#because the people who create these characters are cis they dont really understand what makes a person transgender

[whitehairedanimeboyfriend]

I feel like even in trans positive spaces trans men are seen as less authentic than trans women, because we supposedly have something to gain by transitioning or wanting to be men. (social power.) It's reflective of how we look at historical people that by today's standards we would see as trans men (Joan of Arc) or fictional characters that live as men while secretly being women. (Naoto from Persona, Sheik from Zelda.) And this is going to be an uphill battle until we get rid of gender essentialism in our spaces completely.

[zan0tix]

May I just say I really really appreciate your approach to and respect for the transfemininity embedded in Homestuck. Like the fact that you depict Jake as a kind of "genderfuck" (for lack of a better word) character without trying to divorce that from transfemininity as so many others do, as well as being able to depict Roxy with certain clocky characteristics without disregarding her femininity or making it feel fetish-y, is all really admirable in my eyes. It gets extremely frustrating seeing large swathes of the fandom constantly trying to separate the story of Homestuck from transfemininity despite it having a transfem enby author, so I really appreciate that you don't shy away from it in your art :)

I am so glad!!!!! Its something ive Always noticed in like every fandom since i first got onto the internet the disparity between the amount of transfems i knew vs how often their story got to be uplifted in fandom spaces or get to be celebrated how transmascs did considering how queer dominated they are but then i grew up and realised how badly male centric queer spaces are too😭

Homestuck is one of the spaces that has a big amount of transfems openly engaging in fandom activities and that makes me really happy to see! since i often see gross rhetoric from transmascs or cis women about fandom spaces abt “who is allowed” and “fandom being a safe space” cough blatant transmisogyny (sobs everywhere its so bad)

I DONT UNDERSTAND HOW PPL BRUSH PAST HUSSIE BEING TRANS SO OFTEN ISNT THAT INSANE. To me it reframes homestuck how the creators of the matrix being trans does. Like I dunno maybe that informed the works presentation of gender somehow. Maybe all the commentary and critique and displays of frustration at the contradictory nature of gender but especially trying to fit “being a man” in society came from somewhere when they were writing it 🤔🤔🤔 hussie said it herself that alot of homestuck was just stream of consciousness. Everything that comes out of daves mouth near the end seemed very plausible to be a reflection of hussies own journey realising that Actually these boundaries of what defines A Good Man and A Good Woman are ridiculous and no person can possibly live up to that no matter what were told from birth.

But i try my best to reflect the innate transfemininity of homestuck and the majority of its cast, its something integral to the works themes and just the community who built it! It saddens me how skittish other transmascs are about engaging with or portraying the transfeminine stories when its just. Practically textual. And all you need to do is Listen and empathise. I love learning how other feminine people see themselves in this story like how often do you get such a menagerie of in depth fem characters. And i love seeing what the experiences transfems see echoed in homestuck are because its all such insightful stuff About femininity and its beauty and its ills all at once. Roxy..kanaya.. wipes tear from my eye.

I want to actively include and celebrate transfem features and bodies as much as transmasc ones get to be around here and i am glad my jake and roxy do feel that way 🥹🥹 my aim with my designs is to make them feel like some everyday people youd see, no fetishisation/sexualisation or demonisation, just Existing and appreciating. Because i know how much it can mean to see yourself in something and for that to be treated with care and kindness. Its why i create in the first place! Because of how others creations gave me that comfort when i couldnt find it elsewhere

I feel similarly about how people portray fat women or just like. Women in general. its sad how badly the whole sexualisation = acceptance warps how people portray things fatness or transfem features. Never ever saying these things arent hot or sexy or to be appreciated. Duh. I think how i portray jake says enough abt what i think of that LOL just that It feels like its the only way people try and show theyre accepting? Which just feels so gross and dehumanising the only way they think to display they feel empathy is through saying “Yeah i can get off to people like you”😭

Rlly bad in society in general so also in the homestuck space. Worlds hardest challenge is liking the alpha kids. Im so sorry for what they do to you jane and roxy🥲🥲🥲 Its baffling because Homestuck is Prime Example Numero Uno of how to humanise characters. Just display them being people; their thoughts, their feelings, their insecurities, their passions, their woes, their loves, their losses. So much can be communicated through how a character speaks with their friends.

I wana do that for jake and roxy! They get to be dimensional too! I like showing their laughs and their sorrows, just them Existing with the people around them. They get to be a part of the lighthearted comedy just as the rest of them do. They get to be a part of all the gender and sexuality insanity going on in their friend group, can point out their flaws and mistakes and insecurities. I dunno its rlly not that hard to just empathise with them and want to tell their stories.

I am so invested in the raw unabashed Humanity of homestuck. Its just one person pouring their brain contents into this huge thing and it displays the best and the worst and the absurdity and the questions. Its so interesting and hussies transness IS JUST BAKED INTO IT. Thus the characters contain that too and it kinda stinks of transmisogyny to throw that out!

YAPPING TOO MUCH OMG but i rlly appreciate this ask🫶🫶🫶makes me so happy to hear

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Regarding the new characters in obey me; im super happy their giving us more gender diverse characters. We love that representation

However… to be blunt about it- While i like how the mc can be imagined to be any gender, ethnicity, sexuality, appearance, etc; if they were really going for inclusivity and diversity, they shouldve already had female, non-binary, trans, etc characters from the start and not just adding them in later on. It just feels cheap to do that now. There are characters in the cast that couldve been female or non binary or even trans and the story will be unaffected if not even better. Hell, it would make so much more sense if asmo was gender fluid or enby.

I can understand how some people who didnt pay attention think that this was just any other otome game targeted to a mainly female audience because the entire cast is composed of all cis males. (Unless canon states otherwise and i missed it) but its not. It really infuriates me how petty some people become with just seeing a feminine silhouette. We dont even know much about the new characters and their role in the story yet.

Tldr; solmare should’ve given us the women and enbys from the start of the game. This drama couldve been avoided. But its better late than never i guess.

Sorry for making you read my rant, Thank you and goodnight

Ps: I dont know if this is a real hot take or i just need to chill. But oh boy do i have alot of grievances to the story and gameplay already

Okay so about Solmare not giving us nb, female and trans LIs from the beginning- I completely understand your frustration and I would have loved that However:

Look, I'm not trying to defend Solmare or whatever but you gotta consider their side of things too:

1.) I genuinely don't think they had a concrete plan to add more LIs than the brothers. The game advertises romancing the 7 brothers and that's it. Usually an otome game would advertise their large variety of male LIs. I don't think they expected OM! to grow so popular in such a short period of time (specially considering they have loads more games that never reached this level of popularity). They probably did have a plan of maybe making the side characters dateable but I feel like 13 and Mephisto were both (relatively) rushed jobs?

2.) I don't what the situation is like in Japan - ik being gay is not illegal but I don't know what the actual situation is like there when you're creating lgbtq+ media. I do however live in an Asian country and I do know that getting any type of lgbtq+ media that isn't all awfully stereotyped is hard. I do know that even in Western countries where things are supposed to be generally more accepted that creators can struggle to get lgbtq+ relationships out there. That (though this is somewhat outdated) they had to fight to let Asami & Korra hold hands, or to let Ruby & Sapphire get married (& that in certain dubs Ruby was voiced by a man), that they had to keep hints of Catra & Adora and Marceline & Bubblegum subtle until the last episode. That the producers of Gotham (the tv show) kept referring to two female characters who were canonically in a relationship and who had slept together on the show, as "best friends" despite the writers insisting they were girlfriends, that they had a canon gay character and his possible love interest referred to "as brothers" within the show itself. I have no idea who heads Solmare or who greenlights these games but I can't imagine it wasn't an uphill battle.

3.) Look at the end of the day OM! is an otome game and they are known for having a tiny fair skinned MC with long brown hair. Anime itself is not really the most inclusive of lgbtq+ relationships (and though this has changed recently and there have been more realistic portrayals of them - for the most part they have been either a.) completely ignored b.) used as the butt of a joke c.) grossly fetishized d.) weirdly noncon/dubcon for no reason). So OM! first of all giving us a MC without a confirmed gender who uses they/them pronouns within the game is huge!? I played this game thinking it was gonna be about another petite girl and that I would delete it after about a month and when I realised MC used they/them pronouns within the actual game it felt like I got hit by a speeding train? It was amazing. And now they're adding a nb character with a feminine aesthetic as a LI????? Like hello??? Is no one else impressed? If OM! keeps getting popular they may follow wizardess heart and add more LIs (after all Michael still isn't there yet) meaning potentially more diverse characters. Maybe it's because of what the situation is like where I live (aka being gay is still illegal and - though the law has never been implemented - punishable by 10yrs in prison) and so maybe I have low standards but to me this is a lot and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them have their slow start (specially considering Solmare has never done anything like this before and they're breaking their own mould and I'm generous enough to let them stumble and take baby steps. Hopefully other new otome games will see om! and its popularity and follow in its footsteps while also improving and picking up OM!'s slack)

Yeah I've been annoyed at people too cause of how they're reacting to a feminine silhouette but I don't really think you can blame anyone else but those people if:

a.) They have no reading comprehension when the game clearly states in the description that it was for all genders

b.) They can't read the note next to the silhouette which says the new character is for people who would prefer them and that they're not there to steal away the other LIs

c.) They're facing some weird internal misogyny/bigotry and are now demanding that anyone who wants a variety in the LIs' gender should get their own game. <- Look if someone is saying this I AM NOT gonna blame Solmare or the OM! team. I'm gonna blame that particular person for being a grade A asshole

Here's a link to a post I made about people feeling anxious about 13 and reasons why they don't have to be, it also touches on some of the stuff I said here -> here

EDIT:

Tldr: all my points basically add up to this ->

[ifandomus]

Why do people like Zemo?!

Something I have been wondering about for a while now is why people like Zemo as much as they do. He even gets more appreciation than Sam, who is an incredible person (the reason isnt exactly difficult to figure out*). While Zemo is an interesting character, and he does have some good points it doesnt change that he has killed and hurt a lot of innocent people and a lot of people gloss over that fact. I can understand his motive, but I cant get past what he did.

*(Racism)

Its not suprising because white cis men usually gets away with anything they do, especially if they are charismatic, attractive and rich (like Zemo and Tony). They can kill and hurt as many people as they want, and people will still stan them and either justify what they did, or just gloss over it. And the fact that it keeps happening is a big problem. And its happening both in real life, and in at least most fandoms.

Now I am not saying that liking morally darker people is wrong. I also like some of them. What I am saying is that glossing over their bad actions is a problem. If you add in villanising other characters who havent done anything remotely that bad being critisised more, it gets really irritating.

Now lets get more into Zemo, and compare him to the other two Sokovians who wanted revenge on the avengers. (I wont really be talking about anything past civil war, or this would get very long and my ADHD can only handle so much.)

Zemo killed a lot of innocent people. I couldnt find an exact number on anything but the bombing, but it was over a dozen at least. First the bombing killed 12 people, including king T’chaka (the fact that his death is so glossed over is not lost on me*1). Then he kills Dr. Theo Broussard. Then he uses Bucky*2 to kill and injure an unknown number of people at the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre. None of these people had anything to do with his motive! The only ones I can excuse him for is Karpov and the other 5 winter soldiers. But I cant look past the rest.

1*(Racism and Xenophobia)

2*(Zemo uses Buckys body without his consent. The fact that some people ships them sickens me!)

Now for his motive. This part I can understand. He lost his father, wife and son. I cant even imagine how painful that must be! However that does not give him the right to hurt innocent people! I can understand why he would blame the avengers, but the only ones among them who were responsible in any way were Tony, Bruce and maybe a tiny bit Wanda (even though Tony having a bad nightmare would have had the same results). The main one responsible is of course Ultron. No one but Tony and Bruce knew about creating Ultron, because if they did they would have stopped it. It was actually a betrayel of Thor. When Ultron broke free they did everything they could to stop him and save people. Its not their fault that they werent able to save everyone. They did everything they could and without them Ultron would have killed everyone on earth. So it makes sense that he would blame some of the avengers, but most were completly innocent and risked their lives trying to save as many as possible. And in Pietros case actually gave their life.

Wich brings me to two other people who also wanted revenge, the Maximoff twins. Although Wanda is usually the only one of them to be held responsible (the fact that she is female and an eastern European immigrant is also not lost on me*). Now some people gloss over what she did too, wich is wrong. Dont get me wrong I love Wanda, but that doesnt mean that I cant admit that she has made some bad mistakes. Granted she feels a lot of remorse and regret wich we dont really see Zemo do. However a lot of people are villanising Wanda completly.

*(Sexism and Xenophobia)

Like Zemo the twins lost their family. Their parents were killed by a Stark missile, then they had to wait for two days with another one right by them. They couldnt move from where they were hiding, so they would have been starving and dehydrated, but all they could do were wait and hope that the missile didnt blow them up. Then they had to move to an orphanage, given the conditions in the country I cant imagine that would be a nice place. And keep in mind they were 10 years old. They got desperate and wanted to protect their country, so they end up joining hydra wich was pretending to be shield at the time. But only untill they got the power they needed to defend their country. Now the twins were younger than Zemo, and the weapon that killed their parents came from from Stark industries. So it makes sense that they would have a personal grudge. However Zemo was older, he led a Sokovians kill squad, and he is a very critical thinker. So it makes less sense for him to hold a personal grudge on most of the avengers.

For their revenge the only people the twins intentionally harmed were the avengers, unlike Zemo who knowingly killed a lot of people that he knew had nothing to do with it. The twins wanted to protect their country, while Zemo declared it a failed state. So why are the twins critisised and hated more than Zemo?!

[tomatograter]

I have a genuine question and really want to learn... I prefer june, but I have friends who still enjoy j*hn, most of them being transmasc. they do it on their own and like the idea of june as well and dont bring j*hn up on june posts. but is it... bad ? to be letting them do so? should i be pushing more for them to let him go, or is it fine to do on their own? feeling very caught between oh its just a story leave real ppl alone and telling them to listen to transfems

You can't be everyone's parent but the fact is there's only heated discussion and high rejection rates targeted at june because people find it... impossible to relate to transfems? And they don't want to question why? You can circle the discourse however many times you want, it'll always come back to hostility targeting trans women and highly defensive takes that equate her existence to a "threat" on the fanon creators that by and large want her to be a cis dude who fucks other cis dudes. A brief stroll on the rated by kudos ao3 section provides not only a confirmation of this but a light urge to puke at some of the top ranked edgelord material lol

Can you actually forcefully change someone's mind by arguing with them? Not really. What you'll most likely get is bigoted rhetoric parroted at you, motivated either by nostalgia or feeling like you're trying to attack Them by 'stealing' their favorite character and making them 'unrecognizable'. There is a very strong sense from a lot of people that if they can ignore her or deny her for long enough she'll go away, and it's why you can get a barrage of shitty comments for simply stating 'i like her, she's not going anywhere.' Or 'i dont want to draw june as a dude anymore'

Is it bad to insist that june is a dude on the second year she's been widely adapted into the community? Well, yeah, if you care so much about trans rights why is it only ever readily in support of a very specific group of transmascs. June never read as a trans man to me, much less one that has been out since they were a kid. June can't even have herself referred as a gay man in comic. This isn't a narrative for me. It doesn't have to be. If you're clear-headed enough to understand portraying june as a man negates her existence as a trans woman, then you can also understand the only thing being accomplished by further feeding into the bubbles of the community that vehemently insist she's a man is the spread of the mindset that it doesn't matter. This content isn't being created nor does it exist in a vacuum. A certain june boyship used to have 300~ fics last year but has been embraced so deeply as a reactionary response to "June Existing" it currently sits at 500+ and counting, most fancontent revolving around her firmly asserting how much of a Man she truly is, and somehow people don't find this unsettling in the thick of it.

There's no easy answer. For /me/, i cannot and will not find myself backing an argument that mirrors outright transphobia, disenfranchisement of transfems, and repeated misgendering for the funsies of it. For everybody else?

Idk. What will you do?

[ardenttheories]

turnfagshithead replied to your post “I'm honestly very close to writing a post on how the trolls coming out...”

wait dont the trolls have both slimey dicks and coochies or am i misremembering something??? how would they transition??? how would...they have an assigned assigned assigned gender?

They do, and that’s part of the problem. 

In a species with sexual dimorphism, males and females are determined by the characteristics that define their sex - most prominently that males have penises and females have vaginas, but it can also include things such as antlers on bucks or brightly coloured feathers on birds. 

This distinction is used to understand which member of the species hosts the babies, essentially, and which fertilises the eggs. It’s an important distinction only in so far as it’s important for the propogation of the species, and (for instance) in the wild, you’d need to keep an eye on the ratio of males to females to ensure that you have a stable population. 

(This is also how you can calculate if a species is going extinct or not. Not only can you take into account the general population drop, but also if there are enough males/females to breed without the issue of inbreeding.)

The problem with sexual dimorphism in a developed and sentient society, however, is that we then start putting values of importance on one sex over the other. This is where you get the concept that “men are the superior species and women are the frail sex”, because testosterone allows for an easier time creating muscle mass and because (as a general rule of thumb) men tend to be taller. It’s also what allows for the perpetuation of male aggressiveness, and the oppression of women through supposed “biological” fact. We then enforce these concepts as assigned gender.

The point of this being, of course, that when you make a society structured entirely around the genitalia someone has and whether or not that makes them capable within your society, people are going to start fighting back against those structures. E.g. butch lesbians, who are considered to portray more masculine traits, or femme gays, who do the same but for feminine traits. They begin to act “outside” of their assigned sex, which honestly just means “outside of the way society has structured and understood sex to work”, because all sexual dimorphism actually does is state the whole baby thing. There’s no other implications to sexual dimorphism than what we put onto it. 

So, as an intelligent species, we then have the ability to consider the gendered structure of our society and decide that it’s not sufficient. It’s also just our prerogative to understand what “gender” as a concept is, and to figure out what we think or feel about the sex we were born with and how it conflicts or agrees with how we understand ourselves. This, naturally, is when you start to see trans identities coming forward!

In our society, where we present sexual dimorphism, being trans is a legitimate event because our sex doesn’t always align with our gender expression. Someone can come out a transmasc because we have a specific set of biological, physical, and society factors that make up what a “man” is, and we have ways to help someone transition from one state of sexual dimorphism to another. We also simply have ways to express our gender identities outside of transitioning, since once we undersand that our gender identity can be anything regarding our sex and how we societally view it, you can start considering nonbinary identities as well. 

Or, I suppose to put it more simply, we can transition because there’s something to transition from and to - but we can also just disconnect our sexual dimorphism from our own understanding of us. 

The trolls, however, aren’t a species that present sexual dimorphism. I’ve gone over this before, actually, and you can probably find it on my blog under “#homestuck biology”, but the gist of it is that:

As a species based heavily on insects (which have a different gender system based on their roles in the hive), with an outside factor that allows them to breed (the Mother Grub), and with a canonical explanation that every troll has a nook (vagina) and a bulge (penis) that is only used for sexual gratification/the creation of the genetic slurry and isn’t used to have the species birth their own young, there’s literally no reason for sexual dimorphism to exist within the trolls. 

It’s at this point in reading that you usually click with the idea that Hussie didn’t know how to write a species that didn’t adhere to a strict male-female divide. It’s not surprising, as a cis male, that he immediately leant towards what he knew: girls and boys, with the girls having tits (and most of the time, lipstick) so that you can recognise them as girls. It’s a fairly solid choice in a cis viewpoint. Not so much from a trans one, and definitely not when you then consider the actual lore he provided with us to begin with.

Trolls quite literally cannot transition - not in the way we understand it. There is no male sex or female sex, and therefore they’re not transitioning from one thing to another. There’s not even an inherently strict binary that they can then exist outside of (or on a spectrum of) that allows for nonbinary identities as we understand it. In all technicality, there shouldn’t even be a male-female divide in the trolls at all - it serves genuinely no purpose in a species that doesn’t bare their own young and doesn’t have sexual dimorphism as a result. 

So, there’s this really big issue when the writers then try to say that the various characters are trans, or that they do or don’t face transphobia. Why would Vriska have a dead name? Why would that name be gendered when there’s nothing to inherently define her as male or female? Why would her lusus - or Eridan’s, for that matter - care what pronouns their charges use when there’s nothing to state what assigned sex or gender they are? Why would these trolls face anything like the genuine transphobia we experience in daily life in a society that has no structures built around gender presentation?

It comes across as very fake and hollow. No, Vriska and Eridan and Sollux can’t be trans. They quite literally cannot understand what it means to be trans, to have an assigned sex that determines everything that people who see you believe of you. They do not know what it is like to be misgendered on face value because of a lack of tits or because of facial hair, or becuse of a rounded or sharper jawline. These differences just don’t exist for them. They do not face the same experiences or the same issues that trans people do. Trying to force our identities onto them - onto their society - waters down the issues we face in real life. 

It also just ruins the actual lore behind the trolls and their biology, and the fact that we could have had an entirely different understanding of gender and gender expression shown through their society.

It’s like, great that they’re trying to give us representation through the trolls, and I’ll admit that it’s nice to see the attempt done at all, but it’s quite literally only being done because a cis man could not imagine a society without sexual dimorphism and the effect that would have on the society’s gender expression.

[badatusernames]

CHOJI, SHIKAMARU, LEE, GAARA & HINATA!! ITS A LOT IM SORRY

THANK U FOR THIS...admittedly some answers may be a lil short just so i can like. Get to them all.

EDIT: IDK WHY IT LOOKS LIKE THIS. IM SO TIRED. IM SORRY ITS JUST A LONGASS NARUTO POST ON YOUR DASH I TRIED MY FUCKIN BEST YALL

SEND ME A CHARACTER AND I’LL DO THIS;

Chouji (man i’ve seen it spelled both ways and i’m just used to typing Chouji at this point sorry)

Sexuality Headcanon: Pansexual!!  Gender Headcanon: Cis male A ship I have with said character: SHIKAMARU. SHIKAMARU. SHIKAMARU. SHIKAMARUUUU, my god...just, everything about their dynamic makes my heart melt, the way they’re both people who are easily dismissed by others and how they have such UNFALTERING FAITH in each other. chouji knows how much of a genius shikamaru is, knows very well the fact that despite his laziness, once he commits to something he’s in it for the LONG HAUL, the way shikamaru just believes so steadfastly in chouji, considering him stronger than NEJI FOR FUCKS SAKE...they like. get one another, the kind of relationship where you can be yakking away one minute and then just sitting in contented silence the next. they can just laze around. maybe play video games and snack. and sometimes...kiss. and it’s so chill even with that latent tenderness their later relationship develops and they both just feel so safe and KNOWN and familiar like. love your best friend. anyway everyone slept on shikacho and y’all should be ashamed the naruto fandom is enormous and finding pretty much ANY content for it is almost impossible aside from the small (if lovely and amazing) tag and i’m pretty hyperfixated on it if you couldn’t tell holy SHIT.  A BROTP I have with said character: i’m really not a fan of ino taking potshots at him for his weight and outright shaming him, but once she grows out of that i absolutely love their friendship. listen, you know that post thats like--hold on

thats just them, thanks. A NOTP I have with said character: i have nothing against karui but canon is fucking dead to me and my opinions on p much all the “endgame” ships range from utterly neutral to absolute loathing. their relationship is on neither end of the spectrum, but. eh. definitely not into it. A random headcanon: he keeps nursing injured animals back to health because he’s just that fucking sweet and bringing them back to his house to keep them warm and safe while they recover and his team knows vaguely about this and ino and shikamaru like to poke fun at him for it but since they don’t tend to encounter said animals, it’s not really a huge deal.

of course they stop by his house one day bc he hadn’t shown up for training which is annoying and frankly a little concerning and finding the house mostly empty ino just bursts on into chouji’s room only to immediately have the opossum he’s been caring for latch its little paws on her face and cling.

it’s a bad morning. General Opinion over said character: literally one of my absolute favorites of all time and it really breaks my heart how overlooked he is in the fandom (seriously y’all...). i think kishimoto is kind of a stupid hack and the Fat Jokes are really grating and it sucks to see that so intrinsically tied to his character (like. just let him be fat. jesus christ) but his kindness and overall relaxed, loyal and lovable nature has me just melting. i adore him. 

Shikamaru

Sexuality Headcanon: He’s gay, scoob. (I could also talk a lot about how his earlier misogyny is both a product of being a whiny tween and also some internalized frustration of like WHATS SO GREAT ABOUT GIRLS. UGH. I DONT. STOP TELLING ME IM GONNA FALL IN LOVE WITH ONE ONE DAY DAD JESUS. and let’s be real, thats frustrating, even if it aint an excuse)  Gender Headcanon: he uses he/him pronouns because it’s just what he’s used to and comfortable with but man gender is such a drag... A ship I have with said character: SEE ABOVE SHIKACHO RANT A BROTP I have with said character: naruto! he and naruto have a really adorable friendship and i love love LOVE that he and chouji were shown to be kind and accepting of him even when most people were shunning him. also he’s so fucking dumb i love seeing shikamaru meticulously plan out something only to have naruto shriek into battle and ruin all of it. love those guys. stupid bros.  A NOTP I have with said character: ok. im sorry i just. loathe sh*katema i really do. i haaaate the way kishimoto writes this whole “ew a GIRL” “ew a MAN” vibe with the like OOOH BUT THEYRE GONNA LIKE EACH OTHER vibe like. 

don’t get me wrong i adore them as friends, i think they’re fantastic scathing and witty pals who bitch about anything and everything including each other

but they’re also both gay and kishimoto can suck my nuts byeeee A random headcanon: sometimes pakkun just fucking Shows up and chills with him. shikamaru wants absolutely no part of this but is way too lazy to like. do anything about it so it’s just this guy and a dog sitting in a field chillin and occasionally him piping up like ‘hey kid. remember when i bit your hand? yeah? haha, man time sure does fly.” while shikamaru is just. go aWAY.   General Opinion over said character: if you told 9 year old me watching naruto for the first time my favs were gonna be a three way tie of lee, shikamaru and chouji i never would have fucking believed you but here we are. i love him. i absolutely love him. he’s such a whiny bastard and a really good depiction of burnout genius who doesnt want to do ANYTHING, but his intellect is an absolute DELIGHT to watch. i love him very much. 

Lee

Sexuality Headcanon: he’s pan!! this is a boy that crushes easily and crushes hard on just about anyone!!!! Gender Headcanon: cis male A ship I have with said character: ok i ship him a lot with neji actually? what with how neji grows during the course of the series to regard lee with the respect he deserves is really sweet and there’s just something so infinitely adorable about him going around being the hammiest, most ridiculously earnest, kind and enthusiastic person and neji, now that he isn’t constantly bitter and angry at the world can finally really see that? lee is always happily dropkicking his way into his life, like he wouldn’t have it any other way, and i think that’s just...so sweet A BROTP I have with said character: SAKURAAAAA. oh my GOD do i adore their relationship. ever since lee saved her and basically just gave her a glimpse of his...lee-ness, the fact her negative opinion of him IMMEDIATELY flipped and gave her such a strong admiration and fondness for him kills me DEAD. she always treats him with so much respect and the fact she’s quick to rag on anyone making fun of him melts my HEART!! and on lee’s side, his little crush on her is adorable of course, but the sheer strength of the friendship that comes from it is more than infatuation could ever offer him. i want them to hang out together and talk about their troubles...i want them to make each other laugh and be so very kind to each other...i want sakura to storm over and throw him over her shoulder to TAKE A BREAK ALREADY when he’s been training too hard for too long. god. A NOTP I have with said character: honestly i’m pretty happy with a lot of lee ships! the only ones i view with obvious disdain are the ones with creepy age gaps honestly. A random headcanon: out of everyone in the leaf genin, he’s probably the closest anyone’s ever come to someone who EVERYONE is at least distantly friendly towards. like god have you SEEN how warm and inviting and concerned he is the SECOND he sees that naruto is feeling down? i get the sense he’s immediately inclined to provide that kind of support to any of his comrades, even the ones that Resist it.

you think sasuke is the most popular among the leaf genin? puh-LEASE. everyone looks on rock lee with at least a LITTLE bit of warmth. thats just fact. General Opinion over said character: since my first viewing of naruto he has been my Absolute fav, and while chouji and shikamaru are veeery close to stealing that spot, one look at him and i feel he’s gonna be on top forever. probably the best written character kishimoto’s ever produced that’s remained in  the main cast (tho i dont speak for shipudden onwards who fucking knows, but the truth of it is is i adore rock lee)

Gaara

Sexuality Headcanon: Panromantic Asexual Gender Headcanon: kind of like shikamaru, i feel like he uses he/him pronouns but also doesn’t particularly....Care? A ship I have with said character: ok so it wasnt until my naruto rewatch that i really started falling into this but i think him and naruto are super cute? while i loathe kishimoto for ruining so much abt this show he really is good at creating good foils to naruto, and gaara is no exception--and the way naruto changes his life by just kicking his ass (and proving he’s not just a Simp or smth) and then just, extending genuine empathy and a REAL sense of truly relating to where he’s coming from re:his upbringing? the EFFECT it has on him, bro!!!! my god!!! i feel like they’re that opposites attract ship that don’t clash constantly but instead fall into this adorable synergy and understanding? and i think thats so sweet A BROTP I have with said character: ...is it cheating to just put temari and kankuro here? bc they are literally his siblings but my GOD do i love their relationship. there’s something so deeply sad about their initial situation??? like having siblings that either are deeply fucking afraid of you or clearly don’t care for your well being whatsoever, it’s such a tragic scenario, and the times where they really do show legitimate care for gaara just breaks my heart...but the GROWTH. THE DEVELOPMENT. THE HEALING. i love the sand siblings so much, i am a STRONG advocate of seeing the development from estranged family to loving, occasionally bickering siblings who absolutely Love Each Other A NOTP I have with said character: uhhhh same with lee in that i don’t really mind most of the ships i’ve seen him in? while i don’t particularly ship gaalee i think its also Very Cute, and really it all just seems pretty valid as long as people aren’t being creepy? A random headcanon: i’ve been wracking my brain for one for a good 20 minutes and i just don’t have one he’s such a mystery to me/????? i love him but he is an enigma?? General Opinion over said character: oh my god he’s such an edgelord in the beginning. i’ve been doing a lot of this naruto rewatch with my friend @drashseed (a simply phenomenal fella 10/10 follow him) and every single time he talked the only valid response just became “ok gaara”

but his backstory? utterly HEARTWRENCHING. and his growth is just. absolutely divine, i adore him. thank you mister sandman for doing so much for us all.

Hinata

Sexuality Headcanon: Bisexual Gender Headcanon: cis woman A ship I have with said character: listen. i think kibahina is........Really Really cute. he cares about her so MUCH??? and there’s a certain tenderness to his interactions with her that’s just really evident whenever you see em together? i really love that you get the sense hinata is COMFORTABLE around him!!! like! i feel like hinata really deserves to have a partner who sees her when she ISN’T blushing and stammering? when she’s like? legitimately comfortable and being HERSELF? (dgmw the blushing is adorable i fucking love her but its one of the gripes i have with naruhina that so much of it is just naruto being oblivious and her having a small panic attack) the comfort she and kiba have make for a chill, adorable relationship i just cry over constantly A BROTP I have with said character: so i was GONNA put naruto here, but technically i already put him there for shikamaru’s so i’m gonna say neji!!! uhhh OBVIOUSLY they got off to a. very rough start but the way their dynamic changed (or perhaps in a way reverted back to the times they interacted before neji’s father died and temporarily killed his Human Decency) into this respect and fondness that’s just...such a delight to watch? i’m a SUCKER for slow and mutual reconciliation and there are just so many sweet moments between them. they are FAMILY, BRO!!! THEY CARE FOR EACH OTHER, BRO!!!!!!!!!! A NOTP I have with said character: ...at the risk of sounding like a broken record, i think a lot of hinata ships are quite cute? i guess i’m gonna have to say sasuke. because like.

has. he ever even looked at her. please. jesus christ. she deserves so much better. A random headcanon: she is a LOT physically stronger than she looks!! a lot of her combat techniques rely on taijustu after all so it’d make sense that she puts a lot of effort into physical training alongside chakra control.

i’m trying to say she’s strong. not as strong as sakura but. she can lift her bf up over her head (he’s dying hes dying he’s dYING he lOVES HER SO MUCH). it’s pretty fuckign badass

General Opinion over said character: i LOVE her??? honest to god i really really do--honestly while i dislike the direction they went in canon with her, i really loved seeing her be motivated to grow and change the parts of herself she hated to become a stronger person.

that and she’s so fucking cute and sweet and i just??????? bless her honestly.

[reyeslonestar]

I was hoping the writers wouldn’t just time jump and act like Judd and Grace are moving on. And I mean they are and they have to move on with life but that was a traumatic event and especially for Judd, who already has feelings about car accidents and losing someone. And also not just that but actually losing his team too so I was hoping we would see him a little more shaken up about the accident and going over the bridge/road and the fear of losing Grace- more than we saw in the hospital. And I know he has to go back to work eventually but I was hoping to see him struggle with all of this a little more after all that he’s been through. And also even if they don’t show him struggling about the accident, they don’t even show him struggling with his PTSD and feelings about that and therapy. It’s like they dropped that completely and I’m annoyed by that. They haven’t had the time to focus on any other characters personal storylines and development- outside of Carlos’ storyline in the mid season finale and Grace and Judd’s accident and I guess Marjan’s small storyline with her ex, it’s always been revolving around Owen. That’s why it feels like so many things about the other characters are just not adding up. It’s nearing the end of season 2 and this is so annoying to me. And yeah I know why some characters get more screen time than others but seriously the writers and showrunners should stop talking about how this show is so diverse and an ensemble cast if you ignore basically everyone in favor of propping Owen forward. Don’t create diverse characters if you’re just gonna ignore them or have majority of their storylines relying on Owen, the cis het white character who has little to no character development as of yet and most people are annoyed by. I’m tired of it. And yeah we are slowly getting more change but I want more. The show is still good and I still like it but the show can never reach its full potential if the writers and showrunners continue viewing the show like this and ignoring majority of their characters. The show will still be good because it IS still good, but it will never be as good as it can be if they keep this up. I hope this makes sense I’m not trying to be mean but it’s just irritating and there’s nothing I can do but wait for the show to improve how it should

hi there - there’s a lot here and I do agree with you on a lot of this, its frustrating that they bring up influential plot points like Judd’s ptsd and then don't follow through with them. while im okay with them time jumping, I dont like that they seem to have written off a lot of judd’s trauma. I dont really have anything to add to what youre saying because by and large I agree, and theres not much point me reiterating what you've said. and as for the show’s potential - yeah, theyre absolutely underutilising their characters and id love for them to get their shit together and realise what a goldmine of interesting narratives they have if they just tapped into it.

the only point I'd really like to address is this

Don’t create diverse characters if you’re just gonna ignore them or have majority of their storylines relying on Owen

this becomes a conversation of no representation vs bad representation. is it worth having the representation if theyre going to be represented badly?

I think in the case of lone star, yes, these characters are still really important and mean a lot to people regardless of the missteps that have been taken by the show. representation is so so important, and not only for people to see themselves, but also for people who maybe dont know any muslim people, or perhaps aren't aware of any queer people in their lives. its really important that those people see characters who are part of groups different from them normalised and humanised because that could be the only forms of contact they will have with those groups.

and its maddening when those characters are represented badly, or theyre not given enough screentime, or theyre merely accessories to the white man. but im incredibly grateful that theyre there at all, and now theyre there, we can fight for them to be written better.

but yeah, I completely understand where youre coming from, and I think its a frustration shared by a lot of fans because we care about the show and its characters. we’re always going to be more passionate about things important to us, because theyre important to us. im just grateful to every fic writer who has devoted time to exploring these characters and filling in the gaps that the show has left, or gif makers who track down their every moment on screen, or content creators that celebrate them in beautiful art or graphics - this fandom has been amazing at expanding the actors’ work and caring about these characters and im very grateful for that.

[bowl-of-shortness]

*Sending this anonymously since I'm not out* (please don't try to out me, I will cry. If you think you might know who I am, pls don't ask if you're right. I have anxiety and I'm scared to share this as is)

So what you said about being asexual and demiromantic and not feeling like you can contribute to conversations, I FELT that.

I feel like the only way to join conversations about attractive people is by lying. I feel so guilty because I have never figured out what else to do. They all just look like people?

I've literally created a checklist in my head of society's standards because I have no idea what else to judge on. Calling everyone beautiful feels so fake but to me they just... are. People are only "ugly" to me when they're mean. Like to me, beauty is based on personality and I dont understand how other people do it. How can you rate a face without a story? (Like I can only do that when I assume things about people's lives based on their looks??? And it's normally wrong assumptions because "don't judge people based off looks alone" is correct??? Yet people just... do this? Like "they're hot" but isn't that what you're not supposed to do, like???)

I recently came out to my best friends as ace, and even then, they still bring it up every time they're rating people or talking attractive characters, as in the "we know you have no opinion or whatever" and I hate it. Like now that they know I'm ace, it feels like they're actively pushing me out of conversations or want to see what an ace rates them as. (They wouldn't if I asked, but it's kinda fun to participate, I feel more normal. Even if I am just lying) I feel a bit uncomfortable rating people because they think it's based of asthetics but to me I'm just making up numbers. (Its less lying now that they know I'm not sexually attracted to people, but it still hurts. It's nice that they recognize I don't relate and I'm not banning a conversation topic, it just hurts and I'll just take it silently instead of making a fuss. I guess this is just what I was just born to endure, huh.)

Literally, people used to ask me if my ex (SO at the time) was cute or whatever and I always said yes. I was making it up because ya know, I didn't feel that way. I had NO sexual attraction to them but I sold that lie to be normal. I finally came to terms with the fact that I am asexual recently, almost a year to the date I broke up with the only SO I ever forced myself to have. (That tale is a tragedy and I have massive amounts of guilt for the lies I told them to sell that I was a normal hetero cis person. I did so much wrong by them and I hope someday I can forgive myself for it.)

I thought I was bi when I first let myself belive I'm not a normal straight because I felt the same level of attraction across the gender spectrum. (I accepted how I felt about the person of the opposite gender was a crush and then realized I felt the same way about someone of the same gender. That was a crisis) Zero equals zero, wasn't really lying.

Anyway, all that to say that:

You are valid and realateable AF. Conversations about attraction is so uncomfortable and isolating and I'm so thankful you're brave enough to bring it up

I'm also really trying to figure out if I'm panromantic, or demiromantic, or whatever and I'm unsure what to do. Why can't there just be an accurate uquiz.... :(

Like, I think I may be demi something because I have literally only ever had "crushes" on my best friends. I'm not 100% sure what a crush is, but I'm assuming that when I tell myself "don't think of your friends like that, that's wierd" that I'm just mad at myself for acquiring a crush on my bestie.

I have no one to talk to about this because they are firm believers in not dating friends (both have been burned) and I am terrified they'll find out that I can't imagine a relationship with anyone other than a best friend. Like what do I do? I'm so tired fam. I don't think they will be mad if I tell them I'm demi romantic (I'm currently going with panromantic since that just seems easier) and I'm scared they'll find out I realized my sexuality through crushed I had on them, since they're opposite genders and I've had the same "crush" on both of them.

Only wanting romance with friends is so hard because to most people, friends aren't for dating but for talking about potential dates and I hate it.

It's nice to know that I'm following a fellow ace person who gets the romantic struggle. I think you're an icon, and I'm glad that you're in a place where you can be out.

I know we're not close or anything, but I'm really happy to know that there's someone else out there who I can relate to when I can't say a word anywhere else. I hate keeping up the charade, but I'm not in the kind of place where I can drop it. If you're interested in my situation and why I'm forever closeted, I've got quite the tale. but I've ranted enough here. (I won't force my life story on you, I know you want a positive blog and this ramble isn't very positive. I can shut up and vanish if you never want to hear from me again)

Thanks for having your anons on <3

I wish I could dm you and just chat (if you were even interested) but I can't (IRL people know my Tumblr and I dont want to make a new one unless it's necessary.) If there's anything you wanna chat about, I hope I stumble across it on my dash. I hope its okay if I hide behind anon asks.

Thanks for representing people like me. Sorry for the ramble, I guess I needed to get more off my mind than I realized. Thanks for being a safe space to vibe for a while. It's nice to be around other, perfectly valid people like me. I look up to you in a sense ♡

(But seriously, if this is too much drama and you don't want me to do this again, you don't even need to post this I won't bother you again without your consent)

I- wow.

That’s really all I can say.

I’m very glad that you feel just as recognized here as an asexual as you should be. And I know what every single one of these struggles is like. Personally, I never Liked to force things onto myself which has been Both a blessing and a curse.

It’s great because I don’t have to deal with a relationship but over time people stop wanting to be around you for it. But eventually, I found a friend group who respected what I did and didn’t want to talk about. And unfortunately even though some people may be nice and friendly to you, that doesn’t mean that you and that person are going to click.

I think you might want to start being more open about not wanting to talk about these things when you’re around them, and if that’s scary and difficult, start small. I get it. But the more you stay quiet and the more morning is going to change.

So yea, I don’t mind the ask! I guess I didn’t even realize that me just openly existing as Aspec was a huge thing to a lot of people, so I’m glad I could help, I hope everything gets better for you anon. Have a lovely day/afternoon/evening 💖💖💖

[writtenbyhappynerds]

Fanfic 102: Unit 3, Diversity

          Hello! Welcome back. This week we’re going to talk about Diversity. Beyond how to insert diversity into your writing, the nuances, and the ways you can create a believable character. The Editor and I understand how sensitive of a subject this is, and wanted to take the time to make sure the information we are doling out is inclusive and well-written and quality. There is often a lack of diversity in media and books, and often when it is included it’s shoe-horned in for brownie points. We understand that, and we want the up-and-coming writers to be better than those before them. The two most important things to remember are the following: no diversity beats terribly-done diversity, and, the way that the character is diverse is not and should never be their whole personality. We will be discussing LGBT, ableism, and race.

          The LGBT community is a vibrant community with members of all shapes and sizes. The most important part when writing a character who is gay or trans is that this aspect is part of their identity but it is not their whole identity. When we discussed characterization in Fanfiction 101, we talked about not reducing side characters or members of the cast to one-note aspects of their personality. The same applies here, and a character’s sexuality or gender expression should not be at the forefront of every conversation. You shouldn’t create these characters with their sexual or gender identity being at the forefront of your mind, because you wouldn’t do that for a straight or cis character. You wouldn’t sit down to make a character with your first thought being ‘ok but they have to be cis,’ so it’s silly to do the same to a gay or trans or nonbinary character. Make them like you would any other character. What changes would be aspects of their identity, or values they hold near and dear to their heart or motivations. Those may be different than a straight character or a cis-gender character.

          If you’re straight or cis and writing a gay or trans character, you need to do your research to accurately portray the character in a realistic and believable way. An example we love is Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman, who portrayed an asexual character, and Todd’s journey as he came into his own. Bojack Horseman also portrayed polyamory with Hollyhock, who was the adopted daughter of 8 dads. What we enjoyed was that Todd’s sexuality added dimension to his character. It didn’t reduce him to being the token LGBT representative, and it didn’t force him into a box where he could only focus on LGBT issues. Todd was and is so much more than that, and his sexuality is a part of his story, but it’s not the sole story.

Rick Riordan is a master of writing experiences that are not his own, and he cheated the system by basing his characters off of people he knew. This is a method that you can use. You can base your characters off of friends, public figures, etc. If you decide to not do that, googling what transgender men and women have to experience or what top surgery is isn’t enough. I would suggest looking to Youtube, where many transgender and LGBT  influencers have talked about their experiences. I would suggest looking to forums, Reddit being one of them. Yahoo Answers is also a really good source. What you want is as many experiences as you can get: ones that are similar, and ones that contrast. The goal is to combine them and make your own character in a melting pot of other experiences. You owe it to not only those who read your story but yourself to do the research. You want your characters to represent the communities you do, and the ones you don’t as best you can.

          Let’s move on to people of color (POC). The same rules we’ve discussed prior apply: A poorly written POC is worse than no POC (Looking at you Baljeet). In addition, that POC’s ethnicity should not be their entire personality, and if you are creating a character just to say that you have made a POC, then you have already failed. There are many issues we see when we find people of color in fanfiction. Among them are language barriers, naming, and a misinterpretation of cultural values and experiences.

          Putting words in a foreign language in the middle of fanfic is very, very common. You see it everywhere. In Avengers fanfic it’s Russian or Norse. In Batman fanfic, it’s any of the languages that the Batkids speak. The writers put in these conversations that sometimes go on for pages in another language, and then add an author’s note at the bottom with the translation. This is awkward, and when you read books, this is something you never see. If you want your character to speak another language, you don’t need to actually write the other language. Putting a few sentences through Google translate doesn’t make you a better or more dedicated writer than someone who adds the tag: “she was screaming now, all her words coming out in rapid French.” Tags can be used to dictate a change in language, and I encourage you to use them. Now, there are of course exceptions to this rule, and those exceptions usually lie in food, names, and things. Calling someone a name that is in another language is fine. Describing food in another language is fine, and things are generally ok. But that’s just for you. Your characters also have to speak the language.

          No one worth their salt or heritage is going to go through a moment where they start out speaking in their fluent tongue and then “forget” to switch back and forth between English and their native language. It is so incredibly unrealistic and awful and it lets the reader know someone who is not actually bilingual wrote this piece of work. When you learn two languages, here’s what really happens: you forget words. You have to stumble through words in your own language before you get to the one you need. You call things, “that thing.” You point. You sometimes say “what’s that called?” you find aspects of the second language, or even your own language stupid and you don’t want to do it. You get words mixed up and you make mistakes. That’s all okay, and that all happens, and should be written as such. One of my teachers never forgot the French word for spider because she got the shit scared out of her by one and didn’t know what to call it when she needed someone to kill it. My aunt took 3 years to learn Turkish by immersion and now can speak it fluently. You don’t even need to be fluent in every language, and many people only know a handful of words in one or a few sentences in another. That’s totally okay! If anything that’s more realistic because it’s super hard to learn a new language and speak it fluently. Don’t force your characters into a box like that. Let them make mistakes.

          Culture is a huge thing when writing POC. You have to keep in mind that culture shifts, and what may have been culturally huge for one set of characters won’t be as significant for others. You want your characters to interact with their culture in a way that is realistic, and not reductive. Kelly from the Office is a great example, as she invites the office to celebrate Diwali with her. Lara Jean from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is another example. We see her eat Korean food at home, and in the books, she still celebrates Korean holidays. Where the shift comes into play can be seen in Never Have I Ever where Devi is not as Indian as her parents, and we see her struggle with the culture. She still goes to Hindu association things, Ganesh puja, and she wears Indian clothes. However, she’s still a normal teenager out chasing boys and worrying about colleges. In Superstore the Muslim character prays 5 times a day, and still works at the grocery giant. The big takeaway is that these people have lives that include, but aren’t limited to their cultures. They aren’t reduced to stereotypes.

          Naming characters is already rough. However, naming characters from a different background than you are even tougher. The Editor has a lot of anger towards Panju Weasley, from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Her exact words, as they were texted to me:

**

>Like Cursed Child where Ron and Padma has a kid named Panju.

>What the fuck is a Panju?

>That’s literally the dumbest name in the world

>All she had to google was Indian names.

>There are so many fucking lists.

>I dont even think it’s an actual name. Like it might be a nickname for some people but I dont think people have actually named their child panju.

**

          As usual, the Editor is very correct. There is a simple solution to getting around what we’ll call the Panju Dilemma- a phrase which we’ll use to describe terrible naming choices of POC. In Fanfiction 101 we had an entire unit centered around naming. Nameberry.com exists, and if they don’t have it all you need to do is Google the country of origin and the sex of the OC. Sometimes you can add in the year the OC was born, to really get a feel for the time period, but that doesn’t always work. For example, in one of our stories we have a cluster of kids from Syria. When it came time to name said kids, we Googled: popular Syrian names 2003. That’s how we got our OCs: Reem, Nour, Nizar, Jano, and Stella. Naming is very important, and you owe it to your readers and your characters to do them justice, and not saddle them with a terrible name.

          The final note of diversity we want to talk about is actual ability. Ableism is often overlooked in movies, shows, or books. It is something that is shoehorned in as an extra adversary for the OC or the cast, only *gasp* This time the biggest adversary is themselves. I hate that. I want to eliminate that because as someone with a disability and someone who has worked with kids with disabilities, you can absolutely write and code characters like that in so long as, and say it with me now, it is not their entire personality.

          You can totes write a character with anxiety and/or depression, so long as you don’t snub these very real mental disorders that millions face on a daily basis. You also have a duty, especially with anxiety and depression, to not glorify, glamorize, or romanticize either. Do not romanticize self-harm. Do not romanticize anxiety. Do not romanticize depression. They are not cruel tricks of life that befall beautiful intelligent women. It is not “tragically beautiful.” Depression and anxiety and self-harm are not a paragraph for you to lament on while the OC gazes longingly out the window at her lover. Anxiety keeps some people from talking on the phone they’re so nervous. It gives girls panic attacks in mall food courts because they don’t know what’s going on anymore. Depression isn’t your OC watching the rain in a hoodie and sweats, it’s not showering for days on end because you can’t find the motivation to. It’s having insomnia because you can’t sleep. Self-harm is not an OC’s love interest holding their wrists and telling them to stop. It is deep pain and numbness and hurting yourself to try and feel something. It is rubbing Neosporin on your cuts and hoping they go away. It is forcing your friends to keep it a secret because you don’t want anyone to know because what if they take it away from you. These mental disorders are not yours to romanticize. They are yours to show the growth and power and strength of your characters. They are yours to use to show how trauma has affected your character and can represent normality behind mental health and emotion and talking about things like this. Even more so than girls, writing a male OC with anxiety or depression is more empowering because you are allowing a character to talk about their feelings when that isn’t seen as acceptable by their sex. If you feel you are able to take that plunge, and you can do the adequate research to represent the disorder well, go for it.

          In addition to mental health, physical disabilities are often overlooked. I have a chronic illness. I have never seen in a book, movie, TV show, or fanfiction anyone with a chronic illness, let alone my chronic illness. That in of itself is a broad term, and I’ll let chronic illness mean anything from lupus and POTS to asthma and anemia. These disabilities make a character have to work harder, but hey, look at Captain America. The boy had every disability under the sun and he got out alright. No one is going to make changes for you. You have to be the change you want to see. If I want OCs with chronic illnesses, I have to write them and do them justice by not only my community but the communities that I don’t represent. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of writing disability and using it as part of, but not a character’s entire identity. The main characters all have superpowers but are put in a class that doesn’t allow them to use said powers. This is because they are all disabled. The main character is blind and telekinetic, another can read minds but is in a wheelchair, another is a genius but has cerebral palsy. Their disabilities are a minor obstacle, but not the big bad, and that is a great way to write disability. People who live with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses have to deal with said limitations every day. To us, as time goes on it becomes less of the monster at the end of the story and more of an everyday beast. It becomes normal, and there are bigger things for us to worry about than just our disease. This speaks for every aspect of diversity we have covered in this chapter: The people with said note have to live with it every day. It is a common enemy, not the final boss. To treat it as such is to say that it is our biggest concern in life. I wish my chronic illness was my biggest concern, but I have other fish to fry.

          What we have done here is not an all-inclusive list of diversity. This chapter took 2 weeks to write because the Editor and I wanted to do right by our community. Not just the communities we proudly represent but the communities we don’t. There are many more nuances and aspects to diversity that are out there, and what we have presented is our best. Yet it is still incomplete. If there is something important that you feel we have left out, we sincerely apologize. We acknowledge that what we have written here is not all-encompassing for diversity. We wanted to talk about issues that are common occurrences. However, what we have covered is not the end-all of what’s out there. We apologize for the delay, and to make up for it, our next unit Writing Children will be published at the same time as this one. We sincerely apologize for the delay.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

[nbapprentice]

there’s so, so, SO much nonsense surrounding this game that i’m gonna do my best to separate it into digestible bits, with its own categories. even then this is... wow. it’s big.

Warning tags will be added at the start of every section, but the general gist is: incest, pedophilia mentions, fetishization of rape and abuse, fetishization of mlm, fetishization of people of color, racism, ableism, nb erasure and transphobia. aside of the warnings, this post will also touch upon Scummy Business Practices

let’s get going

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber: #incest #pedophilia#rape and abuse fetishization #homophobia

tl;dr: dana loves incest porn, elle loves guy on guy rape, and the both of them are friends with at least one pedophile

dana rune has run, is still running an incest zine (please visit my faq on what i think about “thats not really incest” and “it’s just fictional!”). The Arcana, as a dev team, clearly does not care, as shown in their e-mail responses.

dana also very much doesn’t care and has reacted to any criticism on this by dismissing people and blocking actual incest victims who tried to contact her about it claiming it was for her “mental health”

in some tweets she claims she “interprets” the characters as not siblings, but she never really cared enough to cover her ass when it all began (she happily admits she’d “cross the incest line”)

dana has commissioned artists who also ship incest, draw near-pedophilic art that’s supposed to pass as acceptable because the character involved is supposedly not a minor despite looking like a child down to wearing pigtails (the character is also wearing a racist-ass belly dancer outfit), AND even made white-washed fanart of The Arcana.

dana follows twitter user kapymui who also produces incestuous Fire Emblem art

dana has retweeted omocat long after it came out that omocat is, at the very least, consuming pedophilic content (on “omocat didn’t know what shota meant!”: yes they did)

moving on, elle has a long, long, LONG history of fetishizing mlm and the rape and abuse that comes with yaoi and had a rich, RICH “yaoi” tag before they deleted their tumblr

they curiously deleted their tumblr right after i made this reblog

shortly after that, tumblr user thalassiq remade and started attacking and insulting any blogs criticizing them - even people providing support in IMs. Since this doesn’t match Dana and Elle’s normal pity parties I’m personally willing to believe they were just a person wanting to start shit - but it’s so telling how Elle used this chance to dismiss everyone who disagrees with them by calling them “children” and did not even bother to offer a kind word to people who were harassed and even had their trauma mocked by this person. It costs 0 dollars to say “that was not me but I’m sorry about people who were hurt.”

Dana and Elle are close with Ava’s Demon creator Michelle Czajkowski aka that one person who endorses child porn of her characters, and even had her draw a promo image for the game. Michelle has been creating highly sexualized content of her minor characters for a while now.

ok so elle and dana are gross freaks, how is that related to the game?

oh it’s very very related

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber that’s Actually Inside The Game or The Game’s Blog: now with more #racism #fetishization of poc and mlm #whitewashing #fat hate #pedophilia #nb erasure #transphobia

tl;dr: the arcana is filled to the brim with racism! so much of it! haha holy shit! and that’s not even where it ends!!!

their game is rated PG-13 but includes incredibly sexual situations such as Julian making this fucking face while getting off on pain. This isn’t the only time Dana and Elle use their videogame aimed at young teens to showcase their kinks and fetishes. I have no issue with NSFW or titillating content, as long as it’s rated accordingly. This content is NOT and it’s a blatant disregard for their audience just to have a larger, more pliable demographic and have more money sent their way.

if you start your argument with “well, teenagers look at porn” 1. shut up 2. theres a HUGE difference between teenagers going after adult content aimed at adults, and adults creating content they know will be seen by kids barely starting puberty

as pointed above, dana has 0 qualms literally commissioning people who make whitewashed fanart of her own fucking game that’s supposed to be all about the inclusivity and safe spaces

thearcanagame blog has a pattern of reblogging whitewashed fanart (before you come in swinging with the good ole “ITS THE LIGHTING”: 1. no it isnt 2. the artist should’ve picked better lightning then 3. i draw and post shit online too so dont come telling me i just dont understaaaand),

fanart of their fat characters showed skinnier than they are in their sprites (although to be real for a moment - Portia is curvy at most and them behaving she’s fat rep is HILARIOUS).

going back to NSFW content: nadia and asra are overwhemlingly sexualized in the game, and were the first to have sexualized CGs and sprites introduced.

CGs: Asra’s here, here aND HERE, Nadia’s here with a NSFW warning because she’s just got her whole fucking ass out. Sprites: Asra’s thank god for whoever compiled it all in one image, Nadia’s and once again, NSFW warning lmfao!

Julian’s sprites on the other hand are noticeably tamer, including the one where he’s fucking strapped in leather. His only sexual (NSFW warning because its literally softcore tentacle porn WHICH, ONCE AGAIN, SHOULDN’T BE PUT IN A GAME AIMED AT 13YOS) CGs were also included months after Nadia and Asra received any of theirs.

Through all of the updates, people have constantly requested that Asra and Nadia’s sexualization be toned down, and time after time The Arcana just churned out fetishistic, hypersexualized content at an absurd rate, especially when compared to the one white love interest.

Oh, speaking of the one white love interest: Julian is based off of Jeff Goldblum (this is not spectulation - they p much bring it up at any given time) but like. If Jeff Goldblum was white. They base their favorite love interest off their supposed favorite man in the world but casually leave his skin tone behind. Lmao.

they also play favorites very obviously - in the prologue, Nadia and Asra have a romance paid scene each. Julian has a scene... that requires no coins. Julian was also the first LI to receive three CGs, two of them requiring no coins, while both Asra’s and Nadia’s first CGs were behind a paywall

Dana and Elle have been notoriously skittish about confirming or denying their characters’ ethnicities. After hyping for weeks on thearcanagame that they would confirm the character’s races they basically made a post that amounted to “well they’re not white lol!”

they only relented after the perfectly understandable outrage... and posted a thread about it on Elle’s twitter. Nothing on the actual thearcanagame blog. Anyway, here’s the thread. Note how there’s mention of Julian being Jeff Goldblum... but nothing about him and Portia being Jewish (or “fantasy Jewish” as it were).

The one time they did confirm their jewishness dana then backpedaled and said she shouldn’t have done that lol.

another fun tidbit of how well The Arcana handles race and how much it cares about feedback from fans: an ask was sent about an anon begging for Nadia to step on them. The blog, with the finesse of a bunch of horny dumbasses, didn’t just publish the ask, but approved of it (even though the fans of color had long, long, LONG been telling everyone not to fetishize Nadia into a “step on me kween” wet dream). People were outraged, of course, and the blog ~apologized~ and said they were still learning.... then a new chapter included a scene of Nadia stepping on the Apprentice. 🙃

not to mention elle, on their twitter, made a passive aggressive “women can be doms?” tweet, trying to twist it into a “yr oppressing women” angle (when the issue is that women of color are always constantly portrayed as aggressive and domineering)

Now for a wombo combo of racism and Elle’s fetishization of mlm:

the devs have spoken at length of how Julian’s and Asra’s relationship was quite unhealthy. In a paid scene in Asra’s route, they’re depicted as Asra being disgusted w Julian touching him+Julian following Asra to his shop when Asra refused his offer to go with him (aka julian... stalked him lmfao).

.......... this scene is promptly followed by a highly sexual scenario where Julian’s pain fetish is played up. Remember how this game is rated PG-13? Me neither. Asra’s previous disgust with Julian is also forgotten, for some reason (and by some reason i mean Elle wants to make them fuck w/o buildup or logic).

Then Asra’s route has yet another paid scene dedicated to Asrian, even though he’s supposed to not even like Julian! And be head over heels with the Apprentice! But Elle just has to make these two be entangled despite insisting their relationship was not good for either of them!

Now here’s the kicker: Julian doesn’t have any paid scenes related to his romance with Asra. Note how it’s one of the brown LIs whose route is highjacked by the white LI, but not vice versa. Hmmmmm.

Now, on the topic of Asra: thearcanagame has said repeatedly that he’s nb and uses he/him pronouns, and promised (since last year) that there would be dialogue where he speaks about his gender

as of the making of this post such dialogue still does not exist

so basically asra is the nb to dumbledore’s gay: anyone who just plays the game w/o keeping up with the official blog has no idea of what asra’s gender is supposed to be.

aka he’s not nb. he’s just a cis guy. the arcana just doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is, i dont care if elle is nb themself. the team made a promise which has not been fulfilled yet and i suspect will not be.

instead, our introduction to canon nb characters is... these two.

By “these two” i mean neither vulgora nor valdemar are even fucking human, and stick out like sore thumbs with their monstruousness.

so our nb rep is... non-human villains. a few books later one of Nadia’s sisters with they/them pronouns shows up, but that’s too little too late on top of the fact that we should’ve known Asra was nb from the first to begin with. It’s a fucking embarrassment and an insult.

at least two villains are visibly disabled (Lucio’s missing arm and Volta’s blind eye+intentionally asymmetrical face). Julian’s eye doesn’t count because, spoilers, he’s not lacking an eye and even if he was it’d still be hidden behind a dashing eyepatch instead of grotesquely displayed as a sign of his lacking morality.

BUT WAIT! IT DOESN’T EVEN END THERE!

The Arcana Exploits The App Business Model To Price Their Full Game at $500, $1000 if the three extra routes make it out, and they never delivered their Kickstarter rewards:

tl;dr: you heard me

the original price per route was planned on being $1.99

they took that “subject to change” really seriously, it seems, because now each route, once the game is fully out, is estimated to cost around $170 each.

both those screenshots are taken from this post which explains in detail just how truly scummy all of The Arcana’s business model and decisions are: https://mysticmicrotransactions.tumblr.com/post/174308723344/dishonesty-from-the-arcana

the tl;dr is basically what’s listed in the beginning of this section, but other highlights from that post are: the use of addictive gambling mechanics such the Wheel of Fortune, and the dazzling calls to action in the new mini-game.

something that The Arcana supporters forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that for a long, long time the game did not have the mini-game or the log-in rewards for coins. Players depended only on the gambling of the WoF or paying absurd amounts of money for the new chapters.

the devs went from playing the victims who were unable of controlling prices to (as spoken of in the link from mysticmicrotransactions) saying the making of the game (a pathetic little app game backed by a studio and a kickstarter) justifies the prices

they also gave people false hope about maybe changing the prices in the future, all while bleeding money from loyal players in “micro” transactions

the arcana literally added a $99.99 coins option on their latest update

in case it hasn’t sunk in yet: you can pay a hundred dollars upfront to the arcana, and you still will not have access to the whole game

there is no defense to this

none

“it’s free stop whining” let me explain:

“spend months on end accumulating fake currency or pay hundreds of dollars up-front to be able to play” is a scummy business model no matter how you look at it

if i can spend $60 upfront to play an AAA game there’s no excuse to demand more than that for a game with much smaller and, honestly, inferior content

the combination of there being already far and few games featuring lgbt characters and characters of color AND the little cult of personality set up by Dana and Elle makes people feel that spending money to support them is an acceptable expense.

it’s not

manipulating people into spending ridiculous amounts of money and then claiming “it’s their choice” is just scummy business, baby, and thats all the arcana does

the devs are brats who instead of admitting $500 is absurd for a game instead write petty little caricatures into their game - like, lbr: dana, elle, if i could afford diamonds in my hair i wouldn’t have even bothered with your shitstain of a game

despite bragging that ppl would get the full story w/o needing to pay, the paid scenes are pretty much required - the first few books of julian’s route have no romance without accessing any of the paid options. you dont even get so much as a kiss in without handing coins over. many, many people were baffled when julian had a teary break-up scene when from their perspective they hadn’t even started building a relationship.

wow that’s more than i ever thought it’d be

and i’ve been aware of their bullshit for near a whole year now!

i don’t have much of a note to end this on, other than: the arcana just isn’t even that good. it suffers from weak writing, pathetic character development and above all actually harmful content. do not try to argue with me on any of these points unless you’ve read all of that, because whatever you have to say i’ve likely mentioned before. if you still are that determined to yell at a me on the internet, please preface your argument with the phrase “I’m a pee pee poo poo man” so I know you’ve read everything in here. thank you!

[draw-you-coward]

[ask sent in that i’m unnaming for the sender’s privacy, considering the info involved. posted with permission!]

“I think I figured out why I love the ikael series so much, and it's just like... honest and genuine and scathing writing of being neurodivergent and in relationships and dynamics and all the good and bad things that happen because of it? I'm allistic but have other things going on but Ikael is so hugely relatable? Every chapter it's like, oh, fuck, I do that, I've been there??? (1/2?)

And it's so inexplicably healing and cathartic to read that and then have it come to a happy resolution bc the people involved are in healthy and supportive and nonnormative relationships (I can't express in words how much I love Thancred and Ikael's qpr and their cohabitation/co-parenting ish and the whole family dynamics of the scions and all) bc like, in my experiences, these things have been very negative and traumatizing and like, (2/3)

...I haven't had ppl in my life who really know how to support me in the specific ways I need when I'm like nonverbal or shutting down or having a panic attack or whatever? It's just, so good to read queer neurodivergent characters fucking being human and flawed and also like being in healthy relationships and supporting each other with things I've given up on other people being able to support me on? (3/3″

~*~ (reply below the cut)

Honestly, that’s why I started to write what I did.

I started ikael off as a sort of joke character, and when i wanted to write something with thancred, i substituted my woL for him because oddly i found he had a lot more chemistry? ikael was sort of there for when i wanted to write about something i found the game writing didn’t resolve properly, or i wanted to explore more. eventually, as his character began to take shape, i started to find him... really cathartic, and started to make the series about him instead of just being named after him (which i do for all my characters because it’s simple and to the point lol).

I was hesitant to make ikael autistic, because it was just in the wake of myself finding out I was autistic, and i didn’t want to do it wrong (and frankly there was a mote of internalized ableism and denial there too spun from a lifetime of misinformation) and i had mostly been writing him as “well i do this lol/it doesn’t have to have a label”. but since i have - there’s a turning point somewhere early ikael.series where you can sort of tell it happens - i’ve found it astonishingly easy to relate to him, much more than i ever have with allistic characters! i’ve since received similar responses from other people, and it warms my heart ;w;

i actually hesitated to even make him openly gay at first! (he always was by design lol) which sounds wild . but the fandom, minus aymeric/estinien shippers, was pretty heteronormative! especially with ikael being a “catboy”, and myself being unfamiliar with anime tropes like that and the final fantasy genre in general. i didnt know how it would be received, or whether people would think i was “just another cis girl fetishizing gay men” (nevermind that im,, nb and not even attracted to men :p) making him aro was weirdly a little harder for me to decide. i’m aroace. there’s always been an element of “well people mock aros and/or aces” and i still see posts on my dash making fun of qprs and telling people “those are just friendships lmao jfc people go outside”. so once again i didn’t know how it’d be received

ok i’ve waaay gone off topic sorry! but yeah man at the bottom of the line, if we can’t have it, and if this world won’t allow it, i want to create a space where it exists. it’s one of the biggest reasons why i never create any conflict related to identity or relationships (homophobia, transphobia, everything listed above) in my canon. we already have that to a frankly staggering extent. what we don’t have is resources for autistic people, for neurodivergent people, we don’t have the common understanding and acceptance for mental health that should frankly be universal . i’m writing mostly for myself and people like me (in whatever way that is), yes. im also writing for people who don’t have an understanding of these things so they can develop a healthy one. i’ve said this before but i’m never going to purposefully write a conflict that’s unresolved, or resolved in an unhealthy way. im not going to hurt the characters without healing them. i dont write unresolved angst or trauma. at the very most, i take my time with long term trauma, because that can’t be fixed in 3k words! again, ive said this before: people do what i dont, and that’s great! im not attacking it; i even like reading it sometimes. but that’s not the purpose of my writing.

thanks for sending in your thoughts! <3

[somedayslater]

Hey i was the anon here !! (sorry abt the BL blog lol, its an old one i found back but the characters limit in ask is annoying). And thanks for the answer !! With this answer and the answers of the other asks, I think I know where you’re coming from and I understand it ! I still kind of disagree tho.

One of the ask was about how its important to make a distinction between radfem and terf and I totally agree. Radfem are feminists, in that they strive to improve the status of women by putting emphasis on the material conditions of gender and think all discriminations come back to misogyny. By now, I think any serious feminists can agree that radfem are missing several important points and their opinion is misguided by the fact they’re more interested in the improvement of THEIR conditions (most often middle and upper class, white, abled, cis women) than the conditions of all women. Its doesnt negate the fact most of them know what they are talking about and know about the feminist theoretical bases even if they’re deeply wrong and late. Also, even if their belief system is prone to transphobia, it doesnt mean all radfem are transphobic - you can even meet radfem trans people (TIRF) on here and feel sorry for whatever happens in their head that cause them so much self-hate.

TERF on the other hand, is becoming a catch-all term than most ppl dont even know the meaning of. For lot of ppl now terf just mean “i hate trans ppl”, even people who call themselves TERF ! Like you said, now lot of ppl use the term TERF just as an excuse to be transphobic. in their blogs, you dont see any feminist discussions (even radfem ones), just transphobia. And if they lie about being feminist to be transphobic, you can be sure lot of them lie about having been traumatized by men to justify their transphobia too. So when I see TERF talking about their trauma and how thats what motivating their belief I’m always REALLY suspicious -saying you hate trans women because you have been traumatized by penis sure seem more ok than saying you just want trans women to die bc it makes you uncomfortable. It has the bonus effect of either making ppl lose time to acknowledge your trauma and making the conversation about you and how you are the real victim, or accusing people who are not acknowledging your trauma to not care about women trauma, being misogynist and bou-hou. It’s weaponizing your (cis) privilege to steal the platform of victimhood. And honestly it makes me think of white women crying and accusing black men of rape when things dont go their way -same technique. That’s why I think saying again and again that some terf are transphobic bc of trauma is a really bad idea long-term and can be detrimental for the feminist and trans movement, and for trans ppl’s mental health specifically (i hope i dont come as condescending and knowing better whats good for you lol, its obv your blog so you put wtv you want on it and its obv your life so you know better whats good for you too, but for me at least as a transie i really dont want ppl to tell me that the ppl who wants to kill me just bc i exist is bc of the “original sin” of my gender and that i should be understanding of them).

Ok im so sorry for the long post bc im going to continue since im too lazy to make another one lol. About the other asks about how terf space are cult-y, prey on existing trauma and vulnerability and all -> Once again I totally agree with you and the anon, the terf rabbithole is definitely a cult doing all that. But all bigot groups do that, so we can definitely compare them to other bigot groups ! Arent incels a cult who prey on the loneliness of men traumatized by toxic masculinity ? Arent white supremacists a cult who prey on the loneliness of white people traumatized by capitalism (the end of social and non-productive relationships) ?

Its always the same trick.

The group who have the REAL privileges aims to create discord in the group who doesnt have it. It creates discord by essentializing social norms and group (”POC/jewish are savages/greedy/what-have-you!!”=white supremacists or “trans women are men and men are violent rapist!!”=terf or “men are strong and reliable and women are weak and soft and queers are depraved!!”=incel) ; by assigning false privileges (”POC/jewish have secretly all the powers and are manipulating the media!!” or “trans women use their male privilege to invade women space and fetishize us!!” or “women use their charm to control men !!”) ; by inventing conspiracies (”POC/jewish wants to erase the white race we are under siege!!” or “trans women wants to erase the real women we are under siege!!” or “women and queer wants to erase real men we are under siege!! Queers wants to rape children!!”). So, instead of having workers of color and white workers fighting together against capitalists ; instead of having trans and cis women fighting against the patriarchy ; instead of having queers and men fighting against heteronormativity or toxic masculinity… we have the people who have slightly more privilege in the same group fighting against their peers, and nothing change.

<- I’m obviously schematizing a lot and i know other theorists have said this better than i have. I also dont want to put intent in this system : i honestly dont think all capitalists know races are bullshits and are consciously creating them to keep privileges ; and i honestly dont think all men know patriarchy is bullshit and are consciously contributing to it to keep their privilege. Its a self-sustaining system where every actor, not matter on what side of the barrier they are, is in good faith. Most of the time.

(Though its funny its always the same companies/advocates/doctors who keep lobbying against queers and women rights, against civil rights, for war, against free education and health system… i know its a system but im pretty sure some actors are more cynical than others).

And everybody in every of those group is honestly traumatized and sincerely believes the other part of the group is down to kill them, rape them, erase their culture, etc. Its doesnt make it more true, and treating their belief as anything else than delusion is at best a waste of time and at worst dangerous. 

We live in a world where it’s disturbingly easy for men to abuse or rape women without consequences, yes. It’s right to say that a lot of women are mistrustful and fearful of men, because their experiences and their education taught them it was a wise thing to do. But you cant tell me that anyone can honestly confuse a cis man with a trans woman. I’m trans and when I see a trans person, especially a trans woman, I instinctually cringe because of how out-of-the-norm she looks (and it breaks my heart to feel that, believe me). Look, I’ve been gay all my life but when I see a man acting just a tad bit not-masculine in a hetero-setting (aka most of settings) I cringe too. Gender roles and queerphobia are so ingrained in us that the gayest person on earth is going to feel something is wrong (in the sense of out-of-norm) when someone is even slightly gender non-conforming. There’s this funny post about how primary school bullies are the best at diagnosing you with gay -right before punching you- and its funny bc its true. To put it blandly, I dont think Im wrong when I say nobody is going to see a trans woman and honestly confuse her with a cis man ; at best they’re going to think she’s a woman (so putting her in the same danger as a cis woman), or they’re going to think there’s something wrong with them (so putting them in more danger than a cis woman).

And terf honestly want us to believe them when they say they feel threatened by trans women bc of a legitimate reason like past trauma inflicted by a man ? When nobody in our society can confuse trans women and cis men ? When they literally have to harass women in the toilet to see what’s in their pants to know if they’re those malicious trans women ? I call that bullshit. It’s not what’s happening, it never was what was happening. They feel threatened by trans people because their transphobia and cisnormativity core belief make them instantaneously feel something is wrong. Instead of working on that and thinking about why they think its wrong and deconstructing their destructive beliefs, they prefer to double down on their prejudice and use whatever excuse to justify their discomfort. An excuse where they got to be the real victim is just the cherry on the top (once again, no conscious effort or intent on their part in that).

Terf can be honestly traumatized by men, but they putting the blame on another group (trans women) cant be taken seriously. White women can honestly be traumatized by men, but they putting the blame on another group (black or other poc) cant be taken seriously. White & poor workers can honestly be traumatized by capitalists/capitalism, but they putting the blame on another group (immigrants, poor ppl from other countries) cant be taken seriously. We have to stay focused on the real problem and the real culprits because giving in to their delusions (encouraged, fabricated by society delusions, but still delusions) is a step back.

Really sorry about this long ass post lol, in any case (if you’re still reading lol) i really think your blog is cool and im happy bc i see ppl coming forward asking you difficult questions that are essential and you taking the time and the respect to answer them seriously. i feel like more and more ppl dont dare to ask questions bc of the fear of being mocked, ridiculed, or insulted, and now ppl dont understand feminism or trans questions because anything else than posting memes abt “being trans rules” or “being trans sucks” is an attack on their group… thats how we have “trans allies” parroting radfem points without realizing i guess. so i really hope i dont come as adversary in this post bc i honestly mostly agree with u lol, im just really interested in talking about stuff. Thank you for your time (─‿‿─) 

(also my english can be weird i think, i hope i still spoke clearly :U )

(also i follow from afar but like without an account so thats why im not a follower, but if i was active on SM id definitely be :D )

.

Hello i love ur blog !! BUT honestly it makes me feel uncomfortable u keep saying some terfs are transphobic bc of trauma. Its the reason they use bc they know its more hearable than "i hate trans bc i benefit from the statu quo of being cis/dont like ppl who are not in the norms/etc". Some of them may believe it, but its sounds the same as racists who say "i hate black ppl bc ive been mugged by them/arabic ppl bc once an arab stole my stuff". Its BS n in bad faith, why give it a platform ?

Ok first of all, there are a couple steps in between someone experiencing that trauma and becoming a transphobe. Generally, from what I've seen, radfem circles are full of women who have been deeply traumatized by their experiences with men and radfem rhetoric around men speaks to them. Once they're in there long enough the transphobia seems completely reasonable.

Secondly I need to make it clear that just because someone has a trauma response associated with their bigotry that doesn't make it ok or mean they should be treated with kid gloves like they're still being a bigot.

[fipindustries]

I posted 5,404 times in 2021

1284 posts created (24%)

4120 posts reblogged (76%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 3.2 posts.

I added 604 tags in 2021

#fip living life - 145 posts

#pale - 130 posts

#wildbow - 127 posts

#infinity train - 36 posts

#y the last man - 35 posts

#arcane - 31 posts

#writing - 27 posts

#gideon the ninth - 26 posts

#loop hero - 24 posts

#harrow the ninth - 23 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#for example it could be the case that as the pupolation size increases the number of deaths grow exponentially or something i dont fucking k

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

what's the marble machine thing?

do you REALLY want me to do this to you?

anyway, you probably saw this video years ago

impressive, isnt it?

well ever since he made that video the guy has been trying to build a new machine, bigger, better, more complex, more beautiful, more elaborate, more ambitious, and he was planning on taking it on a world tour. and WE were going to see him built it, week by week, he would upload a video, beautiful didactic fascinating videos where we saw him design, build and craft his masterpiece part by part, the Marble Machine X

and for a while it really looked like he was going to make it, the machine was going to be built and we were going to get to see it play music!

but then problems started to show up, little flaws in design, inefficiencies, constant malfunctions, the thing couldnt play a full song without getting stuck, loosing marbles, getting out of sync or out of tune, the whole thing was prone to breaking down, clogging, it was too loud and the noise drowned out the instruments.

he kept replacing parts, dissecting them, trying to perfect them, to make them more efficient, more resistant to failure, better designed. he had to scrap 60% of the project and start from scratch at least three times back to back all the while you could see his hopes breaking, him getting more jaded, more depressed more exhausted, essentially more burned out. and by that point he had invested three years of his life and thousands upond thousands of dollars from his fans into the project. but the more he worked on it the more he realized the fundamental design flaw that he ran across because he wasnt an engineer, he had no experience working with big complicated mechanisms. and more and more he started to become convinced that the whole idea was stupid to begin with.

im really cutting it short here, im not even going on his constant problems ignoring suggestiongs from his engineering team, constantly putting form over function, having a pretty machine that looks steampunky enough rather than actually work, and him week after week realizing this and desperatly battling against himself and his worst design impulses, trying desperatly to mold himself into an efficient, pragmatical engineer rather than the imaginative and fanciful artist and musician that he is.

this was his last words on the matter:

it took me a while parsing though all this legaleese to realize why it felt so chilling. he sounds just like hussie did by the end of act 6.

and that is when i realized, its dead jim.

432 notes • Posted 2021-11-09 00:53:01 GMT

#4

ah, ive have had discussions like these

455 notes • Posted 2021-09-15 21:41:58 GMT

#3

why cant people just understand that two plus two is four, i mean look at it! two has two letters and four has four letters, its right there in the words! also the brother of a friend  once was attacked by a two plus two denier, and also, i never met a two plus two denier who wasnt a het cis guy, im a believer in science, two plus two is four, end of the conversation, fucking deal with it.

472 notes • Posted 2021-04-03 03:58:19 GMT

#2

WAIT

are you telling me that acclaimed director, mister Wes “Wesley Wales” Anderson is from texas!?

602 notes • Posted 2021-10-23 15:14:45 GMT

#1

source: https://twitter.com/batshaped/

7260 notes • Posted 2021-07-26 22:42:08 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[thedeadflag]

1 When thinking of the word daddy I've always thought of a women? if i ever thought of a man as a daddy ive never sexualized it or ?? but i can now see the daddy kink and its effect. Ive read the g!p fic analysis and i didnt know a lot about the stuff ive read. The clexa fandom is the first fandom ive been in and its where ive first seen anything about g!p or about a/b/o? or even the word dubcon. Dont know if im naive or just didnt think about looking more into it and what it all really means.

(2/5) and not going to lie here i have read a few g!p and the a/b/o stories and ive read another post where you also have a lot of questions how in these fics writers "g!p fics get our bodies wrong" (not sure what how to title the post) and reading through it theyre many questions that are sometimes to never mentioned in them and it just sounds more or a interesting read if stories did mentioned those things and were written well and right about trans/intersex women?

(3/5) i dont know where i went with all this but it was a well interesting read that i dont not understand all of it just yet but will continue to reread and look more into it :)

(4/5) lastly i didnt mean to disrecpect you if i did it was unintentionally. sorry. i saw a post where somewhere around the lines you said it hurts to write clexa because of how horribly written lexa is as a trans/intersex women or in g!p fics and all and fetished and pain. i was deeply hurt by it all when she died and knowing this side in fics it adds to the hurt and how some people dont talk about it more or writers not listening due to wanting popularity

(5/5) wanted to add that even in ouat there was the same issues? in fics so it looks like and now in clexa fics involving all this. even though its been more then an year since lexas death lots of people were hurt in many different ways so many things happened after some for the better and some things thats are still arent talked about and not only effects this fandom but others. sorry just have many thoughts on it that slowly ill become more aware of. dont need to answer this just needed to say more

Like, I know the whole “She calls me daddy too” meme floats around wlw fandom and all, but that sort of thing literally did start in hetero fandom. I’ll definitely take your word that that’s what you think when you see/read/hear it, but 99+% of the time, that’s not going to be the case, and it’s not going to chance that ‘daddy’ is an explicitly primarily male-coded word. it will always be associated with maleness before anything. When cis women have it applied to them, that primary meaning gets to fall away temporarily because their womanhood, their validity, cannot be questioned. By design of cissexism, it cannot be questioned without undermining the sex and gender binaries and the power cis people wield. 

So cis women get access to the term temporarily, in a non-serious non-threatening manner. But it’s still one of the most male-coded words, it’s infused with maleness, and attributing to a trans woman is the exact same as calling her a man, a male person, because we don’t have cis privilege.

As for if you’re naive, honestly, there’s always a variety of reasons why folks don’t know this stuff, why they don’t pick up on this stuff. Whether it’s age, or lack of prior education, lack of exposure to trans women, naivete, etc., most people are unaware. So don’t feel guilty on that front. Everyone has to learn sometime...when the opportunity rolls around doesn’t matter so much as what folks do with the opportunity. A lot of people choose not to think too hard about it, not to concern themselves. It’s a good thing to learn, and it’s good that you’re thinking about it now.

Yeah, the big jot-note list of questions points out the flaws in the g!p/abo stories. Like, it’d be nice if authors actually did write more representative stuff...it wouldn’t actually be difficult, and it’d make for better, more engaging stories, and it’d help fandom be less exclusionary and hostile for us. There’s such a wealth of possibilities when writing trans woman characters, or intersex women, but all so many writers and readers care about are these fetishistic fantasies that get them off. There’s a considerable lack of care and concern about us as real, complex human beings. 

And there’s no disrespect. I can see Clexa stuff on tumblr, see fanart of Clarke and Lexa, it doesn’t usually bother me unless it’s fetishistic stuff (but i’ve blocked the artists of those so they don’t show up on my dash). Sometimes if I think only about Lexa, yeah, things can get soured, but so long as it’s canon material or art that looks canon-aligned, I’m generally good. Sad, given what JRoth and the show’s writers did, but I can handle sadness a lot better than dysphoria.

My issue is that I need to essentially get into the heads of my characters when i write, and whenever I try to get into Lexa’s, I can’t help but think about all the stories and depictions of her that are transmisogynistic and hurtful and fetishistic. I can’t block those memories and thoughts out when I’m trying to mentally collect everything I know about her as a character to decide how she’d behave or react in character in my stories, what she’d say, what she’d do, etc. There’s such a drastic split in who’s been used as a vehicle for trans fetishization that it’s essentially left barely any harmful material on Clarke’s end, which is why it’s so easy for me to write Clanya. So I can’t write Lexa as a character, because the process disgusts and upsets me, and I can’t watch the show because it makes me sad, and I can’t engage in fandoma and other people’s fanworks all that much because so many people are unsafe. So her character’s just altogether been tainted for me.

And it sucks, because like you said, so many people rushed to fandom as a balm to their pain from the loss of Lexa and the betrayal from the show. And it just hurt that so many could do that, knowing how it felt to be hurt and betrayed by writers that created cheap harmful content instead of good representative content, only to turn around and create mountains of cheap harmful content that sent trans women out of the fandom in droves, without much of anywhere to go, no big social network to bond together with and help each other with the pain and loss. All those people who would loudly yell “Support your sisters, not just your Cis-ters”, and then push us out of fandom without a care in the world to the hurt they caused us.

Yeah, these tropes have been around a while. A/B/O is relatively newish, having cropped up in the past decade, but it’s just a big mash-up of common tropes like g!p, mpreg, werewolf, bestiality, dubcon, sex pollen, BDSM, etc. So they’ve definitely been in and around OUAT across its tenure, I did a minor survey on that fandom’s use of g!p and its own magical variant, magic!cock. it’s been in Glee. In X-Files. In Xena. Lower volume, but there are g!p works out there in just about everything. Easy to ignore if they’re rare, outliers. 

In recent years, though, with greater exposure to trans women in media, there’s been a boom in mainstream trans-women porn. And, mirroring that growth in that male-driven market, there’s been a big boom in g!p fiction. It used to be small and largely avoidable, and now it’s everywhere and growing in popularity still. The 100 is just a fandom where it’s been the most saturated in femslash. There were more g!p works in Glee’s fandom, but Glee’s femslash fanfiction count dwarfs Clexa and other femslash fanfiction in The 100 fandom.

But the big boom of popularity in The 100 wasn’t just self-contained. All the ones who took to the trope, those who felt compelled to write about it, they’re carrying that desire to the new fandoms they’re in. WLW fandom does migrate, it’s a big running joke, so when we migrate, these patterns continue.

And while, yeah, a lot’s happened, and not a lot of people like to talk about what’s wrong in fandom, most folks try to avoid conflict. But stuff like this is important. It needs to be talked about, because people need to be aware, they need to learn, they need to see what’s happened/happening because of trans fetishization. Most don’t want to, but they need to know. They need to think about this and understand.

Anywho, it’s cool. I’m half asleep and rambling, and just happy to know that of the 14 messages that found there way into my inbox last night, a few of them were positive and good stuff. I like when people learn, when they want to learn. it’s a good, healthy thing. I’m glad I managed to help you understand the situation better. Feel free to hit me up again if you have any questions in the future :) I hope you have a good day!

[calypsolemon]

like, ok, as a queer person, I dont expect straight cis people to give me representation, because straight cis people almost always get it wrong, and I’d rather just sit through a normal movie with some cis/straight or ambiguously identified characters, than some bastardization of my identity in the name of #diversity

and while I do criticize attempts at rep by straight people when I feel they are bad, and bad character stereotyping, I generally don’t bother rallying against straight creators for making all their characters straight, because ultimately... I dont fucking care. If the creator even cares about my criticisms, the most it’s gonna get me is a rushed, botched attempt at representation where it wasn’t originally intended, and then I have to deal with not only feeling unrepresented, but uncomfortable while I’m unrepresented. I’d much rather spend that energy supporting things I do feel represented by, and that are made by other queer people like me, who can have a proper say in what counts as their own representation.

this is a little different for things like big hollywood productions that have hundreds and thousands of people working on them, because those productions have the time, money, and manpower to properly represent all walks of life without being grossly offensive, but often just choose not to for fear of alienating their straight/cis/white/etc audience. but when it comes to indie creators, or small teams, sometimes it’s better for them to just not risk it and focus more on the story they’re trying to tell than trying to represent something they know they can’t possibly get right. and that is fine by me, there’s grace in admitting that you don’t know enough about someone else’s identity enough to properly portray it. I’m not offended by that.

what I am offended by, is the disturbing amount of people who think they can use their identity to tell other creators what to do with their content, and expect people that have no business delving into intercommunity discussions to pander to one specific side, or even worse, destroy their creations altogether because it’s impossible for them to pander to everyone. I don’t care if an individual content creator on the internet made all of their character cis, white, het, nt, abled, middle-classed, and privileged in every way, because if I hate what they create that much? I can easily ignore it and move on to something else. It’s that fucking simple. And if it’s a creator who tries actually really fucking hard to represent these things despite not being a part of these groups? who am I to discourage that? why do they deserve my criticism more than the people who don’t even try? As a creator myself I understand how hard it is to get things right for your own group, there are queer people who would hate how I portray myself because it’s not true to their own experiences, their own opinions. If a cis straight creator is willing to take all that on, and is doing an ok job at it, I’m not going to nitpick the tiny mistakes because they’re not in the position I am, they have to listen to everyone’s conflicting opinions on the topic while also not stepping on any toes. That’s a difficult position to be in as an indie creator who’s livelihood depends on the whims of their audience.

I kinda lost track of where this post was going, but the point is... stop wasting your time on trying to change what little indie creators do thinking you’re doing some big activist thing. It’s only going to cause those creators to shut down due to being unable to please everyone. Focus your time and energy on criticizing Big Media™ and supporting minority artists who can give you the representation that you want. Always be proactive, not reactive, and recognize that creators are the ones that ultimately own their creations, no matter how much you think you know better than them. And finally... let yourselves enjoy things sometimes, flaws and all, cause nothing in this world is perfect.