#and sometimes ive seen other queer people criticizing that

[thecommunityoftrustworthysinks]

my last post about white christmas has me thinking about older queer media, or potentially queer and queerphobic parts of older media. how so many of them had to be like that to exist at all, how queer people have always sought ourselves and each other in even the smallest of places.

like. that movie where patrick swayze played a trans woman (haven’t seen it, though i want to, and i forget the name). that’s not how we would do that today, but that doesn’t mean that the fact a trans woman was a major and serious part of a film’s character cast at all isn’t important. or like people lamenting that brokeback mountain was a tragedy, and how many other tragic stories of queer people existed before happy ones, because so many times that was the only way we were allowed to exist. i remember trying to placate my parents towards gay people in tv shows and movies by saying they died in the end, as if that justified their existing (no i didn’t believe this, i was a closeted kid in a violently homophobic household.)

and originally, what prompted this post, how the drag(ish) scene in white christmas certainly wasn’t the most mockery-free scene, but that danny kaye, a bisexual man, put his all into making it something genuinely fun instead of entirely a joke on embarrassment of men in women’s dresses. (now, of course, i don’t know if that’s what was on his mind or not when filming that scene, and im not assuming that either. i don’t know how involved in queer communities of the time danny kaye was. it’s just something i notice in a scene that could’ve been a lot worse than it was)

we’ve always been here. even when the only place we’re allowed to carve out for ourselves is in tragedy or otherwise tiny and unideal, you can’t ever erase us entirely. queer history is so important, don’t ever neglect it because it’s not up to the standards we would want today. it’s good that we’re doing better. value that!

[cultofsappho]

Ive come to the realization that the reason theres a small but loud group of people who are showing nothing but hate for the rwrb movie is because they have completely unrealistic expectations. People are forgetting that this is a cheesy romantic comedy, thats supposed to look and feel like a cheesy romantic comedy. This isnt going to be moonlight or gods own country or some other critically acclaimed, oscar nomintaed queer film that makes straight people go "hmm maybe they do deserve rights and respect🤷‍♀️"

Its gonna be a cheesy adult romantic comedy, thats gonna be a bit camp and over the top and thats exactly why its so good. I dont want to think about every gay movie I watch. I want to watch it and see two queer people fall in love and thats it. Thats how deep it goes. Maybe a sprinkling of politcal commentary in between.

There is this issue thats become bigger and bigger every passing year, that people expect every bit of queer representation to be the best thing ever. There can not ever be anything cringey or different or silly, and if it is then they send endless hate towards it, and in an industry that already hates to show queer people on screen, its this viscious cycle of someone finally being greenlit to make queer media, the media gets endless hate for not being perfect, the studio cancels the queer media before giving it a chance because theyve just 'proven that it wont make money', suddenly everyone is saying 'why do they keep canceling queer media😢', cycle repeats.

Im so over it. Let gay people be slightly cringy or cheesy or campy. Let queer media exist without putting it on this huge pedestal. Just enjoy things! And if you dont, dont watch it! Move on, find something better to do.

Yes!!! Thank you so much anon for putting this feeling into words much better than I could have!

"I dont want to think about every gay movie I watch."

Thank you.

I want light-hearted rom coms about queer adults just being queer adults and havig fun. I want comedy adventures where the characters just happen to be gay. I want more horror where at the end the final girl kisses a girl and can't belive they lived but not because they're gay. (suprisingly several of these exist and I love it)

I don't always want to think about the plight and horrors of being queer today with every queer movie I watch.

Sometimes, yes of course, I want to be seen on that level.

(Nimona, which came this weekend is a perfect example of a queer movie where I felt very very seen but also had a good time and was an incredibly silly fantasy adventure movie. But, still had the queer expereince intertwined.)

I'm looking forward to a movie that will be 90% rom com, and 10% realism/heavyness. re: being outed is a real thing that happens to people. famous people.

Alex and Henry go through some heavy shit. There's seriously traumatizing stuff at the end of the book. They're both dealing with mental illnesses, complex families, and rock-or-a-hard-place situations. I want all of that honored.

And, at the same time, I'm expecting a straight-to-streaming, mid-budget, movie that had to pass through a LOT of straight hands and board meetings to get to us.

Not to say we should love and accept every queer movie that comes out automatically, they have been done wrong in the past. (example: I skipped call me by your name bc the age gap still makes me too uncomfortable to watch)

But we have to give queer movies a chance to fit the genre they were made for, the tone they are made to be, and give queer creators a chance to show they are us annd they know us. The director is Bi. He's spent so much time going on about how much he related to Alex that he needed to make this movie. It's his first directing role, and I'm giving him a chance.

[kiruyeen]

listen if you go into g3 thinking it will be just like more episodes of g1 youre gonna be very disappointed. like yeah if I had to choose between them Id choose g1 as it cant be beat, but g3 has its own unique charm and is really good if you accept that the g3 cast isnt gonna be a carbon copy of the g1 cast. they arent meant to be! theyre new takes on their character, by definition, a new generation. yes I still have criticisms for it but also it did a lot of stuff better!

first off, a trans character IN a queer relationship. Ive always related to frankie but gen 3 especially does them so well and no matter what you say them and cleo's relationship is adorable. also I see a lot of you treat them like just a girl who uses they/them pronouns (or ignore that theyre non-binary at all) just because they dress femininely, and I am judging you. their relationship is trixic, not sapphic, and frankie is unlabeled and cleo is bi so theyre not lesbians either. frankie is not your theythem girl or theyfab or whatever. grow up. deuce is also theorized to be trans or intersex and is also canonically aromantic and I fucking love that as well. "b-but my nostalgia abt cleo and deuce" Im still nostalgic about them too and it was nice seeing the "mean girl" and her boyfriend have a healthy relationship but again this is a different take on their character, and I can happily say I could see their g1 versions identify this way as well if mattel wasnt such a coward back then.

next, lagoona. Ill be honest I was one of the biggest haters of g3 lagoona at first, pink skin, vsco girl ass fashion, "this aint my lagoona, she's way less edgier than the others AND g1" Id say, but she really grew on me, and as someone who frequently rewatches g1 as well, I notice she is a LOT more well developed than her g1 counterpart. g3 is fierce and is afraid of no longer being seen as such due to also having "cutesy" interests, and loves graphic novels and sometimes sees them as more true than real life. she also has anxiety and copes with them in an unappealing fashion (chewing). she makes up for her lack of edgy looks with her edgy personality. meanwhile g1 is just.... aussie and loves her boyfriend. g3 is still very sporty and cares for her friends (and crush) a lot, but now has personality past that, she can even find fault in her crush while still loving him, while g1 lagoona just saw gill as the perfect incarnate. g3 just overall, has more fleshed out monsters than g1.

more about deuce, I see a lot of people headcanon him as trans and I love that, but I personally believe he may be intersex. "but both of his parents and his sisters are female, there is no y chromosome in their heritage so how could he develop a y chromosome or testosterone" you may ask, but worry not for I have a biology special interest and am more than willing to explain! deuce's parents are a harpy (bird monster) and a gorgon(snake monster), and both birds and snakes are known to have NOT X and Y chromosomes to determine sex, but Z and W, and it works the other way around! meaning the offspring with zw chromosomes will be female while the offspring with zz chromosomes will be male! and due to deuce being out of the sex norms of both harpies and gorgons (having no males), he is considered intersex! again, I have nothing about his trans headcanons, but him being intersex makes more sense to me. and I LOVE it if thats the intention.

either way, even if I have my criticisms, I love g3, yes its not comparable to g1 but theyre different series!

[bambi-kinos]

i honestly wouldn’t care so much about omegaverse if people were just honest about how it’s a porn genre instead of insisting how it’s queer activism. especially on twitter there’s a weird group of people who think its the pinnacle of feminism to make men suffer through patriarchy but poorly thought out patriarchy and omegaverse sidelines women constantly (though i’ve seen fair share of female centric omegaverse but those don’t seem to push the activism view and feels more like it’s a porn genre, but the dog dick thing is still uncomfortable) another thing about the activism thing people push is about how omegaverse is actually really liberating for trans men or whatever as a blanket statement. don’t care if other trans men like omegaverse but i certainly don’t think omegaverse is reflective of the ftm experience. especially since all the characters are presumably cis in the stories even if they’re sometimes written with vaginas in universe it doesn’t matter! this is why the “if you dislike omegaverse you’re queer phobic” mindset drives me crazy. i’m sorry if this ask is really long i feel vindicated that other people find omegaverse a terrible genre ive disliked it for years, i can tolerate some stories but i can never take it seriously.

HAHA. Yeah this is a good summation of where I am at as well. The thing is omegaverse has always been up its own ass just a little, in Strange Aeons oral history of Dashcon someone at the con had made a presentation about omegaverse that said "omegaverse has six genders, here's what the six genders are" and it was about relating these fictional six genders to the IRL queer experience? Or at least that's how i interpreted it from the video. And the thing is this was almost at the very beginning of omegaverse as a trend and users were already trying to gentrify it into something that it isn't.

IMO omegaverse appeared at the same time that tumblr slacktivism was being heavily criticized. Don't know if anyone else remembers this but there was a viral tumblr post that had British protestors out with placards and signs and they were protesting in favor of gay marriage, and one of the signs said "let John and Sherlock get married." And the tumblr post absolutely exploded because people were mad (for good reason) that someone was bringing their fandom attitudes into IRL activism. And people were mad because gay marriage was something was desperately needed for legal protection and there was a lot of outrage that a fujoshi instead decided to make it about Johnlock, because that was the only way she could relate to gay marriage activism.

The problem though is that this viral post was like, a nuclear bomb in the tumblr consciousness. The website never recovered. That's where the idea of "minority representation" took off, because fujoshis were bullied and made to feel ashamed of liking gay ships and were accused of being "slacktivists" by writing fanfiction or whatever, even when we were not actually interested in doing activism. (I think some poor idiots tried to say that "writing slash fanfic means I'm fighting for gay rights" which got skewered.) So the idea of "representation" was dreamed up as a response to it, because no one likes being accused of being a ~fetishizer~. Saying "well actually me writing this fanfiction is good because I'm being Representational" was a way to politically justify your gay cocks rubbing together fetish. Tumblr was totally overrun with keyboard slacktivists screaming at and bullying each other over gay ships which made the "representation" and "fanfiction as queer activism" thing really take off. It was really just a way to avoid being bullied and in many ways it still is.

And while all of this was going on, omegaverse was born! So maybe in hindsight it did not stand a chance, no one wanted to admit that they just had a fetish for werewolves and noncon because that would get them bullied. Like I cannot stress enough that I was in Ground Zero for this shit so I remember when omegaverse fans were fielding accusations of "fapping to bestiality" and other horrible fucked and untrue things. So they were desperate, absolutely DESPERATE to put a respectable coat of paint on their porn so that Tumblr would stop bullying them for it. (There was a scat component to it as well but that wasn't as prominent as the bestiality themed noncon that came out of it. And I mean...both of those things are fine because it's fiction, so whatever, but it's not shocking that anything that was adjacent to those things would get pushback.)

In a way, fans did not have a choice except to pretend that the porn was actually Queer Empowerment and Feminist Empowerment and how it was Totally Liberating to read about men with dog dicks raping other men with anal fissures. They had to do it in order to protect themselves. This resulted in entire essays being written about how being anally impregnated by a guy with a dogdick who "ruts" like an animal is, like, suuuuuch a female experience you guiz!!!!!!! We gorls have all been there amirite!!!!! And if you didn't take that view and said "who is 'we' in this equation, you're not affiliated with me and I don't recognize these experiences" you received some online hate for Not Being With the Feminist Cause. In time that has metastasized and now there are omegaverse fans who, as you indicate, decided to start bullying other queer people people for not liking it.

(And you know, as I'm editing this, I'm realizing just how insanely transphobic that kind of stance was! Incredible erasure of trans people took place in those "why Omegaverse is the peak of feminism" essays.)

The lesbian omegaverse stuff is basically the purest form of it and hence it's the most tolerable. Yuri fiction gets so little attention anyway, yuri writers basically have carte blanche to do whatever they want. There's very little infighting in comparison to slash fandoms. Funnily enough when women are involved as characters no one wants to read about the Feminine Political Experience and no one cares enough to turn it into activism. It's only slash ships that get that projection and its 100% due to the "oh shit we need to pretend this is Representation so that we don't get bullied for having a fetish" deal. (This has since spread into most aspects of fandom and even IRL discourse! Do what you will with that information.)

Massive +1 to your note about how it affects queer people. I can't imagine what it's like to be a transman and be told "umm ackchually sweaty being impregnated with a dog cock is the HEIGHT of the transman experience and if you don't like it then you can get out." When I was weirded out by the book I cataloged that was an omegaverse romance, one of the rhetorical lines that got flung at me was "straight people aren't going to like you!!! they're always going to hate you!!!! you're never going to not be disgusting to them!!! you have to like it or else you're a bad queer person!!!" Because I had said that I found the material grotesque and I didn't like it being marketed as "LGBT fiction."

But that was never the point, the point was that I, a queer person, do not want this material anywhere near me. Like, why would I want to be associated with bestiality, even if it's fantasy bestiality? This ain't about the cishetties, this is about me, how I feel. I don't want to be told that it's inherently queer fiction and queer romance, because why would I want dog penises and the captivating aroma of poopy buttholes (sorry, "slick") to be associated with my queerness and my sexuality?

But those are the wages of omegaverse being born in the times that it was born in. It's most likely permanently baked into the structure, even when people are just wilding out with their Ids and going "oh teehee I forgot to take my suppressants and now my reproductive anal glands need to be expressed." You are still going to get the "my werewolf themed fanfiction is ACTIVISM, we are HERE we're QUEER and you need to GET OVER IT" even when you yourself are queer and have been persecuted for it in the past. Either jump on the dogdick carousal or you're queerphobic.

I should underline that I understand that this is quite literally a Not All Fans Situation and imo most users in fandom try not to get on each other's cases so much about our preferences. The problem is that omegaverse has been a vehicle for buckwild levels of cope, junk science, SJW themed bullying, and superiority complexes because there are a plurality of fans that are trying to gentrify weird porn. And that's the sticking point in all of this especially if you're someone who doesn't like it and want to stay away from it.

[fluffenough]

forfeit all mortal possessions to  the furby- aka my intro post

hey there! this is eidolon. i follow from verdict! this is my furby/toy blog. welcome! read my before you follow pls

furbies are a huge special interest, so feel free to dm me if youd like to infodump or have me infodump at you about them!

im eidolon, 24, they/them pronouns. im genderfluid and disabled.  my partner, who ive been living with for 6 years and dating for 7, is @tiedyefurb​​!

here is a photo of my recent go-to furbies from my collection

i will post photos of my furbies under the tag #my furbies as well as the name of the furby! i do reblog other peoples furbies and toys, too, but often forget to tag.

my dolls will be under the tag #my dolls and have their name, brand (if applicable). if you are creeped out by ball jointed dolls you can blacklist #bjd and #realistic doll. or if you like those, there are the tags for you!

my history and interests within the furby community

as of may 2023 im returning to the furby fandom! i joined in january 2018 and ive seen it all! that said, ive been on semi-hiatus for years so i do feel like a grandpa.

my favorite thing to do is take photographs of my furbies! especially outside or on trips!

i post sporatically as i take photoshoots, so i may post 10 + photos at once then nothing for months.... i refuse to queue im sorry in advance

im a big fan of 1998 and 2005 furbies. their designs are so lovely! i like how customizable 98s are and how interactive 05s are. i think 05s have an adorable, unique aesthetic.

i have many customized furbies but they were almost all bought pre-customized! i have done some minor customization and touch ups before, but nothing intense. ive skinned and washed furbies as well.

i have about 6 furbies awaiting customization, lol. i will for sure be sharing my experiences!

before you follow:

-i am 24 years old. i will not block minors but i am not comfortable talking one-on-one (you can comment, leave tags on my posts, send asks etc but we cant be friends! its just for my own comfort.)

-im a transgender queer disabled fucko and if you are a right-wing person youre not welcome here. and you dont want to be here! click off. block me. whatev

-TERF, truscum, neonazi, radfem, gender critical, anti social justice or anti feminism, anti self-dx (not everyone has the resources), anti-recovery. basically if you are a hateful person (ableist, racist, etc) go AWAY! lol

-dont follow if you find furbies creepy! plain and simple. (comments like “i usually find 05s scary, but this photo is really cute...” are ok! even in-jokes in good faith are ok. i just dont want to hear how much you want to kill my furby.)

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-please dont misgender my furbies! if you dont know their pronouns, use they/them or it/its. (feel free to ask their pronouns in dm, message, or on the post. :) this is very important to me. so please respect it!)

-i am taken and if you do not respect that you will be swiftly blocked no matter how close we are lol.

thanks for reading! im very friendly i swear i no bite

have a furbalicious day!

[dykementality]

its genuinely concerning the way fandom people act about taika waititi. as always the core of the issue i have with this is not about individuals because i almost get it.. its tempting to settle sometimes. it just grieves me when i see how deeply capitalism is lodged in some peoples brains like queer rep is not a commodity. free yourself queer rep is not a commodity. grabbing taika waititi bitches by the shoulder yelling QUEER REP IS NOT A COMMODITY QUEER REP IS NOT A COMMODITY. you dont owe this man anything!!! just this week ive seen someone on twitter telling people to stop complaining about taika saying hes a gay icon because "look at how much gay stuff he gave us!" like cmon.. have some self respect. a straight guy making queer media must still be subject to criticism just like any other person making any other media. he's not untouchable. if you see queer people (especially racialized queer people) criticizing taika waititi and you dont get it literally mind your business and let smarter people do the talking. also "we call him that all the time" is not a good argument because first of all. speak for yourself whos we. secondly even if every single gay person did that it still wouldnt make a difference he should stay on his lane. bring back gatekeeping bring back making straight people feel uncomfortable by staring at them when they overdo it. it's embarrassing to see gay people infighting to defend some guy because what? you're scared he's gonna delete the footage? burn the scripts? bitches gave him too much confidence.

[hyperfixation-hideout]

i actually like hearing your thoughts on the show even the critical ones cause im scared to say my thoughts if there not positive sometimes cause when i do i get people angry at me and thinking im hating on rwby for fun or being nitpicking or ect. ive been folowing you awhile and i know you like the show and are nice about things and give benefit of doubt but you still get fought when you dont like something so i think ill keep keeping my mouth shut haha

I'm glad someone likes what I have to say, thank you, that means a lot <3 I've also been (and still am tbh) pretty scared of sharing my thoughts on RWBY, even the posts that are mostly positive and just have one or two qualms sit in my drafts for ages out of fear they'll be taken as hate. It's part of why I've found some solace in the r/RWBYcritics sub recently -- there are myriad positions, opinions, discussions, etc., both positive and negative, and people are generally open to having their mind changed and giving other perspectives a real chance before responding with theirs. Whereas my personal experience (and anecdotal from others) in the main RWBY sub has been very much that if someone has an opinion (positive, negative, or neutral), others often feel the need to argue the "right" opinion and react angrily if theirs doesn't align, calling people stupid for not interpreting things the same way or liking the same things/characters.

A lot of the time parts of the FNDM can feel consensus-based. Like there are right and wrong ways to think, feel, interpret, and discuss any given thing that happens in the show. Even things like people who headcanon Yang as bisexual being called lesbophobic because the FNDM decided she's a lesbian. I got called lesbophobic for saying I headcanon Weiss as aroace, or that I would love for her to not end up in a romantic relationship. Or black people voicing issues with how the White Fang was presented being called racist, only to reveal they're black, at which point they're told they're being sexist or homophobic instead for criticizing a show with female leads, written by straight cis men. There's a lot of assuming morality when it comes to how critics are seen, when a huge portion are critiquing it because they're women, queer, people of color, disabled, neurodivergent, or otherwise marginalized, and want to address how certain things regarding them were handled. But the first assumption is hate. It can get overwhelming and frankly unhealthy.

Not all of the FNDM is like this, of course! And I've made a lotta friends here! As a whole though, it can be a bit... unwelcoming towards critique to say the least. And as such, a lot of fans feel pressured to shove down and swallow our thoughts on the show if they deviate in any way from the majority consensus. There's nothing wrong with enjoying things that happen in RWBY; there's nothing wrong with disliking things that happen in RWBY.

I do feel that often when posting more critical analyses or opinions that my points are automatically taken in bad faith (which is kinda ironic since that's the accusation levied against critics wrt the show), especially if I tag with "rwby crit" or "rwde" or even "crtq." I tag so people who don't like seeing these takes can blacklist, and people who do like thinking about this stuff can find it and have a discussion. But some people seek out these tags with the intent to argue and act as though every critic has the same opinions, intent, and morality. Fans are not a monolith, nor are critics, and we need to all recognize that we're diverse individuals and not diametrically opposed. I consider myself part of both.

I will say this: to my knowledge, I've never lost a follower on this blog for speaking my mind on things I find personally confusing, disappointing, problematic, etc. And I am so grateful that this community, this cozy corner of the fandom, is more open to hearing thoughts that might differ from their own, and even sometimes changes their minds, or changes mine!

I'm sorry you don't feel able to express how you feel about a show you enjoy without getting attacked. I hope the RWBY FNDM grows more open-minded and collaborative as time goes on, because I really LOVE analyzing the show from a meta and storytelling standpoint, especially as a writer, and fostering discussion is fun for me. One of my favorite parts of RWBY is engaging with the community. Theorizing, analyzing, discussing, critiquing, reacting, creating... and it's unfortunate that I feel I'll drive people away the moment I say I don't like something. I am open to people responding with their own thoughts, and always try to see it from their pov, but more often than not the replies to critique I've seen are aggressive and make assumptions about the critic as a person, coming from a place of wanting to defend the show and showrunners rather than genuinely wanting to have a conversation. It feels very us vs them, and I don't like the polarization that attitude simultaneously feeds on and nourishes.

So thanks for sticking around, y'all <3

[honeysweetbabyfrisk]

my byf page is out of date and i cant edit it on mobile so heres a pinned post!

you can call me fen, im in my mid 20s, and i'm part of a d.i.d system (prof. dx'd). i wont really talk about that on this blog but it does mean that sometimes its running entirely on queue here because i'm just not around

inbox rules:

- all anon hate and most discoursey asks will be deleted! i want this to stay a positive space. if you have genuine questions about my stance on something and you ask respectfully thats alright, but if youre looking to debate please dm me or ask off anon so i can answer you privately or just leave me out of it

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- on that, i believe quite firmly that all endogenics are either traumagenic and in denial or misinterpreting symptoms of other illnesses or experiences and do not support the endogenic community, as their impact does real world damage to d.i.d and osdd systems, what they claim is scientifically impossible, and their only history is one of ableism and causing harm. i will never fakeclaim on this blog, i do not endorse fakeclaiming, i will not answer any asks about syscourse or fakeclaiming. if you want to see my reasoning, please search "syscourse" on my blog, but that is the extent you will get from me.

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[dughole]

putting under the cut bc its too long..... .. ,...,. please share opinions and thoughts and opinions i am struggling.

does any other trans ppl like closeted or otherwise feel very alienated by ppl who r nb but it’s unclear whether they consider themselves trans or not. like obvi understanding if ur trans is an intimate process and it’s one that no one else is entitled to, but like, none of us lives in a vaccuum and regardless of whether ur experiencing interalized transphobia or ur just a bigot like - ur still affecting other ppl? i am having the problem of. there r people in my life who r using indicators of transness via their pronouns - but, they turn around and say really horribly physically transphobic stuff/they date someone who says those kinds of things/won’t call them out on it until another trans person does/they turn down active opportunities to be referred to by the correct pronouns by their family.. like these ppl can’t even say the word trans, or they can’t even like. be nice to me if they know i am trans. like i came out to an ex friend in order to tell them they were being transphobic towards myself and my ex, and they just .. stopped talking to me despite promising they were going to consider how badly their biases contribute to like. transphobic violence. and they don’t even make themselves open to criticism for transphobia most of the time like. r y’all having problems with that. like with cis nb ppl or otherwise. am i evil for feeling very bad and confused by that kind of behavior. like. i do not think these ppl r lying or scheming and transness isn’t defined by pain and i hate the stupid idea of “transtrenders” like that’s fake and who knows where these ppl will end up knowing abt themselves like it’s not my job to determine that. like, I will believe what you tell me about urself full stop and I am not going into it with skepticism. but. i am.. still having problems. like u r trying to detach urself from the gender binary but u r also asking people what’s in their pants and violating my sexual experiences bc of the trans aspect of them. and associating penises with ur sexual trauma to the end that u r making really shitty comments abt trans ppl in ur life. help. like it is starting to get to a point where ppl in my life will come out as nb while refusing to touch the concept of transness w a ten foot pole and i feel. alienated and sad instead of connecting with them on like, oh you also feel very alienated and disconnected by ur agab. like i feel like. this is a problem and a trend but it is hard to identify bc its nebulous like. this may not apply to u and ignore it if it doesn’t but if u R cis i think you should like. know u r cis and know what that means. and obvi like, being cis is a complicated thing too like bc a lot of ppl experience gender legitimization! and bc the line between cis and trans is blurry sometimes, but like! i feel like. everyone is responsible to know how they wield the biases that r inherent to society, like r u wielding it inwards at urself or at other people.. like maybe whether or not u know or consider urself cis is whatever but u should know if u r trans or not for the sake of urself and others. I do not know. transmedicalism is evil and im someone who has a very complex view of my tr*nsness esp. bc i am closeted in many parts of my life and im not in a safe circumstances. but like, i guess i do feel alienated by ppl who r using the same langauge as me but also, like, actively harming me and ppl i love, and like, make me feel weird for wanting surgery and to look different. like i dont think, transness is defined by dysphoria, its fucked up to think that!!!! is what i am saying making sense.!!!! I feel like ive seen similar thoughts expressed by other trans ppl like many trans women hav been like. guys i know ur all for "dont assume peoples genders its fucked up and bad" but also, when a trans woman presents femininely and like. isnt presumed a woman under those same guidelines by other queer ppl at best it makes them feel insanely unwelcome in their own community and at worst it actively gets them killed or assaulted like. problems !!! i am struggling to know how to talk about this

and i feel like it is just in my head.. am . i . crazy. am i hateful and evil and projecting.

[dumbputalostheraccount]

long as hell but this needs to be talked about in the community because why are all the identities under the trans umbrella accepted but 2spirit (an identity from indigenous cultures) is rarely acceptable, along with other queer people trying to police our identities and what we label ourselves. it’s subtly (sometimes not even subtle) terfy and racist

i am 2spirit, a very sacred identity from what i’ve been able to learn from my mostly erased and forgotten culture, i am also a lesbian. ive had people say “BUT! BUT YOU ARENT JUST A WOMAN YOU CANT BE A LESBIAN!” first of all i am afab and have no problem saying it because that’s the spirit i feel most so you are wrong and second of all that’s a chronically online take, 2spirit can mean both female and male or completely outside of the binary, it doesn’t just mean your appearance or how you feel as a person like non-binary/trans/genderfluidity does, it’s important in ceremonies and rituals, it’s important to indigenous cultures, and it changes based on the individual and their culture, the lesbian flag includes trans and all identities under the trans umbrella along with gender nonconformity so why are we erasing and invalidating a SACRED IDENTITY that exists outside of the lgbt community as well as within the community if the individual is lgbt, it just seems like racism at this point. ask anyone offline in a queer space (specially older queer people) and they will tell you that it doesn’t matter and is valid. yet ive said i’m genderfluid and non-binary before and guess what? no one cared, it was valid and accepted.. i love my communities (both my native communities as well as the lgbt+ community) but sometimes things like this make it so hard to be more involved with the community, and ironically it’s always white people that are saying it, imagine your oppressors are still trying to segregate you from both of your identities because it doesn’t match what they see as acceptable.. either having to choose to embrace your fluidity as 2spirit or keeping your lesbian identity.. that’s that colonized mindset, but i will never make myself choose because they can both exist. i have seen genderfluid lesbians that change pronouns and appearance everyday. having their partners go from saying gf to saying bf and from wife to husband, wearing binders and packers whenever they feel like it (which hell yeah! good for y’all) still with a lesbian label and that’s perfectly fine and accepted but me having the spirit of both female and male isn’t accepted? it doesn’t make sense. there were natives fighting at the stonewall riots, 2spirits included before the term was even coined, and yet we still have to be fight to be accepted and taken seriously, not just with general racism but with our CEREMONIAL ROLES (2spirits can be very important in ceremonies), we’re included under the community, then we’re not, then we are, then we’re not, then when we’re not and we are still gay/lgbt like gay male or lesbian and 2spirit we are told we can’t be those and have to choose between our identities or people try to make us change our identities. and i am not the only one who has been through this, i talked to a friend of mine a few weeks ago who is gay and native, when some other queer people found out he was 2spirit they said he should say he’s bisexual/pan sexual then since he’s both male and female spirited.. no, that’s not how that works, and who are you to try to change who we are, we know what label and what terms work best for us, we don’t need someone to change that, and we don’t need criticism from people that will never be able to understand it from our perspective. just.. imagine “YOU CANT IDENTIFY LIKE THAT! YOUR CULTURE IS IN THE WAY OF OUR NONEXISTENT WESTERNIZED COLONIZED RULES OF THIS IDENTITY OF WHICH YOU HAVE SUFFERED FIGHTING FOR, FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE!”, there were never as much “rules” in the community as there are now, it was very basic, you had the label and you had what the label meant and that was it, you didn’t need to add on rules of who can be that and who can’t, you didn’t police someone’s identity because you didn’t like it, you just didn’t do that, we have more things to worry about in the world then native people correctly identifying with what they are while everyone else gets mad

also can we talk about how terfy this is, because it seems like a more racist extreme version of gatekeeping trans people from identities which also needs to be talked about because it’s not okay

[cicada-bones]

I think the discourse is why I’ve never fully gotten into ACOTAR. I really liked the story when I read it! But others made it hard for me to enjoy it.

People are totally allowed to “critically” read something! But some of the beauty of reading is everyone takes away something different when they are through

A moral, a lesson, a flaw, something to self reflect on, or purely watching the character overcome an obstacle one has in their own life and giving them hope. Sometimes you find things you don’t like, don’t agree with etc, and it makes you feel more impassioned about that thing

That’s good as well

But just because you found nothing in the story doesn’t mean everyone else has to hate it or a specific character! (Unless they are racist or something else objectively horrible) I love SJM’s books! I’m kind of sad people have to bring so much drama to the table for the ACOTAR series! I loved what you had to say about Feyre 💚 These are just thoughts I thought added to that post 😂

i completely agree! and i think that a lot (or at least a lot of what ive seen - across this whole website) is a misunderstanding of the concept of a “critical reading” 

when you critically read something (or critique, or being a critic - in the traditional pre-social media sense) you analyze a piece of media to uncover its themes, character work, conflicts, essential statements/meanings, and also postmodern theoretical critique which also includes racial/sexist/queer biases and subtexts:

and then you figure out how well those were executed and what it means for the story. 

liking or not liking a character is never a moral action in itself unless you let it shape your views and actions in the real world, with real people. (of course - liking/not liking certain things in the context of modern society can tell you a lot about a person however - not an easy either/or black/white system. for instance bronies. you can tell a lot about a person if theyre a bronie. not necessarily hating! but still.)

critically reading something is NOT going through and itemizing all the bad things characters have done in a text/all their faults/all their conflicts! you can have a well written character that is a piece of shit (like hannibal lector) or you can have a character that is written to be just the most amazing pure wonderful lovely perfect whatever, in the worst piece of media every brought to the screen (like edward cullen in twilight. yes i actually love twilight tho please no one @ me)

[doshmanziari]

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness ~ It’s Just Like Symphony of the Night, Except Not At All! [Part IV]

When asked recently if Curse of Darkness is good, I answered: no; but, I’ve played through it about ten times. So, on a subjective level that can’t really be transmitted to other people by telling them what to focus on (although I’ll try to enumerate what I focus on), there is something here that, well, I just like. I’m not the sort of person to make the claim that, “[X] is a fine videogame, but a bad [series-name] videogame.” That’s not my conclusion -- to suggest that there is an inherent goodness to the series I like just because it generally excites my palate, and that anything below one’s standard is a “betrayal” of that inherence.

Even though difficulty isn’t what I go to videogames looking for, I think what makes Curse of Darkness work best for me is its hard mode, accessed by finishing the game once and then inputting “@CRAZY” for your file name on a new file (the same goes for Lament of Innocence). The norm for the Castlevania series and iterative challenge has been “loops” -- clearing the game once and then having it roll over automatically to a new game, whereupon enemies deal more damage and are perhaps more numerous and/or newly appearing. Although these adjustments have provided an extra challenge, the presence of new material, of differing enemies or enemy placements, has tended to be relatively minimal. The first Castlevania, for example, halts its modifications on stage four on subsequent loops. CoD’s hard mode is remarkable in that pretty much every area has been edited for enemy type and occurrence. It is also, at least on some hypothetical level, the toughest of any Castlevania hard mode. Hours in, you will still be easily slain in just a few hits, your curative capacity is strict, and money is tight. What all of this means, for me, anyway, is that Curse of Darkness becomes a sort of brutal dungeon crawler: the endurance which the level design, by default, asks of the player better matches what you need to do in order to survive until the next save point.

What it also means is that you might be compelled to more intentionally curate your familiars, here called Innocent Devils. Normally, these critters are absolutely peripheral, excepting a handful of spots where one’s ability is required for progress. On hard mode, having the right familiar in the right situation, using the right abilities, is an enormous help -- sometimes, the difference between your life and death. If I could retroactively magically redirect all of the labor poured into the Innocent Devils to the level design, of course I’d do it in a heartbeat; but the variety that effort produced -- the physical differences between a Devil’s evolutionary forms, their skills, and the descriptions for each (two of my favorites: “A star motif graces the rod of this mage. Its owner dreams of one day becoming one with the stars”, and “Pure rage in corporal form, it is chaos with wings. Many find its anguished form hard to look at”) -- has its place among the rest of the game’s marginalia. Without them, too, Curse of Darkness would perhaps be an overly lonely experience.

Curse of Darkness has something in common with KCET’s post-Game Boy Advance Castlevanias (most of all Order of Ecclesia), which is that its bosses are excellent -- fun to look at and fun to fight, especially on hard mode, where precise mechanical execution is mandatory. The downside is that they are, in fact, so good that returning to the game as usual after each can be especially deflating. Just as fun are the narrative interludes featuring some wonderfully on-point voice acting by, best of all, Liam O’Brien (as Isaac) and Adam D. Clark (as St. Germain), and, somehow, some of the subtlest facial expressions found on the console. To be sure, the characterizations are limited -- caricatures more than characters -- but what they lack in humanistic texture (something perhaps not to be sought in this series) they make up for in flair. People might pick on the Lords of Shadow titles for resembling “high fantasy” ersatz with doses of Castlevania jabbed in wherever, and while that is a fair criticism, just as awful was the games’ relentlessly grieving tone, as if a suffocating sense of self-seriousness were what the material needed for effect. Curse of Darkness’ tonal strain -- reverential, obscurantist, and funny -- could not be unlikelier. There is the rendering of Trevor Belmont, after we first fight him to no avail, as a near-saintly figure; the inscrutable, fanfiction-like logic guiding the major plot beats; the way Hector, as protagonist, slams between ridiculous shrieks of vengeance and introspective “Indeed”s. It is, all in all, maybe the best-relayed storyline Castlevania has ever gotten, and maybe will ever get.

If there’s one mechanical idea, separate from the Innocent Devils, to applaud, it’s the stealing mechanic, whereby Hector can snag various items from ghouls and ghosts if done at the proper time. This is indicated by the lock-on reticule momentarily switching from orange to purple, and often requires waiting for certain animations to begin or finish. It’s a neat micro-challenge to engage if you’re so inclined (bosses are where it shines; the Wyvern, for example, has an optional aerial sequence that’s tied to the steal-window), and a nice alternative to item drops being determined by randomized success/failure rates. To be clear, randomized drops do still exist -- they’re there in the bestiary as a delineated datum -- but they’re no longer the sole possibility. For some, this mechanic might also serve as an invitation to observe Dracula’s army with a heightened degree of purposefulness, to better appreciate the effort that went into giving its members life. However viewed, it’s kind of a shame that the idea remains unique to Curse of Darkness. I suppose pure statistical randomness pumps up the playtime for anyone who enjoys grinding; but the intentionality underpinning the stealing mechanic, the terms of its execution and our means of utilizing it, is a tantalizing window into an alternative, less number-crunchy shape for the action-RPG mold of Castlevania.

And, really, for as often as Curse of Darkness’ visuals compare unfavorably to Lament of Innocence’s, I couldn’t’ve taken as many photos of it as I did for another lo-fi-/CRT-dedicated project last year (a fraction of the results can be seen here and here) if the game’s world didn’t have an ambient luminescence of its own, albeit one thinned out by the aforementioned issues with the scope and camera, and several stale settings. In a fashion seemingly particular to PlayStation 2 releases, scores of exterior and interior spots are clothed with polychromatic, sourceless “lighting”, such that a wall’s surface might go from a deep blue to a brown-green to a purplish red. Taken as a sum, Curse of Darkness’ Wallachia is dim and gray-faced; taken constitutionally, it’s in fact abounding with colorful dispersions. Especially delightful for its brazenness is the pause menu/status screen, centralized by a pillar of neon-green stamps, headlined by a teal and an orange ochre banner, and itemized on the right by a stack of iconographic boxes. As coloration and organization go, compared to Lament of Innocence’s screen, it’s sloppy. But as a chunk of graphic design to linger in, it’s delicious, and happily recalls Harmony of Dissonance’s palettes (also directed by Takashi Takeda).

Well! That’s nearly all I have to say about Curse of Darkness right now. I’m curious if the animated Castlevania series’ second season, featuring Hector and Isaac (Isaac is physically recast and no longer queer-coded in the way media tends to do that coding; a gain and a loss, in my opinion), got some people to try this game out for the first time. If it did, I’m also curious if the show’s characterizations transferred over, maybe allowing those people to enjoy Curse of Darkness in a way foreign to myself (no, I still haven’t watched the show) and others. Could the imaginatively supplementary reach of fanfiction sustain such a playthrough? Surely it’s possible.

You can read the prior three essays on CoD here, here, and here.

[mikrokosmos]

Queer Composers

For Pride Month, I would like to share a list of some of my favorite queer composers. Being queer doesn’t matter when talking about the music, and there is no other commonality that pairs these composers together. The point isn’t to say that queerness makes their music more valuable or influences their music, rather the point is to recognize diversity, and to acknowledge queer visibility. I understand the people who scratch their heads or roll their eyes at the idea of bringing up queer composers, and to them I say the point is simply to recognize their existence, because prejudices and biases through time have worked on erasing or revising history in order to keep hidden this aspect of the human condition. You could shrug and say “Who cares if Tchaikovsky was gay?” and I would say, “You’re right, it doesn’t matter much outside of biographies, but if you acknowledged Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality in Russia you could be arrested for “promoting gay propaganda”. I am also motivated by a comment from a friend who admitted they think the concept of “Pride” for anything you cannot control is “idiotic”. My response can be summed up as, when a group has been shamed for years for their identity, they will be ready to sing about it from the mountaintops when it is accepted. In other words, it is not about who is better or worse, rather it is the opposite of shame, and hopefully putting a human face on something that a lot of people only consider in the abstract.

In no particular order, here is some cool music by some queer people;

Tchaikovsky: Possibly the greatest composer in Russian history, and one of the greatest composers in general. Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky wrote in multiple genre, from symphonies to concertos to ballets, chamber music, opera…and while he can be criticized for the way he develops themes, his music is melodic and passionate and brimming with life. Among my favorites are his fourth symphony, the second piano concerto, the first orchestral suite, his piano trio, and his concert fantasy.

Poulenc: One of the members of Les Six, a group of Modernist French composers who were reacting against “overblown” Post-Romantic music, and methodical 12-tone serialism, Francis Poulenc can be described as a “neo-classicist”, sometimes his music resembles Stravinsky. The music tends to mix two unlikely moods: goofy, fun melodies and rhythms, and solemn religious contemplation. Cosmopolitan and Catholic, Poulenc was able to juxtapose opposite ends of the spectrum of the human condition; our vulgarity and profanity, and our spirituality and the desire for divine connection. My favorite works by him are his Organ Concerto, his harpsichord concerto “Concert-champêtre”, the concerto for two pianos, the cello sonata, and his Gloria.

Smyth: An English composer and an important figure in the Woman’s Suffrage movement, Ethel Smyth was a Post-Romantic who wrote powerful music lively with the British sense of nobility and strength. In the same ironic tragedy Beethoven went through, Smyth started to lose her hearing from 1913 onward, and so she gave up composing in favor of writing. While that is a shame, she left behind a good handful of orchestral and chamber music. My favorites by her are the overture to one of her operas, The Wreckers, her serenade which is kind of evocative of Brahms, and her gargantuan Mass in D Major.

Szymanowski: A Polish composer from the first half of the 20th century whose life can be seen as a narrative of seeking identity. Karol Szymanowski started out writing in the Post Romantic German style, with dense textures and a lot of chromatic modulation, but he was losing interest in this idiom quickly. He was inspired by Persian poetry he came across, and started writing in an Impressionistic way focusing on Mediterranean cultures, influenced by Greek and Roman mythology, Middle Eastern poetry, and the atmosphere of the Mediterranean as being a diverse mixing of cultures. Later in his life, he decided to look back at Poland for inspiration and finally found his “authentic” Polish identity in music inspired by the folk stories and Catholicism of Poland. My favorite works by him are his nocturne and tarantella for violin and piano, his song cycle the Love Songs of Hafiz, the third symphony, and his Stabat Mater.

Barber: It’s possible to say that Samuel Barber’s music is a good representative of American culture…a diverse mix of differences that complement each other. He took after jazz and blues, and after experiments in tonality heard in Europe and other American composers like Charles Ives, and he took after Romanticism with deep and powerful music. My favorite works by him are the Adagio for Strings which is heavily inspired by Mahler, his piano concerto, and Knoxville: Summer of 1915.

Copland: Another great portrait of America, Aaron Copland was considered one of the quintessential “American” composers of the 20th century, despite the combined factors of being gay, Jewish, leftist, and inspired by Russian and French modernism. All of those were seen as outsiders of the general American public. Even so, taking after Stravinsky, Copland’s music is full of spaciousness and open chords, melodies that range from longing to folksy and fun. My favorite works by him are his clarinet concerto, violin sonata, fanfare for the common man, and his ballet Appalachian Spring.

And if you reblog this list, feel free to add any of your favorite queer composers and share their music, their names, their faces.

[nooradeservedbetter]

Callout culture. The quest for purity. Privilege theory taken to extremes. I’ve observed some of these questionable patterns in my activist communities over the past several years.

As an activist, I stand with others against white supremacy, anti-blackness, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, and imperialism. I am queer, trans, Chinese American, middle class, and able-bodied.

Holding these identities scattered across the spectrum of privilege, I have done my best to find my place in the movement, while educating myself on social justice issues to the best of my ability. But after witnessing countless people be ruthlessly torn apart in community for their mistakes and missteps, I started to fear my own comrades.

As a cultural studies scholar, I am interested in how that culture—as expressed through discourse and popular narratives—does the work of power. Many disciplinary practices of the activist culture succeed in curbing oppressive behaviors. Callouts, for example, are necessary for identifying and addressing problematic behavior. But have they become the default response to fending off harm? Shutting down racist, sexist, and similar conversations protects vulnerable participants. But has it devolved into simply shutting down all dissenting ideas? When these tactics are liberally applied, without limit, inside marginalized groups, I believe they hold back movements by alienating both potential allies and their own members.

In response to the unrestrained use of callouts and unchecked self-righteousness by leftist activists, I spend enormous amounts of energy protecting my activist identity from attack. I self-police what I say when among other activists. If I’m not 100 percent sold on the reasons for a political protest, I keep those opinions to myself—though I might show up anyway.

On social media, I’ve stopped commenting with thoughtful push back on popular social justice positions for fear of being called out. For example, even though some women at the 2017 women’s march reproduced the false and transmisogynistic idea that all women have vaginas, I still believe that the event was a critical win for the left and should not be written off so easily as it has been by some in my community.

Understand, even though I am using callouts as a prime example, I am not against them. Several times, I have been called out for ways I have carelessly exhibited ableism, transmisogyny, fatphobia, and xenophobia. I am able to rebound quickly when responding with openness to those situations. I am against a culture that encourages callouts conducted irresponsibly, ones that abandon the person being called out and ones done out of a desire to experience power by humiliating another community member.

I am also concerned about who controls the language of social justice, as I see it wielded as a weapon against community members who don’t have access to this rapidly evolving lexicon. Terms like “oppression,” “tone policing,” “emotional labor,” “diversity,” and “allyship” are all used in specific ways to draw attention to the plight of minoritized people. Yet their meanings can also be manipulated to attack and exclude.

Furthermore, most social justice 101 articles I see online are prescriptive checklists. Although these can be useful resources for someone who has little familiarity with these issues, I worry that this model of education contributes to the false idea that we have only one way to think about, talk about, and ultimately, do activism. I think that movements are able to fully breathe only when there is a plurality of tactics, and to some extent, of ideologies.

I am not the first nor the last to point out that these movements for liberation and justice are exhibiting the same oppressive patterns that we are fighting against in larger society. Rather than wallowing in critique or walking away from this work, I choose a third option—that we as a community slow down, acknowledge this pattern and develop an ethics of activism as a response.

I believe it’s sorely needed as we struggle to mobilize in a chaotic and unjust world.

What might an ethics of activism look like?

Knowing when to be hard and when to be soft

I believe that when confronting unjust situations and unjust people, sometimes hardness is necessary, and other times softness is appropriate. Gaining the discernment to know when to use each is a task for a lifetime. I have often seen a burning anger at the core of activism, especially for newer activists. Anger can be righteous, and it often is when stemming from marginalized peoples weary of being mistreated. And yet, I want to use my anger as a tool for reaching the deeper, healing powers I possess when carving out a path of sustainable activism. Black social justice facilitator and doula adrienne maree brown writes of her oppressors, “What if what’s needed isn’t sexy, intimidating or violent? What if what is needed is forgiveness?” I’ve spent a good deal of energy exercising my ability to speak truth to power and boldly naming my enemies. Perhaps it is time to massage my heart so that I can choose to be soft toward someone in community who is hurting me, and open up the possibility of mutual transformation.

Adopting a politics of imperfection and responsibility

I have been mulling over sociologist Alexis Shotwell’s call for the left to adopt a “politics of imperfection and responsibility” as one way to move forward toward action and away from purity. A politics of imperfection asks me to openly acknowledge the ways in which my family and I have benefited and continue to benefit from oppressive systems such as slavery, capitalism, and settler colonialism. This is an ongoing investigation into my own complicity.  I am a Chinese American with immigrant parents, and my family has built economic stability by buying into the model minority myth, which is based largely in anti-blackness. As uninvited guests and visitors to this part of the world, we have claimed our new home on lands stolen from indigenous peoples. A politics of responsibility means that as I am complicit in harmful systems, I also possess full agency to do good. This allows me to commit to dismantling these systems and embracing centuries-long legacies of resistance. It means I am accountable in community spaces and do not destroy myself when others call me out on my errors. It means I practice a generosity of spirit and forgiveness towards myself and others. To do all this, I must publicly claim both imperfection and personal responsibility as an activist.

Tapping into our shared humanity

Marginalized people ask that privileged people look at them and see a human being, not a lesser-than being. Oppressive systems operate by systemically dehumanizing some groups for the benefit of others. On the flip side, I believe people with privilege are dehumanized when internalizing their societal supremacy over others. For example, the ethnographic studies that have been conducted to explain the election of Donald Trump have revealed the mass identity crisis in white America. We have seen poor and working class white Americans denounce people of color and diversity efforts because, sadly, they perceive them as threats to their historically established power and access. Rather than base cultural identities solely on power, could we tap into what we all have in common: our humanity, no matter how trampled it is? Black public theologian Christena Cleveland practices envisioning the humanity in those who challenge and attack her. According to her, training herself to cultivate love for her enemies makes it more effective for her to communicate and speak her truth into their hearts. She is as concerned about her well-being as she is about transforming antagonistic people in her life into “liberated oppressors.” Black elder activist Ruby Sales firmly tells her oppressors, with unyielding love in her voice: “You can’t make me hate you.”

These are suggestions that have aided me in navigating toxic social justice environments. In testing them out, I try to stay open to new tactics while understanding that I must remain flexible and responsive to the variable stages of justice work. If we as activists do not feel safe in our experimental microcosms of justice and liberation, what can we attempt to replicate across larger society?

[salgoo]

here’s the thing people bend over backwards for them because the CR cast holds themselves accountable if they mess something up or unintentionally hurt people who watch their content. 

they are by far one of the most genuine and kind group of people ive seen on the internet they try to be inclusive, they support and love their community, they do their best to be progressive.

and that’s rare. it’s rare to find people with that kind of following and still be very grounded and humble. And try to be as respectful as they can and own up to their mistakes.

because of who they are as people and how a lot of content they create resonates with others (like queer folk!!) people are protective of them. They have created a safe space for other’s. 

of course it isn’t always the case for others, and that’s fine.

can you criticize what they do? of course. 

but sometimes criticism turns into harassment and....that shouldn't happen. Especially not to people who are trying so hard to bring joy to their fan base.

and from what ive heard there seems to be a tendency of that in the CR fandom themselves? (I haven't been around for the first campaign ive only heard of cast members getting harassed for stuff) so i can only assume people are quick to defend them because of that and hold such a high admiration for them.

I (would hope) people aren’t lashing out at other’s because they think that minorities should be satisfied with the content they get from CR but rather because they don’t want people to just shit on the cast constantly for making a mistake (then probably apologizing for doing so) and people to bringing that up after it’s resolved, thinking they did nothing.

i think both sides should be a bit less....critical (ha.) and try to understand the other’s view.

i think most of this boils down to people caring and being passionate about the content they take in and wanting to defend what brings them joy. as people do.

i dont have much more to say on this but...as some people say: ‘dont forget to love each other.’

“matthew mercer has never done anything wrong in his life”

i need CR fans who say this kind of stuff to think about a) what kind of pressure they’re putting on a creator b) how dismissive they are being of genuine criticism/vents about CR content from queer folks, people of color, disabled folks, etc,, don’t treat one man like a god and don’t ignore criticism just because y’all like to fall over yourselves to defend these people !!!