#but not in my regular life

[arliedraws]

Reminder, everyone, that queerness is not a personality trait. It can be an essential part of your identity and representation fucking matters, but your personality does NOT define your gender or sexuality.

The point of this post is not to call anyone out in particular for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about queerness/gender, but to ask people to be more reflective about why we tend to base our understanding of queerness in particular around stereotypical ideas of femininity and masculinity. Hypermasculinity harms all of us. If you are a trans woman, there is no RIGHT/CORRECT way to be a woman. If you are a trans man, you should NOT feel like you are less of a man because you embrace qualities our heteronormative society deems “feminine.” Obviously, right? Well, if you were to observe fandom and shipping dynamics, these values become…murky.

I say this out of the kindness of my heart and with all the love in the world, but folks gotta be more careful when they say, “I can’t believe people think THIS character is straight!!!!” with 100% sincerity particularly regarding a narrative where the author very obviously did not intend to make characters gay. (You’re excused if you say it because you’re just passionate and having a good time and I respect you for that.)

I am bothered by these statements because…upon what exactly are you basing this argument? The problem is, because the author (derogatory) did not intend for people to interpret particular characters as gay/queer, there is a strong likelihood this statement is based on stereotypical ideas of what queerness looks like. “He is dramatic/emotional” is…uh…not a good reason to think someone is gay. A man with stereotypical feminine qualities does not necessarily mean they are gay. A woman with traits associated with hypermasculinity does not necessarily mean they are gay.

Do I think Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks are gay? YES. Do I think Tonks could probably be gender fluid? Yes! Do I adamantly believe that Sirius is a bisexual semi-aro superstar? Also very much Yes. So it’s not like I don’t have opinions or feelings about this. However, there is SO MUCH HARM in believing that men who embrace softness, beauty, and vulnerability MUST be queer. Okay, you say. But in MY mlm ship, one guy is SUPER DUPER masculine and the other one is feminine. Right. That’s part of my point. Hypermasculinity is so pervasive even in queer spaces that ships are often reduced to “this is the top/masculine person in the relationship, and this is the bottom/feminine person.” So…uhhhh…what does this sound like?

Yesterday, I had a conversation with my students (teenagers) to explain why “she wears the pants in the relationship” is an extremely harmful idea. I asked them, “Okay, so what does that mean when you say that?” Students responded that it meant that the woman was the “boss” in her heterosexual relationship—that she was the controlling one.

“So when you say ‘she wears THE pants,’ are you suggesting that one person wears the ‘traditionally masculine’ article of clothing and the other should wear the traditionally ‘feminine’ article of clothing?” I prompted. They could see where I was going with this. So I went on, “Think about what we’re insinuating here. We’re saying that men are leaders—or at least, they SHOULD be. Masculinity is being a leader, and femininity is being a follower. Making a snide remark that ‘she wears the pants’ suggests that she is NOT assuming proper gender roles and it might strike some of us as funny. But do we see the problem with this? What does that sound like to you? And for that matter, should ANY partnership be so unbalanced that ONE person controls it?”

Kids were shaking their heads, but one student was really troubled by this. “But in every relationship, there’s got to be the person in charge and the person who is just…” He didn’t really finish the sentence. I’m pleased to say that most of my students immediately recognized the glaring issue with this. Most of the class shot this kiddo very horrified looks, and he was so shocked that people weren’t on his side (goodhearted kid, but clearly some messed up gender roles going on at his house). I let them discuss a bit more and finished with, “Be reflective in your relationships, friends. Dynamics like this can sometimes point to power imbalances—and generally, people shouldn’t feel inferior in their partnerships.”

Fandom is SO LIKE THIS. We equate personality with sexuality and gender so hard!!!! We try to inject hypermasculinity into queer spaces SO HARD. At some point, your desire to be ‘subversive’ just turns into toxic heteronormativity. When you make Remus hypermasculine and Sirius hyperfeminine because it “just feels right” - consider WHY this feels right to you when there really is not a lot in canon that points to these things. Why does it feel right to you that one person should “be a top” and one should “be a bottom”? This is not to say this is ILLEGAL or you shouldn’t make Sirius feminine—it’s just…think about the underlying message here when it’s in contrast to very very masculine Remus.

My point here is NOT “stop making characters gay/feminine!!!” My point is, hell yeah, the characters who are canonically straight could be gay, but also I really recommend avoiding basing this on stereotypes. “I can’t believe people think this overly dramatic/emotional/fashionable/soft man is straight!” Unpack that. Really think about it. What are you really saying? Just…be reflective, folks. You are not immune to the heteronormative agenda.

TL;DR // softness, aggressiveness, beauty, love, gentleness, competitiveness, etc. belong to everyone, every gender, every sexuality.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[scrumpygoat]

Got my basilosaurus inked today!! 🥰

[bloom161]

This might be a hot take but can Mrs.Flood just be Mrs.Flood who knows what a TARDIS is cause she lived in London all her life, where alien shit is happening at least once a year and is always accompanied by the doctor and a strange police box.

Yk the doc aren’t as subtle as they think they are, word gets around as to what the box actually is.

[hinamie]

theyre soft your honour

[allysketches]

in his primadonna girl* era 😌✨

(*playing the damsel in distress and getting locked in a tower in the middle of the french revolution so his boyfriend can rescue him from being beheaded 😏)

[kennico]

taom cast in their respective art styles! (spirit of pip possessed me to do this)

[wilsonmybeloved]

ive literally never interacted with the rats smp ever besides like once

but ren and martyn exist. and a lot of my other favorite creators. so we're going headfirst into rat yaoi. raoi, if you will. ratataoi?? ratatouille yaoi? ...ill work on it

[tanoraqui]

it has occurred to me, as I age, that most people did not spend their childhoods getting simplified breakdowns of class-action lawsuits explained to them over dinner at least once a week

[lonelyzarquon]

Creepshow (1982) dir. George A. Romero

[hoursofcannibal]

STAR OF THE SHOW

[10bendog]

HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY CN CITY!!! <3

This was my favorite era from the channel's history and I needed to commemorate my love for it for this occasion. I wish we'd see the city bumpers return, updated with more characters from all the shows that have aired since, but until then, I'll be doing it myself.

Speaking of, stay tuned next week, because I have two more of these prepared to post for the rest of June.

Here's also the full-scale drawings. It hurt a little to shrink and compress them on the city screenshot, so I'm posting them separately. :)

"This is Cartoon Network."

[isjasz]

[Day 192]

Double life big silly cats and a lil cat <3

[dr-bengay]

The people that got put in Saw traps should really consider themselves really fucking lucky, because with my luck I'd probably get caught wearing something like this little ensemble

(artists interpretation)

[petitesmafia]

if i was a regular bsd yokohama citizen i'd be mad as hell like i just paid off my mortgage on this condo after busting corporate ass for 10 years what the FUCK is ur problem

spent 10k on interior design only for a fucking blender piece to slice through my apartment on a random Thursday...u WILL pay for these crimes. wrap this shit up by 5PM TODAY and have the compensation deposited in my bank account by Monday i'm NOT playing

[thebibliosphere]

Ongoing MCAS recovery update:

Took a bite out of a gluten free chocolate cupcake and didn’t die 👍