#already longer than the average for trans people. so. i mean

[unionizedwizard]

overheard a conversation at the pharmacy today that made me even more convinced (if it was possible) that i'm NEVER gonna book a gynecologist appointment. If I Die, I Die

[langernameohnebedeutung]

I can't believe that this is a debate that we seriously have to humour at this point but since this is clearly the level of (trans-)misogyny we're at: The reason that men outperform women in chess is mathematics. It is not some "biological" advantage. It is a collective advantage, not an individual one. Not even an advantage of averages or median:

There simply are more men who play chess than women, especially at a professional level.

And if we assume that the necessary skills to succeed as a professional chess player are arranged on a bell curve across the population, that means the people at the very top end of that bell curve are going to be a very small number - and the simple mathematical odds dictate, that you are most likely to find this small group of people or at least the majority of that group within in the bigger group.

Let's say you have a group of 5000 AMAB people and a group of 500 AFAB people. Statistics dictate, that 1-2% of either has red hair. This accounts for 50-100 AMAB people and 5-10 AFAB people

Stupid conclusion: There is a correlation between gender and hair colour because there are more red-haired men

Logical conclusion: We have differently sized sample groups returning misleading data. When corrected for sample size, the results are about the same. This implies a lack of correlation between sex and hair colour

And this becomes even more evident if instead of a close-ended question (red hair: yes or no?) you have a Likert scale (e.g. performance): If we look for people with an Elo rating of say....2500 or up, it is very likely that we find more of them in the largest sample-size and fewer of them in smaller sample size. We are also likely going to find more horrible chess players in the larger sample-size. Except we are not testing for bad chess players or holding competitions for Worst Chess Player, preventing the reading that men are actually worse at chess than women.

The idea of excluding trans women from women's chess is actively cementing misogyny (the idea that being AMAB gives you some superior brain power and logical-strategical reasoning) and feeds the narrative that there is a biological reason for the distinction that is being made - when there isn't. It is, in fact, the oldest story in the book: Having a misogynistic expectation already planted in your head and using whatever data you can find (more male Grandmasters) while allowing only for one possible answer: If data shows that women are at a disadvantage, it is because women are inferior. If data shows that women have an advantage, the study has an agenda.

It is straightforwardly anti-scientific and rooted in misogynistic bias. It erases the studies that show us that there is no indication of a significant biological aspect to an individual's chess performance. It's erasing the data we have in favour of the deeply misogynistic narrative that women are less intelligent or strategically minded than men. The solution here is not to ban trans women - it is to teach your afab kids chess and to motivate them and have them play in atmospheres that are welcoming to them. So that one day, chess is no longer socially viewed as a male-sphere and a male interest and that maybe we have comparable sample sizes.

Trans women make up 0.6% of the human population, as far as we can document - that is 1.2% of women. They have no mathematical advantage over cis women, cis women are outnumbering them significantly. Banning trans women from women's chess is on the same level as banning the aforementioned red-haired women - WITH an additional helping of sexism and discrimination, anti-scientific sentiment and medical misogyny reasoning.

[delta-orionis]

i wanna hear about the simon aroace beam pls

(Tumblr is apparently trying to silence me because this is the second time I'm writing out this answer. Anyway.)

I already made a post about my aroace Simon headcanons several years ago, but I'm more than happy to talk about it again. (Also I'm not sure if you specifically ever beat SOMA, so you're probably unfamiliar with some of the points I made in the aforementioned post. I'll do my best to explain.)

(Continued under the cut)

Simon is an interesting character because he's an everyman. I often joke about how he's Just Some Guy who's having the worst day ever. He's had a pretty average life (aside from the recent loss of his friend and traumatic brain injury), and it doesn't come up often in the text of the game. He brings it up sometimes, but it isn't the focus of his dialogue. He was thrust from an unremarkable life in 2015 into Undersea Robot Hell and is forced to make some serious decisions about the fate of the human race, so he has other priorities.

His characterization as an everyman combined with the fact that we don't actually know a lot about his life before the events of SOMA make Simon a very easy character to project your own experiences onto. This makes him a good fit for a video game protagonist because it makes it easy for the player to relate to him. It also means that it's easy to fill in the blanks of his characterization with your own ideas. I've personally seen lots of different interpretations of his gender and sexuality; I've seen people headcanon him as straight, gay, bisexual, etc etc. His gender is also an entire can of worms; I've seen people make compelling arguments that he's a trans man, a trans woman, and even nonbinary and agender.

Anyway... this was all preface for my thesis that Simon is aroace. The easy explanation is that I, an aroace person, find it easy to project my own experiences on to him in a way that makes sense to me. I've talked to a few other aroace SOMA fans about this, and they've agreed. (This is what I mean by the aroace beam. I simply enjoy headcanoning characters I like as aroace, because I, too, am aroace. I'm hitting them with my beam attack. Metaphorically. I've now rendered the joke unfunny by explaining it.)

(Side note- there's a running joke in the SOMA server I run that many SOMA fans are asexual. There certainly are a number of them in that specific server, however this also might be confirmation bias, because I haven't done a fandom-wide survey or anything like that. It also might be because I promote the server heavily on my blog, and as an openly aroace person, I probably have a statistically significant amount of aspec followers who are then compelled to join the server I help run. More research is required, I guess.)

The longer explanation for this headcanon is that, within the text of the game, Simon doesnt' appear to be very concerned with sex or romance.

In the dream sequence at the beginning of the game, Simon tells Ashley he wants to tell her something, and she responds with "please don't make this weird". A lot of people tend to interpret this as Simon working up the courage to tell Ashley he has a crush on her. The scene ends abruptly before this can be confirmed. However, there are a few unused voice lines in the game files that extend the scene a bit. Simon was originally supposed to say "I'm sorry" to Ashley before the dream ended. This implies that he wanted to apologize to her for involving her in the car accident that ended her life, not confess a crush.

There is another dream sequence later in the game, the context being that Simon is under the influence of the WAU and is being shown an idealized version of his life. He sees Ashley, alive and standing in his apartment, where she declares that the two of them are in love. Simon seems confused about this and wakes up shortly after.

I will admit that this scene implies he has romantic feelings for her. However, in the post I made a few years ago, I talked about how a common experience for a lot of aroace people is not being able to distinguish between different types of attraction and how this can lead to aces convincing themselves that they have a crush on someone when what they really desire is a platonic relationship:

I think what sells it the most for me is that, during the dream sequence with Ashley, when Ashley tells him that they’re a couple, he sounds confused. You could interpret this as general confusion (he doesn’t know how Ashley is suddenly alive again or why they’re suddenly in a relationship), but I like to think that he’s conflicted about his feelings for her. He knows he wants to be close to her, but he’s not sure if being a romantic couple is exactly what he wants. If the dream sequence is supposed to be an idealized scenario, then why is he conflicted about the thing he supposedly wants?

Simon strikes me as the type of guy who isn’t super informed about LGBT stuff. He probably knows a little bit about general LGBT stuff, but maybe hasn’t learned about asexuality, or he doubts that it could apply to him. He might think that, because he wants to be close with Ashley, that the next logical step would be a romantic relationship, even if his feelings are actually just platonic. (I know from personal experience growing up asexual that I would sometimes invent crushes on people, when in reality my feelings were just platonic and I actually just wanted to be their friend. From what I’ve heard, this is a common experience for a lot of aro and ace people from before they learned about asexuality/aromanticism.)

I recognize that this interpretation might be bending canon a bit. Occam's razor would imply that he simply has a romantic crush on Ashley, but that's no fun.

SOMA is a game that is, overall, pretty uninterested in exploring romantic or sexual relationships. It also features two main characters of different genders (Simon and Catherine) who develop a strong platonic relationship over the course of the game. I, personally, find it a breath of fresh air, especially when a lot of science fiction and cyberpunk stories have a heavy emphasis on sex. (I'm definitely not bitter about all the weird sexism present in cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer, for example...)

I suppose it makes sense, then, that the game would have a sizeable amount of aroace fans. I personally think there is something inherently queer about the game- although not explicit in the text, transhumanist stories like SOMA can be read as metaphors for queer experiences. Questioning one's identity and humanity is something that a lot of LGBT people do on a regular basis, so it makes perfect sense that they would relate to a character from a game exploring those topics, albeit through a science fiction lens.

Anyway. Very, very long story short, I hit Simon with my aroace beam attack because I think it's fun. He means a lot to me and I like thinking about him.

(Don't get me started on what I think about his gender. He's got so much going on in that department and absolutely no time to come to terms with it all. That's a post for another day.)

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, I hope you enjoyed reading, etc etc. I'm going to go back to rotating Simon in my brain now.

[daydreamodyssey]

This ended up being longer than I planned, so I'm sorry beforehand. It was about a whatever video of a girl using heightism, saying something stupid but possibly insidious, and me reflecting on our culture toward smallness, particularly with men and how it deals with gender.

(There's a fun present for those who read the whole thing, I promise!)

I saw a tiktok of a girl candidly and cheerfully saying she'd never date a short guy (5'8 or below, she was 5'2) because of a Napoleon complex.

Standard stuff, though still crossing into prejudice.

But then she goes off, in a chipper mood, about deleting them. That really stuck with me.

Best scenario, she just means deleting them off dating sites. Which is still crass and wouldn't fly if she said something similar about other attributes.

Worst scenario, which wouldn't be the first time I heard it, she means literally and physically delete them. She was talking to a guy out on the streets too, so this isn't done terminally online jerk. A lot of women saying they want men dead isn't cute or funny.

I hope people understand that having a preference or having a bad history with whatever group are different than this rhetoric. Even if that person can control something, as opposed to the near permanence of height, it shouldn't mean this group is inherently bad. The issue is the personality, not how long your limbs are or what genes you have. It's a really weird bioessentialism that says if you look different than your gender norm, you are a suspect and a creep in waiting.

There's also this other connection with many men smaller than (the US) average being men of color, which can have a racist and nativist tone. And since height can be affected by the environment, along with making many short people less likely to have high paying jobs and roles, there's probably a classist element, too. A lot of trans men are also short if you want to include transphobia, who already get barely any acknowledgement about how they're treated.

With a lot of women saying "it's in our genes or brains," and one I saw saying for short men to Stay In The Gym, there is this unspoken rule that men MUST be large and dominant or they're not seriously men. With the whole obsession over genetics and strong men, there is a dangerous overlap with trad and fascist ideals, especially with how radical right wing propaganda works (in the 30s/40s and now with the Chad Trad shit).

I don't think a lot of people, men or women, consciously think about this stuff. They could just be shallow assholes. But smallness is almost always seen as infantilism or criminality with no nuance in humanizing, let alone respect as lovers and workers. Maybe there's some taboo part of our private brain that still latches onto "big = strong against predators and rivals" and we don't want to admit and question it like with women and how we judge their looks.

When people say Napoleon complex, it's always vague, like it can mean anything from being aggressive to just being confident to someone taller. It doesn't mean anything and it just causes a Catch 22; you either accept your place on the arbitrary social ladder or you're insecure and in the spotlight. You can't win because you're not supposed to win.

For every short jerk, there's also a tall jerk. A tall jerk who has popularity, fans, girls, money, and literally more weight to throw around. Am I surprised there's a preference? No. I can still be upset about it because I'm human and I'm naturally going to be mad at things that feel unfair and need leverage. And I'm going to be upset when it feels ignored or derided because people don't want to admit they have biases that are more socially acceptable. I'm going to be upset that I and others who are around my height or even shorter have to push limits every day just be treated equally. I can't imagine having dwarfism and seeing these videos or hearing others on the street.

I hear pretty much everything from "short men are rapists for wanting women to be attracted to them" to eugenics and wanting us just dead. There's definitely other traits that compound the toll on a person (weight for myself) that can be greater or lesser, but it's definitely consistent and I've been seeing it rise over the years after some acceptance in the mid '10s.

We need to have honest conversations and reflections about our relationship with size and what it means to be a man. If you want to abolish the patriarchy but still insult a guy because he doesn't look as big and strong and dominant as other men, then you're playing the same side as the men in power or manosphere chuds. The amount of radfems I see hating short men is honestly funny. Like there's no tall misogynists or abusers out there.

If short men, or just A short man messed you up, I'm sorry you had to go through that. But it wasn't like he was infected with the Small Virus, he might've been just a jerk, the same way tall people might be jerks. Just understand that you're overlooking many people because of a bad experience and how dangerously close that mentality is when applying to other people, or toward yourself.

If you read long enough, I congratulate you, and I offer you this one hell of a title I saw in a flea market the other day.

[chronicallycouchbound]

Unlucky: Protective Factors and Homelessness

Becoming homeless isn’t based in luck. The vast majority of homeless people aren’t just in unlucky circumstances. Most unhoused people I’ve interacted with are multi-marginalized, and have significant risk factors for becoming unhoused and lack supports to maintain secure housing.

The average American might be one significant event away from homelessness, sure. But the average American will also have better access to not only supportive services, but natural supports that can prevent or alleviate the toll that emergencies can have on an individual’s housing specifically. Thus, the average American won’t become unhoused.

In contrast, the average unhoused person (or person in precarious housing) doesn’t have natural supports who can provide relief for them. The average unhoused person is a part of several marginalized communities who have been systematically deprived of resources, and aren’t given true support by what few services exist to help their housing status.

My current housing is precarious. Housing my whole life always has been. My first times being homeless were before I have memories. But even as a young child, I had a solid understanding of the fact that if our house wasn’t spotless on inspection days, we would be unhoused again. It was such a routine part of life for me and my family, I didn’t even think about how the families of some of my peers were landlords.

When I first started sleeping outside, before I graduated elementary school, I met other unhoused people who all had varying risk factors. I didn’t know it at the time, but statistically, it was unlikely I would have never ended up homeless.

My ACE score is 10/10. My protective factors were 0/4. Beyond that, I was (and am) a part of other marginalized communities that I was discriminated against on the basis of, without even knowing I was a part of those groups like being queer, trans, and disabled.

While living on the streets, in shelters, couch surfing and even while doing community organizing, I watched as dozens of people became housed long before I did. The biggest running theme? Those who had natural supports, those who held privilege in our society, those were the people who became housed fastest and longest. They were often only unhoused once in their life.

But people like me, a part of many marginalized groups, no safe natural supports around, discriminated by supportive services, are the people who end up unhoused for most of our lives, and when we do gain housing, it can be taken due to events significantly smaller than the average American would normally see a housing related emergency.

For example, if I’m behind on rent, as someone who is 100% reliant on government aid programs with zero income and no family financial support, if I can’t find an emergency assistance program in time, I will lose my housing. Not only that— but my lease being in subsidized low income ADA housing and using governmental vouchers for rent means that if I’m formally evicted, it is a criminal offense. I have friends who have gone to prison for what should be minor lease violations that led to evictions, and they no longer qualify for any assistive programs for a predefined period of time (usually 5 years). Now they have a record, and have no governmental supports on top of already not having natural supports.

The housing we have is precarious, forever teetering on the edge of loss. We are so close to the safety of secure housing, it’s palpable, while being unattainable.

There are many genuine factors of luck that play into housing status, but make no mistake: Homeless/unhoused people are systemically disenfranchised.

If you’ve never been unhoused, if you’re currently in stable housing, there is a very strong likelihood that it’s because of your protective factors like natural supports and privileges in our society. You should acknowledge the reality of this, and not only name your supports as why you’re not homeless (not just luck), but also be leveraging your resources to support our community.

I created a resource for this if anyone is interested in how they can stand in solidarity with their unhoused neighbors.

More information about ACE & PCE scores can be found here.

[Pictured: an elementary school project from around 2006, from my sister. Child-like handwriting says: “My inspection is coming up. If your house is dirty you will get kicked out. If your house is clean you will get to stay in your house.” A small drawing of our house at the time is below it.]

[vanilla-voyeur]

So usually when I try to explain why I'm not a feminist I get really condescending because it's really frustrating to hear people assume that the only possible reason someone could be for gender equality but not also be a feminist is because the person must have a very ignorant misunderstanding of what true feminism is. But for the most part those folks are very earnest, and perhaps it's better for me to turn down the snark sometimes.

I feel pretty confident at this point that I am aware of feminism at least as much as the average feminist. I was a feminist for 7 years. I've taken gender studies classes, I've read academic feminist works, I've read belle hooks (much later than I should have), I used to frequent feminist blogs, I'm subscribed to a pro-feminist subreddit, I have feminist friends and partners, and my Tumblr dash is full of feminists. I've heard it all, I used to believe quite a bit of it, and I'm no longer convinced.

It's difficult to not make this sound incredibly defensive because, well it is. I've been told over and over again the same things by feminists who assume that they're the first one telling me it. I'm already familiar with these things mostly because I believed them back when I was a feminist and have since learned a more nuanced way of looking at gender. I'm trying to preempt as much of the rebuttals as possible.

That also makes this explanation exhaustingly long. There's a TLDR at the bottom. But if that's all you read then whatever your counterargument to it is probably already addressed in the rest of the post.

What is feminism?

Let's start with the definition of feminism. There are many feminist schools of thought. It makes it hard to talk about my disagreement with feminism as a whole because if I make a claim broad enough to include all feminists according to my understanding of what feminism really is, the assumption is that I am ignorant of the less distasteful schools of feminist thought because feminists don't consider other feminist schools of thought as true feminism. I genuinely think TERFs are a form of radical feminism, but that gets misunderstood to mean that I think all feminists are TERFs or are tolerant of TERFs. I don't buy the claim that TERFs aren't feminists because real feminism includes all women when the dominant online leftist narrative is white feminism. While I do think some feminists are for gender equality (asterisk) I don't agree with the feminists who define feminism to be nothing more than a fight for gender equality.

So what is the essential thing that is common to all people who call themselves feminists if it isn't gender equality? In my understanding, it is a belief in the patriarchy concept and that it must be dismantled. The difference between different schools of feminist thought is what the definition of patriarchy is and what is the best way to dismantle it.

This means TERFs are real feminists. They define patriarchy to be men existing and that trans women are a particularly henious type of man who have discovered a particularly insidious way to sneak into women's spaces. The fact that this is abhorrent to most feminists (and also decent people in general) does not stop it from being a patriarchy concept that people who self-identity as feminists believe.

Feminists for gender equality (asterisk) believe that the patriarchy is... well... it's uh... So every time I make a claim what the dominant narrative of the patriarchy is, if it doesn't match up word-for-word with the individual's specific views, then they take it as a sign that I'm ignorant of real feminism. Nevermind that when they explain the real definition of patriarchy, it's more-or-less what I just said in every way that is important to me. This still happens when I just straight up direct quote the last feminist who explained the real definition of patriarchy to me.

I will quote this definition:

Patriarchy is a system of relationships, beliefs, and values embedded in political, social, and economic systems that structure gender inequality between men and women. Attributes seen as “feminine” or pertaining to women are undervalued, while attributes regarded as “masculine” or pertaining to men are privileged.

The things that stick out to me in this dominant narrative that I don't believe in:

Patriarchy benefits all men

All gender inequality is due to societal structures that consistently favor men

If your personal definition of patriarchy does not include a belief that structural misandry exists, not as the patriarchy backfiring, but as a societal disadvantage that men have because they are men and not women, then it's not sufficiently different enough from previous definitions I've heard to be new to me.

Which is not to say that structural misogyny doesn't exist or male privilege doesn't exist. Both exist and also female privilege too. They are in effect in different contexts. I've made a previous more snarky post about how feminists use examples of misogyny to claim that misandry isn't real and MRAs use examples of misandry to claim that misogyny isn't real and all those examples prove is that both are real. (Shoutout to the TERF in my replies who did the exact thing I brought up in my post but worse because all the stuff she said was plainfacedly false. You think men can never be raped? Bruh.)

The prefix "fem" in the word "feminism" contains a clear indication that feminism is not any and all support for gender equality, but at best a specific belief that the only thing we need to advocate for to get gender equality is women's right.

If men's rights was part of feminism then it wouldn't be considered derailing to talk about men's issues in a feminist space. The frequent complaint that MRAs only bring up men's rights to derail a discussion of women's rights betrays a belief that any amount of talk about men's rights in a feminist space is derailing. (Or sometimes any amount of discussion in any space.) Nevermind that MRAs have created their own spaces to talk about men's rights, so it's not solely derailing. No, feminism is not "just gender equality". It has narrow assumptions about what counts as gender equality and what doesn't.

I don't believe in the patriarchy, so I don't consider myself a feminist. All people who self-id as feminist believe in the patriarchy, but not all people who self-id as feminists believe in gender equality. Furthermore, not all people who believe in gender equality self-id as feminists. (This is less surprising to leftists of color than white women.) The patriarchy concept is more essential to feminism than gender equality.

Instead I call myself an egalitarian. I like it, not just because it includes men's rights alongside women's rights, but also because it also signifies intersectionality of all justice movements: for PoC, for intersex people, for trans people, for queer people, for disabled people, for working class people, for sex workers, and for every marginalized group.

What I believe

Ok so how does I explain the existence of misogyny without believing it to be a result of the patriarchy? The same way I explain the existence of misandry without believing in a matriarchy.

(Side note: MRAs don't believe in a matriarchy. They believe misandry is a result of gynocentrism, which is a society that prioritizes the life, health, and welfare of women over that of men. They explain misogyny as a result of gynocentrism backfiring. Again, I don't think that's the full picture.)

In my understanding, misogyny, misandry, and transphobia are all a result of restrictive gender roles that put AFAB folks in one oppressive box and AMAB folks in a different analogous oppressive box. It really doesn't matter which box is worse because once something is sufficiently bad enough, it becomes abominable to compare it to another sufficiently bad thing. (Q: What's worse murder or rape? A: Thinking that's an appropriate question to ask) In some contexts women have it worse, in other contexts men have it worse, and in still some other contexts they both have it equally bad in complementary ways.

(To be clear, while I believe trans people of any gender can be a victim of both misandry and misogyny, that is not to say that binary trans women aren't fully women or that binary trans men aren't fully men. They are, but the people who hate them don't think that. If someone thinks you're a man and they hate men then they're going to be misandrist to you regardless of what your gender really is. It's like how anti-Sikh violence in the US is a result of Islamophobia despite Sikhs not actually being Muslim.)

Being a movement for women's rights and not men's rights (except for the few times when it can be twisted into the patriarchy backfiring explaination) feminism has over the decades done a lot of things to reduce the oppressive gender roles that marginalize women. I think that's great! I just don't think it's enough. We need an analogous movement that fights for men's rights and frees them from the oppressive gender roles society puts upon them.

Time to unpin the asterisk in the claim that "some feminists are for gender equality". I think that the patriarchy concept is misandrist. It is an obstruction to fully supporting men's rights. The feminists who do believe in gender equality end up devising some convoluted way to explain why a thing that disadvantages men is actually the patriarchy backfiring before they can decide that it's worthy of addressing. I would rather take Occam's Razor to it. Another issue with the patriarchy concept is that if a men's rights issue can't be explained by the patriarchy then it's dismissed as not important or not real. Also "the patriarchy backfiring" is often used as a thought-terminating cliche. If we focus exclusively on women's issues then all men's issues will be fixed because they're all secretly things that hurt women more. It ends up getting real victim-blaming real fast.

That said, I don't think all feminists hate men. (Though some feminists definitely do hate men. I know because I was one.) We live in a misandrist society (bottom text). While most feminists don't care about men's issues in the slightest, feminists are no more likely to hate men than anyone else from what I've seen. I don't think the feminists who do care about men's issues are misandrist, just that the one specific belief in the patriarchy concept is misandrist. There are certain ways that misandry manifests that is unique to feminism, but other ways that feminists generally avoid. If you want to talk about the real misandrist fucks, look no further than conservatives.

One could make an argument that because feminists claim to be fighting for gender equality, we should hold them to a higher standard than the rest of misandrist society. Imo it's leftist in-fighting. We need to build coalitions with people we don't 100% agree with. I consider anyone who supports both men's rights and women's rights my ally. That includes the feminists who do so even though they believe in the patriarchy concept. That also includes left wing antifeminists even though I don't personally consider myself an antifeminist.

On structural misandry

If I went into depth about examples of structural misandry and why they're not just the patriarchy backfiring, this post would be twice as long (leftist wall of text amirite). If y'all really care, then I can make a follow-up post. If Tumblr search wasn't absolute ass, you'd be able to search my blog for the misandry tag and see a little bit of what I'm talking about.

TLDR

I'm not a feminist because to be a feminist one must believe in the patriarchy and I don't. The patriarchy concept does not adequately explain all structural misandry. I identify as an egalitarian instead. I think that misandry, misogyny, and transphobia are all a result of restrictive gender roles that hurt everybody.

[kohakuhibiki]

NGL if there's really one thing I have no sympathy for it's exactly the kind of detransitionners who really had it all, but I have no idea what made them transition in the first place since it's not, contrary to what these clowns will try to make you believe, as if HRT and gender affirming care was that accessible to begin with. If they claim it is, it's simply because these morons are just completely lacking the self awareness of their privileges. Like boofuckinghoo hormones didn't turn you into some extremely androgynous cgi looking person of your dreams. Boohoo you now have to confront your unaddressed cissexism (the fucking irony). And of course, of course, the average discourse about how they project that most people who decide to transition do so to satisfy a kink or something (and they will often use themselves or throw their own acquaintances under the bus by using them and themselves as the samples for that kind of reasoning, not exactly the most outstanding move, rather embarrassing actually) anyways, what I'm seeing here is just that these people, at least those I had the misfortune to see in the wild, were mostly the kind of people who believe that everything the status quo frown upon should be censored to an extend because they're easily enabled and it seems they were all born without a backbone, because they break in two if they face the smallest form of adversity, they have no self awareness and if they misbehave it's only because instead of training their own discernment the only thing they can do is whine they were "manipulated", everyone was "toxic" , they didn't knew any better and suddenly they have no longer any responsibility over anything, or at least from their own perspective I guess.

That doesn't mean I have no sympathy for all detransitionners. There's a lot of valid reasons to go back. But to detransition only to throw every trans people under the bus because of their own personal regret often founded in actual transphobia and misogyny. The whole "HRT destroyed my feminity, now I have balding patterns and facial hair, look how attrocious I am now" as if there wasn't already ton of women struggling with the perception they get for something not even inherently bad looking, so yea, that's far uglier than 2-3 hair on anyone's chin. Sorry you didn't turn out like a Genshin Impact character, but it would have been ugly anyway.

[moontyger]

Don’t say ‘vote’: How Instagram hides your political posts

If you’ve suspected that you’re yelling into a void about the election on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, it might not be your imagination, either. Downplaying politics is a business and political strategy for Meta, the social media giant. And users just have to accept it.

Consider a wider study by the advocacy group Accountable Tech, which quantified the audience drop for five prominent liberal Instagram accounts, including the Human Rights Campaign and Feminist, that post almost entirely about politics. Over 10 weeks this spring, their average audiences fell 65 percent.

And it’s not just Instagram: Only one of six social media giants would tell The Washington Post whether you can use the word “vote” without having a post suppressed.

It matters because social media has a profound impact on how people see themselves, their communities and the world. One in five American adults regularly get their news from Instagram — more than TikTok, X or Reddit — according to the Pew Research Center.

It could leave swaths of Americans wondering why we aren’t hearing as much about the election. And less likely to vote, too.

Meta doesn’t deny that it’s suppressing politics and social issues. But as my deep dive into Mrs. Frazzled’s Instagram account shows, it has left users in the lurch — and won’t give straight answers about when, and how, it reduces the volume on what we have to say.

...

The hatchet fell on Instagram this year. In a February blog post, Meta said it would no longer “proactively recommend content about politics,” including topics “potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics.”

Translation: Meta tightened the reins over what to put in your feed and Explore tab, specifically from accounts you don’t already follow.

As part of the shift, Instagram also opted everyone into a new setting to have it recommend less political content from accounts you don’t follow. It did not alert users to this inside the Instagram app. (If you don’t want a sanitized feed on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, I’ve got instructions for how to change your settings below.)

This is not exactly “censorship” — anyone can still post about politics, and people who already follow you can still see it. That’s how Taylor Swift reached her 283 million followers with an endorsement of Kamala Harris.

But it is a form of what creators and politicians have long called “shadowbanning”: reducing the reach of certain kinds of content without being transparent about when it’s happening. Political campaigns, too, have been scrambling to find alternative ways to break through.

I sent Meta questions about how it determines what to reduce. It wouldn’t detail what it means by “political and social issues” beyond content potentially related to “things like laws, elections, or social topics.”

...

How do its automated systems make these calls? Would mentioning Taylor Swift count as political? What about coconuts? Can it make a distinction between voting information and partisan bickering?

I also asked Meta for a list of forbidden keywords, after I noticed that Fodor’s use of “vote” in captions correlated to a steep audience drop. Meta wouldn’t share that, either, saying thousands of factors affect how content is ranked and recommended.

Meta put a slightly finer point on “social topics” in a statement to The Post earlier in the year, defining it as “content that identifies a problem that impacts people and is caused by the action or inaction of others, which can include issues like international relations or crime.”

But that definition could rule out wide swaths of the lived human experience, including people talking about their family in the Middle East or simply being gay or trans.

“These are such integral parts of some people’s identities and livelihoods — Meta’s gone so far as to limit their capability to talk about who they are and what they care about,” says Zach Praiss, Accountable Tech’s campaigns director, who led the organization’s research.

.................................................................................................................

How to increase the amount of political content you get recommended

Instagram: Open the mobile app, go to Settings, then scroll down to Content preferences, then Political content, and choose “Don’t limit political content from the people you don’t follow”

Facebook: Go to the Menu then Settings & privacy, then Preferences, then Content preferences, then Manage defaults, then change Political content to “Show more”

Threads: Open the mobile app, go to Settings, then Account, then Political content, then toggle on Suggest political content

[zorilleerrant]

the Bechdel test post is back and I'm mad about it again. like the notes are literally just women talking about a thing that gets yelled at them a lot and. the OP making fun of women for objectively reasonable takes

"the bechdel test is just a way to police what women talk about" objectively true. men who write books and scripts and songs etc. almost never have it applied to them. it's women who constantly get it talked about to prove they're unfeminist or bad people and no one should engage with their work. doubly true when it's women writing romance, a genre people already mock and try to get people to stop writing all the time, in an attempt to prove that in all circumstances a woman talking about being in love with a man is an anti-feminist act, and that the writer is a bad person for saying it. again, only when women write this; when men write it it's ignored.

"the bechdel test is pretty shitty" yes it is. see above. especially given that people insist on referring to the originally designed test (can I pretend they're lesbians) as the bechdel-wallace test, leaving the bechdel test to unambiguously refer to the terrible thing that's used to police women's writing. especially given that people want to treat it as some sort of be and end all measuring stick of feminism, and think no feminist work could lack it and no work that meets this criterion could ever be unfeminist. its prevalence in discussions, with the way people typically use it, is absolutely shitty. in both the sense of 'inadequate' and the sense of 'used in a mean way'. people can know very well where it comes from without that actually impacting how it comes up in practice.

"what if you measured the movies where two named women talk about their male love interest" you see. when the comic was written. it was very common for two women to talk, but only about male love interests. at the time the tag was left, it's no longer common for two women in a movie to talk, even about male love interests. the tag is a joke and the joke is that increasing the parameters wouldn't actually increase the number of films that met this criterion. the joke is the patriarchy. just like the original joke, the joke is the patriarchy. it's a super obvious joke how obsessed can you be with feeling superior to everyone you missed that joke

the thing about the bechdel test is. only women have any opinions on it, basically. it's women and it's trans people who identify with the experience of relating to a woman on screen. so when you want to get mad about people's commentary on it... maybe be careful not to be more insulting and dismissive than you would be with the average comment you dislike.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

the guy on twitter who says he hates that he's bald after starting testosterone and is blaming trans people:

started balding before he started t

says he will not be detransitioning or stopping t

heard from at least a dozen of his doctors "hey taking t will accelerate your balding" and either just didn't listen and didn't do any research on it, or knew that taking t would make him unhappy and did it (and is still doing it) to have a reason to be mad at trans people.

following that last point, how fucking stupid is that? it's like going to a restaurant and ordering a poop burger with extra mayo, and then giving the restaurant a bad review when you don't like the food you ordered that you knew you would hate. but instead of one meal it's your entire life.

he also follows only terfs and fascists and far right figures and Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro on twitter.

he apparently didn't realise that getting your breasts removed would mean you can't breast feed? which... yes, that obviously to literally everyone with more than one braincell

he's not some "detrans" cis woman who went by they/them in middle school and decided they didn't like it and became a violent transphobes. he literally went through years of therapy, doctors visits, informed consent, spend years on waiting lists, waited years to get t, and then waited even longer to get top surgery.

60% sure that he's actually just a cis man who's blaming his below average appearance on any marginalized groups he can. he's just spreading hatred on twitter just because. dude's probably a fed

~~~

I hope people realize that when detransitioners say and do stuff like this, they aren't actually making it any better for people who regret transitioning. that's not their intention. they only want to make life a living nightmare for every single trans person. and they will not stop until we're all dead.

for every one detransitioner who regrets the choices they made themselves, there are five hundred trans people who are suffering because they aren't seen as human.

detransitioners are a very very small community. only about less than one percent of all trans people "detransition", and about 95% of those people are just putting a pause on their transition because they don't have a safe environment or the support system they require. but once those people actually have the support and care they need, they complete their transition.

so it's less than 0.05% of an already very small marginalized community who want to have that entire community dead or ruined, and they pretend that their excuse is that they don't want anyone who may regret transitioning to start their transition. but that's a lie. they don't actually give two shits about detrans people. they just put them on a pedestal and use them as an excuse to say they wanna kill trans people.

[bitches-who-write]

Short Stuff

Word Count: 1,450

Warnings: Foul Lanugage, Deragtory Names, Offensive Terms, and One Sexual Phrase Implied

Description: Female reader is really short so the guys tease/ mock her for being so small.

This story was requested by @10v3ly. Thanks for the fun idea we hope you enjoyed this imagine. 

We haven’t forgotten about all of our other request. We are working on them as we speak. We are trying to make them as detailed as possible so it may take a day or two to get them posted. 

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

My alarm goes off, reading 9:30 AM. It’s Saturday morning so that means naturally the guys are going to want to hang out today. After taking a quick shower, I picked out a pair of black leggings and a loose grey t-shirt. I figured I’d just dress casually and comfortably because I never know what the guys have in mind for the day. Plus, it’s probably best to not wear something tight-fitting around them, especially Patrick.  Unless you feel like getting groped~

I sigh looking for a decent pair of shoes to put on.  Majority of them have those little hidden wedges inside to give me some extra height.  My height is something I am always teased about since well.. I’m below average in the height category. Being so short makes normal tasks a  chore for me. I need a step stool for reaching dishes in the kitchen, I have to climb the shelves in the grocery stores just to reach the top, and people always assume I’m way younger than I really am.  Here I thought I was being teased a lot before, but that was nothing compared to what the Bower’s Gang puts me through now.  

Hearing a loud car horn outside my bedroom window pulls me out of my daydream.  I quickly grab a pair of black wedge sneakers and hurry it along, knowing if I make the guys wait any longer, Patrick will scale alongside my house and physically bring me out.  Walking down the pathway to the car, I keep my head down.  I begin to feel a little self-conscious knowing they are all watching me. Henry was the first to make a comment. I don’t even have to look up at him, I can practically hear the smirk already.  “What the fuck took you so long? Did you fall in the toilet?” Of course, everyone laughs at this, until Vic chimes in next. “Nah man, her step stool tipped over so she got stuck.” This caused everyone to erupt into even more laughter, making me blush. 

Henry opens the door to the Trans Ams, pushing the passenger seat up and allowing Patrick to climb out next.  Being so tall, he has to duck down just so he doesn't hit his head. You climb in, taking the middle seat with Vic in the left seat on the driver’s side and Patrick filing in on your right. Once everyone is in, Henry climbs back in, slamming the door shut.  Reggie takes off down the street, making small talk with  Henry about his beloveded car while Victor looks out the window.  I get comfortable in my seat, bending my knees so my feet are resting up against the center console.  Meanwhile, Patrick does not take his eyes off me.  Out of all the guys, he's definitely the most observant in the group.  He focuses on the little details about people, things most people would overlook-but not Patrick. Being the perv he is, I see him in my peripheral vision, looking at my legs.  I begin to stiffen a bit, but don’t move from the position I am in. I then see Patrick slowly begin to smile, tilting his head as his eyes zone in on my shoes. I grow more and more uncomfortable knowing he’s about to make a comment and embarrass the shit out of me.  His smirk becomes even more arrogant looking as he begins to say in the most condescending tone ever, “Cute shoes Y/N. I didn’t know you still shopped in the children's section.”  Everyone immediately turns their heads to look down at my feet. Reggie glances in the rearview mirror then quickly down at the console beside him, wanting in on the joke even though he’s busy driving. I quickly put my feet down on the floor, trying to avoid their eyes.  Vic puts his arm around my shoulder, pulling me in close as he still continues to laugh at Patrick’s joke. I felt relieved for a second thinking he was trying to comfort me and would tell the guys to lay off; but damn was I wrong. “You don’t have to hide Y/N. Considering your height, you don't have to play so hard to get when you’re already so hard to notice.” My jaw just drops, not even knowing how to respond. How dare that blonde fuck say that to me! I shrug my shoulders to get him off of me, leaning away from him but trying not to get close to Patrick either. Henry begins to mock, “aww stop pouting, you know it’s true!” He says as he reaches back trying to grab at my legs playfully.

Finally, after what feels like the longest car ride ever, we arrive at the junkyard.  Why do we even hang out here again? I ask myself. Belch begins to line up beer bottles and cans on a crate as the other guys take out paintball guns, getting ready to just mess around for fun. Good thing I brought my book with me because I have no interest in ‘target practice’. I turn the page of my book, about to continue reading when I notice Belch hovering over me. “What? ...you're making me nervous.” I say nervously chuckling. Belch just smiles and bends his knees, looking at me as if he’s an adult talking to a child. “Let me see what you’re reading Y/N.”  His facial expression looks like he has a hidden agenda. I hesitantly pass him my book, asking him to be careful not to lose my place. Belch flips through the pages with disinterest but just happy he has the book in hand.  Vic waltzes over with a smirk, taking the book from Belch. “Heeyy what’s this?” Vic tosses the bookmark out and throws it over his shoulder. “I told you to be careful! Now give it back” I say, standing up now, trying to grab it from him.  Vic purposely turns his body away from me.  Henry and Patrick look over at us and the scene they are causing.  Right away they smile and come over, wanting to join in on the teasing. “Hey Henry, quick, catch!”  He throws my book, Henry catching it and hiding it behind his back as I approach him. “I said, Give. It. Back.” I try to sound stern but he only laughs at my attempts. “What? I can’t hear you from down there midget. Ya know, on second thought- while you’re down there, how ‘bout you suck my dick.” So many emotions are rushing through my mind now. It felt like everything was spinning but I can see their mocking faces so clearly.  My blood boils from being annoyed and embarrassed all at once. Henry proceeds to throw my book, now tossing it to Patrick. I turn towards Patrick with a pleading,  defeated look on my face. However, pleading looks do not affect Patrick; it only encourages him to up his game, getting off on your emotions. He holds my book high above his head.  I go on my tippy-toes and try to jump in order to reach it but it’s no use. They continue to laugh at me especially when Patrick tauntingly leans down and says, “Does everyone have to lean down and give you a hug?”  The others just keep adding to the predicament, mocking me further. I attempt to shove them back out of frustration but they barely budge. Vic doesn’t let up on teasing me either. He finds it hilarious when I get angry.  “Always choosing to be upset..ya know I hate the things you chose to be...your height being at the top of the list.”  Since I was distracted by Vic’s comment, I hadn’t noticed Patrick threw the book to Henry again.  Henry dangles the book in my face, giving me false hope of grabbing it when he quickly pulls it away.  “Vic is right, how can someone so small be so hugely irritating?” I finally give in and sit down on the ground as they remain standing, circled around me.  I tried my best not to blink knowing I was about to cry. That’s when Belch chimes in, “Okay, okay, here’s your book back.”  He helps me back up and puts an arm around my shoulder as we walk back to the car now. “Y/N...I pray that in your next life, you won’t be as short.” I look at him playfully, smiling at me.  This time, I actually laughed with him… “I’ll give it to you.. that was a good one, Reggie.” After settling into the car, Patrick gives you one last smirk as he pats your head like a child, making you roll your eyes and sigh.

[jockpoetry]

supernatural sees women as a tool for development and strengthening of narratives/motivation and dean sees his body as a tool. is that anything?

When I saw this ask I really made the 🥴in real life. So, yeah anon, I do think there’s something to this.

Quick Disclaimer before I actually launch into my thoughts™: A lot of my read of Dean stems from my experience as both an oldest daughter and a transman. Being the oldest daughter was an experience I lived for many years, but I am also a man. I wasn’t raised as a man, I wasn’t socialized as a man, and even though once I came out upon reflection my masculinity was obviously there. Like I was a man™ before I knew I was a man. Even when I actively tied my identity to femininity for a long time! A lot of my prideful moments were based around statements like: “I was the only girl who (fill in the blank).” 

So I am just putting that out there before I launch into my spiel about Dean/Gender/Tool because they all interlock for me. 

I am also going to apologize in advance because I know this has fully gone off the rails and I’m not even done writing it yet. If this is incomprehensible ! Well, happens to the best of us.

First off, most importantly I guess before we discuss womanhood and Dean and the way both are utilized on the show I need to say that I personally don’t subscribe the whole Dean is female coded thing. 

It’s a read I can absolutely understand. But for me..he’s not. 

He’s a hypermasculine man to the point that when (and because he is written as a punchline, as the stupid™ brother, as the whore™, as the mother/father™, as daddy’s blunt instrument™, etc) Dean deviates from the pre-accepted definition of hypermasculine it’s Wrong. 

It’s Instantly Feminine. 

I think the internet has made the world very black and white, or blue and pink maybe. This point, I think, colors a lot of these discussions. Dean cooks, he cleans and so therefor he’s female coded. When that really just feeds back into the whole toxic masculinity loop. You can’t be masculine and cook and clean and cry. That’s for feminine people only. 

I get the argument! I do, I just think that Dean’s actions are not inherently feminine, it’s just in the vacuum of Female and in the Absence of Traditional Masculinity it makes sense to assign him female coded and move on.

IN FACT the way that Dean is the action hero of the show, the Masculine™ one on the show - but he cries, and he rages, and he cooks (Again and Again) and cleans (Again and Again). The fact he’s macho and confident but he has so little self esteem. Is frankly insane to me. You have this blaze of glory character who is so depressed that they have him kill himself. Twice. In explicitly “I hate myself, I hate hearing all the things I hate about myself, I want to destroy myself” ways. 

On just a regular ol’ network show that is just ungodly bad at times. They let their Male Hero cry - all the time (if I linked every example of this the essay would be...longer than it already is, but just take my word for it). Dean tears up and grieves and shows more than just Angry Horny Violent™ (he shows plenty of that, don’t get me wrong) but he’s Emotional (Again and Again and Again). In many different ways!

I mean, beyond even just tearing up, they make their Male Hero™ face sexual violence in pretty, uniquely horrifying - and queer! - ways.

Let’s make it clear, they did a lot of this unintentionally. 

Or they do it as a joke. 

Off of dean for a moment to say women are plot devices in this show. I could probably count on one hand female characters who have sincere depth to them that have roles outside of progressing plot, filling a filler episode, and who are still alive. Like even characters such as Charlie who are wholly developed, and interesting, are only remembered/mentioned/utilized to progress plots or fill an episode out - and then she dies. For pain™ for plot™ for no other reason than to traumatize a character. 

Which let’s also make it clear Dean’s trauma is also only used as a plot device (as is Sam’s but in a different way, and Cas’ trauma is a whole other barrel of fish we’re not gonna dive into right now). Like wholesale full stop they don’t actually care about what happened to him. Unless it’s relevant in an episode. 

Oh that boys home he was left at when he was 16 for months? Sure we’ll sprinkle that in in the back half of the series. Oh he was covered in bruises and said it was from a hunt (when it’s clear contextually they were from his father but saying the fantastical but true is easier than saying the uncomfortable but true). As Dean says though the story became the story, he was sixteen. He just went along with what John said.

We only see Dean ever truly rage at John, by the way, when either Dean is dead (when he’s between life and death and he rages at John, right before John “apologizes” for traumatizing him, for putting too much on Dean’s shoulders, and fucking dying) or John is dead (the Djinn episode where Dean is straight™ and John is dead™ and he goes to his grave and just yells and rages like he should have to his father in the real world).

Dean’s trauma from being both tortured and torturer in hell? Yeah, we don’t talk about that after it’s Relevant™. Even though it’s clear - especially in the demon!dean, mark of cain era, all those years later - Alastair still has his hooks inside of Dean. I stopped watching originally after s8 ended. I was fed up with the show, and with this whole renaissance I’ve been doing a rewatch and I’m into season twelve now and it really has never come up again. 

Even when he had the mark of cain and he was tasked with questioning and accused of torturing it was “the mark has changed you” and not “you were victim and victimizer in hell for forty years, which is longer than you’ve been alive on earth” (and, was about as long as he wound up living. Which is desperately sad.

Because we talk about Sam’s desire for a “normal” life but, Dean wanted out too. He was tired in the first few seasons of this show, he never had a chance to taste freedom (we don’t count the boys home, because that was a different kind of regimented life, and it was a false freedom) the way that Sam did in Flagstaff with Bones or at Stanford with Jessica. Love for Dean is sacrificing, it’s putting himself/his happiness/his well-being last.

Because Dean only knows love in the context of violence (like all of these fun examples, for starters) is a phrase that I’ve said a lot both in private chats and on here, and I absolutely think it goes to him being a tool (a blunt instrument, a plot device, so both textually and metatextually) instead of a person. Which Cas sees Dean’s shame/guilt and sees that side of Dean because he touched his soul, and saw more than just the Righteous™ man, more than just the tool, he saw A good man, not a machine. 

On the other side though you have how “bad guys” view Dean: Desperate, Sloppy, Needy, Dean’s hole (Again), which is again so wildly counterintuitive to the story of a Macho Man Hero™. You’re using vocabulary that is both queering him and feminizing (and I know this a meme format, but sincerely it is done in a derogatory way it is feminizing. It’s breaking him down to bare parts, to a sloppy hole). 

My whole rewatch I have been absolutely fascinated by how identity and free will is utilized/conceptualized on this show. Castiel has been my main focus, but Dean and how he is framed by himself and others is...fascinating - and frustrating. The writers inconsistency lends itself not only to this unintentionally queer character, but also one that again is incredibly easily read as a non-traditionally masculine character.

As a feminine character.

This show has so few female characters that of course it had to foist the roles/behaviors/plots that a female character might have onto a male character. Which I think is part of why reading Dean as trans (either transmasc, or transfemme) is so easily done like.   

Half of these are shit posts, but you can find trans allegories/textual evidence in this show again, again, again, again, and again. And this is unintentional, they don’t want you to look at Dean and see woman, former future or present. Like a lot of these I’m sure are punchlines for them, because women/queer folk are punchlines to them. 

Sometimes the only women in an episode are random witnesses who get two sentences of dialogue, and then the main guest character is a man. Who flirts with Dean, and Dean is receptive to it. 

They paint themselves into a corner, there are female Rabbi. So easily could Aaron have been a woman instead of a man, but they made the choice to play up the HaHa Dean & Men card. 

Because, again, Dean has filled the slot of Woman™ of Female Lead™ and the flirting would’ve been straight if Dean was a woman. It’s a plot device, they needed to have the guest character be disarming, be cute, make the main character flustered. 

It’s just the main character is a man, because they’re allergic to women. But they still need those female plots, tools of femininity, to move their show forward. I mean I am a big subscriber to transmasc Jo (no idea if anyone else is with me on this one, but let me explain). Jo is in love with Dean (concept) not Dean (actuality). Which, we’ve all had our eggs cracked by someone like that. We were in love with them until we realized we just wanted to be them.

He loved her like a little sister, she loved him like a lost idol. He’s a golden calf and she dies for him, because she believed in him, she was the original character dashed at the altar of the Winchesters. 

I fully believe if she had lived and if this show had a crumb of actual good writing Jo could have been a deeply compelling transmasc character. But I also think she’s a fascinating inversion of Dean. Dean is a Masculine Character who subverts Toxic Masculinity, Jo is a Tomboy™ she’s not your (if you take it straight, literally and metaphorically) average female love interest. She’s angry, she’s not soft at all, all edges and corners and thorns. She isn’t helpless, she’s stubborn but not in a “you’re going to get punished for this” way. She’s right when she’s stubborn. She’s helpful, she’s a martyr. 

I could do a whole other essay just on Jo (and Ellen, and Ash, what a fucking trio!) but needless to say Jo was one of the first...plot device feminine tools sacrificed to this show. She was a regular, she was unique, she was an engaging character, and she still died (to progress the plot? no. for man pain? yeah, for like three episodes maybe, and then it’s forgotten just like the rest of Dean’s trauma, as we mentioned above). 

Dean and Women and Love is a very interesting tool used too because. Boy they sure try to make Dean love women and it fails in small ways, and in big, meaningless, failed het domesticity (again) ways. Not to mention whatever Lust (in the form of a woman) having no effect upon him, when they could have used that moment to assert his Masculinity and Heterosexuality. He behaved normally? And...also...whatever the fuck the Adios thing was!

Like they have these opportunities to make him Traditionally (toxically) Masculine, but make the choice to...not? To soften him. Because it’s a tool. He’s their female lead, textually he had to take on the role of mother(/father) to Sam, but...I mean this is a million miles long already. I know, but we absolutely can’t not talk about his Paternal/Maternal behaviors. (Which appear again and again again and again, outside of his relationship with Sam even/especially). He’s the mother hen, sage, safety net, beacon, home to so many side characters they meet.

I mean in many ways Jody is also a Dean comparison. Lost her family. Found a new family. She is non-traditionally feminine, but easily flustered and Silly™ (let’s just drop the entire sex talk over family dinner scene with Alex and the boys and looking to them for help, even though she was already a mother, and she’s a cop, and a hunter and this confident no nonsense individual.... She’s not). We are meant to see her as this hard ass, but she makes extra food for the boys to take back to the bunker. She’s deadly in a fight, but also still easily overwhelmed and put into damsel mode, and she cares so much even in the face of adversity.

It’s also fun to see how Jo | Jody are reflections of Dean at different points of his life. Younger, cocky | Older, settled.

Even when the text tries to tell us that he’s not.

When it reminds us that he’s violent. That he is his father, even if he says that Sam is more like John (which was reflexive, which was angry because of Adam and how Sam was behaving like Dean in that episode, and yes there are parallels to be drawn between Sam and John, the show barely dives into them). Instead we’re told that Dean is John (Again and  Again and Again and Again). 

So intensely that a fanfictionalized version of the Winchester Gospels makes it an entire fucking musical number. 

And yet, despite the texts insistence to make Dean Macho Man Father Reborn™ We get this Dean who is silly (and directly compared/contrasted to the female character in this scene), soft, in heels, nagging, and... Sully (you know Sam’s imaginary friend who has the same Haircut Dean has, who is a softer, shorter, friendlier, campier, version of Dean who was a replacement For Dean until the real one let Sam back in? That? Sully?) it’s hard to take them seriously. 

Hell, even when he was A DEMON? What did they do? They had him sing off-key drunken karaoke, they had him doing this ! Like that’s your hero, unhinged, free to be as bad as he could be, and you put him in a cowboy hat in a romance with the king of hell. 

The Female Lead, everyone. Who’s biggest betrayal(s) comes at the hands of his love interest (again, a man even though it was an angel who could’ve taken any vessel! who could’ve been recast, who canonically dies admitting his love to Dean - that one), who he tries so hard to be loyal to. 

The contradictions of his character are laughable. He is so emotional, but if he is engaged about his emotions? He shuts down, or he’s exasperated about being asked about them. It really is Female Lead/Only Here For The Plot disease, because everything is more important than him. How’s he doing? Doesn’t matter outside of the context of how x character is doing or that y character is dead. Or his emotions only matter if they’re done in penance. 

They also really do frame him as Pretty Boy™ in a violent way, or in a derogatory manner. They’ll give us homoerotic shots like this or these and never really acknowledge how these are gay shots. Sorry the gun scene is a a straight up sex scene, the beer sip spilling out over his mouth is oral, the scene where Cas fills up Dean’s glass with whisky is also a sex scene, they do this shit on purpose but accidentally queer it up. If Dean was a woman these scenes wouldn’t even matter. They’d be passing moments, but because he is not just a man but A Man™ they’re insane to see.

Not to mention all of these scenes and all the ones I haven’t linked where Dean dresses up. He performs masculinity, but he performs femininity too. He’s a plot device that is slotted in to whatever role they need. He’s Super Straight Butch Man™ but coaches the lesbian on how to successfully flirt with a man. He’s Action Hero™ who sits through a montage with the same lesbian and yays and nays her outfits, and enjoys himself.

Fuck he loves dressing up, he feels better in these costumes because performing a character is easier than being himself. Because who is Dean? He’s a tool, both textually and metatextually. It is exactly how the women and because of the women on the show that Dean is the way that he is. If there was a more steady female presence Dean would not be half as much of a plot device or half as camp/gay/feminine/non-traditionally masculine/queer coded as he is. 

In conclusion....

[interact-if]

Welcome to Mod Appreciation Month!

This event is a lowkey one, designed for us to take some time to catch up on asks, rec lists, and other blog pages that happen mostly in the background such as the masterlists, database, and post tagging.

This blog is a lot of work! And we're happy to help out with promoting authors and exposing readers to new and interesting stories based on their interests!

That being said, we need a break!

This is why we are closing the inbox for July.

Please refrain from sending asks for rec lists through submissions. We’re leaving that line open specifically for new authors to submit their projects.

We are going to utilize this time to try and clear out our inbox--we have over 100 messages, most of them asking for rec lists, which take a few weeks at a time to properly curate, tag, and put in the queue.

We will also be working behind the scenes on other projects we hope to show off soon!

We're thrilled y'all are eager to read more, and we'll be back in August for sure. For now, if you need to get in contact with us, feel free to reply to posts, DM one of the mods, or get in contact with us over on our discord.

[Discord] [FAQ] [Ko-fi] [Reddit]

Below the cut are our rules, guidelines, and FAQ for recommending or suggesting games as well as general practice and etiquette.

We'll be back in August! <3

Now, to get into some of the details. (This applies regardless of the event to every ask sent, even if the inbox is currently closed.)

RULES WHEN SENDING ASKS

If you can and it is relevant, please tag your asks with content warnings in the beginning. Such as (cw violence) or (cw death), this is an extra precaution to keep both our mods and our readers safe and well-advised. This will also make tagging easier!

Please keep your asks as brief as you can! Any asks that are more than two asks long may get eaten by the Tumblr machine and/or may not be answered due to length.

If your ask hasn't been answered, it may be because it already has been! Be sure to search the tags and FAQ before sending in an ask.

Please don't spam! We won't respond to inappropriate asks or asks that have already been answered.

Recommendation lists

If you are submitting an ask for a rec list please be aware that these lists take a lot of time and effort to make! In average, it might take us up to two weeks to fully finish and queue a rec list, sometimes even longer. We’re happy to put them together but we ask for patience and understanding.

With that in mind, here are some guidelines:

Please look through the #interact-if asks and #if: rec list tags before sending and ask.

Constantly looking out and keeping track of IF projects takes a good chunk of our time among our other responsibilities as mods. For this reason, we came up with a tagging system that makes it easy for our audience to look through the blog. Unfortunately, it gets overlooked most of the time.

And for this reason, we get repetitive asks, which we ignore and delete.

The tagging system is there for your and our convenience. If you’re not sure whether you’re asking for a rec list of the same theme/genre that has already been posted, please consider looking through the aforementioned tags before sending an ask.

As much as we love entertaining the rec list asks, it does tend to be bothersome having to constantly reblog and link new asks to the posted rec lists, as well as reminding people to use the tagging system.

Please make your ask neither too broad nor specific.

This isn’t to sound finicky we promise! If an ask is looking for fantasy IFs without specifics we cannot properly curate a list of what you’re looking for. Is it modern fantasy? Medieval? Non-Eurocentric? Do you want fae fantasy? Supernatural? Fantasy is one of the most popular genres and asks like this example we cannot properly answer.

This is why we ask for rec list requests to be not too broad.

As for narrow–too narrow an ask will likely return a very short or non-existent list! At the end of the day there are only so many IFs and very specific niches may not be filled. We will try our best to answer, but likely your list will result in games adjacent to your request that we think best kind of sort of fit your request. We’re doing our best with the IFs that are out there.

Please be patient!

We often spend several days working on a single list. If your ask hasn’t been answered yet it may still be in the works or in our queue! If it’s been a long while and it still has not been answered, it may have been ignored for a variety of reasons including: Too broad an ask, too similar to previous rec lists, contains NSFW or offensive materials, etc. Please refrain from sending multiple check up asks

On the topic of NSFW asks/content…

We have received some inquiries regarding NSFW (like smutty scenes) recommendations in IF recently, and believe it best to clarify the stance Interact IF has on the matter.

We will be refraining from answering questions about explicit sexual content in IF. We as a team do not feel we have the expertise to help with this, nor have we been on the lookout for explicitly sexual IFs.

As well, it is not entirely suitable for the blog, as Interact IF is for all ages and there may be minors following it.

We would like this blog to remain as SFW as we can manage, with games properly tagged for their age groups and limiting asks and rec lists to non-sexually-explicit content.

With that in mind, feel free to get in contact with us anytime and we’ll do our best to find what you’re looking for!

Game Recommendations

Before sending in a game, please keep these aspects in mind:

DO

The game must be interactive fiction–the reader plays a character (either customizable or pre-determined) and makes choices that influence the game in some way.

The game can be text-based or a visual novel.

The game does NOT violate copyright (i.e. A published for-profit IF that is using the Star Wars universe. If it is not-for-profit (it’s free to play) then this is fine)

DON’T

If you play a character and can physically move them (walk, run, jump, attack), we consider this a video game and isn’t currently a niche we are supporting.

Recommend a game produced by a company–we are here to support individual authors or games written collaboratively by a group of authors/artists/etc.

Don’t recommend games that glorify violence, sexual violence, racism, sexism, and so on. Or which has (an) author(s) who also have a history of having engaged In aspects like these.

If your rec is good to go, here’s what you have to do! If you are able please provide a link to the post to reblog - this makes it a lot easier on us!If the game is 18+What language/program the game is in (Twine, Choicescript, Ren'py, etc.)If the game has a currently playable demo. If you would like your game reblogged/recc'ed, let us know with the same info/more if you like!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Can you recommend games that are finished or complete?

We have a tag for that! Check out #status: complete, though you can also check out COG, Hosted Games, and search for complete games on Itch.io.

I can’t find a game and can’t remember the title, help!

If you’re struggling to find a beloved game and can’t remember the title–go to our Reddit and see if it’s there at the Lost & Found! If not, you can ask our community on the Reddit to help find it, or join our discord and ask there!

I noticed you failed to include x game on a list, so I will inform the author about it.

Please, don’t. The mods here are nothing but human, so we do our best to include as many games as we can remember, and frequently ask other people for help. However, this doesn’t mean we will include every single game in existence. We will forget, things will slip, so the least we ask of you is to leave a reply or send an ask and we will add it in. We promise we always keep a close eye on those.

The extra step of informing the author about this is unnecessary. The only thing you’re causing is either making the author feel left out or having them reach out to us to be added, which is essentially the same thing we ask of you to do. There’s no need to get a third party involved within something that can be easily tackled, so please respect us instead of putting our blog in a bad light.

The only suggestions we ignore and might erase are the ones we realize don’t fit the theme of the ask, or ones that don’t fit the guidelines specified in the question right below this.

What we do not promote.

Trans-exclusive radical feminism

Gratuitous sexual violence (This includes pedophilia, domestic abuse, r*pe, etc.)

Racism, including cultural appropriation, stereotyping, whitewashing, brown face, etc.

Any and all versions of sexism

Religious phobic rhetoric (Islamophobia, belittling indigenous religions, etc.)

And so on.

We also do not promote authors who have aligned themselves with these rhetorics, whether or not they are exhibited in the author's playable content.

[palmett-hoes]

i said in this post that i have original characters and backstories for neil's extended family. it took me,, a really long time to write it all down. it's been a full month since the original post, and this is still just a run through of things, not full prose, which i might be interested in doing one day but not anytime soon

now, some things to note about what i'm writing, why, and how. methodology, basically. this might not have come through yet in my posts, because i just don't post about my half-finished ideas, but i research a LOT. i like to base what i write about on real life, even if it's just headcanons and fanfic

also, i love helping people with research, so if anyone wants help with research for a fic or just their personal headcanons or anything hit me up!!

as a white person who wants to write characters from different ethnic backgrounds, i feel i have a responsibility to really do my due diligence and research as much as possible to consider things from every angle. and part of that for me is making sure that every character of color has a backstory. they don't just appear somewhere, i have to give them a reason for being there and a story for how they got there, even if that's not what i write their STORY about. people, come from places, basically. i follow a lot of demographic census information and population averages, as well as a lot of history, from as general as transatlantic trade in the last 500 years to as specific as the changes in a single city in a certain year

talking to other writers in the fandom i know i'm a little overzealous, but this is what gives me peace of mind to feel like i am putting the effort in to get things right

so anyway, as for what that means here:

i like writing neil as mixed black/jewish. it works well thematically for his character, as well as just what FEELS right for how i visualize him in my head

only, that can't simply come from nowhere. we know who his parents are. they need to also be poc for neil to be one, and they're a complicated pair to handle in that lens

one choice i made about that, for multiple reasons, is that everything about neil's parents' backgrounds should mirror each other. it can't simply be that one if them is black and one is jewish, or even that mary is both and nathan is white, because that says something i don't want to say any way you slice it. additionally, i want both facets of his ethnicity to be important to neil, and i feel as though he would want to ignore the half of himself from his father.

so: they both have to be mixed, giving them a sort of,, ideological equal footing, as it were. that way, i can also write three different experiences, rather than accidentally implying that This is what being black is, or This is what being jewish is, or This is what being mixed is. and that's also important to me, even if it's just in my head or not even directly addressed. it's still a big consideration of mine anytime i write about any of them

now, finally, onto mary and nathan! i'll put it below a cut because this is already long enough, the under-the-cut is much longer, and i don't want to wear out your thumbs if you don't care

mary hatford

canon timeline, neil was born in 1988. as a tentative number let's say mary was around 30 when he was born, meaning she would be born in the 50s. say her parents were roughly the same age, so they were born around the 20s

like i said, what's happening where in history is very important to me for building these backstories, and major historical events tend to have a lot of influence on population shifts. and well,, jews and europeans in the early-to-mid 20th century? there's no getting around involving world war II. nothing explicit, but it is mentioned and part of the story

mary’s paternal family are the hatfords. they're from the british west indies, largely jamaica, but they've been involved with shipping and trade all over the trans-atlantic region for generations.

they have a complicated relationship with the british empire, having both worked for them and against them at various points, sometimes both at once. similarly, they've tried multiple times through the generations to relocate the family to england permanently, but have been turned away or pressured out

they associate england and the british empire with power, and they both disagree with and desire that power in degrees which vary person to person. they do have a general idea between them though that living in england is a sign of status and authenticity, and while they don't want to leave jamaica permanently they do want their center of power to be in england, and there is a deep resentment against the anglos for not allowing them to stay permanently despite their wealth and influence, the fact that their work will always be looked down on and seen as lesser

i did come into building the hatfords with the primary idea of them being black british, and looking into the organized crime connection second. them being jamaican/west indies is a reference to the jamaican posse, who have a large presence in the london crime scene, although that's really the only connection. the hatfords aren't really yardies in any sense

the hatfords' status as organized crime is a little iffy. mostly they skirt the line between legal and illegal, owning legal trading companies and doing plenty of legal shipping. their main business in the criminal underworld is being middlemen moving supplies for other groups. they have a lot of contacts, and they serve an invaluable role in international smuggling, but they rarely get their own hands dirty. they move things from one place to the other and don't question too much what it is, though they don't deal in people

mary's father is named samuel hatford (first name in reference to samuel bellamy, the gentleman pirate king of the early 18th century). he was born in England, raised largely in Jamaica, then moved back to England as a teenager/young man. he's light-hearted and a bit idealistic for someone from a crime family, seeing the best in people even when they're cold and often believing in principle over profit, which at times put him in conflict with what's best for business

he almost enlisted in world war II, but instead convinced the family to work as weapons and supplies runners supporting the Allies and guerilla resistance groups

mary's mother is named cima ben nahman (ladino/judeo-spanish/sephardic names, doesn't really reference anything or anyone in particular). She's is an algerian jew. Born in algeria (city undecided, though algiers had the largest jewish community at the time), she moved to france for a few years as a young woman, probably for education. she joined anti-fascist organizations which became resistance groups once germany invaded

she's stoic, and has a ruthless mind for strategy. like most algerian jews, she's caught between her home country and its colonizer. the french empire played the algerian muslim majority against the jewish minority as a way to create infighting and distract the algerians from uniting and turning against them, but the algerian jews also then became reliant on the french for protection. (it's a really, really complicated situation)

cima sort of hates them both, both algeria and france. her only allegiance is to being jewish

(contrast this to samuel, who feels that he is BOTH british and caribbean, even when those two identities may be in conflict)

cima and samuel met when samuel provided weapons and supplies to cima's militia group. he took particular interest in them and went out of his way to help, above and beyond the other groups the hatfords were supplying

in the waning period of the war, cima was seriously injured, i'm currently thinking a land mine accident. she survived, but her recovery was slow. she lost an arm and had burns across half her torso, neck, and face. samuel brought her to england supported her through her recovery. in the hospital, they spoke a lot about why they each chose to fight, and the ways they did because neither were formal soldiers fighting for a country. samuel was in many ways fighting for an ideal, while cima was fighting for her people. cima also talked to him a lot about judaism and religion during this time, which samuel took an interest in. eventually, cima decided to stay

they got married. samuel converted, which was somewhat controversial with his family. however, cima agreed to join the family business, where she became an integral but sometimes ruthless member. after algerian independence, she brought some of her trusted family and community into the fold as well, some moving to england and others to france

both cima and samuel believed very heavily in responsibility, though what it meant for each of them was different. cima believed in preparedness and follow-through, samuel believed in family and protection, doing what's right outside of the bounds of the law. this contributed a lot to how they raised their children

when they were born, mary and stuart were raised in england (and i like to think they have an oldest brother). the hatfords were a big family, and influential, although careful about balancing the legal and less-legal sides of their business. the ben nahmans were smaller, and most of them were in france so mary and her brothers saw them less often. they were raised very religiously and culturally jewish, though close with the caribbean side of their family too, as well as being the first generation who were born and raised in england. this put them at a cross-section of three very different cultures, and was where mary first learned about changing and blending in with different groups

mary was the youngest and a little bit spoiled by her father, aunties, and uncles. her mother however was much less tolerant of her. clearly very affected by her time in the war, cima became extremely distrustful and suspicious, and tried to instill in her children a similar sentiment of secrecy and self-sufficiency, avoiding attention and casual relationships. she could be harsh on them, especially mary, who was the most resistant to this

growing up, mary was irresponsible and fun-loving, goading her brothers and cousins, getting in trouble, and starting fights. she didn't understand the tenuous balance of being organized crime, and at times put the whole family at risk by overestimating their sway. her mistakes affected the whole family but it was usually her mother who confronted her about them first and most harshly

she resented her mother's control, and didn't understand the reasons behind it. she also couldn't differentiate between the boundaries her mother sets as a result of her own trauma, and the necessary boundaries she set for the safety of the family, viewing them as one and the same, and leading her to hate any kind of control exerted over her

really, a lot of cima's character is just who mary ends up becoming after being married to nathan and being on the run. i like the story of a child becoming the parent they once hated. rather than learn from her mother, both her failures and her successes, mary becomes her, doomed to make the same mistakes. this is also why cima is wounded by a landmine, because mary dies in fire

---

nathan wesninski

nathan was HARD to come up with a story for, mostly because,,, WHY THE FUCK DOES THIS GUY WORK FOR THE JAPANESE YAKUZA

wesninski is a VERY polish name. the japanese-polish connection is,, not super strong

so anyway, working off the idea of the wesninski family being a polish jewish one, WHERE is he going to meet a japanese crimelord to get into a multi-generation debt/business arrangement with?

turns out, the answer is brazil

brazil actually has a large jewish population (roughly 10th largest in the world). it began with its colonization by the portuguese, but the 19th century to modern population largely comes from central and eastern europe. brazil ALSO has the largest japanese population outside of japan

also this story ended up being WAY more detailed and prosaic than samuel&cima's story, which is basically just bullet points. there's no reason for this i love both stories very much just for some reason the words flowed for me here and not there

to avoid having a second jewish story where wwII is prominent, the wesninskis get a page out of my own family's book: nathan's grandfather (neil's great grandfather) came to the americas fleeing the russian pograms around the turn of the 20th century

so

Wesninski came to brazil (city undecided, have a lot more research to do about individual cities in brazil). he had waardenburg syndrome(a hereditary genetic condition that can affect eyes and hearing) which runs very strongly in his family (his son, nathan, and neil will all inherit it), and he is completely Deaf. while he came to brazil alone, in his new home he connected both with the local jewish community and the local deaf community, and eventually marries another Deaf Jewish woman

eventually they were able to establish a kosher deli and restaurant in the city, one which became a common hangout for the Deaf community. then one day (probably around 1915), a group of japanese men came in, and kept returning

these were the moriyamas, recently arrived from japan, in a place with very few japanese people and businesses. they liked the wesninski deli because they didn't share a language with anyone in there, couldn't even be heard by most of them, and it would also be difficult for the authorities to question them. two layers of protection for a crime family in a vulnerable place

wesninski and the moriyamas were amicable to each other, but as they didn't actually have a way to communicate that was the extent of it. but the moriyamas were polite and payed well and didn't bother the other customers. als, as a jewish establishment, they had a lot of education resources, which were helpful to the moriyamas in learning about brazilian society, including beginning to understand portuguese

now, in japan, the moriyamas were a small yakuza family. they got driven out by their bigger and stronger and more established competition around the time when japanese immigration to brazil was just starting, so that was where they went. though they had little option in where they ended up, they also had little competition in establishing their business

i still have a lot of research to do about the moriyamas. about both how the yakuza operate and about how brazilian organized crime works, and about life in brazil for early japanese immigrants. so a lot of the moriyama details are pretty vague

now the wesninskis had a son, meyer (nathan's father. name in reference to meyer lansky, famous american jewish mobster of polish descent) who was around 14 when the moriyamas arrived. he himself was not fully deaf like his parents, though was hard of hearing and raised in the Deaf community. as he goes through his rebellious teenage years, well, the gangsters are right there

in the early days the moriyamas were still more concerned with mostly the japanese enclaves, but they had aspirations of expanding. meyer wasn't japanese, but he was helpful to the moriyamas who came into the deli to study. he was perceptive and bold, could keep a secret, knew his way around knives from working in the deli, and knew the city. he was a good asset to them, and he was interested in causing some trouble

over the next ten years or so, meyer got increasingly more involved, alongside the moriyamas becoming increasingly more established throughout the city. he goes from someone who helps out occasionally and relays information beyween parties to getting involved with minor shakedowns, bribery, evidence disposal. by the time he's in his 20s he's thoroughly enmeshed

his parents were older when they had him, and his father died relatively young, leaving meyer the store and his mother to take care of. they were vaguely aware of his connections to the moriyamas and didn't approve of what he did with them but he also kept the worst from them, and was always a diligent son, and the only one they had. he assured them no matter how far he went that he wasn't "really" part of the gang

"yakuza have tattoos, and see, ima? no tattoos. i'm still a good jewish son, not a gangster"

now the problem arises when meyer falls for camara da machado, a young Deaf woman who frequents the store

(based on/inspired by/FC yaya dacosta (where the name comes from) and rutina wesley)

she was a Deaf girl born to a hearing family who struggled to give her the support she needed, maybe even just a single mother, and she'd spent a lot of time alone at the deli from a young age (12-ish?). she was shy and quiet and a little bit of a shrinking violet, but the wesninskis became very fond of her. she started tentatively helping them out around the store which became a job. she was often included in family meals and holidays, and always had a bed in their apartment above the deli if she needed one, and more than once had helped patch meyer up after he got in trouble to hide the extent of it from his parents

she was a couple years younger than him but he'd always been sweet on her. and she'd had a crush on him from basically the moment she'd layed eyes on him. they'd known each for years and camara was basically family, and then one day when they were both in their 20s it just suddenly clicked for them

so meyer and camara fell in love. meyer was head of the house, had to keep the deli running, and had his mother, camara, and possibly camara's mother (undecided at this juncture) to worry about and he decided he didn't want to continue working with the moriyamas in case it dragged his family into danger. being a gangster was a fling of youth and he was ready to grow up

when he informed the moriyamas of this though, they,,, did not agree.

while MEYER might not have considered himself part of the gang, THEY didn't think he just got to walk away. he'd worked with them for too long and knew too much. there might even have been a desire to tie him to the family permanently through marriage. and well,, one man against a growing criminal empire can't do much

it was a huge shock to him, and made him truly realize how naive and reckless he'd been. he'd been a dumb kid who wanted to start some trouble, the moriyamas were career criminals. they expected that once you were in, you were in for life, and they did not take kindly to meyer disagreeing with this

he didn't know how to explain this to his family... so he didn't. they'd all told him they wanted him to stop, but he'd meant for the announcement to be a surprise. after learning that he would not be permitted to walk away, he chose to just hide it and continue with business as usual

it worked for a while, maybe a few years, a time during which the moriyamas were getting a lot more brutal as they got more established and increasingly looked to expand, putting them in competition with other gangs and greater law enforcement, until they were a true crime empire spread across whole regions of the country. meyer had lost a lot of esteem in their eyes by asking to leave, leading them to put him under increasing scrutiny and giving him more incriminating tasks, to ensure that he would be incriminated if he ever tried to turn them in. it's during this time that he first had to kill for them

then camara got pregnant

and meyer was terrified. he didn't know how the moriyamas would deal with a kid. the only marriages and children he knew of within the family were endorsed by the boss, many arranged by him, and he knew his wouldn't be approved. yakuza wives were heavily involved with the business too, and he absolutely did not want that for camara

he broke down and told her everything. she's horrified, and furious that he kept it from her, but she didn't want to give up her baby. it would be hard, but she believed they can keep it hidden, and if the moriyamas found out, maybe it wouln't be so bad?

(spoiler: it would)

they have a son, born natan da machado, under his mother's name

meyer and camara never got married. meyer was going to propose after he left the moriyamas but that obviously didn't happen. marriages were supposed to be blessed by the boss, and meyer never dared to ask. they already lived together, anyway

but with natan, they decided that meyer couldn't acknowledge him as his own. in the deli or in the streets, he didn't acknowledge natan. he was camara's bastard son, and meyer didn't want anything to do with him

it was a flimsy disguise at best. natan was mixed, but there was a strong enough resemblance to his father. even if his hair was a darker red or he had brown skin, they had the same eyes

they tried to keep him away from the moriyamas as he grew up, hoping they wouldn't see him and make the connection, but they also kept him very hidden in general, just in case. he spent a lot of time inside, with his grandmothers

and that was how natan grew up, feeling like a secret, his father cold and distant, only acknowledging him in their apartment. cut off from other kids his age. a hearing boy in a Deaf family (natan himself was HoH but still had most of his hearing. meyer and his maternal grandmother could both hear, but they had gotten out of the habit of it and mostly communicated through sign)

natan developed a deep feeling of resentment towards his father and shame about himself from a young age. he felt like a mistake, defective somehow. so wrong he had to be hidden away from everyone

there's only so long that you can hide a child, though, and when natan was around ten the moriyamas found out about him, and they were not happy.

they didn't like split attention or loyalty. they kept children and family under very tight wraps. they should be one hundred percent enmeshed in the moriyama empire, raised to be loyal and helpful in whatever way they were needed. the fact that meyer wanted and was willing to leave for this family, and then hid his son, was a huge betrayal

still, they gave him an opportunity to prove his loyalty: kill camara or the moriyamas would kill them all: her, natan, meyer, and both their mothers

but meyer couldn't do it, and instead he told camara to run and hope they didn't actually care enough to chase her down. and she did. and she couldn't take natan with her. (i haven't fully fleshed out why yet, currently thinking that meyer was given this ultimatium when they already had natan)

so camara left her son, and got away

i built the story of mary's mother as a reflection of mary's story if something had been different, and i built nathan's story the same way. his wife takes her son and runs away with him when the moriyamas try to take him from her. nathan's mother was in the same situation and left him behind

over the next forty years of his belonging to the moriyamas he gets to marinate in that resentment. from the father that ignored to the mother who ran away from him, he internalizes it as being something wrong with him, not the circumstances. the more he's taught to torture and kill and the more he excels at it, the more this belief gets cemented. he's good at killing, he was meant to kill. he's twisted and broken and wrong inside and he always was and his parents always knew

and then when it happens again but differently this time he throws away a decade and millions of dollars and his standing with his boss to hunt down his son and his wife because he didn't get to run away so why should they? why does mary love nathaniel more than camara loved natan?

from here, the exact detail's of nathan's story aren't quite solidified. whether he was raised by his father from then on or by his grandmothers (or whether his grandmothers left with his mother) or whether the moriyamas put him somewhere else entirely, but from then on he lived under the moriyamas' direct supervision, and they taught him how to turn a knife on a man

they took his mother's name from him, though, so he's natan wesninski, not natan da machado, because they own the wesninskis now

and when the moriyamas decided to expand beyond brazil when natan was a young man instead of a child, and settled on the east coast of the US, they renamed him nathan, because it sounded more "american"

---

so that's it. obviously there are still a lot of unfinished details in both stories, but they're strong enough at this point to stand on their own and i haven't changed or rethought a lot of the major details in a long time

i've become extremely attached to these OCs and their stories, and i hope they interest other people too. some day i'd like to write them out in prose properly, along with the story of nathan and mary meeting, but that'll be a while away considering the pace i move at

so until then i just wanted to put this out there

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

What will be in my bag? Pre-ordered Manga. Straight and Lez edition.

Here’s a list of English-released manga I’ve currently got on pre-order, and manga series I ordered before but won’t be continuing with the series.

As a note: Some of these titles have been released but I have not received them yet due to a issues with covid backlog effected how things are released.  I personally find that if you pre-order it tends to get you manga quicker.  It seems there is more pressure to keep up with the new release schedule than chip away at the backlog.

I’m starting with the stuff I’ve already read some of and confirmed enjoyment, then stuff I’m shooting in the dark for, and finally series I have tried recently and have discontinued.

Heteros

My Androgynous Boyfriend

Story & Art by: Tamekou      Publisher: Seven Seas

It is rare for straight shit to end up in my library but My Androgynous boyfriend is an exception that will surprise no-one since it’s pretty queer adjacent.  This story is mostly a couple being lovey-dovey between jokes about sexuality and gender but (so far) isn’t problematic at all.  The female lead is quite enjoyable as she’s well-balanced and has agency throughout. There’s even ace representation! It’s very low-stakes, wholesome, and sweet so far. (Volume 3 is set to release in November.)

My Excitement Level: The gentle about to sink into a bubble bath variety

Yuri/Lesbian

Even Though We’re Adults

Story & Art by: Takako Shimura  Publisher: Seven Seas

Takako is also the creator of Sweet Blue Flowers and Wandering son.  I have dipped by toe in to both those series.  I overall find their writing kinda meandering and tepid (might just be me) but technically pretty solid.  I am hopeful for this series since it features adults....if the title didn’t make it obvious.  I was intrigued by the one character being married but the man finding out about the affair quickly and reacting more realistically and interestingly than the average male love interest in a Yuri.  I also found myself relating at bit to Akari’s angst about being unlucky with relationships with women.  I also do enjoy the artwork! This one is the most likely of my followed series to be dropped at some point. (Volume 2 of this manga was set to release in June this year.)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

For more click the jump!

Kase-san and Yamada

Story & Art by: Hiromi Takashima  Publisher: Seven Seas

This is a series I keep going back to.  While it is the very typical low-stakes bubbly, cutesy School age Yuri...it is a very good version of that.  Just warm bubble bath vibes. (Volume 7 is set to release in February of next year.  I think it was originally supposed to be released this May but was bumped back.)

My Excitement Level: The gentle about to sink into a bubble bath variety

NOW ONTO THE SERIES I HAVEN’T READ BUT I’M TAKING A CHANCE ON!

Adachi and Shimaura

Art: Moke Yuzuhara Story: Hitoma Iruma  Publisher: Yen Press

This, as I understand it, is a slow-burn romance about two delinquent girls.  I have heard good things about the novel and the anime series!  However I prefer manga to novels and don’t have a funimation account so I went to snag it in manga form. (Volume 1 was set to release in February this year and 2 in September)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

The Girl I want is so handsome!

Story & Art by:Yuama     Publisher: Seven Seas

The premise is a young lady has a crush on a handsome older girl who’s oblivious to her advances.  When she tries to confess she instead gets roped into being the club manager of the basketball team that her crush is a part of.  So it feels like it may end up cycling through 2 jokes and be so deep in the stereotypical manga bullshit you can easily-predict its beats volumes in advance. HOWEVER that is also a premise that is similar to Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun which is legitimately a hilarious series. Also I fucking love butch/stud/masc-presenting women/AFAB people.  So I’m willing to risk “The same Anime bullshit” for good jokes and a cute lezzy romance with a beautiful butch.  (Volume 1 is set to release of December of this year.)

My Excitement Level: Pretty nervous actually.  I hope it works out!

Monologue Woven for You

Story & Art by: Syu Yasaka     Publisher: Seven Seas

A woman gives up on a career in theater gets tangled in a relationship with a woman passionately pursuing theater.  Since it is set between college age women, and appears to be about more personal and mature themes I am interested. (Volume 1 I BELIEVE is supposed to be released in February of next year.)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

Mizuno and Chayama (No page yet so far as I can tell.)

Story & Art by: Yuhta Nishio     Publisher: Yen Press

Two daughters of feuding families meet in secret.  This is by the same author of After Hours.  I read a bit of After Hours and found it fine but boring since it seemed without conflict.  Conflict doesn’t seem to be in short supply with a story like this!  While I enjoy the sugary-sweet high school lesbian romances...those are not in short-supply. So I am always hungry for something darker, meatier, more mature. (Volume 1 is set to release next February) 

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

5 Seconds Before The Witch Falls In Love

Story & Art by:  Zeniko Sumiya     Publisher: Seven Seas

It appears to be a playful fantasy about a Witch and Witch-hunter who’s antagonism turns romantic.  This may end up one note and stupid...but I’m always hear for queer romances set in high-fantasy and I haven’t read a Yuri where rivals turns to lovers. (Volume 1 is set to release next February)  

My Excitement Level: Low-key

Catch These Hands! (No page yet so far as I can tell.)

Story & Art by: Murata     Publisher: Yen Press 

A former delinquent runs into her high school rival.  After losing a fight to her she agrees to her terms...her terms being to go out on a date with her.  I mean the title alone makes me want to pick it up!  It may run afoul of bad anime humor, but I’m hoping with the fact that it’s full of gay adult delinquents that it’ll be a little different.  (Volume 1 is set to release next February)  

My Excitement Level: Medium-key

Series I have discontinued:

I’m in love with the Villainess

Art by: Aonoshimo  Story by:  Inori   Publisher: Seven Seas

A woman gets reborn into her favorite Otome game but she wants to romance the villiain!  I had heard a ton of great things about the novel but I picked up the manga version. (If the novel is totally different I can’t speak to it.)  For me, the writing is ham-handed, the jokes flop 90% of the time, and the fact the lead’s only personality trait seems to be ~obsessed with a bully~ really dampens this title.  Her advances are so aggressive and unwanted I honestly started feeling bad for a spoiled rich bully.  I will say it’s saving grace is the fact that the lead is masochistically into the villainess’ tsundere abusiveness. For me I hate tsundere romances if framed like, “I like you DESPITE your insults.” It is only tolerable if it’s instead, “I like you cause you tell it like it is. I’m a dirty little pig. Please step on this bad little piggy!”

Our Teachers are Dating

Story & Art by: Pikachi Ohi      Publisher: Seven Seas

Well one reason I stopped the series is that cover you see up there.  The sex in this series is fade to black but FOR SOME REASON the 3rd cover has them both butt naked.  But on a less superficial note, the story is about two teachers who start dating.  And while cute at points, I was just underwhelmed.  I think a part of it, is the fact that this behaves like a stereotypical high school romance...and while set in a high school...these are grown ass women not 15 year olds.  So I have less patience with the, “Gosh when will I get to kiss my girlfriend?” bullshit.  I mean, I would hesitate to call it bad...but it’s just not a good version of it’s brand of bullshit.

Breath of Flowers

Story & Art by: Caly                       Publisher: Tokyopop

Absolute train-wreck, this is hands down the worst Yuri I have ever bought.  The story is nonsensical and all over the place.  There is a love rival who’s trying to break the two of them up so she can get with Gwyn...but then switches mid-gear to put in a lot of effort to bring them together intentionally...but she also still wants to hook up with Gwyn...it’s very ????????????  The main conflict of Gwyn is hiding their gender so they can play basketball on the boy’s team (not well explained) is built up hugely and resolved with a hand flick.  There is a melodramatic moment where a school nurse says more or less, “GIVE IT UP YOU’LL NEVER BE A BOY!” And it’s like “OH SHIT! The fact that Gwyn is on the basketball team is cause he’s a transboy trying to live life as a boy! Oh gosh it makes so much more sense now!”  But the author seems to not even know that trans people exist cause the story bumbles along as if that scene never happened.  The closest we get is at the end Gwyn is like, “Look I’m learning to do make-up on myself to make you happy lawl!” Which is I GUESS supposed to be, “NO NO DON’T WORRY ALL OF GWYN’S GENDER STUFF WAS JUST THERE TO MAKE THE MAIN CHARACTER SEXUALLY CONFUSED WHEN SHE DISCOVERS GWYN’S TRUE GENDER!  HER TRUE GENDER IS 100% CIS WOMAN CAUSE SHE DID MAKE-UP ONCE! IT’S FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!” Like whaaaaaaaaat?  And it ends on a very random scene which doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story.  Ugh just very bad do not interact!

A White Rose in Bloom

Story & Art by: Asumiko Nakamura    Publisher: Seven Seas

At an all girls catholic school a young woman falls for a mysterious foreign student.  I grabbed this cause it’s gay and I overall like Asumiko Nakamura’s work (she also does Doukyusei, double mints, and others.)  However I was just not grabbed with this title.  I just felt like I wasn’t getting what was making the MC pants on head obsessed with Steph.  Also the lead’s mother tells her that she’s getting divorced and therefore will no longer have money to pay for the university and she’s framed like a super bad person for this.  Like I get why the MC (a teenager) would think that something like that is THE END OF THE WORLD! But I remember them really framing the mom like a selfish bitch for this...when like...it’s well established that her mom and dad’s relationship has been toxic for YEARS and that they TRIED SO HARD to fix it.  OH WELL!  This might be good but it just didn’t grab me in the 1st volume.

I’ll make a post on the BL titles later! Take care and Stay Rotten!

[gendercensus]

Gender Census 2020: The Identity Question

This report is the second in a series, analysing the >24,000 responses from the 2020 Gender Census question-by-question.

[ Report #1: On “enby” and age // Report #3: The Title Question // Report #4: The Pronoun Question ]

~

This year’s Gender Census, aimed at everyone whose gender(s) or lack thereof are not adequately described by the gender binary of “always, solely and completely male OR always, solely and completely female”, was open from 12th February until 7th April 2020. There were 24,576 usable responses. (Unfortunately the spreadsheet of responses won’t be available until I’ve written up the report for every question, sorry about that!)

This report will summarise the responses for the first question, regarding identity.

As in previous years, I asked:

Which of the following best describe(s) in English how you think of yourself?

There were 30 checkbox options presented in a random order, largely based on which answers were chosen by over 1% of participants last year. (More on how I’m updating the selection process later.)

Here’s a graph of the results:

And here’s the top 5:

nonbinary - 66.4% (down 0.2%)

queer (partially or completely in relation to gender) - 42.9% (down 0.1%)

trans - 33.7% (down 2.9%)

enby - 31.5% (down 0.2%)

gender non-conforming - 29.0% (up 2.8%)

Last year queer was added to the checkbox list because it was entered into the textbox by over 1% of participants (2.9%) the previous year, and it rocketed to second place. At the time I was very surprised by this, and I had some reservations about the data quality, because the word “gender” isn’t mentioned in the question. Perhaps people were choosing queer as a checkbox option because the question isn’t clear enough and they identify as queer in terms of their sexual orientation? This year, the queer checkbox option was a little longer:

queer (partially or completely in relation to gender)

... and it was still entered by around the same proportion of participants. I now feel satisfied that these results are representative of participants’ gender identities or similar, and not entered in error. I will retain this wording for future surveys, just in case.

Aside from that, nothing particularly stands out as a new trend. Here’s the graph of the top 10 identity words from the past seven surveys:

[Please note, there was no survey in 2014 so the graph is a little misleading on the left there.]

Genderqueer continues its gradual downward trend, and I’ve bolded that line so you can see it more clearly. Last year it was sixth most popular, and this year it’s seventh. Gender non-conforming has climbed a little and now sits above transgender, but only by a very slim margin of 0.05% (12 people) - just enough to push transgender out of the top 5.

~

THE 1% AND 3% BOUNDARIES

In order to talk about the textbox entries and the words I will be adding and removing from the checkbox list, I’ll first have to explain a decision I made last year.

In 2019 the checkbox identity list had 30 terms on it, which was long enough that people couldn’t find their identities. Several people asked that the words be sorted in alphabetical order to make them easier to find, but if I do that I will risk primacy and recency bias - the phenomenon of participants being more likely to choose options at the start and end of a list respectively, the solution for which is to randomise the list for each participant.

The 1% boundary ensures that a word only gets added to the checkbox list when enough people write it into the textbox, but I can’t use the same boundary for removing terms from the checkbox list, because most words get chosen around four times more often when they’re presented as easy checkboxes that remind participants of their existence.

So, last year I decided to create a removal boundary of 3%. The proposal: if a checkbox identity term is chosen by under 3% of participants, it will be removed from the checkbox list for next year. When I ran the numbers in 2019, I found that the few terms that fit that criterion were words I have mainly seen used by older people, and older people are underrepresented in online surveys. If I remove checkbox terms that are mostly used by order people, I am further excluding them from a survey that is already less accessible to them.

The only solution I could think of was to start asking for participants’ ages every year, and then remove words that are chosen by under 3% of both under-30s and over-30s. This year I asked for age, and let people choose in 5-year increments, to reduce identifiability. I then split the popularity of identity words by age: participants 30 and younger, and participants 31 and older.

~

THE CHECKBOXES

Here’s how the top 5s look when split by age group:

30 and younger

nonbinary - 68.0%

queer (partially or completely in relation to gender) - 42.9%

trans - 35.0%

enby - 32.6%

transgender - 29.8%

31 and older

nonbinary - 56.9%

queer (partially or completely in relation to gender) - 43.1%

genderqueer - 29.8%

trans - 26.2%

gender non-conforming - 25.3%

Broadly similar at the top, though older participants were more likely to choose genderqueer and gender non-conforming, whereas younger participants were more likely to choose enby and transgender. (You can see more on the word “enby” and its age connotations in the first report here.)

Here’s the new top 15, calculated as an average percentage from both age groups:

This graph shows that in this new overall top 15, people aged 31 and over were significantly more likely to identify as genderqueer or woman. But I think it is interesting to note that the two groups are much more similar than they are different.

~

WORDS TO REMOVE (UNDER 3%)

On the checkbox list, only three terms were chosen by under 3% of participants in both age groups: third gender, cisgender, and binary.

I will be keeping cisgender and binary on the list for next year, because I have a policy of offering words that are opposites of words that need to stay on the list. In this case, they act as controls for transgender and nonbinary.

However, third gender has been on the list since the first survey because someone suggested it when I casually crowdsourced checkbox ideas, and it has always been pretty low on the popularity list. Last year it was 2.2%, and this year it was about the same: 2.2% for under-30s, and 2.3% for over-30s. I looked into the phrase a little more, and found that it’s essentially a term used by white anthropologists to describe non-straight-non-cis people in non-Western societies. That could include LGB people and binary trans people, in addition to people whose genders are not described by the M/F binary. On the basis of racism alone I’ll be very happy to remove this term from the checkbox list for next year.

If there are no words to remove next year, I will consider increasing the removal threshold to 4%.

~

TEXTBOX IDENTITY WORDS

This part is always a joy for me, and the age group thing made it more interesting this year. There were 3,546 unique identities written into the textboxes, which is one new term for every seven people.

Taking all write-ins at face value, there were two words that were typed in by over 1% of participants in either age group: human, and female.

This is probably the point at which some of you will start to feel nervous. “Adult human female” is the slogan of some gender-critical/trans-exclusionary radical feminists. Most years the survey link gets shared in gender-critical circles and we get a handful of responses from people identifying as women, some of them trying to disrupt the survey and some earnestly sharing their experiences of their own genders.

This year I thought more about the issue and came to a decision about whether or not these responses should be included, and you can read more about that here, but the summary is: many gender-critical women responding to the survey describe lifelong experiences of gender dysphoria and a relationship with their bodies that could have been recounted by any nonbinary participant. I invite anyone to participate who feels that the gender binary has failed them, and gender-critical women/TERFs should be included in that group.

So, if a gender-critical woman’s response isn’t abusive or hurtful, it can stay. That means that we had plenty of people who entered the words adult, human and female into the textboxes, and I have to decide what to do about that.

Adult didn’t make the cut. For some reason it wasn’t entered as often as human and female.

Human was an easy decision. It can be assumed that if one is filling in a survey on the internet using a keyboard, one is probably human. That doesn’t need to be included on the list.

Female is harder. I have previously debated whether or not to include male and female on the checkbox list, and every time I have decided that the risk is too great. My experience is that many trans and nonbinary people are uncomfortable enough being asked about the gender they were assigned at birth and their biological sex that they would be much more likely to duck out of any survey even vaguely alluding to it. Since male and female were never entered by over 1% of participants I never had to consider it at all - until now.

So, when it became apparent while the survey was open that female might break 1%, I ran some informal polls on Twitter and Mastodon, and combined the results in a spreadsheet. I wanted to find out whether people associate male/female with biological sex and/or gender assigned at birth, and how people would feel about them being included as visible checkbox options. Here’s a summary:

81% of voters said that male and female relate to bodies/sex/anatomy exclusively or in at least some contexts. In the extremes, people were a little more likely to say that male/female relate to bodies/sex only, as opposed to gender only. This fits my experience of the trans narrative that sex and gender are different things that are incongruent in trans people.

People were on the whole in favour of male and female being words on the checkbox list distinct from man and woman, but it was very close.

When asked how they would personally feel seeing male/female on the checkbox list, it became a little less ambiguous - only 18% said they’d feel uncomfortable or otherwise negative. I say “only” - one in five is a lot of participants. I suspect that would still lead to a lot of drop-outs.

To act as something like a control, I asked about an issue that is often controversial: the inclusion of it/it pronouns in the pronoun checkbox list. 82% said they felt good about them being included, compared to only 54% of people who would feel good about male and female being included.

For now I conclude that the words male and female correlate with physical and anatomical sex enough that it would interfere with the quality of the data. Until the balance tips from “male/female = body” to “male/female = gender”, I don’t think I will feel confident that I can add them to the list without affecting survey results and participants’ inclusion.

So that’s it for the words counted at face value - nothing will be added next year.

However, taking into account variations of spelling and similar, the picture looks a little different.

Some textboxes contained phrases like “lesbian (yes, as a gender identity)”, which I found interesting! So I started to count as many of these oddballs as I could, ensuring along the way that they fit the spirit of the question. The following words were entered in some way by at least 1% of participants in one of the two age groups:

lesbian

butch

femme

Butch and femme are familiar to me as words that describe an experience of gender outside of heteronormativity, but lesbian in this context was new to me, which is always exciting!

Interestingly, I didn’t see anything like the same trend for terms that usually describe gay men, such as gay, bear, etc. For fairness, I will include gay if I include lesbian, in the same way that I include cisgender if I list transgender. And, like queer, I will feel more confident in the data if I can know for sure that participants are choosing words in the spirit of the question - gender identity rather than sexual orientation.

That means next year I will be adding four (!) new terms to the checkbox list:

lesbian (partially or completely in relation to gender)

gay (partially or completely in relation to gender)

butch

femme

The removal of one term and the addition of four will make the identity list 33 words long. This is very unwieldy! People were already struggling to find familiar identity words at 30. Next year when I crowdfund I will be raising money to pay for SmartSurvey to make a custom question layout for us, that looks something like this mock-up a nice person made last year:

A search box, and when you start typing the term you’re looking for, the list of checkbox options filters out everything that doesn’t fit. So if you typed “dem” you’d be left with demiboy, demigirl, and demigender.

The quote that SmartSurvey gave me is £400 plus VAT - so I assume £480. Oof! But I think it would be a one-off fee, and I think it would be worth it.

~

CLOSING THOUGHTS

You all are super interesting!

“Nonbinary” is the most popular, but it’s still only good for two-thirds of us.

The identity list is getting very long.

Genderqueer is down, queer is up.

The line between gender and sexuality is delightfully blurry when you get right down to it.

Age is just a number.

It’s already August and I’ve only done two reports of maybe four or five. In addition to this whole pandemic situation I’ve also been going through a lot in relation to disability issues, housing, etc. I’m doing my best, and I won’t give up!

~

SEE ALSO

A list of links to all results, including UK and worldwide, and including previous years - summary page / results tag

The mailing list for being notified of the final report and next year’s survey

~

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it and would like to give something back, you could increase your chances of taking part in future surveys by following on Tumblr, Twitter or the Fediverse, or subscribing to the mailing list. Alternatively, you could take a look at my Amazon wishlist.