#I want him in ways problematic to feminism

[pepsispook13]

I love Trent

[livvyofthelake]

i won’t get into it but i want everyone to know i’ve been having a category five billion moment about my blonde man in the past like two days. the situation is so dire but again let’s not get into it. just know there are things going on behind the scenes you cannot comprehend <3

[crimsonender]

Why do you care so much about Lily Orchard

Actually getting this a little backwards. I took notice of Lily Orchard as an individual earlier this year, back in January to March, when she was listed amongst a series of trans creators that are unfairly scrutinized. As she was the only one who had a Tumblr at the time I began following her because I wanted to basically spite transphobes. I've come under fire myself for being trans in the past.

What I discovered in the months I followed her is that she had awful takes and was really dismissive and sometimes outright mean to her fans. I went to a live stream or two, and I watched a couple videos. I soon became critical of her, and decided to do some research. This lead me to Hiding in Private and Sai Scribbles. At the time, I was focused on Lily being a bad YouTuber, both in terms of content and how she treated her fans.

I knew that no one else was going to cover her video on the Coffin of Andy and Leyley because most people dismiss this gothic horror game as problematic and incestuous. As a fan of the genre and the game itself I decided to cover the video. Then as a spur of the moment decision at the end of that stream I decided to cover her latest Kingdom Hearts video as well. This would turn into a an edited video later on where I was very insistant on not focusing on Lily's actions and the allegations. I was mostly concerned with her rhetoric and behaviour as a YouTuber, because I had been wanting to talk about media analysis for a long time. As you can see from my coverage on MatPat, Anita Sarkiseen, Anthony Gramgulia, and iDubbbz. I think there is something fundamentaly flawed with the way the modern internet analyzes media. Each of these individuals has contributed negatively to this rhetoric in their own way, but where people like Anthony and iDubbbz and even Sarkiseen have tried to improve (and in Anthony's case a large reason for the majority of his writing that is worthy of criticism was how he was editorialized by the publications he worked for) Lily has always doubled down and gotten worse. Moreover my biggest issue with Lily right now is how she interacts with her fandom, which is unique to her. She has been publically very sexual towards them, she encourages anti-intellectualism, has a history of abuse, so yeah that definitely is a factor. My last two videos were less about her media analysis and more about how she interacts with her audience and the world around her. I think people like Lily are dangerous.

I don't hate everyone I cover. I'm friends with Anthony and I like his videos and style of writing. He's not perfect but he's also very open to criticism. iDubbbz I'm not a big fan of but for the most part I'm fairly indifferent to. MatPat's videos while I'm highly critical of them, are somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me and I've been watching him since he released his first Starfox video. Sarkiseen I am more critical of but acknowledge she was one of the first people to make videos about feminism in modern media on the scale she was doing it. I wouldn't say anything these people are doing is dangerous.

If Lily was just some woman on the internet with a bad opinion then I probably wouldn't care. It's Lily's control over such a large number of people that worries me. Dismantling her rhetoric is how we show the people she has control over a way out. It's how we teach people that have been trained to turn their brain off that they should think for themselves. Videos like Joon the King's covering her allegations are important don't get me wrong, but unless we teach people to think for themselves, they're just going to fall for the next grifter to come along. The crux of the matter is that no one person should dictate what your opinion is based on how big of a fan you are of them. This problem is so much bigger than Lily. Lily just represents this issue to such a large degree.

[flavia8]

You know. Something I really hate about a lot of popular fantasy books, and it's especially prevalent in Romantasy, is what passes for Feminism in them. It's a toothless fake, used as an aesthetic/seasoning. A sprinkle of *strong female character* and a dash of deceptively misogynistic everything else, and for the finishing touch a pinch of man who's slightly better than being openly sexist and Boom. Fantasy series led by a FMC.

Generally, the Female Main character either starts out or becomes incredibly powerful, but always, always, always her power is linked to the men around her. She supposedly has agency and makes her own choices but the choices she makes are between choices provided to her by men. Her male love interest is more powerful in SOME way, and ends up besting her in some way. Experience, training, power, there's always some way the man is better than her. Female characters are never allowed to just BE powerful. Or even just BE single. Often they give up their powers, or are forcibly stripped of them. They look down on other female characters for doing "feminine" work. And, they're stupid as hell to supposedly make them relatable or endearing. Often, the male mc is concerningly abusive but it's portrayed as dreamy, romantic and Ideal. (I genuinely get the love for villains, and enemies to not, and the love for morally grey characters, I genuinely do, but this isn't that, what happens in these books is just genuinely bad (if they actually were people) being portrayed through rose colored glasses) [And in some stories that could be genuinely interesting!] If there's a second Love Interest, he will just do the same awful shit to the MC but it's better now bc it's him.

If the female character isn't white, all of this + a staggering amount of racism. They're rarely MCs. They're fridged for the MCs, they serve the MCs, they're never as beautiful or powerful as the MC, they're stereotyped and portrayed as savage, vapid, comically evil, or just as a good guy with no character at all.

These books are presented as feminist and it pisses me off. Feminism is equality for all, and the fight for Women to be equal and have their own agency. To make their own decisions. Genuinely I believe writers should be able to write whatever they want. I have no issues with having "problematic" stuff in books. My issue is when people start to believe that this shit is feminist, and the author is so skilled and amazing, and it's a masterpiece! Fuck that.

[separatist-apologist]

make 3 acotar confessions that would get you in trouble *evil laugh*

"trouble" in the sense that people will vague my opinions but I'm so oblivious, I'll never know.

The fandom is too concerned with other people shipping things they personally don't like

Literally who gives a single shit should be the question a lot of ya'll ask yourselves before you start putting your "if you like blahblahblah you're disgusting and normalizing [insert literally ANYTHING vaguely problematic right here] and therefore its okay if I harass you". Tragically people do NOT ask themselves that question.

It's not that they find it problematic- because they are often LOUDLY proud of the problematic things THEY like and seem to understand that liking something in fiction doesn't say anything about themselves directly. So like...the problem, then, is that you're bothered people enjoy something you find gross/weird/whatEVER and you want them to stop. But they can't just say that, so we do this weird backwards dance of finding some real life problem with fictional characters to justify harassing real life people.

2. People are way too married to fanon

Not one dude in this series is your sweet, sad, soft boy and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

3. Mor did nothing wrong

I'll die on this hill. Everyone understands consent SO well until it comes to Mor, and then suddenly she owes men an explanation/her kindness/her time/her attention. Mor doesn't owe Azriel ANYTHING- if he can't move on after 500 years, thats literally HIS problem ONLY. If Eris wants to explain himself to Mor and she says he can eat shit, thats on ERIS. If Elain doesn't owe Lucien her time OR an explanation for breaking their bond then neither does Mor and frankly they need to stop projecting their own desires/needs/whatever onto her.

What has Mor even done? Because if a man is about to confess his love to you and you leave him there, is that not a response? If a man harms you, regardless of his intentions, and you're afraid of him, do you owe it to his feelings to hear him out? Mor is such an interesting litmus test for the fandom and their supposed values around feminism and consent.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Elizabeth Midford

She started as just a cutie fiancée trying her best, turns out she's also a swordfighting genius, very under pressure to perform feminity in the Victorian Rose type of way. Fandom crucifies her bc she's Ciel's fiancée and they want him to be with his butler, Sebastian, the demon he sold his soul to for revenge

anime was a shitty canon divergent adaptation that butchered her character down to her "cutesy silly girly" persona, which obviously made the 2008 anime fans hate her with a passion (nothing wrong w being girly I'm just saying the adaptation made her super one dimensional) anyways fujoshis used to treat her as a villain because she's the fiance of Ciel,, who as u might know already was HEAVILY shipped with his butler, Sebastian back then (now it's kinda looked badly upon, nice tbh that ship sucks ass xD) She's a bit similar to Misa Amane from death note in the way she was treated. (Like an obstacle the yaoi ship must overcome rather than a person)

she's my silly little rabbit! i could gush about her character but i'll keep it short and just say that she's really well written and one of the best characters in the series. anyways she's ciel's fiance and she's like, rightfully annoying as any other 13 yr old girl would be but the fanbase fucking crucified her for even existing. she gets demonized for being 'annoying', but then ciel gets yaoishipped with an even more annoying guy. there is 100% an argument that lizzie/ciel is weird bc they're cousins (i personally don't ship it) but that falls flat when her detractors then ship the 13 yr old ciel with an eons old demon who Canonically looks like his father. the anime also never reached her main character development until years after its peak and that was only in a movie, so she really got the bad end of the stick here. not me though i had a giant crush on her when i was 12

Katara

Katara is constantly mistreated by the fans in favor of the Zukka ship (Zuko × Sokka.) They make her out to be mean, homophobic, and completely out of character just to add drama to the Zukka ship. In reality, Katara is very compassionate, and would never act that way toward anyone. 

Zutara was a popular ship but when zukka got popular over covid during the atla renaissance there were a million posts about how zutara was problematic while zukka was perfect usually for racist reasons. Meanwhile katara and sokka are siblings so it didn't even make sense. They did not have to be so illogically rude to her to ship zukka and it was weird

Katara is FANTASTIC I fucking love her to pieces she is so cool and yet the entirety of the ATLA fandom treats her like garbage because she “talks about her mom dying too much” (even though she BARELY does & also was parentified from a young age due to her mother’s death) and, of course, because she’s a more feminine women when compared to her counterparts. Even in the show itself she’s mistreated: she’s ALWAYS shown cooking for the rest of the gaang, doing their laundry, any ‘womanly’ task. She ends up with the guy who kissed her twice without her consent & who she never showed any real attraction to and apparently (despite being a badass warrior-doctor!!!) after the show ended she just… settled down in the South Pole and had a bunch of kids and never did anything else. She didn’t even get a statue :( Anyways during the ATLA renaissance, despite Zutara actually not being canon, people felt that Katara threatened the sanctity of the new almost entirely baseless yaoi ship, Zukka. Unfortunately for them, due to the fact that Katara and Sokka are siblings, the usual anti-Zutara arguments didn’t work as well. So they resorted to just… slaughtering her character. If she was lucky, they’d just make Katara a background character, wingwoman, &or throw her together with her canon love interest. If she was unlucky they’d do anything from make her homophobic (??) to killing her off! Fuck’s sake, she never even got a token spare-the-pairs wlw ship! Sorry for getting so heated, that whole debacle made me FUMING MAD.

[crash-cinematic-universe]

Human Resources

Roman Roy/reader (drabble)

~ Having lunch with your problematic boss is about as fun as it sounds (very fun)

warnings: joking about sexual harassment (no actual sexual harassment)

notes: i wanna make this guy meow for me. lil somethin to shake off the cobwebs. this is like a little corny but I forgot how to write good during my hiatus

“I could bludgeon you to death.” 

“What?” 

Roman almost seems offended by your surprise. He looks at you from across his desk as though he’d asked you the weather and you slapped him across the face. You’d been having a relatively peaceful afternoon–it had been hectic in the office, so you both decided to eat lunch at Roman’s desk. Your conversation had been fine, if maybe a little mundane. You were almost grateful for Roman’s weird outburst for allowing the both of you to fall into your regular routines. 

“I feel like, if it really came down to it, I could bludgeon you to death,” He leans forward in his chair. “I’m not saying I want to, I’m just saying if the situation called for it, I wouldn’t, like, struggle.”

“Why the fuck would the situation call for it?” You ask, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I don’t fucking know, maybe you start PMS-ing and end up taking a swing at me.” 

“Jesus, Rome,” you chide, “Is this the kinda shit you fantasize about? Spend a lot of time playing with yourself imagining what it would feel like to bash my brains out?” A part of you is grateful that you've finished your lunch already–this conversation is not working wonders for your appetite. 

“Ok, well, now you made it weird.” Roman slumped over in his chair, sitting at an angle that could not have been comfortable. “I was just throwing it out there, no need to get your fuckin’ dick twisted in a knot.”

“Y’know what? I bet you’re wrong,” This catches his attention. “If we got into a fight like that–like, life or death–I could kick your ass.”

“No fucking way, are you kidding? Have you seen yourself?” he pushes himself up where he sits, fitting his legs underneath his body and leaving him perched on his chair like a bird. “You’re, like, 2% muscle and 98% bitch. You can’t even send your drink back if they get your coffee order wrong–I think if you were faced with life-threatening danger, your heart would self-destruct to avoid the conflict. I wouldn’t even have to bludgeon you to death.”

If anybody else was saying this to you, you’d be appalled. Thankfully, you’ve had years of practice fully dedicated to building up your Roman tolerance. “You’re hardly life-threatening, Rome. All I need to do is call you gross, like, once, and you’d be too blinded by weird, horny brain-fog to fight me,” You’re not sure when you rose from your seat and began to lean against his desk, but you pay it no mind. Like clockwork, he rises up on his chair to reach your eye level. He has a smug look on his face that you’d grown increasingly accustomed to. 

“You’re disgusting, you know that? I could get you fired for talking to a superior that way, you pervert.” He narrows his eyes at you, and the corners of his mouth quirk upwards. He’s moved closer to you, close enough so that you feel his breath on your face. Too close. You take the opportunity to flick him on the underside of his jaw, and he throws his head backward as though you’d socked him in the nose. 

“That’s assault! You just assaulted me! God, Human Resources is going to have a field day with this. The young, naive assistant violently assaulting her boss after making crude, sexual comments about him–feminism really has gone too far.” He leans back toward you, this time straining to seem as though he was towering over you. Instead, he ends up talking to your forehead. 

“Please, Roman, you’re being delusional.” His jaw drops.

“And now you’re gaslighting me. I cannot believe I’ve had someone so cruel working for me all these years.” He fans himself like a southern belle. You stifle your laughter at his dramatic display. “You’re toxic, this is toxic. Do you think Greg treats Tom this way? Because I sure don’t.”

“Greg treats me in what way?” Tom’s voice cuts through. Both you and Roman jerk backwards, and for some reason you feel your face heat up. It feels like you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t have. 

“He treats you like the pretty pillow princess you are, Tom.” Roman quips, seemingly unaffected by Tom’s sudden appearance. Tom’s face contorts strangely, and he lets out a strangled half-scoff-half-laugh while flapping his hand dismissively. You cock an eyebrow at his behavior, which draws out for just a little too long. Tom clears his throat.

“Anyways,” he straightens his tie. Your mind wanders to a late-night conversation you had with Roman where he called Tom a ‘sad, deeply repressed, half-muppet-half-man hybrid’. It becomes clearer everyday that he was spot on. “Kendall asked to see you in his office. I’m not sure what about, but he seemed… frazzled.”

“Frazzled.” Roman repeats, irritated. He turns to you, and for a second, you almost think he looks disappointed. “Duty calls. I’ll have to report you to HR later. Try not to sexually harass anyone else until then, m’kay?”

Before you have a chance to respond, he blows you a kiss and scurries out the door, leaving you and Tom alone in his office. Tom looks at you with his muppet eyes.

“Sexually harass…?”

“Get out, Tom.”

[carefulfears]

this tweet (https://x.com/littlefaiths/status/1817775320918847691?s=46&t=L7Z7tpqXDaxqrMiLS0ZuBA) made me think about the different way mulder & scully communicate/express themselves. like i say all the time i love when they speak each other's language, and i mean that in a lot of ways. but how do you think about their communication styles? the way the express feelings & thoughts etc. (and the way they understand each other "despite" their differences)

this is the tweet: "people read the pillow talk scene in plus one in such constant bad faith but it’s truly one of my favorite scenes ever...i think sometimes people want vulnerability/exposure from scully but are completely uncomfortable with the ways that her character textually expresses herself"

and i said that because i think people can fall into a lot of traps with scully, viewing her character in a larger context and obsessing over what every piece of dialogue or blocking Says about the Author and about Society and about Women (which to be clear isn't isolated to this character, this is a widespread way of thinking) which can bypass what is being said about her in a literal sense...trish, you and me talked about this recently, how we wouldn't want our every move and breath to be dissected based on what it means to feminism or what the implications of our decisions are. and as a writer, i wouldn't want my work to be broken into pieces like that either.

and so i find that there is a lot of projection and judgment in reading any particular scene, and not a lot of curiosity. which is a longwinded, overly-problematic, unnecessary way of saying that scully is a loser babes! she is an extremely lame person! you don't have to throw around words like "fertile" and all this fiery rhetoric to discard and disregard every single scene.

to what i was saying last night: people want vulnerability and exposure from scully. they are completely uncomfortable with the way that she expresses that. if she wants to sneak into her baby daddy's bed years after leaving him and mope that maybe he doesn't 🥺 like her anymore, that's her. same woman that showed up with wine and cheese and got ditched for monster hunts. same woman who begged to autopsy a mutant sewer worm to maybe spend 5 minutes with him.

same woman who at 13 stole her mother's cigarettes; not because she wanted to smoke, but because she knew her father would care.

(same woman who, after her father died, believed in a psychic and looked up at her partner to say "i thought that you would be pleased.")

to address your question, i don't think they do speak the same language. i think they speak each other's language, most of the time. sometimes they don't. sometimes they get hurt feelings. sometimes they get ditched (with wine and cheese, or fresh tattoo ink). they're learning, though, and they're learning themselves too. by the time she knows to creep into his hotel room and ask, he knows to say "i'll always be around." she knows to walk out and go buy her own dinner, if he can't focus. he knows to sit still and stay in and let her make weird jello.

that's learned. that's maturity. that's twenty-five years. of picking up, and putting down, which more than anything is what i view scully's way of communication as. she spends her career traversing any length, and her life venturing out just a little.

[transmascpetewentz]

A Rant About Masculinity, Cisnormativity, And Cis Gay Men

I was going to write a longer post about my ex-mutual, but I feel no need to put him specifically on the spot here because the issue is so much larger than just him, and because I really hold no ill will against him that I don't hold against all the TEHMs that reblog from him in complete support of what he says despite him claiming to be a trans ally. I think that there are two main things that contribute to the existence of a blogger like him, those being the intersection of how society feminizes both gay & trans men, and how a lot of cis gay men will perform trans allyship to make themselves feel better while still participating in a deeply transphobic culture and taking no action that targets cisnormativity in the gay community.

This ex-mutual is a person whose opinions, actions, and activism (or lack thereof) exist in a weird position. He often goes between fetishizing trans men to erasing us, to policing how we talk about our history. When I asked him whether he was transphobic, he replied talking about how he wanted to have sex with trans men, but I saw that he also made a post around the same time where he tried to "call out" a gay trans man for "fetishizing trans men" by... replying to several photos of trans men with "they're just some guys."

As you can clearly tell by now, he seems to be far more interested in feeling right and in trying to find problematic subtext in the words and actions of gay trans men than he is actually protecting us and being an ally. This is quite common amongst cis gay men who want to be progressive while not taking a stance against the TEHMism and toxic masculinity that poisons the community. And the reason behind this pattern of behavior is really simple: these men, due to their relative privileges not just for being cis but often for things like being white, thin, and perisex, oftentimes have other friends with those privileges, and if you have a large group of privileged people with relatively few people who do not have those privileges, you will likely develop bigotry. So the simple reason that these types of cis gay men do not want to confront their transphobia is because they are surrounded by others who have fallen further down the transphobia pipeline who may abandon them if they call it out.

While things like cisnormativity and toxic masculinity among cis gay men definitely do them a lot more harm than good, many will still uphold these ideas due to the way that cisnormativity benefits them relative to trans men and their lack of exposure to intersectional queer liberation movements. In my opinion, this phenomenon is what is behind cis gay men's performative allyship. They'll go on and on about how valuable gay trans men are to gay culture, but will be actively hostile to gay culture that first developed among gay trans men. They'll go on long rants about how the "toothpaste flag" is the worst thing to happen to the gay community. They'll distance themselves from gay trans men in any way they can when we're real people and not just words on a screen.

And due to many cis gay men's performative allyship clashing with their personal interest in upholding cisnormativity, they'll try to compensate for that by policing gay trans men. They'll accuse us of being the real transphobes if we step out of line or if we tell them that they're being transphobic for using obvious dogwhistles. They'll call a vague group of gay trans men "women" and call us the real transphobes for "hearing someone say 'women' and thinking 'trans men.'"

This brings me to my next point. Due to a lot of cis gay men (especially mascs/gender conforming, though fem/gnc cis gay men aren't entirely exempt) feeling hostile to the idea of having their masculinity challenged, they may contribute to feminizing other gay men who they perceive not to be as masculine as them for any number of reasons. One of these reasons being transness. Not to vaguepost about my ex-mutual even more, but he literally made a post saying "isn't it annoying when women will comment under a picture of any man saying that he's trans and gay?" This guy literally calls himself a trans ally.

I don't think that headcanoning someone as gay and trans is particularly female behavior, [redacted]. but again, this isn't a callout post of my ex-mutual. This is merely an example of something I've seen quite a lot of. This is exactly the reason behind my statement "the transandrophobe/femphobe/misogynist venn diagram of cis gay men is a circle." Because it truly is a circle. Toxic masculinity and misogyny lead to wanting to separate oneself from women, which causes one to see trans men as potential women necessary to separate oneself from. And, many times, this will lead to a hatred of feminine men, as the misogynistic gay man will see feminine men as being like women.

I don't know if I'm onto something about there being something to do with severe, collective trauma in the gay community causing a sort of "crisis of masculinity" within the community. But as I keep thinking about this, I think I am realizing that there is a lot more to this issue than at first meets the eye. Something to think about.

[thatone-artsykid]

INTRODUCTION POST (i guess)

Ummmm... Since I have almost 300 followers, then ig, i should make some welcome post or smth, so, HIIIIIIII, HAIIIIIIIII EVERYONEEEE!!!

(I'll TRY to keep this updated, no promises tho)

I'm Kamil, you can either call me by my name, or Kamik, or any other way you want (except slurs ofc, unless we're close friends lmao). I am a minor, trans/enby artist, who went to artschool BUT most of the art has learned by themselves:333

Art

The comms are open!! (Feel free to ask about em if you have any doubts)

Askbox is also open, if you have any doodle ideas or smth, feel free to share (I don't promise I'll do em, sowwy😭)

I mostly do digital art (I use Krita for everything), occasionally i do some scribbles in my sketchbooks, doodles in class, or generally school assignments (which i hate, but let's move on). I am a multifandom artist, who draws whatever they are hyperfixating on (rn im again stuck in re8 brainrot).

Here's the list of fandoms im (mostly) in:

Resident Evil series (mainly Resident Evil Village)

Just Shapes and Beats

Hollow Knight

Detroit: Become Human

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (mostly Stardust Crusaders)

Original characters

I'm trying to finally bring my original characters to life, and give 'em a proper lore (which isn't going well, for now, lmao). Here's the list of em!

Claire/Clara Heisenberg (re8, Karl Heisenberg is her uncle, who became like a father to her)

Carl/Clara Heisenberg (same as Claire, but in D:BH universe)

Kazakura Marcatney (jjba part3, i'm shipping her with Kakyoin Noriaki)

Surya (Kazakura's stand)

Asuril and Lumi (Hollow Knight oc vessels)

Blixer Fresh (my version of that circle coward from jsab)

Lessyr (golden eyelash pit viper oc I made based off a song Snakes from Solence)

Spooder (a jumping spider oc I made when I was bored)

Bumblee (oc based off my ikea bumblebee plushie)

Other socials i post on (including my redbubble shop)

ThatOne._.ArtsyKid

That1-ArtsyKid

Now, let's settle out, 🚫DNI 🚫 if you either are a:

transphobe/homophobe/anyother lgbtq+phobe, a terf, JK Rowling Supporter, pro-shipper, racist, NSFW/18+, p0rn bot, sexist, or any other problematic folk (if you have an blank blog with an emtpy bio, then im also gonna block you)

More things about me :333

I come from Poland (therefore my english might not be the best)

My b-days are on 29th April

I have 4 budgies (named Lemon, Lemonade, Lime and Larry) and one rabbit (named Robin)

Im not the best with human interactions, sowwy

I easily get overwhelmed, and tend to disappear for few hours/days if I do, bear with me

Not looking to become friends with anyone, but if our vibe match, then hell yeah

I'm taken by the sweetiest pookie ever existed on this earth (my bf)

I have a tons of plushies occupying my bed

I've lived most of my life having high anxiety levels, so now im tryna take everything slowly (please be patient with me)

My fav music genres are metal, alternative metal, rock, rap-rock or anything that sounds good for me

I mostly listen to System Of A Down, Solence, My Chemical Romance, Grandson, Linkin Park and Cavetown (ofc)

I want to have many face piercings and tattoos in the future (I wish to have a septum, snake bites, a helix piercing and brow piercings so bad)

i'm a really really big bug nerd, if you have any cool bug pics, SEND EM OVER!!(im not joking)

my fav drinks are green tea and mojito (alcohol-free cuz i despise alcohol)

My comfort characters are:

Karl Heisenberg from re8 (I see him as a father figure)

Connor from dbh (the tism android)

Kakyoin from jjba part 3 (he's such a nerd, istg we'd go along together)

Lucas Baker from re7 (im not joking, i love this psycho-nerd)

Luis Serra Navarro from re4 (he so diva)

Angel Dust from hazbin hotel (i love him by his feminity and sassines)

Quirrel from Hollow Knight (another father figure, yes, I see a pillbug as a father figure, don't judge me)

[bohemian-nights]

Let’s talk about the changed between white book laena to black show laena

Book leana had a pretty awesome life. She married at the age of 22 to a man she loved, traveled the world with him, had 2 babies and they lived happily on driftmark with her family together until she passed away at childbirth despite her loving husband doing everything he can to save her. + her husband remarried 6 months after her death.

Now let’s talk about show leana

She married daemon much younger than book laena, was neglected and unloved by him, was forced to live away from her beloved family and burned herself to death because “feminism” 🤡 only to have her husband sleep with another woman on her fucking funeral. And the showrunners claim they wanted to respect her character?????? Disgusting.

In the book laena is the only wife that daemon seemed to truly love. (Until nettles). He never cheated and they had a happy marriage. But when she’s black suddenly she’s the second choice to the white female lead. What a fucking joke. And then they absolutely spit on her by having her husband sleep with said white female main character on her funeral. This show treats its black characters like shit. I really don’t understand why people aren’t talking about this.

This shows deranged fandom tells you everything you need to know about the problematic way they treat black characters. We haven’t even got nettles’s casting yet. The most important dragon seed. Literally who gives a shit about the others? But I wonder why we have their castings but not the casting of the only canonically black character in the dance???? If nettles is not in season 2 I’m going to drop this show. If they’ll introduce the dragonseeds without nettles they are fucking disgusting.

All of this is why I criticize this shitty show and equally shitty fandom👏🏽

People try to act like you’re the crazy one for noticing how these changes affect the treatment of the characters, but nope fandom racism, more specifically fandom misogynoir, is real and it’s happening with HOTD.

Book!Laena was treated with love and respect, but the moment she became Black-ish she became worthless to both the showrunners and the fandom. All she's good for is to be a prop/placeholder. Hell, when she died people seemed more concerned about Vhagar, a dragon, rather than the woman who lit herself on fucking fire.

They made Laena into a stereotype just to make a crazed white woman’s death look better than it was and this demented ass fandom cheers it on.

Because she’s Black and not a cookie-cutter stereotype in the source material, Nettles' whole existence is a problem to these people and she must be cut, erased, reduced, etc.

They try to say she’s completely irrelevant. That the only reason people like her is because she's Black or out of spite, but I can think of a dozen white characters who don’t even come close to reaching her relevancy to the plot

This is why she’s always included where some characters like Ulf, Hugh, Sara Snow, Alys Rivers, Gwayne Hightower, and Silver Denys are omitted, and 5/6 of those characters are confirmed for s2. And I'm not trying to say none of these characters shouldn't be included(well we could do without 2 of them), but they aren't more important than her.

Nettles literally has all the qualities people usually like in characters(the ordinary girl who despite all odds does the unthinkable, she’s a survivor, she’s a final girl, she has one of if not the most powerful men in the realm willing to die for her, and she becomes a goddess like figure) yet she’s hated for it because she dares to be Black. They won't even try to relate to her or see her importance because she is Black.

They’d rather prop up psychos or mediocre flops just because they are white rather than ever admit that Nettles is an interesting and integral character to the Dance. She’s awesome. The man who created these freaking books that you claim to love and swear his word is law thinks she’s awesome and yet you want to deny that she’s awesome and has no real value because you’re scared shitless she’ll upstage your psycho(book!Missy Anne)/boring(show!Missy Anne) fave.

It’s nuts and like you, I won’t be watching s2 if Netty’s not there. They found time for a maid who shouldn't even be there, propped up Addam to the Gods, and gave Hugh an unnecessary sex scene, all while cutting Nettles out. Nope. I’ll skip straight to s3 cause I’m not dealing with this show's BS and blatant disrespect. It’s unacceptable!

[horse-girl-anthy]

when I wrote my piece on Ikuhara and eroticism, I emphasized the libertine aspects of his thinking. however, as much as he jokes around and says ~problematic~ things, Ikuhara isn't a thoughtless person. he has openly questioned his place as a male director telling stories about the oppression of girls. when asked about his interest in lesbians/homosexuality more broadly, he gave a very interesting answer. since RGU, he has built creative teams with unusually high numbers of women for the anime world.

I don't make this post to try to defend Ikuhara, I'm just elaborating on my last post to make a point about how easy it is to frame someone one way or another. for instance, even in the interview above where he discusses himself as a male director, he isn't necessarily saying the most comforting things:

– At some point Anthy says “Girls are all like Rose Brides”. I thought this was a pretty pivotal statement. Ikuhara: I can’t really comment, since I’m not a female. Even though me and the staff are just writing these lines, it gets called preaching.  It might be nice if the viewers didn’t take it as preaching, but again since the one writing it is a male, what I say doesn’t matter (laugh).

he's a bit defensive here, or maybe he's just joking. he sounds a lot more confident in his interview with Mari Kotani, his contemporary; it's possible that he's so self-conscious in the above discussion since he's talking with shoujo legend Takemiya Keiko. but it's interesting to see him responding to criticism he received from female viewers. the pushback might just be in his head though--the interview goes on:

Takemiya: Isn’t that just you holding back? Ikuhara: It just seems kind of fake, even if I were to slap a girl and tell her “Open your eyes! There is no such thing as a prince!”. After all I wasn’t intending to preach to girls. Takemiya: Girls are actually very strong regarding such things. I don’t think they’d have a problem being told that.

this does read as Ikuhara being self-effacing in the presence of an older creative. as Takemiya gives him the go-ahead to say what he really thinks, he starts making statements like this:

Ikuhara: If I say it it’ll probably sound gross, but I think women see in the city and in society, a kind of paternal or princely illusion, though it might be an illusion that they only wish to exist.

my point here is, I could pick and choose whatever part of this interview I wanted to make Ikuhara look bad or good. summarizing the interview with "Ikuhara expresses concerns over his place as a male director" is technically accurate, but doesn't convey the flavor of his comments. I personally do see Ikuhara as a feminist. his gender politics are interesting and subversive, and his stories have so much humanity to them. despite his jokes about wanting a harem, he has demonstrated throughout his career that he likes to surround himself with women professionally. not many men seek out the intellectual company of women that way. but the type of feminism Ikuhara and his colleagues discuss has different priorities than what we might expect, and he is as skeptical towards women as he is towards men.

[mormonbooks]

The Bishop's Wife Review

4/5 Stars!

This book was nothing like how I expected it to be and everything I needed and wanted it to be. I expected the kind of novel you could recommend to your mom for a bit of light reading on a Sunday afternoon. The Bishop's Wife. She's a mormon woman who is doing her best to take care of her ward.

I was pleasantly surprised at the moderately progressive tone the book took within the first few chapters (asking questions about the sexism in the church, the fear of judgement 'imperfect' families face, etc) but I soon realized that it there was much more. This novel is a deep commentary on Mormonism, digging into the deep and unpleasant parts, and asking difficult questions that most members like to avoid. It does it all through the eyes of a faithful middle-aged woman, who knows what she believes and uses her faith to bring justice to her community, even when she has to struggle against the church institution and her own husband to do it.

In my opinion, it's a great work of mormon feminism, that allows our culture to shine through in all it's glory and with all it's flaws. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, genuinely. The mystery is engaging, the community is loveable, the plot twists are gut wrenching. Truly a work of art. I'm excited to read more of Harrison's work

Breakdown under the cut

1. Well written - 5 Stars

Yes. The prose is beautiful. The plot is engaging. The mystery is complex and the new information always threw me. It was gut wrenching at times. It was comforting at others.

2. Fun level - 5 stars

It's a slow-paced story, with many moments that skip weeks or months where not much happens. But I enjoy stories like that. It gave breaks between the page-turning mystery solving moments.

3. Complex faith - 5 Stars

This is probably my favorite part of this book. The villains and the heroes are all mormons, and they all approach their faith and their religion in different ways. Linda obviously has more progressive views, and is enraged by the misogyny of many of the men in this story. Those men are not shown to be anamolys per se but they're also not shown to be the norm. Many women in the story have opportunities to voice their questions and doubts but it never makes them any less mormon. People exist all over the scale of mormonism and it feels like the most honest portrayal of our culture that I've read so far.

4. Homophobia scale - 3.5 Stars

It's not a major plot point, but it's mentioned that Linda's son Samuel joined the GSA at his school and she is proud of him for that. She also suspects that her other son might be gay, and worries about how that will affect his relationship with his father. I imagine this will be explored further in the series. It's refreshing that Linda is pro-LGBT but it also seems to treat the church's heteronormative stance quite naively and I'd love to see Harrison really dig into that topic in the future.

5. Mormon weird - 4 stars

Realistic Fiction, but definitely uniquely mormon. The characters in this book could not be swapped out with "generic christians." some of the problematic and dangerous beliefs are uniquely mormon, but so are the beautiful and comforting ones. There is a lot of discussion of the plan of salvation, that I appreciated. I also liked Linda's realistic approach to faith, and her honest moments of doubting, or referring to things as "legends" and "myths." Things don't have to be doctrine to be important in our culture

6. Diversity of characters - 2 stars

I don't think race is ever touched on in the novel, and they all live in Utah and have typical european-american names, so it's easy to assume they are all white. And despite being essentially a work of mormon feminism, a very small percentage of the speaking cast are women.

7. Other problematic stuff - 4.5 stars

I deeply enjoyed the novel as a snapshot of a mormon town, however that does mean that, despite her progressiveness, Linda has a realistic understanding of gender, as a middle-aged mormon woman. She has some beliefs and attitudes toward men that I found frustrating, although understandable.

Conclusion:

I gave this book 5 stars on goodreads but that was before I did my breakdown. I wish it had been more diverse, but I think Harrison explores race in the church in future novels. We'll see.

I LOVE Linda Wallheim. I LOVE the way Harrison talks about Mormon communities and Mormon faith and Mormon culture. I love how much this book made me feel. This is decidedly GOOD mormon rep, with all the determined faith mixed with struggles against flawed systems and truly terrible people. like. I cannot express how much I hate the villains in this book.

I can't wait to see Linda's next adventure.

[sneezemonster15]

I find it so funny when people try to dissuade people from shipping same sex pairing by using the "We need more representation of close and intimate male friendship. People need to stop making everything gay" excuse. But the reality is that the friendship who is truly under representated is male/female friendship. Ask anybody if 2 guys can be friend? Of course! Ask if 2 girls can be friend? Obviously! Now ask if a a guy and a girl can be friend? "Well, hum ... not really ... the guy probably want to fuck the girl if she is pretty ... the friendship isnt real." Clearly society lacks representation of healthy male/female friendship. Tv shows, anime etc ... give the MC a whole harem of girls (girls who are supposed to be just friends and he thinks of as only friends at the beginning) pining for him or love the trope of the good guy friend who is waiting for the girl to stop dating assholes and finally notice him. Which also lead to the gay best friend trope bc its the only guy who can be the girl's friend.

Representing male/female friendship not only help against heteronormativity but also misoginy. The idea that women arent fun to be around and are boring perpetuate the thought that women are just good at being fucked, at being wifed etc, and not fun enough to just have a good time doing friends stuff ... So men end up thinking they can only return romantic or lustful feelings toward women.

All that to say that those people clearly do not care about friendships representation. They are just annoyed that people prefer same sex pairings to the holy straight pairings. And "feminist" women who cheer because their queens finally got to get the dicks they wanted are advocating for the wrong thing. Celebrating their faves girls being used as sequel factories or for disney happy ever after the heteronormative and misogynist society craves so much, isnt the big flex they think it is.

Well said anon.

Yes, I agree there is a dearth of healthy and realistic m/f friendships in media and they are surely underrepresented. Lately, more creators are portraying m/f friendships in their films/series etc. But yeah, it's such a stereotypical thing to reduce m/f relationships to romantic or lewd isn't it?

I liked how the character of Amy in Gone Girl talked about the Cool Girl trope. How men wanna see women they wanna hang out with in a certain way and outwardly, it seems this is a fun girl, with a free, liberal and casual devil may care attitude yet still have their personalities revolving around the desires and fetishes of men. I also liked how again, the character of Amy in a film called Chasing Amy portrayed a similar issue, even though the film has its own problems. How men see lesbian women and even though their sexual interests don't intersect, men nevertheless feel righteous about constructing sexual fetishes around it, objectifying lesbians because women, by the simple grace of being women, simply cannot do without men, that their whole existence is nullified if men aren't in it.

A male/female relationship which is platonic and based on equal terms can do so much to give some resolution to this issue.

As for the 'feminist' fans in this fandom, it is interesting to see how Sakura or Hinata stans think cheering their faves is a holy act of feminism while understanding nothing about feminism and female representation in media. It has created such a toxic environment in this fandom, and I am sure others. To a huge extent, I blame the industry because the target group of this genre is so impressionable, it's so easy to misinterpret things, especially with how these women are written. While I get why Kishi did it with these two female characters, given they would be paired up with his two main (and clearly gay, living in a homophobic world) characters for the sake of the sequel and that he writes other female characters much better than theirs, it still is very problematic. Because they were never condemned in the actual story. They were never called out. Never made to face consequences for their actions. And this, THIS, makes their fans so insistent about the apparent goodness of them, while sweeping the rest under the carpet. While it doesn't take a genius to spot their faults, it certainly takes a certain level of understanding of narrative, visual language, themes and understanding of the world.

I can talk about narrative subversion till my lungs give out but unless one shows an inclination to learn how narratives are built, they would keep sticking to their token understanding of concepts such as representation and feminism. Which is such a sad phenomenon. It is almost hurtful how so many fans are so willingly tone deaf and blind, all because of some shallow relationship they wish they had. It's amazing to me how well fortified their delusions are. How strong their willingness to be courted by a hot popular boy. How fine they are with having their fave character revolve around some guy for the most superficial of reasons. This is what their understanding of feminism amounts to. All this nonsense for some cheap self insert.

Even Sasuke stans who are anti SNS. They prefer thinking of Sasuke as some cool, badass, revolutionary man archetype who sleeps around and struts with his massive dick out. And this is how they facilitate their Sasuke*fem reader smut. These Guevara extremists who think homosexuality only exists in western societies, who also consider themselves uber feminists, who think Sasuke casually slept with Karin (because why wouldn't he? He is a man and he has a dick and a willing girl is around, it all makes sense lol), are fine with self inserting into a female character, as long as the badass revolutionary would casually fuck her and then throw her away or let her die without a second thought after his demands have been met. Because yay, feminism. Like irony goes to anti SNS and SS/NH to die a horrible death.

Hinata stans would get triggered at SNS posts or anti NH posts and share the same four Spanish panels of photographs of Naruto with his family because that's their understanding of a happy family. Orchestrated studio pictures. Because gay men living in a het marriage have never been clicked. Because gay men in het marriages don't exist. That's their extent of understanding a relationship. A family picture. It is certainly not a flex.

Just look at how SS apply all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify Sasuke staying away from his family for 12 freaking years. Like you can certainly feel bad for SS stans who even after Gaiden, had the courage to ship this ship. The levels of desperation. And to what ends? What is even their payback? Where is their reward? Kishi certainly isn't giving them any.

You know sometimes I feel shipping is a strong word for what I feel for the story. Because Naruto is just a love story about two boys. If I want them to be together, is it shipping? Shipping is such a fandom term. If that's what the story has led me to, to hope for the two main characters to have a resolution that the entire narrative has painstakingly led me to, is it really shipping? I am just an ordinary reader/audience who wants a good ending to this story. The way the creator wrote it. All I did was to follow what he wanted me to see. Is it then shipping or just a natural conclusion to the story? To want them to be with each other?

As for those fans who say 'we need more representation of men being friends, stop making everything gay' are so fucking silly. Like damn, don't we have enough representation of platonic male bonding? There are entire tropes based on that dynamic. Cop buddies, bro code, band of brothers, big brother mentor, bromantic foil, bros before hoes, brother from another mother and this goes on and on and on. I can count like forty films and twenty books off the top of my head that use these male bonding tropes. Just say you are a homophobic piece of shit. Why circumvent facts? Like we live in a patriarchal, heteronormative world and suddenly stories about men being friends are in jeopardy. Like c'mon, cut the utter bullshit. Lol.

There are only a handful of sane voices in fandoms. Because the rest of them leave and I totally understand why. Hehe. But while you are here, do what you can and then get out. This shit is not good for anyone long term.

[elkian]

What I'm getting from the "let Marcille be conservative" and Netflix erasing Sokka's misogyny discussions is actually a piece of pretty helpful character building device.

I have a hard time letting characters mess up - let alone make mistakes that impact the story as a whole - and I think I'm starting to grok why.

A lot of my characters' flaws fall into Anime Badass Flaws range, and that's not in itself a bad thing, *but*: what I've also done is planed smooth some smaller flaws to satisfy an audience I don't even actually have yet. Kill the cop in your brain etc.

My characters don't just need Angsty Brooding On The Rooftop flaws, they need Regular People Flaws. I'm talking shit that makes people go 😬 and suck air between their teeth, like Marcille's old-fashioned views and Sokka's sexism.

I'm actually gonna veer and talk about ATLA's character writing and how crucial it is to the story because I totally missed it until I started thinking about this very specific thing.

Sokka being sexist is crucial to the story. It's how he pisses off Katara until she accidentally frees Aang, bringing him back to the timestream and kickstarting the entire show! Speaking of kickstarting the entire show, Aang's avoidance tendencies are what put him on ice in the first place. The story would be wildly different if he hadn't run away, and he might not have run away if the elders he'd once depended upon had made their concerns more accessible to him, instead of trying to control his life and take away his most important guardian.

Sokka absorbing feminism and changing his ways is his first, and possibly biggest character arc in the show. Sokka being sexist impacts his actions at Kyoshi Island. I have to wonder - the Kyoshi Warriors seemed to enjoy a certain level of popularity on their isolated home island. Sokka crashing in and disrespecting them might have lead them to realize that the outside world didn't have the same veneration and views as they held. This might have lead to Suki and her gang heading out into the Earth Kingdom, which has impact in several later episodes, to say the least. Suki's presence is the reason Sokka and Toph survive the finale.

Every character in the show has little human flaws like that - not just Epic Anime Flaws, but stuff that makes them a little bit unlikeable, just like real people have. (And being unlikeable makes them more likeable because they feel more complex and real in turn.) Everyone's flaws affect the story in some way - Zuko's flaws motivate an enormous chunk of the plot and have substantial impact on the Gaang well before he joins up.

Iroh is so likeable that it's easy to forget that he spent months sieging a city and presumably letting hundreds of soldiers to die, only to pull out when his son died. He's wise and friendly to Zuko and the Gaang, but he has done some pretty selfish stuff that has affected the course of history (and that's not even getting into his casual sexism). He could have been written as totally flippant, or Angstlord Extrordinaire, but instead he's a complex and hurting old man who still has the time and energy to try and help the people in his life.

What I'm realizing is that to really drive a plot, and make characters feel alive, is they gotta be a little Problematic. I shaved off Ray's chivalry bc it was problematic, not thinking about how that means that trait causes Problems, or in other words, generates conflict that drives a story. If I want my characters to feel complex and alive, I think they need to suck a little bit! I think sometimes you gotta let your character be a True Believer in Astrology, or is rude to the waitstaff, or will walk 2 miles rather than pay for a cab, or what have you! They gotta be a little dumb and messed up! Sure, this character has no self-esteem, but how does that affect others? How does it make them uncomfortable and change their actions, and not just in a platonically perfect way to 'fix' him?

It's pretty interesting to chew over implications like that - I've read and absorbed "let your characters have flaws" over and over, but only recently come to realize that means they need to suck a little bit. They need to be kind of uncool. They need to have traits that would make you wrinkle your nose at if they were real people. Etc.

[what-thisiscrazzzy]

If your wondering the reason for my recent reblogs it bc I came onto tumblr where it’s mostly pictures of Taylor Swift on the trending bit straight after seeing the video I’m going to show a screen shot of.

But before that I want to say that the ‘comedian’ who was at the golden globes was terrible and was being misogynistic and overall problematic and the targets of the jokes have the right to be upset. Taylor reacting is not the issue I have with the image attached. I have many issues with Taylor but that’s not what this is about.

The sound playing in the background is the song ‘the man’ by Taylor Swift insinuating that this supposed ‘lack of backlash’ is due to male privilege.

My irritation also stems for the amount of TikTok’s I saw about this incident. This is the only one to bring up Will Smith but the comment section and amount of people agreeing with this take is what made me want to post this.

The comment section is full of people trying to say that Will Smith faced zero repercussions because he is a man. This is factually incorrect. Will Smith got banned from the Oscars for I believe 10 years ? But he did face consequences from the event holders. Will Smith also faced public ridicule and large amounts of racism. News stations reported and it was discussed on chat shows. I think we can all agree that there was a lot of racism in the way this incident was discussed. Many (white) people described it as ‘traumatising’ and blew the slap out of proportion of what it truly was.

I agree that while I haven’t witnessed it people will be and have been misogynistic when discussing Taylor swift.

However posts like these just display the lack of thought and critical thinking the some Swifties have. The lack of understanding of intersecting identities. This is just another example of white feminism, the way in which they can’t understand that while Will Smith is a man he is also black and that affects how people view him and judge him. They never seem to acknowledge that Taylor is a white woman and therefore has a form of privilege, there’s a false narrative that somehow she’s the most oppressed person in her industry.

I could analyse this further but I think anyone with a brain can see just from the screen shot just how absurd this take was and I don’t need to explain any further.

OP is getting debates in the comments and it’s interesting the take she’s going with

The way they double down.

Anyway this was just bc I was getting frustrated at the way some Swifties love to ignore racism. The same way they attacked the young black actress from Ginny and Georgia bc of a joke she didn’t even write and then Taylor did nothing about it. A young actress without the fan base that Taylor has and is aware of how powerful it is.

Again, Taylor wasn’t dramatic for making a face. I have my issues with her pollution, her politics and many other things but she’s a person she can be upset. I saw the clip it wasn’t dramatic.

But she has a fan base that loves to ignore racism and white privileged when it suits them and that last comment i mentioned is bc I don’t think the apple falls far from the Taylor