#but idk. for two shows that are about being seen and being queer and being human they're leaving aro/ace people out in the rain

[thrandilf]

Palestinians were *actually* telling people to boycott the vote. Wrong again. Please for the love of god, read a history book, explore outside of electoral politics, stop blaming those with principles for what is the sole fault of fascists, grow tf up

There's no such thing as "boycotting a vote" you stupid Goddamned fucking IDIOT.

You're not even worth replying to but you know what?

You don't vote? All you're saying is you're a waste of time to spend outreach resources on.

Congratulations.

Now the guy who wants Israel to "finish the job" will be in power. Trump who criticizes Biden for holding back. He wants Gaza to be real estate for everyone else. He's racist, Islamophobic, and war hungry against Palestinians and everyone living within within the US who disagrees with him and who comes from any sort of minority and everyone KNOWS ALL OF THIS because he held fucking neonazi rallies and said all of it out loud himself.

Harris would have been better in every way for everyone on the fucking planet and wanted a two state solution/ceasefire.

I referenced a last minute endorsement she did receive from Muslim and Arab American leaders as well as posts I had seen around but didn't save where people were saying to vote for Harris in between, idk, fighting for their lives.

Ukraine is Also in danger and people in Eastern Europe are scared about Trump too.

I will not be discussing this anymore/I'll be deleting any asks or stupid ass replies to anything I post but let me make it clear. If you fell for the psyops and "boycotted" your vote:

You don't care about Palestinians.

You don't care about Ukrainians.

You don't care about women.

You don't care about climate change or anyone in the US/places the US exports food to having clean water/safe to eat food.

You don't care about queer people.

You don't care about any indigenous, black, brown, or Asian people within the US.

You don't care about gun control.

You don't care about the horrific impact this will have on the global South.

You don't care about freedom of the internet.

You don't care about homeless people.

Y'all hate women of color so much it's unreal.

You don't care about anyone but your fucking self and the delusion you have that you're somehow virtuous by not voting when all you are is blindly showing your own ass as being uninformed and flaunting it as good while y'all let this shit happen. Fuck off.

[scattered-winter]

I love my shows but if I see one more piece of queer media say "sex is what makes us human" then I just might turn into the joker

[xoxoemynn]

I know it shouldn't surprise me, but it's frustrating af to step outside the fandom and read about OFMD's cancellation on more general entertainment sites and see the majority of reactions be along the lines of "oh well it was probably Taika being over it, he always gave me the ick anyway so, whatever," and then often devolving into comments about his personal life, or conspiracy theories that can be disproven if you use your brains for 30 seconds or maybe step outside and touch grass idk idk.

And this isn't me saying "omg how could you dislike Taika" bc truly unless you're being racist or antisemitic (which, let's be real, many are), I don't give a fuck what you think about him.

But the point remains that if you have a show that is all about celebrating queer joy and finding yourself later in life, that has a diverse cast of characters in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and body type, that was WRITTEN by a diverse group of writers, that is receiving praise from critics and fans alike, that from all reports was one of Max's most successful shows despite them doing next to no promotion the first season, that had two successful seasons and the creator is on the record saying he had a plan to tell the entire story in three, and it gets CANCELED.

I don't give a fuck how you feel about Taika, or how you feel about OFMD. You SHOULD be concerned about that. Because your show is next.

And before you come at me with "it's just a show, have you seen what's happening in the world?" Yeah. I fucking have. And the arts matter. They have always mattered. It's how we've shared stories and fostered communities and passed down what's important to us as a society. And they've brought us joy. And I don't know about you, but I think we could all do with a fuckton more joy in our lives.

This is absolutely a huge loss, and unfortunately it's not going to be the last as streaming services continue to go deeper in crisis. If that doesn't concern you, idk, go enjoy yourself watching season 47 of The Bachelor.

[appleblueberry-pie]

Yandere GF Yuki +Yandere JJK Harem

A/N: Please just read these first few sentences if this is too long for you. I intended for Yuki and reader to have some sort of dom x sub relationship. Like it runs in her blood to be at least slightly masc. I've been fantasizing about this idea for much longer than I realize. But being able to do this with a literal bad bitch at the top of the OP podium is a dream come true and a treasure. Like I don't think you guys understand, I seriously think Yuki is for the girlies. I see so much queer potential in her, it's not even a joke(hence, the photo). The Yandere Harem includes briefly mentioned Platonic Yanderes(Yuji and Nobara) and more in depth juggling of the mentions of the Romantic Yanderes(Yuki being the main, and the rest taking whatever crumbs they can take. So, Shoko, Gojo, and Nanami). I feel like this isn't going to be organized whatsoever because I usually just write whatever with no kind of order, soooo......idk.

Yuki was all you needed in a person, in your opinion. No one knew you better besides her. You knew her and she knew you. If you could, you'd stay in her arms until your muscles hurt from staying in the same position for so long, and maybe then, you'll be molded together for eternity. That's how much you love her. But of course, her infatuation with you is so much more than a slight obsession for the one you are closely connected to. Everyday when she sees you, she feels both of your spirits connecting. When you two approach each other from different sides of a room, both of your cursed energy seem to blend together like food scents combining to make one sweet aroma. Two separate things colliding so well together.

She can't even fathom the idea of you not being hers. She can't think of a moment where you'd ever leave her either. Her confidence in your devotion and love towards her continues to sooth her mind and body. And she wishes it was just the two of you on this planet, but of course, people try to break you two apart every day. She tries not to mind it, knowing how to handle these types of situations and knowing you know how to hold your own as well. But it seems like everyone loves to test her patience.

Speaking of patience, everyone can tell Gojo was quickly running out of patience that somehow still remained in his body. You two have been together for four years, why haven't you broken up yet?! Not a single one of his relationships lasted this long. Ever. But you two continue to stare at each other as if the other created the sky and water. It's supposed to be you and him doing that. Not you and her. It's not fair and he was getting mad again just staring at the two of you. He tried everything. He tried to give his best flirts with you, tried to get you alone, which worked a few times, but you stayed strong and continually told him no. Fuck, he even fought Yuki. But you found the two of them battling to the death and he'd seen you so angry, he had to step back. The way you stared at him is a face he never wanted directed at him ever again, so he stopped trying to intervene. Only sticking to the waiting game, and it was taking too long.

Nanami was better at waiting. He was better at staying in his place, staying quiet, acting innocent and holding up face. But even he wanted to step out of line to see what it takes to get you to pay attention to him. To get you into his arms. He used to bring the two of you coffee every morning when you showed up at work together, struck conversation with the both of you, spoke with Yuki more than he did with you to try and steer away possibilities that he was trying to get at you. He thought he was good at what he did. It shook him to his core, disturbed him, when he was pulled into a dark room by you-know-who and was asked of his real intentions. "What? Did you want a threesome? Trying to break us up?" She taunted him, telling him he was just like Gojo, trying everything in his power just to get at her girlfriend. Told him it was obvious when he stared from across the room, crossing his legs to hide his boner like a teenage boy. She laughed in his face and cornered him into a wall, threatening to tear out his jugular. "She likes you more than the other rats scattering around us." But he knew better than to assume that would ever be a green light to continue with his tricks. She told him to keep silent like he usually is, and he won't lose the only life he has. He gave up.

Yuki and Ieri formed an alliance. If she keeps an eye out to protect you from the horndogs that constantly surround you, she can talk with you as much as she desires(as much as Yuki allows her to). But in your eyes, Shoko is a weird case. Because you see her more than you do the rest of the men at Jujutsu Tech. And even though Yuki always tells you to watch out for Shoko, she only lets you freely hang around her more than everyone else. You assumed they spoke of something alone because Yuki almost always pulls her away to have a secret conversation about something you can't ever think up an answer for. Shoko was great to you though. Always gave you snacks, was hilarious and knew how to make you laugh. She never smoked around you, saying she doesn't want you to breathe in the flames. And not only that, she flirts with you constantly. But Yuki never seems to care much when it happens. Maybe they became friends not too long ago...? You can't put your finger on it.

It doesn't help that she likes to show you off. It really doesn't help. Often, everyone follows the both of you to get a chance to talk to you. But when she's right there as your guard dog, it brings their chances back down to a zero. And they would just push her away and bribe someone to just throw her in the ditch, but Yuki isn't just a regular shmegular person to fuck around with. She is, in fact, a special grade sorcerer who would fold a good 85% of the sorcerers in her area if she were pushed to do so. So, you are just a beauty to see from afar.

Complimenting your cute outfit before the two of you go somewhere in town, making you spin, squeezing your ass and making you laugh. Kissing your sweet lips and being able to breathe in your scent. They see it all and can't help but fucking fume at not being able to have you. They probably won't ever have you.

Yuki also wishes you'd stop talking to the brats that constantly berate you. Nobara and Yuji are constantly in your space like little puppies excited to see their owner after a long day. Nobara will whine excessively if you are about to be pulled away, or is pulled away. You love to give her hugs and even little gifts that you know she's wanted for a long time. Yuuji consumes every snack you give him in exactly one second, and you tell him every time to please chew it slowly(he never does). He has such convincing puppy eyes and requires you to stay with him for an extra three minutes, which for each minute, Yuki plans to threaten him to leave you alone(they almost fight every time). You treat those two as if they were your children and people can't help but feel extremely jealous every time. Of course you give the younger ones affection, of course they get your snacks, attention and loving. And of course they get the OK to do it because they're young. It makes everyone else sick to their stomach with anger.

Her biggest concern right now is you're telling her about your new friend you've made(that she can't find and stalk for some reason). You say he has long and healthy hair, is very sweet to you and you two talk about religion all of the time and that he has very interesting "political" views. She knows he's a sorcerer because she can smell it on you every time you come back from an outing alone. She knows that this asshole wants you and makes it known by bringing you back to her smelling completely different and she can see his lingering energy surrounding you. It pisses her off. She's definitely gonna have to do something about it.

Anyways. Yuki has it best, obviously. Her only goal is to get you out of sorcery and to just become hers full-time. Not like you need anything else to worry about besides her. I mean, she could just provide for you entirely. She tells you every day that you're lucky that she doesn't have a real dick, because things would definitely be different if so. It makes you squirm happily and she loves teasing you about it every time with her wolfish grin. She knows she'd get some soon if she says it with that playful and hungry tone you love.

[doberbutts]

I think the terms TMA/TME work best when they're used as rules of thumb, rather than expected to function as strict categories. They're often helpful, but occasionally they can become obfuscatory, and there are edge cases where they can't be neatly applied. In those cases, they should be set aside, but with an understanding that they will be brought back into conversations when helpful.

To give a personal perspective - I'm a trans masc individual who has, upon occasion, experienced misdirected transmisogyny. I was on T for 5 years, then came off it (partly due to health problems, partly due to starting to identify as nonbinary rather than as a man) and began presenting in a more feminine manner, and people would regularly mistake me for a trans woman.

When people thought I was a trans woman, I did notice an increase in hostility, harassment and unwelcome advances from strangers. Groups of men would shout at me in the street, mothers would glare at me and physically pull their children further away from me if I came near. I also started getting catcalled and couldn't enjoy a night out in a club without being groped. I'd experienced some of these things as a trans man and as a girl, but probably never at such a high frequency or so intensely.

I definitely think I got a taste of transmisogyny and people do still assume I'm trans fem from time to time. But I still wouldn't describe myself as TMA. I don't shout it from the rooftops, but if it feels relevant in the context of a conversation, I will say I'm TME. Because I think the terms are about overarching dynamics, rather than whether or not an individual has ever faced a single instance of transmisogyny.

For me, there was always a sense of distance between myself and any negative experience, that came from knowing they'd misread my AGAB - "that lad just called me a chick with a dick! How funny! I'd be so lucky!" / "You're harassing me for using the female showers at the gym when I am literally menstruating. Are you going to stop being a creep, or do I have to show you my bloody tampon?" There's a degree to which I can sidestep or disavow their idea of me in a manner trans women can't.

I also don't know what it's like to deal with many other elements of transmisogyny, or deal with it as an overarching narrative in one's life rather than a freak episode.

I think it's fair to say I have at times been a grey area and I could use my experiences to argue against the validity of TME/TMA, but I don't want to do that. I don't like it when the terms are just used as a way to say AFAB/AMAB while being perceived as less problematic. But I think it is helpful to have little shorthand reminders about specific power dynamics that do have an impact in our communities. I have absolutely seen transmisogyny play out in queer spaces, both online and IRL, and I think it's worth having vocabulary that emphatically reminds people to check themselves and to not assume they don't have internalised bias against trans women just because they're trans masc.

Trans women are a boogeyman in popular culture and the collective unconscious in a way trans men never have been (at least, not to anything like the same extent). Trans women face an intensity of monstering that I think most people won't understand unless they spend a lot of time sharing space with and listening to trans women. The rapid adoption of TMA/TME feels like an attempt to fast-track that understanding en masse. Maybe it's a bit clumsy, but I do think it's having an impact and important conversations are happening. I don't know if the terms will stick or fall out of use. Having been in the trans community for over a decade and seeing how our vocabularies evolve, I'm inclined to think they'll stick around for a few years and then largely disappear. But I feel that while trans women are finding them useful, we need to be respectful of that fact.

Idk sorry to rant in your askbox, I wanted to give my two cents. Feel free to ignore lol

I'm going to be a bit blunt here: in the span of time I've been off tumblr to, you know, sleep... I've gotten 20 different asks trying to convince me to like the usage of tma/tme and also several transphobic asks about my top surgery. The transphobic ones I blocked and deleted because I'm literally 3 weeks out and will not be dissuaded. But I'm simply not willing to continue arguing a point I've made very clear that I don't love the usage of this particular theory the way it's currently being used.

You can like it for yourself. I have said this over and over again. I do not like it for me, and do not think it is accurate for my life or my experiences or the reality that is what I have to go through on a regular basis. True to everything else that I've posted, I don't really care what you call yourself. If you want to call yourself TME and you believe that framework works for your experience, more power to you. Just don't label me that, because I don't think it works for mine.

Trans women are absolutely a boogeyman in a way that trans men often aren't. That is, unfortunately, one of the ways that hypervisibility is such a curse. Everyone knows what a trans woman is, and a good majority of those people also think the only good one's a dead one. That's bad. That's transmisogyny, and we should ally with trans women to help fix this problem.

Also unfortunately, as trans men become more and more visible to the world, instead of facing mass erasure and dying in silence or escaping to live in stealth, trans men are also beginning to become a boogeyman as well. Now we are a social contagion, a craze, with rapid onset gender dysphoria, mutilating ourselves and ruining our precious bodies, carving out our wombs, simultaneously debasing ourselves and also becoming predators lurking to snatch daughters up and forcefeed them our ideology, betraying women by becoming a mockery of men. What's worse, we tend to politically close ranks with trans women and cis women alike so it's harder for transphobic lawmakers to divide and conquer as they're used to with cis men, so instead they have to demonize us to prevent any further allyship.

That's the conversation trans mascs are trying to have.

Genuinely, I do agree that trans women face an othering that most people do not grasp without understanding transmisogyny theory, which is why I think everyone should have at least a basic understanding of it. But I also think that's true of many other demographics, and that if we want to get out of the pit that bigoted society put us in, we've got to work together to do so. It was, after all, the combined efforts of Marsha P Johnson AND Storme de Laverie that brought us out in the open. And among me friend group, we have people from all different races and backgrounds and genders and more locking arms to ensure the safety of each other, wanting to understand and know each other, lifting each other up.

[utilitycaster]

i've seen some people say kipperlilly is neurodivergent but it's more them being like BUT THE RATGRINDERS ARE KIDS!!! and it's like yeah??? so are most of the characters in this show? it's set in high school? penelope everpetal is in hell right now? so idk why THESE kids are being treated differently

RIGHT.

I'm trying to answer a question about both the D20 discourse and the CR discourse but like. There is a post going around in the CR fandom about how it doesn't make sense to apply real-world morality to ttrpgs, which firstly is not entirely wrong but it's much more complicated than that and secondly and more importantly I'd take it way more seriously if it weren't coming from the people who threw a fit when I said that treating Imogen's powers as a metaphor for real-world queerness is reductive and stupid and who keep treating Orym's status as a guard as a member of like, the US Military. The real answer is "D&D settings have their own moral framework, and you need to make arguments based on those, rather than the real world, but there is often some overlap."

I think, as your post points out, this is one of those cases where you do need to work within the moral framework of the show. Penelope is in hell. It is a show about teenage adventurers. Two of the Bad Kids died in the second episode, famously. While I suspect they'd never cross the line of like, a serious romantic or sexual relationship between and adult and one of the high schoolers, in basically any other context the students of the Aguefort Academy are treated as children or adults based on, essentially, which is funnier. The way to get your magic GED is to battle monsters to the death. The way to graduate is to go on a full D&D adventure. It's normal for a high school senior to have access to like, Power Word Kill. The premise of this world is "D&D but in a John Hughes movie setting" and the premise of a lot of D&D is "killing your enemies is part of the story." Like, I've said this before (as has Brennan) but a big appeal of D&D is that you don't need to be patient and send a polite email and let the person who dangerously cut you off on the highway merge in because otherwise you'll get in an accident and smile through the microagressions (let alone put up with larger injustices); you can just straight up kill your way through problems and wake up the next morning fresh and refreshed with full HP and 8 hours of sleep behind you. You don't have to swallow your anger; you can cast fireball on a bitch. As I've also said before, if your entire table likes finding peaceful solutions in D&D, fine, play that way, but I came here to cast fireball and I find you preachy, boring, and stupid.

The rules of this world are "teens are full-blown adventurers and are treated as such." The Rat Grinders are on the same footing as the Bad Kids; there is no imbalance of power here (indeed, they even have the favor of some teachers themselves)! Yeah, if the Bad Kids were actually a bunch of 30-somethings this would play much differently but if they're their classmates? go off.

[toron0]

man I’ve seen a few posts now about wesper being an example of the hypersexualization of queerness and, idk, it sort of doesn’t sit right with me that showing a queer relationship as explicitly sexual is being called inherent hypersexualization? Like in general obviously queerness IS hypersexualized and that is an issue, but as a queer person it was such a lovely thing to have a show not just hint at a queer relationship, not just say ‘these two characters are together and you know that because we said so and maybe let them kiss once’, but allow a queer relationship to take up space and never shy away from making it clear that they ARE together and this IS a sexual relationship *as well as* a romantic one. One of my favourite things about the grishaverse is how queerness is just accepted without being talked about, like I don’t think there’s even one instance of homophobia at any point? And I love that we got to see this relationship on screen, it was such a balm to the soul to see queerness openly depicted and go unpunished. Yes, it’s not at all a slowburn, but it’s good in its own right, and there are definitely still things to explore that could create and maintain tension in the relationship (Wylan’s identity and back story is a big one, but the show also hasn’t gotten too deep into Jesper’s gambling yet, and I feel like they will they’re just saving it; plus the parem storyline could complicate Jesper’s relationship with his Grisha identity in new ways) so that they don’t become boring/irrelevant. It’s safe, it’s lovely, it’s so fucking tender it drives me insane (kit young’s physical acting - Jesper’s hands are so GENTLE with wylan it kills me every time they are so soft.) If you didn’t like it that’s completely fine! You’re allowed to dislike a piece of media lol. But many queer people - and don’t forget these are queer adults not teens - have sex, and it isn’t inherently fetishizing or hypersexualizing to let viewers know that. Esp in a show that explores sexuality in ALL it’s main relationships, the rest of which are between a man and a woman.

(On a slight side note I’d argue that wesper in the books aren’t actually a slow burn anyways, it just feels that way because it takes like one and two thirds of a book to get there, but the actual timeline from strangers to moving in together is like. 3 maybe 4 weeks tops, depending how long the boat journey back from the ice court took - and they didn’t even talk on that journey, just pined. Helnik is established first but they have like a year and a half of history at least, and Kanej have what, 2-3years of history? Wesper canonically speedruns a relationship too it just feels drawn out as readers bc the books themselves only cover 3-4 weeks of time.)

[tommykinard6]

I love your headcanons!

Why do you think Tommy has a difficult relationship with sex and how does that show?

Also do you have any more ideas about the emergency contact one? Like the first time they get a call from the hospital...

Yessss thank you so much for asking about those headcanons! I’ve been wanting to talk about these.

I actually just got another ask about the emergency contact and I’m going to go super in depth for that, so stay tuned!

But why do I think Tommy has a difficult relationship with sex? I’m so, so glad you asked. This is one of my biggest headcanons.

However! Please read with caution. TW: for a form of self h*rm involving sex, self hatred, and internalized homophobia.

Tommy was extremely closeted for most of his life. When he was at the 118, he couldn’t even accept himself. But at some point, he stopped being able to ignore it. For me, this might be when he realized he liked Sal (see my other post).

Now for some people, exploring your sexuality includes a *ahem* wild phase. To me, Tommy had two parts of this phase. The first one was…not great.

Tommy was a self loathing closeted man. He hated himself for being gay. He wanted to be “normal”. So when he stopped being able to ignore it, he thought he could “get it out of his system”. So he went to bars outside of LA (he wasn’t risking bumping into anyone he knew) and hooked up with any man who showed interest. He wasn’t picky. He was just more focused on getting out of this “phase”.

So he hooked up with a lot of men. And he didn’t care about himself at all. In fact, he out right hated himself every time. So it devolved. If something didn’t feel good, Tommy leaned into it because he saw it as punishment. He used sex to punish himself and to hurt himself.

I’m not quite sure about how he pulled himself out of it, but we’ll go with this. My idea is that he had a sexual partner who caught onto what was going on, that Tommy secretly hated something happening but refused to stop on his own. The partner shut down the event and when he called out, gently, Tommy on what was happening, Tommy broke down. The partner held him and listened to his garbled story and talked him through it. Instead of the hookup, they spent that night just talking, with the partner trying to get Tommy to see what was happening and get him out of the slump.

And it didn’t fix it. Tommy continued this pattern for a couple more hookups, but he started to get discontented and uncomfortable. Around this time maybe, the 118 got Bobby Nash and the dynamic started changing. Sal was gone and working with Hen, an openly queer firefighter, started to shift how he looked at himself.

So Tommy stopped the hookups and started working on himself. He couldn’t quite face himself still, but he worked on liking himself outside of his sexuality. He started laying down boundaries when he hooked up. And then he left the 118 and started therapy. He was ready to start over. He was tired of the pain and the self hate and the cycle he’d been stuck in for so long. He wanted what he’d seen others have. He saw Hen with her wife and he wanted a bond like that and he knew it could never be with a woman.

Skip forward all this time and he’s learned to be gentle with himself. He finally loves himself. He has embraced his sexuality. Maybe he’s still friendly with that past partner or maybe they never spoke again, idk. He’s had some relationships but nothing’s really stuck. Then he meets Evan Buckley.

He meets Evan Buckley and he feels the sun for the first time. And Evan is still figuring himself out and Tommy not only really likes him, but also wants to make sure Evan doesn’t make the same mistakes he did.

Does that answer the question? Let me sum it up.

Tommy used sex to punish himself and those were his first real experiences with guys. So even now, in healthier relationships and with better mindsets, he doesn’t do the hookup game anymore and is very shy of having sex too soon. He doesn’t have sex without knowing and trusting the person.

Y’all I have no idea if this made sense, but this is literally the premise of a story in my brain.

[johannestevans]

watching Those Are About To Die and while the pilot was a bit dry and bloated in its exposition, the writing really picks up - the costuming and sense of period are tremendous, and it's very richly written in people's complex interactions with each other

one thing that feels really 2004 about it though is like. there are two significant male characters who fuck other men - the evil and conniving brother of the emperor and his twinky greek boyfriend; and then the sexual abuser of one of the MCs

i do appreciate that like. i'm seeing a male survivor of CSA by another man being a complex but ultimately loving man who's very paternal and protective of children, and also who is desiring of and seen as desirable by a woman, and i really do like that

it's not something i actually see very often, especially because he's in a position of power, and i do think that this show really understands and explores positions of power and vulnerability, especially between slaves and free men, men vs women, wrt to sex and violence, etc

and yet at the same time like. idk, on the one hand, male desire is normalised within the narrative in a way that is historically accurate and that i appreciate, but it just feels so astoundingly dated to have only evil queer men within the main cast

[randomuser678]

I love how most Batman villains have a genderbend version of them, specially bc as a trans woman I want to read into them being trans

Like, the Ventriloquist's design is of a mild mannered boring looking man who contrasts with his puppet Scarface who's much more rude and greedy, it feels like Scarface is a way for his ventriloquist to express his more rude side while distancing himself from them.

Now on my read where she's a trans woman there would be two layers of repression here, Ventriloquist personified her "masculine" side into the puppet who acts like a stereotypical tough guy, a rude bossy mafia leader, and she became a sexy trophy wife for him, this way she separates herself from the undesirable masculine traits, as well as becoming a love interest to a man who makes all the decisions for her, she only exists to support him, she finally made it to cisnormative and heteronormative ideals of femininity! It comes off as a tragic clinging to idealized femininity and male approval on a way I really relate to.

Clayface also has a really good portrayal of Dysphoria since in the versions I've seen they're an actor who hates their own face and got into a drug that would make their face easy to remold, then it went horribly wrong and now their entire body is moldable, Lady Clayface didn't have to change that general backstory for it to work at all, and the theme of beauty is common on female villains, but tbh I love this one specifically because of the trans read being more obvious, and this is the one case where a character didn't have to change backstories at all for the female version, she can still be a former actor with dysphoria that later gains shapeshifting powers, it's almost a happy ending for her now that she can change her shapes even if it's still tragic.

Calendar girl has a similar theme (Although she's both a version of Calendar man but also The Manikin) where she's a former celebrity who's horrified by her appearance under the mask and is "aging out" of her career, her attacking themed on holidays is both a mockery of her job as a model and needing to keep up with trends and also to show her resentment towards the passage of time, it's a really fun mix of characters and my trans read of her would be similar to Clayface. Also how youth and beauty is valued in society as a whole and older trans people in general are ignored on the mainstream.

And because the comic book world is really hostile towards genderbends (see Oswald from the newest Batman cartoon) a lot of them have instead characters who co-exist with their male counterparts, that was the case for the Ventriolquist since she just took the role from the previous one, but sometimes they do what they did here:

Madame Crow is part of the Victim Syndicate, a group of people who were victims of different villains and now resent Batman for not saving them, their powers are now ironic mirrors to the characters they were victimized by, and on Madame Crow's case, where she was a victim of the fear toxins from the Scarecrow, she made toxins that completely rid a person of any fear or self-preservation. And idk the fact that she wants to create something that gets rid of fears and repression just comes off as queer to me even though it was obviously not intentional, it's just that on a version where she IS the Scarecrow I would love how thematically fitting it all is.

I've seen pieces about how Batman is inherently queer bc super heroes and villains as a whole empower themselves through creating an alternative persona on an over the top camp way that's basically drag.

Some male villains have female sidekicks, Sugar and Spice, Query and Echo, and I guess those are harder to read as female personas of the same character like how I've been doing, but idk, you can rewrite the stories however you like to make these work, maybe twoface is bigender and flips a coin to decide which gender they're going with, that would be on theme. You can do anything ever with these characters.

Also I never understood why ppl were mad about Oswalda, every version of Batman changes backstories around, why is changing a character's gender or whatever completely out of line with that they've already been doing for decades? Anyways I'm trans and this is all.

[ladyloveandjustice]

List of "Does it Like Women" Results and whether I agree

I find the "Does it like women" blog fascinating, as y'all have probably noticed. I always tend to think deeply about this topic when I consume media, so I wanted to make a list of results I disagree with, because it interests me! I'll likely be updating this through reblogs if my interest doesn't wane, I'll make a note in the replies when I do!

Loves Women

I agree with all of these so far!

Likes Women

Kill la Kill- Man it's 2013 again and I'm seeing tumblr make powerpoints about how klk is deeply feminist and it's actually a super deep critique of harassment that Ryuko has to wear the ugliest outfit ever and Westerners Don't Understand (person making this argument is inevitably a Westerner).

Yeah, based on the part I've seen and everything I've heard, hard disagree. But I have not seen the whole thing, just those three, I do know the part I saw included rape jokes a plenty, a weird victim-blamey take on "not being ashamed" of being forced into a skimpy outfit and how if you're bothered by men ogling you that's your weakness, and a vagina wedgie. I'm not as mad about it as I was back then,and I can appreciate the show has it's good points later on. Not having watched it also means my knowledge is incomplete. However, I have listened to really in depth breakdowns of the series (mainly Anifem's podcast), so I know exactly what happens, and yeah, the treatment of women doesn't impress me. I'm on the dislike side, (holding back on hates because again, haven't seen all of it)

...could understand mixed feelings though, I guess

Madoka- I'd definitely go more towards mixed feelings honestly (especially if we're counting Rebellion) but I get the people who say "likes".

Yuri is my Job- it loves women, it loves messy women, it loves women who love women, it loves them so much, idk why it got a sizeable no vote. People who only watched the first ep? People who think yuri is "bad"?

Mob Psycho 100- Someone in the notes says "accidentally likes women" and that's the only answer in the "likes women" area I'll accept. It has 10 million prominent male characters and like three prominent female characters. ONE really really obviously has a hard time imagining women as powerful or action heroes. (this is reflected in One Punch Man too) (One Punch Man actively hates women and queer people though, Mob is infinitely better) Only one who ever gets to fight and play with the boys, and she's a low level mook, and we have to spend 75% percent of her limited screentime on whether it's actually okay to fight women, with her winning argument being "Well you're literally a child so I guess it evens out" (???) The little girl with the evil dolls gets even less screentime.

I do like that the series examines how Mob idealized Takane and how people not caring about the real her made her tired, as well as how it allowed her to reject Mob and was basically a lesson in the importance of accepting rejection. But her screentime is also really limited, and I feel like we could have dove into her a lot more. Tome is a wonderful weird girl and I liked her little arc, and I hear she gets more in the Reigen manga, but still not a TON of screentime, and even with her there are a couple jabs about how she doesn't "count" as a girl due to not acting traditionally feminine we're clearly supposed to find funny. Emi is...there I guess. There's that sweet scene with the writer girl, and the bully girl, but they're like, not reoccurring at all, as evidenced by how I can't remember their names.

And uh. the girls school episode.

Anyway. Hot take but I don't think "they're barely in the story but when they are two of them are treated pretty decently and have some depth, though there is some weird stuff about whether women can even fight men or whatever" really counts as "likes women". I'd go more mixed feelings.

Life is Strange-out of the two options I chose dislikes, but my feelings are a lot closer to "mixed feelings". I go into why here.

Gushing Over Magical Girls- lol. lmao even. The anime about middle school girls who look 8 sexually assaulting other middle school girls DEFINITELY doesn't like women. I go into more detail here.

Cowboy Bebop: Mixed feelings, probably. I chose dislikes because yes, Faye and Ed are great (you could def read Ed as nb though), but Faye also is repeatedly damsel in distress'd and treated as incompetent in her field when I don't think she should be, she can be a failgirl without being the sole woman in the action side of the group and also the least capable (there's also That Scene in the movie). also i just. it's fine that she's sexy but I hate her outfit. give her something nicer looking, it's so ugly. But my main reason for a dislike vote is the treatment of Julia. Girl is a textbook example of fridging. They really gave her so little. But yeah I could see mixed feelings.

Also do you remember that one scene during Faye's tragic backstory where she's hospitalized and the camera requires us to look down her super (painful looking? like idk how she's not screaming about it) squished boobs during this tense and important moment god that took me out. whenever anyone acts like Faye always owns her sexiness and the camera never does anything I remember that scene.

Ranma 1/2: I've seen read a good chunk of it, and this result is...surprising. Maybe by the standards of 80's manga though, who knows.

Mixed Feelings

Dracula- IIII definitely think it dislikes women, sorry guys. Mina is a great character and you do have to take it in the context of when it was written. But there are surely contemporaries of Bram Stoker that wouldn't have randomly gone out of their way to scoff at the "New Woman". Not to mention again, really random sidebars about how men are so much smarter and cooler and women should be grateful to them. I could go on about Lucy and how Mina is treated and whether that's a critique of sexism or just playing into it and how it's so open to interpretation but I'll stop here.

also the book is hugely anti- Romani, immigrant etc and I think that ties into disliking women since some women are those Romani and immigrants

It really really felt like a case where a lot of people in the Drac Daily tag just wanted it to be super feminist because they liked it (you can like things without having to make them feminist! it's fine!), and the way they scoffed at feminist scholars who had "surface level readings" of the text (aka they dared to say it was sexist) still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The Lego Movie: dislikes women. what are y'all on. Even it's own sequel calls it out for disliking women. Wildstyle is basically the only woman with real characterization and she's the purest concentration of "hypercompetent woman must play second fiddle to Average Male loser who is the one who actually saves the world and also she falls in love with him because of course she does'. Then Wonder Woman got one line (in literally the first theatrical move she got to even be in) and Superman and Batman a lot of screen time.

Does not like

Scott Pilgrim- Don't get this result, I'd put it at likes or mixed feelings? It's literally about how Scott has weird issues with women where he doesn't see them as to full people they are, and it calls him out on that hard. The whole sixth volume is how he made up a damsel in distress scenario for Kim and always took her for granted, how he put all the blame on Envy for the end of their relationship when he played a huge role in that, Knives finally getting over him, moving on, and telling him he needs to grow up a little (highlighting how his grossness towards her was him refusing to accept that he was an adult now, and that he was horrible to her, and yes he does apologize), and accepting that he and Ramona are both messed up people and she's just as flawed as he is, taking down the pedestal he put her on. And having Ramona triumphantly confront her abuser. Scott acknowledges he has a lot in common with Gideon, the supervillain!

Roxy is a sticking point, the whole 'it was a phase thing' and her and Ramona's relationshipbeing unexplored was annoying (fixed in Takes Off) but even she had some moments of pathos and was definitely the (Ramona's) ex the story seemed to sympathize with the most.

I dunno. this seems like a tumblr lacks media literacy thing again. Did you think the narrative agrees with Scott. Did you only watch the movie.

Succession- I'd go more mixed feelings? Dislikes is fine, I think it doesn't have enough women and often privileges male characters over them, but sometimes it's examination of the sexism Shiv faces is really incisive, and she's a complex character. But she should have gotten that abortion.

Watchmen: hates women actually. Pretty much anything written by Alan Moore does.

Persona 4: I think it hates women actually. But dislike is fine too.

Merlin: Everything I've heard about the show puts in in the hates camp rather than dislikes, but i never watched it (I did watch this video on it, and the bootlicking is out of this world if it's accurate) so I can't really comment

Hates Women

Agree with all of these so far!

[seahorsepencils]

Hi! Would it be ok to ask whats going on with ppl being biphobic about kate stewart?/gen

I legitimately dont know whats going on? I feel like the pizza guy walking into the burning appt from community meme. Idk if i ever put much hc or thought behind kates relationships tbh, other than maybe she was aroacespec or choosing not to be in a relationship bec of how dangerous UNIT is...

I don't remember anything in the show implying she was sapphic or into Ibrahim (or like another person said in the tags that she had a kid with someone too)

I genuinely dont know wtf is going on or why who fans are fighting about this

Hi anon,

Of course! Thanks for asking. Here’s my attempt at an explanation:

In 2016, during a panel Q&A at Long Island Doctor Who, Jemma Redgrave said that when she first started doing the show, she headcanoned Kate as being married to a woman. At some point in her answer, she alludes to the fact that this may or may not be the case anymore, as she often learns new details about Kate’s life from the showrunners whenever she films another episode. (Jemma's answer starts at 44:54 here.)

Regardless, her initial headcanon has caught on, either as a bit of wishful thinking or as a detail that some perceive to be almost canon in the absence of contradictory evidence on the show or in other materials (i.e. the UNIT audios). In the series 18 episode “Death in Heaven,” Kate described herself as a “mother of two” and “divorcee,” and a popular interpretation of this is that Kate may have been married to a man, and divorced him after (or before) realizing she was a lesbian.

The “almost canon” perspective also holds a lot of weight among some fans of the show because of Jemma Redgrave’s long history of playing queer and queer-coded characters. Even her most ostensibly straight characters tend to offer some sort of challenge to compulsory heterosexuality or patriarchal norms (i.e. they turn to violence after spending years in loveless heterosexual marriages). This has made it very easy to headcanon pretty much any character she’s played as queer. I think some fans tend to also think that Jemma has more influence over her characters than she does - for example, after seeing episodes of DW in which Kate has worn plaid or flannel, fans have suggested that Jemma probably provided her own wardrobe for the show and purposely selected those items to give off gay vibes. (A very niche issue that has contributed to this is Jemma’s habit of repeatedly purchasing her characters’ wardrobe items at half price and then wearing them in real life - in the past, some fans incorrectly assumed that this meant Jemma was bringing her own clothing to set and asking the costume designers if Kate could wear it.) Effectively, many fans have hoped that Jemma’s earlier headcanon for Kate effectively manifested into canon over time, or potentially inspired the showrunners to agree that Kate is queer.

In terms of the Ibrahim stuff, the first piece was a lot of fans noticing that the hand-holding between Kate and Ibrahim in this week’s finale lasted a few seconds longer than one might expect a platonic hand-hold to last. Similarly, some have thought that the moment when she comes back to life and he pulls her up has a certain closeness or intimacy to it. From what I’ve seen, people are split on the topic - some people consider it to be a platonic “happy to be alive” moment, or a show of feelings from Ibrahim that Kate might not reciprocate; others have theorized that Ibrahim and Kate have a very close platonic relationship for some reason, etc.

Shortly after the finale aired, a version of the episode with a cast and crew audio commentary was released on the BBC’s website. In this commentary, while the two aforementioned scenes are playing, the producer, Vicki Delow, makes some comments suggesting she thinks that Kate and Ibrahim are, or should be, a couple. RTD responds to her comments in what sounds like a teasing tone. Here’s my transcript of those moments:

Helping Kate up scene (36:50) Vicki: “I love this. This is my favorite thing in the whole world." RTD: "What, these two?" Vicki: "These two. I just love them.” RTD: “What do you mean, Vicki?” Vicki: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” RTD: “What do you mean? You think they’re friends?” Vicki: “I think they’re more than friends.”

Hand-holding scene outside (37:43) Vicki: “Look, look, look. This is it. Look, look, look.” RTD: “What are you looking at, Vicki Delow?” Vicki: “I love them. I love them.” RTD: “I don’t know what you mean, Vicki. I don't know.” Vicki: “It’s the greatest romance.”

Some folks have interpreted this as Vicki Delow hinting that there’s going to be a future romance between the characters in series 2 - and that RTD is egging her on - i.e. the “I don’t know what you mean” is a wink nudge way of him refusing to directly confirm a future storyline. That’s definitely a possibility. I think it’s also possible that Vicki just really wants them to be a couple, and has gotten a reputation on the production team as a hopeful shipper who wants Kate and Ibrahim to wind up together. In that context, RTD’s teasing her might have a vibe more like “oh Vicki, here you go again, shipping Kate and Ibrahim.”

So basically, a number of fans who have taken Jemma’s past headcanon as canon-adjacent have interpreted Vicki Delow’s “it’s the greatest romance” comment as confirmation that Kate and Ibrahim will have a romantic storyline in the next series, and have posted on social media (mostly Twitter, but a bit on Tumblr) criticizing what they perceive to be the show taking an unexpected position on Kate’s sexual orientation.

The rest might be stuff you’ve already seen, but I’ll summarize just in case: Several of the posts on Twitter and Tumblr have used language that inflexibly imply a gay/straight binary - i.e. “how dare they make Kate straight, she’s a lesbian” - not allowing for the possibility that she’s a bisexual woman to enter into the equation at all. In my other post on this subject I referred to a pattern of bi erasure and biphobia in the Jemma Redgrave fandom. As someone who’s an active member of that fandom, it felt like a concrete instance of some things I’ve seen pretty regularly in the community - and although I’m not as familiar with the DW fandom more generally, it sounds like there may have been some similar past instances of bi erasure or microaggressions in that fandom.

While I’ve categorized the “how dare they make her straight” posts specifically as bi erasure (and I imagine one could make a case that they’re biphobic too), the clear instance of biphobia for me has been in the comments I’ve seen by viewers who said that they would rather pretend Kate died at the start of the episode than accept the presence of a scene where she held hands with a man. In my mind, even as a joke, that seems to imply “better dead than bi or straight.”

I don't know if I'm decided on what Vicki Delow meant, and the lingering in that hand-holding moment definitely did make me wonder. And as someone who loves Jemma's performances as queer characters and has read my share of Osgate fic, I think it would be awesome to see her character in a relationship with a woman. But at this point I feel like the conversation has been so saturated by others' moments of bi erasure that it's hard to even know how to get back into it.

So, yeah. You're not wrong - even for someone who knows a lot of the pieces, it's been a very confusing couple of days. 😅

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

What I don’t understand in shuggy is why oda added that brothers line. The in universe explanation of marines didn’t knew works, but we as readers? Why he decided to add that? I heard people talking that Japan is very specific about sworn brothers and shuggy are not but why even write that line? I don’t get this decision. Unless he wanted us to think they were like that or idk Did you ever talked about it from the author pov? Like everything author puts in his work he does on purpose. That line has to have a purpose. And what do you think it was? I’m not attacking, just finding good writer who likes shuggy so can answer that in smart way

well, first off i have to disagree with you: oda isn’t doing everything on purpose.

i mean that both in the sense that we know not everything about one piece has been planned all along, and in the sense that we know he’s added elements to his story and world unthinkingly. sometimes he forgets to draw things! sometimes he makes a joke and didn’t think through the implications! you should look through the SBS catalog sometime, it’s fun to see him come up with explanations for some of this stuff after the fact.

now, is the sworn brothers line one of those unthinkingly added elements? probably not. it feels like something written with intention to me.

what intention? as far as i can tell, just the textual one: to show how limited the marines’ understanding is.

the marines looking at buggy’s history with shanks and calling them sworn brothers shows how, even with all the facts in front of them—like viewing the complete impel down prison footage and deciding that luffy and buggy had the breakout planned from the start—the marines will consistently come to wildly incorrect conclusions about who buggy is, and why he does what he does.

(this has become a common theme with buggy & the marines in the years since marineford—just look at cross guild!)

i’m not even saying this as someone who views that relationship as romantic. shipper goggles off, i’m saying i simply do not believe buggy considers shanks a brother.

we’ve seen a sworn brothers’ bond before: the one between ace and luffy. we know how buggy thinks of shanks. the two relationships could not be more different. thus, by having the marines misidentify the buggy & shanks relationship as 兄弟分, as kyoudaibun, as sworn brothers, oda shows that the marines don’t understand buggy at all.

i really don’t think it’s any deeper than that.

oh, what, you wanted to see what else i had to say? okay, then. but this bit gets kinda mean.

listen.

i am certain that oda does not intend for a queer reading of shanks and buggy. i’ve said it before: oda is a remarkably queer-friendly shonen author as far as gender is concerned—though not so queer-friendly that one of the main characters of the series isn’t deeply transmisogynistic—but queer sexuality is just not present in the text.

now, that doesn’t do anything to stop me from having a queer reading of shanks and buggy. that doesn’t stop any of us from having all kinds of queer readings of one piece!

but it does mean that when you ask me, “i understand your point about the marines being wrong in-universe, but why did oda use the phrase sworn brothers?” a big part of me wants to say, “i don’t know, and i don’t care.”

i’m not a mind reader! i can’t tell you what oda was thinking! and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me what he was thinking! death of the author, you know? our interpretation as readers is equally, if not more, important than any theoretical authorial intent.

and even if oda does someday condescend to answer an SBS question about a five hundred chapter-old turn of phrase, and it turns out i’m totally wrong about everything… so what?

you’re not gonna “prove me wrong” about shuggy. i am under no delusions that i am “right.”

[mangosaurus]

Hi! Love your jwcc fanarts! (Hope u don't think my question is to annoying lmao 😭❤️)

I wanna ask u what do u think about that theory abt Ben gf being a catfish? Maybe one of that people that have been hunting them idk. Some posts claim it's actually Brooklyn trying to keep herself updated about the whole situation?? TO MUCH THEORIES

Also if the gf is actually real I'm curious about your opinion. Like I saw a post saying that Ben could be Bi, Pan, etc, but really, I am bisexual myself and there is no bi subtext on that boy... and it's not like they suddenly are gonna officialize he is bi/pan, or give him this type of subtext at this point of the franchise. Is not cool when people call "bi/pan" a media trying to avoid dealing with a character queerness. It's just painful that people think this is a real way of portrait of a bi/pan experience. It's not!!

AW thank you so much! i know i haven't posted much art lately but it still makes me really happy to hear that people enjoy it. and your question isn't annoying at all, don't worry about it :) i love receiving and answering asks, it doesn't matter what they're about

the more time that passes the more plausible the catfish GF theory sounds to me. if i had to guess, ben probably met his girlfriend online, possibly through dark jurassic (which a lot of the fandom seems to be in consensus about). as for it being brooklynn ... not too sure about that one! i've mostly treated it as a crack theory up until now, if just because of how absurd it sounds on paper, but i wouldn't put it past brooklynn to pull something like that. keeping in touch with ben is probably one of her only links back to her friends, besides her contact with ronnie (who is only partially connected to darius at this point, since he quit the DPW). i'd recommend giving these two posts by kitabearuwu a read if you're interested in exploring that theory further.

now if the girlfriend is real: i obviously can't speak for you or other bi/pan/otherwise mspec people, but i've come to not care all that much, if i'm being honest. it was definitely a shock to hear, as was the intended effect, since darius, sammy, and yasmina all initially reacted with surprise. but my question is what harm does ben having a girlfriend in chaos theory pose? like, does it play into any negative stereotypes? does it communicate a dangerous message about queer people? i've seen some people argue that it perpetuates the notion that mlm relationships are "icky" and shouldn't be portrayed in media, but i have to disagree, respectfully.

i think it's also really important to remember that subtext is ... ultimately kind of subjective, and is totally independent of the creator's intentions. that's the whole point of subtext—it exists below (hence the prefix sub-) the underbelly of the text. you have to be looking for it to see it, basically. and for a long time, the fandom (or at least the queer part of the fandom) subtextually read ben as gay! a lot of that had to do with his rather intimate interactions with the other boys, juxtaposed against the way he rejected yasmina when he thought she had a crush on him ("i like you, but i don't like like you ... i'm just now starting to find myself"). but ... i don't know, if we want to start citing text, you could also argue that ben's whole thing about not putting him in a box circa jwcc s5 could be a point towards him being generally unlabeled, which leaves room for him being mspec.

if i had to make some definitive statement on the matter, i guess it'd be that this fandom gets really bogged down by the specific labels of these characters, when it's really not all that necessary. this is still a gay show made by gay people featuring unapologetically gay characters in explicitly gay relationships, of which has been some of the best gay rep i've ever seen in media. and having that kind of representation on TV matters more to me than knowing what ben specifically identifies as, even if it doesn't align with my headcanon. it doesn't have to! but i also don't know for sure if it doesn't align with my headcanon, because we haven't gotten the full story yet. ben's girlfriend is most likely gonna be of some importance, given that he mentioned her twice without going into much detail about her. that leaves a lot of room in future seasons to expand upon who she is and her role in both the greater narrative and ben's life specifically, including his identity. i just think it's best we reserve judgement at this point, basically

[bunnakit]

my stand in ep 2 thoughts, feelings, etc.

alright i wanted to write this up nicely but it took me... two hours to get through the episode bc i kept stopping to write notes, so i'll do my best i guess.

weird thing about me is when i watch shows and write notes for these posts i always write the notes on napkins? i have like 5 different notebooks in arms reach at all times but i really like scribbling on a napkin for the true unhinged effect.

anyway blah blah reminder i'm just a silly dude on the internet, idk shit about dick, i just like to say shit, don't take me too seriously.

also please DO NOT leave novel spoilers in my reblogs, tags, or replies without some kind of warning label. please? it seems to happen with every show i write meta for and i LOVE that people get hyped but there's no way for me to avoid it when it's in my notifications like that.

some before the actual episode stuff; after learning last week that some of the kinnporsche people worked on this it really becomes apparent, especially in the style of the intro.

the music choices also seem a bit reminiscent of kinnporsche (and a little bit of not me) which i really enjoy. it feels kind of familiar and comforting.

immediately i loved how soft this episode started, the slight stubble on each of them, the way joe speaks so softly as if afraid to shatter their little bubble of peace, etc. i also love that the show doesn't skirt around the topic of sex and the fact that sometimes sex is awkward and clumsy, especially with a new partner and doubly so when it's your first queer partner.

and then the peace was shattered with ming kissing his back yet again. ouchies.

"will tong be at the set?" he's just not even trying to hide it. he basically said 'yeah ur great and all but tong????' but DAMN if poom isn't the absolute king of microexpressions.

at this point i can't really tell if tong is being a spoiled prince (derogatory) or if he's tired of acting in general? judgement withheld until a later date.

and then we jump into this actress being a parallel to ming and OOF OUCHIES MY ORGANS. she's a fan of tong but has to "settle" for joe - just like ming. and yet joe takes the time to be kind, to soothe her worries and put her at ease, because he has a heart of absolute gold. "it's her first movie but she was left to drown by the male lead." it's ming's first love and he has been left to drown in it.

mek's acting is really endearing. this is my first exposure to him (ive seen some of his social media and really like what he stands for as a person) and i'm instantly drawn to his performance. he also pulls off a great balance of adorable/sexy.

OOH THE SHOW SAID BISEXUAL OUT LOUD. A WIN FOR THE BI'S WE LOVE TO SEE IT.

i personally find ming's jealously hilarious. what a little caricature of toxicity.

anyway, it seems to me that if ming could get over his feelings and enjoy what he has in front of him he could be part of and enjoy a very sweet family, as it does seem tong IS giving him love, just not the exact flavor he craves.

the cut to joe's training made me laugh. little oat lore dump but my bio dad was actually a stunt man for movies (which is another part of why i was so excited for this show) and i can promise you nothing like this was part of it. what do i know, though, maybe things have changed since the early 2000s lol.

(no, they're probably not any movies you know, aside from maybe wild wild west [1999]. he mostly did westerns, historical docudramas, and historical fiction.)

ANYWAY AGAIN. with this little glimpse into ming's home life we get to see that he's very accustomed to doing what he wants and getting what he wants, which makes a lot of sense when applied to his almost obsessive behavior regarding tong - and now joe. i did absolutely LOVE linin and her sassy independence (minus the 'i can buy anything i need'.)

but... girl... did you just spray perfume in your mouth?

your actions are strange and unsettling. i like that in a woman.

ugh getting into ming venting his frustrations on joe's body. listen. liiiisten. while toxic without prior discussion... i'm into it. it may or may not be one of my favorite tropes in fanfic. toxic and unhealthy as fuck and i'm here for it.

AND THEN DAMN POOM THOSE NOISES. ACTING FOR YOUR LIFE BBY -- and the SNEEZE AT ORGASM LMAAAO oh i hope that's a running bit for some comedic relief.

because we then make a SHARP pivot into "then stop me" and there's so much potential for pain and self loathing there, for joe to think "i can't blame ming, i didn't stop any of it." i'm sat.

a little side bar, but i'm enjoying the fact that while there is discussion of topping and bottoming as a narrative device there really aren't any stereotypes here. i think on a surface level people would think "oh joe is the top" (pit babe style) and the show said no actually he isn't. love that for us.

"you can even move in haha jk" but the thing is, not jk, because joe would do that for ming - for anyone - bc that's the type of person he is.

[i had to stop and have a lil snack here]

hold up is this wut out drinking with them? OH SHIT IT IS. OKAY. it didn't give us much but at least it's a little connection to him finally. we knew joe knew him from his first life, just didn't really know how.

"i missed you" and when was the last time someone missed joe? not who he's replacing or the space he's filling, but HIM?

love ming's goofy ass locking the door and going inside just so he can make a dramatic ass appearance like he's 'the other woman' or some shit LMAO.

"what's in you to make me jealous?" quite possibly the worst dialogue tree choice ming could've picked.

[joe's emotional well being -45]

[everyone hated that]

"don't be so full of yourself" something joe has never been a day in his life. "you're just a stand-in." he knows. it's not something he ever forgets.

but after all that toxicity we have ming back home, seeking out joe's food for comfort, and we finally get to see him interact with his sister. i LOVE that she knows the importance of being a little silly as a treat, one of my biggest life mottos. we also get to see more of how ming is surrounded by love that he misses out on bc of his own wallowing and self sabotage.

oh, the homoeroticism of sparring with your bestie.

[everyone liked that]

oop- joe is wearing the shirt ming borrowed while sol is wearing a shirt with the word 'fantasy.' i'm good, i'm fine, gwenchana, gwenchana.

ough. sol with too many eyes on him and none of them sincere and joe with nothing but sincerity to offer but remains invisible. oof ouch.

enter ming with more religious imagery to match last week's cross scene. something something the sin of greed? confessing your sins? coveting - idk man, i don't have any religious trauma, my family let me just do my own thing.

but with ming knowing joe's true feeling every toxic thing he does is going to be 1000x more painful and i'm here for it. bring it you fucked up little guy.

"we can't mess with each other's privacy" don't mess with MY privacy. "you can't mess around with anyone else" emphasis on YOU, not we.

and then it's driven home what a romantic joe is, both with his workout heartbreak poetry and this little lady and the tramp noodle moment. this man, again much like pit babe, wants to be domesticated so bad.

and i know we all have hated on ming, that's the point, he's been a caricature of a toxic relationship spelled out in neon letters --

but when was the last time ming laughed with someone like this?

ok im exhausted, i'm falling into bed to read fanfic, but i'm absolutely in love with everything this is doing so far. i haven't written anything as in depth as this since last twilight (pre-betrayal) so it's really nice to feel insane again.

[weaselbeaselpants]

Making my own post and not linking OP because, genuinely I don't want them to get harassment for this

It's to the person who made this post

Full disclosure, for the UMPEENTH time: I don't give a rats ass about what Lily thinks about fictional characters. I used to. Then I met/knew/still know genuinely nice and critical people who hold the opinions Lily has but aren't Lily. I have friends who hate Steven Universe for justifiable reasons, same with SPOP. I personally dislike a lot of Friendship is Magic decisions and so do my mutuals like me. That's not the problem. Perhaps the reason people know OF Lily Orchard is through her -bad- media analysis, but it's not why people come away hating her, and it's DEFINITELY not the reason people are listening to the testimony of her victims and being rightfully horrified.

People talked of and about Lily Orchard for the same reason sane people clown on Mr. Enter; she's toxic and abusive. She's a bully and her 'idgaf' attitude is bad for fandoming and for critical culture. There's 'problematic' like critikal or breadtubers and then there is "lol fuck the haters who all want to r@pe me anyway, they're all n*zis anyway including the bipoc folks who I'm sure aren't real bipoc anyway. Now I'm going to police how other people take back slurs and how 'queer' is inherently offensive. I'm the REAL VOICE OF JUSTICE."

I called Lily the worst of "anti" fandom rhetoric because I mean it. She is a 'social-justice warrior' in the meanest ugliest sense of that word -ugly enough that basically everyone who's been called that by actual chuds will describe her as one. She talks over other people doing social justice, polices how other people use it, and only really cares about how it affects her. Frequently when people leave her fandom it's because Lily and her crew very cruelly shooed them away for not fitting Lily's exact interests and opinions 100%. Frankly I kind of hate that her attitude is labeled as 'radical' or 'anarchonistic' because she's 'unapologetic'. No. Real anarchists are people like decolonizetheleft or heritageposts --those two are both very blunt and quick to bite back if you throw them bullshit, but they also are not vitriolic and know that people are complex even when they post stuff other people wouldn't. Lily's not even a good call-out machine. She's nothing on HBomberGuy or D'Angelo Wallace or Shanespear. I'm still mad at her, not for SU, but how she responded to other critics of SU who told her not to joke about Rebecca Sugar being a fascist. She told them, some of them Jewish people, that they're just butthurt at her ripping and not her trying to talk over other people. I'm still mad at her for siding with a n*zi until she realized that looked bad for her and her cruelty towards other lgbtq people over how they use the word "queer".

She's been doing this for YEARS. She dropped in on old brony discourse this exact same way and it fucking sucked because, you know, people in fandom or the show itself DID do shitty things. We needed genuine help weeding out the bad actors around us; it sucked that one of said bad actors was trying to speak for us. Now imagine this but amplified to a woman with some native heritage trying to talk down how other people see and talk about THEIR cultures. It's always been a massive headache.

Britt has also been around for years though and so has all the evidence and trails left of Stockholm before Lily decided to redact it completely. Lily absolutely wrote that. She absolutely wrote cp. I was there for back when she still proudly referenced it.

"Why don't you move on and stop obsessing?"

Believe me I'd LIKE to. It's that extra element of worrying behavior that goes beyond annoyance with a youtuber like Lindsay Ellis or Quinton Reviews that has kept me always watching from the sidelines. If I be an "anti" (frankly, every proshipper I've ever met who's seen the receipts from Stockholm has the same take as me, so idk) for having 0 tolerance fictional material of children than it would be hypocritical not to hold 'one of my own' up to those standards especially when she DOESN'T own up to writing it when I know for a fact she did.

Fuck lousy chudheads and Vaushsluts and general KFcreeps who think any of this is funny and 'just lolcow behavior' and misgender Lily while they do it. Fuck transphobes.

Transphobes, chuds and ''stalkers'' are not the people ILoveKimPossibleALot brought into her video. Op, I genuinely hope you get away from Lily's influence. You deserve better. For now though I'm putting you and anyone else who unironically stans Lily on block. I am done hearing anymore excuses for this woman's character. I can't hear that anymore than I can't hear actual bigots use Lily to besmerch others -other trans folks, other liberals, other disabled people like me. I'm done.