value/the sidekick. You cannot tell me that Alexia, as a chubby bisexual girl (whose OG counterpart was exactly reduced to a comedic/sidekick role!!) is unaware of that.

But yes, she worded it wrong, which I think most people are staying at. When she says ‘you have to learn to be attracted to them’ it sounds as ‘you have to make an effort/push yourself to be attracted to them’. While to me the point is : you have to unlearn keeping yourself from being attracted to them.

(A personal example : in my early twenties I went to a bicon and I met a fat, nonbinary masculine-presenting person who I felt incredibly attracted by ; and then i freaked out. Because I hadn’t met a lot of trans/nb people by then, I was dipping my feet in the activism pool, and also generally fat people are presented as gross in most media, it really caused me to freeze up. Because this person was funny, incredibly charming, and yes, cute - and we got on well - but I didn’t pursue that contact because my brain just got stuck on ‘yeah but people like this person...aren’t they supposed to be freaks/not attractive’ etc etc. Which is really a shame. And I think on some level we are all affected by that. People who are attracted to people who are outside of that very rigid and strict norm often end up feeling bad/shameful about their attraction ; a lot of people just block themselves from considering people outside of the norm as potential partners in the first place.)

What happened to me is that Alexia heard her friends being openly and jokingly prejudiced and she tried to educate them, but because it was a chill setting and she probably didn’t consider it very important and didn’t want to be seen as the bore, she said it in a way that came out as ‘yeah there is this prejudice...but it’s no big deal’ instead of ‘this is bad and we need to learn to do better.’

Which I think is emblematic of conversations about privilege that happen when there isn’t an underprivileged person in the group (or at least you think so) and it comes over as ‘fun debate subject’.

I think one of the most consistent aspects of Alexia’s personality is her willingness to educate herself, but also kind of pass on the message in a flawed way and be sort of callous about it.

Like her moment in s3 talking about the Kinsey scale, which was on point, except the whole ‘we’re all sexually fluid’ thing, which...nope, that’s a very irritating stereotype (some people’s sexualities are actually fixed. and also bisexuality is not always fluid. although some people are fluid.) Or her talking about Cosmo ‘alpha/beta’ male stereotypes. I feel like this is the case here and I am really looking forward to see her gain a deepening understanding of things because she really means well. She’s often the one challenging other people’s prejudice (like Chloé’s ‘oh gay people are fun!!’) so it felt like this again. She just needs to mature in that aspect.

But I understand why some people are hurt, the whole conversation was very messy and we know that Arthur, with his shit ton of (now internalized) prejudices is going to interpret it in the worst way possible.

Anyway I think that all of them meeting Noée and Camille, who are very much at the opposite of all these stereotypes, is going to do them all a lot of good (and the viewers too tbh...) because people who don’t fit the limited cardboard cliché of the Attractive Person can still be super cool and attractive and active and happy etc etc

but i think it’s very important to acknowledge these stereotypes exist in the first place.

#skam france #skamfr s5 #alexia x arthur #arthur broussard #alexia martineau

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marta-bee · 4 years ago

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On Fanworks as Commodities

I've been thinking lately about commodification and how it applies to fandom.

At the risk of giving an unhelpful circular explanation, commodification just means treating something like a commodity when it really isn't. And by commodity, I mean the kind of good or service that it's the kind of thing we can "reduce" to market terms. A loaf of bread is a commodity. So is a house or the services of an accountant- you're not losing anything or "debasing" anyone when you suggest these things can be bought and sold.

But what about surrogacy pregnancy? This is the question Elizabeth Anderson asked in her philosophy paper, "Is Women's Labor a Commodity?" (This is where I first encountered the concept.) She asks what exactly is being sold when we pay a woman to go through a pregnancy and then give up the resulting child to someone else. Anderson said if it's the child that's being sold that seems obviously inappropriate- we rightly consider a human person as the kind of thing you can't just buy and sell- but she also argued even if the woman is just selling the use of her body for a period of time (say, implantation and surrogacy pregnancy of a fetus conceived through in vitro fertilization of the adults who will become the legal parents), there's still something lost. The argument is, pregnancy naturally (at least usually) forms a loving bond between mother and child, which a surrogate woman would wisely try to avoid; otherwise giving up the baby would be that much harder. In effect, it encourages her to alienate herself from the products of her pregnancy. It degrades the commercial surrogate, turns her into an emotionless, contextless factory. And it degrades women who might lovingly serve as surrogates (say, for a sister or friend) because it turns their gift into something indistinguishable from a market transaction.

That's the argument, anyway. Once I found it convincing but these days, I have my doubts. For instance, I don't see any problem saying commercial surrogacy is a different kind of process than surrogacy offered as a gift to someone you know. Even if the result is the same, they seem like very different beasts. I'm also uncomfortable with this idea that certain kinds of work just can't be ethically paid for. Because this usually comes up with "caring" work, which is most often done by women even these days, it becomes too easy to not help bear the costs of that work. We can expect, say, a nurse to care about her patient even though she's paid a salary; is it so wrong if a child who quits her job to care for a sick parent to also be paid for her sacrifice?

That's more a criticism of how the concept is applied, though. I think it's applied too quickly, and in ways that turn it into an either/or, where this doesn't need to be the case. I still think the basic idea has a lot going for it. We do give the market too much power to answer questions it really isn't well suited for. Healthcare, for instance; it needs to be paid for, but not in a way that keeps people from accessing it who need it, or even lets those who can pay get to it more quickly. And maybe market pressures can make it more efficient, to a point, but we really shouldn't reduce it to something that can be bought and sold and understand entirely on those terms.

So, what does all this have to do with fandom? Well, I'm of a different fannish generation than a lot of you young whippersnappers- I first got involved in fannish circles with the Lord of the Rings movies back in the original 2000s. This was pre-AO3 and pre-Tumblr, and only a few years after Anne Rice got ff.net to disallow all fanfic based on her novels. We posted our disclaimers about not owning the characters for a reason and professed our poverty because we believed (or feared at least) we could be sued by the canon's authors. I was mostly in the Tolkien fandom, and it was well known that the estate was never going to authorize fanfic, commercial or otherwise. They state as much on their website, though I can't remember how long that Q&A has existed in its current format.

That gave us a lovely little commercial-free zone. If you couldn't sell your own work commercially, then you could give up all pretenses of success along the normal capitalistic lines and delve into areas that just would never have been very marketable in traditional publishing. Tolkien fandom itself was pretty conservative but I know other fandoms went much further in this regard, exploring genres that just would never be marketable especially before the niche and self-financed publishing the internet opened up for a lot of authors. If the law wouldn't let you do what you wanted to do anyway, why not become utterly ungovernable? So, fanfic became (for me at least) art about art rather than filthy lucre. We were doing what we did because we loved it, and as gifts for our friends, and as a way to be something that wasn't quite allowed in the "normal" culture for whatever reason- even just because we were women daring to make time for our weird little hobbies. It was glorious. And we worked hard enough in other areas of our life that we had the $$$ to indulge in this. We didn't need to be paid, and even if you offered to pay us for our works, we'd likely get a bit insulted and insist that wasn't what this was about at all.

I was told more than once by family that I was good enough to be a "real writer" and didn't I want to do my own thing. So yes, I did get a bit miffed and lean in to my identity of fanfic-writing as hobby not intended as a career.

And I'll be honest: when I see people advertising for commissions or celebrating fan-authors going "professional" as if this is necessarily a step up from unpaid fannish work, I often have this old framework in the back of my head. And it's not really fair. For one thing, I was in college in the early 2000's and so even when we didn't have a lot of cash, we expected to soon get day jobs where we could afford to live comfortably and still afford our hobbies. The housing market crash and the Great Recession changed all of that, as did work opportunities like Instacart and Uber. For a lot of people even a few years younger than me, everything became a side-hustle and there just wasn't this expectation a hobby could be a hobby. I get that there's a lot of privilege entering into that.

On top of which, there's all kinds of gender issues: professional artists, predominantly men, have been painting and selling drawings of comic book characters for years. Star Trek and Star Wars affiliated novels, and Sherlock Holmes pastiches (as opposed to fanfic), again written primarily by men, are also very much a thing. Hell, so are Renaissance artists and the patron system that was built off of. And of course, just because you sometimes produce fanworks just to sell and still do the less commercial work just for yourself if you ever want to. There's no real conflict in that. And it's not like producing art to sell is at all wrong. But to me it does feel like that kind of art is different than what I fancy I do, back when I occasionally wrote. :-) And I probably am more aware of this than I should be, because my backdrop is different from a lot of fans younger than myself, and really do try not to let my situation turn into a blind spot.

Even so, I worry and struggle to find the balance between letting art turn a profit and be reduced to a strictly commercial venture. It's never been anything I've been even remotely drawn to do, and human nature being what it is, I probably do think more highly of the kind of thing I'd choose to do. But I don't want to be unfair, and I don't want to think just because art is paid for and written/drawn to order, it's some sort of assembly-line output with no heart put into it by the writer and artist. Just like an artisan shoemaker might take great pride in his art and work his hardest on each shoe he crafts, even if he must sell it to make ends meet. Somehow, I suspect thinking about this in terms of commodification, the dangers of evaluating artistry using market standards and the ways in which it can still have a value beyond commodity even if it’s bought and sold, might help. But I've not quit worked out what insight that kind of thought would provide, if any.

Do you think there's a special value in fandom or art generally that's not made to be bought and sold? Or am I perhaps making too big a deal over nothing and revealing myself to be an old fuddy-duddy in the process. (It's always a possibility!) I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts if you have any to share.

#philosophy #fandom #commodification #marta blathers

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greatfay · 4 years ago

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controversial opinions?

Cold pizza actually not good. Tastes like angry bacteria.

There’s a completely separate class of gay men who are in a different, rainbow-tinted plane of reality from the rest of us and I don’t like them. They push for “acceptance” via commercialization of the Pride movement, assimilation through over-exposure, and focus on sexualizing the movement to be “provocative” and writing annoying articles that reek of class privilege instead of something actually important like lgbtqa youth homelessness, job discrimination, and mental health awareness.

Coleslaw is good. You guys just suck in the kitchen.

Generational divides ARE real: a 16-year-old and a 60-year-old right now in 2021 could agree on every hot button sociopolitical topic and yet not even realize it because they communicate in entirely different ways.

Sam Wilson is a power bottom. No I will not elaborate.

Allison’s makeover in The Breakfast Club good, not bad. She kept literally and metaphorically dumping her trash out onto the table and it’s clearly a cry for help. Having the attention and affection of a smart, pretty girl doing her makeup for her was sweet and helped her open up to new experiences. Not every loner wants to BE a loner (see: Bender, who is fine being a lone wolf).

Movie/show recommendations that start with a detailed “representation” list read like status-effecting gear in an RPG and it’s actually a turn-off for me. I have to force myself to give something a try in spite of it.

Yelling at people to just “learn a new language” because clearly everyone who isn’t you and your immediate vicinity of friends must be a lazy ignorant white American is so fucking stupid, like I get it, you’re mad someone doesn’t immediately know how to pronounce your name or what something means. But I know 2 languages and am struggling with a 3rd when I can between 2 jobs and quite frankly, I don’t have the time to just absorb the entire kanji system into my brain to learn Japanese by tomorrow night, or suddenly learn Arabic or Welsh. There are 6500 recorded languages in the world, what’s the chance that one of 3 I’ve learn(ed?) is the one you’re yelling at me about. Yes this is referring to that post yelling at people for not knowing how to pronounce obscure Irish names and words. Sometimes just explaining something instead of admonishing people for not knowing something inherently in the belief that everyone must be lazy entitled privileged people is uh... better?

Stop fucking yelling at people. I despise feeling like someone is yelling at me or scolding me, it triggers my Violence Mode, you don’t run me, you are not God, fuck off. Worst fucking way to "educate” people, it just feels good in the moment to say or write and doesn’t help. Yes I’ve done it before.

Violence is good actually.

Characters doing bad things ≠ an endorsement of bad things. Characters doing bad things that are unquestioned by the entire rest of the cast = endorsement of bad things, or at the least, a power fantasy by the creator. See: Glee, in which Sue’s awfulness is constantly called out, while Mr. Shue’s awfulness rarely is because he’s “the hero.” See also: the Lightbringer series, in which the protagonist is a violent manipulator who is praised as clever, charming, diplomatic, and genius by every supporting character (enemies included), despite the text never demonstrating such.

Euphoria is good, actually. It falls into this niche of the past decade of “dark gritty teen shows” but actually has substance behind it, but the general vibe I get from passive-aggressive tumblr posts from casual viewers is that this show is The Devil, and the criticism of its racier content screams pearl-clutching “what about the children??” to me.

Describing all diagnosed psychopaths as violent criminals is a damaging slippery slope, sure. But I won’t be mad at anyone for inherently distrusting another human who does not have the ability to feel guilt and remorse, empathy, is a pathological liar, or proves to be cunning and manipulative.

It’s actually not easy to unconditionally support and love everyone everywhere when you’ve actually experienced the World. Your perspective and values will be challenged as you encounter difficult people, experience hardship, are torn between conflicting ideas and commitments, and fail. My vow to never ever call the cops on another black person was challenged when an employee’s boyfriend marched into the kitchen OF AN ESTABLISHMENT to scream at her, in a BUSINESS I MANAGED, and threaten to BEAT the SHIT out of her. Turns out I can hate cops and hate that motherfucker equally, I am more than capable of both.

Defending makeup culture bad, actually. Enjoy it, experiment, master it, but don’t paint it as something other than upholding exactly what they want from you. Even using makeup to “defy the heteropatriarchal oppressors!” is still putting cash in their pockets, no matter how camp...

Not every villain needs to be redeemed, some of you just never outgrew projecting yourself onto monsters and killers.

Writing teams and networks queerbaiting is not the same as individuals queerbaiting. Nick Jonas performing exclusively at gay clubs to generate an audience really isn’t criminal; if they paid to go see him, that’s on them, he didn’t promise anyone anything other than music and a show. Do not paint this as similar to wealthy, bigoted executives and writing teams trying to snatch up the LGBTQA demographic with vague ass marketing and manipulative screenplays, only to cop out so as not to alienate their conservative audiences. And ESPECIALLY when the artists/actors/creators accused of queerbaiting or lezploitation then come out as queer in some form later on.

Queer is not a bad word, and I’ve no clue how that remains one of few words hurled at LGBTQA people that can’t be reclaimed. It’s so archaic and underused at this point that I don’t get the reaction to it compared to others.

People who defend grown-woman Lorelai Gilmore’s childish actions and in the same breath heavily criticize teenage religious abuse victim Lane Kim’s actions are not to be trusted. Also Lane deserved better.

Keep your realism out of my media, or at least make it tonally consistent. Tired of shows and movies and books where some gritty, dark shit comes out of nowhere when the narrative was relatively Romantic beforehand.

Actually people should be writing characters different from themselves, this new wave in the past year of “If you aren’t [X] you shouldn’t be writing [X]” is a complete leap backward from the 2010s media diversity movement. And if [X] has to do with an invisible minority status (not immediately visible disabilities, or diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, persecuted religious affiliations, mental illness) it’s actually quite fucked up to assume the creator can’t be whatever [X] is or to demand receipts or details of someone’s personal life to then grant them “permission” to create something. I know, we’re upset an actual gay actor wasn’t casted to play this gay character, so let’s give them shit about it: and not lose a wink of sleep when 2 years later, this very actor comes out and gives a detailed account of the pressure to stay closeted if they wanted success in Hollywood.

Projecting an actor’s personal romantic life and gender identity onto the characters they play is actually many levels of fucked up, and not cute or funny. See: reinterpreting every character Elliot Page has played through a sapphic lens, and insulting his ability to play straight characters while straight actors play actual caricatures of us (See also: Jared Leto. Fuck him).

I’m fucking sick of DaBaby, he sucks. “I shot somebody, she suck my peepee” that’s 90% of whatever he raps about.

“Political Correctness” is not new. It was, at one point, unacceptable to walk into a fine establishment and inform the proprietor that you love a nice firm pair of tits in your face. 60 years ago, such a statement would get you throw out and possibly arrested under suspicion of public intoxication. But then something happened and I blame Woodstock and Nixon. And now I have to explain to a man 40 years my senior that no, you can’t casually mention to the staff here, many of whom are children, how you haven’t had a good fuck in a while. And then rant about the “Chinese who gave us the virus.” Can’t be that upset with them if you then refused to wear your mask for 20 minutes.

Triggering content should not have a blanket ban; trigger warnings are enough, and those who campaign otherwise need to understand the difference between helping people and taking away their agency. 13 Reasons Why inspired this one. Absolutely shitty show, sure, but it’s a choice to watch it knowing exactly what it contains.

Sasuke’s not a fucking INTJ, he’s an ISFP whose every decision is based off in-the-moment feelings and proves incapable of detailed and logical planning to accomplish his larger goals.

MCU critique manages to be both spot-on and pointless. Amazing stories have been told with these characters over the course of decades; but most of it is toilet paper. Expecting a Marvel movie to be a deeply detailed examination of American nationalism and imperialism painted with a colorful gauze of avant-garde film technique is like expecting filet mignon from McDonalds. Scarf down your quarter pounder or gtfo.

Disparagingly comparing the popularity and (marginal) success of BLM to another movement is anti-black. It is not only possible but also easy to ask for people’s support without throwing in “you all supported BLM for black people but won’t show support for [insert group]” how about you keep our name out your mouth? Black people owe the rest of the world nothing tbh until yall root out the anti-blackness in your own communities.

It is the personal demon/tragic flaw of every cis gay/bi/pan man to externalize and exorcize Shame: I’m talking about the innate compulsion to Shame, especially in the name of Pride and Progress. Shame for socioeconomic “success,” shame for status of outness, shame for fitness and health, shame for looks, shame for style and dress, shame for how one fits into the gender binary, shame for sexual positions and intimacy preferences, shame for fucking music tastes. Put down the weapon that They used to beat you. Becoming the Beater is not growth, it’s the worst-case scenario.

Works by minorities do not have to be focused on their marginalized identities. Some ladies want to ride dragons AND other ladies. The pressure on minorities to create the Next Great Minority Character Study that will inevitably get snuffed at the Oscars/Peabody Awards is some bullshit when straight white dudes walk around shitting out mediocre screenplays and books.

Canadians can stfu about how the US is handling COVID-19 actually. Love most of yall, but the number of Canadian snowbirds on vacation (VACATION??? VA.CAT.ION.) in the supposed “hotbed” of my region that I’ve had to inform our mask policies and social distancing to is ASTOUNDING. Incroyable! I guess your country has a sizable population of entitled, privileged, inconsiderate, wealthy, and ignorant people making things difficult for everyone, just like mine :)

No trick to eliminate glasses fog while wearing my mask has worked, not a single one, it actually has affected my job and work speed and is incredibly frustrating, and I have to deal with it and pretend it’s not a problem while still encouraging others to follow the rules for everyone’s safety and the cognitive dissonance is driving me insane.

It’s really really really not anti-Japanese... to be uncomfortable with the rampant pedophilia in manga and anime, and voice this. I really can’t compare western animation’s sneakier bullshit with pantyshots of a 12-year-old girl.

Most of the people in the cottagecore aesthetic/tag have zero interest in all the hard work that comes with maintaining an isolated property in the countryside, milking cows and tending crops before sunrise, etc. And that’s okay? They just like flowers and pretty pottery and homemade pastries. Idk where discourse about this came from.

You think mint chip ice-cream tastes like toothpaste because you’re missing a receptor that can distinguish the flavors, and that sucks for you. It’s a sort of “taste-blindness” that can make gum spicy to some while others can eat a ghost pepper without crying.

Being a spectacle for the oppressive class doesn’t make them respect us, it makes them unafraid of us. This means they continue to devour us, but without fear of our retaliation.

Only like 4 people on tumblr dot com are actually prepared for the full ramifications of an actual revolution. The rest of you just really imprinted onto Katniss, or grew up in the suburbs.

Straight crushes are normal. They’re people first, sexual orientation second. Can’t always know.

The road to body positivity is not easy, especially if what you desire is what you aren’t.

You’re actually personally responsible for not voluntarily bringing yourself into an environment that you know is not fit for you unless you have the resolve to manage it. Can’t break a glass ceiling without getting a few cuts. This one’s a shoutout to my homophobic temp coworkers who decided working a venue with a drag show would be a good idea. This is also is a shoutout to people who want to make waves but are surprised when the boat tips. And also a shoutout to people who—wait that’s it’s own controversial opinion hold up.

Straight people can and should stay the fuck out of gay bars and queer spaces. “yoUrE bEInG diVisiVe” go fuck yourself.

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