#but I think some people forget that some queer people are marginalized in other ways IN ADDITION to their queerness

[musical-chick-13]

I hate to tell you this, but many gays also love Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. (A musical show about discovering your identity and the negative effects of internalizing harmful societal ideas about relationships, which also has canonically queer characters in it.)

[gizdathemxel]

hot take but i think some of u guys r too blinded by your hatred of men and the ways women suffer under them that ur kinda left unable to make complete intersectional analyses. like hate men all u like, but please keep in mind that race, ability, class & sexual/gender orientation are also forms of oppression.

like yes cishet women hold privileges over queer/gender varient men (and women!!). don’t tell me y’all forgot who anita bryant was or that second wave feminist movements purposely excluded queer women (the lavender menace y’all). like yes white women do hold privileges over moc, like yk, the white tears and the moc = savage rapists coming for your (white) women idea. much the same way that white women also hold privileges over woc. let’s not forget that early suffragette and feminist movements were championed by white women purposely excluded women of color.

like unfortunately oppression is not as simple as “group of people shitting on other group of people”, it is complicated and intertwined between people!! for example, me! i am disadvantaged compared to a white person by proxy of my blackness, but privileged to a disabled person by proxy of my ablebodiedness! neither of those things negated the other !!

if you want to make complete intersectional analysis that does ultimately uplift marginalized groups, you’re going to have to recognize that. or else you *will* end up incorporating bigoted beliefs in your feminism !! which will always end up excluding the marginalized groups that you’re trying to uplift. (you’ll also look like that one exclusionary asshole that no one besides other bigots fw)

tldr: hate men all u want but for the love of god recognize that oppression is not simple top down marginalization but is instead interwoven & utilized by other people at different times!! remember to be intersectional!!

[suenitos]

I support them in never telling fans anything about their sexuality or relationship again like if I had never come out bc I didn’t want to and the people were cannibalising themselves bc they had to swear up and down I was straight or gay or in a relationship with a man or a woman i don’t think I’d ever say anything personal ever again

if people actually cared about nuance i feel like there could be great conversations to be had about how you really have such a lack of privacy and ownership as a famous person, even if you have marginally more control as someone who is in content creation and "self made". like i said earlier with the art essay, celebrity in particular demands that you perform and produce every second of your life and very few people actively break that mold and in some ways it's harder to do so as a woman or person of color or queer person etc, but its also difficult in other ways if you belong to a dominant group(s) or are perceived to be in breaking out of your persona. i think people forget that even with our social advances we are not guaranteed space or safety like in any context and a lot of things from us can and will be taken away. because on the other side, if you are out and loud, or youre easily clockable (aka dont have the ability to mask or closet yourself), you have to deal with extreme tokenization from people who mean well but maybe dont really care about you personally, just what you represent for general "representation" (like being The Gay streamer or The Trans streamer etc) , and you deal with extremely invasive questions regardless but on this level they have the potential to actually destroy your life because we still live in deeply queerphobic societies everywhere, and a bad answer/decision/behavior reflects poorly on the community. so i completely support peoples decisions to be as quiet or loud about their sexuality as they want, and their ability to explore on their own and reclaim a semblance of privacy because even we as non famous people cant really enjoy that luxury as much anymore either. but THAT is another essay topic

[the-path-to-redemption]

Bitch wtf?!!!

Listen I have my own disagreements and agreements on Hazbin Hotel but at the same time I don't think the angels from Hazbin Hotel is a great example of Israel

From what I know angels from HH are unaware of the Genocide of hellborns are disagree with it. Zionist and majority Israel population IS aware of what they are doing and support the Genocide.

Avatar the Last Airbender is better on portraying a Genocide that HH

Long Post Ahead. Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Sexual Assault, Genocide, Naz*s, Deaths, and War.

Look, I don't really give a shit about the whole morality of Hazbin Hotel because the show is fucking mediocre as shit to me, but let's just make one thing clear for everyone. Thanks for showing me this shit, homie, cause this coming rant?

This is mostly aimed at the fucker in the screenshot m/ultishipper and others like them:

If you compare an ongoing genocide that has caused thousands of casualties, real-life deaths of innocents including children, to a fucking fictional media.

YOU ARE A FUCKING GHOUL AND I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR YOU.

We can discuss the presence of genocide in a show for days and I wouldn't give a fuck, but to take the suffering of war victims to boost up your asinine, anti-RWDE bullshit immediately takes you to the lowest depths of hell, m/ultishipper, and nothing will ever fucking change the fact that you are SCUM.

These are REAL fucking people. Not a fucking comparative element for anyone to compare to FICTIONAL CHARACTERS who cannot fucking do anything. They. Are. Not. Real. And I am fucking done with the RWBY bootlickers who make these kinds of fucking comments as a gotcha to RWDE.

I've seen a fucking edit of Ironwood sitting next to P*tin during the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis. I've seen posts of fuckers like this making Ironwood out to be a fascist and comparing him to N*tanyahu. I've seen so many fucking people calling fans of Ironwoods fascists and Naz*s, it's not even fucking funny.

STOP. THAT. SHIT. The casualties and horrors of war are NOT for you to fucking exploit, m/ultishipper, just because you love to such dick for a company that does not give a fuck about you. Don't fucking act like you're innocent either, because *I* had to block you last year after you fucking call me an abuse apologist as well as other vile ass shit. and that's not mentioning your countless abuse towards other RWDE blogs, many run by women of color and other marginalized groups.

I don't doubt that there have been death threats; yeah, RWDE isn't a monolith, and no one deserves to be treated like that over some trash-ass Texas anime. But guess what? DO FUCKING NOT ACT LIKE YOU AND SIMILAR BITCHED HAVEN'T DONE THE SAME THING AND WORSE.

So far, you ass-eaters have:

Call me an abuse apologist, a misogynist, a queerphobe, a racist, a dictator lover, and a pedophile over a FUCKING SHOW.

Harassed MULTIPLE RWDE blogs, many run by marginalized people, and called them similar shits for disagreeing with you, completely forgetting that some of them are SA survivors, in which calling them pedophiles and similar things makes you a SEXUAL AGGRESSOR.

Sent death threats to blogs for disagreeing with your bullshit and bullied many artists out of the FNDM for "shipping the wrong ships".

Make excuses for the abusers working at RT, who have a long fucking list of violence against people, while still calling us abuse apologists.

FUCKING CALLED SHEENA OUM, MONTY'S WIDOW, A MURDEROUS BITCH AND BLAMED HER FOR HIS DEATH AFTER RT KICKED HER OUT OF HER HUSBAND'S PROJECT.

Degrading the works and involvement that Dillon Goo and Shane Newville have on RWBY, even though they were with Monty since the beginning the same way MK was while uplifting the latter who continues to exploit queerness in characters to sell their show.

Blamed and bullied Kdin, who was abused by her place of employment for years, for said abuse while making excuses for your faves who made years of her life hell.

Ignored the many, MANY, animators and employees at RT, who were abused, laid off, and in some cases, DISABLED, by the awful working conditions there just for your dumbass show to continue at their expense.

Made comparisons between RWDE posters and NAZ*S. Who fucking does that?? There's a fucking screenshot of someone on Reddit literally claiming that if H*tler was a RWBY hater, WE would hang Swatzik*s to support him. FUCK YOU.

And right back to now, comparing real casualties of war to a fucking show as a gotcha to people you do not agree with.

I hope that you assholes find a conscience soon for your own sake. Because if this is part of your legacy, may you fucking rot in hell.

Thank you to the person submitting this to me. Only for showing me the depths of depravity this scumbag can go to though; making me read that shit was torturous and I will now pour 6 oz. of salt into your soup tonight.

[beardedmrbean]

https://x.com/marrloed/status/1783599852108038549?s=46

>Generation that was raised on some of the most complex kids media western entertainment had to teach empathy and such

>Threw it all the way to have american Puritanism and Nazism with a queer hat

Also let not pretend that this not just based off the media kids consume. Because as you mention before the evil shit that the Steven universe fandom did. A lot of people forget the vast majority of the Steven Universe fanbase of that time were MILLENNIALS. So not my gen or gen alpha and let not pretend it just media consumption

“Hey Gen x-z who part the marginalized groups who we allowed. I know you have genocidal hatred towards groups because your abusers just happened be part of. We are going to allow it and never think it has an effect.”

I mean hello tik tok? Or how the majority of fanbases of kids cartoons are toxic as hell?

I mean the Killmonger shitshow? When you allow a huge chunk of society to treat real humans as FICTIONAL characters, oh and covid. ALMOST LIKE WE WERE YELLING AT PEOPLE HOW THE EXTREME MEASURES WE DID WE DO A NUMBER ON KIDS

Sorry y’all, but when a fandom said I’m a Nazi and abuse apologist for preferring a evil space wizard (who is so watered down to some of the others unhinged characters I like) over the bland heroes who had the personality of cardboard

You planted the seeds for the sociopathic behavior we see in modern kids because YOU FUCKS ALLOWED THE MANIACS GET INTO POWER BECAUSE THEY LIKE WOKE SHIT

>Generation that was raised on some of the most complex kids media western entertainment had to teach empathy and such >Threw it all the way to have american Puritanism and Nazism with a queer hat

Sometimes simple is superior, I had Fred Rogers.

“Hey Gen x-z who part the marginalized groups who we allowed. I know you have genocidal hatred towards groups because your abusers just happened be part of. We are going to allow it and never think it has an effect.”

True about SU, there's other reasons for that too

Gen-X managed to see its monster get slain when the Berlin Wall fell, wouldn't say hatred towards them just communism in general

I mean hello tik tok? Or how the majority of fanbases of kids cartoons are toxic as hell?

Entitlement does that, Voltron thing is a good example. Unhinged people thinking they can force other people's art to conform to their standard.

I mean the Killmonger shitshow? When you allow a huge chunk of society to treat real humans as FICTIONAL characters, oh and covid. ALMOST LIKE WE WERE YELLING AT PEOPLE HOW THE EXTREME MEASURES WE DID WE DO A NUMBER ON KIDS

Gonna be interesting to see the long term effects of all of that, heartbreaking to probably.

Wild watching all the self proclaimed anti fascists out there acting as fascist as fascist can be, never seemed to be able to get through to them that they were behaving that way either.

Anarchists being mad that people weren't following the state's orders was wild.

You planted the seeds for the sociopathic behavior we see in modern kids because YOU FUCKS ALLOWED THE MANIACS GET INTO POWER BECAUSE THEY LIKE WOKE SHIT

Now now, we all know it's always someone else's fault for things like this.

[opinated-user]

i think lily called her critics the r slur? a while ago today she posted referring to the people getting on her case r*****s but typed it like that. the post is deleted now but it’s gross if that’s really what she meant.

wait, did i miss that? did someone managed to archive that or take a screenshot?

i know she called critics rapist, school shooters, psychopaths (which is still ableist), suicidal (also ableist), violent, abusers, subhuman (which is not very nice in general, but worse look when the vast majority of us are queer or marginalized in some other way) and probably other things i'm forgetting right now.

[sawthatmountainburn]

I mean, I do think it's useful to have a way to articulate who transmisogyny affects cause like it's not "everybody" as some might want to claim, but it's annoying that even the pro tma/tme distinction side cannot decide on what it actually means. like the thing that made me lose faith in it was this

like ok, let's accept the premise that TMA doesn't just mean transfem (a loosely defined term anyway) and can include non-transfem drag queens, which are mostly cis queer men with some exceptions. following so far.

but then what makes someone TME is the ability to wield transmisogyny against transfems, which means cis guys are TME. and that's also perfectly reasonable, but it does cause issue with the previous statement that non-transfem drag queens are TMA. Ru-Fracking-Paul himself has been very transmisogynistic on numerous occasions and somehow, I don't think he's an outlier! there's also an argument to be made, and has been made by some transfems and even drag queens, that ceasing to be in drag is more akin to taking off a costume, whereas trying to stop being trans is straight up life threatening. and like, sure, there's nuance to this, but it's a very stark and obvious difference, right? so clearly not all, if any, non-transfem drag queens are TMA. hell, I think there's an argument to be made that drag is actually being attacked because it's a queer artform, like "degenerate art" was attacked by the original Nazis; something related to transmisogyny, but distinct from it.

so like, it's infinitely nuanced as a lot of things are, which would be fine except for the fact that people demand others identify themselves as TME/TMA in order to participate in these discussions. and if you're a binary trans person who doesn't crossdress in anyway, the distinction is easy to make, but for others not so much and sorry if this hurts anyone's feelings, but declaring that it's just not worth talking about those "others" because they're such a minority, is just classic marginalization.

and like idk if there's a real solution to this. in my mind, it makes more sense for TMA to apply only to trans people who were AMAB. then there can be a broader term for stuff which includes that + drag queens who don't fall into that category + femboys who also don't + ditto butches + intersex women who are perceived as more "mannish" + whomever I might be forgetting idk it's 6am. but idk I'm just one guy with a particular (autistic) way of understanding the world so the models I find to make sense, might not resonate with others, nor be particularly useful in analysis. but jfc I'm tired of this wishy-washy nonsense and I'm even more tired of how allergic its proponents are to criticism.

[innocent-until-proven-geeky]

Not to have Thoughts about Shrek the Musical, but I think one of my favorite moments is in Donkey’s solo “don’t let me go” when Donkey tells Shrek, “You don’t know what it’s like to be considered a freak! … well, maybe you do.”

For one thing it’s just funny. When delivered well it makes the whole audience laugh.

But ALSO the whole musical is not so subtly about being marginalized and all the different ways people can be oppressed. Donkey is a talking donkey, Pinocchio is a walking talking puppet, Gingy is a talking gingerbread cookie. “I did some time in jail, I smell like sauerkraut,” and of course, Shrek is an ogre and Fiona is cursed to turn into one at sunset every day. There are SO many different fairy tale creatures that Farquaad has kicked out of Duloc, all for different reasons that ultimately add up to You Do Not Look And Act The Way I, The Person In Power, Want You To.

There are characters who are analogs for being queer, Jewish, disabled, and people of color, and there are characters that I can’t seem to tie to any one experience because they’re just there to show that people think being different is bad.

And Donkey says to Shrek, “You don’t know what it’s like to be considered a freak!” And it’s FUNNY because Shrek is an ogre, of COURSE he knows what it’s like—but it’s also kinda deep because sometimes, especially if you don’t have intersectional identities, we can forget that other people with identities we don’t have ARE considered “freaks” in modern society, although usually people don’t word it that way. As a white Christian, I don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color or to be Jewish, Muslim, or any other non-Christian—and Shrek doesn’t know what it’s like to be a talking donkey—but as a queer disabled AFAB person, I do know what it’s like to be oppressed in those ways—and Shrek knows what it’s like to be an ogre.

And I love that Donkey immediately realizes what he’s said and backtracks. He doesn’t apologize (because I think that would ruin the comedy and MOSTLY Shrek is a comedy), but he goes, “well, maybe you do!” Maybe even though you do not have MY experience of being a Freak™️ and I do not have YOUR experience of being a Freak™️, we are still both Freaks™️ together.

Like. This is why intersectionality is so important! This, and the fact that everything is linked and our oppression is designed to keep the people in power where they are, and also the fact that some people are at the intersection of different marginalized identities, like queer Jews or Muslims, or disabled people of color, or any other combination.

[jaidethalagorra]

I know I don’t normally post about stuff like this and I probably won’t again, but I’ve been here for a couple weeks now and I feel like I need to say my piece.

I know that there’s always so much hate on us, from both outside and inside the community. And I know that all of it hurts. And it kills. And it feels like the only thing we can do is fight back. But it’s so, so important to remember that aside from the genuine grifters who are feeding them this information, everyone here thinks they’re in the right. They think they’re doing the right thing.

Religious conservatives who send their kids to conversion therapy are so scared that their children are going to eternal damnation that they’re willing to put their kid through hell on earth so they aren’t tortured forever. TERFs genuinely think that we’re a danger to their feminism and that with our presence all that they’ve worked for will crumble and women will go back to not being people. Pick-mes and exclusionaries have been so scared by the system and the hate around them that they feel the only way they can protect themselves is to take others down. Transphobic queers are also scared, scared that our existence means that what they’ve worked for will be undone. People who say we’re influencing their kids are genuinely worried for their kids.

And I’ll never defend their actions and their words. Those words kill, and hurt in ways both physical and mental. There is no excuse for transphobia. But it’s also so important to remember where this is coming from. Why they’re doing this. It’s the system of grifters, accelerationists, and power-hungry maniacs who have fed these lies to people and made them so scared that they do this to others. Their aim has always been to divide us, and right now it’s working. Are the things that these people saying ok? No. But we can never forget that their actions come out of fear that was already taught to them.

So I want to remind everyone, as hard as it is to start with compassion. Not forgiveness, not acceptance, but compassion. These people are scared and angry and vulnerable just like we are. They want to do right. And we’ve all heard the stories of people who changed. Family members who changed their views on trans people after seeing how much happier their trans family was after coming out. Ex flat-earthers who had someone try to talk to them with compassion instead of yelling (I know it’s not the same thing, but my point stands.) compassion can change people, so much more than yelling can. Telling people that they’re wrong and how they’re hurting others isn’t gonna change anything. Ever. It’s starting with what we have in common and working our way up that changes people. Start with community. Start with compassion. It’s not easy, I know. It’s hard to find common ground with some of these people. But without them we will fail. We’re spending so much energy fighting each other and fighting other marginalized groups that we forget where this comes from. We say it every pride: love wins. Spread love not hate. Well it’s time to put that into action.

We tell it to them and we need to say it to ourselves: tearing others down isn’t going to build the movement up.

I wanna reiterate. I’m not saying that their words should be ignored and they should be instantly forgiven. I’m saying that we always need to start with compassion. Start with knowing they’re just as scared and angry and hurt as we are. We won’t win by tearing each other down.

[liminalweirdo]

i don't know if it's just being raised queer that alienates you from the queer experience, but I think you're right about queerness still being more rooted in the societal mindset as more misery than joy.

But I also think there's lots of reasons that some other queer people might feel alienated besides just being raised queer. Or put another way, I don't think queer families should worry about their queer kids ending up alienated. (Not saying this is what you were saying op, just that this is what your post made me think of, and the rest of this post is more my own rambling thoughts).

For me, as an autistic person with mostly queer/trans friends, I also didn't experience a lot of these things that my queer peers did -- at least not in the ways that my friends were experiencing them.

I don't remember coming out to my parents very well. There were arguments about the meaning of bisexuality. Back then my parents still called me greedy/only rock'n'roll stars do that (yes really lol)/it's a phase. There were arguments about living as a queer person and why that wasn't good or what my parents wanted for me, and there was endless annoyance at my relatives constantly asking me whether or not I had a boyfriend like that was the only option (sigh). I didn't end up homeless like some queer people I knew, when they were kicked out, but I am living with the threat of homelessness as an adult. I think we also sometimes forget that the queer experience continues beyond teenage and young-adulthood, and programs are no longer in place for us beyond that. It's very similar to autism in that way. It's like people think autism stops existing after 18. Look up anything on autism and it's "your autistic child..."

But yeah, the gender binary stuff was always pretty *shrug* to me because the rules were too arbitrary for me and my autistic brain to really give a shit about beyond "don't misgender my friends." (also... we didn't even have words like 'misgender' back then, at least not where i grew up). Basically, I didn't have a super solid differentiation between 'boys' and girls' and what that meant (in the mindset of society at the time) which was also a huge part of the reason why it took me so long to realize that I was trans, too.

I remember not feeling comfortable or welcome in queer spaces because I felt like queerness was so good and the GSA at my school didn't feel that way. I remember feeling uncomfortable in the queer community where I grew up (in a PRETTY small town) because that dynamic wasn't something that I jived with with my neurodivergent brain. I still feel excluded from pride and other queer spaces because nobody's making it accessible to people with visible and invisible disabilities (like by wearing masks and ensuring that the space around the building is also accessible, and and and. I could talk forever about this, too). But my exclusion doesn't mean I don't love my community, I just think that queer people need to work harder on realizing that there are many different types of queers, many ways to be that way, and many queers who are poor/disabled/neurodivergent/mentally ill/culturally different/raised different/less educated/less privileged etc. etc. etc. And I believe that eventually we will get there, but it's going to take a lot of work and being queer and marginalized doesn't exempt you from doing it.

I think that being surrounded by queer people (friends, parents, community) does sort of dilute the experience, though. Or soften it somehow?

I'm sorry that you, or I, or anybody feels alienated from our community, but a lot of us are. And yeah we base a lot of the queer experience on the struggle, still. My partner says that he doesn't doesn't feel queer enough because he came out as an adult and didn't experience some of the vitriol that happens to queer teens in middle and high school, but of course that doesn't actually make him less queer. I think there might actually be a little bit of danger in thinking of queerness as suffering; in forgetting that queer people who are different from us are still just as queer, and that being queer is a fucking incredible, wonderful thing.

I remember back when every single queer movie ended in AIDS or death or not being able to come out or be together. All of the gay media I grew up with barely touched queerness at all, or it ended in tragedy. To this day, I brace myself before watching anything queer because I'm so indoctrinated to think that it's going to be super depressing. And like... queer movies aren't actually often like that anymore? (They're often kind of vapid. Queer movies for straight people, but that's a whole OTHER post).

Anyway, I wanted to talk about this because I hope that that alienation doesn't mean that some queer people can't often relate to other queer folks. There are queer people out there for you! I think there are lots (and hopefully more and more) queer people who also didn't struggle so significantly as we used to growing up queer for a multitude of reasons. Neurodivergency, prevalence of queer friends, different media focusing less on the 'tragedy' of queerness etc.

so guys turns out that being raised by queer people alienates me from the queer experience. probably not a good thing

[vtori73]

Ugh... I just, personally as a genderfluid person don't get how people seem to TRUELY believe trans masc/men are more susceptible to being misogynistic than LITERALLY anyone else. EVERYONE has the ability to be misogynistic, EVERYONE!!! I would argue cis people in general are more prone to being horribly misogynistic than any trans person, honestly. I mean... do y'all seriously forget how misogynistic white conservative women can get?

So why the fuck do y'all think trans masc/men are an extra special case that are somehow worse about it? Misogyny isn't stored in the testosterone or gender you know, if it were we wouldn't have horribly sexist women but we do so what EXACTLY are y'all actually trying to say here???

Look, all I'm saying is the way people are speaking & treating trans masc/men feels & looks no differently to how people treat bi people, ace people, etc. It just feels like y'all found a new acceptable target to punch down or sideways at because why is it that trans masc/men seem to be singled out for supposed "bad" things they do that aren't at all limited to them BUT also at the same time are ignored anytime anyone brings up the specific oppression and problems they face. And what's extra "funny" about all this is that it all comes from the same place, terf/rad fem talking points that y'all REFUSE to actually learn from & finally move past!!!!

Again, this especially reminds me of talking points people use against bisexuals, specifically bisexual women, because of our assumed proximity to men we get treated like we're sapphic traitors regardless of who we are dating and are told we have to make sure we aren't prioritizing men even though ANYONE has the capacity to do that (romantic/sexual relationship aren't the only ones that exist you know) yet for SOME reason we are told we have to stay vigilant & watch ourselves & who we are with because we can put the fragile pure sapphics who don't date men in danger & that we are basically asking for it if anything happens to us because our our assumed proximity to men. It's all just so *screams internally* ...frustrating.

I've come to honestly distrust a lot of the online queer community because of this, no, not specifically because of anti transmasc/men sentiment but because of this continued refusal to dig deeper and learn about/from the past & queer politics and finally learn to see the patterns of infighting and bigotry repeat themselves because NONE of this is new!!!!!! All of this basically has its roots in political lesbianism (if your queer & don't know anything about political lesbianism you should, but basically the gist is they were a group of straight women who infiltrated the lesbian community & kicked out anyone who wasn't basically a "pure lesbian" & spouted ideas that ANY involvement with men was a betrayal to each other/the group & very sexist puritanical beliefs/ideas on sex & the damage caused from that still lives on today. It just takes on a slightly new form when it gets exposed again & again but so few of you learn from this shit and seem to forget immediately what it once looked like and just happily continue the cycle because shitting on other queer people is easier & more fulfilling to yall than actually doing something productive for the overall community).

I've also said this before on a different post but y'all lumping in trans men with cis men to talk about how much "privilege" we have is not at all progressive especially since it's the only time you ever bother to remember trans men/masc people exist. Say it with me, trans men cannot and never will have the privilege cis men have because that is not how our whiteallocisheteropatriarchal society works. Trans people are not desired or wanted in our society & thus do not have or are given the same privilege that cis men get for being CIS, same with men of color, disabled men, etc. Can marginalized men punch sideways or down at people that are equal to or less privileged than them? Yes, but... that's not unique to us specifically, not even close, & honestly the people I believe we should be most concerned about leveraging their power over others & being a hindrance to the community/our liberation is any white queer person/ally, I mean even Silvia Rivera basically said this.

It honestly happens all the time too, especially in these vast instances of infighting because white people do not like acknowledging they have the capacity to oppress others and want to believe they have no privilege because of their other marginalized identities like being queer. It's no different from the allocishetero white people who do this in other marginalized spaces they are supposedly being allies in only the marginalized white people can't & refuse to see the privilege they have for being white because it didnt/doesn't protect them from the bigotry they face for their marginalized identity/ies. The white privilege they were promised at birth doesn't shield them as much as they were expecting it would and thus refuse to believe they have any at all because of it.

Oh, and also on a related note passing privilege isn't really a legit thing or is a concept I at least refuse to entertain. If you have to hide who you are in order to pass which is something that's not even accessible to all that many trans people in general it wasn't/isn't really all that much of a privilege to begin with meaning it's conditional and thus null in void. Personally I feel this is just white people pushing the blame off of them & their white privilege onto this so called "passing privilege."

...

(Read more below because the thoughts below aren't as articulated as I would hope so while I stand by them I'm probably not explaining them well enough for others to understand)

It's also a continued way to punch sideways/down at other identities and people they don't like & refuse to understand such as bi, pan, ace, aro, trans, enby & whoever else despite the fact that many seem to glaringly ignore a hole in their logic that if passing privilege is real legit concept then anyone who isn't allocishetero can obtain it, not just identities you THINK can pass more easily. If other queer people can choose to pass so easily then everyone else has the capacity to do so as well. It's not really all that different from the argument made by homophobes that gay people choose to be gay, if it's such a choice why would it be so much harder for you to ignore who you are to gain/maintain this so called privilege then? And, not to mention this concept can't exist in a vacuum, many other factors can affect "passing" that is hard/impossible for specific marginalized groups and will be heavily influenced by white patriarchal ideals. Those able to obtain this so called privilege the easiest would, again, be white middle/upper class people & yet this concept is used willy nilly on huge swats of groups that are full of a various individuals who can't really obtain or access "passing privilege" but are treated like they can.

Tbf, when I say this it's based more so on my location/the US and some of this may apply less in other areas around the world but regardless i do believe anyone can gain passing privilege so long as you hide who you are which in my eyes makes it a useless concept then because having to live your life a lie doesn't really seem all that much of a privilege especially since it can and will be revoked if you get exposed and may even lead to extreme harassment or violence.

[rhetoricandlogic]

Vital and Urgent: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Vital and Urgent: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Vital and Urgent: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Alex Brown

Tue Nov 14, 2023 11:30am

Martha Wells returns to the Murderbot Diaries with the seventh book, System Collapse. It begins immediately after the events of the fifth book, Network Effect (book six, Fugitive Telemetry, actually takes place before book five and seven). Murderbot is just beginning to deal with the trauma of the earlier events, which I won’t spoil but involve a deeply unethical megacorporation, reckless human settlers, and invasive ancient alien technology. But before it can deal with its own mental health issues—or even acknowledge that it has any—it has to deal with representatives from said unethical megacorporation. Barish-Estranza has sent rescuers to the planet, and by “rescuers” I mean mercenaries who plan to indenture (forcibly if necessary) the surviving colonists and strip the planet of whatever resources it can extract. If they have to kill Murderbot’s humans to do that, they will.

Complicating matters are the colonists themselves. They don’t trust Murderbot’s crew anymore than they do Barish-Estranza. Furthermore, decades ago another set of colonists vanished on the other side of the planet. Are they alive and hiding, contaminated by killer alien technology, or plain old dead? Murderbot, a pack of humans, and a piece of ART the spaceship’s AI head off to find out, with Barish-Estranza hot on their heels.

The only thing I found frustrating with System Collapse was how it felt less like its own novella and more like 240 pages cut from Network Effect. I spent the first half of the story having no idea what was going on or why until I finally put the book aside and went back and read reviews and plot summaries of Network Effect. Murderbot went through a pretty traumatic experience in book five that directly impacts its life and job in book seven. Because of that trauma, Murderbot doesn’t want to engage with those memories and interrupts its own narration with “[redacted]”. Eventually Murderbot reveals enough that the reader can piece together the parts that they’ve forgotten to get the gist. It’s a stylistic choice that makes total sense with a narrator like Murderbot and feeds into readers’ own forgetfulness in interesting ways.

However, it’s also somewhat annoying for readers who haven’t been in this story since spring 2020. I struggle enough with books coming out a year apart, but three years—especially these past three years—means I basically came into book seven as fresh as newly fallen snow. I think the book needed a more thorough recap and much earlier in the story. Anyone who hasn’t read Network Effect yet should wait on System Collapse until they’ve caught up. This really is a story for current fans rather than new readers. (Newbies, I suggest the first novella, All Systems Red, obviously, or Fugitive Telemetry, a fun standalone hardboiled detective noir set on a space station.)

Really, if that’s the only complaint I could muster, you know it’s a good book. I enjoyed every moment of it, even the frustrating ones. Martha Wells has a way of writing that makes me want to crawl into the pages and live in the world she’s created. The world feels so tangible, its history bigger than the sliver we see and its cultures complex and colorful. So far I’ve only read her Murderbot series and Witch King (which I also adored immensely), but I found both to be rich, vivid worlds populated with realistic characters in riotously diverse cultures and societies.

She also does something with her fantasy and sci-fi work that I don’t see as often as I’d like: ignore the gender binary. There aren’t queer characters in the sense of queerness we have in our world. In Wells’ books, queerness isn’t a marginalization or something that exists outside the “normal” or the binary. There just isn’t a binary. Some people use he/him, some use she/her, and others use any of the countless other pronouns available across the galaxy. Pronouns and gender identities are as vast and personal as there are types of people. No one treats pronouns like anything special, no one speculates about what body parts they have under their suits or what bathrooms they use, no one challenges anyone else’s pronoun usage based on their own personal, social, religious, political, or cultural preferences. Her stories imagine worlds where queer people get to be people, in all the mess that entails, without having to justify, explain, or fight for our existence. In real life I can barely get cis people to remember to use they/them for me, so yeah, I get outsized joy at reading about a world where everyone gets to be who they are without anyone else barging in to try and make you feel bad about it.

Look, there’s not much to say about Martha Wells’ System Collapse that hasn’t already been said before about the rest of the Murderbot Diaries books. It’s wild fun, action-packed, and reflective in unexpected ways. The strong undercurrent of critique on capitalism and colonialism, the themes of trauma and mental health, and the unencumbered diversity take a relatively harmless science fiction series and turn it into something vital and urgent.

[babyjoysdiary]

Today I learned some people are really committed to not understanding you…they will hide behind fake apologies and weird ass phrasing and victim mentality.

Like Sign

Like Saman

Like KV

And I’m not gonna say it’s done white shit…but they all do got white momma’s.

Light skins twist your words like no other.

Like KV my housemate was being fucking anti-black in this goddamn house hold. But they making it solely about me calling out their fear… and saying “irreparable harm” and that there is no room for their harm.

Like playing victim like imma leave this house since I can’t not be anti-black.

What. The. Fuck.

Saying they won’t even cook in the kitchen and will just stay in their room or not come home.

And I know I said that too…and I was also in that victim role…but this feels manipulative

Like they are aware of what they are doing

I can feel it in their phrasing and not actually listening to me.

I say hey just work on this abs they say they can’t hear the pressure or the reality of causing me more harm since “there is no room for their fear and it’s inherently anti-black”.

I’m just done. I can’t do the mental gymnastics. Like they were using the words “compromise” and “expectations” when I said I was frustrated. And yea if you can’t give me rides, I’m not gonna do all the dishes. And I don’t care that one caused the other.

I don’t have the capacity to put in more than others. And the fact that they are centering on this idea that it’s their fear and not their actions and mentality?!?!

Yea, the praying with Micah worked.

I’m not mad or even sad. Well I’m both.

But I have control. I’m not gonna go upstairs and yell that I know what their manipulative ass , white ass, insidious ass more sly and a bigger threat than white people motherfucking ass is doing

Nor am I gonna keep messaging them explaining myself. It’s not just their fear painting me out to be aggressive, nor was it ever. It was and is their mentality and approach. The whose is me, I guess I’m just a racist and should call it quits

That “since there id no room for my fear and it’s inherently anti-black” that is so reductive and not what I was tryna say.

And I know that. And that’s all that tucking matters.

Bro I really get gaslit everyday.

Just listen cause people in the group chat for the protest that’s happening tomorrow really forgot it was Remus, and she wanted to honor the trans woman who was almost beaten to death not but two week ago. And why queers over took it and then had the audacity to talk shit about President Andrew Jenkins… I wish you fucking wrong for Voting the way she did yes and his part of this bullshit her karma yes but at the same time I don’t think that gives people the right to not see to not see her humanity. I also just think is not fucking conclusion or logical to be like this black person in this trans person this other marginalized person has harmed me and votes against our collective wishes. Therefore, she doesn’t deserve space therefore, she shouldn’t be able to speak like she’s in a position of fucking power and she’s hurting us and she’s hurting her self like casting her out and yelling at her Soli not yelling at her and also giving her tea not yelling at her and also cooking her meal just yelling at her and not holding space where it doesn’t fucking work like that it doesn’t it doesn’t and I should know that better than anybody… Anyway … in this fucking group chat they were ripping her to shreds and saying she had no right to be there… Forgetting that she was in the group chat and people act as if they didn’t know she was in a group chat when they were called out for it as well as try to backpedal and say that it’s not that they were trying to control where she was or when she spoke but it was a concern for her safety and it wasn’t. That’s a lie. They think that she should be punished for the way that she votes and it’s not that I disagree. It’s more the fact that if we say we are organizing for trans, joy and rage and collective power. It’s a pussy ass move to tell people who are canceled or politically spicy. They can’t come. How dare you call yourself an activist willing to do the tough work and then ban somebody from coming to to the protest or saying, that fuck her leader ship since she is a bad leader, she doesn’t deserve to speak at one point in my youth I would’ve agreed, but it’s like times are too fucking dire, there’s too many trans fucking bills trying to kill us and police trying to kill us and I know she aided in the police shit we get this she still in power so being nasty and mean to her that’s not gonna get her to change the way she votes and you know why I know that because today Daddy-O in the group chat was very sincere and vulnerable and nice when talking about how the group chat was anti-black and they didn’t care. They didn’t respond well and pushed back and then when I came in with that heat and got into their asses and was mean they again lied and said it was just about worrying for Andrea’s safety know they want her punished they want her punished and well I can see invalidate that point of you I don’t know how you can call yourself a radical if that’s the stance you take because she still is a black trans woman not… Excuses her and she shouldn’t be held accountable. It just means that we can’t treat her like a criminal will you can’t say you’re for abolition and then treat people as if they’re criminals even when they commit a crime I know it sucks it’s bullshit. It doesn’t feel good it’s not sexy there’s no movies written about it barely any books written about it. I just know that if I have the where fall and the talent and the skills I would want to be able to talk to someone who is like a Candace Owens as with much grace as I talk to anyone in my family when I’m not activated. All bets are off when I’m activated and maybe it’s because, I have been activated in the past with Andrea. I am currently able to come at it with a little bit of a clear head, a little bit of a more equitable point of you at the end of the day, though these folks were called out for their anti-blackness, and they resisted it avoided. It said that it was merely about safety, and the wishes of their comrades of others, and yeah they’re a whole bunch of black and brown people. Don’t fuck with Andrea and that’s cool

[rainbowsky]

Hi I’ve seen your post about gg’s recent vacation pictures. Yeah he is so hot there.

To me biggest candy is gg’s rainbow zenith watch. What do you think?

The legs in pool pic, can’t it be a just coincidence? I mean it’s a French movie, an old one too. What are the chances gg to see it? I mean it’s not a popular one like for an example call me by your name right??

This is in reference to a previous post.

Yeah, he really is! 🔥🔥🔥

Here's the thing, Anon...

It's CPN. CPN means looking at things through the perspective of a belief that GG are queer and in a relationship. Because of this, some things will land a different way than they would on solos, or even on turtles who don't believe GG and DD are in a real relationship.

And as a candy, it's also open to individual interpretation - ie. no one is obligated to believe in it. Nor is anyone obligated to try to discredit it. This isn't a courtroom.

We'll likely never see any interpretation fully validated or confirmed one way or another, so people should just enjoy what they enjoy, and scroll past what they don't enjoy.

As for your theories on why this particular interpretation is unlikely, you might be right, but I personally don't see it that way. GG is a film and TV buff who has repeatedly referenced dramas and films with queer elements in his posts and performances.

As a gay film buff, I actively seek out queer movies. Trust me, there simply aren't that many in the world. Especially not good ones. The chances that any particular gay guy has watched a particular gay movie is surprisingly high, no matter how obscure it might seem.

The French have some amazing gay films, and anyway, gay film appreciation requires one to look to global markets, just by nature of the fact that gay films rarely get made and are often marginalized in the industry. Especially if you happen to be Chinese and it's more difficult to find openly queer content in your country.

And we can't forget the fact that DD (and by extension CPN-wise, GG) has a lot of French connections who have recently descended upon Hangzhou to film a show.

So it wouldn't be that strange for GG to be referencing a French gay movie from the year his husband was born.

I’m not saying it’s a huge candy, but it’s not without some potential validity.

Call Me By Your Name, while an excellent film that I've watched an autism amount of times (like, well over 200 times and I'm not joking), isn't the only gay film out there. Gay content that's popular in North America is by no means the only gay content out there.

The rainbow Zenith watch is a great candy. He's worn rainbow Zenith watches a few times now and even chose it to represent love in a Zenith Qixi campaign. So yeah, it's a great candy.

So to answer your question, Anon, yes, the pool legs pic could be a coincidence or it might not. If that candy doesn't taste sweet to you, no worries. There are other things to enjoy.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

For Vampire Chris! What if he and Jake went to a museum and came across some of Tooley's paintings? And Chris has a panic attack! We would finally get some Jake comfort. And maybe Chris would reveal more horrible things that Tooley had done to him.

CW: Discussion of death, blood, vampire whumpee, caretaker and whumpee

The sun sets early in the winter, and it's the only reason they can make this work.

Chris is barely awake even so, sipping from a coffee cup Jake filled with the contents of one of his blood packs, hoping he doesn't trip and spill and lead to Jake having some very awkward, panicked explanations to make to anyone nearby.

He'd slept in the truck Jake borrowed from Nat most of the way over here, curled in the passenger seat. He looks for all the world like any high schooler who stayed up too late the night before, dragged out by his family, forced to go learn when all he wants is rest.

Chris is draped in a hooded sweatshirt pulled on over his head, hair mussed from sleeping in the closet in the little nest-bed he made for himself in there. It sticks out like stray from beneath the hood he's pulled up, coppery strands occasionally covering his eyes and making him shove them out of the way with a snort that has no right to be as adorable as it is, considering the monster who makes the sound.

Not a monster, no. Not really.

Or his monster, anyway, the same way his mother is his mother. Jake is starting to understand the little vampire - more than three times his own age - has chosen him for family now.

The sweater he wears is kind of a joke, actually. Jake bought it weeks ago from a website that puts the covers of books on clothes, and it's an old cover image from Dracula.

Jake thought it was funny, anyway. Nat was less amused. Chris only smiled and said something about being happy the hairy palms thing isn't true.

The air is chilly, and Jake shivers a little as they head in from the parking lot across a small sidewalk next to a park and toward the museum itself, but of course Chris doesn't even notice. He seems to be enjoying it, the way it blows around his hair as they make their way slowly up the steps and past the row of Grecian-style columns that mark the entrance.

Jake has to visit for one of his classes, an extra-credit something-or-other, and Chris had asked to go along with him.

Jake had been hesitant, but seeing the way the vampire's green eyes sparkle as he moves around in public like any other person, well... he feels like he made the right choice to bring him along now.

"Finish up your drink, you can't take anything in once we pay and get past the lobby," Jake says, and Chris nods, gulping the last of the blood as fast as he can as they push through wide double-doors. Jake tries not to imagine how it must feel, swallowing thick congealing cooled blood. Someone's life, someone's heartbeat, down your throat...

Really, is he that much different? Jake has eaten a dozen cows' worth of beef in his life.

Does Chris see them all as just livestock? He doesn't act like it, but then, there are people who treat pigs or cows like pets and not like food...

His stomach flips a little and he forces himself to look around, up at the chandelier at the high ceiling, the heavy wooden desk they have to walk to off to the side to get their tickets. To stop trying to understand if Chris is a sort of stray they've adopted, or if he's a higher-level predator living with prey.

Once Chris drops the cup into a trash can, Jake throwing a couple wadded-up tissues on top so no one can accidentally see the smear of red around the edge of the lid, they buy their tickets, and wind their way through and past the little velvet ropes that mark off the entrance.

The museum opens before them into a grand hall, with paintings the size of two-story buildings on either side, permanent installations in the museum. Commissioned for its opening, sometime back in the 70's.

Jake picks up a brochure so they know which way to go - LGBTQ+ Art in Pre-War America is the temporary exhibit he's here to see, traveling work that is usually housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"Oh, nice, it's on the first floor. Looks like you go through a couple of 'specialty' rooms, just showing off stuff from the in-house collection. Sounds cool, right?"

Chris, looking from side to side at the gigantic paintings that hang on the walls in the opening hall, hums softly, a tuneless constant sound. He doesn't answer Jake's question. He hums often, and Jake barely notices any longer, but there's something edged to it, now. As if just being around the paintings is making him nervous.

"Okay, little man, let's go over here." He touches Chris's arm, lightly, through the thick fabric of his sweater. The vampire looks over at him, smiling with his lips pressed together to hide his teeth from any potential prying eyes.

He follows easily, but he sticks closer to Jake than he normally does, and his eyes are constantly roving. They move through an exhibit of Pre-Colombian pottery first, on their way to the room in the back where the temporary showcase is.

Jake watches Chris's fingers twitch with the urge to touch, to learn by feeling the bumps and ridges in the ancient clay, and how he holds back as best he can. His urge to lift the clear protective plastic boxes right off the pottery so he can get at it is nearly physically painful.

Jake pretends not to see it when Chris's fingers trail along a column, settling for the white-painted rectangle the pottery is balanced on, taking in the rough texture smoothed by the matte paint.

"Did you ever meet anyone like you that was old enough to have made stuff like this?" Jake asks, stopping in front of a water jug in the shape of a man playing a flute with a dog at his feet. The dog wears a carved smile marked with disturbingly human-looking teeth. The paint it must have been covered in is worn by time, leaving the reddish-brown of the clay behind, with the faintest streaks of white still in the crevices.

"No," Chris replies, tilting his head, making direct eye contact with the statue in a way he never quite can do with any real person. Not comfortably, anyway. Jake has seen him force it and shudder afterwards, overwhelmed. When he'd asked about it, Chris had said he never liked looking at anyone's eyes, even before, when he was alive. It's too much, was all he would say. It's always too much. "None, um, none of us live that long."

"Why not?" They're alone in the room. It's the only reason Jake feels safe asking.

Chris's tongue runs over the sharpening bumps of his growing-in fangs, pressing against them, easing the itch and the ache of their return. After a second, he pulls a plastic bat on a cord from inside his sweater and puts the bat into his mouth, chewing on it idly, jaw working. "I, I, I don't know. That's just what what what my, my, my pack told me."

"I thought vampires lived in covens."

"No." Chris doesn't elaborate on this one. He can be weirdly secretive about how he lived before he came to Nat's, before he was pulled out of a basement, a living drug for a wealthy asshole.

Secretive, or just forgetting whatever wasn't essential.

He moves away to another pedestal, a shard broken off of a larger vessel, marked with a deep white and intense black angular design. He hums again, and Jake takes the hint and leaves him alone.

They spend several more minutes looking over the pottery before they head through a second room full of what must just be the favorite pieces of museum employees, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason, and each little card with the name of the piece and its maker has a paper next to it with a note on why each employee loves this piece in particular. Chris lingers around older things, a woven tapestry from medieval England, landscapes from the 19th century. He stares for a while at a painting called The Country Path by Joseph Poole Addy, a pale watercolor of winter trees with bare branches breaking the line of sky and a woman bundled in a coat carrying a basket down an equally colorless road.

Chris's humming getting louder, and he rocks a little, forward and back, his eyes moving again and again through the lines of the painting.

Jake wonders what it is about this one specifically that catches Chris like that, and when the vampire finally moves on he checks the employee's statement. Joseph Poole Addy, Irish painter in the 19th and 20th centuries, blah blah, something something countryside... Jake frowns, and glances over at Chris, who isn't looking back. He's moved on to something else.

Jake decides to ask him later.

They make it to the exhibit they're here to see, and Jake whistles under his breath as he enters. There are vibrant, saturated paintings lining the walls, a couple of large sculptures on the floor that still are taller than he is, a few smaller ones on pedestals. The work is mostly figurative, although there's some early abstraction there, a hint of the contemporary push to take even figurative work out of simply being an echo of a real life thing.

Chris looks at a sculpture, his head cocked so far to the side it looks almost birdlike, not quite human. Jake thinks his own neck would ache for days if he tried to do that. "Must've been, um, later," He mumbles to himself.

Jake files that away in his mental list of things to talk to Chris about later.

He walks slowly along the line of paintings. The whole point of being here is that he's supposed to pick a specific piece and write a short essay about it and the artist who made it, prove he saw it in person.

The class itself is about how to encourage better outcomes for healthcare in marginalized populations - but if she's giving out extra-credit for looking at queer art, well, Jake is happy to spend an hour in a museum.

After his dismal performance on the last test, he could use whatever credit he can get. Besides, the exhibit is actually kind of cool with that in mind. Every one of these artists was in some way outside of the sort of het ideal, and Jake smiles a little as he catches the heaviness of a look between two men seated across a table from one another, looks over the clasped hands of women, sitting with everything from shoulder to hip touching, who are listed as 'friends visiting the riverbank'.

Art that celebrates, hidden in plain sight. Art that rebels by sliding details in under the surface where only those looking for them will find them.

Each piece has another little paper, although this just has details about the artist and their work, what they were known for. He can use it as a jumping-off point for his paper, anyway.

"You, you, you finished her," Chris whispers, standing in front of a sculpture of a woman with her head thrown back as if in uproarious laughter, a woman with curls expertly carved so that her hair seems to have been there before the stone it's made of somehow. "I wonder if she, um, if if if she saw it."

"What'd you say, Chris?" Jake blinks, pulled out of his own internal reverie.

"Nothing," Chris responds, and walks slowly around the statue. The woman's smile is a shining light in the room. No one could carve like that without being at least a little in love with the subject.

Jake wanders away and then comes to an abrupt stop before a large painting, probably taller than Chris is. The background is near-total darkness with only a suggestion of stone, a single beam of light shining down to illuminate the central figure.

A naked boy clothed only in scraps of torn cloth that only emphasize his nakedness everywhere else is crouched in terror. His knees are bent and his feet are on the floor, one hand holding his weight with fingers slightly curled, his spine bent and arched as if he is caught in the midst of turning to look up to find the direction of the light. His other hand is thrown out, as if trying to ward off an attack.

He bleeds from a dozen or more places, the blood curving perfectly around his form, giving it extra weight and heft that makes it seem like he'll step out of the canvas, grab Jake, and shake him.

Jake's heart starts to race as he stares.

There are bones littering the ground around the thin, wasted boy, not bleached but sort of yellowed, marked with little notches as if cut with a knife. There might still be bits of skin attached to some of them, a hint of muscle. The detail makes Jake sick, but his panic, that comes from something else entirely. Just behind the panicked boy there is a body, as if just fallen, the eyes still open in the final terrified throes of death. The body's fingers are still dug into the dirt floor as if the dead man had been trying to pull himself somewhere, to escape.

A skull watches with eerie cheer from one corner of the painting, a few teeth missing and knocked out from its garish grin.

Barely visible, a thin wash of grayish-white, there is a pale, gnarled hand near the bottom reaching out from the background as if to grab the boy's ankle and drag him into the darkness.

Count Ugolino's Last Son, oils, 1932, reads the little plaque beside the painting. Its faint brassy shine glints in the carefully calibrated light. Edward Tooley, 1907 - 1936.

Jake swallows, but the lump in his throat doesn't budge, and he swallows again. And again. He can't take his eyes off the boy's painted hair, a dirtied copper, strawberry-blond badly in need of a wash. The wide green eyes with their terror writ large and clear, painted with lovingly perfect detail.

The boy in the painting is the perfect identical twin of the vampire who is still staring at the sculpture on the other side of the room. The fear in his face is so expertly done as to seem more photographic than painted in oil. The blood that drips to the ground follows his anatomy with absolute perfection. The bones are not bleached by they so often are in paintings, no, these...

These...

Jake holds his phone up and takes a photo, and then another of the little plaque.

"Chris." His voice cracks and Jake clears his throat. His heart is still pounding. "Chris, come look at this."

"Yes, Jake," Chris answers, sounding a little faint, and then he seems to simply appear at Jake's elbow, the teenage boy who has seen two world wars and a half-dozen smaller, stupider ones.

He goes still at Jake's side when he looks up. Jake looks over, just slightly, glancing sidelong to see a look of something like... wistfulness on the vampire boy's face.

"Tooley," He breathes. His hand goes up, and out, and he would have touched the canvas if Jake hadn't reached out and grabbed on to stop him. Chris jumps a little and turns to meet Jake's gaze. His eyes are pink-tinged in the whites, as if he's holding back tears. "Is, is, is he famous?"

"I guess. He's... he's here, isn't he?"

"He always wanted to, um, to to to to be famous." Chris's eyes move over the details, but it's not with surprise, it's with easy familiarity. He's seen this painting before.

He's been this painting before.

"That's you, isn't it?" Jake asks in a hushed voice. "Like, that was really you."

Chris looks away again, a faint flush in his cheeks. He's full enough of blood for it to happen, and you'd never know he isn't alive if you didn't already. "Yes," He whispers, and wipes at the corner of his eye with one hand. "That, that, that's me."

"Were you his model?" Jake blinks, looking back over the painted twin of the vampire beside him. The fear in the boy's face, woven in with a kind of awful resignation. It's all so perfectly rendered.

"Yes. Sort, um. Sort of. He, he, he kept me in a room." Chris exhales, slowly, and his eyes shift over to the paper with the little bit of biographical information on it. Edward Tooley's early works focused on landscapes or retreads of common historical subjects, only to find greater excellence and focus when he began to paint, again and again, the same figure - a representation of the darkness of the human soul - he stated appeared to him and demanded to be portrayed... art historians believe Tooley was driven by the demons of the Great War that had taken his family from him one by one to seek out uncomfortable subjects that force viewers to see the damage humans do to one another...

Chris's nose wrinkles as he reads, his lips moving slightly with the words as he takes them in. "I never did that. Never, um, wanted to be painted. Also, um this, um. He was... wasn't... he wasn't... wasn't like the paper says."

Jake looks over, reads it himself. Gregarious, sociable, popular with the libertine art crowd... he frowns. "What part is wrong?"

"This." Chris points, this at least he can safely make contact with, and presses the pad of his finger under a sentence that reads took inspiration from the ugly side of the city hidden under its shining lights. "He, he, he he didn't care about anyone in the city. He thought everyone who, who who who who-who wasn't him was, um, was stupid."

"What did he care about?" Jake imagines telling his professor that instead of an essay, he's going to bring in a vampire who literally knew one of the artists in person. How she might react.

Probably call the cops and report an unsecured vampire loose on the streets. But maybe she'd listen to what Chris had to say first.

"Blood," Chris says, softly. His voice is getting lower and lower, until it's barely more than a whisper. "Pain. Fear. Being... being the the the the last person who, who saw someone. He, he, he, he liked to lay them out and paint them, liked me to, to, to... arrange them for him."

Jake's eyes go unwillingly back to the dead body behind the scared boy in the painting. The grasping fingers, the open eyes that look sightless, lifeless, at nothing at all. When he looks, he can see - more suggestion than made clear - that the body's throat is torn open, as if by an animal's teeth.

Now, only now that he's looking for it, does he realize there is the slightest hint of red tears on the cheeks of the painted boy, a sheen of pink on his teeth where he begs for mercy from the grasping singular hand coming out of the dark.

His stomach flips again. "Chris, are you saying-"

"His, his, his name was Ben." Chris nods at the dead body in the painting. "I asked. Before..." He gestures, a little vaguely. "That."

Jake feels a sudden, wild urge to look up missing persons cases from New York City in 1932. See if there's anyone named Ben on there. He knows without having to do so that there definitely will be.

"What happened to him... after?"

"I don't know. I, I, I was never let out when Tooley was gone. I... wonder how, how, how many of me there are." Chris looks up at the echo of his own face, his head tilting again. His lips tremble, just a little, and then part to show the hint of white teeth wet with pinkish saliva. "On walls, in houses, in... in places like, um. Like this. How many there are... is, is, is, is that what I still look like?"

Jake clears his throat again, looks down at his feet. This feels, suddenly, like he's walked in on someone looking down at his own dead body in a funeral home. Interrupting a moment so immensely private it shouldn't even exist.

"Yeah," he says, a little gruffly. "Yeah, that's it. More or less. Except I hope I scare you less than that. Also you wear a lot more clothes with us."

Chris laughs - it's a huff of sound, barely-there. Then he turns away from himself. "We, we, we can't see ourselves, in mirrors," He says, and he's got the little plastic bat back in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the carved silicone. "But I have mirrors everywhere. On these walls."

He goes suddenly terribly still. He isn't breathing.

He doesn't have to, but the realization that he isn't even pretending is a jolt of awareness of exactly how dead Chris is. He leaves the exhibit, and Jake is left to scramble after him, struggling to catch up to someone he should be able to easily outrun.

He breaks into a flat run when they get outside the double-doors, jumps the steps three at a time with grace, and runs across the grass and towards the stand of trees halfway across the park. Even Jake, who works out four days a week, is breathing hard and has a hitch in his rib by the time he catches up.

He finds Chris curled up under a tree in the evening dark, the stars starting to twinkle overhead as the sun finally allows them a clear night sky to shine in.

Jake drops to his knees, ignoring the damp that seeps into his jeans from soil that still hasn't dried since yesterday's rains, and he leans over, putting a warm hand to either side of the vampire's face.

Chris looks up, his eyes glinting like a cat's briefly in the dark, and there are trails down his cheeks, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl that is anything but angry.

No, this is grief.

This is loss.

Jake knows the feeling.

"Talk to me," Jake says softly. "Tell me what it was like, what it's been like for you. Tell me about the life you've lived before I knew you."

"It, it, it hurt," Chris whispers, and his own hands cover Jake's. They're the same temperature as the air around them, and Jake shivers a little. It's almost a chill. "Every time. I, I, I try not to kill, Jake, I try so hard, but but but he would keep me so hungry and I couldn't-... stop..."

Jake thinks about the robbers Chris killed - for him, to save him from them - and how he'd locked himself in the closet afterward. Had he cried like this, over taking lives even when in defense?

"The museum thing said this guy Tooley died in 1936. He was only, what, twenty-nine? Did... did you-"

"Yes." Chris's voice is thick but it's not quite with regret. "I was hungry. He, he he he he didn't bring food. I was so hungry... then I was, um, was alone for a while... then, then, then, then then then I was taken for, for, for the, um, the trade, for my v-venom, and..."

"Got it. I got it, Chris. It's okay," Jake says, softly. "It's going to be okay. You're with us, now. And we'll never, ever make you hurt someone that way. We'll never make you go hungry. We'll never hurt you or use you."

Chris ducks his head, rocking forward until it knocks into Jake's shoulder, and Jake slides his arms around the vampire's shoulders, listening to his soft, muffled sobs, wondering how red his shirt will be stained by the time the vampire's tears have been cried out.

The same mouth that tore out the throat of a dead body that lays in a painting on the wall is so close to his neck it would take less than an inch for him to bite down. Even without fangs, he could lock his jaw and break the skin.

The same dangerous monster that has killed likely dozens to stay alive, the same stalking predator that has been the last sight of far too many, cries in his arms. Just a teenage boy who has been lonely, and terrified, and hurt for too long.

A teenager... and a monster that hunts prey after dark. Jake tightens his arms around Chris, holds him tighter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how long he's been alive, not really.

He's just Chris.

That matters more.

-

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @newandfiguringitout @astrobly @endless-whump @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

[vkelleyart]

Thoughts on fandom: inclusion and engagement.

(Art credit to the kindhearted @penpanoply​!)

There’s been some stuff floating around on Tumblr about strife in the CO/WS fandom, and though I haven’t been explicitly named-dropped on anything public, my DMs have been... active. lol Rather than rehash what’s been said already, I just want to impart a little wisdom and perspective in the hopes it may soothe frayed feelings and offer a way ahead for cultivating a respectful community. As someone who has been an active participant in online fandoms since the mid-’90s, which was the advent of online fandom content creation (shout out to my fellow X-Philes!), and who has also spent a chunk of her professional life managing social media for the federal government and for activist groups, I can promise you it’s all gonna be okay.

Here’s some context for why strife happens and what we can do to create a more inclusive and communicative fandom environment. 

1) It sounds cliché, but fandoms go through growing pains. 

In the case of the Simon Snow fandom, what was once a small and cozy space untouched by cataclysmic events (such as the release of *gasp* a sequel) has grown exponentially in a relatively short amount of time following the release of Wayward Son. Newcomers are eager to find a home in this space at the same time as folks who’ve been here a while may be consciously or unconsciously wary about widening their circle, and It’s important to remember that this is not necessarily an expression of bad behavior on either side but just human psychology doing its thing. 

The byproduct, however, is that tension and stress builds over time from the lack of meaningful communication across the divide, which subsequently fuels misunderstandings. Ironically, the interfaces we use to communicate don’t help with this because any existing communication about the tension happens in tiny vacuums until a trigger goes off and bad feelings go public. 

Way Ahead: These moments of destabilization are opportunities to see where we can be more self aware about how we engage with fandom and the kind of community we want to be. Can you promote, support, or befriend someone trying to gain a foothold? If yes, please do! Each person must reach their own decision about what they can do within the confines of their available energy, health, and time, but a little self awareness goes a long way as long as you’re honest with yourself and others if applicable about what you can contribute. Anyone who judges you for it isn’t worth the strife.

2) In a fandom comprised of vulnerable/marginalized people, it’s more accurate to say that cliques are “bubbles of trust.”

This one's important. Just by nature of the source material, the CO/WS fandom includes fans with a wide array of backgrounds and experiences, especially when it comes to those who identify with the characters’ queerness, mental illness, and/or trauma. I really believe––based on individual conversations/group chats––that the difficult lived experiences that so many of our fandom peers have endured has produced one of the most open, aware, and accepting fandoms I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. Our vulnerability is, in a real way, our strength.

That said, a community of survivors also has the side effect of cultivating small circles of engagement that I call “bubbles of trust.” When you’re a survivor of abuse, marginalization, mental illness, fill-in-the-blank, it’s often quite hard to risk casting a wide net and expanding your circle to include new faces––which can subsequently be internalized by equally sensitive and vulnerable newcomers as rejection, judgement, or inadequacy.

Way Ahead: First of all, there may indeed be gatekeeping and exclusion going on. But before internalizing someone’s cagey behavior as gatekeeping or purposely exclusionary, ask yourself if you have all the information. Many people are private (I include myself in this assessment) because life has regrettably taught them to be this way, and so they may insulate themselves to a small group of people who have earned their trust. Some people might also triggered by certain content (case in point: smut triggers my anxiety) so they don’t engage with it. Others might have something in their pasts that define how they handle certain subjects (for example, a person of color should not be tone policed for getting angry when confronted with a racialized microagression, however accidental it was). You just don’t know what you don’t know. 

The solution here is to regularly check your privilege and ask questions in a private space if you sense you’re being treated unfairly by someone. If you go public with your grievances in hopes of mobilizing the mob, you may accidentally find yourself stepping into the role of the aggressor instead of the victim.

3) Social Media is not built to help you get engagement. It’s built to help itself make money off of you.

Repeat after me: Hits/likes are not a measurable indicator of talent or worth. There are ridiculously talented folks on Tumblr and elsewhere who, for whatever reason, haven’t had their viral moment, and it’s not their fault. Loads of factors come into play where things like likes, reblogs, and comments are concerned, among them being posting frequency, subject matter, the time of day, the day of the week, the week of the month, the month of the year, the current administration, the stock exchange, the concentration of middle class users, who just won the Superbowl, a madman trying to steal an election and undermine the democratic process, a PANDEMIC, do you get where I’m going with this?? lol

At the end of the day, my humble successes have been helped along by good luck, good timing, high profile signal boosters, and an absurd amount of work. (This is why I try to signal boost new work whenever I get a chance over at @vkelleyshares.) 

So while you cannot control Tumblr’s interface, trends at large, or your fellow users, here’s what you can do to ensure you give your work the best possible chance of exposure.

Have an image ready to go with your post. Tumblr is a visual platform (no matter what it says about being good for text). Not good with images? Set up a Canva.com account and get access to free graphic software with a gazillion templates to create whatever attractive image you want to attach to your post.

Keep the outward facing text brief and easy on the eyes. Too long and eyes will glaze over. Put excess text behind a “read more.”

You may think you’re being cute when you do this, but don’t put yourself down in your posts. (Don’t put yourself down in general, of course.) Doing so acts as engagement repellant. If you don’t believe in your work, no one else will.

Related: Be your best cheerleader. Confidence is a magnet, and if you don’t have it, go ahead and fake it until you start to convince yourself you are worth the buzz. So promote yourself! You have gifts that only you can impart. Use that knowledge to fuel everything you do from your art/fiction writing to your outreach with other content creators, and by golly, if someone’s done it already, acknowledge that contribution and then tell the world that this is YOUR unique take on it.

Treat your fellow fandom creators as human beings, not art/fiction/content boosting machines. I cannot count how many times I’ve had folks slide into my DMs with offers of friendship only to disappear once they realize I’m not available to draw a picture for their fic. It hurts because it’s manipulative and it makes me want to hole up and not signal boost anyone. Creators who truly support each other will not give off a transactional vibe. I want to help you reach more people, but not if that’s all I’m good for in your eyes. 

The long and short of it: Lead with compassion, do your best with the opportunities at  your disposal, and remember that fandom belongs to everyone in it. ❤️

What saves a fandom made of sensitive and vulnerable souls from imploding when it goes through growing pains is radical compassion from those who can offer it. Begin with the assumption that your fellow fandomers are not trying to harm you, and wade into the water knowing that your insight into the lives of your peers is limited by default and you may need to temper your words or actions accordingly. If you’re a content creator, save compassion for yourself as well, as there are indeed challenges to gaining an audience, and lack of engagement does not mean you lack talent or skill. Be your best advocate, and if you have the bandwidth to lift up a fellow creator and make a new friend, please, go ahead do it! 

And finally, fandom belongs to everyone, and no one has a monopoly on characters, tropes, or themes. Create and consume what you love (with respect for your more vulnerable peers), and bask in the variety, my friends!

That’s all I’ve got in my head at the moment, although I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting. Thanks so much to @penpanoply for letting me use her art for this and to everyone else, hang in there and try not to judge each other too harshly. These are unprecedented times, and most of us are doing our best in circumstances that are pushing us to our limits. 

As always, if you have questions or want to sound off on anything, shoot me a message or an ask, or ping me on Discord. It might take me a second to respond (thanks, Covid) but I’ll get to it! Love, love, and more love to all.