#but i think what people actually want is queer media for queers

[thedissonantverses]

Hi other Veilguard lovers! I did delete the weird hostile anon I got(don’t worry I keep receipts) cause ya know we all don’t need to see that shit. I’ve been called worse and will be again probably I’m not shy about my opinions. It’s fun to dunk on weirdos but also eh? The vitriol to this game is disproportionate to what it is and I am going to combat that where I can but I am more interested in building up a fandom community that’s actually fun.

I do want to say that if a queer positive game with a diverse cast is making you so angry ya gotta call people names and go out of your way to fight them you should probably unpack that offline I don’t think social media is good for you. That’s not snark I mean it! Protect your mental health!

Anyways thank you to the friends I’ve made here and I’m looking forward to making more!! Gonna do that Rook Storytime Ask by the lovely @hyperions-light a lil later so if you want to send me more asks go for it!! Or if you wanna send me writing prompts in general I’m so down.

Keep an eye out for my writing challenge tomorrow and there’s a super special fan event coming up I cant properly announce just yet but if you’re a Davrin, Bellara, Taash, or Neve fan I think you’ll be very happy in the coming weeks! Let’s keep creating and keep our chins up!

[velvetvexations]

Please correct me If I'm wrong, but didn't Playdough's whole beef with Bechdel trying to reframe her as a TERF start originally because escentially she wanted to prove that HOMESTUCK is somehow more deep and influencial and important queer media than DTWOF?? It was a poll thing and people where getting mad that homestuck was beating dtwof (this is the homestuck website like cmon) so Playdough started there the discourse of Bechdel being a terf to discredit her work

I have no idea if homestuck is actually that queer in it's content, but this incident made me realize something very common about pretentious cult-like groups like TRF and Tankies.

They want to find the way to parrot that their interests are somehow morally superior and more correct than other's; forcemem can not be just a kink it's actually a culturally significant political practice and forcemasc is just a transmisogynist bastard copy, transfem headcanons can not be just normal fandom shit for enjoyment they are the more correct and intelectual reading an analysis of any character that doesn't adhere to strict tradicional cis gender roles and transmascs headcanons are anti intelectual media illiterate misogyny, homestuck can't be just a popular old webcomic you still like despite It's flaws (like srly It has a shit ton of racism and ableism, it was created on the era of the internet 4chan was more culturally relevant than ever in memes mostly so of course) no It's not a pillar of queerness in fiction and media and the comics created by a literal feminists trans ally buch need to somehow be morally inferior because they're both compiting in a Tumblr poll

AHAHAHAHAHAHA SHE'S STILL DOING IT TOO

I'm sorry, but imagine having this much of a grudge over your fave losing a poll lmao lmao lmao lmao this is so funny oh my God.

But it's especially hilarious because all of what she wrote about June is complete nonsense that was never part of the text. Now let's look at what she had to say about transmasc headcanons:

Welcome to projection playground, ma'am! She's literally using the idea of "legitimate analysis" just to prop up her own headcanon. This is so gutbustingly hilarious. Does she even think it's possible transmascs could have headcanons based in 'legitimate analysis'? Considering the fact that she seems to vehemently insist literally every transmasc headcanon ever is actually transfem, probably not, right? Because she doesn't understand masculinity is revolutionary and transgressive for people who weren't assigned it? Because she's a self-centered moron?

But wait, there's more!

She's so consumer-brained and she doesn't even know it.

I love that her whole personality is structured around being the world's most obnoxious Homestuck fan who uses academic language to build a comfort blanket to soothe her insecurities and lash out at others because it's gender validating if she gets to lash out at trans men the way cis women are allowed to with cis men. Except I've never seen a cis woman do it this ineptly, or so blatantly the product of issues they desperately need to work out.

Anyway, back to Bechdel...

I know I've been ranting about this subject in a general, undirected way all morning, but I'm going to tell you that this is a problem with Plaidos, specifically, which she passes on to her audience:

They don't know what TERFs are.

A TERF has defined political views. There is a lot going on with them. You cannot take one belief or action in particular, such as Bechdel softly supporting some sex-segregated spaces, and call her a TERF when she's praxis in much bigger, material ways. It's not just about Homestuck with Plaidos, or TERFs in general. It's also about the fact that Bechdel ever did anything that had anything to do with the idea that some people are more wymynly than them, which they take personal offense to that overshadows, oh, I don't know, loud and consistent advocacy for children having access to HRT? Any real transfeminist would recognize that matters infinitely more. But with these people, that's not the issue. They don't care about anything but how badly it hurt them to hypothetically not be welcome to a shitty music festival, and Bechdel having went - even if she criticized it's policies - is basically the same as having flaunted her gender assignment to intentionally make them dysphoric.

But Bechdel supports minors getting HRT. She supports them being in women's bathrooms. A lot of TERFs have identical conversations about her.

So what makes her a TERF? Because she went to a party you weren't invited to?

Do you understand how pathetic this makes you look?

It's gross and TERF-y to say trans women as a category are jealous of people AFAB on some level but when you prioritize like this where being let into the club is the one big all-consuming deal over things like Bechdel repeatedly going to bat for minors having HRT, and they obsessively treat trans men the way they do...

Like, listen. TRFs. My friends. You're women. I promise you you're Trve Wymyn. Please get over not having been AFAB. Come to peace with it and accept that people who got what you want are on your side and are happy to support you in being recognized as a woman in spite of what was on your birth certificate. Get over it.

Just get over it.

And also get over your transfem headcanons not being any more textually supported than transmasc headcanons, losers. You're so obviously the ones addicted to seeing yourself reflected in every piece of media you consume if you have to write essays about how it's bad literary analysis to not believe in your strings-on-a-thumbtack-board shit and run down anyone else having headcanons related to their identity. You're not doing literary analysis, you're playing pretend with cartoons for children and getting upset when you see other people having their own fun without you.

One last thing:

EXTREMELY holy shit racist. Do you see what I mean? How TRFs care so much about slights to their Trve Wymynhood over all else that they say shit like this? Like yeah Michfest was basically the KKK, you're right, unimaginably stupid White woman. Remember when Lisa Vogel hung all those trans women to warn us not to vote?

[fookinhellcurlyy]

Boys // Aidan Martin

"Aidan was on the X Factor in 2017 (to judges’ house rounds). Here he speaks about the industry urging artists to change lyrics in songs so that pronouns and names will fit heteronormativity, and be more “marketable” and “profitable” to fans, less pushback."

I found this tweet a few minutes ago. The song is such a BOP, but I wanna highlight the lyrics that made go like:

You're telling me to live another life (what?) Have a couple kids and get a wife

Don't wanna change the lyrics in my love songs I've been hiding feelings now for too long Won't turn Callum into Kelly 'cause it feels right for you No, I won't change the lyrics in my love songs And you don't have to play it if you don't want Won't turn Callum into Kelly 'cause it feels right for you

I just wanna sing about boys I just wanna scream about boys I'm gonna love who I love

Why are you so obsessed with what I do? Maybe you're the one who's confused Thinking 'bout me in the bedroom

This is the nth time someone (esp from X Factor) has called out / shaded the show + show runners, labels, and the media. The nth time a queer artist with an open platform mentioned stunt elements like changing pronouns so as to throw off the listener to what the actual meaning of their songs are. Even Sam Smith did the same for their 1st album, cloaking their songs with ambiguous pronouns bc they weren’t out at that time.

AND YET, some people can't still seem to fathom the reality that other bigger artists (not just HL) have likely done the same thing.

Eh. Some of y'all are just blatantly homophobic.

ANYWAY—BOP SONG.

[opinated-user]

What do you think of my hypothesis Lily Orchard was likely a 4chan type of a trans woman all along? I feel that may explain her taboo interests, strange perspective of leftist ideas like she doesn't really know what she's talking about, general stunted media interests and odd inconsistencies regarding race. I considered this a possibility ever since she went against her supposed beliefs to buddy with that trans white supremacist who pop up in 4tranner culture. That maybe she never was a leftist to begin with and for her own reasons spouted whatever she thought those talking points were until she was in too deep to bow out. I'm curious of your opinion.

oh, i actually mentioned a couple of times how i think LO might have hang out in less than ideal spaces and that is where a lot of her ideas coming from. there was a moment there where LO was very radfem inclined, going so far to defend some of the pilars of the movement as "not that bad" essentially. since i very much doubt that LO had any knowledge on the works of Andrea Dworkin or why she is a controversial figure at all in progressive spaces, my only guess is that she saw radfems talking about her and she just copied their ideas without looking for more insight. it would also explain some of her more regressive ideas about gender, sex, BDSM and such. i'm not even saying that LO does it because she doesn't realize what she is following. she does, but doesn't want to own up to it.

for the record too... no, she has never been a leftist. saying that "being LGBT is okay" is not all what leftism is and for years that has literally being the only claim to progressivism she ever had. being against republicans and wishing them to die is not what leftism is either. unless the LGBT people do something she doesn't like or approve of, like calling themselves or their community queer. then she'll be entirely on the side of whatever conservative/radfem is saying to support her own bigotry. she'll forever be unsafe for LGBT+/queer people, BIPOC, neurodivergent people, jewish people and anyone with any level of marginalization that she'll never even attempt to understand.

[likealittleheartbeat]

some of us want gay rep, but how many of us were ready for the gay representation of surreal anal sex imagery that kunihiko ikuhara (yes, the director of Revolutionary Girl Utena) used in the musical tv show Sarazanmai in 2019 to represent the relieving of isolation, attachment, and shame (in addition to just having explicitly homosexual characters)??? Cuz I certainly didn't know that's what I'd been wanting all along

[tea-cat-arts]

Honestly, the more I look into mxtx's reasons for not writing side couples (aside from mobishang), the more based I think she is

[thehouseofgrey]

Hi! We’re Black and variously trans, but for the sake of the brevity of the post, we’re transmasc and nonbinary. (If it helps you can think of us as genderfluid.) The rest of this will be written in singular I statements for ease of reading/understanding.

1. As someone who has lived all my life as a Black girl/woman, my femininity has always been denied to me. This isn’t news to any Black woman, queer or not. Femininity, and indeed womanhood and girlhood, is not for us. Decolonizing and embracing Black femininity, masculinity, and androgyny as separate and unique concepts was life changing. So I wish that nB people would understand that Black gender presentation and gender experience exists on its own axis. Judging Black gender queerness on the scales of the White Man’s gender is always going to make us look lacking. I’m not aiming for whiteness so stop comparing me to it lol.

2. I think I definitely get very skeptical of claims of good representation of gender nonconformity in media, bc like is it actually good or is it skinny white transmasc again? Imma let u guess what it is 99/100 times. It’s tired. It’s one note. Do smth else. Cuz at the moment it kinda seems like y’all can’t even include all yourselves in your own definition of transness, let alone the complexity of Black transness.

3. I admittedly haven’t seen a whole lot of depictions of Black trans identities in general, but if you want to depict a Black trans person I would say, please whole-heartedly embrace *us* in our entirety. The queerness and the Blackness of a Black queer person are inextricably linked. You cannot show one while hiding the other. You have to stand at the intersection.

Also this didn’t fit anywhere else and I wanted the responses to your questions to be short but, there’s a trend I noticed of a certain kind of White Queer who seems to think Black gender expression is just up for grabs, like how their folks can’t keep their hands off our hair and our language. Black androgyny is not yours to consume; it’s not yours to gender envy, or emulate, or appropriate. Black gender expression has history and context, and you cannot remove the parts that suit you for your own use. Sorry if that’s too off topic, Ice, but I really felt like this conversation needed this disclaimer.

I am reaching out to Black trans, intersex, and people with a societally-deemed "unconventional" relationship to gender!

I am currently working on a future lesson involving gender and sexuality. But for certain things, I am not comfortable speaking for a community when I think it would be better to let them speak for themselves. I too am still learning (so I ask for grace).

What I want to do is either have a post to link to the lesson with your opinions in the tags/notes, and a summarized section of bullet points to show the range of perspectives on what I'm about to ask you. You don't have to answer all of them (or any if you don't want, it's volunteering). You can even send asks that if you don't want to be published, I will not publish. Succinctness will help me read everyone's responses, I will admit 😅

My questions:

1. What's ONE thing you wish nonblack people would understand the most about your experience?

2. How do you think you see or experience the world and media in comparison to white or nonblack people with a shared gender identity?

3. What's a story you'd like to see of yourself in media? Are there current examples?

[pariaritzia]

Queerness in Indian Media

↳Television: THE FAME GAME (2022, Hindi) dir. SRI RAO

While the main plot of The Fame Game follows the mystery around the disappearance of famous actress Anamika Anand (Madhuri Dixit), there is a subplot about Anamika's son, Avinash (Lakshvir Saran) coming to terms with being gay, most specifically with having feelings for his best friend since childhood, Samar (Danish Sood). He is deeply uncomfortable with his sexuality and attempts a few drastic measures to "fix" the situation, but ultimately he is able to accept himself and confess his feelings to his friend. As a bonus, Anamika is fully accepting of her son's sexuality and encourages him to tell his friend how he feels.

The actress Madhuri Dixit has been in multiple gay and gay-coded media, both as a supportive character and as the gay character herself. She has also been supportive in real life of the LGBTQ community.

[tumbloggingattheendofitall]

... Having some Feelings, and I can't entirely even blame the shitty sleep I've been getting this week lol

[wilsonsmcgillsweatshirt]

Bro, I hate when actors are like, "Don't have gay ships involving my character because it's insult to actual gay relationships." Babe, it's more insulting to tell us we shouldn't ship a fiction man/woman with another fictional man/woman just because they aren't canonically gay. I promise we are well aware of the fact that the character is heterosexual in canon. But, we get so little representation that we're desperate for crumbs. Let gay people ship their stupid little fake characters with other stupid little fake characters and be happy. We rarely see actors talk about straight ships this way. How many times have you seen an actor say something like "Hey stop shipping this man and woman together because it would be an insult to actual heterosexuality." Exactly. What's actually insulting is how little representation we get. Let us be happy with the representation we have been forced to create on our own.

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

-.-

[torgawl]

unpopular opinion but a ship being queer coded doesn't make it compelling

[exopelagic]

I am baking cake at midnight and it is going to kill me <3

[cookinguptales]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[drchucktingle]

a moment to check the gears and cogs

feel like i want to talk a little on the message of a recent post because i think it is an important point. when i say that you do not need to QUALIFY OR DEFEND your love of tinglers or my work in general, i am pointing out an interesting social anomaly that happens with my art and with queer art.

as an autistic buckaroo i notice patterns, and on social media i see them a lot. little phrases that come up again and again with my art. ‘yes THAT chuck tingle’ ‘its ACTUALLY good’ ’my favorite author i have never read’ ‘so bad its good’. these are always added after a POSITIVE comment about me

they also all have something in common. they are trying to distance the posters SINCERE JOY and give them an out socially. it is very very very subtle, but they are all saying ‘yes i like this but here is a sliver of acknowledgment that it is also weird or bad or ironic. in not REALLY fully in'

essentially these are added because it means the poster can escape their very real joy if needed. try applying these phrases to any other popular author. its much more subtle with the first two: ‘i liked all fours by miranda july, yes THAT miranda july. its ACTUALLY good’. what does this imply?

the other examples are a little more blatant but lets try them with other authors anyway. imagine saying ‘youre my favorite author i have never read’ to stephen king. would you EVER say that to someone? what does that imply? how about 'i love your books theyre so bad theyre good'. horrifyingly rude

lets dive into saying 'CHUCK TINGLE is my favorite author i have never read’ sounds unusual when substituting other authors because theyre usually not queer or autistic or making outsider art. to be blunt, why CHUCK gets it all the time is because it really means 'i like chuck tingle but im not gay’

while we have mostly culturally evolved past the idea that saying ‘no homo’ is some kind of joke, that FEELING is still around. it has just burrowed a little deeper. honestly it might never go away, or at least take centuries. remember these people GENUINELY LIKE MY BOOKS but feel they MUST qualify

should also be pointed out that LEFT and LIBERAL people are the ones who say this stuff to chuck. they do not MEAN to harm, and if you ask them directly how they feel about queer or neurodivergent people they would not express the same opinion as their subliminal comments might imply

the final elephant trotting by is while some of this is homophobia and fear of a neurodivergent other, it is also just plain old IRONY POISONING. its conditioning from being raised on an internet where sincerity was ‘cringe' and loving something was a weakness or joke. these problems work in tandem

so whats the point? what can we do? first of all, just recognizing these patterns is a start. i didnt HAVE to write all of this today but i think its important to be aware and to look inward and think about the gears and cogs that churn behind the things we say. NEXT step is trying to push past it

if you have done these things in the past, i want you to know i am NOT AT ALL UPSET. i am not mad or hurt and i do not think any less of you. you can trot by my side any day and you are trying your best to prove love. we are ALL just tryin our best, just consider this a friendly chat between buds

proving love can happen in BIG WAYS and it can happen in SMALL WAYS that we barely see. just take a moment and think ‘WHY am i saying this? WHY am i in this pattern to distance myself from outsider or queer art?’ a little moment of consideration goes a LONG way buckaroos. LOVE IS REAL

[bookinit02]

i really do think there’s a huge disconnect on here w/ people who have never used tiktok as to what it actually is and who actually uses it. the number of people i’ve seen call it a “teen dancing app” is actually insane. it has not been a teen dancing app since i was in high school, around 2016 - 2020. the main communities i saw on a daily basis were 1) black history/anti-racism educators, 2) high school & college teachers sharing in-classroom strategies and frustrations with the education system, 3) local/state political leaders giving real-time updates on behind-the-scenes government decisions, & 4) community activism & leadership. like tiktok is an adult platform. almost every person i interacted with was my age or older. and yes it completely depends on your fyp and how you interact with the app, yes there’s still teenagers and dance videos and literally anything else you can think of. but these communities of adults aren’t insubstantial at all, they have literally millions of interactions on a daily basis. there’s about a million other types of communities that i could name just off the top of my head, because the range of users was SO diverse and thriving. it’s a long-distance community tool, just like any other social media—and honestly much better than any other social media, because it relies primarily on the kindness of strangers. i saw at least 5-10 videos today of queer people in rural areas panicking because they don’t have any access to queer community on any other platform or in real life. and before i end this i do want to say i think tiktok is coming back, i think this is a highly orchestrated political move, etc., but i do know it won’t ever be exactly the same. people are panicking about free speech violations because tiktok was a place where people fucking SPEAK. i have never seen mass mobilization and communication in this same way for as long as i’ve been alive. it is the people’s app, not just a silly teenage thing. if you’re not on tiktok and never have been, please stop talking about it like you know anything at all😭