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swan-lite · 1 year ago

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Dang it, okay, I have thoughts

James Somerton made an apology video in which he says "I'm sorry" several times but

Couches it in a pity party

Does not directly address any of the people whose work he stole by name

Never uses the word "plagiarism," instead referring to his theft almost exclusively as "citation errors"

James discusses how many videos he and his team were releasing and the frequency of releases as if someone was pressuring them to release a high volume of videos, as if to say it isn't his fault that there were quality problems

James offers to make his videos public again and add "citations" in a pinned comment or in the descriptions as a means of crediting the people he stole from

He also insists that some of the videos won't need these citations because some of them were his own "original work"

(In other words: that he has nothing more to hide)

James states that he isn't bigoted against ace folks, bisexual folks, trans folks, or women and that the several disparaging remarks he has made against these communities in his videos were not written by him

Because we have receipts for several of these remarks thanks to Harry's (hbomberguy's) video on James, we know that they didn't come from the articles and books he was stealing from, so if James didn't write them then the only other person who could have was his cowriter Nick

James then immediately says that he's not trying to blame Nick

James does not try to explain the ace/arophobic, biphobic, transphobic, or misogynistic remarks he has made on his Twitter or Patreon accounts

James mentions - and seems genuinely bothered by - the "people online" who are spreading lies and misinformation about him

Finally, James discusses future projects he would like to work on

He then deleted the apology video

Harry states near the top of Plagiarism and You(Tube) that "When someone more competent than Filip uses [his] techniques in a subtler way, we can recognize them for what they are."

This is not competent. It's not even subtle. James's career was so thoroughly eviscerated literally overnight that this is the best he can do, and it's not even good.

James says that he's sorry, but doesn't actually explain what he's sorry for. He doesn't admit to, or take responsibility for, the extent of what he actually did. In this way, he can now say when confronted that he apologized. But with the wording, he still manages to avoid actually taking ownership of his actions. In other words, it's using passive language to imply that what he has done just happened. He definitely didn't sit down and choose to commit extensive plagiarism - of course not! What really happened? *shrug* Anyway, sorry for it.

When iiluminaughtii (henceforth referred to as Blaire) tried to explain the many times in her video essays she has misspoken or misused words, she played it off as a byproduct of the amount of "work" she churned out for her fans. James is trying to do the same thing here, only it is deeply ineffective. It's quite upsetting to me to think that some of his fans - young queer folks who are probably used to having to make themselves small - might on some level fall for this trick. The idea is to make you the viewer feel guilty for the demands you have placed on this creator, when in reality this is a grown adult who knew exactly what he was doing.

I'm not going to spend too long on this next point. If you've read this far, you're probably invested enough to be well aware that James has used the trick of burying a citation under a mound of text no-one will read many times. It's the same trick Blaire used, and the one The Internet Historian used as well after he was caught.

James stops short of making a "Colombo villian speech" in this apology video. He does, however, take the time to say that he has nothing more to hide. Again, if you've watched Harry's video, you know this literally always means that the person who insists they have nothing to hide is absolutely hiding something else. Whether this is more plagiarism or some other skullduggery we haven't yet found out about, I'm sure it will come to light eventually. I'm honestly surprised and a little disappointed that James tried this tack. Obviously he's thought better of it, since the video is gone now. But I would think a grown human who has just been the subject of an hours-long piece of, frankly, journalism would know better than to say something like this.

With the comments about his bigotry, James is trying to simultaneously redirect attention and perform allyship by saying "Look, I have an asexual friend! Who may or may not be public about his sexuality at this time!" This is the kind of thing I think a lot of us in the queer community are used to - supposed allies downplaying microaggressions by pointing to folks in the ally's proximity who happen to have an identity that they are being accused of speaking badly about. "This one person can stand to be around me, so clearly I can't be all bad." Personally, as someone whose racist parent tries consistently to downplay their own racism by pointing to me, their mixed race child, I can tell you that this is always misleading. In this case, I feel comfortable saying it's intentional. James tries to excuse the bigotry that "ended up in the videos" by saying that he didn't have time to edit the scripts properly. He doesn't seem to realize that time constraints often make people much more honest. In reality, this is James trying to make excuses for the bigotry he put in his videos because the time constraints he put onto himself made it much more difficult to disguise how he really feels.

James then directs some indignation at the people who are online discussing what he did. I would interpret his discussion of his income as an oblique reference to Dan Olson's thread about his recording equipment if I had a degree in literary analysis. My degree is not in literary analysis, so I'll leave it there. Ahem.

James makes reference to future projects he hopes to work on, as if this endeavor has in any way preserved or helped to bolster his shattered reputation. Jessie Gender makes a great point in saying this feels like a promise of work we could get out of him if we all just collectively decide to ignore all the harm he has caused. And James has caused harm. Whether he meant to or not, given the sheer magnitude of his plagiarism, there is absolutely no doubt that he has caused significant harm to a community he claimed to defend.

I want to spend a moment on something others have already pointed out. Actually, Harry pointed this out too. If James's theft were in any way defensible, he would have defended it. He would not have gone to such great lengths - up to and including deleting videos - to hide it. He wouldn't have used Nick as a shield, he wouldn't have outright lied in his livestreams, and he wouldn't have deactivated his Patreon (before reactivating--y'know what, this post is long enough, we don't need to get into that). James lied and dodged and beat around the bush for years BECAUSE he knew what he was doing was wrong. I had a justice studies professor once tell my class that nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to be A Criminal. People make choices, and choices have consequences, but most people don't choose consequences. People choose the thing that benefits them and consequences follow. James made a long, long series of choices, and I would like to remind everyone that they always had consequences. Even before Harry's video came out, James was facing consequences. Those didn't come from nowhere, they came from the people he was hurting. He knew about them, he just didn't stop because of them. He stopped because he literally couldn't keep going anymore.

Finally, James deleted his misguided response to the multitude of accusations against him. I don't think I need to explain to anyone what that indicates.

I would like to finish by saying that nobody should be harassed. Nobody should be bullied, or dogpiled, or doxxed. Nobody should wake up in the hospital because their dad realized he needed to call an ambulance. James's life is undoubtedly in a really difficult place right now, and while he absolutely deserved to lose his career, that's all he deserved. I hope he regains his health, I really do.

And I hope Harry and his team don't feel any responsibility over this. It seems easy from the outside to believe they wouldn't, but I also know that if I had just released a 4-hour long video detailing someone's fraud and then found out they had been in the hospital because of an incompleted suicide, I would feel pretty conflicted about a project we know Harry already felt conflicted about.

I hope Harry and his team are doing okay, and I hope James starts doing okay soon, and I hope James realizes this was the wrong damn time to try to release an apology. It was a bad apology.

#james somerton #hbomberguy #i am never writing anything this long or detailed for this godforsaken website ever again #plagiarism #plagiarism and you(tube)#and hey! i managed to get through the whole thing without cursing even once

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alexissara · 1 year ago

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An Avoidably Dark Future For TTRPGs

TTRPGs are the coolest medium of art, no other medium does as well as TTRPGs in teaching people to tell stories and facilitating imaginative play than TTRPGs. The reality is most TTRPGs that are designed are played by a small group of the designers friends almost exclusively. That most TTRPGs cost more money to make especially if you factor in the labor put into them than they will ever make back. So there is a temptation for some creators now to simply skip a few steps of work and let a machine plagiarize for you either art or writing in a book.

Luckily this is pretty much something that will die thanks to social ostracization, no one is gonna wanna work with you or be your friend if your putting out AI created work but it still looms and there is a window for the art form to be infected.

Here is a scenario that could happen if we don't actively fight back. Wizards of the coast lays off a bunch of writers. These writers are replaced with an Ai editor. The fans get mad BUT after a week of saying this is bad, they just go back to supporting Wizards like always. Wizards buys AI data from Google who starts using AI on everyone's private google docs sorting out TTRPG work and basically just steals private campaigns and TTRPG work and puts it into their books, it's surprisingly okay to good because it's almost word for word someone else's work they "legally bought".

That normalizes it and Pazio, Magpie and Green Ronin follow their lead doing the same, the outrage exists but not enough to stop people from spending money. This further normalizes it and while it never takes root in the indie space it becomes unavoidable in it as it floods Itch.io and other places and the leftists and artists complain about it are simply ignored as not being with the times or actively mocked by the subset of people who feel insecure otherwise for supporting stuff.

This is all avoidable though, we simply need to be very active on fighting back against these big companies if they do make moves to start normalizing AI and obviously any player we can convert into play indie TTRPGs will be one less player who will feel like they need to support a company after they do something shitty. It'll be work for sure and hopefully work we don't need to do but we should remain vigilant. I know there will be the urge to dunk if it does happen but not actively hit them productively and consistently so we need to be ready to pin point strike any big company trying to shit out adventures, art, settings, games or whatever else.

If you like this kind of writing you can always support me over on Patreon and Ko-fi it helps me make great queer art for a living that doesn't use AI or anything else.

#Ai #TTRPGs #TTRPG Art #TTRPG #D&D #Indie TTRPG #RPG

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redheadlesbianfreak · 2 years ago

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💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback? & 🤍what's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?

💫What is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

Comments are pretty rare and hard to come by if I'm being honest. I've noticed that kudos are far more frequent than comments and that I only get comments right after I post (for the most part). So when I get anything at all, it feels great even if it's just a simple "thank you" or "good chapter." I'm over the moon if someone leaves something that's a couple of sentences and for those incredibly rare occasions where I get a paragraph, I'll be thinking about that for weeks. And I can't complain, because I've almost exclusively posted rated E content, so I went into this knowing I would get a lot more hits than kudos/comments. Smut readers tend to be shy, and I understand that.

🤍What's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?

This one is going to be a strange one to answer. So far, I've only posted slash (for Futurama of all things). I really wanted to explore what it meant to be queer in that type of world. Unsurprisingly, an adult cartoon fandom isn't the friendliest place for queer people, and it's pretty hard to engage with most of the fandom because of that (though I have a bigger readerbase than I thought I would). I get paranoid that a lot of people see queer stories and think it's all "fetish content." And nobody has said this about my work to my knowledge, but I do see a lot of people saying that about others and it makes me pretty nervous.

As someone who's been writing queer stories for 3-4 years now, I get scared seeing the way people treat queer creators. There's constant fighting over the "right way" to tell queer stories, which makes me nervous. Of course, it's something I need to overcome, especially with the fact that not everyone is going to like your writing. But the way I see really popular queer creators get treated (thinking about Rebecca Sugar and ND Stevenson here) can get discouraging. I'm not saying they should never be criticized, but maybe don't hold queer creators to a much higher standard than cishet creators...

#writing #asks #as for the future?#i would like to move onto the tales of fandom #mainly bogged down with my master's program and work #so hopefully i can finally write more once i get done with my final assignments

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blog-of-horribleness · 1 year ago

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hello tumblr, which i would use and interact with almost exclusively for unserious things. i come with something i want so desperately to put my entire goddamn pussy into. please bear with me while i work out the general presentation, it's essentially still a solo dev project at the moment and being a creator with adhd sucks ass. anyway:

i'm looking for voice actors for my fighting game!

right now there are only 4 roles (all female) posted but this will expand to 25 over time via page updates. across the cast, i need a good amount of queer+poc voices to accurately portray the cast. pay is modest (in the realm of 60 USD) but will exist after slight delay.

my intermediate goal is to implement voice acting in time for the submission period for MAGFest 2025, which should be Q3 this year.

please see the project page for more information if you're interested and please share this with anyone you think might be.

thank you!!!

#voice acting #casting call #gamedev #indiedev #godot engine #fgc #fighting games

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secretlywritingstories · 3 years ago

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I’ve been coming on here for 6 years now. I never quite imagined that I’d have a social media like tumblr. I’d started to take peeks on specific tumblrs without having a profile back in 2015 but it took a while before I got up the courage to make my own account. I cannot thank my previous self enough for committing to this hellsite (affectionate).

I’ve always been slow to getting social medias compared to my peers around me. I was the last person in my class to make a Facebook. I only got a Twitter and an Instagram because I had YouTubers I wanted to keep up with. I only made a LinkedIn when it was required for a course at my university. I don’t consistently use any of those compared to my space here. Facebook I exclusively use for messaging and a couple of groups. Instagram and Twitter I almost only look at the notifications for the accounts I specifically want to keep up with. LinkedIn haunts me and I purposely ignore it, now I don’t have to use it for job hunting.

I never scroll on their dashes. I did more back when they were in chronological order but since that was abolished, I lost any tiny interest that had remained in them. But more than that, all of those social media are connected to my “real life” person. They’ve got my name on them, my face on the profiles, people from my life knows about them. It’s not like this here. I’ve got my first name listed and I do share photos at times, of me or my animals, but it had always felt like a little secretive space all the same.

It’s also a place perfectly tailored to me. I love the organisation of the tags, how I can curate my dash and my blog, and how much fandom reigns supreme here. It’s also very queer and so am I on here. I didn’t really know that back when I made my account on here six years ago. The thought had entered my brain but it was partly through the community here and talking to so many queer people that I finally settled into it. All the gay posts, people casually talking about this same-sex partners, celebrating lgbtq+ people in fiction and real life, and just the overwhelming reassurance whenever I spoke to someone tentatively about myself in anon asks.

I carved out a little space for myself in one fandom in particular, and I started to create, fics and text posts. I sent asks and I reblogged incredible content and praised the creators. After a couple of years, I started to get mutuals, which I remember made me so excited and almost feeling unworthy. It took a while to remember that it’s just a person on the other side of the screen, even if they’re an incredible writer or editor and make awesome stuff I adore.

The friends I found on here are dear to my heart in a way I cannot even describe. I’ve had the chance to meet one online friend and if chance permits it again, I’ve got so many cool people from all over the world that I’d love to meet as well. We’re just all nerds who like some of the same stuff but the friendships that become formed feel strong and sturdy.

In my time on here, my main tumblr has been filled with every fandom that grabs my attention and a lot hold on tightly. It’s a big mix and match in the best of way. I’m tapped into several fandoms now and it’s so cool. My dash is perfectly made for my tastes and I get to have cool people all over it. My other social media are overrun with distant friends talking about themselves. My dash here is full with funny posts, great content for fandoms I’m in and a sprinkle of personal information about wonderful mutuals and bloggers.

Some days it feels like tumblr is living on its last leg and it could buckle and disappear any moment. I sincerely hope that it doesn’t. It’s my little corner of the internet and I hope I’ll get to be here for years to come. These six years have certainly been happy ones and this place has enriched my life more than I could imagine even if it’s just a silly website.

#tumblr #tumblr anniversary #my tumblr dabbles #spilled thoughts #fandoms #lgbtq+#friendship

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nightwingsbf · 3 years ago

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I have some things to say if you're interested as an nblm. The Asian ship tag works like this, character who penetrates is the first name and recipient character is second name. If it's sfw, if the creator has only sfw works and they use one tag almost exclusively, assume that it's the dynamic they prefer. Usually one tag is more popular than the other so that becomes general tag. It's not just for ships between penis havers, and some creators prefer switch too. Most creators and fans all over the world do have a preference for their personal reasons. This includes gender identity related reasons so I'd like to see more thoughtful handling of the discussion.

Regarding fem! tag, many people still don't know or understand the difference between trans tag and fem/ male! tags. Here in the west genderbend is a frowned upon trope, it of course is harmful. But in many other countries and cultures and languages you'll find different tags, or it's way worse to be out as trans than being seen as just fans of queer media so it's easier to tag like that or with a gender symbol. There are different words too, gender labels and concept is culturally linguistically different in other cultures. If it's a fic written in English by English speaking creator it's justified to condemn that, but for a fic in another language or an art where being trans is not the focus like showing surgery scar to prove this is a trans character, it's a bit too much expectation.

If the conversation was just about fics on ao3, ignore me. Do look into how the characters are feminized by different subsets of the fandom, it's quite obvious in my eyes and I won't be surprised if many trans and enby fans dislike either styles. The anon who was all about... boobs, was very frank. I feel that some of the cis portrayals are as fetishistic as genderbend and it bothers me quite a lot. It's more difficult to filter as well, and it sounds bad to tag top or bottom but it helps me not accidentally experience dysphoria over feminized portrayal of the pov character. This is a tiresome discourse but I will support tagging top/ bottom characters no matter the gender.

Sorry for the wall of text, I tried being as clear as I could. Have a good day!

Thanks for your insight and for your explanations and reflections. They definitely helped me have a broader perspective on the origin of these tags and their functionality depending on the person and their identity. Truthfully, the conversation went into different directions at some point and then was lost, at least in my part. But at least in terms of what you stated here, you were very clear.

#ask

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hotcoffeecoldmornings · 5 years ago

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(This shit is long so bear with me.)

Can’t Eat, Can’t Sleep, Reach for the Stars

I haven’t felt this way in awhile. This ‘can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of love.’

It’s hard to describe. The last time I was all-consumed like this by a TV show and a ship, that TV show was The 100, that ship was Clexa, and my world was, quite honestly, turned upside down by it.

I used the first two seasons of The 100 as background noise as I wrote my Master’s Thesis in 2015. To be honest, I didn’t really know exactly what was happening until Bodyguard of Lies (an episode anyone reading this post probably remembers well) came on. And a passionate kiss between two world leaders left me speechless and shocked. I was blindsided by it, unaware that that kiss would be the beginning of not only finding myself, but also accepting myself, and then finding a chosen family I never knew that I needed because of it.

There’s been alot of (okay, not a lot, but more) f/f ships on TV since then. Maggie and Alex. Nicole and Waverly. Elena and Syd. Kat and Adena. Anissa and Grace. Stef and Lena. Karolina and Nico. And the list goes on… While each of these ships is equally important, and each one represents another push towards more inclusive storytelling, there was never a ship that hit me as hard as Clarke and Lexa did.

Until now.

Harold, They’re Lesbians

Gay. Witches.

Motherland: Fort Salem said the words. And I fucking came running.

Okay, so it took me a few weeks… Thank you, twitter timeline, for finally getting my ass on board. It’s not that I didn’t want to start the show. It’s that my anxiety-ridden brain had other plans for me in mid-March. Like spending the majority of my time researching a global pandemic and then crawling into a depression hole because of it… Or something like that.

But nonetheless, I’m here now. And I’m fucking staying.

I knew I’d love this show. The concept of witches peppered with the idea that sexuality is irrelevant is honestly my one and only weakness. So I went into episode one with high hopes. And I sure as hell was not disappointed.

Episode 1 gave me even more than I could’ve asked for. We meet three uniquely powerful individuals, who all come from three uniquely interesting backgrounds. Abigail Bellweather, born into a lineage of the most powerful and elite witches Fort Salem has ever seen. Tally Craven, the last one standing in her family’s long-line of service, selflessly choosing to say the oath when she didn’t technically have to. And Raelle Collar, who has an unparalleled set of powers, combining her mother’s Christo-Pagan ways with those of the seeds learned at Fort Salem.

Rounding out that already brilliant cast is Scylla Ramshorm, the ‘sexy weird’ Necro who may or may not be evil (but we love her all the same). General Sarah Alder, the original witch who signed the Salem Accord, selling out every future witch to the United States Army, and whose ego quite often gets the best of her. And Anacostia Quartermaine, the Bellweather Unit’s Drill Sergeant who has a peculiar fondness (and leniency) for Raelle Collar.

The fact that this television show is entirely female centered (like, we’re talking 60 seconds of male screen time in the pilot), is what separates this show from most. Men exist in the world of Fort Salem as characters to exclusively propel the female leads forward, which is a stark contrast to the majority of shows right now. And not only is the entire main cast female, the main lead is gay. And honestly, the sexuality of every character on the show is questionably debatable as well. Except for Abigail, who quite clearly is into any and all men, and Tally, who grew up on a Matrifocal Compound and ended up in Fort Salem as a virgin. Which, of course, no shade to her, but it did strike me as odd when Abigail immediately assumed Tally’s virgin-ness when growing up in an all-female world was brought up.

So let’s start there, shall we?

The Heteronormative Narrative (or not…)

Something I did find puzzling about Motherland: Fort Salem (and the only thing, really) is how they portray sexuality, relationships, and love. In regards to sexuality, Eliot Laurence, the creator and executive producer, has been incredibly forward in interviews with the narrative that ‘your sexual preference doesn’t matter in this world.’ Which I appreciate to the fullest, trust me. But pardon my slight hesitation when I hear that line, because I think we’ve all been burned by it once before.

Motherland: Fort Salem has done a tremendous job of this. They’ve allowed characters to own their sexuality without question. It was never a thing when Raelle started dating Scylla. At Beltane, everyone went off with whomever the dance paired them with - even if that meant the same gender, and even if that meant three or four or five of them. Sexuality, in regards to same-sex partners, is never a character arc in this show, and it’s never there to create a plot point.

HowEVER, there were a few things I noticed that confused that fact.

Like I said about Abigail in the very first episode, when the Bellweather Unit is meeting for the first time, why was Abigail so quick to question Tally’s virginity after learning she comes from a Matrifocal Compound? If there are no heteronorms in the world of Motherland: Fort Salem, then why is it assumed that losing your virginity is related to relations with a man? Even though Tally is (well… was) a virgin, why would that question be brought up? If roles were reversed and it was Raelle living on the Matrifocal Compound, the conversation would’ve gone strikingly different, and it would’ve supported this heteronormative narrative that I thought we were trying to avoid. I’m just going to blame this one line on how badly Abigail wants the D, so sleeping with a woman wouldn’t even cross her mind.

But then what about the idea of this ‘five-year marriage contract’? It’s simply about producing a child, so I assume a woman could never have that sort of thing with another woman, and that those women could never add to their lineage (unless they entered into a five-year marriage contract simply to reproduce). Doesn’t this, alone, signify a heteronormative world without even meaning to do so? While they accept LGBTQ+ relationships, how do they actually fit into the society and culture that this show has created? Wouldn’t the gay witches be seen as almost inadequate in carrying on the gene if they don’t have a child? (AmI just thinking too much into this...?)

But then again, the whole concept of ‘love’ in Fort Salem is rather insignificant itself. As Gerit mentions, no one is supposed to spend their life with just one person. Witches are committed to one another in five-year partnerships to reproduce, and then that’s it. So in a way, I understand that nobody, no matter what their sexuality is, really gets to experience this fairytale ending that we’re used to seeing in a (*cough* heterosexual) ship on TV. And in a way, I also think that’s what makes this show all the more fascinating. Eliot Laurence gave everyone a level playing field by just removing the idea of a happily ever after altogether. In Laurence’s world, witches are meant to train and fight and die for their country. Love is their weakness. But what’s so compelling about that is even though love is their weakness, he made sure that love also manifests into their greatest strength.

From what I’ve seen in interviews for Laurence, every single thing has a purpose. So I’m quick to let this go, and see where he takes us. He’s been building this world inside his head for nine years, so I know that there’s so much more to this story than what can be told in a 10-episode season.

But Back to the Lesbians

Anyway, back to love. Specifically gay love. I wish I could put into simple words my obsession with Raelle and Scylla.

From the incredible chemistry that Taylor Hickson and Amalia Holm share on-screen together to the directors and writers who’ve portrayed their love story so magically, Raelle and Scylla are truly something special. They’ve taken the place of a ship this queer fandom lost when Lexa was killed. It’s a ship that you want to hate, because every part of this story tells me to hate Scylla. She’s Spree. She’s vindictive. She’s dangerous. Yet every part of my brain tells me to love her. And to love them together.

I don’t like easy stories. I want stories that make the ending worth it. I want hardships and pain and hurt and work when it comes to love. Which is why I like the story of Raelle and Scylla. There was a spark between them in their very first scene together- a spark you could feel through the TV. It was believable and real. They come from similar backgrounds of loss and solitude, and that’s what originally bound them together. And over the next seven episodes, we watched their relationship grow. We saw their vulnerabilities, their growth, their passion. But now we’re going to see the hardship. The pain, the anger, the betrayal.

I appreciate that they’re not skimping on telling any part of their story. The two are special together, and so far, this show has proved that.

She’s Special

I want to break down Raelle Collar before bringing up anything else, because, well, obviously she’s the main character, but she’s also got a lot going on. The fact that Raelle channels her power through something other than the typical ‘seed’ is something that will be of importance to why she’s so powerful. Petra Bellweather, herself, claims that Raelle’s mom, Willa, used unconventional methods that delivered incredible results. “She was the fixer every unit wanted to deploy with.”

While all witches in Basic Training are learning about utilizing their extra set of vocal cords to create magic songs, Raelle can do it in a way that’s reminiscent of where she grew up- Chippewa Cession. In the very first episode, she makes note that her family was there before it became a Cession. Aka, before the land was given to the Chippewa tribe in exchange for their magic.

Raelle comes from a line of witches that all have more unique abilities than what’s taught at Basic Training. She uses a combination of Native American spirituality/Christo-Paganism skills during her days at Fort Salem, which brings up questions (and judgment) from other witches. It seems as though that kind of magic was the way witches used to do things before Sarah Alder released her song into the world and created a vocalizing army with it. Raelle’s peers look disgusted when they see her still using the same ways witches once did. It’s particularly noticeable when she heals people, and recites Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The entire theme of the Book of Matthew, in regards to Christianity, is about prayer. Asking and receiving. That God will provide you with what’s needed, and nothing more. But when it comes to Paganism, it’s about the law of attraction and return in our universe. It outlines that there is no life without balance - that all prayers can be answered, but they’ll be answered with things that are taken from elsewhere. All prayers almost have a consequence. Just like all magic has a consequence.

Raelle’s power, at least what she knows of it up until now, is based on a consensual balance, bringing the theme of Paganism’s Matthew 7:7 into the type of witchcraft she practices. She can heal someone, but what she heals them from will be transferred onto her. Balance. Consequence.

Bringing General Sarah Alder back into this, this is the same type of magic that she traded for back in the 1700’s when she granted the Chippewa Tribe the entire length of the Mississippi River. In exchange, she gained the magic that could keep her eternally young. But just like the magic that Raelle does, this age defying practice has consequences too, and requires balance. Every 50-60 additional years that General Alder adds on to her endless life, a young witch must be sacrificed to take on those years, and must stand by General Alder the rest of her short-lived life.

But where does the balance go?

Adil is such a great addition to the cast because he sheds a light on something so crucially ignored on campus. All magic has balance. This is teased throughout the season, like when General Alder hits turbulence on her way to The Hague and jokes (but not really jokes), “I assume I have one of you to blame for that.” Or how Raelle soaks up her ‘patients’ illness. But it’s not truly smacked in our faces until Adil says it.

As Abigail is flaunting her ability to *one day* “grind iron into ore and mountains into dust,” Adil drops a truth bomb on her. “All that weather you fight with has a cost. Floods. Failing crops. Famine. Every war, people starve.” She’s quick to reply that the good they do far outweighs the bad. But to who? Certainly not to Adil and his people. Meeting him is going to give our recruits a serious insight into just how consequential their ‘work’ can be. He’s going to play a crucial role in realizing how manipulative and egotistical General Alder has been.

Not only is weather an issue, but plagues. “Like the one attacking my sister.” Adil and Khalida come into the storyline because Khalida is sick with a deathly black webbing wrapped around her body. When they first make it to the Military Outpost (somewhere in the dessert between Russia and China?), the Soldier who meets them at the gate yells, “they’re here.” So were they expecting them?

Raelle eventually is the one who heals Khalida, (by using her Christo-pagan means) but instead of taking up the illness like it usually does, instead, it infects the giant mushroom that Raelle touched earlier.

The balance of Mother Mushroom.

I go back and forth between theories for the giant mushroom growing under Fort Salem. But today, I’m convinced the mushroom is attached to General Alder’s vitality. And consequently, the entire vitality of Fort Salem as well. In one episode, Berryessa reminds us that all life on campus is directly connected to Alder. And if what Scylla says in My Witches, that “life becomes death, which becomes life again,” is relative to the life on campus and how General Alder parallels that, then this theme of balance throughout the series is more prominent than we realize.

The giant mushroom living under campus is clearly important. It has hands and replicates faces and takes on diseases and Izadora is not a fan of anyone touching it. So yes, you could say this fungi is a main character now.

But. Why?

“In the kingdom of plants, mushrooms occupy the underworld. Nothing ever really dies.” Mushrooms have an entire underground network of language to one another. And they are responsible for the breakdown and decomposition of death so that organic matter can become something else. Necros have an obvious connection to this ecological process too, so they must have a connection to the continuous process that General Alder goes through to support and sustain life on her campus.

I think that the “Mother Mycelium” signifies each and every consequence that Fort Salem has accumulated. It holds the hurt and death and pain and regret of everything General Alder has created. And now that the Mushroom is infected with whatever plague Khalida had, I think it’s going to wreak havoc on Fort Salem. Magic is based on balance, and I think massive consequences are coming to make up for years of disparity.

One last thing on my mushroom-thoughts, is when Helen Graves said “the dead make excellent eyes and ears.” An underground network of mushrooms all connected to recently dead organisms would certainly be a great way to gain insight too. Scylla mentions that she needs something recently dead to grow her deathcap, so does this Mushroom need to be constantly “fed” with death to continue the creation of life?

Does Alder know about that? Are the mass-murders that the Spree are doing related to this? Killing hundreds of people at a time would definitely be a good way to keep the mushroom o’ death fed. Is Alder behind the Spree!?

Sexy Weird

Speaking of Spree... Can we talk Scylla now? First of all, what the hell is this girl’s timeline? When we first meet her, she’s a cadet (second year) in War College already, meaning she would’ve had to enlist on Conscription Day the year before Raelle. Yes? In Mother Mycelium, we see that she *might* (still don’t believe it) have been the person behind that first Spree attack on Conscription Day of this year (so when Raelle, Tally, and Abigail enlisted), so was she at Basic Training for an entire year before deciding to become Spree? Did she enlist knowing that she would eventually be Spree? Does this ever get addressed in the show?

Since we’re here, I might as well say there’s no way Scylla did that. I’ll never believe it. And I’m using my one semester of Greek Mythology in college to tell you why (who knew that class would eventually come in handy)

In My Witches, when Tally, Abigail, and Glory first meet Scylla, Tally makes it clear that ‘Scylla’ is a Greek name. Okay. Greek. Cool. Mythology. Let’s go. I already knew that Eliot Laurence doesn’t waste any minute of screen time when it comes to plot development and storytelling, so my meta brain did a little digging.

In Greek Mythology, Scylla was a sea-monster who haunted the rocks of a very narrow strait, opposite of the whirlpool of Charybdis. The monster’s purpose was to lead ships and boats towards the whirlpool, which was lethal to all who attempted to pass. Scylla was used to lure boats towards Charybdis, but was never meant for actually destroying them. Scylla was a fear tactic, not a murderous monster. In poetry, it’s often said that Scylla isn’t a monster at all, just born into a monstrous family. In conclusion (from my 4 months of Freshman-level Greek Mythology and a little refreshment on Google) I think Scylla is simply being used to lure people to the Spree, but not actually doing the mass-murdering that is being shown in the episode.

What I do know is that Scylla Ramshorn is absolutely Amalia Holm. Mainly because I refuse to accept that Raelle is falling for the red head (sorry, red head). But also because at the end of the Pilot, when Scylla (in red head disguise) looked into the mirror, the balloon was her reflection, and it followed everything that she did. But in other scenes, when Scylla’s face is the normal Scylla face, she can see her own reflection. So the redhead girl is unimportant. Plus, IMDB says she never appears again this season...

We Are The Spree

As much as I hate to believe that Raelle’s mom (or Aunt!) is alive and leading the Spree, the connections between the two entities do add up. Both (Spree and Collar’s) are against the authority and power that the Witch Army has over populations of witches. They’re both against General Sarah Alder. I believe they both use spoken word magic rather than just vocalized magic. When the Spree carry out their attacks, they’re whispering words under their breath, not singing any song. Which is reminiscent of how the Collar’s do magic. Additionally, it would make sense as to why the Spree would want Scylla to bring them Raelle. And I still can’t get over the conversation between Raelle and Tally when Raelle explains her family’s combat charm. “A bowerbird’s foot. They love anything blue.”

Blue? Why. WHY.

Maybe Willa Collar was captured by the Spree? Or the Aunt was? Or the Spree needs Raelle to heal someone?

One last weird very unthought out theory goes with the other Biblical verse Raelle recites - Isaiah 43:2. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” The fact that all Spree attacks have happened with something to do water- in the snow, at the pool, on a cruiseship. And the fact that the last line of that verse is literally, “you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This type of witchcraft has to relate to how the Spree does magic. Right??

Now I’m re-talking myself into the fact that the Collar’s might be somehow leading Spree...

But who’s ‘we’?

If the Collar’s are in charge of Spree then this next theory would actually check out.

Anacostia has been a little more over-bearing with Raelle than any of the other girls. On multiple occasions, she’s said how Raelle is gifted. In fact, they all have. Even Abigail in Hail Beltane mentions that “Raelle didn’t go outside of canon, she’s naturally gifted.” They all know she’s gifted. It would make sense if the Collar’s were the ones running Spree, and that Anacostia, aka. General Alder’s head bitch, was sent to protect Raelle from ever joining them. Alder wants to capitalize on the powers that Raelle has, and keep them in the Witch Army.

But I also think Anacostia could be playing General Alder. There have been too many times where she stares at Alder just a little bit too intently, and I can’t stop thinking that she might be in some sort of rebellious group too. Maybe a certain cell of Spree?

Because you can’t deny that Anacostia has also taken in interest in Scylla, particular to keep her away from Raelle. When Anacostia first caught them flying high on Salva, she told Scylla to stay away from Raelle, and it seemed as though she (tried) to use some sort of coercion magic while doing so. When Anacostia then saw them together at the Bellweather wedding, she almost sounded shocked, “I expressly told you to stay away from her.” Did Anacostia attempt coercion magic on Scylla and it didn’t work? And if she did, why didn’t it work?

That entire exchange felt odd yet familiar. Like the two have history. “Your name wouldn’t have been on the list. You’re not supposed to be here.” Particularly the “you’re not supposed to be here.” Did Anacostia know about the attack on the Bellweather’s? And did she think it would be threatened with Scylla there? Or did she know that Scylla was supposed to bring Raelle to the Spree at 6pm. And was sent to make sure Scylla never completed that task.

I found it interesting that Anacostia was never seen fighting off the balloons like every other Witch was when they appeared. And her being at the actual wedding felt odd too. Especially if she’s General Alder’s right-hand (wo)man, because last time I checked, Alder and Petra Bellweather weren’t on the greatest terms. In fact, none of the General’s are on great terms with Alder.

Since we’re now on Bellweather season...

Camarilla. No, not Carmilla.

There’s certainly a second threat in this show. And they were the ones behind the attack at the Bellweather’s. Not only has this already been proven by Jessica Sutton on Twitter (lols) but the clues were literally all there. They didn’t use any magic to fight. They had to use a mechanized sound machine to stop Abigail and Petra from using their powers. Then they covered themselves with gasoline and lit themselves on fire before the mother-daughter duo blew them away. It wasn’t Spree. But it was meant to look like Spree. And I think the balloons were simply a distraction, so all efforts and power would be outside fighting off the balloons while the civilian waiter’s could attack.

But who is doing this?

It’s been brought up that there are alot of humans who don’t agree with the Witch Army that Alder leads. Even the President of the United States is hesitant about them. “You, too, are bound by rule of law to the will of the American people, who have elected me to represent their interests and protect them. Don’t you forget it. Or you may find yourself reminded.” Then Tally gets confronted later in that episode by a civilian who says, “It’s witches who are committing these attacks. It’s your kind of people .” And then even later in the series, there’s talk of a “growing debate in congress to revoke the Accord and disband the army.” So you could say there are definite opinions about this Army by civilians.

In A Biddy’s Life, there’s a shot when Raelle and Scylla are in the room with weapons once used to kill witches. There’s an undeniably important shot of the Camarilla Scythe. Camarilla, itself, is defined as a small group of people acting as private advisers to a ruler or politician with a shared and nefarious purpose to carry out secret plots.

Since civilians are the ones that are most opposed to the Witch Army, it makes sense that maybe the President, herself, is the one behind these attacks. She’s trying to take down the most Elite of the Witches (the Bellweather’s), hence inhibiting the Army from being as successful as it’s been in the past. And what better way than to kill the most elite witches of child-bearing age.

While this theory checks out, I can’t help but to also think that Petra Bellweather could be behind the attacks. I know, it’s a stretch, (specifically because it’s her own family that’s being targeted) but I do love that ‘good powers, bad people’ trope. And what better way to make sure nobody questions your efforts if you’re the last one they’d suspect? Petra Bellweather has been itching to boot Alder from head witch honcho for awhile. Since killing Bellweather’s is the ultimate attack against witches, this would be a great strategy to showcase that Alder is inept in dealing with these enemies, creating a fall in power. And eventually, a rise in another. A Bellweather.

Okay, I know what you’re all probably thinking. “So you’re saying that she wanted her own daughter killed!?” Not necessarily. When you watch Bellweather Season, and specifically the wedding scenes, they put an insane emphasis on timing. And I don’t believe that that’s just because of Scylla trying to get Raelle out of there by 6pm. When you watch the sequence back, the Bellweather Unit was supposed to be having their interview with the Dean of War College, starting at 5:30ish. If the interview took a good bit, say 30-45 minutes, this would strategically put Abigail not in the line of fire (aka Charvel’s room) at 6pm when they struck.

But on the complete other hand, Abigail was supposed to be up with Charvel at that time helping her get ready. Meaning if it wasn’t Petra Bellweather, someone perfectly timed both Bellweather’s of childbearing age to conveniently be in the same place at the same time.

Then the fact that Scylla was meant to leave with Raelle at 6pm (the exact moment the waiter’s and balloons struck), can’t go unnoticed. Did they want her to leave with Raelle at 6pm because the Spree knew about the attack? Did someone warn them? Does this explain why Anacostia was shocked to see Scyalla. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Why wasn’t she supposed to be there????

I’m just going to tap out of this theory now.

But One More Thing

This might be a totally aggressive theory, and I have to credit the initial spark of this idea to my girlfriend, because during my 67th rewatch of this show, she brought up something I’d never thought of before. She asked me what Scylla’s purpose of attending the wedding was, and if the person she was supposed to bring to Penelope Road at 6pm really was Raelle?

This got thinkING. What if it was someone else???

When you look back at all the times Scylla spends talking to her balloon mirror, they never actually say Raelle’s name. Sure, we’re meant to believe that Raelle is the obvious target. But what if that’s a cover?? What if she’s using Raelle to infiltrate something else and get to someone else??

It would make sense to use Raelle to target Abigail instead- an elite Bellweather. Like I said, this is a very unlikely theory but it would definitely be a shock to literally everyone (except my girlfriend apparently)...

Has the entirety of the show been leading us down a path to distract us from something else going on!? With every other ounce of brilliance here, I wouldn’t even doubt it.

In Conclusion

I went into this show expecting to be seen and represented as a queer woman, but what I actually got was so much more. What I got from this show is the realization that me being queer doesn’t have to have anything to do with me being a woman at all. My strength, and will, and mistakes, and growth, and grace, and support, and passion, are what make me a woman. Each of our stories are deserving enough to be told just because we are women.

I’ve struggled with that fact my entire life - my womanhood.

Femininity, feminism, and female empowerment are all things I’ve only recently connected with. I was raised in the culture of traditional gender roles. My dad went to work and my mom stayed home. It’s not that I was necessarily taught that men and women must occupy those roles; it’s just that’s all I knew. To even further confuse my adolescent existentialism, not only was my mother a stay-at-home mom, she was also in the Marine Corps. And she never really understood the fact that not all women are as strong as she is.

My mom’s a badass, don’t get me wrong. She’s one of my hero’s. She came from a family who didn’t have much, and after realizing that she couldn’t afford to go to college, she enlisted instead. Six years later, she went to Penn State on a full-ride. She’s worked for every ounce of success that she’s seen, and she’s worked her ass off for it. But because of that, she struggles with the idea of feminism.

I can’t blame her too much. I understand the mindset she’s coming from. Growing up with that being instilled in my mind was hard though. Because it was expected that I, too, grow up to be a strong independent woman.

I graduated in the predominantly male industry of agriculture (I want to be a farmer, okay!?). All through college, grad school, and post-grad school, I worked on farm after farm after farm. And it was there that I was introduced to the idea of toxic masculinity. I tolerated comments that I won’t even say out loud. I’ve “accidentally” been touched in more ways than I care to count. And what I hate the most about it all, is that I fucking tolerated it. I’d laugh it off, and then I’d walk away, mortified at what I’d actually just put up with. And while by no means do I blame my upbringing and home life on this, I do blame the upbringing and home life on the female characters I saw on television. If Brooke Davis was constantly and overly sexualized in high school then I guess I was supposed to, too. Right??

Sure, I still hear comments that I wish I didn’t. But I’m also surrounded by people and characters who taught me to never put up with the shit I once did. Female characters are portraying a storyline that people take more seriously now. They’re persevering. And that jumps off the screen in Motherland: Fort Salem.

It’s taken me a while to realize how Raelle and Scylla have affected me as much as Clakre and Lexa did (two characters who literally awakened my sexuality). But I think I get it now.

I love both Raelle and Scylla. Each one. Individually. As witches. As warriors. As females. As humans. As strong female characters. So, in a way, watching this show has awakened something else in me that I’ve also been suppressing all along. My femininity. My strength. My perseverance.

Sure, Raelle and Scylla are my favorite ship right now, but it wasn’t them being together that made me fall in love with this show. Oddly enough, it was them being apart. It’s the fact that each one stands on her own as a unique and beautifully complicated story. And it’s the fact that I, too, am deserving of a beautifully complicated story.

Last Section, I Swear

Motherland: Fort Salem is a magical mix of intense story building, relatable character development, and fascinating cinematography, all while being told through a gender and sexuality normative opposite of what we’re used to seeing. It’s a show that encompasses female strength unlike anything I’ve experienced before, where men are the background noise who aid in pushing the plot forward. It’s a show that deserves another season. And another and another and another and another.

It’s a show I needed ten+ years ago, at 18 years old, freshly out of high school and wondering why the fuck I never had crushes on guys like everyone else my age did. It’s the show I needed so I didn’t always wonder why I was so obsessed with Peyton Sawyer and Summer Roberts and why I was the only one I knew who thought Torrance and Missy should’ve ended up together. It’s the show I needed to learn that my femininity doesn’t make me any less tough than my male counterparts. It’s the show I needed so I never put up with anyone’s shit. It’s the show I needed to teach me that I am storm and I am fury.

It’s the show I needed then. But it’s also the show I’m so happy that I have now.

#motherlandfortsalem #motherland fort salem #raylla #clexa #motherland fort salem theory #scylla ramshorn #scylla #raelle #raelleandscylla #raelle collar #lgbtq #this is so long i'm so sorry #abigail bellweather #tally craven

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thesharondefenseleague · 4 years ago

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Yesss thank you for bringing up the Sam Bucky queerbaiting like the moment they ended up on top of each other?

They knew absolutely what they were doing how it could be seen and that there was an audience out there that would love that indication that they were appealing to with that content. But of course its just to get their money and views and they never intend to follow through on that indication and loose their homophobic fans.

So ya absolute queer bait. Steve and Bucky never had moments like that. Ya they had dramatic maybe slightly cheesy heartfelt dialogue but thats not the same thing.

I so often see SteveBucky on the same list as Destiel or Johnlock for like examples of queerbaited couples and it seems like fans just see queerbaiting as any duo that could have had romantic potential that they liked and wasn't made canon. And like i get it you feel strongly for your otp.

But don't call it queerbaiting when its not. Especially next to those more insidious queerbaiting examples. That makes people think its a shipping thing rather than a minipulative marketing tactic that is often at the expense of minority group that craves representation.

There is that joke about straight girls being the ones who ship these gay ships and get salty about not seeing their favs make out. But there are alot of lgbt people who ( no suprise) gravitate towards these non straight ships too.

So many times ive seen teen girls get shit on for shipping gay ships calling it them fetishizing gay men just for having gay ships and later see that they were actually either not straight or not girls or both. They were just struggling with their sexuality not ready to come out and gravitated towards reprentations of things that were less heteronormative but wasn't associated exclusively with gay people.

And while im sure there were straight people out there who really wanted their gay otp to be canon its the young lgbt people who gonna get screwed over the most by this queerbaiting. They were young and hopeful and thought this mainstream thing they loved was validating them when it was really just leading them on for views. This isnt exclusive to lgbt people either.

Ive seen this happen with black characters too where the promise of them being important and relevant is used to draw in a black people get them watching to drive up viewership and then sideline them ( like say in Star Wars).

Its one thing if you want to put in representation and arent allowed to so you imply as much as possible. You see that often with childrens television for example. But this is almost the opposite of that. Its more insidious and often despite purposely baiting in show they will gaslight in interviews and say fans are reading too much into it. And sometimes there will later be evidence that baiting was discussed in the writers room.

Its all a huge dick move that people are complaining about and putting in say Stucky ,which didnt do that, on the same queerbaiting list of Johnlock or Destiel, which did, kinda makes that level of queerbaiting into just fan favorite gay ships that didn't become canon and people are salty.

Yeah, one of those ships is not like the others. There are a few video essays online about how queerbaiting was used to get fans while the creators simultaneously (for J/L, we all know what happened on 5 November) denied it would be canon. Steve and Bucky on the other hand haven’t been given the J/L treatment. Queerbaiting has to be on the J/L levels of insidious or the Betty and Veronica kissing in the trailer and going right into nowhere levels of baiting for views.

But Sam and Bucky. Is this why we don’t see Sam paired with anyone? Is Sam closeted?? Seriously, let’s run with this. What if Sam is closeted, because it’s hard enough to be a black man who is in the army, then a superhero who is an extremely public figure (because forget secret identities), who is then Captain America and probably the most famous person in the world, and here’s this guy who he wants to be friends with and also kind of prove his worth to, and he’s fun to mess around with, but fuck he’s kind of cute, with that face he makes when he’s messed with, and then you roll around in a field like that...

I would like to point out that in these past few years, we have collectively grown out of a time where m/m ships had a lot of fetishization in fandom. I don’t think we realize it, but I remember how much there used to be (and especially trans fetishization, I haven’t seen that in years when that used to be a huge thing). It’s nice that now we can see these characters as more human and less thing to get off to. And it does have a lot to do with LGBTQ+ fans given more of a voice in fandom. That being said, you can’t just say Steve and Bucky are queerbaited. The writers and directors have never once used that idea to sell you on their films. Their actors have never once played it up for the camera to mess with their fans. The only character that has that is Peggy. (Someone else remembers those being a thing with Agent Carter, right??) And in a time where Marvel is going to have canon queer relationships on-screen, we need to show support of them and stand for the characters who risk having their identities erased, especially when teams like the Young Avengers come around.

But also there is a lot of subtext to support that Sam could have a coming out narrative that I don’t think will ever happen, but would be a plot twist conclusion to the #givecapaboyfriend movement from way back. I mean, Sam has deliberately not been given a romantic story. This could be why. (But don’t hold out for it. Oh god, what if Sam and Bucky are the queerbaited ship??? Another plot twist.)

~Mod R

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yurimother · 6 years ago

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LGBTQ Manga Review - Yuri Life

The twenty-first century brought significant change and innovation to the genre of yuri. The first yuri magazines were published and included stories that left confines of the schoolroom, allowing creators to explore actual queer women living in a realistic world. Such works include the legendary Rakuen no Jouken, which will finally be adapted into English next year. Because of the internet and sites like Pixiv and Twitter, many of these works found an audience and success. Kurukuruhime’s Yuri Life is absolutely a product of its time, in the best possible way. The single volume is a collection of short comics the author originally uploaded to Pixiv and social media. It depicts (mostly) adult queer women in real and meaningful relationships with each other. It is absolutely a triumph and a joy to read.

Yuri Life features ten different couples across ten chapters or “rooms.” Each of these couples live together, and the series follows them throughout their everyday lives; It is pure yuri cohabitation!! These chapters contain multiple short stories, some even as brief as a single page, which is to be expected considering that they initially posted online. However, when tales are so short, they have to be highly focused and polished, and Yuri Life nails this. Some of the narratives are just adorable interactions of someone cooking for their partner or telling them, “I love you.” These stories are simple but so enjoyable and fun to read. It is like looking into a brief window into these women’s lives together and seeing them at their best moments. Whether funny, heartfelt, or both, they will bring a smile to the readers face.

Occasionally, chapters or parts of chapters in Yuri Life will have more meaningful content and conflicts. Examples include a woman getting jealous because of the attention her partner’s job gets her, or another becoming annoyed that her girlfriend frequently travels for work. However, with the expectation of a supernatural story involving a grim-reaper, these stories stay grounded, never relying on melodrama or impossibly high stakes. This component is the crux of Yuri Life’s brilliance; it is about women existing together in believable, realistic, and sustainable ways. Being privileged to observe these women in love and life is a heartwarming experience.

The characters in Yuri Life are well developed and likable. Short works often suffer because they cannot devote time to establishing characters and relationships, but Yuri Life escapes this fate. It accomplishes this feat by beginning each chapter with a one-page character introduction that describes both women and their relationship. Each couple feels perfectly paired, such as the nervous and timid Tanabe and her vixen girlfriend Nanatsuno or the cool-headed Okazaki and her boisterous affectionate girlfriend, Oshikiri.

The women in Yuri Life are rarely seen apart from each other. Because of these factors, there is no need to develop each as an individual beyond their dominant personality traits. The characters do not exist outside of a relationship, and all interactions are masterfully written to be almost exclusively between the two partners, enhancing and reinforcing their relationship. There is a considerable downside to such a structure. Because only single major personality traits define the characters, if one person or a dynamic is unlikable to a reader, there is little given to redeem them. For me, this was the case in chapter five, which featured a teacher in a relationship with an underage student, and six, which includes a yandere character.

Unlike most manga, Yuri Life’s illustrations are in full color. Kurukuruhime makes excellent use of this element in her backgrounds, which are often patterns or single blocks of color. Color is also brilliantly employed in the character designs, letting each girl have a unique and clothing color. However, even without color, the character designs would still be distinct and unique. Each woman has a different fashion sense, unique proportions, and individual facial expressions.

The drawings themselves are loose and flowing, similar to sketches. This style nicely complements the cheerful and lighthearted tone of the story. In other works, such drawings may be overly abstract or undefined. However, the color nicely balances out the art style, making Yuri Life one of the most visually distinct manga I have had the pleasure of reading recently.

The yuri elements of the manga are strong and fantastic. Each couple feels different, with both the characters and the relationships coming at various life stages and incorporating different dynamics. However, throughout each chapter, a few details are constant, love and affection. Each person is in love with the other and displays their passion frequently there own way. Some shout it to the heavens while others send barrages of text messages to their lovers. Many of the couples are also visibly physically affectionate. The manga frequently mentioned sex and shows instances of sexual contact, including displaying character lying together after being intimate. However, these scenes are usually pretty minimal in their exposure and tasteful. Most service to be found or excitement to be had is in witnessing these beautiful, loving people be affectionate for each other.

Yuri Life is a phenomenal work. Seeing great examples of women living together and loving each other is as important as it is enjoyable. Even without a plot, the work is riveting thanks to fun scenarios and adorable couples. The manga is a profoundly heartwarming and joyous depiction of yuri cohabitation. Yuri Life is simply a masterpiece and an absolute must-read.

You can get Yuri Life digitally and in print today: Yuri Life -https://amzn.to/2NthbKC

Ratings: Story (Scenarios) – 9 Characters – 7 Art – 7 LGBTQ – 10 Lewd – 3 Final – 9

Review copy provided by @yenpress

#yuri #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#yuri life #wlw #gay #manga #reviews #queer #comic #comics #girls love #gl #art #lesbian #lesbians

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flying-elliska · 6 years ago

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What are the important bisexual characters that you said helped you? I am having a hard time finding good bi representation in which they aren’t considered promiscuous or unstable

Hiya anon ! What a quality question, thank you ! Here’s another mini essay about bi rep lmao. If there are some that I forgot please tell me ! And to everyone, tell me about the bi characters who made an impact on your life, I’d love to know !!!!

Okay so.

- When I answered the anon and talked about the characters that helped me come to terms with my sexuality, I talked about two in particular. Jack Harkness from Torchwood is depicted as very promiscuous, and somewhat instable. He still meant a lot to me because a) him sleeping around was never that much of a problem, it was because he was from the future, where things were different, which I thought was refreshing and b) his instability was because of the weight of being an immortal hero. Also fanon!Dean Winchester from SPN, as an older, more macho, emotionally witholding, badass dude written as bi meant a lot to me, but he doesn’t really avoid that stereotype either. But at least they were heroes. However, I can understand wanting bi characters that actually don’t fit that stereotype, because bi people irl aren’t all like that, even if there is nothing wrong per se about sleeping with a lot of different people, or having mental issues to struggle with. And that was a while ago and now we have more and more cool characters ! Such as :

- Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. One of the best portrayals of bisexuality on TV imho. She didn’t start out as bi, she was this tough, cool, scary but with a heart of gold cop who had a lot of other plotlines before. But then, since they saw that a lot of wlw got this vibe from her, were really into her, and the actress came out as bi herself, they decided to use this. So it was super organic, and the way they introduced the subject was true to Rosa herself ; she’s a super private person, she doesn’t like anybody knowing about her life (it’s actually a running joke and Rosa Diaz has been implied to not even be her real name). But then she is dating a woman, and struggles with her parents not understanding and her coworkers find out, help her and support her. Her gay captain is there for her in his typical stoic but hilarious way. They organize game night with her when her parents won’t anymore. We see her crushing on women and dating, but it is treated exactly as the other character’s love life, they never make a big deal out of it. She isn’t the token queer character. She says outright she is bisexual and there is a specific point about her mom not understanding it’s not a phase and thinking she’ll end up with a man anyway, which #relatable. The focus is on the team as found family. Also right now she’s dating a butch woman, which is awesome since they are so underrepresented on TV and I hope we see more of her. That show really is my comfort show, it’s still bloodly hilarious and it really transcends the format to say some really deep woke stuff too, but never in a way that feels on the nose. Everyone should watch it tbh.

- Korrasami ! Oh my god, I was so blown away when they got together. They’re two characters from the animated series Legend of Korra, they start out as rivals in love who have feelings for the same guy, but as they have to fight baddies together, they become bestest of friends, and both fall out of love with the guy. Then in season 3 and 4, their relationship becomes central to the show, as Asami stands by Korra through some really tough shit. Also, they’re both ultra badass and fight really well together. A lot of fans started reading their chemistry as romantic, but we’d never thought they’d actually go there. But the show ends with them walking into the ‘sunset’ (well, the spirit lands) together, holding hands. Now, it was never completely explicit on the show BUT they were dealing with a lot of censure from the networks and you have to be willingly obtuse not to read it as romantic. And after that the creators drew them on dates, and there is a comic series in which they are shown kissing, talking about their feelings, introducing each other to their families, etc. It made me feel so validated when it happened, and I just adore the whole ‘love triangle ditches the middle one and fall in gay love with each other’ trope. (is it a trope yet ? it should be.) It’s still a kids show at its core, but it has amazing depth and deals with some very deep shit. Korra starts off as a bit annoying but she has a really cool development, she’s a girl character we need more of - brave, dynamic but also brash and reckless and action driven in ways that are almost always exclusively shown for boys. And Asami is a more typical girly girl but she’s also a brilliant engineer and has a spine of steel and she’s also very slyly funny. They’re amazing. And the comics are super cute.

- Now there are a lot of characters who are bi/pan that I love, and are good characters in themselves, but their arcs do intersect in some ways with promiscuity and mental instability. I’m thinking about Even from Skam and all his remake variants, Magnus Bane from Shadowhunters, several characters from Black Sails, Sarah Lance and Constantine from Legends of Tomorrow, Eleanor Shellstrop from the Good Place, Bo from Lost Girl, Ilana from Broad City, Joe McMillan from Halt and Catch Fire, God/Chuck from Supernatural (lmaooooo), several characters on Penny Dreadful, or in a totally different category, Vilanelle from Killing Eve or Hannibal from the series (who are hella bad guys but it’s never linked to their sexuality, and are also incredibly compelling to watch.)

And even though these characters taken individually, I would argue, are good rep because they’re complex and layered and interesting and never one-dimensional (and watching them feels incredibly empowering at times)....it’s still a trend. I feel like when writing a character that is attracted to multiple genders, there is always this sort of...tangle of tropes that writers default to, unconsciously. Some negative and some positive. It used to be this trope of bis being villainous, instable, jealous, flaky, immature, perverted, manipulative, cheaters, amoral, greey, etc...and then it evolved into something of a reclaiming and subverting this trope. So now you feel like the Bi Character kind of has to be badass, glamorous, seductive, often superpowered or extraordinary in other ways.. And they also for multiple reasons (they’re immortal, they’re sensitive artist souls, they’re from the future, they’re psycho, they’re exccentric comic relief, they’re daring adventurers and pioneers) don’t care about social norms which allows them to sleep and fall in love with whomever. And so they tend to have those super busy romantic/sexual histories and very troubled backstories. In the past it was a bad thing, now it’s often presented as this positive, enlightened or at least fun and badass thing. They’re heroic, with big hearts, a tremendous lust for life and a cool rebellious attitude. They’re complex, dramatic, tortured. Which can be super cool, too.

But it would be nice to have more ‘normal’ bi characters. I mean, boring bisexuals need to see themselves represented too ! Our sexualities don’t give us super powers. At the same time, it is true that bisexual ppl have higher rates of mental illness, which deserves to be explored, but it would be nice if it was actually articulated and not just part of this trope. But still. We need rep, I think, that is more grounded and varied. So I think that’s also why I read a lot of fanfic. (I was really into the idea of bi Steve Rogers for a long time, partly also because he’s both very mentally resilient, kinda boring in a good way, and very unexperienced in terms of sex/romance, which is pretty much the opposite of the trope)

- I think books, and YA in general, are a good place to find these ‘normal bis’ characters. I’m thinking in particular of Leah from Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (from the same book series that gave us the ‘Love, Simon’ movie) which is a super sweet coming of age/romance story about a super normal teenager who just happens to be also into girls (esp her best friend) and is loud and funny and very lovable and has zero doubts about being bi. You also have Adam Parrish from the Raven Cycle, another one of my forever faves ; he has an abusive family so PTSD from that but it never feels tropey, and it’s completely detached from his sexuality. He has magic powers, too. But his character feels completely opposite to the trope. He’s hardworking, somewhat withholding, prickly (and sometimes awkward), ambitious, determined, down to earth, and has a beautiful love story with another boy. And also Jane, from Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, also really cool ; she’s a nerdy, smart girl who is actually inspired by Jane Eyre who has cool adventures in a weird house where we can follow her on different paths depending on the choices she makes, several of which are love stories. And finally the main character from The Seven Husbands from Evelyn Hugo, kinda fits the trope yeahhh since she’s a super glam actress who well, has seven husbands but it’s a pretty clever deconstruction since it turns out (slight spoilers) that Evelyn is actually through most of her life faithful in heart to the same person and the rest is mostly out of necessity, and her story feels very real and raw and down to earth.

- I don’t go there yet but I really want to check out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Schitt’s Creek which I have read have very good bi rep. And I want to catch up on Orphan Black (Cosima and Delphine both don’t have exact labels but they’re multi-gender attracted and they’re this cool couple of scientists in a relationship that gets a happy ending). I will never forgive what they did to Lexa so I stopped watching but I do think that Clarke Griffin from The 100 is very good bi rep. Alexia from Skam France, meanwhile, is a bit of a boundary case for me because, even though she’s presented as the ‘weird one’ from the group, very colorful and liberated and exccentric, she’s still a very normal teen who’s happy and comfortable in her own skin, which is awesome.

- Disclaimer, I included characters in here that are also pan/omnisexual or don’t have a label but are attracted to several genders, for the purpose of this discussion i don’t think the difference is all that relevant at least to me (i mostly identify as bi for the sake of simplicity but tbh i could also fit under pan so i feel represented by all those characters). But I understand the importance of characters that state their identities more clearly and with pride.

- So in conclusion : there is nothing wrong with having a sexually active life or struggling mentally (even tho that one is not fun). And I do love all my badass casanova time travelling super powered bis.

But we need more bi characters that don’t fit that trope. We need bi characters in children’s shows, or that don’t have more than one relationship, or that don’t have a relationship at all, to break the tendency to always show bisexual ppl as overly sexual. We need bi characters in committed relationships to break this idea that bi characters are bound to cheat or can’t be satisified with only one person. We need bi characters that are mentally stable and successful and happy, to show that it’s possible. We need bi characters that are boring, bookish, nerdy, ordinary, clumsy, not particularly seductive, socially awkward, rule-sticklers, etc...to show that bi people are not all party animals, or doing it for attention, or to be wild, rebellious and socially progressive. It’s just a sexuality, it doesn’t say anything about your personality. Even though there are some correlations with MI or being bi might bring you in contact with more progressive ideas and to see life a bit differently, there is nothing automatic about it.

- In conclusion, reading testimonies from real people also helped me a lot. It’s a very dated but I got the book “ Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out “ when I was struggling with my own sexuality and it helped a lot, to read that even back then (1991) you had all sorts of regular ppl claiming to be bi and that it was not a phase or a fad or whatever.

#bisexuality #bi rep #media representation #bi pride #lgbt #bi characters

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femslashrevolution · 8 years ago

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I Am Femslash: Mod Jess

This post is part of Femslash Revolution’s I Am Femslash series, sharing voices of F/F creators from all walks of life. The views represented within are those of the author only.

(Thank you so much to those who suggested my name. You’ve made my new year! I do want to give a TW for some discussion of my personality history of alcohol, disordered eating, and mental illness...don’t worry, I got a happy ending!)

There’s a movie called Gold Diggers: Secret of Bear Mountain that I watched about a thousand times as a little girl. I wore out two VHS tapes (one of which my mom stole from Parrot Video and Tanning Salon for me in 1995). It was about two girls, Beth (played by Christina Ricci) and Jody (played by Anna Chlumsky), who meet over the summer and go on a treasure hunt together. The first time I watched the movie, I was three or four years old, and I was immediately attracted to Jody.

The thing was, I had an Uncle Jody, so I thought that was only a boy’s name. So, to me, Jody was a boy, and he teased and got a rise out of Beth, and I adored it. Then my mom told me that Jody was actually a girl—she just had short hair and wore tomboy clothes. I was so upset, and I don’t know why!

I know now, of course, that I was frustrated that Jody couldn’t have been flirting with Beth, because they were girls, and girls only did that with boys. So why did they make me feel like that? What had gone wrong inside of me to make me want that?

Despite my love for this movie (which is now cited for it’s amazing lesbian subtext), I absolutely did not think I was a lesbian growing up. I had no idea. I was bookish and shy and very feminine. I assigned myself strategic crushes on quiet, distant boys who were so far out of my league that there was no chance of anything actually happening.

Even fandom was a pretty male-centric place starting out. My introduction to online fandom actually began in the mid-2000’s with the Fueled by Ramen “bandom”—emo/alternative/rock bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco. I crushed on boys with slim hips and long hair and fingernail polish, boys who weren’t afraid to be feminine. It wasn’t very friendly towards women, and femslash was quite a foreign concept. But…the more feminine an artist was, the more I was drawn to him. I became quite enamored with Adam Lambert during his American Idol season because of his makeup and hair, and because, though he wasn’t out yet, I knew he was gay. I only ever was attracted to gay men, and I think this was similar to my unattainable crushes in grade school—it’s not as if anything could ever happen with them. They were safe.

Then, a little show called Glee popped up out of nowhere.

It seems normal now to anticipate pairings like Clarke and Lexa or Alex and Maggie on network TV. They’re possible now. Sure, there was Tara/Willow, but they were a bit before my time, and Arizona/Callie, but Grey’s was a little above my age bracket. But then there was a slow pan upwards from two pairs of sneaker-clad feet, four legs entwined with matching red cheerleading skirts, and my heart began hammering, my breathing quickened, I got all sweaty and cold at the same time.

It was happening, it was happening. Brittany and Santana were queer girls, and they were kissing, and it wasn’t a joke. I was a freshman in high school and knew so little about the world.

From then on, I was in the femslash fandom, confined to our desktop computer in the kitchen. Brittany/Santana gave way to Quinn/Rachel, who became my OTP. Many of my favorite fandoms weren’t femslash juggernauts (Emily/JJ from Criminal Minds was a big one for a while), but I always found small spaces with other femslash lovers. However, I was in the middle of writing a Criminal Minds high school AU that featured both Emily/JJ and the smaller pairing of Hotch/Reid. I received a firm, angry review from someone who wondered why I wasted my time on femslash when people only read for my slash pairings. They said femslash wasn’t really a thing in fandom.

I quit fandom for three years after that.

In that time, I still identified as straight, and to this day, I don’t know why. I was only attracted to women; I was not attracted to men except in the abstract. I was growing bored with straight romance movies and books. I sought almost exclusively LGBT media and I still do today. But maybe I thought it was a phase. Maybe I thought I’d grow out of it. Maybe I just didn’t care, because I was anxious and depressed, I battled intrusive thoughts and dissociation every day, I binge ate and drank, and I had a wicked nicotine addiction.

I got into college, moved out, and I still identified as straight. I loved college and completely flourished creatively, academically, and socially. I quit smoking, changed my style from very feminine to relaxed and tomboyish, and stopped wearing makeup. I won several writing contests and read hundreds of books. But my drinking got worse and so did my anxiety, no matter how happy I thought I was. To make matters worse, I drank alone—I partied with my friends and had great times, but my drinking was a solitary thing. Because if I drank around my new friends, I might say something. I might admit something to them. I wasn’t ready for that. But it took me a long time to realize that when I drank alone and blacked out on my dorm room floor, I was just trying to hold off from admitting something to myself.

It took me a long time to come out. I won’t bore you with what is really a very boring story, but I will say it was very difficult but I received a lot of support from many people. Due to this, I can’t help but feel much of my high school and college experiences were wasted due to my being closeted.

Around this time, I got into the Teen Wolf fandom, which is still my biggest fandom experience. While there were no canon femslash pairings, there was still a thriving femslash fandom that I got involved in right away. I then found Once Upon a Time and Orphan Black years later—two fandoms that I joined mainly because of the main femslash ships.

And the only way I noticed those ships was through this awesome new blog I found called Femslash Revolution. I knew I had to get in on the action, so I contacted Lulu, the amazing person who made it all happen and guided me every step of the way. There would be no blog without her—that’s a given. She’s the woman behind the curtain, and we owe it all to her. Looking back, I can’t believe how small we were back then, and that was only a few years ago! Our pairing tags fit on one page, and we got the chance to spotlight fandoms with popular femslash content, including relatively new fandoms like Orange Is the New Black.

Now, I am out and proud. I’m a published writer. I have also written over 900 individual pieces of fan fiction. I live comfortably and easily. I started medication for my mental illness and by necessity stopped drinking, which was the best thing that I ever did. I am in recovery from my eating disorder. And through it all, this blog has been here. Clarke Griffin has been here. Alana Bloom has been here. Santana Lopez, Alex Danvers, Cosima Niehaus, Poussey Washington, and Amy Raudenfeld have all been here, smiling and laughing and crying along with me, filling me with their strength and inspiration and the idea that we exist, and we aren’t going anywhere.

And you guys have been right here, too. I hope you stick around for a long, long time.

About the Author: @freshbrainss

By day, I go by Jess. I love cats, coffee, and Minnesota winters. And why, yes, I am single. You can find me at AO3 and on LJ. I also mod for a LJ drabble community called femslash100, so if you’re a writer, come and play with us!

#I Am Femslash #freshbrainss #Type: meta #Femslash February 2017 #Femslash February

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