#but he doesn’t address these negative feelings about himself in comparison to Steve

[daydreamerdrew]

Captain America (2005) #31

[kittinsrkillers]

So I'm a die-hard wonder woman fan, and I'll be honest, I'm super not into all these internet edge lords hating on WW84.

It came out yesterday my dudes, you can not feasibly have a fully fleshed out opinion on it yet.

Give it a few more days, talk to a few people about what they thought about it, I guarantee that you will view it much more positively.

That is, of course, if the conversation had isn't actively trying to tear it down.

This is made mostly in response to all the reviews that didn't understand either or both of the film's villains and about the magical McGuffin involved.

Actual spoilers below (it's where I start really complaining)

Now what I said above also applies to me, but I did spend several hours analyzing the movie with friends and family so there is that.

I'm going to be talking about things I've seen and how I think those opinions are one dimensional

1) Barbara did need to be in the movie and/or her storyline dragged

I think this is mostly clouded by the iffy cgi when Barbra becomes Cheetah, because her storyline actively parallels Diana's. Max Lord is not the antagonist to Diana but to Wonder Woman, Barbra is Diana's “antagonist”. She gives up her kindness to gain power and Diana gives up her power, her ability to help other, to gain Steve. Diana relinquishes her wish but we never have any confirmation Barbra does the same despite knowing it will only hurt her. One is willing to see the truth of their world, while the other let their desires consume them.

2) Max Lord doesn't have any clear motivations

Most of the complaints I’ve seen of this don’t understand how he could let things get so bad, as if people don’t dig their heels in and refuse to change plans when things go wrong every day. He is already shown to fall into that with his cooperation, he falls into sunk cost fallacy so easily, his greed blinds him to the cost of his actions, he just needs a little more power and then his son will be proud of him, he will be respected, just a little more, and then things go wrong so he needs just a little more power to fix them and the cycle repeats.

3) The villains' didn’t do anything that bad, they shouldn't of been vilified

They didn’t and they weren’t. I have seen posts addressing this but I’ll do so too, to be inclusive. The villains’ were just regular people blinded by the injustices of the world till they too became part of the problem

Max Lord wanted to be respected and successful so he “cheating” others like he felt life had cheated him.

Barbra was trampled on by people her whole life, so when she got power she trampled on others too. Though hers is harder to talk about because the dream stone stole her warmth and empathy, she no longer cared for other people the way she once used to.

Then they were “forgiven”, able to grow past their mistakes to try and be better.

4) Steve was forced into the movie and he didn’t add anything

This is where my personal opinions really start to show up because I personally don’t think that that was really Steve. I think he was Diana’s memory of Steve, the Steve she wished for.

But before I get into that, if you pay attention to Steve's timeline then he’s just come off major character development and is now more idealistic, he trusts in Diana's judgement and his already strong moral code, he doesn't even consider that Diana could lose because he’s already seen her fight a literal god of war. He has already made sacrifices for the good of mankind, he can and will do so again.

The next bit is connected to my “Steve is a memory come to life” theory so I’ll include it here.

Diana only knew Steve for like a week why is he the one thing she wished for

How could Steve fly a 1980′s jet

Diana left Themyscira for mankind, she attached to Steve so hard because he is one of if not her first love. He was the catalyst for her leaving her home, possibly forever, he was her connection to mankind, so she fixated on him. She is also much older than a human and has a much longer lifespan, theoretically, it could mean she views time as much less important, she can grieve over her dead boyfriend for decades because she will be alive for millennia's.

We do not hear the specifics of Diana’s wish. We do not know the wording used, thus we could hand wave away a lot of the weird bits about Steve. Diana first meets Steve when his plane crashes and she last sees him when he detonates the aircraft full of poison gas. He introduces himself as a pilot, but the lasso of truth compels his to divulge that he is a spy, the rest of the movie focuses more on his ability to spy than his ability to pilot, and with seventy years of nostalgia, Diana , who knew Steve for a week, likely only came to know Steve truly through the rose-tinted stories of his old friends and family. Thus, when he is returned to her, he is her perfect, idealized Steve. The one who she admired for his ability to fly.

Of course, I’m sure there is just as much, if not more evidence to indicate something else entirely, but it’s only been a single day since I saw the movie.

5) It is campy, cartoonish, and less impactful than the first movie

Being campy and cartoonish does not make it less valuable. What does cartoonish mean in this context? Does it mean childish? Does it mean silly or simplistic? Does it mean better actualized through animated film? Because this is a comic book movie. A Wonder Woman comic book movie to boot. It will be hopeful and inspiring, about an incredibly powerful, mythical woman who helps humans by inspiring them to be better. Though a crude comparison, she can be likened to a “Girl Superman” though the tone of the two heroes is drastically different.

I genuinely don’t know why people are criticizing the themes and message this movie is trying to make. People keep throwing around words like heavy and deep about the first movie because it talks about mankind's willingness to hurt others to achieve their own petty goals, as if this movie isn’t exploring how mankind will hurt themselves in their own misguided desire for what they don’t have, how their greedy desires will only hurt themselves and others.

Is it because this one doesn't have a war in it?

I’m getting petty now so I’ll only cover one more thing.

6) A lot of the plot is just handwaved away and we’re just supposed to believe things

This is particularly used regarded the dream stone, it wasn’t explicitly explained and the god that made it is only vaguely mentioned. This applies to all the magic and mythical elements of the movie. Magic and gods are often portrayed as based in belief. Wonder Woman has unwavering belief, belief in people, gods, truth, justice, forgiveness, honor. In return people believe in her. This belief is the main force behind the magic involved in the movie.

We the audience believe in this universe created -> this universe has gods in it capable of incredible feats of magic -> these gods do not always approve of or care for humans -> these gods do not necessarily force humans to participate in what they hold domain over -> A god of lies and deceit made a wish granting stone -> the stone shows the lies of human greed -> the lasso of truth is the embodiment of truth -> one is unable to lie in its hold -> one can “see the truth” in its hold -> the particle satellite thing was wished into working perfectly -> Now the particles “touch” all of mankind (though they can only understand Max Lord through their screens) -> The lasso of truth becomes part of the broadcast thus “holding” all of mankind -> all of mankind can mow see the truth (though the screens only show the magical golden light because they are machines without thoughts)

And though it does not matter if this fits into the DCEU timeline, by all of the other movies, 30 to 35 years have passed, it was a week of unexplained, but certainly not known to be magical, chaos when all of the rest of the justice league was either a child or simply not born yet.

I’m sorry for the crazy rant, but I feel like the internet is full of people who seek out reactions so I made this for people to read when they feel like WW84 is being clogged with negativity. You don’t need to give them the reaction, I already have.

(P.S. The Trump thing isn’t real, Max Lord is the 80′s archetype of the cooperate raider, I didn’t even make that possible connection till the bigots online with their ever present victim-complex started acting all offended)

[ugh-really-why]

Endgame review that is really more of a Rant then anything else because Fuck you Marvel.

Disclaimer: I hate pretty much everything about this movie and am still pissed enough that there is going to be a lot of cussing. Also, this is going to contain spoilers. 

Let’s start with the character that I had the most hope for walking into this movie. Tony fucking Stank. I read the spoilers so I knew that he was going to get a heroic death. I also knew that he hesitated to save the world because he got his happy ending. 

I didn’t realize how much I would hate him for every word that came out of his mouth. Tony Stank really doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He gets his happily ever after so fuck everyone else. Oh and he’s guilty over losing Peter so he’s going to blame everyone else even though he’s the one that split up the Avengers by locking up half of them in an underwater prison. He’s the one that had a way to contact Steve, knew about the attack because of Bruce, but was too petty to make the damn phone call. But nope it’s all Steve’s fault that he decided to go to Titan and fight Thanos there instead of regrouping with everyone else. He fucked up, but Tony can’t admit that so it’s on everyone else. Piece of shit. 

then Scott comes back five years later with an idea, but nope Tony can’t help save everyone because he’s got his precious little girl. Fuck everyone else who lost their families. At least the picture of Peter and him exists because otherwise, he wouldn’t have done shit. Oh and he insists that they keep the five years since the snap intact meaning that he’s robbing half the universe of five years of life because why the fuck not? Alright, I get him not wanting to lose his baby girl but I also don’t care because fuck him, fuck him so badly for not giving a shit about any of the other people in the universe. He’s such shit. Like honestly the only decent thing he does is die, oh and his conversation with Howard was interesting because it proves that Howard never physically abused Tony. Sorry stans, guess you can’t use that as an excuse anymore. 

Now the character that I love the most who was screwed... Steve. God, he’s fucking pathetic in this movie. Like where the fuck was his obsession with Peggy in any other movie that he was in? Where the fuck was it because this movie implied that it had been something that he had been holding onto for the fourteen (okay thirteen years) that he had been in the future, even though on screen we saw him moving on... No, he’s been carrying that stupid ass compass around with him since he woke up from the ice, just didn’t have a reason to pull it out until Endgame. Such fucking bullshit. He’s so damn pathetic when it comes to her in this movie. Not that she’s much better... Still having a torch for him in 1970 after he had been dead for 30 years. Super fucking pathetic. Like omg, they knew each other for a max of two years, kissed once, and had like five total conversations. But nope the love of his life, poor Sharon she was completely screwed. (I am so going to write out a fic where Steve goes back to the love of his life and finds out that she’s a pale comparison to the actual love of his life). Honestly, if you wanted a Steve that was hung up on Peggy still, having him move on was stupid, and this should have been set up in the previous movies instead of feeling completely out of the blue. Oh and as everyone else already has said, his ending completely ruins a lot of the great lines from the previous cap movies, such as his conversation about a situation going south, or the price of freedom. And it completely invalidates his relationship with Bucky, which was already kind of ruined in canon by Civil War. They owed the characters so much more. Oh, and they had to fuck over Steve’s other best friend. Like honestly, fuck you for what you did to Sam and Steve’s relationship. Just fuck you, Russos. I did like Sam getting the shield (course the question becomes how? because it was destroyed in the battle with Thanos, but who cares about that?) Oh and what happened to Mjolnir? because Steve was traveling with it to return the stones. Like the whole can’t move past the forties shtick is so boring and so old. 

Course for Steve to still be stuck on Peggy they had to ruin her. I can’t get over the disgust I feel for a woman that married another man, had children with him, to still be into a crush she had at 19... when she’s in her 50′s. it’s all kinds of gross. And sure I adore stories about sweethearts finding each other after a long time, but not when they are in committed relationships with other people. We all knew Agent Carter wasn’t worth anything to the MCU but this proves it. 

Bruce was just fucking annoying. Granted, I am not super fond of Banner in general, but Professor Hulk was cringe and annoying and no thanks. I swear I wanted someone to punch him every time he opened his mouth. The only time he was not incredibly annoying was when he talked about Natasha, course they played up the romantic angle for the two of them without ever addressing the issue of him ditching her for years. Like he still held a torch even though everything about the relationship was fail. 

Thor was just sad. He’s an alcoholic that has lost all confidence in himself, gained a ton of weight, something that is mocked throughout the movie and is afraid to fight. Until he talks with Frigga (not gonna lie that was a cool scene) but seriously the way they made Thor pathetic was just sad. Oh and so much mocking of his PTSD by pretty much everyone. I guess not being a dick about PTSD only applies to Tony. 

Natasha, I actually liked the majority of her plotline. Though that being said killing her off was incredibly stupid if the Black Widow movie is a real thing. I really liked her relationship with Clint, the way that she was helping coordinate the recovery, and the way she was willing to risk everything for a chance to fix things. She had a lot of personality, and I do remember why I adore the character again. I’m also glad that they didn’t put major focus on Steve/Nat. Oh no to make Steve’s storyline work he couldn’t be closely tied with anyone so no real friendships in the present for Steve. Nope, just taking advice from Stank to live life and thinking the only way to do that was to go back to Peggy...

Clint was the only one whose storyline I didn’t massively hate. I liked the way they showed his relationship with Natasha and how both of them care so much about each other. We really got to see them being family in this movie so that wasn’t terrible. And it was powerful to see him lose his family (it wasn’t like the other dusting, they were there and then gone the next second... a much better way to show everyone being gone imo then that dumbass over the top speech by Peter in Infinity War.) And his scenes after returning with the soul stone, and the fight against Thanos were kickass. Also seeing Lila Barton have her daddy’s talent for shooting arrows was terrific. Clint is a great father, and I loved the hints of it and his love for his family in this film. He just wasn’t enough to redeem the bullshit for me. 

Wanda...barely in the film but kickass during the fight. It was great to watch her go head-to-head with Thanos, and having the call back to Infinity War with Okoye when the girls were trying to get the iron infinity stone glove away was great. I’m down for an all-women team-up movie a billion times more now then I was before this movie and I already knew that I still wanted that. Course now I would try to figure out how to pirate it because FUCK MARVEL. 

Sam, idk. There were things I liked. Him becoming Captain America (if you are going to screw Steve like this, I’d rather Sam then Bucky any day of the week). His on your left and reaching out to steve over comms when he so desperately needed that little push to keep fighting. I despise the implication that he doesn’t know Steve because of his freak out about the past, and the fact that Steve was keeping secrets from him even though other movies have shown that to BULLSHIT. 

Bucky, Steve fucked him over because he was too obsessed with Peggy to give a shit about his BFF being tortured by Hydra. It’s fucking gross and totally goes against who Steve is in the rest of the series. I did like the hug, seeing him shooting Thanos's army and the easiness between him and Sam. Other than that eh. 

Valkyrie was awesome in the movie. I don’t like her much because of the slaver thing, but she was really great for her five minutes, two of being a leader and three of fighting (and I’m only sort of joking)

Nebula- I’m not sure I understand why Thanos and his people were about to see what future Nebula’s memory system knew And I wasn’t super into her babying of the shithead but other than that I liked the character. I wish they would put more emphasis on the sisterly relationship she’s building with Gamora. 

Rocket- didn’t really like the way that he mocked Thor’s issues. However, he was a fun character. 

Rhodey- He was annoying at the beginning but I liked the fact that he didn’t follow Tony’s example and say FUCK THE WORLD. And I did enjoy some of his lines at the end of the movie. such as the way he addresses the fact that he’s disabled with Nebula, creating a connection between them. (much better than the condescending way that Tony talked to her at the beginning). And I liked how the disability impacted him negatively during the final fight. It was nice to see something that is actually a medical necessity. 

I did like the final battle. It was well done and I enjoyed the different fighting styles, bring back dusted characters, seeing who fought with who, and the devasting strength of Thanos. And the way that Carol really turned the tide. Tony’s death scene was incredibly dumb... Honestly, someone get Peter as far away from these kinds of fightings as possible because the kid doesn’t know how to handle shit. 

There is probably so much more to add to this but honestly, I’m tired and it’s already long af. This movie sucks, be prepared for it to be worse then you expect, if you wanted to see Tony actually be a hero without having be convinced other people matter. If you wanted to see Steve continue with the path that he’s been on since Winter Soldier and suddenly decides that he’s more into Peggy than he is anything else. If you wanted to see more of Ragnorak’s Thor. If you wanted more for Natasha then her death, something that only bothers me/Odin with actual issues. 

[wolvesdevour]

How Not to Write Gay Stories

I’m very torn between writing two different posts and there’s a chance these may combine, so we’ll see how this goes. There are two topics that are in my mind a fair amount: gay fetishism by women authors (both in fanfic & professional writing), and how to translate fanfic writing skills to professional writing (and how it can fail). Miraculously, perhaps, the book I just read, How (Not) To Ask a Boy to Prom by SJ Goslee is a fairly good example of both of these. 

The problem with addressing gay fetishism among women authors is that when is it fetishistic versus well-meaning? It’s hard for me to say why the originators of gay slash fic wrote the way they did, but its hard to miss that when fanfic especially grew prominent, over 80% of writers were women. In Star Trek fandom, the first gay slash fic was published by a woman in 1974: A Fragment Out of Time. By 1973, 90% of ST fan writers were women. 

To clear the air a little: women writers can write good gay stories. One of series I am currently read, The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb, includes many gay men, some of which are centered POVs. I will not say she is a perfect author, but I deeply enjoy how she writes men. For a good portion of the series, she shows a man growing up: he starts as a young boy, and we see how the men around him teach him to be a man. A very good portion of the lessons stray away from toxic masculinity. He is still taught to be a man, and there are certain “this is a manly trait” aspects (although when she features women as forefront POV, she often includes very similar lessons: ultimately nothing is exclusive to one’s sex, but society is what it is and they may learn lessons differently or overcome different hurdles).

She addresses writing gay men in this interview: Here’s the thing - when I meet a person, their gender identity is most often not the most important thing about them. If we become friends, it’s not because my first impulse is, “I will be friends with you because you’re female.” I mean, there’s a lot of women I can’t stand. There’s a lot of men that I absolutely can spend hours talking to. There are a lot of people on the whole gender spectrum and whether I become friends with them or not has nothing to do with that, so when I am writing these characters, although in some ways gender can influence a plot - for instance, if you want the prince and the princess to get married and live happily ever after in a medieval setting, gender is going to influence that - but for the most part, gender is not much more important than who has blue eyes. What’s more important is who is a skilled navigator, who is tough enough to survive a bad situation, who can think on their feet and find the creative solution to a problem they haven’t encountered before, and that’s got nothing to do with gender. So it was not that I said, “Gee, I will write a book with gay characters.” It was, I’m writing a book, this character has stepped out onto the stage, he’s told me about him- or herself, and this is who they are. As I said: I’m not here to say that women cannot write gay stories. But there is also gay fetishism. I am both a gay man and a trans man; I get a lot of “OMG, you’ll love this!” and cis or straight people presenting me with things that appear inclusive or caring. I personally don’t find memes like “Steve Rogers is a transwoman!”** or whatever amusing. Am I, say, happy to see that Loki is canonically not straight nor cisgender? Yes. I love that. (Does that potentially make Victor von Doom not straight, uh, I like to think so.) I like reading LGBT+ stories, but a good portion of them may not interest me, especially if the writer isn’t part of that demographic and has a tendency to post a lot of art, writing, or discuss a lot of how hot, cute, or general appealing it is that a character or couple are LGBT. That creeps me out. I’m not alone. Very not alone. Absolutely not alone. Here’s another post, this time by a woman that I appreciate:

The worst thing,” one gay friend said, “is that [women in the slash community] aren’t listening to me. You’re not listening when I tell you that you’re being hurtful.”

What I find especially difficult to convey is the nuances to when women write gay men versus when men do. I’ve been trying to collect “gay stories written by gay men” although due to publishing bias, this can be very difficult: As a queer, trans reader, I looked forward to seeing myself in their pages. But I was surprised to find that some LGBTQ-focused stories were reflecting not me, but a straight person’s imagination of me. [Link 1]

The current transman story I like is seen in Early Riser by Jasper Fforde. The character utterly blindsided me in a great way: he never appeared “omg trans” until it was forced to come to light. I appreciate him as well, as a character, because in a harsh survival world, he is a man who survives well. I especially see a lot of “transmen are soft uwu such boi” and I despise this. I did not survive everything in my life to be diminished to pastels and cute/sweet and childish-boyish characteristics.  Similarly, as a gay man, I am not there to be pretty, to serve as a fashion guru for straight people, to be soft and pretty and welcoming. And that’s not how gay men write themselves. This isn’t how transmen write themselves. As a writer, I struggled a lot on how to depict trans characters, and my largest lesson (and I certainly hope to published one day, but who knows) is that I never saw good examples of myself because most typically they are written by straight, cis women.  So what is so wrong with Goslee’s How (Not) To Ask A Boy to Prom? (There will absolutely be spoilers.) The main character is a teen boy who has long hair, loves succulents aggressively, loves narwhals, and has no male friends. His school is supportive of gay men: a very popular football player is gay and has supportive friends, another gay teen (who becomes his boyfriend) has very supportive friends. For some reason, this gay teen is incapable to do anything for himself. He loves art, doesn’t do sports, doesn’t really connect with his foster parents, and seems overly attached to his sister. He is effectively a very flat and “soft” person. Some guys are, of course. Some gay guys are more art, less sports. But the other men? Si & Bern? They’re equally soft. Si is described as soft, beautiful, kind, sweet. He has zero personality. He is described the same way, every time, and is overly described as soft, all men are soft, it’s like they bathe in fabric softener. Bern, the “bad boy” is barely... That. He is supposed to be gruff to the main character, but for the good portion, he is like the main character (Nolan), and Si. They are all the same person, ultimately. 

Bloom might be a good comparison to How (Not) To Ask a Boy to Prom. This is written by a man (Kevin Pancetta) and illustrated by a woman (Savanna Ganucheau). I don’t like the character design. Most of the gay men I showed it to asked if at one of the guys (or both) are women. But it is a story about a frustrated kid who wants to move out of his small town to Baltimore (okay: as a Marylander who grew up in a very small town and eventually moved to Baltimore, I kinda.... Get this), but meets another man who is older, but not creepily too old for him, and its a romance & vague coming of age story. If you grew up in a small city as LGBT+, it’s hard to find your sense of self. You miss out a lot on life; I think Ari reflects that: he wants to be himself.  A lot of this enters into my point 2: The problem of being a fanfic writer, or the pitfalls of translating fanfic writing skills to professional writing. Nolan is not a person; he has no strong characteristics. We’re told he likes narwhals and succulents, he is a foster child, he’s gay, and I have trouble quantifying him the way I do Ari because he’s so devoid of personality. Si is probably the least developed character at all, as the “perfect, Apollo-esque gay football player.” Bern is maybe the most developed, going from gruff-mean guy to gay softy--a motorcycling math nerd.  The problems with fanfic writing is that it is based on knowing characters. As fanfic writers, we don’t have to nail down reality, because there’s a whole piece devoted to who they are. We’re just filling in those blanks. The author seems to primarily be a Teen Wolf fanfic writer (her bio lists “werewolves,” but her tumblr blog is very devoted to Teen Wolf, so well). This brings up another creepy pitfall, which is beyond slash fic writing, there is the aspect of word usage. If you’ve been following my vague live-reading, I’ve been posting about the massive references to “puppy” and other trends. It is creepy to read out of context. 

It seems, according to reviews, that Goslee has trouble with this in her other book, Whatever: or how junior high became totally f$@ked. She has a stream of consciousness that doesn’t explain the main character’s thoughts or the world very well. In fanfic writing, this would end up being a slow burn. “Oh, but are they really going to date?” etc. In How Not, Nolan fake-dates Bern, and googles this concept, finding fanfic works. This gets weird for me, because it’s supposed to be an inside joke, I guess? “Hey teeny nerds: fanfics” but most gay men I know have a difficult relationship with fanfic and with fan community due to fetishism. We get pressed out of spaces a fair amount because of it. (One link above, the Mary Sue one, discusses how women do this.) Of course, this is meant to be a cute, happy book, right? Alright, it’s a cute, upbeat story. Except we don’t get a very good baseline for the world. Bern & Si’s friends are supportive. We get a form of negativity from Bern’s mother, who wishes he’d date his ex-gf, I think? (Bern is bisexual.) Or maybe just date women. So is there homophobia in this world or not? We aren’t given a good sense how Nolan’s parents feel that he is gay? It seems to wholly not discuss his foster parents barring “they are aggressively competitive, Tom makes crazy food concoctions and Marla talks to him about dating Bern.” As a whole, the parents are extremely unimportant other than they provide a home and food. Are they unusual for the area? (And knowing PA, that state can have some major issues.) Or is it common in this world? Is there a reason to not hand-hold? Do they every worry about homophobia when outside school? Do the teachers say shit? There is a lot to consider. The world-building is deeply lacking. Beyond the lack of world, we get a lot of fanfic trope writing. A lot of this I’ve seen from people on my dash who are Teen Wolf fans. I used to like the show & follow TW blogs; I’m not a massive fanfic reader (*ahem* a lot of gay fetishism), but I have read it. For series like TW, you may see what I consider “animalistic tropes;” such as tackling, growling, etc. There is a lot of this. A lot of people are tackling each other to the ground, growling, and there’s this weird moment when Bern grabs the nape of Nolan’s neck that while some men do this, it felt very strange in the moment, particularly aggressively? Because the author openly admits to writing werewolf fanfic, it feels like that is what it is. For authors who write both fanfic and seek to write professionally, this is a consideration. For a gay reader, it’s really weird for a guy to grab another guy’s “nape of the neck” affectionately. (As someone who has worked around large predators, albeit primarily felids, grabbing the neck is a sexual behavior, but that just makes this weirder.) Anyways, it really struck out as weird; just very very weird. Bern is mentioned to not be into PDA (which later in the book, they do it a fair amount it seems, that is also very weird? this happens a fair amount). 

Another part is that there is a lot of use of the word puppy. It is frequents so often that I’d have to stop reading because it was grossing me out. It sounds like that author is into puppy play. This isn’t to kink shame, but this is a YA novel and she writes werewolf fanfic. It starts seemingly, albeit weirdly innocuous with moments like “Bern was smooth and graceful while I was still growing out of my puppy paws” and “She tilted her head like a puppy” and “I followed him up the stairs like a puppy.” But it keeps happening. Then people start growling at each other and it just... Gets a very specific note. Mixed in with how smooth and hairless and Adonis-like the teens are written, especially by an adult woman fan, it feels... Well... It makes my skin crawl. I’m not saying that the author means to. I’m really not trying to be like ‘Hey, guys, sexual predator?” I really, really want to address that that is not my intention. My intention is that this compounds on itself. In the links about how the slash side of fandom can make gay men uncomfortable: this is the perfect example.  I’ve been to events with fans and found myself, barring maybe my fiance, to be the only gay man there. If I’m shipping two characters, such as when I went to a TAZ photoshoot, and my fiance and I are the only gay cosplayers, and almost the only men period, whereas a lot of women are screaming about how cute Taako is, that gets uncomfortable. It’s not about this one fandom. It’s all fandoms. Every single one has had this fetishization problem. It’s why I never entered the Lord of the Rings fandom. I was in middle school and found “my first” fandom, only to see all of the fanfic about Sam/Frodo ships and it grossed me out. As a teen boy, it creeped me out, that all these men had to be sexual to each other, and as I only came across women shipping men, it made it more and more ostracizing.  Maybe I should have addressed this earlier, but: Not all fetishization is sexual. It can be romantic, too. How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom’s relationships are about a teen boy who doesn’t want to date or go to prom. His sister makes him ask out Si, the big popular gay guy. Nolan/the author mocks the GSA (gay-straight alliance) club. While there are problems with some GSAs*, the author, a seemingly straight woman, is mocking an LGBT+ space. There is a chance she is bisexual; I haven’t managed to find otherwise, and that’s how this will appear to many people, as she has a husband. I will also note: a bisexual woman’s experience will differ from a gay man’s experience, and sometimes LGBT+ folks need to not speak for/over each other.  Nolan ends up fake-dating Bern due to a mistake, and there’s a bit of problem I have, with how for a good portion of the book, these gay teens “need to FAKE date”. Worse to me, is that Nolan, upon realizing he likes Bern, breaks up with him and ends up sleeping (non-sexually) in a bed with his sister, deciding to go to prom together. For a straight/cis-presenting women to write this, it’s... Got a lot of different baggage to it. Especially with how idealistic (but not for gay men) she writes the characters, it gets worse and worse. It makes the gay character seem just a little less gay. His relationship with his sister is odd. It’s not “cool” to really hang out with your sister at school; I know, I had a step sister & brother. We were all roughly the same age. If these two went to prom together in the real world? They would be mocked. Also, it really makes Nolan appear not actually gay. As a gay writer, I would have him, if not go at all, go stag. The message here is: it’s better to be straight than gay and without a boyfriend. Hence how it becomes fetishistic: Nolan’s sister, both of which are older teens (around 17-18 or so) sleep together in a bed. It may not be “coded as sexual” but it is ignorant of the history that “maybe gay men can be fixed.” They even dance at prom. This is one step below asking your mother to prom. She is still his sister. It creates a narrative that he, out of the blue, dumps his boyfriend to then sleep/cuddle with his sister and they go to prom. Again, this is seen more in fanfic: we often, especially with adopted siblings, see closeness that can become romantic or sexual. I have a fair amount of friends who are adopted and this trope style is infinitely horrifying to them. It makes them feel like that society doesn’t view them as actually family. It is also a real problem: adopted family members (especially kids) have been abused by their adopted family, as if “it’s okay, they’re not actually biologically family.”

While he does eventually get back together with Bern, it’s after prom that he does this. I don’t even know why Bern accepts him. Nolan has been truly awful to this guy. Goslee doesn’t seem to understand how tenuous gay men’s statuses are. This can be held against Nolan, if not for the simple creepy fact that he sleeps and goes to prom with his sister, that he goes to prom with a woman, he may get a lot of “But are you really gay?” comments. Especially because Nolan dates only one man before going to prom with his sister (and is the one to dump his boyfriend, who he was fake-dating).

Is there more on this I could write? Yes. I probably could, but I also have to get ready to go to a movie with my fiance. So uh... Maybe there will be a part 2? We’ll see. _______ *I personally was forced out of my college’s GSA because the group was actually gay/bisexual people having orgies. So, yea, there’s some problems with certain LGBT+ spaces and being actually open to LGBT+ folks. It was also extremely transphobic and ace-phobic.  **My point with this for clarification is that: I don’t want to be bribed with “lol this person is LGBT+ cuuuute!?” headcanon or otherwise. I am fine with that form of headcanoning, or AUs, but the idea of playing with gender identity and pulling it off as cute, especially by cis or straight people is skeevy and at best, ignorant, at worst, fetishistic.  Link List: LGBT Exploitation in Fandom: we are not here for your entertainment

Fetishizing Homosexuality

gbpt boys’ ask about women readers of mlm stories

The Mary Sue’s On The Fetishization of Gay Men by Women in the Slash Community

Why Are So Many Gay Romances Written By Straight Women?

The Lack of Published Gay YA by Gay Authors? Let’s Talk About It

[hereitgoesthen]

 International “We have at most a year to defend American democracy, perhaps less“  Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and the author of numerous books of European history, including „Bloodlands“ and „Black Earth“. His most recent book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century“, will be published at the end of the month. This is the English version of an interview published in Süddeutsche Zeitung on February 7, with some additional information due to current developments. By Matthias Kolb SZ: Donald Trump has been president for three weeks. How would you describe his start? Timothy Snyder: The first thing that we have to notice is that the institutions have not thus far restrained him. He never took them seriously, acts as if they don’t exist, and clearly wishes they didn’t. The story that Americans have told themselves from the moment he declared his candidacy for president, was that one institution or another would defeat him or at least change his behavior – he won’t get the nomination; if he gets the nomination, he will be a normal Republican; he will get defeated in the general election; if he wins the presidency will mature him (that was what Obama said). I never thought any of that was true. He doesn’t seem to care about the institutions and the laws except insofar as they appear as barriers to the goal of permanent kleptocratic authoritarianism and immediate personal gratification. It is all about him all of time, it is not about the citizens and our political traditions. You wrote an article for Slate in November, comparing the rise of Donald Trump with the rise of Adolf Hitler. Why did you feel the need to publish such a piece? It’s very important that we use history to our advantage now, rather than finding in history taboos and ways to silence one another. The history of the 1930s is terribly important to Americans (and Europeans) right now, just as it is slipping from our memories. I was not trying to provoke one more fruitless series of conversations about comparability. I was trying to help Americans who were generally either shocked (people who voted against Trump) or surprised (people who voted for him, who generally thought he would lose) find their bearings in a new situation. The temptation in a new situation is to imagine that nothing has changed. That is a choice that has political consequences: self-delusion leads to half-conscious anticipatory obedience and then to regime change. Anyway, I didn’t actually compare Trump to Hitler, I didn’t use these two names. What I did was to write a very short history of the rise of Adolf Hitler to power without using his name, which might allow Americans to recognize certain similarities to the moment they themselves were living through. I know that these comparisons are a national taboo in Germany, but at the moment its rather important that Germans be generous with their history and help others to learn how republics collapse. Most Americans are exceptionalists, we think we live outside of history. Americans tend to think: “We have freedom because we love freedom, we love freedom because we are free.” It is a bit circular and doesn’t acknowledge the historical structures that can favor or weaken democratic republics. We don’t realize how similar our predicaments are to those of other people. You use the Weimar Republic as a warning example. I wanted to remind my fellow Americans that intelligent people, not so different from ourselves, have experienced the collapse of a republic before. It is one example among many. Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall. The American Founding Fathers knew this, which is why there were obsessed with the history of classical republics and their decline into oligarchy and empire. We seem to have lost that tradition of learning from others, and we need it back. A quarter century ago, after the collapse of communism, we declared that history was over – and in an amazing way we forgot everything we once knew about communism, fascism and National Socialism. In this little article for Slate, I was trying to remind us about things that we once knew. How similar is the situation between Germany of the 1930s and today’s United States? Of course, not everything is similar. Some things are better now than they were in the 1930s but some things are worse. The media is worse, I would say. It is very polarized and it is very concentrated. In Germany before the state shut down German newspapers, there was authentic variety that we don’t have now. People in the 1930s generally had longer attention spans than we do. On the other side, the United States is a larger country, with pockets of wealth distributed widely, and it is more connected to the world. The main advantage that we have is that we can learn from the 1930s. Again, it’s very important to stress that history does not repeat. But it does offer us examples and patterns, and thereby enlarges our imaginations and creates more possibilities for anticipation and resistance. When did you realize this lack of knowledge about 20th century history here in the US? I got an early hint of that when I was touring the United States for my book “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin”. This was in 2011 and I realized that Americans had really forgotten about the crimes of Stalin – which is strange because we were educated, during the Cold War about Stalinist terror. I thought that Americans would be surprised because I was saying that number of Soviet citizens killed (although still horrifyingly large) was much smaller than we had been taught. Instead I realized that Americans had simply forgotten that there was Stalinism and terror. That struck me: What else could we forget? The idea of the Holocaust is certainly present, but it is almost totally lacking in context. And without context it is hard to see resemblance. A Holocaust that is reduced to a few images or facts cannot teach about larger patterns. And Americans risk of stressing its uniqueness is that it allows people to dismiss any learning from history. People will ask: Is he wearing a Hakenkreuz, did he kill six million Jews? if the answer is in the negative, then they will reply: then history has nothing to do with the present. Over the last 25 years, we have not only forgotten much of what we once knew but we have raised a whole generation which doesn’t have these reference points. You would argue that this knowledge had existed before but it was forgotten. Scholars knew much more know about the 1930s – whether we are speaking of National Socialism, fascism, or Stalinism. But publics are much less interested. And we lack, for whatever reason, the concepts that we used to have that allowed us to connect ideas and political processes. When an American president says “America First” or proposes a political system without the two parties or attacks journalists or denies the existence of facts, that should set of a series of associations with other political systems. We need people who can help translate ideological utterances into political warnings. Thinkers of the middle of twentieth century are now being read again, and for good reason. The American canon included native and refugee ex-communists who came to this country of the 1930s, refugees from fascism and National Socialism in the 40s, and the Cold War liberals of the 1950s. There was this time where we engaged in political theory and history, where people thought about what fascism and communism meant for democracy. Now, one reason why we cannot forget the 1930s is that the presidential administration is clearly thinking about them – but in a positive sense. They seem to be after a kind of redo of the 1930s with Roosevelt where the Americans take a different course. where we don’t build a welfare state and don’t intervene in Europe to stop fascism. Lindbergh instead of FDR. That is their notion. Something went wrong with Roosevelt and now they want to go back and reverse it. President Trump’s political strategist, Steve Bannon, has said that he wants to „make life as exciting as it was in the 1930s“. The first two weeks have shown how big his influence is, it seems much bigger than Reince Priebus’s or Jared Kushner’s. I can’t speak to intra-White House conflicts. I can only say that Mr. Trump’s inaugural address was extremely ideological. During the campaign he used the slogan “America First” and then was informed that this was the name of a movement that tried to prevent the United States from fighting Nazi Germany and was associated with nativists and white supremacists. He claimed then not to have known that. But in the inaugural address he made “America First” his central them, and now he can’t say that he doesn’t know what it means. And of course Bannon knows what it means. America First is precisely the conjuration of this alternative America of the 1930s where Charles Lindbergh is the hero. This inaugural address reeked of the 1930s.  Timothy Snyder When Bannon calls himself a „Leninist“, do Americans know what is he talking about? No, they usually have no idea. It is a good question. Americans have this idea that comes from Jefferson and the American Revolution that you have to rebel every so often. And they sometimes don’t make the distinction between a rebellion against injustice and the extinction of the whole political system, which is what Bannon says that he is after. The American Revolution actually preserved ideas from Britain: the rule of law being the most important. The whole justification of the American Revolution was that the British were not living up to their own principles, were not including Americans in their own system. In a broad way that that was also the argument of the civil rights movement: the system fails itself when it does not extend equal rghts to all citizens. So there can be resistance and even revoution which is about meeting standards rather than about simple destruction. What Bannon says correctly about the Bolsheviks was that they aimed to completely destroy an old regime. We can slip from one to the other very easily, from rebelliousness to a complete negation of the system. Most Americans had a rule of law state for most of their lives, African Americans are an exception, and so most Americans think this will be there forever. They don’t get that a “disruption” can actually destroy much of what they take for granted. They have no notion what it means to destroy the state and how their lives would look like if the rule of law would no longer exist. I find it frightening that people who talk about the destruction of the American state are now in charge of the American state. Trump put a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the wall of the Oval Office, another president that was a populist. But people around him seem to have a wider agenda. In the same interview with the Hollywood Reporter in which Bannon talks about the “exciting 1930s”, he talks about how he is operating in the darkness. He compares himself with Satan and Darth Vader and says in essence that he misleads the public and the media deliberately. The White House statement for the Holocaust Day on January 27 didn’t mention Jews. At first it looked like a mistake but now it is official that it was intentional. The Holocaust reference is very important on our side of the Atlantic. If Americans have a reference point in world history, it is precisely the Holocaust, the Holocaust and let’s say Normandy, the Second World War, are the one aperture into a broader history, one where republics fall and extremes triumph. So if Steve Bannon turns the Holocaust into talk about “A lot of people have suffered” what is happening is that he is closing that aperture. The next step is to say that mainly Americans are the victims. History then dies completely and we are trapped in myth. Which are the differences in how Germans and Americans remember the Holocaust? Let me answer this in a different way. Normally when I speak to German journalists, I try to emphasize parts of the history of the Holocaust that Germans overlook or minimize, and how those can allow Germans to overlook certain kinds of historical responsibility or draw lessons that are too narrow. In the United States it is obviously very different. It is not a matter of taking a debate about national responsibility and try to make it broader by making it more inclusive of what we know about the historical Holocaust. It is rather a matter of how a distant non-German nation can try to see patterns, analogies, political lessons. And right now the comparison we need to ponder is between the treatment of Muslims and the treatment of Jews. It is obviously the case that the point of the Muslim ban is to instruct Americans that Muslims are an enemy: a small, well-assimilated minority that we are supposed to see not as our neighbors or as fellow citizens but as elements of an international threat. More than that, Trump’s policy is a provocation, which is probably meant to provoke an event like the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst Eduard vom Rath on November 7 1938. When Bannon calls the press the main „opposition party“ that should make everyone concerned. This is not only intended to cheer up Trump supporters. When you say that the press is the opposition, than you are advocating a regime change in the United States. When I am a Republican and say the Democrats are the opposition, we talk about our system. If I say the government is one party and the press is the opposition, then I talk about an authoritarian state. This is regime change. Last week Trump called those who take part in demonstrations “thugs” and “paid protestors”. This doesn’t show respect for First Amendment right, it sounds more like Putin. That is exactly what the Russian leadership does. The idea is to marginalize the people who actually represent the core values of the Republic. The point is to bring down the Republic. You can disagree with them. but once you say they have no right to protest or start lying about them, you are in effect saying: „We want a regime where this is not possible anymore.“ When the president says that it means that the executive branch is engaged in regime change towards an authoritarian regime without the rule of law. You are getting people used to this transition, you are inviting them into the process by asking them to have contempt for their fellow citizens who are defending the Republic. You are also seducing people into a world of permanent internet lying and way from their own experiences with other people. Getting out to protest, this is something real and I would say something patriotic. Part of the new authoritarianism is to get people to prefer fiction and inaction to reality and action. People sit in their chairs, read the tweet and repeat the clichés: “yes, they are thugs” instead of “it is normal to get out in the streets for what you believe.” He is trying to teach people a new behavior: You just sit right where you are, read what I say and nod your head. That is the psychology of regime change. Today’s media environment is very different from the 1930s, everything happens so fast. This is part of what contemporary authoritarians do: They overwhelm you with bad news and try to make you depressed and say with resignation: “Well, what can i do?”. I think it is better to limit yourself. Read the news for half an hour a day, but don’t spend the whole day obsessing about it. Americans have to pick one thing to be confident about, and then act on it. If you care about and know about refugees, the press, global warming – choose one and talk with people around you about it. Nobody can do everything but everyone can do a little bit. And people doing their little bit will meet others doing the same, and the depression lifts. You posted „20 lessons from the 20th century“ on your Facebook page in November. Did your students here at Yale ask for advice? No, that wasn’t it. It was unprompted, I was in Scandinavia during the election. I thought Trump would lose, that it would be close but he would lose. On the plane on the way back I started thinking about what we could learn from history. When I had written about Trump earlier in 2016, it was about his connections to Russia. The twenty lessons was the first attempt to bring something I understand about European history to my fellow Americans in a way that is politically salient. I don’t usually write directly about American politics; I am an American but insofar as I have something to offer it is rather because I know something about contemporary and historical Eastern and Central Europe. Nobody asked me, but this was a way for me to start acting. We have to do something. This is what I can do. „Do not obey in advance“ is the first recommendation in this Facebook post. You also reference the „Reichstagsbrand“ as a warning sign. How should the American public react? Americans love to use the word “playbook” which is a metaphor from sports. There is a playbook from the 1930s that some people in the presidential administration are following. This includes picking a minority in your country, associate it with a global threat and use the notion of a global struggle as a way to create national solidarity while neglecting the nation’s actual problems. The Reichstag Fire is the crucial moment when Hitler’s government becomes a Nazi regime. An event of that type, whether unexpected, provoked, or planned by the government, can be a turning point in the United States today. This goes back to the beginning of our conversation: if we think about the 1930s, then we can be aware of events, and of certain forks in the road. If a terror attack happens in the United States, that is simply the Trump administration failing to keep its most basic promise. It is not a reason to suspend the rights of Americans or declare have a state of emergency. History teaches us the tricks of authoritarians. We can’t allow ourselves to fall for them. 
There were a lot of demonstrations in hundreds of cities, but the opinion of Trump supporters haven’t changed. They are not moved by the huge crowds. Would this be too early to expect? These are two different things. With something like the Muslim ban, it is important a lot of people react very quickly because if the government can slice off one group, it can do the same to others. This is a political logic that requires quick action rather than waiting for public opinion polls. Americans were actually better than Germans, they got out right away. Some Americans do seem understand the logic, they move quickly. So the airport protests are not in the first instance about communicating with the Trump supporters; they about making clear to the administration that we recognize what you are doing and that we oppose this logic. Indirectly, the protests communicate to the majority that there are two siides t the issue, and that they should think for themselves. Communicating with Trump supporters is different. You have to have people out, waving flags and describing themselves as patriots, even as they decry and resist particular policies. It is important for people to consider that authoritarianism, though it claims all the national symbols, is not patriotism. Over time, protests that are for a better America are important to change minds and swing over Republicans – and I should say that I have already seen a number of Republicans whom I know personally in the protests. It needs time, this is more about six months or one year. They just elected him three months ago, for now there is still the frame in place that that he will change everything and improve their lives, other things can seem like details so long as this basic hope remains. It might take a while for people to realize that making America into a Trump family welfare state is not in the interest of Americans whose name is not Trump. One of the main problems is the internet and the polarization and simple unreality that it generates. it is important to talk about these issues in person, I have a little book called “On tyranny” and I will do my best to talk about it with people who think in various ways about politics. We are here in New Haven, a liberal bubble. Do you encourage your students to do that? They are doing it. An undergraduate who is from New York took the train all they way to the southwest, just to talk to passengers. Young people have to do that. The risk is that they shift from taking freedom for granted to taking unfreedom for granted, without realizing that it is precisely their choice and their voice that can make the difference. And keep in mind that these conversations can create common ground. Some of the reasons some people voted for Trump make sense. You simply dismiss all of them according to your own stereotypes. It is not always as simple as the East Coast people will tell you. Trump has unleashed public racism of a kind we have not seen for decades. That is true. This racism in turn releases energies that can change the whole system. Also true. But at the same time, he would not be president without white people in crucial states who voted for Obama twice. So you can’t simply dismiss all of these people as racists, because in some cases their votes also brought us our first black president. A lot of Trump voters would have voted for Bernie Sanders, who is a Jewish socialist. There are problems and that have to do with globalization and inequality that can’t be wished away. Maybe not every citizen can articulate these problems in the best way, but many voters have good reasons to be worried about globalization. Hillary Clinton did have actual policies that would have helped – that’s the tragedy. But she wasn’t able to communicate that she understood the problem. On Facebook there are a lot of countdowns: 3 years, 11 months, 1 week until President Trump’s first term is over. How is your mood, do you see hope? The marches were very encouraging. These were quite possibly the largest demonstrations in the history of the US, just in sheer numbers on one single day. That sort of initiative has to continue. The constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else. If we want encouragement out of the Oval Office, we will not get it. We are not getting encouragement thus far from Republicans. They have good reasons to defend the republic but thus far they are not doing so, with a few exceptions. You want to end on a positive note, I know; but I think things have tightened up very fast, we have at most a year to defend the Republic, perhaps less. What happens in the next few weeks is very important. 267 Feb 10, 2017Share Süddeutsche Zeitung, founded 1945, also known as SZ, Germany's largest broadsheet newspaper, publishes articles of international interest on this tumblr. (Translation mostly in cooperation with Worldcrunch.) International Home German Edition  © SZ 2017 | Contact/Masthead/Impressum