#It's giving you think being gay or trans is a whites only event

[thottybrucewayne]

It's so weird that yall will say that anything Black people do or say is "For straight people" "Standing on business is straight lingo, rap is straight people music, only straight girls do their makeup like that"

[drdemonprince]

Hey, I just wanted to thank you for your honesty and willingness to explain how queer spaces can be a lot less transphobic than discourse within the trans community can make it seem. A lot of the past few years for me have been spent closeted out of fear that reactions around me would be uniformly hostile. Things are obviously going to be different for me as a transfem, but I have a much easier time being optimistic now!

I am so glad! Listen, the people who post online all the time about how miserably hard it is to find a place for oneself as a trans person create a kind of reverse survivorship bias. They are the people who have already convinced themselves it's best to forever remain closeted or that forging any kind of accepting community for oneself is impossible. Often, they are also people who once harbored unrealistic fantasies about just strolling up one day into a pre-existing community that was perfect for them, not realizing that we must form our relationships painstakingly one by one (it tends to be the white eggs/unhappy lonely trans people who are most prone to thinking of community in that way). there's plenty of trans guys who are doomers like this too and they really tend to actively encourage one another to remain locked away. it's like incel kind of behavior when it's taken to its most extreme form. sometimes, it can be outwardly really nasty homophobic shit too (especially among "afabs" who complain about "cis gays" never accepting them and being super privileged). in its milder form, it's just extreme trauma brain.

The people you do not hear from so much are the people who are busy out in the world going on dates, acting in plays, getting their asses spanked in dungeons, playing tabletop roleplaying games, and going to farmer's markets with their three also transgender wives. Those are the people who know (that is to say, have learned!) how to interact with their fellow queer people, have spent some time out in the community, and in all likelihood have many rich friendships with cis lesbians, cis gay men, enbies, asexuals, bisexuals, straight ish poly people, and everybody else under our big umbrella.

I don't want to be overly pollyannaish because of course trans people have a tough time, and especially trans women have unfortunately to be on the lookout for really vile transmisogyny. But I think when people are wounded and traumatized by these things, they sometimes make the entire world sound incredibly unwelcoming, which creates a self-limiting feedback loop of isolation and mistrust. That is what trauma does! But it is not the truth. and we only learn otherwise when we give other people the chance to prove our worst fears wrong.

Like, just for an example, this Sunday I was at a silent book club at Dorothy, a gay bar on the west side that skews lesbian but is for everyone. I'd never been there before but it was an absolutely charming experience! Dozens upon dozens of lesbians draped over couches and curled up in chairs with their books, quaffing cocktails, alongside a few random dots of gay and/or trans men. Trans women were just a natural completely unremarkable feature of this environment. I couldn't even tell you how many t girls were there. It would be like counting plus sized girls or butches at this lesbian function. If it's a good lesbian function, there's gonna be a diverse crowd and it won't be weird or a big deal to anyone, they'll just be like any other women there. a lot of the big lesbian events here in Chicago (like Strapped) are organized by trans women, so of course there's a robust trans femme presence there.

And all of these groups at this function were getting laid. the couches were overflowing with women, so many that girls were grabbing pillows to sit on and huddle together with their books on the floor. Girls canoodled and cuddled on couches. I saw a cis alt girl covered in facial piercings flirting with a very prim and proper trans girl who was dressed like a victorian governness. they didnt know one another, but after the silent book club hour was done, they left for a while together, then came back with some food. across from me and my friends, i watched them gathering up on the couch, the space between their bodies slowly closing up into nothing over the course of the evening. they flirted and touched and then left the bar together to (and im no expert on body language but i could pick up on this one) fuck eachothers tits right off.

and of course plenty of other lesbians and wlw paired off or tripled off and had their fun too. again, just like steamworks, fat people, thin people, black and brown people, white people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, trans people, older people, younger people, everybody was there. like any good queer space, it was just a reflection of humanity. there is always more that can be done to make these spaces more broadly accessible to full community. but part of that is by putting ourselves there.

again i dont mean to make it sound like finding and making one's space is easy! especially not for trans women! but I also don't want people to get seduced by the hopeless jadedness that some foment online. there are spaces that some trans women I know will never go to -- even an explicitly trans affirming bookstore like Women and Children First gives many trans women I know bad vibes they cant quite explain but all feel (the store is owned and run by old white cis lesbians, it's not surprising to me that it's a little fucked no matter their good intentions) -- and ive heard people say transmisogynistic stuff at events, particularly from "ill date anybody but cis men" type t boys (my brothers, i hate you). shit can be tough. very tough. but also, the world isn't all uniformly as hostile as it's made out to be. there are people who are desperate to meet you. I hope you will come out to find them.

[idalenn]

Lillian Kyo - OC Smash or Pass

Rules: pretty self explanatory. Include physical descriptions and/or pics, and propaganda. the "other" label can be used for "sexuality misalignment" (ie: OC is femme and you're gay, vice versa or you aren't into smashing but a specific thing you wanna do with them like perhaps hug or study them under a microscope idc)

Quick Facts:

Height - 6'2" / 188 cm

Age - early 30s post DT

Gender - Trans Woman

Sexuality - Pansexual

Pronouns - She/They

PROS:

Accomplished White Mage. You'll survive just about anything.

Need someone to find a rare or specific plant for you? A toxin to be ground, mixed, and splashed onto your weapon? She's your girl. (Just don't ask her to do any preparing. That's a botanist, not an alchemist)

Oodles of physical contact. Nature is healing and so is she. Will carry you bridal style.

Practiced flutist.

Chases the thrill of combat. (This is a pro)

CONS:

Will actively discourage you from going out into Keeper-unfriendly sunlight.

Selfish with her time and person from years of giving all and never having a choice in matters.

Incredibly petulant at times. (Heal-ING not Heal-ED)

Easily stressed by events out of her control and by her own perceived failings. If she trips too much, for example, she will kick a hole in the earth.

Has to constantly remind herself to forgive others and herself.

Not straightforward with her feelings, becoming frustrated when a decent way won't present itself leading to further frustration, which is why she treasures the Echo as she does; one can understand her implicitly through it, or at least witness the events that made her some way and from them draw their own conclusions.

Needs others to be direct and to the point with emotions and feelings. Oftimes more dense than a black hole.

Chases the thrill of combat. (This is a con)

DETAILS:

Whether or not Lillian is wearing gloves remains a reliable indicator of how close she wishes to be with people. Gods help you if she starts wearing gauntlets again.

Excellent wilderness survival skills. Before a Keeper tribe sends their child out into the cold, cruel world, they make sure their child will be able to live without them.

Had to be taught Ishgardian table manners and to bathe more often. If she can get away with forgoing either, she will, but does know which plants she can rub on herself to cover up musk.

Will put weird things in her mouth all the time. Colorful leaves, edible soaps, sour-smelling rocks with familiar looking moss, etc. Which are poison? Which taste good? Which are edible? It's a Keeper trait exacerbated by years as a botanist, so don't think too much about it.

Romantically: Bitingyoubitingyoubitingyou. On a more serious note, she has a lot of love to give, and does so more freely as of late, but her struggle with building meaningful connections and being honest does hamper this. If you do manage to forge this bond and navigate hazy, unchartable waters, she'll want to keep you around for as long as possible, much as she does with the Scions.

You cannot fix Lillian; she can only fix herself. But she is better now than before.

Sexually: Switch, but prefers to let others take the lead if possible. Not entirely comfortable with being pushy or demanding. Try not to give her too much power, though! Take heart in knowing she's an accomplished healer. You will survive. But do keep whining - she likes it.

Tagging: @zoroarkthief (because I want to see a Faren one) but I got to this super late so if you see this and haven't done it already OR want to do it again then take this as your sign to do so!

[nyiibat2]

Opinions /Hot takes I have as someone who’s been a part of the LGBTQ community for seven years (since I was 11/12)

There is certain events that go on at pride that children SHOULD NOT be at. There’s pride days that are family friendly!! I’m sick of seeing children at very clearly adult spaces.

It’s okay to change your mind on your sexuality and to change your label or not use a label at all.

If you are trans and you’re not yet passable please don’t try to use the opposite restroom or get into women/men’s spaces yet. You WILL get there I promise, just give it some time.

Just because you are one of the letters, if you’re white you still have your white privilege. You will never EVER be as oppressed as us POC letters.

Just because a bigot hiding behind a religion was a dick to you, doesn’t mean you get to be a dick to every religious person that you see. We are NOT all the same. Religion is about peace not violence.

Just because you’re a gay women doesn’t give you the right to rub up on or feel up other women especially POC women. This is sexual harassment! (Yes this has happened)

Children under the age of fifteen can NOT fully understand the concept of transitioning. Children identify as carrots some days. If your child says they identify as boy/girl that day, great encourage them. Don’t plant the seeds of being trans in their heads. If your kid is trans they WILL tell you when they’re a teenager. No medical transitions should happen till they’re adults. Puberty blockers can do severe damage to the body and should ONLY be given in extreme cases of dysmorphia under the supervision of trans mental and physical health professionals. Hate to Burst your bubble your body NEEDS to go through puberty to be healthy. Girls especially going through puberty have higher rates of thinking they’re trans because of the flush of new hormones, this is not always the case and they don’t have these feelings when their hormones have balanced, don’t do anything medical for your child unless it’s literally life or death.

The quote blue haired millennial liberals ruined the lgbtq community imo. They’re so quote progressive they’re actually conservatives. They are the reason a lot of bad/disgusting people feel comfortable in our spaces.

Gold star status is disgusting. Bisexual women and men don’t need to justify to your insecure gay or lesbian self why they’ve been with the opposite gender. If you’re that insecure seek therapy not a relationship.

Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you’re quote automatically one of the girls and quote you’re still a man, no im not showing you my hair or changing in the same room as you. Same goes for being the only female friend in a group of men, there’s boundaries guys! Don’t be fucking creepy.

Put some respect on the names of black and brown trans people and LGBTQ members that came before you to give your white privileged ass a space to be yourself to begin with.

We’ve gone too far with pronouns. They/them grammatically makes sense as it refers to someone not of binary gender. Y’all just had to take it too far with things like Zir/Zim Xer/xim, y’all even let people identify as Cats literally cats and use litter boxes.

[venus-is-in-bloom]

not starting discourse on the post itself bc i want it to spread unbothered... but like, ok, so you think pride is "important"... is it important because it, say, stops the police from beating and arresting us for being gay or trans? obviously not, since they do that just fine the moment we try to protest the imperial war machine being operated in our nations or funded by our nations. in fact, the same cops who brutalised a sister of ours for protesting a war convention are marching alongside us at pride, proudly acting as if they're our allies.

is it because pride gives us publicity, and publicity equals support? that's interesting, because down here in auckland, aotearoa, in february of 2020, the lgbt+ community divested from cops and corporations in order to do a more authentic pride march not beholden to the interests of the powerful. there were thousands of us there, filling the streets. you know what the media said about that? nothing. they reported as if there had been no pride march at all that year. so as soon as we oppose the way things are, our "publicity" goes away.

is pride important because, as you might say, "the first pride was a riot"...? because even though it might not be revolutionary today, it was before? if you look at the actual stonewall riots, or listen to the words of people who were there—i recommend miss major speaks for one of the most prominent voices today—you hear that pride is not at all related to the stonewall riots. at most it co-opted them. the riots were about police brutality and violent repression that was racist as well as homo- and transphobic. on the other hand, the pride flag was invented by a white us army veteran, the pride marches are organised with the blessing of governments worldwide, and police brutality not only around but within pride events reigns unchecked today as it did in 1969, having only slightly changed its targets.

if pride is really so powerful just because people show up en masse and make ourselves visible, then why is it that when people show up en masse for palestine, to oppose genocide, to ask our governments to divest from israel and to sanction the state that bombs and purges civilians in the most brutal of ways, it does nothing? not a peep from our government down here in aotearoa, not a peep from the u.s. government, nothing. our voices have no power and we are being shown that in real time. we are being shown that the "power" of pride is a sham.

if they let us have our rights, let us have our community, let us have our marches, it's not because we have some sort of power. we are like a circus of dancing animals. as long as we behave, we get to have our little display... but this illusion fades like morning mist when we run up against the leash, when we tug on the unbreakable cord of our masters' will.

we could celebrate. after all, even though many of our cousins and fellows are being brutally killed with the support of our governments, at least we have what we want, and shouldn't we be grateful for that? shouldn't we be grateful that our generous masters see fit to grant us the same rights they take away from gay palestinians, the same futures they rip from the bodies of trans children in the drc? those are our kin, our fellow human beings, but do we care?

all i am doing is taking a moment this year to question if our celebration, if our acting joyful at this historic moment, would serve a different cause from ours. if it would enable our unfaithful governments to proclaim that nothing is wrong and they are worthy of our support. if it would show that we are complicit in their pinkwashing. if we could instead spend our energy on protests and organising for our true community, which is not local, not restricted to us and our neighbours nor to the global north, but international.

[daisychainsandbowties]

your nonbinary beatrice post, i’m mentally jumping up and down on a bed ala s1 ava

nonbinary avatrice is so damn underrated imo, especially since they both read very trans and/or nd, (beatrice especially ((unrelated but lilith also has autistic vibes for similar reasons to beatrice)

ava is a bit complicated because on one hand it’s very likely she doesn’t care much or at all, and you have that whole queer af conversation between her and chanel about not knowing who you are because you never got a chance to explore or something that’s even queerer knowing that chanel’s actor is trans, and how often being queer and disabled goes hand in hand because of how man & woman is usually defined so much as a cishet white, thin, well off, pro status quo abled man/woman, but also on the other hand, that could also be the very same reason why a disabled person might firmly id as cis and/or with their agab, because of how they’re systematically denied manhood/womanhood because of their disability

and then with beatrice, like aside from the way she dresses, and i refuse to believe the combat habits didn’t make a few nuns realize that they aren’t so cis after all, you have the “people have tried to make me something i’m not. to make me normal. or at least, acceptable*.” and many people will “accept” gay people but only as long as they’re don’t display any gender queerness/gncness and/or transness

(*and obv that line is very easily also or as well interpretable as autistic beatrice, esp w how she displays a few behaviors that could be read as her being autistic, but that’s off topic)

<- first of all i am just yes yes yes about the intersectionality of disability/queerness & how it adds huge good layers to any conversation about nb avatrice. i rlly like the idea of Ava claiming her gender, b/c so often the systems and the institutions and ablism try to infantilise disabled ppl, & that extends to participating in gender, linking right to dehumanising tactics.

& i fucking LOVE Ava really doing gender and doing it her own way and grabbing it and running with it. Ava coming from a place where the ppl who 'cared' for her didn't give a damn about her girlhood. she's been confronted with her girlhood only in terms of pejoratives - 'you're a very x girl'

i am Thinking about the s1 line where we see sister fuck looming over Ava after she gets her period & saying to her 'you're a woman now' & how that is framed for us. just specifically what the entire event of menstruation feels when you are not cis.

ppl telling you that you're a woman (now, suddenly. like, fuck, when did i agree to this. who asked my permission?) and how you can feel your body being reframed and relegated in a certain way by the world and the anguish of that, often the blunt and speechless agony of it because the language that could latch onto what is wrong about the way that woman sits on your skin is unavailable to you

nonbinary avatrice is very mood to me because i think they in general have an extremely gnc thing going on. look no further than the outfits in s2. it is BOTH of them, also. Ava reads very boyish to me (hilariously in a very 'that kid with the band-aid on his nose & the blue shorts from pokemon who runs around on the beach going '!!! my footsteps keep disappearing'. ava silva-core).

there really is something in Ava that resists conventional femininity & i think it is very AVA the way she does it. she's giving the middle finger to it, she's shrugging at it. she's kissing gender on the mouth & girlbossing & also just being a little guy with her baseball cap turned around like ash ketchum. Ava silva 'gotta catch em' all' Silva but with the genders.

& yeah the fact that when beatrice is not in her habit she is wearing very masc clothing, putting her hands deep in her pockets, shirt collar sticking up out of her sweater. the outfit she wears to kick crimson in the face. the outfit from guttural scream fight night. her armour with its bandoleer of knives & her cute little throwing stars you use to hit soft tissues with pinpoint accuracy. the softness and the violence of her.

& you are so right. 'ppl tried to make me something i'm not' - you can imagine beatrice in the catholic school uniform with the pleated skirts and the soft v-neck jumper & the blazer & every teacher saying 'now girls' and 'please, girls' all the damn time. how electric it must feel to her to hear the word boy on her skin.

(& yeah. my first fic which is s1 beatrice POV i literally have a tag that's like beatrice is autistic & that's how i write her in everything. ligaments, star wars au bea they r all autistic. a part of it is... i am autistic so it ends up maybe being a situation where especially in second person it's hard not to write autistically but shrug emoji, i also just think bea reads very autistic to me. i have a whole bunch of my own feelings & opinions on what autism looks like w/ beatrice specifically but that's not for this post)

tldr: yes you are very smart and very right

[translesbianvampire]

gay bitch fangirls over always sunny

i've just realized that tumblr is the perfect place for a queer bitch to nerd out about her favorite show. i finished it a month ago and...oof, i love this thing. i find it weirdly beautiful in a way. i enjoy seeing the most dysfunctional people put to air's misadventures, and i am definitely one of the disturbed people this show comforts lmao.

despite functionally/nominally about being horrible people doing horrible things, the gang somehow never quite lose every scrap of humanity they have; i guess by virtue of being white trash instead of upper-class. there are times when the gang are appalled at the atrocities someone ELSE comments, and sometimes when even they feel maybe they're going too far. (they usually don't things like "no" stop em tho...)

i also love the way it weaponizes every facet of being a sitcom, and uses them to comment on what happens within the show: +you can just pop in at any time during the show's run and not be too lost, not extremely reliant on past events & arcs

-the gang experiencing extremely traumatic events is not an "arc" or something that is ever dealt with/brought up again, considering their ol' reliable is drinking it down & not talking about it

-as sitcoms go on, they typically become sadder, as it just gets depressing that this group of people literally has nothing else to do with their lives.

+depressing is the point.

-as sitcoms go on, characters typically undergo "flanderization", where previously minor aspects of their character become their entire personality within the show. typically is extremely annoying

+the gang functions as a vicious echo chamber that they are trapped within, as no one in the outside world can stand being with them. also, they are CHRONIC abusers of alcohol & a million other substances like glue. it makes sense that charlie only becomes more illiterate, considering his habits (which include eating cat food & huffing glue) never really change

-to keep sitcoms running, the characters remain perfectly static throughout, and it is only really the situations & people around them that change

+the core of what makes the characters who they are doesn't change much over 15 seasons, but they DO grow with the times; just very, VERY slowly. i think they've handled this adeptly; in season 10, they eased off dennis' creep-oness in the second episode by having him be on the RECEIVING end of his weird rating system, in one of the most hilarious & quotable moments of a show that is already hilarious & quotable throughout. I'M A FIVE STAR MAN!!!!

there's prolly even more i can't think of. but it is such BRUTAL satire of...basically anything i CAN think of. it's this satire that gives depth to, what on the surface, might appear as a banal show that only exists to be offensive. the writers actually do NOT write to offend anybody (except maybe rly stuffy stuck-up ppl lmao)! it started as basically just wanting to write a sitcom that's "real", about a group of friends that are NEVER there for each other (tho they ARE there for each other, sometimes!). and this ended up being the perfect vehicle to satirize a LOT of facets about american life.

i also LOVE the way sunny handles queerness! it is not something that inherently makes you a better NOR a worse person, but it's also smth that always deserves respect, no matter who the queer person is. this is where its sitcom format works beautifully yet again; after mac's genuinely moving coming out moment as the s13 finale, s14 starts off...the way any other season starts off, and i LOVE that.

(sidenote: i don't think mac's brief coming out then re-entering the closet in s11 is an issue! that's real life. a friend of mine realized she was prolly trans, then decided she wasn't, and recently re-realized that she is lol. THAT'S LIFE!!!! tho, it would've been an issue if mac NEVER came out i think, but they had him come out in s12, and come out beautifully to his dad in s13)

i think always sunny succeeds at having...let's say, "very morally complicated" characters, while not accidentally glorifying them as much as the sopranos or breaking bad (tho i still love those shows hehe), while still having them be human. i think it is a beautifully human show. the show does not lie in the SLIGHTEST about who these people are, yet i am still excited to see another season with this gang i somehow do still root for. it shows us EVERYTHING about who these people are with less shame than we think about ourselves. we share in their every high, every low [of which there are many], and everything in between. and that's what bein' human is all about.

[eisforeidolon]

I don't want to be like, this whole "repressed Dean" thing comes down to very specific agendas, from very specific niches, but...... the whole repressed Dean thing comes down to very specific agendas, from very specific niches. I certainly am not going to accuse this fandom of being able to intellectually, emotionally understand a story, nor of having great reading comprehension. But even still, a lot of where this idea comes from isn't a complete inability, but rather, a complete unwillingness to see the story properly. And I do believe a LOT of that is from the destiel shippers. Their whole shtick is, if Dean isn't having and sharing the feelings that they want him to, then....... they're just going to pretend he's not sharing any feelings, so they can pretend there's lots of feelings there, beneath the surface, that he has, thereby giving them license to project all their shippy fantasies onto him 🙄

There is also certainly the whole "dean crit" aspect of it. Some cliques like to act as if Dean is the evil, violent monster, very contrary to what we see onscreen, and that Sam is super well adjusted, and only in the hunting life because Dean FORCED him, which is just not true. I think it's pretty clear that no one's forcing Sam to hunt, or do anything, lol

Plus, there's this whole thing where Dean gets treated as a blank state for some reason, and I truly hate that. Some people need to erase all of his canonical features, and project onto him their personal ideas of who he is, so they can relate to him, feel okay about "stanning" a straight, white man (pretending to stan, rather, because at that point, it becomes clear that they don't care about the actual character, they just care about the imaginary character they've made up in their heads, for some unknown reason). I often remember with equal parts revulsion and bafflement a post saying something along the lines of "Dean is gay, trans, autistic, fat and ugly, and if you don't believe this, you're an asshole".

All that to say is, it's certainly baffling that fanon strays so far from canon on this topic, but somehow, the reasons behind it are even more convoluted and stupid 🤦🏻‍♀️

You're right and you should say it. There is an extent to which I do think there is a more general issue with fans in this fandom just taking things the characters say at face value despite what their actions show in contraction. It comes up in meta and discussion of all kinds of other aspects and events, too. Which I do think is just sometimes purely bad interpretation, but a lot of the time it does come down to pre-existing agendas - they don't see beyond the surface assertions because they don't want to look because they already see what they prefer.

There's no question a very big part of this particular discussion comes from factions of fans fixated on what they think Dean is or want Dean to be, rather than what he is shown to be. And yes, as is often the case, hellers are the ones spouting some of the most context-ignorant distorted interpretations with their whole chests as gospel canon truth.

[autolenaphilia]

I finished listening to The Magnus Archives many months ago. It is a horror audio drama podcast that was very popular here on tumblr. Yet i felt underwhelmed. It was okay, I guess? I felt that the statements were actually scary in the first two seasons, and by season 5 I was not scared at all, despite horrific things happening regularly.

Like there was nothing outstandingly bad in the writing. The characters were fine, nice representation of cis gays I suppose. Although the only trans woman being a single statement giver who doesn’t actually appear in the show is a bit disappointing. For me, perhaps the most important point of media representation is to get creative people from marginalized communities employed. I get it's a single-writer thing, Jonathan Sims writes every episode, but employing a trans woman actor to give the statement (something that happens with plenty of other statements) for the only transfem statement giver would be nice.

Well the only trans woman if you don’t count Nikola Orsinov. Oh Nikola, she is literally a man turned into an evil fake plastic mannequin/doll woman who hides her malevolence under an exaggerated cutesy performance of femininity and like Jame Gumb, steals skin to appear like a human woman. Giving potentially another meaning to the acronym TMA there, but I’ll give the writer the benefit of the doubt and say that’s probably not intentional. even if it does express some anxieties about gender. Besides, she’s my favourite villain by a long shot, Nikola Orsinov is a lot of fun.

I also disliked one of the canonical lesbian couples, Basira Hussain and Daisy Tonner. It's a typical example of the trope where the butch lesbian character is a cop, and on top of that, the series does a police brutality arc with them. It's not like women can't be violent cops, but like come on, Magnus Archives. When police brutality happens and a non-white lesbian like Basira is involved, they don't tend to be the perpetrator in the incident.

Anyway, the show was entertaining but felt underwhelming.

And I think I finally figured out why. It’s because the basic idea of the series is that it starts out seeming like a horror anthology series. It’s seemingly disconnected stories of people being menaced by the supernatural, with no explanation of what the supernatural actually is, as in most horror stories. The statements in Magnus can be good, solid horror fiction, if a bit derivative.

And then it reveals its true face: it’s actually a horror serial. The series actually has extensive worldbuilding which connects together and explains all those seemingly disparate stories.

The shift from horror anthology to serialized drama is frankly just awkward in general, it's such a radical shift in story structure. The show sticks with the statement structure for continuity reasons long after it makes any dramatic sense, when the story is carried forward by dialogue rather than any information gained from the various statements..They interrupt the story by the final seasons rather than develop them. In season 5, characters are literally annoyed with the statements because they interrupt the plot progression.

Yet the problem with this storytelling shift I think is far more deeper. That’s because I think horror is kinda antithetical to worldbuilding. I think horror needs some mystery to it, a sense of the unknown, of humanity being menaced by inexplicable forces. When you can explain the supernatural, as extensive worldbuilding tends to do, it ceases to be really scary. And The Magnus Archives has macabre and dark worldbuilding, but it also explains far too much. It tries to be a metafictional commentary on horror fiction, but it ends up showing how bad it is at understanding the genre

It presents these very genre-typical horror stories, with all their unexplained supernatural events and it seems writer Jonathan Sims saw their unexplained nature as a promise of a future solution instead of actually standing on their own. And that’s not how mystery works in the horror genre for the most part, and for good reason.

I’ve sometimes heard The Magnus Archives described as Lovecraftian, but looking at what Lovecraft said about horror in the classic Supernatural Horror in Literature, I think he would agree with me. “The oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” And in what he claimed in the true weird tale “A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint...of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.“

This is a kind of horror ethos that is antithetical to worldbuilding. Worldbuilding maps out and explains a setting’s fantastical elements, which works best for a kind of Tolkienian fantasy, whereas horror relies on the unknown. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is often seen as the kind of explanatory worldbuilding Magnus engages in, but that’s something his lesser imitators such as August Derleth engaged in far more than Creepy Howie himself. It’s an impression created more by the Call of Cthulhu RPG than Lovecraft’s stories.

M. John Harrison’s criticism of worldbuilding is also relevant to The Magnus Archives:

“When I use the term “worldbuilding fiction” I refer to immersive fiction, in any medium, in which an attempt is made to rationalise the fiction by exhaustive grounding, or by making it “logical in its own terms”, so that it becomes less an act of imagination than the literalisation of one. Representational techniques are used to validate the invention, with the idea of providing a secondary creation for the reader to “inhabit”; but also, in a sense, as an excuse or alibi for the act of making things up, as if to legitimise an otherwise questionable activity. This kind of worldbuilding actually undercuts the best and most exciting aspects of fantastic fiction, subordinating the uncontrolled, the intuitive & the authentically imaginative to the explicable; and replacing psychological, poetic & emotional logic with the rationality of the fake. “

This is harsh, but describes the problem of The Magnus Archives quite accurately. I would add that in horror this kind of worldbuilding also undercuts any genuine horror. The “rationality of the fake” is no substitute for fear of the unknown. Supernatural horror without any mystery regarding the supernatural things just becomes a depiction of fantastical torture.

In season 1, the Archivist tries to deliver "rational" explanations for the supernatural events described, and they deliberately ring hollow. It reads as a man trying desperate to shore up his worldview against events that defy them, showing a "malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature" It's a classic horror writing trick. But by season 3, the archivist knows the basics of the story's worldbuilding, and starts explaining the statements with a new supernatural logic, which is shown to be correct.

And Sims doesn't seem to realize that he has simply replaced a naturalistic rationality with a supernatural "rationality of the fake." The stories in the first two seasons show the supernatural disrupting the laws of normal existence, and are therefore scary. Yet then the story creates a new "safeguard against the assaults of chaos" in the form of worldbuilding explanations of these events. Its fantasy with a lot of suffering, rather than horror.

The Magnus Archives might seem like a story that is very certain of itself. It has built this extensive worldbuilding construction to explain its every fantastical flourish, and even its genre and medium. We get explanations for genre staples such as "why are people able to give such articulate and clear statements of horrific and traumatic events?" And because it's yet another audio drama that has a "found footage" or rather a "found recordings" gimmick, we even get an explanation for why everything plot relevant is recorded.

Yet this is to mask a deep uncertainty, as it clearly feels a need to deeply justify its fantasy. A story that was more genuinely certain of itself would allow things to remain unexplained and not need to justify its own flights of imagination.

I don’t care much about spoilers, but I have some further more specific thoughts under the cut. I won’t summarize and explain concepts and plots from the series because it’s boring to write, so think of this as supplementary criticism for those who have listened to Magnus.

The problem with The Fears as explanations is that they are so boringly anthropomorphic. In fact they are explicitly explained in the final episode as arising from the human emotion of fear, a final bit of worldbuilding that adds explanation at the cost of actual horror.

And their motivation is so boring, in that they are basically sadists, whose goal with everything they do is to create fear in humans. It’s such a mundane motivation for interdimensional amorphous powers. That’s about as scary as the serial killers in the most boring kind of mystery and horror fiction, which is not much.

And it sucks all the actual surrealism and imagination out of the setting. Anytime Magnus borrows from surreal horror fiction, it’s not actually surreal, because everything is explainable. Things are surreal because surreal supernatural events scares humans and the supernatural entities want to scare humans. So things that are meant to be surreal horror like the Stranger ritual in the season three finale or most of the hellscapes in season five aren’t actually surreal.

Speaking of season five. For all my criticisms of the series overall, I have to praise the season four finale. It ends on a revelation that the supposed hero’s effort were all meaningless and that actually he has been manipulated into bringing out the apocalypse he hoped to prevent. This revelation is really effective tragedy, especially as it comes after what seems to be a happy ending for him and his partner Martin. Good shit, the series could very well have ended there. It would be a bleak ending, but that fits a horror series.

Yet then the series continues with another season. And by this time the transformation into Tolkienian worldbuilding fantasy is complete. The story of season five is how Frodo and Sam must journey through Mordor to defeat the eye of Sauron by destroying the source of his power. Sorry, I meant that Jon and Martin must journey through hellscape Britain in order to defeat the rule of the Eye and destroy the source of its power. The parallels are obvious.

This season feels so unnecessary, a fantasy quest to undo the tragedy of the fourth season finale. And they largely do, Jon and Martin are gone, but the fears leave the world. It is all justified with the worldbuilding, but again ending on this note of world-saving heroic sacrifice has barely anything to do with horror.

The hellscapes of season five are dark, but they are not effective horror. It’s the final confirmation that Jonathan Sims did not truly understand why his horror stories in the earlier seasons were so effective. And that was because they were set in a largely realistic and contemporary world. People living mundane lives before they are menaced by the supernatural. Most horror fiction does this, not only because it gives a “it can happen to you” quality but because horror most easily comes from taking a safe, mundane and explicable world and subverting that with unexplained and frightening supernatural events.

The Magnus Archives does have stories like that and they work, but then it undermines it by explaining the supernatural in rationalistic terms. And in season 5, it even takes away the mundane setting. Now almost everyone except the servants of the entities live in hellscapes literally designed to make them suffer over and over again. There is no longer any normal world to provide contrast, just entire landscapes of torture. It may sometimes present bitter parodies of realistic situations, but so removed from real life that is hard to connect with or regain the sense of horror from those early stories.

And again, because the rationalistic worldbuilding of The Magnus Archives there is no real surrealism to these hellscapes, because why they exist is explained. There is just torture and no mystery or wonder to the fantasy of season 5. It’s just suffering for the sake of suffering, the worst and least interesting kind of horror. And it’s a deep-seated problem within the show, developed to its utmost extreme.

It's fiction that feels the need to justify itself at literally every turn. It doesn't dare have something happen without explaining why. So we get this fake surrealism, where if anything weird happens it's because supernatural powers want to scare people with the weirdness.

Apparently there will be a sequel, a Magnus Archives 2, despite earlier promises there would not be. And considering the original show went on for far too long and explained its world too much to be truly scary, I don’t think there is much fruitful to be gained there, but we’ll see.

[ace-the-fox]

Oohhh mama I've got the Adam Murray fankid (Cain) on the brain again. Have some thoughts (he's still a massive WIP that is trying to go along with whatever the canon decks at my face next, but here's the recents):

Okay, so, he IS now Evelin's kid too. Idk, it's symbolic and shit, and makes the most sense. They are the only couple in the series among the main characters, I believe, so...

This one's my fave. Making his parents pretty heavy duty Christians. But not like Carrie Christians, and more "We asked God to give us the perfect child and then we adopted you... What do you mean you want to be a boy, that isn't God's way??" Yeah, that. So, obviously having his Biblical knowledge, hating his parents, and not knowing what name to go by, he slaps on Cain for the time being. It's just to piss off his parents by naming himself after a murderer from the bible, because hey he's not getting it permanently, legally changed or anything. Though, he does turn out to really, really like it, unfortunately for his folks. (Also the fact that Cain killed Abel, his brother, and his deadname, Annabelle, has Abel basically in the middle... 👀 layersssss-)

He's basically the type of guy who would literally cry over spilled milk but then go through the most traumatising event known to man and just go "well, that sure was... a day."

I've also given him friends!! (Even though, with the way tmc seems to be going, the alternates might as well kill off all humanity by 2023, when this takes place, BUT–) I haven't thought of names. I considered biblical ones, but I'm not sure about finding ones that really fit deeper than just being from the good ol' bibble. One of them is your typical basic blonde white girl (who, admittedly, kind of starts off as one of those annoying allies. "I want a gay best friend!!" type of thing), the other one's a chubby video game nerd. They're an odd bunch, who somehow bonded over a shared chemistry project :)

This may change with the tmc plot or other stuff, but rn I've decided what makes the most sense is that Cain isn't technically an alternate and is actually just some guy. However, he is immune to alternates, as they can sense SOMETHING off about his vibes.

Mention of (entirely SFW) mpreg under the cut (I mean, any thing I do for any fandom ever is nearly guaranteed to include it, and I apologise for that but it will happen again lol). Don't tap if it ain't your thing.

(I may or may not have started a oneshot based on the latter half of this idea lol...)

So, he was originally starting to develop before Catalyst came out, and I got the whole "he was found in a rubbish bin off the street" thing from a Jacqueline Wilson book I never even read (sue me, okay 💀). But, no, recently I had a better idea: lil Cain was born DURING Catalyst. Essentially, Adam had no idea he was pregnant, his alt transformation triggered labour, he was already in so much pain from said transformation the labour also went completely missed, baby comes out, Adam has no idea what to think or feel. And, this all kinda depends on what Alex is gonna do next, but main idea for now is Adam gives bby to Thatcher and tells him to make sure he's (well, he'd say she because Cain was literally a newborn, but I'll say he because I feel that's right? Idk trans people can confirm or otherwise on that lol) cared for. Thatcher takes him to the hospital where he can be looked over and given to a new family (,:

[eldritchneuro]

Maybe it’s a bit off-base, but I keep thinking about how in many forms of progressive media, it often feels like the progressivism is ‘stored in the identity’ as such. Like it’s always the black characters who are the sole workers against racism or how it’s always the trans and gay characters alone who are fighting against cishet norms. And I guess it just feels a bit… wasteful?

It’s hard to articulate but I think there’s something to be said about the assumption that being privileged makes it impossible to do anything to dismantle systems of oppression because you’re so entrenched in it already, so it should just be left to the folks who are on the receiving end of it.

One of the most memorable video essays I ever watched was FD Signifiers essay on “White liberal nihilism” - the event horizon where white progressives realise the passive role they play in white supremacy and often just… give up. I’ve been wondering if that applies to other topics as well - why does it sometimes feel like it’s only gay people doing most of the work for gay rights or only trans people doing most of the work for trans rights, or that men cannot be feminists?

I do kinda wish that there were more resources around on not only how to dismantle oppression as the oppressed but also how to be a good ally to people as well, like idk, a recovering cultist club but instead for people trying to unlearn white supremacy or heteronormativity or ableist values or whatever.

Because I remember being that white liberal nihilist too, and one of the biggest things that was able to draw me out of it was the non-white people around me who have shared their culture and friendships with me, being able to walk around the markets for Chinese New Year, being able to read books on Indigenous myths, sitting around with friends who say the worst shit about themselves, but you know it’s fine because you know them and they’re truly edgy bastards, the lot of them. And suddenly you realise that no matter how bad things get, there is a life outside of white supremacy.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to get out of this post, gratitude? Hope? Appreciation?

I guess I want to say that allyship can often feel like a thankless task, because you can’t really expect to thanks to the people you’re allying with and it often feels like nothing’s being achieved or that you’re so entrenched in this system of bigotry that it’s impossible to make any progress.

But I promise it does help. It does because I myself am one of those oppressed people and though it may in many ways be the bare minimum, my life is still better off because of the people who took the time to ask my pronouns or understand my limitations as a disabled person or just listen to me vent.

It is worth it. I promise.

It has to be.

[jack-bytez-genuine-corner]

you don’t have to experience the heightened levels of oppression that a black queer does. someone who is black AND queer are doubly harassed because of the color of their skin (something they also cannot change) AND their sexuality. i’m sorry you had to face homophobia in high school, nobody should have to experience that, but that was exclusive to you being gay. it wasn’t exclusive to you being gay AND white. can you imagine being harassed for being gay AND black??? can you imagine walking down the street and someone calling you the n-word because of the color your skin and then calling you a fag on top of that????? the idea of intersectionality is very real for black and brown queers and for white queers to act like asking you guys to acknowledge the white privileges you have shouldn’t be that difficult for you to understand. we sympathize with you for the oppression that you’ve faced as a gay man but why can’t you do the same for us when we have to live every day being black AND queer? that’s literally all they were saying and to derail a post that is very true like that, does so much more harm to black and brown queers in ways that i don’t think you understand. again, i feel like you were trying in good faith and that’s the way i’m coming to you but if you weren’t, then op had every right to block you because it is exhausting having to explain why being black and queer is dangerous in the world without white people telling us our experiences don’t matter.

I failed to keep this short so no one is going to read it but here it is after 7 revisions:

* If you feel the need to explain these things than I regret to inform you: I know. POC face outsized oppression for simply existing in America and they often times get silenced and shoved to the side. I actively aided in a local, small BLM rally and gave out water. I held a sign and that's all I did, because it isn't really my place to speak or advocate to others when the people who are directly affected should have that power instead. I've been to rallies and really internalize the fact that it isn't my place to speak, so I don't. That's why I said nothing that is close to undermining the struggles POC face, cause I've actively seen it and heard it from victims. I've seen and heard the terrible state of reservations in the US. But OP was undermining the struggles, and deaths of others on the basis of their skin which is a thing that nobody should be doing. And if you want to act like that didn't happen, their response I believe speaks for itself in it's entirety with a blanket refusal to read an inch of what I wrote. They could not give a singular fuck less about the struggles of others is the vibe I got and still have.

* I thought a lot about what to even post on this ask and on OPs post and made several drafts, but would delete them cause "It's not my place to speak" but when what I'm seeing is "The events I experienced don't matter cause of my skin color" I decided to post it. The only mistake I made is the assumption that the average person is capable of kindness, when really a majority of people are selfish and don't care about ANY issue unless it hits them directly, and I'm the weird one for actively caring about issues that don't affect me in the slightest. It's my bad for assuming there's any level of nuance online, any room for thought that isn't, ultimately, echochambers.

* The active statement I saw from OP read a lot closer to "White people who suffer oppression don't REALLY suffer" which actively carries weight for the oppressor by undermining any oppression as being acceptable as long as the victim is white. Can you get more oppressed than dead? Cause under OP's logic a dead white trans woman is actively less tragic than a living Black trans woman. That's not intersectionality and recognizing white privilege, that's victim blaming someone in regards to their race, because you're ACTIVELY minimizing the violence on a racial basis which not only defends the oppressor but actually minimizes the perception of white privilege, cause ultimately I'd agree with the economic, legal, business, political, religious, historical, healthcare advantages of white privilege but I think the line of that ends when someone is straight up murdered for being trans, is denied that opportunity to work because they married a man. Because if it's the EXACT SAME oppression, should it matter less cause they aren't getting pulled over at random by racist cops? Should it matter less cause they technically have a better chance at better funded education years ago as a kid? Cause white people DO get opportunities POC do not on a completely BS basis, but is that so strong that it's straight up acceptable to say that a white queer who gets fired for being trans, gets kicked out of their house as a 13 year old for being gay is just not that bad, and if they talk about that experience they are stealing the opportunity for POC to talk. Should white queers just never talk about any oppression they face, cause that's the read I've gotten from those I've known since I've been aware I'm gay. Is that really the message that should be internalized, cause that's what I read time and time again: If you talk about your experience you are directly harming POC so you need to sit down, shut up and just never talk about how you got beat for your sexuality because then YOU'RE the oppressor.

* This is the only time in my life I've EVER talked about the harassment i received from bigots IRL online, and I excluded a lot still because I get told to sit down and shut up on this. I want you to REALLY think about why I don't talk about it when I'll appear as a racist (Or an oppressor, you pick) cause I'm silencing others by just stating my own experience. The only people I've told about it IRL I can count on one hand, and the only post I make of it online I'm STILL downplaying it in an attempt to not suck oxygen out of the room for other voices SOLELY BECAUSE I'm white and therefore feel like I can't talk about it without silencing others who have it worse. The only reason I brought it up to begin with was that OP unabashedly undermined a thing that took a lot of years of my life to get over, and then when given that experience, basically told me to fuck off. That's not just a lack of kindness, it's straight up enough to make me depressed for a whole night and really attack the idea of allyship is worth it when the people who claim they care about this exact issue are just straight up willing to say that A experience doesn't matter cause of the color of someone's skin. That's the direct read I got, and I know I should try to be better and try to make sure people who are oppressed in ways I'm not get help and are allowed to just exist without fear of persecution, but I've never felt more slapped in the face than when I read that. Cause ultimately, nobody wants to be told their struggles don't matter. The struggles and oppression of POC I honestly rank as one of the most important issues facing society, cause it's criminal how many Black neighborhoods are treated as not important to upkeep, not important to give clean water to, not important to give quality healthcare to, let alone the sadistic violence committed onto those communities by those who should be helping them ala cops and government. It's fucked up beyond belief that having a Spanish or Korean last name can get your resume shredded when applying for a job, it's not right that Black people get discriminated against in home loans. These are horrible, deep issues and I don't need to tell you that, as there's endless amounts of Black people who are more educated on those topics who can explain it and tell you how they would fix it. It's not my place to do that speaking so I don't, but I never intended, nor think I did, undermine their struggles. However it's beyond screwed up that real people's real, horrific deaths don't matter cause of the color of their skin. After all, the oppressed person was white, so it's more acceptable and less tragic.

(As a tangent, you're downplaying what I experienced just as much as OP did, cause I'm not "Doubly oppressed" like it's some sick competition. I don't believe for a nanosecond that you're sorry for that either, cause again, I'm not in your immediate in group and therefore, as an other, my problems aren't really that important.)

[littlemixnet]

To me, a good ally is someone who is consistent in their efforts – there’s a difference between popping on a pride playlist or sprinkling yourself in rainbow glitter once a year and actually defending LGBT+ people against discrimination. It means showing my LGBT+ fans that I support them wholeheartedly and am making a conscious effort to educate myself, raise awareness and show up whenever they need me to. It would be wrong of me to benefit from the community as a musician without actually standing up and doing what I can to support. As someone in the public eye, it’s important to make sure your efforts are not performative or opportunistic. I’m always working on my allyship and am very much aware that I’ve still got a lot of unlearning and learning to do. There are too many what I call ‘dormant allies’, believing in equality but not really doing more than liking or reposting your LGBT+ mate’s content now and again. Imagine if that friend then saw you at the next march, or signing your name on the next petition fighting for their rights? Being an ally is also about making a conscious effort to use the right language and pronouns, and I recently read a book by Glennon Doyle who spoke of her annoyance and disappointment of those who come out and are met with ‘We love you…no matter what’. I’d never thought of that expression like that before and it really struck a chord with me. ‘No matter what’ suggests you are flawed. Being LGBT+ is not a flaw. Altering your language and being conscious of creating a more comfortable environment for your LGBT+ family and friends is a good start. Nobody is expecting you to suddenly know it all, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect ally. I’m still very much learning. Even recently, after our Confetti music video I was confronted with the fact that although we made sure our video was incredibly inclusive, we hadn’t brought in any actual drag kings. Some were frustrated, and they had every right to be. You can have the right intentions and still fall short. As an open ally I should have thought about that, and I hadn’t, and for that I apologise. Since then I’ve been doing more research on drag king culture, because it’s definitely something I didn’t know enough about, whether that was because it isn’t as mainstream yet mixed with my own ignorance. But the point is we mess up, we apologise, we learn from it and we move forward with that knowledge. Don’t let the fear of f**king up scare you off. And make sure you are speaking alongside the community, not for the community. Growing up in a small Northern working-class town, some views were, and probably still are, quite ‘old fashioned’ and small-minded. I witnessed homophobia at an early age. It was a common thought particularly among men that it was wrong to be anything but heterosexual. I knew very early on I didn’t agree with this, but wasn’t educated or aware enough on how to combat it. I did a lot of performing arts growing up and within that space I had many LGBT+ (mainly gay) friends. I’ve been a beard many a time let me tell you! But it was infuriating to see friends not feel like they could truly be themselves. When I moved to London I felt incredibly lonely and like I didn’t fit in. It was my gay friends (mainly my friend and hairstylist, Aaron Carlo) who took me under their wing and into their world. Walking into those gay bars or events like Sink The Pink, it was probably the first time I felt like I was in a space where everyone in that room was celebrated exactly as they are. It was like walking into a magical wonderland. I got it. I clicked with everyone. My whole life I struggled with identity – being mixed race for me meant not feeling white enough, or black enough, or Arab enough. I was a ‘tomboy’ and very nerdy. I suppose on a personal level that maybe played a part in why I felt such a connection or understanding of why those spaces for the LGBT+ community are so important. One of the most obvious examples of first realising Little Mix was having an effect in the community was that I couldn’t enter a gay bar without hearing a Little Mix song and watching numerous people break out into full choreo from our videos! I spent the first few years of our career seeing this unfold and knowing the LGBT+ fan base were there, but it wasn’t until I got my own Instagram or started properly going through Twitter DMs that I realised a lot of our LGBT+ fans were reaching out to us on a daily basis saying how much our music meant to them. I received a message from a boy in the Middle East who hadn’t come out because in his country homosexuality is illegal. His partner tragically took their own life and he said our music not only helped him get through it, but gave him the courage to start a new life somewhere else where he could be out and proud. There are countless other stories like theirs, which kind of kickstarted me into being a better ally. Another standout moment would be when we performed in Dubai in 2019. We were told numerous times to ‘abide by the rules’, which meant not promoting anything LGBT+ or too female-empowering (cut to us serving a four-part harmony to Salute). In my mind, we either didn’t go or we’d go and make a point. When Secret Love Song came on, we performed it with the LGBT+ flag taking up the whole screen behind us. The crowd went wild, I could see fans crying and singing along in the audience and when we returned it was everywhere in the press. I saw so many positive tweets and messages from the community. It made laying in our hotel rooms s**tting ourselves that we’d get arrested that night more than worth it. It was through our fans and through my friends I realised I need to be doing more in my allyship. One of the first steps in this was meeting with the team at Stonewall to help with my ally education and discussing how I could be using my platform to help them and in turn the community. Right now, and during lockdown, I’d say my ally journey has been a lot of reading on LGBT+ history, donating to the right charities and raising awareness on current issues such as the conversion therapy ban and the fight for equality of trans lives. Stonewall is facing media attacks for its trans-inclusive strategies and there is an alarming amount of seemingly increasing transphobia in the UK today and we need to be doing more to stand with the trans community. Still, there is definitely a pressure I feel as someone in the public eye to constantly be saying and doing the right things, especially with cancel culture becoming more popular. I s**t myself before most interviews now, on edge that the interviewer might be waiting for me to ‘slip up’ or I might say something that can be misconstrued. Sometimes what can be well understood talking to a journalist or a friend doesn’t always translate as well written down, which has definitely happened to me before. There’ve been moments where I’ve (though well intentioned) said the wrong thing and had an army of Twitter warriors come at me. Don’t get me wrong, there are obviously more serious levels of f**king up that are worthy of a cancelling. But it was quite daunting to me to think that all of my previous allyship could be forgotten for not getting something right once. When that’s happened to me before I’ve scared myself into thinking I should STFU and not say anything, but I have to remember that I am human, I’m going to f**k up now and again and as long as I’m continuing to educate myself to do better next time then that’s OK. I’m never going to stop being an ally so I need to accept that there’ll be trickier moments along the way. I think that might be how some people may feel, like they’re scared to speak up as an ally in case they say the wrong thing and face backlash. Just apologise to the people who need to be apologised to, and show that you’re doing what you can to do better and continue the good fight. Don’t burden the community with your guilt. When it comes to the music industry, I’m definitely seeing a lot more LGBT+ artists come through and thrive, which is amazing. Labels, managements, distributors and so forth need to make sure they’re not just benefiting from LGBT+ artists but show they’re doing more to actually stand with them and create environments where those artists and their fans feel safe. A lot of feedback I see from the community when coming to our shows is that they’re in a space where they feel completely free and accepted, which I love. I get offered so many opportunities to do with LGBT+ based shows or deals and while it’s obviously flattering, I turn most of them down and suggest they give the gig to someone more worthy of that role. But really, I shouldn’t have to say that in the first place. The fee for any job I do take that feels right for me but has come in as part of the community goes to LGBT+ charities. That’s not me blowing smoke up my own arse, I just think the more of us and big companies that do that, the better. We need more artists, more visibility, more LGBT+ mainstream shows, more shows on LGBT+ history and more artists standing up as allies. We have huge platforms and such an influence on our fans – show them you’re standing by them. I’ve seen insanely talented LGBT+ artist friends in the industry who are only recently getting the credit they deserve. It’s amazing but it’s telling that it takes so long. It’s almost expected that it will be a tougher ride. We also need more understanding and action on the intersectionality between being LGBT+ and BAME. Racism exists in and out of the community and it would be great to see more and more companies in the industry doing more to combat that. The more we see these shows like Drag Race on our screens, the more we can celebrate difference. Ever since I was a little girl, my family would go to Benidorm and we’d watch these glamorous, hilarious Queens onstage; I was hooked. I grew up listening to and loving the big divas – Diana Ross (my fave), Cher, Shirley Bassey, and all the queens would emulate them. I was amazed at their big wigs, glittery overdrawn make-up and fabulous outfits. They were like big dolls. Most importantly, they were unapologetically whoever the f**k they wanted to be. As a shy girl who didn’t really understand why the world was telling me all the things I should be, I almost envied the queens but more than anything I adored them. Drag truly is an art form, and how incredible that every queen is different; there are so many different styles of drag and to me they symbolise courage and freedom of expression. Everything you envisioned your imaginary best friend to be, but it’s always been you. There’s a reason why the younger generation are loving shows like Drag Race. These kids can watch this show and not only be thoroughly entertained, but be inspired by these incredible people who are unapologetically themselves, sharing their touching stories and who create their own support systems and drag families around them. Now and again I think of when I’d see those Queens in Benidorm, and at the end they’d always sing I Am What I Am as they removed their wigs and smudged their make up off, and all the dads would be up on their feet cheering for them, some emotional, like they were proud. But that love would stop when they’d go back home, back to their conditioned life where toxic heteronormative behaviour is the status quo. Maybe if those same men saw drag culture on their screens they’d be more open to it becoming a part of their everyday life. I’ll never forget marching with Stonewall at Manchester Pride. I joined them as part of their young campaigners programme, and beforehand we sat and talked about allyship and all the young people there asked me questions while sharing some of their stories. We then began the march and I can’t explain the feeling and emotion watching these young people with so much passion, chanting and being cheered by the people they passed. All of these kids had their own personal struggles and stories but in this environment, they felt safe and completely proud to just be them. I knew the history of Pride and why we were marching, but it was something else seeing what Pride really means first hand. My advice for those who want to use their voice but aren’t sure how is, just do it hun. It’s really not a difficult task to stand up for communities that need you. Change can happen quicker with allyship.

Jade Thirlwall on the power, and pressures, of being an LGBT ally: ‘I’m gonna f**k up now and again’

[crushing-on-nico-di-angelo]

This is kind of a random question but...

Do you know why people hate Rick Riordan?

I just have no information, and I’ve seen a lot of stuff lately talking about how he’s problematic.

hi!! yes, I've seen things about this as well. I can list the reasons I've seen. I don't agree with all the points made, but its just what I've seen and I think it may answer your question. I also recommend going through the tag #rr crit, as it will give you a lot more and detailed information regarding him (beware: there are quite a few buzzwords. I recommend taking the facts and forming your own conclusions). I also think it's important to note that many people don't hate him, but they acknowledge that since he's a cishet white man there's things he didn't handle well and he needs to listen to critisicm.

Completely mishandled Piper's native American heritage. From the feather in her hair, to her dad being from a reservation that doesn't exist in Oklahoma, to having kaleidoscope eyes (some say that it suggests brown eyes aren't beautiful enough for aphrodite, more on this in the next bullet), to being a kleptomaniac, her character is, ignorantly or purposefully, chock full of stereotypes. having a cornucopia being her weapon. when Rick was told that this isn't good he became defensive and didn't listen to any critisicm

not giving female characters chances to be young, or not have a boyfriend or be unconventionally attractive. if they do get to not have a boyfriend, they're thrown into the Hunters of Artemis. their eyes are anything but brown (I do disagree with the eye thing but it's important to note), suggesting that having brown eyes should be considered less than. Sadie got a 1000 year old boyfriend when she was 14. 13 year old Hazel had a 16 year old boyfriend-- that could be a seventh grader and a junior or a freshman and sophomore depending on how you look at it (and I LOVE frazel, don't get me wrong. the age gap is just,,). in fact, the only female non-hunter without a significant other I can name is Meg, and she's 12.

Sadie Kane and the fanart he boosts of her. he frequently shows her looking completely white, despite saying she "stood out in class for being mixed." It honestly wouldn't surprise me if a white girl were cast to play her in the Netflix movies.

treatment of characters with invisible disabilities. this can range from the coment of "You anemic loser" targeted at Octavian (as someone with an iron deficiency, I don't see anything wrong with it, but cmon. kids can see that, rick. you can't control anemia) to Clovis' chronic fatigue being treated as a joke. invisible disabilities are hard and just as painful as physical ones. it doesn't help if you treat them like that.

too much misogyny to list all of it, but we can start with young girls being expected to be, and acting, more mature than they are; the strong female characters portraying the "I'm not like other girls" trope; the entire way Hera was treated.

The way Nico's outing was handled (this is one I especially disagree with, and this post said it best, thanks ghost). A violent outing by the God of love taking place before Nico was ready, according to some, was not what younger gay people needed to see. he should have had a loving environment and, at the very least, it should have been from his own point of view and not Jason's.

anti-acne and fat phobia: Apollo having a deep hatred towards his acne and Frank's glow up including severe weight loss (not being a cuddly teddybear anymore, getting taller) isn't the best thing for kids who have acne or are fat to see.

Samirah al-Abbas: "reversing the stereotype (Rick's words)" of an arranged marriage by having her be in love with a distant cousin is... not reversing the stereotype at all actually. it just falls into it. Having her take off her hijab around floor 19 because they feel like family is also not great, because, to my understanding as a non-hijabi and non-muslim, that is not how being hijabi works. similar to the piper situation, when Rick was told that this isn't good he became defensive and didn't listen to any critisicm

ANTISEMITISM, ANTISEMETISM, ANTISEMITISM. this is one of the ones I agree with the most. Having Hades' children be Nazis, having a plot point revolve around one of the most traumatic events in world history, ignoring the fact of generational trauma and ignoring the fact that It Didn't Matter That It Took Place In World War Three, it could have not had any correlation to the death of over six million Jewish people. it legitimizes evilsurrounding Hades and death, and -- well, this one makes me so mad, I can't explain all of it so here is a post explaining more in depth

Slavery issues: similar to the holocaust, Rick Riordan made one of the most terrible issues in American History into a fight between demigods. this lowers the legitimacy of the issue, makes it seem fictional, makes Camp Jupiter seem terrible and awful, except it doesn't. because camp Jupiter isn't terrible. but the confederacy was. if children, especially white children, learn about the confederacy through camp Jupiter, it makes it seem way less bad than it was.

again, I don't agree with all of this, it's just reasoning as to why. in my eyes, Rick Riordan is a man who has grown in his telling of his stories. he started with a canonical all white, all straight, all cis cast. he has now a series featuring a latino genderfluid queer person. This Post said it better than I ever could.

I know that it's impact over intent in so many situations. and this isn't to say I disagree with all, or even most of his critisim. I just think that he has good intent, and I hate him for absolutely none of it.

I am gay, I am Latino, and I am trans. that is all I can speak on, and I think his rep for that was great. I hope this answered your question, dear anon. again, I encourage you to do your own research and form your own opinions. I only touched on a few issues that Rick has had and there's a lot more to be talked about. I would say to keep in mind his intent and his growth. thank you for the ask, thank you for directing it to me that made me feel happy lol. ily I hope you have a good day

if anyone else has anything to add, by all means please do!!

[princessnijireiki]

Honestly, I’m just annoyed with people who give (usually white) cishet celebrities like Harry Styles so much attention for “breaking gender norms” but then will turn around and then make fun of flamboyant gay/bi men and butch women for being “weird” or “too much”

oh yeah, especially w celebs but often w non famous people too, they get given passes for deliberately borrowing imagery to be fake edgy, rebellious, or sexually loaded (someone in one of those replies accused me of thinking cishet ppl only dabble in genderfuck for "performative wokeness"— baby it's generally not fake progressivism, it's just for profit) from other communities that buck up against the (THEIR) status quo...

you see it a lot w "temporary tattoo" ethnic consumption or self exotification, blaccents, blackfishing, treating people of color themselves as taboo racial fetish objects, even in whitewashing & "mainstreaming" of ethnically loaded stereotypes into white ones (the whitewashing of greasers into rockabilly subcultures incl literal white supremacists who engage in the aesthetic, Black + Latino street fashion & hairstyles becoming "IG baddie" looks, AAVE & esp regional, women's, and LGBT AAVE becoming "Twitter slang," etc etc).

but this gets that same treatment largely because that behavior stems from privilege & entitlement! it's put on from a place of safety. and it's ALWAYS done either as something with "takes backsies" in place, or with "no homo" reassurances (stated or behavioral) + gender CONFORMITY in other areas (aesthetic or behavioral) to balance it out, or both. and that goes for outgroup people dabbling in ingroup stuff w full earnestness, too, like... you get to have fun or turn a profit on something ingroup people get hatecrimed for, because even if they don't get bashed for THAT THING SPECIFICALLY, the reason it's safe for outgroup people to do xyz thing out of context while ingroup people catch hell for breathing is because it was NEVER about the shaved heads, nail polish, or skirts, it was about association with/proximity TO the group of origin.

and the answer for that is not to expand the safety net for already safe people! the answer is to stop beating the dogshit out of or beating DOWN actual vulnerable communities while some of the rest of y'all, again, especially w celebs, ride the wave of those groups' unwantedness & undesirability to generate buzz from other people's racial + gender + sexuality ~nonconforming~ things touching on white cishet bodies!

but as long as folks keep plugging their ears & twiddling their thumbs going, "oh, gee, but what if this [blatant exploitative behavior done as a trend] somehow helps somebody else this time," and then retroactively assigning credit to like... pop punk bands & celebrities w professional style teams for increased social tolerance instead of LITERAL DECADES OF ACTUAL ACTIVIST WORK, including getting ENTIRE LAWS against racialized or gendered clothing/dress violation stricken from legislation + fighting for legal anti discrimination protections and for vulnerable people to ACTUALLY be protected from assault by civilians AND police/to force those assaults to be taken seriously, fighting for HIV/AIDS research, shelters for homeless youth, and so on and so one, on and ON AND ON...

...they're gonna keep behaving like these folks are Ally of the fucking Century & secret gay icons (and that therefore criticism of them, even by gay or trans people, is by extension homophobic/transphobic + anti progressive) just for putting on their socks in the morning & wearing bamboo earrings or claiming paltry charity donations on their taxes or signing ship fanart or waving flags & merchandise their (paying) fans throw on stage, that they would never carry, wear, or buy unless it served them to do so— and even then, only so long as the celeb's still white, still pretty, can still "clean up" or "butch up" for red carpet events & awards shows, still have an "appropriate" boyfriend or girlfriend, wear makeup & lashes if they're bald women, tuxes but with tits out (not too masc!), beards if they're long haired men, skirts & black nail polish & eyeliner only ironically or with somebody else's tits out at your side. and because those people have an inherently self centered + ignorant worldview to elevate all that above reality, they will prioritize those people accordingly.

and it's braindead & it's truly lost, tbh! it's very weird energy out here in this world... very, very odd stuff... and I can't worry about the people disagreeing with me, because I can't be bothered by people who need way more help than I do, but the fact that you can see even in these tiny little slivers of this corner of the internet the numbers spread of who's dying on the hill of "protect Harry Styles!" vs "protect literally everybody who's not a grown ass white millionaire with a grown ass white girlfriend first" says some sorry ass shit about the state of critical thinking among the 35 and under set on social media + tbh the state of American public education lmao.

[aro-comics]

Fashion Analysis (Part 2: Outside of Amatonormativity Alone)

[Note: This post is a part of a series analyzing self-expression, fashion, aromanticism, and how they interact with other parts of identity. For full context please read the whole thing!]

Outside of Amatonormativity Alone: Sexism, Homophobia (and/or Transphobia), Racism, Ableism, and Other Factors That can Impact Self Expression 

My comic was originally meant to be a light hearted joke. I’d always been told I’d want to dress up one day, be pretty and feminine once I fell in love with a boy (BLEGH). I was so certain that I would never do that, and now … here we are. I put lots of effort into my appearance, present feminine, all in the hopes I’ll impress a very special someone - a potential employer at a networking event. I think there’s a certain irony to all of this, and I do find it funny that I managed to both be wrong and completely subvert amatonormative stereotypes! 

But having the chance to think about the whole situation, I realize now that my changes in presentation reflect far more. The pressure I felt to dress differently are still influenced by fundamental forms of discrimination in society, and I would be remiss to not address these inherent factors that were tied with my experiences alongside my aromanticism. So in this section, I will briefly cover some of these factors and summarize how they can influence people’s self expression as a whole, before discussing my own experiences and how these factors all intersect. 

Sexism

The pressure on women In This Society to uphold arbitrary norms is ever present and often harmful, and while I wish I had the time to discuss the impacts of every influence the patriarchy has on personal expression, to even try to cover a fraction of it would be impractical at best for this essay. Instead, since the original comic focuses on professionalism and presentation, this is what I will talk about here. 

Beauty standards are a specific manifestation of sexism that have a deep impact on how people perceive women. It’s a complicated subject that’s also tied with factors like capitalism, white supremacy, classism, and more, but to summarize the main sentiment: Women are expected to be beautiful. Or at least, conform to the expectations of “feminine” “beauty” as ascribed by the culture at large. 

They also tend to be considered exclusively as this idea that "women need to be beautiful to secure their romantic prospects, which subsequently determines their worth as human beings. The problematic implications of this sentiment have been called out time and time again (and rightfully so), however there is an often overlooked second problematic element to beauty standards, as stated in the quote below: 

“Beauty standards are the individual qualifications women are expected to meet in order to embody the “feminine beauty ideal” and thus, succeed personally and professionally” 

- Jessica DeFino. (Source 1) 

… To succeed personally, and professionally. 

The “Ugly Duckling Transformation” by Mina Le (Source 2) is a great video essay that covers the topic of conforming to beauty standards through the common “glow up” trope present in many (female focused) films from the early 2000s. 

“In most of these movies, the [main character] is a nice person, but is bullied or ignored because of her looks.”

Mina Le, (timestamp 4:02-4:06)

Generally, by whatever plot device necessary, the ugly duckling will adopt a new “improved” presentation that includes makeup, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe. While it is not inherently problematic for a woman to be shown changing to embrace more feminine traits, there are a few problems with how the outcomes of these transformations are always depicted and what they imply. For starters, this transformation is shown to be the key that grants the protagonist her wishes and gives her confidence and better treatment by her peers. What this is essentially saying is that women are also expected to follow beauty standards to be treated well in general, not only in a romantic context, and deviation from these norms leads to the consequences of being ostracized. 

The other problematic element of how these transformations are portrayed are the fact that generally the ONLY kind of change that is depicted in popular media is one in the more feminine direction. Shanspeare, another video essayist on YouTube, investigates this phenomenon in more detail in “the tomboy figure, gender expression, and the media that portrays them” (Source 4). In this video, Shaniya explains that “tomboy” characters are only ever portrayed as children - which doesn’t make any sense at face value, considering that there ARE plenty of masculine adult women in real life. But through the course of the video (and I would highly recommend giving it a watch! It is very good), it becomes evident that the “maturity” aspect of coming of age movies inherently tie the idea of growth with “learning” to become more feminine. Because of the prevalence of these storylines (as few mainstream plots will celebrate a woman becoming more masculine and embracing gender nonconformity) it becomes clear that femininity is fundamentally associated with maturity. It also implies that masculinity in women is not only not preferred, it is unacceptable to be considered mature. Both of these sentiments are ones that should be questioned, too. 

Overall, I think it is clear that these physical presentation expectations, even if not as restrictive as historical dress codes for women have been, are still inherently sexist (not to mention harmful by also influencing people to have poor self image and subsequent mental health disorders). Nobody should have to dress in conformity with gender norms to be considered “acceptable”, not only desirable, which leads us to the second part of this section. 

Homophobia (and/or Transphobia)

So what happens when women don’t adhere to social expectations of femininity? (Or in general, someone chooses to present in a way that challenges the gender binary and their AGAB, but for the sake of simplicity I will discuss it from my particular lens as a cis woman who is pansexual). 

There are a lot of nuances, of course, to whether it’s right that straying from femininity as a woman (or someone assumed to be a woman) will automatically get read a certain way by society. But like it or not, right or not, if you look butch many people WILL see you as either gay, (or trans-masculine, which either way is not a cishet woman). This is tied to the fact that masculinity is something historically associated with being WLW (something we will discuss later). 

This association of breaking gender norms in methods of dress with being perceived as a member of the LGBTQ+ community has an influence on how people may choose to express themselves, because LGBTQ+ discrimination is very real, and it can be very dangerous in many parts of the world. 

I think it’s very easy to write off claims in particular that women are pressured into dressing femininely when it is safer to do so in your area; but I really want to remind everyone that not everyone has the luxury of presenting in a gender non-conforming way. This pressure to conform does exist in many parts of the world, and can be lethal when challenged.

And even if you’re not in an extremely anti-LGBTQ+ environment/places that are considered “progressive” (like Canada), there are still numerous microagressions/non-lethal forms of discrimination that are just as widespread. According to Statistics Canada in 2019: 

Close to half (47%) of students at Canadian postsecondary institutions witnessed or experienced discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity or sexual orientation (including actual or perceived gender, gender identity or sexual orientation).

(Source 3)

Fundamentally this additional pressure that exists when one chooses to deviate from gender norms is one that can not be ignored in the conversation when it comes to how people may choose to express themselves visually, and I believe the impacts that this factor has and how it interacts with the other factors discussed should be considered. 

Neurodivergence (In general): 

In general, beauty standards/expectations for how a “mature” adult should dress can often include clothing that creates sensory issues for many autistic people. A thread on the National Austistic Forum (Source 6) contains a discussion where different austistic people describe their struggles with formal dress codes and the discomfort of being forced to wear stiff/restrictive clothing, especially when these dress codes have no practical purpose for the work they perform. If you’re interested in learning more on this subject, the Autisticats also has a thread on how school dress codes specifically can be harmful to Autistic people (Source 7). 

In addition to potentially dressing differently (which as we have already covered can be a point of contention in one’s perception and reception by society as a whole), neurodivergence is another layer of identity that tends to be infantilized. Eden from the Autsticats has detailed their experiences with this in source 5. 

Both of these factors can provide a degree of influence on how people choose to express themselves and/or how they may be perceived by society, and are important facets of a diverse and thoughtful exploration of the ways self-expression can be impacted by identity. 

Also, while on this topic, I just want to take a chance to highlight the fact that we should question what is considered “appropriate”, especially “professionally appropriate”, because the “traditional” definitions of these have historically been used to discriminate against minorities. Much of what gets defined as “unprofessional” or otherwise “inappropriate” has racist implications - as an example, there is a history of black hairstyles being subjected to discriminatory regulation. Other sources I have provided at the end of this document (8 and 9) list examples of these instances.  

Racism (being Chinese, specifically in this case): 

For this section, I won’t be going into much depth at all, because I actually have a more detailed comic on this subject lined up. 

So basically, if you were not aware, East Asian (EA) people tend to be infantilized and viewed as more childish (Source 10). In particular, unless an EA woman is super outgoing and promiscuous (the “Asian Bad Girl” stereotype, see Source 10), IN MY OPINION AND EXPERIENCE it’s easy to be type casted as the other end of the spectrum: the quiet, boring nerd. On top of this too, I’ve had experiences with talking to other EA/SEA people - where they themselves would repeatedly tell me that “Asians are just less mature”,  something about it being a “cultural thing” (Yeah … I don’t know either. Maybe it’s internalized racism?). 

Either way, being so easily perceived as immature (considering everything discussed so far) is also tied to conformity to beauty standards and other factors such as sexism and homophobia, which I believe makes for a complex intersection of identity. 

[Note from Author: For Part 3, click here!]