#as a point of discourse

[pynkhues]

Is it usual for fandom to be so strict with sexual configurations of queer couples, whether it’s top/bottom, Dom/sub, or gender roles? If you’ve preferences for a set configuration of any of the above, more power to you, but the strictness with wanting to control how others interpret the story is confounding. I wonder if it’s motivated by a sense of insecurity RE: the likelihood that strict top Lestat will lose primacy in fandom with Season 3. Some people used to act like this at even the mere suggestion that there could be something sinister behind Armand’s façade: they asserted that it was out of protectiveness of a character of colour, much in the way those against bottom Lestat or sub Lestat assert that they want to protect Louis. But insecurity is at the core of it: they see the textual evidence leaving a breadcrumb trail in a direction they dislike and they respond by policing the fandom in the here and now to feel in control.

Oh, man, I honestly don't know, anon. My last few experiences of fandom have had pretty different contexts - I was in the Succession fandom, but while I dabbled in Kendall x Stewy, I was mostly there for gen sibling stuff (and wrote a handful of gen sibling fics), and before that Good Girls, which was anchored by a delightfully deranged cis het ship, so it's been a hot minute since I've been in the trenches of a queer ship on a queer show, and - - yeah! It's certainly ! A place to be on the internet!

I'll probably regret this in the morning, (it is almost midnight here rn, haha) but like - - yeah, I do think it comes from a place of insecurity to be honest. The vitriol in the discourse in this fandom really took me by surprise, and I've thought about it a lot over the last few months, and honestly I tend to think there was this discourse about Louis as a housewife that took off post s1, which I think is an interpretation of canon, albeit not one I personally agree with, which grew during the hiatus into this femme!Louis discourse which I don't want to get into, but will say that I personally don't see. I think that has been compounded by some (not all) people having a sexual/kink preference re: top/bottom, who weaponise the language of the housewife / femme Louis discourse to try and stamp out alternative iterations of the ship dynamic in fandom.

And look, I could be wrong on this - who knows - but I kind of do suspect that Louis becoming canonically a dom in s2 resulted in that idea of him being challenged, and that a subset of the fandom accepted that, and leant into all that that opened up with Louis' character, as a part (but not all!) of his sexuality, and another very vocal part has rejected it absolutely to the point that they act like Louis was forced into the role and that its unnatural to him. As a result, that faction of the fandom became more aggressive around top/bottom discourse as a means to not only maintain their personal preference (which is actually the more popular one, I think, in this fandom), but to try and ignore the fact that their interpretation might not be the intended one from the canon view point of the show.

Which is just a way of saying - - yeah. I think this policing comes from a place of insecurity. Like as somebody who likes and writes the less popular thing, why is my ask box the one that gets bombarded with it? If they were secure about it, if they felt their interpretation was the one the show was building towards, I don't know, wouldn't I be a blip on the radar? Especially given I rarely use main fandom tags and only have like, two popular fics?

I was actually talking about this with someone earlier, but even that idea of 'textual evidence' pops up all the time in this discourse, and it's like - - nothing is real until a character says it, but as soon as Lestat - literally - says 'you can be on top', there's always different ways to read it.

And look, sure, there are! But if that's your argument, then you can't deny there are different ways to read everything else too, including your assessment of scenes where Louis maybe bottoms, becaause that's probably the most 'textual' this show ever gets.

[vulturesawake]

Why are so many people convinced that "white, passing trans man in a liberal city surrounded by supportive family, peers, and medical professionals who is systemically equal to a cis man" is universally the only transmasculine experience in the entire world ever

[styrofauxm]

look. i'm sorry. really sorry for not just letting this die. but it bugs me. so suffer i guess.

If I saw a canonically trans character and said "well I prefer to write them as cis" people would be pissed at me, for good reason.

If I saw a canonical trans woman/man character and wrote them as a demigirl/boy and said "while the show just says she/he's trans, not that she/he's a trans woman/man" people would be pissed at me, also for good reason.

If a character was directly implied to be trans, and the creator confirmed later that they were meant to be trans, and I went "well it wasn't said explicitly in the show so it's not canon," people would be pissed at me, for good reason.

If the majority of a fandom did those things, we could collectively agree that the fandom is really transphobic.

You can sub this out for any queer identity with mainstream representation, and probably non-queer identities too.

So why is it considered acceptable to do these things to aspec characters?

Why are ships contrary to aspec identities the only ships against a character's canon queer identity that get popular?

Why are aspec people the only ones that get consistent ship discourse over our real identities?

Why are aspec people the only ones asked to sit back and take it?

Why is it on aspec people to not ruin allo people's fun in fandom, but allo people are allowed to ruin ours?

(The answer to all of the above is: aspec identities are viewed by other queer people as functionally straight and are treated as such)

[sforzesco]

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

[abrillustrated]

thinking about mizu from blue eye samurai. thinking. thinking so much. thinking about how mizu operates outside of gender. like we joke about her gender being revenge but straight up? it literally is. like she grew up as a boy and is most comfortable being a man, but behind that is the feeling of betraying himself because he isn't being honest about who he is and he lives in fear of being discovered. and when he lived as a woman, she found joy there as well. she fell in love, and though she wasn't good at it, she liked being a wife and enjoying a simple life. but in that life too, she isn't being honest about who she is. and when she reveals her true self, it's not a woman, she's a demon, a weapon. she's to masculine to be a woman, and too feminine to be a man. ultimately, mizu is most comfortable when they are being a murder machine. that's when they feel they are being the most true to themself. like a sword, they are neither man nor woman, but a blend of both, which makes them stronger.

[maybeiwasjustjade]

Genuinely, perhaps 99% of me, believes that the only reason Condal and Hess made HOTD Aegon a r*pist/have adult Aegon’s introduction the aftermath of the SA of a maid, was because they knew that if Aegon was just a drunk and a cheat—like almost all Westerosi men—he would be too tragic of a character not to root for, and they really couldn’t have that. No, Aegon has to be the monster to Rhaenyra’s saint, because if you took away the act that made him monstrous, he’s so easy to root for, and the TB/TG divide would be significantly larger.

Cheating and visiting brothels are quite common in Westeros, with the vast majority of male characters doing one or the other or both. Drinking is even more so. Aegon would still be palatable with either or both traits because it doesn’t make him worse than Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra had three bastards with Harwin because Laenor’s gay, so it makes her affair understandable and valid. Aegon was forced to marry his own sister as a young teen, and clearly despises the whole targ-incest tradition. Why is it a crime that he doesn’t find his little sister sexually or romantically attractive???

Aegon’s basically a Greek tragedy made flesh. The eldest son conceived to be a long-awaited heir, yet simultaneously cheated out of a birthright. Born wanted yet unwanted, the heir who is not an heir. Meant to be loved, yet raised without it, with a mother’s disdain and fear as his only companion. His father stopped wanting him sometime after his second birthday (probably around the time Jacaerys was born), and his mother never wanted him anyway. His mere existence is a threat to a crown he never wanted, yet nobody cared when they placed it on his head. He wants love but no one loves him, and contrary to popular belief, that lack of love didn’t just stem from adulthood. He was a little boy once too, who very much didn’t deserve that level of apathy.

Married to his sister despite his clear disdain for his family’s incestuous tradition. Forced to father children on her at the grand old age of sixteen (and she fourteen). The only thing he ever really loved was his dragon, and the children he had. And even those he loses to tragedy, and someone else’s doing.

It’s not at all a surprise that Aegon’s defining trait is his love for Sunfyre. A ridiculously strong bond, born from years of having only each other. Moreover, a dragon is the symbol of power, which Aegon has little of. He can’t protect himself from his own family’s abuse or machinations, and unless he claims the crown everyone he loves will die. Dragons also represent freedom, and the ability to just fly away. And if there’s one thing Aegon wants more than anything in the world, it’s to run away from his family and the accursed throne.

In that, he’s not so different than a young Rhaenyra (pre-personality change anyway). Young Rhaenyra hated having to conform to societal standards. Hated having no choice but to marry, and to whom. She too wanted to fly away to freedom. There’s too many parallels between the two, even down to their ages pre-timeskip. Rhaenyra was about 18, and Aegon now is only 20. Yet Rhaenyra at 16’s only problem was whether her infant brother would replace her as heir, while Aegon’s was being forced to play house with his sister and newborn twins.

Perhaps misogyny and society would always be Rhaenyra’s greatest opponent, and the same Aegon’s ally when it comes to their claims, but it was not the only issue. Precedent declared that Aegon would be heir ahead of her, yet it was Rhaenyra’s position and honor that Viserys defied law for, even when she committed high treason against the crown thrice. She got everything; Aegon had nothing. He’s the underdog of the story, not her. So had they not made him an on screen r*pist (unlike Daemon who was off-screen one and merely an on-screen pedo and wife-killer), it would’ve been very hard for the writers to push their “Rhaenyra good, TG bad” narrative. Those two would’ve had too many parallels and foils for it to work, and they really couldn’t have that, could they.

No, Aegon has to be the villain; Rhaenyra has to be the hero. It’s a black and white war, good vs evil. That’s the story HOTD is trying to sell, and not at all the complex tragedy of a family tearing itself and its dynasty into pieces over greed and idiocy.

[gregoriahlover]

anti 1: look at that guy, shipping incest. isn’t that weird? i sure hope he doesn’t have a sibling at home 🤢

anti 2: yeah! i’m so relieved that you agree with me. it seems like everyone condones and glorifies incest these days

anti 1: awesome! i would never even think about participating in the glorification of illegal and immoral actions. ew!

anti 2: you’re cool. let’s go play military propaganda game where you shoot each other with heavy weapons and bombs. modern warfare or black ops?

anti 1: doesn’t matter to me either way! at least neither of them glorifies literal illegal activity which ruins lives and triggers traumatized people :p

[aropride]

this post is so bad my jaw actually dropped. like. yes being trans and going thru the wrong puberty is often incredibly traumatic. that is not the same as the intentional and widespread medical abuse against intersex people (especially children). irreversible medically unnecessary often physically harmful and psychologically harmful+traumatizing hormone treatment and surgeries are not the same as having to go through natal puberty, which is also often traumatizing, but it is different. and you know damn well that is not what intersex people are talking about when they talk about forced medical intervention and abuse. it is not the same thing at all. & this is such an obviously intentional misinterpretation of what intersex activists have been talking about.

[imperial-cat]

Reading Orym discourse on twitter is kinda funny, "it's unfair that he has a trump card and can shut down any conversation with it", like, I don't know but, if I don't have a counter argument in a discussion, maybe this means the other person has a valid point?

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[celtrist]

It's okay to be emotional over a ship.

It's okay to be emotional over a ship. It's okay to be emotional over characters. It's okay to share grievances over a ship as much as it's okay to gush over a ship. It's okay to feel so overwhelmingly negatively over a ship just as much as it's okay to feel so overwhelmingly positive.

While it's always going to be better to focus on positives, it can also be just as good to let out any negatives you might have about something rather than bottling it in and, for some, feeling alone in your thoughts about it.

It is so, so, SO OKAY to be so heavy in emotions concerning a ship whether negative or positive because it means you're invested in the characters and their relationships. When spaces seem to allow only positivity when some people might have some negative thoughts on a ship, it really negates any conversations about it and even understanding sides of why someone may or may not ship something.

While understandable, there is a double standard between being negative and positive about ships (or portrayal of characters). If you feel overwhelmingly negative about something, "you need to go touch grass". If you feel overwhelmingly positive about something, "go at it queen". I would personally argue we all need to touch grass.

It is NOT okay to harass others. It is NOT okay to let your emotions dictate that you should attack somebody for LIKING a certain ship or DISLIKING a certain ship. Your emotions DO NOT dictate how OTHERS should feel.

It is okay to be negative about a character or ship as much as it's okay to be positive about them. Neither side of being for or against a ship is more virtuous than the others. It's okay to have some fucking emotions regardless if their positive or not, because it means you CARE about the media and the characters in it.

No, you should not revolve your whole online experience in negativity. Find positive in things you DO enjoy. But to brush off people who vehemently might dislike a character or ship as "losers with no lives" is to disregard a person's emotions on something. And if you do wanna think that mindset, congrats, people who obsessively love a character or ship are just the same by your logic. Obsession is obsession, regardless if it's negative or positive.

TL;DR, If it's okay to be overwhelmingly positive in liking something like a ship or character, it should be just as okay to be negative in disliking something like a ship or character. Just as long as it's not the ONLY thing you focus on and no one is actively being bullied, attacked, or harassed about it. And of course, either way, positive or negative, it is all fiction, and a real person should not be attacked or harassed for it. And if you don't want to indulge in negativity you might have, 100% valid. Both sides always need to take a step back into reality.

[the-goose-caboose]

I think a lot of what makes the tma/tme and transandrophobia discussion so volatile is people forgetting systemic vs personal opression

Like I think a lot of tumblr leftists learned “bigotry isn’t just personal! It’s also systemic opression of marginalized groups.” But forgot the “just” and instead started thinking bigotry only exists on the major scale.

Yeah, misandry isn’t a real systematic problem, but you are still capable of personally being bigoted against masculinity.

This is what leads to people telling transfems who disagree with them to kill themselves but still believing themselves to be good transfeminists. They think that acknowledging and fighting against systemic oppression is the only measure of activism

[secondbeatsongs]

tbh my ideal tumblr feature would be a three strikes system where if someone I follow posts something I'm not chill with (discourse, bad faith takes, unkindness in general, etc) I can press a lil button by their name and it gives them a strike, and after three strikes it unfollows them for me, so that I don't have to keep track of which of my mutuals has suddenly decided to reblog garbage on the regular

[readwing]

One interesting part of the discourse surrounding family-coding relationships in media is when people who are against it raise the argument that two characters ‘can’t be sibling-coded because their relationship is more complicated than that.’ As if siblings relationships by nature were an uncomplicated thing

[thatmexisaurusrex]

Sometimes, I see people vague posting and it's like I'm happy I don't live there, I'm cool in my little writing hole tap tap tapping away at fics that spark joy.

[ahappydnp]

you ever have those specific moments/clips where you're reminded dnp are just some dudes bc this is mine

me (only child) back in the day seeing them (both grew up with brothers) rough house all the time and being like D: